ã€ŠSovereign of the Karmic Systemã€‹


 Chapter -1 Cultivation Ranks

    <h4>Cultivation Ranks</h4>

    Stages of MARTIAL CULTIVATION

    0 Muscle Strengthening

    (1-3 Body Strengthening stage)

    _1 Organ Enhancing

    _2 Bone Refining

    _3 Vasodtion

    _____(OPTIONAL) Perfect Body

    (4-6 Nigh Inhuman Stage)

    _4 Full Control

    _5 Reflexes Heigthening

    _6 Surrounding Awareness

    _____(OPTIONAL) Perfect Human

    (7-9 Immortal Path Stage)

    _7 Core Forming

    _8 Core Refinement

    _9 Fission of the Core / Near Immortal

    _____(OPTIONAL) Perfect Inhuman

    ______________________________________________

    SPIRITUAL CULTIVATION

    0 Spirit forming

    (1-3 Spiritual Connection)

    _1 Faint

    _2 Moderate

    _3 Profound

    _____(OPTIONAL) Perfect Connection

    (4-6 Spiritual Synchronization)

    _4 Faint

    _5 Moderate

    _6 Profound

    _____(OPTIONAL) Perfect Synchronization

    (7-9 Spiritual Merging)

    _4 Faint

    _5 Moderate

    _6 Profound

    _____(OPTIONAL) Perfect Merge

    ______________________________________________

    Later stages will be exined after being mentioned in the novel.

 Chapter 1 Daniel

    In a big prairie, stands an enormous solitary tree.

    This tree¡¯s trunk wasrge enough for a small group of men, had it been hollow, to hide inside it. Dozens of differently sized branches grew from it in all directions, making the tree reach a height of at least three hundred meters at its highest point. Each of the tree¡¯s branches split into hundreds of leaf covered twigs. Its foliage was thick, with colors that spanned from orange, to red and dark brown. At its feet, a series of aggressive roots spread for meters, before sinking deeply into the dry leaves covered soil.

    Inside the thick foliage, on a small branch which still sized half a meter from side to side, sat the figure of a young man. His physique was very lean, almost underfed.. His ck hair stuck to his sweaty face and hung down the sides of his head, as he leaned forward and tried to reach with his arm.. his slightly small clothes stuck tightly to his sweaty body like a second skin.

    Grunts and mutters broke the sound of rustling leaves, as a pair of long yet thin fingers hung in the air, just centimeters away from a plump, odd-looking fruit.

    "Come on!... damn it!" Growled the teenager, as drops of sweat streamed down his straight nose, and his skin explored every shade of red it can possibly turn into.

    For a few long minutes the teenager tried all he could to reach the fruit, but due to the sheer massive size of the tree, no other branch was closer to it than he already was.. Unfortunately, the twig where the fruit was hanging, was too slim to support his weight.

    It is important to understand that this wasn¡¯t a simple fruit, as this wasn¡¯t a simple tree.

    The people of Phyrri named this tree ¡¯The Catering Tree¡¯, a name given due to the legend that surrounded it. This legend imed that, when a worthy someone in need of a helping hand woulde close to it, the tree would grow a fruit as a gift for that person.

    This gift was a fruit of the size of a grapefruit. Its skin was smooth and shiny, yet the color was odd. No matter from which side one looked at it, the center would always look red, while the external part was yellow with a strange shine to it. It looked as if someone constantly kept shining a light against the back of the fruit.

    ording to the elderly, this fruit had magic properties, and although even they were unsure of what those effects were due to theck of people who managed to obtain it for hundreds of years, they still remembered the stories from their ancestors better than the younger generations did.

    This made the city of Phyrri special in the past through the whole Karalis kingdom, and the tree renowned.

    Many young boys and girls used to travel from the whole kingdom to try their luck, and obtain the blessing of The Catering Tree. Unfortunately with the passage of time, this tree caused more disappointment than anything else to the people who came to visit it.. so, as it was now, the tree¡¯s powers were either considered just a legend, or a natural power that had been lost in time.

    This never stopped people that heard this story from trying to approach this magical tree out of greed, yet none of them seeded. This was because, in order to gain the approval of the tree and earn one of its gifts, a person¡¯s intention had to be judged by the tree. Sadly, nobody remembered this detail anymore.

    The day this teenager¡¯s had approached this tree, he didn¡¯t do it with the intention of obtaining the tree¡¯s gifts. He had of course heard of the myth of ¡¯The Catering Tree¡¯, so after he had noticed the fruit hanging from one of its twigs, he decided to take it, and use it to extinguish a debt. A debt which his deceased mother had passed down to his when she died, the day he turned ten.

    This debt forced him to pay ten silver coins at the end of each month, in order to keep his freedom, and that of his sister.

    Naturally, due to his age and his incapability of working, he ended up making most of those money by pickpocketing the wealthy women and men that were foolish enough to hire him as a guide or to carry their bags as they moved through the city.

    The city was big, and he had always been agile and fast enough to escape whenever he got caught. Unfortunately, his luck ran out when he stole from the wrong person.

    The unspoken rules between pickpockets were only a few.

    Never steal from a guard captain, never take too much from a single person, and finally, Never get caught.

    That unfortunate day, he had managed to break two of the three rules within a minute.

    The reason one should never steal from a guard captain was simple. In order to be a captain of the city guard, one had to have reached the rank 4 of martial cultivation, which allowed them a superhuman awareness of their body. The slightest change in the weight they were carrying, was more than enough to alert a rank 4 martial cultivator. As one could have guessed, this young man¡¯s target, that day, was in fact, a guard captain from Algro, a city weeks of travel away from Phyrri.

    Furthermore, the captain was carrying valuables from a city to another.

    Luckily enough, most soldiers and guards focused their training in strength and endurance, and this particr one was no exception. So, thanks to his dexterity, he was able escape. But not before the captain of the guard had managed to take a good look at his face, and reported him to the local guards.

    For weeks, he was forced to roam the streets with an extrayer of worry whenever he saw the shine of armor nearby, making him unable to gather enough money for the monthly payment.

    The person he owed the money to was a brutal one.. His mother, left without alternatives after the death of her husband, had to ask for a loan from a man her husband was acquainted with, but for reasons she didn¡¯t know.

    The man turned out to be the owner of a shady hotel that dealt in drugs, prostitution and gambling. From almost missing one of her payments, she had learned that, in case she missed any of them, she would have ended up bing a ve along with her children. This lead to her working herself to death, and the debt to be inherited by her son and daughter.

    The reason the teenager ended up in that prairie wasn¡¯t to try his luck and obtain the fruit of this once legendary tree. The real reason, was that he had been recognized by a guards patrol right outside of the city walls. Where he had the habit of swindling foreign merchants into hiring him as a tour guide.

    He ended up being chased into the forest, and kept running for hours while thinking about the punishment for stealing. Which would have been being sent to work into the mines as a ve, for the rest of his life.

    That was also the exact same fate that awaited him in case he wouldn¡¯t be able to pay the debt in full.

    The hotel owner, from the very beginning, had been sure that the two orphans would have never been able to pay the debt in full, so he already had the intention of selling him to the mine, and force his sister to work in his hotel as a prostitute or sell her as a ve.

    The sheer thought of his sister bing a ve made him sweat in anxiousness. The moment the young man stopped running was only after he got out of the forest, and made sure nobody was following him anymore.

    He had ended up in an immense expanse of grass, with a giant tree ced right in the middle, towering like a small mountain.

    At the base of this tree sat an old man.

    This old man was sitting on the ground, inbetween tworge roots which seemed to have parted just to allow him to sit. He had a thick white beard, like someone that hadn¡¯t shaved for years, and his hair were long enough to reach the base of his neck. He wore a simple brown robe, like the one one would imagine an old hermit to wear as he roams the woods. Yet, if someone were to look at this man from up close, they would notice that the robe was spotlessly clean, and that only his bare feet were covered in dirt.

    As this old man noticed someone approaching him, he lifted his head and looked up in the distance.

    A teenage boy was staggering from exhaustion towards the tree.

    As the old man¡¯s eyesnded on the teenager, a dim dark gold light shone on his eyes for a moment, before disappearing. Then, a gentle smile grew on his wrinkly face.

    The teenager approached the tree, and immediately noticed the old man sitting near its roots. After taking a moment to sit on the grass cooled by the tree¡¯s shade, and catch his breath for a couple of minutes, he got up and approached the old man.

    "Old man, do you need help getting up?" Said the teenager.

    The old man¡¯s gentle smile grew bigger as if he was almost about tough from the teenager¡¯s words.

    "No, young man.. do you need help?.." Said the old man with a deep voice, which resounded in the depths of the young man¡¯s mind, leaving him stunned for a moment.

    "Y-yeah.." Answered the teenager slightly startled, then, with a hint of embarrassment in his voice, he asked "I don¡¯t know where I am, any idea on how I can get back to Phyrri?"

    The look on the young man¡¯s face was a hopeful one, as his state of mind wasn¡¯t at its peak at the moment. He had been chased by guards for who knows how many kilometers, and ended up losing the direction inside the forest. More importantly, he had toe back to Phyrri soon, and find a way to collect enough to pay his debt, as the month was about to end, and his time was running out.

    "HA!" eximed the old man "how are you going to help others, if you don¡¯t even know where you¡¯re standing? HA HA HA!" The old man¡¯sugh was sweet, like that of a grandpa, humored by the silly remark of one of his grandchildren. Yet, the powerful voice of the old man had caused the teenager to, once again, feel startled.

    "..Do you know where we are or not?" Asked the teenager, slightly annoyed by the old man¡¯sugh.

    The old man stoppedughing and started to stroke his beard. He seemed to be pondering his answer. "I am not quite sure.. I have been here for a long time, you see.." He said.

    The teenager became quite curious about what the old man meant, as he couldn¡¯t see any bag around him. He started wondering if the old man was serious, or if he was just messing around with him.

    Provided that the old man looked like a hermit, and it was known that hermits were very powerful mages, capable of cultivating the spirit by tapping into the mana that could be found in the forest, and allowing them to summon food and other necessities.. the young man was, after all, just a young pickpocketer. He was barely aware of the cultivation that guards, soldiers and martial artists practiced. Mana, summoning and spiritual cultivation, were not subjects he hade across in his short life.

    After thinking about the old man¡¯s words for a bit, the young man sat in front of him. Once he sat down, he turned his upper body to the side and reached for the small leather bag that hanged at the side of his waist. He then took a piece of bread from it, split it in half, and offered one to the old man.

    As the old man saw this, his smile grew warmer once more, before disappearing suddenly. He then reached for the bread in the teenager¡¯s hand and took it.

    The young man started eating the remaining piece of bread. It was just a piece of bread, but he was happily biting into it while looking up at the big tree, which provided shade for him and the old man. His look was one of amazement. He failed to notice that the old man wasn¡¯t eating.

    "Your name?.." Asked the old man to the amazed teenager.

    Without taking his eyes off the tree, the teenager answered "Daniel."

 Chapter 2 Iewah the Tree

    "Daniel.." muttered the old man to himself while looking at him with interest.

    He had noticed Daniel¡¯s casual attitude and the generosity in offering food to aplete stranger. He had also noticed the ruined state of his unfitting clothes, which made it clear that the boy was not living a good life.

    These thoughts came and went in the span of seconds, which Daniel spent admiring the beautiful tree, and its branches that extended right above his head. He could hear the chirping of birds, but he was unable to see any of them. He could hear the rustle of leaves, but he couldn¡¯t feel any wind. The tree was still as a mountain, and yet felt like the most living thing than he had ever set his eyes upon.

    After what seemed like minutes, he heard a voice which interrupted his admiring gaze.

    "Do you like the tree?" Asked the old man to the still amazed Daniel.

    Without moving his eyes from the tree, Daniel answered "Yes, what kind of tree is this?.."

    "Eh eh, I don¡¯t know if this tree has a kind. All I know of this tree, is that it has a single fruit hanging from one of its twigs. I would have tried to reach for it, but I am old now, and a fall from any of its lowest branches would kill me.. Perhaps you should try." said the old man in a gentle manner.

    Daniel kept looking upwards, almost refusing to take his eyes off the tree, and responded "Just one fruit? such a big tree.. that¡¯s disappointing."

    The old man smiled underneath his thick beard "It is not just a simple fruit.. and this is not just a big tree.. this is Iewah" said the old man, with hints of pride in his voice.

    Daniel¡¯s attention had been piqued by the odd tone in the old man¡¯s voice, but when he finally looked down, the old man had disappeared.

    The shock of the old man disappearing stayed with him for a few seconds. He looked around, checking if the old man had just gotten up and left, but he found nothing. His look went back to the big tree, still amazed by its sheer sight, he wondered what kind of tree was so special to deserve a name, and what kind of special fruit would its branches grow.

    His main concern was getting back to the the city.. it was starting to gette and the forest¡¯s beasts became fiercer at night, which made the forest a dangerous ce to linger in for unranked mortals such as himself.

    Unfortunately, without a better option, Daniel was left with no choice but to climb the big tree up to the top, in hope to get a better view of its surroundings, and find his way home.

    The thought of obtaining the tree¡¯s fruit never crossed his mind, as the tree was so big that it would take him days to fully search it. Also, he had no idea of what the fruit looked like.

    Daniel approached therge trunk, and noticed the thickness of its bark. After making sure that it was solid enough to hold his full weight, he started to climb it right away.

    He had always been a good climber. His experience in running away from guards and angry "customers" had turned him into an agile city monkey, so it wasn¡¯t a problem for him to climb a tree, especially one sorge, and with so many footholds.

    "Speed and agility will take you further than sheer strength.." his father used to tell him. "Strange thing said by a soldier at the second rank of the martial cultivation" Thought Daniel while sighing.

    His father had been sent in the frontline when Karalis had been at war with a neighbouring kingdom. The numbers of the two armies was simr, but unfortunately, the oues of wars were decided by high ranked martial artists and mages.

    A rain of meteors, summoned by a powerful dual elementalist mage, had decimated Karalis army before the arrival of their strong warriors. Amongst the deceased, was Daniel¡¯s father.

    Daniel had always considered his father¡¯s death as a pointless one. He used to think that his father would have be a powerful man, as he had big dreams and wished to do good things in his life. Of course, whose father wouldn¡¯t be the strongest to a 6 years old child.

    Daniel missed him dearly, causing him to be saddened whenever he recalled any of his words.

    However, his current state of mind was one of anxiousness, so he didn¡¯t let himself be caught by sorrow, not at this time. He had his big sister to take care of.

    His sister was sixteen years old, very smart and just as beautiful. Their father used to overact while joking about thanking the heavens, and whomever was looking up for him from high above, for allowing his daughter to take her beauty and intelligence from his wife, and not from himself. They both missed those moments.

    When Daniel learned of the death of his father, he swore to himself that he would grow up into bing a powerful warrior like his him, and take care of his mother and sister. Unfortunately, sometimes destiny picked a person to which was going to pile it on. Four years after his father¡¯s death, Daniel was only able to watch his mother work herself to death, the day of his tenth birthday.

    Daniel always felt guilty about his mother¡¯s death. For years, he had tortured himself with the thought that he could have done something to help that sweet woman to take care of their family, instead of letting her carry the weight by herself.

    This series of unfortunate events forced a ten years old kid to fortify his resolve into an indestructible one, and grow up into the young man he was now. He was in fact willing to die, before epting that anything bad would happen to his sister.

    All these awful memories went through Daniel¡¯s mind, as he climbed the tree trunk, bit by bit. It took him two and a half hours to reach the top of the tree, and it was already early afternoon.

    One of Daniel¡¯s prey, were the rich merchants that arrived to the city early in the morning. He had gotten used to intercepting them a few meters away from the city gate, and offer his "services" to them. When he had gottent recognized by the guards, he had been forced to escape through the forest, and start a lengthy pursuit thatsted all morning.

    As he reached for the highest, yet unstable branches of the tree, he climbed over them and took a look at the scenery around. It didn¡¯t take long for him to see Phyrri in the distance, as it was just about 5 kilometers from the prairie.

    Luckily, the forest¡¯s trees weren¡¯t as tall as Iewah, or he would have never been able to see the hundred meters tall walls of the city.

    One thing Daniel didn¡¯t consider, was how long it would take him to get down from the giant tree, as climbing down was much more time consuming than climbing up. If he didn¡¯te down fast, he would end up having to go through the forest at night.. and that was something he really didn¡¯t want to do, as the ranked beasts which inhabited the forest, mostly hunted in the night.

    Daniel started his descent right away. Branch after branch, he managed to get down 50 meters in about an hour, yet almost slipped down twice.

    He had never been a lucky person to begin with, but sometimes something happened which reminded that to him as heavily as a sound p to the face. This time, it was the snap of a branch right underneath his feet.

    His attempt at grabbing anything at all, turned out to be useless as he started falling.

    *snap* *snap* *snap*

    One branch after the other started snapping under Daniel¡¯s weight, slowing his descent. Yet Daniel didn¡¯t feel as good about it, as each and every one of those branches had hit his body like a solid kick.

    As Daniel thought he would fall the whole height of the tree and into his death, arger branch stopped his fall, offering him a hard surface tond harshly upon. Thend was a painful one, yet he survived. Overall, he felt lucky that the branch was there.

    After checking his body, Daniel realized that none of those snapping sounds came from his bones, and that the only injuries he had, were various bruises and some scratches. After popping the bones of his shoulders and lower back, he decided to get his bearings, and assess his situation.

    He had fallen for fifty meters, reaching about halfway through the foliage covered part of the tree.

    "That wasn¡¯t so bad.. It saved me an hour, maybe I should try it again.." Joked Daniel by himself, trying to lift his own morale.

    After fixing his clothes and rubbing the sore bruises on his body, he looked around for a safe branch to use to climb further down. He wasn¡¯t having much luck as most branches were too far for a safending, so, he decided to walk on the branch he was standing on towards the trunk, and climb the thick bark all the way down, or at least, until he would be able to find a better alternative.

    It was at this moment that he noticed it.

    Hanging from a twig, just a bit more than a meter and a half from the branch Daniel was standing on, a grapefruit-sized fruit was shining dimly. It looked very simr to the miniature of a lunar eclipse.

    The words of the old man rang inside Daniel¡¯s mind, "..not just a simple fruit.."

    Curiosity took over him, so he extended his arm as much as he could, and started reaching for the fruit. Of course, his bad luck kicked in as he realized that the part of the branch he would need to stand on in order to reach the fruit, was too thin to withstand his whole weight.

    It took him ten minutes to wrap his legs around the branch, and slowly advance towards the fruit. When he found himself in the right position, he reached for the fruit once more. Just a couple of centimeters separated his fingertips from the fruit¡¯s smooth surface.

    He could have reached the fruit if he let go of the branch with both hands, but he would lose his bnce with the slightest gust of wind.

    Nevertheless, he didn¡¯t want to give it up. He was so close to it "Come on!... damn it!" Growled Daniel, as sweat covered his body, causing his clothes to stick tightly on his skin.

    This went on for a couple more minutes, until under a moment of exasperation, he let go of the branch, and managed to grab the fruit with both hands.

    Daniel found little time to celebrate his sess, as the first thing he heard right after, was the very familiar snapping sound of wood.

    *snap* His unfortunate descent sped up once again.

    As he fell from the branch, he started crashing once more against any other branch he found on his path. The closer he got the lower part of the tree, the more branches there were that could slow his descent, but they were also thicker.

    After crashing heavily against half a dozen thick branches, he felt the pain of his bones snapping one after the other whenever he came in contact with a branch.

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to fall unconscious.

    As he kept falling, the branches of the tree suddenly started to move. Looking like moving heaps of leaves, they intercepted Daniel¡¯s fall.

    At the same time, the roots of the tree started to crawl from underneath the ground like giant earthworms, and formed a huge slide whose highest point reached right underneath Daniel¡¯s falling body, right beneath the leafy part of the tree.

    He had reached the ground unconscious. The grapefruit-like fruit stuck tightly to his palm since the moment it had been picked from the tree.

    An old man stood nearby the unconscious Daniel. His dark gold eyes started to shine lightly, along with the fruit that Daniel was holding on to. A gentle smile grew on is face once again.

    -----

    When Daniel woke up, the first thing he noticed, was that it waste evening.

    He got up and looked at his body in confusion. Confusion turned into shock when he noticed that none of his injuries were there.. be it the shallow scratches and the sore bruises from the first fall, or the bones he felt breaking before losing his senses.. None of them was there anymore.

    He also noticed.. That the fruit was nowhere to be seen.

 Chapter 3 Ranked Beasts

    In the middle of a prairie, surrounded by a thick forest, stood a massive tree. Underneath this tree, the figure of a young man picked itself up from the ground.

    This young man¡¯s clothes where tattered, dirty and clearly a size too small for his body. His slightly long ck hair had dry leaves and broken twigs stuck in them, and covered his face almostpletely.

    Once the young man got back on his feet, he started touching his own body in search of injuries, but to his surprise, there were none.

    Relieved yet skeptical about not being injured in the slightest after such a lengthy fall, a new spark of faith towards his otherwise bad luck was ignited within the young man¡¯s mind. While still perplexed, he ran his fingers through his hair.

    As his hair were moved aside, a handsome face was uncovered.

    He had a diamond shaped face, bordered with a sharp jawline which merged into a slightly pointy and protruding chin. Underneath a straight and well defined nose, were a pair of thin lips of a healthy rosy color, which almostpletely covered a set of pearly white teeth. His straight and naturally full eyebrows stood above a pair of sharp, upturned eyes evenly spaced apart.

    Inbetween the young man¡¯s eyelids, an ivory white sclera surrounded a pair of umber colored pupils, which changed into a lighter shade the closer it got to the ck ring that enclosed them.

    After one look at the young man¡¯s eyes, anyone would see the decisiveness this youth had to adopt in order to take care of himself. In fact, his calmness after such a fall, would surprise many.

    One would also notice, to the unbeknownst of the young man, a very thinyer of golden lightying at the bottom of his pupils.

    "You look worse than when I¡¯ve left you, Daniel.. eh eh" said a voice that came from behind him, along with a deep and slowugh.

    Daniel turned around and noticed that the voice belonged to the old man who he had lost sight of earlier that day.

    He was standing a full head taller than Daniel, which was not short by any means for his age. His eyes still giving off a dim shine, and his smile still gentle.

    What broke Daniel out of the surprise of seeing the old man once again, was the urgency he felt to go back to his sister. He hated leaving her alone, and the idea of making her spend a night in the city by herself, made him anxious.

    After finishing to brush the leaves and twigs off his hair, he looked towards the old man, but as he was about to start talking, the old man¡¯s voice anticipated him "It is clear that you have somewhere to go, don¡¯t worry about me, I¡¯ll be fine here alone.." said the old man, with a gentle smile always present. He then added "I¡¯ve been here for a long time."

    Daniel had the intention of guiding the old man back into the city, since he wasn¡¯t sure if any ranked beast would leave the forest to the prairie and hunt for prey. But after realizing that the old man looked fine despite not having a bag or a weapon.. he convinced himself that the old man was probably capable of taking care of himself.

    As Daniel was about to bid farewell, once more, the old man interrupted him. "The fruit you¡¯ve picked.. make no mention of it to anyone." Said the old man as the warm smile suddenly left his face, for the first time since the two met.

    "Good and evil exist in this world.. more clearly than you can imagine.." Added the old man slowly, while turning to look at the massive three that stood still in the scenery. His figure, then, disappeared into thin air.

    Daniel surprise was at its peak, yet he managed to say out loud "WAIT! Who are you?.." Unfortunately, nobody was around to answer. Yet, a familiar deep voice resounded through the entire prairie, shaking Daniel¡¯s soul to its core.

    "I have already told you that.. HA HA HA" Answered the voice, before a loudugh started to reverberate in the air, forcing the grass to bend in awe. As the thunderingugh ended, thest words Daniel heard from the domineering voice, left him dumbstruck "Farewell, Dan of the Hiel¡¯s.." Said the voice before disappearingpletely.

    It took a few minutes for Daniel to leave that surprised state of mind, and remember why he was so anxious before. Unfortunately, it was toote to avoid going through the forest at night.

    He was aware that traversing the forest at night would take far longer than it took him to get here. His sense of direction wasn¡¯t bad, the only reason he got lost and ended up finding Iewah, was because he had been chased for hours. What could prevent him to have a safe and short travel through would be only one thing.. Beasts.

    The city of Phyrri had been built nearby the legendary tree on purpose. A small group of settlers had discovered the tree during one of their travels, and after one of them had obtaining its gifts, they named it The Catering Tree and decided to settle close to it.

    When the city was at its earliest stages, many martial artists and mages traveled to Phyrri in order to obtain the blessing of the tree.. That had caused the ranked bests which inhabited the forest between the city and the tree, to be hunted to a state of near extinction. What was left of them, were the lowest ranks.

    The strongest ranked beasts that had been reported were of the second rank, which any patrol of city guards could kill.

    The remaining low level beasts which inhabited the forest, had turned into prey of unranked hunters. Their ranked cores would still be collected by hunters, but their value was small, that cultivators with the slightest amount of wealth was able to afford them, without having to hunt the beasts themselves.

    Furthermore, those who had reached the rank of those bests, were unwilling to risk their lives to hunt for the cores in the forest at night.

    Of course, even though cheap, Daniel would have never been able to afford one. He had to work hard only to reach the required amount of money for his monthly payments, and what was left of it, was used to take care of his sister and himself. One could see how that was barely enough from the tattered state of Daniel¡¯s clothes, or by his underfed physique.

    Daniel entered the forest at sunset. For the first hour he saw nothing more than a few unranked beasts, which at their worst, made a bush rustle nearby him.

    After two hours, he started to hear roars and howls in the distance, but none of the beasts they came from. Almost ready to thank the unusual behaviour of his luck, he heard the sound of water, and it was close.

    When he reached the source of the noise, he noticed arge pond at the base of a enormous bouder. The surface of this pond was covered in broken twigs, floating leaves and water nts, things which made seeing through them very hard.

    Unsure if he should take the gamble, he waited for a few minutes behind the trees that surrounded therge pond. He was about to approach the bank of the pond himself, when a rabbit like creature approached it from the other side.

    This rabbit like creature was veryrge, probably enough to not fit in a big cauldron. It had bright red eyes that shined in the dark, and a snow white fur. Two long and thin horns grew on its head, right at the base of its fluffy ears.

    Daniel had heard of this beast from his father. It was called ¡¯Bloody-eyed Hare¡¯, and it was a rank 1 beast of the lowest level.

    Considered by many as the weakest of all the ranked beasts due to its vegetarian nature, itsbat prowess was lower than many carnivorous unranked beasts. The only way it had to evolve was by consuming spiritual herbs, which were far too rare for an entire species to thrive on. This had put it at the bottom of the food chain.

    Daniel observed the beast for a couple of minutes, as it sniffed around while approaching the bank of the pond, then it started to drink its water. Daniel¡¯s stomach started to grumble. He had only eaten half of the piece of bread which he had taken with him when he left the house in the morning, and that was enough for him, but he hadn¡¯t expect that he would not be able toe back for a full day.

    The idea of getting back home to his sister with a Blood-eyed Hare hanging from his shoulders, was too enticing. He reached for the ground with his arms and grabbed a rock.

    "This beast shouldn¡¯t be dangerous.. and if I miss, I can always escape" Thought Daniel as his mouth started to salivate at the idea of having a feast for dinner, together with his beloved sister.

    The rock was big enough to do damage if it hit, but not enough for him to be unable to swing it a few times. The hare had a cowardly nature, so he was certain that, even if he failed to bash the rock on the hare¡¯s head, the beast wouldn¡¯t fight back and just escape.

    As Daniel left the cover of the trees and approached the hare from behind, he held the rock tightly in his hand. Step after step he got closer, until there were less than 10 meters inbetween them. But the moment Daniel was about five meters away from it, the Blood-eyed Hare suddenly stood up in ce and straightened its long ears.

    Daniel thought that he had been sensed by it, but since the beast didn¡¯t leave, he stoodpletely still, hoping that it would rx once more and allow him to hit.

    A minute didn¡¯t pass before a giant opened mouth full of long sharp teeth, appeared from underneath the water, and shutted tightly on the white ball of fur.. Biting off half of the hare¡¯s body.

    Terrified by the sudden appearance and the gory show, Daniel stood paralyzed, a few meters away from the two-meters long crocodile head that had just popped out of the water.

    As the crocodile moved out of the water to scarf the remaining half of the hare¡¯s body, Daniel was able to see the beast more clearly.

    The crocodile had three sets of yellow colored grooves that went through his entire length, starting from the back of his head and all the way down its tail. The end of its tails was deformed aspared to a normal crocodile, it had the shape of a spiked mace, which the crocodile clearly used to hit its enemies during a fight. Thest detail that Daniel noticed where the two oddly long teeth moving up from the sides of the beast¡¯s nose, looking like a pair of straight horns.

    This crocodile was called Yellow-striped Caiman, and it was a rank 3 beast.

    Of course, Daniel was unaware of what this beast was. The forest surrounding Phyrri was said to have no beast above the second rank, and that had been the case since many years before Daniel¡¯s or his father¡¯s birth. Inside Daniel¡¯s mind, the type of beast this crocodile was, was possibly thest thing he needed to know. His only thoughts were on how to escape this predicament.

    None of his muscles moved, as his eyes were stuck on the beast¡¯s teeth, which still dripped with the hare¡¯s blood. Crocodiles could stay still for a very long amount of time, so minutes passed as a young man, and a giant crocodile looked at each other without moving.

    Daniel grew increasingly calmer, to a point where he was surprised to find himself angry at the giant crocodile for having stolen his prey.

    Of course, that thought came and left in the span of a few moments. His full focus was still on the crocodile¡¯s movements.

    After a couple more minutes of waiting, Daniel noticed the giant crocodile starting to slowly step back, and entering the water once more. Confident that the beast had given up on catching him, possibly because it didn¡¯t have the element of surprise, Daniel took a step back as well.

    Unfortunately, Daniel couldn¡¯t be more mistaken, as the moment he stepped back, the half submerged crocodile sprung out of the water and rushed towards him.

    "Shit!.." Daniel eximed, before turning around and taking off into the forest.

 Chapter 4 Battle Between Beasts

    *thu-thump* *thu-thump* *thu-thump*

    Daniel¡¯s heartbeat resounded heavily in his ears, yet unable to distract him from the loud noises which therge crocodile made while chasing him.

    One may think that a crocodile would have difficulties in moving through a forest, but the legs of the Yellow-striped Caiman were long enough to allow it to avoid most obstacles.

    "Stop chasing me! ...damn lizard!!" Cursed Daniel while gasping for air.

    In this part of the forest, the trees were a good thirty meters tall at the very least, and full with autumn colored leaves. Their trunks weren¡¯trge, but their branches extended widely. The thick foliage formed arge nket that prevented most of the moonlight from shining through.

    This had affected Daniel¡¯s visibility more than his pursuer¡¯s, due to the fact that ranked beasts were used to hunt at night. So most of them, to a certain extent, had the ability to see clearly in the dark.

    Provided that the Yellow-striped Caiman was an aquatic predator, and It moved out of water when pouncing at its prey, it was still a subaqueous beast. The main way the crocodile had to sense a prey was by feeling movements and changes in pressure in the water while it stood submerged in it. That was the reason why, when the Bloody-eyed Hare drank from the water, it had been alerted.

    Daniel assumed that the crocodile¡¯s only way of hunting was by hiding under the edge of the pond, and wait for an unsuspecting animal toe to drink, like any unranked crocodiles would do. What Daniel didn¡¯t know however, was that most Ranked beast above Rank 3, other than being fiercer than any rank 2 beast, they also developed a certain extent of intelligence.

    The rank 3 Yellow-striped Caiman was a peak hunter amongst rank 3 beasts, and if it had the possibility of absorbing the beast core of another simrly powerful beast, it could evolve into a rank 4 beast.

    The severeck of powerful beasts in this forest was the reason why the Yellow-striped Caiman had such a difficult time finding a suitable prey. So it had remained at the peak of the rank 3 for dozens of years, limiting its intelligence to that of an extremely ferocious and violent 5 year old human.

    Unfortunately, it was still enough to give Daniel a hard time in shaking it off.

    What Daniel expected far less than the relentless pursuit of, how he liked to call it in his mind " damned oversized lizard", was that a pair of bright yellow eyes were quietly following both him and the Yellow-striped Caiman from the distance.

    After half an hour, the Crocodile was still hot on Daniel¡¯s pursuit. His gasps for air could be heard a dozen meters away. He was starting to feel difficulties in avoiding to stumble on tree roots or small leaves covered ditches. The crocodile was a mere ten meters behind him and it didn¡¯t show any signs that it would stop its pursuit anytime soon.

    One long hour passed. Daniel could feel his muscles scream in pain at every step.. This was nothing like escaping from the guard patrol, as the view wasn¡¯t obstructed by darkness and it was easier for him to avoid obstacles, but in spite of everything, he kept running.

    The more tired he grew, the more he felt the need to look back in worry. The crocodile didn¡¯t make any progress in its pursuit, because whenever it got too close, Daniel would promptly hide behind a tree, and slightly change direction before running off again, so that the crocodile would waste a few precious seconds to circle the tree to continue the chase.

    Inside his mind, Daniel was cursing at the crocodile in a thousand different ways. His tiredness and worry started to affect his thoughts, badly enough to make him do mistakes.

    Daniel made such a mistake in the worst possible moment. The realization of having stumbled over a hidden tree root, hit him before touching the ground. He had no words to regret not paying more attention to where he was going, all he could do was recover from the fall, crawl over the roots of the tree, and hide behind its trunk.

    Unable to run anymore, he tried to shift his body in order to keep himself opposite from the mouth of the crocodile. The trunk wasn¡¯trge by any means, just enough for Daniel to kept himself out of the crocodile¡¯s reach. He could smell the bloody stench that came from the crocodile¡¯s mouth.

    After making almost a full circle around the tree, Daniel noticed a big set of tree roots just a few meters away from him. The tree¡¯s roots were thick, and tightly intertwined together, but there were parts where they were far apart enough, to allow a small sized human to crawl inbetween.

    Daniel didn¡¯t have to find pros and cons as, by staying out in the open he would eventually die.. So after circling the tree once more time, he kicked the trunk had been pressed on with the root of his foot, hand rapidly rushed towards the tree roots.

    It took him only tworge steps and a dive to reach for the roots nest, which was little enough to give him a chance to rapidly crawl inbetween the roots and under the tree.

    The crocodile was unable to reach him in time, as it had to circle the tree and straighten his body, before rushing at its prey. Nevertheless, after it did, it still rushed at Daniel¡¯s hiding ce.

    Daniel ttened himself against the earthy ground, on the opposite side to the entrance of this naturally made nest, while the mouth of the crocodile crashed on the thick roots.

    Snapping sound could be heard one after the other, as Daniel shivered in ce. The sharp bloody teeth of the crocodile hacked at the wood left and right, trying to erge the gap between the roots in order to reach the young man hidden inside.

    As Daniel was about to to forgo his courage and start to pray to whichever god he could think of, he heard a loud hissing from the mouth of the crocodile, whose big snout backed out as if it had given up on him.

    What Daniel heard afterwards made his skin crawl. A loud yet soul shakingly deep growl rumbled in his head, followed by a loud roaring noise. He slowly approached the barrier of roots and took a peek at the scenery outside.

    The crocodile was turning around aimlessly, as if unable to see the position of its enemy, while a dark shadow kept dashing from bush to bush around it.

    After a few minutes of threatening verses, the shadow rushed towards the big crocodile and jumped on its back.

    The moment the shadow attacked the crocodile, Daniel managed to have a clear view of the beast.

    It was a panther like animal with pitch ck fur, and long thin ears that floated in the air almost magically, as it dashed at impressive speed. Its length from tail to head was at least 5 meters, and it weighed at least 300kg. The pitch ck fur, which fully absorbed the moonlight, waspletely devoid of any sort of shine, making it very hard to see clearly.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t recognize the beast, yet many in the past feared it. The beast¡¯s name was Shadow Tracker, and it was an evolved form of panther, at the peak of the third rank. Its habit was to slowly follow its prey and attack during a moment of distraction.

    The panther¡¯s interest had been picked when it noticed therge crocodile on a mad rush through the forest. It wasn¡¯t unusual for a strong beast to hunt one of its peers, especially when considering that beasts evolved when consuming other beast cores. For a high ranked beast to attack another at first sight, in a ce where highly ranked beasts were almost impossible to be found, it was to be expected.

    The moment the big paws of the panthernded on the crocodile¡¯s back, it pounced directly at the back of its head. Its teeth sunk inbetween the crocodile¡¯s scales and dug deeply as the panther tried to tighten its jaw.

    The crocodile wasn¡¯t any less fierce than the panther. Without giving the panther enough time tear at its flesh, the crocodile pushed its frontal and rear left legs heavily against the ground, and rolled its entire body, crushing the panther underneath its massive weight.

    As the crocodile moved away, in order to assume a position that could allow it to rush and bite at its enemy, the panther ws hooked at the crocodile¡¯s belly scales, ripping them off. The crocodile hissed loudly as it stepped away, its spiked tail swinged left and right until it hit the leg of the panther, leaving it with a bloody gash.

    The two animals fought fiercely, adding injury upon injury on one another. Their strength wasparable, and Daniel couldn¡¯t say which beast held the upper hand, since both were covered in cuts, and were visibly tired. Daniel¡¯s umber eyes never moved from the fighting beasts, the dark gold light at the bottom of his pupils still present, and slightly brighter than it was before.

    The fight between the ranked beasts hade to a stalemate. Every damage was given back in full, no matter who attacked first. Both of the beasts intelligence had reached the limits of the third rank, which paired with their instincts, made them both very dangerous beasts.

    The crocodile had a bite mark on the back of its neck, injury that it had earned at the beginning of the fight, its side had various scales missing, and a few that had prated its own flesh, one of its legs was broken, its tail had arge chunk of meat missing, ripped by the Shadow Tracker¡¯s sharp teeth, andstly, one of its eyes was gone.

    The panther¡¯s injuries were more difficult to see. Two patches of shiny ck fur were drenched in blood, and stuck tightly against the hidden twin injury that it had suffered to both sides of its chest, when it had been viciously bitten by the crocodile. Its leg also had a visible gush from which bright raw flesh could be seen.

    The crocodile often retorted to the panther¡¯s attempts to bite its neck with rolling on ce and crushing it underneath its weight, while the panther used the fact that it took time for the crocodile to turn into a suitable position to to dash and bite, and hooked the crocodile¡¯s scales with its ws, ripping them off and tearing at its flesh.

    Aside from the various wounds, the two animals had one major debilitating injury each. The crocodile¡¯s skin was covered in cuts and a good part of its scales were missing, the blood loss was nearing deadly levels. One of its legs was also broken, which made rolling and holding its full weight, a very painful experience.

    On the other hand, while the panther could resist its fleshy wounds, its breath was visibly slowed. In fact, if one had been able to clearly see the panther¡¯s condition, they would have noticed that it had a broken rib, which had punctured one of its lungs.

    Daniel was sure that the battle was about toe to an end. As he looked at the two -injured yet more dangerous than ever- beasts, he thought about how humans could grow powerful enough to fight on par with them.

    His thoughts were interrupted by loud hisses and roars. The panther, which until now was staring at the crocodile while growling deeply, circled around the long body of the massive reptile. Before the crocodile could turn around and face the panther openly, its neck had already been bitten through.

    The crocodile reacted rapidly by pushing its weight with its fore, and broken hind leg. His body rolled on itself, forcing the panther to back away rapidly or be crushed again, but unexpectedly, that wasn¡¯t the crocodile¡¯s main attack.

    When the crocodilepleted its full roll and found itself back on its four legs, without wasting a moment, it whipped its mace like tail at the backing panther, hitting it squarely in the thorax.

    The panther flew for a few meters, when its path was interrupted by arge tree trunk which broke its spine in half, killing it on the spot.

    The Shadow Tracker had died.

 Chapter 5 Mishap Turned into Blessing

    The sudden death of the Shadow Tracker, had left Daniel worried to say the least. He expected that the crocodile would turn its attention back on him at any moment, so in his mind, dozens of ideas on how to escape were made and discarded.

    What he did not expect, was for the Yellow-striped Caiman to copse on the ground. Fresh blood oozed from its injuries, which were way more severe than Daniel had thought.

    For a few long minutes, the crocodile stood still. Itsrge belly pressed on the ground, and its leathery eyelids blinked slower the more time passed.

    When Daniel noticed how the swelling of the big crocodile¡¯s chest turned slower and gentler, he understood that it didn¡¯t have much to live. It took him a few seconds to gather the courage to crawl out of the nest of sticks and roots that protected him.

    His eyes directed at the crocodile with hostility and a still lingering fear. He had risked his life more than once because of this beast. It would have killed him more than once, had he made a single mistake.

    The longer Daniel stood in front of the dying crocodile, the less fearful he felt. He thought about how his sister would have been worried sick about him missing, about how she would be unable to pay the next installment of their debt.. how she would have ended in the hands of that disgusting man, which would have used her, and then forced her into prostitution.. or worse. His anger grew by the minute. He didn¡¯t know much about beasts, but even though he was fairly sure the beast did not have long to live, he was unwilling to bet on it.

    As this thought crossed his mind, he grabbed arge rock with both hands, approached the giant crocodile, and bashed it over its skull.

    *Thump*

    The rock hit the head of the crocodile hard enough for its flesh to tten, and its scales to cave in. Daniel¡¯s anger grew bigger after the first hit. He didn¡¯t know why such a powerful beast would follow him for hours.. he wanted it dead.

    *Thump* *Thump* *Thump*

    The crocodile¡¯s skull started to chip and splinter under the bloody mess that was once ayer of durable scales.

    *Thump* *Thump* *Thump* *Thum-cruh* *Crr-squelch* *Squash* *Squash* *Squash*

    Blood and brain matter flew everywhere, as Daniel brought therge stone down against the crocodile¡¯srge skull.. over and over again. Before he could notice, he was covered in thick blood. Pieces of brain and flesh were spattered over his arms, chest and face. The stone was so deeply sunken into the Yellow-striped Caiman¡¯s head, that in order to get it out, he would need to tuck his hands inside the small pool of blood and gore inside its skull and pull.

    Daniel sat on the ground. His lungs swelling and deting at an astonishing rate, as he looked at his blood covered hands. The first thing he tried to do, was to clean them by brushing them over his clothes, but since his clothes were also drenched in blood and brain matter, that was of little use.

    After calming his mind, Daniel got up and looked at his surroundings. When his eyes met with the Shadow Tracker¡¯s body, his face turned into one of relief. He was afraid of that beast, but it happened that this panther had saved his life, so he didn¡¯t feel any hate towards it.

    Daniel was standing, trying to calcte the direction, when something caught his attention. No further than two meters from the giant crocodile¡¯s head, an egg sized pearl was resting on the ground.

    The pearl was covered in blood, with small pieces of brain matter stuck on its surface, and sttered all around it. Daniel would have never noticed it if not for the dim glow it emitted, which was made dimmer by the gory coating.

    Daniel didn¡¯t know much about ranked beasts, since he had lived all its life inside the city walls, and went out only to scam rich merchants into hiring him as a tour guide, he was unfamiliar with high ranking beas cores. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean that he had never seen one of a lower level. The various marketces weren¡¯t only ces formon citizens to buy pottery, clothes or other items ofmon use. In fact, most of them had a vast choice of weaponry, armory, elixirs and even beast cores.

    When he was a kid his father had teached him that cultivators were able to use beast cores to strengthen their own bodies. A practitioner of the Martial Cultivation would absorb the core essence and turn it into Ki. The ki would then be used to refine the various parts of the cultivator¡¯s physical body, as opposed to cultivators of the Spiritual Cultivation, who turned the core essence into mana. Differently from Ki, Mana could be used to strengthen the cultivator¡¯s connection of his spirit with the Spiritual ne, which would allow them the use of elements, illusions and various other kinds of magic.

    Bing a practitioner of both types of cultivation was impossible, as Ki reinforced the practitioner¡¯s body to a point where it would be a cage for the spirit. Trying to connect the spirit to the spiritual ne at that point, would be like trying to push the end of a thread through a steel wall.

    Daniel had only heard from his father about Martial cultivation, as he himself was a practitioner, as member of the Karalis¡¯s army. He wasn¡¯t aware, though, about the reason why practitioners of the Spiritual cultivation couldn¡¯t strengthen the body afterwards.

    What a practitioner of the spirit would tell him, is that the spirit isn¡¯t bound to any part of the body. A person¡¯s spirit would extend to the entire body. Laws of space didn¡¯t matter for the spirit, which had no need to reach a determined ce to connect to the spiritual ne. The spiritual ne was wherever the spirit was, so the entire connection between the two was the practitioner¡¯s body.

    If the body was too resistant, the spiritual ne would be cut off from the spirit, making it impossible to connect the two.

    The critical point was the peak of the third rank.

    At the peak of the third rank, the body was not durable enough to cage the spirit, so most practitioners had to choose which path of cultivation to follow, before advancing to the fourth rank. One example of this were the captains of the guards, which having cultivated to the fourth rank of martial cultivation, were unable to use magic.

    Daniel didn¡¯t know the first thing about absorbing beast cores. Losing his parents at a young age and the responsability of keeping himself and his sister free, had forced him to grow up earlier, and work for the past four years, so he had never had a chance to go to school. Nheless, he was fiercely intelligent. With the first few copper coins that he managed to save, he bought books and clothes for his sister. She was two years older than him, and he made sure that she could go to school.

    Before their mothers died, he had promised her that he would have worked hard, taken care of his sister, and done all he could to prevent his sister from losing all prospects of building a good life for herself.

    His expression while making that promise, was so determined that his mother believed in it, without the shred of a doubt.

    The egg sized orb that rested on the ground, for Daniel, meant more opportunities for himself and his sister.

    One should know that a ranked beast core¡¯s price would increase exponentially depending on the rank. A rank 1 core could be sold for ten silver coins, which was what he would require to pay every month to his creditor. A rank 2 core would be sold for one gold coins, which was equivalent to a hundred silver coins, and finally, a rank 3 beast core would be sold for fifteen gold coins, which was double of what he owed to the hotel owner.

    Daniel had seen rank 2 beast cores, so, after noticing the difference in sizes, he could guess that it was a rank 3 core.

    "HA HA HA HA HA!"

    A loudugh bursted out from his lungs. If one were to see daniel now, he would believe him to have gone crazy. His face was one of joy, and the loudugh resounded for hundreds of meters.. yet two big teardrops were streaming down his bloody face, and heughed with a heavy heart.

    He had always been so worried about not being able to keep himself and his sister free.. for four long years. And yet, now he had enough for both of them to live afortable life.

    It took Daniel a few minutes to calm down. He had felt the warmth of his tears all the way down his chin. His first instinct was to brush his face with his hands, but that only made him cover his cheeks back in red, as his hands were still covered in blood.

    After noticing the blood still on his hands, he crouched on the ground and brushed his hands against the grass. He was far from the pond, so he was unable to wash his clothes, not to say that he wouldn¡¯t do that even if he could. He didn¡¯t know if there was another crocodile waiting underwater, and he wasn¡¯t willing to end up like the rabbit.

    After fixing his hair and brushing the pieces of brain and flesh off his clothes, he got up and started to walk towards the beast core.

    He never felt as exhausted as he was right now, and couldn¡¯t wait to get back to his sister and show the core to her. Dozens of thoughts were forming in his head. Thoughts like having a giant feast with his sister, buying her all the clothes she wanted, or even learn how to cultivate.

    "Maybe it isn¡¯t toote for me to go to school.." thought Daniel happily as his hand reached for the core. "I could use sis¡¯s old book an-"

    *thump*

    The exact moment in which daniel¡¯s hand touched the beast core, the dark gold light in his pupils shone, and he fell unconscious.

    Aical scene with no witness, was taking ce in the middle of the forest. A young manid with his face pressed on the ground and his arms stretched to his sides. His knees dug lightly against the ground, while his hips were lifted. If someone were to see Daniel now, they would believe he was trying to imitate a caterpir. Hadn¡¯t been there a bloody battle just a few minutes ago, even the trees would startughing at the funny scene.

    In his palmid the egg sized beast core.

    Time passed slowly. Two hours had gone by already, while Daniel keptying on the ground until.. "Nngh..ghh" A soft groan could be heard.

    Daniel¡¯s arms moved back near his chest, his palm ttened against the ground before pushing his upper body up. His face had pebbles stuck on the skin, and a de of grass had entered his mouth when he had fallen into unconsciousness.

    The first thing Daniel did was look around.. His state of mind turned from being annoyed to total anxiousness. He couldn¡¯t find the beast core.

    He searched and searched for nearly an hour, but the dimly brightness of the beast core was nowhere to be seen.

    In a surge of exasperation, he lifted his arms and brought them down against the ground like hammers.

    *BOOM*

    A could of dirt and dust was lifted all around Daniel. His fists, which came down like meteors, and left two small craters on the ground. It took Daniel no time to remember how, thest thing he did before passing out, was to touch the spirit core,

    He started to think about how it was possible for the beast core to disappear, and for his strength to increase that much. He then made a wild guess..

    "Did I.. absorb the core??".

 Chapter 6 The City of Phyrri

    "Did I.. absorb the core??"

    After this crazy thought went through Daniel¡¯s mind, the first thing he did was to check his body.

    His skin was no different than it was before. His thin arms and legs were still pale and frail looking, but after touching them, he realized that his skin was as tough as leather.

    A series of mixed feelings grew within Daniel. He remembered this feeling from when his father used to pick him up, or when they arm-wrestled.

    While he was still feeling the changes of his body, it didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to fall into depression. He had found a way out of his debt, only to see it disappear the next moment.

    After getting his bearings, and finding the direction towards the city, his eyes fell upon the Shadow Tracker. A sudden realization thundered in his mind.

    "The other core!!!" Shouted Daniel excitedly, before dashing towards the panther¡¯s corpse. What Daniel was unaware of, unfortunately, was his newly acquired strength. The dash made him lose control of his body, which crashed on the ground.

    "Of course.. stupid" Cursed Daniel at himself, as he remembered his father¡¯s words.

    In his mind, the memory of his father answering his many questions yed out clearly once again "Us cultivators of the Martial way, can only control our bodies after we reach the fourth rank. If we stay at the third rank, we will have a strong body, but we will also be unable to fully use our strength."

    His father¡¯s words were correct. A spiritual cultivator would avoid developing his body to the third rank, as they would be stuck with a physical strength which they wouldn¡¯t be able to fully control.

    On the other hand, martial cultivators avoided nurturing their soul to the third rank, because once reached the fourth rank of the martial path, the soul would still be caged by their powerful bodies, therefore bing useless to them, and making its development a waste of time and resources.

    "My muscles have be stronger, but didn¡¯t increase in mass..." Daniel thought while inspecting his body once more. "My bones were hard enough to resist the impact, when I hit the ground, and my skin is as through as leather.. I should be at the rank 2 of the martial cultivation, like dad was.. but.. how?"

    After minutes of pondering about everything that happened to him recently, unable to find an answer that could satisfy him, he momentarily decided to give up on finding one. Daniel didn¡¯t know the first thing about absorbing beast cores, so for all he knew, touching the core barehanded, might have been the right way to absorb it.

    Daniel rapidly approached the body of the panther. He remembered the mess of brains and blood that covered the previous beast core, so he guessed that ranked beasts would have their beast cores hidden inside their heads.

    His guess was sorth of right, as both of these beasts had their cores in their heads, but various kinds of beast develop their cores in different parts of their bodies.

    After picking up a stone and bashing it heavily against the head of the Shadow Tracker, he noticed the now familiar dim shine of the beast core. He had no intention of absorbing this core as well, so he grabbed a few sticks, and poked around the beast¡¯s brains until the core fell out of its skull.

    Once the core stopped rolling on the ground, Daniel ripped off one of his sleeves from the shoulder. He then made the core slip inside the sleeve about halfway through, twisted the ends of the sleeve, making it look like an oversized candy, and finally, he tied it around his waist, like a belt.

    Daniel also thought of opening the stomach of the Yellow-striped Caiman, but he gave up on that thought, as the core of the Bloody-eyed Hare should have been digested fully by now.

    After making sure about the direction, Daniel took off in the direction of the city walls.

    -----------

    Third gate, eastern wall. 01:15

    In a tower made of orderlyid stones, four heavily armored guards were ying cards. One of them was considerably happier than the others, as most of the copper coins in the table, were on his side.

    At the corner of the room, sat another guard. Thisst guard¡¯s armor was simr to the former four, the difference was that while the other four guards had hounds carved on their chestte, this guard had an eagle.

    The guard with the eagle carved on his armor was reviewing some documents, while listening to the other soldiers ying cards.

    Suddenly, a man with an armor identical to that of the four ying guards, entered the room. "Sergeant, there is someone approaching the gate." Says the man.

    The Sergeant put the documents down on the nearby table, and got up from his chair. He then followed while asking the previous guard "How many?.."

    "Sir, just one person. He appears young.. a teenager." Said the guard nervously..

    The Sergeant¡¯s brows furrowed while looking at the guard "You didn¡¯t just call me for a young man that snuck out the city walls at night, did you?" He then asked with a hint of anger.

    "Err.. No sir.. he.. he seems to be covered in blood" responded the guard almost in a state of panic.

    His look turned from one of anger, to an inquisitive one, and then into a curious one "Alright, show me."

    Outside of the tower¡¯s entrance, on the right, stood a massive gate. The gate had several different smaller gates within, which could be opened based on the space required for the iing party to pass through. Parallel to it, stood arge grid of thick iron bars.

    Inbetween the grid and the gate, two guards stood still at the far ends. One right outside of the tower¡¯s door, while the other stood in front of a massive wheel-like lever halfway buried into the wall on the opposite side.

    When the Sergeant came out of the tower, he walked right in the middle of the grid and looked through. What he saw, was a young man. His height did not exceed 1 meter and 70 centimeters. His clothes were in tatters, one of his sleeves was missing, and he was covered in dry blood.

    The Sergeant looked at the young man for a few seconds, then said "You better have a good reason for showing yourself at my gate.. covered in blood moreover! What¡¯s your name?"

    "Dan Hiel.." Answered Daniel immediately, while feigning tiredness.

    The guard that was on watch duty and followed silently behind, asked to Daniel "What happened to you?"

    Daniel looked at the guard, still pretending like he could fall unconscious at any minute, and said "I was hired by a herbalist to find herbs in the forest nearby.. when a beast attacked me.. I was lucky to have been given a sickle to do the job, or I wouldn¡¯t have any other means to defend myself."

    This story had been prepared by Daniel on the way back. He would never openly admit to have survived the pursuit of a rank 3 beast, nor would he say that he was carrying a beast core of such level.

    The Sergeant¡¯s furrowed brows softened slightly, he then looked at the guard on duty and ordered "Let him through."

    The guard which was spoken to by the Sergeant nodded, and then looked at the one on duty near the big lever. "Lift the grid!" he said.

    The grid was slowly lifted by the guard until it came to a stop ten meters above the ground. The Sergeant looked at the young man moving closer and said "If a herbalist instructed you to harvest herbs, you should have been near the edges of the forest. Why did youe back sote?"

    Daniel froze for a moment

    "Sir, I tried to run away from the beast when I first saw it.. but I was too foolish to pay attention in which direction I was running to.. so I got lost. I¡¯ve only managed to find my way and leave the forest minutes ago.." Responded Daniel nervously.

    The Sergeant said nothing. He simply turned around and went back inside the tower.

    The guard on watch duty grabbed the keyring that hung at the side of his waist, and picked the smaller key from it. He then moved towards the lock, and after a mechanical sound, a door frame appeared in the massive wall like gate.

    This door frame was just 3 meters tall and 3 meters wide, enough for three two people to pass through next to each other, so it was the door that the watch opened for small groups of people to enter the city.

    Daniel didn¡¯t feel safe when passing through the gates.. He had been chased by guards right outside of the second gate of the eastern wall, if any of those guards recognized him, he would be done for.

    His steps when he entered through the gate, were fast to say the least. He was eager to go back home, see his sister, and clean himself up.

    The city of Phyrri wasn¡¯t thergest of the kingdom of Karalis, but it wasn¡¯t small by any means. Inside its inner walls, millions of people lived divided into different districts.

    These districts, which were based on social status were, from lower to higher, the working, the merchant and the learned district.

    The Working district was thergest amongst the three districts. About three quarters of the entirety of Phyrri¡¯s poption lived in the working district. To the northeastern side, there was the Industrial sector. Hundreds of nts and factories had been built in the industrial sector, around which the workers, along with their families, lived. In the southern side, the main garrison and training grounds, of which surroundings were house to most of the guards, low ranking soldiers, and their families. In the western side of the working district, were the slums, house to the poorest of citizens. Lastly, inbetween these three sections were most of the working district¡¯s houses, shops, restaurants and hotels. It was called themoner¡¯s section.

    The Merchant district was the secondrgest district of Phyrri, and it housed most of the medium-high sized shops, markets of rareware, auction houses, schools and small sects. It was mostly inhabited by well-off people, wealthy shop owners and moderately rich, yet small families. Members of the working district that managed to umte enough wealth, were allowed to move into the merchant district after passing a credit check.

    The division of the merchant district was simr to the working district. To the northwestern side, the owners of the factories and industries lived, the southern side contained military offices, and was house to most high ranking officers of the army and city guards, while in the southeastern side, most auction houses and high-end shops resided. The area separating these sections was called the prosperous section, which, simrly to what themoner¡¯s section was for the working district, it contained most houses, hotels, shops, marketces, and residences owned by small families.

    The third andst district, was the Learned district. By far the smallest of the three districts, it contained schools of martial arts, sects, tribunals and government offices. The Learned district also housed the highest ranking officers of the military,rge families, high level government officers and the richest amongst merchants and citizens.

    Each district was divided by a wall.

    Daniel and his sister used to live close to the main garrison, but after their father¡¯s death, they had been evicted. Afterwards, their mother had asked for help to the hotel owner, which presented himself like a rich friend of herte husband, offering her enough money to move into the merchant district, where they would have had an easier life.

    What she didn¡¯t know, was that the hotel owner had his aims on her family. A young man could have been sold to the mines as a ve for 5 gold coins, where he would have worked to his death, while a young girl as pretty as her daughter was, could have been sold as a ve for 50 gold coins.

    As time passed, and their request to move into the merchant¡¯s district was still pending, her debt grewrger due to interests, while the loaned money also had been used to ensure their survival.

    One year after presenting the request, and they already didn¡¯t have enough money to move to the merchant district.. three yearster, she overworked herself to death.

 Chapter 7 Sewah, the Trees Son

    It was 4:00 AM when Daniel finally reached his home. He had entered the city from the second eastern gate, so he had to cross the whole city to reach his house, which was in the outermost parts of the slums.

    He was standing in front of a white colored building, the surface of the wall had numerous cracks, and the remnant of white paint crumbled on the ground at the slightest touch. The door was made out of wood and of the color that, ages ago, must have been red. Daniel felt the familiar feeling when he grabbed the door knob.. it was loose.

    After entering his house, Daniel slowly stepped on the hard stone floor, and walked towards the bedroom. Step after step he approached the bedroom door, opened it slowly. Just enough to take a peek inside the room.

    Inside the room, a girl was sleeping on his bed. She had fallen asleep while hugging his pillow, her expression one of worry. Daniel¡¯s face softened as he looked at his beloved sister, and felt sorry for making her worry. He then closed the door of the room and left the house.

    People in the slums did not have a way to wash themselves within their houses. The only ways they had to clean themselves, was to fill buckets of water from the closest well, and take them to their houses, or even wash themselves in the street.

    What he and his sister were used to do, was to go to a bathhouse and clean themselves there. There weren¡¯t many bath houses in the slums, but luckily, they lived in the outermost parts, so they could simply walk to themoner¡¯s section, and take a bath in one of its numerous bath houses.

    For Daniel it had always been important that he and his sister were always clean. She went to school in themoner¡¯s section, and he didn¡¯t want her to be discriminated because she lived in the slums. That¡¯s why the first thing he did whenever he had money, was to make sure her needs were met.

    His sister had told him dozens of times to think more about himself.. she even reminded him that his clothes were too small for him. But he always smiled and told her that he liked those clothes.

    After taking a bath, Daniel went back home, sneaked silently into the bedroom, and fell asleep on his sister¡¯s unupied bed.

    -----------

    Slums, 12:10

    Daniel woke up to the mid-day noise that came from outside the window. People shouting in the streets, and street sellers promoting their cheap wares as loudly as possible.

    What Daniel noticed first, was that his sister was gone. His bed had been made, and outside the bedroom, in the living room, a te with cold bread and two cooked eggs on it was waiting for him over the table.

    He knew that his sister wouldn¡¯te back untilte that evening, so he rapidly ate his cold breakfast, and left the house.

    Daniel had a clear idea of how he would spend his day. Ten days remained before the end of the month, and he had no means to pay. What he wanted to do instead, was to sneak into the merchant¡¯s district and sell his remaining beast core to an auction house.

    Rank 3 beast cores were rare, but not difficult to find. Only the part of forest that was closer to the city had been cleared of most rank 3 beasts, therefore, if one were to venture further, they would be able to see powerful beasts.

    Unfortunately, most of the powers that were able to hunt for beasts of the third rank, or higher, usually kept them for their use. Those in need of money wouldn¡¯t be able to reach rank 3, as reaching the third rank was something for well-off people.

    This was the reason why, not only the closer one got the the center of the city, the wealthier people were.. but they were also more powerful.

    One had to know that the learned district had strict rules. Setting up shop was strictly prohibited, as the learned district was a ce for the biggest sects, schools of martial arts, big families, high ranking military and government offices. That¡¯s the reason why the best shops and auction houses, were situated right outside the southeastern entrance of the learned district, within the merchant district¡¯s territory.

    Setting up shop in that area was extremely expensive, as most of the rich sons and young members of the biggest and most powerful groups, used to spent their wealth there.

    Daniel didn¡¯t have enough money to buy a temporary permission to enter the merchant district, nor would he be granted one if he did, due to his attire. What he decided to do was to stand right inside the city walls, and wait for a merchant toe in. He would then hide underneath his carriage, and sneak past the wall that separated the working and merchant district.

    Daniel¡¯s opportunity presented itself right away. Inside the city walls, right past the gate, a fat, richly dressed man was shouting angrily at a young girl dressed in tatters. The girl was around the age of his sister, 16 years old, she had long dark brown hair, and her skin was very pale.

    At the couple¡¯s feet was a pile of broken pottery, straw and pieces of wood. It was clear to everyone¡¯s eyes that the girl was the fat man¡¯s ve, and that she had dropped a box on the ground, ruining its content.

    very was legal in the kingdom of Karalis, therefore the man was allowed to do what he wanted with the poor girl.

    Everyone looked as the man turned angry shouts into heavy ps.. One after the other, the man¡¯s ps hit the girl squarely on her face. Both her once pale cheeks were now bright red, tears were running down her cheeks non-stop, yet she never covered her face. She knew that if she covered herself, the man would have beaten her harder.

    Daniel was looking at them from the side. His fists clenched so hard that if the man¡¯s head had been inbetween his fingers, he would have crashed it like an egg. He kept thinking about his sister, and how she could have been the girl if they ended up as ves..

    It took a few minutes before the man calmed down, turned towards the carriage and entered it. The girl, that now was unrecognizable, had to walk barefooted nearby the wagon that contained the man¡¯s items.

    Daniel could do nothing for this girl. He could try to help the girl escape, but then he would have to take care of her, which for now, he couldn¡¯t afford. He promised to himself that, if in the future he had a possibility to do so, he would do all he can to free her, or anyone in her situation.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Freedom for all!*

    -Description: Eradicate very from the world.

    First objective set: Free the ve girl.

    Optional: Kill the merchant.

    Reward: Karma +50(+25)

    Failure: Karma -75

    Time limit: The ve girl will be killed in 5 days,

    21 minutes and 19 seconds.

    ____________________________

    As the window appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind, shock took over him, making him jump in ce. "What in the world is that?!" He asked fearfully to himself.

    "You have activated the Karmic system. Good job."

    "Who said that??" Said Daniel out loud.

    The people around Daniel looked at him curiously, and after noticing his attire, guessed that he was a young beggar who had lost his mind.

    "Now now, young hero, if you keep shouting like that, you¡¯ll end up in a madhouse! Ha ha ha! You better keep our conversation to.. yourself.. if you know what I mean.. HAHAHA!!" Said the voice from inside Daniel¡¯s head.

    It took a minute for Daniel to look around and realize that the voice he was hearing, came from his head.

    "Don¡¯t be shy now.. never had one of the previous heroes made my brothers wait so long.." Said the voice, before sighing deeply.

    "What are you?" Thought Daniel while trying topose himself, and appear as mentally stable as possible.

    "I am Sewah, your karmic system. I am one day old.. not as young as I used to be, I know.. never had a girlfriend either! Ha ha" Said the voice with very little seriousness.

    "Am I going crazy?.." said Daniel in his head, yet not exactly asking.

    Sewah cleared his throat audibly and said "Not a joker I see, very well. I am your Karmic system, or how those annoying people in the past used to call us, i¡¯m one of the Tree¡¯s blessings. Personally, I consider myself Iewah¡¯s son..." his voice then turned serious.. "Iewah grants a blessing to a worthy entity, the blessing then resides within the chosen¡¯s body until it takes form." he continued without stopping.

    "A karmic system is a first, to be honest. Most of my brothers ended up in the bodies of powerful cultivators, weapon wielders and mages. Their systems were based on their deepest desires, so they ended up as overpowering tools for promising humans turned egomaniacs" Sewah felt proud about being a unique system. His father had ensured him that this boy would have made good use of him. "You must have really wanted to free that ve girl if that thought alone activated me..." Muttered Sewah.

    Daniel was dumbfounded. It took a minute for him to process everything that he had heard. Then, while slowly following the cart, he directly asked "There are a few things that I want to know. First of all, tell me what these quests and objectives are, then I want to know about those karma points."

    "Humph!" Sewah cleared his voice once more "Quest and objectives are the way the system has to impart points to you. Youplete the quest, you get the points, easy" He calmly exined.

    "What do I do with Karma points then?" Questioned Daniel almost immediately.

    "Simple, you use them to speed up every kind of lengthy process, like absorbing essence form beast cores, learning techniques, or even magic" Answered Sewah proudly.

    Daniel was shocked as he heard Sewa¡¯s answers. He then asked "Was it you that made me consume that beast core in the forest??"

    "Uhm.. yes. That was.. let¡¯s say trial and error.. Good news is! Trial uses are free! He he" Sewah was embarrassed about that episode, but unfortunately, granted systems weren¡¯t born perfect. "And now I can guarantee you won¡¯t pass out if you absorb another core! try! try away!"

    Daniel had no intention of trying here, in the middle of the road. He instead asked "How do I know how many Karma points I have? do I have to keep count myself?"

    Before Daniel could obtain an answer, another window appeared in his mind.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank:

    - early rank 2 of Martial cultivation

    - early rank 2 of Spiritual cultivation

    Karma - 417

    ____________________________

    Danielpletely ignored the amount of karma points and asked "Wait, early rank 2 of Spiritual cultivation??"

    "Of course" Said Sewah as a matter of fact "How was I supposed to know which path would you pick? you were sleeping so happily, so i¡¯ve split the essence between the two."

    At the mention of himself ¡¯sleeping happily¡¯, Daniel got slightly irritated. He then asked "What about those 417 points? I thought you had just woken up"

    "I don¡¯t own karma." Said Sewah with a slightly mocking tone "That karma is the one you¡¯ve collected in the past 14 years of your life."

    Daniel took a few moments to absorb all the informations he had received. He had a clear idea of how useful this system would be to him. He wasn¡¯t amon unranked anymore, and he had a starting capital to invest in himself.. This system would make things much easier.

    After clearing his mind, Daniel asked "Do you have any suggestions on how I couldplete this quest?"

    "Ha ha ha! I¡¯m d you¡¯ve asked." Sewah answered. Then, suddenly, a series of windows opened inside Daniel¡¯s mind.

 Chapter 8 Dragons Breath Auction House

    ____________________________

    Open approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Openly steal the ve deed and kill the merchant.

    -Survive the waves of guards.

    Time limit: 58 minutes and 23 seconds.

    (Requirements: rank 5 of martial cultivation or rank 4 of spiritual cultivation)

    Reward +200% (100/150 KP)

    ____________________________

    Stealthy approach

    Difficulty: Hard

    -Poison the merchant by injection when hees out of the carriage.

    -Steal the property deed from the merchant¡¯s carriage during themotion.

    Countdown: 56 minutes and 49 seconds.

    (Requirements: Poisoned needle)

    Reward +150% (112 KP)

    ____________________________

    Economic approach

    Difficulty: Easy

    -Purchase the ve deed at the auction that will be held in the Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House (5 gold, 60 silver)

    -Pay for the merchant¡¯s assassination. (2500 gold)

    Cooldown: 2 hour, 36 minutes, 19 seconds.

    (Requirements: 2505 gold and 60 silver)

    Reward +50% (25/37 KP)

    ____________________________

    "None of these are doable!" Shouted Daniel in his mind.

    A snort resounded inside Daniel¡¯s head, then Sewah¡¯s voice could be heard saying "You are wee to try whatever you want, the system randomly generates three different approaches that, if followed blindly, will ensure sess."

    Daniel gritted his teeth in order to resist from cursing at Sewah, he then asked him "How does the system know so much about the merchant?.. Like where he will be at a certain hour, or what he will do..?" Daniel was genuinely curious about this. The timings were precise by the second. He could find hundreds of ways to kill the merchant, just by knowing the exact time he would leave the carriage.

    "Are you surprised? He he.. to be honest, I am not sure either. It just knows." Said Sewah, sounding slightly embarassed.

    Daniel kept thinking about the mysteries of the Karmic¡¯s system.. Then a question suddenly popped into hi mind "Can I see other people¡¯s karma?" he asked.

    Before Sewah could answer, above the head of every single person around him, a clear number appeared. "Is that their Karma?" Asked Daniel, then said "I assume that the numbers are equivalent to their points.. but what¡¯s the difference in colors?"

    "Red is for negative karma, while green is positive." Answered Sewah.

    While walking, Daniel noticed a family walking around.. Both parents had green numbers over their heads, while their newborn, which was being held in his father¡¯s arms, had a white 0 above his had.

    Daniel found his chance to sneak into the merchant¡¯s carriage an hourter, when the merchant¡¯s caravan had stopped in front of a smith shop. The merchant had left the carriage to deliver arge package, which had left a big empty hole in the orderly ced boxes inside the carriage.

    Daniel came out of his hiding ce and approached the carriage. The ve girl, which had been chained to the carriage, was now looking at him. He looked back at her and said "I don¡¯t mean to steal anything, I just need to cross through the wall. I¡¯ll leave as soon as we reach the merchant district, I promise"

    The ve girl didn¡¯t look convinced. She thought that he would steal something, and that she would have taken the me for it.

    Noticing the girl¡¯s doubts, he added "I know where he is taking you, he¡¯ll try to sell you at the Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House.. If you keep it secret, I swear that i¡¯ll buy you and set you free."

    The ve girl¡¯s eyes opened wide, shining brighter than ever. She had been captured just a month ago, so she still longed to regain her freedom back. Being abused and raped by the fat merchant had been a taste of the life that awaited her, if she would have ended up being sold.. At least the merchant saw her as a good of some value, so he didn¡¯t treat her too roughly. She didn¡¯t want to think what would happen to her if she ended in the hands of someone that considered her no more than a disposable piece of meat.

    Daniel¡¯s promise had lit a spark of hope into the ve girl, which, with tears welling up in her eyes, nodded her head rapidly, and allowed him to jump into the carriage. She then covered him with therge sheet used to cover the goods during the journey.

    The Merchant came out just a few minutester with a bright smile on his face. His eyesnded on the covered goods, then on the ve girl "AH! You are finally making yourself useful!" He eximed, then entered the carriage, and ordered the driver to go toward the market district¡¯s wall.

    After an hour, they had reached the massive gates that separated themoner¡¯s section from the prosperous section, in the southeastern side of the city.

    Once crossed the gate, Daniel waited for 5 full minutes before slipping out of the carriage, and running into an alley.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t walk in the open with his tattered clothes, so he was forced to traverse the city by sneaking into its various dark alleys. He kept going until he found a marketce. Nearby this marketce, a man was unloading capes from the back of a carriage. Daniel was preparing himself to dash toward the carriage, grab a cape, and run away, when suddenly "I hope you are not thinking of stealing one of those capes. Stealing gives you bad karma.." He heard the voice of Sewah say in his mind.

    "What?! I¡¯m a pickpocketer, how do I even have positive karma if my whole job is stealing money from people??" Barked Daniel at Sewah. That was a good point, how did he maintain a positive karma if all he did every day was find people to steal from?

    "That¡¯s because the people you stole from mostly had bad karma. Stealing from a person with bad karma won¡¯t make you lose any of your points." Answered Sewah patiently, before adding "Look at that man, his number is green".

    "Fine.. do you have any suggestion then?" Said Daniel dispiritedly.

    Sewah hummed slightly and then responded "He doesn¡¯t look like a bad person, you might ask him to buy his cheapest coat, and hope that he won¡¯t report you"

    Daniel looked at the number above the man¡¯s head.. it was a light green 632. After thinking for a bit, he realized that he had no alternatives. Instead of wandering the entire merchant district in hope to find a distracted and deserving person to steal from, he might as well give it a shot.

    "Very well.." Said Daniel. He rapidly approached the man and said to him "Excuse me Sir, I would like to purchase your cheapest cape, how much is it?" he said all in one breath.

    "W-What in the world happened to you?? How did you end up like this?!" Asked the man, slightly shocked by Daniel¡¯s appearance.

    Daniel had a very embarassed expression on his face.. He wouldn¡¯t dare to tell him that he just came from the slums, and that his attire had never been a worry to himpared to food.

    The man noticed Daniel¡¯s expression and smiled slightly. He then started to rummage into the back of his carriage and picked some pants, a shirt, a pair of shoes, and arge coat. Then he threw them at him.

    "Sir I can¡¯t afford all of the..." Before he could finish, the man interrupted him saying "Don¡¯t worry about it kiddo, i¡¯m not doing so badly here, just take the clothes"

    Daniel¡¯s heart tightened as he tried to record every detail of the face of the man. He then thanked the man deeply, and disappeared into an alley. Before leaving, he noticed that the number floating above the man¡¯s head, had increased from 632 to 652.

    While changing his clothes, Daniel understood that what his Karmic system could be useful for the most, was to see through the nature of people. If one could see through the intention of the people around them, they could avoid trouble, or know who is deserving of being helped.

    The man had a stall at the marketce, he sold clothes for servants and ves, which house owners would buy in blocks. So for him, separating from a set of clothes wasn¡¯t a big deal. Plus, he had always felt bad about earning his livelyhood by selling clothes for ves.

    Daniel had been given a set of servant¡¯s clothes. Which included a shirt and a pair of pants made of jute linen, a pair of leather boots, and a dark cape which wasrge enough to cover their entire body.

    The clothes fitted Daniel perfectly, which showed how good of an eye the man had for guessing sizes.

    After changing his clothes, Daniel started walking towards the section fo the merchant district which housed most high end shops and auction houses.

    As ten more minutes passed, Daniel started to feel worried. He knew that the time he had to save the ve girl, had been 2 hours and 36 minutes. Unfortunately, it took 2 hours and 15 minutes for him to reach this ce since the moment the countdown started. Only 21 minutes were left now, and the auction had probably already started.

    After asking around for a few minutes, he managed to find the Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House.

    The building that appeared in front of Daniel¡¯s eyes was huge. It was round shaped, and at least two hundred meters wide. Despite it¡¯s size, the building was fairly short, standing at not more than twenty meters of height. It could be seen from the two rows of balconies which were carved inside the walls, that it had no more than three stories. Nevertheless, each floor was separated from the previous fairly distantly.

    All around the building, huge white columns had been erected. Each column had been elegantly carved with scenes of dragons and men, and they reached from the ground, all the way up to therge ceiling they were holding. Inbetween the columns,rge red banners were hung to a golden rope, and draped down to halfway the entire building¡¯s height. Clearly depicted in ck on each banner, the outline of a dragon¡¯s head with smokeing out of its nostrils.

    Arge golden door with dragon¡¯s heads carved on it, stood impressively at the top of a short set of stairs, and on each side of it, two guards in te armor were standing silently. Both of them were heavily armed, with a sword hanging from their leather belts, and spears on their hands. Above the door, arge wooden sign had "Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House" carved in gold.

    Daniel approached the door, and as he was about to push it open.. "Halt! The auction has started already. Entry is denied." he heard one of the guards say vigorously.

    "I have been sent here by my master, to add ast minute object to the auction, let me through" Daniel had prepared this lie on his way to the auction house. Nobody would believe that a fourteen something years old at the second rank would be able to y a peak rank 3 beast, so he decided to pretend to have been sent by a more powerful practitioner. Powerful enough to not bother with auctioning a peak rank 3 core himself.

    The guard looked at Daniel and asked "What is the item that you wish to auction?" his tone less rigid.

    Daniel removed bundle, which contained the beast core, from his belt, unwrapped it, and showed its content to the guards.

    Both guards looked intently at the orb that Daniel was holding, and each of them internally cursed the fact that they didn¡¯t meet this kid in a more secluded ce.

    One had to know that both of these guards were at the third rank, and absorbing a peak rank 3 core would help their cultivation greatly, so it wasn¡¯t unexpected for them to have thoughts of stealing it.

    If Daniel could hear either of these guard¡¯s thoughts, he wouldn¡¯t be surprised, as both of them had a red number which steadily floated right above their heads.

    Daniel didn¡¯t want any problem, so he decided to remove any ill thought from the their heads by saying "My master wille to withdraw his money before the auction ends, as usual."

    The guards sighed lightly inside their helms, giving up on the object. One of them looked at Daniel and said "Enter."

    As Daniel entered the building through the door, he immediately noticed three things. Arge set of stairs on his left, a second set of doors in front of him from which loud noises could be heard, and a counter behind which a young woman was standing patiently.

    Daniel approached the counter and said "I would like to add this beast core to the auction as ast minute item." The young woman had been surpised by the sudden appearence of the young man, and before she could respond, Daniel added "I¡¯ll also need credit for a purchase.. not much, just 5 gold and 60 silver."

 Chapter 9 A New Ques

    After the young woman behind the desk saw the item that Daniel intended to put up for auction, she said "Wait here for a moment, please." She then left from a door on the other side of the counter. About two minutester, she came out along with a slightly older woman.

    This second woman was in her early 30s, had attractive figures, and stood slightly taller than Daniel. She was dressed in a tightly fitting red robe, with a brooch the shape of a dragon¡¯s head pinned right where her heart was. The dress did little to cover her curves, which Daniel guessed must have helped her just a few years back, in presenting the auctioned items to the public.

    "This item is a beast core of the peak rank 3, I can ensure that it will be sold for at least 15 gold coins. Once deducted the 10% owed to the auction house, as per rules, your profit should reach about 13 gold and 50 silver. I can offer a credit of the same amount." Said the woman all at once.

    The woman had good nose for business. She had heard of a young man asking for credit, and while staying within the limits of the money which, she knew the young man would earn from the sale, she increased his credit to the max. She was convinced that such a young man would not be able to control his spending impulse once entered the auction, so she gave him the means to spend all of his newly acquired money in the auction house. By doing this, she would appear generous, yet earn more.

    Daniel smiled brightly and yed the part of the innocent young man, but internally, heughed at the schemings of the woman. "Thank you very much!" He said. He had lived inplete poverty for the past four years of his life, so when it came to his money, he would never allow himself to lose control.

    The previous young woman looked at her superior admiringly for a few moments, then she turned towards Daniel and handed him a small token. "This is your seat number, please don¡¯t lose it, you¡¯ll require it to collect your purchases and earnings." On the token was a simple set of letters and numbers which indicated the row and seat "Enjoy the auction" She then added.

    Daniel nodded his head at both women, then he turned towards therge double door and entered.

    What Daniel saw after he opened the door left him in deep stupor. In front of him was an immense semi circr room, which seemed to be half of the reason for the round shape of the building.

    On the ground floor, rows after rows of upied chairs covered the floor almostpletely, numbering in the thousands. Five rows separated this mass of people evenly into four sections.

    Looking up to the first floor, Daniel noticed a row of what he guessed to be private boots. There were at least two hundred of them and only a few were upied.

    On the second floor, only twenty private boots could be seen. Their sizes were asrge as ten boots from the first floor, and epassed the entire stage. Daniel could not guess the amount of wealth a person had to own, in order to reserve one of those boots.

    On the opposite side of the room was arge stage. On this stage, an elegantly dressed man was presenting an item to the public.

    Daniel had no interest in the item, so he quietly walked towards his seat and waited. "Sewah, how long until the girl gets sold?" he asked in his mind.

    "The girl will be sold in 9 minutes and 29 seconds." Answered Sewah.

    Daniel let out a breath of relief as he heard Sewah¡¯s words. The girl had yet to be put for auction, which meant that he wasn¡¯t toote.

    Time passed slowly as two more items of rtive high value were auctioned. The first one, which was the item being presented the moment Daniel entered the auction hall, was a small cauldron. This cauldron emanated a powerful alchemical smell, which indicated that it had been used frequently to concoct elixirs and pills.

    Only a few people from the ground floor bid for this item, which in the end, was sold for 25 gold coins.

    The second item was a spear. This spear was about two meters long, and had a clear white shaft that seemed to have been made from arge, ranked beast¡¯s bones. The spear¡¯s de had an elongated arrow head shape to it, and its wings were razor sharp.

    Behind the man, arge rectangr crate was resting on the ground. Its length just a bit longer than the spear, and its content was a set of spears identical to the one the man was holding.

    The set of throwing spears ended up being sold for 40 gold coins.

    Finally, from the side of the stage, a man appeared while holding a young woman on a leash. Daniel recognized her immediately, she was the ve girl owned by the merchant, which the system had required him to set free.

    The girl was sobbing uncontrobly, as newly added handprint-like marks decorated her face. The girl had clearly been hit before reaching the stage.

    Daniel gritted his teeth while listening to the man¡¯s presentation.

    "Ladies and Gentlemen, the next item is a good one." said the auctioneer while indicating at the girl¡¯s body. "This young ve will clean your house when you are away, she will carry your items for you, and warm your bed at night! Want to have a pleasant conversation? Wonderful, because she is also educated!"

    "..she doesn¡¯t seem used to being a ve.."

    "Whoever is going to buy her will have to tame her.."

    "That¡¯s true, it¡¯s a lot of work."

    The public began to discuss amongst each other.

    The auctioneer quietened for a moment as he noticed the unconvinced expressions of the people in the crowd. He decided to give up publicizing the girl, and went straight to the starting price.

    "The starting price for this ve is 3 gold coins. Every bid has to be no lower than 10 silver" Said the auctioneer

    "...3 gold and 20 silver, she is still worth that much"

    "...I agree. 3 gold and 40 silver"

    "The current price is 3 gold and 40 silver, does anyone have a higher offer?" Inquired the auctioneer calmly, reminding the interested parties to ce their bid.

    "3 gold and 50 here!"

    "..3 gold and 65 silver!"

    "3 gold and 85 silver"

    The price kept increasing slowly, as only three people were bidding for the girl. Daniel noticed that all three of these people had a shockingly big, red number floating above tier heads. Their intentions for the girl had to be unspeakable.

    Bids after bids were offered, until..

    "She is not worth that much, here is my final offer, 5 gold coins" Said the first bidder, a middle aged man with a cleanly shaved beard, and long ck hair. The number floating above his head was a dark red 905.

    "Since we are giving ourst bids.. 5 gold and 20 silver." Retorted a fat man with elegant clothes. He had a long goatee and small eyes. His number was almost as high as the first bidder, reaching 882 points indicated in dark red. He was the second bidder.

    "I give up, it¡¯s not worth it anymore" Said the third andst bidder, a muscr looking man with a clean cut and tight fitting practitioner¡¯s robes. On his head, a shocking 1570 which shined of a blood-like red color could be seen.

    "Seems the little girl is mine then, He he" Said the fat man while chuckling.

    No other bid could be heard after the fat man¡¯s words. Nobody felt threatened by him, they simply didn¡¯t think the girl was worth that much.

    "The current bid is 5 gold and 20 silver, anybody wishes to bid higher?" Said the auctioneer. "5 gold and 20 silver going once, goi.."

    "5 gold and 40 silver." A young voice interrupted the auctioneer¡¯s voice.

    The three previous men, along with the auctioneer, turned to look at the direction from which the voice came. Its owner was a young man dressed in servant¡¯s clothes. That young man was none other than Daniel.

    The fat man felt slightly annoying by this young man, so he decided to teach him a lesson. "5 gold and 50 si.." But when he was about to announce his new bid, he was interrupted by the young man¡¯s voice.

    "5 gold and 60 silver." Said Daniel with a loud voice.

    The fat man¡¯s thin brows furrowed deeply. He thought that the young man was keen on buying this girl, so after muttering a few curses towards him, he decided to give up.

    "..and 60 silver going twice! 5 gold and 60 silver! Sold to the number 0635!"

    Daniel was extremely ted at this moment. He had obtained the proof that the karmic system¡¯s information were precise in every possible way, be it the time limit or the required money to win the auction, every detail was perfect.

    Aside from feeling happy about the usefulness of his newly acquired system, he also felt happy for helping the ve girl, not to say ruining any malicious n which the fat man had for her. He hadn¡¯t forgotten that the quest also indicated the girl¡¯s time of death. He was sure that if the girl were to be sold to the fat man, she wouldn¡¯t have much longer to live.

    As he was thinking about the girl¡¯s fate, a window popped into his head.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: No Rest for the Wicked*

    -Description: Complicate the lives of individuals with bad karma.

    First objective set: Make people with bad karma outbid themselves

    Reward: Karma +10 per person / Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House reputation +25%

    Failure: Karma -150

    ____________________________

    When Daniel read the description of his newly acquired quest, he became ecstatic. Not only the system allowed him to spend Karma points to increase his strengthening speed, but it was also able to find for him the various different ways to earn karma, and even increase his influence with other parties. The more he found out about the Karmic system, the more he understood how helpful it would be to him.

    Daniel had a clear idea of what the new mission required him to do, so with a wide grin on his face, he started listening to the presentation of the next item.

    "The next item is one of today¡¯s special pieces." Said the man while uncovering the next auctioned item.

    What he uncovered was a dummy. This dummy was dressed in a tightly fitting leather armor. The armor was of an even brown color, and the protective parts were made out of what looked like scales. The leather armor wasposed of four pieces, a chest armor, vambraces, greaves and boots.

    "This armor has been forged from the scales of a rank 4 Soft Scaled Wyvern, by the hands of a master armorsmith. It has an impressive resistance to fire, and its advanced design prevents any kind of difort while wearing it." Exined the auctioneer while observing the crow¡¯s reaction. "The starting price is 60 gold coins, every increase has to be of at least 50 silver coins."

    The moment the description ended, a voice came from one of the private booths on the first floor. "62 gold coins.."

    Then another.. "65 gold coins.."

    The ground floor¡¯s crowd waspletely quiet. Most of them knew that those who could afford to reserve a private booth, were not people to be messed with. The others simply couldn¡¯t afford to ce a bet.

    The bids came one after the other, making the armor reach the astonishing price of 110 gold coins.

    Of the five booths that werepeting for the rank 4 armor, only two remained. Daniel could see one of them thanks to his position. Unfortunately, he could not see the second one as the booth was right above his seat.

    The first bidder was a bald old man. On his face, a vicious scar started from underneath his eyes, and went all the way down towards his lips, splitting them diagonally into two sets. Above his head, the biggest number that Daniel had ever seen, shone of a dark red color. The number was 15.968.

    After a few more minutes, the bidding war seemed to slow down significantly, until the second party gave up on the item.

    The only remaining bidder was the scarred old man.

    Noticing theck ofpetition, the auctioneer said "The current bid is 138 gold coins, going on-" but before he could finish, a familiar voice interrupted him once more.

    "139 gold coins."

 Chapter 10 Public Enemy

    "139 gold coins."

    The whole crowd turned to look at Daniel, as the sparkle of conversation was lit once in the hall.

    "145 gold coins!" Said the old man.

    "146 gold goins" Retorted Daniel right away..

    "..Young man.. You are risking it!.." Said the old man angrily. "150!" He then said.

    Daniel raised his voice to bid once more. "151 gold coins"

    "ENOUGH!!" Shouted the old man angrily, while punching the wooden table next to his chair, and turning it into splinters. "I AM WARNING YOU BRAT! 165!" He then said through a face contorted by rage.

    ____________________________

    *No Rest for the Wicked"

    Objectivepletion 5,88%

    Karma points +10

    ____________________________

    The moment the window appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind, he immediately understood that the old man had reached his limit.

    Daniel was not too worried about offending people at this auction house, as this auction hadn¡¯t announced any particr items, most of the people present were merchants and low level cultivators.

    Only a few powerful cultivators and rich men, like the scarred old man, were present, which considering the fact that they had waited for certain items to show up to start bidding, one could assume that they were here, not for the auction, but for those few specific items.

    Needless to say that nobody would expect him to go back to the slums, right after the end of this auction, especially after bidding hundreds of gold coins.

    The scarred old man felt irritated by Daniel, so much so that, in his mind, he started thinking of ways to teach him a lesson. His final decision was to outbid him whenever an item he was interested in would appear.

    For the people of Phyrri wealth was everything. Strength allowed to control the weak, but at the end of the day, no matter if it was strength, power or influence, all was rted to money.

    This had been the reason for the division of the poption into distinct social sses. For the scarred old man, being tricked by a youngster dressed in servant¡¯s clothes that couldn¡¯t even afford a private booth, was uneptable.

    During the auction of every single item after that, when the bidding seemed to have reached an end, Daniel would regrly start a bidding war with the final bidder, increasing the item¡¯s price by impressive amounts, and only stopping after the system would update his quest.

    ____________________________

    *No Rest for the Wicked"

    Objectivepletion 94,12%

    Karma points +10

    ____________________________

    At the sixteenth auctioned item, Daniel had already made a small army of enemies for himself. Various people had started to outbid any of his bids, although only increasing the prices for other bidders.

    From an external point of view, Daniel seemed to be interested in every single one of the items.. but what made the group of people irritated the most, was that this damn brat seemed to be able to read their minds. In fact, whenever they felt happy with the increase in price, and waited the young man to overpay for the item, he would instead give up on it, making them pay for an item they didn¡¯t wanted to begin with, or force other people to purchase the item instead.

    The total number of auctioned itemsprised by the quest was, including the leather armor, 17. The seventeenth andst item for the day, was Daniel¡¯s beast core.

    Daniel was waiting for this moment. The new quest had not only given him a chance to obtain more Karma points by swindling other bidders, but also the possibility to obtain more money from the auction of his item.

    Feigning disappointment, he looked towards his main enemies hatefully, before once more directing his eyes on the stage.

    When thest auctioned item was uncovered, Daniel jumped up on his feet. His expression an ted one, and his fists shut tight, as if he had seen a long lost brother.

    His actions had caught the eyes of every single person in the hall, especially his enemies. A series of malicious smirks grew on various faces within the crowd.

    "The next item is one you rarely see put up for auction.. A peak rank 3 beast core! I have no need to remind you all of the importance a peak rank 3 beast core has to increase one¡¯s cultivation past the third rank. The starting bid is 5 gold coins and every increase has to be no less than 10 silver coi-"

    "5 gold and 50 silver coins!" Shouted Daniel animatedly.

    .."6 gold coins!" Said a man in the crowd.

    .. "Here, 7 gold and 50 silver"

    Many had noticed the enthusiasm in Daniel¡¯s voice, but while some weren¡¯t naive enough to fall for his act, some others, blinded by the outrage of being yed by a mere servant, couldn¡¯t help but be his victims once again.

    After a couple of long minutes, the item had reached the price estimated by the auction house of 15 gold coins, however, the bidding war was still far from over.

    "See if I don¡¯t put you in your ce this time, brat.. 20 gold coins!" Said the scarred old man.

    Daniel hadn¡¯t reached any message from the karmic system, so he was sure that someone in the crowd was willing to offer a higher price, therefore he kept going "21 gold coins!"

    "Your master should have teached you how to respect those above you, servant" Said disdainfully a beautiful woman which was upying the booth directly opposite to the scarred old man¡¯s. This woman was wearing the attire of an elder from a known medium sized women only martial art school, situated in the merchant district. She wore a purple kimono, with the yellow and green pattern of a crane soaring through the skies sewed on it.

    The first time Daniel noticed this woman was when she had bidded for the ve girl. What made Daniel curious about this woman, was that her number had decreased the moment she had ced her bid.

    Above this woman¡¯s head a small red 62, which originally was 82, could be seen floating. The first time Daniel had noticed the woman¡¯s karma, Sewah hadmented into his head "That woman must be very nice to her students.. but slightly more brutal to her enemies. He he he"

    Daniel didn¡¯t know what her reasons for bidding for the ve girl were, however, he was convinced that they couldn¡¯t have been too bad, if just by bidding for her, the woman¡¯s negative karma had decreased. Unfortunately her intentions weren¡¯t enough, since ording to the karmic system, the girl would be sold for a higher price than the one she had bid, leading to her being killed within 6 days by her new owner.

    The woman had a bone to pick with Daniel, which had made the price of the rank 4 fan that she wanted to buy, increase to almost double the original amount.

    "24 gold coins" Said the woman.

    Once more, to Daniel¡¯s tion, the message didn¡¯t appear. "25!" He shouted.

    "25 gold coins and 50 silver" Said a middle aged man with a clean shaved beard who was sitting amongst the crowd of the first floor.

    "26 gold coins!" Daniel bids were fast and showed impatience. Of course, this was all an act. He wanted the other bidders to believe that he wanted the item at all costs.

    "28 gold coins.." Said the scarred old man while acting enraged, and yet showing a hint of anxiousness.

    At this point of the auction, most participants were simply trying to bloat the beast core¡¯s price in order to have Daniel buy it with a huge loss. They all acted like they needed the object desperately, and yet they were approaching their limits. Some of them even pretended to argue amongst themselves.

    The scarred old man had ced his ultimate bid. He wanted Daniel to buy the item at almost double its worth. "Come on brat.. it¡¯s all yours.. He he he" Muttered the scarred old man quietly. Unfortunately, what he expected to happen didn¡¯t actually happen. His covered grin turned into a hideous one, as he noticed the wide smile that had appeared on Daniel¡¯s face.

    Inside Daniel¡¯s mind, a series of small windows had appeared.

    ____________________________

    *No Rest for the Wicked*

    Objectivepletion 100%

    Karma points +10

    ____________________________

    *No Rest for the Wicked*

    First objectiveplete.

    Reward: 170 Karma Points / Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House reputation +25%

    ____________________________

    "The current highest bid is 28 gold coins. Is there anyone who wants to offer more?.." The auctioneer said before observing the room. He then looked at the menacing looks of the various participant of the auction.. before finally looking at Daniel.

    When the auctioneer¡¯s eyesnded on Daniel, he looked away, showing an expressionpletely devoid of interest.

    "Going once, going twice.. Sold to the booth number 028.." Said the auctioneer dispiritedly. He then continued "This is all for today¡¯s auction. As always, you can approach the counter to collect your purchases. The Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House hopes that you have enjoyed today¡¯s event, and wishes you a safe travel back." He then bowed deeply, and left the stage from the side.

    The moment thosest few words were spoken, Daniel was already halfway through the door. He didn¡¯t want to give the others any time to trap him inside the auction house, so since the beginning, he had intended to leave the auction house first.

    When he reached the counter, he found the woman that had offered him the credit waiting for him at the counter. When she saw him, she smiled at him brightly, and said "You really do know how to make enemies." she then handed him a small bag "In here are 20 gold coins, we¡¯ve rounded them up for you.."

    Daniel had no reaction to this. He knew that the woman didn¡¯t consider him a naive young man anymore. And for a good reason. He had asked for 5 gold and 60 silver coins, and that was exactly what he had spent. Not counting how much he had managed to increase the bids for the item he had put up for auction.

    The woman then grabbed a bell from behind the counter, and ringed it three times. After a few seconds, the girl that Daniel had originally seen behind the counter, appeared from behind a door. Next to her was a girl in ragged clothes. Her ankles and wrists had been chained, making escape impossible for her. That girl, was the ve girl that Daniel had bought with the intention of freeing.

    Daniel took the ve deed and key out of the girl¡¯s hands and unlocked the ve girl¡¯s binds right away. He then ripped the deed into shreds.

    The ve girl was too surprised by Daniel¡¯s decisive actions. She rubbed her sore wrists and cheeks, and as she was about to thank him, Daniel grabbed her wrist and started heading towards the exit of the building.

    As the woman noticed Daniel¡¯s sudden actions "You are wee toe back whenever you want, have a safe travel back!" she said while slightly increasing the volume of her voice as each of her words came out of her mouth.

    "I wouldn¡¯t hold my breath" muttered Daniel as he left the auction house. Going back to this auction house was out of the question for Daniel. The woman had tried to scheme against him from the very beginning, and even after he had made the auction house gain a muchrger amount of money inmissions, by increasing bids and making many enemies for himself, they still tried to invite him back to repeat this, despite the dangers he faced. Daniel had no good opinions about the Dragon¡¯s Breath Auction House.

    Without giving her a moment to speak, Daniel dragged the girl between alleys, only stopping after reaching a particrly dark one, just a few hundred meters away from the auction house. He then let go of the girl¡¯s hand, and said to her "You are free now, do you have somece to go?"

    The girl shook her head gently.. her eyes reddening.

    Daniel took pity on her.. he had imagined his sister being in her shoes, and the idea that she would wander the streets until she would be made a ve again, was uneptable to him. "Okay, you can stay with me and my sister for a bit. We currently live in the slums, but we will move soon.."

 Chapter 11 The Slave Girl and the Sister

    Merchant district, western gate. 17:08

    In front of therge gate that connected the working district and the merchant district, a long row of people could be seen waiting in line to pass through.

    Amongst this row of people, two teenager could be seen waiting in line. They both had servant clothes, and each of them had surprisingly good looks.

    These two people were, of course, Daniel and the ve girl.

    Only a couple of hours had passed since the end of the auction, and Daniel had been so focused on leaving the merchant district, that he didn¡¯t have a chance to properly speak to the girl he had just set free. He only stopped once to make sure that the girl didn¡¯t have a family toe back to, and to offer her a ce to stay.

    After that interaction had ended, and the girl had shyly epted Daniel¡¯s offer, the system¡¯s message finally appeared.

    ____________________________

    *Freedom for All!"

    First objectiveplete.

    Reward: 75 Karma Points

    ____________________________

    The girl wasn¡¯t really expecting Daniel to honor his promise, and when he saw him in the crowd, bidding for her, she still had doubts about his motives. All these doubts had been eradicated from her mind, the moment he destroyed the ve deed and set her free on the spot.

    She spent the next couple of hours in silence, following this strange young man as he took her to a bath house, as he bought her clothes, and offered to her a ce to stay.

    "My name is Daniel by the way.." Said Daniel randomly, while waiting in line. "..yours?" he then continued.

    "Mea.." She answered in a low voice.

    Daniel was thinking about how to ask his next question.. he never had meaningful conversations with anyone but his sister, nor did he know how to deal with difficult subjects, so he decided to ask directly.

    "You don¡¯t look used to being a ve, what happened to you?" He asked her.

    Mea looked at him and said "I am not.. I was the young mistress of the Rulin house.. my full name is Mea¡¯hor Rulin.." Said the girl with hints of pride and sadness in her voice.

    Daniel was surprised by the Mea¡¯s words. He didn¡¯t know who the master of the Rulin house was, nor how important the Rulin were in Karalis¡¯s spectrum of families, sects and schools, but he knew that a house, in order to have a master and a young mistress, had to have some sort of power.

    He looked at Mea and asked her "What happened to your house? How could they allow their young mistress to be taken as a ve??"

    Mea¡¯s look turned even sadder before responding "My father was a powerful martial cultivator of the 7th rank.. he was one of the main forces of Karalis¡¯s army during the war, eight years ago, but he disappeared without leaving a trace when the war wasing to an end."

    A clear trace of anger grew in her voice as she continued "One of my father¡¯s old enemies, the master of the School of Evesting Fury, didn¡¯t waste time to use him of deserting for the enemy kingdom." she said while biting her bottom lip.

    "After the war ended, and my father never returned to clear his name, many voices through the kingdom started to circte.. Spreading the news that the master of the Rulin house had betrayed the Karalis kingdom. So many people had been lost in that war.. and when the rumor of a traitor had been spread, the people demanded the king to issue an eradication order for my entire family."

    At this point, tears were forming on the corners of her eyes "The king must have thought that we had no more worth without my father.. so he gave in under the pressure, and ordered an eradication campaign against my house.." She said while brushing the welling up tears from her eyes "We had been alerted by one of my father¡¯s loyal friends, that the king had ordered for our extermination, so in the middle of the night, we escaped.. and have been on the run ever since."

    Daniel didn¡¯t know what to say. He knew nothing about politics, nor did he know what happened within the high echelons of a kingdom. After thinking for a few moments, he asked "So what happened to the rest of your family?.." But he immediately regretted asking it.

    "The eradication campaign didn¡¯t stop only because we had escaped.. we had be traitors within the kingdom, so no matter where we went.. when we were found out.. we would be hunted down and killed. From what I know, I-I might as well be the only survivors" After Mea finished exining, she couldn¡¯t help remembering all the painful moments she had been through in thest half of her life.. and start crying.

    Daniel had never been one to judge without knowing the facts. He knew of the dark side of people, in fact, he could see it clearly thanks to his karmic system. So even if he felt angry when learning that Mea¡¯s father was one of Karalis¡¯s main forces during the war, and therefore one of the warriors that had been toote to save his father, he still understood that, since the one who used Mea¡¯s father of being a traitor was one of his enemies, that usation must have been a diffamatory one.. aimed to turn an enemy into a traitor.

    Of course, everyone knew about the bad blood between the Rulin¡¯s house master and the master of the School of Evesting Fury. Most had guessed that thetter was aiming to get rid of one of his old enemies when he used the former of treason, so most of the king¡¯s council and the king himself had rejected his ideas of treating the Rulin¡¯s master and family as traitors.

    What forced the king to change his mind was the public outrage that, when the rumors of the Rulin¡¯s house master had deserted for the enemy kingdom spread like wildfire through his still grieving kingdom, had forced him to cave in.

    Daniel dropped the topic and waited patiently for their turn to pass through to arrive. Half an hourter, they had reached themoner¡¯s section of the working district.

    On his way back, Daniel had stopped more than once to various shops and marketces to buy the essentials for Mea, numerous rank 1 beast cores, and a cultivation manual for martial and spiritual cultivation. He and Mea walked towards his sister¡¯s school, and waited for her toe out to go back home together.

    Daniel had taken that habit in the past couple of years. Whenever he would be close to his sister¡¯s school, if her lessons were close toe to an end, he would wait for her toe out, before going home together.

    After half an hour of waiting, young men and women starteding out of the building. Daniel looked around until he noticed a group of seven teenagers, four of them were boys and three of them were girls.

    Amongst this group of people, one girl stood out the most. She had an imp-thin figure that was shown by her tightly fitting clothes. Herplexion was porcin white and her cheeks were of a natural rosy color. Her slightly arched eyebrows stood above a pair gentle wide set eyes, with pupils of a beautiful brown-green color. Her delicate ears framed a just as delicate button-like nose. Right underneath, a pair of bow-shaped, healthy red lips opened and closed, showing a set of pearly white teeth. Her caramel colored hair flowed above her chest area in big waves, bordering her face beautifully.

    She was chatting peacefully with her group of friends, and when she noticed the young man standing at the school¡¯s gate, she waved her arm at him "Dan!!"

    Daniel¡¯s smile grew wide as he and Mea approached the group of teenagers. As the girl which had called for his name approached him, Daniel said gently "Sister.." The smile never leaving his face.

    She hugged Daniel tightly and said "Did you eat what i¡¯ve left you this morning?"

    "Of course!.. it was awful" He said with a smirk on his face.

    Daniel had a special rtionship with his sister. She was older than him, but since he provided for the both of them, they had always felt strange behaving like the ssical "older sister and younger brother". Theplicity between the two was so deep that they behaved more like partners in crime than siblings.

    After a few moments, Daniel took the books right out of his sister¡¯s hands and put them into his backpack. He then looked at her while indicating towards Mea, and said "Sister, this is Mea, she¡¯ll be staying with us for a while" he then looked towards Mea and said "Mea, she is my sister, Re"

    He then gave a moment for the news to sink into his sister¡¯s head.

    Re hadplete trust in Daniel¡¯s actions. For her, her brother had good judgement, and whatever he did, he would do it for a good reason. Of course, this had never stopped her from teasing him for his decisions.. With this objective in mind, she looked at Mea "My real name is Rei Hiel, but you can call me Re. It¡¯s a real pleasure to meet you Mea, I hope you¡¯re not in trouble because of my brother. If he tries anything weird, a kick in between his legs is always an avable option" she said while smirking.

    Daniel expected this kind ofment from her, just like every other member of her group of friends, which had be used to the dynamics of this particr pair of siblings.

    Mea, on the other hand, was extremely surprised. She thought that Daniel had been rude to her, and that Re wanted to make him pay for his crude remark, but that wasn¡¯t the case.

    After bidding farewell to her schoolmates, Re, Daniel and Mea started heading back home. In their travel back, Mea and Re chatted for a bit. It didn¡¯t take long for Re to learn about Mea¡¯s circumstances.

    Mea felt grateful to Daniel, so she didn¡¯t want her brother to have secrets from his sister. She had decided that she would tell her situation to Re, and then let the pair of siblings decide if it was worth helping her.

    What surprised Mea even more, was that whenever she mentioned Daniel¡¯s actions, the expression on Re¡¯s face grew prouder and prouder.

    At the end of Mea¡¯s story, Re¡¯s trust for Daniel¡¯s judgement had only reinforced. She then approached Daniel by the side, hit his arm with her elbow, and kissed the side of his head.

    Mea expected a heated conversation between the pair of siblings, but again, she was wrong.

    Daniel had expected his sister¡¯s action, as they weren¡¯t umon. "Sister, I will go home and pack our stuff, would you mind taking Mea with you and go to look for a bigger house in themoner¡¯s district?.." As he said these words, he kept looking at his sister¡¯s expression from the corners of his eyes.. he then added "Somewhere close to your friend¡¯s houses maybe.."

    His sister looked at him with wide eyes. A smile that made people turn around in disbelief grew on Re¡¯s face.. Daniel had promised to her more than once that, once their debt would be settled, and things would have been easier for them, they would move closer to her friends. That had be one of his sister¡¯s dreams.

    Re couldn¡¯t help but wrap her slender arms around her brother¡¯s chest, and squeeze him tightly.

    Daniel felt like his promise to his mother had been partially fulfilled.. She was safe, she was happy.. and she would have a good life. These were Daniel¡¯s most important objectives.

    After a few seconds, Re let go of her brother. Daniel handed a small bag containing 10 gold coins to her, and asked her to rent the biggest house she could find. He then bid farewell to the two girls and started walking towards the slums.

    When reaching his house, before starting to pack their belongings, he took a small pouch which contained the rank 1 beast cores and the books regarding martial and spiritual cultivation, then he sat on his bed.

    "Sewah, mind exining how do I use my karma points again?.."

 Chapter 12 Cultivating

    "It¡¯s about time! I thought you would end up only using me for bing rich! He he" Answered Sewah.

    Part of Daniel¡¯s n had always been to be stronger. Strength was dependant on money in Phyrri, but in order to make money, unless born into a rich family, one required something to rely on.

    Originally Daniel wanted to pay his debt, allow his sister to graduate from school, and then let her find a good job. But after seeing the way the wealthy treated human lives of the lowest level, he realized that he needed more than that. He needed a way to prevent others from stepping over him and his sister, like the hotel owner did with his family. He needed strength.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t harmless anymore, he didn¡¯t need to live by the day like he used to.. He had the Karmic system now.. He could n.

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: You Can¡¯t Do Good Without Strength!*

    -Description: Obtain enough power to protect those in need.

    First objective set: Cultivate to the peak "Vasodtion" of the martial cultivation, or the peak "Profound Spiritual connection" of the spiritual cultivation.

    Optional: Reach "perfection" before breaking through the next stage.

    Reward: Karma +500(+1000)

    Time limit: 3 months(4 months)

    -----

    Surprise grew on Daniel¡¯s face as one more window appeared inside his mind, warning him that a new quest had started.

    Since the moment he had awakened Sewah and the karmic system, Daniel had understood a few things about it. First of all, a primary quest had to start from a train of thought. For example, the "Freedom for all!" quest had started when had witnessed the treatment Mea had received by the fat merchant, and his desire to set her free, had triggered the creation of the quest. Second, a quest has to pertain to Karma. In each quest a decision had to be made that would either grant him positive or negative karma, meaning that he could possibly create any sort of quest, provided that he formted it within the parameters of karmic influence.

    The veryst quest, for example, wouldn¡¯t have been created if Daniel only wished to be strong. But since he decided to be strong in order to protect his sister, he turned his motive into one that would influence his karma, therefore creating the quest.

    "Well, thates in handy! He he" Sewah was just about to exin how to utilize karmic points to Daniel, when the window appeared. He was, of course, part of the karmic system, so he was able to see through every change within the system itself, like Daniel could. "It¡¯s very simple, really.. Start cultivating, and whenever you will enter a lengthy process, just think of speeding it up. Your karmic points will slowly decrease, until you¡¯ll run out.. Have you learned nothing from me!? Trial and error!e on!" Exined Sewah.

    Daniel still didn¡¯t know anything about cultivation. That was the reason why he had bought the cultivation manuals. He took them out and started reading through their pages.

    In Daniel¡¯s world, cultivation had two main branches.

    The Martial cultivation, which allowed a person to strengthen their bodies through the use of Ki, and Spiritual cultivation, which had the aim of cultivating one¡¯s spirit through the use of mana, and increase its connection to the spiritual ne, from which the cultivator could absorb the power required to use magic.

    The basics of martial and spiritual cultivation exined the first two "main stages" of cultivation. Each main stage was divided into three sub stages,monly referred to as "ranks".

    Each person would be born as a mortal, and their default stages of cultivation were at the "Muscle Strengthening" of the martial cultivation, and the "Spirit Forming" of the spiritual cultivation. These two stages were known as the starting point of every human being, and therefore referred to as unranked.

    The first two main stages of the martial cultivation were the Body Strengthening stage, and the Nigh Inhuman stage.

    The Body strengthening stage started with the Organs Enhancing sub-stage, or rank 1, which enhanced your organs resistance and efficiency. The rank 2, or the Bones Refining sub-stage, was the stage that would allow the cultivator to increase the density of their bones. The third andst sub-stage of the Body Strengthening stage was called Vasodtion, and was the dtion of one¡¯s blood vessels, which would increase the flux of blood that would allow the body keep up with the increased strain.

    After breaking through from the Body strengthening stage, one would find himself into the Nigh Inhuman Stage. The Nigh Inhuman stage was simrly divided into three sub-stages, or ranks.

    Starting from the Full Control sub-stage, or rank 4, which allowed a person to perfect the control of their body. The rank 5, described as the Reflex Heightening sub-stage, was the stage that allowed a cultivator to increase his reflexes to an inhuman level. Ultimately, the Surrounding Awareness sub-stage, or Rank 6, was the stage that allowed a cultivator to develop a field around their bodies, inside which they would haveplete awareness.

    The book that Daniel had bought only mentioned the third main stage of the martial cultivation as "Immortal Path stage".

    Simrly to the basics of the martial cultivation, the basics of spiritual cultivation only exined the depth of the first two stages. They were called the Spirit Connection, and Spiritual Synchronization stages.

    The sub-stages of spiritual cultivation were much easier to understand, as the spirit had much less parts to nurture whenpared to the body. Therefore, each main stage of the spiritual cultivation¡¯s sub-stages were used to indicate the progress in the main stage, and were referred to as faint, moderate and profound. For example, a person in the first rank of the spiritual cultivation would be referred to as a spiritual cultivator at the faint spiritual connection stage.

    Like in the manual of martial cultivation, the third stage of spiritual cultivation had only been mentioned, and it was called the "Spirit Merging" stage.

    The more Daniel read the more he understood, but at the end, he started to have some doubts.. Why was there no mention to "perfection" in any of these books?

    He read the manual¡¯s pages over and over again, but the answers he looked for were nowhere to be found. ording to the manuals, one could attempt to breakthrough to the next stage right after refining their blood vessels if cultivated the body, or reached the profound spiritual connection if they cultivated the spirit.

    Daniel had no way of understanding the depths of these stages with the information he was give by these manuals. He had four months to reach the peak of the first stage, and learn what perfection meant.

    Setting his thoughts aside, Daniel started reading the methods of cultivation depicted in the manuals.

    A martial cultivator produced Ki through the strain of the body. Ki, simrly to the core essence of a ranked beast, was the essence of the human¡¯s body, and it was produced constantly.

    Breathing, exercising, training andbat.. These were just few of the methods a martial cultivator had to produce Ki. The produced ki could then be used to gradually refine the cultivator¡¯s body.

    Just like a martial practitioner used ki to cultivate, a spiritual cultivator used mana to strengthen the spirit.

    Mana was a natural essence that could be found everywhere in the world. Each and every type of essence, included ki and beast essence, were in fact, mana. The very own definition of manaprised every sort of naturally formed essence which belonged to the earthly ne.

    A spiritual cultivator could produce ki just like any martial cultivator through the use of breathing and training, and then use the ki to strengthen their spirit.

    Most people had no means to cultivate, and therefore stayed at the Spirit forming, or Muscle Strengthening stages, so they erroneously considered mana as an alternative sort of essence to ki, while instead calling it a "generic" sort of essence, would be much more urate.

    At some point in the past, after martial cultivators had found out that every type of essence could nurture the spirit, they started to experiment with the aim of finding out every viable sources of essence which could be used to increment their cultivation speed.

    After dozens of years, they had realized that, every form of essence produced by a living being could be absorbed by their bodies and turned into ki.

    This had been the reason that had started the hunt for ranked beasts, and many uncountable wars between humans and the other races.

    Daniel had decided to cultivate the martial path, so he read the martial way of cultivation and adjusted his body into the lotus position. He had also decided to avoid using beast cores, as he wanted to familiarize to the human¡¯s natural way of cultivation through self produced ki.

    For an hour, he breathed in and out slowly. Whenever he breathed in, his enhanced lungs would expand and send waves after waves of newly produced ki through his muscles, blood vessels and organs. When this ki had reached every corner body, Daniel forced it to seep through his tissue and reach his bones, then he began to refine them.

    His marrow slowly became denser, his carticalge became more stic, the stratum of cortical bone became harder by the minute.

    After another hour, Daniel decided to stop.

    He had read that breakthrough was a lengthy process, and he wanted to know how much of his karma cultivating for two straight hours had consumed.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - peak rank 2 of Martial cultivation

    - early rank 2 of Spiritual cultivation

    Karma - 656

    -----

    Daniel was extremely surprised that it took him only two hours to increase his cultivation from early rank 2 to peak rank 2. Unfortunately, he still had no idea of the rate his karmic system had speeded his cultivation. All he knew was that, before he started cultivating, he had 662 karma points, which meant that, for basic breathing cultivation, he would require to spend 1 point every 20 minutes.

    This had left him ted, as this type of cultivation was effortless and required a very small amount of karma points. Of course, he knew that different methods of cultivation would increase the amount of ki produced, which would likely require longer times to be absorbed.

    When he was about to make an attempt by using a rank 1 beast core, he heard knocking soundsing from his door. At this point, Daniel realized that he had been cultivating for the past two hours, and that he still hadn¡¯t started to pack things up.

    He put his beast cores and manuals back into his backpack, and went to answer the door. Behind it, a couple of men were standing one in front of the other. The one in front was a short and skinny man, while the one in the back was tall and stout. The skinny man had a small triangr face, with a nose so big that it looked out of ce. On his head, a lock of thin hair had been glued to his scalp with the intent of hiding his impending baldness. At the base of his neck, a vicious looking scar that reached from ear to ear could be seen pulsating whenever he breathed in.

    The tall and burly man waspletely bald. His eyes small as a pair of needles, and his neck was so fat that it was indistinguishable where his jaw ended and where his neck started.

    Daniel knew these two men all too well. He had never learned their real names, but he knew that within their organization, they were called Rat and Sweet Cheeks. The skinny man was, of course, Rat.. the reason why the big and fat one was called sweet cheeks, had always been a mystery to him.

    What was more important than the origin of their nicknames, was the fact that these two men worked for the hotel owner to whom he owed his debt.

 Chapter 13 Paying Ones Deb

    "Daniel!" Said Rat with an amicable smile on his face.

    Daniel had no good impressions about these two men. They always came a couple of days before the end of the month, to remind them what would happen to him and his sister in case they wouldn¡¯t be able to pay in time.

    "Cheeks.. Rat.." Daniel had met them many times before, and in time, he had found out how acknowledging Sweet Cheeks first, would always enrage Rat.

    Unfortunately, Rat knew just as well where to hit back. "You are always the same arrogant little shit, ain¡¯t ya.." Said Rat whileughing. He then looked at Daniel attentively and continued "I can¡¯t wait to drag you to the mines.. and have some fun with your pretty sis.."

    Daniel felt his blood boil when he noticed that, while saying hisst remark, Rat had touched himself inbetween his legs, hinting what he meant by ¡¯have some fun with your pretty sis¡¯.

    Happy about hitting where it hurt, Rat added "Remember that the Boss own¡¯s you brat.. Forget the next payment and you¡¯ll see"

    "Why don¡¯t you take me to your boss then.. I already have his money." Retorted Daniel right away.

    Rat¡¯s moment had been ruined, and he wasn¡¯t in the mood to joke around anymore, so he made a serious face and said "Petty thief, you are safe for another month then.. give me the money" He then extended his hand towards Daniel.

    "I think you have misunderstood.. I have all your boss¡¯s money." Said Daniel as a faint smile grew on his face. He then took a small bag out of his backpack, and let a couple of gold coins slide over his palm, showing them to the couple of goons.

    Rat slowly retracted his hand while looking seriously at Daniel. To say that the idea of convincing him to give him the money, like any other monthly payment, and then report to his boss that he had only received 10 silver coins as usual didn¡¯t crossed his mind.. would be to lie.

    Unfortunately, the thought left as fast as it appeared. He knew very well how cunning Daniel was, and even if he feltfortable with cheating him, he would never do that in front of Sweet Cheeks. One had to know that Sweet Cheeks and him weren¡¯t friends, they were partners, and Sweet Cheeks was fiercely loyal to their boss.

    "Alright, let¡¯s go to see the boss then." Rat said, still irritated that Daniel had decided to show him the money in front of Sweet Cheeks.

    -----

    Commoner¡¯s section, 18:12

    Inside arge hotel was a square lounge room. This lounge room had three doors that allowed ess inside. Next to one of these doors was a counter, behind which a young beautiful woman was standing. On the other side of this room, two couches had been ced one facing the other, and inbetween them, was a spotlessly clean coffee table.

    On one of these couches, Daniel was sitting.

    Daniel had been facing one of these three doors for the past ten minutes. He had seen this door open only once, and it was when a burly man hade out to chat with the young woman behind the counter.

    During the few moments in which the door had been opened, before it closed, Daniel noticed that inside the room on the other side of this door, at least two dozens of though looking men were waiting. What startled Daniel was that each and everyone of the men he hadid eyes upon, had negative karma, which made him guess that these men were guards, and that they were waiting for something to happen before storming in and defend their employer.

    While Daniel was worrying about how wise the choice ofing here now had been, therge double door next to the counter suddently opened. Rat came out of the room, looked at Daniel and said "Boss is ready to see you,e in."

    Daniel got up from the couch and walked towards the double door.

    Behind the double door, a long study room extended for at least twenty meters. Arge library covered the entirety of the wall at the far end of the room. Large windows at the right side flushed the entire room with the reddish lights of dusk. Halfway through the room was a coffee table, around which, three chairs had been ced. On one of these chairs Sweet Cheeks was sitting.

    On the far end of the room, right in front of the library, was arge ebony ck desk. Behind this desk, a gentle looking old man was sitting peacefully, sipping tea from a refined looking cup.

    This man seemed to be approaching histe sixties, with smokey grey hair and skin wizened with age. Nevertheless, the shine of his watery blue eyes, removed from the minds of everyone who saw him, the idea that he wasn¡¯t the brutal man that he had been in the past. Behind him, a couple of burly men stood quietly.

    Daniel walked next to Rat until they reached right in front of the desk, then Rat walked back and sat on one of the chairs near Sweet Cheeks.

    "So, you are Dan.. Than¡¯s son.. you look just like him.." Said the old man amiably.

    Daniel was aware that the old man was acquainted with is father, so it wasn¡¯t a surprise for him when he mentioned his name. "I¡¯m here to pay my mother¡¯s debt." Said Daniel, refusing to follow the old man¡¯s topic of conversation.

    "Rash.. it¡¯s a family trait I guess.." Muttered the old man. "Your mother¡¯s debt is 7 gold and 40 silver coins, do you have all of them?"

    Daniel threw the small bag of coins on the desk, right in front of the old man. The old man nodded at one of the goons standing behind him, which then started checking the content of the small bag. As his manfirmed that they were coins, and started counting them, the old man looked at Daniel and said "Have you ever heard about the reason why I was acquainted to your father?.." The smile on his face still present and as amiable as it ever was.

    "If you are mentioning it, it must have meant money for you.. my guess is that you¡¯ll tell me now" Daniel retorted immediately.

    "..It does.. Not just any money, your money." The old man was surprised by the calm attitude Daniel had. Many young men and women, inheritors of their parent¡¯s debt, had stood in front of him, but none was as calm as Daniel was. "Unfortunately, your father and I had a less.. official.. agreement."

    Daniel¡¯s eyes narrowed. He had expected the old man to try to extort more money from him, that is the reason why, noticing the room full of bodyguards, he had felt slightly worried. What he never expected, was for the old man to talk about the dealings he had with his father.

    "Our deal was also.. of a different nature.." The old man took his time, he had learned, after so many years of activity, that one had to make the fish curious before it would take a bite. Meanwhile, the man standing next to the old man had finished counting the coins. He then put the small bag back on the desk and nodded at the old man quietly.

    "Thest payment has been made.. you and your sister have no more reasons to worry about us.." Said the old man, dropping the topic of his father abruptly. He then started to slowly sip on his tea once again.

    Daniel stood in front of the desk for a full minute, and as Rat reached his side and was about to escort him out of the room, he said "Tell me about the deal you had with my father".

    The old man put down the cup, looked at him and then responded "Than came to me, years back.. looking for a ve.."

    "Bullshit!" Said Daniel furiously "My father would never buy a ve!"

    "I never said he wanted to buy one.. he wanted to free one" Retorted the old man while slowly adding a sugar cube to his cup of tea.

    This time, Daniel kept quiet and allowed the old man to finish.

    "The ve your father wanted me to find.. was his younger brother. He had escaped from your family¡¯s ancestral home, when your family was a little more than a couple of brats ying in the mud. Looking for him was the reason your father moved to Phyrri to begin with. When he first came to this city, he saw his brother being sold to a mine baron, which heter learned had a business rtion with me. After that, he came to me." Said the old man, all at once.

    Daniel had heard from his father that he wasn¡¯t a native of Phyrri, that he had moved here only a couple of years before his sister had been born. What he never learned, was why.

    "He got himself killed in war, before I could tell him that I had found his brother..."

    Daniel was shocked about this story. He spent years trying to keep his sister and himself free, without knowing that an uncle they had never heard about, had been working tirelessly in a mine for the past 16 years. He didn¡¯t have much time to enjoy his freedom before a new deal had been ced in front of him.. and he was sure that this deal wouldn¡¯t be any cheaper than thest.

    Of course, Daniel could always refuse to pay for informations regarding this ¡¯unknown uncle¡¯, but the single thought of doing so made him imagine the disappointment his father would feel for him.. A man that had always told him that family was more important than anything else.

    "How much.." He said dispiritedly.

    A sinister smile grew on the old man¡¯s face. "Your father had promised to me 10 gold coins for the information.. but I have kept it for 16 years!.. how do you feel about double?.."

    Daniel¡¯s fists tightened so hard that, if he hadn¡¯t reached the second rank of martial cultivation, his fingernails would have easily pierced his skin. "I don¡¯t have that kind of money.." said Daniel through his gritting teeth.

    "It¡¯s alright, you know I like to help.." Said the old man as his lips opened into a wide smile, showing two rows of slightly yellow teeth. "How about I give you one year.. and you pay 30 gold coins?"

    -----

    *Primary Quest Updated: Freedom for All!*

    -Description: Eradicate very from the world.

    Scond objective set: Find the location of your uncle, and free him.

    Optional: Kill the hotel owner.

    Reward: Karma +750(+1500)

    Failure: Karma -2000

    Time limit: Your uncle will die in 23 years, 9 months and 11 days.

    -----

    After taking a moment to analyze the new quest¡¯s objective, Daniel nodded his head and epted the deal. There was no need to refuse the old man¡¯s proposition, as making money wasn¡¯t as hard to him anymore.

    "I ept, but I want the information now.." Said Daniel firmly while advancing his condition.

    "Very well.. but this time, we¡¯ll make a legal contract. I don¡¯t want to wait twenty more years for another brat toe looking for this useless information." Added the old man.

    After signing the document, and leaving a blood print on it, a letter was given to Daniel, before he was escorted out of the building.

    Once outside of the building, Daniel started examining the content of the letter. Inside it was a sheet of paper, on which a few informations were written.

    -----

    Thien Hiel, 31 years old, sold to the Silver Peak Mining Company when he was 15, for the price of 12 gold 50 silver coins.

    -----

    Daniel put the sheet of paper back into the envelope, and started walking back towards his home in the slums.

 Chapter 14 Moving Ou

    Slums, 21:15

    When Daniel managed to get back to his house in the slums, he noticed the dim lightsing from the windows, and realized that Mea and Re hade back.

    Inside the house, a couple of beautiful girl were sitting at a table, above which, various dishes had been ced.

    "About time! we were starting to think that you wouldn¡¯t be back tonight!" Said Re.

    "Wee back.." Said Mea while giggling shyly. After she had gotten used to Re¡¯s personality in the evening that they had spent together, they quickly became friends.

    "I like how you¡¯ve packed.." Said Re teasingly while indicating at their untouched belongings.

    Daniel smiled, took his cape off and dropped his bag on the ground "Sorry, I had something to settle first." He then took his seat on the table "Did you find a house?" He asked to the two girls.

    "Oh, yes!" Said Re excitedly, she then started listing all the houses they had seen, their prices, and the locations. In the beginning, Daniel wanted a house with at least three rooms, but after learning about his uncle¡¯s situation, he decided to go for arger house.

    Daniel had slowly started to be aware that the ¡¯Freedom for All!¡¯ quest, would not only require him to free people along the road, but also take responsability for them. For example, he had already set Mea free, but because of her belonging to a family used of treason, she would either be killed by bounty hunters or be once again enved if he decided to let her go on her way.

    Provided that he knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to take every person the system will make him help in, he wanted to at least have a chance to, if necessary.

    One thing was for certain, the Karmic system wasn¡¯t free.

    When listening to his sister¡¯s description about the houses they had seen, Daniel noticed the emphasis she had put when describing two of the few house she had listed.

    The first one, was a medium sized house with three bedrooms and a small yard in the front. It was situated near her friend¡¯s houses, and was next to variousmercial roads. Its size was big enough for the three of them to live in, and the price was fairly affordable.

    The second, was a four story building in which an old man lived. The building used to be a small hotel, but after a few financial problems, had been forced to ceace activity. The old man had purchased the building and lived in it ever since, renting the rooms to students. The reason why Re had put emphasis on describing this location, was because it was situated close to her school, and the nearby buildings were the school¡¯s dorms.

    "What do you think Mea?" Daniel said while looking at the girl. He felt slightly odd about the idea of making Mea stay in their house, after all, she didn¡¯t know them that well. Furthermore, Mea had been a ve, and he didn¡¯t want to give her the impression that she wasn¡¯tpletely free, so when he heard about the building with separated rooms, he became fairly excited.

    Re interjected right away "If we take three rooms here, going to school would be much easier.. and all of us would have their own privacy!" Of course, Re had also noticed her brother¡¯s reaction when she mentioned the four story building, so she pressed on it.

    Before Mea could say anything, Daniel said "Sounds nice.. wouldn¡¯t have to sleep in a room filled with the poisonous clouds made by your cook- OUCH! Ssshh.." A underhanded kick on the shinbone interrupted his sentence.

    "Fine! Separate rooms then!.." He feigned indignation while rapidly rubbing his unhurt shin.

    Daniel genuinely wanted to hear Mea¡¯s opinion, but also thought that, if Re had interjected on the subject, she must have had a good reason, and he was right.

    When Re and Mea had spent time together alone, she had noticed that the time spent on the run, not to talk about her being enved, had left a deep scar on her. She didn¡¯t trust other people easily, but she also wasn¡¯t the kind of person who would advance requests if other people¡¯s money was being used. That¡¯s why whenever Re asked for Mea¡¯s opinion when looking at a house, she would simply mention some good qualities about the house, but would never give her true opinion.

    After dropping the conversation, the three started to eat dinner.

    Half an hourter, the two girls started chatting amongst themselves, while Daniel sat quietly on a corner. "You girls should go to bed early tonight, we¡¯ll move tomorrow. Mea, you can sleep on Re¡¯s bed, she¡¯ll sleep on mine"

    "Where will you sleep?" Re asked.

    Daniel looked at her and responded "I have something to do, I don¡¯t know how long it will take, don¡¯t worry about me."

    "Fine, but don¡¯t you dare act tired tomorrow just to make us hold the bags!!"

    As the girls stood up and prepared to go to bed "Mea, can I talk to you for a moment?" Daniel said.

    Mea walked towards him, and as she was about to talk.. "You¡¯ve told me your father was a powerful martial cultivator.. he must have had plenty of knowledge about it, right?"

    Mea had been taken by surprise, but sheposed herself right away and nodded her head firmly.

    "Have you ever learned martial cultivation from your father?" He asked with eyes filled with hope.

    Mea¡¯s eyes shed with a bit of sadness when she remembered about the time she spent with her father.. After a few moments, she looked at Daniel and responded with a simple "Yes."

    Daniel didn¡¯t want to beat around the bush, so he simply asked "Have you ever heard about a ¡¯perfect¡¯ state between stages?"

    A surprised look appeared on Mea¡¯s face once more. She had in fact heard about the ¡¯perfect state¡¯ from her father.

    The perfect state was a second stratum of refining of the body through Ki. A person at the perfect state would have a much deeper foundation, perfecting their bodies to a point where their battle prowess was near that of a next stage practitioner.

    The idea of perfecting their bodies interested many practitioners of old, but unfortunately, it wasn¡¯t easy to reach. The problem wasn¡¯t talent or resources.. the problem was time. In fact, refining one¡¯s body to the perfect stage would take years. Years which practitioners weren¡¯t willing to spend stuck at the same stage.

    After tens of thousands of years, most records had been lost about this subject, and as reaching perfection of the stage turned into a simple matter of increasing one¡¯s battle prowess, the practice had lost people¡¯s interest and had been slowly given up.

    Mea exined everything she had heard from her father about this subject to Daniel, and then she went to bed.

    "What is the point of reaching the perfect state if all it does is increasing my battle prowess.. and why would the system reward me with so many points for reaching it.." A series of questions rushed into Daniel¡¯s mind as he quietly sat in a corner of the living room. "No point thinking about it now.." He muttered.

    One thing that Daniel had learned from Mea, was that the perfect state is an optional sub-stage in between major stages, so there was no need for him to worry about it now, since he was still at the peak of the second rank.

    What left Daniel slightly excited was that, when thinking at the timeline that the quest had give him to reach the perfect stage, he had realized that, the fact that the system had only given him an additional month for reaching it, meant that it wouldn¡¯t take him a full month to reach it if he wanted to.

    In a good mood, Daniel took a few rank 1 beast cores from his bag and started to attempt a breakthrough to the third rank. His intention was to kept cultivating using beast cores for the whole night.

    Sitting quietly with two rank 1 beast cores on his hands, he started to absorb them, and direct the raging beast essence towards his bones.

    After a full hour, Daniel finally managed to break through the early vasodtion sub-stage. Two more hourster, he had reached the mid rank 3, and when the first lights of the morning started to shine through the windows, five hourster, he was at thete third rank.

    The difference between Daniel¡¯s body before and now was abysmal. The more he cultivated, the easier it was for him to produce ki and to make it circte through his body.

    Daniel checked the content of his bag and noticed that he had consumed two thirds of his beast cores, while the eight straight hours of cultivation had made his karma points drop from 656 to 416.

    After making the calction, Daniel had realized that cultivating with beast cores consumed ten times the amount of karma pointspared to cultivating without.

    Naturally, Daniel had also felt the difference between the two types of cultivation. Cultivating with beast cores forced the beast essence inside one¡¯s body in an aggressive manner. One required to direct the foreign form of power and use it to refine their bodies.

    The difference between the two was like the difference between tempering your body underneath a gentle stream of water, and a raging waterfall. Thetter would be much more efficient, but also more dangerous, while the former was safe but far slower.

    Daniel didn¡¯t feel any sort of weakness from spending all night cultivating. In fact, whenever he advanced, he would feel his body be stronger than ever.

    While he waited for Mea and his sister to wake up, he decided to prepare breakfast.

    As the first street noises started to reach the insides of Daniel¡¯s house, the two sleepy looking girls came out of the room while still wearing pajamas. The two looked sleepy for two different reasons.

    Re had slept peacefully, while Mea had barely managed to close her eyes for the entire night.

    After breakfast, the three went to a nearby bath house to clean themselves. They then headed back home and started packing their belongings.

    -----

    Commoner¡¯s section, 11:58

    A small group of three was walking on the busy streets. Two of them were beautiful girls, while the third was an unfortunate young man, which currently had a bag two times his size strapped on his back.

    "Are you sure it¡¯s this way?" Asked Daniel

    She turned towards him and.. "Are you asking me if i¡¯ve forgotten where my school is?!" She asked back, slightly irritated.

    Daniel, startled by her irritated tone, said "Alright, calm down.. it¡¯s just that there is a lot of people around giving you two weird looks" Daniel had learned his sister¡¯s weak point. Whenever he made her angry, he would simply need to throw a subtlepliment to her looks, and then she would usually calm down.

    He was right, as Re looked at him sideways.. her eyelids so thin that they almost looked like they were closed.. and then she slowly calmed down. "I think they are staring at you.. and how weird you look with that huge bag behind your back" She scoffed. "Why did you even insisted to take all the stuff yourself.. are you trying to steal a mule¡¯s job?"

    "Ha ha ha, very funny.. if you used half of the effort you spend on thinking of ways to mock me into your sense of direction, I wouldn¡¯t have toe pick you up from school so damn often.. or at least we would have arrived already.." Daniel retorted sarcastically.

    "Fine! We are here!" She said while throwing her hands in the air.

    What stood in front of the three, was arge four story building. The building had a rectangr shape, which expanded in width more than in height. Its white stone walls were so smooth that they looked like they had been carved from one immense boulder. Long balconies could be seen connecting every room from outside of the building, and decorating the frontal wall, were hundreds of rosewood boards ced vertically, diagonally and horizontally. The number of windows visible from the outside, suggested that, either each room had more than one window, or the former hotel contained arge amount of rooms. Above the fourth floor, a gable roof extended through the entire building, covering itpletely.

    At the ground floor, an impressive looking double door stood above a short set of wooden steps.

 Chapter 15 The Building Owner

    "Woah.. an impressive building.." Said Daniel with a surprised look on his face.

    As Re was about to boast about her capabilities, the double door swung open. From behind it, a serious looking old man came out.

    This old man had a head full of grey thick brushed back hair, and a well kept full beard. The old signs of age on the man¡¯s face betrayed his real age, which approached his mid seventies, but made him look like a man in his mid fifties. His back, differently from most people of his age, was straight as an arrow. The look on his face was serious and dignified, almost as if he didn¡¯t appreciate the intrusion. His eyes were sharp as swords, and of a deep indistinguishable color, with shades spanning from light grey and dark green. Ironically, the old man¡¯s eye color betrayed his age more than his skin or hair color did.

    Every single detail on this old man made the three guess that, when he was younger, he had been an extremely handsome man.

    Re was the first to talk "Good afternoon Sir, we are back.." She said with a smile on her face.

    The old man didn¡¯t respond, he simply looked at the two girls and then his eyes stopped on Daniel. His sharp eyes narrowed slightly, and after a few moments, he finally said "..Very well.. follow me to pick your rooms.." He then turned around and moved back inside the building.

    The three followed him, and as they entered, Mea and Re kept an eye on Daniel¡¯s reaction. And for a good reason.

    As expected, Daniel¡¯s jaw dropped when he saw the insides of the building. The ce didn¡¯t look like a dismissed hotel, it actually looked like a fully working one.

    The entire hall was enlightened by therge chandeliers, with lights of various sizes that flooded the room with a bright sunlight of magic nature. Various sets of refined yetfortable couches surrounded just as many coffee tables, from which small nters had been carved in the middle. These carved nters contained clean dirt partially covered in grass, and a few different types of flowers. Each table had differentbinations of unique looking flowers which made every booth different from the other.

    Before heading straight to the rooms, the old man patiently showed the three to the lobby, the kitchen, the training grounds, cultivation rooms, and utilities.

    After the three picked their rooms, the old man left the three without saying a word.

    "Re, did you pay him already?" Asked Daniel.

    Re looked at him and responded "Not yet, want to do the honors?" She said before throwing the small bag of coins back at Daniel "When we came the first time, he said that it was 1 gold coin each per month" she added befire going back into unpacking her belongings.

    The low prices of their rooms had slightly surprised Daniel. Provided that this was themoner¡¯s section of the working district, the ce was oddly refined. Daniel had guessed that the building hadn¡¯t been in this condition before the old man bought it.

    After unpacking his belongings, Daniel left his room and started looking for the old man.

    A little more than three hours had passed since the old man had left the three alone, and Daniel had decided to look for the old man in the lobby, as that was the most likely ce to find him. When he reached the lobby, what he found wasn¡¯t the old man, but a group of young looking people.

    Each one of these young men and women looked to be in their early twenties, and all of their attires looked refined, yet different. They were sitting on the couches and chatting.

    Some of them had greatswords strapped on their back, while others had sheathed longswords, rapiers and daggers hanging from their belts, a couple of girls who were wearing the same outfit were holding two heavy looking folding fans, one held hers closed within her folded arms, while the other kept it opened and used it to fan her face slowly, while some of the people in the group were even unarmed.

    The dynamics of this group of young men were unclear to Daniel. Some of these people were cordially talking to eachother, some looked to be on the verge of starting a fight, and there were even some men pestering young women and viceversa.

    One thing that all of these people had inmon, was a clear pride that grew a few meters taller than their heads.

    Daniel curiously looked at the top of their heads and noticed that most of them had a neutral or slightly negative karma. He had guessed that these young men and women were the proud children of powerful organizations and by being nurtured by their groups, they didn¡¯t have enough chances to do anything that would grant them a good karma.

    "..we¡¯ve been here for half an hour already.."

    "Exactly, just half an hour!.. why can¡¯t you just be patient?.."

    ...

    "..he was fired! Why is he acting so high and mighty anyway?"

    "Idiot, why don¡¯t you ask him in person?.. we¡¯ll drag your decapitated body back to that shit hole you call a school! He he he"

    "HOW DARE YOU! You bitch!"

    ...

    "..and we could be together.. if you epted my sect¡¯s marriage proposal.."

    "And why the hell should his family mix with your sect? We¡¯ve known eachother much longer.. he should ept ours instead"

    ...

    A loud buzz of conversation was filling the lobby.

    As Daniel was still wondering what this loud group of people might be doing here, he was noticed by a young man at the edge of the crowd.

    This young man had a clean buzz cut and a faint scar which appeared parallel to his left eyebrow. His clothes were of a simple kind, but of a high quality. On his chest he wore a thin leather armor, marked with the beautiful carving of a tree on the right side of his chest. Underneath the leather armor he wore a long sleeved ck shirt and a pair of vambraces covered his forearms. His long pants were tucked inside of a pair of boots of the same color as the leather armor.

    The young man had fairly good looks and was one of the few who wasn¡¯t carrying a weapon.

    "Hey! There is someone there!"

    The entire crowd quietened and looked towards Daniel.

    The first to talk was one of the two women that were holding a folding fan. Unfolding her arms, she pointed her closed folding fan towards Daniel "Servant,e here" She said in a domineering tone.

    Daniel¡¯s face didn¡¯t change in the slightest. He simply turned around and started heading back from the way he came, when.. "Hey! How dare you ignore me!!" She shouted angrily.

    "..there she goes again.."

    "We should stop, shouldn¡¯t we?"

    "Nah, if she want to waste her chances because of her bad attitude.. so be it."

    The buzz of conversation started once more as the young woman got up from her seat, and started heading towards Daniel with a face filled with anger.

    It didn¡¯t take long for the girl to approach Daniel, and after lifting her hand, she swung it down towards Daniel¡¯s face.

    What the girl didn¡¯t expect, unfortunately, was that this servant would avoid the p, making her misspletely.

    "Hahahaha! LOOK! It¡¯s the legendary tique of the Folding Crane School! Fly Swatting p! Hahaha!" Said a young woman in the crowd, who¡¯s group apparently didn¡¯t have a good rtionship with the Folding Crane School.

    Some of the group of young men and womenughed at the girl¡¯s derisive remark, while other had an embarassed look on their faces.

    The faces of the two girls holding folding fans turned as red as apples. "How dare you embarass me in front of everybody! I¡¯ll cut your head for this!" Said the girl that had previously missed Daniel.

    She then unfolded her fan and as she was about to attack Daniel with it, the young man in leather armor held her by her wrist and said "Alright alright.. calm down.. do I need to remind you where we are?"

    The girl was truly enraged, and being stopped by someone when trying to regain face for her school had made her even agrier. "Let go of me!.." She shouted while trying time after time to free herself from the man¡¯s hand, but that was all for naught. The young man was an experienced martial artist, and all the young woman¡¯s hits had been easily parried or evaded.

    After no less than two minutes of failed attempts, the young woman finally calmed down.

    Noticing the changes in the young woman¡¯s temperament, the young man in leather armor let go of her hand. The girl then threw a deadly re at Daniel and walked back towards her group, sitting back to her ce.

    The young man in leather armor turned towards Daniel and said "Forgive her for her rude words, can you tell us where your master is?"

    Daniel didn¡¯t have a problem with talking with this group of people, but he didn¡¯t want to be treated as a servant. Considering the much more polite demeanor of the young man, Daniel decided to answer him.

    "I am nobody¡¯s servant, and I don¡¯t know who you mean by master." Said Daniel.

    The answer caught the young man and the rest of the group by surprise. "Aren¡¯t you a servant working for the old man who owns this building?" Said a burly looking young man with a greatsword strapped to his back.

    "I am not, I have just rented three rooms, and i¡¯ll be staying here with my sisters." Responded Daniel.

    The faces of everyone present twisted in confusion. Various small groups formed as the buzz of conversation started once more.

    "Do you know where the old man is?" Asked a tall and handsome young man with long hair, who had previously been pestered by various girls into epting the marriage proposal advanced from their groups.

    "No idea." Answered Daniel to the handsome looking man.

    The man in the leather armor looked at the group and shrugged his shoulders while saying "Let¡¯s just wait."

    "There is no need" Said a powerful voice resounded through the entire lobby.

    Its origin couldn¡¯t be distinguished, but all people present felt a shiver run down their spine when they heard it. Daniel had recognized it as the voice of the old man, owner of the building.

    "Sir, our groups have heard that you have taken in disciples recently. We were wondering if you would consider us.." Said the handsome young man while bowing his head.

    There was no answer.

    Minutes passed one after the other, and as the handsome looking young man was about to talk again, the one with the leather armor stopped him. After the handsome looking young man noticed who had stopped him, he quietly turned towards the young man wearing the leather armor. One could guess that the two crearly had a good rtionship.

    The young man in leather armor looked at the handsome looking man and said "I don¡¯t think he has taken in any disciples.. All of our forces received the news that three teenagers had entered the building about three hours ago.. My guess is that this little guy and his sisters are the three teenagers.. And that they are here as.. well.. new tenants."

    The hadsome young man¡¯s eyes opened wide "You are telling me that the previous Master at Arms of Karalis, after retirement, simply bought a building in themoner¡¯s section and is looking for tenants!?!" He asked with clear disbelief in his tone.

    Every other conversation stopped as everyone within therge group looked at the pair of young men. Their eyes growing bigger by the second. Disbelief stered on their faces. A very few members of the group weren¡¯t as surprised, as they had had the same guess as the young man in leather armor.

    After a few minutes, the looks of surprise turned into pensive expressions.. and as most of them seemed to be in the midst of taking a decision within their minds, the young man in leather armor said in a low voice "Sir.. is it possible to rent a room?"

 Chapter 16 Master at Arms

    "Sir.. is it possible to rent a room?"

    The echo of the words pronounced by the young man in leather armor reverberated through the enormous hall, leaving everybody faces, Daniel¡¯s included, contorted in a mix of astonishment and surprise.

    Quietness reigned in the hall for a few moments until, one voice after the other, started to resound.

    "I would like to rent a room as well.."

    "Sir, please take us in.."

    "Me too please!.."

    Daniel had hundreds of unanswered questions in his mind.

    Apparently, the old man had retired from being the Master at Arms of Karalis two years ago. Being a powerful cultivator and an expert in many sorts of weapons, he had instructed various of the highest ranking officers within the kingdom, and even members of the royal family. After retiring he decided to purchase the hotel.

    His actions didn¡¯t go unnoticed, as many powerful forces had located him within the city of Phyrri. The Master at Arms was an excellent teacher, and his ability to nurture the weapon mastery and character of his disciples had been so widely known, that many powerful forces tried to rope him into their groups.

    The Master at Arms was one of the instructors of the royal pce, so none of these powers were capable of forcing him to join them. The only viable alternative was to send their prodigies to him and let them be shaped by the teachings of this powerful figure. They would then return to their forces and learn their families¡¯, sects¡¯ and schools¡¯s signature arts.

    Two long years had passed since the old man had purchased the hotel, and yet many talented members of the younger generation had been rejected. The reason had always been that the Master at Arms refused to take in any disciple.

    When all these powerful forces were starting to consider this as the end of this old monster¡¯s career, a young man and two young women had been allowed in the hotel by the Master at Arms himself.

    The news spread like wildfire. All the cultivators ced to monitor the old man¡¯s actions, reported to their factions immediately. Their response was to send their most talented disciples and hope for them to be epted as well.

    The thirty young men and women within the group, were members of some of Phyrri¡¯s factions, and If Daniel hadn¡¯t left the lobby, he would have seen them arrive one after the other.

    Suddenly, a simr but calmer voice than the previous, was heard from behind the group "The rent is one gold coin each month."

    As the group turned around and noticed the old man standing behind them, they collectively bowed to him deeply.

    "Get up! I¡¯m not your teacher, i¡¯m your Landlord!" Said the old man in a slightly annoyed tone, before walking towards the stairs and starting to exin. "Go pick a room, then leave the payme.." The exnation of the building¡¯s utilities was the same as the one Daniel, Re and Mea had received.

    It was at that moment that Daniel realized. He hadn¡¯t simply rented three rooms inside a dismissed hotel, owned by a solitary old man.. he had paid the membership for a martial arts school started by a retired monster.

    That was only partially true.

    Provided that the school wasn¡¯t an official one, and that the old man never promised any teaching, the reason why he had purchased the hotel and had had training grounds built in it, was to start a sort of school, in which anyone could join.

    He was tired of teaching to proud children of powerful factions. He hoped to find disciples with no backing and good morale to which he could impart his teachings, and that they would then pass these teaching to others in the future.

    For two years he had waited, until one day, a couple of young girls arrived at his door.

    One of them was forthright and of a good nature. He liked this type of people the most, and every time he tried to shape the character of one of his disciples, he would try to turn them into this kind of people.

    The second girl, to his stupor, was the young mistress of the Rulin house, and daughter of one of his first and most sessful disciples, the master of the Rulin house, Der¡¯hor Rulin.

    The old man had always felt guilty about not being able to prevent the extermination of the Rulin house. He had been their master¡¯s teacher, and had imparted morale and strength of character to him. To believe that he would defect to another kingdom, that was bullshit.. pure and simple.

    The two young girls looked for a ce to stay. That was when he decided that the two would be the starting point of his school.

    -----

    Two dayster.

    The past two days had been chaotic. Every day, a few young cultivators would arrive at the hotel and ask to be taken as disciples. But after receiving a clean rejection, they would almost always try to rent a room.

    It was clear that most of them had been warned that the only option to stay, was to rent a room and bing one of the building¡¯s tenants.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t too happy about it, but he had to admit that, having this building all for themselves, was simply unrealistic. Somebody else was bound toe. He just didn¡¯t expect so many people toe so soon.

    In the past couple of days, Daniel had managed to reach the peak of the vasodtion sub-stage, but before he could break through, he had finished his beast cores.

    What was left of the 20 gold coins that he had received from the auction, after paying for their debt and for the rooms, was less than a half.

    Daniel knew what he needed to do. He needed to hunt for more powerful beasts and sell their cores. He needed more resources to breakthrough, and in order to obtain more resources, he required money. But before doing that.. he needed to learn how to use weapons.

    He had the strength, but he couldn¡¯t go around hunting for rank 3 beast with a rock in his hand.

    Daniel knew nothing about weapons, so all he could do was go by his needs, and what he needed was a weapon for distance and a weapon for close rangebat.

    Without thinking about it too much, he headed towards the training grounds.

    The training grounds were none other than an enormous backyard separated into four sections. The first section had various square rings whose sides were attached, making it possible for it to be used as a singlerge stage. The second section had numerous practice dummies, and weapon racks furnished with all kinds of wooden and regr weapons, were ced all around. The third, was filled with different instruments to enhance the body strength and endurance. Ultimately, thest section contained various obstacle courses and structures to practice one¡¯s agility and equilibrium.

    After reaching the training grounds, what surprised Daniel was that the ce waspletely filled with people. Most of the young men and women that had arrived in thest two days were here, and of the first thirty people, none were missing.

    Some of them were practicing the basics, others were sparring, and some were even trying their techniques against wooden dummies.

    These practice dummies, like the chandeliers, had been magically enchanted. No matter the damage they received, they would rapidly repair themselves in just a few seconds.

    Daniel found a free corner and sat on the ground. He then took a book out of his backpack, and started reading.

    Those who noticed his actions were slightly annoyed, but when they noticed what book he was reading, their faced changed, contorted into a mixture of outrage and disdain.

    The book that Daniel was reading was called -The Very Basics of Swordy- and was the most basic manual of practicing the sword. Amongst these young cultivators, every single sword wielder had studied this book right after learning how to read.

    Daniel immersed himself in reading the manual, and after an hour and a half, he closed it and got up on his feet. He then started walking towards the weapon rack.

    After reaching the weapon rack, he took a practice sword and went back to his corner. He then started to slowly practice the basics of swordsmanship.

    When the various cultivators noticed Daniel awkwardness when practicing the basics of the sword, they lost interest in him and focused back on their training.

    Nobody was paying attention to Daniel anymore.

    Time slowly passed as Daniel stayed in his corner. What nobody had noticed, were the changes in his mastery. In fact, if one were to look closely, they would notice that, after just 10 sets, Daniel had be used to the feel of the sword. After 25 sets, his motions hardly contained any mistake, and after 25 more, he had mastered the basics of the swordsmanship described by the book.

    After less than three hours, Daniel had mastered how to hold the sword, the various stances and a few types of simple attacks.

    When Daniel was about to stop, the eyes of some of the present ended on him, and when they noticed his level of swordsmanship, the disdain on their faces became deeper than ever. Everyone who had looked at him had thought that he had simply pretended to be just starting to learn swordsmanship, and that he wanted to appear as a prodigy in front of the old man.

    In their minds, that was the only exnation that made sense.

    Before they could manage to send a few insults, or even start a fight with him, their eyes opened to an unnatural degree and their backs straightened like a set of brooms.

    Behind Daniel, the old man had appeared out of thin air, and was standing quietly.

    Daniel had finished his practice, as he didn¡¯t find any purpose in training further with the basics of the sword. When he was about to turn around to head back to the weapon rack, he noticed the unsettled looks on the faces of the others. But he rapidly noticed that these looks weren¡¯t directed at him.

    He slowly turned around and found the old man standing behind him.

    "Old man, need something?.." Said Daniel

    A proverbial ton of bricks fell on the heads of everyone present.

    The face of the old man was unchanged, his right arm still behind his back while the other raised in front of his chest, apanying his hand into a slow brushing of his beard. He looked like he was pondering something.

    After a few moments of silence, Daniel added "Okay.. well.. I have to go now, if you need something you-" before stopping.

    The old man¡¯s right arm started moving from behind his back, and when he moved it in front of him, Daniel saw that it was holding a book and halberd.

    The old man¡¯s action¡¯s surprised Daniel greatly. Not only because the old man had taken a weapon and a book from behind his back, but because the halberd was at least two and a half meters tall, standing much higher than the old man. How the old man managed to hide it behind his body, was a mystery to him.

    Looking at the young man in front of him, the old man stopped brushing his beard and finally said "I¡¯ll give you 5 hours.. learn how to use this halberd.. and you won¡¯t need to pay your rent for two months.." His low, yet powerful voice reached every corner of the training grounds.

    Daniel¡¯s face changed immediately.. two gold coins in exchange of 5 hours of training, that wasn¡¯t an opportunity he was willing to let go.

    "Deal." He responded calmly.

    He took the halberd from the old man¡¯s hand and put it on the ground, he then grabbed the book and started reading through its pages. The title of the book was -Basic Guide on Polearms Training-

    Before starting to study the book¡¯s content, he thought "Sewah, mind activating the system for me once again.."

 Chapter 17 I Dont Need a Teacher

    "Sewah, mind activating the system for me once again.."

    After epting the old man¡¯s conditions, Daniel started to study the basics of polearms wielding.

    Two hourster, he picked up the halberd from the ground, and started to practice the basic moves, body movements and familiarize with the weapon.

    To the eyes of the spectating group of people that had gathered around the two, what Daniel was doing was acting.

    Inside the old man¡¯s mind, different thoughts had started to form. He was torn between two possibilities. The first, was that Daniel was a prodigy, capable of learning the use of weapons a hundred times faster than a normal person.. while the second, was that he had been pretending.

    He had reasons to believe both of these possibilities to be false. For example, such a speed in learning the use of weapons was unheard of. Provided that one was a genius and understood perfectly the theory behind the basics of weapon wielding.. they would still need practice to get used to the weight and maneuverability of the weapon.

    Regarding his second hypothesis, Daniel, in order to be able to fool him by pretending to be a beginner, would not only need to have mastered the use of the sword, but also reached a perfect mastery of its most advanced stages.

    That is why he had given him the halberd and the beginner manual for polearms. He believed that, if he was a true prodigy, he would have been able to see stunning results from Daniel¡¯s brief training. He was also certain that, even if Daniel had been a master in the use of the sword, he wouldn¡¯t have had the time to master two different weapons to such a level.

    The old man¡¯s face was as calm as ever, and he quietly stood with his eyes glued to Daniel.

    The young men and women that had been practicing in the training grounds were now surrounding the two, and discussing quietly.

    "What¡¯s the point of this test.. most of us mastered the basics of various weapons.."

    "The brat is just boasting.. we all could pretend to be beginners and to be learning something we already know at an amazing speed.."

    Most of them were convinced that Daniel had been cheating the old man, but there were a few, hidden within the group, that were looking attentively at Daniel. They had been warned by their powers that the old man hardly showed attention to untalented disciples, and that it was almost impossible to be fooled.

    Amongst these few people, were the young man in leather armor, the handsome young man with long hair, and the girl with the folding fan that apanied the one who had attacked Daniel.

    The two young men approached the girl, and the handsome young man said to her "Riri, what do you think?.."

    The girl turned around and noticed the two young men standing behind her. She then answered "You use the rapier.. that¡¯s an unusual weapon. Do you have a manual for it?"

    "I have stopped practicing the basics years ago.." He said before turning towards the young man in leather armor "Nilo, do you have a manual of martial arts to test him with?"

    Nilo, the young man in leather armor, said "Let¡¯s first see how he handles the halberd.." His eyes bright and curious.

    One would imagine a martial artist like Nilo to be more direct and impulsive, but that wasn¡¯t him. He had always been cautious, and tried to observe the situation before acting. It was by observing the situation that he had befriended the handsome young man with long hair.

    A few years back, he was roaming the kingdom, when he had heard sudden screamsing from a nearby ce. After reaching the source of the noise, he saw a young man attacking a woman. This woman had fairly good looks, but woremoner¡¯s clothes. She had a terrified look on her face, and her cries for help sounded desperate. In front of her, stood a young man wielding a thin one-meter long sword.

    One would immediately think that the woman had been in danger, and that the young man had ill intentions, but he didn¡¯t act right away. He observed, and noticed that the young man¡¯s back had a ck spot which stained his otherwise spotlessly clean white shirt. He had also noticed that his breath was weak, his hair disheveled, and his legs were shaking.

    After noticing the young martial artist, the handsome young man had told him to ¡¯stay away, for his own good¡¯ That had made him curious about the woman, so he observed her attentively and noticed that her hands were a little too smooth, without the slightest sign to testify a rough life. In his mind, a thought formed.. how did this woman escape a younger and trained man?

    In the end, he had learned that the woman was an assassin, sent by the Purple Leaf sect, a known assassin sect, with the mission of assassinating the handsome young man.

    After realizing that the handsome young man wasn¡¯t threatening him, but was instead trying to preventing him from getting into this mess instead, he decided to treat his injuries. They then traveled together, and became friends.

    His instinct were telling him, once again, that he needed to observe before judging.

    Half an hour had passed since Daniel had finished studying the manual. His progress were rapidly witnessed by the old man and the crowd.

    Daniel had found the halberd slightly more difficult to get used to. Its weight was bigger, and it had to be bnced on a much longer shape. It also required him to use both hands to wield it, which required him to have a better control of his body.

    But no matter how much more difficult it was, after ten repetitions he still got used to the new weapon. After 30, he hardly made any mistake and after 50 more, his movements looked like the physical interpretation of the manual.

    In the crowd, next to Riri, the other fan wielding girl had appeared. "He is clearly faking it.. it¡¯s just the basics. Three months would be enough for us to master them as well." She said, with a hint of anger in her voice. "I bet the old man is just humoring the brat out of boredom."

    "Nobody is forcing you to stay here, Miri" Said the handsome young man.

    "You!!.. mhh" She then turned around and left.

    Riri looked at him and said "You¡¯ll never get over it, will you?.. Finn" Her eyes rolled with annoyance before she focused back into looking at Daniel.

    A few minutester, the five hours timeline had ended. Daniel was facing the old man. In his hands, the manual and the halberd.

    "I bet he¡¯ll p him into smithereens.."

    "He he.. Maybe he¡¯ll give him another weapon"

    As Daniel was about to hand the weapon and the book back to their owner, the old man turned towards the crowd and said "A manual of martial arts basics in exchange for assisting to one of your training sessions."

    Before the words of the old man ended, Nilo¡¯s arm was already up.

    Every single pair of eyes within the crowd shed in realization. The martial artists amongst the crowd started to bite their own teeth in regret.. They had missed a chance.

    The old man looked at Nilo and nodded at him.

    Nilo walked amongst the crowd and reached the old man, he then presented himself while bowing "Nilo Grea, fifteenth generation disciple of the school of the Swift Palm of Oppression."

    He then took a book out of his backpack and handed it over to the old man.

    The old man took notice of Nilo¡¯s rapid response. He appreciated attentive and cautious people. He had had many of these kinds of disciples in the past, and whenever he could, he tried to shape their cunning into avoiding problems, instead of creating them.

    After taking the manual off his hands, he looked at Daniel once more and said "Same deal.. 3 hours.. a year of free rent.." Said the old man while brushing his grey beard.

    "A year added to the previous two months?" Inquired Daniel while narrowing his eyes slightly.

    The corner of the old man¡¯s lips curved into a faint smile that disappeared the very next moment. "That¡¯s right" he responded.

    "Deal!" Said Daniel excitedly.

    The old man had been surprised by Daniel¡¯s talent. Mastering two different kinds of weapons to that level, at his age, was nigh impossible. He was almost certain that Daniel was an unheard of prodigy, and him learning the basics of martial arts, would confirm his guess.

    Martial arts and weapons were hardly skills learned together. One¡¯s body evolved to perfect the use of the practitioner¡¯s weapon of choice, or practiced martial art.

    Daniel could have been a master with different kinds of weapons, but him being capable in martial arts as well was like expecting a swimmer, who¡¯s strongest parts of the body were shoulders, back and arms, to also be a great runner, whose main focus was strengthening the legs.

    It is important to understand that, in order to break through from the muscle strengthening stage,

    one didn¡¯t require to increase the mass of his muscles. One simply had to refine their existing muscles through the use of ki.

    Daniel had never practiced any martial art, nor had he shaped his muscles through the use of weapons. His body had always been lean and agile, perfect for a pickpocketer and petty thief such as himself.

    The manual of martial arts which Nilo had given to the old man, was the basic of amonly known martial art called -True Motion-, and it was a martial art that, if properly learned, would help practitioners to avoid most unnecessary movements.

    The basics of -True Motion- simply pointed out the correct ways of walking, running and breathing. It also pointed out the mostmonly made mistakes during these actions.

    Daniel finished reading the very limited yet detailed information contained within the manual in just forty minutes. He then sat on the ground and started to practice the correct way of breathing.

    His karma points kept on slowly decreasing as he breathed in and out. He didn¡¯t require the system¡¯s help to learn how to do something. What the system was useful for was getting used to what he learned.

    For example, one could see the correct way of writing a letter when learning how to write, but they would need practice to get their hands used to the swift motions. What Daniel¡¯s system did, was to interact with his ability to correct his own mistakes, and help him avoid making them in the future.

    Breathing was a natural action for human beings, and easy to control, so it didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to perfect his breathing. Ten minutes after he started to practice following the -True Motion- instructions, his breath had already be stable, and a few more minutester, the correct way of breathing had be natural to him.

    The same happened for his way of walking and running. His natural agility had helped him in perfecting his motion, and the karmic system had helped him in rapidly getting used to the recently learned correct ways.

    Two hours after Daniel had started to practice the basics of -True Motion- and he had alreadypletely mastered its teachings. The natural way in which Daniel had used the correct way walking when approaching the old man had surprised the entire crowd greatly. The old man was no exception.

    When Daniel stopped, he was standing right in front of the old man. The old man looked at him carefully, his hand still brushing his grey beard. After minutes of quietly observing Daniel, he finally opened his mouth and said "Brat, how do you feel about bing my student?"

    Daniel looked back at the old man, and without giving him the slightest bit of face, he said "I don¡¯t need a teacher"

 Chapter 18 The Huntsmen Guild

    "I don¡¯t need a teacher"

    Before the crowd could process the shock of witnessing the old man proposing to Daniel to be his student, his rapid response had forced them into quietness.. For the next minute, the silence was deafening.

    The old man had been left speechless. From his point of view, Daniel had no reason to refuse. He was a prodigy in need of a teacher who could shape him into a great warrior, but he had been quickly rejected.

    The reason of Daniel¡¯s unexpected rejection, was only known to him. While the crowd believed that Daniel was just a conman who had struck gold, and the old man believed him to be an undiscovered prodigy, the truth was much simpler.

    Daniel had ran out of karma points to spend.

    It was at the end of the practice with the basics of -True Motion- that Sewah had suggested that he should avoid epting any other challenge, as he was almostpletely out of karma points.

    After Sewah¡¯s warning, Daniel checked his profile.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - peak rank 3 of Martial cultivation

    - early rank 2 of Spiritual cultivation

    Karma - 99

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s profile had an overall change. His karma points had drastically decreased, his rank had been upgraded to the peak rank 3 of martial cultivation, andst but not least, new informations had appeared on his profile.

    "Masteries.. details?" Just as Daniel thought about the details of his masteries, the profile window expanded, and a set of additional informations appeared on it.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - peak rank 3 of Martial cultivation

    - early rank 2 of Spiritual cultivation

    Karma - 99

    -----

    Weapon Masteries:

    Swords: 1% (Details)

    Polearms: 3% (Details)

    -----

    After noticing the details of his masteries, a shiver run down Daniel¡¯s back.

    From the details given, he believed the karmic system to be capable of including every single martial art, weapon, and possibly even magic, into the wielder¡¯s percentage of mastery. For curiosity, he thought about the details of his polearms masteries, and a new window appeared.

    -----

    Polearms 3%

    ded Polearms: 10%

    Thrusting Polearms: 0%

    Staffs: 0%

    -----

    All this happened during the few seconds it took for Daniel to approach the old man, right after he had finished learning True Motion¡¯s basics.

    When the old man proposed to be his teacher, all he could do was refuse, because if the old man decided to start his teachings right away, he wouldn¡¯t be able to show the same level of results.

    What he needed now, was to spend hisst few karma points into learning how to use a throwing weapon, and hunt for more beast cores.

    He didn¡¯t have an immediate need for money right now, and he would have dly stayed in the hotel to master the use of every weapon he could find, but he had some pressing matters to take care of. Like finding his uncle, who was currently being forced into very in the city¡¯s mines.. or obtain enough resources to reach the perfect stage of the Body Strengthening Stage.

    In front of everyone¡¯s unbelieving eyes, Daniel bowed towards the old man, and left the training ground. After twelve straight hours of training, he needed to sleep.

    The next day, Daniel went back to training ground.

    As always, arge number of young men and women were practicing with their weapons arts martial arts.

    The moment Daniel stepped into the training grounds, various sets of eyes moved on him. He ignored the stares and started walking towards the weapon racks.

    Many were caught by surprise once again when they noticed the type of weapon Daniel had picked.

    What was in Daniel¡¯s hand, was a small set of throwing knives.

    Daniel¡¯s weapon of choice for rangedbat, were throwing knives, and he had two simple reasons for it. The first, was that he didn¡¯t need a manual to learn how to throw knives, as everyone was capable of learning with enough practice. The second reason, was that throwing knives were useful for sneak attacks and middle range fights. As a pickpocketer, he had quick fingers, so this kind of weapon was suitable for him.

    After reaching the practice target, he started to train right away.

    The knives Daniel was using were made of a single piece of steel. There was no handle on the grip and the only sharpened part was the de. Their weight waspletely bnced, which made them the easiest type of throwing knives to start practicing with.

    His first few throws were aplete failure, but he slowly got used to the weight and shape of the knives.

    The spectating practitioners didn¡¯t find it odd that Daniel would appear inexperienced at first. Many had witnessed how Daniel had mastered the basics of sword wielding, polearms wielding, and of the martial art -True Motion-. While those who didn¡¯t witness it personally, had at least heard of it.

    Daniel¡¯s progress was, as always, impressive. After only half an hour of uninterrupted training, he stopped missing the target, after two more hours, two out of ten throws would hit the bullseye.

    After four hours of uninterrupted practice, only one throw out of ten missed bullseye. This result was satisfactory to Daniel, so he left the training ground, and went back into his room.

    -----

    Commoner¡¯s Section, Third Gate of the Eastern Wall, 08:10

    Daniel was standing in front of arge building.

    This building was of a simple rectangr shape, and it stood about fifteen meters high. Itsrge double doors had been blocked open, and many individuals dressed in light clothes, and armed with various types of weapons, moved in and out of the building in a constant stream.

    The only two details that made this building different from the others, were therge dark green banners that draped down its walls, on which the silhouette of a stag had been sewn with golden thread. The other, was the thick wooden sign that was hanging above the entrance. On it, carved in ck, were three simple words ¡¯The Huntsmen Guild¡¯.

    The Huntsmen Guild, along with the Mercenary Union, and the Golden Cauldron, were a few of the many organized groups tied to the Merchant¡¯s Collective. To be more specific, any group whose main purpose was collecting herbs, beast cores, ranked beasts carcasses, alchemical ingredients, or even offer protection services, was strictly tied to the Merchant¡¯s Collective, whose influence spanned through the entire kingdom.

    When Daniel hade back to the city, right after he had assisted to the battle between the two ranked beasts, he had imed to have been sent from a herbalist to look for nts. That excuse implied that he had applied for a job at the Golden Cauldron, a group whose main goal is to collect alchemical ingredients, which they would then sell to the Merchant¡¯s Collective, or use themselves.

    Simrly to the Golden Cauldron, the main dealings of the Huntsmen Guild, was to send hunters in the area surrounding Phyrri to hunt and collect ranked beast¡¯s cores and carcasses, which they would then sell to the Merchant¡¯s Collective.

    The hunter¡¯s job had been a prestigious one in the past, but since the overall strength of the beasts around the city had drastically decreased, the branch situated in Phyrri had fallen into disgrace.

    The fact was that, differently from the Mercenary¡¯s Union, whose branches were built at the end ofmercial roads, and Golden Cauldron¡¯s branches, which were built next to forests and fertile ground, The Huntsmen Guild was a nomadic group of sorts. In fact, whenever a new city was founded, its untouched surroundings were always a rich hunting ground. Consequently, when a new branch was opened within a new city, that branch would be automatically considered the new Huntsmen Guild¡¯s headquarters.

    Phyrri¡¯s branch was thousands of years old, and numerous new branches had been opened in just as many younger cities. The main revenue of the Huntsmen Guild came from experienced hunters who pushed themselves far from the city walls, to look for stronger prey.

    -----

    "Next.." Said the woman behind the desk inside the huntsmen guild¡¯s building.

    Daniel approached the counter and said "I would like to apply for a hunting party"

    "Your membership?.." Said the woman.

    Daniel¡¯s brows furrowed "Do I need one?"

    The woman looked him up for a few seconds, then responded "Aren¡¯t you a little young to join a hunting party? these people hunt beasts! ranked beasts!!.. are you going to hunt them, or are you going to feed them!?" her tone growing more displeased the more she talked.

    "If I won¡¯t be able to hunt them, I will at least feed one." Said Daniel sarcastically.

    The woman startedughing. Tears almost forming in the corner of her eyes, she barely stopped to say "It would be even funnier if you weren¡¯t so skinny! ha ha ha!!". She then stoppedughing, watched Daniel once more, and after realizing that he wasn¡¯t there to humor her, she turned serious and asked "Alright kid, i¡¯ll put you up for a hunting party. When do you want to go?"

    "Right now" Answered Daniel immediately.

    The woman furrowed her brows and looked at Daniel, she then asked "Right now?? where are your weapons? You don¡¯t even have a bow!"

    Daniel, looking embarrassed for the first time, responded "Yeah.. about that.. I don¡¯t use the bow.. but I might need a sword and a few throwing knives.."

    The woman startedughing once more, she then said "Well, you can always kill them fromughter! Hahaha.. alright, a membership costs 1 silver, renting a sword costs 10 copper, throwing knives go for.."

    After a good half an hour of exnations, Daniel was finally able to obtain his membership and join a hunting party.

    The members of his team were waiting for him at the first gate of the southwestern wall. When Daniel reached the gate, he noticed a group of four people waiting.

    One of them was a lean man. He seemed to be in his middle twenties and he had an arched nose so big, that it lookedpletely out of ce. Strapped on his back, was a longbow and a quiver filled with arrows.

    The second one was an older man that looked to be nearing his sixtieth birthday, his back was very straight, and while his clothes looked like a pile of dirty cloth, one could understand why he would pick that outfit when moving through the forest. His weapon was a set of short spears, which simrly to the lean man, were strapped to his back.

    The remaining two people were a teenage boy and girl. Instinctively, one could guess that the two were a couple, but if one were to carefully look at their faces, they would notice the simrities in their features and eyes. The two were most likely brother and sister. The woman looked a year younger than the man, but they both looked like they were in theirte teens.

    They both had blonde hair, green eyes, and bodies that looked like they were made for hunting. Both of them could be considered very attractive. The brother¡¯s weapon was a greatsword, while his sister¡¯s weapon were a pair of bs hung to her belt.

    When Daniel approached the group, a mix of reactions could be seen in their faces. The two young teenagers furrowed their brows at him, then started discussing amongst themselves in whispers.

    The old man simply turned around and waited for thest person to arrive, andstly, the only person who approached Daniel was the man in his mid twenties.

    "Can we help you with something?" Said the man.

    "I¡¯m your fifth." said Daniel while smiling.

    The man had no problems with Daniel being too young and inexperienced, after all, you were paid depending on the beasts that you yourself killed, not by how many beasts were killed by the group. "Wonderful! we are waiting for our escort to arrive, then we¡¯ll depart right away" said the man jovially.

    Daniel nodded and then found a ce to sit.

    Half an hourter, a robust man in leather armor and cleanly cut hair, approached the group. A deep scar that started from above the middle of his eyebrow, and finished on his cheekbone could be seen clearly, giving the man¡¯s face a permanent serious expression. At his waist he had a sword, and on his chest armor, a golden eagle was finely carved.

 Chapter 19 The First Kill

    "Sir, thank you for being here." Said the lean man with therge nose.

    ording to the Huntsmen Guild¡¯s regtions, in order to form a hunting party, the presence of an escort was required.

    That role was usually taken by a member of the Mercenary Union, or at times, by a licensed member of the army or city guard.

    The escort were required to have reached the cultivation rank set by the Huntsmen Guild, which was the peak of the corresponding rank of the strongest known monsters of the area. For example, if the general strength of the beast inhabiting the area in which the hunting party was heading to, was of the second rank, the escort needed to have at least reached the peak of the second rank.

    Their group¡¯s escort was set to be at the peak of rank 3, as powerful rank 3 beasts lived within those canyons.

    Daniel¡¯s hunting party was heading out to hunt for Steel-Back Scorpions, a rank two beast which nested the canyons that separated the immense mountains of the Sinleah, the mountain range south of Phyrri.

    The canyons and mountains of the Sinleah, due to therge number of mines, had a constant stream of peopleing and going. Therefore, after numerous reports of attacks from Steel-Back Scorpions had been sent to the city, the Huntsmen Guild had been charged with the task of reducing their numbers within the practiced zones.

    "Names and guild¡¯s badge." Said the robust man in a domineering tone while taking a small list out of his pocket.

    "Se, silver hunter." Said the lean man while handing his badge to the robust man.

    The rest of the group, used to this kind of procedure, took their badges out of their backpacks, and handed them over to the escort while stating their names.

    "Garth.." Said the old man in mimetic attire while handing over a pale gold badge.

    The teenage boy took a step forward and said "I am Legoh, and she is my sister Fiora. We both are silver hunters."

    Daniel imitated what the rest of the group did, and handed his newly acquired badge while stating his name. "Dan, bronze hunter."

    The brows of the entire group except for the old man¡¯s furrowed after Daniel¡¯s words. They collectively looked at him.

    The escort was the first to talk "A bronze hunter? What the fuck do we need a bronze hunter for?! How did you get assigned to this hunting party??" Said the escort as rudely as he could.

    "There must have been a mistake.. bronze rank is for rank 1 hunters.. or first time hunters.. We are hunting for rank 2 beasts" Said Se, trying to calm the escort.

    "This is my first mission" Responded Daniel, confirming Se¡¯s theory.

    After looking at Daniel one more time, the guard harrumphed and said "Whatever.. brat, try not to slow the group down." He then turned towards the rest of the group and said "I am Stueh, an elite of Karalis¡¯s army."

    From the military rank, the party could guess the strength of their Escort.

    Simrly to hunter¡¯s, the military grades existed to separate their members by strength. Those who had reached the rank 1, if part of the military, weremon soldiers, while if part of the Huntsmen Guild or Mercenary union, they were considered as bronze members.

    The difference between military ranks and ranks granted by other types of groups, was that one¡¯s cultivation wasn¡¯t enough to advance in the military.

    A mercenary or hunter could simply gain experience and, after reaching a new cultivation level, they could apply for a promotion within their group. Differently, soldiers had to pass various tests that would determine their ability tomand.

    An Elite was a member of the military that hadn¡¯t managed to pass the tests to advance to the next grade, so, instead of being a Lieutenant, Stueh had the rank of Elite Sergeant.

    This ensured the party that their escort was of, at least, the peak of rank 3.

    "Let¡¯s move out" Said Stueh before heading towards the city gates.

    -----

    50 kilometers south of Phyrri, 21:38

    After twelve hours of uninterrupted walking, the hunting party had decided to set camp for the night.

    During their journey, none of them, except for Se, had talked much. Daniel considered him the group¡¯s chatterbox. The members of the hunting party had been approached more than once by him, in hope to start a conversation, but whenever Seh approached Daniel, he would start ying with his throwing knives.

    He would always pretend be a beginner, almost dropping them and scaring Seh into leaving him alone. The rest of the group gave him no more chances than he did. The escort acted annoyed whenever he was talked to, the two siblings would keep to themselves, and the old man refused to interact even if talked to.

    Five tents had been set around a small campfire. Daniel was on guard duty, so he sat on a tree stump next to the campfire. In his hand, a piece of dried meat which he munched on slowly.

    The rest of the group was resting inside their tents.

    Four hours passed uneventfully. Only the noises of insects lurking within the grass reached Daniel¡¯s ears. They had yet to reach the mountains, so their camp had been set on a patch of forest that had been cleared of trees. Only a few tree stumps remained.

    Daniel got up on his feet, and as he was about to go to Garth¡¯s tent, who¡¯s guard duty was about to start, he heard a distant screaming from behind the tree line.

    The scream was a terrified one, and it sounded like the scream of a woman.

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: Just a Wandering Hero*

    -Description: Save those in need.

    First objective set: Save the woman in distress from the beast.

    Optional: Kill the bandit mage along with his summoned beast.

    Optional: Kill the hidden bandits.

    Reward: Karma +300(+200)(+500)

    Time limit: 4 minutes

    -----

    "Damn it!.." With no time to think, all Daniel could do was grab his sword and dash towards the tree line while shouting "BANDITS!"

    Half a minuteter, he had reached the tree line.

    While closing in, he had noticed shes of various colored lightsing from behind the trees, signs that a battle was taking ce.

    "Sewah, my alternatives?!"

    -----

    Open approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Defeat the beast along with its summoner.

    -Survive the bandit group¡¯s assault until the arrival of reinforcements from your party.

    Time limit: 3 minutes 20 seconds.

    Countdown: 5 minutes and 34 seconds.

    (Requirements: rank 4 of martial cultivation or rank 4 of spiritual cultivation)

    Reward +200% (1000 KP)

    -----

    Defensive approach

    Difficulty: Hard

    -Support the woman until the arrival of reinforcements from your party.

    Time Limit: 3 minutes and 20 seconds

    Countdown: 5 minutes and 34 seconds

    Reward +150% (350 KP)

    -----

    Stealthy approach

    Difficulty: Hard

    -Sneak attack the summoner hidden 35 meters southeast from your position.

    -Do not alert the remaining group of banditsying in wait 150 meters southeast from your position.

    Time Limit: 3 minutes and 20 seconds

    Reward +150% (350 KP)

    -----

    With quiet steps, Daniel started heading towards the summoner¡¯s location.

    As he was closing in, he had managed to see the two battling parties. One was a woman in dark green robes, her face covered by arge hood. She was kneeling behind a thick wall of ice.

    On the other side, was a creature that Daniel had never seen. Its body had a humanoid shape and it walked on two feet, but its surface was covered in patches of rock, glued together by a thinyer of glowingva. It looked like the avake on which melting rocks were slowly floating. From in between these glued rocks, moltenva dripped whenever it moved.

    This summoned beast was ava elemental, which was summoned by mixing earth and fire magic. Thisbination of elements wasn¡¯t unusual for elemental mages, for example, during the war in which Daniel¡¯s father had died, the mage that had summoned the meteor shower which had wiped that division out of existence, had used abination of fire and earth magic.

    Of course, Daniel didn¡¯t know anything about this.

    Thisva elemental kept spouting a constant stream of molten rock out of his hands, which then crashed with the woman¡¯s ice wall, creating thin bubbles ofva filled with scorching steam.

    The ice wall kept repairing under the elemental¡¯s attacks, but unfortunately, it couldn¡¯t keep up with the speed it was melting.

    Only two minutes were left until the time limit, so Daniel stopped spectating the magical fight, and approached the summoner from the other side.

    He was currently ten meters behind him, only a few trees were in between them. In his hands, he held two throwing knives.

    Step after step, Daniel approached the summoner. As he thought that he could avoid killing him and force him to surrender by pointing his sword at him, a snapping sound came from under his feet.

    "Shit!.." Panic filled Daniel¡¯s heart as the mage turned around, but as soon as his eyesnded on Daniel, two small knives pierced through his throat and chest.

    In front of the shocked eyes of the dying summoner, stood a teenager with an expression filled with dread. In his mind, shame and regret for dying by this brat¡¯s hands.

    The moment the summoner dropped on the ground, the red shesing from the ce where the battle was taking ce disappeared. By reading the quests description, Daniel had guessed that when a summoner dies, the summoned beast disappears as well, and now his guess had been confirmed.

    Shaking off the thoughts of having just killed a person, he approached the summoner¡¯s body and took his backpack, he then rushed towards the ce where the battle had just ended.

    What he found in between the charred trees, was the woman in green robes. She wasying above the only patch of unburned grass and looked to be unconscious.

    Daniel knew that the rest of the bandits were nearby, so he decide to take the woman and go back to the camp. In a few long steps, he arrived next to the woman¡¯s body, but as he was about to grab her, the woman¡¯s arm moved.

    Daniel had a knife pressed at his neck. The sharp de had only dug half a millimeter into Daniel¡¯s skin, so no blood came out.

    The woman, expecting him to be the summoner, had gone for the kill.

    If Daniel hadn¡¯t been a martial cultivator and his skin wasn¡¯t as durable as leather, he would have gotten his throat cut.

    Before the woman could react, Daniel grabbed her wrist with one hand and the closed her mouth with the other. "Shhh.. I am not one of those who attacked you, I am the one who killed the other mage." He whispered..

    The woman didn¡¯t look convinced, and as she kept struggling, Daniel continued "I¡¯ll let you go now, but if you scream, i¡¯ll just run away and leave you to the group of bandits that¡¯s approaching.. do you understand?" He said, his tone slightly annoyed.

    After a few moments, the woman seemed to have slightly calmed down. She nodded weakly and Daniel removed his hand from her mouth.

    "W-who are y-you?.." Asked the woman with a trembling voice.

    Daniel helped her up and responded "I¡¯m a hunter from the Huntsmen Guild, my party is camped two hundred meters from here. Can you run?"

    "I can¡¯t.. I can¡¯t even use magic.. that elemental was so s-strong.. they k-killed my guards" She said, almost on the verge of tears.

    Daniel looked at her for a moment, only a pair of heart shaped pink lips could be seen from under her hood. "Remember not to scream.. and.. sorry for this.." Thest part had been said with a hint of embarrassment. The woman was slightly confused, but right the next moment, she realized why. Daniel had wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her over his shoulder, then started running before she could fight back.

 Chapter 20 You Know How It Will End

    Amongst knees to the chest and punches to his back, Daniel managed to take the mage out of the forest.

    At that point, a message appeared inside Daniel¡¯s mind

    -----

    *Just a Wandering Hero*

    First objectivepleted.

    Reward: 1250 Karma Points

    -----

    "Am I even a hero at this point?.. I¡¯m getting paid after all.." Daniel thought while an odd smile grew in his face.

    After leaving the forest, Daniel encountered the rest of his hunting party.

    "What is going on? Where are the bandits? And who the hell is that?!" Said Stueh.

    Daniel put the mage down and then gave the escort a grim look while saying. "Do you want some answers or do you want to keep asking questions?" He then looked at the whole group and continued "I¡¯ve heard screaming, so I rushed towards the forest. About a hund..." He exined everything that happened in detail.

    This time, the first to talk was the sister of the two siblings, Fiora. "You are saying that you¡¯ve sneaked up on a dual elementalist summoner?!" She asked incredulously.

    Garth, the old man in mimetic attire, responded for Daniel "What is so strange about it.. we are hunters, aren¡¯t we?" Of the hunting party, he was the most adept with stealthy behaviour, as he needed to reach a certain distance to make good use of his throwing spears.

    The old man had noticed the few throwing knives strapped on Daniel¡¯s thighs, and the exact height in which they were ced, which was perfect for someone experienced to easily take them at any time. This had convinced him that Daniel wasn¡¯t a beginner at throwing knives.

    Differently, The two siblings were used to hunt in couple. The girl would trap the prey with her bs, and her brother would finish it with his greatsword. Their approach was a direct one, while instead, Se was an archer, so he didn¡¯t have a use for sneaking as close to the prey.

    Stueh looked at the bag that Daniel was holding on his right arm, he didn¡¯t recall it being part of his belongings. "Is that the summoner¡¯s bag?" He then asked, all of a sudden.. his look one of greed.

    A slightly disdainful smile grew on Daniel¡¯s face, he answered "No, it¡¯s hers." Daniel had expected him to ask about the bag, but he had no intention of handing it over. What made him so sure that he would be asked about it, was the dark red 962 floating above Stueh¡¯s head.

    He had noticed the karma of every member of the hunting party the very moment he had met them. He was about to start a journey with these people, and knowing if one of them had bad intentions, wouldn certainly not hurt him.

    The siblings had an overall neutral number above their heads. Daniel had guessed that they had spent their time epting missions within the Huntsmen Guild, while instead, Garth¡¯s and Se¡¯s were slightly positive.

    The only person who had a negative karma, was their escort.

    "Hmph.." Stueh¡¯s eyes narrowed as he looked at the covered woman standing next to Daniel. "Who are you?" He then asked.

    The woman removed her cape, and what was uncovered, made them all think that calling her ¡¯a woman¡¯ was a stretch.

    The female mage, happened to be a beautiful girl that seemed to be in her mid teens. Her body shape waspletely covered by the oversized green cape, but her visage was a spectacle to behold. Her straight hair flowed down her back like a dark silver waterfall. Her steep arched brows stood above natural swipingshes. Her deep set eyes enclosed a pair of emerald green irises, inside wich, pupils as ck as the coldest of nights could be seen.

    She had a serious expression, but it wasn¡¯t clear if that was caused by tiredness, or by her cold looking appearance.

    The young mage took a slow bow "My name is Y.. I am an alchemist of the Golden Cauldron.. the rest of my group and I were attacked early this morning.. I managed to escape, but I was found out when I lit a fire.. Thank you for saving me.." She said between heavy breaths.

    The members of the hunting party bowed in response, embarassed about being thanked regardless of not ying any part in her rescue. The only one that didn¡¯t bow, was the escort. His eyes were stuck at Y¡¯s beauty.. lust growing clearer by the moment.

    While nobody noticed them, Garth¡¯s hand moved close to the spears strapped to his back, and Daniel¡¯s hand approached the hilt of his sword.

    "Let¡¯s go back to the camp." Said Stueh.

    Minutester, the group had arrived at their camp.

    The eyes of Garth and Daniel had never left the escort¡¯s body. They both understood from the greed he showed towards the bag, and the lust he didn¡¯t bother to hide for the female mage, that he would have tried something soon.

    An additional reason for their alertness was that, in case he did try something, that meant that at some point through their mission, the escort would certainly try to silence them.

    Harming and stealing from the party one had been hired to protect, was a huge taboo. Anyone used of it, if found guilty, would be cklisted from both the mercenary¡¯s and huntsmen¡¯s groups.

    Unfortunately, the escort was usually stronger than the rest of the party members. Adding the fact that they were trained and used to battle against other humans, they were usually capable of wiping out the entire hunting party on their own, and get out of trouble by slightly injuring themselves and iming that the rest of the party had perished during a sudden attack from a group of beasts.

    In that case, the escort would not be paid even if he delivered the beasts carcasses or beast cores, as it counted as failing his mission, but he wouldn¡¯t suffer any consequence either.

    When they reached the camp, as the escort was about to say something to the female mage, Daniel said out loud "It¡¯s Garth¡¯s turn to keep watch, she can use your tent, right?"

    "Sure thing, kiddo.." Said Garth promptly.

    A clearyer of frustration could be seen on Stueh¡¯s face. He couldn¡¯t retort to any of their words, so he went back into his tent in silence.

    Daniel nodded at Garth, which smiled in response. Then went back to his own tent.

    Time passed slowly as daniel sat quietly in his tent. In front of him, three books, various herbs, and about a dozen beast cores of various ranks. Two were rank 3 cores, while the remaining 9 were of rank 2. This, was the content of the summoner¡¯s bag.

    Daniel didn¡¯t know thest thing about herbs as he had never had a chance to study them, so he put them away for the moment. He also put the beast cores away, as he had no intention of cultivating right now. The only remaining thing in front of him, were the three books.

    On these three book covers, clear titles were written in ck. These book¡¯s titles were -Fire Element: ming Whisp-, -Earth Element: Stone Skin- and -Basics and Theories of Summoning Magic, Vol.1-.

    It was the first time for Daniel to see magic books. He had never considered bing a mage, as for him, magic was a world detached from his. But since these books had fallen onto hisp.. he decided to try them out.

    The first book he decided to read, was the manual for the earth element¡¯s magic, Stone Skin. Daniel was an agile person, and he was capable of reacting to a speed faster than others.. but he had never fought one on one against another martial practitioner of his level. His entire preparation was his natural speed and the basic knowledge of movement, sword, halberd and knife throwing.

    The book was filled with illustrations which Daniel didn¡¯t understand. Weird symbols covered the upper part of each page. Luckly enough, on the bottom part, a trantion was written in themonnguage.

    /The Spirit connects us to the Spiritual ne;

    /Mana will be traded for spiritual essence;

    /Spiritual essence allows the use of magic;

    /Stronger the connection, The more refined the essence.

    /STONE SKIN

    /Channel spiritual essence into your body;

    /Guide it through the pores of your skin;

    /Form a thinyer, and turn it into earth essence.

    The book¡¯s trantion was written in short sentences, but Daniel was still able to grasp the method. He closed the book and put it on the ground, before starting to practice.

    Since the moment he had fallen unconscious, that day in the forest, he always felt this thin connection to the spiritual ne. He didn¡¯t know how to exin it. He simply felt an entity inside him, which was both him and not.

    That was his spirit.

    If one tried to exin it, they would describe it like "a well built within your house". You knew that the water within was yours, but you also knew that this well was connected to a muchrger body of water.

    He could feel his spirit, but he had never interacted with it, until now. He focused on his naturally built ki and tried to channel it within his spirit. The reaction was the same as poring oil into a bowl already full of water. The more ki he pushed through his spirit, the more spiritual essence he could feel run through his body.

    After a few minutes, he felt like he had reached the maximum capacity of spiritual essence he could hold within his body. He had tried to take more, but the extra spiritual essence was pushed out of his body and dispersed in the air.

    He now had two different kinds of essences within his body. Ki, and Spiritual Essence.

    These two essences were like water and oil, meaning that merging them, was impossible. Their nature was simply too different, as if they belonged to different worlds.

    Daniel tried to focus the spiritual essence within his hand, and slowly pushed it through the pores of his skin. Nothing happened. He quickly realized that he didn¡¯t know how to turn spiritual essence into earth essence.

    He thought about it for a few minutes, but there were still no results, so he decided to give up for now. When he got up from his sitting position and tried to get some sleep, after touching the ground, he saw that a thinyer of stone slowly covered the skin of his hand.

    "So it is like this.. I am simply not familiar enough with the elements.." Thought Daniel while touching the thinyer of stone that covered his hand.

    His guess was right. Mages needed to spend a lot of time trying to understand the elements they wished to control. What they needed to learn, was how to replicate the essence without being in direct contact with it.

    Daniel had started to feel excited about magic, so he grabbed another manual.. but as he was about to start reading it, he heard talking outside of his tent. He then got up, and left his tent.

    In front of him, Garth was sitting around the campfire, and a few meters away, Stueh was standing.

    Stueh had left his tent in the middle of the night and went towards Garth¡¯s tent, in which Y was resting. Garth had asked him if something was wrong, but the response he had received was an aggressive one.

    "Is everything alright? Have the bandits found us?" Said Daniel.

    Stueh¡¯s face grew even more annoyed, and through gritted teeth he said "I have to ask a few questions to the mage. If there is a bandit group, i¡¯ll have to write a report."

    "I¡¯lle too, I was there, i¡¯ve seen and fought them after all" Responded Daniel while pretending to be coborating.

    The escort had reached his breaking point. With his back exposed to the two, he said in a threatening tone "Mind your own business from now on.. if you want to go back to the city.."

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: Just a Wandering Hero*

    -Description: Save those in need.

    Second objective set: Save Y from Stueh.

    Optional: Prevent Garth¡¯s Death.

    Optional: Kill Stueh.

    Reward: Karma +200(+500)(+100) / Golden Cauldron reputation +50%

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s tone turned just as serious "You know how it will end.. That¡¯s why your hand is on the hilt of your sword.."

 Chapter 21 Inevitable Conflic

    "You know how it will end.. That¡¯s why your hand is on the hilt of your sword.."

    After thesest few words were spoken, a deafening silence filled the ce.

    Daniel stood just three meters behind the escort, while Garth, was still facing the fire. His hand was slowly moving over the set of throwing spears that he had left on the ground.

    A faint moonlight joined the campfire into a dance of weak lights. The only noise that broke the absolute silence was the constant howling of the wind.

    *shiiiiing* *swoooooh*

    The escort¡¯s upper body twisted suddenly, following the arm¡¯s orizzontal shing motion. The aim was parting Daniel¡¯s body from his head.

    *fwooh*

    Daniel¡¯s reaction was fast, managing to avoid the orizzontal sh by dropping on one knee. Almost at the same time, he countered by throwing a knife at the man¡¯s neck.

    *swiiiinghh* Was the sound of Stueh¡¯s sword parrying the flying dagger. The man was clearly an experienced fighter, or at least enough to notice the approaching spear at high speed.

    *fwoooooh* *swash*

    The spear shed against the escort¡¯s sword and was thrown to the side, but the sword didn¡¯t stop. It kept shing diagonally dowards Daniel.

    Daniel jumped on his four limbs to avoid the diagonal sh, he then twisted his body in the air and swung his sword at the man¡¯s wrist.

    Stueh abandoned the sword and threw a punch at Daniel¡¯s body which was still in mid air.

    Unfortunately, he was forced to retreat once again to avoid a second spear that had just shed the underside of his bicep.

    All this takes long to describe, but in reality, it had happened in less than three seconds.

    The escort¡¯s arm was bleeding, but the injury wasn¡¯t serious. He had underestimated the old man¡¯s speed and precision in throwing spears, but more than anything, he had underestimated Daniel.

    Considering Daniel¡¯s age, he believed him to be a cunning teenager at the second rank of martial cultivation. But after finding himself on the wrong side of his throwing knife, he realized that Daniel¡¯s strength wasn¡¯t any lower than the old man¡¯s.

    He was nning to fight seriously from now on.

    He lowered his upper body lightly and reached for the inner parts of his boots with his hands.

    *shiiing*

    From them, he unsheathed two fighting knives. These knives had two sharpened edges which joined into a very sharp point. The de was thin, and one could see how a sh from one of these knives could separate a part of your body from another.

    Complete silence reigned once again..

    On Garth¡¯s hands two short spears were ready to be thrown at any moment. The rest of the spears were once again strapped to his back.. his feet moved slowly, pacing in big circles around the escort position.

    Stueh moved his body in a way that could allow him to keep track of both enemies from the corners of his eyes.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes were glued at Stueh¡¯s hands. He noticed how the fingertips of his right hand were pinching the handle of the knife.. His worries had been confirmed the very next moment.

    Garth wanted to reach the opposite side, and try to divide Stueh¡¯s attention into two, like he would have done while hunting for a beast. Unfortunately, that was a mistake. Fighting an experienced fighter waspletely different from fighting a ranked beast.

    The moment the two had surrounded the escort, his body rapidly moved.

    He turned towards Garth,pletely ignoring Daniel, which was standing behind him. His left hand moved rapidly, deflecting the sudden spear that was flying towards him at high speed, and with his other hand, he threw one of his knives at Garth.

    Daniel knew that, at some point, Garth would have been in imminent danger. So he waited until the veryst moment, and as Stueh was about to throw his dagger, a thin de came shing the back of his hand.

    The damage wasn¡¯t enough to stop him, but it made him miss the correct trajectory that would have certainly killed Garth.

    As Stueh¡¯s knife flew, Daniel dashed towards him with his sword in hand. He reached the escort¡¯s back in just a moment, but as he was about to sh with his sword, an upright stab came from the left side of Stueh¡¯s body.

    The knife dug into flesh and got stuck into something solid. Stueh didn¡¯t think twice before letting go of the knife and twist his body to the right. His muscr right arm was tense as he swiped it horizontally at the height of Daniel¡¯s head.

    *Glish*

    What he expected to feel was the crushing of bones and stter of brains when met against his powerful fist, but what he felt instead, was a disgusting noise of cut flesh which apained a sharp paining from his right arm.

    He turned around rapidly, and his eyes opened wide in shock at the sight that was presented before him.

    Daniel¡¯s back was slightly bent forward as if he had received a strong punch in the stomach. At his waist¡¯s height, a grey hand which resembled stone was clutched around the sharpened part of his knife.. a few drops of blood dripped down his fingers. His other hand was holding his sword.

    What shocked him the most, was the blood dripping from the de of Daniel¡¯s sword. It was at that moment that he looked down, and he noticed it.. his right arm had been cut cleanly off his body and was resting at Daniel¡¯s feet.

    "AAAAAARGHHHH!!! YOU BASTARD!! I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!!" Shouted Stueh crazily.

    Daniel ignored himpletely and looked past him. On the other side, Garth was clutching his bleeding forearm, on which Stueh¡¯s thrown knife had dug deeply.

    Momentster, the tents started to open slowly. The rest of the party had heard the shouts and hade out to check what had happened.

    "What is going on here?!" Inquired Legoh, which was the first one to leave his tent.

    The next voice came from the entrance of another tent, and it was Se¡¯s "Are we under attack?!"

    He said while rushing out of his tent, bow in hand.

    "THOSE BASTARDS! they.. THEY ATTACKED ME OUT OF THE BLUE!!" Tried to exin Stueh while clutching his bloody stump.

    "What?!" Said Legoh as a stupefied expression grew on his face. He then grabbed the handle of his greatsword.

    At that moment, Fiora left her tent as well.

    An arrow was nocked in Se¡¯s bow, and his fingers pinched the string tightly. He was ready to draw at a moment¡¯s notice.

    "He is lying.. he was heading to the mage¡¯s tent in the middle of the night.." Said Garth between grunts. His arm still bleeding copiously.

    "I WANTED TO QUESTION HER!!" Barked Stueh viciously.

    A voice was hearding from behind the group. Y, the mage, had just left her tent and had joined in the conversation. "Swear a Ki oath that you are telling the truth.." She said seriously.

    A Ki oath was no joke. In order to swear a ki oath, one needed to use their ki to nurture their spirit, as if they were practicing spiritual cultivation. But the thing about spiritual cultivation, was that it required the practitioner¡¯s spirit to bepletely calm. People¡¯s emotions were born from their minds, but what they affected, was the spirit. An emotion would always make one¡¯s spirit waver.

    A wavering spirit wasn¡¯t something dangerous, after all, everyone felt strong emotions at any moment in their lives without any consequence. What was dangerous, was trying to nurture a wavering spirit. Trying to connect a wavering spirit with the immense calmness of the spiritual ne would injure one¡¯s spirit, which if continued for long, would then shatter and dissipate.

    Prisoners, enved practitioners, dying spiritual cultivators that didn¡¯t wish to suffer during thest moments of their lives.. Countless people within the infinite flow of time had taken their own lives with this method. It was through the constant loss of lives that the mages of old, had created various methods to chain one¡¯s spirit to the body, in order to prevent ves or prisoners frommiting suicide.

    A simr result could be seen when cultivating one¡¯s body. If one cultivated their body with a wavering spirit, their emotions would grow stronger and deeper, to a point when they would bacsh and damage their minds, and in the long run, would turn them crazy.

    In order for an oath to be deemed valid, one needed to receive a neutral person¡¯s ki and use it to cultivate. The third person would then verify that the ki was in fact being used to cultivate, and if there were no negative reactions to the swearing person¡¯s body, the oath would be considered valid.

    It was a simple way to verify if one¡¯s ims were truthful or not.

    Stueh¡¯s teeth gritted at the mention of the ¡¯ki oath¡¯. He didn¡¯t expect for someone that knew of such a method to be here. This method was mostly used by the military and other powerful forces to verify the loyalty of their members, or the truthfulness of their reports.

    Y rapidly exined to the group how a ki oath worken, she then looked at the wounded escort and continued "You imed that they attacked you first.. so you should swear first.."

    After earning the agreement of everybody present, she started heading towards Stueh. The usual procedure was to ce one¡¯s hand on the practitioner¡¯s back for the entire duration of the oath.. but when she moved within Stueh¡¯s arm reach, his uninjured arm shed as fast as lightning.

    The next moment, Y¡¯s back was pressed against Stueh¡¯s chest, and around her neck, his strong hand was wrapped tightly.

    "One move and i¡¯ll snap her neck!" Stueh growled hatefully. He had been cornered one too many times.

    The eyes of everybody present grew hostile towards Stueh. They now understood who was telling the truth.

    The only one who was calm was Daniel. He had been the only one to notice a small detail.. Y didn¡¯t appear to be scared.

    Se pointed his bow at Stueh, but he didn¡¯t dare to draw.. Legoh¡¯s grip to his greatsword¡¯s handle tightened while Fiora¡¯s hands reached for the bs hung to her waist.

    "I WON¡¯T SAY IT AGAIN!! *cough* Move.. and she *cough* dies." Stueh started to feel strange..

    A deep cold was seeping through his body.. his severed arm had stopped bleeding and his stump¡¯s color had started to darken. The moment he noticed that something was wrong, his fingers were already too rigid to tighten around the girls neck. Hisplexion turned paler by the second, and whenever he coughed, his saliva felt like crushed ice in his mouth.

    *pop* *pop*

    Y¡¯s delicate hands grabbed Stueh¡¯s fingers, and after applying a bit of pressure, two clear popping sounds could be heard. She had freed herself by snapping Stueh¡¯s frozen fingers off of his hand.

    "P-pleashe.. *cough* don.." Tried to beg Sewah, but due to the frozen state of his body, he was unable to talk.

    Y pressed her small hand against Stueh¡¯s chest, and kept forcing ice essence into it. After no more than ten seconds, every liquid within his body had been turned into ice. Thest thing Stueh felt before dying, was the feeling of his blood freezing inside his veins.

    Once dead, Y retreated her hand. She then bowed deeply towards Daniel and Garth "I was aware of his intentions since the moment I joined the party.." She said to Daniel, then while looking at both, she continued "Thank you for protecting me."

    -----

    *Just a Wandering Hero*

    Second objectivepleted.

    Reward: 700 Karma Points / Golden Cauldron reputation +50%

    -----

    "Woah, saving that girl was worth 50% of a group¡¯s reputation?? I wonder who she is.. You¡¯ve scored big here!" Sewah¡¯s voice resounded within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    Daniel nodded at her slightly, then walked towards Garth "You alright, old man?.." Said Daniel.

    "Don¡¯t call me old man, you little monster.. just call me Garth" Responded Garth without missing a beat. His voice turned fainter as he continued "Thank you.."

 Chapter 22 System Upgrade

    It was the middle of the night, and everyone had gone back to their tents.

    Inside his, Daniel was sitting quietly with his eyes closed. His entire attention had been focused on his profile.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank (Details)

    Karma - 1969

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    A brand new section of the system had been unlocked, and Daniel couldn¡¯t wait to learn more about it. He then focused on the System¡¯s Upgrade details, and a new window appeared.

    -----

    System Upgrades Lv.1

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown = 500 KP

    (Passive: Killing rewards the mirror amount of karma owned by the victim.)

    Time Is Precious Lv.1 = 750 KP

    (Active: Double the cost of karma points in order to double the speed of progression. +100 of cost and effect. Max lv.10)

    Reduced Cost Lv.1 = 1000 KP

    (Passive: Permanently decreases the consumption of karma points by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.10)

    Bonus Points Lv.1 = 1000 KP

    (Passive: Permanently increases the karma points received by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.10)

    Second Chance Lv1 = 5000 KP

    (Passive: Once per month, the user will be brought back to two seconds before the moment of his death. 2 additional seconds per level. Max Lv.10)

    Karma X Luck = 30,000 KP

    (Passive: Your overall luck is dependent to the amount of positive or negative karma.)

    -----

    umte 200,000 Karma points to unlock System Upgrades Lv.2

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s jaw dropped the very next moment. The upgrades were amazing and he couldn¡¯t believe his eyes. There were some that could shape his luck depending on his karma or even some that could bring him back to life. The stupor in his eyessted for a good 5 minutes.

    If one could see Daniel right now, they would notice his ellerated breath and his shaky hands.

    "Hahaha! Look at you.. You look like a brat in a candy shop! Hahaha!" Sewah¡¯s voice resounded within Daniel¡¯s mind, taking him back to reality.

    Daniel read the upgrades descriptions once again "How many features are there left to unlock??" He asked to Sewah.

    After a few moments, Sewah responded with his usual vagueness. "How am I supposed to know that?!"

    Such an answer was within Daniel¡¯s expectations. He wasn¡¯t sure what Sewah was, except for being part of the system. But now a new guess had formted in his mind. And that was, that Sewah was part of an undiscovered feature within the system.

    He didn¡¯t have any solid proof to his ims, but after unlocking one feature after the other, he couldn¡¯t help but to convince himself that there were still many secrets to Sewah¡¯s character.

    Until now he had simply believed that the system was Sewah, as he instinctively knew the use of every unlocked feature. But that was simply because he wasn¡¯t aware of how little he knew about the system. What made him change his mind was the fact that, the undiscovered features, were a mystery for Sewah as well.

    Daniel dropped the subject and focused back to the system¡¯s upgrades. "I assume that I simply have to think about an upgrade to purchase it.." He muttered to himself.

    "Hahaha.." Sewah¡¯sugh could be heard once again. "I thought pretty boys were supposed to be stupid! HA HA HA"

    Daniel had no intention of humoring Sewah, so he went through the upgrades once more, and made his choice.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank (Details)

    Karma - 719

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.1

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    "I guess I should try this out.." Mumbled Daniel to himself. He then grabbed his bag and took out all the beasts cores that he found in the summoner¡¯s bag.

    He only had nine rank 2 and two rank 3 beast cores. He had never tried to cultivate with cores above level one, except for that one time where Sewah forced him unconscious, so he decided to start with the rank 2 beast cores.

    His consumption without beast cores was of three karma points per hour, while with the use of beast cores, it would be ten times faster. Of course, the karma system was only able to shorten the time required to absorb the beast essence and refine his body. It was in no way capable of reducing the amount of essence needed for the refinement. He would still need just as much ki or beast essence as anybody else. The only difference, was that for him, the absorbtion and refinement was drastically hastened.

    Daniel knew that there was no way for these few beast cores to be enough for him to reach the perfect state of Body Strengthening. So he decided to refine his spirit instead.

    He was unsure of when he would manage to have enough beast cores to attempt to break through the perfect state of the Body Strengthening stage, so, since he had found a use in learning magic, he decided to practice it.

    After calming his mind, he activated ¡¯Time Is Precious¡¯ and sat in a meditating position. He then started to absorb the beast essence within the two rank 2 beast cores he was holding in his hands.

    Daniel had never practiced spiritual cultivation before, but he had gotten used to sensing his spirit when learning Stone skin. He remembered the content of the basics of spiritual cultivation, and started to follow the method described in it. He let the absorbed spiritual essence fill his entire body, and then gave up control over it, letting his spirit assimte it slowly.

    Normally, an essence whose control had been renounced would dissipate, but the spirit was omnipresent within a cultivator¡¯s body, so as long as the essence was within one¡¯s body, the spirit would slowly assimte it.

    Daniel focused on the correct method of cultivation, and in the blink of an eye, two hours had passed.

    Six of the rank 2 beast cores had been consumed, and Daniel¡¯s karma points had decreased from 719 to 599.

    The karma consumption was exactly double what he would have spent without activating ¡¯Time Is Precious¡¯. What left him excited, was that his spiritual cultivation had increased by leaps and bounds. From the early rank 2 or Faint Spiritual Connection sub-stage, he had reached thete Profound Spiritual Connection, orte rank 3.

    As of now, his spiritual cultivation was almost on par with his martial cultivation.

    Daniel¡¯s consciousness focused on sensing the changes within his body. His muscles, skin and bones protected him like an armor, his blood was being pumped through his enhanced heart, and forced into every corner of his body through his dted blood vessels. His physical body functioned like a well oiled machine. The only difference, was that now, he could feel his ever present spirit flooding through the entirety of his body. No matter if it was blood, skin, organs or muscles, his spirit was a constant and quiet part of it.

    Feeling the changes within his spirit, Daniel started to wonder about the two types of cultivation. Various questions that millions before him had asked, but to which nobody had ever found an answer to. He understood the conflicting parts between the two types of cultivation, but why was there no problem with the two being cultivated together until one reached the second stage?

    This subject had been the center of thousands of studies through history, but no matter what kingdom, continent or race one came from, the answer to this question had been a mystery to any cultivator underneath the sky that had a genuine interest in practicing both types of cultivation to a higher level.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t any better at guessing than anybody else before him, so he put that question aside, and started to consider his situation. It didn¡¯t took long before he realized his major problem.

    "I need to learn more skills.." He mumbled to himself after opening his eyes.

    He was right. Daniel had been lucky to have fought against a member of the military at the third rank. Every power had their own speciality, and the military wasn¡¯t an exception.

    The speciality of the military was Tactical Formations.

    Every person who decided to take the military life, would be required to study and practice Tactical Formations. In fact, part of the tests that one needed to pass in order to advance past the Lieutenant grade, was knowing every type of formations, so that, in case a war broke out, they would be able to make use of them. Individual skills were only teached to officers above the grade of Lieutenant, like Captains and Captains of the guard.

    That meant that, had their battle been a one-on-one, and hadn¡¯t Stueh underestimated Daniel since the beginning, their fight would have probably ended differently. Luckily, Stueh was only an elite sergeant, so hispetence with individual skills were severelycking. Despite that, he had still been a dangerous opponent to Daniel and Garth.

    What Daniel needed the most, was to gainbat experience and learn fighting skills, like ¡¯True Motion¡¯ or ¡¯Stone Skin¡¯. Unfortunately, just like before, the first thing he needed to do was to earn money.

    The rest of the night passed quietly while Daniel pushed his spiritual cultivation forward, and after spending three more hours, and an entire rank 3 beast core to reach the peak of the Spiritual Connection stage, he finally stopped.

    Bright rays of light seeped through the small holes within the fabric of his tent, so he got up, and went out.

    Outside, around the faintly lit fire, the rest of the party was sitting quietly while eating. About ten meters from the camp, the body of Stueh wasying,pletely covered byrge sheet that the rest of the group had found inside his bag.

    All of them were experienced hunters, and waking up early had long been a habit to them.

    Daniel approached the group and sat on arge tree stump. He then took a piece of dried meat from his backpack and started to eat it quietly.

    Time passed awkwardly, until a voice broke the silence. It was Se¡¯s. "What do you guys want to do? we don¡¯t have an escort anymore.." He said dispiritedly.

    At that point, Y left Stueh¡¯s tent, which she had decided to use after killing him. She had heard Se¡¯s question and decided to intervene. "What are you guys worried about.. two of you are at the third rank. Hell, Daniel¡¯s cultivation is on par with the dead soldier¡¯s!" She said.

    The rest of the group, except for Garth, looked at Daniel with a stupefied looks painted on their face.

    They were aware that he wasn¡¯t a simple bronze hunter, but they didn¡¯t expect him to be this powerful. After all, he was just 14 years old.

    Reaching the peak of the third rank at 14 years old wasn¡¯t impossible, but it would still require an abnormal talent, or at the very least, to start practicing right after being born.

    Y ignored the surprised looks on the faces of the group, and went to sit oddly close to Daniel.

    Legoh picked up right away and asked "Daniel.. do you think you can act as our escort if we end up in truble?"

    "I have a contract with the Huntsmen Guild, like you guys. I won¡¯t get paid to act like an escort.." He paused before continuing "But if we do end up in trouble, I won¡¯t just let you die."

    Daniel didn¡¯t know, but most of them didn¡¯t simply hunt for the sake of earning money. In fact, hunters earned more money than they needed to live a normal life.. So what many amongst those who risked their lives by going out to hunt needed, was arge amount of money for one particr reason or another.

    For example, Fiora was terminally ill, and the siblings¡¯s only hope for a cure was to hire a healer. Garth was paying for his two daughters¡¯s studies, and finally, Se was saving money to organize a wedding for him and his fianc¨¦e.

    "That¡¯s enough for me!" Said Se right away.

    Legoh looked at his sister fondly, then turned towards Daniel and said "We are in."

    "I¡¯lle too.. I came here pick herbs, so I won¡¯t steal any of your preys. Also, I am not so bad in a fight.." She said while hitting Daniel¡¯s arm with her elbow, but the moment her elbow touched his arm, her eyes widened in shock and she jumped up in ce.

    "WHAT THE HELL!?" She shouted ".. y-you were just at the early Moderate Spiritual Connection.."

 Chapter 23 The Hunt Begins

    "WHAT THE HELL!?" Y shouted before wispering to herself in disbelief ".. y-you were just at the early Moderate Spiritual Connection.."

    A series of confused reactions appeared on the faces of everyone present.

    Daniel¡¯s face was the most surprised as he jumped from the scare. "W-what.. what¡¯s wrong with you!?" He said through gritted teeth.

    Y calmed down immediately and responded. "N-nothing.. sorry.."

    Y¡¯s shock was understandable. The moment Daniel had touched her face with his hand to keep her quiet, she knew immediately that he wasn¡¯t the summoner she had been fighting with, as she had felt a spirit at the early moderate spritual connection stage through contact with his body.

    The spirit she had felt now, on the other hand, was more than a full sub-stage stronger. Such a progress in a single night was impossible. One had to understand that, Y herself, was considered a genius amongst Spiritual Cultivators, and yet, despite all the help she had received, she had still taken more than a year to reach the peak of the spiritual connection stage.

    After meeting Daniel, all she could do was doubt her ability to discern the strength of another Spiritual Cultivator. That was much easier than believe she, as a genius, could be outpaced to this extent.

    -----

    Sinleah Mountain Range, Canyon¡¯s entrance, 13:24

    After a long morning of travel, the party finally managed to reach the Canyons that separated the mountains within the Sinleah Mountain Range.

    Various wooden signs had been ced at the entrance of the Canyons, and right before them, various camps had been set. These camps belonged to miningpanies, and would usually house miners and ves, but right now, they mostly housed the Hunting parties to which the mission of clearing the canyons had been assigned to.

    Daniel¡¯s party was only one of many.

    Legoh stepped out from the rest of the party and said "I¡¯ll go report to the Head Hunter and pick up our spatial bag.. wait for me.. uhh" He looked around for a moment, then continued "There has to be a tavern around here.. we¡¯ll meet there" He then took off alone.

    To Daniel, Legoh¡¯s departure wasn¡¯t a problem. He had already judged this teenager as a trustworthy person. To prove it, was the fact that he didn¡¯t attack the very moment Stueh had tried to turn them against him, and instead, listened to both versions. Not to mention, he didn¡¯t believe he would leave his sister Fiora alone, if he didn¡¯t consider them trustworthy as well.

    Daniel saw himself in Legoh, even tho much younger.

    It took them a bit of walking to finally end up in front of arge tent. Loud chatting noise could be hearding from inside, and it sounded like something interesting was happening.

    The moment they entered, they saw a crowd of at least 50 people surrounding a table, on which three people were sitting.

    On the table, a few cards were ced facing up next to a small pile of copper and silver coins.

    Daniel¡¯s party ignored the crowd and headed towards the counter. They then ordered some food, and sat at an empty table to the side.

    "..and it looked like a human.. *hic!* with the tail of a scorpion and two ws for hands!"

    "That¡¯s ridiculous! You¡¯re just a silver hunter, had you really seen a Commander Steel-Back Scorpion your body would be half eaten and rotting in a ditch inside the canyons!.."

    "A rank 4 beast, no way a chump like you would have survived.."

    For the next fifteen minutes, shouts andughter could be heard inside the tavern. Until finally, the crowd dispersed.

    The only people remaining at the table were three men, two of thempletely drunk, while the other was smirking and moving the coins towards his side of the table.

    From what Daniel heard, he understood that one of the two drunken men at the table had spotted a Commander Steel-Back Scorpion within the depts of the canyon. One person after another surrounded him when he started to describe the beast. They were all hunters after all, and if there really was a rank 4 beast within their hunting ground, they wanted to know.

    The moment the crowd dispersed, a group of three shady looking men with dark golded badge on their chests, approached Daniel¡¯s table and looked at them menacingly. Their weapons suggested that they weren¡¯t here to hunt beasts.

    "That¡¯s our table.." Said the one in the front.

    Garth and Daniel ignored the man¡¯s words, while Se¡¯s look turned into a fearful one. He was an archer, and in no way used to meleebat. Not to mention that the three were mercenaries.. and gold rank at that. Each of them was way just as, if not more dangerous than their previous escort.

    Y was the first to talk "The table was clean and you weren¡¯t sitting here.. also, there are other free tables." She said in a matter of fact tone after taking her hood off.

    When the group of shady men noticed Y and Fiora sitting amongst their party, their expression changed from threatening, into faces filled with lust. One of them approached Y and said "Pretty mage, why don¡¯t you ditch these scaredy cats, and y with us instead?.." His lips parted into a disgusting smile, showing a set of yellow teeth. "Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll always have a ce to sit on with us.. He he.." He added while pping his thighs.

    The very next moment, before anyone could react to the man¡¯s words.. another man had appeared within the group of mercenaries. His arms amicably wrapped around two mercenaries necks, and on his face, the most carefree of smiles.

    This man seemed to be in histe twenties, and his slightly shorter stature whenpared to the mercenaries, made him look slightly funny. He couldn¡¯t be considered a handsome man, but his carefree smile could convince anyone that he was the most innocent of men. There were no weapons strapped on this man¡¯s body, the only thing he had above his clothes, was a dark ck badge wrapped in chains which was hanging loosely from his belt.

    The expressions within the group of mercenaries changed once again. They had just finished protecting whiny hunters, and didn¡¯t want to be interrupted when trying to hit on girls, so their reactions was all but coridal. They turned to look at the neer, but as soon as they noticed his face, and the ck badge hanging from his belt.. they froze in ce.

    "Miss Y, it¡¯s a honor to see you here" Said the man with the ck badge, while bowing his head slightly. He then looked at the mercenaries, with his smile always present.

    What Daniel¡¯s party saw afterwards, was something that surprised them greatly.

    One of the mercenaries underneath the man with the ck badge¡¯s arms took a step towards the one that had been rude to the two girls, and punched him square in the face with all the strength he had. The rude mercenary fell on the ground heavily. His lip had been split open, and blood filled his mouth. But to their utmost surprise, he neitherined nor gotten angry at his friend. It was like he knew that he deserved to be hit.

    The man with the ck badge took his arm off from the shoulder of the other mercenary, and looked back at Y. "Please, bring my greetings to your great grandfather." He then turned around and left.

    The group of mercenaries stood in ce until the man with the ck badge left the tavern. They then looked at Daniel¡¯s party, and bowed deeply. The rude man said through bloody teeth "Apologies mydy.. Have a good meal." They then left the tavern as well.

    Silence reigned within the Daniel and the rest of the party for a few long minutes, until it was broken by Se "Who the hell was that?! And w-why was he so polite to you?!"

    Y didn¡¯t answer, and instead, kept eating her food. It was Garth that answered him. "That¡¯s a rank 5 mercenary.."

    At this moment, the cloth that served as the tent¡¯s door opened, and Legoh entered the tavern. He quickly noticed the group sitting at the table and joined them. He then showed arge bag made out of what looked like a giant beast¡¯s dder, and said "I¡¯ve got the spatial bag. Our hunting ground is three kilometers into the canyons. The numbers are decreasing, so the price is now 75 silver coins per carcass and 1.5 gold coins per core."

    "Great!" Said Fiora after listening to her brother¡¯s report.

    Legoh¡¯s face turned slightly more serious before continuing "Also.. i¡¯ve heard that there were sightings of.. a Commander Steel-Back Scorpions.. So we should always be ready to flee.."

    Se jumped into the conversation and asked "When do you guys want to go?.."

    "Tomorrow morning.. we only have a few hours of light left today." Daniel said casually.

    After finishing their meals, the party split and went to rest for the night. They had agreed to meet at the entrance of the canyons at the first lights in the morning.

    Daniel had an entire evening to spend, so instead of going to rest, he left his tent and went towards the shops. There were only three shops. A smith shop that sold and repaired weapons and armors, an alchemist, and a book store.

    The book store was, of course, not amon book store. The entire store was a simple stand whose books didn¡¯t number higher than fourty, and all of them, being books sold within a camp filled with hunters and mercenaries, were bestiaries, weapon skills and martial arts. That was the reason why Daniel went straight to it.

    When Daniel approached the booth, the vendor weed him immediately "Wee young warrior! Is there a book in particr you are looking for?"

    Daniel looked at the vendor and said "Can I take a look at the strongest sword tiques you have?"

    The vendor took three books from behind his small stand and ced them on the counter, one next to the other.

    Daniel nced at the names written on the covers. From left to write, they were ¡¯Splitting Ki¡¯, ¡¯Mid-sh Turn¡¯ and ¡¯Through Stone and Steel¡¯. Two of these books were shing skills, while the third, was a skill for piercing.

    "I¡¯ll take them all." Said Daniel decisively. He then handed three owed money over to the vendor, and went back to his tent.

    -----

    The next morning.

    Daniel had spent the whole night practicing, so he was the first to arrive, and as the agreed time drew near, one after the other, the rest of the party arrived as well.

    Once regrouped, they departed for their hunting ground right away.

    After entering the canyons, they traversed two kilometers of rocky path whose sides were made of tall walls. These walls wereposed of various types of stones and minerals, which gave their stony surface uncountableyers of red, grey and orange colors.

    At the base of these walls, numerous abandoned mine entrances could be seen.

    The signs of recent fighting were everywhere, as this part of the canyons had been recently cleared.

    The party took an entire hour of walking in order to reach the ground assigned to them, and as they arrived, they noticed another hunting party leaving through the way they hade from.

    Daniel and the rest of the party started to set the traps right in front of the marked scorpion¡¯s nests, then waited patiently.

    It didn¡¯t take long before they heard the unmistakeable sound of keratinous little feet hitting the solid rock. They all turned towards the source of the sound, and saw a silver scorprion the size of an adult¡¯s forearm crawl outside of a hole in the wall.

    "Well, I guess this signs the start of our hunt.. Who wants the first?" Said Se to ease his tension.

 Chapter 24 History Repeats Itself

    For the following ten hours, Daniel and the rest of his party hunted down every single one of these half meter long scorpions the very moment they left their nests.

    The behaviour of Steel-back Scorpions was unusual whenpared to normal scorpions. In fact, they weren¡¯t solitary hunters. They were eusocial instead, and formed colonies under a single higher ranking scorpion king. The scorpion king was a variation of the moremon Steel-back Scorpion, and was called Diamond-back Scorpion.

    The reason why this particr species of scorpions was too dangerous to be left alone, was that these colonies were in constant war with one another. Their territoriality and aggressiveness forced them into constant conflict.

    These bloody battles would not only mean the reduction amongst numbers of colonies, but also the strengthening of the winning ones.

    Ranked beasts evolved by consuming beast cores of other beasts after all.

    This situation had forced Phyrri¡¯s hunting groups to set a periodical hunting seasons, with the purpose of lessening the numbers of Steel-back Scorpions in the area.

    This hunting season was so popr, that the encampment that would be otherwise filled with miners and ves, would be vacated, and upied by therge amount of hunters and mercenaries instead.

    Unfortunately, this particr hunting season had started sooner than predicted, with the consequence of many losses amongst miners and ves.

    After ten full hours, the numbers of scorprions the party had hunted was close to a hundred.

    The two siblings were an amazing duo of hunters. Fiora was experienced with her bs and always managed to tangle the prey long enough for her brother Legoh to halve them with his greatsword. They alone had killed close to twentyfive scorpions.

    Garth¡¯s precision with throwing spears was impressive. Before the scorpions could hope to rush at him, or sometimes even see him, they would find their bodies being skewered by one of his throwing spears. The only downside was having to recover his weapons, and sometimes, stop his hunt to resharpen the heads. His preys numbered twentythree.

    Se, with his eighteen scorprions, was the least sessful hunter, but as odd as it may sound, he was also the most skilled at is. His arrows would never miss a target and could easily perforate inbetween the scorpriosn keratinous mandibles. Unfortunately, like Garth, he needed to recover his arrows after the prey died. What slowed him the most though, was waiting for the scorpions to bleed to death, since differently from Garth, he could not finish them from up close.

    Unluckily for the scorpions, the only parts hard as steel, were in fact, their abdomen and heads. The reason for this particr caracteristic was, at least for Daniel, hrious. These beasts had evolved by hunting their own kin, so they needed a back armor resistant enough to stand a strike of their own stingers.. as they would often be struck by their enemies, and sometimes, strike themselves by mistake.

    These scorpions would usually lose this major w after their advancement to the third rank, as they would not only gain a stronger armor, an additional set of legs, and a better control of their bodies, but also, a rank 3 beast level intelligence.

    Daniel was a full sub-stage higher than the beasts they were hunting, which made the hunt a walk in the park for him. So he took this hunt as a way to practice his knives throwing abilities instead.

    Every thrown knife would either strike the base of the tail, the soft jaws and sometimes, even the beady eyes of the scorpions, causing them to make a shrill scream and panic before being finished by a rapid sh of his sword.

    *shluh*

    Daniel removed the beast core from the poison nd of thest scorpion he had killed, while the rest of the group prepared for the travel back.

    Once again, Daniel got to witness the mystical workings of the spacial bag. This hunt had not only been Daniel¡¯s first hunting trip, but also the first time he hade into contact with an item enchanced with spacial magic.

    Noticing Daniel¡¯s surprise the first time he saw the spacial bag, Y gave him a brief exination on how enhanced items and spacial magic worked.

    Aside from that, all Y did was follow the party quietly. She would never intervene in one of their fights. The only thing she seemed interested in doing, was picking the nts and flowes that grew on the rocky ground.

    It was early evening when the party decided to head back to camp. The group¡¯s morale was very high. No major ident had happened, and their hunt had been very productive.

    Unfortunately, things not always go as nned. The moment they picked their bags and started to head back, they heard a slight trembleing from the wall to their left.

    Their heads turned in unison, but all they saw, was the usualrge wall. The tremble grew stronger the more time passed, until suddenly, a crack appeared on its surface. Rocks and pebbles of various sizes detached from the wall and crashed heavily against the ground, ifting small coulds of dust.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes opened wide in shock as a shiver run down his spine. He turned towards the rest of the party and shouted "RUN!" But before anyone could react, the wall exploded, making boulders and dust fly everywhere.

    The entire party had been swept up by a dense dusty cloud which blinded thempletely. The only noise that could be heard was a deafening screeching scream and loud fighting noises.

    Daniel didn¡¯t know what to do or where his party members were, so he wasn¡¯t able to protect them. Luckily, the loud noises came from in front of him, so he was fairly sure that they were safe.. for now at least.

    The source of the deafening noise was slowly moving, preventing the dusty cloud to settle once and for all, and allow them to recover their vision. It was clear to him that, within the could of dust, two powerful entities were battling.

    Moving at this point was out of the question. All he could do was to stand still and hope that these two battling parties wouldn¡¯t notice him.

    A few long minutes passed before the intensity of the battle started to decrease. The dusty cloud started to slowly settle, and Daniel was finally able to see the shapes of the battling monsters.

    One of them had a humanoid shape and stood on two feet, with an height nearing the three meters. The two details that convinced Daniel that he wasn¡¯t witnessing a battle between humans, were the two enormous ws ced where a normal person¡¯s hands would be, and the thick five meters long tail attached to his lower back.

    The other beast had a more monstruous appearance. Daniel could see a straight and thin body on which dozens of disgusting looking pair of legs grew. Each of these legs were twice as long as the body itself, and were covered in millions of tiny quills.

    At the frontal extremity of this beast¡¯s body, a human-like thorax grew. This thorax had no head attached, and Instead, several small mandibles kept closing and opening, as if pushing the food inside the beast¡¯s mouth, which was situated right in the middle of his chest. It looked like an enormous centipede with a human thorax attached to its extremity.

    Two extremely long antennaes grew on its shoulders, and right below, were two additional long arms whose estremities looked like sharpened des.

    Daniel remembered the descriprion he had heard in the tavern, and recognized the first beast as the Commander Steel-back Scorpion. He didn¡¯t know what the other beast was, but since it was capable of fighting on par with a rank 4 beast, then it probably was a beast of the fourth rank as well.

    More time passed, and the could of dust had almostpletely settled. Daniel could see more clearly now, and was able to notice the state in which beasts were. Two words came to his mind.. ¡¯severely injured¡¯.

    Themander scorpion¡¯s armor was covered in deep and cuts which leaked white fatty liquids, and one of its arms was missing entirely. The other creature wasn¡¯t doing any better. Various of his thin feet were broken, and its back had been puncutred right in the middle by the scorpion¡¯s aculeus.

    Daniel looked around and noticed that the rest of the team was further away. Apparently, they had backed away the moment the wall had exploded. They then remained at the edges of the dusty fog, waiting for him toe out.

    The other members of the party was Daniel standing there, but before they could feel relieved, they noticed the two beasts battling right behind him.

    The battle¡¯s pace was bing sluggish, as the two beasts¡¯s exhaustion increased. Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s cover had almostpletely disappeared, so, while still afraid of being noticed, he tried to back away slowly. The rest of the party had already recognized the Commander Steel-Back Scorpion and went into hiding.

    The moment Daniel moved he was immediately noticed by themander scorpion, which looked at him and let out a furious shrill scream.

    It was during this moment of distraction that the centipede¡¯s thin legs moved. The beast rushed at the Commander scorpion and threw itself against its body. The moment the centipedended on the scorpion it quicky caged its entire body with its thin legs.

    The scorpion reacted rapidly and pinched two of the centipede¡¯s legs with its remaining w, tearing them right off. Its long tail also punctured its enemy¡¯s back again and again, in hope to make it retreat, but the centipede never let go. It instead tightened its hold around the scorpion¡¯s body, keeping it still while it tried to tear the scorpion¡¯s head to pieces with its strong mandibles.

    This was Daniel¡¯s chance. He turned around and started to run away from the two battling beasts, but before he could go far, the scorpion smashed his tail on the ground, then again, and again.

    The tail moved faster than Daniel could see, and whenever the tail hit, the ground would tremble. The Commander Steel-back Scorpion was a rank 4 beast, so its hits were rapid and precise. It didn¡¯t take long before the ground started to crack.

    The scorpion was an intelligent creature, and knew that it was in a dangerous position. It was injured and it couldn¡¯t get out of the centipede¡¯s grip. Luckily, it had grown up inside these canyons, and it knew them like it knew its own body.

    The cracks grew wider and wider under the relentless hits of the scorpion¡¯s tail. Until finally, the ground started to cave in right underneath the two beasts bodies.

    The cracks had reached way past Daniel¡¯s position, so when the ground caved in, Daniel lost his footing and ended up being swallowed by the enormous sinkhole that was created.

    -----

    When Daniel woke up, he found himself in a massive dark cave,ying on his back against solid, yet wet stone. The first thing he noticed after waking up, was a small looking hole on the roof of the cave, through which faint moonlight shined.

    At his feet, he felt the calming feeling of water.

    He got up and tried to gather his bearings. He had beenying on a rock, right at the edge of a small undergroundke. He then noticed the familiar colored boulders that had fallen with him, and after a sudden realization, a shiver ran through his spine.

    What Daniel had realized was that, if he had fallen a second earlier, he would havended heavily against rocks. Instead, he hadnded in theke and had managed to survive, even though he had lost consciousness.

    Daniel could see almost nothing of his surroundings, the only part clear enough, was the small area brightened by the light which were shining through the distant hole on the roof.

    *nk* *k*

    A few rocks fell from the top of a pile ofrge boulders, making the sound of rock hitting rock reverberate through the entire cave. Daniel had noticed this pile of boulders, and most importantly he had noticed the guey liquids flowing at its base.

    Suddently, one of therge rocks was pushed away, uncovering therge w of the Commander Steel-back Scorpion.

 Chapter 25 Achieving Perfection

    The moment the big boulder was moved aside, Daniel went into hiding.

    One rock after the other started to roll down the pile, as the figure of the Commnader Steel-back Scorpion crawled out of it.

    Its body was aplete wreck. The thick tail was broken in three parts and dangled without control, the side of his waist had been smashed, and the scorpion had been forced to rip that part of his body altogether, along with the leg connected to it, in order to free itself. Huge chunks of white meat dripped out of the impressive looking injury.

    After Daniel was looking at the scorpion¡¯s conditions, he noticed a couple of moving legs hooking onto the pile of boulders, and dragging the body of the centipede out of it.

    The centipede wasn¡¯t in better conditions whenpared to the scorpion, in fact, it seemed to be faring worse. While the scoprion¡¯s body waspact and resistant, the centipede¡¯s many thin legs which spanned almost ten meters each, were not as resistant, and even if it didn¡¯t die from the fall, it still couldn¡¯t avoid losing all of its legs but four.

    It could still crawl, but the scorpion¡¯s poison had taken effect long ago. Without an external intervention, the centipede would die soon, and the scorpion will be able to consume its core and recover.

    The two beasts started to weakly attach eachother once again. The centipede tried to pierce the scorpion¡¯s body with its remaining legs, while the scorpion tried to smash the centipede¡¯s body with the only part of his body that was left unharmed.. its only arm. Each attack did little damage, but Daniel could still feel the ground under his feet tremble under the pressure of the mighty blows.

    There was no doubt in Daniel¡¯s mind that allowing the scorpion to recover meant sure death for him. Daniel started to look for a way to finish the heavily injured scorpion, and after looking around for awhile, he had an idea.

    He suddenly dropped on his knees and pressed one hand against stone, and one against the soft soil. He then focused on the feeling of the earth essence, and for a moment, he lost himself into that feeling.

    A few long second passed, before a faint earthquake made the ground shake once more, but this time, the earthquake hadn¡¯t been caused by the two battling beasts.

    From the rocky ground in front of Daniel, a bunch of small sized rocks started to converge. They formed a small pile that increased in size at each moment, only stopping after they reached the height of two and a half meters.

    These piled up rocks stopped piling up, but kept moving, while still remaining attached together, they started to shift into specific positions.

    Soft soil made its way from underneath Daniel¡¯s feet, joining the moving pile of stones, and filling the empty spaces between shifting rocks.

    The stones and ground took the shape of a rudimentary golem. This was one of the elementals which Daniel had learned how to summon from one of the books he had found within the belongings of the bandit mage.

    The golem described in the manual of summoning should have resembled the summonerpletely, but that was only at the stage of mastery. This had been the first time Daniel had summoned an elemental, and the final product was a humanoid giant made out of stones and soil.

    If Daniel had had enough practice with -Fire Element: ming Whisp- he could have tried to summon ava elemental simr to the one the bandit mage used.

    Daniel unshethed his sword and stayed in hiding. He wanted to finish off the scorpion, but he had no intention of going against two rank 4 beasts at once, even if injured.

    It didn¡¯t take long before the Commander Steel-back Scorpion wed the remaining four legs of the centipede and ripped them off one by one, leaving it helpless with hundreds of bloody stumps.

    Uncapable of moving, the centipede could do nothing but squirm and wait for the scorpion to finish him off.

    Without missing a beat, the scorpion raised his only remaining arm, and smashed his big w against the centipede¡¯s back at full strength, right where he had puctured it with his aculeus. The centipede¡¯s body split in half, and gooey green paste flew in every direction for tens of meters.

    The moment the scorpion dropped in front of the centipede¡¯s body, right as he was about to shove its face into its insides and recover the centipede¡¯s core, a sharp throwing dagger hit the broken part of its dangling tail, and cut it offpletely.

    The scorpion let out a shrill cry and turned towards Daniel. It then bent its knee and propelled itself against him at an amazing speed.

    Daniel saw the body of themander scorpion gliding above the ground while approaching him, and for a moment, he thought he was done for. But before the beast could reach him, a big stone golem dropped from above arge boulder and nailed the scorpion¡¯s body on the ground just a few meters before Daniel.

    The scorpion felt the hit, but that wasn¡¯t nearly enough to finish it off. It managed to pick itself up with its leg as if he was covered in soft sand, but that was enough time for Daniel.

    While the dying beast was pushing itself up with its remaining ws, Daniel rushed at him at full speed and shed at its shoulder vertically.

    Normally, a rank 3 warrior could hardly injure a rank 4 beast, but this was no normal attack. If one could look closely, they would notice a thin blue light shine through the edge of Daniel¡¯s sword.

    Daniel had learned this sword skill right before departing for the hunting grounds. The skill¡¯s name was ¡¯Splitting Ki¡¯, and Daniel had spent a good part of the previous night practicing it.

    The sh had left a lingering thread of blue light wherever the de passed, and luckily, it didn¡¯t stop when it enountered the hard shell of the scorpion, detaching its arm from the rest of its body.

    The scorpion, which was still trying to free itself from the soft ground and rocks, let out the loudest of the screams he had let out so far. Daniel felt his eardrums about to burst and panicked. He let go of his sword and covered his bleeding ears with both hands.

    Too weak to fight back, the dying scorpion gave its all with a final screaching screem, hoping that Daniel would choose retreat. The scream was so loud, that at a certain point Daniel couldn¡¯t take it anymore, and its eardrums finally ruptured.

    Under an immense amount of pain, Daniel decided to give up protecting his ears and instead, grabbed two knives from the sheaths strapped to its thigh, and used the second skill he had learned, ¡¯Through Stone and Steel¡¯ to stab them into the screaming head of the scorpion.

    The pointy ends of the knives shined with blue light and perforated swiftly into the scorpion¡¯s human-like head. The hit was effective, but unfortunately, it didn¡¯t finish the struggling scorpion. The screeching sound kept going as Daniel picked his sword from the ground, and after focusing all his remaining ki on the edge of the de, he used ¡¯Splitting Ki¡¯ once again to decapitate it.

    Only after the scorpion¡¯s head rolled on the ground, the sonic attack finally ended.

    Daniel¡¯s face was purple red at this point. He could barely keep himself from falling on his knees, and his ears were bleeding profusely. He felt like he had been hit in the head with a sledgehammer and couldn¡¯t help but feel like he could vomit the entire contents of his stomach at any moment.

    Daniel was about to fall unconscious, but before he could drop on the ground, a softyer of cool soil wrapped around his legs. Daniel couldn¡¯t move on its own, so he needed the support of the stone golem. He slowly walked towards the Scorpion¡¯s body and sticked his entire arm inside therge hole left by its missing leg.

    There were no bones, nor muscles.. The scorpions insides werepletely made out of a fatty white liquid that held no resistance against Daniel¡¯s arms. Daniel pulled out handful after handful of gooey paste, and after reaching the contents of the beast¡¯s chest, he finally felt a solid bead-like object with his hand.

    He rapidly took the bead-like core out of the scorpion¡¯s carcass, cleaned it with his shirt, and observed it carefully. There were no major differences between a rank 3 and a rank 4 beast core, except for one.

    The density of color of a rank 3 beast core was dense, almost opaque, while a beast core of the fourth rank resembled more a transparent bead filled with dense smoke.

    Daniel felt the terrifying beast essence contained within the beast core, and realized that its purity wasn¡¯t nearlyparable to that of a rank 3 beast, but of course, he expected that much.

    Reaching a different major stage wasn¡¯t didn¡¯t simply grant a quantitative change to one¡¯s essence, but also a qualitative one.

    Daniel pocketed the rank 4 core and walked slowly towards the centipede¡¯s body. Luckily, the beasts thorax had been smashed into pieces, so finding the beast core wasn¡¯t as hard.

    By looking up towards the big hole on the roof, Daniel could guess that various hours had passed since he had fallen into that sinkhole.

    He had good reason to believe that, even if the head hunter agreed to send a searching squad to look for him, they would most certainly wait for the morning after, as beasts became relentless during the night.

    Also, the head hunter couldn¡¯t force anyone to go look for him, and even if a good pay was offered, nobody would risk their lives to find a bronze hunter, which had fallen into a hole in the ground alongside two rank 4 beasts.

    Daniel¡¯s only option, right now, was to cultivate and recover.

    For the following minutes, Daniel forced all the remaining spiritual essence within his body out and turned it into earth essence. He summoned the stone golem once more, and ordered it to wrap around his body. He then let go of the control over the earth essence, and the stone cover became a solid cavern that surrounded himpletely.

    He finally fell on his behind, and with a few painful movements he sat in a lotus position. In his hands, were the two rank 4 beasts cores.

    Daniel calmed his state of mind, and after activating ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ he started to cultivate.

    His aim was, of course, to reach perfection within the third rank, so instead of pushing for a breakthrough, he guided the beast essence into refining his body once again.

    A few minutes into the cultivation, and Daniel realized how difficult controlling the pure essence was. No matter how much he focused, a good half of the beast essence would end up wandering inside his body without control, and consequently ended up being absorbed by his spirit.

    -----

    seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. Until suddenly, five days had passed.

    While lost in his cultivation, Daniel hadn¡¯t noticed that the injuries on his body had long disappeared, and the two beast cores were now a fifth of the sizes they had been before. Something else he hadn¡¯t realized were the changes within his body. His muscles, bones, blood vessels and organs, were stronger than ever, and almost on par with a rank 4 warrior.. His spirit had evolved as well, in fact, it had be so dense that it could hardly be distinguished from his physical body.

    What was strange, was that his powerful body, which radiated pure ki, was in no way an obstacle for his dense spirit.. It felt like they had been made for one another.

    Daniel¡¯s focus had been interrupted abruptly by the familiar and intrusive appearence of a window within his mind.

    -----

    *You Can¡¯t Do Good Without Strength!*

    First objectivepleted.

    Reward: 1500 Karma Points

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: You Can¡¯t Do Good Without Strength!*

    -Description: Obtain enough power to protect those in need.

    Second objective set: Cultivate to the "Surrounding Awareness" of the martial cultivation, or the "Profound Spiritual Synchronization" of the spiritual cultivation.

    Optional: Reach "perfection" before breaking through the next stage.

    Reward: Karma +5000(+10,000)

    Time limit: 1 year and 6 months(2 years)

    -----

    After Daniel finished reading the content of the two windows, he felt estatic. He immediately focused on his profile, and a new window appeared within his mind.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - Peak rank 3 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Peak rank 3 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 1602

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.1

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

 Chapter 26 Gaining Fame

    Daniel¡¯s body was overflowing with power. The purity of his naturally produced ki was so high, that inparison, he believed that the ki his body had produced so far, had been an iplete version of his actual ki.

    His spirit wasn¡¯t any less impressive. In fact, he felt like his spirit connection with the spiritual ne was much clearer than before, and the spiritual essence drawn from it, was so pure that if Daniel tried to use any of the basic spells he knew, he would consume very little of it.

    Feeling the hilt of his sword with his left hand, he decided to test his newly aquired strength, so he unsheathed it, and focused his ki on the edge of his sword. The edge of the sword started to shine with a pale sky blue light.. Daniel walked towards the biggest boulder he could find, and sword in hand, made a shing motion with his arm.

    A deep gash appeared on the surface of the three meters tall boulder. Daniel hadn¡¯t felt any resistanceing from the stone, as the sword went through it like a hot knife through butter.

    Unfortunately, Daniel still wasn¡¯t able of pushing his ki further than his own body, or the body of the weapon he was holding. Therefore, the sword could only cut what it came into direct contact with.

    ¡¯Splitting Ki¡¯ had more advanced stages to it, which would allow him to expand the de through ki, and even send shes of pure ki through air. But with Daniel¡¯s current mastery of ¡¯Splitting Ki¡¯, he was only able of sharpen the sword¡¯s edge.

    Daniel sheathed his sword with a satisfied look, he then closed his eyes and focused on pushing the spiritual essence within his body through his feet, and into the surrounding ground. At an impressive speed, the rocks in the surroundings started to move and converge into arge pile, which a wave of soft soil covered right away.

    After less than twenty seconds, the pile of rocks and soil had shifted in ce and taken a humanoid shape. This golem¡¯s humanoid shape, ifpared to the previous golem Daniel had summoned, was much more defined. While the previous golem looked like a giant made out of rocks and soil with simple limbs, this one had a head, fingers, toes, and a bone structure made out of solid rock. Its face was still smooth and devoid of any human resemnce, but at least it was shaped like a face.

    Daniel looked at the two small rank 4 beast cores, and after thinking for a moment, he decided not to attempt a break through to the fourth rank. He had realized that his speed was too impressive, and if he were to cultivate from the peak of rank 3 to the fourth rank in just a few days, someone would pick up on it sooner orter.

    After looking up, Daniel noticed that the lighting through the hole on the roof was that of early evening. He didn¡¯t know how long he had been cultivating, but since he felt like he hadn¡¯t eaten for days, he believed that more than a day had passed.

    He needed to find a way out of this cave as soon as possible.

    The first thing he did, was to rip one of his sleeve off and wrap it around a small rod that he had made out of stone. He then soaked it with the scorpion¡¯s fatty meat, and made a rudimentary torch which he ced on the ground, before unsheathing his sword and one of his knives.

    He sat right next to the torch and started to whet the sword¡¯s unsharpened side with the knife¡¯s edge. His first few tries generated no sparks, but the more he tried, the warmer the de became. He kept trying faster, and faster, until finally, a few sparks shed past his fingers and disappeared in the air.

    It took him a few minutes to manage to ignite the torch, but instead of getting up and start exploring the cave, he shoved his hand inside the me, and activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯.

    For the next five minutes, Daniel focused on the warmth on his skin, looked at the sinuous movements of the me, and tried to understand the workings of fire essence. The torch was rudimentary, and only had the scorpion¡¯s fatty innards to keep it lit, so after less than ten minutes after it was ignited, the me had already extinguished.

    Luckily, thanks to the system¡¯s help, ten minutes were more than enough for Daniel to understand the priciples of fire essence.

    While still sitting in a lotus position, Daniel forced his spiritual essence out of his palm. He focused on the familiar warmth and wavy movements of a me, and after a few moments, a small fire lit on his palm.

    The fire waved quietly, growing in size above Daniel¡¯s skin for a good minute, it then detached from it and floated in the air steadily. The me kept bing bigger and bigger until, when it reached the size of a human¡¯s head, it finally stopped.

    The floating me required Daniel¡¯smands to move, simrly to the way the stone golem was controlled, and like the stone golem, the me was considered a summoned beast. More precisely, a ¡¯ming Whisp¡¯.

    -----

    Meanwhile in Phyrri, within the dmissioned hotel was arge and elegant room. Inside this room, two old men were sitting while facing eachother. One of them, was the previous Master at Arms of the Karalis kingdom, while the other, was an old man which, ifpared to the hotel owner, looked much closer to their real age. They two old men were both in their mid seventies.

    This old looking man wore a loose white robe, with two small golden cauldrons patched on his shoulders, and a bigger one sewn to his left waist area. From his body came a pungent smell which would make one¡¯s nose curl in difort. Whoever would smell this odor, would immediately recognize this man as a powerful alchemist.

    The two old men were having a conversation while sipping tea from a set of very refined tea cups.

    "So he hasn¡¯te back yet.." Said the old Alchemist.

    The retired Master at Arms¡¯s brows furrowed and responded in a not too cordial tone. "I still don¡¯t buy that crap about wanting to thank him for saving your granddaughter.."

    "Mhahaha! What reason do I have to lie to you!" The old Alchemist didn¡¯t take the rudely putment too seriously, after all, the two were old friends.

    "Sure,ugh away.. in the fifty years i¡¯ve known you, you have never bothered to thank anyone that helped you. The best you did was to send them a few pill.. or a chest of gold.." Commented the Master at Arms bitterly.

    The Alchemist¡¯s eyes rolled back and responded with an annoyed voice. "Again with the price¡¯s wedding?! I thought you would have forgotten about that by now.. Haven¡¯t I sent you a chest of gold!?"

    "That wasn¡¯t even worth a fourth of the price of the present! You!.. Lousy Alchemist.." He then turned away and refused toment further.

    A few quiet minutes went by as the two sipped tea in silence.

    "Seriously.. The kid is a prodigy in everything that regards martial cultivation.. why are you looking for him?" The Master at Arms said seriously.

    The old Alchemist smiled wryly and said "That kid cultivated from the early rank 2 to the peak of rank 3, and learned how to use stone skin.. in a single night." He then sipped his tea, and added "He is a spiritual cultivation prodigy as well.. how do we solve this?"

    The Master at Arm¡¯s eyes widened in shock when he heards the words of the old Alchemist. "Are you serious?" He asked right after swallowing the mouthful of tea he had in his mouth.

    The old Alchemist simply nodded, and while looking at the content of his tea cup, he said "A talent corpse has no future.. for now let¡¯s hope he isn¡¯t dead."

    -----

    Back to therge cavern underneath the Sinleah¡¯s Mountain Range, Daniel had found a way to leave from the way he came.

    He had decided to summon one golem after the other and order them to take the shape of small sets of stairs, he would then give up the earth essence¡¯s control, so that they would turn into inanimate solid constructions.

    After a bit of trial and error, and a few heavy falls against the solid rock, he managed to reach only six meters below the hole on the roof of th cave.

    "I can make it.." Said Daniel while avoiding to look down. A fall like that wouldn¡¯t have killed a rank 4 beast, and probably not even the new and improved him, but there were no doubts that he would break a few bones if he did. Plus, there were nokes underneath to grant him a softernding point than stone.

    He took a few deep breaths, and after mustering the courage, he bent his knees and took a huge leap upwrads. The stone and earth¡¯s stairs immediately crumbled under the weight.

    If one were to look from the edge of the hole, they would notice a thin arm appearing inside it, then disappearing the next moment. Daniel hadn¡¯t made it outside.. but luckily, he had managed to grab a protruding stone with the tip of his fingers, and avoid a painful fall. He then climbed up slowly, and managed to roll out of the massive hole.

    With his back pressed against the edge of the chasm, he took a few deep breath and shook the tension off his shoulders. He then got back up on his feet, and started walking towards the base camp.

    -----

    Base camp, 23:11

    A guard was sitting quietly next to the wooden signs at the edge of the base camp. His eyes were half closed, as he was in the process of falling asleep. Hisrge greatsword wasying on the side of his right leg, and was about to slip and fall on the ground.

    Before the guard could manage to fall asleep, a dark silhouette, which seemed to be approaching the base camp, appeared out of the blue. Before the guard even finished opening his eyes, he grabbed his weapon and sprung up on his feet. He then shouted "WHO¡¯S THERE?"

    The silhouette drew closer..

    The guard started to get nervous, so it shouted once again.. "WHO IS TH-" but before he could finish, he realized that the silhouette belonged to a young man in his early teens.

    The closer the silhouette got, the more details was the guard able to see. The young man¡¯s body was thin but well defined, and his skin waspletely covered in dirt. His clothes were in tatters, the only parts that weren¡¯t ruined were his belt, on which a longsword hanged on the side, and a leather strap wrapped around his left thigh, which contained a set of sheathed throwing knives.

    Various guards on patrol heard the sudden screams, and approached the entrance of the canyons. They then joined the first guard, and stood next to him, observing the approaching young man.

    The young man, was of course, Daniel.

    Daniel approached step after step, noticing the guards crowding the entrance of the canyon. What Daniel didn¡¯t know, was that he had be kind of famoustely.

    Apparently, an unknown party of hunters hade back from their hunting ground with one of their members missing. The party confirmed the presence of more than one rank 4 beast within the canyon, and had also requested the head hunter to send a searching party to look for the lost member.

    Usually, they would have gotten paid for the information, and rejected right away. But fortunately amongst that group, was a young mage, which after exposing her rtionship with the current leader of the Golden Cauldron, was granted the help they had asked for. This group was Daniel¡¯s hunting party, and the young mage, was none other than Y.

    Daniel kept approaching in front of the surprised looks of the crowd of guards, which after he got close enough, noticed the monstrous head of the Commander Steel-back Scorpion in his hand.

 Chapter 27 No Need for a Searching Party

    "Hey.. is the tavern still open?.." Daniel asked to the unbelieving crowd of guards. Then, without even waiting for a reply, he walked past them and in the direction of the tavern.

    The guard on duty turned towards one of the patrols and said "..Notify the head hunter, now!"

    The patrol turned around and ran towards the head hunter¡¯s tent.

    Five days had passed since Daniel¡¯sst meal, and he didn¡¯t feel like talking to anyone, at least until he put something in his stomach. He made his way across the base camp¡¯s quiet streets, and reached the tavern in just a few minutes.

    In front of the head hunter¡¯s tent, the patrol was standing politely. "Sir, there are news about the kid you¡¯ve sent us to look for.."

    The tent opened immediately, and inside it, a bare chested man appeared. The half naked man was veryrge, with well defined muscles, and a few deep scars which marked them in an unmistakable way.

    Behind thisrge man¡¯s body was a bed, above which, a naked and flushed woman could be seenying confusedly. Thisrge man, was the head hunter Kier.

    "What about him?! Have you found him?" Kier asked in agitation.

    "No sir.. he came back on his own.." Responded the patrol awkwardly. He thenposed himself and added "He asked if the tavern was open.. he should be headed there."

    The head hunter grabbed a shirt from above his dresser, and put it on messily. He then left his tent and headed towards the tavern.

    -----

    Daniel entered the tavern in awful conditions. His clothes were a wreck, and in his hand, he carried the decapitated head of themander scorpion, with knives still stuck in it.

    Despite the hour, the tavern was full. Most of the tables were upied by arge number of people who wore the same type of armor. A full ck leather armor with a mountain peak carved in silver on their chest, and left shoulder.

    The rest of the tables were upied by a few hunters, which for some reason, looked intimidated to a point where they keep their tones down. The only empty tables were those immediately next to another isted table.

    At this isted table, four people were sitting. Two of these four people, were beautiful girls in theirte teens whose revealing clothes left little to imagination. The mission of the two girls seemed to be to seduce the man in his early twenties next to whose sides they sat.

    This man¡¯s clothes were refined and elegant, and were marked with the same silver peak carved on the armors which many people within the bar wore. On his chest, was a golden brooch which had the shape of a pickaxe crossed with a shovel. The hairstyle of this man alone showed a rich upbringing.

    Thest person, was a rigid looking middle aged man. This middle aged man wore the exact same ck leather armor that the rest wore, and long cape of a dark grey color. On the left corner of this cape, a symbol identical to the other man¡¯s brooch was sewn in silver, while on the right corner, a silver mountain peak was depicted.

    A silver pattern on the edges of his armor pieces, aside from the cape, was the only thing that differentiated this man¡¯s armors from the rest.

    Daniel slowly approached the counter and asked for any dish that didn¡¯t require a long time to prepare. He then walked towards one of the few empty tables, ced the scorpion¡¯s heads on it, and sat quietly.

    "WHAT¡¯S THIS REEK!?" Shouted the rich young man, now sitting less than two meters away from Daniel.

    One of the two girls giggled and responded in a coquettish manner "Young master Jite is right.. such a foul stench!"

    The other girl, trying not to be left behind, added immediately "I believe it is the tramp that just sat behind you, Young master Jite" She then giggled, while squeezing her soft peaks together with her arms.

    The young master turned around, and noticed Daniel quietly sitting at the table behind him. He immediately got up, but as he was about to make a scene, the middle aged man¡¯s voice resounded within his ears. It said only two words "Young master.."

    The young master immediately turned to look at the middle aged guard, and as their eyes met, the guard shook his head lightly.

    "He is just a brat!" Comined the young master.

    The guard sighed and added "That¡¯s the head of a rank 4 beast."

    "SO WHAT?!" Shouted the young master. "Aren¡¯t you a rank 4 warrior?! Kick him out of here!" He then ordered.

    The middle aged guard sighed once more, then got up on his feet and approached Daniel¡¯s table. "I have to ask you to leave." He said after getting only two meters away from Daniel.

    Daniel looked at him, and immediately, he realized that this middle aged guard was no simple goon. Nevertheless, he had no intention of leaving. He had spent too much time without touching food, and even if he didn¡¯t feel the passing of time while cultivanting, he still felt the built up hunger when he woke up.

    The fact that he hadn¡¯t jumped on another person¡¯s table to steal their food, was already a miracle.

    The guard had no weapons on him, which told Daniel that he probably was a martial artist. He would have usually avoided a fight he had few chances of winning, but this time, Daniel decided to be stubborn.

    While looking at the middle aged man, he said "I¡¯m going nowhere until I eat something." He then turned around once more, and kept waiting quietly.

    The entire tavern quietened, and every single one of the soldiers in ck armor turned to look at Daniel.

    The middle aged guard didn¡¯t take it personally, he simply added "This camp belongs to the Mining Conglomerate.. My master is the young master of one of the thirteen miningpanies of which the conglomerate isposed. Leave while I am still asking."

    Daniel ignored the man¡¯s warningpletely, and kept waiting for his food to arrive.

    The middle aged guard raised his arm and tried to grab Daniel¡¯s shoulder. He didn¡¯t want to fight this kid, but he still had to follow his orders, but as he was about to put his hand over Daniel¡¯s shoulder, his cloak suddenly caught fire.

    The guard promptly took his cloak off, and watched Daniel with a surprised expression. He was about to say something, but Daniel spoke first.

    "Your should be careful around fire.. your armor may not catch fire easily, but can you say the same about your master¡¯s robe?.. what is that.. silk?" A faint smile grew on Daniel¡¯s face when he reached the end of his sentence.

    The rest of the guards rose up to their feet, and grabbed the weapons hanging at their waists.

    The middle aged guard reacted by raising his closed fist. This action calmed the numerous soldiers, and forced them to sit back down.

    "You don¡¯t think that, as a martial artist.. close as we are, I would be able to take you down before you can cast a magic spell?" Said the leader of the young master¡¯s guard.

    Daniel, grabbed one of the knives stuck inside the Commander Steel-back Scorpion¡¯s decapitated head, and pulled it out. He then used ¡¯Through Stone and Steel¡¯ to force the knife back into the scorpion¡¯s head from another angle. He then said "You can try.."

    Quietness reigned within the tavern for a few endless moments.. until..

    "HAHAHAHA!" The middle aged guard startedughing out loud "What a funny guy!!.. Peak Body Strengthening and peak Spiritual Connection.." He then sat on a chair at Daniel¡¯s table and asked with a smile on his face "How many ¡¯Safe Youth¡¯ pills did you take to still look like a 14 years old? Though it¡¯s kind of weird.."

    Daniel was surprised by radical change within the old guard¡¯s behaviour. He couldn¡¯t help but smirk and talk back "Talk about weird, a middle aged man that talks like a 14 year old kid.."

    "I have a young soul! Hahaha!" Retorted the middle aged guard before starting tough once again.

    The young master sprung on his feet once more, and started shouting "ARE YOU DONE?! I said to kick him out! NOW!!"

    The middle aged guard looked back at his master, then said with a humble yet firm voice "Young master, we should go back to your tent so you can rest. We have to take care of the master¡¯s assignment by tomorrow morning."

    The few hunters that were talking and eating quietly at the other tables, couldn¡¯t help but giggle at the scene.

    Humiliating wasn¡¯t enough to describe the young master¡¯s feelings. His orders had been ignored in public, and if that wasn¡¯t enough, he had been sent to sleep by his own bodyguard. That was an unbearable humiliation for him.

    As he was about to start yelling at his own guard, he noticed a massive yet messily dressed man entering the tavern. "Mister Kier!" He had found a way to vent his anger, and restore some of his face.. the Head Hunter. "We don¡¯t lend our camps to hunters so that they can fill them with trash!" He said out loud while pointing at Daniel.

    "I¡¯m sorry young master Jite, but that young man is a member of the huntsmen guild, and you have no authority to order a hunter around." Kier retorted immediately.

    This wasn¡¯t the first time that Kier had to handle one of the young masters of the thirteen miningpanies. The thirteenpanies owned all the mines situated in the canyons that the Huntsmen Guild were tasked to clear, so every now and then, one or two would appear during the hunting season, and act all high and mighty against a few hunters.

    The young master¡¯s face turned purple in rage. He sent a deadly look at Daniel, and turned to face his bodyguard. "Let¡¯s go!" He barked through his gritted teeth. He then stormed out the tavern inrge steps.

    The middle aged guard followed the young master, and behind him, the rest of the guards.

    After the young master left, Kier approached Daniel¡¯s table, and sat on one of the chairs.

    "You¡¯re Dan Hiel, right?" He asked, almost too politely.

    Daniel looked back at him and nodded.

    "I¡¯m Kier, the hunter assigned as head hunter of this Steel-back Scorpion¡¯s hunting season." In the five days that Daniel had been absent, Kier had received variousmunications from Phyrri¡¯s huntsmen guild branch. He had been requested to conduct a search party to find the disappeared member of a hunting party.

    At first, Kier had believed that this young man was simply the son of one of the high ranking hunters, but after he reported his failed attempts in to find him, he had learned that the request came from two external powers. One came from the Golden Cauldron¡¯s upper echelons, while the other, was none other than the previous Master at arms of the Karalis kingdom.

    This information, at the time, had left him shaking in his boots.

    "You¡¯re not here to ask me to leave the tavern, right? I¡¯m starving." Said Daniel, before looking at the rank 4 scorpion¡¯s skull and adding "Do you think I can pay with this?"

    Kier smirked, and then said "There is no need, your party members left your part of the pay with me.." He then looked at the decapitated head above the table, and added "I¡¯ll also give you the bounty for the rank 4 scorpion that the guild gave me as a reward for the iing rank 4 hunters."

    "Is the rest of my party fine?" Asked Daniel.

    Kier¡¯s impression of Daniel increased exponentially after he heard him mention his teammates "The mage left right away, the old man should still be around and the others left at some point during these past 5 days"

    Daniel¡¯s eyes opened in surprise, and then asked "Five days?.. Is that how long i¡¯ve been gone?"

 Chapter 28 Background Developments

    "What do you mean?" Asked Kier curiously.

    After Daniel realized what he had just asked, he exined himself. "I¡¯ve explored the caverns underneath the canyons, I wasn¡¯t really aware of the time.."

    Kier¡¯s eyebrows arched slightly "Ah, that¡¯s what happened. Your party members said there were two beasts battling.. What happened to them?.. Well, to the other one at least"

    "The two beasts were grabbing each other when the ground.." Daniel started to tell what had happened the day of their first hunt, of how the two beasts came out of a wall, how they battled fiercely and made the ground copse, exposing the massive cage underneath it. "I¡¯m not too bad with throwing knives and using a sword.. plus, the scorpion was heavily injured."

    Kier was amazed by Daniel¡¯s survival ability, and after a minute, with a thoroughly impressed expression on his face, he said "Well, if you want to sell the beast cores to the guild, I can pay for them.. But if you want to keep them, then go ahead. You didn¡¯t ept a mission for the hunt of rank 4 beasts anyway, so you have no obligations to hand them over"

    At that moment, A robust looking woman appeared next to Daniel¡¯s table. In her hands, she held two tes filled with food.

    "Can I ask you something?.." Kier asked to Daniel, as he rudely started to scarf food down his throat "How did you manage to get the attention of both the previous Master-at-arms and the vice president of the Golden Cauldron?"

    "Coincidence." Said Daniel with his mouth still full. He then swallowed heavily and said "I moved into the Master-at-arms building.. And about the vice leader of the Golden Cauldron.. I guess it¡¯s because I saved the mage from bandits."

    "HA! Talk about luck.." Eximed Kier, once again surprised. "I¡¯ll let you eat in peace.. Come find me tomorrow morning and i¡¯ll give you your money. Also, i¡¯ve been asked to send you back home.." Said Kier, right before getting up from his chair and walking out of the tavern.

    The moment Kier left the tavern, the majority of the remaining hunters sprung up on their feet and approached Daniel. They upied the free chairs or crowded around him.

    "Hey kiddo, tell us about the battle between the beasts.."

    "..How in the hell did you manage get out of that cave?"

    "Wanna y those cores in a game of cards? Hehehe"

    For the rest of the night, Daniel became the star of the base camp¡¯s tavern.

    -----

    The following day, Daniel woke up on a bed inside of his tent. He washed himself up and put on some fresh clothes. Then sat back on his bed and started to think about his situation..

    "It¡¯s been almost ten days since i¡¯ve been home, and i¡¯ve made enough money for now.. I should go back.. Plus, I have points to spend.. I wonder if the old man would still want me as his student.." On Daniel¡¯s face a faint smile grew the moment he thought about how many skills a kingdom¡¯s Master-at-arms would have to teach.

    With his first thoughts of greed still lingering in his mind, he walked towards Kier¡¯s office. Right outside of Kier¡¯s office, the beautiful girl that wasying naked on his bed the night prior, was nowpletely dressed. Her expression was a professional one.

    "Dan Hiel?" She asked

    "That¡¯s me." Replied Daniel.

    The woman got up from her chair and walked towards Kier¡¯s office. She then opened the door and made a gesture with her arm, inviting Daniel to enter.

    Inside his office, Kier was sitting behind his desk. "Dan! Come, sit down." Said Keir.

    Daniel entered the office and sat on a chair in front of Kier¡¯s desk. Oncefortable, he looked at Kier and asked "Yesterday you said that you¡¯ve been asked to send me back.. Was it a request from the old man or the vice leader of the Golden Cauldron?"

    "Both actually.." Responded Kier. He then started to rummage inside his desk¡¯s drawer, until it took a small bag out of it. "Here¡¯s your gold and the bounty for the rank 4 beasts. I¡¯ve selected a few guards that can escort you back to Phyrri."

    Daniel was about to get up and leave, but before he could, a thought shed through his mind. "I have something to do here.. Do you know where I can find someone from the Silver Peak miningpany?"

    Kier¡¯s face turned awkward for a moment "Actually, yes.. But you won¡¯t like it.."

    "What do you mean?" Asked Daniel confusedly.

    With a matter-of-fact tone, Kier answered immediately "Remember the young master who wanted to kick you out of the tavern?.."

    "Ah... Fuck." Said Daniel dispiritedly.

    Kier couldn¡¯t help but ask "Why do you need to talk to someone from the Silver Peak Miningpany?"

    "I wanted to buy one of their ves.." Daniel¡¯s voice grew more depressed by the word. His hand brushing against his forehead.

    Kier started to write something on a piece of paper, and then handed it over to Daniel. "Well, if you want to avoid the guy, go directly to their main base. This is their address within the Learned District.. But I doubt you¡¯ll be allowed in." He said.

    Daniel kept the piece of paper inside his new shirt and said "Thank you, I owe you one."

    Kier smirked and said "I¡¯ll collect that debt when one of your favors will be worth something hehe.."

    -----

    One hourter, Daniel had reached the base camp¡¯s border. Waiting for him, was a group of people. Amongst this group of people, was a familiar face.

    Wearing his usual mimetic attire, and carrying his usual bunch of throwing spears, Garth sat quietly next to a tree, ignoring the rest of the chatting members of the group.

    Most of the group¡¯s members were silver rank mercenaries, while the remaining few, had a gold badge hanging from their belts.

    "So that fall didn¡¯t kill you.. I owe a few copper to the youngster with the weird nose.." Said Garth with a fake disappointed tone.

    Daniel looked at him and smiled, he then said "If you thought I was dead, what are you doing still here?".

    "Long naps.. Mostly" Responded Garth while smirking.

    After a couple more back and forth, the two approached the rest of the group. They then departed for Phyrri.

    -----

    Phyrri, Master-at-arms hotel

    In the lobby, sitting around a table, were the old achemist, and Re.

    Two days had passed since the old master-at-arms and the old alchemist had received the news of Daniel¡¯s return. Since then, they had started a sort ofpetition about who would manage to take him in first.

    They were opposites. The Master-at-arms was an expert in all kinds of weapons, and a powerful cultivator at the 7th rank of martial cultivation, while the old alchemist, was a known alchemist, a powerful mage, and a 7th rank spiritual cultivator.

    Both of them had learned about Daniel¡¯s prodigious talent in cultivation and learning, either by witnessing it themselves or, like in the case of the old alchemist, witnessed from his granddaughter.

    Both of these figures had built huge reputations within the Karalis kingdom.

    The ways of the master-at-arms had always been honest and direct, while the old alchemist¡¯s ways were more cunning and calctive. During their many years of friendship, they had challenged each other more than once, and this time, the challenge regarded gaining a talented disciple.

    Naturally, they were more than aware that the decision would depend on Daniel¡¯s choice regarding his path of cultivation. Path which the Master-at-arms, was fairly convinced to be martial cultivation. And yet, the old alchemist still tried to put a few fast ones on his old friend. Like befriending Daniel¡¯s sister, Re.

    "..had always been a good kid" Said Re to the old man, with eyes filled with unrelenting pride.

    The girl¡¯s pride made the old alchemist smile warmly. He had talked to this diffident and sharp teenage girl for the past half an hour, and he had understood one thing. Gaining her trust was a feat.

    "I am sure he is, I can¡¯t wait to thank him personally for saving my granddaughter¡¯s life." The old alchemist finished his tea and added "It was a pleasure talking to such a bright kid, and my apologies for interrupting your studies, i¡¯ll leave you to them.. Excuse me"

    "You didn¡¯t disturb Sir.." Said Re while smiling politely and blowing gently.

    After bidding farewell, the old alchemist left.

    -----

    Back inside the master-at-arms room, the two old men were sitting and chatting like they often did.

    "What a couple of freaks!" Said the old alchemist with an annoyed tone. "I¡¯ve talked to that girl for half an hour and I know less about that kid than I did before!"

    The old master-at-arms clearly enjoyed seeing his old friend in that state. He decided to poke the bear by saying "Oh, she is just protective towards her brother.. Which older sister wouldn¡¯t be worried if a suspicious old man started to ask questions about their little brother?.."

    "Who¡¯s a suspicious old man?! You¡¯re one to talk.. Opening a school on your own.. Attracting kids from left and right.. You¡¯re the one that they need to be on the lookout for!" Retorted the old alchemist bitterly.

    The old master-at-arms didn¡¯t take thement at heart, he instead giggled and went back to sipping his tea.

    A look of realization shed on the old alchemist¡¯s face. He then looked at the old master-at-arms and asked him "Didn¡¯t the brate here with two girls?" Who¡¯s the other one?"

    The faint smile on the hotel owner¡¯s face disappearedpletely. He stared at his teacup for a full minute, before saying in a low voice "Der¡¯s daughter.."

    The old alchemist¡¯s eyes shed open. "Are you kidding? How in the hell did she end up in your hotel to begin with?! That¡¯s too much of a coincidence." He inquired with an evesting surprise in his voice.

    "She had been taken as a ve.. The brat bought her at an auction, and then freed her before even leaving the building.." rified the old master-at-arms.

    The old alchemist smirked and said "Smart kid.. He can see the big picture.. Think of who¡¯s going to owe him a favor when.. If.. his father wille back.."

    "He didn¡¯t know who she was when he bought her.." Said the old master-at-arms, correcting his old friend¡¯s train of thought.

    Once learned the truth, the smile on the old alchemist grew two timesrger "The more I hear about this brat, the more I like him! Hehehe"

    After the old alchemist¡¯sugh, the two finished their tea in silence.

    Two quiet minutes passed before the old alchemist broke the silence by asking "You are keeping her here?.."

    "I have to.." Responded the old master-at-arms.

    The old alchemist¡¯s brows narrowed as he looked at his old friend. "Students of the School of Evesting Fury will sooner orter make their way here.. You haven¡¯t refused anyone since you¡¯ve taken in the three.. you can¡¯t start with them.. it¡¯ll look suspicious. What if they send someone who can recognize her?" He asked with a dead serious tone.

    The old master-at-arms looked lost for a moment, then, he seemed to have made a decision within his mind. He turned to look at his friend, and said "Nobody touches one of my students."

    "You better hope it doesn¡¯te to that.. i¡¯ve heard that the master of the School of Evesting Fury has been trying to breakthrough to the eight rank for days now." Said the old alchemist casually, trying to scale back his old friend¡¯s resolve to fight it out with his student¡¯s old enemy. He then added "Plus, you¡¯re not the master-at-arms anymore.. if His Majesty finds out.. he¡¯ll never take your side over his."

    The room turned quiet once more, and after a few minutes, the first to break the silence, was once again, the old alchemist.

    "Where the hell is that brat!? I feel like i¡¯ve been waiting here forever." The old alchemistined in a way most would define ¡¯slightly childish¡¯.

    "He¡¯ll be here by tomorrow." Responded the old master-at-arms.

 Chapter 29 A Strange Day

    It was early morning when Daniel¡¯s group arrived at Phyrri¡¯s gates.

    They entered the city from the southern walls, and once in, Daniel bid farewell to Garth and the rest, and headed towards the Hotel. He really wanted to see his sister.

    Once in front of the building, Daniel stood with his jaw wide open.

    The amount of people lingering in front of the building¡¯s entrance, was iparable to the one he had left behind. In fact, there were so many people that, weren¡¯t they all young men in their early twenties orte teens, he would have believed that the old man had reopened the hotel.

    Daniel tried to push his way into the building, when..

    "Hey! Don¡¯t skip the line!!" Said a young man in tight yet refined clothes.

    Slightly annoyed, Daniel tried to exin himself "Actually, I liv-" but he was interrupted by other voices.

    A girl in herte teens which was hugging three sheathed short sword, said sourly "Actually what?! We¡¯ve been here for hours! Even if you were the long lost children of the previous master-at-arms, you still have to wait for your turn!"

    Daniel gritted his teeth in annoyance, he then tried once more "I was just saying that i-" but he was interrupted again.

    "To the back of the line!" Said another young man which wore refined clothes.

    Each of these young men and women, were the geniuses that came from the groups ced outside the city of Phyrri. The first group that had managed to secure a ce within the old master-at-arms building, were members of the powers within the city. Which, whereas they lived nearby, they had arrived earlier. The rest needed more time to arrive.

    Daniel was slowly pushed on the borders of the crowd, and at the back of the line.

    "Fine.." He wasn¡¯t willing to wait in line to enter his own house, so instead of waiting, he located an opened window on the frontal wall of the building, and started to walk towards the wall.

    The people who were patiently waiting in line, noticed Daniel walking towards a wall with conviction. Their puzzled looks rapidly turned into ones of mockery and derision. From their point of view, Daniel had gone crazy.

    Daniel kept walking, until there were just 5 meters between him and the wall. He then lifted his leg, as if walking over the first step of a set of stairs, and before his foot could touch the ground, a stone stair rose from the ground, then another, and another.. Daniel walked over this set of stairs, which disappeared as soon as he moved onto the next.

    He kept going until he reached the opened window, crawled inside it, and closed it.

    The people on the ground looked at one another in silent confusion. The first to talk was the young girl which was embracing the short swords. "Is.. is that allowed?"

    -----

    On the other side of the window which Daniel had entered from, was a messy room. Daniel wanted to make a b-line for door, but as he heardughs and giggles on the other side, he had no choice but to hide in a dark corner of the room instead.

    In front of him a young couple appeared. The young man and woman were embracing each other, and crashing against every piece of furniture within the room. From the verses and mess the two were making, Daniel wasn¡¯t sure if the two were kissing, or trying to kill each other. Needless to say, Daniel was embarrassed beyond words. He could only try to reduce the space he upied, and stay as quiet as possible.

    The two started to take pieces of clothing off of each other, throwing them around randomly. Daniel was trying to find the right way to sneak out of the room, when suddenly, an indumentnded on his head.

    Daniel stood as still as a statue, then, after making sure the couple hadn¡¯t noticed him, he slowly raised his hand and pinched the piece of clothing that was resting over his head. He felt the soft fabric, and for a moment, he thought that a soft pair of female¡¯s undergarment hadnded on him.. But when his eyesnded on the item, he noticed the familiar shape of the piece of clothing.

    They were a pair of men¡¯s undergarment.

    "FUCK! THAT¡¯S IT!!" Shouded Daniel loudly. He then threw the young man¡¯s underwear on the ground, and while covering his face with hisrge sleeve, he stormed out of the room in rage.

    The couple had been scared to death. The two quickly rose up from the bed, as their eyes rapidly explored the room. They then noticed the figure dashing towards the door. When the young man noticed Daniel, he said "Hey! Hold on a m-" but before he could finish, a small fireball flew in his direction and exploded right in his face.

    The girl covered her face by instinct, but all she heard was the sound of the door opening and closing. She then looked to her right, and noticed the shocked look in her boyfriend¡¯s face.. And his slightly burnt hair.

    Daniel ran through corridors as if a demon was chasing him. He had no intention of being seen there, when the rumors would start to spread.

    -----

    The first thing Daniel did, was to go back to his room and change his clothes. He then walked out, and went to knock at his sister¡¯s room. Unfortunately, nobody answered.

    He was about to walk away, when a sweet sounding voice reached his ears from behind. "You are back.." Daniel turned around, and saw Mea. She was as beautiful as ever, and ifpared to the state she was in when he freed her, she seemed to have even recovered a bit of her personality.

    Daniel smiled at her, then said "I am. How have you been doing?"

    Mea still felt a bit of embarrassment when talking to Daniel. He had done a great favor to her, and had never asked for anything in return. Behaving naturally with someone to whom she owed so much, was extremely difficult to her. "I am doing great, I love this ce." She responded just as politely, then added "How did your hunting trip go?"

    "Fruitful.. I went to t.."

    Daniel hadn¡¯t spent much time with Mea, but his opinion of her was that of a sweet girl, which had lead a difficult life. She had also been the first person whose life Daniel had saved., so he couldn¡¯t help but feel responsible for her.

    The two talked for a bit, then Daniel, unable to find his sister, went to see the building owner.

    He arrived at the building owner¡¯s room, and heard talkinging from the other side. He knocked.

    After a few moments, he heard an old voice saying "Come in"

    Daniel opened the door and entered the building owner¡¯s room. Inside it, he found two two old men sitting at the table and drinking tea, like they often did.

    "FINALLY!" Eximed the old alchemist loudly. He then sprung up from his chair and dashed towards Daniel. His hand moved before Daniel could react and grabbed his wrist. "HA! The brat is at the peak of spiritual connection!.. There is no way he is a martial cultivator" Said the old alchemist at the old master-at-arms, as a scary smirk grew on his face.

    Daniel retracted his hand and looked at the old master-at-arms with an inquisitive look.

    The old master-at-arms ced his tea cup on the table, and said "This is the vice leader of the Golden Cauldron.. You saved his granddaughter a week ago."

    Daniel¡¯s eyes narrowed. He hadn¡¯t received a proper thank you from the old man, but he still couldn¡¯t afford to act rudely. He bowed his head slightly, and introduced himself "Greetings sir, my name is Dan Hiel."

    "Hey hey, don¡¯t be so formal.. I¡¯m here to thank you for saving my beloved granddaughter. Haha" Said the old alchemist with an oddly friendly attitude.

    Daniel looked at the two old men and said "I came here to thank you for sending a rescue party to find me." He then bowed once again.

    "That¡¯s the least we could have done!" Responded the old alchemist promptly, then added "I¡¯ve heard from my granddaughter that you have a talent for spiritual cultivation.. Say, would you like to join my Golden Cauldron, and be one of my students? Might not look like it, but i¡¯m a powerful mage myself! Hehehe"

    Daniel had expected such an invitation. He had doubted that such a prominent figure like the vice leader of one of the biggest groups within the Karalis kingdom, would order for his rescue simply to thank him, so he had prepared an answer in advance.

    "I¡¯m honored by the opportunity, sir.. But I haven¡¯t decided yet which cultivation path to take. I just.." He then made a saddened expression, and shook his head as if cursing his unlucky fate.

    The two old men, within their minds, scoffed at Daniel¡¯s pitiful attempt of swindling them.. They knew exactly what Daniel wanted, but still, they feigned ignorance. The old alchemist asked with curiosity "What¡¯s the matter?.. You can tell us"

    "I just wish I had learned more about the two types of cultivation.. So that I could choose my path." Responded Daniel with a voice full of self-hatred.

    The old master-at-arms was the first to talk this time. He said "How about this.. We¡¯ll teach you martial arts and magic for a week.. You¡¯ll then decide which path suits you better." He let the words sink in Daniels mind, and then continued "Then, after you breakthrough to the fourth rank, you can take one of us as your teacher."

    The three were all aware of the hidden meanings behind the others words, just as they knew that the other parties were acting, but for some reason, none of them interrupted the charade.

    An enormous smile grew on Daniel¡¯s face as he took a deep bow, and said "Thank you sirs!"

    On the faces of the two old men, a faint smile grew. The moment Daniel straightened his back, the old master-at-arms said "Don¡¯t worry about it.. You can go now, go see your sister, she is waiting for you in the lobby.. Oh, and try to stay out of other people¡¯s room.. Train starts tomorrow.."

    Embarrassment and a bit of anger appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he bowed slightly and left the room.

    "I like the brat.. It¡¯s been awhile since thest time a kid his age didn¡¯t puke his guts out when meeting both of us at the same time.. Remember the brat of the Trikli house?.." Said the old alchemist right after being once again alone with his old friend.

    The old master-at-arms remembered when that happened, and a nostalgic smile appeared on his face. "I recall the reason for that being your previous invention of the High Wolf Repellent.. Honestly, I still don¡¯t know how I managed to avoid puking myself.. You smelled like a sewer.."

    "Uncalled for.." Retorted the old alchemist.

    -----

    When Daniel reached the lobby, he sighted Re sitting at a coffee table. Next to her, were a few young men and women.

    Daniel recognized these people. They were Riri, the girl with the folding fan, Nilo, the martial artist in leather armor, and Finn, the handsome looking rapier wielder.

    The four were chatting happily, while drinking tea.

    Re was enjoying looking at how casually the other three treated each other. They were all proud children of powerful groups within Phyrri, and aside from Nilo, whom they metter, they had grown up together.

    At first, Re felt a stranger amongst this small group of friends, but in the past ten days, she slowly became friendly with Riri, The most friendly amongst the two disciples of the Folding Crane School.

    The many interaction with Riri had lead her to meet and interact with Nilo and Finn more often. And in the end, she had managed to befriend them as well.

    The four¡¯s chatter could be heard through the entire lobby, until a voice interrupted them. "Sister.."

 Chapter 30 Intensive Training Part 1

    "Sister.." Came Daniel¡¯s faint voice from behind Re¡¯s back.

    Re turned around and found her brother standing behind her. "Dan!" She eximed, before springing up on her feet and running to give him a hug.

    After a few seconds, she pushed her brother away, and started checked his body thoroughly for injuries. "Have you grown taller?" She then asked, jokingly.

    "It¡¯s only been ten days.." Responded Daniel, with a faint smile on his face.

    Re sighed in relief when noticing her brother¡¯s healthy state, she then asked "How did your trip go? Tell me everything.." Her bright and beautiful eyes glowing with curiosity.

    For the next few minutes, Daniel told the tale of his journey to his sister. Of what happened with their escort, of how they had saved a mage from the Golden Cauldron, and how he ended up stuck in a cave with two rank 4 beasts.

    During the entire story, Re stood as tense as a bowstring.

    On the other hand, the faces of the Nilo, Finn and Riri, which were still sitting at the table nearby the two siblings, had contorted in shock. They had finally understood the reason why the vice leader of the Golden Cauldron, had stayed to the old man¡¯s hotel until now.

    Of course, the three were martial cultivators, and weapon wielders at that, but they still were more than aware of who the old alchemist was, as his fame was on par with the old master-at-arms.

    When it seemed like Daniel¡¯s story had reached an end, Nilo approached the two "Rei, we are going back to train.." Said Nilo, dressed in his usual leather armor and brambraces.

    Re turned around and looked at him. Her eyebrows raised in realization, she then said "Oh, so rude.. Nilo, Finn, Riri, this is my brother Dan" she then turned toward Daniel and continued, "Dan, these are Nilo, Finn and Riri"

    "We¡¯ve already met" Responded Daniel.

    Riri was the first one to greet Daniel "A pleasure to meet you Dan. I heard that you¡¯re the one to thank for this opportunity.." Said Riri with a polite smile on her face, while indicating the hotel with her eyes.

    "And I have to thank your monstrous talent for the private lesson" Added Nilo.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t familiar with Riri and Finn, but he had a decent impression of Nilo. He hadn¡¯t treated him with disrespect the first time they had met, and had been smart enough to make use of an opportunity, the day he had trained in weapon wielding.

    "There is no need to mention it.." Responded Daniel with a polite smile on his face "I should thank you for bearing with my.." The five chatted for a bit, before Daniel bid farewell and left by himself to his room.

    Daniel hadn¡¯t slept on a bed for awhile now. So the moment he entered his room, he took his clothes off and dropped on his bed, falling asleep almost immediately.

    The morning after, Daniel went to meet with the two old men.

    The three spent a few minutes talking, stopping only after agreeing on a training schedule for Daniel. The training scheduleprehended five hours of martial training in the morning, and five hours of spiritual training in the evening.

    Another long day had started for Daniel.

    -----

    Training ground. 08:00

    Daniel stood quietly in front of the old master-at-arms. Dozens of practitioners looked at him with pure envy shining in their eyes. They hade all the way to Phyrri just to get a chance just like the one Daniel had received, and instead, they were forced to practice by themselves, quietly hoping to be noticed.

    Naturally, they had no right toin, as the old man had never agreed on teaching anything to anyone, and they inhabited the hotel as tenants, not students.

    That hadn¡¯t stopped them from crowding the area around Daniel and the old man, so that they could listen to the old man¡¯s words.

    "Mastery of ¡¯True Motion¡¯, ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯ and finally ¡¯Ki Rush¡¯. These are the three martial skills that I will teach you." Said the old man.

    The moment the old master-at-arms had started listing these skills, shivers ran through the spines of each person within the surrounding crowd. Every one of these skills were not only top notch, but also essential for every martial cultivator.

    The old man had thought this through. He wanted to teach Daniel advanced techniques which would help him in dealing with long ranged enemies, like mages.

    Considering that the old master-at-arms and the old alchemist were now inpetition, Daniel had expected as much. Fortunately, that was also what Daniel had hoped for, since he could easily find manuals for weapon wielding, while instead, books that described profound martial arts were impossible to find.

    The diffusion of profound martial arts, was strictly kept in check by schools of martial arts and sects. After all, the lower the number of groups that could teach a profound martial art was, the more prestige those groups would have, and the more students they would attract. That was also the reason why, for members of sects and schools of martial arts, sharing martial arts with outsiders was forbidden.

    Families were no different. A family could not make his rise in power only through money. They also required powerful martial or spiritual cultivators to keep them safe, otherwise they would end up being swallowed by another power sooner orter. Many amongst the family¡¯s ancestors had developed powerful martial arts in the past.

    The three skills which the old master-at-arms had decided to teach Daniel were ancient techniques, and belonged to disappeared schools of martial arts and sects. That was the reason why, the moment he started exining the first one, every single person within the crowd stopped their practice, and started to take notes instead.

    The old man didn¡¯t care about this. These skills were not that easily learned, as even geniuses would need to be corrected and advised through their training, or the mistakes they made, would stick with their mastery of the skill forever. The old man, when deciding which skills to teach him, had taken into ount Daniel¡¯s monstrous talent in practicing martial arts.

    After witnessing how Daniel had learned the basics of ¡¯True Motion¡¯ without needing anything but the skill¡¯s method, the old man had realized that Daniel¡¯s talent stood within finding his own mistakes and correcting them by himself. That was monstrous capability, which he had seen in many prodigies in the past, but never used to this extent.

    The first skill the old master-at-arms exined, was ¡¯True Motion¡¯

    After a rapid introduction of the skill, the old man started to exin its most intricate details and methods, how to use it to prevent your enemy from reading your body, how to use it along with weapon wielding, and many others.

    The many young men and women within the crowd had difficulties in keeping up with the old man¡¯s words. They started to doubt that the old master-at-arms was really willing to teach the skill, and that he was instead holding a lecture.

    Every martial art had a different way to indicate the practitioner¡¯s mastery. Some skills stages were indicated in ranks, while others were indicated in stages. ¡¯True Motion¡¯ was divided into four stages, which were Basic Motion, Intermediate Motion, Advanced Motion and Perfect Motion.

    Daniel¡¯s master of ¡¯True Motion¡¯ was at the Basic stage.

    Many groups had secured the basic manuals of ¡¯True Motion¡¯. Reason why Nilo had been able to easily take it out. Unfortunately, a person who had mastered the skill was required in order to pass it on to another.. and by now, aside from a few cultivators from powerful groups within the Karalis Kingdom, nobody but the old, and current master-at-arms had the necessary mastery of the skill to pass it on to someone.

    Not wanting to lose the chance, the many cultivator that assisted to the exnation and demonstrations of the martial skill, started to practice it.

    The old man ignored the other practitioners, and instead focused all of his attention on Daniel.

    Daniel started to practice the intermediate stages of ¡¯True Motion¡¯, following the old man¡¯s instructions. His progress were surprising as always, and yet, Daniel¡¯s view of martial arts started to change.

    By the end of the five hours of practice, despite activating the system¡¯s skill ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, he still hadn¡¯t managed to reach the state of Intermediate Motion.

    That day, Daniel had realized the differences in difficulty between learning the basics, and the more advanced stages of a martial skills, and from that, he had understood one thing.. The difference was abysmal.

    The people within the crowd started to go back to their practice, their face filled with disappointment. They had found the old man¡¯s teachings to be too rushed, and in the end, they had convinced themselves that, instead of a private lesson, it looked more like a one way educated exchange about martial arts.

    Daniel decided to go for lunch at a restaurant with Mea, and his sister Re. When they reached the restaurant, Re told Daniel that she had invited some people over as well.

    Inside the restaurant, sitting at a table, were Finn, Riri, Nilo and Miri.

    Daniel noticed Miri right away, and felt slightly awkward about eating along someone which had treated him as an inferior, and even attacked him. Unfortunately, now Re and Riri had be friends, so the chances of the two running out into each other, wasn¡¯t as rare.

    At the table, five of them chatted happily while eating. The only quiet ones were Daniel and Niri.

    Daniel didn¡¯t mind this, as his thoughts were still focused on his previous training.

    Unfortunately, his train of thought was interrupted by Riri¡¯s voice. Which said to him "I¡¯ve heard that the old master-at-arms is teaching you ¡¯True Motion¡¯! That¡¯s amazing.. Too bad I wasn¡¯t in the training grounds then.. I practice ¡¯True Motion¡¯ as well, and who knows, maybe I could have learned something.."

    Finn interjected by saying "That was hardly a lesson.. I was there.. It felt more like a master passing down knowledge to another master.." His handsome face then showed hints of disappointment, before continuing "It was more like taking a glimpse from detailed manual of martial art."

    The next person who spoke was Nilo, he said in a half serious half joking manner "Maybe, when Daniel will master ¡¯True Motion¡¯ he can teach us.."

    One had to understand one thing about the master-at-arms figure. A kingdom¡¯s Master-at-Arms was a prodigy which was born within said kingdom. And his or her job, consisted in safekeeping and passing down martial arts.

    When a powerful school of martial arts, sect, or family was on the path of decline, their most secret skills would be passed on to the kingdom¡¯s Master-at-Arms.

    Declining powers had more than one reason for doing this. One of them, was to dere to the cultivation world that the group had lost its power. But the most important reason for passing on their arts to the Master-at-Arms, was to prevent them from being lost in time.

    Once passed on, the martial art would not exactly belong to the Master-at-arms, as he wasn¡¯t allowed to release it to the public. The only thing he was allowed to do with it, was to pass it on to a suitable cultivator, in case he found one.

    ¡¯True Motion¡¯ belonged to a long lost sect called "Undeniable True Motion Sect". When the sect had declined, the kingdom¡¯s master-at-arms of the time, had inherited the skill. He had then passed the skill down to the following master-at-arms, and to a few worthy students.

    Unfortunately, these students didn¡¯t have what it took topletely master the skill. So through the slow passage of time, the only knowledge of ¡¯True Motion¡¯ that was free to the public, were the basics.

    Those who inherited a martial art from a master-at-arms, were allowed to make use of it however they wished. So, while Nilo was half joking, the fact that, in case Daniel was able to master ¡¯True Motion¡¯ he would have the full rights to pass it on, still remained.

 Chapter 31 Intensive Training Part 2

    "As if.." Commented Niri bitterly in a low voice.

    Daniel ignored herpletely, and instead kept eating his meal quietly. He had to go back to the training ground soon, as his spiritual training with the old alchemist was about to start.

    -----

    Training ground. 15:00

    When Daniel reached the training ground, he noticed the old alchemist sitting quietly on a stone bench. He had his eyes closed, and the only thing that made him look different from a statue, was his chest, which inted and deted slowly.

    Many had noticed the old alchemist, but differently from the old master-at-arms, nobody tried to show off their abilities to him. He was, after all, a spiritual cultivator. Nothing he could teach was of interest to them.

    The few of them who did approach him, did it to convey greetings from their group¡¯s leaders and prominent figures.

    When Daniel approached the old alchemist, the curiosity within the observing group of people, grew once more. They were aware of Daniel¡¯s talent in martial cultivation, and also about hisck of background. They really wanted to know what someone like Daniel could possibly want from a figure like the vice leader of Golden Cauldron.

    Their questions were answered the very next moment.

    The old alchemist opened his eyes the moment Daniel came near him. He smiled widely and said "Ready to start the training?"

    Sounds of jaws figuratively hitting the ground could be heard in the air.

    "I am" Responded Daniel convincingly. "What will you teach me?"

    The old alchemist suddenly started to giggle, then said "¡¯Aerial Walk¡¯, ¡¯Spiritual Shield¡¯ and ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯.. Hehe" He then started tough once again.

    Once more, Daniel had guessed right. It seemed that the master¡¯s objective was not only to teach him powerful arts and magics, but also to show him how to defend against the opposite kind of cultivator.

    For example, the martial arts that the old master-at-arms had decided to teach him, were all motion skills that could allow a martial cultivator to approach a mage, and engage him in closebat. Simrly, the old alchemist had decided to teach skills that would allow Daniel to avoid closebat, and keep himself distant from his enemy.

    ¡¯Aerial Walk¡¯ was a skill that allowed a mage to spread his spiritual essence through the air, and change itsposition in order to allow him to walk on it. This skill required the mastery of wind and water, and was considered an extremely advanced skill.

    ¡¯Spiritual Shield¡¯, as the name implied, was a skill that would allow one to create a non-elemental shield made purely of their spiritual essence. The purer the essence, and the higher the control, the more resistant the shield. This shield was most useful against magical attacks, but could also be used to strengthen elemental shields and increase their defensive abilities against physical attacks.

    Lastly, ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯ was a scouting skill that allowed a mage to sense the changes within the natural mana in a specific area. Therefore adding an additionalyer of protection against sneak attacks or iing ranged attacks.

    "Good, what do we start with?" Asked Daniel.

    The old alchemist got up on his feet, and looked at Daniel, then said "Mana Sensing."

    Mana sensing was a field type ability. Which was simr to the sixth rank of martial cultivation known as "Surrounding Awareness". Both these abilities granted ayer of awareness of one¡¯s surroundings, but in different ways.

    While Surrounding Awareness was a cultivation stage in which one¡¯s senses were so refined, that their awareness was heightened to an inhuman level, ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯ was simply a way of feeling the natural mana in the surroundings, and perceive the movements through the changes within it.

    If one were topare them, ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯ would be extremely simr to the Yellow-striped Caiman¡¯s way of hunting. While the Surrounding Awareness stage, allowed a martial cultivator to hear, smell and see, making it much more effective than ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯.

    Of course, one was a cultivation stage, while the other was a simple trick amongst spiritual cultivators. The two methods couldn¡¯t bepared.

    "Close your eyes, and start to feel the mana. Mana is everywhere, around your body, in the air, inside the nts, into the earth.. Feel the mana in the sun rays. Then, try to find the abnormalities in the patterns." Exined the old alchemist patiently.

    Daniel followed the old man¡¯s instructions, and started to sense the mana in the surroundings.

    At first, he only felt darkness. But as he managed to connect his spirit with the surrounding mana, he started to feel the solid earth essence under his feet.. The feeble essence of the grass, quietly waving above the ground. The rapid wind essence, transported by impetuous gusts of wind. And finally, the still and immovable sun essence, shining over the other types of essence like a gentle mother.

    Daniel studied their patterns over and over again, trying to get familiar with how they behaved. Then, all of a sudden, a small amount of earth essence started to raise from the ground, and merge together, creating a nail sized mass of earth essence. The earth essence floated quietly, until, it dashed through the wind essence and went towards Daniel at high speed.

    Instinctively, Daniel raised his hand and used it to shield himself from the small mp of earth essence.

    *thump*

    A small rock had hit Daniel¡¯s palm.

    "AMAZING!" Shouted the old alchemist.

    One had to know, that when practicing this skill, at first one would only sense shadows of the various essences. The rity would increase as a mage became more familiar with that specific type of essence, or after raising their rank through spiritual cultivation.

    What Daniel could see wasn¡¯t just shadows. He could differentiate between types of essences and react rtively fast.

    The old alchemist was expecting that he would have needed to hit Daniel a few times, before he would start to find the abnormalities within the essence patterns, but instead, he had felt the iing stone right away.

    The more Daniel tried to focus on sensing the various types of essences, the more he became used to them. The ones he made the biggest progresses with were air and earth essences, as he could feel them directly against skin.

    He then started to feel the old alchemist¡¯s ki, and after pushing himself further in the distance, he felt the ki of the practicing cultivators, and even the metallic essence of their weapons.

    For the following five hours, the old alchemist kept throwing rocks, curving winds, ttening grass, shielding him from the sun rays, or even digging underground tunnels with thin water snakes. He wanted to help increase Daniel¡¯s speed in sensing and reacting to abnormalities.

    That¡¯s what this skill had been invented for. Feeling the mana in one¡¯s surrounding was an amazing experience, but if the spiritual cultivator wasn¡¯t able to sense the small metal essence which was whizzing towards him at high speed, and ended up pierced by an arrow, then he would still be a mage.. but a short lived one.

    The stages of ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯, like spiritual cultivation stages, were divided into Faint, Moderate, Profound and Peak.

    Daniel¡¯s mastery of ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯, after 5 hours of uninterrupted training, had reached the Moderate Sensing.

    His results in mastering ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯, ifpared to ¡¯True Motion¡¯, had been much more fruitful, and that had been because of the continuous interference of the old alchemist. From whom he received a sort of "intensive training".

    Daniel spent the rest of the day moving while using the advanced notions of ¡¯True Motion¡¯, and by sensing his surroundings with his spirit.

    At the end of the day, he had spent almost a fourth of his remaining Karma points. He had calcted that, within 4 days, he would have run out. So even if he had agreed with the two old masters to be mentored for a whole week, he had still decided to attempt a breakthrough to the fourth rank after the fourth day of training.

    -----

    City Lord¡¯s Castle. 21:00

    Inside an impressive looking castle within the learned district, was arge and well decorated office. Inside this office, refined items of furniture could be seen decorating the room. The most impressive, was a 2x1.5 meters desk, built of an antique walnut colored wood, and a t top made of pearly white marble.

    Behind this desk, sitting on a wooden throne, was a middle-aged man.

    This middle-aged man dressed in tidy clothes, which were unable to cover his heavily built and muscr body. His slicked-back grey hair uncovered a good looking face, sculpted by strong-mindedness and discipline.

    *Knock-knock*

    "Enter.." Said the middle-aged man with a low, yet powerful voice.

    A man in city guard armor with a tiger carved on the left side of his chest, entered the door. The man was fully armored, and his face couldn¡¯t be seen. In his hand, a long spear was held straight. "City Lord, amunication from the Riora¡¯s region governor." Said the guard in decisive tone, right before handing an envelope over to the middle-aged man.

    The City Lord took the envelope, and opened it, not caring about excusing the guard. The guard didn¡¯t dare to move, and stood still, in wait for orders.

    Inside the envelope, was a folded piece of paper. Once taken out and unfolded, the City Lord read the content of the letter.

    __________

    The master of the School of Evesting Fury has requested that you personally wee his iing children, and convince the previous Master-at-arms to take them both in as direct students.

    Your secondary objective is to discover the reason why the Silver Alchemist has been staying with him for the past three days.

    __________

    The City Lord finished reading the letter, and then sighed deeply. He had once been a powerful cultivator, and now, after obtaining the position of City Lord, he had been stuck inside this office, only able toe out of his castle to entertain young masters of powerful schools.

    He picked up the pen from above his desk, and started to write a letter. He then folded it, put it inside an envelope, and sealed it with molten wax. He handed it over to the standing guard, and said "Deliver this letter to the old master-at-arms."

    -----

    Back to the hotel, Daniel spent his entire evening training ¡¯True Motion¡¯ and ¡¯Mana Sensing¡¯ without the use of his system. He had decided that he would¡¯t have spended more points on these two skills, as now that he had learned them, he could increase their masteryter in the future, when he would have had more points to spend.

    Today, Daniel had trained for 10 hours. Even more if one counted the time he had practiced by himself. Around midnight, he decided to go to sleep, in preparation for the next day of training.

    -----

    Next day, training grounds. 08:00

    Like the day before, Daniel found the old master-at-arms waiting for him. All around him, a group of young practitioners trained their own skills, trying to impress him. Unfortunately, none of them gained as much as a glimpse from the old man.

    The moment Daniel approached him, the old man rose up to his feet and after looking at him for a few seconds, he said "You have made almost no progression since our training ended yesterday.."

    That was the truth. Daniel had decided to train ¡¯True Motion¡¯ without the use of the karmic system, and that had put his learning capabilities below those of a genius.

    The old man, of course, knew nothing about Daniel¡¯s karmic system, or the fact that he had practiced all day. What he knew was that Daniel had prodigy level talent, and that he hadn¡¯t made any progress. That had caused him to think of Daniel aszy, and his impression within the old man¡¯s mind to lessen a bit.

    With a slightly disappointed expression, he looked at Daniel and said "You should put more effort into training.." He then turned back into his usual stoic expression, and continued "Today, i¡¯ll teach you ¡¯Ki Rush¡¯.

 Chapter 32 Intensive Training Part 3

    ¡¯Ki Rush¡¯ was a martial art created to allow martial cultivators to bursts with speed when moving. In order to do that, they needed to force their ki to the bottom of their feet, and detonate it the exact moment they dashed towards their enemies.

    Now, this might sound easy, but it was far from it.

    A mistake in the control of one¡¯s ki during a fight, could have pushed the cultivator¡¯s body into the area of damage of an enemy mage¡¯s spell, or even against an enemy martial cultivator¡¯s de. Plus, the burst in speed not only depended by the amount of ki detonated, but also by the quality of the ki, therefore forcing martial cultivator to readapt, and learn this skill whenever they advanced in rank.

    This was the reason why, while this martial art was still ssified as a ¡¯movement art¡¯, its most important requirement was a profound control of one¡¯s ki.

    The old master-at-arms gave a brief exnation to Daniel, and after just a few minutes, Daniel started to practice it.

    Daniel channeled his naturally created ki and moved it through his flesh, bones, muscles and blood vessels. He then focused it on the bottom of his feet, and tried to ce himself in a dashing position, but the moment his feet touched the ground, he lost control of it, making him jump in the air for 5 meters, and fall back down against a stone bench, breaking it in half.

    Daniel¡¯s control of his ki was the worst the old master-at-arms had ever seen. And there was a reason for that. Normal cultivators would spend, through their lives, months, if not years, simply training in the control of their ki.

    Differently, Daniel had never practiced control over his ki, as the system¡¯s feature simply helped him in learning things faster. So even if he was capable of focusing his ki into a thin line, right at the edge of his sword, other types of control were new to him.

    It took a full hour before Daniel could learn how to keep focus on his ki, and detonate it at the right moment.

    After Daniel reached that point, the old master-at-arms suddenly talked "Pick five people from the crowd."

    The surrounding cultivators backs straightened like spears. They had heard the old man¡¯s word clearly. They all looked at Daniel with hopeful eyes, and the moment his eyes moved past them, their expressions changed into anger or disappointment.

    Daniel knew already who he wanted to pick. He quickly found his sister¡¯s friends within the crowd, and indicated them one by one. From the crowd, Nilo, Finn, Riri, Miri and a random person came out. Daniel knew that the old man wouldn¡¯t simply use these people to train him, and would reward themter, so he decided to pick a person with good karma as the fifth.

    The old master-at-arms didn¡¯t care which people Daniel picked. He simply turned towards the five, and said "Pick up wooden weapons and take your stances.. When you see him dash towards you.. Attack."

    Amongst the five of them, everyone but Nilo went towards the weapon racks, and picked up their respective weapon. Finn picked a thin sword-like weapon, while the two sisters picked up two different sized battle fans. The remaining of the five, picked a thin rod. The old man didn¡¯t mind that Nilo hadn¡¯t picked a weapon, as he had rewarded Nilo with a tutored session in the past, and was aware that he was a hand-to-hand martial artist.

    The five took their ces around Daniel, and assumed their battle stances.

    Daniel didn¡¯t waste time, and started to use ¡¯Ki Rush¡¯ to approach the five.

    For the first ten minutes, all Daniel did, was getting bashed left and right. There were no serious damages to his body, but he was covered in red marks.

    The surrounding crowd was enjoying the scene, maybe a little too much. But the more time passed, the less theyughed. The five¡¯s attacks started to miss, either because Daniel was out of reach, or because he had already dashed past them.

    To make aparison, during the first ten minutes of training, he had been hit more than sixty times, while during the following twenty minutes, he had been hit less than twenty times.

    Daniel¡¯s starting point was that of a talentless unranked, and yet, his progress defied all logic.

    After another full hour passed, in which Daniel hadn¡¯t been hit even once, the old man stopped the training session by simply saying "That¡¯s enough."

    He then approached the five, and while looking at them one by one, he said "You hold back your attacks, even when you practice. Remember that martial arts are for killing, not for show.." He said to Nilo, then looked at Finn, Riri and Miri and continued "You, when you attack, you give up control over the ki inside your rapier. Don¡¯t just push ki into it! Condense it!.. Use a smaller fan! An iron ribbed one is too heavy for you.. You, I don¡¯t why you¡¯re so angry, but keep your emotions in check when you fight. What¡¯s the point of hitting hard if you miss?.. And you.."

    The crowd felt envy towards this small group of people, and yet, they also felt relieved. Many of them had started to believe that, not only the old man had no interest in teaching them, but he also didn¡¯t pay any attention to their practice.

    Now, listening to the words of the old man, they had understood that, even if he didn¡¯t look at them, he still noticed their practice, and already had a clear idea of their major defects.

    The training of ¡¯Ki Rush¡¯ was divided into three parts. Control over ki, precision over long-ranged bursts, and finally, a mix of the two, precision over short-ranged bursts.

    Precision over short-ranged bursts might simply sound the opposite of precision over long-ranged bursts, but the difference in difficulty was abysmal. Inparison, long-ranged burst was like diving with your whole body, while short-ranged bursts required more control over your ki, and was more like jumping andnding over a specific point.

    Daniel¡¯s training ground for short-ranged burst practice, was within the agility and bnce section. Inside the agility and bnce section of the training ground, was a forest made out of differently sized poles pierced into the ground.

    The distance between one rod and the other varied. Some were two meters away, some just enough for a person to pass through. Daniel¡¯s objective was to spend ten minutes inside this forest without hitting any of the poles.

    That was easier said than done.

    While training with his ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ activated, it still took him the remaining two and a half hours to barely manage toplete the assignment.

    This had concluded his daily five hours of martial training, and also concluded his basic training in ¡¯Ki Rush¡¯, as his mastery of it had reached the initial sess.

    The old man had picked martial arts that would take Daniel around two days to reach the initial sess of. But weirdly enough, something had changed in Daniel since he had been back from his hunting trip, and his learning talent seemed to have doubled.

    Once concluded the martial training, Daniel went to see Mea and his sister for lunch, then headed back to the training ground for his spiritual training.

    Like the day before, the old alchemist was waiting for him while sitting on the stone bench with his eyes closed. "I hope you¡¯re not too tired from your martial training.. This will be plenty tiring by itself." He said to Daniel while slowly opening his eyes.

    The magical skill that the old alchemist intended on teaching Daniel, was ¡¯Spiritual Shield¡¯.

    "Spiritual Shield, as you might have guessed, is a defensive skill made out of pure spiritual essence. The spiritual essence that your spirit receives in exchange for your ki, is marked, and therefore cannot be controlled by other practitioner, unless they are much stronger than you. This mark is not only applied to the spells we cast, but also to the surrounding mana you try to control. In fact, without noticing, whenever you assume control of the surrounding mana, you automatically mark it under your domain."

    He stopped for a second, letting the informations sink into Daniel¡¯s mind, then continued "Spells or mana marked by different spiritual practitioners, repel each other. And here is how ¡¯Spiritual Shield¡¯ works. Now, force your spiritual essence around your body, and shield these magical attacks."

    For the following five hours, Daniel kept focusing his spiritual essence into thin films around his body. One after the other, he shielded himself from the various weak magical attacks the old alchemist kept sending against him, helping its control over the skill to slowly increased.

    The old alchemist, on the other hand, kept on gradually increasing the strength of the magical attacks, to a point where Daniel was forced to recreate it after each attack.

    That was the fastest way for someone to learn how to use ¡¯Spiritual Shield¡¯. Not simply shielding from attacks, but also repairing, re-creating and controlling the amount of spiritual essence within the shield.

    -----

    Meanwhile, inside the old master-at-arms private room, at the table where him and the old alchemist usually sat, a middle aged man was now sitting, facing him.

    "It¡¯s a honor to meet you again, Master Kye" Said the middle aged man politely.

    The old master-at-arms, whose surname was Kye, looked back at the middle aged man and answered "City Lord, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

    "Work." He responded, then took a sip of the tea the old man had offered him, and continued "Master Kye, today, the students of the School of Evesting Fury will arrive, and amongst them, the master¡¯s three children. Their father has requested me to ensure them the proper lodging within your building."

    The brows on the old man¡¯s face furrowed deeply. He had a deep grudge against the master of the School of Evesting Fury, as he was the man who had used one of his disciples of betraying Karalis. As part of the royal house, the old man wasn¡¯t allowed to defend his disappeared disciple, nor save his family from being eradicated when the rumor of his betrayal spread through the poption of the kingdom.

    The master of the School of Evesting Fury had been the cause of one of his life¡¯s biggest regrets. What was worse, was that the only children of his disciple, was currently dwelling inside his building.

    If he were to refuse entry to the disciples of the School of Evesting Fury, their master might be suspicious about the reason, and after investigating further, he might discover Mea amongst the old man¡¯s guests.

    "Of course, I still have plenty of rooms." Said the old man after assuming his usualposed expression.

    "Splendid!" Eximed the city lord before, continuing with a slightly embarrassed tone "Master Kye, there is another matter I wish to discuss."

    The old man looked back at him and responded "Do ask then."

    "The governor was really surprise about learning that the Silver Alchemist was staying here. He wanted to know if the two of you would have honored the Riora¡¯s region by jointly opening a school in one of his cities." Asked the city lord with a curious and confused tone.

    The old man smiled, and responded "Nothing like that. We¡¯ve simply found a good seed whom we arepeting for." The old man didn¡¯t really wanted to exin himself, but since sooner orter the young men and women within his building would have reported of the two master¡¯s unusual interest towards Daniel, he decided not to keep it secret.

    The city lord¡¯s eyes opened wide in surprise. The old master-at-arms and the old alchemist were both prominent figures within the kingdom. Both of them were people whose sects leaders would request to educate their disciples. For both of them topete for a young man, that was unheard of.

 Chapter 33 School of Everlasting Fury

    Once the surprise on the city lord¡¯s face faded, an ufortable expression appeared on his face. The task of convincing a man to take the children of his enemy as students, was an awful one.

    It took a moment for him to muster the courage and say "Master Kye.. I have heard from many within the city that.." He paused slightly, before continuning with embarrassment growing in his voice "You haven¡¯t taken any student yet.. Well, except for that young man you¡¯ve mentioned. The fact is, the master of the School of Evesting Fury asked the governor to put a good word with you, into epting the young masters as direct students. Would it be possible?"

    A faint smirk grew on the face of the old master-at-arms. He then put his empty cup on the small table, and said while looked back at the city lord. "There has been a misunderstanding. I haven¡¯t started a school. What I own is a building.. I¡¯ve taken all these brats in just to keep mepany." His voice suddenly turned serious and continued "They are free toe live here, as tenants. But like any other here, I won¡¯t take them as students unless I want to."

    "Master.. I feel extremely ufortable by doing this, but the governor asked me to remind you about your duty towards the direct disciples of the major sects and sc-" His sentence was abruptly interrupted by the old master-at-arms voice.

    "I am not the master-at-arms anymore. I won¡¯t pass down any skill that I don¡¯t want to. So there is no need to worry about me." Said the old man. "If they want to learn martial skills, they can go to the current master-at-arms"

    The city lord nodded his head in ordance, then with a matter-of-fact tone he added "Between us, Master Kye, we all know what skill the School of Evesting Fury wants from you.. And the new master-at-arms cannot teach it to them.."

    The corner of the old man¡¯s mouth lowered in anger. He wasn¡¯t angry at the city lord, as he had simply said the truth. Who he was angry to, was the master of the School of Evesting Fury.

    One had to know that, in the past, both Mea¡¯s father Der, and the master, at the time disciple of the School of Evesting Fury, were inpetition to be the next student of the master-at-arm.

    In the end, Mea¡¯s father had been chosen.

    That had started the hate between the master of the School of Evesting Fury, and the master of the Rulin family. Which, after the disappearance of their master, had culminated in the extermination of the Rulin family.

    The old master-at-arms regained his calm attitude after a few moments, then said "I have no obligations to teach that skill to them. I wasn¡¯t the master-at-arms when the thirteen master of the School of Evesting Fury passed it to me. That skill is mine to pass down to whoever I wish, and my choice doesn¡¯t reside within the new generations of that school." His tone serious and determined.

    "I understand." Said the city lord. He then got back on his feet, and after a deep bow towards the old man, he bid farewell, and left.

    -----

    Streets of Phyrri, Commoner¡¯s section. 22:12

    Daniel, Mea, Re and the rest, were walking back from the restaurant they had just eaten to.

    Miri and Riri were walking behind, and seemed to be talking with each other. Miri looked embarrassed, while Riri seemed to be convincing her to do something.

    Nilo and Finn were joking around with the extroverted Re, while Daniel and Mea were walking quietly in the front.

    The streets they were walking into was full of life, and many stalls were ced one next the other in the lively street.

    Suddenly, shouting sounds, along with noise of wooden furniture being destroyed, could be hearding from a ce not too far away from them. The noises came from the direction they were going, so they decided to take a look of what was happening.

    As they arrived, they saw a small crowd spectating a scene in circle. Everyone in the crowd was either chattering in a low voice, or shouting in a horrified manner.

    Daniel and Finn were the first to push their way through therge amount of people, and when they saw what was happening, blood started boiling in their veins.

    At the entrance of a restaurant, a group of people wearing the same type of martial attire was upying three different tables. Two tables had five people each, while the third, only had two young men and a young woman. Thesest three people wore clothes of the same style, but their attire was much more refined whenpared to the others.

    On each of these people¡¯s tight fitting clothes, a symbol appeared evidently. It was a red closed fist, surrounded by a yellow sun.

    The table upied by the better dressed martial artists had a flipped bowl on it, and soup was dripping down the edge of the table.

    Two of the lower level martial artists were standing near the tables, and at their feet, was a young girl which didn¡¯t seem to be older than twelve years old. Near her, her mother was begging for forgiveness, while covering her daughter¡¯s body with her own.

    Her daughter¡¯s screams were the ones that had attracted Daniel and the rest.

    Daniel and Finn had immediately noticed the copious amounts of blood on the ground, and when they looked at the young girl, they noticed something that made their faces contort in anger.

    On the ground, next to the little girl, a pale small hand rested on the ground within a small pool of blood, and separated from the rest of her thin and pale arm.

    The voice of one of the martial artist resounded in the air "What are you begging for! I won¡¯t kill her! I just want to take the other hand! He he he" He then pushed the little girl¡¯s mother away.

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: Just a Wandering Hero*

    -Description: Save those in need.

    Third objective set: Save the little girl and her mother from certain death.

    Optional: Use one of the group¡¯s healing pills to restore the little girl¡¯s hand.

    Optional: Exterminate the group of cultivators.

    Reward: Karma +500(+500)(+25,000 / School of Evesting Fury -75%)

    Time Limit: 1 minute, 30 seconds.

    -----

    With an extremely small amount of time to act, Daniel looked at Finn and asked "What does a healing pill look like?!"

    Finn was too furious to respond, but fortunately, Nilo wasn¡¯t. "The size of a pearl, white, slightly transparent. No shine"

    "Don¡¯t move from here, all of you." Daniel said, before taking a dashing position, and bursting towards the martial artist which was about to punch a hole through the little girl¡¯s body.

    The young man didn¡¯t hold back any of his strength. In fact, he put so much force into the punch, that his shoulder kept going even after his entire arm was cut clean off his shoulder.

    The young man didn¡¯t even have the time to shout, as a strong hand grabbed the back of his neck with a steel grip, and a kick on the back of his knee forced him on his to kneel.

    Daniel had nned to demand a healing pill from one of the tree better dressed martial artists, so he couldn¡¯t afford not to appear serious. On his face, a thin stone mask hid his identity.

    The rest of the group¡¯s attention had been caught. With immovable eyes, Daniel looked at the one of the three with slightly dirty clothes, and said "Healing pill, now."

    The one with the dirty clothes sprung up on his feet, fury filled his eyes. He was about to attack, but as the girl cleared her throat, he calmed down immediately. The girl looked at Daniel, and with a smile on her face, she said "We don¡¯t have healing p-"

    But before she could finish, Daniel¡¯s hand, which was still holding his bloody sword, moved once more. This time, the right ear of the young man had fallen off.

    "Healing pill." Daniel repeated.

    The smile on the girl¡¯s face disappeared. She then said "You are making a mistake.. Even if yo-"

    Once again, Daniel¡¯s hand moved, and the young man¡¯s remaining hand fell on the ground with a slow *thud*

    "You are thirteen.. Taking into ount arms and ears.. I count fiftytwo chances to change your answer into a ¡¯yes¡¯.. And if not, i¡¯ll start killing."

    A pearl-sized white pill suddenly approached Daniel at high speed. He released the young man¡¯s neck just in time to catch the pill in mid air, and the moment he did, the young man¡¯s screams started to resound in a deafening volume.

    Daniel inspected the pill, and after confirming that it was, in fact, as Nilo had described, he walked towards the little girl, and gave it to her. He then picked her little hand up, and moved it close to her injured arm.

    Not any random healing pill was able to reattach a limb, but since the system had told Daniel that the one in the group¡¯s possession would have been able to restore the little girl¡¯s arm, then he knew that this one was.

    The cells within the girl¡¯s arm started to regenerate thanks to the healing essence within the pill. The healing essence moved through the little girl¡¯s blood vessels, and when it reached her wrist, it jumped out of her arm and went straight towards her hand. It then seeped into the injured part of the hand, and pulled the severed hand back towards it.

    The whole scene was unreal. It looked like someone was using a white thread to reattach a the girl¡¯s arm to her hand. The grievous cries of the injured young man were cut off, the moment he himself ingested two healing pills. Like the little girl, white essence started to reconnect his limbs and ear.

    The third andst well dressed martial artist, which was the one who had thrown the healing pill to Daniel, stood up on his feet and simply ordered to the rest. "Let¡¯s go."

    With no intention of disobeying, every one of them, including the injured young man whose body parts were still only half reattached, followed him quietly.

    The girl took a good look at Daniel, then turning around and left with the rest.

    Daniel had no intention of allowing anyone within the crowd to see him reunite with his sister and friends, so he made his way through the crowd, and left by himself.

    Nilo and Finn immediately picked up on Daniel¡¯s action, and took the others with them before leaving. Amongst the group, excitement, pride, shock and admiration could be seen in all of their eyes, except for Mea, whose face was contorted in fear and anxiousness, as she was on the verge of crying.

    Luckily, thanks to the collective state of mind of the rest of the group, her expression had managed to go unnoticed until the moment she calmed herself down.

    It was right after she calmed herself, that Daniel, now devoid of his stone mask, approached them from behind and joined the rest of the group as if nothing had happened.

    Before anyone could say anything, a sound series of psnded heavily against Daniel¡¯s arm.

    "You idiot! What the hell were you thinking?! Didn¡¯t you see how many of them there were!?!?.." Re shouted while hitting him repeatedly.

    Daniel tried to parry a few of his sister¡¯s hits, but he still let most of them hit him. He knew that his sister was worried sick, and she needed a way to vent her anxiousness.

    Just as the thirtieth p fell heavily on Daniel¡¯s shoulder, a small window appeared within his mind, reminding him of thepleted objective.

    -----

    *Just a Wandering Hero*

    Third objectivepleted.

    Reward: 1000 Karma Points

    -----

 Chapter 34 Shadow Approach

    On their way back home, Nilo approached Daniel quietly, and said "Thanks.."

    Daniel didn¡¯t looked back at him, and instead, he said "No idea what you¡¯re talking about.."

    "You know, for preventing Finn from doing.." He paused for a little bit, then added "..something stupid."

    At first, Nilo wasn¡¯t sure why Daniel had told them to stay back, but when he saw a mask covering his face, he understood immediately.

    Daniel knew that, if someone could afford to behave like that group did, they would probably belong to a vicious and powerful group. And therefore, letting Nilo, Finn or the two sisters act, might have formed a grudge between their powers and the School of Evesting Fury.

    That didn¡¯t mean that, if Daniel hadn¡¯t told them to stay put, they would have acted. The only person Daniel was convinced would have acted, was Finn. Nilo looked at things in an objective way, and Daniel wasn¡¯t sure that he would have chosen to put his friends and school in danger, just to save a little girl and her mother.

    That might sounds a bit cynical, but in a world dominated by power, betting the future of the people who took care of you just to y hero, was a dangerous thing.

    Finn was much more of a reckless person, but even him, after all that had happened, and after he had managed to calm himself down, realized of how much he would have risked if Daniel hadn¡¯t stopped him from acting.

    Maybe he would have jumped in, and killed one or more of those martial artist.. Causing their backing power to retaliate against his sect, by killing every disciple or members of their families.

    That was the reason why, many young talents that came from powerful schools, sects and families, decided to unconsciously shut down sympathy, and assume arrogant and elitist behaviours instead.

    An example of these types of people, was Miri.

    She wasn¡¯t a bad person, but because of the cynical views she was forced to adapt to in order to survive in this world, she had no choice but separate herself, from a world of needy people which she couldn¡¯t afford to help.

    A view that most young cultivator had to agree to, at some point in their life, was that ¡¯It is much easier to act as a bad person, than suffer the consequences of being a good one.¡¯

    Naturally, Daniel didn¡¯t have a clear picture of the characters of his sister¡¯s new friends. The reason why he told them to stay back, was because he didn¡¯t want to implicate his sister. That¡¯s why he had left the scene alone, and had worn a mask the whole time.

    Saving the others some trouble, was simply a consequence. Although, he now had a better opinion of the few of them. After all, in a world where acting had drastic consequences, intentions had a whole different meaning.

    The second, and probably just as important reason for preventing them to act, was the fact that he remembered the name of the school from which those martial artists came from.

    He had recognized it the very moment he read the optional reward for exterminating them. Which was gaining a bad reputation with the School of Evesting Fury.. That was the same school whose master had used Mea¡¯s father of treason, and caused her entire family to be wiped out.

    After changing his clothes, Daniel and the rest of the group went back to the old man¡¯s building.

    The little episode had granted Daniel with a few more, very much needed, karma points. With them, he had decided to finish his training within the next day, and attempt to breakthrough to the fourth rank that night.

    Unfortunately, when the next morning Daniel went to the training grounds, he didn¡¯t find the old master-at-arms waiting for him.

    He decided to head over to the old man¡¯s room, to see if he was there.

    -----

    *knock knock*

    Daniel knocked on the door twice, then heard a familiar voiceing from the other side "Come in." He then entered.

    What he found inside therge room, were at least forty young men and women. They were all quietly standing right next to the table where the old man, along with the old alchemist, were sitting.

    These forty young cultivators were divided into a dozen of smaller groups. Each of these groups had a different attires. Some groups wore heavy armors, and had halberds, swords and even shields strapped to their backs or by their waists, some others wore lighter armors and carried bows and arrows, short swords, and daggers, and a few carried no weapons at all.

    All of these small groups of cultivators belonged to a major school of martial arts, sect or family within the Karalis Kingdom.

    Daniel immediately recognized three of these people. On their back, a red fist surrounded by a bright yellow sun was neatly sewn. They were the three better dress members of the School of Evesting Fury. The young man with the dirtied clothes, the girl he had talked to, and the third who had thrown the healing pill at him.

    "Oh, Daniel. Come here." Said the old master-at-arms while waving his hand at Daniel.

    Daniel walked past therge groups of young masters and mistresses, and approached the old man.

    The old man looked at him and said "I have to wee these young masters and mistresses today, I won¡¯t be able to teach you personally. Here is theplete manual of ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯.. Practice it by yourself and show me the resultster today."

    The moment the words ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯ left the old man¡¯s mouth, everyone present which carried a bow, daggers or short swords looked at Daniel with eyes filled with greed. Each of these small groups belonged to powers which had tasked them to inherit specific arts from the old master-at-arms. And for the parties which practiced assassination, ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯ was one of those.

    The power which created ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯ was a sect called Quiet Steps Sect, and it specialized in assassination techniques. This sect was said to have found its demise due to the assassination of the descendent of an unknown powerful cultivator.

    And while this rumor hadn¡¯t been confirmed, the entire sect had been wiped out in the middle of the night. The only survivor was an elder, which due to his luck, was far from the sect¡¯s territory at the time.

    This elder had escaped to the capital, and after meeting with the king, unsure of his chances of survival, he decided to pass down his sect¡¯s arts to the Master-at-arms of the time. Master Kye¡¯s predecessor, which then passed down the arts to Master Kye himself. That had been the right decision, as the surviving elder of the Quiet Steps Sect disappeared just weeks after reaching the capital.

    The old man noticed the greedy looks on the faces of the present, and after turning to face Daniel once more, he added "..After you memorize the art.. Burn the book."

    A simr rmendation had been expected by the crowd of cultivators, whose greedy looks disappeared, and got reced by their usual apparent calm state.

    Daniel walked towards the door, bus as he was about to leave, the voice of the old alchemist resounded in the room. It said "I¡¯ll be seeing youter this evening."

    The various boys and girls present started to wonder who the hell this brat was, and why was he being tutored by two of the most known teachers within the Karalis kingdom.

    One had to know that the two of them, weren¡¯t amongst the most powerful cultivators of the kingdom, as their cultivation strength was only at the seventh rank. The real reason why they were so deeply known and respected, was the vast knowledge they possessed.

    That was also why many powerful groups sent their young martial artists and mages to learn under the two men¡¯s wings. They would thene back, and be powerful cultivators under their power¡¯s arts and guidances.

    The Karalis kingdom had just came out from a devastating war, which had killed many of their powerful cultivators. The strongest cultivators within the kingdom, were no more than five rank 9 cultivators, and less than twenty who had reached the eight rank.

    All small groups inside the old man¡¯s private room, belonged to a major family, school of martial arts or sect. And each of these powers had at least a rank 8 amongst their members.

    For example, the School of Evesting Fury not only had a master who was close to reaching the eight rank, but also had a living ancestor who had already reached that level, and had acted as the previous master before his retirement.

    Daniel nodded at the old alchemist and left the room.

    He went back to the training ground, sat on a stone bench, and started to quietly read the manual of ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯.

    ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯ was essentially the opposite of ¡¯Ki Rush¡¯. Its main purpose was to deaden one¡¯s steps through an equal and opposite exertion of ki. The difficult part was to calcte the right amount of ki needed to cushion every single step, as every small difference within one¡¯s weight would change the pressure exerted by their movements, and consequently, change the amount of ki required to dampen the noisepletely.

    This, was much easier said than done. In fact, this skill was considered hard to learn even for martial cultivators at the Full Control sub-rank, which werepletely aware of their bodies, along with any variations in the weight they carried.

    Oncepletely mastered, ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯ allowed one to cushion the pressure exerted by their steps to a point, where they would be able to step over the tip of a de of grass without ttening it under their weight.

    Contrary from what many believed, the art¡¯s name hadn¡¯t been given thanks to a corrtion with shadows or darkness. Instead, it was given by the fact that, once mastered, one would be able to approach their enemies as quietly as their own shadows did.

    This was, by far, the most difficult of the martial arts Daniel had ever practiced. After five full hours of practice, he had only managed to halve the noise he made when walking.

    Daniel didn¡¯t know, but that "small progress" was beyond anyone had ever managed. The elder who had passed down the skill to Master Kye¡¯s predecessor, had taken at least a year to reach the point Daniel had reached in just 5 hours.

    He still hadn¡¯t reached the minor stage, but he wasn¡¯t far from it.

    What Daniel didn¡¯t expect, was for the small task the old man had given him, to uncover a new way to use his system¡¯s powers. And that was, to memorize.

    Daniel was very intelligent, but not enough to memorize the entire manual of an advanced martial art in just a few minutes. Since the beginning, he had thought that it would have been better to just burn the book, and ask another copy the next day.

    But when he tried to memorize just enough to keep practicing for the rest of the day, the lengthy process of memorizing was shortened.

    The feeling Daniel felt waspletely different from when he tried to learn a skill, as that was a matter of correcting his mistakes. He hadn¡¯t be smarter, nor had his memory been enhanced. It simply felt like, after a simple read, he had went through the words over and over again for various hours.

    In the end, Daniel managed topletely memorize the manual in just fifteen minutes, and after that, he created a ball of fire and burned the book into ashes.

    With the training method of each of the martial arts the old man had teached him in mind, Daniel had finished his martial training. All he needed to do before deciding which path to take, was to learn the third spiritual art from the old alchemist, and then make his choice.

    Before learning spells, Daniel had never considered bing a spiritual cultivator. But after he had defeated the bandit mage, and learned control over elements and summoning spells, his mind had changed.

    Martial cultivation was his father¡¯s choice, and as much as he liked it, he was still thorn between the two paths.

 Chapter 35 Walking on Air

    After lunch, Daniel went to follow the lesson regarding the third, andst spiritual art the old alchemist had decided to teach him. He headed towards the training ground, and as usual, he found the old man sitting on the usual stone bench, waiting for him with his eyes closed.

    "Ready to walk on air?" Asked the old alchemist the moment Daniel approached him. On his face, a big and excited grin.

    Daniel was pretty enthusiast about the skill he was about to learn. No matter how mature and intelligent a fourteen years old kid could be, they would still be a teenager, and teenagers dreamt of heroics and adventures.

    "¡¯Aerial Walking¡¯ is a mixed elemental spiritual art, so in order to learn it, you¡¯ll have to get ustomed to the two elements of which air is formed. Specifically, water and wind." Said the old alchemist.

    Out of the blue, in his hands, two fist sized beads appeared. The moment these two beads appeared, Daniel felt as if he had been transported in the middle of a storm. These two beads were of the same size, but the feeling they gave was extremely different.

    The first thing Daniel noticed, was how massive and dense the elemental essence these two spheres emitted. One waspletely transparent, and Daniel could feel the strong gusts of winds essence screaming within and around it. He felt like the old alchemist had a ball shaped tornado in his hand.

    The second bead was simr, but instead of impetuous and rageful, it emitted calm and quiet waves of water essence. Just by looking at it, Daniel felt as if he was in the middle of a tranquilke. The bead¡¯s color was light blue, with a darker color in the middle, and it looked like a miniature aquatic.

    What was most interesting, was that the parts of the spheres which were closest to the other, were slowly starting to mutate. Within the clear sky blue bead, the essence started to stir, making the calmness of the water essence, turn into restless and devastating waves. It felt as if a storm had started to form within the sea, and immense waves were recing the previous gentle movement of the water.

    On the other hand, the part of the transparent sphere closest to the sky blue sphere, had started to be misty, and strong conflicting winds started create hurricanes within its surface.

    "These, are elemental spheres. They are created by forcing a specific elemental essence into the shape of a sphere, then condensing it. Of course, in order to prevent the elemental essence from dispersing the very moment you give up control over it, you¡¯d need a bounding item. Usually, the best choice is an elemental treasure. The nature of the elemental item would bind the essence, and then make it be self sufficient." Exined the old alchemist all at once.

    He paused for a minute to let the information sink in, then continued. "As you might have noticed, these two spheres have different effects on eachother. This is called mixing factor, and it¡¯s very useful for a mage to learn how to mix elements together."

    That was an important part of bing a powerful mage.

    In order for a spiritual cultivator to truly understand the nature of the elements, they needed to see every form of that element. For example, the calm and still waters of ake, the crashing waves of an ocean during a storm, the slow and misty clouds in the sky, and even solid ice and hot vapor. These were all just as important for one to truly understand water essence.

    Therefore, in order to truly understand an element, the intervention of a second element was required.

    Like wind was needed to understand the unstoppable motion of waves, or like fire was needed to understand water¡¯s vaporous state.

    There were a great number ofbinations amongst the elements, and that had made mastering even a single one, very difficult. Not many spiritual cultivators could im to have achieved that.

    The water¡¯s and wind¡¯s elemental spheres that the old alchemist had taken out, would allow Daniel to understand the presence of water within the air, and its reaction to winds.

    As the old alchemist was about to pass the two spheres to Daniel, he gave him an unusually serious look and said "Don¡¯t lose them.. My father made them and I want them back.. Plus, each of them costs at least a few hundred thousands of these hovels" During thest part of the sentence, he nced at the building owned by the old master-at-arms.

    One could understand how expensive these two beads were just from that.

    If the old master-at-arms had been here, he would have cursed at the old alchemist. Not because of the mockery directed at his building, but because of the cheap shot which ¡¯lending such precious and useful item to Daniel to train with¡¯ was.

    He would have felt as if he waspeting for a kids affection by offering him stones, while the other offered him candies. It was in cheating.

    Amongst the spectating practitioners, only a few could recognize the two beads that the old alchemist had handed over to Daniel. And each of them, belonged to one of the major powers which Daniel had seen crowding the old man¡¯s room. Amongst them, were the other members of the School of Evesting Fury.

    Every single one of these cultivators memorized Daniels face, and then prepared to report what they had seen to the respective young masters and mistresses with whom they hade here with.

    That was to be expected, as an elemental sphere created with the elementalprehension of a rank 9 spiritual cultivator, like the leader of the Golden Cauldron, really had no price.

    Daniel had learned how to ignore the curious looks of others, so he took the two beads, and entered one of the private cultivation room.

    He then sit on the ground, and activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯.

    There was no need to mention how fast Daniel¡¯s understanding of wind and water increased. Not only was his speed hundreds of times faster than a normal spiritual cultivator, but thanks to the dense and pure essence within the beads, Daniel¡¯sprehension of wind and water easily surpassed that of fire and earth in just mere minutes.

    In ten minutes he could create gentle streams of water and faint gusts of winds with his spiritual essence. After an hour, he could merge the particles of water within the air of the room, and make them condense into tiny droplets of water. Two hours in, and he was able to make winds brush right over his skin, separating itpletely form his clothes.

    And finally, after spending two more hours observing the changes that one element caused within the other, Daniel was finally able to crystallize water particles into ice, and merge raging gusts of wind into small tornados.

    Daniel went back to the old alchemist, and after handing the spheres back to him, he showed his progress.

    Above his right hand, invisible particles of water started to merge within the air, bing bigger and bigger, until they reached the size of drops of water. They then merged once more into a bigger ball of water, which then started to slowly solidify, starting from its core.

    On his left hand, the sound of whistling winds started to scream in the air. Numerous whiffles started to approach the middle of his palm from various directions, and kept crashing one against the other, until they became a miniature tornado which rotated quietly above Daniel¡¯s hand.

    The old alchemist, for once, had been left without words. It took him an entire minute to barely to mumble "Astonishing.." He then woke himself out of the shock, and said "Very well, now.. ¡¯Aerial Walking¡¯ should be simple for you.. Imagine being inside of a storm. Arge hurricane lifts you from the ground, and forces you to helplessly follow the motion of its strong merged winds."

    After a small pause, he continued "Now, form a wind strong enough to lift your body up from the ground, and manage your bnce by thickening the water within the air under your feet."

    Daniel followed the old alchemist¡¯s instructions, and what came out of it.. Was a disaster. He wasn¡¯t able to correct the strength of the updraft current, and as if that wasn¡¯t enough, he hadn¡¯t been able to form ice tforms strong enough to hold his weight in the air, especially since his weight kept changing due to the strong winds that kept shifting his bnce.

    At the end of his first attempt, he had only managed to learn how to spin and drop from mid air.

    The increased speed ofprehension granted by his system, hadn¡¯t been able to help him this time, as it was his method that was wrong. Fortunately, Daniel was very intelligent, and it didn¡¯t take long for him to realize his mistake.

    With messy hair and a little bit of air sickness, hended on the ground and prepared to make another attempt, when he heard the old man¡¯s voice "You¡¯re doing it wrong.. There is an easy way to understand how to use the wind, and it¡¯s to sim-" He was then interrupted by Daniels voice.

    "I have to force an even updrafting pressure, the same way water would pressure my body from above, if I were underwater." Daniel said.

    "Yes!!! EXACTLY!!!" Eximed the old alchemist, without holding back any of his enthusiasm.

    Daniel straightened his body, and started to push his spiritual essence outside of his body. He formed a column inside which the essence was even and well distributed, then, he turned it into wind essence, and forced it to a rising vertical motion.

    At first, his clothes started to rise, as if he was hanging by his feet. Then, as he got more used to the method, his body started to fluctuate in the air, gently pushed by the winds.

    Once steadily floating in the air, Daniel started to push more spiritual essence out from under his feet, and turned it into water essence, which slowly condensed into twoyers of water, and then solidified into t bs of ice.

    He still needed a lot of practice in order to fully control the winds, so that they wouldn¡¯t hinder his steps, but for now, he had seeded in standing in mid air.

    *p p p p*

    A loud pping sound resounded from behind Daniel. It came from the spectating old alchemist, which once again, had been shocked by Daniel¡¯s ability to find and adapt to new ways.

    The old alchemist then turnedpletely serious, and after he approached Daniel, he said "You have the intelligence needed to be a great spiritual cultivator. I¡¯ll do all I can to convince you that there is no other ¡¯more appropriate¡¯ path for you but that."

    Daniel looked at the old alchemist gratefully. This old man had disrupted his ns of bing a powerful martial cultivator, by showing him the amazing path of magic. He was now confused, and in no way were his ideas clear on which path to trade.

    Nevertheless, he was extremely grateful for the attention and care that the two old masters had put in him. For all they had done so far, he would have always remembered both of them as his first teachers.

    There was nothing else left to say, so Daniel bowed deeply to the old alchemist, and left the training ground. His direction, was the part of the building in which the cultivation rooms were located.

    Since that day, Daniel had decided to breakthrough to the fourth rank, no matter what, as he had enough karma points and beast cores, so he entered a private cultivation room, and sat on a mattress in the middle of the empty room.

    He then started to think about all that happened to him, about what he hoped to achieve in the future, and about what path of cultivation better suited him.

    Half an hourter, he took the fifth-sized rank 4 beast cores out of his bag, and started to cultivate.

 Chapter 36 The End of the Calm

    It waste in the night. The old master-at-arms had finally managed to get the young masters and mistresses off his tail, and was now qietly sitting at his desk, with a look filled with worry.

    He was currently thinking of what he should do with Mea, his old student¡¯s daughter.

    Within his mind, he was thorn between a few different choices. The first, was to send her away, and find a way for her to live safely somece where she wouldn¡¯t be recognized. Unfortunately, at the moment, the old man was being watched carefully by many.

    So far, none of the young men and women that had upied the building had either left or had been sent away, so, the first one, would definitely rise some people¡¯s brows in curiosity.

    His second choice, was to keep her within his building. Only then would he have the chance to protect her in case she would have been recognized. And if she did end up being found out, he could still try to plead with the king to spare her.

    Another choice, proposed by the old alchemist himself, was to make her join the Gold Cauldron, where the old alchemist would have been able to protect her for him, but he crossed that idea out right away. The old alchemist was one of his oldest friends, and asking him to take care of someone rted to a traitor, was too dangerous of a favor to ask.. Even if he had offered.

    On the other side of the building, within a room just as big as the old master-at-arms, the old alchemist sat in silence.

    In front of him was arge cauldron, and under this cauldron, a dense green me slowly danced.

    The old alchemist seemed focused on preparing something. A big woodendle stirred the content of the cauldron gently, while one ingredient after another appeared right next to the old alchemist¡¯s hand, and slowly floated into it.

    All these ingredients were spiritual nts, and their worth was extremely high, but the old alchemist didn¡¯t appear to be feeling the burnt on his wallet. And instead, he looked like he had been simply cooking breakfast.

    The night was a quiet one. The neighborhood festivity had just finished, and the streets were peaceful and devoid of people.

    The only noises came from the very same building, inside and around which, various groups of disciples, young masters and mistresses mingled under the bright moonlight.

    Amongst these various groups, oneposed of two young men and four young girls, sat at the feet of arge tree.

    They were Re, Finn, Mea, Riri, Miri, and Nilo.

    The six were chatting happily under the moonlight, while enjoying small servings of food which Re and Mea had prepared.

    "So.. what¡¯s wrong between the two of you?" Asked Re curiously while looking at Finn and Miri.

    Riri couldn¡¯t bear to listen to Finn and Miri bicker anymore, so, the moment Re asked, she hissed and looked away. She tried to change topic and start a conversation with Mea, but then she heard Nilo¡¯sugh.

    "Hahaha! You¡¯ve got to hear that story.. So.."

    Nilo then recounted the story behind Finn¡¯s and Miri¡¯s bad blood. Apparently, the two had been an on and off couple since they had been kids, and each of their breakup had a funny story behind.

    For the next few minutes,ughter and shouts could be heard in the building¡¯s garden.. Until suddenly..

    Within the city of Phyrri, the heads of each and every cultivator above the sixth rank rose rapidly. They had all collectively felt an abnormalitying from the direction of Master Kye¡¯s building.

    The first ones to notice this abnormality, were the old alchemist and the old master-at-arms. The old alchemist immediately gave up the control over the me,pletely ruining the ingredients within the cauldron, and therefore failing the process of making whatever he was trying to make. He then disappeared from his room and reappeared in the air above the building.

    The moment he appeared in mid air, the old master-at-arms appeared as well on the opposite side of the building.

    The two seemed to be keeping watch on the hotel, while also observing what was happening.

    -----

    The abnormality which attracted the attention of every expert within the city, was not visible to the eyes, and for anyone who wasn¡¯t in the immediate vicinity, it was only a faint feeling. Yet, the shock it caused was beyond what anyone had felt before.

    A huge vortex had formed within the building.

    What picked people¡¯s attention was the nature of this vortex, as it did not attract physical items, but instead, attracted mana.

    Mana had always been omnipresent in the world, as everything that existed had his distinctive type of mana. Including men and beasts, whose types of mana were called Ki and Beast Essence.

    This vortex did not forcefully absorb the Mana in the surroundings, it simply attracted it. What the expert within Phyrri had felt, was a sudden faint instability within their ki, which seemed to be slowly moving to the direction of the building, as if maically attracted.

    Unable to extract the mana from physical things, the only mana that forcefully made its way towards the center of the vortex, was the one that had the ability to move its carrier¡¯s body, like the essences of wind, starlight, moonlight and that of the water particles present within the air.

    That had caused a beautiful phenomenon around the building. A massive number of droplets of water which shone with bright and multicolored light, were being carried by the wind into the vortex.

    It looked as if millions of small stars were merging into a massive and brighter one.

    The cultivators within the building felt their ki forcefully pressing against the skin in the direction of the middle of the vortex, but ultimately unable to push its way through. It was as if their body had be a hugepass, whose needle constantly pointed in the direction of the vortex.

    Outside of the building, arge number of cultivators started to appear above the roofs of the surrounding buildings. They had alle close to observe the abnormality. The city lord was also amongst them.

    Some of them seemed fairly worried, while others felt only interest and curiosity for what was happening.

    The two old men were still quietly floating in the air. None of the observing parties dared to go closer than they were, either for a matter of respect, or for fear.

    Of course, not all of them feared the two old men. The worried ones between the crowd were those who had sent their children or disciples to study under the old man, and if it came to their safety, they would be willing to start a fight with the two masters.

    "Master Kye, Lord No.. What is happening here?" Asked a middle aged woman respectfully to the two old men.

    A stout middle aged man standing above one of the surrounding buildings added "Are our children safe?" Worry couldn¡¯t be hidden within his voice.

    The old alchemist looked at the crowd and answered in a low and serious voice. "We don¡¯t know.. It doesn¡¯t seem to be harmful, so keep your distance for now. We¡¯ll save your children if needs be."

    -----

    Within the building, inside one of the many cultivation rooms, Daniel kept cultivating while unaware of the events, in fact, he didn¡¯t seem to be conscious at all.

    He had been trying to force his spirit into breaking through to the fourth rank for more than an hour, and right when he believed he was close to seeding, his consciousness had slowly faded into oblivion.

    This wasn¡¯t the first time Daniel had entered this state. The first time had been when he had reached perfection of the body, and perfection of his spirit¡¯s connection. This state made him lose direct control over his cultivation, and yet it didn¡¯t stop it.

    Thest time Daniel had advanced through this method of cultivation, his body had be much more suited to the presence of spiritual essence. To a point where his body and the essence didn¡¯t seem to be in contrast at all.

    In the past few days, he had went back into wondering what kind of change would reaching rank 4 in martial cultivation have, topletely revert the tuning of his body and spirit.. But, unable to find an answer, he was always forced to put this question aside.

    If Daniel had been conscious right now, he would have finally found out the answer he had longed for, for so long.

    While Daniel sat quietly in cultivation, the massive amount of mana attracted in the surrounding, started to invade his body ruthlessly. The excessive mana, devoid of control, was rapidly absorbed by the spiritual ne through his perfect connection with his spirit.

    The roaming essences of the spiritual ne, ki and mana, started to change Daniel¡¯s body physiology.

    His body was being refined, and forced to advance by the impetuous ki, which was constantly being produced by every bit of his body, and yet, his ki couldn¡¯t hinder the just as powerful refinement of his spirit.

    The two types of refinement were so powerful, that if Daniel¡¯s body hadn¡¯t been pre refined this same way once before, his body would have been destroyed and his spirit dissipated.

    Martial cultivation strengthened one¡¯s body, turning it into a prison for the spirit, while spiritual cultivation used one¡¯s weak body as a vessel to connect their powerful spirits to the spiritual ne.

    Inparison, a martial cultivator¡¯s body was like a porcin vase, while a spiritual cultivator was like a balloon.

    A vase couldn¡¯t contain too much water, as being hard, it couldn¡¯t expand. At the same time, a balloon couldn¡¯t be as resistant as a vase, as it required to be stic in order to contain the increasing amount of air within.

    But what was happening to Daniel, was as if both the container and the content couldn¡¯t stop the other¡¯s refinement. The only thing they could do, was to change, and adapt to the other¡¯s change.

    His spirit be denser, and his body, while still bing stronger, was slowly being refined around the presence of spiritual essence.

    -----

    It was early in the morning outside, and the tens of experts were still standing near the vortex.

    The moment the sun had rose in the sky, the sunlight essence had joined the water and winds, giving it a bright shine which turned observing the vortex much more difficult.

    Chatter had filled the neighbourhood for the past few hours, as the many confused cultivators shared their own theories about this strange phenomenon.

    The only two that kept quiet, were the two old men. Since the beginning they had kept on quietly floating in the air, while demarcating a non traversable line with their own bodies.

    Suddenly, the chatting noises lessened, as everyone felt something change within the vortex.

    Spiritual cultivators were extremely sensitive to mana, so the moment they felt the attraction of the surrounding mana lessen, they noticed it immediately.

    On the contrary, what alerted the martial cultivators, was the behaviour of their internal ki, which, while before it was almost trying to push its way out of their bodies to rush to the middle of the vortex, now it was slowly calming down instead.

    The chatter stopped abruptly. The eyes of every person present on scene was directed towards the part of the building where the vortex seemed to have been generated. Specifically, one of the cultivation rooms.

    The vortex kept slowing down, until the attraction was too feeble to keep attracting the essences in the surrounding. Therefore making the drops of water fall on the ground like weak rain, the winds who were previously being attracted by the vortex were quietly pushed away by new iing gushes, and the sunlight that seemed to focus on the building, was now dimming and returning to shine evenly on each part of the city.

    Under the attentive eyes of the city¡¯s experts, the door of the cultivation room opened, and from it, a young looking man stepped out quietly.

 Chapter 37 The Arrival of the Storm

    Tens of eyes were glued on Daniel¡¯s body the second he stepped out of the cultivation room. The old master-at-arms, the old alchemist, the city lord and almost every sect, school of martial arts, or family leader within the city, was now looking at Daniel in curiosity.

    A natural phenomenon was rare, but not unusual, while an abnormality during cultivation, that was no small matter, especially in Phyrri.

    In the past, the city had been known as the city of abnormalities, as almost every single cultivation singrity recorded in time, had in fact, happened here.

    And there was a simple reason for it.. The Catering Tree.

    Most unranked citizens might have let the stories of The Catering Tree turn into myths and legends, but within archives of the various powers, many such events had been recorded.

    Like when a swordsman of the past, that after managing to obtain one of the tree¡¯s blessings, during the breakthrough to the seventh rank, had lost control of his sharp untamable ki. He was only able to watch as, in the end, it had exploded, turning everything within the radius of a hundred meters into pieces and killing hundreds of people.

    Or when a spiritual cultivator, thousands of years ago, had turned the entire city into a frozennd when achieving perfection in the Spiritual Synchronization stage.

    Many of these types of events had contributed to the increase of Phyrri¡¯s fame within, not only the kingdom, but the entire continent.

    Tonight¡¯s event, had reignited something within the hearts of these powerful cultivators, and as they looked at this young man, casually walking out of the middle of a cultivation anomaly, they felt their hearts beat in excitement.

    Both the old master-at-arms and old alchemist had wide smiles on their faces. From each of their prospective, Daniel had picked their cultivation path.

    But as fast as those smiles grew, they disappeared right after.

    The first ones to notice that something was amiss, were those in the crowd at the seventh rank of cultivation. No matter which kind of cultivator, their eyes slowly opened wide in shock. The kind of shock a person who had just seen an impossibility take ce would have.

    Martial cultivators noticed the young man¡¯s vibrant ki and body at first, and from what they could see, he had just reached the fourth rank of martial cultivation.. They then noticed how his spiritual essence was being emanated by his body.. Clear sign of the fourth rank of spiritual cultivation.

    While instead, the first thing spiritual cultivators sensed, was the oddly pure spiritual essence which lingered around Daniel¡¯s body, making it look as if he was steaming. They then noticed how pure his ki and the level of refinement of his body.

    For the next few minutes,plete silence reigned supreme within the entire area.

    The first ones to react, were the old alchemist and the old master-at-arms. They dashed towards Daniel andnded next to him.

    The others who had reached the seventh rank approached as well, but didn¡¯t get too close to Daniel. They simply looked at him as if they were looking at a mythical beast.

    The rank 6 martial and spiritual cultivators stayed for awhile, then left to report the situation to their own powers and backers within the kingdom.

    The area around Daniel started to get crowded with the most powerful figures within the city of Phyrri. The first who talked to him was the old alchemist.

    "What the hell happened to you?!" He said with shock still present in his voice.

    Daniel looked at the two old men in confusion and said "I.. I don¡¯t know.. I cked out for a moment.. And when I woke up I just came out of the room.. And here I am." He decided not to hide anything.

    "The brat is lying! Reaching both Nigh Inhuman and Spiritual Synchronization stages at the same time is impossible! Search him, he must have had a lucky encounter. He must be hiding a secret on him!" Barked viciously an old man, hidden under a ck cape within the crowd.

    Another cultivator, dressed in a white martial artist attire, looked at the previous old man with disdain and said "What the hell are you thering about?! You¡¯re a spiritual cultivator.. You can feel the air inside every pocket of the kid, how would he be able to hide anything from you?"

    He then looked at Daniel and said "Can you tell us what you did before attempting your breakthrough?"

    Daniel looked at the old master-at-arms and at the old alchemist, and after seeing them nod, he looked at the white dressed man and responded "I¡¯ve used two partially consumed rank 4 beast cores to cultivate.." He then paused for a second, then continuing "This isn¡¯t the first time i¡¯ve cked out during cultivation.. It also happened when i¡¯ve reached perfection"

    A woman within the crowd looked at Daniel and shouted "Stop spewing crap! How old are you? How can you have reached perfection?"

    The old master-at-arms waved his hand at the woman to shut her up, then looked at Daniel "..Perfection of which path?" He asked.

    "Both" Said Daniel.

    "Ha! That¡¯s rich!" Eximed the old man hidden under the ck cape. "In order to reach perfection with both paths of cultivation.. You¡¯d need to be as old as I am!"

    A quiet old woman approached the old alchemist and old master-at-arms. She slightly nodded at them and said "Vice president No, you know me, i¡¯m a doctor.. Would you mind if I checked his body? I just want to verify his age."

    The old alchemist did know this woman. She was a fairly known doctor, and part of his group, Golden Cauldron. He quickly nodded at the woman, and allowed her to get closer.

    Daniel knew that the old alchemist wouldn¡¯t have put him in danger, so as the woman approached, he offered his arm and allowed her to check his pulse.

    After a brief examination, the woman turned at the silent crowd, and simply uttered a few words "He is definitely not over fifteen years old.." The shock in her face was unmistakable.

    She wasn¡¯t alone, as after hearing her words, every single one of these powerful cultivator¡¯s mouths gaped in shock.

    "That¡¯s not all.." She then added "His body is not that of a normal martial cultivator.. His spiritual essence.. It¡¯s not restrained by his body.. If a normal martial cultivator¡¯s body is like a stone pool, from which water can¡¯te out.. His body is like fine sand"

    "Has this ever happened?.. Did anyone ever try to reach perfection in both cultivation paths at the same time, and then breakthrough the fourth rank?" Asked the man dressed in white.

    A robust middle aged man with a greatsword strapped on his back, took a step forward and said "Who would want to be stuck at the third rank for sixty.. Maybe seventy years?.."

    He not only was right, but to his unbeknownst, he had also recognized the reason why nobody had ever managed to discover a way to cultivate both paths, and that was time.

    Usually, these men and women would have been shocked by Daniel¡¯s inhuman speed of cultivation.. But right now, with the prospect of having just witnessed the birthpoint of a new era of cultivation.. All they could think, was ask themselves ¡¯Can this be replicated?¡¯

    While the sound of discussion buzzed in the air, Daniel quietly looked at his profile.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - Early rank 4 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Early rank 4 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 1412

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.1

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    It was true.. Daniel had really managed to break through both paths of cultivation. He hid his excitement deep inside and looked at his two teachers.

    The two old men looked at him, then looked at eachother.

    The old master-at-arms cleared his throat, and looked at the city lord. He then said in a loud voice which caught the attention of the entire crowd. "Keep a secret what you¡¯ve just heard. The city lord will inform the governor of what is happened, which will then make the matter known to the King." His voice then turned more serious than ever "If words of this reaches a bordering kingdom.. A war will break out. And if that will happen, the first to pay for it will be the present."

    The robus man with the greatsword looked at the old master-at-arms and asked "What about the kid?"

    The old master-at-arms responded right away "The kid is our student, he¡¯ll stay here until we hear words from the King." after a slight pause he continued by saying "I expect the lot of you to help if anything were to happen in the meantime." The old master-at-arms didn¡¯t want to use anyone, but he couldn¡¯t be sure that none of these powerful cultivators would attempt to do something to Daniel, before the king came to know of the situation.

    The old man¡¯s suspicions were not only right, but also came toote, as both the woman doctor and the man with the greatsword were, in fact, spies of two different neighbouring kingdoms.

    Within their minds, tens of different ns on how to report their discoveries to their homnds formted, and unfortunately, none of those ns included leaving Daniel alone.

    After receiving a quick agreement from the various cultivators, the crowd disperse.

    -----

    A few hourster, inside the old man¡¯s private room, Daniel, the old alchemist and the old master-at-arms himself, sat around a table.

    "This is quite a problem.." Said the old alchemist while stroking its beard.

    Daniel kept quiet as he listened the conversation between his two teachers.

    The old master-at-arms slowly rotated a small spoon inside his teacup, his expression was spiritless. He then looked back at the old alchemist and said "He would be safe with your father.. But his majesty would never allow that.. The city lord will inform him that you are here.. he would expect it"

    The old alchemist nodded in agreement, then looked at Daniel and said "Even monsters should have limits.. Daniel.." He then forced a faint smile out. After a few minutes of quiet, he added "A deal is a deal.. You¡¯re a spiritual cultivator, so technically, you are still my student."

    As he finished saying that, a small ring appeared in his hand. He then handed it over to Daniel while saying "This is my gift for you." Daniel took the ring off the old alchemist¡¯s hand, and as his attention was focused on the small ring, he felt the old man¡¯s bony hands weakly patting his shoulder.

    The old master-at-arms got up on his feet, with a face which seemed to have just managed to recover a bit of color. He walked right up against Daniel, and put another small ring on his hand, right next to that of the old alchemist. "And here¡¯s mine."

    Daniel looked at the two rings in surprise. He had alreadye in contact with items which had been enchanted with spacial essence. And while he had never seen one the shape of a ring, he still felt the simrity to the spatial bag he had been given to store the prey, during his hunting trip.

    He looked at the two, and with a grateful expression, he bowed deeply while saying "Thank you, masters!"

    A grim smile appeared on the face of the two old man, but just for a moment. They had no idea of what the king would do after learning about Daniel.. He might be imprison, and experiments might be conducted on him.. Yet, not wanting to worry Daniel for now, they decided to give him some cultivation resources, and decided to let him have a few happy days, before his situation would change drastically.

    The news would reach the king in two months, and one thing was sure.. That was the time they had to find a way to keep Daniel safe.

    After spending a few more minutes with his teachers, Daniel left the private room of the old master-at-arms, and went to see his sister.

    As he walked through the corridors, his expression turned grim, and anxiousness started to squeeze his heart tighter at every step.

 Chapter 38 Impressive Gains

    Within his room, Daniel was sitting quietly on his bed. In his hands, were the two rings given to him by his teachers.

    Daniel hadn¡¯t had much encounters with spatial essence. The only time he had managed to examine it for a few minutes, was when he had been in the hunting grounds of the canyons.

    Unfortunately, the spatial bag was only given to hunters to store prey, and therefore it had limitations. Each pocket of a spatial bag was enchanted, and allowed a different hunter to store their personal prey. Each hunter was able to store and check the content of their personal storage pockets by using their ki.

    What they were unable to do, was to withdraw an previously stored item, and store anything that weren¡¯t beast cores and carcasses. The reason for that, was to prevent unhappy hunters from asking their items back, or for unauthorized hunters froming to hunting grounds owned by the Huntsmen Guild.

    Daniel wore one of the rings and pushed his ki into it. The next moment, what he saw, was the familiar empty room he had seen within the spatial bag, the only difference, was that the ring¡¯s space was muchrger.

    While the storage pocket within their spacial bag had a space of ten square meters, both of these rings contained a space at least ten timesrger.

    Inside of the first ring¡¯s space, Daniel saw many different items.

    Inside the ring given by the old master-at-arms, about ten weapon racks were ced to the sides of the room. Each weapon rack was filled with a different kind of good quality weapon. Some had swords, some had polearms, bows and many other kind of weapons.

    To the side of each of these weapon racks, was a stack of books which taught the corresponding weapon mastery.

    In the middle of the space was a crate, inside which, beast cores of various ranks were stored. Daniel didn¡¯t start counting at that moment, but after a simple nce, he had guessed that there were about twenty rank 4 beast cores, about a hundred rank 3, and many more rank 2 beast cores.

    Finally, next to the crate was a small table, above which were various books of martial arts which the old master-at-arms wanted him to practice in. There were at least fifty martial arts, and each of these, was an essential skills that the old man was used to teach to any of his personal students.

    Daniel withdrew his ki from the ring given by the old master-at-arms, and started to inspect the ring given by the old alchemist.

    The space of this ring, was exactly the same as the one given by the old master-at-arms. But its content waspletely different.

    The items were all kept in the middle of the room, and were divided into four different piles.

    One, was a chest which contained the exact same number of beast cores ced within the chest inside the first ring. A number which Daniel had guessed the to old men to have previously agreed upon to give for reaching the fourth rank.

    The second, was another table, above which magic arts and spells were stacked orderly.

    The third item was arge cauldron. Daniel wasn¡¯t sure of what this cauldron was made of, but it gave him the impression that it could resist a meteor strike. Inside this cauldron, were two thick books. On the first book¡¯s leather cover, -Introductory Guide to Alchemy- was cleanly written in ck, while on the other, a golden writing spelled -Horticultural and Botanical Glossary-.

    The fourth andst item, was an additional spatial ring.

    When Daniel noticed this second spatial ring, he immediately pushed his ki inside it, and what he saw, shocked him to his very core.

    The space inside this spatial ring wasn¡¯t big. Only about twenty square meters, but what was interesting about this ring, was that it didn¡¯t simply contain empty space. It instead contained a tiny living world.

    On the roof, a small bead which emanated sun essence, could be seen shining sunlight on the entire room while slowly rotating in mid air. Next to it, was another small deactivated bead, from which dormant moon essence could be felt.

    The ground was covered in dirt, and in each of the room¡¯s corners, a small stone-looking bead which emanated earth essence had been ced.

    Buried in the dirt, right in the middle of the room, was a fist sized bead whose vibrant wood essence emanated evenly through the entire ground. The dirt was fertile, and on it, tens of low level herbs had been nted orderly. Daniel recognized these nts as the ingredients for the lowest level of healing pills.

    Back on the roof, tens of light blue pearls floated quietly, and on each of them, daniel felt the familiar essence of water. These beads, like the moon bead, were momentarily deactivated, but that couldn¡¯t stop Daniel recognizing the essence they emanated.

    At about fifteen meters of height, a transparent finger-sized bead flew in a random motion, carrying feeble winds with its passage.

    Lastly, engraved on the roof, was a small colorless bead, whose essence Daniel was unable to recognize.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to recognize these beads as essence spheres. The essence emanated from these beads, was hundreds of times weaker than the water and wind spheres which the old alchemist had lent Daniel to help him study the water and wind essence. In fact, their essence was just enough to sustain this twenty square meters greenhouse.

    The first thing Daniel noticed, was that he wasn¡¯t able to interact with any of the items inside this ring, so an idea appeared in his mind. He withdrew his ki from the ring given by the old alchemist, and with it, it took the greenhouse ring as well.

    He then wore it, and tried pushed his ki inside the ring once more. Unfortunately, nothing changed. No matter how many times he tried, every time he pushed his ki inside the ring, he would be in the usual ethereal state of a whiff of ki.

    Daniel started to think of ideas on how to interact with the items inside the greenhouse ring, and just as he was about to go and ask to the old alchemist, a familiar voice resounded in his head.

    "It¡¯s your spirit!" Said Sewah.

    After pondering for a moment, Daniel asked "What do you mean?"

    Sewah snorted within his mind, then continued "Your spirit is your consciousness.. If you want to take a dive in the water, you don¡¯t just dip your feet!.. Sometimes I doubt human¡¯s intelligence.."

    "A spiritual item.. For spiritual cultivators.. Of course" Daniel muttered after realizing his mistakes.

    He then tried to push his spirit along with his ki inside the greenhouse ring, and all of a sudden, he found himself inside the ring once again. But this time, he wasn¡¯t inside only as a whiff of ki, but physically.

    The moment Daniel entered his ring, he dropped on his knees and started to puke. This had been the first time for Daniel to shift through different spatial nes, and this reaction, waspletely expected. Of course, Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of that.

    The greenhouse was an old room, and its atmosphere was created by using a wind sphere which could simte the sameposition of the air in the outside world, as it was necessary to grow herbs. Thanks to that, Daniel was able to breathe.

    This small ring had been the most amazing item he had been given by the two old men. After all, not only was this a portable greenhouse, but also a low level habitable world.

    There was only one problem.. Daniel had no idea how to get out of it.

    Inside Daniel¡¯s room, a small ring rested on his bed quietly.

    On another part of the building, both the old men turned their heads at the same time, and their faces cracked up in a smile.

    "Hehe.. Happens every time.." Said the old master-at-arms. "You should go get him out.."

    An evil grin suddenly appeared on the old alchemist¡¯s face, as he answered "What¡¯s the rush.. Haha"

    The two then went back to sip their tea.

    -----

    Back inside the greenhouse ring, Daniel quietly sat on the ground. He hadn¡¯t been able to find a way out for the past two hours, and he was starting to get a little anxious.. When suddenly, an external power forcibly pulled him out of the ring. He found himself back inside his room, and next to him, was the old alchemist.

    "I don¡¯t know if I should congratte you for finding out how to store living things inside a living space, or if I should be depressed about the fact that you¡¯ve found it out on your own skin.. HAHAHA!" Said the old alchemist before being unable to hold hisughter any longer.

    With embarrassment in his voice, Daniel asked "What did I do wrong?"

    "Ki and spirit are your body.. If you force both of them inside a living space, you shift entirely inside it. You should have just used your spirit, your consciousness would have entered the ring as well, but your physical body would have stayed outside." The old alchemist exined patiently.

    Daniel took the ring from the old alchemist¡¯s hand, and tried to push his spirit into it. The very next moment, he appeared inside the living space. The shape he had taken was humanoid but not solid. It could interact with the items within the greenhouse, but it was more like telekinesis than an actual physical interaction.

    Daniel could feel a connection to his physical body outside of the ring, and he felt as if there was a bridge between space which he could use go withdraw his spirit.

    He tried to right away, and after a moment, he was back inside his body.

    "Amazing.." Said Daniel. He then looked at the old alchemist, and once again, he bowed and eximed "Thank you!"

    The old alchemist smiled once more, then left the room.

    It was now lunch time, and Daniel wanted to reach his sister and Mea to eat. He put the greenhouse ring back inside the ring give by the old alchemist, wore the two rings on each hand, and left the room.

    The atmosphere in the building had changed since thest night. Everywhere Daniel passed, other people¡¯s eyes would move on him. He didn¡¯t know it, but the many leaders which had witnessed to the cultivation anomaly he had caused, had ordered their disciples and sons to keep an eye on Daniel. Unfortunately, they hadn¡¯t been reminded to be discreet.

    Daniel arrived in front of his sister¡¯s room in a few minutes, and after he knocked the door for a couple of times, his beautiful sister opened the door.

    She was strangely well dressed, and her dress was nothing that Daniel had ever bought her.

    Unable to find a way topliment his sister, Daniel said "Finally you look like a girl.. I was getting tired of convincing people that you aren¡¯t my older broth- Ahhh!!" His joke was interrupted by a kick to his shin.

    "Thank you" Said Re with a happy expression.

    "Mhh.. Why are you dressed like this? Is lunch really that important to you?" After giving her a crooked look, Daniel asked.

    Re gave him a derisive look, then said "Mea and I are visiting the Folding Crane School with Riri and Miri"

    "Oh.. okay, i¡¯ll go eat by myself then" Responded Daniel before turning around and leaving.

    Re¡¯s thin and soft hand immediately pinched at his clothes and pulled him back. "Hold on! Finn and Nilo are waiting for you in the mess hall.. You can go eat with them but.. Just a word of advice.. Everyone has been acting pretty weirdly ever sincest night¡¯s lights show." She said with a whispering tone.

    "Alright, if I see them there, i¡¯ll eat with them." Daniel agreed, as he didn¡¯t mind eating with Finn and Nilo, but before leaving, he looked back at Re, and said "You look great." Then he left.

    Re¡¯s beautiful lips rose into a charming smile, then went back inside her room, closing the door behind her.

 Chapter 39 Tying up Loose Ends

    A tense period of Daniel¡¯s life had started. He had the resources to cultivate, martial and spiritual arts to practice in, and he wasn¡¯t in any need of money. But s, there were still a few pressing matters which kept biting him in the neck. Like his debt, His uncle¡¯s freedom, andst but not least, Mea¡¯s safety.

    Of course, some matters were much more pressing than others. For example, paying his debt could be done at any time, and while saving his uncle was important, he still wasn¡¯t in any immediate danger. Furthermore, in order to save him, he needed to enter the learned district. The most pressing matter of all, was Mea¡¯s situation. Fortunately, solving Mea¡¯s problem had just entered within the scope of things within his capabilities.

    Daniel had no idea that his martial arts teacher was secretly nning to protect Mea, so the thought of finding a way to keep her safe, had always been present within his mind.

    But simply being a talented cultivator had never been enough for that, as he was still too weak to physically protect her.

    Things had changed the day he had reached the fourth rank. Not because he had suddenly be powerful enough, but because, as the progenitor of dual path cultivation, he had be an extremely valuable asset to the entire Karalis Kingdom.

    The old master-at-arms had ensured Daniel that, at some point, he would have met the king. And what Daniel intended on asking him when they met, was for him to grant the Rulin¡¯s family pardon.

    Unfortunately, that would take a while, as just the news of him bing the first dual cultivator in history, would take at least a month to reach the capital.

    Daniel decided to solve the easiest matter first. Paying his debt.

    He left the building, and headed towards the hotel owned by his creditor.

    -----

    Commoner¡¯s Section 12:02

    Once again, Daniel had found himself sitting on the couch ced in the the square lounge room, within the hotel owned by the old man he owed money to.

    Nothing had changed since the past two weeks. The spotlessly clean coffee table, the couch facing his, the three doors, and the counter right next to the double doors. The only difference was the girl behind the counter. She wasn¡¯t the same as two weeks ago.

    Daniel remembered how nervous he had felt the first he hade here. How he had froze when the door facing the double door had opened, and he had caught a glimpse of the group of bodyguards staying in wait.

    Not even his reason for being here had changed.. He was still here to pay for a debt.

    In the couch that faced his, another man with a disheartened expression was holding his head between his two hands. His hair were messy, and he looked like he hadn¡¯t slept in weeks.

    "You shouldn¡¯t be here.." Said the man with a broken voice, after noticing Daniel.

    Daniel had no idea what the man was talking about, so he asked "What do you mean?"

    The man¡¯s wed at his own scalp so hard that his head started to tremble. Within gritted teeth he muttered "This ce.. It will eat you alive.." He was on the verge of crying.

    Daniel had never seen someone in such a desperate state. He moved his upper body closer and asked him "Then.. What are you here for?"

    The man lifted his head, just enough to take a glimpse of Daniel¡¯s face, then looked back down.

    "A mistake.. If only I hadn¡¯t agreed.. I just.. I just want my daughter back."

    A cold breath filled Daniel¡¯s lungs as he pressed his back against the couch once again. He had a clear idea of what this man was here for. He had probably taken money from the owner of the hotel, and ended up losing his daughter.

    Daniel would have pitied him, if he hadn¡¯t been a free man. He was here, on his own decision. While his daughter had been used as coteral for his debt.

    After thinking it through, Daniel decided to ignore the frantic man, and wait for his turn to talk to the hotel owner. There was no way for this man to get his daughter back, as he seemed to havee here to beg, instead of paying his debt.

    A few minutester, the double door opened and Rat came out of it.

    Rat immediately noticed quietly sitting Daniel.

    "Daniel! Here so soon! Do you have all the money already?" he asked him, but before Daniel could respond, the frantic man rose up to his feet and approached him.

    "Sir.. I would like to s-see the owner.. I¡¯ve f-found a w-way to pay.. P-please.. Please let me see him." The man barely managed to talk through a broken voice and sobbing sounds.

    "Why of course! You know we like to help!" Responded Rat immediately, while wrapping his arm around the man¡¯s shoulders and taking him in the room. While entering, he threw a nce at Daniel and said in a low voice "The young man¡¯s matter can wait for a few more minutes.."

    Daniel had a bit more to wait, but before two minutes even passed, Daniel started to hear screamsing from inside the old man¡¯s office. He then closed his eyes, and focused on the elemental essence within the air.

    He could feel the whiffs of air entering the old man¡¯s office, crashing against the people within, the still wood essence cointained by the furniture, and the water particles within the air. Even from outside, Daniel could clearly feel everything that was happening in the room.

    Daniel recognized Rat¡¯s body, the two bodyguards behind the desk, and Sweet Cheeks sitting at the table next to the window, and finally, the old man sitting at his desk.

    The man from before was lying on the ground, his body being repeatedly kicked by Rat¡¯s leg.

    Daniel thought the man had said something that had earned him a rough treatment, but then, he felt a whiff of air crashing against a small cluster of metal essence, right in Rat¡¯s hand.

    *Crash*

    The double door exploded into splinters and flew for two meters into the room.

    Within the dust cloud, Daniel strolled peacefully through the wrecked door. Behind him, on the other side of the lounge room, the many bodyguards hidden in wait rushed out of the room and entered the office as well,pletely surrounding Daniel.

    Each of these bodyguards were cultivators of the second and third rank.

    "What the hell do you think you are doing?!" Said Rat with a shocked expression, and his knife still held in his hand.

    "What does it look like I am doing?.. Paying my debt." Responded Daniel. He then approached the desk, and sat on the chair in front of it. On the other side, the old man was looking at him with the usual amiable smile.

    Daniel took a small bag out of his spatial ring, and put it on the table. He then said "30 gold coins."

    For the first time, shock disappeared from the old man¡¯s face as he saw the spatial ring that Daniel wore on his finger. He had been a cultivator himself in the past, and he was aware of how much that ring was worth.

    "The contract?" Said Daniel.

    A smile returned on the old man¡¯s face, as he took the small bag. Without counting the money, he directly put it into his drawer. He then looked at Daniel and said "What about the contract?"

    "I¡¯ve paid my debt, I want it." Daniel said decisively.

    "Hahaha!" The old man suddenly startedughing. He then looked at Rat, and asked "Did you see him making a payment?"

    Rat¡¯s lips opened in a big smile, before being reced by a confused expression. "A payment? No sir.." He lied.

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face. "Of course.. Say, what¡¯s the matter with this guy?" Daniel asked while indicating the man on the ground.

    Before the old man could exin, Rat opened his mouth and said "Oh, it¡¯s such a coincidence.. He thought he had made his payment as well! Isn¡¯t life funny at times?"

    Daniel¡¯s fingers started to crack.. And before Rat could finish talking, a window appeared within his mind.

    -----

    *Primary Quest Updated: Freedom for All!*

    -Description: Eradicate very from the world.

    Second objective UPDATED: Find the location of your uncle, and free him.

    Optional: Save the injured man, and free his uwfully enved girl.

    Optional: Kill the hotel owner.

    Reward: Karma +750(+250)(+1500)

    Failure: Karma -3000

    Time limit: Your uncle will die in 23 years, 8 months and 27 days.

    -----

    The voice of the old man shook him off his brief trance. "His poor daughter had to take a debt to pay for her useless father¡¯s medication.. We opened our hearts to help them.. But they took advantage of it." He said with almost believable anguish.

    "Sewah, my options please.. On second thought.. Only the open ones." Thought Daniel.

    Sewahughed within his mind, then responded "Hehehe.. I like where you¡¯re going!.. There is only one." He then made one window appear inside Daniel¡¯s mind.

    -----

    Open approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Set fire to the hotel owner¡¯s office, burning all contracts stored within;

    -Take the injured man to see his daughter at the second floor, room 201;

    -Force your way into the Silver Peak Mine;

    -Kill every guard within;

    -Free your Uncle.

    Reward +250% (1875/625/3750 KP)

    -----

    Daniel observed the approaches details, then thought to himself "..there is no reason why I shouldplete all of it that way.." He then looked at the old man, and said "Okay, this has been fun.. But let¡¯s cut to the chase. You give me my contract, you give me the girl¡¯s contract, and me, the girl, and this guy, leave right now.." He then paused for a second, before his voice turned serious and added "Refusing is still an option.."

    The old man¡¯s smile disappeared once more. He looked at Daniel and said "Kid, I don¡¯t know how you¡¯ve grown such big balls in just half a month.. But I suggest you remember where you are!" His voice grew furious the longer he talked. "Maybe I should cut that little finger of yours and make a new contract with a few more zeroes in it!"

    Daniel smiled, showing two rows of pearly white teeth. He then muttered "Well, I did say that refusing was an option.. Didn¡¯t i?"

    Suddenly, a veil of fire started to expand in radius, starting from under Daniel¡¯s foot. The guards panicked and tried to rush out of the room, but the fire was too fast, and it expanded as if the ground had been covered in oil. In less than a second, they had been engulfed.

    The moment the fire reached the walls, it rapidly climbed up to the roof, and expanded through it.

    It took just ten seconds for therge room to bepletely engulfed with fire. Only two small patches had been left uncovered. Daniel¡¯s seat, and the area where the injured man was lying.

    The moment the injured man saw the fire spreading within the room, he tried to get up on his feet. It took him a few seconds before he barely managed to stand up straight. He then looked at the archives behind the desk, and with indomitable determination, he threw himself into the fire.

    Daniel¡¯s opinion of this man increased greatly after seeing this, and before the man could jump, he trapped him into a mp of wet dirt.

    Screams could be heard within the room. The guards, the bodyguards, the old man, Rat and Sweet Cheeks.. For twenty long seconds, they couldn¡¯t stop screaming.

    And as the screams gradually stopped, one small window after the other started to appear within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +210

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +83

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +120

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +91

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +560

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +261

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +424

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +187

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +99

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +163

    -----

    This had been the first time that Daniel had killed someone with a negative karma since he had upgraded his system. And for the first time, he had seen the result of the passive upgrade ¡¯Reap What You¡¯ve Sown¡¯.

 Chapter 40 Trouble Is on the Way

    The screams, one by one, slowly came to an end.

    A quiet veil of mes kept consuming everything within the room, and as thest of the screams quietened, it started to abate.

    Daniel was still sitting on his unscathed chair, and the moment the veil of fire was extinguished, he started to hear the sound of crying.

    Not far from him, the man was desperately trying to make his way out of the morse of dirt and water. His eyes directed at the burned archives behind the old man¡¯s desk, and his voice anguished.

    The man had tried to free himself since the moment he had been trapped, but no matter how close he was to freedom, the wet dirt would wrap itself back around him, making him feel like he had been trapped in an immense pool of mud.

    Daniel finally let go of the control over the water and earth essences, allowing the man to free himself.

    The moment the man managed to get himself out of the clump of mud, he jumped behind the desk, and started to rummage into the burnt archives.

    "It¡¯s gone.. All gone.. I¡¯ll never see her again.." The more the man looked, the more he convinced himself, with a broken voice, that there was no hope for him to see his daughter again.

    Daniel cleared his throat loudly and said "I know where your daughter is.. She is in the second floor, room 201.." but he waspletely ignored.

    The man seemed to be in the middle of a mental breakdown, and was unable to listen to reason, so Daniel decided to change tactic.

    He approached the man, grabbed the waist of his pants, and easily lifted him off the ground. He then said "Don¡¯t move.. I haven¡¯t done this with a passenger."

    Daniel was now a rank four martial artist, and had a full control over his body and strength. To him, getting used to carrying a few more kilograms, wouldn¡¯t take much.

    On the other hand, using ¡¯Aerial Walking¡¯ with another person, that was slightly harder.

    Between the man¡¯s attempt to free himself, and the scared screams he made, Daniel was having a few difficulties at keeping himself straight "Stop moving! I¡¯m taking you to your daughter." He said while slowly walking out of the window, and into the air.

    "AHHHHHH!" Shouted the man, convinced that Daniel had decided to throw him off the window.

    In just a minute, Daniel had descended the air right the outside of the building, and down to the second floor, as if calmly climbing down a set of invisible stairs.

    Once he reached the second floor, he entered the building from one of the windows. He then grabbed the man¡¯s wrist, and pulled him through the corridors. The two kept walking until they ended up in front of a door. This door was in, except for a paque on which a big 201 was neatly carved.

    From inside the room, the cries of a young woman could be heard.

    Daniel opened the door and entered the room, taking the man with him.

    Inside the room, a young woman had been strapped above the mattress. Her wrists and ankles were tied at the four corners of the bed, and she was covered in bruises.

    Above her, a sweaty middle aged man was lying, having his fun with her.

    Daniel could feel the man¡¯s ki, He was at the third rank of the martial cultivation. Unfortunately, the frantic man was a simple unranked and was not able to realize the man¡¯s strength. The first thing he did, after recognizing his daughter, was to rush at the man and try to get him off her.

    The middle aged man had been scared at first, but after noticing that the intruders were only a crying man, and a teenager, he got up on his feet, still naked, and reached for the axe he had left next to his clothes.

    Unfortunately for him, before he could manage to grab the axe, a kick squarely hit him in the stomach, throwing him out of the second floor window.

    Daniel had seen the red number above this middle aged man, so he didn¡¯t care about his health. When the window signaling his death did not appear, he simply muttered "lucky.." to himself.

    The frantic man rushed to his daughter, which after seeing him, started to cry even louder. He then untied her, and hugged her tightly.

    Daniel decided to leave the two alone, so he quietly stepped out of the room and left the hotel.

    -----

    Fourteen hundred kilometers south of Phyrri, 19:23

    Inside a solitary wooden house, two men were sitting in silence. One, was a robust man with a greatsword strapped on his back, while the other, was an old man wearing farmer¡¯s clothes.

    The robust man was oddly polite to the old man. He sat quietly on a simple chair, waiting for a response from the old man.

    The old man had been caught in his thoughts for a long time now. Until finally, he lifted his head and said to the robust man "The Silver Alchemist.. And Mister Kye?.. How many more at the seventh stage?"

    "Twentynine rank 7.. No rank 8 within the city." Answered the robust man politely.

    The old man went back into pondering the situation, then he asked "How long before their king hears of it?"

    "I would assume no more than a week. Master Kye said a month, but I doubt the Silver Alchemist didn¡¯t own a faster way to make the news reach the capital.." Said the robust man.

    After a few more minutes of thinking, the old man looked at the robust man once more, and said "To leave it as it is, is out of the question.. You have two days, Gather the agents within the neighbouring cities and wait. We will arrive within ten days... You may go now."

    The robust man got up from his chair, bowed down to the old man, and quietly left the house.

    In a matter of seconds, after the departure of the robust man, the old man had disappeared as well, leaving his old wooden housepletely empty.

    -----

    Three dayster, a simr scene took ce a little more than three thousand kilometers southwest from Phyrri. Past the Sinleah Mountain Range, and the desert which extended past it.

    Within a tent at the edge of the desert, an old woman, and a middle aged man were sitting above two pillowsid on the ground.

    The middle aged man had an amiable smile on his face, and had greeted the old woman in a friendly manner.

    "It¡¯s been awhile since i¡¯vest seen you.. What news do you bring me?" He said.

    If the old alchemist had been here, he would have recognized this woman as the doctor employed within his Golden Cauldron, and person who had examined Daniel.

    She refused the exchange of pleasantries and just cut to the chase. "The important kind.. A kid within the city of Phyrri has found a way to cultivate both paths at the same time."

    Shock appeared on the middle aged man¡¯s face, he then asked "What!? Are you serious!?"

    "I am.. I¡¯ve checked him personally. He created an anomaly after breaking through the fourth rank." The old woman exined.

    It took awhile for the middle aged man toe back to his senses. He looked at the old woman, and said "We need to get that kid.. Go back, keep an eye on him and wait for us. We¡¯ll get there in about a week.

    -----

    Back in Phyrri, Daniel had been silently cultivating in his room. In his hands, two rank 3 beast cores had just finished being consumed.

    Once the two beast cores disappeared, he slowly opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He then decided to check his advancement in his profile, causing the familiar window to appear in his mind once again.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - Mid rank 4 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Mid rank 4 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 5202

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.1

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    Daniel had been surprised by the huge amount of karma points he had received that day at the hotel. Since then he had understood that, the huge costs within the karmic system, not only required him to do good.. But also to be merciless against those with negative karma.

    Since now Daniel had so many points, he had found himself thinking on how to use them. Many ideas had crossed his mind in the past few days.. But he still hadn¡¯t taken any decision, or at least, not until he checked his profile.

    The System Upgrade feature of the karmic system had, once again, caught his eyes. With a simple thought, Daniel opened the details of the System Upgrades menu.

    -----

    System Upgrades Lv.1

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown = Purchased

    Time Is Precious Lv.2 = 1500 KP

    (Active: Double the cost of karma points in order to double the speed of progression. +100% of cost and effect. Max lv.10)

    Reduced Cost Lv.1 = 1000 KP

    (Passive: Permanently decreases the consumption of karma points by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.10)

    Bonus Points Lv.1 = 1000 KP

    (Passive: Permanently increases the karma points received by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.10)

    Second Chance Lv1 = 5000 KP

    (Passive: Once per month, the user will be brought back to two seconds before the moment of his death. 2 additional seconds per level. Max Lv.10)

    Karma X Luck = 30,000 KP

    (Passive: Your overall luck is dependent to the amount of positive or negative karma.)

    -----

    umte 200,000 Karma points to unlock System Upgrades Lv.2

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s points still weren¡¯t enough to go on a spending spree, but two skills had caught his attention. Specifically, ¡¯Second Chance¡¯, and ¡¯Reduced Cost¡¯.

    What Daniel needed the most, was power, or a life saving ability. Therefore, a way to decrease the amount of karma points spent, along with a second chance at life, were both very tempting.

    After a bit of thought, Daniel crossed ¡¯Second Chance¡¯ out of his mind.

    The skill¡¯s effect was amazing, but then, he considered that had he gotten to the point where someone was two seconds close from killing him, that would mean that his enemy was clearly stronger than him. Therefore, he wouldn¡¯t be able to change his fate even if he got those two seconds back.

    On the other hand, a permanent decrease in the karma points consumed, in his head, sounded like the best possible passive effect he could purchase at the moment.

    After thinking it through for a few more minutes, Daniel decided to go for ¡¯Reduced Cost¡¯

    With a single thought, he upgraded his system, and then, he checked out his profile once again.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - Mid rank 4 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Mid rank 4 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 702

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.2

    Reduced Cost Lv.2

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    Without enough point to upgrade ¡¯Reduced Cost¡¯ to the third level, Daniel decided to upgrade ¡¯Time Is Precious¡¯ once more instead.

    He now could cultivate three times faster than when ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ was not activated, and his consumption of karma points was permanently reduced by twenty percent.

    Happy about the upgrades of his system, Daniel felt like trying his new speed of cultivation, so he took two rank 4 beast cores from his spatial rings, and started cultivating without ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯.

    The speed of cultivation was the same, but the consumption of karma points was, as expected, reduced to eighty percent of what it was before.

    After checking the effects of his new upgrade, Daniel activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and kept cultivating. At the very next moment, the two beast cores he was holding, along with his remaining karma points, started to be consumed faster than ever.

 Chapter 41 Inhibitory Runes

    Daniel kept cultivating for the rest of the evening, and when the two rank 4 beast cores had disappeared from his hands, two hourster, he had consumed six hundred karma points.

    "Woah.. I should be careful when using the second level of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯". He thought.

    As Daniel was in the middle of his thoughts, his two old teachers appeared within his room.

    They both wore satisfied expressions, as they had found Daniel cultivating instead of wasting his time like many talented individuals did.

    Daniel noticed them immediately. He rose up to his feet, and greeted them with a light bow "Greetings teachers." He said.

    The old master-at-arms looked at Daniel and responded "Sorry to interrupt you. We havee here to talk to you about something.." after a brief pause, he continued. "For the next few weeks, it would be best if you don¡¯t leave the building."

    "Why?" Daniel arched his eyebrows in surprise, and asked.

    This time, it was the old alchemist who talked first "Your situation is.. Unusual to say the least. You have discovered something that many dreamed of discovering for tens of thousands of years.. You just don¡¯t understand it¡¯s significance yet." He said while observing Daniel¡¯s expression. After noticing theck of fear in his eyes, he couldn¡¯t help but smile gently.

    The smile disappeared in the blink of an eye, and was reced by a serious expression.

    The old master-at-arms continued from here. "We are aware of Mea¡¯s situation." He said.

    Daniel was surprised by the sudden revtion. He looked at the old master-at-arms and said "Since when?"

    "I¡¯ve recognized the daughter of my student from the very first moment i¡¯ve seen her. She is the reason why i¡¯ve allowed the three of you to live here." He responded

    Once more, Daniel¡¯s face was filled with stupor. He almost couldn¡¯t believe the coincidence. "Then, can¡¯t you ask the king to stop the extermination of her family?" Daniel asked with faint hope hidden within his voice.

    "The influence of those who want her and the rest of her family dead, is now bigger than mine.. I¡¯ve done all I could.." Said the old man dispiritedly.

    Daniel observed the facial expression of the old man. He noticed guilt, and he was barely able to look at him in the eyes. He had a bad feeling about this, so he asked "And what is that?"

    The old alchemist looked straight into Daniel¡¯s eyes, and said "We¡¯ve picked her and your sister on their way to the Folding Crane School.. They are now directed to the main branch of the Golden Cauldron.. In secret."

    "WHAT?!" Eximed Daniel. He had now understood why the guilt within the old master-at-arms eyes, didn¡¯t seem to be directed at someone not present, but at him instead.

    The old master-at-arms, after mustering some courage, looked back at Daniel and said "Try to understand.. The very moment word of what you did will reach the other countries.. A war will start. There is no doubt about it."

    The old alchemist added "When people will start investigating about you, and will find out about your rtionship with the two girls, they¡¯ll be far from here." He then paused for a few moments, and trying tofort Daniel, he added "My Golden Cauldron is a powerful organization. Our domain reached more than one kingdom.. Plus, my father is one of the few hundred rank 9 spiritual cultivators within the continent. He¡¯ll be able to keep both of them safe, I promise that."

    Naturally, Daniel couldn¡¯t disagree with the reasons given by the two old men.

    If a war did break out because of him, any power that wouldn¡¯t be able to get hold of him, would go after his sister instead.

    And yet, the news had hit Daniel hard. This had been the first time he had been separated from his sister, and even if he trusted in the old alchemist words, he still regretted not being able to say goodbye to her.

    Suddenly, Daniel thought of something else. He briefly told his father¡¯s and uncle¡¯s story, not leaving any detail out.

    The old master-at-arms said "That¡¯s a small matter, i¡¯ll solve it for you."

    Daniel felt mixed emotion about what he had learned. One one side, he was sad for being separated from his sister, while on the other, the two old men had solved all of his unfinished business. Not in the way he would have prefered, but they still did.

    The two old men gave Daniel a few minutes to digest all the changes and informations.

    After no less than three full minutes, the old alchemist took two items from inside his spatial ring. The two items had the shape of two pills, but on their surface, they had two different symbols. One, was was a simple clear circle, with a just as clear dot in its center. The second pill, had a semi-transparent circle, from which multiple clear waves pushed through the circle¡¯s border.

    He showed the two pills to Daniel, and said "These are for you."

    Daniel looked at the two items with confusion. Then asked "What are these for?".

    The old alchemist looked at Daniel with a slightly sorry expression, and then said "These are called ¡¯Inhibitory Runes¡¯.. They¡¯ll slowly absorb all the essence within you, unless you stop it." He then pinched the one with the clear circle, and said "This one is for ki, while the other, is for spiritual essence."

    "Why do I need that?" Daniel asked in confusion.

    "It will help mask your cultivation stage.." The old alchemist responded, then, after a short pause he continued "Usually, a cultivator would only use one in their life.. The one corresponding to the path they chose.. But" He then stopped, letting the rest of the phrase thread off.

    Daniel took the two pills from the old alchemist¡¯s hands, and as he was about to swallow them, the old alchemist stopped him "Wait!" he eximed. The sorry look appeared in his face once again as he continued "Maybe it¡¯s better if you take them.. One at a time."

    After noticing the strange behaviour of the old alchemist, Daniel decided to follow his instructions, and only take one of the two pills. He pinched the pill with the wavesing out of the semi-transparent circle, and put it in his mouth.

    The moment he swallowed, he didn¡¯t feel a thing. Yet, he noticed the grim looks on the faces of his two teachers.

    "What¡¯s wro-" But before he could finish, he felt himself about to pass out.

    The sensations he felt were awful. It was as if all the sickness in existence had made their collective goal to kill him.

    He didn¡¯t feel physical pain, but it still made him wish to die.

    For the next twenty minutes, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but hope to lose consciousness soon, as this general feeling ofplete difort, was one of the worst things he had ever felt.

    After the twenty minutes were over, the feeling started to abate.

    For a few more minutes, Daniel couldn¡¯t even get up on his feet.

    Once he did, while still dibobted, he immediately inspected his body. He was feeling his spiritual essence behave strangely within his body. All the spiritual essence he had umted, was now slowly being attracted towards the middle of his chest, where it would then disappear.

    If Daniel could examine his organs, he would notice a mark, simr to the one he had seen on the pill he had ingested, tattooed on the right side of his heart.

    The absorption was extremely weak, and every single one of Daniel¡¯smands was able to counter it, making his spiritual essence his own once again. But the moment he stopped, the spiritual rune would start absorbing it once more.

    Daniel remembered the past twenty minutes with terror, but then, after he calmed down, he turned towards his two teachers and asked "I understand why I would need these, but won¡¯t this make me unable to umte spiritual essence?"

    The old alchemist was extremely happy that the first thing that came out of Daniel¡¯s mouth weren¡¯t curses, and instead, was a practical question. So he smiled happily and answered "Don¡¯t worry, you can deactivate them for about an hour by simply forcing your spiritual essence into the rune.."

    The old alchemist exined all of the rune¡¯s functions to Daniel. Basically, the rune wasn¡¯t only used to absorb spiritual essence. Its purpose was also to store a part of it. For example, if a cultivator had reached the fourth rank of spiritual cultivation, and consumed one of these runes, the rune would absorb most of the spiritual essence, forcing him back to the peak of rank 2. The essence stored within the rune would be locked, while the one being produced, would be directly consumed by the rune.

    If a spiritual cultivator forced their spiritual essence into the spiritual rune, they would deactivate it, unlocking all of their contained spiritual essence within, and allowing them the full use of their power.

    The same was for the other rune.. The Ki rune. There was only one difference between the two.. While the formation of a spiritual rune gave extreme difort.. The formation of a ki rune was instead.. extremely painful.

    "Uhm.. Do i.. Really need to take this one as well?" Said Daniel, with a hint of fear in his voice.

    "No!" Said the old master-at-arms immediately. The memory of the time where he had taken the pill himself was still vivid in his mind.

    "Yes! He does.." Said the old alchemist, looking at the old master-at-arms in a scolding manner. "If you don¡¯t take that pill, you¡¯ll never be able to simply pass as a spiritual cultivator anymore. Not unless you find another way to mask your ki.." The old alchemist added.

    Daniel looked at the pill very unwillingly, then, after mustering all the courage within his body, he put it in his mouth, and swallowed it.

    Once again, Daniel couldn¡¯t feel anything at first. It took a good minute before..

    "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Suddenly, Daniel started to shout in agony. The pain he was feeling was so excruciating, that he wasn¡¯t even able to pass out. It felt like every bit of his body was being cut into small pieces, and those small pieces were being burned to a crisp, before being cut again.

    For the second time, Daniel found himself lying on the ground.

    For the next twenty minutes, the only sound within the room was the sounds of Daniel¡¯s gasps for air, and his screams.

    As the pain started to lessen, Daniel lied on the ground for a few minutes, heavily gasping for air. He then slowly got up on his feet, and while looking at the two old men, he said "Please, tell me there isn¡¯t a third pill.."

    The two old teachers smiled at Daniel¡¯s joke, then checked him out.

    From their point of view, Daniel looked like amon teenage kid at the second stage of martial and spiritual cultivation, and unless they closely examined his spirit and body, they would be unable to see Daniel¡¯s true cultivation level.

    The old master-at-arms looked at Daniel, and with eyes filled with pride, he said "I¡¯ve seen people much more powerful than you lose their mind when forming their martial rune.. You¡¯re nomon kid."

    The old alchemist, unwilling to be left out, said "Alright, let¡¯s go.. We should let him get used to the two inhibitory runes within his body. He must be feeling really strange now." After that, the two old man rmended Daniel to have some rest, then left.

    Daniel was feeling very weak at the moment. He had just gone through two very different yet just as awful experiences, and all he wanted to do was to get some sleep. But then a thought came to his mind.

    "Sewah.. Can the system help me get used to the runes in my body faster?" He asked within his mind.

    The very next moment, Daniel heard the familiar voice of Sewah, the strange personality of his karmic system "Of course! I¡¯m still surprised that you haven¡¯t used it to shorten the formation of the two runes.. You are a bit of a masochist, aren¡¯t you? Hehehe" Sewah said.

    Only a few words managed to form within Daniel¡¯s mind.. "I¡¯m such an idiot.."

 Chapter 42 A Battle Between Kingdoms Part 1

    For the next few days, Daniel, almostpletely devoid of karmic points, spent his time while quietly getting used to his martial and spiritual rune.

    Thanks to the two runes, everyone who wasn¡¯t already aware of his cultivation stage, would see him as amon fourteen year old boy at the second stage of martial, and spiritual cultivation.

    The past few days had been a little slow for Daniel, which unable to leave the building, did not have any opportunity to gain karmic points, and therefore, was forced to cultivate at the speed of amonly talented teenager.

    Since he had started training that way, he hadn¡¯t been able to make a single breakthrough.

    To make things worse, was the fact that Daniel was not in the mood to cultivate. He was used to spend days without seeing his sister, but the prospect of not seeing her for a very long time, made him feel lonely.

    He had found thepany of his two teachers more than once in thest few days, which hadn¡¯t failed to notice his state of mind.

    The two had hoped to have good news to give him, at least regarding the state of his uncle, but unfortunately, they hadn¡¯t received any updates on the matter yet.

    Apparently, the two hadn¡¯t found anyone they could appeal to to free Daniel¡¯s uncle, as during the hunting season, the upper management of the miningpanies would not be present, leaving the minor matters to be handled by the lower level management.

    The lower level management wasn¡¯t allowed to discuss matters which didn¡¯t regard signing new contracts, or the direct purchase of raw minerals.

    Like the Huntsmen Guild, the Mercenary Union, and the Golden Cauldron, the Mining Conglomerate, as part of the Merchant¡¯s Collective, expanded through various kingdoms. Therefore, for as much fame as the two old men had, they still needed to discuss this matter with someone who could recognize their status.

    One had to understand, the ownership of a ve wasn¡¯t a simple matter. The Mining Conglomerate had obtained the rights to purchase prisoners from various kingdoms, so that they could be turned into ve, and forced into hardbor for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, this right hadn¡¯te cheap.

    Numerous bloody wars had been fought by the various miningpanies for the monopoly of each kingdom¡¯s prisoners.

    Until a day, the variouspanies were either destroyed, or ended up merging into the Mining Conglomerate.

    The hunting season would havested for two more weeks.

    -----

    Without much to do, Daniel had spent the past ten days trying new martial arts, spells, and cultivating, but not being able to see any progress, he had always given up soon after.

    It waste afternoon when, while walking around the building, Daniel noticed Nilo and Finn waiting at the gates.

    "Hey, what are you two doing here?" Asked Daniel.

    Nilo and Finn turned towards Daniel, and after greeting him, Finn said "We are waiting for the girls. Didn¡¯t you know they would be back today?"

    After hearing Finn¡¯s words, Daniel realized what day it was. Hadn¡¯t he learned about Mea and his sister from his two teachers, he would have been the first one to arrive here.

    That day, was the day in which Riri, Miri, Mea and Re were supposed to be back from visiting the Folding Crane School.

    Nilo and Finn, of course, didn¡¯t knew as much as Daniel did, so they expected to see all four of them toe back today.

    Daniel decided to keep quiet for the moment, and wait for Riri and Miri to arrive so that he could exin what happened to the four.

    Together, they waited for a few minutes, until finally, a carriage started to appear in the horizon. But before the carriage could arrive at the building¡¯s gates, something unexpected happened.

    Time slowed at an impressive speed, and kept going until everything stopped.

    Everyone within Daniel¡¯s field of view had been frozen still. The people¡¯s clothes didn¡¯t move in the wind, the birds in the sky were immobile.. The very sunlight had stopped warming Daniel¡¯s body.

    Daniel didn¡¯t allow himself to fall into panic, so he focused on sensing the surrounding with his spirit. What he saw next, shocked him deeply.

    Wind, water, earth, no matter what element.. it was as if the very essence within the surroundings had been frozen in time,pletely unable to move.

    Unable to use his eyes to even look around, Daniel kept scanning the surroundings with his spirit. It didn¡¯t take long for him to finally notice, standing in mid air, three men.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t see these three men, as they were too far high up in the sky, but if he could, he would have recognized at least one of them as the robust man with the greatsword, which was present the day of his breakthrough.

    Aside from two clusters of vibrant ki, and one of powerful spiritual essence, Daniel couldn¡¯t feel anything else. He wasn¡¯t able to observe their movements, as the wind, and water essence in the air had beenpletely frozen.

    All he could tell, was that they were standing in the air, and observing the surroundings.

    Not long after, Daniel felt two familiar clusters appear in the air above the building. One, was the powerful ki of the old master-at-arms, while the other, was the clear spiritual essence emanated by the old alchemist.

    From Daniel¡¯s prospective, the five spent a few moments in quiet. But what Daniel didn¡¯t know, was that the five powerful entities had been sending each other messages through telepathy.

    That wasn¡¯t because they were having a secret conversation, but instead, because the spell used by the spiritual cultivator amongst the group of three, had not only frozen every type of elemental essence, but also the omnipresent sound essence within the area.

    The two individuals which apanied the robust man with the greatsword, belonged to the neighbouring kingdom of Zann, which was situated south of the mountain range of the Sinleah, directly south of Karalis.

    One of them, was an old martial artist which dressed in very simple farmer¡¯s attire, while the other, was a dignified middle aged man who wore elegant clothes, and followed the path of spiritual cultivation.

    While the robust man was only at the early seventh rank of martial cultivation, both of the two men which apanied him, were at the early eight rank.

    Daniel¡¯s two teachers were both at the peak of the seventh rank, and thanks to their experience, andrge knowledge of martial arts and spells, they would have had no problems with fighting one on one against the two early rank 8 cultivators. Unfortunately, they were now outnumbered.

    The spiritual cultivator amongst the group of three, had casted a spell which didn¡¯t allow for help to arrive, so Daniel¡¯s teachers were left with little choice but try to gain time by talking.

    "I thought that, at your age, you would have been in a lonely farm somewhere in Zann.. it¡¯s a surprise to see you here, Seymour" Said the old alchemist to the old man in simple clothes.

    The old man seemed to be smiling for a moment, then his message reached the ears of everybody present "Sorry to disappoint, Silver Alchemist. This is an important matter for my Zann kingdom, I couldn¡¯t just stay back and watch." He said.

    The old master-at-arms was the next to talk. His tone was serious and didn¡¯t let others believe he was open to discussion "We all know the reason why you are here. The kid is our student, and you can¡¯t take him" He then prepared himself to take his weapon out of his spatial ring at any moment.

    The middle aged man in refined clothes showed annoyance in his face, then said "Enough with this, we probably aren¡¯t the only ones on their way for the kid, and you two aren¡¯t strong enough to keep him safe, so we are leav-" but before he could finish the sentence, all five of them turned their heads towards the same direction.

    In a matter of seconds, four more people entered Daniel¡¯s spiritual senses.

    Two of these people were spiritual cultivators, while the remaining two, were martial cultivators. Once again, amongst the neers was someone which, had Daniel been able to take a look at, would have recognized.

    One of the two spiritual cultivators, was the old woman who had examined Daniel the day of his breakthrough.

    Amongst the remaining three people, was a very thin male, who had reached the eight rank of spiritual cultivation, and two identical looking old men. Both of these two old men had reached the peak of the seventh rank, and dressed simrly to the other. One wore a ck martial attire, while the other wore an identical attire, but white in color.

    The four belonged to Umn, a kingdom situated in the region thousands of kilometers of desert, southwest of Karalis.

    The four neers weren¡¯t the help that Daniel¡¯s teachers had been hoping for, but at least their enemies had not only the two of them to be careful of.. But also theirpetition.

    "A spy.. That¡¯s unfortunate" Said the old alchemist while looking at the old woman.

    The old doctor looked at the old alchemist with an apologizing face, and said "My apologies vice president, but as you know, this is way more important than my job at the Golden Cauldron." She then paused for a moment, and continued "Is it wise for you to meddle in this conflict?.. Only Master Kye has an obligation towards Karalis, not you."

    The old alchemist looked at the old doctor with a derisory expression, then said "Unfortunately, it is my student that you are trying to abduct."

    "Enough of this! We are wasting time." Said the poorly dressed old man from the Zann kingdom. In his hand, a scythe suddenly appeared.

    At almost the same time, the robust man unstrapped his greatsword from behind his back, and in the hands of the two identical old men from the Umn kingdom, two pairs of twin daggers appeared.

    In the hands of the old master-at-arms, a gold colored halberd appeared. The sheer metallic essence within the pole weapon, had forced the frozen essences which surrounded it to slightly tremble, showing the difference in power with the other weapons.

    The situation became quite tense afterwards, as nobody talked anymore.

    Daniel, along with everybody else, was stillpletely stuck in the frozen space. But even in that state, he could feel the ki of the martial cultivators vibrate vividly, and the spiritual essence being emanated by the spiritual cultivators inrge quantities.

    He knew that arge scale battle was about to take ce.. But before the thought could bepleted into his head, one of the two old man with twin daggers had already disappeared, and appeared right in front of him.

    The old man extended his arm and tried to grab Daniel¡¯s body, but before he could touch him, a stone spike appeared from underneath his feet.

    The spike expanded at an incredible speed, but before it couldpletely pierce the old man, he had already disappeared. The missed attack had beenunched by the well dressed spiritual cultivator from the Zann kingdom, which while countering the old man¡¯s attempt to snatch Daniel away, had almost been cut in half by the golden halberd of the old master-at-arms.

    Bright sparks flew everywhere as the golden halberd shed against the sharp edge of the old man in farmer clothes¡¯s scythe.

    Noticing the distraction within the two, the thin spiritual cultivator of the Umn kingdom formed tworge hands made out ofva, and tried to grab the two shing martial cultivators.

    In response, the well dressed man, and the old alchemist shielded theirpanions with two thick water shields.

    The two men with twin daggers were keeping the man with the greatsword upied, and had in fact, already managed to injure him thanks to their higher cultivation, andbined attacks.

    The old doctor took the chance to approach Daniel, so she created an ice path between him and herself, and as she was about to dash and grab him, a thick lightning bolt descended from the sky, and crashed against the old woman¡¯s path.

    She barely managed to take off in the air before another lightning bolt formed in the sky, and was thrown at her. But as she was about to be thunderstruck, one of the two daggers wielding old men appeared in front of her and threw a cross of ki towards the iing bolt, dissipating the majority of it.

    The old woman reacted quickly and shielded the old man and herself with a light shield, which easily parried the weakened lightning bolt.

    In just a second, the fight had started.

 Chapter 43 A Battle Between Kingdoms Part 2

    Within the frozen surroundings, dozens of young men and women stood,pletely unable to move.

    No wind could be felt, no moisture in the air.. No sound reached their ears.

    The only one capable of feeling what was really happening, thanks to his spiritual senses, was Daniel.

    In the air directly above the building, arge scale battle was currently taking ce. Boulder-sized stone hands rose from the ground, thunderbolts crackled through the space, and the moisture in the air evaporated as sea-like waves of mes engulfed the surroundings.

    Between the various spells, numerous sparks of various colors shed in the air, disappearing right after.

    To an ignorant passerby, this might have been looked like the most amazing of firework shows, but the truth, was that within the mes, thunderbolts and explosions.. Various entities were contending for Daniel.

    The battle had gone on for various minutes, and none of the fighting parties was left unscathed.

    To the Umn kingdom¡¯s side, the old doctor had a scorch mark that covered the right side of her body, and in its middle, her dress had melted to her skin. She also had a deep gash on her left leg, from which fresh blood dripped copiously.

    The twin assassins weren¡¯t in any better shape.

    The white clothed one was missing his left arm up to the elbow. On the injury, was a dim gold colored light, which prevented healing essence from pushing through, and therefore making him unable to reattach the severed arm to his bloody stump.

    While instead, on the ck clothed one¡¯s feet, two holes that went from one side to the other could be seen. Holes he had gained during his second attempt to take Daniel, but unfortunately for him, he felt two spikes stick up from the ground, and pierce both of his feet instead. On his chest, a superficial sword cut went from his left shoulder, down to his navel.

    The one in the best shape, was the rank 8 spiritual cultivator. His clothes were slightly burnt, and blood dripped from the corners of his mouth and nose, but overall, aside from a square p from a giant stone hand, he had avoided most of the heavy damages directed at him.

    To the Zann¡¯s side, The robust man who wielded the greatsword, due to his low stage of cultivation, had ended up bing one of the most injured within the field. He was currently trapped within a water bubble, inside which, metallic spikes were being constantly thrown at him. He parried all those he could, but many still managed to break through his defences, and pierce his body from side to side.

    The refined clothes of the dignified middle aged man from the Zann¡¯s kingdom were in ruins. Many superficial cuts covered his body, and in at least half of them, golden light shone faintly.

    The handle of the scythe of the old man in farmer¡¯s clothes had been cut in half, forcing him to a much closer ranged battle than before. A few patches of his skin had signs of ice burns, and a few cuts from which little blood dripped out could be seen, lightly staining his clothes.

    Finally, from the Karalis side, were the two old men. Both old men weren¡¯t in their best shape. That was caused by the face that, no matter how higher theirbat experience and repertory of martial arts and spells was, their level of cultivation was still at the peak of the seventh rank, and limited them greatly.

    What had helped them in holding on, was therge amount of high level resources owned by the old alchemist. Yet, both of them were exhausted, and on each of their faces, worry was starting to form.

    The old alchemist had recognized the spell which the middle aged man in refined clothes had casted on the surroundings. It was called ¡¯Total Blockade¡¯, and was a mid level time spell.

    It forced the calm and omnipresent time essence, to forcibly ovep any other types of essence. The effect, was theplete time freeze of a specific area.

    Within the area blocked by this spell, time would stop, but what was the most shocking about this spell, was that it didn¡¯t allow for others to enter the area, as no matter how much time passed inside the area affected by the spell.. in the outside, not even a fraction of a millisecond would have passed.

    The high number of enemies to focus on, was a huge strain for each of these powerful cultivators. That had caused the many attempts to get a hold of Daniel, to end up in failure.

    While fighting, various telepathic messages were sent from one expert or another. At the moment, the old alchemist was trying to pressure the invading parties into retreating "We all know that ¡¯Total Blockade¡¯ has a limited duration.. The moment the effect ends, every powerful cultivator within the city will rush here.. You better leave while you still have the time." He said while forming a whip made of lightning, and making it crack against the damaged scythe of the old man in farmer¡¯s clothes.

    "Not without the kid." Said the old thin man, while summoning six elemental columns. Each column was made of a different element. Fire, water, wood, wind, earth and metal all rose at the same time, each taking the shape of a massive snake and then dashing at the old master-at-arms.

    The old master-at-arms charged his golden halberd with as much ki as he could, and threw sixrge shes in the air. These shes were so powerful that the spatial essence that came in contact with them, cracked slightly, forcing the appearance of each sh, to be slightly bend out of its original straight shape.

    These shes kept going, until each of them shed against one of the elemental snakes. The moment they touched, huge explosions formed in the sky.

    ming splinters and hot metal fragments, started to rain from arge cloud of mist. But the moment they were about to fall on the helpless frozen young men and women, a thin veil of water interrupted their fall.

    The old alchemist had managed to protect the people stuck in ¡¯Total Blockade¡¯, but as he looked back at the old master-at-arms, he noticed that something was wrong.

    The ck clothed assassins had appeared behind him, and was shing at his friend¡¯s back with one of his two daggers.

    He immediately tried to shield him, but before he could manage to, the white clothed assassin appeared behind him, and pushed his knife through the steel que that he had promptly created with his spiritual essence. Unfortunately, the tip of the dagger still managed to perforate his skin.

    On the other side, The old master-at-arms hadn¡¯t been any luckier.

    When the old alchemist looked at him, he noticed a deep gush that dripped with fresh blood on his back. The cut started from his right shoulder de, and reached all the way down to his lower back.

    The damage wasn¡¯t that severe, but what worried the old alchemist the most, was what he felt afterwards. He started to feel dizzy, the shallow injury on his back started to burn burning, and his eyes felt heavier and lost focus.

    "Poison.." He muttered to himself. He rapidly searched his memory for every type of poison he knew, while with part of his ki, he explored his spatial ring in search of the matching antidote.

    In the meantime, he looked at his old friend, and sent a telepathic message to him. "Dizziness.. Feeble corrosion, and loss of consciousness?.." He asked.

    "Yes.. Do you have the antidote?" Replied the old master-at-arms with clear hope in his tone.

    With sadness in his voice, and a dire smile on his face, the old alchemist looked at his old friend and said "Actually, I was hoping you had it.." He then turned serious once more, and added "The positive thing.. Is that it doesn¡¯t seem to be lethal.. but.."

    "But if this goes on the kid is lost.. I know" Said the old master-at-arms, interrupting the old alchemist.

    The two looked around, and noticed that the cultivators from the Umn kingdom had stopped paying attention to them. Clearly they had been prepared to use this tactic on the two of them, and now that they had been sessfully poisoned, they didn¡¯t consider them a threat anymore.

    Their senses were still locked on the two old masters, but their focus was on the three cultivators from the Zann kingdom.

    The old alchemist looked at the old master-at-arms, and after what looked like an internal battle, he asked "n B?.."

    With an unwilling expression, the old master-at-arms looked at the frozen figure of Daniel, and after a few moments, he tightened his hold on the halberd, and nodded at the old alchemist.

    Bright golden light started to shine from the edge of the halberd, and then, the old master-at-arms dashed in the direction of the thin old man from the Umn kingdom.

    The thin old man, almostpletely uninjured, pushed his spiritual essence out of his body, and turned it into fire and earth essence. He then merged the two, and created a meteor which he then sent crashing against the charging old master-at-arms.

    Between the old master-at-arms and the ming meteor, the old alchemist created arge shield made out of ice, which instead of breaking down upon contact, was forced back against the old master-at-arms.

    The injured master-at-arms, now hidden from the view of all the other cultivators, approached the frozen Daniel, but as he was about to reach him, he was forced to send an horizontal sh to shield himself against the scythe of the old man in farmer¡¯s clothes.

    In a moment of distraction, the old alchemist took an artifact out of his ring, and crashed it against his own clothes.

    His body suddenly started to shift through space, and in just a few moments, it disappeared and reappear right next to Daniel.

    The unexpected move had caught everyone but the old master-at-arms by surprise, as there was no reason for the two old man to snatch Daniel away.

    Every attack was put on hold, as everyone turned toward the old alchemist.

    They could do nothing but observe as he created a metallic field around Daniel and himself. As the others view became obstructed, he rapidly took another artifact out of his ring, and said to Daniel "Try not to die kiddo.. We still have many things to teach you.."

    He then broke the artifact.

    After the second artifact was broken, the space inside the metallic orb started to tremble. An horizontal cut formed in thin air, and after a few seconds, it split into two, and opened like a pair of eyshes.

    Between the two trembling lines, a whole new scenery,pletely different from the city of Phyrri, could be seen.

    The portal opened more and more, and now Daniel could see.. A long beach which faced a vast sea.

    The sea¡¯s clear water reflected the bright sunlight over the flour-white sand, making it a spectacle to the eyes.

    In the distance, to the left side of the portal, a few boats could be seen leaving a harbor and departing towards therge aquatic expanse.

    Daniel could only observe the scenery inplete silence, as he felt the old alchemist grab him by the arm, and threw him into the portal.

    The very moment Daniel¡¯s body crossed the portal, he found himself able to move once again.

    The first thing he did, was to turn around and watch through the now closing portal. He immediately noticed the old alchemist standing within the dark metallic orb, and as he was about to say something, a silver thread perforated the orb, went through the old alchemist¡¯s shoulder, and entered the portal.

    It then wrapped around Daniel¡¯s waist, and tried to pull him back into it.

    But before it managed to, the old alchemist grabbed the thread with his left hand, and started to inject his own spiritual essence into it, disturbing its owner¡¯s control.

    The silver thread turned soft for a few seconds, and that was just enough to allow the portal to close, severing the connection to its ownerpletely.

    Daniel was shocked. All of a sudden, he had been sent into a spatial portal and to an unknownnd.

    The only words that came to his mind, were "Great.. Now what?.."

 Chapter 44 Port City of Cerulis

    Challenging the slow yet constant action of the waves, was a long beach made entirely of fine white sand.

    In the middle of this beach, a young man was standing silently. His feet were burrowed deeply into the sand, and with them, he felt the typical freshness of the grains that rested right underneath the warm surface.

    His clothes didn¡¯t appear to be suitable for a trip to the beach, as they covered his bodypletely, almost as if he just came from a ce with a much colder climate.

    This young man¡¯s handsome face was contorted in shock and confused expression, as he seemed to be out of ce there.

    This young man was, of course, Daniel.

    He had just been pushed through a spatial portal, in order to avoid capture from invaders of other kingdoms, and now, he didn¡¯t know where was nor how to get home. His first reaction was to stand right where he was, and lose himself in his thoughts.

    Fortunately for him, his negative train of thoughts was interrupted by the not-so-appreciated voice of his karmic system, Sewah.

    "Oh! Magnificent! I like this ce much more than thest one.. All trees and rocks!" Said Sewah within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    Daniel, suddenly pulled out of his shocked state, couldn¡¯t help but bark out loud "And where the hell is this ce?!?"

    "So sensitive.. You are notpletely lost.. Look, there is a harbor right there!" Sewah responded.

    Daniel¡¯s anxiousness turned into frustration, as he turned around, and noticed the harbor he had previously seen through the portal¡¯s opening.

    One step after the other, he walked above the warm sand in the direction of the port city. "You know I can¡¯t see where you point, right?.." He couldn¡¯t help but to remind Sewah.

    -----

    After half an hour of walking, Daniel had finally managed to make his way into the port city.

    Aside from a few weird looks, nobody had asked him anything, as barely any guard were controlling the gates.

    While he was walking towards the port city, he had formted a clear n within his head. He intended on reaching the city, find the local branch of the Huntsmen Guild, and then ask for informations, and a map of his surroundings.

    The port city was not toorge, only about a square kilometer. Which made Daniel worry that this city was, in fact, too small to house a branch of the Huntsmen Guild.

    What left Daniel confused, was therge amount of nicely dressed cultivators which moved one way towards the harbor.

    After a slight change of n, Daniel decided to find a restaurant to eat in, and ask for informations.

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to find a decent ce.

    The restaurant was erected on three floors, and it was entirely made out of thick tree trunks. Each wooden part, whose source had most definitely been a massive tree, had been assembled into this restaurant.

    Each of this wooden pieces had been carved elegantly, and gave a good impression to the passersby. Above therge entrance, was an iron sign, on which a writing that spelled ¡¯A Cultivator¡¯s Pte¡¯ in dark gold could be seen.

    When Daniel entered the restaurant, he immediately understood one thing. The ce was much more refined than the ones he had been briefly used to, since when he had stopped having money problems.

    The various table were elegantly prepared with silverware, and clean white table cloth.

    A well dressed man approached Daniel with a displeased expression and said "I am afraid the kitchen is closed.. may the young man kindly leave ande back another time?"

    The very next moment, a well dressed couple entered the restaurant and stood behind Daniel, waiting for their turn.

    Daniel¡¯s mouth curved into a slight smirk, and said "I understand." He then turned around, and said to the elegant couple "What a bummer.. The kitchen is closed..".

    The woman of the couple looked at her date, and with annoyed eyes said "Let¡¯s go somece else then.." Displeasure was clear in her voice.

    After watching the couple leave, Daniel turned towards the host, and said "Don¡¯t worry, on my way out, I won¡¯t forget to tell your customers that the kitchen has closed. In fact, I may spend a few minutes outside, since you¡¯ve been so nice to me." He then turned around, but as he was about to leave, a voiceing from behind stopped him.

    "One moment please.. I¡¯m terribly sorry for the mistake, it seems that it isn¡¯t time for the kitchen to stop serving yet. Please, take a seat." Said the host rather unwillingly while pointing at the hall.

    After hearing the man¡¯s words, Daniel entered the restaurant and sat at one of the few empty tables, arge round one which could fit five to six people. He then ordered a few dishes and waited for them to be prepared.

    It was currently lunch time, and more were the people who entered the restaurant than those who left it. Soon, before Daniel¡¯s dishes could even arrive, the restaurant had reached its full capacity.

    The moment Daniel¡¯s first dish arrived, a group of differently dressed cultivators entered the restaurant and asked for a table. One amongst these group¡¯s members was a man, while the remaining four, were women.

    Each of these cultivators had an aloof behaviour, and their faces were held up high by an unbreakable pride which only a rich and powerful young master should possess.

    The host promptly bowed towards them, and after apologizing, he said "I¡¯m dested, we are at full capacity. Please,e againter."

    The only man amongst the group showed a shocked expression, but he couldn¡¯t simply behave like a rogue in front of everybody. So he decided to turn around instead, and look for another restaurant.

    As he was about to suggest the four women to leave, the youngest looking girl amongst the four indicated Daniel¡¯s table, and then said "That kid is eating alone.. And he seems to be done, why not ask him to leave?" Her words were sweet, but her expression was vicious. From it, one could clearly see that the meaning of her words didn¡¯t match her intentions, and that she mostly enjoyed them as well.

    The only man in the group turned to look toward Daniel, who had just started to eat, and after smirking, he looked toward the host and said "I see a free table, why don¡¯t you escort us there?"

    The host didn¡¯t refuse, as he didn¡¯t mind a fight which could entertain his guest, and of which people would talk about all around the city, to break out in his restaurant. What he couldn¡¯t stand, was amoner upying an entire table by himself during the rush hour.

    After a polite bow, the host said "Of course, if the sir and misses would kindly follow.." He then started walking in the direction of Daniel¡¯s table.

    Daniel¡¯s reason for entering this restaurant, was to gather informations. He wanted to know where he was, and what the reason for so many well dressed cultivators to be gathered here was.

    Unfortunately, aside form the port city¡¯s name, which was Cerulis, he hadn¡¯t been able to gather any other information. When he was about to focus his hearing on another table, the first dish he had ordered arrived.

    He had just managed to take a couple of bites of his delicious meal, when a voice arrived from behind him.

    With extreme politeness, the host said "Excuse me sir, new guests are arriving, and we need the seats. Would you be kind enough to vacate your table?"

    While still chewing, Daniel turned around and saw the host, along with the group of five which apanied him.

    "I just got here." Responded Daniel, before turning back towards his food and resuming eating.

    The host looked at the group, and after a deep bow, he said "I apologize young sir, young misses, unfortunately.. I.. am not allowed to force a customer to vacate a table.." He made sure to put as much emphasis on "i" as he could, making it clear that, if the group wanted the table, they had to force the young man out of the restaurant themselves.

    The only man within the group got the hint right away, but before he could intervene, the girl which had spoken before approached Daniel, and while literally looking down on him, she said "It¡¯s time you leave kid."

    Once again, Daniel turned around, and while fearlessly looking at the girl, he said "You know, this isn¡¯t the first time i¡¯ve met somebody like you.. Unfortunately, this time there is no one who can prevent your humiliation.. So think it through."

    "How dare you!" Said the girl, before unwrapping the long whip she had wrapped around her arm, and sending it cracking towards Daniel.

    Completely against her expectation, the scene of Daniel ending up on the ground in tears, didn¡¯t happen.

    The moment the girl¡¯s whip approached Daniel, he simply raised his arm and allowed the whip to wrap around his wrist. Then, with the whip still wrapped around his wrist, he went back to eating as if nothing had happened.

    The girl tried to pull the whip back over and over, but Daniel¡¯s strength was too far above hers. With an indignated expression, she looked at the indifferent Daniel and started shouting "WHAT A RUDE PERSON! YOU¡¯LL PAY FOR THIS!!" She then gave up on retrieving the whip, and stormed out of the restaurant.

    The remaining four members of the group were less than indifferent to the spoiled behaviour of the girl, they instead looked at Daniel with slightly more interest than before.

    As the sole man amongst the group was about to say something, Daniel put a few silver coins on the table, and after taking thest bite of the single dish he had managed to try, he said "I¡¯m done eating here, you can have the table." He then calmly walked out of the restaurant.

    Daniel had recognized the strength of the girl at the peak of the third rank of martial cultivation, and even though he didn¡¯t fear her, nor any other of the young masters and young mistresses within the restaurant, he didn¡¯t feel like making enemies with their backers.

    He needed to find out where he was, and how to get back to Phyrri. Or at the very least, find out how to reach the main branch of the Golden Cauldron.

    With nothing but time on his hands, Daniel followed the crowd of well dressed cultivators, which lead him to the harbor.

    After he got there, he noticed a small misceneous shop which faced the sea. He entered it and walked towards the counter, behind which, an old man in fisherman¡¯s clothes was waiting quietly.

    "Anything I can help you with, youngster?" Said the old man.

    Daniel gently put his hands on the counter, and while ncing around the shop, he responded "Yes, I would like a map.. The bigger one you have."

    "Right on." Said the old man, before walking to the back of his shop, and starting to rummage between his items.

    A couple of minutester, the old man walked back with arge rolled up scroll in his hands. He cleared the counter, and unrolled it while saying "This is thergest map I have."

    Daniel looked at the content of the map for a good minute, but even though this map contained many informations of his surroundings, of the words ¡¯Karalis¡¯ and ¡¯Phyrri¡¯, there was no trace. "I must have ended up pretty far.." Muttered Daniel to himself. He then rolled up the scroll, and asked to the old man "How much is it?"

    "1 gold coin" The old man responded.

    For a moment, Daniel was shocked. "Expensive!" He couldn¡¯t help but exim.

    "I¡¯m sorry, all the prices have been temporarily increased due to tournament" Said the old man with a matter of fact tone.

    At the mention of a ¡¯Tournament¡¯, Daniel¡¯s attention had been piqued. He looked at the old man with his beautiful eyes wide open, and asked "What tournament?"

 Chapter 45 The Lost Inheritance Tournamen

    "What tournament?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    A confused expression appeared on the old man¡¯s face, which then asked hid "What other reason would you have to be here, if you¡¯re not heading to participate in the tournament?"

    "I¡¯ve just arrived to this city from the direction of the beach, I know nothing about this tournament.. What is it about?" Daniel asked.

    The old man fixed his clothes and cleared his voice, as if preparing to recount a legendary tale. Then, with a deep voice, he said "The Lost Inheritance Tournament."

    As the old man finished saying the name of the tournament, he stopped talking and looked at Daniel attentively.

    A full minute passed in silence, as Daniel was eager to listen to every word that woulde out of the old man¡¯s mouth. But unfortunately, the old man never resumed talking.

    Slightly annoyed, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but blurt out "And?!"

    The old man,pletely devoid of shame, looked at Daniel and said "And what? That¡¯s all I know. HAHAHAHA!" He then startedughing.

    Fully irritated, Daniel ced a single gold coin on the counter, took the map and left the shop. The old man¡¯sughter apanied him all the way to the door.

    For the next few hours, Daniel tried to start conversations with a few passerby, asking them informations about the Lost Inheritance Tournament. In a matter of minutes he had learned many extremely valuable informations.

    Apparently, the Lost Inheritance Tournament, was a tournament held once every ten years. This tournament would test the younger generation¡¯s talent in cultivation, and to the winners, would be given the chance to receive the inheritance left by two powerful cultivators of old.

    The two cultivators were said to have cultivated past the ninth stage, and therefore, ascended to a higher ne of existence, leaving this world behind.

    They were called The Clear Mage, and The Dark Warrior. Needless to say, the former was a spiritual cultivator, while thetter, was a martial cultivator.

    Daniel had never heard of this tournament, nor had he heard about the legends regarding the Clear Mage and the Dark Warrior. But after he remembered that he had no idea of how far from home he was, he came to ept the fact that, distant ces would naturally have different legends.

    Another useful thing Daniel had heard, was that anyone could join the tournament. The only rule to join, was to be under twenty-five years of age.

    This tournament was held in an ind where the Clear Mage and Dark Warrior were said to have spent theirst few years before ascending from the earthly ne. And it was also said that the Ind would reject any cultivator older than twenty-five from advancing into its depths.

    Many had tried to mask their age with the use of various pills, but the ind¡¯s natural barriers would always manage to single out these cheaters, and kick them out.

    Inside Daniel¡¯s mind, thoughts of giving in to curiosity, and joining the tournament were forming one after the other. Unfortunately, he was all out of karmic points, which were the only ingredient of his unmatched talent for cultivation.

    "Did you forget how it works already?" Suddenly Sewah asked him, interrupting his train of thoughts.

    Daniel was momentarily startled by Sewah¡¯s sudden interruption, but after listening to his words, he asked "What do you mean?"

    "JUST DO SOMETHING GOOD! Why are you waiting for a quest to pop out of the system.. It¡¯s a karmic system for crying out loud! Do karmic shit!" Responded Sewah with exasperation in his voice.

    "Uhm.. Fair enough" Responded Daniel. He then asked "Any ideas?"

    For a few seconds, Sewah kept quiet. Then, as if having just found sudden inspiration, he bursted out with an idea for Daniel to gain karma "Yes! Remember that man who gave you the clothes for free?.."

    "Yeah, of course. I offered to buy them, but after he refused payment, his karm.. OF COURSE!"

    After a bit of pondering, Daniel said "Alright, no harm in trying it out." Then, as he was about to go looking for someone to lend a helping hand to, a familiar window appeared within his mind.

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: Everything Helps*

    -Description: Offer your help to people in need.

    First objective set (Repeatable): Offer your help to 20 people within Cerulis

    Repeatable Reward: Karma +500 / Cerulis reputation +10%

    Reward: +5000 Karma (0/10)

    Time limit: 1 day

    -----

    "I can¡¯t believe it¡¯s so easy!" Said Daniel with a face filled with shock.

    For the following evening, Daniel walked around the city while helping old fishermen unloading the catches of the day, carrying old women¡¯s heavy baskets, sparing a few coins to beggars.. No matter what kind of task, as long as it regarded lending a helping hand, Daniel would do it.

    Finally, as the sun was about to set, the much awaited for window appeared within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    -----

    *Everything Helps*

    First objectivepleted (1/10)

    Reward: 500 Karma Points / Cerulis reputation +10%

    -----

    It was the first time that Daniel had received a repeatable quest. And yet, it made sense, as people in need of help, were a constant within any city.

    With a thought, Daniel opened his personal profile.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - Mid rank 4 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Mid rank 4 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 912

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.2

    Reduced Cost Lv.2

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    "Nine hundred.. That¡¯s amazing! Not only have I received the reward from the quest, but also the singr rewards from every good action! Like when the man gifted me that set of clothes!" Daniel was excited beyond belief.

    An easy way to obtain more karmic points had always been one of Daniel¡¯s main worries, but now, with a little bit of effort, he could easily umte arge amount of karma by simply helping people. Provided that there were enough people to help.

    If that wasn¡¯t enough, he could obtain a boost in reputation and additional karma by simply creating a quest.

    Once again, Daniel had felt excited about how useful his karmic system really was.

    -----

    With a few umted karma points, Daniel headed toward the harbor, and looked around.

    Docked to the harbor, were tenrge ships. Each of them were elegant, seemingly able to carry hundreds of people, and on their right sides, woodennding stages allowed their passengers to embark.

    Daniel approached onending stage after the other, but every time he talked to a member of its crew, he was told that the boat was at full capacity.

    Now at his fifth rejection, Daniel kept trying with the following ships, until finally, as he was about to lose hope, he had been able to find a ce within a shared cabin of the tenth ship.

    This ship wasn¡¯t as aesthetically pleasing as the other ships, but its passengers seemed much less spoiled and stuck up than all the young masters and young mistresses he had met so far. At the same time, while this ship had much less cabins than the others, it also had much more passengers, as the space was upied byrger shared cabins instead.

    The reason why Daniel had seen so many people heading to the harbor during the day, was because, that night, was the time where the ships would have set out.

    When asking around, Daniel had learned why would such a big fleet of ships set out at night, and the reason was simple. The sea was full aquatic beasts, and theck of light would grant them more chances to cross through without being sighted.

    The sun had nowpletely set, and only a few remains of reddish color could be seen lingering on the clouds. Many small lights had appeared on the harbor, signaling to the ship crews their exact positions within the dark.

    After just an hour, One ship after the other started to set out to the sea.

    Daniel witnessed the entire process of untying the mooring, hoisting the anchor, leaving the harbor and unfolding the sails.

    He had never seen a sea, not to mention a ship, so the entire procedure fascinated him.

    After observing the calm passage of water and the port city of Cerulis bing smaller and smaller, he decided to go inside to find his cabin.

    The ship was really immense, and loud noises of chattering resounded within its thin corridors. Regardless of the smaller number whenpared to the other ships, this one still had up to three hundred shared cabins.

    One could imagine how much would any of the other nine ships gain, from any of the crossings.

    Unfortunately, the Lost Inheritance Tournament was held only once every decade, or the ships owners would have be truly rich.

    After a few minutes of walking, Daniel managed to reach the lower parts of the ship, where his cabin was situated. And then, he found the door with a clear number ¡¯251¡¯ carved on it.

    He politely knocked twice, then opened the door and entered.

    Inside the room, there was a bunk bed on each side of the cabin, for a total of four beds. Three of these four beds were already upied.

    Sitting on the lower beds, facing each other, two simr looking martial cultivators were ying cards on a table ced between their beds. One of the two looked slightly older than the other, but the few shared details gave away their close rtionship.

    Their hair color was simr, and from the faint light of the candle ced above the small table, it looked like reddish-dark brown. The muscles on both their bodies were refined, but not too massive.

    Finally, both of them woremon martial attires of the same color, and with ripped off sleeves. Daniel couldn¡¯t see any weapon in their vicinity, so he assumed that the two were martial art practitioners, and not weapon wielders.

    The third and final passenger was quietly lying on the top bed to the right. From the size it looked small, and its appearance was covered by the dark colored thick nket of which every bed was equipped.

    "And here¡¯s our fourth! Pay up!" Said the older looking martial artist which sat on the lower bed to the right.

    Unwilling to give up his money, the younger looking martial artist said "Wait, look how young he is.. Maybe he is here to take our orders for dinner.." He then looked at Daniel with a hopeful expression.

    While noticing the funny behaviour of the younger martial artist, Daniel could only sorrily shake his head left and right.

    "Damn.. Alright, double or nothing!" Said the younger looking martial artist, while pping a few copper coins on the table, he then said "He is fifteen years old!"

    The older looking martial artist looked at Daniel up and down for a moment, then, while turning towards the other martial artist, said "Fourteen." Then they both looked at Daniel.

    Daniel was feeling slightly embarrassed at the moment, but since it didn¡¯t seem like he had ended up in a cabin with bad people, he decided to y along and say "I¡¯m fou-"

    "Fuck!" Eximed the younger martial artist while throwing the copper coins at the other.

    While picking the coins scattered on his clothes, bed and floor, the older martial artist muttered "Such a sore loser." Once he finished, he once again looked at Daniel and said "Hi, i¡¯m Heimart, and this is my dumbass cousin Ligart." He then pointed upwards and said "We don¡¯t know who that one is.. He was already here when we arrived."

    Daniel bowed his head in greeting "I¡¯m Daniel, and i¡¯ll be upying this bed for the time being." He said while leaping over the top bed on the left side of the cabin.

    Heimart looked at Daniel with curiosity, then went back to his card game.

    Daniel hadn¡¯t had a minute of rest since the night before the building of the old master-at-arms had been invaded, so he was feeling rather tired. The moment he lied on his bed, as he rested his head on his pillow, he swore to himself that he had seen a movementing from the other top bed.

 Chapter 46 Battle at Sea Part 1

    The crossing from Cerulis to the ind where the tournament was held, wouldst five days.

    Two nights and one day had passed since the fleet had departed from Cerulis¡¯s harbor.

    Inside Daniel¡¯s cabin, Heimart, Ligart and Daniel had spent the past day and a half talking, and bing acquainted with each other.

    Unfortunately, no matter how long they waited for, they didn¡¯t have a single chance to interact with the fourth passenger of their cabin, as he seemed to move from his bed only when the three weren¡¯t present.

    During the second morning at sea, Daniel and the two cousins were ying cards on the small table within the cabin.

    Daniel had found a pattern within the interactions between the two cousins. The game the two yed seemed to be a simple game of strategy and luck, but the truth, was that most of the times, Heimart would ensure the win thanks to a few sleights of hand.

    Although he would never cheat when money was at stake, his winning streak had more of a purpose of establishing leadership between the two, instead of being a way to win money.

    Daniel was untalented in many things, but dexterity wasn¡¯t one of them.

    In fact, he could always notice and avoid falling for the older cousin¡¯s tricks, and ensure his victory. To a point, where the younger cultivator had started to root for him, as his personal champion of vengeance for the many humiliating defeats of the past.

    The three yed for the entire morning, when finally, it was time for lunch.

    The ship they had boarded wasn¡¯t the most elegant, but it still had a dining hall and a kitchen within the hold.

    Close to bing a habit, right before leaving the cabin, Heimart patted on the top bed a few times, and asked "We are going to eat, want to join us this time?"

    But as usual, he received no response.

    After the expected response, the three left their cabin. They had been caught up in the game, so they had remembered of the dining hall opening hour a little toote. Causing them to need to walk through the many crowded corridors that separated their cabin and the dining hall.

    Hundreds of people packed the corridors tightly, and slowly walked towards the dining hall in disordered rows.

    Many, in order to avoid the chaos of lunch and dinner time, had opted for storing their meals in their luggage, and eat them in the spacious deck.

    Daniel, was one of those people. He had purchased many rations from the shops of the harbor, and had stored them within his spatial rings, but since he didn¡¯t mind waiting in line for a bit in exchange of somepany, he decided to follow the two cousins during meal time and eat together.

    Unfortunately, they had underestimated the waiting time for being thiste for the lunch.

    An hour slowly passed, and they still hadn¡¯t managed to leave the corridors with the cabins.

    Unwilling to wait any longer, Daniel looked at the two martial artists, and said "I have some ready meals in my spatial ring, want to go eat on the deck?"

    The two, sick tired of standing in line, quickly epted the proposal, and made their way towards the closest exit for the deck.

    Finally out of that death trap, they inspired arge breath of sea air, then found a ce to sit.

    Daniel took three wrapped sandwiches out of his spatial ring, and handed one to each of the two cousins.

    Once again, the three started to eat and chat peacefully, but before they could even start to rx, Daniel noticed a few members of the ship¡¯s crew run frantically to one side of the ship.

    They were all looking at something in the distance, right behind the backs of Daniel and his twopanions.

    With half of a sandwich in his hand, and his mouth still full with hisst bite, Daniel turned around.

    Before he managed to swallow, he saw a huge warship just a few hundred meters away from the fleet, and it was rapidly approaching.

    Daniel looked at the scared expressions of the crew members, and suddenly, he heard one of them screaming "PIRAAAAAAAAAATES!"

    The ten ships which traversed from Cerulis to the tournament¡¯s ind, usually didn¡¯t have powerful cultivators on board.

    Each ship belonged to a differentpany, and aside from the weak crew and a decent captain, the only cultivators on board, where those who had embarked the ship to reach the tournament¡¯s ind.

    On this warship¡¯s ck and tattered veils, one could see a white skull which held a knife in its teeth, and in its empty eye sockets there were red mes.

    This particr group of pirates was known as Bloody Sea Pirates, and was a vicious group which attacked the various ships that set out from Cerulis¡¯s harbor.

    Their overall strength wasn¡¯t high, but their expertise with navigating the seas had made hunting them down a really hard job.

    The group¡¯s captain was a pirate at the fifth rank of martial cultivator, and was known as ¡¯The Red Painter¡¯. A name much more refined that its owner deserved.

    In the past couple of decades, hundreds of ships had fallen under the hands of the Bloody Sea Pirates, and not many had survived the encounter.

    After the first crew member shouted, a series of simr shouts resounded in the air, and a few momentster, many cultivators started to emerge from the entrances of the hold.

    Daniel and his cabin mates were already on the dock, looking at the approaching warship.

    The pirate ship had no intention of sinking them, they would instead approach a ship, and board it. They would then kill, **** and rob to their heart¡¯s content, before leaving.

    The warship¡¯s target was, unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s ship. This traverse for the tournament¡¯s ind hadn¡¯t been the first one for the pirate¡¯s Captain. In fact, he was fully aware that these ships would be packed with cultivators, so he had decided to attack the least luxurious one.

    Their gains would still be great, even though not many young masters and mistresses would be present on board, but at least, they had no reason to fear for any powerful bodyguard.

    Closer and closer came the ship, until the cultivators on board of Daniel¡¯s ship were able to see the multitude of cultivators on the warship¡¯s deck. They all had bloodthirsty expressions, and seemed to be ready for battle.

    The many cultivators within Daniel¡¯s ship weren¡¯t unprepared either. After all, they had departed in order to take part in apetition. If they were to fail before even getting to the ind, that would be a great shame to them.

    Amongst them, the only calm person was Daniel.

    While Daniel looked at the pirate¡¯s ship, he didn¡¯t saw the threat of sinking at the bottom of the sea. Instead, he saw many red numbers above just as many heads.

    A chance to gain many.. many karma points, and the first thing to do was..

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: Everything Helps*

    -Description: Offer your help to people in need.

    Second objective set: Survive the pirate assault.

    Optional: Kill the pirate captain.

    Optional: Keep 20% of the passengers alive (218/1090)

    Optional: Keep 40% of the passengers alive (436/1090)

    Optional: Keep 60% of the passengers alive (654/1090)

    Optional: Keep 80% of the passengers alive (872/1090)

    Optional: Keep 100% of the passengers alive (1090/1090)

    Reward: Karma +500(+2000)(+1000)(+2000)(+3000)(+4000)(+50,000)

    Countdown: 2 hours and 56 minutes.

    -----

    "Oh.. this is going to be fun." Thought Daniel after noticing his new quest¡¯s rich rewards.

    His clothes started to flutter in the air, and right after, his whole body followed suit and started to float. Underneath his feet were two thin bs of ice which kept his bnce stable.

    Ignoring the surprised looks of his twopanions, Daniel unlocked his full power of a rank four spiritual cultivator, and approached the warship before it could manage to get near the ship.

    Many magical attacks grazed past him, but his control of wind essence, due to the long exposure to the pure windprehension of a rank 9 spiritual cultivator, had turned his ownprehension of the wind element into a deep one, and his flight ability into an exceptional one.

    Unwilling to y the target for other spiritual and martial cultivators, Daniel created a wind sphere around himself, and dived into the water and under the pirate ship.

    The pirate ship kept moving towards Daniel¡¯s ship, and as the two ships were less than thirty meters away, numerous cultivators started to jump from the pirate ship¡¯s deck and onto the other.

    A fierce battle between young cultivators and seasoned pirates had started.

    Many of the cultivators which shed against the much more experienced and ruthless pirates, died during the very first assault. And when the young cultivators managed to kill a few pirates, more would jump from the pirate ship¡¯s deck and into the fray.

    The person who was doing the most damages, was a very tall and thin man. He wore a leather long coat, and in his hands, he wielded two sabers. This man, was ¡¯The Red Painter¡¯, a nickname which the pirate captain had earned, by painting the surroundings with blood whenever he wielded his sabers.

    Meanwhile, Daniel was at the bottom of the warship, and in front of him, various stone drills which he had summoned, were rotating rapidly and perforating the pirate ship¡¯s hull.

    After two long minutes, sixrge holes, from which no water whatsoever passed through, appeared on the ship¡¯s hull. Daniel, still within his air bubble, flew out of the water and jumped on his ship¡¯s deck.

    He then formed a stone mask with his spiritual essence, covered his face with it, and unsheathed his sword.

    Without a minimum of hesitation, he started to reap lives left and right. At times he would dash right in front of an enemy, leaving him no time to react, while in others, he would quietly approach them from behind, and silently go for the kill.

    Daniel ignored the messages that appeared within his mind, which reminded him of the karma points he acquired from each kill.

    His intention was to be noticed by the pirate captain, but when he turned towards him, he noticed that the tall and thin captain, was engaging in battle against what looked like a petite girl.

    This petite girl wore a mask as well, and her body waspletely covered in a grey coat. The only thing that had made Daniel think that she was a girl, were the long and straight ck hair, which danced in the air from under her hood whenever she made a sudden movement.

    With Daniel on the battlefield, the pirates started to lose the advantage, and fall one after the other.

    Noticing this, the pirate captain tried to quickly end his fight with the petite girl, but after realizing that doing so might take long, due to her extraordinary agility, he stepped back from direct confrontation, and shouted. "RETREAT!!"

    As if hearing an emperor¡¯s order, every single pirate within the ship abandoned their fight, and jumped back into the warship.

    The retreat gave the many cultivators a chance at revenge, as they assaulted and killed a big portion of the lower level retreating pirates.

    "CHAAAAAAAAAARGE!"

    From somewhere within the crowd of cultivators, a loud shout resounded through the entire deck. With newly found courage, the cultivators started to pressure the pirates out of the ship.

    After remaining on the ship¡¯s deck to try to lower the losses within his crew, the pirate captain finally decided jumped back on his warship.

    His assault had been a humiliating one, and he couldn¡¯t help but look hatefully at the two youngsters who had ruined his ns.

    While his warship slowly distanced itself from the ship, a vicious look appeared on the captain¡¯s face. He turned towards his crew, and barked through gritted teeth "Prepare the cannons!.."

    Unfortunately, dreams of revenge hardly go as nned, as the very moment the pirates started to get busy loading the cannons, the warship started to sink.

 Chapter 47 Battle at Sea Part 2

    As the warship sunk, the few experienced spiritual cultivators within managed to avoid drowning through the use of water essence, but unfortunately, not even they could escape Daniel¡¯s finishing blow.

    In fact, the moment the pirates had retreated from the ship¡¯s deck, Daniel had jumped back in the water, and dived right underneath the sinking ship.

    Usually, pirates were amazing swimmers, but today, water would turn into their worst nightmare.

    No matter if a martial or spiritual cultivator, once Daniel noticed someone in the water, he would take control over the water essence which surrounded them, and force streams of water to prate into every orifice of their body.

    Constant streams entered their nostrils, their eardrums were perforated, and throats invaded by the salty water, which rapidly filled their stomach, lungs and cranial cavity.

    Not even their eye sockets were spared by the invasive streams, as the eyeballs of the most unfortunate between the pirates started to pop out and gently float in the calm waters.

    Needless to say, being in the water meant death for them, and one by one, they slowly drowned or received fatal injuries.

    The few capable of resisting Daniel¡¯s aquatic attacks, were were two rank 4 spiritual cultivators, and the ship¡¯s captain.

    The three of them were able to disturb Daniel¡¯s control over the water essence, either with their spirits or ki, but s, they were unable to resist for long.

    After just half a minute, the first spiritual cultivator, due to a mistake in calcting the amount of spiritual essence needed to defend from the perforating power of Daniel¡¯s streams of water, had been unable to protect himself, and ended up being killed like the rest of the pirates.

    No longer than a minuteter, the second spiritual cultivator,pletely unable to resurface to take a breath of air, or to maintain an air sphere in a ce where wind essence was so sparse, like Daniel did.. had started to panic, and after involuntarily breathing in too much water, he drowned.

    The only living member of the Bloody Sea Pirates, was their own captain, ¡¯The Red Painter¡¯, which being a rank 5 martial cultivator, had much a much more powerful body whenpared to spiritual cultivators.

    It was now a one on one battle, and the pirate captain hadn¡¯t given up yet. With his two sabers, he rapidly swam towards Daniel.

    It took him only a few seconds to reach Daniel¡¯s air bubble, as his streams of water weren¡¯t powerful enough to block his advance.

    He shed with both of his sabers through the thin air bubble, and towards the seemingly weak body of a spiritual cultivator, but instead of the familiar view of blood and gore mixing with the water, he felt the hard edge of Daniel¡¯s sword.

    One had to understand one thing. Even if used to fighting underwater, the fighting prowess of martial cultivators would still be slightly reduced. While instead, when considering Daniel¡¯s perfect body, along with his extremeprehension of water and wind elements, one would understand that even though lower in rank, Daniel had no sort of disadvantage in this fight.

    On the other hand, this had been a huge shock to the pirate captain, which couldn¡¯t help but breathe out good part of the air he was holding in his lungs.

    Underwater, Daniel was faster than the tall and thin man, so he charged at him and started to mix water traps together with targeted sword shed.

    For the next minute, if a whip of water wasn¡¯t able to get a hold of one of the captain¡¯s limbs, a shallow cut would appear on his body right after, and whenever the captain was able to predict and parry one of Daniel¡¯s sword shes, a sudden morse would tighten around the captain¡¯s hand, blocking him just enough for Daniel to strike.

    This was a one way fight, as fighting a spiritual cultivator with as muchprehension of water essence in its main element, was like fighting a giant while standing on the palm of their hand.

    Despite the captains enhanced brain and lungs, he was nearing the moment where he would need to resurface to breathe, but he was sure, that his enemy would never allow him to easily do such a thing.

    sh after sh, pulling after pulling, the powerful martial cultivator, simrly to its spiritualpanion, started to panic.

    He was certain that he would have won a fight with the young man, had they been outside of the water. But right now, he felt like an abyssal monster had set his eyes on his dear life, and wasn¡¯t willing to let go.

    Moments turned into seconds and seconds turned into minutes. Each 0ne as horrifying as a stab in the chest. The captain¡¯s state of mind started to copse, as he tried to resurface so eagerly that he let go of his two sabers.

    Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to appear right above him, and send a few shes of "Spitting Ki" against his body.

    The two shed had been precisely aimed at the man¡¯s shoulders, and had incapacitated his armspletely.

    The captainpletely ignored Daniel, as the only thing he could think about was to feel the fresh sea breeze to fill his lungs once more.

    He swam, moving his legs to a crazed speed, while the light of the surface became bigger and bigger. He felt as if he was one step from reaching the mostfortable of ces.

    His biggest desire had been granted, as he finally managed to emerge from the water, and breathe once more, just in time to feel the cold de that had pierced through his heart and out of his chest.

    Onest breath, and the Captain was dead.

    -----

    While still swimming in the calm motion of the water, Daniel observed histest gains.

    The moment he had killed the captain, two windows had appeared within his mind.

    But s, Daniel couldn¡¯t bring himself to be overly happy about it, as the windows not only showed histest gains, but also the exact number of lives lost during the attack.

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown +9452

    -----

    *Everything Helps*

    Second objectivepleted

    Survivors: 893

    Reward: 6500

    -----

    Still, the quantity of karma points that Daniel had received this time, was impressive.

    Putting his rewards aside, Daniel started to emerge from the water, up until he was quite literally standing above its moving surface. He then turned around, and took notice of the ship¡¯s position.

    A soft ascending current start to blow all around Daniel¡¯s body, first making his clothes float, then lifting his bodypletely, allowing him to walk in the air.

    Most of the cultivators still on the ship¡¯s deck, looked at the figure of a young man casually walking on air towards their ship, and felt a faint shiver run through their spines.

    Within their minds, the collective idea of notpeting against this monster during the tournament, had formed in unison.

    Daniel¡¯s sword had already disappeared into his spatial ring, and the only thing within Daniel¡¯s hand was a small leather bag, on which the symbol of the Bloody Sea Pirates had been neatly carved.

    This small bag emanated a simr feeling than his spatial rings did, and it was, in fact, the captain¡¯s personal spatial bag.

    -----

    Back in their cabin, under the curious looks of Heimart and Ligart, Daniel checked his profile out once again.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - Mid rank 4 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Mid rank 4 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 29.511

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.2

    Reduced Cost Lv.2

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    After seeing his umted karma points, Daniel found very difficult hiding his excitement, as the two cousins were still closely looking at him.

    Suddenly, one of them started talking.

    "So, you¡¯re a spiritual cultivator.." Said Ligart, the younger of the two.

    Without looking back, Daniel confirmed it "Indeed I am." His tone a casual one.

    "A powerful one at that.." muttered Heimart to himself.

    "What rank have you reached?" Inquired Ligart, his eyes shining with a strange light.

    Unwilling to lie, Daniel casually responded "faint sub-stage of spiritual synchron-" but before he could finish, a sudden and loudugh resounded in his left ear.

    "AHAHAHAHAHAH!! YES!!" Shouted Ligart. He then turned towards his cousin, and said "Pay up!"

    Heimart showed an annoyed expression, as if bothered by the childish behaviour of his cousin. He then took a silver coin out of the small bag hidden within his shirt, and threw it at Ligart.

    After his eyes moved back on Daniel, he said "You do know that only people under twenty-five can enter the depths of the tournament¡¯s ind, right?"

    The reason for this question was simple. Daniel had imed to be only fourteen years old, and to have reached the fourth stage of spiritual cultivation. On top of it, he had such a deep understanding of water and wind, that he had been able to sink a warship, and single handedly kill more than half of an entire pirate¡¯s crew, not to mention, killing a rank 5 martial cultivator.

    The age that Daniel had imed to have, to the two martial artist, simply couldn¡¯t be true.

    The two cousins had reached amon the same conjecture. And that was that Daniel, had probably lied about his real age.

    The only way someone could maintain their aspect at their early teens, would be through the heavy usage of pills which could retain one¡¯s youth. That also meant, that Daniel must have been much older than he looked.

    It¡¯s not like there weren¡¯t any rank 4 or 5 cultivators amongst the participants of the tournament. But they all neared the age limits imposed by the ind.

    Heimart, for example, had reached the mid Full Control sub-stage of martial cultivation, while his cousin Ligart, was at the early Full Control sub-stage. The two were respectively twenty-four and twenty-two years old, and were considered the most talented individuals within their school of martial arts of origin.

    Heimart, being at the exact same stage Daniel was, had understood better than anybody else how deep his understanding of wind and water essence was. So he was fairly sure that Daniel wasn¡¯t a simple young man with a prodigy level talent for cultivation, and that instead, he was an old and experienced spiritual cultivator.

    The reason why he had to pay up to his cousin, was because if their spections turned out to be true, thing about both of them were fairly sure.. that meant that Heimart had never guessed Daniel¡¯s real age, and therefore he had to pay his cousin back.

    Daniel ignored Heimart¡¯s unnecessary advice, and instead lied on his bed, trying to rx.

    "Hey, where do you guys think our mystery man is?" Said Ligart while pointing at the empty bed on the right side of the cabin.

    The two looked at the direction Ligart was pointing, and after a moment of silence, Heimart said "He might have died in the battle.."

    Before the three could consider the chances of that to be true, the door of their cabin opened. Behind it was a petite figurepletely covered by a grey coat. Near the neck, the bottom part of a mask could be seen, and at its sides, a few strands of ck hair flowed down to her shoulders.

    Daniel recognized this person immediately. It was the petite girl which had engaged on a one on one battle against the pirate captain.

    The girl didn¡¯t say anything. She simply entered the cabin, and with a quiet jump, she ended up on her bed.

    She then covered herself with the grey nket, and went back to the usual state the three had been used to see her in.

    Amongst the general surprised expressions of the three men, Ligart was the first to recover. He looked at his cousin, who had just given the girl for dead, and while shrugging his shoulders, said "Guess not.." He then took a deck of cards out of his pocket, and started to shuffle it.

    Daniel looked at the covered figure of the girl, and before he could turn around, once again, he noticed a slight movement underneath the cover.

 Chapter 48 Clear and Dark Island

    It waste at night, and within his cabin, Daniel was quietly lying on his bed.

    In his hands was the pirate captain¡¯s spatial bag, which Daniel had waited for a chance to inspect since the very moment he obtained it.

    Heimart and Ligart were sleeping, and the petite girl was still lying in her bed,pletely hidden by her dark grey cover.

    Daniel injected a bit of his ki into the captain¡¯s bag, forcing part of his consciousness to slowly seep into the bag.

    Inside it, almost as if following the universalw of what a pirate¡¯s booty should look like, Daniel found various chests.

    One after the other, floating around like a wisp of essence, Daniel checked the content of these chests, hoping to find the gains of the pirate crew¡¯s raids. Unfortunately, until now, every chest he had controlled, had beenpletely empty.

    This, to Daniel¡¯s disappointment, could mean only two things. They had been the first target since the pirates hadst set out to sea, or that they either spent as much as they earned, or their money was stashed somece else.

    Daniel kept controlling the chests, and only when he reached thest few, he had been pleasantly surprised by the fact that they weren¡¯t empty as well.

    Three chests remained. Inside the first one, was a small pile of gold coins. Daniel didn¡¯t count them, but he roughly guessed them to be around two hundred and fifty coins.

    The second chest, contained a few beast cores of various levels, and a few low level essence treasure.

    At this point, Daniel considered the possibility that, right before they had encountered they had had their encounter with the pirate ship, a ship of low level cultivators might have perished to the pirates crew¡¯s hands, as the resources within the second chest, looked like what most cultivators would usually walk around with during their travels.

    What caught Daniel¡¯s attention, was the content of the third chest.

    The chest was simr to the others, but its content wasn¡¯t money or resources. Instead, it contained a book.

    This book was a thin weapon wielding manual, on whose leather cover ¡¯Dual Sword Wielding¡¯ was neatly written.

    Daniel had gone through a quick read of dual knife wielding in the past, as he had found a manual for it within the ring given by the old master-at-arms. From that quick read, he had learned that dual knife wielding was an advance and more effective way to use closebat martial arts.

    What ¡¯Dual Sword Wielding¡¯ teached instead, was to use swords with both hands at the same level of efficiency.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t too interested in dual wielding, but to be as capable of wielding a sword with his left hand as he was with his right hand, was a much more interesting concept, which could give him an additional surprise factor during his future fights.

    He then retracted his ki from the spatial bag, and started to force the content of the captain¡¯s bag into his rings, then, he went to sleep.

    -----

    Two more days had passed since the day of the attack, and Daniel had decided to spend his time cultivating in his cabin.

    This wasn¡¯t an unusual sight in the ship, as the many cultivators would be stuck together for a full week. It was an unspoken rule, that practitioners in the middle of cultivation should not be disturbed.

    He hid the beast cores into his shirt, so that his abnormal speed of consumption could be hidden, and then, started to cultivate.

    One by one, Daniel started to consume one rank 3 beast core after the other. He had chosen to cultivate with rank 3 beast cores, as he didn¡¯t want for any action driven by jealousy to happen.

    The consumption was extremely fast, but unfortunately, being Daniel¡¯s stage of cultivation on a different level than the beast cores he was using, it didn¡¯t allow him to make to breakthrough.

    Nevertheless, he had still managed to reach the peak of the fourth rank in spiritual cultivation, and approached it with his martial cultivation.

    At that point, Daniel decided to stop cultivating, as he didn¡¯t feel that rank 3 beast cores were able to assist him into a breakthrough to the next rank.

    It was dinner time when Daniel finished his cultivation. Heimart and Ligart had just finished a game of cards, and as usual, Ligart¡¯s expression was a pissed one.

    After the few usual interaction amongst themselves, the two put away the cards, and prepared to go to the mess hall.

    As usual, before leaving the room, they checked the state Daniel and the petite girl were in, and invite them for to apany them.

    Usually, their invitations would be left unanswered. But this time, Daniel epted.

    After Daniel joined them, Heimart tapped twice on the petite girl¡¯s bed, as he usually did to get her attention, but differently from any other time, the girl actually got out of bed, and stood silently next to them.

    Slightly shocked, the three looked at the girl with confused expressions, as this had been the very first time the girl had shown any sort of reaction to one of their attempts to interaction.

    After a good minute, Ligart looked at his cousin and said "I think you¡¯ve tapped the rightbination this time.. Hehe.. Come on, i¡¯m starving" He then started walking out of the cabin.

    Heimart followed suit, and after him, Daniel did as well.

    The girl stoodpletely still in the cabin, until Daniel decided to move. She then followed him to the mess hall. She was still wearing her grey cape, and on her face, the mask was always present.

    There had been heavy casualties amongst this ship¡¯s number of cultivators. Therefore, the line that would form during meals, didn¡¯t seem as unbearable anymore.

    After reaching the mess hall and sitting on a table like they always did, a voice came from behind the group "Ligart! Did you finally found out a way to have a kid with your cousin? Hehehe" The voice asked.

    Without looking back, Ligart smiled and said "Is it one of your magical mustache¡¯s powers to sniff out children in the surroundings?" His words vicious, but his tone yful. A sound pnded on Ligart¡¯s shoulder the very next moment.

    From behind Ligart, the voice started once again "I admit it, with how many times i¡¯ve been with your mama.. I always am on the lookout for any kid that kinda looks like me.. Speaking of which.. Heimart, how sure are you that he is your cousin?"

    With a faint smile on his lips, Heimart looked at the man which stood behind Ligart, and said "A hundred percent.. Unfortunately.."

    Heimart and Ligart, since the day of the pirate attack, had built a good reputation for themselves, as they had shown great talent in martial arts, and even saved a few lives.

    Added to the fact that, whenever they went to the mess hall, their card games would be the biggest source of entertainment to the ship¡¯s passengers, they had easily been able to build a few friendly rtionships.

    Daniel turned to look at the person behind Ligart, and saw a man which was in his mid twenties, but carried his age like someone at his early thirties did.

    His skin was heavily tanned, and on his face, was a mischievous smile. Right above his lips was a thick weird looking mustache, which Daniel guessed was the reason for Ligart¡¯s teasing words.

    After this man left, many other approached the two cousins with the same behaviour.

    Dinner hour rapidly went by.

    Daniel left the table and headed back to their cabin. Behind him, the petite girl followed.

    At first, Daniel thought that the girl, just like he did, simply wanted to go back to their cabin and mind her own business.. But then, the following days, Daniel noticed that the girl would only ept Heimart¡¯s invitation after he epted to go as well.

    -----

    Three dayster.

    Aside from the asional shoal of fish, or low level aquatic beast¡¯s attack, the ship had no more problems, nor did had anything worthy of attention happened.

    It was early in the morning, and many of the passengers were now standing on the deck of the ship, looking at the barely noticeable mass ofnd in the horizon.

    When Daniel, the girl, and the two cousins left the hold to join the rest of the passengers on the deck, they were immediately noticed.

    Everyone present here had either seen the petite girl fighting the pirate captain, the two brothers fiercely defeating pirate after pirate, or Daniel¡¯s prowess when sinking the ship and killing every escaping pirate, before they could bombard them with their warship.

    The four had be respected cultivators within the ship, causing the crowd of cultivators to part, so that they could take a look at the view as well.

    The more they approached the ind, the more ships they started to seee and go. What was odd, was that ships came and went from every direction, not only toward the harbor they were approaching.

    This mystery was solved by the ind itself when they came close enough to it.

    The ind was massive. So big that one could see more than a few mountains within its ind.. But what was more surprising, was that the entire observable coast was a single long harbour, to which hundreds of ships had been anchored.

    Minute after minute, they came closer and noticed more details. Like the outstanding number of people roaming the port, including middle aged and old people, and the many buildings that had been erected.

    More than a harbor, Daniel and the rest of the passengers felt like they had been looking at a ring city which covered the entire coast of the ind.

    Little did they know, that their guess was actually right.

    If the group were to ask to anyone who lived in the ind, they would always receive the same answer, which was that the legend of the Lost Inheritance Tournament¡¯s fame was so big, that it had eclipsed every story told about the city which surrounded the ind.

    That city, was called Clear and Dark city, name given in honor of the Clear Mage and Dark Warrior which once inhabited the ind.

    The barriers created by the two powerful cultivators would only activate when trying to look for the inheritance hidden within the ind, during the time of the tournament. The tournamentsted two months in total, and after that, for the remaining nine years and eleven months, the ind would be like any other.

    This had allowed settlers to establish small ports all around the coast, which then grew into small port cities, and after hundred of years of development, merged into a single port city to which the Clear and Dark name was given.

    -----

    Since sighting the ind, the ship had to travel two more hours before being able to dock.

    Daniel and the rest spent thesest couple of hours at sea chatting, until finally, they were able to get off the ship.

    Like many other cultivators within their ship did with their cabin mates, Daniel, the petite girl and the two cousins, didn¡¯t immediately part ways.

    None of them knew anybody else in the ind, as they hade here with the sole purpose of participating in the tournament. Therefore, the friendships formed in battle and travel, became the only things that separated these cultivators from two months of absolute loneliness.

    This hadn¡¯t happened to the practitioners of the other ships, as they owned private cabins, and traveled in groups whose members originated from the same area or even power.

    In front of Daniel and the rest, arge sign hung between tworge wooden poles which emerged from the water. On it, a clear writing spelled ¡¯Clear and Dark city - Dock 229¡¯

    Daniel turned towards his cabin mates, and noticed how all the people the two cousins had made friends with, were now standing next to them. Including the four of them, the entire group numbered close to a dozen.

    Daniel immediately looked at Heimart, and handed the leadership role to him when saying.. "What do we do now?"

    Heimart took the hint, and after a moment of thinking, he said "Now we look for informations.. Ideas on where to start?"

    In response, Daniel took deep breath, and after smelling the inviting odor of roasted meat, he said "I know where I want to start.."

 Chapter 49 A Silvery Voice

    The group of eleven cultivators entered a medium sized restaurant that was near the dock 229, then, they upied arge table and started to eat.

    For the next two hours, the group of cultivators ate while chatting happily, and making ns for gathering informations.

    The only two people who kept quiet, were Daniel, and the petite girl that sat next to him.

    -----

    "..exactly three days from now."

    "That¡¯s what i¡¯ve heard as well.."

    -----

    "I¡¯ve heard that it¡¯s a powerful martial art and spell."

    "Ridiculous, it¡¯s definitely vast richness! Why would so many peoplee here for a single art?"

    -----

    Various topics of conversation were visited through the duration of their meal. Including the "when the tournament would start", "what the reward for the winner would be", and past experiences from veteranpetitors.

    The more the group discussed, the cleared something became to them.. They knew almost nothing about the tournament.

    As the end of their meal approached, the morale of the group had been hugely affected.

    Noticing that, Daniel, which was sitting to Heimart¡¯s left, came close to his ear and whispered something to him, while sneakily handing something over to him from under the table.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, a big smile appeared on Heimart¡¯s face.

    He rose up to his feet, and with a loud voice, he said "Cheer up people! We are cultivators.. We better ourselves not only for show, but because we aspire to something better. That¡¯s why we are here.. We came here topete!" he paused slightly and gave a hard look at everyone present.

    "We have made a difficult travel to reach this ce, and The Red Painter will testify our resolve to the underworld, and to this ind.. by paying for our next few rounds!" As he reached the end of the phrase, he mmed a small bag on the table. It was the captain¡¯s small spatial bag, which Daniel had given him in secret.

    The man with the strange mustache was the first to talk. "And we thank him for that!" He said while raising his cup.

    The rest followed suit.

    When the eleven of them left the restaurant, the spiritual cultivators amongst group were those in the worst shape. Their organs functionality hadn¡¯t been enhanced by martial cultivation, therefore, they were not as capable to hold alcohol as martial cultivator were.

    The few of them required others to hold them by their arms just to avoid dropping asleep on the ground.

    A type of alcohol which could intoxicate martial cultivators existed, but the only one who had had some, was Ligart, which simrly to spiritual cultivators, was currently staggering as result of a rigged game of cards with his cousin, and a bad bet.

    The group took all evening to find an inn with enough free rooms for the whole lot of them.

    As the rest settled down, Daniel, Heimart and the petite girl, approached the counter of the hotel, and asked to the receptionist a few informations about the tournament.

    Apparently, the tournament would start at sunrise, three dayster. At that point, a formation within the ind would be activated.

    This formation¡¯s activation had two effects.

    The first one, was to create a powerful wave of ki which would expand from various points of the ind, and force every cultivator within, right back to the shore.

    The second effect, was the appearance of a powerful spiritual sense which would suddenly expand through the entire ind and linger in the air.

    This lingering spiritual sense, would test the cultivator¡¯s age, and after confirming it to be under twenty-five years old, would allow them through. If over twenty-five, the former ki wave would appear once again, and force them back.

    Once allowed through, the cultivators would need to ovee various challenges. First of which, was to find the residence of the two old masters. A castle that would appear only during the duration of the tournament, and every time, in a different spot within the ind.

    Unfortunately, having only witnessed to one other of these tournaments during her childhood years, the receptionist wasn¡¯t able to tell them any more than that.

    Happy with the amount of information they had gathered, Heimart went back to their rooms, while Daniel and the girl left the inn.

    Daniel didn¡¯t mind the girl¡¯spany, as she didn¡¯t bother him in any way. Plus, he was also curious about her, and the reason why she would allow no one to see her appearance.

    Daniel spent the rest of the evening going through various shops and marketces. He was currently looking to expand his affinity to other essences. Unfortunately, he found nothing at all.

    He was about to give up, when he noticed a constant stream of well dressed people move toward a single direction.

    He followed them for a bit, and ended up at the entrance of a massive building.

    This building was enormous and elegant. About three times the size of the hotel bought by the old master-at-arms.

    There wasn¡¯t any door or guard at the entrance, and a short set of stairs invited people through an arched entrance. At the top of which, was a clear writing carved in stone that said ¡¯Heaven¡¯s Door¡¯

    The walls were covered by climbing evergreen nts, whose flowers of various colors gave the building a mystical and beautiful look. The sheer smell on the outside of the building, reminded Daniel of the many flower markets he had been to.

    Without giving it too much thought, the two followed the well dressed people, and entered the building.

    Inside, were spacious and well lit corridors on whose sides, small shops appeared one next to the other. These shops, were extremely elegant, and sold only items of high quality.

    Herbalists, weapon smiths, armors smiths, alchemists, jewelers, clothing, book stores.. No matter what a person was looking for, Daniel was sure that they would be able to find it here.

    What left Daniel enchanted though, was the apparently missing roof, which instead of providing a cover from the elements, disyed a beautiful starry sky, and stars so bright that they shined through the entire building, illuminating it like daylight.

    Even inside the building, the majority of the people kept moving towards the same direction. Something was about to happen, and Daniel wanted to know what.

    A minuteter, Daniel and the girl found themselves in front of the entrance of arge building within the building.

    The double door was wide opened, and inside, Daniel could see hundreds of chairs and arge tform to the opposite end of the room. The numerous people who entered, found a free chair, and sat quietly.

    "An auction house.." Daniel couldn¡¯t help but mutter. He then entered the hall, and found a ce to sit. The petite girl followed suit and found a ce to sit right next to Daniel.

    Daniel didn¡¯t have to wait long for the auction to start, as the moment the final seat had been taken, a stout yet well dressed man with an amiable face walked on the stage, and said in a loud voice "Good evening dear Sirs and Madams, I am your host for the evening, and will be auctioning today¡¯s items." He then took a bow, and continued "Wee, to Heaven¡¯s Gate Auction House!"

    Daniel had only been to another auction before, and therefore, he still wasn¡¯t used to all the theatrics. He didn¡¯t even know if his wealth would be enough to purchase any of the auctioned items.

    Without adding anything else, the auctioneer waved his hand to the side of the stage, and weed a young woman dressed in revealing clothes.

    She walked over the stage with a bright smile, while holding an elegant cushion in her hands. Above the cushion, was a transparent bottle with various pills in it.

    The auctioneer looked back at the crowd, and said "The first item of the day, is a batch of rank 7 healing pills!"

    Daniel was shocked. He was more than aware of what the rank of a pill meant.

    The rank of the pill depended by the effectiveness of the pill.

    For example, a rank 7 healing pill, was an essence pill created by a spiritual cultivator that had reached aprehension of healing essence high enough to concoct a pill that would allow a person to survive a near death injury.

    Its creation was simr to that of an essence sphere, but instead of using an essence treasure to bind the healing essence, nts, herbs and an alchemical method would be used.

    This, was also the highest level of healing pills that his spiritual cultivation teacher, the Silver Alchemist, was able to make.

    There was a downside to making this high level of healing pills.. The real use of this level of healing pill was rmended in near death situations. Therefore, when finding himself in such dire situations, a cultivator might not even be in the condition to use the pill to begin with.

    It was one of those very useful items, which barely had any chance to be used.. Like the most bright light, in a world where darkness ruled only a minute of the day.

    What these pills were most useful for, was to pass down theprehension of healing essence, and that was exactly what Daniel needed at the moment.

    "The auction starts at 100 gold coins, every increase has to be of 50 silver coins or higher." Said the stout auctioneer.

    "101 gold coins"

    "..103! Here!"

    "104 and 50 silver.."

    "110!" Said Daniel

    "123.."

    "I offer 130.."

    -----

    The price kept increasing higher and higher.. to a point where Daniel wasn¡¯t able to afford them anymore.

    His total wealth, not considering his other items, only reached about 300 gold coins, and he wasn¡¯t willing to spend most of his money for a few healing pills.

    Suddenly, a silvery voice resounded in the air, and said "Two hundred gold coins."

    The voice was pleasant to hear, and made a few people turn their heads around to search for its source. Higher than anybody else¡¯s, was Daniel¡¯s surprise, as he turned to the direction the light and clear voice hade from.. The seat next to his.

    The previous bid was 185 gold coins, and it was already close to the full value of this batch of pills.

    The petite girl¡¯s offer was more than anybody else was willing to spend on this item, therefore, after a few seconds, came the announce that she had won the auctioned item.

    The rest of the bid went smoothly, one item after the other were bought at exorbitant prices.

    When the hall started to empty, Daniel, the girl and the rest of the people who had purchased an item, went to the reception. One by one, they were weed into a small room, where the purchase would then be finalized.

    Daniel quietly waited for the girl toe out of the room. Five minutester, the door opened and she came out with steady steps.

    She walked right up to Daniel, and handed the bottle of pills to him.

    Daniel had suspected that the girl had decided to purchase these pills for him, but he wasn¡¯t sure until now. What he didn¡¯t know, was the reason, so he couldn¡¯t help but ask "Why?.." With narrowed eyes and a slightly bent head.

    Outside of his expectation, instead of her usual quietness, the girl responded "A peak rank 4 spiritual cultivator.. At your age.. You¡¯ll definitelyprehend a bit of healing essence before the tournament starts.. Wouldn¡¯t mind having a healer nearby.." She said in her pleasant voice.

    The surprise that Daniel felt by hearing her pronounce so many words all at once after a week of silence, waspletely overshadowed by how much sense what she had just said made. For once, he had been left dumbfounded.

    A thought interrupted his stupor. He didn¡¯t want to owe money to anybody, so he looked at the masked girl, and took a medium bag out of his ring. In it, were exactly a hundred gold coins.

    He then handed the bag over to the girl, and said "You¡¯ve earned the right to be cured.. But we split the cost. Deal?" He asked.

    Under her mask, the girl looked curiously at Daniel. She then slowly nodded her head and took the bag of money, making it disappear under her cloak.

    Back in silence, the two started walking toward the inn.

 Chapter 50 Better Safe Than Sorry

    Back in his room, Daniel was sitting quietly on his bed.

    In his right hand, was the small bottle which contained the healing pills, that he and the girl had bought an hour earlier.

    Through the transparent bottle, Daniel could se five pear-sized beads. They had hints of transparency, and a dull white colorpletely devoid of any sort of shine.

    This wasn¡¯t the first time Daniel had seen a healing pill. The first time was when he had extorted one from one of the young masters of the School of Evesting Fury, in order to heal the hand of the little girl that one of his goons had hurt.

    The only difference was the rank of the pill, which considering the time it took to heal the girl, and the magnitude of the injury it was capable of healing, was a rank 5 healing pill at best.

    Daniel opened the small bottle, and made one pill roll out of the bottle¡¯s neck and on his palm. He then observed it for a few moments.

    Through his spirit sense, Daniel could feel the healing essence within the bead, but he couldn¡¯t quite understand its working. It was simr to the essence sphere within the greenhouse ring that the old alchemist had given him.

    The essence was there, but he couldn¡¯t quite understand how it worked. Therefore,prehension wasn¡¯t possible. To this day, Daniel still hadn¡¯t understood the use of that sphere.

    Of course, differently from the sphere within the greenhouse ring, Daniel had one more way toprehend the healing essence within the pill.. and that, was to use it on himself.

    He only owned five healing essences, and each would have a limited effectiveness and use, so he wanted to make the best out of it.

    After a full minute of being immersed in his thoughts, a satisfied expression appeared on Daniel¡¯s face. In his mind, a familiar window was present.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 14

    Rank

    - Late rank 4 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Peak rank 4 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 5790

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.4

    Reduced Cost Lv.4

    Second Chance Lv.1

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    In just a minute, Daniel had spent almost twenty thousand karma points to upgrade ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ and ¡¯Reduced Cost¡¯ from level two to level four, and to purchase the first level of ¡¯Second Chance¡¯.

    At first, he had no intention of purchasing ¡¯Second Chance¡¯. But now that he was alone, and about to enter a tournament that he knew barely anything about, and together with people he knew even less.. he decided that an additionalyer of survival, was better than nothing.

    Suddenly, on Daniel¡¯s hand, an extremely sharp dagger appeared.

    He rapidly activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and put the healing pill in his mouth. The next moment.. He took a deep breath, and after mustering all the courage he had, he used ¡¯Through Stone and Steel¡¯ to stab his forearm, then used ¡¯Splitting Ki¡¯ to open a huge gash that reached all the way from his elbow to his wrist.

    Since the moment Daniel had thought about consuming the healing pills, he had been worried that, in case he wasn¡¯t injured, the healing essence wouldn¡¯t take effect, and therefore, he wouldn¡¯t be able toprehend it.

    In order to avoid possibly wasting a pill over a failed attempt, Daniel had no choice but to injure himself.

    Behind his gritted teeth and pained expression, Daniel rapidly swallowed the healing pill. He then focused on the essence which suddenly started to pervade his body.

    Before the pill could even go down his throat, it dposed and turned into a dense stream of healing essence. The feeling Daniel had felt at that moment, was like drinking a warm ss of milk. But instead of feeling it fill his stomach, Daniel felt the wave of warmth explore his whole body, and after reaching the injured point of his arm, it started to concentrate on the wound.

    Daniel kept his eyes wide opened and observed his open wound carefully. The pain made him clench his teeth tightly, and big drops of sweat had started to form on his forehead.

    The warm was now filling his armpletely, and after a few moments, Daniel saw the milky streams of healing essence stretch from his muscles, blood vessels, and skin.

    Every stream would reach for the opposite side of the wound, and slowly connect the two cut off parts, before pulling them back together, and forcibly healing them to a perfect state.

    The moment the cut off parts of his arm were attached back together, the pain was numbed almostpletely.

    The whole process had only taken ny seconds, as the curative power of a rank 7 healing pill was too high when used on a wound as easy to heal as a flesh wound.

    What Daniel had just did, was the equivalent of asking the best doctor in the world, to heal a scratched knee. It was an immense waste of resources, but it didn¡¯te without any rewards.

    Thanks to the fourth level of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, Daniel had managed toprehend healing essence¡¯s workings at an impressive speed.

    In fact, from the use of a single healing pill, he had been able to learn how to turn his spiritual essence into healing essence of the lowest level, and that was the only requirement to be considered a spiritual cultivator with healing skills.

    His currentprehension of healing essence was now deep enough for him to, had he been an alchemist, create a rank 1 healing pill.

    What was unfortunate, was the incredible consumption of karma points, which despite the increase level of ¡¯Reduced Cost¡¯, still decreased by an impressive amount.

    For the next hour, Daniel¡¯s groans and pained growls resounded within his room.

    When they finally stopped, Daniel had passed out on his bed,pletely covered in sweat, next to an empty bottle.

    -----

    Almost twenty hourster, Daniel woke up on his bed.

    The sheer memory of how he had spent thest hour awake came back to his mind, giving him goosebumps.

    After getting back up on his feet, Daniel washed up, and left his room.

    He had slept all the way to thete evening of the day after, so when he left his room, he saw the rest of the group preparing to leave for dinner.

    In the day Daniel had slept, the group had gotten used to the idea of Heimart being the leader.

    Heimart, back to his school, had been the leader of his generation of students, so he was used to giving orders and assigning tasks. He also had a good character, and since his faulty habit of cheating presented itself only when betting with his cousin, he was also respected by everyone as a honorable person.

    The petite girl was the only one he didn¡¯t dare give order to. Either because he thought that she wouldn¡¯t listen, or because she was more powerful than he was. After all, she had fought with the pirate captain alone, and didn¡¯t seem to be in too much of a disadvantage.

    The members of the group had been sent by him to gather informations about the tournament. Only a few suggestions had been given to them, being them to ask to natives of the ind, and to ask to old people.. the older the better.

    Unfortunately, none of them hade back with more informations than the ones they had gotten from the receptionist. At best, a few of them had heard a few rumors regarding the tournament¡¯s prize.

    After a dinner devoid of good news, the group went back to their rooms for the night.

    Daniel,pletely unable to sleep, spent the night practicing the mastery the sword, and his martial arts.

    The way the system increased his speed ofprehension still greatly amazed him. An increase that allowed him to perfectly learn and do something that before, he didn¡¯t even know existed.. All of that in the short span of a few hours.

    After a full night of practice, Daniel¡¯s mastery of ¡¯Splitting Ki¡¯ and ¡¯Through Stone and Steel¡¯ had reached a new level. In fact, he was able to expand the reach of the de by pushing his ki further than the weapon¡¯s body. His swordsmanship had also increased to the next level, making him able to parry, counter and nullify an attack with a simple movement of his wrist.

    This brief training session, along with ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, had costed him a full thousand karma points for a total of twelve hours of practice.

    -----

    It was now the morning of the day before the start of the tournament.

    Every single cultivator within the Clear and Dark city were preparing in small and organized groups, or with thepanions they hade to begin with.

    A few more dezen of ships arrived to the ind, unloadingrge crowds of cultivators which promptly invaded every market and shop within the city. The most chaotic day of a decade had started.

    Fortunately, Heimart had seen thising, so he had convinced a few members of his group to pack the essentials for the lot of them during thest couple of days.

    Various fights took ces between the numerous parties of cultivators, while the various merchants put the most expensive and high end items in exhibit, while jacking up the prices of every item within their inventory by many folds.

    Daniel and the rest of the group, spent the day making ns and organizing.

    The first objective of the tournament, was to find the castle of the Clear Mage and Dark Warrior, so the group had decided to split into three teams. Twoposed by four people, and oneposed by three.

    Heimart and the petite girl, along with two other people, were on one team. Ligart and the man with the strange mustache, whose name was Paule, along with two more, were part of the second team.

    Finally, Daniel guided a team of three.

    Once the tournament would start, the three would split into three different directions, and explore three different sections of the ind.

    If, one of the teams managed to find the castle, they wouldmunicate its position to the other teams through the use of an item they had bought during thest couple days of preparation.

    This item was a special piece of metal which could contain a cultivator¡¯s ki within. This item was called ¡¯Ki g¡¯.

    Each of the team leaders, being Daniel, Heigart and Paul, had two of these ki gs, and on each of them, the ki of the two other leaders had been imprinted.

    The moment one of them found the castle, or found themselves in a dire situation, the team leader in possession of the two gs, would slowly erase the other¡¯s ki imprints.

    The owners of the imprints would naturally feel their ki being erased, and would know exactly where to head to.

    Daniel¡¯s team members were a young man at the peak of the third rank of spiritual cultivation, and a girl at the early fourth rank of martial cultivation.

    ording to the rough estimations given by a few officials, whose work was to observe the influx of visitors during the two week prior to the start of the tournament.. this year¡¯s participants were around fifty thousand.

    Many of these cultivators hade from powerful sects, schools and families within the kingdoms that surrounded the sea, inside which the ind was situated.

    Because of this, the group had expected there to be many feuds between the various groups, which they would attempt to settle during the tournament.

    After all, once inside the ind, the various young masters and mistresses of these powers would only have their own strength to protect themselves, and in case they would be killed, nobody would know for certain who had killed them.

    This, wasn¡¯t a problem for Daniel, which being aplete stranger to the area, didn¡¯t have to worry that an old enemy would try to settle a score with him.

    With this thought in mind, he bid farewell to the group, and made his way to his room in order to take onest good night of sleep before the tournament would start.

 Chapter 51 The Tournament Begins

    As the first noises of the morning prated through the various windows within the city, the many cultivators woke up with a collective thought in their minds.. The day which opened the tournament had arrived.

    For the following hours, once by one, a massive number of cultivators flooded the streets.

    Since the very moment they found themselves in the open, their eyes moved towards the depths of the ind, and stayed gued there.

    Daniel was the first amongst his group to wake up, and when he left the hotel, the streets were already too crowded to casually walk through.

    It was five in the morning, and ording to the informations they had gathered from the natives of the ind, eight o¡¯clock was the time when the ind¡¯s formation would activate, signaling the start the tournament.

    Around the city many martial cultivators checked their equipment, while just as many spiritual cultivators focused on trying to put themselves into the right state of mind.

    One by one, Daniel¡¯s group members left the hotel and joined him in the street.

    "So many people.." Said Ligart to his teammates.

    Heimart looked at the full group, and after catching their attention with a loud and sharp whistle, he said "Remember the task at hand. Find the castle, avoid confrontation and most importantly, do not die."

    The group quickly split into the originally decided teams, and after wishing good luck to each other, they separated and went on their way.

    Daniel¡¯s team wasposed by himself, a martial cultivator of the fourth rank named Imblen, and a spiritual cultivator at the peak of the third rank, called Roley.

    Both of them came from a mercenary group within the same kingdom of origin, and the two knew each other very well. They had also assisted to Daniel¡¯s heroics during the pirate attack, so they didn¡¯t doubt his strength one bit.

    The ind had been split into three parts between the team. North, south-west and south-east. Daniel¡¯s assigned section, was the south-western part of the ind.

    There was a simple reason for that. The south-western part of the ind was the furthermost from the point they were right now, and it had been assigned to their team because of Daniel¡¯s flight abilities, which made him he fastest amongst the group.

    Within thest few days, Daniel had practiced with ¡¯Aerial Walk¡¯, and had be perfectly capable of carrying one or two more people with him.

    At first, he had thought about throwing his teammates into his greenhouse ring, but he discarded the idea, as he didn¡¯t know what the effects of showing such an item would be.

    Unfortunately, Daniel wasn¡¯t able to focus on keeping bnce for three people at the same time, so he had to carry Imblen and Roley like two sacks of potatoes, holding them by their waists

    After summoning a powerful stream of wind, Daniel and the two flew toward their assigned section of the ind.

    In two hours, the three had reached the south-western side of the ind.. Side where the number of cultivators in wait, wasn¡¯t lower by any means.

    During the next couple of hours, Daniel and the rest looked at the people who rushed out of the depths of the ind. Some were walking casually, while others had relieved expression.

    The observing cultivators knew that there would still be some people within the ind, and seeing them leave now, reminded them of the starting signs of the tournament.

    At 8 in the morning, the crowd was so silent, that a fly could be heard flying had there been one.

    Suddenly, a transparent red column appeared in the middle of the ind.

    This column rose higher and higher, until it reached far past the cloud¡¯s height. It then stopped growing in height, and started to grow in width.

    At the same time the column expanded, a light blue mist could be seen lingering within it.

    It expanded at the same speed the column did,pletely filling it up. It almost looked like a trapped power was forcibly pushing against its cage from the inside, but instead of breaking out, it simply forced the cage to expand.

    The column borders approached the edges of the ind more and more, as the cultivator started to worry that some of them might not be far enough, and unfortunately, they were right.

    When the red column approached the shore, everyone beyond the line of the sand, was forcibly pushed back, with no exception.

    Daniel and the others had heard about this column. It was the Ki that the Dark Warrior had left within the formation. While instead, the light blue colored mist, was the spiritual sense that the Clear Mage had used to identify the participant¡¯s ages.

    Once the column reached the sand, it suddenly stopped and started to slowly dissipate. Half a minuteter, only the mist remained.

    Within the crowd which surrounded Daniel¡¯s team, a group of men clearly older than twenty-five, tried to push their way through the pale blue mist. But the moment the mist touched them, a streak of red ki appeared out of nowhere, and crashed against their chest, pushing them back on the shore.

    Everything they had heard so far, had been the truth.

    The two months long tournament, had officially started.

    Like a warring legion after hearing the blow of a horn, the tens of thousands of cultivators charged into the ind, and rapidly went on their way to start to look for the castle.

    Right now, Daniel could better observe how many groups had been formed, and the biggest in size numbered in the hundreds.

    These parties either rushed out in a single group, or using the same strategy Heimart¡¯s group used, split and went to check different sections of the ind. Some of these groups even started a few skirmishes right after entering the mist.

    Daniel¡¯s intention was to fly in order to gain a certain advantage against others, and then proceed on foot.

    Another information they had obtained, was that the castle had been said to have appeared not only on ground, mountains and even floating abovekes.. But also floating in the air, and burrowed underground.

    Of course, if the castle had been in the sky, every participant would be easily able to spot it. Therefore there was amon misconception that, during the years when the castle had appeared in the sky, the participants had been exceptionally lucky.

    But many seemed to forget, that flight wasn¡¯t amon practice. Even amongst the people of this edition of the tournament, Daniel had seen only a few hundred people roaming the skies, and they were all solitary cultivators.

    Through various kilometers of forest, valleys and prairies, Daniel flew as fast as his wind currents could take him, and his teammates. Only after reaching the feet of a mountain, he finally stopped.

    The first thing Daniel wanted to do since entering the ind, was to reach the center of his assigned section, and find a secluded ce to use as a base. He had stopped at the feet of this mountain because he had noticed a natural cave, whose entrance was covered on all sides.

    Therefore, the entrance of this cave was observable only by flying cultivators.

    He would then search the surrounding area thoroughly, explore thekes, fly

    above the cloud¡¯s level, and try to sense underground.

    -----

    10:32 in the morning.

    Daniel and the rest of his team, had just finished organizing a small camp right at the entrance of the cave.

    The tournament had started by only two hours, and Daniel was about to go make his first scouting attempt, when suddenly, before he could even open his mouth to speak, his head rapidly turned north-east.

    In that direction, he felt the trace of ki he had left in one of the two ki gs, was being slowly erased.

    The direction, was the middle of the northern section of the ind. Area which had been given to Heimart¡¯s team to scout.

    Daniel rapidly turned towards his teammates and said "I¡¯ve got the signal from up north.. It¡¯s almost in the middle of their section.."

    "Already?!" Asked Imblen with shock in her voice.

    Finding the castle right away, wasn¡¯t impossible. In fact, many times the castle had been said to be found within the first few hours of the tournament, as it could appear literally anywhere within the ind.. Even thirty meters from the shore.

    Daniel knew that Heimart¡¯s team wasposed by three martial cultivators. Amongst which him and the petite girl, and finally, a spiritual cultivator whose main abilities were summoning and the earth and water elements.. Furthermore, he knew for certain that there were no mountains in the northern section of the ind. Therefore, if the castle had been found, it could only have been on the ground level, or underground.

    After rapidly putting their items back in their backpacks, Daniel grabbed his two teammates by their waists, and rose up in the air.

    Heimart¡¯s team was at about two hundred kilometers from where they were, and at Daniel¡¯s maximum flight speed, it would them about an hour to to arrive.

    -----

    Northern section of the ind. 10:04.

    Two hours had passed since the beginning of the tournament, and Heimart¡¯s team had made their way towards the middle of their assigned section.

    Unable to fly, they had been forced to run all the way here, just like most other groups did.

    At the moment, they were making their way through arge patch of grass, and In the distance, they could see many other groups of cultivators running in the same direction they were going to.

    Ten minutester, one by one, the groups were stopped by the appearance of argeke. The sun was high up in the sky, and directly in the direction they were running to, making its light shine above the surface of the dirty water, and reflected against the cultivator¡¯s faces.

    After more than two hours of running, or like in case of Heimart¡¯s team spiritual cultivator ¡¯riding a summoned beast¡¯, the various groups decided to stop one after the other.

    Some could be seen setting up camp around theke, while other ran around its shore, and proceeded past it.

    Thiske, happened to be right in the middle of the northern section of the ind, so Heimart¡¯s group decided to set camp here. The positive side of this ce, was that it was wide open, and the presence of other groups would discourage malicious participants from sneak attacking during the night.

    Heimart was currently looking around, and just as he was about to open his mouth and give the first assignments to the team members, he heard a loud screaming from the shore of theke, no further than two hundred meters away from him.

    Everyone in the surrounding had heard that scream, and turned to look in the direction it hade from.

    What met their eyes, was the body of a man which was halfway immersed into theke¡¯s water. The only visible part was his chest, arms and head, which rested motionless above the shore.

    Heimart and a few interested people approached the lying person, and when they noticed theplete absence of blood, their worries slightly eased.

    One of these people recognized the man¡¯s clothes, as he was wearing traditional clothes of his own kingdom. He approached the lying person, and while calling out his name, he put a hand on his shoulder and patted on it lightly.

    Seeing no response, he clutched his fingers around the man¡¯s clothes, and turned his body around, so that it would face up.

    The face of everyone present at the scene stiffened, as what they saw shocked them deeply.

    The man¡¯s skin was as pale as a pearl, as ifpletely devoid of blood, but the real shocking detail, was that every small bit of the man¡¯s tissue which had been immersed in the water, had disappeared. Only his skeleton and clothes remained.

    "What the hell happened to him?.." Said one of the cultivators that had witnessed the scene.

    Another cultivator, unable to look away from the gory scene, responded "Could the water be corrosive?"

    Hearing the words of the second cultivator, the deceased¡¯s acquaintance pulled the body out of the water, and looked at the parts which had just been immersed the moment he had turned the body around.

    "The clothes haven¡¯t corroded.." He said, then lifted up the tissue of his pants, and continued "Nothing.. It¡¯s not the water"

    Various hypothesise to people¡¯s minds, including the possibility of a carnivorous species which inhabited the water.

    While they were lost in thought, a thick cloud passed in front of the sun, overshadowing its light. It was at that moment, that another voice came from not far in the distance.

    A young woman was standing near the shore, and pointing at theke, which now didn¡¯t have a blinding light reflected on its surface, and said "What is that?"

    Everybody turned to look at the direction the woman was pointing at, and what they saw, made them forget about the bodypletely.

    Heimart, without a second thought, put his hands in his pocket, and started to erase the ki within the gs.. The reason was simple.. Completely submerged by theke¡¯s water.. He was currently looking at the clear outline of a castle.

 Chapter 52 Hostage Situation

    The area suddenly became dead quiet.

    Therge number of cultivators silently observed the submerged castle, while at the same time, they used their ki gs to call back their allies.

    All through the ind, many figures were seen suddenly changing their direction at a moment¡¯s notice. Action that greatly confused most of the observers.

    Back to theke, people didn¡¯t immediately enter theke, as having all assisted to the man¡¯s death after he entered the water, they didn¡¯t know what dangers it hid.

    Only a few spiritual cultivators, convinced of being able to avoid the corrosive ability of the water, wanted to try to approach the castle.

    A small number groups which had at least a spiritual cultivator that hadprehended water essence, started to approach theke¡¯s shore. These groups ns were basically the same. Create a shield around their bodies, and proceed underwater.

    One by one, they entered theke along with theirpanions. The water started to deviate when reaching too close to their bodies. They then slowly disappeared from people¡¯s view.

    The castle wasrge, and impressive. People believed it to be at least as big as any other kingdom¡¯s royal castle. Yet, they could only see the silhouette of its top.. and in a far distant point into the water at that.

    For cultivators, to disappear from sight after entering the murky waters, was expected.

    "I can take us in.." Said the spiritual cultivator within Heimart¡¯s team.

    Heimart looked carefully at the murky water, and as he was about to agree, the petite girl stopped him by saying "It¡¯s not only the water.. It¡¯s something within.." in a low voice.

    The group quietened down once more. Many had been convinced that the strategy used by the spiritual cultivators had worked, so people started to approach other spiritual cultivators to try to convince them into taking them along.

    Various scenes started to take ce. Some promises of wealth, some tried to get on their good side, and some others even tried to kidnap cultivators who had a distinctive resemnce to them, so that they could use them as bargaining chip for a safe passage.

    But the mostmon scene, was for groups to find the faintest excuse to exterminate a spiritual cultivator¡¯s party, and then promise them to spare the spiritual cultivator¡¯s lives in exchange for being taken into the castle.

    Unfortunately for Heimart¡¯s group, many had witnessed the scene of how the spiritual cultivator of his team, had traveled until here by riding on the back of a summoned elemental beast made of water essence.

    Many eyes ended up on them.

    A well dressed man approached Heimart¡¯s team. On his back, were around fifteen martial cultivators, and they all wore an attire with simr color and cuts of the well dressed man.

    It didn¡¯t take long for observers to understand that, this man, for a group to be able to afford sending such arge number of powerful cultivators to participate into the Lost Inheritance Tournament, it had to be extremely powerful.

    The manpletely ignored the Heimart, the petite girl, and the third martial cultivator.. And while looking at the spiritual cultivator, he said "We require your assistance in reaching the castle.." His tone t and devoid of any emotion.

    "I¡¯m afraid I have to refuse, i¡¯m here with my team" Responded the spiritual cultivator right away.

    The well dressed man looked around, and pretended to only just notice the three people within the spiritual cultivator¡¯s team. He then said "A small and pathetic group. Why note with us? We can protect you even after we enter the castle"

    Heimart, slightly irritated by the man¡¯s words, said "He has already refused. Leave it be." with a firm voice.

    The face of the well dressed man contorted in excessive disdain and shock, and from behind him, a loud voice shouted "HOW DARE YOU ADDRESS THE YOUNG MASTER!" His face was filled with rage, as if he had just witnessed the worst crime. He then put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

    In response, the martial cultivator within Heimart¡¯s team, grabbed the pole of his spear, and prepared as a cautionary action.

    Unfortunately, the group¡¯s action was all an act, and a simr response was what they had been waiting for.

    The moment the martial cultivator¡¯s hand wrapped around the spear.. "You want to attack the young master?! How dare you! Prepare to die!!" Shouted the same cultivator from behind the well dressed man.

    A third party suddenly approached the scene.

    A powerful looking cultivator amongst the members of the third group, stepped forward and while looking at the spiritual cultivator, he said "We¡¯ll support you, in exchange for taking us with you into the castle." His intentions were clearly not directed at Heimart¡¯s entire team, but only to him.

    The group of the well dressed man unsheathed their weapons in response. They all carried the same type of de.

    The leader of the second group looked intently at the young spiritual cultivator and said in a loud voice "Agree or we¡¯ll be on our way!"

    The petite girl and the martial artist within Heimart¡¯s team assumed their battle stances, ready to fight at any moment. The situation was bing very tense.

    Simr scenes were seen all over, and theirs was just one of the many.. In fact, various skirmishes had already started on therge field in front of theke.

    Knowing that no word could fix this situation, Heimart¡¯s team prepared for battle. The surrounding quietnesspletely surmounted the sounds of the nearby fights.

    From behind the well dressed man, three martial cultivators dashed past him and immediately attacked Heimart¡¯s team.

    The rest of the group, was carefully watching the second party, as they were afraid they would be as shameless as they were, and intervene in the fight.

    The three martial cultivators were no pushovers. They were all at the fourth rank of martial cultivator, and their fighting abilities were remarkable.

    Unfortunately, they were neither geniuses or prodigies.

    Heimart and the petite girl were easily able to overpower their adversaries, while on the other hand, the martial artist of their team, being only a peak rank 3 martial cultivator, was on the losing end.

    Still trying to find a way out of this mess, the petite girl and Heimart decided not to kill the men. They instead injured them lightly and sent them back to their group. Then aided theirpanion.

    Slight surprise could be seen in the well dressed man¡¯s eyes, when he saw his three subordinates being so easily defeated. He looked at six people amongst his remaining group, and with a nod of his head, he sent them to join the fray.

    Now facing two people at once, Heimart¡¯s team was facing a more difficult situation. The petite girl was still holding a slight advantage against her two enemies, while Heimart¡¯s was only able to fight them to a stalemate.

    The weak link of the chain, was once again, the young martial cultivator within their group.

    After no longer than half a minute, the martial cultivator was on his knees, with the cutting edge of one of the two cultivator¡¯s des, gently pressed against his neck.

    Until then, on the other two fronts, the battle was going well. The petite girl had managed to injure one of her adversaries, and Heimart had managed to throw a few good punches as well. But s, the moment they noticed the capture of theirpanion, they were forced to stop.

    "Woah, easy there" Said Heimart, as a de pressed too hard against his neck, and cut his skin lightly.

    "See? There is no point in going with them.. They are not capable of reaching the inheritance" Said the well dressed man to the spiritual cultivator.

    The leader of the second group, which until now had been observing the fight, interjected by saying "The offer still stands.. Say it and we¡¯ll help you out"

    The spiritual cultivator was now anxious. No matter what words they used to try to convince him.. both of them were threatening him. Either by threatening people he had be friends with, or making leverage on his attachment to his own life.

    "Well.. this is about enough time, isn¡¯t it?" Said Heimart suddenly.

    The well dressed man looked at him and said with an aloof voice "What for?.."

    Heimart slowly raised his hand, and pointed right next to where the well dressed man was standing and said "For him to arrive, of course."

    The well dressed man couldn¡¯t help but instinctively turn to his left, and there, he saw a young man in simple clothes standing quietly. His face contorted in contempt.. he turned back to look at Heimart, and with derision in his voice, he said "Is he supposed to take you out of your predicament?"

    On Heimart¡¯s lips a faint smile appeared, as he said "It¡¯s not my predicament anymore.. It¡¯s yours.."

    The young man who Heimart was point at, was of course, Daniel.

    Now irritated, the well dressed man unsheathed his de, and walked straight towards Daniel.

    He then made an horizontal shing motion, trying to directly separate Daniel¡¯s head from his body.

    Unfortunately, only the deaf noise of the de swinging through air could be heard.

    Daniel had lowered his body at the veryst moment, and slid right on the man¡¯s blind side. In the man¡¯s ears, the sound of a calm voice could be heard. It was "Would you mind telling your goons to let them go?.."

    Embarrassed, the well dressed man barked furiously "Or what?!" he then twisted his body, swinging his de in a circr motion in an attempt to cut Daniel¡¯s body in half.

    Once again, the only thing he managed to cut through, was thin air.

    Daniel was using ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯ and ¡¯True Motion¡¯ at the same time. His naturally agile body, along with the partial absence of mistakes in his movement and the quiet and stealthy nature of ¡¯Shadow Approach¡¯, made himpletely unpredictable.

    "Or I will freeze all the liquids within your body, and turn you into an ice sculpture." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "BULLSHIT!" Shouted the well dressed man, but before he could turn around and attack once more, he felt the surrounding temperature drop of several degrees.

    He looked at hispanions in panic, and noticed that none of them was in the same state of difort he was. He started to shiver, and his warm moist breath became visible whenever he exhaled.

    Unable to speak, the well dressed man started to be paler and paler, as the blood within his body retracted from his arms and legs, and focused on his thorax.

    Daniel looked at the three martial cultivators which were holding his friends hostage, and said "Now, you could kill my friends.. but that would mean the death of.. this guy who I assume is your young master.. So, if you don¡¯t want to take him back inside a set of water vases, I suggest you release them, and be on your way."

    His tone still matter-of-fact, as if nothing could change anything he had said.

    *nk*

    The providential sound of the well dressed man, now unable to squeeze his fingers around the de¡¯s handle anymore, dropping his weapon on a nearby rock, reached everyone¡¯s ears.

    The three martial cultivators removed their des from the necks of Heimart¡¯s team, and stepped back. Their face filled with worry, and a tiny bit of anger.

    Daniel stepped away from the well dressed man, and increased the temperature of the air around him once again. A few of the man¡¯s subordinates approached him and kept him from falling. They then walked away from the area while dragging their young master.

    The leader of the second group noticed Daniel¡¯s superbprehension of water essence, but as he was about to open his mouth and talk, Daniel looked back at him and said "Can I help you with something?" His tone cold and menacing.

    The group leader froze in ce. Swearing to have felt the surrounding temperature drop by a few degrees, he closed his mouth, shook his head, and walked away with the rest of his group.

    "Busy couple of hours?" Asked Daniel to Heimart while smiling.

    "Hehe.. you can say that" Heimart responded.

 Chapter 53 Two Birds with One Stone

    Two hours had passed since Daniel had rescued Heimart¡¯s team. Enough time for Ligart and Paule¡¯s team to arrive.

    The eleven of them were now standing near the shore, observing the water¡¯s slow movement.

    "If it¡¯s not corrosion what do you think it is?" Heimart asked to the masked petite girl.

    Since the night she had apanied Daniel, the petite girl had be more talkative. She would still only talk when consulted, and would keep her phrases brief and concise, but at least she wouldn¡¯t keep quiet.

    "I saw movement in the water.." She responded with a peaceful tone.

    After a moment of thinking, Heimart looked at Daniel and asked him "How many trips would it take you to get us all there?"

    Daniel didn¡¯t respond, as he wasn¡¯t sure. Instead, he approached the water and decided to try something. His feet were slowly immersed into the water, as he closed his eyes for a moment.

    During the next minute, the slow motion of the water turned into rough movement, then waves started to appear on the surface of the water.. What was strange, was that these waves went in two opposite direction.. They seemed to be moving away from one another.

    After a minute, the water started to split, stopping only after a twenty meters long crack had been formed.. Between the two sides, a clear path at the bottom of theke had been made.

    The feat that Daniel had just performed had taken a huge toll on his umted spiritual essence. Nheless, he was still able to maintain the consumption through the use of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, which was able to speed up the conversion of ki into spiritual essence.

    "Woah.. That¡¯s impressive" Said Ligart. He then walked into the crack in the water, and started to admire the still, yet slowly moving walls.

    Every cultivator present on the scene, looked up in astonishment.

    Being from the various powerful forces amongst the kingdoms all around the sea, they had been able to see many young geniuses. Some even prided themselves to be part of them.. But for someone under twenty-five years, to reach such aprehension of water essence, was beyond their imagination.

    Water was a difficult essence toprehend, and its use could barely be considered adequate when put into the perspective of a battle.

    Most spiritual cultivators focused more on offensive essences like fire and lightning, defensive essences like earth and metal, and essence that could increase their mobility, like wind.

    While the few spiritual cultivators who had decided toprehend water¡¯s essence, where those who inhabited port cities, often traveled through sea, or that wanted to master it to such a degree, that it would allow them to create ice.

    Ice was still considered water, as it didn¡¯t require thebination of two essences likeva did, and yet, it was still considered one of the best offensive and defensive elements to gainprehension of.

    Unfortunately, creating ice required an amazingly highprehension of water essence.

    Daniel himself, with aprehension two hundred times faster than that of a normal cultivator, had still taken an entire evening to reach the level ofprehension he was at.

    Not to mention, that that had only been possible thanks to the high quality samples of essence he had had ess to, which madeprehending water essence, hundreds of time faster than learning it from a simple body of water, like ake or a sea.

    Daniel had only known another young cultivator who was able to use Ice magic, and that was Y. He wasn¡¯t aware of howplicate using ice magic was at first, but before he could understand it, he had found out that his spiritual teacher, the old alchemist, was in fact, Y¡¯s grandfather.

    It wasn¡¯t strange for her to be able to use it, as she had probably practiced for years, with the help of powerful essence spheres such as the one Daniel had practiced for 5 hours with.

    The sheer number of cultivators around theke was huge.

    Even considering the few of them who had been apanied into theke by spiritual cultivators, or those who had managed to find the help of one afterwards.. The number of the remaining solitary cultivators and parties, was still in the thousands.

    With a loud voice, Daniel said "Let¡¯s check out the water.. If something dangerous hides within, we can rush back" He wanted to make sure nobody would attempt to follow them in, as in case something dangerous happened, he didn¡¯t want to have to take care about some freeloader¡¯s safety.

    The group of eleven entered the rift in the water, and started to observe the walls carefully. Unfortunately, the water was too murky to clearly see through.

    After half an hour of pointless observation, Daniel thought of something.. He turned towards Heimart and asked him "Wait a second.. Tell me again in what state did you find the corpse in?"

    "No blood.. Every bit of tissue had been consumed. Only bones and clothes remained." Responded Heimart after thinking it through.

    Suddenly, a small knife appeared in Daniel¡¯s hand. It was one of his throwing knives.

    Daniel stabbed the extremely sharp end of the knife into his fingertip, then, just as a single drop of blood came out of his hand, the water became darker, and it started to bend out of his control. "OUT OF THE WATER! NOW!!" Shouted the rmed Daniel.

    The group didn¡¯t stop to think, and instead, started to run towards the shore.

    Daniel was only able to create a passage about twenty meters long, so the group had no problem in dashing out. What shocked them, was that the bent part of the water followed them all the way until they got out of the water.

    Once outside, Daniel gave up on the control over the two walls, which immediately shut close, and instead extracted a small ball of the murky water, and made it fly towards him.

    Under everybody¡¯s eyes, Daniel started to slowly remove the water bit by bit, until only a pearl-like amount remained. He then moved the pearl between his eye and the sun, and looked into it.

    What Daniel saw inside this small pearl, were hundreds of tiny worms, frantically twisting in the small bead of water.

    One side of the bead was still bent towards Daniel, as if the worms had been trying to push through the water and assault Daniel¡¯s bleeding finger.

    To confirm his theory, he started to move his fingertip around the bead, and as expected, the worms followed.

    "I know what those are!" Said someone within the crowd. "Those are Sharp-nosed Leeches.. But they should not be that small.."

    Daniel turned toward the girl who had just talked, and asked her "What do you know about these things?"

    The girl immediately answered "They are voracious creatures. They smell blood in the water from miles away, and are even capable of smelling it out of the water, if nearby. Once found a prey, they not only eat the blood in the water, but they also devour their bodies."

    Daniel threw the bead of water right back in theke, and started to think.

    "What do you want to do?" Asked Heimart after a few minutes.

    After pondering over a few ideas, Daniel looked around and said in a loud voice "Raise your hand if you haveprehended earth essence."

    Just as he expected, most of the present spiritual cultivator raised their hand.

    The reason why Daniel had expected this result, was because of howmon earth essence was. In fact, other than being very useful in battle, earth essence was somon that it could be trained anywhere there was earth or stones.

    Once again, in a loud voice, Daniel said "I¡¯ll split the water.. And you will make a tunnel at the bottom of theke."

    The eyes of the many cultivators present opened wide in surprise.

    The castle wasn¡¯t as close as it seemed. In fact, it was about three kilometers into theke. So far, that it took for the sun to be obscured before someone could barely manage to get a glimpse of it.

    The spiritual cultivators immediately agreed, but then, arge number of voices started to resound in the air. These voices, belonged to the rest of the cultivators.

    "How are we going to pass?!"

    "..our group has a spiritual cultivator who knows earth essence, if he goes, we want toe too."

    "If we can¡¯te, we won¡¯t allow you to pass either."

    These demands, threats andinssted for a very long time. Daniel could only patiently wait for them to finish while thinking of a way out of this mess.

    Suddenly, a wicked smile appeared on his face.

    He raised his hands, and lifted his body a meter above the ground, putting himself above all others, and with the loudest volume he could muster, he shouted "SILENCE!"

    The shouts of the crowd quietened rapidly, until there was silence once again.

    Daniel took the chance to expose his n "If you want to enter the castle, you eitherprehend water or earth.. RIGHT NOW!" he then paused slightly, before continuing "OR!.. You pay a toll."

    The crowd was dead silent.

    Daniel didn¡¯t want them to start shouting in outrage once more, so he quickly added "Fifty gold coins to cross through the tunnel."

    The price wasn¡¯t excessive, as most in the crowd could easily afford it. Yet, a loud voice still reached everyone¡¯s ears.

    "And who should take all that money?! We would be working too!" Said one of the spiritual cultivators which had raised his hand before.

    Daniel had been prepared for this question.

    He looked at the man, and said "I get half, the rest gets split between the rest of you."

    "THAT¡¯S OUTRAGEOUS!!" Said another of the spiritual cultivators.

    Daniel looked at the second man with disdain and said "IS IT?! Then ask somebody else to open a rift in the water for you! Let¡¯s see if he or she will not get drained of spiritual essence within a minute!." Once again, he paused for a few moments, then continued "I¡¯ve made one hundred percent of the discovery, i¡¯ve put one hundred percent of the idea, and i¡¯ll still make fifty percent of the work! Getting half of the money is the least."

    Therge crowd immediately shut up. Daniel¡¯s logic couldn¡¯t be refuted.

    "What about those who don¡¯t have the money to pay the toll?" Asked an embarrassed solitary cultivator.

    Daniel turned towards this man, and said "Form a line to the side.. I¡¯ll decide if you can cross for free or not." The crowd was about to explode once more, but before they could say anything, Daniel quickly continued "If I let you through, then i¡¯ll pay half of the toll to the spiritual cultivators that will help with the tunnel, out of my own pocket."

    Daniel¡¯s idea was brilliant. Originally, he wanted everyone to pay 5 gold coins. But after considering it for a bit, he decided to increase the prize to 50 and at the same time, give himself the chance to earn a bit of karma points, by letting those with good karma through for free, and refusing those with negative karma.

    At this point, nobody had anything to say.

    To those who could afford it, 50 gold coins weren¡¯t much for a chance to advance in the Lost Inheritance Tournament. So they quickly paid their tolls, and separated themselves from those who couldn¡¯t pay.

    In total, 3200 people had paid the toll in full.

    Two thousand people remained who weren¡¯t pay for the toll. They stood in line in front of Daniel.

    Daniel took a quick look at the numbers above these people¡¯s heads, and either refused them if they had bad karma, or allowed them through if they had good karma.

    Many of these peoples had tried various speeches, and some girls had even prepared to seduce Daniel, but in the end, they were dismissed before they could even talk.

    The whole procedure took almost four hours, and in the end, about four thousand people were allowed passage, while to twelve hundred the crossing had been denied.

    Everyone could see the displeasure in the eyes of those Daniel had refused, but the numbers of the two armies of people were too unbnced. The remaining twelve hundred people could only stay back.

    In just a few hours, Daniel had earned 80,000 gold coins, and 16,000 karma points. After paying 25 coins for each one of the eight hundred cultivators he had allowed in, therge treasure chests that Daniel had found inside the captain¡¯s spatial bag, were now 60,000 gold coins fuller.

    With an extremely pleased expression on his face, Daniel turned towards the group of spiritual cultivators, and said "Let¡¯s begin."

 Chapter 54 Management Problems

    Daniel had managed to assemble a small army of spiritual cultivators.

    Their job was an easy one. They needed to follow Daniel into the crack he would create in the water, and create a tunnel made of stone. The stone needed to berge enough for a small party to move through.

    The rest of the cultivators who had been granted passage, would stay on the shore, and guard the construction of the tunnel from the small army of resentful cultivators whose passage had been refused.

    For as simple as the idea was, there were a few problems.

    For example, more cultivators had started to approach theke since Daniel hade up with the n. Secondly, these cultivators would tend to join the group of refused cultivators, unless granted passage.

    Daniel only had one choice to solve this problem, and that was to leave someone to the shore, and continue to offer passage in exchange of tolls to the neers.

    Unable to personally presentiate to the selection between those who couldn¡¯t pay, Daniel had thought of the perfect person for the job. That person, was Ligart.

    Since Daniel had met him, he had noticed that this martial cultivator didn¡¯t have the most attentive eye for details.. But what he had instead, was an extraordinary ability to distinguish between people of good morale, and not.

    Proof of this, were the 6 people amongst their group.

    These people were those who had formed the closest rtionship with Ligart and Heimart during their traverse to the ind, and to Daniel¡¯s surprise, they were all people with good karma.

    For this reason, Daniel had decided to leave Ligart and the rest on shore, so that they could collect tolls and protect the construction of the tunnel, which would take about a day.

    The second problem Daniel had found, was the possibility that one of the participants with a bad karma he had taken money from, would destroy a section of the tunnel right after passing it. That would doom all the people in line behind him to either drown, or be devoured by the many tiny leeches that inhabited the water.

    Naturally, Daniel would never be able to be everywhere at the same time to repair every damage, and yet, he had thought of a simple solution. He would ce a spiritual cultivator who hadprehended earth every tot meters, so that they could restore any damage to the tunnel as soon as possible.

    In order to prevent the spiritual cultivators from betraying him and destroying the tunnel, he had thought of two additional preemptive measures.

    First, he would keep all the money collected, and be thest one to enter the tunnel. That meant that, in case any of the spiritual cultivators attempted to destroy the tunnel, the economic interests of every other cultivator around would convince them to intervene.

    Second, he would ce every worker with good karma, and or part of a group, at thest section of the tunnel, as they were those who had the most reasons not to destroy the tunnel. Either for moral reasons, or to protect their teammates.

    Also, he would allow passage to people with good karma first, so that in case someone tried something, most of the people trapped would be those with a questionable morale and bad karma.

    It waste evening when thest few details had been set. Tworge camps had been erected in the huge field around theke. One belonged to the paying, while the other, belonged to the rejected.

    -----

    A full day of preparations had passed

    It was very early in the morning of the next day, and yet, everyone was wide awake and currently observing Daniel, which was quietly standing at the edge of theke.

    He turned towards the group of mages, and said in a loud voice "Remember, five metersrge, two meters tall.. Don¡¯t worry about speed of construction, just make it sturdy! I don¡¯t want to remind you that if any part breaks, many of you will likely die."

    With this rmendation, Daniel focused on his job.

    The next moment, the observing crowd was once again able to see Daniel¡¯s mastery of water essence at work. The water split, and a twenty meters long crack formed in the murky waters of the otherwise calmke.

    One spiritual cultivator after the other stepped forward, and after turning their spiritual essence into earth essence, they started to build the tunnel.

    Stones started to raise from all directions, and join into the shape of arge circr tunnel. One meter at a time, the underwater tunnel was slowly being built.

    The construction needed to bepleted within ten meters from Daniel¡¯s back, or the water would start to close on the upleted tunnel, flooding it entirely.

    Time passed as the construction steadily proceeded.

    More than once, Daniel had found dressed skeletons at the bottom of the sea. People he had assumed were part of the groups which had entered along with a spiritual cultivator who used water essence.

    One time, he had even found a still living spiritual cultivator. This young man was sitting on the ground, almostpletely out of spiritual essence, and in state of shock.

    Daniel had learned from this man, that he had witnessed how, after one of his teammates slipped on the ground and cut his palm on a sharp stone at the bottom of theke. The bubble he had created caved in and made him lose control over the surrounding water.

    He had only been able to focus a bubble around his own body, and when things calmed down, he expanded the bubble once more, and found his team¡¯s skeletons right next to him.

    Once sending him back to the shore from the partially built tunnel, Daniel proceeded with the construction.

    -----

    Two kilometers from the shore. 15:00

    "Okay, let¡¯s go back. You guys are clearly out of spiritual essence. We can continueter.. We don¡¯t need daylight for this anyway." Said Daniel after noticing a significant reduction in the speed of construction.

    One by one, the spiritual cultivators entered the tunnel, before Daniel shut the end tightly.

    The many spiritual cultivators were shocked. Not only was Daniel able to such an impressive level of control over water essence, but he seemed to never get tired as well.

    With shocked and confused expressions, the group slowly walked back toward the shore.

    Back to the shore, Daniel immediately noticed something different. Both of the tworge groups had grown in size.

    The number of cultivator whose passage was been epted, was now 4600, while the number of the rejected group, was close to 2500. Not to mention, everybody was starting to get tense.

    Unfortunately, Daniel could do nothing about it, as he couldn¡¯t suddenly change his mind about refusing people¡¯s passage. Or the paying cultivators might revolt.. Or worse, he might be asked to give the money back.

    The numbers were still different, but if this kept going on, there would be a war as soon as the tunnel would be finished.

    -----

    After two hours of rest, Daniel recalled the spiritual cultivators, and went back toplete the construction.

    Progress weren¡¯t made as fast as when they had just started, but the speed had picked up once again.

    At about 21:00, Daniel and the couple hundred odd spiritual cultivators, finally found themselves facing the huge, back castle.

    Arge air bubble surrounded the entirety of this castlepletely, and this left the many spiritual cultivators with faces filled with awe and greed. Nobody knew more than them what a water bubble like this one meant.

    Somewhere around the castle, a high level essence sphere of the wind element was hidden, possible by the Clear Mage. Finding it, would mean having a chance to reach theprehension of wind essence to the same level the Clear Mage did.

    Of course, that would take them decades, but it was still an amazing opportunity.

    A very small number of spiritual cultivators, decided to give up on their share of the money, and dashed into the castle instead.

    The rest looked at those few with rage, as they really wanted to do the same, but for one reason or another, they couldn¡¯t.

    With the tunnel nowpleted, Daniel and the rest walked all the way back to the shore. There, they found something they didn¡¯t expect.

    The two groups of cultivators were in the middle of an all out war.

    Thousands of cultivators were engaging each other. One group defended, while the other attacked.

    One would think that the army with highest numbers would maintain the advantage, but that wasn¡¯t the case. Most of the spiritual cultivators had been taken away from the defending group. Only a few me and wind users had been left to defend along the martial cultivators.

    On the other hand, the attacking group was aware of theirck of defences, and attacked relentlessly.

    Daniel was furious. In front of thepletion of the tunnel, most of the rejected cultivators had let go of their humanity, and started to attack in a frenzy state.

    Hundreds of injured lied on the ground, belonging from each side.

    Daniel walked across his group¡¯s line of defence. Around him, variousrge spheres of murky water fluctuate in the air while rotating rapidly.

    Whenever someone tried to attack him, he would send one of the spheres of water to engulf them, and then recall it back to him, leaving behind only their skeleton.

    "ENOUGH!" Shouted Daniel to the top of his lungs, while standing between of the two small armies.

    The battle stopped for a moment, as his deadliness made him the center of attention.

    "We have made the tunnel! We decide who uses it!. If you want to force your way through, you will have to kill me first." His tone was ice cold. The spheres of murky water started to rotate around his body faster and faster.

    The expressions of the enemies were conflicted. They couldn¡¯t ept that the only reasons they could not proceed in the Lost Inheritance Tournament was simply because they couldn¡¯t afford a toll, or because of the whims of a brat like Daniel.

    On the other hand, dying only for the chance to traverse this tunnel, wasn¡¯t really worth it. In fact, the battle hadn¡¯t started because the army of rejected wanted to take control of the tunnel.

    They understood perfectly that, once inside, any of the spiritual cultivators would be able to make the tunnel copse.

    The reason why the war had started, was the constant taunting andintsing from the army of rejected cultivators.

    They wanted the permission to pass just like everybody else.

    Unfortunately for them, the cultivator¡¯s whose passage had been granted had just the same reasons to follow Daniel¡¯s orders.

    He, along with any other spiritual cultivator under his orders, would easily be able to destroy the tunnel in case they didn¡¯t protect it from the non paying and undesired cultivators.

    "Here are your two options. We will traverse the tunnel right now, and if you guys want to stop us, none of you will survive this night. OR.. you think of another way to enter." Said Daniel, exploiting the state of mind of the cultivators. He then continued "You know where the castle is, and there are at least forty thousand more people in the ind.. Any of them might be able to help you enter it."

    He then breathed out and with his loudest tone, he finished by saying "Die to prevent us from proceeding, or live to find a way to advance yourself."

    Thesest few words, hit the enemy army right where it hurt. Part of them were already unconvinced about the gains they were fighting for.. So, when someone stronger than them exined it in a rational manner, many amongst them understood and retreated quietly from the battle.

    The remaining cultivators were only two hundred, and such a small number was too small and irrelevant to pose a threat to Daniel¡¯s group.

    Clearly in a disadvantage, they then retreated as well, leaving the area of theke.

    Daniel looked around, and noticed some injured people amongst his group. He couldn¡¯t afford to let anyone with a bleeding injury to enter the tunnel, or arge amount of leeches might force a hole in the tunnel, and drown them all.

    A few injured cultivators with red names caught his eyes.. And suddenly an idea came to his mind.

    "Everyone who needs healing.. Come here.." Said Daniel.

    The group looked at him with admiration, but before long, they heard a few more words that made their opinions of Daniel drop once again.

    With a big smile on his face, Daniel continued "I¡¯ll decide who won¡¯t need to pay me.."

 Chapter 55 The Castle Part 1

    "You are starting to get greedy.. That¡¯s how it¡¯s done! Hahaha" Said Sewah inside Daniel¡¯s mind.

    With the newly acquired coins still in his hands, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but giggle at Sewah¡¯s words. He couldn¡¯t admit it, but since he had found out how to abuse the system, his first solutions to a matter would always be those who that allowed him to earn more.

    The fact that earning karma went along with helping people out, was only a bonus.

    Once he finished healing the injured, Daniel proceeded to set the spiritual cultivators in position, and then, opened the tunnel.

    Surprisingly, on his way to the other side, nobody created any problem for him. They all quietly crossed through the underwater tunnel, just like they were supposed to do.

    And so, almost a tenth of the participants of the tournament had finally managed to pass the first obstacle.

    They all regrouped in the air bubble, just outside of the castle.

    Not many had an idea of what the next tests would require them to do. So, since they had managed to find the castle this early, many of them started to set tents in the surrounding.

    They nned to wait and see what others would do.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t one of those people. Since the moment he had entered the tournament, he felt the overwhelming need ofpetition. He wanted to explore, he wanted to fight.. And he wanted to win.

    Most members of his group thought of it the same way. The only ones who disagreed to rushing into the castle, were the martial and spiritual cultivators of Heimart¡¯s team, and the two spiritual cultivator¡¯s of Paule¡¯s team.

    Under Daniel¡¯s suggestion, they had decided to join another group which intended to take it slowly, leaving the group with Daniel, the petite girl, Heimart, Ligart, Paule, Imblen and finally, Roley.

    The seven of them approached the entrance of the castle, and immediately, they felt the stale airing from inside its semi-opened double door.

    They were not the first people to enter, as some of the teams apanied by water cultivators had probably managed to reach the castle before them. Not to mention the spiritual cultivators who had defected Daniel¡¯s team of tunnel workers.

    Behind therge ck double door, was a huge hall.

    Tworge files of columns, which divided the hall into three even parts. At the sides of this hall, were four corridors, while in the opposite side of the door, were tworge sets of stairs that separated until halfway up, then joined again to the second floor.

    Between these two sets of stairs, was a dark corridor whose destination was impossible to discern.

    This hall¡¯s roof was made of arge crystal ceiling, while the columns reached all the way up to support what looked like rooms of the second floor.

    The walls were made of dark stone, and the poor illumination made the ce look unearthly.

    "Does anybody know what we are supposed to do here?" Asked Ligart all of a sudden, scaring the tense Roley out of his wits.

    Paule was the first to respond. "I have heard that we are supposed to find the chambers of the two masters.. And then, pick an item that truly represented.. Their inheritance, or something like that.. Then take the item with us into the treasure room." He said.

    "Wow.. that¡¯s good information." Said Ligart sarcastically.

    Slightly irritated, Paule responded in an animated manner "Hey! What do you want me to tell you.. It¡¯s not like the ce is filled with people who passed this test before.."

    Paule made a good point. In fact, the participants who could reach the treasury every decade, were no more than a few dozen. And of course, reaching the treasury was not enough to enter, otherwise many every ten years would have been able to receive the two old master¡¯s inheritance by now.

    The moment Daniel and the rest took a step into the hall, their view turned ck and white.

    Behind them, the door had closed shut, and theirpanions had disappeared from their view.

    "Did we shift through space again?.. I hate when it happens.." Said Sewah in Daniel¡¯s head.

    After hearing Sewah¡¯s words, Daniel asked him curiously "What do you mean?.."

    "We aren¡¯t where we were before.. Last time I felt like this was when that wrinkled old man threw us into that portal.." Exined Sewah, sounding almost nauseated.

    Completely devoid of color, the hall looked even more ghastly. The totalck of sound would make a person go mad in time, as not even a slight wiffle of air could be heard moving through the corridors.

    "I wish Paule mentioned this earlier.." Daniel muttered, before entering the first of the two corridors on the left side of the hall.

    -----

    Past the first corridor, Daniel entered a small training room. Inside it, were two men sparring. Calling these two "men" was a bit of a stretch, as in truth, they were two training dummies.

    These training dummies were performing the art of the sword and the art of the spear. ording to what Daniel had studied, there were no ws in their movements. An instead of sparring partners, their function appeared to be closer to a demonstration.

    On the walls to the side of the rooms, various sets of weapons were ced in order. Each wall perfectly mirroring the other.

    On the floor, right in front of the walls covered in weapons, were two small altars, on which, two small stone hands grew.

    One of them was currently holding a simple sword, while the other, was holding a spear.

    The moment Daniel entered the room, The door behind him and on the other side of the room disappeared, while instead, the dummies kept practicing as if nothing had happened.

    Daniel knew that this room was part of a test.. He simply didn¡¯t know what the test was about. So he sat on the ground, and observed the two dummies spar.

    What was interesting, was that the two dummies weren¡¯t on a loop. Daniel had now observed them for at least an hour, and yet, they had never repeated the same movement twice.

    They would always variate their attacks, and defend just as well.

    Despite of how long he watched, none of the dummies could manage to gain the upper hand against the other. No matter how close to hit a dummy was, the other would always counter perfectly and proceed with the spar.

    He tried to approach the dummies, but when he got too close to them, the dummies became incorporeal, as if they belonged to another space. He was unable to touch or interact with them.

    The only real things in the room, seemed to be the weapons on the walls, and the two altars.

    Daniel approached the altars and observed them up close. He immediately noticed that the two weapons weren¡¯t originally part of the altars, and that they had been ced there afterwards.

    He then looked at the walls, and on them, he saw an empty slot on each one.

    Daniel looked at the corresponding spot on the opposite wall, and sure enough, on the wall behind the altar with the sword, a sword was missing, while on the wall behind the altar with the spear, a spear was missing.

    A wild guess formed inside Daniel¡¯s head. He moved towards the sword altar, and removed the weapon from the stone hand.

    The moment the stone hand was removed, the sword wielding dummy disappeared, while the spear wielding dummy assumed hisbat stance, and waited patiently.

    Another change, was that the spear wielding dummy had be physical.

    "Oh.. I get it now.. This is a trial to test my weapon mastery.." Thought Daniel.

    *shhwing* The sound of Daniel¡¯s sword being unsheathed could be heard all through the deafening quiet room.

    He then walked right in front of the dummy, and the moment he entered the circr borders of the training ground, his ki was forced at the bottom of his feet, and extracted by the floorpletely.

    Daniel¡¯s guess had been confirmed. During weapon mastery testing, no martial skills were allowed.

    The spear wielding dummy was standing above a ck spot on the right side of the arena, while on the other side, was a white spot on which the sword dummy was previously standing.

    Daniel immediately guessed that he needed to stand on the white spot, in order for the test to begin.

    He recovered himself from his dibobted state of having his ki forcibly absorbed, and slowly walked above the white spot.

    The moment his feet ended on the white spot on the ground, a spear thrust almost pierced a hole in his throat.

    Fortunately, Daniel had sort of expected something like this, so he was able to immediately avoid the attack by sliding to the side of the spear, and sh horizontally against the dummy¡¯s stomach.

    The dummy immediately lowered the body of the spear, and deflected Daniel¡¯s attack. It then twisted his arms, and shed diagonally, trying to hit Daniel¡¯s neck.

    The sparring session went on and on for awhile, and the more time passed, the more shocked Daniel became.

    No matter how fast he attacked, no matter how rapidly he reacted, or how much fantasy he put into his moves.. The dummy would always be slightly better than him.

    It was at this moment that a sudden realization hit Daniel hard.

    This wasn¡¯t a simple weapon mastery testing room. This was a weapon mastery training room, and most probably, part of the Dark Warrior¡¯s legacy.

    Eager to prove his theory, Daniel activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ and continued his practice with the dummy.

    With his ability to learn and train fastened by hundreds of times, Daniel¡¯s progress could be seen with a naked eye, and yet, the spear wielding dummy kept besting him.

    The smile on Daniel¡¯s face grew brilliant, as he made a decision within his mind.

    -----

    Four days had passed.

    Inside the training room, Daniel stood still while proudly looking at the sword that stuck out of the dummy¡¯s back.

    He had already noticed the two doors that had just appeared on the sides of the room, but he didn¡¯t care. He was too excited, as he had just defeated a dummy with whom he had sparried for the past four days.

    After only four days, thanks to ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, Daniel had umted four and a half years worth ofbat experience with the sword. His mastery had reached a point where not even all the books regarding the art of the sword given by the old master-at-arms could do anything to help him improve.

    He could feel his ki entering the sword just like he felt it being part of his body. It was an amazing feeling, which made wielding a weapon almost indistinguishable from hand to handbat.

    For four days, Daniel kept changing his sparring partner¡¯s weapons, as he wanted to gain experience fighting against the many types of weapons.

    In his mind, regardless of the tournament¡¯s inheritance, this room could possibly be the best ce in the castle.

    Unfortunately, the moment he defeated the dummy, and the doors appeared, all the weapons in the wall, along with the two altars, disappeared altogether.

    This had been a major disappointment for Daniel. He still had many karmic points, and if possible, he would have stayed here and improve his mastery of every weapon.. but instead, he was forced to proceed with the tournament like anybody else.

    Taken by curiosity, Daniel opened the details of his weapon masteries within his profile, and what he saw, was that his mastery of double edged swords, had increased to 86%.

    The gains, just from staying inside one of the two master¡¯s training rooms, were simply amazing. But since he was unable to stay here, Daniel decided not to proceed to the second room, and instead went back from where he came from.

    Now back to the main hall, he crossed it from side to side, and entered the corridor opposite of the one he had just came from.

    He was a double cultivator, and if he could gain something from both paths of cultivation, he would not miss the chance to do so.

    After a minute of walking, Daniel found himself into another room. This room was simple, and its walls were made of stone. Inside, was a square pyramid of rotating spheres.

    Underneath these spheres, was a small altar with with a roundish carving in the middle. The size, seemed to be the same as the floating spheres.

 Chapter 56 The Castle Part 2

    Daniel observed each of these spheres from up close.

    Inside them, a single wisp of essence could be felt. Fire, water, wood and and various other elemental essences.

    Daniel had already guessed correctly what this room was for. It was an essenceprehension room.

    He had also guessed that, once he would put one of these spheres onto the altar, something that would help himprehend the sphere¡¯s element would happen.

    For as exciting the idea was, he knew that he would only have the chance to learn one of these essences, so he had to choose carefully.

    There were truly arge number of essences, and if the Clear Mage hadprehended each of these essences to a simr level the Dark Warrior hadprehended weapon mastery.. It would truly be incredible.

    One could understand how and why the two had be such legendary figures in the area.

    Not all rank 9 cultivators were the same. After all, aside from the progression of one¡¯s rank, the style of life would change a cultivator¡¯s sess as well.

    A clear example, was the president of Golden Cauldron. Even though he was a rank 9 spiritual cultivator, he had to spend arge number of years in developing hispany, and build a reputation as the best alchemist.

    All the time he had spent doing those two things, was time he hadn¡¯t been able to spend inside volcanoes, battered by cold winds, or flying in the middle of thunderstorms and around the world.

    While immersed in his thoughts, the spheres kept rotating quietly. Their pyramidal formation wasposed of stratums, and each contained different types of essence.

    The lowest stratum was the one with the most spheres. These spheres contained elemental mana. Fire, water, wood, metal, wind, lightning and earth were present.

    Inside the spheres of the secondyer, Daniel felt wisps ofposed essences. There were only four spheres, and their overall intensity was no different than that of any other singr element. The only difference, was that the their intensity was split into various different essences.

    These spheres contained magma, storm, quake and nature. Magma wasposed of fire, earth and metal, storm wasposed of thunder, water and wind, quake wasposed by earth and metal, and finally, nature wasposed by earth and water.

    If Daniel¡¯s guess was right, by putting one of these four spheres on the altar, he would be able toprehend various different essences, along with their way of mixing together.. But the intensity of the essence would also be decreased.

    In the third level of the pyramid, two spheres rotated slowly.

    These two spheres also containedposed elements, but theirposition was formed not only by basic essences, but also by their mixes.

    These two spheres contained Sky essence, and Earth essence.

    Inside the Sky essence sphere, Daniel could feel the presence of wind, water, thunder and the mixes between the three, storm and hurricane.

    The Earth essence, instead, was aposition of metal, water, earth and fire, and theirbinations quake and nature.

    Simr to the secondyer, the wisps of essence within these spheres was identical in intensity, and yet, if separated, each individual essence would be so faint, that one would hardly be able to learn anything from them.

    Thest sphere at the top of the pyramid, contained world essence formed by the ssic elements, along with any sort ofbination between the seven, and their mixes.

    The feeling that this orb gave Daniel, was the same he had when he walked in the outside world.

    The singr essences were so faint, that one would need to focus in order to distinguish each of them.

    "So it¡¯s a trap.." Muttered Daniel to himself.

    Daniel¡¯s guess, was once again, correct. What he meant by trap, was tempting cultivators by putting the spheres in a pyramid shaped form. One would believe that more and higher were better, but that wasn¡¯t the way of a spiritual cultivator.

    The purer an essence was, the easier it was toprehend.

    It was a waste to observe andprehend mixes amongst elements, if in the end, one wouldn¡¯t be able toprehend each element by itself.

    This pyramid, was basically like offering three swords to a kid to train with. One is perfect to him. Not too heavy, not too light, perfectly bnced and of the right size. The second isrger but of better quality. Its weight is a bit off and overall, it¡¯s slightly hard to swing it. The third sword is enormous and expensive looking, but too hard to hold and useful for nothing more than exposition.

    There was no doubt in Daniel¡¯s mind about which of these sphere would be the most beneficial to him. He extended his arm and interjected the motion of one of the orbs, he then put it immediately on the altar.

    Everything disappeared. Spheres, altar and walls, nothing was there anymore. The only thing he could see, was a blinding white light that twitched in his eyes.

    His body became stiff, as electricity gently wandered his body, making his muscles tremble, hair raise and spine shiver.

    This electric current was gentle, and posed no threat to Daniel. It simply wandered his body, showing him how it propagates inside a human¡¯s body and the effects it had.

    Daniel was excited beyond words. The intensity of lightning essence contained in the sphere he had picked, was weaker than that contained within the essence spheres the old alchemist had lent him, as itcked a lightning treasure which could bind all the essence into a concentrated state. Nevertheless, he was sure that he could be able to at least reach the sameprehension he had for water and wind essence.

    The reason was simple. Even though the lightning essence wasn¡¯t concentrated, it was omnipresent. In fact, Daniel felt as if he was standing inside a lightning.

    He immediately activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ and started toprehend the lightning essence.

    -----

    The concentration of the essence was not as powerful as that of the wind and water essence spheres, which madeprehension slightly harder for Daniel. On the other hand, his system¡¯s ability ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ had been upgraded twice since thest time he tried toprehend an essence, and its effects were doubled.

    After a full day, Daniel¡¯s eyes finally opened to the view of an empty room with grey stone walls. He immediately recognized the room as the one with the pyramid of spheres, which now were missing, along with the altar.

    Two doors had appeared, one behind him, and the other in front of him.

    Daniel closed his eyes once more, then started to emanate a faint veil of spiritual essence from his body. After a moment of focus, this colorless spiritual essence took the shape of hundreds of small bolts of lightning that roamed the surface of his body.

    "Amazing.." Was the only word that Daniel managed to mutter.

    A profound mastery of sword and a deepprehension of lightning essence. Daniel¡¯s gains were already more than any other participant could have hoped.

    After a deep breath, Daniel thought "Alright, let¡¯s see what¡¯s further down.." he then entered the second room.

    This second room, was just as simple as the first one. But instead of a floating pyramid of rotating spheres, there was a set of small tables.

    Each table was identical, but they all had different characteristics, which associated them with the various basic elements. There was a table whose surfaces danced of a light red shine, one who seemed to be made of in steel, and another which appeared to be made of dirt.

    Above these tables, were small cages with bars spaced just enough to grant a peek inbetween, and above each of these cages, a in looking orb floated steadily.

    From between the cage bars, Daniel could see small boxes inside.

    It didn¡¯t require a genius for someone to understand the point of this test. First,prehension of an essence, then, to test one¡¯s abilities.

    Daniel approached the table form which soft flickering white light emanated. He then put his hand on the orb, and started to push spiritual essence into it. Lastly, he turned the spiritual essence into lightning essence.

    A small ball of lightning formed within the orb, expanding slowly as time went by.

    There were no reactions to the orb at first, but then, the more Daniel increased the density of the lightning essence, the more unstable the orb became.

    In a minute, a crack appeared on its surface, and during the following five minutes, the crack expanded in length and width, until finally, the orb shattered into pieces.

    The moment the orb exploded, the small cage which surrounded the small box, started to slowly dissipate.

    Daniel reached for the small box, and opened it immediately. Inside, was an bead-sized transparent opal. This opal shined of flickering white lights, which followed the motion of hundreds of tiny lightning bolts.

    A lightning essence treasure.

    Daniel was familiar with what an elemental treasure was, as inside one of the books given to him by the old alchemist, he had found one that exined the use of essence treasures. The book also exined how they could be used to enchant weapons, armors, or create essence spheres.

    This lightning essence treasure could be used to enchant weapons, giving them a paralyzing effect. It could also be used to make a lightning sphere of fairly high quality.

    Suddenly, something strange caught Daniel¡¯s attention. The essence treasure he had obtained, was exactly at the same level as the highest state ofprehension he could muster of lightning essence.

    He then looked around, and found that the rest of the tables, were still there.

    Filled with excitement, he approached the tables whose correspondent essence he had at least a big ofprehension, he then repeated the process, and started to collect the other essence treasures.

    -----

    A full hour had passed, and in Daniel¡¯s hand, were seven items.

    Three of these items were of a much higher quality than the rest. The lightning opal from before, a coral which radiated with water essence and a feather whose barbs kept waving in the air.

    The remaining four treasures, were a small ruby with faint fire flickering in it, an orange stone that emanated faint earth essence, a piece of dark brown bark, and finally, an arrowhead made out of pure steel.

    Daniel put these items in his spatial ring, and left the room from the door that had appeared the moment he had obtained the lightning treasure.

    After a few minutes of walking, Daniel found himself in another stone room. Inside this stone room, there was nothing but a cushion on the ground, and a small table with a hand carved on the surface.

    Daniel looked around for a bit, but unable to find anything in the surroundings, he decided to sit on the cushion. He then ced his hand on the hand shaped carving.

    Nothing happened.

    "Mhh.. These are tests for spiritual cultivators.. It must have something to do with spiritual essence." Thought Daniel before driving his spiritual essence out of his hand.

    Suddenly, the small table disappeared, and in its ce, a box simr to the previous ones he had seen, had appeared.

    Daniel quickly opened the box, but what he saw inside, wasn¡¯t an essence treasure.. It was a monster core.

    What was more surprising to Daniel, was that this wasn¡¯t a random high level monster core. Instead, it was a peak rank 4 monster core, which corresponded to his exact stage of spiritual cultivation.

    He was sure that, in he consumed this core right here and now, he would be able to advance to the fifth rank. The reason why Daniel hadn¡¯t advanced to the fifth rank, wasn¡¯t because hecked the beast cores, after all his teachers had given him half a hundred of rank 4 beast cores alone. The reason was because he simply hadn¡¯t found the chance yet.

    Once taken the beast core from the box, nothing happened. No door had appeared, and no changes were made to the room.

    Slightly perplexed, Daniel started to think about the purpose of this test.

    Luckily, he was an intelligent person.. So in less than a minute, a smile of realization appeared on his face as he and muttered "It¡¯s talent in cultivating the spirit.."

 Chapter 57 The Castle Part 3

    "It¡¯s talent in cultivating the spirit.." muttered Daniel in realization.

    He then sat in a lotus position, and before starting to cultivate, he activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ once again.

    -----

    The moment thest bit of beast core disappeared, Daniel session of cultivation had ended.

    His spiritual cultivation had now reached the mid Moderate Spiritual Synchronization sub-stage, or mid rank 5.

    When Daniel opened his eyes, he found himself in the middle of a room filled with books. His first reaction was to take a look around, so he got back up on his feet, but after he turned around, he noticed a very old looking man sitting at a table, reading a thick book peacefully.

    At Daniel¡¯s attempt to approach him, the old man suddenly shut the book, and said "What an amazing talent you have.. It¡¯s only been a few thousand years.. Has the world changed this much?" Said the old man.

    This old man¡¯s body waspletely covered by arge tattered old robe, and a hood hid his face entirely. The only thing that indicated his age, was the hoarse voice, and the wrinkly hands which slowly rested on the book¡¯s cover.

    "Who are you?" Asked Daniel while sitting on the chair on the other side of the table.

    The old man pressed his back against the wooden chair, and said "I shouldn¡¯t havee back to this ce.. such an obvious mistake..." His voice sounded depressed and he couldn¡¯t help but sigh every now and then. He seemed to be talking to himself.

    After a moment, he raised his head and looked at Daniel¡¯s face. "You look promising.. What happened to you? How are you this powerful at.. Wait.." Shock grew on his covered face, and he jumped up from his chair.

    He then looked carefully at Daniel, and said "You are a martial cultivator!!" his voice became more surprised the more he talked. "How is it possible for you to be here if you are a martial cultivator?"

    "I am not a martial cultivator.. I¡¯ve passed three tests for spiritual cultivators to get here." Responded Daniel with as much calm as possible.

    "You can deny it however much you want, and yet, I can smell your weird ki clearly.." said the old man. Before the old man could calm down, his eyebrows arched in sudden realization, and asked "Are you an anomaly?.. Or has the nature of ki changed in humans recently?! Were you born like this?" one question after the other were thrown at Daniel.

    Daniel was slightly irritated, as the old man hadn¡¯t answered to any of his questions yet.

    "Hold on a second, can you tell me who you are?" Asked Daniel with a louder voice than intended.

    The old man momentarily stopped talking. He then sat back on his chair, and after what looked like fixing his clothes, he said "My apologies. I am called the Clear Mage."

    "Weren¡¯t you supposed to have.. Ascended to a higher ne reserved for those above the ninth rank?" Asked Daniel curiously.

    From the strange behaviour of the old man, right as he finished asking his question, Daniel understood that the old man had no idea of what he was talking about.

    "I¡¯ve never ascended past the ninth rank.. I started apetition with an old enemy, the Dark Warrior." He said in an exnatory tone.

    Daniel was utterly confused. He didn¡¯t belong to this area, so he wasn¡¯t that attached to its history. What he was curious about, was how it was possible for such arge number of people¡¯s memory to deviate so much from what truly happened.

    "What was thepetition about?" Daniel asked to the old man.

    The old man¡¯s voice became mncholic as he recounted the story of how the feud between him and the Dark Warrior had begun.

    ording to what the old man said, the Clear Mage and the Dark Warrior had been friends at first. But as time passed, the Dark Warrior started to change. His physical superiority started to twist his vision of the world.. To make him think that power meant everything in the world. As long as one was powerful enough, then, he had the right to decide the fate of others.

    At first, the Dark Warrior had started to show no mercy to those who offended him, then he started to kill for mistakes, and misunderstandings. It had reached a point where, unable to find another solution, the Clear Mage had decided to terminate their friendship, and swore to himself to stop him from bing a bigger danger to humanity.

    After fifty years of constant battles, the Clear Mage had decided to conduct their final battle the day they met in this ind.

    Once arrived, the two battled to a point of near death.

    The Dark Warrior, at this point of his life, had be a vicious human being, killing for the smallest reason, as if human¡¯s life was worth less than the breath spent to pronounce a sentence. But if there was something that the Dark Warrior liked, was a powerful cultivator. That was the reason why, regardless of how many times he had been challenged, he had never managed to bring himself to hate the Clear Mage.

    Instead of ending their fight with both of their deaths, the two cultivators had decided to trap themselves into a formation, and after thousands of years, they would bet their lives on the nature of the human¡¯s heart.

    The next time a monstrous talent would participate in this tournament, he or she would be able to decide which moral path was the right one. Thepassionate one, or the ruthless one.

    Thousands of years had passed, and someone with a monstrous talent had finally arrived.

    "I assume you have something to ask me.." Said Daniel

    The old man¡¯s hands closed in tight fists, as he said "Reach the treasury room, on the door, you will find a heart with a sword stabbed in it.. Remove the sword, and prove whatpassion is to my old enemy.. Or twist the sword.. Put an end to his life, and prove me that he was right.."

    "Wasn¡¯t I supposed to reach your chambers, and take something from it with me in the treasury in order to open it?" Asked Daniel with a confused face.

    The old man asked in a dismissive tone "What chambers? There is nothing important in the second floor, leave it be.. Now go, you have something important to aplish.. And if you make the right choice, i¡¯ll take you in as my disciple." As he finished talking, without waiting for an answer from Daniel, the old man disappeared.

    Daniel found himself back in the hall. The doors to the sides had disappeared, and only the door in the middle of the two sets of stairs remained. He stood there, observing the dark corridor at the feet of the flight of stairs.

    After a good minute, he decided to take a look at the first floor, so he went up the flight of stairs.

    The moment he reached the first floor, two bluish silhouette appeared on the hall downstairs. One was a middle-aged man with a broadsword hanging to his waist and a long spear strapped to his back. He also wore what looked like a heavy te armor. The other, was a younger man dressed in a light robe.

    The middle aged man seemed to be shouting furiously at the younger man¡¯s back, but was ignored. The silhouette of the younger man rushed up the flight of stairs and walked on the right corridor.

    Back on the first floor, the figure of the middle-aged man sighed in disappointment, and disappeared.

    Daniel decided to follow the younger man.

    He walked through the right corridor, and entered the door he had seen the younger man disappear into.

    Inside this room, there was a single bed in the middle of the room, and nothing else.

    The wall on the left of the door was covered in scribbles and doodles which Daniel couldn¡¯t understand. They didn¡¯t seem to be the work of a mad man, so Daniel started to observe them closely.

    The symbols were divided into groups, and some were repeated. They clearly described something, but this very alphabet was unlike any Daniel had glimpsed at.

    Daniel checked the books inside the old alchemist¡¯s ring, but no othernguage he had found was simr to the one these writings had been written in.

    He was about to give up, but then, he recognized a slightly variated version of one of the symbols from one of the books. The symbol in the book had sharp angles, and it joined the following one with an ondted line, but it still looked simr.

    ording to this book, thisnguage was ancient and alien to their continent. The symbol was the ancient sign for ¡¯Mana¡¯.

    Thanks to the help of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, it took Daniel twenty minutes to memorize and learn thisnguage. He then read the writing in the wall once more.

    It seemed to read the original with only a crappy trantion as reference. Thenguage on the book looked like a much younger and evolved version of the writing on the wall, and to Daniel, it felt like he was tranting an ancestor¡¯s scripture with the use of anguage, whose origin itself originated from thisnguage.

    Thankfully, Daniel had something that no historian had. The ability to correct his mistakes.

    He tried to make sense of these symbols, and by process of trial and error, he was able to trante a few symbols per hour.. After ten hours, he had tranted about five percent of the words present in the wall.

    He could understand words and bits, but the more he read, the more appalled he became.

    The concepts of sacrifice and consumption appeared over and over in the test. And it seemed to be a practice of magic which made use of another cultivator¡¯s ki and bodies to strengthen themselves.

    When Daniel had managed to read through a fourth of the test, four more hourster, he turned around and saw a middle aged man holding his head on the corner of the room. The man was only a silhouette, but from the clothes, Daniel recognized him as the younger man from the previous vision.

    The middle aged man stretched his arm, and picked up something from the ground. Daniel saw nothing in the man¡¯s hand, but his fingers were hooked around something invisible.

    The man brought this round andrge thing above his head, then, he opened his mouth and stood still for a few minutes. It looked as if he was making something drip into his mouth. When he finished, he threw that what he was holding in the direction of the bed, then, the silhouette disappeared from the room.

    Daniel walked towards the bed, which was made withrge embroidered sheets whose sides reached all the way to the ground.

    He went down on his knees, then lifted one side of the sheet and looked under the bed.

    Underneath the bed, he saw a small skull, which from its size, Daniel was sure belonged to a child.

    Slightly nauseous, Daniel got back up on his feet and returned in front of the wall.

    It took him another few hours to finish tranting the text.

    The test, was a method of cultivation. It was different from spiritual or martial cultivation, as it could be practiced on the side.

    This method of cultivation described in detail, how it was possible cultivate by absorbing people¡¯s ki through direct consumption of their body. Ki was part of the body, and in it, it was omnipresent.

    The most horrifying detail of this method, was that not only did it grant the cultivator to absorb one¡¯s ki, but also one¡¯s life essence.

    Life and death essences belonged to living beings. A human would be born with a certain amount of life essence, which the naturally formed death essence would slowly consume, to the point where life essence would be exhausted, leading to a cultivator¡¯s natural death.

    The amount of life essence that one could absorb from consumption of another person, was very little. At best, hours of life from consuming an entire body.

    Unfortunately, there were methods to increase the amount of life essence that could be absorbed.. And that was consuming humans with richer life essence.. Like newborns and children.

    The idea that millions of participants had stumbled upon this wall in the past thousands of years shocked Daniel beyond belief.

    He immediately tried to burn the wall, but unfortunately, he was unable to interact with it in any way. It was as if what he was trying to burn didn¡¯t belong to his own time and space.

    Daniel left the room, and as he was about to explore further, he saw another silhouette.

    This silhouette was that of a very old man. He was standing in front of the door he had just came from. In his hand was his unsheathed sword, but it seemed like he was unable to bring himself to enter and do what he intended to do.

    After a good minute, he dropped his sword and fell on his knees. His hand reached for his mouth, which he covered to mask the sound of his sobbing.

 Chapter 58 The Castle Part 4

    After a few seconds, the silhouette of the old man slowly got up on his feet, and walked all the way to the opposite corridor.

    Daniel followed him closely as he entered arge and well decorated room. Once in, the silhouette disappeared.

    This room contained well kept furniture, and its walls were covered in paintings. One of them in particr, caught Daniel¡¯s attention.

    This painting depicted a family of three. A father, a mother, and a son.

    The man in the picture looked extremely serious. His brows furrowed above two clear blue eyes, and his blonde hair were short and very well kept, just like a soldier would.

    He wore an impressive looking armor, on which a crest had been carved. This crest was simr to the one Daniel had seen in various other ces within the castle. From the sword and spear that had been painted by his side and hand, Daniel could guess that that person was the warrior whose silhouette he had followed.

    Next to him, was a beautiful woman. Her hair were long and straight, and she let them flow behind her back. Her smile was wide, and she looked happy.

    Standing between the two, was a kid. This kid¡¯s hair were blonde, just like his father, but that was the only trait the two shared. His look was serious and detached, as if staying in pose for the family portrait had been thest of his worries.

    Of one thing Daniel was certain. This castle was this family¡¯s home. What he didn¡¯t understand, was why he would have so many visions about this armed man and his child.

    Daniel looked away from the panting, and when he turned around to inspect the room, he noticed the silhouette of the old warrior sitting at his desk.

    His back was now curved, and he lookedpletely dispirited. His head moved up and down, and at times he covered it with his hand.. as if trying to cover the shame, point at something in the direction of the wall animatedly, or punch the table, as if trying to convey his emotional state along with his words.

    He was clearly having an animated discussion with someone on the other side of the desk.

    The conversation went on for awhile, and the more they talked, the more dispirited the man became.

    At a certain point in the discussion, Daniel noticed the man¡¯s head turn rapidly towards the direction of the door. Panicked, he swiped his hand on the table, and hid something inside one of the desks drawers.

    He then stood up and walked toward door, before suddenly disappearing.

    Daniel walked towards the desk and started to inspect it.

    The desk was in perfect conditions, and it didn¡¯t seem like the influence of time had any effect on it.

    He sat in the chair, and opened the drawers one by one. The first of these drawers contained clean sheets of paper, quill pens and bottles of ink, while the second was filled of documents and letters.

    On these documents and letters, many different wax seals appeared.

    Daniel had no idea what he was looking for, so he took therge pile of documents out, and started to read through them.

    Purchase agreements, contracts, agricultural reports, military documents.. Daniel spent a full hour going through these documents, but aside from understanding that this family had been a noble and rich one, he couldn¡¯t understand the corrtion with the visions he had had.

    Putting the documents back inside the drawer, Daniel tried to remember the scene he had seen, and imitate the old man¡¯s actions, but no matter how much he tried, everything lead him to the drawers.

    Daniel opened these drawers and emptied them once again, but still, he found no secret space.

    It was only when Daniel had decided to remove the drawers altogether to examine them better, that he noticed a vertical part of the desk whose edges didn¡¯t match the rest.

    It was a simple piece of wood who shouldn¡¯t have been added separately, and instead should have been carved along with the rest of the desk from the original piece of wood.

    Daniel removed this piece of wood, and behind it, he found a secretpartment. Inside which, was a rolled up scroll.

    After opening the scroll, Daniel read its content. In it, were the instruction for the construction of arge scale magical trap.

    Before Daniel could find a way toprehend the workings of this trap, a blue silhouette entered the room. It was a middle aged man.

    His posture was straight, and he looked like a refined and powerful cultivator. Daniel recognized him as the man he had seen in the previous room. But he didn¡¯t seem to be in such a terrible state.

    The man approached the bed, and sat next to it. His back bent forward, and his elbows rested on the edge of the bed. His hands joined together, slightly spaced apart, as if he was holding another person¡¯s hand between them. It appeared that he was talking with someone who was lying in bed.

    The figure suddenly disappeared, leaving the room empty once again.

    Daniel¡¯s attention turned back towards the magical trap, but unfortunately, after two full hours, he couldn¡¯t understand any of its symbols or words. Thenguage waspletely different from that on the other room¡¯s wall, and looked just as ancient.

    The only thing he had managed to read, was the title written in a more rtively recentnguage, and that title was ¡¯Purgatory of the Damned¡¯

    Giving up on the scroll, Daniel left the room and explored the rest of the castle. Unfortunately, nothing else of significance happened.

    It was only when Daniel decided to go back to the main hall, that he managed to see the appearance of the silhouette.

    The old armed man was standing straight in the middle of the hall. His expression could not be seen, but he was looking down on something of great importance.

    Suddenly, a second silhouette barged in from the entrance of the castle. He walked a few meters in, and then stopped while looking left and right.

    The old man waved his arm, and only then, did the second silhouette proceed toward the old man.

    He stopped once again, exactly two meters away from him. He looked down, and put his hand above something solid. His hand stroked this object gently, and before long, he fell on his knees and started to cry above it.

    Five long minutester, the second silhouette which Daniel had recognized as the young man from the first vision, got back up on his feet, turned to his right, took onerge step to the right, then turned left, and took three more steps.

    The old man looked at him for a minute, then walked in the opposite spot the middle aged man was standing at.

    Together they carefully picked up something from the ground, and started to walk into the dark corridor between the two sets of stairs.

    Daniel followed the two silhouettes and entered the corridor.

    The floor of the corridor was racked, detail which told Daniel that the two were going underground.

    The two silhouettes had long disappeared, and Daniel had been walking into therge corridor for two minutes, before he found himself standing in front of arge double door.

    Daniel opened this double door, and entered the room.

    What was in front of him, was arge room. Slightly bigger, but somewhat more ghastly than the main hall.

    Various sculptures were ced all around the room, and each depicted either a valiant man, or a beautiful woman.

    On the opposite side of the room, was an enormous double door. Each half of this doubled doorrge as amon double door.

    On it, many images had been carved. Stories of fighting, newly formed alliances and peaceful times.

    In the middle of thisrge room, right above a short column of stone, was a small sculpture of a heart being pierced by a sword. The sculpture wasn¡¯t oversized, and the measures of the heart and sword were extremely realistic.

    Daniel approached the sculpture, and when he was just two meters away from it, around him, a scene of fighting took ce.

    The two silhouettes had appeared once again.

    At first, they had been standing, quietly observing therge double door. But suddenly, the old man unsheathed his sword, and made it sh horizontally, trying to behead the middle aged man.

    The sword had been blocked by something solid, which Daniel was unable to see.

    The two started to fight, and from the looks of it, the middle aged man was a powerful spiritual cultivator.

    The older man didn¡¯t seem to be alone in this fight, as every now and then, the middle aged man¡¯s attention would be picked by something behind his back.

    After minutes of fighting, the middle aged man, now injured, started to shout and point at the old man, and at many other points around him.

    The figure of the middle aged man was superimposed to the sculpture of the pierced heart.

    Quietly, the old man observed the middle aged man¡¯s behaviour.

    The middle aged man¡¯s furious ranting went on for awhile, until finally, tired and injured, he calmed down and turned to look back at therge double door.

    The moment he turned around, the old man approached him slowly from behind, and pierced his sword straight into the man¡¯s heart.

    For a moment, both the sword and the man¡¯s heart position were perfectly superimposed to the statue.

    Realization shed inside Daniel¡¯s mind, when suddenly, he felt the sound of stepsing from behind him.

    When he turned around, he saw the petite girl.

    "The cemetery of my family.. It¡¯s beautiful, isn¡¯t it?" Said the petite girl.

    Daniel smiled at her and said "It sure was. But I bet it wouldn¡¯t look so beautiful if we could really see it." he then paused lightly, and continued "I¡¯ve met an old man.. He tried to convince me to extract the sword from that heart.. One of your rtives?" He asked.

    The petite girl approached him and said "One of my family ancestors." she then looked around for a bit, and while looking around, she started to recount the story of her family.

    ording to her family¡¯s records, her family had been created by the legendary Clear Mage, a well known powerful and unique cultivator, which one day, out of the blue, had decided to leave the family to visit his old home, never toe back.

    Through the tens of thousands of years, many descendents had been sent to look for him, but those who didn¡¯t perish during the travel, or didn¡¯t fail in the first tests, would either die, ore back with no informations.

    Each of them, before departing, would create a longsting ki g that would inform the family of their state.

    Thousands of years ago, one of these descendent, not only never came back, but his ki g had remained active until now.

    This man was one of the most talented individuals ever born within the family, and many had ced high hopes on him.

    The focus of the search had changed from looking for the Clear Mage¡¯s remains, to looking for this talented individual. They hoped to gain the methods this man had obtained, to allow their family to rise once again.

    While exining her story to Daniel, the petite girl slowly got closer to the statue.

    Before she could approach the statue, she heard Daniel¡¯s voiceing from behind her.

    "You can¡¯t free him." He said.

    She turned towards him with a confused expression, and asked "Why?"

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but notice the green number above the petite girl¡¯s head. He was sure that she had no idea of the real story, but he also didn¡¯t know if she would believe him if he told her.

 Chapter 59 The Castle Part 5

    "The Clear Mage wasn¡¯t who you think he was." Daniel said to the girl.

    The petite girl looked at him with confusion, and asked "What do you mean?"

    Daniel took a deep breath, and started to exin "The Dark Warrior and Clear Mage weren¡¯t a couple of powerful cultivators like the legend says. The version recorded in your family record is more urate, but a detail is missing.. The Dark Warrior was the Clear Mage¡¯s father." He then paused for a moment, letting the new information sink in.

    Still confused, the petite girl asked "Even if that is true, why shouldn¡¯t I free him?"

    "Because he was an evil practitioner, that¡¯s why his father trapped him here!.." Responded Daniel.

    The girl¡¯s brows furrowed underneath her mask, and before she could respond, a third voice resounded in the air.

    "He is lying." Said the old man whom Daniel had previously met in the room filled with books. "I arrived here thousands of years ago, and while in search of our patriarch¡¯s inheritance, i¡¯ve ended up being trapped by the same formation the vile Dark Warrior had used to trap the Clear Mage!"

    He then looked at the petite girl, and said "Please extract the sword and break the formation.. I want to go back home." His tone was pitiful.

    "The Clear Mage, I presume." Said Daniel while looking at the old man. "You know, after all i¡¯ve seen so far.. I¡¯ve been breaking my brain to figure out a way to destroy this formation, and you with it.."

    "I have no idea what you are talking about" Said the old man.

    Daniel smiled, and continued talking. "I¡¯ve seen your father¡¯s intentions of killing you.. More than once. But no matter how many times he tried, he could never really bring himself to do it. Because of your father¡¯s love, you were allowed to grow up and develop your sick ideas.."

    While talking, Daniel slowly walked around him, observing the old man¡¯s movements and reactions.

    "You were a talented cultivator.. I¡¯ll give you that.. But your nature couldn¡¯t be suppressed, no matter how much you tried. When you found that vicious path of cultivation, you abandoned your humanity, and started your killing spree. Your father hated himself for allowing you to travel the world and indulge in your sick method of cultivation.."

    "STOP LYING!" Shouted the old man before looking at the petite girl once again, and saying "Don¡¯t listen to what he is saying.. Remember the reason why he is here, why everybody is here! It¡¯s his greed"

    "It was the death of your mother.." Said Daniel

    As the old man heard these few words, he immediately looked toward Daniel.

    "Your father reached a breaking point.. And prepared a trap for you. Your mother¡¯s death was the only chance he had to get you back home.. So after she died, he waited for you to arrive to pay your respects to yourte mother." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The bony hands of the old man shut tightly underneath hisrge sleeves.

    "You knew it.. Since the moment you¡¯ve entered this hall, you knew that your father was going to trap you here. So you did something about it.. With all the power you had, you had certainly traveled far and wide.. There was simply no way that someone like your father could have managed to trap you here.." Daniel wasn¡¯t exactly sure how the Clear Mage had managed to avoid being trapped here, so he stopped for a few moments, to allow the old man to respond.

    "Is this true?" Asked the petite girl.

    The old man turned toward her and said in a scolding voice "Stop listening to him! He has presented no proofs! He is just talking!"

    Unfortunately, the old man didn¡¯t break under pressure. It was only when Daniel involuntarily approached therge double door that he saw a reaction.

    The old man was sneaking peeks at him from the corner of his eyes.

    Arge grin grew on Daniel¡¯s face as he started talking "Of course.. Now I know what happened.. It¡¯s your mother¡¯s casket."

    A shiver run down the old man¡¯s spine.

    "The moment you threw yourself at your mother¡¯s casket.. You¡¯ve left part of your spirit and consciousness in it.. So instead of being simply the target of the formation, you¡¯ve also be part of it." Said Daniel.

    The old man lifted his hand slowly, and took his hood off. Underneath, was a disgusting half dposed face. Yet, on the still rtively intact part of his face, Daniel could see arge smirk forming.

    "You are a brilliant young man.. I was so close this time.. HAHAHA!" The old man didn¡¯t seem to be nervous or scared. Instead, he looked like he had just been found out cheating at a simple game of cards.

    He then straightened his clothes, and as ifing clean with his funny con, he said "I remember when, tens of thousand years ago, the first one of these idiots came to find me.. I reckon he would have failed spectacrly had he not brought a monster with him. That brat was something else.. Just like you.. So powerful and talented that he managed to destabilize this whole formation."

    "Uuuhh.. I think he is talking about one of my brothers.." Said Sewah inside Daniel¡¯s mind.

    Daniel looked at the old man and asked "You don¡¯t look scared.. I guess you can prevent us from harming you.. Might as well tell us how this thing started.." Said Daniel.

    "Well, I happen to be only able to enjoy a few conversations per decade, so I don¡¯t see why not." The old man then started to recount the story of how the tournament had been created.

    ording to him, the presence of his rogue spirit within the formation, had changed it significantly. Every ten years, the formation would weaken enough to allow him to take partial control over it.

    The point in time when the Clear Mage had control of the formation, was when the formation was at its weakest, and during one of these episodes, one of his descendent, apanied by a cultivator of unbelievable talent, had managed to destabilize the formation enough to make "breaking out of the fictitious space" possible.

    When the first of his descendant managed to enter the catb, his rogue spirit attempted to take possession of his body.

    It was doable, but thanks to the help of that unbelievably talented cultivator, he had failed miserably.

    From that event, he had learned a few things. He could take possession only of his descendants, and he needed people with an unbelievable talent to stress the already defective formation, to allow people into the real catb.

    To those capable of reaching the real catb, he would ask to extract the sword from the heart, and free him. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done, as unless an unbelievably cultivator was present to disrupt the formation, none of them would be able to enter the true catb, and would be stuck in the fictitious one instead.

    Unfortunately for him, the amount of talent necessary to obtain that reaction, was something that the creators of the formation hadn¡¯t even thought possible, and one of these people, for all he knew, might be born once every hundreds of thousands of years.

    It didn¡¯t take long for an idea to pop into his head. He would send cultivators out in the world to tell the story of the Clear Mage and Dark Warrior inheritance, just to attract as many cultivators as possible.

    Tens of thousands of years passed slowly, until finally, only four thousands years ago, the ancestor of the petite girl¡¯s family managed to reach this ce, along with a cultivator of unbelievable talent.

    The Clear Mage still wasn¡¯t aware of the effects that destroying the formations would have on his rogue spirit and consciousness, so instead of convincing him to extract the sword, the Clear Mage took control over his descendant¡¯s body.

    Onlyter did he found out that, removing the soul himself would not work, as the core part of the formation rejected him no matter what body he possessed.

    For the next four thousand years, he waited for another asion.

    That asion presented itself with Daniel.

    "A double path cultivator.. We are simr you and i! We both cultivate two paths Hehehe" Said the old man beforeughing. He then stopped, and continued talking "Now I have a question.. What betrayed me? I knew, since the moment I have told you that I would have taken you as my disciple.. From your reaction, I was sure that you hadn¡¯t believed me.. How did you now?"

    Daniel¡¯s eyes moved right above the old man¡¯s head, above which a number was floating.

    "I can see right through you.." He said with a matter-of-fact voice.

    That number, was 1,623,772,167.. and it was blood red in color.

    "Well, fair enough! Who am I to understand all the trick a monstrosity like you has in store" Said the old man while shrugging. "Anyway, I can only kill both of you, and wait for the next time.." He then turned toward the petite girl and added "Oh, i¡¯ll be taking your body as well" He said while parting his rotting lips and showing a set of ck teeth.

    Daniel looked at him and said "Wait a second, don¡¯t you want to see myst trick?"

    The old man turned towards him "Don¡¯t y me brat, I can hear the sses you are trying to climb on shatter. Nothing is going to save you" He said.

    On Daniel¡¯s face, arge smile grew. Inside his mind, a few windows had opened.

    -----

    *Primary Quest started: No Rest for the Wicked*

    -Description: Complicate the lives of humans with bad karma.

    Second objective set: Survive

    Optional: Prevent the death of Alis

    Optional: Kill the Clear Mage

    Reward: +50,000(+5000)(+1,500,000)

    Failure: Death

    -----

    Open Approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Destroy the Clear Mage¡¯s possessed body.

    -Have Alis open the crypt

    -Destroy the remnant of the Clear Mage¡¯s spirit.

    Countdown:54 seconds

    (Requirements: rank 7 of martial cultivation or rank 8 of spiritual cultivation)

    Reward +200% KP (150,000/165,000/4,500,000)

    -----

    Open approach

    Difficulty: Hard

    -Deactivate the formation

    -Pierce the Dark Warrior¡¯s sword into the heart of the possessed body within 10 seconds.

    -Have Alis open the crypt

    -Destroy the remnant of the Clear Mage¡¯s spirit.

    Countdown: 2 minutes 12 seconds

    Reward +150% KP (125,000/137,500/11,250,000)

    -----

    The old man immediately grabbed the petite girl¡¯s neck, but didn¡¯t kill her. He required her body, and the better the shape was, the more it wouldst.

    Daniel immediately sent a lightning strike against the old man. The hit took away part of the old man¡¯s shoulder, but didn¡¯t seem to be felt in the slightest.

    The old man turned around, and sent a hundred of ice spikes towards Daniel.

    The spikes had been created by transforming the Clear Mage¡¯s spiritual essence into the water essence, therefore, they were unable to reach Daniel, which used the statue of the pierced heart as a cover.

    Once the spikes reached one meter from the statue, they turned back into uncontrolled spiritual essence and disappeared into thin hair.

    Daniel raised his arms from behind the statue, and shouted "OKAY! I SURRENDER!!"

    "What are you on about?" Said the rotting old man.

    With a sheepish smile covering his face, Daniel responded "I said I surrender! I¡¯ll destroy the formation and free you. I¡¯d rather leave now, and maybe be rewarded by you.. than die here"

    The old man¡¯s dirty smile resurfaced, then he said "Very well, but i¡¯m still taking the girl."

    Daniel shrugged and said "I honestly don¡¯t care."

    "Chop chop then, I am waiting" Said the rotting old man.

    Daniel moved towards the sword, and with a single motion, he removed it from the heart.

    The exact moment in which the sword was removed, everyone within the fictitious castle was immediately teleported into the real one.

    The scene was hundreds of times more terrifying than the previous ck and white version. The ce waspletely covered in bones, and blood had dried everywhere around the ce.

    A few fresh corpses decorated the various rooms. Some had been chopped into pieces, while others had had chunks of flesh bitten off of them. There was even one that was roasting above a fire.

    The old man took a deep breath, and with an ecstatic face, he couldn¡¯t help but groan and say "Ohh.. finally.."

 Chapter 60 The Castle Part 6

    "Ohh.. finally.." Groaned the old man.

    Daniel approached the old man with a confident pace. He then pointed the sword downward and pressed its hilt against his chest. Finally, he looked at the old man, and took a deep bow.

    "I hope you won¡¯t change your mind and kill me" Daniel said through an embarrassed smile.

    The old man showed his rotten teeth once more, and responded "Don¡¯t worry.. You and I have much to discuss.." He then turned towards the girl whose neck he was holding, and continued "But first.. I hope you won¡¯t mind me putting on something a little more.. Comf-"

    *Fwoosh*

    The old man¡¯s sentence was interrupted by the sound of a sword piercing through air at high speed. But before the sword managed to pierce anything, arge ice de swiped horizontally and detached Daniel¡¯s head from his body.

    "As if I was born yesterday.." Said the old man while grinning at the decapitated Daniel.

    Daniel¡¯s head hit the stone pir, and rolled on the ground for a few meters.

    -----

    Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from the castle. Millions of spiritual cultivators all around the world furrowed their brows in shock.

    Some of them got distracted during a critical moment and almost lost their lives, while some others hadpletely interrupted whatever they were doing and turned their head towards the same direction.

    All of these spiritual cultivators, had a deepprehension of time essence, and no matter how far in the world, these powerful cultivators felt a global interruption of the omnipresent timew.

    -----

    Golden Cauldron, main branch.

    A very old, yet lively looking man was quietly sitting in front of a boiling pot. The room¡¯s furniture looked simple, but every bit of it had been constructed by extremely rare and expensive materials.

    The old man¡¯s head turned towards the direction of the castle, and muttered to himself "..I wonder what kind of old monster managed to control thews of time to this extent.." This man, was called Golden Cauldron, and he was the Silver Alchemist¡¯s father, and president of thepany ¡¯Golden Cauldron¡¯.

    -----

    Back in the castle, Daniel¡¯s head rolled backwards on the floor, hit the stone pir once again, and flew back above Daniel¡¯s shoulders. It then reattached itself to his neck the very moment the ice de passed between them.

    "..putting on something a little more.. co.. WHA-"

    *Fwoosh*

    Once again, the sound of a sword piercing through air interrupted the old man¡¯s speech. Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t stop him from casting an ice de once again, and send it shing horizontally at Daniel¡¯s neck.

    Daniel was prepared this time. He lowered his head just in time to avoid the shing de, and managed to pierce the old man¡¯s chest from part to part.

    All of a sudden, the formation activated once again.

    The people¡¯s surroundings changed back, and the horrific and gory castle, turned back into a simpler yet still spectral ck and white.

    Inside the real catb, Daniel was standing still while pressed against the old man¡¯s body. At his feet, two differently colored streams of blood were pooling and merging into a strange ck and dark red mixture.

    Fresh blood started to drip down the corners of Daniel¡¯s lips.

    The petite girl managed to free herself from the dead body¡¯s grip, and after a few gasp for air, sheposed herself, and looked at Daniel.

    She thought that Daniel had sold her out to the old man, and that she was doomed, but that was had all been a ruse to get closer to him, andunch a sneak attack.

    Relieved of the oue, she approached Daniel. But before she could pat on his shoulder, she noticed the heavy bleeding.

    Daniel¡¯s legs finally gave up, and he nearly fell on his back. Fortunately, the petite girl was right behind him, so she easily catched him andid him gently on the floor.

    On his chest, she saw variousrge holes.

    These holes, had been caused by ast moment attack of the Clear Mage, which in a moment of panic, created various wooden spikes between himself and Daniel.

    When Daniel fearlessly threw his body at him, he ended up impaling himself.

    Now bleeding severely, Daniel lied on the floor. The girl¡¯s small hands were pressing on the wounds, trying to stop the bleeding, and at the same time, shock covered her face as she noticed that Daniel¡¯s body was that of a rank 4 martial cultivator.

    Fortunately she didn¡¯t let that distract her from the matter at hand.

    She started to rummage into her backpack, but before she could find what she was looking for, Daniel¡¯s words reached her ears.

    "The tomb.. Burn the m-mother¡¯s coffin.. No time" He said while spewing copious amount of blood.

    The girl was unwilling to leave him like that, so she kept searching inside her bag.

    Daniel¡¯s trembling hand touched her small knee gently, and as he got her attention, he focused all of his spiritual essence to his injuries, and turned it into healing essence.

    The petite girl noticed the stopping of the blood flow, and the very slow yet constant recovery of Daniel¡¯s flesh.

    It was like watching a high level healing pill slowed a to a hundreth of the speed, and yet, it was still able to stabilize him.

    Daniel¡¯s main concern was to recover the damage to his organs.

    He had various holes in his stomach, one of his lungs had been punctured, and a huge sh almost cut his liver in half.

    These points were where he focused most of the healing essence to, while the remaining bit, saw used to stop the bleeding.

    Seemingly on his deathbed, Daniel summoned a small ball of fire, and used it to burn the old man¡¯s clothes.

    Seeing that Daniel had everything under control, the petite girl got up on her feet, ripped therge burning piece of the old man¡¯s robe and rolled it up around her sword. She then started walking towards the double doors.

    She slowly pushed the heavy doors open, letting the stale air hit her face.

    The moment the door was opened, a streak of weak spiritual essence dashed from the coffin, towards her, but before the spiritual essence could reach its destination, a lightning bolt appeared in the air and struck it, making it dissipate.

    After fending off an attempt to take possession of the girls body, Daniel tried to shout, but what came out of his mind, was a feeble "..now.."

    Despite not being able to hear him, the girl rapidly approached the solitary wooden casket in the middle of the room, and threw the ming piece of fabric above it.

    She then retreated back out of the room, closing therge double doors behind, and approached Daniel once again.

    The moment she reached him, he had already lost consciousness.

    The girl knew that thest two attacks had been more than Daniel could take. Focusing on healing himself, while at the same time protecting her from the attempts of possession from the Clear Mage, was too much for Daniel to handle.

    Therefore he had passed out, allowing his blood to start flowing out of his wounds once again.

    -----

    When Daniel woke up, before he could even gather his bearings, he noticed an opened window within his mind.

    This window was very small, but its content made Daniel happy beyond words.

    -----

    *No Rest for the Wicked*

    Second objectivepleted.

    Reward: 137,500 Karma Points

    -----

    Once closed the window, Daniel looked at his surroundings, and noticed that he was still lying on the floor of the catb. His head was resting on a grey robe, which emanated a nice smell.

    His first instinct was to look down to his chest.

    He immediately noticed that any sort of wound had been healed, and no trace of their presence whatsoever had been left behind.

    He lifted his upper body, and started to look around.

    Sitting next to the short stone column, was a girl.

    This girl had smooth skin of a clean olive color, and medium sized hair that flowed gently down the sides of her head. Her straight ck eyebrows stood proudly above a pair of dark brown eyes, which were currently directed at the sandwich she was eating.

    She couldn¡¯t be considered shockingly beautiful, but her cold demeanor more than made up for it.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t recognized her face, but her familiar body size rapidly betrayed her identity. She was the petite girl.

    The girl noticed the movementing from Daniel¡¯s direction.

    She was about to say something, but before she could, Daniel interjected and said "The best hundred gold coins i¡¯ve ever spent.."

    After a moment of confusions, the two bursted into a tired and heartfeltugh.

    "..I¡¯m sorry for taking one of the pills.." She said embarrassedly.

    A faint grin grew on Daniel¡¯s face, as he looked at her and responded "I should thank you for safekeeping a pill for me.. Or, as stupid as I am, I would have ended up using it that very night."

    After a few minutes of embarrassing silence, the petite girl said "I¡¯m Alis, by the way."

    "Nice to meet you Alis, i¡¯m Dan." Responded Daniel while getting back up on his feet, and ignoring that she already knew his name.

    He started to slowly explore the catb, trying to see if there was anything of value inside. At the same time, a few ideas on how to use hisrge amount of karma points came to his mind.

    After a few minutes of consideration, and unfruitful search, he decided to purchase the system¡¯s permanent passive ability called ¡¯Karma X Luck¡¯, which dictated Daniel¡¯s luck, ording to the amount of positive or negative karma he possessed.

    With more than a hundred thousand karma points left, he approached Alis, and after taking a coin out of his pocket, he told her "Heads or Tails.."

    "Why would y heads or tails?" She asked with curiosity, then continued "..did you find something good?"

    "No, I just want to y.. Pick one" He quickly responded.

    "Heads." she said, right before Daniel sent the coin flying high up in the air.

    When it reached the ground, its heads side slowlynded on the ground. It was tails.

    "A few more.." Said Daniel.

    The two yed heads or tails for ten minutes, during which Daniel won forty out of forty-three tosses. Strangely irritated by the result, Alis challenged Daniel at rock-paper-scissors.. Which Daniel decided to y with his eyes closed, and abandoning all tactics.

    One game after the other, ten more minutes passed. During these ten minutes, Daniel had won 115 games out of 129.

    Alis¡¯s tactics couldn¡¯t help her against Daniel¡¯s sheer luck.

    With closed eyes, he would simply throw a figure at thest moment, and most of the times, that figure would be the right one.

    After another heavy defeat, Alis observed the excited expression on Daniel¡¯s face. She then asked him "The Clear Mage called you a monstrosity.. Has the fact that you have a rank 5 spirit and rank 4 body something to do with it?.."

    Without looking back at her, Daniel responded nonchntly "He was right.. But he didn¡¯t know the half of it.."

    Ignoring his boasts, Alis continued "How is it possible?.."

    "Well, it¡¯s toote for you, so let it be a secret of mine for a while longer.." He responded while getting back up on his feet.

    He then started walking towards therge double door.

    "How old are you really?.. You can¡¯t really be in your early teens.. You must at least be twenty-five.." She said while trying to get his attention back.

    Amused by the girl¡¯s words, Daniel turned his body around, and while walking backwards, he said "Believe it or not, I am only four-" His bragging was interrupted by his sudden loss of bnce, caused by him stumbling upon one of the old man¡¯s foot.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but reach for anything he could grab during the fall. The only thing present to grab, was the hilt of the sword.

    The moment he touched the hilt¡¯s sword, a heavy amount of invirmations started to pour into Daniel¡¯s mind. They were all informations about the formation.

    Its workings, the weak points, the way to control it. He knew everything.

    He rapidly took the copy he had made of the trap formation¡¯s project, and suddenly, he could understand everything within it.

    Apparently, the formation was never supposed to only work as a trap for the Clear Mage, but also as a prison. And where there was a prison, a jailer would be there to guard him.

 Chapter 61 Good Things Are Never Free

    "What¡¯s wrong?" Asked Alis to the seemingly distracted Daniel.

    The girl¡¯s silvery voice woke Daniel up from his surprise. He turned towards her, and said "I must have randomly activated something.. And now I think I can terminate the formation at will.."

    Alis¡¯s eyes moved around Daniel¡¯s surroundings, and only when they ended up on the puddle of blood on which the rotting old man was lying, did a guess formed in her head.

    "It has to have something to do with your blood.." She said while indicating the puddle of mixed blood.

    Daniel, nowpletely aware of the structure and workings of the formation, looked back at Alis and said "It really does have something to do with blood, but not mine. Apparently, your family¡¯s blood is required to start the formation. It works like a door lock, and the sword is the key." He then paused for a moment before continuing "This formation has been created to trap someone which belongs to your family.."

    "So what now?" Asked Alis.

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "Now, it seems that I have be some sort of guardian.. I think that this was once the Dark Warrior¡¯s job.. But when he activated the defective formation, he must have been absorbed by it. That should exin why I¡¯ve had those visions.."

    "Does that mean that you are stuck here?" Alis asked.

    "I don¡¯t think so.. You know how the castle teleports from one ce to another every ten years?.. Also, remember therge air bubble that surrounded the castle, and kept it floating in the air?.. Large wind and spatial spheres have been installed as integral parts of the formation.." Responded Daniel before closing his eyes and saying "Look at this.."

    Two minutes passed uneventfully.

    Confused, Alis decided to say something, but as she was about to start talking, she heard stepsing from the dark corridor that lead to the main hall.

    One after the other, Heimart and the rest of their group appeared within the catb.

    "What the hell is going on here?!" Asked Ligart animatedly.

    Each of them, like Daniel and Alis, had been isted within the fictitious space the very moment they had set foot into the castle.

    They had challenged the various training rooms, and had been able to pass them with rtive ease thanks to their decades of training.

    Daniel was the only one who had had to spent so much time inside the weapon wielding training room, as unfortunately, he hadn¡¯t been able to grow up while training in the more advanced stages of swordsmanship.

    On the other hand, the rest of the participants, being geniuses and prodigies of their respective groups, had had the chance to train since a very young age.

    Inparison, before Daniel managed to train inside the training room within the castle, he had only been able to learn the basics of swordsmanship.

    After passing their tests, Daniel¡¯s group had been forced to wander the fictitious castle, waiting for the Clear Mage to kill them, and consume them.

    It was only when Daniel had extracted the sword, that they were briefly able to see the true appearance of the castle, along with the tens of corpses, walls covered in dried blood, and bones scattered everywhere.

    Fortunately, that had onlysted since the moment Daniel took the sword out, to when he pierced the old man¡¯s body with it.

    After that, the fictitious space had been reformed, and the castle had gone back to being how they used to see it before.

    Now in control of the formation, Daniel had picked his group members one by one and directed them towards the catb. Once there, he dissolved the fictitious space they were in, and allowed them to enter the true catb in which he and Alis were staying.

    Daniel exined everything that happened to the rest of the group.

    "So.. are you able to get us all out of here?" Heimart asked to him.

    Daniel looked back at him and said "Even better.. I think I can move the castle altogether."

    "Wait a second, before you try anything I think there is something important to discuss.. Now that you have gained control over the formation.. Where is the inheritance??" Asked Ligart with arge nasty smile on his face.

    "I have no idea.. The original formation had been tampered with in many asions.. The first time, when the Clear Mage had hidden part of his consciousness into the coffin. The moment the formation was activated, everyone within the castle had disappeared. The only things remaining, were the key and the lock of the formation." Said Daniel disappointedly, before taking a deep breath and continuing "If there was something, it either disappeared then, or was taken by the first people who visited this ce."

    "What about the rewards we got from the training rooms?" Paule promptly asked.

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and said "Not part of the formation. My guess is that every ten years, the Clear Mage would use the possessions of the participants he had previously killed as small rewards meant to please the participants, and lure more of them back the next time."

    Alis suddenly recalled something. She looked at Daniel and asked "You have mentioned visions before.. What were they about?"

    "Memories.. Fragments of the Dark Warrior¡¯s memories which I assume got stuck within the formation when things went wrong the first time." Daniel responded in a slightly unsure tone.

    It was Heimart¡¯s time to interject. He looked at Daniel and asked him "So what did you gain from this?"

    Arge smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face. He looked at the rest of the group and said "Follow me."

    The group walked into the dark corridor and reached the main hall. Once in the main hall, they approached therge double door.

    Daniel looked at his group members once more, then, he opened the door.

    What appeared on the other side wasn¡¯t therge expanse of murky water that they expected to see. Instead, it was therge field that surrounded theke in which the castle had been hidden.

    "We¡¯ve teleported?" Asked a visibly shocked Heimart.

    "No, I don¡¯t have theprehension of space required to control that part of the formation. I¡¯ve simply moved the castle here by using wind essence." Responded Daniel quickly.

    Another thing the group noticed, was the absence of the spiritual essence in the air.

    The tournament had been originally created by the Clear Mage as a pretext to attract as many cultivators as possible, so when the formation had been reset, its barrier had been modified.

    Originally, the barrier should have surrounded the castle, and its power should have been equivalent to the power of its activator. Specifically, the Dark Warrior.

    Unfortunately, when the Clear Mage had managed to take partial control over the formation, he had been able to use the ki barrier, along with his spiritual essence, for his own gains. Turning a once powerful ki barrier, into a selective process for the participants of the tournament.

    The spiritual essence in the air had disappeared when the formation had been reset, and the ki barrier was now weak, and barely able to stop people at Daniel¡¯s stage of martial cultivation.

    "Speaking of which, we better be on our way soon.. Because when the powerful cultivators who apanied their young masters or children here will notice the disappearance of the barrier, they¡¯lle for the castle.. And fast." Said Daniel in a hurried tone.

    Before any of the others could say anything, he waved his hand in the air and forced every single participant still within the castle to be kicked out.

    He then made the castle fly high up in the sky, and take off in the distance.

    The castle¡¯s speed was only as fast as Daniel¡¯s flight speed, as he was only able to control so much of that part of the formation with theprehension of wind essence he had.

    Standing at the opened entrance of the castle, Daniel looked at the ind get smaller and smaller in the distance.

    He then looked back at his group and said "What do you guys want to do?.. I can drop you off after we reachnd if you want.."

    Unexpectedly, his question was answered with another question. This question came from Heimart "What are your ns?"

    "I will travel in one direction, and hope to find clues about the right way to go back home." Responded Daniel.

    After a minute of silence, Ligart said "We are in no hurry to go back. We were supposed to be on a ten years journey before going back to the school. If you would like somepany, I wouldn¡¯t mind upying one of the many rooms here.."

    "Sure!" Responded Daniel excitedly.

    He had absolutely no idea of which direction to take in order to reach the Karalis kingdom. So he might as well go in the general direction where his group members hade from.

    At least then he could have some travelpanions for awhile.

    "Speaking of rooms.." Said Heimart before taking a long pause and continuing "..I want the biggest one."

    "WHAT!?" The single word bursted right out of Ligart¡¯s mouth. "Hold on a second! It was my id-"

    Before he could finish, Daniel interjected "Settle down you two.. There is still.. One small problem with the castle.." He said with an extremely ufortable tone.

    "It needs cleaning.." He said while waving his hand, and taking the lot of them out of the fictitious space.

    The hall was filled with bones and dust, and trails of fresh blood could be seen going in all directions.

    Ligart¡¯s tone changedpletely, and after breathing in through his gritted teeth, he said "Yeeeeah.. I don¡¯t want to stay anymore.."

    -----

    One weekter.

    The small group of seven had managed to clean the majority of the lower floor of the castle, mostly thanks to Daniel¡¯s water magic.

    He had also been able to drive off the nauseating stench by creating air currents which brought fresh air from the outside, to every small nook and cranny within the castle.

    Various rooms had been cleaned as well. Enough for each of them to take one.

    They seven of them were now sitting at a long and elegant table in the dining room. They slowly ate their food, and yet, the atmosphere was strange.

    Ligart brought his fork towards his mouth, and right when he was about to bite at the piece of vegetable pierced on its prongs, Heimart, which was currently sitting opposite to him, looked at him intently and said "Remember when there was a human¡¯s foot right where your te is right now?.."

    With an annoyed expression, Ligart put his fork back on the te, and pushed the te away from himself.

    On the other side of the table, Heimart looked at Paule who was currently sitting to his right, and while giggling, he said "It never gets old.."

    Alis which sat next to Daniel at the far edge of the table, said "You really need to buy new furniture for this ce.."

    Noticing the low morale of the group, Daniel stood up, and after putting his open hand on the table, he made thousands of small rings and bags appear out of nowhere.

    He looked at the surprised group, and said in a loud voice "This was supposed to be a surprise for after we finished cleaning, but honestly, if I hear Heimart¡¯s joke one more time, I am going to leave the castle myself.. So here we go.." He then pointed at the mountain of bags and rings, and while smiling, he continued " These are all the spatial containers of tens of thousands of years of dead participants. I haven¡¯t touched them yet."

    Satisfied by the shocked faces of the group, he sat back on his chair, and after picking a ring, he said "Knock yourself out."

    Without the need of being told twice, everyone grabbed arge handful of spatial containers and started to check out their content.

    The previous thoughts of past murders and gory scenes had disappearedpletely from their heads.

 Chapter 62 A Travelers Plan

    The group spent the next five hours going through every ring and bag that Daniel had taken out.

    What they found was highly disappointing. Most of the good items had been taken out by the Clear Mage when he had killed the owners of these rings and bags.

    What was left were the coins, and the martial and spiritual cultivation manuals.

    "Having a lot of money is fine, but there isn¡¯t anything of real use here.. I think we should sell all this stuff in block at an high end auction house.. We could split the money, and use some of it to decorate the castle" Said Paule.

    Daniel still hadn¡¯t gotten used to such arge sum of money. To him, who was used to live off of a few copper coins per day, millions of gold coins were an astronomical number.

    Regarding the cultivation resources and useful objects, they had been long take by the Clear Mage, who used them as little rewards to attract cultivators into join the tournament.

    An example of this, were the beast cores given in the cultivation talent tests, and the essence treasures rewarded at thepletion of the essenceprehension test.

    The first test was different. Daniel had thought about the possibility that those orbs he had used to increase hisprehension of lightning essence, could be somewhere within the castle, but unfortunately, after he had obtained full control over the formation, he had found none of them.

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to formte a guess regarding why.

    What Daniel had seen weren¡¯t essence spheres, but essence orbs. These orbs wererger and different than the essence spheres he had encountered in the past. The use of these orbs was to showcase the type of essence they contained, and to be ced in the small carving on the table so that the essence contained in them could be disyed.

    They didn¡¯t have a binding treasure that could separate, and keep the essence independent from the cultivator.

    What he believed these essence orbs to be, were simply a demonstrative tool used by the Clear Mage to show off a specific essence he had a deepprehension of.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t sure if that was the real reason, but since all the training rooms aside from the weapon mastery training room had disappeared since the very moment the formation had been reset, he had good reasons to believe that was the case.

    "It will take a while longer to get to the next city.." Said Daniel while looking at the map he had purchased in Cerulis "Do you guys have somece you want to visit?.. I am flying blind here."

    "About that, you¡¯ve mentioned Karalis more than once.. If that kingdom is as far as you say it is.. How did you end up to Cerulis without even knowing it?" Asked a curious Imblen.

    Without taking his eyes off the map, Daniel took a deep breath and said "I am the progenitor of a new path of cultivation. This new path allows you to practice both spiritual cultivator and martial cultivator. When I¡¯ve entered the fourth rank, I caused a cultivation anomaly right in the middle of the city. The event was witnessed by all the most powerful cultivators in the city, including two spies who belonged to two different neighboring kingdoms. These spies reported what they saw back to their respective kingdoms, which sent people from their territories to kidnap me. A three way battle amongst three different kingdoms broke out in the city. My teachers were outnumbered and almost defeated, so they used what I assume was their ¡¯backup n¡¯. They opened a portal which brought me to Cerulis¡¯s beach.. You know the rest."

    The expressions on the faces of the six were beyond what someone could describe as shocked. They were so amazed that they dropped everything they were holding in their hands.

    Alis looked at Daniel with shock and asked him "Why the hell would you say that?!"

    Slightly annoyed, Daniel put the map down and looked at the rest of the group. He then said "Look, I don¡¯t want to spend all day avoiding grazing your arms because you would find out I have a body at the fourth rank of martial cultivation. If we have to travel together for awhile, I might as well tell you guys the truth."

    What Daniel said made sense, but at the same time, it was the craziest thing they had ever heard in their lives.

    Ligart looked at Daniel, and with a dubious tone, he said "Look, you don¡¯t have to tell us the real reason if you do-"

    *Shwiing*

    Before Ligart could finish, Daniel took his sword out of his spatial ring, and after injecting his ki into it, he shed vertically, splitting a chair in half. He then looked back at the map and said "Now you believe me.."

    Ligart¡¯s shock immediately turned into curiosity. He immediately stood up from his chair, got closer to Daniel and asked him "How did you do it?! How did you be a martial cultivator?!"

    Alis threw a gelid look at him, as if he had asked the most personal question a human being could ask to another, but before she could add some words to her cold look, she heard Daniel¡¯s voice.

    One again, without moving his eyes away from the map, Daniel casually responded "I have cultivated to the peak of the third rank of both paths, reached perfection of both body and connection at the same time, and then, when attempting to reach the fourth rank, I¡¯ve enter a state of semi-unconsciousness which allowed me to breakthrough in both stages at the same time."

    "What the hell is happening?!" Said the shocked Alis "Did you just give away one of the most important informations in history!? What is wrong with you?"

    "Big deal, three kingdoms are already aware of the method.. And sooner orter the news will spread. The faster another cultivator capable to aplish the double path of cultivation appears, the less people I¡¯ll have on my tail." Daniel said with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The group was unsure of how to react at this point. They didn¡¯t know if they should feel happy about learning one of the most valuable informations in the entire history of cultivation, or if they should curse the fact that they hadn¡¯t heard it sooner.

    The reason for their conflicting feelings, was the fact that they would never be able to aplish what Daniel described, as they had already reached the fourth stage of martial cultivation. The only one who still had a chance at doing that, was Roley.

    Four hour passed before the group managed to finish going through every single spatial container. Heimart stood in front of the piles of coins and manuals and said "874 arts belonging to the martial path, and 167 arts belonging to the spiritual path, a few tens of thousands of decent weapons, and finally.. about five million of gold coins. I suggest we get half a million each, and the rest goes into renovating the castle. We can sell the rest of the items.."

    Daniel looked at the rest and said "Hold on, we should keep the books. There is an enormous empty library in the west wing of the castle."

    "Alright" Said Heimart "Selling other school¡¯s and sect¡¯s private arts is a risky business anyway."

    "About a map.. What would you think about going to the Krehan empire¡¯s capital, and find a cartographer? I know that there is a group there that deals with mapping the territory around the empire." Said Alis to Daniel.

    Daniel had heard about empires before, but from what he knew, the closest empire to Karalis was hundreds of thousand of kilometers away, and its name definitely wasn¡¯t Krehan. "I have no problems with your suggestion." he said with a slightly enthusiastic tone.

    "Very well, they also have the biggest auction houses.. I am sure we will find one where we can sell all these weapons" Alis added.

    The rest of the group rapidly agreed on visiting the Krehan empire. They all knew the directions of their hometowns, and at their stage of cultivation, a few more thousand kilometers weren¡¯t a big problem.

    Ligart intervened in the discussion to say "Aren¡¯t you forgetting something?.. We are soaring the skies.. in a flying castle.."

    A flying castle wasn¡¯t an overall impossible thing to see in this world, as it simply required a formation, and a spiritual cultivator with a profoundprehension of wind essence to be created.

    Unfortunately, this area didn¡¯t house cultivators of such mastery. The Clear Mage was an exception, and that was one of the reasons for his fame.

    Approaching an empire¡¯s capital with a flying castle would certainly be seen as a provocation to the emperor. So the group had no choice but to decided to leave the castle somewhere far away from the city, ande back for it after they finished with their businesses.

    -----

    The group spent the next two months practicing their martial arts, training their weapon wielding abilities in the training room, and cleaning the rest of the castle.

    They couldn¡¯t get used to eating and living on items covered in dried blood, so they stopped more than once on their way to the Krehan empire to purchase furniture and redecorate the castle.

    This was something that Alis was strangely good at, as being part of an ancient family, she was used to living in a refined and ssy house. She had developed a good eye for high ss furniture.

    In this past two months, Daniel had practiced many times inside the weapon wielding training room, and had reached an astonishing level of proficiency in many different weapons. Amongst which were various types of swords, greatswords and polearms.

    His cultivation had momentarily slowed down when he finished consuming thest of the rank 4 beast cores his teachers had given him.

    He was currently sitting on an elegant chair inside his room, and observing the opened window within his mind.

    -----

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 15

    Rank

    - Late rank 5 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Late rank 5 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 87,790

    -----

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    -----

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.4

    Reduced Cost Lv.4

    Second Chance Lv.1

    Karma X Luck

    System Upgrades (Details)

    -----

    Daniel still couldn¡¯t believe how fast his karmic system helped him to grow in power. Less than four months had passed since he had activated it, and he had already reached a level of cultivation that only an ordinary middle aged man should possess.

    Of course, he would never mention to anyone that he had only started to practice less than half a month ago, or people would be suspicious.

    As he was now, he could still pass for a genius amongst geniuses, as his talent in cultivation would still be considered near impossible to see, but not as unrealistic as the truth.

    The rest of the group was not far behind. Thanks to the significant amount of money they had obtained, they were able to purchase all the cultivation resources they needed.

    Unfortunately for Daniel, none of the few cities they had stopped at, had rank 5 beast cores to sell. And even if they did, he would stop cultivating in order to avoid reaching a stage considered impossible for his age.

    Roley had been the member of the group that had made the least amount of progress. He didn¡¯t have a special room for spiritual cultivators to learn and practice magic arts into, so he could only ask Daniel for help.

    Daniel had helped him more than once in the past couple of weeks, and had even studied the method to create essence spheres so that Roley could increase hisprehension on the essences Daniel was best at. Specifically lightning, water and wind.

    His help was much appreciated, but unfortunately, didn¡¯t bear much fruit. Roley wasn¡¯t talented inprehending arts, and the process of making essence spheres required specific steps which Daniel was unaware of. The only progress Roley managed to make, was in his cultivation level.

    In two months, he had gone from peak rank 3 tote rank 4. The rest, aside from Imblen who was at the peak of the fourth rank, had just entered the fifth rank.

 Chapter 63 Things Are Not Always as They Appear

    It took more than one week for Daniel and the rest of the group to reach the borders of the Krehan empire.

    Signaling the border, was a small city called Jeah.

    In order to avoid their castle from being spotted in mid air while crossing the border, the group had no other choice but to hide it into a deepke situated only twenty kilometers away from the city.

    They then traveled the rest of the road on foot.

    When Daniel and the rest approached the city of Jeah, they noticed various columns of grey smoke rise from it, and merge into arge cloud of smoke.

    After a moment of hesitation, the seven of them proceeded towards the city.

    Screaming noises, along with sounds of shing metal weapons, resounded in the air, bing louder the more they came close to the city walls. The guards that were supposed to guard the gates lied unmoving on the ground instead, and their bodies were covered in shocking wounds.

    On the ground, along with a dozen dead city guards, was a strange looking corpse.

    Daniel had never seen a body like it.

    The body had a humanoid shape, and was muscr and tough looking. Its skin was dark red, as if covered in dried blood. One of the ears on the sides of the head had been cut off, and it didn¡¯t appear to have been done recently, as the wound had long cicatrized. The mouth didn¡¯t appear to be different than that of a normal human with thin lips, but between the two opened lips, a set of pointy and sharp teeth could be seen. The eye color of this humanoid was bright yellow and his nose was quiterge.

    "An Asum.." Said Heimart in a low and unsurprised voice.

    Daniel turned towards him and asked "Do you know what that thing is??"

    "Yeah.. You don¡¯t?" Asked Heimart curiously. Then, after recalling that Daniel wasn¡¯t from this area, he continued "The asums are one of the humanoid races that live in this continent. They are divided into tribes, which inhabit the territory immediately west from the Krehan Empire. They are generally hostile in nature, and their primary way of obtaining resources is to raid the cities ced in their borders."

    Daniel had never heard of Asums, or any other type of humanoid races, but he understood what the informations Heimart had given to him meant. "The city is being raided.." Daniel muttered in a low voice.

    "Definitely. We should leave before we get spotted." Said Heimart with a hint of urgency in his voice.

    "Shouldn¡¯t we lend a help?" Asked Daniel as he heard Heimart¡¯s words.

    Heimart shook his head and said "There is no point. These small cities at the borders are only inhabited by ves, bureaucrats and small level guards. I don¡¯t think they can stand a chance against an Asum¡¯s raiding party.. If we join in the defence, we will likely end up fighting for the losing side."

    The group was about to leave, when suddenly, a partyposed of ninerge asum warriors appeared from behind one side of the gate. Some of them held long poles in their hands, on which several severed heads had been impaled, while the others were dragging chained humans andrge sacks.

    Daniel¡¯s group was immediately spotted by the party, and before they could attempt to turn around and leave, they heards a few iprehensible wordsing from the party of warriors.

    "Kur lja prie vje tshe!.. Gurr huia.." Said one of the asum warriors with a deep and hoarse voice. The nine of them immediately let go of what they were holding, and unsheathed the des they carried on their backs.

    "Does any of you know what that one said?" Asked Daniel curiously.

    Imblen¡¯s voice came from behind him and said "Just know that, before unsheathing their weapons, they called us ¡¯fresh meat¡¯.."

    The nine warriors were only a small part of the raiding party. Their martial cultivation level wasn¡¯t high, as their entire job was to kill unranked humans, and pige the city while the strongest members of the party would held the city¡¯s highest ranking human cultivators back.

    Their average cultivation level was at thete fourth rank, with only two at the early fifth rank.

    Unfortunately for them, they had appeared at the wrong moment and picked on the wrong people.

    A sword suddenly appeared in Daniel¡¯s hand, and before any of the asum warriors could react, Daniel disappeared from the spot he was standing on.

    When he re appeared, he was in the middle of the group of asum warriors. His sword had already separated one of the warrior¡¯s heads from the rest of his body, and without stopping, it approached a second warrior.

    The group quickly came out of their shocked state, and those who were standing behind Daniel immediately tried to sh at his back.. but before their des could reach Daniel, two small lightning bolts came out of his back and struck the two warriors dead.

    The shing motion of Daniel¡¯s sword was interrupted when the de got stuck into the second warrior¡¯s spine. Daniel gave up on the sword, and while turning around, he threw two knives which sunk deeply into the skulls of two more warriors.

    Scared out of their wits, the remaining three started to run away, but before they could go far, various small spikes rose from under their feet and nailed them to the ground.

    Panicked and in pain, the three tried to free themselves. The very next moment, a horizontal bright light blue colored line passed through their bodies, splitting them into two parts.

    The entire scene had happened in less than ten seconds.

    Without a single drop of blood staining his clothes, Daniel walked amongst the corpses of the nine warriors and freed the chained humans.

    "Please.. Please help our city.. They are killing the kids and the elderly.." Said a woman in her mid thirties amongst them.

    Unwilling to leave things as they were, Daniel turned to look at Heimart.

    Heimart immediately understood Daniel¡¯s intentions. After thinking for a minute, with a resigned expression he said "Fine.. Asum raiding parties usually areposed of cultivators below the sixth rank. If there are any at the sixth rank or above, they will be distracting the miningpanies guards, highest ranking military, and finally, the city lord. As long as we avoidrge parties, we shouldn¡¯t be in any danger."

    Satisfied by Heimart¡¯s response, Daniel lead the group into the city with a faint smile on his face.

    Under the guide of one of the people they had rescued, Daniel and the rest roamed within the small city, killing off any small party of raiders they found.

    -----

    Just two hours after their arrival, night enshrouded the city in a darkness in which only the faint lights of the fires were allowed to dance into.

    Sounds of fighting could be heard all around the city, followed by screams and begs.

    Daniel and the rest had just finished exterminating a rtively big group of warriors, when suddenly, they heard deafening sounds of metal shing against metaling from somewhere nearby.

    While Alis and the rest apanied a few survivors to safety through the path they had cleaned, Daniel approached the area where the fight was taking ce.

    After he turned to thest corner, what appeared in front of his eyes surprised him greatly.

    A teenager boy was wielding a de simr to those the asum warriors carried, and using it to fend off the attacks of at least thirty warriors by himself.

    This teenager boy had an athletic build, and his muscles were very well defined. His figure was extremely simr to Daniel¡¯s, except for the fact that Daniel was a little shorter due to the younger age. His hair were of a golden blonde color, which he kept to a semi-short length. His in and tattered clothes were inplete contrast with his proud and cold demeanor showed by his expression.

    Daniel could see his cultivation rank clearly. He was a peak rank 5 martial cultivator, which was an impressive feat for a kid which looked to be no older than eighteen.

    Above this young man¡¯s head, Daniel could see a red 429, which indicated his bad karma.

    What left Daniel confused, was the small group of children crouched behind the man. They were hugging each other and crying loudly.

    One after another, the young man deflected all of therge group¡¯s attacks, and in time, he even managed to kill a few of them. His expression grew increasingly more tired the more he fought.

    After a couple more minutes of fighting, a loud voice resounded in the air.

    "Tra sje yea nunghe tria Phjor!.."

    As the warriors heard this voice, they immediately stopped fighting. The blonde young man wasn¡¯t an exception. They then split into two groups to form a path for the voice¡¯s owner to pass through.

    Daniel turned to look at the source of the voice, and what he saw, was an extremelyrge asum warrior, which held a massive de on each of his hand.

    The young man looked back at him, and said in a proud tone "Tu nin vje sid phjor.. Krirj tu nin stah yea!"

    Therge asum warrior¡¯s face twisted in anger. He pointed his two des at the young man, and then rushed at him.

    From the outburst in speed, Daniel could see that therge asum warrior was at least an early sixth rank martial cultivator.

    Once the two started to engage in battle, the young man immediately found himself on the losing end. Thankfully, his agility helped him avoid most of his opponent¡¯s attacks.

    The rest of the warriors didn¡¯t join the battle, and instead, stayed away from the two and approached the group of children.

    The moment the warriors started to walk towards the children, the blonde young man turned his attention away from therge warrior, and shed at the back of one of the warriors.

    His action costed him a bloody injury on his back, as therge warrior showed no mercy and attacked the very moment the young man¡¯s attention moved away from him.

    There was no way for the young man to protect the children alone, and yet, he acquired injury after injury by the hands of therger warrior, each while trying to defend the kids from the group of warriors.

    Learning from their previous mistakes, the remaining warriors approached the kids from another side, preventing the young man from supporting them.

    Once the warriors arrived next to the group of crying children, they all lifted their hands, and just as they were about to sh downwards.. They noticed arge pool of water form from out of nowhere, and expand at their feet.

    Before they could even guess the possibility of an enemy attack, the water started to crawl over their bodies, and slowly sunk into the pores of their skin. It then cooled down at an extremely fast rate.

    The cold water pushed through their blood vessels, joined their bloodstream and, after reaching their heart, solidified it into a frozen state.

    Only five fifth rank warriors had survived the attack by creating a ki shield right underneath their skin, and preventing the water from sinking deeper into their bodies.

    The remaining five warriors turned around, and looked for the attacker. What they found, was a young man with his back pressed on a building, as if he was resting.

    Therge warrior and the young man noticed Daniel as well.

    With an enraged tone, therge man looked at the remaining five warriors and shouted "STAH-HIE!"

    After hearing therge asum¡¯s words, the five ignored the crying children and immediately rushed at Daniel.

    Just in time, the rest of Daniel¡¯s group had returned from apanying the survivors to a safe zone in the city.

    They immediately engaged against the five warriors, and in about a two minutes, thanks to their advantage in number, they took care of the five.

    Ligart noticed the ongoing battle between the blonde young man and therge asum warrior. He then looked at Daniel and said "Aren¡¯t we going to help him..?"

    Daniel didn¡¯t respond, and instead, looked at the young man carefully.

    It had been the first time he had seen someone with a red name do something good, so he wasn¡¯t exactly sure on how to proceed.

 Chapter 64 A Warrior Worth Serving

    For the next few minutes, Daniel and the rest of his group observed the fight between the blond young man, and therge asum warrior.

    Because of the few injuries he had obtained when defending the children, the young man had gradually lost blood and be weaker. It had reached a point where he was only barely able to avoid the warrior¡¯s attacks.

    Daniel quietly approached the group of kids and tried to talk to them. He got down on his knees and looked at the only one of them who was watching the fight, a little girl with ponytails which seemed to be six or seven years old.

    "Little girl.. Do you know that guy?" Asked Daniel while indicating the blond young man.

    The scared little girl looked back at Daniel "He was with them.." she said while looking at the various corpses on the ground.

    "Then why is he fighting that asum warrior?" He asked back with a confused tone.

    Therge eyes of the little girl started to water as she said "They were going to attack us.. But the blond big brother turned against them and defended us.."

    With a clear idea of what had happened, Daniel approached Imblen and said "Can you tell me what ¡¯Tu nin vje sid phior.. Krirj tu nin stah yea!¡¯ means?"

    Imblen looked curiously at Daniel and said "It¡¯s phjor, and it means ¡¯I will have no master after I will kill you¡¯." she then looked at the blond young man and said "Did he say it?"

    Daniel nodded in confirmation.

    "He is the Jer Krigh.." She said with a shocked face.

    Imblen¡¯s words made the heads of the rest of the group turn towards her in unison. Not a single one of them less shocked than Imblen was.

    "What is a Jer Krigh?" Asked Daniel curiously

    Imblen looked at Daniel and said "The Dirt Warrior." she then took a slight pause before continuing "A Dirt Warrior is a ve who earned the right to be a warrior and to cultivate."

    "Earned the right how exactly?" Asked Daniel.

    "It¡¯s basically apetition amongst Asum warriors.. Each high ranking warrior captures a single infant to bring back home from a sessful raid campaign.. They then train them until they reach the age of ten. Once reached the tenth year of age, they get thrown into an arena, and the one who survives, obtains the title of Jer Krigh.. To symbolize a warrior that came from dirt." Exined Imblen patiently.

    Now aware of the reason for the young man¡¯s bad karma, Daniel looked at imblen and said "What do you think is happening here?"

    "Jer Krigh are warriors, but still ves. It is possible that the guy rebelled to his master to protect those children.." Promptly responded Imblen. Daniel had learned before that, amongst the group, Imblen was the one whose house was the closest to the asum¡¯s territory. In fact, her city was attacked by asum¡¯s raiding parties more than once before. Luckily, her city had very powerful warriors and mages which made every attempt of raiding it aplete failure.

    A doubt started to form in Daniel¡¯s mind as he asked her "Couldn¡¯t he be trying to kill his master to earn his freedom?"

    Before Daniel could ponder on this theory, Imblen quickly refuted it by saying "Definitely not. It¡¯s impossible for an asum¡¯s ve to regain his or her freedom. They are considered spoil of war, they would be willing to free one of their ves just like they would be willing to go back to the city they piged, and give back the money they stole"

    As Daniel and Imblen discussed the young man¡¯s motives, the battle amongst him and therge asum warrior was about toe to an end.

    His body was covered in cuts and blood, and he was now barely able to avoid the attacks. A heavy punch to the chest finally brought him to the ground, and it didn¡¯t seem like he would be able to get back up anytime soon.

    Therge asum warrior started tough at him, as the only injury he had received was a shallow cut on his forearm. He then slowly walked towards the blonde young man and said "Ni dra yea stjom.. He he he"

    "As dirt you die.." Said Imblen with a feeble voice.

    *piing piing*

    The sound of two throwing knives suddenly hitting the two asum warrior¡¯s des could be heard resound in the air.

    Once Daniel had heard Imblen¡¯s words, without thinking, he had thrown the knives to attract the warrior¡¯s attention.

    Luckily, it worked.

    The asum warrior turned towards him while still holding his two enormous des.

    Daniel was standing at the head of his group. He looked directly looked at the yellow eyes of the asum warriors, and before saying anything, a second sword appeared in his free hand.

    Arge smile grew on the asum warrior¡¯s face. He then started to walk towards him.

    While the two walked towards each other, Ligart looked at Alis and Heimart and said "Shouldn¡¯t we help?"

    Just as the two were about to agree with him, Imblen stopped them and said "Wait.. Let¡¯s see if he can make it on his own first.. Because if he can.." she then let the sentence die in her mouth.

    One of the skills Daniel had practiced during the past couple of months, was ¡¯Dual Sword Wielding¡¯. So he decided to test his proficiency in a battle against a dual de wielder.

    The two carefully looked at each other.

    To the asum warrior, Daniel looked like a fourteen years old rank 4 martial cultivator. But from the strength he had felt from the throwing knives, he knew that his cultivation was much higher than that.

    As the current owner of the Jer Krigh, the least that could be said about this asum warrior, was that he was great at recognizing talents. After all, it was his ve that at ten years old had reached thete third rank and had won the right to be the Jer Krigh.

    At the same time, he looked at Daniel as seriously as he would have looked at his ve if he hadn¡¯t been tired and injured from the previous fights.

    The edges of the warrior¡¯s des suddenly lit of a light yellow color, as he prepared himself for battle. The same happened to Daniel¡¯s swords when a pale blue light shone on their edges and prolonged the de¡¯s length.

    Daniel moved first, throwing himself at the asum warrior and making their weapons sh violently.

    *Cliiing*

    The asum warrior confirmed Daniel¡¯s battle prowess at this very moment. He now knew that, not only was Daniel ate fifth rank, but he also possessed a perfect body.

    He couldn¡¯t help but think that, had he taken this young man at his infant stage instead of the blond young man, he could have been the prideful owner of the most powerful Jer Krigh in history.

    He was more than aware of what it took for someone to achieve a perfect body, as for the asum race, a perfect body was much more important than it was for humans.

    The asum warrior immediately pushed Daniel away, and as the two weapons separated, he shed with his de in the attempt of cut Daniel in half.

    Daniel promptly avoided the attack, and at the same time, summoned twenty tiny wind des that roamed in the air around the asum warrior, and attacked him from all sides.

    The wind des were invisible, and only a spiritual cultivator or a high ranking martial cultivator could notice them.

    Unfortunately, just as Daniel had guessed when he observed the fight between him and the blond young man, the asum warrior was at the sixth rank of martial cultivation, and therefore, he was able to see the wind des thanks to his surrounding awareness.

    The asum warrior felt immediately disappointed about the fact that his adversary would allow a spiritual cultivator to aid him in a one on one battle. But after a few more exchanges, he started to feel that something was amiss.

    The wind des and Daniel¡¯s movements were too well synchronized.. A spiritual cultivator¡¯s reactions would be a lot slower than a martial cultivator.

    A spiritual cultivator would oppress a martial cultivator not only by attacking him from the distance, but also overwhelming him with many instantaneous attacks.

    The appearance of a hundred stone spikes was much more usible than twenty singrly controlled wind des. A spiritual cultivator shouldn¡¯t have the reflexes to be able to do that.

    For two long minutes Daniel attacked, avoided, and disappeared from the warriors sight just to reappear behind his back, sending one or more attacks. At the same time, whenever the asum warrior would be forced to protect himself from Daniel¡¯s attacks, a wind de would open a shallow gash on his body.

    Utterly confused, the asum warrior couldn¡¯t help but be enraged and act rashly. After losing arge amount of blood due to the many cuts all over his body, the asum warrior entered a crazed state and went into the offensive.

    One sh after the other, Daniel was forced to avoid or parry.

    One particrly strong attack forced him to lose his bnce and take a step back. At that point, the asum warrior dropped one of his des and grabbed Daniel¡¯s wrist.

    His intention was to cut Daniel¡¯s arm right off, but the moment he touched Daniel¡¯s body and felt the powerful spiritual essence within, a shocked expression grew on his face.

    He immediately let go of Daniel, and while looking at him with stupor, he said "Yea thu shia mjelgi napatfir!!" After he finished talking, a sudden realization filled his mind, changing his face from one of shock, into one of urgency.

    After picking up his de, he turned around and tried to leave, but before he could do that, tens of ice spikes charged with electricity attacked him from ten different directions.

    He was more than prepared for the attack, but as he was about to deflect thest of these electrified spikes, the spike disappeared, leaving a path for a fire ball to explode in his face, blinding him momentarily.

    Taken by surprise, two newly formed ice spikes pierced right into his shoulders.

    The asum warrior, nowying on the ground and on the brink of death, took something out of the spatial bag that hung from his waist.

    A small bead rolled on the stone ground as therge asum warrior lifted his arm in an attempt to smash it. But and as he was about to let his arm plummet on the ground, a guillotine-like de cut his right arm clean off his shoulder.

    The asum warrior looked at Daniel hatefully onest time, before a lightning fast sh cut halfway through his neck, killing him.

    Daniel picked up the spatial bag and put the small bead back into it. He then walked towards the children with the intent of taking them to safety.

    Once again, he kneeled before the group of crying children, but as he was about to say something reassuring to them, he felt the blond young man approach from behind.

    He rose back to his feet and turned to look at the young man. His demeanor was as prideful as it was before, but now he looked significantly weakened.

    The blond young man had observed the scene carefully. After the death of his master by the hand of a person younger than he was, he approached him and said "J krigh nieba phinnua.." He then kneeled politely in front of him.

    Imblen and the rest had approached just in time to hear the young man¡¯s words.

    They all looked at Daniel with bright smiles on their faces.

    Daniel looked at Imblen and asked "What did he say?"

    "He said that you are ¡¯A warrior worth serving¡¯.. That means that he recognizes you as his.. I wouldn¡¯t say master.. More like a savior to whom he owes an eternal debt." She said cheerfully.

    Daniel looked back at the blond young man with dubious eyes.

    Noticing Daniel¡¯s expression, the young man said "Warrior.. Serve.."

 Chapter 65 With Luck, Rarity Is Relative

    "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Asked Daniel while looking at Imblen.

    Imblen couldn¡¯t help but giggle in response to Daniel¡¯s words. Only after a good minute was she able to regain herposure and exin "It¡¯s an Asum tradition. A warrior who saves their lives in battle, will be a ¡¯warrior worth serving¡¯.. Now, ¡¯serving¡¯ might be a little bit of a stretch. It¡¯s not a master and ve, or owner and servant rtionship. He simply respects you as a warrior and owes you his life, so he will fight for you."

    Of course, Imblen was more than aware of the possibility of this happening. That was the reason why she had prevented the others from helping Daniel out during his one on one fight with the asum warrior.

    Slightly annoyed, Daniel asked "Is it possible to refuse?"

    "You wouldn¡¯t deprive a warrior of the possibility of repaying such a debt, would you?" Imblen asked back.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but sigh and ept the situation. He then said "You will have to teach me the asumnguage.."

    Surprisingly, the very next moment a book appeared in Imblen¡¯s hands.

    Daniel took the book off of Imblen¡¯s hands and put it into his spatial ring. He then walked towards the children, and after calming them down, he and the rest of the group lead them to safety.

    Only then did Daniel look back at the blond young man, and noticed that the red number had decreased by more than two hundred points.

    -----

    After a night spent roaming the streets and killing off dozens of raiding parties through the city, the sun rose once more in the sky.

    It was now early in the morning, and the fighting noises had greatly reduced all around the city.

    People had started toe out of their hiding, as most of the raiders seemed to have been killed. Thanks to Daniel¡¯s group support, the city guard had managed to gain the upper hand in the war that took ce in the streets.

    With less to worry about, the high ranking warriors within the city were finally able to focus on their respective fights. Most of which ended in draws, and forced the invading party to retreat from the city.

    Despite the early hour, the city was extremely active. Thousands of people worked tirelessly to rescue those stuck underneath the debris of the copsed houses, or tried to put the many fires out.

    At almost every street corner, two guards and a city worker would coordinate the citizen¡¯s effort to rescue and repair the damage caused by the asum warriors.

    Daniel and the rest were now resting and eating at a inn.

    One of the people they had saved that night was this inn¡¯s owner, so they had been granted free lodging for as long as they wanted.

    During the night, Daniel had learned that the blond young man had no name. ording to Imblen, a Dirt Warrior¡¯s title was his name, and he would never be able to earn one for the entire duration of his life.

    Of course, Daniel was inplete disagreement with this rule, but since he didn¡¯t know him long enough to try to argue against his belief, he decided to drop the subject for the moment.

    It took Daniel only a few hours to perfectly learn the asum warrior¡¯snguage, and be capable of speaking to the blonde young man without Imblen¡¯s help.

    Thanks to the night spent killing asum warriors, the young man¡¯s karma had decreased to a slightly red 25.

    Various high ranking cultivators came to visit the group during the day, including the city lord. They came to thank them for their support in time of crisis, and deliver small gifts of appreciation.

    After an entire day spent by meeting powerful warriors andpanies representatives, Daniel and the rest left the city and proceeded on their travel towards the empire¡¯s capital.

    -----

    Two additional weeks passed before Daniel and the rest were finally able to reach the next city.

    This city was extremelyrge. Possiblyrger than all the other cities Daniel had seenbined.

    When they approached the immense city walls, he noticed that even the guards at the gates had a cultivation of at least the fifth rank.

    They stood quietly near the enormous gate and controlled the impressive flux of merchants and carriages that tried to enter the city.

    What surprised Daniel the most, was how often a rich looking merchant would be denied entry, and forced to step aside to allow the guards to inspect their inventory.

    Their turn arrived only after two long hours of waiting. Fortunately, aside from a few weird looks directed at the blond young man, the guards found no good reason to deny entry to them and simply allowed them in.

    When they entered the city, a badly dressed bunch of kids approached the group and assaulted them with questions.

    "Wee to Drester! Will sir be needing a tour of the city?"

    "Guide service for the kind sir, only one silver per day."

    "Best tour guide in Drester! only.."

    Daniel immediately noticed how some of these kids were doing the same kind of games to train manual dexterity that he used to y when he was their age.

    They weren¡¯t simple tour guides.. They were pickpockets.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile, and look for the most badly dressed amongst them to hire.

    At the back of the group, was a ck haired ten year old girl dressed in tattered clothes. By her side, was an even younger boy which she held by his small hand.

    This young girl didn¡¯t seem to be a pickpocket. She looked more like a beggar who had recently decided to attempt to be a tour guide.

    She was shy and didn¡¯t talk. The only thing she did, was to stand in the crowd and brush the back of the little boy¡¯s hand with her small thumb.

    Daniel approached the little girl and said "Are you a tour guide?"

    "Y-yes sir.. I know the hotels in the area and.." She said with a shy expression. She clearly wasn¡¯t used to being a tour guide, causing the sudden interaction with an unknown person to make her blush uncontrobly.

    Before she could finish, Daniel interrupted her by saying "Great! I was really eager to find a room to stay in. Let¡¯s go."

    The little girl immediately nodded back at him, and started the tour she had prepared.

    -----

    Despite the impressive number of people walking around, the streets wererge enough to prevent them from creating a human blockade.

    Daniel and the rest strolled the city while observing the lively scenery.

    In the twenty minutes they had followed the little girl, they had seen dozens of hotels and at least ten marketces. The little girl¡¯s preparation had left Daniel impressed.

    She had clearly prepared a very efficient route to guide her customers in. The only problem, was the little boy.. which because of his young ager, had some difficulties in keeping up with his sister¡¯s pace.

    It was only half an hourter that the group had decided to take a pause for the sole purpose of letting the young boy rest. In order to avoid making the little girl worry, they had pretended to be interested in visiting one of the shops in her route.

    When they were about to resume their travel, Imblen approached the little girl with a gentle smile, and asked her if she could carry her little brother herself.

    The little girl looked very scared at first, but after hearing the gentle tone of the teenage girl and noticing the tired state her little brother was in, she epted.

    The group resumed their tour which now proceeded at a faster speed.

    A few minutes after resuming their tour, Daniel and the group found themselves in the borders of arge square.

    This sq uare was tightly packed with people which crowded around a small arena. In this arena, a shop had been set by an odd-looking middle aged man.

    What ssified this man¡¯s appearance as odd, was the fact that he looked like a beggar. His dirty and greasy hair were unkept, and his face was covered by a thick beard. His clothes were of high quality, but they had been worn so much that they had lost their original luster.

    Despite the crude appearance, he was sitting behind a very elegant stall, on which arge amount of rings and jewels were being neatly exposed one next to the other.

    The man¡¯s stall upied the middle of the square, and yet nobody dared toin or yell at him. Instead, they quietly observed from afar or approached the stall politely.

    Daniel and the rest of the group wouldn¡¯t be able to know who that middle aged man was, but for spiritual cultivators capable of sensing the surrounding essence, it would be extremely clear that each of the exposed items were spatial containers.

    From the politeness Daniel could seeing from the surrounding crowd behaviour, he guessed that that man was the creator of those items, and therefore, a spiritual cultivator which hadprehended spatial essence.

    Spatial essence was one of the hardest essences toprehend, and the reason for that was simple. Space, like sound and time, were omnipresent.

    People were born into a world of space, time and sound.

    They were born and lived inside space, their lives were dominated by time, and theymunicated through sound.

    Being these three essences integral part of being a human, humans had never had the ability to feel them to begin with. Unlike other kinds of essences to which humans had to get used to in time.

    The only ones who were able toprehend those three types of essences, were those who had found an anomaly in which they were particrly strong, or hadprehended them from an essence sphere created by another spiritual cultivator.

    Needless to say, each of these cultivators were highly valued by the kingdom or empire in which they resided in.

    Seeing howrge the crowd around this stall was, Daniel could guess that this middle aged man was nomon spatial enchanter. So he decided to stop at the square, and take a look at the rings the man was selling.

    The moment he joined the line, his luck kicked in and people started to leave one after the other.

    "This Karma X Luck is amazing.." Thought Daniel as he watched the noticeable effects of his most expensive system skill yet.

    In just a moment, the time they needed to wait in line was halved.

    Of course, luck could only do so much. It couldn¡¯t exactly force people to work in Daniel¡¯s favor, but it could make slight changes.

    For example, the reason why half of the people in line had left, was because at the head of the line, the first customer had shouted "What do you mean by pass on your knowledge? Why can¡¯t you just sell me one?!"

    Apparently, the middle aged man didn¡¯t put his items for sale. Instead, he was looking for a spiritual cultivator to whom he could pass on his knowledge of spatial essence.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t really sure if this could be attributed to his system¡¯s passive skill, but he was definitely not going to let this chance go. He was either going to leave with a good spatial ring, or even better, aprehension of spatial essence.

    Despite the extremely high offers the middle aged man received, people were rejected one after the other.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel¡¯s turn to arrive.

    With a serious look on his face, Daniel approached the stall and said to the man "Can I take a look at one of those rings?"

    The middle aged man looked back at him and said "If you want to buy one, then just leave"

    "I want to check if you have what it takes to teach me something about spatial essence." Said Daniel with a casual tone.

    In front of the shocked looks of the surrounding crowd, the middle aged man didn¡¯t get offended and instead said while grinning "Suit yourself then.."

 Chapter 66 Its Only Spatial Essence

    Daniel¡¯s wisp of consciousness was now standing in the middle of an empty space.

    He had just started to examine one of the many rings and jewels that the middle aged man was disying, and yet he had already been greatly surprised.

    What surprised him wasn¡¯t the immense space inside it, as all the spatial containers that Daniel had seen contained a rtivelyrge space already. What surprised Daniel about the ring he was currently in, was how different the space in it felt from other spatial containers.

    The space was hundreds of times more stable than that of any other ring he had found. It didn¡¯t feel like arge and feeble box adrift in space. Instead, it felt like a stable different dimension.

    Simply by standing inside the ring, Daniel was convinced that he would be able to reach a faintprehension of spatial essence if he wanted.

    He quickly withdrew his ki and found himself back in front of the middle aged man.

    "So, what do you say?" Asked the man, with a grin still present on his face.

    Daniel looked at the middle aged man with a surprised expression and asked "These aren¡¯t spatial containers.."

    "They are not. They are called pocket dimensions and you can store anything inside it.. Even people. Of course, you¡¯d need to create an appropriate atmosphere so that anything can survive inside.." Responded the middle aged man.

    That wasn¡¯t the first pocket dimension Daniel had seen. In fact, he had been carrying one for a very long while.

    The difference between these rings and the greenhouse ring that the old alchemist had given to him, was that space wasn¡¯t a majorponent of thetter. It could still house people within, but the space was much more unstable, and barely adequate for nts to grow in.

    At the moment, Daniel couldn¡¯t figure out what the middle aged man¡¯s motives could be.

    He had checked the man¡¯s karma more than once, but unfortunately, that hadn¡¯t been as helpful as it had always been in the past.

    Since when Daniel had met the blond young man, he had learned something very important about his karmic system¡¯s ability to read other people¡¯s karma.

    That something was that he shouldn¡¯t judge someone solely based on their karma points. What he should judge instead, should be the circumstances and actions of a person.

    What karma indicated was simply a person¡¯s disposition to pick the wrong path, but even that could be forged. For example, a good person could be forced to do something evil, or a bad person could do good things for the sake of appearance.

    Daniel felt very lucky for having met with one of those cases amongst people with bad karma and not the other way around. Had he found a bad person who had taken the habit of doing good things for the sole purpose of keeping up the appearances, he might have been cheated by now.. or worse.

    Of course, the system was not perfect. There was also another bane to Daniel¡¯s unique ability.. And that was people with rtively neutral karma.

    Daniel used to specte that these people were simply shut ins who focused on their cultivation and training. Therefore, he was never able to make out their intentions solely by looking at their karma.

    The middle aged man, unfortunately, was one of those people. Above his head a red number 10 floated steadily.

    "What do you want?" Inquired Daniel in a doubtful tone.

    With curiosity in his eyes, the middle aged man looked back at Daniel and said "Nothing."

    "Okay.. What do you want me to do then." Asked Daniel, sure that there was more hidden behind the man¡¯s simple response.

    The middle aged man grinned at him and said "I am looking for a disciple. If you will be able to obtain a high enoughprehension of spatial essence, I¡¯ll take you with me to a gathering, and give you a ring as a reward."

    "What sort of gathering?" Asked Daniel with undeniable interest.

    Unable to hide the smile behind his dirty look, the middle aged man responded "A gathering of experts, of course."

    Daniel looked back at the rest of his group and said "What do you guy think?"

    The first one to respond was Roley, the only other spiritual cultivator in the group "What is there to think? Do you know how rare it is to find a teacher for spatial essence??" his tone was agitated, as if worried that Daniel would refuse.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes moved on the others.

    "It sounds shady.. But if he is telling the truth, then it might be worth it.. Any of these spatial rings could store the.. You know.." Said Heimart with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The blond young man was currently looking around, clearly ufortable with the strange looks the people in the crowd were sending him, and yet fascinated by the liveliness of the big human city.

    "I need critical thinking.." muttered Daniel impatiently.

    "Nobody showed discontent at him for cing his stall right in the middle of the square.. That indicates that he is a known figure. He also didn¡¯t approach you secretly, and made his offer out in the open instead.." Said Alis before taking a slight pause. She then continued "..finally, it is not umon for such an urrence to happen with spiritual cultivators of that age. They spend all of their time studying and researching essences, and the only reason they are able to do that, is because they are funded. Let¡¯s say he is being funded by the empire.. He would need to prove that he isn¡¯t a dead investment by showing himself at the various official events along with a capable disciple."

    After a good half minute, Daniel turned back towards the middle aged man and said "If I ept, will I be part of the empire¡¯s return of investment?.."

    "Of course not. I made sure with the empire that whomever i will teach spatial essence to, will have the right to decide if or when to be part of the empire. As long as you don¡¯t decide to be part of the Krehan empire, you will be free to do whatever you want.." Responded the middle aged man.

    The middle aged man¡¯s words made sense. No matter how talented a youth was, it would be worthless without a teacher that could impart something useful to him. That was the reason why the empire had epted the man¡¯s request. As long as they had him, they could find another young and talented spiritual cultivator to pass his spatial essenceprehension to.

    "I ept." Said Daniel, finally convinced by the man¡¯s words.

    The smile on the middle aged man¡¯s face grewrger "Splendid!.. Are they with you?" He then asked while pointing at the rest of the group.

    "Ye-" Before Daniel could finish to respond, he and the rest of the group had been absorbed by space, and teleported into a different ce.

    -----

    Taken by surprise, Daniel and the rest of the group found themselves in an odd ce. They could all feel a slight difference between the world they were in now and the one they were used to, but except for Daniel and Roley, they couldn¡¯t understand what was different about it.

    "Where are we?" Asked Imblen.

    Trying to resist the urge to puke, Roley grabbed his knees and said "Not in the outside world if that¡¯s what you are asking.. Probably inside one of the man¡¯s pocket dimensions."

    "That¡¯s right" Said a voice resounding in the air "This is the pocket dimension i¡¯ve decided to give him if he won¡¯t fail my expectations" The voice belonged to the middle aged man.

    "It is? It¡¯s not the one i would have picked" Asked Daniel with confusion in his voice.

    The man appeared right in front of the group, and while looking at them he said "It¡¯s big enough to keep your castle in, isn¡¯t it?"

    The man¡¯s words petrified the entire group.

    "Oh please.. Do you think I wouldn¡¯t have felt the residue of spatial essence on you?" He asked while looking at Daniel. "How many spiritual cultivators whoprehended spatial essence do you think there are?.. The Clear Mage might have had a deepprehension of many essences, but space wasn¡¯t one of them. Many spiritual cultivators had worked on that formation, and amongst them, was an ancestor of mine."

    "If you knew about the formation, why haven¡¯t you tried to warn people about the dangers of entering the tournament?.. Or even do something about it yourself." Asked Daniel.

    With a slightly mocking tone, the middle aged man responded "Haven¡¯t tried?.. Have you ever tried to tell someone that their hopes and dreans are garbage, and that the entire reason for their sect, or group¡¯s existence is to die inside a faulty trap? Plus, The tournament took ce for two months every decade.. How powerful do you think I was ten or twenty years ago?! I was twenty then.. for crying out loud!"

    "Alright, good point." Said Daniel while raising his hands in surrender. "When will we start?"

    "Right now. We don¡¯t have much time to make you reach a decent level of spatial essenceprehension." Said the man without hesitation. He then indicated at the surroundings, and said "Get out of this space." before disappearing.

    Slightly irritated by the man¡¯s impulsive actions, Daniel was about to start focusing on the spatial essence when Imblen¡¯s voice came from behind him.

    "We might have a little bit of a problem.." She said while still holding the little boy in her arms. The little girl with ck hair was standing next to her as well, holding her leather pants.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but sigh and say "Give them Ligart¡¯s candies.. Keep them happy. It won¡¯t take long.."

    -----

    Two hours had passed since the group had been teleported to the foreign space, and Daniel had spent them sitting and sensing every detail of space he wasn¡¯t used to.

    Atmospheric pressure, gravity,ck of natural essences.. Every one of these details had been a hint that could aid him in hisprehension.

    It was only after the third hour that Daniel had started to feel the feeble connection between the space they were in, and the ring which contained it. Once found the ring, he immediately recognized the space the ring was in, and in front of everyone¡¯s eyes, he disappeared.

    The very moment Daniel disappeared from the space, the middle aged man reappeared. He said with an amused expression "Alright alright, the joke is over. I¡¯m taking you gu-.. Where is the kid?" His expression showed confusion, as if something he couldn¡¯t understand had just happened.

    "I think he left the dimension" Responded Heimart calmly.

    "That¡¯s ridiculous, I have put you all here to show him the difficulties ofprehending space. There is no way he was able to leave in a few hours." He said with a slightly irritated voice. As if someone had tried to refute his expert opinion.

    He was about to leave the pocket dimension, when suddenly, Daniel appeared once again right next to Ligart. The middle aged man was about to say something to him, but before he could, Daniel and Ligart had already disappeared.

    The middle aged man immediately left the pocket dimension, and what he found outside, was a solitary Ligart which stood right in front of him with a face filled with confusion. The very next moment, Daniel appeared outside of the pocket dimension along with the blond young man.

    Alis, Heimart and the rest were taken out one after the other in the span of ten seconds.

    Unable to believe his own eyes, the middle aged man kept staring at Daniel for a few minutes before managing to regain his wits and say "A.. D-damn monster.."

    The idea that Daniel could be an old cultivator had never crossed the middle aged man¡¯s mind, as in his eyes, Daniel looked like a simple young man in his mid teens that had reached the fourth rank.

    His rank certainly showed talent in cultivation, but it was nothing as prodigious as what he had showed by learning how to connect to an external dimension, and leave it in just a couple of hours.

    It had taken the middle aged man more than six months to learn how to do the same thing when he was younger. The only difference was that his teacher had actually left him in there for good, instead of going back for him after only a couple of hours.

    "What¡¯s next?" Asked Daniel teasingly.

 Chapter 67 Stuck Once Again

    "What¡¯s next?" asked Daniel teasingly.

    Slightly irritated by Daniel¡¯s tone, the middle aged man looked back at him and said "Very well.. It seems that your aptitude for spatial essence is nothing tough at. How about something a little more difficult then?"

    Before Daniel could respond, a hundred and twenty-eight different rings appeared from out of nowhere, and started to orbit around the middle aged man.

    From the middle aged man¡¯s body, just as many threads of spiritual essence emerged and joined the rings. Inside the rings, each thread turned into spatial essence of different properties, which once again emerged from the rings and entered another one randomly.

    Daniel could feel the one hundred and twenty-seven spatial connections that were being formed, but before he could memorize them, his surroundings rapidly changed just as many times.

    After so many teleportations, even he couldn¡¯t help but fall on his knees and vomit everything he had eaten during the day. He then dropped unconscious on the ground.

    -----

    When Daniel woke up, the first thing he noticed was that he wasn¡¯t in empty space. Instead, he was lying on arge expanse of rocky ground. No matter where Daniel pushed his spiritual essence, he could not feel anything but earth essence and the unusual space essence.

    After spending a minute focusing on earth essence, within the space essence, he found feeble connections to at least ten different pocket dimensions.

    Without any idea of which passage he should go in, Daniel picked one at random and entered it.

    Once on the other side, Daniel immediately felt the water essence. The water was in an aerosol state, inside which small wisps of sr essence fluctuate randomly. Once again, Daniel could feel multiple exits inside the unusual space, but none lead outside.

    The only thing that put him on a good mood, was a sudden and unexpected window that appeared in his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Freedom for All!*

    Second objectiveplete.

    Reward: 2500 Karma Points

    ____________________________

    "They did free him.." muttered Daniel as a faint smile grew on his face.

    Unfortunately, Daniel didn¡¯t have many reasons to be happy right now. He was still trapped inside this ce and he couldn¡¯t seem to figure out how to leave it.

    Without a better option, Daniel decided to travel between the many pocket dimension and increase hisprehension of space.

    With a serious expression and eyes filled with determination, he jumped straight into another spatial passage.

    -----

    An unknown amount of kilometers away from the Krehan empire, five distinct people were currently sitting in arge and elegant throne room. In front of them, two men were standing quietly, while a third kneeled in between them.

    If Daniel was present, he would be able to immediately recognize the two men standing as his first two teachers. Master Kye, and the Silver Alchemist.

    Kneeling in the middle of the room, was an extremely skinny man. His head was low, and his muscles were so thin that he seemed to have been just taken out of an istion cell. His eyes were closed, as he didn¡¯t seem to be used to so much light anymore. His sickly white skin was almostpletely covered in grime, and he couldn¡¯t help but cough every now and then.

    Sitting to the sides of the room were four people. The first one, was a man who appeared to have reached his early sixties. He wore extremely elegant clothes, and seemed to be a wealthy merchant.

    The second, was an old man whose body was covered under arge coat. If someone could take a look at the old man¡¯s body, they would be shocked by the impressive muscles he was hiding. He had no weapons on him, which indicated his proficiency with martial arts, and hand to handbat. His body was filled to the brim with dense ki.

    On the other side of the room, a man that seemed to be in his forties sat quietly. He held a long and showy sceptre in his hand, and wore a light blue robe. On his robe, the water essence danced quietly as if the very fabric itself was the surface of the sea.

    The fourth person was a young looking woman. She wore a thickyer of make up, making her look not a day older thirty years old. Her body was too well hidden underneath a green robe to verify her age.

    Thest person present in the room, was the one who sat on the throne. He wore a golden te armor, above which the heroic story of how a member of the Ralis royal family had exterminated the old owner of thend, had been carved neatly.

    This man was, of course, the King of Karalis. His name was Kalmew Relis, and he was the 517th member of the Ka lineage. The main lineage within the Ralis family.

    He was currently sitting on his throne, and he didn¡¯t seem to have spent his past few weeks in a carefree way.

    These five people were the current most powerful people, and only ninth rank cultivators within the kingdom of Karalis. The current king, the chairman of Karalis¡¯s branch of the Merchant¡¯s Collective, the leader of the Mist and Ice sect, the previous head of the Klyn family, and finally, the Poisonous Dame.

    "Is this him?" asked the king to Master Kye.

    Master Kye looked back at him and said "Yes your majesty. We have already verified that this man is indeed rted to Dan of the Hiel¡¯s.. What would you suggest we do?"

    The man in elegant clothes immediately rose to his feet and said "Your majesty, he is a ve of the Mining Conglomerate, which belongs to the Merchant¡¯s Collective.. He should be under our care."

    "Like hell he should!" Barked the leader of the Mist and Ice sect viciously. He then pointed the sceptre at the elegant man and said "If we give him to you, you¡¯ll sell him for a pat in the head from one of your superiors.. He stays in Karalis!"

    The Silver Alchemist took a step forward and said "Your majesty.. If i may.. Dan¡¯s sister is almost to the main branch of my Golden Cauldron. Don¡¯t you think it would be better to take his uncle there as well, and let him reunite with his niece?"

    "Silence!" Shouted the leader of the Mist and Ice sect. "You have no right to talk here. Not only have you sent the kid to an unknown ce.. You have also taken his sister into your own group! How is that not treason!?"

    "That was the only choice.. hadn¡¯t we done that, he might have been dismembered within the dungeons of another castle as we speak." Retorted the Silver Alchemist with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Quiet.." Said the king with a deep voice. "The kid¡¯s uncle is here, along with his two teachers.. Unless somebody else finds out about him, there is no reason not to think that he wille back to Karalis."

    Master Kye immediately took a step forwards and said "Your majesty!.. There is something else i would like to discuss." His voice was tense, showing the importance the matter had to him. "I would like to talk about Mea¡¯hor Rulin.."

    "What about her?" Inquired the king with a slightly overbearing voice. He was clearly sick of hearing Master Kye talk about the Rulin family since the very moment he had retired from being the master-at-arms.

    "She was adopted into the Hiel¡¯s family.. I am not sure about the reason, but i know that she is of great importance for the two siblings." Said the Master Kye while slightly bending the truth on his favor.

    "Where is she now?" Asked the king.

    With a slightly nervous tone, Master Kye responded "Together with Dan¡¯s sister.. She should be reaching the main branch of the Golden Cauldron any day now."

    "Are you confessing to have offered shelter to a traitor!?" Shouted the head of the Klyn family.

    Not many knew about it, but the Klyn family was the family from which the current leader of the School of Evesting Fury hade from.

    Naturally, the Klyn family had been prohibited from taking the sides of the School of Evesting Fury in the past, but now that Master Kye had retired from being the master-at-arms, and the number of experts had decreased to a point where their family alone was a huge chunk of Karalis¡¯s power, there was no reason not to anymore.

    "Me? I wouldn¡¯t.. My friend here simply noticed the simrity when he sent both of them to the main branch of the Golden Cauldron.." Said Master Kye while pointing at the Silver Alchemist. "I then investigated and found out who the girl was." His tone was innocent and devoid of guilt.

    The Silver Alchemist turned to Master Kye, and through a fake surprised expressions, he said "She really was the Rulin¡¯s brat daughter!? I thought my old eyes had tricked me.."

    "Enough.. The girl is outside of our borders.. And if Master Kye¡¯s words about the talent of the Hiel kid are true, I don¡¯t want to risk making him angry the very moment he wille back because of an old feud." Said the king with an exhausted tone. He then asked "What are the updates on the neighbouring kingdoms?"

    Once again, the leader of the Mist and Ice Sect got up on his feet and started to talk. "As his majesty knows.. The Zann and Umn are aware of the kid¡¯s.."

    -----

    Back within the depths of the middle aged man¡¯s spatial trap.

    A week had already passed, and Daniel had visited more than two hundred pocket dimensions. He was deeply confused by the amount of different pocket dimension he had seen. After all, he had only need less than a hundred and thirty rings.

    Hisprehension of spatialw was now much more refined and deep than before. He could feel the connections between the rings, but before he could hook his spiritual essence into the space of the outside world, the external ring would be absorbed by another, starting things over and over again.

    He felt as if he was trying to swim against a rip tide. No matter how fast or how close he was, the current would always push him back.

    "Come on.. Think outside the box.." Muttered Daniel.

    Within his mind, Sewah was unable to take it anymore "Just stop teleporting!! How many times are you going to make the same mistake!? Are you learning how to bend space or are you learning how to chase geese?!" He suddenly burst out.

    "What is that supposed to mean?" Asked Daniel confusedly.

    Sewah sighed deeply, then responded "Just create a pocket dimension.. Mess with this stupid formation and GET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"

    "You really don¡¯t like teleporting, do you?" Daniel couldn¡¯t help but ask him. He then thought about Sewah¡¯s suggestion, and after realizing how impossible it was, he still managed to make a more realistic version of it.

    The pocket dimensions were more than the rings. That meant that, at some point, a ring¡¯s essences would be manipted into creating a different space. If there was something that any spiritual cultivator knew, was that essence¡¯s weakest stage was during the moment it would be shaped.

    Daniel started to jump through dimensions once again, except that this time, he did it backwards.

    After he passed the sixty-third dimension, he finally entered one in which space was turbulent, andpletely unstable. Only a faint wist of stable spatial essence lingered within the dimension, and that essence belonged to the outside world.

    Daniel immediately linked himself to it, and in less than a second, he was once again in the outside world.

    He quickly looked at his surroundings, and noticed that he was in an empty room. Behind him, was the formation inside which the hundred and twenty six rings rotated, assimted each other, and morphed.

    After a simple look at its workings, Daniel understood how the formation really worked, and how he was supposed to leave.

    The easiest way to leave the formation, was to lock the space within any of the pocket dimensions, then wait for change to take ce. The external space would react to the locked space and, unable to change it, would make the formation copse.

    What forced Daniel to spend so much time inside it, ironically, was his talent inprehending space. The middle aged man had prepared this trap so that a normal talented spiritual cultivator would take days toprehend the space within each dimension dimension.

    After a few days the change would reach them, and sooner orter, they would figure out how to stop it and make the formation copse.

    Still satisfied by his result, Daniel quietly left the room.

 Chapter 68 Time Is in Constant Motion

    When Daniel left the room, he immediately recognized where he was.

    He was currently standing inside one of the corridors within the castle.

    What left Daniel pleasantly surprised, was how different the castle looked since thest time he had seen it. He could still feel his control over it, but the entire castle had been renovated with higher ss furnishings.

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to guess the reason why. He had spent an entire week within the spatial formation, and of course, the rest of his group and the middle aged man would not simply waste time while waiting for him toe out.

    Daniel was currently inside the spiritual training section of the castle. If he could shift into the fictitious space made by the Clear Mage, he would probably find himself close to the very rooms he had been tested into before reaching the catbs.

    Now, it was a rtively empty set of rooms.

    Almost afraid that he would be immediately sent into another moreplicated spatial formation, Daniel decided to spend the next few minutes exploring the renovated castle.

    After wandering for about a minute, Daniel noticed that the castle¡¯s new furniture looked extremely elegant and expensive. He could guess that whomever took care of the job, had expensive tastes.

    Each and every piece of furnishing was made of high quality wood, and each patch of fabric was as soft as silk.

    Thanks to his system¡¯s passive skill ¡¯Karma X Luck¡¯, Daniel had been able to avoid being spotted for an entire hour, until finally, someone exited from one of the room and noticed him.

    The person who had spotted him was none other than the blond young man, and the room he had juste out of was the weapon wielding testing room.

    For the past week, the blond young man had taken the habit to spend most of the day inside that room to train his mastery in single-ded sword wielding.

    When the blond young man noticed Daniel, he immediately bowed as a sign of respect. He then stood still and said in the asumnguage "Greetings head warrior. Are there any instructions you have for me?"

    Daniel was now fluent in the asumnguage, and despite his pronunciation of a few words was still a bit off, the blond young man managed to understand him well enough. He responded "None. Keep doing what you were doing." He was about to turn away and leave from one of the corridors, when instead, he turned to look back at the blond young man and said "On second thought.. Why don¡¯t we have a spar for a bit?"

    The blond young man epted immediately with a decisive nod, and went back inside the training room. He then removed both weapons from the stone altars, and walked into the ring in the middle of the room.

    Daniel had spent thest week improving hisprehension of spatial essence, so now that he was finally able to have some physical exercise, he was fairly enthusiastic about it.

    He walked on the opposite side of the ring, and ced himself in front of the blond young man. After a slight bow, a clean sword appeared in his hand.

    The blond young man quietly unsheathed a single-edged sword, and took his usual fighting stance.

    Silence reigned supreme within the training room, until suddenly, a sh of light was reflected on the surface of the young man¡¯s sword, as it was sent shing the air in half and towards Daniel¡¯s chest.

    The sword¡¯s sh was immediately parried by Daniel, which after deflecting the blow, immediately countered with a diagonal sh directed at the young man¡¯s shoulder.

    Blow after blow, sh after sh.. For the next few minutes the room was filled with sounds of shing metal and brilliant sparks.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to realize something. His mastery of the sword was in no way superior to the mastery the blond young man had reached with single-ded swords.

    And that was not all. Not only were their skills in swordsmanshipparable.. But the young man¡¯s superior level in martial cultivation had granted him an edge over the fight. His reflexes were more evolved whenpared to Daniel¡¯s, and his reaction to his opponent¡¯s blows were slightly faster.

    From the outside, it would seem like two training puppets were fighting a relentless and even fight, but to the eyes of an expert, it would be clear that Daniel had a slight disadvantage.

    Of course, for hundreds of times Daniel had the chance to finish the young man off with a simple magical attack.. But he wanted this sparring match to be fair.

    They were both martial cultivators at the fifth rank, and they both decided not to use martial arts during the fight.

    What Daniel could do instead, was to change weapon in the middle of the fight.

    The first chance to do presented itself when he found himself in a bad position following a failed piercing attack.

    The young man had avoided the attackpletely by spinning in ce, and following the rotating motion of his body he countered with haste.

    The sh was horizontal and was directed at the shoulder de behind Daniel¡¯s right shoulder. It was extremely difficult to avoid, so instead of avoiding it, Daniel made his left hand slide under and past his stretched right arm.

    When the single-edged sword was about to reach Daniel¡¯s shoulder de, before the blond young man could stop his own blow and im victory, the sword shed against the shaft of the spear that had just appeared in Daniel¡¯s left hand.

    Daniel immediately bent the spear to absorb the blow until its shaft was as curved as a bow. He then made the shaft of the spear reach its maximum bending capability, before releasing the tension from the bottom and making it snap towards the young man¡¯s face.

    The young man reaction was, once again, amazingly fast. He immediately jumped high in the air and used his whole body weight to support his sword in withstanding the spear¡¯s blow.

    The spear¡¯s blow was so powerful that it forced the young man¡¯s body to be pushed even higher in the air.

    During his descent, Daniel quickly retracted the spear and made it rotate by a hundred and eighty degrees, before sending it towards the exact point in mid air where the young man would have found himself in just a few moments, with a firm a decisive piercing motion.

    Beyond Daniel¡¯s expectations, the young man¡¯s body twisted in mid air in response, and with his free hand he grabbed right underneath the spear¡¯s head, diverted its trajectory, and while still rolling over the spear¡¯s shaft, he shed towards Daniel with a vertical motion.

    The only thing Daniel could do, was to ditch the spear and somersault past the young man¡¯s body. He then immediately got back up on his feet, and pointed the short sword that had magically appeared in his hand at the young man¡¯s neck.

    The young man was bent on his knees, but only one hand was touching the ground. The other hand tightly held his single-edged swords, which was now pointed at Daniel¡¯s side.. Ready to slide in between his ribs and pierce his heart.

    A faint smile grew on Daniel¡¯s face as he took a step back, and said in the asumnguage "Amazing.. The progress you¡¯ve made in the past week is really impressive"

    The blond young man bowed deeply in response and said "If only you had my age and cultivation level, I could never myselfpare to your ability."

    Daniel waved his hand in embarrassment. Honestly, the blond young man was the most talented martial cultivator he had ever met. Not only was he under twenty years old, but he had already reached the level of mastery of single-edged sword that the Dark Warrior had in the past. Therefore making him capable of defeating the final form of the training dummy.

    One could understand the young man¡¯s dedication in swordsmanship from that alone.

    After exchanging a few more words, Daniel left the training room along with the blond young man, and continued to explore the renovated castle by himself.

    Before long, Daniel had managed to find the position of the rest of the group.

    Heimart, Alis, Ligart and Imblen were currently arranging the furniture within one of the rooms.

    The two kids were also present within the castle. They had been inadvertently teleported nearby the castle by the middle aged man, but when Alis found out that they were orphans and had nobody to wait for them home, nor a home toe back to to begin with, she had offered them a job as first members of the castle¡¯s cleaning crew.

    Daniel entered the room that his group members were currently decorating.

    The first one to spot him was Ligart, which dropped his end of the drawer he and Heimart were carrying, and approached Daniel immediately.

    "Daniel! You are out!.. Please do something.. That girl is crazy.. She spent so much money on this stuff!" Ligart burst out with an imploring tone.

    Clearly amused by Ligart¡¯s behaviour, Daniel responded with a smiling face "I thought you didn¡¯t like eating on tables encrusted with dried blood.. I think that if you ask Alis, she could arrange a room for you decorated with the discarded furniture.."

    "Ha! Ha! Ha!.. Very funny" responded Ligart with an unamused tone. He then said "Why don¡¯t you ask her how much she spent on renovating the castle.."

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders and said "It doesn¡¯t matter really.. We have plenty of money for no-"

    "It¡¯s three millions.." Said ligart, interrupting Daniel¡¯s train of thought.

    "WHAT!?" Daniel suddenly burst out.

    The figure of Heimart quickly approached the two, while cleaning his hands on his pants. He said "Hold on.. It¡¯s not just for the furniture. We have also renovated the library, and with the help of the middle aged man, we made projects of reconstructing the spiritual training section of the castle. That¡¯s what increased our expenses so damn much."

    "Where is the middle aged man?" Said Daniel curiously. "And where is Roley? I can¡¯t feel him inside the castle."

    Heimart took a small locket from within his spatial ring and threw it at Daniel. He then said "He is in here.. The man said that this is a failed pocket dimension. Inside it, space is extremely chaotic. He said that it is the fastest way for someone with absolutely noprehension of spatial essence to gain some. He also said that it is like giving a dictionary to an illiterate person.. So go figure."

    Daniel pushed a wips of spiritual essence inside the bead, and noticed Roley rotating and twisting in the middle of unstable space. His clothes were covered in vomit and he looked stressed beyond words.

    With a single thought Daniel surrounded him into his spiritual essence and forced him out of the failed pocket dimension.

    The moment Roley appeared, he looked around and said "Finally!.. I was supposed to stay in that hell for only a day.. What the hell happened?!?"

    "Yeah.. about that." Said Heimart with a strange tone. He then took a brief pause before adding "The middle aged man left about ten hours after he put you into the pocket dimension.. He hasn¡¯te back yet."

    Shocked by the ludicrous reasoning of the middle aged man, Roley took a deep breath and said "I need a damn bath.. I am going to drown anyone thates to bother me.." He then walked out of the room and towards his with heavy steps.

    "Okay.. What else is new?" Asked Daniel while secretly enjoying the liveliness of the ce.

    It was at this moment that Alis and Imblen had finished to assemble the curtains.

    Alis came down of thedder she had climbed on, and said "We¡¯ve found out the reason for the gathering."

    "Oh, that¡¯s interesting.. What is it?" asked Daniel curiously.

    "Apparently, when we were busy with the tournament, a strange event took ce." She then took a brief pause before continuing "The only ones who felt it were spiritual cultivators who had reached a deepprehension of time essence, but ording to the rumors, time reverted back by four seconds."

 Chapter 69 When Dreams Are Born

    "..time reverted back by four seconds." Said Alis with a casual tone.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but feel a little surprised by Alis¡¯s words. What else could have bent the world¡¯s omnipresentw of time during the tournament but his system¡¯s passive ability ¡¯Second Chance¡¯? It would be too big of a coincidence to be believable.

    Forcing a smile to appear on his face, Daniel said with a jubnt voice "That¡¯s amazing!.. Maybe i¡¯ll find someone who can teach me time essence there."

    "Sure.. But be careful.. A single touch by any other cultivator, and you¡¯re screwed. Even after months, the news of a dual cultivator appearing hasn¡¯t reached us yet.. So I wouldn¡¯t expect a kind wee if they were to discover your secret." Said Heimart with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Don¡¯t worry about me. Why do you think I am studying spatial essence for?" Said Daniel with a confident tone. He then looked at Ligart and said "Try to touch me."

    After a moment of confusion, Ligart approached Daniel and tried to put one of his hands on him. The very moment his hand was supposed to touch Daniel, the shape of space around him started to change.

    His hand was only a few millimeters away from Daniel¡¯s body, and yet pushing his hand past those few millimeters seemed impossible.

    To ligart, the feeling was that of moving his hand into empty space, but what was really happening was that Daniel had bent the very space that surrounded his body. No matter how one moved within the space he controlled, they could never move in the direction of Daniel¡¯s body.

    It was like trying to catch a wet bar of soap with wet hands.

    Unfortunately, this method was only useful for preventing people from identally touching him. On the other hand, it would bepletely useless in case of a fight, or in case someone really tried to get a hold of him.. as he would need to overpower the other person¡¯s ki and spiritual essence within the bent space, in order to force them to submit to the space¡¯s bentws.

    If he wanted, he could prevent Alis and the rest from touching him ever again. The only person who could manage to do find a way around thisyer of protection, would be the blond young man, as his ki was simr to Daniel¡¯s in both density and power.

    After a few missed attempt, Ligart gave up and went back to help Heimart with moving the surprisingly heavy drawer.

    Daniel left the room and went to check the only part of the castle he had blocked with the help of the formation.

    That room was, of course, the Clear Mage¡¯s childhood bedroom. The reason he had blocked it was to prevent anyone from reading, copying or memorizing the cultivation path written clearly on the wall.

    As for any other room, the walls and floor were covered in dried blood. The only difference between this room and the others, was the this room didn¡¯t have many furniture inside, and instead of bones of teenagers and young men and women, it had bones of dead children.

    Since the moment Daniel had reset the formation, the bones had restarted their usual decay. The reason why the bones hadn¡¯t turned into dust yet was because, at least ording to Daniel¡¯s assumption, the Clear Mage had sealed the castle and removed any natural element that could deteriorate the inside of the castle.

    The reason for that, was probably to prevent the writings on the wall to be damaged by the elements like wind, humidity, and heat.

    Now in full control of the castle, Daniel tried once again to set the wall on fire.

    With a simple wave of his hand, a thin veil of orange mes expanded through the entire surface of the wall. Two minutester, when the me had finally extinguished, only arge patch of ck could be seen covering the wall and leaving no trace of the cultivation method.

    Daniel lifted the block on the room and left for his next stop. The renovated library.

    After a few minutes of walking, Daniel found himself in a long corridor with three doors per side. All the doors on the left side were the entrances of the library of spiritual arts and magic tomes, while the rooms on the right side were the entrances to the library of martial arts and skills.

    Daniel entered the library of spiritual arts and tomes, and inside it, he saw the new and elegant sets of bookcases that covered the walls of both floors, and the middle of the room¡¯s floor.

    Between the two bookcases in the middle of the first floor, was a long table surrounded byfortable chairs. A set of stairs brought to the second floor, where there was no floor. Only a meter and a halfrge corridor with a handrail to the side that circled the entire room.

    Despite the small number of windows, the room was illuminated magically. It almost looked like the bright rays of the sun prated the walls and shone brightly on every corner of the library.

    Daniel took a slow walk towards the semi-empty bookshelves, and only stopped after reaching the section marked as ¡¯Handicraft¡¯.

    He remembered to have seen most of these books. They were mostly the books he and the rest had recovered from within the many spatial containers inside the castle. The others, had been bought by Alis and the others as essentials manuals that any decent library should have.

    Amongst them, was the book which Daniel was looking for. On the cover, a clear writing spelled ¡¯Differences and Creation of Essence Orbs and Spheres¡¯

    Daniel took the book and sat quietly in one of the manyfortable chairs around the library.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to memorize the entire book and its three main concepts.

    The first concept, was the difference between essence orb and essence spheres, of which Daniel was already aware of thanks to his encounter with both types of artifacts.

    To put it simply, an essence orb was a simple container in which the manifestation of a specific essence, or mix of essences was stored. It could be used for demonstrative purposes along with the help of a specific formation.

    Extremely different from it, were essence spheres. Essence spheres were created by condensing arge amount of essence and binding it to an essence treasure of the same property.

    The method of creating these artifacts was what Daniel was really interested in.

    In order to create an elemental sphere, Daniel needed to have an essence treasure with the same properties of the essence he wanted to create a sphere of, and a few other items.

    For example, in order to create a metal sphere, Daniel needed various types of rare andmon metals to add to the treasure in order to ease the process of binding.

    Fortunately, two of the three spheres which Daniel was interested in making, happened to be the two easiest spheres to produce. Specifically, wind and water, of which he already owned the treasures of and of which had a deepprehension of.

    The method of creation of an essence sphere waspletely different. One did not need any sort of object, except for an orb that contained a simple pocket dimension, which when activated would switch a set space with the space contained inside the pocket dimension.

    The set space was isted and prepared for easy shifting in the formation that would activate the orb. In Daniel¡¯s case, the formation that had activated the lightning orb when he had entered the first testing room for spiritual cultivators, was the altar ced right underneath the rotating pyramid of essence orbs.

    Daniel did not have any orb which he could use to create an essence orb, so he decided to attempt creating two different essence spheres instead.

    He opened his hand, and inside a small coral appeared out of nowhere.

    An experienced spiritual cultivator would immediately recognized this piece of coral as a high level treasure of water essence. If not for the fact that it was an itemmonly found on the bottom of the sea, the thick water essence that it emanated would betray it as a water treasure right away.

    Daniel possessed a good ny percent ofprehension of water, wind, and lightning essences. For him it wasn¡¯t hard to use his spiritual essence to simte most variation of water that existed.

    The only problem was caused by his limited amount of spiritual essence.

    Creating an essence treasure required speed and precision. Daniel didn¡¯tck precision, as hisprehension was atof an impressive level, what hecked was the speed that usually only an higher cultivation level could grant.

    No matter how talented Daniel was, he still had a limited amount of spiritual essence within his body.. And in order to produce an essence sphere, he needed a constant and deep source of it.

    Fortunately, this wasn¡¯t a real problem for him, since thanks to his karmic system, he could produce ki way faster than usual, and use it to rece the consumed spiritual essence.

    Daniel put the book back in its ce and left the library. He then headed towards the room where he had been tested the first time by the Clear Mage.

    Just like Heimart had said, the formation had been replicated in the original space of the castle, and now worked just like the version the Clear Mage had installed within the fictitious space.

    Daniel sat right in front of the altar, and started to slowly push his spiritual essence around the piece of coral. He then turned it into a water essence which epassed the treasurepletely.

    Layer afteryer of water essence morphed around the treasure into differentpositions.

    The deepestyer was made of cold, and dark water. Inside which only high ranked abyssal monsters would live. The second one, was made out of a thick and resistantyer of ice, through which nothing could be seen clearly.

    The thirdyer was made of a calm and gentle surface of water, simr to the shore of a beach.. it swayed back and forth in a slow and repetitive motion.

    The fourth andstyer was a mist which lingered on the surface of the calm water. Half of it was made of scorching vapor, while the other half was a cold mixture of water particles and small ice crystals.

    The objects needed to aid the binding of a specific essence to its treasure, were the various types of the essence itself.

    Just like an earth sphere would require nts and dirt to aid in the binding, a water sphere required ice, vapor, water and mist.

    Daniel was now ready to condense the water essence inside the small watery world. He started to fill the small room with as much spiritual essence as he could, before turning it into water essence and moving it towards the essence sphere.

    It was like feeding a me from inside. Every bit of essence forced inside the sphere would automatically disregard Daniel¡¯s previous control, and be part of the essence sphere.

    It took Daniel a full day, and the astonishing amount of five thousand karma points to finallyplete the creation of the water sphere.

    It was very simr to the one the Silver Alchemist had lent him, but with the difference that this sphere was created by his ownprehension, and therefore, it could not help him increase hisprehension of water essence.

    The only reason he had created this essence orb, was as a first step to create an effective training ground for Spiritual Cultivators. Creating a water essence sphere at first, was only so that he could aid Roley in increasing hisprehension of water essence.

    After all, Roley was the only other spiritual cultivator beside him, and like him, he was adept in the use of water essence.

    Daniel¡¯s main goal for this training room, was to fill it with spheres made out of a perfectprehension for each type of essence.

    Until recently, Daniel¡¯s thoughts had been much simpler. He wanted to live an easy life with his sister.

    What changed his way of thinking, was the gift that the karmic system had given him.. The ability to dream bigger.

    Excited about his uncertain future, Daniel stored the water sphere within a box and ced it inside one of his rings.

    The very next moment, a feather appeared in his hand.

 Chapter 70 To Keep Ones End of a Deal

    Three days had passed since when Daniel had started to produce elemental spheres.

    He was currently sitting on the ground, and in front of him were the three essence spheres he had just finished condensing.

    The water essence sphere, which resembled a small-scaled worldpletely covered by calm water. The wind essence sphere, which constantly changed in color due to the fast movements of the various gasses above its surface. Lastly, the lightning essence sphere, which looked like a ball of white light which constantly discharged electricity in the air.

    The three spheres had been ced in a small triangle, and in between them, Daniel could see the three essences mixing and forming a miniature storm.

    Moving clouds created by wind and water rotated until they finally became small tornadoes, clouds packed with electricity moved all around, causing the various weak lightning bolts to strike the ground the very moment they formed, numerous faint thunders constantly resounded in the room as if someone was beating ceaselessly on a drum.

    Daniel quietly observed the creation of the storm. He was not aware of it, but the sort ofprehension hecked in order to reach a perfectprehension of the essences, were in fact, their reaction to other essences.

    Without him noticing, the still activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ started to once again consume his karma points. At the same time, hisprehension of lightning, water and wind increased.

    It was only after ten minutes, and five hundred karma points that Daniel noticed that hisprehension of the three essences had increases.

    Hisprehension of water essence was now at ny-four percent, and hisprehension of wind and lightning essence were now both at ny-six percent.

    The increase wasn¡¯t that big, and yet Daniel was enthusiastic about it. He had finally understood what was required toprehend thest bit of essence.

    Despite the unbelievable expenditure of thirty thousand karma points, Daniel was extremely happy about the result of his work.

    He wasn¡¯t sure about the value any of these spheres might have, but he was convinced that one of his many richpanions would.

    Without resting for even a moment, Daniel left theprehension testing room and went towards Roley¡¯s room.

    After knocking politely on his door, he heard a voice from inside say "Come in.."

    Daniel opened the door, and found Roley sitting at his desk. He was studying the content of a book that Daniel had seen in the library. It was a mixed magic art called ¡¯Mud Blockade¡¯, and exined how to mix water essence and earth essence in order to create a swamp, which was extremely effective when fighting martial cultivators.

    "Hey Roley, I have something for you." Said Daniel, taking Roley¡¯s mind off the book.

    Roley slowly closed the book and got up on his feet. He then approached Daniel while asking "Something for me?.. What is it?"

    Daniel raised his hand and opened it with his palm facing up. The next moment, a small watery world which brimmed with lively water essence appeared, suspended just a few centimeters above his palm.

    "WHAT THE.. How can you possibly have something like that?!" Roley suddenly burst out in shock.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile at Roley¡¯s reaction. "I found various essence treasures during the tournament. I¡¯ve made this sphere out of my ownprehension of water, so it¡¯s of no use to me. You can have it.." He said calmly, before taking a small pause and continuing "Give it to Alis after you are done with it. Ask her tomission a treasury room in which high level essence spheres can be stored."

    Roley¡¯s face couldn¡¯t possibly show a more shocked expression. He looked at Daniel and asked "Do you n on making more of these?!"

    "I do." Responded Daniel with a casual tone. He was about to leave the room when he recalled something and turned to look back at Roley. "By the way, can you estimate the rough value of of that essence sphere?"

    "Daniel.. This is basically an inheritance.. Forget the value of the treasure itself.. Comprehension of the essence is the most important thing a spiritual cultivator has.. You could buy a small city with this thing.." Responded Roley with as much self control as he could muster.

    Satisfied with Roley¡¯s response, Daniel turned around and left headed towards the room¡¯s door, but before he could open it and leave, Roley¡¯s voice came from behind him. It said "The middle aged man came back yesterday morning.. He was looking for you."

    Once again, Daniel turned to look at Roley, and asked in confusion. "I wasn¡¯t gone.. Why didn¡¯t hee to find me?"

    A weirdly satisfied grin appeared on Roley¡¯s face, as he said "He said that he isn¡¯t able to move within the space inside the castle.. Oh.. he was so pissed about it.." From his tone, Daniel could feel the satisfaction Roley felt towards the middle aged man¡¯s problems, likely caused by the fact that the middle aged man had suddenly left, leaving him in a nightmare of chaotic space for days.

    "Okay, I¡¯ll go see him right away." Said Daniel before leaving Roley¡¯s room.

    Once in the corridor, Daniel sensed the presence of every person within the castle, and quickly found the middle aged man¡¯s exact position. He was currently standing in front of the doors that lead into the spiritual section of the castle¡¯s library.

    The very next moment, he appeared next to him.

    "What reason could there possibly be for locking the space of every room within the castle? Do you only grant tours of bathrooms and bedrooms to your guests by any chance?.." Said the middle aged man in a dissatisfied tone.

    With a faint smile, Daniel responded "I guess I could grant you ess.. If you let me take a peek at what¡¯s inside your pocket dimensions or spatial rings.."

    "Very funny." Said the middle aged man while turning to look at him. Once his eyesnded on Daniel¡¯s body, he showed a surprised look and said "..Interesting use of spatial essence.. But worthless. What¡¯s the point of bending the space around your body?"

    "I don¡¯t like to be touched." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    With a slightly derisory tone, the middle aged man said "I wouldn¡¯t have the slightest problem in touching you."

    "Didn¡¯t take you for that kind of person.." Said Daniel sarcastically, while also taking a step back.

    Daniel waspletely safe within his castle, so the purpose of the backward step he had taken, was to irritate the middle aged man.

    "Enough with the sass.. You have a problem." Responded the middle aged man, unwilling to continue this battle of wits with a fifteen years old kid. "Apparently, one needs to be part of the empire in order to participate in the Gathering."

    "How is that my problem?" Asked Daniel casually.

    The eyes of the middle aged man turned back on the castle¡¯s library doors. He waved his hand in the air with a casual motion, and forced the spatial blockade imposed by the formation to rip apart.

    He then slowly walked inside the library while saying "Because a pact has been made, and you have to respect your end."

    Daniel was surprised by the fact that the middle aged man was capable of ripping apart a portion of such a powerful formation. He rapidly recreated the blockade around the library and followed the middle aged man inside.

    "Any idea of how I can solve this problem?" Said Daniel while walking two steps behind the strolling middle aged man.

    The man¡¯s finger was lifted to his chin¡¯s height, and was pointing at the books titles. He seemed to be looking for something specific.

    Without stopping or looking back at Daniel, he said "Yes. You can join a group which is officially part of the empire. You¡¯ll also need toplete an official task before being considered a citizen of the Empire. Do you think you can do it before the Gathering?"

    "That depends on the assignment. What groups do you suggest?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    The middle aged man finally stopped, and turned to look at him. In his hand, three medallions had suddenly appeared.

    "There are many groups in the empire. But only three would give you a semnce of status." He said, while picking the medallions one by one from his palm, and describing their origin.

    The first medallion was of a lucid dark green color, and was made out of high quality wood and a ring of metal around it. On one of its sides, the outline of three different items had been carved in a triangr formation. These three items were a crucible, a retort and a conical sk. On the other side of this medallion, a name and a title had been carved.

    Daniel could not read the name, but he could feel the middle aged man¡¯s spiritual essence within the medallion.

    "The Alchemical Circuit.." Said the middle aged man. "Any merchant or group that deals in alchemy is under their control." After the brief introduction, the medallion disappeared from his hand, and he picked another one.

    The second medallion was bronze in color, and was entirely made of metal. On one side, two crossed swords were carved, while on the other side, was a single drop of blood. There was no name written on this medallion, and yet, once again Daniel felt the middle aged man¡¯s distinctive presence inside it, under the form of a wisp of ki left in the medallion.

    "The Legion of Blood and Steel, which controls every type of mercenary group within the empire. It used to only wee martial cultivators, but after spiritual cultivators had started to be epted into the various mercenary groups, the legion abandoned its old uses and weed powerful and talented mages as well." Described calmly the middle aged man.

    Once he finished talking about The Legion of Blood and Steel, the second medallion disappeared, leaving only one on the man¡¯s hand.

    "This is the group i suggest you to join." He said while showing the third andst medallion.

    The third medallion had a circr shape, and waspletely made out of polished obsidian. On one of its t surface, ten differently colored pearls were encrusted in a circle.

    Daniel immediately recognized each of these small pearls as essence spheres of the lowest level. Their worth was trifling, and their only use was to showcase various different essences.

    In the middle of this circle was another, slightly bigger bead. Contained within this bead, was the spiritual essence of the middle aged man.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to discover that these low level essence spheres were not only used to showcase the various different types of essences. In fact, their main use was to work asponents of a small formation which binded the spiritual essence of the owner within the bead in the middle of the medallion.

    This medallion worked exactly like a ¡¯Ki g¡¯, but thanks to the formation, erasing the spiritual essence was impossible, unless the owner died.

    Only in case of the owner¡¯s death, would the formation break and the group be alerted.

    With a doubtful voice, Daniel asked "It seems like they keep constant control your every movements.. Why would I want that?"

    "Because amongst these three groups, ¡¯The Magical Covenant¡¯ is the one in which I have the highest position. I might be able to assign a mission to you myself." Exined the middle aged man calmly.

    "I¡¯ll pass. I value my privacy.. I know nothing of alchemy, and I have no intention of learning for the time being. My talents lie within battle magic.. I¡¯ll go for the The Legion of Blood and Steel and join along with the rest of my group." Responded Daniel while sharing his thoughts.

    "Very well. I¡¯ll take you all back to Drester.. Every city has a registration office, but only in Drester and three other cities within the empire will you have a chance to be valued by someone worth something within the Legion.." Said the middle aged man with a matter-of-fact tone. He then continued "Come with me, I¡¯ll teach you how to put your castle inside a pocket dimension."

 Chapter 71 Twice as Cunning

    "Is that it?" Said Daniel with a doubtful tone "I only need to epass it with my spiritual essence and shift it into the pocket dimension?"

    "That¡¯s how easy that is. Of course, if you can¡¯t do that you can always try to scale down the space around the castle. Shifting it into the pocket dimension should be easier once you make it smaller." Exined the middle aged man calmly.

    Daniel¡¯s interested had been piqued. He looked at the castle and asked "How do I do that?"

    "You find the fulcrum of the castle, and apply pressure towards it from every angle of every direction. It¡¯s veryplex.. Think of it like squeezing a ball into your hand. You have to apply the same amount of pressure from every angle, or the pressure will be released from the points with the lowest amount of pressure is being applied." He then paused for a second before finishing to exin "Once the pressure will be released, space will shatter and you¡¯ll find yourself with a trillion pieces of a castle to pick up."

    "It seems impossible to do." Said Daniel with an irritated tone.

    A faint smirk appeared on the face of the middle aged man, as he said "It is for you. I am barely able to do it myself. The first method is simple, but requires a lot of spiritual essence. The second method takes a lot less spiritual essence, but requires a near perfect control over space, and a deepprehension of it."

    "Why are you exining this to me, if you know I won¡¯t be able to do it?" Asked Daniel.

    "I seriously doubt that you will have reached the necessaryprehension of spatial essence by the time the Gathering will take ce. So you better remember this. Now shut up for a minute, I have hundreds of pocket dimensions to go through to decide which is the best one to store your castle into." Responded the middle aged man in a dismissive tone.

    Slightly irritated by the man¡¯s tone, Daniel took the pocket dimension he had received by the middle aged man and entered it with his spiritual essence.

    The next moment, he was standing as a wisp of spiritual essence inside the simple yet stable space within the ring.

    This space was the first ce in which Daniel had managed to achieveprehension of spatial essence, so he was extremely familiar with it. To a point where he could feel every bit of it even from the distance.

    Suddenly, Daniel raised his gaseous-like arm, and above it, the wind essence sphere he had just finished to create appeared.

    The moment the sphere appeared in the empty space, a basic atmosphere started to form around it.

    Danielprehension of wind essence included theponents of which the breathable air wasposed, so it didn¡¯t take long for him to set a breathable atmosphere within the empty space, and regte the power of the gusts of wind.

    He then took control over the space, and locked the wind sphere into a slow circtory movement in mid air. The entire space started to slowly fill itself with airposed by the appropriate amount of oxygen.

    After setting the dimension¡¯s gravity and air pressure, Daniel retracted his spiritual essence from the pocket dimension, and entered it with his entire body.

    He was fully capable of breathing, and he could feel the wind brush against his skin.. but he couldn¡¯t feel the faintest presence of humidity in the air. He was sure that if he had installed the water sphere along with the wind sphere, he could create a perfect replica of the air in the outside world.

    Happy enough with the result he had obtained, Daniel left the pocket dimension once again. Noticing that the middle aged man was still busy, Daniel suddenly disappeared from where he was standing, and reappeared inside the castle¡¯s ground. He then focused on the control he had over the formation.

    Outside of the castle, the middle aged man was muttering by himself "Not this one.. This one is too chaotic.. This one is basically the inside of a volcano.. Too small.." He went on for a few minutes, before finally.. "Ah, this one is close enough." He said after managing to find an appropriate pocket dimension that could contain the castle.

    Prepared to show off in front of Daniel, the middle aged man looked back up.. But the castle was gone. Only the figure of Daniel could be seen, standing alone just a hundred meters away from him, exactly where the castle was only a few minutes ago.

    The middle aged man teleported in front of Daniel, and looked at him sideways. After noticing the smug expression on Daniel¡¯s face, he said "Try not to ascend to higher ne by sheer satisfaction.. I already suspected that the castle had the ability to teleport. I just didn¡¯t expect you had the necessary level ofprehension of space required to use that part of the formation.." He then paused, before continuing in a slightly disheartened tone "I supposed I shouldn¡¯t have expected that you would spare me the embarrassment of boasting about something you can already do.. Kids have no respect for their teachers nowadays.."

    "That¡¯s because you¡¯ve left one of my friends inside chaotic space for days.." Said Daniel with a self righteous tone.

    Contrary to Daniel¡¯s expectations, the middle aged man started to snicker. After a few seconds, he said "Alright, alright.. That was my fault."

    After the unexpected apologies, Daniel found himself being teleported three different times in the span of half a second. Before he could think of something to say, he was back in the middle of Drester.

    "Go register to the Legion.. The sooner you take care of that, the more time you have toplete your assignment." Said the middle aged man. Daniel nodded at him in response, and before he could ask anything to him, the middle aged man handed a ¡¯Ki g¡¯ over to him and said "Call me once you are done with your assignment." He then disappeared into thin air.

    Daniel entered into the pocket dimension with his spiritual essence, and went to find the rest of his group.

    It was lunch time, so he expected them to be all together inside the castle.. But when he entered the dimension, he found all of them scattered around the ce.

    Afternding on the floor, Daniel teleported everybody next to him and said "Sorry, I should have warned you guys.. I have added an atmosphere inside the ring the middle aged man gave me.. So that we could have breathable air after moving the castle inside."

    Alis seemed to be about to say something, but she was surpassed in speed by Roley, which asked in an extremely surprised tone "Is that a wind sphere you¡¯ve made?!"

    "One thing at a time." Said Daniel, interrupting Roley¡¯s enthusiasm. "First of all, I have changed my mind about the water sphere. When you are done with it, give it back to me, so that I can install it in this space. Regarding the treasury for storing essence spheres, I¡¯ll store only spheres made out of perfectprehension, and use the semi-perfect ones to make this space as simr to the outside world as possible.."

    Roley and Alis immediately understood what Daniel was referring to, as Roley had already exposed Daniel¡¯s ns to her. The rest of the group waspletely oblivious, and seemed to need an exnation, but before they could ask, Daniel started talking once again.

    "In order to participate in the gathering, I need to be officially part of the Krehan empire. The easiest way to do that, is by joining a group. I¡¯ve picked a mercenary group called ¡¯The Legion of Blood and Steel¡¯, which is basically thergest mercenary group in the empire. You guys are free to follow me or stay in the castle." Exined Daniel in a single breath. He then added "I assume there will be benefits in joining a group."

    "I¡¯m certainly not going to stay in this castle to rot.. I¡¯m in." Said Heimart with a decisive tone.

    The next one to talk was his cousin Ligart, which said "I have too many bets going with him, I can¡¯t stay here either."

    "I am definitelying.." Said Alis in an amused tone. She had spent too much time renovating the castle, so she felt the need to go for the adventure.

    Contrary to Daniel¡¯s expectations, Imblen and Roley both refused.

    "I have all I need to train here, Daniel. I cane out to aid you guys in any fight you encounter, but Since we still have plenty of rank 4 beast cores, and you¡¯ve given me a water essence sphere.. I¡¯ll stay here most of the time to train." Said Roley in an apologetic manner.

    "I will be staying in as well. My main weaknesses are the poor proficiency with my weapon, and theck of martial skills.. And since we have a training room and a library.." Imblen said, before letting her voice trail off into silence. She then added "We will look after the kids as well."

    Daniel understood the reasoning of the two. They had all they needed to advance in their training, and they recognized that training was more important than go to the adventure.. At least for now.

    It only took a brief look at the blond young man to understand that he wasn¡¯t going to stay in the castle. In fact, he was already standing next to Daniel¡¯s wisp form, ready to go at a moment¡¯s notice.

    Daniel¡¯s gaseous shadow moved towards the castle¡¯s gate, and stopped only when he was ten meters away from it. He then focused on the space, and created a one way connection between the space inside the dimension, and the outside world.

    He looked back at Roley and Imblen, and said "You guys can use this tunnel to leave the pocket dimension at any time. If you find it blocked, then it means that it is dangerous and that you shouldn¡¯te out."

    After a brief nod of confirmation, Daniel teleported everyone but Roley, Imblen, and the two kids out of the pocket dimension, then he left as well.

    When he retracted his spiritual essence from inside the ring, he noticed the four members of his group standing all around him.

    "Okay.. to the Legion of Blood and Steel recruitment office." He then said before turning towards a certain direction, and start walking.

    -----

    Twenty kilometers east from Daniel¡¯s position

    Inside a simple yet clean office, a man and a woman satfortably on two chairs. Between them was a wooden desk behind which the woman sat.

    She seemed to be in her forties, and yet her athletic and attractive body could be barely hidden underneath the leather clothes she wore. Her tinum blonde hair reached her chin in big and messy waves, and her perfectly symmetrical facial features made her look like the kind of woman most young girls desired to grow into.

    The man that sat in front on the desk, was the middle aged man.

    "Where have you been? You were supposed to find someone to take to the gathering.. Not disappear for more than a week" asked the woman.

    Slightly annoyed by the woman¡¯s reprimand, he said "Rx for once woman!.. I¡¯ve found someone.."

    The woman¡¯s brows arched in curiosity. She couldn¡¯t help but say "About time.. Who is it?"

    The eyes of the middle aged man lit up as he said "A damn freak, that who that brat is.. Twice as cunning as I was at his age, and a hundred times more talented."

    The woman couldn¡¯t help but smile when noticing the way the middle aged man talked about Daniel. She then turned back into her serious state, and said "Your daughter got into trouble once again.." she then paused for a moment, before exining "She said that the young master of Rising Dragon School was pestering her again.. So she broke his nose.."

    "Again?.." asked the middle aged man.

    The woman nodded and said "Again.. You have to solve the matter for her.. Before theye here and start making strange demands."

    "Fine.." Responded the middle aged man. He then sighed deeply, and right as he was about to teleport away, he looked at the woman and said "..Howe when she does something stupid she is ¡¯my daughter¡¯.. But when she advances in her cultivation she is ¡¯your daughter¡¯..??"

    The woman simply smiled, and said "See you at dinner."

 Chapter 72 Joining The Legion

    Drester, Legion¡¯s recruitment office. 15:24

    It took Daniel and the rest a full hour and a half to finally find the legion¡¯s recruitment office.

    From the outside, the building didn¡¯t seem special in any way. Its structure was simple, and yet there was a constant stream of people that entered and left it at all times.

    "Look at how many people are going in.. The ce must be packed. Why don¡¯t wee backter?" Asked Ligart with a dissatisfied tone.

    Except for Daniel, nobody else within the group was capable of feeling the feeble spatial essence that the building emanated.

    "It¡¯s just past lunch hour.. If it¡¯s this packed now, then it¡¯s only going to be worse in one or two more hours." Retorted his cousin Heimart. "We should just go in now and be done with it.."

    "Don¡¯t worry, it¡¯s not as packed as it seems.." said Daniel in vague manner. He then walked towards the entrance of the building and went in.

    The moment Daniel entered the building, his view changedpletely, as he found himself being teleported into a pocket dimension. Its size was at least five times bigger than what the outside appearance of the building suggested.

    Daniel and the rest were now in an enormous lobby, inside which hundreds of people stood in ordered lines, and patiently waited for their turn to approach the various counters.

    There were also a few counters which had a shorter line, or no line at all. But no one dared to approach them, as they were respectively the counters to sign in for a mission, and the counter to report thepletion of one.

    All of the people within the lobby were cultivators of a rtively high level. Daniel could not see anyone beneath the fifth rank of cultivation.

    The group of five walked towards one of the lines set for individual registration, and waited quietly.

    During the two hours of wait, Daniel had managed to roughly understand the process of registration by observing the people that preceded him.

    First of all was the bureaucratic registration, where one needed to provide all sorts of personal information. The second step, was to be tested into one of the many testing room located on the opposite side of the lobby. The third and final step, was to hand over the filled out registration form, along with the test result to a second counter, where after a quick control, one would receive their first mission.

    After thepletion of the mission, the person would be an official member of the Legion of Blood and Steel, and would receive his personal medallion along with the rights to ept missions, and use the legion¡¯s discount in various shops within the empire.

    It was finally Daniel¡¯s turn to register. He stood right in front of the counter and waited for the bored looking old woman to speak to him.

    The old woman behind the counter simply picked a sheet of paper from underneath her desk, and handed it over to him. "Fill this form. If you are mentally disabled and can¡¯t understand it, ask me.. Or re evaluate your choice of joining a mercenary group." She said with a robotic, and almost emotionless tone.

    Daniel looked down at the piece of paper, and read through it quickly. It was a regr registration form, simr to that he had had to fill in when registering for the Huntsmen Guild back in Karalis.

    He was required to provide his full name, age, sex, birthce, cultivation path and rank, past and current memberships to other groups, and a few other details.

    He picked up the quill pen and quickly wrote all the required informations on it. He then gave the paper back to the old woman, which put a big red stamp on it, and pointed at the section of the building in which the tests were conducted.

    Daniel took back the form and left the line. He then walked towards the doors that lead to the testing rooms.

    There was no line for the testing rooms despite therge amount of cultivators that were registering that day.

    Once Daniel went in, a middle aged man approached him and said "Your form.." before extending his hand.

    After Daniel handed the for over to him, the man quickly read through it and led him into a testing room for spiritual cultivators.

    Daniel had decided to register as a spiritual cultivator for two simple reasons. Firstly, he wasn¡¯t sure if the tests would require him to enter in direct contact with another martial, and secondly, was the fact that the middle aged man that had helped himprehend spatial essence, already knew him as a spiritual cultivator.

    The testing room wasn¡¯t amon square room. It looked more like arge corridor with multiple targets at the end of it.

    While looking at the form, the examiner said "You¡¯ve written in the form that you are adept in wind, water and lightning... Show me." Said the examiner while sitting on a chair ced to the side of the room.

    Daniel didn¡¯t want to show the full extent of hisprehension of the three elements, but he also didn¡¯t want to miss out on some benefit because he didn¡¯t show enough promise.

    From a standing position, Daniel slowly lifted his arms in the air and started to force his spiritual essence out of his palms. In front of him, three elemental spheres were created out of nowhere, and positioned in a rectangle-like formation.

    The one on top shined with white light, and released electricity in the surrounding air constantly. The one on Daniel¡¯s left was a sphere of dark ice, around which a thin mist could be seen rotating slowly. The third andst sphere was a ball of rotating gasses, from which a faint sound of whistling could be heard.

    These three floating spheres got closer and closer to each other, until they were no further than a few centimeters from each other. They then merged into a more powerful big ball that resembled a small icy, which was being constantly tempered by lightning bolts, rain, snow, and sharp winds.

    Suddenly, this-like sphere seemed to lose its solidposition and, as a liquid projectile, it was sent towards the targets at the end of the corridor.

    The attack was over in an instant. When the mist thinned and the lights stopped shing, the examiner noticed what was left of the wall on the other side of the room.

    The wall waspletely covered by a thickyer of ice. On the ice surface, thousands of cuts could be seen, and behind it,rge charred craters caused by the lightning strikes could be seen.

    Daniel turned to look at the examiner, and found him standing with his mouth wide open. The small chart on which he was writing his thoughts was on the ground, and a quill pen dangled between the tips of his thumb and index.

    What Daniel had shown was sixty percent of hisprehension of the elements, but instead of showing his proficiency with each element at a time, he mixed them and demonstrated his fighting ability.

    Barely able to regain his wits, the examiner picked up his papers and wrote something, and put a stamp on them.

    "T-take this, and show it to thedy behind the counter reserved for missions assignment." Said the examiner while handing a paper over to Daniel. On it were written a fewments and an evaluation of his talent.

    ____________________________

    Applicant¡¯s age: 15

    Aptitude level: SSS

    Comment: The applicant showed great talent by learning three different types of essence, amongst which Lightning, Wind, and Water. It is this examiner¡¯s opinion that, had the applicant spent his time byprehending a singr essence instead of three, given the appropriate resources, he would have reached a nigh perfectprehension of either of the three aforementioned.

    Proficiency level: S (Lightning essence); S (Water Essence); S (Wind Essence)

    Comment: Taking age, cultivation rank, variety, andprehension of the three essences learned into consideration, it is this examiner¡¯s opinion that the applicant possess prodigy level proficiency inprehension, aptitude, and control over Water, Wind and Lightning essence.

    Control level: SSS

    Comment: The applicant showed an impressive level of control during the demonstration. Instead of making a separated demonstration for each essence, he produced all three at the same time, mixed them, and proceeded with the attack. The mixed essences were stable, and the power input was indistinguishable between the three.

    ____________________________

    Satisfied by his evaluation, Daniel left the testing room and went towards the counter indicated by the examiner.

    When Daniel left the testing room he noticed that, of his group, only the blond young man was left in line. It was his turn, but instead of filling his form, he looked at it quietly. As if suddenly remembering something important, Daniel teleported next to him and helped him fill the form.

    Unable to think of a name to put in the form, Daniel created a nickname by mixing the two parts of his title, turning ¡¯Jer Krigh¡¯ into ¡¯Jerigh¡¯.

    Once finished filling Jerigh¡¯s form, they waited for another one of their group toe out of the testing room.

    They didn¡¯t have to wait long before Alis exited the testing room, and approached them. But before she could talk, Daniel said to her "How was your test conducted?"

    Slightly confused by the sudden question, she said ".. I¡¯ve entered a training room and sparred with the examiner. He then told me to hand over both my evaluation and my details to that counter, and receive my first mission."

    Daniel turned towards Jerigh, and said in the asumnguage "Go into one of those rooms... Someone will approach you right after, and ask you to hand your papers over. After he¡¯ll be finished verifying the details of your papers, that person will want to spar with him. When you are done sparring, he will hand your papers back to you, along with your evaluation.. Once you have both of them in your hands, leave the room ande back here." He was about to turn around and finish his registration, when he added "No matter what.. Don¡¯t talk. It¡¯s better you pass for a quiet weirdo that risk being considered a spy of the asums.."

    "It¡¯s never going to work.." muttered Alis as she stood next to Daniel, and looked at Jerigh walk towards the training rooms.

    The two then turned towards the counter and went to finish their registration.

    The line in front of the second counter wasn¡¯t long. Only members who were looking for a new mission were allowed to wait there, so most of the people in line were those who, like Daniel and Alis, wanted to receive their first mission.

    After waiting in line for ten minutes, it was finally Daniel¡¯s turn.

    Thedy behind the counter looked at back at him with a bright smile and said "Member or Applicant?"

    "Applicant." Responded Daniel calmly.

    "Your papers, please." Said thedy with a slightly cheerful tone.

    Daniel handed over his papers to thedy, which after reading through them for a minute or two, showed a shocked expression.

    She then looked back at Daniel, and said "Before assigning a mission to you, I need to know if you want a mission that can bepleted in solitary, or prefer a group mission."

    "I would prefer a group mission." Responded Daniel immediately.

    The mood of thedy seemed to suddenly improve. She then said "Splendid, there are many many groups that are currently looking for members. Let me list the rmended ones."

    Just as thedy was about to get up and go fetch the details regarding the best groups within the legion, Daniel said "That won¡¯t be necessary. I¡¯ll be creating my own group... Can you help me with that?"

    Visibly losing half of her cheerfulness, thedy smiled at him and said "Of course."

    The reason for the changes in thedy¡¯s state of mind was simple. She had understood Daniel¡¯s promise by the evaluation she had been given, and in case she managed to convince a prodigy like him to join a pre-existent rmended group, she would be praised by her superiors.

    The rmended groups were nothing more than groups to which safer and closer missions were given. These groups were easier to control, and that would increase the chances that their talented members would not abandon the legion at some point in the future.

    Thedy looked at Daniel with slight disappointment, and handed a new form over to him. She then said "Fill this with the group¡¯s name, starting members names, ages and cultivation ranks."

    Inside Daniel¡¯s mind, a never before seen window had suddenly appeared.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details):

    Overall Karma:

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

 Chapter 73 First Group Mission

    "What is this?.." muttered Daniel in his own mind.

    Trying to hide his reaction and surprise as best as possible, Daniel said "I¡¯ll go over there to fill this.. I haven¡¯t thought about the group¡¯s name yet, and I don¡¯t want to block the line." He then stepped away from the counter.

    When Daniel stepped out from the line, he immediately noticed that Heimart had finished with his testing. So he walked directly towards him, and before Heimart could say anything, he put his hand inside one of hisrge pockets, and disappeared.

    Inside Heimart¡¯s pocket, only a small ring had been left.

    Now inside his pocket dimension, Daniel said within his mind "Sewah, do you know what this is?"

    "It¡¯s one of the locked parts of the Karmic System. It unlocked the moment you¡¯ve showed the intention of creating a group.. Duh.." Responded Sewah, without abstaining from using his usual mordacious tone. He then said "I thought we talked about this already.. That¡¯s how the system works. You are a bit slow, aren¡¯t you?"

    Slightly annoyed by Sewah¡¯s derogatory way of talking, Daniel said "I meant to know what it can do.."

    "You can create a group, use it to gain karma, and spend that karma to buy effects for the group.. So that you can gain more karma.. And buy more effects.. And gain mo-" Exined Sewah before getting stuck at the end.

    "Okay I get it!.. My bad for asking you." Said Daniel with a tone filled with exasperation. He then focused on the details of the ¡¯Shared Karmic effects¡¯, and a new window opened within his mind.

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects lv.1

    Karmic Aura Lv.1 = 100,000 KP

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a battle prowess enhancement of 1%. An additional 1% per level. Max Lv. 50)

    Time Is Precious Lv.1 (Group) = 500,000 KP

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a boost in their speed of progression of 5%. An additional 5% per level. Max Lv. 20)

    Karma X Luck (Group) = 2,000,000 KP

    (Passive: 10% of a group member¡¯s individual karma, bes part of their overall luck.)

    ____________________________

    umte 5,000,000 Karma points to unlock Shared Karmic effects lv.2

    ____________________________

    "Simr to my own system upgrades.. But for the entire group.." Muttered Daniel in surprise.

    With a clear mind, Daniel left the pocket dimension, and appeared once again right next to Heimart, which was currently standing in line. He said to him "Heimart, let¡¯s all take the same group mission.. Here.." after handing over the group creation form to him, he continued "Create a group and we¡¯ll join it."

    "You know.. We all recognize that you have the maturity to lead a group. Why don¡¯t you do it? It¡¯s not like we wouldn¡¯t join." Said Heimart while taking the empty form off of Daniel¡¯s hands.

    ____________________________

    Heimart wants to join Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    ____________________________

    A faint smile grew on Daniel¡¯s face, as he muttered in a low tone "You are wee then.."

    "What do you mean?" Asked Heimart confusedly.

    Daniel ignored the question and said "It¡¯s alright, you are more charismatic than I am.. People are more likely to join if you are the leader.. I can do the recruitment if you want."

    "Sounds good to me" Said Heimart while casually filling in the form. "What name do we use?"

    After thinking for a moment, Daniel said "It doesn¡¯t matter, you pic-"

    Before he could finish, Heimart interrupted him. "If you are about to say that you want me to pick the name, I suggest you change your mind.. I have hundreds of possible names in mind, but they are all names I would use to mess with Ligart.. So if you don¡¯t want me to call us ¡¯My name is Ligart and I am looking for tenderpanionship".. Then you better pick one yourself." He said with odd earnestness.

    Not knowing whether tough or sigh, Daniel thought about it for a minute, then said "We are adventurers and we have particr objective.. How about calling our group ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯?"

    Heimart pretended not to hear him, and said "What about ¡¯Pinch my buttocks and call me sl-"

    "I¡¯m serious.." Said Daniel, interrupting Heimart¡¯s train of thought, which was spiraling out of control.

    Heimart started to giggle, before saying "Hehehe.. I know. I¡¯ve already written it." He then waited in line quietly.

    The line forpleting the registration had elongated in the past half an hour, just like Heimart had predicted. That had forced Daniel and Heimart to have wait for a while before their turn.

    Twenty minutester, Daniel was still standing quietly in the middle of the line, when a beautiful looking girl in her early twenties approached hit from the side.

    She stopped two meters in front of him and said "Hi. The news that an extremely talented spiritual cultivator was joining the legion reached my ears. So, I¡¯ve personallye to meet you and invite you to join my group, ¡¯The Blood Letters¡¯."

    "It¡¯s okay, I already have.." Daniel tried to exin that he already had a group, but before he could manage to, another young man approached from the distance.

    This young man wore practical clothes, but considered the totalck of protections on it, Daniel could guess that he wasn¡¯t a martial cultivator.

    He slowly approached from behind the girl with an aloof look on his face "What does a genius in spiritual cultivation have to do with a group of assassins and archers?.." He then turned to look at Daniel and said "Greetings, my name is Bijo and I am the part of a group called ¡¯Artifacts of Magic¡¯. As you might have guessed, we are a group exclusivelyposed of spiritual cultivators, just like you. Would you like to join us?"

    It was at this very moment that a weird smile appeared on Heimart¡¯s face. He turned to look at the two that were inviting Daniel to join their groups, and with an extremely serious face he said "I am afraid that won¡¯t be possible. He already agreed on joining my group."

    "Who are you? And what group are you from?" Asked the young man.

    Heimart¡¯s chest swell with pride as he said "My name is Ligart, and my group¡¯s name is ¡¯p my ass and cal- NPFH" His joke was promptly interrupted by Daniel¡¯s elbow, which had struck his stomach with just enough force to shut him up. "The Aimless Adventurer.." he said while rubbing his stomach with his hand. He then turned around while muttering "too serious.. it¡¯s no fun messing with you.."

    Daniel looked at thedy behind the counter, which once noticed his eyes on her, immediately looked away. From her reaction, Daniel had gotten a clearer idea of what had happened. Thedy behind the counter had told a few representatives of the rmended groups about him, so that they could invite him personally.

    She wouldn¡¯t have bothered with doing that if he had simply formed a group on the spot, but once she noticed that he had left the line to talk to his friends, she took the chance to spread the news about the appearance of a prodigy of spiritual cultivation.

    Daniel turned to look at the two and said "Thank you for your invitations, but I am afraid that what he said was true, I already have a group."

    "It¡¯s understandable. But since you are still in line toplete your registration, it¡¯s not toote for you to change your mind. That¡¯s why I have approached" Said the young man with a calm and polite tone. He then continued "Just know that the benefits that you can obtain by a newly formed group cannot bepared to what you would obtain from joining us."

    The beautiful young girl took a step forward, interrupting the young man¡¯s final sales pitch. She joined her arms in front of her chest, squeezing her half exposed breasts in between them, and said while tilting her head to one side "What does his group have that my group doesn¡¯t.."

    Daniel smiled at the girl, and extended his hand towards her. He then said "I¡¯ll show you."

    Intrigued by his words, the girl extended her hand as well, and tried to grab Daniel¡¯s hand. Unfortunately, she failed.

    The girl felt embarrassed at first, but the more she tried, the more she realized that there were invisible powers working against her.

    Next to her, the young man observed the scene with eyes opened wide in shock. He already knew that what was happening had something to do with spatial essence. He was too shocked to say anything.

    No matter how much the girl tried, the direction her hand went was always different from the one she meant to move it towards.

    After five minutes of failed attempts, the girl finally gave up. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and observed how Daniel extended his arm towards Heimart, which grabbed it without the slightest problem.

    "How?" She said with dubious tone.

    With a derisory tone, the young man said "It¡¯s because he wants to.. He won¡¯t join your group because he doesn¡¯t want to." He then nodded respectfully at Daniel before turning around and leaving.

    The beautiful girl immediately picked up on the meaning of the young man¡¯s words, and with an irritated expression, she turned around and left as well.

    -----

    Five hourster, in a restaurant just outside of the recruitment office.

    "I can¡¯t believe that it took so long.." Said a dispirited Ligart.

    Alis looked at Jerigh and said "I can¡¯t believe that his testing went without a problem.. And his evaluation as well.. We knew he was good, but I didn¡¯t think he was that far from us.."

    Suddenly, the sound of Heimart clearing his throat interrupted the group¡¯s train of thoughts. He stood up and said "Ladies and Gentlemen.. Our first mission as a group." He then pped a white sheet of paper above an empty part of the table.

    "Just tell us what it is.. I am too tired to read." Said Ligart before cowering on the wooden table.

    Heimart sat back on his chair and said "Fine.. It¡¯s a hunting mission. We have to go to a ced called ¡¯The Forest of Towering Rocks¡¯. There have been several incidents there, whose reports imed that a high-ranking beast had kidnapped or killed the humans that traversed it. We are to go there, and investigate the matter. The case is not private to our group, and will be assigned to neen more groups. We can coborate with one another if we want to, but only one group can get the merit for it."

    "How far is this forest?" Asked Danie calmly.

    Heimart turned towards him and said "About nine thousand kilometers north, north-east from here. Do you think you could teleport us there?"

    "I am not sure.. I don¡¯t know what would happen to me if I ended up teleporting into something solid like arge rock.. My cranial cavity might fill with stone and I could die instantly." Exined Daniel with uncertainty.

    After spending a moment in silence, Heimart asked "What about teleporting an entire section of space along with the air around you, and the ground under your feet? Or maybe teleport to a ce high in the air?"

    "It would work theoretically, but I don¡¯t have theprehension necessary to teleport that far. I could lose control over space and reappear on the other side as a fine red mist. You guys would be trapped inside the pocket dimension forever." Said Daniel dispiritedly.

    Alis interjected and said "We¡¯ll go on foot then. It¡¯s just going to take us a week, so it¡¯s not a big deal."

    "Very well, do we all agree that we depart tomorrow morning?" Asked Heimart while looking at the members of the group.

    After a series of quick nods, the group resumed eating their dinner.

 Chapter 74 Mystery of The Forest of Towering Rocks Part 1

    Four dayster, entrance of ¡¯The Forest of Towering Rocks¡¯. 21:45

    "Woah.. this ce is beautiful." Said Ligart, mesmerized by the beauty of the scenario that appeared before him.

    Daniel and the rest of the group were standing at the edge of a thick forest, and in front of them, arge expanse made out of thousands, if not tens of thousands of tall and thin rocks formed ¡¯The forest of Towering Rocks¡¯.

    The ce was amon crossing point between different sides of the empire, so it was usually filled with crossing merchants, and travelers despite its resemnce to abyrinth made out of stone. But due to recent news that a high-ranking beast had kidnapped and killed people, the ce had be much less popted.

    The only groups that traveled this path were mostly those powerful enough to not fear a high-ranking beast, or the numerous groups to whom the Krehan empire had assigned the investigation to.

    "Thanks for taking us here by flight.. We would only be halfway if it weren¡¯t for you" Said Heimart to Daniel.

    Daniel sighed deeply, and while shrugging his shoulders he said "Don¡¯t worry about it.. Better to spend fifty hours flying by myself, than listening to your cousin ask to stop every twenty minutes.."

    Heimart couldn¡¯t help but smile, and say "True.. and at the same time we got three days of vacation in the creepy castle."

    "You guys should have trained.." Responded Daniel while looking back at him with narrowed eyes.

    Heimart responded through gritted teeth "We tried to.. Imblen never got out of that training room. I¡¯ve tried to spar with Jerigh, but that guy is crazy.. It¡¯s worse than practicing with the dummies.. Anyway, let¡¯s set camp. We¡¯ll investigate tomorrow"

    -----

    After a quiet night, morning came once again.

    "We have to find the location and time in which the attacks took ce. Also, we could use the help of groups from other factions. We can¡¯t ally with other groups from the legion, as the legion rewards only one group, but nobody said we can¡¯t make an alliance with a group from another power.." said Alis while looking at the other members of the group.

    "We should split into two groups." Said Daniel decisively.

    Heimart looked at him and said "How do you think we should split?"

    "You, Ligart and Jerigh should go look for groups willing to ally. I¡¯ll enter the rocky forest with Alis to gather informations." He said after a minute of consideration. He then added "You still have my ¡¯Ki g¡¯, if something happens, I¡¯ll teleport next to you in a matter of seconds. So try not to call me when you are surrounded by other objects."

    Once agreed on how to split, and which group would take which job.. Ligart, Heimart, and Jerigh departed towards the edge of the rocky maze, while Daniel and Alis followed the cleared paths that lead inside.

    The Forest of Towering Rocks already covered an immense area, and the fact that the numerous rocks made the paths curve continuously, only made exploring it a harder job.

    After a full hour, Daniel and Alis had only gone through thirty kilometers into the rocky forest.

    Suddenly, they both heard voicesing from further into the path.

    "..It¡¯s this way I tell you.. I¡¯ve really seen it!" said a voice in a high pitched tone, seemingly belonging to a child.

    A hoarse voice responded to the first one by saying "Quit ying with your old man.. I just want to get out of this damned forest and reach Kripka" The second voice seemed to belong to a man in his mid forties, and it sounded like he was chewing on something.

    Daniel and Alis proceeded further into the forest, and after the seventh turn, they found a five to six years old boy followed by a fat middle aged man. They were both at the head of a cart, next to which ten guards walked orderly in formation.

    The moment Daniel and Alis appeared in front of them, the guards immediately walked in front of the two and formed a wall of protection.

    "Excuse us sir, you seem like someone that would travel through this forest often.. May we ask for a few informations?" Said Alis politely, trying to make the guards drop their fighting stance.

    "It¡¯s alright" Said the fat man. He then walked past the barrier of guards and said "Ask away. It¡¯s been two weeks since we¡¯ve been in here, a bit of newpany doesn¡¯t hurt."

    Alis smiled at him and bowed gracefully. She then removed her hood and said "We have been sent here by the legion to investigate the idents that happened in the forest. Could you tell us something about that?"

    "Oh, the legion." Said the fat man with a surprised expression. He then swallowed whatever he was chewing before, and continued "Of course.. The idents have started about eight months ago. At first, merchant reported the disappearance of members of their caravans. It was only after a couple of simr incidents happened that a few mercenary groups started to send searching parties to look for the bodies."

    "I assume that a few bodies have been found." Commented Alis before asking "What can you tell us about their deaths?"

    "Not caused by humans. From what I know, not one clean cut, puncture or sign of human magic arts were found in the ces where the bodies have been found.. That¡¯s why simple homicide was ruled out, and the conclusion that a high-ranking beast was the culprit was formted." Responded the fat man patiently.

    "What caused the victim¡¯s deaths then?" Alis asked in confusion.

    "All the injuries suggested that the cause of the death had something to do with trauma caused by the collision with.. Rocks." Responded the fat man.

    Alis¡¯s face twisted in a deeper confusion. She then asked "Rocks? You mean that rocks were the weapons that caused all those deaths? With no exception?"

    "With no exception. One was impaled by a tall and pointy rock, another had his thoracic cage destroyed due to being sent flying against a stone wall, a third person was found buried by tons and tons of rocks, and so on." Responded the fat man while slowly brushing his chin, trying to remember as many details as he could.

    "This is all very useful information, you have our most sincere thanks. Please, tell us if you have noticed anything weird that could be of help." Said Alis through a kind smile.

    "Weird.. Something weird.. Well there is something odd. It¡¯s about the victims.. None of the merchants, guards, or travelers were ever touched. In fact, the only victims were unknown people that were hired as bodyguards by the merchants. I know it doesn¡¯t say much, but I¡¯ve always found that odd.." Said the middle aged man with an uncertain expression. He seemed to have pondered often about this particr part of the mystery.

    "It is indeed odd. Thank you once more sir. If there is nothing else, we¡¯ll let you proceed your crossing in piece." Once again, Alis thanked the man while bowing elegantly.

    When Daniel and Alis were about to leave, the kid said "Dad, tell them about the weird little snake i¡¯ve seen!"

    "Shut up boy, don¡¯t make them waste time.." He said before turning towards Daniel and Alis to say "Excuse my son, it¡¯s been awhile since we¡¯ve been inside this ce.. And he has a fervid imagination."

    Daniel, which until now had stayed quiet, looked at the fat man and said "It¡¯s alright sir, we don¡¯t mind." He then turned towards the kid and said "What was weird about that snake? Was it big?" His tone was yful, and showed interested in hearing the kid¡¯s story.

    "No! It wasn¡¯t big.. It¡¯s was only this big" said the kid while raising his arms and parting his hands of about a meter. "The strange thing is that it looked like his skin wasn¡¯t covered in scales.. But rocks!!" Said the kid with passion.

    "Ha ha, that must have been cool to see." Said Daniel to the kid, before looking at the fat man "Once again, thank you for your time sir. Have a safe travel." He said with courtesy.

    He then walked past the group along with Alis and disappeared into one of the carved paths.

    "What do you think? Could it be that it was a spiritual cultivator adept in earth essence?" Asked Alis once out of earshot.

    Daniel kept walking forward and said "I don¡¯t think so. If what that guy said is true, then the stones weren¡¯t directly used as weapons. One thrown against a wall, one buried, and one impaled. If it was someone adept in earth essence, why not create spikes of stone under their feet? Or throw the spikes at them?"

    "So, it was a high-ranking beast? A beast at the fifth or sixth rank wouldn¡¯t be any less intelligent than the two of us. It would certainly have the brain to stage those kinds of deaths." Responded Alis with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Might be.. Let¡¯s find somebody else to ask to." Said Daniel before suddenly increasing his movement speed.

    -----

    Southern border of the Forest of Towering Rocks.

    Jerigh, Heimart and Ligart were currently facing a teamposed by ten people. They were all at the fifth rank cultivation, and from their attires, one could tell that they were all spiritual cultivators.

    Once the three of them approached the group of spiritual cultivators, one amongst them immediately looked in their direction, and said "Who¡¯s there?"

    "Members of the legion. Sent here, just like you, to investigate the disappearances and deaths within the forest." Said Heimart as clearly as possible.

    Half of the group approached Heimart¡¯s party, and stopped only when they were only two meters away from them. After they stopped, a young woman walked to the front of the group and said "My name is Lipa. I am in charge of aiding this group of recruits inpleting their first task. We belong to the a group called ¡¯Explorers of Dreams¡¯, and we are part of the Magical Covenant." She then paused and waited for Heimart to introduce his group.

    Heimart straightened his back and said "My name is Heimart, and along with these two, and two morepanions, we were sent by the Legion of Blood and Steel to investigate the strange events that took ce here. Our group is called ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯, and we split in order to gather informations, and find allies amongst other mercenary groups."

    The young woman responded through a serious expression "If it an alliance you seek from us, I am afraid we have to decline. We¡¯ve already made arrangements with another group from the legion. In fact, we were waiting for their arrival."

    "That¡¯s unfortunate. Very well, we will be on our way then." said Heimart while nodding politely. But before he could leave, a group of seven people appeared behind them.

    Amongst these seven people, only one wore light clothes. While the other carried heavy armors andrge weapons.

    "Who are these people?" Asked a muscr looking man covered in armor. On his back, he carried arge sledgehammer.

    "A group from the legion called ¡¯The Harmless Adventurers¡¯.." Said a girl that stood within the group of spiritual cultivators.

    "Ha ha ha! What kind of name is that!?" Asked the muscr man.

    Irritated, Ligart looked at the girl who had made fun of them with a look filled with malice, and said "It¡¯s The Aimless Adventurer.. It¡¯s udylike to not clean your ears."

    The muscr man clearly had a close rtionship with the girl, so the moment he heard Ligart embarrass her, he turned dead serious and said "It¡¯s not that big of a deal.. We could always do something to make you guys fit your name better."

    "Hold on. This is all a misunderstanding. We proposed an alliance to this group from the Magical Covenant. They refused, so if you let us through, we¡¯ll take our leave." Said Heimart, trying to pacify the situation.

    "But here is the point. You guys are a group from the legion, just like us. Therefore we arepetitors.. And now that guy insulted my girlfriend.. We could go on our way and maybe stumble upon each otherter, or solve it right here, right now." Said the muscr man while grabbing the big sledge hammer from behind his back.

    Before Heimart could say anything, Jerigh unsheathes his single-ded sword, and stepped towards the group of warriors.

    The situation had gone out of control, so all Heimart could do was to limit the damages. He looked at Jerigh and shouted the only two words of the asum¡¯s vocabry that Daniel had rmended every one of them to know.

    "Sid Stahri!" Shouted Heimart immediately.

    Jerigh stopped, looked back at Heimart, and after a brief nod, he rotated his sword by one hundred and eighty degree and started to approach the group of warriors once again.

 Chapter 75 Mystery of The Forest of Towering Rocks Part 2

    Jerigh had never been a merciless killer. He had fought and killed before, but those kills had been forced upon him by his old master. So, whenever he did not receive a specific order, or was not convinced that his enemy wanted to kill him, he would usually spare their lives.

    Daniel was the one who had interacted with him the most, so he was aware of his nature. What Daniel was afraid of, was that Jerigh would misunderstand an enemy''s intention due to thenguage barrier.

    That was the reason why he had made sure to teach two specific words to each member of his party. These two words were ''sid'' and ''stahri'', and they meant ''No Killing''.

    His intention was to let others judge the type of situation, and either tell him nothing and let him go all out, or tell him not to kill anyone.

    His n had clearly worked, as after only a minute after Heimart''s warning, seven people lied unconscious on the ground. None of them was dead.

    *shiiitun*

    Without a single drop of sweat on his body, Jerigh sheathed his clean single-edged sword once again, and walked back towards Heimart.

    Heimart had tried to spar with Jerigh more than once, so he expected such a result. Jerigh''s strong points were reflexes, time of reaction, and his excellent swordsmanship. In fact, he was so talented that he had shattered every single one of the legion''s records regarding martial cultivation.

    On a side note in his evaluation paper, the examiner had written ''Exceptional talent and devotion in both cultivation and swordsmanship. One of the rare kind of people of which one could say the cultivation rank is holding the potential back. It is advisable to dedicate as much attention as possible to him.''

    In front of the shocked eyes of the party from the Magical Covenant, Jerigh joined back with his group, and together they left.

    -----

    "Thank you ma''am , this was very useful information. We''ll stop bothering you now, have a safe travel." Said Daniel to a middle aged woman through the opened door of a carriage.

    The carriage resumed their travel after a courteous nod from the woman.

    "It''s always the same story.. Bodies crashed against walls, head bashed in withrge stones, walls sttered with blood and bodies at their bases. It''s either a high-ranking beast, or a martial cultivator.. But why would a martial cultivator of that level fight using no weapons or skills?" Asked Alis with a confused tone.

    She and Daniel had asked to more than five different carriages and caravans. The answers they obtained were always the same. Same type of victim, same type of deaths, and same period of time.

    "It might not be a matter of how and when.. But why." Muttered Daniel in a pensive tone.

    Alis furrowed her straight brows and asked "What do you mean?"

    Daniel turned to look at her, and said "Think about it for a moment. People hired as guards are supposed to be the strongest within the group. And yet they were the only ones who got attacked. If an intelligent beast wanted to warn people not to enter his territory, why not kill the merchants?"

    "That''s true.." Said Alis with a pensive tone. She then continued "They would certainly be smart enough to distinguish them from the rest of the group.. Or even remember the one who passed here more often."

    After nodding in agreement with Alis''s remark, Daniel continued to present his doubts "A beast also wouldn''t know if the person they are attacking belongs to a powerful group or not. Was it also a case that they exclusively attacked solitary cultivators hired as guards?.. I don''t think so.. We need to know more about the vict-" Suddenly, Daniel turned his head and faced north-west.

    "What is it?" asked Alis.

    Daniel closed his eyes, allowing his spiritual essence to leave his body and spread in the surrounding under the form of an invisible mist. After less than a minute, his eyes opened and he said "There is a fight nearby."

    Before Alis could have any sort of reaction, she felt Daniel''s hand grab her wrist tightly. The very next moment she found herself inside the pocket dimension.

    Once alone, Daniel teleported as close as possible to the ce where the fight was taking ce. He appeared near arge and tall rock, behind which the two parties were fighting ferociously.

    Daniel took Alis out of the pocket dimension, and the moment she appeared, she said said with an angry tone "You could have warned me!"

    "Now is not the time to-" Before Daniel could finish talking, therge boulder behind which they were hiding suddenly shook.

    The fight had ended.

    Daniel ran around the boulder, and once on the other side, the results of the battle made his face fill with disappointment.

    On the ground, a man lied dead. He had been sent crashing against therge boulder, and he had broken his neck upon impact.

    The first thing Daniel did, was to sense the surrounding. The fight had just ended, and the killer could not have possibly gone too far.

    After five full minutes of sensing, Daniel felt nothing but Alis''s ki, the dead man''s dissipating ki, and earth essence all around. He turned to look at Alis and said "Three seconds.. It took only three seconds from when the battle ended to when I''ve started sensing the surrounding. And yet I''ve found no traces around."

    "It''s just like we''ve heard. No magic, no weapons.. Just death caused by impact with rocks.. What about wind? Now that you were closer, did you feel it?" Asked Alis after a minute spent investigating the scene.

    "No. I sensed the entire area during the fight.. And no air currents were created or deviated.. In fact, I haven''t even felt a second person or monster.. All i could feel was the ki released by that man, and the earth essence all around." Responded Daniel with a more confused tone than ever.

    Alis kept looking around the area for a few more minutes, but was unable to find anything unusual. It was only after kicking a rock in frustration that she noticed something.

    From underneath the rock, a meter long snake slithered out, and dashed in a rectilinear motion into a small crevice between two big boulders.

    This snake''s scales didn''t look like the usual scales one would see in a normal snake. They were ruvid and of a grey color, and looked very simr to normal rock.

    "Dan,e here!" Shouted Alis out of the blue. She then said "I''ve seen something.. It looks like the snake the kid talked about."

    "That''s quite the coincidence.." Responded Daniel before closing his eyes, and trying to sense the surrounding once more. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and said "I can''t sense anything.. Are you sure you''ve seen a snake?"

    "Yes! It was just like the kid said. About one meter long and seemingly made out of rock." Said Alis animatedly, slightly offended by Daniel''s dubious tone.

    Daniel quietly lifted his arms, and pointed them at the tworge boulders which vibrated in response. It was only after a full minute that the two boulder separated, and slowly rose in the air.

    Once again, the snake dashed out of its hiding spot and slithered towards another. But before it could find one, Daniel teleported next to it and grabbed it by the end of its tail.

    The snake wasn''t strong by any means, and even once picked up by Daniel it barely put up a fight. Instead, it dangled from Daniel''s hand without moving.

    The passive behaviour of the snake allowed Daniel and Alis to have a better look at it.

    After a few seconds of careful observation, they both reached the same conclusion. A conclusion that left them with eyes opened in surprise.

    Not only were the snake''s scales made out of rock, but also the rest of its body. There was no living mana within its body, and the only thing Daniel could sense from it, was a slightly more concentrated earth essence.

    "This isn''t a beast.." Said Alis with a stupefied tone. She then asked "Do you know what it is?"

    "Yes.. It''s a true elemental." Responded Daniel with a voice filled of amazement.

    Alis looked back at Daniel in confusion and asked "A true elemental?"

    "Have you ever wondered where a portion of the essence treasurese from?" Asked Daniel while taking a small stone out of his spatial ring. He then showed it to Alis and continued "True Elementals are entities born from pure essence. They can shape into whichever form they want, and can even cultivate through the consumption of essence."

    "They can turn into beasts as well?" Asked Alis after listening to Daniel''s exnation.

    "Not exactly. They only resemble beasts, like this little one here." Responded Daniel while touching the stone surface of the snake.

    "Then what about the other treasures?.. Like the feather and coral you''ve used to make the wind and water spheres.. Or the stone you''ve used to make the lightning sphere?.." She asked with a confused tone.

    "Not all treasures are born from pure and dense essence. Animals like corals and birds can be exposed to enough essence in their lives, that at the point of their death, they be essence treasures themselves." He paused for a moment, letting the new information sink in, then continued. "About the lightning treasure.. Most lightning treasures are items that have nothing to do with lightning. A thunder strike is basically a pure and concentrated amount of lightning essence that gets released all at once. Once hit by a thunder bolt, a portion of the lightning essence is bound to stay within the stricken objects. Mostmonly exposed minerals, trees, or stones found in the ground.. There is a book about this in the spiritual library."

    Suddenly, arge shade approached Daniel and Alis from behind and covered thempletely. Before they could turn around, they heard a thundering voice that reverberated through their entire bodies and left them shaking.

    "I am impressed human. Not many at your age would take interest into my kind." Said the powerful voice.

    Daniel and Alis turned around slowly, and what they saw made a shiver run down their spine.

    In front of them, was an impressively big golem. Its height reached at least thirty meters, and like the little snake, he waspletely made out of stone.

    Before they could even speak, the golem said something that made them realize how mild the previousment had been. "I suggest you release my son. NOW!"

    Daniel couldn''t help but swallow his saliva.

    Alis said with a trembling voice "Is that a t-t-true elemental t-too?"

    "Big one." Responded Daniel through gritted teeth. He then looked at where the golem''s two eyes seemed to be, and said "We have reason to believe that your son is going around killing innocent humans."

    Suddenly the enormous golem started to scale down, and once reached the height of amon adult human, it stopped and said "First of all, it was me. Secondly.. Innocent!? That''s hrious."

    "What''s hrious about murder?" Said Daniel, slightly irritated by the human-like golem''s tone.

    Daniel didn''t know the stages of cultivation of True Elementals, but from the purity of the ki that was still dissipating from the body of thest victim, and the time it took for the golem to defeat him, Daniel could guess that his overall power was at thete sixth rank of cultivation.

    "Nothing is hrious about murder. What''s hrious is that you humans would find any excuse toe and kill us. Even saving your lives." Said the golem with a serious tone.

    It was at this moment that Daniel noticed the number above the golem''s head. It was 15,623 and was of a dark green color.

    After taking a deep breath, Daniel said "We won''t use anyone without a reason.. Let''s talk."

 Chapter 76 Mystery of The Forest of Towering Rocks Part 3

    After taking a deep breath, Daniel said "We won¡¯t use anyone without a reason.. Let¡¯s talk."

    He then released the grip on the snake-like elemental, and allowed it to crawl back towards the human-sized one.

    "It doesn¡¯t sound genuine when said by someone who is in mortal danger." Retorted the human-sized earth elemental, then paused for a moment before saying "But I am listening."

    A faint smile grew on Daniel¡¯s face, which disappeared the very next moment. He asked "What did you mean when you¡¯ve said ¡¯Saving your lives¡¯?"

    "Exactly what I meant. I have witnessed the greed of humans for centuries.. And I didn¡¯t care for it until I was alone. But I cannot allow my children to be exposed to that level of malice." Responded the earth elemental.

    "I still don¡¯t know what you are talking about." Said Daniel with his brows furrowed, and eyes narrowed in confusion.

    The human-like earth elemental looked back at the little snake that coiled around his leg, then said "I knew every single one of the humans I¡¯ve killed. Every now and then they woulde apanied by other humans, which they would them kill once entered the area."

    "Do you have any proof of this?" Asked Alis with a dubious tone.

    Daniel immediately noticed how the elemental clenched his fists in rage after hearing Alis¡¯s question. He then heard it say "Be d I am still only talking."

    "We are here to investigate. If what you say is true, show us some evidence so that we can go back and report the truth." Said Alis with a slightly fearful tone.

    After harrumphing loudly, the earth elemental remained quiet for a moment, then said in a calmer tone "Very well.. Follow me."

    The earth elemental turned around, and started walking at a human¡¯s pace into one of the carved passages.

    -----

    East border of the forest of towering rocks.

    At the east border of the forest of rocks, arge camp had been set. Spread around the territory were dozens ofrge tents separated into differently sized groups. Each group of tents hadrge banners that indicated which powers the owners of the tents belonged to.

    Amongst the numerous groups, there were three different groups which belonged to the legion, two that belonged to the magical covenant, and half a dozen groups which belonged to other high level powers.

    In the middle of thisrge camp, was a massive tent inside which the various group leaders were sitting and discussing the course of action.

    Amongst them, sitting quietly in the area reserved for the group leaders of the legion, was Heimart. Behind him Leigart and Jerigh stood in silence.

    "The ¡¯tinum Warriors¡¯ offer to form an alliance. Our terms are either the full carcass of the high-ranking beast, or the beast core." Said a middle aged man in shiny te armor that sat in the area reserved for a power called ¡¯Mercenary Horde¡¯.

    A young woman dressed inrge dark green robes that sat on the side reserved for the ¡¯Alchemical Circuit¡¯, stood up and said "We, ¡¯The Proud Bookworms¡¯, offer our support in exchange for the carcass of the beast.

    "The group ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯ is willing to discuss an alliance. Our main interest is the beast core." Said Heimart after standing up.

    For the next few minutes, various agreement were made between the various leaders of the groups. What was unfortunate, was that nobody had agreed on epting Heimart¡¯s terms.

    Simply requesting for the beast core wasn¡¯t unreasonable. What others weren¡¯t willing to ept, was to consider Heimart¡¯s small group of five worthy of advancing demands towards the beast core.

    Every single leader within therge tent had entered along with their second and third inmand, but differently from Heimart, they had left arger group that was left outside in wait.

    Whenever a group leader approached Heimart to discuss terms, they would renounce after learning that his group was onlyposed of five people.

    Unable to find allies, Heimart, Jerigh, and Ligart were about to leave on their own and proceed the search for allies elsewhere. But when they were about to exit the tent, a scout which belonged to one of the groups rushed in and said "Another body has been found.. A fresh one. Deceased within the past four."

    "Lead us there." Said the leader of the group to which the scout belonged.

    -----

    Two hourster, Site of the murder.

    "Broken neck.. No signs of fighting except for the bloodstain on the wall at about four meters of height.. The victim was at the sixth rank of martial cultivator. The scene is simr to the others, but there is something different this time. There are footprints." Said the scout to the various group leaders.

    "Footprints?" Asked one of the leaders.

    After receiving a nod of confirmation from his leader, the scout started to exin "Three sets of footprints. Based on the size and depth, I would say they belong to a very heavy adult and two younger people. When I¡¯ve found the body, it was already cold but not yet rigid. The footprints were already present and looked much more defined than they are now. They might have witnessed the man¡¯s death.."

    "Okay, let¡¯s follow the footprints then." Said the scout¡¯s leader, which thanks to his group member¡¯s prompt actions, had had the chance to act as the tip of the spear for thispany of mercenaries.

    The army of cultivators followed the trail for about an hour.

    The footprints became clearer and clearer the more they walked, until finally, they reached a narrow path right in between two extremely tall rocks.

    The path was curved, and it was not possible to see where it lead.

    Because of the narrowness of the path, the various leaders of the groups decided to go first, apanied by their seconds inmand. Amongst them, were Heimart, Ligart and Jerigh.

    The spearhead of the formation was the leader of the group to which the scout belonged. He carefully walked the path, and after less than twenty minutes of walking, he came out from the other side.

    In front of him was a ravine, and at the edge of the precipice, Daniel, Alis, and a human-like golem were looking down.

    One after the other, the rest of the group of cultivators appeared behind him, clogging the exit of the pathpletely.

    The three turned around after hearing the sudden noises. What they found was arge group of cultivators which belonged to many different groups.

    When the spiritual cultivators within the group noticed the true elemental next to Daniel, their eyes collectively opened in a mix of shock and greed.

    "Who are you?" Asked the middle aged man in shiny armor.

    Daniel looked back at him and said "I am Dan Hiel, a member of ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯.. A group rted to the legion. What are you doing here?" He then asked.

    "We¡¯ve followed your footprints until here from the scene of a murder" Responded the middle aged man. He then looked at the elemental and said "What is that thing? It doesn¡¯t look like a normal summon.."

    "It isn¡¯t.." Said one of the spiritual cultivators amongst the group "It¡¯s a true elemental of the earth type.. Given the purity of earth essence it emanates, it¡¯s old, intelligent, and extremely rare. Everything makes sense now.. The injuries didn¡¯t match the style of humans and beasts.. But they match the way of fighting of an earth elemental perfectly."

    "Is what he said true?" asked the man in shiny armor to Daniel.

    Daniel gave a grim look at the spiritual cultivator, then looked back at the man in shiny armor and said "There is a simple exnation to this.. We fel-"

    Before Daniel could exin, a voice within the crowd could be heard saying "Look at his leg! It¡¯s not alone!.. Two earth elementals spawned together.. there must be an extremely high-level earth essence treasure nearby!"

    With a deep and powerful voice, the earth elemental barked "I DARE YOU TRY TO STEAL IT, HUMAN MAGE."

    Everyone within the group that was below the early sixth rank of cultivation, couldn¡¯t help but feel a shiver run down their spine.

    Enraged by the elemental¡¯s tone, the spiritual cultivator that had just finished talking said "He is our enemy! He killed all those people. We have to kill it."

    Alis walked in front of the earth elemental and said "Wait! There is an exnation! He only kills bandits who pose as guards.. Look at the bottom of this ravine! This is where thee bandits ditch the bodies of the merchants and travelers they rob."

    What Alis said was the truth. At the bottom of the ravine, mixed with the red soil, were hundreds of rotting corpses. On these corpses, one could see clearly see the cut injuries.

    Unfortunately, aside from making a few of them approach the edge of the ravine from the side, and take a look down to verify the Alis¡¯s words, nothing changed.

    "It doesn¡¯t matter. We have all been sent her to find and kill him. So that¡¯s what we will do" Said the spiritual cultivator with a righteous tone.

    Furious by the spiritual cultivator¡¯s words, Alis looked back at him and shouted "THAT¡¯S SO UNREASONABLE! If he were human, you would have called him a hero!! We have to go back and ask our powers how to proceed. We owe him this much."

    No matter how convincing she sounded, there was nothing else to do. Everyone was aware of how precious high level essence treasures were.. So, blinded by greed, they had already gone past the point of reasoning.

    "He is right. The elemental is guilty of killing those people. He had no rights to act as an executioner.. And if we leave now, he might leave before we get a chance toe back with the new orders." Said the man in shiny armor. He then took a step forward, unsheathed his sword and said "Step aside girl."

    "Why don¡¯t you make me?" Asked Alis while unsheathing her short sword.

    Daniel stepped next to Alis, and while unsheathing his sword, he said "Legion¡¯s sixth rule, paragraph eight. It is prohibited for groups that belong to the legion to engage in a deadly fight. In case a fight breaks out, the attacking party will be considered ountable.."

    The spiritual cultivator from beforeughed and said "Hahaha! We are not from the legion, we have no reason to fear your warnings, kid."

    "You¡¯ve misunderstood. Who I was warning isn¡¯t you.. It¡¯s the other members of the legion... You don¡¯t get to have a warning." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Suddenly, someone from the crowd said "Hey, aren¡¯t these three from the same group as those two kids?!"

    The idea of keeping the three as hostage immediately appeared inside the minds of the groups of cultivators, but before they could act, Daniel used spatial essence to switch ce with Ligart. He then touched Heimart¡¯s shoulder and teleported back next to Alis. He then teleported Jerigh next to him from the distance.

    The whole thing happened in half a second.

    "FUCK! That guy hasprehended spatial essence.. Be careful when you attack!" Said the spiritual cultivator that had exposed the earth elemental.

    The middle aged man in shiny armor looked sternly at Daniel and said "You look like a talented kid. There is no need to lose your life like this. There are at least a dozen sixth rank cultivators here.. And I know that none of you are above the fifth rank.

    The earth elemental looked at Daniel¡¯s group from behind. He then said "You are honorable humans. But killing those people was my own decision, and I¡¯ll face the consequences myself"

    As he finished talking, his body started to grow and change shape.

    From an enormous human-like golem, the earth elemental turned into an incrediblyrge horned snake. Its length reached the fifty meters, and the earth essence of which his stony scales wereposed, changedposition and turned into diamond scales.

    The giant snake-like earth elemental looked at the group of cultivators, and said with an intimidating tone. "IF YOU WANT ME, COME AND GET ME."

 Chapter 77 A Battle for What Is Righ

    After shouting intimidatingly, the giant snake-like elemental whipped his impressivelyrge tail at the group of cultivators.

    Prepared for battle, two spiritual cultivators that belonged to the magical covenant summoned a thick wall of stone with an additionalyer of ice as reinforcement.

    As the diamond covered tail crashed against the ice wall, it sttered everywhere, sending shards of ice towards Daniel¡¯s group.

    These shards weren¡¯t out of the spiritual cultivator¡¯s control, as they curved in the air and flew straight towards Daniel and the rest at high speed. But before the shards could hit Daniel and the rest, various gusts of powerful winds appeared out of the blue, and deviated their direction once again.

    The various spiritual cultivators amongst the group started to engage the earth elemental.

    They alternated between creating shields of stone and ice to defend against its attacks, trying to control the ground underneath him to obstruct his movements, and try to condense enough fire and earth essence to produce magma in order to effectively damage the mineral based body of the elemental.

    On the other side, Daniel and the rest saw the various martial cultivators that approached them with unsheathed weapons.

    A few throwing knives and arrows were sent directly towards Daniel, which unable to shield himself against all of the attacks without revealing his powers in martial cultivation, was forced to teleport once again.

    He immediately switched position with the sixth rank martial cultivator which had sent the knives at him.

    The moment he appeared on the cultivator¡¯s ce, he witnessed that very cultivator turn around, grab his throwing knives in mid air, and promptly avoid the arrows.

    Two different horizontal sword shes came from Daniel¡¯s sides, and tried to divide his body into three parts by cutting his legs and neck clean off.

    With the reaction of a fifth rank martial cultivator, Daniel managed to activate ¡¯Stone Skin¡¯ and parry the attacks. Unfortunately, the attacks were too powerful for him to blockpletely, so the two swords dug a couple of centimeters into Daniel¡¯s palms.

    To the two cultivators, it looked like Daniel had an impressiveprehension of earth essence. But the truth was that most of the damage had been parried by his own flesh. ¡¯Stone Skin¡¯ had mostly helped Daniel hide the fact that his body was extremely resistant.

    He rapidly gripped the two des, pushedrge amounts of spiritual essence to his hands, and turned it into lightning essence. He then sent an extremely powerful electric current flow through their swords and into their bodies, making them drop on the ground,pletely stiff.

    He then summoned two spikes of stone in the air directly above the two paralyzed cultivators, and pierced their hearts, killing them on the spot.

    The ground shook as one tail whip after the other were parried by the jointed effort of the various spiritual cultivators.

    Closer to the edge of the ravine, Heimart and Ligart were fighting together against a single halberd wielding martial cultivator. Their power was significantly inferior, but the numbers and coordination of their attacks helped them even the battle out.

    Alis was capable of fending off the attacks of another sixth rank martial cultivator by herself, but she wasn¡¯t capable of fighting back in the slightest. Her opponent was a tightly dressed woman which wielded a spiked whip. Her wide movements allowed Alis to easily predict her attacks, and thanks to her agile body, she managed to avoid most of them without getting hit.

    On Jerigh¡¯s side of the battle, the result waspletely different. At his feet, an heavily armored cultivator lied motionlessly. Copious amounts of Blood gushed out of a cut at the base of his neck. In his hand, an unsheathed single-ded sword from whose tip fresh blood was dripping.

    An ice spike sent at the right moment was all Heimart and Ligart needed to overpower their enemy, and when one approached Daniel from behind, he teleported it right behind the cultivator that was facing the two cousins.

    The cultivator reacted quickly thanks to his surrounding awareness, and parried the magical attack just in time. He then moved his right leg back in order to avoid Ligart¡¯s leg sweep.

    Heimart, who was currently standing behind the halberd wielding cultivator, promptly kicked the back of his knee and destabilized him, forcing him on to fall on his knee. He then grabbed his spear, and after pulling it aside, he hit the cultivator¡¯s neck with a powerful elbow strike.

    Not missing a beat, the moment the cultivator bent forward after Heimart¡¯s strike, Ligart wrapped his hands around the back of his head, and sent a devastating knee strike directly towards his face.

    With a broken nose, the cultivator could not help but drop his halberd and cover his face in pain.

    It was at this moment that Heimart grabbed the falling halberd, and tried to pierce the cultivator¡¯s back with it.

    The cultivator bent forward and sent a backward kick which hit Heimart¡¯s sr plexus heavily with his heel, making him fly ten meters backwards.

    Ligart immediately tried to finish the cultivator off by stomping on the back of his head, but the cultivator quickly moved his head to the side, and grabbed ligart¡¯s ankle.

    With a solid grip on Ligart¡¯s ankle, he forced Ligart to fall on his back by pulling his leg backwards, then crawled above him and wrapped his hands around his neck.

    Alis was in a dangerous situation as well. Her opponent was bing increasingly more urate with her whip, and after two minutes, numerous tears had started to appear on her clothes. Underneath these tears, a few bloody cuts could be seen on Alis¡¯s olive skin, which made her clothes stick to her body.

    Jerigh noticed Ligart¡¯s precarious situation, and when he was about to go help, two martial cultivator at the sixth rank engaged him in battle.

    Heimart had ended up on the middle of a group of martial cultivators dressed with the same attire, but before he could receive any attack, he was teleported right next to Ligart.

    He then proceeded to rescue his cousin from the halberd wielding cultivator.

    Daniel looked at the movement of Alis¡¯s opponent, and after a moment of observation, he formed a whip made out of water, andshed it towards the woman.

    The whip wrapped around the woman¡¯s waist.

    He was about to electrocute her, but before he could do that, several throwing spears reached the exact ce where he was standing.

    Once again, he was forced to teleport away. But before losing control over the water essence, he turned the water into ice and made a few spikes pierce into the woman¡¯s body.

    These spikes did not pierce the woman too deeply, but due to therge number, she couldn¡¯t help but fall on the ground.

    Alis dashed towards the injured woman, and as she was about to thrust her short sword into her shoulder, a greatsword easily deflected her strike and sent her short sword flying in the air.

    -----

    After ten long minutes of battle, Daniel and the rest of the group were exhausted.

    Daniel had already consumed thousands of karma points just to keep going, while the rest had already exceeded the restoration of their ki with the consumption, and were barely managing to hold their own against their opponents.

    Ligart and Heimart were covered in sweat, and various bloody gashes could be seen all over their bodies. Jerigh was limping backwards while parrying one attack after the other. Finally, Alis had a deep vertical cut on the side of her thigh, which disabled her ability to avoid her opponent¡¯s attacks effectively.

    On the other hand, thanks to Daniel¡¯s periodical support, the snake-like earth elemental had been able to solidly hit the group of spiritual cultivators, which unable to defend themselves from a physical attack of that level, were thrown against the rocky wall or down the ravine.

    Unfortunately, not even the earth elemental was able to avoid all sorts of injury, as a few molten sections of his body could be seen.

    Around thirty bodies lied on the ground, and at least two thirds of them were the elemental¡¯s victims.

    Daniel knew that he could not go on by himself forever. So, with a single thought, he upgraded ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ to the fifth level, and started to produce spiritual essence at five times the original speed granted by the system.

    He pushed his spiritual essence out of his body, and focused it in three points. He then used the same technique he used to demonstrate his proficiency in lightning, water and wind essence during the evaluation.

    He formed three clusters of different types of essence, and after merging them in the middle, he created arge storm sphere double the size of a normal human¡¯s head.

    Every cultivator in the area noticed the powerful attack. A few shouts could be heard saying "LOOK OUT!" or "STOP HIM!". But it was toote.

    After the three elements merged into the power of a storm, Daniel sent it straight towards the the middle of therge group of cultivators.

    The ball of storm essence traveled so fast that it looked as if it had turned into a liquid form, and before the cultivators could evade, the sphere impacted heavily against the ground.

    Once therge sphere touched the ground, gelid winds and lightning strikes wreaked havoc in a radius of fifteen meters, and when the shes stopped, and the mist thinned away, the entire area had turned into a frozennd.

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s fifth rank of spiritual cultivation wasn¡¯t enough to directly kill the powerful cultivators in the area. Nevertheless, many had been stuck in ice, and through it, Daniel could see various cuts and charred spots on their bodies.

    Every cultivator in the area looked at Daniel as if they were looking at a monster, as he had shown way more proficiency of lightning, ice and water than that he had shown during the evaluation, making use of up to 85% of hisprehension.

    More surprised than anybody else, was the earth elemental himself.

    He was an entity made of mana, so, recognizing the level ofprehension that a spiritual cultivator had towards an essence, was one of his innate abilities.

    The first to free themselves from the cages of ice, were the cultivators at the sixth rank, while the rest of the cultivators required the help of the spectating practitioners.

    The man in lucid heavy armor, which was one of the two cultivators that had forced Jerigh into a disadvantage, pointed the tip of his sword towards Daniel and said "Kid, I don¡¯t believe you have the enough strength to keep fighting. I suggest..."

    The man¡¯s words got stuck down his throat, as he noticed three new spheres of essence form in front of Daniel. "WAIT!" He quickly shouted.

    The merging of the three spheres stopped momentarily as Daniel looked back at him.

    The man in lucid armor sheathed his sword and said "The tinum Warriors surrender. We will report the situation to the mercenary horde¡¯ ande back with new orders." Then, without waiting for Daniel¡¯s response, he turned towards his group members and said "Let¡¯s go!" He then left.

    Shocked by the sudden changes, the area quietened for a full minute. Until the leader of the group of which the scout belonged to took a step forward, and said "We, the ¡¯Quiet Arrows¡¯ will report to the mercenary horde as well, ande back with new orders." He said before leaving along with his group¡¯s only surviving member.

    "The Proud Bookworms will retreat as well. We ask that the members of ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯ will consider the Alchemical Circuit in case they¡¯ll decide to sell any sort of essence treasure." Said the leader of the proud bookworms, convinced that the only reason Daniel and the rest had to defend the earth elemental, was to put their hands on the essence treasure it kept hidden in the area.

    "As a sign of respect for ourrades from the legion, the ¡¯Night des¡¯ will renounce on the mission." Said a young man that bore a legion¡¯s medallion.

    One after the other, every group collected the bodies of their fallen members, and retreated back into the narrow path between the two stone walls.

    Once alone, Daniel immediately went to heal his teammates.

    The one with the most severe injury was Alis. Her leg was bleeding copiously, and she looked pale and significantly weakened.

    Daniel pressed his palm against Alis¡¯s thigh and forced as much spiritual essence as he could into her body. He then turned it into milky-looking healing essence.

    Her injury quickly recovered, and after half an hour, no trace of it remained.

    Ligart and Heimart were next.

    -----

    After healing his teammates, Daniel finally approached the earth elemental, which had now turned back into his previous human-like form, and was looking gently at his son.

    "I am sorry.. This was all our fault" Said Daniel in an apologetic tone.

    The earth elemental turned towards him and said "What are you talking about? It was my own choice.. Human¡¯s life is too short to take upon themselves other people¡¯s mistakes."

 Chapter 78 A Mutual Agreemen

    The earth elemental turned towards him and said "What are you talking about? It was my own choice.. Human¡¯s life is too short to take upon themselves other people¡¯s mistakes."

    "What are you going to do now? You know you can¡¯t stay here anymore, right?.. Each of the powers will find a reason to hunt you down." Said Daniel to the earth elemental.

    The earth elemental turned his head around, almost as if taking ast look at his childhood home. He then said "I will find a way to leave with my children.. It won¡¯t be easy.. We are not capable of hiding in in sight like you do.."

    Daniel was shocked for a moment. "How did you find out?" Asked Daniel while smiling subtly.

    "Human.. you can fool those cultivators with such a cheap level ofprehension of earth essence.. But not me." Responded the earth elemental with a matter-of-fact tone.

    It was at this moment that Ligart approached the two from behind, and asked "Who says you can¡¯t hide in in sight?" He then looked at Daniel and said. "You¡¯ve seen Daniel¡¯s ability in spatial essence.. It is thanks to him that we can carry our base wherever we go."

    "I am not familiar with human¡¯s uses of spatial essence.." Said the earth elemental.

    Daniel looked at Ligart, and once again felt grateful about the guy¡¯s gifts of spontaneity and straightforwardness. He then turned back towards the earth elemental and asked "Would you mind if I showed you?"

    The earth elemental waved his hand slowly and said, "By all me-" but before he could finish, he found himself within Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension. The space had been morphed ording to Daniel¡¯sprehension of space, so now, the area of the pocket dimension was thousands of meters wide.

    The only essence that the elemental was capable of feeling, was wind essence.

    The meter long stone snake uncoiled from around the human-like elemental¡¯s leg, and afternding on the floor, it tried to slither above the smooth surface made out of spatial essence. Unfortunately, its snake-like shape prevented him from moving above smooth surfaces.

    The human-like elemental looked at him and said "Stop ying around boy.."

    After hearing his father¡¯s reprimand, the snake-like elemental morphed into a kid the size of a four years old boy, which after walking around for a bit, turned towards his father and said "I don¡¯t like this ce.. I can¡¯t feel the earth.."

    "Of course you can¡¯t.. We are not home anymore." Said the earth elemental in aforting tone. "I trust you, human.. And I agree that there is enough space for me and my sons to make a temporary dwelling here.. But thepleteck of earth essence is.. We are not fit to live in this ce."

    After a minute of consideration, Daniel took an earth treasure out of his spatial ring and said "You are made out of earth essence.. Your very existence isprehension of earth essence." He then paused for a moment, and showed the low level level earth treasure to the two earth elementals, which after feeling the faint earth essence within, started to feel a little morefortable. He then continued "Help meprehend earth essence, and I¡¯ll be able to make a home for you here."

    The adult-like earth cultivatorughed as if he had just heard the funniest thing in the world. He then said "That¡¯s ridiculous. Comprehending earth essence would take you decades! We can¡¯t wait that long."

    "You are underestimating my talent.." Said Daniel while making the lightning sphere appear in his hand, and the wind sphere fly from high up in the sky, all the way over his head. "I can make a habitat identical to the one you¡¯ve lived in.. right now."

    On the adult-like earth elemental¡¯s rocky face, what one would describe as a grin appeared. He then said "Very well.. I¡¯ll give you three days. But there is somece else we need to go first.. Mind taking us out?"

    Daniel indicated the one way spatial gate right in front of the castle¡¯s entrance, and said "You can leave whenever you want from there." He then walked into the spatial gate, and appeared at the edge of the ravine.

    The next moment, the father and son duo appeared as well.

    "Follow me." Said the earth elemental while turning back into a giant golem form, and walking north.

    -----

    Legion¡¯s headquarters. Chairman¡¯s office.

    A middle aged woman in blood red clothes was sitting behind a desk. Her pitch ck hair were neatly kept in a single ponytail that reached all the way down her lower back. Her feature were attractive, but her face was decorated with what looked like three small battle scars. She also wore an elegant blood red eyepatch, that she used to cover the eye she had lost years back inbat.

    Her expression was cold, and gave others the impression that there was no ruthless actions she wouldn¡¯t be capable of.

    She was currently looking at two files put side by side above her desk. These two files, were the evaluations of Daniel and Jerigh.

    "Which city were they tested in?" Asked the middle aged woman.

    "Drester.. Both examiners are trusted and experienced." Responded a man in red leather armor which sat on a chair right in front of the desk. "They showed up together at the recruitment building. They then ignored the groups listed as rmended, and entered a newly formed group called ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯.."

    "Tell me about the mission that was assigned to them." Said the middle aged woman with a demanding tone.

    "Their objective is to reach the forest of the towering rocks, investigate the disappearances and homicides, and if possible, to eliminate the culprit. The mission isn¡¯t a legion exclusive, but a shared one. The empire requested that each power put a limit of groups to assign the mission to. The limit has been agreed to be set at a maximum of twenty parties per power by the ¡¯Syndicate of the Equal Opportunities¡¯." The man in red armor finished describing the mission without missing any detail.

    "What kingdom is this?.. Karalis? I¡¯ve never heard of it before." Asked the woman with a confused tone.

    The man in red armor took arge rolled up parchment from the desk, opened it andid it in front of the woman. He then pointed at one end and said "A small kingdom within the Nestreia continent."

    After listening the man¡¯s report, the woman looked at him with a serious expression and said "He must have been teleported here.. Otherwise he would have never reached this far.. Not even in five hundred years. Make sure they bothe back safely."

    The man in red armor bowed politely and said "Yes Ma¡¯am." He then gathered his things from the desk, and left with a steady pace.

    -----

    Within an extremelyrge cave right in the middle of the rocky forest.

    "This is what we came back for?" Asked Daniel without being able to look away from what was in front of him.

    In front of him, Daniel could see a fist-sized rock stuck in the middle of a stone wall. This rock was multi colored, which was caused by the fact that it wasposed of many different types of minerals. It emanated a profound yet weak earth essence.

    It didn¡¯t take an expert to recognize this fist-sized rock as an essence treasure of the earth type. What surprised Daniel the most, was the odd feeling this rock gave him. It was as if he was staring at the source of earth essence itself, but he was not able to grasp anyprehension for it.

    Unfortunately, that was how essence treasures worked. They were like murky water. They would allow a person to perceive the essence, but grasping it directly from them was impossible.

    "That.. is what created us." Said the earth elemental with a mncholic tone.

    Finally able to look away from the multi colored stone, Daniel turned towards the earth elemental and asked "What do you mean?"

    "That¡¯s a detail not many are aware of, but elementals aren¡¯t only born and grown through the consumption of any level of essence. In fact, the purer the essence is, the more we can grow. It took three thousand years before I was able to gain consciousness.. I was only the rock this treasure happened to fall onto one day, and its influence allowed me to evolve." He then took a small pause, before continuing "When I¡¯ve seen the two spheres that you¡¯ve showed me.. I understood that we were meant to meet, so that i could ask a favor from you." Said the earth elemental.

    "You want me to make a perfect earth sphere.." Said Daniel, guessing the earth elemental¡¯s intention.

    The earth elemental turned towards Daniel and said "What this treasurecks isn¡¯t profoundness.. But power. In fact, it is the closest thing to perfectprehension that you¡¯ll ever find. What itcks, is the ability to producerger amounts of pure essence."

    "I don¡¯t have the level ofprehension required to create a sphere of that level." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone while indicating the multi colored stone.

    "I was born from this treasure. My understanding of this stone is as deep as yourck of it. I can help you reach a perfectprehension of earth.. And you¡¯ll use thatprehension.. To give a hope for earth elementals to thrive." Said the earth elemental, not hiding his emotional state at the end of his sentence.

    Suddenly, four more snakes crawled out of just as many cracks in the cavern walls. They were just like the first one they had seen. Low level earth elementals.

    "Alright, I¡¯ll do it." Responded Daniel after a minute of consideration. The truth was that he didn¡¯t need to think about it to begin with. The earth elemental had a good morale, and had promised to help him gain a perfectprehension of earth essence. Daniel had absolutely no reason to refuse his request.

    Visibly happier, The earth elemental walked towards the stone wall, and removed the earth treasure stuck on it.

    At the same time, Daniel sat on the cavern¡¯s rocky floor, and started to condense earth essence around the low level earth treasure he had obtain during the tournament.

    It took him no more than thirty minutes to finish creating a low level earth essence. He then handed the pocket dimension over to Heimart, and entered it along with the six earth elementals.

    Once inside, Daniel immediately locked the newly formed earth treasure on a free expanse of empty space just a few hundred meters away from the castle.

    The moment the earth sphere was locked on the floor, arge amount of low level earth essence started to propagate in the area. After only a minute, an area of a thousand meters in diameter had turned into and covered in rock and iplete soil.

    The earth elemental observed the area quietly, and after a moment, he said "Yourprehension of earth essence is marginal.. But this will do."

    The words of the earth elemental were true. Daniel¡¯s only chance ofprehending earth essence was when he had been stuck inside the underground cave, back when he had took part in his first hunting mission. So, his entireprehension was limited to normal rocks and iplete soil.

    Luckily, most of the rocky forest¡¯sposition was of a simr simplicity, which made this newly created area extremely simr to the one the elementals were used to.

    After storing the earth treasure within a few newly formed stones, the earth elemental walked towards Daniel and said "My name is Buriath."

    Daniel bowed his head in a greeting gesture. "I like ¡¯Human¡¯.. But I prefer Daniel." He said with a hint of sarcasm. After a moment, he smiled faintly and continued "Wee into our group." He then indicated the ck castle and said "That castle is our base. You are free to enter as you wish. There is a library inside which could help youprehend more of the human world. If you are interested that is."

    "I don¡¯t know how to read human words.." Said the earth elemental the very next moment.

    Slightly embarrassed, Daniel said "Oh, right.."

 Chapter 79 The Meaning of Perfect Comprehension

    Two days had passed since Heimart¡¯s group departed from the rocky forest.

    Daniel was currently staying within the pocket dimension along with Buriath, and the younger earth elementals.

    Buriath had turned into a nked of rock and encased Danielpletely. It then started to change his mineralposition at a high speed.

    Daniel pressed his hands against the inside of the stone shell that encapsted his body. From a small hole at the top, a ray of light shined through and bounced against the different colored minerals, which then split it into different rays of light and reflected from one side of the encasing to another, creating a show of multi colored lights.

    Daniel had spent the past two days sitting within this stone sphere, andprehending everyposition, density, and quality of the various mineral included within the wordly ne¡¯s earth essence.

    Now, he was finally done.

    In just two days, and at the price of more than ten thousand karma points, Daniel had managed to make hisprehension of earth essence reach the level of his wind, water, and lightning essenceprehension.

    "I am done." Said Daniel in a low tone.

    Buriath turned back into his human-like form, and while looking at Daniel with a dubious expression, he said "Show me."

    The next moment, Daniel forced arge amount of spiritual essence out of this body, then turned it into earth essence.

    In the air, arge multi colored stone started to form.

    The cluster of minerals started to quickly change in shape and formation, showcasing thousands of different minerals. Diamonds, corundum of various colors, fluorite, celestine and many others..

    The more time passed, the more shocked Buriath became. He could list every form of mineral by memory, and whenever he saw one, he would check it out of his mental list.

    After two long hours, Daniel had finally finished showing every mineral of which he hadprehended theposition, density, and qualities of.

    While Buriath stood in ce looking at Daniel with a shocked expression, a small cluster of floating diamonds, hematite, and other precious minerals approached Daniel, and stopped right in front of his face.

    As he observed the beauty of these multi colored stones, he cursed at the fact that he would not be able to create one and keep it as his.

    As for every other form of essence, constructs made out of earth essence would dissipate once one would give up his control over the earth essence.

    This point had been a source of disappointment for about every single spiritual cultivator in the world.

    They would dream ofprehending metal essence and create mountains of gold coins, orprehend earth essence and produce thousands of diamonds and other precious minerals, but each and every one of them, at some point, had to learn the cold hard truth.

    The first time Daniel had learned that a spiritual cultivator wasn¡¯t able of keeping a construct made out of essence, was back when he had been stuck into the underground cave. That time, Daniel had used his spiritual essence for the first time to create an earth golem, and after giving up his control over it, the golem had turned into an inanimate clump of stones and soil.

    The only reason why the golem had not dissipated in the air, was because in that case, he had simply took control over the surrounding stones and soil, instead of creating it out of his own spiritual essence and basicprehension.

    Furthermore, an essence construct created out of a person¡¯s spiritual essence, would carry the unmistakable mark of that spiritual cultivator.

    Many ignorant cultivators in the past had tried to sell precious minerals and metals to the various shops, but after a quick look, the merchants would always be able to feel the spiritual mark within the items and realize that they were fake.

    Those cultivators all faced the same fate. They were arrested and prosecuted for fraud.

    The various schools always used the same example to easily exin this important w of spiritual cultivation. This example had to do with water essence, and it said that a person would be able to use constructed water to wash themselves, but they would not be able to drink it, as once they would inevitably give up control over it, the water would dissipate from inside their bodies.

    Daniel now possessed an impressive ny percent ofprehension of earth essence, and he only needed to understand the various effects that other elements had on earth essence before he could reach apleteprehension of it.

    Fortunately he had Buriath, an earth elemental born from pure earthprehension.

    Buriath was weak to some effects other elements had on him, but that didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t aware of their existence.

    Once out of his shocked state, Buriath said with faint surprise still present in his voice "You weren¡¯t kidding.." The sudden realization that his dream may not be as far as he had thought in the beginning, made Buriath so enthusiast that he felt like screaming.

    Without wasting any time, Daniel formed arge generic rock, and started to expose it to the elements he had aprehension of.

    With fire, heprehended the melting and solidification of rock, and through the use of sand, he learned the process of vitrification.

    Through the exposition to water and wind, heprehended erosion.

    With lightning he learned about electrical conductivity.

    Mixing stone, water and air, heprehended a nigh perfect state of soil, which onlycked an organicponent.

    Finally, through the use of his various metallic weapons, he was able to learn hardness.

    These types of tests not only aided him in theprehension of earth essence, but also in theprehension of the secondary essence used to conduct the test.

    For example, in case Daniel ever decided toprehend fire essence, he would not need to repeat these tests because he had alreadyprehended the effect he would obtain by mixing fire and earth.

    With wind he had learned the suppression of a me, while with water he had learned extinguishment. Mixing fire, wind, and wood, he would be able to understandbustion, and so on.

    All these processes had taken another half a day, and in the end, Daniel had finally managed to reach a perfect state ofprehension of earth essence.

    The first thing Daniel felt, was the familiarity to the earth treasure hidden within therge stones. He now could understand every bit ofprehension it emanated, Just like an earth elemental would.

    It was at this moment that Daniel realized something. His cultivation at thete moderate spiritual synchronization was not enough to create a perfect essence sphere.

    Daniel¡¯s perfect connection to the spiritual ne had changed theposition of his spiritual essence, making it simr in effectiveness to that of a cultivator at the mid profound spiritual synchronization.

    Unfortunately, once he became capable of feeling the worldly perfection of the earth treasure, he understood that the purity of essence required to create a perfect sphere, would be no less than that at the early faint spiritual merging, or early seventh rank.

    In order to reach the power and effectiveness of an early seventh rank spiritual cultivator, Daniel would need to reach the mid sixth rank at the very least.

    Daniel had read books regarding the formation of essence spheres, and in none of them the notion that one required to have reached the seventh rank of cultivation was written.

    The reason for that was simple to guess.

    Nobody under the seventh rank of cultivation would be able to have a perfectprehension of an essence, and even if they did, it would be very unlikely for them to be able to find themselves in the possession of a perfect essence treasure. The third andst obstacle, would be that nobody but Daniel would be able to produce such a rtively infinite amount of spiritual essence in a small enough amount of time, unless they were at the seventh rank of spiritual cultivation.

    Daniel still did not understand what how precious a perfect essence treasure and his perfectprehension meant together.

    If an essence sphere formed with ny percent of cultivation could be used to buy a small city, a perfect essence sphere could be exchanged for arge and rich kingdom.

    Wars had been fought in the past for perfect essence treasures.

    Earth treasures were not only not an exception, but in fact, were one of the most valuable treasures of all. After all, earth essence was the most difficult essence after time, sound, and space toprehend, due to the thousands of minerals that one needed to encounter and familiarize with.

    Of course, all these informations were outside of Daniel¡¯s knowledge.

    His only understanding of the treasure¡¯s value was based on the fact that, in case it was sessfully turned into a perfect essence sphere, it would be able to aid the entire race of earth elementals.

    Right now, the only thing that prevented him to realize this species¡¯ dream, was his low cultivation rank.

    When the group of cultivators had noticed the earth elementals and had guessed that a treasure essence nearby, not even in their wildest dreams did they imagine that it would be a perfect treasure. Because if they did, a bloody war would have already started.

    With a hint of embarrassment in his voice, Daniel approached Buriath and said "I¡¯m sorry. It seems like I am unable to create the earth sphere right now.. I might need some time.."

    With what looked like aforting smile, Buriath said "I already expected you to need years toprehend earth essence.. Waiting for you to cultivate is of no difference."

    "Thanks for your understanding. It won¡¯t take long.. We only need arge amount of money to purchase the resources." Said Daniel with reassuring a tone. He then bid farewell and left the pocket dimension, reappearing right next to Heimart.

    The group nodded at Daniel in greeting, then they kept traveling towards Drester.

    While in the middle of running, Daniel checked once again his group window, which after a single thought, had appeared in his mind.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 5

    Overall Karma: 500,000

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    Daniel almost lost his footing and dropped on the ground by surprise.

    The rest of the group turned to look at him in confusion.

    Trying his best to hide his surprise, Daniel said "It¡¯s nothing, I didn¡¯t see that rock on the ground."

    "Maybe you should fly.. For your own safety! Hahaha!" Said Ligart with a teasing tone.

    Daniel giggled in an embarrassed manner, then followed the rest as they started to run once again.

    "Sewah, what the hell are all those karma points about?! When did I obtain them? And how do i have 5 people in the group already?" Asked Daniel within his mind with a shocked voice.

    "You don¡¯t need to invite people for them to join your group. If they trust you as a leader, follow you, and follow your orders.. Then they are considered part of the group." Said Sewah with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "What about the points?" Asked Daniel with a calmer tone.

    "You, the quiet one, the tanned girl, and the two idiots got those points when you¡¯ve defended the elementals. Apparently the system decided that that action was worth 100,000 karma points for each of you.. Don¡¯t ask me if I agree with it." Said Sewah with a slightly irritated tone, almost as if in disagreement with the unconscious part of the system.

    "What the hell is your problem?" Asked Daniel with a dissatisfied tone.

    With no response from Sewah, Daniel decided to give up on the matter for now, and talk to his group members. "Guys.. I remember this valley.. It¡¯s just one and a half days from the rocky forest. Howe we are still here?"

    As embarrassment filled Ligart¡¯s face, and a faint smile appeared on Alis and Heimart¡¯s mouths, Heimart looked at him and responded "We let Ligart pick the course.. And ended up lost for a full day.."

    "Great.. I was actually thinking who to ask to make an inventory of the weapons we have and an estimate of their value.. I guess Ligart volunteers.. Right?" Said Daniel with a teasy smile.

    Heimart and Alis couldn¡¯t hold it any longer, so they started tough loudly.

    At the back of the group, a quiet Jerigh followed the rest at a close distance. On his face, what looked like a faint yet genuine smile had appeared.

 Chapter 80 There Is Only One Truth

    Drester, northern gate. 15:33

    Daniel and the rest of his group had just managed toe back from their journey up north, and were now waiting to get into the immense city of Drester.

    At the gate, the usual fifth rank guards stood in wait.

    "I¡¯ve just finished counting.." Said Ligart after suddenly appearing right next to Daniel, and scaring the people in line around them out of their wits.

    Daniel had felt someone crossing the one way portal within his pocket dimension, so he wasn¡¯t scared in the slightest. He turned to look at Ligart, and after putting his hands on his shoulders, he said "Great, I knew you would be perfect for this job. What is your estimate?"

    "I would p the back of your head.. If you weren¡¯t stronger than I am.." Responded Ligart through a sideways look. He then calmed down, and continued "About forty thousand weapons of decent quality, seven thousand weapons of good quality, and two thousand high quality weapons."

    "What¡¯s your value estimation?" Asked Daniel immediately after hearing Ligart¡¯s response.

    Alis and Heimart turned to look at him with a strange expression.

    Ligart said "Really?.. It¡¯s not that hard of a calction.. The price for weapons of decent quality usually goes from two hundred and fifty gold coins to seven hundred and fifty, good quality weapons go from seven hundred and fifty to two thousand, and high quality weapons go from two thousand to five thousand.. We could sell them in batch for neen millions at the very least."

    Daniel noticed the weird looks of Alis and Heimart, and after a soft sigh, he said "I¡¯ve never went to school.. I know nothing about weapons or their worth, except for the cheap ones you can find in the streets."

    Ligart immediately felt bad about his previousment, but he didn¡¯t show it on the outside. Instead, he pretended like it didn¡¯t matter, and started to exin the weapon¡¯s ssification and value.

    "You probably wouldn¡¯t have known this even if you did go to school. Weapons are divided into five categories, which are used to indicate the overall quality of work, materials used, and durability of the weapon. These categories are Lower, Decent, Good, High, and Perfect.."

    After a few minutes of exnation, Daniel had caught up with the general knowledge of weapons value and ssification.

    He stood in ce with a pensive look for a few moments, then turned to look at Ligart and said "We should keep the high quality weapons in case other people will join. It seems unlikely that we would be able to provide everyone with a perfect quality weapon.. So we should build a weaponry and store there the high quality ones." He then turned to look at Alis and said "Can you take care of that?"

    "No problem." Responded Alis promptly.

    Once again, Daniel turned to look at Ligart and said "The rest of the weapons should sell for at least fifteen millions, but that¡¯s a low estimation from what you¡¯ve told me. We will sell the weapons in batch.. But not to a merchant. We¡¯ll sell them to an auction."

    "That¡¯s not a good idea. The bids usually start low.. There is a good chance that the weapons will go for under their value due to the fact that not many bidders will have armies to whom they need to provide equipment to.. I was thinking about selling them to the military instead." Responded Ligart.

    Daniel smiled at him and said "Don¡¯t worry, I have my methods."

    -----

    Legion¡¯s recruitment office. 17:05

    "I¡¯m here to report thepletion of a mission, andplete my registration to the legion." Said Daniel to the clerk behind the desk.

    The man took a sheet of paper from under his desk, and said with an indifferent voice "Here, fill this in."

    On the form a few informations were required. Amongst them was the type of mission, whether the mission was a group mission or an individual one, name of the group, number of participants, objective of the mission, and a full report of what had happened.

    It took him ten full minutes to finish.

    Luckily the line for this particr counter was basically non existent, and aside from his group members, Daniel was the only one there at the moment.

    Heimart was the only one of the five that had taken thirty minutes to finish, due to the fact that, being the leader of the group ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯, aside from filling the same form for thepletion of the mission that the others had to fill in, he also had to fill a form to report the behaviour of the group during the mission.

    They were all aware that other groups which belonged to the legion had probably already reported on their behaviour, so Heimart didn¡¯t dare to let any detail out. Included their sh with the groups from the other parties, and their motivations.

    Daniel solved Jerigh¡¯s problem with writing a report by simply creating a thinyer of stone with which he covered his palm, and controlled it into writing the report in humannguage.

    Once the man clerk noticed Daniel¡¯s and Jerigh¡¯s names, he sprung up from his chair and rushed into a door ced on the wall behind the counters.

    "Wow.. that guy is really eager to give us our medallions" Said Ligart sarcastically.

    Unfortunately, ten more minutes passed uneventfully.

    Daniel and the rest had decided to find a ce to sit in wait, but right at that moment, the door opened once again, and from it the clerk entered once again in the lobby while following a well dressed and much older man.

    This old man had a polite smile on his face, and his white head full of hair made him look like a rich and friendly grandpa.

    Of course, Daniel and the rest were not aware that, this old man, was in fact responsible of this recruitment office, and was a veteran martial cultivator at the mid eighth rank.

    The two men approached the counter, and stopped right in front of Daniel¡¯s group. The old man said "You must be ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯.. I¡¯ve heard many things about you in thest forty-eight hours. Follow me." He then turned around and started walking towards the door once again.

    Daniel and the rest followed him in, and after entering the door, they ended up into a long corridor with various closed rooms to the opposite side of the lobby. In this corridor, a few people walked back and forth at a fast pace, while carrying forms and documents from one room to another.

    The two men lead Daniel and the rest into the only double door within the corridor. Behind this double door, was an impressive looking office.

    This office was not simple by any means. The refined couches, tables and chairs were separated from the dark hardwood floor by carpets made out of white high-ranking beast furs. On one of these refined couches, a man d in red armor sat quietly while reading a few documents.

    The old man, ignoring the existence of the man in red armor, directly walked behind his desk and sat on his chair. While at the same time, the clerk ced five chairs in front of the desk, and after excusing himself in a polite manner, he left the room.

    Before the clerk left, he looked at the man d in red armor with eyes filled with admiration.

    "Please sit." Said the old man in a polite manner.

    Daniel and the rest immediately took a seat, and waited to hear what the old man had to say.

    "First of all, I wanted to rify what truly happened in the forest of towering rocks. You might not know this, but in the couple of days prior to your return, many groups reported various versions of what happened to their powers. Including other groups that belong to the legion." Said the old man while looking at Heimart and Alis, which he had believed to be the leaders of the group.

    This misconception of the group¡¯s mechanics had been caused by the believe that, it was in fact thanks to Heimart¡¯s charisma that he had managed to rope two absolute geniuses like Daniel and Jerigh into his newly formed group.

    The reason why Alis was believed to be one of the leaders, was because during the registration of the group, Heimart had indicated her as second inmand.

    "Some groups reported that all powers discovered the truth of what happened at the same time, and that thanks to a quick thinking on your part, your group was able to ally with a couple of powerful earth elementals.. A second group reported that you were split into two teams, and that one of these teams was in fact responsible ofpleting the mission first. But after the other groups arrived at the scene, you have attacked them in order to prevent them to report the mission before you. A third group even imed that an all out war broke out, and that the prize was a high level earth treasure of which you might be in possession of.." Said the old man in a confused tone.

    Heimart straightened his back in his chair, and after clearing his throat, he said "There is part of the truth in all of these stories, Sir. But the entire truth ispletely different."

    "By all means, tell me what really happened then." Said the old man with a calm tone.

    Once again, Heimart cleared his throat and said "We have reached the rocky forest four days after receiving the mission. The moment we¡¯ve reached the ce, we have indeed split into two groups. Dan and Alis went to look for informations inside the rocky forest, while me, my cousin Ligart, and Jerigh went to look for allies from other powers."

    At this moment, Alis started to talk. "We have talked to a good number of traveling merchants, and from them, we¡¯ve learned that the only victims were solitary martial cultivators that were hired right outside of the closest cities in the area. Not one merchant, guard or traveler had ever disappeared in the same fashion."

    "What lead you to the encounter with the earth elementals?" Asked the old man with clear interest.

    "We have heard the sounds of a battle, and after reaching the site, we found a dead body and an earth elemental present on scene. This earth elemental was more powerful than we were, so we¡¯ve tried to earn some time by talking to him. He revealed that the men he killed were bandits, and that they were part of a band that lead merchants into the rocky forest just to rob them and kill them." She said with a calm and polite tone.

    "And you¡¯ve believed it?" Asked the old man through a dubious expression.

    "Not at first. But then he lead us to a mass grave in which hundreds of bodies had been disposed. The bodies presented injuries made by human weapons." She responded with a hint of anger in her voice.

    Heimart picked up once again and started to recount the rest of his side of the story.

    After five full minutes, the office was quiet once again.

    The old man¡¯s eyes moved towards the man d in red armor every time the story recounted by Heimart and Alis reached an apex. But after noticing theck of interest of the man, he would go back into listening to the two.

    "That¡¯s an impressive feat.. Can you exin the nicknames I¡¯ve seen in the reports?.. The Mute Sword Demon, and The Stormbringer.." Said the old man in curiosity.

    "That should be the two of us.." Said Daniel in a polite tone.

    Finally, for the first time, the man d in red armor put the documents down and focused on listening.

    The old man smiled at Daniel and said "How were you two capable of fighting and defeating sixth rank cultivators?"

    "Dedication to cultivation.. And a bit of alchemical support, Sir." Responded Daniel while pretending a bit of shyness.

 Chapter 81 The Warehouse

    "Dedication to cultivation.. And a bit of alchemical support, Sir." Responded Daniel while pretending a bit of shyness.

    The old man smiled faintly and said "Well, I¡¯ve seen the results of your tests.. So I don¡¯t doubt your dedication to cultivation. Your discipline is remarkable for your age.. I wonder who your instructors are..?" He asked while looking at Jerigh.

    "He doesn¡¯t talk much." Said Daniel promptly.

    "I understand. You two are very resourceful.. Keep up your effort and you¡¯ll go far in the world of cultivation." Said the old man with a satisfied tone. He then looked at the man d in red armor, and after receiving a faint nod from him, he turned back to look at Heimart and said "Very well, ¡¯The Aimless Adventurer¡¯ is allowed to operate under the name of the legion." He then personally handed five medallions over to Heimart and said "These are your medallions. You may go."

    Daniel and the rest stood up, bowed politely to the old man, and left the room.

    Once out of the room, the old man immediately stood up, and approached the man in red armor. "Commander, do you want us to keep an eye on them?" He asked in an extremely polite tone.

    "Yes.. and report to me if anything happens." Responded the man in red armor with an authoritative tone. He then got up as well, and left.

    -----

    "Do you think they believed us?" Heimart asked to Daniel.

    Daniel responded without looking back at him. "I believe he doesn¡¯t care what happened. He was only scouting us for the man in red armor."

    "How do you know?" This time was Alis to ask a question.

    Finally out of the building and back in Drester¡¯s streets, Daniel said "You¡¯ve all noticed how the old man kept looking at him every now and then.. But I¡¯ve also felt how the wind around the man¡¯s face changed when he nodded at the old man.. He was clearly a superior and the one who actually wanted to see us."

    "What do you think the reason is?" Asked Heimart in a low and serious tone.

    Daniel shrugged with his shoulders and said "They either want the essence treasure, or they could be trying to rope us in.. Seeing how the old man mentioned the nicknames that others gave us.. I think thetter is more usible."

    "What do you guys want to do now? Should we find an auction house right away, or should we wait and let the dust settle?" Asked Ligart. He seemed to be in a good mood, and couldn¡¯t wait to get rid of the source of hisst few days of suffering.

    "We have nothing better to do.. Let¡¯s ask around and see if we can find a ce to go to today." Said Daniel with an excited tone.

    Daniel and the rest asked around for half an hour, and in the end, they had narrowed the choice to three high-end auction houses that hosted events that very night.

    The first one, was an auction house that dealt in cultivation items. It was called ¡¯A Cultivator¡¯s Oasis¡¯, and it was the right ce to go to in order to stock up on beast cores.

    The second auction house, was called ¡¯Clear Sky Auction House¡¯ and it mostly dealt in alchemical items. Pills, nts, instruments and various other items were easy to find in the clear sky auction house.

    The third andst auction house worked very differently from other regr auction houses. The auction house was called ¡¯The Warehouse¡¯, and it dealt in wholesale deals.

    The type of auction used by the warehouse was called ¡¯silent auction¡¯ and it was a much more genial type of event than a regr auction, as It would usually be hosted during a social event.

    Each seller would describe the type of item, and the amount they possessed to a clerk at the beginning of the night, which would then make a list of all the items put for auction, and distribute these lists to each attendees along with their number.

    The attendees would then write their bids on the side of each desired item, and hand over the list to the clerk. At the end of the night, the highest bidder would be announced.

    Intrigued by how a silent auction worked, Daniel and the rest decided to go to the warehouse.

    The auction started at 21:00 sharp, and ended at midnight. The Warehouse location was on the other side of the city, and Daniel and the rest still had to divide the items into even batches.

    After a minute of deliberation, the group agreed that Daniel would be in charge of their transportation to the auction house, and that on the way, he would call Alis out once he found a clothing merchant, so that she could help him with choosing appropriate clothing for them to wear during the silent auction event.

    At the same time, Heimart, Ligart, Jerigh and Alis would have to stay in the castle and divide the weapons into four separate batches. Each batch would beposed by 10,000 decent quality weapons, and 1500 good quality weapons, which they would sell separately.

    -----

    The Warehouse, 19:25

    This was the first time that Daniel had wore formal clothes in his life.

    Daniel¡¯s clothes wereposed of a dark grey suit with a white shirt underneath the jacket, and a pair of ck lucid boots.

    Heimart and Ligart wore the same type of suit Daniel wore, but of two different shades of blue instead. Their shoes were also simr, but of a brown color.

    Jerigh¡¯s clothes were much more noticeable than Daniel¡¯s or the two cousins. For him, Alis had chosen a white suit with a white tie over a ck shirt. His serious look and short blond hair made him look like the imperturbable young master of a powerful group. At his waist, a brown leather belt held a sheathed ceremonial sword.

    They were currently waiting for Alis to change, ande out of the pocket dimension.

    Daniel and the rest had arrived early in order to make sure that they would be able to add their items to the list.

    What was before them, was a huge mansion. The ce looked very simr to their castle, but it was slightly smaller and much more illuminated.

    The sun had started to set in the horizon, turning the sky into a tapestry filled with vibrant colors. The dusky hue shined over the stone walls, making the observers stare at it in awe.

    Daniel, Jerigh, Heimart, and Ligart walked above a cleanly cut rocky path, right in the middle of a well kept yard. To the sides of this path, various bushes covered in multicolored flowers gave those who crossed the rocky path a pleasant feeling.

    The mansion¡¯srge double door was wide open, and at the entrance, a well dressed servant waited patiently for guests to arrive.

    When Daniel and the others arrived, the servant bowed politely and said "Wee dear guests. The auction will not start before another hour and a half. If you wish to wait inside, you are wee to enter and enjoy the refreshment."

    "We would like to add some items to the list, if that¡¯s possible." Said Heimart with a polite tone.

    "Of course. Please, follow me." Responded the well dressed servant before making a wavy gesture with his hand, and taking Daniel and the rest into the mansion.

    The servant took Daniel and the rest to a side room within the mansion. This room was arge lounge, and inside this lounge, various seemingly unupied evaluators interacted amongst each other.

    The servant turned to look at Heimart and asked "Dear guest, what kind of item would you like to put for auction?"

    "Weapons. Arge number of them." Responded Heimart promptly.

    The servant smiled politely at Heimart, then turned towards the group of evaluators and said "Mr. Robinrek, these guests would like to put some weapons for auction. Your assistance is required."

    Arge and muscr looking man separated from the rest of the evaluators, and approached Daniel¡¯s group. He then stopped right in front of them and said "Good evening, I am Mr. Robinrek. Please follow me in another room so that I can have a look at your items."

    Daniel and the rest followed him into a room that bordered the lounge.

    This room was extremely well lit, and aside from the entrance and arge robust table, there was nothing else within.

    Mr. Robinrek approached therge table and stood next to it, he then waited for Heimart to take the weapons out.

    Out of his expectation, Daniel walked out of the group and instead of approaching the table, he approached therge and empty wall. With a wave of his hand, hundreds of crates appeared, covering the wallpletely.

    "These crates contain ten thousand decent quality weapons, and fifteen hundred good quality weapons." Said Daniel with a in and emotionless tone.

    Completely taken by surprise, Mr. Robinrek looked at the hundred of crates with a dumbfounded expression. It was only after a full minute that he regained his wits, and said "This is an impressive amount of weapons. Do you n on selling them all together, or do you n to split them into smaller batches?"

    Daniel looked at Heimart and the rest in a slightly embarrassed way, then turned towards Mr. Robinrek and said "Actually, this is only one of four identical batches."

    Once again, the poor evaluator fell silent due to the shock.

    His reaction was understandable. Usually, the only ones who put such arge amount of weapons for auctions, would only be the representatives of the various cksmith groups. In fact, had he not noticed the legion medallions that hung by the four¡¯s belts, he would have believed that these four elegant young men, were a cksmith group¡¯s representatives.

    Despite the experience of Mr. Robinrek, due to therge amount of weapons, it still took him over an hour to finish checking over almost fifty thousand weapons. He then looked at Heimart and said "Your weapons are eptable, and will be added to the list of tonight¡¯s auctioned items. Please, go back to the lobby and enjoy the refreshment until the auction starts.

    Daniel and the rest nodded politely at the man, and momentarily left the mansion. They then found a bench in the yard to sit on, and observed the iing guests while waiting for Alis.

    After only a few minutes of wait, Daniel felt someone going through the one way portal within the pocket space. The very next moment, Alis appeared in front of them.

    She was unrecognizable.

    She was wearing a slim fit cocktail dress of a bright red color. Her shoulders were exposed, and the top of her dress had a v-neckline. The dress was sleeveless, and kept in ce by two shoestring straps that crossed behind her back. The lower part of her dress was a wrap skirt that draped just past her knees, leaving her lower legs exposed. On her feet, she wore a pair of golden ankle strap heels that gave her a few additional centimeters of height.

    Her hair were kept in a neat face-framing pieces style, and on her ears, she wore two expensive white gold earrings with blue topaz gems. On her face, she had applied an appropriate and light amount of makeup.

    The four looked at her with eyes opened in shock. The first to regain his wits, was Ligart, which as always tried to make a joke out of embarrassing situation. But before he could talk, Alis looked at him sideways and said "Before you say anything.. Remember that I am one thought away from stabbing your leg."

    Ligart was petrified on the spot.

    "You look good" Said Daniel with a smile.

    Alis smiled back showing her white teeth, and responded "Thank you."

    It was at this moment that Heimart stood up and said "Well, it¡¯s about time.. Shall we?"

 Chapter 82 Silent Auction

    The Warehouse, 20:52.

    Less than ten minutes were left before the silent auction would begin. Daniel and the rest stood by the side of the hall while observing the crowd berger andrger.

    Leaders of prominent families, heads of sects, masters of schools of martial arts, and even members of the military were present.

    Daniel was able to understand their power thanks to the clerk, which announced the arrival of each of these prominent figures the very moment they entered the hall.

    He and Jerigh were standing quietly on their own, while Ligart went to socialize with the young masters of other powerful groups. He and Heimart were the pride of their school of martial arts, but even they weren¡¯t used to such a high level event.

    Heimart, on the other hand, was currently walking around with Alis. The two walked arm in arm, and the reason for this, was to stop the young masters from constantly pestering Alis.

    Alis was much morefortable than the rest of them. Her group had been founded by an extremely prominent figure of the area, and even if the poption had forgotten about the horrid acts the Clear Magemitted, they did not forget his battle prowess and talent.

    Within the group of rich cultivators, Daniel had noticed a few interesting scenes.

    Scenes like a quarrel between two men who belonged to different, and probably enemy groups. After the quarrel had ended, the wife of the first man looked at the second man with a sweet andplicit smile.

    Roaming around the hall, was an extremely good looking young man dressed in a green martial attire. On his shoulder, was his school¡¯s coat-of-arms, which showed a dragon flying upwards in the sky, while surrounded by clouds.

    This young man kept following a family of three with his eyes. This family wasposed of a stunning looking middle aged woman with tinum blonde hair, a man with slightly long but well kept hair, and a teenage girl which seemed to be the younger version of her mother.

    This young man couldn¡¯t stop looking at the teenage girl, but whenever her mother looked back at him, he would immediately turn away and pretend that he wasn¡¯t doing anything.

    Another interesting thing that Daniel had noticed, was that despite therge and expensive looking buffet, the only thing that people consumed was a cup of tea which they personally requested the attendants that patiently waited by the sides of the room, to prepare.

    Daniel and Jerigh weren¡¯t aware of themon etiquette, so they had approached the buffet more then once in the past ten minutes, provoking disdainful looks by the high-ss people that noticed them.

    "Esteemed guests. Wee to the warehouse! I am Mr. Krien, and I will be responsible for revealing the winners of the auctioned items. I hope that you will enjoy tonight¡¯s event." Said a middle aged man that stood in the middle of the hall with an extremely polite tone.

    After making sure that everyone¡¯s attention was on him, he continued "For those who are new to this type of auction, I¡¯ll exin the rules once again." He said before pointing his hand towards arge table ced in the side of the room "If you¡¯d be kind enough to look to my right, you would notice arge number of envelopes ced above that table. Each of these envelopes contains a list of the auctioned items, and an identity stone. The offers must be written next to the items present in the list before the end of the bidding stage of the event. At any point during the event, you may approach one of the attendants and ask for quill and ink."

    He then stopped for a moment, and with a reassuring tone he said "Do not worry about the possibility of your offers being read by others. Every single object is enchanted, and it is impossible to follow its true movement."

    "A portion of ki must be inserted into the identity stone, and put back into the envelope along with the list that contains your offers." He said in a clear and loud voice. "In case of two or more identical offers, the bidders will have a chance to withdraw their offer, or proceed into a quick round of ¡¯open ascending price auction¡¯."

    After the middle aged man finished exining the rules, he smiled and said "Ladies and Gentlemen, the bidding stage of the action starts now. Have a wonderful evening."

    Daniel approached the table, and took one of the envelopes. He then put his spiritual essence inside of the identity stone, and started to browse through the list of auctioned items.

    The list could be hardly considered a simple list. In truth, it was closer to a book. On each page, a dozen of items would be described in detail. The description was very thorough, and even the current market price of the item was included in it.

    The items were ordered by category, and these categories were cultivation resources, alchemical ingredients, weapons, armors and many other.

    The main point of selling the weapons, was for Daniel and the rest to purchase cultivation resources. They had no ns of epting other missions, and instead wanted to work on themselves, and on making the castle habitable.

    What caught Daniel¡¯s attention was the section of the list dedicated to cultivation resources. In it, various levels of beast cores were listed in order of rank.

    There were many deals, and each of themprised arge batch of beast cores. The lower the rank of the beast cores, the higher would the amount be. At the bottom of the cultivation section, Daniel noticed three different batches which evoked his interest.

    The first offer,prised two hundred and fifty beast cores of the fifth level, and fifty cores of the sixth level. The market value of this batch was of five hundred thousand gold coins.

    The beast cores included in the second offer were of a broader selections, which spanned from third rank to seventh rank beast cores. Its market price was of nine hundred thousand gold coins.

    The third andst offer, included two hundred beast cores of the sixth rank, and ten of the seventh rank. The market value reached three million gold coins.

    Daniel had decided to ce an offer on each of these offers, but instead of guessing the right price, he started to observe the many guests that possessed a negative karma.

    He then wished that these people would not be able to win the items, and in a matter of moments, a window appeared in his mind as if out of his own desires.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: No Rest for the Wicked*

    Description: Complicate the lives of humans with bad karma.

    Third objective set: Outbid the highest bidders with bad karma.

    Optional: Purchase batch one for 691,001 gold coins.

    Optional: Purchase batch three for 3,886,001 gold coins.

    Reward: 5000 KP (+1)(+1) / 20% Negative reputation with +46 different powers (Details). / 40% Positive reputation with +21 different powers (Details)

    ____________________________

    "I guess batch two will be purchased by someone with good karma.. I¡¯ll have to make a honest bid." Muttered Daniel to himself in a low voice.

    Suddenly, the voice of a girl arrived from behind Daniel¡¯s back. It said "What are you muttering about?"

    Daniel turned around, and saw a beautiful girl with tinum blonde hair look at him with an expression contorted in confusion. She seemed to be looking at a crazy person.

    He understood immediately that this girl was the direct kind of person, so instead of exining himself and ease her confusion, Daniel decided to joke around. He looked at the girl and said "I was talking to you, who else could I be talking to?.. Stop being so weird."

    The girl¡¯s confusion deepened, and with a slightly irritated tone she said "How could that be true, we¡¯ve never met."

    Daniel¡¯s expression changed into one of shock. He then said with a hurt tone "How can you say that.. It¡¯s been so long since the first time you¡¯ve talked to me. I still cherish in my heart the first words you¡¯ve ever said to me.. ¡¯What are you muttering about?¡¯.."

    A beautiful smile suddenly appeared on the girl¡¯s face. With an apologetic tone she said "I am so sorry! Please forgive me, I had no recollection of a past so far away."

    The two started tough at each other¡¯s silly behaviour.

    Suddenly, a teenage boy approached them from the side. It was the young man dressed in a green martial attire that Daniel had seen stare at the girl with obsession.

    He turned towards the tinum blonde girl, and asked with an angry tone "Who is this?"

    The girl¡¯s expression turned into one of annoyance, but before she could respond, Daniel said "You too? Did you forget about your best friend?!"

    "What are you talking about? I have never seen you in my life." Responded the young man in an irritated manner.

    The girl was currently trying to hold herughter.

    After noticing the girl¡¯s actions, the young man started to feel embarrassed. It didn¡¯t take long for his embarrassment to turn into rage, and just as he was about tosh out on Daniel, the girl stoppedughing. She then turned towards Daniel, bowed gracefully at him, and walked back to her parents.

    The young man looked at the direction the girl had turned towards, and after noticing the serious look of the girl¡¯s mother, he straightened his back, and walked away as well.

    Once again, Daniel noticed the girl¡¯s family. And once his eyesnded on her father, he felt some sort of familiarity with him. Unfortunately, he couldn¡¯t wrap his head around it.

    Daniel had no idea when Jerigh had separated from him, and after a quick search, he found him standing in the middle of a group of girls. These girls seemed to want to talk to him, but he looked back at them in silence.

    When Jerigh noticed Daniel, an unusual pitiful expression appeared on his face. He wanted Daniel¡¯s help to get him out of trouble, but instead of approaching him, Daniel disappeared back into the crowd.

    Despite of what Jerigh might have thought, Daniel did not only do this to mess around with him. The reason why he had left Jerigh in that situation, was because he hoped to instill some desire to learn the humannguage into him.

    After a few minutes of strolling in the hall, Daniel noticed Heimart and Alis. He immediately approached them, and once in earshot, he asked "How much do you guys think I should offer item number 22?"

    Alis quietly read the details of the offer indicated by Daniel, and after thinking about it for a few moments, she said "I would go for a million and a half. It¡¯s a bit high, but we have the money, and with these resources we should be alright for a very long time."

    "Very well, a million and a half it is then." Said Daniel. Then, without looking up from the list, he slowly walked away while saying "I¡¯ll leave you two alone, so you can y couple some more."

    Once decided on the price to offer, Daniel approached the clerk.

    Using the quill and ink he was given, Daniel wrote his offers right next to the items. He then put the list back into his envelope, and gave it back to the clerk along with the quill and ink.

    He then left the hall, and found a quiet spot to sit and wait for the bidding stage to end.

    As he sat on the bench he and the rest of the group upied earlier, Daniel noticed Ligart approaching along with a group of young men and women. He walked in the middle, and seemed to be the center of their attention.

    Ligart stopped right in front of him, and with a proud expression, he said "Hey Dan, I¡¯ve assured these guys that you had alreadyprehended a big deal of earth essence.. But they don¡¯t believe me. Want to give them a demonstration??"

 Chapter 83 A Dangerous Miscalculation

    With nothing else to do, Daniel epted Ligart¡¯s request.

    He decided to show the group of cultivators the same thing he had seen when he wasprehending earth essence. So, he created arge shell of earth essence made out of hundreds of everchanging minerals.

    He then formed an entrance for moonlight to go in. The light was reflected from side to side, forming a picture of bright colors.

    "Ahah! What did I tell you? He is a prodigious spiritual cultivator!" Said Ligart proudly to the shocked young men and women which had followed him.

    After a minute the shell started to dissipate, and sounds of disappointment reached Daniel¡¯s ears.

    Once the shell disappearedpletely, a few members of the group said goodbye and left. Ligart nodded at Daniel and bumped his fist on his shoulder.

    A small group of twenty or so years old girls didn¡¯t leave, and instead, approached Daniel.

    They wanted toment on how cute he looked, how much he reminded them of their little brothers, or how good he would have looked together with their baby sisters, but the moment they got too close, their hands would simply slide off of Daniel¡¯s body right before touching him.

    Ligart was, of course, aware of what was happening. Daniel was using spatial essence in order to prevent people from touching him.

    After a few more failed attempts, before the girls could start asking for an exnation, Ligart approached them and said "Nowdies, let¡¯s leave the young man alone. After a performance, an artist needs his privacy." The girls looked at Daniel with disappointment, and waved him goodbye. They then left with Ligart.

    Once again, Daniel found himself alone in the yard. An hour had passed, and the moon was full and high in the sky.

    Daniel observed the bright moonlight that bathed his surroundings in a gentle light. For just a few moments, he began toprehend light essence. Then, he sat quietly on a bench, and waited for the silent auction to be over.

    -----

    The Warehouse, 23:50.

    *Ding Dong*

    Daniel¡¯s uneventful and quiet wait was interrupted by the chime of a bell.

    He didn¡¯t know what it meant, but from the reactions of the other people, he guessed that the chime indicated the imminent conclusion of the bidding phase of the silent auction.

    He walked back into the main hall, and in there, he found arge amount of chairs put in an orderly fashion.

    Most of these chairs were already upied, and from the movement of the guests, Daniel had guessed that they were numbered as well.

    Daniel quickly found his seat, where his friends happened to be sitting already. On his left, were Alis and Heimart, while to his right, were Jerigh and Ligart.

    Ten minutes passed in the blink of an eye.

    In front of the seated people was a podium, behind which, the middle aged man that had weed the guests, was standing quietly. Every couple of minutes, he would remind the guests to finish writing their offers, and to put the list back in the envelope along with their identity stones.

    At exactly midnight, his loud voice was heard through the entire hall. It say "The first stage of this silent auction has terminated. In about five minutes, we will announce the winners of the various items. Please, stay seated."

    After exactly five minutes, an attendant approached the podium and handed a list identical to those the others had received. But instead of being empty on the side, this list had the winning offer, and the number of the winner.

    "For the item number one, a batch of nine millions beast cores of the first rank, two hundred and fifty thousand beast cores of the second rank, and twenty five thousand beast cores of the third rank.. The winner is.. Guest number 59 with an offer of one million and nine hundred and fifty thousand gold coins." Said the middle aged man with a loud and clear voice.

    Daniel was guest number 107, so he could see guest number 59 just a few rows in front of him. He looked reasonably happy. Not only because he had won this batch of low level beast cores, but also because he had ced the same bet on the following four items.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of it, but this man was one of the vice leaders of one of the biggest cksmith groups in the Krehan empire.

    Something that cksmiths groups usually did, was to ept unranked people in mass before helping them reach the first or second rank of martial cultivation. These people would then work on forging low level items that, after being sold, would serve as a return of the investment.

    The cost of a weapon of lesser quality was many times higher than that of a single first rank beast core. Usually, an unranked would advance into the first rank in a week¡¯s time and through the use of at least five beast cores, therefore, it was an extremely beneficial deal for cksmiths groups all over the world, as cksmiths could work for dozens of years.

    This process was a short-term investment that brought great profits, and of course, existed in many different levels. Metals and materials not always could be treated by low-level cultivators, so, cksmiths associations usually had a small circle of very talented cksmiths which they nurtured to higher stages of cultivation.

    Unsurprisingly, the following four deals had been sessfully purchased by the same man, and at the same prize.

    "For item number six, a batch of one thousa.." The announcements continued slowly, until finally, it was the turn of Daniel¡¯s items.

    "For item number twenty-one, a batch of two hundred and fifty beast cores of the fifth rank, and fifty beast cores of the sixth rank.. The winner is.. Guest number 107 with an offer of six hundred ny-one thousand and one gold coins."

    "WHAT?!?" Suddenly Burst out a man in the crowd. "That¡¯s just one gold coin more than what I¡¯ve offered!! How is that possible!? You¡¯ve said that it was impossible to spy on another person¡¯s offer!" The man was furious, and the coincidence was too big to pass as such.

    "Sir, I assure you that it is impossible that someone might have spied on your offer. Every Quill pen, sheet of paper, and even the ink, has been enchanted by a spiritual cultivator at the ninth rank, and with a highprehension of spatial essence. The very items do not exist in this dimension, and the only reason why you were able to use and see them yourself, was thanks to the wisp of ki that you¡¯ve left within the identity stone. Please be seated. This is only an extremely odd coincidence." Said the middle aged man after finishing to exin the whole safety protocols adopted by his auction house.

    The man turned to look at Daniel with a dubious look.

    Within the crowd, the father of the family of three people was looking at Daniel. On his face, was a faint smile.

    "What are you smiling at?" Asked his wife.

    The faint smile disappeared from his face as he said "I think you¡¯re going to get an answer to the question you¡¯ve been bothering me with for the past two weeks.."

    "For item number twenty-two, a batch of five thousand beast cores of the third level, two hundred beast cores of the fourth level, one hundred and fifty beast cores of the fifth level, seventy beast cores of the sixth level, and three beast cores of the seventh level.. The winner is.." The middle aged man looked at Daniel with a faint smile, then continued "Guest number 107 with an offer of one million and five hundred thousand gold coins."

    He then looked at the previous man, and said "The second offer for this item was of one million and four hundred and fifty thousand gold coins."

    "For item number twenty-three , a batch of two hundred beast cores of the sixth rank, and ten beast cores of the seventh rank.. The winner is.." Suddenly, the face of the middle aged man contorted in confusion. Once again, he looked at Daniel and said "Guest number 107.. Three million eight hundred and eighty-six thousand.. And one gold coin.."

    "THAT CAN¡¯T BE!" Shouted another man in the crowd. "It¡¯s the same thing that happened to that man.. It¡¯s just one gold coin above my offer!"

    The host felt lost for a few moments. He then regained his wits and said "Order please! Be seated. We will definitely investigate the matter."

    "Who is the object going to?" Asked the man who had just shouted.

    Suddenly, Daniel stood up and said "If I may, I would like to exin how this happened."

    "Please." Said the host.

    Daniel turned to look at the host, and with a matter-of-fact tone, he said "It¡¯s nothing tooplicated.. I¡¯ve simply heard them say their offers out loud."

    "That¡¯s bullshit! Brat, do you think that you can make a fool out of me here?! I¡¯ll tear you into pieces if you don¡¯t speak the truth!" Shouted the second highest bidder of the item number twenty-one.

    "I am fifteen years old.. And I am a spiritual cultivator of the fourth rank.. Are you implying that I possess the power to see through the spatial limitation imposed by ¡¯The Warehouse¡¯?.. With that level of reasoning, no wonder you¡¯ve said your bid out loud." Said Daniel with a disdainful tone.

    "YOU FUCKING BRAT! I¡¯LL KILL YOU!" Shouted the man while dashing towards Daniel. But before the man could reach Daniel, he disappeared in thin air.

    Daniel was shocked. He couldn¡¯t have possibly teleported the man away, as that man had a higher cultivation than his. Someone within the crowd or the staff had teleported the man away.

    Within the crowd, the father of the family was smiling once more. By his side, his wife looked at Daniel and said "You weren¡¯t kidding.. Twice as cunning as you were.."

    "Dad, do you know that guy?" Asked the tinum blonde girl.

    The man turned to look at his daughter, and with a loving expression he said "Yes.. and you¡¯ll meet him too one day."

    Once the first furious man disappeared, the second man barked a few threats and left the all in rage as well.

    Daniel sat back on his chair, and waited for the auction to end.

    The only interest Daniel¡¯s group had for this event now, was the offer for their weapons. It took almost an hour of waiting before the middle aged man announced the numbers of the highest bidders, and the various offers.

    Two of the four batches of weapons had gone for seven millions each, while the remaining two had been sold for five millions and five hundred thousand gold coins each. The total amount was a whopping twenty-five millions of gold coins.

    After an additional half hour, the silent auction concluded, and Daniel and the rest were finally able of obtain their items and leave the auction house.

    They had entered with forty thousand weapons of decent level and six thousand weapons of the good level. When they came out, they had obtained 5000 beast cores of the third rank, 200 beast cores of the fourth rank, 400 beast cores of the fifth rank, 220 beast cores of the sixth rank, 13 beast cores of the seventh rank, and finally 20,178,359 gold coins.

    "I¡¯d say it went pretty well." Said Ligart while walking behind the rest of the group.

    Daniel turned around, and with a satisfied expression, he said "It certainly did.. Nowes the boring part.."

    Heimart looked at Daniel, and with a scolding tone he said "If you¡¯re going to think of cultivating for long periods of time as boring.. Then you¡¯re never going to reach a high.." He then stopped, and after realizing who he was talking to, he said "Actually, nevermind.."

    With an ufortable expression, Ligart said "So.. we are going to take turns on who stays outside and guard the pocket dimension?"

 Chapter 84 Solitary Cultivation

    After a day spent shopping for materials and furniture, The group entered a restaurant and sat for dinner.

    "So, how do we decide?" Asked Ligart once again.

    During the day, the group had talked extensively about their options. In the end, they had narrowed down the decision to two. The first option, was to purchase a patch ofnd in which to ce the castle, while the second, was to leave someone outside of the pocket dimension that could keep the ring safe while the rest cultivated.

    Both options had pros and cons. For example, Leaving the castle outside would allow them to cultivate in peace, and maybe even expand.. But they were not powerful enough to protect their territory from invaders yet.

    In the second option, they would be safe within the pocket dimension. Unfortunately, someone would have to stay outside to protect the rest while they cultivated. A mistake, and they could all end up in the hands of a powerful cultivator.

    There was a third option, which after a bit of deliberation, had been discarded. And that option was to allow Daniel¡¯s spatial essence teacher to keep the ring while they stayed inside to cultivate. The reason why this option had been discarded, was because Daniel still wasn¡¯t sure if he could trust the man or not. The two had an agreement, and were not that close.

    What the rest of the group didn¡¯t know, was that Daniel already had a clear idea on how to solve this problem. He simply hadn¡¯t found a way to justify it yet.

    It was during this dinner that he said "I know how to solve this." He looked at the rest of the group one at a time, and said "I have the highest mobility, I can call the middle aged man in case of emergency.. And I have the fastest speed in cultivation. I should stay outside and cultivate on my own."

    "That¡¯s not fair. You might end up being alone for days, maybe even weeks at a time.. Beast cores of the sixth rank take time to fully consume." Said Heimart with a disapproving tone.

    The reason why Daniel had decided this way was simple. The group feature of the karmic system.

    Within the group feature of the karmic system, there was a passive shared effect simr to his own ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯. The effect was the same, and the only differences were the magnitude of the effect, and the fact that it included the entire group.

    The only rule that needed to be respected in order for this effect to take ce, was that the group members needed to be either in the group¡¯s ground, or in the presence of the group leader. Therefore, if Daniel decided to enter the ring along with most of the others, he would take away the chance to cultivate with an increased progression from one of his friends.

    "I¡¯ll be fine. I¡¯ll keep training with the middle aged man in spatial essence and I won¡¯t be alone. Plus, I can enter the ring whenever I want." Lied Daniel before looking at the ring and saying. "Speaking of which, before I forget.." He then put his hand over Heimart¡¯s opened palm, and disappeared. Leaving the ring to fall in Heimart¡¯s hand.

    Daniel reappeared inside the castle. Specifically, he was within the mess hall, where Roley, Imblen, and the two kids were currently having dinner.

    "Hey Dan!" Said Roley with a happy tone.

    For the past couple of weeks, he had enjoyedprehending the water essence thanks to the water sphere Daniel had given to him.

    "Hi.. Look, before we all start cultivating, I was thinking about installing the water sphere in this dimension¡¯s space. You would still be able to use it, I¡¯ll make sure to install it in a visible ce.. But it has to stay inside pocket dimension." Said Daniel without beating around the bush.

    Roley immediately took the water sphere out of his ring, and threw it at Daniel. With a big smile he said "I think it¡¯s a great idea."

    Daniel immediately teleported outside of the castle. He was now about a thousand meters away from it, in the opposite direction where the earth elementals resided. He then locked the water sphere on the space floor.

    In a matter of seconds, water started to propagate and fill the entire space.

    Daniel could finally feel the moisture in the air, which now felt almost identical to that of the outside world. The only ces where the water did not reach, were the earth sanctuary that now had be arge rocky ind, and the castle, which still possessed a shield of wind essence embedded in the formation.

    After installing the water sphere, Daniel decided to proceed with the purchase of the group version of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯. After the window of the shared karmic effects opened in his head, he purchased it at the cost of 500,000 karma points.

    Then, he opened the group windows.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 6

    Overall Karma: 254

    Karmic effects:

    Time is Precious Lv.1 (Group)

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    Daniel was enthusiast about this group¡¯s feature. Thanks to the group version of ¡¯Time is Precious, he would be able to increase his friend¡¯s very talent inprehension and learning. It was like they had a very weakened version of the system themselves.

    Luckily, the effects were still small, and would hardly be noticeable by the rest of the group. At best, they would be happy about their oddly fast speed in cultivation, and me it on their motivation.

    Of course, this also came with strings attached. If Daniel ever decided to go all out with this group upgrade feature, sooner orter he would have to find a reasonable exnation for the changes.

    A few ideas hade to mind, and the best ones were two. The first one was toprehend time essence, and im to be able to fasten the speed of cultivation while at the same time slow down their aging. The second excuse was to learn alchemy, and im to have invented a pill capable of increasing a person¡¯s affinity between ki and beast essence.

    Naturally, these ideas were still at their embryo stages. It was still premature to think about this, as the cost for the next level of ¡¯Time is Precious (Group)¡¯ was of a full million karma points. So, he didn¡¯t expect to feel the need to exin himself anytime soon.

    Daniel teleported back next to Roley, and after telling him the position of the water sphere, he left the ring once again, re appearing back on his seat at the restaurant.

    The group enjoyed their dinner for a couple of hours, until finally, the rest of the group epted Daniel¡¯s proposition to leave him in charge of protecting the pocket dimension.

    The next day, they bid Daniel farewell, and entered the ring to cultivate.

    Now alone, Daniel teleported multiple times in Drester¡¯s space, and once outside of the city, he opened a rift in the ground, then jumped into it, closing it back behind him.

    -----

    Ten monthster.

    Twenty thousand kilometers away from the borders of Karalis, was a city called Golden city.

    This city was a city-state, and did not belong to any kingdom or empire. Most inhabitants were unranked humans, and their main job was tending to the fields.

    What these unranked humans cultivated, wasn¡¯t food, or at least not all of it. What these unranked humans cultivated, were alchemical nts and herbs.

    Therge fields surrounded the golden citypletely, only leaving small strips of space in between them for the clean and well defined roads. These roads were filled with carriages that went in both directions.

    The golden city wasn¡¯t toorge, and yet, it was very luxurious and lively.

    This city¡¯s name didn¡¯te from the fact that it was made out of gold. The reason for its name, was that it belonged to the alchemical association called Golden Cauldron.

    Inside the Golden Caldron¡¯s headquarters building, were a few different offices, and inside one of these offices, two teenage girls sat quietly in front of a desk.

    Behind this desk, an old looking man sat. His expression was devoid of good emotions, as he looked at the two girls in front of him.

    If Daniel were here, he would have recognized all three of these people. The two girls were Re and Mea, while the old man was the Silver Alchemist, his teacher of spiritual cultivation.

    ".. I¡¯ve told you, I don¡¯t know where he is.. He might have ended up in a radius of hundreds of thousand kilometers.. He could be anywhere." Said the old alchemist.

    While secretly wing at the armrests of her chair, Re said with a near desperate tone "But you¡¯ve sent him somewhere.. It was your artifact.. How could you not know where it takes??"

    "The artifact wasn¡¯t mine.. It belonged to my family for generations, and it had been found by one of my predecessors. I didn¡¯t know where it took him. If I had a choice, or a different spatial artifact, I would have used that.. But that was all I had." Said the old alchemist, seemingly for the tenth time.

    He then looked at the depressed expressions of the two girl, and with a reassuring tone he said "Look, I¡¯ve never seen someone as talented as your brother. Unless he is stupid enough to go and provoke powerful people left and right, he¡¯ll find his way back home. You two should focus on your own cultivation."

    "My brother was always all I had. He took care of me when we were at our lowest.. If he won¡¯t be back soon, I¡¯ll go looking for him instead." Said Re with a determined tone.

    "It is certain that he is alive.. So wait here, and keep cultivating. You won¡¯t help your brother by getting yourself killed out in the world. You may be talented, but you are only a third rank spiritual cultivator." Responded the old man, almost as if rehearsing the lines he had to repeat over and over again in the past year. He then said "Go now.. Your lessons are about to start."

    The two girls stood up, and after a slight bow, they left the room together.

    Re couldn¡¯t help but be swallowed once again by the feeling of helplessness she had felt for almost a year.

    Mea looked at her, and after giving her aforting hug, she said "You know your brother better than anyone else.. Nothing will stop him from seeing you again."

    The two then walked towards their ss.

    In the past eight months, Re and Mea had cultivated thanks to the support of the Silver Alchemist. Re had reached thete third rank of spiritual cultivation, while Mea had cultivated to the early fourth rank of martial cultivation.

    Before sending them to the Golden City, Master Kye had made sure to pass on to Mea arge number of martial arts. Included those which belonged to the Rulin house.

    The two spent their days cultivating and practicing spiritual and martial arts. In secret, they also made long term ns on how to go look for Daniel. The only thing theycked, was a general direction.

    -----

    Krehan empire, Drester. 23:10

    Twelve kilometers east from Drester, was a rocky patch ofnd. It was covered in des of grass and moss, and it looked like nobody hade here for a long time.

    Suddenly, the ground started to tremble. The tremble soon turned into an earthquake, and in just a few moments, the rocky ground split into two.

    From between these tworge rocky walls, a young man flew out in silence. His ki was vibrant, and from the outside, it appeared to be at the peak of the fifth stage of cultivation. But the truth was different.

 Chapter 85 Ten Months Later

    In the middle of one of Drester¡¯s squares, the middle aged man who had teached spatial essence to Daniel, stood quietly behind his stand.

    On the stand a few dozen jewels were ced orderly. Each of them were pocket dimensions of different kind and size.

    The line in front of his stall was extremely long, but unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t able to be happy about it. He had been showing up at the square for two weeks now, but unfortunately, he hadn¡¯t had any luck in finding a recement for Daniel.

    A young man approached the stand and said "I would like to buy one of these.. How much are you selling them for?"

    "They are not for sale.." Responded the middle aged man with an annoyed tone.

    The face of the young man twisted in confusion. He then said "If they are not for sale, why are you disying them?"

    "The fact that you don¡¯t know says it all.. Now leave." Responded the middle aged man, now slightly irritated.

    For the past ten months, the middle aged man had bet it all on Daniel¡¯s honesty, and proceeded with his research. But now.. only one month and a half was left before the gathering of experts, and he hadn¡¯t heard a word from Daniel ever since he had joined the legion.

    At two months from the event, he had started to consider that, maybe, Daniel wouldn¡¯t have showed up. So he stopped with his research, and used his old method to look for another person to train in spatial essence, and to bring to the gathering of experts.

    He had such an urgency to find somebody else, that he didn¡¯t even have time to shave or fix himself.

    It was now a well dressed old man¡¯s turn to approach the stall, but just as he was about to talk, the middle aged man stood up and looked east. Then, he disappeared taking the stall with him.

    When he appeared again, he was standing right in front of a young man.

    With a face filled with enthusiasm, he said "I thought you would¡¯te back in time.."

    "A deal is a deal.. And even if you haven¡¯t finished teaching me all you know about spatial essence, there is still time for that." Responded the young man with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "There is something different about you.." Muttered the middle aged man..

    On the outside the young man was smiling, but within his mind, he was looking at a window that he had purposely made appear.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 15

    Rank

    - Peak rank 6 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Body)

    - Peak rank 6 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Connection)

    Karma - 0

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.5

    Reduced Cost Lv.4

    Second Chance Lv.1

    Karma X Luck

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    "Where are your friends?" Asked the middle aged man while looking around.

    Daniel gently tapped on his pocket dimension with his index finger. He then said "Mind if I leave the ring with you? I¡¯d like to see them."

    "Sure, go ahead." Responded the middle aged man.

    Daniel tossed the ring to the middle aged man, and before it could even reach his hand, Daniel disappeared inside it.

    The middle aged man grabbed the ring in mid air, and after looking at it with a smile on his face, he teleported back in Drester.

    -----

    During the ten months spent cultivating, Daniel had seen his friends only twice. Thest time being five months ago.

    He teleported inside the castle, and once again, he found that its furnishing had changed. The castle now looked lively, and closer to the living space of a royal family.

    The first person he saw was Imblen, which was standing in the hall and giving lessons about cultivation to the two kids . From what Daniel could see, she had reached the peak of the fifth rank of martial cultivation.

    "Daniel!" Said Imblen while walking towards him. She immediately hugged him and said "I¡¯ve missed you! Why didn¡¯t youe more often??"

    "You could havee out as well.." Responded Daniel with a faint smile on his face.

    "Sure.. if you hadn¡¯t hidden in a tiny hole underground every single time we came out.. The one time we came out, it was so crowded that I¡¯ve ended up t against Ligart!"

    "Well, I¡¯m here now. How are you and the kids?" Asked Daniel kindly.

    Imblen smiled at him and said "We are good.. I¡¯ve basically read every single book in the martial wing of the library.. don¡¯t ask me how many martial arts I¡¯ve learned though.. About the kids.." She then turned to look at the two kids, that now were almost one year older, and with a sweet smile she said "They are learning."

    "That¡¯s good.." Said Daniel before disappearing once again. When he reappeared, he was in a martial training room. Inside it, Jerigh was practicing a martial art he had found within the martial wing of the library.

    The moment Daniel appeared, he stopped. He then turned to look at Daniel, and he said in the humannguage "Greeting warrior.. Good see you."

    "Hi Jerigh." Responded Daniel kindly.

    Jerigh was slightly taller than before. Not enough for the others to notice, but enough for him, since he hadn¡¯t seen him even once since he had started to cultivate. On his chin, a hint of dark blond unshaven beard could be noticed.

    When Daniel noticed Jerigh¡¯s cultivation at the peak of the sixth rank, he felt impressed by his talent in cultivation.

    Having finished his karma points after only four months, Daniel¡¯s maximum speed of cultivation had slowed down by eighty-three percent.

    At that speed, the absolute prodigious talent of Jerigh had allowed him to reach his same rank of cultivation.

    Daniel recognized the two martial arts that Jerigh was practicing immediately. The first one was a martial art called ¡¯Tornado sh¡¯, and it teached how to overwhelm one¡¯s opponent with attacks thrown during a constant rotation of the body. The second martial art was called ¡¯From Part to Part¡¯, and it teached how to efficiently use piercing attacks.

    Jerigh not only was using these two martial arts at a near perfect level, but he was also using them at the same time. In fact, one could say that these two arts were merged to such a perfection, that Jerigh had created a new martial art from them.

    If Daniel were to name this new martial art based simply on how Jerigh¡¯s movements looked, he would call it ¡¯Confusing Cuts¡¯.

    After seeing that Jerigh was fine, Daniel teleported once again.

    He appeared in another martial training room, inside which, Ligart and Heimart were sparring, while Alis was spectating.

    Before any of the three could noticed him, Daniel checked them up one by one.

    Alis and Heimart were both at the early sixth rank, while to Daniel¡¯s shock, Ligart had passed both of them in rank, and had reached the mid sixth rank first.

    Daniel knew perfectly that Ligart¡¯s talent wasn¡¯t any better than his cousin. Not to talk about Alis.

    The only reason why something like this might have possibly happened, could only because they hadn¡¯t focused on cultivation like they were supposed to.

    "I see you guys have been cking off.." Said Daniel with teasing tone.

    The three immediately turned to look at the direction from which the familiar voice came from. Right after, they noticed Daniel standing quietly, with his usual neutral expression and cheeky smile on his face.

    "I haven¡¯t cked off.. Want to spar with me?" Said Ligart with a challenging tone.

    Heimart and Alis looked at one another, and in embarrassment, they said at the same time "We have focused more on.." but right after reaching this point, Heimart proceeded to say "..practicing martial arts" while instead, Alis said "..renovating the castle"

    "Sure.." Said Daniel while throwing a cheeky smile at them. "I still have to say hi to Roley.. See you guys back in a bit." He then said before suddenly disappearing.

    When he

    , he was standing above water, and right in front of a small ind made out of ice. On it, Roley was sitting quietly while meditating.

    Roley had inherited Daniel¡¯sprehension of water essence. So, He waspletely capable of verifying Roley¡¯s stage ofprehension by simply looking at the ice construct Roley had summoned to keep himself floating.

    Currently, Roley was showing aprehension of eighty-five percent of water essence, and a cultivation at the peak of the fifth stage.

    Overall, Roley, along with Jerigh, was the one who had made the most progress.

    Unwilling to disturb him, Daniel decided to leave. It wouldn¡¯t take long before Roley would reach the full capacity of the water sphere¡¯sprehension, which was ny percent. They would have all the time in the world to talk after that.

    Currently, Daniel had an adequate spiritual essence to produce a perfect earth sphere, but since he didn¡¯t have a single karma point, he decided to avoid the earth elementals and leave the ring instead.

    When Daniel reappeared in the outside space, he found himself inside a very elegant living room. Next to him, the middle aged man was talking to a beautiful tinum blonde woman which, to Daniel, seemed familiar.

    When he appeared, the woman stopped her conversation with the middle aged man and said "You must be Daniel.. We meet again."

    Daniel tried to remember where he and this woman could possibly have met, but failed. "My most sincere apologies ma¡¯am, but have we ever met before?" Asked Daniel with a curious yet apologetic tone.

    The woman turned back towards the middle aged man and red at him for a few seconds, then she turned back towards Daniel and said in a gentle tone. "We did not meet. I recognized you from the silent auction at the warehouse. I assume you are not used to seeing my husband not looking like a tramp.."

    "Indeed, I am not." Said Daniel while looking sideways at the middle aged man. He then continued "I actually don¡¯t know much about him.. Or about his family."

    "That doesn¡¯t surprise me. Come, let¡¯s talk." Said the woman with a polite tone. She then pointed at a chair, and sat on the one next to it.

    The middle aged man ignored the woman¡¯s action, and Instead, he walked into another room and disappeared.

    "First of all, presentations. My husband¡¯s name is Edmund Saullet, and I am Emelnie Saullet. You have already met our daughter Alesia. We are the Saullet family." Said the tinum blonde woman in an extremely polite tone, as if she was presenting herself to someone worthy of her respect.

    "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Dan, of the Hiel family." Responded Daniel just as respectfully.

    "The pleasure is all mine, Dan of the Hiels. Excuse the poor manners of my husband. He isn¡¯t used to having people around. He is usually very focused on his projects and studies.. You must have made a real good impression to manage making him pick you for the gathering.." Said the woman while looking at Daniel with interest.

    Daniel suddenly smiled and said "It seems that the key to your husband¡¯s heart is a genuine interest for spatial essence.. I was just lucky.. I have plenty of those kind of keys in store."

    The woman¡¯s interest towards Daniel deepened even further. She then asked "The gathering will be in a month and a half.. Are you prepared?"

    "Prepared? Wasn¡¯t it a gathering to discuss a strange event regarding time essence?" Asked Daniel with an extremely confused tone.

    "No wonder you looked so calm.." Muttered the woman in a low voice. She then said "The gathering of experts is not only a discussion between experts. Students will be examined and tested before their teacher will be deemed worthy of joining the gathering of experts." She then paused for a moment before continuing "You will have to face the most talented disciples of the most powerful experts of the Krehan empire. I really hope that you are ready for it."

 Chapter 86 The First of Many Old Grudges

    "Willdy Emelnie attempt to enter the gathering of experts as well?" Asked Daniel with a polite tone.

    Lady Emelnie smiled at Daniel and responded "Yes. My daughter will act as my champion, and willpete to allow me to join the gathering. She is already in the capital, preparing for the event."

    Daniel had a good impression of Alesia, the miss of the Saullet family. She was direct and yet not too serious. She couldugh at a joke and fire back right away. Unfortunately, their interaction had been interrupted by the young man in green martial attire.

    The two talked for a few minutes beforedy Emelnie stood up, and said "You should go and prepare now, Even with my husband¡¯s powers, it takes a week to get to the capital." She then gave him another ¡¯Ki g¡¯ with her husband¡¯s ki trapped within.

    Daniel got up as well, and after bowing politely to the woman, he took the ki g and disappeared in thin air.

    When he reappeared, he was standing in the middle of Drester.

    Daniel¡¯s karma count, for the first time since he had obtained the Karmic System, was at a neutral zero. He had cultivated until the very moment he had finished his karma points, and now, he needed to, once again umte them in the most tiring way possible.

    Suddenly, one after another, his group members started to exit the pocket dimension and appear next to him.

    "Finally.. Fresh air." Said Ligart with an enthusiastic tone.

    Imblen and Roley were those who had stayed within the castle the longest, so they were especially happy about being out in the open.

    Roley, which was the only one who hadn¡¯t seen Daniel yet, approached Daniel and said "It¡¯s good to see you." He then gave him a friendly hug.

    "It¡¯s good to see you too Roley.. I¡¯ve checked you out when you were training.. Your progress are impressive." Said Daniel in a friendly manner.

    "I can¡¯tin.. I was so focused that I think that I¡¯ve reached my highest speed in cultivation ever during these past ten months." Responded Roley while embarrassingly brushing his hair.

    Just like Daniel had thought, the group had noticed their increased speed in progression. But since their increased speed wasn¡¯t too different from their normal speed, they had exined it as an odd state of focus reached thanks to their focus in cultivation.

    "I remember something about this in the formation project.. Something about the castle being able to help in reaching a deep state of concentration." Said Daniel with a vague tone. Trying to hint that the change they felt might have been thanks to an unknown effect installed along with the castle¡¯s formation.

    "So.. what are we going to do now?" Asked Heimart curiously.

    Daniel had an odd look on his face. He wanted to start a mission of the *Everything Counts* chain, but it would seem odd to roam around Drester while helping people in such arge group.

    So, he looked at the group and said "We only have a few days before we¡¯ll have to depart to the capital. Why don¡¯t we split and meet back here in five days?"

    Surprisingly, none of them objected.

    After a few words, Heimart walked towards a lively street filled with people, and left on his own.

    The next ones to leave were Roley and Imblen, which went in another direction while bringing the two kids along. After them, Ligart looked at Daniel and said "I¡¯ll go see if I can find you a wife Daniel.. You are almost sixteen now." He then left while giggling.

    After Ligart left, Alis waved her hand in salute and walked towards a direction that none of the other had taken. Daniel sensed with his spiritual essence that, after only twenty meters, she had entered an alley to the side of the road, and changed route. She was going towards Heimart¡¯s position.

    Jerigh bowed towards Daniel respectfully, and said "Five days." He then left as well.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile at the behaviour of hisrades. He then regained hisposure, and started to think about helping others.

    In just a moment, a new window appeared in his head.

    *Primary Quest started: Everything Helps*

    -Description: Offer your help to people in need.

    Third objective set (Repeatable): Offer your help to 500 people within Drester.

    Reward: 20,000 Karma Points / Drester reputation +5% / Group reputation +0.0000007%.

    Time limit: 5 day

    With a clear objective in mind, Daniel started to sense his surrounding. The very moment he found someone that appeared to be in need of help, he teleported away.

    From simple things like giving money to a wanderer or helping someone move heavy items, to more serious things like preventing a raping attempt or stopping an assault. Daniel didn¡¯t miss any of them.

    After four long days, the much awaited mission update appeared in his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Everything Helps*

    Third objectivepleted (1/20)

    Reward: 20,000 Karma Points / Drester reputation +5% / Group reputation +0.0000007%.

    ____________________________

    With an exhausted expression, Daniel finally sat on a bench to rest.

    The events of the past four days had caused Daniel¡¯s view of human nature had change drastically once again.

    He had seen many odd things, like people with positive karma that tried to rob people with bad karma, a girl with a very high amount of positive karma that kept her boyfriend chained in her house and tortured him for fun, and even an old man with rtively high bad karma that walked around distributing food to orphan kids.

    For the first time, Daniel started to think that his Karmic System might be more detrimental to his perception of good and bad than it would be useful.

    He relied too much on the its ability to read people¡¯s karma, and that had to stop. After a few minutes of thinking, Daniel came to the decision of checking a person¡¯s karma only after forming his own opinion on them.

    His ability to read karma would then be one of the details that contributed to his opinion, instead of being the whole base on which his opinion of a person¡¯s character formed.

    Thanks to this way of thinking, Daniel hade to appreciate Ligart¡¯s natural talent of distinguishing between good and bad people even more.

    With only a day missing before the appointed time, Daniel decided to stroll around the city and rx. But before he could even leave the square, he felt his ki being erased from one of his ki gs.

    In the blink of an eye, Daniel had disappeared from where he was standing, and had appeared in mid air right above a busy street.

    In this busy street, Ligart was lying on the ground while covered in bruises while surrounded by a group of cultivators. Most of these cultivators were at the peak of the fifth rank, while the remaining ten, were at various stages of the sixth rank of cultivation.

    Daniel recognized these people as part of a group which belonged to the mercenary horde. They hadn¡¯t learned the specific name of this group, but Daniel remembered that he had killed at least two of their members.

    The group was surrounding Ligart and looked like they were waiting for somebody else to arrive. Some of them presented light injuries, clearly caused by Ligart¡¯s attempt to fight back.

    Daniel quietly observed the situation from above a building¡¯s roof.

    Surely enough, a middle aged man dressed in a simr attire to the one the rest were wearing, approached the site at high speed. He then stopped at the edge of the group, which split in order to let him through.

    "He is not the one who killed your son, but one of the killer¡¯s group." Said one of the injured young men while looking hatefully at Ligart.

    Daniel was really surprised to see that the middle aged man was at the early seventh rank of martial cultivation.

    This man looked at Ligart and said "You.. you areing with me. After spending a few days together, you¡¯ll tell me everything about where to find the rest of your group of vermins.." His tone was vicious and filled with repressed killing intent.

    The man approached the injured Ligart, and just as he was about to knock him out, a voice that came from up in the sky stopped him.

    "Okay, that¡¯s enough.." Said Daniel while walking down an invisible flight of stairs.

    "IT¡¯S HIM!" Shouted the injured young man. "That¡¯s the one who killed your son! I¡¯ve seen it with my own eyes!"

    After hearing the young man¡¯s words, the man immediately unsheathed his sword and pounced at Daniel. The whole action took an instant to y, but when the man expected to feel the edge of his sword pierce through Daniel¡¯s flesh, he instead heard the familiar sound of the edge of his sword split the air in two.

    A light blue ki attack kept going in the air after the shing motion, cutting straight through the building behind Daniel, anding out from the other side.

    After a moment of surprise, the man turned around in order to find Daniel. Which was currently sitting next to Ligart, with one of his hands pressed against thetter¡¯s shoulder.

    Clear and milky white essence could be clearly seen seeping into Ligart¡¯s skin and slowly closing his wounds.

    "You are too impulsive for your age.. Let¡¯s talk." Said Daniel with a neutral voice.

    The man showed a face filled with a rage deeper than ever. He then said with a vicious voice "YOU! You have killed my boy.. There is nothing you can say to apologize for what you¡¯ve done!.. I must have your head before the sun sets, or I will never be able to feel like a man again!" His eyes were getting watery from how deep his rage towards Daniel, and his sadness towards the loss of his son were.

    "All those whom I¡¯ve killed had already initiated an attack that, had I not avoided, would have killed me instead. I never meant to apologize.." Responded Daniel in a matter-of-fact tone. He then said "I am not responsible for the loss I¡¯ve caused by killing someone who tried to kill me.. But by solving this matter with words, I might prevent the rest of your family from feeling that kind of loss once again."

    Daniel words were true. During the battle in the rocky forest he hadn¡¯t killed anyone who didn¡¯t attempt to take his life, or one of his friend¡¯s lives. The reason was simple.. He did not like to kill.

    The man seemed to have calmed down on the outside, but those who knew him, knew that he was only focusing on the battle. He looked at Daniel and barked "Enough talking."

    He then pounced at Daniel with such a speed, that it looked like he had teleported.

    His sword was high up in the air, and just as he was about to sh downwards, a dozen of small rocky spikes burst out from the ground and attempted to pierce his body.

    A shield suddenly appeared on his left arm, which he used to defend himself from Daniel¡¯s attack.

    The shield was a high level weapon, and was made with very tough materials, but they could do nothing against Daniel¡¯sprehension of earth essence.

    The tips of the spikes suddenly turned into diamonds, which easily perforated the shield.

    About to be impaled, the man stepped over the internal part of the shield, and jumped high up in the air.

    Just as he was about tond on the ground and attempt another attack, an enormous rocky hand burst out from underground, and caught the man in the air.

    The man immediately tried to struggle, and at first he managed to free his arms by overpowering Daniel¡¯s spiritual essence.

    When it seemed like the man was about to free himself, he felt the rock that was keeping him in ce turn into sand. After only a seconds, the sand had be so fine that it could be mistaken for dust.

    It was at this moment that the man started to feel the moisture increase inside it.

    Slowly, water filtered into the sand bit by bit. This went on until the dusty clump of fine sand became saturated with water and turned into a floating clump of quicksand.

    Without a solid surface on which he could make lever on, the man pointlessly tried to swim out of the quicksand. "YOU BASTARD! LET ME OUT OF HERE!" Shouted the man furiously.

    Daniel wanted to finish this quickly, so he changed the airposition around the man¡¯s head into one devoid of oxygen, and making him faint after a bit more than five minutes.

    Once out cold, Daniel dropped him on the ground, and teleported away with Ligart.

 Chapter 87 Friendship, Dreams, and a New Lesson

    After healing Ligart¡¯s injuries, Daniel left the ring to him and teleported back into the pocket dimension.

    He now had enough karma points and the required power to fulfill his promise. He appeared within the earth elemental sanctuary.

    The moment he appeared, a few randomly ce stones started to move into the shape of a giantpletely made out of stone. Onceplete, this giant started to shrink and approach Daniel.

    "Daniel. It¡¯s good to see you again." Said Buriath while curving his rocky lips into a genuine smile.

    "Buriath. I¡¯vee to fulfill my promise." Responded Daniel while smiling back at him.

    Buriath tilted his head in confusion and asked "Already?.."

    "Already.." Said Daniel while reaching with his hand. The next moment, the perfect earth treasure appeared in his palm.

    Without waiting to see the earth elemental¡¯s reaction to his move, Daniel started to surround the perfect treasure with his spiritual essence. He then turned it into pure and perfect earth essence, and fed it to the earth treasure.

    One by one, Daniel shaped the earth essence into thousands of forms andbinations, and demonstrated all the affected caused by mixing earth with other essences.

    It took Daniel more than ten hours and half of the karma points he had just obtained to finallyplete the perfect earth essence sphere.

    The sphere looked like a precious gem with thousands of faces, and each face wasposed of a different mineral. Some of which were so clear that one could notice the sphere¡¯s stony core through them.

    The earth essence emitted by the sphere was so pure and heavy that, if not controlled, the sphere would be able to instantaneously fill the entirety of the pocket dimension in stone.

    Daniel approached Buriath, which was looking at Daniel with shaky legs. He then handed the sphere to him.

    "Y-you.. R-really did it.." Said Buriath with an emotional tone. The rest of the young elementals immediately approached Buriath and started to stare at the perfect earth essence.

    "As I¡¯ve promised." Responded Daniel with arge smile on his face. "In our future travels, we will find a quiet ce for your race to live peacefully."

    Buriath couldn¡¯t help but split his enthusiastic looks between the sphere and Daniel. Then, after a minute of thinking, the smile on his face disappeared as he said. "You have been fair with me human.." He then looked at the rest of the younger earth elementals, and continued "I don¡¯t believe it is my turn to guide the future of the earth elementals.. I think I have fulfilled my purpose in life."

    With a serious expression, Buriath looked at Daniel and said "Please, allow us to follow you.." Once again, he looked at the five earth elementals before continuing "You can teach them how to be good better than I can."

    ____________________________

    Buriath and five more want to join Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    ____________________________

    "I doubt there is ever going to be a better example of earth elemental to follow than you." Responded Daniel in a reassuring tone. Then, he said "But if you want to stay with us, I am not going to stop you."

    Buriath approached Daniel, and put one of his rocky hands over his shoulder. Then, he grabbed his wrist, turned his hand to face upwards, and left the perfect earth essence on his palm.

    He then stepped back twice, looked at the surrounding space, and smiled at Daniel.

    Daniel immediately understood what Buriath¡¯s thoughts were. He slowly walked towards the exact center of the pocket dimension, and once there, he locked the perfect earth sphere on the floor.

    In an instant, the ground evolved.

    The amount of minerals present in the soil, whenpared to the ones present before, was much higher. Valuable minerals also started to appear randomly underground.

    The water and wind essence spheres, now overpowered simrly to how a kid would be overpowered by a man, started to emanate slightly less essence.

    Earth and soil now dominated the pocket dimension, and yet, the air was still filled with breathable air, and the previously predominant sea had now turned into a small sizedke.

    The pocket dimension had suddenly be the perfect habitat for earth elementals, and thanks to Daniel¡¯s group feature that added to the elemental¡¯s speed in progression, Daniel could say with certainty that no other earth elemental in the world would ever experience such a good environment to grow.

    Once finished installing the earth sphere, Daniel left the pocket Dimension. Only one day was missing before the appointed time, and he had decided to spend it in Ligart¡¯spany.

    -----

    The next day, Daniel and Ligart where the first to arrive in the square where the group was supposed to meet.

    In the span of an hour, the rest of the group arrived one by one.

    Daniel found hrious the fact that, despite it was extremely obvious that Alis and Heimart had be intimate, they kept pretending whenever they had the chance.

    That very day, they had arrived separately, just like they did when they had separated five days ago.

    "So.. did you guys have fun?" Asked Daniel with his usual cheeky smile.

    Heimart shrugged and said "I would hardly call it a vacation.."

    Roley and Imblen had spent the entire time taking the kids to visit various shops and buying them things. They had yed the happy family despite being only good friends. They simply did it to make the kids feel a bit of affection and familiarity which theycked as orphans.

    Both the shy little girl and her brother were happily finishing arge lollipop.

    The one who surprised Daniel the most, was Jerigh. He hade back with dozens of bags full of junk, clothes, and food. He hadn¡¯t even bothered with putting them in his spatial ring.

    Ligart was about to joke about Jerigh¡¯s spending spree, but as he felt Daniel¡¯s elbow hitting his ribs, he remembered in what kind of situation Jerigh used to live, and that he had probably never seen any of those items before.

    Daniel looked at his group and said "We will depart for the capital soon.. If you guys have something to do here in Drester, this is the time to do it.."

    The group had been wise enough to solve their unfinished business during the past few days, so when Daniel asked if they had anything else to solve, none of them spoke.

    Satisfied with the group¡¯s response, Daniel looked at Roley with a yful look and said "I have a surprise for you.."

    "A surprise?" Asked Roley with curiosity.

    "Something to keep yourself upied with after you wrap things up with the water sphere.." Responded Daniel while smiling. He then added "You will see once you¡¯ll enter the ring again."

    Roley was the only one amongst the group who didn¡¯t need Daniel¡¯s help to enter the pocket dimension. After all, he hadprehended a very small amount of spatial essence from the middle aged man. So, he directly approached Daniel and disappeared the very next second.

    Daniel helped the rest of his team go back in the ring, then took out the ki g that Mrs. Saullet had given to him, and started to erase the middle aged man¡¯s ki.

    The very next moment, the middle aged man appeared right next to Daniel.

    "Are you ready to go?" Asked Edmund with his usual serious expression.

    Daniel nodded back at him, then said "Mrs. Saullet told me that the travel will take one week. I wouldn¡¯t mind training in spatial essence for that period of time."

    "Sure." Responded Edmund before taking a small box out of his spatial ring. He then said "I call this item a ¡¯gravitational room¡¯, but in truth, it really is an extremely small pocket dimension with ever changing gravity."

    "That sounds interesting." Said Daniel to the middle aged man. He then continued by asking "How far does the gravity go?"

    The middle aged man gave Daniel a weird smile, then said "from no gravity at all.. To near death."

    "Only to near death?" Asked Daniel curiously. He didn¡¯t believe that a gravity capable of killing a human didn¡¯t exist.

    Edmund¡¯s eyes narrowed as he looked at Daniel. He then said "I wasn¡¯t willing to lose my life for the sake of learning that additional tiny bit of spatial essence.."

    Daniel smiled at Edmund once again, then said "Maybe you won¡¯t, but that doesn¡¯t mean that I wouldn¡¯t either. How can I do that?"

    "Simple.. Burden yourself with weight until you start hearing bones crack.." Responded Edmund with a sarcastic tone, then he said "And after you start hearing your bones crack.. Keep going."

    Of course, Edmund wasn¡¯t aware of it, but Daniel really nned on trying it. He could create an excessively heavy armor that would weight on his body and kill him. He would then go back to life just in time dissipate the weight that would kill him within the next two seconds.

    The use of external help in order toprehend an essence was amon thing.

    Some used scorching iron toprehend the freezing-like feeling of when one gets burned, salt and water to burn their skin without having to use fire, and even the movement of fine sand in order to understand the flowing of water.

    "Alright kid, it¡¯s time to go" Said Edmund before teleporting Daniel back into his house.

    Inside the living room, Edmund¡¯s wife Emelnie was already waiting.

    Without saying anything, Edmund tossed the box at Daniel, then teleported both him and his wife inside a pocket dimension.

    This pocket dimension wasn¡¯trge by any means, and it only contained a small sized but elegant mansion.

    What was curious about this pocket dimension was that it contained many different types of essences. Amongst which were light, earth, water, wind and metal essence spheres.

    There was even an inactive sphere which Daniel couldn¡¯t seem to recognize. He couldn¡¯t help but stare at it.

    "Have you seen something that caught your eye?" Asked Emelnie with a gentle tone.

    "What type of essence does that sphere contain? I can¡¯t feel anything from it." Asked Daniel with a curious tone.

    Emelnie smiled at Daniel and said "That¡¯s the most expensive kind of essence sphere.. A time sphere."

    When Daniel heard the woman¡¯s words, his eyes opened wide in shock. He looked back at Emelnie and asked "That¡¯s a time sphere? Why does it look deactivated?"

    "It¡¯s not deactivated. It is simply set to mimic the normal flow of time. It helps with farming" Responded Emelnie before slowly walking inside the mansion.

    It was at this moment that Daniel remembered where he had seen a sphere simr to this one. It was inside the greenhouse ring that the Silver Alchemist had given to him.

    After thinking about the woman¡¯s words, Daniel had a sh of enlightenment.

    He had always believed that time was ever-present, but now he had realized something new. Time was not present within pocket dimensions.

    The moment Daniel thought of this, he also thought that it was the most obvious thing ever. But then, he started thinking about how his friends had aged a full year within the pocket dimension if there was no time flow.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to make a conclusion. Time flow did not affect the aging of living things.

    There was a reason why living mana like ki and beast essences were so different from other types of mana, and that was because living things possessed life essence.

    What made people age was the deterioration of their life essence, and its recement with death essence. This was the reason why time essence could not be used to speed a person aging process.

    It now became all very clear to Daniel. He couldn¡¯t help but start thinking about what the possible uses of time essence could be, or how toprehend life essence.

    What Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of, was that he had alreadye into contact with both time essence and life essence. And that was when he had consumed healing essence.

    Tens of thousands of years ago, when healing pills were created, humans that hadprehended bits and pieces of time essence and life essence had decided to create an item that could speed the regeneration of the human¡¯s body.

    The healing pill was a failed result on the attempt of creating a pill for immortality, and yet, it had been passed down as one of the most incredible inventions in history.

    What had been forgotten after so many years, was that healing essence was nothing more than an artificial essence created by the refined mix of time, and life essence.

 Chapter 88 The Gathering of Experts Part 1

    Daniel followed Emelnie inside "Can that time sphere be set to work differently from how it is now?"

    "Why? Do you want toprehend time essence?" Asked the woman while furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. "Don¡¯t you have your hands full with spatial essence?"

    "I have a genuine interest in all sorts of essence.. I will never know where my talents lie in if I don¡¯t try to study them all, right?" Responded Daniel with a confident tone.

    The tinum blonde woman looked at Daniel with her cristal clear eyes, then said "Alright. But as a martial cultivator, I can¡¯t do that. You¡¯ll have to ask my husband once we¡¯ll reach the capital."

    A few minutes in thepany of two high level cultivators had already changed Daniel¡¯s prospective drastically. With the new information he had, he couldn¡¯t wait toprehend time essence and learn all its practical uses.

    Daniel gave the woman a polite bow before leaving the room and walking towards his assigned one. Once inside, he put the small box that contained the gravitational room on the floor, and entered it.

    The very next moment, Daniel found himself surrounded by nothing. There were no walls made of spatial essence, only a small floor that extended a meter in radius from Daniel¡¯s position.

    Past that single meter, the spatial essence dissipated into nothingness.

    When Daniel observed the oddity of the gravitational room, the gravity within was still at a normal level. Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t take more than a few moments before the gravity increased to a hundredfold, and for Daniel to find himself on his knees.

    Before he could even try to force his lungs to inte, the gravity changed again.. The single feeble push caused by inhaling made him float helplessly in mid air.

    Gravity kept changing over and over again, not giving Daniel any time to rest.

    It didn¡¯t take long before he fell unconscious, only to wake up after an unspecified amount of hours.

    When he woke up, he was still being buffeted up and down, so, before losing his consciousness once again, he activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ and started toprehend how gravity worked.

    -----

    No time had passed within the gravitational field, and yet Daniel had only grown older by a week. Hisprehension of the gravitational aspects of space was nearing perfection, and Daniel could feel that only being killed by gravity would help him make thatst step towards perfection. But despite what he had told to Edmund, he decided not to attempt this method within a space with no time.

    After all, hisprehension of time was non-existent, and he wasn¡¯t sure if time could be reverted if there was none to begin with.

    Daniel¡¯s currentprehension of space had reached only forty percent. But despite what one may think, forty percent of spatial essenceprehension was beyond what a sixteen year old kid should possess.

    Regardless, Daniel hadprehended the change and effects of gravity. He wasn¡¯t in a hurry to learn the effects that too much gravity would have on a human¡¯s body.

    He left the gravitational box he was currently in, and appeared back inside his room.

    When he was about to open the door and leave, he heard knocking on the door. Behind it was Edmund¡¯s wife Emelnie.

    She looked at Daniel¡¯s sorry state, and with a gentle smile she said "You better clean up, we have arrived to the capital." then left quietly.

    Daniel quickly took his clothes off, washed his body with water essence, and put on a set of clean clothes, then he left Edmund¡¯s pocket dimension.

    When Daniel reappeared, he found himself in front of the most dazzling spectacle of his life.

    The capital of the Krehan empire was called Krea, and it was built above dozens of gigantic floating inds. Each ind was connected to another byrge and solid bridges. Enormous chains kept the floating inds anchored on the ground, and from drifting away.

    In the air, Daniel could see thousands of floating people, and a few amongst them even rode high ranking beasts.

    Of course, Daniel was aware of the power those beasts possessed. These beasts intelligence was in no way inferior to than of an adult human, and some of them could even talk or shape-shift into human form.

    Shapeshifting was a specific kind of magic that beasts practiced once they reached a certain level of cultivation. What was interesting about it, was that the members of the beast species did not shapeshift into human form. Instead, they shapeshifted into their pure beastly form.

    Daniel had learned this from one of the books he had found within the castle.

    The higher a beast¡¯s cultivation reached, the more they would look like humans. Also, after reaching the seventh rank, they would learn how to change theposition of their body, and transform back into beasts.

    Daniel had seen an example of this with the Commander Steel-back Scorpion, which after reaching the fourth rank of cultivation, had obtained a faint humanoid body.

    Three sets of its walking legs had disappeared, while the remaining pair had turned into human-like legs. Its pinchers had turned into arms, and its human-like head was connected to the rest of his body by a neck.

    Considering how human-like that beast had be after only reaching the fourth rank of cultivation, it was no wonder that an eight or ninth rank beast would be almost indistinguishable from a member of the human race.

    This was not only something that regarded beasts. Even the asums, and other races that Daniel hadn¡¯t met yet became more simr to humans the more powerful they became.

    "This is Krea?" Asked Daniel with a face filled with surprise.

    "Home to the biggest academies, mercenary groups, and Krehan¡¯s imperial family." Responded Edmund with a matter-of-fact tone. "Let¡¯s go, we are alreadyte for the first encounter."

    Before Daniel could even ask about this "first encounter", Edmund teleported him into an extremelyrge square. In this square, the most powerful people within the Krehan empire were standing along with their disciples. At the sides of the square, were two long balconies, inside which, two sets of chairs had been ced. These sets of chairs were divided into private boxes.

    Right in front of him, Daniel could see arge floating tform, on which seven chairs had been ced in an ordered line. The chairs in the middle was in a slightly higher position than the ones to its sides.

    These chairs werepletely upied by just as many people. These people were all extremely well dressed, and had a noble attitude. They quietly looked at the scene in the square in silence.

    Sitting at the edges of this line of chairs, were the two youngest amongst them. A kid that didn¡¯t seem to have reached twelve years of age, and a teenage girl that seemed to be about Daniel¡¯s age. Closer to the center, were another young woman that showed the vitality of a twenty year old woman, and a stern young man that seemed to be in his early twenties as well.

    Sitting on the two chair ced at the direct sides of the middle one, were a middle aged woman with a proud expression, and a carefree young man that seemed to be in his mid-twenties.

    Finally, sitting on the slightly elevated chair in the center of the tform, was a middle aged man. This man had a stern look on his face, and seemed to have never heard a joke in his life. His golden armor, noble features, and overall appearance seemed to have been designed to remind others of this man¡¯s superiority.

    These people were the imperial family of the Krehan empire, and the man in the middle, was the Emperor.

    After looking around for just a minute, Daniel felt shocked once again.

    He had never seen so many young and powerful people.

    Usually he would be able to see people in their twenties with a cultivation rank between the fourth and fifth sage. But the average here was on another level. Everyone was at his and Jerigh¡¯s level of cultivation level at the very least.

    Edmund noticed Daniel¡¯s shock and said "Makes you think, doesn¡¯t it?"

    "I was never the arrogant type. I expected people at my level to exist.. I just didn¡¯t think I would be able to see so many and so soon." Responded Daniel with a slightly irritated tone.

    "Rx. These people aren¡¯t as talented as you are.. They have used other methods to reach these levels." Said Edmund with a slight smile on his face. He was clearly enjoying the broadening of this absolute prodigy¡¯s horizon.

    With narrowed eyes and furrowed brows, Daniel looked at Edmund and asked "What kind of methods?.."

    "Time elerated training grounds." Responded Edmund with a t and uninterested tone.

    Once again, Daniel started to feel his body shiver in excitement with the idea of learning time essence. He looked at Edmund with vivid eyes and said "So that¡¯s one use of time essence.. How does it work?"

    "Time essence affects other essences, but not the natural consumption of life essence, or how you¡¯d call it, aging. Speeding time in a pocket dimension would allow one to absorb and consume essences at a faster rate, but without aging faster." Responded Edmund with a patient tone.

    Shock was clearly visible on Daniel¡¯s face. It didn¡¯t matter how many people in history would eventually learn about this, there would never be someone as surprised as Daniel was right now.

    The description of a pocket dimension with speeded time seemed to be a description of his very own karmic system.

    While still in the midst of his surprise, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but ask a question that popped into his mind. "So, can I expect other participants to have an incredibleprehension of essences or perfect masteries of weapons?"

    "Why do you ask that?" Asked Edmund with a slightly confused face.

    Daniel could already guess the answer by looking at Edmund¡¯s reaction, so he said "Well, I assume that they are all rich beyond measure.. They must have exploited all possibilities to reach the most power in the least amount of time. Am I wrong?"

    "You are not wrong. All of these disciples were able to cultivate in pocket dimensions with hastened time. That gave them much more time to practice the use of weapons,prehend essences, and learn martial and spiritual arts. It is better if you don¡¯t underestimate them." Responded Edmund with a dead serious tone. He then continued "The first day of the event is the presentation. The disciples will go up on the stage one by one, and present themselves in front of the experts."

    "How many events are there?" Asked Daniel curiously.

    "Five events. Presenting, Demonstration, Competition, Evaluation, and Gathering." Responded Edmund while looking around. He then said "Each event is two days apart from the other, so worry about your presentation."

    Daniel had finally started to feel a little pressure from the whole event. He then said "What am I supposed to say?"

    "Your name, age, path of cultivation.. Your origins. Just observe what others do. It¡¯s unlikely that you¡¯ll be the first one." Responded Edmund with a casual tone. He then said "It¡¯s about to begin."

    Suddenly, every single master within the square disappeared, and when they reappeared, they were upying the boxes within the two balconies. At the same time, in the square, a small stage appeared. It was a simple stage made out of stone, and all of them looked at it in silence.

    Daniel had no idea of what to do. So he stood back and observed.

    The various disciples looked at each other for a moment, before dashing at the stage without a second thought.

    The first to put his foot on the stony surface was a young man in blue robes, which had used water essence to propel himself himself with a water jet. The robe was extremely simple, but was tight enough to show his athletic body. His hair were of a lucid ck color, which under the sunlight formed a dark blue reflection.

    The rest of the cultivators were rejected by the stage the very moment the foot of the first young man had touched the stony flooring.

    The young man approached the middle of the stage, turned to look at the imperial family, and after a deep bow, he said "This loyal servant¡¯s name is Midio.."

 Chapter 89 The Gathering of Experts Part 2

    "This loyal servant¡¯s name is Midio. I am a disciple of the Mistress of Ice, and part of her sect, the ¡¯Crystal Clear Sect¡¯. Twenty-one years of age. Faint spiritual merging stage." Said the young man with humbleness. He then turned to look at the rest of the disciples, and said "I im the title of Expert of Water for my master. Anyone who disagrees, is wee to challenge me during thepetition event."

    There was a clear and direct meaning in the young man¡¯s words which escaped Daniel¡¯s understanding.

    During a gathering of experts, there would be various titles that would grant a master the right of joining the discussion during the gathering stage.

    In order to avoid confusion, the organizers of the first gathering of experts had decided that, every disciple would be able to im a title for their master. If one disciple managed to defeat each and every other disciples that wanted to im that same title, the title would belong to his master.

    By iming the title of Expert of Water, the young man had imed his master¡¯s superiority over any other spiritual cultivator that practiced water essence.

    Other disciples that imed the same title would end up fighting during thepetition stage. Winning meant one¡¯s master¡¯s superiority in teaching and knowledge, and that only he or she amongst all others had the right to talk.

    After he imed the the title of Expert of Water, the young man in blue robes called Midio went down the stage.

    The moment his feet left the stage¡¯s floor, another person immediately went up the stage. This time, it was a younger man. This young man was d in shiny tinum armor with no helmet. In his hand he was holding a heavy double-headed axe.

    "This loyal servant¡¯s name is Riher, from the ¡¯Pantheon of War Gods¡¯. My master is The Axe Wielder, and one of the school¡¯s elders. I was born neen years ago in the great Krehan empire, and I stand here before you at the peak of the Nigh Inhuman stage, to im the title of Guardian of the Axe for my master." He said before going down the stage.

    "..eighteen.. Otzia.. Melting Point Sect.. Guardian of Fire.."

    "..Azaos.. Architects of Space.. the title of Ruler of Space.. Peak sixth rank.."

    "..Dione.. Archers of Doom.. Guardian of Bow and Arrow."

    "..Ineas, for the Time Weavers.. Perfection of the spiritual synchronization stage.. Ruler of Time."

    One after another, the disciples within the square went up on the stage and presented themselves to the imperial family. Amongst them, was someone that Daniel had recognized.

    The youngdy of the Saullet family, Alesia.

    "This loyal servant¡¯s name is Alesia. Daughter of the Mirror Shifter and the Scarlet de, of the Saullet family. I am a native of the Krehan empire, and after sixteen years of age, I have reached the mid Surrounding Awareness stage. For my mother and master, I im the title of the Ruler of the Sword." She said after a deep and polite bow directed at the imperial family. She then stepped down the stage like everyone else before her.

    From the different types of titles, Daniel had more or less guessed that there were two types of titles. One was ¡¯Guardian¡¯, while the other was ¡¯Ruler¡¯.

    Only extremely difficult essences like time and space deserved the title of Rule, along with the most versatile weapons like the sword and the spear.

    The rest, were considered moremon and inferior weapons. Hence the titles Guardian of Fire, or Guardian of the Axe.

    After more than an hour, Daniel had been the only one left in the square.

    People amongst the crowd were already thinking that Daniel was simply the weakest, and that he had no way of reaching the stage before the other disciples could.

    "..poor kid, the others probably scared him out of his wits.."

    "Must be his first time."

    It is worth mentioning that the order of presentation did not affect a disciple¡¯s evaluation. What it affected was a disciple¡¯s morale. By going first, one was able to im a title first, and make use of the moment of attention to intimidate his opponents.

    Of course, Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of this, nor did he care.

    When he noticed that he was the only person left in the square, he teleported on the stage, shutting everyone¡¯s mouth.

    He bowed very slightly towards the imperial family, clearly differently than the rest of the cultivators. Then, he said "Dan, fifteen years old. I im the title of Ruler of Space for the Mirror Shifter." He then tried to teleport out of the stage, but before he could manage to, the space around him was blocked.

    One of the masters within the balconies said "It is custom that disciples bow to the imperial family before leaving the stage." His voice deep and menacing.

    Daniel turned to look at the master, and said "I am not a native of the Krehan empire. I have respect for the imperial family, but I have other rulers to bow down to before them."

    "How dare you!.." Said the man in the balconies before waving his hand. But just as he waved his hand, Daniel felt the space around him being unlocked. Then, another voice resounded in his ears.

    "It was never a problem for participants of other nations to only recognize the imperial family and not bow to them. Do I take it that this time it¡¯s different because he will have to fight your own disciple for the title?" Asked Edmund from the balconies opposite to the one where the other man was staying.

    "Of course not. I just got irritated by his tone. Proceed with the ceremony" Said the man who had attempted to attack Daniel.

    Edmund¡¯s protection made Daniel reconsider his character. Of course, he might have done this only out of rivalry with another master of space essence, but he had also supported someone who had seemingly behaved in a rude manner towards the imperial family. And that was a big risk in Daniel¡¯s book.

    Suddenly, the three oldest children of the imperial family stood up and jumped on the square. Then, in order by seniority, they went up the stage and presented themselves.

    "Krissa, first princess of the Krehan empire. I im the title of Ruler of Space for my master, the Master of Invisible Walls." Said the twenty years old young woman.

    After she left the stage, the second oldest one amongst the siblings present jumped over the stage and said "Krim, third prince of the Krehan empire. I im the title of Ruler of the Spear for my master, The Phantom Piercer."

    The third andst to go up the stage, was the oldest and most carefree amongst them. "My name is Kreom, and I am the second prince of the Krehan Empire. I im the title of Ruler of Sound for my master and mother, The Empress."

    After the quick introduction, the three left the stage and went back to sit on their chairs above the floating pedestal.

    The stage disappeared from the center of the square, and a man appeared in its ce.

    This man waspletely covered by a ck coat, so none of his features could be seen. He said in a loud and powerful voice. "The Presentation stage of the gathering has terminated. The Demonstration stage will take ce two days from now."

    After the announcement, the tform on which the imperial family was sitting on disappeared. Only then did the powerful cultivators dare to recover their disciples, and leave the square.

    -----

    "You probably should have been a little more polite." Said Emelnie while looking at Daniel.

    Edmund interjected in the conversation and said to his wife "It¡¯s alright. The emperor said nothing, and now he has been noticed." He then turned to look at Daniel and said "You have two days before the demonstration. Are you ready?"

    "It wouldn¡¯t hurt to know what am I supposed to demonstrated" Responded Daniel with an irritated tone. Edmund had forgotten to exin many things to him about the whole event.

    "Just demonstrate yourprehension of essence.. That will be enough." He Responded in a casual manner.

    "Speaking of essence. What else do you have to teach me about Spatial essence?" Asked Daniel with hints of curiosity and expectation.

    Edmund entered a pensive state for a few moments, then looked back at him and said two words "Fictitious space."

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile before saying "Can I make a request?.."

    "Go on." Responded Edmund inly.

    Daniel¡¯s smile widened as he said "I would like to borrow the time sphere you own that speeds time the most."

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s surroundings looked normal, and had he not know that he was currently within fictitious space, he would have fallen for this illusion.

    He was currently standing in the square where he had presented himself, with nothing else but a grey sphere which emanated a faint feeling of antiquity. Nobody else was around, only him.

    Without thinking it over for too long, Daniel installed the time sphere within the pocket dimension that contained the fictitious space. He could not feel the change directly, so he sat right next to the sphere, and activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to notice something that confirmed his guesses. The time sphere could hasten his speed his progress just like the karmic system could. He then thought that the most usible reason why nobody had managed to use time essence to hastenprehension, must have had something to do with the mind.

    The only guess that Daniel was able to make, was that there was an unknown type of essence that regarded the mind, which he unknowingly happened to understand thanks to the karmic system.

    If Daniel was right, that would mean that the karmic system acted over the wielder¡¯s mind, time and life.

    What was even better than the discovery of being able to cultivate with time essence, was that time essence and the karmic system¡¯s effect could add up to each other.

    After a minute of attempts, he found our that despite the order he activated the effects, their added effect would always be the same.

    Daniel¡¯s current level of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ granted him roughly five hundred times the speed of cultivation a normal person had, in exchange of karma points, while the time sphere multiplied the speed of progression by three times.

    This meant that, thanks to both time sphere and karmic system, he would be able to achieve what one took three years to do in one day.

    And cream on top, the karmic system only counted its own increase in progression when consuming the point. No matter if the time sphere was activated or not, he would only spend the normal amount of points he would normally spend with ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ activated.

    Daniel decided to waste no more time, and immediately started toprehend not only the fictitious space, but also the eleration of time contained within the time sphere.

    Twelve hourster.

    After only twelve hours of looking at the time flow at a faster pace, and feeling the difference between fictitious space and real space with his spiritual essence, Daniel had finally managed to understand these two very different portions of essence.

    He was now looking at the time sphere. In pain at the sheer thought that he would have to give it back to Edmund when they would part ways.

    Of course, now he could speed time by threefolds by himself, but he wouldn¡¯t be able to create a time sphere without a time treasure.

    Unfortunately, Daniel hadn¡¯t even heard of a time treasure being sold, not to talk about its price.

    The gathering of experts wasposed of five events distributed in the span of eight days. So, he decided to make full use of these eight days and learn as much as he could from Edmund.

    A sudden sh of determination made its appearance on Daniel¡¯s face, and the very next moment, two rank 7 beast cores appeared in his hands.

 Chapter 90 The Gathering of Experts Part 3

    Daniel was sitting on the fictitious space, and in his hands, the two seventh rank beast core were being consumed at a rate visible to the eye.

    He was currently in semi-conscious state, and he had been so for the past day.

    His body was experiencing a change. A change simr and yet different from the one he had experienced during his breakthrough into the perfect state of the first main stage of cultivation.

    The flow of beast essence was currently being split into two even streams, and refining both his body and spirit. The only difference with the time when Daniel had reached the perfect body and connection, was that his two essences weren¡¯t bing even morepatible with each other, and instead, they were starting to merge.

    Each essence was initially like water and oil. And the idea of the two merging was preposterous despite the fact that ki was the essence generally used to trade for spiritual essence through one¡¯s connection to the spiritual ne.

    And yet, to Daniel it felt like the invisible divisory line between these two essences were starting to blur. Like the front line of two armies, which were well defined until the very moment of contact.

    When Daniel¡¯s eyes finally opened, the two essences within his body were in a semi-merged state. They could only be consumed singrly, but they felt like water and sand.

    After noticing the reduced state of the two seventh rank beast cores, Daniel decided to take a look at his profile.

    After a single thought, a window opened in his mind.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 16

    Rank

    - Peak rank 6 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Human)

    - Peak rank 6 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Synchronization)

    Karma - 13,666

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.5

    Reduced Cost Lv.4

    Second Chance Lv.1

    Karma X Luck

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    "Sixteen?.. Oh.. It was my birthday?.." Said Daniel after noticing that the age reported in his profile had changed. Then, he noticed the remaining amount of karma he possessed, and the fact that he had reached perfection in the Nigh Inhuman and in the Spiritual Synchronization stages.

    There was no way for Daniel to breakthrough into the seventh stage of cultivation in the half day left before the demonstration stage, so he left the space, and reappeared within the hotel room he was staying in.

    The Saullet family had booked a room for Daniel to stay in during the gathering of experts. The room was luxurious, and the furniture seemed to be even more expensive than the ones Alis had bought to redecorate the castle.

    Instead of going out and enjoy the nightlife of the capital like the rest of his friends did, Daniel cleaned himself up and went to sleep.

    -----

    Heimart and the rest were sitting at a table just outside of a restaurant.

    The two kids were enjoying a few local dishes, while the others were drinking an assortment of beverages.

    The only one that differed from the others was Jerigh, which was currently eating an ice cream in a messy way.

    Having to witness to that sight, Ligart sneakily passed him a clean tissue so that he could clean his face, but Jerigh ignored the meaning of the gesturepletely, and simply put the tissue into his pocket before digging back into his ice cream.

    Ligart could do nothing but shrug his shoulders and go back to enjoying his drink.

    The eight of them were talking, joking and having a good time, until a group of young cultivators walked near their table.

    Amongst this group of cultivators, was Alesia, which after recognizing those who had joined the silent auction in Drester, stopped and approached them. "Hey, you guys are Daniel¡¯s friends, right?" She asked with a bright smile.

    From behind her, the rest of Alesia¡¯s group looked at heimart and the rest with expressions filled with disdain.

    Between Alis that sat awfully close to Heimart, Roley and Imblen in a slightly tipsy state, and Ligart that kept handing tissues to the two kids and Jerigh.. The group didn¡¯t appear to be a party of cultivators, but a group of parents on vacation instead.

    "Yes, and you are.." Responded Heimart, letting the phrase die in his throat.

    The girl bowed her head very slightly and said "Alesia Saullet."

    As Roley heard the girl¡¯s name, he immediately turned to look at her, and said "Your father.. Your father is a psycho.. Leaving me in chaotic space for days.."

    Imblen immediately pulled his shirt and forced him to sit back on his chair.

    Heimart then said "Of course, I remember you. You were at the silent auction that took ce in drester two weeks ago. We didn¡¯t know that man was your father.. He looked quite different than usual."

    "Haha.. Yes, my father shows his handsome appearance only on rare asions, unfortunately." Responded Alesia with an easy going attitude.

    From behind her, derisory words could be heard being exchanged between the members of Alesia¡¯s group.

    ".. I bet they are the kids of that short girl.."

    "Look at that blond guy.. He might be good looking, but he appears to be retarded."

    An extremely embarrassed expression appeared on Alesia¡¯s face as she heard the wordsing from behind her. She was aware that if she had heard them, then the other group must have heard them as well.

    She was about to apologize, when Ligart suddenly stood up. He looked at the group and said "You are free to leave if you don¡¯t appreciate a polite conversation."

    A young woman within the group took a step forward"Who would appreciate a conversation with you. It¡¯s out of respect for Alesia and her parents that we are still here. Even at the risk of getting infected with whatever that guy has" She said while pointing at Jerigh.

    "I would stop insulting him if I were you.." Said Ligart with a threatening tone. "He might just understand what you mean.. You wouldn¡¯t want that."

    "Who do you think you are threatening peasant!" Suddenly burst out one of the young man within Alesia¡¯s group.

    If Daniel was here, he would have recognized this young man as one of those who had imed the title of Ruler of the Sword for his master, along with Alesia and a few others.

    A sword suddenly appeared at the waist of the young man which he intended to use to give Ligart a lesson, but before he could even unsheathe it, he found a sticky hand wrapped over his, preventing him from unsheathing the sword from its scabbard.

    Standing next to him, was Jerigh, which in the span of a moment had gotten up from his chair, dashed all the way past Alesia, and had reached the young man in time to stop him.

    For someone who had imed the title of Rule of the Sword, this was a great humiliation. He was supposed to prove that he was the best amongst sword users, and yet, he had been thwarted by someone who wasn¡¯t even participating in the gathering to begin with.

    In his mind, there was only ce for two possibilities. The first one, was to suffer the humiliation of being stopped like a child by someone younger than him. The second was to get back his honor by proving his superiority.

    His noble origin and overly disproportionate pride didn¡¯t allow him to take it lying down, so he freed his hand thanks to a sudden movement of his wrist, and unsheathed his sword.

    Jerigh face turned from rxed to serious. He had learned how to control his actions in the past year, but his instincts still kicked in whenever someone tried to threaten his life in any way.

    His hand slowly moved for the handle of his single-edged sword, but before he could unsheathe it, a voice came from the other part of the street.

    "If it isn¡¯t the youngdy of the Saullet family." This voice belonged to a young man which was dressed in white robes. On these white robes, a golden dragon had been sewn neatly.

    Alesia and the rest of her group recognized him as the third prince of the Krehan empire, Krim.

    Behind him, were two middle aged men in silver armor and golden cloaks.

    Alesia and her group immediately bowed at the prince, and said "Greetings Second Prince."

    The prince stood in the middle of the young swordsman and Jerigh, then said "Now now, let¡¯s not create confusion in this beautiful evening." He then looked at Jerigh and said "You, why don¡¯t youe with me? I would like to know what happened."

    The prince was not omnipotent, even in the capital. He didn¡¯t want to offend anyone that could possibly create problems for himself in the future, and the young man¡¯s master was one of those people. So, he decided to end this dispute in favor of the young man.

    At the same time, he had noticed Jerigh¡¯s talent in movement and cultivation. Not to talk about the fact that, when things got serious, he was immediately ready to use his sword.

    From the prince¡¯s prospective, Jerigh was someone talented and with no connections, so he decided that he might as well try to rope him in and convince him to join the army or imperial guard.

    Heimart immediately stood up, and after a polite bow, he said "Second Prince, th-"

    But before he could finish his sentence, Alesia interjected "That won¡¯t be necessary Second Prince, the fault is all ours. We shouldn¡¯t have offended this group of people." She then looked at the rest of them and said "Our apologies."

    The face of the young swordsman became hideous, but even he didn¡¯t dare to reject Alesia¡¯s words. After all, her mother was one of the most powerful cultivator and one of the masters of the sword. While her father, was a powerful and valuable spiritual cultivator and expert of space.

    It is also worth mentioning that his master, and Alesia¡¯s mother had grown up and trained together under the same figure.

    "Very well, it¡¯s better to resolve these kinds of matters with words." Responded the second prince after quickly looking at the rest of Alesia¡¯s group members. He then nodded slightly at them, and left along with his imperial guards.

    Just like the second prince didn¡¯t want to offend the young swordsman, the young swordsman didn¡¯t want to act after the second prince had gone out of his way to solve the problem. He sheathed his sword once again, and after sending a menacing look at Jerigh, he left as well.

    The rest of the group followed him, except for Alesia.

    The girl who had insulted Jerigh turned to look at her and said "You are noting?"

    Alesia turned to look back at her and responded "No, you guys go ahead, I¡¯ll impose of these people for a little longer."

    -----

    Daniel woke up the next day to the sound of knocking on his door.

    When he went to open the door, he saw a worker of the hotel that was standing politely. As soon as Daniel opened the door, the worker said "Sir Hiel, there is a gentleman waiting for you in the lobby."

    "I¡¯ll be there in a few minutes." Responded Daniel politely just as politely.

    He then closed the door of his room, cleaned himself up, put on a fresh set of clothes, and went towards the lobby.

    Sitting on a chair in the elegant looking lobby, was Edmund.

    When Edmund saw Daniel approaching him, he stood up from his chair and walked towards him. Once in earshot, he said "My time sphere.."

    With reluctant feelings, Daniel gave the sphere back to him.

    The moment the sphere touched Edmund¡¯s hand, it immediately disappeared into his spatial ring.

    To Daniel, Edmund¡¯s action seemed a bit petty, but he would certainly change his mind if he knew the cost of a single time treasure.

    After getting his time sphere back, Edmund looked at Daniel and said "Are you ready?"

    With a confident tone, Daniel responded "Yes, let¡¯s go."

 Chapter 91 The Gathering of Experts Part 4

    Once again, Daniel was standing in the middle of the square. Around him were all the other disciples, eager to show their abilities.

    One by one, they jumped over the stage and, after setting the stage ording to their own desires, they disyed their mastery in weapon wielding, essences, and martial and spiritual arts.

    A few of the shows were extremely impressive and well presented, and yet, the Imperial family looked all but entertained.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t sure of what the point of the demonstration stage was, but if the point was to impress the imperial family, then the other had all failed.

    The reason for this was simple. The gathering of experts was an important tradition held once every two years. An event where powerful cultivators would speak of important matters that took ce in the most recent years.

    With their forty or more years of age, the emperor, empress, and masters, had seen many shows of sword arts, dances with fire, aquatic worlds and so on. What was missing, was originality and true talent.

    A young man performed a dance with his spear, of which movements were so fast that they would fend the air for ten meters. Hurricanes formed when he rotated his spear, and the ground shook whenever he pierced it with it.

    A young woman that covered the entire square in floating snowkes, which then turned into needles of ice and dashed towards her body, only stopping one millimeter away from her skin, and changing shape once again and turning into a transparent armor of ice.

    Another young man used an assistant to disy the slowing of time, and the explosion of various items in slow motion. Demonstrating the slow and sinuous movements of elements like water and fire.

    No matter what they did, the imperial family gave no hint of reaction. Not even the youngest one amongst them cared about these demonstrations of power and talent.

    It was now Alesia¡¯s turn.

    She had gone over the stage with nothing but her sword, and a perfectly neat martial attire.

    Her tinum blonde hair were gathered behind her head in a ponytail, and flowed between her shoulder des and down her back.

    After a simple bow to the imperial family, she started to make her demonstration.

    Daniel expected her demonstration to be showy like everyone else¡¯s, but instead, she simply showed three repetitions of her daily training.

    She had long learned from her mother that the old masters didn¡¯t care about showy demonstrations. What they wanted to see was talent and dedication.

    Therefore, her expression marked with dedication and seriousness towards practice, had finally lit something within the cold hearts of the masters.

    They remembered how they used to practice until their hands started to bleed, how they hated themselves when they couldn¡¯tprehend a portion of a specific essence, or how they couldn¡¯t figure out how to perfect their arts.

    Alesia simply practiced with her sword, a practice that seemed like a private dance that no one was supposed to see, that was supposed to have no spectators.

    After the third repetition, she finally stopped.

    Her stunningly beautiful face was covered in droplets of sweat that run down her neck and stuck her clothes tightly against her body. She had used a big deal of her ki for her demonstration, and yet, she maintained herposure. After a deep bow, she sheathed her sword with care, and left the stage.

    Differently from all otherpetitors, the masters that spectated her show gave a slight and brief apuse the moment she left the stage.

    Even a couple of members of the imperial family started to whisper and nod in approval.

    The show kept going for two more hours, until finally, Daniel was the only one left on the stage.

    Again, Daniel hadn¡¯t been told exactly what he was supposed to be showing to these people, so after noticing the result of the other contestants, he went up the stage and stood there for a moment.

    Only a thought was running through his mind. ¡¯If the other shows hadn¡¯t impressed these people, it was because they hadn¡¯t done things big enough.¡¯

    Now alone on stage, Daniel looked at the imperial family and bowed just as slightly as he had bowed the day prior. He then stood in the middle of the stage without moving.

    To others it might have seen like he was doing nothing, but the various masters on stage started to feel a movement in the surrounding space. A movement that made a shiver run down their backs.

    A small bead-like stone started to float in front of Daniel. This stone wasposed of manymon minerals, and it didn¡¯t seem special in any way.

    Suddenly, the ground started to shake, and bits and pieces of it started to dash towards this bead-sized stone. They then integrated with it and kept increasing its mass, until it reached the diameter of ten meters.

    The floating bloudler started to change all of a sudden. It seemed like every small part of its surface was being changed into a different looking crystal. These gigantic multicolored crystal ball looked beautiful, but it was nothing impossible to see.

    It was at this moment that Daniel sent a ball of fire into a hole that he had left on the surface of the sphere.

    When the ball of fire entered, the crystallic sphere started to shine with thousands of different colors. It then started to spin so fast, that the air around it formed a small scaled hurricane of which the sphere was the eye.

    The lights were bent by the incredibly strong winds, which transported them through the entire body of the hurricane.

    The show was stunning, and definitely different from anything the masters had seen, and yet it was not over.

    Snow formed in the air around the tornado, which was rapidly caught by the rapid movement of the winds. Electric discharges started to make their appearances, adding color and brightness to the whole cluster of deadly elements.

    Suddenly, time stopped.

    No matter if the strong winds, the snowkes in the air, the rotation of the sphere of the bright electrostatic discharges.. Nothing moved.

    It was only after a few seconds that the four different essences of air, water, lightning and earth started to split, and move in four different points of the stage.

    These four elements condensed into the shape of four golems.

    The golem formed by the wind essence was made out of powerful gusts winds that rotated in position at incredible speeds. A touch from this golem would strip a person for their skin.

    The golem made of water essence waspletely made out of ice, and its skin appeared like a thin veil of clear water. Its look reminded a warm beach, and yet, one could be sure that if they touched it, they would feel as if they were in the depth of a frozenke.

    An hard to observe giantpletely made out of sma could be seen discharging electric charge in the air. Its electric discharges reached meters in the air, and each of those could definitely kill anyone weaker than Daniel was.

    Finally, a golem made out of rock and dark minerals formed on another corner of the stage.

    The masters were fascinated by this scene. They had never seen four different golems created by aprehension of above ny percent by the same young man, so they couldn¡¯t help but gasp in surprise.

    Even the imperial family, except for the emperor and empress, were no exception.

    These golems started to move and approach the balconies where the masters were sitting. They moved in circle around Daniel, demonstrating the purity ofprehension required to being created. They made sounds of thunder, howling of wind, rocks crashing one against the other and immense waves crashing against solid ground.

    The noise was deafening.

    It was only after half a minute that the master of spatial essence that had tried to attack Daniel the day before stood up, and said in a loud voice. "Enough trickery kid. Do you think you can impress others just because you can create an illusion inside a fictitious space?"

    The masters that were sitting in the balconies suddenly felt disappointed. They thought they had seen a true prodigy of spiritual cultivation in action, and instead, they were lead to believe that he was nothing more than a trickster.

    Satisfied by the response of the crowd, the master of spatial essence waved his hand and destroyed Daniel¡¯s fictitious space.

    Just as Daniel¡¯s illusion started to dissipate, a faint smile appeared on his face.

    After the illusion dissipated, the crowd heard a loud shattering sound that signified the destruction of the fictitious space.

    But what came next was what really shocked them.

    At just three meters from the tform where the imperial family was sitting, an enormous golem was standing right in front of them.

    Its body wasn¡¯t made of a single essence, and instead, it looked like a terrible hurricane had picked up rock, water, and even thunder, and had taken a humanoid shape.

    Therge hands of this golemnded heavily on the tform where the imperial family was sitting, and then..

    *ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR*

    It roared so loudly that the masters were left to believe that the golem had attempted a sound attack against the imperial family.

    The entire scene was so fast that even the emperor couldn¡¯t help but stand up in shock. His wife had a terrified look on her face, and her children showed a variety of expressions between amazement, enjoyment and sheer fear.

    Right as the deafening roar ended, the golem exploded into small diamonds, sparks, and shards of ice that were carried by a gentle whiffle of wind.

    The crowd was dead silent.

    Everyone was shocked, and the first ones who had managed to recover from their shock were carefully looking at the odd state the Emperor was in.

    He was currently standing, looking at the void with his mouth slightly opened, nostrils widened and pupils constricted.

    If there was a mosquito in the square, everyone would be able to hear it.

    Suddenly, the shocked expression of the emperor turned into one of amazement.. And then..

    "HAHAHAHAHA!" He started tough out loud. The way someone who has just gone through the scare of their life wouldugh at his own reaction.

    One by one, many moreughs started to buzz in the air. Amongst the masters, the only three who wereughing nervously were Edmund, Emelnie, and the master of spatial essence that had rudely scolded and interrupted Daniel¡¯s performance.

    Daniel¡¯s idea was simple. The whole point of this demonstration was to move something within these powerful cultivators.

    After noticing that spectacles of magic, performances of martial arts, or showy disys of weapon mastery didn¡¯t work, and that only being able to rte to a disciple had managed to move something within them, Daniel decided that he would use both methods.

    He wanted to make them feel something, and to do it in a big way. At the same time, he would show off his talents in spiritual cultivation and the essences of which he was adept with. Including the one he was there to show off for Edmund.. Spatial essence.

    Theughs and ps went on for the time it took for thest elemental remains to fall on the ground. Then, Daniel took a deep bow at his public.

    The bow wasn¡¯t directed at the imperial family, but at everyone who had watched and enjoyed his performance.

    When the ps ended, Daniel teleported down the stage.

    One again, Daniel was thest to demonstrate his abilities amongst the disciples. So, after he left the stage, the three children of the imperial family went on the square, and started to demonstrate their abilities one by one.

    Each of the three made meaningful and peerless demonstrations, which received just as much praise as Alesia did.

    After the princess and the two princes left the stage and went back to their seats, the stage disappeared, and in its ce, the man covered by the ck cloak appeared.

    With his usual loud voice, he said "The Demonstration stage of the gathering has terminated. The Competition stage will take ce two days from now."

    He then disappeared along with the tform where the seats of the imperial family had been ced, leaving only the disciples and masters in the square.

 Chapter 92 The Gathering of Experts Part 5

    "You¡¯ve scared me for a second.. Thought you¡¯d be stupid enough to actually attack the imperial family.." Said Edmund with a relieved tone, and sweat still sticking his clothes to his back.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile at his reaction. He then said "I just wanted to leave a good impression."

    Edmund felt slightly irritated by Daniel¡¯s response, as he had gambled on his family¡¯s face. If the emperor hadn¡¯t appreciated the show, his very family could have ended up in trouble. "I don¡¯t know about good.. But you¡¯ve definitely left an impression. What do you want to do now?"

    "Do you have anything else to teach me in spatial essence?" Asked Daniel with high expectations.

    Slightly embarrassed, Edmund responded "Myprehension of space is one of the highest in the empire.. And yet you¡¯ve almost caught up to me.. The only things I have left to teach you are density and unstable space."

    "Unstable space? The one you¡¯ve left Roley into for days?.. Doesn¡¯t sound fun." Responded Daniel without his previous enthusiasm.

    Edmund shrugged with his shoulders and said "Your choice.."

    "Can I borrow your time sphere once again?" Asked Daniel with a cheeky expression. He wanted get the best out of his stay in the capital. And if he could learn the most while he was still under the terms of the agreement with Edmund, then he would.

    Edmund looked back at Daniel sideways, and said "Fine.." He then tossed three items to him. A small ring, a golden locket, and the now familiar time sphere.

    The reason why Daniel had asked to use the time sphere despite havingprehended the very concept of speeding time, was because of his level of cultivation. His power was simr to that of a seventh rank spiritual cultivator, and yet, he could only speed time by an additional fifty percent.

    It was clear that whomever had created the time sphere was at a much higher cultivation stage than he was.

    After a small nod, he teleported back into his room. But before he could jump into the ring, he heard knocking at his door.

    He immediately got up from his bed and went to open the door. Behind it, was arge group of people. These people were, of course, Heimart and the rest of the group. But there was another person amongst them. A tinum blonde girl that he immediately recognized as Alesia.

    "Before you go and train for the next two days like a total cultivation freak, let¡¯s go grab something to eat." Said Ligart without holding back anything.

    After hearing Ligart¡¯s words, Daniel said with a sarcastic tone "Need someone to pick your meals Lig..?"

    Lig was an abbreviations that Daniel had gotten used to call Ligart with in the past year they had known each other. Just like the rest of the group had slowly gotten used to call Daniel with his real name, Dan.

    Daniel was a sort of alias that he and his sister Re had gotten used to give people whom they didn¡¯t want to know their birth names and family, and it was much less personal to him than being called simply ¡¯Dan¡¯. Only his sister called him Dan, and only he and his sister¡¯s friends called her Rei.

    "Come on, be good.. We¡¯ve already picked the food.. We were just thinking of eating in the castle. We have guests!" Responded Ligart with a intive tone.

    Daniel sighed in resignation, then said "Alright." he then teleported all of them inside the ring and entered it in the form of a wisp of spiritual essence, and consciousness.

    The reason why he hadn¡¯t entered it physically, was because he didn¡¯t want to leave the ring without protection. It would take nothing for him to feel the arrival of a third party. He could then leave the pocket dimension and defend himself.

    Once inside, the first thing Daniel did was to lower the output of the perfect earth essence sphere.

    Alesia, as a martial cultivator, wouldn¡¯t be able to recognize the power of a perfect sphere, but Daniel didn¡¯t know what secret methods she could have, and didn¡¯t want to risk it.

    After a quick tour of the castle, Daniel and the rest sat in the living room, and started to eat.

    "So, how did you guys met?" Asked Alesia with curiosity written all over her face.

    Heimart looked at her and said "On the way to the tournament of the Clear Mage and the Dark Warrior.. All of us except for Jerigh and the two kids were in the same ship. In fact, Dan, Alis me and him were in the same cabin." He then paused for a moment, and continued "We then met Jerigh at the border of the Krehan empire.. And the two kids in Drester."

    "You¡¯ve joined the Lost Inheritance Tournament?!" Asked Alesia excitedly. "I really wanted my father to allow me to go.. But he was so bent on not allowing me to."

    Heimart then started to exin the truth about the lost inheritance tournament, how Daniel had found himself in a ce that he didn¡¯t know, and how they ended up meeting with the earth elementals during their first assignment from the legion.

    He of course omitted any secret detail, like the perfect earth treasure, the fact that the castle they were currently in was the ancestral home of the Dark Warrior, Alis and Clear Mage¡¯s family, and that Daniel was a cultivator of both the martial and spiritual path.

    "Wow.. you guys went through a lot together.." Said Alesia with an amazed expression. She couldn¡¯t help but envy the rest of the group. She didn¡¯t get to travel the world and go through this kind of adventures with her friends.

    She always had to stay in the city where her parents were, and had to live her life up to their expectations.

    Not because her parents weren¡¯t supportive, but because they were extremely well known, and she was forced to carry the burden of not sullying the family name.. Especially during events like the Gathering of Experts.

    After a good hour, the group left the ring. But instead of leaving Daniel toprehend spatial essence peacefully by himself, they forced him to go out with them.

    The only reason he had epted, was so that he could find a cartographer.

    -----

    Within the imperial pce, in the throne room.

    "What does His Imperial Majesty think of this year¡¯s contestants?." Asked a middle aged man dressed in very refined clothes, in an extremely polite tone.

    The question had been asked to the emperor himself, which with a deep and powerful voice responded by saying "It¡¯s always the same. They are young and talented.. But aside from a few, none of them can bepared to their teachers."

    The middle aged man nodded at the emperor, then followed up with another question "What about the two disciples that are representing the Saullet couple? Alesia and Dan?"

    "The girl has good talent.. She alsoes from a good family.. Add her to the list of the possible spouses for the third prince." He then paused for a few moments. Then, with an amused expression he continued "That kid was pretty funny.. And his high level ofprehension of four different essences proves his prodigious talent.. Find out where he came from.."

    "Yes His Imperial Majesty." Responded the middle aged man with a deep bow, before leaving the throne room.

    -----

    "What do you mean that you can¡¯t sell me a map?" Asked Daniel to the old man behind the counter inside the cartography shop.

    The old man looked back at Daniel with an annoyed expression and said "There are regtions. Maps the size of what you¡¯ve asked me are not only expensive, but also made by the military. They belong to the empire and not everyone can have them."

    Caught by surprise by the regtions set to protect the empire¡¯s property, Daniel¡¯s tone turned softer, and with a pleading voice, he said "Can you at least let me look at one?"

    "I cannot." Responded the old man inly.

    "Fine. What do I need to do to be able to purchase a map?" Asked Daniel with an audibly irritated tone. He would do all he could to find his way back home.

    A smirk suddenly appeared on the old man¡¯s face as he said "Be a member of the Krehan empire¡¯s nobility, and you can buy one."

    "I¡¯ll buy one then." Said Alesia from behind Daniel.

    The rest had gone to visit the capital, and the only one that had remained of the group, was Alesia. She had stayed behind to avoid Daniel from losing sight of his friends. Unfortunately, the rest of the group went on his way without even thinking about him.

    This action had made Alesia curious about Daniel. He was an extremely powerful young man, but he couldn¡¯t be all that strong by himself. Wouldn¡¯t they want to be sure that, if something happened to him, he would have someone to watch his back?

    After the rest of the group walked out of sight, Alesia heard the loud conversation between Daniel and the person behind the counter.

    She listened to what was happening, and after just a minute, she found out what the problem was. Daniel wanted to buy an extremelyrge map. Unfortunately, these kinds of maps were progressively made by cartographers and explorers employed within the empire¡¯s army.

    They would scout the new territories before the army would arrive, so that they could find the best paths, and eventual kingdoms or forms of civilization.

    These maps had been created out of thousands of years of sacrifices and effort, and contained so many informations that limitations to those who could acquire them had been put on them.

    Just asking about one of those maps would put someone in the list of possible spies from other empires.

    "Come again?" Asked the old man with a surprised tone.

    "I said that I want to buy the map that he asked you to sell him." Responded Alis with a confident tone. She then added "I am the youngdy of the Saullet family. I don¡¯t think there will be a problem with my clearance."

    The old man took a book from under the counter. In this book, various noble family names were listed, along with a depiction of the family crest, and a small genealogical tree which went from the founder of the family, to the oldest living member.

    He then looked at Alesia and said "Your family crest miss?"

    Alesia immediately took a medallion from inside her spatial ring. It was a simple medallion, on which a shield split into four had been carved. Into each part of the shield was a different picture. These pictures were an arp, a sword, a drop of water, and a mirror.

    The old man took the crest from Alesia¡¯s hands, and after confirming that it matched with the one depicted in the book, and that the remains of ki inside it belonged to her first rank self, he bowed politely to her and said "Very well miss, the map costs two million gold coins."

    Daniel immediately woke up from the surprise, and said "I¡¯ll pay for it." He then handed over a spatial ring to the man which contained the exact amount of gold coin he had requested.

    The old man went to the back of his shop, and after a few minutes, came back with an enormous rolled up parchment.

    Daniel was surprised by the enormous size of the map, so he looked at the old man in confusion.

    The old man harrumphed coldly, and pointed at arge and empty table at the side of the room.

    Daniel grabbed the map messily and took it to the other side of the room. He couldn¡¯t help but bump into some of the items a few times. Making them fall from the counters.

    His heart was beating in his chest. He hadn¡¯t seen his sister in more than a year, and what he would see after opening the map, would give him a clear idea about how much longer it would take him to see her again.

    He nervously opened the map, and what appeared in front of him left him with his eyes wide opened in shock.

 Chapter 93 The Gathering of Experts Part 6

    "What is it? Is the ce you want to go very far?" Asked Alesia from behind his back.

    Daniel turned to look at her with a face that only one that had just seen a ghost would have.

    Alesia approached Daniel, and once she was right next to him, he pointed with his finger at Krea, the capital of the Krehan empire. He then made his fingertip slide over the map.

    Under his touch, mountain ranges, deserts, oceans, kingdoms, and empires were passed. Only after his finger reached the right edge of the map, did a small looking ind appear in sight. Above the depiction of this ind, a big word had been written in ck. The word was ¡¯Nestreia¡¯.

    Inside the territory of Nestreia, right in the middle, Daniel was finally able to find the small kingdom of Karalis.

    Alesia¡¯s eyes opened in surprise. She looked at Daniel and said "That¡¯s a.. dozens of years long journey.. Not even my father could pull it out in less than three years.."

    Daniel pressed his palms on the table and bent his head forward. He tried to calm himself and catch his breath, but he couldn¡¯t help but inhale and exhale rapidly.

    "Are you okay?" Asked Alesia with a sorry tone. She didn¡¯t know Daniel that well, but based on the few times she had seen him, she thought of him as an incredibly cunning person. Extremely daring and brave.. So, seeing him in that state was like peeking at the other side of the medal for her.

    While still looking at the map, Daniel exhaled deeply and said "Thanks for your help.." He then straightened his back once again, rolled the map back up, and put it into his spatial ring.

    He then walked towards Alesia, took her hand into his, and teleported away. The moment right before teleporting, he flipped his middle finger at the cartographer.

    Alesia had been taken by surprise, but before she could react and move her hand away, she had already reappeared in front of a table. At this table, Heimart and the rest were sitting quietly while enjoying their drinks.

    At the edge of the table, were two empty seats with two non-alcoholic beverages waiting for the two of them.

    Complete trust between friends. That was something that Alesia had never seen..

    His friends had immediately noticed that Daniel had stopped, so, instead of going too far, they sat at a table and waited for Daniel to reach them. They didn¡¯t even need to ask him before doing something like that, just like Daniel didn¡¯t need to make sure the others would wait for him.

    It had all happened very naturally.

    While Alesia was busy thinking about the mechanics of the group¡¯s rtionships, Daniel had already let go of her hand and sat at the table. He then looked at her and said "Aren¡¯t you going to sit?"

    -----

    After a day spent with his group of friends, Daniel entered directly into the ring that Edmund had given to him.

    Once inside, the first thing he notices was how dense the space was. It wasn¡¯t exactly like being submerged by mud, it was closer to someone sitting on one¡¯s chest and preventing them from breathing.

    The space wasn¡¯t really tangible, and yet it was difficult to move through it.

    In the eight hours it took for Daniel to fullyprehend the density of space, he had understood that the reason why he had problems moving. The reason was simple.. Just like not every bit of his body was filled with bones, tissue, and blood, the cells of his body weren¡¯t orderly stacked with no space in between them.

    In conclusion, the reason why Daniel couldn¡¯t move asfortably within dense space, was because his very own body was partially made out of space of lower density.

    He had the same problems moving into dense space that a bubble would have in staying underwater. The only difference, was that gravity hadn¡¯t been applied to this dense space.. There was no up to float to. He could only stay still and attempt slow movements.

    Afterprehending the concept of dense space, Daniel was finally able to thicken the space in the outside world, and dilute the space that came in direct contact with his skin.

    He then left the ring, and directly jumped into the locked in which Roley had been forgotten for days.

    Right after he entered the locket, his body started to rotate rapidly. Luckily, he had aprehension of space that was approaching the sixty percent, so, he was able to quickly stop the violent motion by stabilizing the space immediately around himself.

    In the void, he could feel fragments of space that moved in all directions, like shards of ss that kept crashing, shattering and reforming. He could enter each of this shards, and once in, he would end up thousands of meters away from the original spot.

    It was a constant movingbyrinth.

    "No wonder Roley was so pissed when I got him out" Muttered Daniel in his mind.

    Suddenly, he heard a desperate voiceing from within his head. It said "For the love of my tree father!!! Get out of this hell as soon as you can!"

    "Will I ever learn why you hate space so much?" Asked Daniel with a derisory tone. He then added "Calm down.. I won¡¯t let myself be caught into unstable space.. I will only study it for a few hours.. Hang in there."

    Daniel wasn¡¯t lying. The first thing he did after stabilizing the space around himself and installing the time sphere, was to create a diamond sphere with earth essence and throw it towards one of the fragments of unstable space.

    The very moment therge diamond touched the fragment of space, the diamond immediately disappeared and reappeared a hundred meters from Daniel. It was moving upwards, but after it entered another fragment, it disappeared once again about ten meters underneath Daniel.

    Therge diamond kept teleporting over and over again, until suddenly, before Daniel could even react, the diamond had appeared just twenty centimeters away from the time sphere, and it was going directly towards it.

    It hit it the very next moment, forcing it to fly towards one of the fragments of chaotic space.

    Daniel stretched his hand in an attempt to take the sphere back, but before he managed to do that, the sphere had entered into a fragment of space, and teleported to a random point within the pocket dimension. He tried many times to stabilize the space in front of the time sphere, but unfortunately, he was never fast enough, and would end up seeing the sphere teleported once again.

    After a few dozens of failed attempts, Daniel decided to study the unstable space instead of trying to catch the sphere.

    It was only after five hours, that he was able toprehend not one, but two concepts of space.

    The first concept of space Daniel hadprehended was, of course, unstable space.

    Fragmented space, unable to join together, would sh, shift and modify its function. It was like a billion pieces puzzle..

    The easiest way to adjust unstable space, was to put the fragments back in order. But that required an immense amount of spiritual essence and control over space essence.

    It was just like trying to stop water by controlling its essence with one¡¯s spirit. It would work for a river, but if an oceanic wave was going to crash against the cultivator, then he would have no chances to stop it.

    The second concept he hadprehended, was the concept of portals.

    The fragments of unstable space were nothing more than small portals with random and ever changing destinations. Just because the destinations were difficult to predict, it didn¡¯t mean that the act of creating and opening a portal that lead to another point in space couldn¡¯t be learned from it.

    The concept of portals was much different from the concept of teleportation. Teleportations was instantaneous, but had risks. Like ending up into a wall at a point in cultivation in which teleporting along with the space around oneself was impossible.

    On the other hand, the concept of portals was the idea of opening a rift in space that worked as passage between two different points in space.

    Other people, and even items could move through.

    The pro of this method of transportation, was that one didn¡¯t risk to end up into a wall by mistake. The con of this method, was that it took a fraction of time for one to form a portal and enter it.. So it wasn¡¯t exactly instantaneous.

    After learning both of these concepts of space, Daniel localized the time sphere, and just as it was about toe into contact with another fragment of space and teleport elsewhere, he took control over that fragment of space and created a portal that lead right in front of him.

    He moved his hand right in front of his chest, and opened it so that the back of his hand would face him.

    The next moment, the time sphere appeared in front of him, and immediatelynded into his hand.

    Daniel¡¯s currentprehension of space, after learning the three concepts of portals, density, and instability, had surpassed Edmunds very own understanding.

    He left the locket.

    One day and thirteen hours had passed since thest stage of the gathering had ended, and he wanted to be rested and on his best shape for what he believed to be the most important stage of the event. So, he directly went to sleep.

    He woke up the next morning to the sound of knocking.

    After getting out of bed, he went to open the door while still half naked.

    Behind the door, just like he had expected, was Edmund. Unfortunately, next to him was also his daughter Alesia, which quickly looked away and said with an angry tone "Is this that trick that boys use to let girls see them naked and im innocence afterwards?"

    Daniel looked at her embarrassed state and with a slight smirk, he responded "You mean I should have been fully naked? My apologies, it¡¯s the first time I use the trick."

    "Alright brat.. Enough with this. Get dressed, before I teleport you into the square in your underwear." Barked the irritated Edmund.

    After going back into the room and putting on some clean clothes, Daniel opened the door once more, but before Edmund could teleport him, he said "Mind if we go my way? I¡¯ve been itching to try this."

    Edmund looked back at him and said with a confused and still irritated tone "Try what?"

    Daniel turned to look at an empty spot of his room, then, with a wave of his hand, a rift in space started to force open.

    On the other side, the three could see therge square. And in it, the multiple disciples and masters that were looking at the rift with shock and curiosity.

    The usuallyposed Edmund looked back at Daniel, and with a burst of excitement, he said "How the fuck did you learn the concept of portals!?!?"

    Alesia was shocked. She had seen in this state before, and it happened whenever her fatherprehended a new portion of space essence.

    "You have to teach me that.. You have to!" Said Edmund excitedly.

    But before he could say anything else, Daniel looked back at him with a cheeky smile and said "Our agreement never said that I had to teach you anything.."

    "You can keep the time sphere." Responded Edmund inly.

    "DEAL!"

    -----

    Back in the square, the dozens of disciples were still staring at therge drift that had appeared out of the blue.

    Before long, three silhouettes appeared from the other side. These three people were, of course, Daniel, Edmund, and Alesia.

    From up in the balconies, the various masters of spatial essence looked at Edmund with envy and muttered "Heprehended the concept of portals.."

    Edmund felt slightly embarrassed by hearing the other¡¯s words, but since he would actually learn it soon, he didn¡¯t bother with correcting them.

 Chapter 94 The Gathering of Experts Part 7

    Once in the city square, Edmund teleported himself in the balconies and sat next to his wife Emelnie, which looked at him and asked in a low voice "You didn¡¯t tell me that you had made progress.."

    With an embarrassed expression, Edmund simply said, "It wasn¡¯t me.." Edmund was a very prideful person, and yet there was one person he would not be able to lie to. That person was his wife Emelnie.

    Not to say that his daughter had spectated the embarrassing scene of him bargaining with Daniel to teach him the concept of portals.

    Back in the square, right in the middle, arge ring had appeared. Standing onto this stage, was the man hidden under the ck cloak.

    He stood immobile, and with a loud and powerful voice he said, "Thepetition stage has begun. Who is the first one that wishes topete for the title of Guardian of the Axe?"

    "I am." Responded a young man d in tinum armor. This young man was the same who had gone second during the presentation stage. His name was Riher, and was part of a school called ¡¯Pantheon of the War Gods¡¯. He had imed the title of Guardian of the Axe for his master, one of the school¡¯s elder that went by the title of ¡¯The Axe Wielder¡¯.

    After jumping over the stage, he waved his double-headed axe in the air and creating powerful winds. He then said, "Who is my first challenger?"

    Another young man within the crowd of disciples jumped over the stage. He was wearing a gambeson that didn¡¯t hinder his dexterity in the slightest. In his hands, was a single handed axe and arge shield.

    "I am your first opponent." Responded the young man with a loud and clear voice.

    Both cultivators were at the peak of nigh inhuman stage, and they had both imed the title of Guardian of the Axe for their respective masters.

    The man hidden under the ck cloak looked at the twopetitors, and with his usual clear voice, he said, "The rules are as follow. You may not attack with anything but your axe and martial arts. The fight will go on until one of the two will surrender or will be unable to continue fighting. This isn¡¯t a fight to the death, and death is the punishment for whoever causes one.. Do you ept the rules as they were described to you?"

    "We ept!" Responded the two young men in sync.

    "Let the battlemence." Said the man hidden under the ck cloak before suddenly disappearing.

    The two young men looked at each other for a few moments, before the young man called Riher dashed at his opponent while brandishing his double-headed axe.

    Blow after blow, parry after parry, the two contestants fought brutally. The gamberson wore by the challenger was great at reducing the damage of impact, and his shield was extremely useful for the strongest and most dangerous attacks. Riher¡¯s te armor was also very useful to parry the attacks of the single-handed axe, which were faster and more diverse, but theycked the strength necessary to go through the te armor.

    After a few minutes spent fighting intensly, the young man that wore the gamberson was forced to concede due to the state his weapon and shield were currently in.

    Riher had won, but his armor wasn¡¯t in the best shape either. A few powerful hits had reached the soft junctions of his armor, and right now he was suffering the muscr pain caused by the impact.

    His overall ki had also been greatly reduced.

    Only ten minutes were given to the winner to recover. During these ten minutes they would be allowed to use anything they thought was necessary to reach their best state. The only limitation, was that the effects of whatever they took had to stop before the ten minutes ended.

    Of course, ten minutes weren¡¯t enough for someone at the peak of the sixth rank to recover his kipletely, nor would they be able to stop the effects of a healing pill before the ten minutes ended, so, the winning participants were hardly able to fully recover before the next fight.

    After the ten minutes passed, Riher went back in the middle of the ring and said with a loud voice, "I await for my next opponent."

    During the presentation, not every single one of the disciples would im a title for their masters. If a master was certain that their disciples would definitely not be able to win against the others, they wouldn¡¯t send them to lose face for both of them.

    Out of all the disciples that wielded the axe, only three had imed the title of Guardian of the Axe for their masters. The tinum armor young man with the double-headed axe, Riher. The young man in the gamberson what wielded the single-handed axe and shield, and finally, a twenty odd years old man in leather armor.

    This third contestant was adept in dual-wielding, and his weapons of choice were two twin hatchets. His style ofbat was more oriented in evading than parrying, and his main strength was dexterity.

    The battle started after the man hidden under the ck cloak said, once again, "Let the battlemence."

    The young man in leather armor immediately dashed towards Riher, which tried to met his approaching body with a solid sh with his double-headed axe.

    Instead of jumping high in the air, or backing away, the young man in leather armor opted for sliding on his knees.

    Riher¡¯s powerful sh broke the barrier of sound and caused a sonic boom. A huge waxing crescent moon-like wave of light green ki was sent in the air, which forced the ever present elements of wind and water to part.

    Avoided just in the nick of time, the young man in leather armor hooked the hatchet he was holding in his right hand into Riher¡¯s right greave. Then, he pulled it towards himself, forcing Riher to lose his footing and fall on his right knee.

    Now behind a kneeling Rihel, the young man in leather armor went for the weak spots. He used his second hatchet to cut the leather straps that firmly kept the te armor on Riher¡¯s body.

    More than once did Riher try to pull his leg forward and get back up, but whenever he tried, the young man in leather armor would hit the back of his waist with the handle of the hatchet he held in his left hand.

    In a moment of desperation, he pushed as much ki as possible under his left food, and jumped backwards and against the body of the young man in leather armor.

    The two were on the ground, and Riher was currently lying above his opponent¡¯s body. He quickly rolled away from him and while grabbing hisrge axe handle with both hands, he tried to sh vertically at his lying opponent.

    Before Riher¡¯srge axe could hit the young man¡¯s stomach, the young man rolled closer to him with such a fast motion, that instead of stopping at Riher¡¯s feet, he kept going and made Riher fall on his back.

    It was at this point that Riher¡¯s te armor came fully undone, and covered his face.

    The young man in leather armor immediately got back up on his feet, and sent a powerful blow on Riher¡¯s left elbow crevice with one of his hatchets. The blow wasn¡¯t powerful enough to do serious damage, and yet, it made him release the grip he had on his double-headed axe.

    He then pointed his second hatchet at Riher¡¯s neck.

    Now unarmed and hindered by his own te armor, Riher had no option but to concede. He knew that if this was a battle to the death, he wouldn¡¯t be currently breathing.

    "I concede." He said with a disappointed tone.

    The young man in leather armor moved away from him, and allowed him to fix his te armor and recover his double-headed axe.

    The two then bowed slightly to each other, before Rihel left the stage in low spirits.

    The man hidden under the ck coat appeared once again, and said "The title of Guardian of the Axe goes to The Bloody Axe, master of Hutch."

    Hutch, which had yet to say a word in public, simply crossed his twin hatchets in front of his chest, and shouted "HOOAH!" He then left the stage.

    One after the another, simr scenes took ce in the square. Various eliminationpetition of which participants were either spiritual cultivators that hadprehended the same essence, or martial cultivators that wielded the same weapon.

    Staves, bows and arrows, greatswords, fire essence, lightning essence.. One after the other these events took ce and revealed a different winning contender, along with their masters and rightful owner of the title of guardian of discipline.

    -----

    It was now early evening, and it was finally time for thepetitions for the ruler of discipline to take ce. Traditionally, thepetitions for the titles of guardian of discipline would take ce earlier in the day, while thepetitions for the titles of ruler of discipline would take ceter.

    The firstpetition to take ce, was the one for the title of Ruler of the Spear.

    Thepetitors for the title of Rule of the Spear were a lot more than thepetitors for the previous martial disciplines. No matter if axes, bow and arrow, staves, fans or daggers, the vast majority of the young master in the empire would always try to learn either the use of the sword or the use of the spear first.

    Those who picked different weapons, usually did it in order to respect a tradition within their families or powers.

    The first to enter the stage, was of course, Krim. The current third prince of the Krehan empire.

    It was known that the third prince was a prodigy of spear wielding, as opposite to the crown prince, which was a master of the sword and currently upied in a military campaign, and the second prince and the first princess, which were both spiritual cultivators and practiced respectively sound and space essence.

    "Krim, third prince of the great Krehan empire. Who challenges me for the title of Ruler of the Spear, and the honor of our masters?" Asked the third prince after making a golden spear appear in his hand, and nting the bottom of the shaft heavily against the ground.

    "I will." Responded a twenty odd years old girl.

    -----

    The third prince was an extremely talented cultivator, and was easily able to overpower the seven differentpetitors before they could even force him to spend too much ki.

    He was now standing, over a stage filled with shallow cuts, and stains of blood and sweat.

    The tip of his spear was still of a bright golden color. So bright that its shine could not be hidden by the thinyer of blood that covered it.

    The man hidden under the ck cloak appeared in the middle of the stage, and said "The title The title of Ruler of the Spear goes to The Phantom Piercer, master of the third prince. The nextpetition held, will be thepetition for the title of the Ruler of the Sword."

    Thepetition for the title of Ruler of the Sword was the one that had, by far, the highest number ofpetitors. The sword was a versatile weapon, and it came in many shapes and forms. Therefore, the fights were varied and always different.

    As for arge number of disciples, this was also Alesia¡¯spetition.

    She nervously looked at her mother, and after receiving an encouraging smile, she focused on entering the right state of mind for battle, and waited for the right moment.

    Unfortunately for Alesia, thepetition for the sword had many cultivators of a much higher level than hers. She was currently at the mid of the sixth rank, while most of thepetitors were at thete, peak, and even perfect stage of the nigh inhuman stage.

    If she wanted to have a chance to win the title of Ruler of the Sword for her mother, she needed to find the right timing to join the fight.

 Chapter 95 The Gathering of Experts Part 8

    Six hours had passed since the start of thepetitions for the titles of ruler of discipline. The title of Ruler of the Spear had been won by the third prince, and thepetition for the Ruler of the Sword was still ongoing.

    Of the twenty-eightpetitors for the sword, more than twenty had already been eliminated. The current holder of the title was a young woman at the peak of the sixth rank. She wielded an extremely thin, yet rigid single-edged sword.

    Her movements were unpredictable and fast, and she had been able to easily overpower six differentpetitors while using the least amount of ki necessary.

    She was currently one of the favourites for the title.

    Her name was Hiya, and she was the current disciple of one of the generals of the Krehan empire, which also happened to be the previous master of the first prince.

    Her next challenger, was one of the only two cultivators that had joined thepetition of the sword at the early seventh rank. The first one, had been defeated by Hiya after reaching a win streak of fourteen.

    This new challenger was a man in his mid twenties. He was a dual wielder, and in his left hand, he wielded a short double-edged sword, while in his right hand he wielded a single-edged sword with a hook ced on the unsharpened side of the de.

    "I¡¯ll be your nextpetitor.. You won¡¯t be able to beat me out of exhaustion." Said the new challenger with a confident tone.

    Hiya let her sword gently slide in the air, then, she entered her usual battle stance.

    The challenger immediately dashed towards the girl, shing vertically against her. She promptly avoided the attack by rotating her body of ny degrees to the man¡¯s right. The de split the air just a few centimeters away from her body, but as it reached one meter from the floor, the man twisted his wrist, and turned the sword by ny degrees as well before pulling the sword back towards him.

    Fortunately, Hiya was prepared for this sneaky attack. She immediately bent her body, moving her shoulders back and waist forward. At the same time, she sent a horizontal attack directed at the man¡¯s arm.

    While still pulling his sword back, the man twisted his entire upper body and used his short sword to deflect Hiya¡¯s attack. He then used the force of the attack to spin his entire body and once again attempt to hook at Hiya¡¯s body with the back of his sword.

    Her reaction was incredibly fast. She immediately predicted the attack and let her body fall horizontally on the ground. But before her back could touch the ground, she stopped. Only her right food was solidly pressed on the floor.. Holding her entire weight.

    She immediately shed at the man¡¯s forearm, and managed to cut a good centimeter in, before the strength of his body stopped her de.

    Once again, the man rotated his sword by ny degrees, and while pulling it back, he managed to hook Hiya¡¯s de. He then moved it out of the way, and hit the middle of her chest with the pommel of his short sword.

    "Uggh.." Cried Hiya after feeling the powerful attack hit her chest squarely. She then managed to free her sword from the man¡¯s off sword, and roll away.

    She then got up on her feet, and with a pained expression, she rubbed the hit area for a few seconds before assuming a new stance. This stance waspletely different from the one before, and it was more suitable to facilitate piercing attacks.

    The reason why she had changed stance, was because she had understood thepetitor¡¯s strategy. He was what many called a two step swordsman.

    A two step swordsman would usually wield two swords, but he couldn¡¯t really be considered a dual wielder, as he used two different types of swords. The single-edged sword was used to attack, but also to incapacitate, disarm, and parry. The short sword was used for when the enemy got too close to the wielder.

    Hiya¡¯s tactic had to change if she wanted to win.

    Instead of trying to challenge the dexterity of someone with a superior body, and a superior number of possibilities, she decided to turn the short sword into a burden.

    Once again, the man dashed towards the girl and shed towards her with his single-edged sword. Instead of dodging, she leaned on her back foot and moved out of the attack¡¯s reach.

    As soon as the sword missed her, she put her entire weight on her front foot, and stretched her arm towards the man while also stretching her empty hand backwards.

    From the man¡¯s perspective, the sword wasn¡¯t long enough to reach him. But he didn¡¯t want to take the chance, so he tried to deflect the piercing de with his short sword.

    His short sword met the void, as she had retracted her sword just a moment before the sh, and after hopping forward with her foot, she pierced again.

    The tip of her sword was directed towards the man¡¯s face, but he decided not to defend himself.

    He was fully aware that a deadly injury would cost the girl her life, so he was willing to bet that she wouldn¡¯t dare. Instead, he tried to pull his single-edged sword and pierce the girls body with the hook ced on the unsharpened edge.

    Unfortunately for him, she had already predicted that move. So, she changed the direction of her thrust.

    The de left a shallow cut on the man¡¯s cheek, but instead of stopping, it kept going.

    It was only a few centimeters away from the man¡¯s face that she straightened her wrist, and punched the man¡¯s face with her fist covered by the knuckle-guard.

    The punch hit the man squarely in the face, breaking his nose in the process. He flew for a few meters backwards, and when he managed to get back up on his feet, he was hit by a projectile of ki shot by the tip of the girl¡¯s sword which perforated his shoulder.

    "Argh!.." Barked the man while in pain. The girl had sent her attack with precision, and had damaged the nerves on the man¡¯s shoulder, making him unable to fight with his right arm.

    Of course, the man was fully aware of the damage on his shoulder, so he got up on his feet, and with a expression twisted by the pain, he said, "I concede." before finally leaving the stage.

    Once the fight ended, Hiya immediately sat on the ground, and ingested a few pills to recover her ki.

    After ten minutes, she got back up on her feet, and waited for her nextpetitor to go up the stage.

    Finally, it was Alesia¡¯s moment to move.

    The reason why she had moved only now, was because she wanted to avoid those with a seventh rank of cultivation, and because the only other person who she considered a threat, was currently on the stage with a few injuries, and a reduced amount of ki.

    Alesia¡¯s calctions were very urate, and in case she would be able to defeat Hiya in the next fight, she was confident that she would also be able to defeat the remaining contestants.

    Unfortunately, she had thought too far ahead.

    There was a reason why Hiya had managed to defeat two swordsmen at the seventh stage, and a few other more. It was because she was a prodigy at swordsmanship, and for as talented as Alesia was with her sword, she wasn¡¯t ablepensate the disparity in their swordsmanship with her slightly better physical state.

    After some few brutal exchanges, Alesia ultimately lost the duel.

    Thepetition went on after she left the stage with an expression filled with disappointment.

    After leaving the stage, Alesia reached her mother in the balconies. When she sat on the chair next to her, she heard her mother¡¯s words reach her ears "There was no better moment to join. The next opponents would have have been a piece of cake for her, instead of weakening her further, she would have been in recovered even more."

    "I wanted to win the title for you.. And instead, I¡¯ve done nothing.. I¡¯m sorry." Responded Alesia with clear sadness in her voice.

    Her mother leaned closer to her and kissed the side of her head. She then said, "It¡¯s not true. She had to use a good deal of ki to defeat you. She won¡¯t be able to keep it up until the end. You are the reason why she¡¯ll lose, just like she is the reason you¡¯ve lost."

    Just like Emelnie had predicted, during the second tost fight, Hiya had ended up losing against another cultivator. She had been using more ki than she could recover for herst few fights, and in the end, she wasn¡¯t able to hold on anymore.

    The ultimate winner of the title for Ruler of the Sword, was the young man which had tried to attack Jerigh. He had waited for the veryst moment to join the fight, which would impact heavily on his evaluation. But he didn¡¯t care, as he had been ordered by his master to win at all cost.

    The nextpetition, was over in just a few minutes.

    Only two disciple had imed the title of Ruler of Sound. One was a young woman with a flute, while the second disciple was the second prince of the Krehan empire.

    Unfortunately, the girl¡¯s sweet and sleep-inducing melody could do nothing against the prince¡¯s ultrasonic waves, which left the girl on the ground, screaming in pain while covering her ears.

    The second tostpetition, which was held to determine the rightful owner of the Ruler of Time title, hadsted even less than thepetition for who would be the Ruler of Sound, as only one disciple had imed the title.

    Time had been an hard essence toprehend for tens of thousands of years. Currently, in the Krehan empire, there were only a few masters that hadprehended close to fifty percent of time. Unfortunately, without experimenting the backward motion of time, they would never be able toprehend the other half of this particr essence.

    That was the reason why, when time practitioners all around the world had felt the time move backwards, even if just for four second, they had deemed it as one of the most peculiar and interesting events in history.

    That was also the reason why only one person had imed the title of Ruler of Time for their masters. Everyone was aware of everyone¡¯sprehension of time. Therefore, only the one who hadprehended the most of it could possibly win thepetition.

    This someone, was a young man named Ineas. He was part of a sect called Time Weavers, and was at the perfection of the spiritual synchronization stage, Just like Daniel.

    The final event of thepetition stage, was thepetition for the title of Ruler of Space, and the very moment the man hidden under the ck cloak asked who was the first person that wanted topete, every single spiritual cultivator who had imed the title, including Daniel, had appeared on the stage at the same time.

    It is important to understand one thing. Competition with the use of space was simr topetition with the use of time. Winning through the use of space against a simr cultivator was merely a matter ofprehension. At the same stage of cultivation, the one who had the highestprehension of space would win nine times out of ten.

    Amongst the group of cultivators, Daniel recognized only two people. The first one was the first princes of the Krehan empire, while the second person, was the young cultivator whose master had tried to attack him during the presentation stage, and tried to ruin his exhibition during the demonstration stage.

    The man under the ck cloak was about to say something to them, but before he could, Daniel said in a loud voice. "Can we all fight at the same time and get this over with?"

 Chapter 96 The Gathering of Experts Part 9

    "Quite down young man." Said the ck-cloaked man with an irritated tone.

    Daniel quietened down, but before the man could resume speaking, he heard the voice of the emperoring from behind him. "I¡¯ll allow it." He said while showcasing his power through his voice.

    The ck-cloaked man turned to look at the emperor, and with surprise in his voice, he said "Your Imperial Majesty.. The traditions.."

    "They arepeting on whoseprehension of spatial essence is the highest.. There is no point in making thempete one against the other. Let them all fight at the same time, and the one that wille out on top, will be the winner." Said the emperor calmly.

    The ck-cloaked man turned to look at the other masters, and after confirming that none of them had anything to say against this decision, he turned back to look at the disciples and said, "You all know what to do.. Let the battlemence." he then disappeared.

    The moment the words were pronounced, the many disciples started to wrestle with their spiritual essence to gain the control over the surrounding space.

    An intense battle had started.

    Portions of space started to be thicken, getting a few cultivators stuck into a denser space that slowed them down greatly. Other portions shattered, and forced the cultivators trapped within the fragments to teleport constantly, and spin in confusion.

    The battle was chaotic, but within the group of cultivators, there were a few who had managed to get the upper hand.

    Daniel, the princess, and a few others were the only ones that had managed to maintain theirposure. They were carefully looking at each other. Each in their own safe and stable bubble of space.

    The disciple of the man who had attacked Daniel during the presentation stage, had decide to target him during thepetition. So, he looked at him, and started to bark insults and taunts.

    Unfortunately, his insults were received without any reaction.

    The princes had decided to target Daniel as well, but for a different reason. Since the beginning of the event, she had been deeply impressed by this young man. And after she heard that he might be a candidate for marrying his younger sister, the second princess, she had decided to test him out.

    She introduced herself politely, but just like the other young man, she received absolutely no response.

    Daniel was simply standing in ce within his bubble of space.. Looking at the his surroundings with a rxed expression.

    Both irritated by Daniel¡¯s indifference, they decided to attack.

    The young man was extremelypetent in hindering other cultivators movements through space essence. Therefore, his strongest concept of space were density, gravity, and the creation of secure pocket dimensions.

    He immediately tried to overpower Daniel¡¯s control over the surrounding space, and after managing to erase Daniel¡¯s mark over it, he created an artificial space that surrounded his bodypletely.

    This artificial space waspletely devoid of any connection with the outside world. It was like a pocket dimension without container, but with such a thick barrier, that finding a connection to the original world would take hours.

    He then thickened the space within, and increased the gravity inside it to the maximum possible level.

    Daniel was now lying on the ground, nailed by the near unbearable pressure, and unable to move due to the dense space all around him.

    With a proud expression, the young man looked at Daniel and said, "You don¡¯t look that carefree now."

    -----

    The princess¡¯ strengths were in the concepts of transportation and stability. She was able to teleport to long distances safely by takingrge chunks of space along with herself. She was also able to shatter space, and force those stuck within into a never ending cycle of chaotic teleportation.

    She was currently looking at Daniel, which was standing peacefully on his spot with his usual carefree smile.

    Meanwhile, all around her, the rest of the cultivators, including the other young man, had already been caught by her shattered space and were currently teleporting left and right in a panicked state.

    Her cultivation was at the peak of the sixth rank, which was the most powerful rank amongst the spiritual cultivators that hadpeted for the title of Ruler of Space.

    It wasn¡¯t muchpared to the overall rank of disciples that had joined the gathering, and yet she had found herself able to easily overpower the other spiritual cultivators.

    This had given her confidence.

    She looked at Daniel, and said "You will have to show me your worth before I¡¯ll approve of you bing a contender for my sister¡¯s hand."

    She then shattered the space that surrounded Daniel, and stuck him into a never ending cycle of teleportation, just like she did with the others.

    -----

    Many different scenes were currently taking ce within the stage.

    Somepetitors that, after managing to gain the upper hand over the space essence in the surrounding, were able to render their targets unable to continue fighting by locking them in ce.

    A few others stood like gods in the middle of groups of cultivators that lied helplessly on the ground,pletely pressed by the heightened gravity.

    And even some that looked at their victims, which teleported from one fragment of space to another in a nauseous state, and begging desperately for it to stop.

    But these scenes did not matter.. only one did.

    In the balconies, the various masters of space were looking at the stage with faces filled with shame. Some were even covering themselves with their hands in order to prevent others from noticing their expressions.

    From their perspective, on the stage.. The situation had taken a much more embarrassing turn.

    The various cultivators seemed to have gone crazy.

    Some stood proudly, as if they had just won thepetition, other lied helplessly on the ground, shouting and begging. There were even a few that were pointing at the empty space at talking to themselves.

    An example of this, were the princess, and the young man. Which were currently looking at the empty space and saying "..bing a contender for my sister¡¯s hand." or "You don¡¯t look so carefree now."

    The only cultivator with a normal behaviour, was Daniel. He was currently sitting right in the middle of the stage, and giggling at the show that was taking ce around him.

    "For crying out loud.. Put an end to this already.." Said one of the embarrassed masters of space.

    The rest of the masters looked at the masters of space in confusion, and one of them even asked "What do you mean? What is going on?"

    After brushing his forehead with his hand, the master of space who had previously talked said "That brat created a fictitious space the very moment the fight started.. The brats didn¡¯t even notice."

    "That seems impossible. What kind of spiritual cultivator wouldn¡¯t notice thecking of essences within a fictitious space.." Asked a master of wind essence with a dubious tone.

    Highly irritated, the master of space responded, "The little bastard simted every type of essence perfectly.. Wind, water, earth, light.. He even simted sound and time.."

    "He is using different types of essence? Isn¡¯t that prohibited?" Asked the master of wind essence with a curious tone.

    "Do you feel any change in the wind of the area!?.. He isn¡¯t really using it.. He just mixed hisprehension into the fictitious space." Responded the master of space angrily. He became angrier the more questions people asked to him.

    The various masters couldn¡¯t help but look at Edmund in shock, looks which he weed with satisfaction. It couldn¡¯t be said that Daniel was his disciple, as he never had the chance to directly teach him or instruct him in anything. But Daniel¡¯sprehension of space had been formed by his.

    It was the same kind of feeling that someone would have when seeing one of his rtives be incredibly sessful. They would not be able to take the credit for it, but just the idea of having contributed to that sess, was a morale boost to them.

    While the masters conversed, the situation started to change on the stage.

    The cultivators that were lying on the ground or teleporting in panic, were now getting back up on their feet, and leaving the stage. Their expressions were filled with disappointment.

    At the same time, the few cultivators that were standing proudly in the square, included the young man and the princess, were currently walking towards Daniel.

    In their perspective, they had just finished fighting against the other cultivators, and had came out victorious. They were currently walking in the middle of the stage to bask in their moment of glory.

    They each stopped at a certain point around Daniel, forming a full circle. Then, they started to bow deeply towards him.

    After bowing at the one whom they believed to be the emperor, they all teleported out of the stage, and next to their respective masters.

    The moment they teleported out of the stage, they looked at their masters, and instead of pride and joy, they saw embarrassment on their faces.

    They immediately turned to look at the stage, and in the middle of it, only Daniel and the ck-cloaked man were standing. Thetter said with his usual clear voice. "The title of Ruler of Space goes to The Mirror Shifter, master of Daniel."

    Deeply shocked, thepetitors who had just finished seeing the ck-cloaked man announce their victory, turned to look at their masters which quickly exined what happened to them.

    The concept was simple. The very moment the fight had started, Daniel had created a fictitious space for each of the otherpetitors.

    To those who did not have any chance of winning, Daniel had created a scenario in which they would be losing badly. That was a result that the contestants themselves had expected. While for the few more powerful ones, he had created a scenario in which they managed to defeat the rest of thepetitors, and were announced the winners of thepetition.

    The reason for this trick, was to y on fear and dreams of the disciples. The weakest ones feared to be trashed, while the strongest dreamed to ovee all others.

    Using this trick was all part of making things more realistic, and increase the chances that they would believe the scenario to be the real one. At the same time, he had perfectly replicated the flow of time, the sound of the outside world, and the elemental condition to a perfect simrity.

    His timing had been so precise, that none of the other contestants had even noticed that they had entered a different space.

    The disciples couldn¡¯t help but be skeptical towards their own master¡¯s words. After all, it required an impressive and constant output of spiritual essence to pull such a trick.. A quantity that a sixteen years old kid at the peak of the spiritual synchronization should not have.

    Unfortunately for them, they weren¡¯t aware that Daniel had reached the perfection of the sixth stage of cultivation, and had a hastened production of ki to exchange with the spiritual ne.

    In any case, they had lost, and they had done it spectacrly.

    Oddly enough, the emperor hadn¡¯t taken offence in seeing his daughter being yed with like a puppet, and instead, had a satisfied grin on his face.

    Still in the middle of the stage, the ck-cloaked man said "The Competition stage of the gathering has terminated. The Evaluation stage and premiation will take ce two days from now."

    As always, after the final announcement of the day had been given, the stage, the ck-cloaked man, and the tform on which the imperial family sat disappeared.

    The masters then left the square along with their own disciples.

    -----

    Alesia was currently looking at Daniel talk with her parents.

    "Had I known there was a premiation, I would have taken things more seriously." Said Daniel with a slightly annoyed tone.

    Edmund looked back at him and muttered, "You damn freak.." he then paused slightly, and continued "Back to our deals.. You still owe me something" he said while tossing a small piece of ss to Daniel.

    From within this piece of ss, Daniel could feel a faint stream of spatial essence. It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to reach the conclusion that, this piece of ss, was undoubtedly a low level spatial treasure.

 Chapter 97 The Gathering of Experts Part 10

    After Daniel finished creating a spatial sphere that contained the full concept of portals, Edmund entered one of his empty pocket dimensions, and immediately installed the newly created sphere inside it. He then started to study it.

    Comprehension of essence couldn¡¯t be sped up by time essence, as it was something that regarded the mind, which had a simr limitations to the ones life essence had. That meant that it could take months or maybe even a year to fullyprehend a new concept for someone like Edmund.

    The only people whose time needed to:prehend essences, reaching mastery in weapon wielding, or learn a martial or spiritual art could be reduced, were Daniel, and the members of his group.

    Strangely enough, the system¡¯s effect did not have the limitation that time essence had. And yet, time essence would include the effects of the karmic system, as if the system¡¯s effects were not applied, but in fact always present.

    How things were right now, this meant that if Daniel used his maximum speed of cultivation granted by the system, along with the time sphere he owned, his speed of cultivation would be one thousand and five hundred times faster than the speed of a norman untalented person.

    In exchange, he only needed to pay the same amount of karma he would spend when cultivating with ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ activated, and no time essence.

    On the other hand, the fastest speed that the members of his group could achieve in cultivation while under the effect of the karmic system and the time sphere, was three point fifteen times their normal speed.

    Their various levels of talent were, of course, different from Daniel¡¯s. For example, Jerigh¡¯s prodigious talent in cultivation was, by itself, dozens of times faster than Daniel¡¯s innate one.

    The rest of the group was not an exception. They were all extremely talented, and if not for Daniel¡¯s Karmic System, he would not be able to keep up with them.

    Emelnie took the pocket dimension her husband had just created, and went towards her study room to prepare a few questions for him to ask during the gathering.

    In the living room, only Daniel and a depressed looking Alesia were left.

    "What¡¯s bothering you?" Asked Daniel to her.

    She looked back at him, and with her head lowered, she said "This was my first gathering of experts.. I really wanted to win for my mother."

    "Time, resources, opportunity, and effort." Said Daniel with a firm tone.

    Alesia looked back at him in confusion, and asked "What do you mean?"

    "You are younger, she had much more resources than you, and many more opportunities to train her swordsmanship to a higher level. Her mastery of the sword was nearing the ny-five percent, and yet, despite her talent and preparation, you were still able to be the unexpected obstacle that threw our out of thepetition." Exined Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. He then continued "Next time you¡¯ll fight her, you¡¯ll win for a simple reason."

    "What reason?.. And how do you know so much about her mastery of the sword?" She asked back in a low voice.

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face as he ignored the second question, and responded by saying "Because now that you¡¯ve lost, you¡¯ll put twice the effort." after making sure his words hat hit where they needed to hit, he continued. "Come on, let¡¯s go eat something.. If I don¡¯t show up every day or so, Lig starts to nag at me."

    -----

    Back in the throne room, the emperor was sitting on his throne, and in front of him, was one of his imperial advisors.

    "We¡¯ve researched Daniel¡¯s origins. He is part of the legion, and in the registration form he wrote that he came from a kingdom called Karalis." Said the imperial advisor to the emperor with a polite tone.

    The emperor turned back at him and asked "Where is that?"

    "The Nestreia continent." Responded the imperial advisor immediately.

    "Nestreia?" The emperor¡¯s eyebrows arched in surprise "When?"

    The imperial advisor started to scroll through a few sheets of paper, and when he found the right one, he said "Just a bit longer than a year ago. He appeared out of the blue in Cerulis, a port city outside our borders. He then took a ship that took him to the Clear and Dark Ind, where he participated in the Lost Inheritance Tournament. After the tournament ended abruptly, he went towards Jeah, and there, he, along with a few others, assisted the city lord and his army in defending the city from a raid of asum warriors. They reached Drester not muchter. There, the young man met Edmund Saullet."

    "Nothing before Cerulis?" Asked the emperor curiously.

    "Nothing.. But.. Your Imperial Highness.. There is something that doesn¡¯t match with the story. From the reports we have obtained from a few participants of the tournament, Dan was a spiritual cultivator adept at the use of wind and water essence.. While multiple reports we¡¯ve received from the city of Jeah im that Dan was an incredibly talented.." The imperial advisor paused slightly before finally saying "swordsman.."

    "That¡¯s ridiculous." Immediately responded the emperor. He was about to dismiss the imperial advisor, but as he lifted his hand, a thought came to his mind. His eyes moved back on the middle aged man and said "Bring me the letters sent by my son, the Crown Prince. All those that arrived in the past half year."

    The imperial advisor immediately bowed, and left from a corridor to the side of the throne room. He came back after a few minutes with a pile of letters, which he quickly handed over to the emperor.

    The emperor started to check the letters from the oldest to thetest, and finally, when he saw the content of a letter that had arrived just three months earlier, he stopped. This letter said:

    ____________________________

    "Dear Father

    I write to tell you that my travel is going well, and that our campaign is sessful.

    The general is teaching me a lot on how tomand the troops, and how to be respected.

    The ces we have seen are beautiful and interesting, my mother and my younger siblings would love to visit them. I have also heard many interesting rumors.. Like rumors that ims that there is a territory where beasts of legends thrive, or a rumor about a young man that after learning how to be a dual cultivator.. disappear less than a year ago.

    I hope that my words find you in good health, and that I will see you soon.

    Take care, your son Kirt."

    ____________________________

    The emperor looked at his advisor, and asked "How many people saw him perform as a martial cultivators?"

    Ignorant to the content of the letter, the imperial advisor looked back at his emperor and said "Seventy-nine city guards, eleven captains, and the City Lord himself."

    The emperor handed the letter over to his advisor, which after a quick read, looked at the emperor in shock before asking "Your Imperial Majesty, you are not thinking that he may be the young man mentioned by the Crown Prince?"

    "It¡¯s far-fetched.. But it¡¯s simple to verify. One needs the physique of a martial cultivator to be a martial cultivator. If we touch him during the premiation, we will be able to confirm it." Responded the emperor in a calm tone.

    The news of the appearance of a dual cultivator had reached the Krehan empire after nine months.

    The reason why the news had reached them so fast, was because the letters and reports to the krehan empire, were sent through a formation installed directly into the imperial castle.

    Spatial cultivators, which were always present during military campaigns thanks to their high mobility, were able to utilize this one-way formation to teleport small objects directly into the imperial castle.

    The size of what they could teleport depended on the distance. In order to teleport a full grown man, they had to be no further than twenty thousand kilometers.

    Further than that, and some ¡¯parts¡¯ might be lost in the middle.

    That meant that the entire military of the empire, whose total number was in the hundreds of millions, would theoretically be able to enter into an enormous pocket dimension, and teleport back into the castle from anywhere within the radius of twenty thousand kilometers.

    Unfortunately, due to side effects caused by a teleportation from longer distance, this method had been mostly used to send reports instead of being used for military transportation.

    Of course, the empire had learned about this limitation in the worst possible way.

    When the spatial cultivator that thousands of years ago had found the instructions to replicate this formation, he had mistranted the distances.. Reading two hundred thousand instead of twenty thousand.

    When two thousand years ago the Krehan empire had found itself at war with a neighbouring empire, and the enemy army was approaching the capital, many fractions of the military had been forced to teleport back to the imperial castle.

    One amongst these factions, happened to be forty thousand kilometers from the capital. Ignorant of the dangers, the men entered the ring, and let the master of space amongst them to teleport them back.

    What arrived in the castle, was half of the body of the spiritual cultivator, and the ashes of what was once the ring which contained the pocket dimension.

    This event had forced the empire to reexamine the instructions of the formation. Only then did they find the mistake, and found out about the formation limitations.

    It was thanks to this formation that the news had reached all the way to the Krehan empire. If they waited for the news to spread by voice, considering how far Nestreia was, it would have taken a century or longer.

    -----

    The next two days passed peacefully.

    Daniel had installed the time sphere into his pocket dimension, and had created a flow of time inside a two kilometer radius from the castle.

    Alesia had spent the past two days with the rest of the group, which was already ustomed to her presence. Daniel had even allowed her to visit the martial library, and to train within the weapon wielding testing room.

    On the second day, she had challenged Jerigh into a sparring match, which ended with her being defeated in only two moves.

    Her shock was so deep that she couldn¡¯t help but think of what would have happened if Jerigh joined thepetition of the Ruler of the Sword in her ce.

    Unfortunately, there was no going back now.

    When the day of the Evaluation and premiation arrived, Daniel and Alesia left the pocket dimension and teleported back into the Saullet mansion.

    There, they found the Saullet couple waiting for them.

    "Where were you?" Asked Emelnie to Alesia in a slightly worried tone.

    Alesia looked back at her mother, and with a bright smile she said "I was hanging out in Daniel¡¯s castle. Lots of good people there."

    "Alright.. Are you two ready to go? The evaluation will start in an hour." Said Edmund with a voice filled with an irritation that not even he knew the reason for.

    After both of them nodded, Edmund teleported the four of them into the city square.

    The setting of the square was slightly different. There was a podium in the exact point where previously was the stage, and the ck-cloaked man was waiting right in front of it.

    Around the stage, all the disciples that had participated in thepetition stage were currently waiting just outside the edge of the square.

    Closer to the edge, were those who had imed a title, and had fought for it. They had the right to be evaluated first. The rest stood in the back, and would be evaluated only for their presentation and demonstration.

    At the end of the day, the presence of thetter kind of disciple was only to make number.

    After another hour passed, and every master had arrived along with their disciple, the ck-cloaked man said with his usual clear voice: "The Evaluation stage will begin now. Contenders of the title of Guardian of the Axe. You may step forward to receive your evaluation."

 Chapter 98 When Everything Went Wrong

    A few hours had passed since the beginning of the evaluation stage.

    The disciples had been split into categories, and each category represented one of the different titles.

    Each participant would be valued based on the quality of their education, the fantasy and intuition shown during the demonstration stage, and tactic, proficiency, and power shown during thepetition stage.

    It wasmon knowledge that being thest one standing during thepetition, aside from winning the title for one¡¯s master, wasn¡¯t as important as utilizing a smart tactique, or as the ability to pick the right moment to join the fight.

    The circumstances of each cultivator was different, and that was why the gathering of experts, other than being a gathering of the most powerful cultivators in the Krehan empire, was also a scouting for the most talented disciples of the younger generation.

    After all, the empire¡¯s future was only as good as the next generation was, and those who would end up leading it, would not be picked from the most powerful amongst them, but from the most talented, intelligent, and quick witted young men and women in the country.

    Only the three best cultivators of each discipline would advance to the premiation stage.

    The evaluation had ended, and three people for each discipline were now standing in the middle of the stage, separated from one another.

    The most notable amongst them, were:

    The third prince, which was part of the small group of spear wielders;

    The second prince, that was one of the only two spiritual cultivators adept in sound essence;

    Hiya, Alesia, and the first of the two seventh rank martial cultivator adept in the use of the sword;

    The winner by default of thepetition for the title of Ruler of Time, which was a young man called Ineas;

    Finally, Daniel, the first princess, and a young man called Azaos, stood for the group of cultivators adept in spatial essence.

    Each small group had a disciple whose evaluation was higher than the rest. These disciples were the third prince for the spear, the second prince for the sound, Hiya for the sword, Ineas for time, and Daniel for space.

    Daniel was waiting patiently in the front, while the other two stood behind him. He had just learned that there would be a reward for the most talented disciples, so he was reasonably excited to see what kind of reward such arge and powerful empire would give to the best of the best amongst the youngest generation.

    His excitement reached the peak when he saw what was rewarded to the winners of the minorpetitions.

    Hutch, the winner of thepetition for the title of Guardian of the Axe, had received ten beast cores of the seventh rank, and a set of twin hatchets of perfect quality.

    The same was for the otherpetitors that belonged to other disciplines, and had received the highest evaluation. On the other hand, spiritual cultivators would receive ten beast cores of the seventh rank, along with an essence treasure of the mid-high level matched to their discipline.

    And that was only the reward for the disciples of minor disciplines.

    When the third prince had received an enchanted spear of the perfect quality, along with twenty beast cores of the seventh rank, Daniel could not help but tremble in ce from excitement.

    Unfortunately, what he saw next left him petrified.

    Not only did the third prince receive the beast cores and the enchanted spear, but he was also patted on the shoulder by the evaluator himself, the ck-cloaked man.

    At first, Daniel thought that this was something that only regarded the members of the imperial house, as the ck-cloaked man probably knew them.. but when he did the same during the premiation of Hiya, Daniel felt two big drops of sweat run down the sides of his face.

    He used the concepts of bending and repulsion of the space to prevent people from identally touching him when in the midst of arge number of people or cultivators, but he was aware that, if someone forced their way through the bent space with the use of a more powerful essence, his invisible protection would immediately copse under the invader¡¯s superior power.

    The difference between the spatial art he had created, and an actual spatial defense, was the same difference between wearing a te armor, and wearing a hat. The hat was very effective if one wanted to go unnoticed, but it couldn¡¯t be considered a defensive instrument by any means.

    Daniel watched as the ck-cloaked man approached him after gently patting Ineas¡¯ shoulder.

    "You are quite the young man.. Here is your reward." Said the ck-cloaked man before handing twenty beast cores and a cubic shaped rock to Daniel.

    This rock wasn¡¯t made out of stone, but of space essence. The space essence was so condensed that it had taken a physical form. Daniel couldn¡¯t imagine what sort of natural phenomenon could have create something like this, but without thinking too much about it, he made the items disappear into his spatial ring before they could even touch his hand.

    The ck-cloaked man suddenly raised his arm and moved it towards Daniel¡¯s shoulder, but before he could touch him, Daniel said in a loud voice, "I would like to say a few words, if I am allowed."

    The ck-cloaked man, just like the masters, the rest of the disciples, and the imperial family themselves, clearly did not expect this request. He abruptly stopped his motion, and looked back at the emperor for confirmation.

    After the emperor nodded in response, he turned to look at Daniel, and said "You have one minute."

    Daniel tried to sell a deep breath of relief as one of preparation. He then took a step forward, and while looking at the imperial family he said, "As you all know, I am not part of the Krehan empire. I have arrived here close to a year ago, and I¡¯ve spent this past year enjoying the hospitality of this great empire¡¯s good-willed people. Unfortunately, it¡¯s time for me to be on my way home.. But before I¡¯ll do that.. I would like to thank the imperial family, and their loyal subjects, for granting me the opportunity to be part of such a fantastic tradition."

    After Daniel stopped talking, the crowd started apuding soundly.

    He not only hadplimented their culture and country, but had also thanked the imperial family and all of them for allowing him to be part of their traditions. They couldn¡¯t help but feel pride well up in their chests at the sight of such a talented young man¡¯s respectful behaviour.

    In the balconies, Edmund was looking at Daniel with narrowed eyes.

    He, more than anybody else knew that Daniel didn¡¯t feel any sort of gratefulness towards the empire.. Knowing his cunning character, he couldn¡¯t help but think about the reason why he was giving such a speech.

    While still the center of the attention, Daniel suddenly bowed towards the imperial family, just as deeply and respectfully as a normal subject would. Then, he continued, "It has been my honor to be in your presence, Your Imperial Majesty." after thosest few words, he attempted to teleport away.

    Unfortunately, the space around him had already been separated from the outside world.

    The only ones that could feel the spatial blockade being created, were Edmund and the other masters of space within the crowd.

    Daniel could clearly feel who had initiated the spatial blockade. He had felt this mark in the surrounding spatial essence over and over again in the past week. With narrowed eyes, he looked at the ck-cloaked man.

    Suddenly, the emperor jumped off the tform and approached Daniel.

    He looked at him up and down, and while slowly stepping towards him, he said with a powerful tone, "You are a very talented cultivator.. With a bright future."

    Daniel stopped fighting the spatial blockade, and put his hands behind his back instead. With the tip of his fingers, he slowly removed his two spatial rings.. Then, he waited for the events to unfold.

    The emperor was less than a meter from him, when his hand started to move towards his shoulder.

    At first, the space that trapped him had expanded to include the emperor.. But it was only after the emperor¡¯s hand shattered his feeble spatial art, that Daniel understood that he was in deep trouble.

    Finally, the handnded on his shoulder.

    It was at that time that Daniel had seen the corners of the emperor¡¯s lips rise for a fraction of a second.

    Edmund teleported in the middle of the square the very next moment, but before he could approach Daniel, three martial cultivators in golden armor stopped him from moving closer.

    "What is the meaning of this?" Asked Edmund with a surprised tone.

    The ck-cloaked man looked at Edmund and said "You and your family are under arrest for acts of espionage against the empire."

    With a face covered in shock, Edmund asked, "What the hell are you talking about?"

    "He is a spy from another kingdom, or possibly empire.. And you¡¯ve aided him." Responded the ck-cloaked man while pointing at Daniel.

    Three more guards surrounded Emelnie, and two approached Alesia from behind.

    "THAT¡¯S RIDICULOUS!" Suddenly Burst out Emelnie. "What proof do you have that he is a spy? And that we have aided any sort of act of espionage?!"

    The ck-cloaked man looked back at her, and said in a clear voice "A map that falls under the imperial rules of secrecy was bought with the use of your family crest. The cartographer imed that it was purchased by your daughter, for a young man that matches his description."

    Edmund and Emelnie looked at Alesia in shock. She was on the verge of crying.

    Daniel already knew what all of this was about. His secrets had put this innocent family of cultivators in trouble.

    He immediately looked back at the emperor and said "I know what you want.. They are not spies.. Leave them alone."

    Unfortunately, the damage was already done.

    Knowing that the family had purchased a secret map for Daniel, the Saullet family had already been branded as spies by everybody present.

    That had caused his words to fall on deaf ears.

    The guards reunited the family of three in the middle of the square and awaited for orders. Daniel was only about two meters away from them.

    The ck-cloaked man removed the limitation around Daniel, since teleporting out of the emperor¡¯s grip was impossible to him.

    But teleporting away wasn¡¯t Daniel¡¯s current objective.

    He looked at Edmund, and whispered a phrase which he covered by noisy wind essence and sent towards him. When the hidden sound of his voice reached Edmund¡¯s ears, he immediately understood Daniel¡¯s words. He had only said "Enter the ring."

    After Edmund heard Daniel¡¯s message, he looked back at him, and noticed that his hands were behind his back.

    With a sudden flick of his thumb, Daniel shot the ring towards the direction of the Saullet family. Edmund immediately increased the gravity around the body of the guards, and as the ring came close to them, he teleported his daughter, his wife, and himself within Daniel¡¯s ring.

    The ring kept flying in the air for a few meters, until a fist sized portal opened in its path, and swallowed it whole.

    This scene takes a minute to describe, but it happened in just a split moment. In fact, it had happened so fast that the ck-cloaked man didn¡¯t even have the time to react, and stop Daniel which was still standing in the middle of the square.

    Daniel felt a hint of relief for at least being able to allow those he had put in danger to escape safely.

    He had put his spatial rings inside his pocket dimension, and thrown the ring that contained the pocket dimension, along with the rest of his group, towards the Saullet family. They now would have to live as fugitives.

    Unfortunately, Daniel wasn¡¯t as lucky.

 Chapter 99 See You Guys Soon

    Thousands of kilometers away from the capital, a fist sized portal had opened just one meter above a patch of grassy ground.

    Daniel¡¯s ring fell from the portal, and just as it touched the ground, arge number of people appeared near the ring. These people were the Saullet family, and Daniel¡¯s group.

    "What happened?" Asked Emelnie with an anxious tone. She was currently hugging her daughter.

    Daniel¡¯s group looked at Edmund with a serious face.

    While Daniel was being blocked by the emperor, he had sent a message to them that he had prepared in advance during the ten months they had spent cultivating.

    This message was a wisp of sound essence, which could be saved within a one time use object.

    This object was called ¡¯Last Words Shell¡¯, and it was created simrly to a ki g. The only difference was that it contained sound essence, which could easily be liberated by shattering the shell, instead of ki that would mark the g forever unless erased.

    This ¡¯Last Words Shell¡¯ was in Heimart¡¯s hand.

    Daniel had created a small formation within the castle that could be easily activated by inserting a wisp of his spiritual essence into his pocket dimension. The formation would then deliver the ¡¯Last Words Shell¡¯ to Heimart.

    Before listening to the message, Heimart turned to look at Edmund, which said "The kid helped us escape.. He threw us into a portal.. But I don¡¯t think that we are too far away.. We have to go right now."

    Edmund didn¡¯t delude himself thinking that he could exin himself to the emperor. He knew that now he was marked as a spy, and he needed to leave the Krehan empire along with his family.

    Alesia suddenly turned to look at him, and with tears welling up in her eyes, she said "Dad.. what about Daniel??"

    "The kid had his secrets.. There is nothing we can do now." Responded Edmund with a resigned tone.

    "But he was in front of the emperor because of a deal he made with you!" She said as two clear tears streamed down her cheeks.

    It was at this moment that Heimart broke the ¡¯Last Word Device¡¯, and released Daniel¡¯s wisp of sound essence.

    ____________________________

    "I can tell you this only once, so listen carefully.. If you are listening to this message, I¡¯ve been found out.

    Don¡¯t be stupid and don¡¯te looking for me.. If someone was powerful enough to go through my defences, there is no way that you guys will be able to rescue me.. No offence.

    Now, this part is important, so listen close. I¡¯m going to ask one thing of you guys.. Something that, for as strange as it may sound, will allow you all to increase in power to a much higher speed.

    Regardless if you guys split, or make the group increase in size and thrive, as long as you¡¯ll do things for good reasons, you¡¯ll be able to be powerful much faster.

    And before Lig says that this doesn¡¯t make sense.. Know that I have bigger secrets than the one you guys know.. Just.. Trust me on this one.

    I¡¯ll manage my way out of whatever pickle I¡¯ll find myself in.. So don¡¯t worry about me.

    See you guys soon.. Daniel out."

    ____________________________

    Everyone had heard Daniel¡¯s message. Including Buriath and the Saullet family.

    Emelnie looked at Daniel¡¯s group, on whose face there was no confusion, and instead sadness. She asked "Found out.. What was he hiding?"

    Heimart and Alis looked at each other for a moment, then, after Heimart nodded, Alis responded "Daniel is the first cultivator that ever managed to increase both martial and spiritual cultivation above the third rank.."

    She then looked at Edmund, and added "That was the reason why he had created that spatial field that prevented others from identally touching him.. It was to avoid others from finding out that his body was that of a martial cultivator."

    Of course, Edmund, Alesia, and Emelnie were shocked beyond words. This was the first time that they had heard of someone that had managed such a feat.

    Alesia and her mother were having difficulties to believe it, but to Edmund, it actually made sense. Not only the fact that he had created the spatial field, but also the fact that, differently from the other gathering of experts, the evaluator and the emperor himself had attempted to touch Daniel.

    Once out of his stupor, Edmund looked at his family, and only then did he realize that he was left with almost nothing.

    His home, his money.. All they had was the content of their rings, and themselves. He looked at Heimart and Alis and said "What are you guys going to do? Do you want me to teleport you somewhere?"

    Heimart had more or less understood what had happened. And had also guessed the situation he Saullet family was in.

    Something else that he realized, was that their group wouldn¡¯t be able to go back to their homes. After all, they had traveled into the empire for a long time now. The empire¡¯s counterespionage had probably gathered informations about them when investigating Daniel.

    If for some ridiculous reason the empire ended up not believing Daniel¡¯s version on how to achieve both paths of cultivation, they would definitely believe that the true method was hidden inside the ring which he had teleported out of the capital along with them.

    The same was for the Saullet family. They were not simple spies now.. But spies that might possess one of the most important secrets in the world¡¯s history.

    After a few moments, Heimart looked at Edmund and his family, and said "You can all stay in our castle. We have plenty of rooms, great training ground.. An atmosphere identical to that of the outside world, and enough resources tost us a long time. Daniel said you have a mansion within one of your pocket dimensions.. You could even move that into ours, and live there."

    Edmund was ready to say no, but as he noticed the begging expression of his daughter, he ultimately epted the offer.

    A more hidden reason for epting the offer, was Daniel¡¯s message. He was well aware that Daniel was extremely cunning.. And if he considered this phantomatic ¡¯bigger secret¡¯ much more important that something that would change the world, then, deep inside, he couldn¡¯t bare not knowing what that was.

    After epting the offer, Edmund moved the entire group back into Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, and started performing a veryrge number of long-ranged and exhausting teleportations towards the empire¡¯s border.

    -----

    In the depths of the imperial castle, there was a secret dungeon.

    This dungeon was the ssical stone made prison.. The corridors were dark, and dimly lit by a few torches set in a sporadic order.

    Inside this dungeon, only important spies were kept.

    Instead of being left in arger prison which was used to containmon criminals or killed, the people kept in this dungeon were pressed into revealing informations in various ways.

    Torture, wasn¡¯t excluded.

    The entire number of this prison cells was not higher than eighty, and in one of them, Daniel kneeled on the ground, with his arms chained to the wall. At the same time, on his feet were two balls and chains, and on his chest was a bar that was bent and wrapped around him.

    Each of these seemed to be made of simple casted iron, but that wasn¡¯t what made escape so difficult.

    Be it the chains on his wrists, the ones on his ankles, or the one on his chest.. They were all made of iron enchanted with extremely powerful runes of mana absorption.

    These runes had the same effect as the ones Daniel had ingested, and that effect was to absorb spiritual essence and ki.. The only difference, was that these runes forced out every drop of mana before it could umte, and produce any relevant amount of power that its owner could use.

    In the room with Daniel, there was the ck-cloaked man, two people in military attire that seemed to be prison warders, and the emperor himself.

    "..I¡¯ve told you already.. Never heard of a deaf emperor before.. Hehehe-"

    Daniel¡¯sugh was interrupted by a kick to the stomach from one of the two warders.

    The ck-cloaked man approached Daniel, and said "Amuse me.. Exin it again.. In detail."

    "First of all.. You take a shiny little beast core.. And.. listen to this part because it¡¯s important.." Said Daniel with eyes opened in urgency. Then, after the ck-cloaked man approached him, he said "You put it into your natural pocket.. Basic-"

    *pthuuuh*

    A heavy pnded on Daniels face.

    Daniel didn¡¯t enjoy being tortured, but if there was something that he had learned from his past experiences, was that a secret information obtained easily wouldn¡¯t be considered valuable.

    What he needed was time alone to formte a n, and he wouldn¡¯t have it if he burned his chances of privacy by unting the true method left and right.

    He needed them to feel like they had earned that information.. Instead of being given to them for free.

    "Look, I don¡¯t enjoy spending time in the dungeon torturing silly brats like you.. But everything that you are is too important to be left wandering the world.. Any small kingdom, given your knowledge and twenty years of time, would be able to easily topple our empire. If there is going to be someone that will learn your methods in this area, it will be us." Said the ck-cloaked man with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Oh.. it¡¯s toote for that!.. Do you have any idea of how many people I¡¯ve met in the past year?.. You should go around inspecting the empire¡¯s poption¡¯s cavities.. Only then you¡¯d understand that my secret isn¡¯t really a secret anymore.. hehe."

    *pthuuuh*

    Once again, a heavy pnded on Daniel¡¯s other cheek.

    "Keep talking like that.. And I might start enjoying treating you roughly." Said the ck-cloaked man in an angry tone.

    -----

    After twenty-eight long hours of rough treatment, Daniel finally pretended to give in, and exined the true method of practicing both paths at the same time.

    The exnation went beyond a normal cultivator¡¯s logic, as it required a talent that had never appeared before in the world.. And yet, thanks to Daniel¡¯s tactique.. They were willing to take his words as true.

    What they had learned, was that the entire process required an immeasurable amount of talent, or an immense amount of wealth and time.

    Their only option to verify Daniel¡¯s method, was make the learning of time the most important objective of the empire¡¯s efforts.

    The ck-cloaked man looked at Daniel once again, and said "Getfortable.. It will take a long time for us to verify your story.."

    Finally alone, the first thing Daniel did was to start to intensely think about his freedom. A momentter, a window opened in his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest Updated: Freedom for All!*

    -Description UPDATED: Eradicate very from the world, and maintain your own freedom.

    Third objective: Escape imprisonment.

    Reward: Karma +1,000,000

    Failure: Death

    Time limit: The system¡¯s wielder will die of old age in 71 years, 1 month, and 8 days.

    ____________________________

    When Daniel noticed the extremelyrge amount of karma points offered as reward for the mission, he didn¡¯t feel happy at all. Usually, the higher the points offered, the more difficult the quest would be, and the longer it would take to finish it.

    He took a deep breath, and while looking at his dark empty cell, Daniel said in a low voice. "Sewah.. my options please.."

    ____________________________

    Stealthy approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Trick the gullible new guard into believing that you are dying.

    -Neutralize the guard after he frees you from the majority of your chains.

    -Escape the empire while making use of the chaos caused by the civil war.

    Countdown: 2 years, 6 months, 22 days, 1 hour, 9 minutes, and 55 seconds.

    (Requirements: Control over the breathable air through the use of wind essence.)

    Reward +200% (3,000,000 KP)

    ____________________________

 Chapter 100 A Guardian Angel

    Four months after imprisonment.

    Daniel was still chained to the cold and moist wall of his prison cell.

    After four months, his vision had perfectly adapted to its darkness, and thanks to that, he had started toprehend certain concepts of dark essence itself.

    Concepts like depth of obscurity, which allowed one to create a darkness dense enough to overpower some forms of light, and absorption, which was created from the mixing of obscurity, gravity, and attraction.

    Thisbination allowed to simte the workings of a ck hole, creating a darkness endowed with a gravitational pull powerful enough to absorb even light itself.

    The only things that had helped him avoid losing his mind during the past four months, were the talks he had had with the people chained in the near cells, the sporadic interrogations, and finally, his asional talks with his own cellmate.. Sewah.

    Aside from waiting, Daniel had spent most of his time following his friend¡¯s actions from the system¡¯s group window.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 14

    Overall Karma: 345,263

    Karmic effects:

    Time is Precious Lv.2 (Group)

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    At some point during the four months, the number of members had increased from eleven to fourteen.

    From the details of the number of members, Daniel could see that the three neers were in fact Edmund, Emelnie, and their daughter Alesia.

    It was impossible for young people like Heimart and the rest to notice, but the five percent increase in progression hadn¡¯t escaped Emelnie and Edmund¡¯s expert eyes. After all, they were both early ninth rank cultivators.

    In the past four months, his friends hadn¡¯t doubted his words. In fact, they had kept themself quite busy.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of this, but wherever they went, they would help people in need, ept mission with low pay, and even give support to small cities during raids.

    After only three months, they had already obtained enough overall karma to allow Daniel to upgrade Time is Precious to the second level, and now, they were close to another upgrade.

    Regarding Daniel¡¯s escape n progression, this day was a special one. For the first time, he had heard about two different developments that he believed were crucial in ultimately leading him to his freedom.

    The first of these developments had reached his ear during the change of the guard.

    Daniel had gotten used to the warders habits. After four months of observation, he had learned that the warder¡¯s shiftsted for twelve straight hours. From five in the morning, to five in the evening.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t exactly sure if it was currently morning or evening, but earlier that day, during the change of the guard, he heard a well rested guard approach the tired one, and say "Your turn is over, go home."

    To that, the tired guard had responded: "Finally.. I¡¯m tired of this shitty job.. I can¡¯t believe I still have to do it for two more years.."

    The second development Daniel had heard, was during the second daily change of the guard.

    The unhappy warder approached the one that had previously relieved him of his duty, and said to him "You have no idea what happened.. The imperial advisor announced something crazy. The youngest prince has entered the fourth stage of cultivation.."

    "That¡¯s not that impressive.. With all the resources the imperial family has, there is no wonder he managed to achieve that.." Said the first guard with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "In both paths of cultivation!! It was said that he even created an unnatural event when he entered the second stage.. It¡¯s crazy." Responded the second guard with an enthusiastic tone.

    The two went on talking for a few more minutes, before quietening down.

    -----

    One year after imprisonment.

    Daniel was now seventeen. He had be once again very thin, just like when he was three years ago. His once refined clothes were now tight, dirty, and ruined.

    "Kid, how is your room service today?" Said the voice of a man that came from further into the dungeon.

    Daniel smirked after hearing the man¡¯s words, then said "I got a ninth rank dragon stake.. With side dish of mystical herbs.. But I had them take it back because the stake was still raw.. What about you?"

    "Hehehe.. I¡¯ve requested a conjugal visit with our friendly warder¡¯s wife.. She¡¯ll be here soon.. Hope my breath doesn¡¯t smell too bad.. Hehe" Responded the middle aged man while barely holding hisughter.

    The man was held in the cell ced further down the corridor, and was someone Daniel had started to talk to a few months back. He had been imprisoned four months earlier, after being used of being a spy sent by another country to create internal conflict within the Krehan empire.

    Aside from the fact that he had mentioned being thirty years old, and that pulling words out of him was impossible, Daniel knew nothing else about him.

    Daniel had heard more than once that spies had been sent to pry on the Krehan empire¡¯s secrets, especially after he had been imprisoned.

    iming the honor of having found the method of double cultivation, the Krehan empire had put his own empire under the spotlight.

    That had caused a spike in the number of spies that were sent to infiltrate from all the surrounding countries. Their objective was, of course, to obtain the method of cultivating both paths at the same time.

    Daniel¡¯s group hadn¡¯t stopped their streak of good actions, and whenever he checked the system¡¯s group window, he felt prouder than the previous time.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 97

    Overall Karma: 1,563,732

    Karmic effects:

    Time is Precious Lv.5 (Group)

    Karmic Aura Lv.5

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    A more in-depth method Daniel had used to keep track of his group, was checking the increases in their reputation.

    From time to time, he would think about the details of the reputation menu and a second window would appear in his mind.

    ____________________________

    Reputation of: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Kingdom of Aswa: Positive reputation 45% (Details)

    Kingdom of Brietan: Positive reputation 42% (Details)

    Kaprein Empire: Positive reputation 22% (Details)

    Kingdom of Daspua: Positive reputation 10% (Details)

    Kingdom of Oblon: Positive reputation 8% (Details)

    Kingdom of Griuca: Positive reputation 5% (Details)

    Chorus Empire: Positive reputation 3% (Details)

    Sniolia Empire: Negative reputation 3% (Details)

    ____________________________

    Daniel had once tried to go further into the details of the singr countries, but all that was showed, was a list of powers with whom the group had gained a sort of reputation.

    -----

    One year and a half after imprisonment.

    The previously empty dungeon had now been filled with people suspected of being spies.

    More than a year had passed since the youngest prince had entered the fourth stage of cultivation in both paths, and yet, the imperial family had decided not to divulge Daniel¡¯s method of dual cultivation yet.

    Daniel¡¯s hair were now long and ruffled, and draped down the sides of his face like ck tents. The constant wearing of his clothes, paired with the small size, had forced the guards to give him some tatters to cover himself with.

    On the positive side, he was much less lonely, as the many voices of the other prisoners resounded day and night.

    "What?! You are telling me that you aren¡¯t the one that was here first?" Asked someone with a shocked tone.

    "I¡¯m telling you.. The first one was the kid." Responded the man with whom Daniel had be friend with in the past ten months. His name was Rnd.

    "You¡¯ve got to be kidding. Hey Dan.. is that true?" Asked the first man to Daniel.

    "Yeah.." responded Daniel inly.

    "And what did you do?.. Were you some sort of teen spy?" Asked the man jokingly, while still finding hard to believe that Daniel had been the first one to be imprisoned in this section of the dungeon.

    Daniel smirked, then said "I¡¯ve invented the dual cultivation we kept hearing from the guards.. I thought they would have killed me by now.. But it seems that I¡¯ll be here for a long while."

    This had been the first time someone had asked him for what reason he had been imprisoned. The reason why he decided not to lie, was because there was no reason to. After all, the method was out now.

    "HAHAHAHAH.."

    "Ahahaha!"

    "Bahahahah"

    The other prisoners suddenly burst outughing.

    "Of course.. Know what I¡¯m here for? I¡¯m actually the real emperor.. Been framed by my twin brother that stole my throne!" Said one of the prisoners sarcastically.

    "Oh please.. We can tell from your voice that you¡¯re uglier than the opened mouth of a ninth rank beast.. AHAHA" Said another prisoner.

    Daniel ignored their reaction.

    What he didn¡¯t know, was that Rnd had his face contorted in shock. He had known him for a long while now, and he had always been able to tell when Daniel was joking and when he was serious. From his experience, he seemed to be speaking honestly.

    Ignorant to Rnd¡¯s reaction, Daniel checked the state of his group by opening the system¡¯s group window once again.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 625

    Overall Karma: 463,732

    Karmic effects:

    Karma X Luck (Group)

    Karmic Aura Lv.11

    Time is Precious Lv.16 (Group)

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    Thanks to the increase in members, the group had managed to gain karma points faster every day. Luckily, the karmic effects weren¡¯t like the upgrades of his system, and didn¡¯t increase in price for each level.

    Each level of ¡¯Time is Precious (Group)¡¯ would cost 500,000 karma points, while every upgrade of ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯, would always cost 100,000 karma points.

    At this point, after an increase of eleven percent of their battle prowess, and eighty percent of their progress speed.. The members of the group had epted Daniel¡¯s words as a certain truth.

    After all, their already high talent had basically almost doubled.

    From the conversation between guards, Daniel had learned that there had been some revolts in a few of the empire¡¯s cities. These revolts had either been caused by spies, or by nobles that demanded that the imperial family undisclosed the details on how to cultivate both paths of cultivation at the same time.

    These revolutionary groups had been aided and supported by the surrounding countries, which lended weapons and manpower to them.

    -----

    Two years and two months after imprisonment.

    Daniel was now past the eighteen years of age, and he had already been in prison for more than two years.. Only a little less than five months were left before Daniel¡¯s chance of escaping the dungeon, so he couldn¡¯t help but feel ecstatic.

    In the past few days, he had be much more chatty with the prison mates. He was in the section reserved for spies, so, at the very least he knew that he hadn¡¯t be friends with killers and rapists.

    The ultimate goal of these spies, was to gather informations, turn key characters into assets, and steal the emperor¡¯s secrets. They might have hurt somebody while pursuing those objectives, but it was highly unlikely that they had gotten anyone killed.

    "Guys.. let¡¯s say we were to leave half a year from now.. What would you do?" Asked Daniel to the various people imprisoned within the cells in his section.

    The dungeon quietened for a few moments.

    "Take a bath.."

    "Take a bath with a woman.."

    "Take a bath with two women.."

    "I¡¯m serious." Said Daniel, while suddenly interrupting the series of sarcastic responses.

    One of them sighed audibly, then responded "I don¡¯t know.. I¡¯m not going to leave in six months, so I don¡¯t want to talk about it.."

    The man¡¯s response pretty much ended the conversation for the rest of them, so instead of pushing it, Daniel went back to check on his group¡¯s situation.

    After the window opened, what he saw, shocked him deeply.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 1496

    Overall Karma: 4,846,198

    Karmic effects:

    Karma X Luck (Group)

    Karmic Aura Lv.35

    Time is Precious Lv.20 (Group)

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

 Chapter 101 Jailbreak - The More The Merrier

    Thest time Daniel had checked his group¡¯s number, they counted more than two thousand.. But now, they were less than fifteen hundred.

    He knew none of the people missing, but he still felt anxious for his friends, as he didn¡¯t know if all those people had simply left the group, or.. If they were currently at war.

    In the next two days, the number kept decreasing drastically. It lowered at a somewhat steady pace, making him believe that people weren¡¯t simply leaving.. But they were actually dying.

    The decrease in number stopped only after a full month. It was only after that, that Daniel had managed to confirm that his group was in fact at war.

    He was currently looking at the system¡¯s group window once again, and this is what he saw:

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 416

    Overall Karma: 9,006,198

    Karmic effects:

    Karma X Luck (Group)

    Karmic Aura Lv.35

    Time is Precious Lv.20 (Group)

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    The group¡¯s numbers had gone from 1496, all the way down to 416, while the group¡¯s karma had increased from 4,846,198 to 9,006,198, meaning that, that particr victory had earned them ten thousand karma points each.

    Luckily, the names of all of Daniel¡¯s friends were still present in the current list of members.

    After long a breath of relief, Daniel suddenly recalled something important.

    He immediately thought about the Shared Karmic effects details, and right after, the familiar window appeared. However, it had been upgraded.

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects lv.2

    Karmic Aura Lv.35 = 100,000

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a battle prowess enhancement of 1%. An additional 1% per level. Max Lv. 100)

    Time Is Precious Lv.20 (Group) = 1,000,000 KP

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a boost in their speed of progression of 5%. An additional 5% per level. Max Lv. 40)

    Karma X Luck (Group) = Purchased

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown (Group) = 5,000,000

    (Passive: Killing rewards 10% of the mirror amount of karma owned by the victim to the group.)

    ____________________________

    umte 100,000,000 Karma points to unlock Shared Karmic effects lv.3

    ____________________________

    Daniel hadn¡¯t found much improvements to the shared karmic effect. Only a group version of ¡¯Reap What You¡¯ve Sown¡¯ had been added to the list of purchasable effects, along with an increase of the max levels of ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯, and ¡¯Time is Precious (Group)¡¯.

    After a moment of thought, Daniel decided to spend five million karma points on purchasing ¡¯Reap What You¡¯ve Sown (Group)¡¯, and the remaining four million points in upgrading ¡¯Time is Precious (Group)¡¯ by four additional levels.

    While one would think that ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯ was a better choice due to the fact that his group had started to take part in what seemed to be major conflicts, the biggest limitation of that effect still remained.

    Karmic Aura¡¯s biggest limitation was that the effect wouldn¡¯t activate unless the group members were in the presence of the karmic system¡¯s wielder, or within the group ground.. which was the pocket dimension within the ring.

    Instead of an useless effect such as karmic aura, Daniel had deemed better to increase the group¡¯s speed of progression by an additional twenty percent, and help them increase in power faster.

    Uncertain about the exact time, Daniel was sure that the change of the guard was about toe, so he waited quietly.

    "Hey, my turn.. You can go home" Said the first guard in a low tone.

    Right after the first guard stopped talking, a series of steps could be heard heard resounding in the air. They then stopped, and in their ce a voice could be heard suddenly say "How¡¯s the situation outside?.."

    The first guard, which was just about to start his turn, said "It¡¯s chaos.. Half the cities of the empire are now under the hands of those rebel scum.. There are rumors that say that the leaders of the various group will meet soon to n an attack to the capital.."

    "Fuck.." Responded the second guard in a dispirited tone, he then turned around in silence, and left the dungeon.

    -----

    Two years, six months, and twenty days after imprisonment.

    Only two days were left before the end of the mission¡¯s countdown, and Daniel was counting each second.

    He had stopped conversing with the rest of the prisoners, and instead started to design and to rehearse his escape n thousands of times in his own mind.

    "Guard change.." Said a young-sounding voice that Daniel and the rest had never heard before.

    One of the usual guards said "Who are you?"

    "I¡¯m the new warder. The other guys has been sent to fortify the perimeter around the city." Responded the new guard before taking a slight pause, he then added "They¡¯ll send you there as well.. Probably.."

    -----

    Two years, six months, twenty two days, one hour, and nine minutes after imprisonment.

    Daniel had never been more nervous than in this moment. He had no idea when the next chance to escape would be if he missed this opportunity.

    The entire section was so quiet that even a fly would be heard buzzing in the air.

    Suddenly, Daniel said in a loud voice, "G-GUARD!.. I.. I don¡¯t feel.. T-too well.." he then used the control over the muscles of his stomach to make himself puke hisst meal.

    "GUARD!!"

    "Hey guard! Go check on Dan!"

    "Warder there is something wrong with the kid!!"

    After weeks of mental practice, Daniel had pictured this image so many times in his head that he had been able to even trick his friends.

    The new guard shouted in response, "QUIET!" before walking towards his cell.

    In it, Daniel was lying on the ground, with his face buried in his own vomit.

    The guards had clear instructions for these kind of situations. Firstly, they needed to retrieve a ki g from within their spatial container, and erase the ki left inside it.

    The head warder would arrive in a matter of seconds, and with him present, the guard would be able to remove the limitations on the prisoner¡¯s body, so that they could feed them a healing pill.

    The healing essence contained in a healing pill was, just like any other type of essence, mana. And the limitations would immediately absorb every bit of mana the very moment it entered the prisoner¡¯s body.

    That was the reason why at least two of the three limitations needed to be removed during the treatment.

    Thankfully, Daniel¡¯s masterful performance, along with the screams of urgency that came from the other cells, had made the new warder nervous enough to forget about one crucial step of the procedure.

    He immediately entered the cell, and removed Daniel¡¯s wrist and legs chains. But when he was about to feed him a healing essence, he started to find breathing difficult.

    He panted and breathed heavily for six long minutes, until finally, he passed out.

    "Hey guard! Everything alright there?!" Asked rnd with an extremely worried tone.

    The first thing Daniel did, was to take the keys from the guard¡¯s body, and unlock his third andst limitation. Then, he took the guard¡¯s spatial ring.

    It took him three full minutes to turn themon spatial container into an habitable pocket dimension. It of coursecked breathable air, but for now, he had to do without it.

    In the blink of an eye, he was in Rnd¡¯s cell.

    At that very moment, Rnd was grabbing his cell¡¯s bars and trying to listen to what was happening in the direction of Daniel¡¯s cell.

    From behind he looked like a robust man in his early thirties, even though his long beard and messy hair made him look ten years older. His clothes, just like Daniel¡¯s, were in tatters.

    "Rnd.." Said Daniel from behind him.

    "WHAT THE F.." Shouted Rnd in response while immediately turning around.

    Daniel approached him, and with a hurried tone he said, "Listen, there is no time to exin, we have to leave. You have to trust me, and allow me to teleport you into this pocket dimension."

    Rnd didn¡¯t think twice before nodding at him, and moving his wrists towards Daniel.. hinting for him to free his hands.

    After freeing Rnd, Daniel went to free the remaining four people.

    The interactions had happened in such a speed that barely a minute had passed from the moment tha guard had lost consciousness, to the moment Daniel had teleported out of the dungeon and had reappeared a hundred meters in the air.

    He was extremely worried that someone might have felt him or his control over the surrounding essence, and that they would appear to apprehend him in a matter of seconds.. Or worse.

    Fortunately, just like the system had predicted,rge columns of ck smoke were elevating from various points in the capital.

    Clearly, the city was in a state of chaos, and many fights were currently taking ce within its streets.

    Taking advantage of the situation, Daniel immediately teleported away.

    -----

    After a full minute of uninterrupted teleportations, Daniel finally stopped two hundred kilometers away from Krea. But that wasn¡¯t all, as he created a portal in the space right in front of him, and entered it.

    As the portal closed back behind him, various high rank spatial cultivators appeared in the space were Daniel was standing a few moments earlier.

    The reason why the spatial cultivators had reacted only now, was because of the method he had used.

    To teleport from inside to outside the capital attracted much less attention than opening a portal only a hundred kilometers away from the city gates.

    For all these cultivators knew, the portal might have been reinforcement to the army of rebels.. Brought near the capital by a master of space to join the attack.

    At his current stage of cultivation, Daniel wasn¡¯t able to use long distance portals more than once before running out of spiritual essence, and even if he activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, he would consume five thousand points for each additional portal created. So, he stopped after only three portals.

    Now more than six thousand kilometers away from krea, Daniel breathed in relief, and immediately let the other prisoners out of the pocket dimension.

    The five of them appeared on the rocky ground one by one.

    Each looked at Daniel with unbelieving eyes, and after taking deep breaths of fresh air, and looking, smelling and feeling how beautiful freedom was, they couldn¡¯t help but hug him.

    The five of them were so excited, that they had even failed to notice that they were hugging a martial cultivator, which had previously teleported into their individual cells.

    Rnd was the first one to regain his calm, as he took a step back, and looked at Daniel up and down. He then said "You don¡¯t look like I pictured you.."

    "You don¡¯t look like I¡¯ve pictured you guys either.. You look like a bunch of middle aged men with those thick beards.." Said Daniel in response.

    The names of the other four prisoners were Weiss, Rexx, Bonas, and Gens, and they were four very different looking man.

    Weiss and Bonas were spiritual cultivators, while Rexx, Gens, and Rnd were martial cultivators.

    About their cultivation, only after removing their chains was Daniel capable of seeing their true cultivation level.

    Weiss, Gens and Rnd were at the peak of the seventh rank of cultivation, while Bonas and Rexx were at the mid seventh rank.

    Daniel looked at the five prisoners he had just freed.. The people who had made the past two and a half years of his life a little less of a hell.. A little less lonely. He looked at them with the eyes of a friend, and said, "I know you guys probably have nowhere else to go, and your countries probably thinks you are all dead.. So if you want toe with me.. I have a clear idea of where to go."

 Chapter 102 A War That Was Bound to Be Los

    Somewhere in an unknown forest, there was a camp. This camp was upied by two different types of people. The first type, was a group of normal looking martial and spiritual cultivators, while the second type, wasposed of simply dressed humanoids with greenish skin and veins that bulged like some kind of tree roots.

    In the middle of this camp, was a veryrge, and well lit tent.

    Inside this tent, there was a circr table, around which multiple figures were sitting. While all of these figures were humanoid, only a third of them were actual humans.

    All of these individual had demotivated expressions on their faces.

    If Daniel was here, he would have recognized the majority of the human¡¯s party.

    They upied a sh of the table, and from right to the left, they were Heimart, Edmund, Emelnie, Jerigh, and a beautiful looking woman with bright red hair, which Daniel would not be able to recognize.

    Next to the woman with bright red hair, sat Buriath, the earth elemental. The details of his body were extremely more defined now, and he was even wearing clothes. He was stillpletely made out of minerals, but he had decided to make hisposition match the color of human¡¯s skin, hair and eye. His surface was smooth, and only after touching him would someone realize they weren¡¯t actually touching a person..

    Other than his control over the hundred percentprehension of earth essence, his power had also drastically increased.

    When Daniel met him, he was at the level of a sixth rank cultivator, but now, he could fight on par with ate eight rank cultivator.

    The rest of the humanoid beings were divided into two different groups. There were a few that had some sort of gold shine on their skin, as if it was made of golden keratin.. Some others were bare chested, and had silver hair that grew in the majority of their body. The rest were humanoids with green skin, simr to those that were outside the tent.

    These first two types of humanoid were high ranking beasts, and had respectively evolved from first ranked golden ants, and first ranked Silver-Grey Cuon, a wolf-like type of beast.

    The third andst type of humanoid, were actually wood elemental that had taken a humanoid shape.

    "What do we do now?.." Asked one of the gold skin humanoid breasts.

    The leader of the wood elementals responded to his question with a depressed look. He then turned towards Edmund, which was considered by the other parties the leader of Daniel¡¯s group, due to his older appearance.

    Edmund looked back at the wooden elemental, and said "Our group is down to a fifth of our previous power.. The Tiyar empire is probably recing their losses and preparing for another attack. I¡¯m sorry Leffe.."

    The wood elementals, the high ranking golden ants, and the silver-grey cuons present within the tent, were the current leaders of the three major groups that inhabited an ancient forest called ¡¯Garden of Past Times¡¯.

    These three major groups, were the Wood Elementals, the Insecta, and the Hot-Blooded.

    Usually, these three races would peacefully coexist within the ancient forest, buttely, they had been disturbed by a group of explorers which belonged to the Tiyar empire.

    Seeing humans in the ancient forest wasn¡¯t out of the norm, and they would usually be left alone as long as they didn¡¯t cause destruction, or attacked highly intelligent beasts or elementals.

    Unfortunately, one day, a human party had discovered a low level wood elemental while wandering through the forest.

    This young elemental was naive and curious, and after a few nice words, he was duped by the humans into revealing where therger group of wood elementals was currently living within the ¡¯Garden of Past Times¡¯.

    At first, the party of human explorers didn¡¯t show much interest towards the poption of the wood elementals, but that was only until the young wood elemental had mentioned the presence of arge and ancient tree.

    ording to the young elemental¡¯s words, this tree contained the remains of a deceased peak wood elemental. It didn¡¯t emanated much wood essence, but it¡¯s quality was beyond anything else. In fact, it was even capable of granting consciousness to the surrounding trees in a matter of one decade.

    It was only after hearing this, that the human party decided to follow the young elemental back home.

    Amongst this group of cultivators, there was an old alchemist which had reached the seventh stage of spiritual cultivation. His main matter of study, due to his upation as an alchemist, was in fact wood essence.

    The moment the group reached the sacred tree, the old alchemist immediately realized that that tree, was nothing less than a perfect wood treasure.

    After interacting for a bit with the poption of wood elementals, the human party went back to their empire in order to bring the news that a perfect essence treasure had been found.

    Smaller parties had been sent to negotiate with the wood elementals to purchase the treasure, but due to it being not only a sacred item, but also the very reason why wood elementals existed, none of the human¡¯s offers had even been considered.

    Out of options, the humans tried to y theirst card.. Threatening. Unfortunately, that had only enraged the wood elementals, which had imprisoned the party of human cultivators, and demanded an apology from the empire in exchange for their release.

    They weren¡¯t willing to appear weak, but unfortunately, their demonstration of strength had a different effect. It had given a reason for the Tiyar empire to dere war on the wood elemental poption.

    Fortunately, the wood elementals had allies. Specifically, the beasts which inhabited the forest.

    The forest was their home, and the wood elementals were its guardians. The various beast races had formed a pact long ago with the wood elementals. The kings of each species had vowed to aid each others in case their home, the ¡¯Garden of Past Times¡¯ would ever be threatened.

    Their numbers were still not enough though, and after a few skirmishes, the army of beasts and elementals had ended up in the losing end.

    It was then that Daniel¡¯s group had arrived in the Tiyar empire. A two thousand members strong power under the form of a small golden ring wrapped around Roley¡¯s finger.

    Time had passed for most of Daniel¡¯s friends.. And Roley wasn¡¯t an exception.

    After two and a half year, thanks to his nearly tripled speed ofprehension, and a nine times faster speed in cultivation, he had reached the level of a peak seventh rank spiritual cultivator, and achieved the same level ofprehension of space which Daniel and Edmund currently had.

    He had been in charge of roaming kingdoms and empires in order to find ways they could help. That had be some sort of obsession to the members of the group.

    Differently from the original fourteen members which had experienced a slow and gradual increase in talent, the rest had entered the groupter, and therefore felt their talent and speed in cultivation increased by a huge amount the very moment they had decided to follow what Heimart called "Daniel¡¯s Army"

    It was only after reaching the Tiyar empire, that he heard the news about the military campaign against the ¡¯evil wood elemental race¡¯.

    Unfortunately for the Tiyar empire, Daniel¡¯s group had alreadye into contact with elementals. And they were very aware that their nature was peaceful and solitary, detached from human¡¯s aggressive traits.

    Roley immediately reported the news to Edmund and Heimart, and in the end, they had decided to vote on whether to take part in this war or not.

    Even though most people in Daniel¡¯s group were good willed people, after feeling the changes brought by Daniel¡¯s system, they had be addicted to it.

    They didn¡¯t know how it worked, but the more they helped others, the more powerful they would be. And aside from that power, they had also gained the kind of pride that only a self righteous person would possess.

    Whether or not to join a battle was dictated by voting, and this voting, almost always ended up with the ¡¯in favor¡¯ party winning by an extremelyrge margin. In fact, there were times where the only ones that had voted for ¡¯against¡¯, where a part of Daniel¡¯s friends.

    After making the decision, they entered the ancient forest, and offered their support to the wood elementals and the beast ns.

    Thanks to the presence of Buriath and the rest of the earth elementals, their help was quickly epted, and thanks to it, the defending faction had finally managed to gain the upper hand in the following skirmishes.

    Unfortunately, that was only before the empire had started to send cultivators in waves.

    They had increased their ranks thanks to mercenary groups, and had put half of the ancient forest to waste.

    Daniel¡¯s group had lost more than sixteen hundred people during the fights that took ce in the past month. It was a total disaster.

    Back to the tent, Heimart was reluctantly keeping his words to himself. This time, he had been one of the few that had suggested not to meddle with this matter.

    He was sitting quietly and thinking about the right way of expressing his thoughts, which were to offer a simr deal the earth elementals had received three years ago by Daniel. Fortunately, he didn¡¯t need to say a word, as Buriath started to talk in his stead.

    He looked back at the leader of the wood elementals, and said "Leffe.. I understand your frustration.. I was in the same position as you are now.."

    Leffe looked back at him, and asked in confusion "You¡¯re a nomad.. How can you understand?.."

    "I wasn¡¯t at first.. I used to live into a beautiful forest of rocks.. My home. The ce where I was born.. But my mistakes made me a target for ill-willed humans." For a moment, Buriath stopped to look at Heimart, and after receiving a brief nod, continued exining. "It was thanks to the help of a kid, that I was able to create a safe haven for my people.. We were six once.. Now we are hundreds."

    "Is this kid amongst you?" Asked Leffe with a hopeful tone. He knew that Buriath had evolved thanks to the absorption of the purest form of earth essence, he, as an elemental, could feel it clearly.

    Buriath quietened for a moment, and before he could respond, Heimart interjected.

    "We got separated.. But he will be back." He said with a tone filled with confidence.

    Leffe looked at the face of those who had met this enigmatic kid personally.. And on them, he didn¡¯t saw the shred of a doubt regarding Heimart¡¯s words.

    He then looked back at the leaders of the other two parties, then muttered "I can¡¯t leave the forest.. I can¡¯t abandon the other species.."

    Edmund looked back at Leffe and said "You know my powers, Leffe.. You know that I can take you all out of here the moment you decide to leave.. Take everyone with you.. There is no time left to think about it.."

    Emelnie wanted to support her husband, so she said "We know how hard it is to leave a home.. But don¡¯t bet the lives of your people.. And theirs.. On the low chances you have of winning this war."

    Buriath interjected once more, and said "We are willing to wee all the members of your family.. Along with all intelligent members of the beast ns. Plus.. That young man.. That little monster.. He will help you the way he helped us."

    Under the convincing arguments of Daniel¡¯s group, and the reports about the iing armies of the Tiyar army that were reaching him through his deep connection with the forest, Leffe had been left with no choice.

    Suddenly, the ground right underneath Leffe¡¯s seat started to crack. From the middle of the crack, a tree root wiggled its way up to a meter in height. Wrapped by the end of this root, was a piece of fossil wood.

    This single piece of food seemed simple, but every spiritual cultivator within the tent could feel the depths of wood essence that it emanated.

    Leffe took this piece of fossil wood in his leafy-colored hands, and looked at it with affection.

    He then looked at the two beast faction¡¯s leaders, and only after the two nodded in consent, he turned to look back at Elmund and said "The Wood Elementals, the Insecta, and the Hot-Blooded tribes of Garden of Past Times, seek shelter from their allies.."

 Chapter 103 Second Level of System Upgrades

    Two full days had passed since their evasion, and yet, Daniel and the rest of his party were still teleporting, and jumping through portals as if there was someone hot in their trail.

    Rnd and the other four couldn¡¯t really understand why Daniel insisted on keeping on teleporting, but since they trusted him, they did notin.

    Daniel, on the other hand, was much less rxed than the rest of his group, and there was a very valid reason for that.

    That reason, was that he hadn¡¯t received the message that signaled thepletion of his mission.

    Others might call him paranoid, but he knew for a fact that someone was following them, and if they stopped, the chaser would eventually catch up to them.

    He didn¡¯t want to take his chances by battling against someone that was able to keep up with his nearly unlimited amount of spiritual essence.

    After ten days of uninterrupted teleporting, the group finally managed to leave the Krehan empire.

    It was only after they had left the borders that the window appeared within his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Freedom for All!*

    First objectiveplete.

    Reward: 3,000,000 Karma Points

    ____________________________

    "Finally!!" Shouted Daniel out of the blue, scaring the unlucky Gens and Rnd that happened to be right next to him.

    "WHAT!!" Shouted Rnd in anger. He was the type that didn¡¯t react well to being scared.

    Daniel turned to look at him, and with a face glowing from happiness, he said "We are finally free eheheh.." He then took a moment to think, before saying "I need to do something.. I need to stay in the ring for a day or so. You guys don¡¯t split up." He then left the ring on Rnd¡¯s hand, and entered it.

    "Do you guys think that he went crazy behind bars?.." Asked Rexx while forcing a small strand of ki out of the tip of his finger. He then straightened it, and used it to shave and shorten the length of his hair.

    "Mhh.. Maybe.. But he did got us out of there.." Responded Gens with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Within the ring, Daniel had created a small atmosphere for himself to breath in with his spiritual essence.

    He was currently sitting on a pavement of sheer space, and he didn¡¯t seem to mind the low level of pocket dimension he was in. Instead, he sat quietly and with his eyes closed.

    In his mind, arge window had appeared.

    ____________________________

    System Upgrades Lv.2

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown = Purchased

    Time Is Precious Lv.6 = 9000 KP

    (Active: Multiply the cost of karma points in order to multiply the speed of progression. +100% of cost and effect. Max lv.20)

    Reduced Cost Lv.5 = 5000 KP

    (Passive: Permanently decreases the consumption of karma points by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.20)

    Bonus Points Lv.1 = 1000 KP

    (Passive: Permanently increases the karma points received by 10%. An additional 10% per level. Max Lv.20)

    Second Chance Lv2 = 5000 KP

    (Passive: Once per month, the system¡¯s owner will be brought back to two seconds before the moment of his death. 2 additional seconds per level. Max Lv.20)

    Second Chance Upgrade = 50,000

    (Passive: Halves the cooldown of Second Chance.)

    Karma Debt = 250,000 KP

    (Passive: Allows the system¡¯s owner to continue utilizing the system¡¯s active features even when out of positive karma. Karma consumed bes negative karma.)

    Karmic Retribution = 1 KP

    (Active: Allows the system¡¯s owner to force karmic retribution upon a target. The cost is directly proportionate to the level of karma points possessed by the target. Each use consumes 100,000 Karma points.)

    Karma X Luck = Purchased

    ____________________________

    umte 5,000,000 Karma points to unlock System Upgrades Lv.3

    ____________________________

    Daniel currently had a bit more than three million karma points, and right at this moment, he felt like a kid in a candy store.

    The first thing he did, was to read every new effect or changes unlocked by the second level of the System Upgrades feature.

    Simrly to the changes to the Group Upgrade feature, Daniel noticed that the second level of System Upgrades had doubled the max level of all of his pre existing upgrades, except for single purchase abilities like ¡¯Karma X Luck¡¯, or ¡¯Reap What You¡¯ve Sown¡¯. Additionally, he had noticed three brand new effects.

    ¡¯Karma Debt¡¯, ¡¯Karmic Retribution¡¯, and finally, an upgrade to his existing skill ¡¯Second Chance¡¯.

    Right off the bat, Daniel purchased all of the new abilities, at the cost of 300,001 Karma points. Then, he upgraded ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ to the tenth level, and maxed out ¡¯Reduced Cost¡¯, ¡¯Bonus Points¡¯, and ¡¯Second Chance¡¯ at the cost of 607,500 Karma points.

    At the end of his crazy spending spree, he closed his System¡¯s upgrades, and opened his personal profile.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 18

    Rank

    - Peak rank 6 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Human)

    - Peak rank 6 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Synchronization)

    Karma - 2,092,999

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.10

    Reduced Cost Lv.20

    Bonus Points Lv.20

    Second Chance (Upgraded) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    There wasn¡¯t much to say except that Daniel had transcended what a normal human should be capable of.

    His current progress speed was eleven hundred times faster than that of an untalented cultivator, and that was without his old time sphere, which would increase his speed in cultivation by threefold.

    Unfortunately, he had used that time sphere to create a cultivation room for his friends within the castle.

    If that wasn¡¯t enough, the twentieth level of ¡¯Reduced Cost¡¯ eliminated the majority of the cost in karmic points for when he cultivated, or used the other system¡¯s effects like his newly acquired ¡¯Karmic Retribution¡¯.

    Each level would reduce the current consumption by ten percent, and after twenty levels, it had reached a point where, to do something that previously required a thousand karma points, he would now only require to use a hundred and twenty one karma points instead.

    Regarding ¡¯Second Chance¡¯, it could now be used once every two weeks, and could bring him back to forty seconds before the moment of his death.

    Satisfied by the result of his spending spree, Daniel started to ponder on what his next step would be. He wanted to go back home and see his sister, whom he hadn¡¯t seen for three years, and missed dearly, but he also wanted to make sure that all of his friends were doing well.

    Plus, only his friends had the map of the continents that surrounded the Krehan empire.

    His only option was to find his friends and then start traveling back home, and the only way to do that, was to follow the trail of reputation that his friends had left behind.

    With a single thought, Daniel opened the details of his group¡¯s reputation within the Group Feature window.

    Inside it, there was a very long list of countries and powers with whom Daniel¡¯s group had a positive or negative reputation.

    Mostly, their reputation was positive, except for thest few on the list. Right at the bottom of it, Daniel found what he was looking for.

    ____________________________

    Tiyar empire: Negative Reputation 100% (Details)

    ____________________________

    "Woah.. what the hell did they do to piss off an entire empire?" Asked Sewah within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    "I don¡¯t know.. Something big.. The power to whom they¡¯ve lost that huge chunk of their members must be the army of this ¡¯Tiyar empire¡¯.." Said Daniel with a pensive tone. He then teleported back out of the ring.

    Weiss was the first one to sense Daniel. He turned to look at him, and said "Hey.. It wouldn¡¯t be bad if you told us where we are supposed to be going.."

    "I didn¡¯t tell you before because I didn¡¯t know.." Said Daniel in a cryptic way, then continued "But I do now.. We are headed to the Tiyar empire"

    "Okay, and where is that?" Asked rnd after suddenly stopping and turning to look at them.

    "How am I supposed to know that.." said Daniel with an irritated tone.

    This time, it was Bonas that turned to look at Daniel, and said with an angry tone "Let me get this straight.. You didn¡¯t know where to go before.. You¡¯ve entered the pocket dimension for four minutes.. Now you know that our target is the Tiyar empire, and yet, you don¡¯t know how to get there!? Is that the n you had?"

    "I know that my group is in the Tiyar empire.." Said Daniel with a slightly startled tone. He didn¡¯t expect the usually quiet Bonas to suddenly burst out in anger.

    Bonas had a good reason for being irritated, after all, they were all escapees, and they had no clear n.

    The fact that Daniel had be much more pensive than he was in the past due to his two and a half years spent in a prison, only made the others more nervous.

    Daniel¡¯s entire n consisted in backtracking his group¡¯s path through the chronological addition to the reputation details.

    They were now in a kingdom that they did not know, so their first step, was to find a city, and purchase a map of the nearby kingdom.

    -----

    "Do you think they are still following us?" Asked Imblen to a focused and calm Roley.

    He didn¡¯t respond, and instead put an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. An action to which she responded by hugging his chest and resting her head on his shoulder.

    "Yes.. there are eight cultivators in the crowd that appeared out of nowhere.." Said Roley through an affectionate smile.

    Imblen rubbed the side of her head against Roley¡¯s shoulder, and said with a loving tone "I can see a clothing store at the edge of the market.. Let¡¯s go there so you can buy me a dress."

    "Okay.."

    -----

    Three hours earlier

    It had taken almost a day for Edmund and Roley to force the extremelyrge amount of wood elementals and high ranking beasts inside Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension.

    Once they had finished, Edmund immediately teleported the lot of them out of the ancient forest.

    Of course, during the skirmishes between the two armies, the Tiyar empire had taken notice of the group of humans that had aided the forest¡¯s alliance. One of the people they had made the most preparation for, was in fact, Edmund.

    They were more than aware that Edmund was an extremely powerful spiritual cultivator, and that he possessed a highprehension of spatial essence. Therefore, they had decided to bring their own cultivators adept to spacial essence with them, in order to prevent ast minute escape.

    The Tiyar empire was able to stay on their trail for more than two days, when finally, Edmund ran out of spiritual essence.

    Before running outpletely, he decided to use all the remaining spiritual essence he had to teleport into one of the biggest cities of the country neighbouring Tiyar. He then made Roley take his ce.

    Once in the city, instead of teleporting away, Roley decided to blend in the midst of the crowd and pretend to be amon citizen. In order to appear credible, he took Imblen out of the pocket dimension, and together they pretended to be one of the many couples that was strolling around.

    The spiritual cultivators of the Tiyar empire were naturally capable of recognizing the difference between teleportation, and shifting in and out of a pocket dimension. Therefore, instead of teleporting away, they started to look around for people who showed a suspicious behaviour.

    They couldn¡¯t act out in the open, after all, they weren¡¯t in the Tiyar empire anymore.

    If a fight happened to start here, not only would they be forced to face the decision of either retreating and possibly losing Daniel¡¯s group forever, or fight their way through the army of a neighbouring country.. but they would also have to risk letting the existence of a perfect wood treasure known to another country, and possible spies from other kingdoms and empires.

    Instead, they decided to spit into small groups, and search the city.

 Chapter 104 Trapped like Mice and Rats

    It was night time, and the various groups of cultivators from the Tiyar empire were still roaming the city. They were on high guard about any sort of suspicious behaviour or sudden teleportation.

    A spiritual cultivator would always be able to recognize the mark left behind an instance of teleportation, therefore, they kept their attention focused on the spiritual marks of each instance of teleportation within the city.

    The only reason why Roley hadn¡¯t teleported out of the city yet, was because he wasn¡¯t sure if the chasing spiritual cultivators had been present to the previous battles, and would be able recognize his spiritual mark.

    If that was the case, they would be doomed.

    One thing Roley had learned from Edmund, aside from his fullprehension of spatial essence, was also his calm andposed state of mind.

    Despite having the lives of all of his friends on his shoulders, Roley didn¡¯t let himself fall under pressure, and instead, tried to find the most optimal way to make Imblen and himself pass as a normal couple.

    Unfortunately, both of them had ended up in that situation too suddenly.

    The moment they had been teleported out of the ring, they were busy doing other things. So, their attire wasn¡¯t something one would see a strolling couple wearing.

    A second detail the betrayed their act, was that they kept avoiding to face towards whomever they believed to be part of their pursuers. Of course, they knew very well that that was a mistake, but there was still a small chance that someone might recognize their faces, so they had no choice.

    It didn¡¯t take long for a particrly perceptive spiritual cultivator to notice that something was wrong with the two of them.

    Thanks to the sensing of the wind and water essence in the air, Roley was able to find out that someone was quietly following them in the streets.

    He did not panic, and instead, he kept his act going despite the possibility of being attacked at any given moment.

    After a few minutes of quiet pursuing, Roley took a sharp turn into one of the alleys, pushed Imblen against one of the walls, grabbed her wrists, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

    "What are you do-" Her words were interrupted by Roley¡¯s lips, which suddenly pressed against hers.

    He could sense that the pursuers were about to enter their field of vision, so he took a step towards Imblen, pressed his body against hers, and put his hands on her waist.

    The very next moment, a small group of three middle aged cultivators appeared from behind the left corner of the street.

    One of the three middle aged men looked at Roley and Imblen with a sideways expression, and then, kept moving while pretending that he had seen nothing.

    The three didn¡¯t stop, and instead, left Roley¡¯s field of vision.. But secretly, the spiritual cultivator within the group kept his sensing ability locked on the two of them.

    Roley had imagined that that could have happen, so, despite Imblen¡¯s attempt to push him away, Roley kept pulling her lower body towards him, and nailing her upper body against the wall with what looked like a passionate kiss.

    It was only after half a minute that Roley finally took a step back, and grabbed Imblen¡¯s hand.

    They needed to look like a couple in love who had just finished kissing, so he couldn¡¯t simply robotically step back and start running away from the pursuing group.

    In order to appear even less suspicious, after they left the alley hand in hand, Roley moved in the same direction the small group of cultivators were going to.

    This was enough for the three cultivators to rule them out as targets.

    Logically speaking, when someone was being followed, they would try to shake off their pursuer, but this wasn¡¯t an actual pursuit. This was a matter of convincing the other party that they were not the people that they were looking for.

    They had managed to convince them by acting calmly and behaving exactly like a couple of young people in love would. They had managed to avoid all kinds of suspicious behaviour, even when out of sight, and instead of creating more distance between them and their pursuers, they shortened the distance between them.

    This was Roley¡¯s n to trick the three cultivators, and it had worked.

    It also helped that after their kiss, Imblen couldn¡¯t help but stare at the cold and quick witted Roley, which was currently walking two steps ahead of her with eyes mixed with many different feelings.. anger being only one of them.

    For two more days, Imblen and Roley pretended to be a couple. Then, they bought a passage into a carriage that went towards another city, and left their unsuspecting pursuers behind.

    -----

    Twenty five dayster, Daniel, and the rest of the party had finally arrived at the edge of the Tiyar empire.

    Daniel¡¯s method to backtrack his friends had worked, but the trail had ended abruptly. It seemed that after creating a massive enmity with the Tiyar empire, they ended up disappearing.

    Not one increase in overall karma, nor an increase in reputation with new or old kingdoms, empires, or powerful groups.

    The six of them were currently sitting at a table within a cheap restaurant. This was the first time since their escape that they had stopped to rx for a bit, so they couldn¡¯t help but drink and eat until their clothes started to stretch.

    On their way to the Tiyar empire they had managed to encounter a few bandit groups which they had not refrain from robbing.

    Once out of their limiting chains, they had immediately used constructed water to clean themselves from the disgusting filth they had umted in the time they had spent in prison.

    Now wearing clean clothes, the six would have looked like quite the group of gentlemen, had it not been for their long beards, and their badly done haircuts.

    "What do we do now?" Asked Weiss with his usual serious tone.

    "Now, we look for informations. My group was herest month.. I want to know if something important happened thirty days ago." Responded Daniel while chewing on something that looked like a chicken leg, but that twenty times as big.

    From the other side of the table, Rexx said "Can we at least stop for a night or two.. I remember there was talking about taking baths with multiple women in case we got out.."

    "Cut it out Rexx.." Saiid Rnd suddenly. He then looked at Daniel, and said "Why are we looking for this people, Dan?"

    "They are good people.. They are my people.. Plus, they are carrying all I own.. My home included." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Alright then.."

    After finishing their meals, Daniel and the rest went to ask around, and it didn¡¯t take much for them to hear a few interesting stories.

    ording to one in particr, near the Tiyar kingdom, there was a forest. Inside this forest, just a couple of months earlier, a group of hostile wood elementals had been discovered.

    Apparently, those elementals were vicious, and had responded to human¡¯s courtesy by imprisoning and killing the noble ambassadors of the Tiyar empire.

    In an attempt to save the captured explorers, the emperor had mobilized arge chunk of his army to wage war on the evil races that inhabited the forest.

    To Daniel¡¯s current party, this news was irrelevant, but to him, that was actually the trail he was looking for.

    After being separated for a full day, Daniel and the rest met back in the restaurant where they had eaten before.

    "..and they escaped from the forest." Said Rexx, finishing to list all the events he had heard in the past day..

    "Wood elementals.." Muttered Daniel to himself. "It¡¯s definitely them."

    "How do you know?" Asked Weiss with a curious tone.

    Daniel looked back at him and said "Because elementals are peaceful in nature. I¡¯d rather believe that they were attacked because of something they possessed. That¡¯s not the first time I¡¯ve seen something like that happening."

    "Okay, so what now?" Asked Rnd while cleaning his well trimmed mustache from his beverage¡¯s remains. "How are we going to find them? The empire is unting a victory.. They¡¯ll never admit that they are still on the chase."

    "I have an idea."

    -----

    One monthter.

    Things hadn¡¯t gone better for Daniel¡¯s group. While it was true that Roley had managed to escape from a particr group of pursuers, the empire still had a few tactics prepared.

    When Roley and Imblen were ying couple in the streets of a popted city, the Tiyar empire had sent various other groups in the cities closest to the one in which their actual target were suspected.

    At the same time, they had filled in the spaces between cities, and formed an impressive of spies and troops.

    Each party had spiritual cultivators in them, along with someone adept in spatial essence.

    Roley and the rest had found this out in the worst way possible. Thinking they were safe once left the area, they had tried to teleported in the distance, but unfortunately, a party was stationed within a nearby city.

    Their teleportation had been felt by this party, and once again, the chase had started.

    This had gone for awhile, and every time the group managed to slip out of the empire¡¯s current pursuing party, and out of their reach.. at some point, they would be found out once again.

    If that wasn¡¯t enough, every time they were found out, the extremely capable militarymanders would reform the pursuing to move along with their target.

    To Daniel¡¯s group, this felt like they were a fish in the sea which was being chased by a moving.

    In the past months, more than once had Roley and Edmund risked being caught. Mostly because they were the only two adept in spatial essence within the group, and if they didn¡¯t manage to escape the pursuit before their spiritual essence ran out, in the end, they would reach a point where they would both have no spiritual essence left.

    At that point, not only would they be unable to teleport to safety, but they would also be unable to defend themselves.

    The local authorities had long started to feel the sent of something fishy going on in their territory. A few skirmishes had even started because of a few local powerful cultivators, which had stopped various of these odd parties as they came and went through their territories.

    It had been a long month for Daniel¡¯s group, and Roley and Edmund were down to theirst leg.

    Unfortunately, for as useful as teleportation and portals were, the traces they left were too obvious. So obvious in fact, that if someone was present to spectate to a spiritual cultivator¡¯s teleportation, they would be able to feel the connection between the two point in space, and easily be able to use the same dissipating connection to follow them on the other side.

    That feeble connection in space was called Spatial Residue, and it was the main reason why teleporting wasn¡¯t considered the best way of escaping, especially when being followed by other spiritual cultivator adept in the use of spatial essence.

    The two essences that were considered the best to escape were, ironically enough, earth essence and water essence.

    When Roley had entered the pocket dimension, right before Daniel was imprisoned, he had immediately understood what he meant when he said that "he had a surprise for him".

    Good part of the two and a half years that they had spent apart, he had spent in the core of the earth elemental¡¯s territory, studying earth essence.

    Unfortunately, using earth essence to escape would only work if others weren¡¯t adept in the use of earth essence themselves. As long as someone was adept in the use of earth essence, and possessed a higher cultivation that Roley¡¯s, they could easily end up being trapped underground.

    At that point, nobody would be able to leave the pocket dimension, and they would be easily captured.

    The ones who were wearing Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension at the moment, were Ligart and Heimart, which were casually entering a clothing shop in order to pretend to be customers in search of a new martial attire.

    The two weren¡¯t as cold and prepared as Roley was, so, at some point, they had ended up being discovered.

    The moment they got discovered, Roley came out of the ring, and teleported immediately along with Ligart and Heimart, starting the chase once again.

 Chapter 105 A Desperate Escape

    For two days Roley teleported over and over again, slowly consuming the entirety of his spiritual essence.

    His face had be easily recognizable by the various pursuing parties, and there weren¡¯t much cities left inside which he could find refuge.

    Within the ring, the group was preparing for an all out war against at any given moment.

    Edmund, as one of the few ninth rank cultivators, couldn¡¯t afford to take Roley¡¯s ce, as he would risk wasting his own spiritual essence without the guarantee that they would not have to face a battle afterwards.

    One of their few options, was to stop, battle against the few most insistent pursuing parties, and kill them before the others could arrive.

    There was only one problem with this n.

    While the cultivators could leave the pocket dimension thanks to the one way passage left by Daniel, Edmund would have problems in moving arge amount of cultivators in case they needed to retreat. So, he decided to take with him only the most powerful amongst their own group, the wood elementals, and the beast races.

    Each of them were cultivators at the eight or higher rank of cultivation. They numbered thirty, and only six of them were part of Daniel¡¯s group.

    Roley was almost out of spiritual essence, and that had caused him to slow down.

    He could feel various connections to different point in space being created right before he could teleport away. He knew that the moment he would stop, the pursuers would catch up to him.

    Unfortunately, for how much he wished to keep going, after about an hour, he was forced to stop.

    The moment he stopped, Edmund, Emelnie, Buriath, Leffe and the rest of the high ranking cultivators appeared around him. He immediately entered the ring in order to recover his spiritual essence at a faster speed.

    "I¡¯ll block the space and prevent them from calling support. You guys have to finish them as soon as possible." Said Edmund with a dead serious tone.

    A member of the insecta faction took a step forward, and said "Iing.." before dashing forward and throwing a punch at an empty point in space.

    The punch traveled halfway towards the point where the connection in space had formed, and right before it covered the rest of the way, a man in grey robes appeared.

    The startled man was only able to turn his arm into diamond through the use of earth essence, but before he could move it in the trajectory of the punch, he was sent flying for twenty meters.

    His neck was broken, and his head had twisted at least two times.

    From inside the spiritual cultivator¡¯s spatial ring, a small group of cultivators started to appear around the body.

    At the same time, four more connections formed in the surrounding area.

    Four cultivators that belonged to Edmund¡¯s side tried to attack the teleporting spiritual cultivators just like the member of the insecta races had done, but the present group of cultivators which had arrived with the first one were able to prevent something simr from happening again.

    From each of these connections appeared a spiritual cultivator, and from each of their rings, another small group of three or four high ranking cultivators came out.

    In the span of a few seconds, two parties of equallyrge size were facing each other.

    The two sides had more or less the same amount of people, and yet the spatial connections kept forming.

    While Edmund¡¯s group attacked the other side, he desperately tried to win the control over the surrounding space, thanks to his powerful and pure spiritual essence.

    For a few minutes, shes of multicolored lights started to brighten an area of kilometers.

    Meteors fell from the sky and crashed against thick bolts of lightning. Humongous tree roots appeared out of the blue and whipped left and right before being cut to pieces or burnt to ashes.. Massive rocks floated in the air and crashed repeatedly againstrge walls of ice.

    Ki attacks flew left and right while the sound of shing weapons apanied the show of fleeting lights and sliced rocks.

    The fight kept going for fifty minutes, and with an intensity that hadn¡¯t decreased in the slightest in time.

    Despite the simr amount of cultivators and the simr levels of power, the cultivators of Edmund¡¯s group held a slight advantage.

    It was only at the end of these fifty minutes that Edmund, due to the extremely small amount of spiritual essence that he had left, lost the control over the surrounding space and allowed more cultivators to join the enemy side.

    These newly arrived cultivators weren¡¯t at the same level of those who had arrived first, but due to therge number, they could still make damage against Edmund¡¯s group.

    The advantage in battle slowly tipped over, and in a matter of minutes, Edmund¡¯s group found itself in the losing side of the battle.

    For a few more minutes, Edmund and the rest tried to hold the enemies off while consuming pills and alchemical products in order to speed up the production of ki and spiritual essence, but that was clearly not enough.

    When the situation was starting to be dire, and a few high ranking cultivators on both side started getting severely injured..

    "ENOUGH!!"

    A powerful and deafening voice started to reverberate in the air. The tone was confident and domineering.

    The two sides stopped fighting and turned to look in the distance.

    There, an army of at least ten thousand cultivators of various levels had appeared, and were slowly marching towards the two battling sides.

    "This is not the Tiyar Empire! How dare you invade the great Zenna?!" Asked the powerful man who had talked before, and was currently standing at the head of his group. He was one of the generals of the Zenna¡¯s army.

    "I am here under the order of the Emperor to capture these criminals. They are wanted for the crime of murder and evil acts against the poption of the Tiyar empire." Responded one that acted like the leader of the Tiyar¡¯s forces.

    While the two talked, members of the Tiyar empire kept teleporting on sight one after the other.

    Edmund and the rest of his group observed quietly.

    "What crime could they have possiblymitted to justify trespassing into my empire¡¯s border with such arge number of troops!?" Asked the general in anger.

    "They are a group of bandits that coborated with beasts and wood elementals to set waste on numerous cities. At first, we underestimated their numbers, and one of the emperor¡¯s son ended up being killed by that man" Said the Tiyar¡¯s general with a tone filled with hatred and regret. It almost didn¡¯t seem like everything he was saying waspletely made up.

    The general of the Zenna empire turned to look at Edmund, and asked "Is that true?"

    The situation wasn¡¯t good for Edmund¡¯s side. He had to find a way to avoid revealing the existence of the perfect wood treasure, and at the same time, appear as innocent.

    Without any time to think, Edmund responded "That¡¯s half of the truth. We lived peacefully in the forest along with wood elementals and high ranking beasts.. It was that vicious prince and his group of thugs that came burning, killing and kidnapping. I¡¯ve enjoyed snapping his neck."

    The general of the Zenna empire looked at the two one more time, then, he waved his hand.

    From the army behind him, three soldiers approached. Each was holding a badly injured cultivator.

    "Then I guess that the story these three have told me.. That the wood elementals possess a perfect wood treasure.. And that you¡¯ve been following them to the risk of causing a war to start between our two empires, isn¡¯t true.." Said the general sarcastically.

    Suddenly, his chest swelled, and he burst out shouting "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE PLAYING FOR A FOOL!"

    The eyes of the leader of the Tiyar¡¯s forces darkened. He looked at the three men and recognized them as captured members of his army. He then turned towards the general, and said with a solemn voice "The wood treasure was born within our territory, and therefore, belongs to the Tiyar empire."

    "To me, it seems that it belongs to the wood elementals.. And they are in my Zenna empire." Responded the general while smirking.

    The leader of the Tiyar¡¯s forces was in a tight spot. He couldn¡¯t back down on this even if he considered the fact that the numbers of his group were much smaller.

    It didn¡¯t matter if he went back to the Tiyar empire to get more forces and start a war.. The moment he would take his eyes off the perfect treasure, he would never see it again.

    "You are willing to cause millions of deaths for a wood treasure?.. Can you live with the shame of putting your empire at risk for greed?." He asked in a grim tone.

    "HAHAHA!" The general of the Zenna empire suddenly burst outughing. He then responded with a self righteous tone "My empire has been invaded by a force of hundreds of foreign cultivators.. Leading my empire¡¯s troops to fend off invaders is my job. And I take pride in my job."

    "CHAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!" Shouted the general, sending his army to attack the invading party.

    "Capture them! NOW!" Shouted the leader of the party from the Tiyar empire while pointing at Edmund¡¯s group. He wanted to capture them before the army of the Zenna empire could reach them, and flee towards the Tiyar¡¯s empire borders.

    The fight started once again, and more violently than ever. Edmund and the rest were already injured and tired, and the only thing they could do, was to hold back a few of the most powerful cultivators while trying not to be killed.

    The more time passed, the more parties from the Tiyar empire appeared. These where the weakest parties, and in it, there were groups of hundreds of heavily armored cultivators at the sixth and seventh rank of cultivation.

    In the minute the two group and started fighting again, Edmund¡¯s side had already lost four people. Two wood elementals had been burned to ashes by spiritual cultivators that were adept in fire essence, one of the high ranking beasts had been surrounded and killed by four martial cultivators, and finally, one of the members of Daniel¡¯s group had been killed by a random shard of ice that entered his ear canal and perforated his brain.

    They only felt relief when, finally, the army of the Zenna empire arrived, and engaged against the cultivators of the Tiyar empire.

    The side of the Tiyar empire hadn¡¯t immediately been obliterated as one would think. In fact, the very moment the army arrived, arge number of lower level cultivators came out from their various spatial rings.

    In the span of a second, the Tiyar empire counted an army of two thousand cultivators between the fifth and ninth rank.

    Most of these cultivators were heavily armored, or wore leather armors along with hooded capes that covered their faces and body.

    As the two armies crashed, Roley came out of the spatial ring and appeared right next to Edmund.

    One by one, he and Edmund teleported all the members of their group back into the ring. Then,pletely out of spiritual essence, Edmund looked at Roley and said, "Good luck kid.." before entering into the pocket dimension as well.

    The spiritual cultivators of the Tiyar empire, now focused on fighting back against the enemy army, failed to notice Roley¡¯s actions until now.

    They immediately stopped fighting, and focused on blocking the space around Roley instead.. but it was toote.

    In the time the many cultivators had taken notice of him, Roley had already waved his hand, and opened a stable portal in the air.

    "STOP HIM NOW!!!" Shouted both the general and leader to their own groups.

    Many martial cultivators dashed towards Roley, and two of the closest ones were able to reach him before he could enter the portal.

    Various dark brown spikes spurted out of the ground and attempted to impale the martial cultivators. One of the two wasn¡¯t luck, and even if he jumped in the air fast enough to avoid the stone spikes, he didn¡¯t notice the de of ice that decapitated him.

    The second martial cultivator was able to avoid both attacks and approach Roley, but the time he had wasted in avoiding the attacks, was enough to allow Roley to enter the portal.

    Instead of giving up, the martial cultivator dashed towards the portal, and stuck his entire arm inside it.

    He seemed to have caught something, which he tried to pull back on the other side of the portal.. But after he noticed that the portal had be too small, in order to avoid it closing on his arm and cutting it clean off, he let go.

    After the martial cultivator pulled his arm back, the portal closed.

 Chapter 106 The Best Place to Hide Something

    After the portal closed, the skirmish between the two armies stopped immediately.

    Both the general and the leader gave the order to their spiritual cultivators to follow Roley, but when they managed to appear on the other side of the spatial residue, they found nothing.

    The spiritual cultivators went back to their leaders and reported that the targets had disappearedpletely.

    The general of the Zenna empire turned to look at the leader of the Tiyra empire, and with an imposing tone said "You better be on your way home soon, Tiyarian.. I¡¯ll give you one day."

    After hearing the threatening tone of the general, the leader of the cultivators from the Tiyar empire felt his blood boil in his veins.

    He had no alternatives. The local authority was aware of their presence, and in order to find Edmund and the rest, they would need to split and search the surrounding area. But that was impossible.

    Their only alternative, was to go back to the Tiyar empire, and report to the empress mother. The empress mother would then confer with the military advisors, and together they would decide whether to go to war or not.

    "RETREAT!" Barked the Tiyarian leader in frustration, before turning around and leaving the scene.

    The various cultivators of the Tiyar empire started to approach the spiritual cultivator adept in spatial essence that belonged to their group, and allowed themselves to be teleported into the pocket dimensions they had been previously carried into.

    The general of the Zenna empire turned to look at his men, and said "I want a hundred man in every city. FIND THEM!" He, as a high ranking military officer, was more than aware of the value of a perfect wood treasure.

    The Zenna empire was big, and it probably wasn¡¯t any weaker than the Tiyar empire, but they knew that they would not survive the attacks of all the kingdoms and empires if word got out that they were in possession of the wood treasure.

    All they could do, was to enter in possession of the treasure, and use it before other countries could make up excuses to start a war for it.

    The spiritual cultivators adept in spatial essence within the army immediately teleported towards the closest cities. From what they knew, Roley was only a seventh rank cultivator, therefore, it was impossible for him to go too far.

    The troups of the Tiyar empire had reunited, and were currently teleporting back towards their own country.

    It took them four days to cross the borders and find themselves back in the territory of the Tiyar empire. After that, the spiritual cultivators which hadprehended spatial essence joined together and formed a portal towards the capital, allowing the entire group to teleport back.

    The next day, throne room. 09:20

    "..you are not lying to me, are you? They are still there?" Asked a woman that sat on a big throne, right at the end of the throne room.

    This woman was extremely old, and on her skin, one could see that mementos of an extremely long and rough life.

    She had a scar that went across her left eye, and the pinky finger of her right hand was not there.

    "Yes Empress mother. The army of the Zenna empire lost them. They probably won¡¯t be able to catch up to them anytime soon, but they won¡¯t be able to escape their territory either." Responded the leader of pursuing party.

    "A perfect wood treasure.." Said the old empress in a feeble tone. She then asked "Did they kill any of you?"

    "No Empress mother. They spiritual cultivators that aided the wood elementals exploited the moment of distraction caused by the shing of our groups to leave." Responded the man honestly, and with a confident tone.

    The old empress narrowed her eyes for a few moments, then asked again "Did they kill any of you?.."

    The man felt a tingly sensation run down his spine. He lowered his head and said "Yes Empress mother. They killed a hundred of our men despite we wanted to respectfully retreat from their territory."

    "Good..e back tomorrow with the rest of the military advisors." She said with a domineering tone, before waving her hand and sending the man off.

    Once out of the throne room, the leader of the pursuing parties was approached by one of his subordinate, which said "Lord J, your orders?"

    Without stopping or looking back at him, Lord J said "Take a hundred random cultivators from our troops, bring them back into the Zenna territory, and kill them. Leave their bodies there."

    -----

    While the two empires were preparing to wage war on each other, within one of the military camps of the Tiyar empire, was a group of sixth and seventh rank cultivators that rested peacefully.

    These cultivators belonged to the pursuing parties, and had had the chance to join the battle only during the final confrontation between the two empires.

    "That was crazy.." Said one of the heavily armored martial cultivators. "What a waste of time.. We didn¡¯t even get to catch the guys."

    One of the covered spiritual cultivators removed his hood, exposing a head full of blond hair. He then said, while trying to fix his hair bybing them with his hand, "If we didn¡¯t get them, Zenna won¡¯t get them either.. The guy managed to escape.. That means that they¡¯ll have time to rest and that the zenna spiritual cultivators will be at the point we were when we started chasing for them."

    Another one of the heavily armored martial cultivator removed his helmet, exposing a middle aged face with that was half burnt. He said "Too bad.. We were so close." He then turned to look at a third martial cultivator, and said "Especially you man.. You were so close to catching that guy.."

    The third heavily armored martial cultivator shrugged his shoulder in disappointment, and said nothing.

    "Can you imagine what would have happened if you managed to pull him back out of that portal? You¡¯re not even part of the military.. The rewards you could have enjoyed.." Said the blond spiritual cultivator in leather armor.

    The first martial cultivator bent forward, and got closer to the quiet martial cultivator. He then said "Speaking of which.. What the hell happened? How did he pull himself out of your grab?"

    The hands of the third quiet cultivator moved on his helmet, and after grabbing it firmly, he started to removed it, slowly exposing a pointy chin and sharp jawline covered in a slightly undeveloped beard, a straight and pointed nose, a pair of umber colored uplifted eyes, and a full head of pitch-ck long hair.

    This person was Daniel.

    "I just pulled too hard.. After feeling the clothes rip in my hand, I got scared about the portal suddenly closing and taking one of my arms." Responded Daniel with a seemingly dispirited tone.

    One of the other cultivators pressed one of his hands on his shoulder, and said "Don¡¯t worry about it young man. You¡¯re young.. You¡¯re talented.. You¡¯ll be fine."

    Daniel sighed, then got up on his feet and said "Well, this was fun, but I have somece else to be.."

    Just in that moment, a man in silver armor approached Daniel and the rest of the cultivators. He said with an ordering tone "You six,e with me." The man, was the same whom the leader of the Tiyar forces had ordered to bring a hundred men to the Zenna territory, kill them, and leave their bodies there.

    "I¡¯m leaving.. You can keep the pay. I don¡¯t want to take part in any war for the amount you¡¯re paying me." Said Daniel with a firm voice.

    "You¡¯ll get ten times thepensation if you just shut your mouth and do as I¡¯ve ordered you." Responded the man in silver armor inly.

    Daniel waved his hand in the air, and said with a dismissive tone "Forget it.. I¡¯ve got people to take care of.. No time to y war for a country who isn¡¯t even my home."

    "HEY! Aren¡¯t you forgetting something?!" Suddenly shout the man in silver armor. Daniel turned to look back at him with a slightly confused face. He then heard "Leave the armor."

    The corner of Daniel¡¯s mouth rose in amusement as he nodded at the silver armored man. He then waved at the rest of the cultivator and left.

    -----

    One month earlier.

    "....."

    "....."

    "....."

    "What?" asked Daniel after noticing the looks of expectation of his party.

    "Aren¡¯t you going to tell us this idea!?" Asked an irritated Bonas.

    Daniel had learned about how irritable Bonas could be, so he had made it one of his pastimes to tease him every now and then.

    "I don¡¯t know where my group is.. But that doesn¡¯t mean that I can¡¯t join the hunt. My guess is that the Tiyar empire must have lost many men during the skirmishes.. They¡¯ll be looking for mercenaries.."

    -----

    Back to the day of the battle between Edmund¡¯s, Zenna¡¯s, and Tiyar¡¯s groups.

    Daniel was one of thest that had arrived on the side of the Tiyar¡¯s empire. He had presented himself as a martial cultivator, and after being given a heavy armor to wear, he was assigned to a group.

    When he arrived on the site, the first thing he did was to find his friends. Then, he approached them as much as he could before standing in wait.

    He waited for the right moment to act, and that moment, was when roley had created the small portal.

    He had dashed towards Roley along with another martial cultivator from the Tiyar¡¯s empire right as he was about to enter the portal, and then, wasted enough time for him to enter safely.

    The next moment, he inserted his entire arm and grabbed Roley¡¯s clothes.

    Immediately, Roley recognized the familiar mark of Daniel¡¯s spiritual essence, and as he felt a sudden spatial force trying to teleport him into the gauntlet that covered the hand attached to the arm, he allowed himself to be teleported.

    Every ring that Daniel possessed had been confiscated by the recruiters. Fortunately, nobody bothered to think that a martial cultivator could possibly enchant a gauntlet and turn it into a spatial container.

    Thest important thing that Daniel needed, was for it to seem that he was actually trying to pull something out of the portal. So, he pretended to pull and pull.. And finally, after pretending to panic, he pulled his arm out of the portal and gave up.

    Everyone was too focused on Roley¡¯s extraordinary escaping abilities to even begin to suspect that a martial cultivator could possibly have used such a method to trick them.

    After his n seeded, he went back towards his assigned group as ¡¯the mercenary that had almost obtained the full reward promised by the Tiyar empire all by himself¡¯.

    -----

    Back to the present.

    Daniel had long moved Roley and the pocket dimension into the spatial ring that the empire had returned to him.

    Thanks to this event, Daniel had discovered something extremely useful about one of the newest essence he hadprehended. Dark essence.

    Dark essence was almost impossible for people to understand. Even for Daniel that had spent two and a half years in darkness with his karmic system, it had taken a very long time to understand a couple of its concept.

    The thing he had learned about dark essence, was how useful the concept of absorption was to him.

    His biggest problem in hiding his double path cultivation, was that he had to expose his spiritual essence while avoiding any form of physical contact. But the absorption concept of dark essence changed this.

    With absorption, he could absorb, and literally enshroud his spiritual essence in darkness.

    A darkness so profound, that other spiritual cultivator¡¯s sensing was unable to move through.

    This meant that, if a spiritual cultivator attempted to sense Daniel¡¯s spiritual power, he would see it as the spirit of someone that had never attempted to cultivate his spiritual essence, exactly like the most obsessed cultivators of the martial path.

    Currently, he was taking one carriage after the other, in order to leave the Tiyar empire just like any random wandered would.

 Chapter 107 The City Inside the Ring

    During the following years, the Tiyar and Zenna empires would take part in one of the most bloody and senseless wars of the past thousands of years. A war to which dozens of kingdoms, empires, and independent parties would get involved with.

    This was how the world in which Daniel lived, worked. A small scale war would take ce for the control of resource, and that war would soon escte into a muchrger conflict.

    After the war would end, the survivors would suffer for their losses, and nurture their hate for the other parties. This hate, would then be passed to their children and to their children afterwards.

    A decision was all it took to start this.. a decision dictated by greed.

    -----

    Weeks of travel had passed before Daniel was finally out of the Tiyar empire¡¯s radius of influence. He had traveled along with the people with whom he had escaped from prison.

    They had joined the pursuit of the wood elementals along with Daniel as an independent group, but due to the fact that the spiritual cultivator that had been assigned to them was of a low rank, they had arrived toote to join the battle.

    Along with Daniel, they had left the service of the Tiyar empire right after they retreated back behind empire borders.

    Now that they had all passed the sphere of influence of either the Zenna and Tiyar empire, and it was safe to teleport, it was finally time for Daniel to meet his friends once again.

    Daniel and the group stopped at arge plot ofnd, then, he removed the block on the portal ced near the castle, ce the ring on the ground, and took a few steps back.

    The very next moment, arge group of around thirty people appeared.

    Everyone was dead silent, and yet, big smiles could be seen appearing on their faces.

    Within this group, Daniel could see his friends along with Edmund, Emelnie and their daughter Alesia, which had grown slightly taller, more serious, and visibly prettier.

    Heimart and Alis were next to each other, and in his arms, Heimart was holding what looked like a 1-year-old baby.

    Ligart, on the other hand, was standing next to a girl with bright red hair. From how close they were, one could guess that the two were very close to each other.

    Imblen was standing next to Roley. The two had always had a deep friendship, and yet, Daniel could see the hint of a deeper feeling on Imblen¡¯s eyes, as she kept moving them from him to the calm andposed Roley. Between them, were the two kids which Daniel and his group had taken in years ago. They had grown, and Daniel could see that they had also cultivated to an unreasonable level, if considering their age.

    Next to them, was Buriath along with his five ¡¯children¡¯. Each of his children were as powerful and as big as he was when their group had met him, while Buriath had assumed an extremely human-like shape. Naturally, Daniel immediately recognized him, as having a perfectprehension of earth essence, he would recognized him even if he was in the middle of trillions of earth elementals.

    A few powerful human cultivators were standing near Edmund and Emelnie, and looked at Daniel with curious and dubious eyes. These people, were part of the cultivators that had joined his group after they got separated.

    "So.. How have you all been?"

    -----

    ".. how the hell did you find us?" Asked Ligart to Daniel with a shocked tone.

    Daniel smiled at him and said "It¡¯s a secret."

    Daniel and the rest had all gone back inside the spatial ring, and were now talking within the mess hall of the castle.

    The moment Daniel had entered the pocket dimension, he couldn¡¯t help but drop his jaw in shock. He was more than aware that his group had grown, but what he did not expect, was that the inside of the pocket dimension would turn from a castle, to a city.

    Around the castle there were hundreds of houses, restaurants, and even a few shops.

    The number reported by Daniel¡¯s system had led him to believe that the highest amount of people within the pocket dimension, before the battle with the Tiyar empire, would be of two thousand people. But when he entered, he realized that he was far from knowing the truth.

    Two thousand was only the amount of people that had decided to join Heimart under the job of protecting this small world, and to do good in the outside world. Plus, they had to recognize Daniel as owner of the space in order to receive the effects of the group system.

    This matter had been one of the biggest questions within this newly formed city.

    Some people obtained a significant increase in power and progression speed, while some others, would remain as they were no matter what.

    To most, it had to do with something within the castle that granted people some sort of blessing, but in truth, only those who epted to follow Heimart¡¯s group, and consider Daniel their leader, would be able to enjoy those effects.

    Along with those two thousand cultivators, tens of thousands of unranked humans and members of other races had joined.

    So many in fact, that two more portals had to be created in order to allow people to leave altogether in case something happened.

    Of course, before leaving, the inhabitants required to submit a request so that they would not appear out of the blue next to the person in charge of carrying the ring..

    Inside the city, a fewrger buildings were also present. These buildings were owned by entire families of cultivators that had joined Edmund and Heimart during one of their travels.

    Currently, seven families upied seven different mansions, and their leaders were powerful cultivators at the eighth, or ninth rank. Unfortunately, only three of their leaders, including Edmund, were part of Daniel¡¯s group.

    The mess hall was currently upied by hundreds of people, but the only that spoke were Daniel¡¯s friends.

    No matter how long they observed, the hundreds of cultivators couldn¡¯t help but see Daniel as a normal eighteen years old martial cultivator.

    "Ohe on.. At least tell us how you¡¯ve escape the imperial family of the Krehan empire. And how long have you been looking for us?" Asked Ligart with a pleading tone. He really wanted to know what had happened to Daniel.

    "I have evaded from their prison.."

    Ligart smiled after hearing Daniel¡¯s words, he then said "Of course you did.. Wh-"

    He was then interrupted by Daniel which continued by saying "A bit longer than two months ago."

    The group suddenly quietened.

    "Then.. You¡¯ve been in prison for.." muttered Alis to herself while counting the time backwards.

    Daniel looked at her and said inly "Two years, and seven months."

    Suddenly, a martial cultivator in martial attire entered the mess hall, and said while looking at Edmund "Sir, the leaders of the forest factions are here. They would like to meet.." His eyes then moved on Daniel.

    Daniel kept quiet and watched the scene unfold.

    Edmund, instead of agreeing to let the three leaders in, looked at Daniel and said "Do you want to see them?"

    "Sure." Responded Daniel casually.

    "Invite them in." Ordered Edmund after turning to look at the martial cultivators.

    This action was a simple one, but it was of great importance for the entire group of cultivators present. It was the confirmation that Daniel was, in fact, the de facto leader of the group they had joined.

    The reason why Edmund did this, was because he had long since developed a great respect for Daniel. He was cunning, talented, and held secrets that would make the world tremble in fear if known.

    Leffe, leader of the green-skinned human-like wood elementals, Nieba, leader of the forest¡¯s dwelling beasts and of the Silver-Grey Cuons, and Prea, the leader of the Golden Ants and of the Insecta, entered the hall altogether.

    Ligart, Alis, and Imblen, which were sitting immediately next to Daniel, immediately stood up and freed the chairs for the three leaders to sit.

    "You must be the young man they call Daniel.." Said Leffe, the leader of the wood elementals.

    Daniel got up on his feet, looked at leffe straight in the eyes, and responded. "I am. And you must be Leffe, the evil leader of the forest alliance I¡¯ve so much heard about while getting here."

    "Hehe.. I am a leader of sorts, but not so much evil, I¡¯m afraid. It would have solved things much more easily if I had been.." Responded Leffe while sitting on the chair next to Daniel.

    A smile appeared on Daniel face. He was impressed by the humility Leffe had shown, and his reaction to being called an ¡¯Evil Leader¡¯. Of course, that was only a test.

    After making himselffortable, Leffe continued by saying "We apologize for interrupting your reunion, but we wanted to thank you for saving us.. And to ask for a favor."

    "By all means, decide with which you prefer to go first." Responded Daniel with his usual smile.

    "The favor then. We have made the acquaintance of Buriath, the leader of the earth elementals who joined you in your travels." Said Leffe before pausing and looking at Daniel¡¯s reaction to his words. After noticing that his words had caused no reaction whatsoever, he continued "He recounted to us the story of how you were able toprehend earth essence in a few days.. And were able to produce a perfect sphere.. We would like to ask you the same favor."

    The faces of everybody present who knew Daniel suddenly stifled, as if they had something to say. Within their minds they were angry at the fact that Leffe had decided to ask for a favor, before even thanking him for saving their lives.

    The two leaders that came along with Leffe, after noticing the irritated expressions of the most influential people within the room, felt slightly embarrassed due to what they considered to be ¡¯a poor choice¡¯ from their leader.

    The faces on the people who did not know Daniel, were filled with curiosity. They wanted to know what was so special about him, and how he would handle this situation.

    "I am afraid that won¡¯t be possible.. Comprehending an entire essence perfectly in a few days takes a toll on my body that is hard for me to exin.." Responded Daniel with an apologetic tone.

    Buriath opened his eyes in surprise. He knew that Daniel was lying, but he did not know why.

    The rest of the cultivators expected such a response, as they doubted that Daniel had really done something like that once in the first ce. On the other side, the leaders of the Golden Ants and Silver-Grey Cuons showed equally disappointed expressions.

    The reason why the two of them were disappointed, was because their lives were intrinsically bound to that of the wood elementals. Their two spaces were born and evolved in that forest, which the wood elementals had protected not only for their own convenience, but also to allow the evolution of other species.

    After Daniel¡¯s refusal, Leffe got up from his chair. Without the slightest hint of displeasure or anger, he pressed his hand in the point where a human¡¯s heart was supposed to be, and bowed deeply while saying "The three races of Garden of Past Times extend their most sincere gratitude for your brave actions."

    "There is no need to go that far.. He wasn¡¯t saving us, he was saving his allies." Said Nieba, therge and muscr bare-chested man covered in silver hair.

    Prea, the woman with golden skin andrge lucid eyes, said from beside Leffe "Please, reconsider our request.. I am sure that we would be able to pay you back your for help."

    Now irritated, Nieba barked out loud "Keep your dignity Prea!"

    Daniel, which was observing the current events unfold, suddenly stood up from his chair, helped Leffe to straighten his back, and said "Leader of the three races of Garden of Past Times, would you mind to exin to yourpanions why you¡¯ve decided to ask for a favor before thanking me?"

    Leffe looked at Nieba and Prea, and said "Because I didn¡¯t want our thanks to sound insincere."

    Ashamed by their own behaviour, the two straightened their bodies, and bowed in thanks to Daniel.

    As they were about to leave the room, they heard Daniel¡¯s voice from behind say "I¡¯ll wait for the first demonstration in the training ground.. Don¡¯t forget to bring the treasure. But.. let¡¯s do it tomorrow.. Tonight I would like to celebrate the reunion with my friends."

 Chapter 108 In My Pocket Dimension

    That night, Daniel¡¯s group of friends decided to celebrated his return with a dinner, but as the voice spread through the city, many of the cooks which lived within the pocket dimension, and that considered Edmund and Heimart as the leaders of it, decided to offer their services to prepare the food for the ¡¯party¡¯.

    Every city had their own use and festivities, but due to the young age of the city within the ring, the past two and a half years and gone uneventfully for most of the inhabitants.

    As the rumors about the party traveled from one person to another, they were magnified to a point where, in a matter of hours, Daniel¡¯s simple dinner had be an exclusive party of which people could not help but talk about.

    The masters of five of the seven families had arrived on time, along with their elders, sons and daughters, and with various other human and non-human cultivators.

    During the party, Daniel had met many of his new group members and had learned of the current powers within his small town.

    The families of cultivators were, counting the Saullet family, seven in total.

    Three of these seven families practiced martial cultivation, two practiced spiritual cultivation, and the remaining two, were mixed.

    Their names were Abiret, Lones, and Lamaze for the martial families, Bizac and Rockorb for the spiritual families, and finally, the Saullet and Glowmore for the mixed ones.

    Three of these seven families were more powerful than others, as they had at least one or more ninth rank cultivators. These families were the Lones, the Bizac, and the Saullet family.

    Two of these three families had arrived muchter than the others, led by the current heads of the Lones, and Bizac families, that were apanied by their children, and a few of their ves.

    Daniel didn¡¯t think of himself as someone important, so, even when he noticed people showing upte at the party, he didn¡¯t care in the slightest.

    What he could not stand, was seeing enved people.

    The two family heads didn¡¯t even consider greeting Daniel, and instead, they went to meet with Edmund. They also refused to greet the less powerful family heads, as they believed themselves to be superior to them.

    The head of the Bizac family, was a man in histe fifties. He was reasonably tall, and hid his thin body underneath a white robe devoid of any wrinkle, and spotlessly clean. His grey hair were kept short and in a quiff cut.

    Standing next to him, was the head of the Lones family. A tall and muscr man that wore a ceremonial ck armor embroidered in gold. His brown hair were styled in a haircut that many assumed to be the most popr choice for martial cultivators, a buzz cut. Hanging from his leather belt, was a sheathed golden sword.

    Behind him, a fourteen years old boy followed quietly while holding a heavy looking shield.

    "Edmund. Why don¡¯t you get that young man we have so much heard about here, so we can meet him.." Asked the head of the Bizac family.

    "Indeed, I want to ask him to sell me his castle.. It doesn¡¯t look pretty by any means.. But it has some useful features." Said the head of the Lones family with sarcasm.

    The way these two individuals hade to inhabit the ring was most peculiar. It had happened at the same time, two years and four months earlier.

    It was a time when Edmund, Heimart and the rest, still did not understand the meaning behind Daniel¡¯s words. They didn¡¯t know what it meant to ¡¯go around and do good¡¯, so they decided to help people in any way they could.

    They hadn¡¯t done much progress at first, but after the first four months, they had felt another increase in their progression speed. Edmund and Emelnie were shocked, while the rest still weren¡¯t able to feel any difference.

    Enthusiastic about being able to increase their power in such a way, they took helping people to a whole new level.

    They started to clean countrysides from bandit groups, all the way up to eradicating evil sects and joining wars.

    They had once found themselves in the position to help the citizens of a small and independent city-state to evacuate their territory, as a storm of immense proportions was about to hit their city.

    The city lord had long abandoned the city along with his army, and had left the citizens to die.

    This city-state had three main families. The Lones, the Bizac, and the Rockorb family.

    The Rockorb family and the citizens were the only reason why Edmund had considered this city worth saving, as the Rockorb family was good-willed, and had tried to create a refuge within their ground to save as many people as possible.

    When they evacuated the city, the Lones and the Bizac families joined as well.

    Since then, these two families had constantly questioned the decisions of Edmund, and each of Daniel¡¯s friends. Especially after learning about the presence of a castle equipped with all sorts of facilities, and a near perfect atmosphere formed by high level spheres of water, air, and lightning. If that was not enough, they had learned about the perfect earth sphere.

    These two leaders were fundamentally greedy people, and had long started to prepare to take over.. Unfortunately for them, since the very first time they had attempted a coup to take control over the pocket dimension, Edmund and his wife Emelnie had easily shown their superiority inbat and put the two back in their ce.

    The two family heads did not expect that at all, as they had encountered the two outside of the pocket dimension before, and knew fairly well about their cultivation level. But within the pocket dimension, they appeared to be much stronger.

    The only thing that was left to do, was to make alliances, and work together in order to overthrow the Saullet family from the leadership position amongst the seven big families.

    Part of their n, was to challenge them outside of the pocket dimension, in order to avoid whatever was increasing their power from happening once again. Unfortunately, they were not aware of the fact that, now that Daniel was here, that n would not work either.

    Two yearster, when their two families had gathered enough supporters, and had bought their way to poprity with the citizens.. Just when the n was about to be put into motion, Edmund and the rest had decided to support the wood elementals against the Tiyar empire.

    When they heard about Edmund¡¯s decision, they immediately thought aboutmencing with their n right away, and avoid getting caught in the war between two countries. They had changed their minds after they went with Edmund, Emelnie, and the rest, to offer their help to the wood elementals, and after learning about the perfect wood treasure they were hiding.

    During the war, they had done the strict necessary. They didn¡¯t want to meddle too much, as they wanted to use the defeat to discredit the Saullet family.

    What they did not expect, was that instead of surrendering when the situation became dire, Edmund had still decided to wee the armies of the ¡¯Garden of Past Times¡¯ within the pocket dimension.

    Trapped in a crazed hunt, they stayed quiet, and waited for the events to unfold.

    After months spent living in constant fear of being caught and ughtered by the Tiyar empire, they had started to formte ns on how to capture the wood elementals from within the spatial dimension, and offer them to the Tiyar¡¯s pursuing parties in order to buy immunity for themselves and their families.

    Once again, before they could act, an event which had wasted their months of preparation, had taken ce.

    The young man of which they had so much heard about.. The owner of the castle.. The creator of the perfect earth sphere.. Had returned, and saved them all.

    Before they could even confer between each other, they had started thinking of all the ways they would be able to discredit Daniel in front of the citizens of the city, and by extension, the leader of the families, Edmund.

    The first part of their petty n, was to not show him any respect at his own weing party. Then, they would try to coerce him into giving up the territory to them.

    Edmund showed courtesy to them, and instead, he simply said "You should go introduce yourself then. You¡¯ll definitely find him somewhere around here."

    Angered by Edmund¡¯s words, they turned around and left.

    In their city, they had never had to go and greet someone themselves. Only the city lord deserved such a honor, and even then, they would send their children and not go personally most of the times.

    On the other side of the ballroom, Daniel was interacting with the young masters of the other few prominent families that inhabited his city.

    Each of them had been instructed to show as much respect as they would show to a city lord, but after seeing how amiable and down-to-earth Daniel was, they had ended up talking to him just like they would have talked to another young master of the younger generation.

    "Really?? In prison? What for?" Asked a twenty something years old girl with a stupefied expression.

    "I was framed for espionage.. But in truth they wanted to know the secret of how to practice both martial and spiritual cultivation." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The few young masters around him showed deeply confused faces.

    One of them asked "What do you mean? Are you saying that you know a method to do that?"

    Daniel turned to look at this young man, and with a in face he said "I¡¯m saying that I¡¯ve discovered one."

    "HA! That¡¯s rich!" Said a young man out loud from behind Daniel.

    When Daniel turned to look at the owner of the voice, he saw a young man and a young woman standing one next to the other. The young woman seemed to be eighteen years old, and wore a tightly fitting green dress, along with many golden essories on her neck, ears and arms.

    Next to her, was an arrogant-looking twenty years old man. He wore a leather armor, and hanging from his leather belt, he kept a sheathed rapier.

    After the young man noticed Daniel¡¯s eyes on him, he continued by saying "There are things you shouldn¡¯t boast about kid.."

    A faint smile formed on Daniel¡¯s face. He looked at him straight in the eyes, and said "Exceptional things will always amaze themon.."

    The smile on Daniel¡¯s face disappeared the very moment he noticed two people following the young master and young mistress. They wore servants clothes, and had ve marks on their cheeks.

    "You should be careful who you insult.. Do you even know who I am?" The young man was enraged. Never before had he been addressed as ¡¯themon¡¯. He felt humiliated and was thinking on how to teach Daniel a lesson.

    Being used to this sort of events, the young man had grown up with a sharp tongue. His tone turned into a derisory one as he said "So then, why is the-"

    He was immediately interrupted by Daniel¡¯s words "Who are those two?" he asked while pointing at the two ves to the young mistress.

    Taken by surprise, the girl flinched with her head. Then, she said "They are just ves."

    "very is forbidden in my pocket dimension." Said Daniel out loud with a domineering tone that was heard in the entire ballroom.

    The room quietened down immediately.

    For a good minute, nobody made a sound. The first to talk, was the young man of the Lones family, which said with as much arrogance as he could muster. "Says who?"

    The moment the two words were uttered, a small portal appeared behind him.

    This portal wasn¡¯t a normal portal one would see a spatial user create. It was made out of pure darkness, and it had the spatial qualities of gravity and attraction.

    The young master was only a cultivator at the peak of the sixth rank. So, when the portal behind him appeared, he was pulled into it by the extreme gravity and attraction, and disappeared.

    He reappeared outside of the castle¡¯s entrance.

    When he tried to re-enter, a powerful spatial shield which surrounded the entire castle forbade him.

    "Do you disagree with the rules of the house as well?" Asked Daniel to the young mistress of the Bizac family with a menacing voice.

 Chapter 109 Rules of the House

    "Do you disagree with the rules of the house as well?" Asked Daniel to the young mistress of the Bizac family with a menacing voice.

    The girl felt a shiver run down her spine. She looked back at Daniel with conflicted eyes, and simply said "No..". She then turned to look at her ve, and said "From now on, you are free."

    In her mind, she was already thinking on how she would vent on the freed ve at the first asion she would have. But then, she heard Daniel¡¯s words.

    "You two, want to work for me?" Asked Daniel to the two shocked ex ves.

    The two were looking around in a confused way. The young mistress¡¯ ve kept looking at her, as if waiting to hear her orders.. While the ve of the Lones family was uncertain about what to do. There was no trace left about his master.

    Before the two could respond, a voice arrived from the other side of the ballroom. It said "Why don¡¯t you try doing something like that with me, kid?"

    The owner of the voice, was the head of the Lones family. The middle aged man d in ck armor.

    He was walking towards Daniel, and was visibly angry.

    The other guests made way for him to pass, and the young master that had happily chatted with Daniel until now, slowly backed away in fear.

    "Do you want me to teach you how to treat an honored guest?" Asked the head of the Lones Family in anger, after assisting to the scene where his son had been helplessly teleported out of the castle, as if punished.

    Daniel looked back at this man, then at the young man carrying the shield. He then asked with a in tone. "Is that your ve?"

    The sound of chatter started to resound in the air. Without even considering the man¡¯s words, Daniel had asked him a question in the same exact way he had asked it to his son before throwing him out of his castle.

    "So what if he is? Are you going to kick me out as well?" Said the man sarcastically.

    "Yes."

    The man reached for the handle of his sword, but before he could even unsheath it, a loud ¡¯thud¡¯ sound could be heard. The man¡¯s eyes opened in shock for only a moment, then, he fell on the ground unconscious.

    When the robust man fell, Daniel saw Jerigh standing right behind him.

    During the past two and a half years, Jerigh had be extremely powerful. Just like Buriath had grown to the power of ate eight rank human cultivator thanks to the immense help of the perfect earth sphere, and thanks to the group¡¯s effect, Jerigh was the one who had received thergest increment in speed of progression.

    One could consider Jerigh to be a prodigy amongst prodigies. His speed of cultivation was as high as a dozen time the speed of a normal prodigy, and thanks to the group bonus, which increased his speed in cultivation by an additional 120%, and the time sphere, which increased his already enhanced speed by three times, after two and a half years of constant cultivation, he had reached the peak of the eight rank of martial cultivation.

    His very power, paired with the thirty-five percent increase in prowess from ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯, was enough for him to knock the head of the Lones family out cold.

    If his power was not enough, he had studied dozens of martial arts from within the martial section of the library. A library which the group had filled in during Daniel¡¯s absence, and that now counted thousands of books.

    Standing just a meter away from the unconscious head of the Lones family, Daniel took a step towards him, grabbed his cor, and opened a portal in space. He then went through it while carrying the unconscious armored man.

    Jerigh followed him quietly.

    Nobody knew what to do. They looked at the stable portal in silence and waited for something to happen.

    Only after a brave young master entered the portal did the spectators start to go through it as well.

    When they reached the other side, they appeared right in front of the mansion of the Lones family.

    In front of the gates, Daniel stood quietly.

    Therge metallic gates opened, and from it, a few old people with some guards walked out of theirnd.

    One of these old people looked at Daniel and at the man he was carrying. After recognizing him as the head of their family, he looked at Daniel with hostility.

    Most high level cultivators within the city, along with the heads of the rest of the families, were standing in the vicinity and observing the events take ce.

    Daniel looked at the old man that seemed to be in charge, and said "very is forbidden in my pocket dimension. Your family has an hour to free every single ves it owns, or you¡¯ll be forcibly evicted and kicked out. You won¡¯t receive a second warning."

    His voice was extremely calm, and his facecked any form of expression. He was simply stating a rule, which others had to follow.

    After a second of thought, Daniel added "If instead of freeing the ves you touch a single hair on them.. He goes out of the dimension first.. In pieces. And this is my space.. Trust me if I tell you that I¡¯ll know about it."

    The old man¡¯s face changed into one of worry. He turned to look at the members of his family, and after conferring for a minute, they nodded at Daniel, and went back into the mansion.

    It was at this moment that the head of the Lones family had started to wake up.. His body and organs were extremely strong, so, keeping him unconscious for a long period of time was impossible.

    Before he could fully wake up, Jerigh approached him, and gave him a solid punch to the back of his head, knocking him unconscious once again.

    Daniel, which was now standing near the unconscious body of the head of the Lones family, without even moving his eyes from the Lones¡¯ mansion, said "The same goes for the rest of you."

    Those who owned ves immediately understood what he meant. Especially the leader of the Bizac family.

    ves were a huge no-no for Daniel, but the same wasn¡¯t for the rest of his group. They had lived inrge families, and they were used to the concept of very. Even if they themselves didn¡¯t felt that it was right to keep a ve, they wouldn¡¯t go out of their way to banish very from the world, as having lived in that world their whole life, they couldn¡¯t put the idea of owning a ve into the box of ¡¯deeply devious acts¡¯ which a person should notmit.

    Of course, this view was not the same for all of his friends. For example, Jerigh¡¯s view of ves wasn¡¯t like that of the rest. To him, ves were prisoners who would have the chance to free themselves if they were powerful enough.

    That was how he had been raised. He had even been forced to kill other ves in order to survive.

    That didn¡¯t mean that he was okay with a person iming another person¡¯s life in any way.. It was simply part of the culture he had grown up into.

    The ideas about ve which Daniel¡¯s other friends had were also different from theirs. Having been with Daniel, they had been influenced by him, and even if they didn¡¯t find very a sin perse, they would still never enve someone, nor would they deny help to a ve whose master was being overly abusive.

    Their ideals could be changed, but that would require time.

    Oddly enough, the only other portion of Daniel¡¯s original group, aside from Buriath and his kin, which as elementals, they believed that every life had the same value, which despised the idea of very, were the members of the Saullet family.

    Edmund and Emelnie had never taken possession of a ve before, not even when they were two of the most powerful cultivator families within the Krehan empire.

    Everyone, included the head of the Bizac family, after witnessing Daniel¡¯s decisive actions, went back to their home to obey to the order he had given to them.

    Those who were against Daniel¡¯s decision and instead of freeing the ves, attempted to kill them, were sent out of the pocket dimension the very moment they tried to strike at them.

    When they were sent out, they would immediately notice that an arm, a leg, an ear of some other part of their body was missing.

    These body parts were quickly teleported next to Daniel, and formed a small, bleeding pile of flesh.

    After Edmund understood what was going on, he had left the pocket dimension and had taken over the job of carrying the ring, making sure that none of the expelled cultivators would try to attack the current carrier, or destroy the ring.

    Of course, he was not worried about Daniel, as the presence of his wife, Jerigh, Buriath, and the small army of cultivators which had already epted him as the leader of the group, made it almost impossible for the rest of the cultivators to actually endanger him within his own pocket dimension.

    When the elders of the Lones family left the mansion along with a couple dozen of badly dressed men, women and kids. They then saw the small pile of body parts next to Daniel, and felt a shiver of terror run through their spine.

    He was not kidding, and they were d that they hadn¡¯t put his resolve to the test.

    Daniel threw the unconscious body of the head of their family to them, then, opened another portal that led to the ballroom of the castle, and went back in.

    The rest of the guests followed him.

    At first, the atmosphere was different. People didn¡¯t dare to approach Daniel lightly, and instead, kept to themselves or talked to the people they knew.

    This had left Daniel free to talk to whomever he wished to talk to, people like the rest of the powerful families, or his friends.

    At some time during the night, Daniel had sent an invitation to the races that inhabited the Garden of Past Times that were now upying their very own part of the pocket dimension.

    Once they arrived, they mingled with the other powerful cultivators.

    Leffe in particr, interacted with Buriath.

    Earth and wood, just like water and air, were very close to each other, after all, wood grew on the earth.

    A good hour had passed since the event with the Lones family had taken ce, and now that the guest had had some food and drinks, the situation had gone back to a happy level.

    -----

    Later during the night, one after the other, the guests had started to leave.

    Before leaving, they would always approach Edmund and Daniel, and bid farewell to them.

    Oddly enough, one of these people, was the head of the Bizac family.

    What had changed his mind, was thinking about the major consequences of leaving the pocket dimension of which he found two.

    The first one, was that his family would end up stranded in the middle of nowhere, and with nothing but their possession to hold on to.

    The second consequence, was losing all the possible benefits that inhabiting Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension could bring to a family that practiced spiritual cultivation.

    Even though he wasn¡¯t allowed to approach any of the high level essence spheres, just the idea of having all the concepts he needed toprehend so many essences at just a few kilometers from his home, was enough for him to consider thisnd as ¡¯a sanctuary for spiritual cultivators¡¯, and since he didn¡¯t have the power to take it for himself, he would bow his head, and do what was better for his family.

 Chapter 110 Adding a Bit of Color

    The next day.

    Daniel woke up in his room to the sound of knocking.

    He got up from hisrge bed, and went to open the door bare-chested and wearing only his pants. His long hair partially covered his sleepy face.

    When Daniel had started to earn money by various means, he had begun to modify his tastes in clothes and food, but now that he had been in prison for two and a half years, he had gone back to the the state of mind he had in his earlier years.. When he would not worry about what he wore.

    Now, he preferred to wear practical clothes instead of expensive ones.

    Once he opened the door, he found Alesia standing behind it. Of course, he had sensed her the moment he woke up, but for him, it wasn¡¯t that big of a deal to open the door in that state.

    Naturally, for Alesia, it was a big deal. She had never seen a man half naked. She looked at Daniel¡¯s athletic body with embarrassed eyes, and said with an extremely embarrassed tone "T-the leader of the Lones family wishes to see you.. You.. s-should put something on."

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile at Alesia¡¯s reaction. He moved his long hair away from his face, and responded "Tell him I¡¯ll be there in a minute."

    Alesia, slightly irritated by Daniel¡¯s smile, nodded at him and turned to walk away. As she walked away, she couldn¡¯t help but peek at Daniel¡¯s well defined body once more.

    -----

    One hourter, Daniel appeared in the hall where the leader of the Lones family and his son, whose names were Bohs and Brenn, were still waiting patiently.

    During the hour that Daniel had made the members of the Lones family wait, Vael, head of the Bizac family, had joined Bohs and Brenn along with his daughter Gris in waiting for Daniel to show up.

    Of course, making both leaders of two powerful families wait, was Daniel¡¯s way to test their resolve. He was already aware of why the two of them were here, as he could see their expressions, hear their voices, and observe them at all time within the castle.

    Daniel decided to make a quiet appearance, teleporting right in front of them.

    The moment he appeared, the two family heads stood up from their chairs along with their children. Then, they looked at Daniel with embarrassed expressions.

    The first to talk, was the head of the Bizac family, which said "We are here to apologize forst night¡¯s behaviour. We know that we are guests here, and we should have behaved more politely with our host."

    The reason why the head of the Lones family was here, was because he had remembered the moment when he had woke up after being knocked unconscious the first time. Before Jerigh knocked him out again, he had felt the power of Daniel¡¯s martial cultivation.

    When he woke up the second time during that very night, he had inquired about his son¡¯s encounter with Daniel. His son had recounted how Daniel was boasting about having found a method to cultivate both paths.

    One thing that almost no one knew about Bohs, was that when he was a child, he had always dreamt of being a spiritual cultivator. The workings of mana, the connection of the spiritual ne, the ability to teleport, and so on.. They were something he had always dreamed of achieving.

    Unfortunately, he was born in a martial cultivator family. He had been forced into learning the way of the sword, and to be a perfect example of martial cultivator.

    These dreams had been deeply buried deep down his heart, but now that he had learned that a way to practice both paths had been discovered, those feelings had resurfaced.

    Of course, he was resigned to being a martial cultivator now, but that didn¡¯t mean that he wouldn¡¯t have liked to see his children and family members chose something different if they wanted to.

    Due to this new view on Daniel, a mysterious and talented young man, he had decided to swallow his pride, and observe him for a little longer.

    He took a step forward and said "My son and I apologize for our rude behaviour. Please, ept this small token of apology."

    Once his words finished, a sword appeared in his hands.

    Jerigh, which was hiding in the shadows behind one of therge columns, put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Ready to unsheathe it at any moment.

    Daniel immediately recognized the sword as an enchanted sword of the perfect quality, and therefore much more valuable than a simple perfect tier sword. He took a step towards the armed Bohs, and took the sword right out of his hands.

    Vael, Brenn, and Gris were deeply confused. They couldn¡¯t understand why Bohs would give such a valuable sword to someone who was a spiritual cultivator.

    It was only when the sword started to glow with pale blue light, that their jaws dropped.

    Gris had, of course, told to her father about Daniel¡¯s boasting. So, all four of them were aware that Daniel had imed to have found a way to practice both paths of cultivation. What shocked them, was that that seemingly ridiculous rumor would be confirmed as true right in front of their eyes.

    Vael immediately took a small box from within his spatial ring, and handed it over to Daniel while saying "This is a wee back gift from the Bizac family."

    What he gave Daniel, was a white pearl. This white pearl didn¡¯t appear special, and yet, Daniel could feel powerful healing essence being emanated from it. It was a healing pill of the ninth rank.

    The two family heads awaited for Daniel¡¯s response, but Daniel said nothing. He put the two items into his spatial ring, and then, he opened a normal spatial portal that lead to the territory upied by the wood elementals, and the forest beasts.

    Before going through it, he turned to look at the shadow where Jerigh was hiding, and said "Jer, please invite the rest of the family heads to the territory of the wood elementals." He then turned to look at the four of them. and simply said "Follow me."

    -----

    When Daniel appeared on the other side, he was in arge camp made out of tents.

    Unlike the earth elementals, the wood elementals did not have a suitable ce to live. Now, Daniel could have created a small territory for them to stay in with his low level wood treasure, but since hisprehension of wood was marginal, and considered how many the wood elementals were, he decided to create their territory with their own perfect wood treasure instead.

    Therge camp was divided into three parts. One for the Insecta, one for the forest-dwelling beasts, and one for the wood elementals.

    The camp of the elementals was currently filled with both earth and wood elementals, which in the past two months, and be increasingly closer with each other.

    Buriath himself was sitting in Leffe¡¯s tent, and the two were chatting peacefully.

    The moment Daniel appeared in the divisory point of the three camps, everyone immediately felt his arrival.

    Numerous leaders approached the middle of the camp. Amongst them, were humanoid beasts and insects which represented their own tribes within theirrger group.

    Humanoid beasts of all kinds could be seen. Large men and women with browned yellow heads of hair and sharp nails, people with pitch ck skin, thick tails and yellow eyes, people with extremely thin limbs and multiple sets of eyes, and many others.

    Standing at the front of this group of leaders, were Nieba and Prea.

    They had surrounded Daniel quietly, as they were aware of the reason he was there.

    Leffe came out of his tent along with Buriath, and together, they walked towards Daniel.

    Once in earshot, he said "Are you ready to start?"

    Daniel turned to look at him and said "In a few minute."

    For the next few minutes, Daniel waited for the rest of the family heads and powerful cultivators to arrive.

    Once everyone was present, he waved his hand, and in a moment, the time sphere locked within one of the training rooms appeared in his hand. He looked at Leffe and said "Begin your demonstration."

    Leffe looked at him with dubious eyes and asked "Which concept?"

    "All of them."

    -----

    With the help of Buriath, which turned himself into arge patch of rock and soil, Leffe turned into an immenselyrge tree.

    He changed his form, shape and size constantly. He went from being a sapling, to a majestic and towering tree the next moment.. The colors of the leaves changed constantly.. One moment they were bright green, and the next they turned orange and brown, before falling down on the ground.

    Every moment of life and death of all sort of tree in the world was shown to Daniel. It took him a full day toprehend it, not because it took him that much time, but because that¡¯s what Leffe needed to show the entire spectrum of wood essence.

    What Daniel did not expect, was that by spectating to the demonstration of life and death of a tree, he would be able to learn something about life and death essence.

    The two concepts he had learned were useless to humans, but if he ever wanted to reach a perfectprehension either life or death, unless he managed to find a life elemental or a death elemental born from perfect treasures, he would need all the small concepts he could get.

    Just like he had done for the earth essence, after Leffe finished making him familiarize with all the types of wood there were, he constructed arge tree with his own spiritual essence, and started to mix it with other essences.

    From mixing wood essence with fire essence, he learnedbustion. After adding water, earth, light, and darkness, heprehended nurturing. By pairing it with wind essence he learned wood essence¡¯s part in creating gases that made air breathable to humans.

    A few hourster, Daniel had finally reached a point in which he could fullyprehend the profundity of the perfect wood treasure. The essence it emanated was feeble, but extremely clear to him.

    It was only after reaching a perfectprehension of wood essence that Daniel was able to feel the peculiarity of wood and water essence, whenpared to all the other types of essence.

    Only the essences of water and wood contained a bit of the essences of life and death, and were able to host and create different types of life.

    Every single one of the observers were looking at Daniel in a state of shock. They didn¡¯t really expect Daniel to be able to do something like fullyprehending an essence he was not adept to, in a mere day and a half.

    Daniel stood up on his feet, approached Leffe, and said "I¡¯m ready. Hand me the treasure."

    Still baffled by Daniel¡¯s otherworldly talent, Leffe did what he was told to do.

    Daniel walked back to the middle of the camp, and after observing the wood treasure, he started to push spiritual essence into it in a constant stream.

    Layer byyer started to form,posed of hundreds of different types of wood, covers of leaves and entwined branches, and finally, ayer of seemingly indestructible bark.

    When Danielpleted the creation of the wood sphere, the faces of Leffe and the rest of the wood elementals, lit up in joy.

    Instead of giving it back to Leffe, Daniel put the perfect sphere on the rocky ground, and locked it in space, causing the ground to immediately start to tremble.

    In the next few moments, des of grass and little sprouts startede out of the ground. They then turned into saplings, which continued to grow until bing threes as high as fifty meters.

    These trees started to grow all over the pocket dimension, and they would have probably covered the city in vegetation, had Daniel not momentarily decreased the wood essence output of the wood sphere.

    In the blink of an eye, the pocket dimension had turned beautiful. Thick forests, fertile soil, minerals everywhere, breathable air andrge clearkes.

 Chapter 111 Plans for the Future

    After leaving the perfect wood sphere locked in space, Daniel approached Leffe with a confident pace.

    When he was standing right in front of him, he said "You are free to leave whenever you want, and take your people with you, and your wood treasure. But leaving now might be dangerous.. I suggest you all stay with us until we find a forestrge enough to mask the power of the wood sphere."

    What Daniel said was the truth. Only humans were capable of using their particr type of mana and spiritual essence to create and use spatial containers. If Leffe were to leave along with the rest of the beast races, he would have to roam a human ruled continent with a permanent beacon of wood essence in his hand.

    It is important to point out that, a perfect essence sphere was much more valuable than a normal perfect treasure.. But was also much more detectable. After all, a perfect treasure only contained the pureprehension of wood while emanating a meager quantity of essence. On the other hand, a perfect wood sphere not only contained a perfectprehension, but emanated enough essence to turn a small desert into a rainforest.

    Leffe looked at the rest of the leaders, and after receiving their nods of approval, he turned back towards Daniel and said "If you are kind enough to offer us shelter, we¡¯ll ept. I cannot speak for the other races, but you¡¯ll have the support of the wood elementals whenever you¡¯ll need it."

    Prea stepped out of the Insecta portion of the camp, and said "You¡¯ll also have the support of the Insecta tribe."

    Nieba, just like Prea, stepped forward and said "And of the forest-dwelling beasts."

    The moment the three stopped talking, they opened their mouths in shock.

    Edmund, Buriath and the rest already knew the reason, but it still shocked the cultivators that hadn¡¯t joined Daniel¡¯s group.

    Leffe, Nieba, Prea, and the majority of the beast leaders, felt their powers increase by arge amount. What they had experiencing for the first time, was the group effect called ¡¯Karmic Aura".

    Daniel closed his eyes, and thought about his group window, which appeared the very next moment.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 561

    Overall Karma: 24,607,144

    Karmic effects:

    Karma X Luck (Group)

    Karmic Aura Lv.35

    Time is Precious Lv.20 (Group)

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    What Daniel had originally opened the window to look for, was the increase in the number of the group members, which had gone up from 416 to 561. These, were the leaders, and the most powerful members of the three tribes of the ¡¯Garden of Past Times", which by promising their support, had in fact joined Daniel¡¯s group.

    The reason why the Overall Karma counted twenty-four and a half millions, was simple. When Daniel had made Roley and the spatial ring disappear right under everybody¡¯s eyes, other than saving his friends, he had also saved thousands of other lives.

    Of course, he wasn¡¯t aware of that. After all, this was the first time he had checked the group window ever since he had rescued his friends.

    Without thinking about it, he immediately spent twenty million points on upgrading ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ to the fortieth level, but he did not spend anything on ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯.

    When Daniel had upgraded the group feature of the karmic system, he had noticed that the cost of the upgrades after the second level of karmic effects were unlocked, had been doubled along with the max level of each effect.

    At first, each level of time is precious costed five hundred thousand points, but since he had reached the twentieth level, the price of each level after that costed a full million.

    He had guessed that, if he were to increase ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯ above the fiftieth level, each upgrade after that would start costing two hundred thousand karma points each.

    But that wasn¡¯t the reason why he did not want to upgrade karmic aura yet. The real reason, was because he didn¡¯t want to give people any idea of what his secret powers were. If he were to increase his follower¡¯s power by five, ten or twenty percent more on the spot, people would get suspicious.

    Instead, he had decided that he would slowly upgrade it, and possibly, thanks to ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, the effect of ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯ would go unnoticed under their sped-up progress in cultivation.

    -----

    The various heads of the families and powerful cultivators were shaking from excitement.

    They had just seen someone master a type of essence and create a perfect sphere in only two days. The shock was such that they had even failed to feel greed towards thepleted perfect wood sphere that was casually left on the rocky ground, bound in space.

    After finishing his business in the camp, Daniel turned to look at the heads of the various families and other powerful cultivators. He said "I ask nothing of you. No taxes, no obedience of any kind. This is a city in which you live, and that city is in my territory. The only thing I ask, is to respect a few rules. No very, No murder, No stealing, and Never test my patience with useless attempts to take control over my house. If any of you needs something to survive peacefully, make a request to the castle. That¡¯s all." He then left through a portal that opened and closed the moment he passed through it.

    There was a good reason why Daniel had ultimately epted to let anyone into his pocket dimension. In a city under his control, but not part of his group, he could create a sort of farm of karmic points for his group members to exploit.

    His group could help people in need within the city, and at the same time, they would be able to gather overall karmic points as reward. It was simr to the method Daniel used when he was in need of karma points. He would start a mission that required him to help people around the city he was currently in, and umte karma points.

    Daniel teleported directly into the spiritual section of the library. He wanted to see if there was a way to do a certain thing. He wanted to find a way to create something simr to a ¡¯Ki g¡¯, but that could signal the position of the ring instead.

    Before Daniel could even start reading, he heard a voice from behind him say "Daniel." The voice belonged to Edmund.

    "Yes?" Responded Daniel without taking his eyes off the library.

    "I wanted to talk to you about something." Said Edmund with a dubious voice. What he wanted to talk about, was of course, the method that Daniel was using to increase their battle prowess, and talent in cultivation.

    "If it¡¯s about my secret.. Then save yourself some time and just know that it¡¯s impossible for me to teach it to anybody. It¡¯s just part of me." Responded Daniel while still scrolling through the books with his eyes.

    Edmund expected such a response, so, just as Daniel had said, he saved the time and said instead "So.. Where do you want to go?"

    For the first time, Daniel turned to look at him. His face turned pensive for a moment, until he finally said "Do you remember the map you¡¯ve been used of espionage for?"

    "Of course, I have it with me." Responded Edmund while taking arge map of the surroundings of the krehan empire right out of his spatial ring.

    "Splendid." Eximed Daniel while taking therge map, and opening it on the big table in the middle of the library. He then said "Do you know where we are?"

    "Yes.. we are here" Responded Edmund while pointing at a spot opposite to the direction of the Karalis kingdom.

    Once again, Daniel found himself lost in his thoughts. He then said after a good minute "We have to reach this ce.."

    "Nestreia continent? It¡¯s pretty far away.. Any particr reason why we want to go there?" Asked Edmund.

    "It¡¯s my home."

    After concluding his conversation with Edmund, Daniel started to n his next years of travel.

    -----

    Two months had passed since Daniel had returned to his friends, and had taken control over the pocket dimension.

    One thing he had noticed after months spent by peacefully doing whatever he wanted to, was that he had vastly underestimated the speed of hisprehension.

    He had spent the past two months practicing with various types of weapons, sparring against various masters, and even Jerigh. It always took a single day or less for him to reach the ability of his sparring partner, and this, had made him extremely famous within the city.

    He now had be so famous, that a few of the most impressionable people had started a rumor which said that he was a god which had descended from a higher in, and that human¡¯s methods of cultivation were childsy for him.

    The reason why Daniel hadn¡¯t pushed through his level of cultivation yet, was reasonable. He didn¡¯t know exactly what kind of event his breakthrough to the third major stage of cultivation would cause.

    It was possible that what happened when he had entered the second stage would repeat itself, and therefore, he would cause a vortex of possibly an even bigger devastating power to appear, and absorb all sorts of essence in the area. An effect which, if it happened within the pocket dimension, could cause all of the unranked humans within to die suffocated.

    With no other option, Daniel was forced to leave the pocket dimension in order to make his breakthrough.

    With this solution, a few more problems came to his mind. First of all, he would need protection in case he would actually create amotion. Secondly, he would need someone to stay within the pocket dimension and keep things in check.

    The only solution to these two problems, was to have the most powerful and problematic people to apany him, along with the same amount of people from his group.

    Due to Daniel¡¯s presence, if he were to be attacked during his unconscious state, the cultivators on his side would be able to easily overpower the others thanks to their forty-five percent increase in battle prowess.

    Heimart and the rest of his friends, along with Leffe, Nieba, Prea, and Buriath, would keep things in check inside the pocket dimension.

    All this would not take long, as after Daniel would reach the eight stage of cultivation, even if someone at the peak of the ninth stage attempted to assassinate him, he was confident that he could repel or even defeat his attacker.

    During their three years of travel, Edmund and the rest of the group had received a vast amount of resources from their conflicts with high-level groups, evil sects, or even from the small-scaled war in which they had taken part to.

    To help him in his cultivation, Edmund had given him twenty beast cores at the eight rank, and fifty cores at the seventh rank.

    The only matter that was left to be taken care of, was to find an appropriate ce for Daniel to make his breakthrough in.

    The ce they had decided on, was an extremelyrge and odd looking circr mountain range.

    This mountain range was just past the northern edge of the map, and only a part of it could be be seen.

    When they had arrived on the spot, they saw the immense ring of mountains. Each of these mountains was extremely high, and their width reached at least two kilometers in diameter. They were also tightly pressed between the previous and next one, and they only separated at an height of around ten kilometers.

    In the middle of this ring-like mountain range, there was arge expanse of nothingness. Only grey dirt and dust could be seen.

    ording to Daniel¡¯s standards, this ce was perfect.

    There was nothing that could be pulled in his direction by a vortex he could eventually create, and even if he absorbed the earth essence from the ground and from the mountains, they would note crashing against him the very next moment.

    Daniel had assigned each of the cultivator that hade out to protect him, to a different mountain peak. Their job was to look out for nosy cultivators while they waited him to finish.

    After he finished assigning the positions, he flew to the middle of the expanse of dirt, whose diameter was asrge as twenty kilometers, and sat down right in the middle.

    He took two seventh rank beast cores from his spatial ring, and started to quietly cultivate.

 Chapter 112 Traces of a Predecessor

    "There is something I don¡¯t like about this ce.." Said Sewah inside Daniel¡¯s mind with an uncertain tone.

    Daniel stopped his cultivation, and asked "What do you mean?"

    "I don¡¯t know.. It feels like.. It feels like the members of your own group. It¡¯s difficult to exin.." Responded Sewah in a confused state. His words didn¡¯t make much sense to Daniel.

    After expressing his doubts, Daniel went back into focusing in his cultivation.

    He entered a state ofplete rxation, and then, started to absorb the beast essence within the beast cores, and the various types of mana in the surroundings.

    In less than five minutes, he had already lost consciousness.. And just like he had predicted, a vortex had started to form around him.

    This vortex was extremely different from the one that had appeared in Phyrri. It¡¯s difference to the previous one was not in effect, but in power.

    At first, every bit of essence in the space immediately around Daniel, had disappeared within the mass of the vortex.

    This vortex kept growing until it reached a sizerge enough to cover the entire dead valley, then, it finally stopped.

    The cultivators that were protecting Daniel from above the peak of the mountains, were immediately alerted. Their spiritual essence and ki were being pulled out of their bodies, and the more time passed, the more powerful the pulling force became.

    At some point, they had to retreat past the mountain range-like barrier, as they were afraid that the vortex would empty their bodies of not only spiritual essence and ki, but also of life essence.

    When they were out of the pulling force range, they started to carefully observe the dead valley past the mountain range, which was now covered in pure darkness. It looked as if there was a ck hole hidden inside the ring of mountains.

    The shock was evident on their faces. They couldn¡¯t understand how a young man could create such a powerful event by simply increasing his cultivation to the third rank. What they did not know, was that this wasn¡¯t a consequence of him breaking through to the seventh rank, but of charging through in both paths of cultivation at the same time.

    Whenever he lost consciousness during a breakthrough, his ki and spiritual essence would be morepatible, and now, they were merging. This process required an immense amount of mana to bepleted.. Much more than two beast cores at the seventh rank could ever provide.

    It was like assuming that a thirsty giant could be satiated with a teaspoon of water. If a barrel of water was given to him, he would gulp it down all at once.

    An hour had passed, and yet the vortex was still doing strong. The space around it was starting to crack, as if spatial essence itself was being absorbed. Not even a sound could heard..

    The essence in the surroundings was in turmoil, and in front of everyone¡¯s eyes, the mountains started to shake.

    Cracks appeared on the various peaks, from which smoke and vapor was ejected constantly.

    It was at this moment, that the observers understood that this wasn¡¯t a mountain range, but a dead valley surrounded in sleeping volcanoes.

    Suddenly..

    *BOOOOOOM* *BOOOOOOM* *BOOOOOOM* *BOOOOOOM*

    One after the other, the tops of the mountains exploded. Therge clouds of smoke, cinder and melted rock, were thrown up to twenty thousand meters in the air, but instead of propagating in the area, they moved towards Daniel due to the pulling force of the vortex.

    Edmund, which was observing from far away, was starting to get worried. He did not know what would happen to Daniel, as he wasn¡¯t present the first time the vortex had appeared. Unfortunately, all he could do was to observe and wait for things to be over.

    The spectacle was terrifying. Glowingva, and immense clouds of smoke and dust kept being sent high up in the air, and falling back down in the middle of the dead valley.

    This situation kept going for a full day, after which the vortex caused by Daniel had finally started to decrease in size and intensity, and finally, disappeared.

    When Daniel woke up from his state of unconsciousness, he was covered in soot.

    The many cultivators that were left to guard Daniel immediately approached him. Some of them were worried, while some of them were curious.

    Before they could even enter the ring of active volcanoes, they fell on the ground in pain, as they heard a shrill and devastating scream.

    This scream was earth shattering, and by itself, it had caused the volcanoes to erupt once again.

    In the middle of the dead valley, a portion of the ground had started to glow in heath, and bulge as if a bubble was forming on its surface.

    Suddenly, an enormous hand popped out of the previously solid ground, as if it was a fish jumping out of the water, sending molten rock flying everywhere.

    Daniel was standing only a few meters away from this figure, and even he couldn¡¯t help but fall on his knees and cover his ears in pain.

    Covered by the dust that had yet to settle, Daniel saw arge scaly hand with long yellow ws perforating the ground, and pulling something muchrger out of the glowing pool ofva.

    The temperature in the surrounding was getting increasingly hotter, and despite the increase in power, Daniel felt his back cover in sweat, as a few big drops fell from the tips of his nose, and chin.

    Next to the first scaly hand, another one appeared. It mmed heavily on the ground right next to the other, causing the settled dust to fly back up in the air.

    Something that seemed like the head of an enormous horned snake came out of the pool. Its mouth was huge, and brightva could be seen dripping from in between itsrge teeth like dozens of small waterfalls.

    After the creature shook its head, sending all theva in his mouth to fly all over the ce, an enormous pair of wings, which resembled that of a bat, appeared.

    The creature stretched his wings, then, he folded them up on the back of his gargantuan body as it slowly crawled out of the pool, which, unable to allow the passage of its massive body, was further destroyed.

    Once fully out, the creature stretched its muscles, its wings, and finally, opened its eyes.

    Daniel, which could only see the shape of this creature until now, finally saw tworge yellow-colored spheres appear in mid air. The very next moment, he felt an incredibly powerful suction forceing from the direction of these two yellow-colored spheres.

    Thanks to his newly acquired powers, he was able to avoid getting pulled in the air.

    The dust and cinder that prevented Daniel from seeing clearly was rapidly breathed in by the creature, which after a few moments, appeared clearly in front of his eyes.

    "A dragon.." Muttered Daniel in stupor.

    The creature which was buried within the dead valley, right in the middle of a ring of volcanoes.. Was a dragon.

    When the surroundings cleared uppletely, Daniel finally noticed what the Dragon was doing.. He was breathing in anything that was floating in the air.

    Once it finished inhaling, it suddenly looked up in the sky, and ejected an enormous amount of bright mes andva.

    Each gas, particle of dust, and pebble breathed in by the dragon, had been eitherbusted or melted within the dragon¡¯s lungs, and then, spat back out.

    Drops of molten rock started to fall all over the dead valley like glowing rain. It was so dangerous, that Daniel was forced to create a shield of stone, which immediately melted upon contact with theva.

    The temperature in the surrounding was, once again, rapidly increasing.

    The dragon was currently looking around. It almost seemed like it was in a ce it didn¡¯t know.

    It was only when Daniel, out of necessity, had created a shield of spatial and dark essence that the dragon had finally taken notice of him.

    It stomped the ground with his massive hands, wing at the soft earth and destroying it under its passage. Once in front of Daniel, it lowered his head until his mouth was just a few meters away from him.

    After the shield of space and darkness had done its job, and Daniel had decided to let it dissipate, what Daniel found in front of him left him scared beyond words.

    The huge mouth of the dragon had appeared in front of him, and its eyes were staring directly at his.

    "Now I know what was wrong with this ce.." Sewah said timely from within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    "Where am I?" Asked the dragon with a voice powerful enough to leave Daniel shaking in ce.

    Daniel had talked to more than one angry cultivator at the ninth rank, and yet, he had never felt as much pressure as with this dragon. He couldn¡¯t even understand what rank of cultivation this dragon was in.

    To be fair, Daniel wasn¡¯t even sure if dragons could be considered beasts. He had never read anything that wasn¡¯t folklore about Dragons, or seen more than a few prehistoric drawings of them.

    Daniel quietly observed the gargantuan dragon as if there was a chance that he could just incinerate him if he dared to open his mouth.

    "Oh.. right.. Sorry." Said the dragon with an apologetic voice, after noticing the terrified look on Daniel¡¯s face. Then, it started to rapidly shrink, and take a humanoid form. Once his body stopped changing, it had taken the shape of an extremely good looking young man.

    This young man was wearing a purple robe, and parts of the side of his face had ck scales. His fingernails were long and sharp, his pupils yellow as the sun, and he had two small horns on his forehead. The rest of his body, was overall human-like.

    "Here we go.. So, where were we?" Said the dragon with a much calmer tone.

    Seeing that Daniel was showing no response, the dragon raised his hand and quickly snapped his fingers in front of his eyes.

    That action brought Daniel back from his shock. He was now looking at the dragon turned human with fear, and a bit of embarrassment.

    Before Daniel could talk, the dragon approached him, and after moving its head near his body, he started to sniff him out.

    "You smell familiar.." Murmured the dragon. After a few more sniffs, his bright yellow eyes opened in realization as he said "You smell a bit like my master.. That¡¯s odd..!"

    As he heard thest words uttered by the dragon, Daniel¡¯s face contorted in confusion. He couldn¡¯t help but say "What do you mean by that?"

    "That you smell a bit like him?.. Do you need me to turn back into my full form? So you can hear me better?" Responded the dragon sarcastically while smirking.

    Even in his human form, the small puff of air he breathed out when he smirked contained smoke in it, and was scorching hot.

    "He is the servants of one of the other users.." Said Sewah from within Daniel¡¯s mind, as if revealing the answer to all questions.

    "What do you mean??" Responded Daniel while trying to keep a straight face in front of the dragon.

    "I am not the only blessing my father has given around, remember?.. And all blessings are different. This dragon must have something to do with the system of another blessed one. That¡¯s why it felt so familiar.. He is no different from those who have entered your group.. But he also is."

    ording to Sewah¡¯s exnation, this dragon was part of the blessing that had been granted to a different user, by Iewah, The Catering Tree.

    If that was true, it meant that Daniel, for the first time, had found a trace left behind by one of his predecessors.

    While looking at Daniel¡¯s distracted and confused face, the dragon noticed something odd. He then asked with curiosity "What is wrong with your immortal essence, why is it split?.."

 Chapter 113 A Pinch of Retribution.. and a Bunch of Luck

    "What is wrong with your immortal essence, why is it split?.." Asked the dragon with curiosity.

    Daniel looked back at him, and responded "My immortal essence? What is that?"

    The face of the dragon contorted in confusion. "That¡¯s an answer I was not expecting.. What kind of cultivator are you, if you don¡¯t knowing the basics?"

    Before Daniel could even respond, the dragon looked at its surroundings. He immediately felt the presence of many other people in the distance, and that all of them had either a developed ki, or spiritual essence. "We are in the immortal ne, right? What year is this?"

    "I¡¯m not sure what the immortal ne is, but it is the 52.636th year of the ster calendar." Responded Daniel with a confused tone.

    "Fuck.. I haven¡¯t even heard of the ster calendar.. Just where the hell am I?.. and how long have I been here?.." Muttered the dragon to himself. He then looked at Daniel and said "Why do you smell like my master?.."

    "I have no id-" Before Daniel could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by a low growl.

    The dragon took a step forward, and stared at him deep in the eyes. He said "The truth."

    Initially, Daniel wasn¡¯t scared. It wasn¡¯t the first time he had faced someone much more powerful than he was. At best, he would be killed once, and during his second try he would be able to attempt another approach. He only needed to understand this creature¡¯s character, and correct his behaviour in case he was killed.

    What Daniel could not stand, was the massive pressure caused by the incalcble power emanated by the dragon¡¯s presence. He felt as if he was standing at the bottom of the ocean, with tons and tons of litres of water that weighted on every millimeter of his body.

    "I r-really d-don¡¯t kn-" Once again, his words were interrupted by the dragon actions.

    Once again, the dragon started to growl louder than before.. Then, as if giving up on the idea of obtaining a truthful answer from Daniel, he parted his darkish lips, and ejected a dense stream of fire so powerful, that it turned Daniel into ashes in the span of a tenth of a second.

    When the members of Daniel¡¯s group approached the ce where he was previously standing, they immediately noticed the human-like dragon, and the death of Daniel.

    Most of them dashed at him, but before they could manage to make a move, the dragon had turned back into its draconic form, and ejected another stream of bright mes. It then spun in ce, while keeping on exhaling.

    A few cultivators managed to survive, but they were promptly finished off by the dragon¡¯s physical attacks the very next moment.

    Edmund, Vael and Bohn were a few of those who had survived the first attack, but unfortunately, after only a few seconds, Vael had been melted the moment he had tried to protect himself instead of running, Bohn had be a puddle of blood that drenched the ground, and Edmund had been killed in mid air while trying to teleport away.

    Once the dragon finished his onught, it looked around once more, and after confirming that there were no survivors, it flew high up in the air with its talons, tail, and wings still dripping with blood.

    What the dragon did not know, or even noticed, was that as this scene was taking ce, the time was slowing down. It took him only a few seconds, and a few ps of its leathery wings, to fly thousands of kilometers in the distance.

    After forty seconds from the moment of Daniel¡¯s death, time started to rewind.

    What was happening, was unbeknownst to the dragon. He flew backwards towards the death valley, andnded back on the ground unnaturally with its posterior legs.

    As his tail shed backwards, Edmund¡¯s body connected back into one piece, Bohn¡¯s body was rposed as he lifted his heavy hand from above him, and the mes that had dissipated in the air, were now reappearing and moving back into the dragon¡¯s mouth.

    The cultivators started to move back towards their previous positions, as the dragon¡¯s body went back to a human-like size and form.

    Finally, Daniel¡¯s ashes started to float back in the air and rpose his charred body, as arge ball of fire suddenly appeared around him, and went back towards the dark lips of the human-like dragon.

    The next scenes were a series of backwards conversation between Daniel and the dragon.

    "That¡¯s an answer I was not expecting.. What kind of cultivator are you for not knowing the basics?" Said the dragon to Danie.. Once again. It then looked confused and added "Wha.. what was that?"

    The situation was confusing for the dragon, but thanks to his impressive cultivation, he had still managed to feel that something was wrong. Fortunately, it was nothing more than a feeling for him. A feeling which he forgot as Daniel answered by saying "52.636th year of the ster calendar.."

    "Oh.. dammit.. I don¡¯t even know what the ster calendar is.." Responded the dragon, still a little confused by the strange feeling he had felt a few moments before. "Why do you smell like my master?.." He then asked once more.

    "Maybe your master and I are from the same ce." Responded Daniel rapidly as his heart threatened to explode in his chest. He had spectated the entire forty seconds of rewinded time, and had seen, once again, how easily the dragon had turned him into ashes.

    During the forty seconds, Daniel was a step away fromprehending the concept of reverse time, and now he was sure that, in case he were to use ¡¯Second Chance¡¯ again, he would definitelyprehend it.

    On the negative side, he had died once, and he wouldn¡¯t be able toe back alive if he were to die again. This was hisst chance to survive the encounter with the dragon.

    "Why do you think that?" Asked the human-like dragon with clear interest in his yellow eyes.

    Daniel swallowed a big mouthful of saliva, then said "This world is big.. And I move a lot. Your nose probably has a divine smelling ability.. I can only assume that you¡¯ve caught the scent I was exposed to the most during my life."

    "You¡¯re a smart kid.. Are these little humans friend of yours?" Asked the dragon while looking past the ring of volcanoes.

    "Yes, about that.. I apologize for disturbing your slumber. This ce was isted, And I thought it was a good ce to attempt a breakthrough. Those people are my protectors." Said Daniel in a single breath.

    "Don¡¯t worry about that human. There are other things that you should worry about.." Said the dragon with a threatening tone.

    Edmund and the rest of the cultivators had already arrived at the edge of the ring of volcanoes, but as they felt the immense power emanated by the human-like dragon, they decided to stay back, and see if Daniel could get them out of trouble with words.

    After hearing the dragon¡¯s words, Daniel immediately took a step back. Since the very moment he hade back to life, he had noticed the number above the dragon¡¯s head. It was a mind boggling 421,205,772,875, and the color was so dark, that it was closer to ck than red.

    It was very clear to Daniel, that he wasn¡¯t going to leave this ce alive without a miracle, so, he attempted to stall for time.

    "I know you will kill us.. But since you¡¯re going to im our lives.. Would you mind answering a few questions about cultivation?" Asked Daniel with a valiant and fearless expression.

    The lips on the dragon¡¯s face curved in a weird smile. He said "You¡¯re of that kind.. Unafraid of dying.. Seeker of knowledge.. Go on, I¡¯ll give you three minutes to live."

    It was the very moment Daniel had seen the dragon¡¯s karmic points, that he had used the system¡¯s ability called ¡¯Karmic Retribution¡¯.

    "Who are you?" Asked Daniel with haste. He didn¡¯t know what effect the system¡¯s skill would have, but he wanted to take advantage of the time he had.. Even if he were to die.

    "I¡¯ll save you some time and do the talking." Responded the dragon with an irritated tone. "My name is Dorgeo. A lesser dragon of the Drakarea family of Firebreathers. I¡¯ve joined a war between the army of my master, The Tamer.. And that fucking sword freak.. Now that I think of it, he kind of smelled like my master too.."

    "What is the immortal ne?" Asked Daniel without losing a beat.

    Dorgeo looked around once more, then responded by saying "I¡¯m not sure where we are.. But it doesn¡¯t seem like you¡¯ve managed to find a way to ascend from your.. You should be happy, you were probably the closest."

    Unhappy with the response he was given, Daniel quickly asked another relevant question for his world "What is the method to ascend?"

    "You have to refine your ki with natural spiritual essence, of course." Responded Dorgeo with a matter-of-fact tone. This was the most well known and basic fact about cultivation for him.

    "We don¡¯t have natural spiritual essence here.. We can only obtain it while trading mana with the spiritual ne."

    "I¡¯ve noticed that.. It¡¯s pretty odd. There is something strange with this.. Something that keeps it separated from the spiritual ne"

    "You¡¯ve said that word twice already, what is a?" Asked Daniel in confusion. The world in which Daniel lived, had no concept ofs or anything of that sort. They understood what stars were, but due to the impossibility of them ascending to the immortal ne, they had no chance of discovering how immense their universe actually was.

    "I¡¯m not even going to respond to that.." Said Dorgeo with an annoyed tone. He had lost his patience, and was already regretting giving Daniel three times to satiate his curiosity before killing him, so, he said "Enough questions. You won¡¯t need these answers anyway.. I¡¯ll just kill you quickly."

    "Sewah.. Where the hell is the retribution?!" Asked Daniel within his mind with an anxious tone.

    "That¡¯s a big amount of karma to process.. It might ta-"

    Before Sewah could finish his sentence.. The world stopped.

    No matter where, or how far in the world, time, space, and every other essence had stopped, paralyzing the world altogether.

    Humans, beasts, and other living races were still able to keep their consciousness, as this time freeze seemed to only have something to do with mana. But since the air, water and space around them was blocked, they were stuck in ce.

    Daniel looked at Dorgeo, which was currently trying to free himself from the blockade.. The space around him was cracking, and it seemed that, given enough time, he would be able to free himself. But before he managed to.. A twenty kilometers tall spatial rift opened right next to him.

    From it, hundreds of massive vine-like tentacles poured into the dead valley, and started to move around. Crashing, destroying, and pulverizing anything they hit.

    Daniel stood still, feeling the the tentacles move all around him. Fortunately, all missed him.

    The same could not be said for Dorgeo, which in the span of a few seconds, had been mmed dozens of times on the ground.

    Daniel started to feel anxious. He could see that Dorgeo was receiving a massive amount of damage, but it didn¡¯t seem like he would be killed by that sort of power. If he were to resist until this rift disappeared, Daniel was sure that he and the others would be screwed.

    His anxiousness did nothing but increase with time, until finally, he started to see a change under the relentless attacks of the tentacles.

    Dorgeo had broken the blockade, and had managed to turn back himself back into his original dragon form. He started to fight back against the massive tentacles with all the strength he had, but unfortunately for him, he didn¡¯t have much luck with that, as turning back into a dragon gave him more means of attacking, but also made him much easier to grab.

    In less than a minute, his massive body was covered in thick tentacles.

    These tentacles squeezed him, breaking various of his bones.. And finally, pulled him into the spatial rift, which closed right after.

    As the spatial rift closed, the blockade on the essences was undone, and everyone was free to move again.

    The dead valley was a mess, and it looked as if a huge battle had just taken ce.

 Chapter 114 The Horror of Seara Island Part 1

    "What the hell was that?!" Asked Edmund right after teleporting next to Daniel.

    Daniel was still visibly shocked. Only he was able to understand how grim and dangerous the situation really was.

    After shaking the tension off his back, he turned to look at Edmund and said "That.. was an unlucky encounter."

    Bohn and Vael arrived the very next moment.

    "Did you feel the world freeze as well?" Asked Vael, still shaken by the experience.

    Bohn turned to look at him, and said "Yes! So it wasn¡¯t just me.." He then looked at Daniel, and continued "Was everything caused by your breakthrough?"

    The two of them weren¡¯t as fast as Edmund, as they had to run or fly in order to get back on top of the mountains, and have a good look of what was happening in the dead valley.

    "Just the vortex.. Not the rest" Responded Daniel with an ufortable expression.

    After they finished talking, they went back into the pocket dimension.

    Daniel hadn¡¯t exined too much of what had really happened to the others.

    Who that human-like dragon was, or the information he had received from him. So, they were all slightly confused about what they had witnessed.

    The ruckus in the dead valley had caused many nearby powers to approach the site, but unfortunately, they found nothing but a destroyed valley, and the previously quiet mountains that had now turned into active volcanoes.

    The situation in the rest of the cultivation world was much more chaotic.

    Everyone had been frozen in ce for various seconds without knowing why, causing rumors and hysteria to spread.

    Some said that a god had descended, some said that a new expert capable of ascending to a higher ne of existence had been born.. And some said that there was something wrong with the time essence all around the world.

    The people who were the most worried, were the experts of time essence.

    Even before thisst freezing of time, space, and other essences, they had felt the time rewind by eighty seconds.

    These cultivators were still trying to understand why time had rewinded by four seconds three years ago, and yet, they had felt a simr event happen once again. If it wasn¡¯t enough, it was paired with a global mana blockade.

    Many people in the world started to go crazy. Some formed cults that preached about the end of the world, while others decided to give up their human feelings of empathy andpassion, and embraced a life of greediness.. Taking everything they wanted whenever they wanted. This was all due to the false belief that humanity wasing to an end.

    This, had started a new era of chaos and panic all around the world.

    After the events at the death valley, Daniel and the rest had resumed their travel towards the Nestreia continent.

    -----

    Seara Ind, one yearter.

    Daniel, Edmund and a few others, were sitting at a table situated in the hall of a castle in ruins.

    On the other side of the table, sat a few men and women in tattered clothes, and simr to these people, hundreds more filled the room.

    "How many?.." Asked Daniel with a dead serious expression.

    "T-two hundred.. For thest three years.." Responded the oldest looking woman that sat on the other side of the table.

    "So many.." muttered Daniel in response.

    During their year of travels, Daniel and the rest had helped people whenever they found a chance to, and now, their city had grown exponentially. Its inhabitants now counted three hundred thousands, and from being a small settlement, it had be arge and flourishing city.

    Thanks to Daniel¡¯s advancement to thete eight rank of cultivation, the pocket dimension had reached an arearge enough to allow the increased amount of people to livefortably.

    The pocket dimension was in fact, sorge, that many of the unranked citizens had moved out of the main city, and had created viges around it. Around these viges, the inhabitants would cultivate crop, and breed livestock for materials and food.

    At first, due to the increased number of citizens, Daniel had quickly found a huge problem with having an isted city. That problem was, of course, food.

    Most of the people that joined him would bringrge amounts of food with them, and they could buy some from every city they visited, but this food would always finish fast.

    It was after only a couple of months that Daniel had understood the importance of auto sufficiency.

    Minerals, water, wood, and light. Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension had all it needed to have a perfectly fertile soil, plus, theposition of the various bodies of water could be changed so that thergest bodies of water would have salty water, while the smaller ones would have fresh water.

    This had not only allowed people to have a source of drinkable water, but also a ce in which they could add different types of fishes, that after breeded to a stable number, could word as an additional source of food.

    Houses, schools, schools of martial arts, and even sects had moved into Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, and were all regted by a sort of government under the guidance of Daniel¡¯s group.

    The members of Daniel¡¯s group now numbered in the thousands, and each and every member was constantly busy solving problems for the citizens, and allowing the group¡¯s karma to quickly increase.

    After a year of travels, Daniel and the rest had ended up in an unmarked ind.

    This ind was called Seara Ind, and was situated in the middle of one of the oceans that Daniel¡¯s group would have to cross on their way to the Nestreia continent.

    This ind contained sparse vegetation, and yet, it was inhabited by a reasonably high number of people for its size.

    The inhabitants of this ind didn¡¯t number more than thirty thousand, and appeared to be simple people. They lived in roughly built viges right on the shore, and survived by fishing, hunting, and gathering fruits and berries from the surrounding vegetation.

    There were cultivators present in the ind, but due to the small amount of ranked beasts, the majority of the cultivators had reached the fourth rank of cultivation only after the seventy years of age.

    The reason why Daniel and the rest had left the pocket dimension in this ind, was because they were looking for suitable saltwater fishes to add to their sea. An ind inhabited by fishermen was a good ce to ask gather that kind of informations.

    Unfortunately, they had been weed by the vigers with fear, as they hadn¡¯t seen cultivators of such high ranks for a very long time.

    Daniel immediately noticed that something was wrong after seeing the poor conditions, and theck of children in the various viges.

    He had taken the habit, while looking for people to help, to keep his eyes open for every possible sign of distress. In this case, theck of children despite therge amount of healthy and young people, had made him suspicious.

    Instead of leaving right away, he took Roley, Jerigh, and Alesia, and asked around.

    In the past year, Jerigh had managed to breakthrough to the ninth stage of cultivation, and reached a perfect mastery of his single-edged sword. His studies were now focused on the double wielding.

    Thanks to the group¡¯s effect, the time sphere, and the various resources within the pocket dimension, Roley had reached the early eighth rank of cultivation, a perfectprehension of earth, and a near perfectprehension of water, wind, and wood essence.

    He and Imblen had given a chance to a romantic rtionship between them, but due to the fact that Roley had be too focused on his cultivation, and showed no interest in starting a family and settling down, the two had parted ways.. Since then, they had never gone back to being the kind of close friends they used to be.

    Alesia was now at the peak of the seventh stage of cultivation, and thanks to the weapon mastery training room upgraded by Jerigh, and her talent in swordsmanship, she was able to reach an extremely high level of mastery in the sword.

    Her parents Edmund and Emelnie were now in charge of the group from within the pocket dimension. They also had another child. A healthy boy called Tigue.

    Heimart and Alis had put their training and cultivation momentarily on hold, due to the fact that they were parents now, and had two kids of respectively two years and six months of age to take care of.

    Ligart and the unnamed red headed girl were now together, and only a few days earlier, the two of them had expressed their intention of marrying each other to the rest of the group. Ligart¡¯s cultivation rank had reached the peak of the seventh rank, while his soon to be wife¡¯s was at the early eighth rank.

    Finally, Imblen had decided to adopt the two orphans, and teach them the martial path of cultivation. Her cultivation had slowly increased to the early seventh rank, just like Heimart¡¯s and Alis¡¯s.

    Now that arge portion of his friends had settled down in the world within his pocket dimension, Daniel had found himself moving around with Roley, Jerigh and Alesia more and more often.

    When Daniel and the rest had asked about the reason why there weren¡¯t many kids in the various viges, they had been shocked by the answers.

    Apparently, the various chiefs of the viges were required to send most of the children to a castle situated in the middle of the ind.

    After reaching this castle, the children would never return. Disobedience had lead to the destruction of more than one vige in the past.

    The ind wasn¡¯trge, but it wasn¡¯t small either, so, it wasn¡¯t possible for Daniel to scan it all with his spiritual essence. Instead, the group flew in mid air in search of the aforementioned castle.

    After two full days of search, they finally found a castle in ruins right in the middle of a forest. Inside it, Daniel could feel a few low-ranking cultivators moving around.

    As Daniel and the othersnded at the entrance of the castle, they were weed by arge group of guards at the fourth rank of cultivation. These guards weren¡¯t well dressed by any means, and instead, wore tattered clothes, and appeared underfed.

    "Who are you?!" Asked one of the guards, visibly scared.

    "Take me to see the one in charge of this castle, before I turn it into dust." Said Daniel with a threatening tone.

    Sensing the oppressive power that the four of them emanated, the guards ran back into the castle with shaky legs.

    Instead of waiting for the guards toe back, Daniel and his friends took the liberty of exploring the castle on their own.

    The ce was in awful conditions. There were no decorations on the walls, and a stale odor had settled for what seemed to be hundreds of years.

    When Daniel attempted to push his spiritual essence through the corridors and the rooms of the castle, he found out that he could not reach further than the room or corridor he was currently in. A powerful formation forbid him to.

    Unable to scan the ce, Daniel and the rest decided to walk further into the its depths.. but before they could reach far, arge group of people came out from the various corridors, and surrounded them. They were all low ranking cultivators, and didn¡¯t seem to hold any ill intent.

    An old woman took a step towards Daniel and said "It¡¯s not safe here.. Please follow us."

    A powerful formation, an unknown old woman, a shady history.. Daniel had many reasons not to trust these people. He was about to refuse and demand exnations, but then, he noticed Jerigh follow her steps into a dark corridor.

    While Daniel had noticed the red number on the woman¡¯s head, Jerigh had noticed a different detail.. Buried deeper into the woman¡¯s expression. The expression of a person who was forced into performing evil acts, and felt a deep hatred towards themself for not being brave enough to chose death instead.

    The woman lead the group into arge hall inside which the formation did not reach. In this room, there was arge table surrounded by about ten ancient looking chairs.

    After taking a sit at the table, Daniel decided not to waste any more time, and asked "Why are you taking the children of the vige?"

    "We don¡¯t take them for ourselves.. The masters make us.." Said the middle aged woman with guilt.

    "The masters?" Asked Alesia with curiosity.

    "The masters have been demanding tributes from us vigers for the past fifty years.. It was any sort of people at first.. Then, they started to ask for young women.. Now..they want children, and many of them." Said the woman with a broken voice.

    "How many?.." Daniel asked with a dead serious expression.

    "T-two hundred.. Every year.."

 Chapter 115 The Horror of Seara Island Part 2

    "T-two hundred.. Every year.." Said the woman with a trembling voice.

    "So many.." muttered Daniel in response. He then asked "They nevere back?"

    "None has evere back.."

    "Do you know what they do with them? Or where they are?" Asked Roley, oddly calm about the entire situation.

    The woman looked back at Daniel, then, she said with a dispirited voice "In the depths of this castle.. There is a passage that leads underground.. Deep underground.."

    "Take us there.."

    -----

    A few minutester, Daniel and the rest of his party were standing at the edge of a massive sinkhole. This sinkhole waspletely devoid of light, and Daniel could feel the concept of density in its darkness.. Along with an oppressive and gloomy feeling he had never felt before.

    "Do you feel it?" Asked Roley to Daniel with suspicion.

    Daniel nodded slightly in response.

    "What is it?" asked Alesia from behind Daniel¡¯s back. As a martial cultivator, she and Jerigh could feel the presence of the essence in their surrounding, but could not distinguish it.

    Daniel snapped his fingers, and the very next moment, five different balls of light appeared around him.

    The first one was soft and constant, and gave a feeling of distance. The second light was pure white, and shone as a beacon of light into the darkness. The third me was the brightest, and its light was familiar andfortable. The fourth ball of light contained various shades of yellow, orange and red, and it flickered, as if it could be extinguished at any moment. The fifth andst ball was white, but its brightness was somewhat dull and did not bothered the eye.

    These lights were created by Daniel¡¯sprehension of light essence.. Specifically, starlight, moonlight, sunlight, firelight, and electric light.

    Daniel threw these five balls of light into therge sinkhole, but the moment they touched the surface, they were swallowed by the dense darkness. Only the ball of starlight and moonlight were able to resist for a few moments before disappearing as well.

    "Theirprehension of dark essence is much deeper than mine. They are also of a higher cultivation." Said Daniel while looking back at Alesia. He then added "Go back in the ring, call your father and every free cultivator at the mid or higher ninth rank of cultivation."

    "I want toe as well." Said Alesia with an unwilling tone. She of course understood that she would have to stay in the ring if they wanted to go into the passage.

    "Not this time.. We cannot protect you in the darkness."

    As Daniel finished talking, Alesia felt a gentle pressure that was trying to take her into the pocket dimension. Willing or not, she would be sent back inside if necessary. Fortunately, she didn¡¯t resist, and was teleported back in without a problem.

    Roley turned to look back at the deep darkness, and said "It¡¯s not just darkness.."

    "I know." Responded Daniel with a low voice while turning to look back at the oppressive obscurity.

    Suddenly, a small herb appeared on Daniel¡¯s palm.

    This herb, was known to be one of the mainponents necessary to produce healing pills. It was extremely longevous, and could live for thousands of years. Many weren¡¯t aware of it, but this nt was actually the source of most of the life essence that, mixed with time essence, would produce healing essence.

    Tens of thousands of years ago, when people¡¯s main goal for producing healing pills was actually to obtain an immortal pill, these nts were extremely valuable. Theoretically speaking, they were considered the main ingredient for the creation of immortal pills, and had been brought to near extinction due to therge amount of failed attempts all around the world.

    Of course, Daniel had long learned that this nt contained life essence, and from it, he had managed toprehend the concept of life of herbs.

    The life essence concept of herbs differed greatly from the life concept contained in wood essence, as herbs contained herbal essence which was a unique type of essence. The possession of a unique essence made them closer to living beings like humans or beasts, than constructs made out of natural elemental essence like trees and other nts.

    Without thinking twice about it, Daniel rolled the herb¡¯s stem with a leather cord, and submerged it fully into the dark sinkhole.

    While Daniel stood next to the sinkhole and proceeded with his experiment, the various ninth rank martial and spatial cultivators from within Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension appeared one after the other.

    Roley quickly filled them in about the situation, and they quickly agreed to help.

    When their numbers reached the fifties, Daniel pulled on the cord, and made the herb emerge from its bath of darkness.

    Daniel observed the state of the herb, and what he saw, forced a grim expression to appear on his face.

    "Death essence.." He muttered to himself. He then turned to look at the inhabitants of the castle and said "Does the darkness dissipate when you lower the kids into the sinkhole?"

    "Yes.. it happens once every year.." Responded the middle aged woman.

    "Damn it.. A cult of Worshippers of Death."

    A few faces within the group of cultivators twisted in disgust after hearing Daniel¡¯s words, while a few others turned towards him and asked "Who are the Worshippers of Death?"

    "There is a book about them in the library.." Responded Roley before Daniel could talk. He then added "They are the opposition of the cults of life, which promote and worship life under every form. Childbirth, healing, and preservation of life through peace. Worshippers of Death, on the other hand, worship death, war, and conflict."

    "Why would they take tributes instead of killing everybody then?" Asked someone from the crowd of powerful cultivators.

    "That¡¯s due to the type of Worshippers of Death they are.. They seem to be the type that honors death through the consummation of life.. That¡¯s why darkness and death essence." Said Daniel with a serious tone. He then added "Shield yourself with ki or spiritual essence.. Protect your life essence.. Or you¡¯ll die of old age before we can even make it to the other side of this passage."

    After Daniel finished speaking, various light blue, green and white shines appeared around the various cultivators. Then, one after the other, they jumped in.

    On their way down the sinkhole, each and every cultivator could feel the their ki and spiritual essence being the only dividing line between life, and death.

    While the rest were worrying about not losing focus for even a moment, Daniel had already activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and was trying toprehend the concept of death utilized in this part of the formation.

    The feeling he got from this barrier, was impending death. Not the kind of death one would not seeing, but the kind of death that only someone terminally ill, and could only wait patiently to arrive, could experience. Alone, in the dark.. While the slow passage of time took your short life closer and closer to an end.

    This concept brought by feelings of desperation, unwillingness, and regret..

    This, was the concept of ¡¯premature death¡¯.

    The vast majority of the people who had understood this type of concept, where those who were those who had died a premature death. Only they could get in contact with it while still living.

    One would think that, being this concept easily encountered, it would be easy to teach. But it is important to understand that a treasure of death essence could be considered death itself.

    One would not be able to create a death sphere without having an equalprehension of life essence, or they would die under the deadly essence produced by their own creation.

    Ironically speaking, due to this limitation in creating death spheres, the groups that possessed the second biggest amount of life spheres, or that focused on alsoprehending life essence, were groups that worshipped death. While the groups that worshipped life had no need forprehending death, as life treasures or spheres would not harm them in the slightest.

    Premature death was a difficult concept for Daniel to understand. He had died twice, been on the verge of death many times, and had even assisted to the moment of his death. But the kind of desperation that a slow and inevitable death brought, was alien to him.

    Despite that, he felt extremely close to attaining aprehension of it.

    Unfortunately.. Luck was not on his side this one time.

    The moment he felt like he could grasp the concept of premature death, a sudden light shone against his face as he found himself falling from high up in the sky.

    He immediately slowed his fall by using wind essence, and formed arge tform made out of solidified space on which hended gently.

    Around him, he could see nobody else. He was alone.

    Daniel quickly looked inside one of his spatial ring, and after a few moments, he breathed out in relief. All the ki gs which belonged to the other cultivators were still working, so, it meant that they were still alive.

    The ce where Daniel was didn¡¯t look like an underground cave. Instead, it looked more like arge pocket dimension with low levels of earth, wind, and water essences.

    Also, in the air, a feeble yet lingering death essence could be felt.

    The concept of this lingering death essence was different from the concept of premature death. One could survive it without using a shield of ki or spiritual essence, but if they tried, the death essence would slowly infect the body and corrode the life essence contained in their bodies.. Like a drop of ink dropped into a cup of clear water.

    This concept was the concept of ¡¯poisoning¡¯, and it was a concept which caused fear, panic, and simrly to premature death, desperation.. All while leaving within one¡¯s mind the most tragic of feelings.. A feeling which prevented one from finding peace before death.. Hope.

    The concept of poisoning was the most well known amongst the concepts of death. A simple way ofprehending it, was through the consumption of a deadly poison, and the assumption of the antidote right before dying. All worshippers of death hadprehended the concept of ¡¯poison¡¯, as it was a rite of initiation for them.

    Theck of wood and light, and the low level of earth essence, had made this ce gloomy and devoid of colors. The ground was dusty, theposition of the air was incorrect and difficult to breathe, and the sky covered the grey floor like a nket of darkness.

    Thanks to his experiences with essence spheres, Daniel was able of feeling from which direction the various essences were emanated.

    The dark sky, the dry air, and theck of color of the earth could be attributed to the fact that he was underground, but the death essence could only be emanated from an essence sphere. After all, there was no ce for death where there was no life.

    After pinpointing the direction from which death essence was emanated, he started to move towards it.

    A full hour of flightter, he spotted a small vige in the distance.

    Around this vige, various different low level essence spheres had been locked in the space, and emanated feeble essences of wind, earth, water, and various death spheres.

    Inside this vige, he saw dozens of people covered in ck cloaks, that were currently bowing towards an altar.

    Above this altar, was the body of what once must have been a five years old child. Now, his body had been dismembered, his stomach had been cut wide opened, and his organs had been removed, and ced orderly next to the body.

    Scattered all around the dusty floor, were all the tiny bones of the previously sacrificed kids.

    Danielnded back on the ground, and retracted his spiritual essence and ki into his body. Then, he masked them with essence of darkness, resulting invisible to other people¡¯s senses.

    Luckily, he had discovered these people while they were busy with one of their disgusting practices, and not when they were vignt.

 Chapter 116 The Horror of Seara Island Part 3

    In the other parts of the underground world, Jerigh, Roley, and the rest of the ninth rank cultivators had found themselves in simr situations.

    A few had managed to appear in small groups, and were now exploring the underground world together, while others had found each other only after a bit of solitary search. Some of them even appeared right above a few of these viges, and were forced to fight their way out of them with the worshippers of death of death.

    Unfortunately, they weren¡¯t in range of ¡¯Karmic Aura¡¯, so, they had to fight with their own strength against multiple enemies.

    Far away from the spot Daniel hadnded on, there was another vige.

    This vige was extremely quiet, and simr to the rest of the underground viges, it was covered in small bones, and above the small altar ced in the middle of it, was another small-sized dismembered corpse.

    On the ground, dozens of ck-cloaked people lied motionlessly. The majority of these bodies were torn to pieces, split in half, or simply lied over arge pool of blood.

    From one of the tents of the small vige, a twenty-odd years old young manpletely covered in blood walked out. In his hands, were two single-edged swords which were still dripping of the blood of the people he had just killed.

    His face was serious, and he showed no trace of remorse or fatigue.

    This young man, was of course, Jerigh.

    After he had appeared right in the middle of one of the viges of the worshippers of death, he immediately noticed the bones scattered on the ground, and the body of the kid that had been recently sacrificed on the altar.

    Before the worshippers could even react in surprise to his sudden appearance, he unsheathed his two swords and had turned them into harmless pieces of meat, that lied strewn on the dusty ground.

    Near one of the tents, a neen years old girl dressed in a ck cloak was hugging her legs and shivering in fear. She was the only one Jerigh had kept alive.

    Unfazed by his recent onught he slowly approached the girl, which after noticing him, started to shiver even harder and scream in panic "I DIDN¡¯T DO ANYTHING!! I DIDN¡¯T!!"

    Jerigh took a knee in front of her, grabbed her chin with his left hand, and forced her to look at him. He then said "Are there any survivors?" There was no need to say, after four years and the help of the group¡¯s effect, Jerigh had managed to learn the humannguage perfectly.

    Unfortunately, that hadn¡¯t helped him in bing more talkative. In fact, if possible, it had made him be even more quiet. One could easily say that Jerigh¡¯s motivation for learning humannguage was so that he could understand others, and not formunication.

    "T-t-there a-a-are.. I-in t-the ma-ma-main altar.." Responded the girl while trembling in fear. She was so scared, that Jerigh could hear her two rows of teeth chatter uncontrobly.

    "Where.." Asked Jerigh with his usual indifferent tone.

    The girl looked at Jerigh straight in his eyes, and said with a trembling voice "P-p-prooomise you wo-won¡¯t k-kill meee.."

    "I promise."

    After hearing thest two words uttered by Jerigh¡¯s mouth, she weakly raised her arm and pointed in the distance.

    Her arm immediately fell limp on the floor as a sh of light shined through the dark, followed by the sound of her head rolling down the shoulders.

    Jerigh had been raised in a brutal environment. He had had to fight against other weak children to survive, steal from them.. Even lie. He did not possess any concept of ¡¯honor¡¯, and to him, his word had only as much worth as it was useful the information he managed to obtain with it.

    Once back up on his feet, he looked at the direction indicated by the girl, and started walking.

    -----

    These scenes appeared all around the underground world.

    Luckily, Daniel hadn¡¯t asked to eighth rank cultivators to tag along, or those who would have ended up right into one of the viges, would probably not survive the experience.

    But since Daniel had only invited ninth rank cultivators, they had overall managed to fare well for themselves, as there were no ninth rank cultivators members of the worshippers of death within these small viges.

    On another part of the underground world, Roley was in the middle ofbat. He was the only cultivator at the eight rank that had joined Daniel, and Daniel had allowed him toe because, thanks to the group¡¯s effect, he would be able to fight back against an early ninth rank cultivator.

    Unfortunately, the two had been separated, and he hadnded just a hundred meters from the vige, causing him to be spotted right away.

    This vige was popted by about twenty cultivators. Ten of them were under the sixth rank, while of the remaining ten wereposed by, four at the sixth rank, four at the seventh rank, and two at the early eighth rank of cultivation.

    In the beginning of the battle, Roley had decided to remove the small fry right away. So, he caged every cultivator under the eight rank of cultivation into a spatial cube.

    This spatial cube immediately started to shrink, pressing on the bodies of the cultivators at the sixth rank and lower, and turning them into a cubic meter of red paste.

    Unfortunately, the cultivators at the seventh rank of cultivation were able to hold on long enough for the cultivators at the eight rank to attack the spatial enclosure, and free them just in time.

    Now facing four cultivators at the seventh rank, and two at the eight rank, Roley was in a huge disadvantage. Hisprehension of the various essences would give him a huge edge against one, or maybe even two cultivators at his same level of cultivation.. But that didn¡¯t mean that he would be able to avoid damage from the attacks of a cultivator at the seventh rank with his weak spiritual cultivator body.

    For the following hour, Roley used the best of his cultivation andprehension to resist the numerous attacks of the six cultivators, but he was slowly gaining injuries, and consuming too much spiritual essence.

    As the situation was starting to be grim, he noticed two shadows appear behind the two eighth rank cultivators, and stab their short swords straight through their hearts.

    He used the surprised caused by the sudden support to send three diamond spears towards three of the four seventh rank cultivators, piercing their heads.

    He then trapped thest cultivator into arge vortex of wind, which threatened to slice his body the very moment he tried to move by tearing hisrge ck cloak to shreds, and revealing the half naked body of a middle aged man.

    Roley turned to look at the two shadows, and said "Thanks for the help."

    The two shadows had now turned into the clear silhouettes of two martial cultivators. They were two twins at the early ninth rank of cultivation, and their ability was assassination.

    They were two of the three leaders of a sect called ¡¯The Sect of Eternal Sleep¡¯. Their names were Fiol and Qiol, and they were two of a triplet of twins along with their third brother Viol.

    The sect of eternal sleep had joined Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension just a few months earlier, when the three of them, along with the remaining members of their sect, had been found injured, and forced to endlessly roam a dead valley contained within a formation created by a spiritual cultivator at the peak of the ninth rank of cultivation.

    The reason why Daniel had decided to take them in, was because of when he had observed the formation..

    Proceeding in their travel towards the Nestreia continent, Daniel and the rest had had to fight against the creator of the formation which had trapped them. Unfortunately, they hadn¡¯t managed to kill this powerful cultivator, and instead, had forced him to flee due to being outnumbered thirty to one.

    When Daniel found the formation where the members of the sect of eternal sleep were imprisoned, he had spectated to a moving scene.. The three leaders were personally digging a grave for one of their sect members, who had just passed away from fatigue.

    What had left Daniel impressed, was not the fact that the three of them were digging a new grave.. But the presence of hundreds and hundreds of simr graves disseminated all over the ce in ordered lines.

    After freeing the three of them, and the few members of the sect that had survived, Daniel had noticed the green numbers above their heads.

    After talking to them, he found out that the sect of eternal sleep¡¯s interest for assassination arts was not meant to be used by others for contracted killing, and that was simply a series of inherited abilities that they wished to preserve.

    The reason why they had imprisoned, was because they had refused to give up their treasures to the peak expert that had trapped them into the formation, which was exactly the reason why Daniel and the rest of his group had had to fight him.

    Unlike the majority of the sect leaders and school masters, the three leaders had joined Daniel¡¯s group just a few days after they had seen how he ruled his pocket dimension. How fair the treatment, how willingly helpful his group members were, and how peaceful life was.

    When Daniel had summoned the experts to explore the underground world, the three of them had been amongst the first to step forward.

    After appearing within the underground world, Fiol and Qiol hadnded within sight of each other, but unfortunately, there was no trace of Viol.

    The two of them nodded quietly in response to Roley¡¯s thanks.

    Even if they had an higher cultivation than his, they still respected him as a superior, as they knew that Roley was extremely close to the person to whom they had offered their loyalty.

    Roley turned to look at the middle aged man caged into the gales of sharp winds, and said "Tell us if there are any survivors, and where your leaders are."

    -----

    Simr scenes appeared all over the territory.

    Ferocious battles took in many ces, and in the end, the powerful cultivators from Daniel¡¯s group would usually manage to ughter the worshippers of death that inhabited the viges, and from them, they would obtain the location of their main base within the underground territory.

    Back in the vige near where Daniel hadnded.

    The ce was a mess. A few corpses were stuck into enormous and transparent diamonds, some were frozen to their very core, or hanged from arge unusual tree that stood out of ce within the underground territory.

    A martial cultivator at thete eighth rank of martial cultivation was currently kneeling in front of Daniel, which had just brandished the sword gifted by Bohs, to slice both of his arms clean off.

    Daniel was, of course, furious beyond words. In his left hand, a small flower with purple petals had appeared out of nowhere. Any herbalist would recognize this flower as a poisonous nt. This nt¡¯s poison was extremely slow, but incurable.

    He grabbed the hair of the martial cultivator, and yanked his head backwards, forcing him to open his mouth. Then, he stuffed it with the poisonous flower before using his spiritual essence to shove it down his throat.

    "I am sure you have heard of this flower.. A Nimisia flower.. Commonly known as ¡¯promise of death¡¯.." Said Daniel while looking at the terrified eyes of the martial cultivator.

    Unhappy with the slow effect of the poison, took a time sphere out of his spatial ring, and stuck it in the space right next to the martial cultivator.

    "This is a time sphere.. It can¡¯t help death essence to devour your life essence faster.. But it will help the poison spread a lot faster in your body. Enjoy the time you have left." Said Daniel with a vicious tone right before locking the space around the cultivator, and filling it with pure essence of darkness.

    For the following hour, the worshipper of death felt the true desperation, sadness, and resignation of a premature death. He could feel it lingering on him.. Get closer.. And devour his very being.

    From spectating the man¡¯s death, Daniel finallyprehended the concept of premature death.

 Chapter 117 The Horror of Seara Island Part 4

    When Daniel reached the ce mentioned during the desperate cries of thest worshipper of death he had killed, he found six of the cultivators he had summoned from his pocket dimension, standing in wait.

    They were standing in front of what looked like an extremelyrge canyon, and by their feet, a few ck-cloaked bodies lied motionlessly.

    These bodies belonged to worshippers of death that had been dragged there by two different cultivators, and had been killed once they had confirmed that the ce they were currently in, was the right ce.

    The other side of this canyon could not be seen with the naked eye, and seemed to be hundreds of kilometers away. The bottom of the canyon was shrouded in darkness, and prevented people from seeing what was underneath.

    The only thing noticeable from all sides of the canyon, was thest floor of what looked like tower ced right in the middle of it.

    All around the canyon¡¯s edge, different groups had formed.

    The only cultivator who hadn¡¯t found anybody else once he reached the canyon, was Jerigh, which instead of waiting, jumped right in.

    -----

    Most groups awaited for a few hours for other members to arrive, but after nobody else came, they guessed that the rest had probably approached the canyon from a different side, or had gone in already.

    One of the first groups to enter the canyon after Jerigh, was Daniel¡¯s group.

    After Daniel and the rest of his group jumped into the canyon, instead of falling through the nket of darkness, theynded on arge invisible shield. This shield was made out of solidified space, and formed a transparent coating for the darkness that covered the bottom of the canyon, and the majority of the tower.

    The death essence present just above the solidified space was twice as thick as it was outside of the canyon, and it became denser the closer they¡¯d move towards the top of the tower.

    As they approached the tower, the distance between the various groups was reduced. In the end, the groups had reunited into threerger groups. Daniel¡¯s, Roley¡¯s, and a third groupposed of eleven cultivators at the ninth rank.

    When they arrived to a kilometer from the tower the death essence had be so oppressive, that they had to, once again, shield their bodies with their ki and spiritual essence just to avoid a premature death.

    The tower, which from the distance seemed to be extremely thin whenpared to the size of the canyon, once seen from a closer perspective, was in fact quiterge. Sorge, that even when the various groups had finally approached the external walls, they were still unable to feel each other with their surrounding awareness, or spiritual essences.

    Only after moving around the tower¡¯s external wall in search of an entrance, did the three groups manage to finally reunite back into a single group. The only missing cultivator, was Jerigh.

    It didn¡¯t take long for therge group to find the impressivelyrge double door that lead inside the tower.

    The first thing they noticed, was that it had been already opened, and the opening wasrge enough to allow only one person in. Secondly, from the outside of the building, a trace of blood could be seen leading inside, and deafened sounds of shing swords could be hearding from within the tower.

    Daniel and the rest of the ninth rank cultivators immediately dashed into the tower, and the moment they went through the door, they felt the disappearance of the death essence in the air.

    "So this is why there was nobody around the tower.. The death essence was ayer of protection.." Muttered a purple-robed cultivator in realization.

    The ce they found themselves in, was what one would expect the insides of the headquarters of a cult to be.

    Ordered beds, utility rooms, and arge library.

    On the left side of the tower, within a corridor, was arge flight of stairs that took to the lower levels.

    Strewn all over the top floor, they found a numerous amount of corpses, and a solitary Jerigh covered in blood standing in the middle of them.

    When Jerigh noticed the rest of the group, he walked back to Daniel¡¯s left, and waited to follow in silence.

    Daniel turned to look at the group of cultivators, then said "Roley, go and empty those libraries. I want to know if there are books about offerings, formations, or anything that seems relevant to this ce.. Jerigh and five others stay near the stairs.. kill whoeveres out of it. The rest scatter around and look for clues to what the fuck is going on here.."

    -----

    After a full hour of research, Roley walked towards Daniel with arge opened parchment. He said "Dan.. I think I found something."

    "Tell me." Responded Daniel while closing the book he had been reading, and turning to look back at him.

    "I don¡¯t know if this is what is happening.. But it sure as hell looks like it." Said Roley with a worried face. He then continued by reading a portion of the parchment "Death will be summoned from the sacrifice of life.. The ck hidden eye will be a passage for the realms of the always advancing death.. An invitation for the sweetness of death to devour life¡¯s sufferings."

    "That doesn¡¯t sound good.." said Daniel in a low voice.

    "It also says that the weing of death has to be done gradually.. Like the kindling of a me." Added Roley with a grim voice.

    "I can¡¯t think of arger amount of life essence than the one possessed by children.. We have to go down.."

    -----

    Floor after floor, Daniel and the rest ughtered each and every worshipper of death they found. Only a few of them were spared so that more specific informations could be extracted from them, but they would never respond to Daniel¡¯s question, and instead, let themselves be killed.

    The lower they went, the more and more powerful the cultivators they were forced to face became. After only twenty flights of stairs, Daniel¡¯s group had been reduced to twenty cultivators. The rest, had been forced to retire back into the spatial ring to recover their power, or recover from their injuries.

    After forty flights of stairs, ten more cultivators had had to move back in, while seven of the previously retired ones had gone back out.

    The tower seemed to be infinite, as even after moving down by two hundred floors, they still couldn¡¯t see an end to it.

    After three full days of fighting, as they had gone down the three hundred and twenty one floors, they finally found themselves at the bottom of the tower.

    Starting from the three hundredth underground floor, death essence had reappeared in the area. Unfortunately, it was a concept of death which Daniel was not able to recognize.

    It wasn¡¯t as oppressive, nor was it dangerous. It seemed almost like the expression of the realization of death. As if this concept of death essence was there to remind people that, sooner orter, everyone would die.

    Once they reached the bottom floor of the tower, they heard sounds of crying and shouting. The shouting seemed to be the desperate cries of a woman, while the crying, belonged to an infant.

    Daniel, now alone with Jerigh, Roley and eight more cultivators, slowly stepped towards the source of the cries and shouting, and in the end, they arrived in front of a veryrge double door.

    This door had been closed shut, and was covered by a hundred of chains. In each chain, a low level life sphere had been mounted.

    "Why would they lock this floor with life essence?.." Asked an old woman from behind Daniel.

    Daniel started to inspect the many chains.. But just as he was about to express his opinion about the situation, his train of thoughts was interrupted by the increased intensity of the woman¡¯s shouts, which had now be shrill and high pitched.. And the sudden stopping of the infant¡¯s cries.

    Without thinking about it twice, Daniel immediately destroyed the various chains, and mmed the door wide open.

    The scene in front of him, would stand to be one of the most grim, disgusting and hideous images he would ever see in his life.

    Hundreds of limbs were strewn all over the ground. Some of them were half chewed, and some of them were in a rotten state. The original floor was covered by a thickyer of dry and fresh blood, and the smell within the room, forced Roley and the rest to vomit the very moment it entered their nostrils.

    On the other side of the room, arge greyish figure was sitting on a metallic chair while facing arge fire, and giving his back to the door that Daniel had just opened.

    This creature¡¯s body was veryrge, and if it stood, it would reach the seven meters of height at the very least. Its body was very fat, and its back was covered in spikes.

    The essence emanated by this beast was very simr to death essence itself, and yet, it was nothing like it. This was an entity which Daniel had never encountered, nor heard about.. An entity that did not seem to belong to this world.

    The power emanated by this beast was impressive, and easily above what normal peak ninth rank cultivator would possess.

    After feeling the restrictions of the room being destroyed, the fat monster made a motion that made it look like it was throwing something behind his back with his thick arm.

    A small ball flew in the air, and after it touched the floor, started to roll until it reached Daniel¡¯s feet.

    It was the head of an infant.

    Daniel¡¯spanions, once again, fell on their knees and vomited due to the scene.. While Daniel and Jerigh were feeling their blood boil from rage.

    The monster got up on its feet, and turned to look at Daniel and the rest. From his mouth, they could feel the hideous sound of bones being ground by the monster¡¯s teeth.

    This monster¡¯s looks were just as hideos in the front as they were in the back. He had an extremelyrge and pale belly, which seemed about to burst. Its lipless mouth was veryrge as well, and inside it, one could see at least twenty rows of sharp, dark teeth. His face waspletely devoid of eyes, and instead, had tworge holes which it used to breathe and smell.

    After smelling the presence of other people, the monster lifted one of his elephant like legs, and started to step heavily towards Daniel.

    Fortunately, it seemed that the monster¡¯s main strength wasn¡¯t speed.

    As the monster approached, Daniel and the other spiritual cultivators used their strongest attacks towards it, but when they attacks reached its skin, the most they did was to leave a cut a millimeter deep.

    The monster kept advancing towards them, and the closer it got, the more Daniel felt that something was off.

    It was only after the monster started charging in their general direction, that Daniel understood..

    The monster¡¯s objective wasn¡¯t them.. But the opened door behind them.

    Daniel felt a shiver of worry run down his spine. This beast was nowhere near as powerful as the dragon he had met over a year ago, and yet, the idea of leaving this monster roam free in a world where the highest levels of cultivation weren¡¯t able to do any visible damage.. And which seemed to feed on death itself, was inconceivable.

    Of course, the rest of the cultivators present had noticed this as well. So, they started to furiously attack the monster¡¯s back as he ran faster and faster towards the opened door.

    Each attack failed not only in injuring the monster, but also in attracting its attention.

    It was only in a moment of panic that Daniel removed the low level life spheres from the chains, and sent them flying towards the monster.

    As these life spheres touched the monster, they were infected by its unique form of essence, and started to be consumed by the death-like essence the monster possessed.

    Fortunately, the spot they hit had severely burnt the skin, causing the monster to turn around in rage, and charge towards Daniel.

 Chapter 118 The Wasteland World - Arrival

    The monster¡¯s skin was too resistant.

    After a full hour of fighting, evading, and taunting, Daniel and the rest had only managed to keep the monster¡¯s attention on themselves, but hadn¡¯t been able to cause any sort damage with their own power.

    The only damages they had managed to cause, were the numerous severe burns caused by the low level life spheres, which after getting in contact with the monster¡¯s body, caused its skin to melt.

    Unfortunately, the spheres would be corrupted after a single use, and would fall apart in a matter of seconds aftering in contact with the monster¡¯s death-like essence.

    At first, the life spheres mounted into the main chains which blocked the double doors shut, were a hundred.. But after an hour of failed attempts, only ten had remained.

    Jerigh, thanks to his impressive movement speed, was able to stay between the legs of therge monster and hit the junction of his body hard enough to make him stagger, and fall a few times.

    The monster kept furiously trying to catch its opponents, but it was truly too slow to manage to touch any of them.

    Following the long hour of unfruitful fighting, Roley looked at Daniel and shouted "Dan! His nose!"

    Daniel immediately understood what Roley meant. He then shouted "Everyone! Block his movements for as long as possible!"

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, all the spiritual cultivators present started to use all the spiritual essence they had left to hold the monster still.

    Out of the blue,yers of metal, rock, and ice appeared around the monster¡¯s legs and arms.

    A few cracks appeared on the construct¡¯s surfaces, but they were rapidly repaired by the owners of the spiritual essence.

    Daniel used this chance to take the ten life spheres left, and after encasing them into ten different gusts of winds under his control, he sent them directly into therge nostrils of the monster, and into its skull.

    *GGRRRRRROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR*

    The powerful roar almost broke their eardrums, causing them to fall on their and cover their ears with their hands.

    The monster had gone into a frenzy.

    Therge veins in its body bulged, and the spikes on his back straightened. The cracks in theyers of metal, ice, and rock were formed faster than they were being repaired, until finally, they shattered in thousand of pieces which dissipated in the air right away.

    After this outburst of strength, the monster appeared to be fazed, and was staggering in ce.

    Suddenly, the monster started to emit a hideous screech, which once again, forced the cultivators present to cover their ears in pain.

    The few of them were lying on the ground in pain, and it was only when Daniel felt the monster¡¯s unique essence leave its body and merge into a spot in the air, that he opened his eyes in order to take a look.

    What he saw, shocked him.

    The monster was opening a portal into a different dimension.

    This portal was simr to the one a spiritual cultivator would open with spiritual essence, and showed the other side clearly.

    On the other side of this portal, Daniel saw a wastnd. In the scenery of this wastnd, Daniel could see dead trees, infertile soil, quiet winds.. And dark skies.

    "EVERYONE IN THE POCKET DIMENSION!! NOW!!" He shouted immediately before using all of his spiritual essence left to teleport the cultivators to his position, and force them into his pocket dimension.

    From the portal, an immense pulling force was generated.

    This pulling force was so powerful that it was able to lift the monster off the floor, and pull it into the wastnd.

    Daniel tried to brace himself by grabbing the columns in the room, or creating a spatial tform on which he could stand on.. Unfortunately, the insides of the room were starting to fall to pieces, and whenever he pushed his spiritual essence out of his body, he would instantly lose control over it, and it would be sucked into the portal.

    Unable to find any way to prevent it, he was pulled into the portal as well.

    -----

    Daniel was pushed out of the other side of the portal just as fast as he had been pulled in. He was currently flying in the air, just behind the injured monster.

    The portal closed right after they went through it.

    The two of them flew for a few kilometers, then, theynded heavily against the grey soil, lifting a huge cloud of grey dust.

    Daniel immediately got up and looked at the monster, which was back on its feet as well.

    Its injuries were healing, and its movements, now that it was into this wastnd world, seemed to be much more agile.

    The speed of healing was impressive, and Daniel was considering if he should leave before the monster could manage to get back to its full forces, but before he could decide.. He heard tens of roars and shrill screamsing from just as many different directions.

    He immediately created a cover for his body with hisst wisps of earth essence, and observed quietly.

    The monster which was recovering until now started to look around in panic. Then, it tried to dash in the distance.

    Unfortunately, before he could go fast, a lightning fast four legged monster had reached it from behind, and had pinned it on the ground.

    From the sky, another monster that resembled an extremelyrge bird dived on the injured monster¡¯s body and started pecking at its neck, tearing away arge portion of greyish sh with every peck.

    A few more four legged monsters arrived right after, and along with the bird-like monster, they started to devour the beast altogether.

    Daniel, hidden into his construct of earth essence, was trembling in fear. He was fully aware of how durable the injured monster was, and yet, it was the weakest amongst these few types of monsters.. Which could rip its durable skin in shreds in a matter of moments.

    After was seemed like an hour, but was actually a single minute, the corpse of the injured monster had disappeared. Not even the blood was left, as Daniel had noticed numerous worms crawl from under the ground and absorb it from the drenched soil.

    After the numerous monsters finished eating, they looked around. They could feel the presence of something else in the surroundings, but they couldn¡¯t physically see it. So, after a few minutes, they gave up and left the site.

    Now alone, Daniel gave a careful look at the wastnd he was currently in. Immediately he found out two things that left him petrified.

    The first one, was that there wasn¡¯t a trace of essence in the air. Space, time and sound still existed, but like water, which was ck and looked toxic, the soil, which was infertile and made out of the mostmon minerals, and the air, which was breathable but heavy.. They did not contain the slightest amount of natural mana.

    Instead, all these worldponents were formed by the same type of unique essence which the various monsters he had seen could use.

    The second and scariest detail he had noticed, was the total andpleteck of connection to the spiritual ne.

    More than once he tried to exchange ki with spiritual essence in order to recover it, but it was useless. His ki would be stirred within his body, but it would never be absorbed by his spirit, which showed no signs of life.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to realize that he would not be able to use spiritual essence as long as he stayed within this wastnd world.

    Theck of spiritual essence not only affected him, but also all the people within the pocket dimension, as spiritual essence was needed to enter the ring, and a connection to the spatial essence in the outside was needed to exit.

    Unfortunately, the space of this wastnd world was not made out of natural spatial essence, but of the odd death-like ever present essence.

    This meant that Daniel could not go in the pocket dimension, and that others could note out. As long as Daniel was stuck in this wastnd world, the rest of his friends were trapped just like they would be if the ring was destroyed.

    Just a small world of solidified space.. Cursed to roam in the infinity of space.

    Daniel quickly took the ring out of his finger, and put it into another spatial ring. He didn¡¯t want to risk his friends being permanently stuck just because he had met with a monster he was not able to run away from.

    He then put on a clean set of clothes, strapped his two strongest swords to his sides, picked a direction.. And started walking.

    -----

    After hours and hours of running, Daniel was still as clueless as he was in the beginning about this wastnd, and about the strange death-like essence whichposed it.

    He had traveled a long distance, and had changed more than oncendscape.. And yet, the scenery never changed.

    Everything was made out of death-like essence, and there was no trace of the natural mana he was so used to.

    Daniel still had ess to the food contained within his various spatial rings, which thanks to them not containing wind, water and time essence, were perfect to store food indefinitely.

    From his calctions, the food he possessed wouldst him for at least three years.

    He was not able to enter the greenhouse ring that the silver alchemist had given to him, but he could extract the food that he had nted, which would regrow at regr intervals.

    He suddenly felt very happy about his decision of growing trees on which fruit grew seasonally, instead of nting herbs that could not be eaten, or vegetables that had to tended to, or reced after being harvested once.

    After a few days of travel, Daniel finally found signs of civilization.

    His enthusiasm was quickly reced by disappointment when he got close enough to notice thepleteck of inhabitants.

    The ce was the size of a city, and its buildings were extremely different from the ones Daniel was used to seeing in his original world.

    The buildings were made out of reddish finely cut stones, and their exteriors were decorated with what looked like wood, unfortunately, they did not contain wood essence.

    Surprisingly, the conditions of the city was in, was extremely good.. But due to the impressive amount of dust that covered the ce, Daniel could guess that it had been abandoned no longer than a few years ago, or the wood would have started to rot.

    Plus, each of the few monsters he had seen right after arriving in this wastnd, would be able to destroy this entire city in a matter of minutes.

    After roaming around the abandoned city for a bit, Daniel was able to recognize which buildings were shops by therge names ced above their entrances. Unfortunately, these names were written in anguage which he could notprehend.

    As he kept moving, he found himself in front of arge library.

    He entered it, and walked directly towards one of the shelves on which thick books with yellow pages were orderly ced in metallic shelves.

    He kept going through various books¡¯ pages, and stopped only after he found a few books with clear illustrations, and single words that indicated the name of things he knew.

    Before starting to read, he decided to check on his profile, which appeared in his mind the next moment.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 19

    Rank

    - Late rank 8 of Martial cultivation (Perfect Human)

    - Late rank 8 of Spiritual cultivation (Perfect Synchronization)

    Karma - 31,692,534

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.10

    Reduced Cost Lv.20

    Bonus Points Lv.20

    Second Chance (Upgraded) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    "The third level of system upgrades.." muttered Daniel to himself.

 Chapter 119 The Wasteland World - First Encounter

    "The third level of system upgrades.." muttered Daniel to himself.

    ____________________________

    System Upgrades Lv.3

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown = Purchased

    Time Is Precious Lv.11 = 69.500 KP

    (Active: Multiply the cost of karma points in order to multiply the speed of progression. +100% of cost and effect. Max lv.20)

    Reduced Cost Lv.20 = Current Max Level.

    Bonus Points Lv.20 = Current Max Level.

    Second Chance Lv.20 = Current Max Level.

    Second Chance Upgrade Lv.2 = 500,000 KP

    (Passive: Halves the cooldown of Second Chance.)

    Karma Debt = Purchased

    Karmic Retribution = Purchased

    Karmic Retribution Update = 20,000,000 KP

    (Active: At the cost of half of the wielder¡¯s remaining karma points [minimum 250,000], the wielder can force a karmic retribution on himself. The cost of ¡¯Karmic Retribution¡¯ directed at others, is increased from 100,000 to 250,000.)

    Karma X Luck = Purchased

    ____________________________

    umte 100,000,000 Karma points to unlock System Upgrades Lv.4

    ____________________________

    "Nothing new.." Said Daniel in his head, slightly disappointed by theck of new effects brought by the third level of the system upgrades.

    "What did you expect? Godly power?.." Responded Sewah sarcastically.

    Slightly irritated by Sewah¡¯s behaviour, Daniel said out loud "Would you mind telling me what the hell is wrong with you? You¡¯ve always been sarcastic, but never this borderline hostile."

    "I¡¯m not enjoying having to follow you around wherever you go. We always end up in shitty ces.. Look where we are.. How long do you think we will stay here?"

    "Should have I pretended to have seen nothing? What is the point of a karmic system if it reproaches me when I do something of karmic relevance?" asked Daniel with disdain. He was quite fed up by Sewah¡¯s hostility.. His uncertain situation didn¡¯t help him in containing his calm either.

    "Honestly, I couldn¡¯t care less if you have a good karma."

    After his discussion with Sewah, Daniel went back into focusing on the books.

    -----

    Inside Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, arge group of cultivators were filling the square in front of Daniel¡¯s castlepletely. On most of their faces, expressions of worry, confusion and fear were present.

    The portals that had allowed the inhabitants of Daniel¡¯s city to leave the pocket dimension for the past three years, had now disappeared.

    Only a couple of days had passed since the closing of the portals, and during that couple of days, the spiritual cultivators which hadprehended spatial essence, and weren¡¯t part of Daniel¡¯s group, had spread the news that the connection to the outside world had been cut offpletely.

    This had caused a general state of fear in the solitary cultivators, and in the families and sects that had moved into the pocket dimension.

    Luckily, thanks to the work done by Daniel group¡¯s members, the citizens of the city hadplete trust in them. Therefore, most of the unranked and low ranking cultivators had remained calm, and waited for updates from the leaders of themunity.

    Meanwhile, the works of expansion were proceeding.

    Before this whole mess with the worshippers of death, Edmund had been thinking of ways to increment the space of the pocket dimension, until one day, an idea hade to his mind.

    There was no reason for the poption to live all within the same pocket dimension.. After all, trying to fit the slowly increasing number of citizens into a single pocket dimension, was like trying to find more space to live in within an ind.

    Sooner orter, Daniel would reach the peak of the ninth rank of cultivation, and that would put a limitation to howrge the pocket dimension could be.

    His idea, was to create more, and smaller pocket dimension which could be used to nt food, or to house more viges and cities.

    Luckily, the thousands of spiritual cultivators within the pocket dimension didn¡¯tckprehension of basic essences, or low to mid level essence treasures.

    Those two thingsbined would only work in creating small pocket dimension, but they would still be habitable.

    It was right during the ideation of this sort of idea that Daniel had requested for high ranking cultivators to leave the pocket dimension, and aid him in the eradication of the worshippers of death.

    For days, they weed back injured or tired cultivators.. And right after Roley and Jerigh were sent back, the portals had suddenly shut.

    Back to the present, Edmund and the other members of Daniel¡¯s group were standing right in the middle of the castle¡¯s hall, and were currently looking at Roley, Jerigh, and the few other cultivators that had seen Danielst before the portals closed.

    "A portal?.." Asked a surprised Edmund.

    Roley shook his head and added "Not a simple spatial portal.. It was made out of an unknown essence, and lead into a world devoid of natural essences.."

    Sounds of people gasping in surprise could be heard all over the hall.

    Edmund looked at Roley with grave seriousness. He then asked "What do you think is the reason for the connection to the outside word to be severed?" He was of course aware of the possible results, but he still asked Roley to openly expose his ideas in front of Daniel¡¯s entire group.

    Roley sighed, then responded "Our connection to the outside world might have been severed due to Daniel not being in the outside world anymore.. He might have entered a different dimension, which I assume was the ce in which the portal lead to.. The only other possibility is.." he then paused for a few seconds.

    "What is the other possibility??" Asked anxiously a seventh rank martial cultivator within the crowd.

    "That the ring was destroyed." Said Roley after another deep sigh.

    "What!? Is that possible?"

    "How big are the chances of that happening?"

    "What do we do now?"

    "Does that mean that we are stuck here forever?"

    Many questions were thrown at Edmund and Roley all at once, causing the hall to be extremely noisy.

    "Calm down." Said Edmund with a heavy voice. "You all know that, just by being part of Daniel¡¯s group, we receive great benefits in cultivation and power.. I presume that, if Daniel were to die, those powers would be lost. So it¡¯s highly possible that Daniel has voluntarily entered or has been forced into another dimension, and therefore, we are stuck in this pocket dimension."

    "For how long?" asked one of the cultivators in the middle of the crowd.

    "We cannot possibly know that.. All we can do, is to keep the situation under control here, and be sure that we¡¯ll survive until Daniel finds a way to restore the portals of the pocket dimension." Said Edmund with a reassuring tone, then, he said a little more seriously "Visit the various sects, schools and popted centers.. Andmunicate to the citizens that we will be temporarily stuck in the pocket dimension."

    -----

    Back in the abandoned book store, Daniel was still trying to understand something about the wastnd world¡¯s literature.

    It took him a few hours just to be able to understand a few of the words, as the form of the words themselves was fundamentally different from the one of his world of origin.

    The text was written with symbols instead of a normal alphabet, and these symbols were repeated in groups of symbols that appeared to have no corrtion whatsoever between each other.

    Daniel had to start from the very basics.

    For now, he was only able to remember the names of items ofmon use. Items like chairs, tables, and a human¡¯s body parts.

    Thanks to the informations he had obtained from these books, Daniel had also learned that the inhabitants of this world were humanoids, with simr uses to the kinds of humanoids he knew lived in his world of origin.

    Unfortunately for Daniel, the karmic system only could helped him in speeding memorization and practice.. It would not help him in discovering something he didn¡¯t know, or anything of that sort. If he were to learn the right meaning of a word, he would memorize that word almost immediately, but he would not learn how to speak it.

    Basically, Daniel would be a master at anything in a very brief time.. As long as he was instructed on how to do that something at least once.

    Happy with the informations he had gathered, Daniel decided to put the book back in the shelf and leave the bookstore.

    The moment Daniel put the book he was reading back on the shelf, he heard the hurried sounds of three different pairs of legs.

    He immediately focused a small portion of his ki under the bottom of his feet, and dashed out of the bookstore in silence.

    When he reappeared, he was standing above the roof of the bookstore.

    At about one kilometer of distance, he saw a roughly dressed kid being chased by a four legged monster.

    This monster was different from the ones he had seen before. It was much smaller, and seemed to be much weaker. Its speed was on par with the kid¡¯s, and it looked like a crazed dog with fur that had turned as straight and as durable as needles.

    The kid seemed to be terrified by the monster, but its movements were agile, and his ability in using the obstacles to keep the monster away from him showed his experience in surviving this sorts of attacks.

    This kid seemed to be ten or eleven years of age, and yet, it had the ability of a third rank martial cultivator. His skin was greyish, and there were dark spots which Daniel wasn¡¯t sure if they were some sort of painting, or a skin condition.

    He decided to quietly follow the two by using all the stealth skills he possessed.

    As the kid ran, he kept making sounds which resembled the squeaking of a crazed mouse.. This, had caused a few more dog-like monsters to spot him, and join the previous one in its chase.

    Still being chased by the monsters, the kid kept turning to look at them, and a few times, it almost fell on the ground.. Risking being caught and devoured.

    Daniel hadn¡¯t forgotten the fate of the injured monster had suffered a few moments after they hadnded in this wastnd.

    When the number of the chasing monsters had reached the dozen, the kid increased his speed in what Daniel believed to be hisst outburst of energy before running out of it.

    Unfortunately, the monsters appeared to have a strength at the peak of the third rank, so, they were still able to keep up.

    In order to avoid being caught, the kid kept turning behind the various buildings, and taking shortcuts that forced the pack of monsters to be slowed down.

    From his aerial view, Daniel could see that the kid was going towards a dead end. At the end of the road he was running in, there was only a small sized square with no other exists.. If he were to end up there, he would be trapped.

    Despite the kids apparent experience, he still run straight forward into the closed square.

    In the end, he finished with his back against the wall.. Curled and screaming in fear as the pack of monsters reached him.

    When the first monsters entered the square, instead of attacking the kid, they started to growl at each other.. The kid was clearly not enough food for all of them, so, a battle for deciding to whom the spoils would go had to take ce.

    This had shown Daniel that these monsters weren¡¯tpletely devoid of intelligence, and at the very least, they were as smart as ranked beasts of the same level.

    Daniel had seen enough. He unsheathed his swords, and jumped down the roof of the tall buildings he was standing on.

    As he fell, he shed in the air, and sent half a dozen of ki waves towards the ground.

    Each ki attack split two of the monsters in half.

    These six attacks were so fast, that in order to learn which attack had reached the ground faster, one would need to slow time by a hundred times.

    He thennded heavily on his feet, right in front of the kid.

    *thump*

    Without having the chance to feel the pain on the back of his head, Daniel fell on the ground unconscious.

    Right before losing his sense, he saw the kid calmly get up on his feet, and dust his body with his small hands.

 Chapter 120 The Wasteland World - Inhabitants

    Thanks to Daniel¡¯s enhanced brain, he was able to wake within minutes after being knocked unconscious.

    When he woke up, he found himself tied to a thick tree branch. His head was hurting, and he was able to feel his pulse on the part of the head he had been hit on.

    The tree branch on which he had been tied was being carried by two thin men, which carried him without showing a hint of fatigue.

    "I hope that hit put some sense into your head.. You have to start watching your back.." Said Sewah from inside Daniel¡¯s head.

    Daniel shook his head, almost as if trying to remove the dizziness from his body. He then responded "I didn¡¯t feel any attack.. Even with my surrounding awareness.."

    "This is where things get interesting.. They took everything you have hehe.." Added Sewah while giggling.

    After hearing Sewah¡¯s words, Daniel opened his eyes in shock. He immediately tried to touch his ring finger with his other hand, and around it, he found no rings. His swords had disappeared as well.

    Daniel tried to look around as inconspicuously as possible.

    He was being carried on a mountain road.

    Ahead of the two men that were dragging his body, was only arge and muscr man.

    Behind the two men, was a long line of people which possessed physical characteristics simr to the kid. Their skin was greyish in color, and their body was covered in ck spots, which after seeing up close, Daniel confirmed them to be some sort of skin condition, and not any form of painting.

    Therge number of people in the back were dragging the carcasses of the big number of small-sized monsters they had killed, while sitting on the shoulders of the muscr man to the front, was the kid Daniel had tried to save.

    It was at this moment that Daniel realized that he had meddled with a scripted hunting strategy.

    As it was now, he was feeling very anxious. The ring which contained everything he owned, along with a the pocket dimension which contained hundreds of thousands of people, and all of his closest friends, had been taken away.

    He quietly dangled from the branch, and waited for a chance to present itself.

    This chance appeared about an hourter.. When a gigantic flying monster appeared in the air, and dived towards the group of hunters at full speed.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of this, but the hunters were prepared for this kind of situations, and had picked this mountain path because it had numerous hiding spot every hundred or two hundred meters, in which they could hide in case this happened.

    The hunters dashed towards a well hidden cave, and entered it.

    The flying monsternded directly on the entrance of the cave, and tried to stick its head in, in order to peck the hunters with its five meters long beak.. but the entrance of the cave was curved, so, the monster was only able to break a portion of the stone wall.

    The pieces of rock detached from the stone wall and fell on the entrance, covering itpletely, and causing the airborne monster to give up on the party of hunters and fly away.

    Inside the cave, a few des of light prate the deep darkness.

    At the front of the group, facing the blocked entrance, was the muscr hunter which acted as the spearhead of the group of hunters.

    He had let the little kid down from his shoulder, and approached the blocked entrance.

    Then, he punched therge pile of rocks.

    *BOOM*

    As his fist touched therge pile of rocks, a loud crashing sound was heard.

    Arge amount of light prated into the dark cave, as the passage was opened once again.

    Therge and muscr man turned to look at the kid, but the moment he turned around, the kid was not there anymore.

    Suddenly, he heard shoutsing from behind him.

    The two men that were holding Daniel tied to arge branch, were now holding the branch alone, and right underneath, was a cut rope.

    The man felt a shiver run down his spine. He dashed out of the cave, and looked around.

    On a hill, just a couple dozen meters away from the cave entrance, Daniel was standing behind the kid with his hand t against the boy¡¯s neck.

    Therge man tried to take a step towards him, but as Daniel saw the hint of a movement, he shed his hand against a nearby boulder. The moment of the sh, his hand became light blue and extremely bright.

    Even though a few meters distant, the boulder was cut cleanly in half.

    With a visibly worried face, the muscr man looked at Daniel and said "T¡¯ret rah h¡¯rraji?"

    Daniel was oblivious to what that sentence meant, but he didn¡¯t need to know thenguage to understand.

    He pointed at his ring finger with his hand, and made a circr movement.

    The signal was clear.. He wanted what was around his finger back.. Immediately.

    His hand started to glow once again, as he put it nearback on the kid¡¯s neck once again.

    "H¡¯ar!" Shouted the man in slight panic. He then turned towards the group of hunters, and shouted what looked like a name "Kih¡¯rha"

    A twenty-five or so year old man approached the muscr man. On his body, Daniel could see his two rings, and the two swords that belonged to him.

    "Nir¡¯ha egdij jah¡¯ar" Said the muscr man with an orderly tone.

    "Jiguah!" Responded the young man with surprise, and a hit of anger.

    "Yeh!" Shouted the man in response.

    The young man lowered his head in obedience, then, he removed the rings from his fingers and threw them at Daniel.

    The muscr man looked back at Daniel, and after raising his arm, he made an unequivocable gesture that meant "Your turn."

    Daniel shook his head left and right, then, he looked at the young man, which was now looking at him furiously, and tapped his hand on his waist.

    The young man, which immediately understood what Daniel meant, turned to look at the muscr man, which in response, nodded at him.

    After receiving the nod from the muscr man, the young man removed the two swords from his waist, but instead of giving them back to Daniel, he held them high up in the air.

    Daniel grabbed the back of the kid¡¯s neck by what looked like a fur made out of a monster¡¯s pelt, and threw him towards the muscr man.

    Before the kid could reach the muscr man, he had already arrived in front of the young man.

    Unfortunately, the young man was no pushover. It was in fact him who had knocked Daniel unconscious, and the moment Daniel got close, he brandished a rudimental axe and attacked him without thinking about it twice.

    The hunter¡¯s way of fighting was extremely efficient, but they were mostly used to fighting monsters.

    Their power was impressive, and on par with ninth rank martial cultivators, but theycked training for one on one fighting.

    One of the ways of fighting Daniel had learned from the many masters he had fought against, was hand to handbat.

    The young man shed hisrge axe against him, but he was easily able to dodge to the left with his torso. He then grabbed the wrist that held the axe, and twisted it clockwise, causing the young man¡¯s arm to be tense.

    He then tried to dislocate the young man¡¯s arm by hitting the back of his shoulder, but his body was too hard. Instead, it forced him to fall on the ground face first.

    Immediately, he put a knee to his neck and kept him down as he twisted his arm behind his back. Then, he took the swords from the young man¡¯s hand.

    Once he finished recovering his weapons, he put them back into his spatial ring.

    The view of him making his sword disappear out of the blue shocked the hunters greatly.

    They were so shocked, that their reaction could be onlypared to the first time men discovered how to make spatial containers. Their eyes were wide open, their brows arched in surprise, and their breath was held in their lungs.

    The one who had retained his calm the most, was therge and muscr man, which dashed towards Daniel from behind, and before Daniel could react, grabbed the back of his neck.

    Feeling the extreme power emanated by the man¡¯s body, Daniel had no choice but to stop fighting back.

    The muscr man¡¯s power and speed were impressive. After witnessing them only once, Daniel was convinced that, if this man appeared in his world of origin, he would be considered the man with the most advanced body in the history of his world¡¯s humanoid species.

    The essence he emanated was the usual death-like essence, but it was purer and felt much more dangerous. Not even the injured man, or the monsters that had devoured it, possessed as much speed and power as this man showed.

    The only monster who Daniel guessed could have probably hurt this man, was the dragon he had met in his original world, and the airborne beast that had attacked them on their way back.

    Surprise was present in the muscr man as well, as when he touched Daniel¡¯s body, he felt an odd and different form of essence being emanated from him.

    What surprised him the most, was that despite having reached this kind of power, Daniel waspletely devoid of the familiar death-like essence.

    The young man immediately got up from the ground, and looked at Daniel with eyes filled with humiliation and rage.

    Then, as the muscr man was holding him still.. The young man grabbed his axe and prepared himself to cut Daniel in pieces, but then, the voice of the muscr man stopped him.

    "Ja."

    The young man showed an unsatisfied expression.

    He let the handle of the axe slide a few centimeters lower, and then, he hit Daniel¡¯s head with the bottom of the handle.. Knocking him unconscious once again.

    It is important to point out one thing.

    A martial cultivator¡¯s organs are enhanced during the first rank of cultivation, and every other rank after that, they are further enhanced. That makes their organs a lot more efficient and resistant, and would usually make a cultivator¡¯s life easier if they were hit on their organs.. But that didn¡¯t mean that their organs would not receive damages.

    Daniel¡¯s brain would easily recover from a head injury after a mere few minutes, but consecutive head injuries would certainly knock him out for an exponentially longer time.

    In this case, the power of the hit was powerful enough to knock Daniel unconscious for five hours.

    -----

    When Daniel woke up, he was once again stripped of his weapons, but still had his rings.

    Daniel¡¯s guess was that, for the hunters, the rings had nothing to do with the "magic" he had shown.

    He was currently chained into a specially built cage that these hunters used to keep monsters in, and was able to easily resist the strongest of Daniel¡¯s ki attacks.

    His surroundings were shroud in darkness, and only a few mes in the distance gave a hint of what was around him.

    His cage was inside a small sized cave which seemed to be a study, orb of sorts.

    On one of the sides of the room, was a table. On the table, where items that looked like alchemical ingredients, instruments, and books in foreignnguage.

    On the other side of the room, was a second small table with various books and papers strewn all over.

    In front of his cage, was a passage which, based on the chatting noises that came from it, lead to the rest of arger cave.

    After a few minutes, the chattering noises stopped, and from the dark passage, and old man appeared.

    This old and wrinkly man was simr to the other humanoids. The only difference, was that his ck spot could not really be considered spots anymore, and instead, had merged into an extremely clear birthmark that covered half of his body.

    The old man stopped in front of Daniel and looked attentively at him.

    In response, Daniel sat on the ground in silence. He opened his palm, and made a clean and juicy looking fruit appear in his hand. Then, he stated to munch on it.

 Chapter 121 The Wasteland World - Essence of Corruption

    The old man looked at Daniel and at the fruit with a fascinated expression.

    Due to the smell, the bright colors, and the plump and delicious appearance, he could not help but swallow a big mouthful of saliva.

    Once Daniel finished eating the fruit, he put the pit into his mouth, and crashed it with his teeth, as if he was an impatient kid unwilling to wait for the candy to melt in his mouth.

    "K¡¯ah harujia hai?" said the old man while indicating at his own mouth.

    A slight smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face. He made another fruit appear in his hand.. Then, he sliced a small piece of it, and threw it through the gate¡¯s bars with way more power than needed.

    The old man¡¯s movements were instantaneous.

    He stretched his right arm and grabbed the piece of fruit that was flying in the air at high speed. He then smelled it, ran his fingers over it, felt its juicy consistency.. And finally, put it in his mouth.

    The moment the old man tasted the fruit, his eyes opened wide in delight.

    His following reaction was simr to that of a kid that had tasted sugar for the first time in his life.

    He brushed his white hair in disbelief, and turned to look at Daniel as if he had been just pped out of the blue.

    With visible excitement, the old man opened the cage, entered it, and then sat in front of Daniel.

    From the old man¡¯s quick movements, Daniel had guessed that this gracile-looking old man was nowhere nearly as week as he appeared to be. In fact, he seemed to be stronger than the muscr man himself, which exined hispleteck of worry when approaching him.

    The old man looked at Daniel with stupor, then, he stretched his hand towards him.

    From the drool that threatened to drip down the corners of the old man¡¯s mouth, and the sight of his tongue moving over his lip continuously, Daniel could guess what the old man wanted.

    He made the rest of the previously cut fruit appear in his hand once again, but just as he was about to put it on the old man¡¯s palm, he made it disappear once again.

    The old man looked at Daniel in confusion.

    With the old man¡¯s attention on him, Daniel quickly indicated at one of the books which he had seen on the table in the left side of the room.

    Before Daniel could even notice his movement, the old man had left the cage, approached the table, grabbed a book, moved back into the cage, and closed the gate behind him.

    Daniel was able to feel his movements with his surrounding awareness, but his speed was so fast, that he wasn¡¯t able to follow it with his own eyes.

    The old man gave the book to Daniel without even thinking about it, but instead of epting it, Daniel started to gesture in response.

    He made different and consequential signs. One for opening the book, one for looking at the words, and one for reading them.

    Daniel¡¯s objective was to associate the pronunciation with the symbol.

    He had already memorized the symbols whichposed this human-like race¡¯s alphabet, but the book couldn¡¯t teach him the pronunciation.

    While Daniel attempted to give indications to the old man, he noticed that the symbols were slightly different from the ones he had read in the bookstore.

    They were still simr, but also presented clear and frequent changes.

    He had seen this sort of changes between the ancient and modern versions of a human¡¯snguage during his studies in the library of his castle.. But this level of evolution ofnguage, was only something that he had seen in scriptures thousands of years older from their modern versions.. Not just four, like he had guessed form the state of the abandoned city.

    For the following hour, Daniel would indicate a symbol he wanted to know how to pronounce, and the man would pronounce it.

    Every now and then the old man would get tired of it, but whenever Daniel thought he was about to leave, he would give him another piece of fruit.

    After two full hours, Daniel was starting to have difficulties in finding symbols whose pronunciation he hadn¡¯t heard yet, and soon enough, the old man finished pronouncing each and every symbol contained within the book.

    Suddenly, he seemed to remember something important. He got up on his feet, and as he was about to dash out of Daniel¡¯s cell, a woman¡¯s shout could be heard from within the dark corridor. It said "Jiguah!"

    As the man heard the woman¡¯s voice, he turned to look back at Daniel, and waved his hand in salutation.

    Then, he disappeared from the room before a middle aged woman barged in with a furious expression. "JIGUAH!!" She shouted once again.

    This woman hadmon feature, and didn¡¯t appear beautiful to Daniel¡¯s standards. She was more heavily clothed whenpared to the hunters, and the amount of ck spots on her body was simr to that of the muscr man.

    If Daniel had to guess, he would say that she seemed to be angry at the old man for disappearing before she could scold him.

    She took a couple of minutes to calm down, then, she wore her most serious expression, and started to observe Daniel through the bars of the cell.

    In Daniel¡¯s hands, she saw one of her books. He was holding it opened on his legs, and was pointing at each symbol with his index while reading it out loud.

    The woman looked at Daniel with interest. Then, she said "K¡¯joah nar nahaj¡¯ha?"

    Daniel looked back at her, but didn¡¯t answer.

    Noticing theck of response, the woman pointed at her mouth, then at her ears, and finally, at her head. Her meaning was clear.. She meant "Can you understand?"

    Daniel shook his head in response.

    The middle aged woman crossed her arms and observed Daniel for a few minutes. Then, the two started tomunicate through the use of signs.

    At some point during this slow conversation, Daniel had asked the woman to talk while gesticting. This had confused her, but only for the first couple of hours.

    During the following two hours of conversation, the woman and Daniel talked about where he came from, what was the strange energy contained in his body, and about something that Daniel believed to be one of the important information he had obtained since entering this world.

    Through a series of seemingly random signals, the woman had asked him how did he manage to avoid contamination.

    Daniel didn¡¯t answer at first, but then, as the woman was about to leave, she heard Daniel¡¯s voice from behind say in hernguage.

    "Whhat do yuu meam with ¡¯Contraminattion¡¯.."?

    The woman turned to look at Daniel with a dumbfounded expression.

    What prevented her from thinking that Daniel was simply pretending not to be able to talk theirnguage, was the fact that he hadn¡¯t spoken a single word that she hadn¡¯t pronounced during thest couple of hours of conversation.

    "Do you understand me now?" Asked the middle aged woman without making gestures.

    In response, Daniel looked back at her, and in hernguage, he said "Jhust a bith.."

    The woman couldn¡¯t help but smile at Daniel¡¯s incredible ability ofprehension. From knowing nothing at all, to being able to talk like a four year old kid in the span of two hours, was a huge feat of intelligence.

    During the next couple of days, Daniel learned a great deal of the woman¡¯s culture.

    Apparently, their world was not different from Daniel¡¯s world of origin, once.. before it became like this.

    ording to the woman¡¯s knowledge regarding her world¡¯s history.. She knew that her race had its own unique power which they called ¡¯Aura¡¯.

    The aura was directly connected to their life, and by ¡¯cultivating¡¯ it, they would have a chance to be more powerful, and even extend their lifespan of hundreds of years.

    Unfortunately, when their civilization was at the peak of its power.. A group of warriors with magical powers had appeared.

    This group of overwhelmingly powerful mages started to roam their world, ughtering and destroying anything that was in their path.. Causing hundreds of millions, if not billions of deaths.

    After years of roaming their world without anyone that could stop them, the strongest warriors of their time had decided to form a united front against them, in hope that together, they would be able to put an end to the atrocities they caused.

    The n worked.

    Despite the decimation of the world¡¯s strongest experts, in the end, the group of mages were ughtered once and for all.

    Unfortunately for their race, that was the beginning of the end for them.

    Tranting what Daniel had heard into his ownprehension, he had more or less understood what had happened next.

    Basically, the impressive amount of death caused by the group of mages had overcharged the world with more death essence than necessary.

    After a critical point had been reached, various portals had opened all around the wastnd world, and from these portals, the monsters monsters came out.

    These monsters emanated a feeling of death, and whatever they touched, would end up being devoured by their death-like power.

    Of course, Daniel knew much more about essence than the woman did.

    He knew that the essence that corrupted everything was not essence of death. Death essence was calm, peaceful, and was only able to devour life essence from living beings like nts, trees, human and beasts.

    What had turned those beasts into monsters, and had now changed the inhabitants ¡¯aura¡¯ into death-like essence, was something different.

    In order to avoid confusion, Daniel had refer to this essence as ¡¯essence of corruption¡¯.

    Daniel could clearly feel that the aura of the woman¡¯s race was extremely different from ki, as ki wasn¡¯t enough to bring people over the ninth stage of martial cultivation, nor could it increase a person¡¯s life span.

    Another information that Daniel had obtained from the woman, was that the ck spots on the people¡¯s body indicated their "cultivation" or level of corruption.

    What once brought them power and longevity, had been corrupted.

    Their corrupted aura was created by their body, just like ki was, but they increased in power in a way much more simr to Daniel¡¯s original world¡¯ ranked beasts, than human. They did not have beast cores, but by feeding off of other types of powers contained, for example, in the monter¡¯s flesh, they would be able to refill their internal storage of aura, and use it when they needed it.

    Their storage of aura would slowly get used to the limited amount of power, and it would slowly increase with time.

    This is how the natives of this world cultivated.

    Unfortunately, the monsters that had arrived from the portals thousands of years ago, had corrupted everything in the world.. Daniel could feel it.

    Of one thing Daniel was sure. There was no connection to the spiritual in whatsoever in this world. Otherwise, people would have sooner orter found a way to cultivate their spirits.

    After two days of conversation, Daniel had be fully capable of talking thenguage of his captors.

    He had been given books to read, and food to eat, but he refused to touch any of the food he was given, as he didn¡¯t wish to be corrupted by it.

    After a week of imprisonment, Daniel had finally learned what the woman¡¯s job was in theirmunity.

    She was what in her world would be called an alchemist, and studied the monster, their essence, and tried to find ways to slow, or possibly remove, the corruption contained in their food.

    The corruption did not prevent people or monsters from procreating, and newborn babies or beasts weren¡¯t corrupted since birth, as corruption regarded the essence contained in the food and not the meat itself.

    Therefore, when a baby was born, the level of corruption contained in his or her body would be only a small portion of that contained in the food the mother had consumed during her pregnancy.

 Chapter 122 The Wasteland World - Cultivation

    "What are you doing?" Asked Daniel to the seemingly busy middle aged woman.

    Without looking back at him, the woman said "Preparing some detoxifying powder."

    "What is that?"

    "It slows the contamination of our bodies.. If we use this, we are able to absorb more of the natural power of what we eat.. And less contamination." Responded the woman with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "What do you use to make it?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "It¡¯s a mix we make from contaminated nts and the parts of the boies of the monsters which contain the least power of contamination." Responded the woman, now slightly irritated by Daniel¡¯s distracting questions.

    Daniel observed the entire process, and after only seeing it once, he memorized it.

    What he had understood from observing this process, was that the corrupted living items would retain a small bit of life essence. This life essence was protected from corruption by none other than death itself.

    Life and death are opposite parts of a duality. They seeked each other¡¯s destruction, but do not allow anything else to meddle with never ending struggle.

    A person¡¯s premature death was a lucky event for death essence, while a person who managed to prolong their life, was a lucky event for life essence.

    This was the reason why, in a world where everything was being corrupted by an essence that resembled so much death essence itself, it was still impossible for it topletely eradicate life.

    Just like darkness followed and hid from light, and light would struggle to push back darkness.. Life would struggle to keep death essence at bay, while death did not allow any other essence to consume life.

    -----

    "What do I have to do to get out of this cell?" Asked Daniel to the still upied woman.

    The woman turned to look at him once again, and said "First of all.. Our head hunter would love to know how do you make items appear and disappear at will.. Mhh.." As she reached this point, the woman¡¯s demeanor appeared to change. She appeared to be slightly embarrassed.

    "My father wants to know if you have any more of those fruits.."

    "HAhahah!" Daniel couldn¡¯t help butugh at the woman¡¯s words. He had long learned about the meaning of the word "Jiguah".. Or how he would say it.. "Father".

    He had also learned that the young man which had knocked him out twice was the son of the muscr man, and that the event he happened to stumble in wasn¡¯t exactly a hunting trip.. But more of a ¡¯baptizing of fire¡¯.

    Due to the extremely hard condition of the wastnd world, the kids were forced to go through a baptize of fire when they reached the age of ten years old.

    They would be left alone, and left with the assignment of attracting as many monsters within a set ambush spot as they could. If they survived, and managed to attract at least ten monsters, they would be considered adults, and would be taken out of the cave for future hunting trips.

    "Why didn¡¯t you say so earlier?!" asked Daniel animatedly. If what they wanted him to do was just that, he would have done it sooner. "Call your father and the head hunter.. I can how them right away.."

    "There is one more thing.." said the woman with a more serious tone. After a slight pause, she added "You must eat."

    Daniel¡¯s brows furrowed. He finally understood why he was being kept in aboratory.

    To be more specific, Daniel had already guessed this woman¡¯s intention towards him. Why else would they be interested in his unique type of power?, why would they recount the story of how their world had been corrupted?.. Why would they give him food every day despite the fact that he could summon his own food at will?.

    They wanted to expose Daniel to the world¡¯s corruption.

    Under the solemn look of the middle aged woman, Daniel shrugged his shoulders and said "I don¡¯t have a choice, do I?"

    "I¡¯m afraid not.." Responded the middle aged woman with an apologetic tone.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t manage to feel hostility towards this tribe. They lived inside a cave.. And fought powerful monsters on a daily basis just to survive.. Causing themselves to be contaminated further by the corruption that had destroyed their whole world.

    After the woman finished talking, she called for her father toe in. He was standing in the dark passage that lead outside of theb room.

    In his hands, the man had arge piece of raw meat of unknown origin.

    All that Daniel was able to see, was that it belonged to some sort ofrge flying monster.

    Unlike the beast cores formed within the bodies of the ranked beasts back in Daniel¡¯s original world, which would produce, store, and spread the power all through the beast¡¯s body.. The power inside the monster¡¯s body was everywhere.

    Each piece of meat emanated an impressive amount of corrupted essence.

    Now that Daniel was able to touch a piece of high level meat, he was able to finallypare it to his own power.

    What he found out shocked him greatly.

    This single piece of bird-like monster¡¯s meat had so much power, that if put next to a beast core of the ninth level, the two would have a difference in power simr to the one a cultivator at the sixth rank and a ninth rank martial cultivator would have.

    There was no need to say, that the corruption hadpletely taken over the meat of the monster.

    With no other choice, Daniel started to munch on this arm-sized piece of meat.

    He ate it so fast, that before he could feel any result, he had already finished it.

    The old man and the middle aged woman looked at him attentively.

    Once Daniel finished eating, he sat on the ground, and started to observe the power contained within his stomach.

    The first thing he noticed, was that simrly to all other powers, he was able to use the monster¡¯s power to increase his martial and spiritual cultivation.

    Since the very first moment he had found out about the absence of a connection between this world and the spiritual in, he had feared that he would not be able to cultivate his spirit.

    He could have confirmed the truth sooner by simply using one of his beast cores to cultivate, but he was afraid that, if he lost his consciousness while cultivating, he would idently absorb some of the essence which seemed to be integrant part of anything in this world.

    Now that he had no choice but to cultivate, he had learned that he didn¡¯t actually need a connection to the spiritual ne to cultivate his spirit.. Or that maybe, he was able to due to the fact that his body and spirit were one step away from fully merging.

    Completely focused, Daniel started to absorb the impressive amount of power contained in the food he had just eaten.

    After forty-eight hours, Daniel had reached the peak of the eighth rank in both paths of cultivation, and a few ck spots had appeared on his face, arms and legs.

    The ck spots becamerger andrger, until, after five days, During his breakthrough to the ninth stage, they had merged.. Turning his arms, legs, face and neckpletely ck.

    After ten more days, Daniel¡¯s body had be almostpletely ck, with the only part left of it¡¯s healthy pink color being the center of his chest.. He had reached thete ninth rank of both martial and spiritual cultivation.

    The leftover power that still roamed in his body was not enough to allow him to charge to the peak of the ninth rank of cultivation, so, he decided to stop.

    The old man and the woman had observed him for the entire time, and the more they looked, the more shocked they felt.

    Their tribe¡¯s increase in power wasn¡¯t slow by any means, as they usually had a lot of food to eat.. But what had surprised the two of them, was that Daniel could absorb so much of the power before the corruption could consume himpletely.

    Unfortunately, the real shock for the two of them, started right after Daniel stopped cultivating.

    Under request from the old man, Daniel had removed his shirt while cultivating, as he wanted to observe how the corruption would propagate in his body.

    When Daniel stopped cultivating, after only a few moments, he fell on his fours.

    His blood was literally boiling, the defined muscles contracted and rxed constantly.. His bones pressed one against each other, and his veins bulged and dted to allow the extremely hot and fast flux of blood to circte at a higher speed.

    The pitch ck color on his body started to retract, starting from the spot that hadn¡¯t been affected.

    Daniel spent the next few hours in panic and agony, as his body seemed to have lost control.. Only after the corruption disappearedpletely from his skin, did his body rx, and went back to functioning normally.

    Still under shock from the horrifying experience, Daniel slowly got up on his feet.. With legs trembling like leaves, and chest swelling and deting at a crazy rhythm.

    As Daniel¡¯ breathing was about to go back to normal, and the color on his face was about to go back from bright red to his healthy rosy color.. He suddenly bent forward and vomited an extremelyrge amount of ck liquid.

    The old man and the middle aged woman were petrified. The panicked screams of Daniel had made them doubt more than once if what they were doing was right.. But after seeing Daniel rejecting the corruption that had been the bane of their entire world, all doubts disappeared in front of a newfound hope.

    Even while vomiting an incrediblyrge amount of ck liquid, Daniel¡¯s mind was lucid, and he was thinking about what had happened to him.

    During his cultivation, Daniel had noticed something very surprising.. And that something, was that hisbination of spirit and body was able to fight against the essence of corruption.

    If Daniel hadn¡¯t kept cultivating, his unique essence would have easily purged the essence of corruption from his body. But since his speed in absorption was highly increased by his karmic system, his power wasn¡¯t able to cope with therge amount of corruption that he was taking in, and he was slowly and sessfully being corrupted.

    The moment he had stopped cultivating, and the essence of corruption was stopped spreading through his body.. His extreme production of unique essence started to rapidly attack the essence of corruption, and purge Daniel¡¯s body from it.

    There was something of which Daniel was certain. If he hadn¡¯t stopped cultivating and let the essence of corruption invade his bodypletely, his very source of clean essence would have been corrupted as well, and he would have be no different from the inhabitants of the wastnd world.

    Still panting, Daniel looked at the middle aged woman, and said "Will you let me out now?.."

    The woman recovered from her shock, then said with an apologetic tone "I am sorry Daniel.. If the result had been any different.. I would have let you go.. But you are the only hope for our world now.. So I can¡¯t."

    Daniel expected as much.

    Unfortunately for him.. The bane of this essence of corruption was the only thing that these people would never be able to obtain.. And that, was a powerful spirit.

    "What will you do with me now?" Asked Daniel while sitting back on the ground, and putting his shirt back on. "You must have thought that you can¡¯t give me any more meat.. Or sooner orter, I¡¯d be powerful enough to get out of here.. So, what happens now?"

    The middle aged woman turned to look at her father, then she said "We¡¯ll see.."

 Chapter 123 The Wasteland World - Plans

    "Can I at least see where I¡¯m being kept?.. I know nothing of this world but what you¡¯ve told me about it. I would like to see more of it." Said Daniel with a bored tone.

    "I¡¯m afraid that won¡¯t be possible." Responded the middle aged woman without even thinkin about it.

    "Let him out.." Said the old man inly.

    The woman turned to look at the old man in surprise, while saying "Father!"

    "The kid wasn¡¯t angry after you¡¯ve told him that he¡¯ll probably be your focus of research.. He knew that you wouldn¡¯t let him go, way before he asked. It¡¯s also true that he knows nothing of this world.. And about how dangerous the monsters outside are.." Said the old man with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Why let him out then?"

    The old man looked at Daniel, then added "Because even with his current power.. There are thousands of people in the tribe that can p him unconscious.. Just let him out, I¡¯ll keep an eye on him."

    "Okay.. But I do hope it¡¯s not because of those fruits you can¡¯t stop talking about.."

    "It¡¯s not." Responded the old man inly, before moving towards Daniel cage, and opening it.

    Daniel slowly walked out of the room and approached the old man, which in response, touched his arm.

    The old man¡¯s eyes opened widely in shock. He had never imagined that Daniel¡¯s progress in cultivation would be this fast. He looked towards his daughter and said "I stand corrected.. Hundreds of people.. It¡¯s better we don¡¯t feed him any more powerful monster¡¯s meat.." Then, after letting go of Daniel¡¯s arm, he turned towards the dark corridor and started walking.

    Daniel followed him right away.

    As the two were walking in the dark corridor, the old man looked at Daniel sideways and said "I was lying.. I do want a few more of those fruits.. hehe"

    -----

    At the end of what looked like a kilometer long dark corridor, Daniel started to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

    After a few more minutes, they were finally out.

    What appeared in front of Daniel, was something that seemed to be a cave within the bellows of an empty mountain.

    The end of the tunnel lead on a ledge on the side of the wall of the cave. From over it, Daniel could see the extremelyrge underground city.

    The sound of talking, shouting, screaming could be hearding from all around.

    Street vendors, artisans finishing their work right outside of their houses, and kids under ten years of age yed around.

    The houses were carved on the walls of the cave, or on therge boulders in the middle. Their entrances made the cave appear like a wasps nest.

    If Daniel hadn¡¯t seen the state this world was in, and couldn¡¯t see the ck spots of contamination of the people¡¯s bodies, he would guess that this was just a peculiar and normal city.

    "Say young man.. You already know why you haven¡¯t been corrupted.. Right?" Asked the old man casually while munching on a ripe and juicy fruit.

    "I do."

    "Care to share?" Asked the old man, still maintaining his casual tone.

    Daniel was aware of the reason why the old man had let him out of the cage. He hadn¡¯t believed the old man¡¯ world, as they weren¡¯t spoken to trick him, but his daughter. His real motive for letting Daniel out, was to make leverage on hispassion, and to try to extract informations that his daughter would never be able to obtain with any of her tests.

    "You will never be able to be immune to the corruption of this world."

    "And why is that?" Asked the old man to Daniel.

    Daniel looked back at him with an apologetic expression, then said "This world simplyck the type of power that might allow you to build a resistance to the essence of corruption."

    "What power is that?" Asked the old man with curiosity.

    Daniel sighed deeply, then said "It¡¯s a power called spiritual essence. It¡¯s used to refine the spirit.. Which from what I¡¯ve learned after absorbing the monster¡¯s corrupted essence, is exactly what you¡¯d need to shield yourself from the effect of the essence of corruption."

    "Can you demonstrate to me the use of this ¡¯spiritual essence?" asked the old man while taking ast bite of the fruit.

    "That¡¯s the problem. Spiritual essence isn¡¯t produced.. It¡¯s exchanged with the spiritual in.. A power thates from another in.. I guess it¡¯s simr to the essence of corruption in that.." Said Daniel with a pensive tone. He then added "If I had it, I would be able to create clean water.. Pure air.. Speed time, and even heal injuries."

    Just as Daniel finished speaking, an idea shed in his mind. He asked "Can you tell me more about those ¡¯mages¡¯ that caused the corruption of your world?"

    "We don¡¯t know much about them.. It¡¯s history thousands of years old." Said the old man in response.

    "Did they have a base?"

    "Yes.." Said the old man with a dispirited tone, then, he added "It¡¯s where thergest of the portals is said to have appeared. It¡¯ a prohibited ce.."

    Daniel¡¯s brows furrowed in surprise "Prohibited by who? I thought there was no one left to enforce something like that."

    "It¡¯s not a prohibition enforced by us.. Not all the corrupted monsters are as stupid as the ones you¡¯ve seen."

    -----

    Inside an extremelyrge underground castle carved into the northern side of the mountain.

    Ten men were standing in front of three old people. These three old people sat onrge chairs made out of ck bones.

    Part of these three old people were two old women, which upied the chair in the middle, and the one on the right, and an old man which sat on the chair to the left.

    The old woman in the middle was heavily dressed with monster¡¯s pelts. Her hair were ck despite her age, and the corruption on her body was as heavy as the old man that was chatting with Daniel. She represented the schrs of the tribe.

    The old man was extremely robust looking, and lying on the armrest of his chair, was an enormous monster tooth which had been carved to the shape of a rudimentary greatsword. He sat on the chair to the left, and represented the defenders of the city, or how they would be called in Daniel¡¯s words.. The warriors. His body waspletely covered in ck, with no spot left of its natural greyish color.

    The clothes of the second andst old woman¡¯s weren¡¯t heavy, but her body was fully covered. Despite her age, she seemed to be lean and agile, and on the ground next to her chair, she kept a bow and a quiver filled with arrows. The corruption on her body was almostplete, and only a few spots on her face were of a lighter grey color. She represented the hunters.

    These three, were part of the triumvirate that lead the people of the tribe..

    In front of them, were the middle aged man which had captured Daniel, along with his two sons and the rest of his hunting party.

    "Tell me about him." Said the old man while looking at the head hunter.

    "He seems to be younger than my son, and his cultivation is only slightly worse. His fighting abilities cannot even bepared to that of our own warriors, in fact.. I mean no disrespect sir, but I doubt there is anyone who would be able to match him in hand to handbat skills if at the same level of power." Responded the head hunter.

    "Your words do not surprise me.. What would a hunter know.. How do you know he isn¡¯t a member of our race that found a way to avoid contamination?" Asked the old man slightly irritated by the middle aged man¡¯s words.

    "His skin is.. Well.. it¡¯s not naturally grey like ours. It¡¯ rosy. Plus, he emanates a power very different from our aura.. There is no doubt that he isn¡¯t part of our race."

    "Where is he now?" Asked the old woman that sat in the middle chair.

    "As per protocol, we have handed him over to the Schr Lucious and his daughter, Schr Lara." Said the middle aged man, then, after a brief pause, he added. "Now, if you will excuse us, we have to prepare for our next hunting trip."

    The old woman that represented the hunters said "How was the baptize of your child? You said that the kid interfered."

    "He did, but after my sonpleted his task."

    "Very well.. You may all go." Said the old woman with a dismissive tone.

    After the groups of hunters left, the representant of the schrs called a young woman which was waitin to the side, and once she approached, said "Go and help schr Lucious and scr Lara in their work. Keep us updated in anything that happens."

    -----

    "So, you¡¯re telling me that there is a hierarchy amongst the monsters.. that there is one powerful and strong enough to rule them all.. And that the base of the ¡¯mages¡¯ is within their area?" Asked Daniel with a stifled expression.

    "That¡¯s about right." Responded the old man inly.

    Daniel looked at the old man with as much seriousness as he could muster. Then, he said "What you call ¡¯magic¡¯, sounds exactly like the type of power that I was talking about.. Spiritual essence. If there was a connection to the spiritual in in this world.. Not only would you be able to train your spirit, but would also be immune from the corruption."

    "How can you be so sure that we will be able to use this spiritual essence to cultivate? We don¡¯t even have a simr unique power.. We could be unable to." Responded the old man with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Everything alive has a spirit. But you are right, you wouldn¡¯t be able to use it for the same reason monsters and beasts from my world would not be able to.." Said Daniel with an apologetic tone.

    The moment the old man heard these words, his face changed into one of disappointment.. Until he heard Daniel¡¯s next words.

    ".. You need a weak body to cultivate the spirit. This means that only your children would be able to."

    The face of the old man lit up for a few seconds, then, after thinking of it for a bit, he turned back to his previous disappointment. "It doesn¡¯t matter.. Our children won¡¯t be able to cultivate it before they¡¯ll be corrupted by the food. They¡¯ll need food before they¡¯ll be able to strengthen themselves."

    As the old man finished talking, he looked back at Daniel. He then noticed the extremely wide smile that had appeared on his face, and Daniel¡¯s eyes move on his hand.. The hand in which he was holding the pit of the fruit.

    "There is no way that you have enough clean food for an entire generation of our people to survive.." Said the old man with a bit of irritation.

    Daniel looked back at him with a smile wider than before, and said "Want to bet?"

    The old man truly didn¡¯t believe that Daniel could pull this off.. That he could save his entire tribe.. Or better.. Race. Unfortunately, they had no chance. The corruption had taken over the world, and if they did nothing, sooner orter, the tribes would be wiped out one after the other.

    "Alright.. I¡¯ll talk about it with the Triumvirate."

    "What is that?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "The three leaders of our tribe.. The head shr, the chief hunter, and the strongest of warriors." Responded the old man in an exnatory tone.

    Daniel¡¯s brows arched in curiosity, as he asked "What do you need warriors for?"

    "We are not the only tribe around.. You are lucky we have found you.. Or you might have been inside the cauldron of any of the other cannibalistic tribes in the surroundings."

 Chapter 124 The Wasteland World - Meeting

    "Spiritual essence you say.. Do you believe him, Lucious?" Asked the head schr from her middle seat.

    From in front of the three leaders, the old man that had spoken to Daniel, said "He definitely has a second motive.. There is no reason why he would want to help us.. But that¡¯s as far as my doubts go."

    After a brief pause, he continued "We fed him contaminated meat, and while he was able to drastically increase his power, he also rejected the contamination.. He is able to make clean food appear out of nowhere.. If It¡¯s true that he can free our youngest generation of corruption and render them immune.. We could go back to a time where we were able to live for hundreds of years."

    As he reached this point, he started to talk more animatedly.. As if he was releasing a life worth of ifs and buts "Just one generation.. Just one generation capable of resisting the corruption, and we could explore our world in depth.. Maybe find a clean spot in which we can live.. Isn¡¯t it a future worth taking a risk for?"

    "You seem to put an awful lot of faith in this kid, Lucious.. How are you so sure that he won¡¯t just leave if he were to find a source of spiritual essence.. Or worse.. He¡¯ll grow powerful enough to ughter us all for capturing him?" Asked the old man sitting to the left of the head schr.

    The head schr became quiet for a few minutes, and then, she said "If he really wants to help us, he will have to do it after we conduct the proper tests on him. Even if this was all possible, and I doubt it, I would rather set him free after the research and hope that he¡¯ll still decide to help us, than letting go of our only hope in thousands of years for a promise."

    -----

    After Lucious¡¯s conversation with the triumvirate, Daniel had epted to let himself be used for a few tests and experiments, which were much more humane than one might believe.

    For three months, Daniel ingested various types of concoctions created by the schrs, consistently gave away small portions of blood, and allowed himself to be tested regrly. In exchange to his cooperation, he was allowed to roam the city in thepany of a selected guard.

    The guard that had been selected to keep an eye on Daniel, was a woman in herte twenties.

    Her skin was of a sick grey color. A color which Daniel had learned was the natural tonality of skin of this particr race. The ck spots of on her body turned her arms and legspletely ck, while on the rest of her body, small ck pots covered her body like strange freckles.

    She belonged to the warriors, therefore, her body was covered by small ques of metal over ayer of leather that covered her waist, thighs, breasts, and vambraces, while on her feet, she wore a pair of leather boots.

    Her hair were of a natural green color, a color which was lighter during her youth, and simr to the green color of her eyes.

    Her name was Gai¡¯ha, and her weapon of choice was a short sword and a shield.

    Since Daniel had met Gai¡¯ha, he had formed arge variety of different opinions on her. She was a serious person, and quite talented cultivator. Unfortunately for her, she had been born in a corrupted world, in which she could not shine properly.

    During the past three months, Daniel had recounted to her the majority of his adventures, how life in his world was, and about his ability to create a world with sheerprehension of the elements.

    The reason why Daniel had told her all these things, was simple.

    After three months, he had guessed Gai¡¯ha to be a good person, but that didn¡¯t mean that a good person could not be used as a spy.. And that¡¯s what she was.

    The triumvirate had specifically picked her so that Daniel could open up with her, and reveal things which would convince them whether they could trust him or not.

    Except for the fact that he was carrying a inhabited world on his person, and his karmic system, Daniel had nothing to hide.

    He had considered that, in case he would be able to find a connection to the spiritual in, he would be able to offer entrance to his clean pocket dimension to this tribe.. And grant a better chance than the harsh they led for them and their children.. But then, he had to consider two different matters.

    The first one, was that he would not tell the tribe that he had a ring which contained hundreds of thousands of people, and a clean environment perfect for their race to thrive.

    Secondly, he would not allow them in the pocket dimension unless he was able to match their power. The strongest level of cultivator within his pocket dimension was only at the peak of the ninth stage of cultivation.. And even if paired with the group¡¯s bonus in battle prowess, he was sure that there were hundreds of warriors within the tribe that could easily take over the entire pocket dimension.

    If he were to take them in, he would do it in a different pocket dimension, and once found a way to increase the power of his own people, we would slowly make the two groups encounter, and possibly merge.

    -----

    Back in the underground cave castle.

    "Give us a report of the exams." Said the head schr with an orderly tone.

    "Well.." Said Lara with a dispirited tone, and just a bit of embarrassment. "I was not able to find anything. His blood gets corrupted just like ours with the right amount of corruption, but if the amount is small enough, it simply bounces off. I¡¯ve tried to use his blood on many of our detoxifying concoctions, but the most they did, was to increase the effectiveness, and grant us a forgettable increase in power."

    A grim expression appeared on the faces of the three leaders. The head schr looked at Lara and said "Do you think we should do a more.. In depth research?" She was, of course referring to more invasive ways of research, like vivisection.

    "Head schr.. If I may.. I don¡¯t think we will be able to find anything. If we see the tempistics and reaction to ingesting contaminated meat, we can assume that his words were true. That ¡¯spiritual essence¡¯ he talked about was fighting the contamination as he ¡¯cultivated¡¯, and when he finally stopped increasing his power by getting further contaminated, his spiritual essence fought back and removed the contamination from his body altogether.." Said Lara in a single breath.

    "Why don¡¯t you just give us your opinion on what we should do? You and your father are our best schrs.. That¡¯s why we¡¯ve let you study the outsider." Asked the old man, whose face showed a slightly irritated expression.

    "I think we should ept his deal."

    "Exploring the prohibitednd is not a joke.. We¡¯ll need the help of the other tribes just to get in. There is a good chance that, by simply exposing him to the other tribes, they¡¯ll attack us to do their own research." Said the chief hunter after fixing herself in her own seat.

    "A war could leave the tribe with half of the army for years.. It¡¯s too risky.." Added the old man.

    Lara, which had thought about this matter for three months now, couldn¡¯t help but burst out saying "And what if we don¡¯t!?.. This is all we have left.. Our usual grey rock.. Or usual ck meat.. Don¡¯t you want to be the ones that made the decision that brought our race out of this all-time-low period of our race?"

    The three remained quite, not taking Lara¡¯s loud tone to heart. They knew where her exasperation came from.. After all, the were all in the same situation.

    "I think that we should at least talk to him.. Bring him here." Said the head schr.

    -----

    Daniel was currently training Gai¡¯ha in martial arts.

    The very first time that Daniel had challenged Gai¡¯ha to a sparring match, she hadn¡¯t taken him seriously.

    It was only after her precious sword had been split in two, that she had started to pay attention to Daniel¡¯s teachings.

    Provided that she was much more powerful than he was, her aura would only increase her power and speed, and could not be used to enhance their weapons or moved out of her body. That was the reason why their race did not bother with producing weapons of quality higher than carved bones.

    Therefore, when the two¡¯s swords had shed, Daniel was easily able to cut her normal ¡¯sword¡¯ in half thanks to his sword sharpened with ki.

    Since that day, Daniel had teached her many of the martial arts he knew which focused the focused on raw power, along with swordsmanship, and hand to handbat.

    Unfortunately, the end would always be the same. She would be on the losing end, until finally, exasperation would get the better of her, and she would burst out with her raw power, sending Daniel flying in the air.

    This time was no different.

    The two of them were one over the other, and Daniel had Gai¡¯ha¡¯s head locked in a triangle choke. She had tried to free herself without using more force than what Daniel could produce, but after staying in that embarrassing position for a few long minutes, Gai¡¯ha started to get angry.

    Daniel was carefully observing her expression. Her lips became of a darker color, her eyes were narrowed and directed at his.. The moment Daniel noticed these small details, he let go of her immediately.

    "Okay! There, you¡¯re free." Said Daniel after immediately getting up on his feet and raising his hands in surrender.

    Gai¡¯ha looked at Daniel sideways, then said "So you¡¯re going to abuse me until you¡¯re satisfied, and then let me go before I get a chance to release my stress?.."

    "Woah there.. If you say it like that you make it sound much more perverted than it is." Responded Daniel while taking a few steps backwards.

    Realizing what he had just said, Gai¡¯ha¡¯s pink lips and greyish cheeks became of a darker red color. She immediately charged towards Daniel.

    Unfortunately for her, Daniel had gotten used to her pattern of attacks. Unless she actually increased her speed through the use of her aura, she would never be able to catch up to him.

    "Hahahaha.. OKAY OKAY! I¡¯m sorry! I was just joking.." Said Daniel while giggling and evading left and right.

    Suddenly, a man appeared at the edge of the small training ground in which they were practicing. He wore amon fur attire, and was part of neither of the three major upations within the tribe. He was an emissary of the triumvirate.

    Gai¡¯ha stood up in front of the man, and said "Waiting for orders."

    The man looked back at her, then said "The triumvirate wishes to speak to him."

    Daniel approached the two, and said "It¡¯s about time. Let¡¯s go."

    On their way to the underground castle, Daniel walked in silence as he internally preparing his sales pitch.

    The three of them went across the entire underground city, and entered thergest of the holes within the cave walls.

    They then walked directly inside therge room where the triumvirate was already patiently. At the entrance of the room, Daniel saw Lucious, Lara, and the middle aged man that lead the hunting party that captured Daniel.

    When the six of them entered the room, Daniel walked all the way in front of the three, then, lifted his head to look at the three members of the triumvirate.

    "It¡¯s a pleasure to finally meet you." Said the head schr.

    Following the head schr¡¯s example, the chief hunter and the strongest of the warriors followed suid, and said a few words of greeting.

    Unfortunately, Daniel seemed distracted.

    His face had a dumbfounded expression, and he was starting at a particr piece of metal, which was working as the pommel of the old man¡¯s greatsword..

    This small and round piece of metal, emanated a deep, and powerful metallic essence.

    Daniel immediately recognized it as a perfect metal treasure.

 Chapter 125 The Wasteland World - Gifts and Opinions

    Realizing that he had been staring at the perfect metal treasure for way longer than intended, Daniel shook the surprise off of his head, and said "Oh.. it¡¯s my pleasure to finally meet the triumvirate."

    The three of them narrowed their eyes in response to Daniel odd behaviour.

    The head schr looked at him, and said "I hope the treatment that you¡¯ve had to endure for thest few months wasn¡¯t more than you could handle. We apologize for that."

    "It¡¯s alright. I understand the burden of having to take care of such arge number of people. It¡¯s.. not as easy as many believe to be cope with the pressure and needs of everyone." Responded Daniel with a calm and polite tone.

    The three simultaneously tilted their heads in curiosity.

    Daniel¡¯s words couldn¡¯t be more true, and he spoke them as if he had had a first hand experience in the matter, despite him being younger than twenty years old.

    For the first time, a few random thoughts started to form in the heads of the three members of the triumvirate. They wondered if Daniel could be a prince of a distant world, or if he was a prodigymander of arge army.

    Daniel smiled at the three old people, and said "As per custom, I have a gift for each of you."

    As Daniel finished speaking, a small and elegant table appeared right in front of him. On this table, there were two weapon, two books, and an eighth rank beast core.

    As the three noticed the four items, their eyes filled with curiosity.

    Daniel approached the table, and picked up the first weapon. It was a bow made of sandalwood, with a string made out of the tendon of a seventh rank beast. The weapon was perfect tier, but had not been enchanted. Yet, it was still the best quality weapon the chief of the hunters had ever seen.

    She stood up to receive the gift gracefully.

    The second object Daniel picked up, were the two books. These two books were different. The first one was new, while the second appeared to be recently written. On the cover of the old book, -Basics of Alchemy- was written in Daniel¡¯sngue, while on the cover of the second book, there was no title.

    He approached the head schr and handed the two books over to her.

    On the second book, the head schr found the trantion of the first book, along with the alphabet of Daniel¡¯snguage, and the phic pronunciation of the various letters.

    The third andst gift, was a greatsword made out of a mixture of different precious and resistant metals like gold, tinum, and steel. It was, just like the previous bow, a perfect tier weapon devoid of any enchantment.

    The eyes of the strongest of warriors opened wide in shock as he saw this greatsword. His greatsword carved in arge monster bone had been his most prized possession, and now that he saw this greatsword in Daniel¡¯s hands, he immediately realize how poor their world waspared to Daniel¡¯s.

    He got up, stood straight, and epted the gift with a big smile.

    The fourth andst item, was for the three of them to study. From it, the three felt a rtively high beast essence, and thepleteck of corruption.

    "I have to admit.." Said the old woman which was calmly brushing her palm over her new bow. "Your ability to make items appear out of nowhere is truly interesting. Is that something that we can learn to do as well?"

    "I¡¯m afraid not.. As things are now." Responded Daniel with an apologetic smile.

    The woman looked back at Daniel with newfound interest, and said "What do you mean? Is there a way we would be able to do that too?"

    "I have no way of knowing. All I can say is that the ability of using our unique power, which we call ¡¯ki¡¯, to store items, is directly corrted to.. Well.. to ourprehension of space, and to spiritual essence."

    As the three of them heard the term ¡¯spiritual essence¡¯, they put the gifts they had received aside, and looked back at Daniel with serious expressions.

    The head schr said "So, let¡¯s cut to the chase. Schr Lucious and schr Lara said that you had a proposition for us.. They im to have heard you saying that you would be able to help our race greatly.. Why don¡¯t we talk about that for a bit?."

    -----

    The conversation between the four of them went on for a fair bit, and in that time, Daniel exined his entireprehension of how spiritual essence worked, how the spirit of an individual was connected to the spiritual in, how this worldcked of such a connection, and how spiritual essence reacted to the essence of corruption.

    "..And you think that within the prohibited territory there might be a connection to this ¡¯spiritual in¡¯? How can you be sure of that?" Asked the strongest of warriors.

    "I am not sure.. At all. My stay in this world is going to be as long as yours if I am wrong. But ording to the description that I was given of the group of mages that caused your world¡¯s corruption, I have good reasons to suspect that there might be.." Responded Daniel with a matter of fact tone.

    The head researcher looked attentively at the beast core, then turned to look towards Daniel, and with a low voice, she said "What you ask is not little.."

    "It¡¯s not what I¡¯m asking. I don¡¯t stand here in front of you today to make a request, not to beg for help. When you¡¯ll finish your tests on me, and I¡¯ll lose value, you might kill me, or let me go. If I were to be let go, I¡¯d simply hunt my way to a power high enough to allow me to easily roam this world in search of a way out.. And if I were to die.. Well, I wouldn¡¯t be the one having to worry about living in a hole in the ground for the next thousand years."

    Daniel response hit exactly where it hurt.

    Regardless of the amount of danger, they would never win unless they started taking some risks.

    Daniel could see that the three had almost been convinced. So, he gave them an additional reason to trust his intentions.

    He said "I understand that you have people to take care of.. But this is an operation that might change everybody¡¯s world. I¡¯m sure there are other trustworthy tribe with whom you could form an alliance.. To which you could entrust your younger generation, and borrow a few powerful warriors, willing to fight for a better world."

    What made Daniel¡¯s words so convincing, was the fact that he actually cared about the people of this world. They had done nothing to deserve the life they had to conduct..

    They reminded him that, if he and his group hadn¡¯t sent the monster back to its home, his world of origin might have been a step from bing a wastnd not different from this world.

    "Okay.." Said the head schr in a low voice. "We will discuss about it amongst ourselves."

    "Very well." Said Daniel while bowing slightly, then turning to walk out of the room.

    Before Daniel could leave, the strongest of warriors stood up, and said "Hold on, young man.."

    Daniel stopped, and turned to look back at the muscr old man that was looking at him.

    "I cannot ept this sword. Its value is too high, and I have nothing worth as much to give back." Said the old man with a firm voice.

    Daniel smiled back at him, and said "I am a practitioner of the art of the sword. How about a trade?.. A sword of my world for a sword of yours?"

    The old man looked at his sword with what Daniel could recognize as a loving look.. then, he said "I¡¯m afraid It won¡¯t be possible.. The bone of which this de has been made is a family memento. This sword is too important to me."

    "How about the pommel then? It¡¯s a nice piece of metal, but you can get it reced." Responded Daniel while feigning disappointment.

    "I can do that. I¡¯ll have it removed, and delivered to you by today." Responded the old man with satisfaction.

    Suddenly, Daniel remembered something.

    He turned to look back at the three of them, and said "Oh, before I forget. I am willing to exchange more beast cores for beast meat.. You all could use some uncorrupted power.. And if you were to agree to my proposition, I¡¯d need as much power as possible."

    He then bowed once again, and left.

    -----

    Later that night, Daniel was quietly sitting on a bench. In his hand, was the small pommel that was once part of the greatsword of the strongest of warriors, and he was looking at it intently.

    Sitting next to him, was Gai¡¯ha, which was starting at him in silence. After a few long minutes of silence, she said "That was a fine weapon.. Why did you exchange it for a piece of metal?"

    Without looking back at her, Daniel responded "This isn¡¯t amon piece of metal.."

    "What it is then?" Asked Gai¡¯ha with a curious tone. She had looked at the pommel almost as long as Daniel had, but she couldn¡¯t really understand what was so special about it. After hours of looking at Daniel stare at it, her curiosity had kept growing bigger and bigger.

    "Can you keep this secret? I promise it¡¯s nothing relevant for the triumvirate, your race, or even your world." He responded to her.

    Gai¡¯ha¡¯s eyes opened wide in surprise. Daniel¡¯sst words meant that he already knew that she was a spy for the triumvirate, and yet, he hadn¡¯t said anything until now.

    After a few seconds of silence, she said "Okay, if it¡¯s really not relevant for my race, I¡¯ll keep it to myself."

    "It¡¯s something that nobody is supposed to have. We make use of these to learn the power of the elements.."

    More curious than before, she asked "But what is it exactly?"

    "For us, just a useful treasure. For nature?.. A source of life." Responded Daniel criptically before putting the perfect metal treasure into his ring, and bing quiet.

    He then turned to look at Gai¡¯ha, and said while smirking maliciously "Hey, want to train some more? I know how hard it is for you to keep your hands off me.. I don¡¯t want you to suffer until tomorrow."

    "You cheeky bastard.."

    -----

    Five dayster.

    At about five hundred kilometers away from the tribe¡¯s location, was a cave. Inside this cave, around thirty people divided into eight smaller groups, were sitting around arge bonefire.

    The people which formed these eight groups, were the leaders of the various tribes that inhabited the surrounding area.

    The different groups could be distinguished from one another thanks to some details, or style of clothing.

    These differences were caused by the ce from which they arrived, from the type of resources they possessed, and the different levels of knowledge inherited from their culture of the past.

    A clear example of this, was the cannibalism that was very frequent in this world.

    It was said that there were a few tribes whose cannibalistic views had been inherited by a few bills and posters that had been found within the cities. These bills, depicted or described scenes in which people took part in acts of cannibalism.

    After centuries of studies, people hade to discover that these bills were nothing but advertisement material for ludic activities.. Like theatrical ys, or street shows, but their use was far too deep into these tribe¡¯s culture to be eradicated despite knowing the truth..

    The majority of the people within the cave were looking at the same three people.

    These three people, were the triumvirate of the tribe which had found Daniel.

    The strongest of warriors, the head schr, and the chief hunter.

    The strongest of warriors got up from his seat, and while looking at the rest of the tribe leaders, and carrying his newly acquired weapon on his back, he said "Now that everyone is here.. We can start this gathering."

 Chapter 126 The Wasteland World - Alliance

    "Now that everyone is here.. We can start this gathering." Said the strongest of warriors while looking at the rest of the tribe leaders.

    "It would be best." Responded a heavily dressed woman with a few hints of irritation in her voice.

    As the strongest of warriors saw that he had obtained the attention of the various leaders tribe leaders, he unstrapped his sword from behind his back, and pierced the ground with it.

    The various warriors amongst them turned to look at the sword with shock, which was rapidly turned into envy.

    One of them said "That¡¯s a good sword.. Is that why you¡¯ve called this gathering for? Have your schrs discovered a method to mass produce these weapons?"

    "No.." Responded the head schr in a low voice. She then stood up, and took a small sphere from within her clothes, and showed it to the rest of the leaders.

    "What is that?" Asked a middle aged man, which was sitting on the opposite side of the cave.

    The head schr looked at the various leaders once again, then said "This is a beast core. A power sourcepletely devoid of corruption which isn¡¯t part of our world, just like his sword, and her bow."

    "What is that supposed to mean? Have you gone crazy with age?" Asked a middle aged woman with revealing clothes and long ck hair.

    The strongest of warriors took a deep breath, then, he said "She is telling the truth. These items have been given to us by an individual that we have discovered wandering the abandoned city near our tribe¡¯s location."

    Noticing the skeptical faces of the variou leaders, the chief hunter got up from her chair, and stood next the two other members of the triumvirate. She then said "This individual imed to have a way to cleanse our race from the affliction of the corruption. He exined it to us in detail, and demonstrated that, if everything went well, we would be able to prevent our younger generations to absorbing corruption along with the power from monster¡¯s meat."

    As the chief hunter finished speaking, the backs of every single person within the cave straightened in their chairs.

    To im achieving that wasn¡¯t a dream for their entire race, it would be a lie.

    Through the past thousands of year, they had always paid the utmost attention to any update directed at thismon objective. Now that someone had arrived, and had proposed a deal to them.. A deal which could make their wishe true, and that also had provided proof.. their interest couldn¡¯t be any higher.

    Many of these gatherings had been held, and in each of them, speaking nonsense about being able to make progress on this specific subject, had be a major taboo for the various tribe leaders. That had convinced them that, if they had decided to bring up the matter, they had found something.

    "Speak then." Said the ck-haired woman which spoke a few moments earlier.

    "His name is Daniel. He ims to be a cultivator of another world, and has shown to us multiple times that he possesses powers beyond ourprehension. He can ingest infected meat and reject its corruption, and he can make items appear out of nowhere." Said the chief schr in a single breath.

    "How do you know that he isn¡¯t one of our race who simply found a clean spot to live in our world?"

    "He isn¡¯t. He couldn¡¯t speak ournguage, but learned it in a matter of days, and most importantly.. His power is not like our aura. He can inject it into weapons, or eject it from his body giving him mobility boosts." Responded the chief researcher to the old man who had just asked the question.

    -----

    The questions and answers went on for two long hour.

    In these two hours, the three of them exined everything they had learned about the uses of spiritual essence, its connection to the spiritual in, and a few other things that Daniel had exined to them. What they purposely left out, was that Daniel was staying within their tribe.

    Instead, they made the rest of the leaders make the assumption that Daniel was a powerful and mysterious man.

    "That¡¯s all you have?.. The chance that there might be a connection to this ¡¯spiritual in¡¯.. You know how risky entering the territory of the monster king is.. Remember what happened to our grandfathers?" Asked the first old woman which was the first to talk since the gathering had started.

    "We are not waging war to the monsters.. We still haven¡¯t recovered from thest time."

    "Why would we want to poke the tail of the snake?.. This ¡¯Daniel¡¯ has no proof to his ims."

    "That¡¯s right, I bet he just said what he thought you wanted to hear. He might be manipting you."

    The three members of the triumvirate sat down on their chairs with dispirited expressions.

    Of course they had thought about all these possibilities as well, but their hope for a better world for them and their children had never died in their heart.

    "My tribe epts your proposition. I believe that you and our schrs have made a thorough research before inviting us here. If you believe that this person can actually give back a life worth living to our race.. Then I¡¯ll trust you." Said a middle aged man with a firm and confident tone.

    This middle aged man was the sole leader of the tribe closest to the one lead by the triumvirate, and the two had a great rtionship.

    After this middle aged man spoke, the various other leaders stood up from their seats, and pronounced their decisions.

    At the end of the gathering, five tribes had decided to join Daniel¡¯s n, while the rest, had decided to go back to the life they were used to.

    Only the five tribes were left in the cave now, and the leaders of the four other parties were looking at the three members of the triumvirate attentively. They had been asked to stay for a bit after the others left.

    Now that only they had remained, the head schr said "If you want to let your schrs examine the beast cores, Daniel said that he is willing to exchange them for meat of powerful monsters, as he is capable of absorbing its power without being affected by the corruption."

    "We will meet back here after we¡¯ll formte a reasonable n with him." Added the chief hunter before dismissing the rest of the leaders, and concluding the gathering.

    -----

    Five dayster. Within one of the rooms of the castle carved in the cave¡¯s rocky wall.

    Daniel, the three members of the triumvirate, and a few of the strongest warriors were standing in front of arge table.

    On this table, was an old fashioned map, which had been made and updated by the tribe itself due to theck of maps inherited by the civilization antecedent to the corruption.

    "This is the entire prohibited territory?" Asked Daniel while indicating an area that epassed two third of the area included within the map.

    "Yes. Luckily, the base of the mages is near the border of the area, and is only at a full week at running speed from here." Responded the head hunter which had encountered Daniel into the abandoned city first.

    After noticing how close the mages¡¯ base was, Daniel felt once again admiration for the system¡¯s effect ¡¯Karma X Luck¡¯.

    The fact that he had appeared so close to a ce which he believed to be his best, and possibly only chance of joining back with his friends and finding a way back home, was true luck.

    "The ce is definitely empty. More than once we¡¯ve noticed that the monsters kept their distance from it. Unfortunately, the surroundings area is upied by arge number of monsters, which we are technically able to face, but not for long. As soon as the fight starts, in a matter of minutes, arger amount of monsters will sense the fight and join our enemies." Added the head hunter with a grim tone.

    Daniel turned to look at the three members of the triumvirate, and said with a serious tone "You have to allow me to cultivate. Your warriors are trained to fight against other tribe¡¯s warriors, and your hunters are trained in hunting monsters, but not face them in battle. If I am to go there, I need more power to defend myself."

    "Not before we explore the mages¡¯ stronghold. Even if you were to increase your power, a single additional powerful person would make no difference." Said the strongest of warriors with a firm tone.

    Daniel¡¯s requests to be allowed to cultivate had be more and more frequent in the past couple of days, and while they could understand that he was currently too weak to make true damage to the monsters, the three of them could not shake off the feeling that Daniel might try to abandon them there..

    This diffidence was born out of a history of betrayals, tricks, and cruelty that had shaped their tribalistic society.

    Before Daniel couldin about their decision, the strongest of warriors added "Maybe you can instruct our warriors in your ways of fighting.. Or give them decent weapons.. That would be much more helpful than your support in battle."

    "...Fine." Responded Daniel in resignation.

    "What do you think we¡¯ll find in the stronghold?" Asked the chief schr to him.

    "I am not sure. But setting fire to entire cities, flying in the air, turningndscapes into frozennds.. There has to be something rted to the use of the natural mana there. If not a way to tap into the essence of the spiritual in, there has to at least be some lead on how they did it." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "How do you know that all the material hasn¡¯t been destroyed? It¡¯s been thousand of years since the stronghold has been inhabited.." Said the chief hunter with doubt.

    Daniel turned to look back at her, and said in response "The natural essences of this world, due to the corruption, isn¡¯t working properly. The reason why your cities are still in perfect conditions after thousands of years, is due to the malfunctioning of time.. I don¡¯t expect you to understand this, as you have no knowledge of mana.."

    Daniel¡¯s words were true. These people had lived all their lives in this corrupted world, and had no idea of what wind, clean water, and fertile soil were. The difference was only evident to him.

    "How is the recruitment job going?" Asked Daniel to the members of the triumvirate.

    "Four tribes have decided to join our cause. They will give us a thousand of their strongest warriors each, while the rest of the poption will evacuate the caves and hide in close by shelters as per protocol." Responded the chief hunter.

    "What protocol?" Asked Daniel in confusion.

    "Monster attack.. Or war between tribes."

    -----

    During the following week, various parties of powerful warriors arrived to the territory of the tribe.

    Once there, they would meet Daniel and be shocked by the discovery that he was actually a young man. Some even had the intention of backing out of the alliance, but luckily, Daniel was always able to convince them the same way he had convinced the three leaders of the tribe.. Through speech, and demonstration of his peculiar powers and circumstances.

    For a full month, Daniel trained the powerful warriors in the ways he found to be the most necessary for them in order to fight against monsters. Thanks to his incredible ability inbat, he was able to simte the random pattern of attacks of which a monster would make use.

    Amongst these fighters, there was none who had a power below the head hunter¡¯s, and that meant that each of them had a higher raw power than Daniel.

    Unfortunately, despite their raw power, none of them was able to defeat Daniel unless they made full use of their higher speed and strength during the sparring sessions.

    After an intensive military-like training, Daniel recognized the difficulty of increasing the abilities of the warriors beyond the basics, so, he had no choice but to conclude their training.

    He then reported to the triumvirate that the army was ready to move, and started to discuss with them a date for the departure.

 Chapter 127 The Wasteland World - Lurking Underwater

    Daniel and the army of warriors were standing on a hill just a few kilometers away from the defining line for the prohibitednd. They were waiting for the scouts toe back, and report the numbers of the monsters that roamed the area.

    Half an hourter, the five scouts starteding back one after the other. They then directly walked towards the leading members of the army, and gave their reports.

    "About ten thousand monsters north-west of the stronghold."

    "An eight thousand strong group to the south."

    "More or less two thousand direction north-north east."

    "Nine hundred between us and the border."

    "Past the border, five thousand more between us and the stronghold."

    "That¡¯s a lot of monsters." Said Daniel while looking at the chief hunter. "How do you categorize the monster¡¯s strength?"

    The head schr turned to look at Daniel, and said "From their capabilities.. Minions are worthless goons.. We hunt them for food, Warriors are those who serve as the main force, Leaders are those who are capable of leading hundreds of monsters at the warrior level, Chiefs are those who are able to gain the allegiance of various leaders, and finally, the King.. the one who controls them all."

    "Okay, so.. To which type of monster does your power correspond to?" Asked Daniel in response to the chief hunter¡¯s exnation.

    "Usually the tribes leaders are at the chief level. You could consider us past mid-chief level." Responded the strongest of warriors while cleaning and polishing his brand new greatsword.

    Curiosity filled Daniel¡¯s mind as he asked "What level of power am I then?"

    "You can be considered near the chief level as well, which is surprising for your age.. I reached the chief level at thirty years of age." Responded the strongest of warriors with a hint of embarrassment.

    The stages of cultivation of the wastnd world werepletely different from the stages of Daniel¡¯s world of origin, as they did not evaluate one¡¯s level by a clear scale of progress in cultivation, but based on their sheer power and ability tomand.

    Daniel¡¯s level at the moment was close to the chief level.

    For as confusing as the terms were, the levels of strength could bepared with the major stages of Daniel¡¯s cultivation. Each major stage corresponded to a level of power.

    For example, Daniel¡¯s ninth rank was simr to ate leader, the head hunter¡¯s power at the early chief level would correspond to a tenth rank cultivator, while the power of the tribes leaders, which was at the mid orte chief level, would correspond to a eleventh or twelveth rank cultivator.

    It was only after hearing this exnation that Daniel had managed to understand the powers of the monsters he had encountered before.

    The monster he had found in the base of the worshippers of death was at the early chief level, just like the head hunter, and the group of monsters that had devoured it, while the enormous bird which had forced the hunting party to hide, was at the mid chief level.

    "Okay, what¡¯ the n?" Asked Daniel to the members of the triumvirate.

    The chief hunter was the one who was in charge of scouting, and by consequence, to formte the n.

    She pointed at the map, and said "We are east from the stronghold. We could fight our way through the two smaller groups of monsters, but we¡¯d risk of attracting the tworger groups north and south. Our best chance is to lead the majority of our warriors to eliminate the group that is roaming between us and the barrier. With a bit of luck, we¡¯ll make enough of a ruckus to be able to attract the the attention of the other fourrgest groups.. They should note in support of the first group, as they¡¯ll probably have orders from the king to stay within the prohibited area and watch the borders, but of course, that doesn¡¯t mean that they won¡¯t observe us.. We will sneak around the area in a small group of twenty, and enter the stronghold from the west side."

    The group of twenty wasposed by the strongest of men, the chief hunter, the head hunter, Gai¡¯ha, elevel chief level warrior from the other tribes, and finally, Daniel.

    Once the battle would start and the monster¡¯s attention would be directed at the main force, Daniel and his group of twenty would have exactly two hours to go inside the stronghold, and find informations.

    -----

    Five hourster, Daniel and his small group were already in position. They had managed to avoid thergest groups, and had managed to exterminate the smaller parties before they could shout for support.

    Daniel would immediately store the corpses of the monsters into his ring whenever they ended up killing one in order to avoid them them being discovered, and start a search for them.

    After another half hour, the army of warrior started their assault.

    From the distance,rge columns of fire could be seen elevating in the air.

    Five minutester, two different scouts approached Daniel¡¯s small group from the sides. They approached the chief hunter and said "The two armies have noticed the ongoing battle."

    The chief hunter turned to look at the group and said "Okay, it¡¯s time to go. Stay low and into the forest. We don¡¯t know if there are bird monsters scouting the area, and if we get caught behind enemy lines, we are screwed."

    Daniel and the rest of the chief level cultivators dashed at a moderate speed while trying to keep themselves hidden, until finally, after ten minutes of running, they found themselves in front of arge darkke.

    Thiske was about three kilometers wide, and right in the middle, just a bit further than a kilometer from the shore, was a small ind. On this ind, a small castle made out of white stone had been built.

    The first thing Daniel noticed, was theck of corruption on the stone, and grass that surrounded the castle, which was an extremely positive sign.

    The second thing he noticed, was the movement within the ck and murky waters.

    Of one thing he was sure.. Something alive was within the waters.

    "We should enter the water and swim into the ind.." Said the chief hunter in a low voice.

    "No!" Daniel suddenly burst out.

    "Why?" Asked the chief hunter in surprise.

    "There is something in the water.. I can sense it moving." Responded Daniel with a grim tone. He then added "You can¡¯t use your aura to walk in the air, but I can use my ki to. You should wait here."

    The chief hunter looked at Daniel sideways and said "There is no need. The monsters don¡¯t go this close to the ind, and my scouts haven¡¯t reported any sign of movement within the water. Also, there is no way I¡¯m letting you go alone."

    "If I¡¯m right, we might end up being attacked underwater. And even if we¡¯ll survive, we will definitely alert the monster¡¯s armies!!" Whispered Daniel in anger.

    "We didn¡¯t epting here without expecting to fight." Said the strongest of warriors from behind Daniel.

    "Fuck.. I could take two of you in with me.. But stepping in the air in three would make us really visible.." Daniel tried to negotiate, but neither of the group members was willing to remain behind.

    "We are all going." Eximed the head hunter.

    "Fine.."

    Slightly dispirited by the stubbornness shown by the old warriors, Daniel approached Gai¡¯ha, and whispered "Stay close to me.. If something bad happens.. I¡¯ll get you out."

    Before Gai¡¯ha had the chance to respond, Daniel followed the chief hunter, the strongest of warriors and the head of the hunters near the shore of theke.

    As Daniel arrived, the other members of the group went into the murky water, and dived right under the surface. Their objective was to cross the entire kilometer by swimming underwater.

    Daniel could see the surrounding few hundreds of meters, so he could feel the presence of the monsters roaming the water.

    For the next ten minute, Daniel prayed that they would not be found out, but when one of the warriors failed to hold his breath in, and let a loud series of bubbles to the surface, Daniel noticed that a few of the surrounding monsters had changed in their trajectory, and were moving towards them.

    Daniel swam towards Gai¡¯ha, and grabbed her wrist. He then swam further from the warrior that had made the noise.

    As he managed to get far enough from him, Daniel felt the sudden movement of the water that came from the spot where the warrior was swimming, and then, nothing.

    He noticed that the few monsters that had approached the warrior, had gone back to their usual route after a few moments.

    When the two of them arrived into the area were the warrior had been attacked, Gai¡¯ha felt something hairy brush against her shoulder.

    She turned around in shock, and what she saw, was the head of the warrior that had been attacked a few moments ago. She had swam right towards it while busy looking around, and the head had ended up tangled with her clothes.

    Due to the shock, Gai¡¯ha couldn¡¯t help but scream underwater, and try to untangle the detached head from her clothes, causing way more chaos than thete warrior ever produced.

    The surrounding poption of underwater monsters turned towards their group, and started to rapidly swim toward them.

    A chaotic underwater fight begun a few momentster.

    The underwater monsters were at Daniel¡¯s level, and a few had already reached the chief level. Unfortunately, the fact that they were underwater gave them an advantage against Daniel¡¯s group.

    Daniel was the one who was faring the best amongst them, as he was the only one who could feel the monsters beforehand.

    Whenever a monsters went towards him, he would move Gai¡¯ha behind him, and he would attack in the best way he could. Then, he would put the carcass into his ring before it could attract more monsters.

    The moment the group had been attacked was past halfway through the crossing, so they could not retreat. Instead, they kept swimming towards the ind while also trying not to get torn apart by the jaws hidden in the dark.

    Five minutester..

    *Phuaaahh* *Cough* *Cough*

    Daniel and Gai¡¯ha appeared on the shore of the small ind. The escape had caused them to swallow a fairlyrge amount of water, so, Daniel was also forced down on his knees.. coughing the ck liquid-like essence of corruption he had swallowed along with the water.

    When the two managed to get back up on their feet, they looked at those who had managed to get out of the water.

    In front of them, were the strongest of warriors, who was currently missing an arm, the head hunter, which had two arch of teeths that perforated the side of her body, the head hunter which was surprisingly unscathed, and five more warriors.

    Ten people had died in the water.

    Despite the heavy losses, the eight people weren¡¯t happy to see Daniel and Gai¡¯hae out of the water. In fact, they barely noticed them. What they were busy looking at, was what was past the water.

    Daniel slowly turned to look at the other side of the water, and there, he saw at least six hundred monsters. Their behaviour was nothing like one would expect a monster¡¯s behaviour to be, in fact, they did not act in a frenzy, nor did they attack each other. They were simply observing them..

    At the front of these monsters, were five humanoid individuals covered in ck hooded robes. Their faces were hidden in darkness.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t feel the power of these monsters from that far, and the monsters didn¡¯t appear willing of entering the water either. But of one thing Daniel was certain.. Not finding what they were looking for.. Would mean big trouble.

 Chapter 128 The Wasteland World - Desperation

    While Daniel stared back at the five individuals hidden under the ck robes, the army of monsters that stared back from the other side of the body of water, grew faster and faster.

    After only a minute, their numbers had tripled.

    Suddenly..

    *Burble*.. "HEEL-".. *Burble*

    The group turned to look at a spot about three hundred meters from the coast. There, they saw a middle aged man which was desperately trying to swim towards the coast, and behind him, a few monster followed quietly.

    The man had only just entered the field of Daniel¡¯s surrounding awareness, and he could see that the monsters weren¡¯t actually attacking him, but just following quietly.

    Daniel understood immediately that it was a trap, but unfortunately, the same wasn¡¯t for the rest of the group, which grabbed their weapons and prepared to dive back into the water.

    Before they could do that, Daniel grabbed the waistband of the strongest of warriors, which was grabbing the handle of his sword tightly, and jumped high up in the air.

    He then stepped in the air thanks to small outbursts of ki, which he released from underneath his feet.

    The strongest of men immediately realised what Daniel wanted to do, so, before they went too far from the shore, he shouted at the rest of the group "STAY THERE!"

    As the two of them arrived near the middle aged man, the monsters which followed the man quietly started to jump out of the murky water in an attempt to interject them in mid air.

    Unfortunately for them, the old man was extremely dangerous even with one arm, and whenever a monster tried to swallow them, he would swing his heavy greatsword, and split the monster in two.

    As Daniel arrived at the spot where the middle aged man was, the old man prepared to swing with his sword at any monster that would try to attack them while they tried to rescue the man.

    Daniel allowed the two of them to fall over the middle aged man, and just as they were about to touch the water, Daniel grabbed the clothes of the middle aged man. He then forcibly pulled him out of the water by stepping over the surface, and propelled himself back in the air.

    At the same time, the old man shed vertically at an enormous shark-like monster that suddenly came out of the water in an attempt to devour them. Unfortunately, its skin was too tough, and he wasn¡¯t able to kill it.

    Now tightly holding at the two men, Daniel tried to go back on the shore, but not even a hundred meters in, a bird like monster dived straight towards the strongest of warriors, and pierced his only remaining arm with its sharp beak.

    The strongest of warriors was a powerful old man at the mid chief level, and yet, his second arm was cut off by the lightning fast dive of the bird-like monster.

    The old man was only able to look at hisst arm and greatsword as they fell into the murky water, and were devoured by the monsters.

    The three of them arrived back on the shore of the ind, on which the other monsters didn¡¯t dare to follow.

    The chief hunter approached the strongest of men, and after looking at each other meaningfully for a few seconds, she cupped her palm on his cheek, showing him her grief for his loss.

    Daniel quietly looked at the old man, which was overall calm about the loss of both of his arms. It was right there and then that he understood how much this operation meant to him. How much he was willing to sacrifice for a single chance of saving his people.

    The next moment, a small while pearl appeared in his hand.

    He approached the old man, which in turn looked back at him and said "I¡¯m afraid I won¡¯t be of much use from now on.."

    "That¡¯s not necessarily true.." Responded Daniel in a low voice while opening his hand and showing the ninth rank healing pill he had received from the Bizac family¡¯s leader, Vael, to them.

    "What is that?" Asked the chief hunter as she noticed the small pill in Daniel¡¯s hand.

    "This is a healing pill. The only reason I didn¡¯t take it out before, is because it¡¯s a life saving treasure.. But also because it contains thick life essence.. Which I¡¯ve used before to cause injuries to corrupted monsters." He then pause for a few moments, before adding "I.. I am not sure what effect it will have on you."

    "Are you saying that this pill could give him back his arms?" Asked the chief hunter with eyes opened wide in shock.

    "If I was the injured one.. Without a doubt."

    The old woman looked at the injured old man with doubt. She didn¡¯t want the old man to die to get back his arms, but she also knew that such a disability, in their world, would mean the end.

    While she looked at the old man¡¯s injuries, the old man looked at her body instead. She had numerous small cuts that started from her shoulder, and went all the way down to her thighs.

    The chief hunter immediately understood the meaning behind the old man¡¯s look, causing her to step back and said "NO. You have to take it. I can survive with these injuries."

    Before the two could start to argue about whom should take the pill, Daniel interjected by saying "If we find what I¡¯m hoping to find, I can heal her with my powers. But I won¡¯t be able to restore your arms."

    The old woman cupped her palms on the old man¡¯s face once more, and said with a sweet tone "Did you hear that? I¡¯ll be fine.. Take the pill."

    After a few seconds, the old man nodded, and turned toward Daniel.

    Daniel looked back at the old man, and said "This might end in a quick death.. Are you sure?"

    "Kid, I¡¯ve had a long and painful life.. A quick death is more than I could ask for. Let¡¯s just get this over with." Responded the old man with confidence.

    After a soft sigh, Daniel sent the healing pill flying towards the old man, which was quickly able to catch it with his mouth, and swallow it.

    Daniel immediately approached the old man, and ced a hand on his back. He then felt the warmness of the healing essence spread inside the old man¡¯s body.

    For a few seconds, nothing happened.. But as the spectators looked at the old man in relief, Daniel was more serious than ever.

    The temperature within the old man¡¯s body started to spike, and before long, he feel on his knees..

    *AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGH* *AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH*

    He started screaming in pain, as the moisture on his body started to evaporate and form a faint mist around him.

    "What is happening?!" Asked the chief hunter in an extremely worried tone.

    *AAAAAAAAAAAARRGH*

    "I think that the life essence within the pill is trying to fight against the corruption of his body.." Responded Daniel with a grim expression.

    The healing essence started to move towards the old man¡¯s bloody stumps, and after it got to his shoulders, arge amount of corruption started to drip down the injury, as if pushed out by the raging healing essence.

    The screams of the old man were louder than ever. His expression was one of agony, and his skin was boiling hot.. After a couple of long minutes, he finally lost consciousness due to the pain.

    The chief hunter quickly grabbed him, preventing him to fall against the hard rock, but had to let him go right after due to the temperature of his body.

    For the next hour, the old man lied on the ground while his arms grew anew, and arge portion of the corruption was expelled from his injuries.

    His previously ck skin gradually went back to its original greyish color, only stopping after his arms were fully recovered, and there was no way for the corruption toe out.

    Daniel, which was currently studying the man¡¯s body all through the duration of the healing pill, was able toprehend the concept of healing essence called ¡¯purification¡¯, and the concept of life essence called ¡¯opposition¡¯.

    Many essences had a concept of opposition, and it described the way a certain essence would oppose another. Like how light would oppose darkness, or how death would oppose life.

    Despite the fact that the old man¡¯s arms had been healed, the remaining healing power was still roaming in his body. Therefore, if he were to wake up now, he would still feel the pain caused by the two struggling essences.

    Once again, Daniel turned to look at the army of monster that had amassed around theke, and noticed that their numbers had increased once again.

    They now numbered no less than five thousands.

    Daniel turned to look at the chief hunter, which was kneeling next to the strongest of warriors with a face filled with worry. He then said "He is not in danger.. Try to wake him up after his temperature lowers."

    He then turned to look at the rest of the group, and said "The rest of you, I need your help to explore the stronghold."

    Thank to the recent events, Daniel had learned something to which this particr race of humanoids would be forever grateful to him for, for the rest of their existence.. He had learned that he could use healing essence to purge their bodies from the essence of corruption.

    He already knew that spiritual essence defended the body from being corrupted, and that life essence could damage a corrupted entity.. What he hadn¡¯t learned until now, was that he could use healing essence, which was an artificial essence invented by the alchemical mixing of life and time essence, to push the corruption out of a body while also healing it at the same time.

    Thanks to the concept of purification, if he were to find a connection to the spiritual in, he would be able to purify the bodies of the poption of an entire world.

    -----

    The mages¡¯ stronghold was a simple and small castle built in pearly white stone. Inside it there were various rooms, a mess hall, and a few studies.

    Daniel and the other survivors were currently searching around, examining parchments, reading books.. But even after five hours, they had found nothing but a few diaries filled with the delusions of a groups of maniacs.

    The majority of the written material talked about the advent of the world¡¯s salvation.

    ____________________________

    The day that the grey teardrop fell from the sky, we have be the chosen ones..

    What better proof than the abilities that we have been bestowed by its saving glory..

    We have been chosen because we are the righteous ones.. Our purpose is to cleanse

    To cleanse the undeserving people of this world, and to lead our world to new ways

    Ways deserving of these mystical and benevolent gifts.. Deserving of salvation..

    ____________________________

    "Have you found something?" Asked Gai¡¯ha after noticing the confused expression on Daniel¡¯s face.

    Daniel looked at Gai¡¯ha with an apologetic face, and said "Just.. gibberish." He then started to search more animatedly.. Throwing books away as soon as he was sure that they were not relevant.

    The warriors that had apanied him, along with the chief hunter, and the recently awoken strongest of warriors approached Daniel one by one, and looked at the frustration and disappointment in his face. They knew that Daniel hadn¡¯t found what he was looking for.

    The army of the five tribes had already retreated back in their territory now, and were waiting for Daniel and their group to show up as agreed. But after hours of pointless waiting, they had no choice but to leave with the conviction that they had perished.

    After a full day of searching, within a messy room with books strewn all over, and furniture broken in pieces, Daniel was sitting with a dispirited expression on his face.

 Chapter 129 The Wasteland World - Hope

    "Daniel.." Said the strongest of warriors from behind his back. "It¡¯s time we start thinking of how to leave this ce.."

    Of course, Daniel knew that the strongest of warriors was right. They had stayed within the mages¡¯ stronghold twelve times the amount they were supposed to.

    Unfortunately, the monsters that awaited for them on the other side of the shore were not decreased in number. In fact, the various small andrger groups that surrounded the mages¡¯ stronghold, after the retreat of the army of warriors, had focused on creating a perimeter around theke.

    Daniel was feeling depressed at the moment. Not only because he was stuck here indefinitely, but also because he had disappointed this group of people, that wanted nothing more than to have a chance to conduct a better life. Even worse than that, he had given them false hope.

    But before he could copse into self loathing, he heard a few words from the old warrior which left him shocked.

    "We will fight our way out of here.. So that at least you can leave and report back to the tribe." Said the old man without a hint of hesitation.

    Daniel turned towards him with a face of absolute shock, and asked "Why?.. What worth does my life have to you after this absolute failure?"

    The old man sighed softly, then, he ced one of his hands on Daniel¡¯s shoulders, and said "I know what you are capable of. We know you didn¡¯t lie to us, and that you had good intentions.. All we want is for you not to give up trying."

    Daniel felt a lump in his throat, as his eyes started to turn watery due to the mixture of intense feelings he felt at the moment. He was really tempted to dash out in the sea of monsters and unleash all of his frustration on them..

    The old man noticed Daniel¡¯s state. He gave him a gentle p on his shoulder, and said "Come on.. It¡¯s time." Then, he turned to walk outside of the white castle.

    Without moving from his ce, Daniel said "No.." Then, as the group turned to look back at him, he added "This is not how it ends.."

    Suddenly, a window appeared in his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Just a Wandering Hero*

    -Description: Save those in need.

    Fourth objective set: Help the tribe warriors to escape from the ind.

    Optional: Avoid any additional death.

    Reward: Karma +500,000 (+250,000) / Tribes reputation +65% (+15%)

    Time Limit: The party of the system¡¯s wielder will die of starvation in 7 months, 19 days.

    ____________________________

    Daniel had purposely started this quest, as he had no other way to turn to but his karmic system.

    After reading the details of the mission, Daniel said in his mind "My options, Sewah."

    ____________________________

    Open approach

    Difficulty: Easy

    - ???

    Time limit: 7 months, 19 days.

    (Requirements: Perfection of the immortal path stage, and of the spiritual merging stage.)

    Reward: ???

    ____________________________

    "What the..? What is that" Asked Daniel in surprise after seeing the description of the suggested approach. The reward and the description were hidden, and only the requirements were visible.

    "Oh, that¡¯s odd.." Said Sewah from within Daniel¡¯s mind. He then added "It appears that the system doesn¡¯t always know what to do.."

    "Fine.. I¡¯ll start with cultivating then." Said Daniel to sewah before turning towards the survivors of his party, and saying "I need you guys to trust me once more."

    -----

    Within the cave where the triumvirate and the other leaders had gathered, the head schr, along with the leaders of the other four tribes, sat around therge bonefire.

    "We have to go back and het them.. Create a distraction.. Anything!" Said the head schr with frustration.

    "You have to calm down.. We understand what it means to lose your brother and your sister-inw.. But try to be realistic. The monsters will get to them sooner orter.. And that is if they aren¡¯t dead already.." Said the middle aged man which had agreed to join the alliance first during the previous gathering.

    The chief schr looked at the middle aged man with a saddened expression, and said "I.. I can¡¯t make it on my own.. If they die.. My tribe will be finished."

    "Don¡¯t worry about it. We won¡¯t let your people die. We are all willing to wee a portion of your tribe into ours. No one will be homeless. I promise." Responded the middle aged man with a reassuring tone.

    -----

    Back within the mages¡¯ stronghold, Daniel was sitting quietly. In front of him, wererge portions of mid level corrupted meat.

    This meat came from the monsters which Daniel¡¯s party had killed on their way to the stronghold. It mostly belonged to monsters at the leader level, which could bepared to beast cores between the sixth and ninth rank.

    Since Daniel had decided to cultivate, he spent almost two millions of karma points to upgrade time is precious from the tenth level, to the twentieth level. Maxing it.

    He now was able to cultivate at two thousand and one hundred times his normal speed of cultivation.

    The rest of the group was looking at him with visible doubt in their faces.

    Without thinking too much about it, Daniel started to eat the various types of meat.

    He had started a process of which only he was capable of. He would eat the contaminated meat, absorb the power which would be split and used to refine his body and spirit, and finally, the essence of corruption within the meat would be expelled by his body, thanks to the presence of his powerful spirit, which worked as the bane of essence of corruption.

    This went on for two days.

    The floor of the room he was in was covered in ck liquid, which, to Daniel¡¯s unbeknownst, was slowly being pushed away from the middle of the castle.

    After two Days, Daniel had finally managed to reach the peak of the ninth stage of cultivation. He knew that he would lose consciousness if he attempted to cultivate further, so, he took the meat of the strongest monster he possessed, and ate it in half an hour.

    Once his stomach was full, he took a deep breath, and resumed his cultivation.

    As expected, in a matter of seconds, he lost his consciousness.

    The vortex would not form unless he tried to break through to the following stage of cultivation. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t know how, as there was no real proof that his race of human would be able to reach such a height in cultivation.

    After Daniel lost his consciousness, the power within the meat was absorbed at such a speed, that it waspletely consumed in a matter of seconds. Even the power within the meat that had been lied in front of Daniel was slowly being absorbed without even needing for him to eat it directly.

    These pieces of meat quickly lost power, and became simple lumps of contaminated meat.

    Within Daniel¡¯s body, the two types of power were trying to merge further.. But unfortunately, there was no spiritual essence which could me mixed with his ki.

    Suddenly, an odd event started to take ce.

    A small grey vortex had appeared right in the middle of the white castle.. Right behind the portion of a wall on which a painting had been ced.

    This small and grey vortex didn¡¯t forcibly absorb anything. Instead, it started to quietly and slowly grow in size.

    The members of the group were only able to notice it after it had berge enough to enter the room they were staying in.

    This grey vortex kept bing bigger and bigger.. And at the same time, it was approaching Daniel¡¯s position.

    "What is that?!" Asked Gai¡¯ha with visible panic.

    The strongest of warriors said "It doesn¡¯t seem to be dangerous.. Its power is.. It¡¯sforting.. I.." He then started to slowly approach it.

    The chief hunter tried to stop him, but the more she looked at the grey vortex, the more she wanted to approach it as well.

    Gai¡¯ha and the head hunter tried to grab their clothes and pull them back, but the two just kept walking, until they disappeared within the grey vortex.

    Daniel was still sitting in the middle of the room, still unconscious.

    The vortex kept expanding.. And approaching him..

    The moment its edge touched Daniel¡¯s body..

    Suddenly..

    *WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

    A deafening and constant sound resounded through the entire wastnd world, causing the monsters and warriors of any sort of power to fall on their knees, and cover their ears in pain.

    In a castle within the prohibitednd, inside the throne room.. A human-like being suddenly turned his head towards the direction of the ind, and stood up from the throne he was sitting on. He then disappeared from the throne room the very next moment.

    The deafening noise kept going for numerous seconds, until finally..

    *CRACK*

    An extremely loud cracking sound could be heard.

    The grey vortex had disappeared, and within the room, the strongest of warriors and the chief hunter had reappeared unscathed.

    In the middle of the room, Daniel was still cultivating.. But something had changed in him.

    If Daniel were to be awake right now, he would be shocked.

    Half of the power he had absorbed by the monster¡¯s meat was currently turning into spiritual essence, which was in turn, merging with his ki.

    The two powers became closer and closer.. And from a ¡¯sand soaked in water¡¯ feeling, the two powers joined into a single cream-like power.

    They were now one and the same.

    Daniel¡¯s breakthrough took him to the perfection of immortal path stage, and to the perfection of the spiritual merging stage at the same time.

    As the breakthrough was concluded, he slowly opened his eyes.

    The world around him waspletely different.

    "Daniel! What happened?!" Asked Gai¡¯ha, still shocked by the many odd events.

    "We did it.." Responded Daniel while smiling gently at the members of the group.

    What Daniel had felt from the very moment he had woken up, was not only a simple connection to the spiritual in and his spirit, but the omnipresent spiritual essence in the elements, space, and time.

    Unfortunately, he was still able to feel the essence of corruption.

    "What do you mean? I don¡¯t feel anything.." Responded Gai¡¯ha in confusion.

    Once again, Daniel smiled at her.. And without saying anything, he made various spheres of different kinds of essence appear around him.

    They orbited around his body like smalls made of hot stone, limitless oceans, deadly gales.. And brilliant lightning..

    "What are those?!" Asked the chief hunter through a shocked expression.

    "Spiritual essence.. It¡¯s so powerful.. And deep." Responded Daniel in delight. He couldn¡¯t help but inhale deeply, and take in therge amounts of natural spiritual essence.

    He then approached the chief hunter, ced a hand on her stomach, and started to inject copious amounts of healing essence.

    The woman felt the pain caused by the two conflicting powers within her body, but what really shocked her, was seeing small amounts of ck liquid drip down her healing injuries.

    In a matter of seconds, she was fully healed, and the corruption in her body had decreased by a small amount.

    The strongest of warriors looked at Daniel¡¯s actions.. And couldn¡¯t help but tighten his fists hard enough to pierce the flesh with his own fingernails. In his eyes, tworge tears had formed, and were threatening to stream down his cheeks at any moment.

    He hadn¡¯t realized, until now, how much he really hoped for all of this to be true. And now that he was witnessing it with his own eyes, he couldn¡¯t help but feel his emotions well up in his throat.

    The rest of the group weren¡¯t much slower in realizing.. In a matter of seconds, they were all on the verge of tears.

    Noticing how overjoyed the tribes warriors were, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile. He looked at the lot of them, and said "Come, let¡¯s talk about this back to the tribe¡¯s territory."

    He was about to teleport them right out of the prohibitednd, but before he could.. Tworge portals opened above the small ind.

    A ck one, and a white one..

 Chapter 130 The Wasteland World - Resolution Through War

    Daniel immediately dashed out of the white castle, and once outside, he nced at the two portals that had just appeared in mid air.

    He quickly tried to push his spiritual sense towards the portals, but before he managed to, two individuals walked out of the two portals. Both of them humanoids, and both of them with a size slightly bigger than three meters in height.

    The individual which came out of the ck portal seemed to be a middle aged man. He was clothed in a tightly fitting ck robe. His hair were pitch ck, just like his short and well kept beard. His eyes were as ck as the night, and there was no distinction between the sclera, the pupil, and the iris.

    Opposite to the previous individual, the one that came out of the white portal, was a young man. He appeared to be in his early twenties, and had light blond hair. He wore a robe simr to the one the ck-robed man wore, and had a pair of golden eyes which emitted a white smoke.

    Finally, Daniel¡¯s spiritual sense reached the two portals.. And right then, he felt the profound essence of corruption which was emitted by the ck portal, and the pure spiritual essence emitted by the white portal.

    The two individuals were facing each other,pletely ignoring Daniel, the rest of his group, or therge number of monsters that had amassed at the edge of theke.

    Of the two, the man dressed in ck appeared to be calmer, and showed an amiable smile on his face, while the man dressed in white appeared almost arrogant, and had an aloof expression on his face.

    "I am the herald of corruption. I speak for the Sovereign of corruption." Said the ck-robed man.

    In response, the white-robed young man said "I am the third spiritual emissary. I speak for the Spiritual emperor."

    "To open a connection to the spiritual in in a world imed by corruption, is a grave vition of the deal." Said the ck clothed man while smiling. He didn¡¯t seem to be taking the white-robed man seriously.

    The white-robed young man noticed his opponent¡¯s behaviour, and with irritation, he said "You are mistaken, this world already possessed a spiritual seed. I¡¯ve left it here myself thousands of years ago."

    "Incorrect.. The spiritual seed had perished. A third party activated it by force, and infected the world with spiritual power." Responded the ck-clothed man while smiling creepily, and showing a white set of teeth.

    "It has not. This young man has immortal power within his body. He is a subject of the Spiritual emperor. It is within his capabilities and rights to activate a spiritual seed." Rebutted the white-robed young man.

    Without losing a beat, the ck-robed man¡¯s smile widened as he said "Nice try, he belongs to one of Iewah¡¯s worlds. Which I don¡¯t need to remind you, does not belong to your Spiritual Emperor."

    Not knowing what to say, the white-robe young man said "Retreat the corruption from this world herald.. You don¡¯t want to start a war for this, do you?"

    "Do you think that I can bear the punishment of losing a world? No. Sever the spiritual connection, and leave this world. Otherwise, it¡¯s war.. My lord will understand.." Responded the ck-robed man with a smile still present on his face.

    From how it looked from Daniel¡¯s perspective, the white-robed young man was in the wrong.. He had no idea of what agreement they were talking about, but from the context, he could guess what they were discussing.

    And that was, the hegemony of this world.

    The more Daniel listened, the more everything started to make sense.. Why the wastnd world did not have any sort of spiritual connection, but had been invaded by essence of corruption.. Why his world only had a partial connection to the spiritual in just like the dragon had mentioned, and how merging his two essences had forced a connection to the spiritual in to open.

    What Daniel could make out of the story.. Was this.

    At first, this world did not possess either of the two essences.

    Thousands of years ago, the white-robed young man had left a spiritual seed in it, which Daniel had guessed the "grey teardrop" mentioned in the mages¡¯ diary to be, within what now was the wastnd world.

    The spiritual seed hadnded in the ind, within the territory of the group of mages, which at the time, were simple warriors.

    Instead of developing their spirit, and reaching a level which could allow them to open a connection to the spiritual in, the sudden acquisition of power made them be crazy.

    Believing to be chosen by a higher power, which was in fact true, they started to decimate the world¡¯s poption.

    The massacre they had caused, instead of aiding the method of conquest of the Spiritual Emperor, had aided the method of assimtion of the Sovereign of corruption.

    For that, an incrediblyrge amount of death was necessary.

    Once fulfilled the requirements, various portals to other corrupted worlds had opened, causing the world to end up in this state.

    Back in the present, Daniel had fulfilled the requirement for the opening of a spiritual connection between the spiritual in and the wastnd world in the mages¡¯ stead.

    Now, two contrasting powers had taken control over the same world, and that, was a matter that required the herald of corruption and the spiritual emissary to personally appear, and discuss the problem between each other.

    Another part of the conversation that had left Daniel dumbfounded, was the mentioning of Iewah.

    From the way they talked about him, he was an entity at the level of the Sovereign of corruption, and the Spiritual emperor.

    Daniel¡¯s train of thought was interrupted by the next words that came from the white-robed young man.

    "I invoke the intervention of a judge, due to the impossibility of deciding to which faction this world belongs." Said the white-robed young man while suddenly smiling.

    On the other hand, the smile on the face of the ck-robed man disappeared. In its ce, a serious expression had appeared.

    He looked at the young man and said "Impulsive.. No wonder you are just the third emissary.. You do know that a judgement almost always ends up in the destruction of the world in question, right?"

    "I am aware." Responded the young man with a disinterested tone. It appeared that the survival of this world was of less importance than his own next meal.

    Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by Daniel, which flew at their height, and said "Hold on a second, why are you discussing the destruction of this world?!"

    The ck-robed man turned to look at Daniel, and after assuming his usual amiable smile, said "It is a choice dictated by the honorable spiritual emissary.. So kind.. He would never want you to LIVE in a corrupted world.. It seems that it is better for him to destroy you all."

    Daniel turned to look at the white-robed man, which said to him "I don¡¯t care about this world. My job doesn¡¯t require me to, and I am not incline to."

    Daniel felt the anger grow inside him. He then said "Is there no other way to solve this? Does this world need to be destroyed?"

    "Actually.. There is another way.. But I am not sure that the young representant of the spiritual emperor would have the guts to ept.." Said the ck-robed man to Daniel, while also making sure that the spiritual emissary could hear him.

    "What is it?" Asked Daniel with urgency.

    "Letting the world¡¯s poption decide.. Of courses."

    The white-robed young man narrowed his eyes at the herald of corruption, and said "You are proposing a resolution in which your side holds arge advantage.."

    "How exactly?" Daniel asked to the young man.

    "Through war."

    The resolution through war proposed by the ck-robed man was not a simple war. It was a world-wide conflict that would see the two opposite factions fight for the control over the world.

    In this case, everyone which had been corrupted would belong to the side of the Sovereign of corruption, while those who cultivated the spirit, would belong to the side of the spiritual emperor.

    This also meant that, if the white-robed warrior were to ept, Daniel would have to face not only every single monster that inhabited this world, but hispanions too.

    After a few moment, an idea came to Daniel¡¯s mind. He then said to the spiritual emissary "I can do it. I only need a handicap in order to even things out."

    "Why would I ept?" Asked the white-robed young man.

    "Because if it wasn¡¯t for me, you wouldn¡¯t have a world topete for. This world would be his, and that¡¯s that." Responded Daniel with a bit more anger than intended.

    The spiritual emissary turned to look back at the herald of corruption, and said "Would you agree to it?"

    "Of course," Responded the herald of corruption "we are not savages." He then turned to look at Daniel, and said "What are your requests?"

    "First of all, I need six months of peace to prepare. Secondly, everyone I purify from corruption, bes part of my side.. Third andst request, the war doesn¡¯t end after the extermination of either of the two sides, but after the death of either me, or the king of the monsters."

    The ck-robed man looked at Daniel with interest, then, he turned slightly to the side, and said "Have you heard what he said?"

    Suddenly, the king of monsters appeared in mid air. He was covered by a ck cloak, and his face could not be seen.

    While kneeling respectfully towards the herald of corruption, he said "Yes, your honor."

    "Very well.. It is custom during this kind of events that the champions ask for a reward from those they are representing." said the ck-robed man before turning to look at the king of monsters, and saying "What is your request?"

    "Your honor, I would like to be closer to the Sovereign of corruption.. Please allow me to live in one of the main corrupted worlds" Responded the king of monsters with anticipation in his voice.

    Daniel turned to look at the white-robed man, which asked with an annoyed tone "What is your request?"

    After a moment of consideration, Daniel said "A way to travel through worlds, and a map that includes my world of origin.."

    "Fine." Responded the spiritual emissary with a dismissive tone. For him, doing what Daniel had asked was nothing. He then turned to look at the herald of corruption, and said "I agree to the resolution and the terms proposed."

    "Very well."

    After receiving a confirmation from the spiritual emissary, the herald of corruption turned towards the ck portal, and went right in. On the other side, the spiritual emissary did the exact same thing.

    The two portals closed behind their backs.

    Daniel looked at the king of monsters, which turned towards therge army that had amassed around theke. He then shouting amand which caused them to disperse.

    The king turned back towards Daniel, and muttered "Six month.." Then disappeared.

    Daniel let out a huge breath of relief, then, flew back on the ind in which the rest of his party were waiting for him with eyes filled of admiration and gratitude.

    Since when they had heard about the possibility of their world being destroyed, they had started to, once again, lose hope. But thanks to Daniel, which had changed the fate of their world once again, they were able to have a chance to fight back.

    That was all they needed. A chance to fight for their world.

    If they were to lose, their world would have to keep existing as the corrupted world they had always known.. But if they won..

    A chance was more than what they could have hoped for.

 Chapter 131 A War for Salvation

    Back in the castle carved into the rocky wall of the cave, the head schr was upying her seat.

    Her head was resting on her palm, and one could see that she had been suffering for the past few days by the sorry state he was in.

    The failed operation had costed her a brother, and a sister-inw. Unfortunately, being the sole leader of the tribe now, she had no time to grief. Instead, she was forced to supersede the division of her tribe.

    The only moments of the day where she was able to grief, were when she was left alone in the hall where she, her sister-inw, and her brother, used to lead the tribe through suffering and harsh times.

    A room in which now, whenever she found herself alone in it, she couldn¡¯t manage to hold her back her tears.

    Her grief was interrupted by the two powerful noises which resounded in her ears, and forced her to cover her ears in pain.

    One caused by the activation of the spiritual seed, and one caused by the shattering of the limitation which separated the spiritual in from their world.

    After the two noises disappeared, she got up from her chair, and started to walk out of the room.

    A few warriors approached her as she was about to leave the hall, and reported the situation to her.

    At the moment, the tribe was splitting into four different parts. Each part was being transferred into one of the four different tribes which had agreed to epting their people in their territory. Along with each group, a fourth of the warriors, a fourth of the schrs, and a fourth of the hunters would go with the civilians.

    After the report was concluded, the warriors left the hall, leaving the old woman alone once again.

    The very next moment, the saddened expression came back to her face. She was thinking of what her brother, the strongest of warriors, and her sister-inw, the chief hunter, would have said about what was happening.

    Once again, tears started to form on her eyes.. But before they could stream down her wrinkly face, she heard a voiceing from behind her say.. "Why are you crying, sister?"

    The old woman immediately turned around, and standing right in front of her, she found her brother and her sister-inw standing, and smiling at her.

    Behind them, Daniel stood quietly, with a sweet smile on his face.

    "I am going crazy.." muttered the unbelieving old woman with a self deprecating tone.

    The old man couldn¡¯t help but smile at his sister¡¯s behaviour. He then walked toward her while saying "My sister isn¡¯t crazy.. She wasn¡¯t crazy when she chased me so that I could test her healing powders when we were kids.."

    "No.." said the old woman with tears streaming down her cheeks.

    "She wasn¡¯t crazy when she told me that if I let my wife go, I would have regretted it.."

    At this point the old woman couldn¡¯t help but rub her eyes due to disbelief, but even then, he kept seeing her brother approaching her.

    As the strongest of warriors arrived right in front of his sister, he ced his hands on her shoulders, and said "She wasn¡¯t crazy when she told me that we would have found a way to free our people from this bane.. Because we did."

    The moment her brother touched her shoulders, she burst out crying.

    -----

    After the three members of the triumvirate reunited, Daniel stepped forward and recounted everything that happened since they had departed for the mages¡¯ stronghold.

    ".. That¡¯s rming.." Said the head schr with a shocked expression.

    "Don¡¯t worry, the kid has a n." Said the chief hunter with a reassuring tone.

    Daniel¡¯s face became serious as he looked at the chief schr intently, and said "I do have a n.. But is more of a job for your people than mine.." He then paused for a few moments, before continuing by saying "I intend on purifying an army which we can use against the army of the king of monsters.. But, we can¡¯t just travel and look for people to purify.. You will have to summon another gathering, spread the word, and lead them to me."

    The head schr looked at Daniel with doubt in her eyes. She then said "How do you n to do that by yourself? In just six months, even if you purify ten people every day, we¡¯ll have an army smaller than four thousands."

    "Who said that It¡¯s just going to be me?." Responded Daniel while smirking. He then took his ring off of his finger, and handed it over to the strongest of warriors. "Hold this for me for a few hours.. If this ring gets destroyed while I¡¯m inside, your world is doomed."

    Thest few words pronounced by Daniel left the old man terrified. He held the ring in his hands as if it was the most important object in the world, then, he said "What do you mean with ¡¯whil-" but before he could finish, Daniel had already disappeared.

    -----

    When Daniel entered the pocket dimension, he found himself in his room within the castle.

    The first thing he noticed, was the difference between the partial connection to the spiritual in within the pocket dimension, and theplete connection to the spiritual in from outside.

    In order to rectify this, he teleported back in the square where the portals which lead out of the pocket dimension were.

    The ce was empty, as the portals had been closed for months now, and no one had any interest in them.

    Despite that, Daniel could feel the hundreds of thousands of people conducting their lives peacefully all around his pocket dimension.

    With a wave of his hand, he dissipated the disabled portals, and in their ce, he opened a new one.

    As this portal opened, and a connection to the wastnd world was established.. The very connection of the spiritual in contained within the pocket dimension started to change.

    With a loud *CRACK*, the limitation of the connection shattered, and the ever present spiritual essence started to fill the inside of the pocket dimension.

    This change alerted every single cultivator within the pocket dimension, which looked at their own bodies in shock, as if something crucial within their belief had been changed drastically.

    What even Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of, was the effect that exposing someone that had only cultivated either the martial or spiritual path to a spiritual world, had on their body.

    What martial cultivator felt, was the thick and calm spiritual essence all around them, which after bing a natural essence that granted a permanent connection to the spiritual in, could now be absorbed, and possibly, used to refine their spirits.

    On the other hand, what the spiritual cultivators felt when the nature of the spiritual essence had changed to a natural state, was that their spirit had be much less unruly, and mostly sticked to their bodies, as if that¡¯s where it belonged. Therefore, granting them the ability to cultivate the body if they wished to.

    The reason why Daniel wasn¡¯t aware of this, was because his powers had already merged, and therefore, he felt his body and spirit as one, no matter if he was in a world devoid of spiritual essence, with a partial connection, or even a spiritual world.

    Feeling the formation of the new portal in the square outside of the castle, the strongest spiritual and martial cultivators approached, and there, they found Daniel.

    "Daniel!" Eximed Edmund, as he was the first of them to arrive.

    The very next moment, Roley, and hundreds more spiritual cultivators which hadprehended spatial essence started to appear in the air. Right after, the other martial and spiritual cultivators arrived as well.

    Daniel was surrounded by his group now, which looked at him while making a ruckus.

    "Quiet!" Shouted Edmund.

    The crowd immediately quietened.

    He then turned to look at Daniel, and said "What happened in these three months?"

    Daniel smiled back at Edmund, and said "It¡¯s a long story.. Let¡¯s go to a ce with.. Lots of chairs first."

    -----

    For the following hour, Daniel exined everything that happened to him since they had fought the monster within the base of the worshippers of death.

    He told them of how he was pulled into a portal that lead him to the wastnd world, of how he was found out by a tribe of extremely powerful warriors, about the corruption that had spread through the entire world, of how inhabitant were affected by a gue that they believed him to be a key to cure, of how they had attempted and seeded in creating a connection to the spiritual in, and finally, about the iing war.

    Naturally, he didn¡¯t forget to mention how much their world had risked when the monster held in the heart of the base of the worshippers of death was close to leave the tower, and enter their world of origin.

    Of course, this was an impressive story, but everything that Edmund and the rest of Daniel¡¯s group members were thinking after hearing this story, was about how they could help him.

    Daniel quickly exined to them that the world outside was filled with monsters more powerful than what they imagined, and that they would be facing waves of monsters whom they could not hope to defeat at their level.

    What Daniel needed, were people at the ninth rank of cultivation at the very least, and finally, all the spiritual cultivators that had knowledge of healing essence.

    Daniel¡¯s group had fared pretty well while Daniel was absent. Only three months had passed, but thanks to the indisputable power of the members of Daniel¡¯s group, none of the other powerful cultivators had dared to challenge them for the control over the pocket dimension.

    "Another world? A war?" Asked Emelnie in surprise.

    "Exactly.. And not only is it a war that I¡¯ve started, but it is also inevitable. If we don¡¯t aid this world¡¯s poption, we¡¯ll be stuck in this corrupted world forever.. In case of victory, the spiritual emissary promised a way to travel through worlds, and the necessary indications to go back to our own world." Responded Daniel calmly.

    "Very well, it seems that we have no choice then. I assume that you already have a n. Care to tell it to us?" asked Edmund with curiosity.

    "I do. The herald of corruption agreed to three of my conditions. We have six months of peace to prepare, everyone we purify from corruption is part of our force, and finally, we only need to kill the king of monsters to end the war." Exined Daniel while ying with the ring he had on his left hand.

    After a few moments, he turned to look at Edmund "I need something from the citizens." He said, seemingly talking about an unrted topic.

    "What is it?" asked Edmund in response.

    "I need the help of every single cksmith in the pocket dimension. Have them list every single type of metal they know, and if possible, purchase a single portion of each of those metals. Also, earth, wood, and metal are extremely close to each other. Ask Lerre and Buriath if they can make a list of all the metals they are aware of.."

    "It is clear that you want toprehend metal essence, but why?" Asked Edmund with confusion.

    Metallic essence was by far the least valuable essence of which a spiritual cultivator could gainprehension. Thebat uses of metal were the overall same regardless of the kind of metal used, and there was basically no difference between a spike of stone, metal, or ice if you possessed enough strength. The only difference, was in the defensive field.

    Instead of responding to Edmund¡¯s question, Daniel took the small piece of metal which radiated perfect metalprehension, which everybody with a spiritual sense immediately recognized as a perfect metal treasure.

    Roley, which had almost reached a perfectprehension of earth and wood thanks to the perfect spheres which Daniel had created, couldn¡¯t help but look at Daniel with eyes filled with disbelief, and mutter "That¡¯s some luck.."

 Chapter 132 A Crossing Point Between Two Roads

    After a few minutes from the upgrading of the spiritual connection from partial, to aplete one, people started to explore the changes in their bodies. Amongst these people was Alesia.. Which gifted by the knowledge of spiritual essence she had inherited by her father, she was the first to discover that, under this conditions, a martial cultivator¡¯s spirit could be cultivated.

    This discovery had caused her to miss the reapparition of Daniel.

    She was now sitting in her room, with a seventh rank core in her hand. She was currently absorbing its essence, along with the natural essence in the surrounding.

    At first, she didn¡¯t notice the changes in the surrounding essence as it entered her body, but after it entered her body, she noticed that the essence was not behaving like it was supposed to.

    While before it was simr to arge wolf that desperately tried to leave a cage and roam free, now, it was a calm and domesticated dog, which patiently waited within her body until its owner decided to feed it, or let it out.

    Another thing she noticed, was that no matter how much she directed the natural essence into her body.. the majority would always move toward her spirit and refine it.

    The seventh rank beast core contained an extremelyrge amount of beast essence within, and while a good portion of it still followed her directions, the majority of the essence was forced on her spirit.

    In Daniel¡¯s original world, martial cultivators would not be able to cultivate the spirit past the third rank of cultivation. The reason for this, was that the body of a martial cultivator at the fourth rank was too strong to allow their weak spirit to feel the partial connection to the spiritual in.

    But now, that connection was omnipresent. The presence of the natural spiritual essence in the air, which could be absorbed regardless of how powerful one¡¯s body was and could be used to refine the spirit, allowed to remedy for this.

    In the span of time Daniel had discussed with his group members, Alesia¡¯s spiritual cultivation had increased from the second rank, to the fourth rank.

    Once she reached the fourth rank of spiritual cultivation, she immediately dashed out of her room, and looked for her parents.

    She left her family manor, dashed towards the castle, but as she entered it, she saw no one in the otherwise busy building.

    Slightly confused, she immediately stopped one of the people which were in charge with keeping the castle clean, and asked "Where is everybody?"

    "They are all in the mess hall. Daniel is back." Responded the middle ageddy.

    A smile appeared on Alesia¡¯s beautiful face as she nodded in gratitude to thedy, and dashed towards the mess hall.

    She suddenly opened the doors, causing everyone to look at her.

    Each and every spiritual cultivator within the hall, Daniel included, opened their eyes wide in shock.

    They had, of course, noticed the progression in Alesia¡¯s spiritual cultivation.

    The first to speak was Daniel, which looked at her and said "Alesia.. How did y-" But before he could finish speaking, the girl had already approached him, and hugged him.

    The hug wasn¡¯t really an intimate one, more like the kind of hug that someone would give to someone they hadn¡¯t seen for awhile, and for which they had felt worry.

    There was a reason why Alesia was that happy to see Daniel.

    Thest time she had seen him, he had decided to let her go back into the pocket dimension as he feared that she could get hurt by the death essence, or by the worshippers of death.

    She had heard the stories of how Daniel had stayed outside in thepany of a strong monster more, while he had forced the rest in to protect them, more than once.

    For three months, they had absolutely no news of him.

    Despite what her father had told her about Daniel¡¯s mysterious power, she knew that even he wasn¡¯t sure of what he was talking about. There was absolutely no guarantee that, in case Daniel died, they would lose the power they had been granted by their allegiance to him.

    For all they knew, Daniel could have already been dead.

    The hug went on for a few embarrassing moments, until finally, Edmund cleared his throat loudly, and reminding her daughter that she was causing a scene.

    Alesia quickly stepped back, and said "Father, Daniel.. I seem to be able to cultivate the spiritual path now.."

    -----

    After hearing Alesia¡¯s description of what had happened, Daniel had more or less guess what had happened.

    It was ever since he had met the dragon that he had wondered what it meant to live in a spiritual world.

    The dragon had asked him ¡¯why his immortal essence was split¡¯, before mentioning about the partial connection that Daniel¡¯s world of origin had with the spiritual in.

    Now, in Daniel¡¯s head, everything was much more clear.

    ording to Daniel¡¯s guess, there was a very real possibility that people that came from spiritual world did not use two different types of essence, and that instead, ki and spiritual essence had been separated into two paths because of the poor condition of the spiritual connection of their world.

    If cultivating in a world with natural spiritual essence allowed to cultivate both paths at the same time, then, it was possible to assume that, by practicing martial cultivation in the future, martial cultivators would inadvertently end up refining their spirit as well.

    Daniel¡¯s guess was right. That was exactly what had happened to Alesia.

    This was a great news for Daniel. It was long since he had considered talking to Heimart, Edmund, and Imblen about letting their children cultivate both paths of cultivation through his way of bing a dual cultivator.. But now, it wasn¡¯t necessary anymore.

    As the group discussed about how many possibilities were opened thanks to the change regarding the spiritual essence, all through the city, various spiritual cultivators found themselves being able to cultivate the body.

    Daniel did not want to make the tribe wait for too long, so, he tasked a few of his group members to gather as many spiritual cultivators adept in healing essence as he could, and lead a small party out of the ring, and into the tribe¡¯s castle.

    A group of around ten people appeared right in front of the slightly worried triumvirate, which in reaction, was scared out of their wits.

    Being the well trained warrior that he was, the strongest of warriors immediately grabbed his bone greatsword and pointed it at the ¡¯invaders¡¯ in a matter of instants, but as he noticed Daniel amongst the group, he immediately lowered hi weapon.

    "Daniel.. You¡¯re back.. I was starting to worry" Said the old man while passing the ring back to Daniel, as if lending a sacred object over.

    "Yes, and I bring allies. These people are the leaders of my group. They will help us in the first part of the n." Said Daniel to the three members of the triumvirate.

    The three of them politely weed Edmund, Roley and the rest of them.

    Then, the head schr turned to look at Daniel and said "We appreciate all the help that we can take, but even with ten people.. It will be hard.. We only have six months."

    "Oh, they are not the only ones." Said Daniel with a reassuring tone.

    After a few minutes of presentation, Daniel waved his hand, and created a portal in the middle of the room. As this portal opened, about two hundred people came out of it. These, were all the spiritual cultivators which were adept in healing essence.

    -----

    For the following four months, Daniel and the other members of his group were treated with great respect, as they spent all their time purifying the warrior¡¯s bodies day and night.

    The method they used was simple. The corruption would be pushed out from healing essence in the most simple way possible, and that, was through the bloodstream.

    Daniel and the others had built arge camp hospital within the territory of the tribe, there, they would make a small cut on the skin of a corrupted person, and heal them until they werepletely cleaned from corruption.

    Sometimes that required multiple cuts, as the cut itself would regenerate way before the corruption would be fully expelled. Fortunately, the first people they had decided to treat were the powerful warriors which could handle the pain.

    Along with freeing them from the corruption, they would also give them a method to cultivate the spirit, and in exchange of contaminated meat, clean and uncontaminated food.

    The poption would surely be able to avoid contamination by simply reaching a reasonably high level of spiritual cultivation, but the reason why they woulde back over and over to exchange meat of powerful monsters for clean and uncontaminated food, was the taste.

    The meat was meat, but the wastnd world did not possess fruit, or vegetables. Sugar, chocte, tea, and many other delicacies which were cheap in Daniel¡¯s world, were new here.

    While they exchanged resources and clean food, for the contaminated meat of the powerful beasts these leader, and chief-level warriors had killed, the triumvirate was leading a campaign of information about the iing war, asking to each tribe to take part in it.

    They had started by informing their allied tribes about the sess of the mission, then, they asked them to spread the news to all the other surrounding tribes.

    For months, groups of warriors arrived one after the other.

    Daniel did not worry too much about purifying young kids or weak warriors right now.

    All of that would be superfluous, as in case they won the war, the corruption would be removed from the world, and the inhabiting race of the wastnd world would slowly go back to their original state by themselves.

    What they needed, were powerful warriors that could aid in the war.

    If that wasn¡¯t enough, if they were to win the war and the world became a full fledged spiritual world, there would not be any chance for the corruption toe back, even if a world scale war were to happen, and people died inrge numbers.

    The amount of warriors that arrived were so many, that they had filled dozens of Daniel¡¯s fairlyrge spiritual rings with contaminated meat.

    The number of purified warriors had reached the twenty-five thousand people.

    Of course, Daniel would split the meat with his group, and the independent parties that had participated in the war efforts.

    Now that everyone could be a spiritual cultivator, he wasn¡¯t even worried that someone within his pocket dimension might end up being contaminated.

    As it was now, this meat was the strongest source of power that Daniel had encountered, and he wasn¡¯t sure when he would be able to find a simr, or better one in the future. Especially if he wanted to go back to his world, where cultivating past the ninth rank was impossible, and therefore, there was no cultivation resource past that level.

    After being healed, the tribal warriors would be sent in a second section of the tribe, where Jerigh and Emelnie would teach them how to fight.

    Daniel had allowed Schr Lucious, and Schr Lara, to meet with a few professional figures which inhabited his pocket dimension, and from them, they learned useful jobs like smithing, agriculture, alchemy, cooking, and a few others.

    These encounters didn¡¯t happen within the pocket dimension, but within the wastnd world, so that the various schrs coulde to learn these jobs, transcribe them into manuals, and spread them through their world.. Causing the technological advancement of their race to go back to their ancient times.

    At the same time.. Within the prohibitednd.. A mind boggling amount of monsters was amassing all through the territory, and on their way to join, many more armiesmanded by humanoid monsters at the peak of the chief level were on their way.

    After five of the six agreed months had passed, Daniel stopped personally healing people, and decided to start cultivating instead.

    His cultivation would lead him past the third stage of cultivation, so, not knowing if a third vortex would form or not, he decided to open a portal, and reappear thousands of kilometers away from the tribe¡¯s territory.

    The only difference between this and his past breakthroughs, was how he intended on attempting it.

    This time, he would not be using any form of unique power like the monster¡¯s essence contained in the meat, or the beast essence contained in the beast core.. He wanted to break through by absorbing the natural essence of the wastnd world.

 Chapter 133 A Monsters Expedien

    After going through three different portals, Daniel finally found the right spot to cultivate.

    There were no tribes in the surroundings. He had made sure of that in order to avoid inadvertently killing them, in case a vortex happened to appear as he broke through the next stage of cultivation.

    He had also left the pocket dimension to Edmund, taking with him only the time sphere, which he rapidly locked in the middle of the dested in inside which he was currently in, and activated it.

    The flowing of time hastened by three times, allowing Daniel¡¯s already enhanced speed of cultivation to reach six thousand and three hundred times the speed of cultivation he would have had without karmic system, and time sphere.

    He quietly sat down on a greyish patch of terrain, and tried to calm his state of mind through deep and slow breaths.

    One breath in, one breath out.

    The various essences in the surroundings were slowly attracted by his body, and moved through into it as he inhaled deeply.

    In a matter of seconds, his consciousness drifted away, and he fell unconscious.

    The moment Daniel fell asleep, in a radius of a thousand kilometers the ground started to tremble.

    Just like Daniel had expected, a vortex started to form around his body, and causing every bit of corrupted essences and spiritual essence to be pulled towards him, as darkness started to enshroud Daniel¡¯s body.

    -----

    Back in the tribe¡¯s territory, something odd was happening.

    Around the territory, a few powerful warriors which did not belong to the local tribes, had been spotted roaming around the various tribe bases.

    These warriors casually entered other tribes¡¯ territories and tried to start conversation about Daniel¡¯s magical powers, or about the iing war with the monsters.

    Mid chief level solitary warriors had appeared at the same time around every single tribe¡¯s base that was located in the surroundings of the tribe ruled by the triumvirate.

    At first, the triumvirate had thought that these warriors had heard about the rumors that they had spread, and hade to be purified, and join the war against the monsters, but instead, these powerful warriors simply waited around the bases.

    As time passed, more and more bases were visited by the warriors, to which was asked to leave, or left alone as they didn¡¯t seem to have any ill intention.

    They either imed to be wanting to witness the powers of this mystical young man they had heard so much about, to meet purified warriors, or to have been sent by their own far away tribes to gather informations.

    Since Daniel had appeared, thousands and thousand of warriors hade from many different tribes. So, they had expected to meet a few odd ones within the pile. Some of them were more credible than others, but since their entire race supposedly shared the same goal of going back to better time, they were not considered as a direct threat, but a simple nuisance instead.

    That, was a mistake.

    A few of these warriors had infiltrated each and every tribe which was now under the triumvirate¡¯s control, and exactly at midnight.. The chaos started.

    These warriors turned towards the tribes¡¯ members, and started a ughter.

    Curiously, the ones they attacked, weren¡¯t the warriors that Daniel had purified, but the corrupted civilians, and the weaker warriors and hunters.

    The numerous purified warriors reacted with haste, and thanks to their numerical advantage, they were quickly able to neutralize these warrior, despite the majority of them attempted to escape.

    The majority of these warriors managed to kill various civilians before being taken down, but the moment the first of them had been killed.. A loud voice resounded through the entire world.

    If Daniel was conscious, he would recognize this voice as the voice of the herald of corruption, which said "The side of the Spiritual Emperor broke the temporary armistice, the war starts now. To repair for the damage, in the name of the Sovereign of corruption, I grant a token to the King of monsters."

    The moment the herald of corruption finished speaking, variousrge groups of warriors started toe out of hiding. They then marched towards the territories of the tribes whose warriors had been purified, and were now part of the army of the Spiritual Emperor.

    Back in his castle, the King of the monsters, which wasfortably sitting on his throne with a faint smile on his face, was looking at small purple pearl in his hand. It radiated pure and deep essence of corruption.

    His n had seeded perfectly.

    Despite what people might have thought about him, the King of monsters was an extremely intelligent being.

    His n was simple, and yet exceptionally smart.

    From the very first moment the king had heard Daniel¡¯s requests, his n started to form in his mind.

    He never intended on letting six months pass before attacking Daniel¡¯s army, but he didn¡¯t want to be the one to break the armistice either, as he wanted to impress the herald of corruption.

    Plus, he had been warned by the herald himself that, in case his side attacked Daniel before six months, the spiritual emissary would immediately grab the chance to grant his side a token of power..

    For the past few months, the king¡¯s emissaries had visited the tribes with the worst reputations. Tribes which had adopted very, tribes which plundered, raped, killed for fun, and even had cannibalistic tendencies.

    These visits were aimed at one single thing.. Convince the prominent warriors of these tribes, that if the war was won by the side of the Spiritual Emperor, they would be exterminated as well.

    After all, the ways to obtain power in the spiritual world were not through savagery, or brutality, but through dedication towards the path of cultivation.

    They were brainwashed into thinking that the spiritual worlds were ces for good willed, and hardworking people, and that criminals, butcherers, and cannibals like them, would quickly be removed. They were also told that, for the type of warriors they were, a corrupted world would be the best world they could hope for.

    Most of these things were, of course,pletely false.

    The spiritual worlds were nowhere less vicious and brutal than the corrupted worlds, but of course, there was no way for them to know these things, as just a few months before, they were bandit groups, and savage tribes whose entire existence was dedicated to causing thergest amount of suffering they could to the rest of the world.

    Many of the tribes had ignored the king¡¯s offer to join their ranks, but a few of them, after hearing the vain promises of the king¡¯s emissaries, were foolish enough to agree.

    What Daniel had not considered due to the urgency of the situation, were the herald¡¯s exact words.

    When the herald had exined to him what a resolution through war was, he had pointed at the king of monsters, and at the group of monsters that had formed around theke, and said.. ¡¯The spiritual practitioners will belong to the side of the Spiritual Emperor, while the corrupted ones will belong to the side of the Sovereign of corruption.¡¯

    Hidden within these words, was a very small detail which had also escaped the spiritual emissary.

    That detail, was that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the corrupted beings would belong to side of the Sovereign of corruption. Including the children, and weak cultivators which Daniel didn¡¯t intend to purify.

    The reason for Daniel¡¯s request of making every purified warrior part of his army, was that he did not intended on directly killing the king of monsters himself, as he was not sure that he could even if he cultivated for the entire duration of the six months.

    He hoped that therge number of purified and extremely powerful warriors of the wastnd world¡¯s race would do it, while he and his group took care of the monsters they were capable of fighting against. Specifically, the monsters at the leader level and lower.

    What he did not expect, was for the king to use other people to attack the non purified members of the tribes.

    This was the geniality of this n. For these corrupted warriors, to attack another corrupted member of their race was not a vition of the agreement, as technically, these warriors were attacking members of their own side.. What was a vition though, was for the purified warrior, which already belonged to Daniel¡¯s side, to attack the warriors in defense of those corrupted citizen and weak warriors.

    Now, not only was the king able to attack Daniel¡¯s side while they were still preparing for war, but they had also received a token from the herald of corruption.

    As the words of the herald ended, the king of monsters got up from his throne, hid the token inside his robe, and left the throne room.

    As the gate of the castle opened, an immense expanse of monsters appeared in front of his eyes.

    Standing right next to the gate, were ten humanoid entities which were dressed simrly to the king himself.

    They immediately bowed to the king as he appeared in front of their eyes.

    "Begin the attack.. I want each and every one of those tribes to be ash by tonight." Said the king of monsters to the ten humanoid beings. Which immediately nodded at him, and left one by one along with their portion of the army.

    Meanwhile, parties of traitorous warriors had appeared near the majority of tribes whose warriors had been purified, and were ready tounch an attack.

    Moments after the herald of corruption finished talking, Edmund and Roley immediately appeared within the room where the members of the triumvirate were staying.

    "What is going on?" Askes Edmund to the seemingly busy leaders.

    "A trap.. They used human warriors to kill our people. When we responded by killing the attackers, it was considered a vition of the agreement.." Said the head schr with an extremely irritated tone.

    From Edmund¡¯s side, Roley said "That was pretty clever.." He then turned to look at Edmund and said "We should evacuate the area.. There is no way that they haven¡¯t ced troops near the tribes¡¯ territories.."

    The strongest of warrior turned to look at Roley with surprise. He then said "That would take weeks. We have elders and children.."

    "I wouldn¡¯t worry about that." Responded Edmund. He then pushed his spiritual essence into the ring which contained the pocket dimension, but then, his brows furrowed in confusion.

    He could not move or enter the ring, no matter how much he tried.

    "What is it?" Asked Roley, after noticing Edmund¡¯s odd expression.

    "I can¡¯t enter.. Or teleport people in." Responded Edmund in a deep confusion.

    Roley quietened for a few seconds, while Edmund kept trying. Suddenly, an idea shed in his head. He said "Is it possible that, now that the pocket dimension is a spiritual world.. In order to enter it we need to use the type of power Daniel possesses? Immortal essence."

    "It¡¯s possible.." Responded Edmund with a pensive tone. He then turned to look at the confused members of the triumvirate, and said "How much time would it take for your entire tribe to gather in the same ce?"

    "If we don¡¯t give them time to gather their belongings.. Half an hour, I think." Responded the head schr.

    "It¡¯s perfect. Can you sign in that map the exact position of all the other tribes in the surrounding? The more urate, the better." Said Edmund while pointing at the map that the three of them were observing.

    Leaving the chief hunter to fulfill Edmund¡¯s assignment, the head schr and the strongest of warriors immediately left hall, and ordered their men to gather the entire tribe in the main za within therge cave.

    After about forty minutes, an extremelyrge crowd of confused, sleepy, and scared people were standing in therge square, and after ten more minutes, Edmund, Roley, and the chief hunter teleported there as well.

    Edmund and Roley were currently studying the map.

    Once they finished, Roley looked at Edmund, and said "I¡¯ll start."

    He then took a step forward, moved his hands in front of his chest, and after folding his fingers, he ripped a veryrge portal open. On the other side of this portal, were the confused faces of the members of the tribe closest to the tribe ruled by the triumvirate.

 Chapter 134 Evacuation Plan

    The extremelyrge group of civilians were quickly evacuated through the portal, while the warriors and the triumvirate stood behind to make sure that nobody would attempt to attack the civilians from behind.

    After about twenty minutes, it was their time to pass through.

    The moment the three members of the triumvirate came out of the portal that had appeared right in the middle of the other tribe¡¯s encampment, their leaders let out a breath or relief.

    These tribe leaders had never seen a portal before, and the closest thing they knew to the portal that had opened right in their camp, were the ones they had known from their world¡¯s history.. The portals from which the carrier of corruption hade out.

    They had only managed to rx after seeing that what came out of the portal weren¡¯t monsters, but kids, and elderly people.

    This was the first time that the the head schr had been teleported, so, her face was just as shocked as the faces of the leaders of the second tribe.

    She immediately turned to look at Roley with extreme admiration, and just as she was about to say something, Edmund said to the strongest of warriors, and the chief hunter "We have to go to the other tribes.. We could each need one of you as proof that we mean no harm."

    At the same time, Roley looked at the head schr and the other tribe leaders, and said "The members of this tribe should regroup as well. We¡¯ll bring the other tribes here, and then move them again out of the area. Also, there is a good possibility that, while you regroup the people here, you¡¯ll be attacked by more of those corrupted warriors.. Be prepared."

    He then walked next to the strongest of warriors, and before disappearing, he said "Rx, don¡¯t fight it."

    The same happened with the chief hunter, and Edmund.

    For the next couple of hours, the two couplesposed by Roley and the strongest of warriors, and Edmund and the chief hunter, spent the majority of their spiritual essence to teleport from one tribe to another, making them regroup in a single square, open a portal, and have the entire tribe cross it before moving to the next one.

    When each of them reached their fifth tribe, they started to find the tribes fighting against members of enemy tribes.

    The strongest of warriors and the chief hunter immediately join the fight and support the tribe that inhabited thend the very moment they arrived.

    The two of them were so strong, that their single aid was enough to quickly give an advantage to the defending party.

    From that moment on, they would open the portal only for the civilians, while they would take the warriors with them as they teleported into another tribe¡¯s camp.

    When both groups reached their tenth camp, they were apanied by dozens of early chief level warriors, which were usually second inmand to the very leaders of the tribes they had saved.

    They would work as reinforcement, and would immediately obliterate the attacking parties, whose main objective was to stall for time until the monster¡¯s army arrived.

    They would then send the civilians back, and have the warriors join them to the next tribe base.

    -----

    Five hourster, a hundred of the tribes that upied the territory had beenpletely evacuated. Only those who had been convinced to join the king of the monsters were left.

    It is important to understand one thing.

    The wastnd world was nowhere near as big as Daniel¡¯s world of origin.

    The monsters inhabited two thirds of the liveable territory, whichprised hundreds of thousands of kilometers from one side to the other, while the remaining third, was upied by the humanoid¡¯s tribes.

    The tribes weren¡¯t close to each other at all, and they popted the territory in an extremely sparse way. Yet, thanks to their powers, their warriors were able to travel thousands of kilometers in a matter of a few hours.

    Their only problem was that, being divided into groups, the strong warriors were tied down by the young and weak members of their tribe. That was the reason why their race had be sedentary, and had divided the territory between singr tribes.

    At sunrise, the army of monsters had finally reached the territory of the tribe lead by the triumvirate. Unfortunately, they found no one.

    The army of monsters was enormous, and it counted hundreds of thousands, if not millions of monsters.

    Simrly to the army of warriors, they strongest members of the army of monsters were slowed down by the weak members.

    It was for that reason that the monster, when at war, would usually divide into groupsposed of monsters of a simr level of power.

    Of course, the monster had no idea why they couldn¡¯t find their enemies, as they had been corrupted, and had joined the army of monsters in this world, they had never experienced a fight against a spiritual cultivator that hadprehended spatial essence.

    On the other hand.. The ten humanoidmanders which lead the army of monsters, had personally arrived from the portals that had appeared thousands of years ago, along with the king of monsters.

    This was something that no one knew.

    Just like the aura of the race that inhabited the wastnd world, a strong cultivator which allowed himself to be swallowed by the corruption, would be reborn as a nigh-immortal being.

    The downside, was that they would not be able to increase their cultivation past the level of corruption, and they would gain an innate sense of service towards corrupted beings of a higher level than they were.

    This was also the reason why the corruption was considered such a bane.

    The corruption would not be as dangerous if someone were to be corrupted at an already high level of cultivation. If that happened, they would be able to contain it, and be transformed by it. Bing a loyal subject of the Sovereign of corruption.

    The tenmanders were cultivators that came from other worlds, that had been corrupted at a level of power that, when the invasion had just started, was impossible to match.

    That level of power, was the power of a peak chief level warrior.

    After thousands of years, the tribal warrior had managed to increase the overall strength of the race, as the weak monsters from the past had now berger sources of power for them to consume. Unfortunately, since they were exposed to the at a younger age, they were not able to survive past the ny years of age.

    These ten ancient and powerful warriors were more than aware of how spiritual, or to be more precise, ¡¯immortal cultivators¡¯ fought. So, instead of starting to search blindly, one of them took an extremely old lookingpass out of his pocket.

    Thispass was a very interesting item. Its needle was made so that, by injecting essence of corruption into one of its ends, the needle would start to show the direction where the purest amount of corruption was.

    This information by itself was of no use to themanders of the army. What was really useful to them, was the second end of the needle.

    By pointing in the direction with the purest amount of essence of corruption, thepass would also show the opposite. Specifically, the point where the essence of corruption was disturbed by other essences. For example, the spiritual essence that was turned into spatial essence, and was used to teleport people away.

    With a direction at hand, the tenmanders took the majority of the chief level monsters and warrior with them, and dashed towards thest known location in which spiritual essence was being used.

    -----

    "Here.." Said Roley with a confident tone.

    The leader of one of the rescued tribes looked at Roley with dubious eyes, and said "That¡¯s a sea.. There is nothing there except for dark waters, and the monsters that lurk in them."

    The tribe which was lead by this man, was based near the very sea which Roley had picked. He was an expert of the area, and his tribe had a specific upation that, simrly to what hunters did, would hunt for monsters. But instead of hunting in the forests, or the surroundings, they would hunt at sea.

    This was also the reason why one of their chief level warriors had survived alongside Daniel and the rest during the operation in the mages¡¯ stronghold.

    "We can¡¯t fight against the army of the king of monsters now. We don¡¯t have enough purified warriors, and entering a full on fight against them without being able to distinguish between friends or foe, that¡¯s too dangerous." Said Edmund with a firm voice. He then continued by saying "We have a way to solve this problem.. We only have to hold on until Daniel finishes cultivating. He will be able to take you all within our pocket dimension. There, we will be able to equip and prepare our troupes."

    "How can we survive at sea?" Asked the head schr with a confused expression.

    "A spatial tform.." Responded Edmund, which waved his hand the very next moment, and made a thick and in tform appear in the air.

    Its surface was only a square kilometer, but it was enough for a few millions of people to stand on for a few hours.

    In order to ease the pressure on the consumption of Edmund¡¯s spiritual essence, the many cultivators which had been purifying the warriors until just a few hours ago, would have to support the tform with constant currents of air, and water.

    During the following two hours, the millions of civilians were moved over the tform, that was lying on the arid and corrupted ground.

    As they were minutes from finishing, from the distance, the small army of thousands of chief level monsters appeared in their sight.

    Edmund turned to look at the chief hunter, and said "Can you attack them from this distance?!"

    "If theye a little closer, we should be able to attack them with the weapons you gave us." Responded the chief hunter, before turning to look at the group of powerful warriors and shouted. "EVERY HUNTER, FORM THREE ORDERLY LINES, AND AS SOON AS THEY GET IN SHOOTING RANGE, FIRE! YOU HAVE TO SLOW THEM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!!"

    The hunters of the many different tribes followed her orders, and positioned themselves in three lines ced one in front of the other. They then braced the bows they had obtained by Daniel¡¯s group, and observed the advancement of the army of monster.

    The moment the army of monsters was in range, they immediately let go of their arrows, which were sent up in the air with such a power, that each of them created a sonic boom that resounded loudly in the air.

    The monsters were fearless, and kept charging while ignoring the potentially deadly weapons.

    At the same time, thest of the civilians had gone over the tform.

    Edmund, Roley, and the rest of the spiritual cultivators were quietly focusing on creating even currents across the entire tform, which after a few seconds, started to slowly lift off from the ground, raising a small cloud of greyish dust.

    The consumption of spiritual essence was fast, but thanks to the natural spiritual essence, they were able to make up fast enough for them to be able to hold on for a few hours.

    As they reached a few hundred meters from the ground, the monsters had finally reached them position of the archers. Their numbers had been decreased by a few dozens thanks to the chief level hunters which had shot uninterruptedly from the ground.

    Before they could be overwhelmed and ughtered by the army of monsters, numerous watery ropes wrapped around their waists, and pulled them up.

    A few of them were unlucky, and were picked while in mid air by the few airborne chief level monsters, and either ended up being killed in mid air, or were thrown back on the ground, were they would be torn to pieces by the other monsters.

    Fortunately, the vast majority of them was pulled up in a matter of seconds.

 Chapter 135 I Wonder If My Rings Will Be Enough

    With extreme difficulty, Edmund, Roley, and the rest of the spiritual cultivators directed ny-five percent of their concentration into moving the spatial tform away from the beach, while keeping it stable.

    Various airborne chief level monsters dashed toward it, trying to single out the various spiritual cultivators in the group and take them out swiftly, but whenever they came too close to the tform, they would be rapidly shot down by the thousands of chief level warriors.

    Right underneath the tform, hundreds ofrge shadows could be seen moving in the stirred and murky waters.

    "How long can you keep us suspended in the air?" Asked the Strongest of Warriors to an extremely focused Edmund, which was currently sitting in the lotus position, and with his eyes closed.

    The Chief Hunter quickly approached the old man, and pinched his grey skin. She then said "Leave him alone.. He needs to concentrate."

    After a full hour passed, from the direction of the shore, a loud voice entered the ears of every warrior and cultivator present on the tform.

    "We just want the kid, give him to us.."

    This croaky voice, which exuded raw and deep power, belonged to one of the tenmanders that were currently standing on the shore at the head of the monster¡¯s army.

    "And why would we do that?" Responded Edmund, with a deep and unperturbed voice.

    "If you give him to us, nobody will get hurt. Trust me, it¡¯s better to live in a corrupted world, than dying miserably here." Responded the outspoken amongst themanders.

    The three members of the triumvirate turned to look at the millions of scared people, then, after steeling their minds, The Strongest of Warriors moved closer to the edge of the tform, and said with an impressively loud voice "We havee this far. We will fight to get our world back."

    "Do the millions of people that are with you share your views?" Asked themander with curiosity, causing the Strongest of Warriors to fall silent.

    The one who responded, wasn¡¯t a member of the triumvirate, but Roley instead. Which walked next to the Strongest of Warriors, and said "Where is the rest of your army?"

    "We had to leave them behind, your petty tricks with the spiritual essence can stop them, but not us." Responded a secondmander with a strident voice,pletely different from the first one who had spoken before.

    "Hehe.. you¡¯ve left the weakest of your army alone?.. You shouldn¡¯t have done that." Said Roley after a briefugh.

    -----

    In the ce where there once was an extremelyrge, yet empty pain, there now was a thousand kilometers wide vortex.

    The space around this vortex which seemed to made out of pure darkness was distorted, and it was difficult to see through. If a spiritual cultivator adept in time, space, and sound essence, were to approach this vortex, they would feel how disturbed the state of the essences was, right before being absorbed into its endless darkness.

    Not only were the corrupted forms of the natural essences absorbed, but also the very ground, air, and space. This vortex was in fact so powerful, that it had already excavated a perfectly spherical quarry that spanned a five hundred kilometers in depth, and width.

    Not even the light was spared from its gravitational pull.

    It took well over six hours before the vortex¡¯s power started to decrease, and reduce in size bit by bit.

    In ten minute, the area of the orb of darkness had decreased by fifty percent.

    After an hour, it decreased to three hundred kilometers in width.

    When two more hours had passed, the cortex was only two meters in diameter.

    Then, instead of bing even smaller, and uncovering Daniel¡¯s body, it took the shape of a young man that was sitting in the lotus position, and only then it resumed its decrease in size.

    It kept going until its shapepletely superimposed Daniel¡¯s body. The very next moment, it disappeared.

    Daniel¡¯s eyelids started to move, then, they opened. What they uncovered, was two brown-gold pupils, which emanated a small wisp of white smoke that quickly dissipated in the wind.

    Once the white smoke disappeared, and his eyes went back to normal, Daniel took a moment to feel his body.

    His body and spirit were indistinguishable, and he felt as if spiritual essence was all he needed to allow his body to function perfectly for years.

    With just a thought, he could put every single bit of essence in the surrounding under his control, and at the same time, destroy it with a punch.

    It felt as if Daniel¡¯s body had be a solid construct of spiritual essence itself, and his spirit had turned into a gaseous part of his own body, making them impossible to separate.

    Without going too deep into his observation, Daniel opened his own profile, and this is what he saw.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 20

    Power level

    -Mid chief level

    Battle Prowess

    -Late chief level

    Karma - 59,692,534

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.20

    Reduced Cost Lv.20

    Bonus Points Lv.20

    Second Chance (Upgrades 2/2) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 1/1)

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    "The ssification of my power has changed.. Do you know anything about that, Sewah?" Asked Daniel with a low and husky voice.

    After a few moments of silence, Sewah responded by saying "I can only assume that it is because you didn¡¯t know of a power ssification past the ninth rank of the other world¡¯s cultivation. I mean, I doubt the system can invent a cultivation past the levels you are aware of. Therefore, the adoption of this world¡¯s terms for power¡¯s ssification."

    "It does sound usible.." muttered Daniel to himself.

    He then looked down at his folded legs, and there, he found a small lump of solidified time essence.

    This little lump devoid of color exuded an extremely faint time essence, which was formed from a few basic concepts of time essence itself.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes rolled in annoyance as he realized.

    The vortex he had created was so powerful, that it had extracted the very formation of the time sphere, and leaving only the original time treasure behind.

    Luckily, he would easily be able to recreated it just as it was before. In fact, he could make it even better, as the potential of the time treasure hadn¡¯t been fully exploited when creating the time sphere the first time.

    Duel to the poor abilities of the spiritual cultivator which had created the sphere, the finished result was only able to hasten the time by three times.

    However, if nurtured with powerful enough time essence, and formed with the equivalent concept, the treasure could be easily turned into a time sphere capable of speeding time by five.

    It was only after taking his eyes off of the small lumpy treasure, that Daniel found that he was currently sitting.. In mid air.

    Underneath him, there was nothing but a five hundred kilometers high fall, which would break the body of anyone who was unlucky enough to fall in it.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel toe to a realization.

    The thick immortal essence which he emanated, was denser than the various natural essences that currently filled the wastnd world.

    The air wasn¡¯t able to stop any of his movements, but without some sort of push, he would not be able to move from the spot, just like someone that was suspended in space.. Forever immobile until someone or something pushed him.

    "Wow, this is pretty fucking annoying." Said Daniel in an irritated tone.

    He then realized that he could simply eject a very small amount of immortal essence from one side of his body, to suddenly propel himself in the opposite direction.

    Basically, he was now able to fly however, and whenever he wanted without the need to use any sort of essence to push himself off the ground. Unfortunately, that also meant that whenever he stomped his foot on the ground in order to take a step, instead of moving forward, he would be sent flying up in the air.

    That was of course if he did not force his immortal essence back into his body. If he did that, his body would go back into being a normal, yet extremely powerful body.

    That was proved to him the very moment he tried to pull his immortal essence into the confines of his body, causing him to fall from the sky.

    Daniel enjoyed his fall for a few moments, then, he let out his immortal essence once again.

    He was now floating at about two hundred kilometers from the deepest point of the sphere like crater, when from the corner of his eyes, he saw a small red shine in the distance.

    This red shine, was the the magma that wasing out from a passage created by the power of the vortex.

    After the vortex had disappeared, the magma started to drip down the hole slowly, and form a slide that would turn intova, and end up amassing into a small pool at the bottom of the crater.

    What had caught Daniel¡¯s interest though, was a small clot of magma, which aftering out of the hole on the wall, started to roll down the crater way faster than theva did.

    "I¡¯m starting to love ¡¯Karma X Luck¡¯.." Muttered Daniel as he licked his lips, stood up straight, and pushed a small amount of immortal essence from behind his back, causing him to dash in the direction of the solid piece of molten rock.

    He reached the object in a matter of moments, and after he grabbed it.. He was immediately able to verify what it was. It was a perfect fire treasure.

    From within Daniel¡¯s mind, the voice of Sewah could be heard saying "You do realize that the system probably considers this item of rtively low level in a.. Well.. multiworld prospective. That¡¯s why you¡¯re able to find them so easily."

    "I¡¯m not throwing it away if that¡¯s what you¡¯re suggesting." Responded Daniel with a bright smile on his face. He then put the perfect fire treasure into his spatial ring, and added "Alright, let¡¯s get out of here." before teleporting out of the crater.

    When he reappeared, he was standing at the top of the mountain whose belly the tribe guided by the triumvirate inhabited.

    The very moment that followed his appearance, he felt the thick and even amount of corruption in the area.

    He turned to look at the other side of the mountain, and there, he found an immense sea of monsters which was quietly marching towards the direction where the tribes were.

    Daniel was now able to understand the power of various entities whose strength were previously beyond hisprehension, like the injured monster, the flying monster which had attacked the hunting party, the five ck-cloaked men that he had seen around theke and stared at him, and finally, the king of monsters himself.

    The only entities whose power Daniel was still unable to figure out, were the Herald of Corruption, the Spiritual Emissary, the dragon he had woken up in his world of origin called Dorgeo, and finally, the monster whose tentacles had roughed Dorgeo up before grabbing him, and pulling him into the massive spatial rift.

    Thanks to this newly acquired knowledge of the power beyond his martial and spiritual cultivation, Daniel looked at the massive river of monsters that traveled in ordered lines.

    There was just him, his higher level of cultivation, and finally.. His eleven hundred times faster speed of power regeneration.

    "I wonder if my rings will be enouh.."

    -----

    Back on the tform that kept the millions of tribe members up in the air, Roley¡¯s words resounded clear and loud once again.

    "Hehe.. you¡¯ve left the weakest of your army alone?.. You shouldn¡¯t have done that."

    Unfortunately, they fell on ignorant ears.

 Chapter 136 Bad Hands and Hidden Aces

    *ROAAAAAAAAAAR* *SQUEEEEEEEAL* *AHHOOOOOOO* *GROWL* *SWOOOSH*

    *CRASHHHHH* *Swiiiiing* *Fwooh*

    -----

    In the wastnd world, a new river had been created.

    The liquid of which it wasposed wasn¡¯t clear, nor was its motion fast.. Inside it, uncountabled pieces of dark flesh formed the river bed, and the pitch ck blood flowed in between them.

    At the head of this river, Was Daniel, which was currently cleaning his sword, and breathingrge amounts of spiritual essence in.

    All around him, hundreds of thousands of monsters lied in pieces. The rest, were already filling a small pile of spatial rings.

    "Damn it.. I knew this would happen." Said Daniel with disappointment.

    From within his mind, Sewah said "What the hell are you even taking all these monster meat for.. It¡¯s not like it will do anything to increase your power."

    "Resources for my group, exchangeable goods, a boost of morale for the army.. A bit of fun.. Your apathetic behaviour makes you a terrible interlocutor." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "I just don¡¯t care about these things frivolous things." Sewah rebutted, slightly irritated by Daniel¡¯s harsh but true words.

    Daniel slightly bent forward and picked amon pebble from the ground while saying "Yeah, you don¡¯t have to prove my point." He then put his focus into it.

    Bit by bit he injectedrge amounts of immortal essence into this simple looking rock. He then shaped it into arge and empty room with grey walls, floor, and ceiling.

    The immortal essence was so powerful, that he did not even need to refine therge amount of essence in order to turn it into a solid spatial construct. The most basic form was already more than enough to do the job.

    In a matter of moments, a room with a volume of two hundred cubic meters had been created within themon-looking rock.

    This space rapidly started to fill in as Daniel started to sweep away the remaining hundreds of thousands of corpses.

    Unfortunately, before he could finish, he felt a familiar call for help.

    This call was in the feeling of what was once his ki, being slowly erased from within the ki g Roley was in possession of.

    Daniel immediately turned to look at the direction where the call for help had been sent. He then waved his hand and forced a door-sized portal to appear in front of him.

    Through this portal, one would be able to see a change of scenery. It was the middle of a forest, and various darkened trees covered the light almost entirely.

    The most shocking detail was that, in front of the first portal, a second portal had been opened. A portal which lead to a rocky path, and in front of this portal, a third portal showed a fourth scenery.

    Daniel had to travel tens of thousands to kilometers to reach the shore, so, he directly opened a portal within a portal within a portal.

    On the other side of this third andst portal, was the back of the army of monsters, and in the distance, an enormous grey tform could be seen flying in the air, with millions of people on it.

    The tform seemed to be unstable, and was about to lose power and fall apart.

    -----

    Ten minutes earlier.

    Edmund, Roley, and the rest of the spiritual cultivators had already spent five hours waiting. Their spiritual cultivation was running thin, and they had started to take turns to rest while Edmund and Roley overexerted themselves topensate.

    The leaders of the various tribes had already engaged the ten armymanders in various attempts of negotiation, but every proposition made by any of the two parts, ended up being rejected right away.

    During the past five hours, various groups of warriors arrived one after the other, and joined the army of monsters. They were the tribe warriors that had decided to ally with the side of the King of Monsters¡¯ side instead of Daniel¡¯s.

    Thanks to the reinforcements, the army¡¯s numbers increased drastically.

    Underneath the spatial tform, an uncountable amount of sea monsters had amassed, and were eagerly waiting for the tform to disappear. They were so many, that the water hat turned from murky and hard to see through, to ck.

    "How much longer can he hold on?" Asked the Strongest of Warriors with a slightly worried tone.

    A few drops of sweat were running down the sides of Edmunds head. From his face, people could assume that he was really trying his best to keep everyone out of the monster¡¯s range.

    Roley opened his eyes, and said in response "Two hours.. That¡¯s our limit." He and the rest of the cultivators were doing seventy percent of the job by pushing numerous currents of air and water under the tform, and keeping it elevated.

    The Strongest of Warrior walked towards his wife, his sister, and the rest of the leaders, which were now trying to find a solution to this predicament. As he approached the group of mid andte chief-level warriors, they all turned toward him.

    The Chief Schr then asked "What did he say?"

    "Two hours at best.." Responded the Strongest of warriors with a grim expression.

    With Daniel disappearance, and his friends down to theirst leg, the various leaders of the tribes had made a few considerations.

    They wanted to get back ond before Edmund and the rest of the spiritual cultivators lost their powers, because in that case, they would at least have a fighting chance.

    Since when they had been picked up one by one from their respective territories, they had been given high quality weapons to use in the iing battle, so now, they believed to have an advantage to the still unarmed monsters and warriors.

    Unfortunately, hope was quickly take away from them as they saw a shadow approach from the distance.

    This shadow moved at an extremely high speed. A shadow which only after it got close enough they were able to made out the shape of.

    It was an extremelyrge rhino-like monster, above which, a ck-cloakedrge man was sitting quietly.

    This ck-cloaked man, was the King of Monsters.

    The moment the King of Monsters arrived, the Strongest of Warriors quickly approached Edmund and said "The king is here.. Will Daniel be able to take us into the ring with him present?" His tone worried.

    Edmund suddenly opened his eyes, and rapidly stood up, somehow still keeping his focus on maintaining the spatial tform.

    He nced at the King of Monsters that approached from the distance, and after a few moments of consideration, he turned to look at Roley, which was already standing behind him, and said "Call him."

    After nodding lightly, Roley made a ki g appear in his hand. From which he quickly erased Daniel¡¯s ki.

    In a matter of seconds, a portal opened in the distance.

    When this portal opened, almost every one of the spiritual cultivators that had been struggling until now, felt their power double, and their ki regeneration speed increase by two hundred percent..

    The King of monsters and Daniel appeared on site almost at the same time.

    The moment the two appeared, Daniel teleported right onto the tform, and right in front of the group of tribe leaders.

    Immediately, the few of them felt the increase in Daniel¡¯s power, which appeared to be just below theirs.

    Not worried about controlling the tform anymore, Edmund casually stood up and approached Daniel along with Roley and a few of the other spiritual cultivators.

    "What is going on here? Has a month passed already since I¡¯ve been gone?" Asked Daniel in confusion.

    "No, it has only been a day and a half. The king brought members of their races to his side, which he used to instigate a reaction." Responded Edmund calmly, almost as if already aware of what Daniel was going to ask to him.

    "Why haven¡¯t you taken everybody in the pocket dimension? This doesn¡¯t seem like a good solution overall.." Asked Daniel with a bit of confusion. From his prospective, they had chosen to y the a game of endurance against someone that wasn¡¯t spending his energy.

    "It appears that our spiritual essence is not enough to move people in the pocket dimension anymore.. I think it has something to do with the change in the spiritual essence inside.." Said Roley, interjecting in the conversation between the two.

    The Chief Schr took a step forward and said to Daniel "Edmund said that you have a way to take us all away from here. We have to go before the rest of the army arrives.. We can hold on against them, but we can¡¯t both fight and protect our people from the weaker monsters.

    Daniel looked back at her with a in expression, and said "I wouldn¡¯t worry about th-" but he was quickly interrupted by an extremely powerful voice which came from the shore.

    "You have no way to run, kid. Come down here, and let¡¯s get this over with." Said the King of Monsters.

    "What stops me from teleporting all of us to the other side of the world?" Responded Daniel with a voice noticeably weaker than the king¡¯s, while slowly stepping out of the tform and in the air.

    Despite Daniel¡¯s voice being weaker, the King of Monsters was extremely surprised by his sudden increase in power. Of one thing he was certain.. He could not allow Daniel to keep growing.. He had to finish it now.

    He slowly slid a hand in his robe, and from it, he took out a small purple pearl.

    This pearl, was the token granted by the Herald of Corruption.

    Both factions possessed many different types of tokens, but of course, the Herald of Corruption hadn¡¯t given to him any useless kind. In fact, the token he had given to the king was the most appropriate to win this war.

    The moment the king took out the pearl, a strong pulling force started to form around it. The only thing that this pulling force absorbed, was spiritual essence.

    The spiritual essence of the entire area was quickly absorbed by the small pearl, which rapidly filled with it.

    Daniel immediately noticed this, and quickly reinforced the tform built by Edmund, which was quickly falling apart. He then slowly moved it back on the shore, while saying "A cheap trick.. The warriors of this world don¡¯t use spiritual essence, this gives you no advantage in a fight."

    The king looked back at him, and rebated "How many warriors do you have? Two thousand out of two millions? I LEAD MILLIONS OF SOLDIER! You¡¯ve put your nose in a ce you didn¡¯t belong, and now your people will suffer for it."

    After a moment of silence..

    "HAHAHAHAHAHA! What army?! You mean this one?" Asked Daniel right before throwing hundreds of rings in the air right above the three thousand strong army of monsters and warriors. Then, he let out the carcasses of the millions of monsters he had ughtered.

    The carcasses started to rain from the sky like thick and gruesome rain.

    The monsters which, when not at war ruled overrge groups of monsters, had no choice but to allow the leader and warrior level monsters they ruled over, to fall on them.

    At the same time, the purple token kept absorbing every bit of spiritual essence in the air. It was no different that the vortex Daniel created when breaking through a major stage of cultivation. The only difference, was that it was specifically targeted the spiritual essence.

    The king looked at the bloody show, but had no reaction. Instead, he said "Astonishing. It appears we don¡¯t have the advantage I imagined we had, but it does not matter. Your group does not hold the same amount of power mine possesses."

    "That¡¯s definitely true.. You are a thousand more than us.. But that¡¯s not something I can¡¯t solve." Responded Daniel as therge number of the civilians, and warrior level, and leader level warriors were teleported into the pocket dimension, and every cultivator at the ninth rank of martial cultivation appeared in their stead.

    The power of these martial cultivators, previously at thete, or peak ninth rank, was immediately doubled, and entered the ranks of chief level warriors.

    Daniel looked back at the king, and said "A little fairer, isn¡¯t it?.."

 Chapter 137 How Lucky Would I Be

    Internally, Daniel wasn¡¯t as confident about his side as he appeared to be.

    He was more than aware of the level of power the king possessed.

    What he was hoping to achieve by showing the dead monsters to the leaders of the tribes, was for them toe to admire Daniel enough to subconsciously ept him as their leader, and obtain the bonus in battle prowess that the rest of Daniel¡¯s group received.

    The King of Monsters was currently looking back at Daniel with intrigued eyes. He could not understand who this twenty years old man was. How he was able to grow in power so quickly, or how everything he did was easily countered.

    But aside from some interest, he felt no other emotion towards him. Just like Daniel, he was absolutely aware of the power he had, and the distance wasn¡¯t something that a group of four or fivete or peak chief warriors that cooperated to kill him couldpensate.

    If that wasn¡¯t enough, the tenmanders of his army weren¡¯t pushovers either, as each of them had been at the peak chief level of power for thousands of years, just a step away from the early king rank.

    Finally, his army was by far the most fearless and brutal of the two, granting them a psychological advantage.

    Unfortunately for Daniel, his n hadn¡¯t worked out as he hoped.

    Provided that the tribe leaders were shocked by Daniel¡¯s revtion, an his quick increase in power.. They still did not blindly trust him with the lives of the millions of people in their tribes.

    This could be attributed to the fact that their culture celebrated power. That was the reason why the tribe leaders were usually the strongest amongst each tribes.

    The advantages that Daniel had, were the feeble support that the spiritual cultivators could give from above the tform, his own immortal essence, which restored way faster than it was absorbed, and finally, his own group of martial cultivator, whose life had been spent practicing a kind of war which the leaders of the wastnd world had long forgotten.

    For the following few minutes, they two groups stared at each other intently. Each and every warrior or monster entered in theirbat mentality, giving up each and every bit of mercy for their enemies.. Feeding their hate, or the desperation brought by the desire to survive the iing battle..

    The moment that started the war, was when two small tforms appeared right under the feet of the King of Monsters.. Which slowly stepped in the air, and walked towards therge tform.

    As the king himself advanced, Daniel turned to look at his side, and said "This is your only chance to get your world back.. To stop hiding in holes in the ground while waiting for the corruption to take you.. DO NOT MESS THIS UP!"

    Daniel disappeared from where he was standing right after two swords appeared in his hands, and when he reappeared, he was standing in the middle of the group of chief-level monsters.

    His n, was to thin the numbers of the enemy army before leaving the rest to the leaders, warriors, and cultivators. He would then join the thirty strongest warriors in attacking the king.

    What his army had to do, was to keep the tenmanders and the king upied for a few minutes..

    With this n in mind, he started to cut down one monster after another with his sharp swords.

    A show of apocalyptic lights brightened the sky, as seas of fire engulfed the monsters¡¯ army, lightning bolts struck from random points in the air, and chippings of ice tried to make their way into their eyes, noses and mouths.

    The moisture on the air was pushed away by the shock waves caused by the exchanges of blows between the two powers.

    Despite the fact that Daniel was able to use his immortal essence and mastery of weapons to easily kill these monsters, he wasn¡¯t exceptionally stronger than them by any capacity.

    On the other hand, the power of the King of Monsters was mind boggling.

    He was a humanoid being, and from his style of fighting, one could infer that, when he was in his world of origin, he had learned some sort of fighting technique.

    Each attack was precise, and hit swiftly.

    In the time Daniel had spent to kill twenty monsters, the king had already taken down at least fifty warriors.. All powerful warriors of the various tribes.

    On another side of the battlefield, the three members of the triumvirate were fighting against a single one of the of the tenmanders, which were being outnumbered three to one each.

    One of these tenmanders had it easy, as he managed to quickly kill two of the three warriors he was fighting against, but had to immediately jerk back the moment before his attack could connect on the body of the third warrior, in order to avoid a sword sh.

    The owner of this sword was a twenty-four years old man, with two single-ded swords which he kept straight down his sides. His eyes cold as night, and his body covered in monster¡¯s blood.

    This man, was Jerigh.

    Edmund and Emelnie supported the members of the triumvirate in finishing off another of the tenmanders, and move on to to support the next.

    After only five minutes since the beginning of the fight, the spiritual cultivators had decided to focus on getting in the way of the King of Monster, whose sight they obstructed with veils of water, whose hearing the blocked with sound essence, and whose surrounding awareness they confused by creating spatial illusion around his body.

    Unfortunately, his power went beyond simple physical prowess.

    Despite his senses being obstructed, he was still able to feel his surrounding thanks to the presence of essence of corruption, so, evading and striking wasn¡¯t difficult for him.

    Twenty minutester, Daniel had killed more than enough monsters to focus on another kind of prey. Specifically, the remaining sevenmanders, two of which were putting Jerigh on a bad spot.

    Regarding the other three, the first one had been killed by the coalition of the triumvirate, Emelnie and her husband Edmund, the second one had been killed right after by Jerigh and Emelnie, and finally, the third one had perished from the joint attack of Edmund and three other warriors.

    The total death counts for the two armies, were three hundred chief-level monsters and warriors, and threemanders for the monster¡¯s army, and four hundred and thirty-eight warriors and for Daniel¡¯s side. Fifty of which, members of Daniel¡¯s group, or tribe leaders.

    The situation quickly changed for the better after Daniel joined the effort to kill the tenmanders. He alone was able to kill one in a minute, and then move to the next.

    With the support of the others, nine out of tenmanders were dead after an hour from the beginning of the fight.

    Now covered in blood, he turned to look at the King of Monsters that was currently destroying people¡¯s skulls left and right.

    He then pointed his sword at him, and injectedrge amounts of immortal essence into it.

    The sword charged with electricity, which after a moment, was discharged in a thick lightning bolt that hit the king straight in his back.

    That caught his attention.

    The damage of the blow was felt, but it wasn¡¯t deadly. It only caused the King of Monsters to turn around in rage, and dash towards him. He was so fast, that Daniel wasn¡¯t even able to avoid him. He only managed to avoid the iing King of Monsters by teleporting away.

    The king crashed heavily against the ground, raising a storm of dust, and sand in the air.

    Daniel reappeared a few meters to the side.

    Immediately, he pushed out as much immortal essences as he could, and created numerous elemental golems, which once formed, attacked the king relentlessly.

    With a single punch, the king was able to dissipate these golems of wind, ice, lightning, and rock. Unfortunately, they would reform right after.

    These golems were nothing like those he had created during the gathering of experts. They were humanoid golems, simr to essence elementals, but that he himself controlled.

    A few of the golems attacks reached their target, which only turned the king angrier after feeling the burnt of the blow.

    Along with the constant absorption of spiritual essence, this feat left Daniel with almost no immortal essence left.

    With just enough to teleport, Daniel dashed towards the king of monsters with his swords in hand.

    He then shed it downwards, trying to take one of its arms. But then, he saw something that sent a shiver down his spine.

    The king had grabbed his sword mid-sh.

    Without losing a beat, Daniel abandoned the sword and tried to thrust the second one in the king¡¯s face.

    The tip of the de managed to enter the hood, and reappeared on the back of it.

    Unfortunately, Daniel hadn¡¯t felt any form of resistance on his de. It went through as if there was nothing to prate to begin with.

    With a sudden move of his arm, Daniel quickly cut the hood off of the king¡¯s ck cloak, and what he uncovered, surprised him greatly.

    The head of the king was made out of a ck liquid.

    This liquid was essence of corruption, and this ability was one of the repertoire of a cultivator of corruption.. It was called Liquefaction.

    In a matter of seconds, the liquid moved, and took the shape of a head. The features of this head turned clearer and clearer, and in the end, what they showed was the face of a young man.

    This young man had ck hair, dark brown eyes, and what one would describe as amon face, which had been marked by a vicious scar that started from the middle of his forehead, split one of his eyes in two, and went all the way down to his jaw.

    With a smile on his face, the king said "You really thought you could simply kill me with a sword?" right before dashing towards Daniel with enough speed to make ¡¯evading¡¯ impossible for him.

    He then threw a punch, which squarely hit Daniel in the stomach.

    *Gaargh* Shouted Daniel before falling on his knees, with his internal organs in shambles. He wanted to teleport away, but the proximity to the token of corruption caused the absorption to be much faster, and prevented him from umting enough immortal essence.

    "Use ¡¯Karmic Retribution¡¯! Are you stupid?" Sewah burst out from within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    Daniel slowly stood up, and said "There are too many people around.. If the retribution is anywhere close to thest one, everybody here will die."

    "So your alternative is that everyone dies by the monster¡¯s hands!??"

    Daniel weakly stood up, but before he could stand straight, he was forced on the ground once again by a kick to his diaphragm.

    *Bleargh* The impact was so strong, that he couldn¡¯t help but vomit.

    Many ideas on how to get out of this problem came to his mind, and all were discarded.. But one.

    Trying to fight his dizziness, Daniel said in his mind "Sewah.. You know how lucky would I be if none of my party was affected by karmic retribution?.."

    "What are you talking about?.. Are you going crazy?" Responded Sewah in confusion.

    Daniel weakly turned to look at the approaching king, then, after ncing at the red 6,538,711 that was floating above his head, he finally activated karmic retribution.

    Unfortunately, nothing happened.

    The King of Monsters arrived right in front of Daniel, and grabbed his neck. He then lifted him from the ground and squeezed tightly.

    Daniel¡¯s face quickly became red, as the pressure on his neck would sooner break his spine than suffocate him.

    Desperate, he used hisst wisp of immortal essence to speed time around himself, and increase his production of essence by five times.

    This was something that took little to no immortal essence, but an extreme amount of concentration. Way more than spatial, or any other type of essence did. Unfortunately, he had no other choice.

    The moment the the time was sped up, and his immortal essence started to regenerate at fifty-five hundred times the normal speed, a small crack appeared on the surface of the purple sphere.

    This crack became bigger and bigger.. Until finally, the small purple sphere broke into pieces, causing the entire spiritual essence it had absorbed since the beginning of the fight to engulf him.

    *AAAAAAAARRRRGHH* *AAAAAAARGH!!* Shouted the king of monsters as the enormous amount of spiritual essence started to fight against his very existence as a being of corruption.

 Chapter 138 Given a Second Chance, Karma Will Get You

    *AAAAAAAARRRRGHH* *AAAAAAARGH!!* Shouted the king of monsters as the enormous amount of spiritual essence started to fight against his very existence as a being of corruption.

    His body waspletely engulfed by the white energy, which seeped into his lungs and stomach, and burned his skin.

    Daniel immediately noticed the effect of the karmic retribution, and observed the spiritual essence devour the body of the King of Monsters.. But the more he watched, the more worried he became.

    Despite the fact that the king was being severely injured, it appeared that he could actually survive the experience.

    So, before the spiritual essence could dissipate in the air, Daniel, whose immortal essence was quickly regenerating, teleported behind the king and hugged him tightly.

    He rapidly wrapped one of his arms around the king¡¯s chest, his legs around his waist, and finally, forced his mouth opened by pressing at the sides of his jaw with his hand.

    Then, he pushedrge amounts of immortal essence down his throat at the same speed it was regenerated.

    *AAAAAARGHHH* Screamed the king in pain, as his eyes started to melt, his dark blood boiled under his skin, and his body was liquefied from inside.

    After two full minutes of agonizing screams, Daniel fell on the ground right above the unrecognizable body of the deceased king. He quickly stood up, and noticed that his clothes were drenched with part of the king¡¯s liquefied remains.

    Of course, everybody had noticed what had just happened.. But before the army of monsters could surrender, or explode in a murderous rage, two very familiar portals opened right above the ground.

    From these two portals, the Third Spiritual Emissary, and the Herald of Corruption calmly came out.

    Differently from thest time, the Spiritual Emissary wasn¡¯t annoyed, and instead, showed a derisory smile on his face which he directed at the Herals of Corruption.

    On the other hand, the Herald of Corruption was still as calm as ever.

    "Well, it appears that we have lost." Said the Herald of Corruption with a peaceful and casual tone.

    The Spiritual Emissary smiled at him, and said "Spectacrly so, if I may add."

    "Don¡¯t forget the manners, boy. A sore loser is as ugly as a petty winner.. This was just a game after all." Responded the Herald after narrowing his eyes slightly towards the Spiritual Emissary.

    "Of course."

    Thesest two phrases reached the ears of each and every monster, warrior, or cultivator in the wastnd world.. Which didn¡¯t take them kindly.

    They had already learned that their lives meant nothing for these two individuals, but after fighting a war for them, hearing what kind of consideration the two had for their lives, hurt them deeply.

    The same was for Daniel.

    "Very well, the Domain of Corruption gives up on the possession of this little world.. If the champion of the Spiritual domain takes out from his little trinket this world¡¯s inhabitants, I¡¯ll get rid of the world¡¯s corruption and be on my way." Said the Herald of Corruption with the most amiable smile he could muster.

    Daniel turned to look at the Spiritual Emissary, which appearedpletely uninterested by the matter. He then watched at the faces of the tribal warriors and leaders, on which expressions of happiness were starting to appear.

    They had long dreamed about this moment.. Despite not having the best chances, or any particrly high hope about winning this war.

    Now that what they had always dreamt about was so close, they didn¡¯t dare question if anything bad could happen.

    Daniel waved his hand, and teleported all of the inhabitants out of his pocket dimension, which once out, rapidly joined with their family members and friends that had fought in the war.

    The Herald of Corruption smiled at the scene, and said "Such a sweet moment.." He then simply waved his hand.

    In just a moment, the essence of corruption which polluted the world disappearedpletely.

    The sky went back to its original light blue color, the seas became clear and limpid, the grass turned back to a healthy green color..

    But something else happened.

    Every single monster, warrior, civilian, child, and old man.. Essentially each and every living being present in the world which contained the slightest bit of corruption.. Was turned to dust.

    A collective senses of shock appeared on the faces of the couple dozen thousand people which Daniel had purified from corruption himself.

    "But I like grief better.." Added the Herald of Corruption while keeping on smiling.

    Thisst few word lit something inside Daniel¡¯s mind.

    The very next instant, a sharp dagger appeared in Daniel¡¯s hand, which he pointed at his heart.. And pierced without the slightest bit of hesitation.

    "DANIEL!!" Shouted Edmund before teleporting next to him, and grabbing his body as he fell weakly on the ground.

    Everyone that belonged to Daniel¡¯s group approached him immediately, while the rest of the warriors, and leaders were still deeply caught by shock of seeing the majority of their race being exterminated from the face of the world.

    The Herald of Corruption and the Spiritual Emissary looked curiously at Daniel, but the very next moment, they turned around, and walked back into their portals.

    Daniel¡¯s organs were strong, which caused the deadly injury to take a few seconds to actually kill him. Due to this, he was able to witness the reaction of the two emissaries to his actions.

    Inside him, he felt a deep hate grow faster than the feeling of impending death.

    Second after second, time kept going until finally, it started to rewind.

    Tears started to stream back in to the eyes of the crying warriors, the grieving faces of Edmund, Emelnie, Jerigh, Roley, and the rest of his group members went back to worry, as Daniel¡¯s slow breath went in reverse..

    His eyes were directed at a particr point in space, in which tworge portals suddenly reappeared, and form which the two emissaries came out walking backwards.

    The looks of contempt, the herald¡¯s vicious words, the indifferent expression on the face of the emissary.. Daniel witnessed them all once again.

    Even the scene in which he fearlessly thrusted a knife through his own heart, followed by its disappearance from his hand.

    What hurt him the most, was seeing the shocked faces of the warrior as they turned back into expressions of joy.. A joy that apanied the view of millions of small clouds of dust that condensed in just as many points in the area, and recreated the deceased poption of the wastnd world..

    "..tnemom teews a hcuS" Once again, Daniel listened to the words of the Herald, which only made his hate grow bigger.

    A couple of secondster, the millions of people disappeared back into Daniel¡¯s ring. Leaving only the powerful warriors, tribe leaders, cultivators, and monsters outside.

    ".. If the champ-wha.. It happened again." Said the Herald of Corruption in confusion. He then turned to look at the just as surprised Spiritual Emissary, and said "This is the third time."

    The Spiritual Emissary shrugged his shoulders in with indifference, and said "There is no point in thinking about it. Time has been behaving oddly for the past few years.. That¡¯s just how it is. Now, do what you have to do so we can go back."

    "Are you discarding free information?" Asked the Herald of Corruption with derision.

    "What information?"

    The Herald showed a nasty smirk, then said "The first time it happened, it was four seconds.. The second time, it was eighty.. The experts of your lord haven¡¯t predicted that the next one was supposed to be over fifty minutes long?.. Whatever is causing this, it hasn¡¯t worsened."

    Visibly irritated by hisck of attentiveness, the Spiritual Emissary rolled his eyes towards the grey sky, and said "Who cares.. It¡¯s just a bad feeling every now and then, it¡¯s not that big of a problem.

    The two of them had both felt the rewinding of time, just like they had felt it twice in the past five years. Luckily for Daniel, even they could not understand where it came from.

    Following the emissary¡¯s suggestion, the herald put the matter aside, and after turning to Daniel, he said "Kid, take rest of the inhabitants out, so that I can get rid of the corruption."

    "There is no need." Responded Daniel right away "I¡¯ll purify them myself."

    Everybody turned to look at Daniel in confusion. It clearly seemed that he didn¡¯t trust the herald¡¯s words.

    The expression of the face of the Herald of Corruption became stern. With a deafening voice, he said "I don¡¯t like to repe-" Instead of finished his sentence, the herald closed his mouth out of the blue, and together with the Spiritual emissary dropped on his knees.

    Before anyone could notice it, an old man had appeared between the two of them.

    This old man was quite fat, detail which caused his tightly fitting clothes to struggle slightly around his body. He had a chubby and amiable face, on which a peaceful look could be seen. He had a full head of white hair, and stubble of white beard.

    "We humbly greet the Judge." Said both the herald and the emissary in unison.

    This peaceful-looking old man sniffed the hair a bit, then he started to move in Daniel¡¯s direction.

    After reached a distance of a couple meters from him, he sniffed the air again, and said "Say kid, why do you smell a bit like a Spatial Parasite?.."

    "I¡¯m afraid I am not sure what you mean, sir." Responded Daniel with respect and confusion.

    "You know.. Tentacles, mountain-sized.. Slimy.. Theye out ofrge spatial rifts."

    "Oh. I think that one of those rifts appeared in my word of origin.. It caused the world essences to stop, and from it, vine-like tentacles came out." Said Daniel, remembering his encounter with Dorgeo, and the monster that had pulled him into therge rift.

    The old man took out a pen and a small parchment from one of his pockets, then, he wrote a few words on it.

    He then turned towards the still kneeling emissaries, and said "Okay, what is going on here?"

    The first to talk, was the Spiritual Emissary, which said "Just a regrpetition for the control over this world, which has already ended in favor of my lord, the Spiritual Emperor."

    The old man turned to look at the Herald of Corruption, which immediately said "The words of the Third Spiritual Emissary are correct. We will leave right after I keep my word as the losing party, and rid this world of corruption." He then snapped his fingers, and made the corruption within the world disappear once again.

    The only difference, was that this time, he hadn¡¯t killed the corrupted warriors and monsters, and instead, had simply purified them. The only one which hadn¡¯t been purified, was thest of the tenmanders, which instead was forced into a portal, simr to the one the herald used to travel.

    After the herald finished, the old man turned to look at the two emissaries, and said "Is your business finished here?"

    "Yes Judge" Responded the two in unison.

    "One moment!" Said Daniel from behind the three.

    The judge turned to look at Daniel without the slightest bit of irritation, and said "What is it young man?"

    "There are millions of people which still require the herald¡¯s help to be purified. Can he finish the job, so that they can peacefully live in the world free of corruption?"

    The moment these words came out of Daniel¡¯s mouth, extreme worry appeared on the face of the Herald of Corruption. Internally, he was hating Daniel like he had never hated anybody else before in his long, long life.

    It seemed like the herald was about to say something, but before he could, Daniel added "Also, I still haven¡¯t received the promised reward for fighting as a champion for the Spiritual Emperor.

    The color drained from the face of the Spiritual emissary, as he looked at Daniel with deep shock.

    For the first time, the amiable and peaceful face of the old man turned cold, as he turned to look at the two of them, and sasaid "You¡¯ve lied to me.."

    Naturally, the old man¡¯s apparition wasn¡¯t a coincidence, but an event caused by the double use of Karmic Retribution directed at both of the two emissaries.

 Chapter 139 An Absolute Punishmen

    "You¡¯ve lied to me.." Said the Judge with a serious and cold tone. He then took out his small parchment and pen once again, and while turning to look at the Spiritual Emissary, he said "What was the promised reward?"

    The Spiritual Emissary was terrified. He couldn¡¯t help but stutter while responding "Nothing i-i-important j-judge.."

    The judge turned to look at Daniel, and said "What did he promise?"

    The worry on the face of the Spiritual Emissary couldn¡¯t be any more evident. But Daniel couldn¡¯t care less. He looked back at the Judge, and said "He promised a way to travel through worlds, and a direction towards my of origin."

    "Ohh.. did he?" Said the Judge with surprise. He then added "It¡¯s surprising, because he doesn¡¯t have the rights to grant something like that.."

    "Judge, p-p-please let m-m-me exin.." Said the Spiritual Emissary in a pitiful tone.

    The old man ignored himpletely, and instead, he started writing something with his pen.

    Once he finished, he read out loud "The Sovereign of Corruption is required to surrender three gxies to the government¡¯s treasury. That is the fine for lying to a Judge."

    "Yes Judge." Responded the Herald of Corruption without the slightest bit of hesitation.

    "The Spiritual Emperor owes three gxies as well, and to his faction.. Territorial ims over the unexplored space are denied for three hundred years. These are the fine, and the punishment for lying and making a mockery of ethics."

    Just as the Judge finished talking, a second pearly white portal opened right above the third Spiritual Emissary.

    From it, a tall and beautiful woman appeared, and fell from a height of ten meters.

    As she was about to touch the ground, she grabbed the head of the third Spiritual Emissary, and crashed it so hard against the ground, that his head went straight through the rocky surface.

    This woman was dressed in the same way as the third Spiritual emissary was dressed, and like him, her eyes emanated white smoke. The difference, was that the thickness and amount of the smoke was much bigger. So much so, that her eyes seemed to have two white mes that burned relentlessly within them.

    After burying the emissary¡¯s head into the ground, the woman kneeled in front of the Judge, and said with a polite tone "I am the second Spiritual Emissary, my greetings Judge."

    "What is it?" Asked the old man with an unimpressed tone.

    "I¡¯ve been sent here to apologize for the dishonest behaviour disyed by my colleague, and ask that the judge reconsiders our punishment." Said the woman without moving her eyes from the rocky ground.

    "A judge¡¯s decision is absolute. Be thankful that I haven¡¯t increased it after you came to ask me to remove it in the first ce.." Responded the old man with a crude tone. He then added "I¡¯ll wait here while the two of you finish your matters."

    "Yes Judge." Said the Herald of Corruption before getting up on his feet, walk towards Daniel, and say "Please, take them out."

    Daniel could see the urgency in the herald¡¯s face. He clearly held no hidden intentions in his mind. So, Daniel waved his hand, and let the millions of corrupted civilians out of his pocket dimension.

    The moment they appeared, the herald waved his hand, and caused the corruption within them toe out from the pores of their bodies, and disappear, almost as if the contact with the air was deadly for it.

    He then turned to look at the Judge, and after a polite bow, he entered the dark purple portal which disappeared behind his back.

    Once the herald was gone, the judge turned to look at the third Spiritual Emissary, which quickly stood up, and walked towards Daniel.

    With an apologetic tone, he said "I apologize for lying to you. Please, pick another reward.."

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile after noticing the sorry state of the Spiritual Emissary. He didn¡¯t felt the slightest bit ofpassion for him, as the fresh memories of his indifferent eyes were indelibly printed in his mind.

    He was extremely tempted to make an exaggerated request, but he didn¡¯t want to leave a bad impression on the Judge, which seemed to have the power to revoke a punishment whenever he felt like.

    After a minute spent thinking, Daniel looked at the emissary right in his eyes, and said "I was promised a method that could grant me independence and freedom of mobility.. I think that it is only fair that I ask for a token that will allow me to call you, so that you can teleport me wherever I want to go for.. a hundred times."

    The eyes of the Spiritual Emissary opened wide in shock. Deep rage quickly built inside him, and just as he was about to turn Daniel into dust, he suddenly heard the voice of the Judge say..

    "That¡¯s more than fair!.. Howmendable of you, of all the things you could have demanded.. No wonder Iewah picked you!"

    The moment thest sentence entered the ears of the second and third spiritual emissaries, the blood drained from the faces of the two emissaries.

    "Hahahaha!" The Judgeughed loudly before saying "Can you imagine what would have happened if you had killed one of Iewah¡¯s sons? Haaa.. it¡¯s been already fifty thousand years since the King of Dragons pissed off the Tamer.. they still haven¡¯t finished paying for that.. Haaa.. Good times."

    Before the Spiritual Emissary could say anything, the second emissary approached Daniel, and said "I ept your request." Then, she handed over a white bracelet, which she put around Daniel¡¯s wrist. "Inject your essence into the bracelet, and I¡¯ll arrive to teleport you. Don¡¯t call for any other reason that isn¡¯t part of the deal."

    "Fair enough." Responded Daniel politely.

    "Very well, I think my job is done here." Said the Judge while putting the small parchment and the pen back into his robes. He then added "Kid, stay away from spatial parasites, and you two, remember to tell your employer about the punishment."

    "Yes Judge." Responded the two Spiritual Emissaries in unison.

    "Judge, sir.. I want-" Tried to say Daniel.

    Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by the old man, which said "No, it¡¯s not the time for you to ask questions, kid. Given your gifts, we¡¯ll probably see each other in the future. Keep them for then."

    He then disappeared the very moment Daniel blinked.

    After him, the two spiritual emissaries disappeared as well.

    -----

    Silence reigned supreme for a few minutes in the area.. The various warriors, and monsters which now looked more like evolved beasts, were looking around, uncertain of what to do..

    Until..

    "YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHH!!" The Strongest of Warriors burst out to the top of his lungs, letting go a life worth of desires, dreams and frustration.

    This sudden and powerful shout, created a ripple effect that lit a fire in the hearts of every warrior present.

    Which shouted in response.

    *YEEEEEEEAAH!!*

    Daniel could help but look around, while smiling brightly. This was the first time he had done something good with his system. Not only as coteral, but as a main objective. He couldn¡¯t help but feel a little proud.

    -----

    Two months passed since the end of the war, and the warriors had started to get used to their new, and clean world.

    Since the moment the world had gone back to how it was before, the schrs of the various tribes had changed their objective of study from the essence of corruption, to experimenting with their unique aura and spiritual essence.

    The monsters that had survived the war had made a deal, and along with the warriors which had fought alongside them, they upied a portion of the territory which once belonged to the king of monsters.

    The various tribe leaders split the rest of thend, and createdrgemunities based on fair and just systems. They also promised to wee the innocent members of the tribes that had sided with the king, starting with the next generation of children.

    Finally, the triumvirate, considered the leader of that generation of warriors, had been asked to upy the castle of the King of the Monsters, and guide the various leaders into an era of peace..

    Daniel was currently sitting in a bench ced outside the castle¡¯s throne room, and next to him, were Roley, Jerigh, Alesia, and finally Gai¡¯ha.

    "So, you¡¯ll leave soon." Asked Gai¡¯ha with slightly mncholic tone.

    "I will. I have a family to go back to." Responded Daniel while nodding lightly.

    Gai¡¯ha became pensive for a few minutes.. Then, she said while visibly embarrassed "My people are safe now.. They will live without hardships.. I have no family members to take care of.. I was thinking that I coulde with you guys.. I¡¯ve always dreamed of traveling.. And be free."

    Daniel looked at her as if he had heard something silly. "Of course you areing.. Do you think you¡¯re done learning martial arts or swordsmanship from me?"

    "Just because you have a power the same level as mine, it doesn¡¯t mean that I can¡¯t kick your ass anymore.." Said Gai¡¯ha in an irritated manner.

    "Have you already talked about this with the triumvirate?" Asked Daniel, trying to change the topic.

    "Yes, they said that if you agreed, they would have no problems with that.. They have also asked me to pitch for.. Another person.." Responded Gai¡¯ha with a sheepish smile.

    After Daniel¡¯s expression turned into one of curiosity, he asked "Who is that?"

    "You¡¯ve spoiled me with the fruits of your world, kid.. So I¡¯ming.." Said a familiar voice from behind him.

    The owner of this voice was, of course, Lucious. The first person to which Daniel had formed a good rtionship with aftering to this world, and which had teached him thenguage of his people.

    "You really want toe with us? What about your daughter?" Asked Daniel in surprise.

    "Our aura is pure now.. I have gained a fair amount of additional years to live.. And I have faith in the fact that you¡¯ll want toe and this world way before the time of my death." Responded the old man with a Matter-of-fact tone.

    "I most definitely will."

    "Very well, what are we waiting for then? Let¡¯s go explore.. And find something strange to eat." Responded the old man in high spirits.

    Daniel didn¡¯t refuse either of the two. Not only because they were powerful additions to Daniel¡¯s group, as Gai¡¯ha was at the early chief level, while Lucious was at the mid chief level, but also because of all the people in this world, these two were the ones he liked the most.

    After Daniel agreed for the two to join his group, he sat right outside the throne in which the triumvirate conducted their business, and waited for them to be free enough to see him.

    Meanwhile, he decided to open his profile, and take a look.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 21

    Power level

    -Mid chief level

    Battle Prowess

    -Late chief level

    Karma - 260,492,534

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.20

    Reduced Cost Lv.20

    Bonus Points Lv.20

    Second Chance (Upgrades 2/2) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 1/1)

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    Daniel had gained, thanks to the war, more than two hundred millions of karma points. The majority of which hade from the moment he had exterminated the monster¡¯s army, which oddly enough, didn¡¯t gave a very high amount of bad karma for each individual kill.

    The monster¡¯s behaviour wasn¡¯t different from that of animals. They would kill to feed, and increase their power. And that, didn¡¯t make their karma worsen.

    The rest of the karma had arrived by the killing of the king of monsters, and by freeing the world from the corruption.

    The requirement amount of karma points to unlock the fourth level of system upgrades, was a hundred millions, which meant that he would be able to upgrade his system¡¯s skills. But before he could, he heard footstepsing from the side.

    After hearing the sound of steps that came towards his direction, Daniel closed his profile window, and turned towards the person who was approaching him and his group.

    He saw the Strongest of Warriors.

 Chapter 140 Malicious Compliance

    "Daniel.." Said the Strongest of Warrior, as he approached him with a big smile on his face. His eyes betrayed a fair amount of mental exhaustion, which Daniel thought was probably caused by the extreme increase of workload. "Come in, please." added the old warrior.

    Daniel and his small group of friends followed the Strongest of Warriors into the throne room. There, they met with the Chief Hunter, and the Head Schr.

    "How are things going?" Asked Daniel with a faint smile lingering on his face. He could see that, despite the three of them appeared extremely tired, they were also happy.

    "Swamped.. The effort to clean and reinhabit the ancient cities is killing us.. There is just too much to do and not enough people." Responded the Head Schr with evident tiredness.

    Daniel smiled back at her, and said "I¡¯m sure you will manage to do a great job.. The reason for today¡¯s visit, is to bid farewell, we will depart today."

    After talking for a few minutes with the three members of the triumvirate, and saying their goodbyes, Daniel and the rest of his group left the throne room.

    They had remained two months more than necessary, and thanks to thee fact that they had had more than enough time to prepare for Daniel¡¯s departure, their goodbye wasn¡¯t too emotional.

    To contribute to that, was the fact that he had promised toe back and visit them sooner orter.

    -----

    Daniel was now sitting in the room of his castle. He was watching two of the features of his karmic system. The first one, was the group window..

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 4908

    Overall Karma: 311,021.111

    Karmic effects:

    Karma X Luck (Group)

    Karmic Aura Lv.100

    Time is Precious Lv.20 (Group)

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown (Group)

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    The numbers of Daniel¡¯s group members had significantly increased after his sudden ascension in power. This new level of power might not have been much for the tribe warriors, but was a lot for the cultivators that came from his world.

    The majority of the Overall Karma had been gained during the three months before Daniel was able to establish a spiritual connection to the wastnd world, and during the six months in which they had prepared for the iing war.. Only a smaller portion had been obtained thanks to their marginal contribution during the conflict.

    Despite of where the karma points came from, Daniel¡¯s group had more than enough to unlock the third level of the group¡¯s karmic effects. So, with a thought, Daniel opened the window in his mind.

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects lv.3

    Karmic Aura Lv.101 = 200,000

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a battle prowess enhancement of 1%. An additional 1% per level. Max Lv. 150)

    Time Is Precious Lv.41 (Group) = 2,000,000 KP

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a boost in their speed of progression of 5%. An additional 5% per level. Max Lv. 60)

    Karma X Luck (Group) = Purchased

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown (Group) = Purchased

    Universal Compass = 50,000,000 KP

    (Passive: Grants the ability to find the group¡¯s base to each member of the group, no matter where, or how far the base is.)

    Group Base (Basic) = 200,000,000 KP

    (Creates a small world essible only to the members of the ¡¯Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder¡¯. The world¡¯s size depends on the number of members the group possesses.)

    ____________________________

    umte 5,000,000,000 Karma points to unlock Shared Karmic effects lv.4

    ____________________________

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but look in shock at the changes within the shared karmic effects.

    He had expected that there would be at least a few, but to have actually receive the chance to create an entire world for his group to use as a base, and to have its position permanently marked for each and every member.. was a lot more than he expected.

    He still had to check the next level of his own system upgrade, and yet, he couldn¡¯t help but want to see what this ¡¯Group Base¡¯ was all about.

    Without thinking about it twice, he bought ¡¯Group Base (Basic)¡¯and ¡¯Universal Compass¡¯, and increased the levels of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ to the max level once again.

    In total, he spent two hundred and ny millions.

    The very moment he finalized the purchase, the members of his group members felt the presence of something in the direction of Daniel¡¯s room.

    In his hand, a miniature world had appeared.

    In this miniature spherical world, Daniel could see oceans, mountain ranges, deserts, ice caps, and volcands.. And yet, it was only twenty centimeters in diameter.

    "You better not use that item in here.. You wouldn¡¯t want it to erge within the limited space of the pocket dimension.." Said Sewah from within Daniel¡¯s head.

    It was in this moment that Daniel understood.

    The system wouldn¡¯t simply let a world appear out of nowhere in a random point in space.

    Instead, it had given it to him in a shrunken form, which he would then have to ce in space by himself.

    Had Sewah not warned him, he might have used the item by mistake, causing the pocket dimension to be destroyed from within, and causing hundreds of thousands of people to die in the void.

    "Where can I store it?" Asked Daniel while keeping the round-shaped world in both of his hands, almost scared that he could drop it.

    "As long as you don¡¯t want it to be bigger, it wont. Once you ce it in space, you won¡¯t be able to shrink it back into this size."

    Of course, Daniel still wasn¡¯t aware of what ¡¯space¡¯ was exactly. In his mind, the concepts of world was closer tonds separated from each other in something like different dimensions.. He still knew nothing about the space in which thes floated.

    Originally, Sewah wasn¡¯t aware of space either, but now that the system had evolved to a point where its features would include these sort of informations, he had naturally learned about it, just like he would learn everything about a feature, the very moment it was unlocked.

    Daniel carefully put the small world within the greenhouse ring, then, he went to check on the changes in his personal system¡¯s upgrades.

    ____________________________

    System Upgrades Lv.4

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown = Purchased

    Time Is Precious Lv.21 = 2,018,500 KP

    (Active: Multiply the cost of karma points in order to multiply the speed of progression. +100% of cost and effect. Max lv.30)

    Reduced Cost Lv.20 = Current Max Level.

    Bonus Points Lv.20 = Current Max Level.

    Second Chance Lv.20 = Current Max Level.

    Second Chance Upgrade Lv.3 = 500,000

    (Passive: Halves the cooldown of Second Chance.)

    Karma Debt = Purchased

    Karmic Retribution = Purchased

    Karmic Retribution Update = Purchased

    Karma X Luck = Purchased

    Devil¡¯s Advocate = 25,000,000

    (Active: Gain 10% of battle prowess against enemies with positive karma. at the cost of 500,000 karma point per hour.)

    Regtor¡¯s Will = 25,000,000

    (Active: Gain 10% of battle prowess against enemies with negative karma, at the cost of 500,000 karma points per hour.)

    ____________________________

    umte 1,000,000,000 Karma points to unlock System Upgrades Lv.5

    ____________________________

    Once again, Daniel was shocked.. But this time, it wasn¡¯t because of the exceptional new effects, which were nothing more than two boosts of battle prowess, ten more level of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and another upgrade for ¡¯Second Chance¡¯.. What shocked him, were the prices.

    After a quick calction, he had learned that in order to max out on the levels of Time is Precious, he would need more than a billion and five hundred millions of karma points, which was more than he had gained since had obtained the karmic system.

    Unable to fully max the effect out, he only upgraded ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ to the twenty-fifth level, bought the third level of the upgrade for ¡¯Second Chance¡¯, and finally, purchased the two active increases in battle prowess.

    The total amount of karma points he had spent, was a hundred and ny millions.

    For the first time, Daniel had felt that strange feeling that a rich man that had spent the majority of his fortune in a single purchase, felt.

    -----

    The next Day

    Daniel was currently on a small tform he had created out of earth essence. He was standing by himself, and looking down at the now bright and colored wastnd word.

    After a few emotional sighs, he injected his immortal essence into the white bracelet he had been given by the second spiritual emissary.

    The very next moment, a white portal opened right above the tform, and from it, a young man and a young woman came out.

    These two individuals weren¡¯t the second and third emissary. They wore simr white robes, and had astonishingly good looks.. But the density and amount of smoke that came out of their eyes was much fainter than the two emissaries.

    "I am Nia, and this is my great grandson Noah. We are the two acolytes that have been assigned to your case." Said the twenty-something years old young woman, despite not looking any older than the young man.

    "I was expecting to see the second emissary." Said Daniel with a slight hint of suspicion.

    With derision heavily present on his face, the young man called Noah responded by saying "Why send a giant for a work that a small insect can do?"

    Slightly confused, Daniel said "Do you often go around referring about yourself as an insect?.."

    The corners of Noah¡¯s mouth twitched in irritation. But then, he went back to his cool demeanor, and said "You have called us. Where do you want to go?"

    "Can you take me to my world of origin?" Asked Daniel with a bit more hope and enthusiasm than he had nned to show.

    "Of course.." Responded Nia, before turning quiet.

    After noticing that the two of them weren¡¯t moving, nor did they have the intention to, Daniel said "Well.. what are we waiting for?"

    "Under the possession of Iewah, there are four gxies. Each of these four gxies contain hundreds of billions of stars.. Half of which likely haves orbiting around them. To answer your question, what we are waiting for is for you to tell us which one your world of origin is."

    After listening to Nia¡¯s words, Daniel¡¯s confusion only deepened.

    In order to make out of what the girl was talking about, he had to ask for a quick exnation of what ntes, sr systems, and gxies were.

    He would quicklye to regret asking this question more than once during the conversation.

    After a few minutes, Daniel started to feel anxiousness grow in his heart. He didn¡¯t know to which gxy, sr system, or even the name of his.

    With evident worry in his voice, he turned to look at Nia and asked "Is there no way to know to which Ie from?"

    It was Noah which responded by saying "We already know to which youe from."

    Daniel¡¯s face eased for a few moments, but then, he narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he asked "Then why can¡¯t you take me there?"

    A nasty smile suddenly appeared on Noah¡¯s face right before saying "That requires us to use our knowledge of your circumstances, and that.. Is not part of the deal. Tell us exactly where you want to go.. And before you start toin, know that there is only one eptable request."

    Nia and Noah were Spiritual Acolytes, which meant that they worked directly for the Spiritual Emissaries. More specifically, Nia worked for the second Spiritual Emissary, while Noah worked for the third.

    They had been instructed on how to behave with Daniel.

    The second Spiritual Emissary had instructed Nia to be fair, but to not give ground to Daniel¡¯s request. She demanded professionality from her.

    On the other hand, the third Spiritual Emissary had instructed Noah to give Daniel a hard time, while staying within the rules of their deal. That, was because Daniel had put him into big trouble.

    Daniel could tell Noah¡¯s disposition towards him, so, he was quickly able to catch up on the meaning of his words.

    With a dispirited tone, he said "I want to go to a within Iewah¡¯s domain which has a full connection to the spiritual in, and knowledge about inteary travel.." He knew that any other request would be denied.

    The nasty smile on Noah¡¯s face grew even bigger than before "Splendid. Let¡¯s go then." He said while waving his hand, and opening arge portal in between him and Nia.

 Chapter 141 Neighbouring Plane

    "Where are we?.." Asked Daniel with confusion, as we looked at the desert-like scenery that extended in all directions.

    Noah responded through a dirty grin by saying "If you ask me, one of the bests within Iewah¡¯s domain. Hehehe"

    Nia stood quietly to the side, as if uninterested by what the two of them were talkin about.

    "This ce doesn¡¯t seem to have any life in it.." Said Daniel through a grim expression.

    While pretending a shocked expression, Noah said "What!? Is that what you wanted?? Why didn¡¯t you say so before.. Ohh.. Well, we can teleport you again. Of course, this still counts."

    Daniel already expected this to happen. From the sudden change in the third emissary¡¯s behaviour, and the sudden appearance of the second emissary, he had understood one thing.

    The punishment given by the judge was not something small. It was really no wonder that the members of a faction he had penalized would have it against him.

    He could only imagine what the punishment the third emissary would have to endure for causing such a loss for his entire faction.

    Now that he knew that the two of them had no intention in keeping their part of the deal with honestly, Daniel decided to use make use of one of his hidden tricks.

    "Can you teleport me to a random ned amongst all the ones in Iewah¡¯s domain?"

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, a smile of derision appeared on Noah¡¯s face. He was about to open a portal, but then, he heard a few more of Daniel¡¯s words reaching his ears.

    "Not picked by you.. A random one."

    "I have to decide where to teleport." Responded Noah with irritation.

    Noah was in control of the teleportation, and by being asked to be teleported to a random world, meant that he had to choose a. Unfortunately, choosing a meant that Daniel¡¯s request wasn¡¯t granted, as technically, it wasn¡¯t truly random.

    "You should have a list of the gxies, sr systems ands which belong to Iewah. I don¡¯t know them. I¡¯ll pick one at random, and you¡¯ll teleport me there." Said Daniel with a serious expression.

    "You do know that we are talking about trillions ofs, right?" Asked Nia with a in tone.

    "I do." Responded Daniel with no hints of incertitude.

    "Why would we ept to do that?" Asked Noah with curiosity.

    He of course knew that this method only meant wasting attempts for Daniel. The number ofs which included his specific requirements were already millions.. If he were to pick one at random, he would have close to no chance of picking a good one.

    Daniel smiled faintly at the two of them, and said "Because if we end up in a thatcks any of my requirements, you can kill me."

    "HAHAHAHA!" Noah burst outughing. He then turned to look at his great grandmother and said "I knew he would end up getting himself killed.. I was only off by a few days." Then, before Daniel could take back his words, he added "Very well."

    The very next moment, Noah threw a small sphere in the sky, which after reaching about ten meters in the air, exploded.

    Four intangible gxies appeared in the sky, separated from one another by what looked like trillions of trillions of kilometers.

    "Pick on-.. what?.. Again.. Pick one." Said Noah in confusion.

    Picking a gxy was the safest part of this bet, as all four of the gxies would have numerous sr systems ands in it.

    "That one.." Responded Daniel while pointing at the second biggest, and only gxy with an irregr shape.

    The shape of this gxy was oblong and thin, and of a white color. Around it, clear red smoke could be seen. It almost seemed as if somebody had stabbed a hole into space, from which blood spurted out inrge amounts.

    Once Daniel picked the gxy, the scene around him changed.

    The gxy he had picked zoomed in, and a seemingly infinite number of bright lights appeared in his surroundings. These lights represented the billions of stars contained in the gxy Daniel had chosen.

    The stars were truly too many, and Daniel could only randomly pick one and hope for the best.

    "That bright red one." Said Daniel with confidence.

    The moment Daniel picked that specific sr system, Noah¡¯s face became hideous, while Nia¡¯s face became stern. Deep confusion could be seen in both of their eyes.

    The scenery changed once again, and around him, a gargantuan red globe of fire appeared.

    Around it, were at least twentys of various different sizes.

    The majority of theses appeared not habitable, And in only three of them Daniel could see oceans, vastnds, and what looked like a breathable atmosphere.

    "The fourthrgest." Said Daniel.

    Noah and Nia quietened for a few moments. Then, Nia took a step forward and said "This is either the luckiest moment of your life, or you cheated us."

    "What are you talking about? You¡¯ve exined to me how space works.. How could I have cheated you?" Responded Daniel with a in smile.

    Of course, Nia was aware that Daniel wasn¡¯t lying. Knowledge of inteary travel was not only high level knowledge, but also something way beyond Daniel¡¯s level.

    "Of the four gxies, you¡¯ve picked the right one.. Of the billions of systems, you¡¯ve picked the right one.. This is the sr system that contains your world of origin, and yet, the you¡¯ve picked is the only one with a full connection to the spiritual in.." Said Nia with a deep surprise in her voice. "If you had actually picked your, I would have killed you on the spot. From our prospective, you couldn¡¯t have been any luckier."

    "What can I say.. I¡¯m a lucky guy." Responded Daniel with a faint smile on his face.

    Internally, he sighed deeply in relief.

    Nobody knew this, but that actually was the second attempt he had made.. On his first attempt, he had actually picked his of origin by chance.. But then, right after Nia had revealed to him which that was, she had killed him due to the fact that his of origin didn¡¯t contain a full connection to the spiritual in, and didn¡¯t contain knowledge of inteary travel.

    Time had rewinded back to the moment in which the gxy had appeared, causing Noah¡¯s confusion when asking Daniel to pick a gxy.

    In his second attempt, instead of considering himself lucky for finding his world of origin, he thought that the biggest luck would lie in finding a close to his world of origin, and that fulfilled all the requirements he had mentioned before. Amongst which a full connection to the spiritual in, and knowledge of inteary travel.

    Nia tilted her head slightly to the side, and said "Or you are in possession of a blessing which ys with fortune.. Interesting."

    As Noah heard Nia¡¯s words, he turned to look at her, and through a secret method of silent conversation, he asked "So, he cheated us?"

    "Open the portal." Said Nia, ignoring her great grandson¡¯s words.

    "The third emissary specifically told me to kill him if I was given a chance." Said Noah with irritation.

    "The second emissary told me to stop you from killing him unless there is an actually good reason.. If the Judge were to be observing him, and we killed him.. That¡¯s more than enough for both emissaries to lose their lives as well, and our faction to lose enough to fall at the bottom.. Open. The. Portal."

    "Fine.." Responded Noah after ultimately agreeing with her.

    At the end of the day, the order he had obtained from the third emissary was just a whim. The reason why he wanted to follow it, was to leave a good impression on him.. But it definitely wasn¡¯t enough for the both of them to risk their lives over.

    With a wave of his hand, he opened another milky white portal, then, along with Nia, he went directly through it.

    Daniel followed suit and went through the portal, but when he appeared on the other side, he wasn¡¯t in a portal. Instead, he and the two acolytes were standing in a grey spatial room.

    In front of them, was a simple desk.. And behind the desk, an elegantly dressed man was sitting.

    This man appeared to be bored out of his mind, and on the desk, there were dozens of sheets of paper folded into odd-looking shapes and figures.

    As the man felt the three of them, he looked up, and said "You know the procedure.. Names, upation, and reason for your visit."

    The two acolytes bowed politely at the man, and Nia said "Nia, and Noah Riama, first Spiritual Acolyte under the guidance of the second Spiritual Emissary, and thirteenth Spiritual Acolyte under the guidance of the third Spiritual Emissary. We are here to apany a member of your faction back home."

    "How gracious of you.. Still, ess denied. Leave him here and piss off." Responded the man quite rudely.

    Noah and Nia didn¡¯t dare to act arrogantly against this man. They were more than aware of what kind of power someone that regted the entry to one of Iewah¡¯ss would possess, and it wasn¡¯t anywhere lower than the power of the emissaries themselves. The only difference, was in their upation.

    One was a messenger of sorts, while the other, was a guardian.

    Nia turned to look at Daniel, and said "This is as far as we can take you into the. Iewah¡¯s faction is at fault for obstructing us inpleting our mission, so, ording to the rules of misconduct on the part of the receiver of a service, we get to set a condition in return."

    Daniel looked back at the girl with deep suspicion, and said "What condition?"

    "As long as you¡¯ll be within a regted by Iewah¡¯s faction, you won¡¯t be able to make use of the bracelet to call us." Responded Nia inly. She then pointed at the white bracelet around Daniel¡¯s wrist.

    Daniel immediately felt the change in the bracelet. Compared to earlier, he wasn¡¯t able to inject spiritual essence into it. It almost looked like it wasn¡¯t connected to the spiritual in anymore.

    After Daniel felt the changes in the bracelet, he rapidly looked at the two acolytes, and tried to say something. But before he could, the two had already disappeared.

    What he wanted to ask, was for them to teleport him into his world of origin, since the bet had already been concluded, and he already knew what the exact position of his world of origin was. Unfortunately, the two of them had expected that, and had left before Daniel had a chance to ask.

    Now alone in the spatial room, Daniel approached the desk where the man was sitting, and said "Can I enter the?"

    The man turned to look at Daniel.

    In his eyes, unbeknownst to Daniel, two red hexagrams had appeared.

    After looking him up and down for a few seconds, the man said "You belong to the seventeenth of this sr system.. How did you end up out of it?"

    "I¡¯ve exterminated a group of spiritual cultivators that had opened a portal for another world. I was pulled into it, and at ater moment, I found out that that was inside the dominion of the Sovereign of Corruption.."

    The man listened to Daniel¡¯s story with an amused expression. After thousands of years spent doing a job that even a dog could do, he had found a pleasure in listening to other people¡¯s stories.

    "That¡¯s quite the tale." Said the man through a big smile. "I would dly help you get back to your, but I am not allowed to. Plus, it would be a shame. You can gain the rights for inteary travel in this, so I suggest you try to do that."

    Daniel didn¡¯t really expect that this man would help him. After all, he had no idea of how rights and powers worked in theserge factions. Plus, he was fine with obtaining the rights to inteary travel, so he said "Very well. I would like to enter then."

    "Good, go ahead" Said the man while moving his finger, and opening a human-sized portal in the air.

    As Daniel entered the portal, the man muttered "Karma huh?.. How peculiar.."

 Chapter 142 A Big Deal of Information

    When Daniel appeared on the other side of the portal, he found himself in an extremelyrge square, whose edges were hard to see due to its size.

    In this square, thousands of small portals were being opened one after the other, and from each of them, one or more individuals casually came out.

    The appearance of each of these individuals was human-like, and thanks to his senses, Daniel could tell that these people were way more powerful than he was.

    The majority of them, weren¡¯t part of his own humanoid race.

    People quickly started to appear all around him, so he had no choice but to move along and leave the square.

    He tried to release his power out and jump high in the air, but the moment it came out of his body, an invisible force stopped him from floating off the ground. No matter how much power he put into it, this invisible force was always able to counter it.

    Thanks to this invisible force, and thepleteck of people flying in the sky, It didn¡¯t took long for Daniel toe to the realization that flight was forbidden in this city.

    That was amon rule even in his world, where using tforms or air currents to fly, was forbidden in most capitals.

    After he left the square, Daniel teleported Alesia, Jerigh, Roley, Gai¡¯ha, Lucious, and Edmund out of the pocket dimension. They were waiting for Daniel to allow them out once they arrived back home.

    "What ce is this? It doesn¡¯t look like our world.." Asked Roley while looking around.

    "It isn¡¯t.. The two acolytes that were in charge of teleporting me, were not too amodating, and refused to get us home. This is a world very close to ours. In order to reach it, we need the permission to travel between worlds, and I¡¯ve been told that I can get it here." Calmly exined Daniel, before exining to them whats, sr systems and gxies were.

    It took the lot of them, especially Edmund and Lucious, a long time to get used to the idea of something as immense as a gxy.. Or a universe in which billions of gxies floated. The reason for that, was not only their age, but also the fact that one was a schr which waspletely ignorant in the matter, while the other had spent all his life studying space.

    "Can¡¯t you open a portal by yourself if you know where our.... Is?" Asked Alesia, still slightly confused.

    "I know where it is.. But the sheer distance is hundreds of billions of kilometers.." Responded Daniel with a dispirited tone.

    Of his group, Daniel and a few others were the only ones that had an actual reason to go back home.

    The majority of Daniel¡¯s group members had been rescued from bad conditions, or had voluntarily joined him.. While those who actually had someone left behind, were Daniel, his original groupposed by Roley, Imblen, Ligart, Heimart, and Alis, and finally, the few people he had evaded from prison with.

    "Okay, so, what do we do?" Asked Alesia.

    Daniel turned to look at her and said "You should all go back into the ring.. Use the monster meat to cultivate, and form your immortal essence. I think that that¡¯s the mostmonly used type of power in this world.. And spiritual essence, or ki, are not on par with it."

    Thanks to the high level resources, and theplete connection to the spiritual in, Daniel¡¯s entire group had started to move from being a group of spiritual and martial cultivators, into being a group of dual cultivators.

    Furthermore, whenever they reached the peak of the major stage of their second path of cultivation, before breaking through to the following level, they were given a second chance to achieve perfection.

    Alesia had reached the level of perfection of both the spiritual connection and the body strengthening stages when she had cultivated in her room.

    The only reasons why she hadn¡¯t noticed it, was because her body was already too powerful, while the vortex hadn¡¯t appeared, was because the seventh rank beast core contained more than enough power for her to quickly advance to perfection, and then to the fourth rank.

    In the past two months, Jerigh, thanks to the impressive speed of cultivation and the powerful monster meat, was able to reach the seventh stage of spiritual cultivation, and the peak of the ninth stage of martial cultivation.

    Roley had reached the early ninth rank of spiritual cultivation, and the fifth rank of martial cultivation thanks to his relentless desire of bing stronger.

    Finally, After eight months of uninterrupted cultivation within the pocket dimension, Alesia had reached the sixth rank of spiritual cultivation and the early ninth rank of martial cultivation.

    Daniel wanted to allow Gai¡¯ha and Lucious to follow, as after being purified by the corruption, their bodies had be more powerful.

    The old man, which was once a mid-chief level warrior, now had the prowess of ate-chief level warrior, while Gai¡¯ha, currently had a battle prowess at the mid-chief level despite being at the early-chief level. Also, their lifespan had increased greatly, but they didn¡¯t know by how much.

    Unfortunately, it took just a moment for Daniel to remember that the two of them did not speak thenguage of their humanoid race, which was the same spoken in his world of origin.

    The first thing Daniel wanted to do, was to go to one of the entrances of the city, and hire a guide.

    Differently from the young kids which worked as guides in the cities of his world of origin, the guide job was a dignified one here, and many distinct and well educated young men and women did it with pride.

    When Daniel approached the gates of the city, he waited for a few minutes, and soon enough, a couple of young men approached him. They were both well dressed, and very talkative.

    "Young hero. Need a guide that can show you the marvels of this city?" Asked one of the two.

    The second one approached as well, and said "A beautiful sword, have youe here to participate in the selection for the Sect of the Instantaneous Sword? I can guide you!"

    "Actually, I am new to this world.. I would like to have more general knowledge of this." Responded Daniel with a hint of embarrassment.

    The moment Daniel said the words ¡¯new to this world¡¯, the two guides lost interest in him, and left him alone.

    Noticing their behaviour, Daniel thought that he had said something wrong, so, he decided to try another gate. But as he was about to leave, he heard a voiceing from behind him.

    It said "I can give you informations." This voice belonged to a young man in his mid teens. He appeared to be the worst dressed amongst the guides, but had an amiable smile on his face. He had no power in him, and walked with the help of two crutches.

    "Very well." Responded Daniel, before approaching the young man, and continuing by saying "I guess my first question should be.. What¡¯s the currency in this?"

    "Various things.. Gold, cultivating resources, materials.. The two most used are gold for small purchases, and crystals.."

    After an hour of conversation, Daniel received an impressive amount of informations. He had learned that gold had a much smaller value in this than in his world of origin. The difference was of about ten thousand to one.

    What was used instead of gold, were crystals. These crystals were made out of mana which had reached a level of purity high enough to crystallize.

    Depending on the shape or size, these crystals would be divided into various levels. Low-quality crystals were the cheapest, and their value was of a million gold coins. After the low-quality crystals, were the mid-quality, or simply mid crystals, and high-quality crystals.

    Each of these two types of crystals were worth a hundred of the previous kind.

    Thest type of crystals were the perfect crystals whose price reached the thousand high-quality crystals.

    The high value of these crystals was given by the fact that they were extremely useful to cultivate.

    Daniel asked to see an example of low-level crystal, but the young man embarrassedly said he didn¡¯t own one.

    Thankfully, Daniel still had beast cores with him.

    After seeing an eighth rank beast core, the young man told him that the power contained in it was significantly weaker than a low crystal, and confirmed that it was quite simr to a ninth rank beast core only after Daniel showed one to him.

    Thanks to this conversation about prices and value, Daniel had understood that his wealth in gold coins was worth very little here. His true wealth, lied in cultivation resources.

    He possessed hundreds of rings filled with monster meat, and arge part of it belonged to leader-level monsters, which could bepared to beast cores between the sixth to the ninth rank.

    Something else he had learned about this, other than its name being Chuatania, was that there weren¡¯t any nations, kingdoms, or empires here. Instead, it was entirely ruled a single government, which did not have a ruler at its head.

    This was the type ofs one would end up finding in Iewah¡¯s territory. He wasn¡¯t oppressive like the other factions were. He would simply let the poption of each take care of themselves.

    In Chuatania¡¯s case, a group of powerful group of cultivators worked as a senate, and voted for the major decisions. Each of the senate members were leaders or representatives of powerful groups.

    Thest thing Daniel had learned about this, was how to obtain a permit to travel between worlds.

    After that part of their discussion, Daniel had learned something more not about the, but about the universal government. Group to which the Judges belonged, and to which the faction leaders like Iewah, the Sovereign of Corruption, and the Spiritual Emperor were registered.

    This universal government would grant the permission to the groups to select a few worlds in which it would be possible to make a request for that kind of permission.

    One of thes picked by Iewah for this, was Chuatania.

    The only thing that Daniel needed to do, was to reach the city in which the testing office was, pay the fee, test for his power, and then wait for the bureaucratic procedure to take ce.

    The easiest way to reach the capital, was to use one of the long range teleportation within this city.

    After their conversation was over, Daniel asked the young man to guide him to the ce where the long range teleportations took ce.

    The young man refused at first, but after noticing Daniel serious face, he epted.

    On their way there, Daniel asked "Why are your legs in that state.. This doesn¡¯t have the level of knowledge necessary to heal two shattered knees? You¡¯ll be limp for the rest of your life if you don¡¯t get them fixed soon."

    "It¡¯s just an ident, don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯ll fix them soon.." Said the young man while forcing a smile on his face. Unfortunately for him, his eyes betrayed his real thoughts.

    He and the young man, whose name Daniel learned to be Zack, were quietly and slowly strolling through the lively streets of the city.

    Daniel could see that Zack was careful not to end up in anybody¡¯s way, and also looked around the corners beforeing out of them.

    It almost seemed that he was trying to avoid some people in particr.

    In a couple of hours, they had arrived at the entrance of this extremelyrge building.

    The exteriors of this building was very peculiar, and at its entrance, were two muscr-looking men keeping guard.

    As a payment for Zack¡¯s services, Daniel gave him the majority of the gold coins he owned. As many of the single monsters corpses he possessed were already more valuable than all the gold he had.

    Zack thanked him with enthusiasm, and then, the two split up.

    After Daniel went into the building, Zack quickly hid the small ring which contained the gold into his pocket, and after looking around, he tried to go back to the way he and Daniel had arrived.

    But before he could go far, a voice that forced a shiver down his spine reached his ears. "HEY, ZACK!.."

 Chapter 143 Torture Until Proven Not Guilty

    "HEY ZACK!.." Said a voice that came from behind the crippled young man.

    A shiver run down Zack¡¯s back as he immediately turned around, but before his eyes couldnd on the person who had called him, he was already on the ground.

    *Thump*

    Due to his crutches, he wasn¡¯t able to put his hands in front of himself to mitigate the fall, and the kick on the back had caused him to fall face first against the hard rocky floor.

    As soon as the crowd heard the name ¡¯Zack¡¯, they turned to look at the scene, and formed arge circle around him.

    Within this circle, only he and six other individuals were standing. Five of them were clearly over twenty years of age, while thest one, was a girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age.

    All of these people had simr looking clothes, but of different colors. The color of the robes of four out of six people in the group were dark green, while the robe of the younger girl, and one of the younger men, was of a much lighter shade of green.

    The person in front of the group, and the one that had just kicked Zack¡¯s back, was a twenty-five years old man with dark green robes.

    "Do you remember what I¡¯ve said I would have done to you, if I ever saw you inside the city again?" Asked the young man with a vicious and taunting tone.

    -----

    When Daniel entered therge building, he found himself in arge and circr room. In the middle of it, was a round tform elevated to ten meters in the air.

    At the edge of this tform, was a flight of stony stairs, and at the bottom, was a distinct middle aged man, and two guards which stood behind him at all times.

    Over this tform, arge symbol, which Daniel recognized as the teleporting formation, had been carved on the floor. In various spots in this formation, many spatial treasures had been encrusted.

    All around the tform, thousands of people were walking around, and buying items on the high-end stalls that had been set up.

    Daniel approached the bottom of the flight of stairs right away, and stood in front of the middle aged man.

    "I would like to teleport to the Capital." He said with a polite tone.

    The middle aged man looked back at him, and after looking him up and down for a few moments, he said "The formation is deactivated. Come back in two days."

    "Very well, how much does the travel cost?" Asked Daniel, so that he could prepare for the travel in the meantime.

    "Five mid-level crystals. And a thousand contribution points." Responded the man inly.

    "Contribution points? What is that?"

    The man looked at Daniel sideways, and said "Too many people were using the formation every year. After an attentive calction, the government realized that the price for each use couldn¡¯t cover the expense in the long run. Therefore, they decided to add contribution points. The government will cover the rest of the expense, but citizens will have to contribute to the public well being."

    "Is that a new thing?" Asked Daniel in confusion. He couldn¡¯t recall Zack mentioning this at all.

    "Fairly new.. But you should have known this unless you live in the slums right outside of the city." Responded the man casually.

    "Okay, I¡¯ll be back in two days, tha-"

    *AAAAAAAARGH!!*

    A sudden pained shout came from outside of the building, and caused those who were strolling around to turn in the direction of the entrance.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t an exception.

    He walked out of the building to take a look at what was happening, and once he crossed the double door, he found arge crowd grouped in a circle.

    Daniel made his way through the crowd, and when he reached the edge of the circle, he saw Zack on the ground, screaming in pain.

    Both of his arms were broken, and the bones came out of his flesh. His crooked legs had been shattered once again, and his feet were bent in an odd direction.. His ankles were clearly broken as well.

    Next to him, was a young man of about Daniel¡¯s age, along with a few other people that appeared to belong to the same group as him.

    Daniel observed the scene for a few moments, as he didn¡¯t know what, or why that was happening. So, he pushed his spiritual sense outwards, and heard the people talk.

    "..he deserves it.."

    "Him being allowed back in the city is already shameful enough for their sect.."

    "..they should kill him, already and be done with it."

    "..on¡¯t believe he actually did it.."

    The conversations sparked all around the crowd, and Daniel could only hear bits and pieces. What he had understood, was that Zack was a generally hated guy.

    Something else that he had noticed, was something within the people in the middle of the group.

    Of the seven people that were in the middle of the circle, Zacks karma was steady at a neutral level, just like that of three others amongst the group.

    What was interesting, was that the karma of the man that was hitting Zack was decreasing, but not as fast as the karma of the youngest girl, and of the one that looked like the oldest of the young men, which went down the more Zack got hit.

    Each kick gave the girl and this man a hundred or so negative karma points.

    Daniel¡¯s train of thought was interrupted by the sight of a kick, which if it connected, would have probably killed Zack.

    He was about to intervene, but before he could, one of the two guards stationed in front of the building which contained the teleporting formation, had already appeared, and stopped the attack by putting his shield in between him and Zack, and parrying the blow for him.

    Daniel immediately noticed the guard¡¯s karma increase positively.

    "Mind your own business guard, you know what this vermin has done?!" Barked the young man furiously.

    The guard stood quietly, and looked at the young man through the holes of his helmet, then, he turned around and went back to his post.

    The young man smirked, and turned to look back at Zack. He wasn¡¯t going to kill him, but he wanted him to suffer some more. But, as he turned to look at him, next to his broken body, he saw a young man standing quietly.

    This young man was, of course, Daniel.

    The man turned to look at Daniel, and said "If you want to hit him, stand in line, pal."

    Danielpletely ignored him, and instead, he reached with his hand for Zack¡¯s body, and pressed it on his chest. Then, he injected a heavy stream of healing essence inside him.

    *Crack* *Snap*

    Sounds of snapping and cracking bones could be heard, as waves of warmness quickly spread through Zack¡¯s body.

    People looked at Daniel with shocked expressions, as Zack¡¯s crippled body was quickly restored to what was supposed to be a normal human¡¯s shape.

    After a minute of shock, the young man that was observing Daniel¡¯s action shouted "HEY! YOU!.. What the hell do you think you are doing!?" He walked towards him, and put a hand on Daniel¡¯s shoulder.

    The moment his hand touched Daniel¡¯s shoulder, a weak current of electricity ran through his body, causing him to immediately pull it back in shock.

    While still healing Zack, Daniel turned to look at the young man, and with the coldest voice he could manage, he said "Touch me again, and you¡¯ll end up in the state he was in when I¡¯ve started treating him."

    Daniel¡¯s threat did nothing but anger the young man more, which shouted with a higher-pitched voice "Do you even know who that little shit is!? He is a rapist!"

    Daniel¡¯s brows furrowed immediately as he heard the man¡¯s words. He then said "That¡¯s a severe usation. What¡¯s your proof?"

    "PROOF?! My sister came to me! Crying! Saying that she couldn¡¯t marry because she had been defiled by that piece of shit!!" Shouted the man while indicating at the young girl whose karma increased negatively whenever Zack was hit.

    The pieces of the story were quickly put together in Daniel¡¯s mind.

    Of course, it was only a matter of whose word people decided to believe.. Zack¡¯s or the girl¡¯s. Unfortunately for this guy, even if Daniel hadn¡¯t heard the entire story from a crying young girl herself, he already knew which one to believe.

    He had ess to an indisputable proof, which no one could see, nor deny. That proof, was karma.

    Daniel¡¯s hypothesis, was that the girl had lied to get herself out of a marriage she didn¡¯t approve of. The second guy whose karma rapidly decreased was probably on board with the lie.

    Her brother, whose karma decreased at a much slower pace than theirs, was likely unaware of the truth, and the only reason why his karma decreased, was because he was hitting an innocent person.

    "That¡¯s your proof? My sister told me?.. I wonder, if somebody¡¯s sister imed you had raped her, would that make you a rapist too?"

    The young man could believe Daniel¡¯s words. He had never been doubted before, and to him, his sister was the victim.. Her being called a liar, was the biggest offence he could ever receive.

    "YOU BASTARD!" The young man shouted angrily as he unsheathed his sword, and dashed towards Daniel.

    As he reached him, he brought his sword down on Daniel¡¯s body with as much power as he could muster, but the moment before the sword could strike, he found himself in the entrance of the city, exactly where Daniel had met Zack for the first time.

    Witnessing the young man¡¯s disappearance, the group of cultivators which belonged to his faction reacted quickly. They unsheathed their own weapons and attacked.. But they too found themselves being teleport various kilometers away from the point there the fight was taking ce.

    The only two people that had remained, were the teenage girl, and the young man which Daniel believed was part of the girl¡¯s lie.

    Thetter turned to look at the girl, and said "Call her." with a look of urgency.

    In response, the girl rapidly grabbed the small stone encrusted in her ne, and broke it.

    The moment the stone broke, Daniel felt the activation of a small spatial formation. This spatial formation created a portal, from which a thirty years old woman came out.

    This woman, just like the rest of the group, was dressed in green robes, but the color was much darker than the others, almost ck.

    She had straight and long ck hair which reached all the way to her lower back, and was taller than the norm. Right above her behind, she kept two sheathed short swords, which she could easily unsheathe at any given moment.

    "What is it?" She asked with a serious tone through a just as serious expression. Her beautiful features seemed locked into a cold, and almost scary setting.

    The teenage girl turned to the woman that had just appeared, and said "Elder sister.. This man attacked my brother and three more members of the sect.. To defend the guy that.. That.." she then started to cry.

    Seemingly unimpressed, the woman turned towards Daniel, and approached him quietly.

    Once in front of him, she said "Is what she said true?"

    Zack, which had just recovered, sprung up on his feet and said "Elder sister, please, he did nothing wrong!.. He simply defended me.. He only defended himself!"

    The woman ignored Zack, and looked at Daniel with a stern expression.

    It had been a long time since Daniel had stopped being scared by people stronger than him.. And stronger she was.

    If he were to guess the extent of this woman¡¯s strength, he would say that she was slightly stronger than one of the tenmanders, and weaker than the king. She was at the early king level of power.

    With a calm that not many could manage to maintain in that sort of situation, Daniel said "No, it¡¯s not true."

    "What happened then?" Asked the woman, slightly curious about Daniel.

    "Are you sure you want me to answer?.. If you end up finding out that she is lying about this, you might start wondering if there be something else she lied about.." Said Daniel casually.

 Chapter 144 My Name Is..

    "There might be something else she lied about.." Said Daniel to the woman with a casual tone.

    Irritated by Daniel¡¯s words, she took a step forward, and said "Alright, you areing with me. We¡¯ll have a little chat about what happened."

    "I¡¯m not going anywhere." Responded Daniel, while smiling faintly.

    Due to the fact that she was the head disciple of one of the strongest sect in the city, this woman was extremely well respected. Usually, people would dly agree to her requests, but Daniel seemed to be very keen on irritating her.

    Unfortunately, that was the truth.

    Since Daniel had walked all the way from the city entrance to that building, he had noticed Zack¡¯s terrified behaviour. Taking into consideration the state his body was in, one could infer what kind of treatment awaited him whenever he would set foot into the city.

    He would be beaten up, shamed, and insulted.

    But Daniel knew better than others.

    If Zack was guilty, there would be no way for the girl¡¯s karma to decrease so drastically. The only reason for that, could be that the pain caused to Zack, could be directly attributed to the young girl.

    The same was for the young man which was with her.

    He didn¡¯t know the entire story, but karma wouldn¡¯t lie.

    The woman thrusted her hand dowards Daniel, in an attempt to grab his shoulder, but he was easily able to avoid her by stepping aside. She quickly reacted, and waved her hand in an attempt to catch Daniel¡¯s clothes, but once again, she missed.

    For a long minute, she used the fastest speed she could muster to grab Daniel, but she wasn¡¯t even able to make her fingers brush against his clothes.

    What she hadn¡¯t notice.. what nobody noticed, was that the time in the area kept moving backwards for split seconds, and repeated itself over and over again.

    While she had spent only a minute in that fight, only able to feel that Daniel was as slippery as an eel, he had spent more than ten minutes in it instead.

    He had been forced to rewind time more than once during each of her attempts to grab him, just so that he could avoid her.

    He had learned this concept of time the veryst time he had been killed. When he had picked his world of origin to be teleported in, and had been killed by Nia for losing the bet. In that moment, he had learned the concept of rewinding.

    It is important to understand one thing.

    People that had been born in a world with a full connection to the spiritual in, had never bothered to learn how to control the other essences. Only a specific and rare kind of mage would take the time to do this.

    The reason for that was simple. With the amount and purity of their spiritual essence, they could simple take control over the surrounding elements to fight, or use spiritual essence directly.

    This meant that their evolution in spells and magic, was at a much earlier stage than that of Daniel¡¯s world of origin, where people needed to construct elements by using their limited spiritual essence, and through theirprehension of the various essences.

    Because of that, the majority of the cultivators that lived in worlds with aplete connection to the spiritual in, would instead be some sorts of magical warriors. These magical warriors would use abilities formed by thebination of physical attacks and elements in order to increase their power to a devastating degree.

    One example of this, was the Sect of the Instantaneous Sword, which teached a set of sword skill which was created by mixing swordsmanship, and the teleporting concept of space.

    The ones who focused on specific types of essence, were mostly researchers, alchemists and people passionate about the subject.

    The reason why this is important to know, is so that one can understand the significant difference between spiritual cultivators, and immortal cultivators.

    The power of an immortal cultivator would be on a much higher level, but that had caused spiritual cultivators to need to research the full extension of their power, and push it to the extreme.

    That¡¯s why the young cultivators that had attacked Daniel had been helplessly teleported around, and why the woman wasn¡¯t able to grab him despite her higher level of power.

    Embarrassed, the woman let her immortal essence out of her body, increasing the speed of her movements even more.

    Now unable to avoid her anymore, Daniel decided to put the entire area under a spatial blockade, and create an illusion in it.

    He left a wisp of his immortal essence to work as a bait for the woman¡¯s attack, and imitated the surrounding essences to perfection.. Leaving only two people free from the illusion.

    Zack, and Himself.

    Daniel approached Zack, which was looking at the woman trying to grab the empty air around her, and at the crowd that cheered loudly. He then turned to look at Daniel, and said "What is going on? Why are they behaving like that??"

    "Don¡¯t worry about it.. Let¡¯s go." Responded Daniel while grabbing Zack¡¯s shirt, and dragging him out of the crowd.

    Within the edges of the crowd, there was a person which hadn¡¯t fallen for his illusion, and was directly looking at him as he moved away.

    That person, was the guard which had helped Zack.

    -----

    Daniel and Zack were now sitting at a table in a restaurant, and were waiting for the food that Daniel had ordered to arrive.

    Zack was extremely sorry for causing all that trouble to Daniel. To a point where he didn¡¯t felt any happiness about being able to walk once again.

    The two of them spent the following minutes in silence, until finally, Daniel said "So, are you going to tell me the full story of what happened?"

    Zack lowered his head in an apologetic way, and responded "Why do you care?"

    "Let¡¯s just say that.. It is in my interest to help people with their problems." Responded Daniel casually, while cleaning the spoon he had been given with his shirt. That was the only restaurant that had let them in once noticed that he was along with Zack, and cleanliness seemed to be not one of their main concerns.

    "I was part of their sect once.. Joined when I was five.."

    For the following ten minutes, Zack recounted of how he had joined the Sect of the Illusory Edge, which ironically enough, was a sect that teaches how to use light in conjunction with swords, to create illusions.

    He had entered the sect along with his best friend, and her brother at the age of eight, and the three of them had gone through sweet and rough times together.

    Unfortunately, Zack wasn¡¯t as talented as the brother and sister were, and that had caused Zack to remain at a lower level within the sect.

    As years passed, the three of them had grown further than ever. So much so, that after seven years, Zack had learned that his childhood friend, whose name was K, had been engaged to a talented member of another sect.

    Zack was happy about that, as he wished the best for her, but he had soone to change his mind.

    Not long after the announcement, K¡¯s brother Kien, had stormed into his room, and had beaten him senseless. Then, he had taken him to be judged by the leader and elders of the sect, which after informing him about the usations that had been moved towards him by K, had kicked him out due to the fact that there were no actual proofs that the fact had actually happened, with the exception of K¡¯s words.

    At first, nobody that belonged to the sect hade to torment Zack, but for him, learning the truth about the matter had be an obsession. So, he started to stalk K.

    One day, Zack had listened to the private conversation between her and another male disciple of the Sect of the Illusory Edge, and from that conversation, he had learned that the two were together, and that she had lied so that she could get out of the arranged marriage. If that didn¡¯t work, she could at least exin why she wasn¡¯t a virgin anymore to her consort.

    Zack was disgusted by what he had learned, and had decided to confront her once and for all.

    Unfortunately, when he had moved her usation towards her in front of his brother Kien, due to Zack¡¯s obsessive behaviour, and his sister¡¯s cries, Kien had ended up not believing his words, and instead, he had almost killed him.

    He broke both of his legs, and threatened that if he let someone heal them, or even entered into the city once again, he would kill him.

    Honestly speaking, Daniel could sort of understand Kien¡¯s behaviour. He had a sister, and he could empathize with him. If someone were to touch his sister, he would turn the world into dust just so that the culprit could suffer.. But this was different.

    Kien and K weren¡¯t the sort of brother and sister that Daniel and Re were. Re would never lie to him like this, nor would she do something so vicious to one of her friends.

    Just in time for the end of Zack¡¯s story, the food arrived.

    Daniel pushed one of the dishes in front of Zack¡¯s face, and told him that he believed in his version of the story.

    When Zack asked why with a pair of watery eyes, Daniel simply said "You don¡¯t look like the type of person who would do something like that."

    He then started to eat, while Zack tried in every way he could to clean the tears that were uninterruptedly streaming down his cheeks.

    It took more than a few minutes for Zack to calm down, and start eating his food.

    "What happened to your immortal essence? I get that you are not talented.. But to have none after seven years.. That¡¯s ridiculous." Said Daniel with a hint of curiosity.

    Zack cleaned his mouth from the grease, and responded "It¡¯s called spiritual castration.. They cut away a piece of your spirit, and keep it separated from the rest of your body. It was the sects decision to do that instead of simply killing me."

    "Is something like that possible?" Asked Daniel, clearly shocked by Zack¡¯s words. "How does it feel to have a piece of your spirit taken away?"

    "It¡¯s like.. Having a limb cut off, and yet still being able to control it.. I can feel it wherever it is, and at all times.. Because it¡¯s part of me.. It¡¯s difficult to exin."

    From what Daniel understood, such practice was atrocious and barbaric. One¡¯s spirit was the most personal and important part of one¡¯s body. Having a piece of it taken away from you, was nothing different for actual castration.

    After another few minutes, the waiter approached Daniel¡¯s table in order to collect the payment.

    Instead of paying, Daniel said "We¡¯ll stay here for a bit longer. Bring us three cups of tea, and ask the gentleman that¡¯s sitting at the second table from the exit to join us."

    Without waiting for the waitress to approach him, a man got up from the table which Daniel had pointed out, and started walking towards their table.

    Daniel moved slightly to the side, and made space for him to sit.

    This man, was the guard that hadn¡¯t fallen for Daniel¡¯s spatial illusion.

    "First of all, I¡¯m very impressed that you were able to avoid being caught into my illusion.. Secondly, why are you following us?" Asked Daniel with a curious and confident smile on his face.

    The middle aged man turned to look at Daniel, and said "I may have only been a martial cultivator in the past.. But I¡¯m still well aware of what a spatial illusion is.."

    "Youe from the same Ie from.." Muttered Daniel in a low voice. "That¡¯s quite the coincidence.." He then added.

    The man started to rub his hands nervously together, then said "I do.. I¡¯ve been here for twelve years, and I¡¯ve been trying to go back ever since. My name is Der.."

 Chapter 145 A Merchant Permission

    "My name is Der.."

    Daniel looked at Der with confused eyes, almost as if he had forgotten about something of extreme importance..

    Unable to single out that thought in his mind, he threw it to the back of his head, and said "You can call me Daniel." as a polite smile formed on his face. He then added "What can I help you with?"

    "I would like to know how you arrived here.. I have been trying to go home for many years.. I still have a family to go back to." Responded Der with a near Mncholic voice.

    Daniel became pensive for a few seconds, then responded "Well, I¡¯m sorry to disappoint you, but I actually haven¡¯t arrived directly from that world.. A year ago I ended up in a second world, and was only teleported back here earlier this morning."

    A look of disappointment appeared on Der¡¯s face, as he said "There is no chance then.."

    "I¡¯m going to acquire the permission for inteary travel." Responded Daniel confidently after seeing Der¡¯s clear disappointment, which for some reason, made him feel bad.

    "That¡¯s impossible.. I¡¯ve been to the capital, and learned that the rights for inteary travel aren¡¯t something that anyone can obtain." Said Der, which then proceeded to exin the requirements to obtain the permission that Daniel aimed was aiming to obtain.

    Basically, three things were required to obtain a permission. The first one, was a certain level of power. The second one, was a significant level of influence. The third andst requirement, was a reason that could justify the need to travel through space.

    The majority of these permissions were given to explorers, high ranking members of the various factions, and extremely wealthy and high-end merchants.

    The Emissaries and Acolytes of the Spiritual Emperor, just like the Herald of the Sovereign of Corruption, belonged to the second type.

    The only types of permission Daniel could obtain without joining a faction, was either the permission for exploration, which would grant him the rights to scout uncharted space, and sell the information to the various factions, or a merchant permission, which would require him to have a businessrge enough to motivate his need for inteary travel.

    Der paused for a few moments after finishing his exnation.

    He could see that Daniel was considering his choices, so, he waited quietly while brushing his ck hair with his hand.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to make his decision about what path to thread.

    He didn¡¯t want to join a faction, nor did he want to explore uncharted parts of the universe.. What he wanted to do, was to be a merchant. What was taking a bit longer to decide, was what kind of items he could trade in.

    The ideal would be to produce items that required time to make, and that he could quickly produce thanks to the advantage granted by the karmic system.

    Suddenly, an idea ran through his mind as quickly as a sh.

    He turned to look at Der¡¯s brown eyes, vivid yet covered by a dispirited expression, and said "What¡¯s the value of essence treasures here?"

    "Surprisingly low. There aren¡¯t many people which delve deeply into the profundity of essences, so, the ones who do, are overpaid, and focus mainly in higher level treasures."

    Responded Der casually. He then added "I know what you want to do, but forget it.. Even if you can make a spatial sphere in a week, it will take you hundreds of years to reach a level of wealth necessary to be a merchant.. And that¡¯s despite the fact that spatial essence is considered one of the most useful spheres around."

    Daniel¡¯s smile appeared once again, as he looked at Der and said "How about we make a deal?.. You¡¯ve been here for twelve years, and Zack was born here.. You two help me get my hands on each and every essence treasure you can find, and I¡¯ll get you back home."

    Der looked cautiously at Daniel¡¯s confident face, and saw no doubt in it. It almost convinced him that Daniel could pull it off. So, he said "I truly have no hope in you managing to do that.. But after twelve years.. I have no ce else to turn to."

    "Excellent!" Responded Daniel with enthusiasm. He then waved his hand, and made Lucious appear next to them. "Can you take care of the ring for a few minutes? Just sit here, eat anything you want, and when a man approaches the table, give him these." Said Daniel to the old man in the wastnd world¡¯snguage, while giving him a few low-level crystal he had exchanged with gold the first time Zack had exined the mary change to him.

    After Lucious agreed, Daniel turned to look back at Zack and Der, and said "I¡¯m taking you into a pocket dimension.. Don¡¯t fight it."

    Zack had absolutely no idea of what Daniel was talking about. After all, seeing someone experienced enough with spatial essence to be able to create a pocket dimension, was extremely rare in his world.

    On the other hand, Der showed a surprised expression, and nodded slightly.

    The three of them suddenly disappeared from their chairs, and reappeared in what looked like a cliff.

    From this cliff, arge city could be seen.

    Der was a powerful cultivator even when he was still in his world of origin, so, after seeing the stage of Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, his face reached a state that was way past what one would call surprise.

    The first time he had met Daniel, he had thought that he probably was a disciple, or a servant of a much more powerful cultivator, to which this pocket dimension belonged.. But then, after sensing the size of the dimension itself, he confirmed that it had actually been created by Daniel.

    "What is this?" He asked with curiosity.

    "This is my group¡¯s base.. I guess that for you, this is a small piece of home away from home. The majority of these individualse from our world." Responded Daniel calmly.

    Der¡¯s heart threatened to burst out of his chest as he felt martial cultivators, and spiritual cultivators that inhabited therge dimension all around him.

    He could also feel the earth, wood, and powerful other elements all around.

    One thing that is important to understand, is that even though Der was once a simple martial cultivator of rtively high level, after twelve years spent in a world with a full connection to the spiritual in, he had practiced the spiritual path and had be an immortal cultivator.

    At the moment, he was much more powerful than Daniel was, and possibly on par with the woman from the Sect of the Illusory Edge.. or even stronger.

    "It¡¯s.. impressive.." He muttered while looking around. "With so many spiritual cultivators, you should be able to mass produce low level spheres.. But do they have the necessaryprehension?" He then asked after turning to look back at Daniel.

    "Don¡¯t worry about that. As long as you find some treasures for me to turn into spheres, It won¡¯t take us long to get the job done.." Said Daniel while showing great confidence. "So, what do you say?"

    Der looked at Daniel¡¯s eyes for a few second, then, said "I ept. From now on, we work together. If you promise to get me home to my family, I promise that I¡¯ll support you.. You have the word of Der¡¯hor Rulin."

    Daniel¡¯s eyes opened widely in shock. He then muttered "You.. you are from Karalis.."

    Almost as if it was, once again, Der¡¯s turn to be shocked, he furrowed his brows and asked "How do you know that?" He more than anybody else was aware of how big their world of origin was, and until now, he hadn¡¯t had a single slither of hope that Daniel could be from the same country he was from.

    "I.. met your daughter Mea.." Responded Daniel with a mixture of amazement, surprise and doubt in his voice.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, Der immediately grabbed his shoulders, and inadvertently yelled "MY DAUGHTER?! HOW IS SHE?!" He then quickly realized of how rude he was being, so he steadied his heartbeat, his breathing, and afterposing himself, he waited for Daniel¡¯s response.

    Daniel looked at Der, and after taking a deep breath, he started to recount his story to him.

    He told him of how after his disappearance, his old enemy had ndered him for being a traitor, of how the poption of the kingdom he once served had asked for the Rulin¡¯s family extermination, of how the king had agreed, and the fate of his family and daughter.

    As Daniel reached the end of the story, Der¡¯s fingers were digging so deeply into his palm that blood had started to drip. He avoided biting his own lower lip off by muttering to himself "..a ve.."

    He then turned towards Daniel, and asked "How did you met her?"

    "I bought her.." Daniel started to recount, but before he could finish, he started to feel an incredibly powerful pressureing directly from Der.

    Zack was already lying on the ground, and breathing heavily, while Daniel was having difficulty in inting his lungs.

    It was at that moment that Daniel had understood how powerful Der really was. He was in no way weaker than the king of monsters.

    "W-would you mind letting me finish?" Said Daniel with evident fatigue. "I freed her the very moment I received the ownership.. She should still be with my sister.. Possibly safe and sound." He was about to fall in his knees, but then, he started to feel the pressure slowly lessen.

    *Cough Cough*

    "She is the one that told me about you.. Of how you used to teach martial arts to her.." Added Daniel after coughing and taking deep breaths.

    "I¡¯m sorry.. It was a lot to take in all at once.." Said Der after calming himself down.

    Despite his overbearing demeanor, Der had been greatly humbled since when he had arrived to this. He had found himself in a world where any average warrior was more powerful than he was, and had had to survive for twelve years just to earn a ce for himself. Nheless, he had never stopped searching a way to go back.

    "It¡¯s alright.. But now I have a question for you.." Said Daniel after noticing the mncholic expression on Der¡¯s face. "Why did you stop that guy from killing him?" He asked while pointing at Zack.

    Der became pensive for a few seconds, then said "I had heard about the kids story.. He is pretty famous in the city.. I also knew that the young girl was the girl he was used of raping.. I just didn¡¯t find her indifferent behaviour coherent with her story. There was no hate.. no shame in her eyes."

    "You do have good eyes.." Muttered Daniel. "Let¡¯s go, there is a lot of people I need you to meet. You¡¯ll be treating with them while I mass produce essence spheres." He then added while waving his hand, and opening a portal that lead straight into the castle.

    Once the three of them crossed it, arge number of people started to teleport right in front of them.

    The first to arrive, was Jerigh, which had already learned various concepts of space thanks to the Edmund¡¯s teachings.

    Der looked with shock at the average levels of power in Daniel¡¯s group. From the fact that none of them were immortal cultivators, he could infer that the pocket dimension didn¡¯t always have a full connection to the spiritual in.. And that they were still trying to catch up to their first path with the first one.

    What shocked him, was seeing such arge number of below thirty years old cultivators that had reached the ninth rank of cultivation.

    "We¡¯ve got guests.. And a mission." Said Daniel to his group¡¯s members. "Unfortunately, since I need the majority of the monster meat we possess.. You guys will have to stop cultivating for a while."

    Hearing Daniel¡¯s words, the various group members didn¡¯t even flinch, leaving Der extremely impressed by the respect they showed towards him.

    "Okay, so.. About the starting capital.. I need your help to sell a few things.." Said Daniel after, once again, turning to look at Der.

 Chapter 146 To Each His Starting Poin

    Only a few hours after their strategy meeting on how to obtain a starting capital, Daniel, Der, Zack, Alesia, and Jerigh, were standing at the entrance of an immense looking indoor marketce.

    This enormous marketce was filled with evenly separated stalls, and thousands of people walked in the streets in between them. Behind the counter of each booth, at least two people stood in wait for clients to arrive, while on the front, an additional one that advertised the stall with showy and colored banners.

    The ce was so densely packed, that one would not be able to see five meters past his nose due to the sheer number of people.

    "Remind me why we can¡¯t simply go to an auction house.." Daniel said while looking at the impressive crowd with a hint of irritation.

    Zack sighed slightly, and responded "Because you need a certain level of contribution to participate in one of those.. It¡¯s made so that people won¡¯t simply acquirerge quantities of wealth from a single city, and leave right away. That would destabilize the¡¯s economy."

    "Is there something that doesn¡¯t require contribution or a permission here!? Can I even go to a bathroom without one?" Asked Daniel with a slightly angrier tone than intended. He then took a deep breath, and said "Fine.. how do we open a stall here?"

    This time, it was Der that responded by saying "There is a government office in that building. It deals with setting up the market, cleaning it up at the end of the day, and keeping it safe. We have to.. Well.. ask for their permission.."

    "You¡¯ve got to be kidding me.." Muttered Daniel nervously before starting to walk towards the building that Der had pointed out.

    -----

    "Good morning, we would like to have the permission to open a stall in the marketce." Daniel politely said to the government employee after waiting for his turn in line for two full hours.

    "What is it that you wish to sell?" Asked the government employee without even turning to look at him.

    Daniel cleared his throat loudly, then said "Cultivation resources."

    "What kind?" Added the government employee. Still keen on finishing what seemed to be a crossword puzzle hidden behind his desk.

    "Corrupted monster meat." Responded Daniel inly.

    For the first time, the government employee turned to look at Daniel, and asked "What do you mean by ¡¯corrupted¡¯?"

    "It means that it belongs to a beast, that aftering in contact with essence of corruption, was corrupted to a monstrous state. It is filled with assimble energy of a high quality."

    "I can¡¯t allow for that type of meat to be sold in the marketce. It is not allowed to sell or trade in items infected with essence of corruption. As you know, that¡¯s an infectious kind of power." Said the government employee with a stern face, and clear voice.

    Zack took a step forward from behind Daniel, and said "We don¡¯t need a permit to sell meat. We need a permit to sell cultivation resources. We will specify the side effects which consuming that kind of meat might cause, and sell it only to people who have a cultivation powerful enough to counter the corruption."

    After a few moments of silence, the government employee turned to look at Zack and said "Be sure to do that.." He then handed a form out to Daniel, and said "Fill this in with your name, product you wish to trade in, quantity. Oh, and don¡¯t forget to leave a wisp of immortal essence in the sheet."

    Daniel looked at Zack from the corner of his eyes with a satisfied expression. Then, he took care of the permit form.

    -----

    It was now early in the morning, and Daniel and the rest had found a rtively empty ce in which they could ce their stall.

    Behind the counter, Daniel and Alesia were sitting, while Der was walking around in search of cheap essence treasures. Zack and Jerigh, on the other hand, were trying to advertise the stall by walking around with a couple of signs.

    After more than two hours of waiting, Daniel realized something. He and the others had greatly underestimated Zack¡¯s infamy in the city.

    Of course, to Daniel, this was a simple set back. He was sure that once people started to buy their product, ormissioned some essence spheres to him, the voice would spread, and their business would rapidly grow.

    This was all thanks to the fact that people didn¡¯t study essences in such depth in this world. The majority of essence spheres he had seen around were of the mid-level, and only a few were high-level.

    While strolling in the market, he had also seen a high level earth treasure, which nobody seemed to be interested in buying except for sects and schools which handed down earth-rted skills to their disciples.

    "It¡¯s nice what you¡¯re doing for that kid.." Alesia said while looking at Daniel from the corner of her eyes.

    He was currently installing a water sphere which contained the concept of freezing under the stall, right underneath the orderly ced meat. "You don¡¯t seem to think that it¡¯s possible that he did what he is used of.." Daniel responded casually while cing therge pieces of meat above a few bs of ice.

    "We¡¯ve all noticed that the reason why we are bing increasingly stronger, is connected to the fact that we help good people.. So no, I do not believe that you would help someone in that situation if they were guilty." Responded Alesia confidently.

    "Well, not everyone thinks like you do.. Let¡¯s just hope that nobody wille and bother us today.."

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s hopes were misced.

    Halfway through the marketce, more that a couple hundred meters from where the stall was, Jerigh and Zack had just been stopped by a group of dark green robed cultivators.

    This group wasposed of the young man whose karma rapidly declined whenever Zack was hit, and a few other older cultivators.

    Right before Daniel and the rest had set up the stall, he had let Der exin to him the power levels of this world.

    Apparently, there was a time in which this world, and Daniel¡¯s world of origin were connected by an spatial passage, which had long since been forgotten.

    This spatial passage was situated underground the borders of the Karalis kingdom, and Der had happened to find it during the military campaign in which he had disappeared.

    Oblivious to what it was, he had activated it by mistake.

    Only after ending up in this world did he learn that that, was actually a one way ticket for outside of the proverbial well.

    When he head reached this new world, he had immediately found out that the majority of the people were the same kind of humans he was. What differed, was their method of cultivation.

    Of course, the connection to the spiritual in hade muchter than humanity, so, the stage of an immortal cultivator had inherited the majority of their ancient methods of cultivation that spiritual and martial cultivators used.

    Each stage of an immortal cultivator was generally more powerful than both spiritual and martial cultivators, and yet, they were separated in a simr way. The reason for that, was that a fifth immortal cultivator still wasn¡¯t powerful enough to kill a sixth martial cultivator, and at best, he would be able to fight on par with it.

    The fourth and fifth major stages of immortal cultivation could bepared to the chief and king levels of power of the wastnd world, and were called the three mid-stage of the immortal path.

    There were no barrier between stages, and the only thing that indicated to which stage one belonged, was the sheer amount and purity of one¡¯s immortal essence.

    As of now, Daniel was at the mid fourth stage of immortal cultivation, while Der, was at thete fifth stage.

    The people which Jerigh and Zack were facing, were all at the peak of the third major stage of cultivation.

    "Hey blondie.. Mind if we take your friend away for a few minutes?" Said the young man who had called the dark green-dressed woman thest time he and Daniel had met.

    "I do." Jerigh Responded inly while keeping his eyes glued on the young man¡¯s.

    Irritated by Jerigh¡¯sck of consideration for him, or the sect he represented, the young man¡¯s face became stern as he said "Stay out of this.."

    Ever since he and K had used Zack of being a rapist, this young man had always thought about getting rid of him the people would have forgotten about him. That was the reason why he hadn¡¯t pushed others into torturing him.. He wanted him to be a distant memory, and kill him so that the story could be concluded once and for all.

    His ns had been ruined by Daniel¡¯s apparition.

    At first, he had thought that Daniel was only the ssical good samaritan that would help Zack in the spur of the moment, and then leave. But then, just as he was minding his own business around the city, he had heard the rumor that Zack was wandering in the marketce, along with various other cultivators.

    After a bit of consideration, he decided to simply find a way to get rid of him as soon as possible. His sect was important enough in the city to get him out of trouble even if he made a mess in the marketce, unfortunately, he didn¡¯t know that, by trying something with Jerigh present, meant sticking his own head into a ho¡¯s nest.

    After hearing the young man¡¯s threatening words, Zack cowered in fear at the thought of what those people wanted to do to him.

    Meanwhile, a couple of single-edged swords had appeared by Jerigh¡¯s sides.

    Jerigh wasn¡¯t stupid. He knew what Zack was very well known for, and that if he were to kill people here in the za, people would likely im that the matter was instigated by him as revenge for the recent treatment.

    All Jerigh could do, was to neutralize, or hold on against these people until the government employees arrived to interrupt the fight.

    -----

    Back behind Daniel¡¯s stall counter, Alesia had suddenly turned to look at Daniel and said "There are a few people bothering Jerigh and Zack. Should we go help them out?"

    Daniel faintly shook his head in response, and said "Don¡¯t worry about them.. They can handle it on their own.. If they can¡¯t I¡¯ll just teleport them back here." Daniel rushed hisst few words, as the first client of the day approached the stall.

    "What kind of meat is that?" Asked a well dressed middle-aged woman.

    Daniel smiled politely, and said "This is the meat of a sea monster. It containsrge amounts of power, along with a bit of essence of corruption. The corruption will be expelled after consumption, but due to its presence, we are forced to mention that it isn¡¯t as food that we are selling it.. But as a cultivation resource."

    Satisfied by Daniel¡¯s exnation, the woman asked "What level of power?"

    "This one isparable to thete fourth stage of immortal cultivation. The whole beast costs 5 mid-crystals." Said Daniel with a polite and pleasant smile still present on his face.

    "That¡¯s quite expensive.." Said the woman with a surprised expression.

    "It¡¯s the difference between the monster and a crystal.. Monsters tend to fight back. In any case, if you are not interested in buying it, We are also willing to exchange meat for any type of essence treasure." Daniel said in a single breath. He then breathed in once, and added "We also offer our service in creating essence spheres."

    After hearing Daniel¡¯sst few words, the woman¡¯s interest was piqued once again.

    Offering that kind of service in a marketce was rare, and from how young Daniel appeared to be, the woman was lead to believe that he was actually a more powerful cultivator¡¯s disciple, instead of the actual owner of the stall. This, gave his shop a bit more of legitimacy.

    "How much would it cost to create a high-level water sphere?" Asked the woman with a polite tone.

    Daniel thought about it for a moment, then said "With the price of the treasure taken into ount, ten percent less than an already made water sphere."

 Chapter 147 You Dont Get Rich in One Day

    "With the price of the treasure taken into ount, ten percent less than an already made water sphere."

    What Daniel meant by that, was that taken the price of the essence treasure out of the cost of an essence sphere, he would make people pay the difference ten percent less.

    This might not sound much as a discount, but for people that, in order to find someone that could create such a high level sphere, was already extremely difficult, ten percent was already a lot.

    After all, people who were adept in specific types of essence were parts of sects or groups to which that essence was needed the most.

    In fact, some sects had even formed around a single cultivator¡¯s knowledge about essence.

    For example, the Sect of the Illusory Edge had formed around its founder¡¯sprehension of light essence, which had created their style of swordsmanship, and had formed a sect around its use.

    In most recent times, the majority of cultivators that had reached a certain level ofprehension would be roped into the various groups, so that these groups could have a steady source of the type of essence spheres they required.

    That could exin why a ten percent discount was anything but little.

    There were different types of market prices. In the world where Daniel was now, a the market price for essence treasures was low, while the price of thebour necessary to turn that treasure into a sphere was high. Therefore, the majority of the price of a sphere was given by the cultivator that had worked on it.

    While on an universal scale material andbor respectively constituted 40% and 60% of the cost of a sphere, in the world where Daniel was right now, the percentage was closer to 15% and 85%.

    The price of low-level essence sphere was of a hundred mid crystals, that of a medium-level sphere was of five high crystals, and finally, the price of a high-level sphere was of fifty high crystals.

    By asking to any cultivator adept in water essence to create a medium-level sphere, she would have to pay four high crystals and twenty-five mid crystals, while instead, by letting Daniel do it, she would only have to pay three high, eighty-five mid, and fifty low crystals.

    Of course, essence spheres of more difficult kinds of essence like spatial, time and sound essence would cost much more. Not to mention essences like life, death, light, and dark essence.

    "That¡¯s very convenient." Said the woman while taking a small piece of paper out of her spatial ring.

    This piece of paper was a small contracts which could be purchased from the government office. They would be signed by the two parts that were making the deal, and would work as proof that could allow the government to personally step in and enforce its terms.

    In order to use them, two people needed to inject their immortal essences after writing the terms of the deal. Then, a twin piece of paper that was kept inside the government office, would turn into the exact copy of that contract.

    The woman quickly wrote the terms of the deal on the piece of paper, and added her immortal essence into it, then, she passed it to Daniel. She then tried to say, "Bring it to your mas.." but she was stopped mid-sentence by the sight of Daniel pushing his own immortal essence into it.

    For as surprised as the woman was, she didn¡¯t worry. The contract she had written had a time limit use attached to it, and Daniel had the wealth to pay for it in case he didn¡¯t respect her terms. She was simply caught off guard by the fact that the person who would create the sphere was actually Daniel.

    She straightened her face, and while handing over the water treasure, she said "Okay, I¡¯ll be back in a couple of days.. Take your ti-"

    Once again, she was interrupted by Daniel¡¯s action.

    Instead of putting the treasure away, Daniel started to forcerge amounts of immortal essence into it, and right in the middle of the process, he asked "Any concept that you¡¯d like me to add in it?"

    The woman¡¯s eyes opened wide in shock as she felt the quickposition of the water sphere advance. Almost without thinking about it, she said "Y-yes.. Freezing and flowing.."

    After hearing the woman¡¯s words, Daniel turned to look back at the semipleted sphere, and inserted the concepts of freezing and flowing into it.

    The whole process waspleted in less than two minutes.

    The woman¡¯s jaw fell at the sight.. She simply couldn¡¯t believe what she was seeing. She knew that someone could pull every small bit of immortal essence into creating an essence sphere all at once, but keeping a simrly powerful and constant stream, was near impossible.

    The only thought that she was able to form in her mind, was that Daniel was much more powerful and old than he looked.

    Daniel handed the sphere back to the woman, which stared at it for a minute.

    Of course, the scene had attracted the attention of everyone in the radius of a hundred meters.

    Not feeling the heavy flow of immortal essence, and the sudden creation of a sphere which radiated water essence, was impossible.

    Arge number of well dressed cultivators noticed the mid-level water sphere on the woman¡¯s hand, and approached Daniel¡¯s stall all together.

    The first of them was an old man with a following of younger people. He was clearly a teacher, or an elder which belonged to a school of martial arts or sect, and the younger people were his disciples.

    He was about to say something, but then kept quiet as Daniel lifted his hand, and said "Please, let me conclude my other deal."

    The woman moved her eyes from the water sphere back to Daniel, and said "Do you want to be employed by my sect? We are the Sect of the Single Droplet.. We would definitely be able to use your talent in water essence for the best."

    "I appreciate the offer, but water essence is one of the elements I have the lowestprehension of.. Let¡¯s conclude our deal, more customers are waiting in line." Responded Daniel with a polite smile.

    Daniel¡¯s words caused the various number of people that were simply observing and not standing in line, to join the line as well.

    These people had been attracted by the singrity of what had happened, but didn¡¯t care for water spheres.. Therefore, they had no reason to approach the stall.

    That changed after Daniel talked about being adept in other essences.

    The woman quickly handed over a small spatial ring to Daniel, which contained the right number of crystals she owed to him. Then, she stepped aside, and observed.

    The previous old man approached the counter, and said. "Can you make high level spheres?"

    "Lightning, water, earth, wood, and wind." Responded Daniel with a casual tone, just like a waiter would list the dishes of the day.

    Daniel¡¯s words left the entire crowd paralyzed in shock. Some more people within the crowd that were still unconvinced, started to join the line as well.

    "Are you serious?" Asked the old man with a surprised tone.

    "Dead serious."

    The old man, just like Daniel¡¯s first customer, belonged to a group whose main skills focused on mixing martial arts with water essence, therefore, the item that was asked of Daniel to produce, was a high level water sphere.

    Honestly speaking, Daniel had lied. He had long since reached the level of perfectprehension of wind, water, and lightning essences.

    In the past, all he needed to do in order to reach a hundred percentprehension was to mix them amongst other elements, and now that he was able to use each and all of them to a certain extent, it had been a matter of days for him to manage to reach perfection with those three types of essences.

    The only two elements of which he still possessed a low amount ofprehension, was fire, while he had aprehension of metal above the fifty percent.

    Daniel started to prepare one essence sphere after another, causing half of the customers present in the marketce to crowd around his stall.

    That had forced the government office to send a few guards simply to prevent people from assaulting, or trying to kidnap Daniel.

    While Daniel swept away the majority of the crowd, the various stalls which sold essence treasures started to go crazy in response.

    They put discounts to their merchandise in hope to hop in Daniel¡¯s trail of business.

    For a few hours, the busiest person of all, was definitely Der.

    He was given money by Daniel the very moment he got paid, which he would then use to purchase each and every essence treasure in the market in block, and at a discounted price.

    On the other side of the square, a group of dark green robed cultivators were crawling their way out of the market. Each of them had a broken arm or a broken leg, and they could hardly support themselves.

    Jerigh casually approached Zack, and said "Let¡¯s go back, there is no need for advertisement anymore.."

    That, was the longest sentence Jerigh had ever said since he and Daniel had met.

    -----

    Marketce, 7 PM

    "..Okay, that¡¯s enough for today. We¡¯ll open a stall here tomorrow morning.. Today was the grand opening, so, from tomorrow, the discount is going to be five percent. Thanks for choosing us!" Said Alesia with a bright and gorgeous smile.

    People were visibly disappointed by her words, but after seeing the "tired" expression on Daniel¡¯s face, and the beautiful and polite smile on Alesia¡¯s face, they bowed politely at them, and went on their way back home.

    Of course, Daniel was just pretending of being tired. He had done so every two or three essence spheres, as he wanted to look like an extremely powerful and talented cultivator, and not look like a monster. So, he had decided to do so in order to maintain a parvence of humanity.

    As the crowd dispersed, Daniel casually waved his hand, and opened a spatial portal. On the other side, was a slightly startled Der, which after noticing who the person that had opened it was, quickly crossed through.

    "How much did we do?" Asked Daniel to Alesia with vivid eyes, almost as if he had done nothing special.

    "You¡¯ve made eighty-nine mid level spheres, and thirty-three high level spheres. In total, around one perfect crystal, and six hundred high crystals." Responded Alesia while reading the notebook on which she had been writing all day.

    She then turned to look at Der, and said "How many treasures, and how much is left?"

    Der pushed a wisp of immortal essence into his ring, and said "Two hundred and eighty five mid level treasures, and a hundred and fifteen high level treasures.. About five hundred and twenty high crystals left.."

    "How much does it cost to receive a merchant permission?" Daniel asked to him.

    Slightly ufortable, Der looked back at him and said "Around a hundred thousand perfect crystals.."

    *Ssssshh!* Daniel sucked air through his teeth. Only after a few minutes he managed to calm down, and say "It¡¯s alright.. We have plenty of items to work with now. Is it enough for us to travel to the capital at least?"

    "Yes, it¡¯s more than enough."

    "Good.. we¡¯ll visit a few other close by cities, and then we¡¯ll go to the capital." Said Daniel with a determined tone.

    His path home was still long, but at least, there wasn¡¯t the constant feeling of being lost that he felt when he was in the wastnd world.

    -----

    Within an extremelyrge hall, somewhere in the city, a small group of dark green robed cultivators were standing orderly in front of a group of ck-cloaked cultivators.

    If someone were to possess an extremely good eyesight, they would realize that these ck cloaks were actually green, but of an extremely dark shade.

    These people, were the elders of the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    In front of them, were the group of cultivators that had tried to take away Zack, and attack Jerigh.

    "Exin to me why you havee back in such a sorry state.." Said the elder that sat in the middle.

 Chapter 148 The Right Way to Conduct Business

    "Exin to me why you havee back in such a sorry state.." Said the elder that sat in the middle to the young man which, along with K, had convinced them to kick Zack out of the sect.

    Of course, the young man, whose name was Ss, had already a story prepared. He would never openly admit that he wanted to kill Zack, so, he tried to make it seem like the decision of letting Zack live was actually the wrong one.

    "Esteemed elders. We were purchasing some materials in the city today, when someone brought to us the news that.. Zack was opening a stall in themercial road¡¯s marketce." Responded Ss politely.

    "So what?" One of the other elders asked.

    Ss lifted his head, and turned to look at the elder which had just spoken. Then, with an apologetic tone, he said "He wasn¡¯t alone. He was apanied by powerful cultivators. We only wanted to talk to him, and see if he had any ill intentions towards the sect, but as soon as we approached, we were attacked by one of them."

    "You were all defeated by a single person?" Asked a third elder with a dubious voice.

    "Yes elder Rio. He was much more powerful than us.." Responded Ss immediately, almost as if expecting such a question.

    The first elder which had spoken said with irritation "Fine.. we will send the Illusory Maiden to investigate the matter.. Go back to practice.. So that you won¡¯t humiliate us the next time."

    -----

    Back into the pocket dimension.

    A veryrge group of people crowded the square right outside of Daniel¡¯s castle. This group was entirelyposed of cultivators.

    Now that anyone could practice both paths of cultivation, each and every cultivator in the pocket dimension had a certain level of spirit and body. Their levels were usually uneven, and depending on how old the person was, they were still catching up.

    At the edge of the square, a wooden podium had been created, and Daniel was standing over it. He had just finished giving a speech.

    He looked at therge crowd, and said with a deafening voice. "If you have any questions, ask them now."

    Arge number of people raised their hands, and from them, Daniel randomly picked a middle aged man that stood in the middle of the crowd, and said "You."

    Everybody quietened as the man lowered his hand and said "For those who have no interest in going back to our world, can we move here permanently?"

    "Yes. But I suggest you wait to form your immortal essence first. Immortal essence is the main power in this world, and it is of a higher quality than either ki or spiritual essence. You¡¯d be the weakest amongst your levels of power." Responded Daniel patiently before saying "Another question."

    A lot less people lifted their hands this time, and only lowered them after Daniel picked another person at random.

    This time, it was an old woman that was allowed to speak. She said "Can you repeat your proposition regarding the formation of a merchant business?"

    Daniel nodded at the woman, and responded "Of course. Apparently, the study of essences isn¡¯t as popr as it is in our world. There are many amongst you adept in specific essences, and you would be able to make a living out of that skill.. But that would mean going under the employment of a power of which you know nothing of.."

    He then paused for a few seconds before continuing ".. Alternatively, you can stay here.. Safe, paid, amongst people you know.. And mass produce essence spheres under my employment. Not only that, I would also allow you ess to any sort of mid-level essence spheres. So that you can broaden your knowledge."

    "Any other questions?.."

    For the following half hour, Daniel responded to the various questions asked by the cultivators which inhabited the pocket dimension.

    -----

    2 hours earlier.

    "Dan, are you going to tell us why did we organize this for?.." Asked Heimart with a hint of confusion.

    "I want to include the people that inhabit the dimension into our business, and make apany out of it." Said Daniel to Edmund, and the various other leading members of Daniel¡¯s group.

    Roley was the first to talk. He said "You do realize that you will also have to exin where we are, how we arrived here.. And everything else, right?"

    "Of course." Responded Daniel with a faint smile, before saying "I¡¯m not keeping a colony of ants here. If they want to leave, they will be allowed to. I¡¯ll still make my offer."

    Daniel¡¯s idea was simple. For now, he only dealt with creating essence spheres due to the fact that they didn¡¯t have resources to produce some of their own. But now that they did, they could expand their reach by selling an already finished product.

    In order to do that, Daniel not only needed money.. But also people that did the job for him, since he wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything else if he were to do that by himself.

    "Alright then.. Let¡¯s get you some work force.." Responded Ligart with a dirty grin on his face. "How much are we paying them for the job? I¡¯ll get some fliers done and put them around the city."

    "Our earnings were already huge by simply creating spheres with other people¡¯s treasures.. Make it 10% of the spheres they create. Also, do mention that they¡¯ll have to sign a contract which will prevent them from bing apetitor in this world, or any world in which ourpany will set shop in the future.. Unless they already live there before we arrive."

    -----

    Back to the present.

    "That was exhausting.." Muttered Daniel to himself before sitting on one of the balconies of the castle, and looking up at the dark sky. His face was pensive, and visibly signed by tiredness.

    Suddenly, from behind him..

    "Mind if I join you?"

    Daniel didn¡¯t need to turn around to know who it was. Yet, he still turned to see Alesia standing at the entrance of the balcony. On her hands, was a bottle of liquor, and two sses.

    He faintly shook his head with a faint motion, and a slightly less faint smile.

    Alesia walked all the way to the chair that was next to the one which Daniel was upying, and sat. She then put the sses and the bottle on the small table in between them, and said. "I thought you¡¯d feel like drinking something."

    "I¡¯ve never drank any alcoholics before.." Said Daniel while looking at the bottle. "Wish I would have tried it before I became too powerful to be affected by alcohol."

    "This is a special type of alcohol.. I found it in the market earlier this morning. It¡¯s made to turn people way more powerful than you into staggering sacks of potatoes.. Hehe.." Said Alesia while showing one of her signature beautiful smiles.

    For a few seconds, the two sat in silence while looking at the empty dark sky. It was nighttime, and the light spheres were off, aside for those that illuminated the city, and the viges in the surrounding area.

    "You don¡¯t look happy.. Despite us being in a safe ce, and having a good thing going on.." Said Alesia casually.

    For a few seconds Daniel didn¡¯t know what to say, then, almost as if allowing himself to talk about it, he said "I am twenty-one now. It¡¯s been almost six years since thest time I¡¯ve seen my sister. I wonder if she is still waiting for me toe back.. If she is safe.. If she is married, if she has a kid.. And if she is happy."

    Alesia felt stupid for a moment. She hade to forget that many amongst the people in the pocket dimension had family members left in their world.

    It wasn¡¯t the same for her. Both of her parents were alive and well, and had had a child within this very pocket dimension. To her, this pocket dimension was as much of a house as their world of origin was.

    Not knowing what to say in order tofort Daniel, she grabbed the bottle and one of the sses, and said "I think this will help more than anything I can say.." She then poured a half ss of liquor to Daniel, and handed it over to him.

    Daniel looked at the pink watery liquid in his ss, then, drank it in a single gulp.

    *COUGH COUGH*

    "HAHAHA! Almighty Daniel can¡¯t handle half a ss of alcohol!" Said Alesia whileughing hysterically.

    *Cough* "Okay badass girl," *Cough* "why don¡¯t you show me how it¡¯s done, then?" Responded Daniel, slightly embarrassed.

    A faint smirk appeared on Alesia¡¯s face, as she picked the second ss, and halfway filled it for herself. "Watch this, rookie." She then gulped it down confidently.

    Daniel observed as Alesia¡¯s face turned into a variety of shade of red.

    Her eyes opened wide, as she looked at Daniel with an expression that seemed to scream "I¡¯ve made a mistake!!"

    Unable to hold it anymore.. *COUGH COUGH COUGH* "That¡¯s disg.." *COUGH!* "It¡¯s disgusting!"

    "HAHAHAHAH!" Daniel burst outughing at how fast Alesia¡¯s confidence had been turned into rage "So I had to cough a little more? Good thing I have an expert that can show me how to do it right."

    *Cough* "Quit it!" Shouted Alesia with a face as red as an apple. Partially due to the alcohol, and partially due to the deep embarrassment. "This is nothing like what I¡¯ve drank before.."

    "We should start sipping.."

    The two poured another half cup each, and quietly looked at the empty sky while slowly sipping the pink liquor.

    "I miss the stars.. Sometimes.." Muttered Alesia in a low voice.

    -----

    The next day, Daniel and the rest showed up at the marketce. They went to acquire a daily permit to open a stall, and this time, they were forced to pay a fee for forcing the government office to ce various guards around his stall.

    Daniel expected such a fee, and paid it dly.

    After walking out of the government office, they directly went towards the ce where they had ced their stall in the previous day.

    All around the area, dozens of small stalls which traded in essence treasures had been set. And the streets, were filled with old men and women. Their spot had been protected by thisrge group of cultivators which hade only to conduct business with him.

    Daniel didn¡¯t expect that the people would be so responsive to his business.

    He waved his hand in salutation to the many cultivators, and immediately created a stall out of wood. This stall was much more refined that the one he had created the previous day, as he hadn¡¯t put too much time into creating that one. But since he wanted to gain a better face for his startingpany, he decided to put more thought into it.

    This specific idea was only one of those conceived by him and Alesia the previous night.

    The first thing Daniel did, was to ce the monster meat on the counter. Then, he ced a seat for Alesia and him to seat on, and said "First customer."

    Somewhere within the group of cultivators, two individuals dressed in dark green clothes were standing quietly.

    One of them, was a thirty-five years old man with a lean and athletic build. He presented himself with a polite smile, and hanging from his waist, was a simple double-edged sword.

    The other person, was a thirty years old woman which Daniel would be able to recognize. She was the woman to which the job of protecting K had been assigned, and the head disciple of the Sect of the Illusory Edge, the Illusory Maiden.

    The two of them were waiting in line like anybody else, and looking at Zack, which was currently standing nearby, with a sign which brought people in the direction of Daniel¡¯s stall.

 Chapter 149 Why Work When You Can Be

    "Next customer." Said Daniel with his usual smile present on his face.

    After four hours spent waiting in line, it was finally the Illusory Maiden and herpanion¡¯s turn.

    "We meet again.." Said the Illusory Maiden with a in, and slightly cold tone.

    Daniel¡¯s smile widened for a moment, then responded by saying "Indeed we do. What can I help you with?"

    "We are not here for business. We are here to talk to you about your rtionship with that kid, if you don¡¯t mind." Said the man that apanied the Illusory Maiden.

    "Of course I don¡¯t mind. But that will have to wait. As you can see, I¡¯m working now." Responded Daniel politely.

    The man, just like the Illusory Maiden, was one of the highest ranking disciples within the Sect of the Illusory Edge, but despite the smile we walked around with, he was an extremely vicious person, and didn¡¯t share herpanion¡¯s calm mind.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s dismissive words, he immediately became hostile to him. Unfortunately, a simple look around was enough to calm him down.

    Not only Der was looking intimidatingly at him, but also the rest of the guards, and the hundreds of high level cultivators that were waiting for their turn to conduct business with Daniel.

    As of now, Daniel was untouchable within the marketce.

    "We appreciate your disponibility, we will wait for you to close shop." Said the Illusory Maiden with a polite tone.

    Ever since Daniel had left her stuck within the illusion, a certain level of respect for him had formed within the woman¡¯s mind. Especially since illusions were the main weapons of her sect.

    After bidding farewell, the two left the marketce.

    -----

    Despite the meteoric increase in fame, Daniel alone was only able to do so much. This had caused their stall to make less money in the second day, than in the first day.

    Something else that contributed to this situation, were the numerous problems that had appeared periodically.

    For example, the shopkeepers that dealt in selling and purchasing essence treasures had tried to profit from Daniel¡¯s job, and had increased the prices of their product by doubled the price of their merchandise.

    Daniel didn¡¯t like that for a very simple reason.. He was the one that most likely would end up buying thing at an increased rate, as most of the customer that came to his stall already had their own treasures prepared, and only a few were stupid enough to buy them on the spot.

    He had to send Ligart and Roley just so that they could convince these merchants to keep their prices at a certain level.

    Ligart would use his sympathy and charm, and if that didn¡¯t work, Roley would quickly remind them that they could simply change venue the next day, and take away the majority of the daily flux of customers from this specific marketce.

    Another problem, were the representatives of different groups that hade to propose a partnership with Daniel.

    He had to politely refuse each and every proposition individually, as these representatives did not schedule an appointment to talk to him, but showed up in the marketce and stood in like alongside other legitimate clients.

    At the end of the day, they had managed to make eighty percent of what they had made the previous day, and had to spend ten percent more for all of the essence treasures they purchased in the area.

    "This won¡¯t work for much longer.." Said Roley with a grim tone. He had threatened the various shopkeepers all day, and yet, he had still only managed to get the treasures at slightly higher price than before. He knew that these people wouldn¡¯t agree to his demands for ever.

    "I know.. We have to open a marketce ourselves, and only invite the merchants that are willing to keep a reasonable price for their merchandise." Responded Daniel.

    "And how do you n to do that? They could simply open a stall in the closest marketce. People would still go to them to purchase items ande to us to have them turned into spheres." Pointed out Roley.

    Daniel became pensive for a few seconds, then he said "The stick and the carrot.."

    "What do you mean?" Asked Roley with confusion.

    "We threaten to leave someone to each and every marketce that can keep an eye to their shops, and write down whoever buys treasures from them. We won¡¯t deal with those people. That¡¯s the stick." Responded Daniel casually.

    "What about the carrot?"

    A faint smirk appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "We promise that we¡¯ll buy each and every essence treasure that the merchants have left at the end of the day if they open shop at our marketce."

    It was now sunset, and Daniel, Alesia and the rest were preparing to leave, when the Illusory Maide and the man that apanied her appeared in front of them.

    Daniel¡¯s stall was thest one to pack and leave, so, the square was rtively empty. Only a few old cultivators which weren¡¯t lucky enough to have a turn at Daniel¡¯s stall and a few guards were left.

    Daniel took four chairs and a small table out of his pocket dimension. On this table, was a teapot, and four tea cups. He then invited the two to sit, and sat on a third chair.

    The fourth chair remained empty, until Daniel turned to look at Zack, and said "Come, join us for a cup of tea."

    Daniel observed the face of the two members of the Sect of the Illusory Edge. On the face of the Illusory Maide, no change could be seen. It was almost as if she didn¡¯t care who was going to seat with them. On the other hand, the face of the man that apanied her twisted in what appeared to be anger.

    "So, what can I help you two with?" Asked Daniel with a polite tone. Behind him, the others were making their calctions about their daily earnings, dividing the items they had purchased by type, storing the monster meat, and preparing to leave.

    "We havee to talk about the event that took ce here yesterday. A few disciples were attacked by someone under your employment." Said the Illusory Maiden.

    "That¡¯s what they have told you?" Asked Daniel with brows arched in fake surprise. He then added with unconcealed sarcasm "Did they also exaggerate the number of the aggressors?"

    "They im to have been attacked by a cultivator much more powerful than they were, and simply because they attempted to speak to him." Said the man with irritation. He couldn¡¯t bear Daniel¡¯s tone, but since Der was still standing around, and he could feel the tremendous power he emanated, he kept himself calm.

    Daniel waved his hand casually, causing a spatial portal to open in the area.

    On the other side of this portal, was Jerigh, which rapidly crossed through it and looked and stood next to Daniel quietly.

    Instead of looking back, Daniel turned towards the man, and said "He is the one who defended one of my employees from being kidnapped. You should be thankful to him, since he decided to leave them alive."

    Jerigh wasn¡¯t concealing his power, so the two of them were able to feel it clearly. He didn¡¯t appear to be stronger than any of the individual members of their sect, in fact, his sheer power was even lower, considering that he still hadn¡¯t formed aplete immortal essence, and only possessed ki and spiritual essence.

    "This isn¡¯t a matter to joke about. How are we supposed to believe that he could do something like that?" Asked the man, clearly irritated by the implications of Daniel¡¯s words.

    Daniel looked at the man up and down, then said "You are at the peak of the fourth stage of immortal cultivation, why don¡¯t you verify yourself? Control your power output at a level simr, or even slightly higher than his, and spar with him. He won¡¯t mind."

    "You are not worried that I could win, disproving your story?" Asked the man.

    "No." Responded Daniel while smiling slightly.

    The man turned to look at the Illusory Maiden, which then turned to look at Daniel, and said "What if he wins?"

    "He will apologize, I¡¯ll pay for the damage he caused, and mypany will work for free for your sect. Forever."

    The Illusory Maiden and the man that apanied her opened their eyes in shock. Their brows couldn¡¯t go any higher than they were right now.

    Zack, on the other hand, was starting to panic. He turned to look at Daniel, and said "N-no.. I can-" but he was quickly interrupted by Daniel.

    The first one to regain herposure, was the Illusory Maiden, which asked "I assume that you will want something in case yourpanion managed to win. What is it?"

    "I think it¡¯s only fair to demand something in return, right? After all, we are doing this to demonstrate that your sect members lied. What I want is fifty perfect crystals, plus another fifty for the damages that your group has caused to Zack since the day he stopped being part of your sect. Furthermore, I want the promise that you¡¯ll leave him alone in the future.. OH! And the missing portion of his soul." Responded Daniel casually.

    "That¡¯s ridiculous! Each of those requests are preposterous!" Barked out the man while springing up from his chair and grabbing the hilt of his sword.

    He stopped only after feeling the oppressive pressure from Der, which closed his hands in tight fists, and was ready to attack at any moment.

    As he sat back on his seat, he noticed that not even a hint of worry had appeared on either Daniel¡¯s and Jerigh¡¯s faces. The only one that was terrified, was Zack.

    "We have made two perfect crystals in our first two days of work by simply producing essence spheres on the spot. We are organizing a mass production, and we will sell our own products soon.. A hundred perfect crystals is going to be pocket change for us a few years from now.. The promise of producing your own essence spheres for free is already worth more than anything your sect can offer.." Responded Daniel calmly.

    Noticing that herpanion was about to lose his mind, and cause trouble not only for the two of them, but also for their sect, the Illusory Maide graciously got up on her feet, and said "Very well, we¡¯ll bring the matter to our elders and sect leaders. We wille back to discuss about this in a couple of days."

    She then looked at herpanion, which after noticing her look immediately calmed down, and followed her as the two left.

    "Didn¡¯t you ask a little too much?" Asked Der from behind Daniel.

    Daniel got up on his feet, and after turning to look back at him, he said "I didn¡¯t want them to ept on the spot. I wanted them to ask for their leader¡¯s opinion. They¡¯ll ept.. And they will lose."

    -----

    Back into the pocket dimension, the earth and wood elementals were working to create various small rooms.

    These rooms, would soon be simr to the room within the castle, in which Daniel¡¯s group members could increase theirprehension in the various essences.

    They were the rooms he had promised to whomever decided to work for him, and would soon be filled with spheres of all types of essence, from which people could reach a fifty percentprehension at the very least.

    Daniel had asked their two groups to build them because if he created them out of his immortal essence, he would have to constantly keep them up. Instead, if the elementals created it, they would remain permanently.

    The previously peaceful elemental workers were minding their own job, when suddenly, they turned towards the castle.

    In the depths of the castle, was an extremelyrge cubepletely made out of metal. This cube looked like it could weight hundreds of tons, and on its surface, one could distinguish the various different metal whichposed it by the various colors.

    This cube had been created in one of the castle¡¯s cers, and along with a small sphere devoid of color, was one of the only things inside the room.

    The transparent small sphere, was a time sphere which could be used to speed time by five times.

    There was also another object within the room, which waspletely hidden from other people¡¯s eyes.

    It was right in the middle of this metallic cube.. A small piece of metal, from which a heavyprehension of metal essence was emanated weakly.

    Since the day of its creation, this metallic cube had always been steady, and quiet.. But today, its shape started to change.

 Chapter 150 The Challenge of a Young Merchan

    As if turning into a liquid, the metallic cube started to melt, and bubble.

    Some of the mostmon materials like iron, lead, and copper, were turning into types of metal which weren¡¯t present in the cube before, due to the influence of the perfect metallic treasure.

    The various colors which covered its surface were slowly merging, forming infinite types of alloys,posed of each and every kind of metal in existence.

    The former cube kept changing shape for a few minutes, until finally, its metallic essence became less chaotic and more controlled. It had turned from natural mana, into the type of mana which belonged to a living organism, and that could be recreated and consumed without the help of another living essence.

    After a few minutes of slow movements, the unsteady cube started to meltpletely, forming a puddle of liquid, and multicolored metal, that covered the floor of the cerpletely.

    In the middle of this puddle, was the perfect metal treasure.

    For a moment, thisrge puddle was as clear as a mirror, and right after, its surface started to bubble like boiling water. The edges of the puddle starts to recede. Slowly moving inwards, and regrouping in a single clump right in the middle of the room.

    Right outside of this room, Daniel had appeared, and was standing quietly in wait with his eyes closed. He was observing the event with his immortal essence, and at the same time, he wasprehending all the different concepts which were being disyed by the shapeshifting mass of metallic liquid.

    Hisprehension of metal increased as he observed melting, smelting, the bonding of metals.. Seventy percent, eighty, ny.. Only stopping right underneath a full andpleteprehension.

    He quietly opened his eyes, and then waved his hand. This simple action forced a door to open in the wall of the cer, showing to him what was inside.

    In the middle of the room, was what looked like a silvery wolf cub rolled up in a circle, and it appeared to have fallen asleep around the perfect metal treasure.

    Despite seeing his evident wolf-like shape, Daniel was perfectly aware of what this entity was. It was a newborn metal elemental.

    Observing it carefully, Daniel was able to notice how his fluffy fur was actually made out of tiny needles, which weren¡¯t fully solid, and were able to wave like normal hair.

    The moment Daniel took a step into the cer to approach the newborn elemental, he was immediately noticed, causing the wolf-like entity to turn towards him, and show a pair of golden eyes.

    Daniel was the first living being that the metal elemental had ever seen, so, it did not feel fear towards him.

    It got up on his four paws, and slowly approached him, leaving scars on the stony floor due to his extremely sharp ws. It felt no ill intenting from Daniel, so it decided not to show aggressivity either.

    In response, Daniel fell on both of his knees, and lowered himself to just a bit higher than the wolf cub¡¯s eyes. He then moved his palm towards him.

    The metal elemental moved his head backwards the moment Daniel¡¯s hand approached its face, but as Daniel started to turn his immortal essence into metallic essence of near perfectprehension, it feltfortable enough to allow Daniel to touch it.

    As Daniel¡¯s palm finally touched the top of the wolf¡¯s head, he felt the smooth and cold feeling of metal.

    A few of the wolf metallic hair cut the sides of Daniel¡¯s hand as it lifted his ears in alertness, and looked at the individuals that had appeared behind Daniel.

    At the entrance that Daniel had created in the wall of the cer, Leffe and Buriath were standing quietly.

    "What do you guys think I should do with him? Will he chose a name for himself when he¡¯ll grow up, or should I?" Asked Daniel without even turning around to look at the leaders of the wood and earth elementals. At the same time, a faint white light wasing out from the small cuts on his skin, and pulling his blood back in.

    Leffe was the first one to talk. He said "Both Buriath and I picked our names by ourselves.. As we didn¡¯t have anyone to name us.. If you don¡¯t want to name each and every other newborn metal elementals in the future, you should let him do the same."

    "Very well, I won¡¯t give you a name.. But I have to call you something until you¡¯ll grow up.." Daniel said to the curious metallic wolf cub. "How about Wolfie?"

    Daniel, Leffe, and Buriath were more than aware of how long it would take for the wolf-like elemental to grow an intelligence to their level.

    Intelligence and power were two different things.

    Just like humans, the intelligence of elementals was within the domain of the mind, which could not be altered by time. So, even with a perfect sphere, and an increased time speed, the growth of the metal elemental¡¯s intelligence would not be sped up.

    The only increase that he was granted, was from the bonus given for being part of Daniel¡¯s group, but even with that, it would take him at least twenty years to reach the level of intelligence that the other two elemental leaders possessed, which unlike him, had grow to that level of intelligence in the span of at least a century.

    Of course, thanks to the future increases of the shared effects of Daniel¡¯s group, the time would be greatly reduced, but as of now, the newborn metal elemental would have to grow and gain knowledge at a slow pace.

    -----

    Main hall of the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    ".. He seems too confident.. Are you sure that the kid was only at the peak of the third stage.. And that his essence was split into two?" Asked the one of the elders to the thirty-something years old man which quietly stood in front of them.

    "I am sure." The man responded confidently.

    The elder then turned towards the Illusory Maiden, which was standing right next to herpanion, and asked "What about you? What do you think?"

    "I have no doubt that the kid hasn¡¯t reached the fourth stage yet.. But.." Responded the Illusory Maiden, before stopping right after the first word.

    "But?"

    The Illusory Maiden looked at the various elders, then said "He seems to be extremelyposed, focused.. I couldn¡¯t distinguish him from the two swords he carried.."

    A second elder entered the conversation and said "So he is extremely talented.. It doesn¡¯t matter. As long as his cultivation isn¡¯t higher than his, there should be no problems in defeating him." He then turned to look at the man, and said "Am I right?"

    The man nodded energetically, and said "Of course, elder."

    "Good. If what you¡¯ve told me is true, and he is really able of creating all sorts of essence spheres of various levels, even if he won¡¯t make them personally, we can force hispany to create them for us." A nasty grin appeared on his face as he thought of a funny detail, then added "The kid hasn¡¯t even set a specific limit to how many spheres we will be able to request.. If you win, we¡¯ll have apany that will help us enter a profitable market.. All for free. Don¡¯t mess this up."

    -----

    Two days passed quietly, in which Daniel kept opening his shop at the usual marketce, purchased as many essence treasure he found, and offered his services at his stall, along with Alesia and the rest.

    The Sect of the Illusory Edge had decided to make the bet public.

    They were sure that they would win, and since they wanted to enter the market of the essence spheres, they wanted people to know that Daniel would soon be working for their sect.

    At the same time, the reason why this young merchant had challenged this powerful sect had started to be known. That, was mostly thanks to Daniel, which would always exin the truth about the matter to each and every customer who asked about it.

    Inside the depths of the castle, Jerigh had spent thest couple of days cultivating at the highest possible speed. Daniel had given arge amount of high-level crystals, which contained heavy amounts of pure crystallized mana, and meat of powerful monsters to eat.

    That day, whenever people finished their business with Daniel, instead of leaving and going back to their schools and sects, they would stay in the marketce, and wait for the day to end.

    It was now sunset, and the marketce was unusually full of people.

    In the middle of therge square, four people dressed in green colored clothes were standing quietly. These people were the Illusory Maiden, the man which would have to fight Jerigh, and two of the most well known elders of the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    These two elders had decided toe as a simple way of confirming to the various sect leaders and elders, that the words they had heard were actually true. They were currently chatting with numerous other generally known cultivators from the city.

    After Daniel and the rest finished packing their items, they walked towards the middle of the square, right where the members of the Sect of the Illusory Edge were waiting.

    As they arrived, the crowd of people opened, liberating a space of around fifty square meters.

    When the two elders noticed Daniel¡¯s arrival, they approached him and presented themselves "We are elder Rio and elder Tife, from the Sect of the Illusory Edge, we have heard great things about you, and your extraordinary knowledge."

    "It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you, elders." Responded Daniel while nodding politely. The two elders expected Daniel to bow as well, but culturally speaking, it wasn¡¯t necessary for people to bow towards the elders of another sect. It was more of a matter of respect.

    Despite the apparentck of respect, the two elders did not take Daniel¡¯s behaviour to heart. In their mind, Daniel had challenged their sect, and he would soon be forced to work under them. So they really did not care for his behaviour.

    On the other hand, Daniel¡¯s reputation slowly increased in the minds of the various cultivators in the crowd. For someone as young as Daniel, to not care for the face of his elders, it took a lot of bravery.

    Elder Tife smiled politely at Daniel, and said "We did not expect so much people to want to spectate to this little bet.. Why don¡¯t you give us half an hour to set a proper stage?"

    As the elder finished speaking, a denseyer of immortal essence started toe out of Daniel¡¯s body. It quickly covered the entire area, just like a thick nket. Then, the very next moment, it turned into a surprisingly well made circr ring.

    Four refinedly crafted wooden chairs had appeared on each side of the ring, while various stands had appeared on all four sides of the ring. Each could seat at least a hundred people.

    Finally, all around the ring, various metallic poles had been created. At the top of these poles, powerful white lights illuminated the area as if it was daytime.

    In a matter of seconds, a perfect looking arena had been created out of nowhere.

    Daniel turned to look at the two elders, and with an amiable smile, he said "I¡¯m sorry elders, I have much to do in preparation for tomorrow. Allow me." He then walked towards the four chairs, and sat in one of the middle ones.

    Alesia, Der, and Zack followed him and upied the remaining three chairs.

    While the two elders were still busy being surprised by the impressive level ofprehension and focus that Daniel was able to use, the various spectators quietly took their seat in the stands.

    A good minuteter, after the members of the Sect of the Illusory Edge finally sat down, thepetitor from their side stood up, and prepared himself to go on the stage. But before he could, Daniel teleported on the stage, and quietly read the exact content of their bet.

 Chapter 151 A Battle About Who Cheats Better

    After hearing what the terms of the bet were, Daniel could see that the majority of the poption, despite the respect that they felt for him, were rooting for the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    What was interesting about it, was the fact that it wasn¡¯t due to a direct bias, but due to a moral one dictated by their unconscious.

    They knew that they would have problems with having Daniel create essence spheres for them, if he were to lose.. but they couldn¡¯t help but think that all of this had happened because Daniel had decided to defend someone used of a heinous crime such as ****.

    The fact that Daniel had helped Zack avoid being killed in front of the teleporting tform, how one of his people had injured arge number of cultivators of the Sect of the Illusory Edge for Zack¡¯s sake, and how Daniel had created this bet just to demonstrate their innocence.

    Of course, this didn¡¯t matter for Daniel. He only cared about getting back Zack¡¯s portion of soul back, and that the sect would leave him alone. Secondarily, he wanted the money, and the fame that his group would gain from this event.

    While Daniel was giving his speech and weing the various clients and cultivators that had joined the event, a small group of disciples from the Sect of the Illusory Edge arrived to the venue, and were quietly waiting in behind the chairs on which the elders, and the Illusory Maiden sat. Amongst them, were K, her brother Kien, and the young man that wanted to kill Zack, but was stopped by Jerigh.

    "..I hope that you will all bear witness to the result of today¡¯s event." Said Daniel with confidence. "Let¡¯s begin."

    A small rift opened in the space next to him, and from inside it, Jerigh walked out calmly.

    He was wearing ck clothes, and a set of grey leather armor. Behind his back, were two single-edged sheathed swords, while small knives were hilted at his ankles, sides, and thighs.

    His blond hair were illuminated by the bright constructed light, and his handsome features, paired with his cold and confident demeanor, gave the people which spectated, the parvence that they were looking at a young hero.

    During the past three days, thanks to his incredible talent and resources, Jerigh was able to reach the eight stage of spiritual cultivation, and peak of the ninth rank of martial cultivation. His two essences were so close, that they had already started to show signs of merging.

    From the other side of the ring, the second disciple of the Sect of the Illusory Edge, whose name was Yan, was quietly walking over the stage. In his hand, was a single already unsheathed sword.

    ording to the rules, Yan could only use a power at the early fourth level of the immortal cultivation, but since he wanted to prove his superiority, he decided to fight at the same level of power which Jerigh possessed, and only use the strength of a peak third stage immortal cultivator.

    Once both of them were on the stage, Yan smiled at Jerigh and said "I can see that you are a talented swordsman, but to im to have been able to defeat not only one, but a group of cultivators from my sect, ande out unscathed.. That¡¯s not only a lie, but a stain to my sect¡¯s honor.. So, why don¡¯t you show me what you¡¯re capable of? I¡¯ll dly y with you for a few minutes."

    "You talk too much.." Responded Jerigh with a calm, and cold tone, before unsheathing the two swords that were kept behind his back, and taking his fighting stance.

    He then quietly stood with the two swords pointed at the ground, going parallel to his legs.

    Yan¡¯s face darkened as he heard Jerigh¡¯s dismissive tone. He then casually approached him, taking one step after another.

    Despite limiting his sheer power to Jerigh¡¯s level, he still possessed the reactive capabilities of a much more powerful cultivator. So, for him, to go into the reach of Jerigh¡¯s ranges of attack was not dangerous at all.

    This way of thinking would be reasonable if he were to be fighting anybody else.. Unfortunately, Jerigh was a prodigy amongst prodigies with a sword in his hand.

    The moment he entered the range of Jerigh¡¯s attack, he was immediately forced to back away, barely able to prevent the tip of Jerigh¡¯s sword from cutting his throat.

    Yan was utterly shocked, but before he could even consider countering the surprise attack, he was forced to, once again, avoid jerigh¡¯s second de.. which wasing down vertically, and that was not the end.

    He was forced to avoid one attack after the other, which came raining down like a deadly trap triggered by each and every one of Jerigh¡¯s movements.

    Only after the twentieth attack did Yan decide to increase his power to the early fourth stage, and force his immortal essence from the frontal part of his body just so that he could gain some distance from Jerigh.

    The sudden burst not only pushed Yan backwards, but also forced Jerigh to take a step back as well.

    Yan took a couple of sharp breaths, andpletely gave up the idea of toying with Jerigh. He had already spent half a minute looking like aplete fool, and now, he simply wanted to win, and make a major contribution for his sect.

    Now serious, Yan pushed his immortal essence into his sword, which immediately started to shine with a brightly colored light.

    Anyone present could feel that Yan was using one of his skills, which required the injection of light into the sword. This skill was called ¡¯Mirage Surface¡¯, and was one of the signature skills from the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    It took a few moments for Jerigh¡¯s eyes to adjust to its light, and after he was able to see once again, he saw Yan dashing at him with his sword.

    Jerigh immediately parried with both of his swords, but the very instant before Yan¡¯s sword shed against his, he moved his swords behind his back, and formed a shield with them instead, ignoring the charging Yan in the front.

    *Shwiing*

    He was forced to step forward numerous times, as he tried not to fall on his chest.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Jerigh to understand. He was under the effect of an illusion.

    What Jerigh thought of as a simple illusion, was actually a mirage created by the maniption of light. A light of which Yan had taken control during Jerigh¡¯s brief moment of blindness.

    Luckily, he was able to react before it was toote, and put his swords behind his back to parry the real attack.

    Of the two, the most surprised was Yan. He had used the full power of an early fourth stage cultivator, and ording to logic, Jerigh should have never been able to react in time.

    His train of thoughts was rapidly interrupted by a shard of ice, which had been summoned by Jerigh, and had been sent towards his back.

    Yan¡¯s reaction was extremely quick. He rapidly waved his sword and split the shard of ice into two parts which flew by his sides, but then, he noticed a second one right behind it, which once again, he blocked without a problem.

    The shards came all from the same angle, and behind one, there was always another after mere centimeters of distance.

    "Is this silly trick all you¡¯ve got?" Asked Yan with derision as he dissipated one shard after another. Unfortunately, that didn¡¯tst long, as the smirk of derision on his face disappeared to leave ce to shock and confusion.

    A small metallic needle had pierced his forearm.

    Before he could even understand how that had happened, Yan felt Jerigh approach him from behind. In his hands were two short-swords.

    As Jerigh was about to enter Yan¡¯s arm reach, instead ofing closer, he simply shed downwards on his shoulder.

    What Yan found strange, was the fact that Jerigh had decided to attack this early, as his swords were too short to hit at that distance.

    He was only able to understand when the hidden half of the sword came out of its concealed state. The sword managed to prate into his skin, but their shing motion was stopped by Yan¡¯s quick reaction.

    At the side of the ring, the two elders had a dark expression on their faces. One of the two turned towards the other, and said "He is using dark essence.."

    He was absolutely right. This was the strategy that Jerigh himself had formted to fight against Yan. He already knew about the nature of Yan¡¯s skills, so he decided to use an opposite essence to counter it.

    He countered the maniption of light, with the concealment of darkness, by hiding parts of his weapons, and small hidden needles inside a series of distracting magical attacks.

    Jerigh gave him no time to recover, and instead, he started to attack him relentlessly.

    He shed, hacked, and even abandoned the swords in mid air whenever shing once more would have taken more time than simply grabbing a knife from his thighs, and stab Yan with it. He would then grab the swords he had abandoned in the air before they could touch the ground, and use them to attack once more.

    For a good minute, he became the most deadly juggler that had ever existed.

    Yan was forced to parry each and every attack, and whenever he felt his sword shing against one of Jerigh¡¯s weapons, he felt the a bit of his reasoning fade away.

    He had been injured, humiliated, and was now forced on a defensive position in front of arge crowd by a puny peak third stage cultivator.. He could not bear it.

    Ayer of dense immortal essence started toe out of Yan¡¯s body, and enter his sword.

    This immortal essence wasn¡¯t controlled in the lightest, and showed the entire extent of Yan¡¯s power.

    He put all the force he possessed into his arm, and in a burst of rage, he waved it, sending Jerigh flying backwards.

    Jerighnded heavily against the ground, and spewed a mouthful of blood. He only managed to look upwards to see a crazed Yan jump in the air, ready to cut him in half before he could even get back up on his feet.

    However, before that could happen.. A sudden and thick lightning boltnded on Yan¡¯s sword, and ran through his entire body.

    This lightning bolt was powerful enough to force Yan into unconsciousness, and to fall right above a not so heavily injured Jerigh.

    A faint murmur started to resound in the area, as people couldn¡¯t really understand what had happened.

    The faces of the two elders seemed to be pleasantly surprised. One of them got up to speak, but before he could, Daniel had appeared above the stage, and said "Well, this was fun until itsted. This can be considered our win."

    "What are you talking about?" Asked one of the two elders with evident irritation. He then added "That lightning bolt wasn¡¯t constructed by your fighter, so this result does not count. It was a simple ident."

    Nobody knew more than Daniel where that lightning bolt hade from.

    Originally, he wouldn¡¯t have used Karmic Retribution on Yan if he remained within the rules set for the fight, as he was confident that Jerigh, along with the bonus in battle prowess granted by the system, would easily be able to defeat anyone that was below the mid fourth stage.

    Unfortunately, Yan had decided to ignore the rules and unleash his full power.

    Daniel was ready to intervene at any moment, but if he could avoid to, it would do so.

    So, instead of teleporting Jerigh out of harm¡¯s way, he used Karmic Retribution on both Jerigh and Yan.

    Jerigh¡¯s karma was positive but not extremely high, while Yan¡¯s was the opposite. Thebination of the two karmic retributions had created a lucky event for Jerigh and an unlucky event for Yan.

    With a calm expression, Daniel turned to look at the two elders, and said "I am afraid you¡¯ve misunderstood something. The fight finished when your fighter decided to break the rules, not when he fell unconscious."

 Chapter 152 A Karmic Debt Must Not Be Underestimated

    Just as Daniel finished speaking, the faces of the two elders contorted in hideous expressions. One of the two was about to talk, but before he could, a few voices were hearding from their surroundings.

    "He is right, I saw that too.. Thest two attacks were way too powerful for an early fourth stage."

    "Wasn¡¯t a limit to the early fourth stage agreed beforehand?"

    "That lightning bolt didn¡¯t save your sect from the loss.. Only the kid¡¯s life."

    All of the people who had spoken were cultivators at a level of power simr to the elders of the Sect of the Illusory Edge, so, the two elders were unable to refute their words without looking like sore losers.

    Their faces twisted in irritation once more, until one of them finally said "Very well. It was our fault. We will pay what is owed."

    Currently there was a person in the crowd which was particrly worried after noticing the face of the two elders. That person was standing quietly next to K and Kien, and was the young man which, by deciding to silence Zack once and for all, had caused all of this mess.

    If he had actually told the truth, he would not have had anything to worry about.. But since he lied about what had happened the day he and the rest had been injured, he knew that the punishment that awaited him would not be light.

    He could see the numerous looks of pitying from hispanions. From beside him, he noticed his girlfriend K slowly distancing herself from him, while Kien clenched his fists in hate at the sight of the elders of his school agreeing on giving the portion of Zack¡¯s spirit back to him.

    After the elders agreed that the bet had been won by Daniel¡¯s side, along with the Illusory Maiden and Yan, they left immediately, but only after giving a sideways look at the young man.

    The crowd started to disperse, and with them, the group of disciples of the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    The walk back to the sect¡¯s ground was the most stressful experience that the young man had ever faced in his life. None of the disciples which imed to be his friends dared to say a word to him, and his girlfriend and her brother looked like they didn¡¯t care for him.

    Unable to bare it anymore, he quickly grabbe K¡¯s wrist, and took her into a narrow alley. Kien followed right after seeing this strange urrence.

    Once alone, the young man looked at K and said "You have to help me. I-I did it for you.. For us.."

    Kien was utterly confused by the young man¡¯s words. He turned to look at his sister, and said "What the hell is he talking about?"

    K looked at her brother, and while feigning confusion, she said "I don¡¯t know.."

    "STOP LYING!" The young man burst out in rage. He was anxious, and couldn¡¯t bear to end up in an additional bad spot today. "You lied about Zack! He never touched you.."

    Kien¡¯s eyes opened in shock and horror. "Wha.. K! IS THIS TRUE?!"

    "Brother, no! I swear!! He really di-"

    *SLAP*

    "ENOUGH!" Shouted the young man after pping K heavily on her face "You keptining about not wanting to marry.. About not wanting people to know that you slept around before marriage!.. It was my idea, but you were never against it, not for a moment"

    After hearing the young man¡¯s words, Kien lifted his hands and held his head in between them. He was suddenly remembering all the awful and humiliating things he had done to his childhood friend.

    Still unable to ept the truth, he turned to look at K, which was now on the verge of crying, and said "Please, tell me he is lying.."

    A couple of clear tears started to stream down K¡¯s cheeks, as she said while sobbing "I.. I really did not want to marry.. I¡¯m s-sorry.." She then started to cry.

    After hearing his girlfriend¡¯s confession, the young man turned to look at Kien, and said "You have to help me.. If I go down, I¡¯ll bring your sister down with me."

    When the young man finished speaking, he noticed that something was not right.

    The previously shocked Kien was now standing straight. His expression was indifferent to say the least.

    Unable to hear any response from her brother, K stopped crying just to look at him, but she saw the same thing her boyfriend saw. It appeared as if Kien had simply lost interest in what had just been revealed.

    "Brot-" Just as K decided to call for her brother, their surroundings lost their defined shapes. The straight lines of the buildings started to ondte, and their colors became increasingly more blurred. Her brother¡¯s body, was not an exception.

    The only two people who were unaffected were her, and the young man.

    One after another, the colors started to dissipate, until finally, their surroundings changedpletely. They were standing exactly in the ce where they were when observing the event, but the difference, was that the elders, the Illusory Maiden, Yan, the other disciples of the Sect of the Illusory Edge, and the many other cultivators, were all looking at the two of them.

    On the opposite side of the stage, Der looked at the two with disdain. He already suspected that Zack was innocent, but seeing his alleged victim confess, made him feel disgust.

    Apletely different expression was on Alesia¡¯s face, which was looking at the scene with a sense of pride swelling up in her chest.

    Zack had been forced to toughen up in the past, due to the awful treatment he received, and the constant beating, and yet, even he couldn¡¯t help but cry after hearing the two people who had ruined his life confess.

    After all, he was only a fifteen year old kid which had spent thest part of his life being hated and looked at with disgust.

    Proving that Zack wasn¡¯t guilty wasn¡¯t one of Daniel¡¯s objective, as if he decided to actually do that, he would find it very difficult. The only reason he had decided to try, was because the opportunity had presented itself.

    He had had the idea the very moment he had seen K, her brother, and her boyfriende to spectate the fight. That was the reason why he had reminded the reasons for why this event was taking ce.

    People could have thought that he wanted to make sure that the Sect of the Illusory Edge would pay in case they¡¯d lose, but that was only half of the reason. What he wanted to do, was to remind the two elders that all of this had happened for a reason and one reason alone.. Zack¡¯s usations.

    The Illusory Maiden looked at K, Kien and the young man with fury in her eyes, and said "Come with me." she then walked towards Daniel¡¯s side, and after approaching Zack, she said "Allow me to apologize on ount of our sect."

    Zack looked quietly, as the Illusory Maiden bowed apologetically.

    Next to her, Kien couldn¡¯t even look at him in the eyes, while his sister and her boyfriend turned to look at the elders of their school, as if hoping that they could save them from this humiliation.

    Their desperate looks were met with angered eyes, as the words of the Illusory Maiden reached their ears. They said "You are allowed toe back to the sect if you wish. I will personally tend to your training, and protect you from now on."

    She was more than aware of how her presence on K¡¯s side of the story had gave an additionalyer of credibility to her lies, so, she wanted to make amend.

    "You will also have a say in deciding what will happen to these three." She then added.

    Daniel looked at Zack, which had a conflicted expression on his face.. He didn¡¯t want him to thread the path of vengeance or hate, so he moved his head closer to him, and whispered "Karma has a debit with you.. Don¡¯t waste it on something that you might regret in the future."

    Daniel¡¯s words hit Zack deeply, leaving him in a pensive state for numerous long seconds. He was thinking of all the suffering he had gone through, and how harshly he had been treated, but also of how much he used to love ying with his friends when he was a kid..

    The words that Daniel whispered in his ears kept ringing in his head over and over again, until finally, it struck him. What Daniel was offering, was not to forgive, but to forget. He was offering a chance to start anew, and to join his group.

    He had nothing left in this city. One of his two childhood friends had betrayed him, and the other had refused to believe in him. His sect had kicked him out, and the majority of the inhabitants of the city would always look at him with the doubt that maybe, just maybe, he had really done it.

    Rationality quickly took over the hate he felt, as he turned towards Daniel, and after nodding, he looked at the Illusory Maiden, and said "I already have a group now. I just want my spirit to be whole again."

    "What about them?" Asked the Illusory Maiden.

    For the first time since Daniel had met him, Zack showed the parvence of a smile, and said "I don¡¯t care."

    -----

    Pocket Dimension, 23:11

    Daniel was once again sitting on the balcony outside of his room, and running around him, was Wolfie, the newborn metal elemental.

    Sitting on the chair on the other side of the table, just like every other night in the past three nights, sat Alesia.

    The two of them had taken the habit toe there after a long day of work, and talk while trying a new type of liquor.

    Despite thete hour, loud noises could be hearding from all around the castle. This was caused by the industrialisation of his pocket dimension.

    Now that people could earn powerful cultivation resources through simple work, many people had decided to give up sleep just in order to increase their ie. This had caused the crystals to be quickly adopted as an eptable type of currency within the city, viges, and auxiliary pocket dimensions.

    *COUGH COUGH* "Oh, this is" *hic* "..definitely the strongest one we¡¯ve tried so far.." *hic* Said Alesia through a hup caused by the sheer power of the alcohol contained in the liquor they had been drinking.

    "I think we should ease up on the strong stuff.. I don¡¯t want to have to carry you around because you are too drunk to walk straight.. Hehe" Commented Daniel with an unusual blush on his cheeks.

    "Look who¡¯s talking! You look like.." *hic* "..an apple.. Hahaha!" Alesia burst outughing at the sight of the half drunken Daniel. The fact that she was half drunk herself didn¡¯t help her in holding back herughter.

    The twoughed for a few seconds, until finally, they put down their sses, and like they had gotten used to, looked at the dark and empty sky.

    After a few minutes, Alesia broke the silence by saying "So, what did you want to show me?" A couple of minutes were all it took for the two of them to sober up from alcohol.

    In response, Daniel weakly waved his hand.

    The very next moment, thousands of small lights appeared in the empty sky. They were all of different, and emanated the familiar feeling of starlight.. Distant, and always present.

    Alesia looked at the sea of stars, and recognized it as the same formation of stars which could be observed from their world, which Daniel had carefully replicated.

    All around the pocket dimension, the various cultivators, ranked beasts, and elementals turned to look at the sky, and sure enough, they recognized it as well.

    The only one who wasn¡¯t looking at the sky, was Daniel, whose eyes were glued on Alesia¡¯s amazed expression.

    After a few moments, he turned to look at the sky as well.

 Chapter 153 Golden Karma

    Two days had passed since the bet with the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    Daniel was currently sitting on his chair in the castle¡¯s hall, and next to him, were Zack, Alesia, and many other leading members of his group.

    Sitting in front of them, was the Illusory Maiden, which hade to deliver Daniel¡¯s winnings directly to him. She had been let inside the pocket dimension alone.

    In Daniel¡¯s hand, was a semi-transparent white crystal. He was observing it attentively, and inside it, he could feel Zack¡¯s presence.

    Zack himself couldn¡¯t stop looking at it. It was as if he was drawn to it. As if his very being wanted nothing more than to just be with that white crystal.

    "How does it work? Is it possible to merge it back with the rest of his spirit?" Asked Daniel to the Illusory Maiden.

    The Illusory Maiden responded by saying "It isn¡¯t an irreversible process, if that¡¯s what you are asking me." She then took a pill out of her spatial ring.

    This pill was white, and it appeared identical to amon healing pill, but there was something intrinsically different in it. It emanated faint spiritual essence, along with life essence, time essence, and healing essence.

    "This is a healing pill, but it is made to heal the spirit.. If consumed along with the portion of the spirit that was removed, it should help in mending the damage.." Said the Illusory Maiden.

    Daniel knew that that object was not part of the bet, and that the Sect of the Illusory Edge could not be forced to give that item to them, so, he decided not to assume anything, and said "Would you be willing to sell one to us?"

    "I¡¯m actually here to gift this one to you." Responded the Illusory Maiden with her usual cold demeanor.

    "I somehow doubt that that¡¯s going to be a simple gift. Continue.." Said Daniel with a faint smile on his face.

    He was right. After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, an embarrassed expression appeared on the Illusory Maiden, as she said "You are correct.. It is an apology gift, and it¡¯s yours no matter what.. But I¡¯ve been asked to propose something to you."

    "I¡¯m listening." Responded Daniel inly.

    "We know that you will soon leave the city, and go to the capital.. We would like to create a direct passage to your pocket dimension, so that we can trade even after you leave."

    By creating a direct passage to Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, the Illusory Maiden meant to form a spatial connection between her sect, and the dimension they were currently in.

    Technically speaking, a pocket dimension was a spatial construct that floated in the middle of the deep and dark void, which was so immense, that there was no historical record of two pocket dimensions having ever been remotely close enough to one another.

    Amon analogy to exin how the creation of a pocket dimension worked, was the fisherman analogy. The fisherman being the cultivator, and the fish being the pocket dimension. The fishline, which in this case was is the ring, worked as a mean to connect the fisherman to the fish.

    If the fishline were to break, the connection between the two would be lost. The fish would go back swimming into the endless blue ocean, and the fisherman would never be able to catch it again.

    Right after people had managed to create pocket dimensions, and learned how to make them liveable, they had studied a way to increase the number of points from which they could be essed.

    After thousands of years, they had discovered how to form direct passages.

    The method was simple. Going back to the fisherman analogy, it would be like letting a second fisherman connect his fishline to the middle of the first fisherman¡¯s line.

    This method had been created by cultivators that were outside of the isted world from which Daniel came from, so he and his group members weren¡¯t aware of it.

    Of course, even if Daniel was aware of it, he would never allow a secondary connection to be created to his pocket dimension, or at least, not at his current level of cultivation.

    As he was now, many could enter his pocket dimension and destroy it from inside.

    After a quick exnation of what creating a direct passage to a pocket dimension meant, Daniel rapidly understood.

    Originally, he had thought that the reason why inteary merchants were so rich, was because they had the opportunity to operate in multiples with the highest amounts of resources, but that was far from being the reason, in fact, these merchants had all started the same way.. From a single.

    Creating a direct passage between one city and one¡¯s pocket dimension simply required the permission from the local government, while trading and creating direct connections in variouss, required the permission of each individual government, along with the permission of the faction to which thoses belonged.

    That was the type of influence that Daniel needed in order to obtain a license to travel between worlds. He needed to have a necessity to leave his current in order to increase the size of his business.

    Creating a ofmerce in the in which thepany had originated, was the first step to deal on an inteary level.

    After a few minutes spent thinking, Daniel decided to refuse the offer of the Sect of the Illusory Edge.

    The reason why he had refused, was because he didn¡¯t want his business in this city to have to go through the Sect of the Illusory Edge. Instead, he would ask permission to the local government to create a direct connection to a secondary pocket dimension, which would work as base for theirpany to operate.

    Whenever he would visit another city or, he would create a direct connection to this base, allowing people to visit it and trade with them.

    That would leave the inhabited pocket dimension safe, and work as a free mean of teleporting between cities, and in the future,s.

    Of course, he would first need to visit a specific location, before he would be able to create a direct connection to the pocket dimension.

    The same would be if he managed to obtain the permission to travel through worlds.

    Differently from the way that members of faction used to travel through space, which was thanks to the powers granted by their factions, just like the portal of essence of corruption that the Heralds of Corruption used, or the portal of spiritual essence which the Spiritual Emissaries used, the way merchants traveled from one ce to another, was through inteary teleportation devices situated in the major cities of each.

    In the past, the first merchants would make use of these teleportation devices whenever they needed to move betweens, but soon enough, they had decided to adopt the method of creating a web of direct connections between thes they visited, and at the core of this web, would be the base of theirpanies.

    It was a mostly known fact that the biggestpany bases would either be set ins which entirely belonged to them, or were within pocket dimensions.

    Once the Illusory Maiden left, Daniel went into a quiet room with Zack, and by following her instructions, he helped him merge once again with the missing piece of his spirit.

    At the same time, Daniel was able to witness a few new concepts, like the connection that life had to the spirit, the effect that time essence had on the recovery of an injured spirit, and finally, the way healing essence could help a spirit to recover.

    Despite the use of the time sphere, the entire process had taken more than twenty-four hours, meaning that if left to himself, Zack would have recovered only after five days.

    Once his spirit was whole again, Zack managed to regain his previous cultivation at thete second stage of the immortal cultivation, or sixth rank.

    -----

    Ten dayster.

    Before leaving the city, Daniel decided to go to the government offices. There, he spent hours between meetings, and filling forms for the sole purpose of doing two things. Register hispany, and receive the permission to open a direct connection to hispany headquarters.

    For hispany headquarters, Daniel had created a pocket dimension in the shape of a tower. He then filled it with various essence spheres like wind, water, earth, metal and wood. Additionally, he ced numerous light spheres in it, which kept the ce well lit all day round.

    Daniel had given Alis the job to refournish the ce. He wanted her to turn this simple-looking building into a refined base of operation.

    In a matter of days, the tower had transformed. It was now divided into floors, which were divided into different levels.

    The ground floor was the ce where the direct passages to the various cities and worlds would be installed. The more Daniel¡¯spany would grow in time, the more they would need to focus on erging it.

    The floors from the first to the tenth, were filled with various shops which belonged to Daniel¡¯s group. There, Daniel sold the weapons, armors, food, and essence spheres produced by his own group.

    The floors from the eleventh to the thirteenth containedrge marketces, in which people could rent a spot, and trade with visitors from various different cities ands.

    Each floor from the fourteenth to the eighteenth had a different auction house, one of which, was a silent auction.

    The neenth floor was an extremelyrge and elegant reception room, where Daniel¡¯s group would host events, and make announcements to the public.

    Finally, the floors from the twentieth to the twenty-third, contained the various administration offices.

    Possessing a headquarters was one of the many requirements for registering apany. Aside from that, a certain amount of members was necessary, as well as an official sector in which to operate.

    The reason why these requirements were necessary, was so that the government could differentiate betweenpanies by size and sess. Opening a direct connection wasn¡¯t something that was allowed to everypany, in fact, it was necessary for thepany to be over a certain size to be able to receive the permission.

    At this stage, Daniel¡¯spany wasrge enough to receive a region-wide permission. Which meant that he was allowed to open a direct connection within each and every city within the region of origin of thepany.

    The next levels of permissions were continent,, and system-wide. After being in possession of a system-wide permission, Daniel would need to register hispany to the faction which possessed the in which thepany had originated, which in this case, was Iewah¡¯s faction.

    Only then, he would be allowed to use inteary teleportation tforms.

    For now, hispany was still at the lowest level, but showed promise.

    Daniel was currently sitting within the registration office. In his hands, were various documents, and each of them had been marked with his immortal essence, filled in, and signed.

    Only one document hadn¡¯t beenpletely filled in, and this document was probably the one that the majority ofpany founders had filled in first when registering theirpanies.

    This document was the very first page of the registration form, and only one section had been left nk. That section, was thepany¡¯s name.

    "You¡¯ve been staring at that damned piece of paper for twenty minutes now.." Said Sewah from within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    "I was so busytely with all of the details.. And now I can¡¯t think of a name for thepany.." Muttered Daniel to himself.

    After an additional ten minutes, Daniel finally shrugged his shoulders, and wrote a couple of words in the form. He then stood up from the chair he was sitting on, and approached the counter.

    The young woman behind the counter checked the various documents to make sure that everything had been taken care of. In the first page, which was oddly ced on the back of the stack, she saw, right next to -Company Name-, the two words "Golden Karma".

 Chapter 154 The Capital - A Warm Welcome

    A few days had passed since the registration of Golden Karmapany, and Daniel was currently sitting in the lotus position, within one of the training room in the castle. On his palm, was a perfectly round, and shiny metallic sphere.

    At the moment, Daniel was in a sorry state. He was sitting over a small pool of blood, and his clothes were in tatters. Numerous faint lights glowed all over his body, healing each of the thousands of small cuts of which his skin was covered.

    About five meters away from him, Wolfie sat quietly. He was staring at the round sphere in Daniel¡¯s hand in some sort of trance.

    The blood that covered the ground for the radius of a meter all around Daniel, was slowly crawling back into his body, and after it all seeped back into his injuries, and entered into his blood vessels, the injuries closed immediately.

    The whole healing processsted for about five minutes, after which Daniel slowly opened his eyes, and after ncing at the metallic sphere, he turned to look at Wolfie "Don¡¯t you dare say that I didn¡¯t do anything for you.." He said with a tired voice.

    The metallic sphere was, of course, a perfect metallic sphere.

    Daniel had managed to reach a near perfectprehension during the moment of Wolfie¡¯s birth. The only concepts he needed to understand before reaching a perfectprehension, were the melting points of each and every metal, which he had slowly learned by trial and error with wolfie.

    The cause for all of the cuts and injuries on Daniel¡¯s body, was due to the sharp pieces of metal which flew out of control in the air.

    After breathing in a few more times, Daniel got back up on his feet, and teleport himself and wolfie out of the castle. They reappeared in one of the corners of the pocket dimension, right at the feet of an impressive-looking rocky mountain.

    Looking directly at the mountain, Daniel walked towards it, and the moment he was about to hit a stone wall, the wall split into two, and formed a passage for him and Wolfie to go through.

    Fifty meters into the mountain, Daniel created a rtivelyrge cave, in the middle of which, he installed the perfect metal sphere.

    The moment the metal sphere was locked in the space of the pocket dimension, the ground started to tremble.

    Invisible to the naked eye, various metals of ore were forming and spreading under every rocky formation. These veins of ores would stop after reaching a certain size, as Daniel had limited the essence output of the sphere. He didn¡¯t want metal to be as much of aponent of his dimension as earth, wood, water and air, as metals were rtively rare whenpared to those elements.

    On the other hand, the surface of the cave walls was now covered in numerous different types of metal, turning the cave into a metallic den.

    Daniel could see the happiness in the young metal elemental. This was the best environment that any metal elemental could dream of, so, Wolfie couldn¡¯t be any happier about his new home.

    In a matter of seconds, the small wolf-like elemental curled up on himself, and fell asleep right next to the sphere.

    Once Daniel saw that Wolfie had no intention of leaving the metallic cave, he took out various low level weapons and ingot, and ced them on the ground next to the sphere. Those would, in time, turn into more metal elementals.

    Trying to avoid disturbing Wolfie, Daniel quietly teleported out of the pocket dimension.

    He reappeared next to Der, which was sitting at the table of a restaurant and eating his dinner.

    "HA! DAMN IT!.." Der shouted after seeing Daniel suddenly appear in a moment of rxation.

    "Sorry, sorry..." Said Daniel immediately while raising his hands in surrender.

    The reason why Daniel had caught Der by surprise, was because he had directly teleported out of the pocket dimension without using the proper portal they had set in the middle of the square.

    Only if people used the portals, would the carrier of the ring notice that someone wasing out in advance. The fact that Der was in a rxed state, and was eating peacefully, didn¡¯t help.

    "I¡¯m not going to make it alive until I see my daughter if you don¡¯t stop scaring me like this.. And you are not going to make it either. One day I¡¯ll just cut you in half by mistake.." Said Der nervously, while moving his fork on his te.

    "Alright, I said I¡¯m sorry.. Come on, the teleport should be active right now.. I don¡¯t want to stay in this city any longer." Said Daniel while getting up from the chair, and walking away.

    An unwilling face appeared on Der¡¯s face, as he force four or five mouthful of food in his mouth, and left a few coin on the table before following Daniel out of the restaurant.

    -----

    "Next.." Said an old man which stood right at the bottom of the flight of stairs that took over the teleportation tform. "Where do you want to go?" He then asked as Daniel approached him.

    "The capital.. but first, I have a permit to set a direct connection to the headquarters of mypany." Daniel said while handing a piece of paper to the old man, which looked at it attentively.

    Without saying anything, the old man pointed at a middle aged man which stood quietly next to arge double door at the side of the room.

    Daniel nodded in gratitude, then walked towards the middle aged man.

    Before Daniel could speak, the man asked "Whichpany do you wish to visit?"

    "None, I¡¯m here to set up a direct connection." Responded Daniel inly.

    The brows of the middle aged man rose in surprise, Daniel was definitely the youngestpany leader he had ever met.

    The surprise quickly left his face as he said "Your permit, and a spatial sphere marked with the sameposition of space and essence present within yourpany¡¯s headquarters.."

    Daniel had gathered informations about the creation of a direct passage. Other than the permission, he would need a spatial sphere, which emanated the same type of spatial essence that the pocket dimension in which his headquarters were, emanated.

    This spatial sphere would then be given to a figure called ¡¯The Keeper of Keys¡¯.

    The Keeper of Keys was usually an expert in formations, and his job was to activate, set, and repair the teleporting formations, as well as protecting the spatial spheres which after being inserted into the formation, would allow people to teleport into their desired destination.

    Usually, the role of keeper of keys wouldn¡¯t exist only on aary level, in fact, on any lower level, they would only be called that in an informal way. The actual keeper of keys, were the guardians of the teleporting tforms on inteary level.

    Daniel had already met one of those, and he was the man that had denied entry to the two Spiritual Acolytes, and had allowed Daniel entrance.

    After showing the permit to the middle aged man and handing over the spatial sphere, Daniel went back to the old man, which after letting Der and him onto the tform, teleported them.

    -----

    Daniel and Der appeared above a simr, yet slightly older looking teleportation tform. They were alone, and there was nobody else in therge room. Only an opened door that lead outside.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to guess that the tform wasn¡¯t controlled for a simple reason, and that reason was that the formation on the capital¡¯s end was not set for teleporting people back. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean that there weren¡¯t teleportation tforms that lead in other cities, but the one they had juste out from, wasn¡¯t one of those.

    When Daniel and Der walked out of the room, they noticed a few more people being teleported in onto the tform, and even more after those followed them out of the room.

    When they left the building, the two of them immediately covered their noses, as a whiff of disgusting odor entered their nostrils.

    "Woah.. that¡¯s pungent.." Said Der, trying to keep his lunch down his throat.

    The smell was so bad, that tears had formed on the corners of Daniel¡¯s eyes.

    He turned to look around, and he immediately noticed various bodies by the sides of the road in a half dposed state.

    From behind the two of them, Daniel heard the people who had arrived saying "What is going on here?.. What happened?"

    A third group which had just left the building and saw the state the streets were in, tried to immediately teleport out of the area.

    An expression of deep surprise appeared on their faces as they said "There is a spatial blockade.. I can¡¯t teleport."

    After hearing the words of the third person, Daniel immediately understood.

    He directly walked towards one of the bodies, and using a wooden staff he had within one of his rings, picked up one of the bodies, and went back into the building with the teleporting tform in it.

    People were constantly being teleported one group after another. They all came from different cities, and some of them had waited for a fairly long amount of time before finally able to teleport.

    A few young cultivators appeared right in front of Daniel, as he walked around with an half dposed body hanging from his wooden staff, scaring them out of their shoes.

    Daniel jumped onto the tform before the other young cultivators could even walk out of it, and slowly left the body above the formation. He then turned to look at the few young cultivators, and in a slightly rude way, he pushed them out of the tform, before jumping down as well.

    He then turned to look at the tform in silence.

    Only after seeing that nobody else was appearing on the tform did he take a deep breath, and left the building.

    Der approached him, and said "What was that?"

    "Something killed these people.. And locked us in this part of the city.. I thought we might as well prevent more people from joining us in this mess." Responded Daniel casually. He then looked at him, and said "Lock the exits of the pocket dimension.. Don¡¯t let anybody out."

    Aside from the various dead people, Daniel could see living people in the distance. They formed a messy and spaced out line, and appeared like each was following thest one.

    The various people that had arrived after Daniel, turned to look at him, as he seemed to have a purpose for doing what he was doing.

    "Hey, do you know what is going on?" Asked one of them.

    Daniel turned to look at this person, and said "I have no idea, but it seems like we are in trouble.."

    "What do you mean?" Asked Der, which was standing quietly next to Daniel.

    "The bodies are in an advanced stage of dposition, but the smell hasn¡¯t been washed out by the wind yet, which means that it happened not long ago. Also, space is locked, and I¡¯m guessing that even if we tried to fly, we wouldn¡¯t be able to go past a certain height.." Exined Daniel calmly.

    "What does that mean?" Asked one of the cultivators that were looking at Daniel in confusion.

    Daniel took a deep breath, and said "I think that we are under quarantine.."

    "Quarantine?.."

    "What?.. Why would they.."

    The buzz of conversation started to resound around Daniel, which said "Is there anyone that¡¯s been here before?"

    A thirty something years old woman, which was holding her five years old daughter in her arms said "We live here.. We just came back from visiting Treua.. The city where my family lives."

    Daniel turned to look at her, and said "Can you take us deeper into the city? I doubt that the entire city will be blocked.. There has to be someone guarding the edge of the area. We¡¯ll ask them."

    The woman quickly understood, and pointed her finger towards north. She then said "In that direction there is the core of the city."

    A middle aged man turned to look at Daniel, and said "Wait a minute.. If you are right, and we are under quarantine.. Isn¡¯t it more risky to go where all those other people are going to?"

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and responded "It doesn¡¯t matter anymore.. There are no wounds on the bones and tissue of the people, and no signs of fighting anywhere.. Also, wind has been locked as well. If there is a deadly virus, it¡¯s airborne, and we¡¯ve already breathed it in."

 Chapter 155 The Capital - A Deadly Virus

    ".. If there is a deadly virus, it¡¯s airborne, and we¡¯ve already breathed it in."

    "A virus?.. What is that?" Asked the woman which was carrying her daughter in her arms.

    Daniel looked around, and noticed that the eyes of everybody present were pointed at him. For a moment he forgot that the discovery of viruses had been done in his world of origin, and that it wasn¡¯t certain that it wasmon knowledge in the rest of the universe as well.

    He then took a deep breath, and said "A few hundred years ago, an alchemist from our world discovered the presence of a form of extremely small parasites that reproduce inside the cells of other organisms.. Usually our powerful bodies are capable of defending us from these entities, that¡¯s why we don¡¯t get sick after we reach a certain level of power.."

    After a small pause, Daniel continued "Unfortunately, there are some types of these parasites that are born capable of avoiding these defensespletely.. When that happens, we get sick.. Badly.."

    People were starting to get visible worried after hearing Daniel¡¯s words. Only a few were keeping their calm, and after seeing Daniel¡¯s behaviour, one of them said "What does airborne mean?"

    "There is more than one way in which a virus can move from one person to another. Through bacteria and exchange of bodily fluids, which usually means that the virus doesn¡¯t survive long outside of a person¡¯s body.. And finally, airborne.. Which means that the virus is in the air, and that we get infected by simply breathing." Responded Daniel calmly.

    "Then why are you so calm?" Asked the man with a slightly irritated tone.

    "Does that mean that we will die?"

    "Did they also found a cure?"

    Daniel listened to each and every question that was rapidly thrown at him. Unfortunately, he had a very limited knowledge about the matter. As he had simply read a mention to this in one of his sister¡¯s books when he was younger.

    When the panicked chatter started to slow down, Daniel lifted his hand, and said "It¡¯s not certain that we will die.. You can see a virus like you see poison. You only have to survive it long enough for your organs to purge it out of our body, and you should be fine."

    A young man within the crowd pointed at the various bodies on the ground, and said "They couldn¡¯t, what makes you think that we will be able to?.."

    Daniel sighed gently, and said "The concept of poison is part of death, and opposite to life¡¯s concept of regeneration.. If you are knowledgeable of life or healing essence, you should be fine for awhile.. If not.." while pausing slightly, he took a random stone out of his spatial ring, and forced arge amount of immortal essence into it. Then, he turned it in life essence, causing the sphere to be a temporary life sphere, and said "Stay close to me.."

    Having had enough with questions, Daniel turned to look at the direction indicated by the thirty years old mother, and started to walk.

    Der followed quietly, and the rest did as well.

    In strange and confusing situations such as this one, people would always follow those with answers, and a calmer mind. That was topensate for the fear and confusion that the situation forced upon them.

    For a couple of hours Daniel walked in the direction where everybody else was headed to. The closer he got to the core of the city, the more people he encountered, and the more bodies he saw.

    After four hours, he started to hear the weakest amongst the people behind him cough, and slow down.

    This had made the strongest in the group be more agitated and worried, causing a few of them to start talking about sending those who were clearly sicker away from the rest of the group.

    In response to those talks, Daniel reduced the area of effect from a fifty meter radius, to twenty meters, therefore condensing the life essence he was producing to a purer state.

    This bought more time to the weakest people, but unfortunately, the more people they walked around, the more they would be noticed by other people.

    The people which were previously ahead of them, had now finished their healing pills and were starting to feel increasingly worse. They were now looking at Daniel¡¯s healthy group of people catching up to them, and after asking a couple of questions, they would usually decide to join them.

    People started to crowd more and more around Daniel, to a point where ny percent of the area of effect was already upied by people.

    In around five hours, a group of people appeared in Daniel¡¯s sight. They were amassed against what looked like an invisible wall, and were shouting towards it.

    A few of the people turned to look at Daniel¡¯s iing group.

    They appeared very ill, and a few were on the verge of dying, but the moment they saw the healthy state of the people around Daniel, they walked towards them to ask how they could be fine despite walking from the teleporting station.

    A few of the most chatty amongst the people around Daniel started to recount what they had heard, causing the people in the group of furious cultivators to turn towards Daniel, and look at the stone he was holding.

    A small group of ill-minded people started to think about stealing the stone, but they immediately stopped after hearing that it wasn¡¯t an actual life sphere, but just a temporary one. And therefore, it was Daniel that was maintaining it.

    Daniel gave the stone to Der, and walked directly towards the invisible barrier.

    The people that noticed him approach quickly opened a path for him, allowing him to see what was on the other side of the barrier.

    On the other side of the barrier, were three middle aged man in heavy armor, and an old man with lighter clothes.

    Daniel approached the barrier as much as he could, and said with a casual tone "Can I ask a few things about what is going on?"

    Before the people behind the barrier could answer, an angry young man next to him said "They can¡¯t hear you.. The bastards block-"

    But before the young man could finish, the old man in the group of four turned to look at him from behind the barrier, and with a surprised expression, said "What a talented young man.. Your knowledge of sound and spatial essence must be extremely high.."

    That was the truth. Daniel¡¯sprehension of spatial and sound essence was high enough to allow him to force his voice through the blockade that had been created for the quarantine. There was even a high chance that he could leave, but since there was a good chance that he was infected as well, he wouldn¡¯t try to do that before being sure that he wasn¡¯t contagious.

    After noticing Daniel¡¯s capabilities, the old man pointed at the three guards, and added "I suggest you don¡¯t try to teleport out of here.. The moment youe out, they will kill you."

    "I know, I just want informations." Responded Daniel,pletely unimpressed by the oppressive power emanated by the three men in heavy armor.

    "Very well. We¡¯ve started to notice people that lived in the core of the area die inrge numbers. They had no injuries, and there were no signs of battle, or traces of magic around them. They simply dropped dead, and started dposing. We have examined them but found nothing. Our hypothesis is that the cause is a new poison capable of leaving no traces.. One that could be breathed in. So, we¡¯ve locked the space in a range of a few kilometers to be sure." Exined the old man calmly.

    From behind Daniel, the people who had followed him here started to chat loudly.

    "It¡¯s almost exactly what he said.."

    "..but it could also be poison, right?"

    Daniel ignored the voices of the people behind him, and said to the old man "What is the government doing about it?"

    An ufortable expression appeared on the old man as he heard this question.

    Immediately, Daniel understood that the people in charge of this matter weren¡¯t in control of the situation.

    "We are looking into the matter. We have captured a few suspicious character, and have been interrogating known members of sects and groups that deal in poison." Responded the old man.

    The possibility that a virus being created, was one of the main points about the article he had read when he was younger. It was described as a high functioning disease, which could be forced on a specific group of people.

    Unfortunately, this article also included the reasons why it was unlikely that someone could actually create one in this year and age.

    One of these reasons being that these entities worked on a scale too small for a person to be able to operate. After all, even the most powerful poisons in existence were created naturally, and while they could spread inside the body, the actual amount of poison would never increase.

    During his walk to the barrier of the quarantine, Daniel had thought about why people hadn¡¯t discovered viruses yet. The only thing he could think about was that, since the poption in the universe was in the trillions of trillions, even if the poption of an entire were to be devoured by a virus, the rest of the universe would find this an event of little importance.

    After all, news were discovered, and millions of people were born each and every instant.

    The problem with thinking that this gue was a poison and not a virus, was that a poison would not leave the body unless countered, or forced out, while a virus, as mentioned by the alchemist which had discovered them, would eventually die if given the time to one¡¯s enhanced body to hunt it down.

    "How long does it take for people to die since they start coughing?" Asked Daniel to the old man.

    The old man looked curiously at him, and said "Around twelve hours.." He had noticed the temporary life sphere which Daniel had created, so, he added "People already tried to ingest healing pills to fight the effect, but in the end, it became too powerful and died.. I¡¯m sorry."

    Once again, people started to panic around Daniel.

    One of them even took a talisman out of his spatial ring, and was about to crush it. Daniel recognized this talisman as a spatial talisman, very simr to the one that the Silver Alchemist had used to teleport him out of Phyrri, but the moment before them man could destroy it, a sh came down at the speed of light and hit him.

    After the light dissipated, people noticed the man lying on the ground, with an enormous arrow that had gone through his heart, and impaled him.

    Daniel looked up in the air, and saw a single woman with a bow in her hands that was flying at an height of ten kilometers in the air. Her power was the highest Daniel had seen since he had entered this world, only slightly inferior to the power of the Spiritual Acolytes.

    What bothered Daniel, was knowing that the man¡¯s talisman would not have worked anyway, and that if the archer bothered to check before killing him, she would have noticed it as well.

    He looked at the corpse of the desperate man, and after sighing lightly, he took a water sphere and a time sphere out of his spatial ring, and locked them on a small bench to the side of the road. Then, he sat quietly.

    He was out of the range of the temporary life essence, and yet he still kept it up for the rest of the people to use, while he tested a few theories.

    The water essence was created with the sheer concept of freezing, and it emanated a freezing cold which surrounded the entire area that surrounded the bench.

    "What are you doing?" asked Der with curiosity. "You are out of the life essence field.."

    "They don¡¯t know what they are doing.. And we have no time to waste here while they chase ghosts." Responded Daniel before closing his eyes, and focusing.

 Chapter 156 The Capital - The Poisonous Rose

    For the next couple of hour, Daniel sat quietly on the bench.

    His skin was now paler than before, and he was shaking visibly. His hands trembled, and he was having difficulties in forming meaningful thoughts in his mind. His hair had frozen, and his blood had rushed from his extremities, all the way to the middle of his body.

    Despite the cold, he could feel the virus advance at a pace much faster than before. In fact, form when he had moved away from the life sphere, and entered into a cold habitat, the virus had affected him even faster.

    The reason why Daniel was doing this, was because he had read of two tests conducted by the alchemist which had discovered viruses, that could help in eliminating them. The body of a cultivator would be strong enough to resist high or low temperature, but the same wasn¡¯t necessarily true for the viruses.

    The alchemist had conducted numerous studies, and had discovered that the majority of viruses would die in an extremely cold, or extremely hot environment.

    The reason while he had decided to start with extreme cold, was because he had a much higherprehension of wind and water whenpared to fire.

    Unfortunately, it appeared that this particr virus couldn¡¯t be killed with extreme cold, so, he now had to try with extreme heat.

    People looked at him as he trembled like a leaf in the wind, and waspletely unable to speak.

    He unlocked the water sphere from the bench, causing the temperature of the area to suddenly drop.

    The virus was now in a much more advanced stage than before. Luckily for him, all he needed to fight back, was to use his karmic system. Thanks to ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, he could increase the speed of his body in defending himself against the virus. But that wasn¡¯t what he wanted.

    He simply wanted to feel better, and make an attempt with high temperatures, so, he made healing essence run through his body, causing the damaged parts of his body to recover at a speed visible to the eye.

    This had left the people around shocked, as they knew that Daniel was already holding the life sphere which had supported them, along with suffering the extreme cold caused by the water sphere for hours.

    Of course, the moment they noticed the forming of a metallic room of five square meters in size, they became even more surprised.

    This metallic room wasposed of an alloy, it was clean as a mirror, and looked extremely out of ce in the middle of the street.

    After a few minutes, the numerous people that were waiting to die right inside the barrier turned to look at the show.

    A kid between them walked up to the room. He then ced his palm on its smooth surface, but was forced to immediately pull it back in order to avoid getting burned.

    The particles of water contained in the air were forced to evaporate the moment they came close to the scorching hot metal.

    One minute after another passed, until finally, after a full hour, the metallic room started to dissipate.

    Inside it, covered by a dense cloud of steam, was Daniel, kneeling on the ground.

    The view that appeared in front of the people as the nket of steam dissipated, left the spectators horrified.

    Daniel¡¯s skin was red, and burned all over, his palms were melted into the stony ground, and boiling hot blood dripped down the corners of his mouth.

    Right after finishing to experiment with extreme heat, he immediately forced the majority of his immortal essence into recovery.

    His skin started to slowly repair, as if a single drop of ck ink had been dropped on a ss of milk. Bit by bit it went to its familiar smooth and pink color.

    This time, it took much longer for Daniel to healpletely. Causing him to spend a long time in pain and suffering.

    Unfortunately, when he managed to healpletely, he still felt the progression of the virus on his body.. But during the sufferings caused by the testing on his own body, Daniel noticed something.

    Nowpletely healed, he started to walk once again towards the barrier. He then asked to the old man "Do you have any updates about those suspects you¡¯ve talked about earlier?"

    As soon as they heard Daniel¡¯s words, the people around further lost hope. Daniel was very knowledgeable, and despite failing each attempt to purge himself from the virus, they still hoped that he could have a method to get them out of that death sentence.

    "Still nothing." Responded the old man.

    Daniel looked at the old man attentively, and said with a superior tone "What kind of pathetic kind of human kills with poison anyway.."

    "You¡¯ve got to admit, it¡¯s effective.." Responded the old man casually.

    "It¡¯s the weapon for those who cower in fear of direct conflict.. I bet they¡¯ll soon break those suspects. I don¡¯t expect them to have any more spine than the venomous insects they y with." Added Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    At this point, the old man seemed slightly irritated by Daniel¡¯s words. "They must have put a lot of work into this.. You can¡¯t me them for wanting to test it out.."

    "Of course, I can respect the work of a researcher.. But you can¡¯t really call them that, can you?.."

    "Research is research, and this poison is the most advanced poison we have ever seen.. You have to give credit where credit is due.." Said the old man bitterly.

    A simple smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he looked at the old man, which was now looking the other way, and said with a derisive tone "The most dangerous poison is no different from a needle, in the right hands.. There are thousands of ways to take a life.. If they were really researchers, they would find a new way to save one instead, that¡¯s a challenge."

    "ENOUGH!" The old man suddenly burst out. He turned to look at Daniel, and with a face filled with rage, shouted "WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT RESEARCH!? YOU ARE JUST A KID! So what if you have a highprehension of the essences.. What weapon or spell will help you avoid death?! You¡¯ll die soon.. Be quiet!"

    The smile disappeared from Daniel¡¯s face as he looked at the enraged old man. He then said with a in tone "Who are you?"

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, the old man understood.

    He understood that Daniel had noticed something, so, instead of responding to his question, he smiled in a self deprecating way, and asked "..How did you guess?"

    "You are not in heavy armor, despite being weaker and older than the rest of your group, and yet, you are clearly above them. That means that you are probably the highest in rank here, likely a researcher.. Now, why would a researcher be needed here? At first, I thought that you were sent by the government, and that were observing the virus in order to find informations, but you haven¡¯t showed a shred of interest despite seeing me test its thermal resistance.. This made me think that maybe, you knew already that it wouldn¡¯t have worked." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The old man nodded in agreement with Daniel, then said "And that would have meant nothing, if it wasn¡¯t for my ego.. Nicely done."

    As if responding to apliment, Daniel nodded slightly, and then said "So, are you going to tell me what is going on here, or who you are?"

    "Just nurturing a passion for the art of poisons, what¡¯s so bad about it.." Responded the old man after showing a set of faintly yellow teeth.

    "Come on.. You are not letting any of us out.. We will all die here, show a bit of spine and answer the question at least.." Said Daniel with a righteous tone. He wanted at least that much information from him, and the best he could do, was to exploit his situation.

    "What the hell, why not.. I don¡¯t expect you to have heard of the group I belong to anyway.. The Poisonous Rose.. You can call me the Transparent Thorn." Daniel could see pride in the old man¡¯s expression and tone. To him, being in The Poisonous Rose was certainly an honor.

    "How original.." Muttered Daniel in a voice just high enough for the old man to hear, then added "I bet that the other researchers are different colors of thorns, and they all study different kinds of poison.. And let me bet, the leader is a woman, and her nickname is the Red Rose.."

    "I was never a lover of our group¡¯s name, but it¡¯s more powerful than you¡¯d imagine.. You should feel honored to have us test our work on your body."

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders in indifference, and started looking at the bracelet around his wrist. He then said "Do you know what this is?"

    The old man showed a stern expression, and responded by saying "I do.. And I also know that it is deactivated."

    A smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "True.. but do you think that this universal beacon would be enough to alert the guardian of this? I wonder what he would think about what you are doing.."

    With uneasiness evident on his face, the old man smiled grimly, and said "Now now, it¡¯s all fun and games until someone loses an eye! Hehehe.."

    As he finished speaking, the woman that floated in the air teleported next to the old man. She then took a sphere out of her spatial ring, and immediately shattered it under the strength of her fingers.

    The very next moment, a portal that lead to apletely different world appeared.

    Before the old man can cross through, Daniel said "Hold on!.."

    The old man turned to look at him in silence.

    "The antidote.."

    The smile on the old man¡¯s face became bigger and bigger, until he said "You¡¯re a fun-.."

    "Or I¡¯ll do all I can to wipe your group of poisonous insects to extinction.." Added Daniel before the old man could finish. His tone was threatening, and his words sounded like a promise.

    The brows of the old man furrowed, then, he left through the portal, which closed after he crossed through it.

    Daniel¡¯s fist were shut tightly. His fingernails close to prating his skin and from drawing blood.. He then turned to look at the visibly sick people, and found himself unable to do anything to help.

    He quietly went to sit on the bench which he had upied earlier, and closed his eyes.

    For the next few hours, Daniel heard the noise of people dropping on the ground, one after the other. The middle aged man which had asked questions before panicking, the woman that lived in the capital, her daughter.. The young couple..

    He simply stood quiet, and looked at his empty mind.. Looking for a window that described a quest that had never appeared. Saving these people was simply impossible, to a point where even the karmic system did not have a way.

    The only person that had survived, was Der, which thanks to his boosted speed of recovery, was able to survive the virus.

    Daniel opened his eyes after ten hours spent quietly. He got up on his feet, and teleported the entire area in quarantine, into an empty space inside one of his pocket dimensions.

    Air, wind, water, buildings, corpses.. Everything was switched, including the two of them.

    Once inside the pocket dimension, Daniel teleported himself and Der into a third pocket dimension, burned their clothes, showered with clean water, healing essence, and every other way he could think of, and then, teleported back outside of the pocket dimensions.

    The area around them, had now be a small desert within the city. No buildings, no air, not water.. No ground. Nothing whatsoever.

    He looked hatefully at the ring which contained the space the part of city under quarantine, and crashed it under his foot, causing that dimension to be lost forever into the void.

    What was worse, was that when the woman had left from the portal, the barrier she had create to quarantine the area, had disappeared.

    Daniel could do nothing but recreate the barrier himself.. And keep everybody in quarantine in order to avoid people from leaving, and spreading the virus.

 Chapter 157 The Capital - A Bone to Pick With

    When Daniel removed the barrier around the now deserted area, arge number of powerful cultivators started to appear on the spot.

    These cultivators arrived from various different parts of the capital, and only now were they able to notice that something had happened in this particr part of the city.

    The area of the city where Daniel had appeared, was one of the less popted and poor areas of the entire capital, and if it wasn¡¯t for the still functioning teleporting tform present in it, people would havepletely abandoned the ce long ago.

    The experiment from the group ¡¯The Poisonous Rose¡¯ had been well thought, and prepared.

    In an area like this, even if people suddenly stopped arriving out of the blue, people would not put too much attention in the matter. It was more likely that they would think that, after being left without maintenance for so long, the formation would have simply stopped working.

    Around the area, a spatial illusion that showed a minimal and yet present poption had been activated. Daniel had noticed it when he was forced to take over the burden of keeping the people stuck inside.

    He had had to hold the spatial barrier and the illusion long enough for the infected people stuck inside the barrier to die, for him and Der to recover, and to purify their clothes and bodies from the virus.

    Another reason why he did that, aside from wanting to keep the infected in, was to avoid people in the outside from noticing what had happened too soon.

    If a nosy cultivator arrived while the people were still on the verge of dying, they could have broken through the barrier with the intention of helping, and let the virus spread through the entire city instead.

    He really had no other choice.. He had to cut the finger in order to save the hand.

    "What the hell happened here?!" Shouted one of the cultivators that had arrived first. She was a middle aged woman dressed in a loose brown and green robe, and appeared to hold a higher position than others, as the others kept quiet while she talked.

    It didn¡¯t take long for the cultivators to notice Daniel and Der.

    They approached them, and while looking at Der, the middle aged woman asked in a domineering tone "You. Start talking."

    Der turned to look at Daniel, and then back towards the middle aged woman. He then said "It¡¯s better if you ask him. He knows way more than I do."

    The various cultivators turned to look at Daniel, and one of them aid "Start with who the two of you are."

    "We are merchants. We have been teleported about half a day ago from another city, after we¡¯ve received a permission to expand ourpany in the region. When we arrived here, there was a spatial blockade in the area. Later we found out that an experiment on the toxicity of a new sort of highly contagious poison-like substance was being held in it.." Responded Daniel patiently. He could see that this woman had a temper, so he decided to cut to the chase.

    The brows of the woman narrowed as she heard Daniel¡¯s words. She then asked "Do you have any proof? And why is there your mark in the spatial essence within this area?"

    "I have no physical proof, as I had to destroy everything which could have been infected for safety reasons.. I had some means that I¡¯ve used to threaten the culprits into leaving.. Unfortunately, they weren¡¯t kind enough to leave a cure behind. I¡¯ve recreated the blockade the very moment they released it.. Aside from me and him, nobody survived." Said Daniel with a in tone which became slightly broken as he reached the end of the phrase.

    "That¡¯s quite the story.. Do you have anything that can convince me that you two aren¡¯t the culprits yourself?" Said the woman coldly. She didn¡¯t seem to be wanting to be cold, but that that was her usual demeanor.

    "We only have a few names.." Responded Daniel right away.

    "I am listening.."

    "The Poisonous Rose, and the Transparent Thorn." Said Daniel as clearly as possible.

    After hearing these two names, the face of the middle aged woman twisted in a hateful expression that sent shivers down Daniel¡¯s back. "Describe him to me."

    "Late sixties, bald with white hair on the sides and the back, around a hundred and seventy-five centimeters in height with a slightly bent back, short temper, he believes that researching poison is like researching any other kind of alchemicalpost.."

    The more Daniel spoke, the more visible the anger of the woman became.

    Unable to hold back anymore, she burst out saying "Why did he leave you alive? Why did he tell you his name, and the group he is part of?"

    "I assume his ego is at fault. He was so sure that his virus would have killed us, that he had no problems in telling us about it." Responded Daniel while shrugging his shoulders. "He also mentioned that his creation kills in twelve hours, which meant that ording to him, I didn¡¯t have more than an hour or so left to live."

    Daniel¡¯s words made sense. It seemed like he had prepared himself for this kind of interrogation, and in fact, he had. He had distracted himself from the sound of the people dropping dead on the ground, and desperate crying, by preparing the exnation he would be required to give soon.

    "Is that why the area is in this state?" Asked the woman with a confused tone.

    Daniel nodded slightly, and said "Yes, the virus was airborne, and if I didn¡¯t purge the area entirely, it would have definitely spread around, once one of you would have tried to push through my spatial blockade.. Everything that might be carrying the virus, is now floating in the void inside of a pocket dimension with no connection to this world."

    "This is the first lie you¡¯ve told me so far.." Said the woman while looking sternly at Daniel.

    She had seen right through him. The truth, was that Daniel had kept a sample of each type of methods of infection. He had kept a deceased person¡¯s blood, saliva, corpse, clothes, and a few cubic meters of infected air.

    The reason why he had kept these items, was that he wanted to have Lucious examine them, and possibly find a way to kill this virus.

    Lucious had spent most of his life studying infectious substances from many angles in order to find a cure for his people¡¯s corruption, so, even if he had failed, not many in the universe would have his experience in that field.

    "You¡¯ve kept samples of the poison?" Asked the old woman.

    Daniel looked at the woman with an extremely conflicted face, and said "You can¡¯t find a cure to something you don¡¯t have."

    "You will have to give me what you have." Said the woman after hearing Daniel¡¯s confirmation.

    "With all due respect, but you haven¡¯t even presented yourself yet. I don¡¯t know who you are, I don¡¯t know who you represent, and most of all, you don¡¯t seem to be knowledgeable about poisons and viruses.. While mypany has a specific department whose main purpose is studying that very subject." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Despite the shocked faces of the various cultivators in the area, Daniel couldn¡¯t be more right.

    This woman knew nothing about engineered poisons and viruses, the entire reason why she wanted the samples, was to satisfy her need to feel in control of the situation, but in the end, she wouldter be forced to go looking around for an expert that could conduct the examination for her.

    That, was if she didn¡¯t mishandled the samples, and caused the poption of the world to go extinct.

    The woman felt slightly offended by Daniel¡¯s crude remarks, but despite her wanting to always be in control, she wasn¡¯t a fool either. She knew that there was a reason why Daniel and the member of his group had survived, so, just for this once, she decide to back off.

    "Alright,e with me then, we have people to report the matter to, and you need to be present for that."

    -----

    A few minutester, Daniel was standing outside of arge double door, within a building that looked like the core of the capital¡¯s government.

    The people all around were extremely respectful of the ce they were in, and also very busy. They would hardly stop to greet each other, and keep going with their tasks right after.

    If Daniel had seen these people in any other setting, he would have thought that they were workaholics, but since he had the chance to see how immense and organized the capital was, he sort of understood why these people were so busy.

    He ruled over a city of hundreds of thousands, and had the help of thousands of people.. While these people ruled over a of trillions, and each major sector ultimately fell in the hands of a single person.

    Daniel could hear the sound of chattering from the other side of the door for a few minutes, then, steps approaching the entrance of the room. Finally, the door opened revealing a well dressed woman, which politely said to him "Please,e inside."

    Once inside, Daniel found himself in arge well decorated office. At the other end, was arge wooden desk, and sitting behind it, was an old man, while sitting in front of him, was the middle aged woman that had brought Daniel here.

    The well dressed woman apanied Daniel to his seat, and after pointing at the chair next to the middle aged woman, she said "Please."

    Daniel sat in the chair, and after making himselffortable, he heard the croaky voice of the old maning from the other side of the desk.

    "You must be the president of the Golden Karmapany, Daniel." Said the old man with an amiable tone.

    "I am."

    "Good, I am the appointed Governor of this. You can call me Governor Lien, or Mr. Lien if you prefer." The old man didn¡¯t seem to be a fighter, instead, his behaviour seemed to be closer to that of a merchant.

    This wasn¡¯t the first government that Daniel had seen, but it was the first time that he had seen one where its head was not actually a powerful warrior, but something he had never seen before instead.. A politician.

    "A pleasure to meet you, Governor Lien." Responded Daniel while nodding slightly.

    "Good, now that the presentations have been taken care of, why don¡¯t you tell me what happened earlier.."

    Once again, Daniel recounted the entire story, including the reasons for his actions. When he was done, the old man looked at him with surprise.

    He had never met such a resolute, fearless and resourceful young man, and that had boosted his opinion of Daniel.

    "You¡¯ve said that you can find a cure for this.. How you called it.. Virus.. The Poisonous Rose is an infamous sect, and providing an antidote for one of their new poisons.. Erm.. virus, would prove a great feat for our.. I assume you have some sort ofpensation in mind to ask for." Said the old man while looking intently at Daniel.

    Daniel looked back at the old man just as intently, and responded "I have a bone to pick with them.. You can keep yourpensation, just give us a fair amount of contribution points which we can use to expand as apany."

    A curious expression appeared on Mr. Lien¡¯s face, as he said "A bone to pick with them?.."

    Daniel smiled faintly, and said in response "They tested a deadly weapon on me, brought me to the point of death in order to find a cure, killed a very high amount of innocents, and if that wasn¡¯t enough.. They forced me to let those very people die to prevent their virus from spreading.. ¡¯A bone to pick with¡¯ is already an understatement."

 Chapter 158 The Superior Alchemy

    Back within the pocket dimension, Daniel was standing inside Lucious¡¯boratory.

    "You were right. It¡¯s not poison.. Poison corrodes, or spreads through the bloodstream in order to reach your organs.. But this thing.. It multiplies.. I wonder what kind of instruments they have developed in order to work on such a small level.." Said Lucious with amazement.

    "Hypothetically.. What would you need to stop this virus from spreading?" Asked Daniel while standing next to Lucious.

    Lucious turned to look back at him, and said "This virus brings people¡¯s cells to an early dposition.. I guess you could consider it as an army of minuscule death spheres that multiply in a person¡¯s body, so, theoretically.. Another virus designed to counter this effect would work, but we don¡¯t have the instruments to operate on that level.."

    "So we either prevent them from using this virus altogether.. Or.." Muttered Daniel to himself.

    "Or what?" Asked Lucious with confusion.

    Daniel turned to look back at him, and said "Or I join their organization, make my way up in their ranks, and destroy them from the inside."

    Lucious¡¯ brows furrowed in stupor, as he asked "Are you crazy? What do you even know about poison?"

    "I learn quickly." Daniel responded calmly.

    Even without Lucious analysis, Daniel had already more or less guessed the effect of the virus. He knew the theory behind it, and had seen its effects first hand. What he hoped Lucious to find, was a weak spot which he could exploit in order to destroy it.

    While Lucious conducted his research, Daniel had already thought of various different ways he could pursue in order to take revenge on The Poisonous Rose. In the end, joining them was one of the best ideas he could think of.

    The reason why joining them was one of his favourite ideas, was because he would have ess to instruments to which the majority had no ess to.

    The thing that motivated the universe to function during the current era, was power. A person with enough power to destroy a would not need to create a devious weapon like a virus, or use poison.. that¡¯s why the cultivation culture had expanded in what lied beyond the known limits of power, instead of studying in detail what they already possessed.

    The increase in power had made the study of medicine basically irrelevant, and what couldn¡¯t be prevented with sheer power, could be cured through the use of alchemy. Those who couldn¡¯t make it, were seen as the unlucky part of what was wrongfully considered a perfect system.

    Whenever someone got sick or injured, they would always seek the help of a stronger warrior, or the help of an alchemist, but that wasn¡¯t the same for the masters of poison. The way they advanced in their fields, was through discovery, invention, and knowledge.

    That was why groups just like The Poisonous Rose were so dangerous. On the outside, they would appear like simple groups of alchemists, while in secret, they conducted experiments in order to advance in their technological knowledge.. No matter how many barriers the cultivation society erected around them, they would always find ways to avoid them thanks to intelligence, and their drive for knowledge.

    In a society where talent and power were the driving factors, intelligence and strong will were ignored. But of course, brilliant people weren¡¯t willing to roll on the ground and give up their lives just because theycked talent in cultivation. Instead, they would use their intelligence and strong will to carve a ce for themselves in this society.

    Many of these kinds of people had appeared in the past, and often, they would manage to make discoveries which were outside of the parameters of power, and the study of mana. At that point, experiments would be conducted, and people would start dying.

    This, was one of those asions.

    An asion in which themon knowledge of cultivation wasn¡¯t advanced enough to counter the specific knowledge of poison making.

    Other than making them pay for what they had done, Daniel also wanted to learn about their more advanced instruments.

    He was the leader of apany, and he didn¡¯t want hispany to be limited to only a field. If he could enter in possession of The Poisonous Rose¡¯s technology, and use it to make hispany thrive, he would do that.

    Daniel had discussed about this with Governor Lien, which had told him that it wasn¡¯t unlikely that he would be able to join The Poisonous Rose.

    The Poisonous Rose could be considered apany that operated on a gctic level, and therefore, much, much bigger than anything Daniel had ever seen. They were known as a collective of groups focused on the study of alchemy, and despite being often used of causing numerous ounts of mass deaths in their history, the various governments had never managed to find enough proof to make them pay.

    Some of the groups which worked under The Poisonous Rose, were legitimate groups of alchemists, and a few of them, belonged to the world Daniel was in right now.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t simply appear out of nowhere with a great alchemical achievement, and be invited into the secret side of The Poisonous rose. What he needed, was to join one of the groups of which The Poisonous Rose wasposed, and make a name for himself, along with showing an interest for every type of knowledge-based activity.

    He already suspected that the majority of alchemy-based groups would have a direct connection to The Poisonous Rose, and that the way they used to increase their numbers, was by handpicking the groups which shared their ideas, or were opened to them.

    Luckily for Daniel, the government possessed a registry in which the names and locations of the groups that belonged to The Poisonous Rose were carefully recorded.

    He was not afraid that he might be recognized, as the old man that called himself the ¡¯Transparent Thorn¡¯ probably thought he was dead, and had likely already forgotten about him. Plus, in apany of such gargantuan size, it was very unlikely that he would end up meeting him again.

    After a bit of searching, Daniel found the perfect group.

    The group which he had picked was called ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯, and it was a school that only epted students from the richest families, heirs ofpanies, and the sons of the most prominent figures.

    Despite not being considered as important as cultivation, alchemy still yed a big role in the society, so, those who practiced it on a high level were extremely respected. Unfortunately, it was also a practice that required a lot of time, and most experts would not be able to spend too much time to pass down their knowledge.

    That¡¯s what ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯ had been founded for.

    -----

    Now that thepany which Daniel had created possessed a steady production of essence spheres, there was no need for him to personally create them, so, he decided to leave Roley in control of that side of their business.

    The reason why Daniel had chosen to leave Roley in control of the production and sale of the essence spheres, and not Edmund, was because he was the person with the highest generalprehension of essences right after him. His first choice would have been Edmund only if hadn¡¯t been only interested in spatial essence.

    The rest of his group members, on the other hand, were busy with other parts of thepany.

    Heimart, Edmund, Emelnie, and Alis upied the highest positions within the higher spheres of thepany, while Ligart and Imblen, took care of the marketces, and auctions.

    The job which Daniel had assigned to Jerigh, was to take care of, and to coordinate the security of the entire building space, as well as of everything else outside of the pocket dimensions.

    The control over the pocket dimension had gone to Leffe and Buriath, which were good willed entities, already had experience in dealing withrge amounts of people, and if that wasn¡¯t enough, they were the part of Daniel¡¯s group.

    After he hadmunicated his intentions to the rest of the group, only one person offered to join him in his mission. That person was Alesia.

    Daniel and Alesia had be increasingly close since they had founded thepany, and they now spent most of their free time together.

    The two of them were currently standing, along with many other young people of their age, inside the main hall of a refined looking building, which despite being the entrance of a school of alchemy, appeared more like the lobby of a luxurious hotel.

    Each and every one of the young men and women around Daniel and Alesia wore high quality clothes, and had an arrogant demeanor that could only be kept in check by that of their peers.

    From listening to their conversations, Daniel could understand what types of people these young individuals were. Spoiled,petitive, and childishly malevolent.

    Daniel had expected such an urrence, after all, this was a school for the rich.

    The ¡¯superior¡¯ in ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯ wasn¡¯t meant to indicate a superior type of alchemy passed down to themon, but normal alchemy passed down to superior individuals.

    These ¡¯superior¡¯ individuals were divided into different categories, and while all of them appeared arrogant to a certain extent, each category of people appeared to be mindful of other more arrogant ones.

    Daniel had heard more than one people refer to this division as ¡¯the food chain¡¯.

    At the top of the food chain, were three different groups.

    These groups were respectivelyposed of heirs of powerful families, descendents of famous alchemists, and finally, heirs of bigpanies.

    The groups in which these people were divided into were not created by them, but by the school itself, which after their registration, had assigned a badge to each individual. These badges wereposed of precious metals, and indicated the social standing of each student. Starting from the lowest level, were copper, silver, gold, and tinum.

    Daniel and Alesia had received a copper badge each, as they had presented themselves as the heirs of apany which operated on a regional scale.

    Around them, were the least, yet still arrogant ones amongst the people within the hall.

    "I don¡¯t like this ce.." Whispered Alesia from Daniel¡¯s side.

    Without looking back at her, Daniel smiled, and said "Why not?.. look at all of these possible candidates for marriage.. you¡¯re already over twe-" *Pthh* "Ngh!.. Easy! I was joking.." Said Daniel while rubbing the ribs which Alesia had just hit.

    The closer the two of them became, the more Daniel feltfortable with joking around with her. It had now gotten to a point, where his rtionship with Alesia reminded him of how he and his sister joked with one another.

    Of course, these thoughts were usually interrupted by a sudden sense of nostalgia, but not this time. This time, he looked at her satisfied grin, and couldn¡¯t help but smile.

    Daniel was not the only one whose eyes were drawn to Alesia¡¯s beautiful smile. Many others had turned to look at her, and found themselves mesmerized by her appearance.

    On the other hand, most of the women in the hall looked at her with expressions that showed derision, arrogance, envy, and contempt.

    "Excuse me miss.." Said a voice that came from behind the two of them.

    The two turned around, and standing behind them, they saw three young men which had a silver badge appointed to their chests.

    "Is this guy bothering you?" Asked the tallest amongst them while pointing at Daniel.

    He had noticed Alesia¡¯s slight punch, and had already understood that the two of them knew each other very well, yet, he still decided to use that scene as an excuse to approach Alesia.

    "Matter of fact, he is bothering me.." Responded Alesia while furrowing her brows, and curving her reddish lips into a displeased expression.

    The young man did not expect Alesia¡¯s words. He thought that he could simply apologize after she would tell him that she and Daniel were friends, and then start a conversation with her. But now that she had told him that he was bothering her, he had to improvise.

    He looked at Daniel, and asked "Is there a problem here?.."

    Daniel looked at Alesia¡¯s satisfied smile once again, and after shaking his head by himself, he said "I¡¯ve told her that she should start looking for a man, or she¡¯ll end up at fifty preying on young men in the streets in a few years." He then turned to look at her, and said "Look at this guy, give me a reason why he wouldn¡¯t be suitable."

    Alesia¡¯s big and clear eyes opened wide in surprise as she turned to look at Daniel. She thought that he would embarrassingly exin himself to the young man, but instead, he went with her joke.. and doubled the stakes.

 Chapter 159 We Strive for Excellence

    The young man couldn¡¯t predict that Daniel and Alesia would be this close, but Daniel¡¯s words gave him a response to one of the most pressing questions in his head. Whether the two were together or not.

    Excited about the newly acquired information, the young man said "That¡¯s an awful thing to say to such a beautiful youngdy. But it doesn¡¯t surprise me that someone of your standing wouldck manners."

    The joke had gone far enough for Alesia¡¯s taste, and she wanted to stop the young man in his track, before he would start to think that his behaviour deserved her recognition. Unfortunately, before she could even speak, she heard another voiceing from behind them.

    "I would argue that it is a rude thing to say that to any woman.. Are you suggesting that it would be alright if it was said to a less charmingdy?" Said a fourth young man which slowly approached from the side.

    On his chest, this young man showed a golden badge.

    The moment this young man approached, the tall silver-badged young man backed away. Neither Daniel or Alesia knew about it, but the three young men were brothers, and their father, worked for the mother of this gold-badged young man.

    The four of them had grown up meeting each other very often.

    Theirpany dealt in the production, engineering, and sale of alchemical instruments, and alchemy was the main field. That¡¯s why they had been sent to study here.

    Alesia wanted to clear this problem, and exin that she and Daniel were joking, or she might end up being bothered by these people in the future.

    She looked at the gold-badged young man approach her, and tried to say something, but once again, she was interrupted by a distant voice that resounded through the entire hall.

    "You are the elite of this city, and you came here to take the hard path to sess. Gaining a standing through our world thanks to our intelligence, and drive to knowledge, is a worthy and honorable cause.. It¡¯s the superior cause, and it is, worthy of us." This speech came from a distinct looking thirty years old man that had appeared in the middle of the hall from out of nowhere.

    Even from the distance, this man emanated a powerful smell of chemicals. Yet, he wore distinct clothes, and it was clear that it belonged to a well-off family. On his chest, was a tinum badge, and a golden crest embed in his ck shirt.

    As he talked, nobody dared to make a sound, or to not pay attention.

    "The lot of you have already received a certain type of badge when you¡¯ve registered into the school. This badge will affect the quality of your teachings, and stay within the academy. It will also mark your person forever, and will only change in case your social standing will increase." Said the man with a clear tone.

    He then pointed at the crest on his chest, and said "This crest indicates your contribution to the academy, and its rank can be increased through thepletion of assignment, or achievements in your studies. These two symbols are worth the same, and we strive to aim for the best in each of them. We strive for excellence."

    The meaning behind the man¡¯s words were clear. ¡¯You are initially only worth as much as your background is, and you can only prove your true potential through hard work andmitment.¡¯

    On this, cultivation and knowledge were on the same side. No matter how talented one was in cultivation, or how intelligent they were.. They would ount to nothing in the end, unless theymitted a hundred percent to the path they were destined to walk.

    "You are allowed tomerce, make transactions, and even bet if your belongings if you want.. But one thing is not allowed.. Physical violence will cause an immediate expulsion from the academy, and murder will cause your backing powers to be the target of our entire group. You have been warned."

    Daniel had already guessed that there would be this sort of rule in this academy. After all, these young men and women hade here to learn a job which would allow them to pick up on what their parents would leave to them. That also meant that they didn¡¯t spend as much time cultivating as Daniel would.

    Despite that, they had cultivated with extremely high resources since a young age, and barely any of them had a lower cultivation than Alesia. Unfortunately, what was truly scary about these young men and women, was the financial power they possessed.

    Each of those with a silver badge or higher, had a reach much higher than Daniel¡¯spany itself, as they were heirs ofpanies and groups that operated on continental,ary, or sr system¡¯s level.

    -----

    21:04

    Once the introduction was over, the various students were sent to familiarize with the structure, and their dorms.

    The academy possessed various high qualityboratories, and shops from which people could purchase ingredients in order to practice. Alternatively, there was a section of the academy where people could obtain assignments, which afterpletion, would give them contribution points which they would be able to exchange for materials as well.

    There were also various gardens, inside which many different nts and herbs were nted. Their purpose was for students to learn, practice, and observe botany. An essential skill for these young men, which would have to make use of their knowledge if they wanted to avoid being tricked into purchasing worthless objects, or be able to recognize a real deal after seeing it.

    The dormitories were separated into male and female, and the quality and area of the room, depended on the level of badge one possessed.

    Daniel and Alesia had received two copper badges, so they had been assigned to the parts of the building with the lowest level of rooms.

    Despite that, each room was very luxurious, and had every type offort in it. Unfortunately, they had to share it with another student of the same level.

    The difference between different levels of rooms, were that silver level rooms were single rooms, golden level rooms had internalboratories, and tinum level areas had a private teacher that could be questioned at any time during the day for help.

    It was now early in the night, and Daniel was getting ready to go to the mess hall.

    *Knock Knock* He suddenly heard knocking on his door. When he went to open, he saw Alesia with another girl by her side.

    "Hey." Said Alesia casually, before adding "This is Talia, she is my roommate."

    Daniel turned to look at the girl that stood right next to Alesia, and immediately, he noticed that she looked slightly ufortable. It was clear that she wasn¡¯t totally okay with going to the men¡¯s dorm to pick someone up for dinner. Unfortunately for her, Alesia could not be convinced otherwise.

    "I am Daniel." He said while nodding politely.

    At the same time that Daniel presented himself to Talia, Alesia moved her head to look behind Daniel¡¯s back. She seemed to be looking for someone, and he confirmed it by saying "Where is your roommate?"

    "I don¡¯t know. He arrived earlier than me, and never left his room.. I didn¡¯t really have a chance to meet him.." Responded Daniel right away.

    "Okay then, let¡¯s go." Said Alesia while turning towards the end of the corridor and walking away.

    Daniel followed suit.

    Talia was about to move as well, but after taking another peek at Daniel¡¯s room, she said "Isn¡¯t it smoke that¡¯sing from under that door?"

    In response to Talia¡¯s question, Daniel spread his spiritual sense into his dorm, and inside his roommate¡¯s room, unfortunately, his sense wasn¡¯t allowed through the limits ced on the walls.

    The next moment, he teleported right in front of the door.

    *Knock Knock Knock* "Hey, everything alright there?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    From underneath the door, a greenish smoke kept oozing out slowly. It smelled like burnt food, and various distinct herbs of which Daniel could not recognize the name.

    In a matter of seconds, Daniel started to hear a few heavy steps, which stopped right in front of the door. The door opened slowly, and behind it, an extremely fat and tall man appeared.

    This young man seemed to weight at least two hundred kilograms, and he reached a height of almost two meters. People could easily joke about him being asrge as a wardrobe. He had a nice head of brown short hair, and an amiable face covered in smudges. The only part clean part left on his body, were his limpid green eyes.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t recognize this person as one of the people within the main hall earlier that day. Yet, that was not what shocked him the most.

    Above his head, Daniel saw a 2,744,369 float in a dark green color. That, was the highest amount of positive karma points he had ever seen on any person since he had received the system.

    "Why were you cooking inside your room?" Asked Daniel with surprise.

    The fat young man didn¡¯t respond, and instead, asked "Who are you?"

    Behind Daniel, Talia and Alesia approached as well.

    "I¡¯m Daniel, your roommate. And these are my friend Alesia, and Talia, her roommate." Responded Daniel with a polite tone. "We¡¯ve arrived here this morning."

    An expression of realization appeared on the young man¡¯s face, as he cleaned his dirty hands on his dirtier clothes, and while trying to shake Daniel¡¯s hand, he said "Hi, name¡¯s Serf."

    Daniel shook his hand without the slightest hint of hesitation.

    After Daniel, Alesia followed suit, and shook his hand, while Talia, looked at the two of them as if she was looking at a group of crazy people.

    "We were going to eat something in the mess hall.. Want to join us?" Said Alesia with her pleasant and melodious voice.

    "I.." Responded Serf, almost as about to refuse the offer.

    "Come on, we¡¯ll have to know each other if we have to live together. Go clean up, we¡¯ll wait for you here." Said Daniel, preventing him from making an excuse to refuse the offer. He then walked towards the couch within his room, and sat patiently.

    "What¡¯s wrong?" Asked Alesia to Talia, which appeared slightly irritated.

    "Didn¡¯t you see the condition that guy was in? Why are we even waiting for him." She responded in annoyance.

    If it wasn¡¯t that Alesia would have had to share her room with this girl for a fairly long time, he would have already suggested that she left by herself a long time ago. He could see in her the clear arrogance of a proud heiress.. Despite the fact that she was at the lowest level of the food chain here.

    After ten minutes, Serf came out of his room looking like a new man. He wore clean clothes, even though slightly tight. His hair werebed neatly, and his puffy face had gone back to its healthy rosy color.

    "Great, let¡¯s go.. I¡¯m famished." Said Daniel while getting up from the couch, and leading the small group into the mess hall.

    The building was extremelyrge, and the majority of its walls contained formations that didn¡¯t allow immortal essence or spiritual sense to filter through, causing the four of them to lose their way more than once.

    Luckily, Serf offered to lead them into the right way, as he appeared to be already extremely familiar with theyout of the academy.

    Five minutester, the group managed to arrive at the entrance of an extremelyrge hall.

    This hall contained tens ofrge tables divided into four different levels of luxury, and each kind of table was upied by a different rank of student. In the wall at the end of the hall, was arge opened kitchen, on which dozens of cook worked tirelessly to prepare the meals that these young masters ordered.

    Before Daniel and the rest could seat, a loud voice arrived from the area upied by the gold-badged students.

    "Heyrd-ass! Who told you that you coulde here?"

 Chapter 160 Not a Quiet Meal

    "Heyrd-ass! Who told you that you coulde here?" Shouted someone from the section in which the gold-badged students sat. The person that shouted, was a young woman of around twenty years of age.

    "Look at that, freshmen. Somebody came to ransack your food. Hahaha!" Said a twenty-five years old looking man from another table of the gold-badged section.

    After that, a few other people from the gold-badged section started to heavily flout on Serf.

    Alesia and Talia looked around at the people in confusion, and then back at Serf, which just like Daniel, walked in silence. What they found weird, was that both of them didn¡¯t appear to be affected by Serf¡¯s treatment.. especially himself.

    The reason why Daniel wasn¡¯t surprised, was that he had already heard people talking about a veryrge and ridiculed student. They talked about it openly because they didn¡¯t care if they offended him. He had understood who that person was the very moment he had opened the door of his room, unfortunately, he hadn¡¯t heard the reason why he was treated like that.

    The four of them walked all the way to the deep end of the hall, and towards the counter. There, they ordered a few dishes of food, and went to seat at an empty table in the copper-section.

    Talia was visibly ufortable. A lot of people were looking at them, and she couldn¡¯t help but look around nervously.

    Alesia noticed her behaviour, so, she tried to distract her by starting a conversation "So, we are doing this to know each other better.. Why don¡¯t you tell me about you?"

    With a nervous tone, Talia responded by saying "My mother owns a chain of antique stores.." She then rified by adding "We deal in historical relics and such.. How about you?"

    "We are the heirs of a newly foundedpany. We deal in almost everything, but our main businesses from the production of essence spheres of high level." Responded Alesia with a calm and unperturbed tone.

    Despite being humbled by the many recent changes in her life, Alesia was still a proud person. She had been raised to be the leader of her family after her parents would pass away, and luckily, they hadn¡¯t forgotten to teach her some good values that most of the people presentcked.

    Serf was ignoring the voices that came from all around them, and yet, the moment he heard the words ¡¯essence spheres¡¯ his eyes opened slightly in curiosity.

    The change on his face was hard to see, and yet it didn¡¯t escape Daniel¡¯s eyes.

    "You deal in high-level essence spheres!?" Asked Talia in shock. "What essence?"

    Her voice was high enough to make the people in the surroundings to quieten, and look at Alesia and Daniel with deep surprise.

    It is important to understand how valuable being able to produce high level spheres was considered in the majority of the universe. Producing an essence sphere did not require any sort of cost except for the price of the essence treasure itself. Therefore,panies that dealt in producing essence spheres would earn a lot of money.

    In fact, they earned so much, that mostpanies were formed despite only having a bunch of cultivators with a mid level ofprehension.

    Just to make aparison, the variouspanies and families to which the copper-badged students belonged, could bepared topanies that dealt in spheres from low to mid level. Apany that dealt in a single type of high level essence spheres would already be close to being worthy of the golden badge.

    Unfortunately, despite how much that sort of knowledge was worth, their size and reach was even more important. After all, a gem would be worth more if more people could look at it.

    "Water, wind, lightning, earth, wood, metal, space, and a few others at the mid level.." Responded Alesia inly, before stabbing a piece of vegetable with her fork.

    "I meant which type of high level spheres does yourpany produce.." Said Talia with faint embarrassment.

    Alesia turned to look at her, and with a in tone, she responded by saying "I know what you meant.. All of them."

    Each and every student in a reach of twenty meters turned to look at their table in shock.

    "That¡¯s rich!.." Said one of the young man which had insulted Serf the moment they had entered the mess hall. He then got up from his chair, and while walking towards them, he added "But of course, it makes sense. No one with a sane mind would hang around Serf."

    This young man wore a purple robe, on which a golden badge and a copper crest were appointed. His behaviour was just like that of someone which could set the rules in the school, which was sort of true.

    The school only bothered with preventing people from getting physical, but they didn¡¯t bother with other matters at all. They were training sharks after all, not turtles.

    The division in the value of their backing had created a sort of natural hierarchy, in which people that owned a tinum badge were considered kings, and their say in how things went, went down based on the reach of their backing powers.

    "A failure, a couple of liars, and an antique shopkeeper.. That¡¯s funny." He said as he reached their table.

    What he wasn¡¯t aware of, was that what he saw, wasn¡¯t what the others were seeing.

    In the eyes of the spectating students, he had gotten up from his chair, and walked all the way to the bathroom door. Then, he had stopped right in front of it, and had started to insult it, and give his speech.

    The sight was quite hrious.. It looked like the bathroom door was this young man¡¯s greatest enemy. The majority of the gold-badged peopleughed hysterically, while the silver and copper-badged students didn¡¯t dare to, and simply chuckled quietly.

    The only ones that didn¡¯tugh, were the few tinum-badged students, that contrary to the uninterest that they showed until now, they looked at them with faint interest.

    One thing was clear to them. If someone could trick the young man into falling into an illusion for such a long time, then it was very likely that what Alesia had said was the truth, after all, such a level of illusion requiredprehension of numerous essences, and not a marginal one.

    Daniel and the others tried to talk to each other, but the loud buzz ofughter kept reaching their ears, making it extremely difficult for them tomunicate. The more the young man got worked up against the bathroom door, the noisier the hall became.

    After a few minutes, a friend of the young man got up from his chair, and embarrassedly walked close to him. He put a hand on his shoulder, and when the young man turned around, Daniel let go of the illusion.

    The young man found himself in front of the bathroom door, with his peers looking at him andughing hysterically. It didn¡¯t take long for him to understand what had happened, and feel humiliated enough to just rush out of the mess hall.

    The moment the young man left, Daniel looked at Serf, and said "Want to tell us what all that was about?"

    "It¡¯s nothing important.." Responded Serf in a low voice.

    Daniel didn¡¯t want to push him, so he stopped asking, and went back into eating his food.

    Next to the two of them, Alesia chatted with a much less nervous Talia.

    After they finished eating, Daniel and Serf split from the two girls, and went back to their room. Once inside, Serf immediately entered his room, and Daniel didn¡¯t saw him again for the rest of the day.

    -----

    It was early in the morning, and the lectures were about to start. Daniel was already sitting in one of the chairs within the lecture rooms.

    He really had no interest for alchemy, as he could solve most of his problems thanks to his own increased speed of progression. Yet, he needed to prove his worth if he wanted to leave a good impression on The Poisonous Rose and earn an invitation.

    It was the first day after the arrival of the freshmen, so the lecture that Daniel had to listen to, was about the basics of alchemy.

    Alchemy was the discipline thatprised the study and production of drugs, potions, and concoctions, through the use of, often times, singrly treated ingredients.

    The lecturer went on for two full hours in talking about the history, and ancient methods of alchemy, like the production of pills through cauldrons, and the times when medicine was merged into alchemy.

    Despite theck of interest, Daniel still took notes, and memorized the entire lecture after reading it only twice.

    He had decided to learn alchemy just so that he could add this world¡¯s knowledge of it to the library of his castle, and allow the alchemists that would soon work for hispany, to expand their knowledge.

    The lecture had ended with the exnation of how to create a pill with specific characteristics, and the assignment of creating one.

    This pill had no name, and creating it was a generally hard process to learn. It also had absolutely no use, except for the experience gained from making it.

    The reason why freshmen were required to create one after only a day of practice, was to test their talent inprehension, and in alchemy. Very simr to how the talent of a cultivator would be valued based on the speed of cultivation.

    Is someone were to look at the procedure of the creation of this pill, they would think that this was closer to cooking than alchemy. The reason for that, was because the whole procedure was about boiling a certain nt, extracting its syrup, and using it for the creation of a pill.

    It was basically the creation of a pill of sugar, but the difficulty was in keeping the temperature of the me at a stable level, not extracting the bitterness along with the syrup, and the formation of an even round pill.

    The entire process didn¡¯t take more than a few minutes for Daniel to master, which in that span of time, had gained the experience of thousands of attempts.

    He would be required to produce one during the lecture that would take ce in a couple of days.

    After finishing his practice, he went into his room, took out a few mid crystals, and started to cultivate.

    -----

    The next day, within thepany building.

    A few cultivators in purple robes had just entered the pocket dimension which housed Daniel¡¯spany building, from one of the entrances left in the teleporting tforms around the capital.

    In the past couple of days, Edmund, Der, and a few other members of the group had opened a few shops around the city, and had started to promote their items.

    The items they offered were already of high quality, yet, the variety they offered was what really distinguished them from otherpanies.

    Usually cultivators would have to look for a very specific shop in order to find the spheres they needed, and then another for more types.. but Daniel¡¯spany was different. They could make arge variety of spheres, and sold them at a price slightly lower than the rest.

    Whenever a client would purchase something from their shop, they would hand out business cards with the instructions on how to enter thepany building, and join the auctions, or even purchase a space to open a shop themselves.

    Thanks to this, there had been an increasinglyrge flux of people that had started to visit Daniel¡¯spany building.

    This specific group of purple-robed cultivators, were not customers. They calmly walked to the floors were the administrative offices were ced.

    "Good morning, how may I help you?" Asked the receptionist with a polite tone.

    The one that looked like the leader of the purple-robed cultivators took a step forward, and said "We would like to speak with the head of thepany."

 Chapter 161 Undesired Attention

    "We would like to speak with the head of thepany." Said one of the six purple-robed men.

    "Do you have an appointment?" Asked the young receptionist with an extremely polite tone, and a bright smile.

    The face of the group leader twisted in faint surprise. It was notmon for a newly found low-levelpany to be already this prepared.

    "We haven¡¯t scheduled an appointment, but trust me, your employer will want to hear what we have to say." Said the man with confidence.

    The receptionist bowed politely while saying "I apologize sir, but as you might be aware of, ourpany was founded only recently. Would you mind telling me what is the reason for your visit, so that I can report it to the appropriate head department?"

    Daniel and the rest, unlike the heads of some other startingpanies, had made their research before setting up a business, causing them to start at a much higher level than others. If that wasn¡¯t enough, they already possessed enough people with experience in these kinds of things.

    Despite the small size of the city within Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, there were plenty of smallpanies, shops, and various sects, which were run and supported by various professional figures.

    Furthermore, the entire city was ruled by a group of people which kept the city in ce just like a properpany would. They were already arge step ahead any other newly foundedpany.

    "We need to speak to the owner of thepany, the chief of operations, and the chief of finances. We are here to propose an acquisition." Responded the purple-robed man with slight irritation.

    "I am afraid that you won¡¯t be able to find the owner, as he is currently outside of the building.. But if you still want to talk to the rest of the administrative staff, please, take a seat and wait for a minute while I make them aware of your visit." Said the young receptionist with her usual bright smile. She then turned to look at the direction of a long corridor, but before walking away, she added "Sir, may I know which power you represent?"

    "The Means of Mana."

    -----

    *Knock Knock*

    "Come in.." Said Edmund while moving his eyes over different piles of documents.

    After Edmund¡¯s invitation the door of his office opened, and behind it, the young receptionist appeared. "Mr. Saullet, there is another group that hase with a proposition to acquired thepany."

    "Another?.. What the hell.. It¡¯s the seventh group today. Who are they?" Responded Edmund with exasperation.

    "They haven¡¯t given a name. They only said the name of thepany theye from.. ¡¯The Means of Mana¡¯.." Responded the girl politely.

    Edmund sighed deeply, then muttered "Must be another group that deals in essence spheres.." he then looked at the young girl, and said "Have them wait for us in the fourth conference room.. And call Heimart as well, please."

    "Should I also call Mrs. Alis, since she is in charge of the finances?" The girl asked after hearing Edmund¡¯s orders.

    "No, we won¡¯t be epting their request either, so there is no need to bother her."

    -----

    Ten minutester, Edmund and Heimart entered the conference room, and found the group of purple-robed cultivators waiting while drinking tea, and eating the refreshments they were offered.

    The moment the two of them arrived, four of the six cultivators got up from their chairs, and approached Edmund and Heimart. The remaining two didn¡¯t get up, and instead, continued drinking their tea.

    This, was the strategy they had decided to use in order to intimidate the two of them.

    There were a few strategies thatpanies used to acquire apany they wanted to purchase.

    At times, they would send important representatives just to make the higher ups of thepany they were targeting feel special, or they would send gifts.. Some other times, they wouldn¡¯t even send people, andmunicated through letters instead.

    But of all of these tactics, the most aggressive was definitely the one that they had decided to use right now.

    The representatives sent were of the upper level management, but not of the highest level of it. They had been instructed to behave as if their presence was enough of a gift, and to show the superiority of theirpany.

    This method would usually work on startingpanies, that feared the repercussions of argerpany way more than going bankrupt. Unfortunately, this was nomon startingpany, and their behaviour didn¡¯t leave either Edmund or Heimart impressed in the least.

    When Edmund and Heimart noticed the two purple-robed people that stayed seated, they looked at the other four that had stood up, and Heimart said "I see that you are not ready yet. We¡¯ll leave for a few minutes, so that you can prepare for the meeting." They then turned around, and left the conference room directly.

    One of the four purple-robed cultivators turned to look at the two seated men, and said "What the hell just happened?"

    Outside of the conference room, Edmund looked at Heimart, and asked "How long?"

    "They don¡¯t seem like important members of theirpany.. Two hour." Responded Heimart with a indifferent tone.

    The two then split, and went back into their individual offices.

    Two full hourster, the two of them met again outside of the conference room, and entered it.

    The moment they entered, Heimart looked at the fully standing group, and said "Is this a good moment? We can give you a few more minutes if you have something to discuss amongst yourself."

    "That won¡¯t be necessary." Said one of the two man that didn¡¯t get up, with an apologetic tone. He then took a seat at one of the chair around the refined table.

    Alis had been in charge of decorating the entire building, and despite the difference in quality between the precious materials she was used to seeing during her youth, and the new kinds of materials that she had used to furnish the building, her taste was still amazing, and it culminated in the creation of an extremely well furnished base of operations.

    Edmund and Heimart sat at one side of the table, while the two cultivators which were previously sitting when they greeted them, sat at the other side.

    Behind them, the remaining four cultivators stood quietly. They were clearly employees of a lower level, and there was no need for them to participate in the discussion.

    "Wee to the Golden Karma, what can we help you with?" Asked Heimart with a polite smile.

    Unsure to whom they were supposed to be talking to, one of the two sitting cultivators turned to look at Heimart, and said "We have heard about yourpany. Its name started to resound in the city after only a couple of days.. It is truly a great achievement."

    "Thank you very much." Responded Heimart politely.

    "Of course, we have also heard about the great limitations that yourpany is facing.. Obtaining a license to operate in a continental orary level will likely take centuries, I¡¯m afraid." Said the second man that sat at the table, before making a slight pause, and continuing by saying "We hate to see such a promisingpany not being able to operate to its full capacity.. That¡¯s why we have been sent here. We would like to lend a helping hand."

    "That¡¯s very selfless of you. How were you nning to help?" Asked Edmund inly. Like always, he had no expression but one of indifference. Even during this kind of meeting, his mind trailed off to his study of spatial essence.

    "An acquisition." Responded one of the two men while carefully observing the reaction in the faces of Heimart and Edmund.

    Unfortunately, they didn¡¯t saw the reaction they were hoping for.

    Usually, a newly foundpany would be ecstatic about the prospect of being bought out, but the same wasn¡¯t for them. Instead, they showed apleteck of reaction.

    "I am afraid that we are not interested in going under the employment of anotherpany at the moment. Our earnings are more than enough to support the entirety of our working force, and we would not be able to operate in arger scale even if we could." Said Edmund after sighing faintly.

    Slightly surprised by Edmund¡¯s words, one of the two men said "Even if you were to end up being part of ourpany, your workload would not increase. Instead, we would allow you to reach a wider area.. And be able to bargain better prices for your items."

    "It truly is a good offer.. One that hardlyes by twice." Added the second purple-robed man with a reassuring tone.

    ¡¯Is that so.. Then why are we having this annoying conversation for the seventh time today..¡¯ muttered Heimart in his own mind. He then said out loud "We will take it under consideration the very moment we will decide to expand our business."

    After having to face a rejection, the two purple-robed cultivators got up from their chair, and along with the remaining four, they bid farewell, and left the room.

    "What is going on today?.. Why are all of thesepanies trying to buy us out? There is no way it¡¯s simply because we have had a couple of good days in the market." Said Heimart with an exasperated tone.

    "I bet anything you want that Daniel has something to do with it." Responded Edmund.

    -----

    Daniel opened his eyes a day and a halfter. In his mind, a system window was still floating quietly.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 21

    Power level

    -Late fourth stage of immortal cultivation

    Battle Prowess

    -Peak fourth stage of immortal cultivation

    Karma - 10,111,532

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.26

    Reduced Cost Lv.20

    Bonus Points Lv.20

    Second Chance (Upgrades 3/3) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 1/1)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    "It sure has gotten harder to cultivate.." Muttered Daniel to himself.

    Despite his extremely high speed in cultivation, he had only managed to take a step forward in a day and a half, and that, was while using mid crystals, which couldpared to chief level meat.

    After putting the matter to the back of his head, he made the sweaty clothes that covered his body disappear, leaving himpletely naked. A stream of clear water appeared out of nowhere, and started to form a whirlpool around him, cleaning his bodypletely.

    Once done, it disappeared while leaving its ce a clean set of clothes.

    Once dressed, Daniel left his room.

    Sitting at the table within their room, was Serf. He was eating a sumptuous dinner, of which Daniel could not recognize the any of the vegetables or meats used to make it.

    "Hey Serf." Said Daniel while waving his hand lightly. "I was going to visit mypany.. Want toe with?"

    "Hey Dan.. uhm.. Not thanks, I¡¯ll finish dinner and go to bed." Responded Serf after cleaning his mouth with an extremely dirty napkin. Daniel could see that he had been going at it for a while.

    "Are you sure?.. I¡¯m not from this.. There are plenty of restaurants that cook different recipes in mypany building.." Added Daniel with an alluring tone.

    When Serf heard about the possibility of eating foreign dishes, something clicked in his head. He got up from his chair, cleaned his hands and mouth once again, and said "It¡¯s not polite to refuse an invitation. Let¡¯s go."

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile. Then, after a few moments, both him and Serf disappeared from where they were standing.

    When they reappeared, they were in thepany building, right within one of the teleportation tforms..

    The ce was extremely packed, and the people came and left in the thousands.

    Daniel turned to look at Serf, and immediately noticed that he wasn¡¯t impressed by the sight.

    "Let¡¯s go, there is some people I have to talk to." Said Daniel, but before he could pick a direction and start moving..

    *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

 Chapter 162 Vicious Interrogation

    *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

    The sound of a deafening explosion made the entire building tremble. And terrified shouts and screams could be heard, as the most powerful of the cultivators in the area went to take a look at what had happened.

    Daniel grabbed Serf¡¯s arm, and immediately teleported where the explosion had taken ce.

    The ce where they had appeared, was once the marketce where people could pay for a stall, and sell their product for an entire day.

    The ce, was now a mess.

    No stall had remained intact, and hidden underneath the rubble, were dozens of corpses and mutted people.

    Dark smoke covered the entire ce, and it was extremely hard to see.

    "JERIGH!" Shouted Daniel to the top of his lungs, just a moment before a portal opened next to him, and Jerigh came out of it. He was apanied by a few dozen people in ck leather armor. "Block the entrances, lock the space and don¡¯t allow anyone to leave." He said before Jerigh and the others disappeared from where they were standing.

    The moment the group disappeared, Daniel activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and pushed every bit of his immortal essence out of his body.

    He moved it so that it could fill the entire radius of the explosion.

    Once he managed to do that, he turned it into time essence, which moved the cloud of dark smoke back from where it hade from.

    As the smoke started to float back into the area of explosion, a wave mes appeared out of nowhere.

    This wave moved backwards as well, as if forming arge encasing of fire.

    Wherever the me passed, the various splinters and rubbles would move, and retook the shape of the various stalls that the explosion had destroyed.

    One by one the stalls reformed, unfortunately, the same couldn¡¯t be said for the people that wereying on the ground. Time essence could rewind natural mana, but not the consumption of life essence in a human¡¯s body.

    Fortunately, thanks to his quick reaction, the people that were capable in healing essence were able to intervene on a much faster speed, and were able to save a small amount of the people affected by the st.

    Daniel kept his eyes wide opened for the people that were around during the explosion, especially after the st of destruction condensed back into a ck box from which it had originated.

    He immediately locked the ck box into frozen time and space the very moment it reformed, but unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t capable of feeling any mark of essence inside it.

    Daniel was about to ask around if people had noticed anyone suspicious, if they had noticed somebody carrying this ck box around, or perhaps taking it out of their spatial rings and leaving it on the ground in the middle of the marketce.

    Before he could ask, Serf approached Daniel at an amazing speed, and took the ck box out of his hands. He smelled it once, and put it back on the ground.

    After he finished, he looked at his surroundings, and breathed in once again.

    His eyes opened wide as he noticed a middle aged man dressed in ck clothes.

    While turning towards Daniel, he said "Him!"

    The man immediately noticed that Serf had recognized him, and despite the shocked state he was in, he needed to run away, and fast.

    This man was an experienced user of spatial essence, unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t as fast as Daniel, which simply pointed a finger at him, and let out a thick bolt of lightning, so powerful, that it struck the man as strongly as a punch in the guts, and made him dig his entire shape into the stony wall fifty meters behind him.

    *KHA-TCHA*

    The man passed out on the spot.

    Once he knocked the man out, Daniel waved his hand, and made him disappear into one of his ring along with Jerigh, and the rest of the guards. Then, he joined the effort in healing the survivors.

    An hours passed before the situation calmed down.

    In total, there were sixty-eight deaths, and more than two hundred heavily injured people that had been treated by Daniel personally, or from healing pills that he purchased on the spot from the various merchants present. It was clear that the culprit wanted to make as much damage as possible.

    This was a big hit for theirpany, but it could have gone a lot worse if Daniel hadn¡¯t appeared at the right moment.

    Once the situation calmed down, Daniel left Serf behind, and teleported into another of his pocket dimension.

    The ce where he appeared, was a dark cell made of cold metal walls. No window, no natural light, no ce to sleep, no doors.

    Melted into these walls, were thick sets of chains whose ends wrapped around the body of the man Daniel had captured.

    His wrists, his thighs, his neck, and his ankles. He waspletely chained.

    These chains weren¡¯t normal of course. Daniel had bought them specifically for the purpose of imprisoning people, and had the exact same effect which the chains he had been put on during his stay in prison.

    The majority of the immortal essence was absorbed by these thick chains and left the man weakened, and unable to break away to attempt an escape.

    An hour had passed since Daniel had locked this man away, and in the meantime, he had already woken up. Jerigh and the rest of the ck-armored guards were guarding him attentively.

    When Daniel appeared, he was facing him directly.

    He looked at him for a few seconds, and then said only one words. "Who."

    "Kid, you don¡¯t have an idea of how many times I¡¯ve been imprisoned. There is nothing you can say to convince me to talk, so why don¡¯t you just let me go? You were even capable enough to minimize the damages.. No harm no foul." Said the man as a dirty grin appeared on his face.

    The expression on Daniel¡¯s face didn¡¯t change in the slightest. Instead, he took a knee in front of the man, and while looking at him, he said "I don¡¯t actually want to know who ordered you to do this. What I want now, is to tell you what I will do.."

    Suddenly, four metallic thorns appeared on Daniel¡¯s hands.

    The man could feel that the metal of which these thorns had been made out of, was the same that was keeping him in a weakened state. The only difference, was that these thorns were small, and their edges had small hooks that made them easy to pierce into the flesh, but at the same time, a pure torture to extract.

    He then took a life and time sphere out of his spatial ring, and locked them into the walls.

    "I¡¯m going to stick four of these thorns into the spaces in between your ribs, so that whenever you breathe in, they will pierce your lungs, and rip a bit of flesh out of it. But don¡¯t worry, these two spheres will repair the damage right away."

    He then waved his hand, and made hundreds of needle like spikes appear out of the floor. These spikes were as thin as needles at the top, and their thickness increased the closer they got to the base.

    The moment these spikes appeared, they pierced the body of the middle aged man, causing dozens of holes to open and stretch.

    *AAAAAARH* *AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARH*

    "As you can see, there is not enough spikes for you to distribute your weight on them.. Just enough for them to pierce all the way inside your body."

    The man couldn¡¯t help but lift his knees and pull his legs away from the ground, causing his injuries to heal just for a moment, before falling back onto the spikes, which prated all the way into his flesh once again.

    *AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!* *AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!*

    With a mild tone, Daniel said "Quiet.. I haven¡¯t even stuck the thorns into your ribs yet.."

    The screams and shouts became so loud, that even the guards couldn¡¯t help but shake in terror from the treatment they were looking the man receive.

    Additionally to the spikes, and the thorns stuck deeply in between the man¡¯s flesh, Daniel also added a bright light essence sphere, and a loud sound sphere, which prevented him from falling asleep.

    Finally, he set a lightning sphere right underneath him which would go off and shock him awake once every hour, just to make sure that he would not lose consciousness.

    The legs of the guards were trembling visibly, and one of them almost pissed himself the moment he heard Daniel¡¯s voice suddenly reach his ears.

    With a shaky voice, this guard said "I-I¡¯m s-sorry.. S-S-Sir?.."

    "I said let¡¯s go, we¡¯lle backter, after our guest gets to enjoy our hospitality for a few minutes."

    -----

    Once outside, Daniel, Jerigh, the rest of the guards and Serf appeared in front of Edmund, Emelnie and Heimart, which were now organizing for the families of the deceased toe retrieve the corpses of their loved ones, and talking to the government officers about what had happened.

    "Are you Dan Hiel? The head of thepany?" Asked the inspector.

    "I am. Don¡¯t worry, we have already caught the culprit, and he¡¯ll talk soon." Responded Daniel calmly.

    Behind him, Serf looked at Daniel with a surprised face. He knew very well that, just by being the head of such apany, he could have received for a gold-badge, and yet, he had kept that detail hidden from the academy.

    Despite the slight surprise caused by learning the truth, his face quickly went back into showing his usual peaceful expression.

    The inspect looked at Daniel¡¯s calm demeanor with slight suspicion, and said "You seem awfully calm.."

    "We have everything under control.." Responded Daniel inly.

    "Do you have any suspicions about who might have ordered this?" Added the inspector.

    Daniel shook his head, but before he could say no, from behind him, Serf said "They are a newpany with high level product.. They will have arge amount of sess in the future, it¡¯s probable that anotherpany hit them to intimidate them, or decrease people¡¯s faith in their capability of protecting their guests.. If I¡¯m not mistaken, they have probably received a lot of proposition by otherpanies in the past couple of days, and they must have rejected them all.."

    "Who is this?" Asked the inspector with curiosity, while looking at the towering figure of Serf.

    "He is a friend.." Responded Daniel.

    Before he could continue, Heimart added "And he is right. In the past two days, we have received the visits of thirty-twopany representatives. All of them eager to buy us out."

    The inspector became quiet for a few minutes, then looked at Daniel, and said "I¡¯ll leave you a day with the perpetrator.." He then disappeared out of nowhere.

    From how easily he had disappeared, Daniel could guess that his power and mastery of the essences couldn¡¯t have been marginal.

    After the inspector disappeared, Daniel presented Serf to the rest, and then, they went into one of the conference rooms to talk about what had happened in thest couple of days.

    In the following hour, Edmund and Heimart gave to Daniel all of the informations about the groups that had tried to buy them, and thanks to Serf, he was able to match eachpany to the few students within the academy.

    Apparently, he had attracted other people¡¯s attention during his first day, and after they reported the details to their backing powers, these powers sent their representatives to conduct the negotiation.

    At the end of this hour, Daniel teleported back into the pocket dimension where the bomber was being kept.

    *AAAAAARRGH* *AAAAAAAAAAAARRH AAAAAAAAAAAAARHH!*

    The screams were atrocious, and just as Daniel was about to lose his patience, he waved his hand, and made the various thorns disappear from within the man¡¯s body, and the spike merge back into the floor.

    Daniel slowly took a knee in front of the terrified man, and noticed that if he hade any timeter, the man would have probably gone crazy.

    "Who."

 Chapter 163 Just a Pill of Sugar

    "You are a damn psychopath!" *cough cough* Cried the ck robed man while in deep shock.

    Daniel rose back up on his feet, while simply saying "I see, another round then.."

    "WAIT! PLEASE!"

    But Daniel did not stop. Instead, he made one of the thorns float in the air, and fly straight into the man¡¯s freshly healed side.

    The man could feel the flesh of his chest being torn apart once again, and the spiked thorn make its way in between his ribs.

    *AAAAAARGH* "PLEASE STOP!"

    A second thorn flew into the man¡¯s body, and cut right into the opposite side of the man¡¯s chest.

    The pain was unbearable, and the man was about to lose consciousness, unfortunately, the moment Daniel heard the screams stop, he let out a small lightning bolt that shook the man awake.

    "ENOUGH PLEASE!!" Shouted the man in desperation.

    This time, Daniel stopped. He once again took a knee in front of the man, and said "You¡¯ve killed a fair amount of people in my house.. And somebody ordered you to.. If you tell me the truth, I¡¯ll stop.. Lie to me once, and I won¡¯te back for half a day."

    The man was utterly terrified. He had been interrogated more than once before, and resisting to torture was something that he had been trained into. Unfortunately, he had only met torturers which would have some regard for his life, or that actually seemed interested in hearing him out.

    With Daniel, it was a different story. It looked like Daniel would simply kill him on a whim..

    That was Daniel¡¯s tactic. He didn¡¯t want the man to think that his information was too important for him to not be killed for it, and in fact, it wasn¡¯t.

    There was a sort of logic in the practice of torture with the purpose of extracting informations.

    One could try the nice approach, which consisted in trying to convince the person that had been captured that his employers did not care about him, that they would be able to protect him and his family, and that coborating would be the only chance of having a happy ending that he would ever have.

    Another tactic was to threaten the prisoner¡¯s family, but that only worked if the person¡¯s identity was known to his captors, or if he even had someone to be threatened with..

    The third method, was to go straight to the physical violence, but that would have a risk of the prisoner to shut himself in, and give away fabricated informations just so that the pain would stop.

    All of these approaches had one thing inmon.. The torturer would not want the prisoner to die. Of course, these tactics might have worked on a sane person, but Daniel had decided to approach the interrogation differently. He could tell the difference between a lie and the truth if he put it in a way where saying the truth meant gaining karma, and lying meant losing it.

    That was the reason why he had said what he had just said. If the man used somebody innocent, he would lose karma, while if he used the culprit, he would gain it, or his karma could not change.

    That was one of the ways Daniel had found to manipte karma into working for him.

    "Okay.. okay.. Look, the guy I got this job from is a broker for killers.. He owns a shop of alchemical ingredients and instruments in the northern marketce.." Said the ck-robed man through heavy breaths.

    Daniel immediately noticed the dark red number that floated above the man¡¯s name decrease slightly. He was telling the truth.

    "Who gave this to you?" Asked Daniel after making the small ck box appear in front of the ck-robed man.

    "I¡¯ve made it myself.. It¡¯s not that hard.. mmable minerals separated from highly mmable gases in liquid form, and encased in a metallic box. That¡¯s why I¡¯ve been given this job.. The objective I was given was to make as much damage as possible."

    Daniel became pensive for a few moments, then, he said "How do I approach this broker? What kind of power does he have close to him?"

    "He is a middle man.. He has a couple of low level goons and nothing else. Tell him that you want tomission a hit job.." Responded the back-robed man.

    "It wasn¡¯t that hard now, was it?" Asked Daniel with a faint smile on his face.

    The man suddenly felt ufortable. He looked at Daniel¡¯s smile, and said "What now?.. I know nothing else.."

    "I know.." Responded Daniel, before lifting the two thorns in the air, and using his control over them to pierce right into the man¡¯s brain, killing him on the spot.

    He then left the pocket dimension.

    -----

    It was now time for Daniel to attend the lecture in the academy.

    Despite the problems with hispany, he couldn¡¯t afford to miss any of the lectures. He still needed to make a good impression on his instructors, after all, the school belonged to a group that was part of The Poisonous Rose.

    He also didn¡¯t know if the news of the attack to hispany had spread within the school, and if people from The Poisonous Rose were aware of it, he would want them to see that he was capable of properly dealing with his problems.

    So, as if nothing happened, Daniel showed up to the lecture, and took a seat in between Alesia, and Serf.

    Daniel could see the eyes of half of the ss directed at him. The voice had clearly spread, and many were surprised of seeing him there.

    In a couple of minutes, a tall and partially bald middle aged man entered the ssroom. Daniel immediately recognized him as the person which had conducted the lecture a couple of days earlier.

    "I seriously hope the lot of you put your mind into practice. Remember, even though the assignment was to practice making sugar pills, those are methods you will have to use during the production of most alchemical products. They are the very basics procedures.." Said the man with a firm and loud voice.

    He then turned to look at the first person in the front row, and added "You,e.. Show us what you¡¯ve learned."

    The person that had been called, was a young woman to which a gold badge had been assigned during the registration.

    The instructor made the ingredients appear in front of her, and then, let her demonstrate her progress.

    It took the girl a full hour in order to produce a single pill of sugar. She had boiled the nt for way to long, causing the majority of the sweet liquid to merge with the boiling water, and therefore causing the extraction of the syrup to take way longer than needed.

    After witnessing the girl¡¯s attempt, the instructor said with irritation "I wouldn¡¯t have called you, had I known that you would have taken so long.."

    The girl went back to her seat while wearing an indifferent expression. She already knew the level of her results, as she hadn¡¯t practices at all during the past couple of days.

    Instead of guessing once again, the instructor looked at the students, and said "Who thinks they can make it in less than twenty minutes?"

    The majority of the people raised their hands in response.

    The instructor thought for a moment, and then, he pointed at one of the silver-badged students.

    This students quickly got up from his seat, and approached the instructor¡¯s desk.

    His attempt was much better than the one of the girl. He had boiled the nt the right way, and extracted the syrup without a problem, but the pill had taken almost fifteen minutes alone to form, and despite that, it still hadn¡¯te in a smooth shape.

    The whole process had taken about half an hour.

    "Decent.. But I¡¯m looking for something better. Who thinks they can do better than this?" Asked the instructor once again.

    This time, a much lower number of students raised their hands.

    The instructor was just about to pick a person, but before he could point at somebody, Daniel appeared next to his desk.

    "I didn¡¯t call you." Said the instructor with a cold voice.

    "I know, but I don¡¯t want to waste my time looking at untalented andzy people.." Responded Daniel with a face filled with annoyance and arrogance. He had figured out that, if he wanted to blend into this group of arrogant people, he might as well behave like they did.

    The instructor looked at Daniel sideways, and said in a low voice "You better show me a good result." He then ced another set of ingredients over the desk, and took a step back.

    His jaw almost dropped as, only four minutester, a perfectly round caramel brown pill floated in mid air.

    The other students had simr reactions.

    What surprised them the most, was that Daniel hadn¡¯t even used any instruments. Instead, he had used his control over the essences to boil the nt, extract the syrup, and form the pill.

    Once Daniel finished, he didn¡¯t wait for the instructor to check his work, and directly went back to his seat.

    The instructor analyzed the pill for a moment, then, he put it into his mouth.

    Tasting the pill was the following step of understanding the abilities of the student, just like the amount of sweetness released into the water during the boiling of the nt, the amount of bitter liquid extracted along with the syrup, and the overall duration of these steps.

    During the previous two attempts, there was no need for the instructor to taste the pill, after all, the two products had been bad enough even without the tasting.

    Unable to see any problem with the creation of the pill, he could only taste the finished product.

    The pill slowly melted into his mouth, leaving a sugary taste whichsted from beginning to end.

    Slightly suspicious, the instructor turned to look at Daniel, and asked "Do you belong to apany that deals in alchemical products?"

    "No. Mypany deals in the production and sale of essence spheres." Responded Daniel inly.

    "Ok.." muttered the instructor before taking a small pause. He then turned to look at the rest of the student¡¯s, and said "Anyone that thinks they can do better?.."

    Nobody raised their hands.

    After noticing theck ofpetitiveness, the instructor wrote a mark next to Daniel¡¯s name.

    This mark was appointed to the student which showed the most progress in a ss. These marks would be stacked, and at the end of the trimester, they would work as contribution to the academy, and could allow people to obtain a crest.

    Only copper and silver badged students were interested in this, after all, it was not worth it for a gold or tinum-badged student to go through all of the trouble necessary to obtain a patch, that would mean just as much as their current badges.

    After Daniel, various other students were tested, and amongst them, were Alesia and Serf.

    Alesia¡¯s result had been decent, as she had finished the entire process in twenty-two minutes.. But the one that had left most people shocked, except for the instructor himself, was Serf, which was the only other person, along with Daniel, to finish the entire process in a single digit time, taking only six minutes and a half.

    -----

    The next day

    Daniel was currently within his office, and sitting behind his desk.

    Inside the room, were Edmund, Emelnie, Heimart, and the Inspector that hade back just like he had promised.

    "Dead?.." Muttered the inspector in a low voice.

    "I¡¯m afraid so.." Responded Daniel with an apologetic tone.

    The inspector shook his head gently a couple of times, then said "Well, serves me right.. I¡¯ll still have to report the ident to my superiors.. I assume that you have interrogated him.. And that you have probably learned something about the attack. Anything you want to share?"

    A serious expression appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "It is better if you visit the governor.. He¡¯ll tell you why it¡¯s better if it doesn¡¯t look like I¡¯m keen on coborating with you."

 Chapter 164 How to Hire a Killer

    Three days had passed since the attack to Daniel¡¯spany, and now, he, Alesia, and Serf were peacefully walking around therge market in the northern part of the city.

    The excuse that Daniel had prepared for being so far from the part of the capital in which his shops had been set, was that he wanted to expand his reach through the entire city, and his main goal, was to open a shop within each and every market.

    "Your ability in alchemy surprised me.. From what I understand, ten minutes is already very little even if you possess early experience.." Said Daniel to Serf, while Alesia picked items from a nearby stall.

    Serf looked back at Daniel, and with an embarrassed expression, he responded by saying "Well.. Ie from a family of alchemists.. We had our own tests while growing up.. Making a sugar pill is a joke, really.. Of course, my experience cannot bepared with your talent. I can¡¯t even smell any sort of alchemical smell on you..?"

    "My second teacher was.. Well, is an Alchemist.. But he never taught me alchemy.." Said Daniel with a mncholic tone.

    A bit of confusion appeared on Serf¡¯s face, as he asked "What did he teach you then?"

    "Comprehension of essence, skills through the use of spi.. Immortal essence, and some other things.."

    "It¡¯s quite strange that neither you or our master were able to discover this side of you.." Responded Serf with surprise in his voice.

    "What about you? Any reason why someone at your level still hasn¡¯t gained a crest at a level higher than your own background?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. He had wondered about this for awhile now.

    Serf sighed gently, then said "They don¡¯t consider previous experience as much as you think they do in the academy.. Being from a prominent family of alchemists has penalized me more than you would think."

    "But you¡¯re a copper-badged student like us.. No offence, but your family business shouldn¡¯t be that big.."

    "This is where you¡¯re wrong.. My family business is well more than deserving of the tinum badge.." Responded Serf with a bit of annoyance and irritation.

    Daniel¡¯s brows furrowed in surprise, as he asked "What? Why don¡¯t you have a tinum badge then?"

    "Because my family believes that it is throughpetition that we grow better.. So, they made an agreement with the school. They send four students to ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯ each year, but instead of getting a tinum badge each, we only get one tinum, one gold, one silver, and one copper.."

    The exnation made sense to Daniel. He expected that the school would be willing to ept a few request from the most prominent groups to which their students belonged. After all, if not for the fact that they were part of ¡¯The Poisonous Rose¡¯, they would simply be a school for the elite like any other.

    There was still something missing, so, while Serf was in a sharing mood, Daniel said "You¡¯ve joined the schoolst year, and you¡¯re the one student of your family to which the copper badge has gone to.. But why do others treat you like that? By logic, a golden-badged students wouldn¡¯t fear your badge, but they would certainly fear the repercussions from the group behind you.."

    "They don¡¯t fear my family, because they don¡¯t know about it. Only the owner of the tinum badge can boast their belonging to our family.. We are only able to im however much our badges allow us to." Responded Serf with indifference. He didn¡¯t seem to be too bothered by all of that.

    "What about your family members? Why hasn¡¯t anybody helped you?" Asked Daniel with a seemingly evesting curiosity.

    Serf shrugged his broad shoulders, and said with a dispirited tone "You¡¯ve already met one of them.. The girl that first insulted me when we went into the mess hall.. That¡¯s my cousin. The guy you¡¯ve messed around with is just someone who has been trying to get close to her.."

    "What are you two talking about?" Asked a Alesia from behind them.

    Daniel and Serf turned to look at her, and noticed that she was holding a brown leather belt with elegant carvings on its surface.

    "Who is that belt for?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    With an expression of embarrassment, she responded by saying "For you.. I thought it would look good on you.."

    "Oh.. thank you." Responded Daniel with evident gratitude and a bit of embarrassment.

    The situation wentpletely over Serf¡¯s head, as a big smile appeared on his face, and said "What a nice couple of sibling.."

    A deep frown appeared on both of Daniel¡¯s and Alesia¡¯s face, as the two of them turned to look at Serf, and said in unison "We are not siblings!.."

    This caused Serf toe to a sudden realization.

    -----

    A few minutester, the three of them arrived in front of a peculiar-looking shop. From outside, the ce looked like a mix between an horticulturist, and a florist.

    Many different pungent odors could be felting from inside, and they were powerful enough for tears to form in the corner of the eyes of most people that passed near its entrance.

    Daniel and Alesia immediately deviated the air which contained alchemical elements in order to prevent it from entering their noses, or touch their eyes. They then walked in.

    Once inside, the smell became so heavy, that despite not being able to feel it with their sense of smell, they could still taste it as a bitter and sour aftertaste, which left them ufortable.

    The only one that didn¡¯t seem to be affected by it, was Serf, whichpared to them, looked quitefortable in this environment.

    "Oh, no.. you can¡¯t do that.. You have to breathe in deeply! How else are you going to get your nose hair burnt away! Hehehe" Said a disembodied voice that came from behind the counter.

    Daniel, Alesia and Serf walked all the way up to the counter, and behind it, they saw what looked like a kid who was barely over ten years of age.

    "What can I help you three with?" Said the kid with a dirty grin on his face.

    Thanks to his spiritual sense, Daniel could feel that this kid was not as old as he appeared to be. He had a cultivation of at least a peak third stage immortal cultivator, which if paired with his age, would make him the most monstrous cultivator in history.

    In reality, he was probably a middle aged man, or even older. Alesia and Serf had made the same guess, so they made sure not to treat him as a kid.

    "We are from ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯, we would like to poke around your inventory, if you don¡¯t mind." Said Daniel with a faint smile.

    The smile on the kid¡¯s face grew wider, as he said "Ohh.. Wealthy customers.. My father said to wee you with a big smile. Please, go ahead!"

    "Spare us the theatrics, merchant.. Treat us with as much respect as we treat you." Said Alesia with an annoyed tone.

    "Hehehe.. My apologies beautifuldy, just.. child¡¯s y.. Hehe." Responded the kid in between chuckles.

    Alesia ignored the merchant¡¯s joke, and said "Why did you even decide to stay at that age?.. Doesn¡¯t it create more trouble than necessary when practicing alchemy?"

    "Oh, you should have seen my father.. Bald at the age of twenty.. I¡¯m very scared of letting myself grow a day after ten.. Hehe"

    "Okay, that¡¯s about enough jokes for a single visit.." Said Daniel with in annoyance. "We are here tomission a hit on a rivalpany."

    Daniel decided to cut the interactions with this merchant short, as there was something in the way he spoke to Alesia that annoyed him greatly.

    The moment the words mission a hit¡¯ left Daniel¡¯s mouth, the smilepletely disappeared from the kid¡¯s face. "I don¡¯t know what you are talking about, kid."

    "You are going to y it like that?.. Fine, we¡¯ll find another broker then.. We¡¯ll make sure that others know that you¡¯re out of that kind of business.." Said Daniel before turning around, and walking towards the store¡¯s entrance.

    "Hold on." Said the kid behind Daniel¡¯s back. "Let¡¯s talk about this."

    Despite how the broker acted, he couldn¡¯t afford to leave people badmouth him behind his back. He worked for rich people, and he was more than aware that his word was worth less than dog¡¯s shit in front of the word of each of the customers he had to deal with.

    If Daniel went to spread the voice that he wasn¡¯t operating anymore, or talk about the fact that he was a broker for killers, people would definitely stop going to look for his services.

    "Who told you about me?" Asked the merchant with curiosity.

    "Another client of yours.. Look, we are only looking for your services. This will either be a smooth transaction with a new customer, or a major loss for you.. I¡¯ll get the job done either way." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    He wanted to convince him that it was better to simplyply than to shut them down.

    Luckily, he seeded.

    "Very well.. I need a target, a method, and a payment. Just so you know, I get ten percent of the pay for referral." The demeanor of the kid had changedpletely. He now conducted himself seriously, and looked like an overly mature kid.

    "In the eastern market, there is a shop called ¡¯Shining Bright¡¯.. It¡¯s a shop that belongs to an old couple, and deals in the sale of refined oilmps and stuff of that sort.. I want you to find somebody to burn that shop down. I also want the fire to spread to the store to its left."

    "So, the target is the second store.. What is the payment?" The broker was pleasantly surprised. He was still nervous about this matter, but the more he heard Daniel talk, the more he was reassured that the job was real.

    "Five perfect crystals. It has to look like the fire started from the ¡¯Shining Bright¡¯ shop.. And do it at night.. The old couple will be sleeping in the shop, the streets will be empty, and there will bemps on." Responded Daniel with indifference.

    From the price offered for the job, the broker was able to confirm that Daniel belonged to a rich group.

    The job was easy, and there was no reason not to do it themselves, or not to offer less. Only the filthy rich kind of people would abuse their wallets for trivial matters such as this.

    "I have the right person in mind.. The pay is in advance, as we¡¯ll never see each other after this encounter. I¡¯ll handle the payment." Responded the broker, as a faint smile appeared once again on his childlike face.

    Daniel casually threw a ring which contained five perfect crystals to him, then, he left the shop as if nothing had happened.

    Once alone, the broker said "Follow them, and find out to which group they belong."

    A shadow-like figure disappeared quietly from within the shop.

    The broker was not stupid. He had dealt with a lot of people like Daniel, and he knew that betraying him was nothing for them.. He had long taken the habit of gathering information about his clients, so that he could use them in case someone tried to silence him, or use him of anything.

    Once his spy left, the kid-like broker walked all the way into a room to the back of the counter, and grabbed a metallic box he had ced on one of the shelves.

    This metallic box was covered in formations that prevented people from peeking inside with their senses, and it could be opened in two ways.

    One was to open it like a normal box, while the second, was to know the secret method to unlock the secretpartment on one of its metallic walls.

    Once unlocked, the kid took a small book bound in ck leater. He then opened it, and started to write a few information in it.

    "So that¡¯s where you keep the records.."

 Chapter 165 A World in the Palm of Your Hand

    "So that¡¯s where you keep the records.." Said a disembodied voice from behind the broker¡¯s back.

    A shiver ran down the spine of the kid-like broker, which quickly made a knife appear in his hand, and twisted his entire body, trying to cut whoever was behind him.

    Before the tip of his knife could touch anything, he felt a metallic grip around his thin wrist, and a cold and sharp de pressed against his neck.

    "Don¡¯t push me, broker.. I don¡¯t need your head attached to the rest of your body in order to read that logbook." Said Daniel after appearing out of nowhere.

    "Hehe.. Okay, you got me.. I take it that job was not real.." Said the broker as a few drops of cold sweat streamed down his back.

    Daniel didn¡¯t answer to his question, and instead, he grabbed the ck logbook, the small ring which the broker was still holding in his small fist, and disappeared once again.

    After disappearing, the broker heard Daniel¡¯s voice once more.. It said "I¡¯ll keep in touch.."

    Of course, there was no ¡¯Shining Bright¡¯ shop in the eastern market. That was a made up ce which Daniel had invented in order to sell his story better. He wanted to pass the message that he had already thought of a perfect n to get rid of hispetition, and he simply wanted someone to do the dirty work for him.

    That was what had convinced the broker. After all, the majority of the jobs he wasmissioned by his various clients, were not much different than this.

    In an alley about a kilometer from the northern marketce, Daniel reappeared in front of Alesia and Serf.

    "Did you get it?" Asked Alesia, as an unusual bright smile re appeared on her face the moment she saw Daniel, which smiled back at her, and said "Yes, I have it right here."

    Together, the three of them took a look at the small logbook.

    The dozens of pages of the logbook were filled with the jobs that the broker had beenmissioned in the past years.

    The three of them frowned deeply as their eyesnded on one order after the other.

    ____________________________

    Sender: 45ish years old man. 182 cm, about 83kg, short ck hair, horizontal scar under left eye (Fourth elder of The Sharp Edgepany)

    Target: Five different shops that belong to Scorching Anvilpany.

    Method: Bomb - Middle of the day - Frame Head cksmith

    Pay: 250 high crystals

    Note: I didn¡¯t think that The Sharp Edgepany would be so ruthless. My research lead me to believe that the reason why they are attacking theirpetitors, is because the Scorching Anvilpany has discovered a new alloy, which could end up being worth a lot..

    ____________________________

    Sender: 29 years old woman. 167 cm, about 55kg, young mistress of the Gath family.

    Target: Young mistress of the Helvha family

    Method: Kill guards, **** victim, Kill the victim, Stage a robbery.

    Pay: 20 High crystals

    Note: That bitch got really fired up when talking about the target.. She kept mentioning her beloved.. From what I understood from her rambling, she was dumped (and I honestly can understand why). Now she is taking her revenge on her ex-boyfriend¡¯s new sweetheart.

    ____________________________

    Sender: ¡¯A World in the Palm of Your Hand¡¯ collective. (Impossible to find any detail, but theck of the first two phnxes of the ring finger in the right hand of the sender.)

    Target: ¡¯Golden Karma¡¯pany building, market floor.

    Method: Rush hour, as big of an explosion as possible, make as many victims as possible.

    Pay: 1 perfect crystal

    Note: Thispany has been doing awfully good for having been just founded.. I wonder where they get all of their handiwork? Anyway, They have basically no cultivator above the fourth rank. Sneaking an explosive device in won¡¯t be hard. I¡¯ll give the job to the kid who blew up those smith shops, since he did a good job.

    ____________________________

    "This is disgusting.. The methods.. The reasons these people have for killing.. It¡¯s disgusting.." Muttered Alesia in a visibly disgusted state.

    Daniel looked at thest entry of the logbook. It was the order to hit theirpany..

    "A World in the Palm of Your Hand.. what is that?" Muttered Daniel to himself with a confused face.

    He then heard Serf¡¯s voiceing from beside him, say "It¡¯s a collective of groups that operate in the same field as yourpany. They produce and deal with essence spheres.."

    "You know them?" Asked Daniel curiously after turning to look back at Serf.

    "Yeah, they are the top dogpany in that field.. There are at least a dozen of the collective heirs into The Superior Alchemy alone.." Serf patiently exined.

    "Mmh.."

    -----

    Back in the alchemy shop.

    The childlike merchant was pacing left and right inside his shop. He had already rejected new, and regr customers more than once, as he was no in mood to serve people.

    His state of mind was extremely anxious. A kid had managed to rob him of one of the most dangerous items within the capital. He had stolen the records of many of the attacks, and homicidesmissioned by various powers against others, and if properly used, it could cause many different wars to start all within the city.

    If that happened, his head would be the first one to fall.

    The only reason why he hadn¡¯t tried to run away yet, was because he had a faint hope that Daniel wouldn¡¯t put him in trouble. He was figuratively hanging by a thread made out of the words "I¡¯ll be in touch.."

    Suddenly, the broker turned once again to look at the shadows present in his closed shop, from which a faint voice could be heard say "Why did you call me back, boss?"

    "It was a fake job.. I got tricked.." Said the broker with a mix of fear, anger, and irritation.

    "What are we risking?" Asked the shadow with a faint voice. "What do they have on you?"

    "That fucking kid.. The bastard took the logbook.."

    Suddenly, a third voice could be hearding from in front of the ss door from which arge red sign with the word ¡¯CLOSED¡¯ written on it, dangled quietly. "I would be careful if I were you.."

    The broker immediately turned to look at the entrance of his shop, and there, he saw Daniel slowly appear from nowhere.

    "As I¡¯ve said, here I am." Said Daniel with a faint smile on his face.

    "What do you want?" Asked the broker with a defeated tone. It was clear that losing the logbook would spell death for him. If not for providing proof that he was a broker for killers, which there was no need to mention, was more than illegal.. also for the fact that he had gathered informations about his clients.. To whom he had guaranteed pure privacy.

    The smile on Daniel¡¯s face widened, as he said "Well.. first of all, you¡¯ve yed a part in ruining my business¡¯ name.. So now, you work for me."

    "What do you mean?" Asked the childlike broker in confusion.

    "You are going to keep doing your job.. But now, whenever you receive a new contract, you¡¯ll take it to me, and I¡¯ll tell you how we¡¯ll handle it. But more than anything else.. I want you to tell me if any other contracts that require you to disrupt my business arrive." Exined Daniel patiently.

    "What stops me from simply running away?" Asked the broker with increased irritation. He seemed to be willing to make a bit of resistance, but Daniel could see that that wasn¡¯t his real intention.

    "If you run away, I¡¯d simply give the list to the government, and you¡¯d be hunted to the ends of this world. Something tells me that you don¡¯t have the connections or power to request a passage to another world.. And even less, escape the eye of The Keeper of Key. Why not work for me?.. I might even erge your business.. Give you some more protection.."

    Daniel had decided to use both the stick and the carrot with the broker. After all, he wanted him to fear him, but also to want to coborate with him.

    The gist of what Daniel wanted to do, was to exploit the man¡¯s reputation as a broker for killers, to direct each and every contract that went through him.

    He would not let innocent people die, and based on the type of contract, he would be able to decide how to handle certain situations.

    For example, if a certain family member was targeting the member of anotherpany, he could tip off the side of the victim, so that they could render impossible for anyone to act against them. The broker could simply return the money back, and Daniel would have a new ally in the city.

    He could even avoid pointless death by staging the attacks, like when the attack on hispany had taken ce. By faking a fire result, he would be able to trick people into thinking that the attack had seeded.

    The broker would keep doing his job, gain reputation, and at the same time, Daniel would have a spy into the dark side of the city.

    "What do you say?" Asked Daniel with his ever present smile.

    The childlike broker said with a conflicted face "I don¡¯t have a choice now, do I?"

    "Hehe.. No you do not. But I¡¯d rather think of it as the beginning of a wonderful coboration.." Responded Daniel casually, before looking at the dark corner of the shop, and raising his hand.

    A powerful light started to shine from his hand, causing the dark side of the shop to be lit uppletely.

    Within the light beam, was a dark cloud that floated in mid-air.

    "A dark elemental.. How rare.."

    The shape of the dark cloud became denser, showing the form of arge butterfly, which changed into the silhouette of a small human the moment itnded on the floor.

    "A mid-high level dark elemental.. Even rarer.." Muttered Daniel in surprise.

    The dark elemental turned to look at Daniel, and it said with evident shock "There aren¡¯t many humans that can recognize my level.. I¡¯m impressed.."

    "You would be surprised by the experience I have gathered by dealing with your kind.. Tell me if one day you want to broaden your horizons.." Said Daniel while smiling at the human-like shadow.

    "Yeah that¡¯s all fun and dandy.. But why don¡¯t we get back to the matter at hand? What do I do now?" The broker suddenly burst out saying.

    Daniel became pensive for a few seconds, then, he said "Tell me about ¡¯A World in the Palm of Your Hand¡¯.. What are they up to these days?"

    "Mhh.. If you are thinking aboutpeting with them, you better give up. I¡¯ve researched yourpany, and even if you have high level goods, it¡¯s impossible for you to defeat the collective." Responded the broker inly.

    "I don¡¯t want topete.. I want to do what they expect me to do after the attack.. I¡¯ll join them.. Tell me more about them" Responded Daniel while emanating a faint desire for vengeance.

    A confused frown appeared on the broker, as he said "The collective isposed by at least five thousand groups, and operate on aary scale. They can even afford to hold games amongst themselves every now and then, with high prizes at stake." Responded the broker inly.

    "Interesting.. Tell me more about these games, and how can I join the collective." Responded Daniel with curiosity.

    "In order to join, you simply need to deal in essence spheres. The only thing that is required is of you is to keep the prices at a fixed level.. You are only allowed topete with the other groups through advertisement. About the games, there will be one in five days. All of the groups that want to participate, have to chip in in order to create a suitable reward for the winner of thepetition.." The broker exined patiently.

    "What is the reward for this event?"

    The broker became pensive for a moment, then, he turned to look at Daniel, and said "A perfect fire treasure."

 Chapter 166 One Problem at a Time

    "Please, wait here. The coordinator will arrive shortly." Said a young and good looking woman to Daniel, Heimart, Der, Edmund, and his wife Emelnie.

    A day had passed since Daniel had visited the broker, and now he had gone, along with the rest of the leading members of his group, to see the coordinator of the collective called ¡¯A World in the Palm of Your Hand¡¯.

    They were currently sitting within a living room, drinking the various beverages that the receptionist had offered to them.

    A few minutes in, the door slowly opened. From behind it, a thirty-five years old woman appeared.

    She was wearing a light green dress which tightly fit her body, and an amiable expression that convinced the people that looked at her to smile.

    "Mr. Hiel.. It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Miel, the coordinator of the collective. What can I help you with?" She said after bowing her head politely towards them, and sitting on the free chair next to them.

    "Miss Miel, the pleasure is ours." Responded Daniel with a matching amiable face. He then added "As you might have heard.. We have received an attack by an unknown party a few days ago.. We were able to capture the culprit, but we did not manage to obtain any information from him, unfortunately.."

    Daniel paused for a moment, then, after he noticed that he had the full attention of the coordinator, he continued by saying "We have realized that we are not capable of defending our territory by ourselves, and that ourpetitive prices gave us an unfair advantage against the honest groups of which the collective isposed.. We were considering joining the collective."

    As the coordinator hear Daniel¡¯s words, her amiable smile disappeared, leaving space for aforting one. She then said "We have heard of yourpany problems. I am terribly sorry that that happened to you. There is nothing that can excuse ruining the clean reputation of a newly formedpany.. We are more than willing to allow the Golden Karmapany to join our collective, and we would like to help you increase your standards of protection. That attack hit us all personally.."

    "Your sympathy is very refreshing.." Said Emelnie while smiling sweetly at Miel, and leaving her slightly stunned by her beauty.

    Heimart interjected by saying "Dan has been attending a school to learn alchemytely, so we would be the figures with whom the collective would have to deal with. I just want to say, that I am extremely grateful for yourprehension." He then paused for a moment before adding "I don¡¯t want to overstep my boundaries, but we would like to show our appreciation by participating in the next games."

    "Of course. Just bying here, and being willing to join the collective, you have now be part of it. So, there is no reason for the collective to reject your participation into this year¡¯s games." Responded Miel politely.

    "Wonderful." Said Daniel with a bright smile "We will now leave you to your matters. Would it be possible for the rules of the collective, and the regtions of the game to be delivered to ourpany building?"

    "Naturally. We really appreciate your goodwill, and hope to see you soon." Responded Miel before bidding farewell to the leaving party.

    -----

    Back within the Golden Karmapany building.

    Daniel and the rest were sitting inside of a conference room. In front of Edmund, were a few parchments on which a few writings could be seen.

    "It¡¯s like the broker said.. We have to follow the prices set.. We can spend as much as we want on advertisement, and we can expand however we like.. As long as we don¡¯t lower our prices." Said Edmund with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "What about the rules for the games?" Asked his wife Emelnie with curiosity.

    "A ranking system based on points.. Up to two members for eachpany are allowed to join the games. These members will be tested on each type of essence for theirprehension, and the level of control over them. The percentage of control and the percentage ofprehension establish the points given. For example, forty percent ofprehension and seventy percent of control grants a hundred and ten points.." Exined Edmund patiently.

    Heimart looked back at him, and said "That¡¯s easy then, there is no way that somebody has a higherprehension than Daniel."

    "That¡¯s the problem." Edmund said before taking a slight pause, and continuing "People in administrative positions aren¡¯t allowed to join. That means that Daniel, as the owner of thepany, cannot join.."

    Daniel turned to look at Heimart¡¯s annoyed face, and said "It¡¯s alright. Roley and Jerigh can join. Roley has a highprehension of many essences, and Jerigh has almost caught up with him due to his.. Absurd talent.. Are there any age limitations?"

    Edmund moved his eyes on the game¡¯s regtions once again, then said "Under fifty years of age.. So they will have to face people with dozens of years of experience."

    "I¡¯m sure they will make it. What about the participation fee. How much is it?"

    "Mhh.. that¡¯s another problem.. fifty perfect crystals.. That¡¯s about ny-five percent of all the money we¡¯ve made so far.." Said Alis after peeking at the parchment which Edmund was holding.

    "We have started with nothing just week a ago.. It won¡¯t be a problem.. Just be sure to use the remaining money to pay for the people¡¯s work. I¡¯ll find a way to get back the money by dealing with the fire treasure." Responded Daniel calmly.

    The reason why they needed to put money to participate, was part of one of the regtions of the collective.

    Once a perfect treasure was found, thepany that possessed it could sell it to the collective. The collective would then use it as a prize for the next editions of the games.

    The money that thepanies would spend in order to join, were simply part of the payment that the collective owed to thepany that had found the treasure in the first ce.

    In this case, about twelve hundredpanies had decided to join the game, and since the price for a perfect fire treasure was set to sixty thousand perfect crystals, the price to join in was fifty for eachpany.

    If morepanies were to join in, the excess money would be re distributed, and returned to thepanies.

    "Are you sure that they can make it?.. I¡¯ve went back into the records of the previous games, and there were always a few cultivators with a surprisingly high amount of talent.. Jerigh and Roley are talented, but don¡¯t think that their talents are unique.. Especially Roley¡¯s.." Said Der with a matter-of-fact tone.

    He was right. The world they were in contained trillions of people, and thanks to their connection to distant worlds, they were much more evolved than the people from Daniel¡¯s original world.

    Prodigies would certainly be born once in a hundred thousand people.. Or even one every million, but when seen in proportion to such arge number, it meat that there were possibly hundreds of people in that world alone, which could be considered prodigies.

    Even if half of them died at a young age, and ny-nine percent of the remaining never got to learn about their talent, one person was all it took to lose thepetition.

    Despite this reasoning, Daniel appeared calm. In his head, arge window had appeared.

    ____________________________

    Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder.

    Name: Group of the Karmic System¡¯s Wielder (Provisory)

    Number of members (Details): 19,808

    Overall Karma: 921,595,223

    Karmic effects:

    Karma X Luck (Group)

    Karmic Aura Lv.150

    Time is Precious Lv.60 (Group)

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown (Group)

    Group Base (Basic-Unused)

    Universal Compass

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects (Details)

    Reputation (Details)

    ____________________________

    "If you could see what I can see, you would not worry about people more talented than them appearing.." Muttered Daniel to himself. He then opened his eyes, and said "Send the two of them into the pocket dimension.. Have them spend the next few days raising theirprehension.."

    -----

    It was nowte evening, and Daniel was sitting once again in balcony, right outside of his room. He was slowly massaging his temples with his fingertips to try to ease the headache that had been torturing him for the rest of the day.

    Suddenly, a faint smile appeared on his pained face, before he said "Don¡¯t stay there.. Join me.."

    From behind him, the familiar slender silhouette of Alesia passed by him, and upied the seat next to him.

    "How are you doing?" She asked with a worried tone.

    "I¡¯m doing fine.. Just a hint of an headache.. There is just so much to think about, to do.. It¡¯s getting to me." Responded Daniel with a bit of resignation in his voice.

    "One problem at a time.. We can solve anything." Said Alesia with reassurance.

    Daniel lowered his hands, and after looking at her worried face, he smiled, and said "You¡¯re right. I just need to close my eyes for a bit.. I know that we don¡¯t need to sleep much.. But I kind of miss it.."

    "I¡¯ll let you sleep then.." Said Alesia while preparing to get up from her chair and leave.

    Before she could get up, Daniel said "Wait, stay.. I didn¡¯t mean that I wanted to sleep now."

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, Alesia made herselffortable on her chair once again.

    The two stayed in silence for a few seconds.

    It was only after she noticed Daniel move his long hair away from his face, that she turned to look at him, and said "Your hair have be too long.. Would you like me to cut them for you?"

    "Do you know how to?" Asked Daniel with a hint of worry.

    "Of course." She responded with pride.

    Daniel looked at her prideful face, and couldn¡¯t help but smile. He had no choice but to ept. "Okay.."

    After Daniel epted her offer, Alesia got up from her chair, and took a couple of steps closer to Daniel¡¯s seat. She then sat on his armrest, and made a small knife appear in her hand.

    One lock at a time, she started to cut Daniel¡¯s hair.

    Daniel kept quiet for awhile, looking at her focused expression, and her attentive movements.

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to close his eyes, and feel Alesia¡¯s perfume enter his nostrils as she came closer.. Her long tinum blonde hair brushing against his face as she tried to cut the hair in the back of his head.. Her breath on his skin..

    Before long, Daniel reached a point where his mind was about to drift into the sweet embrace of sleep.

    Right after feeling something soft press against his lips, he gradually fell asleep.

    -----

    When Daniel woke up, he was alone in his balcony. The sky within the pocket dimension was clear, and gave the hundreds of thousand of inhabitants the warm feeling of a peaceful morning.

    He looked at the clear blue sky, and brushed his fingers through his now short hair. Then, he disappeared from where he was standing.

    When he reappeared, he was inside of a dark metallic cave.

    The ce was cold, and empty. The only things present, were the metallic sphere in the middle of the den, and an extremely cold wind that glided over the metallic walls and cooled the ce continuously.

    Suddenly, a series of red shes illuminated the area.

    Daniel turned around, and running towards him, he saw Wolfie, which had grown up in its wolf-like shape, and was now in the middle between a wolf cub, and an adult wolf.

    Of course, Daniel was aware that elementals would grow a knowledge of the world the same way humans did. On the other hand, they grew in power thanks to the natural element of which they were made of.

    The presence of a perfect metallic sphere had granted him a chance to grow faster, but unfortunately, did not help his mentality to age as well.

    "Hey pup.. How are you?"

 Chapter 167 Meet And Gree

    "Hey pup.. How are you?" Asked Daniel with a big smile.

    Wolfie took a few steps towards him, then, he dashed away, and started to run around therge metallic cave, causing millions of sparks to lighten the area, and shrill noises to reverberate in the surroundings.

    "Don¡¯t mind his behaviour.. I think he is simply sharpening his ws.. I doubt he has an idea of how to simply modify his body." Said a disembodied voice that came from the entrance of the cave.

    Daniel turned around, and there, he found Leffe and Buriath. "Is that something that metal elementals usually do?" He asked.

    The two human-like elementals showed an embarrassed expression for a moment, then, Leffe responded by saying "It¡¯s not like humans don¡¯t do silly things when they are young.."

    "Fair enough.. hehe" Said Daniel, as a big smile appeared on their faces. "How are things going in the city?"

    "Nothing much toin about. A few criminal groupse out every now and then, but we are able to take them out easily. We have decided to limit the birth of new elementals of our two kinds, as due to the perfect spheres that we have.. We were growing at too high rates. We only use them to cultivate now." Responded Leffe with a satisfied tone.

    After Leffe finished speaking, Buriath joined by saying "There is only a minor worry around the city. We have heard from Ligart that the prices of the spheres will increase. People are worried that they will be paid less for their work."

    "Tell them not to worry about that. Their workload didn¡¯t change, and so will their revenue." Responded Daniel calmly. "How are Roley and Jerigh doing?"

    "Roley had nothing much to learn from us, and Jerigh insisted on starting with metal essence.." Responded Buriath with his usual serious tone.

    "Very well. I¡¯ll leave things to the two of you." Said Daniel before teleporting away once again.

    -----

    Five dayster.

    In these past five days, Daniel¡¯spany had seen a huge decrease in profits.

    They were forced by the collective¡¯s regtions to increase their prices up to their standards, causing their customers to turn to the closest shop instead of their.

    This had also caused them to be unable to buy as many treasures as before, and by extent, to have less product to sell.

    As it was now, the only advantage theirpany had against the others that operated in the same field, was the speed in which theypleted the orders where a customer would required for a sphere to be produced by using their own treasure.

    Of course, these changes did not affect Daniel or his group that much, after all, they had the potential to deal in various fields, aspared to mostpanies, they had the work of an entire city to mize.

    His castle¡¯s library had been opened for citizens to visit, and the experts had already started to pass down their knowledge to the younger generations in fields like alchemy, enchantment, cksmith, and others.

    The various cultivated fields were enough to sustain the main city and its surrounding viges, and the excessive products were sold in their shops within the capital, and in theirpany building.

    Many representatives of externalpanies that were part of the collective hade to visit the Golden Karmapany. They would bring gifts, be treated as guests, and be sent on their way as kindly as possible, after all, Emelnie, whose job was to worry about the rtionship betweenpanies, had already guessed that these representatives were sent for no reason but to scout their level of operation.

    Everybody was doing the job they were supposed to, and everything was going smoothly.

    Daniel had spent the past few days trying to better hisprehension of the essences, and cultivate. He had managed to reach the peak of the fourth stage of immortal cultivation thanks to the use of a few high crystal.

    He had decided not to push through the fourth stage though, as he didn¡¯t want to spend too much of the money left in thepany¡¯s treasury for himself.

    It was now time for the game organized by the collective, and the venue, which was built for the asion right outside of the city, had already started to fill in.

    The collective was formed bypanies, and therefore, they didn¡¯t simply limit themself to the creation of apetition. Instead, they made a proper fair, in which the thousands ofpanies could be publicised and in which people could spend their money.

    The game between thepanies was simply the main event, and everybody could spectate it by purchasing a ticket, and entering the oval-shaped stadium that had been created for the asion by thepanies which dealt in metal, wood, and earth essences.

    This stadium was massive, and it could hold at least a hundred and fifty thousand people. It had been built through the maniption of the elements, and was therefore, despite the fact that it would be taken down after the event, potentially permanent.

    Built underneath the stadium, was a massive hall, in which the thousands of participants, along with one of their elders, interacted amongst each other. Edmund, Jerigh and Roley were the representatives for Daniel¡¯s group.

    Halfway up the stands, was the floor reserved for the heads of the variouspanies. Inside it, the thousands ofpany leaders, along with a few more representatives, interacted while enjoying a sumptuous refreshment.

    Daniel as the leader, Emelnie as the person in charge of thepany¡¯s image and rtionship betweenpanies, and Alesia as one of the future inheritors of thepany, were the three that had decided to presentiate to this gathering of leaders.

    "You must be Mr. Hiel.. It is a pleasure to meet you. Mypany has heard much about you, and about your spectacr variety of products." Said a very old woman, apanied by a middle aged woman that seemed to be around fifty, and a girl that appeared to be not older than twenty, to Daniel.

    The three of them looked like each other, and it was clear that they were grandma, mother, and Daughter.

    "Please, call me Dan. I don¡¯t deserve to be called mister by my elders." Responded Daniel with a polite smile.

    The old woman, clearly impressed by Daniel¡¯s good manners, smiled sweetly, and said "I am the founder and previous president of the ¡¯Healing Touch¡¯pany, and these are my daughter, the current president, and my granddaughter. We deal in.."

    "In healing pills, enchantment, and on a smaller scale, alchemy, light, and time spheres. Of course, I¡¯ve heard of yourpany as well." Said Daniel, interrupting the old woman¡¯s presentation. He then pointed at his entourage, and said "These are Emelnie, ourpany chief ofmunication and public rtions, and one of our future administratives, her daughter Alesia."

    Once again, the olddy was impressed by Daniel¡¯s preparation. She looked at him with attention, and after noticing something in the way he looked, spoke of, and presented Alesia, a feeble thought in her head disappeared. Instead, she said "I have heard of your beauty by my grandson. He never stops talking about the tinum blonde beauty that has recently joined ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯. I can see why now, and that your beauty is clearly inherited."

    After a fewpliments, Daniel and the olddy talked about the possibility of future coborations, and finally, they bid farewell.

    In the five hours before the beginning of the main event of thepetition, the three of them had to endure many of these kinds of encounters.

    At some point, Daniel noticed a middle aged couple.

    Both of the man and the woman looked depressed, and didn¡¯t seem like they were happy about being present to this big event, at all. From the woman¡¯s eyes, Daniel could see that she had spent the past few days crying, while the man, moved and interacted in an apathetic way.

    Due to the sheer amount of participants, to each person had been given a small patch with the name of theirpany, and their logo sewn on it.

    On the chest of these two individuals, was a family crest with a single word written on a red bow. This word, spelled the name Helvha, and indicated that the two belonged to the Helvha family.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to remember where he had read the name Helvha.

    The Helvha family was one of the many groups that had fallen victim to one of the assassinations that had beenmissioned to the broker.

    The reason why these two people were here, was because they were the heads of the Helvha family, and ording to the logbook, the person which belonged to their family which had been killed, was the young mistress of their family.

    This exined the state of the couple, after all, they had recently lost a daughter to what looked like a vicious robbery.

    Daniel approached the frantic couple, which noticed him after he reached five meters of distance, and turned to look at him.

    "Who are you?" Asked the man.

    "I don¡¯t want to bother, but I¡¯ve recognized the name and the crest of your family from your patch. I only came to give you my deepest condolences for your loss." Said Daniel while showing genuinepassion to the two of them.

    The woman ced a hand on her husband¡¯s back to calm him down, and said "Thank you, Mr. Hiel."

    "You know me?" Asked Daniel with faint surprise.

    "Of course.. You¡¯ve caused quite a stir within the collective. Even if you haven¡¯t caused a big damage, you would have, had you grown further, and continued to operate on your own." Responded the woman through a forced smile.

    The surprised disappeared from Daniel¡¯s face, leaving space to stern expression. "I would have liked to see how much mypany could have grown on its own, unfortunately, these are dark times. After that attack to mypany.. You can understand me."

    Deep confusion appeared on the man¡¯s face, which said "What do you mean by that?"

    Daniel pretended a hint of embarrassment, and said "Well, I have heard the rumor that your daughter has been assassinated by one of her love rivals.. If I am mistaken, I am terribly sorry."

    The moment these words left Daniel¡¯s mouth, the hearts of the two stopped in unison. Their faces filled with shock, and it seemed that they had came to a sudden realization.

    Daniel could see the rage grow steadily within the man¡¯s blue watery eyes. Which was only interrupted after he heard his voice once again. "Thepetition is about to start.. If you need anything, doe and look for me. I might have a few moreforting words for you."

    The middle aged couple took a deep breath, and after taking in Daniel¡¯s words, they nodded at him, and watched as he walked away.

    Since the moment Daniel had seen the various hit jobs in the broker¡¯s logbook, he had already decided that he would share these information with the victims. Unfortunately, he could not be too obvious about it.

    This time, he had decided to pretend that he had heard a false rumor about their daughter being killed for a matter of love.

    Some people might have thought that Daniel was incredible insensitive for saying something like that, but to the victim¡¯s parents, which knew the story to a much deeper level, what Daniel had said was not an insult, but a revtion instead.

    The two quickly realized that there was a possibility that what Daniel had said, could be what had actually happened.

    Finally, thest words pronounced by Daniel, convinced the two of them that he was actually trying to tell them something, and that he wasn¡¯t a simple insensitive youth with false information.

    The moment Daniel walked away from the couple, a person appeared in the middle of the stage.

    This person was well dressed, and seemed to be around forty years of age. He was good looking, and possessed a good build, but despite all of his qualities, Daniel¡¯s eyes were drawn by a single smaller detail.. The missing ring finger on his right hand.

 Chapter 168 The Beginning of the Competition

    "Are you seeing what I¡¯m seeing?" Asked Alesia to a focused Daniel.

    Daniel looked attentively at the man that had appeared out of the blue in the middle of the massive stadium. He had also noticed the man¡¯s missing finger, and yet, he could not be sure that he was the one that hadmissioned the attack on hispany.

    Of course, Daniel had already thought of the possibility that the man¡¯s injury could be a simple coincidence, or that by absurd, it could be a distinctive mark of a certain type of people within the collective.. He wasn¡¯t stupid enough to make such an heavy usation against someone with such a flimsy excuse.

    -----

    Ten minutes earlier, within the hall underneath the stadium.

    This hall was reserved for the participants and their teachers to prepare for the games.

    Here, the rules of thepetition had just been exined to them.

    Since the points assigned to the winner of thepetition were based on two different factors, the games were also divided into two phases.

    The first phase, was the test ofprehension.

    There was only one way to assess a person¡¯sprehension in dept, and that was to make them create an essence sphere.

    Naturally, due to the massive amount of cultivators present, and therge time required to create a regr and permanent essence sphere, the organizers of the event had decided not to use that as the main way of evaluation.

    Instead, they had decided to make the participants produce one without essence treasure, which meant that they would require to focus their entireprehension into a sphere-like form. That, would require much less time.

    After the assessment, this sphere would dissipate due to theck of a binding item.

    The way the organizers had decided to conduct this part of the event, was to simply consider the highest level of sphere that the participant was able to create, before the time limit finished, and their immortal essence would run out, causing it to dissipate.

    This was also a way to raise the level of thepetition.

    Cultivators of a higher level which had put much more time into studying a specific essence, would be able to condense a sphere much faster than weaker, or younger cultivators.

    Naturally, any form of restoration for one¡¯s immortal essence which wasn¡¯t part of the natural production of one¡¯s body, was strictly forbidden.

    They would only have one chance to create the best sphere with their own immortal essence.

    The second part of thepetition was, of course, a practical test of control over a specific type of essence.

    For example, all of the cultivators which were testing theirprehension and control of fire essence, would have to perform an attack against a master of fire essence appointed by the organizers, and defend from one of their attacks.

    These masters were picked amongst the very rare cultivators that had reached a perfectprehension of a specific essence, and usually possessed a high level of cultivation.

    Only they were able to perfectly match the power of each participant, and maintain it while conducting the test, and evaluating the results.

    They also never belonged to any of thepanies that participated in the event, so as to make sure that they wouldn¡¯t over evaluate the members of their ownpanies, or under evaluate the members ofpetitorpanies.

    After the tests for each essence would end, the next test would be conducted, and the cultivators would have the chance to remain in the arena to be tested in another essence, or leave, ande back afterwards for future testing.

    Many cultivators participated in more than one category, after all, the points would be stacked at the end of the event, and only the cultivator with the most points amongst them could win the final prize.

    If by absurd a cultivator was able to obtain a perfect score on bothprehension and control over an essence, they would still only have two hundred points.. Anyone that had a mid or higherprehension and control over two different types of essences would be able to match that result easily.

    Edmund, Roley and Jerigh were standing quietly within the massive group of cultivators.

    "Aren¡¯t you two a little young to be participating in this event?" Asked an old man as he approached their group. Following him, were a man which demonstrated at least forty years of age, and a woman which was thirty-five at the very least.

    He was the teacher of the team that was going to participate for theirpany, while the other two, were the participants.

    Edmund turned to look at the approaching group, and said "Intelligence, talent, and opportunity.. Neither of these are conditioned by age." His tone was indifferent, and his meaning clear.

    Despite Edmund¡¯s good point, the old man wasn¡¯t wrong. The average age of the participants of the event was forty, and for a good reason. The older a cultivator, the more time he would have had to study a particr essence.

    Of the twenty-four hundred participants, only Jerigh and Roley were under thirty years of age.

    By making the two of them join the games, Daniel¡¯s group was indirectly boasting about having the greatest talents of the entire collective.

    "How disappointing.. For a teacher, you sure are capable of underestimating the value of time.." Said the old man with clear disappointment in his tone.

    Suddenly, an impressively high voice came from above them. Causing their mind to fall in a distraught state for a few moments.

    "IT IS MY PLEASURE TO WELCOME YOU ALL! TO THE FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTH EDITION OF THE ¡¯A WORLD IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND¡¯ COLLECTIVE¡¯S GAMES!" Shouted the nine-fingered man from the middle of the stadium.

    As soon as thest word left his mouth, thousands of pieces of firework wereunched in the air, and exploded with colorful shows of lights in the darkening sky.

    At the same time, various holes opened in the ceiling of the hall underneath the stadium, and below them, various sets of stairs formed. From these sets of stairs, the various groups marched out one after the other, while wearing the crests of theirpanies.

    These groups positioned themself orderly in the stadium, with the teachers in the middle, and the two participants by their sides, forming rows and rows of cultivators.

    The moment thest group entered the arena, the firework show stopped, and the host started to talk once again.

    "A sincere wee to the participants, and their teachers!" Said the man while pointing at the rows of the prepared cultivators, which stood quietly in wait.

    The massive crow exploded in cheers, shouts and screams.

    A few of these participants were famous, and some of them were even teacher themselves. These two types of people in particr, had many fans and admirers within the crowd, which loudly cheered for them.

    After a good minute, the host raised his hands high up in the air, and when he lowered them, the deafening roar diminished of a veryrge degree.

    From this simple action, many could infer that this man, was a master of sound essence, and that was probably the reason why this job had been assigned to him.

    "I can feel your thirst for a show.. Your eagerness to discover a new gem.. A new hero! Then, I won¡¯t make you wait any longer. Thepetition starts now!" He barked out loud before turning to look at the participants, and saying "The first essence that will be tested, is wind. Those who wish to participate, stay.. The others, move to the sides of the stadium."

    After hearing the man¡¯s words, the various groups of participants started to move depending on whether they wanted to participate, or not.

    Regardless of whether they wished to participate or not, each and every teacher within the stadium disappeared, and when they reappeared, they were within the floor in which the head of thepanies, and their entourage were spectating the show.

    Edmund reappeared next to his wife, his daughter, and Daniel.

    Wind essence was one of the mostmon essences to learn, and always the first essence of which a cultivator would make an advance inprehension of. The reason for this was simple.. wind was everywhere.

    Against Daniel¡¯s expectation, only about a dozen groups left the stadium, while the rest remained.

    The final score of each participant would stack, and even if they had only a mid levelprehension of wind essence, in the end, everything counted.

    As they had been instructed to do, the numerous participants spaced themselves in even areas, and sat on the ground. Then, they waited for the signal to begin constructing their spheres.

    "Wind essence.. You have two hours! BEGIN!"

    The moment thest word resounded in the air, thousands of different immortal essences started to move outside of the cultivator¡¯s bodies, and stream in between their palms.

    At first, it appeared like thousands of small tornadoes were forming in the stadium, but in a matter of twenty minutes, they either slowly reduced in size, or became bigger due to the poor control that the cultivators had on them.

    Thesest cultivators were the least experienced ones, and had tried to rush the formation of the wind sphere by forcing their entireprehension as fast as possible. Unfortunately, that was a perfect recipe for failure.

    For another hour, many cultivators which failed in their attempts directly left the stadium instead of making another attempt. After all, only forty minutes were left until the end of the test.

    The numbers quickly went down from twenty-four thousand, to eight hundred..

    In thest twenty minutes, people started to finallyplete their essence spheres, and surprisingly enough, even a couple of perfect ones could be seen in their midst.

    Of the eight hundred people remaining, more than half was about to finish, and those who had already finished, were simply maintaining their control over the spheres in order to prevent them from dissipating.

    Jerigh and Roley were amongst these people, as they had finished about fifteen minutes before the end of the timeline.

    In thest five minutes, only about fifty people were left with unfinished spheres.

    A few of them failed in the creation due to how tense they had be, causing them to waste their entire effort.

    When the time ended, various masters appeared in the stadium, and started to stroll in between the cultivators which hadpleted their assignment.

    As they observed the finished products, they noted the results, and moved on.

    In the end, they put their notes together, and formed a provisory ranking amongst the various participants.

    Of the seven hundred and twenty-two people that hadpleted their spheres, Jerigh had ended up two hundred and eighty-fifth with 85 points, while Roley, had ended up ny-ninth, with 93 points.

    The first fifteen cultivators in the ranking were all cultivators which belonged topanies specialized in the production of wind spheres, and all had received a score of a hundred points due to the fact that theirprehension of wind essence was perfect.

    Within the area were the variouspany executives were, many started to congratte thepanies to which these fifteen people belonged to.

    At the same time, a couple of groups approached Daniel as well.

    Most of them werepanies which dealt in different types of essence spheres, and they used to pat themselves in the back for not being able to top in a specific field.

    They had seen Daniel as one of them.

    Apany which had reached a reasonably good result, and yet wasn¡¯t able to reach the peak.

    "The two youngest, and still amongst the top three hundred in wind essence.. It is impressive." Said an old woman which wore a fiery-redrge robe. She was apanied by three more cultivators of simr age. Each wearing an identical robe with different shades of red, and an identical crest and name written on it.

    ¡¯Heart¡¯s Warmth¡¯ was the name sewn over an heart-shaped yellowish me.

 Chapter 169 A Private Testing

    "It¡¯s just luck.. Just luck." Responded Daniel while turning towards the administratives of the ¡¯Heart¡¯s Warmth¡¯pany, and smiling politely.

    "Oh, don¡¯t say that.. I cannot even imagine the enormous amount of effort that those two young men have put to reach that level." Said another old man from behind the leader of their group. "To ssify effort and talent as luck, truly makes no justice.." He then added.

    Daniel immediately turned to look at this second old man, then he added "Of course, I meant that it was ourpany¡¯s luck to find such talented and hardworking people."

    "True words." Said the leading old man with a faint smile. He then presented himself by saying "I am Yeo Man, head of the ¡¯Heart¡¯s Warmth¡¯pany."

    From the distance, another group approached.

    This group of people, just like most others, wasposed of four cultivators. The four of them wore identical-looking robes, the only difference was the color. Two of these cultivators wore silver robes with three white stripes that came down their right shoulders, one wore an almost entirely white robe with silver stripes in the opposite shoulder as the silver-robed cultivators, and finally, the robes of the leading member of their group was split in half, one part was silver, while the other was white.

    On the chest of each of these cultivators was a crest on which the image of an upside down tree with various branches which moved downwards, could be seen. The branches on the left side were straight, had sharp edges, and were silver in color. On the other side, the branches were of a white color, and their form was unstable and moved in random direction.

    Underneath this crest was a patch, on which the name ¡¯Sword of Lightning¡¯ was sewn clearly.

    "Am I toote to join the pity party? Hehehe" Said a stout middle aged man ironically, while approaching their two groups.

    After his group arrived, the man turned towards Daniel, and said while grinning "I guess not. Yourpany¡¯s participants did great."

    The head of the ¡¯Heart¡¯s Warmth¡¯pany took a step forward, and said "Mister Hiel, this is Reeve Gibby.. Head of the ¡¯Sword of Lightning¡¯pany. They deal in the production and sale of weapons, lightning enchantment, and spheres of the metal and lightning essences."

    "It is a pleasure, Mr. Gibby." Said Daniel while nodding politely.

    "The pleasure is mine, Mr. Hiel. I¡¯ve heard a lot about you, and the variety of products that yourpany produces. It¡¯s truly astonishing." Responded the head of the ¡¯Sword of Lightning¡¯ just as politely.

    Each and every group that had approached Daniel so far, operated within the same city Daniel¡¯spany operated in.

    The various group members started to chat with each other, and after a couple of minutes, as the second part of thepetition of wind essence was about to start, everyone went back to their ces, and focused on observing thepetition.

    "Learned anything?" Asked Daniel to Emelnie.

    She approached Daniel, and after getting closer to his side, she whispered a few words to his ears.

    Daniel responded to these words with a disappointed expression, and said "Maybe the next ones.."

    -----

    In the middle of the stage, two cultivators had appeared.

    The two of them could have been seen earlier, as they evaluated theprehension of the participants. Now, they were standing in two different sections of the stadium.

    These two cultivators were extremely powerful. Enough to single handedly defeat therge numbers of cultivators that were currently participating in thepetition all by themselves. They were masters of wind, and this, was the trial to test the control over wind essence.

    Painted on the ground around the first one, was arge white circle on which the cultivators had been instructed to stand in wait, split in groups of fifty, and divide into simr level of power.

    There were, once again, close to twenty-four hundred cultivators in the stage, and the way they would be tested, was by defending from an attack from one of the masters of wind, and then, perform an attack against the other.

    The first masters of wind would send a wind attack outwards, against which these participants would have to defend only by using wind essence.

    Those who were sessful, would be allowed to attack the second master one at a time.

    The way to decide which one would go first, was simple. The ones closer to the original circle, were those that had managed to perform a better defense, and therefore, had a higher control over wind essence. Every half meter from the original circle, up to twenty-five meters, would mean one less point from the 50 points given to a perfect defense.

    Without wasting too much time, the master of wind pushed a powerful gust of wind which crashed against the line of cultivators.

    More than half of them immediately took a few steps backward, while the rest, were able to barely defend against the iing attack.

    The attack was not a single hit from which they needed to defend, but more like a wave that constantly tried to push them away.

    Many methods were adopted to defend from this powerful gust of wind. Some attempted to create a simrly powerful and opposite wave with them in the middle in order to nul the attackpletely, while others tried to create a wall that would put the attack to a sudden halt.. Unfortunately, their reserves of immortal essence could notpare with the two masters of wind.

    In a matter of minutes, the rest of the cultivators were pushed back one after the other.

    Ten minutes after the beginning of the test, no one was left standing in the line.

    The closest amongst them, were five cultivators that were between the three to four meters of distance.

    After the ten minutes passed, the participants formed an orderly line in front of the second master of wind, which started with who had the best result, and ended with whom had the worst result.

    At the same time, the second group of fifty cultivators approached the circle around the first master of wind, and waited in silence.

    To those who were being tested by the second master, only one chance to prate his defenses was given.

    The master of wind would always defend in the same way, and that way, was to summon a seemingly imprable tornado around himself, which was always slightly more powerful than the attacking participant.

    One after the other, the various participants would attack with all of the power they had. And at least for the first few of each group, the results weren¡¯t always disappointing.. In fact, a few of them were able to prate the tornado, and even make their attacks reach the master of wind.

    The moment the first fifty cultivators ended their tests, the time to test the second group of cultivators arrived.

    A simr scene presented itself in front of the hundred and fifty thousand spectators once again.

    At the end of the ten minutes-long attack, each cultivator was forced at least a few steps away from the original line.

    Many of the spectators were disappointed by the scene, but they of course could not understand one important truth.. Defending was a lot harder than attacking.

    That was the entire reason why such arge amount of cultivators had managed to prate the defense of the second master of wind, but could not stay within the original line no matter what they tried.

    At the end of the testing, only about sixty cultivators had managed to remain in the original line, and they were the ones that had used the smartest ways to deflect the attack with the minimal consumption of immortal essence.

    Most of the cultivators had been tested. The only two that were left approaching the line around the first master of wind, were Jerigh and Roley, which by being the weakest cultivators around, had to be tested separately from the rest.

    "Who are those two?"

    "..They look young.."

    "Why did they even join if they are so weak?"

    "I don¡¯t recognize their crest.."

    "Are they part of one of the newpanies?"

    The buzzing of chatter could be heard start both within the floor reserved for thepany administratives, and in the stands outside of it.

    Many heads of thepanies that were nearby Daniel recognized their attire, and then, turned to look at the stage with curiosity.

    The master of wind set his power to the peak of the third stage of cultivation, just above Roley and Jerigh¡¯s level, and sent his usual wave of attack.

    The moment the wave of wind reached three meters in front of them, it split, and proceeded past their bodies before joining back together.

    "That won¡¯t work.." Muttered one of the members of one of thepanies that dealt in wind essence. "That method might have a low impact on their bodies, but they will be pushed out the instant their immortal essence runs out.."

    Many around him nodded in agreement at first, but the more time passed, the more their eyes and mouths opened in surprise.

    Both Jerigh and Roley were peacefully standing on the original line, as if they weren¡¯t even under attack to begin with.

    Eight minutes had passed, and now even the masters of wind had started to show faces of shock. They could feel that neither of the two was using external ways to replenish their essence, and that they were simply using the one that naturally reformed within their bodies.

    To them, this only meant one thing.. Absolute prodigies.

    Finally, ten minutes passed with them still standing peacefully over the line.

    The two approached the area around the second master of wind, followed by the first tester, which now had no more participants to test, and wanted to look closely at their result.

    They stood one behind the other, with Roley at the head, due to his higher score in the testing ofprehension.

    They quietly faced the second master of wind, which after a moment, signaled them to begin by forming a tornado around his body.

    During the past few years, Roley had changed into a calctive and calm person. He would study the situation, and always try to pick the best path to solve a problem.

    He had spent the past hour observing the methods that the other participants had used to break the tornado, and now, he was ready.

    In reality, the solution to this test had appeared in Roley¡¯s mind as the most obvious of all.

    The master of wind would create the strongest tornado with the power he was allowed to use. That meant that he would use as much control as he could muster in order to construct his defense.

    As the tornado appeared, Roley took a step forward, and formed a second tornado which surrounded the one of the master of windpletely. He forced it to matched the speed, the direction of the various gusts of wind, and finally, he attempted to merge the two.

    The two merging tornadoes were too much for the master to control with the meager power of a peak third stage immortal cultivator, so, he immediately lost control over his own construct, which dissipated, and left its ce for Roley¡¯s tornado to surround him.

    The master of wind immediately let out a powerful wave of immortal essence, which dissipated Roley¡¯s tornado, and then, he simply said "Next."

    Roley walked to the side, and left his ce to Jerigh.

    While Roley was calm and calctive, Jerigh was a swordsman. He was precise, and relied on his instincts to attack.

    After the tornado formed around the master of wind once again, Jerigh let out a single thin de of wind, which perfectly matched the speed and power of the master¡¯s tornado.

    This de was quickly absorbed by the master¡¯s powerful winds, and started to rotate aimlessly within the tornado..

    For two full minutes, the de seemed to have no chance to pass through the wind barrage, but the moment it casually approached the internal limits of the tornado, it burst out, and hit the master of wind in the back of his head.

    The entire crowd was quiet, and stared at the two of them with eyes filled with shock.

    The same could be said for the variouspany leaders around Daniel, which were now looking at his group with impressed expressions.

    On Edmund¡¯s face, the hint of a prideful smile could be seen.

 Chapter 170 I Bet You Will Not Be Disappointed

    Once Jerigh and Roley finished being tested, the two masters of wind left the arena, and went topare, andbine their evaluations of thepetitors together.

    The results would be all given at the same time at the end of the testings.

    The moment the two masters of wind disappeared, The nine-fingered cultivator appeared once again in the middle of the stage. Once there, he said with his usual oppressively high tone "What a beautiful spectacle.. Truly worthy of our mighty collective! But let¡¯s not stop here.. The next test is for water essence!"

    The moment the man finished speaking, the majority of the cultivators walked back up on the stage, leaving only a few of the dozens of people on the outside of the stage, simrly to what had happened the moment the test for wind essence had been announced.

    With all probability, those who had left the stage were those who had never tried toprehend wind or water essence to begin with.

    -----

    Back in the room for the administratives, Daniel and the rest of his group were chatting with variouspany representatives that had approached them.

    Most of them, were groups that dealt in wind essence.

    "Two prodigies! Truly.."

    "Impressive to say the least!"

    What had really left thesepany leaders shocked, was the fact that both Roley and Jerigh had a control superior to their ownprehension of the essence. That was considered much rarer than having a perfectprehension at such a young age.

    The reason for that, was thatprehension was what indicated intelligence and wisdom, while the control, was what indicated affinity and practical talent.

    Daniel was responding to people¡¯spliments left and right, until suddenly, a voice that shut the majority of thepany leaders up, was hearding from a few meters of distance.

    "It is quite selfish to limit those young men¡¯s talent to your feeble means.. You should consider letting them work where they have the biggest chances of growing up."

    This voice belonged to a green-robed thin man, which quietly stepped towards Daniel and spoke with a righteous tone.

    Daniel turned to look at this green-robed man, and responded by saying "And I assume that one of those ces, is Mister¡¯spany, correct?"

    Just as Daniel had guessed, the man¡¯spany was in fact one of the most powerful wind essence dealers in the entire collective. They also dealt in flying formations, and enchanted ranged weapons.

    "Correct. I think it is safe to assume that yourpany does not possess the means to really develop these young men¡¯s talents.. You should not waste their potential like this.." Said the slim middle-aged man with a displeased tone. He then added "If they stay within your Golden Karmapany, this is probably going to be the most attention the will ever receive."

    Daniel simply smiled back at him, and said "I think you would be surprised about that.. But if you want, we could put that to a test.."

    "Are you suggesting a bet?" Asked the slim man with furrowed brows.

    Most of thepany administratives around looked at Daniel in surprise. They knew perfectly who that man was, and although they did not need to fear him or hispany, they would still behave more politely than Daniel was.

    "Of course.. At this pace, thepetition willst days.. Don¡¯t you want to make this a little more interesting?" Asked Daniel with a clearly provocative expression on his face.

    After a few moments of thought, the thin green-robed man smiled, and said "Very well.. What should we bet on?"

    "You moved the im that I am not capable of developing my people¡¯s talent.. So why not bet that you will admit that you are wrong by the end of today?" Proposed Daniel calmly.

    The man looked at Daniel as if he was looking at a stupid person, then, he asked "And how much is that worth to you?"

    "I wouldn¡¯t know. It is a matter to judge whether your opinion is worth something or not.. How much would you be willing to value your opinion?" Asked Daniel with an innocent smile.

    The meaning of his words was clear. He wanted the green-robed man to put a value on his own word. If the man ced a low bet, then, he would be admitting that his word was only worth so much.

    For the green-robed man there was only one thing that he could do.

    "Very well. I bet five hundred perfect crystals that I will be disappointed by the performance of your people." Responded the man with confidence.

    That promise was not enough for Daniel. He wanted more..

    "And what result would bring you disappointment?" He asked with curiosity.

    "If either of them ranks below the top two hundred, I will be disappointed." Responded the man clearly.

    His n wasn¡¯t too bad. He knew that, due to their young age, both Roley and Jerigh could not possibly have a highprehension and control over many types of essences. But that could not be said about many of the other participants.

    At the same time, he wanted to imply that, in case the two of them were part of hispany, he would be able to exploit their talent to a level that would make them capable of reaching such a high ranking.

    "Very well." Responded Daniel before turning towards the rest of the crowd around him, and saying "If anybody else would like to make a simr bet, I am opened to it."

    The area quietened for a minute.. Then..

    "I would like to bet fifty perfect crystals.. They won¡¯t enter the top four hundred."

    "I will put eighty perfect crystals on them not entering the top four hundred as well."

    "Mypany.."

    "We would like to.."

    One after the other, more than twenty bets were ced on the final result of Jerigh and Roley¡¯s testing.

    Of course, what people meant with ¡¯top hundred¡¯ or ¡¯top two hundred¡¯, was the final rating, and not the provisory one that would be given at the end of each test ofprehension.

    After epting the numerous bets, Daniel and the other groups kept close to each other, and went back into observing the event.

    -----

    About an hour had passed, and various water-like unstable spheres had started to form in between the participants hands.

    The results were about the same as before. The majority of the cultivators were unable to put their entireprehension into a sphere form, or rushed themselves in order to get a better result.

    In between them, Roley and Jerigh formed two spheres at different speeds.

    In the blink of an eye, another hour passed, signaling the end of the two hours time limit.

    Just like during the test for wind essence, a few masters of water walked up to the stage, and quietly paced while evaluating the various spheres ced in between the participant¡¯s hands.

    After a few minutes, the masters approached each other, and after sharing their evaluations with each other, they created a temporary ranking for the water tests.

    Simrly to the testing for wind essence, only about five hundred cultivators had managed toplete a water sphere, and were included in the ranking. Of these five hundred people, Roley was ranked forty-ninth, while Jerigh, was Three hundred and fifty-sixth.

    Of the two, Roley¡¯s result was especially impressive to the manypany heads and administratives that had bet with Daniel. They truly did not expect that such young cultivators could reach such a high level ofprehension of two essences.. But they were not worried. Comprehension and control were two very different things.

    Just like with wind essence, the first couple dozens in the temporary rating were the strongest cultivators, which also possessed a perfectprehension of water essence.

    The reason why Roley wasn¡¯t any higher than his current position, was because despite having a ny-eight percent ofprehension of water essence, he had been slower than the more powerful participants with an identicalprehension.

    The same was for Jerigh, which was thest ranked of the cultivators that possessed an eighty-two percentprehension.

    After the temporary ranking was released, the crowd cleared the stage, and two of the masters of water entered the stage.

    Fifty at a time, the participants would be sent to defend against the first master, and then, to attack the second one.

    As thest group finished being tested for their control over water essence, Jerigh and Roley¡¯s turn to be tested again arrived.

    The method of testing the defense abilities of the participants through the use of water essence, was not conducted in the same way as the wind essence was.

    Instead of having to withstand a constant gust of wind, thepetitors had to escape a trap made out of water. They would each be encased within a sphere of water, and would have to only use water essence to escape from it.

    When it was their turn, Jerigh and Roley managed to surprise everyone by, once again, using the same way to easily pass the test of defense.

    The way they had used, was to create a simpleter of ice around the sphere of water and use it to encapste the sphere. Then, they would reach for it, and use its solid surface to crawl out of the caged water.

    This would not be possible in normal circumstances, as the power of the master of water was set to be at the peak of the third stage of immortal cultivator.

    Theoretically speaking, they should not have been powerful enough to cage the master¡¯s sphere of water, nor filter their immortal essence through their construct of water.. But contrary to the expectations, they would always show more power than people assumed they would have.

    During the test of attack, the two of them left the spectators shocked once again, by demonstrating how easily they could go through the ice shield created by the master of water in order to defend by their attack.

    The way Roley passed this test, was by overpowering the shield with hot vapor. Making it melt into nothingness, and forcing the master of water to dere the test over.

    Jerigh, on the other hand, had used a much more crude method. He had created a de of ice, and had shed horizontally against the wall of ice. The wall of ice dissipated a few momentster, and on the light blue robes of the second master of water, people could see an evident horizontal rip on the externalyer of the fabric.

    -----

    Back within the floor reserved for the administrative members of thepanies, Daniel was ncing at the slim green-robed man with a satisfied grin.

    "Don¡¯t gloat, kid.. The games are far from being over, and there are still many essences to be tested." Said the man with indifference.

    "Of course.. You can always increase the stakes of our bet.. Or give up now, and pay half of what was previously agreed." Responded Daniel with a faint smile.

    The meaning of Daniel¡¯s words was clear to everyone.. ¡¯Increase the stakes of our bet, or humiliate yourself, and pay half¡¯. To many this sounded more like a bluff than a genuine concession.. And unfortunately for them, most of them did not fall for it.

    "Very well.. I¡¯ll see your bluff. I¡¯ll increase my bet to seven hundred and fifty perfect crystals, if you can afford to keep up." Said the green-robed cultivator with a dirty grin on his face.

    Daniel turned to look at the people around him, and said "Anybody else wishes to do the same?.."

    "I do.. A hundred perfect crystals.."

    "Seventy-five.."

    "Ny perfect crystals instead of eighty."

    In a matter of minutes, about three fourth of the people which had ced a bet with Daniel, had increased them by a substantial amount.

    In response, Daniel said "Very well, I ept all of your bets.. Let¡¯s go back into watching.."

    Satisfied by Daniel¡¯s response, they all turned to look at the middle of the stage, and quietly waited for the event to be over.

    Unfortunately.. Their satisfied grins quickly disappeared as they spectated to the following few tests.. Leaving space to an ufortable look.

 Chapter 171 Offer to the Champion

    What was in reality just a day that passed by as fast as any other, felt much slower for a few of thepanies heads present within the floor which had been reserved for them within the stadium.

    After wind and water, four other essences were tested before the organizers concluded the first day of the event.

    The people that had bet with Daniel showed dispirited faces, as they slowly came to peace with the fact that there was a fifty percent chance that they would end up losing a lot of money.

    The reason for that, was the fact that neither Roley or Jerigh had left the stadium during either of the tests, and not only were they always capable of producing a temporary essence sphere, but they were also capable of resisting the first master¡¯s attacks, and sessfully break the second master¡¯s defense.

    What had shocked everyone in particr, were three of these events, in which both Jerigh and Roley not only were able of defending and attacking sessfully, but were also able to produce perfect essence spheres for metal, wood, and earth essences.

    The ones that had noticed this first, were thepany heads which dealt with products and spheres of those three specific essences, along with the masters that tested theirprehension.. While the jaws of the rest of the spectators andpanies, ignorant to the matter, dropped after seeing the ranking of all three of those essences.

    In the wood essence ranking, Roley had conquered the thirteenth ce, while Jerigh had earned the twelfth.

    In the metal essence ranking, Jerigh had ranked neenth with Roley followed right behind at the twentieth position.

    The earth essenceprehension ranking wasn¡¯t any different, and Roley and Jerigh had respectively ended up in the twenty-sixth and twenty-fifth position.

    Despite not being first and second, they had still received a full hundred points, as the spheres that they had formed showed a perfect level ofprehension.

    They had also showed spectacr results during the control stage of the testing. Especially Jerigh with metal essence, and Roley with earth essence.

    The reason why they weren¡¯t higher on the ranking, was because each of those that were above them, not only had a perfectprehension of those essences that matched theirs, but also possessed a higher cultivation which had helped them with forming the sphere faster.

    There was still a full day of testing, in which theprehension of some of the most difficult essences would be tested, but for now, Jerigh and Roley went back to join Daniel and the rest into the reserved floor.

    There, along with the many other cultivators, they were weed by thepanies to which they belonged with extremely mixed feelings.

    The favourites were still a few of the oldest cultivators, which had managed to, just like Jerigh and Roley, to obtain significant results in various trials. Also, nobody really knew what the true points appointed for the test of control were, as they would only be announced at the end of the entire event.

    Within the reserved floor, Daniel and the rest were standing by themselves, enjoying the refreshments, and chatting amongst each other.

    Alesia was currently standing by herself, slowly eating a cracker with a type of undefined paste spread on it. She seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit.

    Daniel was busy in a conversation with two of the variouspany heads, which hade to pay their debt in advance, or had approached Daniel topliment him for the good seeds within hispany.

    Despite the chance to tie a few strings with powerfulpanies, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but nce at Alesia every now and then, as she stood quietly by herself.

    She had tried to approach numerous young girls during the past couple of hours, and attempted to start a conversation with them. Unfortunately, the young inheritors of thesepanies would usually respond politely before leaving, or ignore her in the first ce.

    She had always been part of a prestigious family within the empire she hade from, and people used to seek her attention as soon as they would see her. But here, it was different. She was one of the inheritors of thestpany that had joined the collective, and did not even possess an administrative position herself.

    She was, without a doubt, the individual with the lowest standing within the thousands of people present, and that was something she wasn¡¯t used to.

    That had lead her to stand by herself, and simply try the various refreshments in silence, as she hadn¡¯t had much sess in starting a conversation to people that weren¡¯t her parents.

    After a few minutes, Daniel managed to cut himself loose from the variouspany heads, and approached Alesia from the side. The only thing he could think about while approaching her, was how nicely her dress fitted her, and how dumb were other young masters for not making a move on her.

    "Why are you standing there on your own?" Asked Daniel with visible confusion.

    Alesia turned to look at Daniel, and when she saw him, a faint smile re appeared on her face. She then noticed that he was holding an entire tray of the appetizers she seemed to fancy the most, causing her smile to grow wider.

    "It appears that I am not as good at making new friends as I thought I was.." She responded with a matter-of-fact tone. She didn¡¯t seem dispirited by it.. It was just a matter of fact.

    "They clearly don¡¯t like fun people." Said Daniel right away, before taking a small pause, and adding "Why else would they rather talk to me, than to you."

    Once again, Alesia smiled sweetly in return to Daniel¡¯s words "Thanks..". She then looked at the tray of appetizers "How did you know these were my favourite ones? Were you looking at me?" she asked while moving her pale hand towards him.

    Daniel quickly moved the trail back, and said with fake shock in his eyes "Huh, excuse me.. These are for me.." He then picked one and put it in his mouth.

    It was disgusting.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes opened wide, as he looked at Alesia with shock. The small bite of cracker and meat paste moved over his tongue like a drifting boat in the middle of the sea.. The vor was too bad to even consider swallowing it.

    What made things worse, was Alesia¡¯s melodious, yet derisoryugh, which resounded in his area, causing many people to turn around.

    Daniel¡¯s upper body lowered as his tense arms pressed against his knees. He was trying his best not to spit that out.

    "Are you sure they were for you?" Asked Alesia inbetween hystericughs.

    Daniel straightened his body once again, mustered all of his courage, and finally, he swallowed the half chewed piece of cracker.

    After taking a deep breath, he looked at Alesia, lifted his thumb, and said "Mhh.. so.. So good.."

    "Fine, just pass it here.. They are too good to be wasted on you!" She said while approaching him, and taking the trail off of his hands. She then ced it onrge table on which the rest of the refreshments were ced orderly.

    Before Alesia could turn to look back at Daniel, she heard a voicee from behind her.

    "Mister Hiel, the gathering is about to begin. Follow me if you wish to participate."

    Daniel had of course heard about the gathering. It was an even that usually took ce in the night between the two days of the event.

    Thepany owners which possessed the most promising participants would be invited to participate.

    During this gathering, the variouspanies were able to select a list of objects they were looking for, and the items they were willing to trade these objects with.

    The main reason why this secondary event had been created, was to allow people to make their proposition to the future winner of the entire event. Each of those offers, were included in the category of offers called ¡¯The Offers to the Champion¡¯.

    After many of these events had taken ce, the practice had expanded to items that were not part of the event, which people wished to exchange for others that fitted theirpanies better.

    Basically, it was this world¡¯s biggest exchange point for essence treasures.

    Alesia did not turn around, and instead listened as the words "Of course." came out of Daniel¡¯s mouth. For some reason that she wasn¡¯t able to exin, she felt indescribably sad for a moment.

    She wanted to turn around and look at Daniel walk away, but before she could, she felt two fingers grab her hand gently, and drag her away from the table of refreshments.

    When she turned around a big smile appeared once again on her face, as she saw that Daniel was taking her with him, instead of leaving her alone once again.

    -----

    Daniel and Alesia followed the young man all the way into a separated hall, crossing half of the entire stadium, and walking through thousands of people in the crowd.

    For a long time now, people had started to look at Daniel with confused eyes. They saw him as a young man in his early twenties, but if a poll was taken, between all of the people present, ny-nine percent of them would say that Daniel was at least sixty-five years of age, while the remaining one percent, were those who had actually interacted with him for more than a couple of minutes.

    His recent behaviour had made people question his character, as he seemed to be flirting with a girl undoubtedly younger than people assumed him to be.

    Many of them had even thought that, since Daniel had taken with him Edmund, Emelnie, and Alesia to the games, hispany was actually a family business, and that he probably was the patriarch, and father of either side of the middle aged couple.

    When the two of them entered the hall, they saw hundreds of old men and women gathered around, and exchanging a few words amongst themselves.

    Daniel recognized these old people as the heads of the majority of the most prestigious and powerfulpanies within the entire collective.

    The sheer fact that he had been invited to this gathering, was the demonstration that his sudden appearance within the collective had not gone unnoticed.

    The hall was elegant and impressive. There were no chairs around, as most of these people walked from one person to the other, and initiated animated conversations.

    Daniel and Alesia walked all the way up to therge table at the side of the hall.

    On this table, were two different types of sheets of paper. Both of them had straight ck lines, and the only difference, was that there were two different writings on the top of them.

    The writing in the first sheet of paper said "Buy / Trade / Sell", while the writing at the top of the second sheet of paper, said ¡¯Offer to the Champion¡¯.

    Daniel simply picked the sheet with ¡¯Offer to the Champion¡¯ written on it, and with the best calligraphy that he could muster, he wrote

    ____________________________

    Items I am willing to exchange the perfect fire treasure for:

    -One perfect essence treasure of a different element, plus one day of private tutoring from a cultivator with perfect fireprehension.

    -A hundred and twenty thousand perfect crystals.

    -Free offer.

    Leader of the Gold Karma, Dan Hiel.

    ____________________________

    After he finished writing these few words, Daniel gave the sheet of paper back to the clerk behind the table, which took it, and folded it carefully before putting it into an envelope.

    He then tried to leave from the way he and Alesia came, but before they could, a voice reached him from behind.

    "Mr Hiel, please wait a moment." Said this oddly familiar voice.

    Daniel slowly turned around, and in front of him, he saw the nine-fingered man standing while smiling politely.

 Chapter 172 Took You Long Enough..

    "Mr Hiel, please wait a moment." Said a voice that came from behind him.

    Daniel turned around, and standing behind him, he saw the nine-fingered man smiling politely at him.

    "The event¡¯s host. What can I do for you?" Asked Daniel with an indifferent tone.

    The middle aged looked up and down at Daniel and Alesia, then, he said "I only wanted to extend my personal wee to yourpany into our collective. I have heard about what happened to one of yourpany¡¯s marketces.. Truly a hideous act. You will be much safer with us."

    "I agree." Said Daniel with a in tone. He then asked curiously "To which power does this elder belong to?"

    "Mr. Hiel, please don¡¯t jest.. Somebody your age, calling me elder.." Responded the nine-fingered man with a hint of embarrassment.

    Daniel looked back at the man with a curious expression, then said "If you are saying that you are younger than twenty-one years of age.. Then I am truly sorry. You sure do not look like it.."

    It was the nine-fingered man¡¯s turn to feel confused now. He thought for a moment about Daniel¡¯s words, then, his eyes started to open wider and wider in shock.

    At the same time, all around them, many otherpany heads had caught up to the meaning behind Daniel¡¯s words. Their looks, simrly to the man with nine fingers, were filled with shock, and apanied unbelieving expressions.

    Daniel was one of the weakest beings within the floor reserved for the heads and administrative members, and yet, he was the strongest amongst his group of cultivators.

    The way people had exined this strange fact, was by assuming that they were a secluded family which was deeply focused on theprehension of various essences, to a point where they would give up cultivation almostpletely, and that Daniel was the family patriarch.

    Unfortunately for them, Daniel¡¯s words meant something else entirely. It was clear that he was implying to be exactly the age he demonstrated, and that he was not an old man in disguise.

    "Oh.. Mhh.. My apologies for wrongly guessing your age Mr. Hiel.. It¡¯s all due to yourpany¡¯s surprising results." Responded the nine-fingered man with evident embarrassment, and hidden shock.

    "No harm in it.." Responded Daniel without showing the slightest reaction.

    The nine-fingered man adjusted his clothes, then said "Allow me to present myself. I am part of the ¡¯Night Sky¡¯pany, one of the seven founding members of the collective. My name is Klem Roah."

    Out of everyone¡¯s expectation, Daniel moved his right hand in the direction of the nine-fingered man, which looked back at him with curiosity.

    "Just amon way of greeting, which ismon where Ie from." Said Daniel with a polite smile.

    The man moved his hand forward and put it the same way Daniel¡¯s was. He then looked with curiosity as Daniel grabbed it, and shook it vigorously.

    While the two shook hands, Daniel said "A pleasure to meet you Mr. Roah." He then evidently looked at the missing finger on the man¡¯s hand.

    The nine-fingered man immediately noticed that Daniel¡¯s eyes were pointed at his missing finger, and after Daniel let go of his hand, he said "I take it you haven¡¯t seen this type of injury often."

    Daniel feigned an embarrassed expression. Then responded by saying "I apologize.. It¡¯s just that thanks to healing essence.. Seeing someone with a missing finger is quite strange."

    "That is true.. Unfortunately this injury dates way earlier than the time I was able to purchase an healing essence." Responded the man with a faint hint of mncholy in his voice. Daniel could see that he was remembering a harsh past.

    After hearing that the injury on the man¡¯s hand wasn¡¯t a group¡¯s practice, and that it was an old injury, Daniel immediately realized that this man, was in fact the man which had given the order to attack theirpany to the broker.

    "Truly an unfortunate event." Said Daniel with a sympathetic tone. "I would love to spend more time chatting with you Mr. Roah, but I have a few matters to take care of in mypany. We will see each other again tomorrow, for the second part of the games." He then added, before turning towards the hall¡¯s entrance, and leaving with Alesia.

    Once the two of them left the hall, Alesia said "Is it-" but she was quickly interrupted by Daniel¡¯s hand, which gently pressed against her reddish lips.

    Alesia immediately remembered that the man was a master of sound essence, and that he was probably capable of hearing them even if they were to whisper two hundred meters away.

    She nodded quietly at Daniel, which slowly took his hand off her mouth. She then said "Is it really time for us to leave?"

    What she was about to ask earlier, was if Mr. Roah was the man that hadmissioned the attack to theirpany. If Daniel hadn¡¯t stopped her, there was no assurance that she would have stopped herself in time.

    "Yes, Roley and Jerigh need to rest.. And I don¡¯t feel like meeting more old geezers for today.." Said Daniel in a natural way.

    The two then walked off in the direction of the rest of their group, and together, they left.

    -----

    Back within the pocket dimension.

    Daniel had just finished creating a special pocket dimension.

    This pocket dimension was almost empty, and extremely small, with a size of only two square meters. The only things present inside it, were a few low level fire spheres mounted on each of the six walls, and various mmable items.

    Arge number of rocks and metals were also present.

    Thest of the items present within the small pocket dimension, was the perfect fire treasure which Daniel had found into the crater he had created when breaking through the fourth rank of immortal cultivation.

    Thanks to hisprehension of metal and earth essence, he was able to melt both of them to a liquid form, and make a small pool ofva in which he could soak the treasure.

    The low level fire spheres would then keep the small spatial room warm enough to prevent the items from turning back into a solid form.

    This was what Daniel assumed was the best possible environment for a fire elemental to be born in. Unfortunately, he had close to noprehension of fire essence, therefore, he could not produce a perfect sphere which could speed the birth process.

    After he finished, he left the pocket dimension, and reappeared within his room.

    Due to his ying with fire spheres, his clothes had been burned down almostpletely, leaving only his pants and boots intact.

    Only able to think about going to sleep, he took his ruined shirt off.

    Before keeping on undressing, Daniel noticed that therge window that lead to his room¡¯s balcony was opened.

    It only took a moment for him to connect himself with the formation, and see that Alesia was currently asleep in the chair she usually upied when the two of them drank together.

    Next to her, was an half empty bottle of wine, and one ss which still had a bit of wine in it, and a clean ss.

    Daniel approached her, and made sure she was sleeping soundly. He touched her forearm, and said with a low voice "Hey.." but the only reaction he received, was her making herself morefortable in the chair.

    Seeing that she had already fallen into a deep sleep, Daniel slid one arm underneed her knees, and one behind her back, then, he picked her up, and walked towards his bed.

    Once at the edge of his bed, he moved the covers of the bed aside with his feet, and gentlyid her on the soft mattress, before covering her body with the nket all the way up to her shoulders.

    He then walked to the other side of the bed, and lied down on it gently.

    For a few minutes, he looked at Alesia¡¯s peaceful sleeping face.. trying to resist the need to brush his palm against her cheek.. And ultimately, failing miserably.

    He was able to fall asleep only after half an hour.

    When Daniel woke up the next morning, he did not open his eyes right away.. Instead, he delved in thest thing he remembered seeing before falling asleep.

    The memory of Alesia¡¯s sleeping face appeared in his head, giving him a sense of peace.

    It was only after he felt a slow movement on his bed that he opened his eyes.. Andying on the other side of his bed, he saw Alesia.

    She was now above the nket, and she was looking at him sleep with a sweet expression on her face.

    When Daniel saw her once again, unable to hold back any longer, he wrapped one of his arms around her waist, and pulled her closer to him. Then, he directly pressed his lips against hers.

    Alesia did not fight Daniel¡¯s actions in the least, and instead, pressed her palms gently against Daniel¡¯s cheeks, and let his arms wrap tightly around her waist, and behind her shoulders.

    After a few long seconds of kissing sweetly, Alesia pulled herself back a little, and after smiling at Daniel, she muttered "..took you long enough.."

    Daniel looked at the girl¡¯s eyes, then back at her glistening lips, and said "I was stupid.." before moving forward once again, and kissing her one more time.

    -----

    After ten long minutes of being inseparably tangled into a tight embrace, and never ending kiss, the two heard a sound that they had never expected they woulde to hate so much..

    *Knock Knock*

    "Dan, it¡¯s nine in the morning..e on, it¡¯s time to go." Said Roley¡¯s familiar voice from behind the thick wooden door.

    Daniel stopped kissing Alesia, which was nowying underneath him, and looking back at him with flushed red cheeks and warm-looking lips.

    He was more than aware that they needed to leave, but he wasn¡¯t able to control himself, and had ended up lowering his body once again, and kissing Alesia onest time.

    It took all the willpower he was able to muster to separate himself from her, and get up from the bed.

    For the following minute the two prepared themself to leave and join the others to take part in the second day of the games.

    Neither of them said a word, but when Daniel felt that Alesia was about to teleport out of his room, he locked the space around her.. Walked up to her.. Put his palms on her cheeks and forced her into one more passionate kiss.

    A few secondster, their lips parted once again, and after taking a deep breath, Daniel said "This isn¡¯t over.."

    He then took a step back, and teleported out of his room.

    When he reappeared, he was in the hall outside of the castle, right next to Roley, Jerigh, Edmund, and Emelnie.

    Two minutester, Alesia joined the rest as well, and together, they opened a portal that lead directly outside of therge stadium.

    Just like any otherpany head and administrative members, they had to be allowed into the reserved floor once again, so, they walked towards it in silence.

    Once back in, Daniel was greeted much more kindly than during the first day.

    Virtually anyone with whom he had spoken the previous day hade to greet him, as well as a few people he hadn¡¯t met yet.

    About twenty minutes passed slowly, until finally, at exactly nine thirty in the morning, Mr Roah appeared once again in the middle of the stadium, and said "To all our dear spectators and collective members, wee to the second, and in my opinion best half of our exciting games! Yesterday¡¯s event left us with our jaws opened in shock and awe! But something tells me that today won¡¯t be any less exciting. So, prepare for the show.. The first essence to be tested today, will be lightning essence!"

 Chapter 173 The End of the Games

    "Mr. Hiel. How do you think your people will do now?" Asked one of thepany leaders to Daniel.

    Daniel seemed a bit distracted. Only half of his attention was directed at what was happening around him, while the remaining half, was focused on what had happened earlier that morning.

    "They will do fine.." Responded Daniel casually, while feigning a faint smile.

    The test of lightning essence was identical to those conducted for the various other elements. They would be asked to produce a constructed lightning sphere, have the finished result evaluated, and finally, they would be tested on their defensive and offensive capabilities.

    The reason why lightning essence had been separated from the rest of the elements, was because the test conducted on defense and offense were slightly different. There was really no way to defend against electricity, therefore, they had to prepare a different setting for the test.

    Instead of defending from a direct lightning attack, the master of lightning would discharge an electric current into two metallic orbs at the top of two wooden poles deeply buried in the ground.

    The participant would then need to touch both metallic orbs, and by using their own control over lightning essence, they would have to try to avoid creating a circuit that would send the power of the master of lightning right through their body, leaving them fulgurated.

    The result of the event was simr to the previous. Only a few of the participants possessed a perfectprehension of lightning, causing Jerigh and Roley to end up in rtively high positions.

    The following tests, were about the four mostmon and hardest essences around. These essences, were space, time, sound, and finally, light.

    Except for the tests for spatial essence, neither Jerigh nor Roley were able to shine, and there was a good reason for that.

    The generalprehension of sound and time which the two of them possessed, was the one that they had acquired from the cultivators that lived within Daniel¡¯s city.

    People which were called expert in the field once, and yet, were only able to boast a slightly better than basicprehension of those two essences. In fact, the most knowledgeable cultivators within Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, possessed aprehension of forty percent for time essence, and about forty-five percent of sound essence, which was much less than what some specialized people from this world could boast.

    Despite theirck of knowledge in the matter, they demonstrated as much of their ability as the could.

    -----

    One hour after the other slowly passed, and finally, after half a day, the event was over.

    It was now early night, and during the past hour, Daniel and the rest had seen a small procession ofpany heads deliver one ring after another to them.

    These people were those who had ced a bet with Daniel. The only couple of people missing, were those that had bet that the two of them would have not managed to get within the top two hundred.

    "Mr. Hiel.. wouldn¡¯t you rather give up now, and pay half of the bid?" Asked the green-robed man with a visible grin.

    Daniel turned to look at him, and after smiling, he looked back at the stage, and said "I¡¯ll pass.."

    "Confidence only takes people so far.." muttered the man before turning to look at the stage as well, and quiet down.

    In the middle of the arena, there were only twenty-one people standing. The twenty-four hundred participants were standing at the edge of the arena in silence, observing, and listening.

    Twenty of those twenty-one cultivators, were the masters of essence that had been in charge of evaluating theprehension and control of the numerous participants during the tests.

    They were divided in couples, and each couple would represent a specific type of essence.

    Thest person in the arena, was Klem Roah, the nine-fingered man.

    He was currently giving a speech about the importance of the research of different types of mana, about the values on which the collective had been founded, and about how important it was to be a cohesive and united group in the joint objective of furthering theirpanies into the years toe.

    "..to stimte our minds into advancing into a brighter future, and creating new things, objects that will throw us into a new era. This is why we do it.. But enough with the inspirational speech, I can see in your eyes that you want to know the results of the games.. Whichpany surpassed all others in preparing their next generation!.. Please! WELCOME THE PARTICIPANTS!" Shouted Mr. Roah at the end of his long speech.

    He then pointed his hand towards the crowd of participants, and invited them to move back on the stage, where once again, they took the original position which they had taken at the beginning of the event, and were joined by their teachers.

    "These people have spent years in learning, observing.. Practicing. They embraced the workings of the universe, and now, they are putting their results to the test.. And all for a chance to further their knowledge! There is no one more worthy of admiration." Said the nine-fingered man with a righteous and passionate tone.

    He then turned towards the participants, and said "Now, let¡¯s find our champion! Masters, please.."

    The moment the masters heard Mr. Roah¡¯s signal, the two masters of wind took a few steps forward. The first master opened a small parchment, and started to list various names.

    "Kua Lum of the ¡¯Gentle Breeze¡¯pany.."

    "Ikka of the ¡¯Bloody Typhoon and Feeble Rain¡¯pany.."

    "Roley of the ¡¯Golden Karma¡¯pany.."

    The master kept listing the names of the participants, and thepany to which they belonged. The sound of chatter could be heard from everywhere. Be it the spectators, thepany heads, or the administrative members.

    ".. of the ¡¯Wind of Destruction¡¯pany.."

    "Lue of the.. Company..."

    The master went on for fifteen more minute, until finally, he stopped after calling the hundredth name.

    After the master of wind finished listing the hundred names, the people he called took a step forward.

    The masters then gave each of them a medallion with their personal result engraved on it. This medallion also possessed the mark of the two masters, which worked as confirmation that the result was granted by the two masters themselves, and wasn¡¯t forged.

    After obtaining the medallions, the cultivators went back in line. The two masters of wind then left, leaving the stage for the two masters of water.

    "Ren Mao of the ¡¯Waterfall of Truth¡¯pany."

    "Roley of the ¡¯Golden Karma¡¯pany."

    Once again, name after name was called, and in between them, were Roley¡¯s, and Jerigh¡¯s.

    For the following couple of hours, one master of essence after the other assigned the points to each participant just like the two masters of wind had done. By giving them a medallion with both the participant¡¯s score, and their immortal essence contained in it.

    The more time passed, the more thest few cultivators that had yet to pay Daniel felt nervous.

    They didn¡¯t know the scores yet, but the fact that both Jerigh and Roley had been called over and over by most of the masters of essence, that could only mean that their score was more than simply above the average.

    Once the masters of light finished handing over their results to the participants, the nine-fingered man appeared once again in the middle of the stage, and said "Those who have received a medallion stay on the stage. The others can leave."

    After the many disappointed participants left the stage, only about four hundred people remained.

    Most of them had received more than a single medallion, as they had participated in more than one test, performing at a high level.

    The nine-fingered man turned to look at the various spectators, then, took a five meters long already unrolled parchment out of his spatial ring. In it, was the final ranking of the various cultivators, which others could not see.

    "From the two hundredth position, Nitio, from the ¡¯Blue Sky¡¯pany. Nine hundred and fifty-five points." Said the nine-fingered man with a in, yet loud tone.

    One after the other, the nine-fingered man started listing the various cultivators from the fiftieth position, to the eleventh.

    The cultivators that were called showed no displeasure, as even if they were unable to win the final prize of the games, entering the top two hundred was already a result worth being proud of.

    Within the reserved floor, the various heads had calmed down significantly. They had no doubts that Roley and Jerigh would ultimately not be able to reach the top fifty, therefore, they must have ended up out of the top two hundred.

    These people were also thosepany heads whose participants had already left thepetition long ago. They had almost no interest in the result, except for what regarded the result of the bet they had ced against Daniel¡¯s participants.

    In their mind, they were already getting used to the idea of having won the bet.

    "Mister Hiel, you should have epted our kindness. Hehe.. Of course, I¡¯m not going to reject your wishes of making mypany wealthier." Said the green-robed man with a dirty grin on his face.

    As the green-robed man said these words, the nine-fingered man had already started to list the top tenpetitors of the entire event.

    "In tenth position.. Sumo, of the ¡¯As Metals and Minerals¡¯pany, with one thousand and seven hundred points."

    Daniel turned to look at the green-robed man. He then smiled politely, and said "From the way you speak, it almost seem that you have already won.."

    "Don¡¯t be a sore loser Mr. Hiel.. Even if your participants are prodigies, even they would not be able to enter the top ten.. They are too young." Responded the green-robed man with a displeased tone.

    "In sixth position.. Kiara, of the ¡¯Prickling Golden Needle¡¯pany, with one thousand, seven hundred and sixty-one points."

    Daniel sighed deeply after hearing the green-robed man, and said "Fine.. as long as you don¡¯t refuse to pay your debt because you didn¡¯t hear the announcement."

    The face of the green-robed man twisted in confusion for a moment. He was about to say something, but before he could, he heard the nine-fingered man say "In the fourth position.. Jerigh, from the ¡¯Golden Karma¡¯pany, with one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five points."

    The green-robed man froze in ce. The fact that someone as young as Jerigh had managed to obtain such a high position in the rankings was beyond anyone¡¯s expectations.

    It took a few seconds for him to wake up from the shock. He then said "It is still not over.. As long as your other participant isn¡¯t part of the top three.. It is still our loss."

    "In second position.. Bruga, of the ¡¯Secrets of Time and Space¡¯pany.. With one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight points.." Said the nine-fingered man before looking at the first person in the ranking, and suddenly showing a dumbfounded expression.

    He took a brief pause, then, he said "The first in the ranking of this edition of the games of the ¡¯A World in the Palm of Your Hand¡¯ collective.. Is Roley.. From the Golden Karma.. With one thousand seven hundred and ny-nine points.

    A cold shiver run down the back of the green-robed man, and the couple of otherpany heads that still owed money to Daniel. Just the green-robed cultivator owed him about seven hundred and fifty perfect crystals, which for hispany, were essential at the moment.

    Not only because he needed crystals to cultivate, but also because after paying the participation fee to the collective, thepany was almost broke.

    Hugely relieved, Daniel walked up to the green-robed man, which had yet to leave his shocked state, and said "Feel free to deliver my winnings to your convenience."

    He then turned towards the stage onest time, where the nine-fingered man was personally congratting Roley for winning the games, and giving him his prize.

 Chapter 174 The Aftermath of the Games

    "I guess that this answers the question about whether you are disappointed or not in my group¡¯s performance. Or am I wrong?" Daniel asked with a smug grin on his face.

    The green-robed man and a couple of otherpany heads turned to look at Daniel, and after getting rid of their shocked expressions, one of them said "There is no need to rub it in our faces Mr. Hiel.. no one likes a petty winner."

    After a bit of banter, thepany heads all turned back to look at the arena.

    There, the nine-fingered man was handing over a medal to each of the people that had earned a ce in the top ten positions, along with the various smaller prizes that they had earned.

    Most of the attention was put on the final prize, as the whole point of the games was to obtain that single spectacrly expensive item for which the entire event had been created, but not only the winner would receive a prize.. Many other cultivators would receive one as well.

    These prizes, were mostly a portion of the money that the collective had received from the purchase of the tickets for the event, while the rewards for the second to tenth position, along with a set number of crystals, alsoprised specifically made essence spheres.

    The masters of essence would value the various talents of the cultivators, and after noticing their missing bits ofprehension, they would personally pick the spheres that suited them, and that could grant them the chance to obtain the missingprehension.

    Of course, this was only something done for the first ten cultivators.

    Sharing knowledge betweenpanies thatpeted in a field where knowledge was considered the private product of thepany itself, would usually be considered absurd.. but since the knowledge of the essences had evolved to a multigctic scale, the knowledge of most concepts had now becamemon, and it was not hard to find it, at least for those who knew where to look.

    In the end, with enough money and time, everyone could potentially obtain a perfectprehension of a specific essence.

    Unfortunately, money was not the main problem.

    Those who had managed to obtain scores simr to Roley¡¯s and Jerigh¡¯s, were people which had been taken in by theirpanies since a young age, and made them spend their life, up to theirte forties, studying the essences.

    It was not strange to believe that someone with fifty years of age, would have forty-six years of experience with dealing with essence spheres, because that¡¯s the way thepanies nurtured them.

    Along with training in cultivation, these people producedrge numbers of quality spheres that thepany would then sell. They could quite honestly be considered as the true foundation of thepany.

    The fact that they could thenpete in the collective¡¯s events and have a chance to win mind boggling prizes, was only secondary.

    Of course, That did not mean that they would not try..

    If they could win a perfect essence treasure for theirpany, they would be able to produce a sphere out of it. And with it, the education of more and more masters of fire essence would be easier, and less expensive.

    These methods would also be used by the incalcble otherpanies that dealt in essence spheres all around the universe.

    There were a few worlds where elementals would be treated as ves for the sole purpose of working as living and talking essence spheres. These elementals would be constantly mistreated, and forced into a weakened state.. Or they would usually revolt, try to escape, and sometimes, even kill themselves or their "owners".

    Back in the middle of the stadium, once the nine-fingered man finished handing out the prizes to the cultivators that had entered the top ten, he once again turned towards the public, and with his usual loud tone, said "As per custom, we will help Mr. Hiel, the leader of the ¡¯Golden Karma¡¯pany, to deliver their proposal to everyone present."

    He then took an envelope out of his spatial ring, and from it, a sheet of paper.

    "Mr. Hiel indicated only two specific offers he is willing to consider as ¡¯Offer to the Champion¡¯. These offers are.. A different type of perfect essence treasure, along with one day of private tutoring of a perfectprehension of fire.."

    When thest word left the nine-fingered man¡¯s mouth, variouspany heads that had anything to do with fire started to walk towards him.

    At the same time, many rich cultivators within the stands quickly reported their news through their various methods.

    Not only cultivators that dealt in essence spheres would have a use for perfect spheres, in fact, all around the universe, many of the most reputable groups, families, sects, and school whose members had to learn a particr style which would require knowledge of a specific essence, already possessed a perfect sphere.

    Of course, whenpared to the various groups which did not possess one, they were an infinitesimal amount. After all, what were a few thousands, in a universe which contained billions of groups.

    "The second offer that Mr. Hiel is willing to ept, is a hundred and twenty thousand perfect crystals.." Continued the nine-fingered man.

    "What?!"

    "That¡¯s a ridiculous amount of money.."

    "..Who does he think he is?"

    "That¡¯s double of the worth of the treasure!"

    The second offer listed by the Mr. Roah lit the spark of conversation all through the stadium.

    Nobody expected that Daniel¡¯spany would find someone willing to trade with them, after all, a perfect sphere would be found maybe once every fifty or a hundred years.

    Even though Daniel did not want to sell the essence treasure, he knew that keeping it would attract the envy of many people. Fire essence treasures werergely seeked out by the majority of groups due to the fact that the offensive abilities of fire were amongst the highest of all.

    He wanted to quickly exchange it for a different type of essence sphere, or at the very least, sell it for a significant amount of money. Either way, he would have the means to increase his power, and the power of his group.

    While a hundred and twenty thousand perfect crystals was an absurd price, it was not umon to see an object being put up for sale for double the item¡¯s worth. What ticked people off, was seeing how much that "double" was worth, after all, it was not easy to find a mine of perfect crystals..

    But despite theins.. Arge number of people suddenly approached Daniel from every direction. Their intention was to make their offers.

    As soon as they presented themselves, Daniel interrupted them by saying ".. a pleasure to meet you. If you want to make an offer for the fire essence treasure, please send it to my office. I will definitely consider it."

    Most of those people were the heads ofpanies that dealt in fire essence, and there is no need to say, they had a desperate need for the object.

    The reason why Daniel didn¡¯t want to hear the offers now, was that he knew that if he were to listen to thesepany heads, they would simply offer a bit more than the treasure¡¯s price.

    What he wanted, were the offers from the people behind the spectators.

    There were much more powerfulpany representatives between the people that upied the stands, than within thepany heads of the collective. Many of these people were in this world only momentarily, and they worked forpanies or conglomerates that operated on multary level.

    Those were the people that Daniel wanted to deal with. And was also the reason why he had decided to go for such a high prize.. He wanted the rich to see it.

    Once the event was over, Daniel left the venue along with his group, and went back into his pocket dimension.

    -----

    For the next few days, Daniel and the rest used their newly acquired wealth to cultivate, and increase their overall power while under the protective nket of the collective.

    Unfortunately, they also had to keep a watchful eye on the collective itself.

    Now that the broker worked for him, Daniel had received three different reports that warned him that three different groups had targeted him. Two of these groups werepanies that belonged to the collective, while the third, was a sect that operated by itself in the capital.

    Of course, all of those groupsmissioned the attacks anonymously. It was only thanks to the dark elemental which worked for the broker, that Daniel was able to find out who the senders were.

    Whenever hispany was attacked, an emissary from the collective would be sent to visit him. This emissary would usually promise that the culprit would be found, and that justice would be served. But of course, whenever they used somebody of the attack, they would always present an innocent person.

    Daniel would always ask for these people to be handed over to him, so that he could take care of them.. And he did not lie. After testing their honesty through their karma, he would quite literally take care of them and their families by hiding them within hispany and pocket dimensions.

    These people were part of families that had had some difficult past withpanies that had eventually joined the collective, and therefore, they had expected that the collective woulde and act against them sooner orter.

    Fortunately for them, when they were handed over to Daniel, they had also found a good asion to disappear under the radar of the collective.

    Daniel would always offer these people the chance to start over in another city where thepanies that had a bone to pick with them did not operate, but in the end, they would almost always decide to stay, and work for him.. After all, there was always a chance that they could be found out again, and eventually be killed.

    Daniel¡¯s cultivation went a lot smoother now that he possessed arger sum of money.

    He could expand hispany through the use of perfect crystals, and at the same time, use high crystals, which still had a powerful effect on him and hispanions, to cultivate.

    Now that Daniel had surpassed the ninth rank, or third stage of cultivation, he had technically entered the world of immortals.

    The reason why people called cultivators over the third rank immortal cultivators, along with calling the mixture of their spirit and body ¡¯immortal essence¡¯, was because after the third rank, the limited life essence of these people would be strengthened, and it would be consumed by death essence at a rtively slower pace than before.

    The increases in lifespan came with each increase in stage, and the more powerful one became, the more additional years of life they would be able to obtain.

    A cultivator at Daniel¡¯s stage of cultivation, would be able to live up to a hundred and twenty years, while a cultivator at the fifth rank would have a lifespan of up to two hundred years.

    At the moment, Daniel aged at a slower speed than everybody else in his group.

    The strongest cultivator present in the world where Daniel was currently in, was the ¡¯Keeper of Key¡¯, a cultivator at the ninth stage of cultivation, which could live as long as three thousand years.

    Aside from the man that guarded the entrance to this world, were the various cultivators at the seventh stage of cultivation. A few of them were the heads of the most powerful groups, sects and families, while the rest, were part of the government.

    Thanks to his prodigious talent, Jerigh was the second to break through the stages of mortality, and had be the first one of Daniel¡¯s group to enter the fourth stage of immortal cultivation after Daniel himself. The closest ones behind him, were Roley, and Alesia.

    Due to hisck of progression in the study of spatial essence, Edmund had also started to cultivate his body through his wife¡¯s methods of martial cultivation, while Emelnie, did the same for spiritual cultivation.

 Chapter 175 How About a Kiss?

    The past few day had been extremely busy for each of Daniel¡¯s group members.

    Those who did not consistently cultivated, were busy with expanding thepany.. They traveled through the region, and visited the various cities in order to purchase shops, and establish their presence in the territory they were allowed to operate in.

    In the end, Daniel and Alesia weren¡¯t able to find a moment that they could spend together. Be it because of the embarrassment that had formed after not being able to be together for more than a day, or because of theck of a proper chance.

    But despite their busy schedule, Daniel still found the time to rx in his balcony at night.

    That¡¯s where he currently was.

    "This is going to take forever.." Said a voice from within Daniel¡¯s head.

    A surprised expression appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "Now that¡¯s a voice I haven¡¯t heard in awhile.."

    "Your daily life is getting boring.. You haven¡¯t been following the quests given by the system in so long.. You should just go around and make a mess.." Said Sewah with a displeased tone. Daniel could also feel a hint of frustration in it.

    "How am I supposed to free my world from very, if I¡¯m not even there?! One step at a time." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Who are you talking to?" Asked a melodious voice from behind Daniel¡¯s chair.

    For once, Daniel¡¯s heart jumped in his chest, as he recognized the owner of this voice as Alesia.

    He rapidly got up from his chair, turned towards her, and while looking at her with a mesmerized expression, he muttered ".. just to myself.." in a low voice.

    That night, Alesia looked particrly good. She was wearing a beautiful dress, and she didn¡¯t look like she hade to simply drink, and spend time together like they usually did.

    "You look.. Incredible.." Said Daniel with the deepest shock he had ever felt in his life. "What is the asion?" He then asked.

    Alesia looked at him with a hint of embarrassment, and said "I was thinking that we could take a pause from everything else.. And just.. Do something together."

    Unable of forming a reasonable response in his mind, Daniel kept quiet for a few moments. It was only after ten long embarrassing seconds, that he said "Give me a few minutes to change.."

    -----

    In a matter of minutes, Daniel came out of his room, and nervously walked toward the castle¡¯s main hall. There, Alesia was waiting for him.

    He was wearing a fitting ck suit, inside which he himself believed to look worse than he actually did.

    As he arrived into the hall, and he saw Alesia waiting for him, the sound of a silvery voice came from his side.

    "Dan, I have these offers for you to check, they¡¯ve arriv.." Said Alis before pausing, looking at him up and down, and said "Going somewhere?" She then looked at Daniel¡¯s eyes, which moved behind her.

    After Alis turned around, she saw a beautifully dressed, and slightly embarrassed Alesia clearly waiting for him in the hall. An expression of realization appeared on her face, as she muttered, "Oh.. Well.. you can check theseter.. I¡¯ll leave." before walking back into one of the corridors at the side of the hall.

    Daniel ignored the interruption, and walked towards Alesia, which looked at him up and down with a bright smile on her face.

    "What do you want to do?" He asked.

    Alesia walked next to him, and wrapped her arms around Daniel. She then said "How about we take a walk in the capital.. I am sure we will find something to do."

    Daniel waved his hand faintly, and a portalrge enough for three people to walk through appeared in front of them.

    On the other side of this portal, was Der, which was currently eating inside one of the restaurants inside Daniel¡¯spany building.

    Daniel had taken the habit of giving the ring to Der, whenever he wished to go back into his pocket dimension to rest. After all, Der was the strongest person that followed him, and there was nobody else that had more of a motivation for Daniel and the rest to be safe.

    "Going out?" Asked Der with a mouth covered in what looked like a greasy substance. He then turned towards the two of them, and after seeing the way they were dressed, he quickly cleaned himself up, and said "Do you want to keep the ring or..?"

    "We¡¯ll be backter.. You can keep it for now." Responded Daniel before waving his hand once again, and opening a second portal.

    On the other side of this portal, was an extremely busy street.

    It was alreadyte at night, so, the people that walked around weren¡¯t customers poking about for products.. Instead, the streets were filled with couples on a night out, groups of friends, and other types of parties with the same objective in mind.. to have fun.

    The part of the city in which they had decided to appear, was a rich neighborhood, therefore, all the shops and restaurants were ssy and expensive. It really suited the way he and Alesia were dressed.

    "Do you want to look for somece to eat?" Asked Daniel while turned to look at Alesia.

    In response, she rested the side of her head against his shoulder for a moment, then turned to look back at him, and with a smile, she said "Sure, let¡¯s go."

    The two walked and recounted to each other things they hadn¡¯t yet shared before.

    Alesia told Daniel about her rtionship with the guy that used to pester her, about how she was sure that her parents had decided that she should have practiced martial cultivation in a game of rock paper and scissors, in which her father tried to cheat, but that in the end, her mother had won thanks to her better reflexes.

    Daniel listened to Alesia hrious stories, and for some reason, he found them even funnier than Alesia believed them to be herself.

    "Enoughughing at my stories.. Tell me about you." Said Alesia while unconsciously tightening her hold on Daniel¡¯s arm.

    With a slightly embarrassed expression, Daniel said "You would not believe it."

    "Try me." Responded Alesia while feeling almost challenged.

    Daniel smiled faintly at her, and said "My parents died when I was a kid, so I grew up as a pickpocket. That¡¯s how I took care of me and my sister."

    Alesia¡¯s eyes opened in confusion and surprise, then, her expression changed into a dubious one "You were right, I don¡¯t believe you." Of course, she meant the part about the his job, not the part about his parent¡¯s dying.

    "I knew you wouldn¡¯t.. That¡¯s why I stole half of your bracelets while you weren¡¯t looking." Said Daniel while making two golden bracelets dangle from his fingers in front of her.

    Alesia immediately checked her wrist, and there, she saw two identical to those that Daniel was holding disappear in thin air: She burst out with surprise, as if having just witnessed to a magic show "Whaaat!? I didn¡¯t even feel anything!"

    Daniel was used to ying that trick when stealing bags of coins. The only difference, was that now that he could control the various essences, he was able to simply create a fake to leave on the target¡¯s body, and steal the original.

    As a martial and spiritual cultivator, Alesia would have noticed that her golden bracelets were made out of constructed gold, if only she had not been distracted by Daniel.

    "I wasn¡¯t so bad at it.." Said Daniel while feigning offence for her overly exaggerated reaction. While growing up, Daniel had always been more than proud about his skills. "Do you want to make a bet with me?" He asked.

    Shock disappeared from Alesia¡¯s face, as her expression became one of extreme curiosity. she said "What kind of bet?"

    "I bet that by the end of tonight, I¡¯ll put these bracelets back on your wrists, and that you won¡¯t even realize it." Responded Daniel with a challenging look on his face.

    "Oh really?.. And what would the stakes be?" Asked Alesia with a yful smile.

    "How about a kiss?" Asked Daniel with a nervous smile. In his mind, he was risking everything by proposing this.

    After he finished speaking, Daniel saw Alesia¡¯s cheek flush of a brighter red color.

    Unsure whether he had crossed a line, Daniel was about to say that he was kidding, but he was stopped by Alesia¡¯s sweet voice, which simply said "Okay." She then once again wrapped her arms around Daniel¡¯s arm, and after looking in the distance for a few seconds, she saw a colorful and packed restaurant, and said "Let¡¯s go there to eat."

    Slightly surprised by Alesia¡¯s willingness, Daniel said "Sure.. But, don¡¯t you want to keep your guard up? You¡¯ll definitely lose like this."

    Without looking back at him, Alesia started to walk towards the restaurant while leading him in as well, then said "No.."

    About fifty meters away from them, an overly thin ck-cloaked cultivator of what appeared to be thirty years of age looked at the two of them, then, he turned to look at hispanion, a short, and stout simrly dressed man of about the same age, which was currently busy doing something else. "Hey, Isn¡¯t that the head of the Golden Karma?" He said.

    "What? Don¡¯t be stupid.. How could he.." Said the stout man before turning around, but after his eyesnded on Daniel and Alesia, he continued by saying "Ohh.. it really is him."

    The taller and thin man observed the two for about a minute, then, without turning around, he said "You know.. I¡¯ve heard that the reason why the head of the golden karma is so weak, is not because he focused on theprehension of the essences.. But because he is actually as young as he looks."

    "Where did you hear that from?" Asked the shorter and stout man.

    "Remember Hinna, the ¡¯zing Terror¡¯pany¡¯s heiress? Her father heard the head of the Golden Karma say it himself. He isn¡¯t older than twenty one." Responded the thin man. He then added "He seems to be out with that girl.. Alone.."

    A weird smile appeared on the stout man, that looked at hispanion with a dirty grin, and said "Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?"

    "Even if he has nothing on him.. He and the girl must be worth something.. Maybe we would not be able to extort them, but I can think of a hundredpanies that would dly put their hands on him." Responded the thin man with a matter-of-fact tone.

    After thinking about it for a moment.. "That¡¯s a good point.. But let¡¯s do this the right way.. We will need more people. Wait for me here." Responded the stout man before walking towards a dark alley, and disappearing in the shadow.

    -----

    Half an hour had passed, and Daniel and Alesia were still sitting at their table. Enjoying their meal, while quietly throwing jokes at the odd behaviour of the other people present in the restaurant.

    "Look at that old man.. He is eating so slowly that the waiter is going to catch up with his age soon.. Hehehe.." Said Daniel in a low voice while pointing with his eyes at an old couple a few tables next to them.

    "Hahaha.. Okay, I¡¯ll raise your pick with that guy over there.." Said Alesia after moving her head closer to the middle of the table, in order to prevent others from listening to them, and pointing at a guy behind Daniel.

    Luckily, it didn¡¯t seem that there were many that were paying attention to what they were saying, except for a solitary thirty years old man, which couldn¡¯t help butugh whenever the two made a joke.

    Daniel and Alesia had long noticed him, and made apetition out of ¡¯making himugh¡¯. They would joke by themselves, and at the same time, listen to the man¡¯s reaction.. Which included spewing his food, almost choking on his drink, and randomlyughing with no apparent reason.

    The two of them were having a great time, but unfortunately, their night out was interrupted by an odd urrence.. The sound essence had been suddenly locked for the first time since they had entered the restaurant.

    The same was for space, and the various essences within the entire building.

    Daniel looked at Alesia with a disappointed expression, and said "Seems like they offer entertainment in this restaurant.."

    Naturally, Alesia was more than aware of what Daniel meant. She was about to say something, but Daniel grabbed her hand, and said "I win the bet.. You owe me a kiss.." while pointing at the bracelets that were back around Alesia¡¯s pale wrist.

    He then stood up, and looked at the entrance of the restaurant. There, five ck-cloaked individuals had appeared.

 Chapter 176 Youâ€™ve Picked the Wrong Nigh

    "Who are those people?" Asked a middle aged woman from near the entrance of the restaurant, with a worried tone.

    The hall director, an elegantly dressed woman in her early thirties, approached the group of ck-cloaked cultivators "Wee to the Midnight Teahouse, Is there something I can help you Misters with?" she asked with a faint smile and polite tone.

    The most muscr amongst the ck-cloaked, while ignored herpletely, walked past her, and in between tables.

    Once he was in the middle of the hall, and very close to Daniel¡¯s table, he took off his hood and said with a reassuring tone "We are not here to hurt anyone. We are under the orders of the government to apprehend this individual." He said while pointing at Daniel. "We have proof that he has been conducting illegal activities, and after taking care of this, we will let you go back to your dinners."

    The various clients of the restaurant looked at Daniel with suspicion, while a grim expression appeared on Alesia¡¯s face.

    Daniel was calm as usual. He was more than aware of what these people really wanted, so, he stood up, and prepared himself to get captured by them. He was sure that he could find a way to escapeter, by either fighting, or creating an escape route thanks to his system, but if he were to defend himself there, the aftermath of the fight might end up killing a few of the people present, some of whom could be barely even considered cultivators.

    But things did not go the way he expected. Just as Daniel was about to surrender to them, the man whom he and Alesia were makingugh got up from his chair, and said "Can I see the arrest warrant?"

    The hall quietened once again, and people started to look worried at each other.

    The muscr man turned to look at the man that was eating alone, and said "We have no obligation to show it to you. Behave yourself, or you will be apprehended as well." His tone was righteous, almost as if he himself believed his own lie.

    "You don¡¯t say?.. Well, after being part of the governmentalw enforcement for over ten years, it was my understanding that we had to present the arrest warrant at the moment of an arrest.. It must have been my mistake.." Responded the man with sarcasm.

    "Also, while it is understandable why you¡¯ve locked space and the control over the other essences to prevent a criminal from escaping.. Why did you lock the essence of sound as well? Are you worried that in case these people didn¡¯t believe your bullshit, it would have been easier to kill them all without attracting the attention from the people outside?" Added the man with a hint of derision in his voice. He then added "But it is more likely that you already wanted to kill everybody.."

    After he finished speaking, this man turned to look at the customers of the restaurant, and said "For your information.. That kid¡¯s name is Dan Hiel, the head of apany called ¡¯Golden Karma¡¯.. Thepany that, as you might have heard.. Recently won the games of the ¡¯A World in the Palm of Your Hand¡¯ collective.. There is a very good chance that these people are here to kidnap him, and therefore will likely kill you all in order to prevent you from talking about what happened.."

    A few cultivators that were happily eating a few minutes before, were now standing up with faces marked with seriousness. In their hands, a few items had were held as improvised weapons.

    The rest of the less powerful cultivators stepped back, and started to hope for the situation to be resolved peacefully.

    The group of ck-cloaked men wasposed by sixteen people, and they were all cultivators at thete stage of immortal cultivation.

    On the other hand, the restaurant clients only had five cultivators at the mid orte fourth stage other than Daniel, which was at the peak of the fourth stage, Alesia whose battle prowess reached the early fourth stage, and finally, the man that had stood up for them, which was at the peak fourth stage of immortal cultivation as well.

    Technically speaking, Daniel¡¯s battle prowess was enough for him to counter whichever blockade ate or peak fourth stage immortal cultivator would create to block him.. But this blockade was activated with an item that had been created by a mid-fifth stage cultivator, and therefore, the immortal essence which kept it up, was not something that Daniel could deal with quickly.

    Fortunately for them, these blockades usually had a limited duration, and the more people fought within them, the faster they would wear down.

    Despite the fact that the man¡¯s words were true, the ck-cloaked cultivators did not want to start an all out battle for a simple reason. That reason, was that things were bound to go wrong more and more for every additional second that passed..

    But since having to fight was not a remote possibility, the thin man had prepared a n in case they had no choice but to.

    He had already instructed the muscr man that had spoken earlier to approach Daniel¡¯s table, so that he could attempt to capture either him or Alesia in case a battle broke out. At the same time, the rest would fight against those who resisted them.

    But s, that was also his mistake.

    The muscr man could feel that Daniel had the same level of cultivation as his, so he decided to grab Alesia, from which he could feel a weaker power..

    But.. the moment his hand moved towards Alesia, Daniel grabbed his wrist, and while using all of his peak fourth stage prowess, he pulled him hard towards himself, and into the pointy knife that he was holding.

    He wasn¡¯t even able to react before his neck was prated, and his main arteries were cut by the steak knife that, until two minutes ago, Daniel was using to eat dinner.

    .

    Without losing a beat, Daniel grabbed the sabre strapped to the leg of the man that was currently bleeding out on the floor, and looked around for the cultivators that had stood up to fight.

    He threw the sabre at one that appeared to be a swordsman, then, grabbed Alesia¡¯s knife, and walked out of the area where the tables were positioned, and in front of the group of cultivators.

    In his hands, were two steak knives.. One dripping with fresh blood, the other dirty with food.

    "You¡¯ve picked the wrong night to do this.." He said, before hinting for them to move, and added "Come on.."

    The ck-cloaked cultivators unsheathed their various weapons, and divided into three groups. One that would fight Daniel,posed by the tall man, the stout man, and two more, one that would watch the entranceposed by two cultivators, and one that would take care of the rest of the people within the restaurant,posed by ten people.

    All Daniel could use inside the blockade that had been activated, were his martial abilities which could easily trump each and every cultivator present. Unfortunately, since these people were used to acting this way, they weren¡¯t pushovers either.. And four people were still four people.

    The ce quickly became a mess.

    The restaurant customers were not properly armed for this kind of fight, and were forced into a defensive position. They used chairs, tables, and even threw dishes to protect themselves from the deadly attacks of the ck-cloaked individuals.

    Some of them were not too used to melee fighting, and soon enough, ended up gaining injuries.

    The only one that was surprisingly capable with weapons, was the man which had convinced the customers to fight back. He was currently fighting three people, and even though he wasn¡¯t able to kill any of them, he was still able to disarm one, and steal his weapon.

    Alesia, on the other hand, was defending herself from a single ck-cloaked cultivator which tried to capture her. She had a few difficulties at first, but after taking a deep breath, she willingly cut ateral slit on her dress, freeing her legs, and making her movements less restricted and much more agile.

    It was a fortune that Daniel had mastered double knives wielding, as it was only thanks to that, that he was able to heavily injure the stout man, and two others. Only the thin man was still perfectly fine, but since he was now basically fighting alone, he was having difficulties in keeping up with Daniel.

    This went on for a few minutes, until Daniel finally managed to kill two of the four cultivators he was fighting with, and throw their weapons towards the restaurant customers.

    Unfortunately, the restaurant customers weren¡¯t doing as well.

    The tight spaces, and the fewer numbers had forced them to group up, and fight in a defensive position between the group of ck-cloaked cultivators, and the group of weaker people.

    Injury upon injury were being collected by these people, and soon enough, one of them was hit in the chest by a spear, and fell on the ground. He was not dead, but if not treated, he would be soon.

    The powerful air and sonic waves battered the blockade constantly, and after about four minutes, Daniel started to hear some cracking noises.

    "FINISH THEM! QUICK!!" Shouted the thin man before calling the two cultivators that were watching the door, and making them join him in his fight against Daniel.

    Another minute passed, and another cultivator amongst the customers fell to the ground. His arm had been severed, and he was bleeding profusely.

    It was at this moment, that the ck-cloaked man that was facing Alesia had finally managed to get a hold of her arm.. A hold from which she could not free herself of.

    He quickly disarmed her, and turned towards the ce where Daniel and the rest were fighting. He then said with a powerful voice "STOP! Or I¡¯ll ki-"

    *KACHAAAH*

    A loud noise of ss breaking was heard in the entire hall, and before anyone could react, two swords appeared on Daniel¡¯s hands.

    The grip on Alesia¡¯s arms became weaker, as Daniel appeared instantly in front of him, and directly cut the man¡¯s hand off.

    He then started a series of instantaneous teleportations, where each time he re appeared, blood would start spurting out of one of the ck-cloaked men¡¯s necks.

    A few were lucky enough to raise their weapons fast enough to parry the attack, but even then, a powerful electric current was forced from Daniel¡¯s de into theirs, and fulgurated them.

    In no longer than ten seconds from the breaking of the blockade, twelve out the sixteen cultivators had died, while the remaining four, were those lucky enough to be closer to the entrance, and were barely able to escape.

    Instead of following them, Daniel let out massive amounts of immortal essence in the restaurant, which he then forced into the bodies of the injured clients.

    After closing the spear wound from the chest of one of the injured men, and reattaching the arm of the other, Daniel handed over enough healing pills for all of them to make aplete recovery, and a few perfect crystals to the hall director for the damages.

    Then, he nodded with gratitude at the man that had helped him, and after teleported next to Alesia, the two disappeared.

    -----

    When the two of them reappeared, they were in a different area of the city.

    The first thing that Daniel did, was to look at Alesia up and down, and with a slightly worried voice, said "How are you? You¡¯re not wounded, right?"

    "I¡¯m alright" She said with a sweet voice.. Unable to avoid smiling at how worried the usual serious and witty Daniel she knew, was being for her.

    She brushed her palm against Daniel¡¯s cheek, calming him down almost immediately, and said "I¡¯m alright.. Come on, let¡¯s go back."

    Daniel took a deep breath of relief, and after going back to a calm state of mind, he attempted to wave his hand.. But before he could, Alesia stopped him, and said "Let¡¯s walk.. It¡¯s not that far.."

 Chapter 177 Pay Up..

    Daniel and Alesia walked towards the closest teleporting tform within the area.

    In order to go back home, they needed teleport into thepany building, and then, use its hidden connection to the pocket dimension to reach the castle.

    Alternatively, they would have to find Der and enter directly from the ring.

    For a few moments the two walked in silence.. With their bodies slightly further away whenpared to the beginning of their night out.

    Daniel was starting to feel ufortable about how things were going, and in his head, hundreds of words roamed aimlessly, failing to form a sentence which he could use to better this situation.

    Of course, it didn¡¯t take long for Alesia to notice Daniel¡¯s panicked state.

    She moved closer to him, and let the back of her hand brush against his a few times. She then fet Daniel¡¯s fingers hook her palm, to which she reacted by opening her hand, and intertwining her fingers with his.

    Just from holding Daniel¡¯s hand, Alesia could tell that his heartbeat had slowed down, and that he had calmed down significantly.

    In a matter of minutes, the two reached the building which contained the teleporting tform.

    Once inside, they went towards the ¡¯Keeper of Keys¡¯, which was the only person capable of opening a connection between thepany building and the capital, and finally, arrived back into thepany building.

    The secret connection between thepany building and the pocket dimension which contained the castle was nowhere specific. Once within thepany building, Daniel could teleport back into the pocket dimension anytime, and anywhere he wanted.

    He was not the only one that could do this. Everybody who had been into the pocket dimension was able to do that as well, as the passage was hidden, but not locked.

    With a simple thought, a portalrge enough for three people to go through appeared in front of them. On the other side, was the corridor which lead to the rooms where Daniel, and Alesia stayed.

    Daniel wanted to spend a bit more time with Alesia, but he also didn¡¯t want anyone to interrupt them again. And since it waste at night, there was a good chance that people would be already asleep, and that nobody would be roaming in the corridors.

    The two slowly walked towards Alesia¡¯s room, which was slightly further than Daniel¡¯s.

    Once in front of her room¡¯s door, Alesia turned towards Daniel in silence.

    Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.

    Alesia was looking at Daniel directly in his eyes, and seemed to be waiting for something, while ying with her lower lip.

    Daniel looked at her actions for a few moments, then, he took a step towards her.

    He was now just a few centimeters away from her, and his eyes were switching between looking down at her lips, and her clear eyes. At the same time she looked up at his..

    Almost as if remembering the morning from a few days earlier, Daniel filled that short distance in between them, and finally pressed his lips against hers.

    Alesia reacted immediately by wrapping her arms over Daniel¡¯s shoulders, and around his head.

    His arms moved at the same time.. one wrapping around Alesia¡¯s lower back, while with his other hand, he pulled her closer to him, by pressing against her shoulder des.

    Daniel could still feel the taste of the wine they had been drinking at dinner on Alesia¡¯s lips, which parted over and over again to wee his lip in.

    Both of their hearts were beating at a rate dangerous to normal humans.. Flushing their cheeks and lips with warm blood, and constantly feeding the passionate they felt build up inside them, and manifest in their kiss.

    Neither of the two wanted this kiss to end, but to Daniel¡¯s surprise, he felt Alesia¡¯s arms unwrap from around his neck, and slide gently in front of his chest. Then, put a soft pressure against it.

    Daniel let go of Alesia¡¯s body, causing their lips to part as well.

    There was a voice inside Daniel¡¯s head that was trying to convince him to step forward once again.. His eyes were locked at Alesia¡¯s flushed face, and kept going up and down between her glistening lips and eyes.

    What stopped him from doing so, were Alesia¡¯s semi-tense arms that kept him slightly further away from her.

    Noticing Daniel¡¯s look, Alesia smiled in a not so sweet manner.. Then, she moved forward, and gave Daniel onest soft peck on the lips, before turning around, and opening the door of her room.

    As he watched Alesia get away from his reach, Daniel felt hundreds of mixed feelings..

    The majority of those feelings disappeared into nothing, as he saw what happened next.

    Alesia turned to look back at Daniel, and stepped backwards into her room. Once in.. she disappeared behind one of the walls.. leaving the door opened.

    Daniel¡¯s heart threatened to explode out of his chest, as a smile appeared on his face.. He stepped inside Alesia¡¯s room, and closed the door.

    -----

    At the end of the corridor a few dozen meters past Alesia¡¯s door, three heads popped out of the corner.

    They were the heads of Ligart, Heimart, and Alis.

    Heimart, which was the one at the top, looked down at Ligart, and with a faint smile, said "Pay up.."

    From underneath him, Ligart said with an annoyed tone, "Fine.." before passing a small bag which contained a few crystals to his cousin.

    -----

    Inside Alesia¡¯s room, Daniel had gone through the small corridor that separated the door, to the room where her bed was.

    She was leaning with her back against the wall, and the moment Daniel came to her sight, her eyes locked with his.

    Once again, Daniel walked in front of her, but this time, he pressed his palms against the wall by her sides. Caging her in between his arms.. Almost as if making sure that she couldn¡¯t get away one more time.

    Alesia didn¡¯t seem to mind, as she put her hands on Daniel¡¯s forearms, and moved them higher on his arms, shoulders, and finally, around his neck. She then pulled him closer to her.

    She didn¡¯t need to put any sort of pressure on him, as the moment Daniel felt her intentions, he moved forward on his own ord, and pinned her against the wall by pressing his lips on her, and one of his legs in between hers.

    For a few minutes both of them felt their excitement grow, to a point were Alesia was starting to hate Daniel¡¯s clothes, and he couldn¡¯t help but let his hands wander on Alesia¡¯s body.

    Their breath became heavier, and the only asion they had to catch up on it, was when Alesia bit on Daniel¡¯s lower lip, forcing him to pull himself back.

    Inside Alesia¡¯s eyes Daniel could see as much desire as he felt for her, so, he started to slowly undo the buttons of his own shirt, with a teasy smile on his face.

    Alesia stopped him by putting her fingers in between the partially unbuttoned part of his shirt.. Then, with a fast motion of her hands, she ripped it open.

    Her eyes moved on Daniel¡¯s bare chest, remembering of the day she had had a glimpse at his lean, and defined body.

    She then drew lines on the skin of Daniel¡¯s sides, and abdomen.. sinking her fingernails a bit too deeply, and causing Daniel to feel just a bit of pain.. To which he reacted by grabbing her wrists with one hand, and lifting them above her head.

    With his other hand, he unzipped her green dress.. Making it fall at her feet, and leaving her in her ck underwear.

    The sight chipped away at Daniel¡¯s self control, which now dwindled like a candle¡¯s me in the dark..

    While still keeping her hands above her head, he let his free hand brush against her soft thigh, and go up towards her waist, her side.. Her breasts.. Only stopping after reaching her neck, where he let his fingertip rub over her red lower lip.

    Alesia put no resistance whatsoever against Daniel¡¯s action.. Even after feeling him pull her arms around his head, and moving his hands down her body and on her thighs.. Not even when she felt him lift her from the ground, and take her towards the bed.

    She simply wrapped her legs around Daniel¡¯s waist, and let him do what he wanted to do.. with an heart threatening to jump out of her chest.

    A few momentster, Danielid her down on her bed, and once again, he looked at how beautiful she looked.. right before moving down towards her, and locking lips once again.

    Alesia could feel Daniel¡¯s warm body pressing hard against her, especially in between her legs.. So she pushed him back a little, making their lips part once more..

    Her hands moved behind her back, where she unlocked her bra.. But didn¡¯t take it off.. Instead, she kept it pressed against her body with one arm, while with the other, she gently pulled at Daniel¡¯s pants. Her eyes showing a lust that immediately shut whatever semnce of self control Daniel had managed to retain so far..

    Not missing a beat, Daniel removed the rest of his clothes while waving his hands, and causing all of the lights in the room to disappear.. Letting darkness take over..

    -----

    When Daniel woke up the next day, he wasying naked in Alesia¡¯s bed.

    She was still sleeping with her body wrapped around his. Her tinum blonde hair flowed down his shoulder like a silvery river, and her head rested on his chest. Her warm breath brushed past his skin at regr intervals, causing a faint tingly sensation, to which he didn¡¯t dare to act upon due to not wanting to risk waking Alesia up.

    Daniel remained in his bed for more than twenty minutes.. Feeling the pleasant smell that Alesia¡¯s hair emanated move into his nostrils, and calm him down greatly.

    It was only at the end of these twenty minutes that Alesia¡¯s head started to move.

    He felt her soft lips press on the side of his chest, as the first thing she did after waking up, was kissing his warm skin.

    She then looked up, and noticed that Daniel was wide awake, and looking at her.

    "Were you watching me sleep?" She asked with a faint smile on her lips.

    Daniel smiled back, and said "What if I was?.."

    Alesia¡¯s cheeks flushed slightly in response to Daniel words. She responded by saying "Then keep watching.. I¡¯ll go back to sleep." but before she could once again press her head against Daniel¡¯s chest, she felt a pair of fingers press against her chin, and make her look up.

    Daniel¡¯s lips pressed on hers before she could even attempt to stop him.. Luckily, she didn¡¯t mind it at all..

    Still naked underneath the covers, the two kissed sweetly for a good minute, before their hands started to move on each other¡¯s body, and they began to find once again a bit of the lust they had felt the previous night..

    But luck was really not on their side..

    *Knock Knock*

    Daniel and Alesia suddenly froze up, as they heard Emelnie¡¯s voice say "Alesia, I need your help with something.. Get up from bed."

    "I¡¯ll be there in a minute!" Said Alesia out loud, almost robotically.

    The two then listened in silence at the sound of Emelnie¡¯s footsteps getting further and further away in the distance.

    The instant they believed to be safe.. "Hahahaha.." Daniel burst outughing.

    Alesia was surprised for a moment, then, after hearing Daniel¡¯s genuineugh, she couldn¡¯t help but start tough as well.

    "It¡¯s best I go too.. There is a lot to do today.." Muttered Daniel after finishing tough. He was about to teleport away, when he stopped. Instead, he turned towards Alesia, pressed his palm against her cheek, and after makin her turn towards him, he kissed her onest time.

    He teleported out of her room.

 Chapter 178 I Agree.. But Only If..

    Daniel spent the following few days directing the expansion of thepany to a regional level.

    He sent his group members to most cities, where they purchased multiple shops in several location, and confirmed their position in the area.

    The reason why they were able to do that despite the massive decrease in earnings after joining the collective, was because more and more people, after bing employee of Daniel¡¯spany, had subconsciously joined his group.

    After joining his group, each and every cultivator within the pocket dimension would receive a boost in their abilities, which also increased their speed in the production of essence spheres, and in turn, increased the cultivation resources they would receive.

    Slowly, the city within the pocket dimension was bing richer, and its cultivators were growing more powerful by the day.

    Daniel and Alesia still attended the lessons for alchemy, as they had yet to be noticed by the people that worked as the links to ¡¯The Poisonous Rose¡¯, within the school of which they were part of. Luckily, ever since Daniel had won the collective¡¯s games, hispany had be more and more known within the ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯.

    Simply for the fact that they were part of the school when they won, they had been given a silver patch which increased their level to that of a silver badged student, despite not having apany that operated in a continent scale.

    The school had also proposed to give them better lodgings, but both refused.

    The same had happened when word got out that Daniel wasn¡¯t a simplepany heir, but the actual founder and head of theirpany. The school had decided to increase the level of his badge, but Daniel had decided to lie, and say that while he was indeed the founder, it was others that took care of hispany..

    He wanted to advance in rank within the school not thanks to his rank, but thanks to contributions brought by his knowledge and achievements of alchemy. He knew that he would not impress the ¡¯The Poisonous Rose¡¯ in any other way.

    Daniel had received a trulyrge amount of offers in the past few days. Unfortunately, most of these offers were below what he hoped to obtain.

    There were a few that offered just a bit more money than the treasure was worth, various that proposed that theirpany absorbed Daniel¡¯s, while also iming that it would give hispany value, and even one where the head had tried to set up marriages with heiress and heirs of continental andary-scaledpanies.

    If the proposal was offered from apany of inteary level, Daniel would have epted it in a heartbeat. After all, all of this was done for the sole purpose of going back home. If he could simply exchange the perfect treasure in exchange of being taken to their of origin, he would have.

    Of course, he could have offered, but he wasn¡¯t sure what people would have thought or done if they knew where he actually came from.

    There was also an additional reason for why Daniel did not request for that specifically.. He didn¡¯t know why an habitable as close as Daniel¡¯s world of origin had been left alone for so long, so, he did not want to end up in a bad situation without even knowing how he got in it.

    He had a lot of questions that needed an answer before he would dare to go around throwing names and pointing at directions.

    There hadn¡¯t been any offer to exchange a perfect essence treasure for another, nor an offer that could match double the value of the perfect fire treasure.

    He assumed that it would take awhile for the news to reach the various interested parties, so, he stored the second perfect treasure into the pocket dimension in which the first one was currently lying in wait, and went on with his daily life.

    -----

    Three monthster.

    In the past three months, Daniel had spent most of his time taking care of his business and cultivating. After three months, he had managed to break through into the fifth stage of immortal cultivation, and had reached the mid stage of it.

    Along with a radical increase in power, his life span had also increased by another hundred and fifty years, taking him to a capacity of three hundred and fifty years of age.

    The reason why he hadn¡¯t progressed any further, was not because hecked resources. In fact, ever since he had won the collective¡¯s games, he had gained an impressive amount of resources, and other than a portion of them being spent on the development of the group, Daniel had never found himself in the spot where he had to stop cultivating due to running out of resources.

    What he had started tock, were karma points.

    A consumption thousands of times faster than the normal speed had started to weight on him, and since close to ten thousand points were being spent every couple of minutes he cultivated, he had started to realize that he needed to slow down, or he would run out of them soon.

    No matter how much he wanted to cultivate, to have enough points to use his most powerful weapon at least a couple of times, was his bottom line.

    On the other hand, the cultivation of his group members had rose by leaps and bounds.

    Jerigh¡¯s cultivation had already reached thete fourth stage, while Roley¡¯s, Alesia¡¯s, Edmund¡¯s, and his wife Emelnie¡¯s, were now at the early fourth stage. The lifespan of each of them had reached the two hundred years of age, just like Daniel had before breaking through to the fifth stage.

    What many of the members of Daniel¡¯s group had found out, was that reaching the ninth rank in the second path of cultivation was a joke, when done while using high or perfect crystals.

    Heimart, Alis, and Imblen had decided to grow a bit older in appearance before advancing in their cultivation. Be it birthed themselves or adopted, they all had children, and they didn¡¯t want them to grow enough to see their parents look their age.

    The same could not be said for Edmund and Emelnie, which looked like a normal middle age group, with a daughter in her twenties and an infant.

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s rtionship with Alesia had evolved since the day they had spent together. A faint veil of embarrassment had tainted each and every one of their encounter after that night, and yet, in a matter of weeks, their need to see each other had increased to a point where they could do nothing but forget the embarrassment.

    They would often spend however much free time they had during the day, either by showing a friendly behaviour, or secretly behaving like a couple.

    The two of them were now walking in arge greenhouse within ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯ school. Their instructor had taken the ss to study the change in behaviour and effects of the nts to temperature change, or change in environment.

    "..dicinal effect is contained in the liquids.. If left in a dry and hot ce, the nt will die in a matter of hours. But that is also the only method to extract the liquid from the stem and leaves, without having to drill a hole in the root." Said Serf with a tone that seemed to show annoyance more than interest.

    "..Correct." Responded the instructor with slight surprise, before turning towards Daniel, and ask "Mr. Hiel, what about its use?"

    The tip of Daniel¡¯s finger started to glow with a white, and warm light, as he lowered himself in front of the nt, and brushed his finger over its green leaves covered in red veins. "If the liquid is injected into a person¡¯s heart, it will send periodical painful electric waves, which have a good probability of reanimating the person." He responded while looking almost obsessively at the nt.

    With a curious look, the instructor asked "What if it¡¯s used on someone whose heartbeat hasn¡¯t stopped?"

    "It will have the opposite effect, and mess up with the electric signals that our brain uses to control our entire body.. This nt is poisonous." Responded Daniel, showing an intentionally exaggerated interest for it.

    "Correct." Responded the teacher while looking at Daniel sideways. He then turned around, and walked to the next area of the greenhouse, where a furry purple-colored cactus came out of the ground, and stood still.

    "You do learn fast.." Said Serf from Daniel¡¯s side.

    Daniel chuckled and said "You seem to know an awful lot about poisonous nts as well.. Are you sure your family is only a family of alchemists?"

    While unwrapping a piece of candy and popping it into his mouth, Serf responded by saying "From my experience, there is no alchemist that doesn¡¯t be a poison master if the price is high enough.." He then turned to look at Daniel, and asked "Why? Are you interested in poisons?"

    His voice was high enough for the rest of the ss to hear. The teacher was, of course, no exception.

    Daniel¡¯s expression remained calm, as he answered with a tone just as loud "Why not. The difference between poison and medicine is dosage, right? What¡¯s wrong with studying the deadly part of nature?"

    This conversation had been prepared by Daniel long ago.

    He had already assumed that one of his teachers would belong, or at the very least, would be the link to ¡¯The Poisonous Rose¡¯, so, he had to start showing interest for poison.

    In order to do that, he needed Serf¡¯s help, otherwise he would seem too obvious and almost forced in his attempt.

    Once the teacher heard Daniel¡¯s words, he turned around, and said "While it is true that they are two sides of the same coin, and there is nothing wrong in studying them, I would keep my opinions about the righteousness of the act to myself.." He then turned around, and kept walking.

    Daniel actually had no idea if this teacher was one of those connected to the poisonous rose or not. He was simply fishing.. But the fact that the teacher hadn¡¯t scolded him, but instead had told him to avoid speaking openly about it, was actually a sign that he might have been.

    In order to make sure of it, he pushed it a step further.

    He quickly approached the teacher, and from behind him, he said with a righteous voice "I don¡¯t care if people disagree with me, or if people believes that studying poison is amoral. Even if I have to research in the dark.. A man¡¯s pursuit for knowledge shouldn¡¯t be limited to another man¡¯s morals."

    His face showed a righteous expression, as if he was the bringer of truth, and everybody else had to listen.

    A faint smile appeared on the teacher¡¯s face. He said nothing, and kept walking.

    The lesson proceeded like usual for the next two hours, then, it ended.

    After the lesson ended, Daniel was about to take his leave along with Serf and Alesia, but before he could reunite with the two, he was called by the teacher.

    "Mr. Hiel.. wait a moment please." Said the teacher with a hint of respect. It didn¡¯t matter that he was his teacher, Daniel was a prodigiouspany head after all.

    Daniel stopped, and turned to look at the teacher, which after approaching him, said "I have been a asked to deliver an offer to you, Mr. Hiel."

    "I am listening." Responded Daniel calmly.

    "The parentpany of our school, ¡¯The Poisonous Rose¡¯, has put me in charge to make an offer for the perfect fire treasure that we have learned ended up in yourpany¡¯s hands." Said the teacher before taking a small pause, and observing Daniel¡¯s reaction.

    After noticing Daniel¡¯s curiosity, he said "Thepany offers a hundred thousand perfect crystals."

    A dubious expression appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, before he looked at the teacher, and said "I agree, but only if they agree on demonstrating a perfectprehension of fire to me.."

 Chapter 179 Kill Me Now

    "I agree, but only if they agree on demonstrating a perfectprehension of fire to me.." Said Daniel with a demanding attitude.

    His teacher could clearly see that Daniel was not willing to take no for an answer, yet, he wasn¡¯t able to promise that sort of exchange.. Especially the part about demonstrating a perfectprehension of fire.

    Not so many people were capable of demonstrating a perfectprehension of an essence, and fire was not an exception. In fact, fire was one of the hardest essences toprehend. If not for the difficulty of learning its many concepts itself, just for the fact that, in order to gain a perfectprehension of the various types of fire, one needed to be in constant contact with fire itself.

    The teacher looked at Daniel with slight annoyance while saying "I guarantee that ¡¯The Poisonous Rose¡¯ will not like the demand.." He then looked at Daniel attentively. He wanted to scare Daniel so that he would not create too much of a problem for him, and possibly ept the offer as it was.

    Unfortunately, he did not found the changes he hoped to see in Daniel¡¯s face, which appeared as confident as he was a few moments earlier.

    "Mypany operates in theprehension of essences.. By witnessing each concept of fire, I would at least know what to look for in order to make an advancement in our researches.. It is my only offer." Responded Daniel inly, wanting to look like a relentless businessman than a scared twenty-one year old man.

    "Very well," Responded the teacher. "I¡¯ll deliver your counter offer.. I¡¯lle and find you by tomorrow." he then added before leaving the greenhouse.

    The Poisonous Rose was a rtively powerfulpany within the gxy, and operated in various sr systems, but despite their power, they did not possess a perfect fire sphere. Due to this, they had to train their new members intoprehending fire essence individually, and that took a lot of the time of their otherwise busy members.

    The reason why thepany needed aprehension of fire essence, was of course, because poison making was the dangerous side of alchemy.. And fire was a big part of it, just like it was for the other better seen parts of alchemy.

    Once the teacher left, Daniel turned around, and walked towards Serf, which after seeing him approach, said in a low voice "Did it work?"

    "It did."

    -----

    Two hourster, in the area reserved for tinum-badged students.

    *Knock Knock*

    "Come in.." said the faint voice of a woman from behind the door. The teacher, which was the one that had just knocked on the door, opened it and entered.

    The room was immense, and was filled with expensive-looking furniture. Many well dressed men stood quietly in various spots of the room, and gave the impression of being members of the servitude.

    In the middle of the living room, was a table for massages, and on it, was a young girl of about twenty years of age.

    She was lying naked on the table, with herrge breasts pressed against it, her arms crossed underneath her head, and a towel that covered from the lower part of her back, down to the middle of her thighs.

    Next to her, was a thirty year old man that was massaging her back.

    The teacher entered the room, and the moment he arrived to a two meters distance from the table, she said without looking up at him. "What did he say?"

    Clearly nervous, the teacher said "He said that he will ept the offer, but only if thepany demonstrates to him a perfect fire essenceprehension. That is also what he asked during the collective¡¯s games.."

    "I don¡¯t understand why they want to purchase the treasure from him.. It would be so easy to just enter hispany, and drop a little vial on the ground.. I could do it myself right now.." Muttered the girl, talking about murdering thousands of people almost as if she was talking about destroying a random colony of ants.

    She then took a slight pause, and after thinking it through for a few moments, she said "Very well. Tell him that The Poisonous Rose epts the deal. My grandma told me that if he had pushed for a better price, it would have been a good sign anyway."

    "I will deliver the news tomorrow." Responded the teacher immediately.

    The girl clearly had a bad temper. She lifted her head, and while looking at the teacher, she said "I didn¡¯t tell you to do it tomorrow, do it now."

    "Young Lady, I have already told him that I would have delivered thepany¡¯s response to him by tomorrow.. If I go now, he might suspect that thepany has people within the school.. That would vite your mother¡¯s condition.. We can¡¯t let people know who you are." Responded the teacher with a hint of worry. He had had to deal with this girl more than once before, and he knew that she was one to do things on a whim.

    The irritation didn¡¯t disappear from the girl¡¯s face, but she was unable to retort again her own mother¡¯s conditions.

    Unable to release her irritation for more than what she was use to, she found a chance when the man that was massaging her back put too much pressure on his thumbs.

    "Enough.." she said while brushing the back of her hand against the man¡¯s forearm.

    After the girl touched the man¡¯s arm, the man entered in a state of deep shock. He turned towards her, and said "Pleasedy, I¡¯m so sorry.. Please.."

    The girl ignored him, and instead unwrapped her towel, and moved it higher on her back.. Covering from her breasts down to the middle of her thighs.

    She then got up from the table, and walked away.

    The teacher left the room while the face of the massagist started to change color. From a healthy pink, it turned red, purple, and finally, dark grey. He then copsed on the ground, devoid of life.

    The rest of the servants looked at the scene with faces devoid of any sort of emotion. They were clearly used to this sight.

    Once the teacher left, the girl walked towards the cab which contained arge variety of crystal alcohol bottles, grabbed one that contained a rosy transparent liquid, and poured herself a drink.

    She then sat on the couch that was in front of the lit firece, and while rubbing the ss with her thumb, she said "Kill the girl.. I don¡¯t care what my grandma says. If they can¡¯t survive a simple assassination, they will never survive in the poisonous rose."

    After she finished speaking, the oldest one between her servants moved from his position, and left the room.

    -----

    "Do you think they will agree?" Asked Serf curiously, while sinking his teeth into a fatty piece of meat.

    "They will." Responded Daniel inly, before stabbing his fork on a piece of vegetable, and snapping it into two with his teeth.

    Serf quietened down for a few minute, while keeping on eating his meal.

    During the next couple of minutes, his thoughts were directed at the poisonous rose. It was only after a minute that he noticed how Alesia, that while sitting next to Daniel, lifted her te and moved it over his.. then, she used her fork to make the parts of the food that she didn¡¯t like to fall on Daniel¡¯s te.

    By now, Serf had eaten with the two of them for a very long time.. After all, more three months had passed since the two had met. He had gotten used to their eating habits, and the fact that Alesia left the parts that she didn¡¯t like for Daniel, was something new.

    She would usually leave them on her te, while now, after she gave him the parts that she didn¡¯t like, he epted them with a smile.

    "You two look closer than usual.." He muttered with a mouth full of food.

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face in response, while Alesia blushed faintly.

    Serf immediately understood what those two reactions meant, so, he kept quiet, and finished eating.

    After the three of them finished eating, they walked back towards Alesia¡¯s room, where they were used to studying alchemy, and waste time together.

    This one time, after finding out about the rtionship between Daniel and Alesia, Serf stopped a few meters from her room¡¯s door, and said "Damn it.. I still have to write a few papers for tomorrow¡¯s test. I can¡¯t stay.. I will see you tomorrow." He then turned around, and left towards his and Daniel¡¯s room before either of them could say anything.

    Of course, he couldn¡¯t have been more obvious than that.. Daniel and Alesia immediately understood what Serf¡¯s intention were, causing a bit of embarrassment between the two.

    "I guess I should go as well.." Said Daniel while looking at Alesia enter her room.

    Once inside her room, Alesia said "Sure.. unless you want to enter and.. Drink something with me.." She then entered leaving her door open.

    A big smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he entered.

    Once he stepped through the entrance, he closed the door behind him. He then followed Alesia, but after taking a single step, he felt the sound of paper brushing against the flooring from behind.

    He turned around, and he saw a letter underneath Alesia¡¯s door.

    The method people received letters within the academy, was thanks to a person that hand delivered them personally to each room, so, Daniel didn¡¯t think much of it.

    He picked the letter up, and read who the sender was. On the outside of the letter, Daniel could only see the words ¡¯To Alesia¡¯ written with a refined handwriting, and feel a faint male fragranceing from it.

    Daniel already knew that Alesia was popr with the young heirs within the academy, and that she received a lot of letters from them, so he did not think that there was anything wrong in it.

    He walked towards her, and said jokingly while holding the letter in between his fingers and waving it gently "Do I have anotherpetitor?"

    Alesia turned to look at Daniel, and saw the letter in his hands. She then rolled her eyes, and said "I doubt it.. Why don¡¯t you check for me?"

    Daniel showed a surprised expression, and said after sucking air through his teeth a couple of times in feigned disappointment "How cruel of you! Not even reading a man¡¯s intentions personally.."

    He then let out a small amount of immortal essence out of his fingertip, and turned it into a dull de which he used to open the letter.

    After letting the de dissipate, he pinched the sheet of paper into the envelope with two fingers, but before he could even pull it out, he dropped on the ground,pletely paralyzed.

    Alesia heard the sound of Daniel falling on the ground, and after turning to look at his direction, she dashed towards him with a face covered in worry.

    "Dan! What¡¯s wrong?!" She asked in panic.

    Daniel tried to use his internal immortal essence to heal himself, but there was nothing he could do. His muscles werepletely paralyzed, and his organs were barely working.

    The first thing that Daniel did, was to count the seconds. After ten seconds passed, he started to feel difficulty in breathing, and after no more than twenty second, his heartbeat started to slow down to a dangerous rate.

    Alesia was in shock, and didn¡¯t know what to do. She tried to push a healing pill into Daniel¡¯s mouth, but she had to fight against his muscles that were tense as rocks in order to make him swallow it.

    Daniel knew that he didn¡¯t have much time left, so he focused his immortal essence with great difficulty, and pushed it out of his body.

    He then moved it towards Alesia¡¯s ears, which right before reaching them, turned into sound essence, and brought Daniel¡¯s words to her.

    The voice sounded like Daniel¡¯s, but it waspletely made out of sound essence. The phrase it said was brief, and brought a shock in Alesia higher than seeing what was happening to Daniel.

    It said "If you want me to live.. Kill me now."

 Chapter 180 What Can I Do for You, Brother?

    "..kill me now.." Said Daniel through a weak and faint use of immortal essence.

    Alesia sunk into panic. She didn¡¯t understand why Daniel had asked her to kill him, but on the top of her head, she could only believe that he was in pain, and wanted her to end his sufferings.. Something that she could never do, or at least not until she understood what was really happening.

    Tears started to stream down her cheeks as she said "No no no no no.. please.. Don¡¯t die.. Please.." her sobbing almost uncontroble. She was holding his head up, but touching his increasingly rigid body was only making her feel sadder.

    Thirty seconds had already passed since Daniel had started to feel ill, and now, his vision was starting to darken. His breath was heavy and faint, almost as if a mountain was pressing over his chest.

    He could barely feel the warmth of Alesia¡¯s tears crash against his face.

    Finally, he stopped breathing.

    A bomb of pure chaos made a mess of Alesia¡¯s mind as she saw Daniel¡¯s chest stop its already feeble intion and detion.. "Stay with me Dan.. please d-don¡¯t leave me like this.. HELP! HEEELP!!" She desperately shouted for help, while using all of her power to increase the volume of her voice.

    Her words ran through the entire building, and rang into the ears of each and every cultivator inside it.

    From inside her room, the tinum-badged girl was reading a paper. Once she heard Alesia¡¯s screaming, she looked towards her room, and after smiling maliciously, she said "Oops.."

    Many people approached Alesia¡¯s room, creating a sort of choke at the entrance.

    More than forty seconds had now passed, and Daniel knew that he was probably going to die. Even with ¡¯Second Chance¡¯, he would only be able to go back to a point where he was already poisoned, and he would end up dying a second time.

    Arge and tall Serf made his way through the crowd that was blocking the entrance to Alesia¡¯s room. When he managed to make his way through the group, he approached the couple, and after a single nce at Daniel¡¯s body, his brows furrowed, and a furious expression appeared on his face.

    For a moment, his eyes turned to look at a point distant from Alesia¡¯s room.

    After regaining hisposure, he dashed next to Alesia and Daniel, and fell on his knees next to him.

    "H-he just.. He f-fell ill out of the blue.." Sobbed Alesia the very moment she saw Serf¡¯s familiar face.

    Serf put a hand on her shoulder, and with an apologetic tone, he said "It¡¯s okay.." He then made a fingernail-sized ck pill appear on his hand.

    His hand moved towards Daniel¡¯s face, and tightly grabbed at the sides of Daniel¡¯s jaw, using pressure in order to open it.

    After Daniel¡¯s jaw opened and exposed the inside of his mouth, Serf put the pill into it, and tried to push it down his throat through the use of his immortal essence.

    Unfortunately, the rigidity of Daniel¡¯s body was stronger than Serf¡¯s power, and the rigid muscles of his neck were ultimately too hard for him to move the pill in between.

    A pensive expression appeared on Serf¡¯s face.. He seemed to know this poison, and knew that he had no more than seconds before Daniel died.. So, he made a knife appear on his hand, and pointed it at Daniel¡¯s stomach.

    He was about to stab Daniel¡¯s guts, when Alesia blocked his hand, and said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

    Serf did not have much time to exin, so he simply said "He will die in about thirty seconds.. You either let me do this, or you say goodbye to him."

    The fear of losing Daniel took the better of Alesia¡¯s mind, which let go of Serf¡¯s wrist, and let him do what he wanted to do.

    She then hugged Daniel¡¯s head, and pressed her cheek against his forehead.

    From in between her arms, Daniel¡¯s eyes opened wide in shock as he felt the stabbing pain in his stomach, followed by the wrenching pain of having his innards being rummaged by Serf¡¯s thick fingers.

    Serf wasn¡¯t an expert of the human body, yet, he could still recognize the stomach from the rest of Daniel¡¯s organs.

    After he found it, he made a small incision, and pushed the ck pill into it, along with a second pearly white pill which, if Daniel could have seen, he would have recognized as an extremely high quality healing pill.

    The moment the two pills entered Daniel¡¯s stomach, the white pill immediately dissolved, and started to close the incision that Serf had made on it. Then, it moved through his blood vessels, and towards the cut on his abdomen, closing it in a matter of seconds.

    Inside his stomach, the ck pill had slowly started to melt as well, causing ck liquid to wash over Daniel¡¯s body, muscles, and veins.

    After more than a minute, the color of Daniel¡¯s body started to turned back into a pale yet healthier pink, and his muscles started to rx, causing him to be able to breath once again.

    The immortal essence that felt like sticky mud a few seconds ago, went back into being a misty power that he could control at will.

    Alesia finally took a breath of relief as she looked at Daniel take one breath after the other. Without letting him go, she squeezed his head against her chest and cried.

    After a good minute passed, she felt Daniel¡¯s hand press gently against her arm. This made her calm down, and let go of his head.

    She looked at Daniel¡¯s face, and noticed that he was smiling sweetly at her, with an expression on which ¡¯don¡¯t worry¡¯ was written clearly.

    Serf said out loud "YOU¡¯RE AN IDIOT! I TOLD YOU NOT TO PLAY WITH THE DRACA NINBEA! YOU¡¯VE ALMOST DIED!"

    Alesia¡¯s face was confused, while Daniel¡¯s turned into one of embarrassment "I¡¯m sorry, I should have listened to you.." He said.

    After hearing the conversation between the two, the group of people that was clogging the entrance of Alesia¡¯s room showed faces of derision and disappointment, and went back.

    The moment everyone left, Alesia said in a low voice "What are you talking about?"

    Serf was about to exin, but Daniel interjected by saying "Earlier, I¡¯ve yed with a venomous n which Serf had told me not to touch.. I should have listened to him and stayed away from it.. I guess that the poison only took effect now. I¡¯m alright, don¡¯t worry."

    Alesia¡¯s expression changed into a furious one. She let go of Daniel¡¯s head and pped the back with her hand. "I WAS SO DAMN WORRIED! JUST BECAUSE YOU¡¯VE BEEN AN IDIOT!" She shouted angrily before storming out of her own room.

    Once Alesia left, Daniel brushed his abdomen with his hand. On his face, was an extremely serious look. "How much?" He asked to Serf.

    "If you don¡¯t take any more of these pills.. A month.. If you take them every month.. Maybe a year.." Responded Serf with an apologetic and dispirited tone.

    "Do you know where this poisones from?" Asked Daniel, almost unfazed about the news.

    Serf lowered his face lightly, then said "Yes.. It¡¯s the poison of one of the leading families of the poisonous rose.. I guess that they didn¡¯t really ept your offer.." Responded Serf inly.

    "No, the poison wasn¡¯t for me. It was delivered to Alesia¡¯s room.." Said Daniel after thinking about it for a few seconds. He then remembered the pain of having his guts rummaged by Serf, and said "We can talk more about thister.. I just want to sleep now.."

    He then teleported out of Alesia¡¯s room, leaving Serf alone.

    The moment Daniel left, rage came back on Serf¡¯s face. He stood up from the ground, picked the poisonous letter, and made it disappear into his spatial ring before walking out of the room with a fast pace.

    -----

    "Young Miss, do you understand how bad of an idea that was? You¡¯ve used your family¡¯s signature poison.. It couldn¡¯t have been any worse.. If people were to find out it was you.." Said the teacher with an odd mixture of rage, shock, politeness, and worry.

    "Stop worrying about it! I just wanted to have augh. Leave now.. I have guests.." She responded before..

    *Knock Knock*

    The teacher showed a dubious expression onest time, then, he teleported out of the girl¡¯s room.

    "Come in." Said the girl with a polite, and almost sweet tone.

    The door opened slowly, and behind it, the silhouette of Serf appeared.

    "Brother.." Said the girl while smiling sweetly. She then walked towards him and tried to hug him.

    Before she managed to do that, Serf entered the room, and avoided her arms while saying "You will never stop trying to kill me, will you?"

    The girl didn¡¯t respond. She looked at her fair and small hands covered in invisible poison, and said "What can I do for you, brother?"

    "Why did you poison my friend?" Asked Serf with more anger than he meant to show.

    "I just wanted to have a bit of fun.. Had I known she was your friend.." Respond the girl, letting her voice die out, and continuing after a few moments by saying "I would have killed her sooner."

    If Daniel was present, by now he would have connected the dots.

    Serf and this young girl which had tried to poison Alesia and had hit him instead, were two of the four members sent from Serf¡¯s family. Serf was the copper-badged student, while she was the tinum-badged student.

    It was clear that the two did not have a good rtionship even though they were, apparently, brother and sister.

    "What did grandma have to say about this?" Asked Serf while keeping his eyes on his sister¡¯s expression.

    "She only told me not to kill the guy.. She never said I couldn¡¯t kill the little flower." Said the girl a jovial tone, almost as if what had happened had nothing to do with her.

    "The only problem is that you did not hit the girl.. You¡¯ve poisoned him." Responded Serf with a cold tone. "He has survived thanks to me, but he will be too wary of the poisonous rose to sell his fire essence treasure.. And that¡¯s all on you."

    For the first time, the girl showed a worried expression.

    "It was an ident. Grandma will understand." She responded, almost unwilling to admit what she did wrong.

    Serf smiled back at her, and said "Are you sure about that?.. A perfect fire treasure.. I am sure you had already epted his deal, and would have paid what he asked.. That would have been such a big contribution for her.. But now, she will know that everything was ruined because you had to feed your sick need of killing people. Only I know that the letter was meant for her and not for him.. Maybe I will forget that detail.. And when they¡¯ll ask me, I¡¯ll tell that you¡¯ve sent it to him voluntarily. You know what happens in our family to those who don¡¯t obey the orders of the head.."

    Serf was furious, but he knew that confronting his sister with anger wouldn¡¯t have worked. What he wanted to do, was to make her anxious. And that could only be achieved by threatening her.

    The girl showed deeper worry by the minute, then said "What do you want?"

    "If youe close to my friends once again, I¡¯ll tell our family that we have lost a one-time opportunity because of your whimsical behaviour." Said Serf before turning towards the door, and start walking.

    Behind him, his sister approached quietly.. But before she could touch him, Serf added "Oh, and if something happens to me.. There are at least ten different people in the city that will send a letter that describes what happened to our family, and the rest of the main families."

    Thesest few words made the girl stop in her track.

    She looked at Serf leave her room without even turning to look back at her.

 Chapter 181 Poison of the Night Blue Thorn

    Back in his room, Daniel was sitting quietly on his bed.

    He could feel a sort of poisonous substance invade his body, alon with the ck liquid of the pill that counter it constantly.

    More than once he had attempted to remove it by himself, but his immortal essence seemed to be unable to interact with it. It behaved as if the substance belonged to the body, and after washing over it, it would simply spread again.

    Daniel wanted to use ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ but he was scared that if he sped up every lengthy process within his body, the poison would spread faster, and by consequence, the effect of the pill would also run out sooner.

    A couple of minutes had passed since hisst attempt. He was now lying on his bed, and thinking of how he could solve this problem.

    "Just use the system.. Idiot." Said Sewah from within his head.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes opened in realization as he heard Sewah¡¯s voice.

    It had been a long time since he had voluntarily started a quest. His system¡¯s quests were usually long term, and despite how much he relied on the system¡¯s effects like ¡¯Second Chance¡¯ and ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, he had never relied too much on the system¡¯s quest, as he was always capable of solving his problems by himself.

    Unfortunately, this time the problem was out of his capabilities.

    "It¡¯s nice to see that whenever you decide to talk to me, you always do it with kind words.." Responded Daniel out loud, as if Sewah was in the room with him.

    Met with no response, Daniel focused on a specific thought which caused a window to appear in his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started (Chain): No Time For Poisons*

    -Description: Find a cure of the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.

    First objective set: Obtain the heart of a one hundred years old queen dryad.

    Reward: Unnamed cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn / (Optional) Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +75%

    Time limit: 1 month

    ____________________________

    "The heart of a one hundred years old queen dryad?.. Where the hell am I supposed to get that?" Muttered Daniel with a hint of annoyance.

    Out of his desire of knowing a cure for the poison that had afflicted him, Daniel had created a new primary quest. Apparently, this quest would require him to gather all of the ingredients necessary to purge his body of this poison, but of course, a mission was never that easy.

    The very cure of this poison was unnamed, and that suggested that it hadn¡¯t even been discovered by the poison maker itself, or that it had been lost.

    If he were to create a cure for one of the poisonous rose¡¯s masters, the poisonous rose itself would have to recognize Daniel¡¯s worth as an alchemist.

    The fact that he had been poisoned by them did nothing but reinforce his will to end them once and for all, so, he wasn¡¯t going to let this opportunity to infiltrate them pass him by.

    "Sewah, what are my options?"

    ____________________________

    Economic approach

    Difficulty: Easy

    -Purchase one at the Crimson Shear shop. (200 perfect crystals)

    Cooldown: 19 hours, 11 minutes, 1 second.

    Time limit: 19 hours, 12 minutes, 23 seconds.

    (Requirements: 200 perfect crystals)

    Reward: Dark Hound Company reputation -10%

    ____________________________

    Direct approach

    Difficulty: Hard

    -Defeat the queen dryad that will attack the town of Luton.

    (Optional) Save the citizens of Luton from the attack of the dryads.

    Countdown: 5 days and 21 hours.

    (Requirements: Fifth stage of Immortal cultivation)

    Reward: Luton reputation +100% / Region contribution for the Golden Karmapany. (Karma 2,500,000)

    ____________________________

    "That¡¯s enough, thanks.." Said Daniel, interrupting Sewah from making more options appear in his mind.

    After a good minute, Daniel heard Sewah¡¯s voice in his head once more. It said "Look at that.. People in danger.. But now you¡¯re a businessman, I bet that you¡¯ll probably take the easy road."

    "Then you¡¯ve lost." Responded Daniel inly, shutting Sewah down once and for all.

    Aside from needing karma points, Daniel did not want to simply purchase the materials to produce a cure for one simple reason. He knew very well that the group that had poisoned him would follow him, and therefore, he didn¡¯t want them to know what he was up to.

    For the next few minutes, Daniel remembered all of the pain that he had felt during that day, and after feeling a faint shiver run down his back, he rested his head over his pillow, and fell asleep almost immediately.

    -----

    Daniel woke up the next morning, feeling a faint pressure over his chest.

    When he opened his eyes, he saw a head of tinum blonde hair rest on his chest, and a thin and pale arm wrapped around his waist.

    At some point during the night, Alesia had sneaked into his room, and had fallen asleep next to him.

    The moment Daniel woke up, Alesia woke up as well. She looked up at him with her big clear eyes.

    "Am I forgiven?" Daniel asked with an apologetic tone.

    *Thump* "Urgh.."

    In response, Alesia unwrapped her arm from around Daniel¡¯s waist, and hit his abdomen with a good amount of power. Not enough to hurt, but enough for him to forcefully empty his lungs.

    Before Daniel could recover, she said "Do you know how stupid that was?.. What if we had lost you.." Her expression was serious, but her eyes were starting to get watery at the idea, and her voice came closer to break at each word she pronounced.

    Daniel pressed the palm of his hand gently on her face, then, he moved his head towards her, locking lips the very next moment. "Sorry, I won¡¯t do that again.."

    Once Daniel noticed that Alesia had calmed down, he gently pushed her away, and got up from the bed.

    "Where are you going?" She asked while looking at him put his clothes back on.

    "I have to go look for a map of the region.. We have to make a trip." Responded Daniel before walking out of his room.

    In the living room, he found Serf fumbling with a few alchemical instruments.

    When Serf noticed him, he stood up, and asked "How are you feeling?"

    "I¡¯m alright. I am going out,e with me.. There is something I have to talk to you about." Said Daniel in response.

    -----

    "What did you want to talk to me about?" Asked Serf, as he and Daniel walked in a busy street in the middle of the capital.

    "It¡¯s clear that your family isn¡¯t any random family of alchemists.. And that you are part of the poisonous rose.." Said Daniel with an almost indifferent tone.

    Serf showed an apologetic tone, then said "I¡¯m sorry, I should have told you earlier. My family is the one who you¡¯ve been dealing with for the fire essence treasure." Then, almost as if exonerating himself from any idea that Daniel might have had about that, he added "I have had no contacts with them.. I never told them what to offer, or what you wanted.."

    "I know, don¡¯t worry." Responded Daniel with as much indifference as before.

    "What did you want to ask me then?" Asked Serf with clear relief.

    "What can you tell me about this poison?"

    Serf thought about it for a good minute, then, he said "It¡¯s called Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.. Created by my great grandmother.. The previous Night Blue Thorn herself. It¡¯s a toxin which attacks the brain, causing it to send the wrong signals to the rest of your body. The two main effects are a simted state of hypothermia, which causes the blood within your body to focus on your heart.. and the stiffening of the body, to a point where you have difficulties with breathing."

    "Is there a cure?" Asked Daniel with a in tone.

    An apologetic expression appeared once again of Serf¡¯s face, which after a few moments exined by saying "There used to be.. But my great grandmother died before she could pass it down. My grandmother was able to find her notes about the poison in one of her diaries, and managed to create a temporary cure.."

    "The ck pill."

    "Exactly." Said Serf through a dispirited face. Daniel could see that he was extremely sorry about the involvement of his family in that matter.

    After a minute, Daniel turned to look at Serf, and said "What would happen if somebody that isn¡¯t from the poisonous rose were to find a cure for that poison?"

    "That would be an incredible achievement.. The creation of a potent poison is enough to earn a title and a standing for a family, but a poison without an antidote is not viewed well within the poisonous rose.. Just like a bottle without a cap keeps water fine, but if it were to fall, the first to suffer would be the owner."

    "Okay, and what if I were to find a cure?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    Serf turned to look at Daniel with just as much curiosity, then said "Without my grandma¡¯s notes, a sample of the poison, or at the very least one of the ck pills.. I think it¡¯s impossible.. But if that were to happen, you would probably gain a huge respect from the poisonous rose.. Not that I would rmend that."

    "Why is that?"

    "Because then people will try to test your skills.. Do I need to say more?" Said Serf with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Serf was right. Poison masters werepetitive, and the poison that was specific to one¡¯s family was the pride of the family itself, and the reason why they were part of the poisonous rose to begin with.

    Naturally, most families knew how to produce an antidote to their own poison, but if someone were to discover the antidote of a poison that the family itself did not possess, that would mean that the person was at the very least as capable as the creator of the poison itself.

    The poisonous rose was now aware of the fact that Daniel had been poisoned, so, if he were to cure himself, it would mean that he had created a cure, since not even the family itself possess it to begin with.

    Of course, Daniel did not care about shaming Serf¡¯s family. He might have if they hadn¡¯t poisoned him, but now, they were one of the two powers within the poisonous rose that he wanted to destroy, along with the group to which the old man called the ¡¯transparent thorn¡¯ belonged to.

    "You can¡¯t possibly be thinking of creating a cure for the poison of my family, right?" Asked Serf with a hint of doubt.

    "I¡¯m certainly not going to let this poison kill me, nor anyone close to me." Responded Daniel with confidence.

    Serf shook his head, almost as if convinced that Daniel was about to waste the remaining year of his life in a pointless research.

    "Is that why we are looking for a map?" He then asked.

    Daniel simply nodded, and said "Yes.. I need the directions for the first ingredient I need for the cure."

    -----

    tinum-badged area, inside the room of Serf¡¯s sister.

    "Did you tell him that we agreed to his request?" Asked the girl with indifference, while sipping on a ss of pink liquid.

    The teacher looked back at her with confusion, then said "Young Miss.. We have poisoned him.. Do you think he would still ept the trade?"

    "Do it. If he refuses, I will at least be able to get a portion of the guilt off of myself by ming Serf pf revealing the secrets of our family to him, he should not feel as rancorous against us if he doesn¡¯t know he¡¯ll die soon." She responded.

    The teacher shook his head in disappointment, then left.

    On his way out, he couldn¡¯t help but think about what kind of talend would soon be lost due to this spoiled and sadistic girl. For a moment, he found himself hoping that she would be punished like she deserved.

    After all, he worked for The Poisonous Rose, and not for her family.

 Chapter 182 A Strangers Help

    Four days had passed since the conversation between Daniel and Serf, and now, the two of them, along with Alesia, were standing in front of the entrance of a town built right outside of an ancient looking forest.

    From outside of this town, only a few kids and old people could be seen walking around in a depressed manner, giving the city a ghastly look.

    Once Daniel, Serf and Alesia stepped into it, a grey-haired old man dressed in simple clothes approached them from the side of the road.

    "You havee to Luton at a bad time, young ones.." Said the old man with a croaky voice.

    Daniel, which was standing at the front, asked while feigning ignorance "What do you mean by that?" He then looked around, and after noticing theck of people from sixteen to fifty years of age, he said "Where are all of the men and women in this city?.. Why are there only kids and elders?"

    The old man responded after a deep sigh by saying "They departed towards the heart of the forest.. Two day ago.."

    "And left all of you here alone?" Asked Daniel with clear doubt.

    "We have lived in this town for about fifty years now.. And somehow never noticed that the forest near it was not only inhabited by beasts, but by dryads as well.. I don¡¯t think I need to tell you how hateful towards humans the dryads are.." Said the old man weakly.

    Daniel could barely feel any immortal essence on either him, or the remaining citizens of the town. Most of them were kids at the first stage of cultivation, or old people at the second or third stage, which had stopped cultivating in order to pursue a career like smithing, or alchemy.

    "They have gone to exterminate the dryads?" Asked Daniel while looking straight into the forest. "What is the strongest member of the group?"

    "The strongest member is a stranger that offered to help us.. He came by two days ago from the depths of the forest. He warned us that after the dryads woke up from their slumber, they became wary of our presence, causing them to be angered, and to want to exterminate us.. He offered to mediate between us.. A good man. He is at the fifth stage of the immortal cultivation.." Exined the old man with clear gratitude.

    Daniel¡¯s brows furrowed the moment he heard the old man¡¯s words.

    He knew for a fact that a fifth stage cultivator was necessary toplete the mission.. And if the mission given by his system imed that the dryads would destroy the town regardless of his help, that meant that he was either going to die in the attempt.. Or worse.. He had a part in the ughter of the citizens.

    "We wish to help. Do you have a method to reach the group that went into the forest?" Asked Serf with his usual amiable tone. His heavy build made him look trustworthy, and his big smile gave the vibe of kindness.

    The face of the old man brightened in delight "Of course!.. Here, this is an immortalpass.. The kind stranger said it would constantly point at the ce where he is.. Take it." He said after taking a transparent sphere out of his pocket.

    This sphere was empty, and inside it, it had a thread which was slightly shorter than the radius of the sphere itself. This thread was tense, and its end was knotted around a thin bar that went from one side of the sphere to the other while touching the center.

    No matter how Daniel moved it, the point of the thread always pointed at the same position.

    "We will keep our distance, and only intervene if a fight breaks out." Said Daniel the old man, which smiled with gratitude in response.

    They then waved at him, and walked into the forest.

    -----

    Somewhere in the depths of the forest, was a tall and serious-looking man of around thirty years of age which stood quietly on a small open space. At his feet, were the corpses of at least thirty humans, and ten human-like beings.

    The silhouette of these beings resembled that of women, but from a single nce, one would guess that they were far from being humans.

    They had long hair which appeared to be made out of tree branches, or in some cases, tree roots. Their skin was mostly covered in tree bark, and only their thighs, abdomen and chest were made out of a greenish-colored skin. Their eyes were yellow, and of a reptilian kind.

    Each of these beings lied in a pool of dark green blood, and had a sh in the middle of their chests, where an empty cavity could be seen bleed.

    Various cultivators approached the man a few momentster. They were, just like the many deceased human cultivators, part of the force that belonged to the nearby town.

    Their eyes opened in shock as soon as they saw the massacre in front of them. A few directly dashed towards their friends and family members, and bawled in sadness and desperation.

    The man gave them a minute, then said "They dryads refused any form of deal.. There was no choice but to fight" Said the man with an apologetic tone. He then turned to look at the depths of the woods, and added "They came from deeper into the woods.. We can only try to talk with their leader.."

    The cultivators of the town looked at the deceased ones one more time, and unanimously thought that they couldn¡¯t let the deaths of their loved ones be meaningless. They had to solve this crisis immediately, or there would be no future for their town.

    Now, there was something important to keep in mind. The world where Daniel was currently in, was immenselyrger than his world of origin. The number of people which lived in it was in the trillions, and the cities were extremely far from each other.

    Of course, due to the ability to make long distance travels through teleportation devices, one would be able to visit most of the capitals and big cities in a lifetime, if they put their mind and arge amount of money into it.

    Unfortunately, that didn¡¯t mean that everyone had the same chances.

    If the citizens of the town decided to abandon it and go back, they would have to face a travel that took Daniel, which was a fifth stage immortal cultivation with a highprehension of space, four days to make.

    It was almost guaranteed that they would encounter danger more than once in their travel, so, they had decided to stay, and try to resolve their problem by themselves.

    Usually they would have sent a request for help to the closest city, but the stranger that had showed up, had warned them of the iing attack just days before it happened, causing them to give up on that idea, as it was toote for it anyway.

    After listening to the man¡¯s words, the group of cultivators steeled their minds, and followed him into the depths of the forest.

    -----

    Five hours passed since Daniel, Serf and Alesia entered the woods.

    They had finally arrived to the point indicated by thepass, and after following the direction to the exact ce, they had found themselves in a small patch of grass free from trees.

    In the middle of this patch of grass, there was a man standing alone.

    Alesia was about to approach him, but right before she could take two steps forward, Daniel put his arm in front of her chest, and stopped her.

    Alesia, of course, did not take Daniel¡¯s actions to heart. In fact, she became aware, and prepared for a possible battle.

    "What is it?" asked Serf with confusion.

    "It¡¯s a trap.. A formation." Responded Daniel with a voice slightly shaken by what he had experienced in the past minute and a half.

    While this was the first time for Alesia and Serf, Daniel had already entered this formation once. Once in, a sixth stage formation had been activated, inside which the "puppet" left inside the formation had killed him and the others.

    It was a fortune that Daniel had died so fast, or they might have not gone back right before entering the formation.

    "Who do you think left it?" Asked Alesia while observing the man standing in the middle of the patch of grass.

    "I don¡¯t know.." Responded Daniel inly, then let go of his immortal essence, and flew high up in the air.

    Alesia and Serf followed suit, and together, they started to observe their surroundings.

    Unfortunately, they found nothing.

    With no clear direction in mind, Daniel turned towards what looked like the depths of the forest, and flew at high speed while dragging with him his twopanions.

    It was only after another hour of flying, that he finally spotted a faint column of smoke rising from a small area devoid of trees.

    This area was disseminated with corpses, and from the different look of at least a fourth of them, Daniel guessed that a battle had taken ce here.

    "Dryads.." Muttered Serf with a dubious expression, and furrowed brows.

    Daniel had never told him the reason why he hade here, so, it was quite interesting for him that Serf knew what dryads even looked like. "What can you tell me about them?" He asked.

    "Nymphs of the forest.. Rtively powerful.. They are usually mistaken for wood elementals." Responded Serf while looking at their bodies.

    "Did you notice their bodies?" Asked Alesia from the side. "They all have a cut in their chest which doesn¡¯t seem to be a result of the battle."

    Serf turned to look at her, and said "Yes.. their hearts have been extracted. Whoever did it, clearly wasn¡¯t interested in discussing terms with them.. And wanted their hearts instead"

    "Do you have any idea why?.." She the asked with curiosity.

    Serf¡¯s eyes moved back on the bodies of the deceased dryads, then said "The hearts of dryads are an alchemical ingredient.. Rtively rare.. Especially the one of queen dryads that are above a hundred years old. Many pois..." It was at this moment that he turned towards Daniel with eyes opened wide in shock.

    "Is this why we are here?" He asked with great surprise.

    Daniel simply nodded in response. Then, without saying a word, started to use his spiritual sense to feel his surrounding.

    He quickly caught a faint trace of immortal essence that had been left by what looked like a fifth stage cultivator.. It was close to disappearingpletely.

    "Let¡¯s go.. We have to move now." He said with confidence, before surrounding their three bodies with his immortal essence, and flying towards the source of the trace.

    -----

    "Humans, we would have granted you a few more days to live.. Or a chance to run.. Had you note to look for death in our own territory." Said a pleasant voice from within a cave made out of vines and tree roots.

    In front of this cave, was arge group of cultivators, with at its head, the thirty years old man which had promised his help in mediating with the dryads.

    "Mister Tera, is there anything you can say to stop them?" asked a rtively well-dressed middle aged cultivator from within the group, with a hopeful tone. He clearly trusted the man, and was putting the fate of his town into him. He was the town chief.

    "I am afraid that we are beyond words now.. Our only choice could possibly be to fight this out.." Responded Mister Tera with an apologetic tone.

    The moment he finished speaking, arge group of dryads started to approach their group from all sides. Once surrounded, the many vines and branches that closed the cave opened, making a way for arger entity to walk out of it.

    This dryad was bigger than the rest, and while she had hair made out of vines, she also had a crown made out of thorns. Her body was more human-like, and the only parts covered in bark, were her private parts, and the extremities of her limbs.

 Chapter 183 What Are You Doing Here?

    "We haven¡¯t done anything to anger you! Why are you threatening us?!" Asked the town chief with clear anxiousness. One could feel the exasperation built on days of fear towards his people.

    The Queen of the Dryads looked at the town chief with a nk expression, yet, after she started speaking, people started to realize how shocked by the words of the town chief she actually was.

    "Done nothing!? He has been killing the members of our kind for months now! HE EVEN KILLED OUR YOUNG ONES! We weren¡¯t even aware of your existence until you came into the depths of the forest!" She responded after pointing at the stranger who had offered his help to them.

    "Don¡¯t listen to her. Dryads are known for trying to manipte the minds of humans.. They separate a group and kill each part individually.." Responded the stranger with a reassuring tone.

    Not knowing what to do anymore, the eyes of the town chief shifted between the stranger and the Queen of the Dryads.

    The moment his eyesnded on the queen, he heard her voice once again say "Lying?.." She then turned towards the town citizens, and asked "Did you encounter any dryad in the forest since you have entered it?"

    With a hint of caution, the town chief said "We have engaged in battle with less than a dozen of them."

    "Are they dead?" Asked the queen in response. Her tone was calm, as she already suspected the answer to her question.

    "They were dead when we arrived.. Along with thirty of our people." Responded the town chief while adding a hint of anger to thest part of his response.

    The queen did not take the town chief¡¯s tone to heart. Instead, she asked a question that sprouted a seed of doubt in the mind of each cultivator.

    "Did our dead have their hearts ripped out of their chests?.."

    A few of the cultivators from the town immediately understood the meaning behind the words of the Queen of the Dryads, and turned to look at the stranger, which in response, said "It¡¯s true, I have collected their hearts because I happen to be an alchemist.. But the rest is false! I was never here before.. And they were nning an attack on your town! Why would I put myself in such a risk otherwise?"

    The queen saw how confused the town cultivators were, but did not care. "It does not matter now.. While you have been fooled by this man, you will all die here regardless." She said with a matter-of-fact tone.

    She then lifted her green arms, causing hundreds of roots to move out of the ground, and form a barrier all around the group of cultivators.

    "See? She is trying to disturb our harmony as a group! We have to fight back!" He said while making a long red whip appear in his hand, andshing it against the blockade of tree roots.

    Arge opening appeared in the barrier, with its borders covered with fire.

    Unable to understand what was happening anymore, the many cultivators had no other choice but to fight the party that had the most evident intention of killing them.. The dryads.

    They quickly unsheathed their weapons, and followed the stranger out of the hole he had created with his fire whip.

    In a matter of seconds, an all out war started between the humans, and the dryads.

    As a warmongering race, the humans had a cultural advantage in creating strategies for war, but this was the territory of the dryads, and their number was slightly higher than the humans.

    The attacks of the dryads were wood-based, and arrived at impressive speed from all directions.

    Being entities that were born in a forestal environment, the dryads had a perfect control over wood essence, along with a very highprehension over it.

    The unique type of essence that they produced, was an halfway between beast essence, and wood essence. Its close rtionship to wood essence made the transition to pure wood essence much easier, and helped them with controlling and manipting the forest that surrounded them.. Unfortunately, it was near impossible to turn into different types of essence.

    This was also the cause why it was very rare for dryads to reach a perfectprehension of wood essence even if they possessed a high intelligence. Their race was extremely antisocial towards any other race, and they would usually attack them on sight if they entered their territory.

    Due to this, it was safe to assume that, even if the stranger was lying and the dryads had no intentions of attacking them before they came to the depths of the forest, the reason was more likely to be that the dryads were not aware of their presence, than that they did not want to attack them.

    If they knew that humans had created a town right at the edge of their forest, people would have probably started to disappear long ago.

    The town had been built due to the proximity to a now dismissed crystal mine, and had been built near the forest, because it would be easier for its citizens, which were previously workers for the miningpany, to gather resources.

    Now that the mine had been dismissed, instead of going back to living an hectic life in arge city, the ex workers had decided to stay in the town permanently, and try to slowly build a new city.

    This was not something rare, and it would often happen with many temporary outposts or towns in history.. Unfortunately, in order to survive and prosper, the town would always have to endure a certain amount of years that people used to call ¡¯infant stage¡¯.

    The major risks during the infant stage of a town were caused by its distance to government governed cities, causing the town to be under threat of bandits, or hostile races groups like, for example, the dryads.

    Another reason why these towns had little chance to survive, was due to the low power of its inhabitants which, due to it being formed by previous workers, was usually pretty low.

    Luckily the dryads weren¡¯t much more powerful than they were. They had survived inside that particr forest for numerous millennia, but due to theck of enemies in their territory, their power had stayed at the fourth stage of cultivation.

    The most powerful amongst them, was the queen, which was currently at thete fifth stage of cultivation.

    She was currently facing off against the stranger, which while brandishing two scythes, was managing to hold his ground rtively easily.

    On the other side, hundreds of dryads were slowly and steadily suppressing a just asrge group of human cultivators, which couldn¡¯tpete only thanks to their sheer physical power, and steel weapons.

    Wood was an highly defensive element, and it was especially effective against weapons. If that wasn¡¯t enough, its maneuverability made it extremely effective to disarm or impede a human cultivator¡¯s movements.

    What the dryadscked though, was the motivation that humans had. They had found themselves between the hammer and the anvil, and had no choice but to give their all to survive.

    They hadpletely lost trust in the stranger, which was simply focusing on battling against the queen.

    -----

    The battle went on for a full hour, and after so much time had passed, one of the two side of the battle had started to go against everybody¡¯s expectation.

    While humans had lost a good twenty percent of their members, the stranger had gained the upper hand against the queen of the dryads, which now had numerous wound on her body from which dark green blood flowed constantly.

    This sight was what the humans were hoping for.

    They used the anxiousness that the dryads were feeling for their queen to counter attack. The few of them that could use fire essence started to direct their attacks at a single point in the encirclement, creating a passage from which they could push through.

    "FIRST, SECOND AND FOURTH GROUP ATTACK FROM THE RIGHT! THIRD GROUP, WATCH OUR BACKS!" Shouted the town chief with new found vigor.

    Three of the four groups immediately dashed towards their right, and started to attack the unprepared semi-circle of dryads, which unable to defend against the human¡¯s onught, started to die at a much faster rate.

    The increasingly worse state of the dryads had worried the queen just as much as her sorry state had worried her troops. Both of them had gotten distracted, allowing the humans and the stranger to score more and more hits.

    After another half hour of fighting, the stranger was finally close to killing the queen dryad, when out of desperation, the queen used herst resort.

    A faint blue smoke started to emanate out of the purplish veins hidden underneath her bark-like skin.

    The stranger reacted to this blue smoke by ingesting a small green pill, while the various cultivators could do nothing but let thisrge blue cloud wash past them.

    There was no doubt in their mind. They had been poisoned.

    The Queen of the Dryads looked at the pill that the stranger ingested with shock. She could feel a hint of dryad poison in it, and that was the indisputable proof that this man hade here to hunt for them.

    Unfortunately, the poison that she had emanated had taken the majority of her remaining strength. Thisst resort attack could only be used in desperate situation, as she used her own blood which, in contact with the air, turned into a gaseous state to poison her enemies while leaving her gravely weakened.

    The stranger immediately used the asion to finish her off by stabbing her shoulder with one of his scythes, and while keeping her still, decapitated her with his second one.

    After the queen died, the rest of the dryads lost their will to fight, causing the humans to emerge victorious in a matter of minutes.

    The town chief was now looking at the stranger, which was busy extracting the heart of the Queen of the Dryads. He then approached him from behind.

    "Mister Tera, what was that blue cloud that engulfed us?" He asked with clear worry.

    Without even looking back, the stranger said "A poison. Don¡¯t worry, it doesn¡¯t work unless the dryad is alive to add in her own unique essence to it."

    All the town chief was able to hear, was the word poison.

    "Why are you lying to them?" Said a voice from about fifty meters above the ground.

    Without anyone noticing, three individuals had appeared in the air. A young tinum blonde woman, and two more young men. One lean, with an athletic build, and one tall and stout.

    These three individuals were, of course, Alesia, Daniel, and Serf.

    The person who had talked, was Serf.. which was currently looking at the stranger with a clearly angered expression.

    What had caused his anger to appear, was not only the fact that this so called benefactor was about to let these people die, but the fact that he recognized him.

    "Serf.. what are you doing here?" Asked the stranger with eyes opened in shock.

    The various cultivators looked at the flying figures of Daniel, and his party with worry.

    It was the town chief that interrupted the silence by asking "What does that mean.. What is he lying about?"

    Serf turned to look at the town chief, and said with a matter-of-fact tone "The dryad¡¯s poison is a slow effect toxin that makes your brain degenerate.. It will start showing its effects in a matter of hours, and will kill you in no more than two days."

    At this point, the human cultivators had lost all faith in the stranger¡¯s words. Instead, they looked at their leader, which asked in response "Is there a cure?"

    "There is.." Responded Serf before pointing at the stranger, and saying "The blood of young dryads, along with the heart of adult ones, can be used to synthesize a cure."

    The stranger looked at Serf with anger, and said "You are ying a dangerous game serf.. Contrary to your family, mine deserves our title.." He already knew what Serf¡¯s words implied.

    Just as hisst few words reverberated through the air, a small talisman appeared in his hands.

    He was about to crush it, but before he could put any power into his fingers, he was forced to dock backwards in order to avoid a horizontal sh that, if sessful, would have cut his head clean off.

 Chapter 184 No Small Amount of Trouble

    The sudden attack had made the stranger drop the talisman he was holding, which fell on the ground, and disappeared underneath a thickyer of dry leaves.

    "Hey! I don¡¯t know you.. Why are you attacking me?!" He asked with a mixture of anger and shock.

    Daniel, which was now standing where the stranger previously was, lowered his upper body, and picked the talisman off the ground. He then observed it, and felt a wisp of immortal essence of which he could not calcte the power.

    There was arge possibility that, in case he was allowed him to destroy the talisman, a portal would have appeared. In the past he wouldn¡¯t have had a problem with letting someone open a portal to escape, but he had learned long ago that portals which lead to pocket dimensions, would often alert the masters of those dimensions.. And that, he would not allow it.

    "Who is he?" Daniel asked to Serf.

    "His name is Grum Tera.. he is one of the children of the House of Corrosion.. He likely came here in order to obtain the queen¡¯s heart, after he learned about the presence of this tribe of dryads." Responded Serf without holding back anything after approaching Daniel¡¯s side.

    Due to how Daniel had dealt with the person that had left the bomb in hispany building, Serf had learned how he acted. He wanted to give Daniel the highest amount of informations, and let him handle the situation the way he preferred.

    "How dangerous is his family?" Asked Daniel with a low voice. He was in no hurry to add another big group to his enemy list, especially now that he had arge number of people to take care of.

    "Very dangerous.. Not any weaker than mine." Responded Serf with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The thirty years-old man called Grum looked at Daniel, and said "You better listen to him, kid.. The repercussion of challenging my family are not something you can withstand."

    Daniel turned to look at Grum with an indifferent expression, and said "That is if you leave this ce alive.." He then dashed towards him, as a second sword appeared in his left hand.

    Hearing Daniel¡¯s words, Grum felt an indescribable amount of anger build up in his chest. He looked at his quick advance, and said "You are underestimating me.." then, two scythes appeared in his hands, which he grabbed tightly and put in front of his body just in time to parry Daniel¡¯s attack.

    *Cli-Clink*

    The sound of the two pairs of weapons shing formed a sonic boom that caused the dry leaves in the radius of ten meters to be forcibly pushed back.

    Daniel was the one that had impacted against Grum¡¯s defensive position, so, he was the one that had been pushed back by the aftermath of the attack.

    As he was in mid air, he threw several metallic needles which reached Grum from various directions. Unfortunately, they were all parried thanks to thetter¡¯s higher cultivation.

    Once Daniel¡¯s feet touched the ground, he looked at the sword that he was holding, and immediately noticed something.. The des had started to corrode.

    "Careful when you get close to him! He uses many different poisons.. Each capable of corroding your body or metal!" Shouted Serf from the side.

    The reason why Daniel had chosen not to use his immortal cultivation to create essence constructs was because, at some point, in order to keep up with the consumption, he would have had to activate Time is Precious..

    Activating that effect would also speed up the effect of the poison within his body which, instead of spreading at a normal speed, would spread at a three thousand times faster rate.

    Luckily, his adversary was a melee fighter and not a ranged one, or he would be forced to fight usingrge amounts of immortal essence.

    "I was going to let you live, since you are a friend of one of the families of the poisonous rose.. But I¡¯ve changed my mind.. I¡¯ll kill you and the cheerleader, and take Serf.. I wonder how much his family will give mine for him." Grum said with a dirty grin on his face.

    His current cultivation was at thete fifth stage of immortal cultivation, which was currently higher than Daniels, the strongest of his group.. So, saying that he was willing to let them go previously, was not a lie. Now, he had been angered by Daniel.

    Daniel did not respond to the man¡¯s provocations, and instead, injected a small amount of immortal essence into his swords, which he then turned into a faint metal essence that he used to once again sharpen his sword.

    Once he was done, he disappeared from his ce, and reappeared right behind Grum¡¯s field of view.

    The sharpened sword shed the air into two, but suddenly disappeared before hitting the de that Grum had just ced behind his neck to parry the blow. The motion of Daniel¡¯s de did not stop, as it kept going against the knee of his adversary.. Unfortunately, it disappeared once again as the second scythe moved in front of its path in an instant.

    The two attacks had taken a quarter of a second, and had only happened in a single motion of Daniel¡¯s arm. Now that the movement had beenpleted, when Daniel re appeared for the third time at Grum¡¯s side, he found the de¡¯s end of the first scythe right in front of his eyes.

    A single metallic thread forcibly came out of the ground, and dashed towards Grum¡¯s wrist the very next moment. It quickly wrapped around it, and deviated his attack by pulling his arm downwards.

    Grum did not resist the pulling force, and instead, he ced his palm against the ground, and put all of his weight against it to roll his body, and use the strength generated to attack Daniel a second time.

    Daniel avoided the sh just in time to avoid having arge gash on his face, but unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t capable of avoiding the damage fully.

    A thin bloody line had formed on his left cheek, of which he felt the skin, flesh, and blood burn as if he had a torch ced directly against his face.

    The exchange of blows went on for a few seconds, and after that, it became obvious to Daniel that he would not be able to simply win with his martial skills.

    He was extremely talented in handling weapons, and his agility was above anybody else¡¯s.. But his cultivation was still lower.. And most people above his level of cultivation would be able to react faster, and hit harder.

    Once he noticed that Grum was fully focused on avoiding and parrying his swords, he started to add magical attacks into the mix of attacks.

    His two des had been filled with light essence, which appeared like a couple of brighthouses that he wielded with each hand to blind Grum. The noises in the surrounding started to confound him, as the sound of shing arrived behind his back, while the attack came from somewhere else, and the heat of Daniel¡¯s body was now replicated around his entire body.

    One minute earlier Grum was inplete control over the fight, and now, he was forced into a defensive state by a younger, and less powerful kid.

    He had been shocked by Daniel¡¯s control over various different essence, and now had no way to effectively counter any of his attacks.

    He started to gain one injury after another, until finally, the umpteenth misleading shing sound, caused him to lose his arm altogether.

    Grum was not a kid, and he was perfectly capable of keeping his calm even in dire situations, so, the moment he found himself in the sharp side of the knife, he quickly came up with an idea of how to get himself out of trouble.

    Targeting the arm on which a person wore his spatial ring wasmon practice during a fight. Especially for martial practitioners.. After all, in order to restore their immortal cultivation, a cultivator would need alchemical products.

    This practice had also be popr amongst bandits, which instead of demanding people to give up their fortune, they gave a single warning before directly starting to cut off limbs.

    This had caused the rich families to leave ayer of safety on the members who ventured out of their territory.

    Grum, was not an exception, in fact, after he lost his arm, he rapidly found a chance to put his hand into his robe, and grab a sheet of paper.

    On this sheet of paper, was a simple formation created with time and space essence. It only needed a thread to immortal essence to be activated, and the way it worked, was by stopping time in an area of around five meters around the user, and after a few seconds, forcibly teleport the user out of the area.

    The moment Grum managed to grab this piece of paper with his hand, he didn¡¯t waste time before pushing his immortal essence into it, and activating it.

    Time immediately stopped in the area where the two had been exchanging blows until now.

    Daniel was immobile in mid air, while Grum was standing on the ground, seemingly still able to move.

    The first thing he did, was to walk towards his arm, and to grab it.

    He then turned towards Daniel, and said "You are a tough kid, I¡¯ll give you that.. But you shouldn¡¯t have meddled with my family¡¯s business. Watch from hell as I find each member of your family, and send them to me-"

    His speech was interrupted by a lightning fast de which shed towards his neck.

    In his shock, he was only able to let go of his arm, and raise his hand at thest moment to faintly deviate the blow, which instead of cutting his head off, simply shed his throat open.

    Daniel had only pretended to be stuck in time so that he could have a chance to attack his adversary while he was distracted, and it had worked. There was no way that a simple formation could tramp over his own control over time essence.

    Grum was standing shock, with his remaining hand pressed tightly against the gash on his neck. Copious amounts of blood were quickly dripping from the spaces in between his fingers.

    Daniel was about to finish him off, but right at that moment he stopped, and instead, he grabbed the cut arm that was lying on the ground, and removed the ring that was around the middle finger.

    The very next moment, Grum disappeared from next to him, along with the arm that he was holding a moment earlier.

    He had felt spatial essence around him agitate, and knew that he had only a few moments before he would be teleported away, so, he had no choice but to give up on the kill in order to obtain the items he was here for.

    After Grum disappeared, Serf and Alesia approached him.

    "This is going to give you no small amount of trouble in the future.." Muttered Serf with a distracted tone. His eyes were pointed at the human cultivators, which were looking towards them with dispirited expressions.

    "Do you know how to make the cure for the dryad¡¯s poison?" Asked Daniel while looking at the small ring in his hands.

    "I do." Responded Serf inly, before adding "For that many people.. I¡¯ll need at least twenty hearts of adult dryads, and the blood from just as many young dryads."

    Daniel said nothing, and with a single thought, made twenty fist sized greenish hearts appear in mid air, along with the bodies of just as many young dryads.

    These young dryads were almostpletely covered in bark, except for a few humanoid facial features. They were at the earliest stage of a dryad¡¯s life, and were all preserved into Grum¡¯s spatial ring.

    Serf immediately started to work on the cure, while Daniel approached the few still living dryads, which after noticing him, said "Kill us, human."

    "It doesn¡¯t have to go that way.. If you are willing to live with them in peace, I will let you go." Said Daniel with a cold tone.

    "Our queen died, just like our young ones.. Even if you let us go, we will find a way to take revenge on this group of humans." Responded an adult dryad with a just as cold tone.

    Daniel could not understand if the cause of their was theircking abilities in showing emotions, or if that was how they really felt.. But that didn¡¯t matter.

    "Very well.." He said, before forming various des in mid air, and piercing the heart of each living dryad in the surrounding.. Causing them to drop dead in unison.

 Chapter 185 The Next Three Ingredients

    It was nowte in the evening, and Daniel, Alesia, and the rest of the town¡¯s cultivators had just managed their way back into the town.

    At the same time, Serf had gone back into one of theboratories within Daniel¡¯spany building to producerge amounts of antidotes for the poison of the dryads.

    Daniel and Alesia stood quietly to the side, and observed the various mixture of reactions to the events of the previous few days. A few cried for the loss of their rtives, a few were happy to see their family members back alive, and most of them were relieved by the news that the dryads were not a menace anymore.

    A couple of hours passed until finally, Serf came out of theboratory while holding a bunch of vials and other items in his hands.

    The cultivators already knew what these vials were, so they quickly grabbed one each, and listened to Serf¡¯s instruction on how to remove the poison from their body.

    The way the dryad¡¯s poison was removed, was by breathing in an airborne solution made by the hearts of adult dryads, the blood of the young ones, and a few other ingredients. Each vial was attached to a soft mask, and a small me was ced underneath it, so that it could evaporate, allowing people to easily inhale it.

    The moment thest of the cultivators started to breathe in the cure, two different windows appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind.

    ____________________________

    *No Time For Poisons*

    First objectiveplete.

    Reward: Karma Points 2,500,000 / Luton reputation +100% / Region contribution for the Golden Karmapany.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started (Chain): No Time For Poisons*

    -Description: Find a cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.

    Second objective set: Obtain the saliva of a ten years old ck opal snake, a fifty years old white-scaled snake, and a two hundred years old green-skinned snake.

    Reward: Unnamed cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn / (Optional) Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +75%

    Time limit: 26 days

    ____________________________

    "Fantastic.. Three more.." Muttered Daniel to himself.

    "What is it?" Asked Serf from behind him. He had just finished checking that everybody was following his instructions, when he heard Daniel talk to himself.

    After hearing Serf¡¯s voice, Daniel turned to look back at him, and said "It¡¯s nothing.. By the way.. Is there something more.. Specific.. that you can tell me about your family poison?"

    Serf was surprised by the sudden question, but regained his wits after only a couple of seconds, and said "You actually already have one of the poisons of which it isposed. The heart of a hundred years old dryad, along with the poison of three different snake-like beasts, and two types of fishes."

    "That¡¯s it? There is nothing else?" Asked Daniel in sudden relief. He wasn¡¯t sure how long the quest would take, but since he had obtained the quest for all of the three snake poisons at the same time, there had to be an asion that would have allowed him to obtain all at the same time.

    "That¡¯s all.. Unfortunately finding a cure is not that easy.. We know the ingredients, but the method of production, the method of assumption.. You know how medicine is.. Just a bit too much of poison, and you¡¯re more dead that you would have been without taking the antidote." Responded Serf with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Sewah, my options." muttered Daniel in his head.

    Daniel spent a few minutes studying the various methods, until finally, he made a decision on his course of action. He then turned to look at Alesia and Serf, and asked "Ready to go?.."

    "Let¡¯s sleep here for tonight.. At least to be sure that the antidote did its job." Responded Serf with a hint of worry in his face.

    Daniel had already noticed that after giving the antidote to the group of cultivators, and exining to them how it worked, Serf had received a good amount of positive karma. For him to want to make sure that the people he had helped were safe, was no surprise.

    In the end, Daniel epted to spend the night in the town, where its now healthy and joviant citizens threw a party in order to thank them of their help.

    -----

    "Hey.." Said Alesia while approaching Daniel from behind. "What are you doing out here?" She then asked.

    Daniel, which was now sitting on arge chair ced in a garden, turned towards her, and said "I got used to spending a bit of time outside before going to sleep.. And it¡¯s better when it¡¯s with you.. Join me."

    A faint smile formed on Alesia¡¯s face, as she walked towards a second chair which was already present next to Daniel.

    In between the two chairs, was a small round table, and on it, were two sses and a bottle full of dense golden liquid. Its consistency was just a bit more liquid than honey.

    These were all items which Daniel had prepared while he waited for Alesia to show up, and when she did, they made her immediately understand that he was waiting for her.

    As she sat on her chair, Daniel opened the bottle of honey-like liquor, and poured a ss each.

    The liquor was not bubbly, but had a sweet taste. It was clear that sugar or honey were added to it, yet, they didn¡¯t mask the faint burning that one felt whenever they swallowed a sip of it.

    After a couple of minutes of quietness, Alesia asked "So, are you going to tell me what we are here for?"

    Daniel did not want to tell her that the poison was still within his body, but he also did not want to lie to her. So, he told her a half truth.

    "You know the reason why we have entered the academy.. To infiltrate the poisonous rose. We infiltrate the poisonous rose, we damage it from within, and we get enough contribution to get a permit for multary travel." Responded Daniel inly. He then added "I figured that producing a cure for one of their deadliest poisons would make them notice us."

    "You could have told me.. Until now I thought we hade here to save this town from destruction.." Said Alesia with feigned displeasure. "Too bad I was going to.. It doesn¡¯t matter anymore."

    Arge number of thoughts made their way into Daniel¡¯s mind, which asked in curiosity "Going to.. what?"

    "Forget it.. There is no need for you to hear that.." She responded with a teasing tone, before going back to slowly sipping her sweet wine.

    Daniel spent the following minute being consumed by curiosity.. He couldn¡¯t enjoy the wine anymore, and instead looked at Alesia, which pretended to ignore him.

    He said out of the blue "You know.. Even if we haven¡¯te here to save this town.. We¡¯ve still done it."

    "I guess you are right.." Muttered Alesia as a faint smile appeared on her face once again. She then put the ss back on the small table, and looked at Daniel intently.

    Daniel turned to look back at her, and with a righteous tone, he said "I am definitely right.."

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, Alesia got up from her chair, walked next to Daniel¡¯s. She then lifted her leg and moved it on the other side of Daniel¡¯s thighs.

    Her knees were right next to Daniel¡¯s hips, and she was sitting on his legs.

    She grabbed Daniel¡¯s chin with her soft and warm hands "So you are the hero of this story?.." She asked while moving her face closer to his, and showing a mischievous grin.

    Daniel let Alesia do what she wanted, and the moment her lips brushed against hers, he muttered "I am whatever grants me to conquer the girl at the end of the day.."

    The smile on Alesia¡¯s face widened, as she said "That¡¯s a good answer.." She then pressed her lips against Daniel¡¯s, while he pulled her closer by grabbing her behind with both hands.

    -----

    Daniel woke up the next day in his bed. Sleeping next to him, was Alesia.

    He did all he could to remove his arm from underneath her head, and then teleported out of bed while manipting the sound essence into avoiding her ears. He did not want to disturb her.

    When he re appeared he was in another point of his room, where he put his clothes on before leaving the room.

    "Dan!" Shouted Serf the moment he saw Daniele out of his room. His fingers were greasy, and he was using them to hold an oddlyrge piece of meat, which he offered with a hint of his head after seeing that Daniel had noticed it.

    Daniel refused by shaking his head

    "So, what now?" Asked Serf before taking a big bite at the chunk of meat.

    "I need your help with finding one of the three snake poisons which are part of your family signature poison." Responded Daniel calmly.

    Serf showed a confused expression. Then asked "I haven¡¯t even told you what poisons you need.."

    "I already know.. I just need you to find the poison of a fifty years old white-scaled snake" Said Daniel with a dismissive tone.

    The shock on Serf¡¯s face suddenly became more evident. "How did you.. Wait, the poison we use is a twenty-five years old white-scaled snake.. You¡¯ve got that wrong."

    "Don¡¯t worry about it, just find a fifty years old one, I¡¯ll pay you back any price you¡¯ll spend on it. Is that okay?" Asked Daniel after ignoring Serf¡¯s point.

    Of course, Daniel had already imagined that he would find differences in the items Serf¡¯s family used for the temporary cure, and the cure that his system would help him to produce, after all, the system¡¯s cure was a permanent one, while the one created by Serf¡¯s family was a failed product.

    "There shouldn¡¯t be a problem." Responded Serf while shrugging his shoulders.

    After a good hour spent saying goodbye to the citizens of the town, Daniel opened arge portal into hispany building, which he then used as a bridge to directly teleport into the capital.

    The ce of the capital where Daniel appeared, was the front of a run down alchemy shock which he was more than familiar with, and whose pungent smell he had now otten used to.

    Once inside the shop, the kid-like broker walked in front of him, and said "Mr. Hiel, I have no jobs to report.. It seems that things have been peaceful in the capitaltely.. I¡¯ve done what you¡¯ve asked, and sent a few letters to the family and groups of the previous victims.."

    Before the kid-like broker could continue, Daniel lifted his hand in front of him, and said "I¡¯m not here for that.. I¡¯m here to look for your employee.." He then made a few light orbs appear from the surface of his body, and fly towards every angle of the room.

    In the north-east angle of the room, a pitch ck shadow appeared in the corner of the room.

    Once discovered, this shadow floated towards Daniel.. It then took the shape of a dark cloud, and said "How can I help you Master Hiel?"

    Daniel looked at the dark elemental, and asked "How good are you at stealing items?"

    "Better than most.. As opposed to what most thieves say.. I do really have the ability to disappear in the shadows.. Hehe" said a disembodied voice which came from the small cloud of dark mist.

    "I need you to steal something from me.. A poison, from an high end alchemy shop in the richest part of the city.." Said Daniel with a in tone.

    The ck cloud-like elemental remained quite for a moment, then said "What do I get out of it"?

    Suddenly, Daniel opened his hand in mid air, and made arge globe of darkness appear on his palm.

    From this globe, the dark elemental could feel the concepts and mixes which he had never managed to feel before. What Daniel had showed him could only mean one thing.. His reward, would be a chance ofprehending more about the essence he was made of.. And maybe, a chance at evolving.

 Chapter 186 Triple Approach Model

    "Here is our part of the deal." Said the teacher while handing a small ring over to Daniel.

    Daniel immediately caught the ring in mid-air, and after checking its content, and verifying that there were in fact a hundred thousand perfect crystals like promised, he stood still in quiet for a few seconds.

    Then, against the teacher¡¯s expectations, he threw the ring back at him without saying anything.

    The teacher grabbed the ring in mid-air, and controlled if Daniel had touched or added anything in it.

    It was only after he noticed that every single perfect crystal was still there, that he turned to look at Daniel with doubt, and said "Don¡¯t worry, we have already nned to have a master of fire demonstrate fire essence to you.. We don¡¯t require you to give us the perfect treasure yet."

    He was somewhat convinced that Daniel had refused half of the payment, because he hadn¡¯t received all of it at once. But then, he quickly changed his guess after throwing the ring back at Daniel.

    This time, the ring didn¡¯t even reach Daniel¡¯s hand before being pushed back towards the teacher, which asked with a slight frown "What is the meaning of this?"

    "The payment is not the problem.." Responded Daniel with a in tone, and a faint smile.

    While still frowning, the teacher said "What is the problem then?"

    "The price was a hundred thousand perfect crystals and the demonstration of a perfectprehension of fire essence.." Said Daniel before being interrupted.

    "As I¡¯ve said, we have already made ns to honor the rest of the de.."

    "..before." Added Daniel with a louder tone than the teacher¡¯s, which reacted by suddenly shutting up.

    The teacher wasn¡¯t an idiot. He had had to mediate between the various families within the academy and the poisonous rose numerous times in the years he had spent working there. So, when Daniel mentioned what the conditions were ¡¯before¡¯, he immediately caught up with the meaning of his words.

    "May I ask for the reason for your change of heart, Mr. Hiel?" He then asked with an amiable tone. He now needed to gather enough intel which he could bring back to his contact to the poisonous rose.

    The smile on Daniel¡¯s face became wider, as he responded by saying "But of course.. I have changed my mind due to what happened right after agreeing on the terms of our previous deal. I have been poisoned, and I need ingredients which only a group like the poisonous rose is sure to possess.."

    "Poisoned? By who?" Asked the teacher with feigned ignorance.

    "I don¡¯t know.. I was lucky to have my friend by my side. He recognized the poison and used the appropriate antidote to cure me. He also told me that I would need to produce a better cure by myself if I don¡¯t want to depend on his temporary pills.." Responded Daniel with an apologetic tone.

    The reason why Daniel had exined the matter this way, was because Serf¡¯s family already knew that the two of them were friends. By saying that he did not know who the culprit was, and that the poison was amon one which he happened to already have a temporary cure for, Serf would not be treated by his family as a traitor.

    "It is more than understandable. Please, what are your new conditions?"

    Daniel became pensive for a few moments, then said "My friend told me that I need three different types of snake-like poisonous beasts.. I am able to find two types by myself.. But I need help with the third. You can detract its price by the hundred thousand perfect crystals.. Would that be okay?"

    "I will deliver your new proposal." Said the teacher with a polite nod of his head. "What is the item you require?"

    "I was told to ask for the saliva of a two hundred years old green-skinned snake."

    A hint of surprise appeared on the teacher¡¯s face, then, it disappeared just as fast as it had appeared. "Very well. If it¡¯s not a problem, let¡¯s meet here again in two hours, I¡¯ll have the response by then." He said before turning away, and leaving.

    -----

    Back into the tinum-badged dormitory.

    "HAHAHAHA! My brother is an idiot.. He has never been good with poisons.." Said Serf¡¯s sister afterughing hysterically. "He doesn¡¯t even know that the poison of a two hundred years old green-skinned snake would turn his friend¡¯s organs into mist.. HAHA!"

    In a corner of the room, was the teacher which stood quietly in wait for an answer. It was gettingte, and the annoying young mistress he had gotten used to deal with was making him waste too much time, so, he said "What is the answer, youngdy? Should I ept the deal for your family or not?"

    The girl ignored the irritated tone of the teacher, and instead, said with a smile brighter than ever "I don¡¯t think that there would be anything more appropriate than to allow my idiot of a brother to create a faulty pill for him.. And kill him with it once and for all.. Tell him that we ept."

    Of course, the teacher had no idea what version of the poison was the one used to create the ck pills which Serf had given to Daniel. He only knew that the poison requested by Daniel, was one of its main ingredients.

    "The date given to you by the mistress ising to an end.. Maybe we shouldplete the deal soon." He added before leaving.

    In response, the girl said "Here.. take two thousand perfect crystals out of the final price.." She then threw a small yellowish vial to the teacher, which immediately put it into the spatial ring which contained the money, and made the adjustments requested by the young mistress.

    He then turned towards the door, and left in silence.

    -----

    "Here¡¯s what you wanted." Said Serf while giving a small bottle with white fluid into it.

    Daniel observed the bottle for a few moments, then said "Thanks.. How much do I owe you?"

    "Don¡¯t worry about it.. I don¡¯t mind doing favours to a friend." responded Serf while waving his hand in a dismissive tone.

    At the same time, in a mansion in the core of the city, a small moving shadow was making its way into arge building. This shadow, was the dark elemental sent by Daniel.

    The ce was heavily guarded, and numerous guards patrolled the surroundings at precise intervals. Luckily it was nowte evening, and the ce had started to darken, giving numerous chances to the dark elemental to infiltrate the building unnoticed.

    Once in, the dark elemental took the shape of a smoky thread, and made its way into the hall.

    It then made use of the various less bright parts of the corridors and rooms to make is way into the kitchen, the dining room, and finally, into the library.

    After entering the library, it started to remember Daniel¡¯s instructions, and then, after no longer than a minute, the dark elemental moved towards one of the libraries ced on the walls, turned into a t sheet of darkness, and slipped underneath the library.

    When he reappeared on the other side, he was in a dark and small room.

    Inside this room, were various metallic cage, inside which were just as many dead people. Each with different degrees of injuries and damage to their body.

    On the table, were many advanced alchemical ingredients, as well as two dozens smallbeled bottles. On each of these bottles, was a different type of liquid.

    A small portion of the shadow-like entity started to go through the variousbels, as a faint voice could be heard reverberate faintly into the empty room.

    "Where are you.. Where are you..Here!" It then said before taking the bottle, and making his way out of the mansion.

    -----

    "Mr. Hiel, my superior epted your request, and allowed me to give you, in exchange of a perfect fire treasure, ny-eight thousand perfect crystals, a demonstration of perfect fire essenceprehension, and finally, the poison of a two hundred years old green-skinned snake." Said the teacher with a polite tone.

    "Excellent.." Responded Daniel after receiving the small ring directly from the teacher¡¯s hands.

    Inside it, was a slightly smaller amount of perfect crystals, and a small vial which he hadn¡¯t seen before.

    "When will I be able to assist to the demonstration of a perfect fireprehension?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. He wanted to make sure that he would obtain all he asked, especially the poison and the demonstration of fire essence.

    "We have already nned it for tomorrow morning at noon. You only have to visit apany called ¡¯Hellzerpany¡¯, and present this token. You will then be guided to one of the masters of fire, which will spend the rest of the day by demonstrating fire essence to you." Responded the teacher while handing a small token over to Daniel.

    This token was made out of stone, but the stone wasn¡¯t smooth. Intead, it had many cracks, inside whichrge red veins could be seen. It also emanated a warm feeling.

    Daniel had no reason not to believe the teacher, so he honored his side of the deal, and gave him a spatial ring which contained one of the two perfect fire treasures in his possession.

    He then left quietly after bidding farewell.

    As he was walking back to his room, a small shadow appeared by his side.

    "Master Hiel.. I have what you¡¯ve asked." Said the dark elemental while uncovering a small bottle filled with ck liquid.

    "Thanks, go back now, I¡¯ll respect my end of the dealter." Responded Daniel after grabbing the small bottle, and walking off in the direction of his room. He didn¡¯t know who would be listening to him, so he decided not stop and talk to the dark elemental.

    During the walk to his room, Daniel used his surrounding awareness to orientate himself, while his mind, was focused on a couple of windows that had appeared after he had received the bottle which contained the third and find ingredient from the dark elemental.

    ____________________________

    *No Time For Poisons*

    Second objectiveplete.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started (Chain): No Time For Poisons*

    -Description: Find a cure of the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.

    Third objective set: Obtain the scales of an ancient red carp, and the thorns of an indigo puffer fish.

    Reward: Unnamed cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn / (Optional) Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +75%

    Time limit: 25 days

    ____________________________

    The reason why Daniel had received no reward for the second objective of the quest, was because, in order to obtain the three items in the shortest amount of time possible, he had had to make use of all of the information that the system had given to him.

    After asking his options to Sewah, he had learned that he would have been able to obtain the various items in three different methods. One was the social approach, one was the stealthy approach, and the third, was the market approach.

    In the end, he had decided to take the best parts of each approach to maximize the result.

    To let Serf purchase one of the three items, to let the dark elemental steal the second, and finally, to trade the third with Serf¡¯s family.

    The tactic had been sessful, and he had been able to obtain each poison in a very short amount of time, but unfortunately, that also meant that he could notplete either of the three approaches, and therefore, obtained none of the rewards.

    Now, ording to what Serf had said about the creation of the pills, Daniel was only down to thest two ingredients.

    The scales of an ancient fish called red carp, a beast at the sixth stage of cultivation, and the thorns of an indigo puffer fish, an highly deadly second stage fish which lived inrge shoals.

 Chapter 187 The Hellblazer Company

    The next morning.

    Daniel and Serf were spending time practicing one of the assignments that one of their alchemy teachers had given to them.

    Serf, just like every other time, was capable ofpleting the task right from the beginning, while it was not the same for Daniel.

    During the past couple of hours, Serf had found himself in the position where he needed to give a few suggestions to Daniel more than once in order to increase his chances of seeding, and after only a bit, he started to notice something.

    Despite looking like aplete amateur at first, Daniel was quickly able to learn something in a matter of two or three attempts. He would not always learn the right method by himself, and if nobody helped him, he would learn by correcting his own mistakes through different attempts. Finally, he would never make those mistakes again, unless distracted.

    At the end of the day, Daniel was always able toe up with a method toplete the assignment that was, in a way, even more effective than the one exined by the teacher himself.

    As the son of one of the most important families of the poisonous rose, Serf had been educated in alchemy and poison making at a level much higher than the academy could ever teach to his students. That was how he was able to recognize the value of Daniel¡¯s results.

    He knew that not many would be able to teach him those things, unless he already possessed an inherited a knowledge of hundreds of years of practice.

    In his mind, two guesses were starting to form. The first one, was that Daniel was not actually an amateur at alchemy, and that he was in fact a master pretending just so that he could enter the school.

    This guess was valid, but Serf could not help but doubt it, as there was no reason why a master of alchemy would want to look like an amateur. Also, he only showed a prodigy-like talent to him, which was the only one that observed him during his practice. If that wasn¡¯t enough, his initial mistakes were extremely believable.

    The second one, was that Daniel was truly a never-seen-before prodigy, and that he learned things, and corrected his own mistakes at an unnatural speed.

    This second guess, for how unbelievable it sounded, made much more sense than the previous.

    "Are you just going to look, or are you also going to tell me what I¡¯m doing wrong?" Asked Daniel after noticing the curious look on Serf¡¯s eyes.

    Serf came out of his pensive state, and with a hint of embarrassment, he said "Sorry.. You are doing nothing wrong. You¡¯re result should be better than if you followed the teacher¡¯s instructions."

    "Nice.. this is going to be an especially potent.. Insect repellent.." Said Daniel with feigned enthusiasm, before putting down the instruments, and causing the procedure to fail on purpose.

    He then grabbed a new set of ingredients, and begun the procedure once again.

    "Dan.. you know that if you want to make the antidotes for the poison, I can just give them to you.. They are expensive to produce, while I can simply ask for them." Said Serf out of the blue.

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, one which showed confidence and a peaceful state of mind. "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m good." He said with a dismissive tone.

    In his head, the good impression he had about Serf did nothing but increase with time. They hadn¡¯t known each other for long, and yet, he had learned a few things about him. He was capable of ignoring the provocation of people who teased him, as if he didn¡¯t care about other people¡¯s opinion, he treated others with respect, and finally, he helped whenever he could, even if that went against his own family.

    "Okay.. but you don¡¯t have the recipe.. And while your items are the right ones, they are of the wrong type.. Even with the recipe, which even I do not have, you would not be able to produce these ck pills.." Said Serf with a bit of exasperation.

    "I never said I wanted to make one of those pills.. I¡¯m going to make an antidote.. A permanent one."

    A mixture of confusion, doubt, and surprise appeared on Serf¡¯s chubby face. He looked at Daniel as if he had heard something crazy, then said "What are you talking about? You.. Wait.. how did you know exactly what types of poisons and material you needed?"

    "Don¡¯t worry about that.. More importantly.. After I make my way into the poisonous rose, I¡¯ll give you the recipe of the poison of your family." Daniel said casually.

    The reason why he wanted Serf to have the antidote of that poison, was that he would probably end up in contact with it sooner orter in his life.. Also, he knew that he wouldn¡¯t share it with the rest of his family.

    "No.. I don¡¯t want it." Said Serf right after hearing Daniel¡¯s words.

    Daniel turned to look back at him with slight surprise, then simply asked "Why?"

    Serf became pensive for a few seconds, then said "My family has methods to pull a secret out of people.. If I knew the recipe for our family poison, I have no doubt that they would poison me just to observe how I would create the antidote for myself."

    "You don¡¯t look like one who would give up such a big secret just because of that.." Said Daniel before taking a slight pause, and adding "There is no other reason?"

    "Well.. the poison of my family is highly effective.. But my family hasn¡¯t done much studies on ittely due to the high risks of it backfiring.. I don¡¯t want it to grow into a more dangerous weapon than it already is."

    "Won¡¯t your family think that you had something to do with creating an antidote if one of your friends were toe up with it out of the blue?" Asked Daniel in confusion. It seemed to him that that thought didn¡¯t even cross Serf¡¯s mind.

    A faint smile appeared on Serf¡¯s face "Hehe.. no, I wouldn¡¯t worry about that. In my family, I am the ck sheep. Known to be extremely against the research on poisons, that is why I am not treated that well."

    "Alright then.. How about the pressure on you? Won¡¯t they ask you to obtain the recipe from me?"

    "Probably.." Responded Serf with a slightly worried tone. It was clear that he had already thought of this possibility, and had kept it to himself until now.

    Daniel walked up to him, and put a hand on his shoulder. Then said "Don¡¯t worry about it, they won¡¯t need to bother you for it."

    "You¡¯re not thinking of giving it up, right?" Asked Serf through gritted teeth. The idea of his family gaining more power was one of the worst oues he could think about.

    "You¡¯ll see.."

    -----

    Two dayster, Daniel was walking peacefully in the city along with Jerigh and Roley, when they stopped after reaching a series of building.

    These buildings were all covered in banners, or disyed gs on which the depiction of a ck me on a red background could be seen.

    The banners reminded to anyone who walked into this area, to which power it belonged.. The Hellzerpany.

    "Why did you ask us to join you?" Roley asked to Daniel with a curious tone.

    Without turning to look back at him, Daniel said "I am not visiting for myself, but as the head of ourpany. You guys are the excuse why I needed to visit.. Officially, we are here for you to observe the demonstration. As the champions of the games, they will have no reason to doubt it."

    After he finished speaking, Daniel knocked on arge wooden gate on which the word ¡¯Hellzer¡¯ was carved neatly, and filled in with gold.

    Behind the door, was a young man which was wearing red robes. He had a burn mark that covered the left side of his forehead, but strangely enough, didn¡¯t make his face unbearable to watch. His brown eyes showed great confidence, just like his posture.

    Behind this young man, were two guards at the sixth stage of cultivation. They were both men, and along with a full set of ck te armor over a red cloth, they carried two spears, and two swords by their waists.

    "Wee, Mr. Hiel. We have been waiting for your visit for the past couple of days." Said the young man with a dead voice. "I am Fyro Tigg, the grandson of the head of ourpany. It is a pleasure to meet you."

    "The pleasure is mine." Responded Daniel with a polite tone. Then turned to look at his twopanions, and said "These are.."

    Before he could finish, Fyro said "Roley, and Jerigh. Of course.. I was present during the games Mr. Hiel.. I¡¯ve witnessed firsthand their prodigious talent."

    Roley, which was about the same age as Fyro, said "You are too courteous.. Your result, despite the fact that youe from apany specialized in a single essence, is no less impressive."

    The young man called Fyro smiled for the first time, and bowed in gratitude for Roley¡¯s words.

    Of course, Fyro was already aware of who the three of them were. He had been instructed by his grandfather to be polite, and treat the three of them as honored guests.. But Fyro was proud.

    After winning the games, Fyro expected Daniel, Roley and Jerigh to be extremely arrogant, and that was the reason for his previously cold attitude.

    Fortunately, it took only a minute of conversation to change his mind towards his guests, and to soften his attitude.

    "Your words are too kind.. Please follow me, I will take you to see my father." He said with a faint smile before turning towards a long rocky path, and started to walk towards the biggest of the buildings.

    The two guards followed right behind him, and after them Daniel, Jerigh and Roley.

    They kept walking for a few minutes, until finally, they managed to reach an impressive looking building, inside which, a middle aged man with a clear resemnce to Fyro, was waiting patiently.

    "Mister Hiel, It¡¯s a pleasure to have you here as a guest." Said the middle aged man with a big smile, and a polite attitude. His eyes then moved on Jerigh, and afternding on Roley, he said "And you have your prodigious employees with you! Amazing."

    Naturally, Daniel had never met this middle aged man. He of course was aware that hispany was part of the same collective his was in, but he had never met him directly.

    It was only thanks to Fyro¡¯s presentation that he knew this man¡¯s surname.

    "It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tigg. We have been sent here to spectate to the demonstration of a perfectprehension of fire essence." Said Daniel with politeness, before taking a token out of his spatial ring, and showing it to the middle aged man.

    After seeing the token, the man muttered "The poisonous rose.. I didn¡¯t think yourpany would have that sort of connection.. It¡¯s a shame that your requests for the perfect treasure were too high for us.. We could have grown greatly from possessing a fire perfect treasure."

    One could clearly feel the dejection in his voice. Despite him having no chance to obtain the treasure to begin with, he still dreamed about his family actually putting his hands on one.

    Sadly enough, this was the closest they had ever been to obtaining one. Talking to someone which used to possess one.

    "Let¡¯s go see my father, he is the only master of fire in our family.. Only he can fulfill this request." Said the middle aged man before turning around, and walking towards one of the rooms connected to the hall.

 Chapter 188 If You Cant Stand the Heat..

    Less than a minute after leaving the hall, Daniel, Roley, Jerigh and the father and son couple found themself at the end of a dimly lit corridor.

    This corridor was not toorge, and allowed only three people to move through at the same time. At the end of it, one could see arge double door made out of stone, and from the chinks at the sides of each b of stone, people could see a light shine through.

    The temperature of the corridor was a huge tell about what was going on on the other side.

    Once at the end of the corridor, the temperature had reached a point where Roley¡¯s, Jerigh¡¯s and Fyro¡¯s clothes were tightly pressed against their sweaty backs. Large drops of sweat ran down the sides of their heads, while a thin wetyer formed on their foreheads.

    Now in front of the double door, Mr. Tigg turned to look at his three guests, and after smiling faintly, he said "It will be slightly hot behind this door.. I hope that you will be able to handle it."

    He then turned around, and ced his palms against the two bs of stone.

    The moment his sweaty palms touched the door, the sizzling of the sweat being vaporized could be heard all through the corridor.

    The door slowly opened, revealing a brightly lit forge, where an extremelyrge and muscr man was working on a piece of metal. This man waspletely bald, and possessed a thick white beard that could be seen even from behind. His muscles were defined like those of a middle aged man, and yet, therge veins that protruded from his arms and the oddly colored patches on his skin betrayed his real age.

    "Father.. We have guests." Said Mr. Tigg with calm andposure, almost ignoring that his son and two of the three young men beside him were figuratively melting in their own clothes.

    Therge and muscr old man kept on quietly mming the hammer he was holding in his left hand against the piece of metal he was holding with the right, ttening it more and more, and reshaping it into an unrecognizable bar of rovent metal.

    Slowly but steadily, the temperature in the forge started to increase, and while Daniel, Fyro and Fyro¡¯s father were holding up rtively well, Roley and Jerigh were starting to struggle.

    The matter quickly started to annoy Daniel. He hadn¡¯te here to y statue and observe this old man forge a weapon, so, he expelled a stream of immortal essence, and moved it towards the molten metal within the forge.

    He had long sinceprehended the magnitude of heat necessary to melt any form of metal and mineral, after all, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to obtain a perfectprehension of metal and earth if he didn¡¯t possess aprehension of the concept of melting.

    The concept of melting was part of the essence of fire, the essence of metal, the essence of earth. It included aprehension of the melting point of each type of metal, and stone.

    So, for one that hadprehended it like Daniel, it was not difficult to melt and reshape metals to his will.

    It was not the same for the old man, which even if he possessed a perfectprehension of fire, hecked aprehension of the metal essence. That meant that he was capable of melting objects pretty well, but he couldn¡¯t manipte them as well.

    Daniel quietly observed the blueprint of the weapon that the muscr old man was creating, and in a matter of seconds, he manipted the molten state of metal into a perfect shape of the sword, and made it emerge from the surface of the molten material.

    After the de moved out of the forge, it floated above the old man which looked at it with indifference, and dipped directly into a thin cauldron filled with water, causing arge amount to vapor to turn the previously clear room extremely misty.

    "Here, now you can rest for a bit." Said Daniel with a genuine smile, opposite to his inner state of mind.

    The old man turned towards him, and with his ever present indifferent expression, said "Maybe that¡¯s how I like to spend time when I rest.. Ever thought of that?"

    "I thought old men were supposed to sip tea in cozy chairs, and criticize the young ones for the behaviour they disapprove.." Said Daniel with a hint of confusion and doubt.

    The old man looked at Daniel, and felt immense arrogance hidden within the sweet tone he was using.

    "HAHAHA.. Ack of patience.. That¡¯s what I wouldin about if I were to sit on a cozy chair.. Of course, to survive that boring lifestyle I would need something stronger than tea.." Responded the old man afterughing out loud. He then turned back towards the weapon he was making, and started to hammer it over and over again.

    Daniel looked back at Roley and Jerigh, which were now close to fall on their knees from the intense heat. Something clicked in his head.

    An intense coldness started to be emanated from his body, which caused the room temperature to drop significantly.

    In response, the old man forced the surrounding air to be once again, warmer. He didn¡¯t even turn to look back at Daniel.

    The room temperature started to increase and decrease byrge margins.

    In only a matter of minutes, Daniel was forced to eat a ck pill that he was keeping within his spatial ring.

    The two kept fighting for the control over the room¡¯s temperature, until finally, the old man pushed a little too much immortal essence, and caused the temperature of the room to reach unbearable levels.

    "Kid.. even though I am surprised about your talent.. If you can¡¯t patiently wait before conducting business, I won¡¯t be doing any with you." Said the old man with a hint of anger.

    Calmness took anger¡¯s ce in Daniel¡¯s heart, which instead of insisting, simply said "Very well. We will leave. I only hope that the breach of our deal won¡¯t hurt the poisonous rose hard enough to take it up on you."

    He then turned towards the corridor, and started walking.

    The old man was surprised by Daniel¡¯s decision, yet, he didn¡¯t believe that Daniel was serious. So, he quietly observed as he left the forge.

    "Father.." Muttered the old man¡¯s son as a hint of worry appeared on his face. He was not worried about not giving Daniel what was promised, but he was worried about not respecting the deal they had with one of the families of the poisonous rose.

    "Rx.. The kid is bluffing. He is waiting for us to run after him.. He¡¯ll.. He.. Fuck.. he is already at the gates! Go after him." Said the old man while standing up from his seat, and dusting his clothes.

    Mr. Tigg was about to dash towards the entrance of theirpany territory, but before he could take a step, Daniel, Jerigh and Roley appeared once again in the ce where they were standing until now.

    The old man immediately understood what had happened, so, he hid the embarrassment he was feeling, and kept dusting his clothes in silence.

    "Yourprehension of fire essence is valuable, but not enough to beg for it.. I don¡¯t know what the poisonous rose gave you in exchange of this favor, but if you don¡¯t mind.. I would like to get this matter over with.. Now." Said Daniel with a calm tone.

    He knew that he couldn¡¯t wrestle the control over the room¡¯s temperature against the old man, which had a cultivation much higher than his, and was simply ying around with him. What he could do, was to embarrass him by using the moment of distraction, to manipte every other type of essence to create an illusion.

    The old man would have usually noticed this, but he was too focused on controlling his power in order to avoid melting the very walls, to make sure that no one was messing with the surrounding space.

    "Yourpany has many spearheads.. Why add fire?" Asked the old man with curiosity.

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders in response, and said "I don¡¯tck talented people in mypany.. I need a knowledge to pass on to them.."

    The old man looked at Jerigh and Roley, two people whom he had personally seen show astonishing results in many other types of essence, and muttered "..talented indeed." He then turned back towards Daniel, and said "It was a stupid move to trade the perfect essence treasure for a demonstration of perfectprehension.. You could have paid me.. And kept the treasure for yourself if you wanted. Now you will probably never find another one.. What a waste.. Talk about buying the water in exchange of the pot.."

    "Maybe I have another one.." Said Daniel with a casual smile.

    "Hahaha.. Nothing would make more and no sense at all at the same time."

    Once again, Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and said "When are we starting?"

    "Right now.." Said the old man, right before his son and grandson left the room.

    For the following few hours, Daniel, Roley and Jerigh experienced increases in temperature to absurd levels, different types of mes formed through thebustion of different objects, the effects of fire on the body, and even cold mes which burned one¡¯s soul sooner than they burned the body.

    The old man was perfectly aware that neither of the three couldprehend fire essence simply by observing it once, so, he demonstrated everything with haste, and without stopping too much on each concept.

    When he was done, eighteen hours had already passed, and Daniel was the only one left in the room.

    Jerigh and Roley were forced to leave the room due to the unbearable temperatures, which Daniel was able to resist to thanks to his higher power.

    It is important to understand one thing when talking about high temperature in a context ofprehension of fire essence.

    The dept of the temperature was a matter of power, while in order to understand the concept of heat, only a simple understanding of how temperature worked was necessary.

    The reason why high temperatures were needed toprehend fire essence, was because they were needed in order to observe the effect they had on other elements like metal, earth, water, and so on.

    That did not mean that one needed to reach impossible levels of heat like the heat of a star in order to understand fire, just like one did not need to reach absolute zero in order to understand the concept of freezing.

    "Here we go.. That¡¯s about it." Said the old man after sitting back on his rocky seat, and taking a deep breath. He then made a cigar appear in his hand, put it in his mouth, and moved his face just a few centimeters from the molten metal that filled the forge just to lit it up. "A stupid trade if you ask me.." He then muttered before inhaling deeply.

    Daniel stood up from the patch of floor he had been sitting on for the past better part of a day, and closed his eyes.

    He focused the majority of his immortal essence out of his body, and started to turn it into the various forms and shapes of fire essence he had witnessed until now.

    The concepts andprehension he demonstrated was slightly off at first, but was quickly corrected into perfection in a matter of seconds.

    After another hour, Daniel opened his eyes, and observed the semi-invisible green-bluish me that covered his body with curiosity.

    The old man was still sitting on his chair, and next to him, were at least thirty cigar butts. The shock had long left his face, and he was now observing with interest.

    "I disagree.." muttered Daniel in a low voice before turning towards the old man, and saying "Thank you." He then turned around, and left the forge from the way he had arrived.

    While still sitting on his chair, the muscr old man looked at Daniel¡¯s back, and while lighting one more cigar, he muttered "Talented people huh?.. What a monster.."

 Chapter 189 A Coincidence or Not?

    Night town, two thousand kilometers from the capital.

    Built at the feet of a mountain, and around the territory of a solitary family, Night town was ced at the crossing point between four of the most important cities within the region.

    It housed thousands of people, and despite theck of walls and governmental authority, it was one of the safest ces in the entire. Untouched by bandits, and beast tribes ever since it had been founded.

    This rtively small town was mostly filled with shops, and branches of many groups which dealt in the search of alchemical materials, or the invention and production of instruments for alchemy.

    Despite the rtively small size of the family which governed the town, most people did not dare to question its hegemony on the territory around the mountain.

    Built on the wall of the mountain was the territory of the Navi family, and at the very peak of the mountain, was arge old fashioned building.

    Inside of this building was what looked like arge room where numerous middle aged and old men and women were gathered around a young girl.

    This young girl was holding what each and every spectator of the collective¡¯s games would have recognized as the prize for the champion.. A perfect fire treasure.

    This girl was the same one that had ordered for Alesia to be poisoned, and that had conducted the exchange with Daniel for the perfect fire treasure.

    Of the people around her, the majority were focused on looking at the perfect treasure. Only an old woman quietly sat on her chair in silence, and observed from the distance.

    "This is going to give our family a lot of prestige in the poisonous rose.." Said a middle-aged man with an extremely dark tan, and fingers ckened by the recent failures in alchemy testing.

    ".. Why can¡¯t our family keep it? I don¡¯t understand.." Said an extremely short ck-robed woman from the tanned man¡¯s side.

    After hearing the short woman¡¯s words, a stout man with a blue cloak that covered his body from the shoulders down to his feet, said "Because it¡¯s the rules of the poisonous rose.. The various families will pay us back, but we can¡¯t keep the treasure.."

    "na.." Said the old woman, causing each and every person that were previously eager to say their opinion to quieten down. "Tell me about the exchange.. I want to know what happened."

    na was, of course, the name of Serf¡¯s vicious sister.

    "Grandmother, everything went smoothly.. What else do you want to know?" She responded with a feigned confusion. Her voice trembled slightly.. It was clear that she feared her grandmother greatly.

    The old woman quietened for a moment, then said "I will give you a few seconds to rearrange your memories and tell me what really happened.. I won¡¯t repeat myself after that."

    A shiver ran down na¡¯s back, which lowered her head, and said with fear "The kid changed the terms at thest moment.. He wanted an alchemical ingredient instead of a portion of the money.."

    "And why is that?" asked the old woman with a low tone.

    na quietened down for a few seconds, then, after gathering some courage, said "I thought that I could have saved the cost of the item by simply killing the guy, so I¡¯ve used the poison of our family.. But Serf was there, and cured him."

    Her tone was filled with disbelief and distress.

    "He saved him, and caused the exchange to be dyed.. Fortunately, he didn¡¯t reveal that it was his own family¡¯s, or we would have lost the chance to make the exchange.." She then added.

    The old woman looked directly at na¡¯s eyes, and said "Go on.."

    "He asked for the saliva of a two hundred years old green-skinned snake.." Responded na inly.

    The brows of a few of the oldest people furrowed at the mention of the name of the ingredient.

    The old woman asked with a hint of agitation in her voice "Did he say why he was looking for a two hundred years old green-skinned snake?"

    Surprised by her grandma¡¯s exaggerated reaction, na said "I.. I don¡¯t think so.. I think that Serf might have been trying to produce a calming pill for him, but he was totally wrong in listing the right type of materials.."

    "And do you know why Serf has used the connections of our family to obtain the saliva of a fifty years old white-scaled snake?" Asked the old woman with clear confusion.

    After hearing the old woman¡¯s words, the faces of a few more people, along with the oldest people in the hall, twisted in confusion.

    "Aunt.." Said the tanned man, and attracting the attention of the old woman. "Aren¡¯t those two ingredients.." He then added, letting the end of the phrase die out in his throat.

    "Yes.. two of the three poisons listed in the notes left by the inventor of the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.. My mother." Responded the old woman with a hint of disbelief.

    "How is that possible? There is no way that Serf could have known exactly which ingredients we know are part of the lost cure.." Said one of the middle aged women with deep confusion.

    "It might just be a coincidence.."

    "Or one of us didn¡¯t keep their mouth shut.."

    The buzzing of discussion started to reverberate in the room, until finally, the old woman tapped the armchair of her chair, and shutted them up once again by saying "Enough!"

    She then stood up weakly, and said "As you all know, of the original recipe of the poison, we have only salvaged four ingredients, and only a small amount of the details about the remaining three.. The reach of the kid¡¯spany is regional, so, it won¡¯t be a problem to monitor them.. Make a list of the locations where the poison samples of ten years old ck opal snakes, and red carp scales are sold, and if his group enters in possession of any of the two, report to me immediately."

    After hearing the old woman¡¯s words, the majority of the cultivators present in the room left, leaving only a few of the oldest family members, na, and her grandmother.

    "Grandmother, what is going on?" Said na with deep confusion.

    The old woman looked at her, and said "Send someone to observe the kid.. And report if you find anything odd.."

    Daniel had obtained two of the seven items needed to make a cure for the poison of their family, and while one item could pass as a coincidence, two were already starting to look suspicious.

    If hispany were to encounter a third of the four items, that would be too much of a coincidence to be believable, and they would be forced to consider the possibility that Daniel might be onto something.

    -----

    Back in the capital, Daniel and Serf were quietly observing an impressivelyrge tank filled with water, inside which, thousands of small fishe floated in unison, following each other¡¯s motion.

    These fishe were about five centimeters long, had colors which spanned from blue to purple, and had a body entirely covered in small thorns.

    Every now and then one of these fishe would swell to the size of a human¡¯s head, and force small needles toe out from the tip of these thorns, causing the various fishe that surrounded them to die instantly.

    Once dead, the first fish would go back to its normal size, and the nearby members of the shoal would feed off of their fallenrades.

    These fishe possessed cannibalistic tendencies even despite therge number of different fishe present in the tank, and were known as ¡¯Colored Puffer Fishe¡¯.

    "How many, and which ones do you want?" Asked a man with rtivelyrge guts, which wore ssic fisherman¡¯s clothes.

    Daniel and Serf were now at a ce called "The Aquarium", which was basically a market where one could find ingredients, food, and materials that were only found in seas,kes, and oceans.

    "What do you think?" Daniel asked to Serf with curiosity.

    Serf turned to look at the shoal of colored puffed fishe, and said "This was the most particr of the ingredients of the ck pill.. The poison gets stronger the closer they get to a purplish color. My family uses the blue ones.."

    "If you have to use them for cooking, I suggest you get a purple one.. The difficulty of cooking it is the same, but they taste much better. Hehehe.." Said the fisherman before letting out an awkwardugh.

    After looking attentively for a few minutes, Daniel pointed at a specific point in the tank, and said "That one.. The indigo one."

    "The indigo one?" Asked the fisherman with confusion. He was a simple fisherman.. He was not used to hearing the names of fancy colors.

    Daniel ignored the man¡¯s confusion, and instead, manipted the water around the Indigo Puffer Fish, and pulled it out of the tank. He then paid the fisherman, and left the aquarium with Serf.

    -----

    One hourter, at the entrance of the ¡¯Superior Alchemy¡¯ academy.

    While walking towards their room, Serf turned to look at Daniel, and said "Usually, we use the scales of finless carps as seventh ingredient.. Is that what we are going to buy next?"

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, right before saying "So now you¡¯re interested? I thought you didn¡¯t care about the antidote of your family¡¯s poison.. Hehe.."

    "Maybe a bit.. Look, every single family in the poisonous rose is focused on designing a poison which can bring glory to their family.. And death to billions of people.. Our family is different. We are the only family focused on finding an antidote for the poison we already have. If actually finding a poison didn¡¯t mean giving more power to a family of mass murderers.. I would be a lot more enthusiast about this." Said Serf with a defeatist tone.

    "It seems to me that for you, the best case scenario would be to join another group.. And for your family to lose power and credibility.." Muttered Daniel with a tone just high enough for Serf to hear it.

    Without turning to look back at him, Serf said "maybe.."

    "I see you haven¡¯t stopped badmouthing our family, brother." Said a melodious voice from around the corner, just before a young girl walked into Daniel and Serf¡¯s field of view.

    Naturally, Serf recognized this voice way before his sister appeared from the corner.

    "Don¡¯t be silly, sister.." Said Serf after approaching na along with Daniel, and stopping right in front of her.

    na turned to look at Daniel, and after looking him up and down once, she looked back at Serf, and said "Aren¡¯t you going to introduce me to your friend?"

    "Of course.." Responded Serf through gritted teeth. "This is my friend Daniel.. He is the head of the Golden Karmapany.. You should have heard about him, our family just concluded an exchange for the prize of the collective¡¯s games.."

    Arge smile appeared on na¡¯s face, as she feigned a big deal of realization. She then moved her hand towards Daniel, and said "Of course I have heard of him.. The youngest, most talented.. And definitely the most handsomepany head we have seen in a long time."

    Serf was about to say something to prevent Daniel from touching na¡¯s hand, but he immediately froze when he noticed that Daniel had simply shook her hand without a problem.

    For the next few seconds, Serf expected that Daniel would drop dead at any moment, but fortunately, that never happened.

    "I never knew that Serf had a sister, it is a pleasure to meet you." Responded Daniel with a bright smile.

    After the presentation, na looked at the two and said "So, what were you two up to in this fine evening?"

    "I have bothered your brother to apany me to the aquarium.. I had something to buy." Responded Daniel inly.

    "Oh, I love the aquarium! What were you looking for?" She asked in response.

    "A purple puffer fish.. I have heard that they taste great."

 Chapter 190 Ancient Red Carp

    "A purple puffer fish.. I have heard that they taste great." said Daniel to a smiling na.

    That was the first time that Daniel had met na, and yet, he had already understood what type of person she was. If not for the big red number that floated above her head, just for the reaction that Serf had showed when na had moved her hand towards his.

    Daniel was not aware of what Serf¡¯s family knew or what they suspected. So, he decided to avoid telling the full truth. For all he knew, there might have been people following him around ever since he had been poisoned.

    Once na heard the name of the item Serf and Daniel had gone out to purchase, her face contorted in feigned worry, and said "Oh, please be careful of how you handle that fish.. I know that it is extremely poisonous.." Her fake worry was not only directed to Serf, but to Danel as well.

    "There is no need to worry, we have already hired an experienced cook, there will be no problems." Responded Daniel with a reassuring smile. "I¡¯ll take care of your brother for you, don¡¯t worry."

    An awkward smile appeared on na¡¯s face, as she she changed topic by saying "I have visited the hellzerpany, and they have confirmed that you and yourpany geniuses have already visited them.. But when I¡¯ve asked to the head of the Tigg family how it went, he simply said that you had already mastered theprehension of fire essence.. Is that true?"

    Naturally, the muscr old man was fully aware of the fact that Daniel didn¡¯t have a perfectprehension of fire essence. As a master of it, he could feel Daniel¡¯sckings during his demonstration.

    Right after the end of his demonstration, the old man had seen Daniel replicate every concept of fire essence perfectly, despite having been shown to him in a hastened and messy way. What had convinced him that Daniel was not a master of fire, was how identical to his messy demonstration, Daniel¡¯s was.

    Then, Daniel started to get better in a matter of minutes.

    ording to na¡¯s words, the muscr old man had reported that Daniel had alreadyprehended fire essence beforeing to visit hispany.

    Daniel had no idea why the old man would lie for him, but that lie was, at this point, very much appreciated.

    "It is true.." Said Daniel while showing an expression that suggested that he had been caught red-handed.

    "I don¡¯t understand, why give up a perfect treasure and ask for a demonstration of an essence of which you were already a master?" Asked na through a dubious frown.

    Daniel¡¯s expression went back to a polite smile, and responded by saying "I¡¯m afraid that that is as far as I am willing to reveal about the ns mypany has. Pardon me, Miss Navi."

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s response, na straightened her back, and after smiling politely back, she said "Very well, I¡¯ll leave my dear brother to your care, and stop bothering the two of you. Please, doe visit me in the tinum-badged section of the dormitory if you need anything from us."

    She then bowed politely, and left slowly.. Hoping for an invitation to join their meal that, unfortunately for her, never came.

    Once she left, Serf immediately turned to look at Daniel, but just as he was about to say something, Daniel stopped him and said "I know, she is dangerous, and I shouldn¡¯t let her touch me."

    "Don¡¯t think that our family only possesses one poison.. The existence of each family of the poisonous rose is directed towards finding ways to stealthy killing.. We don¡¯tck varieties of poison." Said Serf after taking a deep breath.

    Daniel bumped his elbows against Serf¡¯s stomach in a friendly gesture, then said "Don¡¯t worry too much about it.."

    -----

    At the border of the region in which Daniel¡¯spany was allowed to work, was an extremelyrge desert.

    This desert did not have dunes of yellow sand, and instead, was a massive patch of drynd which worked as a general border for the two regions. If one managed to cross the desert, they would find themselves into a different region.

    At about twenty thousand kilometers from the northern border of the desert, was a small group of heavily dressed men. Each of them wore heavy clothes and goggles that stopped the powerful winds to send dust in their eyes, and mouths.

    "Are you sure this is the right ce?" Asked one of the men from underneath the manyyers of fabric that were wrapped around his head.

    The man in the front, which was barely managing to hold onto a piece of parchment, looked up and towards the man that had just spoken, and said "Look, I¡¯m sick of repeating it.. I don¡¯t know.. It¡¯s not like there are fucking signs to tell us if we are lost or not.."

    "How do you even know it¡¯s really here!? Has he ever been here before?" Asked the first man with aining tone. He then turned to look back at the parchment that he was holding in his hands, and looked at what was written on it.

    On thisrge parchment, was the depiction of the desert¡¯syout.

    "Damn it.. These winds are too strong, I can barely read the map.." Said the man with a deeply annoyed tone. Then, turned towards the cultivator at the far back, and said "How many do we have?"

    The man at the back lifted his arm, and made a ¡¯three¡¯ sign with his fingers.

    "Alright, fine.. Use one.. Or we¡¯ll never find the damn ce." Said the man with the map with a resigned tone.

    As the man with the map finished talking, the quiet member of the group pulled a small talisman out of his spatial ring, and broke it with his fingers.

    The winds in a radius of twenty meters started to be reflected on the surface of a transparent dome that had formed by the talisman. The whistling sound of the wind quietened, and the group members were finally able to hear each other without shouting.

    Once this dome was formed, the man that was holding the map unwrapped the cloth around his face, and took off the goggles from his face.

    If Daniel could see this man, he would instantly recognize him as one of his closest friends.. Heimart.

    After him, the other men removed their protective gear as well, revealing themselves to be Der, as the man which was second guessing whether they were lost or not, Jerigh as the one that had used the talisman, and finally, Roley.

    "Tell me again why we can¡¯t fly over these damn winds? I can¡¯t see anything unless we are into one of these domes.." Said Heimart with deep irritation.

    Roley, which had stayed quite up until now, said "Because there is no point.. We would end up flying past our destination.. We would be able to see even less than walking though it."

    "Do you have any suggestion?" Said Heimart with a hint of exasperation.

    After hearing Heimart¡¯s words, Der muttered "..we¡¯ll never find the damn ce.. Great."

    Roley approached Heimart, and after looking at the map in his hands, said "I¡¯ve made the calctions.. We¡¯ve kept the right speed and the right direction.. The oasis was supposed to be about one kilometer back.."

    "We would have seen a damn oasis if we had passed it.." muttered Der.

    Suddenly, from behind the three parties which were currently discussing animatedly, Jerigh approached and said "The winds pushed us back during our walk.. A few meters per kilometer.. We are further back than we think." His words were calm, and formted simple and self exnatory sentences.

    Heimart turned to look at Roley, and said with a hint of doubt "Is it possible that you¡¯ve missed that?"

    "Probably.. I didn¡¯t feel that we were being pushed back.. But these winds are much stronger than I thought.." Responded Roley while shrugging his shoulders.

    He was without a doubt the smartest amongst the group, but even he could have make a mistake in his calctions if he didn¡¯t have each and every detail at hand.

    "How much do you think we have been pushed back?" Heimart asked directly to Jerigh.

    "About two meter for every kilometer.." Responded Jerigh inly before covering his face back with the manyyer of cloth.

    Seeing that Jerigh was not willing to make conversation, Heimart turned towards Roley, which said "We should reach the ce in about half an hour.. If the oasis is still there and we don¡¯t deviate our direction, we should be able to arrive there soon."

    Then, as he finished speaking, he, Der and Heimart covered their faces just in time for the dome to disappear, and cause the powerful winds to once again crash against them, bringing sand, dust, and warm winds to press against their bodies.

    The four of them resumed walking in silence, and about thirty minutester, a few trees as thick as buildings started to appear in the distance.

    These trees looked like palms, but their stems were ten meters thick, and stood up despite the winds like majestic wooden columns at an height of sixty meters. The fronds were enormous and expanded in all directions, forming a beautiful crown.

    The closer they got to these trees, the more they saw at their feet.

    It didn¡¯t take long for arge pond to appear in their view.

    This pond could not really be called a pond, as is it was about a three meters of diameter and could be considered a smallke, if not for theck of an aphotic zone.

    Once the four of them approached the pond, they immediately felt the winds in the surrounding area lessen, and their view clear greatly.

    "This must be the oasis we came to find." Said Heimart while, once again, taking the cloth and goggles off. Der, Roley and Jerigh followed suit right after.

    "So.. what do we do now? The ce is pretty big, how do we find it?" Asked Der with dubt. He was currently walking on the shore of the pond, looking towards the clear waters and in the distance.

    Roley shrugged in response, and said "Daniel said that it is going to be here."

    Almost as if answering a call, arge shadow started to dash towards them from a rtively shallow level of water.

    Jerigh¡¯s hand moved on the hilt of the sword that was resting sheathed at his belt, while Roley and der started to emit immortal essence.

    The shadow stopped at about ten meters from the shore, and started to emerge.

    In a matter of moments, therge silhouette of a massivelyrge red carp appeared from underwater.

    "How did you arrive here?" said a fruity voice that came from the direction of the halfly emerged red carp.

    "Well.. this is awkward.." muttered Heimart before taking a few steps towards the shore, and saying "We are here to find.. Well.. you. We have been sent here to ask if you were willing to trade a few of your scales."

    Der, which hadn¡¯t been told exactly what they were going to do in this oasis, looked at Heimart as if he was looking at an idiot.

    "Why would I want to do that?" Asked the red carp with curiosity. His voice sweet andpletely devoid of any harmful intentions.

    In response to the carp¡¯s words, Roley took a step forward, and made a fist sized water sphere appear in his hand. This sphere immediately started to emanate thick water essence of an high level, and caused the moisture in the surrounding to move towards it.

    "I am willing to bet that your oasis was bigger only a few months ago.. These winds are fierce.. You would not have to worry about losing your habitat if you had this." Said Heimart after pointing at the high level water sphere in Roley¡¯s head.

    Silence reigned supreme for a few seconds, until finally..

    *WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK*

    Roley, Heimart and Jerigh fell on their knees after the powerful sound of a bird¡¯s cry reached their ears, while Der barely managed to remain standing thanks to his superior strength.

    "If you want to survive, crawl into the water.."

 Chapter 191 An Old Feud

    "If you want to survive, crawl into the water.." Said the red carp with his usual pleasantly deep voice.

    Heimart and Roley looked at each other with worry and uncertainty, while Jerigh slowly grabbed the hilts of his swords in preparation for a fight.

    Der, which was the most powerful amongst them, was the first one to to notice what was approaching them at a mind boggling speed. What he saw, was arge bird-like beast.

    Without thinking twice about it, Der grabbed Heimart and Roley by their clothes, and jumped in the water before they could even react, while Jerigh followed him the very next moment.

    Just as Jerigh¡¯s feet managed to enter the water, a multicolored blur shed past him and the small patch of water where Heimart and the rest had jumped in.

    "You have guests?" Said a prating voice which was able to pierce through the water, and reach every living being within therge pond. This voice was carried by the wind, and it seemed toe from many different directions, all at the same time.

    From under the surface of the water, Der and the rest were finally able to see the full body of the ancient red carp, which was muchrger than what they could see from the shore. Its length was of at least thirty meters, and was almostpletely red colored with a few exceptions for a few white curved lines that went from the gill to the tail, and a few ck and white scales. Its fins were soft-rayed, and long enough to float in the water like the end of a red dress.

    The four of them emerged from the water to observe why they were forced to jump in to begin with, and waiting quietly on the top of one of therge palms next to the pond, they saw an hawk-like beast.

    The colors of its plumage was not as diversified as the multicolored sh suggested, and instead, only arge row of feathers that stood straight behind his back like a crown, possessed a rainbow-like variety of colors. The rest of his feathers, were of a bluish-green color that became darker as it reached the edge of the barbs.

    wing tightly against the treetop, were a couple ofrge and sharp talons, which by the sheer sight, looked like they could take away a huge chunk of the red carp¡¯s body if the chance ever presented itself.

    This bird-like beast observed the four unfamiliar humans with curiosity through his extremely effective yellow eyes.

    "It has nothing to do with you." Responded the red carp with a calm tone. It was clearly not the first time that the two had encountered each other.

    "Don¡¯t be like that.. Just because I constantly try to kill you, it does not mean that we are not friends, right?" *KWAH KWAH KWAH*

    The bird¡¯sugh was so powerful, that Heimart and the rest couldn¡¯t help but cover their ears in pain in a desperate attempt to mitigate a bit of theugh¡¯s prative power.

    After the red carp noticed the effect that the bird¡¯sugh had on the four humans that hade to visit, it unwillingly rotated his body by a hundred and eighty degrees, and waved his impressivelyrge tail towards therge bird.

    A massive jet of water shot from the surface of the pond and dashed towards the bird, which instantly rose up from where it was resting, and disappeared in the air.

    The jet of water was controlled in mid air to return towards the pond, but before it could merge again with the rtivelyrge body of water, the bird appeared in front of it and waved his huge wings towards it, causing a squall of wind to push the water away from the pond.

    "No no no.. Come on now. If you want to waste your water to protect these humans, you can¡¯t expect that I¡¯ll let you get it back." Said the bird with his usual prating voice.

    Roley, which observed the scene quietly, turned towards the red carp, which before he could say anything, turned back to look at the four of them, and said "Follow me."

    A powerful pulling force then dragged Der, Heimart, Roley and Jerigh into the water, and right before they could go out of the reach of the bird¡¯s powerful cries, they heard it say "Oh, you¡¯re no fun.."

    The pulling force followed the red carp¡¯s motion, which swam towards an underwater cliff, and into an entrance which wasrge just enough for the red carp to move through.

    The cave was dark, and they were currently swimming against a natural current that moved the water towards different directions through many small holes on the wall that formed abyrinth of tiny rocky tunnels.

    For two full minutes, the five of them kept moving through thousand of meters of corridors, until finally, the dark corridor opened into arge submerged cave.

    This cave was notpletely filled with water, and instead, had arge pocket of air which Heimart and the rest could use to breathe.

    The motion of the water pushed the four of them onto arge rocky tform that extended from one of the cave¡¯s walls.

    "What is the deal with that beast?" Asked Heimart with a fairly high amount of anger. He couldn¡¯t help but remember the prating power that the bird¡¯s cry possessed.

    The red carp, whose head was only a tiny bit out of the water, responded by saying "It¡¯s just.. An old feud.. Don¡¯t bother yourself with it." Then, without waiting for Heimart and the rest to ask any more questions, it turned to look at Roley, and asked "Can you show it to me once again?"

    Roley was taken slightly by surprise, but quickly caught up with the red carp¡¯s words, and took the high-level water sphere out of his spatial ring once again.

    The red carp carefully observed the sphere for the better part of a minute inplete silence, then, interrupted the quietness of the cave by saying "That¡¯s strange.. It feels so much more powerful.. And yet itcks something.."

    "What do you mean?" Asked Der with curiosity.

    "I.. I don¡¯t know what that object is, it seems to be able to show the power of water.. But notpletely." Responded the red carp while slowly swimming towards the edge of the rocky tform. Its beady eyes were directed at the small water-like world, and it didn¡¯t seem to be interested in anything else.

    "This is an essence sphere.. How long has it been since thest time you¡¯ve met a human?" Asked Heimart while taking a step forward. It was clear to him now, that the red carp was not a threat to them.

    "Never.. For the two thousand years that I have lived, I¡¯ve never met anyone from the outside but the crowned bird you¡¯ve had the pleasure to meet.. I don¡¯t know his name either.." Responded the red carp calmly.

    Heimart¡¯s brows furrowed in surprise, as he responded by saying "Why did you not kill us then?"

    "You had no ill intentions.. Aside from your animated behaviour, you didn¡¯t look much different from the elementals that live in the depths of the water.." Said the red carp before looking at Jerigh¡¯s serious expression, and saying "Aside from him.. He looks always ready to kill, but not in an aggressive manner.. I would have killed you all if he did.."

    At the mention of the word elementals, Roley felt a shiver run down his spine. "There are water elementals living underground?" He asked with a hint of shock.

    "Not so sure of it anymore.. It¡¯s been almost two millennia since I was of the right size to fit through the passage.." muttered the red carp with a mncholic tone. "Can you tell me more about that object?" It then added after directing its eyes back on the essence sphere that Roley was still holding.

    "Of course.. As humans, we possess a natural and unique power called im.."

    -----

    For the following two hours, Roley exined in detail the nature of essence treasures, the kind of power that humans possessed, how they were able to use it to mimic other types of mana, and how they were able to imbue their own power into these treasure, to make them be much more powerful.

    The red carp listened attentively to Roley¡¯s exnation, and whenever it had doubts, it would ask questions.

    The exnation had ended with a demonstration on how to create a low level water sphere right in front of the red carp.

    "Humans.. what a peculiar race.." said the red carp with its usual deep and pleasant voice. "There is still one thing that I don¡¯t understand.. Why would you want my scales?.. They are extremely poisonous, and would likely kill you in a matter of seconds."

    "We are not sure about the reason either. We have been sent here in this desert with the only instruction being ¡¯to offer a high level water sphere in exchange for three red scales¡¯.." Responded Heimart with a hint of exasperation. To this moment, he still couldn¡¯t understand the reason why Daniel would send them here.

    The moment the red carp heard Heimart¡¯s words, it turned towards him, and with a slightly angered tone, said "This is a sea, not a desert.."

    Finally, Roley¡¯s eyes moved upwards in realization. "So this is what happened. This desert was a sea.." He then muttered to himself.

    "That¡¯s what I was told by my mother.. That was until arge flock of flying beasts migrated in this direction, and brought the winds with them. Only this oasis is left now." Added the red carp with a hateful tone.

    Once again, silence ruled over the underwater cave for a few moments, until Roley interrupted it by saying "You¡¯ve said that there were water elementals in the depths of the cave, and that this water sphere is powerful, butcks something.. What did you mean with that?"

    "I wouldn¡¯t have been able to exin it earlier, but now that you have exined to me what these objects are and how they work.. I think I can." Said the red carp before taking a slight pause, and continued by saying "You¡¯ve told me that the one you are holding is a high level sphere, made out of your friend¡¯sprehension of water essence, and a high level water treasure.. If what you¡¯ve told me is true, and only a perfect essence treasure can show a more extensive depth ofprehension.. Then what I meant is that I¡¯ve encountered a perfect water treasure in the past.."

    The faces of Der and Heimart lit in shock, while Roley and Jerigh remained calm.

    While Jerigh did not care enough for this to be jump in happiness at the mention of the location of a perfect treasure, Roley had already guessed what the truth was minutes ago. Anyone who had seen a perfect treasure would immediately be able to differentiate it from a moremon high level essence treasure, and that was what the red carp had done.

    "Where did you see it?" Asked Heimart with curiosity.

    The red carp saw the interest in the faces of Der and Heimart, and responded by saying in a dismissive tone "I wouldn¡¯t get my hopes up if I were you.. I have only seen it once the day I have met the water elementals.. You will never be able to reach it."

    "Why do you say that?"

    "Because in order to reach the depths, you need to go down for tens of thousands of kilometers.. If the pressure won¡¯t kill you, the abyssal monsters will.." Responded the red carp with a matter-of-fact tone.

    To Roley, this all made sense. While wind, earth and water were the easiest essences to train in, and fire and lightning were the most difficult amongst the elemental ones, the matter waspletely different for which essence treasures was the easiest to find.

    A treasure which formed in the surface of the like a wood and lightning was much easier to find than treasures that could possibly form at any random ce in the sky, or underground like fire, earth, metal, water and wind treasures.

    "Fair enough.. Back to what we came here for.. I¡¯ve been holding back the power of this essence treasure. It will most definitely allow you to maintain a habitat in this area, unless forcibly removed.. Are you willing to make the exchange?" Asked Heimart after shaking the idea of obtaining the perfect water treasure out of his head.

 Chapter 192 Not a Minute of Res

    The red carp answered to Heimart¡¯s words with silence, which after no more than two minutes, was interrupted by the its deep and pleasant voice, which simply said "I refuse."

    Such response did note to the group¡¯s surprise, after all, they hade to visit a very old and powerful beast with whom they had had no previous contact, to propose an exchange for a part of the beast¡¯s very own body.

    In their opinion, it would have been crazy if the red carp would have epted, but despite the absurd request, Heimart needed to at least report the reason why the deal had not beenpleted to Daniel.

    "It is your right to refuse, but can you tell us why? I would rather not go back without a reason for my failure.." Said Heimart withplete calmness. It could be both seen and heard in his demeanor that he was not lying, and that he was okay with the red carp¡¯s decision.

    The red carp was impressed by Heimart¡¯s behaviour.

    Ever since it had started a conversation with these four humans, the red carp had noticed that the four had lost any hint of fear towards it. They were polite, but not due to the fear that a being would naturally feel towards a more powerful entity, but due to something that appeared like genuine respect.

    "As I have said earlier, my scales are extremely poisonous.. I have no doubt that a human as resourceful as the ones you¡¯ve described could ultimately find a way to use it to kill billions of other humans of a power lower, simr, or even slightly higher than mine." Responded the ancient red carp with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Sudden realization fell upon Heimart, Jerigh and Roley. They were already aware of the fact that Daniel possessed a supernatural power which had to do with people¡¯s tendencies to do good or evil.. So, now that they knew of the carp¡¯s tendency towards good, they had finally understood why Daniel had sent them here without worrying about their safety.

    Of course, Daniel could not possibly expect that the hawk-like beast would appear and present a threat for his group. He only knew that two of the three methods to obtain the carp¡¯s scale were through trade, while the third, was to kill it and steal it.

    Unfortunately, thest method not only required a cultivation higher than the red carp¡¯s, but also gave something that Daniel had never seen so far in a mission¡¯s rewards.. It rewarded negative karma.

    "I have no idea of the reason why our friend would need your scales, but I can assure you that he would never use it to create a poison. At least, not one that would be directed towards innocent people. I can bet my life on it." The strong conviction of Heimart¡¯s tone caused his voice to reverberate in the underwater cave like thunder.

    Once thest of the echo of Heimart¡¯s words disappeared, silence reigned supreme, until once again, it was interrupted by the deep voice of the red carp, which said with a newly found hint of indifference. "I guess that we will never know about it. I see your chances of getting out of here.. bleak."

    After hearing the carp¡¯s words, Heimart smiled in response, and said in a reassuring tone "We are not stuck here.. Notpletely at the very least."

    -----

    Back within the pocket dimension.

    Daniel was standing by himself inside a small spatial room where there was nothing but an oppressively high temperature which threatened to melt anyone that dared to enter it.

    In his hand, Daniel was holding what looked like a miniature star.

    This head-sized star looked sort of strange. Its surface shined of white, blue, red, orange and yellow, which danced together into a dangerously hot mixture of color. Underneath the surface, and the closer to the core, the more liquid this small star became.

    This star was, of course, a perfect essence sphere which Daniel had just finished creating.

    Satisfied by the result, Daniel removed each and every lower level essence sphere in the area, and left the spatial room. When he reappeared, he was in front of a mountain that had been created after the earth sphere had been added to the pocket dimension.

    This mountain was massive, and it spanned for a radius of at least four kilometers in width, but had a top that only reached five kilometers.

    Next to Daniel, Leffe, Buriath, and Wolfie, which was usually in theirpany, had appeared after only a few seconds.

    Daniel had already told them to meet him at the foot of this mountain, so, they had arrived beforehand and were waiting for him.

    "What did you want to talk to us about?" asked Buriath with curiosity while the now two meters long Wolfie sat in front of Daniel in silence. Observing him attentively.

    Daniel turned to look at Buriath, and said with a casual tone "Would there be a problem if I turned this mountain into a volcano?"

    "You mean.."

    "Yes. Can you take care of it and of whomever will be born from it?" Daniel then asked.

    Leffe pointed at Wolfie, and said "Of course.. He is doing fine, isn¡¯t he?"

    "I know, but he won¡¯t cause an eruption by ying too roughly in his metallic den.. Can you check that that won¡¯t happen?"

    Leffe responded with a defeatist tone "We will try.. It¡¯ not an easy job.. I¡¯m made out of wood, and Buriath will melt in the vicinity of the sphere.. You should leave someone here to intervene the moment the first fire elemental will be born."

    Daniel became pensive for a few moments, then, said out loud "I¡¯ll leave a connection to the castle.. Call Edmund when that will happen, and tell him to separate the elementals from the treasure they are born."

    "That¡¯s a bad idea.. We elementals have a great memory.. It will remember who separated it from its home.." Said Buriath with a low tone. He was thinking of how he and Leffe had almost died in order to protect their homes, and a single look at Wolfie would tell them that he would do the same.

    "I know, but I want to give him a reason to stop being obsessed by spatial essence.. Maybe this will be a good chance to show him that he needs to expand his field of research." Responded Daniel with a dismissing tone before opening his hand, and making the multicolored star-like sphere appear above it.

    He was now standing towards the side of the mountain, and looking towards the ground at about forty-five degrees of inclination, then, with a single thought, he forced his immortal essence to push through the stony ground.

    A tunnel of about thirty centimeters in height and thirty centimeters in width, was forced open by Daniel¡¯s immortal essence. The depth of this tunnel could not be seen, and its size was just enough for the sun-like sphere to move through.

    Daniel quietly put the sphere on the entrance of this tunnel, and let go, causing the ming ball to roll towards the heart of the mountain.

    Only after Daniel felt that the fire sphere had reached the exact middle the mountain, he stopped it, and locked it in space. He then removed the limitations he was forcing on it with his immortal essence. Finally, he closed the tunnel back up by filling it with all of the stones and soil he had pulled out at the moment of its creation.

    From the outside, it didn¡¯t seem that the mountain had changed, but Buriath, Wolfie and Daniel could feel it clearly.

    The area that surrounded the perfect fire sphere was starting to melt, causing a pool of bubbling magma to form in the core of the mountain.

    Without wasting too much time, Daniel forced his immortal essence to turn into a portal which lead directly to the castle, and after waving goodbye to Leffe and Buriath, he walked through it.

    When he reappeared, he was in the castle.

    In front of him was Gai¡¯ha, which ever since they had arrived to the new world, had traveled towards different cities along with the various members of Daniel¡¯s group with the sole purpose of expanding hispany.

    She had no knowledge of the uses of humans, but her cultivation was particrly strong when picked from the other members of Daniel¡¯s group, and if that wasn¡¯t enough, she was a talented and trained warrior. That made her a perfect protector for the members of Daniel¡¯s group.

    "Gai¡¯ha, howe you¡¯re here? I thought you were conquering the north.." Said Daniel with pleasant surprise.

    "Dan! Yeah, we did. We have only had a few problems with one of the cities in the border.. The cities are still considered part of this region, but its inhabitants are revolting and trying to be part of the neighbouring region instead.. Nothing that a little civil war won¡¯t solve. What about you?" Responded Gai¡¯ha with just as much surprise.

    A fair bit had passed since the two had met, and Gai¡¯ha had felt extremely grateful towards Daniel for allowing her to travel, and explore ces she couldn¡¯t even imagine existed.

    "Busy.. I expect someone toe and tell me about the problem they¡¯ve had with their assignment at any moment." Responded Daniel with slight exasperation. It was true that he had had no time to rest, after all, he was the person on which hundreds of thousand of people, beasts, and elementals counted on to maintain their lifestyle.

    Now, Daniel finally had a few minutes to rest, but unfortunately, his words were going to turn true much faster than he could have ever imagined.

    Right outside of the castle, in the square where the portals were ced, Roley had appeared.

    Once in the pocket dimension, Roley felt Daniel¡¯s presence in the hall of the castle, and teleported right in front of him. "Dan, we have a problem with the assignment you¡¯ve given us.." He said with a slightly embarrassed tone.

    "HAHAHAHAHAH!" Gai¡¯ha immediately burst outughing. It hadn¡¯t even been ten seconds since Daniel had predicted that this would happen.

    Through a dumbfounded expression, Daniel said "What is it?"

    "The red carp doesn¡¯t trust us enough to give us his scales.."

    Daniel could do nothing but sigh in resignation, and say, "Alright.. Let¡¯s go." before waving his hand towards a stillughing Gai¡¯ha, and walking with Roley toward the entrance of the castle.

    Once outside, the two directly walked into one of the portals in the square, and when they came out, reappeared inside the underwater cave under therge pond.

    After Daniel appeared, he firstly nodded at his friends, and then, turned towards the dark body of water from which the top of an enormous red carp emerged.

    Before Daniel could even speak, the red carp said with its usual fruity tone "I can feel the poison of my kind inside you.. It¡¯s modified and weak, but it¡¯s there.."

    After hearing the carp¡¯s words, Heimart and the rest turned towards Daniel with deep shock.

    Of course, they were not aware that Daniel was dying, therefore, this information hade as a great surprise to them.

    Daniel noticed the shocked looks of his friend¡¯s faces, and with a faint smile, immediately stopped their train of thoughts by saying "Close your mouths, or some bug will crawl in.. I¡¯m not dying. I already have the antidote for the poison and I will prepare it soon."

    What happened next, left a great impression on the red carp.

    Just like magic, the faces of Der, Heimart, Roley and Jerigh immediately calmed, and their state of mind lost every form of worry or anxiousness that they had felt until just a few moments earlier.

    "What is the problem?" Said Daniel with a calm tone, as if nothing had happened.

    Just as Heimart was about to exin, the red carp interjected by saying "What will you use my scales for?"

    "An antidote. The reason why I need your help is because I want to hide the recipe from the group that created the poison.." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Even after hearing Daniel¡¯s confirm the words of the others, the red carp was till not fully convinced, so, it said with hesitation "How can I be sure that you will not use my scales to create the poison that is killing you?"

    "Because I¡¯ll create the antidote in front of you, consume it, and give the scales back. You might not have a need for them since you can¡¯t reattach them, and they will simply regrow, but at least you will be sure that they won¡¯t be used for something that you don¡¯t agree to.." Said Daniel before taking a small pause, and adding "What do you say? Do we have a deal?"

 Chapter 193 Someone Even You Cannot Touch

    "What do you say? Do we have a deal?" Asked Daniel with a calm and casual tone. He was looking at the red carp as if it didn¡¯t matter if it epted the deal or not, and in fact, it didn¡¯t.

    Daniel wouldn¡¯t want to kill the carp even if he could, as the red carp was a good-willed being. Therefore, if he couldn¡¯t obtain what he needed through trade, he would try his luck elsewhere.

    "Very well." Responded the red carp before starting to vibrate in ce, and forcing three red scales to detach from his body, and to float quietly on the surface of the water like three normal sized carps.

    These threerge scales were quietly picked up by Daniel through his use of water essence, and kept into a small box, which he then carefully ced on the ground.

    Inside Daniel¡¯s mind, two familiar windows suddenly appeared.

    ____________________________

    *No Time For Poisons*

    Third objectiveplete.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started (Chain): No Time For Poisons*

    -Description: Find a cure of the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.

    Fourth objective set: Create the cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn

    Reward: Unnamed cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn / (Optional) Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +75%

    Time limit: 29 days

    ____________________________

    As always, the very mission did not offer a specific method toplete the quest, so, all that Daniel could do was to ask for Serf¡¯s help.

    "Oh, this is a special moment.. This might be the day you¡¯ll finallyplete your first main quest!!" Said Serf with an enthusiastic tone. "Optionsing right away."

    ____________________________

    Crafting approach

    Difficulty: Normal

    -Boil each of the three scales of the ancient red carp into three different snake poisons.

    -Add a portion of the queen dryad¡¯s heart in the container where the poison of the ck opal snake is being boiled.

    -Collect the vapors.

    -Condense them into a liquid state.

    -Add five indigo puffer fish¡¯s thorns into the container where the poison of the white-scaled snake is being boiled.

    -Allow the mixture to expel moisture until it will reach a semi-solid state.

    -Mix the liquid poison mixture, the semi-solid poisonous paste, and the green-skinned snake¡¯s poison in even parts.

    -Add a small amount of the original poison.

    -Create the pill.

    Time limit: None.

    (Requirements: Three ancient red carp¡¯s red scales, five indigo puffer fish¡¯s thorns, a hundred years old queen dryad¡¯s heart, a ten years old ck opal snake¡¯s saliva of, a fifty years old white-scaled snake¡¯s saliva, a two hundred years old green-skinned snake¡¯s saliva, sample of the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn)

    Reward: Thirty-six unnamed pills.

    ____________________________

    "Damn it.. I need a sample of the Poison of the Night Blue thorn.." Muttered Daniel to himself before falling deep into his thoughts.

    "What is it?" Asked Roley with a curious expression. He could see that something was wrong.

    Daniel¡¯s train of thought was distracted by Roley¡¯s question. He turned towards him, and said "It¡¯s nothing. I¡¯mcking an ingredient for the concoction.. We¡¯ll have to postpone this."

    The red carp had just removed its scales and had given them to Daniel already. His fourpanions could not help but think that Daniel was trying to back away from the carp¡¯s deal.

    "Why didn¡¯t you tell us about it? There is literally nothing youck less than people to send on errands.." muttered Der with a hint of displeasure. They hade here for nothing, and Daniel now had to take a step back because he hadn¡¯t prepared properly.

    "What did you just say?" Asked Daniel with confusion. There was something in Der¡¯s words that reminded him of something extremely important.

    Der did not misunderstand the meaning of Daniel¡¯s words, after all, his tone was all but aggressive or domineering. So, he responded by saying "I¡¯ve said that you literal-"

    Before Der could finish speaking, "The letter!" Eximed Daniel out of the blue before turning towards Jerigh and saying "Jerigh, please go and look for Alesia. She is at the academy.. Ask her to bring Serf here."

    Without saying a single word, Jerigh approached Der which was currently holding the ring that connected them to the pocket dimension, and teleported inside.

    "Is there a problem?" Asked the red carp with curiosity.

    Daniel shook his head in a slow motion, and calmly responded by saying "There is no problem. We Just have to wait for someone to bring me thest ingredient.."

    It was only now that the matter of the red carp¡¯s scales had been solved, that Daniel had taken a look at his surrounding.

    "Why are we in an underwater cave?" He asked with curiosity while looking at the dim light which was emanated by the fluorescent fungus that grew on the cave walls.

    The first to respond was Heimart, which said "It seems that our new friend was not alone.. We will have a problem to leave this ce.. We might have to leave the ring here and use thepany building to go out of the pocket dimension from now on.."

    "Why can¡¯t we just teleport away?" Asked Daniel with confusion. He could not understand how someone that could teleport could let himself be stuck underground.

    The quiet red carp interjected in the conversation by saying "I would suggest against that idea.. He is waiting.. And he will see you appear at a distance of hundreds of kilometers.. If that is not enough, you would never be able to shake him off.. His kind can run freely in the strong winds."

    "What winds?.. Maybe you guys should fill me in.."

    -----

    "Bring Serf? I have to bring Serf there?" Asked Alesia to Jerigh, which was staring at her with his usual serious expression.

    Jerigh simply nodded at Alesia¡¯s words, confirming that she hadn¡¯t heard wrongly.

    "Okay, tell him that we will be there in a few minutes." Said Alesia before turning around, and walking towards the direction were Daniel and Serf¡¯s room was.

    After she took only two steps, she immediately heard the footsteps of somebody else behind her. When she turned around, she saw Jerigh, which was apparently following her closely.

    "I said I¡¯ll bring Serf.. there is no need for you to control me.. Just go back." She said with a hint of irritation, before turning around once again, and walking away.

    Unfortunately, no matter how many times she walked away at the top of her speed, Jerigh was always behind there.. Following in silence.

    Unable to shake Jerigh off, Alesia could do nothing but walk around with a silent bodyguard that followed her closely.

    The two of them arrived at Serf¡¯s room in a matter of minutes, and once in front of the door, Alesia knocked politely.

    *Knock Knock Knock*.. But there was no response.

    *Thump Thump Thump* "Serf,e out! We need your help with something!" Said Alesia with a loud tone in an attempt to call Serf, but once again, there was absolutely no response.

    "Not in his room.. Where could he be.." muttered Alesia for a few moments, before her brows rose in realization, and said "The mess hall!"

    With a new course, the two of them started to walk towards the mess hall with a fast pace.

    When they reached the mess hall, they immediately noticed Serf. He was currently surrounded by ten young cultivators, four of whom possessed a tinum badge, while the rest were golden-badged students.

    "There is nothing that will stop you from eating better than spitting on your own food.. I can help with that." Said one of the gold-badged cultivators before moving over Serf¡¯s food, and spitting arge amount of saliva on one of the dishes.

    *Ptuh*

    "Fatty, get up and flex your arms in front of your chest.. I want to see if the back of your robe will blow up." Said another of the gold-badged students.

    The remaining few cultivators were standing around, enjoying the spectacle.

    "Serf!" Shouted Alesia, catching the attention of each student within the mess hall.

    After Serf heard his name reverberate in the room, he turned towards its source, and standing right in front of the entrance of the mess hall, he saw Alesia and Jerigh. She was waving her arm towards him, as if telling him to ditch the guys around him, and reach her.

    Serf had an extremely good impression of Alesia, and despite the two of them did not know each other for long, he didn¡¯t want her to be caught up in his problems. So, he could do nothing but to pretend that he had heard nothing, and to ignore the two of them.

    Unfortunately for him, Alesia was having none of it. She directly walked towards the group of students, and moved through the encirclement.

    "Come with me, Daniel needs you for something." She said before turning towards the entrance of the mess hall and stepping forward.

    Before she could leave the encirclement she had just entered, three different students had stopped her path, and one of them said "There is no need to leave. Why not join the fun."

    "I would love to, but there is someone I do not wish to make wait.. Step aside." Said Alesia with confidence, and apleteck of respect towards the ¡¯superior¡¯ students.

    To the various students, Alesia¡¯s words were clear. ¡¯The person who I am going to meet, is way more important than all of youbined. Stop bothering me.¡¯

    Alesia¡¯s words caused something within their entitled minds to click.

    One of the tinum badged cultivators was about to grab her arm and school her on how the academy ranks worked, but before his hand could touch Alesia¡¯s skin, she had already pped the back of his hand.

    "Do you dare to attack me?!" Barked the hit student with pure anger.

    Alesia looked back at him, and with a deadpan face, she said "Only if you dare to touch me."

    "You little.." muttered the student through his clenched teeth, before clenching his hands into two tight fists, and swinging one towards her.

    Unfortunately, his motion was interrupted by Jerigh, which without anyone noticing, had appeared right in between the two, and had caught the punch in mid air.

    Without waiting for him to react, Jerigh twisted the student¡¯s wrist downwards, and used his other arm to hammer his fist against the man¡¯s humerus, causing it to bend, and used his right foot to kick the side of the student¡¯s knee, causing him to fall forwards, and hit his face against his wrist.

    The various students in the surroundings were quickly alerted by Jerigh¡¯s actions, and immediately prepared to attack him all at the same time.

    Almost as if by natural response, Jerigh¡¯s hands moved on the hilts of his two swords, but before he could unsheathe them, he heard Alesia¡¯s voice say "No!.. don¡¯t kill them."

    For once, Jerigh listened to Alesia¡¯s words, and removed his hands form his swords. Instead, he quietly walked towards the ce where Serf was sitting, and took away the two chopsticks that Serf was using to eat.

    He then moved back on his previous position, and stared at the various students in an aggressive manner. The two dirty chopsticks were now being held tightly in his hands, and appeared like the most deadly of all weapons.

    Nevertheless, the sight of Jerigh¡¯s confidence was not enough to scare the prideful students of an elitary academy, which instead of running away, attacked Jerigh with as much power as the academy¡¯s rules allowed them to muster.

    One student after the other dashed towards Jerigh, but their moves were easily blocked or evaded, and they would end up with the end of one of Serf¡¯s chopsticks hit their stomach, their throat, or their groin.

    It took less than two minutes for the group of prideful and arrogant students to turn into a carpet of crying and sobbing young men.

    The only people left standing, were two of the three tinum-badged students, which looked at Jerigh with deep hostility.

 Chapter 194 The Battle-Hardened Warrior and the Barely Trained Monster

    "Do you have any idea of who we are? Yourpany is doomed." Said one of the enraged tinum-badged students. His eyes were opened wide in shock, as he looked at the various gold-badged students crawling on the ground, crying over their broken limbs, or covering the injured parts with their hands.

    Despite not being a chatty person, Jerigh was not stupid by any means. He was fully aware that each of these student¡¯spanies were more powerful than Daniel¡¯s, so, he had never nned to go all out and kill these students.

    Unfortunately for them, Daniel had already made clear to him and the rest of his friends, that it was time for theirpany to enter the market.. And that they were not going to do it peacefully.

    If the price for being noticed was to break a few bones, Daniel had made sure that his friends would not hold back, as he didn¡¯t want hispany to appear like the soft underbelly of the beast. He wanted them to show character, and then, when the various other groups would start to fight back against the unruly rookie, they would shock them all.

    It was now time to create the antidote for one of the most iconic poisons of the poisonous rose, and put the family who has created to shame. Therefore, the time to appear strong had finally came.

    Naturally, there was a limit to what Daniel had allowed his friends to do. They could not create feuds that would ultimately lead with their impossibility of joining the poisonous rose, after all, that was their main objective.

    After hearing the young man¡¯s words, Jerigh took a step towards him.

    The tinum-badged student was not weak, as all students were close to being, or were past the fourth stage of cultivation. But being forcing to cultivate with high level crystals from a young age, and cultivating slowly while also increasing one¡¯s own battle prowess, were two different things.

    When it came to fighting, these students could do nothing much than swing their fists to prove their worth, or if that didn¡¯t work, throw names around.

    When matched against someone who couldn¡¯t care less about their backing powers, they felt like mices in front of a lion.

    "What is going on here?" Said a young woman that had just entered the mess hall.

    The moment Jerigh heard this girl¡¯s words, he turned to look at her, and what he saw, was a beautiful girl in warrior¡¯s attire.

    Her dark grey short hair were swept back, with two locks that flowed down the sides of her sidebrows, and reached her jawline. Her naturally flushed lips gave a huge contrast to the much paler skin, on which various small scars could be seen. These scars weren¡¯t deep and unbearable to watch, instead, they were shallow, and could hardly be seen, showing that she had obtained them at a very young age. Her straight posture, along with her clenched fists and firm expression, were a clear indication of the girl¡¯s past military experiences.

    Her rounded brows didn¡¯t flinch, as her hazel eyes scouted the surrounding mess with alertness. Her hands were always ready to grab the two daggers that she was carrying by her sides.

    The attire that she was wearing wasposed of a greyish leather armor, and a pair of crimson-red leather pants that tightly covered her legs, showing her athletic build. Her body shape did not differ much from Alesia¡¯s, with the only difference that thetter was slightly shorter.

    When this girl spoke, everyone recognized her immediately, as despite the non-valuable bronze badge that she disyed on her chest, the tinum patch that was ced on her left shoulder reminded the tinum-badged students to treat her with respect.

    "Cynna, this intruder entered the mess hall, and started to attack us. Help us to apprehend him, so that we can hand him over to the academy!" Said one of the tinum-badged students with newly found courage.

    The girl called Cynna turned to look at the surroundings once again, and after noticing the two chopsticks in Jerigh¡¯s hands, she said "I understand that you held back.. And I am sure that there is more to the story than what he said.. But you can¡¯t go around injuring people in a ce that you are not authorized to enter. You will have toe with me and answer to the chairman."

    Alesia was about to interject, but before she could speak, Jerigh grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him.

    This was something that Alesia had never seen. Jerigh being cautious was a first for each and everyone who had known him for a long time.

    That could only mean that he wasn¡¯tpletely confident of being able to protect her against this girl, despite his immense talent.. This sheer thought forced a wave of alertness to flush through Alesia¡¯s body.

    Noticing theck of response from Jerigh, Cynna moved her hands on the leather band that was wrapped just above her waist, and over the hilts of the two daggers sheathed on it.

    In response, Jerigh let go of the two chopsticks, and moved his hands on the two swords that he was carrying.

    Cynna was nowhere less alerted by Jerigh¡¯s apparent martial prowess than he was about hers, causing the two of them to spend the next minute staring at each other, like a warrior hardened from battle, and a barely trained monster.. Ready to kill each other at a moment¡¯s notice.

    That moment, was embodied by the sound of Cynna¡¯s daggers being unsheathed.

    *shi-shing*

    The sight of the girl¡¯s body became blurred in front of Jerigh¡¯s eyes, which could only look as she instantly dashed towards him, and tried to incapacitate his movements by piercing right above his knee. But s, she was not the only battle-hardened warrior.

    *swooosh* Jerigh¡¯s bent his right leg and lowered his entire body, causing the dagger to cut the empty air in between his knee and chest.

    His left hand quickly grabbed Cynna¡¯s wrist, while his right hand unsheathed the sword, and tried to sh towards the girl¡¯s chest from up close.

    *Shiiiiing* The blow was quickly blocked by the girl¡¯s second hand, which had moved it in front of her chest, and parried the shing motion of Jerigh¡¯s sword.

    The sheer power of the two fighters was equal, but Jerigh experience in dirty fighting was leaps and bounds above the girl¡¯s, which was used to fair and regr fights.

    Despite the girl¡¯s fierce appearance, she was wearing a perfume which, due to the close proximity to her body, caused Jerigh¡¯s nose to curl, and his nostrils to burn. The fragrance was so powerful, that Jerigh could taste it on his tongue.

    Cynna quickly noticed his distraction, and took the chance to lift her foot, and stomp heavily against the bridge of Jerigh¡¯s foot.

    A powerful wave of pain made its way from Jerigh¡¯s foot all the way to the back of his neck, where his thin hair stood straight, but against the girl¡¯s expectations, Jerigh did not shout, or distracted himself further from the fight.

    For everybody else an injury would be something debilitating, but for Jerigh.. It was something different. He grew up while fighting daily deathmatches against desperate ves.. Where a moment of distraction would have meant an additional chance for a de to pierce his body.

    Instead of reeling back from the pain, Jerigh moved closer into Cynna¡¯s space with his foot still underneath hers, and charged against his own sword with his shoulder, causing it to push the girl¡¯s dagger against her own body armor, and for her to lose her bnce.

    Cynnacked a proper footing due to the previous hit, and was now forced back by Jerigh¡¯s charge. Her right arm was waving aimlessly in the air, while her wrist was still tightly locked in Jerigh¡¯s grip.

    She could feel his fingers strongly press around her smooth skin. Not unlikely a metallic morse from which she could not free herself.

    Her reaction came quickly, but unfortunately, not quickly enough.

    Instead of allowing her to react, Jerigh took action once again by stepping forward, and letting go of the sword he was holding in his left hand.

    He then hit the girl¡¯s left shoulder with his left elbow, and with a twist of his hip and a pull of his right hand, he lifted her body from the ground, and threw her on the floor the very next moment.

    The girl fell on her back heavily, causing a hint of pain to travel through her body, and to cause anger and unwillingness to grow in her mind.

    She past experiences in fighting were suggesting to her that Jerigh would let her up to continue their fight, but Jerigh was no gentleman..

    Before the girl called Cynna could even think of getting back up on her feet, Jerigh, which had fallen right next to her, rolled over her body.

    He was now above her, with his knees pressed against the floor directly to the side of the girl¡¯s waist.

    She quickly tried to punch or stab herself out of that situation, but Jerigh was in an advantaged position, which allowed him to rapidly grab her wrists, and fold her arms in front of her chest.. immobilizing her on the ground.

    While all of this happened, the various injured students had taken the chance to ingest their healing pills, and had gone back to a fully healed state. Only the mental scars remained of their previous humiliation.

    Unfortunately, they were nomoners. A humiliation was not something that they were willing to take easily.

    Without even needing to make a n, each cultivator previously injured by Jerigh dashed towards him in an attempt to hit him while he was busy holding down Cynna, but before they could approach the two of them..

    "STOP!" Shouted Cynna from the ground, causing the various crazed students to regain their reason, and stop. "DO YOU DARE MAKE ME PART OF AN UNFAIR FIGHT?! Anyone that interferes will have to deal with me next!"

    Serf and Alesia, which were getting ready to join the fight at any moment, immediately noticed how the various cultivators stopped their actions after the girl¡¯s threat. It was clear to them, that she was not bluffing, and the other students were aware of that.

    "He was only defending me.. We came to get our friend but they were bothering him, and after I¡¯ve arrived, they tried to bother me as well. That¡¯s what happened. He shouldn¡¯t be punished for it." Said Alesia hastily to Cynna. People could hear the deep frustration in her voice.

    Despite whether what Alesia had just said was true or not, Cynna could do nothing. She was still lying powerlessly under Jerigh¡¯s body, which even though she seemed to have given up on fighting him, was still holding her as if they were in the middle of the battle, without releasing the grip even a tiny bit.

    It was her turn now to feel exasperated. She was known to be a prodigious fighter, and no one of her age in the academy would dare to im to be superior than her. But Jerigh had not only forced her to reconsider her power, but also forced her in an embarrassing situation.

    "Is he going to keep me here for much longer?!" She barked out in anger while trying to fruitlessly free her own arms. "Get him off me!"

    "I can¡¯t order him to do anything.." muttered Alesia in a low voice before turning to look at Jerigh¡¯s serious expression.

    Serf, which had met Jerigh more than once in the past few weeks, finally said "Jerigh, didn¡¯t Daniel send you here to get me?.. Is the matter urgent?"

    Like a shower of cold water, Serf¡¯s words woke Jerigh up from his focused state. He then noticed theck of battling intent in Cynna¡¯s eyes, and quickly let go of her arms before getting up, and limping towards Serf.

    "Let¡¯s go." he said in a low voice.

 Chapter 195 The Making of an Antidote

    "Let¡¯s go." Said Jerigh in a low voice, before walking towards the entrance of the mess hall.

    When looking at Jerigh¡¯s back, which quietly got further and further away with time, Cynna felt some form of unwillingness build up in her mind. She was a prodigious warrior, and she couldn¡¯t stand the idea of losing to someone whom she couldn¡¯t even put a name on.

    "You are just going to leave without even telling me who you are? Nor give me the chance to look for you, and pay you back for this humiliation?!" She asked with an audible anger which grew for each of Jerigh¡¯s steps.

    Now at the door, Jerigh finally stopped and turned to look back at the furious girl. He then said with a deep and calm tone, "You think too much.." then left without uttering another word.

    Alesia followed Jerigh out of the hall in silence, while Serf, which was still closer to where Cynna was, said with a faint smile "His name is Jerigh.. You can usually find him at the Golden Karmapany." He then quickly walked out of the hall as well, and joined Jerigh and Alesia in the corridor.

    Cynna stood up from the part of the floor she was sitting on, and walked out of the mess hall as well. She then looked at the corridors to the left, and to the right.. But the trio had already disappeared.

    -----

    "It doesn¡¯t surprise me. A water treasure requires water and something inside which water¡¯sprehension can be forced.. Where else if not an inhabited underwater world.. The question is, why are you out here and not down there?" Asked Daniel to the Ancient red carp.

    He was quietly sitting on the edge of the rocky tform, while dipping his bare feet into the water and chatting happily with therge aquatic beast.

    "My kind used to guard the entrance of the underground aquatic world.. We used to live in the sea that now you call desert, and were even allowed to visit during our youth." Responded the red carp with a hint of mncholy "Now it¡¯s only me left."

    "Because of the winds?" Asked Daniel with pure curiosity. He had heard the mention of the strong winds when he had been called out of the pocket dimension by Roley, and now the pieces were starting to get together.

    The red carp remained quiet in apparent hesitation, then said "Not the winds.. The beasts that brought it.. But now I know what it actually is.."

    "You mean a perfect wind treasure? Unlikely. There isn¡¯t a treasure that can chip away at a sea¡¯s water in the world. Unless.." Responded Daniel casually. Even if he had just learned about the winds, he was now more of an expert in natural mana than most, as he possessed a perfectprehension of numerous essences.

    What else could create an area in which the winds could potentially rip amon human to pieces if not a perfect sphere? But what were the chances that an airborne race of beasts could own one?

    These questions came and went inside Daniel¡¯s mind in a matter of moments.

    For all Daniel knew, perfect spheres had an extremely long duration of at least a few thousand years. Who knows how many times a simr treasure could have changed hands in such a long time.

    "Unless what?" Asked the red carp with clear interest. It had spent so much time under constant threat, that the single mention of a ¡¯likely reason¡¯ for his suffering, had lit his interest like nothing else had ever done before.

    "Unless.. The beasts arrived after the sphere."

    Roley, Heimart and Der, which were quietly sitting by themselves and listening to the conversation between Daniel and the Ancient red carp, now turned to look at Daniel with deep interest. "What do you mean, Dan?" Asked Heimart.

    "That maybe, and I¡¯m not saying that this is true, there could be a perfect wind sphere somewhere in the desert which attracted the airborne beasts, and that caused the sea to turn into a desert." Responded Daniel with uncertainty.

    Just as Daniel finished speaking, a portal formed in the empty area right next to Der.

    On the other side of this portal, one could see the za in front of the castle within the pocket dimension, and right in front of it, were Serf, Jerigh, and Alesia which quickly stepped through and arrived on the tform within the underwater cave.

    Daniel waved his hand faintly, as a smile caused by Alesia¡¯s appearance appeared on his face.

    "Dan, where are we?" Said Serf through a confused expression. He was looking around, trying to find out where Daniel¡¯s friends had taken him.

    "What do you mean where are we? We are at theboratory! I¡¯ll make the antidote right now!" Said Daniel before standing up from the border of the rocky tform, and walking towards him while leaving a clear trail of wet footprints.

    "Now? You don¡¯t even have any instr-" Muttered Serf to himself before being interrupted by Daniel¡¯s words.

    "Do you still have the letter that your sister used to poison me?" Asked Daniel inly.

    Serf struggled to hide any form of reaction to Daniel¡¯s words, but in the end, he gave up and said "How did you know it was her?.." His tone was dispirited, and apologetic. He didn¡¯t feel worried that Daniel could find out about this.. Instead, he was sorry about omitting the culprit of the act that had almost killed his friend.

    "Are you joking? Who in their right mind wouldn¡¯t realize that your sister is a psychopath after meeting her? Hehe.. Don¡¯t worry about it, I¡¯m not angry about the fact that you haven¡¯t told me it was her doing. She is your sister after all." Responded Daniel casually.

    What he said was true. Daniel was not angry with Serf, after all, he also had a sister, and even if the nature of the rtionship between the two pairs was extremely different, and despite all of the things he had seen, he couldn¡¯te to think that a brother would willingly let his sister die.

    Of course, this way of thinking was caused solely by Daniel¡¯s ignorance. Had he known of the real rtionship between the two siblings, he would have killed na the instant he had seen her for attempting to poison Alesia.

    One could say that the only reason why na was still alive, was because her action had not only failed, but had ultimately given him a chance to be noticed by the poisonous rose.

    Despite sparing na¡¯s life, Daniel had still decided to destroy the reputation of Serf¡¯s family. That was something he didn¡¯t care about, as they were still part of a collective of groups whose main goal was to create one weapon of mass destruction after the other, and they deserved far worse.

    "I¡¯m sorry.." Said Serf before making a bundle of tissue appear in his hand, and handing it over to Daniel.

    Daniel quietly grabbed the item in Serf¡¯s hand, and after noticing how mortified he looked, he decided to give him a friendly nudge with his elbow, and say "Come, take a look."

    He then moved to the middle of the tform, and took out each and every ingredient that he had gathered in the past couple of weeks.

    The ingredients were divided into three small groups, two of which he needed to treat separately in two different methods.

    Without wasting too much time, he used his own immortal essence to form two small fires. He then used the concept of melting of the earth and fire essences to create three ss containers.

    Inside two of these ss containers he put the two poisons that needed to be boiled, along with the two ingredients that they needed to be boiled with, while the third was ced upside down over the first container in order to prevent the vapors from wasting in the air instead of condensing into the required state.

    Once done, Daniel put the two pots above the two open mes, and focused on controlling the intensity of the heat.

    Daniel could, in theory, increase the heat of these two mes to over a thousand degree and cause the two liquids to boil in an instant.. But he only had one set of ingredients, and he didn¡¯t want to risk burning them.

    In the open pot, he put the poison of the white-scaled snake, along with five of the indigo puffer fish¡¯s thorns, while in the covered pot, he put the poison of the ck opal snake, along with a previously cut part of the dryad queen¡¯s heart.

    He then waited patiently.

    Small water-like droplets started to condense on the internal surface of the upside down pot, which Daniel immediately extracted in order to prevent them from dripping back down into the mixture.

    At the same time, Daniel increased the power of the me that was boiling the uncovered pot, causing the moisture to evaporate, and turning the mixture denser by the minute.

    After more than five minutes, Daniel found himself with a small bottle of transparent liquid, and a lump of ck paste.

    His attention turned towards thest ingredient.. The green-skinned snake¡¯s saliva.

    Suddenly, a head-sized wooden mortar and pestle appeared in front of him, and without wasting anymore time, he put the ck paste, the transparent liquid, and the green-skinned snake¡¯s saliva into it, just like the instructions had told him to.

    He then grabbed the pestle, and started to mix the three ingredients over and over again.

    The mixture of the ck lump, watery liquid, and viscous substance quickly started to merge into a grey dense paste which Daniel kept mixing again, and again, and again just to be sure that none of the ingredients were left out.

    Once finished, Daniel unwrapped the letter whose touch had caused him to almost drop dead, and with a single thought, he covered it with his immortal essence and made it burst in mes.

    The fire wasn¡¯t bound by thebustive effect of the letter, and instead, was constructed by Daniel¡¯s immortal essence, therefore, it was not going to disappear just because the letter had been burnedpletely.

    Instead, it kept burning quietly until its ashes started to deposit on the tissue which Serf had used to wrap the letter. Only then did the me disappear leaving no trace of light or warmness behind.

    Daniel carefully grabbed the four corners of the tissue which contained the letter¡¯s ashes, and moved it above the mortar which contained the grey paste, then, he let go of two of the four corners, causing the ashes to join the rest of the mixture.

    Once again, Daniel grabbed the pestle and started to mix the grey paste with the dark grey ashes, which after every movement of his hand, caused the mixture to turn to a darker shade of grey.

    It was only after the paste became homogeneous and the liquids were absorbed, that Daniel stopped.

    The system¡¯s mission had told him the entire procedure, but it hadn¡¯t told him to which quantity of the paste one pill corresponded.. All he knew, was that this dark grey paste was enough to produce exactly thirty-six pills.

    With one more thought, his immortal essence turned into a metallic spoon which scooped the entirety of the dark grey paste out of the mortar, then expanded into a t b of metal above which the paste was evenly spread.

    This b was divided into four rows, and each row was divided into nine columns of small squares.

    Daniel approached the metallic b, and after making sure that the portions were even, he unsheathed his sword, and made eight horizontal, and three vertical shes, splitting the paste into thirty-six identical portions.

    The thirty-six split bs of metal quickly wrapped around the portion of dark grey paste that they were supporting, and pressed them into a perfectly spherical shape.

    Daniel finished the entire procedure by cooling the thirty-six metallic spheres that were currently floating in mid air, causing the just as many pills contained inside them to solidify into firm pills.

    Finally, Daniel let his immortal essence dissipate, and personally controlled the finished products to float in the air.

    Right now, Daniel stood in front of his friends, while surrounded by more than thirty seemingly worthless and dull-looking pills.

 Chapter 196 Partial Poison Immunity Pill

    Daniel stood in the middle of the tform inplete silence. Around him, hispanions were standing as well, while floating on the surface of the dark body of water, was the ancient red carp which had just spectated to Daniel¡¯s method of producing this so called ¡¯antidote¡¯.

    Floating all around the tform, were exactly thirty-six pills of the size of a nail. Their color was dull and they appeared extremely unimpressive to most, but not to Daniel. He knew what effect these pills could bring to a human, and it was something that was worth more than his friends could imagine.

    While the rest were waiting for Daniel¡¯s next move, he was quietly observing the solitary window that had appeared the moment the pills had been sessfully produced.

    ____________________________

    *No Time For Poisons*

    Fourth objectiveplete.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started UPDATE: No Time For Poisons*

    -Description: Find a cure of the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.

    Fifth objective set: Ingest one of the pills.

    Optional: Name the pill.

    Reward: Unnamed cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn / Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +75% / (Optional) Universal Government Reputation +2%

    Time limit: 28 days

    ____________________________

    What had caused Daniel to be shocked, was the updated entries of the current quest. He had imagined that the creation of these pills would create a storm in the territory in which the poisonous rose operated, but for them to cause his reputation in the entire universal government to rise, it was way above what he had ever thought possible.

    Just as one of these pills happened to float in front of him, he moved his hand forward, and grabbed it in mid air.

    "Here goes nothing.." He muttered before popping the pill into his mouth, and swallowing it whole.

    Before the pill could even reach the back of his throat, the contact with his saliva made it rapidly break down from its original solid state, and turn back into a pasty bitter substance, which slowly slid over his tongue. The taste was tremendous, and to Daniel, it seemed like the exact mixture of all of the ingredients he had used. He could taste the fishy taste of the scales and thorns of the two fish, the warm water-like substance which Daniel was struggling not to picture inside the snakes¡¯ mouths, and finally, the taste of what Daniel knew to be blood, but whose vour was much more simr to tree sap.

    All of these vors were already terrible when tried individually, but when mixed together, they were much worse. Daniel was struggling to avoid vomiting the precious paste right out, and to date, he had never felt so much difficulty in keeping something in his stomach as he felt now.

    Once this horrendous paste reached his stomach, it quickly started to disintegrate further, and rapidly attached to the internal walls of Daniel¡¯s stomach.

    A powerful warmth started to emanate from Daniel¡¯s abdominal area, which rapidly started to flush through his veins, then seeped into his muscles and buried into his bones. Daniel could resist the pain perfectly well, but then, the warmness started to move up his throat and to encase his head.

    It then dug deeper into his skin, through his bones, and finally, when it reached Daniel¡¯s brain, he fell on his knees before dropping limp on the ground.

    His friends immediately dashed by his side in worry, and Alesia immediately put one of her palms on his forehead to check his temperature. He was burning, but unfortunately, they could do nothing to help.

    "He overestimated his own body.." Said the ancient red carp from underneath the dark waters, which not knowing anything about human¡¯s medicine, was certain that Daniel had ended up killing himself due to ying with fire. Naturally, the red carp was not rooting for Daniel¡¯s failure.. It was simply a matter of ignorance.

    A few minutes passed slowly, while Daniel lied on the cold rocky tform, sweating profusely and breathing heavily.

    It was only after ten full minutes that his breathing started to stabilize, and the temperature of his body started to lower to a normal level. He then opened his eyes slowly, and noticed the group that had crowded around him.

    Daniel slowly rose to a sitting position, and touched his body only to feel his now moist clothes tightly wrapped over his sweaty body.

    He was rapidly recovering his stamina, and after only a few seconds he was able to spring up on his feet, and approach the spot where he had created the unnamed pills. Once there, he lowered himself and reached for the ss container which contained the scales of the Ancient Red Carp.

    He quietly observed the remains of the boiled saliva of the green-skinned snake for a few moments, action which made his friends curious and the ancient red carp alerted. Then, he slowly reached into the ss container for therge scale.

    "STOP HIM!" The red carp suddenly shouted from underwater.. But it was toote.

    Daniel had already grabbed its scale, which he then observed quietly.

    "Dan.. put that down." Said Roley with worry. He knew that the carp¡¯s scales were extremely poisonous even if previously treated. If their poisonous power could be removed by simply boiling them, the red carp wouldn¡¯t have been so unwilling to part from them.

    Daniel heard Roley¡¯s words, but his intentions were different. He pinched the scale with two fingers, and with a rapid motion of his shand, he used it to sh towards his right arm, causing a cut to open on his skin.

    "NOOO!" Shouted Alesia before dashing towards Daniel with all her speed. Her motion was interrupted by Daniel¡¯s hand, which calmed her, as well as prevented her from approaching him any further.

    "Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m okay." Responded Daniel with a reassuring tone, as a faint smile appeared on his face. He then turned towards the now quiet red carp, and said "What do you feel?"

    The red carp was shocked beyond words. It took no less than a minute before it managed to gather his thoughts, and say "The poison is still present.. But it¡¯s not threatening your life anymore.. What did you do?"

    Daniel¡¯s eyes moved towards his group of friends, which were looking at him with high expectations, then turned back towards the red carp, and said "Poison immunity.. This is a partial poison immunity pill."

    ____________________________

    Primary Quest Completed.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started (Part 2): Taking Away One¡¯s Worth*

    -Description: Destroy the reputation of the Navi family.

    First objective set: Make the news that a cure to the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn poison has been found known.

    Reward: Unnamed cure for the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn / (Optional) Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +75%

    ____________________________

    "So that¡¯s what ¡¯chain¡¯ meant.." muttered Daniel to himself before turning around, and noticing shocked expressions of hispanions. Heimart¡¯s eyes were wide opened and his jaw was locked so tightly, that one could hear the snapping sounds from meters away. Roley¡¯s mouth was slightly opened due to shock, and he didn¡¯t seem to be able to close it back up. Alesia and Der were no exception, and looked at each other for a moment before turning back to look at Daniel in search of some sort of confirmation. Even Jerigh, which was usually stoic, now had his fists tightened, and was breathing in slowly.

    But the most shocked person of all was, without a doubt, Serf. He looked at Daniel with an expression that was abination of all the previous, which paired with his chubbiness, made him look quite hrious to watch.

    "You r-really did it.." He muttered with a faint stutter. "Y-you¡¯ve really made a cure for my family¡¯s poison.."

    "Well, this isn¡¯t just a cure for the poison.. It¡¯s more of a new alchemical product that grants a partial poison immunity. Whoever ingests this will likely be immune to every toxin less powerful than the poison of our new friend¡¯s scales." Said Daniel with evident pride while pointing his finger towards the red carp. He had managed to make something incredible, and now, he was enjoying taking the credit for it. There was no need to say that the shock in the faces of his friends brought him great satisfaction.

    Of all the people around, only Serf was able toprehend the magnitude of Daniel¡¯s discovery.

    Heimart, which had finally managed toe out of his shock, asked "What do we do now?"

    "First of all.." He said Daniel before pulling the other two scales out of their containers, and after making themnd on his palm, he then moved towards the edge of the tform, and said "I think these belong to you." before cing the three scales in the water, and adding while looking at Roley "Hand me the sphere."

    Roley shook the surprise out of his head, and approached Daniel in a matter of seconds. He once again made the high level water sphere appear in his palm, and passed it to Daniel, which turned to look at the red carp and said "Can you take us back on the surface?"

    As Daniel finished speaking, the level of the water started to slowly increase, until it reached the height of the group¡¯s knees. Then, a gentle motion of the water forced the numerous members of Daniel¡¯s group to slide off of the rocky tform, and dive back into therger body of water.

    Once into the water, they were quickly pulled by the red carp¡¯s control over water essence, and through the tunnels from which they hade from.

    After a couple of minutes, the seven of them found themselves floating on the surface of therge pond.

    Over one of therge trees, the hawk-like beast was still waiting, and after it saw them emerge from underwater, it said "It¡¯s seven humans now! Did you have some stashed away?" *KWAH KWAH KWAH*

    Just like before, the powerful and shrill sound of the beast¡¯sugh sent shivers down the spine of everyone who heard it, with the exception of Daniel, Der, and the red carp.

    "Will you kill us if we get out of the water?" Asked Daniel casually, as if he was simply asking how the weather outside of the immense desert storm was.

    "Most definitely." Responded the hawk-like beast, now slightly more serious. It had met many humans in the past, but of those who possessed a power lower than his own, Daniel was clearly special.

    Daniel shook his head in feigned disappointment, then said "It is better for you to.. I understand. Otherwise I will definitely steal the sphere that is creating these powerful winds, and you wouldn¡¯t want that, do you?"

    After a moment of silence, the hawk-like beast said with a dead serious tone "Now I am definitely going to kill you.."

    "So there really is one.. Good." Said Daniel, as a smile appeared on his face.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, the hawk-like beast realized his mistake, and shouted in anger "HUMAN! I¡¯ve killed people bigger, stronger, and smarter than you.. Come out of the water and we will see if it was worth it for you to anger me."

    "I¡¯d rather not." Said Daniel before diving into the pond, and swimming all the way down to the bottom, which was at a profundity of about a hundred meters. He then found a space in between two rocks, and ced the high level water sphere in between them, locking it. Finally, with a wave of his hand, he let the immortal essence which he was using to block the sphere¡¯s power to dissipate.

    The power of the water sphere exploded outwards, causing the sheer power that it emanated to transform into additional water which added to the pod¡¯s water.

    The level of the water started to slowly rise, centimeter by centimeter. This process kept going for ten full minutes, in which the water of the pond rose to a point where it spilled into the close by moats which hundreds of years ago were part of the seabed, and merged with the pond into creating a medium sizedke.

 Chapter 197 To Even the Odds

    The moment the surface level of theke stopped rising, Daniel found himself at double of the depth he was previously in. He was about to swim back to the surface, when a sudden motion of the water forcibly dragged him left and right. Unfortunately, his view was nowpletely obscured, as light could not reach thekebed anymore.

    He quickly swam upwards, and the closer he got to the surface, the more he could feel the motion of the waters, and the clear signs of it being controlled by a living being. It was only after Daniel reached the surface once again, and was only a few meters from emerging from the water, that he finally managed to see what was actually going on.

    The waters were divided into multiple waterspouts which soared free through the sky like blue dragons. These columnar vortices moved with what looked like patterns, and seemed to be chasing something in the air.

    As Daniel¡¯s head emerged from the surface of the water, and he found himself back with his group of friends, he finally found out what was actually happening.

    There were seven waterspouts of at least fifteen meters of diameter, and whose highest point did not go straight up and to merge with a cloud like these sort of meteorological events usually would. Instead, they quickly dashed through the sky in pursuit of a multicolored sh, which in turn adopted many different strategies to try and escape the encirclement.

    These seven aquatic vortices were all originated from a rtively small area, and submerged under the surface of the water right in the middle of it, was the red carp, and of course, the multicolored sh that desperately tried to avoid the various columns of water, was the hawk-like beast, which had likely found itself in a bad position due to Daniel¡¯s sudden actions.

    The reason why the red carp did not fight back against the hawk-like beast in the past was not because it was less powerful, but for a much simpler reason. The powerful winds swiped the clouds that formed above the desert in a matter of seconds, preventing them from condensive, and ultimately, raining. At the same time, they chipped away at the water that was already part of the pond¡¯s body of water, decreasing it in size bit by bit.

    Whenever the red carp had tried to attack the hawk-like beast, thetter would always y defensive, and whenever it could not counter the former¡¯s attack, it would at least make him waste a bit of the precious water that was left in the pond. This had happened multiple times for hundreds of years.

    Now the tides had changed. The addition of a water sphere allowed the red carp to use its full powers, as it did not need to worry about wasting water, and at the same time, decreasing the size of his very own habitat.

    The hawk-like beast had tried to run away from the area the very moment he noticed that something was wrong when he noticed that the surface of the water was slowly rising, but unfortunately, for how fast it was capable of flying in the sky, the red carp was in no way slower when in the water.

    Daniel observed as the seven constructed vortices were carefully controlled so that they could prevent the hawk-like beast from simply gaining altitude, and escaping to safety. That was the job of at least three of them, while the remaining four, attacked it from four different directions at all times.

    Ideally, Daniel would have helped the red carp in killing the hawk-like beast, but their feud was one that went on for centuries, and all things considered, it was not his ce to meddle in it.

    The chase went on for a few more minutes, until finally, the hawk-like beast decided to stop running and to finally fight back. Its wings opened wide, showing the spectacr colors, and impressing wingspan of at least sixty meters.

    Unable to keep caring about each of the iing attacks, the hawk-like beast took the following hit head on against his back, but then, it used the momentum produced by his body to wave his enormous wings, and create dozens of squalls that dashed towards the ce where the red carp was currently in.

    These squalls of wind prated into the water like a hot knife through butter, and their motion was not interrupted by the water in the very least. Unfortunately, the red carp was literally a fish in the water, and its agility allowed it to avoid the hawk-like beast with as much ease as thetter avoid its own.

    In a matter of moments, the fight turned into a battle of endurance.

    Both of the sides had an advantage. The red carp¡¯s advantage was that the hawk-like beast had nowhere to rest, and therefore, it was forced into a constant state of physical stress, as it needed to keep itself up in the air, while also avoiding and attacking without stopping. On the other hand, the advantage of the hawk-like beast, was that the movements of the red carp were limited to the surface of the water, and therefore it was easier to attack from the distance.

    The battle raged for the following two hours, where aquatic dragons were sliced up by powerful des of wind, columns of water rose from the surface of the water, and chased the shes of colored lights, and the agitated elements threatened to merge into a storm of immense proportions.

    The hawk-like beast was now in a disadvantage, and due to his gradually increasing tiredness, he ended up moving to a lower altitude whenever it tried to avoid the relentless attacks of the red carp. Now at only twenty meters from the surface of the water, the ancient flying beast needed to use a lot more energy, as the attacks that tormented it became faster the closer he got to the water.

    Suddenly, just when the hawk-like beast found itself gliding just a few meters above the surface of the water, five columns of water exploded from under its body, and quickly started to fall apart, but as they did, instead of dripping back onto theke, the water turned into arge and thick dome, which trapped the flying beast.

    The beast was alerted, but not panicked. It wrapped its wings tightly against its body, and with a rotating motion, it perforated through the encirclement of water, and pushed through it.. But the moment it shook off the water on its feathery body, a thick aquatic dragon hit it squarely against its chest, causing it to lose consciousness, and to dive straight towards the water.

    The ancient red carp gave up control over the columns of water, and hastily moved underneath the falling hawk-like beast. Then, it looked upwards, and emerged from the water with its entire head. Its huge mouth was now opened, and showed the insides of its pink mouth, inside which the hawk-like beast could easily fit.

    Just moments from falling straight into the giant fish¡¯s mouth, the hawk-like beast started to move once again, revealing that he was only pretending to be unconscious, and with a p of its wings, he made use of the distracted state of the red carp, and directly dashed out towards the distance, while increasing his speed thanks to his control over the wind essence in the surroundings.

    In the blink of an eye, the flying beast had disappeared, leaving a trail of blood that painted the waters of a dark red color for miles.

    "COME BACK HERE, COWARD!!!" Shouted the red carp with the highest tone he could muster. Daniel could hear the umted frustration that had been caused from being stuck in the same small patch of water for hundreds and hundreds of years, be released by the thunderous voice of the ancient beast.

    "It¡¯s alright, you will have another chance in the future.." Said Daniel with reassurance to the angered red carp.

    The ancient red carp became quiet for a few moments, then, it turned towards Daniel and asked "How are you so sure about that?"

    "After a thousand years spent bullying you, he won¡¯t ept this oue.." Responded Daniel casually, as if he knew what he had a clear experience to prove his im, and in fact, he was, and he did.

    Daniel¡¯s confident tone quickly calmed the ancient beast down.

    "What are you going to do now?" Asked the red carp with curiosity. It had met a new kind of beings with whom it had never interacted before, and now that it had discovered that they were quite likeable people, parting from them and likely spend the next thousand years in solitude was something that the red carp was not looking forward to.

    Daniel¡¯s face twisted in confusion, and while looking back at the red carp, he said "What do you mean? Aren¡¯t we waiting for the flying beasts to counterattack? I¡¯m certainly not leaving. And even if I wanted, I am not going to force one of my people to walk into the flying beasts territories without protection.. We will leave a connection to our pocket dimension here." He then paused for a moment, before adding "We will be neighbours for awhile."

    -----

    At the same time, in the capital, and in numerous other private territories and cities all around the world, a simr scene was ying out in the territory of many powerful groups whose children had been sent to ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯ academy.

    An indignated young man or young woman whose chest had a golden or tinum badge ced on, wouldin towards the mistreatment that they had to endure earlier during that day. About the blond and silent ¡¯beast¡¯ which had made a mockery of them, of how he had disregarded the rules of the academy, and how the school had done nothing to protect them from the humiliation.

    Of course, many would omit the parts which would make them the viins of the story, while the parts which suggested their innocence, were magnified to an unbelievable degree.

    Naturally, their parents, guardians or family heads were not stupid, and without an exception, they could all guess what had really happened. After all, those were their children, an no one knew them better than their parents.

    While some of them cared about the truth of the matter, some scolded their children for lying to them, and some didn¡¯t even care, they would alle to the same conclusion. They would face the other party, and demand reparation for the damages caused. This method of solving the problem would make their spoiled children happy, while at the same time, these greedy cultivators, family heads, and group leaders would be able to obtain arge sum from Daniel¡¯spany.

    -----

    Back to theke in the middle of the desert.

    After the fight between the two ancient beasts had ended, Daniel and the rest of his group had gone back into the underwater cave, and there, they had installed numerous sphere which were required for humans to survive. Roley had also created a small house with water and wooden essence, in which one person could be able to live, while the rest went back into the pocket dimension.

    A guardian of the ring was necessary, as if anyone were to find the ce, they would have full ess of the pocket dimension simply by possessing its connection to the outside world.

    Inside the pocket dimension, Daniel, Serf and Alesia were walking in the streets of the city, while Jerigh followed in silence.

    "Hahaha.. Really??" Asked Daniel afterughing heartily. He then turned to look at Jerigh in confirmation, and said "Why didn¡¯t you tell her your name?" For the first time since Daniel had met him, Jerigh rolled up his eyes in annoyance, and turned to look away, clearly bothered by Daniel¡¯s questions. Unfortunately, that quiet response did not generate the result that this silent warrior was hoping for, and instead, caused Daniel to burst outughing once again "Hahaha! I have to meet this girl.. I have to give her my blessings.."

 Chapter 198 Let the Dance Begin

    A full day had passed since the fight between the two ancient beasts, and out of that battle, Daniel had understood one thing. He needed to increase his individual power. During the past few years he had challenged, taunted, threatened and fought people with a stronger power than his, but that had to stop. The more his group grew, the more people started to depend on his person to survive, the more he needed to be as strong of a pir as he could. That was why, he needed to cultivate.

    Unfortunately, he had a certain difficulty in that field, namely, his karma. It had been a long time since he had managed to cultivate freely, as the karma needed for him to cultivate was consumed at a rate as fast is his own cultivation. In order to fix that problem, he had only two options. The first one, was to use the citizens of the immense capital as a farm for umting karma points, but now that his consumption had reached that high of a level, that would require a very long time. The second option, was to obtain karma points inrge amounts.

    This thoughts weren¡¯t strangers in Daniel¡¯s mind, as he would often try to think of ways to obtain enormous amounts of positive karma, and ever since hispany had been attacked by the collective, he had finally found a way to.. The various parts of his n had been put to motion during the past few days, and now it was time to start.

    Daniel was currently standing in front of an alchemy shop in the northern part of the capital. Next to him, was a person who Daniel had purposely taken out of the pocket dimension. This person, was Zack.

    Ever since Daniel had taken Zack with him to the capital, he had had problems socializing with his peers. He had been sent to join the groups and schools within the city in the pocket dimension, so that he could learn different skills and go back to have a happier life, but despite his spirit being whole once again, and the fact that nobody knew him for the false reputation that had been attributed to him, he still presented a particr problem which lead him to emarginate himself from the others. This problem, was the fact that he was unable to trust anyone.

    The only people that Zack trusted blindly, were Daniel, and Daniel¡¯s closest friends.

    After noticing that Zack was bing an emarginate in this new ce, Daniel decided to make him be more active in the group¡¯s activities, as he couldn¡¯t bear to only halfway fix a person. This was also a matter which Daniel found himself thinking about daily. His path brought him to saving people, but if he had to radically change the destiny of a person, he couldn¡¯t help but feel somewhat responsible for what would happen to them.

    He had always found it a strange concept.. Helping someone get back up on their feet, and after they started to take the first steps after recovering from the fall, a benefactor would hardly bear to watch them stumble again, and would feel obligated to help set them straight. Of course, Daniel was perfectly aware that he did not have any obligation towards these people, but he also happened to know that they were all fundamentally good people, and he did not mind giving a helping hand to good people.

    Daniel and Zack were currently standing in front of the alchemy shop which belonged to the young looking broker, and was currently closed, as Daniel had warned that he woulde and visit that day.

    "Master Hiel!" Said the broker the moment he saw Daniel walk towards the entrance of his humble shop. This was the first time since the broker had seen Daniel after the games of the collective, and now that hispany had won against all expectations, his impression of Daniel had changed greatly. While previously he hated the idea of working for a cunning youth, now, the idea of secretly working for a prodigy with a promising future did not seem that bad to him. "Come on inside, I have everything you¡¯ve asked for." He then said with a wide smile on his childish face.

    Daniel and Zack followed the broker into the alchemy shop, who after they entered, looked around a couple of times before closing the door behind them, and putting the sign ¡¯closed¡¯ on the door. He then turned to look at Daniel, and after taking a few steps towards him, he opened his hand and made a small scroll appear on it, which he then handed over to Daniel.

    "These are all of the attacks that have beenmissioned to you after you¡¯ve entered my employment?" Asked Daniel while rapidly scrolling through the various names, dates, and requests written on it. There were at least two dozens, and all of them were assassinations of rtively important character, or at the very least, terrorist attacks towards apetition which the sender wanted to free themselves of. "Where is the other thing that I¡¯ve asked you to do?" He then asked inly.

    A sheepish smile appeared on the childish looking broker, who made a second object appear in his hands. This object, was a bundled stack of letters. Each letter was anonymous, and on the envelope, only the name of the receiver was written. The content of these letters, was the exact same details which were written on the scroll that the broker had handed over to Daniel, but each letter contained only a part of it.. Specifically, a warning that someone hadmissioned a hit towards them, and that if they wished to know more, they would have to meet Daniel.

    The reason for these meetings was simple. For as vicious an assassination job was, some, even though rare, were directed towards actual evil people and had beenmissioned by good people. That¡¯s why Daniel wanted to meet with these ¡¯victims¡¯. He wanted to make sure that the side he would be helping, was the right side.

    After Daniel confirmed that the letters were ready to be sent, he turned to look at the young-looking broker, and simply said "Send them." To which the broker responded with a smile, and a faint nod.

    -----

    While Daniel prepared to take a step forward in his ns to increase his individual power, the various groups that had decided to take a piece of hispany, started to put their ns into motion as well. Naturally, they wouldn¡¯t simply show up to Daniel¡¯s doorstep and require to bepensated for the damages that Jerigh had caused. They would firstly need to agitate the waters.

    For the following ten days, right outside of various of shops of Daniel¡¯spany, many people had started to protest about the bad conduct of the Golden Karmapany. Numerous usation were moved towards them, and while some of them were true but exaggerated to an unbelievable degree, the majority were straight fantasy. These protesters were paid by the groups that wished to profit off of Daniel, and would shout what they were paid to say.

    At the same time, the various shops which operated in the various sectors where Daniel¡¯s operated, were collectively lowering their prices right below the rates of his business, causing him to lose a significant number of customers, and an even higher amount of money.

    Normally these colossalpanies would not bother with targeting a rtively smallpany like Daniel¡¯s, but unfortunately, now Daniel had earned the reputation of being in possession of an extremely valuable item, which each and every one of thesepanies had their eyes on. And even if they knew about the fact that Daniel had already exchanged the perfect fire treasure, they would try to extort as much of the valuables he had obtained from the exchange as possible.

    -----

    It was morning, and Daniel was sitting quietly at a table. In his hands was a thick book, which he was reading to pass time. His eyes often moved towards the door of the room he was in, and it was clear that he was waiting for somebody to appear. It was only after five minutes, that the door opened slowly, and from behind it, two old men, and one old woman walked in quietly.

    Each of these old people wore rough robes, and their bodies were extremely muscr. Daniel could feel the smell of smoke on their bodies, just like the odor of metal. The clothes of these three individuals were simr, and only one of the tree seemed slightly moreplex than the other two. Something that all of these three people had inmon, was the picture of a yellow anvil that was sewn on their backs.

    These three individuals, were the head cksmith, and the second and third elders of apany called Scorching Anvil. The faces of these three old individuals were alerted, and behind their alertness, Daniel could see grief in the faces of the two elders, and while grief could also be seen on the face of the head cksmith, it was apanied by worry.

    Daniel did not know much about these individuals, but he did know why they showed these sorts of expressions.. After all, it hadn¡¯t been long since someone had decided tomission an attack on one of their shops in the middle of the day, and had put the me solely on the head cksmith. Of course, the aftermath of the attack also yed a huge role on the worry showed by the three individuals.

    "Master Hiel, It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you. I am the head cksmith of the Scorching Anvilpany." Said the bold and slightly better dressed of the three individuals while approaching the table where Daniel was sitting. The other two elders followed him quietly.

    "Master Jior, The pleasure is mine. Please, sit." Responded Daniel politely while pointing at the free chairs, and walking back towards his seat. After he sat back on his chair, he turned to look at the three old people who were busy with pulling the chairs and sitting, and said "Have you read the letter?"

    After hearing the words that came out of Daniel¡¯s mouth, the expression of the three old individual turned stern, and the leader of their party said "We did.." He then turned to look at his twopanions, and after receiving a pair of gentle nods, he said "What can you tell us about the attack?"

    "It wasmissioned, conducted by an assassin." Responded Daniel inly.

    The old woman turned to look at Daniel, and said with clear irritation "We already knew that! We want to know who, and where to find the guilty party.." There was a clear reason why this old woman was much more irritated than the rest of the three, and this reason was only known to a few members of their group. She was the second elder of the Scorching Anvilpany, and the fourth elder, the man that had created a new alloy and had died in the bombings, was her husband.

    "No information is free.. I am sorry about what happened to you, and I am trying to help, but as you might have noticed in the past few days all around the city, mypany could use some friends." Responded Daniel with an apologetic tone.

    "Your problems aren¡¯t that serious, Master Hiel.. Just publicly hand over the perfect fire treasure, and thepanies that targeted you will quickly lose interest in pestering your employees and obstructing your operations.

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "How do you think I havee to find out about the details of the homicide of your elder, and the destruction of one of your shops along with the death of ny-eight people?" His, was a rhetoric question. Not because he did not care for their response, but because presenting this question would make someone in the position of these three old people toe to an understanding.

    "The attack of yourpany.." muttered the head cksmith in a low tone. He then turned to look at hispanions, and after noticing that they had likelye to the same realization, he turned to look back at Daniel, and said "The culprit?"

    "Died painfully." Responded Daniel with a faint smile.

    "Good.." Said the third elder after breathing out heavily. It was clear that the attack had left this group greatly damaged.

    After Daniel noticed that the three of them did not seem satisfied with simply knowing that the culprit had died, his smile widened, and he said "Let¡¯s talk.."

 Chapter 199 Karmic Exactor

    "Let¡¯s talk.." Said Daniel while showing a big smile, which hid the ufortable sentiments that he was feeling. He never meant to extort other people¡¯s help for his own gain, but he surely needed it.

    The three old cultivators quietly sat on their chairs, and after taking a deep breath to calm themselves down, the head cksmith said "We are nowhere powerful enough to do anything against the powers that have been suppressing yourpany."

    "That is not the type of friend I need at the moment. The pressure of thosepanies is hurting, but it¡¯s nothing we can¡¯t handle by ourselves." Responded Daniel while waving his hand in a dismissive way.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, the head cksmith hummed briefly in understanding, before saying "What did you mean then?" his left leathery hand was slowly brushing the back of the other. The skin of both of his hands were covered in scars which could easily be attributed to the decades spent handling rovent materials. He brushed them together almost as if trying to warm them up through slow friction, while in truth, he was struggling not to lose his temper, and demand the answers he wanted.

    While conversing with these three old people, Daniel had found out a few details through sheer observation skill. Through his view power of seeing people¡¯s karma, he had found out that two of these three individuals possessed extraordinary neutral karma, which was what someone would have expected from a businessman or woman which solely focused on a practical field like smithing.. But what caught his eyes, was the red karma over the head of the third elder.

    "ording to my source, the bombing was done by a professional with a certain reputation in the underground world. During the five different explosions that destroyed just as many shops which belonged to yourpany. Various mmables had been left to stage a human error, for which you took the me." Exined Daniel with a single breath. He was aware that it was a lot to take in, but he didn¡¯t want to give them time to overthink things, and lose track of the point.

    After a few moments, the third elder looked at Daniel and asked with a hint of anger "How do we know that any of that is true?"

    "The government conducted their investigations, and after they did, you must have done the same. Five different deliveries to five shops in the day before the bombings. The items which caused the explosion were items that would not usually be in a smith shop, and certainly not close to the everyday smithing materials in use.. In the end, the government thought that you had purchased the wrong materials, and did not store them properly.. Causing a chain of explosions that not only killed one of your elders, but also close to a hundred of innocent people." Daniel¡¯s exnation was clear, and every detail was backed by the very reports given by the government, which due to the outrage caused by the event, had been made public.

    The three old people were starting to be visibly irritated, and Daniel knew why. He had given a reasonable exnation which the three of them had tried to find for the past months. The problem was, that the only person who was supposed to know those things, would have been the killer, the broker which had hired the killer, or the one who hadmissioned the bombings.

    The head cksmith and the old woman could see that Daniel had more to say, so, they waited to hear the remaining information which he could offer. On the other hand, the third elder was getting restless, and after a few seconds, he burst out in rage saying "You better exin how you know these things! And who your sources are!"

    Daniel did not even flinch, and instead, turned to look at the third elder and said "I wasn¡¯t done." These three old people were more powerful than he was, but he could feel that the remaining two were at the very least reasonable people, and would want to hear him out instead of throwing usations, or start implying something.

    The third elder turned to look at his twopanions, and only after seeing their stern faces did he sit back on his chair, and quietened down.

    "Are you familiar with thepany called Sharp Edge?" Asked Daniel while taking notice of the reactions on the faces of the three old people. At the mention of the name of the Sharp Edgepany, the head cksmith and second elder looked at each other in confusion, then turned to look back at Daniel. The third elder had had the exact same reaction, but the only difference, was the slight narrowing of his eyes at the mention of thepany name.

    "It¡¯s one of our most powerfulpetitors.. We are both part of the same conglomerate of cksmiths.. They are our allies." Responded the second elder with a bit of suspicion. She then added "Are you saying that they havemissioned the bombings to ourpany?"

    Daniel said nothing, and simply answered by nodding.

    The third elder, which had been oddly quiet for the past minute, suddenly said in outrage "Why would they do that?! Why don¡¯t you start making sense and stop wasting our time!"

    Daniel shook his head slowly, then said "It¡¯s because of yourtepanion¡¯sst discovery. The new alloy."

    The eyes of the three old people opened wide in shock, then, the second elder said "How could you possibly know that? Only the three of us were supposed to know about that.." It was clear to Daniel that this revtion hade as a shock for the three of them.

    "How I came to know about yourpany¡¯s discovery is irrelevant.. What you should be worried about, is who of the few people who knew about it talked.. Who would have had the chance to have him killed?.. Who was damaged the least by what happened?.." Daniel¡¯s words, right after what the second elder had just said, sounded extremely usatory, and in fact, they were. Ever since he had notice the negative karma of the fourth elder, and the odd behaviour that he showed in the past few minutes, Daniel had started to consider that the hit was maybe not only an attack from a different party, but in fact, an inside job.

    Suddenly, an idea shed in his mind.

    Before Daniel could act on his thoughts, the voice of Sewah was heard saying "I like where your mind is going.. Finally a bit of fun.. Hehe." Then, just as thest word pronounced by Sewah faded into silence, a window appeared within Daniel¡¯s mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Karmic Exactor (Repeatable)*

    -Description: Enforce the payments of a karmic debt.

    Objective set: Support the Scorching Anvilpany in exacting their revenge.

    Optional: Kill the Fourth elder of the Sharp Edgepany.

    Optional: Kill the Second elder of the Sharp Edgepany.

    Optional: Kill the Third elder of the Scorching Anvilpany.

    Optional: Kill the broker.

    Reward: 1,000,000 (200,000/200,000/500,000/100,000) / Scorching Anvil Reputation 100%

    ____________________________

    "Kill the broker.." muttered Daniel to himself after reading the requirements of the new quest. The quest he had purposely created had tasked him to aid the Scorching Avilpany in exacting their revenge, which in this case, consisted in killing everyone who had yed a part in the bombing that had caused close to a hundred deaths. That also meant killing the broker, and if he hadn¡¯t killed the bomber himself, his name would have likely been part of the list.

    On the other side of the table, where the three old people were sitting, silence reigned supreme. Ever since thest word had left Daniel¡¯s mouth, the three old cultivators had gone silent. The fists of the second elder were tightened so hard that all of the blood flushed out of her palms, the head cksmith was looking forward in shock.. His face fas firmly shaped into an unbelieving expression, and finally, the third elder was looking downwards.. Feeling the hostility of the second elder towards him grow exponentially.

    "Master Hiel.. thank you for sharing the information with us.." muttered the head cksmith while getting up from his chair, and saying to his twopanions "We are leaving.. Now."

    The second elder, which had finally learned who had caused the death of her husband could not take it anymore, and said with unwillingness "Hiro! He-"

    "I SAID NOW!!" Shouted the head cksmith to the top of his lungs, causing the ss on the table, as well as the windows of the adjacent floors to shatter. His tone was imposing, and one could feel deep anger in his it. "We will talk about it after we go back!" He then added while looking gravely at the second elder.

    The third elder, which was now perfectly aware of the fact that he had been discovered, turned to look at Daniel with a hateful expression. The next moment, he dashed towards one of the walls with enough power to destroy it, and cause a hole to open.. But right before he could flee, Daniel had teleported right next to him, and had pierced the skin of his old neck with what looked like small needle.

    The old man reacted almost immediately, and with a twist of his waist, he backhand punched Daniel¡¯s ribs, causing him to fly all the way towards the building they had just left, and crash against it hard enough to replicate his previous feat of opening a hole on it.

    "It¡¯s all your fault.." The old man barked viciously before turning to look at the building he had just jumped out of, to see if his two formerpanions were chasing him. The head cksmith and the second elder were standing on the edge of the hole he had created, and were ready to start a fight with him, when suddenly..

    "A good punch.. For someone your age.. But you are already dead." said Daniel while walking out of the man-sized hole he had created on the thick wall of the building. A small droplet of blood was streaming down the corner of his mouth, which he brushed off with his dusty hand before removing the debris from his clothes with a few strokes of his palms.

    The old man was furious. He had never expected that his life would be ruined in a matter of minutes by someone of the younger generation.. He knew he could not escape his two expanions, so, he turned towards Daniel and said "I might not be able to escape today.. But I am taking you wi-" Unfortunately, he lost the ability to talk before he could convey the full message.

    The muscles of his body had started to be rigid, and the only things he could do were to breathe and look around in increasing panic. It didn¡¯t take long for him to remember what had happened a few seconds earlier, when Daniel had pierced his neck with something sharp.

    "Poooo.. iss.. ssoon.." He said with as much strength as he could muster, while his eyes opened wide due to the deep horror caused by the sudden realization.

    A momentter, the two elders of the Scorching Anvilpanynded next to their expanion. "What did you do to him?" Asked the head cksmith to Daniel.

    Daniel pulled a small thorn out of a secret pocket hidden in his sleeve, and after showing it to him, said "Puffer fish poison.."

    The second elder, which could not even move her eyes from the immobilized body of their formerpanion, said "Do you already know who he worked with to kill my husband?" Her voice was as cold as a snowy night.

    "I do." Responded Daniel inly.

    The second elder looked at the head cksmith with a dead serious expression, to which he responded by turning to look away. The meaning was clear.. ¡¯I don¡¯t care anymore.¡¯

    Arge hammer appeared on the hand of the second elder, which she then lifted high above her own head, and brought down against the third elder¡¯s head.

    *Cra-Squelch* *Thuthump*

    Thest thing that the third elder saw alive, was the piece of metal that approached his face, before his entire head exploded like a melon dropped from a height of a hundred meters. Arge bloody crater had formed on the spot where the his head was a few moments earlier.

 Chapter 200 Lets Give Them Hell

    *Cra-Squelch* *Thuthump*

    Covered in blood, Daniel removed a piece of brain that hadnded squarely on his forehead, while also trying to keep his gag reflex under control. It was in these moments that Daniel found it the hardest to maintain his cold andposed attitude.. When pieces of brain matter hanged from his eyebrows, and split the view of his left eye into two.

    "Who.." Said the second elder with an intimidating tone whilst cleaning her weapon for the residue of her expanion¡¯s brains.

    "What?" Asked Daniel with a hint of irritation. His early lunch had suddenly turned out to be an extremely bad idea.

    The old woman turned to look at Daniel, and while stepping towards him threateningly, and gripping her weapon as if she was one moment from starting to swing it left and right, she said "Whomissioned the attack.. And who epted themission.." Her tone was cold, and it was clear that she had no good feelings for Daniel at the moment.

    The angry tone of the old woman riled Daniel up. Instead of backing away and answering to the olddy, he stepped towards her with just as much fighting intent. He was not going to back away from a fight just because his enemy was slightly stronger, and if things went wrong, he was sure to at least escape.

    Just as things were starting to get heated, the head cksmith walked in between the two of them, and said with a calm tone "Hold on.." He then turned to look at hispanion, that after seeing his ufortable expression, put her weapon away and turned around in anger.

    "I am sorry for her behaviour.. Try to understand, she and her husband were married for over three hundred years.." He said apologetically, before continuing "Regardless of what you¡¯ll decide to share with us, the Scorching Anvil will be from now on an ally to yourpany."

    Daniel could sort of understand where the olddy wasing from. She was at the sixth stage of immortal cultivation, and her lifespan could reach as long as three hundred and fifty years of age. That meant that she had been married with herte husband for what was three lifetimes for amon human.. Honestly speaking, there were at least a dozen people amongst Daniel¡¯s friends whose death would cause him to lose his mindpletely, and yet, he could never imagine what losing that type of partner would make to a person.

    With his newfound respect towards the previous self control over her emotions that the olddy showed, Daniel turned to look at the head cksmith, and responded by saying "As I¡¯ve said.. The bomber is dead, the traitor who was within your group joined him.." At this point, Daniel paused for a moment, before adding "I am willing to tell you who the culprits are.. But I will not tell you who the broker who hired the assassin is."

    "Can I ask you why not him?" Said the head cksmith with curiosity. To him, Daniel didn¡¯t seem the type that would have respect towards that sort of individual or profession.

    "Because he works for me now, and I need him. I hope that that will be enough for you.. If not, you¡¯ll just have to start a war betweenpanies." Responded Daniel inly. He had no intention of selling the broker, as he was a well known professional in his field, and therefore, it was an incredibly efficient source of information.

    "That is.. Reasonable. Please, tell us more.." Said the head cksmith with a calm tone.

    Once the situation had defused, Daniel started to calmly exin which ones were the senders of the attack to the Scorching Anvilpany.

    -----

    "That was tiring.." Said Daniel after entering arge living room within hispany¡¯s building. This living room had numerous chairs and sofas, and sitting on them, as well as standing while conversing with each other, were a good amount of Daniel¡¯s group members.

    Amongst them, were Der, Heimart, Ligart, Imblen, Gai¡¯ha, Lucious, Alesia, Roley, and many others.

    "Dan, what did you ask us here for?" Asked Ligart, whom due to being in charge with the marketce, he had been extremely busytely with handling the majority of the deals between the golden karmapany, and the mid-low level trades between theirpany and customers.

    "Wait a second.." said Daniel while walking towards one of the tables on which various sses and jugs of water had been ced. He then poured himself a big ss of water, and downed it all in one gulp. Afterwards, he took a deep and refreshing breath, and turned towards his group members.

    "Alesia, please find Serf, and tell him to request for more ck pills from his family. We don¡¯t actually need them.. I only need his family to think that he has ran out of them, and that I will die soon." Said Daniel after looking at Alesia, who after hearing his words, nodded slowly in response.

    Daniel then turned towards Imblen, and said "Imblen, I have a task for you. I n to create an academy forprehension of essence. I will give you a list of the groups that you¡¯ll have to invite. Talk only to the people I tell you to, and no one else. Start with inviting the Tigg family, of the Hellzerpany.. If they don¡¯t wish to visit, try and get my message to the old man.. ¡¯I have something you¡¯ll want to see¡¯.."

    "No problem." Imblen responded with confidence. It had been awhile since thest time she had been entrusted with a task, and she was eager to get to work.

    After hearing Imblen¡¯s response, Daniel turned to look at Ligart "Lig, I need you to prepare to open the auction house.. Not far from now, we will get quite busy. Have Alis help you with refurbishing the auction house. I want it to be the most refined one in this damn rock of a" he said with a stern tone.

    With ¡¯not long from now¡¯ Daniel naturally meant ¡¯from the moment we will reveal what we are in possession of¡¯. It was not a secret for Daniel¡¯s group members what Daniel was referring to.

    "Consider it done." Responded Ligart while raising his thumb in confirmation.

    Once he was finished giving his instructions to Ligart, Daniel turned towards the table, and with a wisp of his immortal essence, made a stack of sheets of paper and a pen appear. He then used the pen to write what looked like a long message, which he discarded and started over more than once in the following few minutes. Once over, he pursed his lips and blew over the fresh ink, which gradually dried.

    On this letter, a clear message was written in ck color, and refined calligraphy.

    ____________________________

    Dear Mr & Mrs Helvha.

    What follows are the exact details extrapted by the journal of the broker who hired the people that assassinated yourte daughter.

    The entry has been copied, and in case you would want to confirm it by seeing the original personally, I am willing to show it to you. I sincerely doubt that that will be necessary, as thanks to the information that it contains, you will definitely manage to find out the truth of the matter by yourself.

    -----

    Sender: 29 years old woman. 167 cm, about 55kg, young mistress of the Gath family.

    Target: Young mistress of the Helvha family

    Method: Kill guards, **** victim, Kill the victim, Stage a robbery.

    Pay: 20 High crystals

    Note: That bitch got really fired up when talking about the target.. She kept mentioning her beloved.. From what I understood from her rambling, she was dumped (and I honestly can understand why). Now she is taking her revenge on her ex-boyfriend¡¯s new sweetheart.

    -----

    The broker has been already taken care of, while the hired killers are a three brothers group which goes by the name of Killshot brothers. They can be found dwelling in the ¡¯Never Empty Jugs¡¯ tavern most nights.

    I sincerely hope that these information will help you find peace of mind.

    Kind regards, D. H.

    ____________________________

    "Gai¡¯ha, take this letter, and the moment I¡¯ll tell you to.. Deliver it to the family head of the Helvha¡¯s family. Don¡¯t give it to any guard or steward.. Do use my name to be allowed to see them. I doubt that they¡¯ll have forgotten about me.." He then said to Gai¡¯ha, whom was eagerly waiting for her assignment.

    "Heimart,municate to the collective that, from now on, we are not part of them anymore. If they make a fuss about it, tell them that the reason is due to theirck of support when the powers of the poisonous rose started to oppress us. If they want us to stay, they¡¯ll have to fight back with us." Daniel said to an unprepared Heimart.

    Heimart turned to look at Daniel with surprise, then said "Hold on.. They will never agree to it.. Any of the poisonous rose¡¯s big families could decimate the entire collective im a day.."

    "That¡¯s what I am hoping for." Responded Daniel before turning towards Jerigh, Roley, and Lucious. He then said "You three are the highest level cultivators in the group.. Weck that kind of power. It would be best if you could cultivate for the time being. Use as much perfect crystals as you need." Jerigh and Roley had no reason to refuse their instructions, and while Lucious was a researcher, he had lived all of his life in a tribalistic world where he was forced to fight constantly to protect his tribe, therefore, fighting experience was not something hecked.

    After seeing the nods of confirmation of the three of them, Daniel turned towards Der, and said "I know that our coboration is temporary, and that you don¡¯t trust me fully.. But I do have a n, and if you¡¯vee to understand how I am, you know that I intend on going through with it. So, if you wish to, we could use your help."

    It was true that Der did not trust Danielpletely yet. After all, he had shown to be an odd and unforeseeable person more than once before, but things had slowly changed with time. In the few months that the two had spent knowing each other, Der had understood that Daniel was an impulsive man that caused good effects, while not fearing taking risks, or exploiting the initiative. He hade to respect him as a leader, and now, his thoughts towards him were at a breaking point.

    Until now, Der was a father in need of a passage home, but after hearing Daniel¡¯s clear desire to have him join their group, he finally gave up of the shreds of doubt that he still possessed, and decided that if he was going to do something, he might as well go all in.

    The words were forming a clear sentence in his head, but before he could even pronounce it, a wave of power flushed into his body. Just like an injection of adrenaline, he felt the instantaneous increase in sheer power, control over his immortal essence, heightening of his senses, and if that wasn¡¯t enough, the increase in his capability of absorbing the natural mana.

    No one else in the room was surprised of what was happening, after all, they had felt the same way the moment they had decided tomit to Daniel¡¯s group, and they felt that feeling whenever they found themselves close to their leader.

    Once Daniel finished giving clear instructions to all of the group members he had summoned, he turned to look at them once again, and said with a serious tone "The days ahead are not going to be easy for us.. We will be attacked, we will be used, we will be admired.. But we are the Golden Karma, and that means that messing with us means a big fucking lot of bad luck.. Let¡¯s give them hell."

 Chapter 201 I Must Have a Good Karma

    It waste afternoon in Night Town, and the sun had started to settle.

    At the foot of the mountain, in the territory of the Navi family, Serf was standing in front of arge double door. His face was restless, and he appeared to be anxious. Next to him, was his sister na along with two heavily armored guards.

    "I like that look.." Said na, as a nasty grin appeared on her face. She was gently brushing her soft-looking hair while enjoying her brother¡¯s sufferings. "I can¡¯t wait to see how it will look, after she¡¯ll refuse.."

    For a moment, anger appeared on Serf¡¯s chubby face, but after he noticed the two guards that were standing behind him and na, he breathed out in an attempt to calm himself down, then turned to look back at therge door.

    Less than a minuteter, the double door opened, and from behind it, a middle aged woman appeared.

    This woman wasposed, and brought herself pridefully. From looking at her face, people could notice a striking resemnce to na, while her eyes, were identical to Serf¡¯s.

    "Your grandmother is ready to see you. Go in." She said with an indifferent tone. If somebody had to make a guess about this woman¡¯s rtionship with the two young siblings, they would be inclined to believe that she was their mother, but that would change instantly due to the indifference that she showed towards them.

    This, was slightly different for na, who she at least considered as one of the future sessors of the Navi family, while on the other hand, shecked any sort of consideration for her son Serf.

    Before this middle aged woman went back into the hall, Serf took two steps forward, approaching her. He then said with a tone filled with desperation "Mother.. Please, I need your help.." His voice was threatening to break at any given moment, and it was clear that he was desperate.

    Unfortunately, his mother couldn¡¯t care less about Serf¡¯s problems, and instead, walked back into the hall. From next to him came the voice of his sister na, who said while giggling "Haha.. did you really think that it would have worked? You know that our mother hates you.."

    After listening to the dissing words of his sister, Serf walked into the hall, and straight towards the olddy who was waiting for the two siblings in silence.

    "Talk." Said the old woman with a croaky voice.

    "Grandmother, I was not allowed to retrieve any poison calming pills from our supply.. I came to see if it was a mistake.." Said Serf respectfully and directly. It was normal to think that a grandmother would want to be greeted by their grandchildren whenever they came to see her, but the head of the Navi family was a practical person, and would often be angered by the slightest action that would cause her to waste time.

    "Why are you in need of them?" Asked the old woman with a serious tone.

    Serf took a step forward, and with a worried voice, he said "I need them to treat my friend. He was poisoned by our family¡¯s poison, and he will die soon.. I just want to give him some time. Please.." Serf was tempted to say that he was in need of the pills for an academic reason, but he was in the presence of his sister, and he had no doubt that if he dared to spew the smallest of lies, she would immediately denounce him. Therefore, he had decide to take the pitiful path, even at the cost of appearing weak of pathetic to his entire family.

    "The Hiel kid.. Of the Golden Karmapany.. A talented young man.." Muttered the olddy before turning towards her daughter, who was currently standing to the side, and added "The third rule of the Navi family."

    Serf¡¯s mother quickly nodded in the direction of her mother, and said "Anyone found experimenting with our family products will be killed with no exception."

    After hearing his mother¡¯s words, Serf looked back up at his grandmother and said with anxiousness "Grandmother! It was me who told him to gather the ingredients.. I was trying to make the pills for him by myself, but.. I¡¯ve failed.."

    "That is not a surprise.." said the olddy before waving her leathery hand with a faint motion, and saying "Denied.. Leave now."

    Serf¡¯s expression was one of devastation. He was about to keep talking, but he was stopped by his sister, who said "What did you expect.. Someone like you, who has never made any contribution towards his family." Serf¡¯s face fell, and with a dispirited attitude, he slowly walked out of the hall, covering his head in desperation as he stepped out.

    Hidden by his two bent arms, was a faint smile.

    -----

    Back within the pocket dimension.

    Daniel had spent the next few hours creating various structures, and cing them in different spots within the the pocket dimension. Specifically, in the areas near the various perfect essence spheres.

    He was now creating a massive building which containedrge lodgings for at least five hundred people, as well as numerous sets of high quality smithing materials. This building, had been ced in a massive underground cave, right next to argeke ofva, which was also the ce where the perfect fire sphere had been ced. Connected to thisrge underground cave, was a corridor which expanded into an enormous andplex metallic den, where Wolfie lived along with a second small metallic wolf pup which had been born born out of therge clumps of metals which Daniel had left around the perfect metallic sphere.

    A simrly big structure had been created in the area of the pocket dimension in which Daniel had moved the perfect wood sphere, and the earth sphere. This had been allowed by Leffe and Buriath due to the fact that their two races, naturally close to each other, had agreed on merging their two territories. This building was identical to the one created in the underground cave, with the only difference being that instead of smithing material, this building was filled with alchemical instruments.

    Water essence, wind essence and lightning essence were no exception, but unfortunately, the highest level ofprehension that Daniel could offer for those three essences, was slightly below the level of the previous four.

    Along with specialized rooms, Daniel had also replicated the weapon mastery testing room that was present within his castle, and had ced an exact copy in each of these structures. The reason for it, was that the cultivators of this attributed martial arts withbat, and masteries of natural essences as a support to their martial abilities.

    Daniel had just finished setting up the underground structure, when suddenly, a portal opened next to him. From it, Imblen, along with a muscr old man, a middle aged man, and a young man, walked out of it. Daniel immediately recognized these three people as the head of the Tigg family, and the father and son duo, Lith and Fyro.

    The moment the old man saw Daniel, he said "Kid! You better have something interesting to show me.. Or you¡¯ll have to... Hold on..." He suddenly interrupted his own train of thoughts, and after looking around for a few moments, he started to feel something strange.

    A master would be able to differentiate the levels ofprehension of an essence between two people purely thanks to theirposition. There were hundreds of details whichposed a perfectprehension, and thebinations were so many, that it was very unlikely to find two people with an identicalprehension of the same essence. Still, it is important to understand that the closer to perfection a person gets, the more hisprehension will start to feel simr to that on another person at the same level.

    The head of the Tigg family had felt a perfectprehension of fire essence from Daniel, which was identical to his, that¡¯s why he knew that Daniel had be a master of fire after their meeting. Now, he could feel the same level ofprehension, but it was not caused by Daniel.. It was more of a natural emanation.

    Being the expert that he was, he immediately realize what was happening. He turned to look at theke, and after a moment.. "HAHAHAHA! That¡¯s why you did not care to sell that perfect treasure! Two fire treasures.. What kind of luck is that!"

    The father and son couple looked at the underground cave and theva pool, and found themselvesfortable with the heat which was emanated from it, as it was something they were used to.

    "What can I say.. I must have a good karma.." Said Daniel with a faint smile. He then started to converse with the old man and his son about what he intended to do, while Fyro was brought to take a tour of the structure by Imblen.

    The two listened to Daniel¡¯s words carefully, and after he was done, the old man said "I can teach fire essence to my son and grandson personally, why would they need a school for that?"

    Daniel nodded in agreement, then smiled and said "Of course you could, but that would take a tremendous amount of your time, as well as having to limit your rtives experiences to your secondhand personal experiences.. Here, they will interact with other students, the elementals which will soon spawn, and be independent and highly specialized cultivators."

    "What if I want to teach them personally?" Asked the old man while narrowing his eyes, but the next moment, they opened wide as he looked at the suddenly changed surroundings with shock. They now were standing inside of a metallic den, and right in the middle, was a metallic perfect sphere which emanated the cold and sharpprehension of metal essence.

    The old man, just like his son, were both part of apany which traded in smithing, fire enchantments and fire treasures, therefore, more than anybody else they knew the importance that theprehension of metallic essence had to people like them.

    Slowly, the old man approached the perfect metallic sphere to observe it up close, but after he came to about two meters of distance, a blur of reflected lights and sparks dashed in front of him, blocking its path. With renewed surprise, the old man looked at the now big Wolfie, and muttered "So young.. How is he so powerful?.."

    Daniel ignored the old man¡¯s mutters, and said "In time, I hope to create arge number of highly specialized cultivators with good morale." While one could think that this was a bad move on Daniel¡¯s part, it was in fact quite the opposite. He was allowing powerful and rich cultivators to bring their money to the city within his pocket dimension, as people would inevitably have to live in the pocket dimension if they intended to spend years of studying in there.

    Allies for his group andpany, turning his isted world into a ce in which rich people could spend money, and an additionalyer of defence for hispany, as in the end, attacking his group could also be viewed as attacking the groups to whom the students belonged.

    The only negative effect would be that the number of experts in sphere making would increase, but that would only be a problem for fifty yearster, and hopefully, a problem that they would not need to worry about, as they didn¡¯t n on sticking around for that long.

    The old man was about to say something to Daniel, when suddenly, a familiar window appeared inside the head of thetter.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Karmic Exactor (Repeatable)*

    -Description: Enforce the payments of a karmic debt.

    Current objectivepleted.

    Reward: 1,000,000 Karma Points / Scorching Anvil Reputation 100%

    ____________________________

    Without a single thought, Daniel forced a thought to form into his mind, which in turn, forced a second window to appear the very next moment.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Karmic Exactor (Repeatable)*

    -Description: Enforce the payments of a karmic debt.

    Objective set: Support the Helvha family in exacting their revenge.

    Optional: Kill the Young mistress of the Gath family.

    Optional: Kill the Killshot Brothers.

    Optional: Kill the broker.

    Reward: 1,000,000 Karma Points (250,000/1,000,000/100,000) / Helvha family Reputation 100%

    ____________________________

    This all happened in a moment, and yet, it was enough for the old man to notice that Daniel had been distracted, so, he decided to be quiet, and wait for a few seconds.

    Just like the old man had guessed, Daniel waved his hand, causing a human-sized portal to open right next to him. On the other side of this portal, was a training room inside which a grey-skinned beautiful girl was training with her sword and shield.

    As soon as she saw the portal open, Gai¡¯ha looked through it, and towards Daniel, who said to her "Do it now." then, after she nodded, he let the portal close.

 Chapter 202 Someone to Hate is Better Than Nothing

    "Excuse me.. It¡¯s a busy period for us." Said Daniel apologetically.

    The old man, which had now turned to look back at his surroundings, while Daniel was taking care of his business, said with a serious tone "You have no small amount of wealth.. What prevents any of your guests to turn this ce to dust, and steal all of your toys?" He then turned to look back at Daniel, and added in a threatening tone "That includes me."

    Daniel chuckled at the old man¡¯s question, and said "You are free to try.. If you are confident of taking them before I throw your family into the empty void.. That is." His tone was casual, and yet it conveyed one hundred percent of Daniel¡¯s seriousness.

    While Lith was alerted by Daniel¡¯s words, and the idea of a possible fight started to creep into his mind, his father said through a newly formed smirk on his face "Good." The reason for his question was not to threaten Daniel, but to know whether he had the guts or the decisiveness to take action in case something happened. After all, he would not allow his grandson to go to a ce out of his reach, and where he could easily be kidnapped by any of theirpetitors or enemies.

    "I am truly curious to know who the person behind you is." The old man said with pure curiosity. To him, it was obvious that Daniel could not have created all of this by himself, and in fact, that was the truth. He did not have a backer, but that didn¡¯t mean that he hadn¡¯t received any help. All he owned had been created out of the collective work of an extremelyrge amount of driven and motivated people.

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders in a refusal to denying or confirming what the old man had said. He did not care if people came to think that he had a powerful backer behind him, as that would mean an additional, yet invisibleyer of defence for him.

    Suddenly, the three found themselves into a rtivelyrge office inside Daniel¡¯s castle. Inside this office, were a desk, and two chairs on which Daniel invited the two to sit before walking to the other side of the desk, and taking his own seat.

    The first person to talk, was Lith, who said "What would happen if someone with nothing to lose and enough power came in here to wreak havoc? What could you do to prevent that?"

    Daniel expected this question, so he exined what he intended to do in detail "Each student will have a personalized talisman which will connect them to the pocket dimension through their immortal essence. If anyone or anything that isn¡¯t allowedes in, the bridge shatters, and they¡¯ll end up in the void.. Or if they are lucky enough, in deep space."

    "And what would stop them from hiding in a pocket dimension, and infiltrating with the help of a student?" Asked Lith after nodding in satisfaction with Daniel¡¯s previous response. He was a father scouting for a school after all, and he needed to ask these sorts of questions.

    "Taking one¡¯s possessions into the pocket dimension is prohibited. Students will be allowed to bring in objects after having them controlled by mypany team. And if they want to bring money to spend during their stay, they will have to register with mypany¡¯s bank. The closest an intruder can get into my domain, is what I allow them to." Exined Daniel carefully. He had, of course, thought about each of these possibilities beforehand. He would have never dared to summon someone to make this kind of proposition if he wasn¡¯t fully prepared. He used to be a conman and a thief when he was younger, and in order to be sessful, he needed to be able to make his words believable, but also have a good answer ready.

    Seemingly satisfied, Lith leaned back on his chair, while his father inched forward, and asked "Kid, what is it exactly that you want from us?"

    Daniel smiled, as he knew that if someone had to go to the core of the matter, that would be this muscr old cksmith. He said "A bit of publicity would not hurt.. Smallmercial agreements, and your marginal support in matters that you can afford to meddle in."

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s response, Lith turned towards his father in wait for his decision, who in turn said "Let¡¯s hear what Fyro has to say about this." Despite being in a position which usually gave a person the rights to make the decisions for his entire family, the old man was not a tyrannical leader, and would usually hear what his family had to say before making a decision. It was his ce to ask about Daniel¡¯s motivations just like it was his son¡¯s ce to worry about his own son¡¯s safety, and was his grandson¡¯s right to make this decision.

    Daniel was hoping to hear this, and in a moment, he opened a portal behind which Fyro and Imblen could be seen visiting the territory and structure ced near the area where the wood and earth elementals lived. Fyro¡¯s eyes were opened wide in shock, and he looked at the many adult elementals in surprise, unable to close his mouth.

    As the portal opened, Imblen cleared his throat and caught his attention, she then pointed at the portal before walking through it together.

    "Father, there are thousands of elementals there!" Said Fyro with in amazement after walking through the portal, and finding himself next to his sitting father and grandfather.

    The very moment the portal had opened, the old man had felt the perfect essences of wood and earth emanated from the depth of the territory that Fyro was visiting, which caused his previous idea that Daniel was being supported by someone to reinforce.

    From the other side of his desk, after seeing Fyro¡¯s enthusiasm, Daniel said "That sounds like an answer already.."

    -----

    Outskirts of the capital¡¯s territory.

    The outskirts of the capital were organized jut like those of the majority of the cities. Large cultivated fields, which were in possession of variouspanies and families.

    In one of the fields to the south of the capital, was a rtively big mansion in which the owners of said field lived. This mansion was surrounded by arge wall of hedges, and its walls were made out of precisely ced triangr stones, making its exterior a very unique and interesting sight to watch.

    Next to the mansion were many other buildings, as well as a different-looking and smaller one. This building was about five meters in depth and two and a half meters of width and height. Its exteriors were carved in marble, and the only entrance was a thin ss door. On the external part of the walls, the faces of many different individuals were carved from white stone, and ced orderly. The details of these individuals were extremely specific, and from a single look, one would know that the people depicted were real. One of the depiction of these individuals was much cleaner than the others, and it depicted a beautiful looking girl who seemed to be in her mid twenties. Right underneath it, was a small pile of white stone residue.

    Anyone that saw this small building would immediatelye to the conclusion that this was a family mausoleum, and their guess would be correct.

    Resounding in the entire property, was a high-pitched wailing, which traveled through thousands of meters in the distance like the wind. The source of these mournful sounds came from under the mausoleum.

    In the depths of this mausoleum, was a middle aged woman. She was currently lying over a ss casket, inside which the body of a young girl in her mid twenties could be seen. Her heavy makeup was covering arge cut on her neck which would never heal again.

    At the same time, within one of the rooms in the top floor of the mansion, was a middle aged man who was holding his head in between his hands. He was listening to the mournful cries of his wife.. something to which he had gotten used to for the past few months.

    *Knock Knock*

    The sound of knocking shook the middle aged man out of his spiral of depression. "Come in.." He said while pressing his back against the backrest of his chair.

    "There is a letter for you." Said a teenage girl as she walked into the office. She was carrying an envelope in her small hands. Her expression was saddened, just like that of the middle aged man and woman, as well as a consequence of the continuous state of depression of which the family mansion had been surrounded ever since the young mistress had been killed.

    "Put it with the others.." Said the middle aged man with a weak tone.

    The young girl was about to leave, but right before taking the step that would have taken her out of the office, she turned to look at the middle aged man, and said "The person who delivered the letter asked me to mention that this letter is from the head of the Golden Karmapany.. A certain Mr. Hiel.. She was pretty adamant about telling you this."

    The words ¡¯Golden Karmapany¡¯ entered the middle aged man¡¯s ears slowly, and only after a few seconds did he process them, and sprung up on his feet. He then walked towards the young girl while bumping against his desk and a drawer, and once in front of her, he took the envelope from her hands, ripped the envelope, took the sheet of paper out of it, and read it as quickly as he could.

    The young girl was shocked by the man¡¯s sudden actions.

    By the time the middle aged man got to the end of the letter, his fists were shut tight, and were as hard as diamonds. "Go and call your mother.." His tone was as cold as ice, and his daughter had never heard him talk in such a way.

    She quickly stepped out of the office, and walked towards the entrance of the mansion, right next to where the mausoleum was, and passing a small a sign on which two words were spelled neatly ¡¯Helvha Mansion¡¯.

    -----

    "Dan, I¡¯m back." Said Heimart as he approached Daniel, who was busy eating his dinner along with Alesia, and a few others.

    Heimart had been sent to talk to the ¡¯A World in the Palm of Your Hand¡¯, to tell them that they would be leaving the collective, and go back to operating by themselves. The reason that Daniel had instructed him to provide, was that they hadn¡¯t received the necessary support by the collective, and therefore, they had found no reason to continue their coboration.

    "Good, what did they say?" Asked Daniel while biting a piece of vegetable that had been pierced with his fork.

    "Not even a ¡¯Good to see you!¡¯ or a ¡¯How are you?" Said Heimart in a slightly offended way.

    Daniel put down his fork, turned to look at him, and said "You are right, I apologize.. Good to see you.. How are you.. What did they say?" His tone was apparently serious, and yet Heimart could feel the hidden sarcasm clearly.

    Heimart was not as yful as his cousin, so, after he saw that his joke hadn¡¯t quite gone through the way he hoped for, he dropped the feigned indignation, and sat in the empty chair next to Daniel. He then said "They didn¡¯t seem to care about us leaving.. They must have been really afraid of the poisonous rose.. But they did say that they expect us to keep following their marketing rules, and not lower our prices."

    "Mhh.. I understand." said Daniel while piercing another piece of vegetable.

    "So.. what do we do now?" Asked Heimart with curiosity. He was one of the people in charge of thepany, and this matter was a need-to-know matter for him.

    Without looking back at Heimart, Daniel said with an indifferent tone "What do you mean ¡¯what do we do now?¡¯.. We lower our prices."

 Chapter 203 We Pay and We Earn Based on Our Actions

    It was now the morning of three days after Daniel had sent Gai¡¯ha to deliver the letter to the Helvha family, and yet, he had already received the notice of thepletion of the mission, as the Helvha couple had, in fact, already taken revenge against the culprits of their daughter¡¯s death.

    The bodies of the three Killshot Brothers had been found hanging by their necks right in front of the mansion of the Gath family, which was situated just a few dozen kilometers away from their own. Their hands had been cut, their eyes had been removed, and they had been fully emascted. A trained eye would notice that they had suffered these tortures before the time of their deaths, which had happened in less than a day after the Helvha couple had received the letter from Daniel.

    The very next day, the daughter of the Gath family had disappeared, and her body had been found just hours after Daniel had received the notice. Oddly enough, she hadn¡¯t been brutalized, and instead, she had been killed quickly and painlessly with a swift stab through her heart. Her makeup was a mess, and it was clear that she had felt a deep sense of fear and desperation before her death.

    Of course, Daniel could not be possibly aware of who did it or what had been done to her, but he could not possibly care less about it. He had nopassion to spare for vicious people like her. But if he had to take a guess, he would probably say that the Helvha couple had been clear to the girl before killing her, as a form of psychological torture, and he would have been right.

    Daniel was aware of the fact that the Helvha family had another daughter, and now that the family viewed Daniel in a positive way, he was inclined on sending an invitation for her other child to join his academy, promising safety and an unparalleled chance in education in multiple paths, but now it wasn¡¯t the moment..

    Daniel was now in a room with Ligart, Serf, Emelnie, and Edmund. He was looking intently at Serf, who looked back at him in silence. "After this, it¡¯s all out war against mypany and your family.. Are you sure you want to be here?" Daniel asked to a serious looking Serf. He appreciated his help, but despite how awful his family was, he could not force him to stand against them.

    Serf remained quiet for a few moments.. Then, an expression which Daniel had never seen on his face before, appeared. It was disgust. "I should have fought my family when my sister followed me, and killed every person that I tried to help.. When my mother killed my father because as a rule, the inheritor of the leading position of our family cannot be distracted by a rtionship.. Or when my mother created multipleboratories to test failing products of a cure for my great grandmother¡¯s poison.." He then said with pure anger.

    Daniel did not say anything else to Serf, and instead, he turned to look at Ligart, and said "Lig, prepare the auction." He then turned to look at Emelnie, who was in charge of the rtionships between the Golden Karma and the other groups, and said "Spread the rumor that ourpany has made a groundbreakin, and that we will be selling our product in our first auction."

    "Should I tell people what it is?" Asked Emelnie with a perplexed face.

    What appeared on Daniel¡¯s face could only be described as a smile filled with a sense of schadenfreude "Only say that it is a groundbreaking discovery in the alchemical field.. Exaggerate in praising ut.." Daniel¡¯s n was clear. He wanted people to be curious enough to visit the auction, and yet, he wanted the expectations to be so incredibly high, that nobody would really believe that they could live up to them. Only then, would people be shocked the most by what Daniel had to offer.

    "Should I notify the groups of the poisonous rose as well?" Emelnie then asked. She could more or less guess Daniel¡¯s n, but unfortunately, he had demonstrated to be an extremely cunning and unpredictable person, so she wasn¡¯t willing to assume any part of it.

    "No. They know that we were up to somethingtely.. They will be curious and will want to send somebody to check what is going on.." Said Daniel before turning to look at Ligart, and added "Limit the number of participants, and make sure that none of the spots will go to the Navi family.. Let them find out that their family¡¯s most prized weapon is worth nothing anymore."

    What Daniel intended to do specifically, was to allow the other families and groups that were part of the poisonous rose into the auction, let them see that Daniel hadn¡¯t died of the poison of the Navi family, and if that wasn¡¯t enough, he had created a pill that could render people immune to a vast number of poisons. The poisonous rose would then investigate the rtionship between Daniel and the Navi family, and in the end, they would start to put things together.

    The second reason why he wanted to use this method, was to avoid giving a chance to the Navi family to fabricate any sort of false story about the pills. Like iming that they had found a cure, and that it had been stolen from them. If they did that after Daniel had presented it like a pill that could grant a permanent immunity from a certain level of poisons, nobody would believe that the Navi family was its rightful owner. At the same time, the various families would report the news to the poisonous rose, and the Navi family would lose face.

    After receiving their orders, Emelnie and Ligart left the room, and along with Daniel, only Edmund and Serf remained.

    Serf was looking at Daniel with renewed surprise. He was currently remembering of the first time he had met him, of how he had knocked on his door to invite him to lunch, of how he had scored first in their first alchemic assignment.. And now, he was going to ruin his family. That a person at his age could do something like that, was something unbelievable in the very least.

    "Did you finish?" Asked Daniel to Edmund, who was currently standing in wait next to him.

    Edmund did not respond, and instead, he walked towards the table, and once in front of it, he waved his hand, causing hundreds of identical talismans to appear on it. These talismans had a simple scale carved on one of their sides, and were made out of real gold. Carved on the edges of one side, was the name ¡¯Academy of the Golden Karma¡¯, while on the other side, was the phrase ¡¯We Pay and We Earn Based on Our Actions.¡¯

    Daniel could feel a very faint connection between the pocket dimension and these talismans, after all, he owned the pocket dimension. These were the talismans that they had created in order to grant entrance to the students of the academy, and they were made in a way that would render ¡¯stealing¡¯ or ¡¯forging¡¯ them, impossible. That was because the connection between the talisman and the pocket dimension would disappear right after being bound to a specific immortal essence, and a new one would be opened only when the immortal essence of the owner was injected into it.

    "They are perfect. What about the bank?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. The whole point of allowing people into the pocket dimension was to allow an additional method for money to reach the pocket of his people. If he didn¡¯t have enough money to open a bank, that would bepletely pointless.

    Edmund used his immortal essence to, once again, insert all of these talismans into his spatial ring. Then, he said "If we do lower our prices, we will have enough. We might have to use a bit of our money to cover for it in the beginning, but we will gain in the long run."

    "Excellent." Responded Daniel calmly before standing up from his chair, and teleporting out of the room and in front of a set of hundreds of small caves.

    These caves were man-made, and were ced orderly on a wall, right at the bottom of a cliff. The majority of these small caves were locked, and not a sound could be heard in the surrounding. This ce was called ¡¯The Cultivation Hive¡¯, and it was the area that Daniel had asked Buriath to create for Daniel¡¯s group members to cultivate.

    After observing quietly, Daniel found an empty cave, and walked in. Then, he took control over therge b of stone that was right next to the entrance, and locked itpletely.

    -----

    Two weeks had passed since Daniel had entrusted to Ligart and Emelnie the job of advertising their new discovery, and the buzz of conversation could be heard everywhere in the capital.

    "That is a lot of bragging.."

    "I don¡¯t even believe it¡¯s true, theirpany barely deals in alchemy!"

    ".. Boasting this loudly will do nothing but harm their reputation."

    Daniel¡¯s n had worked, and the news that the Golden Karmapany had made a groundbreaking discovery, and that they were going to present it to the public during an auction, had be one of the most discussed rumors in the entire region.

    Many people had started to pay attention to their actions, and the moment that Emelnie announced that only a small amount of people would have been allowed to participate, the attention of the most curious and powerful groups was attracted.

    Before starting to cultivate, Daniel had left arge numbers of letter to Gai¡¯ha, which he would tell her to send whenever he would receive the notification of thepletion of the previous one. For the rest of the time, he focused solely on his cultivation, which he could barely sustain thanks to therge amounts of karma that he received from indirectly helping the groups in taking revenge for the wrongs they had suffered.

    Back within the hall of the Navi family, Serf¡¯s grandma, along with her daughter, and the many elders of their family, were currently circling na. They were looking at her with dubious eyes, which caused to her no small amount of difort.

    "Why isn¡¯t he dead?" Asked the old woman with a slightly angered tone, which scared her granddaughter out of her wits.

    "I-I don¡¯t k-know.. I felt our p-poison in his body.. He should be by dead now." Said na nervously. It wouldn¡¯t have been the first time that an inheritor of the Navi family was killed for disappointing their elders, after all, she was not an only child, and their mother was not too old to marry again, and have more children.

    "What about the auction? Did you manage to secure a few spots for us? Or at least ce someone." The olddy with annoyance. It was clear that she was losing her temper.

    "N-no.. they kept making us wait.. And now, they are not allowing anyone else in." Responded na before a sound p hit her squarely on her face. This p was not powerful, and yet, the girl fell on her knees, and in panic, she touched her cheek, trying to find or feel any sort of indication of poisoning. Luckily for her, there were none. Her grandmother had simply pped her out of anger, and didn¡¯t mean to kill her.

    "Find Serf and bring him here." The olddy then said, before walking out of the hall.

    -----

    Back to The Cultivation Hive, Daniel had just finished absorbing five perfect crystals, and he could feel the strong power of an early sixth stage cultivator run through his body. The speed in which he advanced was so high, that he could literally feel his power increase while he cultivated.

    Once again out of karmic points, Daniel decided to interrupt his cultivation, so, he walked out of the cave, turning therge b of stone into dust the moment the surface reached a certain distance from his body, as if there was an invisible shield around him which could pulverize anything that came too close to his body.

 Chapter 204 Serious as a Heart Attack

    Once outside of his cultivation cave, Daniel let the rays of constructed light essence to hit his body, feeling their warmth after days spent in the darkness. He of course had no problem with being inplete darkness whatsoever, as he had spent more than two years in it when he had been imprisoned, but it could not bepared to being under the calming and warm rays of sunlight.

    After a few moments, he then turned around and observed therge and tall wall on which the cultivation caves had been built. He quickly noticed that various other caves next to his, had already opened. The three on the top where he knew that Jerigh, Der and Roley had been cultivating for the past few days, were part of those. That had also reminded him of how fast his group members could grow in power thanks to the system¡¯s help.

    Based on the scheduled program set on the light spheres in the sky, Daniel was able to guess that it was early in the morning, and he had a clear idea of what kind of day awaited him. He quickly felt the area of the pocket dimension, and found Jerigh and Der practice martial arts in one of therge training rooms. Jerigh seemed to be winning, but that was only due to the fact that Der was holding back his power, and the two were fighting with their sheer martial abilities.

    Resting next to thevake in an attempt toprehend fire essence, was Roley, who was currently sitting with his legs crossed and eyes closed, while Lucious was delving deep into the books of alchemy which he had been studying ever since he had joined Daniel.

    All of them had made a breakthrough in their cultivation, and while Jerigh, Roley and Lucious were still in the midte fifth stage of cultivation, Der, which possessed a surprisingly high talent in cultivation, had reached the same stage Daniel was, the early sixth stage.

    Daniel was all out of karma points now, and that was not due to the fact that he was waiting for a group to take their revenge, and help himplete his repeatable quest.. But because during the past couple of weeks, virtually every group that had been attacked through the broker, had already taken their revenge, leaving no one in need of help. It was only after he saw Roley sitting in front of ake, that he realized something.. A wide smile creeped on his face, and in his mind, a window appeared.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Karmic Exactor (Repeatable)*

    -Description: Enforce the payments of a karmic debt.

    Objective set: Support the Ancient Red Carp in exacting its revenge.

    Optional: Kill the Rainbow-Plumed Hawk, the Milky Crow, and the Cinder Condor.

    Optional: Kill the wind elemental race.

    Optional: Help the wind elemental race.

    Reward: 1,000,000 Karma Points (5,000,000)(-50,000,000/Perfect Wind Sphere)(2,500,000)

    ____________________________

    The very moment after the window had appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind, he teleported Roley, Jerigh and Der right next to him.

    Jerigh, which was in the middle of shing his sword downwards, suddenly found himself above Roley, which was sitting quietly on the ground. The speed of his attack was impressive, and blocking its motion in an instant would be near impossible, but not impossible to Jerigh, who twisted his wrist in an instant, and rotated the sword of ny degrees.

    Luckily, Roley was notpletely defenseless, as after he felt that he had been teleported, he immediately noticed Jerigh¡¯s attack and moved his hand upwards to parry it.

    *SLAP* was the sound made by the t side of Jerigh¡¯s single-edged sword that pped against Roley¡¯s palm. "CAREFUL!" Said Roley in anger, while rubbing his sore palm.

    "Sorry, my bad." Said Daniel in an apologetic tone. He then became serious, and said "We are going out guys."

    "What for?" Asked Der with a serious tone. He had just been pulled out of training, something which he had not liked. Theck of fighting in the past few months had rendered him restless. In his world, he was a warrior, and a general at that. Living so far apart from the battlefield was not something he was used to, that is why he had found a job as a guard in this world. At least, he would have a chance to fight every now and then.

    "The auction is in two days.. That¡¯s how much time we have to kill that ancient flying beast, and find a way to get that wind essence sphere." Said Daniel before disappearing from where he was standing.

    His threepanions, now aware of what he intended to do, followed suit and disappeared the very next moment. When they reappeared, they were in the underwater cave, right next to Daniel, which was squatting right in front of the dark body of water, and sending his immortal essence into it in weak waves, causing small ripples whose main goal was to alert the red carp of their presence.

    They only needed to wait for five minutes, before arge red mass started to emerge from under the depths of the undergroundke. This red mass was, of course, the red carp. On its body there were a few deep cuts that weren¡¯t present before, and a few of its scales were missing as well. It was clear to Daniel and the rest, that while they were gone, the hawk-like beast hade back with reinforcements, and that it had fought against the red carp, injuring it.

    During their entire fight, the flying beasts had tried to take away huge parts of theke in order to reduce the habitat of the red carp through the control over the impressively hurricane-like winds, but no matter how much water they forced to drift away from the area through the winds, the level of the water was never lowered. That was the only reason why the red carp was able to fight off the entire group of beasts for such a long time.

    "You¡¯re in a really bad shape.." Said Daniel before instantly teleporting over the body of the red carp before it could even try to react.

    The red carp was extremely used to the fact that the surface of his body was poisonous, so, his first reaction was not to be angered by Daniel¡¯s actions, or to be offended.. It was to worry and try to slip away, but the water around its body had started to behave differently. For the first time in its incredibly long life, the red carp was not able to navigate into the water.

    It didn¡¯t take long before the red carp recalled that Daniel was immune to his poison, and its usual state of calm came back to dominate his mind. He then started to observe the water in its surroundings, while also feeling an oddly warm essence spread into his body. This essence was being injected by Daniel and it was, of course, healing essence.

    The waters around it were not different than the rest, but for some reason, they felt like they could not be split to allow its passage. Realization came into the red carp¡¯s mind, as it said with its usual fruity voice "I see you¡¯ve grown more powerful.. You should not have a problem with leaving the desert now."

    Daniel ignored the red carp, and instead, it used as much power as possible to heal the red carp¡¯s tough body, which required a muchrger amounts of immortal essence to be repaired than that of a normal person. Especially its big and durable scales.

    "What are you talking about?" Asked Daniel with curiosity before teleporting back on the underground tform, and saying "We have to kill that flying beast."

    "You¡¯re not serious." Asked the red carp in deep shock, nowpletely healed. This was the first time that the red carp hade into contact with healing essence, and while his recovering speed was already much faster than humans, it was still nothing whenpared to Daniel¡¯s healing knowledge. That had contributed to the red carp¡¯s shock just as much as Daniel¡¯s words had.

    Daniel turned to look back at the red carp, and with a serious tone, he said "That thing trapped my friends, and if it wasn¡¯t for your help, they would have died. I¡¯m as serious as a fucking heart attack." He then jumped into the water.

    As his body was about to touch the surface of the water, the waters split, making way for him to go through. Oncepletely in, Daniel controlled the small bubble of air in which he was floating, and went towards the underwater tunnels which lead to the external part of theke.

    "We better get moving.." Muttered Roley to the red carp, before adding "..or we won¡¯t get to see much action." He then followed Daniel¡¯s steps, and created a bubble of air that covered his body before jumping into the dark waters.

    After ten minutes, Daniel emerged from the surface of theke. He was currently standing above it, as if he was capable of walking on it, and in some way, he could. All he needed to do, was to turn the water under his feet into ice, and bnce his body by controlling the waves around him, as well as the wind.

    The moment Daniel appeared, he immediately felt a distant power approach him. It was incredibly fast, and yet, it was nothing that Daniel couldn¡¯t match.

    In his hand, an impressivelyrge greatsword appeared.. This weapon was only of a high tier, as the cksmiths of this world were not as talented as those in his world of origin. After all, martial cultivators had to rely on a good weapon much more than immortal cultivators needed to, as they could not increase the power of their attacks just like immortal cultivators could with theirprehension of essences. Originally a two-handed weapon, Daniel was now powerful enough to use it singlehandedly.

    As the rainbow-colored sh approached him, Daniel injectedrge amounts of immortal essence into the greatsword, before lifting it high up above his head. Time seemed to slow, and the flying beast was now only a few meters from Daniel, when finally, he shed downwards with all of the power he had.

    As the greatsword cut through air, Daniel made the immortal essence present into the weapon to explode from the back of the sword, giving a powerful push to the body of the sword and an increase in shing speed.

    *CLINK!*

    A powerful shing sound was heard, and the previously indistinguishable sh of multicolored lights was forced back for at least five hundred meters through the air. Daniel had simrly ended up back into the water, but only at fifty meters of depth.

    The flying beast was now waving its wings rapidly, trying to stabilize its position in mid air. Its beak had been chipped, and blood could be seen giving the feathers near the area that had been hit a bright red color.

    "You¡¯ve grown powerful, human.. But you are outside of your element here." Said the hawk-like beast before waving its enormous wings towards Daniel, and creating thousands of des of wind that sliced through the air, and towards him.

    Each of these des of wind was repelled the moment they reached about ten meters from Daniel¡¯s body, as he would create simrly powerful des, which after crashing with the ones under the beast¡¯s control, caused both of them to disperse.

    This did not mean that the beast had no more cards to y, and just as it was about to construct an attack which he believed Daniel did not possess the power to face head on, he noticed various other individuals emerge from underwater, as well as the red carp, which he had nowe to fear.

    Without thinking twice about it, it turned around, and dashed into the distance.

    "COME BACK HERE! COWARD!!" Shouted Daniel in feigned anger, before quietly turning his internal immortal essence into dark essence, and masking his powerpletely. Then, he teleported in the direction where the beast had escaped.

    Roley, Der, Jerigh and the red carp immediately followed him from the distance.

 Chapter 205 You Cant Do Anything to Me, Bird

    Daniel followed the escaping flying beast for at least two hundred kilometers, until finally, an immenselyrge tree started to appear in the horizon. This tree was mind bogglingly big,it reached at least ten kilometers in height, and its crown spanned for at least a dozen kilometers. Its trunk was white with ck spots, and the bark appeared to be extremely smooth, definitely too much to be climbed.

    The tree was of such arge size, that the extreme winds that tempered it relentlessly, and at a speed that would easily turn a small-sized city into dust, could not even make its trunk budge, and the agitated motion of its thick branches could hardly be seen.

    The sh of multicolored lights, which Daniel was following by projecting himself in the air thanks to constant waves of immortal essence ejected from his back, had turned back into the extremelyrge flying beast, which after reaching the immense tree, had perched itself on one of therge branches, right next to two more flying beasts of close to its same level.

    Seemingly originated by the tree itself, these powerful winds were enough to form rips in Daniel¡¯s clothes, leaving him with no choice but to slightly deviate the gales that were directed at him, and force them to move around his body.. Unfortunately that was more than enough to alert the flying beasts, which were naturally very sensitive to the changes in the winds around them. Deviating a single wisp of wind, was not unlike dropping a stone in theke where the red carp lived, and expect it not to feel it.

    "A human followed you.. Idiot!" said one of the flying beasts with a shrill voice.

    The body of this flying beast waspletely different from the multicolored hawk-like beast, and instead, it appeared much more simr to a cinder grey-colored condor. The third andst flying beast perched next the them, was a milky white crow, which unexpectedly, said with a singsong sounding voice "We have to kill him fast.."

    The multicolored hawk-like beast turned to look behind him, and floating in mid air, he saw Daniel, covered in dark essence while holding a different greatsword in his right arm. It hadn¡¯t noticed him at all, despite the fact that it was the flying beast whose sight was the most advanced, causing him to feel a great deal of shame.

    "That human again.." muttered the hawk-like beast before opening his wings and waving them once, propelling itself in the air. He then flew in front of Daniel, which was now focusing on finding a bnce for his bubble of air, and trying not to be torn to pieces by the oppressive winds.

    "I don¡¯t have much time, why don¡¯t you all attack me at the same time?" Said Daniel with confidence while slowly waving his huge weapon left and right.

    A series of shrillughs started to resound in the air.. The three flying beasts had found Daniel¡¯s words more hrious than threatening or challenging. The white crow turned to look at the hawk-like beast, and said "Don¡¯t kill him immediately.. Let¡¯s y with him for a bit. It¡¯s been awhile since we¡¯ve had the pleasure to y with a harmless human." It could be felt by its voice, that the white was a vicious creature that enjoyed killing.

    A big smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he turned to look at the big crow perched right behind the hawk-like beast, and said "You¡¯ll be my opponent." His tone was both extremely threatening, filled with confidence, and yful. So much so, that a strange shiver had ran down the white crow¡¯s feathery back.

    The hawk-like beast did not waste any more time and dashed towards Daniel, but right before it could reach him, Daniel had teleported right next to the tree and to the side of the white crow. His greatsword came down faster than the speed of sound, and in a moment, a river of bright red blood started to spurt out of the hole where the left wing of the white crow once was.

    *CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK* *CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK*

    Daniel¡¯s sudden attack hade to such a shock, that the white crow had given up to its educated human speech, and had instead opted for its primal animalistic call. Its croaks resounded for tens of kilometers, causing the smaller birds in the far away trees to fly up in the air, and scatter in terror.

    A second attack was about to finish the job, but a quick peck from the grey vulture hit precisely the spot where Daniel¡¯s hand was holding the sword. An attack which, in order to avoid, Daniel had had to let go of his greatsword, and look as the powerful winds took it at hundreds of meters in the distance in a matter of instants.

    The hawk-like beast was about to join the fray, but it suddenly turned to look in the distance. There, it saw a rtively small wave of water which floated in the air while carrying a massive red carp, and three more humans. Of course, the hawk-like beast could recognized them all.

    "You.." muttered the hawk-like flying beast in a low voice "FOOL! You¡¯re seeking death!" It then shouted before ignoring Daniel, and dashing towards the red carp.

    In theory, the red carp¡¯s idea of appearing with just enough water to allow him to float in the air, would be akin to suicide. But that was only if Roley and Jerigh weren¡¯t there.

    The moment the hawk-like beast got close to the red carp, five mid-level water sphere appeared all around Roley¡¯s body. He then quickly threw them in the distance, and removed the limitation from each of them, causing heavy amounts of water essence to be emanated from them.

    The humidity in the air started to condense all around these sphere, and immense clouds started to cover the entire area.

    Due to the powerful winds, thisrge mass of microscopic droplets of water were pressed together into bigger drops, and forced to follow the motion of the wind.

    The Hawk-like beast was about tough at the stupidity of Roley¡¯s action, but after he felt these small droplets of water being controlled by the red carp, it immediately snapped out of its state of mind, and attacked the red carp with as much power as it could.

    Der had already dashed past the hawk-like beast, and had gone to support Daniel, which was now sparring with an already healed white crow, and the grey condor.

    The grey condor was not as good at flying as the hawk and crows were, but be it melee or ranged, its attacks were without a doubt the most dangerous. It was capable of pecking an enemy dozens of time in a second thanks to the muscr neck that supported its head, and possessed thergest wingspan of the three flying beasts, which allowed it to create the most powerful winds amongst its peers.

    On the other hand, the main power of the hawk-like beast were its lightning fast attacks, as well as its otherworldly vision and reflexes needed to act on such a high level of speed.

    Last but not least, was the white crow, whose main method of attacking were its supersonic screeching screams, which could easily break the eardrums of a weaker being if heard at a close distance, as well as damaging their internal organs, and leaving them squirming in pain.

    Daniel had already decided to let the red carp fight against the hawk-like beast, as it had a personal score to settle with it. At the same time, he would fight against the remaining beasts. Fortunately, the flying beasts were only three, and he, the red carp and Der, were of even powers with them.

    He was now avoiding the powerful thrusts of the condor¡¯s head, while the white crow inched closer to send precisely directed screeching screams his way. He could feel his powerful organs start to churn, but thanks to his control over sound essence, and the fact that he could make use of the powerful gusts of wind to partially deflect the sounds, he was able to resist.

    The wing of the milky white crow had grown back only seconds after it had been cut, and that was one of the powers of that particr beast. Its body was, oddly enough, made out of naturally formed healing essence, hence the white color and the ability to heal in extremely short amounts of time.

    Hundreds of pecks forced Daniel to jump left and right, until finally, the condor made a mistake. Due to the fact that it wasn¡¯t managing to hit Daniel no matter how many pecks it sent at him, it had decided to change strategy, and try to guess where he would be at a certain moment before attacking. Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s reaction was fast.. Too fast in fact.

    He quickly stopped the motion of his dodging before finding himself in the area in which the condor was sending an attack, and as the long neck of the flying beast stretched past him, he shed downwards with his sword.

    *CLINK* *BZZZZZZZT*

    The sword was not able to pierce through the thick wing which the condor had almost instantly used to shield its neck from Daniel¡¯s attack, but the moment the sword and its wing touched, a powerful wave of electricity ran through its body, paralyzing itpletely.

    Unable to keep itself perched at therge branches anymore, the grey condor dived from therge tree in a state of immobility.

    Daniel was about to follow it and finish it, but before he could, powerful gales of wind hit his back, tearing his clothes to pieces, and leaving a few shallow cuts on his back.

    After noticing Der dashing straight towards the falling condor, Daniel turned to look at the white crow, then, he said "You can¡¯t do anything to me, bird."

    *CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*

    Another sonic attack was sent by the white crow. This time, the power of the attack was so high, that Jerigh and Roley, who were still at the fifth stage of cultivation, were forced to cover their ears in pain. Their organs were contracting, causing the food in their stomach to almost travel the way back out of their body.

    Unfortunately for the crow, this attack had close to no effect to Daniel, which simply squinted his eyes as two droplets of blood ran down his ears.

    Only angered by the attack, Daniel made two knives appear in his hands. These knives were short, and their des were serrated. Anyone that saw these two knives would feel a shiver down their backs from the simple idea of being cut from them.

    Daniel teleported from the position he was standing right next to the white crow, and shed with the knife he was holding in his left hand right on the craw¡¯s leg, cutting it right off. He then teleported once again, appearing right under its stomach and leaving one more bloody gash on it. The third time he teleported, he was on the beast¡¯s back, which he stabbed multiple times at an incredibly fast speed. Each of these stabs were incredibly painful, as the serrated des of the knives ripped the crow¡¯s flesh whenever the knives were pulled back out.

    Unable to do anything to protect itself, the crow entered in a state of quick regeneration.. Trying to resist long enough for one of itspanions to rescue it. Its hope were high, and they stayed that way even when Daniel¡¯s knife was elongated through his use of metal essence, and pierced its brain.. Killing it instantly.

    A call filled with pain was hearding from a few kilometers below where Daniel and the rest had been fighting. It was caused by the condor which Der had managed to reach before it could manage to regain its full mobility. Before dying, it had managed to peck at Der¡¯s leg, leaving arge hole on it. Unfortunately, that was something that Der had allowed it to do, so that it could grab its neck with his powerful arms, and after squeezing tightly, snapped it.

    Just a few kilometers away, the massive hawk-like beast, along with Jerigh and Roley, were enveloped by an impressive looking hurricane which had formed due to the powerful winds and storms.

 Chapter 206 The End of an Old Feud

    Ice shards and sharp winds intertwined in a deadly dance, threatening to tear anything that ended up in between them to shreds. In the middle of this mayhem, Roley and Jerigh were using most of their power to avoid being dragged out the storm¡¯s power. Unfortunately, their power was not enough, and after one or two minutes, they were ultimately pushed out with heavy injuries.

    Der, which had now put the body of the grey condor into his spatial ring, immediately dashed towards the two falling young men, grabbing Jerigh before he could hit the rocky ground.

    After Daniel noticed that one of his two friends was safe, he opened a portal right under the falling Roley, which after crossing through, teleported him directly in front of him. He then moved his arm forward, and grabbed Roley¡¯s clothes with ease, before injecting powerful waves of healing essence into him.

    Locked in the middle of the storm, were the Ancient Red Carp, and the Rainbow-Plumed Hawk, which sent powerful attacks against each other, and barely left any time for their opponent to react. The powerful winds, ice shards, and droplets of water were starting to merge into a massive world-ending hurricane.

    While Daniel observed the fight, he quickly came to the realization that, sooner orter, the red carp would end up losing. Aside from the power that it needed to use to keep itself high up in the air, the water which the mid level water spheres were providing for it to fight with, were not as devastating as the wind that the perfect wind sphere was sending in the hawk¡¯s way. Therefore, the longer the fight dragged on, the more the hawk-like beast would gain an edge over it.

    Daniel was considering whether he should help or not, but then, he turned to look at the massive tree from which the oppressive winds were generated. An idea quickly came to his mind, and after finishing to heal Roley, he turned towards him and said "Roley, go take Buriath, Leffe, and Wolfie.. Come out the moment I unlock the pocket dimension."

    Roley nodded in confirmation, and teleported into the ring that he was wearing in his ring finger, which then Daniel grabbed in mid air, and put on his own finger before turning towards therge tree, and flying in its direction at full speed.

    The closer Daniel got to this three, the more he felt the wind push him back. He quickly came to the realization of how powerful a non-controlled perfect sphere could be. The high-level water and wind spheres which he had created were powerful enough to create a small sea, and fill the sky with breathable air, and at the same time, while also heavily controlled, the wood and earth spheres had changed the entireyout of his small world, filling it with dirt, soil, and trees. Even the metal and fire spheres, which were the most heavily suppressed, had turned a massive cave into a metallic den, and a mountain into a volcano.

    At just a hundred meters of distance from the origin of these winds, Daniel was unable to deviate the powerful gales, and his clothes ended up being turned into tatters. Small cuts had started to form on his skin, which quickly shone with dull white lights before closing back up.

    Meter by meter Daniel kept advancing, feeling the des of wind be sharper, and cutting deeper. He felt as if he had dived directly into a pool filled with knives, and yet, he kept going.

    At fifty meters, he had to cover his throat with his hand in order to avoid having it slit by a random gust of wind, and at forty meters, he was forced to shield his stomach with a metallic que that he had created out of his own immortal essence, in order to avoid damages to his organs.

    When he reached the twenty meters of distance, he was finally able to see the wind sphere, as well as two small beings which looked like two chicks halfway to their adult stage, but that werepletely made out of wind. There was no doubt in Daniel¡¯s mind that these two beings were newly born wind elemental.

    Some schrs from Daniel¡¯s world of origin had hypothesized that the reason why elementals were animal-shaped at the moment of their birth, was because of an ethereal consciousness that mana possessed, which registered the shape and type of beasts that roamed their domain, and when elementals were born, this information would be added to theprehension of their element as added information.

    Some others had imed that it was the elementals themselves that, after obtaining a certain level of consciousness, would observe and gather information about the types of beings that lived the world, and would take their shape in order to fit in more easily.

    Daniel was not sure of why the elementals took the shapes that they did, but he was sure that thetter example was untrue, as he had spectated to the birth of an elemental of metal essence, and there was no doubt that Wolfie hadn¡¯t had the chance to observe a wolf before forming.

    Therefore, he was more inclined to believe that there was some sort of information passed down along with theprehension of the essence, the moment the elementals formed.

    Despite the reason why, Daniel had finally managed to approach the two chicks, which looked at him with suspicion. The surrounding winds had started to focus more on Daniel¡¯s position than ever before, indication that he wasn¡¯t wee by the two elementals. The only difference between these winds and the previous ones, was that these ones were not sharp, and instead only tried to push him off of the immense tree.

    These two chicks were nowhere near powerful enough to injure Daniel, so, he ejected arge amount of immortal essence from his hand, and sent it to encase the perfect wind sphere, which looked like a gaseous that spun in ce at a speed so fast, that made it look almost still.

    The moment the immortal essence covered the sphere, the winds suddenly stopped being generated. The wind sphere had been suppressed, and yet Daniel had not taken it. Instead, he removed the spatial block on his pocket dimension, and allowed Roley toe out along with the three elementals Buriath, Leffe, and wolfie.

    As soon as the three elementals appeared, the two previously alert chicks calmed down significantly. There was something within elementals that told them not to feel fear amongst themselves. It was like finding someone from your own country while traveling far away from home.. Not bounding was almost impossible.

    -----

    At the same time, the hawk-like beast had lost its edgepletely, and now needed to use a muchrger amount of power to create his own winds to attack, rendering it unable to use its sheer speed to avoid the oppressive attacks of the red carp.

    Inside the body of the hurricane, winds had diminished significantly, and most of what remained, was a two kilometers thick, columnar vortex of water, which fell right under the control of the red carp.

    Bit by bit, this columnpacted around the red carp, decreasing in size more and more, until finally, its shape replicated the very same red carp that it was encasing. This massive watery fish floated in the air, fully under the carp¡¯s control.

    The hawk-like beast tried to break the water construct created by the red carp, but it was useless, as the des of wind that it created by waving its powerful andrge wings were only able to pierced through a few meters of water, before being ejected out of it in the shape of bubbles.

    The fight went on for a few more minutes, until finally, exhausted by the constant fighting, and from being unable to escape due to the relentless water attacks of the red carp, the hawk-like beast was ultimately encased in a thickyer of water.

    It desperately tried more than once to escape from it just like it had done two weeks earlier. Unfortunately, this time the hawk-like beastcked the support of the powerful winds, which along with the oppressive tiredness that was growing in his body, and theck of space of maneuver, had forced it to a state where he could only watch as the thick encasing of water closed in on it..

    In just a minute, the hawk-like beast was stuck into a massive globe of water from which it could not escape, and after five more minutes, it drowned.

    -----

    Back on the tree, Leffe observed the two young chicks for a few seconds, then said "They are really the age they look.. That¡¯s odd. If the sphere has been here for a thousand years, there should be a few fully grown wind elementals around."

    "The three flying beasts must have killed them.." Said Buriath while Wolfie approached the two chicks, and started to sniff them out. There was no reason for Wolfie to do that, as it wasn¡¯t a real wolf, but that sort of behaviour was also part of what was passed down when it had be conscious, just like the slithering of the earth elementals when in their snake form.

    Daniel looked at Buriath, and said with curiosity "Why would they do that?"

    "It¡¯s actually easy to guess." Interjected Leffe before Buriath could respond. The two had be great friends now, and Leffe was aware that Buriath didn¡¯t like to talk as much as he did, so he would often take his ce in exining when possible. "Were the beasts friendly with each other?"

    "Not really." Responded Daniel inly.

    "They must have known that the body of an elemental can sometimes turn into a treasure during the moment of their death, and were likely hoping to produce more perfect treasures to split amongst them before separating.. That must have been why only the fastest one dared to move away from the tree." Said Leffe with a matter-of-fact tone. "How foolish of them.. In order to obtain that level of sphere from an elemental¡¯s corpse, they would have had to wait tens of thousands of years."

    Unable to know if that was the case, Daniel turned to look at the two wind elementals. He could see that they were now more curious than scared, so, he activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and pushed all of his immortal essence out of his body.

    The invisible immortal essence slowly moved towards the mountain like three, and after it touched its bark, it used it to spread all over it. It took more than an hour before the immense tree was fully surrounded by Daniel¡¯s immortal essence.

    "Dan, what are you-" Said Roley before being interrupted by a shocking sight.

    A powerful shockwave had suddenly spread from the point where the mountain-sized tree previously was, caused by the sudden switching of its area, with an identical empty area which came directly from inside the pocket dimension.

    In a moment, Daniel had teleported the immense tree, the wind sphere, and the two wind elementals on an extremelyrge ind which was near the coast of the maind, within his pocket dimension.

    "Why did you take the tree?" asked Roley in confusion.

    "That tree resisted the full power of a perfect wind essence sphere.. Why not." Responded Daniel casually before turning back to look at the red carp which quietly floated in the distance next to a massive water sphere which contained the corpse of the hawk-like beast.

    Daniel approached the red carp, and the moment he was in earshot, he said while pointing at the lifeless body of the flying beast "I figured you would have wanted to take a revenge on it.. After all the time he spent tormenting you"

    The red carp was feeling a lot of emotions, which had caused it to be unable to respond to Daniel¡¯s words right away. It was only after a good minute, that it said "Thank you."

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Karmic Exactor (Repeatable)*

    -Description: Enforce the payments of a karmic debt.

    Objective set: Support the Ancient Red Carp in exacting its revenge.

    Reward: 3,500,000

    ____________________________

 Chapter 207 The Auction Begins

    "What are you going to do now?" Asked Daniel to the red carp with curiosity. He was fully aware of the fact that no other living being inhabited theke, and that the red carp would have to live on its own for who knows how long.

    After thinking about it for a few moments, the red car said "The winds are gone.. I will try to turn this wastnd back into the beautiful sea it once was." Its tone was nostalgic, and filled with emotions. He then added "Maybe one day, when everything will go back to how it was, I¡¯ll receivepany from the deep abyss world."

    Daniel would have invited the red carp to join his group, if only it didn¡¯t have a clear objective in mind. But instead, from the way the red carp had responded, and from the emotional baggage that those words carried behind them, Daniel could see that those were objectives that the red carp had dreamed of pursuing for a very long time.

    With a flick of his wrist, Daniel made arge sphere of water appear in the air.

    Thisrge sphere of water contained thousands of different types of fish and aquatic beasts, as well as some aquatic nts. He then took out a few high level water sphere from his spatial ring, and gave them to the red carp.

    "I don¡¯t know how long before these aquatic beasts will grow enough intelligence to be ofpany to you, but these spheres will certainly help you out with your objective." Said Daniel with an amiable tone. He really did wish the best for this red carp, which despite its oppressive power and old age, was friendly, curious, and good-willed like most could only hope to be.

    Now free from the terrifyingly powerful winds, Daniel opened a portal in space, which hardly could be called portal anymore, and looked more like a giant rift that lead directly into the underwater cave, and right above theke where the red carp lived.

    Once through it, the red carp went back into the dark waters of the cave, and turned to look at Daniel before saying "It¡¯s been a pleasure to meet you, humans." Then, he dived deep into the dark waters, and disappeared before Daniel could even respond.

    Daniel approached the body of water, and squatted right next to it. He then dipped his fingertips into the water, and sent a wisp of sound essence through the entire body of water. This wisp of sound essence only carried two words.. "Take Care."

    -----

    The next day, Capital city, Government office.

    "Mr. Hiel! It¡¯s nice to see you again."

    "My pleasure, Governor Lien. I came to visit to ask for something." Said Daniel after sitting on the chair in front of the governor¡¯s desk. Next to them, standing near the door, was the middle aged woman that had taken Daniel to meet the governor the first time he had arrived to the capital. Daniel could now recognize the power of this woman at the seventh stage of immortal cultivation.

    The governor inched forward while cing his elbows on the desk, and suddenly turning serious "Is it in regards of the antidote for the virus?.. Did you make it?" He asked with a low tone. He was the person in charge of the safety of theary government, and to him, for Daniel to fulfill his promise and to find a cure for the virus of the Transparent Thorn Elder, was extremely important.

    Daniel smiled at the politician that looked at him as if he was a fat piece of meat, and simply said "No.." He immediately noticed that the enthusiasm on the face of the governor dim greatly, and before it could disappearpletely, Daniel added "It¡¯s about something better."

    The brows of the governor rose in interest, as he asked "Ohh.. ask away then!"

    -----

    The next day, Daniel was walking alone in the usually lively marketce inside hispany building. There was nobody there that day, as the entrance to his pocket dimension had been denied to anybody who hadn¡¯t received an invitation to spectate the auction that would take ce in a couple of hours. Only the owner of the restaurants had been allowed to work that night.

    In a matter of minutes, Daniel arrived in front of a big metallic gate, above which a massive white banner could be seen waving thanks to an artificially constructed wind. Depicted on this banner, was a simple golden scale, and aside from a golden-threaded outline, there was nothing else on it. Past this gate, was a garden path made out of pearly white stone, and at the end of this path, was an impressivelyrge building, which in size, reminded people more about the massive stadium in which the collective had held the games, than amon auction house.

    This auction house had a peculiar shape, and didn¡¯t look like anything that Daniel had ever seen before. The exterior of this building appeared like a massive globe made out of ss, from which it could not be seen through, and which had been ttened to a point where it reminded the shape of an upside dish ced precisely above another dish.

    Thisrge disk of ss was supported by massive constructions of stone, which kept it perfectly in ce. ced all around it in various circr formations, were numerous light spheres that kept the area well illuminated despite the general setting of this floor of the building had been set to night time.

    All around the building, was arge grassy garden, with numerous different trees and benches on which people sat in wait for the event to start.

    Daniel quickly recognized a few people in the area, and in order to avoid them, he directly teleported into the building, appearing right in the middle of the stage. There, he got what he would have described for years as ¡¯a peek inside Alis¡¯s mind¡¯.

    The chairs, the private booths, the very stage, and even the counter were made in such a manner, that if it hadn¡¯t been for Daniel¡¯sprehension of essence, he could not have recognized from which material they had been made of. Despite the oddness of their shapes, he could not deny that they gave him a feeling of ss, and odd fineness in their simplicity.

    "Do you like it?" Asked a silvery voice which Daniel hadn¡¯t heard in awhile.

    "It¡¯s definitely unlike any other auction house I¡¯ve seen." Responded Daniel while turning to look at Alesia, and Ligart, which was walking right next to her. "It looks beautiful." He then added.

    Satisfied by Daniel¡¯s reaction, Alis smiled brightly "Great.. My job is done here then, I¡¯ll let you handle jumpy here.. I¡¯ve had enough of him for a single day." She said while looking at a visibly nervous Ligart, before turning around, and leaving through one of the exits ced in between the stands around the stage.

    "Ha.. haha.. She is joking.. I am not nervous.." Said Ligart anxiously, as big droplets of sweat ran down his sideburns. He was clearly lying, and Daniel was fully aware of it.

    "It¡¯s not like you to be nervous about talking to people." Said Daniel before giving him a sound p on both sides of his shoulders, and shaking him off of his nervousness with a hint of pain. "You can do it. Just present the items, and when you get to the end, present me and I¡¯lle and take it up from there."

    Ligart took two deep breaths while brushing his sore arms, then, clearly calmer than before, he nodded at Daniel, and said "Okay, I can do it.. I can do it." He then turned around, and followed Alis in one of the passages around the stage.

    ".. And change your clothes! Hehe.." Said Daniel out loud as he saw the wet stain that covered Ligart¡¯s back. He couldn¡¯t help but chuckle at the sight of one of his most extroverted friends suffering from stage anxiety.

    He then walked towards the entrance of the auction hall.

    Waiting for him behind the counter ced right next to the massive double door, were a beautiful twenty years old girl, and a handsome young man of around the same age. These two people were two members of Daniel¡¯s group, which after asking to be of help to the group, were offered the role of weing people into the hall, as well as handing over the rings which contained the money that the participants of the auction had allowed them to control before being allowed in.

    Daniel had decided to handle the event exactly how he would handle the academy in the future. Only people which had received an invitation, along with two early-approved people could join for each group, and their funds had to be handed over to a representant of Daniel¡¯s bank, so that it could be verified that only money and goods were being taken in, and that no army or potentially lethal weapon was hidden into their spatial rings.

    "What time is it?" Asked Daniel to the handsome, and well dressed young man.

    The young man quickly tried to check for the time on his clock, but the beautiful young girl next to him beat him to it, and said "It¡¯s one minute to nine.. Should we open up?" She then asked with expectation.

    These two young people had spent the past couple of years working for Daniel¡¯s group, and just like everybody else, they had hardly met him in person. But due to the massive changes that being in his group brought, as well as being able to be part of a group that was devoted to doing good, was enough of a reason for the majority of the members of his group to idolize Daniel.

    Daniel quickly noticed that the young man was much more nervous than the young girl was, so, he turned towards him, and said "Don¡¯t be nervous. These people wille thinking that they are better than us, but they¡¯ll leave hoping for us to have noticed them." He then turned towards the much calmer girl, and asked while looking at therge door "Maya, correct?"

    "Yes!" She said as a bright smile appeared on her face, and before sending a slightly smug grin at her co-worker. She was clearly extremely happy about the fact that Daniel knew her name.

    "You wee the people in, while Zeb will hand their belongings to them." Said Daniel casually, making the smug grin on Maya¡¯s face disappear, while also lifting Zeb¡¯s morale up a notch.

    For a few moments Daniel quietened down, and at exactly nine, he turned towards Maya, and said "Now."

    Maya quickly walked around the counter, and after approaching therge double door, she turned around to look at Daniel, which had quietly disappeared from where he was standing. "You¡¯ll do great." Were the words that reached the ears of the two young people, before she took a deep breath, and finally opened the doors.

    Standing by the sides of therge double door, were four middle aged men in white armor. Anyone that looked at these people when they wore their usual attire, would recognize them as guards under the employment of the government.

    Their presence was part of the favor which Daniel had asked to the governor.

    Maya graciously walked out of the double door, and with a voice powerful enough to reach every corner of the garden, she said "The Auction willmence in two hours. The guests are wee to enter and take their seats. Don¡¯t forget to stop to the reception to withdraw your funds." She then bowed politely, and walked back in.

    In an rtivelyrge warehouse ced underground, were the numerous objects that would be put for auction during that night, along with their names, a brief history of the objects, and their starting price.

    This many objects included ancient weapons, numerous alchemical items, various types of tomes which contained skills and arts, and finally, a small box which contained a single dull, grey pill.

    Ligart was pacing back and forth in between these objects, while reading once again the various descriptions, and trying tomit them to memory.

 Chapter 208 People Much More Powerful Than You

    Thousands of people slowly started to walk into the building, and once inside, they approached the counter in order to receive the money they had deposited in Daniel¡¯s bank before being allowed through. After getting their belongings back, These cultivators would be escorted into the arena, where the attendant would point at the direction of their seat, before going back to wee another party.

    Of the people that had arrived, Daniel had recognized a few groups. Amongst which were the members of the Scorching Anvil, the Helvha family, and the Helzepany, as well as the parties of a lot of cultivators with whom Daniel had interacted during the games of the ¡¯A World in the Palm of Your Hand¡¯ collective.

    Onest person who Daniel would be happy to see if he was here, was Mr. Roah, who in his mind, Daniel still called the nine-fingered man. He was the person who had sent the bomber to hispany building, and caused the deaths of dozens of innocent customers and shop owners which had put their trust in Daniel¡¯spany when they had purchased a permit to trade in his marketce.

    That event had also caused the Poisonous Rose to have an additional edge to use in suppressing them, as one of the words they had spread to badmouth Daniel¡¯spany, was that the attack was staged by Daniel himself in order to gain the protection of the collective, as well as the fact that he had never given any financial support towards the destroyed families of the victims, which was not true.

    Edmund, Emelnie, Heimart and the rest of the administrative side of thepany, had been sent to keeppany to the groups which Daniel¡¯spany was close with. Edmund was discussing with the members of the Scorching Anvil about a business deal regarding the purchase of high quality weapons for Daniel¡¯s army which was constantly growing in size, as well as about sending their young members to Daniel¡¯s new academy.

    Emelnie was interacting with the Helvha family about the details of sending their youngest daughter to study in the academy, which they had agreed on doing after visiting Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, the area where Leffe, Buriath and their kind lived, as well as the perfect essence spheres which they possessed.

    It is important to understand one thing. For as good as the idea of obtaining one of those objects was, each and every group that was invited into the pocket dimension for a visit, was more than aware that they were not powerful enough to even think of keeping one sphere in case the word spread. That was why they had all seen what the worth of that matter really was.. A school in which the future of their families could learn with the best resources possible and inplete safety.. it was in their best interest to keep Daniel¡¯s academy secret.

    At the same time, Heimart and his wife Alis were interacting with two more groups which Daniel had helped in obtaining revenge for the wrongs that they had received in the past.

    Roley was sitting next to Fyro, while also interacting with his grandfather, and the middle aged woman who Roley could only guess was Fyro¡¯s mother, and the old man¡¯s daughter-inw.

    Jerigh, which considered himself as the unluckiest of them all, was currently walking around at a fast speed for two different reasons. First of all, he was in charge of controlling the guards of thepany as well as controlling the guards that the governor had lent to Daniel, and therefore, he had to be constantly on the move.

    The second one, was the real reason why Jerigh considered himself to be unlucky.. And that reason.. Was Cynna.

    Cynna was one of the two people that had been allowed into Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension as one of the plus two for her family, which was one of the smallest groups within the ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯ academy, and therefore, part of the poisonous rose.

    After entering the hall, she had spotted Jerigh walking around. She of course had no idea that he was currently working as the head guard of this entire event, so, she tried to approach him only to see him walk the other way instead, clearly trying to avoid her.

    Proud as she was, Cynna hadn¡¯t taken Jerigh¡¯s reaction well, and therefore, started to follow him around. "Hey! Stop running away!" She said out loud from a few meters of distance. "Jerigh stop!"

    This went on for a couple of minutes, until finally, after Cynna managed to reach him and stop him from walking away, Jerigh suddenly turned towards her "WHAT! WOMAN!" He shouted with exasperation.

    Cynna was surprised by Jerigh¡¯s reaction, but instead of being offended, she remembered of the humiliation she had had to suffer from him a few days earlier. Annoyance grew in her stomach, to a point where she said "I want to spar." She was so angry, that those two were the only words that came out of her mouth.

    Jerigh had no words. "Wha-" he was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a loud noise that came from next to them.

    "Why do I have to sit next to a worm like you?" Said a purple-dressed young woman to a thirty years old man. The man did not respond to her, and from the look on his face, it was clear that no matter what group the two people respectively belonged to, they were not on the same level.

    "Miss.. I was.." *SLAP* A powerful and audible pping sound was heard for dozens of meters in the distance, and it was powerful enough to force the thirty years old man to spit a few teeth.

    Jerigh was watching the events take ce, and the moment he saw the young girl send the p, he started to walk towards the two people, and past Cynna. He was quickly stopped by her, which grabbed his arm and said to him "Hold on.. What are you going to do?"

    "My job." Responded Jerigh before pulling his arm out of Cynna¡¯s hands, and approaching the young girl. He then said "Fighting is forbidden by the master of this dimension, and head of thispany. Cease all hostile behaviour, or you will be escorted outside." His tone was extremely serious.

    What Cynna was trying to tell Jerigh, was that this young girl was notoriously proud, due the powerful background from which she came from. That background, was being part of one of the foundingpanies of the collective, as well as being the daughter of Mr. Roah, the nine-fingered man.

    Just as expected, the young girl was enraged for being scolded by this young man right in front of a big chunk of the city¡¯s most powerfulpany heads. Therefore, she said "You¡¯re nobody to order me around. Your group is the lowest amongst our collective, and I am superior to you." Naturally, she was not aware that Daniel¡¯spany had already left the collective, after all, she was only the daughter of an important person, and not everything was reported to her.

    Unfortunately, she had picked the wrong person to im superiority with..

    Jerigh, oppressively more powerful than her, grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the building, while she tried to pointlessly fight back.

    "What is going on here?" Asked Mr. Roah, which had appeared in front of the two just before they could leave the building.

    "This person attacked a guest of a Golden Company event. She is being escorted out of the territory." Responded Jerigh with no hints of fear or doubt, despite the higher power of the nine-fingered man.

    Jerigh was fully aware that this man had sent the attack to thepany building.. an attack which had hurt his pride more than anybody else¡¯s, as he was in charge of the safety in the marketce. This man was one of the few he would not show face to.

    Through narrowed eyes, Mr. Roah pointed behind Jerigh, and said "I think there has been a misunderstanding. My daughter did not attack anybody. Isn¡¯t it true, Gilly?"

    After Jerigh turned in the direction where the nine-fingered man was pointing at, he saw standing in ce the thirty year old man that the girl had just pped. He looked anxiously at Jerigh with a p mark still clear on his face.

    The eyes of the many cultivators that were surrounding Jerigh, and the rest of the people involved, were now pointed at them, and were observing the events unfold.

    Jerigh could not feelpassion for a man who was willing to take a beating just so that he could avoid fighting for his honor. That, was the type of creed which had been instilled in Jerigh¡¯s head ever since he had been forced to pave his way from being a simple ve, into being a warrior.

    "I have witnessed to the scene myself." Responded Jerigh inly before trying to walk past the nine-fingered man, which instead of letting him through, ced one of his palms over his shoulder. Then, he squeezed with a power that only a sixth stage immortal cultivator possessed.

    But s, he did not receive the result he was hoping for. No matter how much he squeezed, and how close Jerigh¡¯s bones were to shattering.. Not even a hint of pain could be seen on his face.

    "Is there a problem here, Mr. Roah?" Said Daniel, which had quietly appeared right next to the nine-fingered man.

    "It seems that yourpany does not know how to treat its guests. Your minion is trying to bully my daughter in front of all of this people." Responded Mr. Roah with an indignant tone.

    Daniel smiled faintly at the middle aged man, and said "Jerigh here is my chief of security. If he says he has seen an aggression, then your daughter is guilty. We have no reason to im otherwise, as this is a rather ufortable situation for the both of us."

    "I agree." Said the nine-fingered man, before narrowing his eyes in a threatening tone, and adding "Maybe we should leave things as they are, and go on with this fine event.. Shouldn¡¯t we?"

    "Of course.." Said Daniel, causing a faint smile to appear on the face of Mr. Roah.. but before he could express his appreciation to him, Daniel added "..after your daughter will be escorted out of my territory, we¡¯ll keep going with this fine event."

    A stern look appeared on the nine-fingered man as he heard Daniel¡¯s words, which caused his blood to boil in anger. It was only to save face that he hadn¡¯t attacked Daniel right where he was standing. Instead, he said with a tone ten times as threatening as before "Mr. Hiel.. you should start worrying about who you can and who you can¡¯t offend. I¡¯ve weed you into the collective from the kindness of my heart.. Protected yourpany from those who wished harm to it.. and even allowed you to leave it just months after winning the first prize of our games.. But this is goin overboard."

    Daniel did not wish to deal with the collective right now, so, instead of exining all that was wrong with the man¡¯s words, and exposing him in front of everyone around, he simply looked back at him, and with an emotionless smile, he said a few words that only the middle aged man was capable of hearing. "Tonight I am going to offend people much more powerful than you, Mr. Roah.. Don¡¯t put yourself in a bad situation, you¡¯re not capable of withstanding the burn as well as they will.. and they will not. Leave with your daughter."

    This wisp of sound essence was charged with the full power of a sixth stage immortal cultivator, which after feeling it, sent a wave of shock through the body of the nine-fingered man. He could do nothing but to grab his daughter¡¯s wrist, and walk out of the building while spewing a few insulting words.

    Suddenly, from the middle of the stage, a young girl said with a voice that was pushed by the entirety of her cultivation "The Auction will begin briefly. Please, take your seats."

 Chapter 209 Ladies and gentlemen..

    "The Auction will begin briefly. Please, take your seats."

    After hearing the girl¡¯s voice, Daniel turned towards Jerigh, next to whom Cynna was standing quietly. "Hi." He said with a faint smile. He had heard a lot about her from Alesia, which due the fact that Jerigh was one of their closest, made this specific topic of conversation pop up in the conversations that the two of them had together, reasonably often.

    Cynna of course did not know Daniel despite the two were part of the same academy, and yet, she felt an innate amount of respect for him. That was due to the fact that he had managed to obtain the immense respect of a warrior as talented and Jerigh was.

    "Hello." She said with a slightly nervous tone. She had just witnessed Daniel dismiss an extremely powerful individual that even her mother, the head of her family, would have feared.

    Seeing that Cynna was nervous, and not really eager to chat, Daniel turned to look back at Jerigh, and said "Send the guards to watch the area where the most aggressive groups are ced, and send a couple to escort Gai¡¯ha in taking the objects out of the warehouse.

    Jerigh simply nodded in confirmation before turning to leave the area, but before he could manage to, Cynna said "Hold on! We have unfinished business!" Her tone was angered by the fact that Jerigh was ignoring her.

    "What is it?" Asked Daniel while showing a curious smile, and turning to look at her.

    Cynna straightened her clothes, and said with a proud tone "A duel. I have been humiliated by him before. The least he can do is to offer me the chance to redeem my honor." It was clear by her tone how much ¡¯honor¡¯ was important to the people of her family. "Can you order him to do that?" She then added after noticing the rtionship between the two of them.

    "I can¡¯t order him to do anything. He isn¡¯t a ve, he is my closest friend." Responded Daniel casually before turning to look at Jerigh, and saying "With that being said.. You should ept.."

    Jerigh¡¯s eyes narrowed before moving from Daniel to Cynna, then back to Daniel. "A duel for a duel." Said Jerigh with a negotiating tone. It was clear what he meant.. He would ept Cynna¡¯s request, if Daniel agreed on a duel with him.

    Daniel¡¯s smile widened, as he nodded in agreement.

    It was ever since theirst duel that Jerigh wanted to fight once again with Daniel. Thest duel had ended in a draw, but that was despite Jerigh possessed a slightly higher cultivation. That day had remained in Jerigh¡¯s mind as one of the most noteworthy fights of his life.

    Not only was he not able to defeat him solely through weapon mastery, but that was even though Daniel was weaker, and younger. The idea of asking for a rematch had stayed in Jerigh¡¯s mind for years now, but due to the fact that he had decided to be under Daniel¡¯s service, he couldn¡¯t simply challenge him carelessly. Luckily for him, a chance had presented right now, and it was all thanks to Cynna.

    "Okay.. but now we have something else to take care of." Said Daniel before turning to look back at Cynna, and saying "You should find your seat, the show is about to start."

    -----

    In a matter of minutes, everyone took their seat, and after less that a minute, Ligart confidently walked with a decisive pace from one of the entrances in between the grandstands to the middle of the stage.

    Ligart was a talented cultivator, but due to his increased responsibilities, he had ended up being unable to focus in his cultivationtely, but despite that, he was still rtively powerful for his age. He hade to be known as the person who took care, along with Imblen, of the marketce and the auction house of the Golden Company.

    "Good evening to everyone, and thank you for joining in this special evening. My name is Ligart, and I will be your auctioneer for tonight. I thank you all for being here. This event is made to present ourpany¡¯s newest product, and I hope that I will be able to keep your interest high enough until then! And trust me, it¡¯s worth the wait."

    Daniel observed from a separated small spatial room along with Alesia, and the rest of his friends. "He is doing well.." muttered Daniel to Heimart through a faint smile, while moving his palm towards him.

    An odd expression appeared on Heimart¡¯s face, before he made a few copper coins appear in his hand, and put them on Daniel¡¯s palm. He had never lost the bad habit of betting at any given chance, but Daniel was not Ligart.

    "Shhhh.." Said Alis while hitting both of their sides with her elbows "I want to hear.."

    -----

    "The first object that will be put for auction, is the weapon left to the Nijiji family by theirte ancestor, The Nijiji Shadow." Said Ligart as a young girl walked out of the corridors in between the grandstands while carrying a long sheathed katana ced inside a transparent casing. He then took the katana off of the girl¡¯s hand, and unsheathed it, showing its dark purplish color and the totalck of shine. He then added "As you all might be aware of, this is a weapon enchanted with dark essence, and of spectacrly high level at that. The starting bid is six hundred perfect crystals, and the increase must be of at least ten perfect crystals."

    "... six hundred and twenty crystals!"

    "Six hundred and fifty perfect crystals.."

    "Seven hundred."

    One after the other, the interested people started to bid for the sword, while slightly surprised that Daniel¡¯spany would be entrusted with such an item to auction for their event.

    The Nijiji family was a known family of stealthy killers. They did not operated illegally, nor were they assassins of sorts. They were a normal family whose methods of fighting were simply focused on stealth and lethal attacks at the earliest moment of engagement.

    Through the entire capital, the rumor that the ancestor of the Nijiji family had perished had spread long ago, and due to theck of a suitable inheritor, their family had lost the majority of the power they possessed. This was already years ago, and now, the truth hade out under the shape of a sword being sold in the Golden Karmapany auction.

    There was only one reason why a family would sell a family heirloom, and that was because they were close to bankruptcy, and they needed money fast.

    "Eight hundred crystals!"

    "Eight hundred and eighty.."

    "..."

    "..."

    "The current bid for the Nijiji family heirloom sword is at eight hundred and eighty crystals. Do we have a higher bid?" Asked Ligart while turned around, and scouting the entire grandstage in search of a new bidder. Not being able to see any other guest willing to ce a new bid, he said "Very well, the Nijiji Sword of Darkness goes to the head of the Crimson Blossompany for eight hundred and eighty perfect crystals!"

    *CLAP* *CLAP* *CLAP*

    "How much did the Nijiji family hope to get out of their ancestor¡¯s sword?" Asked Daniel to Maya, which was now standing behind him with a thick book filled with the descriptions and information about the many objects up for auction.

    "They owe a thousand perfect crystals to the very Crimson Blossompany.. They¡¯ll have to give the money right back, and something." Responded Maya after scrolling through therge book.

    "Give them a thousand, and tell them that they can pay the rest back to us in as much time as they need, or that we can settle it with a trade. If they refuse, give them what¡¯s theirs." Said Daniel casually.

    A long time had passed since Daniel had managed toprehend dark essence by solely relying on his sheer luck, and now, he had decided to be proactive and try to strike a deal with whomever could possess the slightest bit ofprehension that hecked. That was how he had found the Nijiji family, which was a small group that used to deal in the creation of low and mid level weapons enchanted with dark essence.

    Daniel had offered a rtively high amount of money for a demonstration, or even a dark sphere, but the Nijiji had refused categorically. To them, theprehension of darkness was dozens of times more valuable than any heirloom.

    Their hope was that by selling their ancestor¡¯s weapon, they would be able to get themselves out of debt, but that hadn¡¯t happened, as the sword hadn¡¯t sold for as much as they hoped it would. So, Daniel decided to try his luck one more time.

    Back on the stage, Ligart was presenting the second object.

    "The second object of tonight¡¯s event, is the first book of the collection that includes the secret arts of a school which you all know, the ¡¯The Shocking Truth School¡¯. This books depicts in details the basis of training your body into a state of resistance to the lightning essence." Said Ligart with confidence, before adding "Found in the ruins of their territory by a person that wishes to stay anonymous, we present you this item. The starting bid is two hundred perfect crystals."

    The young girl from before walked on the stage once again. This time, she was holding a refined cushion on which a transparent cube was resting. Inside this cube, floated a solitary ruined book on which the silhouette of a human which discharged electricity was painted neatly, and periodically shined in a white color which resembled actual lightning.

    The moment the people present to the event noticed this book, the majority of those that worked with lightning essence stood up in surprise, and for a moment, they felt like jumping and try to grab it, but they soon stopped their thoughts from running rampant, and sat back on their seats.

    "Two hundred and fifty perfect crystals." Said one of these individuals, trying to eliminate a good part of thepetition by increasing the price by twenty-five percent by himself.

    "Three hundred!"

    "Three hundred and twenty.."

    The prices came one after the other, and without looking like it would stop anytime soon, turning the bidding for this book into an actual bidding war which stopped after ten long minutes, at five hundred and twenty-five perfect crystals.

    -----

    The items presented had been handpicked by Emelnie, which had kept herself informed with what was valuable, and would be interesting to see in such an event. Thanks to her wise picks, the public wasn¡¯t bored in the very least, and almost everybody had had a chance to at least ce a bid before the very end of the event.

    "... This was thest item the night!" Said Ligart with a bright smile while bowing politely at the hundreds and hundreds of people that had their eyes pointed at him. "It is finally time for the main event. Please, wee the head of the Golden Karmapany, Dan Hiel."

    "Wish me luck.." Said Daniel to Alesia before turning towards a small empty spot in the small spatial room they were all standing in, and opened a small spatial portal which had been embed with the power of dark essence.

    This dark portal lead directly to the middle of the stage, and next to Ligart, where he appeared casually. He then said with a voice filled with confidence "Wee to you all friends. Some of you know me, some of you don¡¯t, so let me introduce myself. I am Dan Hiel, and I own the Golden Karmapany."

    "As many of you know, mypany does not operate in a special field, and we operate in more or less every field of the market. Many of you might have spectated to the games of the collective, which mypany was lucky enough to win.. But that¡¯s not all there is to ourpany." He was slowly pacing on the stage in an attempt to engage the entire public in what he was saying.

    "In fact, if I may say so myself, mypany excels in the production, and invention of alchemical product. So, as many of you might have already guessed.. Tonight we are presenting our newest product, which we think has the possibility to take us a step closer towards a goal which cultivators have always dreamt of.."

    "Tonight, I.. We present you with a pill. A pill which we have produced as a cure for an infamous poison called ¡¯Poison of the Night Blue Thorn¡¯, but that turned out a little different than expected.." He let the phrase die in his mouth.. Sink deep in the ears and minds of the people from the poisonous rose, as well as of all of the masters of alchemy and poisons present..

    "Ladies and gentlemen.." He said while making a small box appear in his hand. He then opened it with, and continued by saying "The Partial Poison Immunity Pill."

 Chapter 210 A Blunt Thorn

    "The Partial Poison Immunity Pill." Daniel said while forcing a wisp of immortal essence to cover the grey pill, and moving it out of the small box and above his palm. He then slowly turned around in order to let the public get a good look at it, as well as letting his words sink in their mind.

    The crowd had suddenly fell silent. Everybody knew the words that Daniel had just pronounced, but they couldn¡¯t ce them together. There was no poison immunity pill in the small from which they came from.. Nor sr system, or even gxy at that.

    Noticing that nobody knew what to say, Daniel put the pill back into the small box, and said "Does anybody have a question?" His tone contained a hint of embarrassment. He truly did not expect to shock all of these people into aa.

    Daniel¡¯s words reached their ears like a set of small flying knives straight through their bodies, causing at least twenty percent of the people in the hall to spring up on their feet, and shout questions at different volumes of voices. All of a sudden, the hall had turned from a quiet room, into the busiest of marketces.

    "Hold on, hold on!" Said Daniel with a tone slightly more powerful than anybody else¡¯s "The mister with the red hat!" He then added while pointing at a middle aged man that fitted the description. He was clearly taking the responsibility to pick an order that would allow people to ask questions.

    Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t work. The crowd started to shout even louder, making it impossible for him to understand any of them clearly. This situation went on for a few seconds before Daniel, unable to stand it anymore.. "ENOUGH!"

    This shout carried the full power of a sixth stage immortal cultivator, and only thepany heads, as well as the guards that had been lent by the governor, were capable of withstanding its power. Of course, Daniel hadn¡¯t used the mere power to quieten this crowd down. He had instead used sound essence, which was much more useful, as it would directly overpower the tone of their voices.

    Quietness finally came back into the hall as the manypany heads sat back down on their seats in a barely stable state of mind.

    "The gentleman with the red hat. Please." Repeated Daniel with a much more serious tone. He couldn¡¯t afford to lose control of the crowd now, and if the cost was to appear a little rude, then so be it. He was not nning on looking like somebody that could easily be pushed around.

    The man with the red hat stood up once again, and asked "Greetings head of the Golden Karma. My name is Rua, of the Ninima family.. My question is.. Can you go into deeper detail about what you mean with ¡¯partial poison immunity¡¯?"

    "Of course Mr. Rua. I mean that this pill is capable of changing one¡¯s body, and making it permanently immune to a certain level of poison." Responded Daniel with calmness. He was naturally not going to appear rude if people simply asked questions to him, after all, this is what he wanted.

    "What level of poison are we talking about?" Asked a second man in the crowd out of the blue.

    Daniel turned to look at this second man, and said "Anything with a toxicity inferior to the poison of a two thousand year old ancient red carp." His response was clear, and yet his tone was not that amiable anymore.

    The jaws of every single cultivator that was adept in the arts of alchemy and poison making looked at the grey pill in shock. At least half of them could barely believe what they were hearing. To them, people who constantly came into contact with poisonous ingredients, this pill meant literally everything.

    A third man, which Daniel quickly recognized as the head of one of the families which belonged to the poisonous rose, said "What do you mean with ¡¯To cure the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn¡¯? Are you implying that this pill can also cure such a powerful designed poison?"

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "I am not implying it.. I¡¯m saying it clearly. This pill was designed as a permanent cure for the poison, which personally took me weeks of long work to create. But when I¡¯ve found out about the actual pill I had created, I¡¯ve decided to rename this pill as ¡¯The Partial Poison Immunity Pill¡¯.. As the fame of the poison is not worth the value of this discovery."

    Satisfied and yet not happy with Daniel¡¯s response, the man followed up with another question. "How can we know that you are saying the truth?"

    "I have personally ingested one of these pills, and I am willing to make a demonstration on my own body." Responded Daniel with confidence. "Anyone that is willing to waste one of your poisons in order to test my work, is wee toe on stage."

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, an almost decrepit old man stood up from his chair, and slowly walked out of his seat. He wore a ck robe, and moved around with a walking stick. Daniel could have easily teleported this man on stage, but he knew that that would look disrespectful towards everyone who was present. Almost as if his time was too important to wait a couple of minutes for this old man to reach the stage.

    Exactly two minutester, the old man reached the stage. Then, he took a small bottle out of his spatial ring. Daniel knew what this pill was, as he had had to check the contents of the rings of everybody before allowing them here.

    "You know what this is?" Asked the old man with a croaky voice.

    "An extract of blue prim. Same toxicity as the poison of a thousand years old Ancient Red Carp. Correct?" Responded Daniel while nodding slightly.

    "Three drops.. And I will believe you." Said the old man while handing the small bottle to Daniel.

    Daniel turned to look at the grandstands, and said "Is there somebody here that wishes to check the content of this bottle? I won¡¯t ask you to believe my words, or those of this elder."

    "I¡¯ll bite into it." Said a man which Daniel recognized as one of the teachers of the ¡¯The Superior Academy¡¯. This teacher was in charge of teaching botany, but for a certain reason, all of his lectures were focused on how to recognize poisonous ingredients, how to carefully extract the toxins while keeping their effectiveness, and how to stabilize them for future use.

    This man quickly jumped on stage from his seat, which was in the third row, and therefore really close to the stage. After approaching the old man which was still holding the small bottle, he took the bottle directly from the old man¡¯s hand, and smelled its content. His expression could already confirm that the poison was actually an extract of the blue prim, but instead of saying it, he poured a drop of it on his palm, which he then poked with his tongue and immediately spat out.

    "It¡¯s really a blue prim extract.." muttered the teacher before handing the bottle over to Daniel, which curiously looked at the spectators, and after smiling faintly, he simply took the bottle and downed it until the bottle waspletely empty.

    Under the shocked eyes of the thousand of cultivators which were expecting for Daniel to drop dead at any moment.. He stood quietly, while showing a face contorted in disgust. "So bitter.. I understand why you¡¯d want to spit that out.." said Daniel casually.

    Thisst casual phrase, was the spark that once again set the fire aze.

    The buzz of conversation exploded once again, eliminating the possibility of having any sort of conversation amongst two people. Daniel could not quite clearly understand what everybody was saying, but he could hear some people asking for another test, some asking to know if the recipe would ever be made public, or if the pill could be purchased.

    In the middle of this mayhem, the man that had asked to Daniel if the pill actually cured the Navi¡¯s family poison, had quietly left the hall along with his twopanions. Daniel was actually hoping that this would happen, as what he was hoping to achieve, was that at least one of the groups connected to Serf¡¯s family would go and deliver the news to them.

    "Please, One at a time!" Said Daniel out loud, this time seeding in his intent of shutting the crowd down. "You, the gentleman with the cauldron pattern robe, and the white beard." He then added while pointing at an old man that was eagerly raising his hand in hope to have a turn to ask questions.

    "Mr. Hiel, will any of those pills be for sale?" Asked the old man.

    The moment the old man asked this question, the hall became so quiet that Daniel could even hear the noise of his own breathing.

    "Not at the moment. We will not sell them until we will manage to secure a method to mass produce them. I don¡¯t want to favor any part of a feud I know nothing about without even knowing it. This is just a presentation." Responded Daniel inly, before turning to look at another middle aged man which was standing politely in wait. "The sir with stylish blue shirt."

    Slightly embarrassed, the man asked "Are there any known side effects to this pill?"

    "Yes. But I would rather not make them know for now. It¡¯s an additional way to keep mypany¡¯s invention safe." Responded Daniel with a dismissive tone. He was obviously referring to the fact that whoever tried to ingest the pill, would definitely die. The only reason why Daniel had survived, was because he already had a poison in his body which the pill could fight against.. But if he hadn¡¯t been poisoned, he would have likely died from the extreme toxicity of the pill itself.

    For the following half hour, Daniel kept answering to each of the answers from the many cultivators that had decided to join the event, and now, the even was finally over, and Daniel was able to dismiss the still shocked group ofpany heads from his territory with kind regards.

    -----

    Navi family residence, main hall. 2 in the morning.

    "HE DID WHAT?!" Shouted the olddy with as much anger as her old brain could allow her to feel.

    The man that had witnessed personally to Daniel¡¯s demonstration was now standing in front of her, and was ready to try and escape at any moment, as he knew of how rash the women of this family could be.

    "As I¡¯ve said, Lady Navi.. the kid created a cure for your family poison." Responded the middle aged man before inching backwards.

    "GET ALANA HERE! NOW!!" The olddy was out of her mind. A thousand thoughts were twisting in her mind. Thoughts about what would happen to her family¡¯s future in the poisonous rose if their poison was rendered harmless, about how the poisonous rose would want to know how that could have happened, and why was this young man so keen on making a cure for her poison. And most of all, she couldn¡¯t stop thinking about the fact that the rashness of her grand daughter was what had caused all of this.

    In a couple of minutes, the usually cold mother of Serf and na appeared with a visibly worried expression on her face. She was now dragging her daughter in front of her own mother. She wasn¡¯t worried about her daughter as much as she was worried about the reputation of her family being destroyed just a few years before she could take over.

    na was in tears, and was fully aware that her grandmother wasn¡¯t the forgiving type. So, she fell on her knees, and said in between sobs "Grandmother.. P-please.. Don¡¯t kill me.. I know how to fix this.. I swear!.."

    Lady Navi rose up on her feet, and after approaching her grand daughter for whom she felt nothing but hate at the moment, she said "Your life depends on the next words that wille out of your mouth. Make them count!"

 Chapter 211 An Horrific Sigh

    Back into Daniel¡¯spany building, one hour after the end of the event.

    "Cheers!" *Ding* Shouted Heimart as everybody clinked their sses in toast. "I have to say it Dan.. There were moments in which I thought you had no idea what the hell you were doing.. Never been happier about being wrong." He then added after raising his ss of wine, and downing it.

    Daniel smiled and nodded back at Heimart, before saying "I have to give credit to Ligart. He yed his part splendidly, and helped me get some pocket change from his cousin.. But jokes aside.. You guys made a spectacr job tonight." He then raised his own ss before taking a small sip of his greenish alcoholic beverage.

    Jerigh was standing right next to Daniel, looking at him as if he was about to grab him at any given moment, and drag him into a training room where they could finally spar. In his hand was a ss full with a liquor identical to Daniel¡¯s, Alesia¡¯s, and Ligart¡¯s, which he hadn¡¯t touched yet.

    He had never drank alcohol, as in the culture where he had been raised into, alcohol was a spoil of war for great warriors, and therefore, was not fit to be drank by a ve, even if that ve was the Jer Krigh. Not to mention that it was extremely important for him to always keep a hundred percent of his focus at all times.

    "Come on Jer.. just this once." Said Ligart, which was sitting right next to him with his cheeks already flushed red from the excessive drinking, and the happiness caused by basking in the glory of his performance.

    Jerigh showed an irritated expression, then, looked down on the greenish semi-transparent liquid in his ss, before taking a sip of it.

    The moment the bitter liquid touched his tongue, Jerigh¡¯s face contorted in deep unwillingness. He turned to look at the people that were sitting around him, which were now looking at him with curious eyes.

    He was about to spit it right back into the cup, when Daniel said "Come on Jer, down it like a true warrior!!" he then took a second sip from his own drink.

    Feeling challenged by Daniel¡¯s words, Jerigh poured the rest of the drink into his mouth, and swallowed the entire drink in a single gulp. *COUGH COUGH COUGH* The burning feeling of the alcoholic beverage flowing down his throat made his cheeks flush red instantly.

    "NONONONO SLOW!" Tried to shout Daniel, but it was toote.

    Jerigh¡¯s pupils dted, his skin started to turn closer to purple red, than its usual color. He quickly put the ss back on the table, and touches his warmed up cheeks in confusion, before brushing his fingers through his hair, and feeling shocked about the odd feeling that his golden locks gave to him. "So.. soft.." he muttered through a mesmerized expression.

    "Damn it.." Said Daniel while putting down his ss.

    What Jerigh did not know, was that this beverage wasn¡¯t anymon drink. It was a specially made drink that had to be drank in small sips in order to allow the immortal essence in one¡¯s body to filter the ¡¯hallucinogenic¡¯ effects it possessed.

    "HAHAHAHA!" Ligart suddenly burstughing. The sight of Jerigh losing his mind was more than he could ever ask to end a day like this.

    Daniel, Alesia and the rest couldn¡¯t help but smirk and giggle at how the sudden sound of Ligart¡¯sugh had shocked an already intoxicated Jerigh, which tried to touch Ligart¡¯s moving lips as if trying to seal them shut with uncoordinated fingers.

    The wide opened eyes of Jerigh, as well as Ligart¡¯s attempt to keep the former¡¯s hands off of his face, were too hrious to withstand. So much so that Heimart had gotten close to choking himself on a piece of meat from too muchughing.

    This was all happening while the teacher of the superior alchemy was informing the Navi family of what had happened that night, and right as the middle aged man spoke thest word, all the way into a different spatial dimension, and into Daniel¡¯s mind, two small windows had appeared. One of which left him dubious.

    ____________________________

    Primary Quest Completed: No Time For Poisons*

    -Description: Find a cure of the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn.

    Reward: The Poisonous Rose Reputation +75% / (Optional) Universal Government Reputation +2%

    ____________________________

    First evolution of the karmic system.

    ____________________________

    While Daniel was still confused about the meaning of the words written in the second window, a set of semi-transparent golden-colored ingers had started to creep out of his chest. He had felt nothing, as these fingers seemed to be intangible. Eight fingers moved out of his skin, and after hooking on the surface of Daniel¡¯s stomach, they slowly started to pull the rest of the body out.

    It was at this moment that Daniel noticed what was happening, and sprung up on his feet, shocked by what he was seeing. "Dan, what¡¯s wrong??" Asked Alesia with a confused tone to a now panicking Daniel, who was currently scratching his chest in horror.

    "Dan?" asked Alis after noticing Daniel¡¯s sudden actions.

    "Hey, everything alright?" added Heimart in slight worry.

    Daniel could not touch these small arms which were apparently pulling a body out of his stomach no matter what he tried, so, after hearing his friend¡¯s words, he slowly started to calm down. Barely managing to avoid staring at the scary sight right under his nose, he looked at his worried friends, and said "I.. I must have drank too much.. I¡¯m going toy down for a bit.."

    "Do you want me to apany you?" Asked Alesia with a worryingly. She had never seen Daniel act in such a way, and that had scared her greatly.

    "No.. no thanks, I¡¯m fine.. Keep having fun. I¡¯lle backter if I will feel better." He responded before directly teleporting into his office within the building.

    He was now alone, and with two semi-invisible arms creeping out of his stomach all the way to the elbows. "What the fuck.. What is going on?.." He muttered with a terrified tone. Once again he tried to touch these arms, but again, he felt no resistance, and his hands moved through as if there was nothing to touch to begin with.

    For the next two minutes, he kept trying different methods to interact with this ghost like presence that wasing out of his body. He tried to use his immortal essence, different types of mana, lightning, steel, silver, and anything else he could think of.. But nothing worked.

    This entity¡¯s arms were now almostpletely out, bending downwards, and cing the palms of its hands on Daniel¡¯s chest.. Then, the muscles on this being¡¯s arms started to tense, as if it was trying to lift the weight of its entire body with only these two arms, and in fact, that was the case, as after no longer than ten seconds, the entire entity shot out of Daniel¡¯s body like a thunder.

    "FINALLY!" Shouted this entity with an oddly familiar voice. "I CAN FINALLY MOVE!"

    "Wha.. S.. Sewah?" muttered Daniel in pure shock after recognizing the voice of his karmic system. With his eyes, he saw a poorly dressed young man in his early teens.

    The physical appearance of this young man was astonishingly handsome, and if other people could see him, they would shower him with praise. "What is going on?" He asked in deep confusion.

    "Now, before you say anything.. I have no idea of why this happened.. I only know that after you¡¯vepleted the quest, this world suddenly started to feel different.. More appropriate for me to.. Visit? Does it make sense? I just needed to get out." Responded Sewah while looking at his own semi-transparent body.

    "Think more.. This has to mean something. Has anything changed? Can you interact with anything?" Asked Daniel while observing Sewah¡¯s intangible body with curiosity. There is no need to mention that nobody else had evere out of his body, and therefore, Daniel didn¡¯t have the slightest idea of how to interpret what was happening.

    Sewah tried more than once to touch the objects within Daniel¡¯s office, but every attempt was pointless. No matter how many times he tried, he was not able to touch any of them. It seemed like he wasn¡¯t even there. Almost as if he was the pale shadow of a person from another ne of existence.

    "There doesn¡¯t seem to be anything different.. I just.. I don¡¯t know.. I can feel something in the distance." Said Sewah with confusion after thinking carefully.

    "What do you mean?" Asked Daniel with a dubious tone. "What are you talking about?"

    Sewah closed his eyes, and started to focus on these odd feelings he was feeling, and suddenly, at a distance of an incalcble number of kilometers, he sensed a dozen of faint sources of drastically different power that came from different directions. Each of these powers was more powerful than what Sewah had ever witnessed when inside Daniel¡¯s body, and something told him that he needed to stay away from them.

    "What is it?"

    "I know what they are.." Responded Sewah with unveiled terror. "They are my brothers.."

    This state of deep confusion had gone on for too long for Daniel¡¯s tastes, and with a hint of anger, he asked "Brothers? I¡¯m lost. What are you feeling?"

    Once again, Sewah focused on sensing the absurdly powerful entities that he had felt just a few moments ago, and the moment he found them again, he noticed that at least half of them were moving in his direction.

    The original distance between him and these entities, was of billions of trillions of parsecs, and yet, the second time he had tried to feel them, they had gotten closer of about the zero point one percent of the total distance. That would not mean much, but if one considered how far that zero point one percent was, and that it had all happened in a matter of two or three seconds, one would imagine how absurdly fast these entities were.

    More terrified than before, Sewah looked around in panic, and the moment he noticed that these beings were keeping on approaching, he looked at Daniel, and without thinking twice about it, he jumped right back into his body.

    Shocked by Sewah¡¯s sudden actions, Daniel shouted "WAIT WAIT WAI-"unfortunately, his words were interrupted by Sewah¡¯s body which slowly creeped back inside him, leaving Daniel with a creepy feeling that caused a shiver to run down his spine. He was nowhere near used to seeing things enter his body, and he would likely never be. "Can you tell me what the hell did you see!?" Asked Daniel in his mind.

    "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Shouted Sewah in panic. He appeared to have lost his mind. Now that he was back inside Daniel¡¯s body, he seemed to have once again lost the ability to sense the world outside of Daniel¡¯s body, and now, he was cowering in fear inside what considered to be his only safe ce.

    About to lose his mind from the exasperation he was feeling, Daniel prepared to burst in rage in his mind, when someone came knocking at his door.

    *KNOCK KNOCK*

    "Dan, there is a middle aged woman and an old man here to see you. The old man presented himself as the governor." Said Alesia from behind Daniel¡¯s door.

    Daniel took a deep breath to calm himself down, and after recalling the panicked state Sewah was in, he decided to ignore him for the time being, and said "I¡¯ll be there in a minute." He then put himself back together, and walked out of his room.

    He took the small walk from his office to the guest lounge to clear his mind, and when he arrived at the end of the the entrance of the lounge, he said distractingly "Governor Lien, I¡¯m sor-" His tone immediately changed into one of alertness after noticing that the two individuals weren¡¯t the olddy and the governor, but two people that he had never met before. "...Who are you?"

 Chapter 212 An Optimal Solution

    "...Who are you?" Asked Daniel with alertness. He had never seen these two people before, and the simple fact that they were aware of his rtionship with the governor of this enough to impersonate him when trying toe into contact with him, was more than enough to make him suspicious and on edge.

    Only two people were standing in front of Daniel, and they were a middle aged woman dressed in a white dress, and a grey-haired middle aged man d in fitting, and refined leather armor. They were currently looking at Daniel with interest, as if they represented the older generation which was looked at a talented member of the younger one.

    "Dan Hiel, I¡¯ve heard so much talking about youtely." Said the forty something years old woman, as her red lips curved into a faint smile. "I apologize for appearing out of the blue.. Had we known what yourpany new product was, I would have skinned one of the invited guests, and wore their skin to show up personally."

    "Hehe.. I definitely agree." Added the grey-haired man after chuckling in agreement.

    Daniel could not be more nervous about this meeting, and for a simple reason. Both of these individuals were vastly more powerful than him. Had he met these two people outside of hispany building, he would have tried to escape, but it was clear to him that they could threaten the lives of his friends before he could even attempt to warn them of the danger.

    "Maybe it¡¯s a good idea not to enter an event where your presence is not required. Are you going to tell me who you are now?" He asked once again, this time even more nervously.

    "Do not worry, you are not in trouble. Somebody asked us toe and meet you, and to ask you if you would be generous enough to share your product. It is a marvelous discovery, so much so that it is unfair to keep it only to your smallpany." Responded the woman with unveiled contempt.

    Daniel¡¯s brows furrowed in irritation, as he turned to look at the woman and asked "And who am I supposed to share my discovery with?" He was not going to drop the matter until they would have made their identity known.

    "The onlypany that deserves to receive the massive credit of owning your product, of course, The poisonous rose." Responded the middle aged woman with a matter-of-fact tone.

    What Daniel did not know, was that the Navi family was actually one of the most reserved of the big families of the poisonous rose. The majority of the others had alreadymitted genocide only for having been challenged in the past, and that was the very least they did. The only difference between them was that a poison was much more valuable when paired with a cure, and a cure to many poisons was even more valuable than the poison itself.

    A rather big detail which screamed ¡¯they are not joking¡¯ in Daniel¡¯s head, was the astonishingly big red number that both of these two people had, floating above their heads.

    "Why would I want to do that?" Asked Daniel with a seemingly calm tone, before adding "And how did you get in here?"

    "The people on this know who you are.. Have your days of fame here, and let the adults y the bigger games." Responded the grey-haired man with a derisory tone. "About how we have gotten here.. It wasn¡¯t that hard.. We have only had to kill one of the keepers, and get the token connected to yourpany building."

    After listening to the word of the middle aged man, Daniel became quiet for a moment. He didn¡¯t know how to react to the oppressive demeanor of these two people. He was left with only a chance to ept their demands, but he wasn¡¯t going to take it like that.

    While looking down at the floor, Daniel started to giggle to himself. "Hehehe.." theugh was low, and guttural, and didn¡¯t show the slightest hint of fear. This low giggling quickly evolved into a louderugh as he lifted his head, and looked at the two individuals as if he was looking at a couple of idiots. "HAHAHAHAHA! Oh.. oh.. That was so funny.. Hahaha.."

    Something changed in the middle aged man¡¯s behaviour, which from a hundred percent of contempt, turned into more of an irritated setting. "What is so funny?" He asked in slight anger.

    "Nothing you¡¯ve just said makes any sense to me. There is no recipe, there is no testingb, there isn¡¯t even waste product after the creation of the pill! To hear you demand something that only exists in my mind with such confidence.. I think they¡¯ve sent the two biggest idiots to do the job." Responded Daniel with the biggest facade of confidence that he could muster.

    The middle aged woman quietly observed Daniel¡¯s expression through her narrowed eyes, while the grey-haired man calmed down significantly as well. "You don¡¯t seem too worried that I would go to the room where your friends are still having a party, and ughter them all." She said with a threatening tone.

    Daniel was more than aware of the fact that this woman was telling the truth, and that she could actually kill all of his friends in a minute, but that was the reason why he couldn¡¯t allow himself to make any mistakes. He couldn¡¯t appear like a caringpany owner.. Not now. Instead, he needed to look like the greedy, indifferent and uncaring piece of shit that these two would have nothing to use as leverage to threaten him with.

    "Honestly, with what they¡¯ve costed me, you¡¯d do me a favor.. Even though I would have to find other people, train them.. Please, let¡¯s avoid that." Said Daniel with indifference. All of the years of lying and tricking people that he had spent when he was younger, were being useful now. "But if you do, please hurry up, so we can get to business." He then added.

    The two observed Daniel with deep attention. They were trying to understand if he was just trying his luck, or if he was actually serious.

    After a few seconds, the face of the woman rxed, and she said "Of course.. No gracious businessman would have ever had the guts and drive to y with fire like you did when you¡¯ve created the Partial Poison Immunity Pill.. What do you propose?"

    Daniel¡¯s face did not change in the slightest, but internally, he was taking huge breaths of relief. It appeared that the two had bought it, and he couldn¡¯t feel more relieved. He was sure that if they didn¡¯t, he wouldn¡¯t have gotten his group out of this predicament even with ¡¯Second Chance¡¯.

    "I join the poisonous rose.. Officially. I keep the recipe of the pill to myself as mypany¡¯s individual contribution to alchemy and poison making.. Just like each and every major family in the poisonous rose.. And you can take the credit for having this pill created by a group that belongs to the poisonous rose." Said Daniel while looking away from the two, and pacing around with a pensive expression.

    The white-haired man turned to look at the middle aged woman, and said "Look at that. We¡¯vee here to try and have some fun.. Who would have thought that he would give us a shot at getting the ¡¯optimal solution¡¯ the boss asked us to aim for.. Hehehe.."

    Without turning to look back at the man, the woman looked at Daniel with an impressed expression, and muttered "You¡¯re right.. I wish our kid was this smart.." She then turned to look at what Daniel imagined to be her partner, and added "But of course, fighting off the desire to rip him into pieces at least a couple of times a day would have been hell, wouldn¡¯t it, dear?"

    "It sure would.. I can hardly containing myself from killing this one, and I¡¯ve only just met him." Responded the grey-haired man before quietening down for a few seconds. He then made a snapping sound with his tongue, and said "Very well, that¡¯s how we will do it.. If you survive that is."

    "If I survive?" Responded Daniel with confusion.

    The white-haired man smiled for the first time, and said "You¡¯ll see." Then, the two of them disappeared at the same time, leaving Daniel alone in the guest hall.

    A minute went by as Daniel thought about the consequences of that day¡¯s events, and finally, his trail of thoughts was interrupted by a sweet and yet slightly worried voice that came from behind him "Dan, what is going on? Why was the entrance of the guest hall locked?"

    Daniel turned to look back at Alesia, and with a grim expression, he said "We¡¯ve got what we wanted.. We are in."

    -----

    Two dayster, Daniel was sitting on a chair in the office of the actual Governor Lien.

    The old man was sitting at his desk as well, with an expression that showed how deeply interested in what Daniel had to say he was "You were not lying.. It¡¯s truly better than a cure for that virus. While the transparent thorn came to our to test his new work, the Navi family actually lives here." He said with enthusiasm.

    "I¡¯m d I didn¡¯t disappoint, governor Lien." Responded Daniel politely. He felt no particr amount of respect for this man personally, as we was basically a high level bureaucrat, but he felt respect for his intention of wanting to seek new methods to better the lives of his people.

    Daniel had created an effective antidote against a poison which was a bane for his entire government, and therefore, he had no reason not to view Daniel as a great contributor to the, and its people. But he had something more to ask.. "You didn¡¯t disappoint at all, Mr. Hiel.. but I have a question. I assume you won¡¯t share the recipe of the Partial Poison Immunity Pill with me, so, how do you n to deliver the antidote? Do you have a separate product?"

    After a quick nod in response, Daniel said "I will soon. My best researchers are currently studying the pill and trying to find a.. Milder version."

    A big smile which hid a hint of disappointment appeared on the governor¡¯s face. He knew perfectly well that Daniel would never give up the Partial Poison Immunity Pill, and yet, he couldn¡¯t help but hope that he would.

    His disappointment was quickly overshadowed by the happiness of hearing Daniel promise an antidote soon. "That¡¯s splendid news. I have no doubts that your researching team will seed." Said the governor with a bright smile.

    "Governor Lien.. about mypany¡¯s contribution.." Said Daniel while inching towards the desk.

    "Yourpany¡¯s contribution is high enough to deserve the rights to trade on aary level, and to travel through our sr systems with exception made of the isteds." Responded the governor with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Isteds?" Asked Daniel in confusion. "What is an isted?"

    "When new gxies are explored, and news are found, massive wars take ce with the purpose of deciding who will take control over the inhabitables, and their resources. ording to multi-gctic treaties, if a winner isn¡¯t decided within five thousand years of war, the turns into the universal government¡¯s property, and they will use it as reward, prize, or really anything that they wish to do with it." Responded the governor. "Each group can leave a part of their essence into that, and in case the indigenous poption of that were to use that.. Let¡¯s call it ¡¯gift¡¯.. To gain control over that, the will fall under the control of that faction."

    Daniel took in all of these information in silence, then, he asked "What does the indigenous poption of that group need to do in order to im it for the faction?" Asked Danie with curiosity. He knew that that was the pivotal question of the whole matter.

    "A person that wields the power of a children of Iewah needs to nurture his or her gifts, ande back to Iewah¡¯s manifestation itself after Iewah¡¯s childred will have grown up."

    Daniel was quite shocked by the old man¡¯s words, and yet, he felt an indescribable amount of happiness. What made him feel such tion, was knowing that he, a person which wielded the power of a children of Iewah, was one of the few people allowed enter what he considered to be his home.

 Chapter 213 Forgiveness is Impossible

    What Daniel had understood from thest conversation he had with the governor, was that the inhabitant of an isted were the only ones allowed to im the for the faction whose power the champion had decided to nurture, as well as the fact that each faction had a different power and method to im ownership over these worlds.

    Daniel was an inhabitant of one of theses, and as someone chosen from Iewah, Daniel was one of his champions, and therefore, he could im the for his faction if he fulfilled the requirements. The same would have been if Daniel had allowed the worshippers of death to make the essence of corruption spread through the world, allowing the Sovereign of Corruption to gain another under his domain.

    Simrly to the essence of corruption, was the connection to the spiritual in, which Daniel had guessed was only a part, along with human¡¯s ki, of a superior kind of power called immortal essence. But now that he knew that each of these powers possessed an individual and separated path, Daniel hade to a new conclusion, and that was that there likely was a path specifically made for spiritual cultivation which he simply didn¡¯t know of.

    His view of the vast universe had broadened once again. Enough to let him feel the pressure that its infinity weighted over the shoulder of each and every being which dreamed of conquest, dominion, and glory. After reaching this point of knowledge, not even one in a million would maintain their dreams of bing prominent and well known figure, and yet, there still was that one in a million. That one in a million which would obstinately push through.. Uncaring of the near impossibility that his or her desires and aspirations would seed.

    Originally, Daniel didn¡¯t have any particr aspiration for his life. He wanted for his sister and himself to be happy, and to not have to worry about money all the time. To know that she had the best chances in her life, and that his parents would have been proud of the way he provided for her. But now, things had changed.

    Daniel was not stupid. He was aware of the fact that his sister probably had a different life now. More than five years had passed, and she was nearing her mid twenties. It wouldn¡¯t have been odd if she was already married, or had kids. That of course did not change his desire to see her, but he wasn¡¯t expecting her to be the person she was when they had parted.

    Day after day he had found one new friend after another, and now, his aims and desires of sess extended to them as well. He wanted to know how things would have gone between him and Alesia, to see Heimart and Alis teach martial arts to their children, to witness the moment where Ligart would have finally grown up, and much more.. but the background desire to know how his sister was doing, was always present.

    He needed to make sure that she was alive and fine. That was what he needed to do.

    -----

    After receiving the permit of passage to cross throughs, the first thing that Daniel did, was to purchase a passage to his of origin.

    These crossings were done through spatial ships, and not by teleportation, as those entities powerful enough to teleport from one to another, were generally not poor enough to need to do such a job.

    Crossing through short distance teleportation was not prohibited, but it meant almost certain death. After all, many beings lived in the empty space, and one could easily teleport into an area which contained unknown monsters, and concepts of space which could disintegrate them, divide them into many different pieces, or teleport one half of their bodies trillions of kilometers away.

    If these dangers weren¡¯t enough, traveling through space by using short range teleportation would usually require months, if not years.. and since people would need to rest after teleporting a few times, and space was not a ce where people would be able to dwell for long periods at a time.. That was a truly unpopr method to travel.

    Spatial ships were pretty much normal, yet massive ships which possessed a spatial formation that could allow them safety in long distance travels. The term safety was, of course, rtive.. After all, a rift that lead into the void could open in front of them at any moment, and they could end up lost in it forever.

    Daniel¡¯s of original was one of two twins that orbited next to each other. The distance between the two was of only twenty million kilometers, and what Daniel was required to pay for the travel, was for the ship to change course when on the way to the twin, or when on the way back from it. The entire cost for this proces was of five thousand perfect crystals.

    -----

    Five days had passed since the chat between Daniel and the governor, and now, he was waiting in his room within the academy. He had no reason to go back to the academy, except for finding Serf, and asking him to join his group.

    The spatial ship would depart in only two days, and yet, Daniel was still unable to meet with Serf, causing him to start to worry. What he was regretting at the moment, was not trying to have Serf join his group earlier. At least that way he would have always known if he was safe or not.

    Daniel did not know yet, but his worries were about to be real, and the first sign of it, was the knocking sound at his door.

    *Knock Knock Knock*

    Daniel quickly sprung up on his feet, and walked towards the door. The barriers on the walls were always there, and therefore, he was still unable to observe who was knocking unless he opened the door.

    After opening therge wooden door in hope of finding a tall, fat, and kind giant, Daniel saw a short, beautiful and deadly devil standing in front of him instead.

    "na." Said Daniel with a cold tone. "I hope you are here to tell me where Serf is."

    na did not seem her usual self. She wasn¡¯t full of herself as usual, and by simply seeing Daniel¡¯s aggressive behaviour, she had taken a step back in clear fear.

    "I am.." she said before suddenly turning quiet. Daniel could see sadness in her eyes, as well as a couple of tears that were forming on the corners of her eyes. "You have t-to help my brother.." She said while on the verge of crying.

    Daniel,pletely unaware of what kind of rtionship the two siblings had, became even more worried. He took a step forward, and after forcibly grabbing the girls arms, he said "What happened to him?"

    "He was used of sharing the secrets of our family with you.. And he has been sentenced to death." Responded na as tears started to stream down her cheeks. If someone that didn¡¯t know her were to see her acting, they would be fooledpletely. Unfortunately, Daniel was not one of them.

    Regardless of whether what na was saying was the truth or not, he still needed to go to the territory of the Navi family. If Serf was there, he wanted to see him. "Take me there.." Said Daniel with confidence.

    -----

    One hourter, in arge square right in front of them main hall of the Navi family.

    "Your daughter better not disappoint me again." Said the olddy while looking at her daughter. Her threatening tone was so evident, that it could almost be physically felt.

    "She is not a stupid person.. She knows that this is herst chance." Responded the middle aged woman indifferently. Internally, she was hoping that her daughter would seed in her n, otherwise, the future of her family would be bleak, and by extension, hers as well.

    After only two minutes of wait, two shadows appeared in between two rows of houses whichposed part of the surrounding small city. These two shadows belonged to Daniel and na.

    "That olddy is my grandmother.. She is the only one you have to convince in order to have them release Serf.. Please." Said na onceing in sight of the olddy, and her mother.

    Daniel already knew that something was wrong, yet, he he approached them confidently.

    Once he reached the middle of the square, and in earshot of the olddy, he said "Head of the Navi family.. I am here on behalf of your grandson Serf. I would like to ask you to release him." His tone showed no fear, and instead, a hint of his readiness to battle.

    "Head of the Golden Karmapany.. You have already ruined the reputation of my family.. Why should I care about what you want?" Asked the old woman with a face contorted in anger.

    "Because mypany is now part of the poisonous rose, and that means that we are not enemies anymore. The poison of your family, and the antidote of mypany are made, and will stay within the poisonous rose." Responded Daniel with a clear tone. He wanted to try to appear like an ally for once.

    The moment the olddy heard Daniel¡¯s words, she straightened her back, and asked frantically "You were invited by the poisonous rose? Did they take the antidote from you?!"

    "No. The antidote is my contribution to the poisonous rose, and it doesn¡¯t belong to anybody but me." Responded Daniel after looking at the olddy with narrowed eyes.

    The olddy took a deep breath in relief. Then said "I wee you into the poisonous rose, but your new position doesn¡¯t change anything. My grandsonmitted the gravest of crimes, and he will die for his actions tomorrow morning."

    "Please.. Please do something." Said na from next to Daniel before starting to bawl in desperation. She actually seemed desperate to have her brother released.

    "Is there anything I can do?" Asked Daniel to the olddy before taking a step forward.

    When talking about dealing with people like Daniel, the old woman was extremely cunning and experienced. Even though her family worked with poisons, they were still extremely experienced in alchemy. This did not mean that they were powerful for that reason.. Only that she was an experienced businesswoman, and that she knew many strategies to ensure a desired result from a negotiation.

    "I am sorry to start the rtionship between our two powers like this, Mr. Hiel. But the rules of my family are what allowed us to be what we are now. Serf¡¯s betrayal will likely lead us to one of our lowest points.. Forgiveness is impossible." Said the olddy with pride. She wanted to appear like an incorruptible person.

    "I will give you the antidote for the poison of our family." Said Daniel after taking another step forward.

    Once again, the olddy said with pride "I cannot ept something that has been created from stolen research of my family. My family has that much honor left! Go back.."

    Anger started to build into Daniel¡¯s body.. He clenched his fists in an attempt to avid starting an all out war, and said through gritted teeth "Fine.." He then made a piece of paper and a pen appear out of his spatial ring, and used them wrote a few lines.

    On this piece of paper, was a slightly modified version of the pill which Daniel had created. The materials were right, but the method of production of the pill was filled with small mistakes.

    He pretended to be extremely conflicted about his following actions, but after a few seconds, he gave the piece of paper to na, and said after turning towards the olddy "Will this be enough to release Serf?"

 Chapter 214 I Will Kill All of You

    "Will this be enough to release Serf?" Asked Daniel after passing the piece of paper to na.

    The olddy quickly tried to approach her grand daughter, but before she coulde to five meters of distance from her, she felt that something was wrong. A spatial barrier was preventing her froming closer, and this barrier¡¯s power was just below her own power.

    She quickly turned to look at Daniel in shock, she would have never expected that he could be this powerful at his young age.

    Unable to push through without using her true strength, the olddy turned to look at na, who immediately read what was written in the piece of paper, and said "It¡¯s a recipe.. The items.. They are the same as our poison.." the more she read, the more shocked she became about how close to the creation of the ck pills this recipe actually was.

    "I want to see him. If you don¡¯t let me talk to him, I won¡¯t let you have it." Said Daniel with a threatening tone. What Daniel was expecting to happen, was that they would allow him to see Serf, and free him in exchange for the entire recipe of his Partial Poison Immunity Pill.

    Naturally, he would never give up his pill, and instead, he would wait for them to take Serf out before finding a way to escape. That was the reason why he had given to them the ingredients for the pill, and not the true method. People could study one pill and find what it had been made of, but they would likely never find the true method to produce the pill.

    Knowing the ingredients for this pill and not the method of production was the same as what they knew about the antidote for the poison of their family. What was missing was the method, and that was why they weren¡¯t able to replicate it even after years of failed attempts. The best they hade to it, was the production of the ck pill.

    Daniel was forced to put the true list of the ingredients because he wasn¡¯t aware of how much they knew. He needed them to believe that the recipe was real, or he could ended end up causing an opposite reaction, and probably lose any chance for the Navi family to trust him.

    He did not fear confrontation with this family, after all, their main power came from the use of poisons, and he was already immune to the most powerful poison that they possessed. What he feared, was that they would kill Serf if he refused.

    He was currently waiting for a response, but suddenly.. A few more individuals started to appear from various spots around the square. Daniel could feel their power, and he at least three of them were at the sixth stage of cultivation, just like he and the olddy were.

    It was at this moment that Daniel turned to look at na, whom he still believed was on Serf¡¯s side, and said "I¡¯m going to teleport you away." but before he could, he saw a faint smile grow on her face, and a small talisman appear in her hand.

    This talisman was called ¡¯Way Back¡¯, and it was a spatial talisman.

    The way this talisman worked, was a mixture between a teleporting talisman and a ki g. It would teleport the carrier through space, and close to the source of a certain type of essence, which in na¡¯s case, was the immortal essence of her grandmother.

    The reason why it was called way home, was because the majority of people used it as an emergency tool to teleport directly back home. The teleportation would force through dimensions, and had an infinite range, but the further a person was from ¡¯home¡¯, the more dangerous it would be to use the talisman.

    For a person to avoid risk for their lives when using it, they needed to be within the same region at best. That was the reason why, even though extremely useful, the ¡¯Way Home¡¯ talisman was not considered an object of high level when put in the perspective of the universe¡¯s size.

    na had been given this object by her family, to use in case Daniel would have ever given the recipe to her.. and now that it had happened, she hadn¡¯t hesitated.

    Normally, since Daniel was still within the same region where na and the Navi family territory were, she would have expected to suffer from some internal damage, or a massive migraine.. But unexpectedly, she was lucky enough to need to use it directly from within the area where the way home talisman was supposed to take her, and therefore, allow her to teleport without any sort of negative consequence.

    "Here, grandma." Said na before passing the piece of paper that she was holding in her hands.

    What had just happened surprised Daniel greatly, and yet, he did not lose his calm. Instead, he looked at na, and asked "Has Serf really been detained?.."

    na struggled to keep herself fromughing at Daniel. And said with a in tone "He was."

    There was something in the way that she had responded that struck something within Daniel. For the first time since he hade here, Daniel started to consider that something terrible could have happened. "Where is he?" He asked with visible worry.

    The olddy interjected before na could answer, and said "The pills." She was of course not going to leave the pills to Daniel. The less the number people that possessed them was, the more they would be worth in the long run.

    Daniel did not say anything, and instead waited in ce. He had been ignored one too many time, and all he could think about was to verify if Serf was okay or not.

    Noticing how Daniel was refusing toply, the olddy said "You still don¡¯t get it, do you?" Her tone was cold, and menacing. "This isn¡¯t a matter of whether you¡¯ll see Serf again.. This is a matter of whether you will survive this encounter or not."

    Again, Daniel said nothing and waited. The bad feeling that he had felt so far was growing and growing the more time passed.

    One long minute of silenceter, the olddy turned to look at na, and nodded slightly.

    In response, na said to him "You want my brother? You can have him." she then waved her arm, causing arge lifeless body to appear. It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to recognize this corpse as what was once his gentle, and big friend.

    Inside Daniel¡¯s head, everything went nk. He was thinking of dozens of things, and yet none could stay as a firm thought in his mind. He was seeing shes of when the two had met, of how Serf showed his thick skin by ignoring everyone who tried to bully him.. And even how he would usually see hime back to their room with a big smile on his face, after using his time to help around the city, just like Daniel¡¯s group did. Except that when he did it, was because he enjoyed it, and not because it would make him stronger.

    "You¡¯ve.. killed him.." muttered Daniel with eyes wide opened in shock. His hands were trembling, and he couldn¡¯t believe what he was seeing.

    "We haven¡¯t.. We were going to, after torturing him a little bit.. But the traitor didn¡¯t want to tell us anything! I¡¯ve left him alone to get my tools, and the idiot killed himself." Said na with indifference. Yet, hidden behind her in expression, one could feel the faint satisfaction that she felt in seeing the dead body of her brother.

    Daniel was feeling shock, and anger, which along with growing sadness,posed the majority of Daniel¡¯s current state of mind. Yet, everything was slowly being masked by what was sheer and blind fury.

    "Give up the pills, kid.. And you might end up better than he did." Said the olddy with a face devoid of emotions. She of course had no intentions of allowing Daniel to leave alive, but since she still needed him to give her the pills, she decided to let him think that he had a chance to survive. "And I wouldn¡¯t try to escape if I were you.. While we were talking, a spatial formation was being activated.. You won¡¯t be able to leave even if you try."

    Daniel ignored the olddy¡¯s wordspletely. Intead, he slowly walked towards Serf¡¯s corpse, and once close to it, he fell on his knees next to it. He observed the rxed expression of his friend for a few moments, then, he calmly took his arms, joined them together over his chest, and closed his semi-opened eyelids.

    The two had met only a few months earlier, and yet Daniel hade to consider Serf a great friend. He had saved his life once, and was the embodiment of what the positive side of his karmic system was. He was sure that, had Serf been to the prairie with him when Iewah picked a champion, he would have definitely picked Serf instead.

    After cing Serf¡¯s corpse in a decent position, Daniel slowly stood up. He could feel the rage and hate grow inside him, and slowly take over his mind. Before that day, he had never imagined that a sister could behave that way towards her brother.. His view of what evil meant had changed once again, and now, these people had to pay for it.

    "Don¡¯t try anything stupid.. You¡¯ll end up dead. And after that, we will kill the rest of your friend as well. Why not justply, and live to see another day?" Said na¡¯s mother which had quietly appeared along with the other experts. She was at thete fifth stage of immortal cultivation.

    Daniel¡¯s expression turned into one of calmness, which did not express what he was truly feeling in the slightest. His hands suddenly stopped trembling, and at the same time, they started to shine of a yellowish bright color.

    The light emanated from his hands was not powerful, and yet, it emanated a huge amount of warmth. On the surface of his skin, big yellow drops were forming, and streaming down his palms, before reaching his fingers, and ultimately, dripping on the cold ground. *TSSSSSSSH* *TSSSSSSH* These drops kept falling one after the other, until finally, one stopped right before touching the ground, and took the shape of the tip of a sword.

    It seemed thatva wasing out of Daniel¡¯s body, which flowed down and into a sword-shaped mold which ultimately turned the cumted drops ofva into two swords. These two swords were scorching hot, and shined as if they could melt away just as quickly as they had formed.

    This had all happened in less than ten seconds, and while Daniel was creating these two sword, a few more cultivators had entered the formation.

    Some of these people were clearly not part of the Navi family, and instead, were mercenary that lived in the city around the Navi family, and had decided to spend their lives working for this powerful family of poison masters.

    Around Daniel, were now at least ten sixth stage cultivators, and no less than twenty more at a lower level. They were looking at him as if he had gone mad.

    "Let¡¯s do it your way, kid. Just hope for your friends¡¯ sake that after we kill you, we will find the pills in your ring.." Said the olddy while taking an enormous ck scythe out of her spatial ring, and taking her fighting stance.

    For the first time since before na had taken out Serf¡¯s body, Daniel turned to look at the olddy, and with eyes as cold as ice, he said "I will kill all of you." He then let go over the control of his immortal essence, which caused his body to slowly float in the air.

    Large amounts of immortal essence were moving on Daniel¡¯s back, and before anyone could notice it, he had dashed towards the olddy with incredible speed.

    The olddy reacted quickly, and tried to use the bigger range of her weapon to hit him first, but just as her attack shed the empty air, she heard a disgusting sounding from right next to her.

    *TSSSSSSGSHHH* *Thu-Thump*

    Her grand daughter na, which was preparing to leave the area before the fight begun, had now dropped dead on the ground, split vertically into two parts.

    Next to her, Daniel stood in silence.

 Chapter 215 Enough to Destroy Your Family

    The entire square quietened down instantly. Warriors that had joined the Navi family¡¯s effort to rob Daniel¡¯spany of their form for a quick profit, were now looking at this young man, which they thought they would easily manage to kill, with deep alertness.

    The parts of na¡¯s body that had been touched by de had been cauterized instantly, and not a single drop of blood had been spilled even after she fell lifeless on the ground. The sight was terrifying to say the least.

    Of course, these people were all experienced warriors, and other than the surprise of seeing Daniel¡¯s sudden actions, they did not lose theirposure in the slightest. What changed within their minds, was how seriously they were going to take Daniel and his two scorching swords from now on.

    The olddy,pletely unfazed by what had just happened, quickly waved her scythe once again towards Daniel as a follow up to her previous attack, but it took a simple flick of Daniel¡¯s arm to cut the scythe¡¯s wooden snath before it could even reach his body. *Clink* Therge poisonous de fell on the ground with a loud noise, leaving the woman defenseless.

    Now out of his mind, Daniel turned to look at the olddy, which after seeing the look on his eyes, felt the cold embrace of a swift death loom over her old neck. Luckily for her, it was not her time yet.

    His stare, at the moment, appeared like a perfect presage of death. The olddy was expecting him to wave his hand and send her old head flying in the air, but what had happened until now had given enough time to the other fighters to dash towards Daniel, and attack him.

    Dozens of arrows had forced Daniel to turn his attention elsewhere. Specifically, to a woman that was standing on a roof about fifty meters from his position. Each of her arrows were precise and deadly, and pointed at each of Daniel¡¯s vital points without missing once.

    Her main objective was to keep him focused on protecting the most important parts of his body, while the others would use the various moments of distraction that she created to kill him, but Daniel was not going to fall for it that easily.

    As a heavily armored man approached him while wielding a sword and a shield, Daniel turned his two swords into metallic extensions of his hands, which he used to grab the shield, and clutch his fingers around the wrist of the hand which was holding the sword.

    "AAAARRGH! ATTACK HIM!!" Shouted the man in pain, as Daniel¡¯s hand quickly cooked the flesh of his wrist.

    Daniel hit the man with two powerful headbutts.. causing the impact with his cranium to shatter the man¡¯s nose. Once the man was distracted by the piercing pain on his face, he pushed the man¡¯s shield aside, and stepped forward to grab the man¡¯s breastte, then, he pulled him in between himself and the archer.

    Any sort of resistance abandoned the man as three arrows quickly perforated his chest.

    A second melee fighter had approached Daniel from behind during his sh with the previous heavily armored warrior. He was a martial artist which fought with no weapons. His fists were covered in mes, and emanated a warmth powerful enough to melt one¡¯s clothes and skin with a single touch.

    He was able to use Daniel¡¯s moment of distraction to grab him from behind, and put him into a headlock.. but before he could snap Daniel¡¯s arms or neck from behind, or allow the archer to finish the job, tens of metallic spikes pushed through Daniel¡¯s clothes, and prated the chest of the man from side to side, killing him on the spot.

    Unfortunately, one arrow had managed to reach Daniel, and perforated his left biceps.

    Ignoring the burning pain on the back of his head, and the wooden arrow that pierced his arm all the way through, Daniel looked around for his next targets. What appeared in his field of view, were three identically dressed middle aged men which used the same kind of weapon.. A ssic spear.

    On his way towards them, Daniel deflected various arrows that were relentlessly shot towards him, and picked the shield of the heavily armored man he had just killed from the ground.

    Once in front of three, at least a twenty piercing attacks arrived in a matter of a second.

    Daniel kept the shield high and his head low, parrying each attack while he advanced.. forcing the enemies to retreat in order to keep distance.

    Now close enough, Daniel moved the shield aside, and exposed his body for the three spearmen to attack. As he expected, three attacks arrived instantly, but he was prepared. He deflected them with the shield¡¯s rim, and caught the bodies of the spears under his arm, then, with a rapid motion, he wrapped his free hand around all three of the metallic heads of the spears, right where they touched, and melted the metals of which they were made, welding them together.

    Finding themselves with a single spear with three bodies, the three spearmen turned into harmless chicken for Daniel¡¯s sword to decapitate.. Or so to say.

    Daniel pierced his sword through the chest of the spearman in the middle, then twisted the de until the sharpened edge pointed left, and directly cut through the body of the now deceased spearman, and towards the one to his left.

    As the third spearman saw the head of the second one roll on the ground, he fell into panic. He turned away and desperately tried to run away from Daniel, but before he could go far, he felt two big metallic and scorching hot hands grab his head from behind.

    *TSSSSSSSS* "AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHH!" *CRUNSSHH* Shouted the man in excruciating pain as Daniel¡¯s hands squeezed his head to a point where his cranium directly fell to the powerful pressure, and caved in.

    With a couple of cuts on his skin, an arrow pierced on his left arm, and a severe burn on the back of his head, Daniel turned to look for more prey while listening to the sound of the man¡¯s blood and brain matter sizzle on the molten metal that was covering his hands.

    While all of this takes a lot to describe, in reality, it all happened in less than fifteen seconds.

    Daniel¡¯s reason and sense of self preservation had be marginal, and only took over when his life was in extreme danger. For the rest of the time, blind rage dominated his behaviour.

    For the following two minutes, he cut one life after the other with no remorse, no hesitation.. Until only Serf¡¯s grandmother was left.

    He was currently standing in front of her.. Covered in the blood of the woman¡¯s daughter, family members, and subordinates, and yet, the woman did not show any fear. It looked like she had epted her fate at some point while spectating to the minutes of carnage that had took ce in front of her.

    "Why did you have to kill him.. He was a good guy. He never hurt anybody.. What was so wrong with not wanting to be a monster?" Asked Daniel with deep sadness, as he approached the woman. In his hand, was a severed hand armed with a bagh nakh.

    "He was weak. Kindness would have never taken him far." Responded the old woman with odd calmness. There was a sort of resignation in her old eyes. She was old enough to know that she was going to die soon.

    "HIS KINDNESS!!" Shouted Daniel in rage, as he approached her. Once the two were in front of each other, Daniel moved his head in front of hers, and said "His kindness was powerful enough to destroy your family."

    It was true.. And the woman could not deny it. Herte grandson¡¯s kindness had not allowed him to gain personal strength, but a different sort of strength that was wroth just as much.. With it, he had gained friends powerful enough to overpower his entire family.

    Daniel looked at the old woman¡¯s indifferent expression, and once again felt anger grow in his chest. He wanted her to apologize to her grandson.. To be desperate, and admit that she was wrong.. But that never happened.

    His immortal essence took once again the shape of a sword, before turning into a mixture of metal and fire essence which, once formed, Daniel pointed at the woman¡¯s chest. The tip was only millimeters away from her body, and he could have pierced her heart in an instant, but then..

    "AMAZING!! TRULY AMAZING!! I told you that he would have made it!" Said a disembodied yet familiar voice that came from behind Daniel.

    He turned to look back at the square, and there, he saw the middle aged couple from the poisonous rose that he had met a few days before. The woman in the white dress, and the grey-haired man.

    "Well, you were right." Said the woman with a faint smile. "But stop gloating, or I¡¯ll cut your throat." She then added with a loving tone.

    "Don¡¯t be a sore loser, my love.. Anyway, back to work." Said the man in response.

    "So this is what you meant.." Muttered Daniel while thinking back at the warning words of the middle aged man. "This is what I was supposed to survive to.."

    The woman smiled at Daniel, and said "Exactly! And you have done it magnificently!.. But now that you¡¯ve proved your point.. We are going to need that you let her go."

    Daniel¡¯s eyes immediately narrowed as he heard thest few words uttered by the woman. He then said with a visceral anger "Why would I do that?"

    "Because we say so.. Look, your friend is a lump of meat now.. A big one.. You can either do as I say and piss off.. Or kill her, and piss me off. Trust me, I suggest you follow the former suggestion, lest you¡¯d rather lose a couple of limbs."

    "That¡¯s not good enough." Responded Daniel before looking back towards the old woman, and preparing to thrust his sword into her chest, but once again, he was stopped by the man¡¯s voice.

    "For as pathetic as their family has be, they are still an old family of the poisonous rose, and the poisonous rose isn¡¯t willing to lose their knowledge for a petty revenge." Said the grey-haired man with an unusually serious tone.

    Daniel stopped the motion of his arm for a moment.. before directly pierced his sword through the woman¡¯s heart, killing her on the spot. He then turned towards the middle aged couple, which were looking at him with expressions mixed with shock and anger, and said "She is a lump of meat now.. Are you going to cry about it?"

    The two looked at Daniel with dumbfounded expressions, then.. "HAHAHAHAHAH!! The balls on you, kid.." Said the grey-haired man afterughing heartily "We should adopt this brat.. He is too funny."

    "Alright alright.. Enough joking." Said the white dressed woman to herpanion. "I guess that we should officially wee you to the poisonous rose, then."

    Daniel ignored the two, and turned to look at the body of his friend. He walked towards him, and once next to him, he ced a hand on his chest, and moved it into his spatial ring. He did not want to bury him here, in his home. He would bury him in the castle¡¯s cemetery.. Where his friends could visit him.

    After taking a deep breath, Daniel turned to look at the middle aged couple, and asked "What now?" His voice was devoid of emotion, as if he could not be bothered with receiving an answer. Of course, that was all an act. He was in the poisonous rose now, and if he wanted to be powerful enough to destroy it from the inside, he had to y the part.

    "Now?.. Now youe to the headquarters.. And hope to get out of it alive." Responded the middle aged man while showing the brightest smile he could muster.

 Chapter 216 A Journey Through Space

    The two days after the exterminated of the Navi family, were long and heavy.

    Right aftering back to his pocket dimension, Daniel had given the news to Alesia, which was as close to Serf as he was. With her help, they organized a funeral for Serf, and ced his body into a stone casket that was left in the catbs situated in the depths of the castle.

    There, he would rest forever.

    Now, Daniel, along with Jerigh and Der were waiting for the ship to depart.

    Only three people were allowed to board the ship with what Daniel had paid. Spatial rings and pocket dimensions were allowed, but regarding thetter, it was highly advised that nobody was let out of the pocket dimension during the crossing.

    The reason for that was simple. The ships traveled at an incredible speed, and required the use of a spatial formation that would prevent it from crashing in thousands of pieces for each and every small asteroid they crashed against.

    These formations worked simrly to the old method which Daniel used to prevent people from touching him. A field would form around the ship, and this field would either deflect the objects in the ship¡¯s trajectory, or if they were too big, the ship would bounce off of it without being destroyed.

    That also meant that the space waspletely locked by space, and if something that hadn¡¯t been incorporated by it at the moment of the activation appeared inside of it, like for example a person that teleported out of a pocket dimension.. That unlucky individual would be shot out of board, and would be left to die in space.

    The crossing wouldst two months, and Daniel had chosen Jerigh and Der to apany him.

    Roley was upied with handling the academy that had just been founded, while the rest were taking care of thepany, as well as expanding its reach to the entire. Alesia was one of the most interested in space travel, but Daniel had persuaded her to stay in the pocket dimension, as he didn¡¯t know what could happen in so much time in space. She was simply too weak.

    The three of them were waiting at what looked like a normal port, but instead of being built next to the seashore, it was built on the edge of arge fracture, which was so deep that it was impossible to see its bottom. Berthed on what looked like a big wooden tform suspended in air, was a massive ship.

    This ship was just like anymon ship that one would see sailing aa sea, but instead of having sails, it had tworge propulsors on the stern. Daniel had inquired about these two propulsors, and the response that he had received, was that they were engines that used crystals as fuel. Five hundred perfect crystals were needed to leave the¡¯s orbit, and once out of it, five hundred more to set the course, and elerate to optimal speed. Once the right speed was reached, the ship would never slow down no matter how much time passed, as there was no gravity, nor elements which could decrease its motion.

    Daniel was observing the massive ship with Jerigh, while Der was standing in line to present their documents and their tickets.

    "So, what did she say?" Asked Daniel to a seemingly distracted Jerigh.

    Without turning to look back at him, Jerigh took a deep breath of exasperation, and said "She said that she wants to do best out of five.. I don¡¯t know what that means.." His tone was confused, and it was clear that he was looking for Daniel¡¯s opinion.

    Daniel smiled after hearing Jerigh¡¯s words. "It means that next time you defeat her, you¡¯ll have to be nicer to her." Responded Daniel while turning to look in the distance. "So.. you haven¡¯t bothered me with our spar for a few days now. What is up with that?"

    Jerigh became pensive for a few moments. Then, he said "Time to mourn.. I can¡¯t enjoy the fight unless you are at your best.."

    It was clear to Daniel what Jerigh meant. To him, sparring against Daniel was like doing a fun activity with his brother, and since Daniel did not give him as many chances to do these sorts of things, he had decided to wait for him to feel better. Of course, in his mind, Jerigh was doing it for Daniel as well. He had lost many of his friends while growing up.. Many by his own hands. He knew perfectly well how important having some time to mourn was for a person.

    Slightly moved by the meaning behind Jerigh¡¯s words, Daniel turned to look at the horizon, and said "Yeah.. plus you need time to get on par with my cultivation level.. Hehehe."

    It was at this moment that Der approached the two, with three small medallions in his hands.

    Each medallion was simr, and the only thing that differentiated them was the number embossed on their surface, and the letter that preceded them. Each of them indicated their number as passengers, as well as the location of their cabins.

    Under the sun, Daniel, Der and Jerigh waited for two more hours for the ship to start boarding passengers, and finally, right after midday, a big catwalk was lowered on the tform in front of the area in which Daniel and the others were waiting.

    As the end of the catwalk touched the tform, a short and rough-looking man appeared standing right inside of the ship. His hair were salt and pepper, and his beard had been left to grow uncontrolled for years at the very least. He was wearing scruffy clothes, discolored from being washed and used again probably thousands of times.

    It did not take long for Daniel to guess who this man was. Considering the way that the other members of the crew behaved around him, Daniel had guessed this man to be the captain of the ship.

    This man walked on the tform, and stopped right after his feet touched the floating tform. Then, he turned towards the road that connected this harbor to the closest city, and looked in the distance.

    Daniel was expecting for this man to talk to the passengers, and present himself, but his guess was far from right, as he came to understand based on what happened next.

    No longer than two minutester, arge flying carriage approached the harbor from the distance, andnded on therge tform.

    Daniel observed these events in silence.

    From the carriage, tworge and impressively built guards walked out of it first. To Daniel¡¯s surprise, they emanated a power simr to that of the middle aged couple sent by the poisonous rose, disying the prowess of a practitioners at the seventh stage of immortal cultivation.

    As the two came out of the carriage, instead of walking directly towards the captain like Daniel expected they would, they turned to look back at the door of the carriage. Something interesting that Daniel felt, was how ready to attack whatever was about toe out of that carriage these two guards were.. enough to keep their hands on the hilt of their swords.

    Just as Daniel had expected, a man walked out from the carriage in chains.

    This man seemed to be around thirty years old, and possessed a rather athletic build. His arms were bound together by two power-suppressing chains, and bound together with a simr chain which binded his feet, allowing him only short steps. A full mask was covering his facepletely, leaving only his odd fiery red eyes, and long pitch-ck hair as observable details.

    After him, twelve more guards walked out. Each as powerful and as prepared to attack as the former two. Four of which were holding four sticks that were locked on the metallic morse ced on the man¡¯s neck.

    In a formation of two per side, and four that held the four sticks, therge group approached the catwalk, and walked into the ship without even greeting, or reporting to the captain.

    Once this group had entered, the captain finally turned to look at the passengers, and said with a in tone. "I am Vite Nura, the captain of the Nuragovia, the ship that will be your home for ne following two and a half months. You can call me Captain Nura."

    He then took a small pause, and continued by saying "This travel is usually a direct between Mira, the where we are now, and our destination, Wuvia.. but since we have been asked to make two small detours, we will arrive to Wuvia fourteen dayster. If you have a problem with that, feel free to ask for a refund for your tickets."

    One of the detours which Captain Nura had mentioned, was reaching for Wuvia¡¯s twin, or the that Danielmonly referred to as his ¡¯world of origin¡¯. The reason why the passengers had been allowed to ask for a refund, was because each ticket was covered by the government. The chance of an iste being imed by a faction, was something much more important than the traveling ns of a rtively small group of people.

    Whenever there was a chance for a person to im one of thoses for Iewah¡¯s faction, each and every inhabited that was under Iewah¡¯s domain had to give full support to Iewah¡¯s champion, which in this case, was Daniel.

    About the second detour, there was no doubt in the passengers minds that it had something to do with the mysterious prisoner that had boarded a few minutes ago.

    After warning the passengers about the unusual events that had changed the otherwise repetitive schedule of the ship, the captain added "The ship will set out in two hours." Then, he walked back into the ship in silence.

    At this point, Daniel was starting to get a little emotional. If nothing went wrong with their travel, he would get to see his sister in a matter of a few months, and the sheer idea of that happening weighted heavily on his heart.

    Onest time, he entered the pocket dimension to tell his friends that the ship was about to set out, and after bidding farewell to Alesia with a warm kiss, he left once again, and with Jerigh and Der, he boarded the ship along with the rest of the passengers.

    Daniel, Jerigh and Der, just like the rest of the other first timers, directly walked towards the deck to observe the departure of the ship from onboard.. The first thing they saw, was a massive semi invisible shield activate around the ship.

    A few loud noise were heard from the depths of the ship, and finally, after just a few seconds, therge propulsors ignited with the full power of five hundred perfect crystals, forcing the ship to soar the skies.

    The harbor quickly decreased in size as the ship gained altitude, and in no longer than a minute, they found themselves engulfed by the massive clouds which appeared extremely distant only seconds before.

    Once out of the clouds, arge expanse of clear, light blue sky extended in front of their eyes. It was peaceful, as if nothing could ever disturb it.

    The ship kept gaining altitude at an amazing speed, and the higher they went, the more the light blue sky darkened, and the clearer the starlight which would otherwise be invisible during the day became. Not long after that, they found themselves surrounded by darkness.

    Daniel¡¯s journey through the immense space, had finally begun.

    -----

    Two monthster.

    In the depths of space, arge ship was traveling in silence. On its deck, where just two months ago thousands of people stood in excitement while observing how magical space traveling was, only dried blood stains remained..

    With the course already set, and not a single noiseing from within.. The Nuragovia traveled through millions of kilometers. In its depth, inside one of the cabins.. Daniel, Der, and Jerigh hid inplete silence.

    On their faces, was sheer terror.

 Chapter 217 When Everything Went Wrong

    Nuragovia, Two months earlier.

    Despite how majestic and impressive their first travel through space was in the beginning, the experience became stale pretty quickly. It was true that the open space contained an infinity of interesting things and events to witness, but all of those things were trillions of kilometers apart, and it would not be odd if somebody spent years of traveling without being able to witness to any of them.

    Just one day had passed since the Nuragovia had set out for space, and Daniel and his twopanions were already sick of looking at the vast expanse of nothingness which seemed to extended forever.

    "This is not how I had expected it.." Muttered Daniel with a disappointed tone.

    Der, with his usual stern expression and authoritative tone, said "Of course not. If you were in a desert, you wouldn¡¯t expect for each grain of sand to be an exceptional treasure.." His words caused Daniel to sigh in disappointment once again.

    While Der went on with his rant about the vastity of space, Daniel quietly observed his system¡¯s profile. There, four hundred and fifty million points were written clearly right underneath his cultivation level. These karmic points were, of course, the points that he had obtained when killing the members of the Navi family.

    Due to the impressive number of genocidesmitted by the Navi family, its members had gained massive amounts of negative karma. na alone had over one hundred millions of karma debt, while her grandmother possessed three hundred millions. Oddly enough, na¡¯s mother was the one that possessed the least amount of karmic debt, at only four million points. The rest had been obtained by the remaining hire warriors and mercenaries hired, and the remaining family members.

    So much karmic points had caused Daniel to fall deep into consideration. The next upgrade of Daniel¡¯s System would cost one billion karma points.. And who knew what effects it would bring with it. On the other hand, four hundred million points were plenty enough to spend a good part of the journey in cultivation.

    In the end, Daniel had decided to cultivate.

    The possibility that something incredible awaited in the next level of the karmic system was high, but he doubted he would be able to acquire the remaining five hundred and fifty millions before he would need a higher level of cultivation.. And at the end of the day, a good effect would be worth nothing if he was dead.

    "Two and a half months of this.. I¡¯ll pass." Said Daniel, interrupting Der¡¯s seemingly infinite speech. "How many crystals do you guys think you will need if you cultivated uninterruptedly for the rest of the voyage?"

    "Ten perfect crystals are more than enough for me.." Said Der with slight pride. For as little as ten crystals sounded, it was in fact an impressive amount for a single person. A less talented individual would consume maybe one in a month, but he was a prodigy, and along with the effect of being part of Daniel¡¯s group, he had reached a level that was hardly seen. Unfortunately, his ego took a hit the very next moment..

    "Twenty-five.." Said Jerigh casually.

    Der was very tempted to call Jerigh out for being boastful, but then, he remembered the fact that this young man, who was just in his mid twenties, could already best him inbat. Almost as if realizing just now how impressive the two young men in front of him were, Der sighed in stupor, and muttered "..Master Kye would never believe that freaks like these exist.."

    "What did you just say?" Asked Daniel after suddenly turning towards Der.

    "I said that my master would have never believed that freaks like you two exist." Der repeated with a louder tone, and hints of admiration, jealousy, and irritation.

    Daniel shook his head in response, and with a slightly dismissive tone, he said "I¡¯ve heard that.. What did you say your master¡¯s name was?"

    "Master Kye?" Responded Der in doubt.

    "The old master-at-arms!!" Eximed Daniel with deep surprise, causing Der¡¯s brows to furrow, and his eyes to narrow in confusion.

    "Do you know my master?"

    Daniel smiled in response, and said "I do know your master.. Or well.. My teacher. He, along with the silver alchemist are my first teachers."

    It took a minute for Der to understand the implication of what Daniel had just revealed to him. "You¡¯re telling me that my daughter is with Master Kye?" He then asked animatedly.

    "Thest time I¡¯ve seen her, she and my sister were in.." Daniel quickly exined the story of how his sister had found the old man¡¯s building, and of how the three of them had rented a room, only to discoverter that that building was, in fact, a private school owned by the old master-at-arms.

    He then recounted of how he had managed to discover a method to cultivate both paths of cultivation, of how he had received teachings from both of these two individuals, about the small-scale war that had started because of his discover, and finally, about how the silver alchemist had teleported him to ¡¯safety¡¯ to prevent him from being kidnapped.

    Aside from the shock of learning about Daniel¡¯s past, only relief could be seen on Der¡¯s face. Master Kye was the person whom he trusted the most, and he had no doubt that if his daughter was with him, he would have taken care of her.

    Daniel had never told this story to Der before, as he didn¡¯t know that Mea¡¯s father was his teacher¡¯s disciple, or simply could not remember this matter being revealed to him by his teacher of martial cultivation.

    From now on, Der looked at Daniel with different eyes. While before he was a young hero whom he had decided to follow in hope that, one day, he would manage to bring him to reunite with his daughter, he was was a sort of little brother, just like the other disciples of the old man.

    For the rest of the day, the two talked about their shared teacher, and about all of the teachings that Daniel would have received from him if the two hadn¡¯t been separated so abruptly.. leaving Jerigh to go to cultivate by himself.

    Their conversation was interrupted by a person dressed as part of the ship¡¯s crew, which approached the two from the side, and said "Master Hiel, the captain wishes to speak to you. Would you follow me, please?"

    "Of course." Responded Daniel casually before following the man into the ship, and towards the captain¡¯s cabin.

    A couple of minutester, Daniel was inside of the captain¡¯s cabin. This cabin was simple, and did not have special furniture within. The owner kept it just like he kept his hair, beard, and clothes.. Extremely shabby.

    "Master Hiel!" Said the captain with enthusiasm before approaching Daniel, and shaking his hand.

    After getting over the shock caused by the man¡¯s surprisingly good smell whenpared to his demeanor, Daniel shook the Captain¡¯s hand back, and said "Captain Nura. A pleasure to meet you. I was about to go and train, is there something I can help you with before I start?"

    "Oh, my apologies Master Hiel. I just wanted to meet one of Iewah¡¯s champions. I am but a servant for Lord Iewah, and have crossed this system for the past hundred years. To meet the person that will open a new path for us sailors, it¡¯s a honor." Said the man with good manners.

    "Don¡¯t mention it.. It just happened" Responded Daniel with a hint of embarrassment. It was clear to him what the Captain was trying to do.

    Daniel would be the first one to open the isted world to the rest of the universe, and as its imer, he would also be the first one to sink his feet in all of its richness, after all, nopany present in that world wouldpare to Daniel¡¯s. What the captain wanted, was to be considered when Daniel¡¯spany would evolve into apany that was allowed to expand through the entire system.

    After a few more words, the two were ready to bid farewell. Before leaving the cabin, Daniel turned to look at the man, and said "Captain Nura, who is the prisoner on board?"

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, a dead serious expression forcibly took the ce where, just a moment ago, was an amiable smile. "It¡¯s better you don¡¯t know, master Hiel.. the universal government needed to poke around for months for a ship to allow that filth on board.. If I hadn¡¯t owed a favour to some annoying people, this crossing would end much sooner." Said the Captain with sheer disgust.

    The reason for Daniel¡¯s interest, was the fact that while the prisoner was being escorted on board, he had seen that the number that floated above the man¡¯s head, was perfectly neutral. Daniel had only seen a perfectly neutral number in newborn babies, and never in grown up individuals. That alone, was cause of great interest for him.

    After listening to the man¡¯s response, Daniel pushed the matter in the back of his head. It really wasn¡¯t his business why the man was in that situation. For all he knew, he might havemitted a crime that had no connection to karma, and therefore, was still guilty.

    "I¡¯ll leave you to your job now, Captain Nura. I wille and see you again once I finish my training. Farewell." Said Daniel before turning towards the door of the cabin, and walking out.

    When Daniel went back on the deck, he found out that Der had already started his session of cultivation like Jerigh, so, without anything else to do, he too went back into his cabin and started to cultivate.

    -----

    One month and a halfter.

    Daniel was sitting in in the middle of his cabin in silence. In his mind, his profile was opened once again, and on it, his increased cultivation level was written clearly right above the number of remaining karma points.

    What had left Daniel speechless, was not seeing that his cultivation level had already reached thete sixth stage of immortal cultivation.. But the amount of karma points that he was forced to spend in order to reach that effect in a month and a half.

    A hundred and twenty millions had disappeared as if nothing had happened, as well as a few dozen perfect crystals. Daniel knew that the more powerful he would be, the more time he would need to cultivate.. It was amon concept of the cultivation world. What he could not stomach, was how quickly his karma points were consumed, after all, he did not have an evil family to exterminate whenever he needed to cultivate.. Unfortunately.

    Slightly demoralized by the irony of having a shortcut that could only be walked through extremely slowly, Daniel left his cabin, and decided to go for a short walk. He was sick of eating the food that he had brought, and was craving a bit of human interaction.

    He was currently walking towards one of the various restaurants within the massive ship, and after turning two corners, he started to feel that something was odd. He hadn¡¯t seen anybody walking around for at least five minutes.

    Daniel tried to sense his surroundings, but quickly found out that, just like the dormitories of ¡¯The Superior Alchemy¡¯ academy, they were enchanted with formations that did not allow to see through.

    With a bad feeling creeping on his back, Daniel started to explore the ship on foot. Most of the doors were either closed shut, or opened, but with nobody inside and in aplete mess.

    What fed Daniel¡¯s suspicion, were the bloodstains that covered the walls which and the more he walked, the more frequent they became.

    *Crunch Crunch Crrrcha Crunch*

    A few noises that made him get goosebumps started to reach his ears.. They came from behind the corner to his right.. He slowly walked towards the end of the corridor, then, bent his body forward to look at what was causing those horrid sounds.

    His eyes opened wide in shock and disgust.. A faint gasping sound escaped from his mouth, and caused whatever was causing those noises to notice him. The next thing Daniel remembered, was that time had gone backwards, and he was standing in the middle of the corridor.. Trembling in fear.

 Chapter 218 Nightmare On Board

    "W-what the hell was that.." muttered Daniel in terror. His voice was broken up by his own elerated breathing, and he could hardly keep his hands from shaking violently. Without thinking about it twice, he quickly went back from the way he came, and towards his and his friend¡¯s cabins.

    "Sewah.. I would be extremely lucky if I managed to go back unnoticed.." he then said in his mind, trying to make sure that his system would recognize his survival as a matter of luck.

    For the next few minutes, Daniel retraced his steps quietly, until he found himself at a crossing just a couple of corridors away from his cabin. This crossing merged four different corridors, and from the way Daniel had arrived, he needed to walk into the corridor to his right in order to reach his cabin.

    The moment Daniel reached the crossing, and was about to turn right, he felt the presence of something observe him in silence,ing from the depths of the corridor in front of him.

    For a moment, he stood immobile. He was afraid that any motion would get him killed.. Unfortunately, that was not a wise move, as he felt the entity that was observing him prepare to dash at him, and kill him a second and final time.

    Suddenly, a door in between this entity and Daniel opened, and from it, a middle aged man came out with his body covered by a bathrobe. He had clearly just came out of the shower, and had no idea of what was happening.

    Without being able to see the entity clearly, the man was tackled back into his room, where from that moment on, disgusting sounds of flesh being ripped, and bones being crashed could be heard.

    Naturally, Daniel did not stay to see how the man was doing. He almost instantly dashed into the right corridor, and towards his room. He was so terrified that, the moment he reached his cabin, he realized that he hadpletely cut off the past ten seconds from his mind. He couldn¡¯t remember anything after the man had been attacked, and had reached his cabin almost subconsciously.

    Instead of entering his room, he kept going towards Jerigh¡¯s, which was right next to his. He soon found out that his room was closed, but also that the door of Der¡¯s room wasn¡¯t.

    He momentarily ignored Jerigh¡¯s room, and dashed into Der¡¯s, where he found no trace of him inside. He quickly checked the bathroom, the closet, the wardrobe.. But he found nothing. There was no trace of a battle or blood either, so he walked back out of the abandoned room, and towards Jerigh¡¯s.

    *Knock Knock*

    Daniel tried to knock with the lowest amount of strength possible, but the sound he caused still forced him to be on edge. He knew nothing about the capabilities of the being he had seen a glimpse of a few minutes earlier, and if its hearing was developed enough to hear the knocking, he would be screwed.

    e on..e on.. open damn it.." whispered Daniel to himself while feeling his hands and legs shaking, and the adrenaline run through his body.

    *Click*

    -----

    Jerigh had been woken up from the middle of his cultivation, and was now on alert. He knew that this ship was full of powerful individuals, and therefore, the crew would never bother someone that stayed in his room for the entire travel, as that meant that they would be probably cultivating. So, it was extremely odd that somebody would interrupt his cultivation, no matter what had happened.. But since that had actually happened, it meat that something serious was going on.

    He quietly approached the door, and after unlocking it, he opened it a chink while keeping one of his hands tightly wrapped on the grip of the knife which he had picked up when approaching the door.

    The moment the door opened, he felt a powerful force push towards him, and a hand cover his mouth. He was ready to start stabbing, but then, he stopped immediately when he noticed that it was Daniel.

    Daniel quickly closed the door, and put a finger on his own mouth, signaling him to be quiet and to not speak. It was only after Jerigh nodded, that he took his hand off of his mouth, and walked in the middle of the room.

    Jerigh instinctively became as quiet as a feather falling on the ground, and walked towards the drawer next to his bed. He took a pen and paper, and started to write something on it. Then, he walked towards Daniel, and put the sheet of paper in front of him.

    Daniel did not immediately noticed the piece of paper. He was closing his eyes, and focusing on the window that had appeared in his mind. What he was looking at, was the list of the members of his group.

    In about a minute, he scrolled through thousands of names, and finally, he took a deep breath of relief after seeing that ¡¯Der¡¯hor Rulin¡¯ was still present in the list. Only then did he open his eyes, and noticed the note that Jerigh had ced in front of him. It was written in the asumnguage.

    ____________________________

    Truh divorja?

    ____________________________

    There were times where Jerigh would simply spoke to Daniel in the asumnguage, as he knew that he could speak it perfectly. This time, he had simply asked ¡¯What happened?¡¯, to which Daniel responded by sending a wisp of sound essence directly into Jerigh¡¯s ear.

    "There is something outside that has been killing the passengers. It¡¯s powerful enough to kill me in an instant. It hasn¡¯t entered the rooms yet, and seems to be ughtering everyone that goes out." Said Daniel all at once.

    Clear doubt appeared on Jerigh¡¯s face. He knew how powerful Daniel was more than anybody else. With his perfectprehension of multiple essences, numerous martial arts, and incredible battle prowess, he shouldn¡¯t have a problem to escape from a cultivator at the seventh stage of cultivation. From what he remembered, there shouldn¡¯t have been somebody powerful enough to kill him in an instant on board.

    Once again, Jerigh wrote something else on the paper, and just a secondter, ced it in front of him.

    ____________________________

    Truh divorja?

    Der?

    ____________________________

    "Not in his room.. But still alive." Responded Daniel with another wisp of sound essence.

    ____________________________

    Truh divorja?

    Der?

    Luja ve ty roaj tre kaa?

    ____________________________

    The moment Daniel read thest phrase, he shook his head lightly, and said "No, we¡¯ll look for him together.." At the same time, in his mind, Daniel was repeating over and over how lucky he would be if none of his friends would die from this.

    He then approached the room once again, and after creating a de made out of metal essence, he let it slip underneath the door. For a full minute, he waited for that entity to pass in front of his room, but it never happened. It was only after he detached a small bead of metal from the rest of the de, and threw it in the depths of the corridor, that he started to hear noises.

    These noises became louder and closer, until finally, the shine of the light spheres stopped reflecting on Daniel¡¯s de, and he saw clearly what that entity actually was.

    What appeared on the reflection was a horrific creature. It walked on four bigger legs, which carried a human-like chest from which a few more bloody legs closed and opened constantly, as if trying to pull anything that was in front of it inside. The ce where a human head was supposed to be, now had four meaty petals, in between which a few small tentacles and a single straight spike came out. Instead of arms, this monster had two spikes from which what looked like lumps of flesh dangled with its motion.

    Two details made Daniel truly horrified. The first one, was that these four legs and two arms had flesh around them which resembled that of a human¡¯s arms and legs, and in the middle of them, a few toes and fingers could be seen hanging from it.

    The second thing, was that there was more than one monster, as a simr, yet different one, had just followed the first one in the direction where he had thrown the small metallic bead.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to realize one thing.. these monsters were once humans. "What the hell.." He muttered with his lips, but without producing the slightest bit of sound. Wanting to observe them once again, he created a second metallic bead, and threw it the opposite direction from the first.

    The two monsters followed the sound, and once again, they walked through the corridor where Daniel and Jerigh were hiding. When the two arrived in front of their door, Daniel created a small illusion which showed a person standing in the middle of the corridor.

    The reason why Daniel had done this, was to understand what these monsters were attracted by.

    Unexpectedly, the beings ignored the illusionpletely, and kept walking towards the direction where the sound hade from. It was only after Daniel added sound essence to the illusion, that these monsters tried to attack it with lightning speed.

    What Daniel had understood from this little test, was that these monsters were not attracted by sight, or changes in the mana in their surroundings, but to sound.

    Once again, just as the two monsters passed by, Daniel tried to form, and throw a third bead at the end of the corridor expecting the two monsters to follow it, but as they passed next to Jerigh¡¯s room, they suddenly stopped. One of them bent its torso towards the door, and started to feel it up with the four meaty petals, and the tentacles.

    A shiver ran down Daniel¡¯s spine.

    He quickly gave up control over the constructed knife, and let it disappear, then, he walked towards the bathroom, and waved his hand so that Jerigh could follow him in, and then closed door.

    *Crack* *RATTLE* *CRUNCHH*

    It was clear from the sound that came from outside the bathroom, that these monsters had smashed the door, and had entered the cabin. Daniel did all he could to prevent them from entering the bathroom. He formed a spatial and sound blockades around him and Jerigh, so that no noise or smell could ever manage to reach them.

    After searching the cabin for a few minutes, the two monsters stepped out of it and left from one of the corridors.

    While one of the monsters was trying to break into the door, which was part of the ship¡¯s formation, and had the resistance necessary to defend against the power of ate seventh stage cultivator, Daniel had noticed a few more details about these monsters.

    The four walking legs on which they moved, were nothing but the person¡¯s legs, which had split into two from the bone, and had ripped the flesh of the leg apart as they separated. The same was for the arms.

    He had also noticed a few pieces of fabric on the second monster¡¯s body, which resembled part of the bathrobe that the man that had been attack in front of him was wearing.

    Finally, these monsters were not only attracted by sound, but also by immortal essence. He hade to this realization after sending the third bead, which was the only one he had formed when the monsters were close to him. The small wisp of immortal essence that he had let out from underneath the door, then controlled and transformed into metal essence, had attracted them towards the door, which they then destroyed in order to find its source.

    As the two monsters left, Daniel sent a wisp of sound essence into Jerigh ears.

    "Don¡¯t use immortal essence.. And for crying out loud.. Do not make a sound.."

    He then opened the door of the bathroom, and walked out of the cabin as quietly as possible.

 Chapter 219 It Ends with a Bloodbath

    On the side of the ship opposite to the area where the cabins were, was the ship¡¯s center of entertainment. This area contained the theater, the gambling room, the various restaurants, and even a few halls inside which people could exchange their objects with the items they required, or look through the items possessed by other individuals.

    Due to the length of the travels, this area would usually be the most lively of the entire ship. Everyone that wouldn¡¯t close themselves in their cabins to cultivate, would spend their day in these areas, where they could interact with other passengers, make trades, or even just enjoy being around people.

    That was the case until fifteen minutes earlier.

    -----

    Fifteen minutes earlier

    Within the theater, where aedic performance about a silly merchant and a confused assassin was being yed out, Der sat quietly on his seat. On his right, was a little girl of no more than ten years of age, that was happily watching the show along with her big sister, while on the other side, was the father of a family of five. He and his wife were sitting at the sides of their three children.

    The entire theater was capable of aodating at least five hundred people, and at the moment, it was packed to the brim. At first, Der was slightly surprised by the generally low age of attendance, but right after the show started, he quickly came to realize that the show was actually a y for kids.. And that he was the weird adult that hade to a kid¡¯s y by himself.

    Too embarrassed to stand up and leave, he felt reassured after thinking to himself that, if people noticed him, at best, they would have thought that the two girls by his side were his daughters. With that thought in mind, he stayed seated, and watched the show y out.

    The story of the y talked about a young killer that had been hired to kill a crooked merchant. Unfortunately, due to his extreme clumsiness andck of good fortune, he would always end up missing his target and damage a third person. It wasn¡¯t extremelyplicated, and yet it was rtively enjoyable. It had even managed to get a smile to appear on Der¡¯s stern face, and made him remember when he used to take his own daughter to see these sorts of ys.

    For a moment, he forgot that he was here alone, and tried to enjoy the y.

    Unfortunately, this few minutes of peace in an otherwise rough life, ended just as quickly as they started. Just in time to join a part of the y where a few actors screamed in panic, the two doubled doors that lead into the theater smashed open, followed by a few screams that came from the back.

    The kids did not immediately realize what was happening, as the actors were screaming as part of the y, but those who were a little older, as well as their parents, immediately became alert for a simple reason.. The smell of blood.

    The first ones to die were those that were closer to the doors, and turned to look at the bloody monsters the moment they heard the doors smash open. Then, just like a wave, those who had witnessed to the sudden death of their family and friends.

    Panic started to spread in the hall, and hundreds of people started to scream in panic, while the bravest amongst them failed in their attempts to battle these monsters, and were ughtered right away.

    Der had arrived rtively early, and was in the seats closest to the stage, so, when the monsters arrived, he was rtively far from them. Just like a general of the military would do, instead of jumping directly into battle, he quickly started to analyze the situation.

    Ever since the first moment, he had had the idea of jumping into the fray, but after seeing people more powerful than him be sliced and devoured alive, he abandoned that idea, and started to think of a way to survive.

    Right away, he noticed that the monsters would attack those who used their immortal essence.

    After just a minute, more than three fifth of the people had been ughtered, and what was more terrifying than anything else, was that the deceased would soon get back up on his feet, and start to mutate. Their arms would split into two, bing four bone spikes, their ribs would turn into little spikes as well, which would constantly try to pull food into the sternum, and finally, their heads would split like flowers.

    More than once he had seen people that had been transformed turn towards their family, and rip them to pieces. The unluckiest ones, were those who would end up joining their ranks.

    Including Der, the two sisters, and the family of five that were sitting next to him, only about a hundred and fifty people remained. The father of the family was only a cultivator at the sixth stage, and just like Der, had understood that fighting meant death, so, he turned toward his wife, and said "Go into the ring."

    The wife did notin at all, and instead, she grabbed the oldest of her children, and used herprehension of spatial energy to pull her into the pocket dimension contained in her ring.. But something went wrong.

    Too fast for her to realize, the spatial formation that was protecting the ship started to shake. This half interruption was not dangerous by itself, but due to the urgency that this mother felt, it caused her to subconsciously fight it with more power. The pulling force of her immortal essence, and the low-key interaction of the formation, caused the young girl to only shift halfway.. And explode into two separate mists of blood. One inside the pocket dimension, while the other, right in front of her family.

    The spatial blockade that protected the pocket dimension was not supposed to interfere with people that wanted to move into their pocket dimensions. It was generally seen as a stupid idea, as that would mean leaving the item that worked as the connection,pletely unattended.

    But at the moment, for a reason of which nobody was aware of, the spatial formation was not working properly.

    "AAIEEEEEEE!!" The sudden death of the young girl was a heavy hit for her mother. She knew that it was her fault. She started to emit a blood curdling shriek, just like her other two children, and her husband.

    One of the monsters closest to them suddenly turned towards the family, and after letting go of the bloody corpse that was now starting to turn, it dashed towards them, and started to wave his four bony and mangled limbs, killing them in a matter of moment.

    A few meters away from where this had happened, Der and the two young girls were looking in sheer terror. The youngest of the two sisters breathed in, and was about to shriek in horror, but she was suddenly interrupted by Der¡¯s big hand, which covered her mouth and heavily reduced the volume of her scream.

    The family was rtively close to Der, and by observing what had happened, he quickly realized what other thing was attracting these monsters.. Sound. Thanks to Der¡¯s prompt action, the monster that had just killed off the entire family, was distracted by another scream not much further away than they were, and walked in that direction.

    As he noticed this, Der turned towards the oldest of the two sisters, and hinted to remain quiet.

    Big tears were streaming down the girl¡¯s face, and she was trembling like a leaf battered by relentless winds.

    One minuteter, the three of them found themselves standing quietly surrounded by hundreds of monsters.. Without taking a step, moving a muscle, or even breathing too loudly.

    It took a full hour before thest of the monsters finally left the theater, leaving the three of them as the sole survivors of this carnage. At their feet, pools of blood, limbs strewn everywhere, and bodies cut into little pieces could be seen everywhere.

    The three didn¡¯t dare to move for a few long minutes after they had seen the monsters leave, and only then, the little girl turned towards her older sister. She then started to cry while burying her face on her sister¡¯s chest, and hugging her tightly.

    Der instantly entered into a state of panic, and whispered to the older girl "Make her stop crying, they are attracted by noise!" His tone in the end a little louder than intended.

    The older girl, which was about thirteen years of age, quickly understood what Der meant, and immediately tried to stop her little sister from crying. She only seeded a few secondster, and the two joined Der in waiting to see if any of those monsters had been attracted.

    Aside from a few screams that came from outside the theater, nothing else happened.

    Slightly relieved by not having been found out, Der turned to look at the two little girls, and with a wisp of sound essence, he said "Do not respond.. Just nod in response." Then waited for the two little girls to nod. After they did, he asked "Are your parents in the ship with you?"

    The little girls shook their heads in unison.

    "Do you know where they are?" He then asked. After receiving a nod from them, he said "Are they passengers?" It didn¡¯t make sense for him that two kinds like these would roam around alone, so, a guess had appeared in their minds. This time, just like Der expected, the two girls shook their heads instead of nodding.

    "Are your parents part of the crew?"

    Der asked a few more questions to the two, and soon enough, he found out that the two girls were the daughters of the staff captain. The second inmand of the entire ship. The ce where their father was supposed to be, was on the bridge. Right where the course would be set. After a bit of consideration, he decided to take the two little girls there, as he wanted to know what the actual hell was going on in the ship.

    Trying not to make the slightest sound, the three of them slowly walked towards the backstage of the theater, where no screams were currentlying from. Der had asked the little girls to lead the way towards the bridge, where her father was likely to be. The fastest way was to pass through the back of the theater, and into the kitchen. From there, they would arrive in the room where the the crystals were fed to the propulsors, and after going up a few stairs with adder, they would arrive just a hundred meters away from the bridge.

    With as much courage as they could muster, and as little noise as possible, the three made their way towards the bridge.

    -----

    At the same time, in the bowels of the ship.

    "WHAT IS THAT!?"

    "AAAARGHH!"

    "NO NO NOOOOOAAIEEEEEE!!"

    Shrieks and battle noises were heard in a dark and humid corridor. At the end of this corridor, was a single small door. This door was in fact so small, that it was difficult to walk through it. A normal adult would probably need to crouch to enter.

    Right before this room, on the right of the corridor, were tworge cabins. These cabins had exactly seven beds each, and most of them were not done.

    In these tworge cabins, just a few minutes earlier, fourteen men were ying cards, and chatting amongst each other without a care in the world. Now, their blood was painting the walls of a bright red which shone with the candlelight, and the flesh of those who hadn¡¯t turned, was decorating them.

    Inside the room at the end of the corridor, a man was chained against the many different tubes that came out of the ceiling, and entered into another part of the wall. His body was almostpletely covered in sweat, due to the high temperature of the room.

    As the screams of his guardians ended, and the monsters walked back from the way they had arrived, the man quietly opened his eyes, and observed them through the porthole in the middle of the room¡¯s door.

 Chapter 220 We Come Bearing Gifts

    "Do you have any idea where Der could have gone?" Daniel asked to Jerigh through a wisp of sound essence, receiving only a simple shake of Jerigh¡¯s head as a response. He then stopped to think for a minute, and started to evaluate the situation.

    The ship was still moving, and they hadn¡¯t stopped, because otherwise, they would have felt it, and an announcement would have been sent out to the rest of the passengers if they did. That meant that they were still moving towards their original destination.

    Unsure of which ce was set as the first destination of this crossing, he knew that if they waited for a few more weeks, they would ultimately end up reaching it.

    Of one thing Daniel was clear.. no matter where they would end up first, if they reached that destination along with these monsters, that would likely spell extinction for the inhabitants of that unlucky world.

    In the end, there was only one thing that he could do. He didn¡¯t know where Der was, but since he needed to start looking somewhere, he decided that the captain¡¯s cabin was the first ce to search for information.

    On their way, they found a few more closed doors, and whenever they were sure that there wasn¡¯t any monster around, and that they could get away with a few knocks, the two of them would stop and try to warn these people that leaving their cabins would mean death, and that if they really needed to, they should avoid using immortal essence, or making sounds altogether.

    He would generally get two different results.. The first one usually happened when the people that were more powerful than he was.. they would treat him like an idiot. In the second case, the passengers were less powerful, and while they would still not believe their words, he would at least be able to forcibly pull them out of the room, and show the corridors covered in blood, and the pieces of ripped off flesh strewn all about.

    "These damn idiots.." muttered Daniel in his mind, while finally walking out of the area of the passenger¡¯s cabins, and reaching the counter where people could pick up their keys, and receive the item that they could use to lock the formations of their rooms.

    The sight in the corridors was horrific to say the least, but here, it was actually terrifying.

    What was so terrifying about this hall, were not the remains of the people who had stupidly tried to fight the monsters, but the monsters themselves, which were roaming the area like a group of headless chicken.

    Daniel had been in the captain¡¯s cabin once before, and therefore, he knew that there was no choice but to go through this hall. There were a few more paths towards the captain¡¯s cabin, but they would take hours at the speed they were going.

    "We have to go through.." Said Daniel to Jerigh, with a wisp of sound essence.

    Jerigh, visibly nervous about the idea, quickly took a deep and quiet breath, and nodded in confirmation to Daniel¡¯s n. The two then walked into the area while making as little noise as possible.

    Daniel did not know what identally bumping against of these beasts would mean, but for some reason, he knew that he wouldn¡¯te out well either way, so, the two carefully avoided each and every one of the two hundred odd monsters that had regrouped in this area.

    While walking through them, Daniel quickly noticed a few interesting, yet disturbing details. Some of these individuals had died much earlier than others, and the remains of flesh on their body had already started to rot. That meant that the flesh was not part of the body like the split bones were, as well as the fact that this mess had started at least a few days earlier.

    The stench of the rotting monsters had filled the entire hall, and Daniel and Jerigh were barely able to avoid gagging. More than once both of them almost slipped and fell on a random puddle of blood, or piece of unidentified flesh, but the other was able to help them just in time to avoid making loud noises, and being found out.

    The monsters were moving around at a rtively fast pace, and for the two of them to avoid bumping into them, while also having to walk on eggshells, was extremely hard. Daniel had more or less found a fix to his problem, by constantly reminding to himself and Sewah of how his survival was a matter of luck.

    There was a moment where a monster was walking directly towards them, but thanks to what Daniel jokingly called in his mind a ¡¯divine intervention¡¯, a second monster that was nearby changed course, and bumped against the approaching one, causing a short fight to start between the two.

    An exchange of lightning speed hits suddenly took ce for a few moments.. But then, the two immediately stopped fighting. Daniel started to guess what the reason for the disappearance of their fighting intent could be, and soon enough, an idea popped in his mind. He was rtively sure that the reason, was that the two monsters had quickly realized that they weren¡¯t fighting against a ¡¯prey¡¯, but against another monster.

    After what felt like the longest five minutes of their lives, Daniel and Jerigh finally managed to leave the hall and enter into one of the main corridors, that would then split into various paths that respectively lead to the crew¡¯s quarters, and a few other parts of the ship.

    These main corridors were rtively empty, and hardly any trace of blood or battle could be seen on the wall, floors, and ceiling. Daniel and Jerigh were finally able to speed up their pace without having to worry too much about attracting the monsters in the hall.

    *Clink*

    A door suddenly opened from their left.

    "Pssst.. hey!" Said a middle aged woman from the other side of the door, trying to catch Daniel¡¯s attention.

    The two were feeling the urgency of finding Der, and after the dangerous situation they had just been in, they didn¡¯t want to stop anymore.. But since Daniel didn¡¯t know if there were monsters nearby, he had no choice but to stop.. If one of those remarks used by the woman to grab his attention actually ended up catching up a monster¡¯s attention instead, they would be the ones to be screwed, as the woman would only need to close her door, while Daniel and Jerigh would be out in the open in the corridor.

    Without thinking about it twice, Daniel dashed quietly towards the door, and after pushing it gently open, he entered along with Jerigh. The woman on the other side did not resist, and let the two enter. She had thrown carefulness to the wind, as she had thought that no one in this situation would dare to have bad ideas.

    Once in, Jerigh and Daniel quickly noticed that the cabin was filled with people. At least twenty individuals were sitting, crouching, or standing all around.

    "How did you arrive from the hall? That ce is swarmed with monsters.." Asked the woman out loud.

    Daniel was quickly worried about the monsters on the outside hearing them, but then, after noticing his reaction, the woman said "Don¡¯t worry, the formation on the crew¡¯s quarters is different. There is a sound blockade, and nothing you say can be heard on the other side."

    After taking a deep breath in relief, Daniel asked "Do you have any idea of what is going on?"

    "Yes.. I was working in the reception when it happened. The ship hit something.. Usually the spatial formation around the ship would deflect either the object, or if the object is too big, the ship itself.. But this time, the space that was protecting the ship started to destabilize. Instead of bouncing back against the shield, the object went right through it." Responded the middle aged woman.

    "What was it?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. "Is the ship damaged?"

    "No.. as the object reached the deck, it went right through the floor, and towards the water tanks. After that, a bunch of these monsters started toe out from the area near the restaurants.." She then said, almost as if recalling one of the most horrifying days of her life. She then muttered to herself "The theater was full.. All of those kids.."

    Suddenly, one of the men that was standing nervously in the room approached the woman, and said "We have to reach the bridge, and turn the ship towards the closest. If we don¡¯t, we will all die."

    "Again with this!? No! If wend now, these monsters will exterminate the entire¡¯s poption!" Said the woman in response, seemingly for the umpteenth time.

    After hearing the exchange between the two, Daniel remembered something, and asked to the middle aged woman "Hold on.. Where is the ship going right now?"

    As if remembering something important, the woman opened her eyes in realization, and said "The course wasn¡¯t changed.. The original course was supposed to take us to the isted for the VIP passenger first, then towards the prison situated in one of Wuvia¡¯s moons, and finally, make usnd on Wuvia.. If.. if we don¡¯t change course.."

    "Did you try to escape through a pocket dimension?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    The woman and the man suddenly became pensive, then said "Us members of the crew aren¡¯t allowed to own spatial containers or pocket dimension. It due to a measure taken by the second inmand, after some of us stole a few objects from the guests."

    "What about you?" Asked Daniel to the rest of the cultivators which were clearly passengers.

    "All we have is within our cabins.. And weck theprehension to create one right now.." Responded one of the passengers.

    It was not unreasonable for the passengers to leave all they possessed. The rooms were basically vaults, and it was near impossible for unauthorised people to break in, unless they had the power of an early eighth stage cultivator.. That power could bepared to that of the powerful members of the various factions, like the keeper of keys, or the envoys. It was extremely unlikely that any of the passengers would possess that power.

    "I have one with me." responded Daniel while showing one of his pocket dimensions. This pocket dimension was, of course, not the one which contained his city, nor the one that contained hispany building. It was one that he had randomly created, and inside which he stored a cultivated field of herbs.

    The man that had spoken earlier quickly said "Is there a second exit?!"

    "There isn¡¯t, but at least you would be safe there.." retorted Daniel. He was aware of what the man was worried about. If Daniel was killed and the ring destroyed, the pocket dimension would be a prison, and those that entered it would be stuck inside forever.

    Many of the people in the cabin were thinking about the same thing, but a few of them were not. Almost as if preferring to be imprisoned into a livable yet limited ce forever, than trying to survive in this nightmare, a few people walked towards Daniel, and begged him to allow them into his pocket dimension.

    Without saying it out loud, Daniel decided to move those that wouldn¡¯t be a threat into his actual pocket dimension, while the strongest ones would have to go to the empty one.

    As the first girl approached Daniel, he started to eject a bit of immortal essence from his body, then, after covering her with it, he turned it into spatial essence and prepared to move her into the pocket dimension.

    Just as he was about to put a bit of power into it, he immediately stopped.

    He retracted the immortal essence from around the girl, and used to it cover one of the wooden drawers. Then, he tried once more.. After a few seconds, the drawer exploded into splinters. Half of which entered Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, while the remaining half shot all over the room.

    The people that had asked for refuge were now looking at the ce where the drawer was, with eyes opened wide in shock.

 Chapter 221 A Plan Is Better Than Nothing

    "What happened?!" asked the girl with an anxious tone. She had noticed what had happened to the drawer that Daniel had tried to shift into his pocket dimension, and she couldn¡¯t help but think that the same could have happened to her if Daniel hadn¡¯t stopped in time. If that wasn¡¯t enough, she could feel the pulling of the two different powers.. The experience was painful and horrifying.. It was as if every fiber of her body was being pulled in two different directions at the same time.

    Daniel became pensive for a good minute, then said "It seems that this won¡¯t work.. There must be something wrong with the spatial blockade.." While Daniel spoke, in his mind, he was gathering theprehension of what he had learned about a damaged spatial formation. Of how a protection would easily be a cage for the people it was meant to protect. A new concept of space essence was forming.

    "Did you see the captain?" Daniel asked to the woman.

    The woman shook her head while saying "No, when these monsters started to appear a few days ago, I was working at the counter. I took all the people I could, and escaped here. The screams of the other people covered our escape."

    After hearing the woman¡¯s response, Daniel turned to look at Jerigh, and said something to him through a wisp of spatial essence. Jerigh responded to whatever Daniel had said with a faint nod.

    "Tell me about all of the formations within the ship."

    The woman, initially confused by Daniel¡¯s question, quickly started to tell him about all of the types of formations which the ship possessed. Spatial formations, defensive formations,bustion formations, and many more. It was only after the woman got to the sound formations, that he stopped her.

    "Where are the controls of the sound formation that allows the staff to make announcements?" He asked with a hint of urgency.

    "In the bridge. There is a hall with a high level sound sphere. There is no barrier that you can¡¯t talk through if you use the sound essence emanated by that sphere." Said the middle aged woman. She then added "Why would you want to know where themunication formation is?"

    "I have a n.." Responded Daniel.

    This time, Daniel didn¡¯t need for the mission to create a n for him. He was able to think of one by himself, and yet, he still thought intensely about his n, as he wanted a quest to form around it. He opened his eyes with a satisfied expression only a minute after that. He then noticed that a lot of people were looking at him.

    "This is my n.." Said Daniel before exining in detail what he wanted to do.

    -----

    "Are you sure that it¡¯s this way?" Der asked to the two young girls, receining a quick nod by the older sister right after.

    The reason for Der¡¯s doubts, was caused by the fact that they had arrived at the kitchen, and the deeper they went in that path, the bloodier and more gruesome the scenery became. It was like they were approaching the true source of where these monsters hade.

    They had juste out from the backstage of the theater, and the ce was a real mess. Virtually every person who was working in the backstage at the time of the y, had either died or turned. Blood was everywhere, and it dripped down the ceiling and walls. Whoever was the owner of that blood, was definitely not alive now.. Or at the very least, not as a human.

    The scenery did not change for the better in the kitchen, where the walls were painted in red, and the raw pieces of meat could hardly be distinguished between the remains of flesh that had been recently ripped off of the unlucky staff of the kitchen.

    For a few seconds minutes, they walked through therge kitchen inplete silence, but during a moment of distraction of the oldest sister, she hit a pan¡¯s handle with her hip, and caused a fewrge metallic items to fall loudly on the marble floor. The noise was so loud, that it could be heard even if the kitchen was at the chaotic state it usually was, during its working hours.

    The minds of the two girls went nk, but Der maintained his calm. He quickly looked around, and noticed a massive metallic door. He then grabbed the two girls by their waists, and dashed towards it.

    Without caring about making too much noise, he grabbed therge handle of the door, and opened it. Behind this door, he found three young women and a middle aged man hiding.

    "AAAAAAHHH" the four people screamed in panic as they noticed that the door had opened. They had hidden in there when the monsters had entered the kitchen, and didn¡¯t know what they were capable of. So, when they saw the door open, they thought that the time of their death had finallye.

    This time, Der was truly anxious.

    He threw the two little girls into this cold storage, and said "Make them keep quiet!" He then closed the door behind them. Once alone, he turned to look at the entrance of the kitchen.. And there.. Two monsters had already entered.

    These two monsters were trying to scout the kitchen. They had entered from two different entrances, and were moving around the isles in order to find the source of the screams.

    What was unfortunate, was that those two were the only entrances to that area of the kitchen.. And he was trapped at the head of the isle, and towards where the two monsters were converging.

    For a few seconds, Der hoped that the two monsters would turn around and leave, but that never happened. Instead, they kept walking on both sides of the isle and towards him.

    Without thinking about it twice, he grabbed arge pot, and threw it above the isle, and towards the other end of the kitchen, right where the girl had bumped against the pan¡¯s handle. The pan hit a few more kitchen tools that were hanging from the low ceiling, and caused a deafening sound to resound loudly as they all fell together.

    The monsters instantly turned towards the close source of the sound, and dashed in that direction, shing together. The two exchanged a few blows, but then stopped right after. Almost as if realizing that the noise had probably been caused by the other monster, they both left from the way they hade from.

    It was only after the two monsters disappeared from his sight, that Der dared to take a breath. His heart was about to explode, and sweat was forcing his clothes to tightly stick to his back.

    After calming himself down, Der walked towards the cold storage, and opened the door once again. This time, nobody shouted. It was clear that the two girls had already exined to the four what would attract the monsters.

    As the two girls saw Der, they immediately run towards him. He had already saved them twice, and they trusted himpletely.

    Der talked for a bit with the kitchen staff, and from them, he learned that there was a crash, and a loud noise that came from the direction where Der and the two girls were going to. More specifically, right where the water tanks which were used to keep the drinking water, as well as the salty water that contained all of the fish and aquatic beasts that the kitchen would cook for the restaurants, or for the room services, were held.

    From the way the members of the kitchen staff talked, Der understood something important.. He was able to backtrack the origin of these monsters thanks to the timeline of all of the events he had witnessed.. And that could only mean one thing.. They were walking straight into it.

    The theater¡¯s bloodbath had happened just a few minutes earlier, and from what the kitchen staff told him, they had been hiding in the cold storage for at least ten minutes. Whatever had happened to the ship, had happened in the ten minutes between the start of the y, and when the monsters had entered into the kitchen.

    After looking at the pensive expression on Der¡¯s face, the older of the two sisters said "The area of the water tanks is between the kitchen and the room where the crystals are used to activate the propulsors.. We can¡¯t avoid it.."

    There was no doubt in Der¡¯s mind that he needed to check that ce out.. Who he was worried about, were these two little girls. With hesitation, he took a knee in front of them, and said "I don¡¯t think that there is a more dangerous ce than where we are going.. Are you sure you want to follow me there?"

    The two girls looked at each other quietly. The younger one was clearly terrified, and the idea of walking towards where these monsters had appeared scared her even further. On the other hand, the older sister was considering their options. She quietly turned to look at the jumpy members of the kitchen staff, and remembered how their weak nerves had almost killed them all just a minute earlier.

    Finally, after a full minute of consideration, she grabbed her younger sister¡¯s shoulders, and said "We areing.. Our parents are there.. We have toe."

    Der quickly understood the reason why the older sister had decided not to stay hidden with these other people. He quietly nodded at them, and stood back up. Then, he started to walk towards the door that lead to the water tanks.

    A voice came from behind them, and stopped them on their tracks. It was the voice of one of the three girls. "Take us with you.. Please." She said with fear. She couldn¡¯t stand the idea of being left to hide once again.

    Der turned to look at the group, and after noticing how weak-willed they were, he said "If the monsterse from the area where we are going.. Leave from the other side.. Don¡¯t make a noise.. Go to the deck. There shouldn¡¯t be any monster there." He then left with the two girls.

    The reason why Der had refused to take these four people with, was because he was sure that, if a monster appeared right in front of them out of the blue, at least one of them would let out a blood curdling scream that would cause their deaths in a matter of moments. He could not allow that.

    After Der and the two girls entered the corridor and walked a few dozen meters, they heard a few feeble screamse from behind them. These screams were interrupted abruptly by something clearly different from the person¡¯s will.

    He had made the right decision.

    After a couple of minutes, Der and the two girls left the corridor they were walking in, and arrived on a long metallic catwalk. This catwalk was right above two massive water tanks two cubic kilometer in size, and which contained at the very least ten thousand litres of water each.

    One of them had clean water, while the other, contained salty water.. On the ceiling, a huge hole had been ripped open, and from its trajectory, Der could infer that whatever had opened it, had fallen right into the salty water tank..

    From where he was standing, Der could see a few monsters walk aimlessly on the catwalk.. In order to reach the other side, they would ultimately need to go through them.

    While Der was considering his options, unbeknownst to him, the murky waters of the salty water tank started to wave gently.. And a few blurs could be seen at the bottom of the massivelyrge room.

    Without much choice, Der and the two little girls took their shoes off to avoid making too much sound when stepping on the metallic catwalk, and one step after the other, they made their way into the room.

 Chapter 222 A Joint Destination

    One step at a time, Der and the two young girls made their way on the metallic catwalk. They now were only a few hundred meters into the room that contained the water tanks, and still had a long way to go.

    What they weren¡¯t aware of, was that something was lurking in the shadows..

    The entire length of the room was of a bit more than two kilometers, and while they would have needed about half an hour of casual walking, they now needed more than three times as much due to their slowed down pace.

    An hour and a halfter, when they were about halfway through, they finally arrived in the section where a few monsters roamed aimlessly. It was clear that the monsters did not understand what a catwalk was, and that, had caused a few of them to fall before even managing to find the right way out of the massive room.

    Those who did not fall by themselves, were driven to by Der, which would remove one of the hard parts of his clothing, and throw it against the struts that prevented the ceiling from copsing. That would produce enough sound to attract them. Whenever a ¡¯clink¡¯ was heard, one or two monsters would turn towards the edge of the catwalk, and after bending, cutting, or ripping off the handrail, they would ultimately jump down.

    This went on for a little longer, until finally, two and a half hours through, the three of them managed to see the other end of the room. There, arge metallic door wa standing shut.

    Just a few minutes away from what appeared to be a safer area, the three carelessly decide to speed their pace.. The steps became hastened, and the three finally managed to find a bit more of confidence.. Until..

    "Arghh!!.. Fuck.." A sharp pain came from Der¡¯s right calf. There, an indistinguishable mass of bones and pale flesh was hanging, by piercing a few spikes on the flesh of his leg.

    Der immediately turned to look at this small sized monster, and what he saw sent a shiver down his spine. The horrific monster appeared like a mass of fish meat, from which dozens of sharp fishbones came out in all directions. From his mouth, a single thorn surrounded by small tentacles.

    The fishbone that weren¡¯t used to attack, were used to move around just like the little legs of an insect. They would move extremely fast, and more than anything else, quietly.

    Fortunately, these smaller monsters weren¡¯t as powerful as those that had mutated from humans. So, he quickly shed with his hand, and ripped the mutated fish right off of his leg. He then turned to look behind them, and noticed that dozens more were approaching him as rapidly as they were quiet.

    Without thinking too much about it, Der grabbed the two girls by their waists, and ran for the remaining length of the catwalk, not caring anymore about the noise he was making. Some monsters at the bottom of the room had heard the noise resound through the entire room, and quickly tried to climb over the wall, and towards the noise in an attempt to reach the source, but Der did not give them a chance to approach.

    After just a few seconds, Der arrived in front of the metallic door, and after putting the girls down, he grabbed the metallic handwheel and started to rotate it.. It was only after a couple of rotations that he noticed.. his strength was abandoning him.. The power of his arms had decreased to a point where he was only a bit stronger than a normal human, and with it, he was only barely managing to twist the handwheel.

    He didn¡¯t need help to understand that his situation wasn¡¯t good. The small monster that had attacked him was probably a poisonous fish once, and he had likely been poisoned. If things kept going on like that, he would not be able to open the door, and they would die there.

    Hearing the creepy sound of thousands of small legs tapping constantly on metal, and getting closer to closer, Der started to think that the three of them will soon die, but then, he felt a couple of hands grab the handwheel right next to his. It was the older of the two sisters, which despite her young age, was still a cultivator at the early second stage of immortal cultivation.

    Her low power did not matter to Der. What mattered, was that she was physically strong enough to open the door, and pull him through it, and into safety.. And that¡¯s what she did, right before closing the door once again.

    Just as the door closed, hundreds of tick sounds started toe from it. The monsters had reached the door, and were trying to make their way through, but the walls wererge panels of solid metal, and that made the feat impossible for them.

    Now rtively safe, Der quickly opened his hand, and focused his immortal essence into the spatial ring that he was wearing on his right hand. He was hoping to pick an item from the small dimension, but instead, a few clouds of dark grey dust appeared in front of him.

    He immediately gathered this dust from the air with his mortal essence, then pushed it together, to form a small dark grey pill which resembled the Partial Poison Immunity Pill.. but which only about half as big.

    While keeping it whole and preventing it from falling apart again, he moved it into his mouth, and down his throat.

    "Please.. Work.." He muttered weakly, before passing out.

    -----

    "Are you sure that there isn¡¯t a safer way to the bridge?" Daniel asked to the middle aged woman with a wisp of sound essence, to which the woman responded with a heavy shake of her head, while looking at the surroundings in fear.

    "I¡¯m just saying.." Added Daniel in annoyance. Back in the cabin, the woman had told him that there were only two paths towards the bridge, and they were either through the gambling hall, the exchange hall, and then, the living quarters of the officers.. Or from the theater, the backstage, and kitchens. What had convinced Daniel to take the former path, was the fact that in order to reach the theater, they needed to go through the reception once again.. Which was out of the question for him.

    For a few minutes, Daniel, Jerigh and the woman made their way towards the gambling room, and once they arrived, they noticed something that they did not expect.

    Against their expectations, the gambling room had no monsters inside.. The only thing present, was the nauseating smell of rotting flesh and blood.

    Relieved and yet not at the same time, the three made their way through hundreds of gambling tables on which the fiches, crystals and cards were present as if people could sit back at any moment, and start ying once again.

    In a matter of minutes, the three finally managed to leave the gambling area, and enter the exchanging hall.

    The exchange hall was, simrly to the gambling hall, in aplete mess. But differently from thetter, the exchange hall had few monsters that were roaming inside it quietly. These particr monsters were slightly bigger, and appeared to be more powerful than the other ones that Daniel and Jerigh had seen before.

    Before the mayhem, this hall was neatly organized to wee people who wanted to exchange opinions, spar, and demonstrate the effectiveness of their items. Unfortunately for Daniel, he hadn¡¯t seen it at its peak, but only after it had been turned to waste. Now, traces of blood covered the walls, the stalls, and various valuables lied on the floor.

    Ignoring these itemspletely, Daniel walked through the exchange hall more quietly than ever. He could see the monsters turn around in confusion even with the simple sound of him breathing, which had forced the three to walk through while holding their breath in.

    More than once they made noises loud enough for the monsters to be alerted, but whenever the worst case scenario would seem ready to y out, Daniel¡¯s forced luck would always work in his favor.

    The exchange station, the exposition booths, the training grounds, andstly the arenas of discussion.. They walked through all of these areas, and finally, they left the exchange hall and arrived in a long corridor.

    ording to the middle aged woman, this long corridor would lead them towards the living quarters of the officers. From there, they would easily be able to reach the bridge.

    The corridor was empty, and dimly lit, but it was extremely long. Luckily enough, Daniel, Jerigh and the woman, were able to cover the distance at a reasonable speed, due to theck of monsters. Only a few bigger and more powerful ones could be seen, but they weren¡¯t high in numbers, and they were easy to spot from the distance.

    As they walked through the kilometer-long corridor, the middle aged woman finally noticed something. On one of the monsters, she had found bits and pieces of what appeared to be an officer¡¯s uniform.

    "Do you recognize that one?" Asked Daniel after noticing the face of the middle aged woman.

    The woman simply nodded back at Daniel, then, when they got far enough from the monster, she said "That was the helmsman.. The person who sets the course of the ship.." She then took a small pause, before adding "If she is here.. Then we are still on the set course.."

    "So my n is the only thing that will save us from bouncing off of the isted, and roam space forever.." Said Daniel with a grim tone, before receiving a weak nod by the woman as a response.

    Seeing the helmsman made something click in the woman¡¯s mind. While before she was hoping that the officers within the ship secretly had the matter under control, now, she had realized that their only hope for safety, was to follow Daniel¡¯s n.

    "We are close.. That¡¯s the door for the bridge." She said after spotting arge metallic door at the end of the corridor. She then walked ahead, rotated the handwheel a few times, and opened it. The three of them then entered.

    -----

    With a sharp paining from his calf, and a bitter taste in his mouth, Der slowly woke up.

    He did not know for how time he had been unconscious, but he knew that it couldn¡¯t have been that long, as the blood that was slowly dripping from the injury on his leg hadn¡¯t started to coagte yet.

    As if remembering something important, he looked left and right, and quickly found the two young girls. The older of the two was sitting to his right, resting the side of her head on his arm, while hugging her little sister tightly.

    After he woke up, the two young girls woke up as well. "How long was I out?" He asked while brushing his mouth with the back of his hand. There, he found what looked like ckened blood, which he immediately spit along with the rest that was still in his mouth. "That damn kid.." He then muttered while smiling faintly.

    "Only a couple of minutes.." Responded the older of the two sisters before turning towards an small opened room inside which one could see adder that seemingly went up and down for hundreds of meters. "If we go up from there, we will get to the bridge.. Then, we can reach the living quarters of the officers from there.."

    Der stood up slowly, and quickly discovered that he had regained a good portion of his power. He then helped the two little girls up, and after checking the two ends of the corridor they were in, he said "Are you two ready?"

    The two girl nodded in confirmation, then, they walked into the small room, and after grabbing Der¡¯s waist, they held tightly as Der climbed thedder..

    Almost twenty minutester, they came out of a manhole ced right in front of one of the entrances to the bridge.

    Der looked left and right once again, in order to check if there were any monsters in the corridor. After confirming that the area was clear, he approached the door. After a few twists of the handwheel, the door became loose. He then opened it and the three entered altogether.

    Once inside, Der and the two young girls looked around in hope to find someone that could exin to them what was going on.. But they saw nobody. The bridge waspletely empty.

 Chapter 223 The First to Leave a Sinking Ship

    "Empty.." Muttered the middle aged woman after entering the bridge. "There isn¡¯t even blood.. There is just nobody here."

    "I was not expecting for them to be operating normally anyway.." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. He then added while looking around "Where is the sound sphere?"

    Instead of responding, the woman turned to look at Daniel with a face marked with anxiousness, and said "No.. you don¡¯t understand.. If the captain isn¡¯t here.. then.." She then let her voice die in her throat, leaving the rest to Daniel¡¯s interpretation.

    Soon enough, Daniel¡¯s eyes narrowed, and he barked furiously while punching one of the chairs into dust "They left already.. Pieces of shit!"

    The woman had already told him that the captain had a method to abandon the ship. That method consisted in a fist sized shalop, which contained a pocket dimension that was allowed by the spatial barrier. If something extremely dangerous like an attack from pirates, or members of an hostile faction were to happen, an announcement that would direct the passengers to a designated area, would be sent through the entire ship. Once regrouped, the passengers could then enter this shalop, and escape along with the rest of the crew.

    The woman had specifically told Daniel that there was only one of these shalops on board, and for a simple reason. It was near impossible for the ship to be destroyed by natural causes. The protection of the ship was made so that it could prevent it from crashing against the objects found floating through space, and if something that the barrier couldn¡¯t protect them from was sighted.. something like a spatial rift, or something that would definitely destroy the ship, they would then have the time to change course, and avoid it altogether.

    On the other hand, the shalop was a stealthy method to escape from human attacks, and it was equipped with a dark essence formation that would make it extremely hard to see in the darkness of space. There is no need to mention that, that shalop, was always in the possession of the captain himself.

    "Hold on.. Did they change course?" Daniel then asked to the woman, which immediately walked to the area where the helmsman worked, and noticed that the course hadn¡¯t been changed ever since the crossing had started.

    She was looking at a rocky tform, on which a small formation had been ced. On this formation, a small-scaled reproduction of the sr system where they were currently in, had been replicated. Each, the stars, and their ship, were present in the form of small light sphere.

    Based on the position of the ship, and the direction in which it was slowly moving, the woman quickly found out that the course hadn¡¯t been changed. Another detail that she was able to notice, was that the key to operate the helm was not inserted.

    "They haven¡¯t.." She responded.

    Daniel¡¯s hands tightened in rage. Not only had the captain left the ship while leaving the survivors on board, but he hadn¡¯t even bothered with changing the course to spare the isted from the fate of being invaded by these monsters. Daniel couldn¡¯t be more furious than he was at the moment.

    "Think.. Think.. Think.." He muttered while walking left and right.. He then suddenly stopped, and after turning towards the middle aged woman, he said "My n can still work.. We will only have to modify it a bit.. Can we change the course?"

    The woman shook her head in response while saying "We can¡¯t.. Only the helmsman or the captain can.. Only they have theponent of the formation that allows to operate this formation"

    "Isn¡¯t the helmsman therger monster that we¡¯ve seen earlier?" Asked Daniel after thinking for a moment. A crazy idea was forming in his mind.

    "Yes."

    Immediately after, Daniel asked "Is it possible that there is a spare key in her cabin?"

    "Possible. This area is usually restricted, and the officers that live in it are all in line for taking upmand of the ship, in case something were to happen to the higher ups. If the captain and the helmsman were to die, the next one in the chain ofmand would have to take over." Responded the woman with newfound hope.

    "How do you know all of these things?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. He couldn¡¯t understand why a simple receptionist would know the internal workings of such a big ship.

    "I used to be one of the officers in this ship.. once.." muttered the woman with a hint of embarrassment.

    "How did you end up bing the receptionist?" he then asked.

    The woman let out a heavy sigh, then responded by saying "I was caught stealing from a passenger."

    Daniel and Jerigh finally understood how the woman knew so much about how the ship workings. Of course, they didn¡¯t care about what her job was. What they wanted, was to leave this ship as soon as possible. "Where is the announcement formation?" Daniel then asked after putting the matter to the back of his head.

    "Right there." She responded while pointing at a second panel, ced just below the helmsman¡¯s post.

    This panel was identical to the previous one, but instead of a map made out of light spheres, the formation contained a single dimly lit sphere ced right in the middle of it.

    After the three hastily approached the area, Daniel asked "Can I use it?"

    "It still needs a key.. Most of the officers that work on the bridge can use it.."

    "Okay, so.. Nothing is going to happen unless we find the helmsman¡¯s key.." Daniel muttered before turning to look, once again, at the door that lead to the living quarters of the officers.

    -----

    "Where is everybody?.." Said Der after seeing that the bridge waspletely empty. Not a person could be seen working, and the ce looked like it had been abandoned recently.

    While Der was busy wondering where the crew could have gone, the two young girls ran towards the other side of the bridge which would take them to the living quarters of the officers, and right where they and their parents lived.

    Suddenly, a few loud sounds came from the other side of that door.

    Der immediately dashed towards the two girls, and stopped them from opening therge metal door. He then opened it himself as quietly as possible, and moved his head past it to observe what was going on on the other side.

    A single big monster was wandering the corridor, but was far enough for Der and the two girls to ignore it, and quietly walk into one of opened rooms on the other side.

    What they found, were empty cabins.

    The two young girls wanted to run towards the cabin where their family lived, but then.. Der saw something on the other side of the porthole. The view on the other side of the porthole gave to the deck, and from the scene that was ying out on it, Der finally understood what was happening.

    About fifty people had grouped up on the deck, and were currently moving into a smaller ship one by one. Next to this smaller ship, was the captain himself.

    Unable to believe his eyes, Der kept the two girls from running out of the cabin, and instead looked at thest of the crew members enter this shalop. Once everybody had entered, the smaller ship rose up in the air, and took off in the distance.

    Just as the small ship was about to leave the area covered by the spatial formation, it started to shrink, and be shrouded in darkness.. But then, it began to vibrate, and after only a couple of seconds, it exploded.

    "Damn it.." muttered Der with shock.

    It was clear to Der that the crew had abandoned the ship.. But also that, whatever had stopped people from escaping through their pocket dimensions, had also destroyed the secondary ship on which the crew was escaping on. Of course, he felt no pity for the crew. They hadn¡¯t even sent a warning or a message to the passengers before leaving. Death was the least that they deserved.

    What was problematic for him was the fact that now, he had to take care of these two young girls. He of course would have never left them alone, but it was extremely likely that the girl¡¯s parents were inside the ship that had just exploded. They would never survive without his help, so he had no choice but to take them with him.

    In his mind, he had already set his next objective.. And that was, to find Daniel.

    At first, he couldn¡¯t understand why. He had never relied on anybody else in his life but himself, but his guts told him that Daniel would manage to find a way out of this mess.

    After clearing his mind, he and the two girls quietly walked back into the bridge.

    "Do you know a way to reach the cabins of the passengers from here?" He then asked to the older of the two sisters.

    -----

    "I hope that there is a key in the room.. Otherwise we are screwed." Said Daniel with a wisp of sound essence to the two, while they observed the slow moving transformed member of the crew.

    Jerigh was about to grab a broken handle from the floor, and throw it past the monster, and towards the other end of the corridor, but he was quickly stopped by Daniel, which grabbed his wrist, and said "No.. he will hear the sound of your arm waving before that thing will hit the ground.." He then turned towards the woman, and said "What does the key look like?"

    The woman started to gesticte, and finally, she pointed at her neck, then at the monster.

    Daniel quickly turned to look at the monster, and around its neck, he saw a ne half stuck inside a piece of rotten flesh. What was attached to the ne, was a small rhombus-like crystal of a red color. It did not shine, nor emit any form of essence.

    After nodding in understanding, Daniel made a hint for Jerigh and the woman to hide, then put all of his focus on the sound essence in the surroundings. What he wanted to do, was to separate himself from the monster, but instead of doing it through space, he did it with sound.

    Almost as if two dimensions were sharing the same space, Daniel approached the monster without making the slightest noise. He slowly creeped next to it, and close enough for the monster¡¯s smell to invade his nostrils. That alone was enough for Daniel to lose focus, and make the sound blockade disappear for a moment..

    Just in that moment, the brushing of Daniel¡¯s clothes against the wall made the monster turn towards him, and thrust one of his bony legs against against the part of the wall next to Daniel. The leg went through the metal, and ripped Daniel¡¯s clothes.. But it didn¡¯t hit him.

    For a few moments, the monster moved closer to Daniel, and tried to feel the wall with the tentacles he had where the person¡¯s head was supposed to be. At the same time, Daniel made his presence as small as possible, and prayed that none of the parts of the monster¡¯s body touched him.

    Just a few secondster, the monster lost interest, and mindlessly walked past him.

    Daniel quickly entered the helmsman¡¯s cabin, and started to search.

    Never in his life had he hoped with so much intensity to be lucky, and find what he was looking for. For various minutes he opened drawers, turned mattresses over, looked behind paintings and mirrors, but he found nothing.

    He was starting to lose hope, but then.. While walking across the room, he saw what looked like the side of a safe behind one of the drawers.

 Chapter 224 One Chance to Survive

    After noticing the edge of what looked like a safe, hidden behind a drawer, Daniel approached the area, and pulled the piece of furniture away from the wall. It was only then, that he found out that the metallic bar wasn¡¯t part of a safe, but was in fact the edge of a ss case which contained the spare key to control the helm.

    With joy beaming from his face, he quickly opened the small ss panel behind which the key was stored, and took it. He then walked out of the cabin, and along with Jerigh and the woman, went back towards the bridge inplete silence.

    Once they reached the bridge, Daniel took the key out of his pocket, and showed it to the woman, which confirmed that it was in fact the right key, by saying "That¡¯s it."

    One more time, tion appeared on Daniel¡¯s face. Things were finally starting to go well for him. Without thinking too much about it, he walked straight towards the helm, and started to get familiar with the formation, when the woman suddenly interrupted him.

    "What are you doing?" She asked with surprise.

    Daniel looked back at her, and said "I have to change the course. Not by too much, only enough to brush past the isted."

    "You can¡¯t do that! We are still tens of millions of kilometers away from it.. Any change in the course will send us drifting through space forever.. Also, you have to add the power to the propulsors in order to change course." Responded the woman animatedly.

    "I am really starting to hate space.." Muttered Daniel in annoyance. He then gave up on operating the formation, and approached the sound formation instead. Each different formation within the bridge had a differently-shaped keyhole which was needed to be operated, but the announcement formation was different.. It had multiple keyholes, and one was rhombus-shaped, just like the one that was needed to operate the helm.

    "Once you insert the key, everything you say will resound through the whole ship.." Said the woman hesitantly. She then turned pensive for a moment, and asked "Are you sure about that? Who knows how these monsters will react.."

    "Well, there is nothing much that we can do now.." Responded Daniel before pressing the rhombus-shaped key into the keyhole, and..

    "This is Dan Hiel speaking. I am one of the passengers of this ship, and I have something important tomunicate. This ship has been invaded by a sort of sickness, parasite, or disease, which is turning the people it kills into mindless monsters. DO NOT leave your rooms, and if you do, be aware that while these monsters are blind, they are attracted by sound and immortal essence! I REPEAT! Keep the sounds to a minimum, and your immortal essence in your bodies.."

    Through the entire ship, Daniel¡¯s voice was being transmitted loudly. The many people that were still busy cultivating had now been interrupted, and were listening carefully to the message. Some did not believe it at first, but were quick to change their minds after taking a peek at the scenery that yed out in the corridors right in front of their cabins.

    The monsters were going out of their mind. They were dashing through the corridors like crazed beasts, constantly bumping against each other, and scaring the passengers like they had never been scared before.

    "Do not attempt to look for a member of the crew. I am transmitting to you from the bridge, and I assure to you that there is no one left to ask to. If you want to survive, you have to do exactly what I tell you. You have only one chance to escape.. Fail, and you will likely die on this ship.."

    -----

    Four Days earlier

    After witnessing to the death of the entire ship¡¯s crew, Der and the two girls had started to make their way back towards the passenger¡¯s cabins where Der though he could have finally reunited with Daniel and Jerigh. The path which the older of the two sisters had suggested, since they couldn¡¯t go back from the water tanks room, was the inverse path that hispanions would take just a few dayster.

    From the officer¡¯s cabins, they had reached the exchange halls, and while they had arrived early enough to see a few monsters still in the area, they had also noticed that these monsters were slowly walking out of it, and moving towards the same direction in arge group.

    Naturally, Der did not fail to notice that something was odd about their behaviour.

    Along with the two girls, he followed the monsters through the arena of discussions, the training grounds, the exposition booths, and finally, the exchange station.. Witnessing as the group becamerger andrger the more room they went through.

    Just as the three of them were about to follow the massive group of monsters out of the corridors, and into the reception area.. Der stopped right before the turn, and peeked at what was happening by pushing his head past the corridor.

    At that moment, hundreds of monsters were pacing aimlessly in the reception.

    The monster¡¯s behaviour was weird, but what shocked Der the most, was not the fact that the monsters had regrouped in the hall and were staying there instead of hunting for prey.. But that there was a human in their midst.

    This human was a rtively young man, probably in histe twenties. His long ck hair flowed down his shoulders like fments of obsidian, and his eyes emanated a bright red light. He was wearing tightly fitting elegant robes, which showed a peculiar pattern which seemed to indicate a rough bloody sea.

    For as odd as this person appeared, the most shocking detail, was the fact that he was not hiding, or walking slowly from one side of the room to the other. Instead, he was sittingfortably while looking at the massive window that allowed a view of the infinite universe.

    Around him, the monsters walked aimlessly, almost ignoring the fact that he was humming a song quite loudly.

    As if contributing to making the whole picture even stranger, this young man was ying around with what looked like a ck fist-sized rock. He was just throwing it high up on the sky, then watch as itnded back on his palm.

    This went on for a few seconds.. Before he finally stopped, pushed his face closer to the rock, and took a deep breath at just a few centimeters of distance from it. It looked almost as if he was smelling it.

    Nothing happened as a consequence of the young man¡¯s action.. Or so was what Der thought. Just as Der was starting to formte his own assumptions, the rock started to vibrate, and right after that, its uneven surface suddenly cracked, and the rock started to move unnaturally.

    As ifing alive, the ck rock turned into what appeared to be a huge and disgusting insect, with hundreds of small bony legs. It did nothing, except for moving on the young man¡¯s palm.. Almost happily.

    A weirdly affectionate expression appeared on the young man¡¯s face, which smiled sweetly at the insect before opening his mouth, and pushing his tongue fully out. He then moved the hand where the insect was resting right in front of his opened mouth, and let the insect crawl over his tongue.

    Once above the man¡¯s tongue, the insect made himselffortable, as the man put his tongue right back into his mouth, and swallowed the insect whole.

    After swallowing the insect, the young man stood up from the chair he was sitting on, and walked out of the reception area. He didn¡¯t bother with trying to avoid making any sound, as none of them would ever attract the attention of the hundreds of monsters around him.

    "I smeeeeeeell youuuu.." Said a now distant voice.

    This voice was low pitched and honeyed, which when heard while surrounded by blood and pieces of flesh, gave Der a creepy feeling. This voice belonged, of course, to the young man.

    Der did not wait to see if the young man was talking to him, and instead, he grabbed the two girls and dashed inside one of the opened rooms. He could feel from the young man¡¯s voice how powerful he was.. And he certainly wasn¡¯t any weaker than the strongest monsters he had seen so far.

    For a moment, Der thought that this young man could order these monsters around, but after thinking carefully about what he had seen, he quickly realized that these monsters simply ignored him. It was as if he was one of them.

    -----

    Back to the present

    ".. Fail, and you will likely die on this ship!" Said Daniel while talking into the sound formation, and giving instructions to the passengers that were still alive.

    "The course hasn¡¯t been changed, and we will still reach the isted within a month. Now, you have two options. Either hide until then, or if you are confident enough in your stealth abilities, move now. I repeat, reach the deck if you want to survive. DO NOT TRY TO ESCAPE FROM YOUR POCKET DIMENSIONS! There is something wrong with the spatial formation. If you don¡¯t believe me, try to force something inside one of your spatial containers. I will repeat this message for the next two weeks, then, I will need to deactivate the announcement formation of the ship along with the internal defenses. From then on out, they monsters will hear the noises through the walls."

    Daniel¡¯s n was simple. He wanted all of the survivors to regroup on the deck, so that they could jump off the boat and out of the barrier. Once outside of the spatial barrier, they could either leave through their own pocket dimensions, or Daniel would let them through his.

    Once alone, he could travel the rest of the way by himself.

    This n required a few things to work. The first one, was a source of sound distant enough from the deck, which could easily distract the monsters until the end of the month.. Otherwise a single distracted passenger could easily attract the attention of one of the monsters, and that would pretty much assure their death.

    The second one, was for him to make sure that none of the monsters reached his of origin. Just one of those monsters, and the entire poption of the world would likely go extinct.

    The first problem was easy to solve, as he had the solution right in his hand.. The sound sphere. Unfortunately, there was also a difficult part to this n. Someone would have to nt the sphere in the bellows of the ship, and activate it.. Therefore attracting all of the monsters within the ship. It was safe to say that that was a suicide mission.

    The second part had another big problem.. He needed to veer of just a few degrees, at just the right moment, and without making any mistakes. A single mistake could take him far enough for him to not be able to see the with his naked eye, and therefore risk going in the wrong direction.

    Needless to say, he needed a bit of help.

    -----

    Daniel, Jerigh and the woman spent the next fourteen days within the bridge, and during that time, they transmitted the same message over and over through the entire ship. The reason they did so, was not only to make sure that everybody understood the message, but also to give a helping hand to the people that were reaching the deck, by distracting the monsters.

    After two weeks, Daniel and the others needed to leave.

    Daniel was now standing in front of the sound formation, with his hand ced above the sound sphere, as he had just finished to repeat the the message onest time.

    "Are you sure that breaking this panel will cause the internal formations to copse?" asked Daniel with clear doubt. He wasn¡¯t really experienced with formations, and he couldn¡¯t detect or read them too well. All he knew, was that interacting with them would cause a clear effect.

    "Yes. The announcement panel and the defenses of the internal walls are connected. That¡¯s how the sound goes through the entire ship. On the other hand, the external shield and the helm are bound to a separate formation which only the captain and the helmsman can control.."

    "Alright.. Well.. hope they listened to us.." muttered Daniel to himself, before grabbing the sound sphere tightly, and saying "..Here goes nothing."

 Chapter 225 A Long Awaited Reunion

    "..Here goes nothing." Said Daniel before tightening his hold on the sound sphere, and with a sudden twist of his wrist, pulling it out of the formation. This was only possible because he had a key to operate it, otherwise, the formation would have had the same defensive power that the internal defenses of the ship had. As a sixth stage immortal cultivator, he would have never been able to forcibly break a something that was supposed to resist the attack of anyone below the eight rank.

    After Daniel pulled the sound sphere out of the formation, a sudden sound wave exploded from the bridge, and traveled through the entire ship. From that very moment, everybody that was on board could feel it.. The defenses on the walls and doors were gone. Hopefully, people had gotten used to the idea of being quiet and to avoid using their immortal essence, and Daniel hadn¡¯t caused anybody¡¯s death.

    With the sound sphere in one hand, and the key to operate the helm in the other, Daniel turned to look at the woman, and said "Are you sure you want to do this? He could do it instead, if you don¡¯t feelfortable with it."

    "Has he ever seen thending of a spaceship, or performed the veering of one?" Asked the woman in return. Her tone clearly marked with nervousness and arge amount of fear. She was breathing heavily, and her fists were clenched tightly around a part of her sleeve that was threatening to tear.

    Daniel let out a soft sigh, then handed the key over to the woman. "Tell Jerigh again what we have to do once we reach the area of the propulsors." Daniel then asked while focusing on covering the powerful sound sphere with his own sound essence, and then putting it in one of his pocket.

    The reason why he had asked the woman to exin the procedure to Jerigh and not him, was because ever since the very moment he had removed the sound sphere from the formation, he was constantly required to suppress its power.. He needed an extreme amount of focus in order to do that, as well as a strong mind, as it meant having to hear the extremely loud sound that the sphere kept sending out in waves.

    He could have easily limited the control over sound around the sphere, but that would have made it impossible for him to do anything else but that. He would have not been able to move, or even think about anything else but keeping his sound essence from letting any of those sounds out, and turn them into a beacon for all of the monsters within the ship.

    Once the woman repeated the instructions to Jerigh, as well as the direction they were supposed to take in order to reach the area of the propulsors, the two quietly left the bridge and went on their way.

    The propulsor room was pretty close to the area where the bridge was, but it required them to walk through dozens of corridors deep in the bellows of the ship. Their first step, was to climb down thedder which Der and the two little girls had taken in order to reach the bridge..

    -----

    Eighteen days earlier, crew¡¯s living quarters.

    Der and the two young girls had been hiding in one of the cabins of the crew for four full days. After the ck-haired young man had left the reception, the hundreds of monsters had started to, once again, hunt for prey, and Der could see many of them walk in front of his cabin every few minutes.

    At the end of the fourth day, the situation had be a little more quiet.

    Slightly relieved, he attempted to leave the cabin along with the two young girls, but right as he was about to walk out of the door, he heard a noisee from behind the corner. This noise wasn¡¯t one of those that the monsters made, but one made by humans.

    *Pssst.. hey!*

    At this point, Der¡¯s reactions was to instantly move back into the cabin, and sure enough, right in front of him, a monster appeared and started to slowly walk through the corridor in front of his door. It clearly had heard the noise, and had gone to check.

    While he was expecting to hear screams and a few noises of fighting, in reality, nothing happened. The person who had made that noise was clearly lucky enough to have survived. Unfortunately for him, that person had also attracted a few monsters towards the corridor where they were hiding, and therefore, forced them to be blocked in the cabin once again.

    Unknown to him, he would soone to thank the person who had made that sound, because only a few hourster, the monsters started to dash through the various corridors like crazed beasts. The reason for that, was the announcement that was ying out through the entire ship.

    "Hehe.. I knew you were still alive, brat." Muttered Der to himself before starting to carefully listen to the announcement.

    Once the announcement was over, he did not wait further and decided to go back towards the bridge, where he was sure he could find Daniel. So, along with the two young girls, he left the cabin, and made their way back.

    This time, while walking back, he had seen multiple people try to reach the deck, and the majority of them were able to reach it without a problem.. But unfortunately, not all of them. At least a tenth of the survivors he had seen walk by had died, and virtually all of those that had died, were wearing clean clothes, and appeared a lot more terrified than the others, indicating that they probably were the ¡¯lucky¡¯ ones that had managed to stay in their cabins for more than a week without noticing anything wrong going on outside.

    Der had considered more than once if he should have simply left the two young girls to one of the groups that seemed to be calm and experienced enough, to walk through without alerting the monsters, but every time, he was never able to do that. He was terrified that these people would decide to abandon them in fear that they would be scared at the sight of the first monsters they would meet, and scream.. So, he kept them with him instead.

    That was, of course, until they found a certain group.

    They were now walking through the exchanging hall, and resting at a corner within the gambling hall, was a group of about seven people. Each of these people seemed to be rather calm, despite a few of them had clear anxiousness written all over their faces.

    The moment the two groups saw each other, the one within the gambling hall quickly started to make quiet gestures, and giving hints for Der¡¯s group to walk over, but those gestures suddenly stopped when this group noticed that Der and the two young girls, were going towards the bridge, and therefore to the direction opposite to the stairs for the deck.

    Not a word was spoken, until..

    "MOM! DAD!" Shouted the youngest of the two girls in tion. She had just noticed that, amongst these seven people, were her parents.

    For as much as Der would have been happy to see parents and daughters reunite, he didn¡¯t have the time to, now. The very instant the word ¡¯dad¡¯ left the girl¡¯s mouth, he grabbed the two girls by the back of their shirts, and threw them towards the group.

    *HWIIIISS*

    Without missing a bit, the two girls¡¯ powerful parents rapidly grabbed their two daughters with their arms, while the noise was covered by the sudden whistle that Der had let out.

    Knowing that he only had instants before one or more monsters dashed towards him, and that he had no way to run, Der simply bent his knees and made himself as small as possible. This decision was one made out of instinct, and therefore, he had no time to hope to survive.. But a miracle happened.

    With tension above the roof, the group looked as a monster¡¯s spike brushed against the back of Der¡¯s lowering head, cutting a stripe of his hair down to his scalp, and once through, ended straight into the chest of a second monster that had arrived from the opposite direction.

    Just like they would usually do, the two monsters quickly started to exchange blows, and stomp with their collective eight legs, all around Der, and making him believe that he would die at any given moment.. But that didn¡¯t happen. Instead, the monsters lost interest as usual after a few blows. They roamed around the room for a few minutes, and left from the first corridor they found.

    The group looked at Der with eyes opened wide in shock. They couldn¡¯t believe that a human could be that lucky. He was still crumpled up into a ball, and his clothes were all torn apart, as many of the attacks hadn¡¯t simply missed.. But had actually missed by just a few millimeters.

    Der quietly stood back up, and let a back-twisting shiver run down his body. He hadn¡¯t only survived the most tense moment of his life, but also the most disgusting, as he was covered in the rotten pieces of flesh that the monsters had ripped off of each other.

    He silently took off the external part of his clothes, and remained with a simple shirt, pants, and shoes, which while had been worn for days now, they were rather clean whenpared to his outer robe.

    The group approached Der, and as he noticed the middle aged couple that was hugging the two little girls, he said through a wisp of sound essence. "I thought that all of the officers had left along with the captain."

    The woman looked at her husband with an enraged expression. She clearly wished that she could let out all of her frustration for something that had happened in the past, but she couldn¡¯t, as she had noprehension of sound essence.

    On the other hand, her husband, which was the second inmand of the entire ship, looked at Der and said "We would have never left while leaving our two girls here.. We have tried to stop Captain Nura, but he didn¡¯t listen to reason."

    "Well, they haven¡¯t made it far.. We have seen the shalop explode the moment it tried to go through the ship¡¯s shield four days ago." Responded Der.

    "You¡¯ve protected our girls for so long.. I have no words to thank you.." Said the man with a calm voice, and yet showing a face filled with emotions. His mind had crealy been taxed by not knowing whether his two daughters had survived this massacre or not.. And for the majority of the time, by the idea that, in his mind, it might have been better if he had never found out the truth.

    As the woman heard her husband thank Der, she quickly put the youngest of her daughters down, and quietly gave him a heartfelt hug. She was fighting as hard as she could the urge to cry, and express her thanks out loud.

    After a couple of minutes spent talking, Der decided to split from this group and try to reach his friends, but as he was about to walk towards the bridge, the father of the two girls stopped him.

    "Blocked?.." Der said after finding out that, when this group had ventured out in order to reach the bridge where Daniel was, they had seen a small group of monsters buried underneath the corridor that ultimately lead to the officer¡¯s cabins, and the bridge, blocking the passagepletely.

    "You are the second inmand of the ship.. Can you tell me what the guy that is sending out the announcement needs to do in order to follow his n?" Asked Der with hurry.

    "If he wants to veer from the.. He will need to reach the propulsors, and activate them." Responded the man inly.

    "Okay.. okay.. Can you tell me how do I get there?"

 Chapter 226 The Snake, The Mice, and the Rats.

    "It should be around here.." muttered Daniel while looking at the pitch ck corridor.

    The corridor that extended before Daniel was different from the ones in which he had previous been in. They were now in the bellows of the ship, and not near the cabins anymore. Everything that could be found here, were a few isted cabins, and numerous utility room which only a few members of the crew had business being in. The corridors themselves were extremely narrow, and on their metallic walls, numerous tubes came out, and ran through the corridor before entering into either a part of the ceiling, or back into the walls.

    Amongst the rooms within this corridor, was the room that contained the water tanks, the room where perfect crystals were fed to the propulsors, and finally, the most important room of the ship.. The formation center room.

    It wasn¡¯t the first time that Daniel had seen the center of a formation. He had seen one back when he and Alis had entered the catbs of the castle. There, the sword of the Dark Warrior and the heart of the Clear Mage, worked as the center of the formation that kept thetter imprisoned.

    There is no need to mention that each and every formation was created differently, and that the method to trigger, deactivate, or even take over control one, was probably going to be different from that of another. It was very likely that the method to take control over this one, which was either the key of the captain or the key of the second inmand, had escaped the ship along with the two individuals.

    The bellows of the ship extended for dozens of kilometers and through hundreds small corridors.. And all of this within a radius of at least a couple of kilometers, so, losing one¡¯s way was extremely likely, if not careful enough.

    "I wish they had installed a few more light sphere in these damn corridors.." said Daniel with clear irritation. They had been walking for at least a couple of hours, and yet they still had not managed to reach the right way towards the propulsor room. On the other hand, they had found the door that took to the bottom of the water tanks, and just as they passed close to it, they heard a constant and disturbing ticking sounding from the other side.. Of course, they did not stop to investigate the origin of the sound.

    After a third hour of seemingly pointless walking, Daniel and Jerigh finally started to see a few monsters in these dark corridors.

    These monsters were extremely big, in fact, they were much bigger than any other he had seen so far, and while they did not emanate any sort of mana like their weaker versions, just from looking at their movements, Daniel and Jerigh could see that they were slightly moreposed than their dumber cousins.

    Keeping on going at their slowest and most quiet pace, Daniel and Jerigh went through one corridor after the other, and soon, they noticed that these few powerful monsters came seened tome from the same smaller area. The more they approached what they believed to be the propulsor room, the more of these monsters they saw.

    Daniel and Jerigh kept following the instructions given by the middle aged woman, and after this much time spent walking, they both started to wonder if the directions she had given to them were wrong, or if they had entered the wrong corridor by mistake, and were now currently lost.

    With this thoughts making an appearance in their minds more and more often, the two reached the umpteenth corner, and as they were about to turn right just like indicated by the woman, they suddenly stopped. Completely out of their expectations.. They had seen another human being walking through these dark and metallic corridors. This person was a young man, and was currently walking away from them, as if he was unaware of their presence.

    From the man¡¯s back, Daniel could not make out any detail about him except for the long ck hair that flowed straight down his back, and the red robe with the peculiar pattern that he was wearing.

    Unaware whether this young man was lost or not, the two walked behind him in an attempt to approach him, but the man seemed to be walking carelessly, as if he wasn¡¯t bothered by the fact that any of his steps could attract one of the massive monsters he and Jerigh had seen roam these corridors. He was going too fast for the duo¡¯s slow pace.

    After about a minute of pointless following, just as Daniel was about to make a noise in order to attract the young man¡¯s attention, from a narrow and dark corridor to Daniel¡¯s left, a big hand appeared out of nowhere, and grabbed his shirt before pulling him into the corridor.

    Jerigh acted instantly, and with the speed of lightning, and the quietness of a spider, he immediately grabbed the throat of the person that had grabbed Daniel¡¯s clothes. He was about to squeeze this person¡¯s neck tightly, and stab the knife he was holding in his left hand on the person¡¯s neck, but then, he felt a tight grip around the muscles of his forearm, preventing him from tightening the arm around the person¡¯s throat.

    Thinking that it was the person who had attacked Daniel, Jerigh thrust his knife on the person¡¯s neck, but a second hand had gripped the wrist of the hand that was holding the knife, and squeezed it. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to stop him.

    After feeling two hands grab his arms, Jerigh looked downwards, and quickly noticed that both of these hands came from inside what looked like Daniel¡¯s sleeves.

    "Stop! It¡¯s Der.." Said Daniel with a wisp of sound essence.

    That was all it took for Jerigh to instantly lose any sort of fighting spirit, and let go of Der¡¯s throat. All of this had happened in less than a second, and none of the actions of the three had been performed along with the use of immortal essence.

    "d to see that you are still alive and kicking.." Said Daniel after the Jerigh stepped back, and Der let go of his clothes.

    Der ignored Daniel¡¯s wordspletely, and instead, he moved closer to the edge of the corridor, and peeked past it, to see if the young man was still in sight.

    After making sure that the young man had disappeared into the darkness, Der finally turned towards his twopanions, and said "Do you know that guy?" His tone was serious, and from it, Daniel and Jerigh quickly understood that the matter was much more important to Der than any sort of greeting.

    "No, do you?" Responded Daniel with suspicion.

    "I have seen him once before.. He was in the reception.. The monsters don¡¯t attack him. I have a gut feeling about him.. He is bad news" Said Der while moving back to peek into the corridor once again.. But this time, he saw that the young man had reappeared, and was walking back in their direction.

    His eyes were shining of a bright red color, and his pure ck hair became invisible while surrounded by the darkness of the corridor. On his face, was arge and amiable smile that not even a mother would be able to find sweet.

    "Oh, I know this smell.." Said the young man while slowly walking towards where Daniel, Der, and Jerigh were hiding. "I remember hearing about the little snake that crawled into the rat¡¯s den to eat, but that on its way in, found a couple of little mice first.. Don¡¯t eat them! I shouted as I was told the story.. But the snake always would."

    The three looked at each other in confusion. The young man¡¯s monologue was directed at them, but it didn¡¯t look like he could pinpoint their position exactly..

    "I was so sad for the little mice.. But now I get it. I never understood how fun it is to be the snake. Now,e here little mice.." Said the young man right before making the turn towards the corridor where Daniel, Der and Jerigh were previously standing in.. But there, he found no one. "I was wrong.. There is another rat here.."

    A few corridors away, Daniel and the rest of his group were standing in wait, while looking back to see if the young man was following them.

    "Who the hell is that guy.." Asked Daniel with confusion. "What do you mean that monsters don¡¯t attack him?"

    "I mean that I¡¯ve seen monsters group around him, but despite how much noise he made, they kept ignoring him." Responded Der with just as much confusion. He knew nothing about the young man either, and yet, he could feel that the guy did not have a good bone in his body.

    "Fuck.. Jerigh, did you keep track of where we went?" Daniel then added before turning to look at Jerigh¡¯s face, only to see thetter shake his head left and right.

    They were lost.

    "I know the way." Said Der before suddenly taking a small map out of his pocket, and slowly opening it in front of the two. He then pointed to the part where he met the two, and said "This is where I found you.. And this is where the propulsors are."

    The moment Der¡¯s fingernded on the map, Daniel quickly realized that his former guess was right. The direction where all of those extremely powerful monsters arrived, was also the area where they needed to go to.

    "Ohe on.. If you have to run, at least run a bit further than this.." Said a voice that came from one of the corridors that formed the intersection of which the corridor the three were in was part of.

    Daniel immediately grabbed the map, observed it carefully, and thanks to ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, hemitted it to memory in a matter of seconds. He then crumpled the map messily, and shoved it into his pocket while keeping the sound from reaching out in the same way he was preventing the sound sphere from attracting every monster within the ship.

    After that, Daniel turned towards another corridor, and started to run as quietly as he could.

    -----

    Two dayster.

    Despite knowing the path towards the propulsor room, having to avoid the massive monsters, along with the relentless chase of the young man, had taxed gravely on Daniel¡¯s, Jerigh¡¯s and Der¡¯s mental health. They were now hiding within a cabin which they had already guessed was reserved for one of the crew members that worked in the area.

    The reason why they had hidden, was because there were truly too many monsters around. The corridors were so narrow, and them monsters were so big, thet going through them was impossible.. And whenever they found a corridor blocked by one of them, they had to change route altogether. They could have waited for the monsters to leave, but no matter where they went.. The young man would always reappear right behind them, and just a bit out of their sight.

    "There are only four paths to the propulsor room.. And all of them had one or more monsters in them.. If they don¡¯t leave, we will never reach it.." Said Der with clear anxiousness. They had spent thest couple of days running left and right in hope to find a way out, but no matter how much they tried, they hadn¡¯t seeded.

    Daniel, clearly the most frustrated of the trio, said "If only we had control over that formation.. I swear that if I put my hands on the captain.. I¡¯ll snap his neck myself."

    "The captain is dead. Their shalop exploded the moment they tried to leave the barrier."

    After hearing Der¡¯s words, Daniel responded with mixed feelings "Suits him well.. But there goes our key.." He was happy to hear about the man¡¯s death, but not about the fact that what they needed now, was lost.

    "What key?" Asked Der with sudden curiosity.

    Without looking back at him, Daniel stood up and looked through the small porthole on the door. After seeing nothing in the corridor, he said "A pendant with a crystal on it. A golden icosahedron.." He then waited for Der to ask another question, but then, he heard three words than he would have never expected to hear.

    "Like this one?"

 Chapter 227 Not a Lucky Situation to Be In

    "Like this one?" Said Der while holding in his hand a pendant that matched Daniel¡¯s description, causing both Jerigh and Daniel turned to look at him with faces contorted in surprise and doubt.

    "Where did you.." muttered Daniel while moving his hand towards pendant, and grabbing it.

    "The second inmand. He didn¡¯t leave with the captain, and when I told him I was going to look for you, he gave me a map, and this pendant.. He said they could be useful.." Responded Der with just as much surprise as Daniel and Jerigh showed. He then added "Is it strange that, despite all of the bad things that happened on board, I feel unreasonably lucky?"

    Daniel suddenly turned to look at Der, and with an odd smile, he said "That¡¯s just your mind ying tricks on you.. Unless you consider this a lucky situation to be in.. Come on.. Let¡¯s go."

    After finding out that they had everything they needed to go along with Daniel¡¯s n, the three made their way through one dark metallic corridor after the other, until finally, they managed to reach the room that contained the formation connected to the external spatial barriers.

    What deactivating this formation would do, was to remove the spatial barrier that prevented anything from approaching, and colliding with the ship. That, of course, did not mean that the ship would lose gravity and that people would suddenly shoot through space along with the ship, instead of inside it.. That was because the formation that controlled the gravity within the ship was internal, and separated from both the external barrier formation, and from the internal defences or sound formation.

    The reason for this engineering choice, was so that the ships could expand their possibilities, as certains had a much higher gravity than others, and would ultimately crush a lower level cultivator the moment the external barrier was removed to let a few passengers out of the ship.

    A gravitational formation wasn¡¯t governed by a member of the crew either, and instead, was added during the creation of the ship itself. That, along with a spatial formation, were the only two requirements necessary to turn a normal ship, into a spatial one. One that would allow people to keep their feet on the ship, and one that could prevent any random object from colliding with the ship.

    Once inside the control room, Daniel approached the b of rock simr to the others he had seen within the bridge, and started to be familiar with it.

    Instead of a map, or a sound sphere, this b had a single scaled replica of the ship they were in, covered by a small spatial barrier. This small ship was ced just above a socket which looked like the bottom of the icosahedral-shaped yellow crystal.

    From a single touch, Daniel was able to feel that this shield, for as small as it was, was extremely powerful and virtually impossible to destroy for him, or any other person on board that he was aware of.

    With no big variety of choices from which to pick from, Daniel quickly inserted the crystal into the socket.

    The moment he felt the clicking sound caused by the insertion of the crystal, thanks to his deepprehension of spatial essence, Daniel instantly found a huge change take ce in the shield the covered the ship¡¯s replica. It was not a change ofposition, but a change in power.

    Once again, Daniel tried to touch the ship, and immediately found out that the little ship¡¯s spatial shield had decreased to a power that any random fourth stage immortal cultivator with the rightprehension of space could mess around with.

    Instead of breaking the ship¡¯s defensive formation right away, Daniel closed his eyes, and started to make Der¡¯s map appear in his mind. He then began to make a few calctions.

    One minute after the other went by, and in the blink of an eye, a day had passed.

    After a full day spent in wait, Der and Jerigh were starting to get visibly worried. If not for the fact that they had less than two weeks left, for the fact that the red-clothed young man could storm into the door at any given moment.

    Just as the thought of interrupting Daniel¡¯s thoughts started to appear in their minds, Daniel suddenly opened his eyes. He then turned towards an empty part of the room, and became as still as a statue.

    Confused beyond words, Der and Jerigh observed Daniel¡¯s actions.. And soon enough, they felt something happen. A form of power was bing more and more present within the room, and the point from which it came from, was none other than inside Daniel¡¯s body.

    That power, was dark essence.

    Dark essence kept expanding through Daniel¡¯s body, and in a matter of minutes, he became a human-shaped ck hole. Once done, he turned once again to look at the control panel, and exerted a wisp of immortal essence shrouded by dark essence. With it, hepletely took over the control over the ship¡¯s barrier, and made it dissipate the very next moment.

    He then turned to look at the empty part of the room, and once again, he exerted a much bigger amount of immortal essence.. Stillpletely covered by dark essence.

    Der and Jerigh observed at the wisps and threads of sheer darkness move around the room in confusion. Neither of themprehended dark essence, and therefore, they weren¡¯t able to see or feel anything contained within it. All they could see, was a dance of shadows.

    That, was Daniel n. He wanted to use dark essence to cover his use of immortal essence. The entire day he had spent thinking, had been spent trying to make out the distance between the room they were in, and the room they were trying to reach. Now that the spatial barrier formation was down, he was able to check something he was curious about.

    The immortal essence quickly started to take the shape of a door, and within the invisibility provided by the dark essence, it converted into spatial essence.

    In just a few moments, observable only through Daniel¡¯s eyes, a human sized portal had formed. On the other side, was a slightlyrge, and empty corridor.

    Despite how dark this corridor was, Daniel was still able to see the evident traces of blood on the walls, as well as the many traces of a fight that had taken ce long ago, and human remains. The smell that filtered through the portal he had opened caused him to instantly gag in disgust, and almost lose control over the spatial portal.

    Instead of directly walking through it, Daniel took the crumpled up map that Der had given to him, and threw it gently through the corridor.

    A big smile appeared on his face as, just like he had hoped, the paper ball passed through without being turned into dust by any sort of spatial interference. He then looked through the portal in search of a distinctive sign. Once again, his smile became more evident the instant his eyesnded on what appeared to be a the top of adder.

    Without waiting one more second, Daniel took the key back from the control panel, and sent a wisp of sound essence into hispanion¡¯s ears. Then, he entered the portal.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, and seeing his actions, Der and Jerigh followed him without any objection. The portal closed right after, and the remains of the essences of space and darkness dissipated in the air.

    The very moment after the portal closed, the door of the control room opened. Behind it, the young man appeared. On his face, one could see a yful expression.

    He slowly made his way into the room, and after noticing the deactivated spatial barrier, he muttered "looks like the rat found the cheese.." He then took a deep breath in, and after feeling the feeblest remains of dark essence in the air, he added "Now, that is cheating.. But cheating is a game for two.."

    -----

    Once they walked through the portal, the trio quickly looked at both ends of the dark corridor, and the rooms inside it.

    This corridor only contained three rooms, and adder that could only go to a lower level. Two of these rooms were on the right side of the corridor, and the third, was at the end of it, while thedder was on the left side.

    The fighting marks couldn¡¯t be more obvious, and on the ground, the three saw something they had never seen before. Along with a few rotten limbs, was the bony structure of one of the bigger monsters.

    The doors of the rooms on the right were destroyed, and that allowed Daniel and the rest to see the numerous marks left inside them from the fight.

    A battle had take ce in this ce between the monsters and a few powerful warriors, and even though the warriors appeared to have managed to take one of the monsters down, they were unlikely to have survived.

    What was worse, was that there was no trace of a full body.. Which indicated that these warriors had probably ended up bing the very monsters which they had fought against.

    Daniel¡¯s attention was momentarily caught by the room at the end of the corridor. It was closed, and the door was made of thick steel. The ss on the porthole only showed the darkness within. ording to the map, that room was supposed to be empty.

    After putting the matter of the room to the back of his head, he turned to look at thedder, an said "Here, down thisdder." He then approached it as quietly as possible, and slowly climbed down one step after the other.

    No longer than a minuteter, Daniel, Der, and Jerigh reached the bottom, and found themselves in a rtively small room.

    This room was about fifteen meters in width, and just five meters in profundity. It appeared much more simr to a short corridor with no rooms by its sides.

    On the other side of the room, were five circr holes ced one next to the other on the wall. Each of these holes was just a meter in width, and could be closed with a metallic hatch which was, at the moment, opened.

    Daniel had heard what these holes were. They were the ¡¯mouths¡¯ where the perfect crystals would be inserted, turned into pure energy, and then, that energy would be directed towards various canals, and ultimately, used to create a sudden burst of power liberated through the propulsors.

    The arrival to their of origin was scheduled for thirteen dayster, and because of the still massive distance between them and the, Daniel could not feed the crystals to the propulsors yet. Veering a millimeter in any direction, at this distance, would without a doubt add hundreds of thousands, if not millions of kilometers to the distance between them and the.

    But of course, that was still part of his n.

    With as much focus as he could muster, Daniel took the sound sphere out of his pocket and installed it in the space in the middle of the room, while covered by ayer of immortal essence, and an externalyer of dark essence.

    At the same time, Der and Jerigh ced one hundred perfect crystals in each of the five mouth, and closed the hatches.

    Once they were done, using thest bit of focus that he was able to spare from keeping the sound sphere quiet, and the perfect crystals from sliding down the mouths of the engine, Daniel opened another portal.

    While closing his eyes, and focusing purely on making sure that neither of those objects escaped his control, Daniel slowly stepped through the portal along with Der and Jerigh. When they reappeared, they were inside the room at the end of the corridor.

    There, they would wait for twelve days for the ship to reach the.

    In order to avoid losing focus, Daniel sat on the floor in the lotus position, and started to meditate. In his mind, only him, the floating sound sphere, and the five groups of perfect crystals existed.

    Knowing that they would have to wait for a long time, Jerigh and Der approached one of the walls, and sat down. They were going to spend most of the time meditating as well.. But just as the two closed their eyes in meditation, they heard a weak rattling of chainse from the darkest part of the room.

 Chapter 228 I Hope This Isnâ€™t a Bad Idea

    *tter tter*

    Both Der and Jerigh opened their eyes in unison, and turned to look at the dark side of the room. There, they saw a manpletely tied by numerous chains to the metallic walls.

    "Daniel.. It¡¯s better if you see this.." Said Der through a wisp of sound essence.

    In response to Der¡¯s words, Daniel turned around as slowly as possible, and looked in the same direction where his friends were looking, but from where he sitting, the area appeared too dark.

    Despite that, his eyes were inexplicably drawn to a specific point within the darkness.. As if he couldn¡¯t help but look at that spot.

    After a few seconds spent looking at that specific dark spot of the room, Daniel quietly stood up.. His mind was drifting away, and he couldn¡¯t keep his thoughts stably directed at what he was focusing on before.

    He then took one step towards the darkness of the room, and for a reason unknown to him, he felt the need to free whatever had been locked by these chains he had heard just seconds earlier.. But instead of following his instincts, he sat back down, and closed his eyes.

    At the same time, a pair of bright green eyes opened right in the spot in the darkness in which Daniel was being drawn to. These eyes shone with a bright green color, and were clear to a point where they could only bepared to two emeralds.

    "Ignore him." muttered Daniel while trying to focus back on his task. He then added ".. And don¡¯t look at his eyes." The moment Daniel had regained the lost portion of mind which had been taken over by the owner of the green eyes, he feared that the loss of focus would have caused his control over his immortal essence to be lost, but that never happened. Despite the fact that he was being controlled into doing something, he could still feel the majority of his focus being locked into what he was doing.

    To him, it felt like the entity who was trying to control him, had also recognized the importance of letting him focus on his task, and therefore, had decided to avoid pushing himself too much into Daniel¡¯s mind.

    Jerigh and Der looked at each other, and just like Daniel, they closed their eyes and entered into a meditative state. The pair of bright green eyes narrowed as they observed Daniel, then, they slowly closed as well.

    In the blink of an eye, twelve days passed.

    Der and Jerigh were chewing on something that they had taken out of their spatial rings. They were powerful cultivators, and could go on for months without eating, but they had decided to eat out of boredom. Twelve days spent in a dark room were more than their patience could take, and they had almost forgotten about the dangers outside of the room. Fortunately, their wait was close toe to an end.

    The person that was the least affected by the wait, was Daniel. He had spent years in a cell ten times worse than this one. At least here he could change his clothes every now and then, and wasn¡¯t forced to have meaningless conversations with Sewah, just to trick his mind off of focusing on the slow passage of time.

    Ever since the prisoner had closed his eyes, he had never opened them again. Only a few rattling noises could be heard every now and then, but they would soon stop. It was clear to the three of them, that the prisoner was trying to be just as quiet as the others where.

    There was no doubt that, even though this man was treated as the most dangerous of criminals, he would not be able to defend himself from these monsters while weakened by those chains.

    Thanks to ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, Daniel had quickly be used to separate his mind into multiple tasks, and after just a couple of days, he was able to think about other matters without too many risks. He had spent thest few days thinking of his meeting with his sister, wondering if she would have recognized him, or if she was even alive.

    Of course, he hadn¡¯t forgotten in what kind of situation he had left her in.

    He had left after the news of the most important discovery in the history of that had be known, and even though he had escaped capture, there was no doubt that if any of those powers became aware of the fact that Daniel had a sister, she would have be their next target. If not to attempt to get Daniel¡¯s secrets out of her, at the very least, to lure him out.

    His sister wasn¡¯t the only source of worry present in his head. Der¡¯s daughter was also one, as well as his uncle, and his two teachers.

    Whenever this matters entered his mind, he would soon put them aside, as for now, he needed to reach the alive. Unfortunately, it appeared that the closer he got to home, the more often these thoughts would resurface.. Turning hisst day on board of the ship a hell worse than it was before.

    -----

    Ever since a few days before, an increasingly brighter and bigger light had appeared in the vastity of space right in front of the ship, and now, it had be a gargantuan sphere, on whose surface one could see a variety of different colors. The clear blue color of the oceans, the white color of the snow field, the yellow color of the massive deserts, and the various shades of red of the valleys and forests.

    The was so incredibly big, that each biome was hard to distinguish, and appeared like a colored grain of sand amongst a million others.

    If left going, the ship would keep going towards the, and ultimately, it would crash on its surface.. If even a single monster were to survive the crash, they would roam the site until they would manage to find a creature, human, or beast to infect. If that were to happen, the brightly colored, and lively world would soone to an end.

    Luckily, everything that Daniel had done so far, was to prevent this eventuality.. And now, it was finally time for thest part of his n.

    At just a few hours from the time of the crash, he allowed the spatial essence that prevented the perfect crystals to dissipate, and let them fall into them reach the engine, then, waited in silence.

    After mere seconds, the perfect crystals were melted into their purest form of power. The molecules of air inside them quickly burned away, leaving only the liquid state of natural essence to generate power for the propulsors.

    The propulsors weren¡¯t loud to begin with, and from where they were, they couldn¡¯t hear a sound. Daniel was only able to witness what was happening thanks to his control over space essence.

    As the two propulsors ignited with power, the ship quickly elerated to a speed higher than before. Keeping this speed when in space was generally deemed a bad choice, as their increased speed would also mean an increased force of impact if the ship were to hit something. Also, trying to avoid an approaching item was much more difficult at that speed.

    Fortunately, Daniel did not need the ship to make any sort of rapid change in course, and instead, he simply needed it to miss the altogether, which was still at a fairly reasonable distance. Soon after the ship caught speed, Daniel felt it make a slow turn of about thirty degrees to its left. The remaining power of the propulsors was used to stabilize the ship to its new course.

    The faces of the few hundred of people that had reached the deck became white as sheets of paper. They had hoped for the ship tond, or even crash on the, and use pocket dimensions to escape, but now, it appeared like the ship would miss the.

    In theory, some of them could have been able to use their pocket dimensions now, but they were not aware of the fact that the ship¡¯s defenses had been removed by Daniel.. And even if they knew, they wouldn¡¯t trust the people around them with the pocket dimension in which they were in.

    Their safest bet was to hide, and use their pocket dimension once inside the. Unfortunately, without a person that had been grown inside it, they would not be allowed to enter, and would end up having to wander around the in hope that another ship would arrive, or make their way to the closest using their own power.

    While the passengers started to panic, Daniel opened a spatial portal that lead from their room to the bridge, and momentster, the middle aged woman that had just used the guiding tform to veer the ship, quickly walked through.

    Daniel was about to remove the limitations on the sound sphere, when suddenly.. He heard a creepy voicee from behind him.

    "I found you.." said the woman with a yful tone.

    A shiver ran down the backs of Daniel and the rest, and an extremely bad feeling pervaded their minds.

    The woman showed a disgusting looking smile, and at the same time, her eyes started to glow of a bright red color. Her skin soon started to split, and blood came out of the cuts inrge streams.

    A horrific sound of breaking bones came from chest of the woman, muffled by her flesh. Soon after, two bloody fingers came out of a cut that had appeared in between her breasts.. Then a second, and a third one.

    These three fingers other hooked on the woman¡¯s skin, and pried her already split thoracic cage open. The nauseating sound of flesh ripped apart left the three of them cringing.

    Like a random sack of skin, the split body of the woman fell at the feet of the person that was inside her. This person was, of course, the red-robed young man.

    The clothes of the young man, despite having juste out of the body of the middle aged woman, were surprisingly clean, and only his hands werepletely died in fresh blood.

    In front of the eyes of Daniel, Der, Jerigh, and the prisoner, the young man moved one of his bloody hands in front of his face, and gave a slow lick to three of his fingers, almost as if savoring the taste of the woman¡¯s blood.

    Once done, he looked at Daniel, and with a satisfied grin on his face, and eyes shining of a red brighter than ever, he said "Looks like our game of hide and seek is ov-"

    His voice was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of two bright green eyes.

    Not only was the voice of the young man interrupted, but also his body. He was now standing still, and looked at the green eyes of the prisoners deeply.

    Soon after, the body of the young man started to tremble, and to Daniel, which had fallen under the control of the prisoner once before, it was clear what was happening. The young man was fighting for the control over his mind and body with the prisoner.

    Suddenly, a croaky voice came from the prisoner.. it said "Why haven¡¯t you run yet?.. You idiots.." This voice belonged to the prisoner.

    The moment thest of the prisoner¡¯s wordsnded on Daniel¡¯s ears, he opened his palm, and made the sound sphere teleport directly on it. He then approached the struggling young man, and shoved the sphere into hisyer of clothes.

    After that, he created arge portal that lead to the deck of the ship inside which Der and Jerigh quickly dashed through, and that closed immediately after.

    Daniel, which was still in the room with the young man and the prisoner, looked at the two with clear worry, and after muttering, "I hope this isn¡¯t a bad idea.." he removed the protection around the sound sphere, causing waves of extremely loud sound to resound through the entire ship.

    Daniel knew that, from now on, he only had instants to react. So, he turned to look at the prisoner, and dived directly on him.

    Just as the body of the two touched, the two of them disappeared. When they reappeared, they were on the deck.

    The two rolled on the hardwood floor for a few seconds, and once they stopped, without even standing up, Daniel shouted to the group of passengers "OFF THE SHIP! NOW!"

 Chapter 229 YOU CANT KILL ME!

    "OFF THE SHIP! NOW!" Shouted Daniel with the loudest tone he could muster, before standing up, and running towards the edge of the deck. He then stomped heavily on it, and jumped directly into space.

    Those who recognized Daniel¡¯s voice, immediately followed him along with Der, Jerigh, the prisoner, and finally, the family of the second inmand of the ship, while those who didn¡¯t, worried that Daniel¡¯s shout and use of immortal essence could attract the monsters closest to the deck, jumped as well out of fear.

    In a matter of seconds, everyone who had survived this horrific voyage had abandoned the ship. The only living person still inside, was the red-robed young man, which was currently being tormented by the monsters.

    Just like when a monster erroneously attacked another when one of them made a sound, the young man was forced to defend himself against the attacks quick attacks. At least until they finally managed to realize that it was him, and stopped in their tracks.

    This went on for a few long minutes. Long enough for the young man to manage to take the sound sphere off of his clothes, and destroy it. Only after he did that, the monsters finally left him alone, and went back to focus on the surrounding noises.

    Unfortunately for them, they would never find one again, as the ce was now as quiet as a grave.

    At the same time, in the space just a few hundred kilometers from the, Daniel and a few hundred cultivators floated in ce quietly.

    Cultivators were able to naturally emanate their immortal essence out of their bodies, and that would allow them to float, and if they wanted, to direct the ejection on a specific direction in order to propel themselves in the opposite direction. Therefore, everyone that had reached the first stage of immortal cultivation, was able to travel through space.

    Unable tond on the isted next to which they were floating. Some of them prepared themselves for the eventuality that they might have had to fly back by themselves, when suddenly..

    "Anyone who needs to go back to Mira, you can go through mypany building¡¯s pocket dimension."

    He then opened arge portal through which people could see a big and lively market. Simrly, the thousands of people that were peacefully shopping in the market, suddenly turned towards the big portal that had opened with fear, and on the other side, they saw a rtively small group of people that floated in open space.

    "It wouldn¡¯t hurt me if you stopped by the shops and bought something.. You know.. For saving your lives." He then added with a casual smile on his face.

    Hesitantly, the majority of the people decided to enter the portal, and ended up inside Daniel¡¯s market, and unsurprisingly, none of them stopped to buy something.

    Of course, that was to be expected. Who would have wanted to shop around after going through such a terrifying experience. After getting out of that predicament, Daniel simply felt like joking.

    A few of the most powerful and greedy cultivators looked at Daniel with hesitation. Their eyes were met by a shrug of Daniel¡¯s shoulders, and a few words spoken in a matter-of-fact fashion.. "Don¡¯t look at me like that.. You will never be able to enter the unless I take you with me, and I have no intention of approaching it before everyone has left."

    "We could force you to take us in.." Responded a thirty years old looking woman at the seventh stage of cultivation.

    A smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, making him appear carefree and unbothered by her words "I assume that there is going to be somebody to prevent people from entering the.. I wonder how will you convince me not to sell you out once he or she will ask me if you are with me." He responded while carefully fixing his clothes.

    "Maybe they can¡¯t.. But I will." said a voice from the distance.

    Daniel, Jerigh, and Der immediately turned to look at the direction where the ship had disappeared, but then, they felt a presence appear right next to them. Once again, they turned around towards the group of greedy cultivators, and in between them, the red-clothed man floated quietly.

    Differently from the rest of the cultivators, this young man was looking towards the. His expression was pained, and filled with what looked like the sort of apprehension that a mother would feel towards a child.

    "So many parasites.. Weakened, and unable to im this beautiful world for the Parasite King.." He said with a saddened tone, before turning towards Daniel, and adding "But you will help me change this."

    Each and every time Daniel had seen this young man, the two had had an extremely quick interaction, or they had met in a dark area which made it impossible for him to see the man¡¯s karma clearly. But now that light was shed on him from various angles, Daniel was finally able to see the number that floated on his head.

    Daniel had never seen such a big number. So big, that Daniel didn¡¯t even bother to read thest twelve digits of it. The fact that the number was as red as venous blood and that it was in the hundreds of trillions, was enough for him to understand that he wasn¡¯t dealing with a good person.

    At the same time, what surprised Daniel even more, was that the prisoner¡¯s karma was still at a perfect zero, which to him, made even less sense than the mind bogglingrge number above the red-clothed young man. The prisoner had helped them to escape, and technically speaking, he should have had a little bit of positive karma.. But that was not the case.

    "Of course, after I take care of him.." Said the young man after turning to look at the prisoner. He then opened his mouth, and let a small insecte out of it. This insect appeared like a worm with hundreds of sharp little teeth on its head, and six extremely long and thin legs that came from its sides. It was different from the one that Der had seen in the ship, and appeared to be much smarter. "Kill them all.. But leave that one alive."

    The moment this insect appeared, Der wondered if this young man had an insect for every asion.

    Once the words of the young man reached the insect, the long-legged worm turned towards the closest of the strong cultivators in the surrounding space, and jumped on him with lightning fast speed. It then crawled over his clothes, and the moment he ended up on a visible patch of skin, it used its sharp teeth to drill a hole into the man¡¯s body and crawled in.

    Visible from the outside, a small lump moved up towards the man¡¯s neck, and kept going until it reached its head.

    The man did not even have the time to panic, before the parasite reached his brain, and tookplete control over his body.. turning him into a moving puppet.

    This man was the most powerful amongst those that had remained behind, and therefore, even after bing a puppet, he was still the most powerful after the prisoner, and the red-robed young man. So, with as much power as the man could originally muster, he dashed towards a second person right next to him, and grabbed him tightly. With one arm wrapped around the person¡¯s chest and arms, he used the other to keep the man¡¯s eyes opened. He then spit on his eyes, before letting him go.

    The second man quickly panicked as he felt something crawl behind his eyeball, and reach his brain. In a matter of seconds, he too became a simple puppet.

    At the same time, just a few dozen meters next to them, the young man looked at the prisoner with an odd smile. "Show me yours, and I will show you mine." He said with a taunting tone.

    The prisoner did not respond, and instead, he simply closed his naturally red eyes. When he reopened them, they once again shone through the eye holes of the mask he was wearing like a couple of green beacons.

    "Spare me your mind tricks. We both know they are nothing more than a surprise attack.." Said the red-clothed man with an irritated tone. His face lost the smile that seemed to be a permanent characteristic of his face, and became extremely serious. He then said with a blood freezingly cold tone "Fine.. Let¡¯s do it your way."

    The young man¡¯s skin suddenly started to tremble, and swell. Large veins appeared on every bit of skin that was visible, and soon enough, the color started to change as well. From a healthy rosy color, the young man¡¯s skin turned into a greyish green. The young man¡¯s body quickly started to morph, and expand bit by bit.

    The very clothes on the young man¡¯s body expanded along with his body, and when normal clothes were supposed to rip, his turned identical to modified skin instead, which now looked like that of an earthworm.

    The human features quickly started to disappear from the young man¡¯s body, and in a matter of a seconds, he turned in what was a massive clump of intertwined worms which looked like it could weight dozens of tons.

    In response, the prisoner¡¯s eyes started to shine of a brighter shade of green.

    The back of his clothes suddenly burst as a green luminescent shadow came out of his body, and after bing as big as the young man¡¯s monster form, it took a humanoid shape, and stood behind him like a protective giant.

    This giant had amazingly handsome features, and was d in a magnificent full te armor. In his hand, was a greatsword that looked like it could cut a mountain in two.

    What surprised Daniel the most about this giant, was that while its owner did not possess karma, this green transparent giant did. The number above his head was not too high, and reached only about two hundred thousands. Nheless, it was still positive karma.

    Once the red-clothed young man and the prisoner showed their true power, they prepared to engage in battle, but something unexpected happened.

    The most destructive and unlucky moments of the red-robed young man¡¯s life, was about to appear in the shape of a ten metersrge meteoroid which traveled at a speed hardly observable with the naked eye.

    This meteoroid impacted directly against what, before, would have been the back of the young man, and that now looked like arge cluster of moving worms.

    The impact was so powerful, that the young man exploded in hundreds of tiny pieces, which flew all over the surrounding space.

    While everybody else looked at the scene with shock, Daniel looked in enjoyment. He had activated Karmic Retribution at the cost of half of his karmic points the very moment he had seen the young man reappear. This enjoyment was, of course, bittersweet.. After all, he had spent as much as forty billion karmic points in order to trigger this young man¡¯s karmic retribution.

    That, was half of the total karma he had received from sparing the from the fate of being destroyed by the invasion of monsters.

    Just as the young man exploded in thousands of pieces, the prisoner did not wait for him to get himself back together, and instead, he moved his fist in front of his chest. The green giant made exactly the same movement as the prisoner.

    "HAA!" Shouted the prisoner, causing a powerful green wave to expand from the giant¡¯s fist in a spherical-shaped wave.

    As soon as this green wave touched the infected men, or each of the pieces of the red-robed young man, they would instantly burn into green mes.

    "OUTCAST!! YOU CAN¡¯T KILL ME! JUDGE!!" Shouted the young man in panic just before thest few floating worms could be turned into dust.

    Suddenly.. The surrounding time and space stopped.. And a portal opened. From it, what looked like a ten years old kid that was holding four big books, came out with a casual pace.

    "What is the matter?" said he kid with a calm tone which instantly dissipated the prisoner¡¯s attack. "This is my first regtion.. Go easy on me." He then added with an embarrassed expression.

 Chapter 230 Youâ€™ll Thank Me for That.. One Day

    "This is my first regtion.. Go easy on me." Said the young judge with a clear hint of embarrassment. He then turned around, and quickly noticed Daniel. "A three-way regtion as my very first task? This is going to be tough."

    The three parties which the judge was talking about were, of course, Daniel, the red-robed young man, and the green-eyed prisoner.

    "An Outcast of the Psionic dimension.. And a vassal of the Parasite King." muttered the kid judge while going through one of the books he was holding in his little arms.

    This wasn¡¯t the first time that Daniel had encountered a judge, and since he had seen how easy it was for one of them to assign a punishment that could heavily impact one of the massive factions he had heard so much about, he quickly realized that, in front of them, it was better to be respectful.

    "Okay, so.. An outcast that attempts to murder a representative of one of the factions is to be arrested for h h.. Mhh.. What are you here for again?" Asked the young judge to the prisoner, after reading a few lines from his thick book.

    "I was arrested by Iewah¡¯s faction for killing one of their keepers of key. I was being taken to one of their prisons in wait for judgement." Responded the prisoner inly.

    "So, you were supposed to be under the care of Iewah¡¯s faction. Where are your guardians?"

    "Killed by the vassal of the Parasite King." Answered the prisoner with an indifferent tone.

    The young judge turned to look at the solitary worm that was wiggling in space, and asked "Why did you attack Iewah¡¯s faction?"

    From his worm-like shape, the red-clothed young man said with a righteous tone "A bounty was ced on the outcast by its own faction. It is my right to hunt him down. I was not aware that he was in the care of the Iewah¡¯s faction"

    A judge was supposed to be aware of how bounties worked, yet, this one was still inexperienced. So, after hearing the young man¡¯s words, he appeared slightly embarrassed. He then recalled something important, and after turning towards Daniel, he said "You are a native of that.. Why are you with them?"

    Theoretically speaking, a native of an isted was not supposed to be swayed by the members of the universal factions. The would give birth to a person that would reach a certain level with his power of choice, and the faction to which that power belonged, would be able to wee that into their domain.

    What was not allowed, was a faction¡¯s interference in the native¡¯s choosing process.

    "Due to some unfortunate circumstances, I ended up leaving my. I was on my way back, when I¡¯ve met the vassal of the Parasite King. He imed that he would force me into conquering my for his faction." Responded Daniel inly.

    "LIES!" Shouted the red-robed young man with indignation.

    "This is quite the mess.." Said the young judge before turning pensive. Five full minutester, he turned to look at Daniel, and said "You are very powerful for your age, and you have been introduced already to the rest of the universe. I can feel the power of at least seven different factions inside you.. Spiritual essence, mental power, Iewah¡¯s gift, and affinity to mana being the strongest ones.. Have you already decided to which faction you will be part of?"

    Daniel was not sure what kind of powers ¡¯mental power¡¯ and ¡¯affinity to mana¡¯ were, but from their names, he could sort of make an educated guess. He of course did not need to chose. Of the factions he had met a representative of, or heard about, only one was worth joining.

    Between the indifferent and aloof spiritual faction, the merciless and cunning corrupted faction, and the vicious and murderous parasitic faction, he could not find one that was better than the other. As it was now, only Iewah¡¯s faction had proved to be in sync with the way of living to which he and his friends were used to. Or at least, that¡¯s how he thought about it now.

    "Iewah¡¯s faction." Responded Daniel inly.

    "Splendid!" Eximed the judge with evident tion. It was clear that that, was the response that he was hoping for. "The Outcast is your prisoner then.. And that brings us to you." added the judge before slowly turning towards the red-robed young man, which had now barely managed to return to his humanoid shape. "The bounty you havee to obtain has already been imed. Leave, unless you n to represent the Parasite King in dering war against Iewah¡¯s faction."

    At the mention of dering war against Iewah¡¯s faction, the barely formed face of the red-clothed young man became as pale as a sheet of paper. In his mind, all sorts of memories regarding the representant of Iewah¡¯s faction which he had met, started to form. Pictures of stars being cut in half by a sword¡¯s sh, hordes of dragonkin turning sr systems into groups of charreds, and many more shocking instances.. he couldn¡¯t help but shiver in terror.

    "Judge. As a member of Iewah¡¯s faction, I would like to ask for reparation from the parasitic faction. Thousands of innocent members of Iewah¡¯s faction have been killed during that man¡¯s mission of kidnapping one of our prisoners." Said Daniel before the red-robed young man could turn around and run..

    And running, was something that he would regret not doing sooner.

    "Of course.. That¡¯s your right." Responded the young judge while smiling awkwardly.

    Each and every one of his actions screamed inexperience. What was odd about him, was that he didn¡¯t appear to be a young looking old man, but an actual kid that was performing the job of a judge of the universal government.

    Daniel quickly recalled what the magnitude of damage the previous judge had forced the two emissaries to pay, so, without trying to go overboard, he said "Two gxies. The closest ones to our Iewah¡¯s faction."

    "WHAT!? That¡¯s ridiculous!" Shouted the red-robed young man in indignation. His faction was vicious and unforgiving, if he went back with such a burden on his back, he would not be able to see the light of another day.

    "Quiet." Said the young judge with a serious tone. He then turned towards Daniel once again, and said "How did youe to that value?"

    "In my previous experience with a Judge¡¯s regtion, the judge ordered a punishment close to that amount. Forgive me I went overboard, I don¡¯t have knowledge of what is worth what." Responded Daniel with as much politeness as possible. "In my ignorance, I am purely trying to set a reasonable value in exchange for the invaluable worth of a lost life."

    "I understand.." Responded the judge while showing clear sympathy for Daniel. "It is a bit much, but I can settle for one gxy.."

    "JUDGE!! DON¡¯T LET HIM FO-" The red-robed young man immediately tried to protest, but before he could finish, the judge waved his little hand, and turned the powerful red-clothed cultivator which had terrorized thousands of cultivators just minutes earlier, into a cloud of fine dust.

    "I said quiet." Repeated the young judge after killing the young man mercilessly.

    The prisoner looked at the death of the red-clothed young man with indifference. He was fully aware of what judges could chose to, or were capable of doing. The red-robed young man had underestimated judge¡¯s patience due to his age, and hadined about the punishment as if he wasn¡¯t talking to a member of the universal government to begin with.. That was his biggest mistake.

    "I will report your faction¡¯s demands to another member of the parasitic faction. But be careful.. They can still refuse. At that point, your faction will have to withdraw your demands, or dere war.. So long." Said the kid judge before opening a kid-sized portal, and leaving before Daniel could even respond.

    Once the judge left, Daniel turned to look around, and noticed about ten people which had survived from the attack of the long-legged worm parasite. They were looking at Daniel with eyes different from before.

    In them, Daniel could see respect and a hint of fear.

    After making sure that his friends were fine, Daniel turned to look at the prisoner which, surprisingly, hadn¡¯t left yet.

    "Why are you still here? I don¡¯t have the power to keep you imprisoned." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "I have no intention of escaping." Responded the man inly.

    "Why not?"

    "Because I wasn¡¯t captured in the first ce. I turned myself in.".

    Honestly speaking, Daniel had guessed so much. Ever since the moment he had seen the transformation of the vassal of the Parasite King, and the enormous green avatar of the prisoner, he knew that both of them had been keeping their true power hidden.

    There was no way that thete seventh stage guards which were escorting the prisoner were powerful enough to subdue him, so, the idea that he had in fact turned himself in was not as absurd as one might have thought.

    The only moment in which the prisoner was truly in danger, was when the monsters had started to appear in the ship.. And that was because despite his vast powers, the chains were still effective in keeping his powers in check.

    "What now? Are you going to stay there until someone from Iewah¡¯s faction imprisons you again?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. He couldn¡¯t see any of the man¡¯s expressions behind his mask, and from the behaviour he showed with his body, it seemed that anything that happened around him did not truly matter.

    "I will wait here." Responded the prisoner with indifference.

    Daniel shook his head in annoyance, then, he said "Suit yourself." He then turned towards the few remaining cultivators, which quickly went through the portal he had just reopened without saying a word.

    With nothing else to stop him, Daniel turned to look at the his of origin, and said emotionally "I¡¯ming home." He then dashed towards the with the fastest speed he could muster.

    The prisoner was now floating in space while in a lotus position. He seemed to be ignoring Daniel, but the moment he made his way towards the, his pupils suddenly opened, showing a pair of green eyes which glowed brighter than ever.

    The moment these eyesnded on Daniel, he immediately stopped in ce due to an excruciating pain that had suddenly appeared in his head. He grabbed the sides of his head with his hands, and curled in a fetal position while screaming, and screaming.. It was almost as if somebody was using a scorching hot piece of metal to stab his brain.

    Jerigh and Der turned to look at Daniel in panic. From his screams, he sounded like his head would explode at any given moment..

    After a long agonizing minute, Daniel finally lost consciousness.

    Extremely confused about what had happened to Daniel, Der and Jerigh turned to look at their surroundings, but the only person they saw in the vicinity, was the quiet andposed prisoner, which seemed to be meditating while waiting for something to happen.

    Unable to find the cause of Daniel¡¯s pain, Der grabbed Daniel by his waist, and dragged him towards their of origin.

    Once again, the prisoner opened his eyes, which had now gone back to their normal red color.. And muttered "You¡¯ll thank me for that.. one day."

    -----

    After a full day, Daniel finally managed to wake up, and together with his two friends, the three reached the atmosphere of the.

    The moment they entered the¡¯s atmosphere, an immensely powerful immortal power scanned their bodies, and after confirming that they were in fact native members of this isted, the immortal power disappeared, and they were allowed in.

    Just minutester, Daniel, Der, and Jerigh descended from the skies like three omnipotent deities..nding right outside of a massive city.

 Chapter 231 An Unfortunate Misunderstanding

    "Hey Dan, how was the travel? Was it cool?" Asked Ligart with evident jealousy, after finallying out of the pocket dimension after two and a half months. With him, were Heimart, Alesia, Alis, Roley and everybody else who was born in that.

    This group wasposed of at least a thousand cultivators whose power was of at least at the mid fourth stage of immortal cultivation. At that power, nobody in the would ever be able topete with them.

    The sheer mention of the adjective ¡¯cool¡¯ when paired with the experience in which Daniel, Der, and Jerigh had just gone through, made them deeply ufortable. "Don¡¯t even ask.. Just.. don¡¯t ask.." Responded Daniel in a dismissive tone. He then turned towards the city, and added "Do you all remember the n that Der and I formted before we left Mira?"

    "Spread in couples of two, take control over every kingdom and empire, build teleporting tforms in each capital or major city, infiltrate in the market, do not inject universal objects and currency in the cities yet, gather the various maps and put them together.. Abolish very." Responded Heimart while repeating Daniel¡¯s instructions almost word by word.

    "Yes.. and onest thing.. As soon as you find a kingdom called Karalis.. Call me immediately." Said Daniel after confirming that everyone had understood what the n was.

    Just as Daniel finished speaking, the thousand members of Daniel¡¯s group allowed their immortal cultivation to seep out of their body, and slowly float above the ground. Then, with just as many explosions of power, they dashed towards different directions.. Leaving Daniel and Alesia alone.

    The two of them were only about two kilometers away from the city, and Daniel hadn¡¯t seen Alesia for two and a half months now. So, instead of teleporting or following the example of the rest of the cultivators, he walked next to her, and together, they strolled for that distance arm in arm, while catching up.

    Thirty minutester.

    "That sounds terrifying!!" Eximed Alesia with deep shock. "Why in the world do you look so carefree after something like that?"

    Daniel looked at Alesia¡¯s gorgeous face contorted in deep shock, and couldn¡¯t help but smile at her reaction. "I¡¯m home. And I am with you. I couldn¡¯t possibly feel any better."

    Alesia suddenly stopped. She wasn¡¯t buying Daniel¡¯s words, so, she grabbed his face with her warm hands, and said "I am serious. How are you?"

    Once again, Daniel smiled at how worried Alesia seemed to be. He grabbed her wrists, and pulled her arms around his head. He then put his hands on her waist, and while pulling her closer to him, he gave her a lingering kiss.

    They two stayed with their lips interlocked for a few seconds, then, Daniel pulled himself back, and said "I¡¯m serious too. I am happy to see you." He then took a step back, and while offering his left arm for Alesia to grab and go arm in arm with him once again, he said "Let¡¯s go now, we have a king or a queen to terrify."

    -----

    "Halt. State your name, kingdom of origin, and the reason why you want to enter the capital." Said a heavily armored guard with authoritative tone. He was apanied by at least fifteen other guards, and seemed ready to start a fight at any time. Daniel could feel that his power was at the sixth rank of martial cultivation, and in terms of power, was a lot weaker than ate second stage immortal cultivator.

    "Dan Hiel, from the Kingdom of Karalis. I just wish to look around." Said Daniel casually.

    The captain of the guard looked at Daniel with a strange expression. He could see no powere from within him, and that was caused by two reasons. The first one, was that he would not be able to see Daniel¡¯s martial cultivation without touching him, secondly, his spirit was fully merged with his body, and therefore, it didn¡¯t look like Daniel was a spiritual cultivator. At best, he would see Daniel as an odd type of human.

    Something else that had made the captain of the guard suspicious, was that he had heard the name that Daniel had given him before.. In fact, he knew it all too well.

    Pretending that he hadn¡¯t heard him clearly, the captain of the guard said "Can you repeat your name?"

    "Dan Hiel. Almost twenty-two years of age.. Student of the previous master-at-arms of the Karalis kingdom, and the son of the Golden Cauldron¡¯s head, the Silver alchemist. Disappeared more than five years ago." Responded Daniel in a more detailed way.

    He of course knew that the guard had heard about his name. He had already imagined that the rumor about him and his discovery would have made a full circle around the.. And he was right.

    The moment Daniel finished speaking, the people in line behind him looked over in shock, and quickly stepped away.. While the guards surrounded him.

    "You will have toe with us, Mr. Hiel.." Said the captain of the guard.

    In response, Daniel showed a bright smile, and said "Lead the way." He then was escorted by the entirety of the guards present through the massive gate, which after weing him into the city, was immediately closed.

    Along with his fifteen guards, the captain lead Daniel towards the castle that could be seen in the distance. A majestic castle whose exterior had nothing to envy from Daniel¡¯s own home. The more they approached the castle, the more guards would appear from the various streets, and joined the group in escorting Daniel.

    When two hourster they arrived at the entrance of the castle, Daniel and Alesia were being surrounded by at least two hundred guards. Each of them with a power just lower than the captain himself.

    The captain of the guard was quite happy that Daniel hadn¡¯t put any resistance while being captured. He knew that if a ruckus was caused, the spies within the poption would immediately report the sighting of Daniel to their powers, and their kingdom would soon be a battlefield. But now, the most that these spies would be able to report, was that a young man was being escorted to the castle by hundreds of guards.

    In between the hundreds of guards, Daniel and Alesia were strolling peacefully.

    Once they reached the castle, numerous royal guards quickly rushed out of the massive double door, and just like the rest of the guards, they surrounded the young couple. They then escorted the two into the main hall, and in the throne room.

    Sitting on two thrones ced one next to the other, was a middle aged couple. The man waspletely bald, and had a thick grey beard, while the woman, had a head of red hair, and appeared to be bored, as if she couldn¡¯t wait for that day to finally end.

    "Who is this?" Asked the King in evident annoyance.

    "My king.. This is Dan Hiel.." Said the captain of the guard with deep respect while bowing.

    The bald king turned to look at him, and said "And why does he deserve to be escorted by half of my royal guards?" His behaviour showed perfectly how much of a domineering behaviour this king liked to show to his subjects.

    "My king.. He is that Dan Hiel.. from Karalis.." Repeated the guard, while adding an additional telling detail.

    The king looked at the captain of the guard with doubt, but before he could speak, a man dashed out from one of the rooms present to the left side of the throne room, and after approaching the king, he whispered something in his ear.

    In a matter of seconds, the king¡¯s expression turned from one of confusion, into one of shock. Then, it once again changed into one of extreme excitement.

    The king looked at the captain of the guard, and with the expression of a kid that had received the right gift from his parents, he said "You have made an immense contribution to our kingdom. From now on, you are amander of my army. Escort our guests to their rooms."

    He then turned towards the old man that had reminded him who Daniel was, and said "Announce a meeting, call all of the leaders, elders, and powerful individuals of each and every loyal group within our kingdom. Find the master of formations, I want this ce invisible to any prying eyes."

    From the way the king behaved, it appeared as if he hadn¡¯t thought for a single moment that Daniel could possibly be a dangerous individual.. But there was a reason for that. The king was a cultivator at the ninth rank of spiritual cultivation, and within this world, he could be considered an extremely powerful individual.. In his mind, even if Daniel was at the same level of cultivation, he would never be able to escape the core of his kingdom. Therefore, now that he was inside his castle, Daniel was already his prisoner.

    Daniel looked at how the king made his preparations with interest. He was gathering useful information. Not to understand how powerful the king was, and find a way to defeat him better.. But to understand what level of respect this king was worthy of showing.

    Daniel wasn¡¯t a tyrant, and if people behaved with respect, he would have showed the same.

    Unfortunately, after minutes spent in sending orders left and right, the King had yet to say a word directly to hit, so, tired of this y, Daniel said "I think there has been a misunderstanding. I didn¡¯te here to surrender to you.." His words were extremely loud, and showed the power of a ninth rank spiritual cultivator at the very least.

    The king queen turned to look at Daniel, and with a power simr to that of her husband, she said "The misunderstanding is on your part, young man.. You may have note here as a prisoner.. But now you are one."

    "Oh, really?" Asked Daniel as a wide smile appeared on his face.

    "Really." responded the King with a voice as powerful as Daniel¡¯s previous disy. He couldn¡¯t allow people to obtain the edge in his own domain. As a king, he had to remind his subjects that he was the most powerful in the room, and if not, that he could take on anyone that tried to test his power. Unfortunately, this time, he had bitten more than he could ever chew..

    "King of whatever-backwater-kingdom-this-is.. Listen carefully.." Said Daniel with a dead serious tone. The temperature immediately started to plummet, and the people around him started to breath clouds of warm air at every breath.

    The king, being an extremely powerful spiritual cultivator, tried immediately to gain control over the essences of his surrounds.. but there was no hope. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was trying to challenge a mountain with only a rock and a stick tied together.

    "ATTACK HIM!" shouted the king in hurry, causing a spark of battle spirit to lit in the minds of his loyal subjects.

    The many royal guards dashed towards Daniel, but at every step they took, the more difficult it was for them to take another. The cultivators at the sixth rank were unable to approach past ten steps away from him, those at the eighth stopped at five steps.. And the only two martial cultivators that appeared to be at the ninth rank, fell on their knees the very moment they reached the third step.

    What was preventing them from even getting close to Daniel, was an oppressive and destructive increase in gravity.

    After thest of these cultivators fell on their knees, Daniel slowly stepped towards the area where the two thrones were. His expression became more and more serious at every step. At the same time, he said "I haven¡¯te here to surrender.. To humor.. Or to be of benefit.. I came here to conquer."

 Chapter 232 A Decision With Only One Option

    "..I came here to conquer." Said Daniel as the lighting within the throne room started to dim visibly, swallowed by the dark essence which he was emanating, and only leaving his eyes to glow with a faint golden hue.

    A massive pressure suddenly appeared over the king himself, which unable to bear it, fell back on his throne. His head was retracted so much in between his shoulders, that it appeared as if he had no neck to begin with. His clean scalp became as wrinkly as that of an old man, and his eyes struggled to keep open.

    To him, it was extremely clear that there was no hope to even dream of one day reaching Daniel¡¯s level of power.

    Just as he started to think that Daniel would kill him, he instead felt the pressure disappear, and the room clear from the dark essence that had invaded it, allowing the shining of the light spheres to enlighten the majestic throne room once again.

    After cleaning the big drops of sweat that were dripping from his forehead and over his eyes with trembling hands, the king said "W-w-what do you m-mean.." It had been a very long time since the king had found himself in front of someone so much more powerful than he was.. A person that could kill him on a whim.

    He had been a ninth rank cultivator for years, and even before then, he feared no one thanks to his role of prince, and the power of his father, and grandfather.

    Now that he had reached the top of the power allowed in his, or to be more clear, the top of the power of which they possessed knowledge of.. meeting somebody that was significantly more powerful than him, was a shock that he was hardly capable of bearing.

    "I mean that there is going to be a massive change in this world soon.. And that unless this unites into one, we¡¯ll end up being conquered by thousands of powerfulpanies which have no care about your people at all." Responded Daniel inly.

    The queen, whose bravery was caused by the fact that Daniel had spared her from his demonstration of power, said "What are you talking about? What change??"

    In response, Daniel sighed softly, then said "Start with giving me a copy of your country¡¯s rules andws.. And the most extensive and detailed map that you can provide."

    -----

    Simr scenes were ying out in dozens of the nearest kingdoms and empires.

    No matter to which royal or imperial family the kingdom or empire belonged.. They would almost always try to defend their domain against the invading force, only to end up in a sorry state minutester.

    Only a few of the most cowardly rules had epted the demands of Daniel¡¯s group without putting up a fight, while some others would attempt to throw the names of the emperors to which they were affiliated with, in hope that these names would save them from being annexed by this group of unknown powerful warriors.

    The most sessful ones amongst the members of Daniel¡¯s group, were the one that possessed the most direct characters. Jerigh and Der, which had a cultivation that could have easily allowed them to rule the world by themselves, in a matter of only two hours, had already invaded three countries each.

    Der thanks to his military experience, and Jerigh, thanks to his sheer threatening presence.

    They would remain just enough time for one of the masters of formation to create a teleporting tform near the capital¡¯s castle, and then, they would move on to the next kingdom or empire, while leaving someone behind to make sure that thews would be changed ording to the rule of Daniel¡¯s group.

    An additional task which Daniel had left his group¡¯s members with, was to invite each king and emperor to his pocket dimension. There, he would exin to them the reason for these changes, what their ce in the universe was, and what would soon happen to their.

    The inhabitants of Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, which for the majority were inhabitants of this too, were not let out. The reason for that was that he did not want them to go rampant and use their increased strength to conquer and kill as they pleased. Also, he did not want these people to mistakenly open a portal that would lead into a pocket dimension with aplete connection to the spiritual in. If that were to happen, before Daniel was able to im the for Iewah¡¯s faction, the person who had opened the portal would inadvertently im the for the Spiritual Emperor instead.

    That was the reason why he had been so adamant about this with his group members. They were told to kill any worshipper of death they found, try to kill as little as possible, and never open a portal to a pocket dimension with a full spiritual connection.

    After a full week of hard work, the members of Daniel¡¯s group had managed to conquer a massive continent thatprised at least ten percent of the entire world¡¯s surface.

    The area was so vast, that a few of the territories which belonged to two opposite sides were not fully aware of each other¡¯s existence.

    Other than human kingdoms and empires, various high ranking beast domains were also annexed, as well as a few isted tribes of elementals, and humanoid beings.

    Daniel¡¯s n was to educate the world about the vastity of space one continent at a time. Gathering the entire world to listen to a single and difficult speech was impossible. If there was something that he could count on, was that the powerful families and groups within the territories would not ept his rule that easily if they believed to have the power in the numbers. They would try all they could to revolt and maintain their independence.

    If revolts took ce on multiple continents at the same time, Daniel¡¯s group would not have enough people to control them all.. And therefore, the world would fall into chaos.

    -----

    Golden Karmapany building. Auction house.

    The auction house within Daniel¡¯spany building was packed with people. They filled the grandstandspletely, and with arge excess of people, which had no choice but to listen while standing.

    All of these people were either kings of independent kingdoms, emperors, and powerful heads of the most renown groups and families. The reason why they were required to participate in this event, was so that they could listen to a speech conducted by a representative of Daniel¡¯s group.

    The unlucky person selected to do this job, was of course, Ligart.

    He was the one that had spent the most time in contact with the different powers of Mira, and therefore, he was the one which knew the most about how aary government under Iewah¡¯s rule worked. Also, he was the only one which was arguablyfortable with speaking in front of such a massive crowd of people.

    Of course, his experience alone would not guarantee that the speech would go well..

    All of the people united in front and around him were cultivators which possessed a power close to his. They were experienced rulers and leaders, and could smell the smallest hint of nervousness in each breath that Ligart took.

    What was preventing them to put Ligart on the spot, was the single figure of Jerigh, which stood at the bottom of the stage like a silent guardian.

    Just like these rules were able to see Ligart¡¯s political inexperience, they were able to feel how dangerous Jerigh was. Just by standing there with a single sword which hanged from his waist, people felt as if the edge of his de was ced right at their neck. It was already a miracle that they were able to focus on what Ligart was saying, instead of shrieking in fear in their seats.

    ".. And this is what is going to happen. Do you have any questions?" Asked Ligart after taking a deep breath. He had just finished his exnation, and he believed that the hardest part was over.. But then, he saw the hundreds of arms being raised in unison.

    "Oh.. I hate you Dan.." he muttered with resignation, before taking another deep breath, and pointing at a distinct old woman in the middle of the crowd.

    "Are you the representatives of this.. Universal government?" Asked the old woman with clear doubt.

    After this woman asked the question, many lowered their hands, showing how popr this question was amongst the various rulers.

    "No. We are apany formed by natives of this, which were sent out of this due to an unfortunate ident." Responded Ligart inly. He was expecting such a question.

    "If you are just apany, why are you trying to conquer us?" Added an old man that was sitting right next to the previous old woman. He was her husband, and the two were the current emperor and empress of their empire.

    Ligart shook his head in disappointment. He had tried to make this clear when he made the exnation, but apparently, what these people cared for the most was to save their hegemony over their own patch of dirt and grass.

    "Once the will be opened to inteary travel, many foreign groups will try to do the same we are doing. The only difference will be that they have no attachment to this, and they simply want to use it in any way that will allow them to gain from it. Even if we don¡¯t unite our world, Iewah¡¯s faction will instate a government. So, the world as you know it will end either way." Responded Ligart with as much persuasion as he could. He wanted the idea of them being able to save their own te of food, to die in their heads.

    Someone could have thought that this move was unfair from Daniel, but the things that Ligart was saying were not lies. Any sort of power that existed aside from the government of mira itself, were eitherpanies, mercenary groups, families, or sects.

    The idea of monarchy had already been eradicated from the minds of the trillions of inhabitants of thes within Iewah¡¯s domain. That was how Iewah¡¯s domain worked, and there was nothing they could do about it.

    There was also a third option to all of this, and that was for Daniel to never open his of origin to inteary travel, and therefore, let them live in their own bubble where they had control..

    Just from looking at the faces of the people present, Ligart could see that each of them had thought about that possibility at least once.. And yet, no one had ever even thought about actually asking about it.. And the reason why was as clear as the question itself.. Power.

    What these rulers wanted even more than ruling their own territories, was to be able to grow in power.. And if they were willing to risk everything in war just to know the secrets of Daniel¡¯s double path cultivation, then, they would throw everything away for the smallest chance of being able to pursue a deeper path of cultivation.

    After thirty minutes spent answering the questions of these people, Ligart was finally able to go back to the castle, and rest.

    What was asked of the rulers, was to simply keep enforcing the changes in regtion which he had made.

    The next day, hundreds of messengers used the teleporting tforms installed by Daniel¡¯s groups, and with them, they carried the response which came from their rulers to this whole situation.

    Amongst these hundreds of messengers, none had been sent with a negative response.

    -----

    Within arge cave in the Nestreia continent.

    An old man was sitting in a stone room. His legs were folded, and his eyes closed. He was spending his time thinking about his favourite matter.. the magnificence of the flow of time.

    He was distracting himself from thinking about a few matters that had brought him to live in this cave, as well as from the loud noises that came from outside the cave he was resting in.. some of which being the cries of newborn babies, kids ying around, and the buzzing noise of conversation.

    In front of this old man, was a small golden cauldron.

 Chapter 233 Going Home

    Illuminated by the feeble green me ced right underneath the small golden cauldron, the old man focused on controlling its intensity. Inside the cauldron, various ingredients floated on the surface of the brownish liquid, while being slowly boiled.

    Exactly five minutester, the old man grabbed a simple wooden bowl, and used it to scoop a good amount of the finished product, filling the bowl almostpletely. He then moved the bowl closed to his nose, and after inhaling the thick aroma emanated by its content.. He made a metallic spoon appear in his hand, and started to eat it one spoon at a time.

    No long after, the bowl waspletely empty.. "It needs a little more salt.." muttered the old man with dissatisfaction.

    Just as the old man finished speaking, the door of his rocky room suddenly opened, and from behind it, a middle aged woman barged in. The first thing she did, was to look at the cauldron with enthusiasm, but then, after she saw that it contained a simple vegetable soup, she said "Master.. I could have cooked for you.." It was clear from her tone that they had had this conversation more than once before.

    "I am getting good at it." Responded the old man with a dismissive tone. "What is it?" He then asked.

    Almost as if recalling something extremely important, the middle aged woman said "The spatial illusions have been broken. The coalition¡¯s army has discovered the general area where we are hiding."

    Not particrly shocked by the report, the old man slowly stood up, and said "Which ones?"

    "The ones on the east, south-east, and north. Should we retreat further west?" Responded the woman.

    The old man became pensive for a few moments "No. If they had approached us from a single side, it could have been possible for us.. But since they came from three different directions, it means that they know we are here, and that the path west is a trap.. Come with me." he then said before walking out of the stone room along with her disciple.

    Once outside of the stone room, the old man and the middle aged woman found themselves in what looked like an underground city. Extremely simr to that in which the tribes of the wastnd world lived. The only difference between the two, was that while the tribes in the wastnd world had made the caves inside the mountain their permanent homes, this one looked a lot more like a big military encampment.

    Dozens of tents were ced orderly in the area, and in between them, kids could be seen ying around. The powerful clink of iron against iron resonated through the cave constantly, as numerous cksmiths forged one rudimentary weapon after the other.

    From a single look, people would infer that this camp was, in fact, a refugee camp. And that the people in it were hiding from something or someone.

    The old man kept walking slowly towards the entrance of this massive cave, and the closer he got to the entrance, the more armored warriors he saw. Many of these people were injured, and were receiving medical treatment.

    The buzzing of conversation could be heard in the surrounding, and while the old man was not paying particr attention to what these warrior said, he could still hear their dissatisfied words.

    "Can¡¯t we just tell them that he is not with us?"

    "Are you stupid? Would they believe it?"

    "To be honest.. Even I don¡¯t believe that he isn¡¯t with us.."

    Their dissatisfaction seemed to be caused by something they had no control over, or that at the very least, they found unfair. The talking only stopped after these people noticed the old man and the middle aged woman walk through the tents.. Sight to which they responded to by springing up on their feet, and saluting politely.

    The old man and the middle aged woman ignored these peoplepletely, and kept going until they reached a tentrger than the others. Inside it, was a massive table with a tridimensional map constructed by the use of earth, water, metal, and wood essence, and around this table, numerous heavily armored warriors of a rank clearly higher whenpared to the previous ones he had seen.

    "Lord Golden Cauldron." Said one the men that was standing in front of therge map.

    The old man nodded slightly in recognition, and said "General Olmi, how is our situation?"

    "Not better than what you would expect, unfortunately.. The Empty Pocket, the Hawk Eye, and the Marauders mercenarypanies have refused to work for credit, and abandoned the service of the Golden Cauldronpany.. We suspect that they have sold the information regarding our hiding spot to the coalition.." Responded the general with a grim tone. He then added "Lord.. we have heard from a few of the coalition scouts that the coalition force amounts to thirteen empires and eighty-four independent kingdoms now.. If we are caught, we will face destruction."

    After hearing the report from the general, a young and injured warrior dashed into the tent in hurry.

    "General Olmi, Lord Golden Cauldron.. I have important news!" Eximed the young man. Without even waiting for the general to allow him to speak, he continued by saying "Lord Silver Alchemist and Lord Kye have been attacked while in the neighbouring Kingdom.. They sent me to ask for reinforcements!"

    "Damn it." Responded the general in anger. He had worked for the Golden Cauldronpany for almost twenty years now, and he was fully aware of how these kingdoms were used to give up their dignity to ask favors, and coboration of thepany, and now, not only were they refusing the same treatment, but they were also being betrayed. And that was despite thepany had risked enough to send the current second inmand as a sign of respect.

    "Commander Hora, take your regiment and go to support the two lords." He said through gritted teeth. "Lord Golden Cauldron.. We have to evacuate the mountain immediately.. The departure of thousands of warriors will definitely not escape their eyes.."

    "Leave the army here.. I¡¯ll go myself." Responded the old man before leaving therge tent, and a couple of minutester, the underground cave.

    When he re-emerged, he found himself in the middle of arge forest. He had stopped right underneath a ray of bright sunlight, which hit his wrinkly face gently.

    -----

    Millions of kilometers away, Daniel was currently sitting in what only hours earlier, was the throne of an emperor. On the marble floor in front of him, were dozens and dozens of maps ced in a way which allowed him a moreprehensive sight of his surroundings.

    This map included the massive continent which they had just finished conquering, the mountain ranges up north, the oceans by the sides, and the near infinite desert in the south. Past the oceans, the map included the borders of a few other continents.

    His eyes were pointed towards a specific part of the map, on which the big word "Nestreia" was written.

    Without announcing his departure, Daniel turned to look at Der, which was standing next to him, and after noticing an expression as eager as the one on his own face, he said "What do you say, want to go home?.."

    He then directly opened a portal that lead him to apletely different scenery, followed by a second, a third, a fourth, and many more afterwards. This chains of portals were ced at one meter of distance between one another, and each brought them tens of thousands of kilometers closer towards their destination.

    -----

    Back in Nestreia, in arge expanse of grass ten thousand kilometers by the underground encampment, was a rtivelyrge spatial blockade.

    This spatial blockade was only able to allow about a hundred people in, and surrounding it was a second one that had been ced for a reasonpletely different from the reason why the first one had been created. One would easily be able to feel that the two blockades were controlled by two different people.

    The internal one had been ced as a protection, while the second one, had been ced as a cage.

    Around this cage, hundreds of thousands of cultivators were standing quietly in wait. They wore a variety of different heavy armors, and were divided in five big groups. These five armies were part of the coalition, a power which had been created by the powerful kingdoms and empires which had themon objective of obtaining Daniel¡¯s secrets.

    One of these five armies was the very army of the Karalis kingdom, and was currently led by the leader of the School of Evesting fury, as well as his oldest son.

    Inside the cage, were no more than thirty individuals, amongst which, numerous injured.

    If Daniel had been here, he would have recognized a few of these cultivators.

    Standing in front of the group, was a distinct old man which Daniel would instantly recognize as his teacher of spiritual cultivation.. The Silver Alchemist. Next to him, slightly older-looking than the first time they had met, were the attentive martial artist Nilo, the handsome young man Finn, the spiritual cultivator adept in ice magic Y, the two sisters Miri and Riri, and finally, Daniel¡¯s sister Re.

    Nilo, Finn and the two sisters were now powerful practitioners at the sixth stage of martial cultivation, while Re and Y, were spiritual cultivators of a simr rank.

    They were currently standing within the cage in wait for reinforcements, and while looking at the various armies with hateful eyes. It was clear how negatively they felt towards the opposite side.. And they had a good reason for that.

    After the small-scaled battle had taken ce in Phyrri, the King of Karalis had been forced to make a choice. He had to choose between the safety of his kingdom, and the possibility of having to go to war against an entire world.

    When the various kingdoms and empires hade to know of the existence of Daniel and his discovery, the king had decided to give up the ownership over this discovery in order to prevent an all-out war. Instead, he had imed that the owners of this discovery were the members of the Golden Cauldronpany, as Daniel was a known student of the Silver Alchemist.

    His ims were supported by the fact that the Silver Alchemist had defended Daniel from the attempts of kidnapping of the other countries, and after that small-scaled battle had ended, they had moved Daniel¡¯s family into the Golden Cauldron.

    At that point, the Karalis kingdom had escaped destruction at the ends of the rest of the world, and instead, it had be one of the first parties to to contribute to the founding of the coalition.

    This coalition existed for the sole purpose of obtaining, and sharing Daniel¡¯s secrets amongst them.

    Unfortunately, along with Daniel¡¯s teachers and family, the other students of the old master-at-arms, as well as their families, had been shunned by the kingdom too. That had forced them to either withstand heavy restrictions and control from the coalition of kingdoms, or face destruction.

    Those families which had no choice but to escape and join the side of the Golden Cauldron, were those whose children had befriended Daniel.. Amongst them, were Nilo¡¯s school of the Swift Palm of Oppression, and Riri and Miri¡¯s Folding Crane Sect.

    Of Master Kye and Mea, there was currently no trace.

    "Master.. What do we do?" Asked Re with eyes filled with worry. She was aware of the fact that their barrier had a limited duration, and that the blockade ced by their enemies, would not allow them to teleport to safety.. They were sitting ducks here, and if support did not arrive soon, they would be doomed.

    -----

    Just a few thousand kilometers away from the scene, the Golden Cauldron old man was dashing through the skies thanks to his near perfect control over wind essence. His expression was calm, and he was mentally prepared to face arge number of cultivators.. When suddenly..

    A portal opened just fifty meters in front of him, forcing him to stop immediately.

    He quietly observed as a young man in his early twenties and a middle aged man walked out with a strange expression on their faces.

 Chapter 234 Can You Point Us in the Right Direction?

    "Are you sure that you didn¡¯t get us too far in?" Asked Der after looking around in confusion. It had only taken them four portals to teleport across an ocean that was supposed to be, ording to the maps they possessed, at least two million kilometers wide. Now that they were ind, Der was having doubts that they hadn¡¯t teleported past the small Nestreia continent.

    Notpletely sure, Daniel turned to look at the geography of his surroundings in hope to match the area with the map he had memorized, but since these maps came from ces extremely far from there, and were at least thousands of years old, he wasn¡¯t able to, due to geographical changes. Instead, he noticed an old man floating in the air just a few meters away from him.

    "We could ask." Said Daniel while looking back at Der.

    To a normal cultivator, Daniel and Der would appear as odd characters.. Almost devoid of any power. That was unless somebody touched their bodies. Only then would someone realize how immensely more powerful the two were.

    But of course, the Golden Cauldron old man was no random person. He was aware that nomon cultivator would be able toprehend spatial essence to a level which Daniel had just shown, and if they were low level cultivators, they would have at least felt intimidated by the evidently powerful spirit which he possessed.

    Der turned to look at the old man, and for a moment, he felt a hint of familiarity towards him. The two had met on multiple asion in the past, but unfortunately, too much time had passed in between, and that frame of time had removed the majority of their memories regarding each other¡¯s face.

    After numerous seconds spent in pointless attempts to remember where he had seen this old man, Der gave up, and said respectfully "Elder, can you point us to the Nestreia continent?"

    "You are in it." Said the old man casually, as perfectly bnced gusts of winds kept him elevated from the ground.

    From his ability with controlling wind essence, Daniel could see that this old man possessed a windprehension at a level nearly identical his. He was only a small step away from a perfectprehension.

    "We need to reach the Karalis kingdom.. Can you point us in the right direction?" Asked Daniel with just as much politeness as Der showed. He couldn¡¯t understand why, but he felt like he needed to show respect to this individual. There was something mysteriously familiar in the man¡¯s facial features, and his overallprehension of wind.

    As he heard Daniel¡¯s words, a few ideas popped in the Golden Cauldron old man¡¯s mind. His group was currently at war against the Karalis Kingdom, and he couldn¡¯t be sure that these two individuals weren¡¯t allies, or messengers from the coalition.

    Without showing the faintest reaction, the old man slowly lifted his arm, and pointed to his left, hinting for them to move in that direction.

    The directions he had given was, of course, false. If Daniel and Der went in that direction, they would go through fifteen different kingdoms with a single teleportation, causing them to be even more lost.

    With a direction set, Daniel and Der nodded at the old man in gratitude, and teleported away.

    "Strange kid.." muttered the Golden Cauldron old man, before dashing towards the battlefield.

    -----

    A long hour had passed, and the barrier which the Silver Alchemist was able to create out of one of his talismans was starting to show signs of fading. The yellowish color had be dimmer, and would vibrate whenever the second barrier shrinked over it.

    The few warriors within the barrier had already prepared to fight to death. They knew perfectly well that the coalition did not want them, but only the Silver Alchemist, and Re. The rest would be immediately ughtered.

    These thoughts had forced them to reach a state of mind where fighting was the only option, and the quality of death was only quantifiable based on the number of enemies killed. They had nothing to lose.

    The only one that was starting to panic, was the youngest of the two sisters of the Folding Crane School, Miri.

    "Is this the end?.." She asked with increasing fear. She then let go of the hold on her folding fan, letting it hang from the small metallic ring near the handle, by one of the phnges of her finger.

    Her sister Riri was about to urge her to correct her state of mind, but Finn beat her to it. The one with whom, when Daniel had met them, Miri was never capable of speaking to without starting a fight.

    He quietly walked next to her, and grabbed her hand into his. She then looked at him, while squeezing his firm hand into hers, and after letting a couple of tears stream down her cheeks, she nodded at him with gratitude.

    After seeing that her state of mind had recovered, Finn grabbed her folding fan, and put it back in her hand. Then, he let go of her, and unsheathed his rapier.

    "Silver Alchemist! Surrender!" Shouted the master of the school of evesting fury. Next to him, stood the oldest of his children. He was looking at the group of trapped cultivators with a face devoid of emotions. Just like how he was when he had witnessed his younger brother almost kill a young girl in a restaurant of Phyrri.

    From within the fading barrier, the old alchemist said "I remember you begging me for a pill to help you get your buddy up.. Lord here, Lord that.. Where has your respect gone, Master of the School of Evesting Fury?"

    The Silver Alchemist¡¯s sharp tongue was something that, in the past, he had kept hidden in order to save face.. But ever since they had been forced to escape their homes, he had let his inner self emerge bit by bit. Now, he was a walking offending machine. He knew enough to mock all of the powerful cultivators present.

    Unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t as powerful as he was quick-witted. After more than five years, he had only managed to reach thete eighth rank of cultivation, and was therefore, only as strong as one of the eighth rank cultivators present.

    Despite the disadvantage, he was not going to take it lying down.

    "You should be thanking me, or you wouldn¡¯t even have any children. Hehe.." Added the Silver Alchemist with a taunting tone.

    There was no need to say that it had worked, as after hearing the words of the old alchemist, the Master of the School of Evesting Fury seemed to want to literally eat him alive.

    At the same time, the spatial barrier became less and less effective, until finally, it fell apart.. Leaving only the second spatial formation to trap the group of cultivators.

    "I am going to try something.. If you find an opportunity, take the others and leave." Said the old alchemist to his grand daughter after suddenly turning serious. He then took a high level water sphere and a high level wind sphere out of his ring, and kept their power in check with his spiritual power.

    The power of a spiritual cultivator at the eighth rank was not something that people should look down upon. Especially one as old and experienced as the old alchemist was.

    At the same time, the leader of the School of Evesting Fury turned to look at his son, and said "Keep your eyes on the girl. The Rulin slut and the old Kye know nothing. We need that one alive."

    His son nodded in understanding, while quietly putting on a pair of armored gloves.

    For the next few seconds, the area becamepletely quiet. The second barrier was about to fade away too, and at that moment, the group of few cultivators would have to inevitably face an impossible fight. Finn, Riri and Miri held their weapons tightly, while Y and Re focused on feeling the natural essences in their surroundings, and make them resonate with their spiritual essence.

    Finally, after more than an hour stuck in this stalemate, the second barrier was moments from breaking.. But before it could, the old alchemist threw the two spheres he was holding in his hands, and let go of the control it had over it.

    The two different essences, paired with the fact that they were extremely close to one another, exploded in a storm of ice and snow. A massive hurricane had formed in an instant, obfuscating the surroundingspletely.

    After only moments from the creation of this mayhem, a powerful jet of water was sent in the unsteady area in between two of the five armies, making people fly to the sides, and creating a path for them to try to escape from.. But it was all a pointless attempt.

    Before they could even enter this path created by jet of water formed by the joined effort of the old alchemist, Y and Re, two powerful cultivators at the eight rank of cultivation had already appeared at the end of it. The same was for their back, around which three more cultivators had appeared, included the master of the School of Evesting Fury.

    These powerful cultivators were looking at the failed attempt to escape of the small group with amusement, then, they prepared to capture their targets.. But suddenly.. They felt themselves be blocked in space.

    The two spheres flew randomly in the air, causing winds and rain to pour everywhere.. The ground was steady and calm.. No form of elemental mana was being used to stop them in their tracks. The power that was causing them to be stuck in space, was actually time essence.

    "You are too close to the base of your enemy.. And you don¡¯t have enough power.. That was a strategic mistake." Said an old man while strolling on small tforms of ice in the air. These tform of ice were so thin, that they could barely be seen.

    "Lord Golden Cauldron.." muttered one of the eight rank cultivators the moment his eyesnded on the old man. But as soon as surprise appeared on this man¡¯s face, this expression of surprise quickly turned into a faint smile. He then said "Who says that we don¡¯t have enough power.."

    "Old friend.." Said a powerful disembodied voice that reverberated through the entire valley. "You shouldn¡¯t use your power to bully the younger generation.. It doesn¡¯t fit your style."

    The Golden Cauldron old man looked up to see three men and two women of around the same age as he was. They were a few of the generals of the armies present, and were there to ensure that everything would go fine with the capture of Daniel¡¯s sister, and the Silver Alchemist. They had no choice but to intervene the moment the Golden Cauldron old man had appeared.

    "I was actually talking to the five of you.." Responded the Golden Cauldron old man with a tone as in as ever.

    One of the old women amongst the five, looked at the Golden Cauldron old man, and said "You have always been exceptionally talented.. Much more than any of us could ever hope topare to.. But time gave us a chance to catch up with you.. I¡¯m afraid we will have to use this chance to cut the head of the snake, and put an end to this war."

    "You can try."

    The moment the old Golden Cauldron old man finished speaking, the two essence spheres that were roaming in the air suddenly stopped in ce. Their power was suppressed by an impressively pure spiritual essence, which quickly brought them towards the old man.

    The two suppressed spheres then started to slowly orbit around him, in preparation for the give old warriors and mages to make their move.

    The five old individuals appeared to be extremely cautious, as they feared the old man¡¯s capabilities greatly.. But their innate caution quickly gave field to a growing anger and desire to test their powers..

    A massive battle was about to rage on amongst the six of them.. But then, the six of them turned to look at the two individuals that had appeared just above their heads.

    "I told you he was lying.."

 Chapter 235 This Is Why I Could Never Stand You..

    "I told you he was lying.." Said Daniel to an annoyed-looking Der. Due to the amount of respect which Der subconsciously felt for the Golden Cauldron old man, he had felt inclined to believe that the old man was a righteous, and fair individual. That was why, when Daniel had expressed his doubts about the old man¡¯s intentions, Der had disputed them right away.

    The five old cultivators looked at the two of them with surprise. They hadn¡¯t felt their arrival in the least. They had simply appeared, as if they had been there for the entire time, and had allowed themselves to be seen just because they felt like it.

    "Who are you?" Asked one of thete ninth rank old cultivators with caution.

    It was after his attention was drawn by the new arrivals, that the eyes of the leader of the School of Evesting Furynded on Der. The two had always been sworn enemy, and now that the two had met once again, he had recognized him instantly. "Father! That is the Rulin traitor!!" He shouted to one of the five old individuals.

    For the very first time, the face of the Golden Cauldron old man turned from one of indifference, to one of surprise. He had finally realized who this middle aged man was. The same was for the Silver Alchemist, whose attention had moved from the eighth rank cultivators which surrounded his group, to the newly arrived individuals which were flying high up in the sky.

    The moment the Silver Alchemist had seen his father arrive, the pressure on him had eased greatly. He knew that he was an experienced and old cultivator which could definitely handle more than one individual at the same rank. That was thanks to hisprehension of time essence, which in Nestreia, along with space, sound, and dark essence, were almost impossible to find.

    What everyone found odd, was that they couldn¡¯t feel any form of essence sustain Daniel¡¯s and Der¡¯s weight. They were floating in the air thanks to a power that was unknown to them.

    None of the cultivators on the ground aside from those at the eighth rank, were able to see the two of them, and the other six powerful cultivators.

    Of course, that was not the same for them. The moment they arrived, Daniel and Der had quickly scanned the battlefield with their eyes.. Managing to recognize many individuals.

    "It seems my reunion wille a little sooner than yours.. I¡¯ll leave the rest to you.." muttered Daniel to Der with a slightly emotional tone. He had waited for this moment for a very long time. He was nervous, and couldn¡¯t help but wonder if his sister, whom he could see look around in worry, would recognize him.

    Without getting himself hung up on his doubts, he forced his immortal essence back, causing his body to plummet on the ground while in a standing position.

    *BOOOOOM*

    A loud crashing sound was heard when Danielnded on what was a rocky path just moments earlier.

    As the fragments of rock stopped flying about, only a cloud of dust remained.. And inside it, was an unhurt Daniel.

    The first person to recognize Daniel was none other than the son of the leader of the School of Evesting Fury. The two had met each other once in the past, and a clear impression of Daniel had remained deeply buried into his mind.. To a point where he was able to recognize him right away.

    "Father.. It¡¯s him." whispered the young man to his father.

    The middle aged man had great expectations for his oldest son, whose talent had taken him to being a seventh rank cultivator at the age of twenty-eight. He also approved of his cold and calctive character. For that reason, he knew that If his son were to say something, he was sure that that would be something that regarded an important matter.

    Daniel had already recognized the young man and heard his words, but he decided to ignore him. These enemies weren¡¯t his to deal with. Instead, he turned towards the back of therge armies that were surrounding the group where his sister and teacher were, and walked in that direction.

    A few of the eighth rank cultivators turned to look at this unknown young man¡¯s casual behaviour with odd expressions. One of these generals directly walked up to him, and tried to stop him, but then, he froze in front of him.

    After a simple look above the man¡¯s head, Daniel ced a hand on the general¡¯s chest and forced a heavy stream of immortal essence to seep into the his body. He then turned it into fire essence.. Which caused the powerful general to be engulfed into mes in a matter of moments.

    The sight of how easily Daniel had killed an eight rank cultivators came down on the head of the hundred thousand cultivators like a bucket of cold water. They looked at Daniel as if they were looking at an angel of death.

    The most surprised amongst these people, was the Golden Cauldron old man himself, which had recognized the power used by Daniel to freeze the general in ce as a power of which he was extremely interested in.. time essence.

    Daniel kept approaching the army of warriors, but this time, people made way for him.

    Of course, Daniel would have never killed all of these soldiers. His father had been a soldier once, and he had grown up with the notion that soldiers hardly have a fault in the decisions that their general make.

    A good soldier could have easily been forced into a vicious act.

    With exception made for people with an undeniably bad karma like the general he had just engulfed in mes, he wanted these people to prepare for what was toe, not to be their dictator.

    He kept walking through this massive army as if they could never be of a threat to him, and as thest few parted ways to let him through, Daniel finally appeared in his sister¡¯s sight.

    She was standing there, amongst a small group of scared cultivators which Daniel could recognize slightly, and his spiritual cultivation teacher.

    "D..Dan.." She muttered with a broken voice.

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile after seeing her now grown up sister. She looked just like he remembered her, with her wavy hair, and clear eyes. Yet, she appeared more courageous. She was a cultivator now.

    Of course, for him, she was the same sister for whom he had done everything he could to grant a good life to. But s, he had failed in that. Even if she hadn¡¯t ended up as the ve of a corrupted individual, his actions had still led her to be forced to conduct a tougher life.

    These thoughts had been a constant in Daniel¡¯s mind for years now.

    But now that he had seen his sister, it was like they had never separated. He calmly walked in front of her, and said "Did you get any better at cooking?.."

    With big tears forming in her eyes, Re smiled, and threw a punch at his brother¡¯s arm. She then said "You¡¯re still an asshole.. I bet you haven¡¯t found a girlfriend yet.."

    Happy to see that his sister¡¯s sense of humor had remained untouched, Daniel moved closer to her, and gave her an affectionate hug.

    The moment Daniel hugged her, it was as if she was able to confirm that it was actually him. Deep emotions started to emerge, forcing the two big tears to stream down her face as she tightened her arms around her brother.

    The two remained like that for a few seconds, until Daniel let go of her. He then turned towards the Silver Alchemist, and said "Teacher.. d to see you are okay."

    "HAHAHA! Little Monster! Still kicking it.."

    The leader of the School of Evesting Fury immediately turned towards his father, which was one of the old warriors that were supposed to face the Golden Cauldron old man, and shouted "FATHER!! IT¡¯S HIM! THAT¡¯S DAN HI-"

    His voice was interrupted by a scene that sent a shiver down his back.. One by one, the five old cultivators at the ninth rank, were falling down the sky.. Four of them were unconscious, while the fifth, had a bloody hole in his chest.

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to recognized who the deceased man was.. It was his father. He immediately looked in the air where the five were standing a moment ago, and there, he noticed Der casually clean his bloody hand.

    The moment the five old individuals were defeated, Daniel teleported back up in the air, and said "I am Dan Hiel. The person whom I assume you have been looking for. If that¡¯s the case, then tough break. You don¡¯t have, and will never have the power to capture me, so this ends now. HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR?!"

    His voice was enhanced by sound essence, and powerful enough to forcibly weed out the fighting spirit of each individual present.

    The many soldiers looked at theirmanders, and soon enough, they noticed the terrified expressions on their faces. Each of the old individuals were cultivators at thete ninth stage of cultivation, which was considered to be the very peak a cultivator could ever reach. To be able to take care of five before they could even notice it, was a clear reminder of their inferiority.

    "Sis, where is Mea? And where is Master Kye?" Asked Daniel to a confused Re, which was woken up by her current state, by Daniel¡¯s words.

    "T-they were captured by him." She said while pointing at the Leader of the School of Evesting Fury.

    Before Daniel could even turn to look at the person which Re was pointing at, Der had already teleported in front of him.

    Der felt a deep hatred for this man. The two had always been enemies ever since they were young.. And that was enough for them to not wanting to have anything to do with each other.. But after finding out what the man¡¯s jealousy had caused the man to destroy his family, his negative feelings towards him had only be stronger.

    "Where is my daughter." He said with a low and deep voice.

    The usually proud and stoic leader of the School of Evesting Fury now felt like a chicken in front of a butchering knife. His father had already died, and before he could react to that, he was already on the verge of joining. "Der.. I-if you kill me, and you will never know."

    "Speak.. And I will kill you quietly.. Or speak and watch as I kill each of your family members in front of you." Said Der with growing hunger. He had, of course, recognized the man¡¯s son which stood right next to him.

    "T-they are at my house.. In the prisons.." Said the man with deep fear.

    Der turned to look at the man¡¯s son, and with eyes that could cut deeper than a knife, he asked "Is that the truth?"

    The young man, seemingly calm about the whole situation he was in, nodded in confirmation.

    "Chose." Der added after turning to look back at the leader of the School of Evesting Fury. He wanted him to choose between dying, or witness to the destruction of his own family.

    The middle aged man turned to look at his son with an apologetic expression.. And with a tone filled with shame, he said "I.. I don¡¯t want to die.."

    Der¡¯s eyesnded once again on the young man, which surprisingly, was still as calm andposed as ever. Of course, that did not mean that he wasn¡¯t worried, it simply meant that he didn¡¯t show it.

    What Der found odd, was that the young man was not surprised by his father¡¯s choice. He had discovered his father¡¯s cowardly side long ago. The same cowardly side which had prevented him to face Der directly, and instead relied on the help of his father, as well as his schemings, to get rid of an adversary.

    Now, his father had confirmed his beliefs by choosing to save his own life, instead of that of his children.

    Just as the young man expected Der to kill him, He instead grabbed the man by the throat, and after pulling him closer to him, said "This is why I could never stand you.."

    "Wait!! Wait! Please don-" *Snap*

    With the body of the young man¡¯s father still hanging from his hand, Der turned to look the young man once again, and said "I would start praying that they are safe and sound.. If I were you."

 Chapter 236 A Painful Reunion

    "I would start praying that they are safe and sound.. If I were you." Said Der with a deadly serious tone, to which the oldest son of his deceased enemy quickly responded to by nodding his head nervously.

    For how calm andposed a person could be, nobody would be able to bepletely impassive towards an encounter that could very easily culminate in their death.. And yet, surprisingly enough, this man was able to maintain his calm pretty well.. That, was despite the fact that there was a very high possibility, that the girl this man was looking for was already be dead. After all, she had been left under the care of his younger brother.

    After witnessing to how Der had taken care of his father and grandfather like two worthless sacks of potatoes, he felt his right arm being grabbed by him. "Where, and how distant."

    Without wasting a single second, he raised his free arm, and pointed towards a specific direction, while also saying "Eighty-five thousand kilometers in that direction.."

    Instead of moving by himself, Der let go of the man¡¯s arm, and turned to look at Daniel.

    Daniel had, of course, heard every word the two had said.

    He then closed his eyes, and focused on his production and control of immortal essence.

    Invisible to the eyes of everyone but the two of them, waves and waves of immortal essence engulfed the entire area, just like a cloud. It slowly seeped through the ground, the people, the air, and everything else.

    Once Daniel¡¯s immortal essence covered an area big enough to include every single member of the army of the coalition, this immortal essence turned into spatial essence. The very next moment.. The entire valley had been teleported in the air just above arge city, along with the ground on which the army stood, down to five meters deep.

    They were floating at about a hundred meters from the ground, and on a spatial tform that stood in the air right above the capital of the Karalis Kingdom.

    At the same time, a few unlucky spiritual cultivators had been shifted, along with therge portion of sky where they were flying in, in the area where the battle had taking ce. Underneath them, was a massive crater, which they looked at with extreme confusion.

    The moment they teleported back to Karalis, Der let go of the young man, and immediately dashed towards the territory of the School of the Evesting Fury. "MEA! MASTER KYE!" He shouted after arriving at the entrance of the huge mansion.

    After Der¡¯s disappearance, and the discovery that Daniel was a student of the old master-at-arms, the School of Evesting Fury had raised itself to the position of hero of the people. They had imed to have discovered the betrayal of one of Karalis¡¯ most important generals, while also being able to discredit the master-at-arms, whom had never epted him as a disciple, of keeping a world-changing secret from his own country. All of this, had allowed his school to prosper, and be one of the most powerful groups not only in the kingdom, but in the entire area.

    Their influence and power grew exponentially as they swallowed the territories of various other groups, and now, they possessed a third of Karalis¡¯ capital. The mansion had been destroyed, and reshaped into a massive castle which could bepared to the royal castle itself.

    Der¡¯s powerful shout was sent through space like a powerful wave, causing pots and sses to shatter in thousands of pieces. A few guards dashed out of the entrance, and along with them, a young man, and a young woman.

    The woman was in training attire, and seemed to have been interrupted in the middle of training, while the man, was wearing casual clothes stained by fresh blood. His very face was covered in droplets of blood as well, showing that whoever was the one to whom that blood belonged, hadn¡¯t parted with it painlessly.

    These two people were, of course, the other two children of thete leader of their school.

    The moment Der had appeared, they knew that they could do nothing to him, so, they each took a talisman out of their rings, and destroyed them as quietly and inconspicuously as possible.

    "Who are you?! Don¡¯t you know whose territory this is? Do you dare to tresp-NgH" Barked out the youngest of the two, before being grabbed by the neck by Der.

    Startled by Der¡¯s lightning fast speed, the girl stepped back, and said "W-who.. Who are you?" She was hoping to buy time for his father, or grandfather to arrive.

    "Mea¡¯hor Rulin and Master Kye.. where are they? A wrong word, and I pull your brother¡¯s spine off of his body, along with his head." Responded Der with an extremely threatening tone.

    The girl was beyond terrified. She wasn¡¯t as cold blooded as her older blooded, nor stupid as her younger one. Faced with someone as dangerous as Der, she could do nothing but obey. "T-t-they are i-in the d-dungeon.." she said with a trembling voice.

    After hearing the girl¡¯s response, Der let go of the younger of the three siblings, and Dashed into the massive castle.

    The moment Daniel saw the young man being released by Der, he raised his arm, and pointed at him with one of his fingers, from which a sharp metallic needle was forming.

    The oldest of the three siblings, which was close to Daniel, turned towards him, and said "We spared your life once.. He deserves the same treatment.. At least once."

    "I don¡¯t dare to im your brother¡¯s life myself.. He will die in honor to those whose blood is dripping off his hands.." Responded Daniel with a cold and detached tone. He still remembered how vicious this young man was the first time they had met.. If Daniel hadn¡¯t stepped out, he would have killed a little girl and her mother for daring to dirtying his clothes. He also did not believe that he hadn¡¯t killed any innocent person in the five years in which he hadn¡¯t seen him, and his negative karma was the proof of it.

    Just as thest of his words entered the ears of the older brother, the metallic spike was sent flying at a speed impossible to see with the naked eye. Not even the Golden Cauldron old man was able to see the projectile, despite being the most powerful being in the area after Daniel and Der.

    *Ptuh* "AAAAAARGH"

    Before the oldest of the siblings could even retort to Daniel¡¯s words, his younger brother had already fallen on the ground.. The needle which he had thrown towards him, had perforated his leg, and turned into a hook halfway into his flesh, while the other hand, had gone through the ground.

    "Your brother¡¯s death will be as painful as he deserves.." Added Daniel.

    His meaning was extremely clear to the oldest of the three siblings.. The death of his brother couldn¡¯t be stopped no matter what.. The only thing he could hope for, was that he hadn¡¯t gone overboard with the prisoners, and had managed to put a stop to his malicious nature.

    -----

    Der was walking in the many corridors of which the castle wasposed. He had tried to use his immortal essence to feel the presence of his daughter and his master, but he could only feel hundreds of indistinguishable people. If the children of his old evemy hadn¡¯t lied, then, the two were amongst the many trapped people.

    The reason why he could not feel their power, was likely because they had been chained with power suppressing chains, causing them to be constantly drained of their spiritual essence, or ki.

    "WHERE!?!" Shouted Der once again, causing the citizens of the entire city to drop on their knees from the sheer power of his voice.

    Daniel, who could feel the deep anger in Der¡¯s voice, sent a wisp of sound essence into the ear of the woman, saying "You better answer.."

    Caught by surprise, the girl looked left, right, and behind her, in search of the source of the voice, but unable to find it, she said with a fearful tone "The lowest floor.. The torture room.."

    After hearing her voice, Der¡¯s immortal essence moved out of his body, and seeped into the massive rocks of which the floor wasposed, then, it directly pried the floor open. Once he finished creating a more ¡¯direct¡¯ passage, he jumped into one hole after the other, until finally, he fell into a corridor in thest floor.

    This corridor was dark, and dimly lit. The only two sources of light, were two semi-consumed torches, which threatened to turn off at any minute. At the sides of this corridor, only two doors could be seen.. and they both led to the massivelyrge torture room.

    Der did not wait for a second longer, before he walked directly through the thick wooden door as if it was made of paper.. But then, what he saw next, shocked him into a frozen state.

    The massive room was filled with torture devices.

    A brazen bull with a person¡¯s hands hanging out of its semi-closed entrance, racks on which skeletons and fresh bodies lied with dislocated limbs, and even iron maidens which stood above pools of dried blood.

    But for as shocking as this scenery was, nothing couldpare to what he was looking at.

    On one of the racks, lied an old man who he could immediately recognize as his old master. His right arm and left leg were chained, and pulled to a point where they had dislocated from their joints. The other two limbs had been sawed off, and the wounds had been cauterized in order to prevent him from bleeding to death.

    In another area of the torture room, was a big table. Tied on this big table, was a girl in her early twenties. She waspletely naked, with burn injuries all over her back, as well as big drops of blood which were dripping from in between her thighs, and down her legs.

    This girl, was Der¡¯s beloved Daughter Mea.

    With a speed that could only be considered instantaneous, Der removed the chains which restricted both his daughter and his master, then, while holding his unconscious daughter, he felt a stabbing pain in his heart.. Hate, fear, panic and sadness were emerging all at the same time, which he released by shouting "DAN!!!"

    Daniel instantly appeared next to him, and without waiting for him to say anything, he ced one of his hands on Mea¡¯s back, and injected an infinite amount of powerful healing essence into her body.

    The burn injuries on her back quickly recovered, along with any other injury which she had sustained during her torture.

    Right after he finished healing Mea, Daniel turned to look at the sorry state of the once distinct master-at-arms. He was still awake, but he couldn¡¯t speak.

    "This will hurt.. But it will end soon.. I promise." Daniel said to him with an apologetic tone. He then formed two des out of metallic essence, and cut the cauterized part of his teacher¡¯s stumps. If he tried to heal him then, his missing arm and leg would simply cicatrise, but he wanted them to regrowpletely.

    After cutting the burnt part, he injectedrge amounts of powerful healing essence, which came out of his bloody stumps like some sort of dense milk, which quickly took the shape of bone, muscles, veins, and skin. At the same time, his other arm and leg popped back in a couple of deaf cracking sounds.

    He then turned to look at Der in order to reassure him of the fact that they were both fine, but he had already disappeared. Mea was lying on the ground unconscious, covered by her father¡¯srge coat.

    -----

    Der emerged from the massive door of the castle. His eyes were blinded by an indescribable fury, and moved left and right in a random motion.. Only stopping after theynded on the youngest of the three siblings.

    One step after the other, he approached him with the demeanor of a ferocious best.. And after he reached him.. He grabbed his jaw, and broke it open. He then produced an healing pill from his spatial ring, and shoved it into his mouth.

    With the assurance that he would not die right away.. He grabbed his left arm, and pulled it with enough power for his flesh to rip apart.. Then another, and another.. And another..

 Chapter 237 You Look Just like Him..

    Thunderous roars resounded in the air, as Der ripped one limb of the youngest of his old enemy¡¯s children after the other. Standing above the spatial tform, the older brother of the screaming man couldn¡¯t bare to watch anymore, and turned away with pained eyes.

    Staring at the shocking spectacle while crawled up in a ball just meters away, was his sister. She wanted to look away, but a power that was beyond hers, was keeping her head towards the gory scene, and eyes pried open. Blood constantly squirted on her shocked face, clothes, mouth, and eyes.

    The torture went on for minutes.. And ended long after the man had stopped screaming. Unfortunately for him, the healing pill had forced him awake the whole time, and aided his ripped limbs in reattaching right away. That was until Der, blinded by rage, grabbed the man¡¯s neck while holding his shoulders steady, and ripped his head off along with his whole spine.

    The sufferings he had caused to the man was nowhere nearly enough to calm him down.. So, the moment he realized that there was nothing more he could do to the destroyed body of the person who had hurt his daughter, his thoughts quickly started to focus on who could be the next person to me..

    "SERO!!" He shouted before turning towards the royal castle, and disappearing right after.

    When he reappeared, he was standing in the middle of the throne room. In front of him, was the king he had loyally followed for years.. The man which had thrown his family away at the first problem.

    "Der.." Said the king with a deeply shocked expression. The two were not only friends once, but brothers under the same master.. the old master-at-arms. To make the choice of ming his family of the losses of the war, was one of the most difficult and regretful actions he had ever done, and now that he had witnessed to Der¡¯s return, he could barely look at him in the eyes.

    "After all I have done for this kingdom.. Every war, every battle, every campaign.." Said Der with a voice filled with hatred. A hatred which became only deeper as he noticed that his old friend was not even looking back at him. "LOOK AT ME!!! COWARD!!" He shouted with enough power to burst the king¡¯s eardrums.

    As the king fell on his knees, right as Der was about to approach him and finish him off.. Daniel appeared in front of him.

    "It¡¯s enough.." He said through a serious expression.

    Der looked at Daniel with eyes devoid of any reason, and simply shouted "MOVE!!"

    "Der-.." Said Daniel before being interrupted by Der¡¯s sudden charge. He had no choice but to create a spatial barrier around him to stop him.

    This action did nothing but worsen Der¡¯s state of mind. He felt like he was being betrayed by one of his allies once again. Without thinking, he used all of the power he could muster, and sent a series of powerful punches against the spatial barrier. At the same time, he shouted to the top of his lungs "I SAID MOVE!!"

    *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

    One hit after the other bashed Daniel¡¯s barrier like an almighty hammer against an anvil, creating a spider web-like crack which threatened to break the natural space itself.

    Der and Daniel were both at the same stage of cultivation, and therefore, it wasn¡¯t as easy for Daniel to block him. Especially since he didn¡¯t want to hurt him in any way, and could sort of understand where his anger wasing from.

    Der¡¯s crazed outburst went on for awhile, until finally, Daniel lost his patience.

    The moment thest of Der¡¯s punches shattered Daniel¡¯s barrier, a powerful punch hit him square in the face, sending him flying against the wall, and destroying a huge portion of the wall.

    "I SAID ENOUGH!" Said Daniel once again.

    Of course, the punch had no real power behind. It was only enough to shake Der out of his rampage.. Which unfortunately, did not work. So, as Daniel saw one of his allies approach towards him with eyes blinded by rage, he said "Der.. your daughter will wake up any minute.. You should be the first person she sees.."

    Daniel¡¯s words hit Der¡¯s mind like a shower of ice cold water. His angered face turned into one of worry, and after turning towards the direction of the School of Evesting Fury, he disappeared in an instant.

    "I would have never done it if.. If.. The country was in chaos.. People wanted to revolt.. The war had brought to nothing.. If only he hadn¡¯t disappeared.." Muttered the king with an apologetic tone.

    "DON¡¯T YOU DARE!!!" Shouted Daniel with deep anger. "My father died in that war!! Say that one more time, and I¡¯ll feed you your eyes."

    "..I¡¯m sorry.." muttered the king as guilt made his way into his mind like wildfire. Seeing one of his old generals and friends confront him on what had already be one of his life¡¯s biggest regrets, had been a huge hit on his psyche.

    After noticing the weak state of mind of this supposedly powerful and distinct cultivator, Daniel shook his head in disappointment, and said "You and I have much to talk about.. Starting with where my uncle is."

    -----

    Back in the territory of the School of Evesting Fury, Mea was lying gently on a soft patch of earth. Around her, were the now fully recovered master-at-arms, the Silver Alchemist, and Re. Her eyelids were trembling, and she was groaning faintly.. Clearly in an attempt to wake herself up.

    When she finally managed to open her eyes, kneeling next to her, she saw a man who she hadn¡¯t seen in more than half of her life.. A man with whom she had fond memories, and which she had hoped to see again many times.. But based on thest thing she had seen before passing out, she didn¡¯t immediately believe what she was currently seeing.

    Almost hurt by the sight of her own father, she quickly blinked in hope that he would disappear, but he never did.

    "My little Mea.." Said Der with a trembling lower lip, and tears that threatened to stream down his face at any moment.. "It¡¯s me.. It¡¯s dad.."

    Still slightly unconvinced, Mea moved her hand on her father¡¯s face, and after touching his rough beard, she said with a broken voice "D..Dad.." then moved closer for a heartfelt hug.

    Re, which had often heard about the close rtionship which her sister-like friend had with her father, couldn¡¯t help but cover her mouth emotionally. Even the old master-at-arms was forced to turn his sight upwards and breathe in slowly in order to prevent his emotion from taking over.

    He was eager to know what his student had gone through in all of these years, but this was not the time to.

    -----

    Back into the royal castle of the Karalis empire.

    The prison of the Karalis empire was built right outside of the capital city. There, the day to day criminals would be ced in wait for a trial, or if had already been judged guilty, they would serve their sentence with no option to be released in advance.

    The most important prisoners, on the other hand, were kept in the dungeon of the capital¡¯s royal castle. These criminals ced in these prisons were only left with enough food and water to survive, and nothing else. No windows, no doors, and no light.

    In one of these cells, was a thirty-odd years old man. His eyes were closed, as he had no need to keep them opened, and he was standing while facing one of the walls. The rocky wall which he was looking at was covered in dents, and dried blood, and in the stale air of this cell, constant thumping sounds could be heard resound at an unsteady rhythm.

    *Thu-thump* *Thu-Thu-Thu.. Thu-Thump*

    This man was extremely thin, and yet, the muscles of his body had developed to an incredible definition. His body seemed tock any form of fat, and he appeared to be a being born to practice martial arts. His back was covered in scars, and he was practicing various styles of boxing against the hard and cold rocky wall.. Just like he had been doing for the past five years.

    His rations of food and water would always appear in his room at the same time every day, with the exception of this very day, where the appearance of his rations had been dyed for more than twenty minutes.

    He had found this an odd asion, yet, he didn¡¯tin. He was in a prison after all, and he couldn¡¯t expect all of his needs to be catered every day without any exception. He had been forced to work in the mines before, and there, he didn¡¯t have it any better.

    In the mines, food would only be passed down rarely, and most of the times, it was given to those who would make their strength worth the most. The oldest ones would always have to take less than the others, as they wouldn¡¯t be able to work as much.

    Used to having to withstand hunger, this man had forged a method to keep himself distracted.. and that method wasposed of meditation, and training.

    He was an extremely talented martial cultivator, and thanks to the constant practice he had umted by forming scenarios in his head, he had managed to perfect every styles ofbat which he had knowledge of.. And even create his own.

    In the middle of his daily training routine, he threw one punch after the other, until finally, he felt the rock on which his fists were crashing, be softer and softer.

    It wasn¡¯t rare for him to injure himself to a point where keepin on training would give him a simr feeling, but this time, his hands weren¡¯t hurting. Instead, it seemed as it was the rock itself to be losing its hardness.

    Before he could understand why, the ¡¯thump¡¯ sounds quickly turned into sshing sounds, and one punch at a time, he felt himself carving a path through the ten meters of thick wall.

    The moment the wall had reached its softest state, a dim light filtered through what had now be a water curtain.

    Wondering if he was finally going crazy, he slowly opened his eyes, and after turning his hands into ws, he started to make his way through it one handful at a time. The light became brighter and brighter, to a point where he couldn¡¯t keep his eyes opened anymore.

    As the man¡¯s eyes adjusted once again to the increasingly brighter light, he noticed a silhouette standing right behind this thick curtain of water. The more he advanced, the clearer the silhouette became, giving him a sense of nostalgia and familiarity.

    With his heart in his throat, he pushed his whole body towards the remaining bit of watery wall, diving directly into it. At the same time, he muttered with a croaky voice "..brother.."

    Secondster, he fell into an empty corridor.

    When he had seen this corridor the first time almost 5 years ago, it waspletely dark.. But now, there was a bright light that came from above him. Bright enough to shed light on each and every one of its corners.

    For as much as he had gotten used to light, this light was still too bright for him to see, so, while covering his eyes with one of his hands, he looked around. Momentster, he noticed that none of this light was hitting his face directly, and for a good reason.

    A young man was standing directly in between him and the source of the light.

    With slight difficulty, he looked at this young man¡¯s body from down to his legs, all the way up to his shoulders.. Until finally, his eyesnded on his facial features.. Causing him to be shocked beyond words.

    "You look just like him.." Said Daniel with a warm sounding voice.

 Chapter 238 Picking a Candidate

    "You look just like him.." Said Daniel with a warm sounding voice. He could see the resemnce that his uncle had with his father, which at the time of his death, was at about the same age his uncle currently was.

    The same, of course, could be said for Daniel.. Whose uncle saw as his older brother¡¯s younger self. The old brother who used to teach him the martial arts of their family, and from whom he asked pointers on how to sessfully chase girls when they were younger.

    But of course, he knew that his brother was already dead. Ever since he had been taken out of the mines, he had been told of how his brother had died in war, and how his brother¡¯s son had taken the world up by a storm with a world-changing discovery.

    After realizing who this young man was, he slowly stood up, and after looking at Daniel up and down a couple of times, he said with a croaky voice "..Daniel?" This simple word, along with his previous call for his brother, where the first words he had spoken in years.

    "Why are you here?.." He then added with a worried tone. He was fully aware of why he had been imprisoned in the dungeons of the royal castle, and that was to be bait for his own nephew.

    Seeing how naturally protective his uncle was, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile. He then said "I¡¯m here to get you out.. Come on, let¡¯s go."

    -----

    At the same time, in a different sr system was what, from the distance, would appear to be a gaseous, but if observed from a closer perspective, people would see that it was, in fact, a normal with a dense green atmosphere.

    This was called Ton Bes, which in the nativenguage of its inhabitants, meant ¡¯Toxic Roots¡¯.

    The massive experiments with various types of poisons conducted for thest few tens of thousands of years, had saturated the air with a poisonous residue which prevented anyone from inhabit the. Only a few poisonous beasts which had adapted to its atmosphere¡¯s high toxicity, had managed to evolve into species that could survive in that environment.

    Built in the middle of a massive toxic swamp, was arge green bubble. This bubble might have seemed like a sack of gases that was trying toe out of the surface of this mud-likeke, but in reality, it was a constructed of wind essence. Large enough to contain an advanced city within.

    This city was divided into a few different sections ced in a petal-like formation which surrounded arger area in the middle. This city was called The Poisonous City, and as the name suggested, was the main base of the Poisonous Rose.

    Each of these petal-like areas were the research territories of the various families of which the poisonous rose wasposed, and their main purpose, was purely to experiment and research poisons.

    The central area, on the other hand, belonged to a group formed by the retired, and most powerful individuals of each group. This group worked as a sort of senate which dominated the entire conglomerate as one, and under the strict scrutiny of a single individual which acted as chairman.

    Inside the biggest building within the central area, was an office so big, which took an entire floor by itself, and yet, only one person worked in it. This office, belonged to the chairman, or current leader of the poisonous rose.

    Sitting on a sofa with her legs crossed, was a twenty-something year old girl whose voluptuous body was covered by a tightly fitting red dress. Simr to the color of her dress, was the color of her lips, shoes, nails, and iris. She was currently looking at a few different stacks of papers, and appeared to be unsure which one to pick.

    On each of these four stacks of papers, were the sketches of just as many different individuals, along with their details, their history, the information about theirpanies and groups, and their contribution in the underground world of poison making.

    Standing next to her, was an old man dressed in formal clothes. He was standing politely, waiting for the girl to take her pick.

    "There are a few good ones this time.. This one created a sentient poison that feeds off of people¡¯s immortal essence, and keeps them at a weakened state forever.. It¡¯s cute, but the effect is nothing a few power-suppressing chains can¡¯t imitate.." Said the girl while discarding one of the stacks of papers.

    "How about this woman, mdy?.. She caused quite themotion." Said the old man as politely as possible.

    "This woman exterminated a whole¡¯s poption by synthesizing the toxin of a ntmon to her world, and spreading it into the air. Noteable, but nothing to write home about.. Nothing that half of the senate couldn¡¯t have.. Or hasn¡¯t done before anyway.."

    Despite the polite tone shown by the man, he was still an incredibly important figure within the poisonous rose. He was the current chief of the senate, and was the second inmand of the entirepany, as well as one of the retired leaders of his own family.

    His job at the moment was to propose a few candidates which had been agreed upon by the rest of the senate, so that they could take the ce of the group that was previously in charge of one of the petal-like researching sectors. That group was, of course, the Navi family.

    The girl which he was treating with extreme politeness, was the current chairman, and she had thest word on whom to invite into the Ton Bes. Unfortunately, she was extremely picky, and therefore, she would often dy her decision.. as she wanted only the best and most talented to be able to upy a spot in the Toxic Root of the Poisonous Rose.

    It is important to understand that not every family was granted a researching area in this. Only those whose leader had managed to retire, and enter the senate after creating a poison that was deemed worthy were allowed in.

    That was what had happened to the Navi family, before the senator died, and they had ended up with only half of the knowledge of theirte ancestor.

    The decision of who should have taken their ce in Ton Bes had been dyed for almost three months, and now, the senate had been pressured by the thousands of outsider families to make a decision.

    After what felt like their hundredth meeting, the senate had finally managed to narrow the decision to four candidates. What was stopping them from filling the empty spot of the Ton Bes, was this girl.

    "Mdy, what about the other two?" He said calmly, while hiding as much of the exasperation as he could.

    "Don¡¯t worry, I have decided that I will pick one of them.. I can feel the stench of your impatience from here." Said the girl with a tone just as calm as the old man¡¯s. She knew that she had dyed the decision for too long, and that she had to take it. Plus, she didn¡¯t believe that any better candidate would appear any time soon. "Tell me again about the new ones.." She then added.

    "Vin, two hundred and two years of age.. Seventh stage cultivator. A killer adept with the use of poison. A genius who can engineer the most appropriate method to kill high level targets based on circumstances, type of poison, and method of poisoning. His most notable kills have been the disciple of the eighth demi-god of the faction of the Blood God, and multiple low level officers of the universal government." Exined the old man as clearly as possible, before getting to thest of the four candidates.

    "This one is new, and the lowest level amongst the candidates, but the one with the most promise. Only two senators objected to him being added in the stack, but that was only due to the candidate¡¯s age.. Dan Hiel, twenty-one years old, sixth stage of cultivation.." He said before turning towards the dubious face of the red-dressed girl, and saying "Yes, twenty-one is his real age.." He then continued "He is the cause of the demise of the Navi family.. Poisoned by the Poison of the Night Blue Thorn, he spent the following two months researching a cure. He ultimately discovered a new form for low-level poison immunity which he called ¡¯Partial Poison Immunity Pill¡¯. We have no information about the tier of the poison immunity, as he has never sold the form, or a single pill."

    Clearly interested by both of these candidates, the girl said "For as useful of a person the assassin would be, the Ton Bes is a ce for research.. Take the brat here.. I want to meet him."

    "Mdy, less than three months ago he has boarded a spatial ship directed towards an isted. Apparently, he is a native there.. And he will stay there until he¡¯ll be able to im the for lord Iewah, and open it to inteary travel.." Responded the old man to the woman¡¯s demands.

    The woman became pensive for a few moments, then, a big smile appeared on her face.

    She turned towards the old man, and said "Send the killer to him.. If he can manage to kill the kid despite the blockade of the universal government, the spot is his. Send someone with him to monitor the. If he doesn¡¯t seed, have him killed and wait for the kid toe out of the."

    "Yes mdy."

    -----

    Back in Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension.

    "You went through all of that?!" Asked Re with a shock which Daniel had never seen on her face before. Her lips had still traces of food on them, and she had stopped eating only make a scene.

    While removing a few grains of rice from his face, Daniel muttered "d to see you haven¡¯t lost the bad habit of spitting food on people at every meal.. And good grace, since when did you start eating so much!?"

    The moment thest few words reached Re¡¯s ears, she opened her eyes in shock. She then put her hand on her stomach, and looked towards Nilo, which after noticing her look, turned to eat his own food in silence.. "That¡¯s so rude to say!.." Re said after turning to look back at Daniel with indignation.

    The old master-at-arms, the Silver Alchemist, Y, Miri, Riri, and Finn, were looking at Daniel and his sister Re with a mixture of different expressions. Except for Y, the rest of them were fully aware of the rtionship between these two, and for them to behave like they had never separated even after five years of not seeing each other, was extremely odd.

    Sitting at the table with a saddened expression, was Der. He was mindlessly moving his fork on his te while casually moving his eyes towards the empty seat next to him. This seat was where his daughter Mea was supposed to sit, and yet, she had decided not to attend, and instead, remained in her room.

    The old master-at-arm quickly noticed the state of mind Der was in, and after turning toward him, he said "You haven¡¯t seen your daughter for a very long time.. But I have been training her for the past five years.. Trust me, she is strong.. And after she will go through it.. She wille out even stronger."

    "Master.. All the things that happened to her.. If only I was there.." muttered Der while turning the entire hall silent.

    "You were never at fault.. She knows it. Just give her some time to heal." Responded the old master-at-arms before turning back towards his food, and finishing his meal.

    After the heavy discussion between the two, the people present did not feel in the mood to keep joking around, so, the room became quiet for a few minutes, until.. *Knock Knock*

    "Come in." Said Daniel while turning to look at therge double door of the castle¡¯s dining room.

    The door slowly opened, and standing behind it, was Roley.

    "Roley, spectacr timing. Come, there is a few people I want you to meet."

 Chapter 239 A Peaceful Way of Living

    Roley was already aware that Daniel had managed to reunite with his sister. But despite Daniel had asked him and the rest to join in for a meet up, they had all refused, and for a simple reason. They knew perfectly well how much Daniel had missed his sister.. Therefore, they didn¡¯t want to meddle with their reunion, as there would be many other asions for them to meet.

    What all of them did not know, was that Daniel did not care about that. They had known each other for close to six years now, and to him, Roley, Jerigh, Heimart, and everyone else, were the closest of friends.. To a point where he couldn¡¯t wait for them to meet his sister and his teachers.

    "These are my sister Re, my teachers Master Kye, and the Silver Alchemist, their stu.." For the next few minutes, Daniel went on about recounting his adventures, and listening to those of his sister and teachers, while also exining everything about the universe, and the current mission he was pursuing in the.

    Daniel¡¯s group fit the members of his previous life perfectly.

    In the next few days, the old master-at-arms had met Jerigh, and discovered the weapon wielding training room, of which he immediately fallen in love with.

    The Silver Alchemist had met Lucious, which in the past few months, had experimented with alchemy, and reached an impressive level of mastery thanks to Daniel¡¯s group effect.

    Nilo, Finn, Miri, Riri and Y had been taken to the school, where they had discovered the difference in power between them, and a cultivator of immortal cultivation. In the end, Daniel had proposed that they joined the academy, while also giving them enough crystals to help them to bridge the gap.

    Der had spent a few days with his daughter, and after noticing how strongly she had reacted to the episode she had gone through, he had felt prouder than ever.

    Soon enough, the two had caught up with everything that happened in the period of time they had been separated, and went back to how they used to be in the past.

    The golden cauldron old man had found a quick friend in none other than Edmund. The two had a simr character. Not only in the fact that they were both obsessed about the subject of their studies, but also for the fact that they didn¡¯t like other people¡¯spany that much, and would often iste themselves to delve in their passion.

    Edmund¡¯s love for spatial essence, and the Golden Cauldron old man¡¯s love for time essence were intrinsically connected, as one couldn¡¯t have space without time, or vice versa. This had allowed the two to share knowledge, and develop a mutual respect for each other.

    They were also at the same exact level of cultivation, as Edmund had yet to develop his martial cultivation to the ninth rank, and be a true immortal cultivator by merging his body and spirit fully.

    Something else of which the Golden Cauldron old man and the Silver Alchemist had been shocked by, was how close to perfection Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension was. To a point where they both believed that, if the connection to the external world were to be cut and the dimension ended up floating into the void forever, the people within would still manage to live their livesfortably.

    Unfortunately, not every encounter went that well..

    The most difficult meeting amongst a member of his old life and a member of his group was definitely the moment when Re had met Alesia. The first thought that had crossed the mind of the two girls, was the shock caused by their beauty.. But while Alesia was extremely happy to meet Re, thetter was more focused on checking Alesia out.

    She was not stupid, and had noticed how big Daniel¡¯s smile had be the moment he had seen Alesia, and how brightly the girl had smiled back.

    It didn¡¯t take long for her to realize what was going on, but for once, she managed to stop herself from teasing her brother about it, and instead, focused on Alesia¡¯s character.

    No need to say, the two instantly clicked.

    What had brought Daniel to like Alesia, and Alesia to like him back, was howpatible the two were with each other.. And since Daniel and Re were extremely simr in character, the two had quicklye to like each other.

    Unfortunately for Daniel, that quickly formed sisterhood had turned Re¡¯s effort into nothingness, and their conversation into a race on which one of them had the best joke about Daniel.. About how silly he behaved when drunk, or about how stupidly he behaved as a kid.

    -----

    When Daniel had seen how much these people he cared about liked his world, he hadn¡¯t waited at all before making the proposition that they moved in it.

    At first, Re had epted to live in Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension.. But then, she remembered something, and instead, asked if she could attend to Daniel¡¯s academy along with Finn, Nilo, and the others.

    The same was for Mea, which by wanting to be with her father, had epted to move in with the condition that she could attend the academy along with her friends.

    Der had no intentions of leaving Daniel¡¯s group, as he was too grateful to him despite the small altercation the two had in the throne room of the King of Karalis. Daniel had promised to him that he would bring him to see his daughter, and had kept his word.. If that wasn¡¯t enough, he had saved his daughter from a terrible fate as a ve before the two had even met. He was a man of honor, and he believed that that amount of gratitude could not go unpaid.

    The Golden Cauldron had decided to refuse Daniel¡¯s invitation, as he had too many people to take care of. He had been one of the pirs of hismunity for many years, and he couldn¡¯t simply leave everything and move away with his family.

    On the other hand, his son, along with the old master-at-arms, had decided to ept the invitation.

    The main retirement n of the old master-at-arms was to create an academy in which he could teach martial arts to the people, and now that all he had built had gone to ruin, he had epted to retire in Daniel¡¯s peaceful pocket dimension, where he could focus on his cultivation, and if he wanted, lecture the student¡¯s of Daniel¡¯s academy.. Which at the moment, were being taught by Roley, and asionally, Jerigh.

    The same was for the Silver Alchemist, which by wanting to increase his knowledge in mana, and by wanting to stay close to his grand daughter Y, had decided to remain with his oldest and closest friend.

    Someone to which Daniel had asked to remain in his pocket dimension pointlessly, was his uncle Thien.

    The reason why his request was pointless, was because the very moment he had saved his uncle from the dungeon he was being kept in, his uncle had already entered his group.. Just like his sister had done the very moment the two had reunited. This was a type of connection that only blood could create.

    While all of these things happened, the many members of Daniel¡¯s group were changing the world by conquering one kingdom, empire, and continent at a time.

    -----

    Space outside Wuvia, 2 days earlier.

    Wuvia was the ne in which the Nuragovia was originally supposed to take the passengers to after a stop to Daniel¡¯s of origin, and the moon where the prisoner would be detained. It was the twin of Daniel¡¯s world of origin, and at the same time, the closest to it which was open to inteary travel.

    Generally speaking, onlyrge ships would be seen outside Wuvia¡¯s atmosphere, but now, two men were floating in the void just a few kilometers away from the popted.

    These two individuals were wearing different clothes, and did not seem to belong to the same group..

    One of them had an orange robe that covered his entire body with exception made for the top part of his head. His eyes appeared to bezy, and he seemed to be bored by the sheer concept of being there. His mind, was clearly elsewhere.

    The second man waspletely different from the first one. His entire body was covered in a sort of ck bandages, and had a few steel spikes pierced in his specific parts of his body. Amon physician would never understand what could bring this man to pierce his own body with these spikes, but a cultivator, would understand immediately.

    The spikes worked exactly like power-suppressing chains, and were pierced in areas of his body which were critical to the production of immortal essence. They were made of a special metal that could be only found in outer space, and that had been enchanted with space, and dark essence.

    This level of power-suppressing item was an overkill, as the most simple and basic power-suppressing chains could absorb every bit of a man¡¯s cultivation before they could use it, but the man had pushed himself further. These power-suppressing spikes not only absorbed all of the man¡¯s immortal essence, but did it at the root of its creation, and in an extremely inconspicuous way. Preventing it from even forming fully.

    Of course, a slight bit of immortal essence would always manage to form despite of how the power-suppressing spikes worked, but there came in y the ck bandages.. Which thanks to the dark essence of which they were enchanted of, gave him an extra level of protection against the prying eyes of whomever was keeping an eye on Daniel¡¯s.

    These two individuals, were Vin the killer, and the Orange Thorn.. One of the Poisonous Rose¡¯s masters of poison.

    The area of space in which the two were floating, was in the direction between Wuvia and Daniel¡¯s word of origin.

    After a few moments spent trying to find the right direction, the Orange Thorn waved his hand, and made a shuttle appear in the space right in front of them. This shuttle was bean-shaped, and from the size, it was clear that it could only hold two people, and an engine that would propel the shuttle through the consumption of perfect crystals.

    These types of shuttles were usually made for traveling from a to one of the¡¯s moons, but since the two wanted to go unnoticed, they had decided to use it to reach all the way to Daniel¡¯s.

    Once set, the two departed.

    -----

    For the next two weeks, Daniel¡¯s group took control over one continent after the other, and now, they had covered an area of control of about 50% of the entire.

    More than one revolt had tried to arise between the former powerful kingdoms. Unfortunately for them, they would be always stopped by Daniel¡¯s group, which by installing teleporting tforms in every capital, could take care of an entire kingdom with a simple mid fourth stage cultivator, which in terms of this¡¯s ranks, would be close to an hypothetical eleventh rank cultivator.

    After all of this time spent on the, the word that something else existed within the immense space had made its way into every home, cave, and territory within the area they had conquered, and while a few of those in power had attempted to rebel, the majority of them simply wanted the change to happen, so that they could pursue a higher path of cultivation.

    In thest two weeks, life had entered a peaceful state within the pocket dimension. Daniel¡¯s sister and friends were busy with either cultivating or their job within the Golden Karmapany, and that, as well as his massive number of karmic points, had allowed Daniel to cultivate in a carefree manner.

    After two weeks of uninterrupted cultivation, he had stepped closer to the seventh stage of cultivation, reaching the peak of the sixth stage.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 21

    Power level

    -Peak sixth stage of immortal cultivation

    Battle Prowess

    -Early seventh stage of immortal cultivation

    Karma - 43,434,094,146

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.33

    Reduced Cost Lv.20

    Bonus Points Lv.20

    Second Chance (Upgrades 3/3) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 1/1)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    Daniel looked at his profile, and after noticing the still massive number of karma points he possessed, he smiled, and muttered "Let¡¯s see these new effects.."

 Chapter 240 The Opening of the Academy

    ____________________________

    System Upgrades Lv.5

    Time Is Precious Lv.34 = 1,742,368,550 KP

    (Active: Multiply the cost of karma points in order to multiply the speed of progression. +100% of cost and effect. Max lv.30)

    Second Chance Upgrade Lv.5 = 500,000 KP

    (Passive: Halves the cooldown of Second Chance.)

    Opposite and Equal = 1,000,000,000 KP

    (Active: At the cost of 1% of your entire karmic points per second, every attack received will cause an equal damage to the attacker.)

    Blessing or Curse = 250,000,000 KP

    (Active: At the cost of 10% of your karmic points [Required: 10,000,000], you can add positive or negative karma correspondent to the amount spent, to the karma of a person during the moment of their death. The amount of negative karma added to a person, will be also detracted from the wielder¡¯s remaining karma points multiplied by 5.)

    Donation = 1 KP

    (Active: Donate an amount of karma points corresponded to half of those spent to another person.)

    Group Donation = 1 KP

    (Active: Donate an amount of karma points corresponded to double of those spent to the group.)

    ____________________________

    umte 250,000,000,000 Karma points to unlock System Upgrades Lv.6

    ____________________________

    As always, the upgrades in his karmic system shocked Daniel deeply.

    The new effect which had surprised him the most, was without a doubt, ¡¯Blessing or Curse¡¯ . An ability which allowed him to control other people¡¯s karma at the moment of their death, meant that he was in control of what would happen to them afterwards.

    He had seen the merit in that, which was to increase a good person¡¯s karma before they died.. but also the negative side. With that ability, he would have been able to take away all of a good person¡¯s karma at the moment of their death, or add good karma to someone with bad karma.

    That was, of course, something that he would never do for many moral reasons. He couldn¡¯t understand why the karmic system would allow him to do something like that. Meddling with other people¡¯s karma was a power which nobody should have the right to possess, as karma was, per se, an already fair universal system.

    This effect had brought Daniel to question the morale of Iewah, an entity which would grant a simr power to someone that, instead of being a saint, had simply decided to conduct his life like a good willed human being. Someone which could be easily corrupted by such a power.

    The other effects, for how shocking they appeared, were still within the norm whenpared to the other upgrades of the karmic system. ¡¯Opposite and Equal¡¯, ¡¯Donation¡¯, ¡¯Group Donation¡¯, and the increased level in ¡¯Second Chance¡¯ and ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯.

    Daniel wanted to know more about they worked by Sewah, but ever since he had obtained a form which could separate itself from him, he had been scared to death by the approaching presence of his brothers and sisters.

    He had tried to talk to him many times, especially to ask him why he was so scared of them.. But in the end, he would never respond, andsh out on Daniel instead.

    From how terrified he sounded, Daniel had understood something important.. The blessings, or how they called themselves ¡¯the children¡¯ of Iewah, were not friends amongst each other.. As proven by the fact that the simple notion that one of them was approaching him, had scared Sewah into hiding for months.

    Once he finished checking his system¡¯s upgrades, Daniel bought every effect with the exception of ¡¯Blessing or Curse¡¯, and decided to keep cultivating. He still had a massive amount of karmic points, and before his was opened to inteary travel, he wanted his power to reach a certain level of power.

    He was quietly sitting on his bed with folded his legs, and closed his eyes.. When.. *Knock Knock Knock*

    Daniel didn¡¯t need to open his eyes to see that, standing behind his door, was Jerigh. He was in training attire, and seemed to be in the most serious state of mind he had been in in the past weeks.

    "What is it?" Said Daniel without opening the door.

    Jerigh entered his room, and while looking at him, said "Today.. The academy¡¯s opening ceremony.. In front of the students." Said Jerigh as calmly as possible.

    That day, was the day of the official opening of Daniel¡¯s academy.

    The reason why he didn¡¯t want to attend to it, was because he had no intention of teaching personally to the students. Instead, he had agreed that his two teachers took over the role of Chairmen of the entire school. It was important for him that the school did not only give people the chance to obtain experience andprehension over different types of essence and weapon wielding, but also a morale tutoring which only the old master-at-arms was used to passing down to his own disciples.

    On the other hand, he wanted the students to develop their clever thinking, and that, was the job of the Silver Alchemist. In his opinion, no one would be a better teacher for clever thinking than a sessful merchant, alchemist, and spiritual cultivator.

    The reason why Jerigh had came to look for him, was so that they could have the spar which Daniel had promised to him, right in front of the students. That was a suggestion made by the old master-at-arms, after he had learned from Jerigh that he and Daniel would spar soon.

    Slightly unwillingly, Daniel epted Jerigh¡¯s request, and after changing himself into clothes identical to those which Jerigh was wearing, the two walked towards the ground where the event would take ce.

    When Daniel and Jerigh arrived, at least fifty thousand people were already present. The venue had been prepared thanks to Leffe¡¯s, Wolfie¡¯s, and Buriath¡¯s help. They had modified the territory so that it would be a massive arena which could contain people in the tens of thousands.

    There, various cultivators which were part of Daniel¡¯s group would show off theirprehension of essences, and weapon mastery not only to the families of the cultivators that were allowed to attend the academy, but also to the students themselves, as after this show, they would have to pick one amongst these cultivators to teach them in the arts which they had demonstrated to be experts in.

    Daniel¡¯s group was now in the tens of thousands, and amongst them, there were a few hundred which hadn¡¯t wasted their time while in the pocket dimension. They had focused on theprehension of essence, practicing martial arts, and cultivation. That was the reason why so many members of Daniel¡¯s group were experts in their respective fields.

    The old master-at-arms and the Silver Alchemist had been thoroughly impressed by the members of Daniel¡¯s group. Not only for the impressive prowess they would show whenpared to other cultivators at the same level, but also by the sheer loyalty that they demonstrated towards their student..

    In the end, the two couldn¡¯t really take credit for Daniel¡¯s sess, after all, they had only taught him a few skills, and no actual real life lessons. Those were all things which Daniel had learned before and after they had met him.

    Nevertheless, Daniel had a massive amount of respect for the two of them. If not for the fact that they were good people, for the fact that they had kept his sister safe, and maintained their word about freeing his imprisoned uncle.

    When Daniel and Jerigh reached the venue, they saw that the grandstands were already full, and the students were crowding around the arena where, one by one, the members of Daniel group demonstrated their abilities.

    In the grandstands, the family members looked with satisfaction at the general amount of knowledge contained in Daniel¡¯s academy.

    Perfectprehension of fire, metal, earth, and wood essences, near perfectprehension of lightning, water, and wind essences, highprehension of darkness, light, space, and time essences, and a perfect mastery of each type of weapon currently known to mankind.

    Only a few academies in the universe were known to posses this level ofprehension, and usually, the standards to allow their children to attend, was impossibly high.. While on the other hand, Daniel¡¯s academy allowed everyone who wanted to attend, as long as they showed that they were generally good willed people.

    Seas of mes, worlds of metal, colossal trees, storms which threatened to tear a full city to rubble.. One after the other, the members of Daniel¡¯s group left the spectators more and more stupefied.. Until Daniel and Jerigh¡¯s turn arrived.

    Even though the school hadn¡¯t opened yet, the students were still allowed to inhabit the territory and learn from the teachers that decided to voluntarily spend their free time instructing them. One of those teachers, was Jerigh. So, when they saw Jerighe on stage while wielding two single-edged swords, the group of students that had decided to attend in advance, had exploded in cheers.

    Amongst this massive group of people, was Cynna, which unlike the other students, was curiously observing the most serious state of mind she had ever seen Jerigh being in.

    The students were now in the thousands, and most of them had never seen Daniel, as he had never stopped to teach to them personally. So, when they saw him walk next to a person whom they believed to be virtually invincible, they didn¡¯t feel much about him.

    Differently from how their children reacted, their families paid great attention to him. They knew who he was, as they had participated to the reveal of his new pill.

    What had surprised them the most, was that he would personally participate in the demonstration along with a cultivator which specialized in meleebat. They hadn¡¯t heard the end of Jerigh¡¯s praises from their sons and daughters yet, and themon misconception about Daniel, was that he was only an alchemist. Seeing him with two swords in his hands had made them curious.

    The moment Daniel arrived onstage with Jerigh, the two bowed politely towards the public. Then, Daniel waved his hand, creating a dome of spatial essence which would prevent any of their attacks from reaching the outside.

    After the dome formed, both Daniel and Jerigh unsheathed their weapons, and looked at each other with great focus. At the same time, Daniel was forcing his immortal cultivation into a state that would match Jerigh¡¯s.. The early sixth stage of immortal cultivation.

    Both of their battle prowess was boosted greatly. The effects of Daniel¡¯s group granted a significant boost to the members whenever he was there to lead them, or whenever they were within his territory, so, when the fight started, no one was able to see them.

    The two had disappearedpletely, and only shes of light and noises of impact could be heard from the other side of the barrier.

    Unable to spectate to the fight, the people started toin.

    "What the hell is going on?"

    "How fast are they?.."

    "I can¡¯t see a thing.."

    Sitting quietly one next to the other in the area reserved for the teachers, were Edmund, and the Golden Cauldron old man.

    After the Golden Cauldron old man saw the reaction of the spectators, he stood up, and walked towards the spatial dome. He then ced one of his hands on it, and ejected as much spiritual essence as he could from his body.

    As soon as the dome was covered with his spiritual essence, he turned it into time essence, which slowed down the images that went through the barrier. Once finished, He sat next to the dome, while leaving a palm firmly pressed on it.

    The main purpose of this fight was to demonstrate what Daniel¡¯s academy could teach, and yet, Daniel was fully aware that that objective took a lower ce in Jerigh¡¯s mind whenpared to their spar. Therefore, even though they knew that nobody would be able to see them fight, he had still decided to go all out with him.

    Thankfully, he had felt the time essence used by the Golden Cauldron old man, and had allowed him to slow the images down for the rest of the people to witness.

    As soon as the images slowed down, the face of the spectators contorted in shock. The show they were seeing was not a spar, but a deathmatch. Every attack was done with the intent to kill, and pointed at a vital spot.

    For the first time, Cynna witnessed to the full power of the young man which she had tried so much topare to, and finally understood what feeling inferior meant.

    This did not mean that she wasn¡¯t a prodigy herself, as she could be still considered someone that would appear once in ten millions.. But Jerigh was of another level.

 Chapter 241 Honored to Have You Fight by My Side

    The moment the spatial barrier had formed, Jerigh had instantly reappeared in front of Daniel. As he had approached his opponent, he had put one of his swords in between Daniel¡¯s legs, and one next to his throat. Both sharp edges of the de were pointed at Daniel¡¯s femoral artery, and his carotid artery, and were both ready to sh at Daniel¡¯s main blood vessels in a moment¡¯s notice.

    Of course, Daniel did not wait to respond, and instead, with a twist of his wrist, he defended himself from the sword Jerigh was holding in his left hand, and forced him to move his sword back to defend from Daniel¡¯s second weapon, which was pointed at Jerigh¡¯s heart, and was traveling at an absurd speed.

    Unable to react on time, Jerigh gave up the hold of the sword which he was pointing at Daniel¡¯s neck, and with a hit of his palm, he deflected it by hitting the t part of the sword. He then moved his hand with terrifying speed, and grabbed the sword which he had let go of a moment ago, and had yet to touch the floor.

    Daniel decided to use Jerigh¡¯s tactic, and let go of his own sword in order to grab his clothes, but the moment before he managed to put his fingers on it, a shing motion which threatened to cut his whole arm arrived with the speed of lightning.

    *Ding*

    Instead of avoiding, Daniel took the attack head on by using spatial essence to deflect it.

    "Spatial essence.." muttered Jerigh with curiosity. Their fight was supposed to be apetition of swordsmanship, and yet, Daniel had just used spatial essence to defend. He was more than sure that if Daniel had wanted to, he would have been able to avoid his attack and counter with one that was just as deadly.

    With a big smile on his face, Daniel said "Come on Jerigh.. We have grown out of simple swordy.. Let¡¯s fight like adults.." His meaning was clear.. a simple spar with swords was pointless. Both of their repertory was immensely more vast than that, and if they had topete, they should go all out.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, for the first time since he had met him, Jerigh showed what was the semnce of a smile, but instead of responding, he assumed his battle stance, and ignited his swords with fire and lightning essence, which quickly became scorching hot like solid sma.

    "Yes.. No point in doing this if we don¡¯t have fun.." said Daniel as the smile slowly disappeared from his face, followed by his entire body. When he reappeared, he was standing in front of Jerigh with empty hands. His two fists were flowing through the wind at supersonic speed, and approaching Jerigh¡¯s face.

    Instead of defending against these two punches, Jerigh moved closer to Daniel, managing to barely avoid the two swords that had inconspicuouslye out of the ground, and were trying to pierce his back.

    Unable to use the full length of his swords at such high proximity, Jerigh once again let go of the hold he had on his two swords, and after they twisted in his hands, he tried to use the pommels of the handles to hit Daniel¡¯s armpits, and disable, or at the very least damage his arms.

    Daniel quickly interrupted the motion of his arms, and rapidly grabbed the iing pommels, then, tried to hit Jerigh¡¯s stomach with his knee without letting go of his swords.

    Jerigh immediately teleported away, but when he reappeared, he was not holding his swords anymore. His swords were now in Daniel¡¯s hands, who had prevented him to take them with him when Jerigh had teleported away.

    Daniel quickly let go of the two swords, and used his control of the metal essence of which they were formed to make them orbit around him.

    The four swords kept floating for a couple of seconds, until finally, when they stopped, they pointed at the same exact point.. Jerigh.

    Daniel opened his palms, making a small storm charged with lightning essence, water essence, and wind essence to appear. He then condensed it more and more, until it turned into a temporary storm sphere.

    Teleporting at short distances was not Jerigh¡¯s forte, so, in order to avoid the iing attacks, he opted on ejecting a massive amount of immortal essence out of his body, which spread over the ring as a carpet. Then, he turned it into water essence just in time to use it to slid past Daniel¡¯s attack.

    One of the swords shed the air right next to his ear, then again in between his arm and chest, and one where his heart was. He was able to get a hold of the third swords that passed by him, and use it to deflect thest one, the used it to send a wind de towards Daniel.

    The wind de was extremely powerful, and if not deflected, could cut through Daniel¡¯s body.

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s attention was focused on maintaining the storm sphere, so instead of avoiding it, hemanded the swords floating in the air to move in front of him, and split the wind de in pieces.

    When the two halves of the wind de passed by Daniel¡¯s sides, thousands of ice spikes emerged from the water and sprinted towards him, showing that the wind de was only a decoy.

    Unable to find an asion to use his temporary storm sphere, Daniel was forced to let it dissipate. At the same time, he released dense immortal essence through his entire body, and turned it into a mixture of fire, metal, and rock essence.. Mixing together into magma and covering his body with a thickyer of white-hot liquid.

    But s, the shards were too thick to melt immediately, and managed to pierce the magma-covered humanoid from one side to the other.

    The spectators stood up in shock, thinking that Daniel had died.. But then, the figure which was supposed to contain Daniel¡¯s body quickly started to melt, and turned into a mixture of hardened rock and metal.

    Daniel had disappeared.

    The crowd looked at Jerigh¡¯s attentive expression in an attempt to understand what was truly happening, but their doubts found an answer as a couple hands appeared from underneath Jerigh¡¯s feet, and grabbed his ankles.

    A powerful electric discharge formed on Daniel¡¯s hands, but before he could release it into Jerigh¡¯s body, the tip of a sword prated through the surface of the stage, and towards he point where, ording to the position of Daniel¡¯s hands, his head was supposed to be.

    The lightning essence that had umted in Daniel¡¯s hands quickly turned into metal essence the moment before the sword prated through his head.

    Just as it appeared that Jerigh had finally managed to hit him, he was forced to bend his body backwards to barely avoid a kick which Daniel had sent towards his face, right after reappearing in the mid air in front of him.

    For the next few moments, the two exchanged blow after blow in hand to handbat, and despite Jerigh had his legs stuck in two metallic hands, he appeared to have the upper hand. Unfortunately for him.. Daniel had the karmic system.

    For as talented as Jerigh was, Daniel¡¯s experience was enhanced by his system. While Jerigh had grown fighting, Daniel had received hundreds of years of experience by simply practicing a few months.. So, after a few long minutes, the disparity between the two started to shift, and Daniel became closer and closer to actuallynding a hit on Jerigh.

    There was one thing which nobody could deny.. Jerigh was a monster. He, just like Daniel, was learning from his mistakes in the very fight.. So, while he appeared to be in a disadvantage, he was actually forcing himself over his limits.

    It was at this moment that the two came to a tacit agreement, and Daniel let go of the morse on Jerigh¡¯s legs. The two separated for a moment, and after taking a break, they assumed their battle stances for unarmedbat, and the very next moment, became a blur.

    *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

    One hit after the other sent soundwaves which felt like the rumbling of an ancient beast.

    Five minutes passed before the two finally separated.

    They were both breathing heavily, and were visibly tired. Their immortal essence had decreased greatly, and had been consumed faster than it was produced. Their clothes were in a mess, and showed a few rips here and there.

    On their bodies, a few injuries had appeared.

    Daniel¡¯s lower lip had a small injury from which a droplet of blood kept reforming no matter how many times Daniel removed it with his tongue, the left side of his ribcage was uncovered, and a fist-sized bruise could be seen, andstly, he had difficulties with putting his weight on his left leg due to the powerful hit he had received just underneath the knee.

    Jerigh was in no better shape. His cheekbone was swollen and red, his right thigh had four small cuts on one side and a slightly bigger one on the other, showing that Daniel had managed to tightly grip his leg with great strength, and finally, one of the fingers of his left hand was dislocated.

    The two seemed to have suffered from the same amount of injuries, and that the duel had ended in a draw.. But then.. Jerigh¡¯s non-injured hand moved on his stomach, and his body bent slightly forward to allow him to spit a big mouthful of blood.

    "Hija J krigh nieba phinnua.." muttered Jerigh in the asumnguage after brushing the back of his hand against his mouth.

    Daniel slowly shook his head "No.. Nobody deserves to have your service.. Not even me.." He said with a matter-of-fact tone. He then added after a small pause "But I am honored to have you fight by my side."

    For the second time in six years, Jerigh smiled.

    After their fight, the event went on with a few more demonstrations, and a speech from the master-at-arms, and the Silver Alchemist which put an end to it.

    The opening of the school was a big sess. The excitement of the thousands of students had only grown the more they saw, and in the end, they couldn¡¯t wait to be able to pick a teacher, and train to be experts in their fields.

    At the end of the event, each of the few hundred members of Daniel¡¯s group had received a more or less even amount of requests at about ten per person.. The only one which had received arger amount, was Jerigh, which after showing his absurd battle prowess in the duel with Daniel, had managed to shock his fans once again.

    Just as many people had hoped to be Daniel¡¯s students, but their hopes were soon killed by the revtion that Daniel would not be teaching, and that he was, in fact, the owner of the academy, and entire pocket dimension.

    -----

    Two dayster,¡¯s orbit.

    In a ce where before was only empty space, now was a bean-shaped shuttle, and next to it, two people floated in ce. A man dressed in an orange-colored attire, and a man covered in ck bandages with spikes that came out of his body.

    These men were, of course, Vin the killer, and the Orange Thorn.. which had managed to reach Daniel¡¯s after weeks of travel.

    "Are you sure that it will work?" Asked the orange dressed man with doubt. For once his apathetic behaviour had disappeared, and in its ce, a genuine amount of worry had appeared.

    Of course, his worry was not directed towards the well being of the assassin he had traveled with, but towards the heavy consequences that they would suffer if the scanners left by the universal government discovered Vin during his infiltration into the isted.

    The experienced assassin nodded confidently in response before turning towards the, but just before he could approach the atmosphere.. A man with ck hair and red eyes, had quietly appeared next to them.

 Chapter 242 Time to Ea

    "Who are you?" Asked the Orange Thorn with deep alertness. He hadn¡¯t felt this odd masked man approach at all, and from that, he could understand that he was much more powerful than him.

    Instead of responding, the prisoner¡¯s head slowly turned towards him, and from behind the mask, he asked "What are you doing here?" With a single phrase, he had made clear that he was the one asking the questions.

    The Orange Thorn inconspicuously prepared his signature poison with his arms hidden in his robe, while saying "May I know the name of the person who is interrogating me? I don¡¯t feelfortable with sharing my motives with a stra-I am the Orange Thorn, and he is an assassin called Vin. We are both members of an inteary group called The Poisonous Rose. He hase here to infiltrate this isted in order to assassinate an individual called Dan Hiel, and remove him from thepetition for a researching spot in Ton Bes.. I am here as a witness."

    Shocked by the words he had just said, the Orange Thorn looked at the prisoner with horror. But that shock, was nothingpared to the ones he had felt after seeing the bright green glow that had appeared in the two eyes behind the mask.

    He immediately closed his eyes, and said to the assassin "DON¡¯T LOOK AT HIS EYES!" But unfortunately, it was toote.

    The assassin had already looked at the eyes of the prisoner, which asked to him "Why do you kill?.."

    Unable to lie, the assassin looked at the prisoner with an expressionless face, and said "I am an artist. The scene is my canvass, the method is my paint, and death is my ink. I can¡¯t live without it, and even if I wasn¡¯t paid for it, I would still do it." His response was truthful and sincere, and he really believed in every word despite not having said them willingly.

    The prisoner shook his head left and right in disappointment, then said "That is the reason why your mind is rotten.. I will free you from your pain." As he finished speaking, his eyes became brighter and brighter, until finally, a dark shadow was pulled out of the assassin¡¯s mind. This shadow was grim, and on its surface, hundreds of images could be seen ying out. Each depicting one of the deaths which had been orchestrated by the assassin, ying out over and over again.. As if he couldn¡¯t think of anything else but those memories.

    With a wave of his hand, he erased this ck shadow, and turned the man¡¯s body into an empty shell that would float in space for the rest of eternity.

    The Orange Thorn spectated to the death of the assassin without being able to do anything. "Why did you kill him? He was a member of Iewah¡¯s faction.. We are allied of your kind.." He said while keeping his eyes tightly closed.

    "His mind wasn¡¯t right.. He was suffering." responded the prisoner with a casual tone. He did not care about friend of foe, he would judge each person alone. That was the reason he had been abandoned by his faction, and he had ended up in trouble.. Why he had killed one of Iewah¡¯s keepers of key.

    "You are an outcast?.." Asked the Orange Thorn with horror. He knew that outcasts would not care about any universal rule whatsoever. Their actions had no consequence but those he would suffer personally.

    "Why haven¡¯t you left yet?.. Do you need me to end your sufferings as well?" Responded the prisoner. Once again refusing to respond to the man¡¯s question.

    While still keeping his eyes closed, the Orange Thorn showed his palms to the prisoner and said "Hold on, I don¡¯t have anything again the kid.. I am a potential ally.. This was all a matter of proving which one deserves the spot."

    "What is the poisonous rose?" Asked the prisoner with his usual tone. He then paused slightly, and added "Don¡¯t lie."

    The Orange Thorn took a breath of relief. It didn¡¯t seem that this man would try to kill him right away, so, he decided to try and get himself out of this trouble by saying the truth. "We are alchemists.. But our main research is in the field of poison."

    "How did the kid enter this group?"

    The Orange Thorn quickly recounted the events that had taken ce in Mira. How Daniel had joined an academy that was part of The Poisonous Rose as an independent alchemist, about how he was poisoned with one of the signature poisons created by one of the major families of The Poisonous Rose, and how he had taken it upon himself to create a cure, only to then create a pill which would grant a permanent low-level poison immunity.

    Unbeknownst to the Orange Thorn, a faint smile had appeared behind the mask of the prisoner. He had been satisfied by Daniel¡¯s character. Ever since he had decided to save the passengers of the ship, risked his life to prevent a vassal of the parasitic faction from invade an isted world, and had decided to not leave him to die in the ship after he had helped him escape from the vassal.

    Now that he had learned that this man was actually not Daniel¡¯s enemy, he decided not to kill him. Instead, after the exnation, he disappeared without leaving any traces. Leaving a confused Orange Thorn to quietly float in space, while thinking that he would die at any moment.

    -----

    1 monthter.

    "Twenty-eight thousand cities in total. The majority of the continents have epted to join willingly, and allowed us to ce a teleportation tform in their territory. Edmund and Heimart are going crazy about that.. The increases in traffic within thepany building has increased by twenty-five thousand percent.. And that has slowed everything down.. We need more space." Said Roley, while reporting their progress in subjugating the countries of this world.

    "I already have a n for that.. How did they have taken our demands about the changes to their set ofws?" Asked Daniel while looking at a few stacks of paper.

    Roley shrugged his shoulders with indifference, and said "Not that happily.. But they will adapt. They know they are all in the same boat now.. Anyone they¡¯ll offend outside of their is likely to kill them on the spot."

    Roley was right. Until just a couple of months earlier, these people lived their lives at the top of the world. They were the most powerful people around, and if not them, their fathers or grandfathers were.. And that had made them justifiably proud.. But now, any twenty-year old kid would be able to surpass the power of any cultivator within Daniel¡¯s word of origin.

    "Well, I have no problem with people rebelling.. Putting them back in their ce won¡¯t be difficult. Just make sure that very bes illegal, and that all of the ves get freed." Responded Daniel with a hint of irritation.

    He wanted to open his world to inteary travel, but in order to do that, he needed to fulfill an objective of which he knew nothing about. That objective was to upgrade his ¡¯gift¡¯ to a point where he would be considered a chosen of Iewah¡¯s faction.

    He had thought a lot about this for the past four months, and in the end, he hade to the conclusion about what he was most likely required to do.

    Sewah had changed drastically only after Daniel had finished his first quest, and since that was the only major change he had seen in Sewah ever since he had obtained it, it was usible that he would need to make him evolve again, or even a few more times, before he could be considered a chosen of Iewah¡¯s faction.

    The only way he had to prove or disprove this theory, was by finishing one more of the quests that had stagnated in his system for the past 5-6 years.

    A few of the active quests appeared to be repeatable and had no apparent ending, while some others, had a clear end. Amongst these, abolishing very in his world of origin was the one that appeared to be the easiest toplete.

    "What about the other humanoid races?" Asked Daniel out of the blue.

    "All of the tribes that we know about.. But one.. Followed our instructions. The asums refused at first.. But they won¡¯t be a problem anymore." Responded Roley with a slightly embarrassed tone.

    "What happened to them?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "Well.. Jerigh had something to say about their society.. Long story short.. The asum race has one less tribe, and the the orphanages within the pocket dimension are full to the brim." Said Roley with exasperation.

    During the past month, He, Heimart, Imblen, Alis, and Ligart had decided to go back to visit their families. Almost six years had passed since they had departed to participate in the Lost Inheritance Tournament, and it was time for them to go back. At thest moment, Jerigh had decided to join in.

    After they had arrived to Cerulis, the port city where they had met each other, while they had split to go back to the respective territories of their families and groups, Jerigh had turned towards the direction of the empire on whose border his asum tribe was camped.

    When he had reached his tribe, he had been recognized immediately. The Jer Krigh was an important individual in their culture. The cinder warrior.. An individual which had risen from the bottom of the society, and had earned the title of warrior.

    Unfortunately, the Asum were too attached to their traditions.. And when they had been intimated to stop with their cruel ways, Jerigh had exterminated thempletely. He had then taken the children that were being kept as ves, and took them into the pocket dimension with him.

    Roley and the rest had learned about this only when they had arrived to conquer the empire which had imprisoned Daniel for two and a half years. Within the territory which had a border inmon with the empire, they had found only corpses.

    Back in Daniel¡¯s office.

    "Did you finish with thest continent?" Asked Daniel while moving his eyes away from the stacks of papers for the very first time since their conversation had started.

    "Close. We are going through thest few inds.. Another week, and we are done." Responded Roley inly.

    "Good.. can you take care of these things for me? I want to break through the sixth stage before the opens for inteary travel.. We don¡¯t know who will arrive once it does.." Said Daniel with a hopeful tone. Honestly speaking, cultivating was as good of an excuse as any other. He would have done anything to get away from all of those piled up urgent matters.

    Roley nodded in response, and before he could even say the word ¡¯okay¡¯, Daniel had already disappeared.

    Back in his room, Daniel quietly sat on his bed, and took a few thousand perfect crystals out of his spatial ring. He then ced them all around his body, and after closed his eyes, he focused on absorbing the pure mana of which they were formed of.

    -----

    Ten more days passed by without Daniel noticing. He had cultivated for the entire time, and now that the tenth day had ended, he was interrupted by a window that had randomly appeared in his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest Started: Freedom for All!*

    -Description: Eradicate very from the world.

    Reward: 500,000,000 Karma Points / Isted Reputation -40%

    ____________________________

    Second evolution of the karmic system.

    ____________________________

    Just like Daniel had expected, every evolution of the Karmic System would arrive after thepletion of a main quest.. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t have the time to celebrate.. As right after finishing to read the message in the small window, a soul shaking migraine cleared his mind off of any form of rational thought.

    "Oh yes.. It¡¯s time to eat.." Said a familiar voice from within Daniel¡¯s head.

 Chapter 243 A Chosen of Iewah

    "Oh yes.. It¡¯s time to eat.." Said a familiar voice from within Daniel¡¯s head.

    *AAAAARGH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!*

    Daniel was lying down on the ground. He was curled up in a ball, and screaming to the top of his lungs while holding his head in his hands. He could feel his sanity seep away due to a pain which was so strong, that it had turned his mind fuzzy, and made focusing impossible to him.

    The sound of his screams resounded through the entire castle, waking everybody up, and making them dash towards his room to the top of their speed.

    "DAN!" Shouted Edmund, which was the first one to teleport in front of his room. *BOOM BOOM BOOM* He punched the door of Daniel¡¯s room repeatedly, but aside from more and more screams, he received no response.

    Der and Jerigh, which had appeared right after, and were the only ones with the power to smash a door open inside Daniel¡¯s castle, took a step back, then at the same time.. *SPRAAAAAAAAH* The handle of the door was broken into pieces, and therge b of wood which separated them from Daniel, was smashed open.

    The moment the door was opened, the full power of Daniel¡¯s voice exploded through the entire castle and pocket dimension, forcing everyone who heard it, to cover their ears in an attempt to avoid any sort of damage.

    From the moment the migraine started until when Der, Jerigh, and Edmund, had opened Daniel¡¯s door, only a handful of seconds had passed. What the three saw when the door was smashed open, was Daniel¡¯s body curled up in a fetal position while holding his head in between his hands.

    Around Daniel¡¯s head, they could see some sort of odd grey blur. It covered itpletely, and waved around his head while emitting a constant crunching noise, which was difficult to hear during Daniel¡¯s screaming.

    *AAAAAAAAAARGH* *HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!*

    The pain was unbearable, and no matter how much he screamed, it didn¡¯t seem to go away. It got to a point where, left without choice, he tried to cause another source of pain in order to distract himself from the painful crunching that was going on in his head.

    His fingers pressed harder against his head, making the skin of his scalp and fingertips turn white from theck of blood. His nails were digging in deeper and deeper, until they cut through the skin, and made their way through the flesh that protected his cranium.

    Der, Jerigh and Edmund did not know what to do. They rushed towards him, and tried to see what the problem was, but no matter which of them, the more they approached, the worse they felt. Daniel¡¯s deafening screams had be a powerful sonic attacks from which they were unable to protect themselves from, unless they used all of their power.

    But they soon decided against that, as if Daniel suddenly stopped, they would risk injuring him.

    The next minute went on painfully for Daniel, and painfully for his friends, which had now regrouped in front of him.. Completely unable to meddle with what was happening.

    Re and Alesia were scared beyond words, and Thien, which would usually stay in his room to train in the dark, was looking at the most powerful of Daniel¡¯s friends with doubt.

    Unfortunately, none of them knew what was happening.

    After this long and torturous minute, the screaming finally stopped.. Finally revealing the crunching sound which, now, was bing softer as well.

    After Daniel stopped screaming, he quietly stood up, and looked at his own body. He touched his arms and legs.. Tried to walk around the room, and touch the soft looking carpet he was standing on. On his face, was a childish and happy expression.

    "Dan?.." Said Alesia with caution. "Are you okay?"

    After hearing Alesia¡¯s words, Daniel turned slowly towards his friends, and with a disgusting looking smile, he said "Never been better." His eyes were now shining with a golden hue, and looked like two big pieces of golden ore which had just been pulled out of the dirt.

    Something was different in Daniel¡¯s eyes, and the first to notice this, was Jerigh, which unsheathed his sword and attacked him with the fastest speed he could muster.

    Daniel reacted quickly, and without holding back in the least, he used his superior power to increase the graviting around Jerigh to a level which he could not withstand.

    Now on his knees, Jerigh looked at Daniel with doubt.. His eyes opened wide in shock after hearing the words that came from thetter¡¯s mouth. "Why is someone beneath me attacking me?" Said Daniel in the asum tongue.

    A sh of realization made its way in the minds of Imblen and Jerigh, which were the only two that had understood Daniel¡¯s words. The person that was in front of them, wasn¡¯t Daniel.

    Despite not being able to understand the asum tongue, Alesia noticed that something was different. She tried to approach Daniel, but before she could speak, Imblen grabbed her arm, and prevented her from moving forward.

    Slightly confused by her action, Alesia turned to look at Imblen, but before the two could talk, Jerigh said in themon tongue "Forgive me." Only then the gravity around him lessened, and he was allowed to stand up again.

    "It better not happen again." Said Daniel with a threatening tone, while looking at the ring in hand.

    Out of the blue, a big empty bottle which had no particr purpose appeared in front of him, then immediately fell on the ground, and shattered in a thousand pieces.

    Der and Edmund looked at Daniel, and felt something very odd in his behaviour. To them, it appeared as if they were watching a kid y with their spiritual essence for the very first time. Way too much power had been used to take the item out, and he had no control over where to make the item appear.

    "Hahaha! Look at this!" Said Daniel afterughing hysterically at the most simple, and basic action which any practitioner would learn at the beginning of their path of cultivation.

    Re and Alesia were now anxious, and wanted to say something, but they stopped after they saw Jerigh¡¯s face, which was extremely serious, even whenpared to the one he showed during the majority of the day.

    As they noticed Jerigh¡¯s expression, the two remained quiet.

    Suddenly, thousands and thousands of perfect crystals appeared around Daniel, forming a small mountain near his feet. "Leave now, I¡¯ll cultivate for a bit.. Keep going what you¡¯ve been doing so far, and bring me more of these things.." Ordered Daniel to his closest friends, as if he was giving orders to a bunch of inferior people.

    At this point, the group walked out of the room with alert expressions on their faces. Jerigh sent a sideway look at the individual which he couldn¡¯t recognize, then left with the others.

    "Brothers.. Wait for me.." Said Daniel a malicious smile formed on his lips.

    -----

    The day had arrived.

    After Daniel¡¯s system had evolved to the second level, he had officially be a Chosen of Iewah¡¯s faction. This event had been felt by the officer of the universal government which had been in charge of keeping an eye on Daniel¡¯s world of origin, which had quickly reported it to their higher ups.

    Daniel¡¯s world of origin had officially be part of Iewah¡¯s faction, and the had been removed from the list of the nearly infinite list of isted world.

    While the majority of the universe wouldn¡¯t have cared about an isted world bing part of one of the many factions, the same wasn¡¯t for Iewah¡¯s. Whenever Iewah¡¯s faction managed to add a to their territory, the eyes of the entire universe would turn to look at the show.

    The reason for that was simple.. The Chosen of Iewah were monstrous entities, and those who survived to reach a certain level, were considered monsters which no one but the strongest members of the other factions couldpare to.

    What was interesting about the this particr type of entity, was that the number of Chosen of Iewah would never increase too much, as the moment they appeared, they would start waging war amongst each other.

    The war amongst The Sword Wielder and The Tamer¡¯s army, had be one of the most well known and bloody wars in the history of the universe, and while neither of them had died during that war, the fallout of their fight had extended through the entire known universe for many years.

    Now, a new chosen of Iewah had appeared, and while everyone knew that it would take a lot for him or her to develop to a point where it couldpete against the others, they couldn¡¯t help but find the event interesting.. After all, a wolf cub was still a wolf.

    The faction that was affected the most by the appearance of the new world in the territory of Iewah¡¯s faction, was the faction itself. From many close-by sr systems, hundreds of thousands of massive ships had departed in a matter of hours since the was opened to inteary travel.

    These ships contained millions of merchants that would do anything to put their hands on the resources which an isted world contained. Their travel wouldst only a few months, and the moment they would arrive, the would be a battleground for greedy merchants, and entrepreneurs.

    Something that was unknown to Daniel, was that more often than not, when a became part of the territory of Iewah¡¯s faction, the powerful cultivators that would pour into the would, in one way or another, take the ce of the natives.

    Starting feuds, purchasingnd, assassination, secret deals.. No matter what was necessary, the weak natives of the would lose it at one point or another, and this new wave of strong people would take their ce as the new inhabitants of this world.

    That, was the human way. They would enter a rich and fertile new ground with good intentions and smiles, but after staying for a bit, they would get toofortable.. And start wondering why the strongest should allow the weakest to keep the majority of the wealth. They were stronger, and they should be able to take everything they wanted from the weak, whenever they wanted.

    Of course, this process would y out in a matter of years, but there were hardly any exceptions. The onlys which weren¡¯t subjected to this treatment, were those in which the chosen decided to nt their roots, marking it into his, or her territory.

    Once theirs, no one within their faction would dare to put a foot in it without their permission, after all, the Chosens of Iewah, the Vassals of the Parasitic King, the Envoys of the Spiritual Emperor, the Heralds of the Sovereign of Corruption, the Mental Warriors of the Psionic Dimensions, and the simr entities within the other factions, were special entities within their groups. They were treated with respect, and aside from their strongest peers and leaders, they were uncontested rulers.

    Each of them had followed the path dictated by their faction, and evolved into true followers of their lords.

    -----

    Right after the barrier erected by the universal government was removed, a powerful member of Iewah¡¯s faction had quickly appeared in the orbit of the. He was the person who had been ordered to act as the keeper of key of this world, and would stay there indefinitely, or until relieved of this task.

    When this man appeared, he immediately noticed the presence of the prisoner, which was, just like he had done for the past month and a half, waiting that someone from Iewah¡¯s faction could detain him.

    "Outcast.. Why are you here?" Asked a disembodied voice to a calm and rxed prisoner, which looked attentively at a specific point of Daniel¡¯s of origin.

    "I was here to be detained for my actions.. But now I want to see how this ys out.." Responded the prisoner before disappearing from the keeper¡¯s sight.

    In the exact spot where the prisoner was looking, was a patch of green forest. Hidden amongst the many trees which formed it, was the massive capital of Karalis, inside which, in one of the castle¡¯s rooms, a young man sat at a table while peacefully eating his breakfast. On this man¡¯s hand was a ring, and inside this ring, was a pocket dimension which contained a semi-perfect world, a city, and a castle.

    Inside the biggest room of this castle, a familiar young man quietly cultivated.. And buried in the deepest corners of his mind, was a small cubic space formed of some sort of green power. Inside it, was a small grey cloud.

 Chapter 244 I am not going to die here

    The small grey could within the green cage floated quietly, almost in a perpetual stasis. No sound could be heard, only a faint light in which a few images yed out slowly.. Images of a kid fishing with his father, a family dinner.. Pictures of a mother which straightened the skirt of her daughter, while the father looked proudly from the side. Images of a girl with tinum hair which brushed a lock of ck hair away from the scene.. Images of a man in armor, joining a group of simrly dressed men, that would never return again.

    These images were the memories which had never left Daniel¡¯s mind. They were some of the most important memories he had, the ones that, if forgotten, would cause an endless sense of regret to befall upon his life.. And the reason why they kept ying out over and over again.

    "..ake u..."

    Said a disembodied voice while trying to reach a pair of ears that wasn¡¯t there, disturbing the repeating circle of images, and making the small grey-colored cloud flinch slightly.

    "Wa.. up.."

    Once again, the voice tried to reach this formless grey cloud, and stop the constant repeating of the images.. But this time, a faint throb could be seen in its borderless shapes. The images became fuzzy, and the vapor-like substance of which it wasposed, started to vibrate in ce.

    "WAKE UP!!" Shouted the voice as two massive green eyes appeared on one of the four walls of the green cage. They were looking down at the grey cloud, and calling for it to wake up.

    The moment the shout resounded within the green cage, the cloud started to shift in space. It quickly became denser, darker in color, and slowly took the shape of a human being.

    "Wha.. where am I?" Said Daniel with an ethereal voice. His surroundings were unlike anything he had ever seen, and he wasn¡¯t able to use his power. He felt confused, and didn¡¯t know what was going on. All he knew was that he was within a green cage, and his body wasn¡¯t physical.

    "On the brink of death.." Muttered the voice that came from the two green eyes suspended in on the wall that was directly behind him. His tone was grim, and it was clear that he wasn¡¯t saying it for no reason.

    "You.. you are the prisoner?.." Asked Daniel with confusion, before shouting angrily "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!?" He knew nothing of what was going on, nor could he remember the veryst thing that had happened to him before he had ended up in that state. All he knew, was that he was alone, and trapped in a green cage. His mind was clouded, and he couldn¡¯t reason too well.. To think that the prisoner was the one that had pulled some trick on him, was more than reasonable.

    "I¡¯ve saved your life.." Responded the prisoner while narrowing his eyes. He wasn¡¯t a patient man, and he knew he didn¡¯t have enough time to waste, so, he decided to get to the point "Listen.. You were dealt a bad card when you ended up in the old man¡¯s hands.. Iewah is not your friend.. Nor was the personality of your gift.. You¡¯ve raised it, turned it stronger.. And now it devoured you. That¡¯s how the children of Iewah are born.. The chosen ones, are just sacrifices."

    Daniel was shocked by the words he had just heard, but unfortunately, it didn¡¯t show in the basic smoke human-like shape he was currently in. "What?.. That¡¯s absurd.. Iewah¡¯s gifts are for the good-willed people. If what you say is right, why wouldn¡¯t he hand out these sorts of gifts to everyone?!" Asked Daniel with doubt.

    "Oh.. Yes.. an opportunity to do good, a gracious being which hands out overpowered blessing to the first good kid thates around.." muttered the prisoner with irony. "It¡¯s his method. Do good.. People will follow.. Gain power, gain followers.. Make the gift evolve.. And die. It¡¯s always like that.."

    Daniel couldn¡¯t believe it. He had spent the past years thinking that there was nothing that he couldn¡¯t do, because he had a good morale, and that to back up that morale, there was a benevolent being which had chosen him as his champion.

    Without needing to hear it directly from Daniel¡¯s mouth, the prisoner said "There isn¡¯t such a thing as a benevolent leader. Iewah, the blood god, the sovereign of corruption, the spiritual cultivator.. You name it. They want power, they want the destruction of the others, and they have their ways."

    These informations were too much for Daniel to handle, so, he took a step back in the conversation, and said "How am I alive?"

    "I¡¯ve protected a portion of your mind." Responded the prisoner with a matter-of-fact tone. "You¡¯ve been digested into your current state.."

    Daniel tried to process this response, but he was about to lose his mind. The grey fog was bing darker, and yet dissipating in intensity. His feet were the first thing to disappear.. "What is happening to me?" Asked Daniel with anxiousness. He could feel himself drift away..

    "Try to stay calm.. It is impossible for you to be any weaker without dying.." Responded the prisoner in an attempt to calm Daniel down.

    In order to prevent the personality of Daniel¡¯s gift from noticing, the prisoner was forced to use his power to cast the weakest possible mind protection on Daniel¡¯s mind.. He was now inside the mind of Sewah, and if the green barrier wasn¡¯t there, he would quickly be digested into nothingness.

    Almost as if trying to take a deep breath, Daniel quickly calmed himself down. He was used to critical situations, and to cause him to go into panic, was only the surprise caused by how sudden and unexpected all of this was. One moment he was thinking of which benefits Sewah¡¯s second evolution would bring him, and the next, he was smoke in Sewah¡¯s stomach.

    "Is Sewah controlling my body now?" Asked Daniel with clear anger.

    The two big green eyes blinked once, then said "He is.."

    "I have to go back then.. I have to take back control over my body! You don¡¯t know Sewah.. He is a troublemaker.. I have to go back before he does something bad.." Said Daniel with urgency. He had seen Sewah be born the very moment he had received the system, and while he had helped him a few times, in the end, he had done it all to devour Daniel.

    Once again, the two big green eyes blinked, before the prisoner said "It¡¯s already been two years.."

    -----

    In the vast and endless space, was a small. Its size didn¡¯t reach fifty thousand kilometers in circumference, and yet it was still a perfect world. Blue seas, green forests, white mountaintops, and yellow deserts.

    For as big as this was, only one city could be seen on its surface.

    This city wasn¡¯t really a city per se.. It was more of a castle filled with monuments to the glory of a singr individual. Small and identical houses were put in anonymous rows, and in between these houses, a massive castle stood impressively.

    There were at least two hundred statues in this, and each of them, depicted the same person.. That person was, of course, Daniel. The statues recounted of glorious events, and depicted Daniel in poses which reminded the people of all of the battles he had gone through for the past two years.

    The entire city gave the feel of a military camp, and everyone who lived there, would move around quietly and trying to make as little noise as possible. If that wasn¡¯t enough, whenever someone walked in front of one of Daniel¡¯s statues, they would have to bow politely to it in sign of respect.

    Sitting in a throne made out of pure gold, was Sewah, that for the past two years, had used Daniel¡¯s body to grow in power, and fulfill the purpose for which he was born for.. Doing everything he wanted..

    The first thing which Sewah had done after devouring Daniel¡¯s mind, was to cultivate for six long months. In six months, he had maxed out the system¡¯s passive ability ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and had used all of Daniel¡¯s karma points to cultivate to the early eighth stage of immortal cultivation.

    When the merchants had arrived to Daniel¡¯s of origin, he had made clear that the belonged to him, and whoever would have tried to take a pebble from it, would have died by his hands.

    The most greedy and courageous of the merchants had tried to kill Sewah, but unfortunately, none of them was able to oppose him until he had the ability of the karmic system to abuse.

    For the following year and a half, Sewah had waged war against one group after the other for Iewah.. Meeting with low level elites of the other factions during the wars for iming new and sr systems, and battling to death.

    In an attempt to amuse himself, he had even managed to find Noah, the adept of the third spiritual envoy, and had killed him in order to ¡¯honor¡¯ Daniel¡¯s sacrifice.

    After conquering hundreds ofs for Iewah¡¯s faction, his fame grew, along with the numbers of the people that had decided to follow him.

    Unfortunately, Sewah wasn¡¯t as picky as Daniel, and epted anybody that was willing to bend to him. That, had lead to Daniel¡¯s friends and group members to not wanting to have anything to do with the group anymore.. One by one, they lost faith in him.. And left the group.

    The only people which were still by Daniel¡¯s side, were Jerigh, his uncle Thien, and his sister Re, while the rest of Daniel¡¯s friends, thinking that he would never manage to recover from what had happened to him, had decided to leave along with the pocket dimension.

    Sewah could have easily taken back control over the pocket dimension, but to him, these people meant nothing, so, he had let them go.

    It was instinctive for a children of Iewah topete with the others, and yet, Sewah was aware that he was still too weak topete with his siblings. Not even a thousand of him would be able to defeat one of the strongest amongst the minions of his brothers¡¯ or sisters¡¯ armies.

    His intention was to gain power just like they had done, and then, prove himself to be worth the title.

    -----

    "Two years.." muttered Daniel in his foggy form. To him, it felt like he had just gone to sleep, and had woken up a few momentster.. And instead, two years had gone by in the outside world. He wanted to explode in rage, but at the moment, he didn¡¯t even have the eyes to cry. "Is there a way to take back control over my body?"

    The two big green eyes looked at Daniel up and down "There is.. But.. I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ll be able to handle it." He then said with a grim tone, almost as if thinking about the suffering which Daniel would have to go through, and that he knew so well.

    "What do you mean?" Asked Daniel in confusion.

    "The mind path is not easy.. Your life will change.. Your world will change.." responded the prisoner with a saddened tone. He was a mental warrior.. A chosen of his faction.. His domain was the mind, and with it, every form of corruption and suffering that a person¡¯s mind would reflect.

    There wasn¡¯t an easier way to understand a person¡¯s pain, than feeling it yourself.. And that, was the path of a mental warrior. Grief, regret, hate, envy.. Joy, pride and love of every person around.. There wasn¡¯t a power that was more effective in making its wielder lose his mind than mental power, and he knew that.

    "It can¡¯t be worse than being stuck here.." Said Daniel with unwillingness.

    For a moment, the man¡¯s eyes showed deep sadness, as he said "There isfort in death.." He then quickly snapped out of it, and while looking at Daniel attentively, he added "Are you sure?"

    "I am not going to die here.. The list of people I have to punish just became longer."

 Chapter 245 A Disaster in the Making

    "What is it now?" Said Sewah while sittingzily on his golden throne.

    A man d in te armor had juste into the throne room with his head lowered. His actions were not due to the fear he felt for Sewah, but due to the immense amount of respect he had for him. Sewah had shown that he deserved the fame of a true son of Iewah more than once in the past year and a half, and despite hiscks as a merciful ruler, he had gained a massive following.

    Unfortunately, the group that Sewah had created was not based on thebined desire to do good and be stronger, but by his selfish desire to do whatever their leader wanted, no matter what effect that would have on people. That had lead his group to be filled with fanatics.

    He naturally loved the attention and devotion that only a fanatic could provide, but he felt no attachment to these people whatsoever. To him, they were funny little toys that yed for his bidding whenever he felt like it.

    "My lord.. New orders have arrived. We are required to reach a new gxy that has been opened to exploration in the sector number 5503." Responded the heavily armored man with deep respect.

    As if awoken from hiszy state, Sewah straightened his back, and said "Who will y with us?" He had spent thest couple of weeks in his little, and all he wanted was to get back into the fray. The orders which he had received were the only thing that he cared about.

    "Five more factions. One with whom we are allied, three more which have formed a second alliance, and one that decided to attempt a solitary conquest." Responded the man promptly.

    "Who are the main yers?" Asked Sewah after leaning forward, and resting on his elbows.

    "Aside from you, my lord, four other factions have decided to send elite fighters. Amongst them are eight tyrants of nature, three void dwellers, nine heralds in training, and two demigods."

    "HA!! This is going to be so much fun!" Exploded Sewah with enthusiasm. He had been sent to conquers and sr systems, but he had never been sent as the general of their army. That job, would usually go to one of his more powerful and experienced siblings.

    Happy to see his lord in such high spirits, the heavily armored man added "My lord.. There is more.." On his face was a big smile. He clearly couldn¡¯t wait to see what Sewah¡¯s reaction would be after he revealed the rest of their orders.

    Sewah quickly noticed the expression that had appeared on the man¡¯s face, and asked with curiosity "Ohh.. what else?"

    "Themunication said that you will be receiving a partner.. Another chosen of Iewah.. A woman." Responded the man, clearly ecstatic about being the one that could tell this to his lord.

    Silence reigned supreme in the throne room for a few seconds.. And just when the man¡¯s smile had began to disappear, and the thought that his lord would kill him on a whim started to form in his head..

    "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! This is getting better and better!!" Sewah burst outughing. This was the most exciting moment of his life.

    It is important to understand something. Iewah¡¯s children were born to battle. All of them were overlords in the making, and that didn¡¯t change no matter how many or how powerful they became. The sheer idea of entering in contact with someone else that had such high aspirations, and being able to fight with them, was the true meaning of their lives.

    This was the first of his siblings that Sewah would encounter, and therefore, he couldn¡¯t be any happier than that.

    "Who is it??" Asked Sewah after teleporting in front of the man, and taking away the sheet of paper from the man¡¯s hands. He then started to read the few words written on it.

    "... sr systems 016, 035, 036, 039.. h h.. Where is it.." He muttered as his eyes quickly moved left and right at a fast speed, only to stop after a few seconds "Kreah.. Born eight years ago." he muttered as a wide and disgusting face appeared on his face.

    Of course, with ¡¯born eight years ago¡¯, the writer of themunication didn¡¯t mean to specify the age of birth of the host, but instead, the number of years which had passed since Kreah had devoured her host¡¯s mind.

    "Hello sister.." he muttered while looking at the portrait of his partner. He then teleported back on his throne, and after closing his eyes, he touched the small medallion which was hanging from his neck.

    This medallion had a square shape, but with uneven borders. It appeared as if four eyes had been interlocked with one another. It was made of an odd metal which was incredibly hard to find in the majority of the universe, and it was extremely hard to break. This medallion was also enchanted with multiple spatial formations. Each with a different use.

    Right at the center of this medallion, was a small ttened square, which right after being touched by Sewah, was brightened with a faint golden light.

    The small golden light moved on the surface of the t part of the medallion from left to right, only stopping after reaching the all the way to the right. It then dimmed in intensity, leaving four numbers carved on it. These numbers, were 5503.

    After the golden light disappeared, Sewah touched the numbers with his thumb, and suddenly, arge portal opened in front of him.

    This portal was at least five meters in diameter, and was eye-shape. Seeing through it was impossible, as its surface appeared like a pool of molten gold.

    This portal, was the portal used to travel through the universe by the elite members of Iewah¡¯s faction. Virtually all of Iewah¡¯s children had one, and yet, only those who needed to use them toplete a task, would ultimately be allowed to use it. If they wanted to travel for reasons that had nothing to do with Iewah¡¯s faction, they would have to use their own means.

    Sewah looked at this golden rift with enthusiasm, and without waiting any longer, he approached it. But just as he was about to go through it, an odd sharp pain appeared in his head.

    This pain was nothing too strong, and yet, it had appeared out of nowhere. Ultimately, it had simply irritated Sewah, who after giving himself a weak hit to the side of his head, forgot about the matter, and walked into the portal.

    -----

    Inside Sewah¡¯s mind, 1 minute earlier.

    "Stop being afraid of it. It¡¯s a fraction of his mind.. It will only be able to devour you if you let it." Said the prisoner with clear irritation. He had seen Daniel¡¯s foggy shape escape from a much smaller piece of Sewah¡¯s mind for the past twenty minutes, and he was starting to lose his patience.

    Unfortunately, he was fully aware of the reason why Daniel was escaping. He was currently in a stage where any sort of damage could kill him. He was not prepared to fight as a simple wisp of consciousness, nor had he fully understood the mechanics of it. After he had confirmed that he wanted to get back the control over his own body, the prisoner had simply opened a small hole in the cage, and used Daniel¡¯s wisp of consciousness as a bait to attract a portion of Sewah¡¯s mind.

    At the same time, he had simply said to him "Don¡¯t fear it.. Consume it before it consumes you."

    Daniel¡¯s reaction to that was nowhere near positive. In the state he was currently in, he was like an elephant that was scared of a little mouse which could kill him with a simple bite.

    What the prisoner wanted Daniel to understand, was that it didn¡¯t matter it the mouse would only need a small bite to finish him off.. He could simply stomp him before it would manage to do that. But if he said that to him directly, he would cause many thoughts to appear in his already weak consciousness.

    How do I kill it? Is he lying to me? Will I be able to make it?

    The appearance of those questions in his mind was sure to distract his already weak mind enough for the wisp of Sewah¡¯s mind power to kill him. Instead, what Daniel needed, was to reach a point where he would have to rely on his survival instincts, and act ordingly.

    That only happened after about fifty seconds.. When the prisoner decided to shrink the cage in order to stop Daniel from keeping on escaping over and over again.

    Daniel found himself backed up in a corner, and after seeing the wisp of Sewah¡¯s mind approach him in an attempt to end his existence, his instincts kicked in. Without thinking too much about it, he expanded himself into a dense foggy sheet, and after enshrouding the wisp of mind, he closed around it.

    "Consume it.. It¡¯s not different from eating.." Said the prisoner while observing Daniel¡¯s slightly bigger ball of grey fog.

    Daniel followed the instructions, and quickly started topress himself against the wisp of Sewah¡¯s mind, which reacted by dissipating bit by bit. It was at this exact moment, that Sewah had felt a sharp paine from his brain.

    Daniel finished devouring Sewah¡¯s wisp of mind after only a few seconds, leaving no traces of it. "Very good.. Now.. repeat this with the rest of it.." Said the prisoner while forcing the green barrier to bing transparent, and allowing Daniel to see how much mind power was present outside it.

    After absorbing Sewah¡¯s mind power, he had grown a little bit. He was now more resistant, and he would feel a lot less threatened by any simr wisp of mind power. "Let¡¯s keep going." Said Daniel with increased confidence.

    -----

    Gxy 5503

    Before Sewah had walked through the eye-shaped golden portal, in the empty void, a few other portals had opened, and from them, other powerful individuals had walked out calmly.

    Amongst them, were eight men and women dressed in multicolored attires, which had walked out of a ming portal. Each of them had different colored clothes, and on it, were depicted the symbols of the natural elements which they used. They were the tyrants of nature, and each of them was followed by two powerful elementals of the same element.

    On another part of the void, a mirror-like portal had opened, and from it, three ck-clothed young individuals had walked out. Two of them were women, and one of them was a man. The three of them had no distinctive signs on them except for their eyes. Both of their eyes were devoid of pupils and iris, and instead, they simply had a purple sclera. These three individuals, were the dwellers of the void.

    About a kilometer away, a ck portal had opened, and from it, a powerful death-like power was seeping through. From it, a group of nine-ck clothed individuals walked out. Their eyes emanated a faint ck smoke, and they were surrounded by a threatening vibe. They were the nine heralds in training of the corrupted faction.

    Not much further away, an impressively tall couple hade out of blood red pool. Both of their eyes, eyshes, and hair, were dark red in color, just like their clothes. They were the two demigods which belonged to the blood faction.

    All of these individuals were proud and extremely powerful, and yet, ever since the moment they had appeared, they had started to observe the elite members of the other factions. They knew that they would likely have to fight them.

    Their expressions weren¡¯t affected by the sight of any of these groups, until suddenly, two eye-shaped gold portals opened at a distance of a few hundred meter from each other. Only then their expressions became stern, and turned towards these two portal with alertness.

 Chapter 246 Until Ill Find a Way to Kill You

    Alerted by the two eye-shaped golden portals, the numerous elite warriors of the four other factions turned to look at the clear sign of the arrival of the crazy Chosens of Iewah, and prepared themselves to see a good show, or to start a battle at a moment¡¯s notice.

    The children of Iewah were universally viewed like toddlers armed with deadly weapons, and a passion for war. It wasn¡¯t easy to understand what crazy power they possessed, but when simplypared to the cultivation of another cultivator, they weren¡¯t stronger in any way.

    Of course, Sewah had ess to the same system that Daniel had, and could potentially grow in power at a mind boggling speed.. But as an eighth stage cultivator, he wasn¡¯t stronger than any other individual at the same level. The only advantages that he had, were those provided by the system.. Which unfortunately, he couldn¡¯t use at the moment.

    Sewah was currently out of karma, and therefore, he wasn¡¯t able to use the majority of the system¡¯s skills. What he could do with it, was to activate ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and increase his karmic debt in order to cultivate, and increase the production of immortal essence.

    After the two golden portals opened, from one of them, Sewah walked out with a bright smile on his face. He was dressed in the attire that he was used to wear while rxing in his throne room, which was arge golden robe.

    The first thing he did, was to look around the empty space, but after he saw that his sister hadn¡¯te out yet, he turned towards the second portal, andpletely ignored the elite members of the other factions.

    The other elites did not really care about this. They had heard stories about the chosen of Iewah, and they were already aware of the fact that nothing interested them more than fighting against each other. If Sewah had taken interest into them instead of the person that was about to arrive from the other side of the second golden portal, they would have found it odd.

    Without making them wait for two long, the surface of the second portal started to vibrate like the calm surface of a body of water during a rainy day, and from it, a girl in her mid twenties walked out.

    The expression of this girl was one of indifference, which paired with her good-looking features, made her look like a walking statue. She had a cascade of light grey hair which went down halfway down her arms, and a pair of golden colored-eyes.

    Compared to Sewah, her clothes were much more practical. She was wearing gold-colored tight fitting clothes, which didn¡¯t do much to cover her cleavage and legs. On her neck, was a medallion identical to the one that Sewah possessed.

    The moment she had appeared, her eyes moved directly towards Sewah. "You must be Sewah.." Said the girl to him with a dead tone. She hadn¡¯t even considered the other people around them.

    After hearing the girls voice, Sewah¡¯s instincts started to take over his rationale. He wanted to fight this girl, and it wanted to do it immediately. To a point where he had immediately activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ the moment he had seen her, causing a golden hue to appear in his eyes.

    The two were at the same exact cultivation stage, which had surprised the girl greatly, as her host was almost a hundred years of age before she had reached the eighth stage of cultivation, and since then, only ten more years had passed.

    None of the children of Iewah were aware of which powers the others possessed.. They, along with the other powerful members of Iewah¡¯s faction, could faintly feel what the power was about, but they could never understand how it worked, and what benefits it would give to them.

    Something like that had happened when the keeper of key of Mira had seen Daniel for the first time, and from a single look, he had realized that his gift, which was still under development, worked with Karma. Fortunately, nobody else was able to feel the gifts before they took over their hosts.. Or the two adepts of the spiritual faction would have killed Daniel immediately in order to prevent another of these monsters to be born.

    After Sewah¡¯s eyes started to lit with their faction¡¯s signature golden light, the girl looked at him with interest. She then tried to observe the changes in the surrounding to try and understand what his power was, but ultimately, she couldn¡¯t see anything different.

    Instead of keeping on wondering, she too activated her power, forcing her eyes to brighten with a color slightly stronger than Sewah¡¯s.

    The moment her eyes lit up, Sewah¡¯s mind went nk. His feelings for the woman had changedpletely, and while before he wanted to test his strength against her and fight to the death, he now loved her deeply.

    He couldn¡¯t keep his eyes off of her, and the sheer sight of this woman had made him abandon the idea of conquest, war and enjoyment. He wanted her to be with him, and if destroying the universe would make that possible, he would do it.

    The girl slowly approached him while stepping on an invisible path in the empty space. She then cupped her hand on Sewah¡¯s cheek, causing his heart to threaten to burst out of his chest and jump in her arms.

    She then looked at him with affection before moving closer to his ear, and whispered a few words in it.

    Sewah¡¯s face became happier and happier the more this girl spoke to him, and in the end, as the girl moved back, he looked at her with intense fondness. He then made a sword appear in his hand, and without thinking twice about it, he pierced his heart with it.

    Noticing him follow her orders, the girl smiled in satisfaction. She was overjoyed by the result of her charming power, but then.. She felt a paining from the middle of her chest.

    She looked down in confusion, and saw a cut right where her heart was, from which fresh blood gushed out in copious amounts. Without even having the time to regret, the two died on the spot.

    The elite members of the other factions watched in shock. They knew that the children of Iewah were crazy, but to cause each other¡¯s deaths in a matter of seconds after meeting, that was too odd of an event even for their reputation.

    For the next forty seconds, they looked in confusion.. But then, without them noticing, time started to rewind, and the world was taken to eighty seconds earlier.

    Sewah found himself back in his castle, holding his chest, and breathing heavily. He had underestimated the powers of one of his siblings, and he had paid with one of his two lives.

    The various elite members of the faction which were in charge to fight for the gxy number 5503, were now back to their previous positions. They were watching themselves in confusion, trying to understand what had happened. They had felt time go back, but aside from Sewah, none of them knew why.

    After a few seconds spent thinking about it, they put the matter to the back of their heads, and went toplete their task by opening their portals, and reappearing exactly where they had appeared before.

    Once again, after regrouping in the area, the few of them turned to look at the two golden portals that appeared where just a moment earlier was empty space.. Then, they waited quietly.

    One more time, Sewah walked out first.. But this time, he immediately stepped away from the second portal, and activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and ¡¯Opposite and Equal¡¯.

    Kreah did not wait long to arrive, as she stepped out of her portal just a second after Sewah. She now had a much more cautious expression. She could tell that something had happened, and that time had been forced to rewind. It didn¡¯t take long for her to guess that that, was likely Sewah¡¯s power. She had felt that his power had something to do with karma, and therefore, he had some sort of action/reaction effect attached to his gift.

    She was extremely curious about Sewah¡¯s power, but before she could force him to talk through her power, he said "Hold on.. Before you try any of your mental tricks to kill me again.. Know that it won¡¯t go likest time.. Kill me again, and we both die.. For good this time.. Hehe" There was no worry in his tone, and for a simple reason. He could assume that Kreah wanted to do the same things he wanted to do in her life, and therefore, she would have not wanted to die so soon. Revealing to her that he was aware of her power, had confirmed her suspicions and had made her even more cautious about him.

    "Very well.." said Kreah with her usual emotionless tone. "We will be allied.. Until I¡¯ll find a way to kill you.." She then added.

    "Or the other way around.. Hehe.." Responded Sewah with a bright smile. "Aargh.. Sssh.. damn it.." he then muttered to himself before massaging his temple. Another twinge of pain hade out of nowhere and attacked his brain, but just like before, the pain had onlysted for a few seconds.

    The moment the elite of the other factions understood that there would not be a fight between the two chosen of Iewah, they divided into their respective alliances. The void dwellers, the heralds of corruption, and the tyrants of mana being part of a group, and the demigods of the blood faction being the group that would go in solitary.

    Thest group had decided to not deploy any elite warrior, and that likely meant that they would be sending arge amount of practitioners with no special power, but their own cultivation.

    Right on time, another portal opened.. And from it, arge number of men and women dressed in identical martial arts attire came out in formation. These people were all humans, and were a deployment of the armies of the Ki faction, which was lead by an individual that was called the Ki Overlord.

    This group wasposed of mainly martial cultivators which had trained their ki to a level beyond that of a normal martial cultivator, and therefore, could use it as the main source of their power.

    The reason why this group hadn¡¯t sent any elite member, was because their faction didn¡¯t actually have any. Every cultivator that was part of the Ki faction was a formidable martial artist which would never lose to anyone in terms of physical strength, speed, and resistance, unless they faced against another member of their faction.

    Along with the members of the Psionic dimension and the tyrants of mana, the Ki faction was the faction that more than any one other would ally itself with Iewah¡¯s faction. The reason for that, was that they were the factions that allowed the most freedom to their citizens, and therefore, were the territories where the true nature of humans could be seen thrive naturally.

    Differently, the corrupted faction lived to corrupt, the spiritual faction lived to worship their spiritual leader, the blood faction lived to find beings to sacrifice to their Blood God, and so on for the many other factions in the universe.

    Once this formation of invincible warriors appeared, they approached Sewah and Kreah, and split into two groups of twenty people each. One group went towards Sewah, and one group went towards Kewah.

    The members of the ki faction would usually let the others take control unless there was someone of a higher ranking of their own faction, therefore, before arriving to the site, they had been ordered to follow the two chosen of Iewah, and conquer by following their orders.

    Now that everyone was ready to go, Sewah was about to get things started with one of his sarcastic jokes, but right before he could, another twinge of pain cleared his mind of any word he was about to speak.

 Chapter 247 You Have Picked the Short Straw

    The way a gxy was discovered, was thanks to the explorers of the universe. These individuals were the most respected individuals in the universal government, and without them, the discovered universe would stagnate with the amount of resources it possessed.. causing the constantly increasing numbers of factions and cultivators to have to battle for what was left.

    Another reason why the explorers were so respected, was that they were the first line between a rtively small part of the discovered universe, and anything that was outside. More than once these brave individuals had had to face against beings which would treat them as hostile invaders.. A first contact that would usually be deadly for them.

    Within the universal government, the news that one of them had left to nevere back, was somon, that the idea that the explorers had suicidal tendencies had be a famous misconception.

    These explorers, whose power had nothing to envy from that which the judges possessed, would be sent towards the observable gxies that hadn¡¯t been explored yet. Once there, they would assess the situation, and go back to report what they had discovered.

    Once a gxy was discovered, the universal government would send its own enforcers to secure it under its power. Once stabilized, they would send the news to the various factions, which would then be allowed to im the ownership of certain systems ands.

    When more than one faction imed the ownership of a territory, they would be invited to battle it out amongst themselves. Those who epted to battle, would then send their armies and elite warriors to conquer thoses, or sr systems.

    While these counted as battles, they were not considered wars amongst factions. A war meant that a faction would battle another at any viable asion, and try to either destroy, or take control over portions of their territory. On the other hand, these battles for the ownership of theses, were conflicts that were limited to the battleground, and would not be allowed to be kept going outside of it.

    Even if the son of one of the faction leaders were to die in one of these battles, the universal government would prevent the two factions from starting a war around it. That, along with mediating between two factions in order to prevent a war, and give punishments, was the job of the judges.

    One example of this, was the events in which Daniel had been part of. In both situations, the judges had allowed an agreement between the two parts. Of course, if an agreement was not reached, the two parts would be allowed to start a war, just like the young judge had proposed the idea of starting a war to the vassal of the parasitic faction, and the old judge had proposed that the spiritual faction and the corrupted faction started a war to decide which one would take control over the wastnd world.

    A war between factions would usually cause the destruction of multiples and sr systems on each side, and therefore, it was almost impossible that one would start for the ownership a single. That was why in both situations, the parties had settled for an agreement.

    On the other hand, during a battle for an unimed territory, the rightful owner would be decided on the field. This, was what was happening between the six factions that had decided to take ce in the battle for the gxy number 5503.

    Usually, the various factions would agree on which part of the new territory they would want to put their hands on, and those that did not have the same interests, would usually end up forming an alliance. That was how the various factions wouldpete amongst each others.

    -----

    Six months had passed since the beginning of the battle for gxy n¡ã5503, and Sewah had already imed the majority of thes and systems which he was supposed to obtain for his faction. Simrly, Kreah had conquered the same amount of her half, while also helping the members of the ki faction in their conquest.

    Those, were the deals made by the two factions.

    Most of the times, during the period of conquest of a new gxy, the factions would not immediately start to battle. Instead, they would ensure each and every or system which only they were interested in, and leave the contended ones forst. That was the reason why neither of them had found any sort of resistance so far.

    The gxy number 5503 was extremely small, and it only contained about two million stars. Of these millions of stars, only a small part of them were the center of a sr system, and those who were, only had one or two inhabitables around them. In total, the number of habitables was not higher than five millions, and once removed those who had been imed by the universal government, only a few thousands would remain for the factions to battle for.

    This method had gone on for the past few hundreds of thousands of years, and during that time, an incalcble number of exchanges ofs had been done between the many factions and the universal government, in an attempt to ensure that each gxy would, through trade and a significant amount of time, fall into the possession of a single faction.

    Once the people sent to conquer thes reached them, they would leave a mark of their faction, and then, they would move to the next one.

    At the end of these six months, the undisputeds had finally ended, and it was finally time to fight for the remaining ones.

    Sewah, left alone with only two members of the ki faction, had arrived at the first of theses, and in front of him, he found six individuals. Two of them were were humans, while four, were elementals of lightning, and wood. The two humans were two girls, and each of them wore a set of clothes which showed the type of power which they possessed.

    One of the two girls was the tyrant of lightning, and appeared to be in herte twenties. She was d in a brilliant white dress, which casually discharged electricity, and was apanied by two lightning elementals. The second girl seemed to be in herte teens, and wore a green dress with a green gand of leaves that went around her neck, and joined in the middle of her chest. She was the tyrant of wood, and was apanied by two wood elementals.

    "Our numbers are greater than yours, chosen of Iewah.. Leave. Find another." Said the tyrant of lightning with a sharp and threatening voice.

    For as scary the idea of facing an overpowered and unknown power sounded, the elite members of the other factions were not spineless individuals. Each of them possessed their own gifts, and their pride was as high as that of any children of Iewah, causing them to almost never back out from a fight, especially when in the middle a campaign to conquer a new gxy.

    The gift given to the elites of the Tyrants of Mana, was the merging of their body with a natural element. Thousands of cultivator from the faction of the tyrants of mana would be exposed to a special type of elemental essence, which would seep into their bodies, and in time, merge with them. If they survived, they would be elites of their faction.

    What merging with an element made them capable of, was to create, control, and transform into anything that was within theirprehension of their element. They were the livingbination between a perfect essence sphere, and an elemental. The constructs that they created were permanent, and they were immune to any sort of attack which included their element, and a few more depending on which element they had chosen to merge with.

    For example, the tyrant of lightning was immune to lightning, wind, fire, and earth, while it was slightly stronger against water and wood, and marginally incapacitated by metal.

    The reason why they traveled with two powerful elementals each, was so that they could join in battle by using the massive amounts of essence which the tyrants emanated, as they only had one brain, and it was difficult for them to control all of the power which they were capable to exhibit.

    Sewah was floating in space along with two ki warrior, and on his face, was an expression that showed all but happiness. He had hoped to spend this time battling with powerful cultivators, and ultimately, fight to the death with his sister, but instead, he had been tormented by sharp, and short headaches.

    It was needless to say, that he did not have patience to spare for the two of them.

    "You have picked the shorter straw.. Come.." He said while activating ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, as the umpteenth wave of pain made its way into his brain, powerful to a point, where the back of his eyes hurt.

    For a reason which he couldn¡¯t understand, each of these headaches would make him lose his train of thoughts.. And for a few moments, he would forget what he was doing, or where he was, which irritated him beyond measure.

    Noticing the golden hue that had appeared on Sewah¡¯s eyes, the two girls quickly activated their own gifts, and started to change.

    Numerous electric discharges moved out of the fingers of the tyrant of lightning, as her body started to turn, simrly to that of the lightning elementals, into a human-shaped white star. The discharges which came out of her fingers, instead of dissipating after moving far away from her, kept moving through space and formed what looked like massive cracks of sma, which soon joined together, and formed a of lightning.

    Next to the tyrant of lightning, the tyrant of wood started to mutate as well. The two sides of her gand split into two, and untangled from around her neck like two fronds of leaves. Before her human-like body was uncovered by the removal of her clothes, her skin started to darken in color and crack into pieces of bark, her hair rose above her head and formed the crown of a tree, and her feet turned into thick roots.

    Brought on the verge of madness by these endless and sharp headaches, Sewah looked at the two tyrants with hateful eyes, and then, he dashed towards them.

    The four elementals instantly moved towards their leaders, and along with them, used their control over the elemental essence to, attack Sewah from six fronts.

    The two lightning elementals formed tworge whips made of sma, and used them to attack him at lightning speed, while at the same time, the tyrant of lightning made the thousands of cracks in the area form an electrified cage around them, while also sending lightning attacks one after the other.

    Simrly, the two wood elementals used their control over wood to form wooden chains out of the tyrant¡¯s roots and branches, in order to immobilize him.

    Through teleporting and well-timed outbursts of immortal essence, Sewah was able to avoid each of the dozen attacks that came towards him every fraction of a second. He wanted to move close enough to them to use the element to which they were weak to, to kill them.. But just as he was about to feign a dodge and teleport behind the wood elementals, the sharp pain appeared once again in his head.

    This time, the pain was excruciating. To a point where he could barely think of what he was doing, or where he was.

    His moment of distraction allowed the two tyrants of mana to strike him with a thunderbolt, and allow the thick tree roots to coil around his body likerge snakes, immobilizing himpletely.

    Despite the heavy hit he had received, there wasn¡¯t a pained expression on his face. Instead, a face of pure shock and horror had appeared, as during thest particrly painful headache, he had heard a voice in his head. A voice which he knew all too well, which said.. "Hey Sewah.. Forgot about me?"

    This voice belonged, of course, to Daniel.

 Chapter 248 Not Available Right Now..

    "Hey Sewah.. Forgot about me?" Said Daniel from within Sewah¡¯s mind.

    At first, Sewah had felt shocked, but didn¡¯t think too much of it and instead focused on his fight. He pushed a massive amount of immortal essence out of his body, and with it, he surround the elemental essence that these two tyrants of mana were using, in order to keep them from moving away.

    He then constructed a thread of metal with his immortal essence, and connected it to the cage made out of sma, with the tree roots that were imprisoning his body.. causing them to lit in mes.

    The tyrant of wood immediately backed away from Sewah, but it was toote. He had already formed a bridge between the two by constructing a golden thread with metallic essence. So, every attack which he received, would hit her as well.

    This all happened in about two seconds, and it was just enough for the tyrant of lightning to react, and stop her attacks from hurting both Sewah, and herpanion.

    What she hadn¡¯t expected, was that Sewah would have aprehension of lightning essence close to perfection.. Generally speaking, elite members of the factions would y on their strengths, and that, meant that their fights would usually be a battle fought through the use of the powers exclusive to their factions.

    Ki warriors were close to invincible warriors with a weakness to magic, demigods of the blood faction were able to use their own blood to fight, and consume it for a quick burst of power which wouldst for a limited amount of time, the heralds of corruption would drag the fight to try to corrupt their enemies, and so on.

    That was no different for the chosens of Iewah. Their power was, most of the times, powerful enough for them to rely on it fully. For example, the gift owned by The Sword Wielder, incremented his ability, speed, and strength while using a sword. He was able to split stars with it, and a very little amount of people in the known universe would be able to face him. The Tamer, on the other hand, was capable of taming all sorts of beasts he encountered. The process was not easy, but if sessful, they would be the most loyalpanions, and fight for him until the day they died. That had allowed him to build one of the most powerful armies owned by single individuals through the entire universe.

    Even Kreah possessed a gift that would allow her to avoid confrontation, and force others to fight for her. She could charm, andmand the minds of both men and women. The weaker one¡¯s mind, the easier it was to control them.

    Unexpectedly for the two tyrants of mana, Sewah¡¯s power appeared to be a support to his own abilities as a cultivator, which would allow him to be stronger, and reach a high level ofprehension of the mana at a much faster speed. That was what the two of them had guessed after noticing the perfectprehension of metal and wood essence, and the close to perfectprehension of lightning essence he possessed.

    It was clear to them that they could not face Sewah by themselves. They looked at each other, and after receiving a nod of confirmation from one another, they decided to leave right away. There were still hundreds ofs topete for, and fighting against someone stronger right at the beginning was a bad idea. In their mind, retreating was the right choice.

    Sewah could not find a reason to feel happy about his enemies¡¯ retreat. The conquest of a which possessed living and developed forms of life was a major achievement for him, but more than gaining fame, he was worried about his state of mind.

    He was sure to have heard Daniel¡¯s voiceing from inside his head, even though he knew it was impossible.

    A child of Iewah would evolve in separate stages. The first stage, was the creation of a consciousness, which would appear at the moment the host¡¯s received their system, and would live within the host¡¯s mind from then on.

    The second stage was the creation of a spirit, which he or she would be able to use in order to leave the host¡¯s body, and get used to the outside world. While slightly more independent, during the second stage, it would still be bound to the host¡¯s body.

    Thest stage of their evolution, was to take control over the body of the host.

    What binded a person¡¯s spirit and consciousness to a body, was the mind. The consciousness was what prevented the spirit from being a random clump of spiritual essence that inhabited the world without a purpose, and the body from being a useless sack of skin, flesh, and bones.

    During the third stage of evolution, the consciousness of Iewah¡¯s child would feed off of the mind of his host, and take its ce in controlling his spirit and body.

    In their way of life, they could bepared to parasites, but they differed from the parasitic faction for the fact that they were not organisms which grew by feeding off of another like the majority of the parasites of the parasitic faction did. It was more correct to consider them children which would kill their parents once they reached their adult age.

    That an host could retain their consciousness after being consumed, was unheard of amongst the children of Iewah. So Sewah was much more inclined to believe that it was just some sort of hallucination.. But then.. "I get it now.. The reason why you were so nervous.. To read all of my thoughts.. It must have been pretty annoying.."

    "No no no.. It¡¯s just in my head.. I¡¯ve killed you.." muttered Sewah to himself while trying to shake Daniel¡¯s voice off of his head..

    "Let me try this one.." said Daniel from within Sewah¡¯s mind while devouring another piece of it, and causing another headaches to start in Sewah¡¯s head.

    This new and sudden headache confirmed to Sewah that he wasn¡¯t simply hallucinating.. that Daniel was actually still alive within his body, and that he was feeding off of his mind in order to be stronger. He knew this, because it was what had happened when he had devoured Daniel¡¯s mind. The only difference, was that his mind had grown powerful enough to devour Daniel¡¯s mind all at once thanks to his second evolution, and not by slowly feeding off of it like Daniel was doing with his.

    "How is this possible?.. It can¡¯t be.. I know I¡¯ve consumed youpletely.." Said Sewah with clear panic in his voice.

    The more Sewah panicked, the more his mind became unstable. The sheer idea of his consciousness being devoured, was making him go crazy.. And the more his mind lost in stability, the more of it Daniel was able to feed off of it.

    The two ki warriors that were apanying Sewah observed as he mumbled senseless words to himself, and looked around in panic.

    The pain be stronger and stronger, forcing Sewah to crumple up in a ball, and grab his head in pain. "AAAAARH" He suddenly shouted to the top of his lungs.

    Like a drill ced directly into his brain, the pain kept going until finally.. It stopped.

    Sewah¡¯s crumpled up body suddenly straightened, and with odd calmness, he moved his head left and right to check his surroundings. He had be quiet from out of the blue, and his expression didn¡¯t show any clue to what was happening to him a few moments ago.

    -----

    In another section of the gxy, Kreah was floating peacefully in space. She was looking at a big, red with curiosity. Just a few hundred meters from her, two men which wore the same outfit were battling amongst each other.

    These two individuals were both members of the heralds of corruption, and it appeared as if one of the two was trying to restrain himself from striking hispanion too hard.

    Kreah had arrived only a minute earlier, and the moment she had teleported near this, she had felt two individuals hiding in an attempt to ambush theirpetitors the moment they arrived.. Unfortunately, feeling the presence of individuals around her, was a part of Kreah¡¯s gift.

    As soon as she arrived, she had taken over the mind of one of these individuals, and had forced him to attack his ownpanion. The two had been caught by surprise as, unlike Sewah, they had no memory of when Kreah had used her powers to bewitch herpanion.. And therefore, had no idea of which kind of power she possessed.

    The two battled for a few minutes, until finally.. They stopped.

    Kreah had let go of her control over the herald¡¯s mind, and was now watching down to her ne in shock. What had shocked her, was that it was lit up with a bright golden color which was carving a few words on the t part of it.

    Instead of using this moment of distraction to attack her, the two heralds looked at their wrists with as much shock as Kreah herself had shown. Both of their bracelets had darkened, and a writing was forming on their surface.

    At the same time, the three of them opened their own portals, and teleported away from the area.

    The same happened to each and every other elite member that was fighting for gxy number 5503. No matter if they were fighting, or iming a fews as their faction¡¯s.. They would immediately stop after their teleporting devices showed strange reactions, and would leave through a portal right after.

    Of the many elite members that had been sent out by the six factions, only two of them hadn¡¯t teleported. Instead, they looked down at their own medallions, and back towards a strangely calm Sewah.

    Momentster, blood pools, massive mirrors, ck holes, and elemental portals opened all around Sewah, and from them, the elite members came out with hurry.

    Now surrounded by the entirety of the other faction¡¯s forces, Sewah stood there as if nothing was happening.

    The first ones to talk, were the members of the ki faction which had separated from Sewah. He turned to look at his twopanions, and asked "What happened?"

    "I don¡¯t know.. He was fighting those two tyrants.. And after forcing them to leave, he suddenly started to talk to himself, and scream in agony.. It looked like he was in a great deal of pain.." Said one of the two ki warriors after pointing at the tyrant of lightning, and the slightly injured tyrant of wood.

    Everyone present had heard the conversation between the two ki warriors. And after processing what had been said, they looked at Sewah with confusion. Only one individual amongst them was looking at him with sheer surprise.. And that person, was none other than Kreah.

    "It doesn¡¯t matter how it happened.. He is an outcast now.. The first outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction.." Said one of the two demigods of the Blood God faction. He then added "His is worth much more than what¡¯s left of this small gxy.."

    Almost as if being woken up by the words of the demigod, Kreah assumed an earnest expression, and said "Don¡¯t you dare touch him.. He is an outcast of my faction, and you¡¯re allowed to attempt to capture him only if nobody from Iewah¡¯s faction is present."

    What she had said was the truth. A faction¡¯s outcast was an individual which had been kicked out of their faction. Once that happened, the faction to which the outcast belonged, would be allowed to put a bounty on the head of their former member. This bounty would work as any other bounty, and would allow anyone in the universe to capture this individual, and deliver him to the faction which had ced the bounty, for a price. In case more than one individual were present to the capture of a wanted person, they would usually have to battle for the right to capture him.. But if a member of the faction which had ced the bounty was present, he or she would have the right to capture him first.

    The demigod turned to look at Kreah without the slightest hint of fear, and said "By all means.. I¡¯ll give you five minutes.."

    As cocky as any other children of Iewah could be, Kreah said "I only need one.." She then looked at Sewah with her bright golden eyes.

    Just like it had happened the first time, Sewah fell into Kreah¡¯s spell. Deep feelings of love were emerging from the very core of his essence, and he couldn¡¯t help but instinctively control his body to move closer to hers.

    Kreah looked at the other elites with deep arrogance.

    Sewah was now only about two meters from her, and just as she turned to look at him, and said "Sewah, my love.. What hap-" her voice was interrupted by a firm hand which grabbed her throat firmly.

    "Sewah is not avable right now.." *Crack*

 Chapter 249 An Outcasts Life

    *Crack*... Was the sound made by the shattered bones of Kreah¡¯s neck.

    During the past six months, Daniel had managed to feed off of small portions of Sewah¡¯s mind. What he would devour would be long lost memories, or vulnerable train of thoughts.. Things which humans were known to forget. The reason for that, was to prevent Sewah from suspecting anything.

    After six months, Daniel¡¯s homeless mind had grown in power to a point where it could bepared to Sewah¡¯s own mind. It was right at that moment that he had decided to make himself known to Sewah, and destabilize his psyche in order to make him more vulnerable, and take back control over his body.

    On his way to taking back control over his body, he had devoured the majority of Sewah¡¯s mind, and had managed to gain a mind vastly stronger than that of a normal human. At the same time, he had saved a small portion of Sewah¡¯s mind, and trapped it into a corner of his under the constant threat of being devoured.

    The reason why he hadn¡¯t killed Sewahpletely, was because he feared that in case he died, he would lose his karmic system. That, had turned out to be a good idea, as once back in his body, he was still able to see the many red numbers above the just as many heads around him.

    The very moment Kreah had taken control over his mind, he had felt her power pull at his consciousness. He was feeling what he was supposed to feel, but he also felt that if he tried to resist, he would free himself without any effort whatsoever. So, he decided to use the chance that the child of Iewah herself had given to him, and killed her once close enough.

    Unfortunately, Daniel had underestimated the power of gifts..

    His own gift had ast resort ability which would save him from certain death, so why shouldn¡¯t she?

    The moment he let go of her broken neck, Daniel heard a noiseing from the area where where the heralds of corruption were floating in silence. He quickly turned to look in that direction, and saw that one of these individuals was floating lifelessly in space. His neck was broken, just like Kreah¡¯s.

    Daniel immediately felt that something was wrong, and turned to look at Sewah¡¯s sister.. But where she was supposed to be, was only a quickly closing golden portal.

    Just like Daniel¡¯s ¡¯Second Chance¡¯, Kreah had and ability that allowed her to survive from one death every few days of time. Her ability was called ¡¯The Tragedy of Love¡¯, and forced one of the people which she had controlled in the past, to sacrifice him or herself in order to save her life.

    Once back to life, Kreah had directly teleported away without thinking twice about it. There was no doubt in her mind that, since she couldn¡¯t control him, she wouldn¡¯t be able to defeat him either. That was her only weakness.. Mental users..

    "HAHAHA! Look at that.. The outcast sent his formerpanion running.. And somehow even killed that guy over there." Said the man of the couple of demigods.

    After seeing the golden portal close, Daniel put Kreah to the back of his head, and turned to look at the blood red-haired man that wasughing. He then said with a faint smile "And you haven¡¯t seen the best yet.. My next y is ¡¯how much blood can I get out of someone from the blood faction?¡¯.. I will need your help.."

    Just like anyone who would dare to call himself the son of a god, the demigods of the blood faction were amongst the most powerful and brutal factions in the universal government. Their ability to control blood allowed them not only to control their own blood, but also that of their enemies. Some of them were even capable of making the blood boil directly into a person¡¯s body. Their biggest weakness and most formidable adversaries, were the ki warriors, as due to the fact that they possessed the strongest of bodies, they would be unable to use their blood.

    Even despite their main weakness, the biggest w of their entire faction, was their disproportioned pride. They would usually have an aloof behaviour and look down at anyone that was not part of their faction.. And would not respond well to provocations.

    "YOU DARE TEST ME?!.. Kid.. I am not one of Iewah¡¯s losers.. I will grant you a bloody death if you want one so much.." Said the male demigod, before his eyes turned of a dull blood red color, and started to bleed profusely.

    At the same time, two metallic des had appeared in Daniel¡¯s hands..

    The blood that was dripping out of the man¡¯s eyes like two thin cascades umted on the palm of his hand, and formed a small ball. The surface of this ball kept moving, and looked like a bloody balloon which caged something within.

    From the sheer sight, Daniel could feel the danger. He knew that if he allowed it toe close, that globe of moving blood would seep into his body, and attack him from inside.

    Therge globe of blood moved in front of the man¡¯s finger, and as he pointed it towards Daniel, it split into hundreds of small droplets of blood which flew out at an amazing speed as he muttered with a grievous tone "Die for me."

    Daniel did not give him the time tounch an attack, and before the man could manage to send his attack, Daniel teleported in front of him.

    *Swiiing*

    The head of the demigod flew in the empty space before he ever had the time to send the small droplets of blood against his target.

    Daniel still wasn¡¯t used to the power of an eight stage immortal cultivator, and therefore, he had decided to go all out from the start. His top speed, paired with the man¡¯s pride, and the fact that the man did not expected him to be a skilled swordsman and spatial essence user, had costed him his life.. Or at least, that¡¯s what Daniel had thought at first.

    While the remaining elite members were shocked by Daniel¡¯s actions, the second demigod looked at him with simple alertness. She too hadn¡¯t expected Daniel to be so decisive.. After all, their n was to capture him, and not kill him.. No matter what the male demigod had said.

    During the mixture of reactions, a strand of blood that came from the man¡¯s severed head moved towards the rest of his body, and joined with a second strand that came from the man¡¯s neck. Once joined, they thugged at each other, shortening the gap between the two split parts.

    The closer the two became, the more strings moved out of both parts, and reunited them together.

    Without giving him the time to recover, Daniel tried to teleport once again towards him to slice him into a thousand small pieces.. But right before he could teleport, some sort of defensive mechanism activated around the body of the injured demigod, causing millions of strands of blood toe out of each of the man¡¯s pores.. and turning him into a living sea urchin.

    Daniel, not willing to end up with a few extra holes in his body, immediately interrupted his actions. He then noticed the state the other elites were in.

    During the past six months, he had seen many of Sewah¡¯s memories.. But even though he knew a lot more about factions and their uses than before, he still wasn¡¯t fully aware of what had caused these cultivators to regroup around him.

    His guess, after being called outcast more than once, and being attacked by someone which was supposed to be on his side, was that he had be an outcast, just like the prisoner was.

    While being an outcast wasn¡¯t illegal per se, there was a rule within the factions which stated that, in case a cultivator was kicked out of a faction, that faction would have the right to hunt for him for a duration for a certain amount of time. Once that amount of time had passed, the outcast would be a citizen of the universal government, and therefore, not required to belong to any particr faction.

    Not many were aware of this, but many explorers were once outcasts of ancient, and a few destroyed factions. There were rumors which imed that a few explorers of old, had grown to such a power, that they had be stronger than the very leaders they served.

    Now that Daniel was an outcast, he knew that he would chased to the ends of the universe.. And he could see that in the eyes of the many elites around him, which despite his power, which none of them couldpare to individually, still watched him with greedy eyes.

    Unable to face so many people at the same time, Daniel had no choice but to leave.

    The medallion which he had seen Sewah use for the past six months had been deactivated, and he would not be able to use it to teleport like Kreah had, but luckily enough, Sewah had been smart enough to ensure a secondary method of escape.

    Just as the many elite members were about to rush in his direction, Daniel simply disappeared from where he was floating. There was no trace of spatial essence.. No rift, no void, no shift.. He had simply disappeared.

    When Daniel reappeared, he was standing in a throne room which contained a golden throne, and numerous statues which resembled him. This throne room, was Sewah¡¯s base of operation, and no other than his group¡¯s which he had received in one of his group¡¯s upgrades.

    Daniel sensed his surroundings, and quickly found out that he was in a castle, right in the middle of arge city. This inhabitants of this city were unknown to him, and seemed to do nothing but walk around the city, and worship his statues.

    With his mind, he could feel the many voices hail him unceasingly.

    "My lord!, we have received amunication from the faction.. Is it true?? Have you been casted out?" Said a fanatical man after feeling Daniel¡¯s presence. Right after him, dozens more rushed in, and asked simr questions.

    Daniel was disgusted. Not by the small but constant amount of red karma which these individuals showed, but by what was in their minds.. Some of them thought of him so highly, that their thoughts reached a level of fanaticism where they would daydream about literally eating his body.

    The minds of most of them were not right, and thanks to his developed mind, he could feel it.. Willingly, or not.

    Once he got used to the impact that seeing into the minds of these people, Daniel started to feel an indescribable sadness.. Differently from karma, people had not chosen to be out of their minds.. And therefore, he couldn¡¯t help but pity them.

    For the first time, Daniel understood what the words of the prisoner meant. He couldn¡¯t imagine what having to see these sort of images for thousands of years would make to a person. He would have to find a way to cope with them, or he would be the next one to go crazy.

    After Daniel calmed himself down, he looked at the group of cultivators, and said "Don¡¯t worry.. Go back to what you were doing.. I wish to be alone for a bit."

    In response to Daniel¡¯s words, the agitated crowd left with slight unwillingness.

    Once alone, Daniel sat on therge golden throne, and started to think about what his first move would be. It was only then, that he remembered something important.. And with a hint of fear, he opened his profile¡¯s window.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 24

    Power level

    -Early eighth stage of immortal cultivation

    Battle Prowess

    -Mid eighth stage of immortal cultivation

    Karma: -799,396,434,721

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.50

    Reduced Cost Lv.25

    Bonus Points Lv.25

    Second Chance (Upgrades 4/4) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 2/2)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    "SEWAH!!! YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT!!"

 Chapter 250 A Magnet for Calamities

    Daniel was sitting on Sewah¡¯s throne, visibly irritated. He was tapping on his knee nervously with his right hand, while thinking of what he could do to recover from the immense karmic debt which Sewah had left him with. Of one thing he was certain.. It would take a very long time.

    Just as he was about to pull his hair from nervousness, a familiar person appeared next to him. It was a man close to histe twenties, and wore a helmet from through which two cold eyes could be seen. It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to recognize this man as one of his closest friends.

    "Jerigh.." He muttered, while extremely surprised that somebody he knew had remained by his side until now. He had checked the list of the people that were part of his system¡¯s group, and no one had remained in it. Even Jerigh, Re, and his uncle Thien, which had decided to stay with him, didn¡¯t see him as their leader anymore.

    Sewah did not care at all about the rtionship between Daniel and his friends, so, after he had taken over his body, he had treated them like the rest of his followers. For example, for two years, Jerigh had been left to be a simple guard of the pce, while Re and Thien had decided to build a house in Daniel¡¯s group base, and live there. They did not want to separate themselves from Daniel, as they didn¡¯t know what had gotten into him, but they could not bear to be in direct contact with him.

    Curiously enough, Sewah cared so little about them, that he had allowed them to stay in his.

    The first reaction shown by Jerigh to Daniel¡¯s words, was deep confusion. He had been in contact with Sewah multiple times, and due to the fact that Jerigh refused to talk themon tongue in front of him, Sewah had gotten used to call him ¡¯the mute¡¯ to make fun of him. Thest time he had heard the name Jerighing from that mouth, was before Daniel had experienced that drastic change.

    Doubt started to grow in Jerigh¡¯s mind, which Daniel immediately felt.

    "It¡¯s me. Daniel.." He said with a reassuring tone before exining to him everything that had happened. About the gift he had received, about the price that he had paid for it, and about how he had regained the control over his body, thanks to his training with mental power.

    It took a few minutes, but after his exnation, Jerigh finally started to think that Daniel could actually be back. Or at the very least, that was what Daniel could see in his mind.

    "Dan.." Muttered Jerigh while taking his helmet off, and moving it in between his arm and chest, showing a slightly more mature face, and longer blonde hair.

    Daniel approached him, and put his hands on his shoulders. For Jerigh, two and a half years had passed, while for Daniel, it was only half a year, as he had remained unconscious in his sleeping state for more than two years.

    "Where are the others?" He asked after noticing that Jerigh had started to believe him.

    With a low tone, Jerigh responded by saying "Your sister Re and your uncle Thiren are living in this.. The others have left with the rings after they lost hope for your return.." Said Jerigh while also leaving a small trap to confirm Daniel¡¯s actual identity.

    He knew for a fact that Sewah knew the name of Daniel¡¯s sister, but whenever his uncle tried toe and visit, he would tell Jerigh to get rid of ¡¯the guy¡¯.. While also hinting the fact that he wasn¡¯t fully aware of his name.

    Naturally, Daniel wouldn¡¯t have fallen in the trap even if he couldn¡¯t see inside Jerigh¡¯s mind, so, while pretending he hadn¡¯t heard anything, he said "So.. it¡¯s only you, Re, and uncle Thien?"

    While hiding his tion in a way that only Jerigh was capable of, he responded "And two other people.. The others left.. Took the pocket dimension.. Took thepany building.. No way to reach them from here."

    Daniel already knew that the others had left. If there was a connection to his pocket dimension nearby, he would have been able to feel it. But since he couldn¡¯t feel anything, he put the matter to the back of his head, and quickly caught up with Jerigh¡¯s words. "Wait.. who are the other two people?" He then asked with curiosity.

    As if remembering something extremely important, Jerigh opened his eyelids slightly, and moved them back to normal right after. He then said "Nilo.. and Than.."

    -----

    A few thousand kilometers from the city where Sewah¡¯s castle was, was arge valley surrounded by tall and impressive trees of multiple species. This valley was at the feet of two massive mountains, and in between them, was a smallke formed by a cascade of crystal clear water. The scenery was spectacr, and anyone who would see it, would feel a tremendous amount of envy towards the person to which this ce belonged.

    Not too far from the waterfall, right at the edge of thisrge grassy and flowery field, were two wooden cabins. These cabins were built recently, and were big enough to allow only a few people to live in. They were made of the wooden material that had been found in the area, which exined the presence of the few neatly-cut tree stumps.

    Sitting on one of these three stumps, was a man in his mid thirties, which was scrabbling something in a book. The images which he was drawing, were the depictions of certain moves and positions of the body used to practice a certain style of martial arts.

    Daniel and Jerigh, which were currently floating in the air while masked by a thick spatial barrier, immediately recognized that man, as Daniel¡¯s uncle, Thien, and the book which he was writing, was the most basic type of martial arts manual. The pictures were simple enough for any random beginner to understand.

    The two observed for a couple of minutes, until finally, a second man left one of the two houses with a book of his own in hand. This book was not written at the moment, and was instead bound in refined leather. On its surface, was the depiction of a ming palm, and a writing which spelled ¡¯Swift Palm of Oppression.¡¯

    This man was Nilo. The clever young man which Daniel had encountered once he had entered the academy of Master Kye, and had saved along with his masters and sister from the coalition back in his of origin.

    As soon as he walked out of one of the wooden cabin, Nilo walked directly towards Thien. "Here it is." he said after handing over the manual of his family¡¯s martial arts to him.

    "He will learn this one first." Said Thien with a serious tone, almost as if trying to reserve a future event to his benefit.

    Nilo smirked in response, and said "He¡¯ll chose by himself.." He then turned to look at the door from which he had just walked out of, and with a bright smile, he said "Come here.." His arms were wide open in invitation.

    From the opened door of the house, a toddler which was close to two years of age, walked slowly walked out of the door on his puffy legs, and towards Nilo, which weed him in his arms with deep affection. "My little Than." Said Nilo to the smiling baby.

    The moment Daniel saw this baby, his heart and mind froze.

    Daniel had looked at Jerigh with doubt the very moment he had told him that an individual called Than, which was the same name as his deceased father, had remained close to him, his sister, and his uncle. He had asked more than once to Jerigh what he meant exactly, but for an unknown reason, Jerigh would keep refusing to answer, and instead, would say "You have to see it yourself.."

    At this moment, everything had started to click. Why Nilo had remained behind despite the fact that two of them weren¡¯t that close.. Why Re had decided to enter his academy instead of having the chance to learn directly from Daniel, and why his uncle and Nilo were writing and keeping books which exined the most basic concepts of martial arts..

    Re and Nilo were a couple.. And they had had a son together which they had named Than.. Than Hiel.

    It didn¡¯t take long before Re herself, now older by two and a half years, walked out of the house right behind her child, with the happiest expression which Daniel had ever seen on her face. She then approached Nilo, which had already picked up Than from the ground, and was holding him in his arms.

    Once next to them, she caressed her son¡¯s hair tenderly, and kissed herpanion before saying with her usual cheeky tone "I don¡¯t know about that.. We are kind of two against one here.."

    What Daniel was feeling at the moment, was a mixture of happiness and sadness.

    All he had dreamed about for his sister was that she could be happy. Happy with the people she was with, happy with what she had done, and happy with her life.

    That was not only his dream, but also their parents.

    All the sadness he felt was due to the idea that their parents would never see their daughter being this happy.. they would never see the beautiful kid that was trying to reach for his mother with his fat little arms, and they would never see them safe and sound.

    Jerigh looked at Daniel¡¯s odd expression, and said "You don¡¯t want to go down?.." Unfortunately, he received the answer he received, was thest one he would have ever wanted Daniel to give him.

    "You all have to leave.." Said Daniel with a broken voice.

    Shocked by Daniel¡¯s words, Jerigh turned towards him, and said "What? Why?" His shock was so high, that he forgot to even use themonnguage, and had talked in the Asum¡¯s tongue instead.

    Daniel¡¯s heart was breaking in a thousand small pieces. He had never imagined that, one day, he would have had to push for him and his family to separate.. But this time, he had no choice.

    He was an outcast now.. And one with a bounty at that. He didn¡¯t knew how many powerful individuals woulde looking for him.. What he knew, was that he didn¡¯t want his sister and her family to be there when that happened.

    "You have to.. If you have any trust in me left.. Take them, and find the others.. Keep them safe. That¡¯s all I¡¯m asking of you." He said with a saddened tone.

    Daniel would have never separated himself from his family just because he had to escape.. But there was a major reason why he couldn¡¯t allow them to stay.. And that reason, was his karma. Sewah had created such arge karmic debt, that saying that Daniel would soon be a ma for bad luck, was a huge understatement.. With the debt he currently had.. He was a ma for cmities.

    Jerigh had always had a blind trust towards Daniel, and even after all this time, he still hadn¡¯t forgotten that he owed way more than his life, and that he had sworn to fight by his side until he breathed. His loyalty was so deep, that even though Daniel had asked him to leave, he had no choice but to do it. After all, in his mind, protecting Daniel¡¯s family was just as important as protecting Daniel himself.

    After listening to Daniel¡¯s words, Jerigh nodded, and with clear unwillingness, hended next to the happy family of four, and exchanged a few words with them.

    The more the group talked, the faster the smiles disappeared from their faces.

    "..Why does he suddenly want us to leave? He has never cared for us until now.. What changed?" Asked Re, while on the verge of tears. Leaving, would have meant abandoning all hopes of Daniel¡¯s return.

    Seeing that Jerigh wasn¡¯t being too sessful in convincing them to leave, Daniel took a deep breath, and shouted with a heavy, yet harmless sound essence "LEAVE, MAGGOTS!! I HAVE TOLERATED YOU IN MY HOUSE FOR LONG ENOUGH!!" his tone was angry, and devoid of any form of affection.

    Caught by surprise by a sudden outburst which they thought came from a cold and merciless tyrant, the three of them had no choice but to ept to be kicked out of the they had lived in for the past two and a half years..

    In a matter of minutes, they gathered their belongings, and approached Jerigh, which was one of the few which possessed a few talismans that would take them back to Daniel¡¯s of origin.

    As Daniel noticed his family leave from the portal unwillingly, he couldn¡¯t help but feel his stomach churn, and mutter "I¡¯m sorry.. Sis.."

 Chapter 251 The Way of the Psionic Dimension

    Daniel was now standing inside the empty cabin in which his family had been living for the past two and a half years.

    He could feel the familiar smell of the flowers which his sister liked the most, as there was a bouquet of them in a vase right in the middle of the table, along with four clean bowls. A small ck pot was hanging from a wooden branch right above a recently extinct firece, and in it, was a vegetable soup which Daniel was way more than used eating.

    Without thinking too much about it, Daniel picked one of the four bowls, walked towards the ck pot, and scooped a portion of it. He then used hisprehension of fire to warm the bowl of soup.. A minute alter, right as he was about to form a spoon with metal essence, the bowl chipped, and broke.. Making the warm soup drip all over his legs.

    "Damn it.." Said Daniel with disappointment before taking one of the tissues from the table, and cleaning his clothes off of the spilled soup.

    Once Daniel got to his shoes, he saw something pop out of the head of one of the only single bed in the house. He then approached it, and picked this object from in between the sheets.. Just to realize that it was just a stuffed doll. It was made of the skin of some sort of short-haired animal, and filled with feathers.. Making it extremely soft.

    Seeing this doll was a huge hit for Daniel¡¯s mind.. The reason for that, was that the stuffed toy looked exactly like him. Provided that it had buttons as eyes, and had no hands of feet, it was clear from the haircut, the clothes, and the color of the eyes that it was him. If he were to make a guess, he would say that this was a handmade toy which Re had made for her son Than.

    Daniel stood for a few moments in the house, while looking at the doll in some sort of trance.

    This trance was quickly interrupted by a familiar voice which came from behind him "You did the right thing.." It said.

    Daniel turned to look at the cabin¡¯s house, and there, he found the prisoner standing quietly. "I wish I could have simply forced the idea of leaving into their minds.. Like you do." Responded Daniel with a saddened tone.

    "To each his gift.. Outcast of Iewah." Said the prisoner through his mask. He then added after looking into Daniel¡¯s thoughts "Your burden is not theirs to bear.. You¡¯ve decided not to die, and this is the consequence."

    Of course, Daniel was aware of the fact that he had made the right decision. He had billions of karmic debt, and with that amount, his luck was down to hell.. And even if this luck wasn¡¯t as effective as ¡¯Karmic Retribution¡¯, he couldn¡¯t allow his system to randomly target the people he cared about only to enforce bad luck.

    Daniel quietly put the small doll in his pocket, and put the matter to the back of his head. He then turned towards the prisoner, and said "Why are you here? I thought you would have already left."

    "I have still a few hundred years before the end of my bounty¡¯s term.. I might as well spend them along with another outcast." Responded the prisoner with his usual indifferent tone.

    The prisoner didn¡¯t care where he was. He wasn¡¯t really escaping from the faction that was chasing him, and in fact, he had even waited for them to find him.. The reason for that wasn¡¯t because he wouldn¡¯t have been able to escape, but because he didn¡¯t want to.

    A couple of hundred years back, the prisoner had been part of a war to conquer a vast new gxy. The war was massive and bloody, and each and every group had taken part to it, sending thousands of their elite members. He, was one of the elite members sent by the Psionic Dimension.

    The war hadsted for over a hundred years, and the multiple daily battles had led to many deaths.. Only ending after each inhabitable was conquered.

    One of thes given to the Psionic Dimension, was part of a sr system which only had two inhabitables. The other one of these twos, was owned by Iewah¡¯s faction.

    The two factions lived close to each other for the following century.. Until one day, a new order was put out by the psionic dimension to evaluate the which belonged to Iewah¡¯s faction, as the two factions were currently in the middle of a negotiation.

    A simr scenario had taken part in a different sr system, and the two faction had decided to exchange one for another, so that they could have a sr system all to themselves. The person which had picked up this task, was none other than the Prisoner..

    Once he had arrived to the, he had met the keeper of the key.

    At first, the keeper of the key had behaved naturally. He was polite, as the prisoner was stronger, and of a higher rank. He was wearing a protection for his mind, which was something that people that had meetings with the members of the psionic tribes would usually use.. But despite that, he appeared as a genuine person..

    While they were having a conversation.. A person had appeared in the orbit of the. This person was a middle aged man, and was holding a tied up young girl, with a gag in her mouth, and a tissue which covered her eyes.

    The prisoner asked for an exnation to the keeper of key, which told him that this young girl was a criminal, and that he was going to teleport her out of the, and into a prison of his faction.

    The prisoner was unable to confirm if these words were true or not.. So, he did the only other thing he could do. He pried into the mind of the man which was holding the ties with which the young girl was tied up.

    What he saw, were memories of this man knocking and banging on doors.. Parents crying desperately at the sheer sight of him.. He saw them hugging their daughters.. Then say goodbye in tears as the man took them away.

    He would take them to his house.. Bathe them.. Dress them.. And take them to the keeper of key.

    This exact same scenario had repeated over and over again in the memories of this man.. The only thing that changed, was the house, the despaired parents, and the girl which was always taken.

    After a short confrontation with the keeper of Iewah¡¯s faction, the prisoner had decided to break the man¡¯s mind barriers, and explore his mind directly. The images he had seen that day, would remain in his mind as the most horrifying images he had ever seen.

    The keeper of key would torture these girls physically and mentally.. But never sexually. The reason he did it was for his own enjoyment.. He could feel the feelings of joy that the keeper had felt by hearing the screams of the girls as he twisted their fingers until they broke.. Gave them chunks of their own flesh to eat.. And gauged their eyes out for a quickugh.

    The prisoner had hated the man deeply.. For making him experience these feelings of pleasure and happiness, while looking at those events from the eyes of the keeper.. Without thinking about it twice, he had allowed his avatar toe out, grab the man¡¯s body with its two massive green hands, and after saying, ".. your mind is not worth saving.." he slowly pulled him until his body ripped in two pieces.

    He had made the conscious decision to kill a member of Iewah¡¯s faction.. And the reason why he refused to escape, was a matter of state of mind.

    The members of the Psionic Dimension were taught that they should always maintain a clear mind.. That a chaotic mind was what turned people¡¯s lives into an endless cycle of destruction.. And that if they abandoned their beliefs, they would be no better than any random cultivator.

    Unfortunately, Iewah¡¯s faction did not care for the prisoner¡¯s state of mind.. So, after they had demanded for the prisoner¡¯s life, as well as many of theirs aspensation, the Psionic dimension had decided to cast the prisoner away. The only way in which they had supported him, was by not going after him directly.

    Despite having been abandoned, the prisoner had decided not to run away, as running away, to him, would mean admitting that he had done something wrong. He had decided to live with the consequence of his actions.

    Soon enough, an individual of Iewah¡¯s faction had been sent to imprison him.. But after seeing that he had no intention of escaping or fighting, the agent of Iewah¡¯s faction had decided to simply bind him with power-suppressing chains, and let a few weaker guards take care of him.

    As he was being transported to one of Wuvia¡¯s moons.. during thest crossing betweens, he had met Daniel.

    "Thank you for helping me.." Said Daniel for the first time since his consciousness had been saved by the prisoner¡¯s power. While he couldn¡¯t show it due to the saddened state caused by the most recent events, he really was grateful.

    ".. What are you going to do now?" Asked the prisoner after ignoring Daniel¡¯s words. He did not care for gratitude.. He acted as he felt was right, and would not eptins nor gratitude from anybody.

    "I have to find a ce where I can earn a lot of karma.." muttered Daniel, uncaring whether the prisoner could hear him or not. It was clear to Daniel that his mind had no secrets for him. If he thought of something, the man would heart it.. Just like he could go through his memories, and share the feelings that the person who was been spied on felt.

    That was the main purpose of the mask.

    At some point in time, it had be evident what the power of the Psionic Warriors was..

    Anger, love, hate.. Envy.. they felt it all.. So, in order to prevent others from seeing how badly other people¡¯s emotions affected them by noticing their expressions turn from happiness to rage, madness, and sadness.. They had vowed to always wear a mask.

    Without even waiting for Daniel¡¯s to speak, the prisoner asked ".. Are they still going to want you? It¡¯s been two and a half years.."

    "Apany like that.. They will take me to the risk of offending Iewah¡¯s faction." Responded Daniel while looking at two small pills which he was holding in his hand. These two pills, were the only two Partial Poison Immunity Pills he had left.

    Daniel had given one of the pills to each of his friends, and kept about five with him. Three of those five pills, had been used by Sewah, which had given them to Iewah¡¯s faction along with the form of the pill. He had witnessed to these events when devouring Sewah¡¯s memories.

    He did not care to have lost the form, as there were already dozens more that would teach people how to create a product with simr effects. The only reason why his form had some value, was because it was cost efficient.

    After noticing the confidence in Daniel¡¯s tone, the prisoner said "Fine.. but you better ditch that medallion.. They will use it to track you, and capture you."

    While the medallion given to the chosens of Iewah had been deactivated, and wouldn¡¯t allow him to teleport through the universe, it also had a secondary function. It would work as a beacon for the messengers of the faction, which would often need to find him in order to deliver the new orders.

    Right as Daniel was about to grab the medallion and throw it into space, a voice that from above them. It said "I am afraid that it is toote for that.."

    Daniel looked high up in the sky, and saw two individuals. Both of them were wearing tight fitting leather armor, Their skin was of an even red color, and on their heads, they had a pair of grey horns.

    The eyes of the prisoner opened wide from behind his mask, as he muttered "Apostles of Damnation.. This is bad luck.." He then turned towards Daniel, and said "Don¡¯t let them touch you."

 Chapter 252 Ill Put You Down

    "Don¡¯t let them touch you." Said the prisoner with a clear hint of worry.

    Daniel turned to look back at him "An Apostle of Damnation? What the hell is that?" He then said with clear concern. Anyone that had a title like that, was bound to be trouble.

    "Exactly that.. They are demons from the Church of Damnation.." muttered the prisoner while allowing his massive avatar to appear right behind him, and making his eyes glow of the brightest green light which Daniel had ever seen them shine of. He was going all out from the start, and that, alerted Daniel immensely.

    The skinnier of the two demons, which was clearly the leader of the two, as he was arrogantly standing in front of the second one, said "Try it, mental warrior.. Use your little mind tricks with me.. Hehe.. let¡¯s see how it goes."

    From the way the demon was talking, it was clear that his race was not afraid of the mental warriors that came from the Psionic Dimension. And there was an extremely good reason for it.

    The Church of Damnation was a faction whose power was based on the sufferings which its people felt. Their domain was a literal hell, and in it, all of the most evil people were gathered. As a faction, they were also known to attack the various prisons in order to kidnap the worst scum that came from all of the other factions, and put them in their owns, just so that they could torment their own citizens.

    Thes owned by the Church of Damnation were worlds without rule, and even if they had been faring well before entering their domain, many apocalyptic scenarios would y out, until the whole world would be in a constant, and permanent chaotic state.

    As soon as the skinnier demon stopped talking, his body started to swell. The facial features became less and less human, and his face contorted from that of a humanoid being, into one of a beast. His mouth and nose elongated, and two rows of sharp teeth grew in it. His nails quickly grew, curving into the shape of ten sharp scythes, and the horns that came out of his head, thickened along with his body.

    The same exact thing happened to the second demon, which instead, transformed into apletely different being. Two massive and hairy wings grew on his back, and his horns split into two before growing out of proportion. His knees twisted around, making them bend in the opposite way of those of a normal human.

    After their transformation, both of these demons had be massive. Their eyes shone with a dark red color tainted with ck.. And from them, a grim darkish smoke came out.. Turning their eyes into a dark blurr.

    As soon as the two monsters transformed, the prisoner, which was standing inside of the chest of what was now a transparent green giant, shouted "DON¡¯T USE MENTAL POWER!" He then directly dashed towards the skinny of the two demons.

    Left with the biggest demon to fight, Daniel prepared himself.. But before starting to fight, he tried to send a message with sound essence towards the many warriors that had been following Sewah for the past two and a half years, and tell them to leave the.. Unfortunately, the demon didn¡¯t give him enough time.

    The wings of the massive demon pped once, and the next moment, it appeared in front of him, swinging his massive fist towards Daniel¡¯s small body.

    The hit was instantaneous, and Daniel was only able to lift his arm to protect his chest before the demon¡¯s fist crashed heavily against them.

    Daniel¡¯s body flew for thousands of meters before crashing against the side of one of the two mountains. The strength of the hit was so big, that Daniel went straight through the mountain, and came out from the other side, leaving a massive hole in the middle of it.

    Unfortunately, the strength of the punch was not what was terrifying of it.

    In the fraction of an instant in which the demon had touched Daniel¡¯s body with his fist, millions of images had entered Daniel¡¯s mind. Scenes of torment and despair, of which the apostles of damnation would feed in order to grow more and more powerful. That was the reason why the prisoner had told him not to let the demon touch him, as well as the reason of thepleteck of fear towards mental warriors, which the skinnier of these two demons had showed.

    Daniel lied on the ground for a few moments, lost in the horrific scenes that had invaded his head.. Those short moments were more than enough for the demon to re appear right above him, and hammer his defenseless body over and over again with his fists.

    The demons did not want to kill either of the two.. So, after leaving him covered in blood and with his bones shattered in thousands of pieces, the demon smirked at the sight of Daniel¡¯s sufferings, and turned around in the direction of the other fight.

    "..where are you going?.." Said Daniel with sound essence, from behind the demon¡¯s back. A white light was shining through his injuries, and his blood was seeping back into them before they would closepletely. The bones twisted back in position, and fused back together while producing a horrifying sound.

    To the cost of losing even more karma, Daniel had had no choice but to activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and increase his immortal essence output. Hadn¡¯t he done that, he would have ended up being unable to heal himself in time, as it appeared that if the two demons cooperated, the prisoner would have no chance to win before he would recover.

    ".. of course.." Said therge demon with a guttural voice which masked a faint realization. It was clear that his current form was not the best one to talk. He had noticed Daniel¡¯s moment of distraction at the beginning of the fight, and for a moment, he had thought that Daniel would pay dearly for that. But when he heard Daniel¡¯s voice, he remembered what sort of existence he was fighting against.. Daniel was no ordinary elite.

    With the rest of his body broken apart, Daniel stood up on his nearly healed legs. The rest of his body was bent in unnatural shapes, with bloody bonesing out of his flesh, and blood oozing back into the wounds. The scene was horrifying, but for an apostle of damnation, it was a show to behold.

    The demon suddenly disappeared from where he was standing, only to reappear high up in the air above Daniel. His hands were joined together, and he wanted to hammer fist Daniel into the depths of his own.. But the motion was blocked by a pair of small hands.

    A massive crack formed underneath Daniel¡¯s feet, causing the already damaged mountain which was barely standing just a few hundred meters from him, to finally crumbled under the enormous pressure of it¡¯s snowy top.

    Daniel¡¯s opened hands had blocked the demon¡¯s handspletely, but in exchange, they had broken once again. At the same time, a much heavier stream of horrifying images seeped into his mind, causing him to fall into despair once again.

    The demon took this chance to grab Daniel¡¯s broken body in his hand, and squeeze him tightly while forcing more and more images in his head.

    "Haha.. A chosen of Iewah is only worth so much.. All bark, and no bite." Said the demon in between growls and snarls. His long teeth were dripping with dense saliva, and from his mouth, a deadly ck smoke came out. "I¡¯ll take you to my lord.. He will decide whether to take the bounty, or add one of your kind to-AAAAAAAAAARGHH!!!"

    ".. you talk so much.." muttered Daniel as the fingers of the demon started to fall off. The bloody stumps were cleanly cut, and from them, blood of an umonly dark shed of red oozed out profusely.

    Aside from the first scream, the demon did not let his injury get to his head, and instead, punched Daniel once again before he could even fall out of his grip, and down on the ground.

    Once again, Daniel sunk deeply into the hard rocky surface of the ground, breaking multiple bones, as well as injuring a few organs.. But despite the bad state he was in, he still stood up, and after adjusting his dislocated jaw with his hand, he looked straight into the demon¡¯s dark red eyes, and said with a defiant tone ".. Overgrown dog.. Come here.. I¡¯ll put you down."

    Forgetting any form of self-preservation, Daniel countered the following punch with one of his own.. Causing both the bones of his arms, as well as those of the demon¡¯s massive hand, to break into pieces.

    The demon quickly followed up with a left hook, expecting for Daniel to be dealing with heavy and terrifying images, and to be able to finish him off right away because of it.. But unfortunately for him, that did not happen.

    Daniel evaded the hook by stepping back, and at the same time, shed downwards with scorching hot scythe which had formed out of metal and fire essence right at the end of his arm..

    It was right at that moment, as he looked at his hand fall on the ground, and the injury cauterize in an instant, that the demon understood something.. He wasn¡¯t dealing with a prey.

    The constant golden shine in Daniel¡¯s eyes quickly became more and more scary to the demon, and in the back of his head, the idea of retreating crossed his mind.. Unfortunately, that moment of distraction.. He would pay for it.

    Before the demon could even remotely recover from his injuries, Daniel used a powerful outburst of immortal essence to appear right in front of his huge body.. And while his body was still in shambles, Daniel closed his fist, charged with metal and spatial essence to give it some weight, and punched the demon right in the stomach.. Digging into the demon¡¯s skin a couple of centimeters deep.

    The sound wave caused by the hit ttened all of the trees in the surrounding, and for a moment, the demon was lifted off of the ground, and floated in the air with a nk mind.. But s, Daniel was not done yet.

    He reappeared right above the floating demon, and after covering his leg in metal, he stomped on the demon¡¯s spine, right between the wings, which snapped in two the moment of impact. Before stomping on the demon¡¯s back, Daniel had gripped the base of its wing tightly.. Causing them to rip off of his back the moment the foot had touched his back.

    After the powerful hit, the demon was thrown on the hard rocky ground, crashing heavily against it.

    Daniel was about to continue his attacks, but before he could reach the demon, he heard a low, and deep growling sound.

    "NOW YOU¡¯VE DONE IT.." said the demon with a soul-shaking tone, which reached every corner within a radius of a hundred kilometers.

    After that, the already enormous body of the demon started to swell once again. His skin became veiny, and it looked like it was about to tear.. almost if unable of containing the demon¡¯s enormous muscles. His injuries started to heal at a speed simr to Daniel¡¯s when he used ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯.

    At the end of his second transformation, the demon was twice as big as before. On the surface of his eyes, Daniel could see the shape of multiple faces and hands that tried to pull through his retina in order to escape, as well as a few desperate humanoid figures fly within the darkish red fumes that came out of his eyes and mouth.

    At the same time, Daniel¡¯s body was almostpletely recovered.

    -----

    No further than a kilometer away.

    An enormous horned monster was currently fighting against what looked like a green ghost which wielded a massive green de. The two exchanged blow after blow, injuring one another, and tiring each other out.

    The prisoner was trying to fight this battle from the distance, but the capabilities of the demon¡¯s massive body were preventing him from maintaining that sort of advantage. The only line of protection he had between himself and a world of sufferings, was the body of his avatar.

 Chapter 253 Its All Fun and Games..

    *GRRRRRR..* "There is nothing better than the face of a mental warrior as he witnesses the suffering of trillions of people.. Hehe" Said the demon with hrity.

    The surroundings had been carved out of shape by his massive ws, and a few big and straight crevices, which appeared to have been made from what looked like the shes of a massive sword.

    The prisoner was observing from about fifty meters of distance. He was struggling with defending against the onught of attacks which a monster made of pure strength, was able to unleash on him for so long. The only moments of rest he had, was when the demon himself stopped attacking him to taunt, or make fun of him, as well as the few moments when they heard the impressive sonic waves caused by the fight between Daniel and the winged demon.

    "I can tell you.. He is not doing good.. HAHAHA.. I know that attack pattern.hehe" *SHHGRA* Said the demon in betweenughs. Of the two demons, he was the one who loved to torture his enemies the most.. Even if just by making them anxious with a few words, he would enjoy as the thought that they might die soon creeped into their heads. "Once he is done with the other outcast.. We will enjoy yourpany together. Hehe.."

    As soon as he stopped talking, the demon dashed towards the prisoner with a mind boggling speed.. He immediately avoided the horizontal sh which tried to part the upper part of his body from his legs, and while in mid air, he dived straight towards the middle of the green giant¡¯s chest.

    Just before touching the surface of the giant¡¯s chest, the demon extended his arm towards it, and joined his fingers together, forming a drill with his sharp ws. Then, put a terrifying pressure on his lower body, and after kicking the ground with one of his massive feet, he started to spin in mid air.

    The tip of his ws touched the chest of the green giant right after, and immediately cracked the surface of his armor.. but the motion of the demon didn¡¯t stop. Through a calcted ejection of his demonic essence, the demon kept spinning in ce, forcing the crack on the giant¡¯s armor to be bigger and bigger.

    The prisoner had tried to sh downwards with his sword, but as soon as the sword would arrive close enough to the demon, it would bounce back due to the motion.

    The chest of the green giant now looked like a spiderweb, and the tip of the demon¡¯s ws had prated through about ny-five percent of its armor. Left with no other choice, the prisoner forced his avatar to let go of the sword, and try to stop the spinning motion of the demon with his massive hands.. But that was like trying to stop the demon¡¯s entire demonic power, with sheer strength.

    He tried to grab the demon¡¯s spinning body with the avatar¡¯s big hands, but from the very moment his palms were about to touch the demon, they were pushed away with an impressive force. It was like trying to stop a tornado with his bare hands.

    Unable to resist anymore, the armor of the green giant shattered, and the sharp ws prated through the avatar more.

    Out of ideas, the prisoner decided to move out of the avatar before the demon¡¯s attack could go through it, and hit him. At the same time, he kept the avatar in ce, using it to stop the demon¡¯s motion.

    As soon as the prisoner touched the ground just a few meters away, and was preparing another attack, the avatar shattered in many green shards which quickly dissipated in the air. This avatar was formed by mental power, and therefore, the moment it was destroyed, it caused a huge toll on the mid of the prisoner.. Which fell on his knees, and held his head in an attempt to prevent his reason from drifting away.

    Once again, the demon observed the sufferings of the prisoner with enjoyment. He couldn¡¯t help but want to torture him more and more. His race and faction were the perfect kind of beings to counter mental warriors. They were physical warriors, and were able to use the despair of which they fed, to affect the minds of others.. Especially those who were the most sensitive to mental power.

    That wouldn¡¯t necessary mean that the prisoner wasn¡¯t at the same level as the demon, but only that these demons were a mental warrior¡¯s weakness.

    It was only at this moment that the prisoner had understood how much he had underestimated the bad luck of which Daniel kept thinking about. He was aware of the universal concept of luck, but he would have never believed that by simply standing next to Daniel for a matter of seconds, he would end up in the most unfortunate fight of his life.

    Producing an avatar wasn¡¯t that simple. It required a clear and healthy mind, and it was something that only the elite members of the Psionic Dimension could do. It required a certain amount of mental power of which Daniel was far from, andprehension and control over that very power.

    Unfortunately, the prisoner was not in a state of mind that would have allowed him to create another avatar.. So, he tried to calm his mind, and recollect hisposure. For him, that was not unlike picking a sword and shield back up from the ground, after someone had knocked them off of his hands.

    The demon was done with enjoying the mental torture, and was ready to move on to a more physical stage of his torment. He walked towards the prisoner, and moved his hand towards him in an attempt to pick his body up.. But suddenly, from the two eye holes of the prisoner¡¯s mask, two green lights which could illuminate a hall appeared, directed straight towards his eyes.

    The demon stopped immediately in ce. In his mind, ideas of taking his own life were starting to form. At the same time, his hand moved on his throat as if in an attempt to rip it off.

    Big drops of sweat were streaming down the sides of the prisoner¡¯s head. While he wasmanding the demon, he was also under the effect of the demon¡¯s mental powers. Millions of terrifying scenes of torture, sufferings, and pain moved in the man¡¯s head like drops of water which formed a river of despair.

    This was a matter of stamina. The oue would be decided by the prisoner¡¯s ability to withstand those images and that sufferings long enough for the demon to take his own life.

    This method could have had a chance to work, if only the mind of the prisoner wasn¡¯t already damaged.

    In about a minute, the prisoner fell on his knees. His eyes had dimmed in brightness, and went back to their normal red color. His breath was heavy, and his clothes were drenched in sweat. He had just witnessed to the endless torment of uncountable individuals, and of each of them, he could feel the thoughts, broken hopes, and true feelings.

    "HAHAHA! YES! That was fun.." said the demon with a snarling tone. He then added "You mental warriors always offer the best entertainment.. We cannot let Iewah¡¯s faction keep you bottled up in a prison.. I¡¯ll take you to my lord.. Maybe he will gift you to me. Hehehe."

    "I can¡¯t believe that, despite how much the other one talked.. You are still the chatty one." Said a voice that came from the area where, until a few moments earlier, loud sounds could be heard resound constantly.

    The demon and the prisoner turned to look towards the direction where the voice wasing from, and there, they saw a zombie. Skin removed from at least fifty percent of his left arm, chunks of flesh missing from his shoulder and thighs, a half severed right arm which dangled from the shoulder thanks to a limb of flesh, and purple bruises all over the rest of the body.

    That person was, of course, Daniel.

    "You.." muttered the demon while looking at Daniel¡¯s mangled body with suspicion. Due to the messed up shape Daniel was in, the demon didn¡¯t immediately notice the one thing that he should have noticed immediately, so, he asked "Where is my brother?" His tone showed that he was not in the mood to y anymore.

    With a tired expression, "Hold on a second.." he said before making healing essence ooze out of his injuries inrge amounts.

    The demon quickly noticed that something was up, but it was only after the skin of Daniel¡¯s arm was regenerated, that he noticed the chunk of bloody meat that he was holding in between his left arm, and his chest.

    After Daniel¡¯s arm reattached, he grabbed this bloody object by something hard that was attached to it, and threw it. This object rolled on the ground for a few seconds, until finally, it stopped right underneath the demon¡¯s feet. Once still, the demon was finally able to see what this object was.. It was the severed head of his younger brother.

    The demon watched in shock, and said "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"

    "Don¡¯t look at me.. We were happily fighting, until he tripped and fell on my sword.. neck first.. I guess it¡¯s true.. It¡¯s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.." Said Daniel while shrugging his shoulders, and looking at the demon with a sheepish smile.. Almost as if trying to convince him that nothing big had happened, and that he had done nothing wrong.

    Something inside of the demon¡¯s mind clicked, and he immediately dashed towards Daniel with the highest level of rage he had ever felt.

    His reactions surprised Daniel deeply. It was odd to see a demon care so much for a fallen family member. But of course, despite the surprise he had felt, he didn¡¯t allow himself to get distracted.

    In a moment, he fell on his knees, and touched the ground with both of his hands.

    From the ground, a mouth made out of stone quickly formed around him, encasing himpletely. At the same time, a second metallic shield formed around it as reinforcement.

    The demon ignored this, and instead, started to w at the metallic dome with his ws over and over again. Ripping the metal apart, and breaking the stone underneath.. But whenever a w mark appeared, it would immediately close back up.

    For how powerful the demon was, he couldn¡¯tpare with Daniel¡¯s immortal essence regeneration, so, in a frenzy, he kept wing at it again and again.

    This went on for a good minute, until finally, the demon shouted in a crazed state "COME OUT YOU RAT! I¡¯LL TEAR YOU TO SHREDS!!" *GROOOOOOOOOOOOWL!* The demon kept growling and snarling in anger, letting massive and powerful sound wavese out of his opened mouth, which devastating the surrounding area.

    It was in a fraction of a second in between these sound waves, that the dome which was protecting Daniel disappeared, and with a push of his legs, Daniel leaped directly into the opened mouth of the massive demon..

    The moment the demon noticed, it was already toote. Daniel¡¯s timing was perfect, and he had forced the demon to swallow him whole.

    The prisoner looked at Daniel¡¯s foolishness with disappointment.. He knew that the stomach of a demon would melt a person¡¯s body in seconds, and therefore, there was absolutely no chance that Daniel coulde out of it alive.

    It was only after he noticed the odd expression of the demon himself, that he understood that something was wrong. The demon was looking at his stomach with a horrified expression.

    "AAAAAARGH! AAAAAARGGGHH COME OUT!! COME OUT NOW!!" He screamed in panic before using his own ws to dig into his stomach, and open it enough to insert his hand in it, and pull Daniel out of it.

    The screams kept going for a few minutes, until finally, the demon fell on the ground.. Lifeless.

    After a few more seconds, the tip of a de pierced through the stomach from inside, and made an incision about two meters long.. And from it, a skinless Daniel came out. He was covered in dark green blood, and was holding something that looked like some inhuman organ.

    As his skin slowly reformed, Daniel looked at the prisoner with an irritated expression, and said "Bad idea.. Never again."

 Chapter 254 This Is Your Lord Speaking

    From the very moment the eyes of the prisoner hadnded on Daniel, he had noticed that something had changed inside his mind. He could read in Daniel¡¯s memories that he had had to withstand an impressive amount of shocking images during his fight, and despite the fact that he wasn¡¯t able to feel the sufferings of the victims personally like the prisoner was, he should have still lost his mind. And yet, here he was.. Completely fine

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to understand why that had happened. He already knew of how Daniel¡¯s karmic system worked.. And after looking at his unfazed face as he cleaned himself from the dark green blood and the pieces of demon flesh, he realized how shocking the effect of Daniel¡¯s system actually were.

    ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ would speed up any sort of lengthy process.. And getting used to violent and horrific scenes, was no exception. After only a few minutes spent fighting the demon, Daniel had bepletely desensitized against all forms of violence.

    That didn¡¯t mean that disgusting images or terrifying scenarios wouldn¡¯t disturb him anymore, but only that he had gained the stomach which a veteran warrior that had seen everything in life, would have. His mentality was still the same, as only a few minutes had passed to him.. But now, those types of disgusting and horrifying scenarios would not bother him as much as they did before.

    As a veteran of intergctic war, the prisoner had also managed to be desensitized to cruent scenes long ago.. But that only meant that those images would not cause negative and instinctive feelings on him. The true reason why mental warriors were so weak against these types of entities, was due to his excessively powerful empathy, which would force him to bear other people¡¯s feelings.

    He would usually be able to control himself when he felt the happiness, anger, or envy which every other person around him felt.. But controlling despair and sadness, was not as easy.

    Daniel ripped the shred of clothes that were barely covering his body, and forced a massive stream of constructed water to wash himself. He then turned the excess of water into air, and oncepletely dry, he put on some clean clothes. He didn¡¯t care if the prisoner would see him naked.. After all, the man could read his mind whenever he wanted.

    More than once his mind had trailed off towards odd thoughts while wondering if the prisoner could read them, but the prisoner had never shown any reaction. It was clear that he was fully used to the oddness of the human mind.

    "That wasn¡¯t fun at all.." muttered Daniel after approaching the prisoner with casual steps. "But it was helpful.. We will be about ten percent less unlucky from now on."

    The prisoner ignored Daniel¡¯s words, and instead, looked at the medallion that was still around his neck. For as unlucky as the arrival of two apostles of damnation was for him, a lot worse could have happened. The fact that these two demons weren¡¯t more powerful than they were was already a miracle, as millions of entities that could turn them into dust with a p existed in this universe.

    ".. you should destroy that medallion.." Said the prisoner with hurry. He didn¡¯t know how fast a new enemy would appear, and he was no in condition to fight any longer.

    Daniel grabbed the golden medallion which was hanging around his neck, and looked at it for a few moments, before turning to look back at the prisoner, and saying "I have a better idea.." He then he emitted a wisp of immortal essence through the skin of his other hand, and turned it into a small transparent cube made out of spatial essence.

    Without thinking too much about it, Daniel put the medallion into the transparent cube along with a small violet bead which was inside his ring, and threw it up into the sky.

    This entire world was under Daniel¡¯s control, as it was a world created by his system for him to rule, and for his group to inhabit. In it, he could have toppled mountains, turned oceans into deserts, or turn it into a ball of gas which rotated at incredibly fast speed. The reason why he hadn¡¯t used this control over his dominion to defeat the demons was because, based on what he had seen in Sewah¡¯s mind, controlling the was a slow process.

    Now that the demons had died, he used the control he had of the¡¯s wind and gravity, and used it to make the box fly high up in the sky. The spatial box which contained the medallion kept moving higher and higher, until finally, it left the¡¯s atmosphere, and dashed through space right next to the.

    It was at this moment that Daniel activated the small formation that he had left on the box.

    A small portal opened in front of the box¡¯s trajectory, which passed through it the very next moment. In a matter of instants, the box reappeared in a different area of space, trillions of light years away. This process repeated over and over again.

    The formation which Daniel had left on the box, was a simple formation that would allow the box, to teleport in and out of the void every couple of moments. Once in the void, the box would keep moving until another portal that could take it back into normal space, would appear.

    From the point of view of an observer which could see the entire universe, it appeared as if Daniel was constantly teleporting all around the universe continuously.

    The reason why this happened, was because the void was a chaotic type of space. Going from empty space to the void or vice versa, was not hard, but as soon as a person moved a tiny bit while inside the void, if they tried to go back, they would be in apletely different point in space.

    This was something which not many knew in thes which weren¡¯t part of the universal government or the other factions. Some of the numerous individuals which studied spatial essence liked Edmund, had attempted to step into the void, and teleport back from where they hade from.. but whenever they reappeared, most of the times, they would reappear in empty space. No a single one of the people which had tried this, had sessfully teleported back home.

    The luckiest ones ended up in an unknown inhabitable, where they would encounter their death in one way or another.

    The same was for Daniel¡¯s medallion. The medallion would keep teleporting in and out of the void, and get the attention of the numerous bounty hunters away from their actual position.

    After reading Daniel¡¯s mind, the prisoner felt more at ease. If there was something that was going to kill them, at least it wouldn¡¯t be a bounty hunter.

    Without waiting for Daniel to say anything, he said "I know where Ton Bes is."

    "What are you talking about?" Asked Daniel with doubt.

    The prisoner slowly stood up from the ground, and after adjusting the position of his mask, he dusted his clothes "You want to gain karma by destroying the poisonous rose.. I¡¯ve met one of them.. I¡¯ve seen in his mind where their base, a called Ton Bes, is located." Repeated the prisoner while adding a few more details.

    "It¡¯s about time I go there and present myself.. What do you say?" Asked Daniel with a faint smile on his face. But his expression did notst long, as just a secondter, Daniel looked at the prisoner once again, and asked "To what extent can a mind be healed?"

    The question was very vague, but the prisoner did not need to ask for a rification in order to be able to understand the meaning, so, he responded by saying "I am afraid that you won¡¯t be able to heal them.. The problems they have is not something that is affecting their mind.. It¡¯s something that was always there.."

    The people of which the prisoner was talking about, were the followers of Sewah. They were unstable individuals, and just like Sewah, they wanted to follow their crazy leader, and watch as he burned the world to ashes.

    Daniel had hoped that with the knowledge of the mind which the prisoner had, he would be able to find a way to make these people a little more normal.. But ording to the prisoner, there was nothing that they could do. So, he had no other choice.. They had to abandon them.

    After a soft sigh of disappointment, Daniel teleported back in the throne room, and there, he found one of Sewah¡¯s followers waiting swiping the floor.

    This individual was a young man with an odd expression on his face, which after seeing him arrive, lit with the brightest smile which Daniel had ever seen. It looked as if that young man had just seen his god descend, and would do anything to gain his favor.

    "Do you have a pocket dimension that can lead us to my world of origin?" Asked Daniel with amanding tone. These crazy followers were obsessed by Sewah, and therefore, he expected them to know everything about him.

    "Lord Sewah.. We did have multiple connections to your great world of origin, but not anymore. One of the holders disappeared, another one was crashed under the weight of one of your majestic statues after it fell just minutes ago.. And the third one was mistakenly sold by one of your subjects." Responded the young man with a bright smile and high spirits. To Daniel, it didn¡¯t even look like the young man was giving him terrible news.

    "Of course.." He muttered while quietly cursing Sewah a few more times, for wasting all of that karma. "What is the closest one we have?"

    "My great lord. We have one that will take us to the same gxy, but a few sr systems away." Responded the young man while increasingly happier by the fact that Daniel was still talking to him.

    Daniel opened his eyes wide in surprise, and said "Oh, give it to me right away!" He didn¡¯t want to wait anymore. Any additional second which he wasted not using that passage, was an additional chance for his karmic system to screw him over, and find a way to make him lose that passage as well.

    The young man immediately bowed towards Daniel, and teleported away. He then teleported back in Daniel¡¯s throne room while holding the arm of a middle aged woman.

    This woman seemed to be busy doing something else, and was particrly shocked by the fact that someone had just grabbed her, and teleported her away. She was about to scream and shout in anger, but then, she noticed Daniel standing right next to her.

    She immediately fell on her knees, and said "My lord Sewah! Order anything and I will do it!"

    Daniel shook his head left and right, then helped the woman up and said "I need the pocket dimension that leads to the gxy which contains my world of origin.. Do you still have it?"

    The woman was so excited to be able to serve Daniel, that she removed all of her rings, and moved them towards him while saying "These are all the pocket dimensions I have my lord.. Take whichever you want."

    Once again, Daniel shook his head, and after a soft sigh, he read the woman¡¯s mind, and quickly found out which one of these rings was the right one. He then took it off of her hand, and thanked her.

    Daniel ignored as the woman almost passed out from happiness, and used the control over the sound essence of his to send a message to all of Sewah¡¯s subjects.

    "This is your lord speaking. Sewah the great!" Said Daniel with a hint of embarrassment, as he used the same words which Sewah used to describe himself. "From this moment on, you will all have an extremely important mission!"

    In the city which surrounded Daniel¡¯s castle, each and everyone of his subjects looked in the direction of the castle with anticipation.

    "GO BACK HOME!"

 Chapter 255 The Garden of Death

    "GO BACK HOME!.. I cannot exin the reason, but you have to trust your.. Almighty lord.. Go back to your families, and live the lives you had before, until the moment I will need you. This is extremely important!" Said Daniel with confidence and embarrassment.

    He was really hoping that these people would not be too obsessed with him, and that they would listen to him. Taking them to Ton Bes was out of the question, as thest thing he needed during this period of staying below the radar of the many factions, was a following of crazy people.

    Luckily enough, after hearing Daniel¡¯s words, the faces of his worshippers lit brightly, and they did exactly as he had asked them to do. Daniel had clearly underestimated the level of devotion which these people felt for him.

    Sewah had never demanded anything for them, and he had simply tolerated their existence. Now that their lord had finally acknowledged their existence, they were too happy to simply reject his words.

    Daniel felt one person after the other teleport inside the same numbers of rings in order to go back to their own worlds. The middle aged woman and the young man in front of him, were no exception. They kneeled politely in front of Daniel, then left through their own pocket dimensions.

    "Oh.. damn it.. I should have told them to avoid doing bad things.." muttered Daniel while looking at the two rings on the floor. Only he and the prisoner were left on the now, so he gathered the rings that were lying all over the ground of the city, and put them into a corner of one of his spatial container.

    He then focused on the control he had over this, and forced it to shrink.

    Almost as if following Daniel¡¯s direct orders, the started to quickly shrink in size, until finally, three hourster, it had reached the size of a human¡¯s head. Once reached this size, Daniel put it into his ring as well.

    "Don¡¯t worry.. They will probably keep their heads low. They will try to avoid being in prison the moment their almighty lord will have a need for them." said the prisoner from next to Daniel.

    "I guess you¡¯re right.. But can you stop with the mind reading? It¡¯s starting to irritate me a little." responded Daniel with a hint of exasperation. His mind was nowhere near as powerful as that of the prisoner, and even if they were at the same level of development, he wouldn¡¯t be able to keep the prisoner out of his mind, as that was part of his special powers as a mental warrior of the Psionic Dimension.

    The only person which was able to stop this, was the prisoner himself, which said "Fair enough.. Oh, and my name is Aeran." before finally revealing his name to Daniel. The faint green hue that had marked his red eyes,pletely disappeared right after.

    While looking at the small ring that floated in his hand, Daniel said, "Ready to go?" to which Aeran responded with a faint nod. The two then teleported into the pocket dimension, leaving the small ring to float in space for the rest of eternity.

    -----

    Two years earlier, Ton Bes.

    "Why the hell is he taking so long?" Asked the chairman while walking down one of the corridors of the massive building, along with the middle aged man who acted as the representant of the senate.

    The man was quietly following the young girl from two steps back, as sign of respect. When he was asked about Daniel¡¯s whereabouts, he said "About that.. My Lady, I bring bad news.."

    The young chairman suddenly stopped walking, and turned to look at the middle aged man with anger. She then said "What is it now?!"

    "Well.. it appears that the young man was not only visiting his home.. But he was actually trying to im it for one of the factions." He muttered with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The young woman showed a hint of surprise, but then, her anger resurfaced, as she asked "So what?! He should have been done by now.. Even if he conquered a for a faction, that¡¯s no reason to ignore us. He could still join us."

    "It¡¯s Iewah¡¯s faction.." added the middle aged man, making any form of anger and exasperation disappear from the girl¡¯s face, and leaving only sheer surprise.

    "Fine.. the assassin then.. Give him the area, and tell him to present his featured poison to the senate." Said the chairman in resignation. She then turned around, and started walking again.

    With clear unwillingness, the middle aged man quickly followed her, and stopped her on her tracks by saying "Mydy.. That¡¯s the rest of the bad news.. When the Orange Thorn came back, he told us that he had no idea where the assassin is.. He said that they both arrived in the kid¡¯s, but has no recollection of what happened next."

    "YOU¡¯VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!" Shouted the young woman in rage.

    Her entire job, was to make sure that the Poisonous Rose would not grow weaker during her mandate. She was in charge of picking a new family to add to their group whenever one was destroyed, and she had beente in delivering for many months now.

    While the families that were part of the Poisonous Rose would not understand why the woman was so nervous about failing her task, since she was the leader of the entire organization.. The matter was extremely different for the senate, and the chairman. Only they knew that the poisonous rose was connected to a faction called Garden of Death.

    The Garden of Death was a faction whose power was connected to the concepts of poison, corrosion, and toxicity. They were a rtively weak faction, as the requirements to develop the gift of their leader and be elite members, was to be resistant to all poisons.

    The method which the members of this faction used to be elites, was to build a tolerance by injecting small amounts of various types of poison of increasingly deadlier power. Once they would be resistant to all poisons, the leading figure would transform their entire immortal essence into a type of poisonous, or corrosive essence, which they would then be able to use against their enemies.

    That, was the gift of the Garden of Death.

    The few that survived, were known through the entire universe due to how dangerous they would be, but unfortunately, not many of them managed to. Only one out of a thousand would manage to build a resistance to low level poisons.. Of them, one out of ten thousands would survive being poisoned with mid level poison, and of those, only one out of ten millions would survive high level poisons.

    Using pills that would give immunity was out of the question, as the grand majority of these pills were temporary, while the rest, were kept hidden by the factions to which the master of poison that had created them, belonged.

    This high rate of mortality, had caused the forces of the Garden of Death to dwindle, and its people to gradually stop in their attempt to be elites.

    Witnessing to their demise, the faction had decided to send numerous groups simr to the poisonous rose into other factions, in hope to find talented poison masters which would be interested in the gifts which the Garden of Death offered.

    Ever since the chairman of The Poisonous Rose had heard about Daniel¡¯s discovery, she had learned that he had imed that the effect of his immunity pill was actually permanent, but not many had believed that.. Nevertheless, in the off chance that Daniel was saying the truth, she wanted him to join their group before the recipe of the pill ended up in the hands of Iewah¡¯s faction.

    Unfortunately, it was already toote.

    Just as the young chairman was about to storm into her office to pick another of the four candidates, a third individual approached her with hurry. "Mydy, there are news about the candidate!" said this man.

    "It better not be more bad news!!" barked the chairman while opening the door of her office with more strength than she intended.

    The man froze in ce.

    The middle aged man that was still following the chairman, stopped in front of this man, and whispered "Say it to me.. I¡¯ll tell her." He had immediately understood that the news was not positive, and he knew that if the man gave her the bad news himself, she would have likely killed him on the spot, regardless of what the news was.

    "Honourable ck Thorn.. The candidate which we have discovered was part of Iewah¡¯s faction, gave up the recipe of the Partial Poison Immunity Pill to his faction.. And.. well, they confirmed that it grants a permanent immunity to all poisons from tier one, to tier three." Said the man with a low tone, while the chairman went back to her desk.

    "Okay.. you can go.." Said the man before entering the chairman¡¯s office.

    The man did not wait for a single moment to turn around, and go back from the way he hade. By the time he reached the corner, he heard a loud shout "WHAAAAAAT?!"

    -----

    When Daniel and Aeran entered the pocket dimension, they saw a basic spatial dimension with barely any air to breathe, and ground to walk. There was nothing there, aside from a few chests which contained some valuables, some random objects, and a teleportation tform.

    The two didn¡¯t stand in the pocket dimension for too long, and instead, directly used the teleportation tform. Once on the other side, they found themselves in a square filled with people.

    After about an hour spent asking for information about where they were exactly, the two flew high up in the sky in an attempt to leave the atmosphere, but right before leaving, they were stopped by a woman who quietly floated in the space right in front of them.

    "Two outcasts.. In my.." She said with hidden worry. She was at the same level of cultivation that Daniel and Aeran were, but she was not an elite member of Iewah¡¯s faction. She was simply an eighth stage cultivator which had been tasked to work as this¡¯s keeper of key.

    After recognizing the two, she sent a message to the faction, and tried to buy some time for the bounty hunters to arrive.. But it was toote.

    Aeran¡¯s eyes had already lit up with a bright green color, and a momentter, her recollection of their encounter had been deleted from her memories.

    She looked at the empty space around her in confusion, then, as she witnessed the arrival of more than twenty bounty hunters, she said "What have youe here for?"

    The closest one amongst these warrior looked back at her with doubt, and said "What are you talking about? You¡¯ve called for us.. You¡¯ve used there were two outcasts here."

    "I have no idea what you¡¯re talking about." Responded the woman with an odd expression.

    Of course, the twenty bounty hunters were not stupid. They knew perfectly well that no one would ever call for reinforcements for no reason, and then deny it. This was the handiwork of someone which could control minds.

    Noticing the state of mind in which the woman was in, a second warrior took arge book out of his spatial ring, and after scrolling through it, he said with disappointment "Her memories have been erased.. There are two hundred and eighty-nine outcasts of the Psionic Dimension still free.. We¡¯ve lost them."

    "Damn it.."

    A few hundred thousands kilometers from where the twenty bounty hunters and the keeper of key were floating, a house sized was dashing through space, and into one portal after the other. On this small, Daniel and Aeran were sitting quietly in wait.

    Their destination, was thergest of the brilliant dots which they could see right in front of them.

 Chapter 256 Welcome to the Poisonous Rose

    Three monthster.

    "Heads.." *Ding-pah* ".. of course.." muttered Daniel with exasperation.

    "It still amazes me.. Aside from the eighty-three meteors that appeared out of nowhere and were directed right towards us, the twelve teams of bounty hunters that happened to be passing by, the three rift that lead to the void which opened right in front of us.. And three thousand losses in heads or tails.. I can see how terrifying those systems that Iewah gives to his people actually are.." Said Aeron with a face contorted in amazement.

    Daniel was not in the mood to joke, so, he looked at the big star that was right in front of them, and said "Good thing that we have almost arrived.."

    In front of them, was a bright giant white star, around which only twos orbited. One of these twos was gigantic and gaseous, and was basically a spinning ball of winds which would tear to shreds anything that would dare to approach it. The other, was a covered by ayer of green-brownish atmosphere.

    "That is Ton Bes." Said Aeron while pointing at the with the dense, and green atmosphere. He then added "We will need a very good reason to enter.. I know for a fact that its only city is filled with poison masters at the eighth stage, and that there are at least seven ninth stage cultivators in the.."

    "Don¡¯t worry, I have an idea." responded Daniel while creating a spatial barrier around the small which they were riding. The heath emanated by the white star was too strong, and if they didn¡¯t defend from it, they would suffer more, the more they approached it.

    Inparison to the star, the twos were extremely small, and very far from it. So much so, that it took two more days for the two of them to finally approach Ton Bes.

    Once the two were about to enter its poisonous atmosphere, Daniel shrunk his back into its smaller size, and put it back into his spatial ring. He then attempted to enter the atmosphere, only to be stopped by a kid which had appeared right in front of them.

    This kid seemed to be about nine years of age, and was ying around with a snake that was as thin as an earthworm, and as long as an adult¡¯s finger. The various colors of the snake¡¯s skin were reflected by therge eyes of the kid, which blew air at the snake while keeping it just a few centimeters away from his face.

    Daniel and Aeron approached respectfully. Without needing Aeron to tell him, Daniel had already felt what kind of power this kid-looking individual had. He was a ninth stage cultivator, and the keeper of key of Ton Bes.

    "Where have two outcasts like you found the courage to approach my garden?" Asked the kid with a soft-spoken tone. He hadn¡¯t even moved his face away from the small snake, and instead, kept blowing air at its head.

    "From the same ce where you found a reason not to capture us on sight.. I am here to join the Poisonous Rose. You know who I am, and why I am here. Let us through." Said Daniel with a calm tone. He showed no fear, nor excessive respect towards this individual.

    The kid-like keeper blew another whiff of air in the face of the small horned snake, which moved its head as if trying to catch the wind with his whole body, then said with a matter-of-fact tone "I am afraid that your spot has already been taken.. It¡¯s been two years, after all.."

    Without missing a bit, Daniel said "It¡¯s alright, I will handle it."

    For the first time, the kid turned to look at Daniel, and with a faint smile, he asked "And how do you n on doing that?"

    "I don¡¯t enjoy making poisons too much.. But someone who is better than me at making antidotes, has yet to be born. That can be onlypared to the best poison maker.. If my substitute is not qualified to take my ce, I will kill him with my own hands." Responded Daniel right away.

    "I have to admit it.. You are mildly interesting. But let¡¯s put your courage to the test." Said the kid before teleporting directly one meter in front of Daniel. He then added "This little fe is called Flower snake.. It¡¯s a race of non-poisonous, and small snakes which has nearly gone extinct due to the increased toxicity of the. Would you let it bite you?"

    Daniel moved his hand towards the kid, and allowed the little snake to crawl on his hand.

    The moment the snake moved on Daniel¡¯s hand, Aeron shook his head as if by trying toe out of a trance, and turned to look at Daniel with narrowed eyes. At the same time, a slightly confused expression appeared on the kid¡¯s face.

    The little snake moved around Daniel¡¯s hands for a few moments, as he observed it carefully. Anyone who saw this little snake, would not help but find it extremely cute. It kept moving around his palm, until finally, the snake reached his wrist, and tried to sink its fangs into Daniel¡¯s veins.. But it was stopped by the Daniel¡¯s skin, which had suddenly turned as hard as stone, the very moment before the bite.

    After a couple more unsessful attempts at biting Daniel¡¯s wrist, the little snake turned to look back at its owner. "No thank you.." Said Daniel while handing the small snake back to the kid.

    "Why not? You don¡¯t trust me?" Asked the kid with a face of pure innocence.

    "No."

    "Hehe.. maybe you¡¯ll survive a day or two.. You may enter" Said the kid while taking back the small snake. He then resumed blowing air on the snake¡¯s face.

    Instead of leaving right away, Daniel decided to show some interest towards the small snake. He had to y the part of the poison master, and no poison master in that situation would forget to ask what kind of animal that was. "What type of snake is that?"

    Internally satisfied by Daniel¡¯s curiosity, the kid turned towards Daniel, and said "This little one¡¯s race is called Nightmare at the End of the Rainbow.. Its bite injects an extremely small amount of poison which will cause a reaction in your blood.. Turning it into a corrosive substance that will melt your body from the inside in about two minutes. Its poison is categorized as a seventh tier poison. A high tiered poison."

    Daniel was, of course, aware of this. He had decided to let the snake bite him sessfully at first, as he wasn¡¯t sure if the kid-looking keeper was just bluffing, but then, he had felt a burning feeling run through his veins.. Slowly corroding his organs. Thirty-five seconds into this torture, and he decided to kill himself, as his organs were just about to fail.

    This was the cause for the odd looks that had appeared in the faces of the kid, and Aeron.

    Daniel had also discovered something extremely important about thetter. Just like him, the wielder of the karmic system, Aeron had kept the memories from before he had died, and time rewinded to forty seconds before the moment of his death. Aeron was already aware of the fact that Daniel¡¯s system could rewind time, as he had seen it in his memories, but he had never exined to Daniel his own power. One amongst many, was the ability to retain his memories when time was rewinded.

    Daniel put Aeron¡¯s matter to the back of his head, and asked to the kid-looking keeper with curiosity "Why blow air in his face?"

    "Because he likes it."

    Daniel responded to the kid-looking keeper with a faint grin, then turned towards the, and flew into its toxic atmosphere after surrounding himself with a sphere of wind essence.

    It was extremely important that Daniel and Aeron managed to enter the city, as the clean air which they had been breathing until now was constructed, and if they stopped creating more with theirprehension of wind essence, the constructed oxygen in their brain would dissipate, and they would risk going into aa, or even enter a state of cerebral death.

    Luckily enough, they only needed about two minutes to find therge green dome which contained the base of the poisonous rose.

    The moment they approached the entrance, they were stopped by five heavily armored cultivators, and a woman dressed in white armor. "What is your business here?" she asked with an authoritative tone, while wielding a spear with with a hollow tip, and a vein of white liquid that ran down its shaft.

    "I am here to see the chairman of the poisonous rose. She should already be aware of my arrival." Responded Daniel with a polite, yet slightly cold tone.

    The woman tightened the grip on her spear, and said "One moment." before teleported away only toe back less than five secondster. She then walked towards Daniel and Aeron, and once next to them, she directly teleported the three of them into the office of the chairman.

    Inside the office, three people were already present. A young woman that was sitting on the couch in one of the room¡¯s corners, a ck clothed middle aged man who stood quietly next to arge and refined desk, and a middle aged woman dressed in purple clothes, that was sitting behind the desk with a nervous expression on her face.

    Even if these three individuals were not in those positions, Daniel would have already known who the leader amongst them was, as Aeron had already told him.

    While Aeron stayed right next to the woman in white armor, Daniel approached the desk with a dead serious expression, and stared at the middle aged woman straight into her eyes.

    "Mr. Hiel.. I¡¯ve heard so much about you.." Said the middle aged woman nervously.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes narrowed for a short moment. He thenpletely ignore, and walked straight towards the couch opposite to the one where the young girl was sitting, and sat on it.

    "I¡¯ve had about enough of your tests.. I¡¯m here for my spot in Ton Bes.. not to y games." Said Daniel after making himselffortable on the couch.

    The young girl, which until now was ying with her hair in an attempt to pass as a airheaded young girl which had no business being there, turned towards Daniel, and said "What makes think you were worth waiting for? We already have a substitute."

    "That woman.." muttered Daniel before adding "I am more valuable.."

    The woman which was still sitting at the desk, showed an extremely displeased expression. She was the third choice for the role she had acquired, but she was not aware of that. She believed to have been chosen for her talents as a poison master, so, her pride was above the roof.

    In her hand, she was holding a small poisoned knife with which she was ready to attack Daniel at any given moment.

    "What makes you say that? Lady Min¡¯s poisons are.. Peculiar. Theyck grace, but they are brutal enough for my taste." Responded the young girl with a polite smile. While she did not fear Daniel as a cultivator due to the cultivation at the ninth stage which she, the ck clothed man, and the white armored woman had, she still feared his reputation as a former chosen of Iewah.

    Daniel smiled back at the young girl, and said "Because you don¡¯t have a shortage brutal poisons.. And my previous discovery already topples the value most of your people¡¯s life work. Lastly.. She is already dead."

    The young girl turned to look at her desk, and there, she saw the body of the purple dressed woman lie lifeless on her chair. Blood was oozing out of her nose, mouth and eyes, and her poisoned knife was pierced on her own leg.

    The young woman turned back towards Daniel, and with a faint mile, she said "Well, if you put it this way.. Wee to the Poisonous Rose. The first rule is.. Try not to kill other poison masters.. If they don¡¯t do anything to you."

 Chapter 257 A Fair Agreemen

    Despite the not so warm wee of the poisonous rose¡¯s chairman, Daniel kept himself seated "So, what is the price?" asked Daniel with a casual tone. He knew that the poisonous rose belonged to Iewah¡¯s faction, and that if they wanted, they could have reported him immediately, and have him captured, if not capture the both of them themselves.

    "Straight to the point.. I like that." Said the young girl after smiling maliciously at Daniel. She then stood up, sat next to him, and after putting her elbow on the back of the couch and crossing her legs, she said "The Rose will keep you hidden.. But in exchange, we would like you to agree to three conditions."

    Daniel ignored the enticing tone of the young girl, and responded by saying "What would these three conditions be?"

    "We want the form of your Partial Poison Immunity pills.. A pill that can grant a immunity to all poisons under the seventh tier within the next hundred years, andstly.. For you to work on a project for the creation of a high level poison immunity." Said the young woman with a casual tone.

    "That¡¯s a bit much, isn¡¯t it?" Asked Daniel with a hint of surprise. He was sure that this girl would demand the recipe of the pill he had already created, but he had no idea that she would demand so much from him. Unfortunately, he had no choice.. But of course, that didn¡¯t mean that he would ept right away.

    The young girl smiled once again, and said "We both know you don¡¯t have the option to refuse.."

    "That is true.. But I have the choice of epting your request, and leaving the moment your eyes move away from my body. I would say that it is better if we are both happy about the agreement, don¡¯t you think?" Said Daniel while smiling seductively back at her for a moment, and standing up from the couch. He then started to walk out of the office.

    The young girl snorted, andughing faintly, then said "We¡¯ll pay for half of the materials you need, and we will look for them ourselves."

    Without turning to look back at her, Daniel kept walking out of the office, and said "You¡¯ll pay for all of the ingredients that I won¡¯t be able to find by myself." He then stopped right in front of the door.

    "Fine.. we have a deal." Said the young girl before hearing the door of her office open, and close right after. She then turned towards the ck clothed middle aged man, and with a slightly flushed cheeks, she said "Make sure he has the materials he needs."

    The ck clothed man looked at the chairman of the poisonous rose with a dumbfounded expression. This was the first time he had seen someonee to fair terms with her.

    What had escaped the man¡¯s observation, was the fact that the young girl had just as little choices as Daniel had. She couldn¡¯t allow her superiors of the Garden of Death to learn that someone like Daniel had escaped their control.

    -----

    In a small part of space located at a great distance from Daniel¡¯s current position, a small portal suddenly appeared. It was the size of a human¡¯s head, and on the other side, one could see the chaotic and dangerous void.

    This portal only remained for a single moment, and in that moment, a small and transparent cube with a small bead and a golden medallion came out of it at an impressive speed.

    This small cube kept moving forward for a few kilometers, until finally, a second portal which would take it back into the void appeared in its trajectory. This process had repeated itself for millions of times in the past few months.. But now, as soon as the cube was about to enter the small portal, it suddenly stopped.

    "Got you.." Next to it, one individual after the other appeared out of the blue.

    Amongst these individuals, two caught the eye, while the rest would immediately leave the very moment they would notice the presence of these two.

    The first of these individuals, aside from being the person who had just spoken, was a young woman that appeared to be not older than eighteen years of age. Her oval shaped face was surrounded by a cascade of braided golden hair which reached all the way down to her bare shoulders. Underneath a pair of thin, and curved brows, her upturned eye shape hid two golden irises. Her straight nose stood right above a pair of pointy natural pink lips, whose crevices were colored in blood red, and were curved in a teasing smile.

    The private parts of her athletic body were covered by patches of treated leather, and by furs of different beasts, while the rest was free to be seen. Her skin was almostpletely covered by tattoos which depicted thousands of different beasts, monsters, and non-human entities.

    She floated in space along with what looked like a bear cub which held onto her shoulder.

    The second of these individuals, was a man of about twenty-nine years of age, with long ck hair that came down his head like a lion¡¯s mane. His hooded eyes surrounded a pair of ck-colored eyes, which stared at his surroundings from underneath his sharp, full, and angled brows with a seriousness which bordered into indifference. His defined andrge jaw was locked in ce, making it seem as if behind his thin red lips, he was gritting his teeth.

    The only items of clothing which he was wearing, were a pair of ck pants that were kept tightly pressed against his legs by a few dirty bandages, which were rolled up on his calves, thigh, and waist. His chest was bare, showing his muscrly built body. A a simple rope moved around his chest and arms to tie a massive scabbard on his back, which waspletely covered in bandages as well.

    In his left hand, this man was holding a single-edged sword, whose de appeared to have moving veins of death essence engraved in it.

    These two individuals had arrived at about the same time, but after they had noticed each other¡¯s presence, any matter for which they hade here, had disappeared from their minds.

    "Brother! It¡¯s nice to see you here, how have you been?" Said the young woman as a grin formed on her lips. She then turned her head towards the small bear cub, and kissed the side of its head, causing the small bear to brush himself against her in return.

    The man did not react to the girl¡¯s words, and instead, tightened his grip around the hilt of his impressive sword. His eyes started to show a hint of golden hue, just like those of the young girl herself.

    Many in the conquered universe would be able to recognize these two individuals. They were none other than Minah,monly known as The Tamer.. And Verrah, feared by all under the nickname of The Sword Wielder.

    As soon as the de of the man¡¯s sword moved, the tattoos on the girl¡¯s body shone with golden light, and took life. They then separated from her skin, and dashed into empty space, turning themselves into four massive beasts.

    The first of these four beasts was an immense winged hydra with seven heads.. each as big as a small. The second one, was a manticore. A massive lion with reptilian paws, multiple lines of mountain-sized teeth, three scorpion tails, andrge leathery wings. The third beast was a qilin.. With the body of a horse, the head and tail of a dragon, andstly, massive horns made of pure lightning. Last but not least, was a metallic dragon. A gargantuan four-legged reptile with a crown of metallic horns around his head, gigantic leathery wings, and metallic scales.

    Each of these beasts seemed capable of turning an entire into a random cluster of stones that floated pointlessly in the empty space.

    "Try it.. It won¡¯t go as easily asst time." Said Minah with a threatening tone.

    Instead of talking, Verrah gripped his sword tightly, and injected some sort of power into it through the effects of his own gift, making the sword increase in size, only to stop when it had reached fifty thousands of kilometers in length.

    At the same time, the horns of the qilin started to brighten, and behave more like proper lightning, the mouths of the hydra lit with the blue mes which it was charging, ck smoke seeped out of the dragon¡¯s mouth as the crevices in between the scales of his chest light of a bright red and yellow color, and the manticore pointed its three stingers at the swordsman.

    "You always have to do this? Every time? It¡¯s starting to get annoying.." Said a disembodied voice which caused the two to calm down immediately.

    In the empty space right in between the two, two more people had appeared. They were both covered byrge coats, with hoods that hid their facespletely. It was impossible for others to see who they were.. but of course, Verrah and Minah did not need to see the face of the person who had talked to know who he was.

    "Brother.. Why are you here?" asked Minah to one of the two covered individuals.

    The man turned to look at her, and with a faint smile, he said "For the same reason as you.. I wanted to say hello to our little brother¡¯s host.. But he isn¡¯t here it seems, he yed us."

    "Hehe.. that¡¯s right.. But that doesn¡¯t mean that we can¡¯t have fun by ourselves." Responded Minah. She, just like Verrah, could not help but want to fight against her brothers and sisters.

    Usually it would be the same for the newly arrived too, but something was different in him. Instead of jumping into the fight like he had done countless times before, he had stopped the two from fighting the umpteenth pointless battle.

    "Another time maybe.. There is one of us in particr that I am looking for.." Responded the clothed man with a calm tone. The meaning of his words was clear. He wasn¡¯t here to fight against them, but to look for Daniel.

    An odd expression appeared on the faces of Verrah and Minah, which looked at their brother with confusion, as he was behaving oddly.

    "Who is that?" Asked Minah after turning to look at the second clothed individual.

    From underneath the dark hood, only a pair of lips, and a pale neck could be seen.. When suddenly, two golden lights lit where the person¡¯s eyes were supposed to be.

    For a moment, Minah and Verrah which were currently looking at this hooded person stood immobile.. As if in a trance. They appeared to be under the effect of the power of the second individual.

    This went on for a few moments, when finally, the eyes of the manticore became dull, and it started to attack the other three beasts.

    At that point, Minah shook her head, and without waiting for a single moment, she called back the four massive beasts, and teleported away.

    Something simr happened to Verrah, which after being caught by the spell of the second person¡¯s eyes, was forced to sacrifice a portion of his sword to keep his sanity.

    As a part of his sword¡¯s body drifted away in space, he was ready to attack the hooded individual, but then, he noticed waves of mes, waters, lightning, wind, and other elements, being emanated by his brother¡¯s body. A clear sign that he was ready to fight.

    Conscious that he wouldn¡¯t be able to protect his mind while fighting with his brother, Verrah left as well.

    Now alone, the clothed man took his hood off, showing the face of a middle aged man with grey and ck hair. His expression was disappointed to say the least, and looked at the second individuals apologetically. "I am sorry my love.. The next time, I swear."

    "Don¡¯t worry, we will surely get them." responded the second individual while slowly taking her hood off, and revealing Kreah¡¯s face.

 Chapter 258 No Time for Poisons 2

    Once out of the building, Daniel walked towards the inhabited area of Ton Bes¡¯ only city, along with Aeron.

    Despite the fact that the city was mostly home to poison masters, it was oddly clean, and strangely advanced. Thanks to hisprehension of the elements, Daniel could feel that the buildings were made of an unusual mixture of lime, sand, gravel, and water, which had mixed into massive blocks of hard material. Inside theserge blocks, he could also feel a skeleton made of bars of pure steel, which made the building even more resistant.

    To a person used to simple cities with cobblestone ground, and buildings made out of blocks carved fromrger stones, bricks, and wood, a city like this seemed to havee straight from the future. Shops, restaurants,pany building, all covered in ss, and showing their elegant interiors to the people that walked the streets.

    The people on the streets wore simr, if not identical clothes. They were all dressed with clean white clothes, which either showed a distinctive patch, or a patch and a colored stripe on the left shoulder.

    Thanks to Aeron¡¯s abilities, the two had learned the reason for these two details.

    The patches were a symbol that wouldmunicate to which family one person belonged to, while the color, was a sign of stature. Those which had a color on their clothes were part of the families to which one of the thorns belonged.

    For example, when the Navi family owned the area which Daniel was now allowed to upy, their members would walk around while wearing whiteb coats with a patch which represented the Bavi family, and a dark blue stripe on their shoulder. It was only after the inventor of their poison had died, that they had been demoted to a simple family.

    Daniel and Aeron were the only ones that were walking around with normal clothes, so, people couldn¡¯t help but turn around towards them, as they were the new oddity in town.

    While other people looked at them with curiosity, Aeron was closing his eyes and trying to focus on positive and calming thoughts. His breathing was elerated, and he was trying to get it to a lower level, while his hands were squeezed so hard, that his fingers had drained of blood, and had be pale white.

    Daniel had noticed Aeron¡¯s state, but said nothing. There was nothing he could say that would help him.

    What Aeron was feeling, was the feelings of the people that surrounded them, as well as the feelings of the people which he could see in the memories of these individuals. Thousands, tens of thousands.. millions of people used as experiments to test new and more sophisticated poisons.

    He was trying to control the fear, the resentment, and the anger he was feeling. That, was the burden of his faction.

    After the two found a rtively empty restaurant, they went in to eat something, and gather a few more information.

    "Soup of the three hundred poisons.. Steamed buns of death.. She loves me, She loves me not, She is dead.. What the hell is this ce? These names are so stupid.." muttered Daniel while reading the poison based menu. He then stopped a waiter that was walking around with a bowl filled with purplish soup, and asked "Excuse me, are these dishes actually poisonous?"

    The waiter initiallyughed at Daniel¡¯s question, but after noticing that he was actually serious, heposed himself, and said "They are, but they are treated in a way that inhibits the poison. They arepletely safe."

    After a few more questions, Daniel had found out that, one day, when a poison master had been stuck in his studies for more than twenty years, he had gone to a restaurant in order to take a pause from his seemingly pointless research.

    When he had entered the restaurant, he had distractly ordered a few dishes. One of these dishes was a sd, which due to a mistake caused by one of the people which had refurbished the restaurant with food, contained a poisonous nt with looked exactly like harmless lettuce.

    Being poisoned and escaping death had inspired the man in new ways of research, and in the end, he had managed to create a poison that was valuable enough to grant him the title of one of the thorns.

    Since then, the man had died of old age, and his family had fallen into disgrace and disappeared. While the legacy he had left to Ton Bes was not a potent poison, it still was something that inspired many other poison masters in the future.

    In order to understand poison, one had to feel it on themselves.

    After their odd lunch, Daniel and Aeron went directly towards their researching territory, which people usually referred to as ¡¯petals¡¯.

    Daniel¡¯s petal was in the southern side of Ton Bes. It was rtively big, and wasprised of numerous buildings, arge amount of researching materials, and living areas.

    In the streets, numerous individuals were packing their belongings and leaving their homes. All of them wore a patch identical to that of the woman which Aeron had inconspicuously killed during their meeting with the chairman. They were her workers, and part of her group, but now that Daniel hade into possession of this area, these people had to leave with no exception.

    Daniel did not care at all for these people. No one would serve an individual which such a bad karma if they didn¡¯t possess a greedy, or evil mind. That was proven by the many red numbers which floated above the heads of these people. Only the youngest amongst these individuals possessed a neutral karma, but once they reached over the twenty years of age, there was a spike in their negative karma, which meant that they would have to undergo a passage that would turn them into evil individuals.. That passage, was likely to be the beginning of their experiments, and the killing of thousands of people.

    When these people noticed the figure of Daniel, and the masked Aeron, they looked at them with hateful eyes. They had received the notice that their leader had died, and that they were required to leave. While they were not involved with how the poisonous rose operated, they could still guess what had happened.

    In the middle of Daniel¡¯s petal, the two found a few massive buildings. The area on which these buildings were built was at least one acre, and the buildings were at least one hundred square meters each, and connected with each other by a few passages ced in mid air.

    "We should hire some people.." muttered Daniel after noticing how massive the structure was. There was no way that he and Aeron could maintain this massive structure working by themselves.

    After a few moment spent looking at the elegant architecture, and dark sses from which seeing through was impossible, the two entered.

    -----

    The next day.

    Since the two had entered the building, Aeron had closed himself in cultivation. He had been tormented by the screams of agony of the test subjects of these people ever since they had arrived. Unable to stand it any longer, he decided to go into cultivation, as cultivation was the only thing that helped him distract himself from this torture.

    Unfortunately, Daniel was not able to do the same. Each and every perfect crystal in his possession had been used by Sewah, which would use it like extra soft toilet paper the very moment he had one, leaving Danielpletely broke.

    With nothing better to do, Daniel had spent the past day studying the instruments left within the building. Many of them operated through ingenious tricks of light, reflection, and gravity, and while Daniel did not exactly know what they were used for at first, it didn¡¯t took long for him to understand after making a few wild guesses while using ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started (Chain): No Time for Poisons 2*

    -Description: Create a mid level poison immunity pill.

    First objective set: Obtain the venom nds of eighty five-thousand-years old White-Eyed spiders.

    Reward: 500,000,000,000 Karma Points / Unnamed Partial Poison Immunity / The Poisonous Rose Reputation +100% / (Optional) Universal Government Reputation +30% / Garden of Death +100%

    Time limit: 1 year

    ____________________________

    Daniel looked at the new mission he had started for the sole purpose of creating a mid-level poison immunity pill, with curiosity. He had already guessed that his reputation in the poisonous rose would skyrocket, as well as that in the universal government in case he decided to make his discovery known.. But he didn¡¯t know who, or what the Garden of Death was.

    ____________________________

    Economic approach

    Difficulty: Easy

    -Purchase the ingredients from the many marketces, and neighbouring territories. (25,00 perfect crystals each)

    Time limit: 4 days, 1 hour, 19 minutes, 59 seconds.

    (Requirements: 200,000 Perfect Crystals)

    Reward: 5,000 karma.

    ____________________________

    Direct approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Reach the white-eyed spiders nest (745,333,205 meters north from Karmic system wielder¡¯s current position.

    -Obtain eighty White-Eyed spiders venom ns.

    -(Optional: Avoid being followed)

    Countdown: 9 days and 21 hours.

    (Requirements: Peak eight stage of immortal cultivation.)

    Reward: Poisonous Rose reputation +5% / (Optional Poisonous Rose reputation +10%)

    ____________________________

    Political approach

    Difficulty: Easy

    -Use your connection to the poisonous to request for the ingredients.

    Reward: Poisonous Rose reputation -25% / Karma -300,000,000

    ____________________________

    "The easiest approach is never the most convenient.." muttered Daniel nervously while looking at the three windows that appeared in his mind.

    From behind him, Aeron appeared out of nowhere, and said "It¡¯s reasonable.. They will be bothered by having to fetch items for you.. And they will likely have to do awful things to get their hands on so many high quality poisonous ingredients.. We are better off getting them ourselves."

    Aeron had been attracted by what had suddenly appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind. This was the first time he had seen a window appear inside someone¡¯s mind, and he couldn¡¯t help but be curious about it. So much so, that he had interrupted his cultivation.

    "You want toe too?" asked Daniel with curiosity. He couldn¡¯t understand why Aeron would suddenly decide to follow him. His only guess so far had been that he was sick of the solitary life of an outcast, and that since he didn¡¯t mind Daniel¡¯s character, he would rather wander around with him that end up in a prison, mining for perfect crystals.

    "We are both out of crystals.. The more time I stay in this city, the more I want to rip the throat of anyone that walks in front of me.." muttered Aeron in a sort of defeated tone. He was extremely talented even amongst his peers, but there was a limit to the fear, anger, and desperation that a mental warrior could ignore.

    Deep down, Daniel felt pity for Aeron. He had felt those kind of feelings for himself before, and those were already enough to drive a person crazy. He couldn¡¯t even begin toprehend how much harder it would be to feel that amplified by thousands, if not millions of times.

    "Okay then, I¡¯ll ask for them to find us some workers.. We have to look busy.." Said Daniel before teleporting out of his building.

    The city of Ton Bes was, just like the ship on which Daniel and Aeron had traveled, covered by a formation which wouldn¡¯t allow people to peek through walls, windows, floor, or any other types of barrier. Each family conducted secret experiments in their own petals, and therefore, the poisonous rose had created this formation to prevent others from stealing the projects of one another.

    What was odd about this formation was that, despite Daniel and Aeron being eight stage cultivators, and being used to seeing ninth rank cultivators, they couldn¡¯t understand the power of this formation. Theoretically speaking, they should have been able to feel a defence just slightly more powerful than they were, but instead, they felt a defense immensely more powerful than their own senses or essences.

    "So powerful.. This formation must be hundreds of years old.." muttered Aeron while trying to push his senses through the walls of Daniel¡¯s building.

    "Maybe the group called Garden of Death has something to do with it.." responded Daniel without thinking too much about it.

    The moment these words came out of Daniel¡¯s mouth, Aeron turned towards him, and asked with doubt "What did you just say?"

 Chapter 259 You Are Not Invited

    "What did you just say?" Asked Aeron with doubt, thinking that he had heard wrong.

    Daniel turned to look back at him, and said "I said that maybe a group called Garden of Death has something to do with it."

    When Aeron had seen the window appear in Daniel¡¯s mind, from the standing point of a mental warrior, he had felt extremely curious about it. He had never seen such a thing happen before, and therefore, he was curious about what it was. Nevertheless, he was respectful about Daniel¡¯s secrets, and had decided not to pry into his mind any further.

    He had decided to keep quiet, until finally, he heard the words Garden of Deathe from Daniel¡¯s mouth. "That¡¯s a name you don¡¯t hear often anymore.." muttered Aeron while trying to remember a few details from the past.

    After what seemed like a whole minute, his red eyes opened wide in horror. He then said "Wait! You can¡¯t give them the poison immunity pills.." He then started to exin to Daniel the method which the members of the Garden of Death used to be elites.

    "So that is why.." muttered Daniel before taking a small pause, and adding "Well, I already knew they had a use for those types of pills. They are poison masters. They poison people, and therefore it would have been odd for them to need a poison immunity pill.. But I didn¡¯t expect that I would be aiding an entire faction.. That is for sure." Of course, Daniel never had any intention of giving the higher level immunity pills to the poisonous rose. He only wanted a ce to hide for awhile, a method to get rid of all of the bad karma that Sewah had left him with, and a way to gain a bit of crystals.

    He wanted to escape the very moment he would have obtained a mid level immunity pill, and even if the Poisonous Rose would have tried to stop him, he would have found a way thanks to his system.

    Daniel had already given the recipe for the partial poison immunity pill to the Poisonous Rose, but he was not bothered by that. Even if the Garden of Death managed to make all of its members immune to low level poisons, and make them able to pass the first obstacle to be elites, the rate of sess would not change. The people whose body was not able to resist mid level poisons before, wouldn¡¯t be able to defend against them even if they ingested one of Daniel¡¯s pills. So, at best, Daniel had increased the numbers of the low level warrior of their faction.

    What the Garden of Death needed to switch from one of the weakest, to one of the most powerful factions in the known universe, was for Daniel to create a permanent and total immunity. If he managed that, the Garden of Death would be able to create elite warriors out of each and everyone of their members.. Turning from a few hundred strong faction which virtually any other could defeat, to a billion, or even trillion strong one, against which only the universal government would be able topete.

    Daniel had no intention of turning the universe into the yground of a ruthless faction. So he immediately started to think of a long term n.

    The first part, was to prevent the Poisonous Rose from knowing what the ingredients of his mid level poison immunity pills were.

    -----

    Differently from Daniel¡¯s world of origin, Ton Bes had a much further distance from its sun, and a slower rotation. That was the reason why amon day and night cyclested more than ny hours.

    Daniel and Aeron left the city early in the morning, and went west at the fastest speed they could manage. They then stopped a few hundreds of thousand kilometers out of the city, and waited in a forest of purplish, and yellow trees quietly.

    It was only after more than one hour spent sitting on a couple of ck tree stumps, that Daniel turned towards an area that was apparently empty, and said "Is there anything we can help you with?"

    There was no response.

    Neither Daniel or Aeron could feel any form of presence around them, and if Daniel didn¡¯t have the specific optional objective of preventing people from following him, he would have never known that someone actually was tailing them.

    Standing on a tree branch,pletely invisible to the naked eye, was a young woman with tight ck clothes that covered her entire body, leaving only her eyes uncovered. She hadn¡¯t moved in the slightest ever since the two had stopped in this forest. Not even when Daniel had talked to her directly, asking her what did she want.

    From the perspective of the spy, there was a very high possibility that Daniel could be bluffing. That was why she hadn¡¯t moved. Her clothes were covered by multipleyers of soundproof and light proof formations, and her mind was protected by a barrier way beyond what Aeron could break through. Theoretically speaking, she shouldn¡¯t have been found out.

    "As long as you stay here, I won¡¯t search for the objects I need. You¡¯ll have to go back with empty hands." said Daniel while looking around.

    It didn¡¯t matter what Daniel said. She was trained in the art of stealth and espionage. She wouldn¡¯t admit to be a spy even if she was caught red handed. Even if Daniel could see her, she would im innocence, and pretend that she was there for research, or any other random excuse that would suit the moment better.

    "Alright then.. Let¡¯s do it your way. I¡¯ll go back.." Said Daniel with unwillingness before standing up from the ck tree stump, and dashing back towards the city along with Aeron.

    The girl looked at Daniel with confusion. She was impressed by the fact that Daniel could actually feel her presence. Especially since she was of a higher cultivation, and had many means to keep herself hidden.

    The moment the two left, as per her job, she followed right after them.

    With an oddly slow pace, the three ran back towards the city, but the more they ran, the more odd the spy felt. She had noticed that the more they would walk, the more basic Daniel¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s motion became. They had suddenly stopped talking, they didn¡¯t stop to sightsee anymore in search of the right direction, and a few times, from the distance, it appeared that not even a single tree would be in their way. They could simply run straight without ever encountering any obstacle.

    A few thoughts were starting to make their appearance in the girl¡¯s mind, until finally, her fears became true when the two people she was tasked with following, had disappeared. Not only they had disappeared, but her surroundings also changed. She wasn¡¯t in a forest anymore, but in arge swamp with purple mud bubbling all around her.

    "Those bastards.." she muttered with anger before giving up stealth, and dashing with her fastest speed towards the woods to the west of the city.. But once there, she found nothing. No traces of immortal essence, no traces of spatial essence, and no physical trails to follow.

    Back in the swamp, from underneath one of the pools of purple, poisonous mud, a sphere embed with pure dark essence emerged. Inside it, were Daniel and Aeron.

    "Good riddance.." muttered Daniel while looking towards the direction where the spy had disappeared in.

    When the two of them had stopped in the forest and sat on a tree stump, Daniel had used that moment of calm to create an illusion. With that illusion activated in therge area around them, Daniel had simted the action of him and Aeron going back towards the city. Taking for granted that the spy would follow them, they followed their own doubles, only to make the illusion disappear once they would change area.

    When the spy discovered that the couple that she was following was nothing but an illusion, she ran back towards the area were the two had originally stopped in hope to find a trail that could point her towards their direction, but the true Daniel and Aeron were right next to her.

    The reason why Daniel hadn¡¯t simply left, was because he would not be able to keep the illusion for long once they got too far from it.

    He also knew that the spy could have assumed that Daniel and Aeron were following the illusion just like her in order to keep it up and running, but that didn¡¯t matter, as she couldn¡¯t feel their presence regardless.

    The spy went back and forth from the area where the two had stopped, the area where the illusion had ended, and the city, but in the end, she had no choice but to give up. She had lost them.

    A few minutes after they managed to get rid of the spy, Daniel and Aeron appeared in front of a massive hole in the ground. This hole was about ten kilometers wide, and it waspletely covered in hundreds ofyers of spiderwebs. So much so, that if someone were to observe this area from far away, while squinting their eyes, they would swear that this sinkhole was filled with milk.

    "I know I won¡¯t like this.." muttered Daniel while looking at the massive entrance.

    "You¡¯ve walked around parasites for months in the ship.. And you¡¯re scared of a few spiders?.." Asked Aeron with doubt.

    Daniel shook off the shiver that was charging in the lower part of his spine "Look.. it¡¯s spiders.. They are disgusting.. And these ones are crazy big." responded Daniel with a hint of unwillingness in his face. He had always been slightly disgusted by spiders. He had never encountered one that was bigger than a fingernail, and yet, the idea of eight hairy legs that quietly lurked around the corners of his house, had always sent a shiver down his spine.

    What helped him this time, was thinking that these spiders were likely smart enough to understand him, as just like the red carp, they were ancient and powerful.

    "How are you not creeped out by these things?!" Asked Daniel in exasperation.

    "Well now I am! Get your shit together!" Aeron barked out angrily after turning towards Daniel. He could passively feel anything that Daniel felt, and that included his irrational, and yetpletely rational fear of spiders.

    Slightly embarrassed, Daniel said "Oh, sorry.." He then took a deep breath, and calmed himself down significantly. His mental fortitude was one of the various things which had developed thanks to the absorption of most of Sewah¡¯s mind.

    Just like Daniel was after being almost devoured, Sewah had also fallen asleep in a corner within the depths of Daniel¡¯s mind. The only difference, was that Daniel¡¯s mind did not constantly hunt for the remains of Sewah¡¯s, and instead, kept him imprisoned.

    There was no much difference now from the time when Sewah was simply the karmic system¡¯s consciousness. He could only try to devour Daniel¡¯s consciousness again, but without protection, and a mind power much stronger than Daniel¡¯s, things would end very differently.

    Even if Daniel kept increasing Sewah¡¯s mind power by making him evolve again and again, Daniel was now aware of his presence. He had already started to reinforce his mind through a few methods given by Aeron himself.

    The easiest ones were three. To dive as deep as possible into other people¡¯s memories, to devour other people¡¯s minds, and finally, to attempt to separate his mind from his body and spirit. Through these three methods, Daniel would be able to increase the power of his mind, and prevent Sewah from managing to take over his body ever again.

    "Are you ready?.." asked Aeron to a now calmer Daniel.

    Daniel simply responded with a not, then formed arge ball of liquid mes which turned the massive webs aze.

 Chapter 260 As Long as I Dont Have to Touch Them

    The massive spider webs burned instantly, leaving an invisible and miasmatic cloud free to drift through the entire area, and cause each and every insect or animal caught by it, to fall on the ground in a state ofplete paralysis. If Daniel and Aeron did not have a protection against this poisonous cloud, they would have likely ended up in the same situation.

    "That¡¯s not good.." muttered Daniel while looking at the reaction that a few small insects next to him had shown in responses to being poisoned. He then took a deep breath, and jumped right into therge sink hole along with Aeron.

    Daniel had read about the type of spiders that popted this cave. He already knew that they were of a certain size, and that was proven by the size of the cavern¡¯s corridors, which were massive. Unfortunately, Ton Bes¡¯s environment was so dangerous, that it had forced the wildlife into a state of constant evolution. Therefore, there was a high possibility that all of the information he had gathered about his prey, was already outdated.

    What he knew about these arachnids, was that they were two meters long spiders. Their shape was not unlike that of amon tarant, which wasposed of eight hairy legs divided into multiple sections, two furry palps which they used to handle their food, and sharp fangs which would inject a powerful poison which could paralyze the prey, and turn their organs into a pasty goo of which they would slowly feed on.

    The massive cavern was filled with thick spider webs which Daniel and Aeron carefully avoided, as they were sure that a single touch, would leave them instantly paralyzed for who knows how long.

    A few hours passed, but despite how long the two of them had walked, they had not found any sign of life. The walls had deep scratches on them, sign that the spiders had tried to dig through in hope to expand the cave, but all of these scratches were old.. Just like the thousands of bony remains strewn all over the ground.

    It almost seemed as if the cave was abandoned.

    Aeron was starting to doubt that there would be any spider here, but Daniel did not share that opinion. He knew that, if the quest told him that he would find the objects he needed here, then he would undoubtedly find them.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel approached one of the threads, and after covering his fingers with ayer of stone, he pinched it. The vibration caused by Daniel¡¯s action extended through the entire length of the thread. It also jumped from one thread to another in the points where the two threads touched, creating loud noise that would definitely alert each and every being that lived close by, or in contact to those threads.

    Unfortunately, even after five hours of wait, nothing had happened.. Or at least, nothing that they could feel from that distance.

    In the far away depths of the cave, covered by an oppressive amount of darkness, a single yellow eye had opened. This eye was massive, and did not have a round pupil, but a reptile-like slit instead.

    What made Daniel and Aeron understand that there was something wrong with this cave, was the fact that they had finally found remains of the spiders that they were supposed to be hunting, but were oddly big, and only carcasses mixed with the remains of their own preys.

    Finally, a few changes urred..

    A piercing cry was uttered from the far depths of the cave, but powerful enough to reach all the way to where Daniel and Aeron were.

    Surprised by the sudden human scream, the two dashed with their fastest speed, and after a few minutes, they arrived in a massive cave. In one of the sides of thisrge cave, a man and a woman were being cornered by arge amounts of gigantic spiders.

    At least twenty of them were slowly pacing around this couple, with some of them that were mummifying what looked like a few fresh human corpse with their webs, and a couple more that were creeping on the stony wall right above the couple quietly.

    Just like Daniel had feared, these spiders were a lot different from how they were supposed to be. They were at the very least fifteen meters in length, and had two rows of four eyes each, just above a massive pair of mandibles that ended in sharp spikes.

    This couple appeared to be in their fifties, and wore expensive armor. They did not have any patch or coat, and were likely mercenaries, the only other job aside from that of the researcher in Ton Bes.

    While Ton Bes¡¯s atmosphere had be poisonous due to the multitude of experiments and tests conducted by the various poison masters through the centuries, now, it was very different. Many groups had considered leaving this and finding another one, but things had changed to such a speed, that the itself had be a heaven for schrs all over the universe. The beasts kept evolving, causing new poisons and resistances to be discovered every single year.

    The need to keep advancing in their research, had caused the poison masters to push themselves into the poisonous area in order to look for new species of poisonous beings.. And no ce was better for that, than Ton Bes.

    It didn¡¯t take long before this job was passed down to mercenaries.. A type of receable individual which no one would have missed.

    "We kill.. And tie you.. And eat you.. So juicy.."

    "So hungry.."

    The thoughts that Daniel and Aeron hearding from the minds of these spiders were much simpler than what they had expected. They were beasts at the sixth, seventh, and eight stage of cultivation, and yet, they sounded slow-minded, and focused on eating above anything else.

    Daniel did not want to meddle with this, as he couldn¡¯t see these people¡¯s karma due to the darkness of the cave, but then, he heard the voice of thedy say "Leave me here.. They bit me already!.. I¡¯ll distract them for you.." she then turned towards Daniel and Aeron, which had just appeared to the entrance of this cave, and added with a begging tone "Please.. Take my husband and.. Run.."

    Before Daniel could even react, a massive green giant had appeared behind Aeron, and started to sh down at the closest of these spiders, causing the attention of theserge group of arachnids to focus on him.

    What Daniel felt in this moment, was deep respect for Aeron. He was a reserved and intrusive individual at times, but he had developed a indomitable decisiveness to aid anyone who he deemed worthy of being helped. He did not have a karmic system which could suggest to him what to think of people, so, he could only listen to his instincts.

    This was a turning point for Daniel. He had already thought about the fact that he gave too much weight to what the system told him, and he had tried to do something about it, but unfortunately, some matters did not allow him the time to take his instincts into consideration.. Or at the very least, not as fast as it would be for him to simply look at a number.

    He had never developed an instinct for people¡¯s character, and that was his system¡¯s fault.

    But of course, that was a thought for another day.. As now two swords that looked like moltenva had appeared on his hands, and he was shaking the shiver off of his back while preparing to swing them at the many crazed spiders.

    These spiders did not have many predators, as they lived deep into these caves, and only moved out at night to hunt for other beasts. Their sight was almost non existent, and focused more on touching, as six of the eight eyes they had were blind. This had caused their bodies to be covered by white, and thick fur, which they used to feel the presence of people around them.

    Of course, that did not affect their speed, as after detecting Daniel¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s movements, they turned towards them, and started marching in their direction at high speeds.

    As soon as the sword of Aeron¡¯s avatarnded on the back of one of these massive spiders, he understood something. Their carapace was not something that he could break.. So he let the sword of the avatar disappear, and instead, used the giant¡¯s enormous hands to grab the spider¡¯s body, and pull it apart limb by limb.

    Even during their deaths, all that these spiders could think of, was to eat.

    Seeing that physical attacks were unlikely to work on them, Daniel looked at his swords, and unwillingly made them disappear. He then let out massive amounts of immortal essence fed by his system¡¯s skill ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ and covered a few spiders with it.

    His first instinct was to turn these spiders into dust with fire, but then, after he remembered what effect burning the spider webs had on the surroundings when they had burned the entrance of the cave, he suddenly stopped.

    They were in a closed area tens of kilometers below the surface, and if the air of this cave got saturated with that poisonous miasma, while he would be able to avoid being affected by it, he would have difficulties in fighting at the same time. So, instead of fire, he turned the massive immortal essence into water.

    The constructed water engulfed the spiderpletely, and left it waving its legs in hope to grab something solid to use to step out of this dome of constructed water, but unfortunately, the water followed it.

    Reassured that he could fight these massive spiders without having to touch them, Daniel kept attacking one after the other with many other methods, like turning the stone underneath them into quicksand, and after they sunk their legs into it, back into hard stone, forming wet metallic spikes that would lift them from the ground, and impede their movements, and even creating gravitational traps which would break the flow of their movements, and allow Aeron to finish them off.

    At the same time, Aeron was covered by his massive avatar which, in turn, was assaulted by a dozen spiders, which walked around the green surface of its body and bit mercilessly, but also pointlessly at its hard skin.

    For these crazed spiders, this massive green golem was also food.

    About an hourter, the many spiders had died, and only Daniel, Aeron, and the middle aged couple were still alive. The woman was lying on the ground,pletely paralyzed, and with blood gushing out of her mouth.

    "No no no no Hanna.. Please stay with me.." Said the scarred middle aged man after dropping his chipped greatsword on the ground, and falling on his knees next to his wife. They were both warriors at the sixth stage of immortal cultivation, and only survivors of their group.

    Daniel and Aeron directly teleported next to the middle aged couple, and observed the infected injury on the woman¡¯s body. Two fist sized holes were present on her thigh, and from it, thick ck veins were crawling up her leg, and toward her chest.

    Danie was still not able to see the karma of the two, so, without thinking twice about it, he took one of thest couple pills he had, and put it into the woman¡¯s mouth. He knew that it was impossible that his low level pill could ever cure the woman from a poison which was one of the ingredients for a mid-level poison immunity, but he knew that the pill would certainly fight the poison.. And that was what he needed.

    He then ced both of his hands on the woman¡¯s chest, and pushed his immortal essence into the woman¡¯s body. Unfortunately, this was extremely painful, and while the woman was paralyzed, she was still conscious, and could feel the pain fully.

    The moment he felt the pill fight against the spider¡¯s poison, he immediately aided the pill in purging the body from it, by pushing it out of the wound.

    Large amounts of green gtinous liquid came out of the woman¡¯s leg, until finally, her leg went back into a normal color, and the injury closed.. At that point, she had already passed out from the pain.

 Chapter 261 You Smell Like Trouble

    After the woman healed, and fell unconscious in her husband¡¯s arms, the man looked at Daniel with gratitude and tears in his eyes. "Thank you.." he muttered before turning back towards his dear wife, and taking care of her.

    "Why were you here? From what I know, you are barely strong enough to fight the weakest of the non evolved versions of these spiders.." Asked Daniel after a couple of minutes. He couldn¡¯t understand why this couple would want toe here with the power they possessed, as they were truly too weak.

    The man did not respond, and Instead, he took a good look at Daniel¡¯s attire before turning to look back at his wife with worry and unwillingness. After a long minute, he shook his head with resignation, and said "We are mercenaries. This job pays well.. That¡¯s all."

    Daniel sat next to the middle aged couple, and said with a matter-of-fact tone "You are not a mercenary.. You¡¯re a ve. You were found by the current sky blue thorn when she came to test her poison to your, and found out that your family was oddly immune to her poison. She took you for examination.. There is no need to lie."

    The man looked at Daniel with shook, but before he could say anything else, Daniel added "No I¡¯m not wrong. You have been sent here because the sky blue thorn has no more use for the two of you, except for this. She also has all three of your children under her custody.. Again, there is no need to lie."

    At this point, the man became extremely alerted. Daniel knew too much, and the man would have suspected that he already knew about him and his family before, if not for the fact that they were a secret well kept by the sky blue thorn, and that Daniel was responding to him as if he already knew what he was going to say in advance.

    Heid his wife carefully on his jacket, and stood in between her and Daniel.

    Daniel ignored this man¡¯s threatening behaviour and thoughts. If he had truly wanted to kill them, the man would have not been able to defend himself. Instead, he looked at Aeron, which said to him "You were right.. There are only a few spiders here, but there are more in the ring of one of hispanions."

    "How many?" thought Daniel the very next moment.

    "Hundreds."

    Daniel nodded his head casually, and stood back up. He then turned back towards the man, and asked "Where is the guy that keeps the ingredients that you havee to look for in this cave?" He already knew that this individual was not here, as Aeron had already told him that the husband of this couple had lost track of that person at some point when they were running away.

    The man looked at Daniel with confusion, and said "One of the researchers of the sky blue thorn has it.. They told us we had to take him with us, because the venomous nds are extremely fragile, and any form of damage to them would turn them useless."

    "What happened?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "We were never meant to fight the strong ones.. We were meant to keep the weakest away from the group, but after we entered, we discovered that they had evolved. We were told to stay back and keep the bodies after the researchers took the venomous ns.. So after a few hours, we ended up being left behind by a few hundred meters. It was then that we heard the screams, and saw them running back towards us at full speed. We turned around and left, but when we arrived to this area, it was filled with even more spiders." Exined the man fearfully.

    From the way the man described what had happened, Daniel could feel the fear he had felt in that moment, and that, had left him perplexed. They hade here to hunt for spiders, and had sessfully done so for hours.. Why be that scared of them, then?

    "What does the researcher look like?"

    "An old man with burned hands, white robes with a light blue stripe on his left shoulder, and the patch of the Jeje family.." muttered the man with a hateful tone. This man was part of the family lead by the woman that had virtually destroyed his entire world, and taken his entire family as prisoners. They then had to withstand one test after the other.. The simple idea that their children would have to suffer the same fate.. But for longer, as they were just kids.. Filled the man with an indescribably deep hatred.

    "Fine.." muttered Daniel with a good deal of annoyance. They hade so far, and they were not going to go back without what they were looking for. With a steady pace, he turned towards the corridor opposite to the direction where the bodies wereid, and walked straight into it. He then turned to look back at the middle aged man, and said "Come on."

    "We can¡¯t go back there.. It¡¯s too dangerous for us.."

    "And you think that staying here alone with an unconscious woman is going to be safer than staying close to us?.. Suit yourself." Responded Daniel while entering the corridor.

    Aeron, which was still in therge cave, turned to look at the man, and while reading his mind, he learned that the man did not trust Daniel enough to simply follow him to a dangerous situation, as he had his wife to protect.

    One of the reasons why this man did not trust Daniel, was because he could see the white robes he was wearing. The two had stayed in Ton Bes for over a day, and had quickly gotten tired of receiving odd looks due to the way they were dressed. So, they had decided to buy a set of clothes in one of the city¡¯s shop, which mostly sold white clothes whose only major differences, were the ways the pieces of cloth had been sewn together.

    Instead of saying anything to convince the man, Aeron injected into his mind the idea that, no matter what they feared at the end of the cave, something much worse was waiting for them at the entrance.

    The moment the bright green color disappeared from the Aeron¡¯s eyes, the man¡¯s face changed from one of alertness, into one of fear. He quickly picked up his wife, and followed Daniel into the corridor in a hurry.

    To Aeron, there was a bigger chance that this couple would die while on their way back, than by following Daniel. He also knew that Daniel had no bad intentions towards them, and that he wouldn¡¯t simply kill someone even if they had a small amount of negative karma.

    The four followed the corridor in silence, until finally, after more than an hour, the woman woke up. She was then quickly filled in by her husband about what had happened.

    On their way into the corridor, the group had met with a fewrge spiders, but they were quickly killed by Daniel, which would rapidly keep their bodies, and keep going deeper. They had yet to reach the required number of venomous nds toplete his quest, and killing just a few every now and then, was clearly not enough.

    Interestingly enough, there wasn¡¯t any trace of fighting in the area, only a few steps, and signs of dragging.

    After almost half a day of walking, the four found themselves into a second dimly lit cave. This cave was a lot bigger than the previous one, and it had a circumference of at least a few kilometers. What was shedding light in it, was a big pool of magma, which simply enlightened a portion of the cave.

    From what Daniel could feel by sensing the walls of this cave, there wasn¡¯t any other exit, aside from the path they had just came in.

    The four entered the massive area, and looked around carefully.. but found nothing.

    "Why are you killing my source of food?.." Said a disembodied voice, as a deep, and guttural rumble sent a terrifying feeling down the backs of all of those who heard it.

    The four turned around, and saw tworge, and yellow reptile eyes just a few meters away from them.

    What shocked Daniel and Aeron the most, was the fact that they hadn¡¯t felt this entity at all, no matter how much they had looked around for.

    "Of course.. Things were going too smoothly.." muttered Daniel with a low voice, while internally cursing at the unconscious Sewah one more time. He then stepped in front of the others, and said "We didn¡¯t know that these spiders were your source of food. If you don¡¯t mind, we would like to recover the bodies of our dead, and leave." Daniel did not know what this being was, but the stealthy behaviour, and therge reptile-like eyes, were never good signs.

    As soon as Daniel finished speaking, the two yellow eyes slowly approached his position, and entered the area illuminated by the small pool of magma.

    Around the left eye, Daniel could see scaly skin, horns, and the side of an enormous mouth filled with many two meters-long teeth.

    "You smell like trouble.." Said this being after taking in a whiff of Daniel¡¯s smell, and growling in a newly found hostility towards him.

    This reptilian being did not appear instinctively aggressive at first, and yet, it had shown hostility after smelling him. This event looked familiar to Daniel, but now, he was not in the position to delve into memories.

    "Do you make enemies with people based on how they smell?" Asked Daniel while raising his hands, and taking a few steps back.

    A green me suddenly appeared inside what looked a slightly opened gigantic mouth, but only for long enough for Daniel to have a better look of who or what he was talking to. The me appeared only because this being scoffed in amusement, before asking "Do you think that you know what kind of being is able to alert me, or what they smell like?"

    "No idea.. Do I look like I could hurt you?" Daniel asked right away. He wanted to be clear about a simple fact.. They were not here to cause trouble. His luck was already bad enough without him having to fight a beast of unknown power.

    The beast suddenly becamepletely quiet, and the eyes slowly closed. A few noises of flesh being ripped and twisted could be hearding from just a few meters in front of Daniel, and resound in the surrounding area, until suddenly, they also stopped.

    The two eyes reappeared right at Daniel¡¯s height. They were still reptile-like, and still of a bright yellow color, but now, they were human-sized, and not anymore as big as boulders.

    Moments after the eyes reappeared, a humanoid being walked out of the darkness, and into the area illuminated by the magma pool.

    The first thing that Daniel noticed, was that this being was not human. His body was that of a humanoid, but it had arms and legs covered in ck scales, dozens of small horns right where his hairline was. His chest was bare, but with a few dark red marks that appeared like tattoos on his skin, and defined the muscles of his lean physique. His facial features gave him a stern expression which showed a young good looking face, marked by thousands of years of age..

    The first thing this humanoid did, was to approach the magma pool, and after putting his hand into the molten rock, he scooped a handful of it with his hand, took it up to his mouth, and sipped on it calmly. He then sat in front of the pool, and muttered "Your smell brings back bad memories.. Damn chosens of Iewah.."

    It was only after hearing thest few words uttered by this individual, that a particr memory emerged from the depths of Daniel¡¯s mind.. That he finally remembered what other being had talked to him, just like this being had..

    "You are a dragon.." muttered Daniel fearfully.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, Aeron opened his eyes wide in shock, and prepared to fight his way out of this cave and out of this. If there was something that wasmon knowledge in the universe, was that the dragon kin, was a ve to The Tamer.

 Chapter 262 The Meaning of Helplessness

    "Calm yourself, mental warrior.. Your puny avatar wouldn¡¯t even make a dent on my mighty scales." muttered the human-like dragon with a hint of irony. He had already felt the change in Aeron¡¯s behaviour thanks to his sharp sense of smell, and the simple idea that someone at his level tried to even think of escaping, was hrious to him.

    After the veiled threat towards one of Daniel¡¯s friends, the dragon cleared his throat, and turned towards Daniel to say "You have ten seconds to save yourself. Start talking."

    Without the slightest hint of fear, Daniel approached the dragon, and sat next to him. He then casually soaked his hand into the molten rock, almost as if checking the temperature of a random pool of water. At the same time, he said "Let¡¯s be honest, you¡¯ve been with a foot out of the door the very moment you¡¯ve smelled Iewah¡¯s gift on me.. You have no intention of letting us leave."

    With feigned irritation, the dragon moved his yellow eyes towards Daniel, and said "You doubt the word of a dragon?"

    "Why, are dragons supposed to be righteous and honorable? I¡¯ve met one before, but he tried to.. Well, he actually killed me right after." Said Daniel while showing a faint grin on his face. He still had his second chance, and if he had to attempt a dangerous approach, he would rather try it in his first try. If things went wrong, at the very least, he would know that this specific approach would get the for of them killed.

    The dragon looked at Daniel with narrowed eyes for a few moments, until finally.. "Hahaha! Okay, fair enough. No we are not righteous creatures.. But people are idiots, and they think of us like that, for some odd reason.. Or used to at least. I haven¡¯t been out for a long time."

    "Why is that, are you agoraphobic or something?" Asked Daniel with a teasing tone, while casually flicking small drops of magma far into the pool.

    An odd grin appeared on the dragon¡¯s face, as he showed a set of not so clean teeth, and his sharp canines.. But the grin quickly disappeared from his face, as he said "I am an outcast. Just like green eyes over there."

    After hearing the dragon¡¯s words, Daniel¡¯s shoulders hopped up and down as he failed to avoidughing with his body. He then said "I¡¯m also an outcast like green eyes over there. Why do you think I am in this?"

    The eyes of the dragon narrowed once again, and illuminated of a faint, and natural yellow color, which differed from the typical sign that an elite was going to use its gift, by the fact that it was caused by how the light entered the dragon¡¯s eyes when in a semi-dark environment.

    "There are no outcasts in Iewah¡¯s faction. I know that you are immune to a certain level of poisons and toxins.. And that you are an alchemist. You are part of the poisonous rose." Responded the dragon with a serious tone, almost as if calling out Daniel to be a liar.

    Many underestimated the sense of smell of dragons. They had a sight more powerful than most types of hunters, a vocal capacity which, if fully unleashed, would be able to put entire civilizations on to their knees with a single shout, and a hearing which could bepared in efficiency with a human¡¯s absolute surrounding awareness.. But their smell, was something of another level.

    After smelling a smell once, a dragon would be able to remember it for all of its life. They would be able to smell the feelings of humans, their intentions, and anything to which they hade in contact with for years. Trying to fool a dragon on something that he could feel thanks to his smell, was one of the most foolish ideas in the known universe.

    What had left this dragon perplexed, was the fact that he couldn¡¯t smell any sign of lie on Daniel.. But that did not mean that he believed him, as the chosen of Iewah were known to be odd beings, with odd means.

    "I am not sure how much you know of the chosens of Iewah, but after we receive our gifts.." Daniel casually started to recount the biggest misconceptions of the chosens of Iewah, including the fact that the people who received them were simply hosts, the nature of the gifts, and why he hade to this.

    These were secret, but not his. His only secret was how his own gift worked, and he wouldn¡¯t simply go around talking about it to anyone.

    "That¡¯s quite the story.. Okay.. since you¡¯ve entertained me, how do you want me to kill you?" asked the dragon after pping his scaly and spiky knees, and standing back up on his ck legs.

    Aeron¡¯s eyes started to glow of a faint green glow, and he was ready to use all of his power to affect the mind of the dragon for however much, or however long he could, but Daniel waved his hand dismissively at him, and said "Don¡¯t bother." He then turned to look back at the dragon, and said "Let¡¯s say you kill me.. What do you think happens next?"

    "You die, and I go back to.." Responded the Dragon just as casually, before being interrupted.

    "..Before you go back to sleep for the next two or three thousand years. Is it worth it? Seems like a waste of power." asked Daniel in disappointment. He couldn¡¯t understand why such a powerful being would cower in fear.

    Suddenly hit where it hurt, the dragon said while taking two threatening steps towards him "Brat. You have no idea what it feels like to be on the other side of an oppressive power."

    The dragons were known in the entire universe as a family of beasts which, thank to the impressive level of power that they had reached, they had been granted the same level of a faction. They had natural advantages to humans, and their weakest states would trump over those of humans.

    Their overall superiority had turned them into a proud and vicious race, but that, had changed the day that the Taming System had appeared in the mind of a young woman.

    This woman had tamed one beast after the other, until one day, by chance, she managed to find a youngling of the dragon kin during her travels through space. The dragon¡¯s weak mind was not able to defend itself against this girl¡¯s power, and through it, she had managed to infiltrate into the massive organization that was the kingdom of dragons.

    One by one, the woman tamed each and every dragon from the bottom to the top, and now, after thousands of years.. She still traveled through space with her personal enved dragon King to protect her.

    Of course, not all of the dragons had been captured, and those who were, had not lost their personality either. They had simply be obedient towards the wielder of the Tamer System.

    One of the dragons which had managed to escape, was the dragon with whom Daniel was speaking. He had managed to notice that something was wrong, and failed to convince anyone of relevance in the kingdom of dragons, of the human¡¯s dangerousness. In the end, he had been forced to escape in an attempt to avoid being enved.

    The dragon faction, was one of the victims of Iewah¡¯s faction, and the first faction to have ever been conquered through means different than war.

    Daniel did not take this usation lightly. Not many people could say to have been in as many disadvantageous situations as he had in his very short life, and he couldn¡¯t stand being belittled like that.

    "I don¡¯t? What do you think I am doing here? You¡¯ve gone unnoticed to the keeper of key, and no one ever found out about you.. You are clearly more powerful than any level of cultivation that I know of, and yet you are hidden in a hole filled with spiders, while I n my move to take my revenge. I have ten times the balls you have." responded Daniel agrily.

    He had found himself in front on uncountable situation where he was on the verge of death, and the only time he had actually considered escaping, was not to avoid confrontation, but to prevent his friends from being hurt by his own power. Many in Daniel¡¯s position would have long given up, and took the easy path.. hiding in the darkness.

    The dragon was dumbfounded by Daniel¡¯s reaction. Not even for a moment he had realized that Daniel was in a situation of life and death. He had spoken calmly, and behaved in aposed manner, and that had made the dragon forget the fact that, no matter if dragon or human, everyone had only one life. He was threatening to take a person¡¯s only life, and he had been stupid enough to dare to say that this man could not understand the meaning of helplessness.

    Nothing but deep shame filled the dragon¡¯s mind for the next minute, as his eyes stayed on Daniel¡¯s.

    After a long minute, the dragon broke his silence by saying "Who are you nning to take your revenge on?"

    "The list of my enemies is only half written, dragon. Leave us alone, or put your name on it.. Now, if you¡¯ll excuse us.." Said Daniel before turning towards the entrance, and walking out with heavy steps.

    The dragon looked at the back of this seemingly crazy young man, and before he could reach the entrance, he said "Hold on.."

    Daniel lowered his shoulders in annoyance, and turned toward the humanoid dragon with irritation.

    "Who is your first target?" asked the dragon with curiosity.

    Instead of speaking out loud, Daniel pointed at his white clothes, and tapped on them faintly, indicating that his first target was none other than the Poisonous Rose itself.

    "Alright then. You¡¯ve called me a coward, and while I am acting as one, my pride doesn¡¯t allow me to take it lying down.." Said the dragon with a matter-of-fact tone, before taking two steps towards Daniel, and while turning back into his original draconic form, he added "Show me what fighting back against the strong means, and you¡¯ll earn a powerful ally. Fail, and you, and the people whose smell I can feel on your body, will die by my hands. You have one month."

    In his mind, Daniel cursed the dragon. He already had a year of time limit for his mission to bepleted, and the least thing he needed, was even less time.

    The dragon quickly smelled this reaction on Daniel, but said nothing.

    "I¡¯ll destroy the Poisonous Roses, and if I¡¯ll ever need someone to hide in fear in my stead, I¡¯ll let you know." said Daniel before once again turning toward the entrance, and leaving.. It was only when he reached the entrance of the cave inhabited by the dragon, that he illuminated the area with light essence, and found the body of the researcher by the side of the entrance.

    He had been partially mummified with spider¡¯s thread, and had died due to the venom of one of the spiders, which had turned his organs into a liquid paste. When Daniel touched him to take his ring off, he felt as if he was touching a bag of skin filled with soft paste, and loose bones.

    When the four of them left, one thought kept reappearing in Daniel¡¯s head over and over.. and that thought was ¡¯I hope that I¡¯ll manage to finish in time¡¯. This whole problem, had be a matter of not only his safety, but that of his own friends, and Daniel couldn¡¯t help but consider this, a truly unlucky encounter.

    Once outside of the cave, Aeron removed the memories of the two of them from the minds of the middle aged couple, and forced them to fall asleep.

    They then arrived back to the city with the couple, and imed to have found them half dead in the forest next to the spider¡¯s nest, directly on their way back from their travels.

    When they had left the cave, Daniel was able to see that the karma of these two people was negative, but of a rtively small amount. Just a couple thousands negative karmic points, was not a good indication that a person was good or evil, so, he decided that, if the asion presented itself, he would try to help this family.

 Chapter 263 A Game of Chess

    When Daniel and Aeron finally got back to their area, and were sure that nobody would be able to listen to them, Daniel looked at Aeron, and formted a thought in his mind, to which Aeron responded by saying "He won¡¯t. He knew you were telling the truth, and decided to let us leave because you¡¯ve given him something to think about. He is likely trying to prove that you were wrong, by witnessing to your failure."

    The two had taken the habit tomunicate with each other in a certain way. Whenever Daniel had something secret to say, he would look at Aeron, and formte a thought in his mind. Aeron had promised not to read Daniel¡¯s mind if there wasn¡¯t a good reason. One of which, was when they had tomunicate secretly with each other.

    What Daniel had asked to Aeron, was whether he thought that the dragon would screw them over in some way, or maintain his word and let them be for the next month.

    Daniel was justifiably dubious about the dragon¡¯s motivations "Why is he hiding? Is the tamer so overbearing that he can¡¯t stand letting go of any member of the dragon¡¯s faction?" He asked while ignoring the fact that the tamer was, in fact, a woman.

    While Daniel could understand why a faction would want to kill an outcast in order to protect their secrets, it was different for the dragons, as they did not have any. They were beasts, and had been observed for millions of years. Nothing new had been discovered about them, not even after they had been roped in by the infamous member of Iewah¡¯s faction.

    Aeron¡¯s red eyes narrowed slightly from behind his mask, and with a grave tone, he said "That is because he is a prince."

    "WHAT!?" Daniel burst out loud.

    "From what I know, only members of the draconic royal family know how to morph from their draconic form, to their humanoid one.. His transformation isn¡¯tplete, so it means that he is young.. Probably one of the youngest princes." added Aeron in response to Daniel¡¯s outburst.

    After taking in the news with evident surprise, Daniel muttered "So he will grow into a dragon king one day?"

    "Hard to say.. I haven¡¯t witnessed this, and only heard it from my former superiors.. But the evolution of a dragon isn¡¯t much different from that of a human cultivator. The only significant difference, is the span of time required to reach maturity.. The older dragons are usually the strongest, as they would have had the most time to practice their methods to increase their power."

    "Which is?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    Aeron shook his head, and muttered "Battle."

    While it was true that the dragon that the two of them had met belonged to the draconic royal family, Aeron was not fully aware of how the division within the dragon¡¯s faction was made, or what the value of a prince actually was.

    Dragons weren¡¯t humans. Humans would generally have a few children and usually stop, while on the other hand, Dragons were beings that showed their dominance through various methods.. few of which being battling for dominance, and bearing as many children as possible, to prove that they are the better specimen amongst their kind.

    The dragon which the two of them had met, was but one of the thousands of offspring of one of the many children of the king. Most of them had never even met with their own father, not to mention the king himself.

    Unable to do anything about any of this, Daniel and Aeron put the matter to the back of their heads, and went back into focusing on the matters at hand.

    -----

    For the following three weeks, Daniel and Aeron made numerous trips outside of the city in order to gather the ingredients needed to create a medium level poison immunity pill. Whenever the poison needed could not be found outside of Ton Bes, they would unwillingly pay a visit to the chairman of the poisonous rose, and ask for her help in acquiring them.

    Whenever they were forced to ask for a favor, they would end up having to give up a few information, but Daniel would never reveal too much. In return, the organization would send someone to make the purchase, ande back the same day to deliver the ingredients.

    In these three weeks, the rumors of Daniel¡¯s special treatment had traveled through the entire city, and people had started to get curious about him. Obtaining a favor from the organization was not something that any of the big families would scoff at, as not even the senators themselves could grant these types of favors to their own families without having to give an exnation.

    On the other hand, Daniel would always be weed by the chairman of the poisonous rose, which would listen to his requests, and entertained him until he decided to leave on his own.

    A few of the bravest leaders of the families had tried to ride Daniel¡¯s wave, and push requests forward, but the rate to which those requests were epted, was nowhere faster than before Daniel¡¯s arrival.

    Unhappiness quickly made its way through the entire city, and the various groups started to meet in private, and pressure the members of the senate. At the same time, the idea of a change at the top of thepany, was beginning to form in the minds of the leading individuals of these families.

    Various events took ce almost every day.. One of them being the encounter between the transparent thorn, and the chairman.

    The transparent thorn had recognized Daniel¡¯s face from the time when he had tested his virus in the where Daniel was, and after a lengthy conversation with the ck thorn, the two had met with the chairman, and raised the hypothesis that Daniel could havee to seek revenge.

    For as convincing the points that the two old men had made were, the opinion of the chairman did not change in the slightest. While it was true that Daniel could be here in search of revenge, she also knew that he had nowhere else to go.. After all, he was an outcast, and a single mistake was enough for them to report him to Iewah¡¯s faction.

    Ironically, for the chairman, after her discussion with two of the most powerful members of the entire senate, Daniel had gained even more value. Not only had he survived a lethal poison which in the past, was worth the chair of a thorn within her organization, but he had also survived from a sperimental weapon like the virus of the transparent thorn.

    -----

    Only seven days were left of the month that the dragon had given to Daniel, and yet, he still had no idea of how many more ingredients he was required to gather in order to finally be able to obtain the form of the pill.

    With the fastest speed possible, the two of them had gathered poisonous nts, hunted for venomous beasts all around ton bes, and even stolen a few items from various areas all around the city.. But unfortunately, the quest did not tell them how many were left.

    At first, Daniel had thought that he would manage to finish his quest in just a few days, as they were making progress at a terrifying pace, and it would not be the first time that Danielpleted a quest way ahead of time.

    An example of that, was the quest that required him to save his uncle from very, which had two decades of time limit, but that he had managed toplete in a few months.

    Unfortunately, this quest was not as simple.. And as they were kneeling in the mud, trying to pick snails off of the ground, Daniel began to feel slightly anxious.

    More than twenty sub mission had beenpleted, and whenever Daniel obtained another one, he would hope for that to be the actual form to produce the mid level partial poison immunity pill, but instead, he would end up being sorely disappointed.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel made his decision.

    He quickly finished the current quest with Aeron, and went straight back into the city. The very moment they arrived, they walked directly towards the building where the office of the chairman was.

    The two of them hade to visit almost every day, and therefore, they were let in without any problem.

    "Daniel!" Said the chairman with a pleased tone as Daniel walked into her office.

    Daniel did not say anything, and instead, nodded politely at the young woman, and walked towards the area where the couches were. He then sat with a face marked by seriousness.

    "What is the matter?" She asked while sitting next to him, and feigning worry. She had tried her best to gain Daniel¡¯s friendship, as her ultimate goal, was for him to ept her invitation into the Garden of Death.

    "I need your help." Responded Daniel without beating around the bush. He wanted to appear desperate, as he hoped that the chairman would feel to be in a position of power. "I have managed to find most of the materials I need, but I am missing thest few. I need your help with acquiring them."

    "Are these ingredients also part of the pill for a mid level immunity?" Asked the woman with curiosity.

    Daniel nodded quietly, then, after what looked like a sigh filled with helplessness, he said "I will make the first batch in front of you, the moment I get all of the ingredients I need."

    "Are you implying that you already have a form?" Asked the woman with eyes wide open in shock.

    Once again, Daniel nodded in confirmation.

    A few thoughts and ideas formed in the woman¡¯s mind, and only after a minute, she managed to calm herself down, and say "I don¡¯t care if you are really a genius, or if you found some sort of ancient record from which you are taking all of these forms from.. I will help you out.. But I have a condition."

    "What is it?" Daniel asked while smiling internally. A condition was exactly what he was hoping for.

    "I want you to meet a person. And I want you to create the pill in front of him. If you agree to this small request, I¡¯ll do my best to find all of the ingredients you are missing for the pill." Said the woman with a calm tone.

    Daniel could not be any happier. To be asked to meet someone, and to perform in front of that very same person.. He was aware that by ¡¯performing¡¯, the woman meant auditioning in front of her superior, and for an audition to take ce, someone of importance had to show up.. That, was all Daniel needed to go on with his n. But of course, he couldn¡¯t simply ept right away.

    "Who is this person?" He cautiously asked. Just like anyone else in his position, he had to show worry when facing the possibility of finding themselves into a dangerous situation.

    The woman put her hand on Daniel¡¯s arm, and with a reassuring tone, she said "Oh, don¡¯t worry. He isn¡¯t an enemy. Just someone which shares your passion for the world of poison and alchemy."

    Once again, Daniel lowered his head in defeat, and nodded in agreement.

    "Perfect! Why don¡¯t you give me a list of what you need, so that I can take care of it." Said the woman with a bright smile while standing up form the couch, and walking towards her desk.

    Before she could reach the desk, she was stopped by Daniel¡¯s voice, which said "I have a condition too."

    The woman turned around, and asked "What is it?"

    "It has to happen by the end of this week." Responded Daniel with a firm tone, showing that he was not willing to take no for an answer.

    The woman was slightly perplexed by Daniel¡¯s request, but she was too close to her objective to think straight, so, she epted without giving it too much thought.

    In the end, Daniel gave her the list of the items he knew he would need, and left right after.

 Chapter 264 I Will Show You

    For the following five days, Daniel gave one list after the other to the chairman of the poisonous rose, which in turn, would delegate the task to one of her agents. A few hourster, the agent woulde back with the items that Daniel had requested.

    At first, the young woman believed that Daniel was following a specific recipe, but then, she had ended up ruling that idea out of her mind. The reason for that, was that if Daniel already had apleted recipe, he would not be giving her multiple lists separately, and would instead give her a single one with all the ingredients he needed.

    In her mind, only one possibility remained. He was using a terrifying amount of items to conduct his tests.

    The fifth day, the seemingly endless session of lists had finally ended, and instead, the chairman received a visit.

    *Knock Knock Knock*

    "Come in." Said the young woman while fixing her dress, and trying to appear presentable. She was wearing a beautiful and spotlessly clean red dress, which was much more than she had ever worn for Daniel, whenever he woulde to visit her.

    The door opened, and behind it, Aeron and Daniel appeared.

    It was immediately clear to Daniel that the current attire of the woman was not in his honour, but that did not mean that it hadn¡¯t surprised him.

    The two quietly entered, and after bowing politely to the young woman, he said "Mdy, you look beautiful."

    The young girl was happy, but not ttered by Daniel¡¯spliments. She bowed politely in response, and invited the two in. After the two sat on the chairs ced in front of her desk, she said "Master Hiel, helping you out this time, was not a trivial thing to us.. But I am d we were able to find every item that you have requested. May I assume that you havepleted your research?"

    A big smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, as he said "I did, and I am ready to make my demonstration."

    The young woman beamed with joy, and without wasting anymore time, she took a small green bead out of her spatial ring, and shattered it in between her fingers. She then hastily walked in the middle of the room, along with the ck thorn that was, as usual, standing next to her as she looked at the empty space in excitement.

    Daniel and Aeron stood up as well, and joined the woman in the middle of the room.

    Momentster, a two meters tall green portal opened in the area in front of them. This portal gave the impression to be corroding the very space on which it had been opened.. Consuming it into wielding to whomever was going to walk out of it.

    From the portal, a single individual walked out.

    This individual was a man of about thirty years of age. He was dressed with ck and green clothes, and had a lean figure.. But his attire, was not the most impressive detail about him. His facial features were sharp, even when in a rxed state. His two naturally green eyes were closed into two horizontal slits, and gave the impression that the lights were hurting them.

    Overall, while slightly less manly and more feminine, this man was handsome enough to be worthparing to Daniel, who while not receiving as many looks from enamoured young women wherever he walked, would always stick to people¡¯s mind quite often.

    The moment this man appeared, the young girl¡¯s body straightened as an arrow. From her expression and behaviour, Daniel, Aeron, and the ck rose, were able to see that she was extremely infatuated by him.

    "L-lord Joa, this is the researcher of which I have talked to you about. Master Hiel." She said nervously, before turning towards Daniel, and adding "Master Hiel, this is Lord Firer Joa. He will witness to your demonstration.

    "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Master Hiel. Your previous feat was truly impressive. I can¡¯t help but be in awe by your talent." Said the man with a honeyed tone.

    Daniel smiled politely in response, but internally, he was on high alert. The red colored number above this man¡¯s head, was amongst the biggest he had ever seen, and considering the power that this man possessed, it was obvious that he had spent many millennia doing atrocious things.

    "My pleasure Lord Joa." Responded Daniel while nodding politely.

    "Wee, Lord Joa." Said the ck thorn from the side, before being promptly ignored by the man.

    Daniel noticed the way the man treated the loyal ck thorn, and immediately thought that this man deserved his negative karma. While all of them had done terrible things for the sake of experimenting, they did not do it for pleasure, or at least, not all of them.

    For thest month, Daniel had spent his time along with many poison masters, and while their action had caused the deaths of an incalcble number of people, they were not intrinsically bad people.

    Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the man called Firer Joa.

    Noticing that Daniel had disliked the way the man had behaved, the chairman interjected by saying "Now that we are all here, why don¡¯t we get to the demonstration?" She then turned towards Lord Joa, and while opening a spatial portal in front of her, she added "Please, this way."

    Daniel, Aeron, the chairman, the ck thorn, and Lord Joa walked into the portal, and when they arrived on the other side, they they ended up in one of the empty floors of therge building. In it, onlyrge pirs were present, but not a single piece of furniture. A few alchemical instruments were ced on the floor of arge tform which was ced in the very middle of the room.

    This room was dedicated to the evaluation of the aspiring thorns, and would be used by the various families who wanted to submit their poisons to the chairman. If interested in seeing a demonstration and partial exnation of how the poison worked, the chairman would then make the senate reunite in this room to witness to it.

    The family leader would then show his work to the senate, which afterwards, would be able to vote on whether the poison was powerful enough, and advanced enough to deserve to bepared to the others.

    Most of the times, the votation would end negatively, as anyone was capable of making a deadly poison, but very few could actually contribute to the science of poison making. In the end, only one out of a hundred managed to be an actual thorn, and member of the senate.

    Once they all arrived to the middle of the room, the woman pointed at the tform with her hand, and said "Master Hiel, please."

    Daniel did not want to waste time, and directly walked in the middle of the tform.

    With a wave of his left hand, he made dozens of different ingredients appear around him, before sitting down with his legs crossed.

    The chairman, as well as the ck thorn, were visibly shocked to see the items that Daniel had taken out. Amongst them, were each and every single item that he had requested, as well as a few more.

    Lord Joa turned towards the woman with a narrowed eyes and a grave expression, causing the woman to shake the previous confusion off of her head to make space for worry.

    Without paying too much attention to the two of them, Daniel focused on his control over his immortal essence, and started to take care of the ingredients, which simrly to those he had used for the making of the of the Partial Poison Immunity Pill, had to be divided into various groups, and treated differently in order to bring the required effect to the mixture.

    Charring, portioning, mixing, dehydrating, and many more methods were used by Daniel all at the same time.

    Afterbining these treated ingredients, he blended them into seven different mixtures, which right after, began to mix with one another once again.

    This whole process took more than an hour, and while Aeron and the chairman looked with interest, and the ck thorn looked with deep shock, Lord Jao was memorizing the procedure, and at the same time, quietly counting in his head.

    He was a member of the Garden of Death, and while he was there to invite Daniel into his faction, he also had another job. That job, was to make sure that the form would end in their hands, and to evaluate what the cost of mass producing this pill actually was.

    His faction had already received the form of the lower level pill, and while mass producing the pill was slightly expensive, there was nothing they could do about it. Unfortunately, the mid level one was a lot more expensive than he had expected, and the more time he spent calcting, the more restless he became.

    They had to spend a great deal of money and effort to purchase every item that Daniel had asked for, and ording to the chairman¡¯s report, Daniel was only testing poisons, and trying toe out with an actual form.. But that, had ended up not being the case. He was actually using each and every object he had asked for, as well as many others that he had acquired by himself.

    At this point, the cost of what looked like a batch of pills, had easily reached that of a perfect essence treasure, and while the cost was not absurd per se, the final product could only nurture a small bunch of people, and not an entire army.

    But what was even worse, was the fact that this was only a mid level poison immunity, and not a high, or a perfect one.. Therefore, for the Garden of Death, there would be no point in nurturing a massive number of soldier, if any single high level elite from any of the other faction, would be able to exterminate their entire army alone.

    While Lord Joa lost himself in depressing thoughts, Danielpleted the process of producing the pills.

    The mood of the Lord Joa had only managed to be better after he seeing fifty small pills float in the space around Daniel. These pills emanated a mouth watering sweet smell, and showed a colorful surface which glowed with a purple and green hue.. Looking exactly like fifty pieces of delicious candy.

    Lord Joa, which was an elite of the Garden of Death, and was extremely experienced in various types of poison and venoms, was able to immediately recognize each of these pills as the most dangerous amongst all of the sixth tier poisons he had ever seen.. and only lower in power to seventh tier poisons.

    "A magnificent job." He said while apuding, and smiling happily at Daniel, which nodded politely, and the chairman, which breathed in and out heavily form sheer happiness. "Master Hiel, how do you consume these pills?" he then asked with genuine curiosity.

    Daniel looked back at him, and said "I will show you." He then put most of the pills into his spatial ring, and grabbed the only one left from mid air, causing a few odd looksing from Lord Joa, the chairman, and the ck thorn tond on him.

    Hepletely ignored the looks of the three, and after looking at the ck Thorn, he said "May I have a sample of your poison?"

    The ck thorn was confused by the request, but instead of refusing, he looked at the chairman, which immediately nodded back in response.

    After receiving the chairman¡¯s permission, the man raised his left sleeve, and showed an armpletely covered in tattoos. He then opened his palm and made it face upward. Momentster, the tattoos on his arm started to move towards the man¡¯s opened palm, and formed a small ck bead. This bead quickly started to evaporate into a small cloud of ck smoke, and move towards Daniel.

    In less than a second, Daniel was engulfed by the deadly ck cloud.

    He took a deep breath of the poison, and at the same time, he put the pill into his mouth, and swallowed it. He then closed his eyes, and quietly waited for the excruciatingly painful effect of the pill to take effect.

    Floating next to Daniel,pletely invisible to the eyes of anyone but Daniel himself, was the blurry consciousness of Sewah, which was curled up in a fetal position, and into a deep sleep.

    *AAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHH*

 Chapter 265 The Center of Attention

    *AAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHH* Daniel suddenly started to scream in agony, as

    the veins underneath his skin emerged and turned ck in color, and the

    small capiries in his sclera became as evident as blood red tree

    branches, which threatened to explode at any moment.

    Noticing

    Daniel''s state, the ck Thorn, and the chairman looked at him with

    disappointment. No one knew the ck thorn''s poison better than the two

    of them did, and the effects that were showing on Daniel, were exactly

    the ones that presented themselves before the death of the individual.

    In their minds, the idea that Daniel had made a mistake, and that his

    immunity pill had failed, had started to be more and more usible.

    The

    ck thorn quietly took a small siringue from inside his spatial ring,

    and prepared to dash towards Daniel to inject the antidote that it

    contained into his heart, the very moment the order would be given.

    Another

    full minute passed, and while Daniel was holding on for a lot longer

    than the ck thorn''s poison would usually allow any other person to,

    he was still getting significantly worse by the second.

    Lord Joa

    looked at Daniel with contempt, and said "He got cocky.. I hope he will

    learn next time." He then turned towards the ck thorn, and said with a

    domineering tone "Give him the antidote. He might have been stupid but

    he can st-"

    The voice of Lord Joa was interrupted by a sight so terrifying, that it made him swallow his words right away.

    Out

    of the blue, a golden portal had opened right next to them, and from

    the other side, a silvery voice came through it and reached directly in

    the ears of the four people present. "What a day! two outcasts, an

    espionage conspiracy.. And one of my brothers! Lucky me!"

    An

    expression filled with shock appeared on the faces of everyone present,

    with exception made for Aeron, which was expecting this appearance..

    They all knew what the golden portal meant, and the words pronounced by

    the person who was about to walk through it, were even a bigger tell.

    Lord

    Joa immediately tried to open a portal to escape, but unfortunately,

    the space was already locked. With deep anxiousness evident on his face,

    he turned to look at the golden portal, and witnessed as a girl of

    around fifteen years of age walked out.

    Only the lower part of

    this girl''s face could be seen, as her entire body was covered by an

    extremely baggy ck robe with blue symbols on it, and a hood that

    covered her face down to her nose. The only things which could be seen

    of this young girl, was that she was slightly overweight.

    The

    moment Lord Joa noticed who this young girl was, while still extremely

    alerted, he let out a sigh of relief. He had heard of most of the chosen

    of Iewah, and luckily, she wasn''t too far above him in power.

    The

    moment the ck-robed girl walked out of the golden portal, the ck

    Thorn and the Chairman fell on their knees. Then, they said in unison

    "Greetings, Lady Tirah."

    The girl called Tirahpletely ignored

    them, and instead, turned towards Daniel''s general direction, where he

    was convulsing and on the verge of dying. But instead of looking

    directly at him, she looked at an empty area just a meter away from him.

    Invisible

    to anyone but Daniel and Tirah, was Sewah, which was still sleeping in a

    crumpled up position. "How humiliating.. Truly the ck sheep of the

    family." muttered the girl before turning towards Daniel, and adding "I

    can''t believe someone so stupid was able to take his body back.." She

    then threw a soft kick at Daniel, which rolled in ce, and kept his

    agonizing screams going.

    After throwing a sadistic smile at

    Daniel''s sufferings, she turned towards Lord Joa, and said "So, this

    little gang of poison masters was connected to the Garden of Death..

    Quite interesting."

    "I am only here to visit." Said Lord Joa

    nervously, while at the same time, letting out a colorless, odorless,

    and tasteless poison from his body, and directing it towards the ck

    robed girl.

    "HAHAHAHA!" The girl suddenly burst outughing. "Do

    you think a simple poison like yours is enough to kill me? Do you even

    know who I am?" she then added with a derisory tone. She knew that she

    wasn''t more powerful than Lord Joa, and yet, the gifts of the Garden of

    Death could not evenpare hers. As a children of Iewah, her gift was

    one amongst the most powerful in the universe, while Lord Joa, was an

    average elite amongst his own dying faction.

    As soon as the words

    pronounced by the girlnded on Lord Joa''s ears, the lights within the

    room dimmed, the temperature of the room dropped, and a faint white

    mist started to emerge from the floor. Momentster, the floor bent out

    of shape in hundreds of different points, and kept bending.. Until

    finally.. *Crack*

    The hundreds of bent points on the ground broke

    into pieces, and from the holes created, just as many transparent white

    arms, slowly came out. These arms were pale, and emanated an odd

    feeling. Looking at them for a single moment was causing the ck thorn

    and the chairman to age at a speed that could be seen with the naked

    eye.

    These arms quickly bent on the floor, and pulled the rest of

    the body to which they were attached, out of the floor. A second arm, a

    head.. A waist.. And a pair of legs, came out right after.

    What

    came out of these holes, were ghosts, and they all served the daughter

    of Iewah called Tirah.. Who wasmonly known, as the Necromancer.

    The

    hundreds of ghosts that she had evocated were not her own, and instead,

    were only a part of the people that had died in Ton Bes.. and thanks to

    her gift, Tirah was able to summon these beings, and use them to fight.

    As

    soon as these ghosts appeared around them, they immediately dashed

    towards Lord Joa, the chairman, and the ck Thorn. They then moved in

    front of their faces, and after grabbing their arms, legs, and heads,

    they forced their eyes open with their ghastly and cold hands.

    "NOOO!! PLEASE!!" Shouted the chairman which had now be a middle aged woman.

    The

    ck Thorn, did not even have the time to beg for mercy, before he had

    died of old age, and be a mummy.. Right after his death, a ghost

    which resembled the manpletely, came back to life just like the

    others.

    While the chairman approached her death, Lord Joa tried

    his best to avoid being forced into the same situation, but in the end,

    he was captured by the massive numbers that had surrounded him from all

    sides.

    His eyes closed immediately, and he immediately attempted

    to initiate a negotiation with Tirah. He offereds, sr systems,

    and even money, but unfortunately, everything he had said had entered

    deaf ears.. As no one was less interested in politics than the children

    of Iewah.

    The eyelids of Lord Iewah were forced open by two pairs

    of hands, and without being able to avoid it, he began to age at a pace

    slightly slower than the chairman and the ck thorn.. Only to die a

    couple of minutester, of old age.

    While all of this happened,

    Daniel had finally stopped convulsing, and had already gotten up with

    great difficulty. He was keeping his eyes closed, just like Aeron had

    told him to, and at the same time, he was forcing Sewah back into his

    own mind.

    "AHHHH.. I hate the living.. This is much better." Said

    Tirah while looking at the three mummified bodies left on the ground,

    and at the three new ghosts that were standing right next to her.

    She

    then let go the ghosts that she had summoned, which dissipated in the

    air right after, causing the lighting to go back to normal, the

    temperature to reach its previous level, and the white mist to

    disappear.

    "Ahhh I never get tired of that!" She said while

    turning to look at a tired Daniel. "Now.. back to you.. I do not know

    what my brother''s power is, but to be able to create those types of

    items from scratch.. Now that is cheating.. Even for our standards!

    Hehehe."

    "I don''t know what you are talking about." Said Daniel

    while massaging his hoarse throat, as he had screamed for thest

    couple of minutes without stopping.

    Tirah lowered her shoulders

    in disappointment "Don''t insult me, host.. I am talking about the mid

    level poison pill immunity that you have made.. Those three told me."

    She then said while pointing at the three mummies on the floor.

    Daniel

    and Aeron were shocked. Based on what the girl had said, she was not

    only able to summon the ghost of the deads, but she was also able to

    talk to them, and have ess to their memories. That, was a truly

    terrifying power.. And more than well worth being amongst Iewah''s gifts.

    "Forgive

    my bluntness, but you don''t appear too smart. It took an error from me

    to make Iewah''s entire faction realize that there was a group of spies

    right under your noses.. And I was one step away from delivering to them

    the power to topple over the universe." Said Daniel with a

    matter-of-fact tone while straightening his body, and fixing his

    clothes.

    "You have a good point.. This does make us look bad. How

    about this then.." Said Tirah as, just like before, she caused the

    lights to dim, the temperature to drop, and a ghastly white mist to

    propagate in the surroundings. The only difference from before, what

    that the same was happening in the entire city of Ton Bes.

    Just

    like before, millions of ghosts, skeletons, and mummified bodies crawled

    out of the ground, and attacked the first person that they came in

    contact with. A few of them even went as far as to look for the people

    against whom they had an unfinished business with.

    The entire

    city turned into hell, as one person after the other, were turned into

    dry corpses. The ghosts proceeded in groups like a wave of white mist,

    causing panic and horror to the people that were still alive.

    Many tried to escape, but the space of the entire city, was locked.

    Only minutester, the only living beings left in the city, were the three individuals that were standing within the room.

    "Wow!

    So many! These people did kill their fair share of people, didn''t they?

    Oh well, it doesn''t matter now. We were saying?" Said the girl,

    expecting Daniel to be terrified of her power, and try to beg for mercy.

    Unfortunately,

    that was not the case.. As the girl had done exactly what Daniel was

    hoping for, and helped him in doing something that had caused arge

    window to appear in his mind. This window, was the notification of the

    pletion of a quest which Daniel had started long ago.. That quest,

    was the one that required him to destroy the Poisonous Rose.

    "I

    would usually fight my brothers the moment I would see them.. But you

    are not worth that. You are just a host.. A simple human.. I''ll take you

    to the faction, and get my reward. You are only worth as much as the

    strength I will get out of your bounty." She then said with irritation

    after noticing Daniel''s fearless expression.

    "I don''t think it will be so easy.." Responded Daniel as a faint smile formed on his face.

    The

    girl tilted her head to the side in confusion.. But then, her eyes

    moved toward the distance, and she became extremely alerted. "No way..

    Is big sister here?.." She muttered in fear.

    "Finally.. A chosen

    of Iewah I can give a lesson to.." Said a gravelly voice from the

    distance, powerful enough to shatter every form of protection present in

    the city. *ROAAAAAAAAAR!*

 Chapter 266 The Necromancer and The Dragon

    *ROAAAAAAAAAR!*

    A deafening dragon''s roar reverberated through

    the entire, causing the millions of poisonous beasts to run in

    panic, or cower in fear. That roar was followed by an earthquake which

    formed massive cracks in the entire building, and threatened to turn it

    into a massive pile of rubble.

    Deep surprise appeared on Tirah''s

    face, which despite it, was pretty excited about finally being able to

    see a dragon in the flesh. That was due to the fact that she was not

    much older than Daniel, as she was only a few hundred years of age.. and

    when she had managed to take control over her host''s body, virtually

    every dragon in the known universe had already been enved by The

    Tamer, which she had never met before.

    The powerful roar

    disappeared as fast as it started, reced by the noise of a massive

    w that dug into the side of the building, right into the floor where

    Daniel, Aeron, and the Necromancer were.. It then started to move around

    the building, destroying the very external wall, and leaving the weight

    of the upper part of the building to be held solely by the many pirs

    in it.

    Just as the building was about to copse, five ws

    grabbe the part of the building that was about to copse on Daniel''s

    head, and ripped it off.. The ceiling that was so close only moments

    earlier, quickly became smaller, and soon after, was thrown in the

    distance without the slightest bit of effort.

    The moment the

    building was thrown away, a massive dragon entered the view of Daniel

    and the rest, which looked at it with deep surprise. While Tirah and

    Aeron had heard about dragons during the hundreds of years she had spent

    roaming the universe, neither of them had actually seen one before.

    Ironically

    speaking, Daniel was the only one amongst them who had seen a dragon

    before, butpared to this one, the one he had awakened while in his

    of origin, looked more like a small lizard.

    The sheer size

    of the dragon''s massive ck and scaly body, was mind boggling.. So

    much so, that it order to have enough space to stand, he was forced to

    stand above numerous buildings, which were now underneath him in rubles.

    His ck leathery wings were sorge, that they bloated the sun,

    causing the entire center of the city to be in their shade, while his

    tail was so long that it reached halfway towards the edge of the city.

    The back of the dragon''s body had a spiky ridge which started at the

    base of his neck, and ended near the tip of his tail.

    The mouth

    of the dragon seemed to be big enough to swallow an entire building, and

    its enormous teeth gave the impression that nothing of what entered his

    dragon''s mouth, would go through in one piece. Right above the dragon''s

    mouth, was a pair ofrge nostrils from which two columns of smoke

    came out.. While in the depths of these mostris, two green colored

    lights could be seen shine like hidden gems.

    The dragon looked

    down at the three of them with his tworge and yellow eyes, and with a

    voice capable of killing, he said "You''ve really done it.. Ha! You

    really did.." he then turned to look at Tirah, which was calmly looking

    back at him, and said "What do we have here.."

    Tirah was not at

    all scared by the size of the dragon, and instead, looked at it with a

    faint grin on her face which was impossible to see due to therge and

    baggy hood that covered it. "You are not one of my sister''s pets.." She

    said with an ted tone. She had just found out that this dragon was

    not actually one of the tamer''s, and therefore, she didn''t have to worry

    about her sister being here.

    "I am not.. I am the one who she

    missed, and the one who will kill her." Responded the dragon with a

    deafening tone. Then, without waiting for the girl to act, the spaces in

    between his scales started to glow of a green color and his chest swell

    up to double the size. The two columns of smoke which were being

    constantly emitted from his massive nostrils, were also being inhaled

    right back.

    Daniel rapidly grabbed Aeron, and teleported out of

    the way, and above one of the buildings in the distance, as the entire

    city had been covered by a barrier which only the dragon and the

    necromancer could go through.

    At the same time, a faint white

    mist came out of the ground, along with millions of white hands which

    destroyed the oddly hard material of which the streets were made of. The

    bodies of the entire poption of the city were also getting back up,

    and stood quietly like mannequins.

    These corpses and ghosts

    quickly dashed towards the necromancer at the fastest speed that their

    living self were capable of, only to crash against one another into a

    massive pile of white glow and bodies that covered Tirahpletely.

    At

    first, Daniel thought that all that the necromancer was doing was to

    create a barrier against the iing spit of fire that was going to

    turn the city into a ming green hell, but that was not the case. The

    moving corpse kept jumping one against the other, forming a mountain

    around the necromancer which shone with a faint white light, and was

    covered in dim mist.

    The dragon did not wait for her to act, and

    instead, looked down at therge pile of corpse with his immense size,

    and exhaled a jet of mmable liquid of which his lungs were filled.

    The

    enormous green column of liquid mes crashed against the mountain of

    corpses like a bucket of hot water over a small mound of sand, engulfing

    itpletely, and spreading through the city in every direction.

    All

    of the buildings that at this point were still up, had quickly started

    to melt, as the heath emanated by the mes of the dragon was so high,

    that Daniel and Aeron felt like they were in the proximity of a star.

    The exhtion kept going until thest of the buildings fell on the ground, and melted.

    The

    mes were now fifty meters tall, and covered the dragon''s body up to

    his elbows and knees, giving the impression of an overgrown lizard that

    was peacefully walking around in the tall grass.

    Unfortunately,

    for as devastating the attack was, the dragon kept looking at the spot

    where his original target was a moment ago. There, unlike the concrete

    building with steel supports which had been melted into ayer of

    minerals and metal, was the undamaged pile of corpses, which was slowly

    increasing in size.

    While the green mes had burned everything

    in the city, the corpses and the ghosts were still intact. The reason

    for that was not because they were too resistant, or because the

    necromancer was stronger.. But due to one of the effects that was part

    of the necromancer''s system.

    Once thest of the ghosts and the

    st of the bodies joined the hill-sized pile of death, they started to

    move. For the next few moments, the bodies began to melt and change

    shape, while the ghosts also started to unite into a single one, forming

    a clump of molten flesh and bones, and a horrifying clump of screaming

    ghosts.

    What was a mountain of bodies just a minute ago, quickly

    took a humanoid shape.. then hardened into a massive human. Once formed,

    therge clump of ghosts merged with the empty cadaver, just like a

    spirit would merge with a person''s body during the cultivation.

    Once whole, the giant opened his empty white eyes, and began to move.

    One

    of the powers which the necromancy system had granted by Iewah''s gift,

    was the ability to merge the various corpses, and the ghosts present

    around her into a massive human. This massive human would then be under

    herplete control, as well as possess the memories of each and every

    body and ghost of which it was made of.

    The moment of the merging

    was protected by the system, and not at all different than the whole

    concept of Daniel''s second chance, and karma x luck. Both of these

    effects did not operate on something physical, like sheer time essence,

    but were unstoppable abstract effects which would possibly change the

    oue of a battle.

    The same was for the merging of the bodies

    around her, which due to the fact that was required to seed by the

    system, caused them to be invulnerable until they managed to

    sessfully merge.

    Another thing that merged, was the power of

    the corpses, which had now turned into a horrific looking humanoid being

    which moved thanks to the orders of its owner, and the millions of

    voices in its head.

    The giant corpse that had been formed by the

    merging of ghosts and bodies, was a hundred meters tall. It didn''t have a

    nose, but only two holes, his mouth was devoid of lips, and only his

    two rows of teeth could be seen, his head waspletely bald, and his

    eyes were devoid of pupil, and iris.

    The dragon did not give the

    girl the time to give any order to the giant corpse, and immediately

    waved his massive hand into a shing motion, which cut the giant''s

    head right off.

    The head fell on the ground with a loud noise,

    and into the green mes, but then, it changed shape once again, and

    after turning into a small two legged monster, it ran back towards the

    headless giant, jumped right where the giant corpse''s neck was, and

    merge back with it.

    This time, it was the necromancer that didn''t

    give the dragon the time to make a n, and sent therge corpse to

    dash straight towards the dragon''s body. From Daniel''s prospective, it

    looked like the giant wanted to approach the dragon as much as possible,

    and wrestle with it.

    His massive two arms tried to grab the

    dragon''s neck, but they were, once again, sliced off by the dragon''s

    quick reaction, which quietly took a step back, and after waving his

    massive wings and flying up in the air, prepared to let out another, yet

    much more powerful, column of fire.

    Unfortunately for the

    dragon, the giant corpse was just as agile as a normal human, and jumped

    right towards him the very moment that the dragon took off for the sky.

    It then grabbed one of his limbs, and climbed up until it reached the

    area in between his wings.

    Once there, he moves his long arms around the dragon''s neck, and tried to choke him.

    The

    dragon quickly dived on the still ming ground, and tried to get the

    giant corpse off of his back, but only managed to reduce its size by

    making it grind against the ground.

    To Daniel, one thing was

    clear.. This fight was way above his level. Luckily, he was a chosen of

    Iewah.. And as one, he had the power to skip levels of power through his

    supernatural gift.

    "Any second now.." he muttered as he observed

    the shocking back and forth between the giant corpse, and the dragon,

    which seemed to hold the advantage, but could never really manage to

    finish the former off.

    The fight went on for about two more minutes.

    The

    dragon had a few injuries which were quickly healing, while the

    necromancer, which was currently inside the giant corpse, was now

    extremely serious. It was clear to her that her power was not above the

    dragon''s.

    For a minute, the two looked at each other in search of

    a n toe on top of the other.. But then, they immediately turned

    towards an empty part of space a few thousand kilometers out of the

    ''s atmosphere.

    "Finally.." muttered Daniel with a low tone.

    In

    the empty part of space that the necromancer and the dragon were

    observing, a five meter crack had appeared, and right in the middle of

    it, a two meters sized hole had formed.

    What made the hole in

    space came down towards the like aet, and in a matter of

    seconds, it crashed right in between the dragon, and the giant corpse.

 Chapter 267 The Xeno Protocol

    In the small area between the massive dragon and the giant corpse, was a

    crater of thirty meters of diameter. The green mes which engulfed

    the entire city like a green nket, were keeping away from the it..

    almost as if afraid of the object that had crashed on the ground, and

    formed it.

    "Now that, was luck.." Said a hoarse and disembodied voice that came from the middle of the crater.

    The

    dust quickly settled, and at the same time, the mes backed further

    away from the area around the crater, as if trying to escape a being

    which could extinguish them in the blink of an eye.

    As the view

    of the crater became clearer, Daniel, Aeron, the dragon, and the

    necromancer, were finally able to see the individual that had suddenly

    e through a rift in space, andnded heavily within their

    battlefield.

    This person, was a man in his forties. He was

    dressed in ck leather armor covered by extremely thin chainmail, and a

    steel que that covered the part of his chest where his heart was.

    His head was almostpletely shaved, except for the hair on top, which

    were slicked back, and held in a bun. His face was marked with the

    wrinkles of middle age, and underneath his closed set eyes, and his wide

    nose, was a long beard of the same blond color as his hair.

    The

    moment the dragon was able to see this individual and feel his power, he

    immediately froze in a terror which, ifpared to the fear he had

    felt when the tamer had enved his entire kin, was even more

    oppressive.

    This human, was the strongest being he had ever seen

    in his long existence, and a single look from him, would be able to kill

    him a hundred times over.

    Despite his stern look, the man

    behaved in an oddly casual manner. He was dusting his clothes, and

    looking around in an attempt to figure out where he had ended up. He had

    immediately felt, as well as seen, the four individuals around him..

    but to him, they were as threatening as a few weak ants which crawled

    around his feet.

    "Oh.. two young heroes, and one of the tree''s

    children.. That''s interesting." the man said while moving his eyes on

    Daniel, Aeron, and the necromancer. Then, as he turned to look at the

    dragon, he added "And one of them huge lizard.. I thought the zoo keeper

    girl enved all of you.. Well, good for you."

    Despite having

    been called huge lizard, the dragon did not show a single bit of

    discontent, and instead, looked down in submission.

    Daniel and

    Aeron also remained quiet. The dragon was extremely powerful and proud,

    and in order to cause such a reaction in him, the person which they were

    facing, must have been a monster amongst monsters.

    What made

    Daniel curious about this individual, was the fact that he possessed a

    rtively good karma which showed above his head with a green, six

    digits number.

    Noticing that none of the four were willing to

    utter a words in his presence, the man shook his head in disappointment,

    and said ".. Fine, I see I have interrupted something. I''ll be on my

    way in a minute." he then looked up towards a specific point in the sky,

    and said "Judge."

    The very moment that single word left his

    mouth, a rift opened in the space in front of him, and from it, a middle

    aged woman dressed in a judge attire came out in hurry. She then

    approached the man, and bowed to him politely.

    "Explorer Tire,

    what brings you in this corner of the universe?" She asked with a tone

    that suggested that not only was she talking to someone that was not

    below her in status, but even a little higher. She then added "The

    records show that you should be exploring the depths of the sector

    B182.. Is there a reason why you are back now?"

    "That''s kind of a

    pointless question." Said the man while fixing his clothes, and putting

    the two simple knives he was holding back into the sheaths. He then

    said with an irritated tone "Do you think I go around calling judges in

    whereverthehellweareville just to have a chat?"

    Daniel had seen

    more than once what Judges were capable of, and yet, the woman that was

    in front of him did not dare to behave rudely or even attack the

    Explorer. Instead, she said "Of course.. Is there something you wish to

    report?"

    The expression of the man immediately turned serious, as he said with a deep tone "Xeno Protocol.."

    The woman opened her eyes wide in surprise, and with a worried tone, she asked "What level?"

    "Over

    the fifth level.. I barely escaped with my life thanks to a random rift

    that opened in front of me, and took me here." Responded the man while

    recalling how he had spent thest couple of days.

    The face of

    the woman drained of blood, and without even saying goodbye to the

    explorer, she opened a portal, and left at the speed of light.

    The

    Explorer did not take offence for the woman''s apparently rude

    behaviour, as he more than anybody else, knew how of the importance that

    the matter which he had just reported, actually had.

    Once the

    judge left, the Explorer was about to leave as well, but then, he

    noticed the massive corpse that had been built from the numerous bodies

    and ghosts of the dead. He could feel the different types of immortal

    essence which the many bodies emanated, and after entering a pensive

    state for a few moments, he approached it.

    Now in front of the giant, he slowly moved his hand towards its chest.

    The

    hand went through the solid skin of the giant like a knife through

    butter. In fact, saying a knife through water would be even more

    urate, as there was absolutely no resistance to the man''s immense

    strength.

    As the man''s arm entered therge body all the way to

    his shoulder, he immediately pulled the arm back, and with it, he pulled

    the necromancer as well. He was holding her by her robe, causing her to

    hang by his hand.

    Tirah looked at the man with sheer terror..

    She did not know why this man could have had against her, or why all of

    this was happening in front of her, but just as she was about to beg for

    her life, the man said "Did you bring those people back from the dead?"

    his tone was inquisitive, but not menacing.

    "Yes.." she muttered with a feeble voice.

    "Good.

    You''reing with me." Said the man before opening a portal, and

    leaving along with the necromancer. The moment the portal closed, the

    giant corpse turned into a massive gooey clump of molten flesh.

    Daniel

    looked at the dragon with confusion. He was hoping to understand what

    was going on.. But he found a lot more information after turning to look

    at Aeron, which was standing with eyes opened wide, and a mouth covered

    by the mask opened even wider.

    "What is going on?" Daniel asked, after getting Aeron''s attention with a poke to his shoulder.

    "I

    think I know what that man was talking about.." Muttered Aeron with

    horror. He was in a state of shock, and he could barely avoid

    stuttering.

    Daniel had never seen Aeron in this state. He was

    alwaysposed, and when he wasn''t, was due to the terrible effects

    caused by his gifts, which forced him to feel the pain, anger, and

    sufferings of other people.. But even then, he was usually able to

    control himself. "What did he mean?" Asked Daniel in clear confusion.

    The

    person gave Daniel a response was not Aeron, but the dragon instead,

    which after turning back to its humanoid shape, had approached him from

    the side, and said "It means first contact with a new species.."

    The

    way the universal government expanded, was by exploring the universe in

    all directions in hope to find new worlds to exploit.. But sometimes,

    along with these new gxies, entire new species would be also found.

    Most

    of the times, these poptions would be underdeveloped, and just like

    the beasts of Daniel''s world of origin, they would not know anything

    outside of their own little.. To those forms of life, the first

    level of the xeno protocol was given.

    The civilizations which

    possessed a culture as evolved as that of an isted, was

    assigned the second level, while to those who had already found out how

    to explore the space, but stayed within the boundaries of their sr

    system, was given the third level.

    To the civilizations that were

    capable of traveling through their gxy, the fourth level was

    assigned.. And finally, to those which possessed the ability to travel

    through the empty space, between multiple gxies, and were overall as

    powerful as the factions present within the universal government, were

    treated as encounters of the fifth level.

    Every single one of

    the factions present within the universal government, had been

    discovered by the explorers, and at first, had been evaluated as an

    encounter of the fifth level. They would then be forced to submit by the

    superior power of the government.

    There was also another level

    of the xeno protocol.. One which indicated a situation that had only

    been seen once before, and which had caused the very universal

    government to be created.

    That, was the sixth level of the xeno protocol.

    What

    the sixth level of the xeno protocol indicated, was that a domain as

    powerful as the universal government itself, had been discovered.. And

    that, was what had happened.

    The explorer which the three of them

    had just seen, had been sent to explore a sector of unexplored space

    called B182. There, he had shed against beings which did not belong

    to the universal government. These beings were powerful enough to force

    him to flee, and since the explorers were amongst the most powerful

    beings in the entire government, that meant that the group of these

    warriors were part of, was likely to have even stronger beings.

    That was the reason why the explorer hadn''t waited for even a moment before calling the judge, and give his report.

    Of

    course, the fact that a new civilization had been discovered, did not

    mean that there would be an all out war right away, but that, at least

    in the higher spheres of the universal government, the situation would

    be extremely tense for the following few years.

    "What effects

    will this cause?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. He had never heard about

    the xeno protocol, and therefore, he didn''t know what the behaviour of a

    newly found civilization would tend to be.

    "The explorer was

    attacked.. Probably on sight.. There will be some long and difficult

    negotiation. In the worst case scenario.. Arge scale war." Responded

    Aeron after calming himself down.

    Daniel was extremely surprised,

    and yet, he had also hoped that the karmic retribution hadn''t started a

    gctic-scaled war for the sake of punishing the necromancer.

    It

    was only after listening to the story, that Daniel had understood why

    the explorer had kidnapped the girl. She had shown the ability to

    reanimate the dead, and the man had likely decided to take the girl with

    him so that he could have a way to gather information after killing one

    of the agents of the newly found civilization.

    These events had

    broadened Daniel''s horizons, which until now, were locked on the fact

    that the universal government was a superior existence, and that nothing

    of a simr strength could ever possibly exit.. Now, he knew better.

    More than ever before, Daniel felt the need to be stronger, and find his friends before anything bad would happen.

    After

    a few minutes spent deep in his thoughts, Daniel was about to say a few

    words to the dragon before bidding farewell and leaving with Aeron, but

    before he could speak, the dragon turned to look at him, and said "So,

    are we going to hunt for the chosen of Iewah or not? Hehe.."

 Chapter 268 Xargy The Scholar

    After what had happened in Ton Bes, the dragon had decided to follow Daniel and Aeron in their travels. He had spent too long hiding from The Tamer and her army, and the fight that had taken ce just the day before, paired with Daniel¡¯s speech while in the cave, were the boost of confidence that he needed to go back to being Xargy, the proud and domineering dragon who he had been, when he still was a prince of the indomitable race of the dragons.

    The three had decided to leave in the direction of Daniel¡¯s world of origin, where thetter had hoped to, once again, reunite with his friends and family.

    At the moment, Daniel, Aeron, and Xargy, were traveling through space while on an asteroid-sized, which shoot towards the sr system in which Daniel¡¯s world of origin was located. The reason for the current size of the, was due to the fact that Xergy felt ufortable when in his humanoid shape, so, after extorting the promise that he would get rid of all of the objects that approached the, Daniel had agreed to his request to keep the at a reasonable size.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 25

    Power level

    -Mid eighth stage of immortal cultivation

    Battle Prowess

    -Mid eighth stage of immortal cultivation

    Karma: 12,562,862,333

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.50

    Reduced Cost Lv.25

    Bonus Points Lv.25

    Second Chance (Upgrades 4/4) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 2/2)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    At the moment, Daniel was happily looking at his system¡¯s profile, which showed that he had a surplus of karma of above twelve billions. That meant that his infinite streak of bad luck had finallye to an end, and also, worked as proof that his n had worked perfectly.

    After Daniel had hid in Ton Bes with Aeron, he had created a clear strategy regarding how he would have handled his situation. He knew that finishing the quest that required him to build a mid-level poison immunity, would reward him with enough karma to remove close to seventy percent of Sewah¡¯s debt, but unfortunately, at that level, the difference was less than insignificant.

    Be it seven hundred billions, or two hundred billions, he would still be one of the most unlucky people in the universe.. So, he had no choice but to use the opportunity given by the quest, to shave off the rest of the debt as well.

    His n was simple.

    He did not have the power to even enter the Ton Bes without permission, so, he could only let somebody else do the killing for him. He had taken the opportunity that had arisen during the his demonstration, where a spy from another faction was in the same ce and time as the leaders of the poisonous rose, and had pushed Sewah¡¯s sleeping consciousness out of his mind.

    Sewah¡¯s sleeping consciousness had worked as a discrete beacon which only he and the other children of Iewah could see.. And that, was what had attracted the necromancer to Ton Bes.

    Daniel knew perfectly well that if he was fine at the moment of the necromancer¡¯s arrival, she would have focused on taking care of him first, and that was why he had decided to test the pill in front of the others. He knew that a son or a daughter of Iewah would have arrived soon, and he wanted them to know that he was in no condition of running, or defending himself.

    Thanks to that, Daniel had managed to let necromancer take care of the problem regarding Iewah¡¯s faction first.. That problem, was the fact that one of thepanies within their domain was actually a sleeper cell for apletely different faction.

    After the visitor of the Garden of Death, the chairman, and the ck thorn had died, Daniel had quietly hinted to the fact that everyone was aware of his work, and that someone within the would talk, sooner orter.. Forcing the necromancer to kill every single one of the members of the poisonous rose which were inhabiting Ton Bes.

    While notpletely wiped out, the most powerful member, as well as the majority of the researchers of each and every family that was part of the poisonous rose, had been killed. Unfortunately, that had also caused the deaths of all of the ves which were kept by the families.

    Daniel felt responsible for them, as unfortunately, aside from the family he had managed to help during the week in which he had received the help of the chairman in gathering ingredients, the rest had all died in the brutal attacks of the necromancer.

    After the pill had been created, and the poisonous had been virtually destroyed, Daniel had managed toe out of his debt, and even have about twenty-five extra billions of karma left, which he had no choice but to spend in the very next few minutes.

    Daniel had immediately spent half of his karma in order to cast karmic retribution on the necromancer.. It was then, that the dragon had appeared. At that moment, Daniel had believed that the dragon was actually the ¡¯unlucky event¡¯ caused by his karmic retribution, but in a matter of moments, he had understood that he was far from being a disaster to the necromancer, which fought against him on an even ground.

    The true unlucky event, had been the arrival of the explorer, which was shot into a rift in space from an uncountable number of kilometers away, directly where he needed him to be.

    The man had ¡¯casually¡¯ realized what the power of the necromancer was, and had decided to take her with him in his travel back to the edge of the known universe. Considering the oppressive amount of negative karma possessed by Tirah, Daniel could guess that she would not have a good time while in thepany of the explorer.

    Daniel¡¯s n ended up being extremely sessful, and helped him in obtaining arge amount of karma, as well as a new and extremely powerfulpanion.

    "You¡¯ve been sort of quiet. I thought someone with such a shitty personality would be more chatty. Hehehe.." Said Xargy while moving his massive head towards Daniel.

    Slightly irritated by the not-so-subtle insult, Daniel turned to look back at the massive dragon, and said "If I have such a shitty personality.. You can literally turn in every direction, and go on your way. I don¡¯t get why you have to follow us."

    The smoke on the dragon¡¯s nose came out in puffs, as heughed at Daniel¡¯s words. "Are you joking? What better ce is there to be, than next to the history¡¯s first wanted outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction. Your future is destined to be filled with chaos and mayhem.. I can¡¯t miss out on that stuff. Hehe."

    Daniel did not know about the dragon¡¯s personality prior to his self-exile, and therefore, he could only guess that he had changed into this form of shameless being which he had ended up freeing from his self-imposed restraints. "Can you at least be a little helpful? Or are you just going to make problems for us?" Asked Daniel with irritation.

    "Feel free to ask for whatever you want." responded the dragon before turning towards an iing group of smallets made of ice, and melting them into nothingness with his powerful jet of green mes.

    Daniel looked at the mes that came out of the dragon¡¯s mouth, and quickly understood something. During his battle with the necromancer, while he hadn¡¯t held back in the power of his mes, he had, without a doubt, held back in the amount, as this ejection seemed to be thousands of times bigger than the one that had turned the city of Ton Bes into a ming pool of molten metals and minerals.

    "Can you tell me about the human¡¯s higher stages of cultivation?" asked Daniel with curiosity. He was at the mid eighth stage of immortal cultivation, and therefore, he would hopefully be able to reach the ninth level soon. By then, he wanted to at least have a basic knowledge of the next levels of cultivation, so that he would not be stuck.

    That question seemed to be of extreme interest to Xargy, which immediately turned to look at Daniel, and started to exin. "I know what you want to know.. ¡¯How can I increase my power after I reach the end of the immortal cultivation?¡¯.. Well, the same way you have been doing now. What differs amongst the species of the universe, is the gift that they possess. Look at your friend over there.. He is ate eighth stage elite of the Psionic Dimension.. I assume that he has an avatar, and a few mental powers to show." Said the dragon before taking a pause, and continuing only after receiving a nod from Daniel.

    "What I believe he didn¡¯t tell you, is that his real body is actually the avatar, as the immortal cultivation stages, for a mental warrior, work simply as practice to operate with their minds, before ditching their fleshly body, and transferring their consciousness and spirit into the avatar. They then grow in power as beings of mental power and spiritual essence, instead of ki and spiritual essence."

    It was at this point that Aeron turned to look at the dragon with narrowed eyes. What Xargy had just exined, was one of the most well kept secrets of his former faction. Only the high level elites, and a few powerful members of some other allied factions were aware of this.

    For the dragon to know about this, said to Aeron a lot more than what Daniel had asked for.

    Without caring about Aeron¡¯s look, Xargy kept going with his exnation. "Every faction forms a being of their own kind.. From your smell, I can tell that you have met.. Quite a few for your young age. Emissaries of the factions of mind, spirit, corruption, ki, mana, and even more!" said the dragon in pleasant surprise.

    "How do you know all of these things about other factions methods of cultivation?" Daniel asked, now finally curious about the same thing that had made Aeron wonder for the past few minutes.

    The face of the dragon seemed to show an anthropomorphized expression for a moment, as his scaly face twisted with a high level of pride, and he said with a mncholic tone "You might not believe it, but I am a schr among my kin. I have spent the years of my youth stuck in my family¡¯s ancestral mountains, reading, and studying all of the information that my grandfather and his and the kings before him had gathered about the other factions."

    "Then, do you know how I will have to cultivate, as a former member of Iewah¡¯s faction?"

    "Ha! This is what is interesting! Iewah¡¯s gift is nothing like that of other groups.. It gives you a power, but it¡¯s like it both does, and does not belong to you. I can¡¯t exin it, but it looks like it hasn¡¯t been made for you." Responded the dragon with newfound enthusiasm.

    Daniel knew exactly what the dragon meant. The gift of Iewah, differently from the gifts of the other factions, was not a gift, but an actual parasitic being which would take their ce once evolved to a certain point.

    "I sort of understand.. But what does that mean? Do you know a way or not?" Asked Daniel with a hint of irritation. He was learning more and more about Iewah¡¯s faction, and every additional detail which he learned, had reminded him of how stupid he was for thinking that as a faction, Iewah¡¯s was the least evil around.

    The dragon looked at Daniel with an oddly recognizable smile, and said "As I¡¯ve said, that is the interesting part!! You are a pure human! After you will reach the perfect ninth stage of immortal cultivation, you will be able to keep increasing your power like everybody else, and use Iewah¡¯s gift as your main power.. But.. theoretically speaking, there is no reason why you should not be able to obtain another gift.."

 Chapter 269 Edge of the Known Space - Expedition

    "I can do that?" Daniel asked to Xargy with eyes open wide in surprise. He had always thought that he would need to rely on his system, or on his own power.. but now that the dragon had revealed that there could be a third option for him, he couldn¡¯t help but be interested in it.

    After listening to the words of the dragon, Aeron, which was quietly sitting next to Daniel, finally interrupted his silence by saying "Don¡¯t put too much weight on his words.. That¡¯s amon theory, but I know for a fact that in the past, one of Iewah¡¯s children has been captured by one of the leaders of the factions, which tried to force his own gifts into his body. The result was a painful death.. Word is that nothing remained of the body."

    Even without being reminded of it, Daniel had not taken Xargy¡¯s words too seriously, as there was no actual proof that what he had said could happen. After all, the dragon was talking in theory.

    Daniel was about to say something, but Xargy beat him to it. He turned to look at Aeron with confusion, and asked "Why do you call them Children of Iewah?" The fact that the children of Iewah were actually Iewah¡¯s offspring, was a secret within most of the universe. That was why the elite members of the other factions simply referred to them as ¡¯Chosen of Iewah¡¯.

    Instead of answering, Aeron turned to look at Daniel, which shrugged his shoulders and waved his hand carelessly, implying that if he wished to, he could share the information he had about Daniel¡¯s former faction, with whoever he wanted to.

    After receiving Daniel¡¯s permission, Aeron exined everything he knew about Iewah¡¯s gifts to Xargy, which the more he heard, the more surprised became. As Aeron reached the point where Daniel had taken back control over his body, the dragon looked at the mental warrior like a kid that was listening to a storyteller.

    It was just a case that Aeron had managed to find out about Sewah¡¯s presence inside Daniel¡¯s mind. Most of the hosts would be devoured way before they would end up encountering their first mental warrior.. Just like The Tamer, which had evolved her own system while trying to take control over the dragon kin, and when she met her first elite warrior from the Psionic Dimension or any other mental power-based faction, had long died.

    "So it is possible!!" eximed the dragon with enthusiasm. "A gift is part of you.. And if what you are saying is true, Iewah¡¯s gifts are self-sufficient since the moment they reach a certain level.. Of course it didn¡¯t work before! It¡¯s because they are the gift!!"

    The dragon became pensive for a few moments, then, he added with excitement "Gifts are like weapons permanently attached to your body.. Just like swords which have been fused with it. Iewah¡¯s gift happens to be a gift with a mind, but it doesn¡¯t matter if a sword has consciousness or not, you can¡¯t give a sword to another sword to use! On the other hand, you are human, and by using the system¡¯s personality, you have been borrowing his sword.. If that is correct, there should be no reason why you shouldn¡¯t be able to obtain a second one!"

    After he finished speaking, the dragon went back into his pensive state. He was trying to pry into his memories in hope to find useful information, but the result of this search, was a disappointed look. "If only there was a way to make sure of that, that wouldn¡¯t kill you on the spot."

    Daniel was about to mention the fact that that might not be a problem for him, but after a moment of consideration, he decided to stay quiet. He didn¡¯t know the dragon well enough, and even if he did, and he decided to share his secret abilities with him, there was no guarantee that he would not share them with others if he was captured. Also, there were no leaders of faction ready in line to test the dragon¡¯s theories.

    -----

    One day earlier, Sector B182

    This particr part of space waspletely quiet and uneventful, just like most of the space which was not traveled, however, this was not any random patch of space in between gxies.. This was the border of the domain of the universal government, better known as the edges of the known space.

    Usually nothing would happen in this area, but that particr day, in a particr point in space, a few portals had appeared. From them, various scouts and warriors stepped out quietly. These individuals, were explorers of the universal government.. And hade, along with a few elite members of the army, to conduct some research about the report which indicated a first contact of the sixth level in the area.

    Amongst thisrge group of incredibly powerful warriors, was the middle aged explorer which Daniel and Aeron had encountered, and next to him, was the terrified necromancer.

    Just like Aeron, Tirah was an entity which had lived in the universe for more than two centuries, and therefore, she was more than aware of what the words ¡¯Xeno Protocol¡¯ meant. When the explorer had asked her what kind of power she had, she had already guessed what he would have done with her.

    Just as she had expected, the explorer had taken her into custody so that she could help him and the other officers of the universal government, with understanding the unknown power better.

    "Who is that?" Asked a woman d in te armor, and with arge bow strapped behind her back. She was being followed by a few more heavy armored warriors with simrlyrge weapons, who she appeared to be leading.

    The explorer turned towards the woman with an indifferent look, and while picking a piece of rock from hisrge beard, he said "She is none of your business, that¡¯s who she is." His tone was not irritated nor hostile, it seemed like these forms of exchanges amongst different parties were asmon as cloud in the sky.

    One of the warriors that followed the heavy armored woman moved two steps towards the explorer, and shouted in anger "How dare you talk to the captain like that! You dirty explorer! APOLOGISE IMMEDIATELY!" at the same time, he had grabbed the massive sword that was hanging from his waist.

    The explorer ignored the enraged manpletely, and that caused him to be even more infuriated. He took another step in his direction while unsheathing his sword, but just as the explorer entered the range of his sword, four more individuals appeared in between the two.

    This group of four individuals wasposed of three men, and a woman. One of the men was a ssical mage. He was old in age, had a long white beard, and just as long hair. He was wearing a baggy dark blue robe, and in his hand, he was holding a three meters long staff on which at least seven spheres were encrusted.

    Each of these spheres was of a different color and gave a very specific vibe, and yet, no essence was emanated from them unless the mage allowed them to. These seven spheres were perfect spheres of wind, water, fire, metal, wood, earth, and lightning.

    Next to him, was what looked like a human, but with something inhuman about him. He was a massive man with overly developed muscels showed by hisck of shirt. His pants seemed to be threatening to rip apart, and the uncovered part of his body, was covered in long ck hair, through which the skin could be seen.

    The woman was dressed in ck skin-tight clothes, on which dozens of knives were put in various straps that went around her waist and thighs. On her lower back, two shortshortsword were sheathed one above the other within hand reach. Her long voluminous hair and bangs did not allow others to see her face, except for her bright red lips.

    The fourth andst individual was wearing a light brown dust double-breasted coat, underneath which was a thinyer of leather armor. His neck, hands, and head, werepletely wrapped in white bandages, except for his eye, on which he wore a pair of thick goggles. In his left hand, and resting on his shoulder, was a long weapon made out of wood and metal, which looked like a musket.

    These four individuals were all explorers, and of course, were on the side of the bearded middle aged man.

    After the four arrived, the soldier stopped with his enraged behaviour, and floated back in position behind his captain. He could not stand any rude behavior in front of his leader, but that did not mean that he would start a battle amongst groups, for an offense that his captain herself hadn¡¯t taken to heart.

    Once the warrior walked back, the four approached the bearded man, and as they regrouped, the mage said with a husky voice "You are always making enemies.. It¡¯s fifty thousand years that I¡¯ve known you, and you¡¯ve never found a soldier you could treat decently."

    "You are way older than I am.. You know well that spies and soldiers do not mix." muttered the bearded man while scratching his neck, and checking a map he had taken from within his spatial ring the moment the four had arrived.

    "For one, I like his methods.. And his rude behaviour.." Said the woman assassin while approaching the bearded man, and putting one of her elbows on his shoulder.

    The bearded man ignored the woman¡¯s actions, which caused her to stop, and float back with an faint smile on her face. She had tried to tease the bearded man many times since the day the two of them had met, but not once had he responded, or was he hooked by her flirty behaviour.

    At first, she had been furious about it, but after a few hundred failed attempts in tens of thousands of years, it had be a tradition for her to try her luck whenever the two met. It was a way to cope for the centuries which they would have to spend all by themselves during their individual missions.

    The enormous hairy man looked around with indifference, while the sniper, after noticing the young girl next to the bearded man, asked "So, who is the brat?"

    "A kid of the tree." Responded the bearded man without turning away from the map. He was creating a path with his finger in order to use the surrounding stars to avoid losing themselves in the unknown sector of space.

    Thest time he had been here, warriors as powerful as him had attacked him in arge group, and he had only managed to escape thanks to the apparition of the rift. The same could not happen again.. If they ended up being in trouble, they needed a direction in which to attempt a retreat.. After all, he couldn¡¯t count on the fact that another rift would open whenever he was in danger.

    "A kid of the tree? You mean the damn tree?!" Asked the mage with surprise.

    "Yeah, I¡¯ve found her right after the encounter with the warriors of the alien group. She will be of use." Responded the bearded man while finishing to trace a path on the map. Once he was done, he turned to look at the captain, and said "I will lead this party. Follow us, and obey my orders."

    An odd expression appeared on the captain¡¯s face, which said "I am of a higher rank. Should I not lead the expedition?" Her tone was calm, and yet there was a threatening vibe which weighted behind her words.

    The bearded man, which until now was indifferent about the behaviour of the soldiers, turned towards the woman with clear irritation, and said "This is an espionage mission, not a battlefield. You know nothing of the Xeno Protocol, and a sixth level threat is not something on which the pompous daughter of a general can make practice. Now, shut up and follow."

 Chapter 270 Edge of the Known Space - Search

    The group of explorers and soldiers traveled through the area where the bearded explorer had encountered the alien race, but even after three days, they had found no trace of them.

    A few options had appeared in the heads of the people present. Some believed that the explorer had made a mistake, that the group of aliens had left the area, or worse, that they had gone back to report, and gather their troops.

    Generally speaking, the soldiers and the explorers would never work together. While the soldiers took the credit for allowing the universal government to be stable, the untold tales of the brave explorers which spent thousands of years doing the most dangerous job in the universe, would be swept under the rug. In the years, that had created arge divide between the two groups.

    That separation was clearer than ever when the soldiers and the explorers were forced to work together. The higher the rank would be, the more enmity they would feel towards each other. In some point in history, the hostility between the two groups had gotten so bad, that the role of the judge had to be created.

    In the ancient times, any judge would be able to trump soldiers and explorers with the snap of a finger.. but true heroes grew through hardships, and not by staying in afortable office in wait for people to argue.

    The years passed, and while the explorers and army gained power, more groups were added to the universal government, and were called factions. In present times, the judges were only able to judge the operate of the factions, and couldn¡¯t keep up with the power of the army and the explorers anymore.

    Due to this disparity in the groups within the universal government, it had be a rule for both retired army officers and old explorers, to join a new branch of judges, which were called ¡¯Grand Judges¡¯. The Grand Judges, were the most powerful entities of the entire universal government, and would have thest say on the shes between the two groups.

    Unfortunately, for as useful the role of the Grand Judge was, it did not deter the two groups from bickering with one another.. And that was the reason why the soldiers had long since started to doubt the bearded explorer¡¯s abilities.

    "It is a big offense to make a false report.. And it is even worse for the Xeno Protocol." Said the captain with a threatening tone. She didn¡¯t fear the explorers, as she had a power simr to theirs. Plus, she had been raised with the an intrinsic dislike, and sense of superiority towards them. The soldiers were the ones that got praised by the poption, but whenever they were in the field, unless it was a war, they would have to follow.. And that would make them turn in their own armor.

    The bearded explorer turned to look around for a few moments, but after checking his map once again, he looked at the old mage. "I¡¯ve been away only for a couple of minutes, and when I got back, they were already gone. Our territory covers forty percent of the directions they could have taken to retreat.. We can split and make a cone search in the direction from which they approached me.. And that.. would be.. There." Said the bearded man while pointing at a specific point in space.

    The mage had a few doubts, but none of these doubts were about the capabilities of the bearded explorer. What he was worried about, was the variants that would make it impossible for them to once again find these beings.. After all, every single time that the government had discovered one of the factions, they had found the powers which they possessed, extremely ¡¯hard to deal with¡¯.

    "You are the leader." responded the old mage before adding "How do you want us to split?" He did not know of how many aliens the team which had attacked the bearded old man was made of, reason why he had asked.

    Annoyed by the way she was being ignored, the captain of the soldiers said "I have enough men to make five groups of eight people each. We will take the area that you¡¯ll assign to us." Her tone was filled with unwillingpliance, and seemed like she was trying to find a chance to get her people as far away from the explorers as possible.

    Once again, the bearded explorer and the mage ignored the captain.

    "Don¡¯t tter yourself, captain. You soldiers are not prepared for all of the unknown variables of a first encounter." Said the sniper while moving his musket off of his right shoulder, and cing it on the other.

    The captain was fuming, and even more so were her soldiers, which were about to burst in rage and shout their discontent to the top of their lungs. But before they could vent off their frustration, the bearded explorer turned towards the captain, and as if nothing had happened, casually said "The group that attacked me wasposed of eight people. As per protocol, we have to demonstrate our military superiority. Once made clear that we aren¡¯t harmless wanderers, we have to try to establish amunication."

    "So you agree with my division.." Said the woman while grinning. She had thought that the leader of this group of explorers had agreed to her n, and that that would show the value of the strategizing of her part.. But unfortunately, she was sorely mistaken.

    "No. I believe your n to be silly. We don¡¯t have to show that our military is as powerful as theirs.. What we have to show, is that our military is bigger, and corner their thoughts into believing that we only have the strength in number to show.. Then, we.. the explorers, will show our individual prowess.. Making them believe that our path of cultivation is worthy of being feared." Responded the bearded man with a matter-of-fact tone.

    What he said was true. The army was trained for group fighting, and none of the individual power of the soldiers was in any wayparable to the weakest of the explorers. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean that a group of five thousand explorers would win against a group of five thousand soldiers, as the army had many ways to add weight to their side of the scale when fighting in group.

    Unfortunately, a first encounter could hardly be considered a military operation. Psychology and individual power were more important than collective power. If during an encounter the only two people to sh were a member of the other party¡¯s group and the explorer, the enemy would be inclined to believe that each of the individuals of which that party was made of could possibly be that powerful. The universal government would gain an essential, and yet thinyer of defense against the new power. Ayer caused by the fear of the unknown.

    Thatyer of defence would usually not mean safety from an all out war, but would definitely gain enough time for diplomacy to take ce.

    "Captain, split your division into four groups. Take off your armor, and wear your daily clothes. Also, have them use a hat to cover their military haircut." Said the bearded explorer before turning to look at the group of four, and add "Krit and Borus, take one of the groups.. Krit leads. Ada, you are the only one that hasn¡¯t offended the soldiers yet.. Go with the captain and lead one of their groups, while the old man and I will take the other two."

    "Okay honey." Said Ada with a flirtatious tone before turning towards the captain of the soldiers.

    "Mhm" grunted Borus, the shirtless muscr and hairy man.

    Krit the sniper embraced his musket once again, and nodded while saying "You are the boss."

    Of the five explorers, the old mage and the bearded man were the two most powerful individuals, and that was the reason why he had divided them like that. The captain and Ada would lead a team, the shirtless man and the sniper would lead another, and he and the old mage would have a group to lead each.

    "Good.. now go." Said the bearded man before the four explorers turned towards three different directions in space, and departed likeets.

    The captain was extremely bothered by the fact that they hadn¡¯t even been asked for her opinion, but since she had no way to respond, the moment she saw the four leave, she swallowed her pride and said "Split into four groups.. Follow them."

    -----

    The four groups traveled uneventfully through the empty space for numerous days, but unfortunately, they still found nothing. There was not a single trace of spatial essence, mana, or any other form of unrecognizable power to indicate that someone had been here.

    The bearded man was feeling really ufortable with how the things were going. He knew the power which the aliens possessed, and while their party was not much stronger than their soldiers, there was no way to tell whether their poption was smaller, or ten, a hundred, or even a billion timesrger than their universal government.

    He was really hoping to spot another group and either acquire some information personally, or use the necromancer which he was bringing along, to obtain information after killing one of them.. But it seemed like they were only a passing party to which he had given crucial information to..

    There was only one possibility left.. The group had gone back to report.

    This expedition was a catastrophic failure..

    Slightly unwilling, the bearded man gave ast look at the map he carried around his spatial ring, but after calcting how far into the unknown space they had arrived, he decided to retreat.

    Next to him, the casually dressed soldiers were behaving just like soldiers on leave. Due to the absence of their leader, they had started to rx, and get distracted from their job. The bearded man was not against that, as the fact that they would not appear as soldiers was nothing but an advantage to them.

    One of the soldiers in particr was looking quite bored. He had started to y with a coin since the day before, and he was ying a trick to increase his dexterity, and control over his immortal essence. He was extremely talented, and the coin rolled across his knuckles naturally.. He would only make a mistake every many hours, and that showed for how long he had practiced.

    Luckily, it was time for his next mistake, which caused him to lose control over the coin due to an involuntary contraction of the muscle of his fingers. Irritated, the soldier let the control over his immortal essence go, and let the coin wander in space.

    He quietly massaged his hand for a minute.. But then, when he turned to look back at the coin.. The coin was already a few meters away from him.

    While the coin was let go to float on the spot, the soldier was floating in spacepletely still. His immortal essence was ejected at the same time in every part of his body, and that was enough to stabilize himpletely.

    Curious about what had happened, he tried to approach the coin.. But as he got closer, he noticed that the coin was getting further away, and gaining speed.

    A crazy thought suddenly came into his mind. He immediately restrained his immortal cultivation, and let himself float in space without the help of his power. Soon after, he too like the coin started to gain speed, and move on the same direction.

    "THERE IS A BLACK HOLE HERE!!" shouted the soldier.

    The bearded explorer heard what the soldier said, and in response, without waiting or even giving his orders to the group he was leading, he immediately turned to look upwards, and teleported a few dozen times in that direction. When he reappeared, he was looking back at the direction where the soldier was pointing at.

    There, he saw the edge of a massive ck sphere which waspletely invisible to the naked eye, and behind it, was something that made him mutter "Fuck.. a wormhole."

 Chapter 271 Edge of the Known Space - Clash

    Wormholes. A link that connects two disparate points in spacetime.

    Generically speaking, rifts were not difficult to see in the space which the Universal Government upied. The reason for that, was the superimposition of the normal space over the dimension where the void space was. The two dimension upied the same ce, and yet not.

    This superimposition caused the space to often warp and crack, and consequently, for rifts and portals to be created. If the individuals that ended up being dragged into these rifts were lucky, they would reappear within the boundaries of the territory of the universal government, otherwise, they would never return. The more time they spent into the void, the further they would reappear.

    These rifts were usually temporary, and would repair thanks to the surrounding natural mana, or more specifically, space essence.. But wormholes were different.

    The difference between a wormhole and a rift was that there was no assurance that the wormhole would disappear with time, and even worse, it was not guaranteed that it would not link the area in which it had appeared, to the opposite side of the universe, another dimension, or worse.. Another time.

    When a wormhole was sighted, after a quick scouting of its insides, it would be immediately closed by the universal government to make sure that nothing that came from the other side coulde in. Most wormholes would take to a different part of the universe, which would usually be in and empty space, but since there was no assurance of what could be lurking on the other side, something about it had to be done.

    In the ancient times, the most powerful cultivators which had a close to perfectprehension of space would take care of simr issues, but after the government had discovered the Void Dwellers, which possessed a gift specifically made to control spacetime, these kinds of events were assigned to their care.

    The group of ten soldiers quickly rushed towards the explorer, and soon noticed what the man had seen. Partially covered by a sphere of absolute darkness, was what looked like a sinkhole which warped and bent the scenery itself.

    This wormhole had been difficult to notice due to the ck hole, which attracted every form of light before it reached the eyes of the people on the other side. Only the rays of starlight which crazed the edges of the ck hole, and were only diverted by its gravitational pull, were able to reach them.. Making it look like there was absolutely nothing but empty space, and stars in the distance.

    To the bearded explorer, it all made sense now. How the other party had appeared out of nowhere, how they had disappeared in minutes without leaving any trace, and how their two groups of origin had lived so close-by to each other, without ever finding out about one another.

    Before approaching the wormhole, he took four differently colored beads from inside his pocket, and shattered them in between his fingers.. Less than two secondster, three portals opened in front of him.

    From two of the three portals, the sniper called Krit, the muscr and hairy Borus, and the old mage came out along with the two groups of soldiers that they were supposed to lead.. but from the third portal, One of the soldiers was dragging the injured and unconscious captain from the other side.

    Without even asking, the four explorers dashed into the portal and reappeared on the other side. There, they saw Ada covered in injuries, with four barely alive soldiers, and just as many dead ones that float next to her. Millions of knives were forming a deadly domemanded by her, but despite the defensive capabilities of her dome, she was still covered in injuries, and one of her legs and eyes were missing.

    After seeing Ada¡¯s state, the expression of the bearded man because furious, and with the speed of light, he unsheathed the knifeves at the sides his chest, and disappeared from where he was floating. At the same time, the old man grabbed his staff, and injected an enormous amount of immortal essence into it, causing the lightning sphere to glow with a blinding white light.. His eyes began to brighten as well, and his body started to emit discharges of electricity continuously.

    Around Ada, nothing but her knives could be seen.. Only a few shes of light which moved too fast to be noticed with the naked eye. They would approach her in a moment, leave an injury on her body, and retreat right after while avoiding all of her wandering knives.

    Every now and then a few droplets of blood would appear in space, showing that her attackers had made a mistake, and that she had managed to injure one of them, but it was never enough to kill them, as there were no bodies aside from the soldiers in her group.

    The bearded explorer was just as fast as the aliens, and the very moment he had appeared from the other side of the portal, he had disappeared, making his movements impossible to trace. Sparks formed in some parts of space, showing that he was shing against one of the aliens.. but unfortunately, it did not seem like there was a superior one amongst them.

    Tirah shivered from next to Krit, which was adjusting something within his goggles, and preparing his musket to fire.. when suddenly, a sh of light dashed towards him at an incredible speed.

    The sniper did not bother to move, and right before the sh of light reached him, Borus appeared in front of him, and punched at the empty space in front of the sh of light with so much power, that the space cracked which grew in size for a few moments, before copsing into a small rift.

    Whatever was going for the sniper, did not expect that Borus could possess such a power. He was caught off guard by rift that had formed, which swallowed a leg and an arm right off, before closing once again.

    After the sniper finished preparing, he tapped the back of therge hairy man, which quietly floated aside. He then moved the musked in front of his face, and quietly stood in wait.

    For a few moments, from behind his thick goggles, his eyes shed with a speedparable to that of the aliens themselves.. And just as he sighted the nearly invisible trails of greyish blood that the alien had lost, he pulled the trigger.

    *BOOM* Aet like bead of metal came out of the barrel of the musked, and dashed straight into a specific point in space. Nothing was in the way of the bullet, but the moment it arrived in the exact point in which Krit had aimed, an injured alien shed right in front of it, and found himself with a new hole in what the sniper assumed was his head.

    From next to Krit and Borus, the old man which until now was storing in his body more and more lightning essence, moved his fist in front of his chest, and as he opened it, from the tips of his nails a of lightning came out. It then extended outwards.

    The speed in which this of lightning extended was incredible, and was difficult to avoid, as the moment something approached it, the current would jump from the to the object which had touched it, and electrocute anything that came in contact with it.

    The only person who had expected this, were Ada and the bearded explorer, which created ayer of metal around them which would defend them from the electric.

    One by one, the passed through the aliens, and electrocuted them. The power was not enough to kill them, but enough to stop them for a fraction of a second. Fortunately, a fraction of a second was all that Ada, the Bearded man, and Krit needed.

    Multiple knives and numerous bullets were shot towards each of the aliens, and prated their bodies multiple times, leaving them lifeless. Those who were not attacked by the Krit and the injured Ada, were cut in half by the bearded man¡¯s lightning fast speed.

    In no longer than a few seconds, numerous bodies had appeared and were quietly floating in space. Unfortunately, before they could be taken by the bearded explorer, which was still busy with fighting against the still numerous shes of light, a particrly fast alien would always grab the corpses in time, and make them disappear.. leaving only a faint image in the minds of the four explorers of how the aliens appeared.

    The coboration between the four explorers showed how impressive their abilities were, and more than anything else, how well they knew each other¡¯s capabilities. They were able to sync perfectly, and in certain cases, they would predict each other¡¯s actions, or even aid one another without having tomunicate.

    The numbers of the enemies quickly started to go down, but even though the situation was getting better for the five of them, the bearded man had still failed toplete his mission.

    There were two possible conclusions for this mess. The first one, was that they managed to kill all of the enemies, and keep one alive in order to extort information, while the second, was to escape, ande back with a more or less even amount of losses.

    Of the two possibilities, the second one was by far the worse conclusion. ording to their n, the soldier should have never fought to begin with, and the moment they did, they immediately attempted to use what they had learned as soldiers.. Unfortunately, due to the surprise nature of the attack, they had ended up being killed immediately.

    If reported back, that would have been a huge blow for the universal government.. To have a division of their army be annihted by a group of scouts, would paint them as soft, and could possibly cause the idea of an invasion to appear in the minds of whoever ruled the other side.

    They had to kill them all.

    Unfortunately, nothing ever goes exactly as nned.

    The particrly fast one amongst the group of scouts, which was also managing to retrieve the bodies of his fallenrades, had spotted the weak link amongst the group of powerful enemy cultivators.. That link, was none other than Tirah, the necromancer.

    His speed was beyond that of Krit¡¯s eyes, and Ada¡¯s knives. The only individual that could keep up with him was the bearded man.. But s, he was too far away from him. So with a burst of speed, he approached Tirah, and took her away from the old mage, the sniper, and the muscr man in a matter of instants.

    The bearded man had just finished racing against that particr enemy for the past minute, and he knew perfectly well how fast he was. So, as he went to capture the necromancer, the bearded man took the asion to reach one of the paralyzed scouts, throw a small bead at him which broke the moment of impact, and created an entire prison of space around him that caged him, and pulled him into the bearded man¡¯s ring.

    The actions of the two gave the others enough time to recover from the shock of the lightning, and to find a way to retreat.

    Unfortunately, these main abilities of these individuals seemed to be about speed.. And the moment of distraction of the bearded man was just what they needed to retreat, and escape towards the wormhole.

    "Should we follow them?" Said the sniper while pointing his musket at one of the escaping scouts.

    "Let them go.. If we can¡¯t kill them all, it¡¯s better if we let as many as possible alive." responded the bearded man. He was sure that, if a chance for diplomacy arised, every single kill from both sides would turn into the most expensive of debts.

    With a bit of disappointment, the bearded man looked at the ce where the necromancer was a moment ago. He felt no pity for her, as the chosen of Iewah were mostly war junkies, and usually not worthy of a single tear. What he was feeling bad about, was losing the chance of probing into the alien¡¯s mind without having to force the information out.

    "Are you okay?" He said after turning towards Ada, which was currently healing herself with an extremely high level healing pill paired with her own power.

    "Yes."

    "Okay then.. Let¡¯s go back.. There is a lot to do to avoid making this day aplete fiasco."

 Chapter 272 Big Problems, Small Problems

    Only a few minutes had passed since the battle between the aliens and the explorers taken ce. The group of explorers, along with the survived soldiers, had teleported back into the capital of the universal government.

    The capital of the universal government was called ¡¯Alcazar¡¯, and it was a small-sized, whose surface waspletely covered in buildings. Not a single portion of it had remained as a bastion of its natural form, except for a few gardens. Under the crust, the minerals and metals had been harvested to such a degree, that nothing remained, except for a warm core formed by multiple perfect fire spheres, and a subterranean city.

    Alcazar had long lost the status of, and at some point in time, had simply be a massive cluster of buildings with a few bits of earth in between.

    The task given to the group of explorers and soldiers after the sixth level of the Xeno protocol had been reported, was of extreme importance, and that was the reason why it had been assigned to the most capable warriors that were currently avable.

    When the group came back from the task, they arrived directly in front of arge rectangr building surrounded by massive white pirs. Right in the middle, was an enormous door in which many people would be able to walk through side by side without any problem.

    The six of them moved into the building, and waited in arge hall for a little longer than a minute, until finally, an old scarred man approached from one of the corridors that connected the hall, to the rooms on the right side.

    This old man wore an armor whose colors were identical to those of the army, and yet, the style was not the same as that of the captain. The difference between the two armors, made it seem that this old man was using an outdated version of the armorm, which had now been changed into something more modern.

    The moment this old man noticed the injured captain, he instantly appeared in front of her, and helped her to sit on a bench. Then, before even asking for a report from the explorers, or the captain herself, the scar that marked his face became more evident, as his face contorted in a vicious expression. He barked out with an extremely loud tone "WHAT DID YOU DO!"

    Due to the immense power of their bodies, any form of healing pill that existed within the domain of the universal government was unable to have the same effectiveness that it would have had on someone like Daniel.

    Minutes had passed since Ada and the captain had ingested their high quality pills, and yet, Ada¡¯s missing right eye was still forming, and her leg was only half partially healed, as anything underneath the knee was still missing. On the other hand, the captain was struggling to breathe, as her ribs had been shattered, and a sharp end of one of them was constantly poking at her lung.

    "Maybe the general should inquire about the result of our mission, before trying to pull the me for the oue.." Said the old mage while slowly sitting next to the bearded explorer.

    The old scarred man was a general of the army, and the father of the captain. He was the one which had pushed for his daughter to be tasked with being the part of the army assigned to investigating of the Xeno Protocol, and the moment his daughter had came back injured, his first instinct, was to me it on the explorers.

    "INSOLENCE! I want an answer, RIGHT NOW!" Shouted the furious general with a voice powerful enough to cause the entire to tremble.

    "I¡¯ve heard shouting.. Of course it had to be you.." muttered a second individual that came out from a corridor exactly opposite to that from which the general had walked out from. The moment this person appeared, the five explorers stood up in sign of respect, while the general snorted quietly.

    This individual was a scrawny teenager that wore the clothes of a Judge, but aside from the attire, he had a special crest which showed a single knife which stood suspended into the empty space. This patch indicated that he was not a simple judge, but a grand judge which had retired from his career of explorer. The people who knew who this teenager was, knew that he was well over the neen years he showed, and was closer to the hundred thousand years of age.

    After making his apparition, the Grand Judge turned towards the bearded man, and with a serious face, he said "How did it go?"

    The two clearly knew each other, as despite the clearly different standing of the two, the bearded man was still allowed to speak his mind around him.

    "My n was to split into groups of ten soldiers led by at least one explorer each. We wanted to y on the unknown, and intimidate by showing our individual power, but we haven¡¯t found any trace of the enemy." Said the bearded man before pausing for a moment, and continuing by saying "We¡¯ve managed to find the point from which they have arrived. A wormhole hidden by a ck hole."

    After hearing the word ¡¯wormhole¡¯, the back of the teenage-looking Grand Judge straightened like the cord of a violin. He then looked at the injured state of Ada and the captain, and asked "What happened to them?"

    "They were the ones that made the encounter, but were unable to fight back against a group of strong alien scouts. Ada managed to hold her own, but the soldiers were unable to defend themselves due to the surprise nature of the attack. We¡¯ve had some losses." Said the bearded man with unusual calmness. It was clear that he felt a big deal of respect for this grand judge.

    Furious by the usation of the bearded explorer, the general said "We will see if that is the truth the moment my daughter will tell her version." He then turned towards the injured captain, and after moving her head to face him, he said "Tell us what happened."

    "He made us split.. There were too many for us to defend ourselves.. If he hadn¡¯t ordered for us to split.." she muttered with a weak voice, but without forgetting to put the full me on the losses of her team onto the bearded explorer.

    The bearded explorer sighed in disappointment, and said "You agreed on splitting in groups of eight, but after I¡¯ve decided to split us into groups of ten, you still me me for the decision?" His tone was indifferent, and it showed the low the expectation he had for people like the soldiers of the universal government army truly was.

    After responding to what the woman had said, he turned to look back at the Grand Judge, and said "We have captured one of the aliens. We were waiting to deliver our report before starting the interrogation."

    "How many of them did you kill?.." Asked the Grand Judge with a certainty that his group of explorers hadn¡¯t simply taken losses without causing some of their own.

    The bearded explorer was slightly ufortable about the question. He knew exactly what the reason of the question was.. As well as how many people they had killed. So, with a hint of reluctance, he said "Twelve.. After we¡¯ve lost the asion to demonstrate individual power, we had to send the message that we are not an easy prey.."

    The teenage-looking Grand Judge looked at the conflicted expression of the bearded explorer, and became pensive for a few moments.. He then said "Avoiding conflict won¡¯t be easy.. But if they wille for war.. They will have one."

    -----

    "We should have really stopped to one Iewah¡¯s closests.. We could have found a tform there.." muttered Daniel after months of travel through the infinite space. He was hungry, annoyed by the constant talking of the dragon, and couldn¡¯t wait anymore to see his family, his friends, and Alesia.

    "And then what? The moment you approach a of Iewah, you will instantly get reported by the keeper of key. Do you want to go around demanding for people to activate a teleporting device to your while you get chased by the children of Iewah?!" Said Xargy with a hint of annoyance. He had heard these wordsing from Daniel¡¯s mouth over and over again, and now that they were close to Daniel¡¯s of origin, he was starting to lose his patience.

    Daniel turned to look at the human-like dragon, and with a faint smirk, he said "I thought you had found your courage back.."

    "There are beings much more powerful than the necromancer.. Fool yourself with thinking that you are not taking any risks, and you won¡¯t reach a hundred years of age." Responded Xargy while waving hisrge arm thick tail around in anger.

    "You two have had it for weeks now.. We are almost there.." Said Aeron with a simrly annoyed tone. While Xargy and Daniel had argued about their ns more than once in the past few weeks, he had been the one to have to listen to them argue, while also feeling both of their feelings of frustration and annoyance umte in his own mind, and preventing him from cultivating in peace.

    All three of them were on edge.. Thankfully, they were close to sr system from which Daniel came from.

    Daniel was clear about the limitation of his powers. The very entity that kept on indirectly reminding him of that, was none other than Xargy.. which oddly enough, was following him out of the entertainment that he would get from Daniel¡¯s inevitably chaotic future, and not because of some form of allegiance to his persona.

    He knew that after opening his world of origin to inteary travel, a lot of groups within Iewah¡¯s faction would attempt to put their g on the rich and isted soil, and that was the reason why he had tried to take over the entire, before any other group could try to nt their seed, and attempt to add his home to their territory.

    Taking im of a was not always a big deal within the universal government, as most of the times, an isted would end up being conquered by one faction or another in a matter of tens of thousands of years. Nevertheless, the matter waspletely different when the conquering party was Iewah¡¯s faction.

    That event did not simply mean the addition of a to Iewah¡¯s territory, but the birth of a monster. The addition of a chosen of Iewah was a big deal, as a lot less of them appeared in the years whenpared to the elites of the other groups, form which hundreds were groomed every year.

    Sewah¡¯s birth had given a lot of attention to Daniel¡¯s world of origin.. But unfortunately, when looking at it from the viewpoint of a rtively weak group that controlled a desirable territory, attention was the worst possible thing one could have asked for.

    Daniel had expected his friends to have suffered some difficulties after the opening of inteary travel, and if not for that reason, for the fact that he was now an outcast. So, he was in a hurry to reunite with them.

    When two dayster the three managed to arrive to the sr system where Daniel¡¯s home was, they quickly agreed on sticking together, and suppressing their powers in order to go unnoticed.

    While that was not a difficult task for Xargy, whose power the keeper of key could not feel to begin with, it was different for Aeron. He had required a month of training to understand the concepts of dark essence necessary to keep himself hidden from the eyes of Iewah¡¯s faction.

    Daniel¡¯s asteroid sized dashed through at such a speed that, if it hit one of thes in the sr system, it would inevitably cause an apocalypse.. And in three days after entering the sr system, the group of three finally spotted Daniel¡¯s home in the distance.

 Chapter 273 An Uncomfortable Feeling

    The n had worked.

    A day after spotting Daniel¡¯s of origin, the three had followed their original n, and had sessfully entered the atmosphere without alerting the keeper of key, which if he had feld them, would have been able to report the presence of intruders way before the three could kill him.

    The reason why they were forced toe here, and they couldn¡¯t simply teleport from another, was that they would need to go through a low level keeper of key.. And while Daniel was confident in convincing him to teleport them to his, Xargy had suggested that they didn¡¯t.

    While it was true that they would have been able to pass through without being spotted by one of those individuals that opened the portals to other worlds, there was no assurance that they would not end up in front of somebody that could recognize them, and even capture them right away.

    In the end, for as much Daniel would have wanted to take the risk in order to not having to listen to the constant chatting of the talkative dragon, he had let himself be convinced to drop that idea altogether. Being caught in order to avoid a few more days of travel, was not worth it.

    After the three managed to enter the, they immediately tried to find a teleporting device for terrestrial travel, as there was no risk in them being controlled by a powerful entity.

    When Daniel had lost control over his body, he had just started the process of building massive teleportation tforms in most of the big cities of thes. Those buildings would serve as checkpoints that people would have been able to use to travel from city to city, and if they wanted, to reach Daniel¡¯spany building. These buildings would also be used by theirpany to control the various groups that used to dominate the world.

    Now, more than two and a half years had passed, and in theory, these buildings should have been fully operative, but when theynded in the first city they found, and searched for the signature buildings which Daniel had designed, they found nothing.

    Thankfully, Daniel was powerful enough to travel the circumference of the in just a few days, and since he had spent weeks trying to conquer the, he had a more or less clear idea of where they were supposed to go in order to reach reach the closest city.

    Reaching another big city, while before it would have taken weeks or even months, would now take just minutes. He could have also cut the time to nothing by simply creating a portal, but one of the powers which the keepers of key possessed, was a supernatural awareness of the entire space of the that they were guarding. That would mean that, even if they were invisible to the keeper¡¯s eyes, a portal that lead from one side of the to the other, would definitely be felt by him.

    Left with no choice, Daniel, Xargy and Aeron dashed through the sky at a mind boggling speed, and just like predicted, in a matter of minutes, they arrived to a second major city.

    This city was the capital of one of the formerly most powerful empires, and therefore, should have definitely had one of the Golden Karmapany¡¯s checkpoints in it.. But even after scanning through the entire territory of the empire, Daniel found nothing.

    At this moment, a hint of a bad feeling started to make his way into Daniel¡¯s mind.

    He quickly threw away the idea of using a terrestrial teleporting tform, and after trying to make out the map of the entire in his mind, he picked a direction, and dashed towards it like aet.

    Xargy and Aeron, which were already conscious about Daniel¡¯s state of mind thanks to their respective sense of smell, and capability of perceiving other people¡¯s emotions, quietly followed from behind.

    About five hourster, the threended on a patch of soft grass, and pleasant flowers. They were in a garden, which was part of the castle of the kingdom of Karalis.

    Originally, no one would have been allowed to be here aside from the royal family, and the royal guards.. but now, dozens of kids were running in the distance, while their mothers sat on elegant sheets, and sipped wine while chatting happily.

    There was no trace of guards, except for a single individual at the fifth stage of cultivation, which quietly stood to guard the group of women, and the kids y.

    Daniel could not recognize any of these individuals, except for the solitary guard that stood quietly in wait. His immortal essence was slightly different from the one he recalled, but after a minute spent into his memories, he finally recognized this individual.

    The man, was none other than the king of Karalis.

    The three had appeared truly out of the blue, and the moment their feet hadnded on the grass, they were immediately spotted by one of the women. "Who are you?" She asked while standing up, and approaching Daniel with caution.

    Daniel had immediately realized the power of these women. None of them was below the sixth stage of cultivation, and the strongest, was at the seventh. The power of these women had made the presence of the king superfluous, and paired with the fact that the woman that had spotted them hadn¡¯t asked for the king to capture the intruders, an idea suddenly formed in Daniel¡¯s mind.

    The king was not a guard.. But a servant.

    Once a feared and powerful individual, now a servant tasked with tending to a group of aristocrats while they sipped wine, and observed their kids y.. The king had truly fallen down his throne, but that was not what was bothering Daniel.

    For as domineering as they had behaved when taking control over the, not one member of Daniel¡¯s group would have forced the king into being a servant.. Something had changed, and the more he thought about it, the worse his bad feeling got.

    Daniel did not want to meddle with other people¡¯s business, so, he tried to feel the presence of any of the individuals could have known in karalis, but unfortunately, just like with the other cities, there was no trace of any of his friends. Only a general increase in the poption¡¯s overall power.

    Now anxious, Daniel ignored the woman and approached the former king, which had noticed him the very moment the woman had risen to her feet, and had started to walk towards him with a menacing tone.

    The look on the face of the king left a deep mark in Daniel¡¯s mind. There was a time in which the sheer mention of this man would leave him shaking in his old and ruined boots.. And yet, now, he was looking back at him with eyes opened in terror, as it seemed that he had seen a ghost.

    "Start talking." Said Daniel as he arrived to one meter of distance from the king. His tone was threatening, and it give him a pressure that none of the people he served was capable of putting on him.

    "I.." The king looked at the woman that he had been serving until now without knowing what to do. It appeared that, despite Daniel¡¯s presence, he was still scared to talk about what had happened for some reason or another.

    To the woman, Daniel and Aeron appeared like two weak cultivators. Their immortal cultivation was hidden by their control over dark essence, and therefore, none of it emanated out of their body. On the other hand, while in the higher spheres of the universal government everybody would have immediately turned to look at an individual like Xargy with eyes opened wide in shock, not everyone had the same knowledge here. From the point of view of this woman, Xargy was simply a reptilian beast which had evolved to its humanoid form a few times.

    These details had convinced the woman that she was in control over the situation, but she was sorely mistaken. Before she could even open her mouth to say anything, Aeron¡¯s eyes shone with a bright green light, and every single individual that was present in the garden aside from the former king and the three of them, fell into a deep sleep right where they were standing.

    The king was notpletely sure about Daniel¡¯s power before, but seeing how one of the people he was traveling with had put to sleep numerous cultivators at the sixth and seventh stage of cultivator, it was clear that their power was beyond what he was currently feeling.

    Daniel quickly noticed the state of confusion of the king, so, instead of waiting for his response, he turned to look at Aeron, and said "Do you mind?"

    Aeron breathed out with a faint bit of exasperation.. Then, his hand moved as fast as lightning, and he grabbed the king¡¯s jaw in an instant. Unable to react in time, the king was forced to look straight into Aeron¡¯s increasingly brighter eyes.

    His expression became dull, his thoughts became fuzzy, and his arms dropped by his sides..

    -----

    Three months earlier, Karalis¡¯ castle.

    Inside the main hall of Karalis¡¯ castle, numerous individuals were standing in a small circle. They were discussing about important problems, and a few of them were clearly nervous about the events that had taken ce in the previous days.

    If Daniel had been there at the moment, he would have recognized each and every one of those individuals. These people were none other than Daniel¡¯s friends. Amongst them were Heimart, Ligart, Alis, Emelnie, Roley, Edmund, Emelnie, and Der. By the side of the room, and point of view of this entire event, was the king of Karalis.

    "I can¡¯t believe this! These pieces of shit were trying to propose deals and offer gifts just weeks ago.. And now they are trying to force us out!" Said Ligart in sheer anger.

    "Do you guys think that what they are saying is true?" Said Alis with a low tone. She was clearly not as interested about what was happening as she was about the why it was happening.

    In the two years in which Sewah had taken control over Daniel¡¯s body, things had gone well theirpany. While they did not know much about it, the rumor that thepany had been created by the newest chosen of Iewah had circted ever since the had been opened to inteary travel.

    Since that moment, the various groups had attempted to enter the good graces of thepany by treating them like the actual owners of the. They would send gifts, offer deals, and help in expanding their business. All of that, was in order to form a rtionship with the chosen of Iewah himself.

    The following three months were a time of drastic growth for Daniel¡¯spany. Their pocket dimension had bepletely self-sufficient, and acted as a secondary from Daniel¡¯s world of origin. The production of spheres, alchemical products, weapons, and many other objects had made them the main power in the, and arguably one of the most powerfulpanies in the entire sr system.

    Unfortunately, all good things had toe to an end.

    After two years of pain caused by the loss of their unspoken leader, family member, and lover, as well as sess and personal growth.. Everything changed.

    At first, the gifts stoppeding. Thepany heads around them began to act coldly, and close to no deals were being offered to them anymore.

    While that was not a problem, as thepany was already beyond the point in which it would have needed someone else¡¯s help to survive.. That was far from the end.. A rumors had started to spread.

    Sewah.. The youngest chosen of Iewah¡¯s faction.. Too young to be able to earn a title like his peers.. Had entered everybody¡¯s ears once again.. As the first outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction.

 Chapter 274 The Limitless Reach of Luck

    Just days after Daniel had taken back control over his body, the numerous groups which in the past two years had sneakily made their way into his home, and that also had connections ced into Iewah¡¯s faction, immediately learned about what had happened.

    Their support towards the Golden Karmapany immediately ceased, and since there was no point in having a good rtionship with them anymore, their behaviour changed from an amicable one, to a hostile one.

    While in the other factions the family and the friends of an outcast would be branded as second ss citizens, it was different for Iewah¡¯s faction. Nobody had asked or cared for the reason why there was this sort of rule, but all of the people which took care of cing bounties, were aware of the existence of a specific rule made directly by Iewah. This rule forbid anyone from treating the family members of an outcast, if there would ever be one, as second ss citizens.

    The only individuals which could understand the reason for this rule, were those who were aware of what a children of Iewah was. They knew that the individuals around a host would not have anything to do with the gift¡¯s personality which would evolve into a full fledged child of Iewah, and therefore, there was no point in branding them as enemies of the faction.

    A situation like Daniel¡¯s had never happened before in the history of their faction, so nobody knew exactly how to behave towards the Golden Karmapany.. All they knew, was that they hadn¡¯t been reported as outcasts, and that meant that they were still citizens like everybody else.

    Unfortunately, citizenship did not mean being untouchable.. And while they were not guilty of anything, most powerfulpanies would not really have a problem in scheming against another, in order to push them out of their territory.. They had invested a lot into the Golden Karmapany, and now that they had lost any chance of gaining the favors of a chosen of Iewah, they wanted to earn something back.

    They did not have to look far for an opportunity. The previous owners of the territories had jumped to take the chance to earn something back from what Daniel¡¯s group had done to them, and since all of thesepanies were willing to support them, they had be bold, and contrived n after n to take the control of the territory back from the Golden Karmapany.

    Daniel¡¯s conquest, while decisive and sudden, hadn¡¯t been a forceful one. Daniel¡¯s main point to take control over the territory had been the fact that people more powerful than they were, but that also would not care at all about their, would arrive soon.

    The kingdoms and empires which were once the peak of the cultivation world, had been left with no choice but to ept Daniel¡¯s demands, and to submit to hispany, but that did not meant that they were grateful. They had kept in mind how they had been "robbed" out of their territories and titles, and now they had finally received a chance to take revenge over the people that not only had granted them a chance to a higher cultivation, but that had also made them pay the most important thing they had for it.. Their status.

    From one day to another, the blue blood families which had been forced into submission by Daniel¡¯s group, had now started to n along with thepanies that, for the past two years, had tried to cut a space for themselves in Daniel¡¯s home.

    Reports that used Daniel¡¯spany of stealing their territories started to make their way to the ears of the selected officials of theary government, as well as false ims of murder and missed payment for theirnds.

    Theseins came in the millions all through the, and in a month, the majority of the¡¯s former leaders had turned the Golden Karmapany, into a criminal organization with connections to the most notorious criminal that ever existed in Iewah¡¯s faction.

    Daniel¡¯s closest friends had tried to solve one problem at a time, but from their point of view, it seemed that their luck was below their own shoes. Whenever an usation was thrown at them, they would immediately deny it and attempt to solve it with the officials of the government, but every time that happened, extremely unlucky events would make their appearance, and aid their opponents.

    In one of the most absurd of these cases, a former emperor had used them of never paying for the territory which he had decided to sell to thepany. He was in possession of a document marked with Heimart¡¯s immortal essence, but the content was something that he had never written.

    The way that had happened, was terribly unfortunate. A few days prior to the event, Heimart had just finished marking a stack of papers with his own immortal essence, and was ready to write the terms of the contracts before presenting them to the people with whom he was dealing with. Next to him, were numerous other stacks of contracts.

    When his secretary entered his office with another stack of papers, a gust of wind which entered an opened window in an opened office in the same floor as Heimart¡¯s, entered the office along with the secretary, and moved towards the stack of papers which Heimart had just finished marking.

    Due to a nearly invisible fold on the page on top, the gust of wind was able to push under the sheet, and lift it off from the rest of the stack.. The nk contract thennded right above one of the stacks of contracts which were ready to be sent out. During the moment when this happened, the secretary had turned around to close the door, and heimart was looking upwards, while stretching his back.

    After approaching the desk, the secretary ced a few documents on the sheet, mixing it with the numerous contracts in the pile.

    Those contracts were sent the same day to the person that had used him.

    Simr events had taken ce numerous times, and many times, the circumstances were absurd to a point where, even if exined to them, Daniel¡¯s friends would have probably not believed in it.

    The truth was that while Daniel was not with them, and the unfortunate events that happened to him could not affect them directly, he still considered his friends and family like the most important people in his life.. And unfortunately, just like he was able to affect other people¡¯s luck by hoping that they would do well, the effect would stand regardless of whether his karma was positive or not.

    That, had caused a series of unfortunate events to hit Daniel¡¯s friends over and over again for the months that had gone by between taking back the control over his body, and the day of the demonstration in Ton Bes.

    At the end of this period of time, the situation had be so bad, that thepanies had used the public outrage towards the Golden Karma, to form a "righteous" opposition against them.

    The constant bullying, in the end, had caused numerous reactions and conflicts to start, and whenever things went out of control, the Golden Karmapany would always end up taking the me for initiating the conflict due to a made up reason, or unfortunate event that ced the fault on them.

    Thest few memories that Aeron was able to see in the mind of the former king of karalis, was the reunion between the members of Daniel group, which was interrupted by the news that a few of their buildings had been attacked by a raging mob.

    The following details, were the information that the king had heard about the events that took ce afterwards.

    While Daniel¡¯s group was still rtively weak whenpared to the others, they were not pushovers either. Their expansion through the sr system had allowed them to expand, and hire numerous powerful individuals.

    After losing onerge territory after the other in what felt like a never ending world war, Daniel¡¯s group was left with no alternatives but to abandon the, and move elsewhere..

    Unfortunately, the numerouspanies against which they had fought, not only wanted their territories, but their possessions as well. The rumor of the academy within Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension had spread far and wide, as well as the presence of various perfect spheres in it.. But more than anything, they wanted the recipe of Daniel¡¯s poison immunity pill, which at the moment, only the higher spheres of Iewah¡¯s faction had obtained as a gift from Sewah in exchange of contribution.

    Onest battle had taken ce around the time when Daniel had started heading home, and this battle had been abruptly interrupted when, in an attempt to escape through space, a particrly vicious spatial formation, paired with an unusually unstable part of space, shed against Edmund¡¯s and Roley¡¯s knowledge of spatial essence.. Caused the entire space in which they had been fighting to shatter.

    Roley, Jerigh, Heimart, Gai¡¯ha, Edmund, Der, Lucious, Alesia, and finally, the person which was currently holding the ring, Emelnie, were thrown into the void.

    -----

    As the glow that came from Aeron¡¯s eyes died out, his hold on the king¡¯s jaw slowly rxed.

    The king shook his head in confusion. He had no clue of what had just happened, and felt as if he had just woken up from passing out. His mind was fuzzy, and a splitting headache was oppressively making his way through his head.

    Aeron turned to look at Daniel, and quickly noticed that he was looking back at him with clear anxiousness in his eyes. He was eager to know what had happened to his family and friends, and he was a moment away from bursting out with questions.

    "What?!" Daniel asked after noticing Aeron¡¯s odd expression.

    He was more than aware of what ending up in the void meant. The void was just like space, but extremely unstable. Portals to the normal dimension opened constantly, but a meter of distance meant trillions of kilometers from the point in which one had entered.

    He and his division of mental warriors had ended up in the void during one of their travel, and it was only thanks to an immense dose of luck, that he had re appeared near a gxy which was co-owned by eighteen different factions.. One of which, was his own. It had taken him three full years to reach the closest, and get back home.

    Without knowing exactly what to do, how to behave, and where to go, there was no chance for those who ended up in the void to end up in a safe and familiar territory. The possibilities of that happening, where infinitesimal.

    Instead of speaking, Aeron ced his hand on Daniel¡¯s forehead.

    The very next moment, Daniel¡¯s eyes went nk, and stayed that way for a few seconds. Just enough time for the memories of the king to y out in his mind.

    The moment¡¯s Aeron¡¯s hand parted from Daniel¡¯s forehead, thetter dropped on his knees and instinctively gagged. If he hadn¡¯t been fasting for the past couple of months, he would have vomited the entire content of his stomach. That, was the effect that forcibly pushing a person¡¯s memories into another one, would cause to a weaker mind.

    If Daniel¡¯s mind wasn¡¯t more developed than any other individual outside of the Psionic Dimension, he would have died from the strain.

    *Cough Cough*.. "Wha... FUCK!!!!" *BOOBOOOOOOM* Shouted Daniel in exasperation before punching the garden with both hands, and forming a spider crack that expanded through the entire garden, and underneath the sleeping mothers and children.

    He then remained quiet for a good minute.. Staring at the ground.

    "Hope is not lost.. Maybe they were lucky.." Said Aeron with a low tone. He clearly did not believe what he was saying, and he was saying it just tofort Daniel.

    It was only after hearing thest word pronounced by Aeron, that Daniel sprung up on his feet, and after grabbing his shoulders, asked "When did the battle happen exactly? Be precise about it! By the hour!!!"

    Aeron once again searched into the memories that he had taken from the former king, and after a few moments, he said "Just hours after the demonstration in Ton Bes."

 Chapter 275 A Good Reason To

    Daniel¡¯s world had fallen apart.

    Despite Aeron¡¯s attempt at encouragement, Daniel knew for a fact that he would not be able to find his friends anytime soon.. If not ever again. Hisprehension of space was deep enough to know that the simple distance between each other the moment they were thrown into the void, meant that they had likely been separated by an immeasurable distance.

    The first thing he did after learning of the fate of his friends, was to create a quest that would help him find them.. But the very window that appeared in his head, had confirmed what he was fearing. All of his friends were not only millions of light years apart, but were also in the territories of different factions. For him to reach Heimart, which was the closest one to him, and the first objective of the mission, would take thousands of years of travel, as traveling in between factions without permission and without being discovered, required a strength that he did not possess impossible.

    He was currently looking at the empty space in front of him with a simrly empty expression. The idea that any of his friends would be going through a life threatening situation all alone, was tearing him apart. But what was even worse, was knowing that there was absolutely no way for him to rescue all of them.. that, was the worst feeling of all.

    The onlyfort that he found in this whirl of worry and fear, was the fact that his karma had miraculously changed to a positive level just before they had been teleported. That would give them a better chance at survival thanks to Daniel¡¯s omnipresent karmic effect.

    Unfortunately, that did not mean that they would not go through hardships.

    Karma X Luck was, without the shadow of a doubt, the most mysterious and powerful effect within his karmic system. Second Chance, Karmic Retribution, or even Time is Precious were beyond any quantitative level of value that amon person could calcte, but in terms of magnitude of effect, Karma X Luck was beyond any other.

    The only limits of Karma X Luck, were the amount of karma that the wielder of the system possessed.

    Aeron observed Daniel in silence, and felt every bit of anxiousness and fear that formed a grip around his heart for the following minutes.. But then, out of the blue.. A spark of anger started to shine in the middle of that cluster of dark emotions.

    This feeling of anger was born from a sudden thought.. A thought that was exactly what Daniel needed to get out of his spiraling state of mind.

    Anger, as well as an indomitable will power grew in Aeron¡¯s mind as he watched Daniel clench his fists. "Daniel.." He said in hope to distract him from forcing these feelings to grow to a point where the idea of going on a rampage could form.

    Xargy, on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying the sight. In the thousands of years he had spent warring along with his kin, he would often smell this sent often.. The smell of a dragon ready to waste his life on a war. He hadn¡¯t smelled this smell in anybody else for a very long time, and now that this smell had once again found its way into his lungs, it was making his blood boil.

    "What now?" Asked Aeron while putting his left hand on Daniel¡¯s shoulder, and forcing his mind to calm down with his powers. Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s mind was not that of amon human anymore, and since Aeron did not have a cultivation much higher than his, he was not able to eradicate those emotionspletely.

    Nevertheless, his attempt was somewhat sessful, and instead of going on a rampage, Daniel used those short instants of rity to think of his next move.

    "Now.." Daniel muttered while thinking of everything that had happened to him. Of how he simply wanted his family to live happily, of how most of his friends wouldn¡¯t have had to go through these hardships if they hadn¡¯t met him, and about the fact that the source of all that had happened to him, could be pinpointed on a single being.. Iewah.

    "Now.. now we give them a reason to hunt us down."

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: One Against All*

    -Description: Be the most dangerous individual in the Universe.

    First objective set: Destroy the faction ¡¯Garden of Death¡¯.

    Reward: ???

    Time limit: 8 years, 6 months, 13 days.

    ____________________________

    An extremely wide smile appeared on Xargy¡¯s face, and while some faint smoke came out of his nostrils, he muttered "Now we are talking."

    -----

    Khron, Universal government territory.

    Of all of thes within the universal government, hron was one of the most important. It was a liveable, and matched the perfect conditions in which human life, as well as most beast tribes, could evolve, and thrive on.

    The reason for the importance of Khron was not due to his perfect living conditions, but for what the had been selected for by the universal government, just one month earlier.

    Once kept as a backup home for the government to move to in case a disaster were to happen to Alcazar, Khron was now filled with arge number of individuals that hade from each and every faction that was part of the universal government, in thest hundreds of thousands of years.

    While not the most impressive individuals in their factions, these individuals were rtively young for their level of cultivation, and all of them could be considered rare geniuses, as well as promising contendants for the position of elite.

    The capital of Khron was called Zetta, and due to the fact that the was interdicted to anypany, faction, or group by the universal government, it had alway been an extremely peaceful city, as well as a ce where influential people could go on a vacation to due to its beauty.

    Now, the name of the once quiet city, had been changed into Patriot city.. Name taken by the newly formed and most important institute of the entire.. The Patriot Academy.. Also known as the ¡¯Army and Explorer Preparatory Academy¡¯.

    The decision to create the Patriot Academy, had been taken by the Grand Judges after the report of the bearded explorer regarding the results of his expedition.

    While the possibility that a war between the two groups was not definitive, the universal government was not fully aware of their full power, or their numbers. So, despite what the oue of the following encounters between the two groups would be, they needed to prepare for the worst.

    One of the proceedings taken, was to open numerous academies in which the various factions would be forced to send their share of talented cultivators. These individuals would be then taken as either member of the army, or part of the explorer corp.

    The original idea was to open numerous schools, and take the most talented individuals that hadn¡¯t received a gift yet from each faction.. but their proposal had meet with heavy discontent. In the end, the factions had only agreed on sending a small number of geniuses into a single school. That school, was the Patriot Academy.

    It was the day of the official opening of the academy, and the powerful cultivators were storming the city like a swarm of ants that had found a rich source of food to take back to the nest.

    In a dirt road that lead directly into Patriot city, was a long tail of carriages that had been stopped. Each of these carriages were different, and in one way or another, they all showed what sort of factions the individuals that were being transported came from.

    The one in the lead had a square base, and was built like a pyramid with a small golden booth on top, inside which two individuals sat hidden by a semi-transparent veil. The carriage was carried by a group of human ves, which not only moved the carriage forward, but also had to lift it off of the ground, as there were no wheels on it.

    Behind this carriage was a line of at least thirty more carriages, all just as unique as the first one. One of them was made of thick vines, and was carried by tworge horses with wings tied close to their sides, one was bnced on the back of a massive lizard-like being, and so on.

    A chattering noise could be hearding from many of these carriages, and all of them shared the same topic.. That topic was, of course, a collective discontent towards whatever was currently stopping their carriages from moving into the city.

    Lying on the dirt road right in front of the carriages at the head of the line, was a young man dressed in practical clothes. He was facing down, and was clearly unconscious.

    After a few missed attempts to awaken the young man by voice, the veil on the right side of the carriage moved aside, and from behind it, a young woman walked out. She then walked down the steps of her pyramid, and as she reached the edge of the square base, four ves moved into position to allow her to step on them, as if they were mere steps in a flight of stairs.

    This young woman approached this young man as if she owned the entire, and once in front of him, she lifted her slender leg, and with the power of ate seventh stage immortal cultivator, she attempted to smash the head of the individual before he could even wake up. She was a queen, and he was a subject that had stumbled in front of her.. In her mind, she had every right to kill him.

    Unfortunately for her, before her foot managed to reach the back of the man¡¯s head, he had disappeared from the ce where he was lying on, and the de that had formed around his hand had already shed the air close to her neck.

    Just as the de of the young man was about to reach the girl¡¯s neck and sh it open, a blurred figure dashed out of the carriage, and hit the elbow of the young man with a power many times above his.

    The young man¡¯s arm bent unnaturally, and was broken.. Yet, the young man did not stop. Instead, he used the burst given by the attack that he had received, to spin on the spot and sh again with his other arm.

    Once again, a soft *Thump*, followed by a sharp *Spah!* could be heard.

    The young woman did not even have the time to react to the young man¡¯s attack, and if her protector hadn¡¯te to her aid, her head would now be rolling on the dirt right next to where she was standing.. Yet, while still alive, her neck had two faint cuts on both sides, and in front of her eyes, was a thin needle which had been stopped by her protector before it could reach the center of her forehead.

    The protector, who was a woman who appeared to be in herte thirties, was shocked to see the decisiveness and relentlessness of the young man that was standing in front of her. Not only had he attempted another attack after the first one failed and his arm was broken, but he had gone for a third, after his other arm was broken as well.

    In her opinion, this young man was not somebody that could be allowed to live, or one day, he would try to take revenge on her protegee. Of that, there was absolutely no doubt.

    Her hand moved at an incredibly speed towards the neck of the young man, but before her hand could touch him, a man appeared in front of her.

    This man¡¯s head was covered in bandages, and his eyes were covered by thick goggles. On his shoulder, was a musket. He was none other than Sniper, the explorer.

    The woman immediately realized who this man was, and instantly paralyzed on the spot.

    The Sniper¡¯s back was directed towards the protector of the young woman, and it didn¡¯t seem like he was worried that the woman would attempt to attack him any time soon. "What is your name?.." Said the sniper while moving his musked from one shoulder to the other.

    The young man, which was standing with an emotionless face covered in dirt, and two armspletely broken.. Said "Jerigh.."

 Chapter 276 Separation And Resolution

    "Jerigh.." he responded with a slow, and faint tone.

    While the sniper did not appear to have any ill intent towards him, he was still going to make use of every moment he had to recover his arms.

    From behind the white bandages, Krit smiled faintly and yed along. "I didn¡¯t hear you clearly. What was your name again?" He asked as Jerigh¡¯s broken bones moved back in position from underneath his flesh. He had been thoroughly impressed by this young man¡¯s decisiveness, and to him, it seemed like he was looking at an explorer in the making.

    Once again, Jerigh tried to gain time. He did not respond to the question, and instead, he turned to look at the young girl who had tried to crush his head under her high heels. His look was one of anger, and hostility.

    "Heh.. Don¡¯t worry, they will not touch you." Krit said before turning towards the woman, and saying "What is the first rule of the Patriot Academy?" His tone was casual, but the meaning behind the words was a promise of a quick death.

    With a trembling voice, the woman said "E-explorer.. I.."

    Krit interrupted her, and with a colder tone, he said "I am not going to ask twice."

    While internally praying that the Sniper, an experienced explorer and a being hundreds of times more powerful than her, would allow her to live, she stuttered "T-The f-f-first rul-"

    "You are going to get it wrong, so I¡¯ll tell you. The first rule of the academy is that if I find one of you faction idiots doing something stupid in my range, I get to put a bullet in you." He said while slowly pointing his musket towards her.

    The woman would have been easily able to move out of the way due to how slowly he was moving, and how powerful she was, but she was too scared to.

    After the end of the barrel lined up with the woman¡¯s eyes, Krit turned to look back, and asked to Jerigh "Should I ki-"

    "Yes." Jerigh responded without even letting the sniper finish asking his question.

    Once again, a smile appeared on Krit¡¯s face. Being an explorer was a matter of preparation, foresight, and decisiveness. Everything in Jerigh screamed ¡¯Perfect Explorer¡¯, and hisck of pity, sadly, was also a good quality for that kind of job.

    Krit turned to look back at the woman, and after aligning his eyes with the length of the musket.. "PAH!"

    The eyes of the woman shut in terror, and while her face deformed due to the shock, she shrieked back for what she had thought was thest time of her life. It was only after a few seconds, that her eyes opened, and she realized that the sniper hadn¡¯t shot, but had simply shouted ¡¯pah¡¯ instead.

    "Still here?" he asked to the terrified woman, which disappeared the very next instant without uttering a single word or making a sound.

    After the woman disappeared, the sniper once again turned to look at Jerigh, whose arms had already recovered, and asked "Those who know no mercy, lead the harshest lives."

    "There isn¡¯t always going to be somebody willing to save me from merciless characters." Jerigh responded while snapping his healed arms back in ce. His expression was nk, and it showed that pain did not affect him in the slightest.

    "True.. well, you are free to find her and kill her, then." Said the sniper while stepping aside, and waving his free arm to his right. He was not going to kill someone just because of the whim of a person he did not know, even if that person was a promising individual, but he did understand Jerigh¡¯s reasoning.

    Jerigh did not know where the woman had escaped to, and even if he knew, he would have not gone after her. She was too powerful, and if the sniper hadn¡¯t intervened, he would be dead by now. On the other hand, the sniper was still here, and he clearly wanted something from him. So, he kept quiet, and brushed his clothes and face clean of dust and dirt.

    "Are you one of the brats from Iewah¡¯s faction?" Asked the sniper with narrowed eyes. He knew for a fact that only ten individuals from Iewah¡¯s faction had been sent, and from where he was standing, he could see all of them standing in a square a few kilometers in the direction of the city.

    Jerigh had absolutely no clue about the situation he was in, and since it didn¡¯t seem like this strange and yet powerful individual harbored any ill intent towards him, he decided to be honest. "I have no idea where I am.. I was taken here after wandering a few moments in the void.."

    "HA! Talk about luck!.." the sniper eximed with happiness after hearing Jerigh¡¯s words. He then added "Well, you have appeared in the right ce.. Here, let me show you around."

    -----

    Numerous fortuitous events had taken ce in many different areas of the universe, and Daniel¡¯s friends, were part of each of them.

    Roley had appeared in a gxy that was entirely owned by the Tyrants of Nature, and more specifically, in the vicinity of the in which the leader of the faction resided.

    Heimart had ended up into the territory of the Ki faction, and Edmund, had never left the void.. Once he was pulled into the void, he had tried to use his highprehension of spatial essence in an attempt to stabilize himself and reach his wife Emelnie.. But that hadn¡¯tsted long, as she had disappeared moments before he could touch her hand. While he hadn¡¯t been pushed out of the void, he was thrown around for a few minutes, until a patrol of void dwellers found him, and "rescued" him.

    Emelnie, on the other hand, had been teleported in a different area of the universal government. The in which she was currently standing on, while still in shock due to her sudden separation from her daughter and husband, was a called Cato.. and it was the core of themerce of the entire universal government.

    Finally, Der, which had managed to grab Gai¡¯ha¡¯s and Alesia¡¯s arms when they were thrown into the void, had ended up into the territory of a faction called The Dominion of the War God, while Lucious, had appeared in the territory of a faction called One With Nature.

    While all of them were safe and sound, they shared the same thought. If they wanted to find their way back to the friends that they now considered family, they couldn¡¯t wait for somebody to find them. They needed power..

    -----

    Eight monthster.

    "Can you believe that?!.. I don¡¯t believe this.. How the hell did you find it?! With all of the ces where we could have been, here it is.. This is absurd."

    "Would you be quiet?.. I need to focus.. If I make a mistake here, we have to start the search over."

    "Fine, you damn freak.. I don¡¯t want the damn president of the universal government appearing here and kill me by mistake.. Wait, you can¡¯t control your luck, right?"

    "Keep talking and you¡¯ll find out."

    "... I¡¯ll just be here."

    Eight months had passed since Daniel¡¯s second andst departure from his world of origin. There was nobody who he cared about in that anymore, and there wouldn¡¯t be for many, many years. To him, that had absolutely no value at the moment.

    In the past eight months, Daniel, Aeron and Xargy had traveled through the gxy with a simple target in mind. While Daniel¡¯s objective was to destroy the Garden of Death, he had no intention of going anywhere close to it without enough preparation. Luckily, he did not need an impressively high amount of power, or at least, not as much as he needed a poison immunity.

    Thanks to Xargy¡¯s intelligence, Daniel had learned about the secrets of the Garden¡¯s gift.

    The true weakness of the Garden of Death was not the small number of powerful individuals in it, but the generally low level of power in the entire faction. In fact, Xargy¡¯s power was on par with that of the highest level individuals in the garden of death.

    Of those few individuals, only a handful of them had gained a perfect poison immunity, and the poisons that they created were above any natural poison present in the universe. That meant that if Daniel wanted to destroy them, he needed a perfect poison immunity, as well as more power.

    The pursuit of ingredients and engineered poisons had taken the three to an eight months travel through the gxy.. And now, Daniel was finally in possession of each and every object he needed.

    Xargy had been thoroughly shocked about Daniel¡¯s luck. At times, they seemed to be wandering aimlessly through space, and would luckily end up finding a which contained one or more of the ingredients they needed, and some other times, Daniel would simply change course, and start a crossing of space that would inevitably led them to another of the objects they needed.

    In the end, thest object that Daniel required, had been found into a spatial ring that they happened to have found wandering in space, next to the derelict of a destroyed ship. In it, were also plentiful resources for cultivation, which Daniel and Aeron desperately needed.

    Now, Daniel was trying to focus on making the high level poison immunity pill, but Xargy¡¯s repetitive remarks were keeping him from being able to.. It was only after Daniel hinted that he could have controlled his luck to hurt him, that the dragon took a step back from him, and pretended to be busy doing something else.

    Now finally able to focus on the recipe, he took the hundreds of ingredients, and ced them in a specific order all around him.

    Aside from looking for ingredients, Daniel, Aeron and Xargy had be proper bandits. Thanks to Xargy¡¯s ability to smell a person¡¯s nature, and Aeron¡¯s ability to see people¡¯s memories, Daniel was able to discern which individual was genuinely evil, or simply an unlucky individual that had been forced into a bad path in life.

    Once sure that their target was of the former kind, they would rob them blind, and depending on what they had done, they would kill him.

    Daniel had also decided to use those asions to cultivate his mind. Thanks to Aeron¡¯s teachings, Daniel had learned how to cultivate his mind by devouring other people¡¯s consciousness and use it to nurture his own.

    The process was notplicated. The mind was a power attached to the body and spirit, and resided in another dimension. While it should have been nearly impossible for him to understand without being a citizen of the mental faction, Daniel had lived as a consciousness in the past.

    In order to devour another person¡¯s consciousness, one needed to think of their mental power as a part of the body which could be extended outwards, and visualize the action of attacking the mind of another individual, and feeding off of it while that person was still alive. Of course, that person needed to be injured, or its connection between spirit, mind, and body would be too strong.

    The procedure was not a problem for Daniel, as he had done it before when slowly devouring Sewah¡¯s consciousness into a fraction of what it was.

    Now that his mind had evolved to a higher level, he was able to focus on more things at the same time, as well as feelings the mind powers of other people in the vicinity. Without this increase in his ability to focus, he probably would have had to make the pill one part at a time, but not anymore.

    After five hours, he was standing with eighty pills strewn on the ground around him, and tworge windows in his min. One of them was the notice of thepletion of the mission that required him to create the high level partial poison immunity pill, while the other, was his profile.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 25

    Power level

    -Early ninth stage of immortal cultivation

    Battle Prowess

    -Mid ninth stage of immortal cultivation

    Karma: 508,685,798,345

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.50

    Reduced Cost Lv.25

    Bonus Points Lv.25

    Second Chance (Upgrades 4/4) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 2/2)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    While Daniel quietly observed the changes in his personal profile, an extremely faint headache made its way into his head. He would have usually ignored such a weak pain, but this was different. This pain was caused by the weak sliver of a consciousness present in his head that had woken up, and was trying in vain to chew on his mental power.

    "Sewah.."

 Chapter 277 You Get to Have a Front Sea

    Within the mass of smokey consciousness that was Daniel¡¯s mind, was a gaseous figure which faintly flickered in silence. This figure had been still for almost a year now, and it had grown in size in only two asions. Now that it had reached once again a decent size, the consciousness within, had once again awaken.

    This flickering figure was, of course, Sewah¡¯s mental power.

    Sewah had been devoured by Daniel to a nearly non-existent state, and only a small portion of him had remained. This sleeping portion, had been fed with thepletion of the system¡¯s quests just like before he had devoured the majority of Daniel¡¯s mind power. Now, it was once again powerful enough to allow him to wake up.

    The very moment Sewah had woken up, he had immediately remembered what had happened. It was a surprise to him that he was still alive, but without thinking too much about the reason why that was the case, he attempted to once again strengthen himself by devouring Daniel¡¯s consciousness.

    Unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t as sessful as the first time. Daniel¡¯s mind power was beyond what he could devour, and whenpared to the speed he was able to devour it in the past, the difference was simr to drinking water, and biting into a rock.

    The entire purpose for his creation was to evolve as a consciousness, and take control over his host¡¯s body, so, when he found himself unable to do anything to Daniel¡¯s mind power, his shapeless form started to quiver in anxiousness.

    "What?.. You give up already?" Said a voice that came directly from the depths of Daniel¡¯s endless expanse of mind power.

    "Wha.. What happened?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Sewah shouted in anger. When he was being devoured by Daniel, he was too upied in feeling the excruciating pain to understand what was happening. But now, he was finally starting to put the pieces together.

    Daniel¡¯s voice before the moment¡¯s of mind breaking pain, and the total darkness that followed.

    "I wish I could take the credit for my survival, but I have to thank Aeron for that. Without him, I would have been one of the many fools devoured by you parasites." Daniel responded with a casual tone. He was in full control, and he wanted to make that clear.

    After a moment of silence, Sewah asked "Who the hell is that??"

    "Ohh.. it¡¯s good to know that you can¡¯t see my memories.. Hehe.. Why don¡¯t you tell me how you are feeling?" Responded Daniel with a taunting tone. Sewah was a different being, and he wasn¡¯t sure whether his situation was different from what Daniel had to go to in the past.

    "YOU MOTHERFUCKER! LET ME OUT OF HERE!!" Shouted Sewah in anger, while trying to once again bite on Daniel¡¯s mind power. Unfortunately, his actions did nothing but to provoke a mild headache.

    For many times Daniel had thought of this moment. He knew that Sewah would wake up at some point, but he had never expected him to wake up so soon. That, had proved to him that thepletion of his system¡¯s quests was still giving him a boost in mental power, and if he hadn¡¯t been aware of Sewah¡¯s presence, at some point in the future, he would have ended up being devoured once again.

    Now that he know exactly what was feeding Sewah¡¯s consciousness, unless he was extremely distracted, or thepletion of the mission made Sewah four times as powerful as he was when he had taken over his body, Daniel would have nothing to worry about.

    "Behave now, you are a guest in my head." Daniel said while moving a thread of his mind power towards Sewah¡¯s weak consciousness, and taking a bite off of it.

    "AAAAAAAAAARGH!!" Screamed Sewah in pain. His already weak consciousness had been reduced in size once again, and he was now on the verge of falling asleep one more time. "OKAY!! STOP!"

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, and at the same time, his voice resounded once again in what was the immense room which contained his mental power "Good. As a guest, you should behave.. Or you will be kicked out. Oh, and I assume you know what I mean by that." He said with a threatening tone.

    "You can¡¯t kill me.. Or you¡¯ll end up bing an untalented corpse in a matter of days." Responded Sewah with a dejected voice. He was clearly implying that the survival of his consciousness was directly rted to Daniel¡¯s system.

    "I have already seen through your memories, Sewah. You are as clueless about the nature of the system as I am. Your survival is a ¡¯just to be sure¡¯ matter.. So, If I were you, I would pray that I will not have any headache for the rest of my life, or I might decide to take the risk."

    Sewah slowly digested the situation in which he was currently in. It was only after a minute, that he asked "What do you want from me?"

    "For now, I¡¯ll keep you in here. A party animal like you.. You won¡¯t want to miss all the fun I¡¯ll be having.. And you get to have a front seat." Daniel responded with clear satisfaction. He had been dreaming for this moment for a very long time, and now, he was finally able to say all of the things he had prepared.

    With a hateful tone, Sewah responded "You are a piece of shit.."

    "Good. That means that I am doing everything right. Talk to you again soon.. Have fun." Daniel said before goingpletely quiet. He could feel the screams of exasperation from within his mind, but he was able to use his own superior mind power to block them off. Also, the idea that Sewah was going out of his mind, was something that gave him joy.

    When Daniel opened his eyes once again, his lips were curved into a satisfied smile.

    "You seem cheerful." Xargy said after noticing Daniel¡¯s state of mind.

    Daniel turned to look at the human-like dragon, and said "That¡¯s because I am." He then turned to look back at the pills around him, and the one he was holding in his hand. These pills were the high level poison immunity pills he had just created, but unfortunately, he was not able to use them right now.

    Just like the two weaker version of this potion, the high level partial poison immunity pill was basically made off of a refined mixture of high tier poisons. The result of the pill was miraculous, but it wasn¡¯t to be consumed recklessly.

    In the same way that Daniel had needed the poison of the Navi family in order to hinder the toxicity of the low level partial poison immunity pill, and the poison of the ck thorn in order to hinder that of the mid level partial poison immunity pill, he needed the power of a high level poison, if he wanted to survive the effect of the pill.

    While the pills were not dangerous by default, they required a powerful body.. And of the three of them, only Xargy possessed a body powerful enough to withstand its power without dying. Unfortunately, just like many other medicines, being taken without a proper disease to cure, would cause harm to the body.. And the poison immunity pills that he had created thanks to the system¡¯s instructions were not an exception.

    Unable to use them, Daniel put them into his spatial ring, and handed one over to Xargy.

    "What?" Xargy asked with a face filled with confusion.

    "I need a high level poison.. We need to get one from somebody from the garden of death. I can¡¯t handle the pill yet, so you have to take it." Daniel responded with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Is this what all we have done was for? You could have said that before. Do you think I ate spiders because they taste good? I don¡¯t need your pill, I have my own immunity."

    What Xargy had said made sense. There were poisons much stronger than mid tier ones in Ton Bes, and if he had survived for thousands of years there, he must have had some sort of protection from the poisons.

    Daniel put the pill back into his pocket, and said "Just capture an elite that has a high tier poison.. So that we can get to the fun part."

    Xargy looked around where Daniel was sitting, and muttered "It¡¯s a littlete for that.." His eyes were pointed at the hundreds of corpses which belonged to the cultivators that Daniel and Aeron had killed, some of which were lower level elites from the Garden of Death.

    -----

    Poisonous Neb, Apocrypha.

    "We have been hiding for thousands of years, why are we suddenly losing members!?" Shouted a middle aged man in purple robes to a few of his subordinates, as they looked at him with fear.

    One of the least scared individuals looked at the purple-robed man, and said "We don¡¯t know. They were mostly candidates, and low level elites. They were sent on missions to scout for ingredients and materials.. We have followed the rules and kept our movements secret.. It just.."

    "I DON¡¯T CARE! IT HAS TO STOP! NOW!!" Shouted the man as pink mist started to emerge from his skin.. To which the individuals present reacted to by covering their faces, and using their own immortal cultivation to shield themselves with. Unfortunately, the pink mist seemed to be corrosive towards immortal essence, and was slowly consuming it.

    The man was enraged, and it was only when the pink mist was about toe into contact with the bodies of the other individuals, that he retracted it, and turned around in anger. "Did you find out what happened to my brother?" He asked with a calmer, and sadder tone.

    "We did.. Ton Bes was in chaos. The city was liquefied, the keeper of key had disappeared, and not one human was left alive.. But we have found a trace of your brother¡¯s tracking poison.. He must have left it on the kid when whoever killed him, made their appearance.. If you let us take one of the hounds, we will get back with the kid." responded the man as clearly as possible. He really had no intention on trying the effectiveness of the pink mist on his skin once again.

    "Do it.. The pills that the kid makes are too important.. Finding him is the first of our faction¡¯s priority." responded the purple-robed man.

    -----

    Residence of Grand Judges, Alcazar.

    "Reparation.. Always.. Always talking about.. ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT SOME DAMN REPARATIONS!" Shouted the young retired explorer with a tone powerful enough to make the whole tremble. The reason why he was so irritated, was simple. Months had passed since the two groups had made contact, and while the universal government had tried to clean the te and start to building a rtionship between them, those who came from the other side of the wormhole had different ideas.

    With the im that their scouts were much more powerful than the universal government¡¯smon army members, the foreign group had tried to hint multiple times to the fact that they were, generally speaking, more powerful.. And that their warriors would have been on par with the explorers which had forced them to retreat.

    They were a group that revolved around war, and differently from the universal government, which mostly focused on expansion, they believed in a pure reign lead by the stronger. Factions did not exist in their territory, and when one was found, they would soon be destroyed, and annexed to their group.

    Their foreign policy had evolved around intimidation, and they never shied away from a fight.. That was the reason why they demanded reparation for the people that had been killed during the first approach.

    While it was not clear whether their group was truly more powerful, they simply wanted a reason to fight.

    "Fuck.. we are not giving them any reparation.. They want to fight? FINE!" Eximed the grand judge while the bearded explorer observed his ramblings from the side.. Unable to say anything to make the situation better.

    It was only after the judge started talking about an all out war, that the bearded explorer interjected by saying "Maybe I have an idea.."

 Chapter 278 That One Person You Cant Poison

    The idea of the bearded explorer was simple. The only reason why the newly found group was convinced that they deserved to receive reparation for their losses, was due to the wrong assumption that the explorers were the strongest individuals that the universal government had to offer.

    On the other hand, from the point of view of the universal government, for the beings that had been sent through the wormhole to explore the unknown space on the other side.. to be the strongest amongst the warriors of their own dominion.. It made sense.

    Both groups had sent strong individuals, and yet not their top warriors.. And that, paired with the assumption that there was nothing more to see of each other¡¯s repertoire, made them certain of the fact that they were the strongest.

    The negotiation that took ce during the past eight months, were basically a game of arm wrestle.

    Naturally, they were both sorely mistaken. There were thousands of explorers within the universal government, and those who had made their appearance during the first encounter, were only the ones that were currently free. The others were all focused on their many tasks, and exploring the various sectors of space far away from home.

    The bearded explorer was more than aware of how dangerous the situation currently was. With both groups mming their fists on their own chests, and trying to gain dominance over the other, the negotiation could soon fail, and turn into an all out conflict.

    The only solution to this, was to determine which group was the strongest.

    Despite of the scale of the conflict, within a universe which evolved within thews of cultivation, there was an unspoken rule that was above all others. That rule said that the holder of the power, was the group that was lead by the most powerful individuals, and that was the same no matter if one talked about a battle between low level cultivators, or between groups whose members numbered in the trillions.

    Taking this notion into consideration, the bearded explorer had suggested a friendlypetition between the two groups.

    Theoretically, neither would have ha a reason to refuse, as the oue would not only ascertain which group was the strongest once and for all.. But also prevent both parties from having to suffer a massive amount of losses in an all out conflict.

    The grand judge, which was in charge of handling the entire matter that revolved around the xeno protocol, was still forced to discuss this proposal with the other grand judges. After all, this was a matter that regarded the entire universal government.

    In the end, his proposal was met with little opposition, and during the next meeting with the ambassadors of the other nation, the idea had been pushed forward. The n consisted in the creation of a friendlypetition, where the poption of the two territories could witness the power and uses of one another. Naturally, the implicit meaning of this proposal, was to settle the matter bybat.

    Ultimately, the date was set for ten yearster.

    -----

    Gxy S41, territory of the Garden of Death.

    "Sir! We are being attacked!" said a man covered in tattered ck robes, to a thirty years old, good looking man in loose green clothes. He was covered in injuries, but none of them were lethal, which made it odd not to think about the fact that if someone was able to leave so many shallow wounds on his body, he should have been able to kill him as well.

    The green-clothed man was enjoying thepany of two women, but it didn¡¯t look like the women were in their right mind. Their eyes were dead, and it seemed that they were in some sort of trans. On the table next to them, were two half empty sses with oddly colored wine.

    "Who is it?" responded the green clothed man with an irritated tone. The interruption of his subordinate had clearly spoiled his fun. "It better be urgent."

    After a quick exnation, the two left the city and flew towards the atmosphere. There, they found an old man facing a young man, and a masked man. The first of these three individuals was the keeper of key of the, while the other two were, of course, Daniel and Aeron.

    There was no trace of Xargy.

    "Why are you causing a ruckus? Don¡¯t you know who resides here?" Aske the keeper of key in anger, before turning around, and noticing the presence of the green-clothed man. He then bowed with politeness, and simply said "My lord.." He felt an extremelyrge amount of respect for this individual, as he was an elite of the Garden of Death.

    While the other groups did not require one of the elites to suffer in order to gain the status of elite, and obtain a gift, the same was not for the Garden of Death. In the Garden of Death, the cultivators needed the courage to gamble their life in an attempt to gain more power, and that made them extremely respected through their faction.

    These individuals were the women and men that each person that came from their faction wished to be, and their courage was sung in bads, and told in tales. The keeper of key was extremely honored to have been chosen to protect the territory where one of these individuals resided.

    "What is the matter?" Asked the green-clothed cultivator with irritation. By his sides, the two women were still present.

    "My lord, I am not sure. They simply approached an-" The keeper of key wanted to respond to his lord, but he was interrupted by the voice of an individual that, until now, had refused to answer to his questions.

    "You are the matter. We havee here for you." Said Daniel while looking at the man¡¯s negative karma, and the two drugged women next to him.

    The green-robed man looked at Daniel for a few moments, then, and instead of responding to his threat, he allowed a faint purple-ck colored mist toe out of his eyes.. It almost looked as if the moisture in his eyes was evaporating.

    This vapor then expanded, and turned into a nearly unnoticeable cloud in the surrounding space.

    The moment the ck-robed cultivator and the keeper of key noticed this mist, they immediately moved away, but the two women were not as lucky. The poison washed over them, and immediately caused their skin to bubble, and their body to swell as if they were in the middle of a severe anaphctic shock.

    Daniel had the impulse to jump in an attempt to save the two women, but seeing how fast the poison had acted, it was clear that the number of seconds they had left to live, cold be counted in the fingers of one hand.

    The two of them did not move of even one centimeter, and instead let the poisonous mist cover their bodiespletely. To the surprise of the elite warrior of the garden of death, the two hadn¡¯t activated any sort of shield of barrier to protect themselves against the poison, and instead, inhaled it freely.

    "Idiots.." muttered the green-clothed cultivator with contempt. His poison had never failed, and it was capable of taking down individuals much more powerful than him. Whenpared to most other gifts, the power granted by the leader of the Garden of Death, was one of those which had the biggest trade off. When their numbers were bigger, the garden of death was one of the most feared factions.. It was only due to tens of thousands of years of battle, that its power dimmed along with the increasingly lower number of cultivators.

    For the elite members of the garden of death, their poison was part of their body. They could feel it enter the nostrils of his enemies, ande in contact with their skin.

    Almost sure that the two individuals were on the verge of dying, he let the mist of poison dissipate.. But what he saw after, left him deeply shocked.

    Daniel and Aeron were floating in space next to each other, as if nothing had happened.

    "What a powerful stench.. I thi-" *BURP* "..excuse me, I think I¡¯ve swallowed a bit of it.. Oh.. gross.. I can taste it now.." Daniel said while looking back at the green-clothed cultivator.

    The eyes of the green-robed cultivator opened wide in shock, and he said "Who the hell are you.." In this response was the essence of the negative side of being an elite member of the Garden of Death. The power of their poison was at the very peak of the level of poison they were resistant to, and meeting someone with an immunity to their poison, was their worst nightmare.

    The two did not respond, and instead, dashed towards the green-robed cultivator with clear ill intentions.

    The keeper of key and the ck-robed cultivator tried to help the elite warrior, but their actions were often interrupted by the multiple attempts of the green-clothed cultivator to use his poison.

    After a minute of shing and battling, the keeper of key and the ck robed cultivator were floating in space lifelessly, killed by the gradual intake of small portion of poison over and over again.. At the same time, the green-clothed cultivator was being held by the neck by Daniel¡¯s hand.

    "Do you want to kill him?" Asked Aeron while looking at the struggling elite. His hands were wrapped around Daniel¡¯s wrist, and he was trying to free himself. Unfortunately, ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ allowed Daniel to maintain his grip regardless of how much time passed, thanks to the increased speed of recovery of his stamina and immortal essence.

    Daniel turned to look at Aeron, and responded by saying "That was the n. I thought we agreed on this."

    "I¡¯m just saying, we could just rob him, and let him go."

    An argument quickly started between the twopanions, and the elite member of the garden of death, left with no other choice, take the chance to call for help. So, while the two argued about his fate, he lowered his arms, and waited for the right moment.

    "You know we were going to kill him. Why are you bothering me about it now that we are here?!" Said Daniel with a sheer annoyance which caused his hand to tighten even more.

    The argument became more and more animated, to a point where Daniel and Aeron pointed their fingers at each other, and their voices became louder in intensity.

    "YOU DON¡¯T HAVE TO ALWAYS KILL EVERYBODY!" Shouted Aeron angrily from behind his mask. The topic of the discussion had turned from this specific asion, to their past.

    "WHY ARE YOU BRI-" *SPAH* Said Daniel before being interrupted by the noise of the bead in the elite¡¯s hand being shattered, and the appearance of cluster of poisonous mud in the space not too far away from them. ".. look at that. It worked. Told you this guy was an idiot."

    Their n had worked. To leave no hopes of survival to the lower level elite warrior, but to ask for the support of someone more powerful than him. They had given him the chance by pretending to argue about whether they should kill him, or not.

    From the mud-like portal, an old woman walked out. Her face was covered in wrinkles, and her nose and chin were marked by two impressively big and hairy moles. The rest of her body was covered by a simple brown robe.

    Despite the fact that Daniel was smiling, neither he or Aeron dared to underestimate this old woman, as she exuded the same power that Xargy himself possessed.

    The olddy hade prepared to battle, but after seeing Daniel¡¯s face, she immediately recognized him. "So you are the one that has been attacking our faction.. To think that we wanted to take you in, and offer shelter from Iewah¡¯s faction.. So ungrateful."

    After hearing the words spoken by the olddy, Daniel¡¯s smile widened, and said with confidence "Grandma, a poison master capable of killing me with their poison has yet to be born. You are no exception."

    "Is that so.. Let¡¯s put this confidence to the test."

 Chapter 279 A Strategic Retrea

    "Is that so.. Let¡¯s put this confidence to the test." Said the old woman before letting out wafts of ck smoke from within her loose sleeves. This ck smoke was so thick, that it seemed closer to bubbling water, than anything that could be considered a gaseous substance.

    This dense gas moved with precision, and reached for Daniel and Aeron in a matter of moments, and ignoring the green-clothed elitepletely.

    The effect of this poison was particrly vicious, and no one but the person closer to the olddy were aware of its true effects. One of which was attacking a person¡¯s psyche, causing them to go into a frenzied state. Once under the effect of the poison, the crazed victim would try to kill anything that moved in front of them.. And if there was nobody to kill in front of them, they would have to hold the burden of their own hate on themselves.. In the end, they would inevitably kill themselves.

    What the old woman did not expect, was for Daniel and Aeron to bepletely unaffected by her actions, and instead, to take a deep breath of her poison as if smelling the clean air of a snowy mountain, or an ancient and untouched forest..

    The poison quickly took effect.. Causing the eyes of both Daniel and Aeron to be nk, and the veins right underneath the surface of their body to bulge from under their skin. The woman looked at the two as if she was looking at two idiots, but before thest step of the poison could take effect, their skin went back to normal, and their eyes closed.

    "AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!" The two started to scream in pain, but their screams did not sound crazed. Instead, they were the screams of two sane individuals, who were suffering an atrocious pain.

    What the woman hadn¡¯t noticed, was how moments before her appearance, both Aeron and Daniel had put a small pill into their mouths. They had then kept the pills in, and responded to the olddy¡¯s words through sound essence, instead of speaking.

    After inhaling, Daniel had given the signal to Aeron to ingest the pill by allowing him to read his thoughts. The poison quickly took effect, and not long after, the pill began to fight the poison¡¯s effect, and build a tolerance, and immunity for high tier poisons.

    Just like the other elite, the woman was perfectly capable of tracing her poison within the bodies of the two.. She quickly realized that there was something that was suppressing, and eliminating the poison. After a moment spent considering what could be going on, she finally remembered why Daniel was so special, and quickly put the pieces together. Daniel was using her poison to build an immunity for high tier poisons.

    The old woman was shocked. If not for Daniel¡¯s ability to create mind boggling medicine in just a few months, also for the fact that he would be crazy enough to use them right in front of her. Yet, along with how shocked she was, she was also extremely d. She had confirmed Daniel¡¯s abilities personally, and she could now take him back to the faction, and make him create poison immunity pills that could help the Garden of Death to gain their power back.. Willingly, or not.

    "You are a brilliant, crazy kid.. Your talent belongs to the Garden of Death.. Come." She said while approaching Daniel¡¯s curled up body.

    The green-robed cultivator, which had been freed the moment the olddy¡¯s poison entered Daniel¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s nostrils, quickly turned to look at the woman in order to thank her for saving his life, but before he could say anything, a shiver ran down his spine, and his eye locked on the massive dragon that was floating in space right behind the old woman.

    "Do I get to say something about that?" Said Xargy with a deep and powerful voice which threatened to shatter space itself.

    WIthout even turning around, the olddy understood that taking Daniel was not going to be as easy as she expected. So she let out massive amounts of her poison, which enshrouded her bodypletely. She needed to assess the situation before attacking.. But before she could even see the owner of the deep and soul shaking voice, she felt an impressive heat consume the external part of her poison-made shield.

    "Dragon!" Eximed the olddy before giving up the control over her poison, and creating a shield of thick ice around her body. She then added with indignation "Iewah¡¯s faction has no right to im a bounty if they are not first! Go back to your master, or face judgement!"

    "HEHEHE.. Yes, call a judge.. Let¡¯s see how it will end." Responded Xargy afterughing coldly, and before dashing through space and using his massive body to w the sphere of ice.. ripping it into pieces.

    Left with no other choice, the olddy shouted "JUDGE!" she then focused on maintaining the ice shield in order to gain time for a judge toe and arbitrate this dispute.

    Unfortunately, even after more than fifteen seconds, nothing happened.

    The reason why no judge had appeared on field, was because their role was limited to being the impartial party, which could resolve a dispute which would avoid an all out war. If the two factions did not wish to go to war, but still couldn¡¯t let go of their ims or demands, a judge would be called.

    Since the very moment an individual was casted away from a faction, they would permanently leave the jurisdiction of the judges, and therefore, a direct dispute between an outcast and a faction could not be judged.

    A judge¡¯s intervention was mostly in order to prevent a war between factions, but preventing a war between a faction and a faction¡¯s former member, was way below them. So they would not bother to respond to that sort of call.

    A couple of long seconds passed, and yet, the familiar stopping of time, and the oppressive appearance of the judges never took ce.

    The old woman became more and more anxious.. But not because she was scared of Xargy, but because she was undeniably in the right, and if only a judge appeared to settle the matter, she would be able to take Daniel legitimately, and possibly extort something from Iewah¡¯s faction due to causing problems for her, and the Garden of Death.

    After a few more seconds, the truth finally made its way into the olddy¡¯s mind. "You are an outcast?!" She eximed in shock. There were few things rarer than a dragon that was not part of the tamer¡¯s personal army, and one as strong as Xargy, that was even rarer.

    Realizing that the judge that she had called would nevere, her train of thought changedpletely. "Fine, dragon. A battle it is then." Said the old woman before creating a few holes in the shield of ice, and ejecting massive amounts of liquid-like poison out of them like small geysers.

    This liquid poison moved with an impressive speed, and immediately attached to Xergy¡¯s scales, then tried to seep in between the scales in order to reach his more vulnerable skin.

    Xargy did not avoid the poison, and instead kept wing with his powerful hands at the massive sphere of ice, forcing the old woman to keep consuming her immortal essence just so that she could defend from his onught of attacks.

    Finally, after a series that crashed against the ice shield with a power which felt like a hundreds of earthquakes and lightning bolts at the same time, the speed of the attacks slowed dramatically, and a few powerful and crazed roars resounded in the space with such power, that the atmosphere of the where the green-clothed resided, was close to be washed away.

    Sure that her poison had finally taken effect, the woman opened the sphere of ice, and while keeping herself hidden by ayer of ck smoke, she approached Daniel before the dragon could kill him.. But before she could reach ten meters from his screaming body, a column of green fire melted the very essence of space.

    The attack came with such surprise, that the olddy was only able to form a thin shield in front of her body before the thick column of fire pushed her for hundreds of kilometers through space. She had to use all of her power just to prevent the powerful green mes from melting her ice shield.

    Once the attack dissipated, the olddy was left with barely any immortal essence in her body. She looked back at Xargy from the distance, and where a majestic dragon was floating just moments earlier, was now a ming green being that came out of legends and myths.

    From every crevice in between Xargy¡¯s scales, green mes were burning vividly as if not fueled by thebustion of gases, but from the ejections of Xargy¡¯s naturally unique mana. He was floating in space like a massive dragon made out of moving jade, and yet, for as spectacr he looked, he was also terrifying.

    The old woman had immediately felt the extinction of her poison from within Xargy¡¯s body, and it had happened almost instantly the very moment the green fire had started to seep out of his skin. It was clear that the green mes had the ability to destroy anything that was not part of Xargy¡¯s own body, and poisons were not an exception.

    Unfortunately, she was not able to react in time to avoid Xargy¡¯s attack. She was not at her peak form anymore, and had lost a lot of immortal essence. If the fight kept going for long, she would lose without a doubt..

    Xargy¡¯s main objective was to gain an advantage in immortal essence. That was also the reason why he had attacked the olddy physically, instead of relying on his mes. Now she was heavily weakened, and killing her in that state, would be easier.

    The olddy floated in space hundreds of kilometers away from Xargy. Her eyes were moving from his majestic appearance, to Daniel¡¯s recovering body. She wanted Daniel more than anything else, but entering in battle with Xargy while in her current state, meant death.

    She couldn¡¯t ask for help from a more powerful elite, as that would attract the attention of more powerful individuals, and possibly give out the n of the Garden of Death to strengthen their numbers thanks to Daniel¡¯s inventions.

    They still possessed the recipe of the low tier pill, and that was already a great help to them.. But if their ns were to be uncovered, the other groups would definitely try to prevent them from gaining the power they once had back.. Especially their old enemies.

    Left with no other choice, the old woman opened a portal, and while taking onest look at Daniel, she walked through it.

    Slightly disappointed, Xargy forced the green mes that came from every inch of his body to dissipate. He then moved towards Daniel, and waited for him to wake up. He did not have to wait for long, as Daniel and Aeron opened their eyes after no longer than a minute, and tried to catch their breath with a few deep and hastened breaths.

    Since the very moment they had inhaled the woman¡¯s poison, they had understood that if they hadn¡¯t both cultivated their minds, they likely would have not been able to swallow the pills, and would have gone crazy right away. Luckily, their mind were powerful enough to grant them enough time of rity to consume the pills.

    "It¡¯s terrifying how everything went ording to your ns.." Said Xargy with amazement. He then added "How did you know she would not call for somebody stronger?"

    "Luck.. I guess.." responded Daniel in between breaths.

    That answer was not enough for Xargy, be he knew that there was no way that he could ask for more information about Daniel¡¯s system, and receive an actual answer, so he turned towards the green-clothed cultivator which floated in space with a terrified expression, and said "What do we do with this one?"

    "HAVE MERCY! PLEASE!!" Shouted the green-clothed cultivator in panic and terror.

    Daniel looked at the red name above the man¡¯s head, and recalled how this man had drugged and killed two innocent women. Without even showing his disgust on his face, he said "You can kill him if you want."

    The green-clothed cultivator looked around in panic, but before he could even try to escape, a massive cage of teeth with a soft roof and pavement covered his body entirely. It wasn¡¯t required to be an elite to understand that he was in the dragon¡¯s mouth.

    All the green-clothed cultivator could, do was to scream in panic, and use his strongest weapon in an attempt to leave..

    From outside, Daniel could hear the man¡¯s screams and his poison ooze out from in between Xargy¡¯s teeth, but both of those actions were quickly interrupted as a green inferno broke out into Xargy¡¯s mouth.

    *Crunch* *Gulp*

 Chapter 280 A Call for Allies

    Due to the fact that Daniel was the first and only elite of Iewah¡¯s faction to ever be an outcast, a lot of eyes were pointed at him.. And in the end, the news that he had entered into multiple conflicts with the Garden of Death, had be a known fact throughout the Universal Government.

    Unfortunately, that had also given legitimacy to a request from the Garden of Death, to be one of the parties which could ce a bounty on Daniel¡¯s head, and their reason for that, was that they were constantly being damaged from him, despite never even provoking him.

    So far, only the Garden of Death knew that Daniel had invented a mid-tier, and high-tier level poison immunities, as the only other being outside of Daniel¡¯s group and them that was aware of that fact, was being kept prisoner within the territory on the other side of the wormhole. So while the other factions were not happy about the demands of the Garden of Death, in the end, they had no real reason to refute their ims, as it was true that Daniel was going against them directly.

    Two more months passed after Xargy¡¯s battle with the high level elite, and in that span of time, the three had be a nightmare for the Garden of Death. Elite members killed, outpost destroyed, scout teams disappeared out of nowhere, and many more actions had been taken by the three outcasts to bother the already weak faction.

    All of these events, while annoying, also helped the case of the Garden of Death, which by appearing like the party offended the most by Daniel¡¯s rogue presence, was constantly demanding for their faction to have a higher priority when considering to which party Daniel had to be given in case he was captured.

    Unluckily for them, that was all part of Daniel¡¯s n.. A n which would culminate with what would be considered the craziest y that anyone had ever pulled off.

    -----

    "So that is why you are doing this?" Xargy asked with eyes gaping in shock. "I thought you were just trying to cause a bit of mayhem."

    After almost a year spent traveling together, Daniel had started to trust Xargy. For as chatty and annoying as he was, he would always honor his word, and it didn¡¯t seem that he would turn on them at the first chance.

    At the same time, Xargy had been thoroughly impressed by Daniel. He knew for a fact that his power was a majorponent on the sess they had had, as the situations in which he put themselves in sometimes were so dangerous, that a single mistake would cause their slow and painful death. At first, he had believed that most of their sess was a matter of luck, but soon enough, he started to realize that Daniel¡¯s mysterious power probably had something to do with it.

    Eleven months had passed since the two had met, and now, Xargy had finally entered Daniel¡¯s group, of which only him, Aeron, Jerigh, and Sewah¡¯s crazy followers were now part of.

    The sudden increase in power had left him gobsmacked, and had caused a constant and uncontroble stream of questions toe out of his mouth for days and days. In the end, Daniel was forced to exin to him how part of his gift worked just in order to shut him up.

    "Ha! Humans.. It¡¯s hrious how you can both excel in ruthlessness and softness at the same time." Xargy said whileughing out loud after learning about the corrtion between Daniel¡¯s power, and the survival of his friends.

    While externally, he did not show understanding for Daniel¡¯s motives and teased him about it, internally, he respected Daniel for the loyalty that he showed for his friends. He had wished more than once in the past to have met dragons with that mentality, and if he had, then maybe he wouldn¡¯t have had to spend the past thousands of years alone.

    "That¡¯s right. Now can you quit it with the questions and keep writing?" Responded Daniel with an irritated tone. He and Aeron were sitting on two wooden chairs, and writing recipes on a massive stack of parchment.

    Written on these scrolls, was the recipe for the mid level poison immunity pill.

    "Fine.. although I find your n stupid.. I do want to see what will happen.. Hehe."

    -----

    Alcazar, Universal Government territory.

    "How has the Patriot Academy been going? Were a few good seeds found?"

    "There were a few diamonds in the dirt.. Younglings whose faction couldn¡¯t recognize their value. They will make fine explorers. The rest will have to learn the ways of the army, and make themselves useful that way."

    "It¡¯s good to hear.. We will need the manpower soon.. I have heard about the battles that have taken ce in the outskirts of our territory.. I thought things would be calm until thepetition, but I guess I was too optimistic."

    The two individuals that were talking, were two judges, and the building where this conversation was taking ce, was the Hall of Judgement, ce from which all of the judges would be sent out to arbitrate the disputes amongst factions.

    "You two! Stop chatting around, you are both being called.. Do you want to be punished?" Said a third, better dressed judge as he entered the hall from the door opposite to therge entrance.

    As soon as they heard the voice of this judge, the previous two straightened as bow strings, and said "Yes, Grand Judge." The third judge was neither a former soldier, nor a former explorer, and instead, was the only judge that had reached a level of power high enough topete with that of retired military officers, and veteran explorers.

    He was the only pure judge to have ever reached the rank of grand judge, and therefore, differently from the former explorers which were in charge with dealing with scouting, exploration of the unknown part of the universe, and espionage, and the former soldiers, which were in charge with the military conflicts that would ensue when a new faction was discovered, the pure judge had to take care of all of the matters within the territory of the Universal Government.

    Unfortunately, due to the fact that his third of the government was vastly understaffed, and could notpare to the other two groups, he was not regarded as importantly as the others, as keeping what their territory in check, was not considered as important as being able to defend it, or find more to add to the government¡¯s treasury and territory.

    "Damn rookies.." Muttered the man in judge clothes with a libra shaped patch on his shoulder, and chest.

    "Do not mind them Grand Judge. It has been a chaotic year." Said an old man in judge clothes that appeared from the door where the grand judge had appeared from, just seconds earlier.

    If Daniel had been here, he would have immediately recognized this man as the first judge he had ever met.

    As he heard a familiar voiceing from behind him, the Grand Judge turned to look back at the newly arrived old man, and said "We have known each other for close to ten thousand years.. Why don¡¯t you stop being stubborn, and you go back to calling me by my name?"

    The old man approached the grand judge with an amiable smile on his face, and responded by saying "Our friendship has nothing to do with our status. The day you will be free enough to visit my home, and share a meal with me once again.. Then, I will call you by your name."

    The two were clearly good friends, and yet the old man was forced to treat the grand judge as his superior.. after all, he was not the one that had been promoted, and was in charge of everything under the upper echelons of the universal government.

    "Fine.. have it your way." Said the grand judge with a hint of irritation. He then became quiet for a few moment, before asking "So, what is bothering them?"

    "Just a few minor matters. Mostly, it¡¯s the conflicts between the universal government and the alien group.. There is also the Garden of Death that has been bothering us to grant them priority over one of the bounties, the prodigious kid that appeared in Patriot City.. whom the de factions has been bothering us to hand him over to.. And a few rumors about the outcast from Iewah¡¯s faction causing a bit of trouble around our territory.. Some imed to have seen him with a dragon.. But it sounds ridiculous to me." Responded the old man in a single breath.

    The grand judge was surprised by the oddly high number of unusual events that had taken ce in the territory, and after digesting the news, he said "A chaotic time indeed. Usually the outcasts stay quiet and hidden until their bounty goes under prescription.. And then join either the army or the explorers to escape from the hunters of their former factions.. But I guess we couldn¡¯t expect that from one of Iewah¡¯s offspring.."

    The old judge nodded in agreement, before the two started to quietly walk back toward the offices.. But the silence was broken by the old man, which asked "Speaking of Iewah¡¯s children.. Are the two oldest going to be back in time for thepetition?"

    "I am not sure.. I honestly hope that they won¡¯t. To have them disappear, was the best thing that happened since we¡¯ve found Iewah¡¯s faction.. I don¡¯t need to remind you that there was never a bloodier era than when the Angel of Death and the Time Traveler would roam our territory.." Responded the Grand Judge with a grim tone. He had been opposed to the idea of calling the two oldest children of Iewah back, but unfortunately, since they had both voluntarily taken service into the army and the explorers, there was nothing he could do to avoid their return.

    Known as the Angel of Death and the Time Traveler, the two oldest children of Iewah were two of the most feared beings in the entire universal government. Their dominion was the respective control over death and life, and the control over time.. Which they could manipte to a point, where their abilities were above those of a simple cultivator with a perfectprehension of time, death, and life essence.

    A massive war had taken ce in an attempt to kill the two, and only after thousands of years of constant conflict, were the army and the explorers able to subdue them, and force them to either join their forces, or die. The individuals that had managed to subdued them were now grand judges, and many of their peers had lost their life on the mission.

    "Iewah¡¯s children crave conflict.. They agreed on exploring the universe for us only so that they could find powerful entities to battle against.. Why shouldn¡¯t they agree to, if that is what we are offering them?" responded the old man.

    The grand judge was about to give his opinion on the risks that that choices would bring, but the two were interrupted by the appearance of a woman dressed in judge clothes, which said "Grand Judge.. We have a problem.."

    "What is it?" Said the grand judge after turning towards the woman.

    "It¡¯s about the outcast kid from Iewah¡¯s faction.. He.."

    -----

    Gxy S43, territory of the Garden of Death. Venom.

    ced at the top of a mountain covered in smog and massive poisonous clouds, was a nearly invisible castle. If not for the lights that came from the windows, and the light spheres that were ced on the path that lead to the city at the foot of the mountain, one would never be able to notice its presence.

    Within one of the chambers of this castle, was a middle aged individual who was reading a book, while sitting in front of the fire. He had a distinct demeanor, and if one were to look at him in that moment, they would believe that he was an imperturbable nobleman.

    He was reading his book in silence, while listening to the crackling of the fire, sipping his tea, and breathing in deeply the poisonous exhtions that came from the firece.. When suddenly, his moment of rxation was interrupted by the screaming of one of his men "LORD! We are in big trouble now.."

    "...."

    "...."

    "HE DID WHAT?! THAT LITTLE BASTARD!!!!!"

 Chapter 281 The City on the Asteroid Part 1

    Two days earlier on Daniel¡¯s.

    "How much is it?" Daniel asked while rubbing his sore left palm with his right thumb.

    Aeron was the first one to respond, and while shaking both of his hands, he said "I have my five hundred here. Want to take a look at them?" Both of his hands were in no better state that Daniel¡¯s left hand, which hurt due to the constant strain which they had to endure during the past couple of days.

    "There is no need. How about you, Xargy?" responded Daniel while turning to look at the clearly embarrassed dragon in human-like form. He was sitting at a table above which were about a hundred written sheets of paper, and four times as many clean ones. From his nostrils, two columns of smoke came out in puffs, and his expression was one of exasperation.

    "Do not even ask! I am not used to these tiny meat sticks." Despite Xargy¡¯s discouraged words, Daniel could see that he was making tremendous improvements in his writing skills, and he was getting used to his human form a lot faster than before. That, was mostly thanks to Daniel¡¯s group skill.

    Instead of picking on him, and making him more irritated than he already was, Daniel waved his hand, and said "It¡¯s fine like this." before teleporting Xargy¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s written stacks of papers above his, and into a bigger pile. He then added "We are almost there anyway.."

    Just as Daniel finished talking, Aeron and Xargy to look at the massive spatial station that at some point in time, had appeared in the field of view.

    This station was built on a massive asteroid, and it worked as a moving city that dashed in between two separate, and yet close gxies. Those who could not afford to teleport through gxies, or that did not own a permission to, would usually pay for a long travel through ship, of which this station wasmon stop of.

    The reason why there were no teleporting tforms that connected two different gxies, was because gxies would be constantly on the move, and trying to jump from one to another while the two moved away from each other at a speed faster than light, would cause problems without a doubt.

    A few attempts had been made during the beginning of the age of exploration, but in the best cases, when somebody attempted to teleport to such a distance, they would end up in an area of space far away from the gxy they were trying to reach.. while in the worst cases, the moving gxy, the sudden teleportation, and the spatial anomalies that were created by the fast movement of the giant mass, would cause the space to shatter, and throw the unfortunate individual into the void.

    What was needed for a stable teleportation to take ce, was a massive amount of power, and the creation of a portal. With a portal, the elite cultivators were able to see through and know where they were going, and at the same time, they would not disturb the space directly, as what a portal did was a lot less invasive than a sudden shifting through space.

    The station was home to many factions, and was what, if on a¡¯s ground, would have been called a city state. It wasn¡¯t important enough to be valued by the universal government and factions as a or justify the presence of a keeper of key, but since the faction¡¯s lower level warriors needed to travel through it, most of them had at least set a base on the asteroid.

    This type of city was exactly what Daniel was looking for. Many factions, not one high level warrior, and a lot of people connected to the numerous powers within the universal government.

    As they approached the moving asteroid, Daniel noticed a line of ships moving towards the city. This line wasposed of at least fifty ships, and the size of each ship was dozens of times bigger than the ship which Daniel had boarded in order to reach his of origin.

    Remembering how big the ship was, Daniel thought that the size of these ships was a little exaggerated, but after considering that the distance they needed to cross was millions of times longer, to use a bigger ship which could house more people and also had bigger propulsors, was the obvious choice. If the crossing was to be traveled with the ship which Daniel had boarded once, it would have taken hundreds of years, if not more.

    The three were not sure whether there was someone that could spot them, so they hid in the long line of ships, and waited for the passengers to disembark. They then used theirprehension of dark essence to mix with the passengers, and pretended to be simple travelers.

    What they were worried about was not being spotted by a powerful cultivator, but to be recognized, and be reported to someone strong enough to imprison them. If they were discovered, Xargy would be powerful enough to turn the entire asteroid into a mass of liquid rock, but their object was not to kill.

    Due to the reason why they hade here, the three wanted to leave as quietly as they had arrived. So the moment they entered the city, they bought three ticket for the first ship that would leave the asteroid, which was set to depart two dayster, and spent two days roaming the city.

    Aside from a few quarries and mines, there was not much to see. Close to ny-nine percent of the city¡¯smerce was made through the visitors that would simply pass through before resuming their travel towards the next gxy.. But since there weren¡¯t many resources to mine in the asteroid, the majority of the items exchanged for crystals and other valuables, were items like weapons, armors, artifact, and misceneous.

    Forced to focus on the creation of objects for the purpose of not starving out, this city was into a permanent golden age of engineering. Massive machines fueled throughbustibles, metallic carriages which moved without the help of any sort of beast, and much more filled the streets, and could be seen in the surface of he asteroid.

    The sight was a marvel to behold. The city was made out of metal, and thousands of columns of smoke rose up from the top of most of the biggest buildings.. Leaving an eerie and deste appearance to it. Large metallic wheels connected through external teeth, forced one another to spin, and activate, or keep in function, some sort of unknown mechanism of which the city was in desperate need of, and yet at the same time polluting the city further.

    Daniel walked through the filth covered streets by himself. There were multiple alleys that were dimly lit by a few low level light spheres ced too far apart, and the constant sound of coughing, yelling, and screaming could be hearding from every direction.

    Since Daniel was wasting time, he decided to take a walk into one of those dark alleys. There was nobody that could be a threat to him, and if sickness, poverty, and strange mechanism was all that this city was able to offer, then that is what he would go looking for.

    The alleys were beyond what the most practiced roads were. The trash covered most of the metallic ground, and by the sides of the alley, were hundreds of homeless individuals that slept covered by nothing but some sheets of paper, and the clothes they were wearing. Mixed with those people, Daniel saw at least three corpses which apparently, nobody bothered to remove.

    After walking for more than two hundred meters, Daniel finally saw the first individuals that did not appear to be homeless. They were five low level cultivators, and wore the same type of beige clothes, with a gear pattern that covered their left sleevepletely.

    Four of these five individuals were following the youngest one, curiously looking at the item that he was holding in his hands as if they were observing a treasure whose origin was unknown to them. The youngest one of these men, on the other hand, was trying touching this item around, pressing multiple times on the smooth surface, and trying to get it to work.. Although, based on the expression on his face, he was failing miserably.

    The five immediately noticed the approaching Daniel, but after not being able to feel any sort of power from him, they forgot about him, and walked past him.

    Daniel did not want to have anything to do with those five individuals, as all of them had a certain level of negative karma, so he graced them with their lives, for the simple fact that they did not attempt to cause trouble for him.

    In a matter of seconds, he forgot about them, and kept walking forward.

    About three hundred meters deeper into this alley, Daniel had decided that he had seen enough of this city¡¯s squallor, so as he started to emit enough immortal essence for him to be lifted in the air, he suddenly pushed himself back of about two meters.

    In front of him, a small cascade of urine and human excrements were dumped from a window about ten meters above his head. Luckily, he had avoided it in time. The bucket of waste was not directed at him, but judging from the smell of this area, it seemed that this was themon way of disposing of any sort of trash or garbage. He only so happened to be under the line of fire when a mean looking old woman decided to empty her chamber pot.

    Daniel threw an angered look at the old woman, which looked back at him with a hostile and unapologetic look, before moving back into her house, and closing her window shut.

    Now angered, Daniel looked down at his clothes, and soon found a few stains of wetness on his pants.

    It took all of his control not to bend forward, and vomit all he had eaten that very morning. Instead, he immediately ejected an intense me from every part bit of his skin, and once his clothes were turned into particles thinner than dust, he morphed the mes into warm water, which quickly moved around his body, and cleaned himpletely.

    Finally, he took a few spare clothes out of his spatial ring, and with as much care as he could, he put them on.

    Suddenly, just as he was about to put a clean shirt on, he heard a few noisese from a few meters deeper into the alley. *squish..frrr* *squish..frrr* *squish..frrr* The noises were extremely faint, as if a very light individual was stepping with bare feet over the disgusting filth that the old woman had just dumped all over the alley.

    Daniel put his shirt on, and waited for whatever was making that sound toe forward.

    A bit more than a couple of secondster, a thin little arm appeared in the area enlightened by small light sphere. Following that little arm, was the little body of a nine or so years old kid covered in bruises and cuts. He was crawling over the urine and excrements that were sttered on the ground, with his visible wounds now covered in it, and an eye bulb that dangled down his left orbit.

    Daniel slightly bent head suddenly straightened, and within a fraction of an instant, a small sphere of light came out of Daniel¡¯s head, and moved towards the crawling kid. Little did he know, that he hadn¡¯t witnessed to the worse part yet.

    Being held by the little kid¡¯s second hand, was a smaller child.. The older one was dragging him, and probably trying to reach a more practiced road where he, and what from the hair color looked like his younger brother, could possibly seek for some help.

    Unfortunately, thanks to his ability to see the karma of every living individual, Daniel was sure of the fact that the younger kid had already passed away.

    Regardless of how badly injured the older kid was, he refused to let go of his younger brother, and dragged him as if that was the purpose of his short life.

    With a knot growing on his throat, Daniel pushed a dense stream of immortal essence, and covered the kid with it. He then turned it into healing essence, and made it seep into the kid¡¯ injuries.

 Chapter 282 The City on the Asteroid Part 2

    With Daniel¡¯s intervention, the quiet crawling kid quickly started to recover.

    The broken bones began to merge, the dangling eye bulb was pulled back into the dirty orbit, as the swollen eyelids went back to normal, and the filth was pushed out of it.. The multiple stab on his small body rapidly closed, and the cause of the kid¡¯s quietness, his broken windpipe, quickly repaired.

    At the same time, as the older kid recovered, Daniel enveloped the corpse of the younger sibling with his immortal essence, and quickly washed it of all of the blood and dirt of which he was covered. He then manipted his immortal essence into pulling the two sides of the wounds closer, and burned the skin just enough for them to close.

    While there was no point in doing this, Daniel did not wish for the older brother to see the state his younger brother was in, so he did all he could to make him look presentable.. Including cleaning his body, as well as the surroundings ground as a form of respect.

    When the kid woke up a minuteter, he nced left and right with anxiousness.. Only stopping after noticing the small body of his brotherying over an out-of-ce stony tform. Without letting out a noise, he immediately dropped on his knees in front of his brother, and gently pressed his head over hischest.. Allowing two tears to stream from the inner corners of his eyes, and over the lifeless body.

    Seeing how desperately the kid was crying, and yet not making a single sound, Daniel quickly understood something.

    At first he had believed him to be unable to talk simply because his trachea had been crushed during the violent beating that had caused his previous state, and killed his younger brother, but now that he had repaired it with healing essence, the kid was still unable to talk.. That could only mean that the kid was not able to talk to begin with.. He was mute.

    As if adding a sad detail to an already devastating moment, Daniel quickly took a small bead out of his spatial ring, and broke it in between his fingertips.

    The very next moment, Aeron appeared next to him.

    The instant Aeron appeared, a hundred tons of weightnded heavily upon his heart. It didn¡¯t take long for him to notice what was in front of him.

    "Cancel his memory.." Daniel said with a thread of sound essence. He couldn¡¯t bear to watch the kid cry over his brother¡¯s corpse anymore. He couldn¡¯t help but see he and his sister in that situation.. How easily he could have been that kid lying on the cold rock.. Or worse, the kid crying over his deceased sibling.

    Aeron looked at the two kids from behind his mask.. And after what felt like a full minute but was just a couple of seconds, he said "I can¡¯t do that.. Unless you want me to erase the momeries of his entire family.." Despite giving Daniel a choice, from his tone, it was clear that there was no way that he would do that even if he asked.

    At this point, nobody could understand the kid¡¯s sufferings more than Aeron.. Who along with feeling the entirety of the kid¡¯s pain, had also traveled through his memories..

    What he had discovered, was that the two kids were part of a noble family of inventors, and that thest of the inventions that their parents had created, had angered an organization called ¡¯The Underground Tinkers¡¯, which were known for owning certain services, and forcing people to pay for their use, as well as having a history of stealing multiple inventions just so that they could pass them as theirs, and pocket the earnings that woulde from owning the patent.

    He could see a few memories where the kid¡¯s parents did all they could to keep their projects hidden, and oncepleted, they had sent the invention away to a person to which they had the utmost trust in.. No one was supposed to know of their product, and yet, this secrecy was not able to keep the wolves out of the door.

    Just three days before, the kids hade back from school only to find their parents hanging from their necks in theirboratory. At their feet, was a suicide letter that, along with a nonesensical reason for their ¡¯suicide¡¯, also hid a code which only the oldest of the couple¡¯s two sons could understand.. What it said, was simply one word.. ¡¯Hide¡¯.

    Before they could even cry for their parents, the oldest of the two kids had taken his younger brother, and escaped through the dark alleys of the city.. Minutes before Daniel found them, just as they had started to think that they were out of danger, the oldest of the two had used the ki g that their father had given him to use in case of emergency, and only if something had happened to them.

    Hopeful that help would arrive soon, the two kids waited in the darkest halley they had found.. Until a group of individuals approached them from the darkness.

    The following memories were hard to witness even for an old and experienced being like Aeron.. Which skipped the part where the two kids were stabbed, beaten, and left for dead in a filthy alley.

    After hearing Aeron¡¯s answer, Daniel turned to look at him with a pleading expression and said "Please.. Look at him.. You ha-" but his words were interrupted by the sound of Aeron¡¯s tears, and the droplets of blood dripping down his chin and injured hands, as his fingernais dug past his skin and flesh.. And hit the metallic ground.

    If there was something that Aeron did not need Daniel to remind him of, was how deeply this kid was suffering.. And yet, he could not take away the memories of his family.. Nor could he extinguish the spark of hate and thirst for vengeance that was shining bright into his exausted, and young mind.

    While an individual that had never lost somebody close would never be able to understand the depths of that sort of pain, the same wasn¡¯t for Aeron. He had lost millions of children without ever having any of his own.. Lost millions of caring, loving, abusive, and distant parents whom he had never met before.. Lost loving wives, dear friends, siblings, soulmates.. he more than anybody else could understand that feeling.

    Daniel, on the other hand, could only feelpassion and the amount of empathy that being the third person would allow him to feel.. So he asked "What did you see?" to which Aeron responded by cing a hand on his wrist, and helping him navigate through the kid¡¯s memories.

    A few secondster, a vicious expression appeared on Daniel¡¯s face.. An expression that if his enemies could have seen, would have caused them to step back in fear.

    A faintyer of spatial essence covered him as he prepared himself to teleport, but his mind was forced into a calmer state by the two green lights that shone from beside him.

    Daniel had recognized the individuals that had attacked the two kids.. He had seen them in this very alley, minutes before he found them. He could still feel their presence a couple of kilometers away, and he wanted to teleport next to them, and tear their bodies into pieces, devour their minds, and force them to swallow each other¡¯s hearts, but he was stopped by Aeron, which had used a massive amount of mental power to cate his thirst for blood.

    "They are not yours to kill.." He said before turning towards the crying kid, kneeling next to him, and cing his hand over the his head.. forcing him to fall into a deep sleep. He then picked him in his arms, and said to Daniel "Take the bodies.. They deserve a funeral."

    Now calmer than before.. Daniel took one of his unenchanted rings, and formed a basic space into it. He then shifted the young kid¡¯s body into it. The spatial container was devoid of any form of essence, except for space.. So a body would not decay no matter how much time would pass, as the elements that could force a body to decay, time included, were absent.

    After taking the kid¡¯s body, Daniel teleported into the studio where the older of the two kids, whose name was Nius, had found the corpes of their parents, and took them as well.

    Without saying anything to Aeron, Daniel teleported into a full road. The sides of this road were filled with workshops and booths, and thousands of people walked back and forth all day, as this was one of the city¡¯s main roads.

    Now covered by a different kind of clothes, and with his long hair pulled back into a top knot and facial features slightly morphed, Daniel walked towards a weapon rack by the side of the road.

    In front of this weapon rack, two men were standing while admiring at the craftmanship of these newly made weapons. These two men, were two of the five individuals which, just ten minutes ago, were in a dark alley beating two kids to death.

    One of them was the leader of the group..

    Daniel¡¯s hands clenched into threatening fists, and his teeth shut tightly.. He was imagining of ending the existence of these two individuals in the most painful way he could think of.. But as he got close to them, the two simply look back with curiosity.

    They had felt a whisp of cold air move behind them.. But when they turned around, they saw nothing.

    For as much as Daniel wanted to.. Aeron was right. The kid deserved the chance to avenge his family, and it was not his right to take it away from him.. So before he could change his mind, he teleported away.

    When he reappeared, he was sitting at the table of a restaurant. Next to him was Xargy, which was digging into arge te of unidentified meat, while trying all he could to sitfortably with hisrge tail. In front of him, was Aeron, which sat next to the sleeping kid.

    "Good.. you would have felt bad if you had done it.." Said Aeron without needing an exnation. Then, as Daniel ced a small disk onto the table.. he smiled from behind his mask.

    "What¡¯s that?" Asked Xargy with his mouth full of meat, ligaments, and bones.

    Daniel ignored the question, and instead asked "The kid used a ki g within thest hour.. Can you smell the person to whom that ki belonged?"

    Without even having to take a deep breath, or focus on his strongest sense, Xargy said "A middle aged man.. Other side of the city.. Lives inside a house surrounded by willow trees." He then took another bite at the roasted leg of what looked like a human-sized mutton, and added "Are you taking the kid to him?"

    "No.. Just finding the person who has betrayed his family.." Responded Daniel before picking up an apple, and moving it towards his mouth in an attempt to take a bite out of it. He then reminded the horrifying scene he had seen just minutes earlier, and put it back down. "The ship is about to depart.. It¡¯s time to go."

    Annoyed by the fact that he couldn¡¯t finish his meal, and yet estatic about what was about to happen, Xargy stopped one of the waiters, and while passing a ring to him, he said "You can put thest hundred servings into this spatial ring.." he then stood up from the table, and as he noticed that the waiter hadn¡¯t moved yet, he added "Be quick.. Or I might start craving for human meat.." phrase to which the waiter responded by turning around, and running into the kitchen in panic.

    -----

    Two hourster.

    Daniel, Xargy and Aeron, were now standing on top of the deck of a city-sized spaceship. In front of them, was the asteroid that was getting smaller and smaller by the second. The ship had just departed, and yet, they were already dozens of kilometers away..

    Suddenly, a stack of about eleven hundred sheets of paper appeared in Daniel¡¯s hands. But they did not stay for long, as the very next moment, Daniel forced his immortal essence through the spatial protection of the ship, and opened a portal that lead directly to the sky above the city, and threw the stack of papers into it.

    As the portal closed, these sheets of paper were forced by the constructed gravity tond on the surface of the asteroid.. And quickly catch the attention of the people within the city. One by one, they picked these sheet with curiosity, and read what was written on them.

    This sheet of paper contained only two things.. Aplete recipe for a mid-level poison immunity pill.. And a single phrase..

    _______________________

    If the Garden of Death does not catch me first, I am willing to sell the recipe of the High Level Poison Immunity Pill to any faction willing to pay for it.

    Let¡¯s talk about this soon..

    Kind Regards, Daniel the outcast.

    _______________________

 Chapter 283 Daniels Ruse

    ...Kind regards, Daniel the Outcast.

    The result to Daniel¡¯s actions, sent the poption of the entire city into an uproar.

    At first, anyone who had managed to get into the possession of one of the recipes, immediately hid it.. But right as the voice about the content of these sheets of paper began to spread.. That was when blood started to flow.

    People who only minutes earlier were talking cordially to each other, had now unsheathed their weapons, and were fight over these unordinary pieces of paper. The smartest ones, retreated into the territory of their factions, and reported the matter to their connections within the faction.

    Of the hundreds of factions that had a foothold on the asteroid, only a few had managed to obtain one of the recipes.. And no matter how many people tried to, they would defend their recipe to their death. It wasn¡¯t sure how many factions would manage to obtain it, but only was thing was certain.. There weren¡¯t enough recipes for each faction.

    Within a minute after the appearance of these sheets of paper, multiple portals were opened in the sky, and the territories of the various factions from which elite members appeared. After learning what the matter was from their direct underlings, these elite warriors would immediately call for reinforcements.

    Ten minutes after the odd event took ce, multiple fighters of each of the factions, both in possession of he recipes and not, had appeared in the city.. There were even a couple of recipes that ended up being auctioned in the venues which happened to be hosting an auction at the very moment that Daniel had divulged one of his secret recipes.

    Within an hour, the event was growing out of proportion, and the battle that was about to take ce was beyond what the rtivelyrge asteroid could hope to withstand. Insults, demands, and threats were thrown from one elite member to another, and the situation was quickly getting out of hand.

    In the end, the intervention of multiple Judges had been required, who decided that since there were still hundreds of recipes that were circting the streets, and that the recipe was not a secret worth waging war for anymore, all of the factions were to share the recipe.

    Despite a fewints from the parties in possession of the recipes, after a few heavy punishment were ensued as warning, everyone had no choice but to swallow the pill, and ept that that day was not one where their faction would gain an advantage over most of the others, but a day where all factions would gain an equal level of advantage at the same time.

    In order for peace to reign again within the city on the asteroid, took a full day.. And only after all of the emissaries went back to their territories equally happy about their gains. Naturally, their happiness was notparable to the one they felt after testing the recipe.

    Daniel wanted everyone to possess the true recipe of the Mid Level Partial Poison Immunity Pill, so he had written a specific description on how to produce it, and how to consume it without dying.. Including the fact that under a certain level of power, in order to survive the toxicity of the pill, one needed to be affected by a mid tier poison at the very least, so that the pill would focus on fighting against the already present poison instead of destroying the body of the person.

    After the numerous groups and factions were able to test the validity of the pills, they became ted by the gift that they had received.. Unfortunately, the happiness they felt quickly died out, and realization kicked in.

    The first point which the factions had realized the importance of, was that there was a higher level pill that could soon be bought, but of which Daniel had offered no specific detail. They did not know who to make their offer to, or where to go. All they could do, was to hope that Daniel would make another appearance soon, and rify that detail for them.

    The second and most important point, was the terrifying possibility of the Garden of Death obtaining the form of the high level poison immunity pill of which Daniel was in possession of.

    Suddenly, the reason why the Garden of Death had insisted so much on having the priority on Daniel¡¯s capture, was clear to everyone.

    Contrary to most factions, for which a poison immunity was nothing but a valuablemodity, the same was not for the Garden of Death. Their way of producing elite members was based on the tier of poison they were able to withstand, and the low rate of sess had always been a natural way to even the fact that the elite members of the Garden of Death were extremely dangerous individuals.

    On the other hand, if they did manage to obtain a high level poison immunity pill, they would be able to dish out one high level elite after the other, and in a matter of days, they would go from being one of the numerically weakest factions, to the strongest one..

    That, could not be allowed to happen.

    -----

    "Hahaha! You should have seen their faces!" Said Xargy after bursting out inughs. He was able to witness the events from a distance much further away than Daniel and Aeron could, and therefore, he was able to see the chaos that had developed within the city just minutes after Daniel¡¯s actions.

    Daniel ignored Xargy¡¯s crazed state, and instead asked "How many factions?" He was looking through a window from outside of a small house, and at the kid that was currently sleeping in the bed ced inside it. They were dashing through space, in wait for events to unfurl.

    "You are such a buzzkiller.. I could smell about two thousands.. And before you ask, around a tenth of those tried to trace us, but.. Well, we haven¡¯t been caught yet. Leaving by ship was a good idea, they will have to spend days searching them for us.. hehe" Responded Xargy with a slightly hurt, and yet recovering enjoyment.

    "Good.. let¡¯s hope they will take the hint."

    -----

    Venom.

    "HE DID WHAT?! THAT LITTLE BASTARD!!!!!" Shouted the distinct middle aged man while forcing a wave of purple poison to wash over the entire room, and melt everything to which it came in contact with.. Including the messenger that hade to rely the terrible news.

    His mind was in full panic, and there was very little that he could do. Daniel had set them up, forcing them to dere to the entire universal government that they were after him. Once they pressed the matter hard enough, Daniel had revealed the real reason why the Garden of Death was looking for him so animatedly.

    With the possibility that the Garden of Death would grow to a point where the other factions, or given enough time, the very universal government could not contain their power anymore.. The universal government was sure to take action soon.. He did not have much time.

    Left with no other option, the middle aged man walked into the depths of the castle until he reached a colossal door made out ofyers andyers of enchanted steel, rock, and durable elements. On this door there was no pommel or keyhole.. Just an arm-sized dark hole, surrounded by a dozen of spikes. At the deepest end of this hole, was a lever.

    The man looked at the hole with a hint of doubt, but after remembering what was at stake, he put his right arm into the arm-sized hole, and reached for the lever.. then pulled it.

    After he pulled it, the dozen spiked moved forward, and pushed through his skin and into his arm. Each spike was the tip of a longer tube, and at the opposite end end, were twelve beads filled with different sorts of liquid.. after the spikes entered the man¡¯s arm, the liquids contained in the beads moved through the tube, and into his body.

    The pain that took over the man¡¯s body was something that hardly anyone in the universe had ever felt. Each liquid had moved into a different part of the man¡¯s body, and was destroying it in a different, and simrly atrocious way.. And yet, a veil of the man¡¯s poison was preventing these liquids to kill himpletely.. Like a feeble rain trying to extinguish a ze.

    All of the liquids contained by the beads, were the signature poisons of all of the peak level elites of the Garden of Death.. And one of the twelve, was that of the man himself. This process was required to make sure than the individual who wanted to open the door, was in fact one of the most powerful individuals of their faction.

    About a minuteter, the man, nowpletely covered in sweat, stood back and moved his arm back into the hole. He then grabbed the lever once again, and after twisting it once, he pushed it back at the end of the hole just like it was when he had found it.

    The massive b of durable materials finally showed signs of a reaction, and oneyer at a time, it began to open. On the other side, was a dimly lit room with a simple altar ced in the middle. Inside this altar, was a mixture of all of the poisons he had to endure in order to have ess to this room.

    Without waiting a moment longer, he immersed one of his fingers into the mixture of deadly liquids, and injected a bit more of his, ruining the fragile stability of the mixture.

    After he did this, he turned around, and left the room.

    When he reached the study room where he was sitting just a couple minutes earlier, he found eleven individuals waiting for him. These twelve people, middle aged man included, were all of the elite members of the Garden of Death with a perfect immunity to poison, and the twelve strongest individuals of the entire faction.

    What the man had done, was nothing but a call for hispanions toe back.. But the meaning that that action had was one of crisis.

    "What is going on?" Asked a beautiful woman that was standing in the dark, and took a step forward the moment he entered the room.

    "We are in danger.."

    -----

    Alcazar, Universal Government territory.

    "Does it really work?" Asked the Grand Judge to the woman that had reported the events to him a hour earlier.

    The very moment he had received the report, he had immediately tasked the woman to gather the ingredients, and find a poison master capable of following the recipe to the letter. Thanks to their size and power, they were the first ones to manage to test the pill, and now it was time for him to learn about the results of the test.

    "Grand Judge.. After the the thirty individuals testers ingested the results, we have tried hundreds of mid tier poisons on them, but none were able to make them break a sweat.. There is no doubt about it.. This pill grants a poison immunity to mid tier poisons.." Responded the woman with surprise. Only one hour had passed since all of this had happened, and she had had to act so fast, that she still hadn¡¯t been able toe out of her shock.

    On the other hand, the face of the Grand Judge showed a conflicted expression. Logically speaking, there was nothing else left to do but to destroy the Garden of Death.. But that was not something simple. Not because theycked the power, but because if they did, the other factions could revolt.. And if all of them mixed together, they would have a real chance to face the universal government.

    Thinking was leading him nowhere.. And in the end, it was a matter of destroying the Garden of Death now and risk a rebellionter, or do nothing, and risk the Garden of Death growing out of control. In the end, the choice was clear.

    He turned towards the Woman Judge, and said with resolution "The Garden of Death lied about their motives, and tried to y us into allowing them to grow freely only to betray us in the future. Send the Arm-" his voice was interrupted by a second judge.

    "Grand Judge! The Twelve Natures of Poison.. are all here to see you."

    Slightly stunned, the Grand Judge followed the second judge into a room where all twelve of the peak elites of the Garden of Death were waiting.

    He knew exactly why they were here and was ready to cut them off right away, but before he could speak, the middle aged man took a step forward, and said "Grand Judge. We renounce to every im over the outcast. We will stay away from him, and call you if or when he will approach one of ours. We did have the intention of obtaining the mid level poison immunity pill from him, but were unaware of the fact that he had more. The universal government is free to send as many people they want to control our movements."

    "..." The Grand Judge was speechless.

 Chapter 284 The Meaning of Going All-In

    Venom, thirty minutes earlier.

    "We are screwed.. They will eradicate us.. Why did we have to lie to the government.. Damn it!" Said one of the Twelve Natures of Poison, while in a state of extreme anxiousness and shock. The middle aged man had just finished exining the situation, and one thing was clear.. things could not get any worse for them.

    Noticing the looks of panic on the faces of his strongest allies, the middle aged man sighed gently, and while raising his hand in a calming manner, he said "Calm down. We don¡¯t have much time. I didn¡¯t call you here to go into a collective panic.. I have called you here so that we can all go to the universal government, and give our word that we will give up on capturing the brat. If we are lucky, they will listen to us.. And if we aren¡¯t.. We are dead anyway."

    He then turned towards an empty part of the room, and prepared himself to open a portal for Alcazar.. He was stopped by one of the other elites, which said "Are we really going to give up on the kid?"

    The man was expecting this question.. And the moment he heard these wordsing out of the mouth of one of hispanions, he smiled, and said "Never." He then became serious once again, and added "It¡¯s time for you to learn about something." As he said these words, a small bead appeared in his hand, which he promptly shattered with the tips of his fingers.

    The shattering of this bead caused for a portal to open immediately next to him. From it emerged a valiant-looking young man. His power was not on par with the rest of the twelve elite individuals, but his poison, was nowhere less dangerous. "Father." he said to the middle aged man with affection.

    "What.. He.."

    ".. No way.."

    "Amazing.. At such a young age.."

    "Rohan, your son.. He passed the final trial.. He is one of us." Muttered the woman that spoke earlier. The group was shocked by the fact that the son of the middle aged man called Rohan had managed to pass the trial. He did not possess their level of cultivation, and that meant that the chance for him to survive their Lord¡¯s trials, were much lower than theirs.

    The man looked proudly at his son, then turned to look at the rest of the group, and said "He passed the trial two days ago, thanks to the help of one of Iewah¡¯s children.. Nobody knew about it except for me, him, and the Toxic." Rohan said, causing hispanions to once again fall into deep shock.

    There was a great variety of powers amongst the children of Iewah.. So much so, that in the end, the powers that a host acquired during the activation of their gift, could be rtively simr to those possessed by another faction.. But stronger.

    An example of this was the Elementalist, which like the members of the elemental faction, had full control over elemental essences. The only difference between him and the elite members of the elemental faction, was that he was able to control not one, but all of the elements, as well as beingpletely immune to them.

    Despite their pure desire to wage war and cause mayhem, the lives of a cultivator were long.. And in the end, most of them would seekpany at some point in their lives. The children of Iewah were no exception. They would travel for tens of thousands of years, and whenever they found someone which they could stand to have a conversation with, they would befriend him.

    That, was how Rohan¡¯s son had met the Toxic. A being whose power he couldn¡¯t understand, and that he considered a genius with aprehension of the world of poison and alchemy only second to the leader of the Garden of Death.. The entity from which all of their gifts came from.

    "He shoulde with us then.. Showing ourselves with a new peak level elite which the government isn¡¯t aware of yet will show our sincerity." Said a plump and well dressed man from one of the room¡¯s corners.

    "No.. he won¡¯t." Said Rohan before turning towards his son, and saying "Find the brat that put us into this mess.. Find him, take all of his secrets, and tear him into pieces."

    "Yes, father." responded his son before opening a portal, and leaving as fast as he had arrived.

    As the portal closed, Rohan said with a faint voice "Good luck, my son."

    The opportunity was too big to pass. The chance of obtaining the high level poison immunity pill was enough for them to risk everything. Even though being immune to high tier poisons and toxins would not increase the chance of bing a peak level elite of the garden of death, being able to produce an infinite number of high level elites was enough for them toe out of their hiding, and gain their ce into the rooster of the strongest factions within the universal government back.

    -----

    Alcazar, present time.

    "..." The Grand Judge was speechless. Just as he was issuing an extermination notice for one of the factions underneath the government, and summon the army, that very faction had showed itself openly, and surrendered immediately.

    Their decisiveness had left the mind of the Grand Judge nk, and he now had to process what had just been said to him, and formte another course of action based on the current circumstances.

    "You have tried to fool the government.. This matter can¡¯t go unpunished." Said the Grand Judge while trying to gain the control over the conversation. Lying to the government was not a rare event, and most factions would omit the circumstances of their actions in the same way that the Garden of Death did, so that action would usually not be punished with extermination.

    At most, a good portion of the faction¡¯s territory would be sequestered, and the faction would be banned from participating in the wars for the unexplored territories.

    "As I have said, our n was to capture him due to the problems he caused in our territory. The only detail that we did not specify, was that we wanted the recipe of the mid-tier poison pill. It¡¯s undeniable that that pill would help us take our ce back into the most powerful groups, but we had no ill intentions towards the government, and had no idea of the existence of a high level pill." Responded Rohan with a polite tone.

    "Good, then you know that I have no choice but to-" tried to say the Grand Judge, before being interrupted by Rohan, which bent forward, and took a small simbol from his spatial ring and offered it to the Grand Judge.

    With the tone of a subject that was relying the words of his emperor, he said "We surrender half of our gxies, and refrain from participating in any war to im a territory for the following ten thousand years. This is my Lord¡¯s message."

    One again, the Grand Judge was left with no words. The token was a symbol of the lord of their faction, and it could not be faked. Once this token was shown, it meant that the words came directly from the lord, and if used without authorization, the lord would be able to feel it, and the elite would be forcibly stripped of his gift, and die a painful death.

    After relying the words of the leader of the poisonous faction, Rohan straightened his back once again, and with a hint of sadness, he said "There is something else.. We would like to report that.. My son.. Has been expelled from our faction. From now on, he will be an outcast."

    This was too much. What had happened was akin to a lord demanding a subject¡¯s head, but before the order could be followed, the subject had presented himself in front of the lord, and while apologizing, he had cut his own arms, legs, tongue, and pulled off both his eyes.

    What they had renounced to, was a lot more than their crimes would cost them if the circumstances were different.

    The reason why the Garden of Death had expelled the middle aged man¡¯s son, was to justify the fact that he would not be around in case the universal government decided to stick around them. His son would never be able to join the faction back, and his expulsion, was the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the faction.

    After forcing their own power down the drain, the Grand Judge was not able to order their extermination anymore.. All that remained, was the second approach.

    Slightly irritated, he turned towards the judge which had reported to him the presence of he elite members of the Garden of Death, and said "You are in charge of making sure that the garden of death respects their words. Go see Grand Judge Heti and request for a division of the army to take possession of half of their territory, and control the other half. ce a bounty on the head of Rohan¡¯s son. He has to be killed on sight, and whoever captures him, must bring him to me."

    After hearing the words of the Grand Judge, the Twelve Natures of Poison took a collective breath of relief, and finally rxed.

    Once he finished to give the instructions to the second Judge, the Grand Judge turned to look at the woman judge, and ordered "Go see Iewah. I want him to order to one of his people to find that damn kid. I don¡¯t care about his rules.. Tell him I want the kid, or his faction will have to pay for this whole mess."

    -----

    Base of Karmic System¡¯s group.

    Daniel¡¯s was streaking through space at a speed that, considering hisrge size, was quite odd.

    When it was only Daniel, Aeron, and Xargy, the would usually be the size of a building, while now, it was as big as one of the smaller empires of Daniel¡¯s world of origin.

    Also, instead of being in its primitive state of floating rock, it was nowposed of a natural atmosphere rich of oxygen, forests, mountains, and even a sea that surrounded the single continent.

    Daniel was currently sitting inside of a small house ced at the feet of a mountain, and surrounded by arge forest. A quiet and clean river came down from a distant waterfall, and flowed all the way to the sea, just a couple of kilometers from the house.

    The view was heavenly, and it had a perfection that was beyond what nature would create.. In fact, this patch of terrain had been created by Daniel himself, which had absolute control over everything that was within his world.

    Inside this house, sitting on a second chair ced right in front of his, was the mute kid. He was quietly looking at Daniel with eyes swollen red due to the past couple of days of mourning, and now was wondering who this man was, and what would happen to him.

    After the kid had woken up, Daniel had helped him organize a proper funeral for his family. The ce where the kid had decided to bury his parents and brother, was a small patch of terrain about midway up the mountain. He had lived in the city within the asteroid for all of his life, and he had never seen a forest, a mountain, a sea, or anything like that.. So when he finally found that ce, he had decided that that was the ce where he wanted his family to rest.. As that was the most beautiful ce he had ever seen.

    After the funeral, Daniel gave a couple of days to the kid in order to recover.. and now, it was time for him to move on.. And find a purpose.. But before that, Daniel took a small object out of his spatial ring, and showed it to the kid.

    The moment the kid saw this object, his eyes became watery, and his small face contorted with pain. He then touched its smooth surface until a clear click sound was heard. One piece after the other, this object morphed.. Until it shaped into what looked like a mirror.

    Daniel knew what this mirror was for, so he said nothing, and waited.

    A feeble white smoke came out of a few microscopic holes ced on the frame of he mirror, and concentrated right above the reflecting part of the mirror. It then changed shape, and after a few moments, it took the shape of a middle aged couple.

    The two were one next to the other, and seemed very happy.. After a few moments of smiling in silence, the woman ced her hands in front of her chest and formed a few signs with her fingers, causing the kid to start bawling.

    Daniel had learned the signnguage which the kid know.. And was able to understand what the signs said.. They said "Mom and Dad love you very much."

 Chapter 285 They Walk Into a Bar..

    While the kid could not talk, just from being able to hear his thoughts, Daniel was able to learn that he possessed an intelligence off the charts. His thought process was unlike that of any other kid his age, and he was able to understand, assess, and react almost instantly to most situations.

    The idea that had lead to his parent¡¯s invention, and that ultimately was the cause of their death, had been inspired by a question that the kid himself had gestured to his mother, when the two were unsure of how to proceed with their project.

    That lead Daniel to believe that if he was forced to use the ki g for help, he must have been truly desperate, and out of options.

    Originally, when the kid had just woken up, he had believed Daniel to be the friend of his family which should havee to the siblings¡¯ aid if he used the ki g entrusted by his parents, but it didn¡¯t take long for such an intelligent kid to understand that that was not the case.

    His parents had been betrayed twice.. One time when they had sent the invention to their contact which should have "kept it safe", and once when the siblings had used the ki g..

    The ki g was supposed to call for help in case something happened to the two inventors, but instead, it did nothing signal their position to the individual that had betrayed them.. Which sent a group of goons to kill the two kids, and retrieve any odd objects in their possession.

    Daniel could remember perfectly well the day when his family had received the news that his father had perished in war, as well as the day when he hade back home to a deceased mother, and crying sister.. But even though he had gone through the pain of loss himself, he knew that his experience and that of the kid werepletely different.

    What made the two situations different was that Daniel had someone who, when he had started to me himself for the death of each of his parents, had reminded him that it wasn¡¯t his fault.

    Unfortunately, that was not the same for the kid.

    Naturally, being reassured by somebody whose opinion had no value, was not the same as being consoled by a member of your family, so Daniel was not direct in his attempt to console the kid. Instead, he quietly cultivated in the small garden next to the city, and listened to the kid¡¯s mind go down a spiral of depression and sadness.

    Whenever Daniel felt the need to, he would visit the kid, and try to fix his train of thoughts through some methods.. One of which, was ying chess.

    Chess was a gamemon in Gai¡¯ha and Lucius¡¯s word of origin. It was a strategy game meant to dominate the opponent through the use of different pieces, and the two yers needed toplete with their intellect in order to be victorious.

    At first the kid simply looked as Daniel and Aeron yed, but after understanding the nature of the game, he decided to y a game with Daniel when he was waiting for Aeron to arrive for their daily games.

    The first game was a test to see if the kid had understood the rules correctly, but to Daniel¡¯s surprise, the kid had already learned the rules perfectly by observing the two y, and he knew what each piece was able to do, and how to use each move to chip at the opponent¡¯s forces.

    The result of the first game was, to Daniel, a reminder of how brilliant this kid was.. So much so that Daniel had barely win thanks to the kid¡¯s inexperience, and misunderstanding of the game¡¯s goal.. But the second game, waspletely different.

    Daniel could only keep up with the kid¡¯s tremendously fast thinking process by reading his mind, which helped him with avoiding one loss after the other.

    At the end of the tenth game, the kid was beginning to feel irritated. Daniel could see that he was losing interest in chess, as ording to what he was thinking, he couldn¡¯t stand the fact that there was a way that allowed people to cheat, which he was not aware of.

    Daniel had introduced the game of chess to this kid exactly for this reason, and now that the kid had finally gotten to that point, he said out loud "You are not wrong.. I have many ways to cheat at this game.. To be fair, you had no chance of winning to begin with.." He then let the sentence sink in for a few moment, and once he saw that the kid was ready, he added "Sometimes, things are out of our control.. Yourst move could not change the fact that the game was rigged all along."

    After he finished speaking, he stood up from the chair, and left the kid alone.

    While Daniel was not as smart as the kid was, he was still very intelligent. He knew that if he tried to console the kid, he would not be able to get through him because they had no attachment to each other.. So he had to find another way. That way was to trigger a moment of realization within the kid¡¯s mind, and make it so that the logic of which the kid was so fond of, would force him in the right path.

    The kid was now sitting in silence, and looking at the pieces of chess.. The game which his parents had yed their whole lives, was rigged.. They had been cheated.. To call for help was simply thest bad moved of the game. So why did he have to hate himself? If they were going to die anyway.. Why was his fault that his family was dead?

    That small spark of anger and thirst for revenge that had shined within the kid¡¯s mind when Aeron delved into it, was now growing exponentially.. And turning into hate.

    When the kid finally made his resolve to avenge his family, he looked back at the table where he and Daniel had just finished ying chess, and there, he found a cultivation manual, and a perfect crystal.

    -----

    Unnamed, Iewah¡¯s territory.

    "Father! How can I help you in this fine evening?" Said a man which appeared to be in his mid thirties, and was wearing a set of noble¡¯s clothes. His wrists, neck, and ears, were covered by jewels, and his own presence seemed to exude an overbearing wealth.

    He was talking to a massive tree which appeared to be as big as the itself.

    "..I am not alone.." Muttered a dark figure which creeped out of arge rock¡¯s shadow, and turned into a thin and tall individual.

    This man was covered in darkness, and no feature of his could be seen except for how tall he was, and his body type. From afar, he looked exactly like a moving shadow.

    The moment the eyes of both of these individuals found each other, they immediately began to shine of a faint golden color.. They did not know each other, and yet, they had never felt more desire to battle than they had now..

    The nobleman looked at the shadow, which was standing quietly in ce, and said "Your cultivation is amazing.. Much more powerful than mine.. Let me buy it." He then took a small gold coin out of his pocket, and threw it at the dark silhouette.

    Once the coinnded next to the feet of the moving dark silhouette, thetter feltpelled to fall on his knees and grab the coin. He then stared at the coin in his hands with an expression that, if it could have been seen, would have caused anybody to feel ufortable. Happiness was not quite enough to describe it.. Not as much as obsession.

    "Nobody can resist my offers.. Hehe.. What a cheap bargain." Said the nobleman while approaching the kneeling shadow.. Once he reached him, he took a small scale out of one of his pockets, and said while showing his golden teeth with a bright smile "Here, I¡¯ll tell you exactly how much your life was worth.."

    The shadow disappeared from where it was, and reappeared in a miniaturized version on one of the two sides of the scale. The nobleman was looking at the small shadow with amusement, and after a moment, he began to put golden weights on the other side of the scale.

    For each weight added to the opposite side of the scale, the gravity on the side where the miniaturized shadow was standing, was increased by tenfold.. And after more than fifty weights, the shadow was unable to handle the pressure anymore, and was ttened into a regr looking shadow with no human attached to it.

    Once the shadow man died, the nobleman¡¯s cultivation went back to normal, and he resumed looking at the massive tree, and waiting for a response. Just moments passed before a hundred of small shadowy hands moved out of the nobleman¡¯s own shadow, and grabbed his legs firmly.

    The nobleman immediately tried to separate himself from this tiny arms, but the more he moved, the more he felt these hands pull his body inside his own shadow.

    As the nobleman was knees deep in, more hands emerged and grabbed his waist, his back.. His shoulders.. He was beingpletely swallowed by his own shadow, and no matter how much he struggled, he could not free himself.

    Just as he was about to be fully immersed, a coin appeared in his hand..

    Unable to use his arms, he used the strength of his finger to toss the coin next to the shadow, and once the coinnded on the ground, the body of the nobleman began to move in reverse.. along with the tiny hands which let him go, and disappeared back into his shadow.

    The nobleman immediately flew in the air, and muttered "That was a close one.. Hadn¡¯t I paid for my freedom.. What the hell was that ce?" His voice contained a fair bit of shock, and he was now much more on guard than before.

    "It¡¯s not many people that get to see the beauty of the shadow realm.. You should feel honored" Said a disembodied voice that came in unison from all of the shadows present in the area.

    The nobleman turned to look at the many sources of the voice in search of the original body of his opponent, but not matter how much he looked, he could not find it. "Not that beautiful.. Here, let me show you what true beauty means." He said while taking two coins out of his pockets.

    ".. You wille to appreciate it.. You will spend the rest of your life there.. Leaving only your shadow behind." Said the disembodied voice as uncountable hands emerged from just as many shadows on the ground.

    The two were about to engage in battle once again, but before they could could act, a sudden voice reached them from afar. It said "Now now.. Behave brothers. It is not often that we are summoned by father." Said a young man in shiny golden armor which appeared in the airspace just a few kilometers away from the two.

    The shadow and the nobleman became wary of this third individual, and prepared for arger fight than before..

    Unlike the others, this armored young man did not seem to want to fight at all costs, and instead, as soon as he floated closer to the two of them and noticed that they were ready to start a fight at any given moment, he said "I said behave.. It¡¯s an order."

    These few simple words were not spoken loudly, and yet, the moment they reached the ears of the ck silhouette and the nobleman, their wary andbative state was dissipated, and they became calmer than they had ever been in their entire life.

    These three individuals were all children of Iewah, and their titles were the Shadow.. Whose system worked around the shadow realm, the Rich Man.. Which could buy anything, including a person¡¯s power, or his own life, and the Ruler.. whose orders had to be followed.

    Despite their calm state, the two were fully aware that they were under the effect of one of the Ruler¡¯s powers.. But their state of mind prevented them from starting a battle.

    Unfortunately, that did not mean that they were not allowed to calmly perform an action to get rid of this overbearing control.. So, the Rich Man calmly let go one of his coins he was holding in his hand, while the Shadow slowly dived into the shadow realm..

    As soon as the coinnded on the ground, and the body of the shadow was immersedpletely, two different effects were activated, and they were freed from the orders of the Ruler.

    Once again the two felt their fighting spirit rise, and prepared to fight.. But before they could start.. The massive tree disappeared, and in its ce, appeared an old man.

 Chapter 286 The House of Merchants

    "Father, it¡¯s about time we met." Said the Rich Man after noticing the old man who was sitting quietly on the area where, just a moment earlier, was a colossal tree. His tone was not respectful in the least, and the reason for that was that, for the children of Iewah, Iewah himself was the ultimate boss. The fact that the three had managed to refrain from attacking him on sight, was already beyond surprising.

    While the Rich Man took the initiative in starting a conversation with Iewah, the other two kept quiet, and observed the old man¡¯s reaction.

    With an oddly gentle and calm voice, Iewah stood up, and approached his three sons.. once he was standing in front of them, he said ".. This is the part where my sons attack me with all they have.. I suggest you three coborate."

    These few words caused something to click in the minds of the three. No matter how powerful their self control had been so far.. This simple invitation had shattered any semnce of reason that the three siblings possessed.

    In an instant, the shadow connected to Iewah¡¯s feet begun to move, and separated itself from the ground. The silhouette of this shadow resembled Iewah¡¯s human form perfectly, and if that was not enough, the shadow emitted the exact same feel and power of its owner.

    This ability was called ¡¯Obscure Clone¡¯.

    Its effect allowed the system¡¯s wielder to take control over his opponent¡¯s shadow, and use it to create an exact copy of that person with matching cultivation, abilities, and even intelligence.. Making it the most powerful ability which the Shadow possessed.

    Just as the Obscure Clone emerged from the ground, two voice could be hearding from the Rich Man, and the Ruler.

    The former had taken a small bag of coins and thrown it towards the quietly standing body of his father, while saying "I¡¯ll pay everything I have to have your powers.".. That caused Iewah¡¯s limitless cultivation and unique supernatural powers to be transferred directly into the body of the Rich Man, while his powers were reduced to the original cultivation of his son.

    This ability was called ¡¯Name Your Price¡¯, and it allowed the Rich Man to take possession of a person¡¯s abilities and cultivation. The cost of the ability depended on the opponent¡¯s power, and if the power obtained was used to kill its previous owner, the Rich Man would be able to retain a portion of it as his.. It was the ultimate ability of the Opulent system.

    The words spoken by the ruler, differently from before, were spoken with the voice of an emperor. The tone was loud and domineering, and left a feeling of inferiority on the hearts of every single person who heard it.

    "I sentence you to death."

    The moment these words were spoken, Iewah¡¯s body was forced to his knees, and next to him, a ten meters tall executioner had appeared. He towered next to Iewah with a bare chest, and head covered by a ck sack with no eye holes. He was holding his arms high up above his head, and in his hands, was a saber as big as him and as thin as a hair.

    The name of this ability was ¡¯Grace Denied¡¯, and allowed the Ruler to decide whether his opponent deserved to die, or not. Ironically enough, this ability could always be used to sentence a person to death, and there was no way for the unfortunate target to avoid it, unless they used a stronger power.

    All three abilities took effect at the same time, and in a matter of moments. From his ce of nigh-omnipotence, Iewah was kneeling with a de slicing down towards his neck, his power bought by the extravagant habits of the Rich Man, and his own shadow that was about to turn his original body into smithereens.

    The hearts of the three children were beating like war drums as they attempted to kill their own father, but just as the attacks were about to hit his body.. Just when they blinked in order to make sure that they wouldn¡¯t lose an instant of the result of their attacks.. Just as their eyelids moved back up and uncovered the three pairs of brilliant golden eyes.. The situation had changed.

    The ruler was kneeling on the ground with the familiar massive executioner ready to cut his head clean off of his body, the Rich Man found himself dressed in tatters, and surrounded by golden coins which, no matter how much he crawled towards, he could not reach.. And the Shadow was stuck at the feet of his father.. Unable to move, and forced to follow Iewah¡¯s movements just like a simple, and powerless shadow.

    "I have seen worse.. I suppose.." muttered Iewah, as the images washed out of his three children, and they found themselves standing just like they had been moments before initiating their attacks.

    At that moment, they understood.

    Contrary to what they had believed so far, whenpared to all of their brothers, the three were nothing special.. And yet, there was a reason why, despite meeting Iewah, none of their brother had managed to kill him.

    There was absolutely no chance for them to win against their father.. And if they tried, their fears woulde to fruition.. And they would lose their lives.

    In a matter of minutes, the three managed to calm down from their fearful state, and looked at their father with a greater deal of respect than before.

    "Why did you call us here?" Asked the Ruler with a weak tone that did not match with his appearance, and previous behaviour. He was standing politely, and trembling at the idea that something could cause him to lose his status as a ruler, and he ended up being the peasant whose head was about to be cut off.

    "I need you three to capture the outcast." Said Iewah while quietly walking towards an unnaturally t rock, and sitting down on it while brushing his beard with his hand.

    "I thought that it wasn¡¯t allowed for us to hunt each other, unless we were able to leave our hosts body.." Said the Rich Man with an unstable state of mind. He had both of his hands inside his pockets, and was touching the coins that he had left not because he wanted to fight, but because he was trying to remind himself that he hadn¡¯t lost all of his wealth.

    "He is not one of you.. Your brother, stupid as he is.. Was unable to keep the body for himself.. I had a lot of hope for his power.."

    While all of Iewah¡¯s children that had heard about the matter were aware that Sewah had been expelled from the faction, they did not know exactly why. All they knew, was that during a conquest campaign, he had fought against one of their sisters, and that after that event, he had been expelled.

    To learn that the host could fight back, and that he was able to subdue their supposedly more powerful mind, was unheard of.

    While the three were shocked about the revtion, they still did not feel fear towards Daniel. Their will topete came from knowing that their brothers possessed a power that could possibly be as powerful as theirs, and therefore, they seeked confrontation regardless of whether it was against their brother, or another powerful individual.

    Of the three, the only one that had some doubts, was the Shadow.. Who said to his father "Why send three of us?.. He was thest one to receive a gift, and even if his gift was as powerful as ours.. Shouldn¡¯t two of us be enough to subdue him?"

    With a face filled with disappointment and resignation, Iewah said "You always overestimate yourselves.. You believe your hosts were easy prey.. But I¡¯ve chosen them exactly because I knew they would be capable of anything to survive.. If not for the element of surprise, none of you would have lived through the possession attempt."

    Aside from the Shadow, whose power forced him to be humbler than most of his brothers, and live in the shadows.. The Rich man and the Rulers were amongst the most prideful of all of Iewah¡¯s children. Listening to Iewah¡¯s words had lit the fire ofpetition that resided in their minds, and now that they had been underestimated by their own father, they wanted nothing but to prove him wrong.

    "Why us three?" Asked the Shadow with a fair bit of curiosity. The three of them were rtively young, and had taken control over their hosts just centuries ago.. In the grand rooster of Iewah¡¯s children, there were many more powerful entities which could fit the role better.

    "Of all of the hosts that I have chosen, only a few were able to create a truly fearful power.. You are the three who will be the least affected by his powers."

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s, one month after the asteroid¡¯s events.

    Sitting in front of the small house meant for the kid to live in, was a garden table with two chairs, and a ming board with small wooden pieces which, only ten seconds earlier, were theponents of a chess board.

    Sitting at the table were the kid, which was moving his hands in an attempt tomunicate with his opponent, and Xargy, whose arms were crossed, and was looking at his right with a face filled with irritation.

    As a schr, Xargy had shown a lot of interest in the game of chess, but while Daniel and Aeron refused to y with him after losing a few times, he did not have the same result when ying with the kid. What had helped him push through the hundred consecutive losses, was his pride as a king of beasts.. Unfortunately, after the number of losses had reached the three digits, his pride shattered like a crystal.. Causing him to burst out in anger, and set the entire game aze.

    A month was more than enough for Xargy to learn the signnguage which was used by the kid, and therefore, he was ignoring him out of annoyance, and not because he couldn¡¯t understand him.

    Sitting on the ground separated by a few meters of grass, were Aeron and Daniel. They were both trying to cultivate with the small amount of crystals that they had left, but while Daniel appeared calm and focused, Aeron seemed slightly irritated.

    "Mind telling me what is bothering you?" Aeron finally asked. He had this question in mind for a very long time, and now he couldn¡¯t hold it in anymore.

    Daniel quietly opened his eyes, and said "It¡¯s been a month already. The universal government should have been able to destroy the Garden of Death, but I haven¡¯t received any notice for it."

    "Hypothetically, yes.. The Garden of Death should have been wiped out by now.. But do not underestimate the leaders of the factions.. They are notmon beings." Responded Aeron while reminiscing about the leader of the Psionic Dimension, which he had met the day he had received his own gift.

    While Aeron was more knowledgeable about the power of a faction leader, he knew nothing about the power of the universal government¡¯s army. All he knew about them, were the legends that were told through the entire universe. Rumors about generals, and unknown explorers single handedly facing the leaders of a faction, and forcing them into submission..

    These types of rumors were as numerous as the number of factions that were part of the universal government, and were a testimony to the government¡¯s power.

    "They might have refused.." muttered Daniel to himself before bing pensive. He then asked "Do you think they have sent somebody to hunt for us?"

    "I doubt it. Aside from Iewah and the Emanation.. Nobody should be able to track us." Responded Aeron calmly, before noticing an asteroid simr to that where the three of them had encountered the kid, yet a hundred times as big, and with enough gold on its surface to resemble a golden ore partially covered in dirt. He then added "It seems that we have arrived.. The House of Merchants.. The Golden Nugget."

 Chapter 287 Unrequited Love

    Of the thousands of factions, there was a small portion which was not ruled by an entity which was able to gifts to its strongest followers. A few of those factions, for example, were the draconic dynasty.. as well as the mercenary faction, and the merchant faction.

    While these three factions did not have any elites, their numbers made up for the generally lower power of its members. In fact, many of the powerful warriors which were denied a gift in the other factions, would end up being employed by the mercenary, merchant, and other factions formed by power and money, and focused on the the pursuit of power and money.

    These factions were usually not allowed to join thepetition for unexplored territories, so whenever there was a left drifting through space all by itself, these second ss factions would fight for it.. As the other factions had no use to them. One example of this, was the city in the asteroid which Daniel, Aeron, and Xargy had been to a month earlier.

    Theses were moving constantly, and that caused them to be extremely difficult to reach through teleportation. Generally speaking, in the grand scheme of things, theses were mostly unknown.. While at the same time being stations of extreme importance to all of the sr systems close to it.

    Part of the territory of the merchant faction, was a called Golden Nugget.. A world made formerce, and governed by numerous powerful houses of merchants.. That was the reason for the name ¡¯The House of Merchants¡¯.

    -----

    "Tell me again why I can¡¯te?" Asked Xargy with an annoyed tone. He had been asked to stay behind while Daniel and Aeron exchanged some item for enough perfect crystals to cultivate, and in case Daniel did not receive the notification about the destruction of the Garden of Death, initiate their n B right away.

    "Again.. You told me. There is probably people powerful enough to recognize you as a royal of the dragons. I don¡¯t know about you, but I¡¯m not eager to meet the Tamer anytime soon." Responded Daniel with a fair bit of annoyance. Xargy had pestered him with the same question for the past fifty thousand kilometers, and it appeared that there was no end in sight.

    Almost as if cursing at himself, Xargy gave up, and muttered "Fine.. But take the brat with you.. If he asks me to y another game.. I¡¯ll roast him alive."

    "Sure.." said Daniel with an amused smile. He knew that Xargy had been impressed by the kid¡¯s intelligence way more than he and Aeron had been.. After all, as a schr himself, he could not ignore a true genius.

    The reason why Xargy had requested that they took the kid, was because he wanted him to see more of the universe. He would not be able to find his drive to cultivate, if all he saw around him was a trio of friendly cultivators which had no intention of doing any harm to him.

    He had felt the pain.. What he needed, was the experience.

    The kid, whose name the three learned to be Virgil, was of course happy to finally visit a new. For him the concept of space travel was not new, as he had lived in a moving asteroid for all of his life.. Therefore, exploring the deep ends of the universe along with his brother, and learn about the technological advancement of each civilization, had always been a dream of his.

    Now that he had finally managed to fulfill his dream, while saddened by the fact that his brother was not with him, he decided to reinforce his determination by promising to himself that he would enjoy the experience for both himself and his brother.

    After hearing these thoughts take from in the mind of this young kid, Daniel and Aeron could not help but smile in satisfaction. Growing up fast was never a bad thing in a universe where cultivation was all that mattered. The less time one passed as a harmless child, the better it was.

    Once the three finished with their preparation, Daniel created a bubble of air in which Virgil could breath, and turned his into a small ball which he then put into his spatial ring. At the same time, Xargy floated towards one of the massive meteors which followed the trail of the fast moving, and sat down in wait.

    While now a cultivator, Virgil was still not powerful enough to survive the hostile outer space, so he needed the support of Daniel or Aeron to survive until they managed to enter the atmosphere of the House of Merchants.

    Daniel, Aeron and Xargy were able to enter the fairly easily, as the defences set in ce by the merchant¡¯s faction were more on the line of "powerful cultivators that resided within the territory" than the moremon "keeper of key that guarded the entrance".

    After a quick control, they were let in without a problem.

    The reason for this visit, was to acquire enough perfect crystals for the four of them to cultivate, so their first objective was to find a where they could sell their items. That task was assigned to Aeron, which could delve into the memories and thoughts of a person in order to make sure that they were not dishonest traders that would sell them the moment they offered their items.

    At the same time, Daniel and Virgil were in charge of walk around to buy a few essentials for the kid to survive.

    In the past month, Virgil had used a small portion of a perfect crystal in order to reach the third rank of spiritual, and martial cultivation. His talent was not the worst, and he could understand the theory behind cultivation faster than anybody Daniel had met before.. But unfortunately, he was not that kind of genius.

    His level of genius, while different, wasparable to Jerigh¡¯s talent in cultivation, and Roley¡¯s affinity to elemental essences.

    At the moment, the two were looking to buy clothes, training weapons, martial skill tomes, spell tomes, and low level essence spheres which Virgil could use in his cultivation.

    "What is it, never been on an open market?" Daniel asked while strolling next to the kid, which seemed to be looking at the items ced on the numerous booths with eyes opened wide in surprise.

    The city where Virgil had spent the first nine years of his life did not have much but technologically advanced objects, and therefore, he had never seen a city so clean, and even flowers were rare. Most of the city in the asteroid was made of metal and stone, and the view became quickly boring to most of its inhabitants.

    "What are these?" Virgil asked by moving his hands into specific signs.

    While he knew that if he simply thought of the question, Daniel would be able to hear it, he was not used to it.. And before the question could form in his constantly working head, his hands would have already finished.

    "Alchemical instruments. Not the field of technology which you are used seein I guess." Responded Daniel while turning around, and looking for a stall which would sell the items that the two hade to buy.

    His eyesnded on a booth filled with books, behind which was a twenty years old beautiful girl with simple clothes. She was reading a book, while ignoring a cultivator who seemed to have more interest in her than the books she was selling.

    The cultivator was dressed elegantly, and yet he seemed to be losing patience by the second.

    After making sure that Virgil was not creating trouble, and was simply looking through the items without disturbing the owner of the booth, Daniel approached the book seller in silence.

    "Why not? Am I not attractive enough for you?" Said the cultivator with a intive tone. He seemed to be actually hurt by the fact that the woman was ignoring him, and that suggested that the two likely knew each other.

    "I¡¯ve seen you with that girl yesterday.. I am not interested in guys who sleep around." responded the girl while refusing to even take her eyes off of the book, and turning the page.

    The face of the man was confused beyond words, but then, after a sudden moment of realization, he shouted "That was my cousin! Come on! Just listen to reason for once!"

    After hearing the unapologetic words that came from the cultivator, she suddenly closed her book, and pped it on the table. She then said while turning to look at the approaching Daniel "Enough! Laeve, I have customers."

    Daniel¡¯s clothes weren¡¯t those of a rich man. He was wearing a piece of leather armor that covered his heart and held by three straps that went around his chest, and normal looking looking ck shirt underneath, with ck pants, and ck boots.

    What he did not have in elegance, he had in valiancy.

    "Hello, I am looking for a few books." Said Daniel after approaching the booth, and walking past the cultivator as if he wasn¡¯t there.

    After looking at Daniel from a closer perspective, the girl found herself staring at him in awe. His serious expression and good manners were unexpected, especially from someone that appeared to be the personification of a mercenary in light armor.

    "Hey! Did you not see that I was here before you?" said the cultivator after trying to grab Daniel¡¯s arm. Unfortunately, the moment his fingers were about to touch Daniel¡¯s body, they slid through the air, and he grabbed the emptiness a few centimeters away. "..what.."

    The cultivator tried a couple more times, but before he could demand for an exnation, the owner of the booth looked at him with a re capable of killing, and said "STOP BOTHERING MY CUSTOMERS!"

    For Daniel, this wasn¡¯t an odd event. Most sellers would get angry when someone tried to interrupt one of their transactions, but to the cultivator, to be yelled at by this particr girl, was extremely odd. The two had known each other for a very long time, and while he had never had sess in courting her, she would reject him coldly, and never angrily.

    He turned to look at the girl with eyes filled with shock, and the moment he saw her smiling at Daniel politely.. Another thing that he had never seen her do before, a few thoughts started to form in his mind.

    "You are too muscr for a magician.. What kind of books are you interested in? I don¡¯t have many martial skills, but you are wee to look through my inventory for as long as you want." said the girl with a little more politeness than what was custom between seller and customer.

    Daniel ignored the girl¡¯s behaviour, and said "Actually, I am looking for tomes and spell books regarding time, space, wood, and metal essence."

    While wood and metal weremon items, tomes which described spells regarding time and spatial essence were extremely rare. So when he finished listing the items he needed, he noticed that he had left both the owner and the cultivator dumbfounded.

    "Uhm.. I.. of course. I have these five books.. Three which describe the known faces of space and time, and two battle spells. They are my most expensive tomes." Responded the girl after regaining her wits. From the way he was dressed, Daniel seemed to be morefortable with a sword, or two daggers than fighting by controlling time and space.

    "How much are they?" Daniel asked after picking up a few books about metal and wood essence, and adding them to the pile.

    The girl had never taken an order as big before, so she was unsure of what Daniel¡¯s reaction to the price would be.. She really did not want Daniel to be angry at her, as other than being attracted by him, she also had an extremely good impression of his character.

    "As these are my most expensive books, their pricebined is twelve hundred perfect crystals."

    Daniel expected arge price, as tomes could only be written by individuals with a deepprehension of the essence.. But unfortunately, he was not able to afford them. Yet, without the slightest amount of embarrassment, he said "Can you keep them aside, I¡¯lle pick them upter."

    The cultivator could barely hold hisughter. He was looking at Daniel as if he was looking at an idiot, and in his mind, he believed that Daniel was simply trying to court the owner of the booth, and that he had failed miserably.

    The girl was not disappointed, and with a big smile, she said "Of course. I¡¯ll close for lunch, but for yo- But I will be opened all evening."

    Once again, Daniel ignored the girl¡¯s mumbling, and left after smiling politely.

    As he disappeared in the crowd, the cultivator approached the booth, and said while sucking his teeth ".. That is the oldest y in the book.. Too bad it backfired on him.." He then forgot about Daniel, and after turning towards the girl, he said "We were saying.. Will youe with me to the auction at least??"

    "FINE!!" Shouted the girl, attracting more attention than intended "As long as I don¡¯t see you here after lunch!"

 Chapter 288 A Valuable Lesson

    Daniel quietly walked back to the booth where virgil was currently looking at, and once he approached him, he noticed that he was holding a small metallic sphere with odd inscriptions in his small hands. He was rotating it, and looking it from all angles, almost as if trying to find something on its surface.

    "What is that?" asked Daniel to the seemingly busy kid.

    This time, instead of answering back with the signnguage, Virgil thought "There is something inside this thing." at the same time, he shook the metallic sphere next to Daniel¡¯s ears in an attempt to demonstrate his point.

    The owner of the booth looked at Daniel with an embarrassed face, and said "I bought this sphere in lot at an auction.. It¡¯s just a decoration, but I believe there is a broken piece inside. I think your.." he then stopped for a moment, and after looking back at the kid, he added "..your son must have gotten it wrong."

    Daniel did not bother to correct the man, and said "How much is it?"

    With a lightning fast speed, the merchant grabbed the piece of paper which showed the price of the sphere, and with the excuse of checking the number written in it, he hid it. He then said "The objects was auctioned by the daughter of a family of rich merchants. While their name is worth nothing anymore, the items they possessed were beautiful and precious. Twenty perfect crystals is the price of this item."

    In the time the man had used his immortal cultivation at the seventh stage to instantly cover the price of the item, Daniel had easily been able to look at the actual price, and notice that it was a tenth of what the merchant was asking.

    Noticing how Daniel was dressed, and how he was allowing Virgil to grab objects and y with them however he wanted, he had fallen into the wrong impression that Daniel was a mercenary with a soft spot for his son.. So he decided to increase the asking price in hope that this young father, with a cultivation which he felt was at the peak fifth stage, could not be faster than him.

    A faint smile formed on the corners of Daniel¡¯s lips, as he said "I will give you what you have asked, but whatever is inside it, he keeps it."

    Externally, the man was smiled politely back at Daniel, but internally, he was calling him an idiot, and was happy to have sold something at ten times the original price.

    "Of course." he responded.

    After making sure of the agreement, Daniel gave twenty perfect crystals to the merchant, and just as he was about to leave with virgil, he felt his small hand tap on his right arm. Daniel turned to look at him, and noticed that he was holding two different objects in his hands. One of them was the sphere, now torn out of its former shape.. And the other object, was a small translucent pearl.

    What Daniel had felt was odd about that metallic sphere, was the fact that from it, all he could feel was simple metal essence.. But if there was something broken inside this sphere, he should have felt two different parts which were not attached to each other.

    His first thought was that the sphere was a filled with metal, but the inscriptions and moving object inside made him curious.

    Apparently, his hunch was correct, as the seemingly useless object was in fact a puzzle in the shape of a sphere, and its purpose, was to work as a safe for whatever was inside it.

    When the merchant, and most of the people close by saw the pearl in the kid¡¯s hand, their eyes opened wide in surprise. What was important about this pearl was not what it was, but the feel that it emanated.. A feel that only spatial containers had.

    Virgil left the pearl on Daniel¡¯s palm, and went back into focusing on the sphere.. Which he assembled back into its original state, before disassembling it one more time.

    Daniel observed the pill for a few moments, and after making sure that there was nothing wrong with it, he pushed part of his consciousness inside it, and took one of the objects stored inside. A momentter, he was holding a light blue gem the size of a fingernail, which emanated a thick natural water essence.

    "..what.."

    "Isn¡¯t that.."

    "No way.."

    Numerous voices could be hearding from the crowd, but the most shocked of them all, was the merchant himself, which knew exactly what this items was.. With a mouth opened to its limits, he pointed at the gem on Daniel¡¯s palm, and shouted "THAT¡¯S A FUCKING WATER GEM!!"

    Unaware of what a water gem was, Daniel ignored the man¡¯s screams, and put the light blue gem back into the small bead, then tapped on Virgil¡¯s shoulder, and prepared to walk away... but from behind him, the merchant shouted "Hey! You can¡¯t leave like that! I didn¡¯t know the content of the item! GIVE IT BACK!"

    Without turning around, Daniel said "You have gotten ten times the price of the object for whatever was inside. Just take the loss." then tried to walk out of the marketce, as he had already attracted enough attention and he did not wanted to cause a scene before even getting to do what he was here to do.. But before he could go far, the crowd around him thickened.

    Daniel looked around, and quickly noticed the intentions of the majority of the individuals that blocked his path.. Which while wearing faces of righteousness and pride, their thoughts expressed somethingpletely different.

    Virgil, which now had managed topose the sphere back together, looked around and began to panic.. He started to remember the day when a much smaller group of people had attacked him and his brother.. And since he did not know the vastity of Daniel¡¯s powers, he believed that history was about to repeat itself.

    However, his increasingly chaotic state of mind was interrupted by Daniel¡¯s hand, which pressed gently on his head.

    When Virgil turned to look at Daniel, he saw the personification of calmness.

    "What can I help you gentlemen with in this fine morning?" Daniel asked while putting his other hand into his pocket, and crossing his legs carelessly.

    "You have to give what you¡¯ve taken back.." Said the guard of one of the other individuals that were browsing for items, and that had approached after realizing what Daniel had found.

    "Yeah!.. Theft is punishable by death." Added a bald man in heavy armor, and ck cape.

    While saying these words, these individuals all had the same idea in mind. To force Daniel to give the item back, and then find a way to steal it from the merchant.. While instead, the merchant was looking at the oddly helpful people with doubt.

    Daniel ignored the crowd that formed around him, and said to Virgil out loud "Not every person who wants to attack you is capable of hurting you.. Look at these idiots, they don¡¯t know what is toe.. You get to feel fear only when you can¡¯t prevent your opponent from doing what he wants to do.. So, what do you do in order to lower the chance of it happening?"

    Virgil became pensive for a few moments, then formed three symbols with his small hands. Their meaning was "You get stronger.."

    Daniel smiled with satisfaction, then disappeared from where he was standing.

    When he reappeared, there was no trace of battle on his body, and he was showing a casual expression and fingernails sharpened by metal. A few of the people with the worst thoughts were now lying on the ground unconscious, while the ones that were not as aggressive, found themselves with their armors unbuckled, and hanging from their body. The straps that kept the pieces of armor together were cut cleanly.

    The entire duration was counted in single two digit moments, and the numerous greedy warriors had barely been able to see Daniel disappear before they found themselves on the ground, or stripped of their enchanted armors.

    While ignoring the terrified looks of the people around him, Daniel kneeled next to Virgil, and said "There was a time when cultivators became stronger just in order to pursue power.. But in the end, that is a mentality that only a few people have.. The real reason people cultivate, is to lower their chance of being killed." After finishing to give his lesson to Virgil, Daniel turned to look at the merchant, and asked "Still want the item back?"

    "No.." responded the merchant with mixed emotions. Daniel¡¯s words had given him a lot to think.. While the water gem were extremely precious.. Even if he got it back, he would never have the power to keep them. To him, it was better to be happy about his small earnings, and avoid trouble.

    Suddenly, Aeron appeared next to Daniel, and without even looking around, he said "I have found it."

    "Great.. Just in time.. Mind taking care of this?" Asked Daniel after turning to look at Aeron¡¯s masked face.

    Aeron finally turned around, and noticed the dozens of cultivatorsying on the ground unconscious, and trembling in fear. They had barely survived an encounter that they themselves had instigated.

    "Sure.." responded Aeron as his eyes began to glow of a brilliant green color.

    From the point of view of the crowd, they had suddenly found themselves either injured or undressed, and regrouped in a square within the marketce. They couldn¡¯t remember anything that had happened in the past two minutes, and had no idea how they had gotten there. The only thing of which they were all in agreement of, was how painful the splitting headache that they all felt, was.

    -----

    Later that day, Daniel, Aeron and Virgil went to visit thepany which Aeron had picked..

    The three went through the entrance of a massive and majestic building, above which was a banner where the words ¡¯Bidding Arena Auction House¡¯ were painted clearly. The building was guarded by powerful cultivators, and people came and went from its entrance in constant streams. It was clear that an auction was going to take ce soon.

    Once in, Daniel approached the counter while smiling politely.

    "Good evening sir, would you like to purchase a seat for the auction? We do not have three sequential seats, but we do have three spots, and two free private booths in the balconies." Said the young man after noticing an approaching Daniel.

    Daniel waved his arm slightly, before cing them on the counter, and saying "I am not here to buy, just to sell. Can you get someone who can evaluate an item for me?"

    "Of course. What kind of object would you like to sell, Sir?"

    "An alchemical recipe." Responded Daniel with a casual tone.

    "One moment please." Said the young man before calling for a second young man that was waiting by the side, and asking him to call for the elder that dealt with alchemical objects.

    After a couple of minutes, the young man came out of one of the doors behind the counter along with an old woman, which looked at Daniel with a fair amount of doubt, and said "You wish to put an alchemical recipe in the auction?"

    Her doubt was caused by the fact that Daniel did not look at all like an alchemist, and therefore must be one of those inexperienced mercenaries that are cheated out of their pay by being given worthless recipe, and that hoped to make money out of them by selling them.

    "I am. Is there a more private ce we can go to?" Asked Daniel after noticing therge number of people around him.

    The woman did not seemed too convinced, and just as she was about to ask Daniel not to make her waste time, she noticed two bright green lightsing from behind the mask that the man behind Daniel was wearing. For a moment she was confused, but then, she shook her doubts off of her head, and said "Please, follow me."

    She slowly lead Daniel into a private room, and then, after inviting Daniel to take a seat, she sat in the couch opposite to him, and divided by a coffee table. "So, what is the recipe that you wish to auction?" She asked with newly found impatience.

 Chapter 289 We Have Been Found

    "Ladies and gentlemen, WELCOME!" Said a man with a handlebar mustache and dressed in a red jacket, ck pants, and a ck high top hat. He was the auctioneer of the event, and was standing on a stage in the middle of a massive arena, next to a small wooden pir.

    After making sure that he had the attention of the participants of the event, he added "Let me remind you, ording to the rules of the House of Merchants, violence is severely prohibited.. and the buyers of an object will be protected as long as they¡¯ll reside within our lovely Golden Nugget. After all, we are merchants.. Not bandits."

    The merchant faction was made so that money would be able to generate power.. However, in order to prevent one family to start wars with one another like it happened during the faction¡¯s earlier days, and protect this capitalistic paradise, strict rules had to be followed. The most important rule, was that people were prohibited from stealing or robbing the objects of another person.

    At first, the faction had existed just like a normal, yet massivepany.. but due to itsck of leadership, constant wars amongst the armies of mercenary hired by he merchants would start almost every day. With time, these conflicts were causing the weakening of both the mercenary faction, and the merchant faction.

    In the end, the two factions had formed an agreement. The mercenary faction would be able to decide which group to assign for each job that came from the merchant faction, and at the same time, the mercenary groups would have to refuse the jobs that required them to attack any of the powers within the merchant faction.

    That way, the merchants would be unable to wage war against each other, and the numbers of both factions would stop dropping, along with their faction¡¯s overall power.

    This system was not perfect, and it didn¡¯t stop the families from acting in the shadow, but if a family was caught killing and stealing, they would be outcasts. While not the type of outcast which one was allowed to put a bounty on to the universal government, they would lose all of the support of the faction, and if a single powerful individual decided to destroy them, no one would move a finger to stop them.

    The entire system worked on coboration, and if one piece of the engine stopped working properly, it would be removed, and reced.

    "Now that we have gone through the rules.. Let¡¯s start the with tonight¡¯s event!" Said the auctioneer with a joviant tone, and shy movements. "The first item.. Is.."

    -----

    Sitting in one of the private booths on the second floor, were Daniel, Aeron, and Virgil.

    "What is this ce?" Asked Virgil in his mind. From observing Daniel, he had understood that the show they were witnessing was important, and therefore, he did not wish to distract him.

    Nevertheless, Daniel turned to look at him, and said "This is an auction house. Works as a shop, but instead of buying an object at a fixed price, you have topete against the other participants by bidding."

    Virgil appeared interested.. And seemed to be enjoying the surprise factor that the revealing of each objects brought to the faces of the audience.. But since this auction was different whenpared to the others, Daniel decided to correct his train of thoughts. "You have heard the rules.. Why do you think there is such a rule?" He asked.

    Virgil thought about it for a moment, then responded by saying "Because it¡¯s the right thing to do.. You buy an item, and that item is yours.. You shouldn¡¯t steal it."

    "True.. but why did he need to specify that.. If even you can understand that.. Why does he have to remind it to all of these people?"

    These words were enough to turn Virgil¡¯s expression from one of enjoyment, into one of realization. There was only one reason why one had to remind a person not to do something as obvious as stealing.. If people did not have enough money to buy the items they wanted, in this form of event, they would be able to know where to find it for free once the event was over.

    To Daniel, it was important that Virgil understood that being safe in this sort of events was not a given.. But an exception.. Even if that meant stopping him from enjoying it.

    The auction went on for a few hours, which the three of them spent observing in silence. The objects put for auction were mostly high level enchanted weapons, overpriced thomes, and items which Daniel would not be able to afford even if he was interested in them.

    "This was thest item of the evening!, but do not leave yet. We have an announcement for you." Said the man in an attempt to regain the attention of the already leaving crowd.

    Seeing that only a portion of them turned to look back at him in interest, the auctioneer added "Feel free to leave, but you will lose a colossal opportunity!"

    Caught by the words of the auctioneer, a few individuals stopped and went to sit back in their original seats.

    The reason why so many individuals were leaving the venue in haste, was because the city was massive, and there would be hundreds of auctions all around it each and every day. Most people had a set schedule for the day, and the moment thest of the objects was auctioned, they would reach the next one.. only leaving one of their men to pay, and retrieve the object they had purchased.

    "It is a pity that more than half of our participants already left.. But that is probably for the better.. Because the less people there is here, the more money you will earn from this deal.." Said the auctioneer with an enticing tone.

    "Can we get this done with, every second wasted here will mess our schedule further!"

    ".. that¡¯s right, enough with the greasing.. Just tell us what it is."

    The participants were starting to get irritated, but before any of them could leave, the auctioneer patiently began to exin.

    What Daniel needed the most at the moment, were cultivation resources. Sewah had emptied all of his rings, and cultivated as if his crystals were made out of air.. So he had no choice but to sell one of the items in his possession which he was sure would fetch a high price.

    This item, was the recipe low level poison immunity pill.

    While for the other factions this item was extremely valuable, for the mercenary and merchant factions, it was priceless.. After all, those who needed the immunity to poisons the most, weren¡¯t the cultivators of the other factions who would spend the majority of their time cultivating, but those who often came into contact with poisonous nts, beasts, or objects.. specifically, merchants and mercenaries.

    To make aparison, selling a poison immunity pill recipe to a cultivator from any other faction, was like selling bandages to a librarian in case he cut himself with paper.. On the other hand, selling it to somebody from the merchant or mercenary factions, was like selling bandages to the army.

    Furthermore, while the pill was only of a low level, the territories of the merchant¡¯s and mercenary¡¯s factions were immense.. And even if there were a hundred people that decided to purchase it from Daniel, there was still enough ground for everybody.. Even if they split the territory of the faction evenly, they would be able to earn an immense amount of money.

    After listening to the words of the Auctioneer, half of the remaining merchants stood up and left. Even if they believed the words of the man, Daniel had decided not to put the item for auction, and therefore he nned on setting the price himself. When something like that happened, the price would usually be sky high.

    Left in thepany of the interested parties, the auctioneer nodded at the guards that were standing next to the entrance of the hall, which immediately closed the door shut.

    As soon as the doors were closed, Daniel appeared on the stage right next to the auctioneer, who introduced him to the potential customers by saying "This is the owner of the recipe.. Mister Hiel."

    In the middle of the small crowd, were two individuals who recognized Daniel immediately. They were a young woman, and a young man who Daniel knew as the owner of the booth from which he wanted to buy a few books for Virgil from, and her suitor.. The son of a rich merchant which happened to have brought the girl here so that he could spend time with her.

    After making sure that the attention of everyone was directed at him and Daniel, the Auctioneer said "The house¡¯s role is that of the middle men. Those interested in the deal will hand the payment over to us, and will receive the recipe from Mister Hiel. After everyone will have a recipe, Mister Hiel will demonstrate the validity of the recipe, and after confirming that the recipe is legitimate, he will receive the payment, minus our cut. Is that clear?"

    The auctioneer waited for the customers to agree.. And once he received a nod from thest of these merchants, he said "Very well.. The price is.. Five hundred million perfect crystals."

    The extremelyrge amount of money left the minds of the merchants presentpletely nk. Five hundred million was the revenue that an extremely wealthy family earned in a year.. And it was not something that could be spent on a whim.

    Naturally, the auctioneer had expected this. So he said "The recipe will not be sold to any other merchant of he merchant faction aside from those who are willing to buy it today. The entirepetition for the pills¡¯ market, is within this room.. Think carefully about the numbers."

    It took a few minutes for these greedy merchants to make their calction, and understand that this was a high-end investment, and that if hey yed their cards right, they would be able to recover the money spent rtively soon. However, the majority of them still decided to leave for various reasons.

    Of the hundred interested merchants, only a dozen were left in the room.. And amongst them, was the young cultivator which Daniel had met before.

    "Splendit. Let¡¯s proceed."

    The following hour was spent counting the crystals, and demonstrating the validity of the recipe.

    Once confirming that the recipe was in fact real, the merchants approached Daniel in an attempt to interact with him. They wanted to know if he possessed other valuable recipes that he wished to sell, but unfortunately for them, they did not possess anything which Daniel had a need of.. So they had no choice but leave with what they had earned.

    "Mister Hiel.." Said the owner of the booth while bowing graciously. She was standing next to the young cultivator nervously and looking at Daniel in awe.

    While he did not like how the girl looked at Daniel, the young cultivator¡¯s spirit was that of a merchant.. So, in the eventuality that there would be other trades between the two of them, the young cultivator had decided to approach peacefully along with the girl.

    Daniel did not have a bad opinion of this man. The first time he had seen him, he had thought that he was one of those rich individuals who could not ept being rejected, but after approaching the booth, he was able to hear his thoughts, and had realized that he was a man in love, which could not bear for the girl he loved to not love him back.

    The three chatted casually, until the Auctioneer approached Daniel by the side, and handed over to him as many ring as there were customers. "Mister Hiel, these are yours. We have already taken our part, so do not worry about it."

    "Very well, our business is concluded then." Said Daniel while taking the rings, and putting them into his spatial ring with enthusiasm. This amount of wealth was more than he had ever seen, and it wouldst him for a very long time.

    Not willing to stay any longer, he bid farewell, and reminded to the young girl that he woulde over to take the books.. But just as he was about to leave along with Aeron and Virgil.. A blinding green light shone through the windows of the auction house.

    "What is that green light?"

    "It¡¯s so warm.."

    The spectators looked at the light with amazement and curiosity.. but Daniel and Aeron were extremely serious.

    "We have been found.." Aeron muttered from behind his mask.

    While to everybody else this light looked like an odd and interesting event.. Daniel and Aeron were more than aware of what the source of it wass.. The feeling of purifying warmth.. regal mes.. Xargy¡¯s me.

    "I am afraid I won¡¯t be able to retrieve those books, after all.."

 Chapter 290 A Violent Family Reunion Part 1

    The sky was painted by a lively green color which poured out of a point in the middle, and partially veiling the.. making it appear like an infinite expanse of moving grass. However, for how beautiful the scenery was, the strongest cultivators within the could feel the danger that this stunning green sky brought along with its beauty.

    In the point in space where these waves of green colored mes gushed out from, was Xargy, whose size was at thergest he could expand his body to.. Sign that he was going all out.

    Floating in space just a few kilometers away, were two individuals covered by ck hooded robes. Xargy¡¯s mes were unable to reach them, as when they would reach the hundred meters away from the two, they would stop.

    To an inexperienced cultivator, it looked like there was a shield that was protecting the two cultivators.. But to the eyes of an expert, it was clear that some sort of power was corroding Xargy¡¯s mes the very moment they reached a certain distance from these two individuals.

    "To think that I would see a dragon today.. I was hoping for it.. But I did not expect that you would be following him. I have always wondered why my brother was so obsessed with your kin.." Said one of the two cultivators from underneath hisrge, and dark hood. The power that was defending him and hispanion from Xargy¡¯s mes was his, and it did not appear that its constant usage was exerting him in the least.

    Xargy looked at these two ck-robed cultivators with narrowed eyes, and said "I have no idea what you are talking about. I am just your usual dragon.. Floating around in space. What is so odd about that?" He then turned to look at the more quiet cultivator, and added "If we were to be pick an odd scenario.. What about a children of Iewah that travels along with one of the natures of poison?.. That sounds much more interesting to me."

    The fact that Xargy could recognize the faction of an individual instantly, was always a surprise at first. The sense of smell of the Dragons was legendary, but in truth, it was much more powerful than people imagined. So much so, that he had smelled the scent of the old woman he had fought months before on the body of the quiet cultivator.. And that was despite the fact that the two members of the Garden of Death had only briefly met once when he was a kid.

    "We are looking for yourpanion.. Dragon." Said the quiet cultivator while taking his hood off, and showing his face. He was, of course, the son of the man that lead the highest members of the Garden of Death.. While hispanion was the chosen of Iewah that wielded the poisonous system, and was known as the Toxic.. His real name, however, was Kennah.

    Xargy knew perfectly well that he was at a disadvantage. While he was extremely resistant to poisons, and he would probably be able to face the powerful poison of the cultivator of the Garden of Death, he was not so sure about the strength of the two, which was higher.. As well as the magnitude of the powers that Kennah could wield.

    For now, the two observed as Xargy covered the area with his mes in an attempt to prevent his surroundings from filling with their poisons.

    "I got tired of the two, and ate them. What can you do.. Hehe." Said Xargy while huffing and puffing clouds of dark green smoke, which immediately dissipated in the surrounding space.

    "Very well.. Allow me to check the content of your stomach then.." Said the Toxic as arge green bow appeared in his hand.. He then moved it in front of his chest, and without even putting an arrow in it, he pulled the string as much as his arms allowed him to.

    The more his right elbow moved backwards, the more the poison in the surroundings waspressed in the shape of an arrow.. And reducing the size of the area which was protecting them by Xargy¡¯s mes.

    Right when the protection was only a thinyer of imprable poison.. The Toxic let go on the string of the bow.. Causing the arrow to explode forwards with enough power to dissipate the mes in its path.

    Despite the power of the arrow, its advance was rtively slow. The existence of the poison was unable to live with the existence of the mes, so its advancement was slowed by them. Nevertheless, the mes had no chance to resist.. And were corroded into nothingness in moments.

    Unsure whether he could defend or escape from this arrow, Xargy breathed in deeply, increasing the heath inside his massive lungs, and causing the crevices in between his scales to glow with a bright green color.. And breathed out a concentrated column of fire directed at the iing arrow.

    While the arrow had found no obstacle in the surrounding mes, this attack was different.. And was able to slow the arrow down greatly.. But notpletely. Xargy could feel the state of his mes.. And he knew that their heat was simply dying the attack, and not countering it, instead of nullify it.. He was in trouble.

    The arrow wasmanded by the poisonous system, and it was not something that could be put to an halt.. Even if xargy was able to slow its motion, the moment he stopped interfering with it, the arrow would regain its lost speed, and reach him in the blink of an eye.

    This opposite game of tug of war was quicklying to an end, as Xargy was unable to breathe out any longer.. So after a few seconds.. The arrow managed to push through his defence, and head towards his main body.

    Fully avoiding the arrow was impossible, so in a desperate attempt, he waved his wing with enough power to shatter the space in front of the arrow¡¯s tip.. Unfortunately, the only effect that this action had caused, was for the arrow to be deviated slightly.. Causing it to prate the thumb of his wing.

    While Xargy had survived the attack, he wasn¡¯tpletely unscathed. The part of the wing touched by the arrow was rotting at a speed visible to the eye, and it would reach the rest of the body in about a minute.

    Of one thing he was certain.. If his body wasn¡¯t made of extremely hard scales and flesh, the spreading would have taken seconds.

    With no time left to waste, Xargy looked with hate at the hooded son of Iewah, and growled out "You want it.." He then turned his head around, and bit the base of his wing.

    *CRUNCH* *SQUELCH* *SNAP*

    With the immense power of his massive jaw and sharp teeth, he directly ripped his own wing off from the base.. Causing enormous amounts of blood to float in space like head-sized beads. He then threw it away with a snap of his neck, and said "..Take it then.."

    Kennah, slightly taken aback from Xargy¡¯s determination, looked at him with respect, and said "Truly worthy of being a royal dragon.. Do it again." His hands then moved one more time, and as the string of the bow was pulled once again, five arrows appeared in it.

    Xargy¡¯s massive yellow eyes opened in worry, and instead of attempting to counter the his arrows, he disappeared within the massive field of green mes.

    "I thought dragons were too proud to run away.." Said the Toxic while looking around.

    "Most dragons aren¡¯t as intelligent as I am.." said a voice that came from multiple directions around the two.

    The Toxic smiled from underneath his hood, and said "If you were so smart, you would have tried to escape already.." He then pointed his arrow upwards and let go of the string of the bow, causing the five arrows to be shot at a speed that easily broke the limits of what sight was able to perceive.

    A moment after being shot, these five arrows curved and dashed towards a specific point in space. There, a slightly morepact clump of green mes was hiding.

    "Fuck.." muttered Xargy after noticing the approaching arrows. He then used all of the power he possessed to avoid them, but as he moved, the trajectory of the arrows changed as well.

    Left with no other choice, Xargy moved his only remaining wing in front of him massive body, and prepared for the impact..

    But that impact, never happened.

    When he moved his wing out of the way, he noticed a massive portal which separated him and the two cultivators. Floating in between him and this portal, were the familiar figures of Daniel and Aeron.

    The arrows had disappeared into the portal, but as they dashed through, they had left a portion of the poison in it, which spread in seconds and turned the the dark patch of space into a pool of colorless poison.

    "I assume you two are looking for me.." Said Daniel after letting go over the control of his immortal essence, and force it to dissipate. He was ready to use Karmic Retribution of the two individuals at any time, but unfortunately, while the one who he suspected to be one of Iewah¡¯s children possessed a terrifyingly high negative karma, the other was closer to neutral, and if he were to use Karmic Retribution on him, he would spend half of his karma in order to force an event that could possibly do nothing to him.

    The three of them needed to escape, and talking was the only way that Daniel could think of to earn some time to formte a n.

    "We actually never looked for you.. I knew exactly where you would be.. If you know what I mean." Said Kennah in a teasing manner. Just like Daniel, he was in the possession of one of Iewah¡¯s gifts, and therefore, was extremely resourceful.. To a point where finding each other waspletely possible to all of them if they wished to. The only reason why he hadn¡¯t attacked yet, was because he did not know what Daniel¡¯s power was.

    The true problem with Iewah¡¯s gifts, was that they would work regardless of how powerful their enemies were. For example, Daniel¡¯s system was able to exploit a person¡¯s karma.. And while that action¡¯s effects could be prevented with the target¡¯s power, the magnitude of the effect was beyond anyone¡¯s control.

    For that reason, some of the children of Iewah were deemed terrifying beings.. The ones who appeared in the nightmares of their enemies were those whose gift had something to do with powers outside of a person¡¯s control.. Powers from which nobody could escape from, like time, and death.

    "What can I help you with, brother?" asked Daniel calmly, pretending to be Sewah.

    "I have heard that you like alchemy and poison making.. So I thought that we should meet.. I could teach you something.."

    "So nice of you. However I will have to pass.. I left a soup on the fire, and have cleaning to do.." Said Daniel while feigning a disappointed expression.

    Fed up with the messing around of the two, the elite of the Garden of Death finally burst out in rage, and shouted "ENOUGH! You have already caused enough problems for my faction.. You areing with me.. Willingly or not."

    After he finished speaking, two ck knives appeared in his hands, and he teleported just a few meters away from Daniel. His spatialprehension was not as deep as Daniel¡¯s, and therefore, he wasn¡¯t able to take control over a space he couldn¡¯t understand.

    Xargy immediately breathed out a wave of green mes in order to prevent the member of the Garden of Death to get any closer, but this column of scorching hot mes were forced to dissipate by an arrow that pierced through it, and reached his talon.

    "I am still your enemy.." Said Kennah with a threatening tone.

    Daniel and Aeron were too weak to put up a fight, so aside from trying to keep their distance, there was nothing that they could do. At the same time, Xargy used his sharp ws to cut off his poisoned Talon before the poison could spread.

    Their retreat onlysted for a few moments, after which the member of the Garden of Death managed to get to arm¡¯s reach from Daniel..

    However, just as he moved his arm forward, and was about to grab his Daniel¡¯s arm and inject his poison in his body, a shadowy hand came out of his own sleeve, and grabbed his neck.

 Chapter 291 A Violent Family Reunion Part 2

    Of all of the fighters that were taking part in the fight, the one who was the most excited about was, without a doubt, Kennah. While his entire being was centered around the use of poisons, that was only due to his personality and desires. He was also an adventurous, and yet bored individual.

    For a very long time he had looked for somebody with whom he could have a good fight, or for events which he had never witnessed before, and that day, was the day in which many of his desires had be reality.

    His wish to fight against his siblings was visceral, and after learning that not only was one of his friends looking for one, but that he was an outcast, and that he traveled along with a dragon, he had decided to disregard the rules ced by Iewah, and use his powers to help in the search for Daniel.

    Xargy was not his opponent, but he certainly was a sight to see.. His size was immense, and his power could rival that of mid-high level elite members of most factions. Furthermore, his oddly colored mes and his ability to transform in human form, revealed that he was not amon dragon, but a member of the royal family.

    His fight against this massive and powerful dragon was but a way to spend time. It was Daniel¡¯s arrival that had brightened his day once again.

    Unfortunately, for how much he wanted to fight against his younger brother, Daniel¡¯sck of physical power due to his young age had made it impossible for the two of them topete.

    He was extremely confident in the power of his gift, and he did not believe that Daniel¡¯s could be more powerful.. So he decided to entertain himself with Xargy instead of Daniel.. As the former could at least hope to put up a fight.

    All of that had changed once again when his fighting spirit was lit up more than ever. He had felt the power of another of his brothers the very moment a hand hade out of hispanion¡¯s sleeve and grabbed his neck.

    But that, was not all..

    His heart began to rumble like thunder, as the presence of one more of his brothers appeared during each of its beats. First, was the shadowy hands that attacked hispanion.. Second, was a man in nobleman¡¯s clothes and covered in jewels.. Andstly, was a man d in heavy armor, a golden cape, and with a crown on his head.

    "..Now we are talking.. haha.." muttered Kennah with excitement.

    From being an already rare encounter between two of the youngest children of Iewah and their followers, this event had turned into one of the historically most feared events within the territory of the Universal Government.

    Such an encounter would usually culminate in wars that wouldst for years, pulling numerous factions into gctic level conflicts, and be talked about for tens of thousands of years.. An event feared by most factions, and known by the highest spheres of the numerous factions as a "Family Reunion".

    If the five children of Iewah were any older, and the family reunion was between the strongest of Iewah¡¯s faction, the war that would have ensued would have forced the intervention of numerous factions and the universal government itself just to be stopped.

    "What are you doing here?" Asked the Ruler to Kennah with narrowed eyes. The two had never met each other, and yet, from a single look, he was able to recognize him as his own kind, just like Kennah had felt them when they had appeared.

    "Just happened to pass by.. But now I am kind of d that I did.." Said Kennah while looking at the two individuals that were floating in Xargy¡¯s green mes,pletely unscathed.

    The body of the Ruler was covered by what appeared to be a small division of soldiers which formed an imprable shell around him with their shields. Their expression assured that they would rather die than allow any attack to reach through, and hit their king.

    On the other hand, the body of the Rich Man was covered by the transparent figure of a golden boar whose tusk were long and curved outwards, and fur formed a tapestry of golden and silver colors.

    The two really wanted to jump in the fray.. But the encounter with their father had reminded them who was inmand, allowing them to focus on their mission and coborate.

    "Poison brother, we were sent here by our father.. How about you sit this one out?" Said the Rich Man while smiling politely, and looking like a wealthy merchant that was trying to make everyone happy, and avoid the situation from going out of control.

    "I am afraid I won¡¯t be able to do that.. I couldn¡¯t care less about what the old man wants. I will kill all of you, and go kill him once I am done here." Responded Kennah while pinching the string of his bow, and forming eight arrows with his poison.

    While the Rich Man shook his head in disappointment, the ruler unsheathed a sword from an imaginary sheath ced by his waist, and after pointing it upwards, he said with the voice of a king meeting his opponent in battle "Let¡¯s see if your poison can assassinate this king."As soon as these words reached the ears of the people present, an army of heavily armored warriors appeared in the area around him.

    These warriors were identical to the Ruler, but their armor appeared to be of a lower level. They were the Ruler¡¯s subjects, and royal army.

    Just as the three children of Iewah were about to engage in battle, a few dozens of kilometers away, the elite member of the Garden of Death was struggling with the grip that the Shadow had on his neck.

    The power of the grip was not the problem, since the level of his cultivation was slightly higher than his opponent, and therefore, he couldn¡¯t choke him to death even if he wanted to. The real problem, was the feeling of being pulled into a dimension to which he did not belong to.

    Unfortunately, no matter how much he tried to cover himself with poison, or to use his sheer strength to shatter the Shadow¡¯s arm.. His attacks did not appear able to hurt his opponent in the least.

    After a few moments of panic, he finally managed to calm down and realize the nature of the attack, so he grabbed the sleeve from which the dark hand wasing from with his other hand, and ripped it offpletely.

    It was only after he let of of the sleeve and he turned to look at Daniel, that he felt a sharp paining from the center of his spine. He looked down in horror, and noticed that there was a dark fuming sword that had pierced through his back, and hade out from his chest. The sword hade out from a small shadow present in the floating sleeve which he had just ripped off of his clothes.

    While fighting against the Ruler and the Rich Man, Kennah was also keeping an eye out for the Shadow. He had heard of the nicknames of the three before, and thanks to the information gathered by the individuals who had survived an encounter with them, he able to guess what their power were.

    He knew that the powers of the two he was fighting were highly defensive, which were the the extreme opposite of his.. So he had already prepared to use different means of fighting than simply pushing through their defenses thanks to his gift.

    "KNEEL TO YOUR KING!" Said the Ruler with a domineering tone, forcing Kennah over an imaginary tform above which he could not help but kneel down to.

    At the same time, the upper body of an enormous old man in merchant¡¯s clothes had appeared around the Rich Man. This old man kept his hands opened, and with his palms facing upwards..

    On one of his palms, was a copy of Kennah¡¯s figure.

    This ability was different from the scale that he had used against the Shadow during their first encounter. Instead of destroying his enemy with the weight of a better offer, this ability allowed him to increase the price on one hand of the merchant, to a point where the enemy would not be able to match.. Forcing him to give up other things of value..

    Kennah was unable to understand this at first, but after one of his arms was ripped off in order to match the offer of precious stones ced by the Rich Man, an idea of how the ability worked made its way into his head.

    He was still unable to stand up, and he knew that hispanion was having problems against the third of his brothers, so without waiting any longer, he turned towards the Ruler, and said "The nobles are plotting against you.. They will try to overthrow you.. They will kill your family, and destroy your family."

    The expression of the Ruler turned from one of dignity, into one of confusion, rage.. And finally, paranoia. He then turned to look at the Rich Man with eyes filled with hatred.

    While the state of mind 0f the Ruler changed, Kennah turned to look at the Rich Man, and said with a tone ofplicity "Your king is trying to eliminate the nobility.. He will take your money, turn the army against you.. He will frame you, and call you a traitor."

    Simrly to the Ruler, the expression on the face of the Rich Man became one of paranoia and anger. He then turned to look at hispanion, and said "After all of the support that I have given you! How could you do this to me!!"

    The abilities that were keeping Kennah in check, were quickly dispelled, and the two formerpanions began to fight against each other.

    Since he would not be able to break through the defences of the two in a short amount of time, the only Kennah had, was to poison their minds.

    The gifts of the Ruler and the Rich Man were powerful, but they also had a clear weakness. Just like a person immune to all poisons would not need to fear Kennah¡¯s gift, and someone without karma would not need to fear Daniel, all of the other systems had their own weakness.

    To be betrayed was the fear of any king, while the fear of a Rich Man, was for someone more powerful than them to unfairly take away their wealth.

    Once free, Kennah pointed his bow at the sleeve from which the sword that had pierced hispanion¡¯s chest had appeared, and with it, he shot a single arrow as thin as a needle.

    This arrow pierced through space like aet, and after it made contact with the sword, a few small beads of blood began toe out of the shadow within the sleeve, and float in space aimlessly.

    Forced to retreat, the Shadow let go of the sword, which was immediately dissipated by the light reflected by the¡¯s atmosphere.

    A big smile formed on Kennah¡¯s face, but just as he was about to look for his next opponent, numerous small hands holding small knives came out from every tiny shadows formed by the crevices of his clothes.. And in a matter of instants, pierced his body.

    The elite member of the Garden of Death, now free, used hisprehension of healing essence to cure his deadly injury.. He then looked around in search of Daniel, but the moment he saw him in the distance, he noticed a small piece of stoneing at him at an incredibly high speed.

    This stone was the size of a fist, and it was thrown by Daniel by using all the power he possessed.

    The appearance of three more children of Iewah, and the idea that his failure would mean the destruction of his faction, had already made the elite of the Garden of Death extremely anxious.. and Daniel¡¯s ridiculous attack was the straw that broke the camel¡¯s back.. So he said in anger "Stop fighting! Do you think I-" However, his words were interrupted by a shocking event.

    Just as the fist-sized rock was about to approach him, in an instant, it became big as a without losing any of its speed.

    The jaw of the elite member of the Garden of Death dropped as he was smashed by it. The four other children of Iewah were barely able to turn around, before they suffered the same fate, leaving them as four bodiesying down on the¡¯s surface, as the traveled through space for hundreds of thousands of kilometers per second.

    Unfortunately, that attack was not enough to kill any of the five..

    The fastest ones to recover were the Ruler and Kennah, which after recovering from the shock, were easily able to teleport away and reappear where the battle had taken ce..

    When they arrived, they saw a human sized rift from which a thick reptilian tail came out of, and Daniel and Aeron ready to enter it.

    "YOUR KING ORDERS YOU TO STOP!" Said the Ruler with a domineering tone in an attempt to prevent them from leaving.

    At the same time, Kennah whispered "If you enter that rift, you will nevere out alive.. Your friends will betray you.."

    Daniel¡¯s expressions began to change, and he were forced to kneel in submission.. But momentster, Aeron put an hand on Daniel¡¯s shoulder, and dispelled any form of mental control which the two had put on him.

    The two then entered the rift, and disappeared into the void.

 Chapter 292 When Plan A Fails..

    The void. A different form of space which superimposed over the space where most entities lived.

    Contrarily to normal space, the void was fragmented into pieces which grinded against one another chaotically. That constant grinding would then cause the space to fracture, and force rifts to open constantly.

    In order to help people understand how the void worked, the experienced cultivators that were able toprehend it, would describe it as a universe made of mirror shards.

    Just like the direction in which a mirror shard was pointing towards determined what a person would see reflected on it, each fragment of the void was connected to a point of the more stable space.

    The slightest motion of one fragment would force the ones it was in contact with to grind, causing a chain reaction that would propagate through the entire void for the the rest of eternity.

    In the course of the billions of years, the fragments of what was now the void had mixed and moved around.. And now, it was extremely difficult to move inside it without ending up being thrown into a rift, and being sent light years away from their previous position.

    When Daniel, Aeron, and Xargy entered the rift, they found themselves into a chaotic mess of shifting fragments, and dense spatial energy. If they hadn¡¯t been at their current level of cultivation, they would have likely been torn apart by the chaotic void just like the celestial bodies which used to fill the void a long time ago.

    This was the first encounter which Daniel had ever had with the void, so he was unable to travel inside it like a master of spatial essence could. The best he was capable of, was to use his fullprehension of space to stabilize the space around himself and hispanions in order to gain a bit of time before a random rift formed next to them, and forced them back into the normal space.

    Daniel¡¯s first reaction was to activate ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and to observe how the chaotic void worked.

    It didn¡¯t take long for him to associate the method to create spatial containers and pocket dimension, which were bubbles of stable spatial essence locked to an item present in the normal space, with the space the void which contained them.

    In a matter of seconds, Daniel had added the general understanding of the void to hisprehension of spatial essence, which allowed him to stabilize the area of space where he and his friends were floating with more ease.

    "So.. this is the void." Muttered Aeron with surprise. Despite his hundreds of years of life, and numerous battle experiences, he, along with Daniel and most other cultivators in the universe, had never seen the void personally.

    "Argh.. mhh.. Yes, it is.." Said Xargy while painfully turning into his human form. "There is a legend handed down by dragons that says that the void used to be another dimension, just like our normal space.. Withs and people living in it, but that a catastrophe caused it to shatter.. However I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s true"

    The three observed their surroundings for a few seconds, but no matter how much they looked around for, the only thing they were able to observe, was pure darkness.. Or so they thought.

    Aeron, still curious about the void, noticed a strange event take ce a few meters away from him. A small box of spatial essence was slowly forming. "Is that what I think it is?" He asked to the other two, which turned to look in the direction of the box.

    "Oh, that is a rare sight.. You don¡¯t often get to see the creation for a spatial container from the other side.." Responded Xargy with a faint smile and eyes filled with interest. He had read a lot about the void, and there wasn¡¯t much about its theory that he hadn¡¯t learned about.

    Unaware of the dangers of such an action, Aeron moved towards the small box of spatial essence and attempted to grab it, but before his fingers could touch its surface, Daniel shouted "Don¡¯t touch it!"

    "Why?"

    "It¡¯s already hard enough to keep this bubble of space stable.. What do you think would happen if your body was in a semi-stable void, the chaotic void, and normal space all at the same time?" Asked Daniel with closed eyes, and brows furrowed from irritation. He then added without waiting for Aeron to respond "You will be torn apart, that is what will happen."

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, Aeron cleared his throat in embarrassment, and moved his hand back. He was not aware of the strain that keeping the space around them stable was causing to Daniel, and therefore, he had erroneously believed the void to be not as dangerous of a ce.. Luckily, Daniel was more than aware of the truth, and had managed to stop him in time.

    "Okay, what do we do? How do we get out of here?"

    Finally, Daniel opened his eyes and turned to look at his twopanions. "Grab my shirt, and no matter what happens, do not let go of it." He said with an extremely serious tone.

    After Xargy and Aeron followed Daniel¡¯s instruction and grabbed the back of his shirt, Daniel shrunk the stabilized space in which the three were safely floating in, to a point where it became a simple and thinyer around their bodies.

    "From now on.. Don¡¯t move." He said before letting go over the control of space altogether, and force them to float in the void without any form of control or protection.

    The three remainedpletely still, until finally, Daniel flicked the tip of his middle finger. This small and almost unnoticeable action caused the fragment of void around the finger to move, and grind against the fragments to which it was in contact with.

    This grinding waspletely silent, and yet all three of them were able to feel it.. A trembling of their surrounding which caused their skin to crawl uncontrobly.. A thousand of small needle pricking their flesh.. And goosebumps all over their bodies. A few familiar feelings which, if felt for too long, would cause people to be disgusted by it.

    The unnoticeable motion traveled through the chaotic void in all directions with the three of them at the epicenter, and momentster, a crack from which a bright white light came through, began to form next to Daniel¡¯s finger.

    Bit by bit this crack becamerge, and in less than a minute, it was the size of a small scaled rift. Its length was about a meter, while its width was less than sixty centimeters.

    Daniel was ready to force this small rift open with another flick of his finger, but just as he was about to move, he felt a presence approach them from the distance.

    Suddenly, a memory emerged from the past. A remembrance of his first encounter with the void, the first time he had been in thepany of a dragon, and the time when he had managed to cause the appearance of one of the beings which lived within the void.

    Without waiting any longer, Daniel covered his hands in spatial essence, and used them to grab the two sides of the rift. He then forced it open enough for him and his friends to go through.

    Along with a bright white light, overwhelming heath was making is way into the void.. But whatever was on the other side of the rift was certainly not as dangerous as what was approaching from the distance, so Daniel dashed into the rift, and along with Xargy and Aeron, shifted back into normal space.

    "We need to move! We are too close to that star!" Shouted Aeron as the clothes on his body burned, his mask caught fire, and his skin began to sear.

    Xargy, which wasn¡¯t affected by the extreme heath in the least, grabbed the two and moved away with a mind boggling speed.

    Once the three were far enough from the star, Xargy and Aeron noticed that Daniel had been quiet, and was observing the rift that was dangerously close to the star.

    "What are you looking at? It will close back up in a bit." Said Xargy with a reassuring tone. But once he noticed that Daniel was ignoring him, he turned to look back at the rift, and noticed that there was something odd about it.

    What was odd about the rift, was that instead of bing smaller, it was getting bigger. "What is goin-" his curiosity was interrupted by the sight of a massive tentacle which came out of the rift, and waved casually through the space.

    Its motion was causing the rift to open further, but fortunately, after the massive tentacle moved too close to the burning hot star, it retreated into the now rift which closed right after.

    "Do I even want to know?" Asked Xargy with a dumbfounded expression. He knew that he was not a match for the being that had tried toe out of the rift, and yet, he hadn¡¯t felt his presence in the least despite how close it was to them.

    "I know less than you do." Responded Daniel calmly before closing his eyes, and trying to feel the presence of something in the distance.

    "What are you doing?"

    "They left..." muttered Daniel before opening his eyes, and turning towards his twopanions. "Let¡¯s go." he then added while grabbing their wrists and forcibly teleporting them away.

    When they reappeared, they were standing above a small sized asteroid which was dashing through space. This asteroid was of course Daniel¡¯s, and he could feel it and teleport himself on it at any moment, and from any point in space.

    Once back on his, Daniel let Virgil out of the small pocket dimension he had stored him in, and entered the small house while saying "n B it is then.."

    -----

    Alcazar, two dayster.

    "SIR! You won¡¯t believe this.." Said a judge while approaching the Grand Judge in hurry. He was holding a simple sheet of paper which was the cause of his worry.

    The moment the Grand Judge noticed the face of the Judge which he had charged with the job of keeping an eye on the Garden of Death, he immediately sprung up on his feet, and approached him while asking "What is it this time?"

    The judge said nothing and handed the sheet of paper over to him. On it, only a few sentences were written.

    _______________

    Dear Universal Government..

    I have had an interesting encounter with a member of the Garden of Death recently, but do not worry, I am safe and sound.. However, that little event forced me to realize that you didn¡¯t get my message. Perhaps I wasn¡¯t clear enough.. so I will try something different..

    I am traveling towards the territory of the Garden of Death. Once there, I will deliver the recipes of my low, mid, and high tier poison immunity pills to the first elite member of the Garden of Death I see.. for free!

    Yours truly (pissed), Daniel the Outcast.

    _______________

    "Damn it.." muttered the Grand Judge with a grim tone. What he had feared the very moment the elite members of the Garden of Death hade to see him to plea for forgiveness had happened. However, there was another feeling that was making its way inside his chest, and that feeling, was pure anger.

    He had vouched for the Garden of Death, and at the same time, they had tried to use his kindness to earn enough power to rival them.. In his mind, there wasn¡¯t pity for them anymore.

    "Do they know about this already?" Asked the Grand Judge to the Judge.

    The judge shook his head and said "No, it was just this one letter this time. It came up the ranks, and once it reached Judge Holek, she sent it to me, as she knew that I was in charge of controlling the Garden of Death."

    "Good.." responded the Grand Judge before turning to look back down at the letter, and saying "We can¡¯t afford to have someone ready to stab our back now.. Not while we are on the verge of going to war against a civilization as powerful as ours.. Send the army.. By tomorrow, a faction with the name Garden of Death won¡¯t exist anymore."

 Chapter 293 Companions Part 1

    Elementi, two weekster.

    In the gxy of origin of the Tyrants of Mana, was a called Elementi. This was the core of one of the factions that were part of the universal government, as well as the where the natural elements were the strongest in the known universe.

    The very was incredibly big.. So much so that no human could survive in its weaker state. All of the humans that inhabited it, were high level cultivators who focused on theprehension, and control over natural elemental mana.

    Contrarily to people¡¯smon belief, the leader of the Tyrants of Mana was not a single entity. The faction was one of the oldest to date, and had been founded by beings born from pure and naturalprehension of mana.. Elementals of the currently highest known level.

    Unlike most other civilization, the natives of the territory under the control of the elemental faction did not see the elementals as a form of resource that could be exploited. They were revered as gods of nature, from which humans had much to learn.

    During the hundreds of thousands of years of cohabitation, the elementals, unable to advance over the power that their nature of elementals allowed them to, had decided to teach the powers of the elements to a few talented humans. These humans would then be able to use these powers to protect, and fight for the faction that the elementals had created.

    That, was the nature and purpose of an elite member of the Tyrants of Mana.

    The method of creating an elite warrior of their faction was, however, a little moreplicated and expensive.. As it required for many hundreds of essence treasures to be used, amongst which was a perfect one.

    A powerful cultivator would be chosen to merge with theprehension and nature of an element, and once done, that would create an elite member of the elemental faction. That person would not be a human anymore, but a middle ground between a human cultivator, and a high level elemental.

    Elementi was the biggest within the territory of the universal government, and its massive size rivaled that of a fewrge stars. The not only contained a big portion of the essence spheres that had been made out of perfect treasures, but was the ce where the method to create them had been invented.

    The perfect spheres were ced in a way that would allow for more treasures to form with time, and that had made the known as the one and only working farm for perfect essence treasures in the universe.

    Numerous cities had been created thanks to the joined effort of humans and elementals, and now, these cities numbered in the thousands. The theme of each of them depended on the prevalent type of natural essence that could be found in its surroundings.

    In one of the mountain ranges of Elementi, was a city made out of bricks, stones, and metal. In the middle of this city, was arge manor surrounded by a tall and impressive walls of stone. Inside this stonewall was arge garden, and in between the gate that lead inside and the manor, was a small square surrounded by abyrinth, and a circr pavement carved with numerous symbols. Amongst which, were the symbol of lightning, fire, water, wind, metal, earth, and wood which merged in the middle in the symbol of mana.

    Numerous individuals were pacing around the manor¡¯s ground, and just as many, if not more, were locked inside their rooms cultivating, and trying to deepen theirprehension of mana.

    Inside thergest of the manor¡¯s rooms, was an old man dressed in brown simple robes. He was sitting quietly at his desk, and reading a thick, and dusty book.

    *Knock knock* "Come in." Said the old man without moving his eyes from the book.

    "It¡¯s me." Said a young woman in red robes which entered the room casually. After closing the door, she walked towards the desk on which the old man was reading his book, and sat on one of the chairs ced on the other side. "There is no reason to doubt what he says.. The types of power inside his body prove that he isn¡¯t lying.."

    "Do you think that something like that can happen? That an individual with such a deep affinity to the elements can simply find his way to the capital of our faction from the other side of the universe?.. What kind of luck is that?" Asked the old man while raising his head to look at the young woman, and showing the eyess he was pressing over his right eye, and the two yellow irises behind it.

    The woman shrugged her shoulders faintly, and responded by saying "I don¡¯t know.. What I know is that he had a near perfectprehension of three elements, and a perfectprehension of the remaining four.. He isn¡¯t even thirty.. There isn¡¯t a ce in the universe more fitting to him than here."

    The old man in simple clothes put down the eyess and slowly closed his book, then, after a deep sigh, he said "I don¡¯t want to tell the lords that we have found a candidate unless we are sure that he isn¡¯t a spy from another faction.."

    "What would the problem be? We can always kill him if he dares betray us.. It¡¯s not like it never happened before." Said the young woman while looking at the old man in confusion.

    ".. we are talking about two different levels of candidate.."

    Meanwhile, inside the mess hall of the manor, was a young man dressed in white clothes quietly eating his lunch. Contrary to the other tables, which were filled with people with differently colored clothes, the table on which he was eating, was empty. Yet, it didn¡¯t seem like he had a problem with it. Instead, he enjoyed the peace and quiet that the solitude brought.

    Unfortunately, the peace and quiet was interrupted by a man in his mid twenties which entered the mess hall, and ran towards the empty table while shouting "Roley! I have another story for you! This one is pretty cool! Hehe."

    "I am listening.." responded Roley while quietly bringing a spoon full of soup into his mouth.

    The young man immediately sat in the chair opposite to the one where Roley was sitting on, and said "I want five hours for this one.. I am close to reach a highprehension of water.. Just five hours of tutoring!"

    "..If the story is interesting."

    "Hehe.. it is! Thest rumor that has been running around about the outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction, is that after he threatened the Universal Government and forced them to wipe out the Garden of Death, he began to target the Church of Damnation. He has been running around killing demons left and right along with a massive dragon, and an outcast of the Psionic Dimension."

    "Tell me about the Church of Damnation.. What kind of people are they?" Asked Roley after finally putting his spoon down, and taking interest into the news that the young man was reporting.

    The young man shrieked back on his chair, and said "Nasty bunch.. I have heard that their elites gain power by feeding off of the sufferings of the people that live in their territory.." He then moved one of his legs above the other, and leaned on the backrest of his chair. "I don¡¯t know why the universal government would decide not to.. Are you okay?" he then said before noticing that something was odd with Roley.

    Before Roley could say anything, a group of cultivators that wore differently colored robes approached the empty tables with menacing expressions. The leader, a man with sharp brows, red eyes, and red robes, said to Roley "Hey! Greenhorn, I want to talk to you!"

    However, instead of stopping in front of Roley¡¯s table, the group kept walking to the end of the room.. Only to stop when they were facing the wall.

    "Just because you have a little bit of affinity towards the elements, it doesn¡¯t mean that you are better than us." Said the leader of this group while the rest of the people in the mess hall looked at them as if they were idiots. The leader was currently shouting at the wall as if he wanted to challenge it to a duel.

    The young man that hade to report the news of Daniel¡¯s action looked at the group of cultivators, and said "Nice trick.. Where did you learn how to do that?"

    "A friend taught it to me.." muttered Roley as his hands and jaw clenched in excitement. "So it¡¯s true.. It is him.."

    After noticing an expression of excitement on Roley¡¯s face for the first time since he had met him, the young man smiled and said "So, did I earn my five hours of tutoring?"

    Roley did not respond, and instead stood up from his chair, and while walking towards the door, said "Let¡¯s go."

    When he and the young man left the room, the illusion that had trapped the group of cultivators dissipated, and they found themselves raging at the wall while the people around themughed hysterically.

    -----

    Sand and Blood.

    Much different from Elementi, Sand and Blood owed his name not to its richness in elemental resources, but to its history of countless bloody wars, which in its tens of thousands of years of history, had painted the sand and dirt of a reddish color.

    This was popted by numerous tribes of warriors in constant warring state. This made Sand and Blood one of the favourite destinations for mercenaries whocked the knowledge of how the worked.

    While there was always a ce for mercenaries in Sand and Blood, itspleteck of connection to the spiritual ne had forced its inhabitants to increase their power solely through the use of their ki, as well as the weapon wielding abilities.

    This detail was often forgotten when people mentioned this mercenary wondend, and that caused most of the mercenaries that dared to set foot on this constant warring, to hardly ever leave it alive.

    In between two of the countries of this cruel and violent, were just as many massive military camps separated one from the other by two dozen kilometers of empty valley.

    Inside the northernmost of these camps was arge bar, and inside this bar, hundreds of muscr men and women were getting rid of their nervousness, and finding the excitement for the uing battle in the bottom of their sses.

    While these martial cultivators seemed to be friendly amongst their brothers in arms.. by the time the night had started, numerous fights had taken ce, and almost all of them had ended with the death of one or more individuals.

    upying one of the tables at the corner of this bar, was a man whose build did not seem too different from that of any other warrior within the bar, and two young women that were pr opposite whenpared to the others. Their figures were quite slender, and their weapons, while simr to those of the other warriors, seemed to deserve more graceful wielders.

    These people were Der, Gai¡¯ha, and Alesia.

    "Stop biting your nails.. I am sure he is fine." Said Der to a nervous Alesia while keeping an eye out for trouble.

    Alesia quickly lowered her hand, and said with a nervous, and yet saddened tone "Why is he challenging the factions on his own?.. Why hasn¡¯t hee to see us.."

    "You know why.. We are on the other side of the universe.. Remember what Jerigh said? Even when he wasn¡¯t himself, he wasn¡¯t able to teleport through the universe.. Why should he be able to now that he is back.." Said Gai¡¯ha with a reassuring tone. She hadplete faith in Daniel¡¯s capabilities, and if he hadn¡¯te yet, was because he wasn¡¯t able to.

    Just as Alesia began to calm down, threerge men approached the table that they were upying, and one of them said "Beautiful girls.. What are you doing here with that old man? Why note with us.. We can show you how to hilt a sword.. Hehe.." Said the frontman of this group of three just moments before Der¡¯s arm shed, and a red line appeared on the neck of the cultivator that had just spoken.

    The man wasn¡¯t able to utter another word before his head fell on the floor, and his body dropped lifelessly on the ground.

 Chapter 294 Companions Part 2

    After the incident in the bar, Der, Alesia and Gai¡¯ha left in a hurry. In the previous few hours they had witnessed how, simr events, had started massive brawls amongst the cultivators, and they did not want to have any part in they. So they left a few coins on the table, and went back to their tents.

    Peace did not exist in Sand and Blood. The very idea that people could live peaceful one next to another was deeply frowned upon, and the reason for it was very simple. The leader of the faction had categorically prohibited for any form of government to be formed in any of thes that were part of their faction¡¯s domain. Whenever a group managed to organize long enough to create one, they would mysteriously disappear in a matter of days.

    Ironically enough, Sand and Blood was also one of the safests of the universe, as violence was strictly forbidden outside of the forms of formal conflict between cultivators. For example, a cultivator would be forbidden from traveling around the while robbing and killing normal humans, while he would be allowed to kill any other cultivator that looked at him or her the wrong way.

    This system was set so that new cultivators coulde out from the human and beast civilizations, but that only the strongest would survive. Once the numbers of the cultivators wererge enough, they would split into two, and a war amongst the two parts would take ce. That, was the hardship of living within the territory of the faction called ¡¯Dominion of the War God¡¯.

    Der, Gai¡¯ha and Alesia had to learn the rules pretty quickly, as ever since the first five minutes of reaching this, they had had to battle against a group of cultivators that had found interest in the two girls. Luckily, their cultivation was not higher, and contrary to their opponents, they had the advantage of knowing how to use immortal essence.

    Thepleteck of spiritual essence in Sand and Blood made its ecosystem extremely simr to Gai¡¯ha¡¯s home, so for once, she feltpletely at ease with her surroundings. Her body was different from the race of humans of which Der, Alesia, and the majority of the universe were part of, and her Aura was vastly different from their Ki. It allowed her body to be refined, and therefore, to be closer to a beast than an immortal cultivator, just like the elite members of the Dominion of the War God, or the other factions that focused on the cultivation of a person¡¯s ki.

    After they had defended themselves right after arriving in Sand and Blood, the three had been noticed by themanders of one of the two armies and forcibly enrolled into the war that was set to take ce only months after their arrival.

    At first they had tried to refuse the invitation, but apparently, the uses of the forced all cultivators to join either of the two factions in the war, and if they did not ept to join one side, they would be killed in other to prevent them from joining the other side.

    Months had passed, and the war was now only days ahead. The battleground was the enormous valley in between the two military camps.. A terrain of grey and reddish dirt and gravel which, by the end of the week, would be soaked in blood and covered by the lifeless bodies of tens of millions of gored warriors.

    This type of war was called War of Survival, and it was an event that had repeated itself more than once in the faction¡¯s history. After a hundred years, enough for a new wave of cultivators to grow out of the human poption, the war would take ce one again.

    There were only two rules in the War of Survival, and they were ¡¯Battle until the other army has been exterminated¡¯, and ¡¯No survivors, no prisoners, no mercy¡¯.

    Two dayster, the day of the war had finally arrived.

    Gai¡¯ha, Der, and Alesia were standing next to millions of warriors, mercenaries, and soldiers. There was no particr attire that could distinguish the members of the two armies aside from the general color of their clothes, which were dark red, and ck.

    Numerous leaders of the divisions walked back and forth the frontline of the two armies, while spending a few words of encouragement in order to lit up the fighting spirit within the hearts of the warriors. The main focus of their speeches, was the fact that there would not be any surrender, and that if they attempted to, they would die dishonorably by the hands of the warriors they were surrendering to.. So if they had to die anyway, they might as well not make it easy for their enemies.

    While Alesia, Gai¡¯ha and Der were powerful enough to be confident about their survival, only Der was truly ready to battle. He had been a general in the past, and his demeanor and ability tomand had allowed him to gain a low leadership rank amongst the army.

    On the other hand, Alesia and Gai¡¯ha were looking at the sea of enemies that stood courageously on the other side with anxiousness, and were emanating an oppressive killing intent. Both of them had fought in the past, and Gai¡¯ha had even had some battle experience, but she had never faced a true army of warriors, so even she couldn¡¯t help but be nervous.

    A few hundred kilometers away, right at the top of a reddish mountain, two men sat at the edge of a cliff. Both of them were middle aged men, and both of them were covered in scars, but while one had lost an eye to a sword sh that split his eyebrow and cheek in half, and sat next to a two meters tall greatsword, the other one was bare chested, showing a cross shaped scar on his chest, and sat next to a massive hammer which seemed impossible to lift.

    The two were using their incredibly sharp sight to look at battle that was about to start a few hundred kilometers away from them.

    "Same bet?" Said the one-eyed man.

    The bare chested man quietly observed the size of the two armies, felt the power of the strongest warriors within them, and hummed for a few moments in consideration, before saying "Alright. Five gems."

    "Awesome.." Said the one-eyed man before standing up from the ledge and picking his greatsword with his right arm. He then used his thick and muscr arm to point the sword right in the middle of the territory between the two armies, and without a single warning, a raised it up to the sky.

    Following the motion of the greatsword, the thick clouds that covered the sky split cleanly, signaling the beginning of the war.

    -----

    Zetta, Khron, Universal government territory.

    A few months had passed since the ¡¯Army and Explorer Preparatory Academy¡¯ had been founded, and today, was the day of one of most important, as well as the first of the many tests to which the members would be forced to participate to in order to graduate.

    The test consisted in a series of obstacle courses and problem solving exercises which the students had to solve any way they could. The way they decided to solve these problems, along with their results, would dictate to which group they belonged, and the ranking within the Patriot Academy.

    The entire had been reserved for this test, and in order to keep an eye on the tens of thousands of students that were going to participate in it, hundreds of members of the army, as well as a few explorers had been tasked with observing, and evaluating.

    One of these observers, was Krit, and ever since the beginning of this test, he had been keeping his eyes glued on a single one of these young warriors. One that ever since the very beginning of the test, instead of forming teams and coborating with the others, had separated from the rest of the group and had solved one problem after the other while solely relying on himself.

    He was now standing alone at the finishing line of the test, while the majority of the other cultivators formedrge teams with chains ofmand, and pushed their way through the tests by using their numbers, and collective intelligence.

    "His behavior has been that of an exemry soldier.. He is more fit to the army" Said a heavily armored cultivator that suddenly appeared next to the sniper. His tone was serious, and it was clear that he was trying to convince the explorer that Jerigh, the person who had just finished the entire course by himself, was more fit to be part of the army, than to be an explorer.

    "His talent will never be wasted obeying tomands.. The explorers will have him." Responded Krit without moving his eyes away from Jerigh. He had been thoroughly impressed by him, and his talent in cultivation could not only bepared to that of the candidate elites that the various factions were allowed to keep, but he appeared to be above them.

    If amongst these tens of thousands of people there were a few that truly resembled young explorers, Jerigh was one of them. For Krit to even consider letting him join the army, was simply absurd.

    At the end of the test, those who were able toplete the course were split into three levels. Those who followed orders and allowed themselves to be lead by the ones they believed to be more capable than they were, people that took the roles of leaders of their groups, and lead them to the end of the test, and those who would challenge themselves, and refused to coborate with others.

    The first two ranks were reserved for people with the temperament of soldiers and officers, while the third level, was reserved for people who had the temperament of explorer.. However the test was far from over..

    Only minutes after thest of the students had either failed or seeded in their test, a ranking list of the students had been filled in with the names of the participants.. But while most of them were considered to belong to the levels reserved for the army, the top hundred on the ranking list had been filled with those who had demonstrated to have the quality of explorers.

    This action had enraged many of the participants for a simple reason. Nobody refuted that somebody like Jerigh, who was the first person toplete the test and was first in the ranking list, did not belong to the top ten, but a few of the ¡¯explorers¡¯ that were ranked in the top hundred were amongst thest to finish the entire test, and many of the teams had managed to finish before them.

    "Why aren¡¯t we even in the top hundred?"

    "This is unfair, forming a group was a good decision, why is that a bad thing?"

    "You never said that forming teams would penalize us!"

    At first only a few group leadersined, but soon after, the groups they lead, as well as the rest of the cultivators who felt wronged by the decisions of the testers, joined in in expressing their discontent.

    Krit, which was in charge of the entire academy, appeared right in front of the massive b of stone where the hundred names had been carved, and said through his bandages "Very well, if you want a higher ranking, you are free to challenge any of those in the top hundred."

    As soon as Krit finished speaking, the majority of the cultivators backed away. Not because they did not wish to be in the top hundred of such a prestigious academy, but because they were aware of theirck of power whenpared to the leaders of the teams they had joined, not to mention the cultivators that had actually managed to finish the entire test by themselves.

    Kirt quickly noticed that only a few had found the courage toe forth, so after looking at Jerigh one more time, he smiled and said "Tell you what.. You can form a group, and you can choose any one of them as your opponent. The one who manages to give thest hit keeps the rank, while the rest are ranked right after. How does that sound?"

    Suddenly, the eyes of hundreds of cultivators moved towards the figure of a quietly standing Jerigh.

 Chapter 295 Companions Part 3

    The eyes of the unhappy participants were piercing Jerigh¡¯s body like thousands of spears..

    As proud candidates for the elite position of their respective factions, these cultivators, which had now been discarded by their own factions as second grade talents, had nothing in their mind but the desire to prove their true worth.. Now, after being given a chance, hardly any of them could keep their calm and not simply jump at the offer of a higher recognition. However, aside from a couple dozens of cultivators, no one else stepped forward.

    Months had passed since the Patriot Academy had been founded, and in that span of time, Jerigh had be rtively known. Nobody had ever seen him fight, and he spent most of his time cultivating, and training in weapon wielding by himself. Due to the fact that he had been found outside of the academy, and that he didn¡¯t belong to any of the factions, he had always been considered a loner who was lucky enough to have been noticed by the explorer Krit.. and that would likely be unable to graduate from this course for the elite amongst the elite.

    Unfortunately, this view of his abilities had been shattered by the fact that he had managed to reach the first ce in thepetition by simply relying solely on himself.

    Krit noticed the hesitancy that was making its way into the minds of these usually proud and courageous cultivators, so once again, he decided to give them a hand "Now now, don¡¯t be shy.. This is an academy for excellence! If the first ce cannot maintain his position, then he doesn¡¯t deserve it.. Double resources to whoever challenges a ranked participant, and wins."

    The mention of double resources was enough to make the doubts present in the mind of the observers disappear, and for their indomitable fighting spirit to emerge in the form of waves of immortal essence.

    At the same time, two single-edged swords were forming at the end of Jerigh¡¯s hands.. But before the two des could sharpen, Krit turned to look back at Jerigh, and with a smile hidden by his bandages, said "No weapons allowed."

    For just a moment Jerigh¡¯s eyes narrowed slightly in surprise, while also allowing the constructed metal essence that was surrounding his hands to dissipate. He then turned to look at the advancing cultivators, which were unsure whether Krit was also talking to them, or not.

    "Are we not allowed to use weapons?" Asked a man in histe twenties with arge saber hanging from his waistband. He was the leader of one of the teams that had been formed during the testing phase..

    Just as Krit was about to put their doubts to ease, and tell them that they were in fact allowed to use weapons, Jerigh¡¯s figure had disappeared. When he reappeared, his fist was already moving towards the face of the cultivator who had just spoken.

    The cultivator was quick enough to react. He rapidly unsheathed his saber and moved it in front of his face in order to parry the blow.. However, right when he was expecting for a huge blow tond on the de of his weapon, the direct punch turned into a side hook, whose motion, Jerigh used to spin his body in ce and hit the side of the cultivator¡¯s head with a turning kick.

    As the cultivator¡¯s ear began to bleed, and his bnce was lost worsen, Jerigh disappeared, and re appeared in the middle of the groups of cultivators that had stepped forward and had the intention of fighting for his ce in the ranking list.

    Immediately after he appeared, an axe sh threatened to vertically split his back in half.. A sh which he avoided by stepping back and against the body of the attacker, causing him to sh the empty air.

    Once his back was touching the opponent¡¯s chest, Jerigh quickly grabbed the man¡¯s wrists, and stomped heavily on the bridge of his right foot, fracturning multiple bones.

    *ARGH!* The injured cultivator groaned in pain, but before he could even retreat, his body was spinning in mid air and moving in between Jerigh and a sword sh which was approaching him from the side.

    The unlucky axe wielder received the sword sh in Jerigh¡¯s stead.

    For the next few minutes, with his agile movements, and brutal yet non lethals actions, Jerigh instilled a deep sense of terror into the mind of each and every participant of the test. His main focus was to incapacitate his opponents, and while many did not fear death, they feared the kind of hurt that being badly injured without being able to put up a fight, would cause them.

    The members of the army in charge of the test observed with shock as, one by one, the cultivators who were supposed to be the greatest recruits for the military fell one after the other to the vicious attacks of a single individual.. At the same time, Krit observed from the distance with blood boiling in excitement.

    In his eyes, amongst the sea of puppies in search of recognition, was a fully grown hellhound.

    At some point after Krit made his proposition, thepetitors had stoppeding. Jerigh was standing surrounded by over thirty injured cultivators which groaned in pain, and attempted to heal themselves out of their sorry state. The point of this whole fight was for Krit to see Jerigh¡¯s fighting abilities, and he had been extremely satisfied with the results.

    With no reason to keep lingering to this stage of the test, Krit was ready to conclude the day¡¯s event by sending everybody back to their rooms, but just as he was about to speak, from within therge group of shocked cultivators, emerged a young woman in her early twenties.

    She was dressed in leather armor, and whenpared to most girls, she was oddly tall. Along with Jerigh and ny-eight others, she was one of those who had decided toplete the test by herself, and hade out sixth.

    "I want to try." Said the young girl after stepping forward. She had observed Jerigh¡¯s way of fighting as well as that of his opponents, and while she believed that he was an extremely capable warrior, she was also convinced that she had a real chance of winning against him.. And like everybody else, if there was a chance for her to better her ranking, and at the same time earn double the resources, she was going to take it.

    Without even waiting for Krit or Jerigh to respond to her words, she dropped the longsword that was hanging from her waist, and dashed towards Jerigh barehanded. She did not want to have any advantage against her opponent, as she wanted to win the first spot in the ranking fair and square.

    Jerigh was barely able to hear her voice before she had appeared in front of him, but while she was clearly a hundred steps ahead whenpared to the others, and likely the strongest person her age which he had ever fought against after Daniel, she still wasn¡¯t at his level.

    Her feigns were obvious to him, and the movements of the muscles of her legs and arms gave away her true intentions.

    The first attack was axe kick which Jerigh easily avoided by stepping aside. However, the kick was never supposed to hit her target. Instead ofnding heavily against the ground, the kick lost all of its power the moment before impact. She then put her entire weight on the tip of her toes, and used the motion to twist her entire body and kick Jerigh¡¯s jaw from underneath.

    Jerigh did not allow her to continue, and before she could send this rising kick towards his jaw, he weakly kicked the ankle on which she was holding her weight, and made her lose bnce.

    The girl quickly stood up in embarrassment, and looked at Jerigh with a slightly more hostile expression than before. She felt humiliated, and she wanted to gain her dignity back through fighting more than ever before.

    It did not take long for the girl to understand that grand and spectacr actions would not work against Jerigh, so she decided to enter into deep contact with him, and pressure him with her speed, and her martial arts.

    However, the result was not any different. Every single attack was yed out masterfully, but since Jerigh was able to see each and every one of them, she was not making any progress in getting through his defences.

    Her attacks were fast and powerful, and even Jerigh did not dare to take them full on. He instead deflected them by parrying them with his palms, arms, and legs, in hope that she would give up.. Unfortunately, things weren¡¯t going to go that easily.

    A minute after the other passed, and the more Jerigh avoided and deflected the girl¡¯s attacks, the more she became nervous, angry, and eager to finallynd a punch on Jerigh¡¯s ¡¯damn smug face¡¯. This went on until, finally, Jerigh showed signs of losing patience.

    The critical moment was when the umpteenth punch had grazed his ear..

    After noticing that the girl had grown ustomed to theck of retaliation, he hit the underside of her arm, and sent a punch straight towards her throat.

    This punch had the precision and power that an experienced assassin would put into his work, and the sudden action had taken the girl by surprise, leaving her unable to retaliate or protect herself in time.

    Prepared to have her windpipe shattered by Jerigh¡¯s attack, the girl closed her eyes.. but the blow never arrived.. Just before his punch made contact with the girl¡¯s throat, the image of a ck haired girl had shed past Jerigh¡¯s mind, and had stopped him from heavily injuring her.

    Noticing Jerigh¡¯s clear mood change, the girl gave up on the first ce in the ranking and stepped aside. She knew that she had no possibility of winning against Jerigh in sheer martial ability and fighting talent, and she didn¡¯t wish to humiliate herself any longer.

    Jerigh was not in the mood to entertain thoseining cultivator anymore, so, without asking for Krit¡¯s permission, he formed two glowing hot swords made out of theprehension of fire and metal, and said ".. from now on.. My rankes with my head."

    The cultivators which still had in mind to challenge a possibly tired Jerigh, turned to look at Krit with eyes filled with doubt. ording to Krit¡¯s words, Jerigh was not allowed to use weapons, but now he was brandishing two lethal weapons, and the expression on his face was sending shivers down their spines.

    Krit had had enough fun for now, as well as gathered all of the information that he needed about Jerigh, so he turned to look at the confused cultivators, and after shrugging his shoulders, he said "You¡¯ve heard him.. If you want the first rank, from now on it¡¯s a deathmatch."

    These words were enough to erase any desire or idea from the minds of the many unhappy cultivators, which slowly began to disperse.

    Jerigh was about to leave as well, but as he was leaving, he heard the voice of the girl he had fought with moments earlier. "Will you give me a second chance, one day?"

    Jerigh stopped walking for a moment, and without turning around, said ".. I already have a rival.. She is already enough problem for me." On his face was the faintest of smiles, while in his mind, was he figure of a fiery girl in leather armor, who would bother him for a rematch every other day.

    He then walked away without turning back.

    -----

    The Abyss, Void.

    In the dark depths of the infinite and unstable void, were sporadic boxes of spatial essence. These boxes were the dimensions which worked as the cultivator¡¯s spatial containers and pocket dimensions. However, these boxes were not the only thing that existed along with shattered space, and the monsters that inhabited it.

    Along with monsters and containers, were also numerouss kept together by the deepprehension of space possessed by the members of one of the factions that was part of the Universal Government. That faction, was the faction of the Void Dwellers..

    The void dwellers were able to stabilize the space around the few wholes that had survived the destruction of the stable space which now had be the void, and used thoses as their isted territory.

    The capital of the territory of the Void Dwellers was a small and barren called ¡¯The Abyss¡¯.. It was nearly devoid of any other element, and it would be nearly impossible for its poption to survive without purchasing goods from the normal space.. However, it had its own particr value.. And that value was entirely due to the presence of the only known tribe of spatial elementals that had ever been discovered in both normal space, and chaotic void.

 Chapter 296 I Will Show You What I Have Learned

    In an unknown spot within the chaotic and infinite void, was a sphere of stable space the size of a meter and a half, and inside it, was a middle aged man who floated while sitting quietly with his legs crossed. He was meditating with his eyes closed, but the feelings shown by his face were feelings of annoyance, and irritation.

    "You will never learn if you keep getting distracted.." Said a disembodied voice that came from every single part of the spatial sphere at the same time, causing the middle aged man to frown even deeper than before.

    The man finally opened his eyes, and after noticing what was lingering on the other side of the thin barrier of stable spatial essence, he sighed in exasperation and said "How am I supposed to focus when I am just centimeters away from those things?" He then pointed at something on the other side of the barrier.

    Lingering in the darkness of the void just outside the sphere of spatial essence, were hundreds of sized monsters.

    Aside from the impressive size, the form of these monsters appeared to havee straight out of a book of a book of horror stories. Their bodies had no consistent shape, and most of them were made of headless torsos from which numerous massive tentaclese out of. The most horrifying amongst them, were also covered in eyes as big as cities.

    "For the fifth time, Edmund.. They won¡¯t feel your presence unless there is a fracture that connects the two types of space.. That is why they don¡¯t attack the spatial containers, or pocket dimensions." Responded the disembodied voice with a reassuring, and yet slightly impatient tone.

    The being to which this voice belonged to, had tried to help Edmund withprehending spatial essence, but while he had found him to be one of the most talented and passionate individuals that he had ever met when in regards of spatial essence, he also seemed to be easily distracted.

    "I¡¯ll show you." said the voice just before a small crack formed on the surface of the sphere.

    The moment this crack formed, the eyes that covered the bodies of the hundreds of monsters present in the area turned towards him, and their bodies slowly began to float in his general direction.

    "STOP IT! I GET IT!!" Shouted Edmund in panic. Any of these monsters could kill him with, and in the blink of an eye.. He had spent the previous few months in the territory of the Void Dwellers, and had met with numerous its inhabitants. From them, he had heard numerous stories about the elite members of the faction and the monsters that lived in the void.

    From these stories, he had learned that almost none of the elite members was able to hurt any of these monsters, so he did not believe himself to be able to escape, or even fight against any of them..

    "Calm down!" responded the voice as the small crack closed, causing the monsters to immediately lose interest in his small presence, and go back to floating without a purpose.

    Seeing that the monsters did in fact lose interest in him the very moment the connection between the two different spaces closed, and that he was out of danger, he sighed heavily in relief and said "I am too old for this.."

    "Human brats.. Alwaysining." scoffed the owner of the voice in dissatisfaction, before adding "You will surely get old before understanding the concepts of broken space at this pace.. Look at me, we are here together, do I look scared to you? You will never find your family¡¯s pocket dimension, nor get out of the void if you don¡¯t get your shit together."

    After months spent in the void, Edmund had finally managed to find someone who could help him in understanding the concepts of space contained in the void, but he had never expected his training to be this mentally challenging. He was now feeling bad for how he had forced Daniel and Roley to go through such a heavy training when he was their teacher.

    "You are a spatial elemental! They can¡¯t even see you!" said Edmund while almost pulling his hair off due to exasperation. The two had wandered the void for the past few weeks, and during each moment, Edmund could not help but feel worried that a slight mistake from the spatial elemental that was helping him, would cause him to end up in the chaotic void, or worse, taken by one of the monsters around him.

    The elemental could feel Edmund¡¯s state of mind, so even though he was not as docile as the elementals that lived in the normal space, and was much more unruly due to the influence that the many humans from the faction of the Vault Dwellers had had on him, he decided to go easy on Edmund. "Fine.. Just try again." responded the spatial elemental with a defeated tone.

    Noticing that the elemental had gone quiet, Edmund closed his eyes once again, and muttered "I know a few elementals that could teach you something about manners.."

    -----

    H351, shared gxy.

    The gxy H351 was considered one of the biggest gxies within the territory of the universal government. Its size was impressive, and it was rich in resources, and in the number of habitables. However, none of the factions had ever managed to own more than a small portion of it.. Making it the biggest shared gxy in the known universe.

    In the outskirts of the gxy, was a small sr systemposed of a red dwarf star, and close to it, a tiny which orbited way too close to it.

    The atmosphere of this was extremely thin, and could barely hold together without being burned off. While the atmosphere still contained enough oxygen and other gases that allowed for human life to prosper, the temperature was off the charts.. And right below deadly levels for humans.

    Walking quietly within the territory of one of the cities of this called Tria, was Daniel.

    Whenpared to the habitat of the, the scene that had appeared in front of him since the moment he had entered its atmosphere, were hundreds of times worse. There was only one word to describe the state of such a.. And that was.. Chaos.

    While the inhabitants of the still tried to live their lives despite of the adversities, their lives could be called nothing but horrifying.

    The cities which Daniel had visited so far were always being raided by bandits, or tormented by a natural catastrophes.. while the viges which did not have arge number of inhabitants, were always suffering due tock of food, water, or the tremendously high heat.

    Ever since Daniel had set foot on this, he had only managed to find a city which wasn¡¯t being tormented by sudden volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, thunderstorm, or tsunamis of liquid gases of which the seas of this were formed of.

    However, while the city was not being destroyed by any natural catastrophe.. The citizens were not living any better than the rest.

    The sides of the roads where Daniel was quietly walking in were covered in rotting corpses, cries of desperation wereing from the opened windows of the numerous houses all around him, wooden crosses were erected every few meters, and on each of them, people were crucified.

    Not one individual could be seen walking around, and when they did, a gang of drifters would immediately attack them, and kill them. They would then take the body away while looking at it with eyes filled with eagerness, and mouths drooling from hunger.

    Those were not the only instances of cannibalism that Daniel had seen in the past few weeks. He had seen one too many scrawny kids with their hands full of the innards, and faces covered in the blood of their parents, women allowing others to abuse them just for the chance of receiving a bit of food, and old trembling people trying to allure desperate people into their houses with the offer of food, just to turn them into a meal.

    The scenes were terrifying, and every single one of them added to Daniel¡¯s resolution on what he was here to do.. So he walked towards the middle of the city while trying to ignore the numerous horrifying scenes that took ce around him.

    When he reached the middle of the city, he noticed that an event was taking ce.

    Arge number of citizens were standing around a crater, and at the bottom of this crater, were three people who did everything they could to kill each other in the most cruel ways possible.

    The expressions on the face of these citizens, while spectating the show, were not expressions of excitement, but of defeat. They were thin, covered in scars, and did not uttered a single word. They were all either looking at the fight that was taking ce in silence, or at the piece of meat that was inside a small box in the middle of crater, which appeared to be the prize for which the three individuals were fighting for.

    Daniel quietly observed how one of the fighters bit neck of one of its two opponents, and while he bled to death, his head was bashed by the third warrior, who had picked arge rock from the ground, and repeatedly hit him with it with all of his strength.

    Once only one of the three fighters was left alive, the box which contained the piece of meat opened.

    The man immediately dashed towards the prize, and immediately bit into it.. But just as he was about to get a second bite out of it, his fingers broke, and his body was sent flying against the edge of the crater.

    From the opposite side of the crater, came a young sounding voice which said "Hey! You knew the rules.. Only one bite."

    After Daniel made his way through the group of citizens and to the edge of the crater, he noticed the owner of this voice, who was a ten or so years old kid with small horns on his head.

    The kid immediately noticed Daniel¡¯s presence, as his healthy and clean appearance waspletely different from the desperate and dirty look that the citizens of his had.

    "Who are you?" He asked while standing up.

    The citizens who were spectating the show, and waiting for their turn to earn a bite of that piece of meat, moved away from Daniel..

    Daniel responded by looking at the kid with narrowed eyes, and saying "Just passing by. Nice ce you have here.."

    Amused by Daniel¡¯s response, the kid¡¯s face contorted into a big smile. He then said "Thank you, I have worked hard on it.. But now that you are here, why not join the fun?.. You seem quite calm.. I bet that your pain tastes delicious.." The more the kid talked, the rougher his voice became, and the less human he appeared to be.

    However, the very moment Daniel appeared in front of him and grabbed his neck with lightning fast speed, the smile on his face disappeared.

    The shock of not being able to affect Daniel¡¯s mind with the sufference that was feeding him, quickly settled into the kid¡¯s mind, and finally, he understood who he was facing. "Ghg.. you are the.. Ghh.. out..cast.." he said as a hint of fear began to make its way in his head.

    "Demons.. You always say the same thing.. Suffering here, suffering there.. And yet you are never willing to suffer yourself." Said Daniel as the kid desperately tried to free himself from Daniel¡¯s grip.

    After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, the kid¡¯s body began to transform.

    The horns on his head becamerger, and grew longer.. His skin turned darker and ruvid, just like stone.. And his body became bigger and muscr.. However, even in his real form, he was still unable to free himself from Daniel¡¯s grip.

    "I will show you what I have learned from your kin.." Said Daniel as his free hand moved in front of the demon¡¯s red fuming eyes.

    "AAAAAARGH" Shouted the demon in pain as Daniel¡¯s fingers scooped his eyes out.

    The inhabitants of the looked in shock as the god that their civilization had been forced to fear for the past few thousands of years, was being ripped into pieces by Daniel¡¯s bare hands.

 Chapter 297 The Next Stage of Immortality

    After the Universal Government had destroyed the Garden of Death as a response to Daniel¡¯s threat to deliver his recipes of the poison immunities to them, Iewah had reintegrated the rule that stated that the only encounters allowed amongst his children, were the casual ones, and the programmed ones.. And that his children were not to use their powers in order to track one another.

    The reason for that, was the unnatural desire for conflict that his children felt towards each other.. A desire which had caused his earliest offspring to kill each other until only two of them had remained..

    In an attempt to indirectly affect his life, and the life of his friends from the massive distance that separated them, Daniel had decided to gain as much karma as he could. The more karma points he possessed, the more he could be sure that his family and friends would be safe. That, was the driving factor behind his wars against the factions.

    Now that he was free from the pursuit of Sewah¡¯s four brothers, Daniel had picked his second target for his karmic crusade. That target, happened to be the Church of Damnation..

    Contrary to what part of its name suggested, the Church of Damnation was not a regr church devoted to the worship of a superior being, or a god. Instead, it had been founded by a particr race amongst the demonkin whose entire growth revolved around the absorption of the suffering caused by emotional, physical, and mental abuse.

    Even amongst the demonkin, while not the most dangerous, the race which had formed the Church of Damnation was considered the most evil.. And were despised to a point where the more moderate races of the demonic family, which despite the name were not necessarily evil, had tried to destroy the Church of Damnation in order to avoid their kin¡¯s name from being attached to their acts.

    The political aspect of the Universal Government was a game which all factions yed, and for the demonkin to be directly linked with a race formed by the most evil and depraved beings in the universe, was something that had tarnished their reputation greatly more than once in their history.

    So, Just like the human races would kill the worshippers of death on sight, the other demon races would not see the demons of the Church of Damnation aspanions to be proud of.

    However, for how despised of a faction the Church of Damnation was, it was still a faction which possessed the same power and rights as any other.. So after being targeted by Daniel and hispanions, they were still in the position to demand to be added in the list of factions that had a legitimate right to Daniel¡¯s head, and the permission to put a bounty on him.

    -----

    For the past few weeks, Daniel had traveled through the shared gxy in order to kill the demon to which the unluckys that belonged to the Church of Damnation, were assigned to. After ridding the from these demons, he would move on to the next before any of their strongest members could appear.

    While traveling through the gxy, Daniel had learned something extremely interesting from Xargy. He was curious about the reason why the mercenaries and merchants were so obsessed by the gems which Virgil had found, so once they had escaped the void, he had taken a water gem out of his spatial ring, and asked to Xargy and Aeron whether they knew what mana gems were.

    While Aeron became pensive and tried to recall whether he had read or encountered a simr object, Xargy¡¯srge eyes had opened as wide as they could. "Is that a gift for me?! Hahaha!" He said in enthusiasm while looking at the nail-sized water gem present on Daniel¡¯s hand.

    Daniel looked at the gem in confusion, before turning to look at Xargy once again, and saying "Maybe.. Tell me what it is, and you can have it."

    "DEAL!" shouted Xargy in happiness before breathing in heavily, and forcing the gem to fly off of Daniel¡¯s hand, and into his mouth. "Gems are cultivation resources.. While crystals are formed byrge amount of pure natural essence.. gems are even better. You need the power of billions of crystalspressed together for a ridiculous amount of years, in order to form a single gem."

    Daniel ignored Xargy¡¯s actions, and while hiding the shock and happiness that he was feeling, he asked "Sounds like an awfully rare item.. Why shouldn¡¯t people simply cultivate with perfect crystals?"

    "Because at some point in cultivation, your body will be too resistant to be effectively refined by perfect crystals.. Why do you believe the universal government keeps exploring new gxies? Perfect crystals are not that rare.. Or they wouldn¡¯t be used as currency." Responded Xargy with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "When will Aeron and I need them, then?" Asked Daniel. He had felt the effectiveness of perfect crystals be lower the more his cultivation rose, so he had no problems with believing what Xargy was saying.

    Instead of responding, Xargy hid the water gem underneath hisrge tongue, and after moving his massive head next to Daniel, he inhaled deeply once again. He then asked "Do you have any more of these?" His tone was that of somebody who had finally been able to find a piece of bread after starving for weeks.

    "I might have another one.. If you keep talking."

    "Fine.. Gems are better used for high immortals. My cultivation is the equivalent of a human¡¯s high immortal cultivation, or someone who is beyond the ten stages of lower immortal cultivation. This means that these gems are useless for your current stage." Responded Xargy while directly looking at Daniel¡¯s eyes.

    After hearing Xargy¡¯s words, Daniel narrowed his eyes in curiosity, and asked "Won¡¯t using them now simply fasten my cultivation?"

    "HA! If you had the body of a dragon.. Maybe. You use hundreds of crystals at the same time to cultivate.. But what if you were to use billions at the same time? Your tiny human body would not be able to handle it."

    "Alright.. Tell me about high immortals then." Asked Daniel with curiosity. Thest lesson he had received about human cultivation had been during the beginning of his immortal stages, and now that his cultivation was at the ninth stage of immortal cultivation, he was as strong as he was ignorant.

    "I¡¯ll take it from here.." said Aeron while standing beside them. He had finally recalled about the wars he had once fought for the possession of an expert¡¯s ring, which was supposed to contain high level cultivation resources.

    The words ¡¯High Immortal¡¯ were also familiar to him, as the matter had been exined to him by one of the stronger elites of the Psionic Dimension, along with the reason why they had fought for those resources. "High Immortality is the state that humans can reach after they pass the tenth stage of immortal cultivation.. Only humans who don¡¯t have a gift can reach it.. And it is a level of cultivation introduced by the universal government itself."

    "What do you mean?" Asked Daniel, more confused than ever.

    "Gifts will change the nature of humans.. I am a mental warrior, and once my mind will grow to a certain level, I will merge with my avatar, and be a being made out of mental power." Responded Aeron while walking towards a tree stump, and sitting on it. "Beings like beasts and humans can use their essence to reach a higher level of cultivation.. That is the high immortal stage."

    For a moment, Daniel reflected on what Aeron had just told him.. Then asked "If humans have the potential to grow that powerful on their own, why do they ept gifts?"

    Aeron faintly shook his head, then responded by saying "Aside from the immediate gain in power.. It¡¯s disputable that a human¡¯s full potential will be stronger than a developed gift.. It took a single one of Iewah¡¯s children to force the entire dragon race to their knees.. Also, there will never be enough gems for everyone.."

    "How was the universal government able to stay on top then? Shouldn¡¯t they be only one amongst the many factions?" Asked Daniel in confusion. ording to what Aeron had said, a high immortal was powerful, but not enough to keep in check an elite member of thousands of factions at the same time.

    "The universal government is the group that discovered all of the other factions. They explored the universe for millions of years.. You can say they are the oldest faction, and therefore, they happen to have the power to stay in charge."

    What Aeron had said made sense. Essence gems were too rare to be used by the entire Human race. The majority were monopolized by the universal government, while a smaller amount was used by factions like the merchant faction, and mercenary faction.. whose power did not revolve around a being capable of bestowing gifts, but around the use of money.. Making them two of the few factions whose strongest members were cultivators at the high immortal stage.

    "What is the strength of a high immortal? What makes it as valuable as a gifted human?" Asked Daniel. He wanted to know whether it was worth being one, as opposed to look for a gift from one of the many other factions.

    This time, it was Xargy who responded. Other than being someone at that stage, he was the only one amongst them who had studied humans at the high immortal stage before, so he said "Aside from an increase in power, It depends on the individual.. My grandfather, the king of dragons, grew to a mind boggling size.. It is said that he was able to swallows if he wished to.. While what my father¡¯s gained, were imprable scales.. What I developed after reaching that state, was a special kind of mes. I know that it is the same for humans.. Some be faster, others gain advantages in raw power, or sharper senses.. When I was a youngling, I have heard that there was an explorer who could hit a target from millions of kilometers away, and another who could travel faster than the speed of light.."

    Satisfied by Xargy¡¯s exnation, Daniel smiled at him, and said "Fine, you¡¯ve earned it." He then moved a wisp of immortal essence into his spatial ring. When he appeared inside it as a shadow made out of consciousness and immortal essence, he was standing in front of a chest about a meter in width.

    Daniel kneeled in front of this chest, and opened it with care.. What was inside this chest, would have sent a shiver down Xargy¡¯s spine.. As the chest waspletely filled with multicolored essence gems.

    After casually picking one up, he exited the spatial ring, taking the gem with it.

    When he opened his eyes, he was back on his, and he was holding a small red gem which emanated a strong heath. "All yours." Said Daniel while throwing the gem towards Xargy, which quickly took it into his mouth, and left in a hurry.

    While leaving, he said "It will take awhile for me to use these two.. Do not disturb me!"

    It took more than a second for Daniel to recover from Xargy¡¯s enthusiastic escape, but once he did, he turned to look at Aeron, and said "It will take us another month before we will reach the next.. Same bet?.."

    "No way.. You are too lucky to lose, and I can read your mind? I¡¯d rather have the kid pick which one of us wants to keep himpany." Responded Aeron while looking at the quiet Virgil, who was sitting on the ground next to his small house, and using his basicprehension of metal essence to change the shape of a sword in order to turn it into one of theponents of histest trinket.

 Chapter 298 A Joyful Apocalypse Part 1

    Ever since the auction in Golden Nugget, Daniel had had more than enough crystals to cultivate, and thanks to the massive amount of karma points which he had gained during hisst few adventures, he was able to upgrade his system more and more, and therefore, increase his speed in cultivation.

    In the year in which he had taken back control over his body, he had managed to cultivate past the mid eighth stage of immortal cultivation which Sewah had left it to, and was now at the peak of the ninth stage. The amount of karma required to increase his power at the moment was in the billions per month spent cultivating, and the cost in crystals was nothing but impressive.

    An analogy often used by experts to exin to their students how immortal cultivation worked, was that cultivating was like filling arge bowl with droplets of water. The resources of cultivation were droplets of water that, if kept being poured, would ultimately fill the bowl.. If one stopped pouring water, the one contained in the bowl would sooner orter dry out, and the body would go back at the earliest state of the stage of cultivation that they had reached.

    The speed in which the bowl was filled by the droplets of water, was the person¡¯s talent.

    What ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ did for Daniel, was to increase the speed to which the droplets of water were poured into his bowl, and therefore, speed his poor natural talent in cultivation. That was the reason why Daniel and hispanions possessed the same amount of power which, theoretically speaking, only a person who had cultivated for hundreds of years should have had.

    An example of this, was Aeron, which was hundreds of years old, but only had a cultivation at thete ninth stage of immortal cultivation.

    However, the reason why Aeron¡¯s cultivation was that low, was not because of hisck in talent, but because his time was split between increasing his immortal cultivation, and cultivating his mind, which was a power that required much more time in order to be strengthened.

    The biggest progresses that Aeron had made in the cultivation of the mind in the past two hundred years, had been made during the time he had spent with Daniel, hunting for the demons of the Church of Damnation, and killing evil cultivators.

    Originally these demons would be his worst enemies, but now that he was able to receive the boost in power from Daniel¡¯s system, he was able to get used to the psychological torture that he had to withstand whenever he met one, in a third of the time. This had allowed him to use the horror of which these demons fed off of, to strengthen his own mind.

    The rankings amongst the elite members of the Psionic Dimension were, just like those of most other factions, split into four levels. Each level was used to differentiate the member¡¯s progress in the cultivation of their gifts. These levels were low, mid, high, and perfect.

    The cultivation of a mental warrior of the Psionic Dimension, on the other hand, was split into five levels. The first level of mental cultivation was called Strong Mind, and was the stage which mental warriors who did not possess the gift of the leader of the Psionic Dimension would be at. Other than the members of the Psionic Dimension, those who belonged to other mental centered factions were also at this stags. Daniel, was also at the Strong Mind stage.

    Those at the Strong Mind stage were able to read other people¡¯s mind, and to attach their minds to their bodies and spirit.. One of the most notorious effects of this stage, was the ability to keep one¡¯s bearings whenever time was being rewinded, and resist low level mental maniption.

    The second level, better known as the first stage of the Psionic Dimension¡¯s gift, was called Mental Embodiment, and allowed the cultivator to see the memories of another human, as well as empathize with his feelings and emotions. The cultivators at this stage were considered low level elites of the Psionic Dimension.

    The second stage of the Psionic Dimension¡¯s gift was called Psychic Evolution, and was the stage where mid level elite members were able to force their mind to evolve into avatars, as well as use their mental power to affect the minds of other people. This, was the stage to which Aeron belonged.

    Finally, the following two stages were called Mental Merging, reserved for those cultivators who had managed to fully merge their consciousness to their avatars, and be beings of a mental nature, instead of beings of flesh and bones... and finally, Ascension, which was reserved for those who had fully solidified their avatar into a physical being which acted as their true and superior body.

    Thanks to the help of Daniel¡¯s system, Aeron was able to reach thete ninth stage of immortal cultivation, as well as being close to the point where he would be able to merge his consciousness with his avatar.

    Xargy, on the other hand, had only been able to cultivate through the use of the two gems which Daniel had given to him, and while they were extremely powerful cultivation resources, the only effect that two gems had had, was to strengthen Xargy¡¯s body by a very small margin, and further strengthen his mes.

    After discovering the practical use of cultivation, Virgil had also focused on it wholeheartedly. His free time was spent ying chess with Daniel, who Virgil had chosen to keep himpany, and creating contraptions thanks to hisprehension of the natural essences.

    A monthter, the four had finally managed to reach the next owned by the Church of Damnation.

    Daniel¡¯s entire knowledge about the location and the power of the demons which upied thes he visited, were entirely taken by the demons he tortured, as well as from the neighbourings. Of course, Xargy was to thank if they were able to survive the encounter with stronger demons, whenever one of the captured demons would lie to him.

    Daniel shrunk the on which the four were traveling on, and put it, along with Virgil, inside one of the pocket dimensions he had created. He then approached the with a human-shaped Xargy, and Aeron.

    Just like any other which belonged to the Church of Damnation, this did not have a keeper of key. Each keeper of key was supposed to keep people outside of the, but since two demons could not effectively share the sufferings of a without hindering each other¡¯s cultivation, the role had disappeared in their faction. This allowed people toe and go as they pleased.

    Naturally, if an intruder was found by the demon that was stationed in the, it would be the demon¡¯s right to kill him without any form of repercussion.

    This was highly advanced, and remind Daniel of Ton Bes, the base of the Poisonous Rose. The buildings were made of cement, and the ground had been paved with a solid ck mixture which Daniel had never seen before. However, Daniel could not feel any particrly powerful herbal smell, nor see any indication that this could be a focused on alchemy and poison making.

    While the cities were advanced, they were also empty, and an eerie feeling would creep down the back of whomever would be courageous enough to walk around them alone at night.

    The vegetation that had grown by the sides of the streets, and the rusty metallic poles that were standing eight meters tall, made it clear to the three of them that the city was abandoned, and that it was unlikely that anybody lived in it anymore.

    "They know how to choose them.." Muttered Aeron while turning to look at the impressive constructions who stood hundreds of meters tall, as well as the metallic contraptions which stood in line in the middle of the street.

    "I have seen this sort of development before.." Said Daniel while suddenly remembering the abandoned cities of the corrupted wastnd. The only difference was that this did not seem to be corrupted, and that it appeared to be extremely well suited for human life.

    The three walked through therge streets towards the center of the city for a few hours, until finally, Xargy smelled the approaching of a human a few kilometers away.

    Left with no choice but to find out what had caused this state of destion, the three walked into the grid of massive buildings, and towards the source of the smell that Xargy had felt.

    -----

    Ten minutes earlier.

    Hidden in the dark corner of a hall in the fourteenth floor of one of the tallest building on the city, were five young men, and two young women. All of them were dressed in dirty shirts, tank tops, and utility pants, on their backs wererge backpacks, and in their hands, were different types of guns.

    "How many do you have left?" Asked one of the two young women who also appeared to be at the lead of the group. She was tying her long hair into a ponytail while holding a two handed gun in between her thighs.

    After hearing the girl¡¯s question, the rest of her group checked their own weapons.

    "One mag left.." Said the oldest of the young men.. a man with dark brown hair, and thick sses.

    The second men in mimetic attire took his backpack off of his shoulders, and put the firearm into it. He then took a machete out of it, and said "I¡¯m out. I¡¯ll go for melee from now on."

    The second girl nervously checked her own weapon while desperately trying to keep her bleeding right arm hidden from the rest of her group. Momentster, she said with a trembling voice "H-half a m-magazine.."

    "I¡¯m out too.."

    "I¡¯m out too.."

    Responded two short young men dressed in identical clothes after checking their own weapons. These two young men were twins, and if not for the distinctive dirt that was stered on their clothes, they would be indistinguishable.

    Thest of the young men was dark skinned, and seemed to be past the two meters in height. He was holding a ck sports bag, which from how tense the strings were, one could assume that it was the heaviest of their baggages. "Ok." He said with a deep voice after checking the container of his machine gun¡¯s munitions.

    While this group of seven made an inventory of what they had to work with, numerous loud banging sounds could be hearding from arge metallic double door, along with a constant moaning.

    "We are stuck here.. This is the fourteenth floor.." Said the man in sses while looking out of a wall made of ss.

    "We don¡¯t have enough bullets to push our way through where we came from.." responded the man in mimetic attire. He was worryingly looking at the door, which was trembling due to the pressure caused by the banging.

    The girl with the ponytail, which had finally been able to check the bullets left in her own weapon, looked around the hall with focused eyes, which only stopped afternding on a red panel ced on the side of one of the hall¡¯s pir.

    "How long was a fire hose reel again?" She asked while turning to look at the man in military attire.

    "Around thirty-five meters." Responded the man while moving a desk in front of the door, in an attempt to slow whatever was banging at the door from bursting through.

    "Still not long enough. Vanessa, do you still have that rope I gave you earlier?" She then asked while turning to look at the nervous young girl, which after hearing her words, quickly nodded, and took a thin climbing rope out of her backpack.

    "Oh please God.. no. You are not thinking what I am thinking, right?" Asked the man in sses as the girl with the ponytail grabbed the rope from the other girl¡¯s hands, and walked towards the red panel.

 Chapter 299 A Joyful Apocalypse Part 2

    *TOC! TOC! TOC!* *CRRRT* *KATCHAAA!*

    "It¡¯s so damn high! I¡¯m gonna be sick.." Said the young man in military attire after covering his arm in dirty clothes, his face with his other arm, and shattering one of the massive windows with the grip of his gun.

    After the girl with the ponytail finished tying the end of the rope to the fire nozzle of the hose reel, she walked past him while saying "You know what else is sure to make you sick if they get to you?" She then threw the end of the rope out of the broken window, and looked down to see if the length was enough to allow them to leave the building.

    "Damn it! It¡¯s two stories short. Didn¡¯t you say that it was thirty-five meters?" Asked the young man in sses to the man in military attire. They had been trapped in this building for hours, and now that they had finally found a way to leave, every new problem hit their psyche harder than it usually would.

    "Do I look like a fucking fire fighter to you?!" Responded the man in military attire angrily.

    While the three were busy looking for a way out of this mess, the two twins and the taller young man were busy barricading the door. The second girl, on the other hand, was quietly tying something around her arm, and coughing.

    "Stop fighting you two ... I have an idea." Said the girl with the ponytail while pulling the fire hose up by a couple meters. She then tied it around her arm, and after breaking the remaining pieces of ss left of the lower part of the window, she grabbed her gun with her free arm, and leaned out of the opened window with her entire body.

    With a view of the lower windows, she pointed her gun at the one that was about three stories under the floor where they were stuck in, and shot. *SPA* *Katchaaa!* The distant sound of ss shattering and dropping down the many stories of the building resounded loudly in the street.

    "We have to move!" Shouted one of the two twins after hearing the sound of cracking which came from the door¡¯s hinges. He, his brother, and the tall young men were pushing the stacked office desks which were keeping the door from breaking open due to the constant pounding.

    The girl with the ponytail put her gun¡¯s strap around her neck, then unwrapped the hose from her wrist and held her weight with the grip she had on it. "Lower yourself one at a time!" She said as she began to lower herself, disappearing from the other¡¯s sight.

    After the girl with the ponytail, the man in sses went down.

    "Come on! Vanessa, you go now!" Said the young man in military attire after turning to look at the oddly quiet girl, which slowly approached him with an unsteady pace. "Are you okay?" He then asked. However, instead of answering to him, the girl lifted her head up just to showed her paler skin, two red eyes, and veins protruding from underneath her skin.

    Her expression was a crazed one, and before the man in military attire could react, she had already jumped on him in an attempt to bite him.

    The man in military attire was standing dangerously close to the shattered window already, so when the girl jumped on him, they both fell out.

    "ALEX! VANESSA!" Shouted one of the twins which had witnessed to everything that had just happened. He immediately dashed towards the window and looked down. What he saw, was Alex, the young man in military attire, hanging from the edge of the window by holding his weight thanks to the strength of his fingers. The crazed girl, on the other hand, was lying dead on the ground at the bottom of the building.

    "JOSH! PULL ME UP!" shouted Alex after stupidly looking over his shoulders, and down the tall building, only entering into a deeper panic.

    "I¡¯m James." Said the twin while immediately kneeling down, and grabbing the straps of the man¡¯s backpack.

    "I don¡¯t give a crap! Just pull me up, please!"

    While helping him holding his weight, James moved the fire hose closer to him, and said "Grab the hose and go down!"

    Alex took a deep breath, and after closing his eyes, he let go over the grip on his right hand, and attempted to blindly grab the fire hose. Luckily, the hose was quite close, and he was able to get a hold of it right away and lower himself while praying not to fall to his death.

    He kept his eyes closed while slowly climbing down the hose, until finally, he opened them to see how further down he needed to climb.. but the moment he opened his eyes, he gasped in shock. "AAAAH!" He was hanging on the floor right above the one where the girl with the ponytail and the man with sses were, and pressed against theyer of ss that kept him out of the building, in an attempt to reach him, were dozens of crazed people.

    These people were in a much worse state than Vanessa was. They had been in that state for much longer than her, and their aspect hardly resembled that of humans anymore. Their clothes were in tatters, and their skin was rotting. Most of them had visible injuries on their bodies, and their eyes were white and dead. The only instinct thatpelled them to move, was the most basic instinct to feed, and it did not appear that living humans were outside of their diet.

    Luckily, the ss was holding the constant banging of these crazed people, so after the shock, Alex kept climbing down until finally, a pair of slender arms grabbed his waist, and pulled him into the building.

    After Alex went down, the taller dark-skinned young man grabbed Josh¡¯s arm, the twin that was helping him with preventing the door from bursting open, and pushed him towards the window. He then said "You and your brother.. go down." He then ced his machine gun above the desks which they had used to barricade the door, and sat on the ground with his back pressed against the desk.

    Before reaching the window, Josh turned to look at the tall young man, and said "You better not y hero."

    "Josh! Get your ass here!!" Shouted James to his twin brother, which after catching his attention, went down the hose followed by his brother.

    Left alone, the tall dark-skinned young man grabbed a packet of cigarettes from his ck sports bag, and after hitting the back of his hand with it, he grabbed the butt of the one that jumped out of the opening with his lips, and lit it up with a lighter that he had fished out of one of the pockets in his pants.

    After breathing in the smoke of the cigarette twice, he took it out of his mouth, and muttered "They always forget the exit n.." He then fished into his ck bag, and from it, he pulled out a grenade.

    The banging behind him was getting muffled by the noise of breaking wood, and it became clear that it wouldn¡¯t take long before those who wanted to enter, managed to. So he stood back up, grabbed his machine gun, and after pointing it at one of the holes in the door, he pressed the trigger.

    *SPA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA* *SPA-PA-PA-PA* *SPA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA*

    As the pressure against the door lessened, the tall young man grabbed his bag and ran towards the window, and grabbing the the tense fire hose on the way. Just before jumping, he took the granate up to his mouth, pulled the safety pin with his teeth, and threw it at the door that, just as it was touched by the grenade, burst wide open.

    From behind it, hundreds of people desperately dashed towards the window, but has as they were about to jump down and onto the tall young man, the grenade exploded, sending a shockwave, and shrapnels to push and rip the bodies of these crazed people.

    One of these shrapnels was sent towards the tense fire hose, and ripped it by half of its thickness.

    A constant noise of ripping could be heard as the young man¡¯s weight was too much for the damaged hose to withstand.

    Ultimately, just a meter away from the floor where the other members of the group were waiting, the hose finally snapped. The tall young man,pletely calm and prepared for this to happen, fell for a couple of meters.. But then, a pair of slender arms wrapped around his chest, and two arms which came from the sides of the window grabbed his own arms.

    When the tall young man opened his eye, the girl with the ponytail was hugging his chest. She was being held by the two twins, which grabbed the straps of her backpack and prevented them from falling. At the same time, both of his arms were being held by Alex, the young man in military attire, and the man in sses.

    The four did not wait long before pulling the girl and the tall young man back into the building.

    "They definitely heard that.. We better leave now." Said Alex while walking towards the stairs with his machete in hand. The other five quickly embraced their guns, and after standing up, they followed him.

    For the following couple of minutes the five rushed down the stairs, and once in the lobby, they made their way towards the exits while killing whoever tried to approach them.

    Alex¡¯s words were right. The crazed people all around the area had heard the explosion, and now were moving in their direction. However, there was no other choice. The tall young man knew that if he allowed those feral people into the room without being stopped, they would have jumped down in an attempt to grab him, and taken him to his death, so the others did not hold it against him.

    Instead, they tried to use their knowledge about the city¡¯syout in order to escape.

    One street after the other, the six of them run and killed the lonely mindless people who approached them, while at the same time, behind them, a group was starting to form.

    The whole purpose of this group seemed to be their death, and they moved at their fastest speed in order to fulfill that objective.

    Differently from the crazed people that were in the building, the ones in the streets were in an even worse state. Some of them were missing pieces of their bodies, and signs of injuries could be seen clearly. It almost appeared as if they didn¡¯t feel any pain, no matter if their guts were hanging from their opened stomachs, or if chunks of fleshrge enough to show the bones were missing from their limbs. They kept walking, or if they could, run towards their target.

    The more the group ran, the more they needed to use their weapons to keep the lone runners away, the more were attracted from far away.

    They kept running and running, until they arrived at a crossroad.

    James, who was the one who knew this roads better than anybody else, and was at the back of the group, shouted "GO RIGHT! LEFT IS A DEAD END!"

    The members of the group trusted each other blindly, so when they were about to reach the corner, Alex moved his hand behind his back, and took the gun that the girl with the ponytail was handing over to him. He then moved it in front of his chest, and ran past the corner.

    He was prepared for whatever could be behind this corner, but what he didn¡¯t expect, was for arge man to be standing on the other side.

    Unable to react in time, Alex bumped against thisrge man and fell on the ground.. But without losing his cool, he pointed his gun, and believing this man to be one of the crazed individuals that was following his group, shot.

    *SPA* The bullet traveled towards the head of therge man at a crazy speed, but before the bullet could hit the man¡¯s forehead, his hand shed in front of his face, and grabbed the bullet.

    Thisrge man turned to look at the two individuals that were walking behind him, a man with a mask that covered his facepletely and a twenty-something young man in leather armor, and in anguage that the group of six were not able to understand, said "I think this kid just tried to kill me."

 Chapter 300 A Joyful Apocalypse Part 3

    After shooting Xargy in the face, Alex immediately stood up from the ground, and believing he had missed the shot, he approached him and said "Oh shit! I¡¯m so sorry! I thought you were one of them! Good thing I¡¯ve missed.."

    "We don¡¯t have time for that! There is a group of dead ones that is following us!" Shouted the man in sses while grabbing Alex¡¯s shirt, and pulling him down the street.

    The girl with the ponytail immediately noticed that the three of them hadn¡¯t reacted to their words, and that they were standing still, and looking at each other with confused expressions.

    Unfortunately, this world had already been gone for awhile and those who were slow minded, would only bring others down with them ... so after looking back at them with apologetic eyes, the girl turned back towards her escaping group of friends, and kept running.

    "Were you able to understand what the hell is going on?" Asked Daniel to a just as confused Aeron.

    Aeron shook his head in response, while saying "I can¡¯t read their minds. There is something around that is blocking mental power.."

    "Yeah, I can¡¯t either." Responded Daniel while looking at the group of young people as they ran away. He then turned to look back at his twopanions, and added "We better ask them, then." However, Xargy was not there anymore.

    Daniel and Aeron looked at each other for a moment, then walked past the corner. There, they found Xargy standing still while a hundred of dead ones assaulted him, and tried to sink their teeth into his tough skin. "I think I know why those brats were running." He said while looking at what once was an old woman gnawing at his forearm.

    The moment the two of them walked past the corner, the dead ones that hadn¡¯t managed to get a hold of Xargy¡¯s body immediately dashed towards them with crazed eyes, but after a simple flick of Daniel¡¯s finger, the space around them solidified, causing the entire group to be frozen in space.

    "What is wrong with them?" Asked Xargy as the pushed the dead ones away, and cleaned himself off of the disgusting and smelly liquids that came from their mouth.

    Daniel approached one of these individuals, and injected a massive amount of his immortal essence into them, then turned it into healing essence. The healing essence quickly traveled through their bodies, healing the person¡¯s injuries to his healthier state.

    However, even though the person had been curedpletely, his mind was still in a crazed state, and the only difference from before, was that it was able to act and move faster than before it was healed.

    "I think they have lost their minds ... It must be the torture picked by the demon that lives in this. He is likely cultivating by using the sufferings of the survivors." Responded Daniel before looking above these people¡¯s heads.

    What he found above those people¡¯s heads, was nothing. Neither the number nor their type of karma was visible, just like it would happen for deceased people.

    -----

    A few hundreds meters away, was the group of young people. They were catching their breath from behind one of the buildings, while looking back at the way they hade from in hope to see whether the three people they had seen moments earlier had survived or not.. But all they could see, were the shadows of therge group that was chasing theme from behind the corner. Of the three, there was no trace.

    "They are gone.." Said Josh before turning to look back at the rest of the group. He then added "I¡¯m sorry for them, but at least they got that group off our backs." In the world where they lived, there wasn¡¯t enough time to delve too deep intopassion or negative feelings. Sufferings was a constant, but the will to survive trumped above everything else.

    "We have to leave before some wander in our direction." Said the girl with the ponytail, while scouting the alleys from her group¡¯s hiding spot.

    While still being proactive and never stopping to work with the purpose of assuring her group¡¯s survival, she couldn¡¯t help but thinking about the odd trio that they had left behind.. About their odd clothes, about the oddnguage they used, and about how calm they appeared to be despite being in the same situation they were in.

    However, after a few more minutes of running, the group forgot about Daniel¡¯s group.

    It was only after they managed to get the three of them out of their minds, that they turned a corner, and found the lonely figure of Daniel standing in the middle of the road on the other side of the block.

    "Hanna.. Isn¡¯t he one of the guys we have seen earlier?" Asked Alex while pointing his finger at him. His clothes were perfectly clean, and if somebody told them that he was a survivor of an apocalypse, nobody would have believed them.

    "Didn¡¯t you say that the other road was a dead end?" Asked the man in sses to Josh, the most confused-looking between the two twins.

    "I am sure it is.." Responded Josh while scratching his head with his right hand in confusion. "But even if I was wrong ... how did he get here so fast?"

    "His friends must have died back there.."

    While the group wondered what the fate of Daniel¡¯s group had been, or how he had reached that ce before they did, from one of the streets that was part of the crossroad were Daniel was standing, they saw one of the many hordes that had formed in the surrounding area after hearing the noise that they had made.

    "Look, there is a group of dead ones marching towards him." Said Alex to Hannah. "Do we help him out?"

    Hannah, the girl with the ponytail, became pensive for a few moments. "Screw it.. Hide into that grocery store. I¡¯ll be right back." she said to her group before quickly fishing into her bag, and taking a thumb sized firecracker from it. She then crawled in between the parked cars, and approached Daniel as quietly as possible.

    Once she was close enough, she picked a lighter from inside one of the pockets of her pants, and used it to light the firecracker.

    With a quick motion of her arm she was able to send the firecracker flying in the air and towards the other side of the horde of dead ones.. But that day, was not her luckiest one. Instead of reaching the intended area, the firecracker hit the traffic light suspended above the road, and bounced back towards the area where she was hiding.

    It was impossible for her to pick the firecracker and throw it once again, so she hid in between the cars, and while the possibility of being torn to pieces by a group of hungry corpses was filling her mind, she desperately tried to find a way to escape without either bringing the horde to her group, or towards Daniel.

    *SPAH!* The explosion of the firecracker was not loud, but the proximity to therge buildings caused the soundwaves to bounce off of them, and resound in the area with an incredibly loud echo.

    After the explosion, Hannah lifted her head to see if the horde wasing towards her, but instead, all she saw was Daniel, who was standing next to her and looking at her with an expression which showed clear secondhand embarrassment.

    To Daniel the dead ones were humans who had lost their minds, and used very primitive methods to fight. Any cultivator of the lowest level would be able to kill hundreds of them in seconds, and yet this girl was hiding in terror.

    Naturally, he was aware that the group that he had met moments earlier was made of normal humans, but after seeing the weapons they wielded, he had assume that they wouldn¡¯t be any weaker that a low level spiritual cultivator. After all, the bullets that their guns shot were not much different than a spike of metal essence thrown by a low level spiritual cultivator.

    "Stay down!" Whispered Hannah with a loud tone while grabbing Daniel¡¯s leather armor, and forcing him to take cover behind the car. She then peeked at the direction where the horde of dead ones was, but there, she saw nothing.

    While slightly confused, Hannah decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth, and turned to look at Daniel.. Which asked to her "Where is the demon?"

    Hannah was not able to understand Daniel¡¯s words, which to her sounded like gibberish, so she simply stood up and said "Are your friends still alive?"

    Daniel tried once again to force his mind power into the girl¡¯s mind in order to at least see the images that were appearing in her head, but no matter how much he tried, he was unable to. In the end, he could do nothing but to try to understand what the girl was saying based on the gestures she was making.

    It was only after the girl mimicked a "tall person" and a "masked man" that Daniel understood. Aeron and Xargy had gone to visit other cities, as there were better chances to find the demon if they split, so he wasn¡¯t sure where hispanions were.

    He responded by shrugging.

    Unsure whether Daniel¡¯s shrugging meant that they were probably dead, or that he genuinely didn¡¯t know where they were, she decided to grab his long sleeve, and while staying low, she dragged him in the spot where her friends were hiding.

    -----

    In the minute when Hannah had gone to save Daniel, the group had gone to hide into the grocery store, which happened to still have a bit of food store inside, and a rtivelyrge back where they could rest for the night.

    After scavenging the shop, the group closed itself into the back of the shop, and began to settle a small indoor camp made out of sleeping bags, and a small camping stove in the middle where they cooked their dinner.

    "What¡¯s his problem?" Asked the man in sses while looking at Daniel tinker with a can opener. He had found many in the back of the shop, and wasn¡¯t sure what the use for them was. It was only after one of the twins took the can opener from his hand, and used it to open a can of soup that Daniel showed an expression of realization, and lost interest in the object.

    "My guess is that they are part of an itinerary circus, and can¡¯t speak ournguage."

    "Might be.. Let¡¯s ask him." Said Alex while standing up, and moving in front of Daniel. He then began to mimic different types of animals that one would often see in a circus. His gestures were exaggerated, and he looked quite ridiculous, forcing a smile to appear in the face of the onlookers, as well as a fewughs.

    However, these actions did nothing but deepen Daniel¡¯s confusion.

    Be it in the army, at parties, or at school, Alex had always been the clown of the group. He would often entertain the people he was with by making a fool of himself, and the more recognition he received, the dumber he would act, so after a few minutes, he forgot about the purpose of what he was doing, and began to act like an idiot just so that hispanions could, for the first time since the world had gone crazy, forget their problems, and have augh.

    Alex¡¯s actions were too ridiculous even for somebody who didn¡¯t understand what he was doing, and in the end, even Daniel couldn¡¯t help but smile in amusement..

    However, the mood was immediately ruined by something that forced a shiver to run down the backs of the group members, and for sheer terror to creep back into their minds.

    During one of Alex¡¯s most shy depiction, he identally hit one of the metallic shelves where he items were stored, and caused them to fall over.

    The shop was a grocery store, so usually, there wouldn¡¯t be anything on the shelves but food.. But right when the apocalypse had begun, the store was having a promotion where one was able to buy pots, skillets, and tes.

    The noise caused by the pots and skillets hitting the ground, and the tes shattering, resounded in the night ten times louder than any bullet, and before the group could even react, a few moaning noises could be heard approach in their direction.

    The group left the sleeping bags where they were, and after only grabbing their guns, rushed towards the door in order to escape.. But it was toote. Half a dozen dead ones had already runned into the store, and were moving towards the door that lead to the back.

    "We are trapped." Said Josh with panic while looking while locking the door.

    After hearing his words, clear panic appeared in the faces of hispanions.. Daniel, on the other hand, was observing the events that were ying out calmer than ever.

 Chapter 301 A Joyful Apocalypse Part 4

    "You¡¯ve done it this time! Asshole! You¡¯ve killed us all!" Shouted the man in sses to Alex, which unable to say a single word, stared at the faces of hispanions. From their faces, He was able to discern the most devastating feeling that a human could ever feel when facing death.. And that feeling, was helplessness. The group was giving up the more time passed, and it was all his fault.

    This hadn¡¯t been the first time that the former soldier had caused a situation like this, but never before had it happened when they were trapped with no possible way out. The back of the shop had only two entrances, one inside the store, and the other to the back. Unfortunately, there already were dead ones banging at both of those doors.

    There was no escape.

    The feeling of defeat made its way into the mind of this group. They didn¡¯t even have the time to cry for the loss of one of the member of their group, and now they were already going to die. Daniel on the other hand, was looking at them while shaking his head in disappointment.

    While it was true that they were doomed, they had given up before fighting, and that, was uneptable for somebody who had lived in a world where cultivation existed.

    He remembered how many times he had been chased by Phyrri¡¯s guards, or by the criminal organizations who used the traffic of merchants as their personal bank withdrawals and never epted his presence in the city, or when he had to escape from the beasts in the forest right outside of the city.

    He was weaker, had been beaten up constantly, and yet he never given up.

    Once his mind went back to those moments, while proud of having been able to survive on his own, he couldn¡¯t help but think about the fact that he would have really needed a bit of help in those times. So, he turned to look at the door that lead on the back of the shop, and with a sword that had appeared in his hand out of nowhere, he opened it and walked out.

    "STOP!!" Shouted Hannah after noticing Daniel walk out. The rest of the group also looked in shock at his actions.

    "What the hell is he doing?!" asked Josh while dashing towards the door, and pressing the side of his head against it in an attempt to hear what was happening.

    "Fuck!.. If we have to die we might as well get over it quickly.." Said the man in sses as he built up his courage and grabbed his gun from his backpack, and looked at it as if it was an escape from a painful death.

    Hannah turned to look at the rest of the group, which were now considering the idea of putting a quick end to their sufferings instead of being devoured alive by the dead ones. The will to survive had never left her mind. Her group had survived for months, and she couldn¡¯t ept that everything was going to end like this. However, for the life of her, she couldn¡¯t think of a way to save her friends.

    Every second that she spent in silence, for her group, was a second more spent considering the easy way out..

    "It¡¯s not even a discussion.. n¡¯s screams as those two corpses bit chunks of flesh off of his legs and stomach. The horror on Han¡¯s face as he watched his family being ripped to pieces and eaten.. I cannot die like that." Said the man in sses as two tears formed in his eyes, and he looked at his gun with a disturbing form of affection.

    The twins looked at each other in an attempt to understand what the other was thinking.. Without saying a word, they already knew that they too would have rather die like that than being eaten alive.

    "We can try to force our way out.." muttered Alex with a crazed expression. The guilt was weighing on his mind, causing him to slowly lose his mind.

    Hannah was still angry at him for causing this situation, yet, she looked at the faces of herpanions, hoping that they wouldn¡¯t discard the will of surviving right away.

    Natives of this city, the two twins had always worked as the scouts of this group. They knew perfectly well that there was no way for them to survive even if they wanted to. The grocery shop was near a park, and was within amercial area. The outbreak had happened during a holiday, and the banners of sale were all over the street. There was no worse time or ce for them to be in the entire city.

    The man in sses was touching his gun.. Moving it increasingly closer to his head as his expression disyed deeper and deeper levels of desperation and sadness.

    The only one that had been quiet so far, was the taller young man, whose expression, at some point, had gone from one of worry to one of confusion.

    "What are you thinking about, George?" Asked Hannah while walking closer to him.

    George, which had said nothing until now, turned to look at her, and muttered "Did he always have a sword?" These few words were enough to distract the two twins from their spiraling state of mind, however, they were not enough for the man in sses, and Alex, which appeared to be going crazier by the moment.

    While the four were looked at each other in confusion, a sound came from behind them.

    *Click*

    The four turned to look back in horror, and there, they saw the main in sses breath heavily, and tremble like a leaf in the wind. His gun was pointed at his head, and he had just pressed the trigger.. Fortunately, the shot hadn¡¯t been exploded.

    "FELIX!" Shouted Hannah before marching towards the terrified young man, and pping the gun off of his hand. She then grabbed the cor of his shirt, and was prepared to give him a speech that could set his mind straight, but not one word came to her mind. Instead, she looked at the desperation shown by his eyes, and hugged him.

    Felix barely felt the touch of Hannah¡¯s arms, and all he could think about was his failed attempt. His gun had ammos, he had always cleaned it religiously, and the safe was off. It had never failed him before.. This had been the first time.

    "It¡¯s not all over.. We just have to find a way out of this. We can¡¯t do it if we give up." Hannah muttered in Felix¡¯s ear as she squeezed her arms around his torso.

    Unfortunately, her words didn¡¯t have the effect that she had hoped for, and before she could react, Felix had already grabbed the handgun that was in her holster, and pulled it out. He then pushed the girl away with his shoulder, and pointed the gun at his head. "This is the only thing left to do.." He said apologetically in between sobs.. Then.. *Click* One more time, Felix had failed to take his own life.

    "What are the chances?.." muttered James in confusion.

    Due to the dangers that the apocalypse had brought to their life, they had been forced to adapt. They had soon learned how to take care of their weapons, and how to keep them always ready to shoot at all times. To have a gun fail in that time and age spelled death.. So while it was strange that one of their guns had failed, two in a row was absurd.

    It had taken all of Felix¡¯s courage to pull the trigger twice, and now that he had failed a second time, his legs gave up and he fell limp on the ground.

    The rest of the group looked at theirpanion without knowing what to say.

    The silence was so deafening that they could hear their own breathing, and in their mind, every second was a step closer to death.

    However, a question which came from George¡¯s mouth distracted them from their state of mind. A simple question, and yet, a question that gave them a spark of hope to hang on to. "Why is it so quiet?" He asked as his eyes narrowed, and lips curled up almost as if in an attempt to sharpen his hearing.

    This question thundered in the minds of hispanions, causing their desperation to disappear, and for more question to pop into their heads.

    "Yeah, why is it so quiet?" Asked Josh before once again moving his head closer to the door.

    The very moment Josh¡¯s ear touched the metallic door, the handle bent downwards, and the door was pushed open. Behind it was Daniel. His clothes were perfectly clean, and not even a drop of sweat could be on his face.. Just calmness.

    Without bothering to close the door, Daniel entered the store and walked towards Felix. He then sat on the floor right where he was sitting a couple of minutes earlier, and grabbed the dish of canned beans that the group had given to him earlier.

    "SHUT THE DOOR!!" Screamed Hannah to the top of her lungs after noticing that the door had been left wide open. However, there was no response to her order. Josh was standing paralyzed in front of the door with eyes and jaw locked.

    Except for Felix, which was still shocked by the failed suicide attempts, the rest of the group ran towards the door. What they sawter, hit them harder than a p to the face.

    The alley connected to the back of the grocery store was filled by corpses just like they expected, and yet, none of them was moving. Instead, they were lying beheaded on the ground. Their numbers were in the hundreds.

    "Did you do this?" Asked George to Daniel while the rest of the group stepped out of the store, and walked down the alley in shock.

    While not being able to say a word, nor to exin how somebody could do something like this, the weight that was pressing down their hearts had been finally lifted, and their will to survive hade back stronger than ever.

    "Check the end of the alley.. See if there is a route we can take that isn¡¯t full of dead ones.." Said Hannah while looking at the clean cuts that parted these corpses¡¯ heads from their bodies.

    Unable to understand what George had said, Daniel gave a second taste to the beans he had been given earlier, and for the second time, he was unable to swallow them. Beans were amon food in his too, and this canned version was nowhere near as appetizing as the worse homemade version he had eaten in the past.

    After seeing that Daniel had no intention of responding to his question, George turned to look at Felix, and said "You bettere and see this.."

    George¡¯s words were finally able to shake Felix out of his shock, and convince him to weakly stand up from the ground. He couldn¡¯t understand why everyone had left and they hadn¡¯t died, so he decided to listen to George, and walk towards the door.

    However, as soon as he stood up, Daniel appeared in front of him. In his hand, he was holding felix¡¯s gun.

    Seeing Daniel disappear and reappear in front of felix in an instant was a shock to George, which muttered "How.. H-How did you.." His surprise was short-lived, as Daniel pointed the gun at Felix¡¯s head and moved his finger in front of the trigger. "What are you doing?!" He asked with worry before turning towards the opened door, and shouting "GUYS! GET BACK HERE!!"

    In a matter of seconds James, Hannah, and Alex walked back into the back of the shop.

    "It¡¯s alright.. The gun is jammed." muttered Felix to hispanions.

    Almost as if understanding Felix¡¯s words, Daniel pointed the gun upwards, and put pressure on the trigger. *SPA!* A bullet was exploded by the gun without a problem, sending a shiver down Felix¡¯s back which doubled down the moment Daniel pointed the gun back at him.

    Daniel did not shoot, and instead made the gun roll around his finger until the grip was pointed in Felix¡¯s direction.

    Felix took Daniel¡¯s action as a rude way to give him back his gun, but that was not all. The moment Felix grabbed the gun, it stuck tightly to his hand, and he was unable to let go of it. At the same time, the gun moved to the side of his head.

    "I AM NOT DOING THIS!!" Shouted Felix in panic.

    After the barrel of the gun was lined up with his head, his index was finally released, and he was able to move it once again. He carefully kept it away of the trigger in order to avoid pressing it by mistake, and at the same time, he was trying to force the gun off of his head.

    As the rest of the group looked in worry, a single word spoken in the¡¯s native tongue hade out of Daniel¡¯s mouth. That word, was ¡¯Shoot¡¯.

 Chapter 302 A Joyful Apocalypse Part 5

    "What are you saying?!" Asked Hannah in shock. She couldn¡¯t understand why Daniel would suddenly give the gun back to Felix, and start talking theirnguage just to tell him to finish the job he had started. "DON¡¯T!" She shouted at Felix, who despite his own words, she believed was once again trying to end his life.

    "I CAN¡¯T MOVE!" Responded Felix while turning to look at his friends. Right when his state of mind was at his lowest, he had been forced to take his gun, which he was now sure was ready to fire, and to point it at his own head. The only part of his arm that he was able to move was his index, so that he could use it to press the trigger.

    During the time Daniel had spent with this group, he had kept ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ constantly activated. He had been able to understand the meaning of a few of the words the group had spoken so far, and learned how to join them together in order to express what he meant. "Shoot. This happen again soon ... Easy like this." He said to him.

    For as absurd as the situation was, Felix had finally understood what was happening. Only he could feel the pressure on his fingers, while the rest of his group looked at him as if he was in the middle of his third attempt.

    His eyes couldn¡¯t help but start tearing up as he remembered what he had done earlier, and that if both guns hadn¡¯t jammed, he would not be standing there. He was truly living on borrowed time. His friends would have been out of two people if he had been gone, and their lives would have been nothing but harder. Yet, he had still decided to abandon them.

    "I don¡¯t want to.." he muttered in between sobs.

    "Don¡¯t do it then! Put the gun down Felix!!" Said Hannah as she believed to have found a small moment of rity in her friend¡¯s suicidal thoughts. However, it¡¯s what she heard after that turned her mind nk.

    "Do it, or I do." Said Daniel as another gun appeared in his hand.

    The group looked at the gun that Daniel was holding with shock. Not only because his hands were empty so far, but also because that gun was the second gun with which Felix had tried to kill himself with. The gun which Hannah had picked up from the ground, walked out of the store with, and that had just disappeared from her right hand.

    "What the hell.." muttered Hannah while turning to look at herpanions.

    "What is going on? How did he get your gun?" Asked George from her side, which in response to Daniel¡¯s action grabbed his machine gun and pointed it at him. "DON¡¯T SHOOT!" He shouted in an attempt to get Daniel¡¯s attention.

    He waspletely ignored.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes were pointed straight at Felix¡¯s, and in them, was a promise of death. To felix there was only one absolute truth ... And that was that Daniel was not joking. If he didn¡¯t pull the trigger, he had no doubt that Daniel would actually shoot him.

    The same sort of madness that had brought him to pull the trigger twice was once again making its way into Felix¡¯s mind, and it was bringing him to lose control. But this time, anger was part of it, as he had no control of the situation.

    The storage room suddenly became quiet.

    "Felix, don¡¯t listen to him.. Don¡¯t do it! We need you!" Said Hannah in an attempt to reason with her friend.

    "I AM NOT DOING THIS!" Screamed Felix once again in response.

    Unable to understand what was truly happening, the group became quiet. But as soon as everybody stopped talking, Daniel lifted his opened hand. He then closed his thumb.

    It was clear to everybody else that he was giving Felix a countdown, and that at the end, he would shoot.

    "Don¡¯t!" Said George while pointing the gun at Daniel¡¯s arm.

    Once again, Daniel ignored him, and lowered his pinky finger, only leaving three fingers up.

    After taking careful aim, George pulled the trigger in an attempt to disarm Daniel, however.. *Click* the shot didn¡¯t explode.

    In about three seconds he pulled the magazine out of the gun, and after making sure that it wasn¡¯t empty, he put it back in, loaded the gun once again, and pulled the trigger one more time, *Click* but the result was the same. "What the fuck is going on.." he muttered in confusion.

    As this happened, Daniel had already lowered his ring finger, only leaving two fingers up.

    "I don¡¯t want to die.. I don¡¯t want to.." Mutter Felix in an increasing state of desperation while staring at Daniel¡¯s deadly stare. A stare that only someone who had truly killed people and had gotten used to it was able to show. "I don¡¯t.. I don¡¯t!.." Unfortunately for him, it didn¡¯t seem that Daniel would stop soon.

    His middle finger slowly moved down, and joined the other three. Leaving only his index up.

    Unable to make his gun work, George dropped it on the ground and prepared to tackle Daniel, just like all of hispanions had for the past few seconds, but the moment they tried to move, they found their shoes molten to the ground. "What the hell!!"

    "DON¡¯T KILL HIM!" Shouted Hannah with tears running down her cheeks.

    The moment Daniel¡¯s index finger began to move down, time seemed to slow as well. The people present cold feel the beats of their hearts resound in their ears, and cheeks flush red and burning with a feeling of uneasiness.

    Felix looked at Daniel¡¯s finger move in front of the trigger. It was the time.

    Suddenly, the hold on his hand disappeared, and he was once again free to move his arm.

    A primitive form of anger and hate made its way into Felix¡¯s weakened mind, and along with it, the will to survive. So he pointed the gun at Daniel¡¯s face, and before he could shoot.. *SPA* A bullet was exploded by Felix¡¯s gun and had hit Daniel directly in the head, sending him to the ground.

    "I WANT TO LIVE!!" He shouted as he took a step towards Daniel and pointed his gun at him *SPA SPA SPA SPA SPA SPA SPA CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK* He kept shooting until, and after the magazine was emptied.

    His breathing was heavy, and his eyes wide opened. He stared at Daniel¡¯s corpse for what felt like minutes ... until finally, he turned to look at hispanions, and in between sobs, he said "I¡¯m sorry."

    Hannah approached the crying Felix, and grabbed the hand which was holding the gun with both hands. She then hugged him one more time.

    George was more confused by why Daniel would suddenly try to kill Felix after exterminating the siege of dead ones that had threatened to kill them. From what he knew felix had never done anything to Daniel, and the two didn¡¯t appear to have any shared past of which they were unaware of.

    What they did not know, was that Daniel had felt everything that had happened inside the storage room even when he was killing the dead ones, and the group was falling deeper and deeper into desperation. He hand felt the metal essence of Felix¡¯s weapon being lifted next to his head, and he knew that Felix was going to kill himself.

    However, he had stopped him twice.

    Daniel had seen a lot, and he knew that that kind of experience would scar somebody unless there was something to learn from it. Luck was not enough of an exnation for why Felix was still alive, and since Daniel had already decided to help, he chose to do it all the way.

    What he tried to force into Felix¡¯s mind with his actions, was the will to live. So he gave him a loaded gun, and left him with two choices. The choice to pull the trigger on himself, or to risk death by killing what was threatening his life. He had no intention of letting Felix die, and if there wasn¡¯t an odd blockade for mental power in the, he would have simply had Aeron remove his suicide attempt from his memory ... he simply wanted to reduce the damage that a broken person had caused to himself and his group.

    While Alex, Josh, and James approached the two and tried to console Felix, George looked at Daniel¡¯s corpse in deep confusion. "Why is there no blood?" He asked while moving closer to it.

    For a few moments George examined Daniel¡¯s body, but no matter how much he looked, there was no traces of any injury. The only thing visible were the holes in his clothes, and a ck smudge on his forehead.

    "Why do you think he did it?.. Try to kill Felix after saving us." Asked Hannah after joining George in his examination.

    "I don¡¯t know, but there isn¡¯t a single trace of blo-WHA!!" Responded George before springing up on his feet, and eximing in surprise.

    Daniel had opened his eyes, and lifted his upper body. He then turned to look at Felix while standing up on his feet. At the same time, the entire group looked at him with shock.

    "HE TURNED!! KILL HIM!" Shouted George right before Alex jumped in front of him, and shed his machete on Daniel¡¯s head.

    The motion was blocked by an iron grip that had suddenly wrapped around Alex¡¯s wrist. He then used a little too much force to push him away, causing the young man to crash against the shelves, and once again cause a ruckus.

    Daniel did not go for a bite like other dead ones, so after his actions, the group was only able to stare in disbelief as he walked in front of Felix. "Friends ..." he said while ncing at the rest of the group "Can¡¯t help if dead." He then added before turning towards the door, and walking out of the storage room.

    It had been awhile since Daniel had seen his closest friends, and while he knew for a fact that they were alive, and likely doing well for themselves, he couldn¡¯t help but wonder what they were doing.

    If Jerigh was managing to avoid killing everybody that bumped into his shoulder, if Roley had still something to learn from him or if he had already gone past his levels ofprehension.. If his family was finally able to live safely and happily ... However, while he missed his friends and family, there was a person who kept appearing in his mind.

    A voice which whenever he sat in his room waiting to go to bed, would make him turn around with a big smile on his face.. A smell that he was able to smell every time his hair needed being cut.. A look that would force numerous jaws to drop whenever they went.

    He was reminded of how far away he was from Alesia whenever he looked up at the sky, and saw a different pattern of stars form the one of his home. The one he had recreated for her inside the pocket dimension.

    "You wanted to set him straight ... Is that why you did it?" Asked a voice that came from behind him.

    Without turning around, Daniel looked up at the starry sky, and said in his ownnguage "There is no grey area in fighting for survival ... you either do, or you don¡¯t."

    "What does that mean? And why are you still alive? Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?" Asked Hannah, unable to understand Daniel¡¯s words.

    As she finished speaking, the rest of the group walked out of the storage room and joined her.

    Daniel understood what the girl said, but he wasn¡¯t sure that he would be able to convey the meaning with his brokennguage. So he kept quiet and looked around at the hundreds of corpses he had left in the alley instead.

    He was fully aware that these people were not like that because they were evil, but because of something done by the demon in charge with this. So he decided not to let them rot in this back alley as if they were worth nothing.

    *Snap* The moment his fingers snapped, a sea of blue mes advanced from underneath his feet, and covered the hundreds of corpses.. Burning them to nothingness. Before the group could even react, the street waspletely clean.. Not even the ashes of those corpses remained.

    The faces of the group expressed the deepest shock they could manage, and before they coulde to their senses, and react to what had happened, Daniel said "Infection. Started. Where."

 Chapter 303 A Joyful Apocalypse Part 6

    The group looked back at Daniel in confusion. They still hadn¡¯t recovered from the sight of him standing up after being shot multiple times, and now that they had seen something even more peculiar, they were barely able to think.

    "Start. Infection." Repeated Daniel, finally shaking them out of their stupor.

    George was the first one to regain his wits. He stepped forward, and said "The first infection started in a city called Krera, on the opposite side of our country."

    "Direction? Distance?" Asked Daniel while turning in ce, and parting his hands in order to indicate distance.

    George turned to look at the two twins, which being natives of this city, were much more knowledgeable about it than anybody else in their group, and said "Which way is north-east?"

    "Are we just going to gloss over the fact that this guy killed hundreds of dead ones, survived a whole round of bullets, and yed mystical dustman with the corpses he left behind?!" Responded James while stopping his brother from responding to George¡¯s question.

    "I know less than you do.. But I don¡¯t think he ever meant to hurt Felix. He saved our lives ... The least we can do is to give him some directions."

    Josh looked at James dubious expression, and after obtaining his consent in the shape of a faint nod of his head, he responded to George¡¯s question by saying "Krera is eight hundred kilometers in.. that direction" He said while pointing to his left.

    Daniel was only able to understand the direction, and not the amount of kilometers, so he waved his hand and forced a portal to open in front of him. On the other side of this portal was a small town. On the streets dozens of dead ones could be seen weakly walking around aimlessly, but the moment they saw this portal, they slowly limped in its direction.

    "This?" asked Daniel after pointing at the other side of this portal.

    "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?!" Shouted Alex as the portal opened. The rest of the group had simr reactions, and watched at the magical portal with so much shock, that they failed to worry about the group of corpses that was marching towards it from the other side.

    "THIS ONE?!" Asked Daniel once again, this time a little more impatiently.

    Josh was shaken awake by Daniel¡¯s question, so he looked at the town on the other side of the portal, and quickly recognized it to be one of the towns in between the city they were in, and the ce where the first news about the infection hade from. What left him surprised, was that this town was at least eighty kilometers away from where they were.

    Daniel quietly approached him, and for the third time repeated "This?"

    Josh turned to look at Daniel with eyes opened wide, and lips curved into a frown. He was only able to respond by weakly shaking his head left and right.

    Hannah and George were looking at Daniel with strange expressions. The people of their world did not believe in magic, and when one used that word, they would be using it in the context of a cheap trick, or sleight of hand. However, while Daniel surviving being gunned down by Felix could be exined by a bulletproof vest, the disappearance of these corpses could be exined by some sort of chemical reaction, and killing the group of dead ones could be exined by an Daniel¡¯s expertise in melee fighting.. There was no exnation for what was in front of them.

    They had all traveled towards this city in order to attend the same university, and all of them had been able to recognize the name of the town in the wee sign that could be seen on the other side of the portal.

    There was no doubt that what they were looking at, was a portal that lead to a town eighty kilometers away.

    Noticing that Josh was too shocked to respond, Daniel shook his head, and started to walk into the portal, but was stopped by Hannah¡¯s voice which came from behind him, and said "Wait!"

    Daniel turned to look at the girl, which immediately started gesturing with her hands.

    She pointed at the city with her left hand, and at the town with the other hand, then joined the two in order to show a path that started from point A and ended with point B. Once she was sure that Daniel had understood what she meant, she moved her right arm, which represented point B, away from the left one, until the distance between the two was ten times that of before.

    Daniel understood what the girl meant right away, so he closed the portal which he had opened before, and opened a second one. On the other side of this portal were tall buildings andrge streets, just like the city they were in. The difference between the two cities was that the corpses present in Krera were much slower, as they had been turned first.

    After making sure that the city was the right one, Daniel walked towards the second portal, but stopped right before walking through it. He instead turned around, and asked a simple question.. "Want to be strong?"

    -----

    In another city on the other side of the, one hourter.

    The infection had reached the city which Aeron was exploring by just a few days, and numerous living people could still be seen sneaking around, or escaping the freshly turned dead ones in desperation.

    Wherever Aeron went, he would give a hand to the humans that were in danger, but in the end, he was not able to help everybody unless he truly used his powers. Unfortunately, that would attract the attention of the demon who was cultivating in this.

    If the group lost the element of surprise, and the demon noticed them before they were able to kill it, he or she would have a chance to call for help. At that point, they would truly be in trouble.

    He was currently walking around, and killing waves and waves of dead ones that constantly tried to devour him.. when suddenly, the dead ones that were wandering in the distance were attracted by something in the direction opposite to where he was.

    Aeron followed this group of dead ones, until a minuteter, he saw arger version of the metallic objects ced in rows in the middle of the street. This machine was surrounded by thousands of dead ones that desperately tried to climb on the rectangr box in the back.

    Above this machine, was a middle aged woman that was wrapping his arms around a little girl. She was looking up at a man whose upper half was leaning out of a balcony present in the second floor of the building close to the metallic box.

    Everyone that saw this scenario would guess that these people were a family, and that they had been trapped on top of an articted lorry by the dead ones that had been attracted the moment they had crashed against the building. Unable to escape this group of corpses, they had climbed out of heir reach, and were now trying to enter the building through the window.

    The father was leaning out of the balcony with both arms, and shouting "You have to jump! I¡¯ll catch you!" While the mother was hugging her daughter in fear that the constant motion of their support would cause them to fall to a horrible death.

    The family had been there for awhile when Aeron had arrived, and the woman was whispering a few words of encouragement to her daughter, so that she could trust her and his father, and jump. The little girl was able to find the courage only after the mother pressed her forehead on hers, and said "Don¡¯t worry, mom is right behind you."

    With her tiny hands closed into fists, the girl took a few steps back, and run-up to the edge of the semitrailer before jumping as high as she could.

    However, the very moment the girl¡¯s hands reached her father¡¯s opened hands, a faint smile appeared on his worried face, and his hands moved back.. Leaving the girl to fall to her death.

    "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!" Screamed the mother in terror.

    "AHAHAHAHAH!!" The man burst outughing as the girl begun her descent, and the woman screamed in panic. From outside, it looked like he had heard the funniest joke ever.

    However, just as this man was enjoying the moment before the little girl would be torn to pieces, a sh of green light passed by, taking the little girl, the woman, and the smile of the man away with him.

    "Look at that. Just when things were getting good, a mental warrior appeared." Said the man while turning to look at Aeron, who was standing about fifty meters past the group of dead ones, and his eyes were shining with a faint green light.

    The very moment the smile had appeared on the man¡¯s face, Aeron had noticed the slightly protruding horns hidden by the man¡¯s hat, and the dark red smokey vapors that came out of his eyes. He had immediately realized that this man was not the father of this family, but a demon who was enjoying doing what the demons of his kind did best.. Torture humans.

    Aeron let go of the hold on the mother and daughter, and turned to look at the demon with narrowed eyes.

    "You know, for demons of the Church of Damnation there is a sport where we go around and hunt for mental warriors.." He then paused for a moment before adding "It¡¯s not as fun when theye to get killed by themselves."

    "I didn¡¯te to get hunt down by you.. I came for your head." Responded Aeron as the brightness of his eyes increased, and the shape of his avatar began to form behind him.

    "Hehe.. You don¡¯t have half the brain needed to take this head. Sleep well." Said the demon as a piercing pain appeared on Aeron¡¯s lower back, and traveled through his entire body.

    Aeron looked down, and quickly noticed that a little hand wasing out of his stomach. *SQUELCH* the little arm moved out of his body, leaving a hole from which one could see through.

    Before passing out, Aeron was only able to turn to look back at the mother and daughter, and notice two more pairs of horns on their heads, and reddish smokee out of their eyes.

    After Aeron fell unconscious on the ground, the first demon walked towards them while saying "Minus one.. Two to go."

    "What do we do with him?" Asked the little girl just before her body began to morph, and she turned into a tall and thin demon with long straight horns.

    "We were told that there would be an additional reward if we were able to take them to hell. Maybe we¡¯ll get a better each." Said the woman as her body became plummer, and her horns became thicker. Her demonic form was that of a fat and short demon with short andrge horns.

    "Focus on getting the other two first." Responded the man.

    -----

    "WHOA!!" Eximed Alex as he was pulled into the portal along with the rest of his group. "Did we just get teleported to the other side of the country?!"

    Hannah bent down, and grabbed a the first page of a newspaper that was lying on the ground. On it, was the name Krera News, and the date of the day before the infection had started. The title of the first page was ¡¯Increased the reports of the attacks all over the city.¡¯ "It would seem so.." She responded by handing the newspaper over to George.

    Their surprise was short lived, as they quickly noticed that an extremely slow horde of dead ones was approaching them from behind.

    The members of the group reached for their weapons, but to their horror, they realized that they had left them back into the storage room, and were now unarmed. The only weapon that they had, was Alex¡¯s machete.

    Their usual reaction at this point would be to run, but before that thought could even be expressed in actions, Daniel walked past them with his sword in his hand, and shed it casually in a horizontal motion.

    The upper part of the bodies of the walking army of dead ones fell one after the other, turning them into aying army of actual corpses.

 Chapter 304 Welcome to a Worse Hell

    In their minds, after seeing a portal open in front of them and being dragged into it just to end up hundreds of kilometers away, there wasn¡¯t much left for Hannah and their group to witness that could really leave them shocked.. But of course, they were wrong.

    For the past couple of hours that they had spent following Daniel, they had seen him fly, create waves of mes and water, send lightning strikes out of the tip of his fingers, and even crash people to death by increasing the surrounding gravity by a hundredfold.

    They were only able to observe as a being akin to a god, walked through their world as if it belonged to him.. as if a deity had descended their ne just to extirpate the apocalypse that had made humankind suffer for the past months.

    Daniel had tried to exin to these people, who happened to be just a couple of years younger than he was, what cultivation was.. But thenguage barrier was preventing him from getting the point across. So he gave up in a matter of minutes, and decided to hang around them until he would finally be able to speak theirnguage properly, and at the same time, look for the demon.

    It was the middle of the night when the group had been stuck in the storage room of the grocery store, and now, a couple of hourster, the sun was about to rise. The season this was currently in was winter, so it was pretty cold outside.. Especially for people who had left their clothes behind before being teleported away.

    Daniel had lived as a cultivator for about half his life now, and he had forgotten how hostile to human life, nature truly was. It was only after he had seen the group of six tter their teeth and hug their own chests, that he remembered that they were still weak humans.. And while it wasn¡¯t deadly cold outside, it was still enough to affect them.

    "Here." he said after throwing a thick coat made of oddly colored pelts to each of them. These coats were expensive pieces of clothing made for merchants and other types of rich individuals, but by what Daniel had seen these kid wear, he was sure that they would not treat them for the expensive clothes that they were.

    However, they would fit the purpose.

    "Thanks.." muttered Hannah as she slowly slid her arms into the coat¡¯s sleeves. She then slowed down her pace until she found herself once again in between her friends.

    "What the hell, this guy can even create stuff.. I am starting to think that he really is God.." Whispered James while observing the coat, and trying to think if its patterns matched any type of civilization that had existed in his.

    "You think that God.. The one and only God would descend to our city.. To help our sorry asses in this apocalypse? Cut it out, will you?" Responded George while looking at his own coat, and the strange inscriptions ced on the seam. These inscriptions were in the universal humannguage, and worked as an enchantment formation.

    It was right after hearing the word ¡¯one and only¡¯ that Alex stopped in his track, forcing the rest of his group to stop as well, and turn to look at him.

    "Why did you stop?" Asked Josh.

    "He wasn¡¯t alone. There were two more people with him.." he muttered in response before taking a slight pause, and adding "Do you think they are like him?"

    "The guy with the mask, and the giant! I¡¯ve seen them too.." said Felix after recalling the time when he had pulled alex away from the trio to get him away from the horde of dead ones that was following them.

    Unable to stop stroking the incredibly soft fur of which the coat was made, Hannah became pensive for a few minutes. She was thinking about all of the crazy things she had seen, and how odd Daniel was. He couldn¡¯t talk properly, and yet every time they spoke to him he would be better at it. His entire being was covered in mystery, and no matter how long she thought about it, she couldn¡¯t think of a single way to exin him..

    "We should simply ask him." She said while quickening her pace and approaching Daniel. "Are you God?" She asked without wasting any time.

    Without even turning to look back at her, Daniel responded by saying "Cultivator."

    "Cultivator? You mean like.. A farmer?" Asked George, which had followed Hannah right away.

    "Different type.. Keep talking together." Responded Daniel in a dismissing tone.

    He already knew that it would not be possible for them to understand what he meant, so he chose to make them keep talking to themselves. At least that would help him learn thenguage sooner.

    The two took Daniel¡¯s response as a request to not bother him with their questions, so they backed away, and went back to talk to the rest of the group.

    -----

    Southern pole.

    In the southern pole of the was a massivend made out of ice and snow. Thisnd and its surrounding seas were home to numerous animals, and it was mostly untouched by humans.

    On a massive expanse of ice, which looked like a desert of white sand, two human-like beings were standing in ce, and one of them was carrying arge bag. The two were talking while waiting for something to happen.

    "What will the Demon lord do with him?" Asked the one that was carrying the bag.. a male demon with long bent horns, that went down the back of his head just like hair, and a robust built.

    The being that was with him did not look like a demon at all. She had a long and thick tail that came out of her lower back, green reptilian eyes, and her body was covered in red scales. If Daniel and Aeron could have seen her, they would have sworn that she was a member of the Dragonkin Royal Family.

    However, before she started talking, the scales fell off her skin, and her tail moved back into her body. The crown of horns went back into her head, and two short horns took their ces. The shape of her eyes went back to the demonkin¡¯s type, which was like that of humans, but that emanated a reddish and ck smoke.

    "I could care less about what your lord will do with him. Knowing your race.. He will probably be the fanciest pet of the entire Hell." Responded the demoness with an expressionless face, while brushing the most stubborn scales off her voluptuous body. "Or he will sell it to the Tamer."

    The male demon narrowed his eyes in anger. Disrespecting a race¡¯s demon lord was akin to disrespecting their entire race, and that had been enough of a reason to start many of the conflicts that had taken ce in Hell, the dimension where demons hade from. However, his mission had been aplete sess, and he was in high spirits.. so he decided to let it go.

    "I am always impressed by the powers of you shapeshifters.. If I didn¡¯t know you were one, I would have sworn that you were one of those stupid lizards." Said the demon as he moved therge bag on his other shoulder.

    The demoness did not belonged to the Church of Damnation, but to a faction called Law of Mimicry. She had been hired as a mercenary by the demon lord of the Church of Damnation for the sole purpose of helping with the capture of whatever was in the bag.

    The elite members of this faction were also known with the name of ¡¯shapeshifters¡¯, and their gifts allowed them to turn into any being which they had set their eyes on. This transformation was total, and would change the demon¡¯s aspect, voice, and even smell.. Leaving nothing behind. The effectiveness of this ability was only based on how good the shapeshifter was in imitating the behaviour of the being they had be.

    This ability was, however, not without ws.

    "It would have never worked if this one hadn¡¯t spent thousands of years without meeting any other member of his kin." Said the demoness while looking at the empty space in front of them.

    Before the male demon could respond, a crack in the ice formed in the ice right in front of them. This crack was only a few meters long, and yet, a reddish light shone from it.

    After the appearance of this crack, the ground began to tremble with an increasing intensity.. Until finally, the two masses of ice that had parted by the crack moved away from one another. In between the masses of ice, was an endless flight of stairs that seemed to go down forever, and from which an indescribable warmth came out of.

    The two demons did not go down that flight of stairs, and instead waited for something else to happen.

    Luckily, they did not need to wait for long before a demon the size of amon adult human came out of this pathway to Hell, and approached the two. He was wearing elegant clothes, and had two white, and very short horns that came out of the top of his forehead.

    The very moment this third demon appeared, the male demon dropped on his knees as a form of respect.. while the demoness stood as if nothing important was happening.

    The third demon smiled at the demoness, then nodded at her in a polite greeting.. A greeting that the demoness reciprocated by scoffing at him, and turning away in disgust. The demon ignored thisck of respect, and turned to look at the kneeling demon. "How did it go?" He asked.

    The demon dropped the bag he was still carrying in his shoulder in front of the shorter demon, and opened it. Inside this bag, was the sleeping figure of Xargy in his human form.

    "It went exactly as nned. The dragon was intoxicated by the smell of female dragon in heath. He was too distracted by fighting his urges, and thinking whether there was something wrong with the situation he was in, to realize he was being put to sleep by the odorless sleep-inducing poison." Said the demon with satisfaction.

    "You did well. When we go back, you can pick a gxy to cultivate." responded the shorter demon before turning to look at the demoness, and adding "Please bring my Lord¡¯s regards to Lady Night." He then turned to look back at the staircase, and left along with therger male demon, and Xargy.. Leaving her alone in the snowy ne.

    -----

    Six hours had passed since the group had been stuck in the storage room of the grocery store, and in the part of the where Daniel and the others were, the sun had just risen.

    The members of the group had had too much adrenaline running in their bodies to worry about sleeping, but that was not the case for their stomachs, which had started to grumble for the past hours.

    Despite looking around Krera for six hours, Daniel hadn¡¯t managed to find any sort of trace that could lead him to the sadist that had turned this world awry, so he decided to stop, and let the group that was apanying him take a rest.

    With a wave of his hand he took control over the materials of which the street was made of, and turned it into a small room of stone with no roof. In the middle of this room was a small patch of dirt, with dry wood that he had taken from the trees that were nted by the sides of the street, and from which he had removed most of the moisture.

    He then sat in front of this campfire, and with a single look, he set it aze.

    The group quickly understood that Daniel wanted to take a rest, so they sat around the fire in silence. All they had with them were a few fortune weapons which they had picked up during the past six hours, but no food. Everything they had had been left behind when they had been teleported there.

    "We should go look for some food.." Said George while looking for a door out of this room, which was nowhere to be found.. leaving him with no choice but to ask Daniel to let them out, but before he could, he noticed that what looked like the leg of a dead animal had appeared in Daniel¡¯s hands.

    While they couldn¡¯t recognize the animal from which this leg came from, that was not the most shocking part. What was truly shocking, was that the entire leg was about three meters in length, and weighted at least half a ton.

    "Never mind.." he muttered while sitting back on the ground.

    The group looked as Daniel effortlessly moved this leg above the fire, and began to wonder how long such a big piece of meat would take to fully cook.. But then, the fire became bigger and bigger, until itpletely enveloped the leg.

    Secondster the fire retreated back to its original milder state, leaving the leg fully cooked.

    "Eat." Said Daniel after putting the massive chunk of cooked meat on the side of the room.

    The six of them stood up while keeping their mouths shut in order to avoid their drool froming out of their mouths. They had spent months eating canned food, and roasted meat was something they had often fantasised eating while chatting before sleep.

    While Alex began to cut chunks of meat with his machete, and most of the others waited for him to give them their portion, a fearful scream came from behind them. "WAHH!!"

    When the five of them turned around, they saw Josh give his back to them.

    "Where the hell did this kide from?!" He shouted while pointing at the quiet figure of Virgil.

 Chapter 305 The Purpose of Your Power

    "Where the hell did this kide from?!" Josh shouted in surprise, while pointing at Virgil¡¯s quiet figure.

    Virgil was already a cultivator powerful to a point where any undead would not be able to harm him.. so Daniel decided to let him out of the pocket dimension he had created for him, and allow him to experience this foreign world, and if possible, gain a bit of fighting experience.

    The group observed as Virgil walked in front of Daniel, and stood quietly in wait.

    To the others this behaviour was odd, but Daniel knew perfectly well what Virgil was doing. He was aware that Daniel was able to read minds, so he was trying tomunicate with him through his thoughts.. But since Daniel was unable to read Virgil¡¯s mind due to the odd blockade that prevented mental warriors from scouting other people¡¯s minds, he moved his hands into a few gestures which meant "I can¡¯t read your mind here. Use your hands."

    Virgil quickly understood, and began to talk to Daniel with the use of the signnguage that they both knew.

    "Is that signnguage?.. What do you guys think they are saying?" Asked Alex before biting into the piece of meat he was holding in his hands.

    "Why did you take me out?" Asked Virgil while standing straight as an arrow, and looking at Daniel with eyes filled with confidence.

    That was the state of mind that most people would be in, right after starting their cultivation. They would feel the power in their body increase by leaps and bounds, and that would fill them with endless confidence.. Until they would realize that they hadn¡¯t be special, but that they had simply reached the lowest standard of the world of cultivation.

    Daniel thought for a few moments about what to say, the responded by saying out loud "Outside of these four walls are unintelligent beings who are weaker than you, but that will try everything in their power to kill you. Kill fifty, ande back."

    After listening to Daniel¡¯s words, Virgil appeared a bit nervous. "Are they evil beings?" he asked with a few movements of his small hands.

    "Go and see for yourself." responded Daniel before opening a door into the wall.

    Virgil stood in front of the passage that Daniel had created in the wall for a few moments, then turned to look at him, and after nodding, he walked out. The passage closed right behind him.

    "What are you doing!? It¡¯s dangerous outside!" Said Hannah before running in the direction of the closing passage, which shut down right before her eyes.

    The rest of the group followed suit, but were ignored by Daniel.

    "If you don¡¯t want to help him, just let us out! That kid will die!" Shouted Felix while standing angrily in front of Daniel. However, no matter how much they shouted or screamed, they were unable to approach Daniel closer than two meters of distance.

    "We have to get out of here.. Give me a hand, I¡¯ll climb out." Said Hannah to George, which was high and strong enough to help her up the wall, and out of the room.

    George turned towards Hannah and ced his back against the wall, then bent his knees, and joined his hands. Hannah run-up to him, and after cing her right foot on his joined hands, darted up at a high speed.

    However.. the moment her fingertips were about to touch the topmost part of the wall, the wall grew taller at a mind boggling speed. Before Hannah could ever touch the ground, the walls were already hundreds of meters tall, making it seem that they were at the bottom of a square well. As the group stared at the wall in dismay, it slowly went back to its original size.

    "Why did you let him out? He is just a kid!" said Felix to Daniel in clear anger.

    Without turning to look back at him, Daniel muttered "Not kid.. Cultivator."

    Just as he finished speaking, loud noises came from the other side of the wall, and numerous lights shone above their heads like fireworks. The moaning of the dead ones was muzzled by the crashing of waves, the sound of rock breaking apart, the crackle of fire.. And the sound of thunder.. Until finally, in a matter of minutes, there was silence once again.

    The opening in the wall that had closed a few minutes earlier, leaving Virgil out by himself, opened one more time. Behind it, was the nine years old kid.. covered in darkish blood and gooey substances. His eyes were wide open, and he was breathing heavily.

    He walked back in front of Daniel, and with trembling hands he gestured "I killed them."

    "You didn¡¯t kill anything. Those people were already dead. Just moving corpses which were trying to kill you. It will be a lot different from when you will kill those who killed your family." Responded Daniel while creating ayer of water around Virgil, and cleaning him up from the remnants of his prey.

    Momentster, Virgil was clean and dry.

    "Now that you¡¯ve experienced forcing your way into survival, do you think you would be able to do that to living humans?" He asked while looking at him straight in the eye.

    Virgil closed his little fist, thinking if he would be able to take a life in order to save his own.. But before he could give a clear answer to Daniel¡¯s question, the scream of a woman came from far down the road, causing the heads of all of them to turn in that direction.

    Daniel extended his sensing ability in order to observe what was happening, and what he saw, was a hordeposed of thousands of dead ones, follow a limp girl down the street. What had made this girl limp was not a bite mark, but a knife wound on her thigh.

    At the same time, about thirty meters ahead, was a young man that ran away in desperation. In his hand, was a bloody hunting knife.

    Ever since Daniel had sensed them, the situation had been solved. He wouldn¡¯t have allowed the two living humans to be killed by this horde of undead, but he decided not to intervene, as he had something else in mind.

    He turned to look at Virgil, and said "You are still young, but you have more power than anybody else in this. You can use your power for survival, but that¡¯s only a necessity.. What is the purpose of it?"

    Virgil turned to look back at Daniel, and getured the word "Revenge.."

    Daniel shook his head faintly, then said "That is temporary. What can you do with your power?" He asked once again. He wanted him to get to it on his own, so that he wouldn¡¯t think that he had been lead into that path of life by him, when he would think back to this moment,ter in life.

    There clearly was a right answer to this question, and someone with Virgil¡¯s age was too young to find it.. But that did not stop him from thinking about it. His memory went back to what he had gone through.. His parents being killed, him and his brother being attacked by the followers of those who his parents believed to be their closest friends.. And finally, being saved by Daniel.

    The moment his mind reached thest of these memories, his eyes opened wide, and he made a single gesture directed at Daniel, which after seeing it, said "Go then." He then opened the passage one more time, and looked as Virgil ran out with confidence.

    The sign that Virgil had used, meant "Protect."

    -----

    "Please help me!! Don¡¯t leave me here!" Screamed the girl to the escaping man asrger andrger quantities of blood gushed out of her wound, and dripped down her leg. The dead ones were hot on her trail, and if she stopped for even a second, she could be caught and torn to pieces.

    "YOU ARE FUCKING CRAZY! STAY AWAY FROM ME!!" Shouted the man in response as he stumbled in the numerous obstacles that littered the street. "STOP FOLLOWING ME!!"

    The girl was crying visibly, and her expression was one of sheer anxiousness and terror.. Exactly the emotions that a demon from the Church of Damnation would hope to feast on, when starting such a terrifying scenario in the world that was assigned to him or her.

    The pain that came from the girl¡¯s leg became stronger and stronger, and the strain and loss of blood was causing her to waver uncontrobly.. Until finally, she stumbled upon her own foot, and fell on the cold ground.

    "AAAAAAAAHHH!" she screamed as she turned to see the wave of undead reach her like a barrier of death ready to im her life.. But moments before this horde could reach her, a kid appeared in between the two.

    Virgil dropped on his knees and ced his palms above the pavement of the road, which quickly began to crack, and tremble, then rose to form a barrier between him and the group of moaning corpses.

    He then focused on the control of the earth essence, and before losing it, he forced this barrier to grow thirty meters taller, and until it was in the shape of a massive tombstone with hundreds of corpses at its base. Then, before the undead ones could find a way through or around the b of stone, Virgil forced it down on their heads, crashing thempletely.. And burying them underneath the road.

    "Wuuuhh.. Thank you!" said the injured girl while bawling uncontrobly. She just had a closer encounter to death than most could say to have had, and had barely managed to get out alive, so it was understandable for her to be unable to stop herself from crying her emotions out.

    However, despite being able to guess what the girl had said, Virgil was unable to understand hernguage, so he helped her up, and dragged her towards the area where Daniel was in order to have him help with her injuries.

    Hannah, George, and the rest of their group had been let out by Daniel so that they could witness to what was happening, and once it was all over, Alex ran towards the escaping man, and shouted "YOU COWARD PIECE OF SHIT!"

    The man was fazed by what had happened just a few meters behind him, and didn¡¯t expect for someone to attack him, so when Alex reached him, he was unable to prevent him from tackling him to the ground.

    Once on top of the man, he grabbed his fist, and mmed it against the ground until the young man let go of the bloody knife.. then began to punch his face repeatedly. He not only had refused to listen to the cries of help of the girl, but had also stabbed her leg so that she could distract the horde of undead froming at him. In Alex¡¯s eyes, he deserved to be eaten alive.

    The rest of the group ran towards Virgil, which was carrying the injured girl as if she weighted nothing, and tried to help him out..

    Virgil was too short, and even if the girl¡¯s weight was nothing to him, his size didn¡¯t allow him to pick her up from the groundpletely, so he allowed Felix and George, which were the tallest people of the group, to carry her back into the four safe walls that Daniel had created.

    When the group entered, Daniel lifted his head and look at the girl with the faintest of smiles.

    Meanwhile, the man was trying to desperately cover his face from the fists that were raining down on his face. "Stop! STOP!" he shouted in between punches.

    Afternding a few good punches, Alex calmed himself down and got off the young man.. He then said with disgust "How could you do something like that.. We are all trying to survive! You disgusting piece of shit!"

    The man looked at Alex with fear, and yet, as if he had gotten everything wrong. "NO!.. I-I don¡¯t know her!.. She appeared out of nowhere.. stabbed her own leg.. She then put the knife in my hands.. She is crazy.."

 Chapter 306 A Warmer Destination

    "Bring her here." said Daniel to Felix and George, who quickly dragged the injured girl in front of him, and ced her on her back and above the ground in front of where he was sitting.

    "Bright red blood.. So much of it.. I think the knife pierced through her femoral artery!" muttered Josh after kneeling on the other side of the injured girl and making a quick diagnosis of her injury. In the university that his group used to attend, Josh was the only one who, had the apocalypse never started, would have be a doctor.

    After the apocalypse his experience and studies hade in handy, and he had be the medic of their group. Unfortunately, he couldn¡¯t do much for the type of injuries that were the mostmon in this.. Or at least, he wasn¡¯t as effective as a bullet was.

    Daniel ignored Josh¡¯s worries, and simply put a hand on the girl¡¯s leg. He then injected her body with a small amount of healing essence which traveled through her damaged veins, flesh and arteries, and repaired them.

    "Woah.. that is something you don¡¯t see often.." muttered Josh as the blood that was gushing out copiously moments earlier, slowly moved back into her injury, before closingpletely.. Not even leaving a scar behind.

    Once the color went back to the girl¡¯s face, her eyes opened.

    "H-How are you feeling? Do you feel any pain at all?" Asked Josh with curiosity. His medicine student¡¯s spirit had been awaken from the miracle that Daniel had pulled out, and there was nothing more he would have done right now, than to run some tests on the girl that, just moments earlier, he was sure would die.

    The moment the girl woke up, she turned to look around him in fear.. But after realizing what had happened, she wrapped her arms around Josh¡¯s neck, and said in between sobs "Thank! I was so scared.. I thought I was going to die!! Thank you so much!!"

    Josh was embarrassed by the girl¡¯s behavior, after all, he had done nothing to help saving her.. So he let the girl vent before moving back, and while pointing his finger at Virgil and Daniel, he said "I am not the one who saved you.. It was them."

    The girl, still filled with the gratitude for having just been saved, turned to look at Daniel, and wrapper one of her arms around him, before repeating the same words he had said to Josh.. This time however, one of her arms was ced in between their chests, and the hand was grabbing a ne made out of pearls.

    A faint snap could be hearding from in between the two.

    Contrary to what one would expect, these pearls did not fall on the ground, and instead moved in the crevices of Daniel¡¯s clothes, and inside them. When they reached his body, they dove into his skin before lighting up of a brown-colored light.

    As soon as these pearls lit up, an oppressive amount of earth essence flushed into his body, turning his skin and flesh into stone.. In a matter of moments, he had turned into a statue of himself, and only his organs and blood were left working properly.

    "This is nothing personal kid, you are just a high paid job." Said the girl before standing back up. She then dusted her clothes as if she couldn¡¯t be bothered with the strange looks that the people around her gave her.

    "What are you talking about?" Asked George as he noticed Daniel¡¯s body go rigid, along with his expression.

    The girl ignored George¡¯s words, and instead stood up calmly. She then stretched her arms upward, and as soon as her arms stretchedpletely, the shape and size of her body changed. Her waist became thin and t, and her legs became longer. Her clothes were assimted into her body, and turned into a pattern on her skin. Her breasts grew double the size, and two curved horns grew out of her forehead, and moved down the side of her head like two locks of golden hair.

    Josh looked at the imposing figure of this woman in shock, while Virgil and the rest of the group looked at Daniel in worry. He waspletely immobile.. Unable to even blink.

    "Who are you?.."

    "SOMETHING IS WRONG! She wasn-.." shouted Alex while running back from giving a lesson to the young man who he believed to have stabbed he girl, however, before he could warn his friends, he had noticed the tall and seductive demoness in her true shape.

    She was standing in front of Daniel in silence.

    Virgil had already felt that something was wrong, but as a cultivator, he was able to feel the oppressive power that this demoness emanated. Especially since she was not holding anything back, and was letting it out openly.

    The demoness was exactly what a human would expect a seductive and evil being to look like, and the sight of one, along with the healing powers shown by Daniel, had only reinforced the idea that he was the God that the people in their civilization would pray to, or at the very least, one of its angels.. That also meant that this demoness was an enemy.

    The members of the group observed the tall demoness, while at the same time, they grabbed the weapons they were carrying. They knew perfectly well how powerful Daniel was, and for him to be in that state, he must have been caught by surprise. Their only chance to rescue him, was to surprise her.

    "Imend your bravery, humans.." Said the demoness while turning to look at the nervous group. She had seen right through their intentions.. "However, there is more than a few worlds that separate our powers."

    "What did you do to him?" Asked Hannah as she and her friends grabbed their weapons openly, and prepared to fight the demoness, who after noticing their actions, shook her head in ridicule.

    "This is not something you would understand." She said before making an enchanted bag appear in her hand, and threw it at Daniel body, which was quickly swallowed into it, and trapped. "I will leave you to your torment." said the demoness while showing an indifferent expression, right before disappearing.

    The moment the demoness disappeared with Daniel, Virgil got back to his senses and looked around in worry.. However he was unable to feel him or the demoness no matter where he looked.. She had gone. So he took a couple of beads that were inside his spatial ring, and broke them into pieces.

    These beads were essence gs, and the essences contained in them belonged to Xargy and Aeron, but even after a full minute after using them, no one had appeared.

    Virgil¡¯s breathing became heavier, squeezing his chest as if someone was sitting on it.. He was in a ce he knew nothing about, with people he didn¡¯t know.. And Daniel, who he believed to be invincible, had been captured as if nothing had happened.

    Two big tears began to form in his eyes, while the rest of the group looked around in dismay.. However, just as they were about to lose hope, they felt an incredibly powerful pulling force surround their bodies.. And before they could react, they were all standing in a small patch of grass, with a house, a small stream of water, and trees all around.

    The six members of the group looked around in panic, while on the other hand, deep relief could be seen on Virgil¡¯s face.

    -----

    Back in the frozennd in the southern pole of the, stood two demons in wait. They were both extremely tall for human standards, and wore the same clothes. Their horns looked identical, and grew out of the side of their head as curved swords.

    "I think she failed. The outcast killed dozens of us.. There is no way the shapeshifter bitch managed to capture him." Said one of the demons while pacing around, and kicking the snow.

    "I agree.. If it was the shapeshifter that caught the dragon, maybe.. But not her." responded the second demon as he squinted his eyes in order to look further into the distance.

    "Why do we have to meet them here anyway? Can¡¯t we just go to her? This is damn stupid." added the first demon in anger. They had been waiting in ce for hours now, and there was still no trace of the demoness.

    The second demon kept looking around in hope to catch a glimpse of the demoness, but after failing to spot her, he muttered "You don¡¯t know because you are an idiot.. If we open a passage to hell in a ce any warmer than this, the heath will burn the atmosphere off of the, turning it into a useless rock."

    "Good riddance." Said the most nervous of the two demons. "This torture is useless. There is nowhere nearly enough sufferings for a demon to cultivate properly. These human insects die too easily.. It¡¯s better if you just leave them into chaos, and let them go rampant. They¡¯ll avoid killing themself offpletely in order to not stay alone, and yet they¡¯ll live in fear.. Much better."

    "It does sound a lot better.." responded the second demon.

    "You are both wrong. Listening to you two idiots speak is by far the worst torture." Said the demoness who appeared from heir blind spot. She was carrying a bag, and inside it, was Daniel¡¯s paralyzed body.

    Already irritated by the long wait, the first demon narrowed his red eyes at the demoness and began to emit a deep guttural growl, but he was stopped by his calmerpanion, who said "Did youplete your mission, shapeshifter?"

    The demoness looked back at the angrier of the two demons with as much hostility as he showed, but instead of attacking, she threw the bag that contained Daniel at the feet of the calmer demon.

    The second demon bent down to check the bag, and after uncovering Daniel¡¯s face, and making sure that it was really him, he nodded at the demoness. He then broke a piece of jade that was hanging from his earlobe, and waited for someone from his faction to open a portal to Hell.

    "Sister." Said a voice that came from behind the three demons.

    The three turned to look at the figure of a second demoness, which the one who had captured Daniel, greeted with a happy smile. "Elder sister. You are still here." Said the demoness with politeness. She was only a mid level elite of her faction, while the elder sister, who had yed her part in capturing Xargy, was a high level member of the Law of Mimicry.

    "Of course. I wanted to go back home with you." Said the most powerful demoness with a faint smile.

    The two demons looked at each other in worry.. They didn¡¯t know for how long the demoness had been there, and if she had heard all of the insults they had used when referring to her, and the members of her faction. However, before anything could happen, a crack appeared in the frozen ne in front of them. When it opened, a wave of warmth washed past them.

    From the staircase that appeared in between these bs of ice, a second elegant demon with white horns walked out. He looked exactly like the one that had taken Xargy into custody, but his power was made of a distinctive and drastically different mixture of sufferings. He was also much weaker than the one who had appeared previously.

    The moment he appeared, the two male demons dropped to their knees. However, instead of caring for them, the white-horned demon turned to look at the two shapeshifters, and said "Bring my greetings to Lady Night." He then took the bag which contained Daniel¡¯s body, and walked down the flight of stairs as if nothing had happened.

    While all of this was happening, unbeknownst to the five demons present in the area, just a few meters away from the entrance to Hell, was a human-sized clump of distorted space.

    This portion of space was curved, and it forced the light that entered its territory to curve as well, and brush past its surface, just like all of the elements present in the area. Inside this hollow pocket of space, was a human made out ofplete darkness. Nothing could be felt from him, and not even his own power was able to escape the gravitational pull that the darkness of which his body was filled of possessed.. And yet, a pair of golden eyes were lying in the dark.. In wait.

 Chapter 307 Demonkinds History

    Hell, A dimension where all of the civilizations of the demonic race came from.

    Numerous rumors were passed around from the inhabitants of the universal government regarding the nature of Hell. Some imed that, just like the void, it was a different dimension altogether, while some others imed that it was manmade, and that in the course of millions of years, the civilization who created it had forgotten of their origin as humans, and went into a sort of evolution that ultimately forced them to be demons.

    While the idea of Hell being a different dimension which humans could possibly visit, was the most interesting one for explorers and merchants, the second idea was generally more epted by schrs and thinkers.

    The reason for that was that humans, beasts, dragons and all of the numerous other races had evolved in every that had allowed for their evolution to happen. While on the other hand, no sign of demonkin had ever been discovered, except for those who imed to belong to Hell.

    There was also a third idea that was supported by the rumors that had appeared in the early years which followed the first encounter between humans and demons, and that was that Hell was not a typical universe withs, stars and celestial bodies, but a multilevel in.

    Its origin was source of great debate, and along with the nature of the spiritual ne, which yed a massive part in the current human cultivation.. the nature of the shattered universe known as void, which was currently inhabited by the Void Dwellers, and a few others.. Hell was considered as both part, and not part of the universal government.

    The demon races who hade out of Hell had to choose between joining the universal government, or face destruction. So while nobody was sure of the magnitude of power that the demonkind truly possessed, a portion of it was controlled by the universal government.

    For many years the universal government had tried to gain ess to Hell, but they had always been unsessful, as there was only one way in.. and that was for a portal to be opened from inside.

    -----

    Stairway to Hell.

    "Sir, will we receive a reward for our job?" Asked one of the tworge demons to the white-horned ones, as they walked down the stairway that lead to their home. They had been walking for more than twenty minutes, and it didn¡¯t seem that the path would end anytime soon.

    Daniel followed them quietly, covered by an undetectable distortion in space who no one that wasn¡¯t ahead of him inprehension of spatial essence, would be able to understand. The light that curved around him before going to its original path made it seem that there was nothing there, while the concepts of adsorption formed by dark and spatial essence prevented his immortal essence from filtering out of his skin. He waspletely invisible to other people¡¯s senses.

    "A reward for what? For waiting like two idiots?" Asked the white-horned demon who walked two steps ahead of them. There was no reason for him to lead the way, except for the fact that he did not want to walk along with the two lesser demons. As a white-horned demon, he was above them, and having been given the job to be their escort, was akin to task a warrior with a babysitting job.

    "It¡¯s not our fault.. Hum.. Sir. We were told to follow the orders of the shapeshifter." Responded the calmer of the two demons.

    The leading members of the Church of Damnation, who were expecting for an attack from Daniel¡¯s group, were forced to adapt to the powers that the three of them possessed.

    While not certain about what Daniel¡¯s power as a former member of Iewah¡¯s faction was, they knew that hispanions were a royal dragon, and a mental warrior.. Former elite of the Psionic Dimension.

    After some consideration, they had found themselves with no other choice but to hire mercenaries.

    All demons, including those who were part of the Church of Damnation, had the ability to shapeshift.. But while they would be able to trick most people by turning their demonic powers into something that could be perceived as normal immortal essence, it was impossible for them to trick beings with a heightened sense of smell, just like dragons..

    At the same time, they were unable to hide their true powers.. And the simple vicinity with a mental warrior would turn them into beacons of suffering powers.

    Of all of the demon races, no other wasparable in the art of shapeshifting as the members Law of Mimicry, and therefore, they had selected for the job.

    The Demon Lord that lead the Law of Mimicry was known through the whole Hell, and it was said that she was even able to mimic the power of other demon lords. This power had made her a feared member of the entire demonic race, and therefore, she was treated with extreme respect.

    When the Church of Damnation hade to her in search of support for this mission, she had agreed to help in exchange for an astronomical pay, and only if a condition was respected. That condition was that the members of her faction were in charge of the mission, and that they would call the shots.

    An audience with Lady Night was already beyond what the messengers of the Church of Damnation could ever hope for, so they were happy to oblige to any request she had.

    "What are you, worms? You are warriors of the church of damnation. You should have ripped her into pieces, and went to capture the brat by yourselves. Then you would have deserved a reward." Responded the white-horned demon with deep irritation. He then began to mutter to himself "Between you and the ones in charge to capture the lizard, I don¡¯t know which one is the most embarrassing.. Luckily the others were able to y a part in the capture of the mental warrior.. Or we would have lost facepl-huh?" his rant was interrupted by an odd feeling that shed behind him.. However, when he turned around, the area was empty.

    After learning that both Aeron and Xargy had been captured, Daniel lost his concentration. Luckily he was able to recover in time, or he would have been found out.

    While the two demons were not out of his league, the white-horned demon was clearly above him in power.

    What Daniel had found interesting about the demons of the Church of Damnation, was that their negative karma was directly proportionate to their power. The higher the red number was, the more powerful they were. That was due to the fact that they cultivated through feelings of suffering, which they were able to absorb.

    This single notion had been put to a test when Daniel had met the Shapeshifter.. While her karma was not shockingly high whenpared to the other demons Daniel had met in the past, she still was the most powerful.

    It was only now that he had understood the reason why her power and karma did not match.. It was because she belonged to a different faction.

    He kept following the three demons in silence for a whole day, and the deeper down they went, the higher the temperature would be. Finally, just when he was considering whether to attack the three, arge gate appeared in the distance.

    What was odd was that this gate looked massive, and yet, the four of them had been unable to reach it for another day. When they were finally able to stand in front of it, the gate was as big as a mountain. In fact, the two doors were so big that they seemed impossible to move, and in their surface, a history of how Hell had been made was embossed in shiny gold.

    Scenes of numerous wars fought by what looked like two groups of humans, that had ended in the defeat of one of the two groups. By losing the war, the defeated group had then lost the right to live in the territory they had upied.

    The fate of this group was, however, not over. They had set out to find another territory to inhabit, but due to being hunt down by the winning party of the previous war, they were forced into the depths of a cave.. In the deepest parts of this cave, they had found a portal that lead to an untouched and hostile territory.. A territory so vast, that their former home could not even be considered a fraction of it.

    This defeated group of human-like beings had retreated into this territory, and there, theyid in wait.. A wait that would only end when their power would be big enough to take revenge on the poption which had pushed them out of their home.. However, hundreds of yearster, this poption had discovered their inability to escape this inhospitable in.

    After millions of years, the purpose of revenge had been forgotten, and the group had evolved in order to survive their new home. Through that struggle, numerous methods of cultivation had appeared.

    The nature of demons was not much different than that of human, and for one reason of the other, the various kinds of demons had ended up fighting against each other..

    These wars were massive, and would always leave Hell to a worse state than it already was.. One of these wars had been so violent, that in its climax, a passage that lead outside had been discovered, along with the method to open new ones.

    Nothing of the ancient knowledge had remained since millions of years before, except for the notion that their civilization was not the only existing one.. And that outside of Hell, were the violent and powerful humans.

    This simple concept had lead the most belligerent of the demon races to try their luck outside, iming that they were not the weak beings that they had used to be in the past.. But when they went out, they had encountered the universal government.

    The war between the then younger universal government and the numerous demonic factions had been a bloody one.. But the variety of powers that the universal government possessed had made them too unpredictable to fight against, and in the end, they hade out victorious.

    After this defeat, most demon factions had escaped back into Hell.. while a few of them had agreed to join the universal government, and be allowed topete for the ownership of sr systems, ands of which the newly found gxies were full of.

    What was surprising about the massive door on which these images were portrayed, was that the entire history of the demons had only taken the upper border of it, leaving the majority of it clean, and ready for other major events to be carved on.

    Sitting on a wooden throne just a few hundred meters away from the door, was what looked like a teenage demon dressed in elegant ck clothes. While seemingly younger, this demon was significantly different from most others.

    Differently to the demons Daniel had met before, the horns on the head of this young demon were curved like spirals, and by moving out of the sides of his head, they seemed to be wrapping around two straighter invisible horns. The ears of this young demon appeared to be made out of fire, and seemed intangible. He was wearing a pair of normal sses, behind which he was squinting his eyes in an attempt to read the page he was holding in his hands.

    "Names." said the young demon casually, as the white-horned one arrived in front of his desk.

    "Sonos."

    "Family." added the young demon after hearing the answer to his first question.

    "Church of Damnation." responded the white-horned demon.

    The teenage demon turned to look at the white-horned demon, and said "Are you an idiot? I¡¯ve said family."

    "What did you say?!" Asked the white-horned demon in response before taking a step closer to the desk.. Causing his eyes to emitrge quantities of dark red smoke.

    However, before the demon could move any closer, from the depths of the darkness that surrounded them, three deafening growls bellowed deeply in the area. This growling caused a shiver to run down the backs of the white-horned demon, and the two who followed him.

    From three different directions, just as many pairs of white bright dots lit up. These six dots of light were surrounded by ck circles of endless darkness, and separated from the surrounding darkness by a smoke of magical nature that made its way out of a canine-like set of teeth.

    These three sets of terrifying eyes approached the four demons, until finally, their owners became clearer thanks to the light emitted by the massive door.

    The owners of these eyes, were the three hellhounds that guarded the entrance to Hell.. along with their owner. Each of them possessed a power way beyond that of the white-horned demon, so the moment they appeared, he calmed down immediately.

    After seeing that the most nervous of the three demons had calmed down, the teenage demon whistled faintly, causing the three hounds to approach him, while shrinking in size. They then sat in front of his desk and around the white-horned demon like three statues.

    "Demon Lord Dogan¡¯s family.." said the white-horned demon while taking short glimpses of the three hellhounds.

    The teenage demon ignored his behaviour, and after making sure that they had the permission to pass, he grabbed the small bell present above his desk and ringed it.

    *CRUCH* The two massive doors slowly began to move, to a point where they moved past the teenage demon¡¯s desk, and separated one another by hundreds of meters.

    The white-horned demon fixed his clothes nervously, then walked past the teenage demon. He was followed by the two weaker demons.

    As the three entered the door, each of the three hounds moved closer to the teenage demon. One jumped above his desk, one hopped on his legs, and one crawled under his chair.

    The demon smiled at them and pet their heads, but when his three loyal hounds turned to look at an empty point in space, he said "What are you looking at?" However, the affectionate voice of their owner was enough to distract them.

 Chapter 308 Save Aeron and Xargy

    What appeared in front of Daniel¡¯s eyes when the door opened, waspletely unexpected. Despite of thend¡¯s name, the ce did not appear at all what one would expect a ce called ¡¯Hell¡¯ to look like.

    Aside from the high temperature, the world that appeared in front of him looked just like a run down ne of dirt, and a few kilometers away from the towering door from which they had juste in, was a small town surrounded by simple mud buildings.

    The sky, which Daniel believed to be reddish in color due to the nearing of nighttime, was in fact in the middle of its daily cycle.. At the same time, the clouds that filled the sky were of an odd dark green color.

    Daniel followed the group of demons all the way to the city, and there, he noticed a few low level demons conduct their lives peacefully. They did not seem to possess any sort of gift, and in fact, they were not even cultivators. Their entire schedule appeared to revolve around the maintenance of a teleporting tform which was ced right in the middle of the town they lived in.

    As soon as the white-horned demon and the other two arrived to the city, the group of maintainers stopped working, and immediately bowed in respect. The White-Horned race of demons was known to be one of the noble demonic families which had descended from the ones who had discovered Hell.

    A demonic family was not much different from a human family. Its members would join one of the major groups, and cultivate through the use of their cultivation methods. That was the reason why the division between Hell¡¯s group and families resembled that of humankind¡¯s low level cultivation worlds, and had more inmon with families and sects, than the factions and the universal government.

    However, the power that each group possessed, allowed them to be on par with the factions of the outside universe.

    The white-horned demon and the other two entered the city ignoring the actions of the other respectful demons. He then stepped above the tform, and disappeared without even waiting for his twopanions to get on.

    "Nobles.. Let¡¯s go." muttered the calmer of the two demons before following the steps of the white-horned demon, and jumping over therge tform.. But as soon as the teleportation began, the more impatient of the two demons turned to look at one of the lesser demons that was standing around the tform, and shouted "STOP THE PROCESS!!" His tone was so loud, that the demon¡¯s heart couldn¡¯t handle the pressure, and stopped.

    A second lesser demon quickly approached the tform and removed one of the crystals that worked as fuel to it.. Then tried to tend to the demon who was in charge of the tform before him, but it was already toote.

    The two demons turned to look at the bag they were carrying with narrowed eyes, and hearts filled with worry..

    The demon who was carrying the bag quickly threw it on the ground, but the moment it touched the hard surface of the tform, it slumped on it, as if it contained nothing at all.

    "A FUCKING ILLUSION!!" Shouted the angry demon, sending out a sonory attack powerful enough to burst the eardrums of the hundreds of demons who were surrounding him. "TWO DAMN DAYS! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!" he then added before turning to look at his calmerpanion.

    While Daniel had been able to keep the illusion working for more than two days, thanks to hisprehension elemetal and spatial essence, the moment the two had tried to teleport away, the tform had tried to separated the illusion from reality, and teleport it with the two of them. This had distorted it, and caused it to bepletely unstable.

    The moment the two demons felt that something was wrong with their captive, they stopped the teleportation in order to check if there was anything wrong.. And since there was no way for Daniel to keep the illusion up without being discovered, he had decided to let go of it and let it dissipate.

    The calmer of the two demons did not panic, and instead inspected the surroundings. He was aware that such a precise and defined illusion would require the caster to be nearby, but no matter how long or what method he used to look for him.. Of Daniel, there was absolutely no trace.

    Daniel had been gone since the moment the two had demanded for the process to be stopped, and was now getting as far away from the teleportation tform as possible.

    While he didn¡¯t fear an encounter with these two demons in particr, he didn¡¯t know what methods the two would have to ask for support, or even if there was a more powerful demon waiting in the vicinity.. So he picked one of the roads that lead outside of the town, and while keeping himself invisible, he left as fast as he could.

    He passed multiple towns and cities, but decided against stopping in any them. He knew that the moment the illusion had been discovered, he would be hunted down in the entire Hell.. and since he was not sure where to go, he chose to gain distance while they were still unaware of his location.

    -----

    Ten minutester.

    The Church of Damnation was not only called a ¡¯church¡¯ for show, but because it was ran like a proper religious organization. The lowly demons Idolized the Demon Lord like a god, which aside from helping them get rid of their sufferings, would also teach them how to feed off of the pain of others..

    Unfortunately, the people who believed in the powers of this Demon Lord were already far too deep into their sufferings, and a sane person would see clearly that they were desperate beings who had lost too much, to avoid being affected by it.

    To the most devoted members, the doctrine that sufferings were a tribtion that demons had to live by constantly.. was taught, and in the end, they were brainwashed into thinking that causing pain was the most noble thing that a demon could do.

    The second type of demons who would join the Church of Damnation were the members of noble families who wished to leave Hell, and visit the outside universe.. after all, the Church of Damnation was one of the few groups who had joined the universal government.

    The main base of the Church of Damnation was called The Cathedral, and was a massive castle that appeared to be more like the center of a religious cult, than the main fortress of a powerful group of demonic cultivators.

    Inside the main hall of this this impressive chapel, was an empty throne. Standing next to it, was a female demon with golden hair, and pitch ck horns. She was part of another of the most important demonic families, as well as the leader of the current forces of the Church of Damnation right underneath the Demon Lord.

    She was looking at eight demons who were standing in a single row. Four of whom were looking at her with pride, while the remaining four looked at her with shame.

    The four prideful demons were the ones who had been in charge of capturing Aeron and Xargy, while the four who couldn¡¯t bear to look at the golden-haired demoness, were the ones in charge of capturing, and bringing Daniel to Hell.

    "Repeat to me how that happened." Said the demoness with a melodic, and emotionless voice.

    The white-horned demon glimpsed at the tworger ones who he had left behind minutes earlier, and after noticing that they had no intention of speaking, he said "Aplete failure on the shapeshifter¡¯s part. She was tricked by the brat¡¯s illusion.. Our fault was to trust her sess instead of checking ourselves."

    "Was it also the shapeshifter¡¯s fault that you didn¡¯t notice the outcast follow you for two days.. And all the way into Hell?" She asked in response, causing the white-horned demon to lower his head further.

    The problem with their situation, was that it was something impossible to predict. No one who possessed the age which Daniel was reported to have, would ever be able to master and control so many essences. The very idea that somebody could, would be scoffed at by most..

    To control all of the elements in a way that would make them react with the illusion as if it was actually something tangible in their way, to keep a constant pressure within the bag, as well as keeping its motion consistent with the movement of the bag.. To be able to do this for two straight days was beyond impossible for someone at Daniel¡¯s level of cultivation, and logically speaking, would have required him to take numerous pauses in order to recover his immortal essence.

    What added to the strain of keeping such aplicated illusion up, was the fact that he was using spatial and dark essence to keep himself from being noticed. The sheer mental strain of both of these actionsbined, was not something that a twenty-six years old cultivator should be able to perform.

    "No.. that was our fault." responded the white-horned demon.

    The golden-haired demoness looked at the white-horned demon with what, for the very first time, appeared to be anger.. But after a few moments, her eyes rxed. She then turned away fast enough for her golden locks to wave through the air, and as she walked towards one of the doors to the side of the throne room, she said "I suggest you find him.. Quick. The next time you fail, you will end up like them."

    The white-horned demon raised his head to look at the demons who were standing by his sides.. But all he saw, were strips of flesh, and shadows of blood that grew the more time passed. The other seven demons were all dead, and not even the ones who had seeded in their job had been spared.

    With trembling hands, and a heart that was beating fast enough to threaten to burst out of his chest, the white-horned demon walked out of the throne room.

    As he walked past the entrance, he heard a sigh soundingg from his right side. There,ying on the wall, was the white-horned demon who had taken Xargy into custody. He was looking at the member of his family with a faint smile.

    "What do you want?" Asked the one who had just been scolded, still notpletely calm.

    "You should be more polite to your big brother.. If I wasn¡¯t here, that bitch would have turned you into a set of cards.." responded the smiling demon before pushing himself away from the wall, and approaching his younger brother. He then added "You look like you could use some help.."

    -----

    Meanwhile, somewhere a few hundred kilometers away from the teleporting tform..

    After running at a rtively slow speed for a few hours in order not to draw attention, Daniel had finally decided to stop running. He was in a dimension he knew nothing about, and he couldn¡¯t afford to get caught. Especially now that he had learned that his friends had been captured by his enemies.

    He was now in the middle of a thick forest, where the tree trunks were white and the leaves were of a purplish color. The sky could not be seen, but underneath the dark colored dry leaves that covered the ground, numerous sounds could be heard.

    There was really nowhere to turn for Daniel.. He could not shapeshift into a demon by using illusions, as the demons were already aware of his presence.. And he couldn¡¯t simply walk around in his normal appearance, as from what he had learned by the chatty demons he had followed, there were no free humans in Hell.

    He was a rat in a cage of lions which had been lucky enough to find some shade to hide in, but that was not good enough for him, so.. Left with no other choice, he decided to do what he had chosen not to do unless he was truly out of options..

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Everything Helps*

    -Description: Offer your help to people in need.

    Eighty-fifth objective set: Save Aeron and Xargy.

    (Optional): Destroy the Church of Damnation.

    Reward: ??? / ??? Karma Points / Hell Reputation +100%

    Time limit:

    1 year, 9 months, 22 days.

    7688 years, 11 months, 3 days.

    ____________________________

 Chapter 309 Once a Snake, Always a Snake

    The reason why Daniel did not want to start any new mission, was because he knew that once they would bepleted, there was a chance that Sewah go under another evolution. If that were to happen, he would have to fight not only against the enemies in front of him, but with those inside him as well.

    If there was any other choice, he would have dly avoided doing it.

    "Look who finally decided to show up." muttered Sewah after months spent inplete silence. The state he was in was nothing but a shadow of what he was in the past, and he was forced to spend all of his time as a wisp of consciousness, under the constant threat of being devoured by Daniel¡¯s mind power.

    "Nice hearing from you, dear friend.. Why don¡¯t you make yourself useful and give me my choices?" responded Daniel while entering a dark cave which he had found in the oddly colored forest.

    "Fuck you. Ask for them yourself." Responded Sewah in anger, still annoyed by his situation.

    Daniel let out a faintugh before focusing on the appearance of his choices, and causing for two windows to appear in his mind.

    ____________________________

    Open approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Force your way into The Cathedral.

    -Kill Akazin, the Demon of the Golden Thread.

    -Kill the Demon Lord Dar¡¯gon, leader of the Church of Damnation.

    -Free Aeron from the prison.

    -Free Xargy from envement.

    Time limit:

    1 year, 9 months, 22 days to Aeron¡¯s death.

    99 years, 11 months, 29 days, 22 hours to the transfer of Xargy¡¯s custody to the Tamer.

    (Requirements: High Immortal stage, hundredth phase.)

    Reward ???

    ____________________________

    Military approach

    Difficulty: Extreme

    -Find allies in Hell. (3 factions minimum.)

    -Use the allied forces to dere war on the Church of Damnation and their allies.

    -Kill the Demon Lord Dar¡¯gon, leader of the Church of Damnation.

    -Free Aeron from the prison.

    -Free Xargy from envement.

    Time Limit:

    1 year, 9 months, 22 days to Aeron¡¯s death.

    99 years, 11 months, 29 days, 22 hours to the transfer of Xargy¡¯s custody to the Tamer.

    (Requirements: High Immortal stage, fifth phase.)

    Reward ???

    ____________________________

    Daniel looked at the two only choices given by the system with confusion. None of them were viable for him, so he muttered in dissatisfaction "Are these the only options I have? No stealthy approach? No negotiation?"

    "When you got control over your body back, the universe lost a warlord and gained an idiot.." muttered Sewah with a low voice, before adding "You are in the home of numerous beings who are considered threats that near my father¡¯s level. Did you really expect you could sneak your way in, or buy the other idiots back?"

    "FUCK!" Shouted Daniel at the peak of his voice, while also being careful that no sound could reach further than he could sense. He then looked back at the cave¡¯s entrance with a hint of doubt.

    In the twelve years that Daniel had spent with the Karmic System, the system had never lied to him.. If it gave him only two choices, and those two choices both required him to reach a certain level of cultivation, that meant that those two choices were the only avable for him.

    Whenever he requested for his options to be given by the system, he would also receive other information which, at times, he did not even knew he needed.

    Taking the situation he was currently in as an example, thanks to the system Daniel had been able to learn what the name of the base of the Church of Damnation was, how long it would take before Aeron and Xargy were killed or sold off by their captors, and obtained a broader view about the political situation inside Hell.

    He had been given the choice to find allies, and that meant that there were demons inside Hell who despised the Church of Damnation enough to chose to fight alongside a human against them.

    Unfortunately, that also meant that he needed to gain power by transcending into high immortality, or for one reason or another, he would not be able to help his friends.

    "Damn in.." he muttered after finding himself helpless once again. He had been the center of attention of multiple factions, and yet, he was always forced to y on a league limited to his power.. Whenever he and his friends were forced to part due to an event outside of his control, he would feel a deep unwillingness, that if let to its course, would soon turn into anger, and consequently into a rash decision.

    No matter from which angle he looked at it.. He needed power more than anything else. Be it to destroy the Church of Damnation and save his friends, or to manage his way back to his family and loved ones.

    After what felt like an hour spent staring at the entrance of the cave, Daniel punched the rocky wall by his side, and caused the entire entrance to fall apart and closepletely. He then turned to look at the depths of the cave, and started walking.

    While the cave appeared to be a normal cavern where low level beasts would hide for the night, that was far from the truth. The real depth of the cave was beyond the dozen kilometers, and lead deep underground.

    Unable to use his immortal essence due to the fear of being felt by the demons who were probably looking for him, Daniel could only walk the entire length of this underground path.. Which ended three and a half hourster in a rocky shelter, whose floor and roof were covered in stgmites and stctites.

    The only sound that resounded in this underground pocket, was that of the droplets of water that dripped from the roof and onto the mushy ground.. Meaning that the cave was uninhabited.

    Once sure that no one would find him there, Daniel removed one of his rings, and ced it at the top of one of the thinnest stgmite.

    This ring was not a simple ring, but the one that worked as the connection between the outside universe, and the pocket dimension where Virgil and Hannah¡¯s group were currently in.

    After onest look at his surroundings, Daniel entered the ring.

    When he reappeared, he was standing in front of a houserger than the one he had left for Virgil. It was clear that his mute student had used hisprehension of wood essence to expand the house, and make more room for his six guests.

    Aside form the worry he felt for Aeron and Xargy, Daniel was also worried about Virgil. Not worried that something would happen to him while he cultivated, but that he would feel alone if he closed himself into cultivation for months at a time.

    It was only now that he had recalled that Vergil was not alone, that he felt reassured.

    He did not want to waste time exining to Hannah¡¯s group how they had arrived there, so he decided to leave a message to Virgil in the form of sound essence which would travel directly into his ears.. but before he could do that, he heard a voicee from behind him.

    "Daniel?" Asked Hannah in surprise. She and George were carrying numerous branches from the small forest which Daniel had created for Virgil, all the way to the house.

    As soon as the word left her mouth, Virgil dashed out of his small house, and approached Daniel at a speed that only a cultivator at the peak of the first stage of immortal cultivation possessed. He then began to move his hands frantically.

    "Don¡¯t worry. Everything will be alright.. You will only have to spend some time with them while I cultivate.. I need you to be kind to them, and if you can, teach them how to cultivate." Responded Daniel while patting his head.

    Virgil made a second series of gestures, which caused Daniel¡¯s calm expression to darken. "I won¡¯t lie to you. They are in danger, but I will save them both. However, I could use your help.. So don¡¯t forget to keep cultivating."

    Whether it was Daniel¡¯s words, or Virgil¡¯s hand signs, they were both in anguage that was foreign to Hannah¡¯s group.. So as soon as they notice the two stop talking, Hannah approached them, and asked "Daniel, what is going on? Where are we?"

    Daniel¡¯s time was very limited, but since these six people would have to be Virgil¡¯spanions for the next months, he could not simply disappear now that they had spotted him.

    Instead of exining what had lead them into his pocket dimension, Daniel made a desk and a chair appear in front of him. On the desk, were numerous papers and a pen with ink next to it.

    Without wasting a moment, he sat on the chair and began to write something on the sheets of paper.

    What he was writing was a simple cultivation method and exnation on the most basic levels of cultivation, but thenguage in which he wrote it, was the one that Hannah and her group spoke. After he finished, he handed the few pages to Hannah and George, and after saying "You will understand once you follow that manual." he teleported out of their sight.

    When he reappeared, he was hundreds of kilometers away from Virgil¡¯s wooden house.

    He needed quietness and to not be disturbed, so he took a small earth sphere from inside one of his rings, and locked it in the space right above his head. He then removed the limitation on the sphere¡¯s power, which once left free to move outwards, turned into an avnche of stone and dirt.

    This went on for a few minutes, until the area which was previously upied by Daniel and a single sphere of earth essence, had turned into a small mountain with a pocket of air inside where Daniel resided.

    Finally alone, Daniel took one of the essence gems he had stored in one of his rings, and sat on the ground in the lotus position.

    He was perfectly aware of the fact that cultivating with one of these gems would usually kill somebody at his level of cultivation, but he was also sure that he would never be able to reach the high immortality stage by cultivating with crystals.. So after activating ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and cing a time sphere that would increase the speed of time by ten times in the space in front of him.. Daniel put the gem in his mouth, and swallowed it whole.

    Moments after the gem went down Daniel¡¯s throat, his stomach began to gurgle. It didn¡¯t take long before some sort of power began to force its way into Daniel¡¯s veins, arteries, flesh, and skin.

    About a minute after the assumption of the gem, Daniel had already reached his limit. The essence contained in the gems was so pure that it traveled through every centimeter of his body like a deadly electric current.. Causing his skin to crawl, and for ancinating pain to cover every bit of his body.

    It wasn¡¯t long before his skin began to give up, and the pores on the surface joined into numerous cracks.. The cracks then grew in size and turned intorge bloody wounds.

    The same was happening on the inside.. Where his muscles twitched endlessly, and his organs threatened to stop working at any given moment. The only thing that was keeping them functioning, or that would make them start working once again, was the endless stream of healing essence which Daniel was forming with his own immortal essence.

    Unfortunately, the increased amount of immortal essence that he produced thanks to the time sphere and ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, was only barely able to keep his body from falling apart. The entire process was so painful, that had he not cultivated his mind power at the level it currently was, he would have passed out only moments after starting it.

    "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHH-AAAAAHH!"

    The wounds on his body grew in depth as well as in length, and to a point where his bones could be seen from multiple angles.

    However, while this pure torture went on, and Daniel was struggling to keep his focus on preventing his body from being destroyed by the sheer power that the gem poured into him.. A second and yetpletely different pain came from the depths of his mind.

    As soon as Daniel felt this familiar pain, he did not think twice before moving one of his left hand near his belly.

    His fingers then pierced into thergest of the wounds on his body, and reached for his stomach.

    Once he touched his stomach¡¯s slick surface, his fingernails turned into sharp razors which easily cut all of its externalyers.

    From the outside, Daniel appeared to be looking for something inside his own body, while at the same time, experiencing the most painful migraine he had ever felt. He gritted his teeth in agony for a few moments, until finally, his fingers reached what he was looking for.

    He immediately moved his hand out of his stomach, and threw the essence gem that he had failed to absorb against one of the cave¡¯s walls, then focused on healing his body from any injury.

    It only took seconds for all of the wounds to close, but on Daniel face, no trace of happiness could be seen.

    "Once a snake.." muttered Daniel before cing two fingers on his temple, and with a pulling motion, dragging Sewah¡¯s sorry figure out of his mind.

    Sewah had just tried to once again take control over Daniel¡¯s body by devouring his mental power, which had been fully focused on preventing him from passing out and dying due to the devastating effects of the essence gem.. But thanks to Daniel¡¯s decisiveness, he had been able to react in time, and get rid of the essence gem before Sewah could sessfully take control of his body.

    Daniel observed the enraged finger-sized Sewah that was pinched in between his fingers. He was looking at him with hate while spouting insults, but no sound came out of his mouth due to the incredibly weakened state he was in.

    A few ideas on how he could hurt Sewah appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind, but ultimately, he knew that there was no way for him to kill him unless he was willing to risk losing the Karmic System.. So he looked at him quietly instead.

    Unfortunately, no matter how much he thought about it, there was truly nothing he could do but to injure Sewah¡¯s mind into a dormant state.. However, right as he was about to put him back into his mind and follow that n, a fist-sized rock fell from the roof of the cave.

    A faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face as he grabbed this rock, and infused it with his immortal essence.

    This immortal essence did not dissipate, and instead turned into the most basic formation in existence.. A formation which Daniel had learned to create the very day he had decided that the world of formations was not for him.

    Right before the formation waspleted, Daniel put Sewah into the small stone. Then, before he could leave, he injected the formation with his mental power.. turning it into a prison of mental power that Sewah, in that state, would never be able to leave.

    Satisfied by this idea, Daniel threw the rock aside, and picked the essence gem back up.. He then looked at it with a fair amount of fear, before finally putting it back into his mouth, and swallowing it once again.

 Chapter 310 The Gift of High Immortality

    Cultivating with the use of essence gems before reaching a certain level of power, was only possible for somebody like Daniel, who thanks to his increased speed in the refinement and healing of his body, was able to prevent the excessive power from turning him into a meat paste that decorated the cavern¡¯s walls.

    While he cultivated, the seemingly endless amount of essence condensed into the gem would wash into his body tirelessly, wrecking it beyond recognition, and fighting the healing essence that was desperately trying to keep everything together.

    In the past three months, Daniel had been forced to stop this process more than once, as he did not want to risk going insane from the excruciating pain.. Unfortunately, the only way he had to take a rest, was to dig the dissolving gem out of his stomach with his own hands.

    Even after these three months, Daniel had been unable to notice any change in the gem he had swallowed, and it appeared that his increase to thete tenth stage of immortal cultivation had been nothing for the full capacity of the gem.

    After all that time spent with one of these gems in his stomach, he became sure of one thing.. Each of these gems, would they not disintegrate a human¡¯s body in a matter of instants after being consumed, contained enough essence to help a weak human reach the highest stages of immortality.

    More than once in the past three months Daniel had hoped that there was an easier way to cultivate, but his time was limited, and did not wait for him to find a method he was content with.

    Time went on slowly, and after what was only six months worth of cultivation, that thanks to the time sphere he had installed could beparable to five years worth of absorption, the pain suddenly stopped.

    Just moments before that happened, Daniel had reached the peak of the tenth stage of immortal cultivation.. However, the blockade that was supposed to keep him at that level, and be the cultivation limit for immortal cultivation, held on like a wall of paper.

    This blockade, which was supposed to represent thest vestige of his humanity, was nothing for the immense amount of immortal essence that Daniel¡¯s body produced, paired with the remnants of the gem¡¯s power.

    As soon as this barrier broke and the pain stopped, a pleasant feeling began to make its way through Daniel¡¯s skin, flesh, and veins. Instead of crashing violently against every bit of his body, the waves of essence brushed over it like a violent river that slowly eroded the riverbed in the course of thousands of years of constant flowing.

    After reaching high immortality, Daniel felt the immense amount of power that came from the essence gem be quickly absorbed, causing his body to strengthen at an impressive degree.

    This feeling forced Daniel to rx, and to enter a state of ecstasy. He could suddenly understand why Xargy had been so eager to consume the two gems the very moment he had seen them. Wave after wave of pleasant prickly feeling almost brought him to groan in pleasure for what felt like hours.. After which, the feeling disappeared.

    Daniel opened his eyes and quickly inspected his body, finding no wound underneath the set of clothes he was wearing.. clothes which now did almost nothing to cover his body. The cuts that had ripped his clothes apart had been caused by the condensed metal essence of which the gem was made of.. However, the metal essence was not the cause of the appearance on the wounds which had opened as Daniel cultivated.

    Before transcending immortality, a human¡¯s body would be too weak to withstand being refined by that magnitude of power, and would fall apart before the essence emanated by the gem would even turn into the element of which it was made of. That wasparable to a person dying due to the shock wave before the fire of an explosion could even reach him.

    Now that Daniel¡¯s body was resistant enough to withstand the gem¡¯s power, he had been able to feel the coldness and hardness of metal through every bit of his body, almost as if his body was turning into a puppet made out of flexible steel.

    From what he had heard from Xargy, the sign of bing a high immortal would be a special power granted to the cultivator. Some people would receive a boost to one or more of their senses, to their sheer power, or even speed.. Some others would gain affinity to specific essences, and some could even obtain particr abilities. Therge variety of powers discovered in the history of the government, made it extremely difficult for someone to find out what the change within their bodies were without running some tests.

    In the universal government, reaching the high immortality stage was a sign of faith in the immortal path. This type of loyalty was the core of the government¡¯s existence, and was valued to a point where numerous studies had been conducted on the potential that an immortal cultivator could reach.

    Millions of years of these tests had created an entire catalog of powers, inside which these powers were ranked, and would often apany a person into their true career.

    An example of this, were the judges.

    Amongst the strongest powers that a high immortals could receive, was the one that each and every judge possessed. This power had been called Collective Judgement, and allowed each Judge to borrow a portion of power from the other judges, and momentarily add it to his own. The portion obtained was but a small fraction, but when taken from all of the judges in existence, it turned them into beings of a frightening power to which everybody else had to obey.

    Whenever someone with the Collective Judgement appeared, the Tribunal would take them, and test them. They would then be be trained, and be judges themselves.

    In the many studies conducted on that particr power, the Universal Government had discovered that the ones with the highest chance of obtaining it, were those with an indomitable sense of justice and incorruptible love for the powers they served, and who wish nothing but for theirpatriots to follow the rules, and to be a peace with each other.

    The same was for the universal government¡¯s army, where the army members would possess one of the mostmon powers, called Army Man. This power appeared in the citizens that were blindly loyal towards the government and seeked the glory of battle by fighting under a valuable general, or for what they perceived as a good cause.

    The explorers, on the other hand, were solitary individuals.. and that had always caused their powers to evolve towards what their behaviour and methods of fighting suggested. An example of this, was Krit the sniper.. who being an explorer whose main focus was to spot and attack the enemy from afar with his musket, had obtained heightened eyesight and hearing, and a sense of smell that was only second to that of a dragon.

    The unpredictability of an explorer¡¯s power was the reason why they were so feared. They were killers whose powers had evolved for the sole purpose of turning them into deadlier existences.

    Unfortunately, while Xargy was extremely knowledgeable in many things, he didn¡¯t knew much about those sorts of powers. All he was able to tell Daniel, was that he would change after reaching the high immortality stage.. Leaving him without a lot of information to work with.

    A superficial analysis was not enough for Daniel to find the changes into his body. He was in a pocket dimension that he had created himself, so he was able to reach its edges with his senses even before breaking through high immortality. His power had increased by leaps and bounds, and he felt like he would not have a problem with resisting a few of Xargy¡¯s attacks, it still did not seem like his strength had increased beyond reason. His five senses were also limited by his location, so there was no way for him to make sure what the breakthrough had caused unless he left the pocket dimension.

    Unable to notice any change to his body, Daniel decided to put the matter on the back of his mind, and to keep cultivating, so he put on a clean set of clothes and sat back down. He then took another gem from inside his ring, and put it into his mouth.

    This second gem was of the water element, and the moment he swallowed it, he felt like a mouthful of the cleanest water was going down his throat. The cool feeling was so pleasant that it made him swallow twice, despite the fact that there was nothing left in his mouth.

    Once the gem reached his stomach, Daniel felt as if he had fallen into a sea that was made of both clean, and salty water. Cold and warm currents brushed against every bit of his skin, and at the same time, his body rxed to a point where he could understand how it was to live as a boneless aquatic animal.

    His mind drifted away like a leaf that floated on the surface of ake without the slightest bit of control.. At the same time, the familiar pleasant feeling appeared once again.

    Where it would take months for a person to absorb a gem fully, it only took Daniel a few hours. His impressive speed of absorption was not only caused by the boosted speed of cultivation, but also by the fact that his body was in the weakest state of high immortality.

    Two gems were more than enough for Daniel¡¯s body to go through the first twoyers of refinement.. Stages that, ording to what the system suggested, were called phases.

    At the first phase of high immortality, a cultivator¡¯s lifespan was able to reach the twenty thousand years, and each phase came with a further increase of overall power, an additional thousand years of lifespan, and a strengthening of the person¡¯s special power.

    Unfortunately, Daniel was still unaware of which ability he had gained after reaching the high immortality stage.

    Only at the second phase, Daniel was still unable to follow either of the paths he had been given by the system. So he decided to keep cultivating until he either reached the fifth, or the hundredth phase of cultivation.

    With a wave of his hand, he forced the small chest that contained the elemental gems to appear in front of him. Inside of it, were roughly three thousand gems.

    Without thinking too much about it, Daniel took two of them and put them into his mouth. *Gulp*

    -----

    One yearter, within Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension.

    "I can¡¯t do this anymore! It¡¯s too difficult! I don¡¯t even understand what that sign means" shouted Alex impatiently, to a just as impatient Virgil.. who for the past couple of weeks, had seen him fail time after time inprehending the simple concepts of alloys of the essence of metal.

    This sudden outburst had distracted the rest of the group that, unable to focus on the things they were doing, turned to look at him with faces filled with displeasure.

    "Will you be quiet!?" asked James in anger, before turning to look at his low level time sphere, and attempting to focus once again.

    George and Hannah were testing their increased senses and strength by sparring with swords, while the two twins, Alex and Felix, enamoured with the idea of learning how to perform the magic which Daniel had disyed, chose to study the essence spheres in Virgil¡¯s possession.

    Alex looked at his friends apologetically, then, he turned to look at his young teacher, and whispered "I don¡¯t get it.. Just show it to me one more time.. Just one.."

    Virgil, exhausted with Alex¡¯s stubbornness, began to form numerous hand signs with his hands. "Enough showing. You just have to focus more! You are too-" he said before being distracted.

    Before Virgil could finish scolding Alex for hisck of focus on the task at hand, he felt an oppressive amount of power burst out from the ground a hundred kilometers away.. A power that brought a pressure strong enough to force him and the rest of the group to kneel on the ground.

 Chapter 311 The Oni Tribe

    The moment the ground began to shake, Virgil and Hannah¡¯s group were forced to their knees by an absurd amount of power that came from a point a hundred kilometers away from the area they were training in.. but this pressure did notst long, and disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

    This pressure was not imposed by physical means, like the effect that gravity would have on a person.. but by a psychological one, just like the feeling that a person would feel when encountering a being they had no chance defeating, or escaping from.

    Right after the pressure stopped, Virgil weakly stood back up on his feet. Then, with trembling legs, he ran in the direction where the pressure came from.

    "Where are you going?!" asked Josh in worry, after noticing the fearless figure of Virgil run straight towards the source of power, which to them, felt nothing but deadly.

    The six of them looked at each other for a few moments. Then, right after standing back up, they followed Virgil in the direction he had gone to.

    After a year and a half of cultivation, Josh, James, George, Hannah, Felix and Alex, were able to grow more powerful than Virgil was the day they had encountered him. They now were all immortal cultivators at thete second and early third stages, while virgil was at the mid fourth stage.

    This speed of cultivation was not only caused by the perfect crystals that Daniel had given to them, but also by the time sphere which Daniel had ced underneath Virgil¡¯s house.. A time sphere which allowed their bodies to absorb energy and be refined much faster, while not touching their lifespan.

    If Jerigh had received this sort of treatment from the very moment he had been saved by Daniel, he would have be a high immortal a long time ago.

    The third factor which had increased the speed of their cultivation, was being part of Daniel¡¯s group.

    In thest year and a half, the group of six had learned Virgil¡¯s signnguage, and were able to discuss with him about Daniel¡¯s origin. He had recounted to them what kind of person Daniel was, and how he conducted his life. That he would not shy away from helping others, and help them obtain the power necessary to take care of themselves.

    When Virgil told all of the stories regarding demons, dragons, aliens and universal government, the group began to see him not as a god anymore, but as a mythical figure that would appear only in bedtime stories.

    It was only after hearing Virgil¡¯s stories, and remembering what had happened in their.. that they understand the reason of Daniel¡¯s actions. He was not following them around because he was lost and did not know what to do.. he was giving them a hand, while also looking for the being that had caused theirs to be like that.

    Realizing the truth was a heavy blow for Felix, who after hearing this story, had shut himself for weeks.. While at the same time, Alex had lost the ability to sleep due to the memories of when he had shot a friendly dragon straight to the face.

    In time, the truth had changed the idea they had of Daniel, and they began to idolize him.

    The proximity of their training ground to the ce where Daniel was cultivating, was enough for them to receive the boost in talent and power that any other member of his group would receive, but since they advanced in their cultivation often, they were unable to notice the clear changes.

    Since all of them were in a shocked state, and could barely walk, Hannah¡¯s group was unable to keep up with Virgil¡¯s speed.. So they were only able to catch up a few secondster.

    They ran for close to twenty kilometers in a matter of minutes, until they were forced stop. In front of them, Virgil was standing on the edge of a crater with a diameter of a hundred and sixty kilometer.

    The sudden appearance of a crater was odd already, but it was only after the group approached it, that they understand why Virgil was staring at it.. The crater was perfectly round, almost as if an entire sphere of space had been turned into nothingness. However, despite how long the seven of them stared at this perfectly round crater, they found no trace of what had caused this it to form.

    -----

    When Daniel left the pocket dimension, he was surprised by what appeared in front of him.

    Where he expected there to be arge cave, was instead a bedroom decorated with feminine items.

    He was standing right next to arge bed, above which, a muscr demon with straight horns was ripping the clothes off of a young demoness with leather wings, and curved thin horns.

    The young demoness was not fighting back, but from the expression of her face, and how she kept her body rigid, it was clear that whatever was going to happen, was beyond her control and desires.

    Since the young demoness did not appear to be in distress, and had likely been married to a demon she did not like, he decided not to meddle with this matter.. Unfortunately, the moment he appeared, therger demon noticed him.

    "A-A HUMAN!?" he shouted in shock before standing up, and summoning a massive spiked club from within one of his rings. "GUARDS!!"

    Daniel could feel the power that the demon possessed, and if he was the himself of one and a half years earlier, he would have had no chance of surviving.. But to the current Daniel, this demon was the lowest of threats.

    Instead of bothering with exining why he was there, Daniel looked at the karma of the two demons, and after noticing the dark red number on the male demon¡¯s head, he weed the iing club with a thrust of his hand.. which pierced through the weapon and went straight into the demon¡¯s chest.

    When the hand came out of the other side of the demon¡¯s chest, it waspletely clean. The blood of the demon, instead of staining Daniel¡¯s body, slid above it as if his entire being was waterproof, and dripped on the floor of the room.

    The young demoness shrieked in horror after witnessed the scene, but just like the male demon¡¯s call for his guards, no sound reached outside of the room. She kept screaming and screaming, to a point where Daniel lost his patience, and stopped the sound that came from her vocal cords before it could evere out of her mouth.

    Unable to emit any sound, the young demoness sprung up on her feet in an attempt to jump out of her window, but an indestructible spatial barrier prevented her from reaching any of the exits.

    "DON¡¯T KILL ME! PLEASE!!" she shouted before curling up in a ball in the corner of her room, and covering her body with her ck wings.

    Daniel looked at the red number above the girl¡¯s head. It wasposed of only three digits, and it was clear that it was formed from spoiled behaviour as a rich young demoness, than from truly evil actions.. Reason why he chose not to harm her. What he needed from her, was something that belonged to him.. So he approached her with a slow pace.

    Every step caused her to tremble more and more visibly, and scream a few more words to keep him from moving closer "STAY AWAY!! NOO!!" she screamed as she felt Daniel¡¯s hand approach her curled up body.

    For demon¡¯s standards, she was an extremely beautiful demoness, and that was the reason why the demon Daniel had just killed, along with his group, had assaulted the manor of the girl¡¯s family. In exchange of not killing her entire family, the demoness had offered herself as his wife. However, the very moment the marriage between the two was going to be consummated, Daniel had appeared right next to their bed.

    She had lived with the notion that she would have to give herself to a brute in exchange for the lives of her family for days now.. so whenever someone would look at her, she would always assume that they were aiming at her body.. And she would be right most of the times. However, this time, she could not possibly be further away from the truth.

    Daniel simply grabbed her arm, and after forcing her fist open, he removed the ring he had just came out of from her finger, and put it. He then sat on her bed.

    "Where am I?" he asked to the young demoness, which was looking at him from an opening in between her wings. His tone was calm and showed no evil intentions whatsoever.

    The demoness did not respond.

    "As you might have noticed, I am not a demon. I am not supposed to be here, and I know nothing of Hell. Tell me where I am, and I will leave." Added Daniel in an even calmer tone. He wanted her to understand that he meant no harm.

    The girl remained quiet for a few moments, then, from behind her leather wings, she said "You shouldn¡¯t have killed him.. When his father will learn what you have done to him, he will hunt you down and tear you apart." she said before taking a small pause. Then, after a faint sob, she added "And then he will kill us."

    "Who is he?"

    *Sniff* "The leader of the Oni Tribe.." she responded with a tone so low, that it was almost impossible to hear.

    As soon as Daniel heard the word ¡¯Leader¡¯, a faint smile appeared on his face. He then took an essence gem out of his spatial ring, and after showing it to the young demoness, he asked "Does you think he has any of these gems?"

    The reason Daniel hade out of his cultivation three months in advance, was because he waspletely out of essence gems. They system had told him that he could have reached the hundredth phase of high immortality.. But the more Daniel cultivated, the more he realized that the three thousand gems he had, were not enough.

    He had used all of the gems he possessed, and yet he was still far being able to the hundredth phase of high immortality.

    After a bit of consideration, he hade to the conclusion that he should havee out of the pocket dimension, and search for cultivation resources while also scouting for information, and looking for allies.

    That, was his only true option.

    What he did not expect, was that a chance to do exactly that would fall upon him the very moment he came out of cultivation.

    The girl moved her wings aside, and after noticing the small lightning gem in his hand, she nodded at him.

    "How did this ringe in your possession?" Asked Daniel after putting the gem into him mouth, and swallowing it.

    The girl was surprised by the fact that Daniel would begin to cultivate right in front of her, but while she was expecting Daniel to close his eyes and focus on allowing the power to temper his body, nothing of that sort happened.

    The power of the gem was not enough to distract Daniel, which could consume them and cultivate while having a casual conversation, just as if he was eating candies.

    While killing the oni that she had married was not a proof of power to her, the action of consuming essence gems as if they were nothing, was something that not many could do. To do something like that, was simr to having a conversation while being stranded in a sea tormented by raging waves.

    "One of the miners of my family found it in a cave about a year ago.. I knew there was a pocket dimension inside, but I was never able to breach it. I have kept it because I like the design." responded the young demoness, now morefortable with Daniel¡¯s presence.

    "Alright." said Daniel beforeying down on the girl¡¯s bed. He then added "I am extremely ignorant about Hell.. Families, demonic races, factions.. start talking."

 Chapter 312 Mercenary for Hire

    Na¡¯roga family manor, master bedroom.

    Inside the biggest of the rooms in the young demoness¡¯ family manor, a middle aged couple of demons was sitting on arge bed with expressions filled with pain. The male demon possessed massive folded leather wings as ck as the night itself, while the demoness, while devoid of wings, had long and thin horns.

    "We haven¡¯t even tried to fight back.." muttered the demon while clenching his hands, and causing his wings to emit a faint ck smoke.

    Feeling her husband¡¯s rage, the demoness put a hand on his shoulder, and said "We have no other choice.. Ever since your father was killed by his, we have been too weak to resist. She knew that too.. That¡¯s why she made this decision."

    "We could leave.. I could go in there, rip his throat open, and then we could leave." Added the male demon with odd calmness, after turning to look at his wife. He hated the idea that his daughter had to give herself to a member of the Oni Tribe, as the leader of the Oni Tribe himself had killed his own father during theirst encounter.

    The woman shook her head softly, before cing it on her husband¡¯s shoulder.

    In response, the husband opened one of hisrge wings, and wrapped her body in a hug. The two then spent two hours in silence, before they finally decided to leave the room.

    When they reached the main hall, they saw their daughter. She was looking at them with an apologetic look.

    Her mother quickly approached her and gave her aforting hug, before saying to her ear "My little demon.. You are so brave.." Tears were forming on the corners of her eyes.

    As the father observed this, his deep ck eyes seemed to lose a bit of their life in a matter of moments. However, the words that his daughter pronounced momentster, made all of that lifee back and more.

    "Nothing happened." Said the girl while gently removing her mother¡¯s arms from around her body.

    "What happened? Did he change his mind?" asked the father with eagerness. The idea of his daughter being given as a wife to the son of a leader of brutes, was beyond what he could bear. To ept their situation had already taken all of the mind power he was capable of.

    The girl shook her head in front of her father, then said "He is dead.."

    "WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED?"

    The young demoness looked at the worried expression of her parents for a few moments, then sighed, and began to exin "..The ring I have obtainedst year.."

    -----

    While the Oni Daniel had killed was not as powerful as the parents of the young demoness, she was still miles away from his level. The Oni Tribe was a power only second to that of a faction, and its leader was what in hell would be called a ¡¯Noble Demon¡¯.

    High demons were, like the name suggests, beings simr to high humans and dragons, who had cultivated their own powers to a level that could rival that of a gifted being.

    The difficult living conditions of Hell had forced the once humans into numerous branches of evolution. But while their bodies remained simr, each major family had gained a particr power that was passed down from generation to generation.

    In Hell¡¯s hierarchy, the various groups were divided into three separate casts referred to as Minor families, Noble families, and Highborn. The belonging of each group was based on the power of its leader.

    Whenpared to the power division of high humans, minor groups would be the ones lead by demons at the phase one to thirty-nine, noble families were lead by demons between the fortieth and the seventy-ninth phase, and finally, highborn groups were lead by demons above the eightieth phase.

    An example of thetter group were the Dagon¡¯s family, to which the white horned demons belonged and was lead by a phase eighty-five Noble Demon, the Varija family, also known as the Golden Thread family, to which the demons with golden hair belonged and was lead by a phase eighty-seven Noble Demon, and the various factions like the Church of Damnation and the Law of Mimicry, both lead by demons beyond the hundredth phase, also known as Demon lords.

    To the noble level of groups, belonged the Oni Tribe, whose leader possessed a powerparable to the seventieth phase, and the Na¡¯roga family, whosete leader possessed a power at the sixty-eight phase, and that after dying by the hands of the leader of the Onis, had caused his family to drop at the bottom of the Noble groups.

    The levels of High Demon¡¯s cultivation, however, were not divided into phases, but into stages instead.

    After reaching the high demon stage, each demon would only have three stages of cultivation to go through. These stages were the High stage, the Noble stage, and the Lord stage. All High demons possessed a powerparable or lower to that of a forty-ninth phase high human, while noble demons possessed powersparable to that of high humans between the fiftieth, and the ny-ninth phase. Finally, all demons who possessed a power simr or beyond what was a hundredth phase high humans, were considered Demon Lords.

    For thousands of years the Na¡¯roga family had been able to keep the Oni Tribe away thanks to the protection of their leader.. However, the Oni leader had been faster in his cultivation, and during theirst battle, had been able to kill his enemy of a lifetime.

    However, while the current leader of the Na¡¯roga family was not a Noble Demon like histe father, his power was still enough to keep his family from falling out of the status of nobility.

    Nevertheless, that power was not enough to keep the Oni Tribe at bay.

    -----

    "That is how it went.." muttered the young demoness after finishing to narrate what had happened.

    After listening to her story, the couple walked into her room, and there, they saw the the lifeless body of the Oni. The single injury on his chest, as well as the cutting of the bones, was clean. It almost appeared as if the body of the demon had been disintegrated upon contact, instead of being ripped apart.

    The same was for the massive spiked club, next to which were no splinters or fragments. Just a simple hole that went from one side to the other.

    "What kind of demon can do something like this? Look at the injury, there was absolutely no resistance to the blow." Said the young demoness¡¯ mother in shock after inspecting the Oni¡¯s body. She then turned to look at her husband, and asked "What do you think?"

    "I have almost reached the Noble stage, and yet I do not believe I would be able to do something like this to him." Said the male demon, current leader of the Na¡¯roga family, with a stern expression and cautious tone. "Whoever did this, is not an average noble demon."

    After making sure that their daughter had told them the truth, the couple walked out of the room, and back into the main hall, where their daughter was waiting for them.

    The moment the couple reappeared, the young demoness was able to see the worry on their faces. Most would expect them to be happy that their daughter hadn¡¯t been tainted by such a brute, but not them. She was perfectly aware of the reason why their faces disyed that expression.

    The Oni¡¯s death meant the destruction of their family.

    The middle aged demoness looked at her daughter in deep worry, while at the same time, her husband thought of their options. He had said more than once that he would have liked to rip that demon apart, but that was only his way of venting.

    He hated the idea of losing his entire family right after losing his father, and he hated even more the fact that his daughter had to pay the price to prevent that from happening.. All of that, was because he did not possess the power to defend his family like his father had done for so long.

    "There is no other way.. We have to leave, now. The moment the leader of the Onis learns about his son¡¯s death, he will march here and destroy us." Said the male demon to his wife and daughter.

    "We could hide in my family¡¯s territory, but that is going to be the first ce where he will look for us." responded his wife, trying to think of every possibility they had.

    Before her husband could respond to her proposition, a silhouette covered in darkness appeared just a few meters away from them. Around it no power could be felt, and the darkness of which this silhouette appeared to be made of, would swallow every bit of essence that dared toe too close to it.

    "How about killing him?" Said Daniel while shocking the middle aged couple, but not their daughter.

    The moment the couple noticed Daniel, the male demon covered his family by opening his impressive wings, which immediately began to emanate a powerful unique essence simr to dark essence. At the same time, two silver katars appeared in his hands.

    "Who are you?!" he asked in anger while preparing for battle.

    From behind his cover of dark essence, Daniel calmly responded by saying "Just your average individual. Asleep in my ring, forced to wake up to the sight of that thing. I think you can imagine why I had to kill him."

    "What do you want from us?" asked the middle aged-looking demoness from behind her husband¡¯s fuming wings..

    "As I have said. Why not destroy the Oni tribe? I will dly give you a hand.. As long as I get to keep the essence gems we find in his territory." Said Daniel while pacing around the hall, and looking at the odd interiors of the manor of the demonic race.

    Daniel¡¯s behaviour was too much. Ever since his father had died, the current leader of the Na¡¯roga family had been unable to live with ease. Before he could have the time to conduct the funerary rites for his father, the son of the demon who had killed his father had arrived to threaten them, and in the end, he had had no choice but to allow his daughter to offer herself in order to save their family.

    These events had weighted heavily on his mind, and now that the worst had passed, and the cause of the worsening of their problems was behaving so rudely in front of them, something inside him clicked.

    With fuming eyes, the high demon pped his wings, causing for the ck smoke that surrounded them to fill the entire hall, and shroud it in darkness.

    The style of fighting of which the Na¡¯roga family were experts of, was assassination. The unique power emanated by their wings would prevent others from seeing or sensing clearly, and was even able to stop sound.. However, this cloud of dark-like power, did nothing to hinder the demon who had generated it.

    The assassination skills of the Na¡¯roga family were opposite to those of the Oni Tribe, who cultivated their bodies to the extreme, and excelled in sheer power. They were exactly what the Ki Faction was for the humans.

    Unfortunately, by reaching a higher power than the former leader of the Na¡¯roga family, the leader of the Oni Tribe had be immune to the attacks of his old enemy. And after weeks of fighting, the Oni was able toe out victorious.

    However, that did not mean that all demons would have a body as resistant as the Onis.

    The demon walked quietly in the ck mist he had created, pacing around Daniel without a specific pattern, just to make sure that he was not seeing through his power.

    In his eyes, Daniel was looking around with curiosity. It almost looked as if he was not interested in fighting, and would rather spend time looking on the room¡¯s design instead.. So he decided to move closer to him.

    Like a killer that waited for the right moment to attack, the male demon walked closer and closer to Daniel, with his katars ready to sh his body into thin strips.

    The idea of killing Daniel and telling the truth to the Oni Tribe had formed into his mind.. But the moment he reached the two meters of distance, the demon felt a shiver run down his back, as the head of he faceless silhouette turned to look directly at him, and asked calmly "I am still waiting for an answer."

 Chapter 313 Stirring up the Hornets Nes

    The ck-winged demon, shocked by Daniel¡¯s sudden actions, immediately stepped back with hurry.. Retreating into the safety of the ck mist he had created. However, no matter where, or how far back into the cloud of darkness he walked, Daniel¡¯s gaze followed his movement as if there was absolutely no blockade in between them at all.

    Worried that the ck mist he had emitted was simply not enough to hinder Daniel¡¯s senses, the demon focused on letting out more and more of it, to a point where it condensed into aplete manmade darkness that shrouded the entire main hall.

    However, it was all a waste of time.

    Daniel was eager to test his newly acquired power in battle, but the more he spent time allowing this high demon to showcase his powers, the more he realized that he was not a threat to him. So, Daniel decided to impatiently cut things short by pursing his lips, and exhaling heavily.

    The winds that came out of Daniel¡¯s mouth were as faint as feeble wisp at first, but the more he exhaled, the more the male demon was stripped of his will to fight. That simple breath charged with wind essence was able to push away the dark-like power as if it was a simple cloud of smoke dissipated by an unstoppable gale.

    The mother and daughter looked on in shock as the most powerful assassination technique of their family was dispelled in a matter of moments, as their father and husband, who was now on his knees next to his weapons.. Completely visible.

    "Look, I am stuck in hell. I have no allies, nowhere to go, and apparently I have already made a powerful enemy for myself." Said Daniel to the demon from within the darkness with which he surrounded himself, and casually looking at him.

    Daniel¡¯s words were able to shake the demon mind enough for him to listen carefully.. And it was only then, that he looked at Daniel with a dubious expression, and asked "What does that mean? How are you stuck in hell?"

    Instead of responding with words, Daniel turned the dark essence that had turned him into a human-shaped ck hole, back into immortal essence, causing for his real appearance to bepletely visible.

    "A-A human.." Muttered the demon in shock. As a demon, he had never belonged to any group that wasn¡¯t his family. When he was younger he was set to join one of the factions, where he could have grown more powerful, but his rtionship with his long time lover, and brought him something he had always believed to be thousands of times better.. A daughter.

    Now with a family to take care of, the male demon had decided to stay, and be the second inmand of their family. That, was the cause why he had never been able to leave Hell, or see a human that was not a prisoner brought from the outside universe.

    With unbelieving eyes, the male demon stared incredulously at his daughter, who looked back at him apologetically. She had decided to leave that detail out of her exnation, as she did not think that her parents would have believed her, as well as a favor to Daniel, who for some reason, had decided not to harm her.

    "You said it yourself. You would not have been able to injure this guy the way I did.." Said Daniel as the body of the oni appeared next to him. Then added "..And even if you exin the truth to his father, after he will kill you and your family, he will definitely look for the real culprit. So, since I don¡¯t like people hunting me around, you might as well take me to him, and bet on me winning."

    He then casually walked out of the hall.

    The moment Daniel left, the male demon¡¯s wife approached him "What do we do? Do you think he is strong enough?" She asked with worry.

    "I can¡¯t imagine myself being able to win against him." Said the male demon while slowly standing back up, and picking his weapons. "He is right. There is nowhere to run.. Unless he kills him, we will all die.. be it today, or tomorrow. But if he can¡¯t kill him, I will be able to buy enough time for you to escape"

    While the three members of the family looked at each other in worry, Daniel was standing outside of the hall. In his hand, was the rock which contained Sewah¡¯s consciousness, and he was looking at it while grinning contentedly.

    -----

    Bordering the territory which belonged to the Na¡¯roga family, was a massive canyon carved into a range of golden mountains. However, despite the color, these mountains were not made out of gold, but gold colored dirt and sand.. making it look spectacrly odd for someone who was not from Hell.

    At the bottom of this massive canyon, the sound of cheering resounded like war drums.

    These cheers were, of course, caused by the hundreds of demons ced in a circle around a badly made fighting pit, and sitting on the edges of the golden stones that stuck out of the thousand meters tall walls.

    Sitting on a throne made out of beast bones, was leader of the Oni tribe.. A demon with short horns, almost hidden by his exaggerated amount of hair, and red skin with ck stripes full ofrge and deep scars. Next to him, was a club made of the rib of a beast that one could assume was thousands of meters in length at the moment of its demise.

    The few oni demons who surrounded the leader were nothing to scoff at either, as most of them had already reached the High Demonic stage. The strongest of them, just like the current leader of the Na¡¯roga family, were close to reaching the Noble stage.

    At the moment, this powerful being, along with the members of his tribe, were looking at a group of civilian demons fight to death within the fighting pit ced at the bottom of the canyon.

    Of the hundred demons who had joined the battle at first, only four had remained. Three of them were rtively young looking demons who wielded maces and swords, while the fourth one, was a slightly muscr demon who appeared to be extremelyfortable with the rudimentary spear he was holding.

    "AH! I knew the hunter woulde this far! Pay up, sucker." Said a fat and yet muscr demon to the taller demon that stood right next to him.

    "Fuck you! Have you not seen how cowardly that puny demon killed my warrior?! I¡¯m not paying!" Said the taller demon while grabbing his club and pointing it menacingly at the fatter demon.

    However, the fat demon was not having it, "LIKE HELL YOU ARE NOT!" he shouted while grabbing his own club.. But before he could even pick it up, the taller demon bashed his weapon on the fat oni¡¯s head who, while able to survive the first few hits, was not able to survive the following thirty.

    The power of the tall oni was enough to send shockwave to the surroundings, causing the demons within the ring to lose their bnce, and fall on the ground.. But while nobody cared about the murder that had just happened next to them, ruining the show to their leader was a whole other thing.

    As the taller demon kept smashing his club on the dead body of the fat oni, an oppressive power came from behind him. Feeling this horrifying power envelope his body, the tall demon turned around in terror to see one of the few sons of the oni leader, a massive demon with horns slightly longer than his father¡¯s, and a dark green colored skin.

    He was walking towards him barehanded.

    While the approaching Oni was powerful to a horrifying degree, the tall demon knew he had no chance of escaping his fate.. so he instinctively entered into a fight or flight state of mind. However, his pride as an Oni was too big to convince him to run, and the moment the second oldest sons of the leader arrived in front of him, he lifted his club and tried to repeat his previous work on him.

    Unfortunately, the odds were against him. The moment the club touched the son of the leader, it shattered into thousands of pieces. The tall demon¡¯s full power was not even enough to make the flesh flesh of the oni tremble.

    In response to this pathetic attempt, the Oni grabbed the tall demon by the neck, and after cing his other hand on his shoulder, he lifted his head with enough power to rip it from his neck, as well as pull the demon¡¯s spine out of his body. He then threw the demon¡¯s head aside, and walked back to sit next to his father.

    Of the four demon within the pit, the hunter was undoubtedly the best fighter. He had reached so far into the event by keeping his head low, and strike whenever one of his opponents would make a mistake, but while that had taken him so far into the deathmatch, it had also forced his three opponents to give up fighting each other, and group up against him.

    The series of attack that followed were more than the hunter could take, but luckily, he was capable enough with the spear, and while constantly walking backwards and avoiding the three young demons from surrounding him, he was able to keep them away masterfully.

    His experience as a hunter had also taught him to always be aware of his surroundings, and keep an eye on where he was walking.. An ability that the three demons did not possess.

    The bravest of the three stepped over one of the many corpses that littered the ground of the fighting pit, and jumped over the spear-wielding hunter. At the same time, a second demon approached him from the right. The third demon, scared and tired, stumbled over one of the corpses, and fell on the bloody ground.

    The hunter was waiting for this to happen, so he stuck the handle of the spear to the ground, with its point directed towards the jumping demon. He then let his body fall over the corpse that wasying underneath his feet, avoiding the sh of his enemy¡¯s sword.

    Once on the ground, he grabbed the mace that was right next to the corpse¡¯s hand, and waved it against the demon¡¯s head. *SQUELCH*

    After killing one of the three remaining demons, the hunter stood back up on his feet. He then walked past the impaled demon who had fallen straight into his trap, and approached the third demon, who was now sitting on his behind.. scared beyond belief.

    The hunter looked at the remaining demon apologetically "I am sorry.." he said before bashing the demon¡¯s head with the mace.

    "YEAAHH!!!" Shouted one of the demons from outside the fighting pit. While most of the others looked at the scene in silence. He was one of the only two demons who had put their money on the hunter, instead of the warriors who were nowying dead on the ground.

    To the winner of the event, freedom was promised.

    Tired and mentally exhausted, the demon looked at the oni leader with eagerness. But when he expected to hear the few words that would have granted him his freedom, he instead saw a club thrown straight at his chest with enough power to go directly through it, and dive a hundred meters deep into the ground.

    The club belonged to the oldest of the leader¡¯s sons, who looked at the still falling corpse of the shocked hunter while muttering "This is a fighting pit. Cowards are not allowed toe out of it alive."

    The many oni that observed the event were expecting this to happen, but that took nothing to the demon who had bet on the hunter, as the winner was based on which participant would be thest one left standing, and not who woulde out of the pit alive.

    After the first son of the Oni leader killed the hunter, the many oni began to disperse.. when from in between them, came a voice that called for their leader¡¯s attention.

    "Boss. Lero, the kid of the Na¡¯roga demon you have in, is here to see you. He ims to have two gifts for you." Said a muscr and tall oni, who stood out from the others thanks to his impressive height.

    To respond was not the oni leader, who after killing his old enemy had be rather annoyed with his daily life, but one of his sons. "Let him through." he said, causing the therge crowd of demons to listen to hismand, and part into forming a clear path.

    From the edge of thisrge crowd, the figure of the ck-winged demon appeared, followed by an individual covered by a hooded brown robe.

    Lero walked all the way in front of the Oni leader, who looked at the hooded individual with interest. "Your father would have killed you if he had known you would walk in front of me bearing gifts." Said the oni demon with enough power to cause a few of the members of his tribe to pass out. "Show me." he then added after turning towards the hooded individual.

    Fully aware that the oni demon was telling the truth, Lero grabbed the hood of the robe that was covering Daniel¡¯s appearance, and ripped it off.. What was shown, shocked the group greatly.

    "A HUMAN!"

    "That is a real human.."

    "I CAN¡¯T BELIEVE THIS! Human ves are so rare.."

    The group observed Daniel as if he was the rarest of the objects in their world, while from beside the oni demon, the oldest of his sons said "Father, to have a human fight against demons in the fighting pit would be rather enjoyable."

    Clearly amused by the idea, the oni leader nodded in approval.

    "What is the second gift?" Said the second of the leader¡¯s sons.

    Lero did not move, and instead turned to look at Daniel, who stepped forth, and with a wave of his hand, made the corpse of the third of the oni leader¡¯s sons appear. On his face, was a polite smile.

 Chapter 314 A Resilient High Immortal

    The moment the corpse of the oni leader¡¯s son appeared in front of him, the entire crowd went silent. There were few things that were known to make this red-skinned giant go crazy, and touching one of his sons was on the top of the list.

    While Daniel was the one who had taken the corpse out, the many eyes of the demons present turned to look at Lero, who in turn, bravely looked back at the red giant, as well as his bluish and green-skinned sons. In his mind was the awareness that he would not have much longer to live.. But at the same time, he felt the satisfaction of being able to look at the oni leader¡¯s face, the moment he would feel the same pain he had caused to him when he had killed his father.

    "You.. you have killed my son.. I will eat you alive." said the oni leader as the sheer strength of his fingers cut through the bones of which the throne was made out of like scorching hot knives cutting through butter. However, before he could act himself, his two sons stopped him by walking in front of him.

    The oldest one, with veins bulging from his temples due to the fury he was feeling, said "FATHER! Allow us to have a turn before you kill this bastard.. PLEASE!"

    The father of the two enraged oni took a deep breath that seemed powerful enough to inhale the whole world, and once he was a bit calmer, he looked at the oldest of his sons andmanded "Keep him alive."

    Right after receiving the consent of their father, the two oni slowly turned to look at Lero, as well as the calm looking Daniel. One of them was holding a spiked club identical to that of his deceased sibling, while the second son, bore sharp fangs powered by his mighty arms.

    They slowly walked in front of Lero, who they had always considered their natural enemy due to the rivalry between their fathers, and when they reached the distance of a couple of meters, the power they possessed began to emanate through their bodies.. increasing the length of their shadows with what felt like a wave of horrifying heath.

    Lero did not bother to fight back. He knew that if the leader¡¯s sons were to fight against him and ended up on the losing end, he would be kill him in an instant. That was the biggest hypocrisy of the oni¡¯s way of life. None of the oni demons had any value to their leader, unless they belonged to his family.

    Instead of preparing for battle, Lero turned to look at the calm Daniel.. who stood quietly, and observed as the two oni walked past him, and went to stand menacingly in front of the lone ck-winged demon.

    The natural power of the Oni faction was called berserker, and allowed them to harness the full capacity of their body¡¯s strength in exchange for losing their reason. Once unconscious, the whole mission of their life would revolve around their target.

    While into a crazed state, the Oni would not lose their mindpletely. The way they controlled themselves was by having a clear idea of what their objective was before going berserker.. And the current objective of the two siblings was clear. They wanted to leave the person who they believed to have killed their brother into a bloody state, before offering what was left of him to their angered father to finish.

    The muscles that covered the bodies of the two oni began to bulge with power, and their bodies, as well as the essence they emanated, grew exponentially. The sclera of their eyes turned into a venous red blood, and their jaws locked tightly. It was right at that point, that their minds went nk.

    Lero¡¯s eyes quickly moved from the two oni, to their father, to Daniel. He was not sure what to do, and was considering whether to die fighting, or if the torture he would have to suffer would be able to gain more time for his family to escape.

    However, something in the eyes of the oni leader changed. He was looking at the quiet Daniel, whose presence was growing above and beyond what he would have ever expected. "NOOOO!!!" He shouted in hurry.. But it was already toote. Daniel¡¯s arm had already shed horizontally, cutting both of his sons in half right in front of him.

    "All of your sons.. You should have taught them to behave while in front of people stronger than they are." Said Daniel before the upper part of the two oni could fall the ground.

    The crowd looked at the scene in shock.

    Most human in hell would generally not possess that kind of power. If they did, by logic, their owner would be someone much more powerful than they were, and instead, Daniel was being kept by a mere high demon, son of the noble who their leader had recently in.

    Lero breathed out in relief as the two oni in front of him turned into corpses, but it only took a peek at the face of their father, for him to be forced on his knees due to the oppressive power.

    The members of the oni tribe did not remain to observe what was going to happen, and instead crawled out of the canyon as fast as their could. They knew that the value they had for their leader was beneath what was underneath his feet, so they were not willing to take the shockwave of his blows the moment he would go all out.

    Daniel observed as the power of the oni leader grewrger andter. At the same time, his hair were growing at a visible pace, and the two small horns ced on the hairline of his head came out like massive tusks.

    While observing the demon go all out, Daniel could not help but smile. A year and a half had passed since he hadst fought, and now, he wished nothing more than to test himself against a worthy opponent.

    The moment the massive hand of the oni leader wrapped around his club, a feeling of imminent death made its way into Daniel¡¯s head, so he immediately teleported himself and the ck-winged demon out of the way, and reappeared on one of the rocks by the side of the canyon.

    However, despite the hundred of meters of distance, they were far from being out of danger.

    The sheer power of the impact between the oni¡¯s club and the ground created an earthquake which, if released on Daniel¡¯s of origin, would have broken the entire apart.

    Every rock and pebble in the radius of five kilometers was turned into grain of sand, and arge portion of the demons who were not able to escape in time, had be stains of blood over the golden sand.

    As the dust settled, a sphere of spatial essence which contained both Daniel and the ck-winged demon appeared in space. This sphere was not made of solid space, but of curved space, and whenever something came in contact with it, its very existence would be forced to follow its curved trajectory and skim past its content.

    From within his safe bubble, Daniel looked at his surroundings in shock. What he was shocked about was not the power of the blow, but the fact that such a powerful blow hadn¡¯t destroyed the entire Hell. In fact, after only five kilometers, the remnants of the blow¡¯s power would dissipate at an unusual, and unnatural speed.

    It was clear to Daniel that there was some sort of protection which prevented excessive damage to hell when two beings at an absurdly high level would fight against each other.

    However, this idea was quickly put to the back of his head.

    The oni leader had shown his power, and ording to Daniel¡¯s standards, he was fully qualified for test his powers.. So he teleported the ck-winged demon out of danger, and dissipated the spatial sphere. He thennded in front of the unconscious demon, who was looking around with a bloodthirsty expression.

    The blood red eyes of the oni filtered through the golden mist which covered his impressive build.. Just like the shadow of the iing blow.

    This time, Daniel did not avoid, and instead lifted both of his arms in an attempt to parry the blow. In a matter of instants, a multyered barrier of space, ice, earth, wood and metal essences ced in between him and the iing club.

    *THUMPH*

    The surrounding ground trembled once again, as the impact lifted the trillions of grains of sand in the air, and moved them around with the shockwave it caused, and into a devastating sandstorm.

    Unhappy with what he had aplished, the oni leader lifted his massive club again, and began to smash it against the ground where he felt Daniel¡¯s presence to be over and over.

    The numerous blows forced the sand to turn into mist, and the mist to turn into particles that would inquinate the surrounding atmosphere for the years toe.

    One after another, the blows came upon Daniel¡¯s barriers like a series of thunderbolts who purposely tortured a single piece of unfortunate metal, and only stopped after every bit of Daniel¡¯s power was extinguished.

    As soon as thest bit of Daniel¡¯s power disappeared from the oni¡¯s sensing abilities, his red colored eyes turned clear once again. All of the anger he had felt for the loss of his three son had been pushed out during the onught of blows, leaving only the sadness to settle in.

    "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!" He shouted to the sky in an attempt to rid himself of those negative feelings, which quickly turned into further rage the moment he recalled who had brought this human assassin into his home. So he turned towards the territory of the Na¡¯roga family, and with his club in hand, he began to walk..

    Before he could go too far, a faint voice came from the center of his past anger.

    "H-Hold on.. You h-haven¡¯t finished your f-food yet.." Said Daniel, who was lying on the ground while covered in severe wounds. Both of his legs were missing, as well as the right part of his chest.. However, despite all of these deadly injuries, he was still alive.

    Daniel had clearly overestimated his raw power, with which he could notpete against this particr foe.. But this test was not fruitless.

    To his shock, before he could even turn his immortal essence into healing essence to force his recover.. The very edges of Daniel¡¯s injuries changed inposition, and instead of being flesh filled with immortal essence, became flesh filled with healing essence.. Forcing his injuries to heal by themselves.

    The speed in which the injuries recovered was also beyond reasoning, as hisprehension of healing essence was not deep enough to heal his high immortal body at the stage he was currently in, not to talk about this speed.

    His right lung, the pulverized bones, the torn flesh, even the lost limbs reformed in mere seconds, making him whole once again.

    Ever since Daniel hade out of his cultivation, he had already felt what the ability he had gained was, and to his surprise, this was not it. It was only then that it dawned upon him.. He had received multiple powers that had to do with the actions he was performing right before breaking through to high immortality. One of them, was healing his body from the injuries caused by the devastating power of the elemental gem.

    The oni leader had often heard stories about humans. How there were tens of thousands that were far beyond his level of power, how some could even destroy stars with the sh of a sword.. But he had never heard of a human whose body would regenerate by itself.

    "What are you.." said the demon while looking at Daniel in shock.

    Daniel, on the other hand, was ecstatic about the changes to his body.. He looked at the massive red-skinned demon with an even brighter smile, and said "Come, let¡¯s have some more fun."

 Chapter 315 One and Only True Immortal

    "I want to see you heal.. after I leave nothing of you.." Said the oni as his hair kept growing until they reached the back of his knees, and his horns split into two. At the same time, one of the lines that divided his abdominal muscles split open, revealing a hidden mouth in his stomach filled with thorn-like teeth.

    This, was his true demonic form.

    The moment the demon assumed his true form, Daniel felt once again that feeling from before.. The visceral warning of imminent death that heightened his senses, and screamed at him to run as far away as he possibly could.

    At the state the demon was in right now, Daniel did not dare to let himself be hit despite of the regenerating powers he had discovered, but even with his fastest speed, he was unable to react in time and avoid the club that crashed against himpletely.

    As the dust caused by the blow settled, Daniel¡¯s figure became visible once again. He was kneeling in pain a few meters away from the area that had received the most impact. One of his arms was missing due to hisck in reaction speed, but was quickly growing back.

    The crazed oni had no intention of letting Daniel recover, and sent more and more attacks in his direction. His speed was beyond what his size suggested was possible, and every blow came with a sonic boom which threatened to burst Daniel¡¯s ear drums.

    Using the speed he was capable of to escape this onught of deadly blows was out of the question, as it was not only Daniel¡¯s speed thatcked inparison, but his reflexes as well. If not for theprehension he had of the surrounding elements, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to feel the slightest movements of the demon in time to avoid the first few attacks.

    Left with no choice, he decided to use short range teleportation instead.

    The fight went on for a few seconds, and in that time, Daniel had avoided hundreds of attacks which arrived as fast as he teleported.. However, keeping on teleporting out of the way was not a good way to win this fight, so he decided to change strategy.

    The club was truly massive, and swinging it required immense strength, but that did not seem to apply for the oni, who appeared to possess an infinite amount of it, and was able to swing it with as much ease it would take to swing a stick.

    Nevertheless, all weapons had weak spots, and the weak spots of such massive weapons, was that they required enough distance from the target to be used.

    Instead of teleporting out of the way by a distance that the demon was able topensate in mere fractions of an instant, Daniel teleported on his blind spot. His hands were in the shape of swords, who in turn, emanated spatial essence.

    With a speed invisible to the eye he shed towards the tendon of therge oni, but his sword bounced back as if it had met an immovable object.

    It is important to understand that the spatial essence emanated by Daniel¡¯s swords was shaped into such a thinyer, that it would be able to cut in between the atoms of which a body was made of.. but the atoms that formed the bodies of cultivators were linked with their own power, and supported them so that they could toughen the skin, and resist against the attacks. The fact that the oni had resisted Daniel¡¯s attack meant that his natural essence was so strong, that Daniel¡¯s sword was unable to cut through the power that linked the atoms.

    This unexpected result came to a shock for Daniel, whom the oni tried to hit by waving his free hand.

    In response to this attack, Daniel changed the type of essence that formed the air around the oni¡¯s body into metal, in an attempt to either stop him, or slow him down enough to teleport to safety. However, the strength of the blow was so powerful that before the skin of the oni could touch it, the sheer power he was emanating corroded the metal essence controlled by Daniel into nothingness.

    Daniel tried to use the fraction of a moment he had gained to teleport away, but he was too close. The power emanated by the oni was affecting the surrounding mana, which he was unable to gain control of to perform a teleportation.. So instead of taking the blow head on he jumped lightly.. Allowing himself to apany the blow.

    The backhand p of the demon hit him squarely, sending a shockwave through his entire body. The immortal essence that connected Daniel¡¯s molecules was trembling frantically, and partially turning into healing essence so that his body could resist the blow¡¯s strength.

    This happened while Daniel¡¯s body flew deep into the ground for hundreds of meters.

    The oni observed the hole in the ground in anger. Being so close to his target had decreased the strength of his blow greatly, but it was still a direct hit. By logic, he should have been vaporized.

    As rity slowly began to reappear in the oni¡¯s mind, a circle appeared in the fine sand a few hundreds meters deeper into the canyon. The sand within this circle was caving in, as if a passage that lead to an underground cave had been opened, and the sand above it was filtering through. However, the increasingly shinier red light that seeped through the grains of sand suggested that it was not disappearing into an underground pocket of air, but was being molten.

    This went on until a magma pool formed on the ground.

    The humidity contained in the ground was heated by the liquid stone, and immediately turned into vapor that forced its way to the pool¡¯s surface in the form of arge bubble of scorching hot humidity.

    In between theserge bubbles, was a sphere of space essence that emerged from the pool¡¯s surface. Inside this sphere, was something inhuman. Daniel¡¯s current state was closer to a sack of pasty flesh and grounded bones than an actual human, and yet, the impressive immortal essence that he emanated, was keeping him alive.

    The grains of shattered bones moved back in position before fusing back together, the muscles turned into chunks that one by one formed muscr bundles, and the watery like substance which once were his organs began to move around before finally solidifying back into their original state.

    The oni looked at the event with disgust and horror. One thing was to possess regenerative abilities that would defy logic, but this was a whole other thing. He had felt Daniel¡¯s very existence shake the very moment the back of his hand had crashed against his body.. In the state he was in, nothing should have survived.

    What Daniel was going through had not only been possible thanks to his newly obtained regenerative abilities, but thanks to the other ability he had gained when bing a high immortal.

    When Daniel was cultivating, his intense consumption of mental ability, immortal essence, and and healing essence, had caused the three major factors that made an individual, merge into one. While all other immortal cultivators were beings made out of a merged flesh and spirit, and guided by a consciousness.. Daniel had surpassed that.

    His mind had merged with his body, and his mental power had merged with his immortal essence. As of now, Daniel was a being of flesh, spirit and mind, who fought using a mixture of three different powers.. He had be what he had decided to call ¡¯the first True Immortal¡¯ cultivator in history.

    Aftering out of his cultivation, Daniel had decided to store Sewah back into his mind.. But when he found himself unable to, he realized what had happened. His mind had fused with his body, and that meant that Sewah would never be able to take control over it.

    At first Daniel had felt panic after realizing this.. A panic which only disappeared after seeing that his system was still there. Finding out about this, caused Danie to have an epiphany regarding something extremely important..

    Contrary to what Sewah¡¯s actions had lead him to believe, the gift that came from Iewah was not stored in the consciousness of Iewah¡¯s children, but in the host¡¯s body. That was the reason why Sewah had never considered moving on to another body.. He needed the power that was branded in Daniel¡¯s body, otherwise he would have been a sole consciousness just like any other.

    By merging his mind to his body, Daniel had in fact reached a state which he had believed Sewah to be. He had merged his mind to his body, and by extension, to the Karmic system he possessed.

    This mixture of three powers had changed Daniel¡¯s nature, and in the state he was in, destroying his body was not enough to kill him anymore. In order to truly die, at least two of the three powers of which he was made of needed to be destroyed.

    The destruction of his spirit would turn him into an emotionless cultivator, the destruction of his body would turn him into a ghost, and the destruction of his mind would send him into a vegetative state.. But no matter which of the three factors would be destroyed, due to them being merged to the remaining two, they would eventually regenerate with time.

    The Oni leader¡¯s entire power revolved around physical strength, and his only other attacks were in the form of intimidation based on the impressiveness of his physical power.. So for him, killing Daniel was as impossible as it was for Daniel to kill him.

    This time the oni did not attack Daniel, and instead observed as Daniel regeneratedpletely.

    The sack of broken bones and liquid organs slowly took a human shape, until Daniel¡¯s appearance became noticeable once again.

    Daniel looked at his body in satisfaction. He already suspected that losing his body was not enough for him to die anymore, but he would have never dared to test this theory by himself. Luckily, this theory was based on reality, or he would have been dead by now.

    Now in the clearer state the oni had been in in the past tens of thousands of years, he looked at Daniel with a stern expression and said with a deep voice "We demons must look like monsters to you humans.. I wonder where that stereotype started. There is only one monsters between us."

    The spatial shield that surrounded Daniel¡¯s body slowly disappeared, and he slowlynded on the pool of molten stone and metal. The moment the tip of his foot touched the pool, it solidified instantly, creating a solid surface for him to stand on.

    "From someone that hits as hard as you, I¡¯ll take it as apliment." Said Daniel while putting on a pair of pants he took from within his spatial ring. "Shall we?" he then asked while turning to look at the oni straight in the eyes.

    "HAHA!" the oni burst outughing, then added "You might be the oddest being I have ever met, but you are far from being able to leave a scratch on my skin. I was wrong.. I will catch you, and test how finely I have to beat you to kill you once and for all."

    "I am also curious about that." responded Daniel as his hands became as dark as a starless night. The slow waving caused for dark tails to appear before dissipating in the surrounding air.

    The oni looked at Daniel with what one would believe to be satisfaction, as opposed to the boredom he had felt during the days that followed hisst fight with his lifelong enemy. However, he had now found someone else who he was excited about fighting.. So he slowly grabbed his massive hisrge club with eagerness.

    At the same time, the two ck holes that appeared in Daniel¡¯s hands began to absorb the surrounding essence, pulling anything physical and abstract in them, and causing for the area to fall into darkness.

 Chapter 316 There Are No Humans like Me

    The oddly colored sky and dusty ground disappeared, leaving both Daniel and the oni into the depths of darkness.

    "Useless tricks." Said the oni before pushing his terrifyingly intense essence out of his indestructible skin, which corroded Daniel¡¯s dark essence the very moment it came in contact with it.

    Whenever his body moved, the demon¡¯s essence incinerated Daniel¡¯s and left gashes of clearer space which would be filled right back with constructed darkness the very next moment.

    "I can still feel your presence, puny human." Added the demon before bashing his club on the small patch of sand above which Daniel was standing. However, the club went through his body as if nothing tangible was there to begin with.

    A second Daniel appeared right beside the massive demon¡¯s shoulder. He was only able to pat the skin of the demon before being pped by thetter¡¯s free hand. This time too, he disappeared leaving no traces behind.

    For the following two hours, Daniel would linger in the darkness, and only appeared next to the demon¡¯s for mere fractions of a moment. He would touch the demon¡¯s skin before being hit right back.

    To the demon, Daniel¡¯s actions had absolutely no purpose except for making him angrier. Each pat was as strong as that of amon human, and left absolutely no damage to his body.. But despite theck of effect, Daniel kept going.

    This went on for a long while until Daniel, after touching the demon thousands of times, finally decided to stop. Theplete darkness retreated back into his hand, allowing the demon to once again be able to observe his surroundings. Daniel was sitting on a rock a few hundred meters in the distance, and observing him calmly.

    "Giving up already?" asked the demon while turning to look at his direction, and keeping on emitting shocking amounts of power.

    Daniel looked back at the oni in confusion for a few moments, then said "What are you talking about? You have had your chance to kill me, and now you are already dead." His tone was confident, and he truly appeared to believe what he was saying.

    The oni was not sure whether tough at Daniel¡¯s words or be outraged, but the moment he decided to strike, he found something unusual happen to his body. His power, while nearly infinite and horrifying, was slowly being absorbed.. But that was not the most shocking part. The worst part was that the more power he emitted, the stronger the absorption would be.

    "What is this?! What did you do!?" Asked the demon in anger as his power moved voluntarily out of his control, and disappeared. It was only after examining his own skin, that the Oni found out what was truly going on.

    In each patch of skin that Daniel had touched, he had left hundreds of microscopic ck holes that, instead of being torn apart by the oni¡¯s power, would remain passive, and wee it in. This power would then turn into energy for the ck holes, and add to their gravitational pull.

    The demon had failed to notice this when he still had the time, and now that he was covered in them, and had been feeding them without a care, he was unable to stop them anymore. The absorption of these ck-holes was getting closer to the demon¡¯s output of power, and the more energy he produced to fight them back, the more they would absorb and be stronger.

    Daniel quietly observed as the Oni was stripped of his power, and turned back into his basic demonic form.

    Unfortunately, the microscopic ck holes were unable to absorb the essence that was keeping the molecules of the demon¡¯s body together, which meant that while he was unable to umte his power into his body before it got absorbed, he was still too resistant for Daniel to injure.. And the demon was aware of that.

    As every inch of power contained in the oni¡¯s body was absorbed, the ck holes that covered him were not able to stop his rage from growing out of proportions.

    "DO YOU THINK THAT I NEED ANY ESSENCE TO SQUASH YOU!?" Shouted the crazed demon before using his sheer physical power to grab the massive rib he had used as a club until now.. But as soon as he lifted it up in the air and he walked a few steps in Daniel¡¯s direction, he fell back on his knees.

    For a few short moments, he had felt the ground disappear from underneath his feeling.. only to reappear the moment his knees touched the dusty ground. The very idea of what he was doing had escaped his mind along with the very ability to keep himself from falling.

    As soon as he fell, Daniel approached him step by step, only stopping when the two were facing each other.

    While unexinably exhausted, the demon¡¯s size was still massive, and even on his knees, he was still a few meters taller than Daniel, who looked up to him with the eyes of a person who had seen positive results to a test he was conducting.

    Finally, the demon understood.

    While there was a moment in which he had the advantage in the fight, if Daniel had been any demon at his level, he would have died a thousand times over.. but he had underestimated him. Daniel was someone he knew nothing about, and had used his human ways to deal with him.

    With Daniel so close, it wouldn¡¯t have taken much for him to squash him into a red paste once again, but for the life of him, he could not bring himself to think about moving his arms and legs, nor could he emanate any of his power.. So he looked at Daniel with the first hint of helplessness he had ever felt in his life, and asked "..w-what is happening to me?.."

    "It is your mind. The spatial and dark essence that is draining you of your natural essence is not only weing in your natural essence, but your mental power as well." Responded Daniel, choosing not to lie. At the same time, he kept patting the skin of the demon, and adding additional constructed ck holes which could speed up the process.

    The demon barely had the mental power to understand Daniel¡¯s words, which to him, sounded like the most absurd thing he had ever heard of. The helplessness he felt turned into unwillingness and fear, as he failed to remember all of the enemies who he had killed in the past despite how many times he tried.

    Before losing his consciousness, the demon used hisst wisp of consciousness to ask "Is.. every human cultivator.. As terrifying.. As you.."

    Daniel looked back at the massive demon, who was about to pass out while still on his knees and straight back. For how evil this being was, Daniel could not help but respect his power, so he stopped his fall the moment his arms gave out by moving his hand upwards, and while adding more and more ck holes near his brain, he responded to the oni¡¯s question by saying "..there are no humans like me."

    A faint smile appeared on the demon¡¯s face, as his closed never to open them again.

    The moment the demon passed out, Daniel ced his hand on the demon¡¯s head, and released arge amount of his immortal essence, which he then forced into the demon¡¯s nostrils. Once close enough to his brain, he turned that essence into a singr powerful ck hole which erased all that was left of the demon¡¯s consciousness.

    He then looked at the demon, who lied on the ground in front of him in a vegetative state for a few moments.. Before taking a fist sized rock from within his spatial ring.

    He looked at this rock with narrowed eyes, and said "You know what the system can do. Try anything suspicious, and I will cast a karmic redemption on you, then erase you once and for all."

    This rock, was the vessel inside which Daniel had trapped Sewah¡¯s consciousness.

    There was no reaction from the rock, which he surrounded with his immortal essence before forcing it into the demon¡¯s mouth. He then walked a few meters away, and sat on a chair which took shape right underneath him as he lowered his body.

    Once seated, Daniel observed the immobile body of the demon in silence.

    A few minutes passed with no changes.. But instead of thinking of a failure, Danuel said "Stop ying dead. If you can¡¯t take control, I will kill you right away."

    Almost as if reacting to Daniel¡¯s words, the lips of the demon curved into a smile. "You have alwayscked a good sense of humor. This is why we never managed to like each other." said the demon while opening his eyes, and trying to stand up with a fair amount of difficulty.

    "We never liked each other because your whole existence was based on eliminating mine." Responded Daniel while cleaning his fingernails with a metallic pick he had formed with his immortal essence.

    After Sewah became used to the demon¡¯s body and finally managed to stand up on his feet, Daniel looked at him with a stern expression, and said "A thousand years from now."

    "You know that in this form I could turn you into meat paste in a matter of moments, right?" Said Sewah while feeling the extreme power that was moving through his newly obtained body. A power he had never felt before, and that he was far from reaching even when he had been in possession of Daniel¡¯s body.

    "Its previous owner was unable to.. Feel free to try." responded Daniel with a smile that sent a faint shiver down Sewah¡¯s back.

    The moment Daniel had left the main hall of the Na¡¯roga family, and had tried to store Sewah back into his mind, was the moment he had realized that his body and spirit had merged with his consciousness.. And while he was ecstatic about it, Sewah¡¯s reaction was far from it.

    He had lost the gift that was rightfully his, and would now have to exist as a bodiless consciousness under constant threat.

    At first, Daniel had decided to erase Sewahpletely. After all, it was his fault if he had been separated by his friends, not to mention that he had almost killed him when taking control over his body.. But he stopped after hearing Sewah¡¯s proposition.

    A thousand years of servitude in exchange for his life, and a body.

    Daniel felt a deep hate for Sewah for what he had done to him, but aside from the failed assassination attempt, Sewah had never touched his friends, and even allowed his family to live in his. That alone was enough for him to reconsider his decision.

    Luckily, Daniel had found the right body for Sewah right away. The body of a being powerful enough to be of use, and that possessed enough negative karma to be in a serious threat in case Daniel decided to use karmic retribution on him.

    Another reason why he had agreed, was that Sewah did not know the changes inside Daniel¡¯s body. He simply knew that it was impossible for him to merge with Daniel¡¯s body no matter how powerful his consciousness would be.. So even if Sewah tried to rebel, Daniel would have the weapons to kill him at any moment.

    Sewah noticed how confident Daniel was, so instead of pushing his boundaries, he smiled and said "Ha, you know I have a dark sense of humor. Don¡¯t mind me.. What is this thing¡¯s karma anyway?"

    Of course, Daniel did not expect Sewah to bend right away, and just as he thought he would, his first question was a probe regarding the amount of damage he would receive if he misbehaved.

    However, Daniel did not fall for it, and without even looking up at the number above the demon¡¯s head, he muttered "I don¡¯t think there is a word to describe that many digits."

 Chapter 317 Aeron, the Damsel in Distress

    "So, what are we going to do now? Do we go straight to retrieving the lizard and the masked creep?" Asked Sewah in an attempt to change topic, while stretching his body to get increasingly morefortable in it. His voice showed a clear hint of hatred as he reached thest part of his question.

    With a face filled with resignation, Daniel said "No. I was far from being on par with the previous owner of your body. If I were to fight against a demon lord, we would both die in a matter of moments."

    "What then?"

    Daniel did not respond right away, and instead turned to look at therge rings that were surrounding the demon¡¯s fingers. He then said "Why don¡¯t you start giving those to me."

    "What? Why? They are mine!" Responded Sewah in feigned indignation while moving his hand behind his back.

    Unfortunately for him, Daniel was not in the mood for jokes, and instead formed a morse with the fingers of his right hand, and slowly squeezed the air in his palm. His eyes relied an intent of dead seriousness, as he said with a voice as dark as night itself "This is not a joke, Sewah. You will obey me, or I will kill you before you even manage to recover your mental state."

    The moment Daniel¡¯s fingers closed into a morse, Sewah fell on his knees. He then grabbed his head in a desperate attempt to stop the pain he was feeling.. and yet no sound came from his mouth. He was suffering too much to even talk.

    To Daniel it was clear that Sewah would not be that easy to tame, so he kept squeezing the wisp of consciousness that, while in possession of a body, was still locked into the in the formation in which Daniel had locked him. He really wanted to rub the concept clear, so he kept going for a full couple of minutes.

    Unless Sewah managed to recover his mental state to a point where the formation would be too weak to contain it, something which Daniel assumed he would eventually be able to do.. Daniel would be able to kill him at will.

    After two long minutes of pain, Sewah finally screamed "OKAY! OKAY STOP!!"

    However, Daniel did not stop. He did not want a funnypanion that could eventually betray him.. He wanted someone who would obey his orders. So he kept the torture going for a few more minutes despite Sewah¡¯s begs and cries.

    Once he had enough, Daniel stopped.. Leaving Sewah panting heavily while lying helplessly on the ground.

    As soon as the pain stopped, Sewah used what remained of his consciousness to take the rings off of his fingers, and throw them in Daniel¡¯s direction, who grabbed them from the air and quickly began to examine its content.

    Mere momentster, a big smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face.

    After pulling his consciousness back out, Daniel looked at the area past the one he and the oni had destroyed. Then he turned towards the direction in which the members of the tribe of the ones had fled, and began to walk.

    Sewah noticed Daniel¡¯s departure, and while still trying to catch a breath, for a short moment he thought of escaping.. But that idea was eradicated from his mind the very moment Daniel¡¯s words entered his ears.

    "Don¡¯t even think about it." Said Daniel with a calm and cold tone.

    Left with no other choice but to y Daniel¡¯s game, sewah stood up and ran in Daniel¡¯s direction while saying in indignation "I wasn¡¯t going to! I am a trustworthy person, don¡¯t you know that already? Hehe.."

    "Sure you are.."

    -----

    The Cathedral, three dayster.

    Within the throne room of the cathedral, right next to the empty throne, the demon with golden hair was standing quietly as she usually would. She was looking down at a masked and shirtless demon who carried a spear in one hand, and a letter in the other.

    "They have finally admitted it, mdy. ¡¯The hounds of the gatekeeper felt a presence which their owner assumed to be a simple moment of distraction. It is possible that someone could have infiltrated Hell.¡¯ this is what the letter says.." Said the bare chested demon while reading the content of the letter he was holding.

    "Did they agree on helping in the search?" Asked the golden-haired demoness with an emotionless tone.

    The bare chested demon put the letter away, and with a face filled with nervousness and hidden by his mask, he said "They said that it is our responsibility, as we allowed that person to follow us into the stairway to hell." while saying this, the bare chested demon took a step back subconsciously.

    "WHAT?! What is the point of having a gatekeeper then?!" said the golden-haired demon in clear anger. At the same time, her hair began to rise in the air and float above her shoulders.

    Before the bare chested demon could even try to respond to the demoness¡¯ rhetorical questions, a few of her hair shed in the demon¡¯s direction from multiple angles. However, they were stopped by a white barrier right before touching the messenger¡¯s body.

    Now enraged, the eyes of the golden-haired demoness moved in the direction of the door of the throne room, where two white-horned demons had suddenly appeared. The two were the demons who had taken Xargy and Daniel¡¯s unconscious bodies to hell. One of them appeared extremely nervous, while the other, appeared to be rxed while in the presence of the golden-haired demon.

    "You can¡¯t keep killing all of the minions.. Who is going to do your job for you if there is no one left, Arzen?" asked the rxed white-horned demon while inspecting his long and sharp fingernails.

    The demoness looked back at the casual way this white-horned demon spoke to her, and with fists shut tightly in rage, she responded by saying "What are you doing here? I thought I was clear thest time we spoke, Ullmon.. The lord wants the kid. Your family has done nothing but disappointing himtely."

    "That might not be the case." Said the rxed white-horned demon called Ullmon, while casually walking in the direction of the throne. His younger rtive followed him while making sure to always stay less than three steps behind him, almost as if falling behind spelled death.

    "In the past year and a half there wasn¡¯t a single rumor about the brat. Not one sighting or report of his existence.. So he either hid for some reason, or found a family that could cover his presence." Said Ullmon after sending the bare-chested demon out of the throne room with a wave of his hand. ".. the silence went on until yesterday, when the kid of the dead Na¡¯roga family was been stopped, along with his family, on the border of my family¡¯s territory."

    Arzen did not appreciate the suspenseful pause that Ullmon took after revealing this seemingly useless information, as she knew that Ullmon loved to tease her low-tempered self whenever they met. "AND!?" she asked in anger.

    "And, he said that a human suddenly came out of a ring they found in the depths of a cave, and started killing demons of the oni tribe for fun before disappearing along with their leader." said Ullman before taking another short pause. He then added "It is possible that he was not just hiding, but cultivating."

    "That¡¯s ridiculous. He was far from bing a high human, how can he kill high and noble demons like that, after only a year and a half?" Asked Aezen while in denial. "It must be another human."

    "The description matches, and do I have to remind you that he is a chosen of Iewah¡¯s faction? Those guys are worse demons than we are." Said Ullman while suddenly turning serious. He and Arzen, while very powerful noble demons, were still a step behind the leader of the Oni tribe. That meant that if what was reported to them was true, unless the Demon Lord or the leader of their respective families intervened, they would be unable to defeat Daniel.

    That piece of information was a shock for Arzen, who had promised to the Demon lord that she would deliver the kid who had been tormenting his faction for the past few months. However, what Ullman had told her changed everything. For once in her life she let go of her rage, and asked "What do you suggest?"

    Internally amused by Arzen¡¯s change of tone, Ullman said "We might be unable to capture him personally, but we can still control when and where to encounter him. It¡¯s a good thing I convinced you not to kill the mental warrior."

    "Enough banter, tell me your n or get out." Said Arzen with a serious expression. She was too worried about fulfilling her promise to her lord, to fall for Ullman¡¯s attempts to ridicule her.

    Slightly disappointed, Ullman turned to look at his younger rtive, and said "Since the lord has taken a liking to having a pet dragon, and our tortures have been ineffective against this particr mental warrior, we will use him during the next signing of the Demonic Pact."

    "How?" Asked Arzen in confusion.

    "Sometimes I wonder why the lord put someone of your family in charge of everything underneath him. Oh right, he fancies your mother." Said Ullman with disdain, reminding her the main reason why he and her had never gone along well.

    Arzen became furious at the sheer mention of her mother, and the ends of her hair began to float menacingly, but before she could attack, Ullman said "We will host a fight, and an execution. The mental warrior will fight against a mighty demon from a noble family, and if he loses, he will be executed. If he shows up, any demon lord will be easily able to kill him off."

    "YOU!.. What makes you think that he wille?" She asked while trying to repress her anger as best as she could. "He has never made an attempt at rescuing hispanions, while should he show up?"

    Ullmanughed lightly before turning to look at the entrance of the Cathedral, and saying, "It doesn¡¯t matter if he does. If he doesn¡¯t, we will at least look good in front of the other demonic factions and families.. See you in three months." he then left while mimicking the magnificent arrival of his faction on the back of the dragon they had captured.

    -----

    After obtaining the the resources of the oni leader, as well as those of the rest of the Oni who had escaped, Daniel had one more time closed himself into cultivation. On the other hand, Sewah had been forced to wait for him to finish.

    Unfortunately for him, Daniel hadn¡¯t bothered to tell him how long it would take for him to finish.. And not that a full week had passed, he was starting to get restless. "How long do you intend on cultivating?" Said Sewah with exasperation..

    Nevertheless, despite how many times he asked, Daniel would stay quiet in his man made cave, and keep cultivating.

    Theck of an answer was forcing the idea of escaping to appear in Sewah¡¯s head once again, but the fear of Daniel¡¯s reaction was enough of a deterrent to keep it as what it was.. A simple idea.

    With no other choice, Sewah kept waiting for a few more days.. Until finally, a caravan made out of numerous carriages and mounted demons, passed through the main road a few kilometers away from Daniel¡¯s cave.

    Sewah did not let the chance of a bit of enjoyment escape him, and prepared himself to approach the caravan. But before he could use the oni¡¯s massive power to dash in that direction, he suddenly remembered something extremely important.

    "I am just asking a few questions.. I AM NOT ESCAPING!" said Sewah after turning towards the entrance of Daniel¡¯s cave.. But even after a whole minute of wait, no response came from inside its depths.

    Sewah had wanted to test the oni leader¡¯s power ever since he had obtained obtained it, But when he and Daniel had reached the escaping members of the oni tribe, they had surrendered immediately, and obeyed his orders.. giving him all of their possessions before disappearing from his sight.

    This moment was the first one where Sewah had had the freedom to test the sheer physical power of a demon¡¯s body.. And it was a lot more than he expected. It only took a twitch of his calf for him to find himself in the path of this caravan, causing sheer panic to make its way through the hearts of the charioteers and the guards, who immediately shouted "ATTACK!! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!!!"

 Chapter 318 The Signing of the Demonic Pac

    After Sewah¡¯s appearance, the scrawny looking horses-like beings which were pulling the carriage went crazy, unable to kick and jump in fear due to the harnesses that kept them locked in position. The only thing they could do, was to brace their fear and push through in Sewah¡¯s direction, something that the charioteers were only able to prevent thanks to their superior strength.

    The guards were clearly prepared for any sort of attack, and while most of them were normal demons apanied by a few high demons, the demon who exited one of the carriages was, surprisingly, at the noble stage. However, it was clear that she had just broken through that stage, due to the allerted expression she showed the moment she felt the sheer power of Sewah¡¯s body.

    "IT¡¯S THE ONI!!" screamed one of the charioteers after noticing the physical characteristics of the demon that had appeared on their path.

    This scream caused the guards to put their weapons down in surrender. It was a known strategy of the oni to show up, act in a rude manner, and after being attacked.. To kill everybody. When being questioned about their reasons to behave in such a manner, they would always im that they were simply responding to an attack.

    The ce where they were now was not the oni territory, so the captain and her caravan were not expecting for a member of the oni tribe, not to talk about one with such power, to show up in front of them.

    While visibly scared, the captain had trained for thousands of years to be able to keep her calm in every situation, so she ced a hand over then grip of her sword, and approached Sewah with a steady pace.

    The race of demons to which these demons belonged was drastically different from the members of the oni tribe, as shown by the two stag-like ck horns that came out of her helmet, and the blood red tail that came out of a hole ced in the lower back of her armor.

    "Is there something we can help the oni tribe with?" She asked with as much courage as she could muster, and pointing her light green eyes straight towards Sewah¡¯s. Her tone was respectful, as she did not wish to provoke this irritable giant.

    Unfortunately, she had no idea who she was dealing with.

    If here was something that Sewah loved above everything else, was to see the effects of his dominance in the faces of the people he encountered.. Something which despite the loss of his system, was still an integral part of his personality, and therefore, hadn¡¯t changed.

    "Where are you little demons off to?" Asked Sewah while showing a big smile that made an ufortable feeling bloom in the minds of those who saw it.

    "You jest.. We are headed to take part on the signing of the Demonic Pact. Isn¡¯t that what every family and group will be doing for the next few months?" She asked with curiosity after listening to Sewah¡¯s odd question. In her mind, the only reason why an oni would be here, was because he was part of the group that was traveling towards the ce where the signing of the Demonic Pact would take ce.

    "An encounter between demons? That sounds interesting." Said Sewah as his smile widened. "Tell me more about it." he then added.

    The suspicion of the captain was confirmed. Every demon would know what the signing of the Demonic pact, as every group who did not participate, would not be able to obtain his ssification based on their strongest member. It was a political event that would make it clear who underneath the sky of hell, were to be feared, respected, and at times, obeyed.

    "A demon of your power must have heard of such an important event." Said the captain with surprise. She had participated to numerous different signings in the thousands of years she had lived, and she was sure that the oni tribe had never missed one either. With a hint of curiosity she looked attentively at Sewah¡¯s face, and only after digging deeper into her mind, was she able to remember where she had seen him.

    Her back straightened like a bowstring, while her hand wrapped tightly around her sword.

    "Humor me. Describe to me what that event is, as if I was not a demon.."

    Now that the captain had remembered to whom this face belonged, sheer terror made its way into her mind. A noble demon possessed a powerparable to a fiftieth phase high human, and that was the level she was at.. However, she knew for a fact that the leader of the oni tribe was way past that, and that she would not be able to pierce his skin even if she wanted.

    "Y-You are t-the leader of the O-Oni.." she said while desperately trying not to stutter.

    Sewah quickly realized what the problem was, and since this demoness was already gone astray, he moved his head to the side a little, and took a peak at the carriages behind her. He then said "I wonder what a noble demon like you is tasked with protecting."

    His words shook the captain of the guards awake just as much as it terrified the rest of the guards, who were only now understanding in what kind of situation they were in, by noticing the reaction of the strongest within their caravan.

    "I-I can exin!" eximed the captain with enough emphasis to attract Sewah¡¯s attention to herself. Then, before he could say anything, she continued by saying "Every hundred years an event will take ce in hell. The board of ranking will be cleared, and the groups who want to be part of it will participate. It is a tradition as well as a method to make sure that the entire inhabitants of hell are aware of the prowess of the groups that are currently in it."

    As the demoness in armor appeared to be done talking, Sewah said in slight disappointment. "Is that it? You just show up, say how long your member is, and then piss off without even bothering to have a fight or two?"

    "Of course not. There will be demonstrations and events hosted by the strongest powers. They have a hundred years to prepare, after all." Said the captain, ignoring the rudeness of Sewah¡¯s remarks which, from what she knew about the oni demons, fit their character pretty well.

    "Ha! Now we are talking.. Tell me more about these events."

    The captain had gone past her shocked state already. Everybody knew that the information about the event was not shared in order to maintain the surprise effect, but since this time there was an exception, and he really looked interested, she decided to share what she knew.

    "As you might know, usually nothing is shared regarding the events.." she said calmly, but after noticing the annoyed expression that had appeared on Sewah¡¯s face, she quickly continued by saying "However, this time it¡¯s different. There is a rumor that a fight between a human and a demon will be hosted by the Church of Damnation."

    At the mention of the word ¡¯Human¡¯, Sewah¡¯s face became dead serious. "Tell me about this human.." he said without bothering to keep the power of the oni demon from emanating from his body, and sending the horse-like beasts that pulled the carriages into unconsciousness.

    "T-There isn¡¯t anything else to know.. Just a human that the Church of Damnation managed to capture in the past couple of years." Said the captain while subconsciously stepping backwards.

    For just a moment Sewah turned to look at the direction of Daniel¡¯s cave. He then turned to look back at the captain of the guards, and while feeling the power in her body, and the fear in her eyes, he said "Well, this is a piece of information you shouldn¡¯t have told me." His eyes narrowed into a menacing expression, and he took a step forward while shutting his hands into indestructible, and massive fists.

    "What is going on?" Asked a young sounding voice that came from within the carriage right in the middle of the caravan. Right after, the head of a kid with stag-like horns appeared from the frame of the chariot¡¯s door.

    Sewah had a deep hatred for Aeron. It had been a long time since he had found out that he was the sole reason why things had gone wrong with the possession of Daniel¡¯s body. As a mental cultivator, he had felt his presence inside Daniel¡¯s body, and for some reason, he had decided to set up a protection to his consciousness. So when he took over Daniel¡¯s body and devoured his mind, a portion of it had been spared from that fate.

    He knew that if Daniel learned about Aeron¡¯s location, he would find a way to save him. After all, he knew the karmic system better than anybody else, and if there was something the system was good for, was to create viable ns for its owner to use. So before Daniel coulde out of his cultivation and learned of Aeron¡¯s location, Sewah had decided to kill this whole group of demons. If he was lucky, the event would terminate before that happened, and at that point, Aeron would be already dead.

    Each of his steps was a promise of a quick death, and the visible power his skin emanated was enough to drain the bodies of the observers from the idea of resisting.

    The family of demons to which this caravan belonged was not a weak one, and while nobody of the present demons was as strong as the oni leader, to be able to send a noble demon to protect a kid, showed what kind of horrifying power this family could disy. Unfortunately, none of those shockingly powerful demons was here to protect them..

    The captain of the guards mustered every bit of courage that was left in her body and unsheathed her sword, which caused her power to be emanated in turn, almost as if drawn by the uncovered de of her weapon.

    The tail that came out of her lower back wrapped around her waist, while the horns on her head started to grow out of proportion. The ground began to tremble as well under the pressure that both the captain and Sewah emanated.

    Before jumping to fight against Sewah, the captain hid one of her hands behind her back and used it to send a message to the rest of the guards. The moment the fight started, they were to take the young master away, and call for support. Once done, she noticed thest step Sewah took before raising his hand.. then braced herself to parry the attack.

    However, there was no impact.. Just a powerful scream that came out of the oni who, until moments ago, was standing so proudly in front of her.

    "AAAARGH! AAAAAAHHH!!" screamed Sewah while digging his sharp fingernails into the sides of his head, almost as if trying to dig the pain out it with his own hands.

    While beyond shocked, the captain decided to use this moment to escape along with the young demon who she was tasked to protect. So she dashed into the carriage, grabbed the younger demon, and prepared to disappear into the distance.. But a voice that came from behind stopped her in her tracks.

    "May I have a word with you?" Said Daniel, who had appeared right next to a screaming Sewah. His tone was calm, but powerful enough to resound clearly in the ears of the captain, which found it extremely odd.

    She turned to see the human appearance of Daniel, who stood calmly next to a being she was terrified of even approaching.

    "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!!" Screamed Sewah as his already feeble consciousness was abused by the formation inside which Daniel had locked it. The feeling of pulling, tearing, shaking, grinding, and kneading sent Sewah into a nauseating spiral of pain and confusion which he was barely able to withstand.

    Daniel ignored Sewah¡¯s cries. He had heard everything the two had talked about, and was already aware of the fact that Sewah wanted to keep things for him.. so he decided to teach him another lesson, as apparently, the ones he had given him weren¡¯t hadn¡¯t sunk in.

    He waved his hand into a faint motion which immediately silenced the screams of agony that Sewah emitted, and instead walked closer to the captain.. then asked "Excuse the rude behaviour of my servant. Please, can you tell me more about this ¡¯Demonic Pact¡¯?"

 Chapter 319 The Beastmaster Faction

    Between the out of the blue appearance of a human, and the submission of a being who was much more powerful than her, the captain of the guards had been shocked out of her words. "Y-Your s-servant?.. A h-human.." She said while still holding her young lord in her arm.

    It was the young lord himself who, due to ack of fear caused by his young age, pushed the arm of his personal guard away from his chest, and approached Daniel with interest.

    "Are you a real human?" He asked whileing to a couple of meters of distance from Daniel. On his red colored face was a big smile which disyed a set of excessively white teeth, and four sharp canines.

    The captain of the guard was too shocked to even think of what to do, so Daniel did not push his question onto her. He instead turned to look at the demon kid, and after bending his knees and lowering his body into a squatting position, he said "A hundred percent real."

    The demon kid, who appeared to be seven or eight years old, looked at Daniel with surprise. He then asked "Is it true that you eat the tails of demons who don¡¯t behave?"

    "Very true." Responded Daniel as a faint smile formed on his face- a smile who forced the kid to take a step back.

    "Are you going to eat my tail?"

    "Depends. Do you usually misbehave?.. Hehe" responded Daniel before chuckling softly. Once he made sure that the kid knew that he was joking, he asked "Can you tell me about the signing of the demonic pact?"

    The questioning of the kid was enough for the captain toe out of her shock and regain her bearings. She disappeared and reappeared in between Daniel and her young master, and with alertness, she asked "What do you want from us, human?"

    "As I said before, I just want to know about this event you are going to. I heard you mention a duel between a human and a demon. Can you tell me about that?" Asked Daniel to the alert guard, who couldn¡¯t help but keep a hand on the hilt of her sword- an actions which was ignored by the seemingly calm and polite Daniel.

    The contrast of character between Sewah and Daniel left the shadow of a doubt in the mind of the guard, that began to fear Daniel much more than his straightforward servant. But since Daniel was still not showing any sign of aggressiveness, she decided to behave "It is just a rumor regarding a human that has been captured about a year and a half ago.. A member of the mental faction of the outside universe. The Church of Damnation was oddly willing to share the information about their performance, and invited us to spread the news." She said while trying to convince her younger master to go back to his carriage with gentle pushes of her hand.

    No more information were necessary for Daniel to be sure that the human this demon guard was talking about, was no one other than Aeron. It was clear that the Church of Damnation had still not stopped searching for him, and that they were using one of his friends to attract him.

    If that was not enough, the date of the event matched the time limit of the mission that required Daniel to save him, which meant that if Daniel did not make his appearance to the signing of the demonic pact, Aeron would die.

    After listening to the guard¡¯s exnation, Daniel became pensive. He still didn¡¯t know much about Hell, and everything that the youngdy of the Na¡¯roga family had told him, was the rtionship between the groups that surrounded the territory of their family, and the bad rtionship they had with the oni tribe.

    He was aware that there would be beings stronger than him, and while his cultivation had helped him in taking a step further, he still had yet to reach Sewah¡¯s level of power, not to talk about the power of a Demon Lord. Also, he needed someone that could apany him there..

    The idea of asking for the group in front of them to join was out of the question. Sewah had already burnt the bridges, and no one in their group would ever trust them.. But luckily, it seemed like the person with the highest standing of their group did not really mind his presence.

    Despite the hints that the guard gave to her young master, the young demon kept standing behind his personal guard, and sneak peeks at Daniel¡¯s oddly light skin, andck of horns, wings, or tail. If that was not enough, his eyes opened wide in curiosity the moment Daniel pulled a piece of candy out of his sleeve, and put it in his mouth.

    "Is that the heart of a demon kid?!" Asked the kid while cowering behind his personal guard.

    "It¡¯s just a candy." Responded Daniel while feigning a pensive look and responding to the demon kid¡¯s question distractly. Next to him, the excruciating pain that Sewah was feeling was still going strong, keeping him on his knees and screaming.

    Curious about the candy, something he had never heard of before, the demon kid asked with curiosity "What is that?"

    "Something sweet."

    The mention of sweetness lit the interest of the demon kid, who finally came out of behind the guard captain¡¯s back, and asked "Can I have one?"

    "Young master! NO!" Said the guard while showing her strictest and most earnest expression.

    Daniel ignored the reaction of the guard, but since he understood what she could be worried about, he took another pill from within his sleeve, and split it into three parts. He then ate one of the three pieces, and let the other two pieces float in front of the demon guard.

    "Sure, you can both try it." Responded Daniel while looking at the guard.

    It was clear to the guard that Daniel was showing her that the candy was not poisoned, and if his own test was not enough, she could have tested it herself before allowing her young lord to take it.

    The demon kid tried to move his little hand towards the third piece of candy, but the guard promptly caught it, and said "We don¡¯t know if it¡¯s poisoned, young master."

    "But he ate one."

    It was already toote. Her young master had already set his eyes on what he wanted, and she knew very well that there was no way that she could change his mind. So she turned to look at a fat demon who was looking from inside of one of the carriages in the back, and said "Come here."

    The fat demon immediately approached, and without the guard exining the situation to him, he grabbed one of the two piece of candies, and put it into his mouth. This fat demon was the taster of the kid¡¯s food, and his whole job was to make sure that nothing the kid ate was actually poisoned.

    The reason why the guard would not try her young master¡¯s food herself, was that he was just a normal demon, and there were thousands of poisons that were strong enough to kill him, and yet too weak to even cause her to break a sweat.

    The presence of a cup-bearer was a surprise to Daniel, who observed the scene in silence.

    After seeing the pleased expression of the tester, and the fact that nothing happened to him, the demon kid grabbed thest piece of candy in haste, and put it in his mouth. The moment the treat touched his tongue, his eyes brightened like a couple of stars in the night, and a big smile appeared on his face. Nothing in hell could everpare to the sweetness of what Daniel had given to him.

    "If you tell me where this event will be held, I will be on my way." Said Daniel before the kid¡¯s enthusiasm for the candy could disappear.

    "It¡¯s held in the core of Hell." Responded the guard, eager to get rid of Daniel. However, the words that her young master spoke right after, ruined her hopespletely.

    "Why don¡¯t you travel with us? We are headed in the same direction." Said the demon kid with an innocent smile, and seemingly eager to try more of the sweets in Daniel¡¯s possession.

    Daniel did not respond, and instead turned to look at the guard. Which in turn turned to look at her young master in worry, and said "Young master, these people are dangerous. I can¡¯t allow this." her tone was severe, and her decision was final.

    However, the demon kid did not give up. "There is still a lot of road to cover before we reach thend of the Beastmasters.. Their presence will deter most attackers."

    "Young master, we can¡¯t trust them. Try to reason!" eximed the demon guard with a hint of impatience. Daniel did not appear to be hostile, but she wasn¡¯t sure that he wouldn¡¯t turn on them the very next moment.

    What she saw in the face of her young lord was not the usual worry she would see whenever she got angry at him, but a serious expression instead as he responded "I know what grabbing me out of the blue from my carriage meant.. I don¡¯t want to abandon my people every time an individual that you can¡¯t face appears." He said, reminding her of what would have happened if she had left the rest of the caravan behind and escaped with her young master.

    It was clear that the young master had taken his decision, so she turned to look at Daniel, and said "We can¡¯t travel with a human. There are no free humans in hell."

    As soon as thest of the guard¡¯s words reached Daniel¡¯s ears, a wisp of immortal essence that was circting through Daniel¡¯s body turned into dark essence, and quickly began to absorb his immortal essence faster than he could produce it.. Making him look like amon human.

    At the same time, the swords of one of the demonic guards unsheathed itself, and floated in Daniel¡¯s direction, which he weed by joining his wrists together and allowing it to wrap around his wrists before morphing into the shape of a pair of shackles.

    "I know how to go unnoticed." said Daniel casually.

    -----

    One monthter, Animalicus, Beastmasters faction¡¯s territory.

    The beasts that inhabited hell were, along with the demons, beings who had appeared in the vast flowing of time. Some of them were already present and dominant the moment humans had arrived, while some others had appeared at some pointter.

    These beasts had also evolved along with the humans, and in the midst of their changes, they had lost their ability to evolve into humanoids by cultivating their essences. In exchange to the loss of the chance of bing smarter creatures, they had relied on the support to demons, and developed a power based on their role, and fed through the bond they formed with the demons they followed. That, was how the faction of the beastmasters was born.

    Of all of the factions in hell, the faction of the beastmasters was by far the most epting and peaceful. They had developed through the coboration amongst demons and beasts, and since their whole power was based on recognizing the value of the life of other entities, their faction had formed a dislike for fighting ... Reason why the beastmaster faction had never bothered to move out of hell, and had instead taken the role to guard hell¡¯s gates.

    Despite theck of gifts of the faction¡¯s members, the beasts who they were paired with made a one on one encounter with any other types of demons a nightmare, and that was, along with the fact that they were ruled by one of hell¡¯s few Demon Lords, the reason why they were so respect through the whole hell.

    The capital of their territory was called Animalicus, and was a lot more simr than an immense circus of demons and demonic beasts, than an actual city. There were no walls in its borders.. only demons who flew on the back of massive and scary looking flying beasts, who would spot anyone who dared to approach from thousands of miles away.

    One of these riders in particr was observing a street to the south of the city, and after noticing a long caravan threading it, he immediately flew towards the middle of the city, andnded in front of a tent of impressive dimensions.

    As soon as he reached the tent, the massive featherless hawk he was ridingnded in a strange quiet way, and as soon as his rider hopped down of its back, it lowered its head, and cowered in fear due to the deep, and repetitive earth-shaking growling that could be hearde from within.

    "Demon Lord. Thest of the families has arrived.. Everyone has arrived."

 Chapter 320 A Terrifying Demonic Beas

    The signing of the demonic pact was an event that would set hell¡¯s hierarchy for the following thousand years, and most families participated to it by associating with one of the main factions that popted hell. The caravan which Daniel and Sewah had encountered a month ago, was part of the entourage of the Beastmasters faction, and after a month of travel, they had finally arrived to their first destination, the city of Animalicus.

    Theck of walls made Animalicus appear more like an immense town than a city, and the presence of as many demonic beasts as there were humans, made it look as if it was constantly under the siege of powerful demonic beasts. However, none of these beasts dared to misbehave.. Not only due to the connection they had with their tamers, but also due to the fear they felt towards the beast to which the Demon Lord was bound to.

    A city that housed two different species, ruled by two different beings, and shared peacefully. That, was Animalicus.

    The moment Daniel and the rest of the group entered the city, the smell of numerous types of beasts reached their noses, forcing them to curl them in disgust. Manure, urine, and the smell of wet fur was all around. A smell to which the inhabitants of Animalicus were extremely used to.

    In the sky numerous battalions of demons on the back of wyverns flew in formation, ready to pounce against anyone that was brave enough to invade their territory.

    "Ahh.. is this smell normal?!" Asked the young master to her guard, who did not appeared to be as bothered about the smell as Daniel, Sewah, and her young master were.

    In the past month, the captain of the guards had gotten used to Daniel and Sewah, and based to the dynamics of their rtionship and the interactions she had had with him, she had understood a few things. Daniel was inplete control of the life of the individual which she believed to be the leader of the Oni Tribe, as well as the fact that Daniel harbored no ill intentions towards them. He had spent the majority of thest month eating essence gems like candies, and whenever Sewah would try something on her or the members of her caravan, Daniel would punish him.

    Most importantly, what she had understood about Daniel, was that his powers were beyond herprehension. He was able to disy the amount of power that he wished, he appeared to have a perfectprehension of each and every element, and seemed to always have the right response to whatever question they asked, almost as if he was able to read minds.

    Her impression of him had increased to a point where she wouldn¡¯t mind him interacting with her young master.. something which her prot¨¦g¨¦ did not appear to mind either.

    Amused by the expression shown by Daniel, Sewah, and her young master, the captain, whose name was Eken, chuckled underneath her helm and said "It is always like this, young master." She then appeared to remember an important detail, and added with haste "But don¡¯t point that out with the beastmasters! They will take offence!"

    Just as Eken finished giving her warning, a battalion of five demons dived towards their direction while riding their massive wyverns in a spearhead formation. They then slowed down before touching the ground, and kept floating in ce while the demon at the tip of the spearnded in front of the head of the caravan.

    The leader of this team of wyvern riders was only one amongst the dozen of teams that flew in formation in the sky, and yet he was a high demon that had reached the noble level. It only took a look for Daniel to notice that he was more powerful than the captain, and slightly less powerful than the previous owner of Sewah¡¯s body.. But what was more shocking, was that his wyvern was in no way weaker than he was.

    Once hended on the ground, the leader of the battalion dismounted his wyvern, and approached the captain of the caravan. On his body no sign of belonging to a specific family of demons could be seen. His horns were regr demon horns, and he did not possess wings, tail, or oddly colored eyes. His only distinctive detail were the oddly sharp and long nails, which Daniel believed he had let grow on purpose. His body was covered by a light armor that did not appear to have any sort of use aside from the aesthetic one. Nevertheless, nobody dared to underestimate him.

    "The Cruga family. We have been waiting for you. You are thest one to arrive." Said the demon with a serious tone that was only matched by his seriousness of his expression.

    "We apologize for the dy. We have encountered geographical changes that we hadn¡¯t expected." Responded the captain without lying. It was not an odd event for Hell¡¯s geography to change drastically due to the constant fighting of noble level demons. For example, the area where Daniel had fought against the oni leader had turned from a canyon, into a desert of fine sand and dust.

    The leader of the battalion knew that the captain of the Cruga¡¯s family guard was probably not lying, but just like his wyvern, he couldn¡¯t help but notice therge oni that was sitting on the third carriage. "Ro¡¯ah, what are you doing with the Cruga family?" asked the battalion leader to Sewah, which was currently checking the state of his feet, ignorant of the fact that someone had spoken to him.

    "The leader of the Oni Tribe decided to join our caravan, as he wishes to side with the Beastmasters side during the event." said Eken before Sewah could even realize what was happening.

    The response given by Eken was what the leader of the battalion hoped to hear, and yet not something he could bring himself to be happy about. The Oni tribe was drastically different from the families whoposed the faction of the Beastmasters. For him, while positive that they had an additional noble demon by their side, it was like weing a raider into a group of honest workers.

    "What about the human? Whose ve is he? I didn¡¯t know the Croga family had the means to purchase a human." asked the battalion leader with curiosity.

    The presence of humans in hell, while not an abnormality, was still rare enough to be easily tracked back. One family would hardly own a single human ve, and that only applied for families who had decided to side with factions who had joined the universal government like the Church of Damnation, or the Law of Mimicry. For a family like the Croga family to obtain a human ve, was particrly odd.

    "He belongs to the oni leader." responded Eken.

    Eken¡¯s reason for giving this response, was simple.

    Since the Oni Tribe was known for attacking other families, and stealing their possessions, for them to be in possession of a human ve despite not being part of any faction allied to the universal government, made sense.. After all, if they wanted to backtrack the ownership of Daniel, they would not be able to, as his presence was proof of the destruction of his previous owners.

    "Oddly well dressed for a ve of the oni tribe." muttered the leader of the battalion of wyvern riders, after noticing the clean clothes that Daniel was wearing.

    Daniel turned to look at this demon, and with a polite smile, he said "They don¡¯t treat you that badly if you can use a weapon." his tone was as polite as his smile, and that was due to the green colored number present above the head of the demon.

    However, while not outright hostile, the demon would still never trust a human. "Don¡¯t speak to me." he responded before turning to look at Sewah, and saying "You better teach this human to be quiet, or you might leave our ground without him."

    Without even turning to look back at him, Sewah waves hisrge hand in a dismissive tone, and said ".. I don¡¯t care. Just kill him if you want."

    Thankfully the guard took it as a joke and turned to look at Eken instead. "You can go find your ce next to the other families. We will depart in two weeks as scheduled." He then said before jumping back on the saddle ced at the base of the wyvern¡¯s neck, and taking flight along with the rest of his battalion.

    After being let in, Daniel and the rest of the group took a left right before entering the city, and followed its outer area until reaching arge in. On this in, numerous groups of tents had been erected, and divided into a grid.. Each upied by one of the families that would side with the Beastmasters faction during the signing of the demonic pact.

    The members of each family could be recognized from one another thanks to their particr characteristic of their bodies, and from what Daniel could see, at least a dozen of different families were present.

    The general karma that appeared above the heads of these demons were positive and neutral, with only a few negative, showing that the benevolence of the leader of the beastmasters had influenced the type of demons that had decided to bend to his power.

    In the following day the members of the Croga family set camp in the spot that was reserved to them, while a personal area was given to Sewah and Daniel to inhabit. After all, while not as powerful as the leaders of a few of these families, Sewah was still a noble demon whose power could not be denied. To treat him simply as the guest of the Croga family would have been beyond rude.

    The territory which had been given to Sewah were three hundred square meters of a grassy in. Right in the middle of it was a tentrge enough for him to live in, and aside for a small tent for Daniel, there was nothing else in his territory.

    Numerous beasts could be seen walk around as they pleased, some apanied by demons, and some alone. However, regardless of whether they were alone or not, nobody dared to send them away despite how intrusive they felt to the members of the demonic families.

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s spatial ring, two dayster.

    Ever since Daniel had arrived to the territory of the beastmaster faction, he had closed himself in cultivation.. Not much time was left before the moment of Aeron¡¯s death, and every moment counter.

    However, since his cover was that of a weak and harmless human, he was not able to cultivate outside, and had to hide within one of his pocket dimensions instead. That had created a problem for him, which he had been forced to solve by entering inside his pocket dimension along with a person he wished he could just leave behind.

    "Why am I here!? Why can¡¯t I just stay outside and have some fun with that guy we met at the border? He looked strong, and his lizard wasn¡¯t any weaker." Said Sewah dejectedly.

    "Because I don¡¯t trust you." responded Daniel while sitting on the ledge of a cliff. He was looking at Virgil and the rest of the group, who unaware of his presence, appeared to be cultivating peacefully. "I don¡¯t trust you enough to leave the ring to you. You would destroy it the very moment you leave this ce."

    "Hehe.. you know me so well." said Sewah without the slightest hint of disappointment. He knew perfectly well of how cunning Daniel was, so he had anticipated this sort of response. "Can we at least spar? I haven¡¯t even fought in this body yet."

    Daniel turned to look at Sewah while popping one gem after the other into his mouth, almost as if he was savoring different vors of candies. "Can¡¯t you see that I am cultivating?" He responded with the most emotionless tone he could muster.. A tone which, for some reason, made Sewah extremely irritated.

    "You can still-" said Sewah in an attempt to retort to Daniel¡¯s words, but before he could finish, he noticed Daniel suddenly stand up.

    "Something approached the ring. Stay here and keep an eye on them. If anything happens, I will throw your consciousness into the void." Said Daniel before teleporting out of the ring, and into his small tent. He then approached the fabric door of the tent, and pulled it aside.

    What appeared in front of him, was not a demon.. But what appeared like the puppy of a race of demonic wolf.

    Its size was simr to that of a normal wolf pup, and yet it also appeared extremely different. ck in color with three red stripes on its back and sides, and with a white and thin tail that was three times as long as the rest of the body. His paws were pitch ck, and with small red needle-like ws that came out of the soft parts of its feet.

    Underneath the pair of ruby-red eyes were two canines that went past the lower part of its muzzle like a sabertooth, and two that came out of the lower part of the muzzle and moved aside. The ck fur around its neck was short, and yet, based on how much longer it was than the rest of the fur, it could be inferred that it would grow way past the rest of its fur, and turn into a mane.

    Overall, despite the demonic traits that made it look a lot scarier than a normal wolf¡¯s pup, its look of confusion made it look extremely cute. Enough for Daniel to be unable to hold a smile that formed on his face the very moment his eyesnded on i.

    "Hey there.." Said Daniel before squatting in front of the pup, and moving his hand in its direction.

 Chapter 321 Expensive Tastes

    Alerted by Daniel¡¯s sudden actions, the demonic wolf cub dashed backwards with the speed that only an adult wolf should possess.. He then stared at Daniel with attentive eyes after reaching a safe distance. He hadn¡¯t left yet, and was simply observing him. Its thin and long tail waved in the wind almost as if outside of the cub¡¯s control, and his bright pink tongue moved out of its mouth just to brush the fur and vibrissae to the right of its nose.. Clearly disying his hunger.

    Unaware of the reason why this wolf cub would approach his tent, Daniel sat on the grass. He then took out what appeared to be the thigh of arge animal from within one of his spatial ring he possessed. The meat was still fresh, and had been stored in his spatial container right after the animal had been butchered. However, the demonic wolf cub did not appear to care for the piece of meat, and instead kept looking at Daniel with curious eyes.

    Daniel had always had a soft spot for canines.. He could remember being one of those little boys who would spent the majority of their time tormenting his parents, in order to obtain the permission to own a dog.. but before he could ever grow to an age where he could show his maturity to his parents, his father had been enrolled, and his mother had been forced to start working multiple jobs.

    What had happenedter had removed the idea of having a dog from Daniel¡¯s mind, but now that he was a grown up man, even if he was in constant danger, this childish desire had resurfaced.

    However, he had no intention of adopting this demonic wolf cub. While still young, and based on the fact that no other demonic beast dared to attack it despite him walking around alone, Daniel was able to guess that the demonic beast to which this small cub would grow into, was not amon wolf with a scarier appearance.

    What he wanted to do was to take a few minutes of break from his chaotic life centered around cultivation, war, and plots..

    Since the wolf cub did not appear to be interested in the piece of meat Daniel showed him, he put it aside and lied on the field of oddly colored grass.. then closed his eyes. His immortal essence was being absorbed by the abyss he had conjured into his body, making him not only look identical to a low level immortal cultivator, but also unable to perceive what was happening around him. All he had left to do that, was his touch, and his hearing.

    Daniel breathed in and out over and over again.. Allowing his consciousness to rx from its constant stressed state, and before he could notice, he had fallen into a state of deep rxation.

    Ever since he had be a high human, Daniel had discovered that, for him, rxing was not only useful to reduce stress, but also to cultivate. Just like a person¡¯s muscle fibers required rest to be repaired, the same was for a person¡¯s mental state. The bigger the strain on a person¡¯s psyche, the more they would be able to develop their mind when resting, or meditating.

    The warm breeze of air brushed gently against his skin after forcing the des of grass to bend to its passage, and carrying the smell of the trees from far away. Time passed quietly, and in a matter of minutes, Daniel fell asleep.

    Years had passed since thest time Daniel had purposely fallen asleep.

    Faces he hadn¡¯t seen for a long time and voices which he could barely remember began to merge together, and take the shape of images into his mind. Guided by his desires, these moments of joined together into forming moments of happiness which he could not truly enjoy, and that he would forget right after waking up.

    Unfortunately, he did not have to wait for long for that to happen.

    His sleep was interrupted a few minutester by the sound of quick sniffing, which came from right next to his ear, as well as the tickly feeling of a few vibrissae which tickled his right cheek, and ear.

    Now awake, it didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to realize that the wolf cub had grown increasingly morefortable with his presence, and had decided to approach him while he was sleeping.

    Instead of moving and risking of scaring him, Daniel kept his eyes closed, and kept meditating.. However, not even a minuteter, he felt something grab the button of his shirt, and tug on it with a fairly big amount of strength. If not for the resistance of the materials of which his clothes were made of, the button would havee off right away.

    Daniel opened his eyes, and then he saw it. The wolf cub had bitten the button of his shirt, and was trying to pull it off with as much strength as it could muster.

    The scene was quite ridiculous to witness, but also enough for Daniel to understand the reason why the wolf cub hade to his tent.. And that reason was, just like he had thought, rted to the its diet.

    While the bodies of enchanted items were the part on which the formations were drawn and installed on, the specific effects of these formations still required a power source to function. An example of this, were clothes. Clothes were used constantly, and during the time of their creation, numerous kinds of formations would usually be added to increase their functionality and value. Formations which could provide additional resistance to the fabric, which could stabilize the gravity to a level that the body of amon human could withstand, or even formations which allowed changes in temperature.

    Daniel¡¯s clothes were not an exception.

    While Daniel¡¯s body was extremely resistant and would resist ten times the temperature of hell, this temperature was still way past what a normal human would be able to bear.. that was why most clothes worn by humans ves, came along with formations which would cool their bodies, and prevent them from melting due to the heat.

    The button that the wolf cub was tugging on, was the essence sphere connected to the formations that kept a cool atmosphere around Daniel¡¯s body.. A water sphere.

    Before the demonic wolf cub could manage to rip the threads that kept the buttons in ce, his senses warned him that he was being observed. So instead of keeping on doing what he was doing, he let go of the low level water sphere, and dashed away with impressive speed.

    When it turned to look back at the human from whom he had just tried to steal from, Daniel had already sat in a lotus position, and was ying around with a few low level essence sphere he had just taken out of his spatial ring.

    Despite hating it, juggling was one of Daniel¡¯s skills. Entertaining the children of the nobles he swindled was always a good method to get closer to his targets. Most nobles hated the idea of having to care personally for their children, and to have someone that could keep them upied even for five minutes, was already more than most tour guides could offer.

    The four spheres that Daniel was currently juggling with, were all of different kinds. The two he was holding on his left hand were of the lightning and water essences, while the two he was holding in his right hand, were of the dark and time essence.

    The fact that the cub had tried to grab the water sphere that was installed in his clothes did not mean that the he could only eat that type of sphere, and therefore, Daniel decided to test this theory by showing a few different ones. However, the moment he took out the spheres and started to y with them out in the open, the wolf cub looked at them with the same amount of interest, regardless of what kind of essence they emanated.

    Unaware of the amount of intelligence that this demonic wolf possessed, Daniel kept sending these essence spheres up in the air one after the other, until finally, he purposely allowed one of the spheres he threw to hit the one that was still floating high up in the air.. causing it to be thrown in the distance.

    When itnded, it was closer to the wolf cub than it was to him.

    The wolf cub did not think twice about it, and dashed towards the essence sphere that Daniel had just dropped. He then grabbed it with its mouth, and dashed back towards his previous position. Once there, he lied down on his belly, and with the sphere in between its paws, he began to munch on it with fervor.

    No longer than a minuteter, the sphere had disappeared.

    While the cub devoured the essence sphere, Daniel looked at the three spheres which were left in his hands. The first one emanated cool water essence, the second one let out an innocuous electric current which forced the hair of Daniel¡¯s arm to rise, and the third andst one, emanated nothing at all. From outside, it did not look different than amon stone, just like any other time sphere would.

    Once the demonic cub finished devouring the dark essence sphere, it turned to look back at Daniel with interest. Its ruby-red eyes had acquired a dark hue, an the tip of its tail had be pitch ck. Despite those two minor changes, nothing was different in the wolf cub, which in Daniel¡¯s eyes, still looked incredibly cute.

    Once again Daniel yed with the three essence spheres while pretending to ignore the wolf cub, but for some reason, it seemed that the wolf had lost any form of interest in the spheres that Daniel was juggling with.

    Aware of this change, Daniel took another dark sphere out of his spatial ring.. And the moment this sphere appeared, the wolf cub instinctively dashed in his direction. However, still wary of him, he stopped right aftering closer of about two meters.

    "You¡¯ve taken a liking to these, eh? You have expensive tastes." Said Daniel with irony, as the wolf cub kept staring at the dark sphere. "Not that I have a need for them.." he then muttered before throwing the second dark sphere closer to the wolf cub, which immediately grabbed it from the tall grass, and devoured it where he stood.

    As soon as the cub finished eating the second sphere, the ck spot on the tip of the wolf¡¯s tail expanded, and the dark hue on its eyes became a little stronger.

    -----

    About two hundred meters away from Daniel¡¯s tent, stood an old demon dressed in simple clothes. Just like the guards of the city, this demon did not possess any particr characteristic which could show his belonging to one of the powerful families present in hell.

    The expression of this demon was one of tiredness. He had just awaken from what one could call an evening nap underneath a three, as proven by the numerous dry leaves stuck in his hair. He was looking around with eyes partially closed, and yawning every couple of seconds.

    After what felt like yawn number fifty, the eyes of this old demon opened as wide as his anatomy allowed him to. He had remembered something extremely important, and only now had ite back to him.

    He looked at his feet, and after noticing that what he was looking for was currently missing, an expression of worry and fear made its appearance on his wrinkly face.

    "No no no no no no.. I¡¯m dead.. This time I am surely dead." he muttered while walking around in the woods in panic. His heart was threatening to burst out of his chest, and the images of what he believed to be waiting for him back home if he didn¡¯t find what he had lost, were making things worse.

    "DAMN IT!" he shouted after ten full minutes of pointless searching.. But then..

    *Awoo*

    This simple howling sound sent a burst of joy into the mind of the old demon, which immediately ran in the direction where it came from.

    When he finally managed to reach the borders of the forest he was resting in, he immediately noticed Sewah¡¯s and Daniel¡¯s tent.. And at its base, the human who was sitting carelessly with one hand raised high up in the sky.

    Resting on Daniel¡¯s knee, were the two front paws of the wolf cub, which was looking fierce, while also staring at the dark sphere that Daniel was holding above his head. *ARF! ARF!* Its high pitched barks pierced the surrounding with their loud tone, which forced the smile on Daniel¡¯s face to widen.

    After the wolf cub barked twice, Daniel let go of the dark sphere he was holding, allowing it to fall straight into the cub¡¯s mouth.

    "NOOOOOOO!!" Shouted the old demon before running in their direction.

 Chapter 322 Off to Hells Core Part 1

    The sudden scream attracted Daniel¡¯s attention, causing him to look at the approaching demon with interest. No power came from his body, which meant that he was not a cultivator of any sort. His worried eyes were pointed straight at the wolf cub that was currently munching on the mid level dark sphere, right above Daniel¡¯s legs.

    "NO NO NO NO NO NO!" Shouted the old demon while approaching Daniel, and noticing the changes in the cub¡¯s body. Once in front of Daniel, he picked the cub up from the ground by his chest and belly, and lowered its head to a lower level than his rear end. "Spit it! Spit it out!" he said in worry while shaking the unfazed wolf cub up and down.. stopping only after noticing that it was already toote.

    Clear anxiousness appeared on the demon¡¯s wrinkly face, as he let the wolf cub down.

    The wolf cub ignored the old demon or the odd treatment, and instead jumped back on Daniel¡¯sp, where he sat quietly. He then pointed hisrge red eyes at his confused expression. His bright colored tongue kepting out of his little mouth, and brush the right side of his fluffy muzzle.

    It was clear to Daniel what the wolf cub wanted, but instead of giving another dark essence sphere to him, he pet his head and turned to look at the old demon, who was now pacing back and forth while mumbling a few sentences.

    "Not again.. Can¡¯t believe it happened again.. She won¡¯t forgive me this time.." Said the old demon while biting his nails nervously. After a few moments spent in this state, the old demon turned to look at Daniel.. The person who was just as much at fault as he was, and said with exasperation and anger "Do you always go around feeding essence spheres to random beasts!? ARE YOU AN IDIOT?!"

    Daniel had already guessed what the demon was angered about. The changes in the cub¡¯s body were subtle, and yet they also did not appear to be temporary.

    "You got this wrong. I was taking a nap here, next to my tent." Said Daniel before cing a finger on the middle of the cub¡¯s head, and adding without turning to look at it "This little one came to steal one of my buttons."

    "ALRIGHT! But why did you give it a dark essence sphere?!" Asked the demon after noticing the buttons of Daniel¡¯s shirt, where the water spheres that allowed his clothes to protect him from the heath had been encrusted. "Do you know how expensive dark essence spheres are?! How is he supposed to cultivate from now on??"

    After listening to the old demon¡¯sins, Daniel turned to look down at the wolf cub, who was still looking at him with imploring eyes. He clearly wanted more dark essence spheres, and did not seem to be bothered by anything else that was happening next to him.

    It was clear that Daniel was at fault here. He didn¡¯t know that this wolf cub had an owner, nor what the amount of damage feeding him would cause. So he tried to remedy by saying "If the making of the spheres is a problem, I can make as many as you want if you find the treasures. They are not as rare as one would think."

    However, this proposal did not have the effect he was hoping for.

    The old demon was distracted from his anxious state by Daniel¡¯s words, which caused him to once again turn to look at him in anger "DO YOU SEE ANY FUCKING TREASURE AROUND!?" he shouted to the top of his lungs.

    These few words made Daniel notice something he hadn¡¯t paid attention to until now.

    While generally rare in popted areas, low level essence treasures were not difficult to find. Plenty of fire treasures would appear in volcanic areas, or inside the pockets of magma underneath the¡¯s crust, and the same was for the other elements like water, earth, and so on. Nevertheless, despite how long he had been in hell, Daniel had yet to see a single low level treasure. Be it when he was cultivating, when he was fighting, or when he hid his powers to travel along with with the caravan of the Cruga family.

    "There aren¡¯t any essence treasures in hell?" Asked Daniel with shock. Thepleteck of essence treasure was extremely odd to him, as everything in hell was still made of, as well as emanated the correspondent type of essence.

    The old demon did not bother to respond, and instead walked away. While leaving the area, he said with an audible amount of anger "Come on! I¡¯m taking you back to your mother!"

    Daniel looked at the leaving old man, wondering if he had meant for the cub to follow him back to its mother.. And the reason for that, was that the cub had ignored himpletely, and was still pointing his big sorrowful eyes at him.

    "I think he is talking to you." Said Daniel to the cub while brushing the patch of fur in between his eyes with his thumb. But instead of turning away and leaving, the cub looked upwards, and howled gently *awooo*

    The sound attracted the attention of the old demon, which turned to look at the cub with eyes opened wide in shock. He then opened his mouth, and said with a tone that sent a shiver down Daniel¡¯s spine "Not him."

    As soon as the tone of the old demon reached the wolf cub, his ears lowered, and almost as in fear of the old man, he tugged his tail in between his legs, and walked in his direction.

    Daniel looked at the old demon with narrowed eyes, and before the two of them could leave, he took a high level dark essence sphere, and said "Little wolf, a parting gift." he then threw the sphere with a flick of his finger.

    The cub immediately felt the sphere approach him, and caught it before it could even touch the ground. He then gave ast look at Daniel, and left along with the old demon without turning back.

    "I wonder how wolfie is doing.." Daniel muttered before standing up, and walking into his tent.

    -----

    Two weekster.

    "Noble Demon Ro¡¯ha, leader of the Oni Tribe. The delegation of the Demon Lord of the Beastmasters faction will depart for the core of hell in six hours. You are requested to join the rest of the families." Said a disembodied voice that came from outside of the tent.

    While Daniel and Sewah had only met one of the families, the true number that were part of the faction was way beyond what he could imagine. When they reached the main road that the group would take in order to reach hell¡¯s core, they were able to see what the true numbers of a faction of hell could disy.

    The families which Daniel had taken a glimpse of when reaching for their reserved camp was just a fraction of the true number, of which the members numbered, between beasts and demons, not lower than thirty thousand heads.

    The carriages were all extremely different, and marked by banners and crests which disyed to which family they belonged. Groups of young demons that walked around in an attempt to encounter and engage with their peers could be seen every other carriage.

    Daniel was sitting at the coachman seat of the carriage that the Cruga family had lent them, while Sewah was sitting inside, trying not to interact with anybody else. One hour was left before the time of the departure, and Daniel was looking at a group of young demons which was standing at the back of the caravan, separated by the other young demons.

    The peculiar types of horns of a few of these young demons, as well as the numerous skin tones, wings, and tails, showed the vast diversity of demonic races that this faction possessed.. And if that wasn¡¯t enough, each of these young demon appeared to possess a beastpanion which, no matter if they took a single step or ten, would follow them like shadows.

    The variety of beasts was even more vast than the demons, and each of these beasts not only appeared, but also felt as powerful as thepanion they followed.

    While not the only demons withpanions, all of these young demons appeared to know each other. They were the members of the families of hell who had joined the Beastmaster faction, and that after learning their methods, had managed to bound themselves with demonic beasts that would never betray them, and from which they would never part for the rest of their lives.

    As interesting to observe as this diverse group was, Daniel had absolutely no interest in them with exception made for a single couple. A young demoness whose every movement caught the attention of a big portion of the other demons who tried to talk to her, and attract her attention in embarrassing attempts.. And the beast that followed her.

    Two details of this young demoness had caught Daniel¡¯s attention. The first one was the physiology of her body, which resembled the guard that they had encountered at the border of the city, as well as the old man.. and the second detail, was the wolf that sat right next to her.

    While different from the wolf cub that Daniel had seen a couple of weeks earlier, there was no doubt that these two wolves were of the same race. Its eyes emanated a reddish glow which seemed to be able to melt metal, and resembled the dark glow of the cub¡¯s eyes.. its long tails waspletely red, and its thick mane floated in the wind like a living me.

    Another visible difference was its size. While the demonic wolf cub had the size of a normal wolf¡¯s cub, the original size of the wolf that was now sitting quietly next to the demoness was of a hundred meters from tail to nose.. Size which the wolf had decreased the moment the two had reached the rest of the demons.

    The rest of the beast, while mostly keeping to themselves, and avoiding the other demonic beasts, appeared to be fear the gaze of the wolf, which sat quietly in its ce, and looked around with his clear and bright red eyes.

    After taking a look at the odd characteristic of the rest of the demonic beasts, Daniel looked away, and lost himself in his thoughts. The questions regarding whether there was something special about that particr race of demonic wolves or not, or who that demoness was, were quickly put aside, and reced by ideas on how to participate at the signing of the demonic pact, and make sure that he could rescue his friends before anything bad could happen to them.

    He wasn¡¯t sure whether someone would recognize him at the event, after all, only two low level demons of the Church of Damnation, and a low level demoness of the Laws of Mimicry had seen his face. He also wasn¡¯t sure if the members of the Na¡¯roga family would reveal his appearance to anybody else. After all, when Daniel hade to look for them after killing the oni leader, the entire family had already disappeared.

    The minutes went by one by one, and in the end, Daniel decided that nning a rescue with how little he knew, was basically impossible. So he had chose to rely on something which he had decided to avoid as often as he could.. He decided to rely on one of the ns of his karmic system.

    As always, a window appeared in Daniel¡¯s head, which he read carefully from top to bottom. While reading, his face grew incredibly ufortable, and when he reached the bottom of the window, he couldn¡¯t help but mutter "You have got to be kidding me.."

    Clearly dissatisfied by theplexity of the method provided by the system, Daniel opened his eyes and went back into observing his surroundings. But when he looked at the right of his carriage, he noticed the downsized demonic wolf and the young demonesse in his direction.. And just as they seemed to be about to pass by his carriage, the wolf stopped, and turned to look at him.

    The wolf¡¯s eyes seemed to be able to pierce the heart, and the heath which emanated was enough to be unbearable even whenpared to hell¡¯s normal temperature.

    "Nana, what¡¯s wrong?" Asked the young demoness after turning to look at herpanion, who had stayed behind while leaving her herpanion to walking ahead by herself.

    Despite her question, the wolf did not turn around, and kept looking at Daniel.

    This behaviour was extremely odd, and caused the young demoness to be curious of what had caught the attention of her loyalpanion. But when she turned in the same direction to which her wolf¡¯s head was pointed at, she saw a simple human at the coachman seat of a carriage.

 Chapter 323 Off to Hells Core Part 2

    Daniel¡¯s appearance was quite odd. He did not appear to be in hell as a ve, but as a simple visitor. His clothes were clean, and he did not look at his surroundings in fear, but in curiosity. However, for how odd as he appeared, his presence was not enough to justify the behaviour of the young demoness¡¯panion.

    From a single look at the young demoness, Daniel was able to infer that her level of power was not something to scoff at. He presented himself as a low level human cultivator, who by logic, should not be able to feel the power of somebody at her level. Nevertheless, the faint wisps of immortal essence that he allowed out of his body were more than enough for him to feel the power of not only this demoness, but of her quadrupedpanion as well.

    Whenpared to all of the high demons he had encountered, the young demoness was definitely one of the most powerful, possessing a power just lower than that of the captain of the Cruga family. Of course, that was not enough to grant her an advantage in a hypothetical fight between the two.. Or at least not as much as the presence of the demonic she wolf which did not appear to be any weaker than her humanoidpanion.

    Daniel was quick to notice the odd looks of the she wolf, and before the imagination of the young demoness could start concocting strange ideas, Daniel took a high level fire essence sphere from within his spatial ring, and quietly engraved it on the surface of one of his rings. Once done, he put the ring on before moving the hand in front of his face, and brushing his chin with confusion.

    The young demoness quickly noticed the fire sphere encrusted on Daniel¡¯s ring, and showed an expression of realization. She then turned to look at her wolfpanion, and said with a caring tone "Nana, if you were hungry, you should have told me." She then turned to look at Daniel, and with a demanding tone, she said "Human, give me that ring."

    While not rude, it seemed that she expected for everyone to agree with her requests right away.. and that caused for Daniel to be puzzled. After all, her karma was positive.. For her to be someone which would demand for other people¡¯s possession, her karma should have been much more negative than what it was.

    Of course, for that to be the case, the owners of the items she required would not have to be happy aboutplying. If they were more than happy to agree with her requests, then there would be no reason for her to obtain bad karma.

    However, Daniel couldn¡¯t help but feel slightly irritated by the tone of the young demoness, so he responded by saying "Out of the question. This is my spatial ring, and it contains the belongings of my master, as well as mine."

    The young demoness was taken aback. Never before had anyone ever refused one of her requests, and the first one to do so, was a human. A clean, dignified, and good looking one, but still a human. Nevertheless, while pushy, she wasn¡¯t going to steal other people¡¯s possessions, so she gritted her teeth, swallowed her pride, and said "I just need the stone engraved on the ring."

    "Can you ask politely for it?" Responded Daniel with an emotionless expression. He did not know who this youngdy was, and aside from her rtionship with this particr race of wolves, he did not care.

    Once again shocked, the young demoness was left with the inability to respond. The one who responded in her stead was a young demon with darkplexion, and reptilian eyes. His head was smooth, and he did not possess either horns nor wings. Until just a moment ago this demon was still hanging around with the group of beastmasters, when he had heard the conversation between Daniel and the youngdy whom he couldn¡¯t stop bothering only minutes earlier. He was one of the reasons why she had left so soon to begin with.

    Hispanion appeared to be a baboon with demonic features. Tworge bat wings came out of the sides of his head in its ears¡¯ stead, which appeared to berge and powerful enough to lift its body off of the ground with ease. In its hands was a staff that, while seemingly a weapon, was instead of moving part of the beasts body. No matter with what body part the beast would touch this staff, its surface would immediately merge to the baboon¡¯s skin.

    This hornless demon had felt the need to intervene from the very first exchange between Daniel and the demoness, but after noticing the way thedy had responded, he had decided to mind his own business. However, after Daniel had refused her gracefulness one more time, he had lost his patience, and decided to join in.

    "You must be stupid, ignorant, or both to speak to her like this, human. Don¡¯t you know where you are?! Or who you are talking to?!" Asked the hornless demon while overly disying his anger. He clearly wanted to impress the young demoness, who instead rolled her eyes at the sky in annoyance.

    "I do not.. But I guess that you¡¯ll tell me."

    Horrified by the casual way in which Daniel responded to him, the young demon turned to look at his beast, and said "Teach him a lesson for me."

    In response to itspanion¡¯s words, the baboon opened its wings to their maximum capacity, and began to p them. Its hairy long fingers were wrapped around the pole he was carrying, ready to bash it on the head of whomever was unlucky enough to be an enemy of hispanion.

    The demonic baboon rose in the air for around a meter, but before it could p its wings and fly in Daniel¡¯s direction, a massive hand moved through the tent of the carriage¡¯s door, and grabbed its wooden frame.

    "What¡¯s all themotion?" Asked Sewah after stepping out of the carriage.

    Daniel did not have the time to respond, before the young demon recognized the Oni leader, and stopped his beastpanion from acting against Daniel. He then said "Your ve is behaving rudely."

    Sewah turned to look at Daniel with the intention of teasing him a little, but after noticing his ice cold expression, the yful part of his personality died out before it could even emerge. Instead, he asked "What happened?"

    "The demoness demanded for one of your belongings.. Master." Responded Daniel while falling a little short on the fear that a ve was supposed to have towards his master.

    Daniel¡¯s words seemed to shock Sewah greatly, who immediately pped the back of his head while not putting any power behind, and said "How dare you! We are guests here! Say sorry, and offer the item they wanted as a token of apology."

    For the fraction of a second, the right side of Daniel¡¯s upper lip twitched. To be pped by Sewah was way more annoying than any spoiled demon. But since Sewah had done well in ending this ufortable situation without breaking character, Daniel quickly calmed down. He then removed the fire sphere from his ring, he tossed it at the young demoness while saying "Forgive my behaviour."

    As soon as the young demoness obtained the fire sphere, she decided to drop the matter. She had no intention ofshing out on Daniel, nor did she want to ask for her master to punish him. She simply wanted the sphere that herpanion seemed to be interested in.

    The moment the spherended on her hand, the young demoness turned to look at the she wolf, and said "Here. Is this what you wanted?" However, she quickly noticed that something was wrong wrong. Throughout everything that had happened, and even now that she had obtained the sphere and ced it right next to her mouth, the demonic wolf had never stopped staring at Daniel.

    "What is up with you?" Asked the young demoness in confusion. But before she could probe deeper into the matter, a powerful sounding voice came from the head of the caravan.

    "We are ready to depart. All of you, Go back to your carriages."

    This voice belonged to one of the demons who was flying high up in the sky, riding on the back of a massive condor-like beast. The power that was pushed through the air in the form of a wave of sound essence, possessed the power of a noble demon.. And not an average one at that. If Daniel had been forced to put the owner of this voice, the previous owner of Sewah¡¯s body, and the other demons he had met into a power ranking, there was no doubt that the owner of this voice would take the first ce.

    Luckily, the person who had just spoken possessed enough authority tomand these annoying young demons, who after hearing this voice, quickly left in the direction of the carriage owned by the families to which they belonged to, along with their beastspanions.

    The same was not for the young demoness and the she wolf that followed her. She stayed in ce for a few moments before taking ast look at Daniel, and calmly leaving with her beastpanion right after.

    "What was that about?" Asked Sewah in confusion. He was unaware of everything that had happened to Daniel while he had stayed within the carriage, and he had made a decision simply based on the small amount of information he had obtained after hearing themotion right outside of his resting ce. Fortunately, his call had been the right one, and he had been able to solve Daniel¡¯s problem for him before things got any worse.

    "None of your business." Responded Daniel with irritation, a residue left by being pped by Sewah. A p which carried no actual power, with exception made for the humiliating factor.

    After shutting Sewah up, Daniel jumped down of he carriage, and approached the one right in front of his. This carriage was marked with the crest of the cruga family, just like the one they were using. Once he reached the side of the carriage, Daniel looked at one of the two coachmen that were sitting on the driving seat, and after giving a nod to the one sitting to the right, he went back to his carriage, and entered the back with Sewah.. Leaving the driving seat empty.

    Momentster, the demon to which Daniel had nodded approached the carriage, and sat at the driving seat just in time for him to depart along with the rest of the caravan.

    Meanwhile, inside the carriage there was no trace of either Daniel or Sewah, who right after entering the passenger seat, had shifted into Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension. A newly made pocket dimension, created by Daniel out of one of the nails that kept the boards of which the carriage wasposed of in ce, and that was hidden by a small formation of dark essence.

    Inside this pocket dimension there was nothing but a small ring which contained the pocket dimension where Virgil and the rest of the group were living in.

    Not long was left to the signing of the demonic pact, and if Daniel had understood Hell¡¯s traditions correctly, the event in which Aeron could end up dying in, would be hosted right before the signing of the demonic pact.

    What he intended on doing during the travel, was to keep cultivating. His system had already told him a method to save Aeron, but he knew that if he wanted to save Xargy as well, and leave hell alive and safe, he needed a lot more power. Once the fight would start, he would likely not have the time to create and read missions. He would have to act fast, and probably fight against numerous powerful demons.

 Chapter 324 The Power to Survive the Universe

    "So, do you think Daniel wille back soon?.." Asked Felix to Virgil with the use of the signnguage that he had learned in the past year and a half.

    His question went unanswered.

    For the past few months virgil had spent time with a group of people who came from a world with electronics and highly technological items.. and while they were not able to retain arge amount of that knowledge, there was no doubt that he had a lot to learn from them.

    Physics, mathematics, mechanics, medicine, and much more. He had experimented with everything that these former university students had gone to study, and after adding his genius to the mix, he had been able tobine the technology he had learned about, with the elements of the cultivation world.

    Batteries of various types of essence, formations who created a process of constructing wood, setting it on fire, and reversing the process in order to recycle the ashes, and to turn them back into dry wood that would then be used again as fuel.. Hisprehension of the elements had helped him greatly in his experiments, and yet he had never forgotten his main objective.

    Now at eleven years of age, and thanks to his proximity to a cultivating Daniel, Virgil and the rest of the group had managed to enter the realm of the mid tier immortal cultivator. Standing between the sixth and seventh stages. A power which, by logic, they should not possess due to their young age.. But that was possible thanks to the high level resources, and effects of Daniel¡¯s system.

    The seven of them had be increasingly close during the almost two years they had spent together, but now that they possessed a certain amount of power, they couldn¡¯t wait to go out of thisfortable cage, and explore the universe they had heard so much about.

    "He doesn¡¯t know. You¡¯ve already asked that to him ten times.. He wille back when he wille back." Responded Hannah, dressed in white tank top covered in sweat stains, and a pair of cargo pants. Her hair tied in her usual ponytail, which now reached further down her shoulders than when she had met Daniel. In her left hand was a spear that stood exactly at her height, with two des as ends.

    Behind her, was the massive frame of George, who carried arge greatsword made out of his ownprehension of metal, and whose clothes were covered by the same amount of sweat that covered Hannah¡¯s clothes. They had justpleted a sparring session, for which they had been forced to walk far away from the small vige they had created in order to avoid destroying it.

    The same was for Alex, Josh, and James, who were still in the midst of their trainings far away from camp.

    "I know, but we¡¯ve been here for almost two years now. I don¡¯t mind yourpany, but I want to get out.." Responded Felix with clear exasperation. "Aren¡¯t we strong enough to lookout for ourselves?"

    Hannah and George looked at each other, unable to utter a single word. They too had thought of exactly the same thing, and yet they had managed to keep their unhappiness to themselves. Their lifespan ha increased significantly, and they knew that sooner orter, Daniel would let them out.. And if he hadn¡¯t yet, it probably meant that the situation outside was still too dangerous to.

    Unfortunately, they had no idea that they weren¡¯t in their anymore, and that they were in an alternative dimension which happened to match the ces of penitence of all of their¡¯s religions. Nevertheless, their speechless state was interrupted by a disembodied voice which appeared toe from afar, and to bring just enough power to surpass theirs.

    "Oh, are you?" said the voice.

    The moment these three words reached virgil¡¯s ears, he immediately stopped tinkering with his new inventions, and instead opened three portals that seemed to lead in the ces where thest three members of the group were training. He then dashed into each one of them, and when it came back out, he carried one of the three confused young men.

    "Who is speaking?" Asked Hannah while fruitlessly trying to feel the presence of this individual, in her group¡¯s surroundings.

    From what Virgil had exined to them, being in this pocket dimension did not mean that they were safe. In fact, it only meant that they were being carried like living objects.. Objects which could be stolen, or lost.

    Daniel was the owner of this pocket dimension, and as long as he was alive and well, there would be no reason for any other being to appear inside it. Reason why the very moment Virgil had heard a voice that did not match Daniel¡¯s, he had regrouped his friends, and entered into an alerted state.

    "Why does it matter who I am, when I am in the presence of the seven most powerful beings in the universe.. Hehe." Responded sarcastically the deep and powerful voice which came from every single direction at the same time.

    Before any of the group members could say something, Virgil tugged at George¡¯s pants, and after attracting his attention, he formed a few hand signs.

    In response to these hand signs George cleared his throat, and said while disying all of his power through his voice. "What happened to the owner of this ring? What happened to Daniel?"

    "What do you think happened to him?.. Hehe." Responded the voice with a yful tone. A tone which implied the most terrifying of scenarios.. The possibility that Daniel had died, and that they were now nothing but ants trapped into a stranger¡¯s terrarium.

    "Show yourself!" Said Hannah while grabbing her spear. George and the rest of the group followed suit, and quickly prepared to engage in battle.

    "HA HA HA!"

    Amused by the reaction of the group of young individuals, the powerful voice exploded into a deafeningugh which resounded in the air, like a sequence of lightning strikes.

    Instead of showing himself in front of this group of clearly weaker cultivators, the owner of the voice dashed past them with a speed which they were not even able toprehend, and as he did, he snatched Hannah¡¯s and George¡¯s weapons.

    "What are these? A toothpick and a kitchen knife?" Asked the powerful voice, right before a snapping sound could be heard, and the immortal essence of George was forced to dissipate.

    While Hanna and George considered whether to make new weapons, Josh asked "What do you want from us?"

    As if to respond to Josh¡¯s question, a few rhythmic shakes of the ground reached their feet.. And when the group turned to look at the direction from where these shockwaves arrived, they finally noticed it.. A gigantic demon walking past trees like grass, and using Hannah¡¯s spear to pick his teeth.

    "I just want to have some fun." said Sewah with a wicked smile, before turning serious, and adding "So, human cultivators.. Clearly powerful enough to survive in the open universe. Tell me, in the hypothesis that I had just killed your friend, and was considering whether to clear this ce up from its human parasites.." he let his voice trail off with a short pause, then asked "What would you do?"

    If it was any other cultivator, they would have immediately retreated, or tried to negotiate a way out of being trapped. But unfortunately, Virgil and the rest of the group had never had a proper fight. They had cultivated, and felt their power grow by leaps and bounds without having to go through any obstacle whatsoever.

    The godplex that these young individuals felt was potentially lethal outside of this little and safe paradise, and the idea that such a weak group could ever boast to be powerful enough to survive the world of cultivation, was not only ridiculous to a person like Sewah, but also an insult for anyone who had ever had an above average amount of power.

    Even if Sewah was still only in possession of Daniel¡¯s body, and was still at the eight stage of immortal cultivation, he was sure that he would be able to kill this entire small group without moving a finger.. But since they were so eager to test their power, he decided to humiliate them a little.

    Sewah¡¯s words were enough of a threat for the group to make up their mind. They didn¡¯t know how to leave the pocket dimension, and if they didn¡¯t want to die, they had to fight back.

    Hannah and George quickly constructed a new spear and greatsword, and after dashing in the direction of Sewah¡¯s body for a few moments, they split and approached him from both sides. At the same time, the ground behind Sewah¡¯s body rose up to the sky, almost as if a buried wall of steel was rising from its burial ce. Behind it, with his hands ced on the ground, was Josh, who had teleported behind Sewah¡¯s body the very moment Hannah and George had attacked.

    Thebination was, however, not over.

    Since all the group knew about Sewah¡¯s power was his speed and size, James controlled the ground underneath his feet, and turned it into a mixture of mud and water, which he expected to stop his movements long enough for the attacks of hispanions tond.

    Sewah did not bother to move, and instead took the attacks of the two warriors head on. George¡¯s greatsword hit Sewah on the neck, right against one of the major veins that was protruding from underneath his red colored skin. The tip of Hannah¡¯s spear, on the other hand, had hit him directly in between his ribs with a precision which, if paired with enough power to pierce his skin, would have allowed her to reach his heart.

    Unfortunately, neither of these attacks had enough power to do any damage, forcing Hannah and George to retreat.

    With the speed and power of a meteor, Alex came down from above the massive metallic wall with a dagger for each hand, but just as he reached Sewah¡¯s head, his falling body curved in mid air, and he dashed past his head. Once at the same height of his eyes, Alex threw his daggers in an attempt to pierce them.. But unfortunately, his attempt had no more sess than that of his friends.

    The daggers bounced right off of Sewah¡¯s eyes, failing to even cause him to blink.

    "Is this all the power it takes to survive in the universe? HA HA HA!" Scoffed Sewah before bursting out in a ridiculingugh.

    What Sewah did not expected as he gave a heartyugh with his mouth wide open, was for two metallic items to enter his mouth.. causing him to close it in surprise.

    Puzzled by this odd attack, Sewah was about to spit the two items out, but before he could do that, these two items exploded with an amount of lightning essence that could bepared to hundreds of thousands of lightning strikes.

    The shockwave of the explosion sent the dust that had settled underneath Sewah¡¯s feet flying, causing it to cover the entire area in an cloud. Its terrifying power was enough to almost reach them as well, but luckily, they now had the ability to react in time, and take the proper distance.

    Standing on the ground were Felix and Virgil, and in their hands were two metallic items which emanated thick immortal essence. These items were the batteries that Virgil had created thanks to the inspiration he had received from the technology present in the group¡¯s natal.

    Thanks to it, he had found a method to insert immortal essence, and store it inside a bomb which he could then throw, and force to explode with as much power as he had stored in it. These four particr bombs had required his full cultivation worth of immortal essence six months in order to be created, and had a devastating power.

    Nevertheless, while very useful, and an overall sess.. Virgil was ultimately disappointed by the effect.. which appeared right as the dust settled down, in the form of an angrier looking demon.

 Chapter 325 I Should Have Entertained You Sooner

    "That was a nice trick. You are quite the kid." Said Sewah while looking at a terrified Virgil. As a cultivator himself, Sewah wasrgely surprised by the effect of one of those bombs. While the power was toocking to injure him, the amount of immortal essence which he had felt from it, was above and beyond the power that a little kid like Virgil was supposed to have.

    If someone with the power that he possessed was to imitate the same effect, but on arger scale, he would be able to create an explosion of immortal essence of such a magnitude, that it would beparable to thebined attack of thousands of cultivators at the same time.

    The more Sewah thought about it, the bigger his opinion of Virgil grew. To think that such a game changing invention had been created by a kid slightly older than ten years of age.. was beyond shocking.. And certainly nowhere less impressive than the creation of a poison immunity pill.

    From out of he blue, the power emanated by Sewah¡¯s body grew to an ufortable degree, forcing the entire group to fall on their knees, and be unable to breathe or move. His demonic power slowly creeped out of his skin, and lingered above the surface like an undying me. The only one that was still standing up, and appeared to be unaffected by the pressure, was Virgil.

    While still only ten years old, Virgil¡¯s intelligence was above that of anybody else. There was absolutely no doubt that he had already thought of what someone like Sewah could do with his invention, and if he allowed him to obtain that weapon, he would likely be an unstoppable being. So, instead of throwing the bomb that he was holding in his hand, he used his fingertip to trigger the defusing mechanism he had installed in it.

    This action caused for the stored essence to wash outpletely, and disperse in the surrounding area.

    After noticing that the kid in front of him did not appear to be willing to cooperate, Sewah let go of the oddly self-imposed restriction that he had felt keeping his power in check. Once done, the horns of his head grew of twenty times the previous size, and his muscles bulged to twice their original muscle mass. At the same time, a slit in between two of his abdominal muscles opened, showing a second mouth covered in thick, yellow teeth.

    "Are you sure you don¡¯t want to reconsider?" Asked Sewah with a callous tone amplified by hisrger lungs, and vocal cords. After the transformation, he sounded exactly like a monster from hell.

    Every bit of fighting spirit was eradicated from the minds of every single one of the group members, including Virgil, who couldn¡¯t help but fall on his knees due to sheer terror, despite theck of pressure ced on his body.

    In the minds of Hannah and he rest of her group a sense of despair and helplessness was born. Attacks which carried the maximum power they possessed had bounced back right after touching the demon¡¯s imprable skin, and if that was not enough, his real power and horrifying true form were even more terrifying.

    The only one who was able to resist these feelings of helplessness and despair, ironically, was Virgil. The reason for that was that he was the only one of this group who had gone through something simr in the past.

    The memories of when he and his brother had been forced to escape after finding the dead bodies of their parents.. Of when, forced to look for allies, they had been trapped into a dark corner, and he was forced to be beaten half to death while all he could do, was to watch as the life left the body of his younger brother.. all resurfaced at the same time.. And with these memories, the faces of the people who had killed his brother, and of the man who was supposed to protect them in case anything happened to his parents.

    A sense of unwillingness began to grow in Virgil¡¯s mind, to a point where it overshadowed his fear. He couldn¡¯t die here. He had to survive.. He had to take revenge. He had to rip the throats of everyone who had spoken badly of the names of his parents, and cut the arms and legs of the people who had kill his brother.

    These thought were quickly turning into blind rage, clouding his judgement and reasoning.. But before anything could go wrong, Virgil felt a calming pressure on both of his shoulders.

    His rageful eyes quickly rxed, and as soon as he regained his wits, a calm and familiar voiced reached his ears. "You will never avenge your family if you die. Your survivales above everything else.. Even your inventions."

    After achieving a calmer state of mind, Virgil turn around, and saw the figure of Daniel, which was standing calmly, and looked at him with a gentle smile.

    The rest of the group was still unable to handle the mental pressure, and were risking to go insane. As a cultivator of the mind, as well as the body and spirit, Daniel was able to feel that. So, before anything permanent happened to them, Daniel said "It¡¯s enough, Sewah."

    However, Sewah refused to listen.

    The power that was coursing through his body was beyond anything he had ever felt before, and at the moment, he truly felt invincible.

    "Daniel.. I was thinking.. Will your trick work if I am unconscious?" He Sewah right before thest vestige of sanity left his mind, and his body started to grow evenrger than before. The me-like demonic power that his body emanated became as intense as a star¡¯s heath, and threatened to vaporize Hannah and her group.

    Before anything bad happened to these terrified and helpless young people, Daniel covered their bodies with his own immortal cultivation, and said "Now you know why cultivators keep pushing ... There is always a stronger opponent. This is the endless path of cultivation." He then turned the immortal essence into spatial essence, and teleported them to the edges of the pocket dimension, where they would be safe.

    Once alone with a crazed Sewah, Daniel tightened his control over the formation that contained Sewah¡¯s consciousness.. But he soon found out the demonic power that Sewah was emanating, was working as a shield that separated the formation from his control.

    Sewah¡¯s theory had been proven correct. He had assumed that a power big enough would be able to form a division between Daniel and the formation, so he summoned all of the power of which the oni demon was capable of. Unfortunately, in order to do that, he was required to enter the berserker state.

    Unfortunately for Sewah, he had never been able to witness the battle between Daniel and the oni leader, and therefore, he was not aware of the method that Daniel had used to defeat him. Instead, he had presumed that Daniel had used the help of his karmic system. He was also sure of the fact that Daniel wouldn¡¯t kill him, as before entering into cultivation right after the departure towards Hell¡¯s core, he had told him that he would need his help once out of the pocket dimension.

    If there was something that Sewah knew, was that Daniel wouldn¡¯t risk losing a powerful ally that could help him save his friends.. Reason why he had felt so inclined on disobeying his orders, or outright challenge him so often.

    However, this time he had made a mistake.

    "Oh Sewah.. You never learn." Said Daniel before closing his hands into two tight fists, and taking a battle stance. He wanted to fight Sewah¡¯s body with his own physical power.

    Sewah¡¯s crazed body slowly approached Daniel, and once he found himself right in front of him.. After giving him a hateful look, he lifted his right hand, and sent a punch powerful enough to split the clouds in the sky, and to make the pocket dimension shake violently.

    *BOOM*

    The sound of the punch was not followed of crashed ground, or falling rocks. But by a simple and faint snapping noise that came from in front of his massive fist. Once he moved his fist back, he saw Daniel stand in the ce he was standing before, with his right arm bent in an odd angle.

    Daniel had taken the blow head on, and while his arm had been broken, he had managed to not budge. "Come on! ASSHOLE!" he shouted as his arm began to heal by itself.

    The crazed Sewah did not need to be asked twice, so he used the motion of his retreating arm to rotate his upper body, and throw another immensely powerful punch with his left hand.

    *BOOM*

    Once again Daniel did not budge, and managed to maintain his standing by only breaking a few bones.

    Sewah¡¯s berserker state was expecting for Daniel to resist that blow, and instead of stopping, he used the bouncing of his fist to send another punch in Daniel¡¯s direction.

    Daniel¡¯s arm was barely able to fully heal, before..

    *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

    Each punch arrived with a broken bone, followed by another, and another, and another. ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ wa activated, and constantly helping Daniel with the production of true immortal essence, allowing his mind to keep a clear mind, and to quickly get used to the pain that came along with a broken bone.

    *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

    *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

    *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

    The exchange of blows did not seem to have an end, until finally, after more than twenty minutes, the massive demonic body began to lose a portion of power for each punch he threw in Daniel¡¯s direction.

    Twenty additional minutester, Daniel¡¯s arms stopped breaking at every impact, and would only slightly damage instead. Enough for his automatic healing abilities to heal him in mere instants..

    *BOOM* ... *BOOM* ... *BOOM* ... *BOOM*

    Two hours after the beginning of the exchange, Sewah¡¯s eyes went back into a cleaner state. His breathing was back to normal, and he had regained his consciousness.

    A feeling of weakness was spreading through his entire body.. He could feel that he had been drained of his demonic power, and that he had regained his senses not because he had killed Daniel, but because he was too weak to go on.. He could not even maintain the oni¡¯s true form, and had gone back to looking like a simple demon with small horns.

    In front of him, stood Daniel.

    His arms draped down the sides of his body,pletely undamaged. Something that couldn¡¯t be said of his shirt and coat, which had been turned into shreds by the two hours worth of supersonic impacts. The ground underneath his feet had been turned into a massive crater, and there was absolutely no trace of the small vige that Virgil, Hannah, and her group had created. His expression was serious, and yet an immense sense of satisfaction could be noticed in his eyes.

    Sewah was now at Daniel¡¯s mercy. He could feel his power being slowly resupplied to his body, but the speed of this process was so slow, that he didn¡¯t believe it would end before at least an hour.

    "Daniel.. You know me. I need to have a little spar every now and then.. Hehe." He said while showing an awkward expression. He had yet to stop being disappointed of his failure in killing Daniel, and yet, that didn¡¯t stop him in his attempt to avoid the consequence of his actions.

    However, the excruciating pain that felt like maggots eating his brain, never came.

    What came instead, were a few words, and an expression that forced him to take a step back in worry.

    "You are right. I should have entertained you a lot sooner.." said Daniel with a feigned repentance. He then stepped towards Sewah, and added "But it isn¡¯t toote now."

    Sewah smiled grimly at Daniel¡¯s words, and while keeping on stepping back, he said "Sure.. let me recover for a bit fir-GAH" before he could finish speaking, an immensely powerful punch hit him in the throat, shattering his windpipe.

    Sewah immediately protected his neck with one of hisrge hands, while raising the other in surrender, but before he could notice, Daniel¡¯s punch approached his body once again, and hit him straight on the privates.. Sending waves and waves of pain so powerful, that he could feel his heartbeat through his throbbing crotch.

    *THUMPF* Was the sound that Sewah¡¯s body made when falling on the ground.. However, this nightmare was not over. He immediately felt two feet press on his chest with as much pressure as Daniel¡¯s weight would carry, and by opening his eyes, he was only able to see the punch that was about to hit his face.

    *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM*

 Chapter 326 Something to Give Up

    At some point during the beating, the light had disappeared from his eyes, leaving him unable to see the arrival of the following punches, which seemed to never stop. What was left for him to endure were the quick bursts of pain, from which he only found shelter the moment he lost consciousness.

    After what felt like thousands of years, a small wisp of light passed through his eyelids, and entered his eyes with enough intensity to wake him up.

    The first thing he noticed, was that he couldn¡¯t move. Every bone in his body was pulverized, and his flesh was squashed like a rotten pumpkin under the sun. Every breath brought him incredible pain,parable only to the twinges that came from multiple parts of his abdominal area. The only parts of his body left somewhat intact, were his head and neck, which he was able to move by only a few centimeters.

    When Sewah opened his eyes, all he could see was a vast expanse of darkness. No stairs could see in the night sky, and the light that had woken him up came, along with a moderate heath, came from a campfire about three meters away from him.

    "What are you doing.. Daniel.." He asked with the tone of a person who was on his deathbed. "Why don¡¯t you just kill me.. You have the system.. You won.. you don¡¯t need me." While half dead, Sewah was still able to feel Daniel¡¯s presence. He was sitting of the grass right next to his powerless body.. Looking at the fire crackle and dance in the night.

    Daniel did not respond, and instead remained quiet.. Causing for Sewah¡¯s pain to be ovee with a fairly good amount of anger. "I will never stop trying.. You know that." He added with a hateful tone to obtain a reaction, but without any sess.

    The two remained quiet for a few seconds, until finally, Daniel broke the silence and said "You know why I allowed you to bother them?"

    "Of course. You wanted me to t-ghh.. To teach them a lesson about the c-cultivation world.." Responded Sewah while trying to endure the sharp pain that came from every single part of his body "Next time find a fucking assistant elsewhere."

    "Them?.. That¡¯s only part of it." Responded Daniel while picking a small rock from the ground, and morphing it into a piece of charcoal which he threw into the living me.

    With the small amount of power that was left in his body, the muscles of Sewah¡¯s face moved into forming an indignated expression. "Ha-argh.. You wanted to teach me something too?" He asked while feeling his hate towards Daniel grow bigger than ever. While he could take a beating from anyone and not care, he couldn¡¯t stand to be humiliated by the person whose only reason to be alive, was his mistake.

    A faint sigh escape Daniel¡¯s lungs, as he watched the starless sky while in a pensive state.

    "I don¡¯t know.. I always thought there had to be a moment in which you were a decent being." He said while slowly moving his hand up to his face, and scratching his scruffy beard. ".. ¡¯He is cynical, but he has no reason not to see me through the good side of this path..¡¯ I used to tell myself." He then slightly turned his head to the side, just enough for Sewah¡¯s face to appear in his peripheral, and added ".. but then I¡¯ve learned that you couldn¡¯t care less about what I did with this ¡¯gift¡¯. As long as I did enough for you to grow powerful enough to kill me."

    Daniel¡¯s first memories of Sewah were not as bad as one would believe. He was abusive and rude, and constantly belittled him, but there was always a method to do good that came along with that personality.. And Daniel couldn¡¯t help but feel thankful for that.

    With time, after seeing that Daniel would thread the right path on his own, Sewah had distanced himself by him, and lied in wait.. In wait for the right moment to present itself. Of course, for Sewah, obtaining Daniel¡¯s body was not an option. He was born along with that power, and had always lived with it. To let go of it and live as a consciousness trapped into another person¡¯s mind was pure suffering.. And Daniel had failed to notice that.

    "Iewah truly screwed one of us over." Said Daniel while brushing his palms over his legs. After thisst sentence, he said nothing else and went back to focusing on the fire in front of him.

    For ten long minutes, neither of them said a single word. Sewah felt the powere back to his body, but since he had noprehension of healing essence, he was not able to heal himself. He could onlyy there, as close to dying as he was to living. Daniel, on the other hand, was moving around the burnings pieces of wood with a thin and long stick.

    Aside from the crackling of the mes, it was silence. A silence to which Sewah wished he could escape from.. but he knew that there was more that Daniel had to say. So he painfully turned his head towards him, and while enduring the pain that came from his chest, he said "Put an end to this torture. If you have to say something, just say it."

    "Do you want me to kill you?" Asked Daniel out of the blue. His tone was extremely serious, and sounded like that of a person asking if it would be okay to open the door for him. There was no doubt that, if Sewah responded yes, Daniel would have killed him on the spot. However, before Sewah could respond, he added "You have lost a part of your power, and I know it makes you feel powerless.. but you still have your li-"

    "Fuck you, Daniel. You know nothing." Responded Sewah in clear anger.

    From his voice Daniel could still feel how the loss of his power was a huge burden on his mind. So he ignored Sewah¡¯s outburst, and instead said "You can¡¯t be a children of Iewah anymore. You are a cultivator.. Bound to die because of your stubbornness, and thirst for conflict.." he then paused for a few moments, before adding "If you were unwilling to live that way, or to live with this sort of regret.. I could end it here and now."

    The deafening silence once again dominated their surroundings. This time, for more than an hour. While Daniel was waiting for an answer to the hardest question that could ever be asked to a person, Sewah¡¯s mind became clearer than ever.

    Ever since Daniel had taken back control over his body, his whole being had focused on the objective of eliminating Daniel¡¯s consciousness, and take the body and the system back for himself. Be it when he was a flimsy wisp of consciousness threatened by Daniel¡¯s mind power, when he had spent a year and a half trapped in stone, or when he was in the powerful body of the oni leader.. Not for a single moment had he given up that idea.. Until now.

    Daniel¡¯s speech had made him realize that, willing or not, he was a cultivator like any other now. A cultivator whose destiny wasn¡¯t written in the stars, and that had to work hard for his power, as opposed to be born to wield one. A cultivator who had to constantly look for his own back, or risk finding a knife nted in it.

    These thoughts grew like wildfire, sending Sewah into a spiral of realization, and ironically, loneliness.

    What if I won¡¯t be able to get the system back? What if I have to live like this for the rest of my life? Will I ever get over it?

    One question after the other appeared in Sewah¡¯s mind, weighting on his mental health like bs of stone that were being lowered to seal his sepulchre.. When finally, he broke the silence by saying with a weak and defeated voice "J-Just kill me.."

    From his faltering tone, Daniel knew that, while he waited for a response, Sewah was falling deeper and deeper into the deadly trap of resignation.. A devastating feeling that, for a cultivator, could only mean death.

    At the moment, Sewah, was at his lowest.

    After hearing his request, Daniel slowly stood up, and approached his powerless body. He then straightened his arm, and raised it high in the sky. The immortal essence that his arm emanated quickly turned into metallic essence, which formed a thin de that hanged right above Sewah¡¯s neck.

    Daniel was ready to keep his word. To just save Sewah from a life of regret, and dreams of how it would have been if. To die in such a way.. Desperate, alone, and scared. That was Sewah¡¯s fate.. But.. why?

    Why did he have to do it? Why was his job to do have this action on his conscience, for the rest of his life? These questions began to bother him.. So he looked at Sewah¡¯s face in search of eptance.. But all he saw behind the big and scary eyes of the oni demon, was the same fear of death that he had seen in a dying Vergil.

    Without hesitation, Daniel lowered his arm.. However, the de didn¡¯t follow its motion.

    From the ground grew a thick wooden branch that formed an arch above Sewah¡¯s body, and next to the de. Right after, a metallic thread followed suit, but as it arrived up to the branch, it moved above it before splitting into two separate ends, and reaching for the two holes ced at the edges of the de that formed right in front of these moving threads end.

    At the same time, Daniel approached Sewah¡¯s body, and ced one of his hands on his right arm.. then pushedrge amounts of healing essence into it. The healing essence did not go through his whole body, and instead only focused on repairing every muscle, bone, and nerve that would allow for Sewah to move his hand.

    Once healed, Daniel grabbed the metallic thread by the point on the ground it originated, and pulled it off.. Then ced it in Sewah¡¯s hand.

    "If you want it to be over, do it yourself." He said before turning around, and walking away.

    While long to exin, the creation of this rudimentary guillotine had taken about ten seconds. But ten seconds were enough for Sewah to understand what was going on, and the reason for Daniel¡¯s actions.

    In the blink of an eye, Sewah felt his anger explode through his chest, and trump over any other feeling. "..what? NO! YOU GA-Gahh!.. YOU PIECE OF SHIT! COME BACK HERE!! YOU COWARD!" He shouted to the top of his lungs, causing for the already fractured bones on his chest to be further damaged.

    Daniel ignored Sewah¡¯s words, and kept walking instead.

    Being promised a way out only to be taken away right after, was too much for Sewah¡¯s mind.. "DANIEL! You.. bastard.. C-Come on! Damn hypocrite.. Such a damn hypocrite." Said Sewah as his voice became more emotional for each word. "You owe me this much! AFTER ALL YOU HAVE TAKEN FROM ME!"

    As these words reached Daniel, he suddenly stopped.. And without turning around, he said "There is so much that a cultivator can do in his life.. If you want to give that up.. Like a coward.. Do it yourself." He then started to walk once again.

    Sewah¡¯s feelings were a mess. Hatred, envy, anger, indignation, loneliness, fear.. Everything was mixed together into a lump in the throat that prevented him from speaking. It was Daniel¡¯s figure that was walking away in the distance, that allowed him to swallow all the hard to swallow pills he had been forced to take.. and finally.. "I DON¡¯T KNOW HOW!!"

    Two tears welled up in the corners of Sewah¡¯s eyes, coursing down as he repeated "I-I don¡¯t know how.."

    ...

    In reaction to the first tears of his life, Sewah used all of the power he could muster to lift his partially healed arm, and reach his face with it, letting go of the metallic threat at the same time.

    As he touched these two warm tears, the de came down with enough speed to split the air open.. But right as it was about to touch Sewah¡¯s neck, it exploded into a puff of air.

 Chapter 327 How to Gain a Powerful Ally Part 1

    The air of which the guillotine was previously made out of quickly brushed past Sewah¡¯s face, but before it could dissipate, it morphed once again into healing essence which slowly seeped into his injuries, and began to repair his body.

    Muscle fibers, shattered bones, and destroyed organs started to regenerate at a surprising speed. His dark colored bruises quickly disappeared, as the swelling that made his face unrecognizable deted, leaving space for the usually scarred skin to reappear in its ce.

    While all of this happened, Sewah kept one of his hands up against his eyes, almost as if in an attempt to cover his emotional state.. Or to prevent Daniel from seeing the two tears that followed the path of the first two.

    "If you really want to know, I can teach you.." Said Daniel while still looking away.

    Sewah did not respond for a few minutes, and instead allowed Daniel to heal himpletely. Only then did he get up to a sitting position, and after brushing his face with his right hand, he asked "What do I do now?"

    As soon as these five words reached his ears, a genuine smile formed on Daniel¡¯s face. He then turned around, and looked as Sewah with a face filled with seriousness. "An absurd cheat ability may allow one to walk a lonely path, but a normal cultivator will always need somebody. Be it family, friends, orpanions." He said in a casual tone, aimed to break the moody atmosphere, and show Sewah that there was a lot to learn about his new life.

    "Between cultivators, an agreement is sacred. If you don¡¯t respect your end of the deal, you need to be powerful enough to face the consequences." He said as Sewah finally turned to look back at him. He then added "As of now, you still owe me a thousand years."

    Daniel¡¯s intention was to free Sewah of this debt if he would have behaved a little more humanly.. After all, he had always despide very. However, he had changed his mind now. It was obvious to him that in this state, Sewah would never survive in the outside world. He would cause a ruckus for a few days, maybe weeks.. But without his power, and as a rogue demon outcast that roamed the universe, he would end up dead sooner orter.

    No matter how long Daniel had thought about it, in the end, Sewah was born out of his decisions. If he hadn¡¯t climbed that tree, if he hadn¡¯t picked that fruit, if he hadn¡¯t created a system.. None of this would have happened. Sewah¡¯s whole existence, character, and sufferings, were all caused by him.. And he felt a certain amount of responsibility for him. Sewah had never had someone that could teach him how to be a person, and that job, would require time.

    After a long minute spent in silence, Sewah finally stood back up, and with an audible amount of resolution, said "What now?"

    "Now? Now I show you how to gain a powerful ally.. Prepare yourself."

    -----

    One hour earlier, halfway between the core of hell, and the beastmasters faction¡¯s territory.

    The path that lead from a territory to the core of hell, was called ¡¯The Pilgrimage¡¯. While teleportation tforms existed, it was tradition in hell to pay respect to demonkind¡¯s forefathers by traveling the whole distance by carriage, or by foot. Be it lone powerful demons, or the representatives of a families and factions.

    The symbolism behind this action was only one of the two major reasons why ¡¯The Pilgrimage¡¯ existed. The second reason, on the other hand, was a lot more important. The problem with teleportation was that, during the period in which the signing of the demonic pact would usually take ce, for some reason, the spatial essence in hell became unstable. Many demonic families had attempted teleportation as a method of traveling to the core of hell, but all of those who had tried, had never returned.

    Nobody could remember why the date of the signing of the demonic pact had been set to that odd and specific period of time, nor why there was one to begin with.. but since hell was a mystical dimension of which not even the demons that lived in it knew much about, they had decided to follow it regardless.. After all, traditions kept hell¡¯s inhabitant mostly civilized.

    The convoyposed of hundreds of families, as well as the Beastmaster faction¡¯s main force, was currently halfway through their pilgrimage, and that was despite the very long time they had spent on the road.

    Not many demon could be seen outside of the carriages except for the younger ones, who preferred to spend their time interacting with each other, than to wait inside the carriages of their families like most of the powerful demons did.

    The aerial units of the beastmaster faction were constantly flying at an altitude hardly observable with the naked eye, and along with thend scouts that were partnered with beasts with highly developed senses, they would keep their attention towards the surrounding area to make sure that no powerful beast or demon would attack from behind, or from the sides of the convoy.

    However, the amount of attention that these scouts would put on that job was nowhere close to that they would put during any other time. The reason for that, was that part of the convoy that traveled the pilgrimage along with the rest of the demons, was the Demon Lord¡¯s carriage. His presence alone had, for tens of thousands of years, been more than enough to stop anyone from daring to approach the convoy.. And if the demon lord¡¯s presence was not enough to make the guards rx during their job, then the assurance that most of hell¡¯s powerful demons would be usually upied elsewhere, or in the midst of their own pilgrimage towards the core of hell, would.

    These two reasons had turned the job of the members of the beastmasters into a facade, causing them to be distracted most of the time, and not pay as much attention at their surroundings as their beasts would.

    In this particr day, a group of riders that rode on the back of just as many condor-like beasts with skeletrical wings webbed with an odd type of demonic beast essence, was flying a few kilometers ahead of the convoy in order to scout and clear the path ahead. The geography of hell changed constantly, and sometimes, the paths that were opened and clear during one pilgrimage, would turn out being blocked, buried, or would lead somewhere elsewhere after only a hundred years. For that reason, that sort of scout was required in order to avoid wasting time in making a math while proceeding.

    The area ahead of the convoy was filled with active volcanoes which constantly spit massive amounts of gasses and smoke, which formed a vast nket that covered the skypletely. The nose curling sulfuric smell was the only scent that could be smelled in this area, and the constant explosions resounded in the area like a never ending firework show.

    Whenever the pilgrimage lead into this volcanic area, the path would always be blocked. The reason for it were the constantvic slides, and the debris and ashes that were spouted at every single eruption.

    Just like every other time, the group guided their wingedpanions into flying at a lower altitude, and disappeared into the massive veil of smoke.

    About an hourter, the rest of the convoy reached the volcanic area, and with the demon lord¡¯s carriage as spearhead, they went straight in expecting to see a path formed for them to move through. However, the path was interrupted a few hundred meters into the volcanic area, leaving the convoy unsure where to go from there.

    The leader of the guards of the beastmasters faction was a middle aged-looking noble demon, with a power equal to that of a high immortal at the seventieth phase. He was apanied by what looked like a snake with the head of a horned tiger, and the scale pattern of one. On its back, were two bat wings that fit its miniaturized size, which despite being minuscule in order to be able to stay wrapped around the wrist of its demonicpanion, would still emanate a power identical to his.

    "Why isn¡¯t the path carved yet?" Asked the guard leader to the contact between the aerial and thend forces, with an authoritative tone.

    "Sir, the toon hasn¡¯t made any contact for the past hour." Responded the demoness in charge of the aerial division, which quickly approached along with her condor-likepanion by foot.

    The guard leader shook his head in disappointment, then said "Send another toon to look for thosezy idiots." From the tone of his voice, one could infer that he truly hated how rxed and distracted the guards would get during the months of pilgrimage.

    The demoness quickly nodded at him, and turned to look for one of her subordinates to send, but before she could even give the order, a flying beast came diving from high up in the sky at a speed that was beyond what most would be able to react to.

    As it came down, this flying beast directly grabbed one of the resting condor-like beings from the ground, and attempted to fly away with it. Luckily, the beast of the leader of the guardsd was fast enough in its reaction. Without even unwrapping itself from around itspanion¡¯s wrist, the small snake stretched of hundreds of meters, and bit the beast. It then went back to its miniature size, concluding the attack in a fraction of a second.

    The bite did not seem to do any particrly great damage to the flying beast, but after only moments, the beast stopped moving, and plummeted to the ground along with the condor-like demonic beast it was carrying.

    The leader of the guards and the demoness that was in charge of the aerial division immediately teleported next to this beast.. But after finally being able to take a good look at it, their eyes opened wide in disgust and horror.

    What was so terrifying about this beast, was not the fact that it belonged to an unknown species of demonic beasts, but the fact that it was actually one of the condor-like steeds of the aerial division.. But different.

    Its chest seemed to have opened like a flower, but instead of petals, were rows and rows of sharp teeth which it had used to grab the condor-like demonic beast, and crush it before it could even fight back. Its head and neck had split into two, and there two parts had turned into moveable whips with hooked ends, which could deliver a snap that relied the full power that this monster was capable of. The demonic beast essence webbing of the wings had turned into a paper tin veil which was barely able to hold its weight.

    "What the hell is that.." muttered the leader of the guard while inspecting the body of the monster, which right after, began to melt into nothingness. That, was the effect of hispanion¡¯s poison.

    Before he could even issue an order, or rely the events to his lord, the attention of the leader of the guard was caught by the sight of six individuals that were standing on top of a volcano¡¯s crater, just a few hundred meters away from them

    Three of them were middle aged demons, each with a particr detail that made them stand out from the each other.. However, the remaining three, were humans. All three of them had dark colored hair, and ruby-red eyes. Their clothes were simr as well, and all of them of the same blood red color.

    Screams immediately began to arrive from the direction of the convoy, as dozens of simr monsters started diving at top speed from within the veil of smoke, and kidnapping beasts and demons on their path.

    The leader of the guard did not think twice about it, and dashed in the direction of the Demon Lord¡¯s carriage, but before he could even say the words ¡¯we are under attack¡¯, a deep and powerful voice came from within the carriage, along with a just as deep growl.

    "I have to go.. Two demon lords are here."

 Chapter 328 How to Gain a Powerful Ally Part 2

    "Commander, something is going on here!" Shouted the demoness in charge of the aerial division, who was still standing in front of the corpse of the mutated condor-like demonic beast, and the remains of the non-mutated one. "Something is moving!" she then added.

    Themander of the beastmasters¡¯ guard was still too shocked by what the demon lord had just told him to pay attention to what the leader of the aerial division had just told him, and instead turned to look at the convoy above which numerous monstrous beast were diving on.

    "WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! EVERY NOBLE DEMON PRESENT HAS TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEFENSE OF THE CONVOY!! THE OTHERS MUST TAKE COVER!!" He shouted with a voice powerful enough to resound for as further away the limitation of hell allowed it to travel.

    The announcement, however, had arrived toote. All of the guards and leaders of the families that had decided to go through the pilgrimage with the beastmaster faction were already engaging in battle against the monsters in the air and on the ground, and while the noble demons were able to defend themselves, the high demons were not.

    The entire fleet of the aerial division was made out of noble demons, and the demonic beasts to which they had bonded with, possessed the same amount of power as their humanoidpanions.

    From far away in the distance, the deafening sounds of a earth shaking battle arrived one after another like the beatings of a war drum. That, was the ce where the battle between the four entities at the demon lord level were currently fighting.

    After no longer than ten minutes, the noble demons which acted as representatives of their families, as well as the guards of the beastmaster faction, quickly realized a problem with these mutated beasts. No matter how much they were injured, they wouldn¡¯t back down. They alsocked any level of sight, while they had gained an impressive level of hearing, and sensing of any sort of essence which belonged to living beasts.

    However, it wasn¡¯t the way these monsters behaved that was the strangest detail.. But the fact that whomever fell for their hands, would stand back up, and mutate into a monstrous creature that would jump right back into a fight against their formerpanions.

    Next to the carriage that belonged to the Cruga family, Eken was desperately trying to fend off against one of the condor-like beasts, and to protect her lord and the rest of her group at the same time.

    The tactics of the mutated beasts were to dive from the sky, and attempt to grab anything that made a sound from the ground. Once back in the air, they would kill the unfortunate demon or beast they had managed to capture, and drop them back on the ground in order to allow them to join their ranks.

    More than once had Eken tried to kill the mutated beasts that dove against her carriage, but the impressive power that they could disy made it impossible for her to strike fatally without abandoning her defensive position.

    In a matter of minutes, the numbers of the monstrous beast increased. At the same time, seeing their fallenpanions transform into abomination and attack them, caused for the morale of the demons to plummet. Requests of help were sent every other second, but no one seemed to be free enough to lend a hand.

    Unfortunately, the worst part had yet to arrive..

    Standing above the crater of the volcano, one of the demons turned to look at the shortest of the red-clothed individuals, and said "Your insects are terrifying."

    The short red-clothed man turned to look at the demon with narrowed eyes, clearly offended by his words, and said "They are not insects.. They are parasites." His tone was as threatening as his expression was serious.

    The demon did not bother with the threatening tone of the red-clothed human, and instead said casually "Sure, sure.. But can you hurry up? I don¡¯t want to be here when the three demon lords and the Lupa will be too injured to continue battling against each other. Even injured, they could kill us all.." When he reached the end of the phrase, his eyes unconsciously turned to look at the fight that was taking ce a few hundred kilometers away. In his eyes, was an underlying and gutting fear.

    "Very well.." muttered the short human before turning to look back at the convoy. His eyes then shed of a bloody red color for a few moments.

    While slightly more powerful than their original state, these monsters did not appear to possess any sort of intelligence.. So after about ten minutes, the noble demons who were defending their caravans against them, had managed to maintain their ground. In their minds, as long as they could hold on until the demon lord came back, they would survive.. But then, from underneath the ground around the convoy, numerous horrifying creatures dug their way out of the ground, and approach the convoy.

    "What are those!?" Shouted one of the noble demons, causing for one of the monsters onnd to hear him, and dash in his direction with a speed that only a noble demon would possess. Once this demon found himself against two opponents with powers simr to his, the fight¡¯s difficulty quickly increased of tenfold, causing for a new small injury to appear on his body every other second.

    It didn¡¯t take long for the members of the beastmaster faction to realize who these monsters were.. As the intact parts of their bodies still wore the clothes of the aerial division of the beastmaster army.. However, nothing that resembled a demon was left of them. Their heads were split into moving tentacles, and their limbs had turned into eight bone spikes which they used to move faster, and send deadly attacks.

    The young demons who were apanied by their beastpanions, and that had been chatting happily for the past month, were not sure what to do, and only a few of them had the courage to jump into the battle against these monsters. Some of which quickly found themselves on the losing end, and one distraction away from death.. Or worse. One of those, was the young girl that was apanied by the wolf. She and herpanion were holding off two monsters by themselves, but it was clear that they did not possess the upper hand.. As the powers shown by these monsters was nowhere weaker than theirs.

    Eken was not any luckier. She was the only noble demon of her caravan, and was apanied by arge number of scared and noisy weaker demons. Demons who, with their screams of terror, had attracted the attention of at least three of these mutated beasts and demons.

    Her young lord had been entrusted to her, and she was already starting to contemte the idea of escaping with him.. But the more of her demonic power she used, the more these monsters would attack her in a crazed manner.

    In a matter of minutes, she began to be unable to keep up, and soon after, numerous injuries appeared on her body. She had escaped numerous grabbing attempts, and had been forced to take numerous blows head on, countering all of them through the use of her sheer power. That, had caused for her power to run out quickly, just like a few noble demons around.

    The idea of escaping safely quickly became a dream, and the thought of losing her life and be one of theses monsters started to settle in. A thought confirmed by the approaching of an attack that she knew she couldn¡¯t fully withstand without taking a huge amount of damage, so she crossed her arms in front of her chest, and closed her eyes.

    *BOOOOM*

    Instead of a powerful attack, what hit Eken were pebbles and dust. When she opened her eyes, she saw a massive red feet press one of these monster¡¯s bodies to the ground. She was barely able to take a breath before a simrly big hand grabbed the uncovered half of the monster¡¯s body, and ripped it into two pieces.

    The body of the demon who had easily killed one of these mutated demons was uncovered as soon as the dust settled, revealing him to be the leader of the Oni Tribe. In his hand was a massive spiked club.

    While grateful for having been saved, Eken quickly turned to look at the other two monsters, but all she saw were two clumps of flesh, finely diced into pieces the size of a cubic centimeter. Standing next to these corpses, was Daniel. He was looking at the convoy that was currently being attacked, while holding two swords in his hands. "..of all the factions.. It had to be them." He said with a low voice.

    After muttering these few words, Daniel turned to look at Eken, and said "Go in that direction, and help the others. I¡¯ll keep your lord safe." His arm was pointing at the back of the convoy.

    During the month she and her lord had spent with Daniel, they hade to trust him. So she did not linger for too long, and after nodding, she quickly dashed to the aid of another noble demon who appeared to be struggling against two other monsters.

    As soon as Eken left, Daniel turned to look at Sewah, who now was in a berserker state and couldn¡¯t hear him. Luckily, the objective of his berserker state was not him, but the monsters that had appeared.

    Without waiting any longer, Sewah roared with enough power to attract a few monsters, then dashed in their direction.. as soon as the first one came close enough, Sewah sent his club down on its body at full force, turning it into a bloody stain on the ground.

    His body was emanating a thick red-colored demonic power, of which the monsters appeared to be drawn like moths to the me.

    Satisfied by Sewah¡¯s behaviour, Daniel turned to look at the individuals that were standing on the crater of the volcano.

    These individuals, on the other hand, were taken aback. They didn¡¯t expect that a human powerful enough to kill two noble demons in mere moments could be protecting the convoy, and even less than that, were they expecting for the leader of the oni tribe, known as an extremely powerful and evil entity within hell, to be there, doing the same.

    The most shocked, however, were not the three humans, but the three demons. The cause for their shock was not the powerful human, but the oni leader.. Who during the signing of the demonic pact, was supposed to side with the faction they sided with, like he had always done.

    "Who are those two? They weren¡¯t here before." said the tall and slender man after turning towards a muscr demon with hook-like fingers, and narrow slits from which the color of a ck pupil could be seen.

    "The giant is going to be a problem.. But I don¡¯t know who the human is. Does he belong to any of the factions from the outside universe?" Asked the demon back, just as confused.

    The third andst human was a beautiful woman in herte twenties. Her eyes were as red as those of herpanions, and her hair were as dark as night. Her expression was usually gloomy, but not this time. This time, she was looking at the convoy with eyes opened in surprise.. "Where did the human go?" she asked with confusion, when suddenly..

    "Is the view any better here than down there?.." asked a voice that came from behind them.

    The six cultivators immediately turned around, and there, they found Daniel. The human they didn¡¯t expect to see walk the pilgrimage with the beastmasters.

    The faces of the three demons and three humans contorted in confusion. "Human, what are you doing in hell?" Asked one of the three demons. A humanoid being with no wings.. Just two horns fused in what appeared to be heavy armor, but was in fact the skin of the demon. His face appeared exactly like a steel helmet, and from the slits above the nose hole, two eyes of fire could be seen.

    "Oh, I am just trying to gain the favor of a demon lord. Killing the bunch of you should be good enough." Responded Daniel casually, and with a polite smile.

    The third demon, a faceless dark silhouette with bat-like wings which seemed to have been chewed on, took a step forward, and with an angered voice, said "A human dares to threaten a demon in his house.. I would like to-"

    The voice of the faceless demon was proud, but before the echo of his words could stop resounding in the air, his head, his wings, and his arms had already fallen off of his body.. Followed by the rest, whichnded with a soft ¡¯thump¡¯.

    "Okay, minus one.. Who is next?"

    The remaining five, shocked by what they had just seen, immediately prepared for battle.

    Meanwhile, down at the convoy, Eken and Sewah had managed to gain a following. Their initial help had allowed another noble demon to free himself of the attacking monsters, and join another noble demon in supporting those who were still fighting.

 Chapter 329 How to Gain a Powerful Ally Part 3

    Back at the convoy, the situation had turned for the better thanks to the effort of three different fighters.

    The first one was Eken, who by helping the struggling demons one by one, had managed to stop the deaths of the demons, and by extension, the increasing of the numbers of these monsters. Aftering to the aid of these demons, she and the current living fighter would vanquish the monstrous beings before splitting up, and joining the fighters who were still engaging in battle.

    The second individual whose actions were turning for the battle for the better, was the young demoness who was partnered with the wolf. The chemistry of these two was powerful enough to allow them to react to each other¡¯s actions without even looking at one another.. And if their absurd connection was not enough of an advantage, the mes of which the demonic wolf was covered with, were hot enough to melt the bodies of any monster that tried toe close to it. The heat which this wolf emanated wasparable to that of a star, despite only being at the level of a noble demon.

    Stars were considered odd objects by any cultivator who was able to approach one on his or her own ord. Most cultivator above the fiftieth phase would be able to unleash attacks powerful enough to destroy a small one, but the heat that they emanated was too much for them to bear. This was the reason that made this particr beast so impressive. The heat that it emanated was not brilliant by any means, but warm enough to melt the body of a noble demon.

    This heat, however, did not appear to be a danger to any demon or demonic beast who wasn¡¯t an enemy of the demonic wolf.

    Finally, the fighter who was helping the most, while also going on a rampage, was Sewah.. Whom the other cultivators looked at with terror. Everyone knew what a rampaging oni demon was capable of, and this was no ordinary oni. If Sewah¡¯sst thought had been to kill everybody on sight, and not to only kill the attackers, most of them would be dead at the moment. Especially since Sewah¡¯s power did not appear to match the power that the oni leader was reported to have, and was much greater instead.

    Only a minute had passed since his appearance, and his club was already long gone. The bodies of at least a dozen monsters lied in pieces at his feet, forming a trail that showed his path. The loud noises and power that he produced while fighting were enough to attract any flying ornd monster in the surroundings.. Only to be swatted like flies, or ripped to pieces by his hands the very moment he got a hang of them.

    -----

    Meanwhile, on the edge of a volcanic cauldron, was Daniel. He was standing in front of five individuals and the dismembered corpse of a demon.

    The two demons had long transformed into their original forms, which were that of a walking knight armor with ck spikes on his shoulders, knees, and the back of his hands, and that of a slender being with a body more simr to that of a canine, than a humanoid cultivator.. With legs bent on the wrong direction, long and straight ears that reached for the sky in parallel, and ws so sharp to appear able to split an atom in half.

    However, while scary looking, these two demons were not the ones who possessed the most horrifying appearance.

    The three humans in red clothes belonged to the Parasitic faction, and just like the man who had fought against Aeron, they were elite members, and followers of the Parasite King. The only difference was that the cultivator whom Daniel had encountered years before was at the bottom of the list, while these three were amongst the strongest members of their entire faction.

    Just like any other gifted member of the parasitic faction, these three individuals had been transformed in parasite lords.. A term created to refer to beings who had been turned into unique parasites by the Parasite King that were able to spawn their own armies of parasites, and use them to send armies and world intoplete mayhem.

    The shortest of the three humans had turned into a one hundred meters long worm with no eyes, and a round and gaping mouth covered in millions of small teeth that seemed to be present through the entirety of this worm¡¯s intestines. His skin was lucid and covered in an odd mucous membrane, from which trillions of hair thin worms grew out of.

    The woman of the group had exploded into a dense mist, and had be one with the surrounding air. However, thanks to their developed senses of sight, the rest of the fighters present were able to see that the woman had turned into an insect simr to a flea, and that she hadnded on the head of the giant worm.

    The third andst human member of the parasitic faction had turned into a human-sized tick with hundreds of constantly moving feet, and four pairs of wings that constantly vibrated into a deafening humming sound.

    Daniel was standing quietly during the whole process of transformation, almost as if unaffected by the horrifying sight of these parasite lords assuming their true form. Then, the moment these five fighters entered their strongest forms, he said casually "Okay, here is how things will go. First of all, you will tell me the reason why the members of the parasitic factions are here.. Secondly, you will y good and follow me to the demon lord once he or she is done with his fight." His casual tone did not inspire any form of threat in the hearts of the onlookers, who looked at him as if they were looking at someone who was just trying to make conversation.

    After noticing that his words had no effect, Daniel smiled grimly, and added "I know, I know. I¡¯ve been through this plenty of times. I don¡¯t expect you to follow my instructions unless you see blood, and that one over there was clearly not enough.." He said while pointing at the dismembered corpse of the demon he had killed a minute earlier.

    "Now, who volunteers?"

    Once Daniel finished speaking, the voice of a woman came from above the disgusting mouth of the massive hairy worm.. Which said "You are awfully confident.. But can you take us all at the same time?"

    A smile formed on Daniel¡¯s face, who then turned to look at the flea, and said "Sorry, this is the part where you buy time while I breathe your parasites in?" He then asked.

    The woman was taken aback, but before she could respond, the beast-like demon had dashed in front of him with lightning fast speed, and shed his body with all eight of his fingers.

    Daniel easily avoided the attack, but did not react.. as the attack¡¯s main objective was to distract him from what wasing from underneath him. Billions of hair thin worms which crunched past his clothes, and drilled through his legs with their razor sharp teeth.

    While not worried, Daniel was slightly surprised by both of the parasites created by the worm, and the flea. Both of which were able to either devour his flesh, or were able to pass by immortal essence as if it had nothing to do with them.

    After getting halfway into Daniel¡¯s legs, the worms began to spit some sort of acidic substance that liquefied Daniel¡¯s muscle fibers, so that they could consume him faster from within. The pain was excruciating, but nothing that Daniel¡¯s wasn¡¯t able to withstand.

    At the same time, in the air that Daniel was currently breathing, trillions of small fleas were flying right into his lungs, andtching on his blood cells in order to be driven through his entire body. Once in a free area, they began to devour every bit of immortal essence that kept Daniel¡¯s cells so tightly packed together.

    What was most surprising about these microscopic mites, was the fact that their bodies were able to separate the immortal essence they devoured, from its owner. They would then turn it into ownerless power, and leave the victim¡¯s body to deliver it back to their queen.. Leaving their ce to another flea. Their behaviour was simr to that of ants, who would look for sources of food, and slowly bring it back to their queen.

    The worms that had drilled on Daniel¡¯s leg, on the other hand, were connected to the massive worm, and had reached him by digging underground, and stretching all the way to his position. The liquefied flesh of which they were feasting on then went through their long body, and became susainment for therger worm.

    "You are powerful, there is no doubt about that." said a voice that came from in between therge maws of the tick. "But you should have paid more attention to your surroundings." He then added while moving his thousands of feet in order to slowly approach Daniel¡¯s position.

    Once a in front of him, the back of the tick-like parasite lord swell to hundreds of times the size it was before. He then lifted his entire body, showing the disgusting mouth that was hidden by the hundreds of tiny feet that moved in and out of its mouth. He was getting ready to grab Daniel, and tear him into pieces.

    Despite the situation, Daniel looked at this monster with disappointment, and after shaking his head, he said "The idiots are always the ones who die first."

    Daniel¡¯s words triggered a visceral reaction on the parasite lord, who immediately attempted to devour him whole. At the same time, behind him, the other two parasite lords were looking at Daniel in shock.

    "GET BACK BROTHER!! NO!" Shouted the flea queen, who had felt her trillions of microscopic fleas be filled with immortal essence with a speed beyond what was humanly possible, and explode due to the excess of power.

    The massive worm, on the other hand, had felt a powerful healing essence restore Daniel¡¯s liquefied flesh before his extensions would even be able to swallow it.

    Unfortunately, it was already toote. Daniel had reached outwards with his hand, and ced it on the forehead of the massive thick.. After no longer than a second, the body of the tick began to cave in, and copse.

    A ck hole had formed inside his body, but while he would have probably been able to escape this sort of attack, before he could even react, his consciousness was drawn into the darkness along with fatty flesh.

    Daniel only stopped when what was left of the massive tick was nothing but apressed ball of mush.

    "Who the hell are you?!" asked therge worm in shock.

    "A question?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. He then shook his head once again, and added "I see that killing two of you was not enough.. Fine. Why are you here?"

    The beast-like demon, enraged by Daniel¡¯s behaviour, dashed with all the power he could muster, but when he arrived in front of him, and attempted to sh through Daniel¡¯s body and turn him into a pieces, he quickly found out that his arm was missing. Then, when his eyes turned to look back at Daniel, he found himself able to see his headless body stand in front of Daniel from high up in the sky.. Before the light went out on him.

    As soon as the demon¡¯s body fell on the ground, uncovering Daniel¡¯s bloody face, Daniel stepped past the corpse of the demon, ripping the worms out of his skin and erasing the simple mental processes of the microscopic fleas, and said "Why are you here?.." This time, his tone was cold enough to form a fearful reactions in the weaker minds of the three survivors.

    The massive worm immediately understood that the three of them had no possibility of fighting back.. So he said with a trembling voice "We don¡¯t have anything ag-"

    Before he could finish, however, Daniel waved his hand in front of him, causing for his massive body to be twisted in a hundred different directions, and turn into a pieces of fat and white blood. "Why are you here?" He asked once again.

    The armored demon, and the woman in flea-shape, who were still unscathed, were now utterly terrified. The wrong word.. Regardless of whether they meant to respond truthfully or not, was enough for this lone human to im their lives. Every breath, every blink of an eye.. Every drop of sweat.. The two were too scared to do anything at all.

    In front of them, was death.

 Chapter 330 How to Gain a Powerful Ally Part 4

    The battle wasing to a conclusion. Most of the monsters that had been attracted by Sewah¡¯s power had already perished, while the rest were still struggling to put an injury on his massive and extremely resistant body.

    Injured, but still alive, the demons looked on without any intention on helping out. Sewah¡¯s attacks were too powerful, and in their eyes, there was no reason why he would be able to distinguish them from the monsters, the moment they would join the fray. So, after finishing off all of the monsters left, therge number of demonic cultivators approached the area where Sewah was fighting, and formed a circle around him.. Helping only if required, but in the end, aside from killing one or two monsters that were sent past the barrier of demons, no help was required.

    After a few minutes of fighting, thest of the monsters was killed, leaving Sewah alone, and standing on an area of which nothing but dust and the corpses of the monsters remained.

    The sight of him standing in his berserker state for a good minute after the end of the battle, was enough to give a scare to the many demonic cultivators, who wished all but to face him while in the state he was currently in. Their worries were set aside, however, after Sewah¡¯s body began to shrink back to his previous size, and his eyes became clear once again.

    Now sane, Sewah turned to look at his surroundings. He was new to the skills of the owner of his body, and he wanted to make sure that he hadn¡¯t killed anyone he shouldn¡¯t have killed.

    Standing around Sewah, was themander of the forces of the faction of the beastmasters, along with the young woman, her wolfpanion, and the chief of the aerial division.

    When the first factions of hell had decided to leave to explore their former home, a war between factions had started. The two coalitions were made-up of the factions who wanted to keep hell as an isted world in which no powerful group from the outside universe could set foot on, and the factions that had grown arrogant enough to im that there was nothing to fear in the powers of the outside universe, and that their arrival to hell was a gift that had allowed for their people to evolve into a superior species, which was made to be stronger than the weak humankind of which they were once part of.

    Part of those who wanted to preserve hell, was the faction of the beastmasters. Their main worry was that the powers of the outside universe, due to their massivelyrger amounts of resources, could have been able to progress faster than they did.. and that if they opened hell to humanity, they would ultimately end up being once again kicked out of their home, just like their forefathers had been, uncountable years before.

    Amongst the numerous factions who wished to challenge the universe, were the Law of Mimicry, the Church of Damnation, and a faction called ¡¯The Ungovernable Bunch¡¯.

    The Ungovernable Bunch was a faction made out of all of the groups and families of raiders, isted tribes, and overall rowdy groups of demons. Naturally, the Oni tribe was part of this faction.

    At the time of the war, The Ungovernable Bunch and the faction of the beastmasters had engaged in battle more than once due to the proximity of their territory. To this battle, had taken ce both themander of the army of the beastmaster faction, and Ro¡¯ah.. Commonly known as the leader of the Oni tribe.

    The two had never truly engaged in battle, but they had been aware of each other¡¯s presence for the whole duration of the war, which had ended only after the appointed leader of the Ungovernable Bunch had been in by the Demon Lord that lead the beastmaster faction, and herpanion, a legendary demonic beast who the entirety of hell¡¯s inhabitants knew as ¡¯The Lupa¡¯.

    The war came to an end when the leaders of the numerous factions agreed on keeping hell closed, but only under the condition that, the faction who wished to leave, would be allowed to.

    After the end of the war, the beastmaster faction had been given the role of guarding the gates of hell. The death of the demon lord of the Ungovernable Bunch, on the other hand, had caused for the faction to disband, only to regroup once every hundred years to participate to the signing of the demonic pact as a single faction.

    A very long time had passed since the war, and thanks to the meeting that happened once every hundred years, the beastmasters and the former members of the ungovernable bunch had managed to find a way to erase their enmity.. And that way, was to ignore each other¡¯s existence.

    For themander of the beastmaster army it was a great surprise to hear that the leader of the oni demons had decided to walk the pilgrimage alongside them, but since the representative of the Cruga family had vouched for him, he had allowed it.

    However, what was an even bigger shock to him, was the power that the Oni Demon possessed. Only a hundred years had passed since theirst encounter, and while he knew that the Ro¡¯ah he once knew had be powerful enough to kill one of his rivals in duel, he certainly did not expect that his power could have grown so wide.. To a point where he believed that the only demon more powerful than him within the convoy, was the demon lord himself.

    The young demoness quickly noticed that themander was in a state of shock. So she took the initiative, and stepped forward. On her face was a polite smile which matched the gracefulness of the words she pronounced "Oni Leader Ro¡¯ah, we greatly appreciate your help in this battle. We don¡¯t know how many more would have died if you had not intervened." she said with politeness.

    Next to her was her four leggedpanion, whose mane burned like hellish fire, and whose eyes remained pointed at Sewah¡¯s body. Its size was bigger than when Daniel had saw it the first time, but smaller than it was during the fight. Now, it was standing at the height of a young demoness.

    It was not the first time for Sewah to hear the name of the demon whose body he had possessed. The first time, had been when he had shown up to the borders of Animalicus, when one of the patrols had recognized him, and called him by his name. It then took a really difficult and awkward conversation with Eken, to find out that Ro¡¯ah was the name of the leader of the Oni Tribe.

    Not interested in other people¡¯s gratitude, Sewah waved hisrge hand casually, and said, "No problem." He then turned to look at the massive spherical storm that was enraging a few hundred kilometers away from the convoy, before setting his gaze to the top of the volcano that was rtively closer to their position.

    Since Sewah had no intention of having a conversation, the young demoness turned to look at themander, and the leader of the aerial division. She then asked, "What kind of monsters were they? Anything that you have ever encountered before?"

    These questions were finally able to wake themander up from his distracted state.. But instead of responding, he turned to look at the demons grouped around, and said with amanding tone, "Go back to your caravans, and make a death count. Report to me as soon as you finish." He then turned to look back at the young demoness, and added, "No, mdy. These monsters were part of our forces.. Something caused them to transform into these hideous beings after their deaths. The closest I have ever seen to this was the puppeteer faction, but they are our allies, and their controlling of dead bodies never caused them to transform like this."

    "What did my gra-The Demon Lord say about this?" Asked the young demoness after spending a few moments in confusion. Her experience was nowhereparable to that of themander, so she was the least one of those who could have an exnation for this.

    As if remembering something extremely important, the eyes of themander shed with worry, before turning to look at the massive spherical storm that was taking ce far away from their position.

    "The moment I have reported what was happening, the Lord informed me that two demon lords had appeared. He and The Lupa went to encounter them.." He said while trying to find out what was going on in the middle of the storm.

    A battle between four beings at a demon lord level, if it took ce in the outside universe, would be enough to cause the destruction of a sr system at the very least. However, due to the odd restrictions of Hell, the area of destruction around these four powerful characters had been blocked to the shape of a sphere, inside which the four fought with enough power to turn the whole area into sphere of destruction and mayhem.

    The young demoness looked at that direction in worry. Not only because she was worried that the leader of their faction and the demonic beast that apanied him could lose this fight, but also because he was her grandfather.

    However, a strange detail caused her to turn her attention from the spherical storm in the distance, to the standing figure of the oni leader. What was strange was that he was not looking at the battle between the four beings at the demon lord level, but instead, was looking at a volcano a few kilometers away.

    "Oni Leader Ro¡¯ah, do you have any idea of what might have happened to them?" She asked with curiosity. For some reason, she had a hunch that Sewah might have known something more than they did.

    Of course, Sewah had already recognized the monsters of the parasitic faction. After all, he had spent more than a month stuck in a spaceship with Daniel, Der, and Jerigh while their tried to survive the strange attack.

    Nevertheless, he had no intention of spilling the beans. Be it because he was not sure whether revealing this information would hinder Daniel¡¯s n, or because there was no way for him to exin his encounter with these parasites, without recounting everything else. So he said, "Something tells me that you will know soon.."

    Sewah¡¯s words did nothing but deepen the confusion that was clouding the minds of the three demons. It was only after the wolf turned to look at the volcano, that the three demons turned as well, and noticed seven small tforms float in the air.

    These seven tforms were slowly moving towards the convoy, and the closer they came, the clearer what they were carrying became.

    While five of these tforms were simple bs of constructed space that were carrying something, the remaining two were cages of dark essence.

    One second after the other went by, and along the passing of each of them, came a change in the expression of the three demons. Curiosity, surprise, shock, horror, and sheer confusion could be seen take one the ce of the other for a long minute, when finally, the seven tformsnded on the ground in front of them.

    Four of the five spatial tforms were carrying the remains of just as many different cultivators, two of which were demons, and two were the carcasses of what looked like a massive worm, and a small ball of mush, both of which were made with what felt like the power of a human cultivator.

    The two cages, on the other hand, were carrying a woman in red clothes, and a demon who resembled a walking medieval steel te armor. Both of them appeared extremely scared, and couldn¡¯t help but take short peeks at thest tform.

    Sitting with his legs crossed above thisst tform, and with his head resting on his own fist, was Daniel.

 Chapter 331 How to Gain a Powerful Ally Part 5

    While the three demons of the beastmasters faction were not able to recognize the human woman caged inside of one of the two cages, they were extremely familiar with the demon trapped in the other, as well as the two dismembered corpses that were being transported by two of the five spatial tforms.

    ording to the memories of themander, these three were the current leaders of just as many different families of demons.. all of which belonged to the disbanded faction called ¡¯The Ungovernable Bunch¡¯. Their individual power was only second to his own, and the strangeness of their presence here was only matched by the odd state they were presented to him.

    From the way the two had been trapped, and the way in which the four corpses were being carelessly carried around, it didn¡¯t take for themander to guess what had happened. The human that was sitting in such a carefree manner had probably captured the two, and killed the rest.

    "Who are you?" he asked to Daniel with a cautious tone, and while letting the odd snake move over his shoulder, so that he could grab his weapon with both hands.

    The state of mind of all of the cultivators that had survived the attack was still unstable, and seeing theirmander hold his weapon against an individual that they had never seen before, was enough for them to be wary of Daniel¡¯s presence.

    "You are that human.." muttered the young demoness before turning to look at themander, and adding, "He is the only other person who came with the Oni Leader.. I believe he is.. His ve.."

    Both themander and the captain of the aerial division looked at Daniel in confusion. Every single corpse or prisoner above the tforms possessed a power that could bepared to themander himself, whom aside from Sewah and the demon lord he was escorting, was supposed to be the strongest demon present. He himself was unsure whether he would be able to triumph against these three demons without the support of hispanion, the demonic beast with the snake¡¯s body, and the horned tiger¡¯s head.. Not to talk about six.

    It was clear from the expressions on the faces of the three demons that they were unsure of what to do. Sewah had been of undoubtable help during the attack, and that was despite formerly being associated to the three demons that Daniel had just brought in front of them.

    From the very moment Daniel had arrived at the convoy, the trapped demon had noticed Sewah¡¯s presence. He belonged to the same faction he belonged to, and seeing him here, along with the cultivators he had just attacked, had left him at a loss of words. It was only after he heard of the possibility that Daniel might have been Sewah¡¯s ve, that a sparkle of hope light in his heart.

    "Ro¡¯ah, my friend! Please help me out of here!" He said while looking at the demon he used to know, but that instead, ignored himpletely.

    Being ignored was a harsh blow to the demon, who at the moment, feared Daniel more than anything else in hell. So he slowly turned around in the hope that his sudden cry for help hadn¡¯t angered his captor, only to meet Daniel¡¯s gaze. "I am dead.. I am dead.. I am dead.." thought the demon as his unstable knees gave out, forcing him to fall on the floor of the cage with a clunk sound.

    Daniel had no intention of killing his prisoners, as he needed them to leverage an alliance with the demon lord. So he turned to look at themander, and said, "I caught these little mice sneaking around during the attack.. I figured your lord would have loved to have a chat with them."

    Seeing that Daniel had no intention of exining any further, themander turned to look at Sewah, and asked "Ro¡¯ah, is it true? Is he your ve?" He asked in hope to at least obtain an answer to one of the many questions that filled his mind. However, he quickly noticed that the demon he had met so many times, had even less interest in his questions than Daniel himself.

    Left with no other choice, themander turned to look at the demon trapped inside one of the two cages. "Hagah, what is going on? Why were the three of you here? And who his this human?" His tone was filled with exasperation. It was clear that there was a lot to know about the attack, but the fact that nobody had any intention of clearing up any of his doubts, was starting to get to his nerves.

    Unfortunately for him, the result of his inquire was nowhere different than the previous two. Instead of answering, the armored demon kept quiet, and took a small peek at Daniel. Once he saw that he hadn¡¯t been given the permission to talk, he decided to keep quiet. There was no way that he would possibly waste his only chance of survival by speaking without permission.. Not while Daniel was still there.

    The exasperation that themander was feeling was starting to turn into annoyance, but while he was not happy about this treatment, he had no way to demand for an answer to his questions.. At least not from Sewah, who he was sure to be above his level, or Daniel, who seemed to have been able to subdue six cultivators slightly less powerful than he was.. A feat that he was not sure would be able to replicate.

    Due to the increasing frequency of the sonic booms that hade from the storm that was ensuing a few hundred kilometers away, Daniel was able to guess that the battle would soone to an end. So instead of bothering with the demons in front of him, he took a fire treasure out of his spatial ring, and began to y with it.

    This action caught the attention of the three demons, which looked at Daniel¡¯s every action carefully.

    After looking at the fire treasure that he was holding in his hand for a few moments, Daniel began to pour immense amounts of immortal essence into it, which turned into fire essence right before pushing through the treasure¡¯s surface.

    While the chief of the aerial division and themander were paying attention to Daniel, the young demoness and her wolfpanion were looking at the small sphere in his hand. The expression of the young demoness in particr was filled with a curiosity which, at every passing second, became pure and undisclosed shock.

    The piece of coal that Daniel was holding in his hand had, in about ten seconds, turned into a high level fire sphere.

    What shocked the young demoness the most, was not the presence of a fire sphere, but the speed in which Daniel was able to create one.

    The need for essence spheres was recent for the demons, and dated back to the end of thest great wall. Essence treasures were a resource that did not belong to hell, and for the demons that lived in it, the only possibility to obtain a sphere, was to either leave hell and deal with humans, or buy them by using the members of the other factions as middlemen.

    Of all of the essence spheres bought from these factions, at least seventy-five percent of them would end up being purchased by the beastmaster faction, and for a good reason. The demons had evolved for tens of thousands of years without the slightest bit ofprehension of mana. Their whole power revolved around their innate powers and uniquely different bodies. The same was for the demons of the faction of beastmasters, whom had developed the ability to bond with demonic beasts.

    The time when the faction of beastmasters had discovered the essence spheres that were somon in the outside universe, was also the day where their power had grown by leaps and bounds.

    Amongst the many races of demonic beasts, was the weak race of beasts called ¡¯Spiritual Wolves of Mana¡¯. This race of demonic wolves would grow through the consumption of the surrounding mana, and if lucky enough to encounter an area with enough of it, they would evolve into powerful hunters against which no other race of demonic beast couldpete with.

    Unfortunately, since the only method for these wolves to evolve was through the consumption of a singr type of mana, their development required hundreds, if not thousands of years. At that point, they would usually already be adults, and close to impossible to tame, and bond with. Only a very small number of people had ever managed to find cubs that were young enough for that purpose, but since they were so difficult to raise, not many would pick them aspanions.

    These were the reasons why the spiritual wolves of mana had been considered a weak race of demonic beasts up until a few thousand years ago.

    That changed when the factions that had ventured outside of hell had brought back numerous items that had been manufactured by humans. Amongst them, were the elemental spheres. No other faction was knowledgeable about the nature of the spiritual wolves of mana, so when the faction of beastmasters had found interest in the essence spheres that they had brought back into hell, nobody thought much of it, except for an opportunity to milk money out of the faction of the beastmasters.

    However, That was a big mistake.

    Thousands of years had passed since then, and during these years, the price of the essence spheres grew as fast as the notoriety of these wolves, making it extremely difficult for the faction of beastmasters to obtain enough resources to raise them, not to talk about experimenting with rare types of essence.

    High level fire essence spheres were not particrly rare or expensive, but from what the young demoness knew, they required argeprehension of fire essence, as well as a high level of control, maniption, and input of immortal essence to produce.. While the human in front of her, had created one in seconds.

    After finishing the fire sphere, Daniel looked at the wolf that was still staring at him with deadly serious eyes. He then showed the sphere to it, causing his eyes to shift from his body, to the sphere. Trying to kill his boredom, Daniel moved his hand left and right, smiling at the way the wolf moved his head in order to follow the sphere.

    A minuteter, he threw the sphere in the wolf¡¯s direction, making itnd about a meter in front of the massive wolf.

    While interested, the wolf did not move. He instead sniffed it a few times, before sitting on the ground, and going back to look at Daniel. It was clear that the wolf wished to consume the sphere, but there was only one person in the world that this wolf trusted with what he would consume, and Daniel, was not that person.

    Unless the young demoness made sure that the sphere of fire essence was safe for him, the wolf would never take it.

    Slightly disappointed by the wolf¡¯s reaction, Daniel turned to look at the spheric storm that was still raging in the distance.. just in time to see it decrease in intensity. The battle between the four demon lord entities had ended.

    As soon as the battle ended, two figures appeared at the edges of the convoy right next to thergest convoy. One of them was a simple humanoid demon, while the other was a massive demonic beast.

    "Don¡¯t look at me like that. Were you not there?? They said nothing! The gatekeeper is probably dead too.." said the demon to the massive beast, which while being as tall as a mountain, was still looking at him as if trying to pry into the demon¡¯s mind in order to pick his thoughts.

    Amongst the happy expressions of the people who had been waiting in hope until now, was Daniel¡¯s distraught one, deeply buried in the palm that he was pressing tightly against his forehead. He had already seen this demon.. And the aspect of the demonic beast that followed him, finally made him realize something very important.

    The demon lord, leader of the faction of beastmasters, was no other than the old man who had gotten extremely mad at Daniel when he had fed the dark essence spheres to the demonic wolf cub..

    The beast that followed him, was a female wolf that reached the height of a kilometer, and the length of one and a half without counting the long tail that seemed to go on beyond what the eye could see. This massive wolf waspletely white in color, and appeared to bepletely made out of ice. She was the one and only beast in hell at the level of a demon lord, and was through hell known as ¡¯The Lupa¡¯.

    Before the demon lord could even ask for a report about the attack to themander, he waved his hand, causing the door of the carriage to open. As soon as the door opened, about six wolf cubs came out of the carriage, jumping and running to wee the old man and their mother back.

    The grumpy expression of the old man broke into a big smile the very moment he saw these cubs run in his direction.. So he bent his knees, and opened his arms in preparation for the wolf cubs to jump on him. However, not all of them did.. The fastest amongst the group, a wolf cub with a ck tail, ignored the old demon lordpletely, and ran in Daniel¡¯s direction instead.

    Daniel immediately recognized the wolf cub that ran in his direction, and while happy to see it again, he couldn¡¯t help but feel the coldness of the pair of eyes that were pointed at him.. The eyes of no one but the Lupa herself.

 Chapter 332 Second Great War of Hell Part 1

    Daniel ignored the ice cold look of the lupa, and instead tapped his thighs in order to convince the wolf cub to jump onto hisp, but a low grow stopped him before it could take the leap.

    As soon as the growl reached the cub¡¯s ears, his long tail stopped wagging around. It thenid down on its belly, with his muzzle ced in between his paws. This behaviour was not out of the fear he felt from his mother, but a habit he and the rest of the litter had picked up from his older siblings.. like thepanion of the young demoness, which was lowering his head, and sitting quietly.

    Right after the lupa made sure that her cub wasn¡¯t doing anything she didn¡¯t approve of, she turned to look at the demon lord with eyes colder than outer space itself.

    The demon lord tried to stop the cubs from jumping all over him, and at the same time, he felt the temperature of the entire area drop of several degrees. In a matter of moments, the area became cold enough to turn his breaths visible.

    For a good minute the demon lord tried to ignore hispanion, as he had already noticed and recognized Daniel, and did not want to have anything to do with the lupa¡¯s anger.. But he quickly found out that there was no way for him to avoid it. The Lupa was still angered with him for letting her cub wander alone while he slept, causing him to be fed by a stranger, and be fixated with dark essence.

    A spiritual wolf of mana would be able to grow by feeding off of all types of essences at first, but since the natural types of mana were too diluted with one another, the younger wolves would never be able to test any pure type of essence. The cub which Daniel had met, on the other hand, had managed to get a taste of perfect dark essence, and that was enough for it to be obsessed with it.

    Unfortunately, the essence of darkness was amongst the poorest types of essence present in the universe, and the vast majority of the known dimensions. The only dimension which had plenty of it, was the realm of shadows to which only one of Iewah¡¯s children had ess to.

    The entirety of the concepts of darkness were so rare to encounter, that to gain a perfectprehension of dark essence had been deemed impossible, just like the gaining a perfectprehension of time, and life essence.

    "Stop looking at me like that, I told you! I closed my eyes for a minute, and he escaped!" said the demon lord with exasperation, but without daring to look back at the massive snow white wolf. He then turned to look at themander he had picked to apany him to the signing of the demonic pact, and asked "Vorah, how did things go here?" The drops of sweat that were running down his back were now freezing due to the low temperature, which he preferred to withstand than to argue with his stubborn and overly protectivepanion.

    "My lord, we were able to minimize the damage to our forces thanks to the help of the oni leader, but there is something wrong with that human over here.." Responded themander while pointing at Daniel, who was showing a dark essence sphere to the cub in an attempt to convince him toe closer.

    The demonic wolf cub, young as he was, didn¡¯t know better than to disobey to his mother. So while taking short peeks at her, and making sure that she was not keeping an eye on him, the cub began to shuffle with his paws, and move closer to Daniel bit by bit.

    However, the sneaky actions of the two were interrupted the moment the demon lord approached them. Next to him, was the lupa, who had shrunk to a smaller size to be able to follow herpanion in between other people.

    "Human, I thought I told you not to go around feeding demonic beasts as you please." Said the demon lord with a serious tone and narrowed eyes.

    If not for the remnants of power that were being emanated by the demon¡¯s body, Daniel would have sworn that this demon was not a cultivator. His behaviour was not that of an ancient fighter, and his rtionship with the beast that followed him around was akin to that of a brother, and an over the top sister.

    While notpletely serious before, the moment the demon lord had noticed the simrity to the powers of the woman within the dark cage and one of the cultivators he and the lupa had just finished fighting against, he became extremely serious.

    "Really? It sounded more like a mixture of rumbled mumbles and penny-pinching talk to me.." Responded Daniel before finally flinging the dark essence sphere in the direction of the cub, which was nowying on the ground as still as it could.

    As soon as the dark essence sphere left Daniel¡¯s hand, it froze in space.. Followed by Daniel¡¯s fingertips, knuckles, and wrist. The lupa hadn¡¯t liked how casually Daniel was talking to herpanion, nor that he was trying to meddle with her child, so she used a fraction of her power to teach him a lesson.

    This attack left Daniel curious to say the least. Not only had his body reached the temperature of absolute zero in an instant, but his soul had frozen along with it.

    While unsure whether his consciousness would also be frozen if he allowed for the ice to advance all the way to his head, he had no intention of testing it. Every particle of his flesh and power had turned into separate crystals of ice, so he quickly turned his other hand into a thin de, and used it to cut his hand along with a portion of his forearm.. blocking the advancement of the icepletely.

    The moment his frozen hand fell on the ground, it shattered into fragments so small, that instead of falling on the ground, merged with the surrounding air, and were blown away by the wind.

    It is important to understand that, this type of attack, did not belong to theprehension of water. A water elemental born from a perfectprehension of water essence would not be able to freeze the spiritual essence within another person¡¯s body, as theprehension of which they were made of was based on the physics ording to which water would behave in every possible circumstance.

    The ice produces by the lupa, on the other hand, was different.. And much closer to a magical origin than not.

    Daniel¡¯s regenerative powers kicked in immediately after his hand was cut, forcing a new one to reform in a matter of seconds.

    The demon lord knew that hispanion had no real intention of killing Daniel, so he observed in silence as she gave this sarcastic human a lesson.. It was only after seeing Daniel¡¯s decisiveness, and obscenely quick regenerative power, that he became curious. "Okay, enough." he said to hispanion, which looked at him for a moment, then stopped after noticing that he was not in the mood of arguing.

    The demon lord approached Daniel, while emitting a fraction of his power. A power against which Daniel¡¯s survival instincts screamed to run away from, just like when he had felt the true power of the oni leader he had killed.

    Naturally, Daniel¡¯s mentality hadn¡¯t evolved along with his regenerative power, so when he felt a power that was miles away from his, his instincts would still tell him to leave as quickly as possible even if that being would not be able to kill him.

    Once in front of Daniel, the demon lord looked at the beings that eitherid dead on the ground, or were trapped behind dark bars that slowly absorbed the prisoners¡¯ power.

    "You have a minute to tell me why I shouldn¡¯t believe that you have something to do with this attack. Fail, and nothing will remain of you to heal." Said the demon lord while emitting enough power to force all of the cultivators in the area into a state of anxiousness.

    Daniel, however, was not affected. He smiled casually, and said "It¡¯s a long story. How about five minutes?"

    "You better hurry.. You are down to fifty seconds."

    "..."

    Left with no other choice, Daniel began to exin the story that had lead him to where he was.

    -----

    The whole story took Daniel more than fifty seconds to recount, but he was able to go through its entirety without being interrupted.

    The moment the demon king had understood that Daniel probably had nothing to do with the attack, was when he had recounted his past with the church of damnation. He could remember that the church of damnation had demanded for their faction to help in the search of a human that had intruded into hell around the time when Daniel had imed to have arrived. It didn¡¯t take long for him to realize that Daniel was, in fact, that human that had sneaked past a member of his faction.

    What had left him perplexed, however, was how Daniel could have possibly grown to the power he possessed in less than two years. From what the church of damnation had told him, Daniel was not even close to being at the level of a simple high demon, and now, he sat in front of him.. Surrounded by the bodies of entities at the noble demon level whom he had killed, and two whom he had decided to spare.

    After listening to the whole story, the demon lord asked "Do you know who the humans who attacked us are?"

    In response to the demon lord¡¯s question, Daniel shrugged his shoulders. He then casually pointed his finger at the noble demon trapped in the cage of darkness, and said "If I were you I would be more interested in the ¡¯why¡¯ they attacked.."

    "Speak." Said the demon lord after turning to look at the noble demon.

    Before responding, the demon turned to look at Daniel with fear, almost as if waiting for him to allow him to talk.. To which Daniel responded by waving his hand disinterestedly.

    The dark barrier disappeared, and the human woman and the armored demon were left on their knees, shaking in fear. The idea of escaping never even made an appearance in their heads.

    After taking a deep breath, the armored demon began to exin.

    "As the war that took ce thousands of years ago reached its final stage, we knew that we had no chance of winning. The powers that preferred to hide here outnumbered us three to one.. In the end we were allowed to leave hell, but our movement were limited by our former enemies.." said the demon with undisclosed anger.

    For his side, the war had a much deeper meaning that just a battle to keep a safe haven for their race to live in. They wanted vengeance against the humans that had forced them into hiding..

    Unfortunately, through the passage of time, most factions had grownfortable with what they had. Their hate towards humans gradually disappeared, just like their happiness towards their circumstances grew.

    What was worse, was that after being allowed out of hell, these ambitious factions had encountered powers which they could not even imagine. Powers that had reminded them why the demons were in hell, and the humans enjoyed the vastity of the universe.

    Weaker than ever, these factions began to wait.

    For thousands of years they worked to secure a ce for themselves within the universal government, and expanded as far as their position allowed them to. At the same time, they formed rtionships with human factions, while recounting the mysticality of the hell they regretted not being able to open for all to enjoy.

    However, through the years, the n of these demonic factions began to change. The universe was much bigger than hell, and if they wanted for the demonkind to thrive in it, they had to climb the hierarchy of this mostly human organization.

    ".. a demon lord, and a human cultivator of a simr level have been sent against each of the thirteen demon lords who fought to keep hell closed during the war.. I would imagine your lordship is the only one that was able toe out of the fight in such a state.." Said the armored demon after finishing to exin what was going on through hell.

    Of all of the demon lords within hell, no one had the safety of hell more to heart than the leader of the Beastmasters. Not only because hell was his home, but because it was home to the beasts whose bounding made his faction so powerful.

    Furious, the demon lord looked at the demon, and asked, "Is the signing of the demonic pact cancelled?" to which the demon responded by shaking his head.

    After making sure that the signing of the demonic pact would still take ce, the demon lord became pensive for a good minute, then turned to look at his granddaughter andmander, "Vorah, Nichsa, go back to Animalicus. Send the order to evacuate the main cities of our territory, and wait for my return. Hell won¡¯t be invaded by anyone as long as I¡¯ll have a say in it." he said before turning in the direction of hell¡¯s core, and preparing to leave.

    Daniel, who had remained quiet until now, said "You will never defeat all of them.. Not without me."

    "I admit you are strong, human.. But your power only takes you so far." Responded the demon lord in a dismissive tone. For how powerful Daniel appeared, he was far from being at the level of a demon lord.. And the ce where the leader of the faction of the beastmasters was going to, could possibly have more than twenty of them.

    "Fine, then I¡¯ll die.. What do you care. If I am right, however, you lose the only chance you have." Said Daniel with a casual tone, almost as if uninterested whether he could die or not.

    After hearing these words, the demon lord turned to look back at Daniel, and asked with narrowed eyes, "What do you have to gain from this? Why are you meddling in our business?"

    "I have friends to save.." said Daniel while finally standing up from the ground, and approaching the wolf cub. He then grabbed the dark sphere from the ground, and put it closer to the cub¡¯s muzzle. "..also, hell is not such a bad ce." he then added while looking at the cub chew on the dark sphere with delight, with a smile on his face.

    "Are those reasons more valuable than your life?" asked the demon lord with curiosity.

    Without turning to look back at him, Daniel muttered in a faint tone "..this battle will cost me a lot more than my life.."

 Chapter 333 Second Great War of Hell Part 2

    The core of hell was not exactly how one expected it to be. The humans who had entered hell first had roamed and walked around aimlessly for months, before finally finding themselves in front of an unnatural, and isted boulder. This stone emanated a faint and indistinguishable power which, once it drifted too far away from its source, would dissipate in hell¡¯s atmosphere, never to be felt again.

    Since these tired, defeated, and desperate human pioneerscked any form of information about the ce they had ended up in, the study of this stone had quickly be their new purpose.. Which lead them to be obsessed with it.

    Unfortunately, even after tens of years of research, no progression had been made in the study of this object. The only details discovered by these humans, were that the power of the stone could not be marked and controlled like most types of essence.. Almost like their ki, animal¡¯s beast essence, and other types of powers that were produced by a being, instead of being part of what was considered natural essence. Secondly, whilepletely harmless, this power would be denser, the more one would try to approach the stone.. to a point where one would feel stuck into a space of rubber which made it impossible for them toe close enough to touch it.

    During the long time spent studying this rock, which was believed to be something of great importance, a city had been built around it. In this city these humans had tried to reproduce and increase their numbers, while also basking in the fantasies that were created from the theories regarding this mystical stone.

    The more time passed without a new discovery in this research, however, the more the inhabitants of hell ended up losing interest in it, leading them to focus on the notion that they were in a new world that solely belongs to them, and that there was a lot more to discover aside from this slightly odd stone.

    Some of them started to think of starting new dynasties in ces of their own, some wanted to explore this dangerous and mysterious dimension with their friends, and some simply wanted to get away from the chaotic life of the city, and dreamed about founding their own empire, and be the rulers of their own nations.

    Their numbers, however, even after hundreds of years, were not high enough for them topletely rule the possibility of their extinction. After all, they had yet to evolve into being able to survive the harsh environment of hell, and only so many infants were able to survive the first stage of their lives.. The period of time between their birth, and the moment they would be cultivators.

    In order to keep the numbers in check, the poption of hell had decided to make a census.

    That census would take ce once every century, date in which the representatives of each group would have to go back to hell¡¯s core, and report their numbers.

    In the tens of thousands of years that followed, the people who still had an interest in the stone that marked hell¡¯s core, slowly died out.. Leaving the city that had been built around itpletely empty.

    What reced the interest in the mystical stone during these periodic censuses and became the main topic of conversation, were the slow changes that were appearing in the bodies of hell¡¯s inhabitants, as well as how their innate ki was turning into a powerpletely different.

    Each group began to change in a way that would better fit the environment where they had decided to live, which caused their bodies to gradually be more and more monstrous. Some began to grow tails, wings, horns, and even observe changes in their skin and senses.

    It didn¡¯t take long for a few religious fanatics to me these changes on the people. Preaching about how the sins theymitted had caused them to be demons, as well as how, what they believed to be a safe haven from their historical enemies, was in fact, being sent to hell..

    Due to the fear that came with these changes, many ended up believing the words of these preachers, which in time, became the main reason why hell had obtained the name it had, and the humans refused to be called humans anymore after growingfortable with the idea of being demons.

    While some groups ended up dying out through the course of tens of thousands of years, many other survived.. And after setting the foundations of their powers, what was left of their human side began to emerge. Desperation and hope were reced by politics and greed.. The desire for other people¡¯snds, as well as dominance over their enemies grew in the hearts.. All of this caused for the nature of the census to be changed from being a way to prevent the poption from dying out, to being an asion for each faction to boast their powers.

    Soon enough, these factions became less and less happy about the idea of sharing hell.. A line of thought that ultimately erased from history the reason of hell¡¯s main event. A census to make sure that everyone was able to thrive in this hostile territory, an event where the loss of one of these groups of pioneers was weed with sadness.

    The only thing that had never changed, was the ce in which the census, now called ¡¯signing of the demonic pact¡¯, would take ce. A city in ruins that surrounded hell¡¯s oldest and most forgotten mystery.. Hell¡¯s core.

    -----

    The day of the event had finallye, and soon enough, the city in ruins weed one convoy after the other. Each with a different banner, and lead by a demon whose power could turn worlds and star systems into nothingness.

    Venues were built, markets were grown around individual stalls, and camps were set. Each of these ces would explode with liveliness until the very end of the event, moment in which everything would be left to the mercy of the elements for the following hundred years.

    This time, however, the number of faction present were drastically lower than they were a century ago.. And the only ones that seemed to have attended, belonged to the factions who had once fought for hell to be an opened dimension.

    While the city was bustling with life, everyone seemed to be avoiding a building in particr. The ce in question was arge stadium built around the mystic stone that stood to symbolize the core of hell. From outside, however, no sound could be heard.

    The insides of this stadium was set into slices split by corridors, which if looked from high up above, made the stadium look like the wheel of a carriage. Each segment contained numerous seats, half of which were currently upied by the representatives of each faction of hell.

    At the narrow part of each segment, wererge thrones where the demon lords were currently sitting on, while in the middle, was arge and currently empty stage. Partially filling the segments reserved to the absent factions, were ten human cultivators which the demon lords treated with the same respect they reserved for one another.

    While the faction leader of the demonkind appeared to be exaggerated version of the members of their groups, each of them was highly respected, and not a single one of the demons that sat behind them dared to utter a single word without their permission.

    Amongst the ten demon lords and ten humans, if Daniel had been here, he would have been able to guess the identity of three of them. Two demon lords, and one human.

    The human was a tall and lean man with pitch ck hair that reached all the way down to his knees. His eyes were as red as blood, and while extremely good looking, a single look at him would force a person to take a step back in disgust. He was clothed in a ck set of regal clothes with embroideries of a color that matched that of his eyes, and underneath it, every now and then, something could be seen crawling. This human was one of the most feared individuals present, and the current faction leader of the parasitic faction.. The Parasite King.

    Of the human cultivators, the Parasite King was the only one with no other cultivator sitting behind him, as all of the followers that he had brought in hell, had been captured or killed by Daniel.

    The first demon lord whom Daniel could guess the identity of, was a stunningly beautiful demoness. She was extremely dignified, and while she did not possess wings, a tail, or even particrly sharp nails, her horns appeared to be carved from stone by a master sculptor.. And looked smooth, and extremely elegant. No item of clothing could be seen covering her body, but in the ces where the intimate parts of a woman were supposed to be, was a thicker skin that seemed to do little to cover her curves.. Which tended to distract the demons who put their eyes on her, from her emotionless expression.

    The reason why Daniel would be able to recognize her was not because she had seen her before, but because he would recognize the demoness that was sitting quietly at the far back of their segment as the demoness who had tried to abduct him.

    She was the leader of the Shapeshifters, and was vastly known in hell as Lady Night.

    The third andst demon whom Daniel would be able to guess the identity of, was what one would imagine a devil to look like. His body was not particrly big, and just slightly bigger of a very tall human, while also being athletic and well defined. From the top of his bald head, came two horns that moved out horizontally before curving upwards and inwards, with the tips ending in another upward curve. Each of his two wings was bigger than the rest of the body, and he always kept them only partially unfolded.. However, what was interesting about them, was that the left wing looked exactly like the wing of a ck dragon, while the right one appeared like the wing of a ck crow.

    His whole body was grey in color, except for the lower part of his legs, which turned into a red color that danced like a living fire tattooed on his skin. In his hand he was holding a golden scepter that was as high as he would be if he was standing.

    Sitting behind him were two demons. One with golden hair, and the other with white horns. The two of them were the leaders of their respective families, and behind them, sat their oldest children, as well as an individual which Daniel would recognize immediately.

    While notpletely human, this individual stood out from the demons he was sitting with from the scales that covered his body, as well as the crown of spiked horns on his head. His slit like green pupils were scouting his surroundings, and seemed to oftennd on one of the entrances present in between the segments of the stadium, from which came a specific odor which he was very familiar with.

    This individual was, of course, Xargy.. And the demon who sat on the throne present at the narrow end of their segment, was the leader of the Church of Damnation.. Known by many names, but mostly recognized as the Savior of the Damned, the Horned God.. or the Devil.

    For a group of cultivators with such high levels of power to reunite like this, would be forbidden in the outside universe. Each of the human cultivators alone had, at one point in time, been powerful enough to be a severe threat to the Universal Government when in its younger stages.. And an encounter of such level, if without proper supervision of the government, was not only frowned upon, but an infringement of the government¡¯s rules.

    However, Hell was not under the rule of the universal government.

    These powerful individuals, as well as the warriors that followed them, were waiting for the sign that would have started the event.. A sign that sent out by an old and well dressed demon which walked up the stage, picked up the massive blow horn ced on a stone pedestal, and blew in it at the top of his lungs, causing for a powerful wave of deep and loud noise to travel through the whole city ... indicating the beginning of the signing of the demonic pact.

 Chapter 334 Second Great War of Hell Part 3

    "Good evening your lordships. I, hell¡¯s historical keeper, wee you all to this signing of the demonic pact." Said the old demon while turning to look at the demon lords, and powerful humans present in the arena. When his eyesnded on the humans that were currently upying the thrones reserved for the usual factions, however, his face changed from a weing one, to one filled with doubt and confusion.

    It was clear to the eyes of everyone present, that this old demon did not appreciate the presence of humans to an event which was considered, at least by the group to which he belonged, almost sacred.

    The historical keepers of hell were the one and only group of demons which could be considered truly neutral. They would never offend anyone, nor be offended back. Their only purpose and goal was to record the history of hell, as well as host the signing of the demonic pact, which for them, was considered the greatest of honors.

    After greeting the demon lords that were present one by one, the old demon asked, "The presence of human cultivators in hell breaches the agreements drawn up in the period that followed the conclusion of the Great War.. can I take it that this was a voluntary action from your lordships, and that hell isn¡¯t being invaded by humans?"

    His words were clear. To the historical keeper, which side would win a war or an argument was only of partial importance, and all they cared about, was to record the truth. His intent was not that of reprimand the action of these demons, but to know how things were going to go from then on.

    To respond, was one of the demon lords. A humanoid being with branches that came out of his body, and a skull like face with an undying me thate out of his eyes, nosehole, and mouth. He was currently sitting on the throne at the spearhead of the segment to the right of that of the Church of Damnation. After hearing the question of the historical keeper, he said, "We, holders of power, have decided to reject the authority that the agreement gives to the absent Demon Lords."

    "And what method did your lordship employ to resolve this grievance?" asked the old demon, after turning to look at the demon lord who spoke to him.

    "Battle."

    At the mention of battle, the old man narrowed his eyes with curiosity, and after taking a massive leather bound book out of his spatial ring, he asked, "What was the result of the battle?"

    The demon lord covered in branches straightened his back, and after taking a deep breath and making sure that the attention was on him, he said with clear pride. "I have met Naro of the abyssal waters in battle. He perished." This news caused for noises of surprise to be hearding from the back of every single demon lord, but when it came to the demon lords themselves, not one of them was surprised.

    The historical keeper, however, was the most surprised of all. A demon lord was a demon lord, but not all demon lords were equal in power. This demon lord in particr, was amongst the weakest, and newest members to this rank. The demon called Naro of the abyssal waters, on the other hand, was one of the demons which had been crucial during the war that took ce thousands of years before, and for him to perish to this rookie, made no sense.

    While shocked, the old demon wrote what he had just heard into the leather bound book, then turned to look at the next demon lord, which looked back at him, and said "Namara of the Puppetteers, the fight was concluded without victims."

    To the words of this demon lord, followed those of all of the others, which quickly reported the results of their fights.

    ".. Sakia is dead."

    "My encounter with Le¡¯han ended uneventfully. I was able to convince him, but he decided not to participate."

    ".. dead."

    "..."

    There was no one in hell who knew more about the battle prowess of each demon lord, than the historical keepers. Every fight between demon lords that had taken ce in thest ten thousand years was recorded, and the results of each fight were free for everyone to see. Thanks to this knowledge, it didn¡¯t take long for him to realize that somethin was wrong ... aside for Lady Night, the Devil, and another demon, no other demon lord was a true match to the demons lords which they imed to have fought against.

    As soon as this doubt formed in his head, the old man realized why there were so many humans. This was not a simple breaching of an agreement, but the betrayal of one side of the demonkind, from the other side.

    "Your lordships, may I inquire about the fate of the factions whose lord have perished?" Asked the old man while slowly lowering his book.

    The demon lord with tree branches that came out from all over his body straightened his back once again, and said "We only wished to express our opinion to our peers. We have no intention of eradicating hell¡¯s heritage." His tone was righteous, but hidden in his mind, as well as the minds of most other faction leader, were thoughts of conquest, and greed.

    Naturally, the old demon did not buy this lie, but since it was not his ce to reprimand, he recorded the events in his book while saying "A truly wise choice, your lordship.. One that won¡¯t spare you the shame of exposing our home to human¡¯s greed in case, whatever may your projects for the future be, were to not go as nned."

    The power of the old demon could not match that of any of the demon lords, but just like an old patriarch whose muscles and bones weren¡¯t as strong as they used to be, he still felt like giving his opinion regarding the matter. Naturally, this opinion came from a ce of truth and objectivity.

    "Do you allow this vermin to speak to you like that?" Asked one of the human cultivators, a plump woman with purple clothes, behind which were a hundred soldiers d in the same exact armor. "Maybe you should simply kill anyone that doesn¡¯t agree with our presence here.." she then added, showing her willingness in killing the old demon herself, if the demon lords were to agree with her.

    Another of the human cultivators caught up with what the woman said, and quickly chimed in by saying "We can¡¯t allow for such a lie to be spread. This is not an invasion, we are guests. If your historian can¡¯t report the truth, then you should kill him, and write the truth yourself."

    The words of this second human were enough for the rest to feel entitled to their opinions, so one after the other, they decided to join in the conversation.

    While the demons opened hell to a certain number of human factions in order to gain allies and prestige within the universal government, the motives of the human factions werepletely different. A new territory had to be explored by the universal government first, and after being studied, the territory would be left for the factions to fight for, and inhabit.

    For the humans factions to be in hell was not only a breaching of the pact between the demons, but also a breaching of their agreements with the universal government.. Therefore, they could not allow for the news that they had invaded hell to spread.. They were guests, invited by the demon lords right before they willingly opened hell for all to explore. Any news different than that, would create trouble for all of them.

    After hearing theints of these humans, the demon lords either kept quiet, or looked at one another in an attempt to understand each other¡¯s thoughts.

    The stadium becamepletely silent for a good minute, a silence that was broken after one of the demon lords stood up from his throne. This demon lord was amongst the oldest and strongest ones, and along with the Devil, and Lady Night, was the only other one whose power could match that of the defeated demon lords. Due to this, his opinion was taken in high regard.

    Tall and muscr, with skin as red as a rose, and with horns that appeared like the horns of a bull, but much thicker at the base, this demon looked at the historical keeper, and said "Demonkind¡¯s history is going to merge with the rest. We will be one of the races that will dominate the universe, and not the ones that hide in our corner. Your order has served us well in the past, but we don¡¯t need you anymore." As he reached the end of the statement, he raised one of his hands, and caused for a me made out a mixture of fire and darkness to appear from within the book that the old demon was holding itself.

    The old demon was fully aware of the power of these mes, and he knew that he had no chance of putting them down with his power. The book which contained the history of hell, the book to which his n had dedicated their existence to, was going to be burned to ashes.. And he was willing to burn with it.

    The fire of the demon lord quickly began to spread, reaching the hands of the old demon, who looked at what happened with what could only be described as disappointment.. disgrace and destruction was what awaited demonkind, and what was worse, was that it would be caused by the demons themselves.

    Before these dark mes could consume the historical keeper, however, the temperature of the area began to drop. At first it was of only a few degrees, but then the area became so cold, that the saliva of the demons present began to freeze in their mouths. Around the mes that were burning the old man appeared a stratum of magical ice, which was able to freeze them into a solid state.

    "You breach our agreement, you let humans in to fight your battles, you sell your home for your own gain.. And now you try to erase our history. How far have all of you all fallen.." Said a powerful disembodied voice that all of the demon lords were quick to recognize, and pinpoint at the highest part of the stadium.

    There, six demons, a snow white wolf, and a human, were standing one next to the other.

    These six demons were, of course, the demon lords who had survived thebined attacks of the demon lords already present, and the human cultivators. Amongst them was the Lupa, the leader of the beastmaster faction, five others, and finally, Daniel.. Who was looking around, while also rubbing the ring he wore on his right hand with his thumb.

    "Lady Night.. I expected this level of scheeming from everyone else but you.." Said one of the demon lords who stood on the walls of the stage, a demoness with baggy clothes which covered an unnaturally slender, and pale green body.

    After hearing the words of this demoness, Lady Night, who seemed to have never spoken for the past ten thousand years, finally broke her silence to say "My dear friend, I see no other way for our kind to advance while shut in hell.. I only wish that you could see this as well." The sound of her voice was clear and sweet, despite the fact that her lips never moved while pronouncing these words, and instead reached for the ears of everyone present in the form of sound essence.

    The leader of the Church of Damnation, which until now had looked around quietly, and with an aloof expression.. finally noticed Daniel¡¯s presence. He then leaned forward on his sceptre, and said "I want that human. Give him to me, or I will make you feel true desperation."

    To hear the Devil talk was an odd event, just as much as it was to hear the voice of Lady Night. In two years, Xargy had been forced to follow him around while in fear of being killed at any moment, and yet he had never heard his voice. It was this very ation, however, that lead him to focus on the human whom his master was talking about.

    As soon as his eyesnded on the human¡¯s body, a big smile formed on his face.. A smile apanied by a happiness that was able to distract him from the fact that he hadn¡¯t been able to recognize Daniel¡¯s smell.

    He then said, "HA! You are all going to die!.."

 Chapter 335 Second Great War of Hell Part 4

    "Do not worry, leader of the Church of Damnation, I am here specifically to kill you once and for all." Said Daniel, while showing a confident smile. He then turned his head in the direction of the Parasite Lord, and added "And you."

    Aside from the Devil, Lady Night, Xargy, and the demons who had been put in charge of capturing him, no other person present was aware of who Daniel truly was. He appeared like a human cultivator whose power was disgustingly high for his age, but still too weak to pose any threat to them.

    Daniel¡¯s words caught the Parasite Lord off guard, who after turning to look back at him, he said, "Do I know you, young one?" to which Daniel responded with a faint smile, and a nod of his head.

    "I was lucky enough to witness a judge smite one of your vermin a few years back, after he tried to kill me." He said with feigned politeness, and undisclosed contempt.

    Of course, for a judge to kill a faction¡¯s elite was not that rare of an event. The judges were thousands, and the factions were even more. In the vast and boundless universe, for a situation that would ultimately end with someone¡¯s execution, was amon thing.. But when taken individually, not many elite members per faction would be killed in a year, if any at all. It was due to that, that the Parasite Lord was able to realize who Daniel was.

    This realization, however, was of great shock to him. For as small the event was, he remembered to have sent one of his low level elite members to capture the outcast of the Psionic Dimension, an action that had ultimately caused his death. To this result not only had participated the mental warrior, but also the much talked about first and only outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction.

    "Oh, it is you then.. To think that hell would be the ce where we would finally met." He said with a wide and creepy smile. "Maybe this is the day you pay for causing the death of an innocent and good man of my faction." He then added, suddenly turning serious.

    The words of the Parasite Lord had aedic effect to Daniel, who broke out inughter, and said "Ha! I assume he wasn¡¯t any more innocent than the other three I have killed. But at least you are the one with the most room here.."

    Daniel¡¯s words were enough to convince the parasite lord to drop his dignified act. He instead turned towards the devil, and said with a menacing tone "I am afraid I will have to im that kid for myself."

    Almost as if amused by this, the Devil turned to look back at the Parasite King, and said with a face devoid of any expression, and while tightening his grip on his sceptre, "How about this.. As soon as we get rid of all of them, you and I can.. ¡¯Discuss¡¯.. About who will have the kid." His tone was cold, and as emotionless as his expression was.

    After a faint smile, the Parasite King nodded in agreement, and after turning to the other human leaders, he said, "Friends, let¡¯s fulfill our purpose here, so that we can go back home."

    "Maybe you should exin better what you are implicating them in, Lord of Worms." Said Daniel with a loud and clear voice.

    The plump woman who spoke earlier in support of the idea of killing hell¡¯s historical keeper, now curious about what her two peers were talking about, turned to look at Daniel, and said with annoyance, "You do not possess the power, nor the influence to speak here.. But please, enlighten us on the matter.. Start with telling us who you are."

    These words were enough for the eyes of all of the demon lords and powerful humans to turn in Daniel¡¯s direction.

    "I am a nobody.. I only used to be a chosen of Iewah."

    It is important to understand one thing. What made Iewah¡¯s children so feared was not their pure strength, or at least, that was not the case for most of them. What was truly terrifying about them, were their hidden abilities.. The abilities they gained from Sewah¡¯s gifts. These abilities would turn them into terrifying foes for anyone, even for cultivators whose cultivation was much higher than theirs.

    An example of this, was the Tamer, who had been able to force the entire draconic race to very, when he was nothing more than an immortal cultivator, still far from reaching the stages of high immortality. The king of the draconic faction, who was also Xargy¡¯s grandfather, was at the same level that Daniel was right now, and had only grown more powerful in time.

    Nevertheless, what was truly impressive about this story, was how the vast different in the cultivation of the two, was of no importance to the Tamer¡¯s mysterious powers.

    As soon as these human cultivators and demon lords heard Daniel¡¯s words, their jaws shut tight. The entire scope of the battle changed, as they were not going to battle an inferior number of warriors, along with a beast and a lowly human cultivator.. But six demon lords, a powerful demonic beast.. And finally, a monster.

    Not all of these cultivators were leaders of their own factions, as a few of the human representatives present were only right hand men of much more powerful, or even legendary figures through the universe.. but no matter which powerful faction they belonged to, or lead.. they would all follow the same guidelines for when they would encounter a children of Iewah.. and that was, ¡¯if you are not sure you can kill them, don¡¯t provoke them¡¯.

    This rule was deeply imprinted in the minds of most of the cultivators which inhabited the outside universe, and the demon lords who had just fought to open hell, were not an exception.

    Unfortunately, some had already gone past the point of bing enemies with Daniel, like for example Lady Night and her Law of Mimicry, who had taken part in kidnapping him and his friends, the Church of Damnation, whom he fought dozens of times in the past, and the Parasitic faction, who had tried to capture, and kill him.

    The entire area quieted down for a good minute, when finally, one of the human cultivators stood up, and said, "This fight has nothing to do with us, we will not take part in it." Following this cultivator¡¯s words, were the nods of every other human cultivator aside from the parasite king.

    They then left the area along with the rest of the fighters that hadn¡¯t reached the hundredth phase of high immortality, or the demon lord stage, and therefore, would not be able to survive the shockwave of the attacks.

    The most shocked of all of the people present, was the old demon that led the faction of the beastmasters. He had decided to take Daniel with him in the unlikely chance that he was speaking the truth, but he had never truly believed that Daniel¡¯s presence would be able to change things in their favor.

    Now, only the parasite lord, and eleven demon lords were left. Lowering the numbers of their enemies from three to one, to two to one.

    As each of these warriors prepared for battle, Daniel turned to look at the old demon, and before disappearing in the darkness, said, "This is not like any other fights you¡¯ve fought.. Keep an eye out for openings.. There won¡¯t be ack of them."

    As soon as Daniel disappeared, a half moon axe of impressive dimension came down on him.. A blow which the old demon was prepared for, and therefore, able to avoid by quickly backing away. The impact of this axe, however, was enough to turn the entire coliseum, as well as the entire city that surrounded the area, into nothingness. Not even dust particles were left of it.

    While all of the demon lords were able to avoid this blow, Daniel wasn¡¯t that lucky. He had tried to disappear in the area in an attempt to give support from the darkness, but the power of a single one of these demon¡¯s attacks was enough for the area where he was hiding to be wiped out, and for him to be torn into pieces..

    "Ha! So much for one of Iewah¡¯s children!" Said the demon lord with tree branches that came out of his body, in amusement. Daniel wasying on the ground, dismembered, and lifeless.

    However, the amusement of these demon was short lived. From the injures present of Daniel¡¯s body came a thick healing essence, which reached for the rest of the body parts, and connected them back together. The whole processsted less than five seconds.

    "Body regeneration!" Shouted one of the demons in an attempt to understand better what Daniel¡¯s gift could be. Unfortunately, he had other things to focus on. In the surrounding area, numerous spherical storms had been created by the powerful shockwaves of the attacks, and inside each of them, two or three demon lords were engaging in battle.

    After Daniel¡¯s body became whole again, he looked around, and quickly found himself to be the target of the Devil, and the Parasite Lord, who had already transformed into their true forms.

    The body of the leader of the Church of Damnation had turned into an exaggerated version of himself. His horns had grown to twice the size, and his body had be extremely muscr. His sceptre now looked like a toothpick in his hand, and his wings, nowpletely unfolded, bloated the oddly colored sky almostpletely.

    The Parasite Lord, on the other hand, was still human. What had changed, was that instead of his hands, from within his sleeves, came thousands of extremely long worms.. Each different from one another, and with its own disgusting-looking mouth.

    Daniel had no chance of winning this fight, so instead of thinking of an intricate n to fight head on, he looked at the massive rock in the middle of this battlefield, and threw something at it.

    Unsure of what the object that Daniel had thrown was, the Parasite Lord followed its trajectory in an attempt to grab it before it could reach the stone. At the same time, trillions of sorrowful souls began to emerge from the skin of the Devil. The two couldn¡¯t afford to allow Daniel toplete any of his actions, as they knew nothing of his gift.

    These souls quickly left the Devil¡¯s body and immediately prated into Daniel¡¯s skin, then moved directly into his mind, only to bombard him with all of the suffering, pain and desperation that they had had to endure during the lifetime of torture that preceeded their death.

    Daniel¡¯s mind was more powerful than ever before, but this was still too much for him to bear.. And if he could have chosen whether to go through the physical pain of reaching high immortality, or having to feel the suffering of trillions of people, he would have chosen the former without a shred of a doubt.

    Unable to withstand the psychological pain, Daniel fell to his knees right in front of the Devil, but before the Devil could strike him down, the heavily injured body of the Parasite Lord was thrown at him with enough power to send them both flying for a few thousand meters.

    Just before the Parasite Lord could reach the item that Daniel had thrown, the remnant power of thebined attack of two demon lords who were fighting on his side, caught him by surprise, striking him directly, and injuring him heavily.

    As a consequence of this hit, the flying body of the Parasite Lord had been thrown right against the Devil, which had been stopped right in time from killing Daniel one more time.

    This event had only allowed for Daniel to gain a few seconds, which he spent looking around at the results of the other fights, before being struck one more time by screams of horror of the souls summoned by the devil, and being bitten into pieces by the worms of the Parasite Lord.

    This went on for a few minutes, a period of time in which the battle was gradually going downhill for Daniel and his allies.

    During this time, Daniel would either die by being torn to pieces, or be crazy due to the immense sufferings that the trillions of souls summoned by the devil were causing to him.

    Ironically, Daniel¡¯s two opponents were covered in injuries. All of these injuries were caused by attacks that hade out of nowhere, bad timing between their own attacks, and surprise attacks that came whenever they would be distracted, even if only for a moment. Luckily for Daniel, these unlucky events were enough for his destroyed body and mind to regenerate.

    After a few long minutes of torture, Daniel looked at an empty point in space, and noticed that there, floating while covered in injuries that dirtied her snow white fur with a dark red color, was the Lupa.

    It was only after finally noticing the injured Lupa, that Daniel looked at his two opponents, and after smiling, he opened a portal behind him, and jumped into it.

    ording to what the demon lords knew about hell, teleporting during this period of time was, for some reason, a risky action. There was no assurance that a simple teleportation would go as nned, as the spatial essence of hell would periodically be unstable.

    However, Daniel had luck on his side, and reappeared into the area covered by the boulder¡¯s strange power. At his feet, was the object he had thrown a few minutes earlier.. A spatial ring.

    After picking up the ring, Daniel smiled once again at the two warriors that had killed him so many times, and before they could reach him, he stepped into the rubber-like barrier that prevented anyone from approaching the stone. His body was covered by spatial essence which curved the power of the stone, and pushed it around, and past his body.

    When the attacks of the devil and the parasite lord arrived, they bounced right back against the stone¡¯s barrier.

    One final smile emerged from his face before he turned towards the direction of the stone, which was now towering in front of him, and looked at the ring in his hand. He then injected a wisp of his own essence into it, and from inside it, he pulled out a small wolf cub with a fully ck tail, and a mouth still full with dark essence spheres.

 Chapter 336 Second Great War of Hell Part 5

    When the humans that had evolved into the demonkind had arrived to hell, the knowledge they possessed of mana was poor andcking.. However, since mana was still present in hell despite the mysteriousck of essence treasures, there still were people willing and able toprehend its concepts. However, these cultivators only came to ater point in time.

    The ancestors of the demonkind had been forced back into a corner, and once into hell, they found themselves in a hostile territory, from which they were barely able to survive. Their numbers were in the hundreds, and they faced extinction constantly through the many initial years.

    Through hell¡¯s history, the first few hundred years were the period of time in which the interest in the mysterious stone found in the core of hell, was at its peak.. And even then, they had much more important things to worry about.. Things like survival, organization, and exploration.

    The experiments on the stone had gone on for thousands of years, but since the schrs were mostly weak refugees in an unknown territory, many options had been left untried. Piercing through, approaching slowly, using brute force, or even erasing the mysterious power that was emanated by the rock.. Nothing had worked, leaving this stone as a mystery for the following tens of thousands of years.. All until the answer to this mystery was answered in the form of a window that had appeared inside Daniel¡¯s mind.. Spatial essence to deviate the power, and dark essence to hide one¡¯s presence.

    One of the first details discovered by the schrs, was that the power emanated by the stone was simr to a person¡¯s senses of sight, and ability to feel one¡¯s power. Approaching the stone would cause for this power to be dense to a point where it would form a stratum of unprable rubber.

    Daniel was standing inside the protected area around this boulder, unaffected by the rubber-like shied, which was separated from the stone by around two meters of empty space inside which he was standing. In his hand, hanging by the scruff, with all four of his paws moving around in the air, was the demonic wolf cub.

    While the fact that Daniel had been able to approach the stone when nobody else could, was shocking to most of the demon lords that were fighting in the vicinity.. what caught the attention of the Lupa, and the leader of the beastmaster faction, was the small wolf.. Who was currently munching on a few dark spheres, with shards that spilled from his mouth, and all over the ground.

    Many demons had fantasized about what that boulder could possibly be.. Some believed it to contain the knowledge of hell, some believed it to be the legacy of a dead expert, and some even believed it to be some sort of proof to decide which one would have the right to rule hell.

    Most of the demon lords were in the middle of a fight, and therefore unable to focus on what was happening.. However, the same was not for the Devil, who after seeing Daniel enter the barrier, felt curiosity and greediness spread into his heart like wildfire.

    In his mind, he was the one and true God. His powers derived by the ability to capture the spirit of the people who suffered and died by his hands, an ability that, before he had reached the stage of high demon, was a simple result of his sadistic mentality.. And that had consequently be a unique power after his breakthrough. His thirst for power was a known fact through both hell and universe, and now that he had seen a change in something he had dreamed about in the past, his reasoning began to waver. His eyes opened wide in surprise, and his smile widened as much as possible.

    The spirits of the suffering humans stopped moving in Daniel¡¯s direction, and instead floated back in the direction of the sceptre he was holding. Once in, they condensed into the gems encrusted at the top of the sceptre, right before being sent in the direction of the stone in the form of a devastating beam of power that attracted the attention of most fighters around.

    Daniel, who until now appeared to be solely focused on feeding the dark essence spheres to the wolf cub, suddenly turned in the direction of a couple of demon lords who were currently on the winning side in their fight against an old demon who wasmanding a puppet to fight alongside him.. After looking at these two demons for a few moments, he turned to look back at the wolf cub with apleteck of interest.

    The beam that exploded out of the tip of the sceptre was apanied by screams and cries, sending a chilling feeling down the backs of anyone who look at its gloomy purple color.

    When the beam of omnious light reached the area that surrounded the stone, however, instead of prating through, bounced back on the surface, only to be sent in the direction of the two demons whom Daniel had turned to look moments before.

    The beam hit one of the two demon lords, whom was also in the middle of sending an attack that was misdirected, and hit hispanion instead. The attack of the former came just in time for thetter¡¯s attempt to defend himself from the puppet to fail, causing both of them to receive multiple heavy damages.

    While the Devil was eager to obtain the secrets that were in Daniel¡¯s reach, the Parasite Lord was acting differently. The battle had been, overall, much more difficult than what he had expected. The warriors on his side kept making rookie mistakes that would cause them to end up in an even worse state tha their fewer enemies. If that wasn¡¯t enough, Daniel appeared to be impossible to kill.

    His spirit was telling him to go crazy.. Unleash the highest levels of his power, and exact his revenge.. But as a member of the universal government that was facing a children of Iewah, his mind was screaming to leave as fast as he could.

    His unwillingness to follow his thoughts, was the main reason that had brought him to think through what he knew about Daniel¡¯s power.. Finally, after a whole minute spent into deep consideration, a crazy idea shed into his mind.

    "It¡¯s luck!" He said to the rest of the cultivators. "He is able to affect our luck!! We need to kill him.. NOW!" His voice was filled with horror and panic, and for a good reason. While his guess was partially true, the results of the battle had lead him to believe that Daniel was able to affect Luck.. a universal concept which escaped the understanding of humans, just like karma.

    At the end of the day, his guess was fairly close to the truth.

    After listening to the words of the Parasite Lord, the demon lords who had ended up into an endless stream of unfortunate events, soon began to consider the hipotesys of the parasite lord as suble.. After all, all of them were cultivators that possessed tens of thousands of years of experience in fighting, and for them to be making that many mistakes, was too unlikely for it to be a simple series of idents.

    The demons that formed the couples that were outnumbering Daniel¡¯s allies, looked at each other, and after a simple look, each couple came to the conclusion that, if the parasite lord was correct, Daniel was too big of a threat to be left alive.. So they split into two, and decided to sacrifice the advantage in the battle with their opponents, in order to have six more demon lords to attack the barrier of the stone.

    When the experiments on this mysterious power had been stopped, there was still no demon lord in hell. They had only appeared agester, just a few thousand years before the first great war of hell, where many of them had perished at war..

    Unafortunately, despite their massive power, their full force attacks were still unable to push through the rubber-like barrier.

    It was only when, byplete ident, the attacks of three different demon lords struck the same point in the barrier at the same time, that the barrier was damaged.. that did notst long, however, as the barrier regenerated secondster.

    Nevertheless, it was progress.

    "Look at this!" Shouted one of the demon lords while looking at the rapidly sealing damage on the stone¡¯s barrier. He then added, "We have to attack the same spot at the same time! And keep going intil the barrier is destroyed!!"

    The demon lords, now desperate to capture Daniel, decided on which point to strike with all of their power, then began to send one attack after the other. Each attack could shatter a world in pieces, but was only able to add up into forming a small crack in the barrier which, if left alone for even just two seconds, would regeneratepletely.

    Inside the barrier, Daniel was looking at the cub with a hint of worry. In his hand were numerous dark essence spheres, too much for the cub to ingest.. However, since the cub was close to a breakthrough in his cultivation, Daniel kept feeding one sphere after the other to him, while saying, "Come on.. Come on.. Just a couple more!"

    Meanwhile, one attack after the other came, erging the damaged area, and keeping on damaging it further after every single attack.

    The more time passed, the more it became clear that the cub¡¯s evolution was not simply a matter of feeding essence spheres to feed to him.. So aftering to a standstill, he stopped feeding dark spheres to the scared wolf, and took it in his arms. He then stroked its fur gently, making him forget about the loud noises that came from outside, as well as the fact that his mother and herpanion were outside, fighting to their deaths.

    For a minute, Daniel looked at the cub that was hiding in his arms, until it finally stopped trembling, and looked back at him ... finally feeling safe ever since he had been pulled out of the spatial ring. At the same time, while the cub looked at Daniel, the fur around his neck and head began to grow, and the base of his tail to be as dark as a starless night sky.. Just like the rest of his body.

    It¡¯s size grew as well, turning him from a cub of about half a meter in length, to a fully grown wolf which Daniel quickly felt ufortable with carrying. So he put him down, and observed as the wolf turned to look back at him with curiosity, and affection.

    "It won¡¯tst long! Keep going! A few more hits!" Shouted the Parasite King as one attack after the other turned the surrounding area into a gigantic storm of dust. The barrier was about to be breached- However, Daniel did not appear to be worried. Instead, on his face was a wide smile.

    He quickly grabbed the young wolf, and climbed over the stone. Then ced the him right above it, and said, "Little wolf.. Look at them.. They are hurting your mother."

    For some reason, the wolf was able to understand Daniel¡¯s words. Its intelligence had increased from when he was a simple cub.. but if there was something that hadn¡¯t changed, that was the affection the wolf felt for his overly protective mother, and her demonicpanion.

    The sight of his mother¡¯s fur painted red from the injuries was already too much for it to bear, but before the wolf could act rashly, the newly formed dark essence that he emanated, began to sync with the power contained in the deepest parts of this stone.

    Momentster, without the wolf noticing, the power that was protecting him and Daniel turned into dark essence of the purest form, and was sent out into beams directed at the forteen individuals that were fighting against Daniel¡¯s allies.

    Each ray of dark essence was too fast and powerful to be avoided, and each was able to enshroud the bodies of the thirteen demon lords, and the parasite lord. However, that immense power which not even a demon lord couldpare to, was far from being the most shocking part of Daniel¡¯s n..

    Inside these beams of darkness, the demonic power of the demon lords was being absorbed at an arming rate. A rate which shocked the demon lords to a point where they considered surrendering immediately.. Just to realize, momentster, that what was being absorbed was not simple demonic power, but their very existence as demons.

    Their demonic characteristics were disappearing, and their bodies were slowly going back to being humans.

 Chapter 337 Hells Origin Part 1 of 2

    Horns, tails, wings ... Every part that made them ¡¯demons¡¯ to the eyes of others, was quickly disappearing from the bodies of these demon lords along with the ability to produce demonic power, and the innate abilities that they possessed. There was no need to say, that the proces was not a quiet and peaceful one.

    Tens of thousands of years spent as rulers of demonic legions, factios, and even families. Spent considering humans their strongest and most hated enemies.. All gone to waste. Their demonic bodies were de-evolving into those of their forefathers, and their cultivation stages were pushued back down to a point where spirit and body were not merged.. The peak of the ninth rank of spiritual cultivation, and the peak of the ninth rank of martial cultivation.

    However, the dark essence emanated by the stone was not stopping at that.

    While what was left of their cultivation after going back to being human state was not being assorbed, both of the reserves of their powers were, leaving thempletely drained of any either of them.

    Even when left with no power, these rays of darkness kept shrouding their bodies, only stopping after Daniel grabbed the little wolf by the scruff, and separated it from the stone. He then put him in his arms, and stroked his ck fur to help him calm down.

    The demon lords, who now were nothing but human cultivators of the lowest level, were looking at their bodies with something that could barely be described as shock. They were feeling a weakness they had long forgotten, and even bearing hell¡¯s temperature was difficult to them.

    "NOOO!!" Screamed a man that happened to be standing next to the transformed parasite king, and above a massive golden sceptre. He could not feel that pleasant sense of schadenfreude that was born out of growing in power while others suffered.

    In the course of the many millennia, the idea that billions had died a painful death just so that he could be one of the strongest, had slowly changed him. From initially being a way to satisfy his sadism, it became an obsession.. And now, it had turned into the reason that justified why he was above all else. After all, anyone could cultivate or kill.. But people suffered all kinds of pain, and even died for him ... In his mind, there wasn¡¯t a nobler death or greater honor.

    Now, however, he was but a normal human.

    "WHAT DID YOU DO?! TURN IT BACK!!" He shouted with anger and indignation, which was met by two metallic needles that pierced his forehead and his heart. He then fell backwards, dying before his back could even touch the ground.

    The same fate fell upon most of the demon lords who had been turned into humans, and the person who had killed them in front of the eyes of the shocked parasite king, and the six remaining demon lords, was Daniel.

    After killing these ten demon lords, Daniel turned to look at Lady Night, who was now nothing but a beautiful woman who stood on the battlefield, and seemed not to care about the fact that she was naked in front of everyone else. She was currently looking at the massive stone, almost as if thinking about what it was, could distract her from the thought of having lost all of her powers.

    "Why did you kill them, and not us?" She said, before slowly turning her head towards Daniel.

    Daniel casually stuffed a dark essence sphere into the mouth of the wolf cub, then responded by saying, "I know some of you knew that hell was not a ce fit to be inhabited permanently. You wanted to make a space for your people in the universe, and I can respect that."

    For a few moments, Lady Night thought about Daniel said.. quickly realizing that he had never truly picked a side, nor aided a specific line-up due to some sort of payment or loyalty. He was here because her faction had helped in kidnapping him and his friends, and he needed the help of some powerful individuals to save them. However, that response only created more questions in the mind of Lady Night. "I understand. But some of those you have killed had our same reason.. why-"

    Before she could finish asking her question, Daniel cut her off by saying, "Motivation is not always enough to justify one¡¯s wrongdoings. Do you want to know why I haven¡¯t spared them as well? As yourself if they deserved that."

    This answer struck deeply into the woman¡¯s mind, helping her remember a few details of the demons she had known for the past fifty thousand years. No matter how long she dug into her memories, she could only think of two things that these deceased demons had inmon.. And those things, were malice and brutality.

    Her interest in this human quickly began to grow, to a point where she tried to remember everything that she knew, or was said about him in order to piece them together, and have a clearer understanding of what kind of person Daniel was. It was only after a few seconds that her jaw shut tight, and her brows arched in surprise.

    "You don¡¯t control luck, do you?" She asked with a faint tone, before adding, You control-"

    Her sentence was cut off by Daniel once again, who said "It isn¡¯t toote for me to kill you."

    Lady Night immediately snapped back to reality, realizing that she was about to expose, if her hypothesys was correct, the biggest secret of a chosen of Iewah. That was not only a stupid idea, but also a suicide. "I understand.. Thank you for sparing my life." She added before using her low level of spiritual cultivation to form a few pieces of clothing that could cover the most intimate parts of her body. She appeared to be the mostfortable while in the skin of a human, as she was used to turn into one when she still possessed her shapeshifting abilities.

    Daniel nodded casually before turning to look at the six demon lords, amongst which was the leader of the faction of beastmasters, and while pointing his arm at the direction of the Parasite King, he said "I took all of your enemies out. It is time to repay the favor."

    The demon lords turned to look at the Parasite King, but did not attack. Instead, one of them turned to look at Daniel, and asked "You had something to gain from what you did.. Why should we be enemies with the universal government in order to do you a favor?"

    "Is that what you all feel?" Asked Daniel,pletely unfazed about this response. His eyesnded on the leader of the beastmasters, and the lupa that followed him. At the same time, in fear that these demon lords would attack him, the parasite lord ran away with the highest amount of speed he was capable of.

    At the end of the day, the main focus of these demon lords was to keep their kind away from danger, and while Daniel¡¯s request seemed reasonable, it actually carried a massive weight on their shoulders. After all, if word got out that they had killed a human, they would be forced to shut themselves in hell, or face the universal government¡¯s wrath.

    "You ask too much." Said the old demon, leader of the beastmaster faction.

    Naturally, Daniel would have done anything in his power to protect hell and its inhabitants in case they would have granted his requet, he simply wanted to see if, in their eyes, he was someone worth befriending.

    After listening to their answer, Daniel shrugged his shoulder, and said, "Figured so.." He then ced the cub back onto the stone, and after showing a dark essence sphere to it, and forming a depiction of the parasite king with constructed metal, he added "Take him, fix hell¡¯s space, and I¡¯ll give this to you."

    The wolf cub looked at the essence sphere attentively. A string of saliva could be seen hanging from his mouth, and his eyes would not budge from it.. Soon after, every form of light in hell disappeared. Every individual in hell found themselves alone within a world of darkness, unable to see anything, or anyone that was around them.

    One of these individuals was the Parasite Lord, who calmly observed his dark surroundings. At the same time, he could feel his essence being pulled out of his body, and absorbed the moment it would leave the surface of his skin. To him, it felt as if someone with a cultivation uparable to his, was using the essence of darkness to absorb every drop of his power.

    Despite the situation was grim, he appeared to be rtively calm.. Almost as if the consequences of dying were of no importance to him. His previous animosity towards Daniel was caused by the idea of him growing more powerful in the future, while also being a mortal enemy of his, but he had never been truly scared for his life at no point in the previous fight.

    After every bit of his power was absorbed, the darkness dissipated, and the light brightened the world once again.

    The Parasite Lord looked at his body, and quickly found out that nothing but his immortal essence was missing. Unfortunately, Daniel had already quietly appeared behind him.

    Before the parasite lord could notice him, Daniel ced his hand on the man¡¯s head in order to use his powerful cultivation to erase his consciousness, when suddenly, something unexpected happened.

    The moment Daniel tried to erase the consciousness of the parasite lord, instead of resisting long enough for him to use his powerful body to attack Daniel, his consciousness burned ten times faster than that of any human ... As soon as that happened, his physical body ked into millions of insects and worms that crawled away in random directions.

    On Daniel¡¯s face was an expression of anger. It had all dawned upon him, right when he had found no obstacle in killing him.. This body was not the parasite lord¡¯s real body, but some sort of clone he had created, and inside which he had left a small portion of his consciousness and spirit.

    What made Daniel cross out the idea that this body was a puppet, was the fact that they were in a different dimension. It shouldn¡¯t have been possible for the Parasite Lord to control this body unless it was an actual independent clone.

    Annoyed by not being able to finish this enemy off, Daniel teleported back to hell¡¯s core, where the leader of the beastmaster faction was standing in front of the stone¡¯s barrier, and pping his legs in an attempt to get the wolf cub toe to him.. Unfortunately, the wolf remained on the stone, while munching on the dark essence sphere that Daniel had given to him.

    As soon as Daniel appeared, he looked at the wolf cub, and opened his arms, causing the cub to immediately jump on them, and make himselffortable.

    Both the Lupa and the old demon did not take this action well, and looked at Daniel with suspicion. If the barrier was not there, the lupa would have already attacked him in order to retrieve her son. Luckily for Daniel, the two had no way of moving through the barrier.

    Their angered expression were reced by curiosity, the moment one of the other demons said "What is that stone? How did you know how it works?"

    Daniel turned to look at this demon, and said, "It appears that your schrs weren¡¯t that far off when they renamed this ce hell¡¯s core, and the same can be said about the legends which surrounded this object.. An object that allows to control hell, left here by the person who created it, as a legacy."

    These few words were enough to furtherly shock everyone present.. Be it the demon lords who had been turned into humans, the six demon lords left, or the historical keeper, which had recorded the battle the moment it had started, and hade back as soon as it had ended.

    In the minds of these cultivators appeared a thousand questions. Who had created hell? Was dark essence all that was required to use the sphere? Was hell just a massive pocket dimension, or was it a training ground for humans to be demons?

    After a long minute spent deep in their thoughts, Daniel broke the silence by saying "The person who created hell is crearly powerful beyondprehension.. Powerful to a point where fifty thousand years might be a short vacation for him.. He clearly set this ce as a test."

    "What do you mean?" Asked the historical keeper while holding his book, and eagerly writing every bit of information on it.

 Chapter 338 Hells Origin Part 2 of 2

    "What do you mean?"

    "You are all asking yourself how I was able to approach the stone.. But if any of you possessed enoughprehension of space and darkness, that would be quite obvious. This barrier is all but unbreakable, and how the attacks of the other demon lords have demonstrated, with enough power it is possible to break through it, and take control over the stone." Exined Daniel while petting the cub¡¯s head, and cing a dark essence sphere in between his paws to munch on every now and then.

    He then turned to look back at the historical keeper, and while pointing his finger at the cub¡¯s head, he added, "The stone¡¯s power turned into dark essence to attack, because that is the only type of power he knows.. What is truly needed to control it, however, I am guessing is demonic power."

    What Daniel said madeplete sense, after all, if this stone was truly hell¡¯s core, it must have had something to do with the unnaturally fast evolution of hell¡¯s inhabitants into demons.

    The implication of this line of thought were devastating for this group of demon lords. After all, if what Daniel said was true, it would mean that the demonic race was not really a race, but a species born out of the powers of a single individual. In the end, they would not be much different than the monsters created by the members of the parasite faction.

    While these demon lords were buried into their own thoughts, Daniel opened a small portal that lead into his pocket dimension. Behind it was Sewah, who immediately walked out as soon as the portal opened.

    "Is it over?" Asked Sewah while looking at the few remaining demon lords, and at the weak humans he was not expecting to see.

    Daniel nodded in confirmation, then said "I have a method to turn you into a human. You might maintain a portion of the power of this body, but probably not all of it. To live in a powerful body that does not belong to you, or make it your own.. Make your choice."

    After listening to Daniel¡¯s proposition, Sewah fell deeply into consideration. He had already epted to try and live as a normal cultivator, and while he still had problems with his nature, he was learning the importance of the small daily victories, from which normal cultivators were able to gain the little happiness they needed to live with no regrets.

    The body of the oni leader was powerful, but it was not his. His innate power was not of his taste, and in no way did he wish to see it grow to a higher stage. Also, he did not quite like its appearance.. So in the end, he steeled his mind, and epted Daniel¡¯s proposition.

    Once again, Daniel put the cub over the stone, and while showing him a few dark essence stones as incentives, he said "Do not take the culivation.. Just the demonic essence." The cub was still not intelligent enough to understand the meaning of Daniel¡¯s words, so when talking to him, Daniel had been forced to push his intention into his mind. Thankfully, the cub caught on quickly, causing for a portion of the stone¡¯s unique essence to move towards Sewah, and absorb every bit of demonic power inside him.

    Sewah¡¯s body began to shrink, his small horns moved back into his forehead, and his red skin was losing color, and going back to a paler shade of skin color.

    When the entire process ended, Daniel looked at Sewah with shock. His appearance was identical to that of his wisp of consciousness. Naturally, Daniel was not sure of how this could have happened, but the exnation was quite simple. These demons had never had a human form, and therefore, the appearance they had taken was based on what they would have expected to look like as humans, in their minds.

    The appearance taken by these demons, was therefore identical to the one they would turn into when using their basic skill of shapeshifting.

    The moment Sewah became human, Daniel probed into him with his immortal cultivation, and quickly found out that his spirit and body hadn¡¯t separated. At the same time, his power had dropped from the seventieth phase of the high demonic cultivation, down to the peak of the tenth stage of immortal cultivation, right at the gates of the realm of high humans.

    The loss in power would be jaw dropping for everybody else, but not for Sewah, who had a big smile on his face.

    "What do you think?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    While touching his body, Sewah turned to look at Daniel, and said with enthusiasm "I remember this feeling.. So much potential.. I like it." His voice was identical to the one Daniel would always hear when Sewah would talk to him from within his mind.

    Satisfied by the result, Daniel opened another portal in space. Behind it, stood Aeron and Xargy. No other demon of the Church of Damnation was around them, only arge number of human corpses.

    As soon as the two noticed the portal, they walked through it, and approached Daniel.

    "Took you long enough.. The people from the Church of Damnation suddenly turned into humans.. You should have seen them! HA!" Said Xargy while showing a set of teeth dirtied with blood.

    Aeron, on the other hand, looked at Daniel with curiosity for a few moments, then asked, "Your consciousness.. Why can¡¯t I locate it?"

    Daniel couldn¡¯t help but snort at thements of the two, and after picking up the wolf cub, he said, "A ¡¯hi¡¯ and ¡¯thank you¡¯ would not have hurt you.. Come on, let¡¯s get out of this ce." Thest few words were enough to catch the attention of the old demon, and the lupa, who looked at him as if he was going to steal a child from a nursery room.. And in fact, he was.

    "Where do you think you are going? Leave the cub here." Said the old demon with a threatening tone.

    "I can¡¯t leave him here. He is hell¡¯s ruler now, I won¡¯t allow you or anyone else to try and use him to rule this ce." Said Daniel after shaking his head. He was close to the stone when he cub had used is power, and he had felt a change in it. The power of the stone had be his, and only he was able to use it, or at least, until the day he would die.

    "I cannot allow to take him. He is mypanion¡¯s son!" Said the demon lord while showing off his impressive demonic power. However, his anger was eased by what Daniel said next..

    "If I leave him here, you won¡¯t be able to help him grow to a point where he will be able to defend himself. Someone will end up trying to use him, or kill him to take his ce." He said in an attempt to reason with the old demon, while trying to push his intentions to the Lupa. He then added, "This will assure all of you that no one will ever be able to take over hell again.. I will make him happy, and I will allow you toe and visit often.. But he can¡¯t stay here."

    "This is ridiculous! You have no right to take this decision, you are not even from hell!" Shouted one of the other demon lords.

    A second Demon Lord followed suit, and added, "We will handle our business by ourselves!"

    Being backed by his peers, the leader of the beastmaster faction felt slightly morefortable with pushing on this topic. He had seen that cub be born, and he had no intention of seeing him being separated from his mother so soon. Of his newly acquired power, he did not care.

    However, before the demon lord could say something, therge white wolf walked in front of him, pushing her head against his stomach, almost as if in an attempt to stop his words froming out.

    Daniel looked at the lupa with the highest amount of respect he could feel for anyone. It was not easy to give a child up, even if for his own safety.

    After receiving the consent of the Lupa to take her son away, Daniel pulled his small out of his spatial ring, and used hisprehension of spatial essence and the cub¡¯s power to form a gate right next to the stone of hell¡¯s core. This gate would connect his to hell, and work as a fixed passage between the closed dimension, and the moving. If someone within hell wanted to reach Daniel¡¯s, he would require Daniel¡¯s permission, or they would be bounced riht back.

    As he was preparing to leave, Daniel remembered something important. He turned towards Lady Night, and said "You areing too."

    The beautiful woman turned to look at Daniel with surprise for just a few moments, then understood. She knew what Daniel¡¯s power was, and therefore, he had to keep an eye on her.

    "I understand.." She said before walking in the directionof Daniel¡¯s group.

    Once all together, Daniel opened a portal that led to the gate of hell. There stood the two massive doors,pletely opened. At their feety the corpses of a young looking man and three demonic hounds, who appeared to have been killed instantly, and painlessly.

    As Daniel walked towards the massive door, the rest of the group followed.

    The Lupa, who had remained quiet until now and was looking at her child leave, lifted her head, and let out a harrowing howl. *AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO* This howl traveled through the entirety of hell, reaching every member of the demonic wolf family, who joined in, and howled with as much sadness as she did.

    During this ritual, Aeron could not help but to let two tears fall from the corner of his eyes. This specific type of pain, that of a mother forced to let go of her child, was amongst the worst feelings that someone could ever feel.

    Before leaving, Daniel turned to look back at the demon lord, and through sound essence, he said, "I will soon get mypany back. When that happens, I¡¯ll offer you essence spheres for the same price people pay them for outside."

    This message was able to cheer the old demon up. The high prices of the essence spheres were the reason why his faction had been having problems grooming the spiritual wolves of mana, and now that he had been promised a stream at a fair price, he couldn¡¯t help but feel a little better. Also, he was happy to know that the wolf cub would have enough resources for his future, and that Daniel wasn¡¯t simply picking off of his savings.

    After receiving a quiet nod from the demon lord, Daniel turned back towards the massive opened gates, and began the walk towards the other side of the long staircase.

    For some reason, it was impossible to teleport away while in the staircase, so the group was forced to keep the pace of the slowest member of the group, Lady Night, which was now at the stage that preceeded immortality.

    When the six of them reached the end of the staircase, they found themselves in an unknown world that was within the territory of one of the factions of hell. That was the ce where the human faction leaders had entered hell from, and standing outside, were a few cultivators at the high human stage in wait for their leaders toe back.

    From hell, no one was supposed toe out. It was made extremely clear that if a cultivator that did not belong to the factions present, they would have to either kill them, or if unable to, they would have to send a report to the universal government, saying that something had probably gone wrong, and suggesting to attack hell.

    Unfortunately for these individuals at various stages of high immortality, Daniel did not exude his full power, while the others felt only like immortal cultivators like Aeron and Sewah, normal cultivators like the wolf cub and Lady Night, and a single high dragon in its human form. To their eyes, Xargy was the only possible menace.

    "Four humans, a dragon of the royal family, and a demonic beasts..How odd. What were your business in hell, and how did youe out?" Asked one of the high humans, while threatingly showing his cultivation at the fiftieth stage of high immortality.

    However, Daniel did not bother to respond, and waved his hand instead, causing for this man to fall on the ground face first. From the side of his face, small clouds of dust be seen being rhythmically blown away, showing that the man was sleeping soundly.

    "Just passing by."

 Chapter 339 The End of Headache

    Daniel¡¯s was once again traveling through space. Only a couple of hours had passed since they had left hell, and Daniel¡¯s head was already about to explode. He was currently sitting on the ground with the wolf cubying on his legs, while trying not to listen to all of the discussions that were taking ce next to him.

    Between Hannah¡¯s group that had be incredibly chatty after finally havin someone new to talk to almost two years, Xargy and Aeron that were constantly throwing mental des at each other, Xargy who kept annoying others with how much he had learned about hell¡¯s culture, and the wolf cub that expected a dark essence sphere as soon as he would finish eating the previous one, Daniel was barely able to hear his own thoughts.

    The only two that gave him a bit of piece of mind, were Lady Night, and Virgil, both of whom sat quietly next to him, in wait that he made their destination known.

    After Daniel¡¯s increase in power, he had found out that his world had gone through a change of sorts. While before he had full control over it, now he could feel his own cultivation at the¡¯s core.

    In the beginning, Daniel did not know how that could have happened, but he soon realized. His was not stored inside any of his spatial rings or pocket dimensions. It was part of him, and he was able to store it in his own body, and take it out whenever he wanted.

    For the to have be a true extension of Daniel¡¯s body, and not a simple object he was able to store in it, there could have been only one exnation.. When he had reached high immortality, the presence of the within his body had triggered another change, allowing for the to merge with him at a deeper level. Now, the core itself of the was able to produce Daniel¡¯s essence.

    While he was able to control, shrink and erge the already, that had always required for an immense amount of concentration on his part.. Especially during a fight. Now that the itself was able to create his own power, however, he was able to feel every bit of it no matter how big or how far away it was. If he wanted he was sure then he could have been able to reshape it into a sword, allowed it to travel on its own through space, shroud it with dark essence to turn it identical to a moving ck hole, and even teleport inside regardless of how far away from it he was.

    Unfortunately, Daniel was unable to truly explore this new ability, as his train of thought was being constantly interrupted by spoken questions, or messages sent through sound essence.

    ".. Can we trust him?" Asked Aeron through a wisp of sound essence.

    "HEY DANIEL! Come and listen to this part! It¡¯s the best part of the story Haha!" Said Xargy out loud with enthusiasm. He was recounting his stories to Alex and Josh, who stared at him with rapture.

    A few meters away from Aeron, stood Sewah. He had noticed each of the odd looks that the mental warrior was throwing at him from behind his mask, and he almost hoped that Aeron would instigate a fight, just so that he could take revenge on him. "If the shy guy starts something, I will punch his teeth in." He said out loud after turning toward Daniel.

    Forming a group of their own, were Hannah, George, James, and Felix. They were discussing whether to ask Daniel to take them back home, whether the members of their family were still alive, or whether to live their life as cultivators and give up their past.

    "They might be alive!" Said Hannah to Felix while in an emotional state.

    Felix shook his head in disagreement, then responded by saying "Two and a half years since the gue started.. It has been too long. Remember what happened when we went to look for James and Josh¡¯s parents? Their father was a police officer, and even he ended up chasing us down the street!.. My mother was an office worker, and my father was a mechanic.. Your parents aren¡¯t any more special.. They are gone.. They are all gone."

    "Stop saying that!! You don¡¯t get to say that!" Screamed Hannah in response.

    "ENOUGH!" Shouted Daniel with enough power to dissipate any form of sound that came from everybody¡¯s mouths. "Just.. Just be quiet for a minute!" He then added before slowly standing up, and turning to look at Sewah and Aeron.

    "You two, stop bickering with each other. No matter what happened before, you are both alive and kicking, so cut it out!" He said with exasperation before turning to look at Xargy, who after noticing his eyes move on him, couldn¡¯t help but flinch "Please! Keep it down or go somewhere else! If I hear about how you have stolen your father¡¯s treasured totem one more time! I swear..!"

    After bursting out, Daniel sighed deeply, and calmed himself down. He then turned to look at the group of young cultivators who were currently looking back at him, and said "The race of demons who created the gue that destroyed your doesn¡¯t exist anymore, so whatever is happening in your, has probably ended. If your family is alive, they are probably not in danger anymore.."

    ".. but if you wish to go find them, the distance is a few hundred billions of light years in that direction. When you will have arrived, the whole sr system will likely not be there anymore." He then added while pointing at a specific point to his right.

    Once he finished saying what he had to say, Daniel saw the hope leave Hannah¡¯s face, causing him to immediately feel bad. In an attempt to remedy, he added "I have dragged you away from your, and as soon as I find a way to take you back there, I promise I will." Along with the words, came Daniel¡¯s intention, which exuded nothing but his honestmitment.

    Hannah responded to Daniel¡¯s words with a soft nod in between sobs.

    d to have been able to solve this mistake, Daniel sat back down on the ground, and looked directly at the wolf pup. He then muttered "Spoiling you that much might have been a bad idea.." The wolf responded to these words by bending his head to the side in an attempt to hear the sound of Daniel¡¯s voice better.

    As soon as Daniel sat back down, Lady Night turned to look at him, and protruded her hand in his direction with her palm turned upwards. On it, were the two rings that she had been wearing until only minutes earlier.

    Daniel immediately noticed this action, and without even turning to look back at ther, he scratched the head of the wolf cub, and said "You are not a prisoner. What is yours belongs to you.. You are free to cultivate."

    The woman did not expect this response, and was taken aback for a few seconds by it. She then came back to her senses, and put her rings back on, before cing her hands above her legs, and waiting in silence.

    "Dan, where are we going?" Asked Xargy with curiosity.. After all, they had regrouped around Daniel in wait for him to tell them their destination.

    Before responding, Daniel closed his eyes, and focused once again on the window that had appeared in his head about a minute earlier. His expression was a conflicted one, almost as if showing mixed feelings towards what he was looking at..

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s wielder.

    Age - 27

    Power level

    -High Immortality

    Battle Prowess

    -79th phase

    Karma - 440,763,178,500

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.51

    Reduced Cost Lv.20

    Bonus Points Lv.20

    Second Chance (Upgrades 3/3) Lv.20

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 1/1)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    System Upgrades (Details)

    ____________________________

    The battle in hell had been a real gamble for Daniel. He was nowhere near as powerful as the demon lords, and two were already enough to kill him at least a dozen times. If a third demon lord able to damage a cultivator¡¯s spirit had been able to join in the battle, not even ¡¯Second Chance¡¯ would have saved him.

    In order to triumph in the battle, he had been forced to follow the quest¡¯s indications blindly, even when they did not make sense to him, and caused him to die over and over again. At the end, just to make sure that he could go through with the n, he had been forced to use Karmic Retribution so many times, that he had lost count.. Each use paid with half of his remaining karmic points. At the end of the battle, his remaining karma was not in the billions anymore.

    Thankfully, the system¡¯s rewards and the karmic points given from his kills hade to replentish it, or he would have been terribly scared.. Not for himself, but for his friends, who he wasn¡¯t sure would be safe or not.

    After he looked through his system¡¯s profile once again, Daniel opened his eyes and said, "We are going to pick up a friend." Once he finished speaking, the speed of his picked up, shooting through space at a level that a wandering was not supposed to have.

    -----

    Within the depths of the territory of the universal government, was a called Cato.

    Cato was, after the government¡¯s capital, the most important of all. Not because any of the main government branches had been estabilished on it, but because It was the core of itsmerce.

    In it, were conducted deals of the highest end, while at the same time, the items that were considered treasures for the merchants of any other, were sold in the street stalls at exorbitant prices which were nothing but pocket change for the¡¯s wealthy inhabitants.

    Due to this nature, Cato was also known as ¡¯The Corporate City¡¯.

    On Cato, every single city conducted enough trades and business to put any other to shame, and amongst these cities, was one called Hiel City.

    Despite being a new city, Hiel City was bursting with liveliness. Many merchants and cultivators came and went from its borders, but despite the number of tall buildings, the traffic of these people appeared to be focused on three buildings.

    The buildings of the city were extremely clean, and built out of bs of white marble, making them look extremely refined. ced next to the entrance of every building, as well as patrolling the streets, were numerous warriors in heavy armor that had reached the lowest stages of high immortality. On the left side of their chestte armor, was a simbol in the shape of a fist sized coin made entirely of gold. This coin was split in two vertically, and while the right side was dirty, the left side was pure and shiny.

    The same symbol appeared a few hundred meters up in the sky, where a half dirty and half clean golden coin with the diameter of a hundred meters, slowly rotated while locked in air.

    On the edge of this massive coin, two names were written. The one on the top was Hiel City, while the one on the bottom, was Golden Karma Company.

    The biggest building in Hiel city was a skyscraper a hundred stories tall, and right at the attic, sitting at a desk within the biggest office, was a woman with silver hair dressed in an elegant ck dress. She was currently looking at a pile of documents, but she seemed to be distracted.

    Every other minute, her eyes would trail off from the documents, and move on the two metallic ques on her desk. Embossed on these ques, were two faces.. That of a middle aged man, and that of a young woman that one would believe was the younger version of this woman herself.

    This woman was, of course, Emelnie. She had been the one who had been taking care of the business of Daniel¡¯spany, and after obtaining a discrete sess, she had built a city whose name had been dedicated to him.

 Chapter 340 Not To Turn Hope Into Grief

    In one of the high end restaurants ced within Hiel city, were two guards in their lunch break. Both of them were cultivators at the high immortality stage, and their dark tan and skin covered in scars, showed that the two of them were amongst the many mercenaries that had been hired to patrol the city.

    The two were the only customers of the restaurant, as it was still too early for the restaurant to wee guests open. Nevertheless, the employees of the Golden Karma Company were granted this privilege. Tenting to the restaurant hall, were a girl and a boy in their early teens, while in the kitchen, was the cook that was preparing the dishes in advance for when the customers would arrive.

    "Something is strange with thispany.." muttered one of the two men while in between bites, interrupting the silence abruptly.

    The second man, who appeared to be slightly older as demonstrated by the higher concentration of white hair in his hair, turned to look at him, and said, "A low levelpany that was able to create good connections, and that ended up in a few lucrative deals.. What is so odd about it?"

    "I don¡¯t know.. Isn¡¯t our pay a little too high? Also, we are in a city, but why is there no production. Only three buildings are being used." Asked the younger guard before taking a small pause to eat a bite of his food. He then added, "Their whole production must be within one of their rings, and that is careless.. If they lose it, the mercenary faction will end up taking the me because we were unable to protect them!"

    The more the younger guardined, the more serious the other became. He was significantly older than the other, and while neither of them needed to eat, he was used to having lunches with the mercenaries he was partnered with during every shift, in an attempt to bond with them. His quiet and attentive behaviour would make him pass as a person who would listen to anybody¡¯s opinion, and that would keep his ideas to himself.

    This would usually allow him to study the true character of his partners, who by seeing him as a reserved person, would usually end up showing their true character. All of this was done for the purpose of finding people worth befriending, after all, the older cultivator had spent the past twenty thousand years living multiple lives, and while his friends, past wives and even children died out in time, he was only able to bear his long life when he had someone to listen to.. Be it a co worker, or his current wife and children.

    However, for as bored as he was, he still was a mercenary. He had been one for his whole life, and the rules were above all to him.. So when the conversation reached this point, he had started to feel uneasy.

    "Also, how are these merchants so weak? How is it possible that nobody has ever robbed them of theirpany?" Asked the younger looking cultivator.

    The eyes of the older warrior narrowed, and his actions became almost mechanical. The fork moved into his mouth and down towards his te, while his pupils were pointed right towards his rantingpanion. ".. isn¡¯t that the point? How powerful must their connections be-" Said the older warrior in an attempt to eradicate any strange idea from the mind of his partner, before being interrupted..

    While raising his left brow, the younger warrior pointed his fork towards the older guard, and said "Somebody will, sooner orter.. A smart bastard.. I just hope he won¡¯t kill us while he does. It would be easier if, by absurd, we took theirpany.. At least we would have a chance of keeping it for a few years.. Hehe."

    As soon as these words left the guard¡¯s mouth, the young girl that was standing near the kitchen¡¯s entrance turned towards the door, and entered it nonchntly. The young boy who was next to her kept moving the chairs and tables around as if nothing was happening, but the expression of his face, showed an increased amount of seriousness.

    The old warrior noticed both of these odd events, so he ced his fork by the side of his dish, and moved his hand closer to the sword he carried.

    While in the middle of a rant, the younger guard was still a high human with tens of thousands of years of experience, and the moment hispanion moved, he noticed him, and said "Are you done already? You have been bothering me toe eat every day for lunch since the day we have been partnered together, and now you don¡¯t want to eat?"

    The older warrior did not respond, and instead looked at hispanion with a stern expression.

    From the door of the kitchen, came out the young girl that was tending to the restaurant hall, along with a woman dressed in simple clothes covered by a white apron. These clothes were dirtied with stains of different colors, and she was drying her wet hands on the tissue that was hanging by the string that kept the apron tightly wrapped around her athletic body.

    This young woman approached the table, and once she arrived in front of it, she bowed in salutation to the older warrior before turning towards the younger one. She then said with a polite and calm tone, "Your contract with the Golden Karma Company has been terminated. Please, leave Hiel city, and report back to the mercenary faction."

    The younger cultivator was taken aback by the words uttered by this young woman, but it was not the same for the older warrior, who after seeing the appearance of this woman, shook his head, and muttered "You should have stopped talking sooner.." At the same time, his fingers touched the hilt of his sword.

    "What? What are you talking about, kitchen girl? Haha!" Said the younger guard before bursting out inughs. He then turned towards his partner, and asked rethorically "Did you hear what she said?"

    However, what he found in the old warrior¡¯s face, was dead seriousness.

    "Article nine, paragraph two, subsection four. ¡¯If a member of the staff expresses a clear intention of harming, stealing, killing, or betraying the Golden Karma Company, his or her contract will be immediately terminated, and he or she will be sent back to the mercenary faction to report.¡¯.. " Said the young woman in order to avoid any sort of confusion.

    Once again, the younger warrior was taken aback. To see a simple cook have that level of knowledge regarding his contract, was ridiculous, so he responded with indignation by saying "That is madness! You are a cook, you have no right to terminate my contract. You better shut your mouth before I throw you into the void like the piece of garbage that you are!"

    The young woman did not seem to be intimidated in the least, and instead said, "Your words were in breach of your contract, which has already been terminated. Please, leave the territory of the Golden Karma Company, or I will be forced to have you dragged out."

    While this would not seem to be a big deal for a person who did not belong to the mercenary faction, it was not the same for those who were. Each mercenary belonged to a certain rank, and each rank was granted based not on the power of the individual, but by his affidability.

    Finding the object that had been requested, being a crucial part when at war, being a model employee.. They would all affect the ranking of the mercenary, which would allow them to receive safer, and better paid jobs.

    Each type of mission had been evaluated, and matched the rank of the warrior to which it was assigned. The result of all of these missions were impossible to predict, as many things could go wrong, but in order to positively affect the mercenaries to which they were assigned, each type had specific rules and indications. For example, in the context of guarding a city, the mission would be considered a failure if a warrior expressed or disyed his intentions in robbing, or harming the client of the faction in any way.. And that was exactly what had happened.

    If the word that he had broken a contract for the mercenary faction in the worst way possible came out, the rank of the younger-looking cultivator would be decreased, and he would be banned from taking part to another protection job for who knows how many years.

    So, when he heard a simple cooke out of her kitchen and fire him on the spot, the first idea that came to his mind, was to grab the knife he was using to eat with, and take the heads of this young woman, and the little girl who had told on him, so that is what he did. He tightened his grip around the metallic knife, and waved his arm with enough speed to turn his arm invisible, but before it could reach the skin of the young woman¡¯s neck, a few sparks appeared a few centimeters away, and his arm was pushed back.

    The younger cultivator turned to look at his partner in shock. He was holding his sword, and pointing it directly at him. "I have to kill them! You know I did not mean to do anything! I can¡¯t let my rank be lowered again!" He eximed in a matter-of-fact tone, almost as if their lives meant nothing at all.

    The older warrior stared at him with a look filled with disappointment, and after shaking his head a couple of times, he said, "Article nine, paragraph one, subsection one, ¡¯The first priority of every guard is the protection of every individual within Hiel city, no matter what their upation, social status, or economic situation is.¡¯ Go back to Militia.. And next time, think before you speak."

    The young woman was pleased by the words of the older warrior, which caused her to let out a faint smile which the younger warrior could not help being irritated by. Unfortunately, that was the straw that broke the camel¡¯s back, as he stood up and grabbed his own sword.. but before he could swing it, something odd happened.

    Everything started moving much faster than before, be it the rhythmic breathing of the young woman, or the sword of his partner, who was able to reach him with a speed that he did not believe him to be capable of. Luckily, this lightning fast sword simply struck the back of his hand, right before arge scarred fist approached the back of his head, and knocked him out cold.

    "I apologize on behalf of the Mercenary Faction, Miss Imblen." Said the old warrior to the young woman who was lowering the hand that she had lifted at some point before the attack of the younger warrior, in order to activate the formation that covered the whole city. A formation which was embed with mental power and time essence, and allowed for its wielder to slow, or stop time not only for one¡¯s physical body, but also his consciousness.

    "There isn¡¯t a tree without bad apples." Said Imblen before letting out a faintugh. She then added, "Please, report what happened to Lady Saullet, she is already waiting for you in the attic." She then left without waiting for a response, and went back into the kitchen.

    Surprised about how this young woman could be so calm when in front two high immortals, when her cultivation was barely at the immortality stages, the old man approached his unconsciouspanion, and grabbed him by the chestte.

    He then opened a portal that led to a point in space trillions of light years in the distance, into a gxy which belonged to the mercenary faction, and into a building where the mercenaries would need to go to, in order to report the reason why their missions had failed.

    From behind this portal, a middle aged warrior d in steel armor nodded at him almost as if he knew exactly what he was going to do, and that after the old warrior threw the unconscious cultivator through this portal, he grabbed him, and took him away.

    -----

    Five minutester.

    "Come in." Said a modted voice that came from within the office.

    The warrior immediately opened the door, entered the room, and approached the desk behind which a beautiful and noble-looking woman with silver hair was sitting at. "You wanted to see me,dy saullet." He said. His tone was polite, and devoid of any sense of superiority despite his higher power.. after all, to a member of the mercenary faction, a customer was more important that cultivation.

    "Yes, I wanted to talk to you about what happened a few minutes ago.." She said after cing her arms above the desk, and crossing the fingers of her hands into a joined fist.

    An expression of embarrassment appeared on the man¡¯s face, as he said "About that, I apologize on the beh-"

    "Let us talk about the chance of bing the captain of the guards of Hiel city."

    "Oh.." Said the warrior in shock. He had spent the past few minutes wondering whether the whole contract with the mercenary faction would be terminated, but instead, he was here for a promotion. Unfortunately, it was a promotion that he did not wanted. "My apologies Mdy, but I am no captain material. I don¡¯t want to be feared or excluded by the other guards because I outrank them, if you could simply assign another partner to me, that would be great."

    Emelnie was taken aback. For a mercenary to refuse a better paid job, was unheard of. "Are you sure you won¡¯t even consider it?" She asked after right after.

    "Is this a reward for my behaviour?" Asked the warrior with curiosity. A question to which Emelnie responded by nodding her head in confirmation. "Then I would like to make a request instead, if possible.." He then said.

    "Ask away." Said Emelnie.

    "I have heard that the Golden Karma Company has created connections not only thanks to its products, but due to its academy. If possible, I would like for my youngest daughter to attend it.." Said the warrior with a hint of nervousness. He then tried to sell her talents by adding, "She is very smart, and she is much more interested in the study of essences that in bing a mercenary like her old man. She is extremely well behaved, and as pretty as her mother! Which is one hell of a lot more than I am. Stubborn as a tri-horned mule as well.. Ha! This one time, she tri- Oh, my apologies mdy." stopping his rant only after noticing that he had gone full on proud father at some point in the middle of his pitch.

    Worried that his employer might have found his ranting annoying, the warrior immediately apologized, only to notice that the expression on Emelnie¡¯s face was not one of annoyance, but one of sadness.

    In his tens of thousands of years, he had seen this expression more than once before.. It was the expression of worry that a parent that hadn¡¯t seen their child for a long time would have.

    "You have a daughter?" Asked Emelnie with a broken voice.

    "Yes mdy, more than one." Responded the warrior while noticing the eyes of the woman move in the direction of the two ques on her desk. "Is that your family, mdy?" he then asked.

    Emelnie kept looking at the two ques for a few moments, before saying "Yes, we were separated.. Too long ago." She responded before clearing the tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes, and saying to the warrior "It would be our honor to have your daughter attend our academy. I have no doubt that she will fit in perfectly."

    The warrior bowed his head in a thankful way, then turned around, and began walking towards the door. Before leaving, however, he turned around one more time, and said "As a father, I am sure that your family is doing anything in their power to see you again. The burden of not turning hope into grief, belongs to those who are waiting.. Mdy." He then bowed one more time, and left the room.

    After listening to the man¡¯s words, Emelnie caressed the faces depicted by the ques, and muttered "I know you will bothe back to me.. Come back soon."

    -----

    Meanwhile, inside what appeared like a sized room surrounded by walls of slimy flesh, were two spheres of fully stable spatial essence. One of them was empty, while the other contained a middle aged man with messy hair, dressed with clothes that appeared to have gone through hell. If Daniel could have seen this man, he would have immediately recognized him as his third teacher, the person who had pushed hisprehension of spatial essence into his head by torturing him mentally with it.. Edmund.

    On his face was an expression that was beyond that of irritation, which he used to look around in exasperation, almost as if the worst possible scenario he could have thought about, had just yed out right in front of him.

    "I told you! I TOLD YOU A HUNDRED TIMES!" He shouted in the direction of the other sphere. ".. ¡¯No they will ignore us!¡¯, ¡¯They look so silly!¡¯, ¡¯They are mostly harmless¡¯... MY ASS! You got us both eaten!!" he said with anger after repeating a few phrases he had heard over and over again in thest couple of years.

    He and the spatial elemental whom he traveled with, were now in the stomach of one of the monsters of the void.

 Chapter 341 A Long Way Back Home

    "Can you do that ¡¯shrink and move in between molecules¡¯ to get us out of here?" Asked Edmund after finally calming himself down.

    After a long silence, a disembodied voice came from the other sphere of stable space, and said, "I can¡¯t. There is solid space that keeps the molecules of these colossal monsters joined together. If there wasn¡¯t, the shattered space would rip them to pieces."

    "Damn it.." muttered Edmund with disappointment.

    More than two years ago, Edmund had been separated from the rest of his family right after being thrown into the void. While his son was safe within the world contained in the pocket dimension, his daughter and wife had been pulled into two different spatial rifts, splitting his family apart.

    After that happened, Edmund was left alone in the void for a few minutes, protected by hisprehension of spatial essence.. when he was rescued by a group of cultivators that belonged to a faction called ¡¯Void Dwellers¡¯. This faction had found a home in the void, and their gift consisted in spatial maniption and creation. Their isted nature made them a rtively reserved but peaceful faction, and the moment they had seen Edmund by himself, they had recued him and taken into one of thes which, thanks to their powers, were able to keep from copsing.

    Once safe, Edmund had desperately tried to find a way back to find his family, but no matter to whom or for how long he asked, he was always met with rejection.

    While experts about the shattered space, the void dwellers had no control over where they would arrive when entering the stable space. Whenever they would have to reach the territory of the universal government, they were required to form a canal that was big enough to remain stable, and that pinpointed the general area of stable space in which they would appear. Once there, they were allowed to use objects simr to those owned by the high level elites of the other factions to move around the territory of the universal government.

    Unfortunately, while Edmund had found some people that wouldn¡¯t have minded opening a portal to send him back home, no one was willing to teleport him back into the territory of the universal government.. as the cost for that, was not only beyond what Edmund could ever pay, but also limited by the agreement between the Void Dwellers, and the universal government.

    After meeting with multiple rejections, Edmund¡¯s mind entered a dark ce. He was used to being separated from his family for long periods at a time, but for cultivators, months of research were as long as a few hours. Back home, he could interrupt his research to go and see his family whenever he wanted, but now, he was not sure whether he would ever be able to see them again. His worries quickly turned into anxiousness and depression, causing him to wander around the territory of the Voild Dwellers like a ghost, bound to the world of the living due to unfinished business.

    It was at his lowest point, that Edmund had met the spatial elemental. A being who moved through the shattered space of the void, as if its chaotic motions had nothing to do with him.

    Edmund¡¯s passion andprehension for spatial essence were above what someone at his level of cultivation, and that didn¡¯t belong to the faction of the void dwellers, should have possessed. This passion was enough for Edmund to pick the interest of this elemental, which in the end, bonded with him over their shared passion over thisplicated and powerful type of essence. During one of their many conversations, Edmund had recounted the story about how he had ended up into the void, and about how he was looking for a way back to his family.

    It was right then, that the spatial elemental took pity on him, and revealed to him that there was indeed an option.. A dangerous one.

    This method consisted in finding the pocket dimension which contained the world created by Daniel. Once found, the spatial elemental would be able to feel the feeble connection that the pocket dimension had to the outside universe, and create a bridge for him to reach the wielder of the ring.

    For that to be possible, there was a requirement. While the spatial elemental could teleport anywhere he wanted, the void was in no way smaller than the stable universe, and it contained uncountable pocket dimension. Without knowing exactly which one was the right pocket dimension, there was no way for him to find it. Edmund needed to provide an items which could match the power that marked the spatial essence of which the pocket dimension was made out of, so that the spatial elemental could recognize it.

    Luckily Edmund was still in possession of a ki g that contained Daniel¡¯s immortal essence. The rest had been used in a fruitless attempt to call Daniel back when Jerigh had returned along with Thien, Mea, Nilo, and their son, and brought back the news that Daniel was back to his former self.

    Once in possession of the ki g, the spatial elemental turned into a finger sized sphere of spatial essence, and jumped into one of the fragments of space, disappearing a momentter. As soon as he disappeared, he was immediately teleported to the fragment of space that, when the space had been as stable as the other universe, bordered the one he was currently in.. then into another, and another.

    His figure appeared in trillions of different points in space in a matter of minutes, until finally, he stopped. Thanks to his nature, he was able to feel any form of space around him, and the moment he approached an area that was close enough to a pocket dimension whose essence was marked by the same power contained within the ki g, he turned into a humanoid being of spatial essence, which was unaffecte by the chaotic nature of the shattered space, and looked around.

    Nothing could be seen from where he was, as the pocket dimension was still billions of kilometers away, but since he knew that this point was likely the closest he woulde to it in a short amount of time, he decided to teleport back.

    When he reappeared only ten minutes had passed, and Edmund was waiting for him while sitting on the ground, and with his eyes closed.

    After finally finding a lead that would take him back home, Edmund began his travel towards the pocket dimension along with the spatial elemental, which turned into a protective sphere around him, and teleported both of them in the ce where he had felt the presence of Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension.

    The path was long, and in between them and the pocket dimensions were many dangers, but that did not stop Edmund, which instead kept going while also assimting as much knowledge about spatial essence as he could from the spatial elemental.

    Now, more than two years had passed, and Edmund and the spatial elementals had been swallowed by one of the monsters which, until now, they had been able to avoid so carefully. This had been caused by the spatial elemental, which by not knowing much about these monsters, had be cocky enough to y around when in their presence.

    Once into the monster¡¯s stomach, however, he had quickly discovered that the body of the monsters was made so that they would be protected by the shattered space, and that meant that their bodies were natural barriers of spatial essence which did not allow for anything to teleport in or out of them.

    "Sorry, my mistake." Said the disembodied voice apologetically. His intention was to help Edmund, but in the end, a moment of distraction had possibly put him further away from going back to his family.

    "Don¡¯t apologize.. Just help me find a way out." Responded Edmund in a dismissive tone. All he could think about was to See his wife and children, and not even a spatial monster would be able to distract him from that goal. He looked around in an attempt to find a sign that could simbolize the two things that would always be present within a stomach, an entrance, and an exit.. But the area was toorge for his sight to cover.

    The sphere of stable space that floated next to Edmund¡¯s, quickly turned into a humanoid with features as clear as a steamy mirror. He then turned his expressionless face towards Edmund, and said "I didn¡¯t even know that these things had a mouth."

    "It¡¯s fine, if they have a mouth, that means that they have a digestive system. Let¡¯s split. Look for anything that looks like a gigantic hole on the walls." Said Edmund with a disgust that grew bigger the more he reached the end of the sentence. He then floated away, while protected by the sphere of spatial essence that he had learned how to create from the spatial elemental.

    After more than a day spent floating within the monster¡¯s stomach, Edmund had been able to see a lot more than he had expected. Floating within therge stomach, were objects that appeared to havee not only from different civilizations, but also from different levels of development.

    Large boulders with viges in ruins, spherical masses of water, prairies with huts made out of hay and dirt.. It was clear that these monsters did not have a specific diet, and that they would swallow anything that they could put their tentacles on.

    The objects that Edmund had seen, were likely to be the unlucky surroundings of randomly opened rifts, through which these monsters would reach for with their tentacles, and grab anything they could before pulling them into the void, and swallowing them whole.

    What made exploring the monster¡¯s stomach a tedious task, was the fact that due to theck of gravity, the monster had developed a perfectly round stomach, and there were no t walls that could indicate that he was close to the roof, or the floor of it.

    The more time Edmund spent exploring the monster¡¯s stomach, the more worried he became. Amongst the many object that floated in this stable space, were such arge variety of objects, that it caused him to start questioning whether, once ingested, these items would ever be digested. This hypothesys was also supported by the absence of gastric fluids.

    His search kept going for a few more days, until finally, he saw something out of the ordinary.

    Instead of the usual bright red wall, halfway buried into the wall, was a massive clump of pulsating yellow meat. The way this organ pulsated made it seem that this clump was the monster¡¯s beating heart, but the horizontal slit that split its mass in half, made it look closer to a shut eye.

    What was odd about this, was how the number of objects would increase the more he approached it, almost as if the floating objects gravitated towards it at such a low speed, that it made their motion almost invisible to the eye. The pulse rate of this organ was slow as well, and was just a bit faster than a pulse per minute. However, each of these pulses sent a shiver down Edmund¡¯s spine.

    In hope that hispanion would know more about it than he did, Edmund formed a small construct of spatial essence. This construct was simple, and had no particr use, with exception made for attracting the attention of hispainon, which was exploring the other side of the monster¡¯s stomach.

    After the constructed was formed, the spatial elemental appeared next to Edmund.

    "Nova, take a look at that. Do you think that¡¯s our way out?" Asked Edmund with a tone filled with doubt. His feelings towards his discovery were leaning towards fear more than happiness.

    The spatial elemental observed the pulsating organ for a few minutes, trying to examine the odd feeling that each of them would bring, but he was unable to learn anything but one thing.. "That is definitely not our way out."

    "What do you mean? How do you know?" Asked Edmund in confusion. He had felt fear in Nova¡¯s voice.

    Nova remained quiet for a few moments, before finally responding by saying "I can¡¯t exin it.. A portion of my being is screaming to get away from that thing, while the other is telling me that I don¡¯t need to fear it." He then began to stare at the mass of yellow flesh with rapture, only able to move his eyes away after a few long minutes.

    After his eyes moved away, theynded on a clump of dirt, above which rested a curled up mass of pointy red scales. "What is that?" He asked with curiosity while pointing at his finger at it.

    Edmund turned to look at what the elemental was pointing at, and after closing his eyes a few times in hope to verify if he was imagining things or not, he eximed, "What the.. I think that is.. A dragon?"

 Chapter 342 From Space to Void to Nothing

    "A dragon? What is a dragon doing here?" Asked Nova the spatial elemental with a curiosity masked by his expressionless face.

    While the power of an elemental was shown by his ability in emtingplicated forms like the human form, Nova had chosen for his humanoid shape to resemble that of a faceless mannequin. That was part of a tradition adopted by the spatial elementals from the void, where the spatial elementals would assume that form, in order to avoid being confused with the void dwellers, whose gift made them extremely simr to spatial elemental themselves.

    Without looking back at him, Edmund muttered through a confused expression, "I have no idea.. Are there dragons that live in the void?"

    "No. Especially at that level of power.. He is too weak to live in the void, and I have never heard of a dragon living within the territory of the Void Dwellers." Responded Nova without thinking twice about it.

    "His power feels somewhat familiar.." added Edmund in a low tone after observing the curled up dragon. He could not ce the pieces together in his mind, but there was something inside the draconic essence of this dragon that told him that the two had been near each other at some point in the past. He simply could not remember when or where.

    As soon as Nova heard Edmund¡¯s words, he turned to look back at the dragon, and asked, "Really? Why don¡¯t we wake him up and ask him?"

    "He seems to be in hibernation." Responded Edmund right after.

    "So? He might know something about this ce than we need to know.. He might even know what that thing is." Added Nova after pointing his finger at the pulsating yellow object that was assimted within the wall of bright red flesh.

    Edmund became pensive, and started to brush the badly cut beard which he had been forced to shorten by using knives made out of metal essence for the past two years. Then, after a few seconds spent considering their options, he said, "I don¡¯t see why not. He does not have the power to threaten us anyway."

    The moment Edmund finished speaking, Nova once again turned to look at the curled up dragon, and after taking control over the space that surrounded it, he made it tremble in ce like a leaf that was being ill-treated by powerful gusts of wind.

    A few shakes in, and the body of the dragon began to move. His long tail unwrapped from around his body, and his massive head moved raised from above his thick legs. Still sleepy, the dragon stretched his neck, and tried to gather his thoughts. However, before he could do that, he felt two scents.. One that was unfamiliar, and one that he had smelled before.

    He turned towards the two figures that floated a few meters away from him, and after looking at them with confusion, his eyes opened as wide as possible. He had clearly remembered something extremely important, and anything else was irrelevant inparison.. So he looked around, and noticed that the boulder on which he had fallen asleep, as well as many others, were close to the massive lump of yellow tissue.

    "HOW LONG BETWEEN PULSES?!" Yelled the dragon to the two, after turning to look at them in shock.

    "What? What are you tal-"

    Nova tried to inquire about the dragon¡¯s odd behaviour, but he was interrupted by the dragon who once again yelled, "ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!"

    "A minute." Responded Edmund, leaving Nova to look at this massive ck-scaled dragon with curiosity. From the way he behaved, this dragon appeared to really be in possession of information about the ce they were all in, and since he was not used to treating with people, he decided to stay quiet and let Edmund do the talk.

    While still a dragon, one could notice an evident change in his expression, which was now one of anxiousness and horror. "On no.. oh no damn it! I have slept for too long.." He said while looking at the pulsating yellow lump. He then turned around, and pushing with his legs with as much power as his massive body could muster, he took off in the opposite direction.

    For as big and impressive this dragon was, the power that his body emanated could not stand up to par with Edmund¡¯s or Nova¡¯s. Whileparable to the initial immortal stages of human cultivation, Edmund¡¯s cultivation was already at thete stages, while Nova could use his power topete against high humans if he wanted to. For either of them, stopping this Dragon was not an issue, and so they did.

    Nova immediately took control over the space which surrounded him, and shifted it with the empty space that was in front of them.

    "What are you doing!?" Asked the dragon in a state of pure anxiousness after finding himself back where he had started. "Let go of me! We have to get away from that thing! IT WILL HAPPEN ANY MOMENT NOW!!"

    "CALM DOWN!" Shouted Nova in an attempt to help the dragon with recovering a portion of his sanity, he then said, "Exin what you are talking about, and I will get you as far away from that thing as you want."

    "There is no time! One minute is already toote!.. It¡¯s.." The dragon¡¯s sentence trailed off as a crusty sound made its way into their ears. The two halves of this yellow protuberance had stopped beating, and were now beginning to part from one another. "It¡¯s toote.." muttered the dragon in resignation.

    The slit that was thinner than a strand of hair, was now bingrger andrger, uncovering what was behind it.

    Edmund and the dragon looked at what was uncovered with shock and terror, but the same was not for Nova, who finally understood not only what was about to happen, but had also uncovered the reason why the void was the way it was.

    "What is that?!" Asked Edmund while looking at a vortex of darkness that attracted anything that floated in the vicinity of the now opened protuberance. He himself, along with the dragon, were feeling an unbearable suction force, pull them in.. but before they could be taken away by this power, a sphere of powerful spatial essence formed around them, separating them from the space that was under its influence.

    "I finally understand now.." Said Nova while staring at the massive objects that were being swallowed by the massive vortex. He could feel what kind of power this vortex was made of, and the reason he was attracted by it before, was because it was nothing but pure spatial essence, a type whichposed his very own body, but that he could not recognize due to the dormant state it was in before the two halves that protected it openedpletely.

    He could also feel how these objects were charging the power of the vortex. Each massive object wasposed of numerous types of elements, and within these elements, were the correspondent types of natural essence.. After being absorbed, these essences would be turned into fuel for the vortex to rotate faster, and increase in power.

    "GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF AND START EXPLAINING!" Shouted Edmund in exasperation. The situation appeared to be critical, and yet hispanion did nothing but form two protections around his and the dragon¡¯s body, and spectate as these events unfurled in front of their eyes.

    "Copsed space.. A spatial sinkhole.." muttered Nova.

    These two phrases meant nothing to Edmund or the dragon, but meant almost everything to Nova.

    As an elemental made out of one of the core essences of the universe, there were powers that he himself were not able to use despite theprehension he possessed on them, or at least, not at his level of power. For spatial elementals, that power was the control over copsed space.

    Many erroneously referred to the space within the void as "copsed", but that was incorrect. The structure of the space within the void was broken into an infinite amount of cards that, while still connected to each other, were extremely well shuffled.

    True copsed space, on the other hand, was fully destroyed space. A sinkhole that lead into the nothingness thaty beyond, where space itself had ceased to exist. An appropriate method topare the three types of space, would be to look at stable space as a whole mirror, shattered space as a cracked mirror, and copsed space as a frame with only fragments of ss left on the edges.

    After realizing whaty behind these yellow barriers, the pieces of the biggest mystery within the void began toe in ce, and finally, Nova realized what the truth was.

    "It was these monster¡¯s fault.. It was them all along." Said Nova as city-sized boulders were broken apart and swallowed into this vortex of copsed space. He then turned to look at Edmund, and said "I don¡¯t think we can get away now.."

    Edmund looked back at him in confusion, then turned to look at the increasingly bigger vortex that, once reached a sizerge enough to fill the cavity where it had formed, was once again covered by the two yellow masses.

    Oncepletely hidden, the behaviour of the originally pulsating mass changed, and instead of pulsating, it began to tremble.. causing for the space within the monster¡¯s stomach to tremble alongside it. The trembling became more and more violent, until finally, it stopped abruptly. The protruding yellow mass deted as if the vortex inside it had lost all of its mass, and only momentster, the body of the monster lost any form of spatial formation that kept him protected against the destructive power of the shattered space.

    The monster had be like a normal being made out of flesh, but before the shattered space could tear his body apart, an explosion that could bepared to the power of a dying star, butpletely made out of spatial essence, pushed through the molecules of his body without damaging it.

    The explosion moved through the monster¡¯s body and reached outwards, expanding for millions of kilometers per second. This spatial shockwave was able to further shatter the pieces of space that were contained within the affected area, and it was clear that, if multiple of these explosions happened at close intervals, the whole area would copse altogether.

    Thankfully, this explosion only went off once, then retreated back into the monster¡¯s body as fast as it expanded.

    While the wave of spatial power moved back into the monster¡¯s body, Nova dashed in the direction of one of the walls of the monster¡¯s stomach, while forcibly dragging Edmund and the dragon with him. The moment it looked like he would crash against the meaty surface, however, was when a thread of spatial essence invisible to the eye pushed through the monster¡¯s body, and one it reached the other end, extended in thickness until forming a clean path for the three to go through.

    After the three went through, the wave of spatial power entered back into the monster¡¯s body, and the connection that made the monster¡¯s body unaffected by the shattered space, reappeaedr.

    Nova immediately tried to teleport away, but the scene that was enveloping in front of him left him aghast.

    Multiple massive rifts had appeared all around the monster¡¯s body, and through each of them, were numerous tentacles that tried to grab as much as they could before taking it back into the monster¡¯s mouth, and work as fuel for the next explosion.

    Unfortunately for them, the monster was not distracted to a point where he wouldn¡¯t notice their presence, so he immediately moved one of his tentacles in their direction in an attempt to get a hold of them and pull them back into its mouth.

    "Damn it!" Eximed Nova as the massive tentacle moved against him with enough power and speed to disturb the spatial essence around the whole area. Luckily, they were covered by his spatial essence, which when struck by this massive tentacle, threw them in the direction of one of these massive rifts.

    The impact of the blow was enough to send them directly through, and travel through space while fully unconscious.

    After an unspecified amount of hours, Edmund woke up to see himself, Nova, and the dragon which they had picked up only moments after the disaster, travel in space at a mind boggling speed. He immediately tried to stop their motion, but unfortunately, the remnants of Nova¡¯s power were still enough for him to keep him locked, and force him to shoot through the emptiness of space without any form of control.

    When Edmund turned around to look at the direction where they were headed, he saw what looked like a grain of sande his way. This grain of sand, however, immediately grew to reach the size of a pebble, a rock, a fist, a human head, a house, a mountain.. And it didn¡¯t show any intention of stopping.

    At first Edmund hoped for that grain of sand to be a small pebble that would disintegrate against their barriers, but it was only after this grain became as big as an entire, that he began to panic.. After all, the was headed his way.

    "NOVA! WAKE UP!" He screamed in an attempt to wake the spatial elemental, but it was already toote. The spatial essence that protected their bodies began to burn off due to the¡¯s atmosphere, which was thick enough to restrain Edmund¡¯s power into his body.

    In a matter of seconds, he found himself freefalling from a height of tens of thousands of meters.

    Muffled by the copious amounts of air that entered his mouth, he screamed, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" The ground became closer and closer, but no matter what he tried, his immortal essence was simply not able to push through his skin.

    In the end, unable to avoid the impact, Edmund covered his face with both arms, and waited for it to happen.

    However, it never did.

    When he opened his eyes, he, Nova, and the dragon were floating about half a meter above the ground. In front of him, stood a wolf cub with a fluffy ck mane around his neck, a long thin ck tail, and crystal clear eyes.

    "You look like shit.." said a familiar disembodied voice that came from behind him.

 Chapter 343 One Dragon to Save Them All

    Nothing but these few words were needed for Edmund to recognize this voice. Memories of his oddly talented and cunning student made their way into his mind one after the other, but would not stay long.

    He immediately sprung up on his feet, and after noticing Daniel stand right behind him, while hoping that he was not the first member of their group that he had found, said, "Daniel! Is my family with you?" In his mind there wasn¡¯t enough room for thoughts regarding whether Daniel was truly back to his older self or not, all he really wanted was to find his family.

    He then looked around in anxiousness, but aside from the wolf cub, nobody else was present. That, paired with Daniel¡¯s expression, made him realize that that day was not the day he would be able to reunite with his family.

    "I¡¯m sorry.." muttered Daniel, clearly as unhappy about it as his third teacher was.

    Edmund was clearly dejected about this, but then he quicklyposed himself. He was able to at least feel a little reassurance in being back to the stable space, and not separated by his family by a whole different dimension. "Have you heard anything about them?" he asked in the hope of at least receiving good news.

    He was disappointed once again, but what Daniel said made him feel reassured. "I haven¡¯t.. But as long as I am alive, nothing too bad will ever happen to them. I promise." His tone was confident, and for some reason, removed every doubt that his family could have been in danger from Edmund¡¯s mind.

    Almost as if reacting to this weight being taken off of his chest, Edmund felt his power suddenly increase beyond what were the limitations of his cultivation. At the same time, for the first time in years, he was able to feel calm.

    Daniel would never tell him that, in that moment, he had used a bit of his mental power to calm Edmund¡¯s weak mind power. Instead, he turned towards the passed out dragon, and asked, "Can you tell me how in the world did you end up with him?"

    "Do you know him?" Edmund asked back in confusion. The absurdity of finding an acquaintance of Daniel in the stomach of a random monster that floated around a random portion of the void, was beyond what one could process.

    "We both know him.. But you never had the pleasure of talking to him." Said Daniel while picking the wolf cub that was chewing on his shoces from the ground, and holding him in his arms. He then raised his arm in the dragon¡¯s direction, and said, "I hope you didn¡¯t get too close to him.. Because he killed both of us once before."

    Edmund did not react to Daniel¡¯s words, and instead looked as a sphere of darkness that formed at the tip of Daniel¡¯s index.. But just as this nail sized sphere was about to be thrown in the dragon¡¯s direction, a voice was hearding from the distance.

    "NO! STOP!!" shouted Xargy, who approached Daniel¡¯s position while in his draconic form. Next to him was Aeron, who followed him quietly.

    "Do you know him?" Asked Daniel as the sphere of darkness dissipated.

    Xargynded heavily on arge patch of dirt, raising a cloud of dust tall enough to cover his entire body, but when he came out of it, he was in his humanoid form. "I do know him, that damn idiot." He then kept walking towards the massive body of the unconscious dragon before raising his hand, and pping the hard scales of the ck dragon¡¯s head with enough power to wake him up violently, but without actually hurting him.

    The dragon woke up immediately, the pain he was feeling in his head was making his massive yellow eyes tear up, as well as causing him to feel quite a bit of anger. "Who the hell was that?!" He shouted before gritting his teeth, and letting out hot fumes from in between them.

    While having just woken up with a powerful blow just moments before, the dragon¡¯s anger did notst long, and was reced by a deep confusion. He could feel multiple smells which he had encountered before, as well as one to which he was extremely familiar with. It was only after calming himself down, that he noticed Xargy, who was standing right in front of him.

    "Uncle?" Asked the dragon with a dumbfounded expression which could be read on his scaly face despite his draconic semnces. "Unce!! It really is you! It¡¯s so great to see you! Haha!" He added as his body turned from that of a dragon, into that of a human who approached Xargy with opened arms.

    "Dorgeo.." muttered Xargy while almost unable to keep a straight face. He was d to see a member of his family, but he knew that this niece of his was not exactly the young dragon that used to bother him with questions regarding the royal library of the draconic¡¯s faction.

    Nevertheless, he allowed for Dorgeo to ce both of his arms on his shoulder in salutation.

    "I can¡¯t believe I am in front of you, uncle Xargy! It¡¯s been what.. Four thousand years?! Did you finally change your mind about joining master¡¯s army?" He said with a bright smile on his face. It was clear that his feelings of happiness towards Xargy were not feigned, but also that at the core of every single one of his thoughts, was always his master, the tamer.

    Xargy ignored thest part of the question, and instead ced his hands above Dorgeo¡¯s shoulders, and said "It is nice to see that you are okay."

    Daniel, who was standing on the side, immediately understood why this dragon who had sessfully killed him in the past had been, in a sense, rescued by Edmund. What had caused that action, was the fact that Xargy was part of his group, and while he looked at the tamer as his biggest enemy, the fact that he still cared about his family could not be denied.

    By being part of Daniel¡¯s group, Xargy had entered into the halo of luck that surrounded him. To lose a member of his family would have hurt Xargy deeply, and since thest thing that Daniel wanted was for his friends to have to grieve the loss of a family member, Dorgeo had received a third-hand protection from ¡¯Karma X Luck¡¯.

    This event opened Daniel¡¯s eyes to the magnitude of danger that Karma X Luck could bring him, and the rest of the universe. For example, if Xargy¡¯s hopes were for Dorgeo¡¯s dreams to be fulfilled, then, the Tamer would have already arrived, and he would have been captured right away. That would have been because Dorgeo¡¯s unhappiness would have caused Xargy¡¯s sadness, and Xargy¡¯s sadness would have caused Daniel¡¯s.

    The more Daniel discovered about his power, the more worried he became. Every single effect had the potential of being a double edged sword with catastrophic consequences, and if he didn¡¯t start to think three steps ahead when usin them, he would sooner orter end up on the wrong side of the de.

    Back to the couple of rtives, Dorgeo had lost his smile. After seeing Xargy¡¯s expression, he had understood immediately that he was mistaken. His uncle was still a fugitive.

    The humanoid being with ck scales took a step back, and started looking at his surroundings. Before his eyes could evennd on Daniel¡¯s body, he recognized him through smell. "You are that human.." His eyes opened to the size of two perfectly spherical golden gems, as he muttered, "How can you have grown this powerful? How long have I been sleeping?.."

    The reason why Dorgeo remembered about Daniel, was not only due to his smell, but also because he was the first human he had seen after being pushed into hibernation as a result of a battle right outside Daniel¡¯s home, as well as thest person who he had seen before a massive monster hade out of a rift, and pulled him into the void.

    "You have to stop.. Can you hear what you are saying?" Asked Xargy with disappointment. He then added with a proud and powerful tone, "You are a dragon! Dragons never bowed to anyone but their king!"

    Dorgeo took another step back, and shook his head while smiling. He then said as if trying to exin something to a kid who had yet to understand anything of life, "Uncle, you just don¡¯t understand. We are happy with our master.. She is brutal at times, and does not care if we die for her goals, but we belong to her. To serve her is the only true honor in the universe."

    While speaking, Dorgeo kept walking backwards, and at the same time, used his fingers to create a formation which would be able to make his position clear to the Tamer. Unfortunately, both Aeron and Daniel had read through his schemes by reading his mind.

    An invisible and imprable barrier of spatial essence had formed around Dorgeo¡¯s body, isting him in the same way he had been while in the void. To be able to send his message through Daniel¡¯s barrier, he would have required to have enough spatialprehension to feel it, as well as a higher level of cultivation higher than his.

    After seeing that Dorgeo seemed to have lost his reason, Xargy turned to look at Aeron, and with pleading eyes, asked, "Is there something you can do? He wasn¡¯t like this before.. He was stubborn, unruly.. He never even obeyed his mother."

    In responses to Xargy¡¯s request, Aeron¡¯s eyes began to glow with a bright green color, which shone through the holes of his mask like two green torchlights. In his mind, the entire history of this dragon passed by like a series of images and feelings. He searched his mind for anything that would help him remove this mind control of sorts that appeared to have been rooted into the deepest parts of Dorgeo¡¯s mind, but no matter how deep he looked, he found nothing.

    In the memories that depicted Dorgeo¡¯s encounter with the Tamer, he had felt his emotions of admiration grow disproportionately every time they met. No matter for how long, or even if she spoke directly to him. The sheer sight of her caused his admiration to be deeper and stronger. Unfortunately, this effect did not appear to have been applied by another person¡¯s action, but Dorgeo¡¯s true feelings.

    Whatever it was that had convinced these inhuman beings to idolize her, it had nothing to do with mental power.

    There was no need for Aeron to speak for Xargy to know the result. He then tightened his fists in an anger that he had buried under old feelings of fear, and said to himself, "Even if I have to kill you.."

    Daniel looked as Xargy steeled his mind into killing the tamer, and said, "Say goodbye to him."

    "Why?" Asked Xargy after suddenly turn to look at Daniel. For a moment, he thought that Daniel had the intention of killing his nephew.

    "He cannot stay here. He has been trying to call his master ever since he woke up. I have no intention of babysitting him until we are strong enough to face her." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Once he understood the meaning of Daniel¡¯s words, Xargy breathed out in relief. He then turned to look at the dejected dragon, which was still trying to open the formation that would summon his master, and said "I will teach a lesson to your master, and then I will free our people. I promise."

    Clearly offended by Xargy¡¯s words, Dorgeo stopped his action, and took a step forward with the intention of fighting his uncle to the death, but before he could utter a single word through his tightly gritted teeth, Daniel snapped his fingers, and caused him to be teleported on an empty astheorid that was shooting through space in the opposite direction of Daniel¡¯s.

    The moment Dorgeo disappeared, Xargy turned towards the direction he had juste from, and left with eyes filled with resentment directed at the individual who had done nothing but ruin his life.

    After Xargy left, Daniel turned to look at the mannequin-like body of the spatial elemental, which finally began to move. However, instead of standing up from his lying position, he dissolved into a blob of essence, and reformed into his standing position.

    From his shapeless lips, the spatial elemental said "What is this? Where are we?"

 Chapter 344 A Missing Piece of Spatial Comprehension

    "We made it out. We are in the stable universe." Said Edmund after noticing that hispanion had woken up. However, it soon became clear to him that, that was not the answer that Nova was hoping to receive.

    "I know that we are in stable space.. I mean, what is this? The spatial essence here feels so.. New." Responded Nova while looking, and ignoring the presence of a dragon, a wolf cub which emanated dark essence, and two humans that looked at him with curiosity. After a whole minute spent in that confused state, he turned to look at Edmund, and asked, "Do you know these two?"

    "I know him. I mentioned him a couple of times before," Edmund replied as he looked at Xargy out of the corner of his eye and added, "Anyway, I don¡¯t know him."

    "Oh, so he is Daniel.. Your student?" Asked Nova with interest. Whenever Nova inquired about Edmund¡¯s story, he would reply by mentioning his past as a schr of space essence before his life and the lives of his family were pushed into another direction by Daniel. The young man who had assimted all of his knowledge of spatial essence, and after only a few years, had managed to teach him something new.

    The spatial essence had never really been more difficult to learn than any other kind of essence, the only thing that made it difficult to master it, was that many of its concepts could only be observed in catastrophic proportions. For example, one had to experience the Void to truly understand the shattered space, or see what Edmund, Dorgeo and Nova had seen inside the monster¡¯s body, in order to understand copsed space.

    Even Nova was unable to construct copsed space, since its very nature as being of spatial essence was the apotesis of copsed space, and any attempt to create it without sufficient power to contain it, would have caused the copse of his own body.

    At the mention of the word student, and odd expression appeared on Daniel¡¯s face. Almost as if ¡¯student¡¯ was just thest of the many words that could have described his rtionship with Edmund.

    As soon as this expression appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, Edmund narrowed his eyes while grunting at a very low volume.

    While Alesia and Daniel hadn¡¯t done anything to cover up the depth of their rtionship, Edmund had ignored them in order to preserve that imaginary world in which all fathers who had to see their daughters being stolen by a man, had to take refuge in ... one where the two of them were just very close friends. He himself knew that there was more to it, but he also knew that if he tried to dig deeper, he would have to go through a series of ufortable conversations with his wife, daughter, and Daniel himself.

    Unfortunately, this house of cards was destroyed the day Daniel lost control over his body. After months of watching Daniel behave in apletely different way, Edmund and the rest of the group decided to leave. One of the few people who decided to stay by his side along with Jerigh, Mea, Nilo, and Thien, was Alesia.

    The day Edmund was forced to drag his daughter away from a life dedicated to following a man who clearly did not care about her, was the worst day of his life, as well as the first time his daughter had ever told him she hated him.

    Daniel was able to see all these memories as they reappeared on Edmund¡¯s mind. He couldn¡¯t help but feel bad about what had happened, but since he had no part to y in Sewah¡¯s ns, he couldn¡¯t beat himself too much.

    Unable to look straight into Edmund¡¯s eyes, Daniel turned to look at the spatial elemental and said, "I am Daniel, and this is my."

    It was only after Daniel had spoken to him, that Nova realized something. ording to Edmund¡¯s story, Daniel should have been an immortal cultivator at best, so why was he this powerful? Was he not younger than thirty years of age? These questions made their way into Nova¡¯s mind, until finally, heposed himself, and said, "I am Nova. I was told that you have respect for my kind, so I was hoping to meet you one day. However, how did we get here? What are the chances.."

    "I have my ways to find my own people." Responded Daniel without going into an in depth exnation of his abilities.

    This answer was not enough for Nova, but he decided not to push his curiosity any further. After all, he did not know Daniel, and it was clear that he had his secrets. Instead of focusing on him, he turned to look at the wolf cub that Daniel was holding in his arms, and asked, "Can I ask you, what is that?"

    With a faint smile on his face, Daniel looked down at the cub, whose head was pointed upwards, and towards his face, and responded by saying, "This little demon, is Hell¡¯s ruler."

    Nova ignored Daniel¡¯s tone and words, which to him, sounded like an inside joke whose meaning he could notprehend, and instead asked, "What is he? Why does he feel like a dark elemental, and yetpletely different?.."

    Nova¡¯s idea of the wolf cub was not too far from being the truth. The wolf cub belonged to the spiritual wolves of mana, which were beings that had evolved from simple wolves after developing demonic power, and had obtained the ability to cultivate by absorbing the power of mana. This evolution had turned them into beings of a nature opposite to that of elementals, who excelled inprehenson, but needed to gain control and power through cultivation. The spiritual wolves of mana, on the other hand, excelled in the control, butcked power andprehension.

    That, unfortunately, while making the spiritual wolves of mana potentially more powerful than elementals when at the same stage, only allowed them to learn the concepts through the ingestion of essence spheres, instead of being born with them.

    Naturally, Daniel was not aware of this. All he knew about this race of demonic beasts was that they would be passionate about the first type of pure essence they tried, and would grow in power by ingesting spheres of the same type. So instead of starting a conversation he did not know much about, he made a dark essence sphere appear in between his fingers, causing the wolf cub to stare at it with eagerness, then moved it closer to the cub¡¯s muzzle before the cub could start yapping inint. "A demonic wolf with a sweet tooth for Ssst-Watch the fingers!" He said while shaking his ingex finger, which had been caught up in between the cub¡¯s teeth.

    Nova looked at the cub with more interest than ever, and after a full minute, he looked back at Daniel, and said, "I wish I could have seen one of them, of the spatial element."

    "Haha!" Daniel suddenly burst outughing, but after noticing that he had been rude, exined himself by saying "I agree, you would be quite the duo.. but trust me.. That would be an expensivepation to have."

    From the way Daniel fed the wolf cub with dark essence spheres, Nova did not find Daniel¡¯s words strange. who knew what the cost of helping a spiritual wolf of mana of the spatial essence to cultivate could be.

    As soon as this conversation ended, Edmund turned to look at Daniel, and asked with impatience. "How long do you think it will take for you to reach my family?"

    Instead of responding, Daniel closed his eyes, and remained quiet for a few moments. When he opened his eyes once again, he said, "Eighthy thousand years in that direction to reach your wife, and a hundred thousand more after that to reach Alesia." For as much as it pained him to admit it, Daniel was still far from being able to teleport through space for long distances at a time. He was able to bring his to a mind boggling speed that could outss any spaceship in existence, but in order to jump from gxy to gxy, he needed a portal.

    "They are not together?" Asked Edmund, already aware that the wait would be extremely long. After all, he had just jumped from a random point in shattered space, to a random point in solid space. To be able to find Daniel was already beyond luck.

    "Don¡¯t worry. They will be fine.." Said Daniel before moving the trajectory of the in a direction that was different from the one he had pointed towards moment before.

    Edmund trusted Daniel blindly. He knew that his reason to show him the distance between them and his family, wasn¡¯t to let him know how long it would take for them to arrive, and instead, it was to avoid making him do something stupid like traveling through empty space by himself in hope to find them.

    "Where are we going?" he asked with curiosity.

    "We need to get to Lucious. The faction that owns the territory that is housing him will be attacked soon, and if we don¡¯t intervene, he will die." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Daniel¡¯s response came as a surprise to Nova, who had no idea of what kind of power Daniel possessed, but not as a surprise to Aeron and Edmund, that were still standing in ce as if what they heard waspletely normal.

    The reason why Daniel did not bother to ask Nova to teleport them to their destination, was because he knew that he would not be able to.. And there was a simple reason for that. The ability that the spatial elementals possessed that allowed them to travel through massive distance, was based on the concept of shattered space. The way spatial elementals created connections between a part of shattered space and another, was by jumping from one fragment to the other until they would reach the ce they were looking for. Then, when they needed to teleport back, they would form a canal that went through that specific sequence of fragments.

    The multiple teleportations would require instants, and many would consider it to be extremely power consuming.. but in reality, the power that was required for that, was infinitesimal whenpared to the power required to create a stable portal that lead from point A to point B.

    After telling his n to Edmund, Daniel turned to look at Aeron, and nodded without any apprent reason. In response to this action, Aeron turned to look at Edmund.

    His eyes began to glow with a bright green hue which disappeared momentster.

    Edmund looked at Aeron with confusion, but did not pay too much attention to it. Instead, he went to sit on a clean patch of grass in order to meditate, and calm himself down.

    After looking at Edmund, Aeron approached Daniel, and ced his hand on his shoulder. He then removed it, grabbed the wolf cub from over Daniel¡¯sp, and left with it.

    Nova looked at this small exchange with curiosity. He was standing in silence, and examining each of Daniel¡¯s movements carefully. It was only after Daniel¡¯s index finger and thumb pinched the empty hair, that Nova felt his very existence tremble with fear and excitement. In his mind, however, was only shock.

    Right above the tips of Daniel¡¯s fingers was a microscopic crack, in the middle of which was a hole that lead toplete nothingness.

    "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Shouted Nova. He more than anybody else knew what Daniel was doing. He was praciticing his control over a concept of space he should not have possessed. One that was impossible to see in the stable space, as it not stopped, would expand to a point where it would destroy the whole universe..

    Daniel¡¯sprehension of copsed space came, of course, from Edmund¡¯s memories. Which Aeron had explored and passed on to Daniel, so that he could learn the missing concept of copsed space. However, he did not know of the devastating consequences that constructing copsed space would have.

    Around this nail sized hole in space, a spiderweb crack began to form, shattering the space around it as it proceeded outwards. The propagation of the crack was going out of hand, and even Daniel¡¯s power was unable to stop it, so Nova immediately teleported next to him in order to seal this small hole before it would grow any further, but before he could do anything, he noticed that the massive amount of power that came out of Daniel¡¯s body was not stopping. It simply kepting anding until the cracks were repaired, and pushed back in the direction of the small hole of copsed space, which closed right after.

 Chapter 345 A Lifelong Agreemen

    "How did you do that?" Asked Nova whilst in deep shock.

    While the portion of copsed space was only as wide as a needle, and the shattered space around it was around the same size as a human¡¯s head, for an individual at Daniel¡¯s level of cultivation to be able to close it in a small amount of time, was already an impossible feat.

    In the eyes of a spatial elemental, copsed space looked like a boat with a hole in the hull. The nothingness thatyd behind this hole would constantly push for it to berger, and cause for the space around it to shatter. The bigger the hole, therger the power needed to keep it from doing so.

    Even for a hole as small as what Daniel had closed moments ago, just to keep the power from spreading outwards, one needed to push stable spatial essence into it in the same way a seaman would pour buckets of water overboard to prevent the boat from taking in too much water.

    Daniel¡¯s power was just enough to push the shattered space back, but one problem remained. That problem was, of course, tiredness. Once too tired, the seaman would gradually slow down, and decrease the amount of water he would be able to remove whenpared to the amounth that would seep into the hole. Simrly, a cultivator would ultimately end up finishing his power before being able to close the holepletely. At that point, the shattering of space would be allowed to expand out of control, and if not fixed, in time, would force the stable universe into one simr to the Void.

    What Nova did not know about Daniel, was that he had a method to increase the production of his power to a point where he would be able to close the copsed space by himself without a problem.

    "You know how I did it. With enough power, copsed space ceases to be a danger." Responded Daniel calmly, while on the inside, he was extremely shaken. Even with ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, he had been barely able to close the copsed space. Had his power been any lower than that, he would have truly ended up doing something stupid.

    After calming himself down, Daniel muttered before turning in Nova¡¯s direction, "You would be able to do that too if.." but he stopped, letting the phrase trail into silence. ".. nevermind."

    "What? Do you have a way that would allow me to control copsed space?" Asked Nova with curiosity, and a hint of excitement.

    "It is not for everybody." Responded Daniel while closing his eyes once again, and pinching the air one more time.

    Before another hole of copsed space could open, Nova said, "How do you know it won¡¯t work on me? You don¡¯t even know me." His tone was serious. He clearly wanted to know whatever method Daniel could have had that could allow him to learn how to control copsed space.

    As a spatial elemental, Nova had always felt iplete. He was born from a nearly perfect spatial sphere, and therefore, was only a being of nearly perfect spatial essence. What hecked in order to be a perfect spatial elemental without having to learn it from a perfect sphere, was to control copsed space. Only then would he be able to truly reach his full potential.

    The same was, of course, for the rest of the spatial elementals. Their inability to encounter copsed space had made it impossible for them to be strong enough to control it. So even if they were to encounter it like Nova had, they would be unable to understand it to a point where its concepts would make them perfect spatial elementals.

    This notion was not only a theory for spatial elementals, but for all types of elementals. After all, it was almost impossible for a perfect treasure to be created by a natural phenomenon. Most perfect treasures were born out of what people believed to be the remains of a perfect elemental.

    ording to this theory, the first elementals were simple elemental spirits that possessed the lowest level of intelligence and power. Their good nature had convinced many warriors to adopt them aspanions, and soon after, they had discovered that, the more these spirits would learn about their own element, the more intelligent and powerful they would be.

    This theory was supported by the fact that a perfect sphere of spatial essence had never been created, nor had a perfect spatial treasure ever been found.

    If Nova was able to be a perfect elemental of spatial essence, and managed to be powerful enough, at the moment of his death, he could have birthed a spatial treasure of perfectprehension, which if found by someone with perfectprehension of spatial essence, would be able to create a new generation of perfect spatial elementals.

    There is no need to say that, that objective, was the main goal of not only the entire race of spatial elementals, but also of the Void Dwellers, as well as any cultivator who wished to fullyprehend spatial essence.

    After seeing how easy it was for Daniel to create and suppress copsed space, a spark of enthusiasm lit in Nova¡¯s mind. His curiousity for this young man had reached its peak, and now that he had learned that Daniel had a method for him to change the lives of his whole race, he could not possibly be happier.

    However, his undefined face showed none of his emotions, as opposed to his voice, with which he asked, "What do you want?.."

    It was only after this question, that Daniel turned to look at him, and responded by saying, "Teach me every concept of space that Ick, and I will help you reach a perfectprehension. Then, follow me, and at the moment of your death, I promise that Edmund or I will turn your remains into a perfect sphere, and give it to a member of your race."

    Naturally, Daniel had already read Nova¡¯s mind, and seen his deepest desires. He wanted to be the first perfect spatial elemental, and be the one that would change the fate of his kind.

    "Why would I do that? Is what you are going to teach me as valuable as my own life?" Asked Nova with a hint of doubt. What Daniel asked was not small, after all, he had just met him, and was asking for him to be one of his followers until the day he would die.

    "It obviously isn¡¯t. The only reason you need to follow me, is because if you leave me, you will lose the ability to control copsed space." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone which did nothing but further confuse Nova.

    "What makes you so sure that I won¡¯t simplyprehend copsed space in your presence, then leave?"

    As he listened to this question, Daniel smiled faintly, and said, "If by the time you will be powerful enough to control constructed space you will want to leave, then feel free to do so."

    What Daniel meant to use to help Nova in controlling copsed space was, of course, the effect of his group. If Nova would ever trust Daniel enough to be part of his group, that would mean that he would probably not leave unless he did something that would push him away. If that was not enough, there was also the fact that Nova wished for his body to be turned into a perfect spatial treasure, and if that happened when there was somebody whoprehended spatial essence nearby, that would have been even better.

    After a minute spent thinking about Daniel¡¯s proposition, Nova nodded faintly, and said, "Very well.. Show me what you have got."

    -----

    Elementi.

    Dressed in white clothes with stripes of different colors on his right sleeve, was Roley. He was sitting in the middle of abirynth with his eyes closed, and was currently experimenting with his control over the elemental essences he had mastered.

    Around him were seven provisory spheres. While each of them was only at the low level, all of them were extremely stable, and theprehension that they disyed was identical to any other low level sphere.

    A droplet of sweat was running down the side of Roley¡¯s head, and he appeared to be quite focused on his training, which consisted in controlling each and every elemental essence to an identical amount of power, as well asprehension. At the same time, he was required to take in massive amounts of elemental essence that was created by the seven perfect essence spheres that were installed in a circle around him.

    After about five minutes spent in that state, Roley¡¯s expression contorted in pain, and at the same time, the seven provisory spheres began to grow. Bit by bit, each sphere started to show deeper levels ofprehension, only stopping after they all grew from the size of a nail, to the size of a palm. Once all of the provisory elemental spheres reached that state, the lightning sphere began to show signs of an imminent copse.

    "You are losing the bnce." Said the disembodied voice of an old man that came from within the tall hedges of thebyrinth.

    Roley was so focused on the task, that he hadn¡¯t noticed the arrival of this man whose words were distracting enough for him to be distracted, causing the provisory mid level sphere of lightning copsed into a wave of thunder.

    In a careless attempt to recover it, Roley focused on reforming the dissipating sphere while at the expenses of the focus he was using to keep the other sheres together.. however, by doing so, he caused the other spheres to explode right next to him into waves of fire, pebbles, ice, metallic shards, splinters, and cold winds, which he immediately turned back into immortal essence before they could reach his body.

    "I told you. hehe.." Said the voice of the old man before letting out a derisoryughter.

    Slightly annoyed by his failure, Roley stood up and dusted his clothes with his hands. He then turned towards the point of origin of the voice, and said sarcastically, "Master Yonna always knows how to help me in my training."

    "Hehe.. don¡¯t be like that. I came to remind you that the ceremony will begin in two days. Are you sure you still want to go through with it?" Asked the old man before appearing right in front of where Roley was standing.. revealing his appearance as an old-looking man dressed in simple brown robes, and who carried around a small stack of books.

    "You said that the only way I can receive an intergctic teleportation device, is to pass this test.. Correct?" Asked Roley before waiting for a nod of confirmation from the old man which arrived only momentster. He then added, "Then I guess we will see each other in a couple of days."

    After hearing Roley¡¯s words, the old man smiled as widely as his facial physiology allowed him to. He then turned into a golem of dirt which crumbled under the strength of the gentle wind that whistled past the area.

    As soon as the old man in brown robes left, Roley sat back in the middle of thebyrinth, and began to reform each of the spheres one by one. He started with small low level spheres, then moved into the mid level ones, only to witness the sphere of water copse as the rest of them grew to the high level.

    "Damn it.." he muttered nervously as a spark of anxiousness began to make its way through his mind, distracting him from reaching a fully focused state of mind.

    Once again, strating from scratch, Roley began to form a provisory sphere of each of the seven natural elements. He then injected arger amount of immortal essence which, along with the power needed to make them stronger, also increased the amount of concepts of each provisory sphere.

    This time Roley did not rush it, and instead increased the power of the spheres one by one.

    In about twenty minutes all of them had turned from low level, into mid level provisory spheres, and after two more hours, he had finally been able to turn them all into high level spheres.

    A smile of satisfaction grew on Roley¡¯s usually serious expression, as he noticed the seven high level essence spheres orbit around his body like seven twins around a human-shaped star.

 Chapter 346 One of a Kind Part 1 of 3

    Two dayster, Roley and the rest of the highest scoring students apanied the teachers of their academy to Elementi¡¯s capital. Once there, they would have to take part in thepetition that would ultimately grant them a spot amongst the elite members of the faction. However, that was not the only goal of thispetition. The secondary objective was to garner the attention of the leaders of the elemental faction, a group that wasposed of the oldest human cultivators, as well as the oldest elementals.. Also known as the Lords of Mana.

    Thispetition was known as the picking of mana¡¯s inheritors, and was an event held every five years with the purpose of selecting the cultivators that showed the most passion and predisposition to be elite members of the Tyrants of Mana.

    After two days of tests, the cultivators would be ranked based on their personal score. Their rank would dictate the amount of resources and help they would receive in their future. Once they would reach the appropriate level of power, they would undergo the procedure that would change their bodies into that of a half elemental.

    Contrary to what many would believe, these tests were not built to find out which one of thepetitors possessed the highest battle prowess, but instead, to understand who possessed the highest affinity to each element.

    Of the thousands of participants that would undergo these tests, all of them possessed a perfectprehension of the essence they had chosen to master.. But even amongst cultivators who had achieved a perfectprehension of an element, there were some who were able to use their powers much faster, or in more efficient ways than others. After all, those specific abilities were dictated not by cultivation and power, but by intelligence, memory, and affinity.

    Roley was standing in a group of thousands of cultivators dressed in robes of various colors, and each of these colors were indicative of the elements that the individual that wore them had trained in.

    Amongst these cultivators were a few that were dressed in an identical robes, but instead of being colored, they were white and with colored stripes around their right sleeve. The number of stripes indicated how many elements these students had mastered, and their colors showed which ones.

    These white robed cultivators, while more talented than the others, were scorned at by the others, and the reason for that was simple. During the procedure to be an elite member of the tyrants of mana, every cultivator would have to pick a single element to merge. Since that choice could be made at any point during the cultivator¡¯s life, most of them would chose to study a single element to begin with, as theirprehension of any other essence, after bing half humans and half elementals, would ultimately go to waste.

    In the eyes of the cultivators with colored robes, theses white-robed cultivators appeared like jacks of all trades, while they were masters of one. Their control over the essences they had mastered was also underestimated, as each of these cultivators in colored robes had spent virtually all of their lives training their control over a single essence, while the white robed cultivators had chosen to split their attention over the mastery of multiple essences.

    The more colored stripes one cultivator would have, the more the others would look at them with disdain.

    However, the numbers of stripes were never above the three or four. Or at least, that was how it had always been in the past, because during this event, for the first time in history, was a cultivator in white robes with seven stripes that covered his arm from underneath the shoulder, all the way down to his wrist.

    This cultivator was, of course, Roley.

    He was standing in the middle of a cleared area within the crowd, and was waiting for the event to being. This cleared area was formed by the many cultivators who, instead of bothering to talk to him, ridiculed hisck of foresight.

    Not all white-robed cultivators were seen the same way Roley was, after all, having a perfectprehension of multiple essences did not necessarily mean that one could not possibly be as experienced in both of them as a cultivator who focused on a single one. However, in their eyes, the more essences one had mastered, the lower was the chance that they had put as much attention into the specific essence they had the highest affinity in.

    Amongst the crowd, were a very small number of white-robed cultivators with two or three stripes, that were treated with very high respect. Those were the ones that had been proven to be as capable as the others despite having mastered multiple essences, and therefore, were considered to be the true talents of the event.

    "Boss! BOSS!!" Shouted a disembodied voice with enthusiasm.

    When Roley turned to look at the direction where this voice came from, he noticed a skinny arm being raised high up above the heads of the other cultivators, making the position of the person who was shouting clear.

    "I am here, boss!" He added before finally breaking through the circle, and revealing himself as a young man in his mid twenties, and dressed in white clothes with two stripes around his right arm. One of them was brown, while the other was dark green.

    "What is the point of shouting, if you are running towards me anyway." Said Roley with a hint of embarrassment. This young man had pestered him for the past couple of years, and he would have avoided him if he hadn¡¯t been the only one from which Roley had been able to receive any news regarding Daniel.

    After reaching Roley, the young man calmed himself down, then said, "It¡¯s urgent.."

    More than two years had passed since thest time Roley had been able to obtain any piece of information regarding Daniel, and while for the first few months he had waited for any rumor to suddenly pop out.. That never happened.

    Two years weren¡¯t long for a cultivator, so Roley decided not to assume the worst, and instead, he waited patiently until the day he would hear about another one of Daniel¡¯s crazy adventures. At the same time, he was moving towards his own goal, which was to obtain a way to teleport himself around the universe, and find the other members of the group.

    Now that the word "urgent" hade out of this young man¡¯s mouth, his first thoughts instinctively went towards Daniel. "What happened?" He asked through a wisp of sound essence that reached the young man¡¯s ears alone.

    "The Church of Damnation.. It¡¯s gone!" Said the young man out loud, and with shock. Then, after noticing Roley¡¯s confused expression, he added, "You know that my father is one of the people in charge of selling essence spheres to the other factions, right? One of the contracts he was assigned to deal with, was the sale of essence spheres to hell¡¯s factions. However, when he arrived to hell¡¯s gate a week ago, instead of finding the usual demons, he found a member of the beastmaster faction, who bought everything he sold in bulk."

    "How does that have anything to do with my friend?" Asked Roley after listening carefully to every single word the young man said.

    In response to this question, the young man smiled, and said, "By contract, my father was forced not to sell to any other faction but the ones who joined the universal government, but then, when he asked for an exnation. he was told that all of those factions had suddenly ceased to exist! The guy then told him that a young man apanied by a dragon and a mental warrior wiped them out of hell!"

    "Wiped out?" Asked Roley in shock.

    However, as he was about to ask any further, an indomitable gust of wind made its way to the center stage, and turned into a small-scaled tornado. After this small tornato caught the attention of every participant of the event, it slowly began to take the shape of a woman dressed in refined light green clothes whose surface seemed to dance to the motion of wind.

    At the same time, the clouds in the sky moved close together, and from them came a lightning strike that struck only a meter to the side of the woman that had just appeared out of the small tornado. Once the bright light disappeared, standing next to the woman, was a kid which appeared to be in his early teens, and was dressed in light bright yellow clothes which appeared to be charged with the power of lightning itself.

    Apanying the lightning strike, was a light rain that fell on the shoulders and heads of the students, but that instead of soaking their hair and clothes, bounced off of their bodies, and moved in the direction of the stage. Once there, they merged into a bigger and bigger mass of water that took the form of a man in his mid fifties dressed in dark blue clothes which seemed to be darker the more one looked at them.

    While someone who hadn¡¯t studied the natural mana to the degree these young men and women had, these three individuals would be mistaken for elite members of the Tyrants of Mana, but in reality, they were Elementals of the highest level.

    Their powers were oppressive, and each of them felt like the embodiment of primordial water, lightning, and wind. Their control was so vast, that they were able to turn into beings which would be easily mistaken as humans, by anyone that did not know what they were looking at.

    One of the details that gave out their nature, was the fact that they had teleported through the use of the essence from which they were born. Each of them was able to teleport their consciousness wherever there was a drop of water, gentle breeze, or electric charge. Their powers extended for as far as there was essence, and even if the was destroyed, thanks to the impressive reach of their powers, they would be easily able to put it back together.

    The moment these three individuals appeared, the crowd quitened down immediately.

    The wind elemental suddenly took a step forward, and after looking at thisrge number of cultivators for a few seconds, she said "Those who are applying to be lords of wind, stop this."

    As soon as she finished talking, precise and powerful gusts of wind moved in the direction of both cultivators with light green robes, and white-robes with light green stripes. These gusts of wind threatened to pick these cultivators up from the crowd, and throw them out of the testing area. If sessful, that would mean that they had failed.

    Every single one of these young cultivators was prepared for this, and in a matter of moments, numerous countermeasures were put in ce to prevent these sudden and powerful gusts from taking them away.

    Some formed metallic chains that kept them on the ground, some buried themselves halfway into the ground, some formed barriers of ice, or tried to burn the wind with fire, and some even went as far as creating portals of spatial essence that could stand in the way of these winds.

    Roley, along with a few others, had decided to deviate the powerful winds, by creating paths for the wind to follow around and past them.

    After five minutes, not one individual had been taken away by the winds, but on the face of the wind elemental, was all but happiness. Instead of rejoicing that everyone had passed, she doubled down on the wind¡¯s power, causing it to shatter each and every measure the participants had put in ce to defend themselves.

    These cultivators, with exception made for those with white robes, were blown high up in the air, and thrown off of the area. Once gone, only around ten cultivators in light green clothes were left.

    After the wind elemental finished her test, she formed a gentler wind that surrounded the light green-clothed cultivators that were left on the testing area, and moved them on an empty tform next to the stage.

    Once done, the young looking lightning elemental stepped forward, and said, "Those who are applying to be lords of lightning, try not to die."

    The moment he finished speaking, the clouds that were floating quietly in the sky started to emit rumbling noises. The electric charge present in them was growing out of control, and it appeared that a thunderstorm would begin at any moment.

    From the fully charged clouds, a number of lightning that matched the number of cultivators in bright yellow clothes and white-robed cultivators with bright yellow stripes, came down all at once, and struck the cultivators all at the same time. After that, they struck again, and again, and again.

    Most of the cultivators that were being tested had, simrly to the test for the applicants of wind, created various measures that allowed them to stay safe from the onught of lightning strikes. Walls of metal and water which would direct the lightning¡¯s power to the ground, where it would dissipate.. Lightning strikes that were sent to face the iing ones, and so on. Roley¡¯s method to deal with the lightning, however, was different from everybody else¡¯s. He had allowed the lightning to strike his body, and once inside his body, he would forcefully mark the lightning essence and make it dissipate before it could do any damage to him.

    Once again, after five minutes of testing, the lightning elemental looked at the crowd in disappointment. He then forced another series of lightning strikes which was iparably stronger than before.

    The moment the light of this final wave disappeared, all of the students dressed in bright yellow clothes had disappeared from the testing arena. Some had been teleported out of the area, while a few others had reappeared in the area right next to the one where the sessful candidates of wind were standing in.

    This time, however, something had changed. Amonst the ones that had been thrown out of the area, were not only the cultivators in bright yellow clothes, but also two cultivators in white-clothes which had both light green, and bright yellow stripes on the sleeve that covered their right arm.

 Chapter 347 One of a Kind Part 2 of 3

    After the tests for the lightning and wind essences, came the test of water essence. As the kid-like lightning elemental had stepped back, the water elemental with the appearance of a middle-aged man took his ce.

    Instead of warning the participants of the iing attack like the other two elementals had done, he quietly waved his hand, and forced the humidity in the surroundings to condense around the bodies of the cultivators in blue robes, as well as those in white robes with blue stripes.

    The purpose of this test was not for the cultivators to avoid drowning, as their brains would be able to survive without oxygen for years at their current level of cultivation. The true test consisted in surviving what came next.

    The water of which these spheres of water were made of, quickly began to seep into the pores and orifices of the participant¡¯s bodies, threatening to fill their lungs, and even try to rece their blood.

    The appearance of this sphere of water was so sudden, that most of the cultivators, caught by surprise, had used rushed methods in an attempt to prevent the water from entering their bodies. Some pushed it back with their immortal cultivation, some tried to make it evaporate by turning their sking scorching hot thanks to fire essence, and some even allowed for their immortal cultivation toe out of their bodies in the form of y, or other substances that could keep their bodies isted from the water.

    Of all of the seven elements, the test for the selection of the inheritors of water was considered to be the one with the highest in shock value, but also the one with the easiest solution. That had been shown by the few cultivators that had managed to maintain their calm, and that instead of panicking, had created a crystalizedyer around their bodies, or turned the whole sphere of water into arge sphere of ice.

    Simrly to the other tests, only around ten participants had remained after it had concluded, and once the test was over, these ten were either teleported out of the arena, or into the area that belonged to the water elemental, leaving on stage the white robed cultivators, as well as the aspiring inheritors of the essences that had yet to be tested.

    Once these three elementals finished their tests, the wind elemental in the form of a human woman clothed in light green robes took a step forward, and said, "Those who haven¡¯t been tested yet,e back tomorrow." She then turned to look at the area that contained the inheritors of wind, and walked in their direction.

    Roley believed to have passed all three of the tests, but since he was applying for seven of them, he would have to participate the following day as well. However, before he could leave, Roley noticed that the eyes of all three of the elementals had, at some point, moved on him. They then turned back towards their inheritors, and left with them.

    The remaining participants went back to their teachers, where the students that had failed the previous three tests were already waiting.

    "I think it went better than expected" Said the woman in red robes. She was one of the two teachers who, along with the dean, had apanied Roley and the students of the manor to the event. Of their institute, only one student per element had been selected.. while the rest would have to keep practicing, and try again five yearster.

    "Is there something that you have learned today?" Asked the dean of their institute while looking back and forth from the students that had failed the test, and the ones that would have to be tested the next day.

    When his students had failed, they had asked him and the other two teachers why they hadn¡¯t been selected. In their eyes, they had done what was asked of them, and their solutions were, at times, even more effective whenpared to those of a few others who had passed. However, the teachers were forbidden from exining why they had failed.

    What they were allowed to do instead, was to make their students talk to each other. If lucky, one of them would have understood the tests, and be able to give the right answer to this question.

    "The test is total crap!" said a young man in light green clothes. He had tried to beat the test of wind essence by opening a spatial portal that could stand in between him and the powerful gust of wind, and since he believed to have solved the problem brilliantly, his failure hade as a great shock to him.

    The teacher in red clothes looked at this student in light green clothes with disappointment, then turned towards the others, and asked, "Is there anyone that would like to point out why he failed?" Her eyes unconsciously went towards Roley, who was sitting with his legs crossed above a stone wall a few meters away. However, she was ignored by him.

    "He is right! They told us to survive, and that is what we did!" Said a student in light blue clothes with indignation. He had tried to pass the water test by clogging his own pores with his own immortal essenceb in order to prevent the water from seeping through.

    A girl in green clothes chimed in, and said, "You two are idiots.. What are your eyes for? The ones that passed were those who used the same type of essence to protect themselves.." She too had made the same mistake as the previous two, but at least, she understood what she had done wrong. Nevertheless, when she turned to look at the teacher in hope to receive a nod of approval, she realized that, while not beingpletely wrong, something was missing in her reasoning.

    Once again, the teachers looked at Roley, but instead of staying quiet, the dean asked him, "Do you know what the point of the test was, Roley?"

    After being asked directly, Roley turned to look back at the old man and opened his mouth to respond, however, before he could say a word, one of the other students interjected by saying, "Dean, why ask him? Of all of us he is probably the only one that has no chance of passing any of the tests to begin with. Why would he be here with us otherwise?"

    "I agree, it¡¯s impossible that somebody like him could have reached a level of affinity required to even understand the test. Not while studying so many essences." said the cultivator in light green clothes with clear disdain.

    "Quiet!" Said the woman in red clothes with irritation. She then turned once again to look at Roley with hopefulness. Unfortunately, these young students had already said enough to irritate Roley, who instead of responding, turned away and feigned ignorance.

    While it was not allowed for the teachers to reveal what the tests were about, nothing prohibited a student from learning about the test, and revealing it to hispanions.

    The whole reason for the three teachers to ask for Roley¡¯s exnation, was so that he could exin the rules of the test to the other students, and allow them to obtain a higher score during their own tests. However, while the teachers had big hopes for Roley, his peers were not the same. To them, he was still allowed to be tested because he had mastered all seven essences, and in their minds, there was no doubt that he had failed the first three.

    While the rest discussed about what could possibly be missing from theirprehension of the tests, a message came into the ears of Roley¡¯s friend in the form of a wisp of sound essence. What this voice said, was, "The test is based on the idea that, one day, we will be one with the tested essences. Defend yourself from the attacks as if the essence would be unable to hurt you."

    After listening to Roley¡¯s words, the white-robed young man in his mid twenties turned to look at him in surprise. He then bowed with appreciation before pretending that nothing had happened.

    The tests of the day had ended, so the teachers brought their students back to their hotel rooms. Once there, those who hadn¡¯t been tested yet, would be able to prepare for the tests for the four remaining elements.

    ----

    The next day, when the students arrived to the stage where almost half of them had been tested the day before, they immediately noticed that the elementals that would test them had not only arrived already, but also that they were four, but seven. Along with four new testers who appeared as normal humans and were dressed in red, brown, dark green, and grey clothes, were the teenage-looking lightning elemental, the light green-robed elemental which presented herself as a woman, and the middle-aged man in light blue clothes.

    From the faces of the teachers that were spectating to the event, something like this was unusual. The only ones who appeared to be unfazed about the presence of the three elementals were the dean, and the teachers of the manor where Roley had spent the past three years.

    The buzzing of conversation resounded all around the area where the participants stood in wait, and it was only stopped after an old man in brown robes took a step forward from the group of elementals, and started talking.

    "Aspiring inheritors of mother heart, prepare yourself." Said the old man as the ground underneath the feet of the partecipants turned into grains of sand so thin, that to them, it felt like the solid ground had suddenly disappeared.

    After sinking knees deep, the sand immediately turned into a muddy substance that was kept together by thick amounts of earth essence.

    Whenpared to the first day of testing, many more participants had stepped closer to the right way of passing this test. It was clear that during the night, these groups that came from different institutes all over Elementi, had put their wits together, and discovered some clues about it. In the end, what they were able toe up with, was to use the element that was being used to test them, to counter the attacks.

    Unfortunately, most of them were, once again, wrong.

    Of the hundreds of participants, only around a dozen had approached the test differently, and instead of using methods to free themselves from this trap, they plunged deeper into the ground the moment it had turned into fine sand.

    What these cultivators had bet on, was that the trap would not work to keep them from falling deeper into it, but only to keep them from escaping. So while many tried to take control over the mud that was trapping them, this small number of cultivators dived deeper into the trap, until they found the edge, past which was normal and uncontrolled dirt.

    When they moved past the trap, they quickly noticed that it did not epass the whole area, but only the area underneath each cultivator dressed in brown robes. A minuteter, they dug out one by one without a problem.

    Amongst them, was Roley, as well as his friend.

    When these few cultivators emerged from the ground, all of the ones that were still trapped understood what the correct method was, but it was already toote. They hadn¡¯t been able to think as an earth elemental, and the thought of escaping from undergrand, hadn¡¯t even crossed their minds.

    The moment thest of the sessful cultivators emerged, the old elemental in brown robes waved his hand, causing for the participants in brown robes to be pulled into the ground. The next time they were able to see the light of day, with exception made for the ten brown-robed cultivator which had passed the test, had found themselves outside of the testing area.

    The same happened for the following three tests, whose requirements to be passed, became trickier and trickier.

    At the end of the day, on the testing area, only twenty cultivators remained. They were all dressed in white clothes, and they were those who had passed more than one test.

    After the tests for single essences ended, the cultivators that had shown an unusual talent in more than one element would remain. They would then be tested once again for both elements at the same time. The test which the participant would have the least difficulty in solving, would ultimately be the element to which they would merge with during their ascension.

    One by one, these cultivators were tested by a pair, or a trio of elementals who would attack them at the same time. The cultivators that had remained on stage were the truly talented cultivators, and no matter if two or three, all of them were able to easily repel each and every attack they received. However, after their performance, the elementals would always be able toe to an agreement on which element had been the easiest to defend against. That, was the element to which the cultivator would have the highest affinity, and therefore, would be selected as his element when he would undergo the process to be a half elemental, and half human.

    The performance of all of these cultivators was shocking to begin with, as their sheer presence on stage meant that they had been able to obtain double the results of any other cultivator. However, one of these cultivators was attracting the most attention.

    "I can¡¯t believe he hasn¡¯t been kicked out yet." said one of the cultivators that belonged to Roley¡¯s group.

    Next to him, a girl dressed in white robes, and with a light green and red stripes on her right arm, nodded in agreement, and said, "It must have been luck. Who knows what kind of training he has gone through before appearing in the manor."

    While amongst these few cultivators on stage were a few with three stripes, the majority of them had only been able to attract the attention of only two of the elementals. That meant that while theirprehension of the three essences was perfect, only the affinity they had developed with two of them was considered adequate.

    Naturally, the same thought the cultivators that were observing the seven stripes on Roley¡¯s arm.

    Time passed slowly, until finally, came Roley¡¯s turn. He stood in the middle of the arena, now alone, and looking as his friend was teleported into the area dedicated to the inheritors of the earth element.

    The crowd looked attentively at the elementals, expecting for two of them to step forward, but then, what they saw caused their jaws to drop. One by one, all seven of the elementals stepped forward. The elemental dressed in light green clothes which had tested the inheritors of wind, took the lead of the group of elementals, and while looking at Roley, she said, "You can use any means necessary.. Prepare yourself."

 Chapter 348 One of a Kind Part 3 of 3

    Two minutes after those fateful words were spoken, the testing area was no more.

    Clouds filled with water and static electricity which moved around thanks to the powerful winds that devastated everything that stood in front of their path. Hurricanes made out of mable gases which fueled the mes that surrounded them, hailstorms which hid pebbles and metallic ores which dropped from the ground like bullets, and even leaves as sharp as knives, which by being carried by the wind, threatened to slice open anything that did not have the intelligence to not stay in their path.

    These attacks came all at once, greatly shocking the onlookers. The attacks were not only a hundred times more brutal than before, butbined into terrifyingbos that would make it extremely hard for anybody to counter it.

    While nobody could see what was happening inside the area that was being devastated by the seven ancient elementals, the spectators could see that the attacks were failing to hit as they were supposed to. The storms were forced into following paths that would force them to sh against one another, and lose enough pace and power for Roley to continue defending himself.

    Minuscule gusts of air were sent in the direction of each and every small pebble, ore, and hail, which by dashing in his direction at full speed, wouldpress the air enough to cause it to glow, and catch on fire. In the end, the objects disintegrated before they could reach his body.

    Roley had taken this idea from when he had witnessed an asteroid enter a¡¯s atmosphere. He wasn¡¯t a studious of wind essence at the time, but now that he had a perfectprehension of it, he knew what the mechanics of what would cause for a meteor to vaporize were.

    The razor sharp leaves were gently deviated in the direction of the ming hurricane, which would burn them offpletely in moments.

    Roley had always been a pensive person. He would always think before speaking, and would always try to find the best method of solving a problem whenever he ended up facing one. However, after meeting Daniel, he hade to realize that thetter did not need his intellect to thrive and do the right thing.

    While Roley hadn¡¯t taken this as a bad thing, it had motivated him to be a person to which Daniel and the rest of his friends could rely on, and the only way he had found how, was to trust in Daniel¡¯s judgement, and simply be as powerful and reliable as possible.

    This change had caused him to go beyond his original pensive character, and instead, had be a calctive individual. His morale hadn¡¯t changed, nor had his personal rtionships. What had changed, was that when he knew that something of importance would happen in the immediate future, he would do everything possible to be prepared for each eventuality.

    This way of thinking had not only helped him in his preparation for the test, but had also allowed him to realize something extremely important. Something nobody else had noticed so far, and that hadn¡¯t been mentioned in the very least.

    That realization came in the form of a question.. Why did the ss of white-robed cultivators exist?

    This question had buzzed in his head for the whole travel towards the city, but only after the second day of testing, had he made progress in answering it.

    By logic, if a cultivator showed a perfectprehension and affinity to multiple elements, they should simply be allowed to choose which one they preferred, or if the rules of the factions were strict, a decision should have been made for them. However, what was the reason to test these cultivators with multiple tests?

    In order to show affinity, one would require to be fully focused on the attack that wasing his way. However, by attacking him in seven different ways at the same time, they had made it impossible for Roley to fully focus on a single essence.

    The elementals themselves were aware of this, and that was proven by the fact that they had changed the rules of the test, and allowed him to use any means necessary to protect himself. So if the highest potential of affinity was not what they were looking for, what was it?

    This question would forever remain nothing but a question, unless he managed to achieve whatever the true purpose of this test was. So, while the other white-robed cultivators were tested, he began to n how to defend himself against any possiblebination, direction, or concept of the elemental essences.

    After a few long minutes spent attacking Roley unceasingly, the elementals came to the conclusion that, no matter how they attacked him, in order to make him fail, they could only use two methods. To increase their powers beyond Roley¡¯s abilities, or to wait for him to run out of immortal essence.

    However, their goal was not to defeat Roley, but instead, to observe him. And from the way these seven ancient elementals were smiling while he panted on stage in between pools of water, clumps of dirt, and metallic shards, it was clear that he had seeded.

    The spectators looked at what had just happened on stage with horror, but then, after seeing that Roley was safe and sound, they began to realize the magnitude of talent that he possessed whenpared to anybody else.

    Usually, when this event ended, the students in white-robes that passed the test for more than one element, would be sorted into the category that better suited their affinity, but this was not the case for Roley, which had shown an even amount of affinity to all seven of the elemental essences.

    After the testing, the elementals would usually pick the inheritors which had passed the test, and bring them into their territories.. but this time, everything was different. This time, a powerful gust of wind surrounded Roley¡¯s body, before shooting in the distance with a speed that no one but the ancient elementals were able to notice, and that so fast, that had even caused for Roley to fall unconscious.

    Meanwhile, while the other students and teachers were upied with observing this odd event, the ancient elementals had disappeared, leaving the inheritors behind, and the teachers in a state of confusion. The only ones who did not appear to be shocked, were the dean, and the woman in red clothes.

    -----

    When Roley woke up, he was into a dark room. The walls of this room were made out of thick rectangr stones. At the highest point of three of these four walls, were windows from which moonlight came in.

    The moonlight of elementi was very faint, and the reason for that, were the many ringsposed of small pieces of ice and rock that orbited the, and prevented the light from bouncing back and forth from the to the moon properly. That was the reason why the nights in Elementi were extremely dark, with exception made for a period of fifty-nine of the seven thousand days-long yearly cycles of the, when the moon¡¯s position would allow it to shine freely, and without objects that could hinder its splendor.

    When Roley stood up, he quickly noticed that he was lying over a bed made out of soft dirt, above which soft leaves wereid out carefully, making it extremelyfortable. He was also quick to find the door present in the middle of the only wall thatcked windows.

    This door was made of pure gold, and by the way it had been left ajar, it did not appear to be locked.

    After realizing that he wasn¡¯t a prisoner, Roley took a deep breath, and after approaching the door, he opened it slowly. What appeared in front of him, was a dark corridor.

    The moment he stepped through the door, a series of small mes which floated two meters above the ground appeared in rapid sequence, stopping about thirthy meterster, where the light of thest of these mes showed a door identical to the one from which Roley had just gone through.

    However, contrary to what one would expect, this corridor was not a simple corridor that lead to one room to another. The entire wall on Roley¡¯s left was engraved with images made out of lines of goldeen ore that came out of the perfectly cut stone in an extremely unnatural way.

    It did not take long for Roley to realize what these images were. They were a story, and this story started with a where only primitive elementals lived. No humans, no beasts.. Just sprites of nature that walked the peacefully.

    Most of these sprites were sedentary, and would usually stay in the ces where they had been born, but not all of them were the same. Many of them had decided to travel the peaceful world, and by doing so, they had been able to discover new and different concepts of the elements, which had allowed them to evolve into smarter beings.

    Unfortunately, bing smarter had been a double-edged sword.

    Their intelligence had put them in the radar of the newly formed universal government, as well as the factions that had been just submitted by it. Factions which had an extremely high interest in the relics that had birthed them.. A resource which they had long started to pige around the universe before they could evene in contact with the native elementals of this.

    Thankfully, the unstable nature of the universal government had allowed them to join their cause without the need of a bloodbath. That decision had also caused two different changes in their culture. They knowledge had be possession of the universal government, while at the same time, they had obtained the ability to study nature from an external perspective. One of a human.. One that allowed humans to have a different rtionship with mana than the elementals had.

    After that, the presence of humans became more and more frequent in the history reported by these images, and most of them disyed how the studies of the elementals had allowed them to create a race of half elementals.

    That was where the story should have ended.

    However, there were two more images after that. One, which depicted seven spheres ced in circle, each containing the symbol of a different element, and surrounded by smaller and yet identical spheres. What was interesting was that these seven spheres were shown as if they were leagues above any other.

    The final depiction, was the silhouette of a man. However, this silhoette did not show any human connotations, and appeared like an empty shadow. His body was split into numerous segments, and each limb, was filled in with the depiction of a different element.

    Inside the head was an upside down tree, which represented the lightning element. In the right arm were raging mes that seemed to move towards the chest, as if trying to reach the left arm, which contained massive waves and rain that acted simrly. Where the heart should have been, was a cyclone, which symbolized the the wind that turned the water colder and more agitated, and fed the fire infinitely. In ce of the stomach, was the depiction of a massive tree surrounded by nature, while each leg had depictions of straight parallel and perpendicr lines which represented metal, and rocks, pebbles, and anything rted to earth essence. In the empty spaces in between these depictions, was a pattern that symbolized a power that did not belong to the elemental essences, however, Roley was unable to tell what that power could have been.

    Roley observed thisst image for what felt like hours, until finally, the door at the end of the corridor was opened, and left ajar.

    Before moving towards the door, Roley once again looked at the silhouette, and after memorizing it, he reached the door, and gently pushed it open.

    What appeared behind it, was a massive hall with seven chairs ced in a semi-circle around a small tform. Each of the seats were upied by one of the ancient elementals who had tested the students..

 Chapter 349 The One Above the Lords

    It did not take long for Roley to realize that this setting was notmon, and if not for the images he had just seen in the corridor, he would still have no clue about what was going on.. However, a crazy idea had begun to form in a corner of his mind.. the corner where all of the ¡¯what ifs¡¯ questions were kept.

    Instead of waiting for any of the ancient elementals to talk to him, Roley walked up to the small tform around which the seats of the elementals were positioned. He then stood quietly in wait that somebody could exin to him why he was there.

    Silence resounded in the hall for a few moments, until finally, the elemental in red clothes broke it by asking, "You live in amunity. Thousands are underneath you, but you live peacefully together.. One day, a stranger is found injured in your territory. Your people rescues him, and after his recovery, he choses to stay for awhile. He appears to be a likeable character.. what do you do?"

    The rest of the elementals looked at Roley carefully, it was clear that his answer was of extreme importance to them.

    "I don¡¯t have enough information to answer that question, the possibilities are too many to be summed up into a single sentence." Responded Roley right away, already aware that his test was not over. The information that Roleycked was, what would these ancient individuals test him for?

    "I will allow you three questions, and I might lie when answering questions for which it should be impossible for you to get an answer, in case you were in that situation." The elemental dressed in red answered as he refrained from showing any emotion.

    "What did this individual imed was the cause for his injuries after he woke up?" Asked Roley after spending a minute in a pensive state.

    The ancient elemental of fire essence stroke his chin with his thumb and index, while thinking about it for a few moments, then responded by saying, "He was attacked by a group of bandits from which he was barely able to escape, by sneaking into your territory."

    "I would ask him to leave my territory."

    "Why is that?" Asked the fire elemental with curiosity. He clearly did not expect Roley to give a final response so quickly.

    Without even stopping to think, Roley responded to the elemental¡¯s question by saying, "Bandits target streets that are guaranteed to be threaded by merchants and rich travelers.. If he had been injured during his travels by bandits, he would have wanted to leave right after his recovery.. Be it if he is a traveler with a set destination, or if he is a merchant, which would grant him the burden to report the events."

    The fire elemental was not impressed by this answer, but he could see that Roley had more to say, so he allowed him to keep talking.

    The ancient elemental of lightning, however, was not as kind. He asked with his nasal voice, "Is that the only reason why you wouldn¡¯t allow him to stay? Did you consider that this man might be scared to travel alone, now that he is by himself? It seems that you make your decisions extremely rashly.."

    Roley was not surprised by this response, and instead of trying to defend his position, he added, "The reason I asked him to leave is much simpler than that."

    "And what might that reason be?" Asked the ancient fire elemental with renewed interest.

    Roley slowly turned to look at him, and said with an emotionless tone, "I would never allow for a group of bandits to roam the borders of my territory to begin with. Not when one of my people could have randomly encountered a group of them."

    The teenage-looking ancient lightning elemental was shocked by the presumption behind this answer, but just as he was about to debate Roley¡¯s logic, he was stopped by the ancient fire elemental, which while smiling faintly, said, "It¡¯s okay. It¡¯s all I needed." This simple phrase was enough for the lightning elemental to drop the matter despite still being unhappy with Roley¡¯s reasoning.

    "Very well, it is my turn." Said the ancient metal elemental before standing up, and slowly walking inps around Roley. After a couple ofps, he said, "To be a half elemental means that your power will increase ten folds when in your territory.. To be able to live as long as you are in your element, to be a true part of the universe, that is what our faction offers. Do you understand that?"

    "Probably not the way you understand it." Responded Roley without even turning to look back at therge man in grey robes which was now behind him.

    The metal elemental did not take offence to his informal response, and instead smiled, and said, "That is quite urate. You cannot possibly understand what it feels like to be part of the universe, but it is a spectacr feeling. I can give it to you.. I just need for you to bring me the heart of a human. It does not matter whose heart that is. Just bring me one, and I will make you one with the universal nature of metal. Do as I have said, and I will give you power."

    "I refuse." Responded Roley without even thinking about it.

    "Do you understand what I am offering to you? A power that will turn you from a simple human in the constant search of a grain of power to add to his own, to a god. All I ask is for a piece of meat." Said the metal elemental while in an attempt to make Roley understand what bing a half elemental of any of the elemental essences meant.

    "My answer doesn¡¯t change." said Roley as the metal elemental walked in front of him.

    After hearing Roley¡¯s adamant response, the ancient metal elemental said, "Very well, you have made your choice." He then turned to look at his chair, and walked towards it as if giving up on trying to break down this human¡¯s stubbornness.

    Just as the metal elemental was about to sit on his chair, the old man in light blue clothes said "If metal essence is not of your liking, all of us can offer you the same deal.. You only have to pick one of us."

    "The reward is not the matter.. It¡¯s the premise." responded Roley after turning to look at the ancient water elemental that had just spoken to him.

    "How so?" asked therge man in grey clothes, which took back the control over the conversation from the water elemental.

    Roley slowly turned to look back at him, and with an expressionless face, he said, "You seem to have the presumption to im that I could not possibly understand what it feels like to be an elemental, and yet you assume that a human would take the chance to gain more power at the expense of an innocent person. If I didn¡¯t know that this was a trick question, this conversation would have already been over."

    From the expression that appeared on the ancient metal elemental, it was clear that this answer had shocked him deeply. The words he was thinking of, refused toe out of his mouth, and he felt a degree of shame that grew the longer he remained quiet. All he was able to do was to turn to look at hispanions in search of some sort of support. However, none of them had any intention of meddling into his test any longer.

    What his eyes reached the ancient fire elemental, he quickly noticed the satisfied smirk on his face, and the slow nod that he performed with his head. These actions were enough to cause for a smile to appear on the face of the metal elemental, whichy back against the backrest of his chair, and said with a tone of surrender, "Very well, I have what I need."

    After seeing the way Roley had responded to thest two tests, the bored eyes of the rest of the elementals appeared be renewed with interest.

    "My turn now." Said the wood elemental with what appeared to be excitement. "How would you.."

    -----

    After more than an hour, the only elemental that had yet to be satisfied by Roley¡¯s answer, was the teenage-looking lightning elemental. His problem with Roley was that he behaved as if he was looking at a group of his peers, and not at a group of individuals that could turn him into nothingness on a whim.

    The two were currently standing in front of one another, and on the face of the lightning elemental, was a face that spelled "I don¡¯t know what to say." His eyes moved all around, and his teeth were gritted in irritation.

    He and Roley had spent the past hour debating about the utility of human¡¯s disproportionatepetitiveness.

    ording to the lightning elemental,petitiveness was useless. He personally would have felt the deepest level of pride, if an elemental of the lightning essence grew to be more powerful than him, and that that was the case for all of the others as well.

    Roley¡¯s case, on the other hand, revolved around the fact thatpetitiveness was not a trait that belonged to the human kind, but to any race with a bit of intelligence. Competitiveness was used as the base of a massive spectrum of actions, be it as a measure to achieve more power than one¡¯s peers, or to be a better person than those who came before you.

    This discussion had taken the majority of the hour that Roley had spent answering the questions, and after more than forty minutes, he was ultimately able to win the debate by pointing out howpetitiveness breeded arrogance and superiority, and that the elemental¡¯s behaviour had done nothing but to prove that one did not need to be a human to misuse that mental trait.

    The teenage-looking elemental kept trying to find something to say, but not a single word was able to leave his mouth.

    "Enough, Loma.. you are a million years old, behave like it." Said the woman in light green clothes with exasperation. To the rest of the elementals, Roley had clearly passed the test. It was only due to the stubbornness of the lightning elemental, that they had been stuck at this stage for so long.

    Thankfully, the teenage-looking lightning elemental did not protest, and instead walked back in his seat before falling into a deep quietness.

    "Finally!" Eximed the fire elemental before turning to look at Roley, and saying, "As you might have guessed, this is not a normal test.. The reason you are here, is because-"

    "You are looking for a king." Said Roley while interrupting the fire elemental.

    The eyes of all seven elementals narrowed at the same time. Then, after a moment of silence, the fire elemental asked, "What makes you say that?"

    "Predisposition tomand, charisma, moral inclinations, priorities.. What you have tested, was whether I would be fit to lead your faction."

    The elementals were shocked once again. However, this time, along with surprise, was an underlying feeling of embarrassment. They had created this whole method while thinking that it was failproof, and yet, it had been seen through the very first time they had used it.

    "W-Well.. You happen to be right. But let me exin why. You see-" Said the ancient fire elemental with clear embarrassment. However, he was interrupted once again by Roley¡¯s voice, which right now, had started to appear less and less appealing to the ear.

    "It probably has something to do with the fact that you are testing a method to merge a human cultivator with all of the elemental essences at the same time. You fear that if you will seed, this being will be too powerful for you to control, and solved the problem by only testing the method solely on those who were fit to take the role of a leader for your people." Responded Roley looking back and forth from one end of the semi-circle to the other.

    The embarrassment quickly disappeared from the faces of these ancient individuals, leaving space for satisfaction to appear. It was clear that they did not mind Roley¡¯s ability to take in all of the information he was able to obtain, and squish them together until he was able to obtain such an urate guess.

    "You are a brilliant young man." Said the fire elemental while smiling brightly. However, the smile quickly disappeared as he continued by saying, "In the past thousand years, we have discovered many noble hearted humans which we would have been happy to see lead our people, but whenever we tried to give them the power to do so by merging their humanity to more than one essence, one of the essences would inevitably prevail over the other, and in order to do so, it would be destroy the body of the cultivator."

    As soon as the fire elemental finished speaking, the old man in light blue clothes took over, and said, "It was only after we have seen the result of your test, that we have developed a new theory.. Humans are born under the seven elements, and nothing but all seven of the elements will suit their bodies. You can withstand the power of an element, but more than one, and your immortal essence ceases to be enough. But what if we create a bnce inside a human that is identical to the bnce that breeded them?"

    "Sounds like a dangerous theory.. Why should I ept to be the first test? And what would you expect from me as your leader?" Asked Roley after listening to what had been said to him.

    "We need a deterrent.. We face destruction by the Elementalist, one of Iewah¡¯s perverted children who wishes nothing but to pick us apart and absorb our power until nothing is left, and the greed of the universal government. We desperately need for that individual to appear before our enemies will understand that the repercussions of killing us all might be something they are willing to withstand." Said the wind elemental with a tone filled with anger. It was obvious that being surrounded by humans that saw them as valuable objects for hundreds of thousands of years had taken a massive toll on their minds.

    There was a lot for Roley to think about, however, before he could even ask for some time to consider this proposal, the ancient fire elemental leaned forward from his chair, and asked, "So, what do you say?"

 Chapter 350 A War for a Chance

    Sand and Blood, Dominion of the War God.

    In one of the many valleys of the, was a massive terrain covered in flowering ground covers that divided the surface into patches of different colors. While the sight was breathtaking, those who lived next to this area knew out of what these flowers had grown. For those who did not know, the hundreds of thousands of weapons inserted into the ground were enough of a giveaway.

    At the edges of this valley, were two massive armies that, at any moment, would begin their charge against one another, inevitably ruining this mosaic of colors.

    The two armies were of different sizes. The one at the south of the terrain was more than twice the size of the one at the north, but while the army to the south wasrger, its soldiers appeared to be tired, and not in the right state of mind to fight.

    The soldier of the northern army, on the other hand, appeared to be well rested and kept in line in a way that did not fit a massive group of mercenaries, and rogue warriors.

    Standing in the middle of the colored field, were two small parties of warriors. Both of these parties wereposed of the five strongest individuals of the armies to which they belonged, and appeared to be apanying theirmanders to a pay with themander of the opposite faction.

    However, the Dominion of the War God did not allow for survivors to be spared, or for agreements to avoid fighting to be made, as the wars were organized by the faction itself in hope to find natural born warriors, that could be grown from the violence of war into true ki warriors .

    The real reason why the two parties were standing in the middle of the battlefied, was thedy in leather armor that was sitting with her legs crossed while also looking east. She was enjoying the sight of the light of the rising sun, shine on the veil of flowers. Next to her, was a rusty single-edged sword nted on the ground, right next to an identical one in perfect conditions.

    Time passed slowly as these two parties looked at this woman with attentiveness. At eight in the morning, she finally rose up to her feet. She then picked the rusty sword off of the ground, and stuck the one in perfect conditions in its ce. After doing this, she finally turned to look at the two generals, whose faces were covered by heavy armors in order to avoid being targeted the very moment the war would start.

    "In this spot, more than three thousand years ago, my father led five of the strongest people of this into the trial of passage. As the selected candidates of their era, they were to fight for their spot amongst the elite members of the Dominion of the War God.. However, despite his prowess, he was unsessful." Said the woman while looking lovingly at the rusty sword in her hands. She then added, "I still remember his expression the moment I pierced his heart with his own sword."

    This phrase left a deep shock in the hearts of the twelve warriors that stood next to her.. however, their expressions were hidden by their thick helmets.

    After a long minute, the woman in leather armor finally turned to look back at the two small parties, and said, "You two are the bestmanders of this generation. You have picked your soldiers, and concluded the recruiting season with the warriors that stand at the edge of this valley. Now, you will fight.. Fight for a chance to go through the trial, or die dreaming of it."

    In the territory that belonged to the faction called ¡¯Dominion of the War God¡¯, was a special way to select the candidates that would be allowed to go through the trial of passage. This method was, of course, war.

    The path to be an elite of the dominion was a long and violent one, and it started with the armymanders. While not organized into governments, there was a specific group of people that belonged to the faction which would carefully take note of the result of each and every war, and report them to the faction. What was reported, were the number of wars won by eachmander.

    Once twomanders with a history of a hundred or more won wars appeared, a trial of passage would be organized. However, to qualify to this trial of passage, the twomanders had to pass one more test. They were allowed a certain amount of time to build their armies, and use them to fight a final battle to death. The winningmander would then be allowed to select five warriors within his army, and participate in the trial of passage with them.

    The trial of passage was nothing but a spar between the general and his five champions, and a selected elite member of the Dominion of the War God. This elite member, would always be one of thest warriors that had managed to pass the trial in the selected field.

    The woman in leather armor was exactly that. More than a thousand years ago, she had passed the trial of passage as one of the five champions of hermander. She was an extremely talented warrior, so much so, that she had passed the trial before her own father. Unfortunately, while not as capable as her, her father was still a shockingly talented warrior, and had been selected as one of the champions of the following trial.

    For a father to be judged by his daughter, was an event that was unheard of. This oddity had caused for rumors to spread around. Many believed that the only reason why the general had selected this man, as well as the field from which the woman had passed the trial on, was because he hoped that his champion¡¯s daughter would favor them. This rumor was cleared out the very moment the trial took ce, as they witnessed the woman¡¯s sword go through her father¡¯s sword, as well as kill the four other champions, and the general.

    Now, two new general had risen from amongst the thousands that lead wars throught the entire, and after spending months recruting, they were finally ready topete for the opportunity to go through the trial of passage.

    The sizes of the armies during thisst war were always exceptionallyrge, and the reason for that, was that while the winner of all wars were rewarded by the faction, the rewards for the winning party of this event were iparablyrger. The budget that was given to each general was of fifty trillions of essence crystals, and the generals would have to use those resources to recruit however many warriors they wished to recruit.

    Some would recruit the strongest warriors, and lead a small army made of highly paid fighters, while the others would decide to go for the number instead of the quality, and hire as many mercenaries as possible. However, all of these armies had always had something inmon. They were lead by powerful warriors with little to no knowledge on how tomand an army.

    Theck of government had prevented for a military to be built, and therefore, the inhabitants of sand and blood were forced to pick their leaders out of those who possessed the highest battle prowess.

    The mostmon strategy adopted by these kinds of people, was to send their whole force into a full on brawl that would ultimately end up with a small portion of survivors, that would take the majority of the reward. Up to now, the only true leaders that Sand and Blood had ever seen, were the ones who weren¡¯t born in the territory of the Dominion of the War God, and had arrived from a neighboring faction.

    Of the two generals, one of them was of the former type, while the other, was of thetter.

    The general of the army camped in the south, was a man that stood four meters tall, with muscles that required multiple sets of armor shaped to fit his massive body. Behind his back was a greatsword which, if ced in the back of any other warrior, would have appeared massive, but whenpared to this giant¡¯s body, appeared more like a normal sword.

    He was followed by four individuals. A scantily clothed female archer with leathery stripes that covered her intimate parts, chest, and face, two knights in te armor that stood one next to the other at the exact same height, a lean and tall man in ck leather armor with hands covered in medieval hand ws, and finally, a short man that, contrary to the rest of the warriors that stood next to him, emanated thick spiritual essence.

    The general of the army camped on the northern border of the flowery ground, was a muscr man hidden behind a clean heavy armor. By his waist, was amon sword sheathed into a simple scabbard.

    By his sides, were two women whose athletic bodies were d in leather armor. One of them carried a sword that was hung from her belt, and a dagger that was strapped horizontally on her lower back. Her hand was constantlyying over the pommel of her sword, and she appeared ready to unsheathe it at any given monent. Her armor did wonders in covering her body, but whenever she moved, a chink in between her pieces of clothing would reveale a bit of her unnaturally grey-colored skin.

    The second woman, on the other hand, carried two single-edged sword that went down her legs like an additional pair of legs. While nicely hidden by her leather armor, the curves of her body would inevitably draw the attention of any man that saw her, just like the strands of tinum blonde hair that came down her neck.

    The remaining three champions selected by this general, were a young man in histe teens that worefortable and simple clothes and a pair of brass knuckles, a dwarf with a long ck beard that came out of his helmet, and a hammer bigger than his own body, and finally, a man that appeared to be in his mid twenties, whose body was d in dark red clothes, and a shoulder leather guard. Of the twelve warriors, he was the only one that did not wear a helmet, and allowed for his face to be seen. He was pointing his blue eyes at his colorful surroundings, while showing a carefree smile attitude, and sipping on something contained into a small leathery sk he carried.

    The woman that had just spoken did not appear to be bothered by the disrispectful behaviour of this man, and instead looked at the two general, and said, "The winner of this conflict will face me along with the rest of your champions. That fight will either end up in your death, or in your promotion. Make preparations for both." As she finished speaking, her body disappeared before her image could, leaving it to dissipate the following few moments.

    When she reappeared, she was standing nearby a group of twenty warriors who appeared to be busy in a lively conversation. All of their weapons were sheathed, but all of them emanated the feeling of death that only a person who was used to killing, would emanate.

    The moment she appeared, a man with only one eye concluded his conversation, and walked in her direction "Hey, are you alright?" he asked her while noticing that she was carrying a rusty sword instead of her usual one.

    The woman seemed to only now notice that the sword she had taken away was not the one her father had gifted her, but the twin one that he had kept for himself.. The sword she had used to kill him with. After realizing her mistake, she turned towards the one-eyed man, and said "I am okay."

    "Good. Who do you think will win? We are cing our bets." Said the man with a sheepish smile. The woman was the only one allowed to approach these warriors, and therefore, she was the only one that was able to feel their power. His intentions were to put his money on the one that had the biggest chances of winning.

    "I don¡¯t know. The southern camp has the strongest warriors, as well as the biggest army.. However, the northern camp has immortal cultivators, as well as humans with unique powers." Responded the woman before sheathing the rusty sword into her clean scabbard, and walking towards the rest of the warriors.

    The man looked at the two armies in the distance, and after being unable to pick a winning side, he muttered, "damn it.." then followed the woman.

    Back in the tent of the general of the northern army, the dwarf walked in while brandishing his massive hammer. "Did you see the size of the other general? That fe is four times as big as me!" He said before taking his helmet off, and cing the hammer over the square table located in the middle of the tent.

    "Then maybe we should have hired four dwarves.." Said the blue eyed man while moving the curtain that worked as the tent¡¯s door, and walked in. He then smiled, and added, "I would pay to see a totem of dwarves fight that brute."

    "If you don¡¯t shut up, I¡¯ll mount you to battle.. And give me that damn sk, I¡¯ve had enough of you drinking and never offering to share!" Said the dwarf before walking towards the young man with a tense arm.

    The bluie-eyed man quickly avoided the dwarf, and allowed for the younger man in simple clothes toe in. Once he noticed him, he walked behind him, and said, "Wil, protect me! He wants to mount me!"

    "Quiet!" Said a deep voice with an authoritative tone that caused the ruckust to stop immediately. This voice was followed by the entrance of the general, and of the two women into the tent. When they took their helmets off, they revealed their indentity as Der, Alesia, and Gai¡¯ha.

 Chapter 351 All Out War Part 1 of 2

    The arrival of Der caused for the dwarf and the man to quiet down. That reaction was no dictated by fear, but by the respect they felt for him. After all, they had fought dozens of battles firstly as his brothers at arms, and secondly, underneath hismand.

    For the past few years, Der, Alesia, and Gai¡¯ha had been forced to enroll into multiple conflicts. Each of them resulted in a win for their party to which they had a major role to y with. This had allowed them to receiverge number of resources, which in turn, allowed them to be stronger and stronger. However, amongst these contributions, the biggest one was, without a doubt, Der¡¯s experience as a general.

    While his power as an immortal cultivator at the ninth stage of immotal cultivation was highly valued in a world where the strongest warriors would all be underneath the high immortality stage, his experience as a general was much more sought after.

    His suggestions in the beginning were, however, not always weed. Wheere in a society where the strongest would give the orders, the presence of someone that assumed that his leader¡¯s orders were wrong, was deeply frowned upon. It was only after hismander had died, and the three of them had found themselves in the losing end of a war, that Der had convinced the desperate survivors to follow his direction, and obtain a win that nobody would have ever expected to see.

    During thest few years, Der had employed every single method of warfare that he had used during his many years as a general of the army of Karalis. Amongst these, were espionage, psychological warfare, military tactics, and many more.

    All of these had allowed for Der to obtain an almost fanatical following.

    Gai¡¯ha¡¯s aura, and Alesia¡¯sprehension of the elements also had a big part to y in the trio¡¯s reputation. Sand and Blood would rarely see immortal cultivators, as the spiritual ne waspletely cut out of the Dominion of the War God. Only a few every generation would appear, and all of them were, without an exception, alien mercenaries that had reached Sand and Blood to cultivate in the environment of war.

    The warriors that had grown out of Sand and Blood¡¯s environment, on the other hand,pletelycked a connection to the spiritual ne. By never once connecting to it, their spirits had never be an obstacle for their ki to grow past the ninth rank of martial cultivation, and by doing so, allowing their spirits to be as secondary as their own mind power.

    As a result to this, their bodies were able to grow more powerful. A power which would fit well with the nature of ki cultivators.

    "Be quiet. We have a n to revise." said Der after approaching the table in the middle of the tent. The rest of the group followed suit, and after freeing himself from the hands of the blue eyed man, the teenager-looking young man unrolled a massive map that depicted the topography of the area. Once the map was opened in front of Der, the dwarf and the blue eyed cultivator approached the table, and listened as Der said, "This is my n.."

    -----

    Ten in the morning.

    The conversation between the elite of the Dominion of the War God and the two generals would traditionally take ce two hours before the war started. That was to prevent the exnation of the rules to affect the oue of the battle.

    At the end of the day, the two generals were fighting to the death for the chance of impressing the faction. If their performance during the spar was judged favorably enough, the elite members that were assigned to observe the trial would be able to decide to let them live. If not, they would all be killed.

    The reason why failure meant death, was because the champions and generals that would go through the trial were usually at the peak of their cultivation. The only method for them to go past the ninth stage of ki cultivation, was by receiving the gift of one of the ki factions, which was nothing but a method of cultivation that involved new ways to develop the natural ki of a ki cultivator.

    To be denied a promotion, meant that the cultivators did not have the disposition to be members of the Dominion of the War God, and since their presence would impact the rest of the up anding warriors, in order for thetter to have a fair chance, these powerful warriors would usually be eliminated. This process was repeated in multiple ces all around thes that were part of the territory of the ki factions.

    Now, after hours spent staring at their enemies, the two armies were starving for battle. Both of them numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Standing at the frontlines of these massive armies, were the generals, and the five champions which prepared their group for the imminent fight.

    The five champions of the army camped to the south tried to inspire their fighters with the usual promises of rewards and greatness, trying to tap into their thirst for growth. These topics were always able to fuel the hearts of these cultivators, who would rely on their adrenaline to be as brutal and devastating as possible.

    In the northern camp, on the other hand, along with the promises of a great reward, came the instructions on how to increase their chances of survival, to avoid for theirpanions to die pointlessly, and to always keep an ear out for the general¡¯s orders. Luckily, the respect which Der had been able to umte through his sessful career as a general, was enough for his soldiers to pay attention to anything he said regardless.. After all, they had seen enough shocking performances to want to avoid ending up in the middle of them.

    To give a start to the war, was the powerful sound of a horn being blown from the back o f the army on the southern side of the territory, which despite being at least twenty kilometers away, could still be heard loud and clear. This noise was followed by the shouts of the warriors, which began their march like a disorganized mass of ants.

    Der¡¯s army had already been instructed on how to behave, so instead of marching as well to encounter the enemy midway, they stood still.

    To Alesia¡¯s troops, along with numerous powerful ki cultivators, belonged around a hundred immortal cultivators. All of which had reached Sand and Blood in hope to gain more resources by epting jobs as mercenaries. All of them had been put into Alesia¡¯s group, and under hermand, would act as the first one to move at the beginning of each and every war.

    The moment the enemy army began their charge, numerous boulders began to form off of the ground. Each of these boulders was then picked up by one of the ki cultivators which, by using all of their might, would throw them at the iing army. They would then step aside to allow for the next ones to repeat what they had just done.

    At the same time, the remaining immortal cultivators hired by Der, while hidden all around army, took control over the surrounding elements, and formed massive clouds that covered the sunlight like a thick nket of grey wool.

    As soon as these cloud formed, it began to rain.

    "They are trying to hinder our movements!" Said the champion with the hand ws, before ordering, "Coat your feet in ki, so that you don¡¯t get stuck in the mud!"

    Many of the southern army ignored this order, but the majority were experienced enough to do so regardless of whether they had been ordered or not. After all, that wasn¡¯t the first time any of them had fought in the mud.

    At the same time, the number of massive rocks that were flying in the direction of the iing army was reaching the thousands, and while not extremely dangerous, their massive sizes would ultimately hinder the tempo of their advancement in the same way a muddy ground would have.

    Naturally, just like they were for the eventuality of difficult terrain conditions, the champions of the southern army were prepared for flying objects to be thrown at them. The female archer lead arge number of spearmen which, the moment they saw these massive boulders fly in their direction, grabbed their throwing spears, and with arge motion carried by an immense physical strength, threw them with all their might.

    The senses of these warriors were as refined as the control over their own powers. So much so that they were able to perceive where the boulder would be when their spear would arrive. This allowed for close to zero throws to miss the target, and for the hundreds of massive boulders to be shattered into smaller, and more manageable rocks.

    However, before they could rejoice, something unexpected happened.

    Alesia, which had been creating boulder after boulder along with the rest of the immortal cultivation, suddenly stopped. She then turned to look at her group, and shouted, "NOW!"

    The ki cultivators steppes aside, allowing for the immortal cultivators to have a clear view of the battlefied. A few momentester, each of these cultivators controlled the portion of constructed rock that was hidden inside each of these boulders, and turned it into constructed lightning, which without missing a bit, struck the ground softened by the rain.

    As soon as the lightning struck, the opened legs of the runing cultivators formed a circuit with the wet ground which caused for the electricity to run through their bodies freely. Arge portion of the southern army fell on the ground, paralized by the uncontroble twitches of their muscles. Their bodies were too powerful for the lightning strike to hurt them, but their nervous systems were sent into chaos.

    It was at this moment, right when the half of the enemy armyy on the ground and the other half stopped their advancement in order to avoid suffering the same faith, that Der took a step forward, and shouted, "ADVANCE!!"

    The moment the order was given, Der¡¯s army advanced as a single unit.

    Contrary to the enemy army, none of them ran at their fastest speed. They were all maintaining their formation, and running as arge block. The reason for that, was because the moment they would reach the portion of incapacitated warriors, they wanted to ovee them not as a disorganized mass, but as a wave of soldiers.

    From the back of the southern army, came numerous waves of arrows that attempted to distrupt their organized advancement, but all of these arrows were stopped by the few scattered immortal cultivators that had been in charge of the rain at the beginning of the battle. Their positions allowed them to create small metallics which would stop the arrows in their motion, and protect arge number of warriors at the same time.

    In a matter of seconds, the organized army of the northern camp arrived to the area that was being devastated by hundreds of lightning strikes, which stoppeding down from the sky right after.

    The many warriors were immediately able to regain control over their muscles, but it was toote. The wave of soldiers of Der¡¯s army had already arrived, and cut through their disorganzied group like a shythe through stalks of wheath.

    The warriors that were further away from this iing wave began to panic, and instead of advancing, retreated in an attempt to fall back into the lines of the rest of the army. Unfortunately, that only caused more problems with the rest of their army, which suddenly found arge number of their own warriors run in the opposite direction, almost protecting the very wave of soldiers which they were supposed to face head on.

    This chaotic situation, while exactly what Der had hoped to see, did notst long. The advancement of their wave of soldiers was slowed down by the apparition on the frontline of the enemy general, and the five champions. Their arrival was enough to give confidence to the remaining two thirds left of the army, which quickly reorganized, and began a new advancement.

 Chapter 352 All Out War Part 2 of 2

    It was nowte evening, and the sun had started to set. The flowery ground had now turned into a river of blood.

    The high resistance of the bodies of the warriors and their high cultivation made them extremely hard to kill, and therefore, for a war of this size to be terminated in a few hours, was impossible. This had forced the battle to go on all day.

    About half of Der¡¯s army, and a fourth of the enemy army were still standing. Der was only able to employ his knowledge of war to impact the conflict before it would reach of point of all out physical battle, and now that the remaining warriors were fighting in the mud and blood, there was nothing he could do take part in it like any other fighter.

    While the war was going favorably for Der¡¯s group, there was something which he could not deny regarding the other general. The champions he had chosen to fight for him were extremely talented fighters, and each of them had cut through the warriors of his army as if there was nobody who could stand in their way.

    The high morale that Der¡¯s army had obtained in their early sessful strategies was starting to run low, and became lower the more the enemy champions were allowed to fight freely.

    The tall and thin man with hand ws was amongst the biggest problems within the battlefield. His fighting prowess was impressive, and his skills allowed him to pick fighters one by one and tear them apart before anybody could arrive to their rescue. Many times had the warriors of Der¡¯s army made an attempt to circle him and finish him, but whenever he was in a dangerous situation, he wouold use one of his ownpanions as a shield, and escape a moment away fom death.

    While his tactics were vicious, his death count was a lot higher than the loss he caused to his own army.

    "That guy is pretty capable." Said one of the elite members of the Dominion of the War God to the rest.

    Another warrior shook his head in disagreement, then said, "I think he is the weakest of that camp. His strategy is appropriate in the context of a war, but we don¡¯t fight in armies. What will he do when he¡¯ll run out of cannon fodder?"

    "I agree with him." Said a third warrior while pointing his head at the one who had just spoken.

    "If that is all there is to him, then I would agree.. But let¡¯s watch, something interesting is about to happen." Said the first warrior while turning to look at the teenager in simple robes and armed with brass knuckles, who was dashing through the shing armies like an eel in between corals.

    Back in the battlefield, the champion of the enemy army was dancing through his enemies, cutting though one fighter after the other, until something unexpected happened. As he was about to sh the neck of the umpteenth soldier, a fist moved past the terrified warrior who about to be killed, and reached for his head.

    The thin man was barely able to deviate the attack and move his ws in front of his face, before the powerful punch crashed agaisnt them, and pushed him back for ten meters. The impact had forced the ws to be pressed agaisnt his own face, and sink enough to cause three bloody stripes to appear on it. However, that was not the end.

    The moment the thin man was pushed back, the young warrior pulled his fist back. He then kept them close to his chest before moving his feet to an unbelievable speed, and stepping past the soldier whose life he had just saved.

    With a speed that could match the retreat of the thin man, the young warrior followed his first punch with another one directed to the man¡¯s stomach. However, before it could hit, he was forced to pull his punch back in order to avoid the thin man from cutting his hand off with the downwards motion he had forced his right hand to follow.

    "Such a sneaky weasle.. Your parents should have put a bell on your neck." Said the thin man, after licking his blood off of his split lip. His main way to fight was to distrupt the concentration of his enemy, and use his ability in melee fighting to gain an edge. Unfortunately, it appeared that his enemy used the exact same strategy, but that isntead of making use of taunting, simply relied on his impressive concentration.

    Instead of reacting the way the thin man wanted, the young man raised his fists, and ced them in front of his face, leaving only a chink in between them for his eyes to see through. The nerves of his feet tensed only for a few moments before he began to take small leaps in the direction of his adversary.

    On another part of the battlefield, the two twin knights were engaging against the warriors of Der¡¯s army.

    The original tactic of the two twins was to cover each other¡¯s back at any moment. Their coordination was so impressive, that instead of fighting like two warriors, they fought like a single being with four arms, and eyes that covered their bodies. Anyone that tried to approach them had been ughtered without an exception..

    That was until the Alesia and Gai¡¯ha had met them to battle.

    The two of them had immediately guessed what the weak point of the twin knights was. Their coordination was seamless, but that was only thanks to their ability to predict the attacks of their enemies.. An ability they had developed through the hundreds of years of watching out for their own sibling.

    Unfortunately for them, their abilities were beyond that of any of the ki warriors that the two knights had ever faced.

    After engaging in battle against the two knights for a few seconds, Alesia had been able to separate them through the use of her ranged attacks. These ranged attacks were unavoidable, and distrupted their sight and hearing enough to force them to separate, and engage on a one versus one battle with the two girls.

    The only cultivator who was able to imitate Alesia¡¯s spiritual attacks on the enemy army, was the short man that was part of the five champions. His body emanated thick spiritual essence that was drastically different from the ki of which the bodies of most other warriors present were filled with.

    This short man was one of the most known individuals amongst Sand and Blood, and his fame was onlyparable to his general, and Der¡¯s ability as amander.

    The reason why so many people were aware of his existence, was because he was a foreginer.. however, while foreigners were considered a good addition to any army, he was special. For the past thousand years, he had been an outcast of the spiritual faction. He had survived being hunted down by his faction, and once free, he had entered the Dominion of the War God.

    Yet, his story was not the most impressive part of him.

    The spiritual faction had, just like the ki faction, discovered a method to create cultivators madepletely out of spiritual essence. After thousands of years of failed attempts, they hade to realize that the only thing that the only way to allow an individual to cultivate the spirit beyond the ninth rank of cultivation, was to help him cultivate his spirit before their spirits finished forming.

    A person¡¯s spirit would be created much faster than a newborn baby¡¯s body. And before the body could be a trap that would limit the spirit, their connection to the spiritual in was forced open by the immortal cultivators of the spiritual faction. This, unfortunately, had decreased the birth rate within the spiritual faction¡¯s territory drastically, to a point where many women had decided to hide their pregnancies from the faction.

    These pure spiritual cultivators were deeply connected to the spiritual in, and thanks to this, they were virtually immortal until the roots of their spirits within the spiritual in were eradicated. Individuals like this short man were the reason why the fame of the spiritual faction grew to a point where they were considered amongst the major factions.

    Naturally, that did not mean that their weak physical bodies were invulnerable.

    To face him, was the dwarf¡¯s job. With his massive hammer he was able to counter the elemental attacks that formed as fast as those of an elite of the elemental faction.

    The dwarvs were a special type of humans that were born with a special affinity to natural mana. This form of affinity had, unfortunately, deformed their bodies at the moment of the formation of their bodies. The effect that they would be granted with would allow them to be resistant to the elements, as well asprehend them more easily.

    The dwarf that fought as Der¡¯s champion was born in Sand and Blood, and therefore, was unable to develop his spirit. On the other hand, that had allowed for his resistance to the elements to develop along with his physical resistance. This had been enough for his kind to be extremely valued against the rogue immortal cultivators that were employed in Sand and Blood.

    While Der and the female archer lead the remaining warriors of the two armies into their opponent¡¯s annihtion, the massive general of the enemy faction was facing the blue eyed man.

    The two were looking at each other, and while on the enemy general¡¯s face was an expression of absolute seriousness, on the blue eyed cultivator, was a big and rxed smile. In his hand was his sk, from which he took small sips while looking at his surroundings. In his other hand, was his unsheathed sword.

    "You were supposed to help me pass the trial of passage. After all I have done for you.." Said the giant from beneath the thick helmet that made it impossible for others to see his face. His tone did not appear to be detached of emotions, and it was clear that the two had a past together.

    The blue eyed warrior smiled at the giant, then responded by saying, "That is true.. You have done a lot to help me grow." as he reached the end of this sencence, the smile on his lips detached from the seriousness of his eyes, which opened into two thin slits apanied the words, "..but I have paid my debt. How many people have I killed for you?"

    "Tens of thousands." Responded the general with a hint of pride.

    ".. tens of thousands.." said the blue eyed cultivator while looking back at his life. After no longer than ten seconds, his lips curved into another genuine smile, as he said, "But I have found better people that would rather have a drink with me, than see me spill blood."

    The general slowly took his massive sword from behind his back, then pointed at the blue eyed warrior, and said, "You will drink together in the afterlife, after I will spill all of your blood."

    "So be it." Said the general to the blue eyed man, as he took onest sip out of the sk-shaped spatial container that was filled with his favourite kind of wine, and ced it back on his waist.

    He then pointed his sword at the massive general, and said, "Onest toast.. to the good old days."

    The fight on all sides enraged, and the champions and generals made the best out of their situation. To lead the two main armies while the rest engaged in battle, were Der and the female archer, which sent one order after the other in hope to decrease the deathrate of their army enough to allow them to gain an advantage in the long run.

    Whenever the female archer had a chance, she would support the warriors that Der was facing by shooting one arrow after the other in any of his blindspots.

    "I like that girl." Said one of the judges while looking at the scantily dressed archer. However, the moment this judge noticed that the others were looking at him with odd expressions, he tried to rify his stance by saying, "S-She clearly picked up from her previous battles that the army needs some sort of order.. Her ability with the bow is also perfect."

    "I am more interested in that girl." Said a woman covered in a grey pelt while looking at Gai¡¯ha.

 Chapter 353 A Champion Can Only Be a Champion If He Wins

    Under the attentive eyes of the judges, the duels amongst the champions kept going for the rest of the day.

    Alesia and Gai¡¯ha were the ones who, since the very beginning, appeared to have the highest control over their fights.. But the longer their fights went, the bigger their problems became.

    All of the champions were fighters who had survived dozens and dozens of wars, and in certain asions, the champions of the two armies had even fought on the same side. This, of course, did nothing but to prove how capable each of them really were.

    While Gai¡¯ha was fighting on an even ground against her enemy, Alesia was having a fair amount of problems. The reason for that, was that Gai¡¯ha¡¯s aura was very simr to ki. When used to enchant her physical attacks, it would give her a boost in battle prowess, as well as in her senses and resistance. However, that was not the same for Alesia. Her immortal essence had slowly running out, and theck of connection to the spiritual ne in Sand and Blood, slowed the process of producing new immortal essence to about half.

    This had forced her to be stuck into an endless cycle of ¡¯avoiding, attacking from a distance, gain distance, repeat¡¯. Simrly, the knight that was fighting against her would focus on avoiding any ranged attacks, and close in the distance as soon as her immortal essence would run out.

    For the past five hours, one strike after the other moved through the air which, when subjected to the speed of these blows, was cut through like a piece of tofu by an extremely sharp knife. If a master of space had been here, they would have felt thepression that each of these sword shes were causing to the surrounding space.

    As time went by, a few cuts had split open a few sections of the leather armor that covered Alesia¡¯s body, underneath which could be seen a few shallow cuts on her pale skin. On the other hand, only a small number of superficial scratches could be seen on the knight¡¯s armor.

    While yet another sword tip brushed past Alesia¡¯s neck, she began to find herself deeper and deeper into the losing end of the battle. It was only after thisst brush with death, that she decided to change tactics. Instead of constantly backing away, she decided to observe the pattern of her opponent¡¯s movements.

    The way he would rotate his feet during a diagonal sh, the way a clink could be heard whenever he would move his arm backwards in order to charge an attack, the way his sight was limited by the narrow slits of his heavy helmet. She took notice of every possible detail, and after unsheathing her second sword, she stopped backing away, and instead, started to face the knight¡¯s attacks head on.

    The knight had a vast experience against most types of weapons, and dual wielding was a style of fighting he was used to seeing. So when he saw Alesia¡¯s change of tactics, he calmed his mind, and waited for the right moment to strike. However, the more the battle went on, the more he realized that something was wrong.

    Whenever he would try to make use of an opening to strike, an oddly powerful gust of wind would hit the t part of his chest piece with enough power to cause him to lose bnce, a patch of seemingly solid ground that was underneath his feet would reveal itself to be wet ground, causing him to sink down to his ankles and lose momentum, or a random flying rock would hit his helmet from an angle that would force him to back away in fear that somebody had sessfullye close enough to his face to inflict a deadly blow.

    These odd events were, of course, caused by Alesia. She had decided that instead of wasting her immortal essence intorge scale attacks that would likely fail, she would rather use small amounts of it to create small distraction while she fought head on.

    This new tactic worked perfectly, as due to all of Alesia¡¯s small distractions, the knight had be unable to parry all of her attacks, and after no longer than a few minutes, he found himself lying on the ground, covered in deadly wounds.

    When Alesia turned to check whether Gai¡¯ah¡¯s fight was still in progress, she quickly found the sibling of the knight she had just defeated, lying on the ground. nted on his chest, were a dozen swords that did not appear to belong to her friend, however, she had no doubt about what had happened.

    While Aura and Ki were very simr, there was a single difference that made Gai¡¯ha¡¯s kind a nightmare for pure ki cultivators. That difference, was in the way these powers could be used.

    A cultivator¡¯s ki was strictly bound to one¡¯s body, and while a ki cultivator was able to charge his attacks with ki, they were unable to separate themselvespletely from something that contained their ki. There were a few exceptions of this, like a ki g, which contained a small portion of a person¡¯s ki.. However, that ki was trapped into a ki g by a formation, and not kept there thanks to the sheer will of its owner.

    This was not the case for Gai¡¯ha¡¯s aura. Her aura could be used to enhance the resistance of the object she used, and at her level of cultivation, could also be injected into different types of items which she would be able to control from a distance.

    While fighting with one of the two knights, Gai¡¯ha had injected multiple objects with her aura, and before her enemy could even understand what she was doing, he had been forced to face a warrior who he was unable to defeat easily, as well as dozens of flying sword that attacked him from every direction.

    -----

    On another part of the battlefield was taking ce the duel between the short spiritual cultivator, and the dwarf.

    The battle between these two had, simrly to Alesia and her opponent, been going on for hours. The ability of the spiritual cultivator to construct objects thanks to his pure spiritual essence was akin to the affinity that half elementals possessed, and that allowed him to shape the ground, move the winds, create fires, and cast thunderbolts from the tips of his fingers much faster than any other immortal cultivator could.

    Unfortunately for him, the dwarf was his nemesys. The dwarf mutation of the human race possessed a higher resistance to the elements, and paired to his ki refined body, made him almost invulnerable to the attacks of the short spiritual cultivator.

    The only hope that the spiritual cultivator had to defeat the dwarf, was to send wave after wave of warriors to attack him, while he hindered his movements with his ranged attacks.

    While the theory was simple, the practice was far from it. The dwarf had spent the past hundreds of years emptying tents of their liquor, and leading armies to victory. He had been amander himself, until the moment he had been found drunk by Der, and invited into his army.

    His ability with the hammer was amongst the most feared through the whole, and the shockwave that a swing of it caused, was enough for anyone unlucky enough to be near it, to feel their bones ache. Despite his ability, the dwarf was still finding difficulties in dealing with the spiritual cultivator.

    His only true chance to end this fight, had presented itself when the spiritual cultivator, enraged by his inability to kill him, had formed a massive boulder, and thrown it in his direction.

    However, as this boulder approached him, a smile appeared on the dwarf¡¯s face.

    Instead of avoiding it, the dwarf grabbed the handle of his massive hammer, and unscrewed the bottom part. He then grabbed it with both hands, and prepared himself.

    The boulder came at him like a meteor with a target, and as soon as it was about to reach him, the dwarf threw his hammer in its direction. The body of the hammer split into two, and while the head shot through the air and pierced the iing boulder, the handle remained on the dwarf¡¯s hands, connected to the detached part through a metallic chain.

    Once his weapon was connected to the iing coulder, the dwarf stepped away, and after nting his feet to the ground, he used the motion of the boulder to make it orbit around his body, and throw it back at the spiritual cultivator with all of his might.

    Without stopping for even a second, the boulder flew back in the direction of the spiritual cultivator who, with a face filled with exasperation due to his umpteenth failure, observed as the boulder reached his body. As the boulder was about to hit, the spiritual cultivator waved his hand, and forced the constructed rock to dissipate.. However, he was shocked by what he saw next.

    Therge hammer of the dwarf was still sunked deeply into his constructed rock, and holding its handle, was the dwarf. He had hidden behind the rock in order to approach the spiritual cultivator who, when close enough, dissipated the only object that was working as a protection betweein him, and his enemy.

    It was toote to avoid the attack, and the spiritual cultivator could do nothing but look as the massive hammer came crashing on him, and turned his body into a puddle of red paste in the middle of a massive crater.

    Unbeknownst to anybody else, an invisible and intangible spirit had started floating in the point where the spiritual cultivator had died, just before being sucked into a just as invisible portal that lead into the spiritual ne.

    -----

    Alesia¡¯s, Gai¡¯ah¡¯s, and the dwarf¡¯s duels weren¡¯t the only battle that hade to an end. In another part of the battlefield, the slender man armed with hand ws and the teenager cultivator were engaged in a violent fight.

    The two were standing one in front of the other at an arm¡¯s reach, and their surroundings were covered by the bodies of the warriors of the enemy¡¯s army. All of these corpses belonged to the warriors which the thin man had used as a shield against the teenager¡¯s attacks.

    Unfortunately, nobody else was around them.

    The two were exchanging blows at such a fast pace, that their arms could barely be seen. This flurry of punches and shes were apanied by spurts of blood, and the sound of cracking bones. When the two stopped, their heads were resting on each other¡¯s shoulders, and while the teenage-looking cultivator was covered in small cuts, the face of the thin man was unrecognizable.

    Exhausted, the two took one deep breath after the other.

    After resting for about a minute, the two pushed themselves away thanks to their neck muscles.. And just as they appeared to be about to fall backwards on their behinds, the thin man used his slender arms to sh the chest of the younger looking cultivator diagonally.

    However, the motion of his arms was blocked by two powerful grips that circled the thin man¡¯s wrists. With thest bit of stamina that he possessed, the thin man looked as the younger cultivator pushed his arms open, then let go of them. Before he could move his arms in front of his chest in a defensive position, he felt a flurry of blows that shattered his ribcage, and pulverized his internal organs.

    He was only able to mutter "..shit." as he fell to his death.

    -----

    Thest duel, was within the man with the blue eyes, and the gigantic general.

    This battle already appeared to have reached an end, as the blue-eyed man was standing in front of the kneeled general devoid of any injury, while the general was covered in deep cuts.

    "Were you always stronger than me?" Asked the general while preventing himself from falling, thanks to his greatsword.

    "Not at first." Responded the blue-eyed man while taking a sip off of his sk. He then added, "Serving under you was good training. I just learned more about you than you did about me, I guess.."

    After listening to the blue-eyed man¡¯s words, the general took off his helmet, showing the horribly disfigured expression of a warrior that had fought a thousand battles. He then said afterughing grimly,"Haha.. cough.. Well, I am d I was able to be part of the making of a natural born killer." The general¡¯s injuries were not deadly, and yet it looked like he had understood that there was no chance for him to win this war. So he took off his massive breastte, and after opening his arms, he said, "Come on.. Kill me. I can ept dying by your hands."

    The blue-eyed man looked at the general, and couldn¡¯t help but remember all of the horrible moments he had gone through with him in the past. All of the wars they had won together, leaving nobody alive that could be witness of his battle prowess, and allowing him to take all of the credit.

    In the end, he was just a normal soldier when this giant had forced him to fight for him. And now, he was able to free himself from him by killing him in battle. No other oue was more appropriate than this, so he took onest sip out of his sk, and approached the giant.

    He pointed his sword at the heart of the general and prepared to finish him.. But before he could pierce it, the massive hands moved around the blue-eyed man¡¯s body, and got a hold of his neck and leg. With all of the strength that remained in his body, he lifted him up to the sky, and began to pull his body apart.

    "You belong to me! Do you think I would have let you kill me?! DIE WITH ME!" Shouted the general as he pushed through his limits just to kill this oldpanion of his.

    However, while the blue-eyed cultivator was about to be torn apart, and hisplexion appeared as red as a tomato, he was not looking at the general. Instead, he was looking at the small warrior that was standing behind the kneeling figure that was trying to kill him, lifting his massive hammer, and taking aim.

    The light went off on the eyes of the general, as a loud dong sound began to resound in the surrounding area. His head had been smashed to pieces.

    The blue-eyed warrior fell on the ground, still alive, and as the dwarf approached him, he stood back up, and dusted his clothes.

    "You owe me a drink." Said the dwarf while turning to look at the dead body of the gigantic enemy general.

    "Everything was under control." Responded the blue-eyed cultivator while turning to look away. However, he could feel the dwarf¡¯s stare burn a hole in the back of his head, so instead of saying anything else, he took his sk, and threw it him. He then said, "One sip."

    "Good enough. I have a big stomach, and I don¡¯t need to breath."

    "I¡¯ve changed my mind.. Give it back."

    "Haha.. toote."

    ".. HEY!"

 Chapter 354 The Difference Between a General and a General

    With the loss of their general, and four of the five champions, the chances of winning this war had be extremely slim for the enemy army.

    One of the people who had noticed this, was, of course, the female archer. She had been leading the survivors of the enemy army into a losing battle against Der and his troops, and now that the strongest warriors of her side had been killed, she knew that things would go progressively worse, until she would ultimately be killed along with the rest.

    In her mind, the idea of escaping slowly started to take shape.

    While escaping the battlefield was not specifically prohibited, it was usually thest move that any of the hired warriors would rely on. The reason for that was that many wars were won thanks to a desperate effort of the losing end. Also, if nned poorly, an escape would create a ripple effect that would cause the rest of the army to fall into panic.

    Usually, when a faction reached that state, the first instinct that would appear on the minds of the survivors, would be to escape as well. Unfortunately, that would cause for them to be chased, and ultimately end up in a more difficult position than they already were.

    The numbers were going down fast, and the more she waited, the harder her escape would be. So when everyone appeared to be focused in their individual fights, with the excuse of wanting to find a favorable spot from which she could use her bow from, she climbed a massive rock that came out of the ground like a monster¡¯s horn.

    Her movements attracted the attention of the men and women she had lead so far, which immediately became suspicious of her. However, this suspicion disappeared the moment they saw her pointing and shooting with her bow, sending multiple arrows whistling through the air against the opposing army.

    What the soldiers hadn¡¯t noticed, was that while she was shooting multiple arrows per second, her aim was always off. She wanted to avoid attracting the attention of any of the enemy warriors, which would be the first ones to notice if she tried to escape.

    While this method of survival could be considered cruel, to the warriors of Sand and Blood, it would appear to bepletely normal. Surrender did not exist in the Dominion of the War God, and if one wanted to survive a lost battle, the only choice they had was to make use of the fray to sneak away.

    As part of an army formed purely out of rogue warriors and mercenary groups, anyone would have understood the logic behind this sort of reasoning, after all, none of them really wanted to die, and at some point, all of them would start to think the same way. The only reason why this woman had thought of it sooner than the other, was because her position allowed her to see the bigger picture of the battle, instead of focusing on the enemies around her.

    Confident that this woman had their back, the soldiers of the enemy army kept fighting for a few more minutes, until finally, the arrows stoppeding.

    One by one, these warriors turned to look at their leading figure, and soon noticed that their leader had made her escape. Their general and four of their five champions were dead, and her current leader had ran away.

    A few brave warriors, which had also been generals in the past and had been hired as warriors in this war due to their impressive battle prowess, immediately caught up with what was happening and tried to salvage the situation by taking the lead of this group of fighters.. But theck of coordination amongst them did nothing but worsen their situation.

    After a few minutes of devastating results, in the surrounding, a few voices began to appear one after the other. All of them would carry the same exact message, which was, "RETREAT!!"

    In a matter of seconds, the enemy army went into full panic.

    Some of these warriors were unsure whether the order was valid or not, and therefore, kept fighting.. While some others had already prepared ns to escape the moment they had seen their army start to lose footing.

    Regardless of their initial reaction, sooner orter, all of them began their escape while also watching their back as they dashed out of the battlefield.. However, after only a few seconds, these escaping warriors noticed that something was wrong.

    The soldiers of Der¡¯s army seemed tock the will to chase them, and the very moment their improvised leaders ordered their retreat, they gave chase for a second or two, then stopped, and allowed for them to get away.

    Contrary to the wars that would take ce in Sand and Blood, the wars that took ce in the countries of Der¡¯s of origin were of a political nature. Politics had never helped anybody in war, but what it gave, was a different perspective on the consequences of a war.

    In war, every single warrior was either a father, a mother, a son, a daughter, or a sibling. Taking any life in the battlefield would ultimately cause a risk for the rtives of the dead soldier to want to exact revenge against the people who had killed their loved one.. But most importantly, their loss would cause them pain, and unhappiness.

    That was the reason why it was so important to spare those who wished to surrender. Any unnecessary death, was a political and human mistake from multiple points of view, and Der was very aware of this.

    Once he had reached this, he had been forced to deal with its rules.. But it wasn¡¯t long before he was able to find a loophole. Thex rules regarding escapees was twisted to its limits.. and from it, Der had been able to put together a simple n to avoid having to kill every single warrior that had no more desire to battle.

    That n consisted in a fake attempt at chasing, before giving up soon after.

    The escaping members of the enemy army quickly caught on with what was happening, and instead staying, they left the battlefield as fast as they could.

    "YEAH!" Shouted a warrior of Der¡¯s army with enthusiasm, causing for the people around him to follow up with simr shouts.

    Der was currently standing on the massive where, only a few minutes before, the female archer shoot her arrows at them, and gave orders to her soldiers. He was looking at the faint sight of the escaping warriors while listening at the joyful cries of his winning side, while also preparing for what woulde next.

    As he looked at the distance, his campions appeared next to him one by one.

    "How long before the fight?" he asked without even turning to look back at them.

    The blue-eyed warrior, when he was only amon warrior that was indirectly hired through the mercenary group that was lead by the deceased enemy general, had fought in various wars for the trial of passage. So, since he was the only experienced enough to respond to this question, he said, "Any moment now."

    As if on cue, the many elite members of the Dominion of the War God that had been observing until now came down from the sky like rain. Their appearance was terrifying, and the power they emanated left anyone that looked at them in shivers.

    While most of them formed a separate group, and were simply observing, the female warrior that worked as the guardian for this specific territory stood by herself. Next to her was a visibly scared female archer who looked around as if she was surprised to be there.

    "I have observed your petty ploys for awhile now.. The piety you¡¯ve shown is against the nature of a ki warrior.. But I guess that nothing better can be expected by a foreigner." Said the woman before grabbing the arm of the female archer, and throwing her on the ground in front of Der and the others. She then added with a threatening tone, "However, it is a rule that a war to decide who will go through the trial of passage can¡¯t end until the champions of the other army are still alive. Kill her."

    Der looked at the terrified female archer, and right away, he felt an incredibly powerful desire to refuse this order. However, she was an enemy, and while not the general of their army, she was still the champion that had led the enemy army to the death of many of his men. So, he unwillingly took a step forward and reached the edge of the rock.

    Before Der could do anything, the blue-eyed warrior said out loud from behind him. "She isn¡¯t a champion."

    The woman in charge of testing them immediately turned to look at this carefree and happy looking warrior, and said, "What do you mean?"

    Unfazed by the woman¡¯s domineering tone, the blue eyed warrior lied by saying, "When I fought their general, he imed she was simply there to hide their true fifth champion."

    The woman did not believe his lie, but instead of contesting them, she asked, "And who might this fifth champion be?"

    The blue-eyed warrior remained quiet, and turned to look at the corpses strewn all over the ground. The moment his eyesnded on a deceased enemy warrior, he pointed at him, and said "That guy over there. He was super strong." His lie was not believable in the least, and the only thing he caused, were a fewughs in the observing group of elite members of the Dominion of the War God.

    Naturally, the woman hadn¡¯t fallen for this lie either, but once again, instead of refuting this exnation, she turned to look at Der, and asked, "Is this how you really want to y this? It¡¯s yourst chance."

    Der turned to look at the female archer, and for a moment, he saw his daughter in her. That was enough for him to turn back at the woman before weakly nodding in confirmation.

    "Very well." Responded the woman before turning to look at the female archer, and saying, "You may go."

    After hearing these words, the female archer stood up as fast as she could, and bolted in the distance in a blink of an eye.

    To this woman, it did not matter whether they were lying or not. The rules of the Dominion of the War God were put in ce so that the numbers of warriors that appeared in thes within their territory, would match the number of warriors that the faction could afford to maintain. In the grand scheme of things, the fact that one of the generals had found a loophole to disobey one of these rules and allow for survivors to appear, was nothing worth mentioning.

    However, she had a job. Her job was to make sure that the rules of the trial of passage were followed, and if not, to act as she wished to solve any of the problems that ensued. The two groups of champions had to kill each other, and that was one of the rules of the trial of passage.

    While that could have appeared like a waste of talent, it truly wasn¡¯t. Thes that were part of the Dominion of the War God were hundreds of thousands, and while not many groups would pass the trial of passage, those who did were enough to weigh heavily on the resources in possession of the faction.

    This had lead for the difficulty of the trial of passage to be gradually increased, until only the most ruthless, powerful, and talented warriors were able to arise.

    Nevertheless, there was a secondary thing that the testers were in charge of verifying.

    The faction did not care for a general¡¯s ability to lead theirarmy. That was the reason why they had created an environment where the strongest would lead. Respect for the strongest and obedience were the main traits of a warrior of the Dominion of the War God, and by definition, an opinionated general that had grown in another faction, did not fit their standards.

    After taking a mental note of Der¡¯s response, the woman took a sword out of her spatial ring, and said "Five minutes. Stop me from killing your general, and you will pass." She then started to slowly walk in Der¡¯s direction.

    Der, who was just about fifty meters away from her, suddenly felt a terrifying aura that heavily affected his psyche. His legs and hands were trembling, and the sheer idea of walking away appeared in his head like the assurance of a quick death.

    Alesia, Gai¡¯ha, the blue-eyed man, the dwarf, and the young man with the brass knuckles looked at each other for a moment, then turned towards the woman, and dashed in her direction.

    The trial had started.

 Chapter 355 We Will Have Him If You Dont Want Him

    The woman¡¯s pace wasn¡¯t fast. She was simply taking a rxing walk towards Der, who was still being pressured into being unable to move his legs. It was clear to all six of them, that each step she took, to Der, was a step closer to the embrace of death.

    As soon as the trialmenced, the figure of Alesia and Gai¡¯ha respectively appeared behind and in front of the woman. Alesia was behind, and she had sent her twin swords shing against the tendons of this female warrior. Gai¡¯ha, on the other hand, had took back control over the many swords which contained a bit of her aura, and sent them in her direction. At the same time, she shed her own sword against the woman¡¯s neck.

    The flying swords came as fast as lightning, but the moment their tips touched the woman¡¯s body, they met with such a resistance, that their motion was stoppedpletely, almost as if she was an unstoppable and yet unmovable object at the same time.

    Simrly, the swords of the two girls slid past her neck and feet as if they were training swords, and therefore, not sharpened in the least. All of this happened while the woman took her second step towards Der, which she took ignoring the two girlspletely.

    Following Alesia¡¯s and Gai¡¯ha¡¯s failed attempts, came the dwarf¡¯s, who had at some point appeared in the sky above the female warrior. His appearance had attracted her attention, which she demonstrated but looking up at him, and meeting against the iing massive hammer directly with her face.

    The instant the hammernded on the woman¡¯s face, the arms of the dwarf broke, and his hammer was sent flying back. The type of resistance he had felt, was the same he would have felt by trying to hammer a nail into b of metal. The very impact had bounced back into him, causing him to have to suffer the full damage caused by the blow.

    After casually repelling this attack, the woman took another step forward, but before she could press her foot against the bloody flowery ground, she felt a sudden and powerful punch hit her ankle backwards.

    While the punch had done absolutely no damage to her, since it was simply suspended on air, the foot jerked back with enough speed to interrupt her forward motion, and cause her to fall on one knee. As shended on her knee, still surprised by the bnce robbing hit, her face found itself in front of a closed fist whose knuckles were covered by a metallic bar.

    A loud boom was heard as the punchnded squarely against the woman¡¯s face, and sent her flying for hundreds of meters in the air.

    On the faces of the observing warriors, was an expression that showed a clear pleasant surprise. The reactions of Alesia and the others were lightning fast, and despite the odd nature of the trial, they had been able to form a solid tactic to force her to waste time. Now twenty seconds had passed, and while the increased distance had reassured Der and the others, that feeling was erased the moment the woman reappeared in the exact same spot she was before being sent back by the young man¡¯s punch.

    Seeing that he had failed, the young man stepped away, leaving space for the smiling blue eyed man. He was standing sideways in front of the approaching woman, while moving the closest hand to her in her direction. "Is it my turn to dance?" He asked while smiling at her.

    However, the woman ignored him, and slowly paced in his direction as if she wanted to run him over.

    "Not the kind of dance I wanted, but okay." Said the blue-eyed man as the woman reached him. He then stomped heavily against the ground in front of her, causing a crack to form, and expand in the direction of her foot. This crack was enough for her to lose her footing, and stumble forward.

    As the woman fell forward, the blue-eyed man appeared in front of her to catch her, then, by using her forward motion, he threw her on the ground on her back, like a sack of potatoes.

    Once again, the observing elite members of the Dominion of the War God looked with satisfaction. Close to a minute had passed, and the woman had only covered a tenth of the distance between her and her target. If the group would have been able to keep hindering her motion this way, they would have all passed the test.

    The woman found herself lying on her back, and surrounded by the five champions she was testing. Each of them had dashed in her direction, and was holding one of her limbs on the ground, but unfortunately, her power transcended theirs.

    When she bent her knee and pressed her foot on the ground in order to get up, Alesia was dragged with the motion.. her whole weight and power ounted for nothing. Simrly, the young man that was pressing on her right arm with his foot, was forced back.. Making it look like he wasn¡¯t there to begin with. The blue-eyed man, who was now pressing against her left shoulder with his right arm while sitting over her stomach, was looking down on her with a smile that, instead of showing a carefree expression, showed a hint of embarrassment.

    The woman grabbed the blue-eyed man¡¯s wrist, and with a push of her waist and a twist of her body, she sent the dwarf that was holding her right foot down flying, and forced the blue-eyed man to end up underneath her.

    She then stepped over his stomach and got up on her feet, before resuming her walk in Der¡¯s direction.

    This went on for the following four minutes, where the woman had been able to ignore the many strategies of the group of champions, and arrive just five meters away from Der despite the many times his fivepanions had been able to hinder her movements.

    Only a few seconds were left, and Alesia and the rest had tried everything they could to stop the woman from approaching their leader. However, they were nowying on the ground, covered in idental injuries, and out of ki, immortal essence, or aura, leaving the woman to walk freely towards a Der who appeared to be a caged animal that was waiting to be ughtered.

    "They are.. Ghh.. more than worthy of.. Cough.. Pass the trial." Said Der to the woman, while looking at his tiredpanions. He then added, "Please, don¡¯t kill them.. Just me.."

    Thesest words were pronounced right when the woman had arrived at arm¡¯s reach of Der, and she had already raised her weapon.. ready to hack down on his body with it. However, after hearing his words, she stopped. She then said, "I judged you unworthy of passing the trial the moment you refused to kill your enemy.. And I had all of the intention to kill your whole group for that."

    She then turned to look at the five individuals that wereying on the ground for a few moments, before turning to look back at him, and adding, "But you are right. They are good warriors, and they don¡¯t deserve to die for you.. Your team passes the trial, but you don¡¯t."

    As she finished speaking, she once again lifted the arm with which she was holding her sword, and prepared herself to sh down with it, but right as her hand went down in a shing motion, an invisible and indestructible barrier appeared in between the two of them. At the same time, the pressure that was holding Der to the ground dissipated, allowing him to once again move freely.

    The very moment the woman hit this barrier, she immediately sheathed her sword.

    The many elite warriors that were observing until now, immediately appeared next to her, forming an organized barrier of ki warriors, as if in an organized response to what was going to happen next.

    In front of Der, out of the blue, a door appeared. This doorcked any sort of detail, and aside form a metallic, and a wooden frame, there was nothing worth mentioning. It was simply standing straight, surrounded by nothing but air.

    Alesia, Gai¡¯ha and the other three looked at the door with confusion, while the many elite members of the Dominion of the War God appeared to be fully aware of what this door meant.

    Before this door could open, the space in front of this group of warrior started to deform, forming a hand-shaped bulge, which stretched the space unnaturally. It didn¡¯t take long before this stretched point of space, unable to withstand the pressure any longer, ripped open, allowing the hand to move through.

    This hand moved back into the rift until only a few fingers could be seen, which were joined by the fingers of another hand, which hooked on the rift¡¯s edges, and forced the hole open wide enough for a human to walk through.

    From this human-sized rift, walked out an old man d in a leather armor, and beast pelts. His power was hundreds, if not thousands of times more terrifying than that of the other elite members of the Dominion of the War Godbined.

    It was only after this warrior arrived, that the metallic handle of the door began to move, and the door was slowly pushed open.. revealing the body of a short and husky man with a long beard. No power could be felting from him, and yet, the newly arrived warrior did not dare to look down on him.

    "Hello dear fellows." Said the short man while showing a bright smile, and polite attitude.

    "Observer, what can we help you with?" Said the powerful warrior of the Dominion of the War God with alertness, and yet, while keeping his calm.

    The short and husky man, unable to differentiate between the man that had spoken, and the many warriors that stood behind him, turned to look at him, and responded to him with a big smile, and by saying, "You youngsters might not know, but your faction has an obligation towards the Universal Government. We allow your brutal traditions, and for foreign mercenaries to waste their lives here, but whenever an immortal cultivator with a chance of developing the trait of the general during their ascension to high immortality appears, they must be sent to us. I have been observing quietly, but now that you have decided to take his life, I was forced to take action."

    These words were a shock to Alesia, Gai¡¯ha, Der, and the others, which were looking at a seemingly harmless and funny looking man, demand something from a group of bloodthirsty warriors that had been doing nothing but fighting for the past tens of thousands of years.

    "I have no knowledge of such an agreement.. I will have to verify. If your ims are.. urate, you will then be allowed to take him with you." Responded the powerful elite member of the Dominion of the War God.

    "I didn¡¯te to ask for permission. I was just giving you an exnation of what will happen." said the husky man before turning to look at Der, and saying, "You areing with me."

    Der, who was now able to move, instinctively took a step back, and said, "No. I can¡¯t leave my friends here. If you want me toe, you have to take them as well." He was afraid that, if he was taken away, his friends would be killed.

    "Observer, I can¡¯t allow you to leave until I verify your words." Said the man in leather armor from behind him.

    The short and husky man that this warrior called ¡¯Observer¡¯, turned to look at Der, and with a hint of irritation, said "Our rights are restricted to you and you alone." He then turned to look back at the warrior, and added, "And you, you were going to kill him either way, why do you even care. Verify after I am gone."

    As he finished speaking, he pointed a finger in Der¡¯s direction, and created a bubble of spatial essence that lifted him off the ground, and moved him through the door. In his eyes, was the unwillingness to leave Alesia and Gai¡¯ha behind.

    The warrior immediately unsheathed his sword and tried to attack the Observer, but his attack was stopped by the same barrier that had stopped the woman¡¯s attack, despite the power of their attacks could not be put on the same scale.

    While the blue-eyed man, the dwarf, and the teenage warrior were already aware that they had no part to y in what was happening, it was different for Gai¡¯ha and Alesia, which Dashed in the direction of this invisible wall, and banged on it desperately as tears formed in the corners of their eyes, and came down their cheeks.

    The Observer looked at the two of them apologetically, then followed the bubble into the door, which closed behind him, and disappeared immediately after.

 Chapter 356 Striving for the Top

    Khron, Patriot Academy.

    The patriot academy had been founded by the universal government, for the sole purpose of finding talented cultivators which could participate in the contest that was scheduled for seven years in the future, and would see the current two biggest intergctic forces sh one against the other.

    When the ambassadors of the universal government had been sent through the wormhole in an attempt to make contact and scout the forces of their enemies, the foreign force had agreed on their peaceful terms in exchange for a few conditions.

    Since two powers of simr strength couldn¡¯t co-exist so close to each other, they had agreed to meet on a small scalepetition which would demonstrate the methods of cultivation which the two countries possessed. These methods were, of course, their way to gain power.

    While thesepetition sounded like a well-meaning and peaceful attempt, they were far from it. Like two countries that had the full intention of invading each other, they were simply scouting for the potential of their enemy before either changing their minds and backing away, or starting a full on invasion.

    For that reason, for all of the people who had to take part in it, thispetition was extremely important.

    ording to their agreement, thispetition would be split into different sections. These three sections were the Junior, Veteran, and Peak sections, which would respectively see young cultivators underneath the fifty years of age, veteran warriors under fifty thousand years of age, and finally, the strongest cultivators that each faction could employ in the ten years of wait between the creation of this agreement, and the date of thepetition, fight against the correspondent warriors of the enemy power.

    The Patriot Academy was nothing but a ce where the strongest and most talented junior cultivators were sent to be tested. Each of them was abandoned by one of the factions that belonged to the universal government, and forced to follow the path of high immortality instead of being granted a gift by the leaders of their factions.

    However, while this might have appeared unfair for some of them, the trade off was more than enough for them. After all, they would be able to receive more resources than their factions could ever spare to them, to a point where the opportunity to join the Patriot Academy was envied by their peers, who were too talented to be rejected by their factions, and had been left behind.

    Not all of the students of the Patriot Academy would be able to participate in thepetition that would take ce six yearster, and that had forced its many students into an eternalpetition for the first ce of the ranking. A better position allowed for more resources, and the attention of more powerful individuals.

    While this development had granted arge number of top talents to the universal government, a major w presented itself. All of these talents, whenpared to a truly shocking prodigy, would look like a bunch ofmoners with no redeeming hope.

    -----

    Ny-nine of the top hundred students were currently reunited into what appeared to be a hall that had been reserved for the asion. Most of these cultivators were upying the tables of the hall, while two of them were standing above a tform that was in the furthest corner from the door.

    The noise of chattering filled the room like a loud buzz that came from each of therge tables, while the two individuals that stood on the wooden tform tried to quieten the rest down with useless calls, or low toned shouts.

    "Calm down, please. We have important business to go through." Said a tall and elegantly dressed young man with blond hair in an attempt to gain the attention of the cultivators present, however, it was clear that most of the ny-seven cultivators present did not have enough respect for him, and instead of shutting up, kept talking to theirpanions.

    This reaction did not bother the blond cultivator, but the same could not be said for the woman who was standing next to him. A girl which appeared to be in her early twenties, but that was in fact in her early forties. Her long and wavy red hair fluttered in the air as her breathing became heavier and heavier, and she gradually lost her patience.

    Finally, after two full minutes, she burst out shouting, "SILENCE!" Her tone carried the full extent of her power, and was powerful enough to form cracks on the thick stone walls.

    This shout was enough to form a resemnce of quietness in the hall, even though it was not out of respect, but out of irritation instead.

    One of the cultivators that was sitting at a table to the front, stood up, and said, "Why don¡¯t you calm down, and just tell us why you have summoned all of us here?"

    "Can¡¯t you already tell? Don¡¯t you see anyone missing?" Said another cultivator that, until now, had been observing the situation quietly from a table ced in one of the hall¡¯s corners. Nobody was sitting with him at that table, and yet his words were carefully listened to by most of the cultivators, which quickly began to understand the reason of this gathering.

    "Please, sit down. I¡¯ll exin in a moment." said the blond cultivator while pointing at the empty chair with his right hand.

    The cultivator who had just spoken, reclutanctly sat back in his chair and folded his arms.

    "Ever since we have arrived here, we have been told the same thing. Patriot Academy is a ce for excellence, and only geniuses are allowed in it. That was the premise that we were all given during the opening.." Said the blond cultivator before taking a small pause to observe the looks of agreement in the faces of the other cultivators. Once satisfied, he continued by saying, "However, I haven¡¯t felt like a genius yet.."

    These words surprised the group of cultivators, as they were aware that this young looking man was not only part of the top hundred cultivators of the academy, but had also been in the top five for the past two years.

    This sort of reaction was not universally shared, as many of these cultivators immediately understood the meaning behind the words of the blond cultivator.

    "You are talking about him.." Said the cultivator that had stood up in the beginning, finally aware of what was going on.

    "Ever since we arrived.. The ny nine of us.. Have never gained a first ce in anything." Said the red-headed woman with clear irritation. She then turned to look at the blond man, and added, "Not one individualpetition where the first ssified did not belong to the same damn person.."

    The amount of resources given to the students of the patriot academy was dependent on their results, which in order to make things fair, had been split into multiple types ofpetitions. Individual, team,prehension of essences, ability with the use of weapons, and so on.

    Each type ofpetition had a ranking that granted a certain amount of points. For example, the fifth ssified in the individualpetition, would be given ny-five points that wouold add to the points given in the other categories, and that would ultimately dictate his or her final ranking within the academy.

    Unfortunately for these students, while they had their own talents, they had never been able to gain a full hundred points, and had been forced to look as the first position was imed by the same name for years, with a final number that was the sum of the top first position in every one of the disciplines.

    The impossibility of even being able to graze the first position in any of thepetitions, had left a sour aftertaste in the mouths of these proud cultivators, which felt as if they had been battered by their parents into a sort of resignation which did not match with their proud character.

    "What is the point.." muttered one of the cultivators in the back, before adding, "He is unbeatable one on one.."

    "That¡¯s not a matter of one on one.. Any teams he is part of, ends up being carried by him to the top position.. Sucks the fun out of this.." Said another cultivator with a simr disappointed expression.

    "How about you guys? Why haven¡¯t you been able to pass him in essenceprehension?" Asked a cultivator in leather armor to one covered in red and purple colored robes.

    "Don¡¯t even ask.. That guy is a freak. He has a perfectprehension of multiple essence, and even if you gang up on him, he uses them well enough to stomp you to the ground."

    "I have heard that he is actually an explorer, and that he was ced here to toy with us.."

    "Quiet, please.. We might have found a method to get rid of him." Said the blond cultivator, sessfully attracting the attention of each of the ny-eight cultivators present. When he was sure that they were all looking at him, he continued by saying, "As you may all be aware of, we of the top five are given the information regarding the new tests in advance.. And the next one, seems to be in our favor."

    These few words were enough to straighten the backs of these cutivators, which finally found something they were truly interested in. After all, knowing what a test was about was solely a privilege for the top five, just like it was dealing with that information.

    This time, the two of them had decided to give up their advantage in the test, and instead share it, so that their n could proceed.

    "I will reveal the purpose of the next test, but just to be clear, anyone that stays to listen, will have to contribute to the n. Or else, you will pay dearly." Said the blond cultivator as the polite smile on his face turned into a crude and vicious look.

    Having been separated from the first rank had given the wrong impression to the cultivators of the top hundred positions that all of them were at more or less the same level, so while most of them knew that this threat carried a real danger, they did not pay too much attention to it.

    At the same time, their arrogance had somehow convince them that, if this unbeatable first ranked disappeared, they would have a clear shot at his ce, so despite this threat, none of them left, and stayed to listen to what the two had to say.

    "Get to it, will you? We have been here forever." Said the cultivator that was sitting in the corner of the room. He was a member of the top ten, and his interesty in the couple¡¯s n to get rid of the first ssified. After all, he wanted to be first more than anybody else.

    "You have been warned." Said the red-headed woman with a threatening tone.

    After a moment of silence, the blond cultivator looked at the many faces that were pointed at him, and said, "We are all immortal cultivators at the peak of the tenth stage of cultivation. As you all know, the powers granted by the ascension will depend on our abilities, so in order to ease this process, we will all be left into an isted. Our objective will be to ascend.."

    The gifts obtained by the ascension to high immortality depended on the lifestyle of each individual, and that was the reason why the government had decided to hold this tipe of test to help the students in their ascension. Instead of ascending in the peacefulness of their rooms or safety of the academy, they would be left in an empty where they could attack each other, and trigger the best possible and most adequate gifts they could obtain.

    Once the test¡¯s objective was revealed, it didn¡¯t take long for the many cultivators to guess what the rest of the n was.

    "You want to stop his ascension.." muttered the cultivator that was sitting in the front row, and that had spoken before. He then added, "if we can stop him when he is in the middle of it, his second attempt will take months.. Plenty of time to cultivate past the first phase, and leave him in the dust."

    Simrly, the other cultivators were muttering the same thing. Some with surprise, and some with excitement.

    "That is exactly what we will do.. Are you guys in?" Asked the blond cultivator after nodding in confirmation.

    These nods did not make him wait, and arrived one after the other as if on cue.

    "Very well," Said the blond cultivator while showing a satisfied smile, and before adding, "This is how we are going to do this, so listen carefully.."

 Chapter 357 Poking the Bear

    To this gathering, followed a week of preparation.

    Strategies, pairings, roles, and tactics were discussed in secret amongst the numerous members of the top hundred.. Until finally, the day of the test arrived.

    The many students who had reached the peak of the tenth stage of immortal cultivation, had now been regrouped in arge square. In front of them, stood a massive obelisk carved out of a gigantic boulder. Depicted on it, were numerous words in an ancient tongue that had fallen into disuse, and at its feet, was the spatial formation that turned this obelisk into a teleporting device.

    Standing just outside of this formation, were three cultivators. Two of them were known to all of the students as Krit the Sniper.. the explorer who had been put in charge of the whole academy along with the second man, who was d in thick te armor, and stood quietly with an authoritative expression on his face, showing his military background without even needing to talk.

    The third individual was an old man with long white hair, and a long grey beard. His tall and slender figure was covered by a brown robe which made him look like a hermit. He was the current chairman of the Patriot Academy, as well as its first professor. His job was to review the test¡¯s results, and give a more in depth evaluation of each of the candidates for thepetition between the two intergctic powers.

    This old looking man was standing a step in front of the two representatives of the explorers and the military of the universal government, and was currently looking fondly at the thousands of young cultivators who, for the past two years, he was forced to familiarize with the same way a teacher would with a student.

    Surrounding the group of students, were the professors which, simrly to the chairman, looked at their favourite students with prideful expressions.

    Amongst theses students, was a single individual who attracted the attention of each and every one of the people present, and yet, no pride could be seen in their eyes. These looks were not of hate, but of a mixture of jealousy, confusion, and admiration. None of them had been able to teach a single thing to this cultivator, and any notion he had learned within the academy, had been self taught. None of the professors had the right to take pride in this cultivator¡¯s progress.. No one except for Krit, who could at least boast about being the one who had found this scandalous talent.

    He was looking at him with such fervor, that the military representative that was standing next to him, could not help but notice his eyes curve through his goggles. Due to thepetitive nature of their two divisions, to him, this expression did not appear as one of pride, and was instead, gloating.

    This individual was dressed in a leather armor that left him with little to no protection in the vital areas of his body. This choice of armor had been dictated by his ability in hand to hand fighting, which had allowed him toe out of hundreds of fights without a single scratch, making the concept of an actual protective armor obsolete to him.

    Hanging by his waist, were two single-edged swords that looked like an extra pair of deadly legs. Underneath this brown leather armor, was a spotless white t-shirt which did nothing to cover the dozens of scars that covered this person¡¯s arms.

    If Daniel or any other member of his group had been here, they would immediately recognize this person as Jerigh.. Starting from his usual quietness, blond locks of hair, and the good looking features of a man in his early twenties, but that in reality, was closer to his early thirties.

    "Dear Students. The next test will be the most important and defining moment of your lives. The day you will obtain a gift that hasn¡¯t been granted to you, but that belongs to you.. A gift that will be shaped by your personality, habits, feelings, and experiences. I won¡¯t stand here and tell you that you will be the most powerful young talents in the universe, because in this specific moment, even arrogance could ruin the rest of your long, long lives. Do your best.. Make us proud one more time."

    This was the speech of the chairman, and only words he had decided to pronounce to these thousands of young cultivators.

    The very existence of a cultivator was based around the pursuit of power. Some seeked power to feed into the constant cycle of getting stronger to avoid death, protect their loved ones, or sometimes, even simply to be superior to others.

    Regardless of their motivation, each of them aspired to have the best possible gift from their ascension. After all, the better the gift, the stronger they would be in the future, as opposed to limiting gifts that would bind them to a life in the military. So while many of them were thinking of hindering Jerigh¡¯s progress, most of them were preupied with their own ascension, which would dictate who they would be for the next tens of thousands of years.

    The only one that appeared to be in peace with any possible oue, was Jerigh. He was just standing in position, waiting for the test to begin. His confidence was making others ufortable, creeping into their minds, reminding them the difference between him and them.

    After his speech was over, the chairman invited the students to enter the tform in groups of a hundred based on their ranking, leaving the top hundred forst. The reason for this division was so that, unless extremely unlucky, only the students of a simr level of talent could be of a threat to each other.

    Numerous sideway looks were exchanged between the members of the top hundred as they were teleported in block into another world.

    When the group reappeared, they found themselves on the top of the tallest mountain in their surroundings. From this mountain, they were able to see a thick forests, numerous caverns, the unmistakable light blue color of the sea, and vast yellow sand.

    As if on cue, the moment the members of this group arrived, they turned into ny-nine different directions, and disappeared in the distance.

    Before attempting their ascension, they had formed a n to hinder Jerigh. However, if they simply attacked him when he was aware of their presence, and not burdened by his own ascension, he would end up bing too much of a challenge for them.. Just like it had happened thest time, when more than thirty had attacked him, just to find themselves covered in injuries and bruises about a minuteter.

    The first step was to act as if nothing but their own ascension truly mattered, so instead of attacking, they left.

    Before leaving, the slowest few that left the area had noticed something odd.. As if uninterest by what the others would do, Jerigh had sat down in the middle of this cleanly cut mountaintop, and begun the first step of his ascension.. Meditation.

    "What? He just sat there?" Asked the leader of this team, which after a few minutes from their departure from the mountaintop, had reunited with him and the rest of his group as nned.

    The cultivator looked back from the direction he came from, as if afraid that he could have been followed, then nodded, and said, "Yes. He sat before we could leave."

    "How fucking arrogant.." muttered the leader of the team, before going quiet for a minute. He then added, "Alright, let¡¯s go meet with the rest.."

    ------

    Three hourster.

    At the bottom of the sea that could be seen in the distance from the top of the mountain, was a massive constructed bubble of air, outside of which some unknown marine creatures swam curiously.

    Inside this bubble of air, were around ny of the top hundred ranked cultivators. They were divided into nine groups, and each of them wasposed of fighters with simr skills, and lead by one of the top ten ranked warriors.

    "Where the hell is he? We don¡¯t know how long it will take for that monster to ascend. If he already has the moment we get there, we are done fore." Said the sixth ranked cultivator with a clear hint of anxiousness. Amongst the many cultivators present, he was one of those with the most doubts about their n.. After all, he had been defeated more than once by Jerigh in the past.

    "Shut the hell up. He will arrive soon." Said the red headed girl, who happened to be the fourth ranked within the whole academy. She was leading one of the melee teams, and was armed with two notched chakram which people could only look at with fear, when imagining how painful being hit with them would be.

    Just as she finished talking, a group of small ck shadows approached the massive air bubble, attracting the attention of the most curious and aggressive looking marine monsters in the surroundings. However, the moment these monsters reached the small shadows, they turned into a mist of red that stained the waters like dense red ink.

    After swimming through this mist of blood and pieces of flesh, this group arrived to the surface of this bubble, and pushed through it. They then graciouslynded on the dried seabed, covered in what looked like diluted blood.

    "Is everybody here?" Asked the blond cultivator as the liquid that covered his body began to evaporate from his skin, and join the water that was surrounding the bubble.

    "Yes. we were waiting for you." Said the red headed woman with a quick nod, and a faint smile. The blond cultivator was the only one with whom she smiled, showing that she had an interest in him that went beyond plotting, or ranking. Unfortunately for her, the blond cultivator did not reciprocate this interest, and instead, had used it to gain prestige when proposing this n to the rest of the top hundred cultivators.

    "Stick to the n. Attack him with all you have.." Said the blond cultivator while slowly looking at the other team leaders.

    One of whom, asked "If we get there before he enters the second stage, we are screwed. We need to wait for the right moment."

    "What do we do then? Do we try to cripple him?" Asked the ninth ranked cultivator with what appeared like clear hostility towards theirmon enemy. He, along with the sixth ranked, and most of the others, had been put to shame by Jerigh multiple times in thest few years.

    "No. He is Sir Krit¡¯s favourite.. If we cripple him, who knows what will happen to us. Just stick to the damn n we have prepared.. Interrupt his ascension, then leave right after. His body, mind, and spirit will be devastated by the failed attempt, forcing him to not only fail this test, but also to spend a few weeks recovering. At that point, we will have taken over his spot, and be able to prove our worth."

    The idea of gaining a higher position in the ranking, even if simply one spot, was wirth the risk for thesepetitive cultivators. So the moment the blond cultivator confirmed the n, each of them nodded with eagerness and enthusiasm.

    "Go.. we can¡¯t miss our window."

    -----

    Back in the mountain top, Jerigh was still sitting quietly in the lotus position. He was feeling every bit of immortal essence wash over his organs, flesh, and skin.. Ignoring the faint wind that crashed against his skin, or the solid and ufortable ground he was sitting on.

    His body was a whole world, immobile, and seemingly indestructible. His spirit was a calm sea whose waves were so slow and calming, that they would be able to put a person to sleep before they could ever drown. His mind was a small boat, on which a lonely and happy man fished in peace. Everything was in full harmony, and while somebody would believe this to be a boring sight, in truth, it was an omen that his cultivation was ready to advance.

    The first step of the ascension had beenpleted, and the following one had begun. The immortal essence within him began to surge, and inside his body, formed a vortex that quickly absorbed the power of the many perfect crystals that he had ced around his body. This power was sent washing through every fiber of his body, changing it forever.

    While Jerigh was fully focused on this, what looked like an upside down mirror image of the mountain on which he was sitting on, had appeared above him, and was quickly falling down like a massive arrowhead. At the same time, hundreds of ranged elemental attacks silently follow suit, and pierced through the air in his direction.

    Each of these attacks were already only meters away from him, and in the minds of the attackers, it was clear that the ambush had been a sess. Not even Jerigh would have been able to avoid these many attacks.. Be it if he was in a fully allerted state, or in the middle of his ascension.

    However, what these cultivators had failed to factor in their ns.. Was a human that was sitting on a wooden chair an incalcble amount of kilometers away from them.

    Since a minute ago, he had been sitting with his eyes closed, and looking at two simple words written in a window that had appeared in his mind. This window was the System Upgrade¡¯s window, and these words were "Group Donation."

 Chapter 358 True Loyalty Part 1 of 2

    ____________________________

    Group Donation = 1 KP

    (Donate Karmic Points to the group.)

    ____________________________

    There wasn¡¯t much that, at this point, would have surprised Daniel.. But the moment he had checked the new abilities granted by the next level of his system¡¯s upgrades, his jaw dropped.

    "You have got to be kidding me.." he muttered as a big smile formed on his face.

    Ever since he had taken back control over his body, Daniel had been worried for hispanions. They, unsure whether Daniel would havee back to his senses or not, had lost faith in him, and therefore, left the area of effect of his system¡¯s passive skills.

    Due to this, the group had been unable to gain any particrly high amount of karma, and therefore, Daniel had been unable to upgrade it.

    For a long time he had hoped that his friends woulde back into the group once they learned that he was back and earn enough points that would have allowed him to help them from the distance, but unfortunately, their difficult situations had kept them away from being able to perform the kind of actions that would have granted karma points to the group.

    That had only left his own karma as an assurance that they would be safe, leaving him terrified to spend any of it, in case the secondhand luck he emanated onto his friends would run out, and be unable to prevent their death.

    Now that he was able to donate karmic points directly, it would not matter if his group went around doing good deeds. He could simply donate what was needed out of his own points. So, with a big smile, he thought "Donate five billion points to the group."

    Without waiting for a single moment, he opened the group system¡¯s window, and after confirming that the group¡¯s karma had been increased by five billion points, and his had decreased by the same amount, he opened the group system¡¯s upgrade window.

    Just like he remembered, the fourth level of the shared karmic effects, required five billions, and now that he had enough funds, he quickly formted the thought of upgrading the group system¡¯s level, forcing arge window to appear in his mind.

    He then began to read with high expectations.

    ____________________________

    Shared Karmic effects lv.4

    Karmic Aura Lv.150 = 2,500,000 KP

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a battle prowess enhancement of 1%. An additional 1% per level. Max Lv. 200)

    Time Is Precious Lv.60 (Group) = 2,500,000 KP

    (Passive: When in the presence of the Karmic System¡¯s wielder or inside the group¡¯s ground, the group members will obtain a boost in their speed of progression of 5%. An additional 5% per level. Max Lv. 80)

    True Loyalty = 1,000,000,000 KP

    (Passive: When a group member reaches the level of unbreakable loyalty, the effects Time is Precious and Karmic Aura will be activated regardless of the presence of the System Wielder.)

    Group Base (Intermediate) = 50,000,000,000 KP

    (The maximum size of the group¡¯s base doubles. Group members will find it easier to cultivate in the group base. The battle prowess of the group members increase by 20% when in proximity of the group base. System Wielder gains a 10% boost in battle prowess when in proximity of the group base. )

    ____________________________

    umte 50,000,000,000,000 Karma points to unlock Shared Karmic effects lv.5

    ____________________________

    Daniel¡¯s jaw could not possibly move lower.

    "What the hell is wrong with you?" Asked Xargy while looking at hisically deformed face as if he was looking at an idiot. He had smelled the happiness off of his sweat from the other side of the, and had decided to check up on him.

    Simrly, a small shadow that moved on the ground¡¯s surface dashed in Daniel¡¯s direction, and when it came to about two meters of distance from him, it turned into the silhouette of a demonic wolf cub which emanated thick dark essence.

    The cub was feeling Daniel¡¯s second hand happiness, and only stopped his motion by pressing his front paws of his face, then jumping backwards.. Almost as if in an attempt to convince Daniel to y with him.

    Daniel did not react to the two, and instead kept staring at the empty space while smiling like an idiot. The only word that he inadvertently said out loud, was the word "donate."

    All of this happened only a few moments before four contemporary events, which would change the history of the entire universe forever, took ce.

    -----

    In the main base of the universal government¡¯s military, was arge training ground.

    Inside this training ground, around a hundred cultivators were quietly performing their ascension. Each of these people was dressed with different types of armor or elegant clothes, and their appearance left no doubt about theirpetence in their field.

    The color of their clothes belonged to many different factions, and only a few of them were dressed in the uniform of the universal government¡¯s military corp.

    These individuals had been extracted from numerouss all around the territories of the universal government and many factions, and each of them had been an extremely sessful general for many years. All of them had been taken away from the Observer, only moments before they could attempt their ascension on their own.

    One of these individuals, was Der. He was sitting in the far end of the training ground, as he was thest one to arrive.

    Standing around these ascending generals, were the currentmanders of the universal government¡¯s army. If everything went well, amongst this group of cultivators, they would find a few peers which would ultimately end up bing the generals of a new generation of the universal government¡¯s army.

    For thest few hours, one warrior after the other had left the state of meditation, and entered the second stage of the ascension. The thousands of immortal crystals left in the surroundings were quickly decreasing in size, and their immense power was being absorbed by these ascending warrior as if no quantity could ever be enough. The energy they contained decreased as fast as the power of the warriors grew, and their gifts formed within their bodies.

    One hour after the other went by, and soon enough, all of these warriors managed toplete their ascension. From their bodies, came the aura of a general which could lead billions to battle, and to whom those with a soldier¡¯s gift could not oppose.

    Amongst all of these warriors, Der was the only one that had failed. He was still stuck in the meditation state, and couldn¡¯t bring himself to enter the state of mind that would allow him to ascend.

    That, however, changed soon after.

    Instead of seeing a slow and gradual increase of Der¡¯s power, the production of his immortal essence increased by leaps and bounds in a single moment. On his face, was an expression of shock, and he appeared to be looking around in hope to see someone he hadn¡¯t seen for a long time.

    This sudden change was enough to catch the attention of the newly ascended warriors and old generals, who turned to look at him with disappointment. In their eyes, Der had failed to obtain the gift of the general, and had instead gained an increase in cultivation, along with an unknown gift.

    "Only one has failed.. This was a great batch." Said a noblewoman in heavy armor, while showing a bright smile.

    A man dressed in elegant clothes, and that was standing next to her nodded at her, said, "I agree. Usually, only three fourth of the candidates actually obtain the gift of the general. How extremely odd.." He then took a small pause, before turning to look at the Observer which had at some point joined them, and asked "What do you think, Observer?"

    "I think that you better pay attention.." Said the Observer while looking straight towards Der, who was still sitting, and had now skipped through the meditation state, and directly entered the second stage of his ascension.

    The crystals that had been ced around Der immediately began to decrease in size at three times the speed required by the other warriors. What nobody else was feeling, however, were the invisible waves of mind power that separated themselves from the minds of the newly ascended generals, the oldmanders, and the observer, before moving in the direction of his body.

    The looks of the people were, at first, looks of curiosity.. But before they could notice, their mind process had slowed down, and they had entered a trance. At the same time, the feeling emitted by Der¡¯s body was growing out of proportion, while his body remained the same.

    Many attempts to say something had been stopped by their inability to utter a single word, until finally, the very moment the remains of the crystals disappeared, they found themselves on their knees, staring at a standing Der as if he was the only one who could only lead them to battle.

    "DON¡¯T MAKE HIM SPEAK!" Shouted the observer to the generals, which immediately woke up from their trance, and understood what was going on.

    They desperately stood up, and tried to prevent Der from speaking, but before they could do anything, they heard a voice thatmanded their movements like the fingers of a puppeteer controlled the threads that moved the puppet.

    "STAY BACK!" Said Der with a domineering tone, causing all of those who had heard him to once again fall on their knees, unable to do anything. Even the observer, who hadn¡¯t been affected by Der¡¯s aura at first, could not help but obey his orders now.

    "H-He has the gift of the.. W-Warlord.." Said one of the kneeling generals with extreme worry. From what they knew, only one other Warlord had appeared in history, and after obtaining this gift, he had been able to control the newly formed universal government for tens of thousands of years.

    Der was unsure of what his gift was, so the first thought that came to his mind, was to escape.

    "You!" He said while pointing at one of the older generals. "Open a-" His words were interrupted by a grim feeling, which him to turn his head towards a seemingly random direction.. as if he had felt that something dangerous was about to arrive.

    This simple action caused the mind of the Observer to fall into panic. Only he could have possibly seen the arrival of those who he had requested support from. "HE HAS THE SIGHT! HE IS AN OBSERVER!!" He shouted in what appeared to be madness.

    "Open a portal, NOW!" Said Der to the general, which immediately stood up, teleported in front of him, and opened a portal in space.

    Just as he was about to leave, Der turned to look at this general, and said, "Cover my traces." he then went through the portal that closed right behind him.

    As soon as the portal closed, the general took control over the space, and erased any trace of the spatial essence which could have left a trace that linked the recently closed portal, and its destination.

    "NOOOOO!" shouted the observer.. But it was toote.

    -----

    At the same time..

    In the massive main hall of the underground pce of the ancient elementals, the seven ancient elemental were standing in a straight line. They were looking at a young man with expressions of extreme happiness. The very essence of which their bodies were made of, was enhanced by the sheer sight of him.

    The energy emitted by this man was like nothing that had ever existed before. He was standing above a small pyramid and facing the opposite side of the hall, showing his back to the seven ancient elementals. The power emitted by his body was like a second skin, whose colors changed between shes of sudden white light, warm and animated mes, dull ground, shiny metal, hard looking wood, invisible and yet noisy gusts of wind, and gentle streams of water. Around his neck, was a ne made out of seven pearls. Each of these pearls felt simr to perfect essence spheres, and yet, somewhat older.

    In truth, these pearls were essence spheres formed out of the treasures that were born from the remains of the first perfect elementals to ever exist, and while they appeared to be an essory to this man, they were actually a part of his body.

    "I.. I didn¡¯t think this would be the result.." Said the ancient water elemental.

    The earth elemental, who was standing right next to him, said, "I can feel my power grow in his presence.. It is like being witness of the primordial state of the elements.."

    "It¡¯s truly beautiful." Said the young looking lightning elemental, which couldn¡¯t help but take a step forward, and stare at the man in awe.

    "I hope our old age will be enough to help him grow into the champion that nature deserves.."

 Chapter 359 True Loyalty Part 2 of 2

    Dominion of the War God.

    In an unnamed that floated in the territory of the ki faction, was a wooden sword stuck on the ground. Its surface waspletely smooth, and if anyone looked at it, they would believe it to be a new training equipment that had been nted on the barren ground by its owner.

    Nevertheless, there were two details that prevented any of its observers to believe that to be the case. The first one, was the fact that this sword had been there for the past million years.. While the second, was the fact that this sword was so big, that whenpared to the size of the, anyone would believe thetter to only be arge rock in which this sword happened to be stuck in.

    At the base of this massive sword, stood an enormous city of stone made buildings, and massive tents. To anyone that saw it, this city would look like a military camp that had developed into a rudimentary town that surrounded the base of the massive wooden sword. The inhabitants of this city, which was the only city on the, were all elite members of the ki faction, and numbered in the millions.

    In the outskirts of this city were the training grounds where, every now and then, a few immortal cultivators that had just passed the trial of passage, would go through their ascension before being allowed in.

    In the training ground, at the moment, were more than two hundred immortal cultivators. Each of them had been selected as champions by their generals, and after winning theirst war, they had been tested by the protectors of the grounds which they had decided to fight on.

    Amongst these immortal cultivators, was Alesia. She was sitting in the lotus position, and just like the others, she had been trying to ascend to high immortality for the past few hours.

    Spectating to this event, were a portion of the elite members which had participated in the testing of these warriors. One of these individuals, was the woman that had tested Der and the rest of his group. She was standing by herself, while observing Alesia¡¯s progress.

    Next to her, was Gai¡¯ha.

    As a different kind of human beings, the ki faction had been unable to find out what her Aura was truly able to do, or even if it was possible for her to ascend. All the faction knew about her, was that her battle prowess matched that of a tenth stage immortal cultivator.

    For as interesting Gai¡¯ha¡¯s situation was, the woman knew that there was no hope that she could find anything about her powers without conductingrge tests, so she focused on observing Alesia instead.

    While the woman kept an eye on Alesia, however, Gai¡¯ha was looking elsewhere. For some reason, she couldn¡¯t help but keep her own eyes on the massive sword that pierced the skies, and whose handle was lost in the darkness of space.

    "So those two are the girls you have picked up from Sand and Blood." Said a rough looking ki cultivator with two deep scars on his face, and covered with peltsrge enough to cover his private parts. On his shoulder,y a small stone club.

    It took a single word from this man, for the woman to show the deep disgust she felt towards him. She had known him for hundreds of years, and in him, she could only see the brute who would kidnap all of the beautiful women that were lucky enough to pass the trial, and turn them into soulless shells after months and months of abuse.

    In his eyes, she could see his interest in both Alesia, and the exotic looking Gai¡¯ha.

    "Piss off." Said the woman while slowly grabbing the hilt of her sword.. The twin sword which his father had gifted to her, and which she had recovered as soon as the trial of passage of Der¡¯s group had ended.

    The ki warrior ignored the threatening tone of the woman, and instead resumed staring at Alesia, which stood out from the rest of the ascending cultivators like a flower in a grass field.

    Simrly, all of the ascending cultivators that were surrounding Alesia, were having difficulties with entering the ascension stage. They instead kept taking peeks at her direction, hoping that, at least once, they would find her looking back, and their eyes would meet.

    These constant looks had made things difficult for Alesia too, who, too distracted by the invasive looks of thisrge number of cultivators, was also unable to enter the state of ascension.

    Gai¡¯ha, on the other hand, was experiencing somethingpletely different. Her eyes were still pointed at the massive sword, and while unaware of it, she had stepped in its direction. These few steps were nothing against the thousands of kilometers of distance amongst her and the object.. And yet, after every step, she felt significantly closer to something that was extremely important to her.

    "Where are you going?" Asked the woman, suspicious of Gai¡¯ha¡¯s behaviour.

    Gai¡¯ha did not respond, and instead, kept walking in the direction of the sword.. Which ording to what she was hearing, was emitting a faint sound that became more and more enticing after each step she took.

    Gai¡¯ha¡¯s odd behaviour was enough to catch the attention of the warrior that, until now, had quietly observed Alesia.. Then, before the woman could react, he appeared next to her, and while trying to grab her arm, said, "Hey! She is talk-"

    His words, however, were interrupted by a loud humming sound which only he could hear. This sound came from the sword in the distance, which he knew was an old relic left there by the first of their faction¡¯s leaders.. The founder of the ki faction, and the first to ever receive the title of War God.

    At first, this humming sound reached the warrior¡¯s ears as a harmless, yet deafening tone.. But the more he listened to it, the more he felt his whole being fall apart. The sheer sight of the sword was burning his very essence, and before he could say a single word, he fell on the ground dead.

    This odd event attracted the attention of each and every one of the ascending cultivators and ki warriors, which felt the very roots of this warrior¡¯s dormant spirit, being eradicated from within his body.

    "What the hell happened to him?" Asked one of the warriors that was sitting close to the observing elite members of the Dominion of the War God. "Did she do something to him?"

    "Hey, you! What did you do to him?" Asked another of the elite warriors after approaching Gai¡¯ha. However, before he could touch her, the woman that had tested her, shouted, "DO NOT TOUCH HER!"

    Right at that moment, Gai¡¯ha moved her arm in the direction of the massive sword, which was still far in the distance.

    As soon as her open hand was pointed at the sword, the ground began to tremble. The sword had moved by only a few millimeters, but since it was so deeply rooted into the, a few millimeters were enough to cause an earthquake of disastrous proportions.

    The earthquakested for only a few seconds, and ended the moment the sword shrunk to the size of a normal sword, and dashed in the direction of Gai¡¯ha¡¯s hand. It appeared that this sword had a mind of its own, and since Gai¡¯ha had arrived, it had wanted to be with her.

    The moment this swordnded on Gai¡¯ha¡¯s hand, she tightened her grip around the handle, and felt its power coursed through her body.. A power too strong to control. Unbearable winds lifted the dirt from the ground, and formed a sandstorm which hindered the eyesight of the observing cultivators.

    Inside Gai¡¯ha¡¯s mind, a million years worth of memories went by like a series of indistinguishable pictures, and while she wasn¡¯t able to see everything clearly, she was able to see a few major events.

    In her mind, appeared the memories of a woman.. A cultivator who, unwilling to allow her spirit to limit the potential of her body, had separated herself from it, and left it into a sword. While her objective was to simply create a method to cultivate through ki alone, she had inadvertently invented a method to create spiritual weapons.. A method which only she had ever known, and kept a secret until the time of her death.

    What this woman had discovered at the moment of her death, was that she had never been able to create a method to cultivate the ki.. Not like her sessors had. She had split her spirit into two, and left the majority of it into the sword, however, the remaining portion of her spirit had merged with her ki. The merging of these two unbnced powers, had created an innate essence that was never seen before.. A power that, her descendents, would end up calling Aura.

    Alesia, worried about her friend, gave up on her ascension, and teleported next to her. Gai¡¯ha appeared to be in some sort of trance, and from her expression, Alesia could see that whatever was contained within the sword, was having a devastating effect on her psyche. So, in a desperate attempt to help her regain her senses, she put her hands on Gai¡¯ha¡¯s shoulders, and shouted, "WAKE UP!"

    The moment Alesia touched Gai¡¯ha¡¯s shoulders, she felt the spirit of the sword invade her body, and consume and consume her spirit. However, right as she was sure she would die soon.. She felt a sudden and yet familiar surge in power which increased her production of immortal essence, and help fight back the invasive spirit.

    Despite the devastating effects on her body, Alesia¡¯s state of mind was able to stabilize. Her thoughts were clear andposed, and she was aware of everything that was happening in her body. The sheer idea that Daniel could have been close to her gave her an indescribable feeling of calmness, which paired with everything else, forced her into entering the second stage of her ascension.

    These events were covered by the sandstorm which kept devastating the surroundings only to stop an hourter.

    When the sand dissipated, it uncovered the two figures of Gai¡¯ha and Alesia.

    Gai¡¯ha was looking at the sword, which now contained a portion of her own soul which she had involuntarily exchanged for a portion of the knowledge of the first leader of the Dominion of the War God. A knowledge to which she would be able to ess, after bing stronger. The spiritual sword allowed itself to be wielded by Gai¡¯ha, and appeared to be ready to eradicate the spirit of anyone that dared toy a finger on her.

    Alesia¡¯s situation was nowhere less unique. A single look at her was enough to know that her anatomy had changed drastically. The reason for that, was because her body kept changing. At some point, her hair would be as white as snow, and her body would be as ethereal as a ghost which emanated thick, and pure spiritual essence.. Then, right after, her body would go back to its physical state, and her hair would turn bright red.. Emanating pure ki.

    When she had touched Gai¡¯ha, the sword had seen that action as a threat to her, and as a result, had tried to eradicate her spirit. However, right at that moment, the new shared effects of Daniel¡¯s group system had kicked in. Instead of being eradicated, her ki and spirit had been separated, and as a result of her ascension, she had gained full control of both of them. The presence of spiritual essence or ki in her body was now entirely up to her, and if she wished to, she could be more of a ki warrior than any elite member of the Dominion of the War God, or more of a spiritual warrior than any member of the Spiritual faction.

    As she familiarized with the changes in her body, she quickly realized that, if she wanted, she could have merged her spirit and body back, or control the proportion of each power to be an aura cultivator, just like Gai¡¯ha.

    -----

    Unknown, Patriot Academy¡¯s ascension test.

    Each of the attacks sent by the top hundred cultivators of the Patriot Academy hadnded sessfully right where Jerigh had been sitting, causing a massive cloud of dust to be raised in the air.

    On the faces of the ny-nine cultivators, nothing but happiness could be seen. Their attacks were not deadly, and yet, theoretically, they should have been more than enough in forcing Jerigh to leave his concentrated state, and make him fail his ascension.. However, these looks of happiness disappeared after the dust settled, and they saw him stand with his eyes closed.

    "OKAY! RETREAT NOW!" Shouted the red headed woman, reminding the others that they stood no chance in a direct fight against the monster at the first spot in the ranking.

    Nevertheless, before anyone could leave, the eyes of the blond cultivator narrowed, and instead of leaving, he took a step forward. He had noticed that Jerigh was keeping his eyes closed, and did not appear to be aware of what was happening around him. "HE IS STILL ASCENDING!" He shouted after finally understanding.. then added, "Keep attacking!"

    This time, the attacks were disorganized, and instead ofing all at the same time, they came in waves.

    The first wave was formed of three attacks. A spear charged with immortal essence, an invisible spike made out of water and spatial essence, and a miniature sun made out of light and fire essence, which burned with the intensity of a¡¯s core.

    At first, Jerigh did not react to these attacks, and instead, kept his eyes closed.. But then, just as the attacks entered a certain radius from him, he unconsciously felt the nature and direction of these attacks. With a wave of his hand he formed an identical ball of me and light, and sent it to meet with the approaching one. With the same wave of his hand, he formed a mirror spike of ice and spatial essence, whose tip crashed against the tip of the iing one. The two mirrored attacks were perfectly bnced with their counterparts, and dissipated the attacks as soon as they met.

    At the same time, as the spear arrived, he raised his hand, and grabbed it millimeters before it could pierce his heart.

    The ny-nine warriors gasped in shock. Jerigh was clearly ascending, and yet, the precision which he had employed in protecting himself, defied any logic.

    The blond warrior unconsciously took a step back, and muttered, "What the hell is he.."

 Chapter 360 The Immortal Survivor

    "KEEP ATTACKING! DON¡¯T LET HIM REST!" Shouted the blond warrior before forming more than a thousand knives with his perfectprehension of metal essence, and sent them against Jerigh, who was still defending himself while in the middle of his ascension.

    What had worried the blond warrior immensely, was that while Jerigh¡¯s power had already grown beyond that of an immortal cultivator, he appeared to be still at the beginning of the second stage of ascension. As of now, he was closer to a high immortal than amon immortal, and the most terrifying thing was that his power was still growing.

    One attack after the other made its way against his body, shooting past the air in between them like lightning bolts, and reaching their target in a matter of instants.. But no matter how many attacks were sent at him, each and every one of them had failed.

    With his two swords still sheathed and the enemy¡¯s spear in his hand, Jerigh had deflected each of the physical attacks that were sent in his direction by deviating them just enough to make them miss his body. The spiritual attacks, on the other hand, were examined, copied, replicated, and countered as soon as they approached his body.

    To Jerigh, all of this was happening subconsciously. He was not truly paying attention to his surroundings, but thanks to the increase in battle prowess granted by Daniel¡¯s group system, the survival instinct that he had had to rely on ever since he was a kid, had developed to a point where it could protect his body even when he was focused on something else.

    "What.. How is he doing that?" Asked one of the professors from their observing position in space. "He can¡¯t possibly focus on his ascension, and fight a hundred people at the same time, can he?"

    Another professor, who was standing right next to the one who had just spoken, looked at Jerigh with confusion, and responded by saying, "I am more interested in knowing where is he getting all of that power. He was always the most capable fighter.. But how can his power be beyond that of an immortal cultivator before ascending? His immortal essence just keeps replenishing itself as well.."

    "You two pay attention!.. The others are reorganizing." Said a female professor, while pointing their attention to the battlefield, where more than two hundred attacks had been sent in Jerigh¡¯s direction in waves.

    These attacks were too many even for Jerigh, who let go of the spear he had previously grabbed in mid air, and waited for the attacks to arrive. The professor knew that Jerigh would eventually be hit by at least one of those attacks, and that would be enough for his consciousness to be shaken awake, and his ascension to fail.. For a moment, even the dean of the academy had thought about intervening, and stopping these attacks in order to let his ascension go uninterrupted, but he was stopped by Krit, who said, "Let them. If you help him now, he won¡¯t find a fault in his arrogance. He should not have ascended there, in front of everybody else."

    The Dean wanted to say something in defense of Jerigh, but it was already toote. The attacks came with an impressive speed that almost granted their sess.

    The observers witnessed what happened next with mixed emotions. Some looked away in disappointed, some felt worry, and a few were happy to see such a monstrous talent be stomped to the ground by weaker people.

    However, amongst this vast group of people, one of them was staring at therge cloud of mist with eyes as open as they could be. Krit¡¯s gift of high immortality was one that boosted his senses, and since his entire fighting style was based on the use of his sight, that was where the focus of his gift had been directed.

    Within the universal government, nobody could boast a sight sharper than Krit¡¯s, and it was said that he could see a person from the surface of another.

    This impressive sight granted him the ability to see in multiple ways. His eyes had morphed in a way that could allow him to see the movement of mana, of light, and even perceive more colors that a normal human could.

    Thanks to this ability, he had been able to look past the particles of dust and remnants of immortal essence, and see what had just happened.

    "What are you seeing?" Asked the army general who, while standing next to Krit and hoping to obtain a few good seeds to bring back to the army, had noticed the sudden change in Krit¡¯s expression.

    Back on the¡¯s surface, only moments earlier, Jerigh had found himself in front of hundreds of attacks. A faint shine could be seene through his eyelids, and it was clear that his ascension was already close toe to a conclusion. This speed was caused by his prodigious talent, and the shared system of Daniel¡¯s group, whichbined, had made his talent in cultivation unmatched in the whole known universe.

    When the first attack arrived, Jerigh¡¯s eyes slowly opened, and time seemed to stop. Immediately after, his hand shed with the speed of light. With this quick motion, Jerigh was able to deflect this spear of stone that approached him first, and prevent it from reaching his body.

    However, that was far from the end of it.

    The moment the stone spear was deflected, the attacker lost control, and the spear was left moving in the trajectory of another attack. This spear shed against one of the many constructed weapons of the blond cultivator, which in turn was also deflected, and forced to intercept another of the attacks.

    A series of shing and explosion sounds were hearding from all around Jerigh, and while all of thepetitors believed to have seeded in their attacks, Krit was enjoying a rare spectacle.

    A sort of invisible barrier had formed around Jerigh¡¯s body. Each attack directed at him seemed to have changed purpose from striking him, to defending him. A chain of events caused by the simple flip of a hand, which had nullified all of the attacks that approached him like a barrage of shiny lights, and impressive disy of power.

    ".. the immortal survivor.." muttered Krit quietly.. sending a shiver down the back of the army general, and of the dean, who immediately turned to look at him as if they had heard the most absurd thing in their lives.

    To most cultivators, the words "immortal survivor" would mean nothing. However, for an explorer of the universal government, these two words would provoke admiration and awe.

    Amongst all of the gifts that an immortal cultivator could obtain, there was one that was considered the strongest of all.. And that was, the "The Survivor." The gift of the survivor did exactly what its name suggested, and made a true survivor of the person who obtained it.

    Most explorers had gone through a rough childhood, but Jerigh¡¯s situation was quite unique. While many others had gone through simr experiences, no other had been as talented as him. His past with the asum tribe had forced his survival instinct to sharpen, and thanks to his talent, he had be an uparable individual amongst his peers.

    The gift of the survivor was a mental gift which allowed one to always have a way to survive a difficult situation. When in danger, a survivor would instinctively gravitate towards the choice that would help him survive.

    However, while the survivor was considered one of the greatest gifts known to humanity, one time in history, a variant of that gift had appeared.. This variant was known as "the immortal survivor".

    The immortal survivor was, contrary to what many would believe, not a single gift. It was a mixture of multiple types of high tier gifts, that would revolve around the survival of its owner. To make aparison, if both of these two gifts were swords, the immortal survivor would be sharper, its handle would be easier to grip, and its scabbard would be sturdier.

    "That¡¯s impossible!" eximed the army general while turning to look at the quickly dissipating cloud of dust.

    "It¡¯s true.. Look." responded Krit while forming a gentle wind which slowly moved the dust away from around Jerigh, and uncovered his unscathed body.

    "So what? The kid is alive.. To say he gained the gift of the immortal survivor.. That is preposterous." Said the general with an irritated tone. The army and the explorers had been in an eternalpetition since hundreds of thousands of years, and the idea of an immortal survivor to appearing right in front of him, was the worst possible scenario.

    The reason for that, was that ording to their agreement, anyone who obtained the soldier¡¯s and general¡¯s gift, would be given up to the army, while all of the fighters with different kinds of gifts, would be explorers.

    "At best he has the survivor¡¯s gift." Added the army general in an attempt to negotiate for his own sanity.

    "You are mistaken." Said Krit before turning to look back at him, and adding, "A survivor would only be able to avoid death by avoiding damages on his vitals.. But an immortal survivor.. Sight, Premonition, Instincts.. He has at least a dozen gifts.. And all of them work together for a single purpose.. To keep him away from danger."

    "Explorer Krit.. are you sure about this?" Asked the dean, who was the only one who was allowed to participate in the conversation between the explorer and the army general.

    Before Krit could respond, the general interjected by saying, "It¡¯s just a myth."

    Krit however did not respond, and instead pointed at the area where Jerigh and the others were currently at, and said, "Pay attention. It will happen again."

    The moment Krit finished speaking, another wave of attacks approached Jerigh, who instead of avoiding them, opened his eyes widely. As if reacting to the attacks, Jerigh¡¯s pupils began to move on every single iing attack.

    "The sight.. He is looking at the trajectory of each attack.." Muttered Krit while hiding a wide smile behind the bandages that covered his face.

    When Jerigh¡¯s eyes finally stopped, they were pointed at a specific and seemingly harmless attack. This attack seemed to be the weakest amongst the hundreds that wereing at him, and yet, that is where one hundred percent of Jerigh¡¯s concentration was.

    As this attack was about to strike his body, Jerigh turned his body ny degrees to his right, causing the attack to hit the handle of one of his swords, ripping it off of his waist.

    The deflected attack, as well as Jerigh¡¯s flying sword, happened to be in the trajectory of the second and third attacks just moments before they could hit, and their interference was strong enough to deflect the rest too.

    "He studied the trajectory of each attack and predicted their movements.. The premonition gift.." Said Krith with enthusiasm, almost as if checking a mental box regarding all of the gifts Jerigh had received

    Like before, each attack was deflected until none was left. Jerigh once again stood unharmed in the middle of the now destroyed mountaintop.

    "Did you see how fast and urately he deflected the first attacks? To imagine it is easy.. But to do it.. An increase in senses and instinct.." Said Krit while tightening the grip on his musket with excitement, almost breaking it to pieces.

    The army general was all but happy about Jerigh¡¯s shocking ascension. After all, there had only been one immortal survivor in history, and that person had been undefeated for so long, that the legend that he was unbeatable had started to roam the known universe.

    At that time, the universal government was younger and significantly smaller, and the three major branches of it had yet to form. While the Judge¡¯s order was formed by the judges, and the army was formed by the powerful forces of the time, the explorer corps had been founded by a single individual. A man who had been known in the whole known universe for being the strongest being to ever roam its vastness.. The very personification of what an explorer should be.. Nobody knew his real name, but thanks to his fame, he was known as the Immortal Explorer.

 Chapter 361 The Violent Side of Nature

    One weekter.

    Back in the group¡¯s, Daniel was currently sitting in silence while ying with the long ears of the wolf cub, and staring at Aeron, who was standing quietly in front of an enormous green and transparent giant made out of mental power.

    The two were connected by a thin stream of mental power, through which portions of consciousness were transported from Aeron¡¯s body, to that of the giant. At the same time, the mental power of which therge avatar was made out of, was moving back into Aeron¡¯s body, and slowly refining his immortal essence.

    This process went on for a few hours, until finally, the green light in Aeron¡¯s eyes disappeared, and the surface of the avatar be denser and closer to that of a normal body, but with apletely different feel to it.

    "Is it over?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. The process was of great interest to him, after all, he didn¡¯t know much about the world of mental cultivation, and any information he could get regarding it from Aeron¡¯s ascension, was very much appreciated.

    Even for a beginner like him, it was clear what the process Aeron had gone through consisted in. He had moved his entire consciousness into the body of his avatar, and at the same time, he had used the mental power that he was receiving back from it, to refine the very essence of which his body was made out of. Flesh, blood, muscles.. Even the immortal essence that kept the molecules of his body tightly packed together, were forcibly turned into mental power.

    At the end of the process, the avatar had taken the ce of the body, and the body had turned into a construct made out of Aeron¡¯s mental power.

    "Almost.. The most important part is missing." Responded Aeron by sending his thoughts directly into Daniel¡¯s mind. The voice had no origin, and yet, thanks to his powerful mind power, Daniel was able to pinpoint its origin in the avatar, who soon after, pointed his finger at Aeron¡¯s former body, and turned it into a mist of invisible mind power that slowly moved into his nostrils.

    The reason why this process was necessary, was because in order to be a true mental warrior, one needed a body that was born out of their own mind and consciousness. That was the reason why mental warriors were forced to create an avatar, and feed it mental power until they would be strong enough to contain their consciousness. They would then absorb the empty shell left behind, which contained the innate affinities from which a special power would be born.

    As thest wisp of mind power was entering his body, Aeron said, "Now, it is ov-AAAAAAARGHH" His train of thought was interrupted, and before he could finish speaking, he began to scream without any apparent reason.

    These screams were not out of pain, but of panic and confusion. To Daniel¡¯s eyes, it seemed that Aeron had gone crazy. "Damn it!" He said before teleporting next to him, and trying to calm him down. Unfortunately, nothing he tried worked.

    This reaction was clearly not expected, so, in a moment of worry, Daniel tried to read Aeron¡¯s mind in hope that he could understand what was happening to him.

    This was, and would forever be one of Daniel¡¯s biggest mistakes.

    The moment he tried to read Aeron¡¯s thoughts, his own mind was flooded with a buzzing sound so powerful, that ultimately ended up erasing his mind. Luckily for him, his spirit and body had been left untouched, which allowed for his mind to reform soon after. If not for it, he would have died.

    Not daring to try that again, Daniel ced one hand over Aeron¡¯s shoulder. He then flooded his body with healing essence which, ever since his own ascension, he had developed to a point where it could not only heal physical injuries, but also the injuries of the mind.

    Aeron¡¯s screams quickly lessened as a result, and his hidden expression softened to a calmer one. The two remained in that position for two whole days, until finally, Aeron calmed downpletely.

    "What happened to you?" Asked Daniel after Aeron started to move.

    "Voices. So many of them.." muttered Aeron while trying to keep his train of thoughts straight, and not talk gibberish.

    Daniel was confused. He knew that Aeron could hear the thoughts and emotions of every individual in his surroundings, but even considered all of the people within his right now, the amount did not add up to twenty. How could the thoughts of such a little number of people hurt him so badly?

    Aeron could hear Daniel¡¯s thoughts and doubts, so, before he could even ask, he said, "Dead.. dead people.."

    "WHAT?!? Is that a thing mental warriors can do?" Asked Daniel with curiosity. He had heard a lot about the powers of immortals, demons and dragons, but never about the powers of mental warriors.

    Aeron turned to look back at him, and responded by saying, "I don¡¯t know. Our powers aren¡¯t as recognizable as yours."

    "Can you keep it together?" Asked Daniel, worried about his friend¡¯s state of mind.

    "I can.. I don¡¯t know how long it would have taken me to get used to it, if not for your system." Said Aeron, almost thanking his lucky stars for having been in Daniel¡¯s presence when he had decided to ascend into a being of pure mental power.

    "Good. So, is that the power you have gained from this? Hearing the voices of the dead?" Asked Daniel after making sure that Aeron wasn¡¯t in any kind of danger.

    Aeron shook his head, then responded by saying, "No.. it¡¯s the only power that made itself known to me. They aren¡¯t as clear as yours, and if I have more of them, I will have to discover them."

    "Alright then, go rest.. We will arrive in about a week."

    Daniel was more shocked that he let it appear. He was not aware that hearing the voices of the dead was possible, nor that there was a ce where the consciousness of people would go after their death, so Aeron¡¯s ascension had been aplete revtion to him. For a moment he couldn¡¯t help but think that he would have liked to see what was on the other side, and maybe even see a few of the people he had lost along the way.

    With that thought in mind, he left Aeron to recover from the painful experience, and went to wait elsewhere.

    -----

    One weekter, Naturae.

    Naturae was the only left within the dominion of a faction called One With Nature. It¡¯s size was rtively small for a, and yet, its flora wasposed of the most dense concentration of different kinds of nts, insects, and small living creature than any other in the known universe.

    To inhabit this, was one of the weakest, and yet most advanced factions within the universal government. A faction who was focused on the in depth study of alchemy, and medicines that could affect the strong bodies of the immortal cultivators.

    Due to their objectives, this faction traditionallycked any interest towards power. All they wanted was to gain knowledge, and make discoveries. Some would only cultivate for the purpose of extending their lives in order to be able toplete their research.

    Unfortunately, while they were a small faction, their worth was above that of many medium sized factions, and that, had made them the target of one faction in particr.

    Within the many ki factions, was a group of nomadic warriors whose behaviour was closer to that of bandits than mercenaries. They would move from one gxy to the other, and find any reason to dere war against any of the weaker factions. If they couldn¡¯t find any, they would usually fabricate one, or instigate the other faction into dering war first.

    Now, the full force of the One With Nature were reunited, and were currently floating in space a few thousand kilometers away from the, in order to avoid any damage to befall it in case a fight would break out. In between these individuals, was Lucious. He was eating one of the exotic fruits of which this was rich of, and along with the rest, staring at the massive army that filled the spaceship that was fluctuating in front of them.

    Standing in front of each group, were the leaders of their respective factions. A muscolous warrior with a bare chest, and ted armor that covered his legs and arms, and an old man who appeared to be a step away from his natural death. He was dressed in white, yet dirty clothes.

    Both of them emanated a power that was in no way lower than that of a demon lord, which made them, at the very least, high immortals above the hundredth phase of high immortality.

    "Why are you doing this? We just want to be left to our experiments.." Said the old man to the leader of the enemy¡¯s faction with a fair amount of anger and exasperation. They had been attacked more than once in the past, and while they had chosen to pay their way to peace the first few times, they had seen a never ending pattern to which they were not willing to fall prey to.

    "Old man, did you forget how one of my people came to visit your, and was killed by one of yours?" Said the leader of the faction called ¡¯The Life Takers¡¯, before turning to one of his men, which quickly shouted the name ¡¯Rova¡¯ to him. He then turned back towards the old man, and said "Rova! Little Rova was my best man.. A brother! You will pay for his death."

    Clearly irritated by the man¡¯s lies, the old man burst out saying, "You mean the day when one of your goons delivered a crate with a dead body in it! You foul beast."

    "Let¡¯s not waste anymore time in pointless chat, old man. This war is happening." Responded the warrior without taking offence to the old man¡¯s harsh words.

    The battle prowess that the members of the One With Nature faction did not match their cultivation, as they had never spent any time in trying toprehend the essences, or to master the use of any weapon. What they wanted, was only to live peacefully, and longer. That was the major reason why the members of this peaceful faction had been so reluctant in fighting despite having a leader whose power could match that of their opponents.

    After the warrior finished speaking, the members of his faction unsheathed their weapons, and disembarked the ship. The power they emanated was only a portion of what was truly terrifying about them. What left the deepest impression on the peaceful researchers, was their thirst for blood. The way they looked at them was sickening, and it seemed that they would not be happy until their weapons would taste their blood

    Before any of the two leaders could give the order to attack, however, a small shiny dot appeared far away in space.

    From the distance, and the way it grew in size with time, it was clear to all of the warriors present that this celestial object was extremely big, and was moving at a mind boggling speed that not even the ships of this group of bandits could match.

    Worry started to creep into the minds of the researcher, which after seeing this objecte straight for their, thought that regardless of this fight, they would lose everything..

    What neither of these people knew, was that this approaching object was even faster than they could imagine. So much so, that the light emitted by it was only slightly faster than the motion of the itself, which arrived momentster with its full size and glory.. stopping only a few thousand kilometers away from Naturae.

    "What the fuck.. What kind of moves like that?!" Shouted one of the bandits with a shock that,pared to the one that made its way into his mind the moment the began to shrink to the size of a human¡¯s head, was nothing at all.

    This ball was taken by Daniel, who quietly made it disappear behind his back. He then approached the two armies along with Aeron, Edmund, Sewah, Xargy, and the wolf cub, who was hanging from his shoulder as if pretending to be a pirate captain¡¯s parrot.

    "Hello there."

 Chapter 362 How Is That for a Joke

    "Hello there." Said Daniel politely, while catching the wolf cub¡¯s paw and pulling it back on his shoulder, after it inadvertently lost its grip on it, and began to float away in space.

    The reaction that the two leaders had to Daniel¡¯s arrival, waspletely different. While the leader of the One With Nature had no interest in his arrival, and was still on edge about the whole iing fight, the leader of the Life Takers had lost any form of interest in the resources of Naturae, and had turned his attention to Daniel¡¯s.

    In his eyes, this was clearly a mystical object which Daniel had encountered out of luck. Everything in his mind screamed ¡¯I must obtain it¡¯.. And his desire for it was so great, that his greed could be clearly seen in his eyes. A greed which he did not bother to hide it in the least.

    "If you are passing by, you have chosen a bad day, brat." Said the old leader of the One With Nature, slightly taken aback from Xargy¡¯s presence. At the same time, he could also feel some kind of power in the surroundings which he was unable to fully understand, and that clearly did not belong to any of these newly arrived warriors.

    "I am exactly where I intended to be." Said Daniel while showing a bright and polite smile to this old man, which was clearly confused by it. He then turned to look at an individual within the army of the One With Nature, which nodded at him before taking a bite of the oddly colored and plumb fruit he was holding in his hand, causing it to release arge number of small beads of juice that floated in space.

    For a moment, as the two looked at each other, it appeared that they were having an internal conversation with one another.. Which ended the moment Daniel turned to look at the old man, and said, "Do you require assistance?"

    What Daniel had asked Lucious, was whether this group of researchers deserved to be helped. If not, he would not lend a hand.. After all, he wouldn¡¯t put himself in danger for anyone. As long as these people had treated Lucious decently, and they weren¡¯t bad people, he would help them out.

    The reason why he needed to verify this with Lucious, was because they lived extremely self centered lives, and while they weren¡¯t harmful to anybody else, had also prevented them from umting any particrly high amount of positive karma, leaving them with a generally neutral one.

    After confirming that this group of researchers was not a bad bunch, he offered his help.

    "I don¡¯t see how your help would make any difference, kid. You better move along." Said the old man with a slightly gentler tone. Even if he did not let it appear, he had appreciated the offer, which hade at a time of crisis for him and his people.

    Daniel had no intention of leaving, but before he could say something, the muscr leader of the enemy faction, said, "You are not going anywhere. Your reckless charge almost killed me and my men. I¡¯ll take that little ball of yours aspensation."

    After slowly turning to look back at him, Daniel responded by saying, "I am an outcast. You don¡¯t need some bullshit excuse to try and rob me." He then took a small pause before adding, "However, I would think twice about it, if I were you.. You might note out of this robbing wearing your skin."

    After listening to Daniel¡¯s words, the group of warriors that was still disembarking the ship burst out in loudughs. This army wasposed of tens, if not a hundred thousand warriors, and while most of them were cultivators at the level of ate or peak immortal, at least two thousands had already evolved past that level of a first phase immortal cultivator thanks to the power of their gifts, which from what Daniel could see, had something to do with emitting a powerful bloodlust that affected the opponent¡¯s mind.

    This had forced the members of the One With Nature faction to lose a big portion of their courage, and be on edge from the very moment they had seen their opponents.

    While the members of the Life Takers had a goodugh, Aeron had slowly floated next to Daniel, and said directly into his mind, "There is something wrong with these people.. Try not to kill those who aren¡¯tughing."

    "What is it?" Asked Daniel back with curiosity. He had already noticed that a few of these bandits were notughing, but at first, he had believed them to simply be too nervous about the ibing fight tough. However, now that Aeron turned his attention towards them, he quickly noticed that not only were notughing, but were keeping their eyes closed, and showing pain, or no expression at all.

    "I don¡¯t know yet.." Responded Aeron out loud.

    "You are funny, kid.. I might keep your skull with me, in case I¡¯ll be in need of some more jokes." Said the leader of the Life Takers while slowly putting on two spiked gloves.

    Daniel looked back at this muscr man, and with a cunning smile, he raised his hands above his shoulders, "Hold on, hold on.. You said you wanted this." He said while lowering one of his hands, and making the miniaturized appear above his right palm. He then added, "I will give it to you."

    As soon as he finished speaking, he threw the small in the direction of the muscr man, which grabbed it in mid air.

    "Try it, it¡¯s a cool object." Said Daniel while nodding, and pointing at the with his finger.

    The leader of the bandit faction looked at the suspiciously, but he was immediately able to verify that this rock was actually the one he had seen before. He then tried to inject his own ki into it, which was weed in without a problem, in an attempt to control it.. And just as he thought about it assuming the size of the massive he had seen a minute ago, the sphere started to grow in size.

    "You can also change its shape, and modify the as you wish." Added Daniel while enjoying the show.

    Naturally, the only one capable of utilizing his was Daniel, and the only reason why the was obeying the words of this man, was because when a cultivator injected an item with his power, this power would always contain a small portion of their consciousness. This consciousness was not protected by the cultivator¡¯s imprable flesh, and therefore, Daniel was able to read the thoughts this wisp of consciousness delivered regardless of the power of its owner.

    Anything that the warrior wished for, the became.. And the more time passed, the more he appeared to be entranced by it. His eyes couldn¡¯t move away from it, and at the same time, he wanted the sphere to be closer to his body.

    Time passed slowly, and the members of the warrior¡¯s faction began to worry. Ten long minutes had passed, and his eyes had never moved from the. His expression was an emotionless one, and even the had stopped changing shape. It was then that Daniel began to float in his direction.

    In a matter of seconds he came to a few meters of distance from him. He then waved a hand in front of his face, but received no response.

    At this point, the warriors of the Life Takers became restless, and the few strongest individuals understood that something was wrong. They Dashed Desperately towards their leader in an attempt of freeing him from whatever witchcraft had taken over him, but after only moving of a few hundred meters, they found themselves in front of a transparent wall of spatial essence that was surrounding their entire army, and their ship.

    "You know, if you pierce your heart with it, something amazing will happen." Whispered Daniel to his ear. As the warrior processed what Daniel said, the rock magically turned into a sharp and beautifully detailed sword.

    Without thinking too much about it, the warrior injected as much ki as he could into the sword, then pointed it at his own chest, and with a burst of power, forced the sword to go through from one side of his chest to the other.

    What Daniel had done was simple. Ever since the sphere had touched the warrior¡¯s hand, he had used the power emanated by it, which was his own, to absorb his consciousness the very moment he would use it to make the do his bidding. This method was not enough to kill him, as only a portion of one¡¯s consciousness would be required to manipte an enchanted object.. However, it was enough for him to lose a massive portion of his cognitive ability.

    This had forced him to only perform simple actions, and be unable to distinguish between a good, or a bad idea.

    The pain was enough for the warrior to be shocked awake, and find himself holding a sword that had just pierced one of his most important organs. His life essence was already slipping out of his wound, which unable to keep the death essence at bay, started to spread through his whole body.

    The eyes of the warrior closed to the sight of Daniel ying with the small rock, which at some point had magically appeared back in his hand, and to his faint words, who said, ".. how is that for a joke.."

    Within the massive barrier of spatial essence, the warriors began to panic, but before they could even think of a way of escaping, Daniel turned towards it, and with a wave of his hand, he turned the space around the tens of thousands of warriors into shattered space which instantly split their bodies into hundreds of pieces.

    This was a great shock to the old man, who had seen the very faction that had terrorized his for the past hundred years, destroyed in no longer than a minute. For a moment, a variety of different kinds of reactions came to his mind, but just as he settled for thanking Daniel for his help, he noticed that thetter¡¯s attention was directed elsewhere.

    The only members of the Life Takers that Daniel had left alive, were a few hundred warriors that, contrary to the rest, did not appear to be mentally present. Daniel looked at them one by one with confusion and interest.. And only then he saw something that made his blood freeze from the shock.

    Amongst these warriors, was Heimart.

    "Oh no!" He said before immediately teleporting in front of him, and grabbing his shoulders. "Hei, it¡¯s me.. It¡¯s Dan. Can you hear me?" He asked with anxiousness. Heimart was one of his first and closest friends, and if there were a few people whom Daniel would risk his life saving, Heimart was definitely amongst them.

    Edmund and Aeron immediately teleported next to Daniel, and Lucious, who was still within the group of peaceful researchers, started to float in his direction as well, causing the old man to fall into panic. He didn¡¯t want any of his people to meddle with this monster, especially not before he managed to build a good rtionship with him.

    Before he could stop him, however, Lucious disappeared, and reappeared next to Daniel. Aeron had teleported him, and had done so by using a powerpletely different from spatial essence. No traces of power, nor spatial essence had been left behind from this teleportation, leaving the spectating researchers confused beyond words.

    "What is going on with him? I can¡¯t read his mind." Said Daniel to Aeron while in clear panic. The sheer thought that, without Aeron¡¯s warning he might have killed one of his friends, had forced a shiver down his back, and his hands to tremble. Daniel couldn¡¯t help but once again thank his system. Who knows if either of them would have noticed him without it.

    Aeron approached Heimart, and in an attempt to read his mind, he ced a hand on his head. However, just like Daniel, he quickly found out that his mind waspletely devoid of any sort of thought.

    Nevertheless, he could feel Heimart¡¯s weak mind power be active. "Something is going on here.. He feels.. Trapped somewhere."

    Once again, Daniel fell into panic, and tried to grab Heimart¡¯s shoulder to shake him awake.. But he was stopped by Aeron, which grabbed his arm, and said, "Stop it, it¡¯s pointless.. Whatever it is that made him like this, is in the depths of his mind.. Unless we-"

    As soon as the thought formted in Aeron¡¯s head, Daniel¡¯s and his mind went nk.. for a moment they couldn¡¯t see anything. When this ended, they found themselves at the edge of a wooden area, where a small house was.

    In front of this house, were Heimart, Alis, their two children, and a man who Daniel couldn¡¯t recognize but that appeared extremely familiar with Heimart¡¯s family.

 Chapter 363 This Isnt Me This Isnt Me This Isnt Me.. This Is Me Part 1 of 2

    "What is this ce?" Asked Daniel while looking around. To him, it didn¡¯t feel like they had teleported away, but more like they had suddenly woken up from a deep sleep.

    Aeron was confused at first, but then he quickly remembered what he had learned back when he was still just a student in the Psionic Dimension. Specifically, the powers that a mental warrior would be able to obtain once bing a being made out of mental power.

    During the ascension to high immortality, a cultivator would gain a vast range of powers that, ultimately, would make him unique. The majority of these powers were boosts so feeble, that they would go unnoticed.. But there were always one or more that would end up being the main strength of the cultivator. The more affinity a power had with the cultivator¡¯s habits, the bigger this boost would be. An example of this, were Krit¡¯s eyesight, or a general¡¯s autoritativeness.

    For mental warriors, however, things were a little different. What they would gain from their ascension was not a boost to their natural abilities, but true powers centered around the maniption of the mind.

    Ever since his ascension, Aeron had tested which power he had been in possession of, and so far, he had learned that, along with the telepathy and super empathy granted by his cultivation of mind power, he possessed the ability to teleport and move objects without the use of any form of essence, as well as the extremely rare talent of being able tomunicate with the dead.

    However, those weren¡¯t his only powers, but only the powers he had discovered so far.

    Aeron looked at his surroundings, and immediately found out where he was. "We are in his subconscious.." he said to Daniel.

    "You will be back in four days, right?" Asked Alis, who was now standing in front of the door of her house with her two kids standing in front of her, and looking at their father Heimart.

    "If I am not back here in four days, may a lightning bolt strike me dead." Said Heimart with conviction and while beating his chest with his right arm. In his left hand, he was holding arge axe.

    Despite the reassurance, Alis showed an unhappy expression, and responded by saying, "Don¡¯t even joke about that.." She then patted on the heads of their kids, and added, "Say goodbye to your father."

    As soon as their mother gave them permission, the little girl and little body ran to their father, and hugged him by his waist. "Bye dad." they said as Heimart wrapped his arms around their heads, and smiled fondly at them.

    "Come on Heimart, if we don¡¯t move now, we will never get there before sunset." Said the man that was standing in wait next to him.

    What was odd about this scene, was that Alis and the two kids did not appear to acknowledge the presence of the man. Alis had never moved her eyes away from her kids and husband, and the kids had only let go of their father when Heimart said so.

    The moment the kids let go of him, Heimart waves his hand in their direction, and said, "I¡¯ll be off then, see you in four days.." He then walked down the path that lead into the woods.

    "Stay safe."

    Soon after, Heimart and the man with him walked past Daniel and Aeron, and disappeared in the distance.

    As soon as Heimart disappeared behind the trees, the scenery changed, and Daniel and Aeron found themselves in a forest filled with oddly colored trees. With Heimart and the other man, were hundreds of faceless silhouettes that did nothing but use their axe against the trees, and load the cut trunks onrge wooden crates.

    The sun had settled, and it was starting to get dark. Heimart and the other man were covered in sweat, and they had clearly worked for hours.

    "CAREFUL!" shouted the man, stopping a clearly confused Heimart from inadvertently swinging his axe against a silhouette who was walking behind him.

    Heimart was shaken awake from his confusion, and after apologizing with the walking silhouette, and turned to look at what he was doing, and said, "Thank you.. That was close."

    The man let out a deep breath, and with a reassuring tone, he said, "Try to focus.. Don¡¯t worry about what &#@¡ã$ said.. Those bandits will definitely be killed by the royal hunters before they can even get close to our vige."

    "Did you hear that name?" Asked Daniel to Aeron with confusion.

    Before Aeron could answer, Heimart responded with a faint nod, and the scenery changed one more time.

    This time, Heimart and the man were walking on a path that led into a wooded area simr to the one that surrounded Heimart¡¯s house. In their right hand was a small bag of coins, and on their faces, a big smile.

    "So, I have heard your son talking about bing a soldier.. Now you have enough money to buy him a wooden sword at least." Said the man while tying the small bag of coins to his leather waistband.

    Heimart turned to look back at him with an embarrassed expression, and said, "Are you kidding me.. My wife would kill me. I can make a sword for him myself.. I¡¯ll use the money for something I can¡¯t craft myself in one or two evenings."

    "Really? Like what?" Asked the man with newfound interest.

    "I¡¯ll send them both to school. I want them to have a good life, and not have to worry about living one day at a time." Responded Heimart.

    The man seemed to understand perfectly what Heimart was talking about, so he stopped walking, and said, "I can pitch in for that." he said while taking his bag of coins."

    "No, no don¡¯t be stupid." Said Heimart, now embarrassed and agitated.

    The man, however, seemed to be convinced about his actions, and while putting his free hand on his shoulder, he said, "Hey, you are my best friend.. Your family is my own. Let me help out for once! You know that I live alone, I have no need for this much money."

    Heimart remained speechless as the man grabbed his bag of coins, and poured two thirds of his own into it.

    "I.. I don¡¯t.." muttered Heimart.

    The man interrupted him by giving his bag back to him, and walked away in an attempt to avoid any embarrassing moments between the two of them. "Don¡¯t worry about it." he said while walking ahead.

    The scenery changed once again to a walk deeper down the path, where the two would soon be able to reach Heimart¡¯s house. It begun with Heimart and the manughing for something that had happened before.. Augh that was interrupted by the sighting of a column of smoke that came from a hundred meters in the distance.

    "What.. NO!!" Shouted Heimart before starting to run down the path in the direction of his house. The man followed right after, and behind him, were Daniel and Aeron.

    His panicked expression turned into one of sheer terror as his view of the house slowly became less and less encumbered by the trees in between, and he finally arrived at the beginning of the stone path that led to his house.

    However, what he saw shocked him out of his mind.

    Right past the gate, a scrawny and tall man was kneeling over a staff on which two small round objects had been impaled on. In his hand, was a third simr, and yet slightly bigger object, which he held as he used his knife to work on the part hidden to Heimart¡¯s sight.

    The roof of the house was on fire, and the loud and deepughs of a group of men came from inside it.

    Heimart walked towards the house in a daze. He could see the pools of red liquid underneath the staff with which the scrawny man was tinkering, and something told him that he wouldn¡¯t like what he was about to discover.. Yet, he kept walking.

    Contrarily to Heimart¡¯s human sense, Daniel sight was as sharp as the one he possessed in reality. He not only could smell the blood, he could also see what the scrawny man was doing. Something that made him close his fists and shut his jaw so tightly, that if he had been outside, his fingernails would have pierced through his flesh, and his teeth would have shattered.

    Heimart approached the scrawny man just in time to see him raise the round object he had been working with until now, and get back up on his feet.. Leaving the headless and naked corpse of his wife Alis on the ground.

    As he got up, the scrawny man noticed Heimart, but instead of stopping or calling for help, he showed him as he impaled his wife¡¯s head along with that of his children, who were already decorating the totem he had been working on so far.

    In a rush of anger, Heimart dropped his bag of coins, and while holding his axe, he ran towards the scrawny man that was holding the pole. The man tried to parry the attack and scream for help, but only a few noises of cut flesh, broken bones, and blood gurgling out of his mouth could be heard.

    After killing him, Heimart turned towards his house, and while still covered in blood, he entered it.

    Soon after the fighting noises began. Broken vases, shattered furniture, blood that sprayed out of the window, stopping only a minuteter, when he walked out of the housepletely covered in fresh blood.

    When he reached the bodies of his family, reality kicked in, and he fell on his knees crying.

    "What is going on here? Why is he imagining this?!" Said Daniel with a fair amount of anger. He could not bear to see his friends in that state.. Even if he knew that it was all happening in Heimart¡¯s mind.

    "I have never been in another person¡¯s subconscious before. I know as much as you do." Responded Aeron, clearly annoyed by not having an answer to what Daniel was asking him.

    Unfortunately for them, regardless of their confusion and anger, things were far from over. The moment Heimart tried to touch the hair of his wife¡¯s detached head, the scenery changed one more time.

    Daniel and Aeron found themselves back in front of the house with Heimart and his friend. The scene was identical to the one they had seen when they had first entered Heimart¡¯s mind, except for two differences. Instead of saying goodbye to Heimart, Alis and their two children were saying goodbye to the man, who instead of staying back in silence, acted as if he was their husband and father. Secondly, instead of carrying an axe, the two of them were holding two bows, and carrying two quivers filled with arrows.

    When this scenery ended, Daniel and Aeron found themselves into the previous forest where they had worked as woodcutters. Instead of cutting wood, however, they were hunting for animals.

    In the third scene, after a brief conversation between the two, the man offered to give Heimart a portion of his money, iming that his wife Alis had been helping with the expenses by making baskets, and selling the vegetables she had started to grow behind their house.

    After Heimart epted, the scenery changed one more time.

    The roof of the house was on fire, and while kneeling, the scrawny man was impaling the heads of Alis and the two kids on the pole thaty on the ground.

    "The story is simr, and yet different.. what.." muttered Daniel as he watched the man kill the scrawny bandit, and enter the house while holding a small axe that he had found stuck in a tree stump next to the house.

    Heimart followed right after, but appeared to be terrified by the scene. He grabbed a knife from the body of the scrawny man, and approached the door.. However, he didn¡¯t have the courage to enter. The fighting noises made him more and more fearful, until finally, he heard stepping noise approach the door.

    He was unable to think straight, and as the steps reached him, he closed his eyes and pierced his knife into the body of the person that was about toe out of the house. When he opened his eyes, he saw his friend, and the knife he was holding pierced deeply into his heart.

    As soon as the man died, the scene changed, and Daniel and Aeron found themselves back in the first scenery. However, the story had changed one more time. While the man was once again acting as Alis¡¯ husband and holding arge axe, Heimart was observing the scene from a hiding point about thirty meters away. In his hand was a bow, and next to him, stood scrawny man.

 Chapter 364 This Isnt Me This Isnt Me This Isnt Me.. This Is Me Part 2 of 2

    "Oh no.." said Aeron with a low tone. An idea of what was going on suddenly creeped into his mind, and he did not like it. Daniel, on the other hand, was busy watching as the scenery yed out.

    Heimart quietly observed from afar, as Alis and the kids said goodbye to the man who was currently walking down the path that led into the wooded area in front of the house. The moment the man disappeared, the scrawny man ced a hand on Heimart¡¯s shoulder, and said, "The guys said he is going to be away for days. We can hide here until things cool down, then we leave."

    As soon as the scrawny man finished talking, the scenery changed once again. This time, however, the environment was different from anything Daniel and Aeron had seen so far, and was the interior of the house. In it, were the scrawny man, Heimart, Alis, the kids, and two other men with no facial features.

    Alis was cooking a meal, and appeared to be so on edge, that her hands and legs couldn¡¯t stop trembling. She would also constantly look back at her children who, unaware of the danger they were in, were happily ying with the scrawny man. Heimart was looking at her from his seat on the table, and ignoring his two otherpanions, that were talking to each other.

    "M-My husband.. And his f-friends wille back s-soon.. Please eat the food and leave." Said Alis nervously, while cing one bowl after the other on the kitchen table. After she ced thest bowl in front of Heimart, she tried to walk towards her kids, and take them away. However, Heimart grabbed her wrist, and stopped her from walking any further.

    "Your husband is a woodcutter. He is working for the *$%!"& #@¡êpany, and will be back in four days." Said Heimart while looking her up and down with clear interest.

    Alis¡¯ heart fell at that moment. She was hoping that this group of bandits would simply take their valuables and leave, but they were informed, and intended on staying for a long time. She slowly turned to look back at the scrawny man, that was now holding a knife, and showing to the kid how to y with it, and not get hurt. The scene ended the moment the scrawny man handed the knife over to the little boy, who immediately cut his skin by mistake.

    Momentster, Daniel and Aeron found themselves in the house, which now, waspletely different from before. The furniture had been moved away in order to leave an empty spot for three makeshift beds ced in the middle of the hall. Sitting in the corner in rags, and covered in bruises, was Alis. Her eyes were void, and she appeared to have lost her will to live.

    The two featureless men entered the house and walked directly towards Heimart, who was sitting on one of these bedd while throwing his knife into a small target made out of ripped clothes in an empty part of the wall. "Boss, the city guards have retreated back into the walls. It seems that they have given up. I think we can leave now." Said one of the men to Heimart.

    Heimart reacted by standing up, and saying, "Finally. Take our stuff, call &"¡ê%$, and let¡¯s get going."

    "He.. he is back at it with the kids outside." Said one of the two men with annoyance.

    Heimart shook his head in disappointment, and said, "Not again.. If he doesn¡¯t get his shit together, we will never be able to travel a day without the guards on our taill." From his tone, it was clear that whatever the scrawny man was doing outside, was not "ying".. But something that the man couldn¡¯t help himself but do in order to satisfy a shameful urge.

    Daniel and Aeron slowly walked in front of the window, and on the other side, they saw the scrawny man work with the two dead bodies of the kids, which he had, at some point in between scenes, killed.

    "No.. this isn¡¯t Heimart. He would never allow that.." Said Daniel, enraged by seeing one of his closest friends behave like the most lowlife amongst bandit.

    Before Aeron could exin his guess, however, the two saw the silhouette of a man appear from behind the trees in the distance. He was carrying a bag of gold coins, and arge axe.

    The scrawny man immediately noticed his arrival, but he was too intoxicated by what he was doing, so instead of stopping, he kept going, and enjoyed the looks of horror and disgust in the face of the man.

    Just as Daniel and Aeron remembered from the previous versions of the story, the man grabbed his axe, and immediately killed the scrawny man.. Then, he walked into the door, where he found Heimart, the two men, and a broken Alis. His expression turned into one of desperation and fury, as he began to wave his axe around, sessfully killing the two featureless men. However, before he could kill Heimart, two throwing knives pierced through his neck and chest, causing him to fall on the ground.

    Heimart ignored the bodies of hispanions, and walked up to the dying man. He then took his small bag of coins as the man desperately tried to grab his pants, but he was losing strength, and his struggle was pointless. Heimart ignored him, and stepped on the knife that was pierced on the man¡¯s chest before walking in the direction of the door with the intention of leaving.

    However, before he left, he turned to look at Alis for a few moments. Something in his mind was telling him not to leave her there, so he grabbed her, ced her on his shoulder, and walked out of the house.

    The scene ended with the door closing, and the man who in the other scenes was Heimart¡¯s best friend, choking on his own blood. What appeared next, was the beginning of the very first version of the story, where Heimart was Alis¡¯ husband and the father of her children, and the man was ignored by all but him.

    "He is being conditioned.." Said Aeron.

    "What do you mean?" Asked Daniel with confusion. An exnation for what was going on was exactly what he was hoping for.

    "The scenes are all connected.. The house, the reveal.. The bag of coins.. The killing. They are changing his personality.. The first story is the one that fits the character, and for each version, a number of details are changed.. Whoever is doing this, is trying to confuse his subconscious into changing him from a good man, into a merciless and bloodthirsty bandit.." Exined Aeron with evident disgust.

    Aeron¡¯s guess was extremely urate. Each part of either of these three versions of the story were connected with the correspondent one of another. From him being the father of the family, to a simple friend, and then just an observer.. From him being a woodcutter, a hunter, and then a bandit archer. From him needing money for his family, to receiving them as a gift, to taking them by force. From killing the assassins of his family, to mistakenly killing his friend, to killing a crazed man whose family he and hispanions had just butchered.

    Who knows for how long these images had gone on inside Heimart¡¯s head, or how much they had affected his personality.

    "They.. they are turning him into a bandit. Is this the way the Life Takers grant their gift?" Asked Daniel after finally understanding what was going on.

    "No. They are ki warriors, there is no way that any of them has the power to create a mental loop, or this level of conditioning.. There is a high possibility that this entire faction was created by an extremely powerful mental warrior." Responded Aeron, ruling out the possibility that this was only a rite of passage for a weak faction to grant its gifts.

    "Whoever it is.. They have stepped on the wrong shoes." Said Daniel while feeling his blood boil through his veins.

    He was furious. Of all of the awful things he had seen in the past, this was one of the worst. To condition a person into killing his own children and wife was a truly vicious act, and now, this mental warrior had officially entered Daniel¡¯s ck list. "Can you get him out of this loop?" he asked to Aeron.

    "This is a very specific type of power.. I am not sure I have it." Responded Aeron before immediately feeling the limits of Heimart¡¯s subconscious, and feeling how much this mental loop had affected his personality.

    "What is it?" asked Daniel with worry after seeing Aeron¡¯s eyes narrow.

    "If I get him out now, he will be different from how you remember him. It¡¯s as if somebody poured ink into water.. If you stop it, the water will still be affected." Responded Aeron.

    "What do you suggest?"

    "We let the water flow, and wait for the ink to be washed out." Responded Aeron before closing his eyes, and focusing on Heimart¡¯s mind. Momentster, Daniel found himself out of Heimart¡¯s mind, and back into his body. He was surrounded by his friends, the warriors of the One With Nature faction, and the conditioned warriors of the Life Takers, who not unlike Heimart, were going through the same conditionining he was going through.

    To him, hours had passed, but on the outside, only a few instants had gone by.

    Aeron¡¯s consciousness was now navigating alone through Heimart¡¯s memories. He was searching for the most important moments of his life, and picking them in an attempt to create a new loop that would hopefully remind him who he truly was.

    The boat cabin where Alis had been hiding under her cover, unwilling to let anybody else look at her while Heimart, Ligart, and Daniel, yed card games.. the days he and Alis had spent together organizing the interiors of Daniel¡¯s castle, the day his children were born, or the day he had pulled back a punch to allow his wife to defeat him, and inspire his daughter into bing as great a warrior as her mother was.

    This process had felt extremely easy for Aeron, who was shocked about the result of his ascension. For this to be that easy, there was only one possibility.. He had gained the ability to explore, manipte, and if he wanted, even inhabit the minds of the weaker people he encountered, which was a sign of the evolution of the weaker version of telepathy he and every other mental warrior possessed.

    What proved extremely difficult to do, however, was to erase the previous loop, and substitute it with his own. That had exhausted him, as the power possessed by the person who had put it into ce, was clearly leaps and bounds above his.

    When he finished, he woke up into his own body, and found himself floating in space next to Daniel, who was still surprised about the experience, and hade out of it just instants before he had.

    "Did you do it?" Asked Daniel with clear worry in his voice.

    Aeron nodded in confirmation, then looked at the floating bodies of the hundreds of warriors that were still trapped inside their own minds, and said, "I will need more time for the rest of them."

    -----

    Sitting on a small asteroid that traveled through space with his eyes closed, was an extremely thin man with long ck hair that covered his eyes. He was sitting with his legs crossed, and his hands ced on his knees, and appeared to have been in that position for tens of thousands of years.. when finally, his eyes sopened, revealing two green-bluish irises that shone with a gold hue.

    "What a lucky little mental warrior. Such potential.. You will be of great sustainment for me." he muttered as an odd smile formed on his lips. This smile, however, suddenly disappeared as he felt the appearance of a person behind him. "I thought we had a deal.. Best out of a thousand duels. Why don¡¯t you go bother our little sister? I have heard she got a new pettely."

    Standing behind him, was a bare-chested man. In his hand, was an already unsheathed single-edged sword whose de was covered in ck veins. He was the Swordsman.

    "Alright.." muttered the thin man while slowly standing up, and adding, "Best out of two thousands then."

 Chapter 365 Perfect Comprehension of Spatial Essence

    Daniel¡¯s was currently floating in the empty space right next to Naturae. In exchange for saving their, the One With Nature faction had decided to allow Daniel a passage to wherever he wanted to go within the territory of the universal government. Being an ancient faction, they had obtained the right to use the teleportation artifacts in a time where not many were created, so, there were many limitations. This right was obtained not due to their power, but through seniority.

    The way the universal government allowed for factions to travel through their territory, was by forming massive spatial formations inside every single gxy they discovered. These formations would work as beacons that would allow people to teleport from one gxy to another, reducing the otherwise extremely long travel, to a matter of seconds.

    Unfortunately, the artifacts granted to the factions by the universal government had a limited number of uses, and the number decreased faster depending on how far the owner wanted to go. For example, a teleportation between adjacent gxies would only consume a single use, while teleporting further than that, would require more.

    The One With Nature faction, now amongst the weakest factions within the universal government, had a limited number of teleportations left within their own artifacts. Theirck of power or interest inpeting with other factions had forced them to the bottom of the list of factions, causing the universal government to be uninterested about their support, and by extent, not deserving of the investment of new intergctic artifacts.

    Daniel was now sitting on a chair inside afortable looking room. The lighting was feeble, and produced by a flickering magical white me that quietly danced in a firece. In front of him was a bed covered in a beast¡¯s pelt, and on it, was Heimart. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed, still stuck inside his own mind in an attempt to recover the damage that the torture he had gone through had done to his personality.

    He had spent the past three hours in this room, and after each minute went by, he felt his blood boil hotter than before. In his mind, was arge window on which was written Daniel¡¯s new quest. What was depicted in this window, were the details regarding the elimination of the person who had turned so many people from normal warriors, to bloodthirsty bandits.

    Unfortunately, no matter how much he tried, not a single one of his thoughts had been able to formte an option that could allow him to kill this individual without having to gain a massive amount of power. That was extremely odd for Daniel¡¯s system, which in theory, would be able to read any eventuality in the distant or close future, and formte the quickest path for him to take.

    Now, however, what the system told him was that if he wanted to kill this person, he deeded to be stronger than him. Otherwise, there would be absolutely no way he would seed.

    Nevertheless, he had been able to learn what level of power his new enemy was, as well as where he would be in a certain period in the future, and how to kill him.

    To Daniel¡¯s surprise, this man was one of Iewah¡¯s children, which simrly to one of Sewah¡¯s sisters who could control people¡¯s emotions into doing her bidding, or his brother, who could cause his enemies to bow down to his sight as if he was their ruler, he was able to affect the mind in a more direct way. The mind of other people was his yground, and he did not even require to move from his hiding ce to have a massive army willing to do his bidding.

    Due to this man¡¯s power, Daniel had realized that, while all unique, the powers of Iewah¡¯s children could be divided into two categories. One allowed one to develop a person¡¯s power through their unique abilities, just like the Swordsman, the Merchant, the Elementalist, and the Shadow.

    However, there was a second type of systems that allowed Iewah¡¯s children to increase their strengths with numbers, just like the beasts tamed by the tamer, the subjects of the Ruler, the loving followers of Sewah¡¯s sister, Daniel¡¯s group, and finally, the brainwashed people of this new enemy.. A warrior known simply as "Mindhive".

    Daniel was unsure of the exact power of each of these individuals, but since he had heard of the longsting feud between the Swordsman and the Tamer, and he knew that while the swordsman fought alone, the tamer used her beasts as support, he had assumed that those whose powers were focused on their persona must be extremely powerful individuals.

    His guess was notpletely false, however, the way one used the system they were given was much more important than the system¡¯s abilities.. After all, Daniel¡¯s help had created numerous beings who had created numerous young dragons who, with time and luck, could grow into being some of the most powerful individuals in history.

    "Staying here won¡¯t help him." Said a voice that came directly from within Daniel¡¯s own mind.

    Daniel knew that nothing of what happened was his fault. However, he was the one that had taken these young men and women away from their lives. He had offered a life of adventures that, now, had brought Heimart into this state.

    As these thoughts came and went into Daniel¡¯s mind, Aeron said, "I have searched all of his memories.. Each one of them. I could not find one where he was happier than the time he spent with his family, and your group. You haven¡¯t taken him away from a peaceful life, they have chosen it."

    Daniel remained quiet, but there was no need for him to speak for Aeron to hear the question.

    "You could drive them all away.. They might leave peacefully, or die the very next day." Responded Aeron to a question that was never asked.

    Annoyed by Aeron¡¯s response, Daniel said, "If you are here to annoy me, the-"

    He was interrupted by Aeron¡¯s voice, which had appeared from out of nowhere, and without emanating a single wisp of spatial essence, and said out loud, "Or you can be stronger, and deter danger before it can even think ofing closer to you or any of your friends."

    Once again, Daniel became quiet for a few moments, then shook his thoughts away, and asked, "What is it?" "

    "The old man wants to talk to you." Responded Aeron before disappearing.

    The moment Aeron disappeared, Daniel turned to look at Heimart, on whose face a faint smile seemed to have appeared, and said, "You better wake up soon. Your wife will kill me if you don¡¯t." He then disappeared.

    When he reappeared, he was standing a few kilometers away from the trunk of a massive tree. This tree stood at least three thousand meters tall, and with a trunk diameter of at least five hundred meters. The crown was evenrger, and inside it, thousands of houses connected by small bridges could be seen. To the very top of the tree,ying on the roof of a massive house, was Xargy in his draconic form. He was basking in the sun, and enjoying its warmth.

    Aeron was standing in front of a group of old men and women, who were floating in the air just a few meters away from where Daniel had appeared.

    Daniel¡¯s was so close to Naturae, that it could be seen clearly despite being the middle of the day.

    While in the beginning this group of old cultivators were extremely worried about what the effect of this massive could have to their home, their worries had been put to rest the moment they had noticed that Daniel¡¯s did not interfere with their¡¯s gravity, nor was their Naturae affected by his. It almost felt like Daniel¡¯s was a ghost that lived in another dimension, and could not physically interact with any other celestial body.

    What they did not know, was that this was an extension of Daniel¡¯s body. He could dictate the gravity, or even itsposition.

    "We have researched.. Most of thes that you have listed are very far away, and our artifacts does not possess enough power to take you there. The best we can do would be a few thousand years away from all of them, with an exception made for Cato.. we can bring you to Cato¡¯s gxy, but it will take you some time to get to the right system." Said the old man to Daniel.

    At first, Daniel had no intention of stopping in this. He simply wanted to take Lucious and be on his way to the closest one of his friends. However, the very moment he had formed the next quest to reach his friend, amongst the three options, was to ask for a passage from the people he had just saved.

    The group had epted immediately. After all, Daniel had killed an entire army to help them, as well as challenged a being whose power they couldn¡¯t evenprehend.

    "Cato is fine." Responded Daniel. He already knew that Cato would be the only possible option amongst the ones he had given, however, he was curious about the workings of these intergctic artifacts, so he decided to ask either way.

    The old man nodded in understanding, but in his eyes, was deep worry.

    "What will your people do now?" Asked Daniel.

    Dainel¡¯s cultivation was not as powerful as this old man¡¯s, so he wasn¡¯t able to read his mind. However, that was not the case for Aeron who, after having just ascended, could ignore the immortal essence that worked as shield from external powers, and read through other people¡¯s minds as if they were a simple humans.

    The moment these thoughts passed through the old man¡¯s mind, Aeron read them, and momentster, from Aeron¡¯s mind, they were read by Daniel.

    What Aeron and Daniel read, were the worries that were born out of the situation that had taken ce just hours ago. Along with Daniel, he had learned that these warriors were nothing but the puppets of an extremely powerful chosen of Iewah, who had likely ordered them to destroy their either for interest, or by chance.

    Now that the army which they considered their greatest rival faction was gone, instead of feeling relieved, the old man was worried that the next group that this puppeteer would send, would be even stronger. Even if there was a chance that nobody else woulde, and that they were just a convenient target for the conditioning of this group of people, they would still have to live their lives fearing that one day their peaceful would be destroyed.

    After listening to these thoughts, Daniel sighed deeply. He then opened a portal that lead right next to the tree trunk, and walked through it.

    The group of old cultivators were unsure about what he was doing, so they followed him in. When they appeared, they saw Daniel ce his right hand against the bark of the tree, and inject a seemingly infinite amount of power which, to the group of old cultivators, appeared to be an extremely odd type of immortal essence.

    While this tree was massive, the biggest part were its roots, which reached far and wide into the depths of the¡¯s crust. That was the reason why Daniel had chosen this tree.

    When every bit of the tree was filled with his power, he turned it all at once into spatial essence, which thanks to the tree¡¯s intricate roots, quickly became a spatial formation that epassed the entire.

    Beforepleting it, however, Daniel turned to look at the old man, and said, "A bit of your blood."

    Daniel¡¯sprehension of spatial essence was now perfect. Space was his domain, and he could do anything he wanted with it. To form a spatial formation that contained an entire was childy, and since he was receiving help from these people, he decided to lend a hand once more time.

    The leader of the One With Nature faction approached Daniel while cutting his fingertip with the fingernail of his other hand. A small drop of blood floated from the injury, straight into the crevices of the tree¡¯s bark, and the moment they disappeared, the man felt an extremely powerful formatione into ce around the entire. Its very core was this massive tree, which had merged with his blood, allowing him to control the formation at will.

    What they had yet to notice, however, was that from the outside, Naturae had disappearedpletely.

 Chapter 366 A Personal Standoff

    The old man was the only one who could feel the changes, as the formation had been created with him as the controller. He knew that if he wanted, he could move the, make it disappear, or even teleport it away. Naturally, he wouldn¡¯t do that unless there was an actual moment of crysis, after all, the flora of the required the to keep his usual cycle to survive.

    Nevertheless, the old man was extremely grateful to Daniel, who had no motivation to do this, but had done it either way. "I.. I don¡¯t know what to say." He said while in a clearly emotional state.

    Daniel had no intention of staying any longer, so before the old man could start anything, he waved his hand in a dismissive way, and said "There is no need to say anything. Just open the portal, so that we can be on our way."

    THe old man was slightly disappointed, but he wasn¡¯t going to go back on his words. So he took out a small ring in the shape of two entwined twigs, and pointed at the empty space with the finger on which he was wearing it on.

    Momentster, a brilliant seed appeared right in front of his fingertip. Its shine was so powerful, that it was impossible to observe its feature, and instead, looked like a minuscule while star that emanated a natural and bright light.

    Immediately after it appeared, the surface of this seed split into two, and from the crack, thousands of hair thin sprouts came out in all directions. These sprouts quickly grew in size until they became a three meters tall disk of entwined lianas. When this portal opened, instead of acknowledging its oddity, Daniel walked through it without looking back.

    As soon as his body touched the portal, the lianas began to squirm over his skin, allowing him through. Immediately after his body disappeared, Xargy¡¯s massive wings began to p in quick session, allowing him to soar in the sky, and fly directly towards theparatively small portal. Just before crashing against it, his body turned into that of a human-sized person, and followed Daniel in while nodding at the old man in salutation.

    After Xargy, the that could be seen clearly in the light blue sky began toe down on Naturae. However, just as it looked like it would crash against it, before it could enter its atmosphere, Daniel¡¯s shrunk to the size of a fist, and flew directly through the middle of the portal.

    Only Aeron was still on Naturae, and instead of following Daniel and Xargy, he was looking at the old man. He could read his mind, and knew exactly what kind of questions were filling it. So, before following Daniel, he used his telepathy to tell him, "He left it in case you are in a desperate situation.. If you can¡¯t hide or escape, evacuate through the portal and you¡¯ll reach us."

    "He is an extremely.. Peculiar individual, your friend.." Said the old man out loud, causing for the minds of hispanions to be invaded by a fair amount of confusion.

    "Forgive his behaviour. It has been a very long time since he was able to be at peace. The worry for your people is a terrible burden, you might agree." Responded Aeron through his mind. He then turned to look at the portal, and walked through it without turning back, leaving the old man with twost words "So long."

    On the other side of the portal, Aeron saw Daniel and Xargy float just outside of the atmosphere of the where the core spatial formation had been installed. In front of them, were at least a thousand soldiers in formation, and at the head of it, was a person who appeared to be a higher ranking officer.

    "We have detected suspicious activity. You are not allowed passage through the territory of the universal government." Said the man who was floating just a few meters in front of the formation.

    From the power which they emanated, it was clear to Daniel that all of these people were above the fiftieth phase of high immortality. What was odd, however, was the fact that their stage of cultivation was exactly the same, almost as if their talent had been identical, and they cultivated all at the same time.

    That was one of the side effects of the soldier gift. Once part of arger group with the same gift, the soldiers would merge their overall talent in cultivation, and divide it based on the number of people that was part of the group. That was how so many people could be at the exact same level of cultivation at the same time.

    "You are not going to make things easy for us, are you?.. Why." asked Daniel with an almost demanding tone.

    The man d in better looking armor turned to look at him from in between the slits of his helmet, and said, "The dragon and the mental warrior are wee to proceed, but you have yet to pass your first fifty years as an outcast. You have no proof of being a valuable addition to the universal government. Those are the rules."

    "You know I could snap you all out of existence right now.. Do you?" Asked Daniel with a threatening tone.

    This threat, however, had absolutely no effect for this group of warriors. After all, the higher ranking officer was one of the wielders of the general gift, and a general could never be intimidated in front of his men. Simrly, a soldier would never feel fear as long as they were in the presence of their general.

    Nevertheless, while Daniel¡¯s intimidatory ways could not work, the higher ranking officer and the rest of his men were perfectly aware that Daniel was saying the truth. If Daniel truly wanted to pass, they would never be able to stop him. So, before a fight could break out, the high ranking officer said with a low tone, "Judge."

    Immediately after, a bald old man in judge clothes and golden eyesses appeared right in between the two.

    "Judge, an outcast has tried to enter the government¡¯s territory before the end of his first fifty years as an outcast. We are unable to restrain him." Said the high ranking officer with respect.

    "I can see that." Responded the judge before turning to look at Daniel, and saying with azy tone, "If it isn¡¯t Dan Hiel. The one and only outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction. Unaware of the rules it seems."

    After listening to the Judge¡¯s words, Daniel smiled, and said, "I am just waiting to hear what the way around this rule is.. Before the situation esctes." His tone was peaceful, and yet, there was an underlying promise of violence hidden within his words.

    The Judge¡¯s reaction to Daniel¡¯s words was an amused one. He scoffed at him, and responded by saying, "Children of Iewah.. Always ready for a battle, but you usually know better than to bite off more than you can chew. I will just put an end to you.. One less problem for the government." As soon as he finished speaking, the judge waved his hand, and caused for Daniel¡¯s body to explode into a mist of microscopic particles.

    After killing Daniel, the judge turned to look at Aeron and Xargy, and waited to see whether the two of them had something to say about what he had just done, but in their face, he wasplete calmness.

    "Uncalled for." Said a disembodied voice as a barely noticeable amount of particles moved back into a single liquid blob, which soon after, took the form of a naked Daniel. His tone was an annoyed one, but nothing in his expression relied the intent of escting things.

    "Of course. I forgot that all of you little monsters have a little switch to save your skin once. I hope this will put you out for good." Said the Judge before waving his hand one more time.

    Once again, Daniel¡¯s body burst out into an invisible mist.

    The judge turned to look at the high ranking officer, and said, "If there is nothing else, I¡¯ll be-" However, he was interrupted one more time by Daniel¡¯s impressive power, which once again, had reformed behind him, and was shining against his senses like a human sized star.

    "I am starting to like you judges less and less. I prefer you when you y in my favor." Said Daniel while adjusting his jaw, and putting some pants on.

    This time, the judge was extremely surprised. He knew of what kind of feat killing a grown Children of Iewah was for any other cultivator of any of the other factions, but Daniel had yet to reach thirty years of age, and his power was already astounding. The smile that was on his expression made it clear that, no matter how many times he tried, Daniel would alwayse back to life. So, instead of keeping on that path, he said, "Alright, squashing the flea doesn¡¯t work.. How about killing its friends?"

    "I wouldn¡¯t do that if I were you." Said Daniel with a serious tone.

    "And why is that? I might not be able to kill you, but I can definitely kill them if you don¡¯t leave." Said the Judge threateningly.

    Unfortunately for him, Daniel was not willing to back out, so he said, "You may.. But I would still be around. Still impossible to kill, and with a reason to go at the Universal government. Tens of thousands of years in torment.. Directly from Iewah¡¯s faction¡¯s one and only outcast. Is it truly worth it for that little rule?"

    The judge¡¯s interest had clearly been picked. He knew he would be unable to kill Daniel, and if he did anything more to anger him, he would simply create another dangerous enemy for the Government, so, instead of refusing, he burst outughing. Only after a few long seconds, did he stop, and said, "I guess that having you roam the government makes it easier to keep an eye on you.. At least until I find a way to kill you once and for all."

    "Splendid." Said Daniel while showing a bright smile. He then turned to look at the toon that was currently floatin in wait, and added, "Your decision already saved a bunch of lives."

    "Behave." Said the judge before narrowing his eyes at Daniel, and adding, "There are a lot of painful ways to kill someone that I have yet to try on you."

    Once again, Daniel smiled brightly, and while raising his hands above his shoulders in surrender, said, "We just want to be on our way."

    Just as Daniel finished speaking, the Judge disappeared from where he was standing, to never be seen again. The high ranking officer immediately caught on with what was happening, and instead of trying to start anything with Daniel, simply turned to look at his men, and said, "We are retreating."

    They then floated in formation into a massive double gates that appeared in space from out of nowhere.

    "There is always a problem.." muttered Daniel before taking out his small, and tossing it into the empty space in front of him. The moment the rock left Daniel¡¯s hand, it started to grow in size, only stopping after reaching the size of a massive building. Daniel, Aeron and Xargynded on the surface of this massive boulder, which from out of nowhere, shot in the distance at a mind boggling speed.

    Hidden inside a bubble of darkness just a few hundred kilometers away from where Daniel¡¯s had departed, were more than thirty individuals dressed in the ssical judge attire. Each of them was a member of the judges of the universal government, and all of them were focused on what had just happened.

    "Did you see that object? Is it me, or was it filled with his immortal essence"

    "The speed that thing can travel at, is beyond anything that has been built so far."

    "You guys are thinking about the small things." Said one of the judges, which was now standing right next to the judge that Daniel had met. He turned to look at him with worry, then asked, "Did you learn anything about his gift?"

    The judge that had just spoken to Daniel became extremely pensive, and after a few minutes, he finally broke his silence by saying, "For some odd reason, it felt like his body automatically formed healing essence of the purest form to immediately heal his body.. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s a one time thing either, I believe it¡¯s permanent. Also, his power felt odd.. More.. refined."

    "Very well.. We will add these pieces of information to his file."

 Chapter 367 Moderate Reaction or Excessive Consequences

    Hiel City, Cato.

    In only a few months, Hiel city had turned from a deste and empty city only visited by traveling merchants, to being an enormous metropolis that flourished with life all day round. Surrounded by the imprable spatial barrier, were schools, offices, shops, and much more.

    The city had be so big, that many powerful individuals had decided to move in, and work as a secondary protective barrier for the entire city. The reason for them to do this, was simple and yet important.

    To be rich and feared in the cultivation world was not something hard to achieve. If a cultivator managed to survive long enough to be more powerful than most other people, they would eventually get to experience that type of feeling. While an aspiration of many cultivators, this way of thinking had created an effect that, with time, would ultimately destroy everything that others had built.

    That destructive event, were spoiled children.

    In the millions of years of civilization, nothing had destroyed legacies as efficiently as unruly offspring had. Grown without present parents, these children would ultimately befortable with the idea of living an easy life granted by their rich and powerful families. This idea would turn into a sense of superiority that, most of the times, would lead them to poverty, or death.

    The love for one¡¯s child was not different between humans and cultivators. However, just like a worker who could not afford to abandon their ce of work without taking a step back in their career, these cultivators were forced to ignore their children for the sake of their cultivation, and hope that their morale would lead them to the right path even without their parental support.

    Grownfortable with these ideas, the world of cultivation had abandoned any form of teachings of morale and camaraderie. Schools had turned into ces where one could learn about the nature of cultivation, and Academies had turned into ces where one would be familiar with the many types of mana, weapons, and types of cultivation.

    This situation had spread through the entire cultivation world, and the only reason why it hadn¡¯t devoured humanity, was due to the extremely long lifespan of the wisest and more powerful individuals.

    What suffered due to this, were the families of cultivators whose destruction was caused by a spoiled child who hadshed off on the wrong person. The most lucky, would be able to find a good teacher that would instill some good sense into their children, but as the one generation after the other went by, these rich kids would lose the will to cultivate, and put an end to their family¡¯s bloodline by dying at a young age.

    All of that, however, had changed very recently. A few months earlier, a small group of people had appeared out of nowhere within Cato. Their first objective had been to start a business by selling essence spheres, but due to how saturated this rich¡¯s market was, they had failed miserably. When this group of individuals appeared to be on the brink of bankruptcy, something had happened inside of one of the marketces of one of Cato¡¯s major cities.

    -----

    Seven months earlier.

    "I have heard that we are almost out of treasures to turn into spheres and sell, and that sooner orter, the academy will be left without funds." Said a young woman in herte teens from behind a group of five others.

    After this young woman finished speaking, an extremely good looking young man long ck hair, and that was walking in front of her, responded by saying, "This is why we are here. We will find someone to make a deal with, and help the academy out."

    "If Master Kye finds out that we have left, we are done." Said the young girl with worry before turning to look at another girl, who was walking just ahead of her, and asking, "What do you say, Cynna?"

    Without even stopping, Cynna responded by saying, "You have heard Finn.. Keep an eye out for small merchants."

    After reaching Cato, what was left of Daniel¡¯s group had struggled to get a footing into the already flourishing market. Groups with their level of resources were not rare in the core of the government¡¯smerce, and their promises could not match the weight of the names of theirpetitors. So, they were forced to lower their prices just to obtain enough resources to keep cultivating.

    Forced to live noticing the worry in the faces of their teachers, the young students of Daniel¡¯s academy had decided to take it upon themselves to help the financial situation of the group by looking for opportunities. The ones who lead this small group of students were Cynna, and Finn, one of Master Kye¡¯s first students after his retirement. The rest of the group wasposed by Fyro, the red-headed grandson of the master of the Scorching Anvil, Der¡¯s daughter Mea, the quiet Riri, and the person who wasining until now, her sister Miri..

    They had spent thest couple of years learning everything they could from the vast knowledge contained within Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, and now that the academy was in danger, they had decided to lend a hand.

    Unfortunately, for how good their intentions were, they were unsessful.

    After a whole day spent searching, the members of the group had found themselves sitting on the benches of arge square, dispirited and tired. Their propositions had been refused immediately, and it did not seem like the merchants even cared about the lower costs or the quicker timings. Some of their unfruitful conversation, had given them the idea that, perhaps in Cato, the reputation of apany was more valued than the product they sold.

    "Nothing. We¡¯ve got refused by ny merchants with just a hundred words. This is ridiculous." Said Miri, clearly annoyed by the situation. However, her words fell on deaf ears, as anything that was going through her mind was also going through theirs as well.

    What got them out of their state of disappointment and worry, were the loud voice of a young woman surrounded by three young men. These three young men were extremely well dressed, while the girl was in simple clothes, and appeared to be a simple worker of one of the nearby stands.

    The three were not acting aggressively, but backing the girl against the wall had made her nervous, reason why she had started to speak louder. She was clearly annoyed by the attention she was receiving, and not being able to walk away was making her more mad by the second.

    "Why are you yelling?? I have just asked you toe and have a drink with me!" Said the young man who appeared to be in the lead of this little group.

    "I have already told you! I am working, stop bothering me!" Said the girl before trying to push through. However, the two young men that were standing next to them were too close, and the girl ended up tripping over one of their feet, falling on the ground.

    When she fell on the ground, instead ofnding on solid rock, the surface underneath her turned into a softyer of fertile ground and long des of grass, which softened hernding. Right after, a hand approached the girl¡¯s apanied by a young man¡¯s voice which said, "Everything alright?"

    The girl, clearly embarrassed from the fall, immediately grabbed the hand, and let herself be pulled back on her feet. It was only once she was back in a standing position that she noticed the good looking young man that had helped her up.

    Finn¡¯s attractive features left the girl unable to formte a proper sentence, who instead mumbled some thanking words.

    This reaction had been instinctive for Finn who, uncaring about the effect that his appearance had on other people, had simply gotten used to giving a helping hand ever since the brief time he had spent in Daniel¡¯s presence. This way of life fit him very well, as he was willing and happy to help whenever he could.

    "What the hell do you think you are doing? How dare you touch my girl?!" Said the leader of the trio of young men in anger. From his words, it sounded like the girl was his property, and that even helping her out, was an insult to him.

    Finn ignored the love struck looks of the young girl or Miri¡¯s annoyed expression, and instead turned to look back at this young man, and said, "You were too slow in helping your girl, so I did it. Maybe you can reflect on your mistakes."

    In the middle of the crowd, just a few meters away from themotion, a middle aged couple was quietly browsing through the wares of a shop that sold essence gems, when the husband turned his head in the direction from where the loud noises came from, and said, "He is causing trouble again.. That damn idiot. If he gets into trouble, I¡¯m not helping him this time."

    The woman was clearly worried about the man¡¯s words, and she showed it by turning to look at him, and asking, "Is he in any danger?"

    "No. The kid he is bothering is at a lower level of cultivation.. I really hope he has a stronger brother or something. Maybe he could scare that idiot into behaving properly once or twice."

    Visibly annoyed by her husband¡¯s words, she responded by saying, "Can you stop that? I hate when you treat your son like a bother. Don¡¯t you think he realizes that as well?"

    "I just want him to be a decent human being.. At this pace, when we will be gone, he will follow us the day after." Responded the husband before turning to look back at a lightning gem, and saying, "Take this one, lightning is the essence he has the highest affinity with."

    What this man hadn¡¯t noticed, was that along with the young man that his son was bothering, there was another group of young cultivators. If he could have seen them instead of simply feeling their presence from afar, he would have been able to notice the simr attires, and guess that they belonged to the same group.

    Regardless, help was not required, as moments after helping the girl up, the angered group of three decided to give a lesson to Finn, only to end up lying on the ground with no injuries. Finn was holding his still sheathed sabre, whose tip he had used to knock down the three of them. His reaction had been instantaneous, and came with the full extent of his power. However, there was no killing intent behind his attacks, as he had no intention of killing.

    If the three young men had decided to not underestimate Finn, and attack at full force, there would have been no way for him to achieve what he had just done. Now, Finn was standing in front of the three, who were currently holding the hit parts of their bodies, and screaming in pain.

    "You b-bastard.. Do you even know who I am?" Said the leader of this small group before shouting "DAD!"

    The call was immediately answered by his father, who appeared at the edge of the observing ground before anyone could even notice he was there.

    "Dad, that bastard! He struck my ass with the tip of his sword!" Shouted the young man in indignation. He was clearly embarrassed by the whole event, but he was too angry to care.

    The observing crowd knew who these people were, so they turned to look at the young man¡¯s father, and expected for him to get his son out of trouble like he was used to, but instead of doing that, the man looked at Cynna, Fyro, Miri, Riri, and Mea. He then turned to look at Finn, and asked, "Why didn¡¯t you unsheathe your weapon?"

    Finn did not need to think about an answer, and instead recited a mantra almost by memory, "Stick to a moderate reaction, or expect excessive consequences."

    "Wise. Did your father teach you that?" Asked the man after showing a faint smirk.

    Finn¡¯s father had actually taught him a simr notion when he was a kid, but in a literal sense, he could not give credit to him. So he decided to tell the truth by saying, "It¡¯s the first thing we were taught in the academy."

    The visible spark of interest inside them man¡¯s eyes was lit brighter than ever, but for him to be convinced, he needed more. So he asked "Is that all?"

    "I don¡¯t want to cause trouble for my teachers." Responded Finn, slightly confused about why this man was asking him these questions. This confusion, however, only became bigger as the grin on the man¡¯s face becamerger andrger. He then approached him, and after putting an arm around his neck, he said, "Tell me more about this academy.."

    Simr thoughts went through the mind of numerous other cultivators within the crowd.

 Chapter 368 Reflect on Your Actions, Take Your Time

    To a few of the powerful and rich inhabitants of Cato, what Finn had just recounted sounded like a dream. A chance of turning their beloved children from their spoiled rotten state, to independent warriors who had an actual chance of surviving anything the rough world of cultivation threw at them.

    The rumor of such an academy spread through the whole city, and one by one, numerous families started to ask for an encounter with the current dean of the school. The first of these families was, naturally, the family of the couple whose son Finn had had an altercation with.

    Their house was within the center of the city, and while not extremely big, this house was clearly of an impressive value. The cost necessary to obtain a permit to open a stall within the same area for a single day, was more than Daniel¡¯s whole academy yearly consumption of cultivation resources, which also paled inparison to the prize of a whole mansion like the one in which this family lived in.

    Inside their dining room, upying the side of therge table opposite to the one where the married couple sat along with their older son, and young daughter, were Fynn, Cynna and Fyro, apanied by the three people currently in charge of the academy. These three people were Master Kye, the Silver Alchemist, and finally, acting as the dean of the academy, was the old man Golden Cauldron.

    Old man Golden Cauldron¡¯s character would never allow him to bother himself with simply go and talk with the parents of a candidate student, but since the academy was now in deep waters, and the two individuals were extremely powerful high humans, he had decided to go personally.

    "It is nice to meet you, Sir, Ma¡¯am." Said Daniel¡¯s spiritual essence teacher, the Silver Alchemist. He had been in charge of his father¡¯spany for years before they met Daniel, and from that, he had learned how to conduct himself when in the presence of stronger cultivators than himself. Nevertheless, while polite, his tone was not submissive, and it appeared toe from a ce of habit.

    The wife of this family appeared extremely dubious about the capabilities of inferior cultivators. In her mind, her ability as a mother was being challenged by strangers, and in a way or another, she could not bring herself to be okay with what her husband had suggested to her the night before.

    Her Daughter, on the other hand, was looking curiously at the three students, who were sipping on the tea that had been offered to them by their butlers, in silence. Of the three, the one she found herself looking at multiple times, was Finn. He was looking at her parents straight in their eyes whenever they turned to observe him, and did not appear to be intimidated by them.

    The girl¡¯s opinion of Fyro was also a positive one. She could feel how whenever he would pick the teacup up, he would inject into it an extremely thin stream of fire essence, which would increase the temperature of the tea to the boiling point. He would then drink it right before it could turn into vapor.

    What had surprised her about this, was the fact that the Fyro¡¯s power was sliding right over the teacup, leaving itpletely unaffected by the warmth. All of this happened in the time it took for Fyro to move the teacup up to his mouth, and that showed a perfect control that would even leave a fire elemental envious.

    The only person she was not convinced about, was Cynna. She could feel that Cynna¡¯s power was not to be joked about, but thanks to the infinite resources her family possessed, her power could not match her own. That gave her a slight sense of superiority which conflicted with the inferiority she felt towards her prideful and confident demeanor.

    Her brother, on the other hand, was more than simply unhappy with what was happening.

    "The pleasure is mine." Responded the father of the two in an oddly polite tone. What was odd about his tone, was the fact that he possessed a power that went beyond that of the lower levels of high immortality, and if he wanted, he could have turned all of them into a mist of fine powder in instants.

    For such a powerful individual to be this polite, meant that he had a good morale, and a just as good upbringing. "I have heard about your academy from one of your students, but tell me, what makes it special?" He asked with curiosity.

    The old man Golden Cauldron and Master Kye remained silent, while the Silver Alchemist observed the expressions of the two siblings. After a few moments, he said, "I won¡¯t waste your time listing our facilities, as I already know what you are interested in." he then took a small pause before adding, "As a rule, influence does not apply within our territory. Students must earn what they use to cultivate, and they do it outside of the pampering of their parents."

    A wide smile appeared on the face of the father. He was almost excited about sending his son away to correct his awful character.

    Reflect on Your Actions, Take Your Time

    Naturally, his son noticed his expression. More than once had he been reprimanded by his father, and more than once the threatening words "If only there was a ce that could fix you your dumb head" hade out of his father¡¯s mouth during one of those moments. So, after noticing his father¡¯s approval, he turned to look at the Silver Alchemist, sprung up on his feet, and said with indignation, "Father, you can¡¯t possibly be thinking of sending me into that lowly academy! I already go to the best academy in the universal government!"

    The Silver Alchemist and the rest did not say anything in their defence, and waited for the young man¡¯s father to talk. However, before he could reprimand his son, thetter noticed the expression of Finn, who was looking at him with what appeared to be pure disappointment.

    "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, YOU PEASANT!? If you hadn¡¯t taken me by surprise, you would already be dead." He shouted in anger. The shameful scene that had taken ce a few days before was still fresh in his mind, and the sheer sight of Finn made him extremely irritable.

    The young man wanted to prove to his father that nothing these three men could teach him, would possibly be of use, and he did that by provoking them. Unfortunately for him, there was no reaction in their faces. In fact, not even their students had turned to look back at him.

    "I am talking to you!" He added with irritation before finally noticing that something was odd.

    The faces of the guests, as well as those of the rest of his family, started to trace their motion backwards, and go back to the point where the Silver Alchemist had just finished speaking. As thest words he said reached the young man¡¯s ears once more, time stopped.

    "What the hell is going on?!" Said the young man with a genuine degree of panic.

    One more time, there was no reaction in the faces of the guests or his family, who went on with their conversation for only a few seconds, before time began to rewind again.

    "That is the first time I am seeing something like this. What is that?" Asked the young man¡¯s father, which was now observing as his son was stuck into what seemed like a small illusion that repeated the same scenery over and over again. The reason why this man was surprised, was because nobody was capable of rewinding time. Backwards time was a dimension which humans could not perceive, and that was the reason why a perfectprehension of time essence did not exist. Theprehension of time essence was a coin with a nk side which nobody had ever been able to see.

    "Regardless of whether you will send your children to study under our care, this little trick will be use to him." exined the Silver Alchemist to the curious father.

    "What are you doing to him?" Asked the man¡¯s wife with a hint of anger, that was only contained by her husband¡¯s calmness.

    The Silver Alchemist turned to look at his father, who was quietly sitting on his chair and sipping tea.

    For the first time, the old man turned to look at the woman, and said, "It is nothing dangerous. I have just stuck him within a small time loop that will present him with the same situation, until he guesses the right approach. You can dissipate it at any time, but I suggest you don¡¯t.. Unless you wish to guard your son for the rest of his life."

    "That is absurd.." muttered the husband in shock. He couldn¡¯t believe that in his house, was a person who was capable of rewinding time. Even if just within a small space and for a few seconds, he knew for a fact that nobody within the universal government was capable of doing the same thing. Being sure of that, was a part of his job.

    The young man desperately tried to walk away from this time loop, but the thin barrier that surrounded him, and that slid under his shoes like a hamster wheel, was preventing him from walking away.

    After more than an hour, the young man had finally managed to calm down, and in a desperate attempt, instead of shouting or insulting, he simply sat back down on his chair, and remained quiet.

    As he did this, the time loop finally broke, and he found himself back in his chair, with his family by his side chatting happily with the group of guests that was still sitting on the other side of the table.

    "How fucking dare you! Mom, didn¡¯t you see what they did to me?!" He asked in outrage.

    His temper, however, had not yet finished of putting him in trouble. Before anyone could respond to him, time started to move back to when he had first stood up in response to the Silver Alchemist. This simple event delivered a simple message.. Make a mistake, and start over.

    "This won¡¯t work." Said the mother, for whom only a few seconds had passed, before adding, "It will only make him angrier."

    This time, it was Master Kye¡¯s turn to speak. He looked back at the woman, and with an extremely serious expression, said, "It could be worse. We could have wished him harm, and you could have not been here to protect him."

    "Haha!" The woman¡¯s husband suddenly burst outughing. He felt some sort of odd satisfaction in seeing his son forced into being polite. After all the times he had needed him to step in to solve his problems, that was the least he deserved. Unfortunately, he and his wife were too busy to punish him, and with time, his mentality had grown crooked. Their daughter, on the other hand, while proud and sometimes rude, at the very least knew when to simply shut up. Nevertheless, this young woman was extremely impressed by what she had seen.

    Unfortunately, the power of these people was not enough for her to ept them as her teachers. Their power was only within thete stages of immortality, only slightly higher than her own. In order to test them, she turned to look at her parents, and said, "Father, I am willing to give this academy a try, but I won¡¯t be its strongest student." She then turned to look at the Silver Alchemist, and added, "May I have a spar with one of your students?"

    "If you wait for your parent¡¯s permission." Responded the Silver Alchemist.

    The young girl was taken aback. She had inadvertently forgot to wait for her parents permission and demanded a spar from her guests, which could have been perceived as rude, but her behaviour had been corrected immediately.

    In response, she turned to look at her father and mother, who soon after smiled at her in satisfaction, and nodded in approval.

    "Very well, who do you wish to have a spar with?" Asked the Silver Alchemist.

    The only one of the three whom the girl hadn¡¯t seen perform, was Cynna. She had witnessed to Finn¡¯s ability a few days before, and Fyro¡¯s control of fire during this very meeting, and since she felt some sort ofpetitiveness towards her, she simply pointed at Cynna, and said, "Her."

    "Splendid. We should take this elsewhere, then." Said the husband right before a formation that surrounded the entire house activated, and the table, the chairs, and people sitting on them were teleported into arge training room.

    Cynna stood up from her seat, walked next to the weapon racks, and became quiet. In front of her, were all kinds of different weapons.

    The girl approached her with suspicion, before saying, "There is no need to wait for me to pick a weapon to decide which one you want. I will use the sword." She clearly believed Cynna to be waiting for her to pick her weapon, just so that she could have an advantage during her spar.

    Unfortunately, she couldn¡¯t be any more wrong than that.

    Cynna turned to look back at her, and responded to her usation by saying, "I am waiting for you to pick the weapon that I will use."

 Chapter 369 I Am Not the Stronges

    Cynna¡¯s words caught the young girl by surprise. After all, the implication of being the one in charge of choosing her opponent¡¯s weapon, was that regardless of which one she picked, she would still lose. While not as unruly as her brother, she was still an extremely talented and prideful individual, so when she was deemed not worthy of her opponent¡¯s concentration, she felt her blood start to boil.

    As a result of being underestimated, numerous images depicting all the ways in which she would have humiliated her opponent started to form in her mind. Images where she would win by using her bare hands against Cynna¡¯s favourite weapon, where she would prevail while on equal terms, and so on. Her angered state of mind, however, forced her to take the petty route, and instead of picking a fairlymon weapon like her own, she turned towards the area where the maces were stored, and after pointing her finger at one, she said, "That one."

    The weapon she had picked for Cynna, was a il.

    After a moment of consideration, the girl had thought that nobody would bother to learn how to fight with that many types of weapons, and therefore, Cynna must have been bluffing. In her mind, this ck-haired girl must have been trying to impress her parents while counting on the fact that she would do the honorable thing, and pick a weapon simr to hers. As a result of those thoughts, and in an attempt to turn Cynna¡¯s effort in vain, she chose one of the least feminine weapons within the whole training ground.

    However, while the girl expected her opponent to be displeased by this choice, Cynna simply walked towards the rack, and picked a one-handed il with a small wooden staff, connected to a brass smooth sphere through a simple rope. She then walked back in front of the girl while muttering, ".. awful choice."

    Without having to add anything, the Silver Alchemist turned to look at the girl¡¯s father, and said, "Please, do the honors."

    "dly." Responded the man while fixing his posture on the chair with excitement. He then added, "Go ahead, begin."

    The girl was confused. At first she couldn¡¯t understand whether she had picked the right weapon or not, but reality dawned upon her the moment her eyesnded on Cynna. From the very moment her father had allowed for the spar to begin, something had changed in her. Her stance had shifted into one that would allow her to perfectly defend her whole body within a moment¡¯s notice, and her eyes were pointed straight at her hands.

    Visibly annoyed by being intimidated by Cynna¡¯s stance, the girl shook her surprised state off, and assumed the stance of the style of swordsmanship she had learned ever since she was little. She was one of the young promises of one of the most important academies of the universal government, and she could not believe that just a random girl from an unknown school could beat her with such an odd weapon.

    Her legs were bent, making her knees form ny degrees angles, and her de was ced parallel to her left forearm. The fingers of her left hand were positioned in an okay sign, with the highest part of the handle wrapped by her thumb and index finger. Her style clearly relied on speed, and her stance was studied specifically to increase the speed of the first sh, to the highest possible degree.

    For a moment the girl forgot that she was having a simple spar, and the thought of causing actual harm to the body of her adversary began to surface one after the other in her mind, starting with a horizontal sh which, if performed with a real sword, would directly cut Cynna¡¯s body in half.

    Following that idea, she pushed her weight onto the floor, and let go of the sword with her left hand, causing it to sh the air with mind-boggling speed. Millions of times had she trained in this technique, and most of those times, she had seen her de cut through whatever unlucky object she would use to practice with.. But not this time.

    This time she was not training against a puppet, a wooden pole, or one of her peers. She was a genius, sparring with a prodigy.

    Right as the wooden de shed in her direction, the brass ball of the il came down against its horizontal de, interrupting its motion, and forcing it down on the ground. The motion of the il¡¯s striking head continued, making a whole circle in the air, beforeing down once again against the handle, right where the girl was wrapping her hand around.

    The girl¡¯s grip of her sword was too strong to be released by a held back hit, but the speed of the il¡¯s striking head was so quick, that she had been dragged forward and on her knees, leaving her shoulder uncovered for the third motion of Cynna¡¯s weapon.

    To the attentive eyes of the girl¡¯s parents, it was clear that if the strike hit at full power, even if their weapons were for training, the girl¡¯s shoulder would be dislocated at the very least, so they were about to intervene, only stopping after noticing how much Cynna had slowed down her weapon before it could hit their daughter¡¯s skin.

    What was heard instead, was the soft "thump" of the brass sphere hitting the shoulder of the girl, which ultimately fell on her stomach with her sword still tightly held within her fingers.

    The girl, clearly embarrassed by her poor performance, immediately stood back up. She appeared to be conflicted about something very important, unwilling to concede to one of the thoughts that had appeared in her mind, and yet unwilling to go through with the other.

    Her father and mother were looking with different emotions. Her mother appeared to be irritated by the result, and wanted her daughter to try again, and this time, to focus more on her adversary. Her father, however, was clearly hoping that she wouldn¡¯t.

    After a few seconds spent in consideration, the girl lowered her swords, and said, "I don¡¯t know if I happened to pick your weapon of choice, but the sword is mine.. I have lost regardless."

    The moment his daughter finished speaking, the man sighed in relief. He knew that his daughter wasn¡¯t on par with this girl, and therefore, he didn¡¯t want to see her insist and be humiliated. For him, the best oue was for his daughter to surrender to the fights she could not win. "Ha! At least one of my children is not a sore loser." He said with satisfaction after turning to look at the Silver Alchemist, whom he believed to be the leader of this academy. His tone was oddly friendly for someone so powerful.

    To people like the old man Golden Cauldron, his son, and Master Kye, it was easy to see which cultivator was a first generation cultivator, or not. A first generation cultivator would spend the beginning of his or her life struggling, and relying on friends and allies to survive this harsh world. Their humble beginnings would cause them to not look down upon a weaker individual with an air of superiority, as opposed to second generation cultivators, who would rely on the power of their parents to feel better than the others.

    Naturally, not everyone was the same. Some struggling cultivators would be criminals, and treat other people¡¯s lives as if they meant nothing, and some second generation cultivators would be kind andpassionate.. Unfortunately, these cases were extremely rare, especially thetter.

    Luckily, this man appeared to belong to the first type. "What do you say, Lara?" He asked after turning to look back at his daughter.

    The girl remained quiet for a few moments, then narrowed her eyes in Cynna¡¯s direction, and said, "As long as I¡¯ll have somebody topete with, I¡¯ll trust your judgment, father."

    "Splendid!" He eximed in response before turning to look at the Silver Alchemist, and adding, "Let¡¯s talk about the details before that idiot of my son manages to figure out how that trap works. Oh, and Lara, be nice and show them around the house." He said to his daughter before pointing his arm at one of the doors in invitation.

    Master Kye, the old man Golden Cauldron and the Silver Alchemist stood up, and followed the couple through the door. "By the way, you haven¡¯t told us what your family business is yet." Said the Silver Alchemist in an attempt to make small talk.

    "We buildrge scaled defensive formations." Responded the man¡¯s wife as the group disappeared within the dark corridor on the other side of the door, leaving only Fyro, Cynna, Finn, and the young girl in the training ground.

    "So, you are the strongest student within the academy? Is that why they brought you here?" Asked Lara with curiosity. She had seen Finn battle before, and in her opinion, what she had seen did not match Cynna¡¯s reaction time or confidence despite her odd choice of weapon.

    This question appeared to cause a different array of emotions within Cynna, which responded only after a couple of seconds of silence, by saying, "I am not."

    Since the almost three years that the academy had been founded, it had grown exponentially. Students from multiples had poured in in an attempt to obtain a spot, and the majority of them were the sons of wealthy families of lower levels.

    Naturally, the students from Cato were of apletely different level in terms of resources, but when unaware of how truly big the universe was, every rich individual would behave simrly.

    In these three years, numerous attempts of discovering which student was the strongest had taken ce, and all of them, had been won by Cynna. Her prodigious talent had allowed her toe on top of any other challenger, no matter who tried.

    After enough of these events took ce, the rumor that Cynna was the strongest student had begun to circte through the academy. However, whenever she was treated as such, she would always refute the title, iming that she was not the strongest by a long shot.

    At first the majority of the students, who had no idea who she was referring to, would believe her to be simply too shy to take the position, but when asked, Cynna would always convincingly dere that if she had to ce herself, she would be the third strongest student. This argument, had created the legend within Daniel academy, about who the first, and second strongest students.

    "Really? Then who is the strongest?" Asked the girl with curiosity.

    "Ghosts of the past." Responded Finn as Jerigh¡¯s and Daniel¡¯s faces appeared in his mind.

    -----

    Back to the present.

    For the past seven months, one family after the other had encountered with Master Kye, the Silver alchemist, and his father Golden Cauldron. All of them referred to from the couple whose children they had epted first. The children of most of them were allowed to join the academy, which in return, obtained support from the family itself.

    Soon enough, the reputation of the academy grew to a point where it could not be ignored anymore, obtaining enough power and resources not only to support their students, but even to purchase thend where Hiel City had been built on, and make a contract with the mercenary faction to hire a small army of guards.

    A massive private city, a nigh imprable barrier made out of space and time, and enough resources to be able to develop their presence within the capital ofmerce of the universal government.

    Everything was going perfectly at first, but the more prestige the group obtained, the more attention they received.. This attention quickly turned into recognition, and after seeing how valuable the support of all of these families was, the recognition turned into jealousy. In the darkest corners of Cato, numerous ns regarding the assimtion of the Golden Company began to travel the air in the form of whispers.

 Chapter 370 For Catos Sake

    Months after taking in arge number of students from within the powerful families of Cato, Hiel city had been built, and thanks to the help of the first family that had agreed on sending their two children to Daniel¡¯s academy, and old man Golden Cauldron¡¯s uniqueprehension of time essence, a special time formation had been created.

    The control of this formation was given to each and every important member of Daniel¡¯s group who, even if they were to meet with an enemy stronger than they were, as long as their power was not above that of the creator of the formation, they would be able to lock them in ce, and thrown them out of the city.

    This type of formation, naturally, was not difficult to see. After all, while extremely rare, there were many capable cultivators who tried toprehend time and space in the universal government. However, what made this formation different, was the ability to turn time backwards, which while paired with the power that fed the formation, allowed for every crime to be stopped before it could happen.

    In the following months, thanks to the steadily increasing fame of the academy, the Golden Karmapany had been able to score a few deals which had granted it a foothold to stand next to the otherpanies within the.

    What helped the growth of the academy¡¯s fame more than anything else, however, were the praises of the parents, which after seeing their children go back home only a month or two after being epted, would find significant changes in their character. At first these changes were marginal, and were as small as staying quiet when their parents were talking, or actually paying attention to what they were saying.

    Others changes were in the ways they would act towards people of a lower standing or cultivation. Where before there was contempt and dislike, now was a harmless indifference, which while still negative in some way, at least prevented them from creating enemies for themselves.

    The older students of Daniel¡¯s academy were all of a lower standing whenpared to the newly epted ones, and while their good morale and passion for cultivation appeared to be a bad thing for these proud andzy children of powerful families, with time, constantly being around peers who decided not to waste their own potential, started to rub off on them. It did not take long for them to understand that, in the end, in the world of cultivation money and secondhand power meant nothing. On an identical standing, they were prey, and the others were the predators.

    These changes were a great source of relief for the leaders of these powerful families who, now that their children¡¯s upbringing was in good hands, had been able to focus on their cultivation, as well as developing theirpanies.

    The increased performances of these families had not gone unnoticed, and as these families¡¯petitors attempted to find out what had caused this, all of their investigations came to the same conclusion. The increase in performance of thesepanies and families was a secondhand effect of the academy of Hiel city.

    The influence of the academy was still at the bottom of the barrell, but that did not stop thergerpanies from seeing that a new star was being born. An academy who would buildpetentpany leaders, and powerful family heads. Its potential was too big, and therefore, it had to either be destroyed, or be part of one of the more powerfulpanies.

    The first time the families of Cato had learned about the uniqueness of Hiel city¡¯s barrier, was when one of the low ranking families which belonged to arger conglomerate, had tried to cause trouble, staging an assassination within their territory. At that time, the president of thepany hade to conduct business in Hiel city, but to his unbeknownst, an assassin had been hired to kill him when within the territory of Hiel city. He had been set out to be a pawn for thepany that owned his, to give to his bosses a chance of obtaining control over this young influence machine.

    Luckily for this ignorant president, the newly appointed captain of the guard, as well as the father of one of the academy¡¯s students, had been close enough to use the formation¡¯s power, and stop the assassination from ever taking ce.

    Numerous other ns had been devised in an attempt to ruin the Golden Karmapany, but whenever the n entered into a stage that required just that bit of luck to seed, something would go horribly wrong.

    Left with no other choices, these powerfulpanies began to send their own children in the hope that, from within the academy, they could cause some problems. However, whenever they went back home, most of them would shock their parents with the simple desire of allowing them to attend the academy, and stop asking them to sabotage it in any way they could.

    Nevertheless, not everypany had children to send to the academy, nor were they happy with simply being part of the change instead of being responsible for it. So, their methods started to be more direct, and sometimes, violent.

    Any member of the Golden Karmapany that ventured outside of the formation would inevitably be attacked by groups and groups of anonymous masked bandits, and whenever the Golden Karmapany was in the process of signing a contract with some other group, a biggerpany would pop out of nowhere, and offer a shockingly advantageous deal to thetter that would send theirs up in mes.

    Unfortunately for Daniel¡¯s friends, there wasn¡¯t a government which could solve their problem. The universal government¡¯s forces only cared about keeping the factions in check, and had absolutely no interest in how thesepanies conducted their business. For all they cared, the group within their territory could destroy each other, and they would do nothing to stop them.

    This disinterest had caused for a few samples of government to be created, and picked by each depending on the¡¯s situation. Sometimes a king was chosen, or a republic was formed. In cato, a inhabited by mercenaries and merchants, there was a house of merchants.

    The House of Merchants was the most important building in Cato, and in it, the most prominent and powerful merchants would reunite, and discuss the problems as they appeared.

    While one would believe this to be a parliament, that would be far from the truth. Everything that this group decided was not based onws that allowed for the people¡¯s well-being, but on rules ofmerce that allowed for the¡¯s economy to stay strong, and for their to remain the capital of the universal government¡¯smerce right above the Golden Nugget, the core of the merchant faction.

    This group of powerful merchants would reunite casually, once every few years. As a special asion, the day of their new meeting happened to be this day, leaving every group and family curious about what could possibly be the reason its urgency.

    Inside arge seashell shaped building, seated in the curved and bigger area, were hundreds of people. These people were looking at the narrow part of the building where arge and round table was set with at least fifty chairs around it. Sitting on these chairs, were middle aged, and old cultivators, who appeared to be invested in a conversation that had caught the attention of the spectators.

    ".. I don¡¯t like it. Psychopatic tendencies they said, that is why they don¡¯t ept my boy." Said a middle aged man with straight eyebrows and salt and pepper hair, with indignation.

    "Can you me them? Haven¡¯t we asked you to stop your son from killing people in the past hundred years?" Said a man with annoyance. He clearly was fed up with reminding this middle aged man about the bad things his son had done, and after all the time that had passed, he had now lost hope of convincing him of doing something about it.

    "I DON¡¯T CARE! I won¡¯t have a generation of cultivators growing while looking at my boy as a monster, just because he killed one or two lowly cultivators." Responded the middle aged man in anger before turning to look at the rest of the cultivators, and adding, "I will bury that little city to the ground, and if you report me to the government, I will simply pay them off."

    As shown by the faces of the other cultivators, it was clear that this man was used to solving his problems in an extremely violent and cruel way, reason why his peers did not react with anger, but with exasperation. One in particr, an old man who appeared to have a foot on his grave, slowly raised his head, and said, "My grandchildren are studying there.. I want to see you try."

    This old man was amongst the oldest and most powerful individuals, and his words were kept in high esteem, however, what was most terrifying amongst these people, was the influence that they possessed. Their power went beyond their individual strength, and their conflicts were fought with broken contracts.

    The salt and pepper man turned to look at this old man, and with a tone devoid of respect, said, "Do you think I don¡¯t know you? There is no way you are burning bridges with mypany for a simple school."

    He was right. While the old man was happy about the results of his grandchildren¡¯s training, his dealings with the middle aged man¡¯spany were a major part of his earnings. Without it, he would not only lose a lot of influence, but would have topete with the manypanies ready to take his ce. So, instead of debating, the old man became quiet.

    It was a voice that came from therger area, that caught the attention of these powerful individuals. A voice which belonged to a middle aged man whom, had the silver alchemist been present, would have recognized as the father of the first two students native of Cato that they had taken in.

    "May I have a word?" He asked.

    To spectators was allowed to speak, however, since their standing was inferior to that of those who were upying the round table, the matter had to be important. Luckily, thepany possessed by this man was not much smaller than that of any of the others, so he was allowed to speak.

    "You may want to reconsider harming thatpany." Said the man while showing a carefree smile.

    "OR WHAT? I don¡¯t even need to interrupt contacts with yourpany. I can destroy it tomorrow." Responded the salt and pepper-haired man in anger. His short temper made him overreact, but this time, he should have allowed the other to finish speaking.

    "Don¡¯t misunderstand. I have no intention of stopping.. But for Cato¡¯s sake, it is better that you change your ns."

    "What do you mean?" Asked the old man with curiosity. He had also met with old man Golden Cauldron and the others, but to him, it was obvious that this man knew more than he did.

    "I am not sure if this is true or not, but my daughter heard a rumor about the person who founded the whole group.. Outcast." Said the man.

    "An outcast? Is that the big problem? Do you even know how many outcasts I have killed? Sit, and stay quiet." Said the salt and pepper-haired man while waving his hand dismissively.

    However, the man did not sit. Instead, he added, "Not ¡¯an outcast¡¯.. But ¡¯The Outcast¡¯.. "

    There were many outcasts that traveled the territories of the universal government and factions, however, amongst them, there was a special one. One of a kind, the first and only outcast of a faction whose elite members were feared at a single mention.

    Due to his dubious powers, and unique circumstances, the title that this person had gained amongst the most powerful cultivators within the universal government, was in fact, "The Outcast." However, for those who knew him, this person¡¯s name was Daniel.

 Chapter 371 Uncovering a Higher Roof

    The Outcast. That was the title given to Daniel the very moment he had been rejected by Iewah¡¯s faction.

    Usually the title of a chosen of Iewah was based on their unique gifts, but since Daniel¡¯s power was still mostly unknown, he had been assigned one based on the most noteworthy event he had been part of. That event was, of course, the first time someone had ever been cast out by Iewah.

    A title was not a joke within the universal government. There would never be two identical titles, and each one would stick to its bearer forever. Each title was originally used for the important cultivators within the government and factions to keep track of these powerful people, but soon after, they would be warnings mostly used to instill fear in the hearts of those who heard them.

    The reactions of the powerful merchants of Cato after hearing this name, were very simr. They all knew who the newest titled individuals were, especially those who were vindictive, and known for enjoying conflict like any of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones.

    The group of middle aged and old cultivators turned to look at the man who had threatened the newly arrived, and yet increasingly poprpany. In their minds, they were hoping that this impulsive individual would avoid to implicate their entire with one of Iewah¡¯s children. Unfortunately, along with the hope came the doubt.

    "The Outcast? One of those nutjobs? Ha! Look if I care." Responded the middle aged man with feigned anger. He of course did not care for Daniel¡¯s group, and the only reason why he was pretending to, was because he wanted to either stop the increasing performances of hispetitors, or be the cause of it.

    Naturally, not everyone within the universal government feared the children of Iewah, after all, these people were amongst the richest people in the known universe, and even if the government refused to intervene, which is something they would most definitely do in order to avoid arge-scaled war, if they truly wanted, any of them would be able to employ millions of high immortal mercenaries within a day¡¯s notice.

    The only reason why they feared Daniel, was because his power was an unknown. A sword, a mental attack, an army of beasts, elemental essences, or even attacks to one¡¯s consciousness, could all be prevented. What could not be prevented, however, were the odd powers possessed by a portion of Iewah¡¯s children. The rumors about warriors traveling through the shadow realm, making people fall blindly in love, being able to buy one¡¯s soul, or even forcing people into submission with a word, had reached their ears, and while these people were monitored by the universal government, they would always manage to do massive amounts of damage before being stopped.

    Unfortunately for Daniel¡¯s group, therumor that told the tale about him destroying half of Hell¡¯s demon lords, had reached the ears if this group of old cultivators along with the rumor that imed that he hade unscathed from a violent encounter with one of the government¡¯s judges.

    What was unfortunate about this, was the fact that these rumors relied a certain piece of information. Specifically, Daniel¡¯s position.

    "Have you ever met one of them? He doesn¡¯t have the permission to teleport from gxy to gxy, and he won¡¯t bother to spend thousands of years to make the travel for a few losers." Responded the man while showing a suspicious grin.

    Naturally, he could not be any more wrong. Not only was Daniel much closer than he thought, but he would also start a war to protect any of the people which this man intended on hurting. But s, he and the rest of these old merchants were unaware of this, and the only support that Daniel¡¯s group possessed was that of one amongst many rich merchants who wouldn¡¯t be able to protect them even if he wanted.

    "You know what will happen to you if you put one of those people against the universal government, don¡¯t you? I hope you¡¯ll remember how manys were swallowed whole by the dragon king just because one of the newly appointed generals offended the Tamer, before you¡¯ll do something stupid." Said an old woman with snow-white curly hair, and a silver robe with gold embroidery.

    A few more after her tried to make this middle aged mane to his senses, but none of their attempts had worked.

    At the end of the day, these rich merchants were also high immortal cultivators, and as such, they lived by a philosophy of life that weed and rewarded risk. The fact that Daniel was thousands of years away, also helped them downying the danger that came along with the rewards.

    -----

    Back in Daniel¡¯s moving, in an isted in, he sat with his legs crossed. He was currently watching the wolf cub, now three times bigger than before, chase a sphere of dark essence carried in the air by a focused wisp of wind.

    Sitting a few kilometers away, and yet still visible to his eyes, were three individuals. Their bodies were ced above small piles of essence crystals, from which they absorbed extremelyrge quantities of power in an attempt to refine their immortal essence past the limitations of immortality.

    These three cultivators were none other than Edmund, Sewah, and the former Demon Lord turned into human, as well as Daniel¡¯s prisoner, Lady Night.

    The three of them had decided to make use of the time needed to arrive to Cato, to reach high immortality, and get used to their newly obtained powers. Now, three full hours had passed since the beginning of this process, and from what Daniel could sense, at least two of them were close topleting their ascension.

    The first one to finish, was Lady Night.

    As a prisoner, Lady Night hadn¡¯t been too happy about being taken away by a human like Daniel. However, as time passed, she quickly began to admire his loyalty towards his group, a loyalty that she shared towards her faction of shapeshifters, that now lived as humans in a different hell than the one she knew.

    In Hell, it wasn¡¯t odd for a weaker faction of demons to be dominated by a stronger one, and consequently be recruited into their ranks. That was something that happened extremely often, and was the reason why, when Daniel had said so, Lady Night had agreed to tag along without fighting back. In her mind she wasn¡¯t a prisoner, but a weaker individual that had to follow the stronger one.

    While a human would feel resentment for Daniel in a simr situation, to Lady Night, whenpared to the other demon lords, and if forced to follow another individual, Daniel had turned out to be the best choice. So, after seeing his methods, she had ended up bing one of Daniel¡¯s group members in a rtively short amount of time, as well as obtained all of the increase in power and luck that came with it.

    When Daniel appeared in front of her, to his surprise, she was back in her Demonic form. Her power was still at the early high demonic stage, but instead of emanating high immortal essence, her body emanated thick demonic power.

    The question which was the cause of great confusion for Daniel, was quickly answered by Lady Night¡¯s thoughts right before her body changed back into her human form, and she opened her eyes, noticing that he was standing right in front of her.

    "So much for turning you into a human." Said Daniel as a faint smile formed on his lips.

    Lady Night did not humor Daniel, and instead looked at her own hand as it changed into a furry version of itself which resembled that of a special kind of demons known as "Beastkin".

    To both of them, it was clear that the power that the woman had obtained, was simr to that of her previous demonic gift, but from her surprised expression, there was no doubt that its effects were iparably more vast. "It is so simr, and yet so different." She muttered to herself with shock.

    Daniel could see various parts of her body turn into whatever being she thought of, and in those parts, he could feel a kind of power which belonged to the kind in which she had turned into.

    What was different about her ability to change shape, was the fact that she couldn¡¯t change her appearance at will like before, but could actually turn herself into a being simr to the one she wanted to change into, and she demonstrated that by turning into a humanoid dragon, a desperation feeding demon, and many more beings which Daniel could not recognize. Each vaguely resembling her human appearance.

    She was able to imitate the essence, body, and even the spirit of the entities she wished to be, and consequently use the unique powers that these types of beings could wield.

    Her gift had never been seen before, as ittched upon her former demonic shape shifting abilities, and turned it into a power that would allow her to change the structure of her body, and turn her into a different being indefinitely, allowing her, if she wanted, to be familiar with the methods of cultivation of every race she became familiar with.

    Naturally, this power had limitation. The powers she was able to imitate were only those who were part of the body. That was why when in her draconic form, she felt that imitating Xargy¡¯s purifying mes would be possible, though mastering it would require her the same amount of time it had taken for him.

    What she couldn¡¯t copy, was what required one¡¯s consciousness. For example, while she would be able to be a spatial elemental, she wouldn¡¯t be able to obtain Edmund¡¯sprehension of space, Aeron¡¯s abilities as a mental warrior, or Daniel¡¯s system.

    The potential of having an uncountable number of bodies was infinite, but just as Daniel was about to congratte her for obtaining such a unique and powerful gift, he turned his head in Edmund¡¯s direction, and disappeared from where he was standing.

    When he reappeared, he found himself looking at a standing Edmund. His expression was deadpan, and he seemed to have lost any form of rational thought. What had caused for Daniel to arrive in panic, was the fact that the very instant Edmund had seeded in his ascension, he had been unable to feel the presence of his mind.

    Right after Daniel, Aeron arrived as well.

    "What is going on? Can you read his mind?" Asked Daniel to Aeron with worry.

    Aeron tried to gaze into Edmund¡¯s mind, but what appeared in front of him, was the blurry of trillions of changing images. While seemingly harmless, this blur put an enormous strain to Aeron¡¯s extremely powerful mind, and caused him to immediately retract his consciousness before falling on his knees, and vomiting the contents of his stomach.

    Before being forced to leave Edmund¡¯s mind, Aeron had been able to feel his consciousness seep into what felt like a multitude of different ces. These ces were part of everywhere, and yet nowhere, and if he had to guess what the nature of these ces was, he would guess that they were alternate dimensions.

    Edmund¡¯s gift, of those obtained by the rest of Daniel¡¯s friends, was the one with thergest drawback. His entire cultivation had been focused on the study of space, but as an essence, space was limited by what wasprehensible to a three dimensional being, not unlike time.

    Where the flip side of advancing time was rewinding time, the flip side of space, was the space to which he did not belong to. An example of this, was the void. The samews of space were contained in every dimension, but what was missing, and did not belong to a person¡¯s limits ofprehension, was the existence of an infinite number of dimensions.

    That was what was drawing Edmund¡¯s mind away from his body. The ability to see, experience, and explore infinite dimensions at the same time.

    Nothing of this was known to Aeron, who was only sure of the fact that, if this went on, Edmund¡¯s consciousness could possible drift away forever. So, in an attempt to save his life, he took a deep breath, and formed a mental barrier around his own mind. He then ced his right hand on Edmun¡¯s head, and took control over his mental power, using it to connect his body with his drifting consciousness. After pulling his consciousness back to the universe in which Edmund¡¯s physical body belonged to, he sealed it, preventing the multitude of different dimensions from iming it.

    The moment he finished, Edmund¡¯s expression turned into one of pure horror. "So small.. We are.. noth.." he muttered before falling on the ground.. unconscious.

 Chapter 372 Unsafe Ascension

    "What happened? What did you see?" Asked Daniel with worry.

    Aeron, still dibobted by what had happened to him, took a deep breath, and after turning to look back at Daniel, he said, "We need to have a conversation about the ascension of the members of your group. I doubt that your luck will care for the side effects caused by obtaining these gifts."

    Daniel was even more confused by Aeron¡¯s response. He had been unable to read Edmund¡¯s mind while the other dimensions tried to contend for his consciousness, and even now, his mind power could not prate the barrier that Aeron had left around it to protect it. "What are you talking about? Is he alright?" He asked with anxiousness.

    The only reason why Aeron had survived this experience, was because of his own gift, which ording to what he had just discovered,prehended his consciousness¡¯ immortality.

    To see an infinite number of dimensions all at the same time, was in a sense, like having multiple eyes, and seeing a different image with each one of them. The amount of information received was extremely vast, and Edmund had been able to survive it only due to the fact that what he was going through, was part of his gift, and therefore, was not meant to kill him.

    By logic, Edmund should have had a way to limit the burden of this ability, just like a cultivator would be able to limit the intake of essence, in order to avoid the copse of his body when he cultivated. The apparent urgency of the situation had forced Aeron to meddle in, and consequently be heavily injured by it.

    In hindsight, what Aeron had done was extremely stupid. The magnitude of what Edmund had witnessed was not something that a cultivator that did not possess his gift could bear, and therefore, the simple fact that Edmund was still bound to his body and he had not gone crazy, was the proof that he was simply adjusting to the changes, and not getting killed by them.

    Naturally, Aeron was unsure of what Edmund¡¯s exact gift was. He was more of an expert regarding the factions¡¯ gifts than the gifts of high immortality, and even if he had been, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to guess what this power was. Nobody would have, since the existence of a Multiverse was only a theory, and there was no proof that any other universe existed aside from the world in which the universal government had been built in, and the void.

    "I don¡¯t know. There were so many images, and went by so fast. A lot of those images were simr to the void. Darkness and copsed space.. But each of them felt somewhat different." Responded Aeron, still unsure of what he had witnessed.

    "The Void is a different dimension." Responded a disembodied voice that came from behind the two. "From what you are saying, it would seem that he has obtained the ability to see through what separates the dimensions." Said Nova, who appeared only after he finished talking, in the shape of a humanoid faceless silhouette.

    "Did you know that something like that existed?" Asked Daniel to Nova who, along with Edmund, formed a triangle rtionship of teacher and student with each other.

    Nova slowly shook his faceless head a few times, before saying, "It is a question for my kind, simr to the meaning of life for yours. I can imagine it, but I would never talk about it as if I knew what the truth is."

    What Nova had said made sense to Daniel, after all, theprehension that was considered the perfection for a human, could only include the concepts of space presented by their universe. The only reason why some had theorized about copsed space, for example, was because after reaching the void for the first time, they had encountered spatial elementals which were born with the concepts of shattered and copsed space ingrained in their bodies.

    Before the Void Dwellers had entered the void, spatial essence was believed to be perfect without the concepts of shattered and copsed space. It was only after encountering a spatial elemental that came from within the destroyed universe, that the thought that maybe they didn¡¯t know everything there was to know about space, started to spread amongst the schrs of the subject.

    Now, thanks to Edmund¡¯s ascension, Daniel, Aeron, and Nova had discovered that what they knew about space was notparable to a whole tree, but to the branches, leaves, trunk, and yet missing the roots.

    "Alright." Responded Daniel before turning to look at Aeron, and adding, "We will wait for him to wake up. He¡¯ll decide whether to go through that process, or keep the barrier around his mind." He then remained quiet in hope for a response.

    However, before Aeron could say anything, Daniel remembered that Edmund and Lady Night were not the only ones going through an ascension. So, instead of waiting for something big to happen, he teleported directly in front of Sewah, and found him with his eyes closed, still in the middle of his ascension.

    For a moment Daniel felt nervous. One of the three people whose ascension he had witnessed had entered into a state that had caused them to feel an impressive strain, without knowing what the gift would be.

    To him, all of this suffering was unnecessary, and if possible, he would have preferred them to receive a milder gift. The wait started to weigh on him, causing him to wonder what crazy and rare power a person like Sewah could possibly receive.

    Almost as if in response to these questions, Daniel noticed that there was something wrong with the red number that Sewah had inherited by the Oni leader, and until now, was floating above Sewah¡¯s head. What was odd about it, was not a change in the number itself, but the fact that it was slowly disappearing.

    "What the hell.." he muttered in confusion. Everyone was included by the universal embrace of karma, and for Sewah¡¯s number to actually disappear, was unseen.

    Karma was a philosophy created by a human in the earliest stages of human civilization, and adopted by numerous others as a way of life. Little did these people know that true Karma actually existed. It¡¯s origin was unknown, and for all Daniel knew, it could have been born out of the gift he had received by Iewah as a result of its nature.

    The number of times Daniel had thought about the old question "if a tree falls in the middle of the woods, and there is nobody to hear the noise, does it actually make a sound?" Thinking that maybe he was the listener, and that the gift was his ears, implying that karma only existed as a consequence of his power, was uncountable.

    Despite what the truth was, Daniel had never met someone without karma, and theplete loss of it in Sewah had left him speechless. However, that feeling was ovee by what happened next.

    As soon as the number above Sewah¡¯s head disappeared, and his power reached the level of a high immortality blessed by the group effects of Daniel¡¯s group system, multiple windows appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind.

    ____________________________

    Karmaless Warrior Sewah found. (Details)

    ____________________________

    Karmaless Warrior Sewah is already part of the Karmic System¡¯s group.

    ____________________________

    For as surprised as he was by the sudden appearance of these two small windows, Daniel remained calm, and while focusing on the first of these messages, he thought "Details." causing one morerger window to open.

    ____________________________

    Karmaless Warrior: A cultivator who has delved deeply into either side of karma, and rejected both of them, permanently leaving the universal cycle of karma. His actions will never award any type of karma, and he will never be able to umte it.

    The battle prowess of the karmaless warrior will, to a certain extent and despite its positive or negative nature, grow along with the karmic count of his opponent. This effect does not apply to the wielder of the Karmic System as long as he is a member of his group.

    ____________________________

    The first part of the exnation had finally given an answer to what Daniel had always wondered, confirming that karma was not something that his system had created for him, but a realw that affected everyone in the universe. What had surprised him the most, however, was the exnation of Sewah¡¯s power.

    Sewah¡¯s gift was, along with the ones he had witnessed his friends obtain, all rare and seemingly unique powers. Thest of them, to Daniel¡¯s surprise, had something to do with his very own system.

    This surprise, however, did notst long. After all, Sewah was born as a part of the karmic system, and in two different moments of his life, he had possessed the positive karma left to him by Daniel, and the negative karma left to him by the oni leader.

    A lot had happened after Daniel had been able to take his body back, but the fact that Sewah had, at some point in his life, rejected both of these lifestyles, had turned him into the type of cultivator that during his ascension to high immortality, would have a chance of obtaining such a gift.

    From what Daniel could understand from the exnation, a karmaless warrior was an individual with ambiguous, or uncertain morality. They would not care about the oue of their actions, and the reason why they did what they did, was based on their own free will.

    What was surprising about this gift was that, ording to what Daniel had just read, Sewah¡¯s power would grow based on the karma owned by his opponent. What that meant was that despite his opponent possessing a positive or negative karma, the higher the number, the more difficult it would be for him to face Sewah.

    "Do you think it will be a problem?" Asked Aeron after quietly appearing next to Daniel. He then added, "His attempts of being better are genuine, but he has been struggling..petition appears to be in his nature, simrly to how anger is part of ours."

    "I gave him a chance. I won¡¯t take it back before he has a chance to mess things up." Responded Daniel immediately after. He had promised Sewah that he would help him be a human, and he had no intention of turning that promise into a lie.

    While Daniel and Aeron observed as Sewah slowly opened his eyes, a doubt appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind. There was a very high chance that the reason why Sewah had received that kind of gift, was because he was, in some way, still attached to karma. But could he have been the only one? Many cultivators lived for tens of thousands of years, and some of them were bound to experience the two opposing natures of karma. Was it possible that in the infinite universe, there was a poption, or a factionposed by karmaless warriors?

    This idea made Daniel ufortable. Despite his increasing control over thews of karma, he was still only a cultivator with a specific amount of karma points. If such a faction really existed, they would be a bane to his existence.

    The vastity of the universe was truly a terrifying concept. Not knowing to which level of the food chain one belonged, meant that everyone could possibly be the prey of a predator that had yet to jump out of the grass.

    For the first time Daniel could understand what could have caused for a universal government to be created. And that was not the greed of a certain group of people, but the fear of the weaker majority towards the known stronger minority. A hierarchy made for the weak to feel protected, while the strongest, were always on the lookout for a higher ss ceiling.

    The only thing one could do was to keep bing stronger. Who knows, maybe that was the reason that had turned humans into cultivators. Forever unable to feel safe.

    Suddenly, from behind Daniel, came flying two massive dragons, who just beforending, turned into their humanoid form. One of the two was Lady Night who, curious about what her draconic form would be, had turned into a massive dragon.

    Naturally, her transformation had attracted Xargy, to which she had barely been able to give an exnation, before the two had been forced to rush in Daniel¡¯s direction.

    "Dan, it is better if you stop the." Said Xargy with hurry.

    "Why?" Daniel asked back.

    "Because we are about to push through who knows how many ships!"

 Chapter 373 Touched a Nerve

    The suddenly stopped just a few hundred kilometers away from the barrage of ships, which in terms of space travel, might as well have been a few centimeters. In front of these ships, were numerous extremely powerful cultivators, ready to destroy the at any moment. What stopped them was the oddness of the slowing its motion.

    With theck of any gravitational force that could direct a celestial object, said object would never slow down, and keep going until it would encounter another object on which it could crash into, hence the surprise of these cultivators, who did not expect for a to slow down to a stop.

    What they were expecting even less, was for the to suddenly be smaller, and disappear in the hand of a young looking man, who floated in the space right in front of them along with a few other peculiar individuals.

    Despite the surprise, half a dozen cultivators immediately appeared in front of Daniel and his group, each dressed in different kinds of armor that disyed the same insignia.

    Ever since the moment they had appeared, Daniel and the rest of his group had guessed them to be different mercenary groups who had been hired by the same employer to work as some sort of spatial patrol. That guess was proven by the golden circle with a dark interior littered with small bright lights that was shown on the armours of each of these cultivators.

    "You are entering the government¡¯s ring ofmerce. What is the purpose of your visit?" Asked a tall and fit woman with a dark green heavy ted armor that gave away more of her skin than her own identity. Behind her, were at least thirty ships with banners colored of a simr color.

    Before Daniel could even respond, a man d in ck armor, and whose face was covered by a helmet with two short horns that moved out and up of the two sides of his forehead, asked, "Wait, before that, don¡¯t you think we should ask him what the hell was he traveling on?" He then turned to look at his four other peers, and added with open arms, "Am I the only one who is curious?" Behind him was a single ck ship from which the two closest fleets, kept the same distance they kept from any other.

    "I am headed in that direction." Said Daniel while pointing at the core of the system called "ring ofmerce", the system of which Cato was the main, as well as the core of the universal government¡¯smerce.

    The ring ofmerce was widely known in the territory of the universal government. If someone wanted to sell or buy something of value, that was where they would have gone. Daniel¡¯s vague response had made these six cultivators suspicious, as he was heading straight into Cato, while he did not seem aware of what its name was.

    "Do you even know what is there?" Asked the man d in ck armor with doubt.

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s system only gave him a direction and a specific time count which he needed to follow in order to find his friends before they were killed, or died of unfortunate idents. So when he found himself in front of the question, he was unable to answer it.

    "Is there a specific reason why you¡¯d stop us from entering this system?" Asked Daniel, ignoring the question.

    "We weren¡¯t here to stop someone froming in at first, but to destroy a damn rogue that was headed for the system. We definitely were not expecting for it to be some odd spaceship." Responded the only one of the six whose appearance was not masked by his full armor. He was a muscr old man with a face covered in scars, and body d in silver armor. Behind him was the biggest fleet,posed of at least five hundred ships ced in meticr order.

    It is important to understand how vast Daniel¡¯s was. With a size that couldpete with that of any other big sized, even if one of these cultivators was able to destroy it before it could reach Cato or any other, they would only create a barrage ofets that would inevitable do some damage, hence therge number of ship and cultivators assigned to stopping its motion. There were enough cultivators to turn the into dust.

    Daniel wouldn¡¯t have bothered with these people if he had not felt that the power of each and every one of them, was leaps and bounds beyond his. Inparison, the many demon lords from hell were not as scary. This group of six was part of the protective system created by the rich merchants of Cato. Hired mercenaries that kept order in the ring of cummerce.

    "Answer the question." Added the female warrior with a slightly less cordial tone.

    Before answering, Daniel turned to his right, where Aeron was floating. The two did not speak to each other, and the only semnce of cummunication between them was a feeble shake of Aeron¡¯s head.

    The very moment they had arrived, Daniel had asked Aeron to try and read the mind of these individuals in order to find out what their intentions were. Now that he required that kind of information, he found out that Aeron had been unable to peek into their minds due to some type of odd mental barrier that protected each of their minds.

    This warned Daniel about the experience of these individuals, who had immediately recognized the ascended mental warrior in Daniel¡¯spany, and activated their protective talismans right away.

    "We are here to find some friends who we know that they were headed in this system. This ce is our only lead." Responded Daniel to the woman¡¯s question. He then turned to look at the other five cultivators, before adding, "You don¡¯t look like the typical army. Why are you questioning us? Are we about to get robbed?"

    "Just mercenaries, hired to make sure that nobody with the intention of causing a ruckus, enters the territory." Responded the scarred old man before turning to look at the woman, and adding, "They look alright. Just let them through."

    The woman did not acknowledge what the old man said, and instead said, "You are not allowed in with your.. Spaceship. Leave it outside of the system with one of your friends."

    "Why?" Asked Daniel back.

    "The size is too big. If you resize it to the dimensions we have seen before, it will distrupt the system¡¯s orbits before we are able to do something." Responded the man in ck armor, clearly aware of the woman¡¯s reasons.

    To Daniel these people did not appear as evil individuals. Their karmic points were all in the negative side, but their behaviour did not show greed or aggressiveness, meaning that they were paid enough to not want to screw up their job. The fact that they wanted one of Daniel¡¯s friends to stay out with the could have appeared as some sort of robbing, but when considered that each of them was stronger than Daniel, if they truly wanted to rob them, they would have done it directly.

    "I am not going to leave anyone behind, but I understand." Said Daniel before pretending to take his out of his spatial ring. When the eyes of the six cultivatorsnded on it, he tightened the grip, and shattered it into a thousand pieces. "Can we enter now?" he then asked.

    The sight of Daniel destroying the small surprised the six cultivators. After all, Daniel¡¯s was the fastest and biggest vessel that they had ever seen in their tens of thousands of years spent as mercenaries. If they had something like it, they would treasure it greatly, instead of wasting it just to gain entry to the system.

    "Is there anything wrong?" Asked Daniel with a smile, after noticing the confused expressions of the six cultivators.

    "I¡¯ll take a look at your ring. If you don¡¯t have anymore of those, you can pass." Said the woman before suddenly appearing in front of Daniel, and causing the invisible darkness that was right next to his body, to condense into a growling fearless young demonic wolf.

    "It¡¯s alright." Said Daniel before pressing his hand over the wolf¡¯s head, and calming him down. He then turned to look at the woman, and handed his rings over to her. What was contained by those rings were only a few cultivating resources, and a pocket dimension where two sleeping cultivators and a bunch of low level cultivators were living, which he did not believe these cultivators to be interested in.

    After taking a quick look, the woman handed the two rings back to Daniel, and disappeared once again. When she reappeared, she was standing over the end of the bowsprit of the biggest of her ships. Following this action, the ships that belonged to her fleet slowly turned around, and departed into separate directions.

    "Well, wee to the ring ofmerce." Said the scarred old man before disappearing along with his own massive fleet.

    Following the old scarred man was the man d in ck armor, who said, "Kid, you better stop destroying your wares if you want to make some money here.. hehe. But if you find yourself with another one of those things in hand, before you throw it away,e find me. I might take it off your hands." He then disappeared before waiting for an answer along with his sole ship.

    While most would wonder what a person with a single ship would do with Daniel¡¯s, Daniel, Nova, and Aeron, had noticed that the ship itself was nothing but a massive pocket dimension which likely hosted arger number of cultivators, and considering howrge the pocket dimension of such a powerful individual would be, Daniel could guess the number of mercenaries in it to be no less than millions.

    The remaining three mercenaries left as well, freeing his path to Cato, which was orbiting around arge bright yellow star that was the only thing visible from his position.

    "Are we going to.." Began to ask Xargy before being interrupted.

    "Yes, we¡¯ll fly the rest of our way there." Responded Daniel, fully aware of the six cultivators who, while not visible anymore, were still keeping an eye on them.

    -----

    Back in Cato.

    "What do you mean you want to break the contract? Thest time we spoke, your employer was thrilled to send the shipment. What has changed in thest two days?" Asked Emelnie with confusion to the nicely dressed woman that was sitting on the other side of her desk.

    "I am sorrydy Emelnie, yourpany has a bigger target on its back that we imagined." Said the woman before standing up from her seat, and walking towards the door. She then added, "Good luck.." and left the office.

    After the woman left, Emelnie delved into her doubt for a few minutes before muttering, "another one.." What she did not know yet, was that thergepanies had decided to allow one of the major merchants in Cato to destroy the Golden Karmapany, and take away the only thing of value that they could see in it, the academy.

    While this merchant tried to further his ns, the other merchants had agreed on taking the academy off of his hands, and share its possession, so that their children could receive an adequate education while also preventing it from interfeering with the market. That was the only reason why they had agreed on the man¡¯s ridiculous ims.

    What they did not know, however, was the fact that there was no academy without the golden karmapany, as the link between the two was not an economic one, but a personal one.

    After only a day from the meeting between the ruling merchants of Cato, Daniel¡¯spany had begun to struggle even worse than before, and was now rejected even by the cultivators who had no problem with trading with them when they had just arrived.

    "Don¡¯t put yourself down. You are doing your best." said an old man who suddenly appeared within Emelnie¡¯s office, a man who she immediately recognized as the old man Golden Cauldron. He was used to these types of schemes when he was in charge of his very ownpany, and would often spend a few reassuring words for Emelnie whenever things went south.

    "Do you have any idea why they would suddenly pull back?" Asked Emelnie in confusion.

    "I do.." He responded before slowly sitting on one of the chairs, and adding, "We might have touched a nerve.."

 Chapter 374 Paying Attention 101

    "Is that all? That is such a stupid motive! Why don¡¯t they simply start taking care of their own children then?" Asked Emelnie with anger to the old man Golden Cauldron. She couldn¡¯t believe that such powerful and rich merchants would go to that extent to hinder their development for such a petty reason.

    In her, due to the limitations of cultivation, the cultivators were only able to live up to a few hundred years. However, what made these two kinds of cultivators different was not their lifespan, but the fact that one of them had a limitation, and the other didn¡¯t. If the merchants of Cato wanted, they would have been able to cultivate for tens of thousands of years, and always be able to make progress. With time, that had inevitably blocked the idea of spending some time with their children from being conceived altogether.

    Emelnie and Edmund, on the other hand, due to their shorter lifespan, had ced their priorities in a different order, leading them to spend more time with Alesia and her brother instead of focusing on their job and cultivation. Unfortunately, what for them was natural, was not the same for the cultivators of Cato.

    -----

    True Hiel city, Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension.

    Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension had changedpletely. In order to grow in size, a pocket dimension had to be upgraded with the power of the cultivator to which it belonged. For that reason, while the number of inhabitants of the city kept growing, the territory remained the same.

    This increase in number had required an expansion that, unable to happen in width, had happened in height.

    The city inside the pocket dimension had turned into a metropolis, with a skyline that threatened to defy its limitations, and lights that challenged the millions of moving light spheres installed on the ceiling in order to simte a starry sky.

    In the square that Daniel had created at the entrance of the main building of the academy, was Nilo. He was standing in front of a group of at least thirty young cultivators dressed in elegant and refined clothes. Each of them with an expression that symbolized their aloof attitude, and the feelings of superiority they felt towards the others. Some of them knew each other, as shown by the enmity or friendliness they reserved for one another.

    While the sound of chatter within the group of cultivators was constant, Nilo remained quiet.

    "Are we waiting for something? That guy has been quiet for almost fifteen minutes now." Said a young man with exasperation.

    A second young man, who appeared to be on friendly terms with the first one who spoke, turned to look back at him, and said, "He is probably waiting for a teacher or something. Ignore him."

    The fifteen minutes slowly turned into thirty, and thirty turned into an hour.

    "That¡¯s it. I¡¯m taking a walk. Tell me when the teacher arrives, and I¡¯ll teleport back here." said a young woman to one of her friends, before turning towards the massive city that stood behind them, and started walking. However, the moment she stepped out of the boundaries of the small square, she found herself looking back at the group she had left behind. "What the hell?! What is this?" she asked with confusion.

    "What is going on?" asked another cultivator who immediately started walking in a different direction, and that after going through the edge of the square, found himself back in it. "Is this a joke?" he asked to Nilo.

    Finally, a young cultivator in refined purple robes turned to look at Nilo, and asked, "Hey, are we going to have to wait here all day?"

    "You are not the one who is waiting." Responded Nilo with a feeble tone.

    "What do you mean?" asked the purple-robed cultivator back.

    Once again, Nilo turned to look at this young cultivator, and responded by saying, "You will understand.. Sooner orter." He then once again became quiet.

    One more hour passed while theints became louder, and more frequent.

    Finally, after two full hours of waiting, the enraged young cultivators reached their breaking point. A state of mind where they couldn¡¯t bare to talk to anyone, and were simply thinking of ripping the calm expression off of the face of the only representative of the academy whom they had met so far.

    It took them two full hours to be quiet, and as soon as they did, Niloposed himself, and after clearing his voice, said, "Wee to Hiel academy. I am Nilo, a Senior student, and I will show you around. Most importantly, the rules.. First ru-"

    "HOLD ON!" shouted one of the cultivators with anger, and interrupting Nilo¡¯s speech. "Aren¡¯t we waiting for someone!?" he then asked.

    Nilo did not answer, and instead, went back into being quiet.

    It was at that moment that this group of cultivators realized. Nilo was not waiting for someone to arrive to wee this group of cultivators in. He was waiting for them to shut up, so that he could start. This shocked this group of cultivators greatly. They had been waiting for two hours for something that would have taken a minute, if only he had asked them to shut up sooner.

    What these cultivators did not understand, was that this was done for a valid reason. While they did not need to respect someone who they had just met, they were required to follow a basic line of education in order to attend the academy. The first thing that the academy would teach these cultivators, was to be more observant, and less chatty.

    Many of the things these cultivators had said in the past two hours could have been taken as an offense for the people who lived in this pocket dimension, and if these words had been spoken about, and in front of an individual they couldn¡¯t afford to offend, they probably would have already been dead.

    The cultivation world was a dangerous ce, and powerful cultivators acted on a whim. The more time a cultivator spent talking, the less he would learn about his surroundings. To these young cultivators, it had taken two full hours to finally quiet down, and even then, they had not done it because they wanted to, but because they were too annoyed to speak.

    While still in the middle of their shocked state, Nilo said a few words that made a few of them snap. These words were, "Wee to Hiel academy. I am Nilo, and I will show you around.."

    "Screw this! I didn¡¯t even want toe here. Even if I am going to be expelled before being even epted, I will at least kick this guy¡¯s ass." Said a lean young man as he walked in Nilo¡¯s direction with a menacing expression. Surrounding the knuckles of his hands, was a glove reinforced with metallic spikes.

    A young woman dressed in a pink and white dress, clearly unhappy with being forced to attend this academy, followed the lean cultivator while saying, "I won¡¯t have to attend if I get expelled." As she finished speaking, a dozen of nearly invisible electrified needles came out of her palms, and from in between her lips.

    This happened often. Whenever Nilo or any of the other senior students were tasked with weing the new students in, a few of the more unruly would ultimately end up challenging them. After all, they were the richest, their parents were the most powerful, their guards could protect them from any harm. What was the student of an unknown academy, whenpared to them?

    "Rin," said Nilo with a low tone, right before a red-headed woman appeared next to him. "Can you take care of the two of them.. after they wake up?"

    "Of course." Said the red-headed woman before stepping away.

    "When they wake up? Listen here, count yourself lucky if you get tond a punch!" Said the lean young man before disappearing, and reappearing to Nilo¡¯s right. A whistle could be heard as his punch brushed against the air at an impressive speed in its advance towards Nilo¡¯s jaw. At the same time, three invisible needles were thrown at Nilo¡¯s neck, heart, and right lung.

    The ingenuity of these two was almostughable to Nilo, who simply moved the upper part of his body back, and allowed the punch to move past his head, followed by the arm of the lean young man, which he grabbed, and pulled further to the left. The improvised meat shield took all three needles directly on his back.

    Before the young man could even scream with pain, however, he felt the lights go out on him as a punch hit his stomach squarely, and due to hisck of bnce, sent him flying towards the young girl.

    In a sudden moment of panic, the girl kept her eyes on the iing body of the lean young man, and stopped paying attention to any other direction. Especially her back, where Nilo had suddenly appeared just in time to gently hit the back of the girl¡¯s knee, and disappear right after.

    The bnce of the young girl waspletely gone, and it was toote for her to gain it back before the lean young man hit her lowered upper body, and caused her to fall back, and get knocked out by the small patch of ground which had suddenly turned into solid metal just in time to wee the back of her head.

    The fightsted less than five seconds, and while five seconds were not much in terms of a battle, they were more than plenty to teach the rest of the group that there was a difference between them and the members of the academy, and that this difference was not in cultivation level.

    As the red-headed girl named Rin grabbed the two unconscious cultivators by the ankle, and dragged them to the edge of the square, Nilo walked back in his original position, and said, "Wee to Hiel academy, I am Nilo, and I.."

    This time, there were noints.

    -----

    The following day, inside of the biggest office within the tallest building of one of Cato¡¯s main cities.

    "Sir, we have an update on our little side project." Said a fat man in golden robes that sat in a chair that was clearly not built for his impressive size.

    The person who he was talking to, was the middle-aged man who, during the meeting of the leading merchants of Cato, had taken upon himself the burden to take the academy from the hands of the Golden Karmapany.

    "Already? We have only managed to get our first kid in." asked the middle-aged man with interest.

    "Yes. The group was weed by one of the students, and a fight broke out." Said the fat man.

    "Don¡¯t tell me our kid got himself kicked out already.." said the middle-aged man with annoyance. For a full week they had tried to infiltrate one of the sons of their conglomerate in order to gain information regarding this academy which they would then use as weapons, and only now had they been able to have one of their kids epted.

    "No, it was two other kids, but that is not the point. Our kid said that the student that weed them in was at the same level of cultivation, but his power wasn¡¯t. He said that he took two of them in a matter of seconds, and that it wouldn¡¯t have been different if they attacked all at the same time.." exined the fat man before his employer could, once again, misunderstand.

    "Do you think it might have something to do with the power of the Outcast?" Asked the middle aged man, surprise about the news he had just heard.

    "I am not sure. From the rumors we have heard, it might have something to do with luck, time, and immortality, but even if it did, isn¡¯t he too far away for his powers to affect them?" Responded the fat man while stroking his clean shaved round chin.

    The middle-aged man became pensive for a good minute, until finally he broke the silence by muttering, "Unless he left them something."

 Chapter 375 The Magic Word

    "Sir, you are not possibly saying that.." the fat man began to ask, as a shiver went down his back.

    "I am. The beast totems of the Tamer, the artificial essence spheres of the Elementalist, the token of immortality of the Deathbringer. If the Outcast is able to create such artifacts.. I don¡¯t even need to tell you what that would mean." responded the middle aged man with a serious tone, that was apanied by a solemn expression.

    Each of the items listed by the middle aged man were amongst the most precious treasures of the known universe. Their origin was not natural, but artificial, and they had been made by the children of Iewah who, by using their powers, were able to create objects that would help them thrive.

    What no one but Iewah¡¯s children knew, was that these objects were nothing but items obtained through the use of their own systems, such as Daniel¡¯s very own, an item of which, at first, he only had a basic control over it, and if he wanted, he could have left it to somebody for safekeeping, but that after his ascension, had be a part of him.

    The powers of these objects were always as mysterious as their creators, and would require intense study, and attentive observation during any instance in which they would appear to the public.

    The most widely known examples of this were the beast totems, which were objects created by the taming system, and whose main purpose was to boost the connection between a beast and the tamer, and simrly to Daniel¡¯s position as a group leader, granted an increase in power and intelligence to these beasts. The artificial essence spheres of the Elementalist, which gave birth to mindless artificial elementals at an rming rate, and finally, the token of immortality.

    The token of immortality was an object created by one of the two most powerful children of Iewah. One of the only two that had fought their belligerent instincts by bing explorers, and keeping their distance from everybody else. The owner of the system of death, also known as the Deathbringer. The token was an object passed down to the oldest and most powerful high judge, and stopped the process of constant corrosion of life essence inside his body, making himpletely immune to death by natural causes.

    Even the possibility that an object that increased the power of a cultivator to such an extent existed, was already too big of a matter to ignore.

    "The others are waiting for me to take the academy from the Golden Karmapany, and then they will probably use some other methods to take it from me. But if there really is such an object, and it ends in our hands.. It will be worth it." Said the middle aged man as the edges of his lips curved into a faint mile. "Is there anything else?" he then asked.

    "Nothing. Just an odd event at the border of the system, but it has already been handled." Responded the fat man immediately after.

    The middle aged man, still clearly distracted by the possibility of obtaining an artifact of one of Iewah¡¯s children, paid no mind to what the fat man said, and responded, "Good, make sure that our kid behaves properly in there. If he gets himself expelled, his mother¡¯spany will pay for it."

    -----

    Inside Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, standing in front of arge ck castle, was a young man with coppery blonde hair, and dark brown eyes. His linen shirt, cotton pants, and leather boots appeared much simpler when inparison to those of the people that were standing around him, and it gave the impression that he valuedfort more than appearance.

    This young man was mesmerized by the appearance of the ck castle, which would not fit the architecture of the buildings of which Cato¡¯s cities were full of.

    Merchants valued their space, and each building they built, was made so that it could be used for business purposes. Offices, restaurants, shops, and marketces were no odd sight in Cato, but for a kingless, a castle was a rarity.

    This group of young cultivators were standing united, almost afraid of losing sight of each other. Nilo had just finished exining the rules, and left them in front of the castle with none of their possessions, nor a direction they could follow in order to find the academy.

    A pocket dimension was an area of which the creator would have full control of, and just being there, was a stressful situation. After all, if someone were to destroy the channel between the two dimensions, the pocket dimension would be bound to float in the void forever. However, since Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension had multiple entrance points, it was quite safe.

    Nevertheless, it was the first time that these young cultivators had found each other without money, or their parent¡¯s name to keep them safe.

    The rules of the academy were simple, and could bepressed into a single rule. That rule, was to not bother the elementals, or the mortal inhabitants of the pocket dimension. With that rule, they had been left to themselves.

    "I knew from what that guy told us that there would be elementals, but I was not expecting so many, and so powerful at that. Ivan, did you see those four? They look just like humans." Said a girl dressed in a blue dress, who happened to be standing right next to the young blonde cultivator. She had never seen an elemental of that level alive, and at best, she had seen some remains that had turned into essence treasures at the moment of the elemental¡¯s death.

    The young man named Ivan finally looked away from the ck castle, and turned towards the direction the girl was pointing towards with interest, but before he could respond, his attention was taken by another voice that came from the edge of their little group.

    "Hey, kid. Tell me where the academy is." Said one of these young cultivators to a young man in his early teens who had just walked out of the castle, and was wearing numerous spatial rings. In his hands was a sheet of paper, on which the names of numerouss had been written on.

    "Excuse me?" responded the young man while going through the list, and not paying too much mind to the young cultivator.

    "The academy. I want to know where it is, are you deaf?" asked the young cultivator that had spoken before, now much more irritated than he already was a few moments before.

    "Oh.." said the teenager in realization. He had been so busy that he had forgotten that, some times, a group of young students would be left in front of the castle with no hint on what to do next. "If I told you, it would defeat the purpose. Good luck." he then added before walking away.

    "What?! Come back here, you damn brat." Said the young cultivator angrily, while walking in the teenager¡¯s direction with an aggressive attitude.

    However, before the cultivator could reach him, the teenager turned to look back at him, and with clear fear, he said, "Alright! I am sorry.. Look, just follow that road out of the city, and then take a left when you start seeing the forest at the bottom of the metal mountain. There is arge building there, you can¡¯t miss it."

    "That¡¯s more like it. You stinking brat." Said the young cultivator with disdain before turning to look at the other members of the group, and saying with an autoritative tone, "I don¡¯t know why our parents sent us here, but I don¡¯t like this ce. Let¡¯s finish learning whatever we have been sent here to learn, so that we can get back to our lives. Follow me."

    This little speech was exactly what this small group of confused, rich, and young cultivators were hoping for. They hadn¡¯t been told what they were there for, nor what they were supposed to learn in this academy. They had simply been sent there by their parents without a single motive, and now that someone had decided to step up and promise them to get back to their luxurious lives as soon as possible, they started to feel more at ease.

    Amongst this group, only Ivan was ignoring the speech and praises of his peers. What he looking at instead, was the expression of the teenager, which instead of turning from a fearful expression to a relieved one, had turned into a satisfied smile just before he walked away.

    Ivan was the spy that had been sent to the academy in order to observe Daniel¡¯spany, and therefore, had been instructed in the reason why the other merchants would send their children in that particr academy. From the very moment the cultivator had been rude and aggressive to that young man, he had expected for something to happen. However, being a spy, he was forced to y along, and not stand out, so instead of saying something, he remained quiet, and followed the rest of the group as they headed south.

    A few hourster, the group of cultivators found themselves at a crossroad. In the distance, they could see a massive metallic mountain, and at its feet, a thick forest. Down the road to their left, was a building of impressive dimensions, from which the sound of chattering voices could be hearding out from.

    "Did you see that?" asked the girl that was sticking to Ivan¡¯s side.

    "See what?" Asked Ivan, who was stopped from entering the building along with the rest.

    "I think I saw a massive shiny wolf poke his head from the other side of the mountain.." responded the young girl with confusion.

    "Odd." said Ivan, unaware of the fact that elemental of metal essence would be born as wolves.

    "Come on, if there is someone waiting for us inside, I don¡¯t want to bete." Said the girl while walking past him, and dashing into the slowly closing door of the massive building. Ivan followed right after, and as soon as he entered the door, before he could even hear the door close behind him, he found himself back in the square outside of the ck castle, surrounded by his irritated peers.

    "We are back here! Damn it." said one of the cultivators in anger.

    As the newly appointed leader of this group was about to speak, the teenager from before happened to, once again, walk in front of them, and towards the castle¡¯s entrance. The¡¯s names on the sheet of paper he was holding were crossed out, and on his fingers, were no rings.

    "Brat, we have followed your directions, and we are back here, care to exin yourself?!" asked the cultivator that acted as leader, while on the verge of bing violent.

    Instead of showing fear like he had a few minutes ago, the teenager burst outughing, and walked into the castle as if he was in no danger whatsoever.

    The young cultivator could not possibly be angrier, as shown by the veins that came out of the sides of his head like green worms ready to pop out of his skin.

    Ivan was already suspecting that something would happen, and now that he had seen it happen, it did not take long for him to ce the pieces together. He knew that this part would inevitablyst very long due to the unruly behaviour of his peers, so in an attempt to avoid wasting any more time, he took a step closer to his friend, and muttered casually, "Maybe we should ask him nicely.. We don¡¯t even know who he is. He might be the son of the owner of this ce."

    Nobody paid too much attention to him, except for his friend, who appeared lost in her thoughts for a moment. After only a few seconds, she hurriedly walked towards the teenager, and said with politeness, "Excuse me, can you point us towards the academy? please.."

    "How peculiar, it is never the prettiest girl in the group, the one who gets it first." responded the teenager with a smile, before pointing at the third of the seven portals ced around the square, and added, "Go through that portal, and try to be respectful." He then turned around, and entered the castle.

    As soon as he entered therge double door, the teenager found himself in front of Emelnie, who was waiting for him with a big smile on her face. "Did you finish delivering the surplus food to thes in crisis?"

    "Yes mom, it is done. And I got to pull a prank on the new students. Hehe." Said the teenager with satisfaction while showing her the sheet of paper.

 Chapter 376 Welcome to Hiel Academy Part 1 of 2

    After seeing the figure of the teenager disappear behind the massive castle gates, the group of young men and women turned to look at the portal that he had pointed them towards with doubt. They had already been tricked by his words, and now, they were unsure whether to believe him or not.

    "I don¡¯t trust that brat. Let¡¯s find somebody else to ask.." Said the self-appointed leader of the group, who had previously extorted the fake information from the teenager, only to end up making the whole group waste time.

    One of this young man¡¯s closest friends, in an attempt to convince the others to follow his friend¡¯s suggestions, added, "I agree. Who knows how long it will take us to end up here if we enter that portal. We were lucky that thest time it only took a few hours."

    The rest of the group, lost as they were, were quick to find reason in the words of the two young men, and instead of focusing on the portal that the teenager had pointed them towards, internally decided to stick together until they would manage to solve this problem. Amongst this group of people, was Ivan¡¯s friend, who had never been one to lead others, and had no way to convince the others that this time, if they followed the teenager¡¯s directions, it would be any different than thest time.

    One of the few who did not follow the young man, was Ivan. His focus was on how he could influence the group from the shadows, until finally, while his friend was delving in her own thoughts, he walked next to her, and said through a smirk, "It is never the prettiest girl in the group the one who gets it first.. Sigg, Did that kid just hit on you?"

    The young girl, whose name was Sigg, was initially confused by Ivan¡¯s words, that reminded her what the teenager had told her right before walking away. "What?.. Oh." she muttered, but then, after thinking about the meaning of these words for a few moments, a sh of realization made her burst out loudly, saying, "Wait! I think he is telling the truth."

    "What makes you think that?" asked the self appointed leader of the group, after stopping his march towards the massive city.

    "This is a test. The kid said that ¡¯I got something¡¯.. There is a possibility that he was telling the truth." Responded Sigg animatedly.

    Naturally, there was a reason why the young man had tried to act as the leader of this group of young cultivators. While none of them were stupid enough to be his followers, he still wanted to slowly gain the reputation of someone that could get things done, so that when all of them would grow up into bing the owners of their respectivepanies, the others would see him favorably.

    This way of thinking had led him to believe that the others would try the same thing, so when Sigg tried to sway the group¡¯s decision, he thought that she was ying the same political game he was ying.

    "We have all heard what he said, and I think you let thatpliment get to your head. The kid fancied you, there is nothing more to it." He said before turning away, and resuming his march towards the city, leaving only Sigg, Ivan, and a few others behind.

    One of the few cultivators who chose to stay approached Ivan and Sigg, and said, "Since we are here, let¡¯s get in. We don¡¯t know if this test has a time limit or not." before walking towards the portal that the teenager had pointed them towards, and going through it.

    Sigg, Ivan, and the rest followed right after, and after going through the portal, they found themselves in what looked like the entrance of a different city. This time, however, the inhabitants of this city were not mortals or low level cultivators, but young individuals dressed in simr clothes, and with a cultivation level simr to their own.

    Standing right ahead, was Nilo, who appeared to be patiently waiting for them.

    After seeing Nilo, it did not take long for the few of them to understand that they had made the right decision. One of the young cultivators that had followed Sigg was about to say something, but before he could, Nilo stopped him by making a halt gesture with his hand, and directing them towards the portal.

    Only seconds after they had arrived, the rest of the students barged in with enraged expressions. The state of their clothes were not as pristine as they were before, and it looked like they had worn them for days.

    "Oh, you guys changed your minds." Said Sigg as thest member of the group came in. However, something was wrong about them.

    While Sigg was expecting a simple response, what she received was far from it. One of the cultivators that had just arrived burst out shouting, "Screw you! We have been walking around like idiots for a week!!" On the face of the self appointed leader of the group could be seen that in this week, he had to take the burden of the rage of the people that had made the mistake of following him.

    "What? We have just seen each other no longer than a minute ago." Said Sigg with confusion.

    This conversation was interrupted by the feeble noise ofughter that came from Nilo¡¯s direction. "I love this part.." he muttered.

    The students had already noticed that Nilo¡¯s set of clothes were identical to the ones he was wearing thest time they had seen him, and along with the fact that Sigg, Ivan and the few others had just arrived while they had taken more than a week, they finally understood.

    The course of time had been flowing differently for those outside of the academy, and for those within. Nilo only had to wait for less than a second before Ivan, Sigg and the few others came in, and a couple more seconds before the rest arrived.

    Unable to stay quiet anymore, the self appointed leader of therger group turned to look at Nilo, and burst out with anger, saying, "What the hell!? What was the point of this stupid test?!? Did you not invite us here?"

    "If you don¡¯t know yet, then you are an idiot." Responded Nilo, clearly amused by the whole situation.

    "Enlighten us!" responded the young man animatedly. He still remembered how the other two had been knocked out by him in a matter of moments, so he was forced to hold back, and opt for being verbally aggressive instead.

    Nilo responded with a disappointed sigh, then said, "Say you find yourself alone, and in an unknown. Nobody knows your parents, and your riches are of no use for the inhabitants. How do you find your path home?"

    "I am a cultivator. I can take what I need as long as I am not weaker than my opponent." Responded the young man with a hint of pride.

    "Fair enough." Responded Nilo before suddenly appearing in front of the young man, and with a fast motion of his hand, grabbing his pants, and ripping them away, leaving him in his undergarments. He then reappeared where he was standing a moment earlier. "Was that fair?" he asked.

    "You motherf.."

    "We are all people, and what makes us different from low level beasts, is that we have the chance to solve a problem without the use of violence. Violence will ultimately lead you to face an enemy which you won¡¯t be able topete with, and in the end, you¡¯ll find yourself out of pants.. I suggest you learn your manners."

    Nilo¡¯s words were clear. With no protection, a single word was the difference between life and death for them. After all, in the cultivation world, to be killed for a misspoken world was not umon.

    The meaning of Nilo¡¯s words quickly made its way into the mind of each of the young cultivators, creeping into their crooked upbringing like a drop of oil into a ss of water. Some of them found this concept ridiculous, while others found some merit to it.

    The only one who directly rejected it, however, was the embarrassed young cultivator, who was still standing without pants amongst his peers. His embarrassed expression soon turned into an ted one, as from the corner of his right eye, he saw his older brother walk around along with a few of his very own friends. "Brother!" He shouted before running off.

    Clearly used to the sound of his voice, the group of students turned to look at the young cultivator that was closing in, and immediately recognized him.

    The first one to speak was the aforementioned brother, on whose face appeared arge smile right before saying,"Little brother!! Mom and dad finally decided to send you here! Ahah,e I will show you aro-where are your pants?"

    "Brother.. You have to help me! I am being abused by some guy, he is just too much! He humiliated me in front of everybody else!" said the young cultivator as two tears threatened to form in the corners of his eyes. The half naked run in the middle of the square had been the most embarrassing thing he had ever gone through in his life, and the faintughs of the surrounding students had only made things worse.

    "WHAT!? Tell me who he is, I¡¯ll take care of him for you." Said the older brother while showing a prideful and just expression.

    A feeling of relief made its way into the mind of the little brother, who for the first time in a week, had felt things go back to the way his whole life had been. "Thank you, brother. It was that guy over there, the one with the smug face." He said while pointing his finger at Nilo.

    The moment the older brother and his friends saw towards who the young cultivator had pointed his finger at, a shiver ran down their spine. Unfortunately, that was a reaction that the younger brother did not notice, as he walked towards his bully with an enraged and vengeful attitude.

    "HEY! YOU!" shouted the young man in an attempt to grab Nilo¡¯s attention, but while this action was sessful in its purpose, the young cultivator was not able to witness it, as he had felt a powerful hand grab the back of his head, and forced him to look down.

    "My brother would like to apologize for his behaviour, Nilo. Give him a chance." Said a voice that, to the young cultivator, was extremely familiar.

    "Big brother.. What are you-" muttered the younger brother with shock, before being interrupted by the ice cold expression of his older brother, and the faint motion of his lips, which spelled, "Apologize, now."

    This young man¡¯s older brother was, after their own grandfather and father, the only one to whom he listened to. After all, the three of them were the ones to which thepany belonged, and form which he would end up being employed from, when he would get older. So he soon swallowed his pride, and said with defeat, "I ap.. I apologize for my rudeness."

    "It¡¯s alright." said Nilo before turning to look at one of the friends of the older brother, and adding, "You were right, it works even if I don¡¯t take the undergarments as well."

    Thisst phrase caused the rest of this group of friends to burst outughing, while the person to which Nilo spoke to directly, flushed red in embarrassment. "I-I had f-forgot about t-that. Eheh.." muttered the cultivator before letting out a nervousugh.

    "Can I leave these guys to you? I have other matters to attend." Nilo then said.

    "Of course, leave them to us." Responded one member of the group of friends with eagerness, before taking a step forward, and saying to the newly epted students, "Come, we¡¯ll show you to the rest of the academy." before walking towards thergest road connected to the square.

    Before following them deeper into the academy, a few of the cultivators that had followed therger group walked up to Sigg, and said, "We should have listened to you."

    Sigg immediately waved her hands dismissively, and said, "Well, it was all actually thanks to what Iv-"

    Before she could finish speaking, however, she was stopped by Ivan, who said, "We should go, if we lose them, we¡¯ll have to start asking around one more time, and I am not too keen on that."

    "You are right, let¡¯s go." Said one of the two cultivators that had approached Sigg, before following the students down the street, and leaving only Sigg behind, who for a few moments, looked at her closest friends with confusion.

 Chapter 377 Welcome to Hiel Academy Part 2 of 2

    "Brother.. why did you make me apologize? You are at a higher stage of cultivation! You could have.." Asked the young cultivator to his older brother as they walked down the street. He knew his older brother, and beforeing to this academy, he had seen him blow many situations out of proportion due to his short temper. Now, he couldn¡¯t even recognize him.

    The older brother, whose group was now happily chatting with the new students, suddenly became solemn, and after turning to look at his younger brother, he said, "This academy makes it clear. We are equals, and money or power won¡¯t change that. However, that is not entirely true. There are some students that are untouchable here.."

    What the older brother said was of great shock to the other students who, while still unhappy about being sent there against their will, immediately became outraged by what they had just heard.

    "What?! The hypocrisy!" Said one of the newly epted group members with anger, before adding, "That guy was acting so noble and righteous before, but turns out he was being protected.. Such a fool!"

    "You didn¡¯t let me finish." said the older of the two brothers, interrupting the young man¡¯s rant. He then added, "They are not untouchable because someone protects them, but because they are unbeatable. There are prize pools that will go to the first person who wins a duel with any of them, and we have tried everything, but we have never won."

    The group of newly epted students reacted to these words with great shock. "Big brother, that is impossible. We were both in the Three Crosses Academy before being moved here, a top tier academy within the universal government, and you were in the top ten thousand students. I don¡¯t believe there isn¡¯t a single person here that you can¡¯t defeat!"

    "That is true, you must be messing with us.." said a friend of the younger of the two brothers.

    After hearing these words of praise, the younger brother scratched his head in embarrassment, and responded, "Trust me, I have learned the truth the hard way." He then turned to look back at the direction towards where they were heading, unwilling to talk about the matter any further, and ignoring his brother¡¯s nervous expression.

    After a few minutes spent walking around therge streets in between the dormitories, Ivan approached one of the students, and asked, "So what is so special about these untouchables?" He had followed the group around, and gave the matter enough time to make it seem that he was genuinely curious, and unable to hold his questions any longer.

    The person he had asked this question to was a girl in her early twenties, and dressed in light blue clothes. Her behaviour was overly polite, but Ivan could not understand if it was because she recognized them as the future leaders of the major merchant groups of Cato, or for some other reason. After all, she was the daughter of a rich family of merchants herself, and her status was in no way lower than their own.

    "You get a hefty sum if you manage to get an answer to that question." Responded the girl while smiling back at Ivan. She then added, "We all have our guesses, but who knows which one is true. At the moment, the more usible one is that there is a formation that selectively increases the speed of production of immortal essence of certain cultivators. But I don¡¯t believe that.. Beforeing here, my grandmother asked me topete against one of them, and even then, I had no hope."

    Ivan¡¯s question had caught the attention of his friend Sigg, who also approached the girl in the light blue dress to ask, "Is that possible? I have never heard anything like that."

    "It is just a random guess. We really don¡¯t know much about them." Responded the blue-clothed girl with a smile.

    At the opposite side of the group walked the two brothers who, for two different reasons, had been quiet. The silence, however, was broken by the younger one, who after listening to the conversation between Ivan, Sigg, and his older brother¡¯s friend, asked nervously, "Am I in trouble?"

    "No. They will not bother you. Just avoid getting in their way, and you¡¯ll be fine." Responded the older brother with a reassuring tone. He then added with newfound enthusiasm, "This is the elemental pavillon. In there, you can find elementals of all types. They hold lessons about theprehension of the essence every hour.. Over there is the arena. You can challenge anyone you want in there, and obtain resources if you win. You can also obtain resources by attending the lessons, or helping out in any way you can."

    "The streak of winnings determines how many resources you get." Added a green-clothed cultivator, clearly interested about the topic of conversation.

    "Isn¡¯t that unfair? What if those freaks break your streak?" Asked Sigg with curiosity. The moment she finished speaking, however, she noticed an expression of confusion appear on the faces of the students.

    "They never challenge us. They only duel amongst themselves. The only times a streak was broken by one of them, was because they were challenged." Responded the green-clothed cultivator with enthusiasm. From his expression, one could see the admiration he felt towards those cultivators. To many of the new students, they were unbeatable, and unreachable, but for him, they had grown to be a sort of ispiration.

    "Has one of the new students ever managed to be like them?" Asked Ivan, unable to find an easier way to sneak the question in.

    This question attracted the attention of the older of the two brothers, who responded by saying, "It is funny that you ask that. We have asked about it more than once before, but the answers we got were always simr. Vague.. Hinting about encountering the leader of ¡¯the group¡¯. Don¡¯t ask me what it means. I have no idea."

    Ivan made a mental note of anything he heard. While to others these separated and seemingly vague pieces of information did not make sense, for him, it was not the same. After all, he hadn¡¯t been sent here to learn what this academy offered, but to learn about what this academy was hiding.

    After another hour spent exploring, the group found itself in front of a massive training ground. Itsyout was separated into hald a dozen section, each dedicated to a different form of training. Muscr training, weapon mastery training, sparring grounds, meditation, dummy training, and finally, a stage surrounded by a number of chairs.

    On this enormous training ground, were at least a few hundred cultivators split into the various sections. However, the majority were focused on the sparring ground, and the stage.

    "I know you guys thought we couldn¡¯t top the dormitory inside the active volcano, the arena, and the trading road.. But here we are. These are the training grounds. You will spend most of your time here, and for a good reason." Said the green-robed cultivator.

    "Why is that? Looks like amon training ground to me." Responded one of the members of Ivan¡¯s group with curiosity.

    "Is it?" Asked the green-robed cultivator with a big smile. He then noticed that someone was approaching the dummy training section, and with an even wider smile, he added, "Maybe half of it. Watch carefully, something amazing is about to happen."

    With these words, the group approached the section with haste, just in time to observe as an oddly young man walked into one of the rings, right in front of where the dummy was resting in its inanimate state.

    The moment this young man approached the dummy, numerous figures appeared out of nowhere. All of whom stood at a respectful distance.

    "Who is that?" asked the younger of the two brothers.

    "Zack. He is the youngest student here." responded the older brother with a hint of admiration that did not fail to show from his expression.

    Ignoring the crowd that had formed, Zack unsheathed the short sword that was sheathed in the scabbard that was hanging from his waist, and said out loud, "Single-edged swords. Dual wielding." As if in response to Zack¡¯s words, the dummy came to life, and in its hands, two singled-edged swords appeared. He then took abat stance in wait for the first move.

    Zack reacted to this by sealing his cultivation within his body, and preparing himself for a fight of masteries, and reflexes.

    The attention of the people within the crowd focused on Zack¡¯s movements, making the surroundingspletely quiet. What kicked off the training session, was the pierceing attack that Zack sent towards the dummy¡¯s neck.

    His movements were minimal, and from the very moment before, none of the students would have guessed that he was about to attack.

    Unfortunately, while virtually all of the new students expected this attack to be sessful, that was not the case. With a peerless reaction time, the dummy deflected the piercing attack, and sent a vertical shing motion towards Zack¡¯s arm. An attack that, If sessful, would incapacitate his fighting ability by a great degree.

    Zack was prepared for such a counter, and immediately pulled his arm back.

    His reaction speed, whenpared to the dummy, was slightlycking, so he was unable to back away in time, causing the descending attack of the dummy to hit the body of his sword. However, while seemingly in a difficult position, Zack tightened the grip over his sword, and firmed his arm.

    The power of the blow which was supposed to disarm him, was enough for his body to rotatepletely, and allowed him to send a spinning hook kick towards the back of the dummy¡¯s head. An attack that was easily stopped by the immediate reaction of the dummy, which raised his arm, and parried the kick with his bent wooden elbow.

    The crowd observed as the dummy and Zack exchanged blows. If not for the limitation that Zack had put on his cultivation, the training ground would have been destroyed, and he would have probably been able to defeat the dummy, but in that case, the point of sparring against a dummy would bepletely lost.

    The fight went on for a few long minutes of uninterrupted exchanges which gradually left the onlookers utterly impressed, and only ending as the dummy managed to destabilize Zack¡¯s bnce, making it impossible for him to parry thest attack.

    Right before hitting, the weapons of the dummy disappeared. The dummy then moved back to its original position, and once again began its wait for the next challenger.

    On Zack¡¯s face there was no defeat. In its stead, was an expression of mild satisfaction, as he had beaten his previous record. However, instead of leaving or trying again, he walked towards the stage area of the training ground.

    The moment his feet touched the stage, numerous individuals appeared on the seats. Each with kind and pensive expressions. Amongst them, were Nilo, Cynna, Fyro, Finn, and other members of Daniel¡¯s group.

    "You were so eager to strike, that you didn¡¯t see the tell of the kick." Said Finn.

    "I think it would have been fine, if only he had paid more attention to the noises of the dummy¡¯s joints, instead of focusing on sight and sensing." Added Cynna, clearly in disagreement with Finn¡¯s previous judgement.

    Zack paid great attention to the suggestions of the other members of the group, whose only objective was to help him increase his abilities as a swordsman, and not to humiliate him.

    Thest one to talk was Nilo, who after listening to Finn and Cynna, shook his head in disagreement, and said, "You are both wrong. It¡¯s a mind thing." He then turned to look at Zack, and with a friendly tone, said, "The dummy is not your enemy. You can¡¯t defeat it, you can only learn from it.. So stop trying to break it to pieces."

    Naturally, Zack was aware that Nilo was right. Whenever he would begin a spar with the dummy, he would always give more than necessary, and allow for a weak spot to make itself visible to his inanimate opponent.

    Clearly grateful about the suggestions, he nodded with appreciaton, and said, "I¡¯ll do better next time." then walked down the stage. At the same time, the figures of Nilo, Cynna, Fyro, Finn, and the others, all disappeared without leaving a single trace.

    Zack was the closest thing to a celebrity there was in the Hiel academy. His young age had made him the first target of any cultivator that was eager to defeat one of the senior students, but despite that, he had alwayse out on top. This had led him to be known as a growing prodigy, and for his friendship to be seeked after by many.

    A small groupposed of a few admirators approached him in an attempt to gain a fraction of his attention, but aside from a few embarrassed smiles, none of what was said was able to stop him from walking out.

    It was only when a young coquettishly woman tried to wrap her arm around his, that he slowly turned to look at her, and with a killing intent that terrified her to a point where she was unable to avoid falling on her knees, and wetting herself, he said, "Don¡¯t touch me." He then walked off through the path that had magically opened within the crowd of scared admirers.

    "That was pretty rude. Who does he think he is?" Asked the younger of the two brothers to the other, while secretly angered by having been scared by a killing intent that wasn¡¯t even directed at him.

    "He doesn¡¯t like being touched." Said the older brother, clearly unaware of the reason why.

    What these cultivators were not aware of, was the severeck of trust of which Zack suffered. A psychological problem he had received after being used of being a rapist, being hated by everyone he knew, beaten to near death repeatedly, betrayed by his closest friends, and even having his cultivation crippled by the extraction of a part of his spirit. All of this had led him to be unable to trust anyone that Daniel did not personally trust.

    "This ce is a damn circus." Said the youger brother with an uneasy expression.

    "Heh, what can I say.. Wee to Hiel academy." Responded his older brother while smiling in excitement. He was clearly happy that his brother had been sent here, and he couldn¡¯t wait for him to see the merits of this academy, despite him being happy about it, or not.

 Chapter 378 One Above All

    After two weeks, the students had been allowed back to their homes, but while most of them were going back to the safest ce they knew, in hope to show their progress to their parents, that was not the case for Ivan, who was now standing next to his father, and the nicely dressed fat merchant inside arge office. They were currently reporting what Ivan had learned to his employer, the middle aged merchant.

    The conversation was being held between the fat man and the rich middle aged merchant while Ivan remained quiet, and his father anxiously observed the reactions of the leader of the conglomerate to which he was part of.

    "It would seem that the academy is focused on teaching problem solving, and the merits of befriending other cultivators regardless of their status or power." Said the fat merchant while giving a summary of what Ivan had told him. "Their infrastructure are more than adequate, and if their teachers were known cultivators, the academy would be considered a high level facility."

    The middle aged merchant stroked his long ck beard while in a pensive state, then turned to look at Ivan, and asked, "You have visited high level academies before. Tell me the biggest difference between those, and this one."

    Seeing that he had lost the attention of the middle aged man, the fat man tried to respond before Ivan could by saying, "Sir, theye from a poor and ownerless system, and-" However, he was interrupted before he could finish speaking.

    "I wasn¡¯t talking to you." Said the middle aged man with an authoritative tone.

    "It does not feel like an academy. We do not have limitations on our movements, and we are allowed to start trade, give assignments, orplete them for additional resources. We can cultivate as long as we have enough crystals, and pursue the path that we prefer. It feels like a simtion of our life outside of the academy, but when we follow a more.. Benevolent path, we are rewarded." Responded Ivan with a single breath, while trying to convey his impression of the ce he had been in for thest two weeks.

    While aware that the rest of the high merchants were only letting him do the dirty work, and that they would ultimately take the academy away from him to turn it into a neutral ce, the middle aged merchant was still a father and a grandfather. His interest for this academy was the same as the rest, and while his children were not as hopeless as most of the others, he knew that there was more that he could have taught them to be more prepared for their future.

    "Tell me about the students you have mentioned before. The senior students." He then asked to Ivan,pletely ignoring the presence of the fat man.

    "They act as simple students, but their standards of power is impossible to match. None of Cato¡¯s students canpare to any of the most notorious stars of the high academies of the universal government, but the senior students.. They are on another level, Sir." Responded Ivan as honestly as possible.

    In an attempt to gather information, Ivan had spent the past two weeks practicing the mastery over his sword in the training ground, only stopping whenever one of the senior students would begin their training. He would then spectate, and try to gather as much information as he could.

    "Have you ever spoken to them?" Asked the middle-aged merchant with clear curiosity.

    Ivan nodded faintly, then responded by saying, "Multiple times. They were not too friendly, but I haven¡¯t felt any form of hostility towards me. Regarding their powers, I have asked in many ways, but the only responses I have ever obtained, was rted to the founder of the academy."

    After hearing these words, the middle aged merchant became pensive, and kept on mindlessly stroking his beard. He only stopped the moment a faint smile appeared on his face a few minutester. He then turned to look back at Ivan and his father, and said, "You two can go. Mister Mir will give you your next assignment before your return to the academy."

    Almost as if waiting for this, Ivan¡¯s father bowed politely, and left while dragging his son by the right arm, leaving the fat man called Mister Mir and the middle aged merchant to talk alone.

    "Sir, may I ask what you are thinking about?" Asked the fat man after a few ufortable seconds of silence.

    "They might be lying, or not be aware that something is acting to increase their power. We need to have a look at those kids. Have Ivan spread the rumor about the One Above All. Cato still has seats to upy. And don¡¯t forget to have him mention us, of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics when on topic." Responded the middle aged merchant with an uncertain tone.

    The fat man was shocked by what he had just heard.

    The One Above All was an event that had been organized by the universal government for the first time in history, and whose prize and purpose had yet to be revealed. The only things that were known about it, was that millions of the most known and talented students of the universal government¡¯s academies, would face each other in a series of events, from which the most powerful and talented prodigies woulde out victorious.

    What had been kept as a secret, was that the winners of this event would be the ones that, just a few years from now, would have to participate in thepetition between the universal government, and the invaders that came from the other side of the wormhole.

    For this event, numerous seats had been granted to each gxy, and as the core of its own gxy, the rich merchants of Cato had been able to obtain arge portion of it. Simrly, a few spots had been granted to the many factions and the military academies.

    "Sir, I don¡¯t think.. They are qualified topete." Responded the fat man with a genuine amount of doubt.

    "We need to get them out of the pocket dimension. If they really have an artifact that can boost their powers, they will need it in thepetition. That is our only shot." Said the leader of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics with a stern tone.

    "The other students will spread the same rumors we have heard, and before they conduct their research, ande to the same conclusion that we have, we need to get a hold of that artifact."

    After only a few days of freedom, the students were called back for the official beginning of their education, which consisted in simple jobs, who would not only allow them to gain resources, but also introduce them to the feeling of gratitude of other people. A feeling which they had seldom felt during their short and egotistic lives.

    During the following few days, Ivan made sure that the rumor of the ¡¯One Above All¡¯ would reach every student within the Hiel Academy, and when he was asked about how to join this event, he never failed to mention that the conglomerate of which he was part of, called Egregious Mercantile Ethics, was one of the few groups in Cato to still have the right to choose a few participants.

    The rumor spread like wildfire, and ultimately ended up reaching the ears of the current leaders of Daniel¡¯s group.

    -----

    ck Castle.

    "It would help us making ourselves known." Said Ligart, who along with Alis and his own wife, upied three of the many seats at the massive round table.

    "It is an event by invitation. No matter who we ask to go with, we will end up owing a lot to someone I don¡¯t want to be indebted with. We can gain exposure slowly." Responded Emelnie, who was upying her spot next to the old man Golden Cauldron, and his son, the Silver Alchemist.

    Ligart shook his head in disagreement, then said, "I would have agreed with you. But we are not gaining anything. We are barely managing to keep the marketce of thepany building and the academy afloat thanks to the resources thate from the others, but we are consuming more than we are obtaining."

    For the past few years, Ligart and Alis had been respectively in charge of the marketce and the business side of the golden karmapany, and nobody more than the two of them and Emelnie, knew of how bad the situation for their group had gotten.

    "I don¡¯t know if it is safe to expose our group. We are safe outside the territory of Iewah¡¯s faction, but who knows what ideas mighte to mind for the greedy merchants that rule this system." Said the Silver Alchemist who, unsure for what reason, was starting to feel that something was wrong. "We can add an entrance fee to the academy, and expand ourmerce in other Systems." He then added in an attempt to sway their opinion.

    "No matter where we go, we will always stumble into someone else¡¯s territory." Said Master Kye with a low tone.

    The conversation had been going on for at least an hour, and it seemed that the group would nevere to an agreement, until Ligart said, "Look.. I don¡¯t know what happened, but since our powers increase became permanent, I don¡¯t think anyone will be a match to the kids. If we manage to participate, we can gain much more than the entrance will cost us. I say we go and have a talk with this ¡¯Egregious Mercantile Ethics¡¯."

    "I agree with Lig. It is either that, or we give up on Hiel city, and send the students back home within a few weeks." Responded Alis after making the calctions about how long thepany could afford to carry the academy¡¯s consumption of resources.

    "A talk won¡¯t hurt." Said Master Kye.

    "What do you think, miss Emelnie?" said the Silver Alchemist, still unsure about the whole situation.

    Emelnie thought about their situation for a long minute, until finally, she interrupted her silence by saying, "It doesn¡¯t matter. Thispany isn¡¯t mine, and I have no right to make this decision. Let¡¯s put it to a vote." She then stood up from her seat, and added, "Those who are against exposing ourselves to participate in this event, raise your hand."

    From the group of roughly thirty people, around a dozen slowly raised their hands. Amongst them, were the Silver Alchemist, the old man Golden Cauldron, and Emelnie herself.

    "Very well.." She said before turning towards the other side of the table, where Nilo, Mea, Re, and thetter¡¯s uncle Thien were sitting, and said, "Nilo, can you take care of this?"

    Nilo immediately nodded, and said, "We only have two students whose families belong to the Egregious Mercantile Ethics. Their names are Ivan and Sigg. I will have a talk with themter, and report back to you by tomorrow morning.. But.. "

    "What is it?" Asked Emelnie with curiosity.

    Nilo sucked through his teeth, and appeared unsure of what he was thinking. He then said after a few seconds spent in silence, "I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s just a feeling.. I will let you all know about if it turns out to be something serious."

    As he finished speaking, he disappeared from where he was sitting without saying a word.

    -----

    Meanwhile, a few million kilometers away from Cato, a small group of cultivators were sitting inside a spatial sphere that was moving towards in the¡¯s direction at a mind boggling speed. By the speed to which they were approaching the, they were bound to reach it within a week.

    This group wasposed by Daniel and the rest of the group, and amongst them, Daniel was sitting with his legs crossed, and eyes closed. In his mind, was a small window on which he could see the countdown that indicated the moment of death of his friends and family, which indicated that without his help, most of his friends would have a little more than ten days left to live.

 Chapter 379 Left Without a Choice

    Egregious Mercantile Ethics headquarters, Mister Mir¡¯s office.

    "How would this event work, exactly?" Asked Emelnie, who along with the old man Golden Cauldron, his son Silver Alchemist, and Master Kye, were sitting on the other side of a wide desk. On the other side of this desk, Mister Mir was sitting on his oddlyrge chair with a dignified and proud expression.

    His behaviour towards the Emelnie and the others was not out of arrogance, but an act. After all, he was one of the most important people within the conglomerate, and by norm, he would not act politely towards anyone of their status. If status was not enough, the fact that he was a high immortal at the nieth phase was enough to give his behaviour credibility.

    Emelnie and the rest had expected this behaviour, so they paid no mind to it. They were here to obtain information, and nothing else.

    "We are unsure. This is a first in the territory of the universal government. We have only been granted enough time to prepare, and select our share of candidates. You lead a smallpany with an affiliated small scale academy, what makes you think your students are deserving of this honor?" responded Mister Mir with indifference.

    The Silver Alchemist seemed to be the first one to want to give an answer to this question, but he was interrupted by the old man Golden Cauldron, who said, "We don¡¯t. We simply believe our students have the same chance as any other."

    This was the first time the old man Golden Cauldron had ever spoken publicly. He was widely known as the only individual to have a grasp to the rewinding concept of time, and secretly, was kept under everyone¡¯s eyes.

    The words the old man Golden Cauldron had spoken were just what Mister Mir was hoping for, after all, he had been given the job to make it hard for them to obtain some slots for the event, but ultimately ept their request to participate.

    "The number of legendary cultivators who have begged for their children to be allowed to participate in this event, can¡¯t be contained in this room. How do you im that to be a valid reason?" Asked Master Mir confidently. What happened next, however, turned the fat man¡¯s state of mind from a calm and confident one, into one of pure anxiousness.

    The already nearly closed eyes of the old man Golden Cauldron narrowed even tighter, expanding the wrinkles on his face. He then stood up, and after a faint bow, he said, "Apologies, we aimed to high this time. Take no offence."

    Slightly confused, Master Kye, the Silver Alchemist, and Emelnie stood up, bowed politely, and followed the example of the old man. They then turned towards the entrance, and followed him out.

    Mister Mir appeared calm, but underneath his baggy clothes,rge drops of cold sweat were forming over his greasy skin as he quietly watched the group excuse themselves, and walk out of his office.

    A few steps down the corridor, Emelnie approached the old man Golden Cauldron, but right as she was about to say something, the old man beat her to it, and said, "Wait for it.."

    Almost as if on schedule, Mister Mir walked out of his office, and said, "Hold on a moment." He then walked in their direction, and with a slightly more polite tone than before, he said, "I like the initiative, and since your academy is taking care of a couple of our kids, I¡¯ll keep Hiel academy into consideration."

    "That is more than we could have hoped for, Mister Mir." Responded Emelnie before bowing one more time with politeness. After that, the four of them bid farewell, and left the headquarters of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics conglomerate.

    Mister Mir was currently observing from his office as the group walked away from the building, when suddenly, the leader of the conglomerate appeared next to him. "You have almost lost them." He said with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Almost is the key word here, Sir." Responded Miser Mir with a smile that could notpletely hide his worry. "How will we handle them?"

    The leader of the conglomerate let go of the matter, as in the end Mister Mir had done a decent job. He then said, "We will see in the first test if those students can be so powerful when in the absence of their teachers. If they are, find a way to separate them, and kill one of them to investigate his possessions."

    "It will be done." Responded Mister Mir as he turned to look back at the small figures of Emelnie and the others, who were now having their own conversation who started the very moment they stepped out of the conglomerate¡¯s headquarters.

    -----

    "For a moment I thought we had lost it." said the Silver Alchemist while breathing out in relief. He had had enough time to think about it, and now that they had a real chance to enter this contest, he was reasonably excited for his students to have the chance to shine.

    The rest of the group were, on the other hand, remained quiet.

    "Father, is there something wrong?" Asked the Silver Alchemist with confusion. He had seen his father in that state of mind many times before, and it would hardly ever mean that everything was going well, so he couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    The old man Golden Cauldron did not respond to his son, and instead turned to look at Emelnie, and said, "Have Nilo get closer to the two kids, and let us know whenever they mention something about the powers of the senior students, the founder of the academy, or anything that is secretive for us." His tone was extremely stern.

    Emelnie and the Silver Alchemist were confused by the words of the old man, but it became all clear after what Master Kye said next.

    "I will ask the other students if the two ever mentioned about something like that." Said Master Kye, clearly on the same page with what the old man Golden Cauldron was thinking.

    While the old man Golden Cauldron would have preferred not to participate in this event, the opinion of the group was against his, so he could do nothing but go along. However, after meeting with Mister Mir, it did not take long for him to be suspicious. They were truly too low profile for a massive conglomerate that owned multiple sr systems to even grant audience to them, so how was it possible that they were allowed to meet with such a high level individual like Mister Mir in a day¡¯s notice?

    The way Mister Mir acted had calmed down his suspicious by a little bit, as his behaviour was exactly what one would expect someone with such a high level of power to have. But in the back of his mind, he couldn¡¯t help but think that there was something wrong.

    When it felt like the fat merchant would refuse to even have a discussion about it, the old manid his bait. He stood up, and dismissed his own group apologetically, almost as if they were admitting of trying to bite more than they could chew.

    Had Mister Mir never walked out of the door to stop them, he would have set his suspicions aside, but now that someone of his caliber had personally tried to solve things, he had realized that something was really wrong. The same was true for Master Kye, who had remained quiet ever since the discussion had begun.

    "Father.. Are they-" began to ask the Silver Alchemist after finallying to a realization.

    He, however, was stopped by the words of the old man Golden Cauldron, who said, "When we get back home."

    -----

    Three days after Emelnie and the rest went to meet with Mister Mir, an envelope arrived at the headquarters of the Golden Karmapany in Hiel City. The letter was sealed with the stamp of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, and from the outside, it could be felt the presence of numerous solid items within.

    This envelope was currently onying on Emelnie¡¯s desk, which was surrounded by every leading member of Daniel¡¯s group, and Nilo.

    "Master, what do we do if this is what we think it is?" Asked Nilo to Master Kye, while looking at the envelope with suspicion.

    "We could make a run for it. Retreat into the pocket dimension, and evaquate into another system." Said the Silver Alchemist with a well hidden hint of worry. They had reached stability for the first time in years, and now, everything was threatened by the possibility of another crisis.

    "If they have people watching us, they will attack before we can have everyone move out of Hiel city. The barrier won¡¯t hold on againt people of Mister Mir¡¯s caliber. Especially if they wear time talismans that will stop the effects of the time formation." Responded Master Kye with a grim tone.

    This conversation had gone on for a few minutes, and only stopped the moment the old man Golden Cauldron grabbed the envelope, ripped the seal open, and emptied its content on the desk. In it were a letter, and seven participation tokens for the One Above Allpetition.

    On the letter was written:

    ____________________________

    Under the reandation of Ivan and Sigg, your students have been selected to participate in the ¡¯One Above All¡¯ as guests of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics. This envelope contains seven tokens, two of which are reserved for Sigg and Ivan, and five for the leaders of Hiel Academy to give out.

    The contest will begin four days from now, and all students invited by the Egregious Mercantile Ethics will be required to regroup in the conglomerate¡¯s headquarters before heading out to where the first round of thepetition will take ce.

    Kind regards, Leader of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, Gen Stein.

    ____________________________

    Most of the letter appeared to be pre-written, and only the named individuals, thepany¡¯s name, and number of tokens had been written by hand, showing that the letter was a standard one that had been sent to all of the invited groups.

    While the content of the letter was an extremely positive one, not one member of Daniel¡¯s group appeared pleased about it. In the past three days, all the events had lead them to believe that they were being targeted by one of Cato¡¯s biggest conglomerates, and for their request to be epted despite being at the bottom of the barrell of Cato¡¯s merchant groups, had only confirmed their suspicions.

    "Nilo, what did you learn?" Asked the old man Golden Cauldron to Nilo, who was looking at the tokens with an uneasy expression.

    "Master, Ivan has been sticking to the territories where most of us spend our time training. He has engaged in conversation with us more than once, and has often asked about us. However, his methods were always extremely careful and vague, so they wentpletely over my head." Responded Nilo with an apologetic tone, before bowing his head, and adding, "My apologies for not realizing sooner."

    The old man Golden Cauldron remained quiet for a few moments, then turned to look at his son, and asked, "What are the limitations of this event?"

    "Under fifty years of age, and to not have reached high humanity stage." Responded the Silver Alchemist immediately after.

    "Then we have no other choice. We have to participate, and do well enough for others to notice our academy. If the eyes of every group of the universe will be pointed at us, it will be harder for others to scheme against us." Said the old man Golden Cauldron.

    The rest of the people present remained quiet. They had gone through something simr before, and they had been separated from a few of their most precious friends and family members. Now, all they wanted to do was sneak away, but the more they thought about it, the more it sounded an impossible feat. In the end, none of them had been able to utter a word.

    "Nilo, you have a wife and a kid here. You don¡¯t need to go." Said the old man Golden Cauldron after thinking of Re, and her and Nilo¡¯s son Than.

    However, his words were met with a frown of Nilo¡¯s brows, and the words, "Master, I wish to go. I cannot let anybody do anything I would not do myself." His tone was grave, and his will appeared to be immovable.

    After a faint sigh, the old man Golden Cauldron muttered, "Very well. Take the tokens, and pick for others to go with you. But be careful.. There is no point in any of this if we lose any of you."

    "I will, master." muttered Nilo before grabbing the seven tokens, and walking out of the door.

 Chapter 380 It Starts Now

    Sitting on the numerous surfaces of Finn¡¯s room, were the many senior students of Daniel¡¯s academy. Amongst them were Nilo, Finn, Miri, Riri, Y, Cynna, Fyro, Zack, Mea, and Re. All of their expressions were stern, as they knew that this mission was of great importance, as well as presented a great danger to those who would take part in it.

    After Nilo¡¯s exnation, the room became quiet for what was just a minute, but felt like an hour.

    Re was looking at her husband, who she knew would participate in this mission, with the deepest form of worry. A worry that for a moment, lead her to take a step forward, and offer to join the others in this quest. However, before she had a chance to, she was stopped by Nilo, who looked at her with affection, and after shaking his head, said, "One of us needs to stay with Than. Plus, your brother would kill me if I let anything happen to you."

    These few words were enough for Re to remember hermitment as a mother, and step back into Y¡¯s friendly embrace, while in a saddened state.

    "I wille with you. You won¡¯t get rid of me that easily, Nilo." Said Finn after taking a step forward with confidence. The two had been close friends for many years now, in fact, almost half of their life. There was nobody whom Nilo would trust his life to more than Finn, to a point where knowing that he would be apanied by him, immediately made him feel more rxed.

    Immediately after Finn finished speaking, Miri took a step forward, and said, "Then I-I want toe too."

    "Don¡¯t be silly. You have yet to reach the sixth stage of immortality. Even with Daniel¡¯s permanent increase, you will only be able to match a cultivator at the perfect tenth stage of immortality. Any prodigy at that level would be able to harm you. It¡¯s too dangerous." Responded Finn with a tone that betrayed his protective feelings towards the younger of the two sisters, with whom he had been in a rtionship with in the past.

    "I will." Said Fyro, who was currently amongst the highest level cultivators within the senior students of Hiel academy, with a cultivation at the perfect eigth stage of immortal cultivation, and a battle prowess quadrupled by the permanent effects of Daniel¡¯s group system.

    "I¡¯lle too." Said Cynna while standing up from her seat, and walking towards the middle of the room.

    As soon as she spoke, Re, Mea and Y, with whom she had be very close, turned to look at her with worry. The one to talk was Mea, who tried to say, "Cynna, you have-" but was interrupted.

    "It doesn¡¯t matter. He isn¡¯t back yet. I will need all the hardships I can take if I want a chance to face him the next time I will see him." Said Cynna with a voice that appeared to be fearless, but that couldn¡¯tpletely cover the nostalgia she felt. In her mind, was the figure of a blonde warrior covered in scars, of which she could only see the back of.

    "We only have five spots." Said Nilo, unwilling to linger too much on the matter due to the urgency of the situation.

    Many amongst the senior students of the Hiel academy were ready to step forward, but the first one to do so, was Zack, who stood only a few centimiters shorter than Nilo, and said, "I am your fifth."

    "Zack. Your cultivation is not a problem.. But you.." Said Nilo before bing quiet once again, unable to finish the sentence he had started.

    Zack was not as talented as Cynna, as smart as Nilo, as Cunning as Finn, or even as experienced as Fyro. However, ever since he had been given a true chance of living by Daniel, he had devoted his entire life to cultivation. From the very first moment of the day, to the second before resting, he would cultivate, and practice the sword with diligence.

    In Daniel¡¯s academy, nobody could bepared to him in devotion to the cultivation path. A devotion that had allowed him to be one of the most powerful, altough unstable members of the senior students of the Hiel academy.

    What Nilo was worried about, was in fact, Zack¡¯s state of mind. His cultivation was more than enough to match up with that of the other four, but the trauma he had gone through had left him broken. He could hardly trust anyone, and simply being touched by a woman was worse for his psyche than receiving a deadly attack.

    "I am not asking for permission, Nilo. I would not have a life if not for Dan, so I will take the risk with mine, to protect one of yours." Said Zack, eradicating any chance for Nilo to refuse.

    Nilo was thinking of reasons why Zack shouldn¡¯t participate, but in the end, from his mouth came nothing but a sigh of resignation. "Alright. It is us five, then." He then said.

    "Indeed it is." Responded Finn with a proud tone tainted by an extremely thinyer of excitement. As a cultivator who pursued the highest path of cultivation, he couldn¡¯t hope for anything better than the biggest, and highest end event in the history of the universal government.

    "Go prepare yourself, the event starts in four days." Said Nilo, dismissing the senior students, and remaining alone with Re and their child Than, who was sleeping in the other room.

    -----

    Four dayster, Nilo, Finn, Cynna, Fyro, Zack, Sigg, and Ivan were teleported, along with the old man Golden Cauldron and his son, to the headquarters of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics. However, due to the density of cultivators that surrounded the building, their group was teleported a few hundred meters away from the building¡¯s entrance.

    All of these groups of people belonged to thepanies that were part of the conglomerate, and each group apanied the geniuses or prodigies that had been granted the honor to participate in the One Above Allpetition. While in the thousands, the participants present in this area were only the ones that had been invited by the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, and simr scenes were taking ce in numerous cities of Cato.

    From a single look, the old man Golden Cauldron, as well as his son and the seven students, had felt the power of the young cultivators to be extremely close to the final stages of immortality. Nevertheless, their powers were not as impressive as those of their families, which ranged within therge spectrum of phases of high immortality. Some of them were cultivators at the initial phases, while others were so powerful, that even Mister Mir could notpete.

    Luckily, power was not everything. None of these powerful cultivators would try anything against the major conglomerates, after all, many groups of immensely powerful mercenaries above the hundredth phase of high immortaliy, and that were under the conglomerate¡¯s payroll, were constantly patrolling the system, and would interveene whenever someone that wasn¡¯t part of the major conglomerate, would try to act against one of them.

    Nevertheless, that did not stop them from acting arrogantly.

    An example of this, was the way they had looked at the members of Daniel¡¯s group the moment they had arrived. Lead by two seniors who weren¡¯t even at the high immortality stage, that apanied a group of kids in their twenties and thirties to a challenge against the majority of the universal government¡¯s talents.

    A second reason why their group appeared odd to the other cultivators, was the fact that while the other small groups hade with numerous escorts and only one or two participants, that was not the case for their group, in which were seven participants, and only two escorts.

    "Are they here to spectate?" Asked a middle aged cultivator to his peers. All of them were the leaders of their ownpanies, who had decided to make small talk while the rest of the participants arrived.

    A woman who appeared in herte thirties, but that also emanated the power of a high immortal above the eightieth phase of high immortality, looked back at their group, and said, "They must be. None of those kids are at the perfect tenth stage of immortality. They can¡¯t be participants. They do not qualify."

    The old man Golden Cauldron and the rest of his group were not here to meet people, so they ignored the voices that were purposedly high enough to reach their ears, and minded their own business.

    "Ivan, Sigg, go find your families. They will probably want to say good luck to you." Said the Silver Alchemist to the two childhood friends, who immediately after, bowed politely at him and his father, and ran in the direction of their own family members, who had been waiting for them since before they had arrived.

    The moment Ivan and Sigg left, numerous barriers made out of sound and spatial essence formed around the remaining members of the group.

    Numerous powerful cultivators hidden within the crowd immediately sent their senses into the barriers that had been erected, but when their senses pierced through the thinyers of space and sound blockade, all they were about to hear, were the distorted sounds of slowed down voices, which resembled ament from the underworld more than an actual conversation.

    What they couldn¡¯t hear, were the words that the old man Golden Cauldron had reserved for the five students, which were, "Watch each other¡¯s back, and if you can, try to separate yourself from the members of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics."

    The barriers disappeared just in time for the students to nod, and say in unison, "Yes master."

    On an unperceptible level of sound essence, numerous messages were being exchaned between the hidden experts of the conglomerate.

    "Did you hear anything? I could only hear a slowed down voice. I couldn¡¯t understand anything." Asked a cultivator with a husky voice.

    A second, and more melodious voice responded to the first one by saying, "What I have heard was nothing but a screeching noise. It onlysted a moment, and after that, the barriers broke."

    "What a brilliant use of time essence.." Said a third and more hoarse voice, which clearly belonged to an old man.

    These three cultivators were only a few of those who had been put in charge of keeping an eye on the members of Hiel academy. Unfortunately, they had encountered an obstacle that they hadn¡¯t expected, and failed in their task. Before another chance could present itself, the ttime for the event to start, had finally arrived.

    At the gates of the conglomerate¡¯s headquarters appeared numerous powerful guards which surrounded two individuals. Mister Mir, and the leader of the conglomerate, Gen Stein. The two were weed by the rest of thepany leaders with a deep and polite bow, and the words, "We wee leader Stein."

    The only few who did not act ordingly were the members of Hiel academy, and a few others, who by being new to the conglomerate, were not aware of the appropriate customs.

    After the weing words, the area became dead silent. A silence that was broken by the leader of the conglomerate, that after slowly floating a few meters above ground in order to make himself visible to everybody else, said, "Today is an important day. The One Above All has the potential to be the greatestpetition that has ever been presented to the citizes of the universal government, as well as shape the heart and soul of the next generation of cultivators. The next judges, generals, and explorers might be amongst you young ones, and to you, I say good luck. Do your best, follow your hearts, ande back to your families with pride. We will be waiting."

    After he finished speaking, he slowly raised his right hand up to the sky. Caged in between his index finger and thumb, was a nail sized bead which shone with the power of a distant star. Unfortunately, its beauty was destroyed right after, as with little to no strain, he shattered it in between his fingers.

    The brilliance of the bead exploded into a wave of light that epassed every cultivator around, and left it¡¯s own shadow of light on the ground in the form of a teleporting tform.

    "Once again, good luck." Said Gen Stein right before the tform starte to shine, and every cultivator in possession of a participation token disappeared from the side of their family members.

 Chapter 381 The Hunt of Outer Island Part 1

    The scenery that surrounded the students changed, and soon after, they found themselves in what appeared to be the crater of an active volcano. Underneath their feet was a surfaceposed of multipleyers of rock and dust, and the smoke that came out of the small vents forced the thousands of young cultivators to have difficulties in even keeping their eyes open.

    Despite the odd situation, not a single one of these young cultivators entered into a state of panic. Instead, those who were adept in the use of wind essence, immediately formed massive gusts of wind that wiped out all of the smoke that came of the vents at a constant speed.

    Once again able to see, those who were adept with earth essence immediately formed a series of chimneys that prolonged the path of the smoke above the area on which they were standing, and preventing it from blinding their sight once again.

    As immortal cultivators, all of the participants were able to float, or even fly by simply letting go over the control of their immortal essence, and direct the stream in the opposite direction in which they were headed towards. However, this was apetition, and they didn¡¯t know if by taking off, they would be in less danger. They needed to assess the situation, and understand what the objective of the contest, as well as what the nature of their surroundings were.

    Now that they were able to see once again, the cultivators looked around, and immediately found out that they were standing on the top of a volcano ced exactly in the middle of a massive ind. Far away in the distance, many more inds could be seen ced in a crescent moon-like pattern.

    Another, yet more internal row of massive inds could be seen connecting the external ring of one to the inner one. Each ind of the inner ring was connected to two of the inds from the outer ring, which meant that the number of inds was half that of the outer ring, despite being muchrger.

    The paths that connected the inds of the two rings were extremely long bridges, and if the inds of the inner ring hadn¡¯t been so massive, it would have been unlikely that they would have been able to see where these bridges would lead to.

    What was interesting about these inds, was the fact that each of the ones visible in the distance, seemed to present a different type of environment. The one to their immediate right was a dense forest, in the middle of which a massive temple made out of carefully cut boulders had been erected, while to their left, was what looked like a patch of desert surrounded by the sea.

    Another detail that these cultivators noticed right away, was the fact that they were not the only one present in their ind. The number of participants was so massive that multiple groups of cultivators had been ced in the same ind.

    The number of cultivators that were standing on the volcano¡¯s crater was closer to twelve thousands, than the original four thousand participants that the Egregious Mercantile Ethics had originally sent in.

    Most of these groups had been instructed to stick to their own, and help each other in obtaining a better result in thepetition. That was the mentality of a group that, aware of the impossibility that the ¡¯ones above all¡¯ would end up being part of their conglomerate, had instead decided to make the students attempt to obtain as much visibility they could for their ownpanies.

    This lead for the conglomerate present to immediately split into three different groups of four thousand cultivators. Each lead by the most powerful and talented students that the conglomerated had found within their domains.

    From the way these cultivators behaved, it was obvious that each group possessed a specific hierarchy, and their first objective was to regroup with the members of their conglomerate, before finding a way to proceed through the contest. The leading figures were either the disciples or the family members of each of the three conglomerates ced in this ind, who also happened to be amongst the strongest individuals within the three small armies.

    Most of these talented and young cultivators had, at some point, had the chance to participate in a smaller, and yet simrpetition, and usually, the testing methods would always follow the same principles. Reduce the numbers, proceed through a specific path, move towards the middle.

    These three simple notions lead the cultivators to focus on the massive inds present in the inner part of this seemingly endless ocean, and the bridge that separated them from it.

    An unwritten rule that most cultivators that would participate in a contest of which they did not know much about would usually follow, was to not attack each other unless specifically requested by the test, and since there appeared to be no reason to attack one another, the three leading members of their respective groups formed a mental path towards the bridge between inds, and ordered the advancement of their own group.

    The first two groups departed immediately, while the participants of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics remained behind.

    The reason for this was simple. While most of the cultivators that had been invited by Cato¡¯s conglomerates were here with the purpose of gaining fame and visibility for their own groups, that was not the case for the Egregious Mercantile Ethics. The objective of the leading members of this particr group had been assigned with the task of separating the students of the Hiel Academy, and if the asion presented itself, to secretly kill one, while remaining on friendly terms with the others.

    Unfortunately, not even a minute after the beginning of thepetition, these students had already failed in their task, as there was no trace of any of the seven students of Hiel academy in the volcano¡¯s crater.

    -----

    On the border of the ind, just a few dozen kilometers away from the volcano, was a beach with clear white sand. The waves broke on the sand with a loud, and yet rxing noise, only to end up seeping into the wet sand, and leave the ce for another wave toe.

    This rxing and eternal ritual had been going on undisturbed for who knows how many years, and was only interrupted by the arrival of seven individuals. These seven individuals were, of course, Nilo, Finn, Cynna, Fyro, Zack, Ivan, and Sigg.

    From the very moment the group had been teleported, instead of trying to discern their position based on their sight, the former five of them had relied on their sensing abilities. It was then, that they had noticed that their ability to sense their surroundings had been limited to about fifty meters in the distance.

    After the five of them understood in what kind of situation they were in, there was no need for them to discuss before deciding to leave immediately. Their initial n was to learn more about the ce in which they were before separating themselves from the rest of the group, but since the ce was sorge, and their sensing abilities were limited to such a degree, there was a real possibility that, had they stayed, the rest of the group would have kept much more attention on them, making their escape almost impossible.

    Instead of risking, they had decided to grab Sigg and Ivan, and escape before the others would bother to check if they were still there.

    "Is everybody here?" Asked Nilo after helping Ivan up from the patch of sand he had fallen on after being roughly handled through dozens of kilometers in a matter of moments.

    "We are all here." Responded Finn after trying to brush the sand off of his boots.

    After making sure that nobody had followed them, Nilo turned to look at the massive bridge that lead to the inner ind, and said, "We might want to wait for the others to pass through before making our way there." He then turned to look at Fyro, who was the one with the deepestprehension of fire and earth essence of the seven of them, and said, "Fyro, make a base for us underground. At least fifty meters deep, and if you can- What are you looking at?"

    For the whole time in which Nilo gave the first assignment, Fyro had been staring at something high up in the sky.

    The rest of the group followed his line of sight, and when they looked up, they immediately noticed something that they had never seen before. Floating in the sky, with a dark color which was in deep contrast whenpared to the clear sky, was the number ten thousand.

    "That¡¯s new. What do you guys think that is?" Asked Finn with curiosity.

    Before anyone could make a guess, however, Zack¡¯s stern voice came from behind the group. "It¡¯s better if you take a look at that." He said.

    The way Zack had spoken was indicative that something was wrong, so it did not take long for the other members of the group to follow his suggestion, and turn around. When they looked at the direction of the beach, they quickly noticed dozens of heads emerge from the surface of the water.

    Each of these heads belonged to humanoid beings, but instead of possessing a smooth skin of the typical colors of humans, their skin was blue, and on their necks, right on their trapezius muscles, were dark colored gills. Their heads did not have hair, and in between the fingers of their hands and feet, could be seen a transparent and thin webbing.

    The robotic behaviour of these creatures immediately gave away that something was wrong with them. The power they were emanating was that of a cultivator at the peak of immortality, but from the way they moved and acted, their state seemed closer to that of puppets than normal cultivators.

    If either Aeron or Daniel had been here, they would have immediately noticed that these humanoids did not possess a mind, and instead, their bodies were shells that contained a numbed spirit that wasmanded by an intent left by whomever had ced them in this ind.

    This intent was, of course, to fight.

    The moment the first one of these warriors stepped out of the water, his head slowly moved in the direction of Nilo¡¯s group. A simple look was all it took for him to tighten his grip around the chain that was wrapped around his fist, and dash in their direction.

    "PREPARE TO FIGHT!" Shouted Nilo right before preparing to parry the attack.

    -----

    Not longer than a couple of minutes had passed since the nearly twelve thousand participants had found their bearings, and determined that their objective was to pass the bridge that lead further into the middle of this ocean.

    The travel was of only a few dozen kilometers, which for cultivators at the peak of immortality was just like taking a step, so it did not take for such arge group to migrate directly to the small area in front of their objective.

    What these cultivators noticed the very moment they arrived, however, was that the bridge was not an actual bridge, but in fact a tunnel, and that its entrance was blocked by a seemingly imprable barrier that prevented anyone from essing it.

    Right when the confusion these cultivators felt was at its peak, a few of them finally noticed therge number that was floating high up in the sky, and that only a few seconds ago, had been covered by the thick exhtions of the volcano.

    "Hey, look over there. There is a number floating in the sky!" Said one of the more observant cultivators within the groups, leading most of the others to look up as well.

    "Is that the number of cultivators in this ind?" Asked a young woman dressed in a tightly fitting green dress, to one of herpanions.

    The person to which this young woman had directed her question towards was a man in his early thirties, and d in a light dark leather armor that covered a portion of his light green clothes. He was considered the most talented individual within one of the two other conglomerates present in their ind, and due to that, he had been appointed as the leader of his own group. However, the reason why the young woman¡¯s first instinct was to ask him, was not due to his talent and power, but his known intelligence.

    "No. The conglomerates have been given four thousand tokens each. We should be all here. That number could be a timer, or may-" In this young man¡¯s mind many hypotheses had formed, but before he could even list them all, the number changed from ten thousand, to nine thousand nine hundred and ny-nine.

 Chapter 382 The Hunt of Outer Island Part 2

    On the other side of the ind, right when the floating number had decreased, the body of one of the unidentified beings had fallen at Nilo¡¯s feet. On its chest was a cavity formed by the impact of an incredibly powerful punch that broke the barrier of sound, as well as the sternum of the unfortunate attacker.

    The rest of blue-skinned cultivators that had emerged from the sea did not appear to be affected by the loss of one of their own, and instead, attacked as indifferently as the deceased one did just moments earlier.

    Four of these oceanic warriors leaped with their fastest speed towards Nilo, who was the closest to them. Their weapons were of the sort that made it easier to fight underwater, and included tridents, gauntlets with des at the tip of the fingernails, and vambraces with curved knives attached to the external part.

    Their speed was nothing less than that of a human cultivator at the same level, and allowed them to shorten the distance between themselves and their targets, in mere fractions of a moment.

    To aid Nilo, arrived Cynna, Zack, and Finn, who immediately unsheathed their weapons, and blocked the advancement of two of the four blue-skinned cultivators. Fyro and Zack, on the other hand, had stayed behind to protect Ivan and Sigg, who while talented, had yet to reach the level of cultivation of any of these foes, and even less their battle prowess, which to those who had already exchanged blows with them, felt superior than that of their human counterparts.

    While the group faced these twenty to thirty oceanic warriors, a simr scene was taking ce on the other side of the ind.

    Back at the tunnel¡¯s gate, a few of the cultivators who were not busy with discussing what the meaning of the decreasing floating number could mean, finally started to notice the blue heads emerge from the surface of the water.

    "Who are those?" Asked one of the cultivators at the peak of the ninth stage of cultivation to the participants who were standing next to him. The three groups were standing on a cliff about a kilometer away from the entrance of the bridge, and therefore, they hadn¡¯t been sighted by the mindless warriors yet.

    "They could be the participants of a newly discovered humanoid race that is now part of the universal government. Let¡¯s go and ask, maybe they know something we don¡¯t." Said another cultivator to the first one, before disappearing from his position, and reappearing only a few meters in front of the blue-skinned cultivators. He then took a step forward, and said, "Are you also participants? Do you kn-"

    Hispanion had only arrived in time to witness as the spear of the oceanic warrior had pierced the heart of the other cultivator, killing him before he could even finish asking his question.

    "ENEMIES!!" Shouted the cultivator right before a blue-skinned female warrior shed past him, and slit his throat with the three small des that stuck out of her battle vambrace.

    The rest of the participants immediately noticed that an enemy had arrived, and that their test had finally begun.

    The young man in leather armor and green clothes was the first one to react, and after turning towards the two leaders of the other groups, he said, "We don¡¯t know if more wille, but we can¡¯t lose the beach. If that is the only way to the next ind, we need to keep it free." He then pointed at a few of the most powerful and talented members of his group, and said, "Follow me."

    The leader of the second conglomerate was a forty years old woman with the semnce of a young woman in herte teens. Of all of Cato¡¯s participants she was, without a doubt, the person who had the highest talent in cultivation, which was reflected on the age at which she had finally broke into the stage of immortality.

    What shecked, unfortunately, were the qualities of a leader. Her first reaction was to jump into battle without bothering to give orders to the member of her own group, causing them to stare awkwardly at her actions and not move.

    Her actions were followed by the reluctant participants of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics who, unable toplete their primary objective, were now forced to continue through thepetition with the hope to encounter Nilo and the others one more time.

    Something that any of the participants had yet to notice, was the fact that simr numbers of oceanic warriors were emerging all around the ind, and those who hadn¡¯t been distracted from their path, were steadily walking towards the core of the volcano.

    Back on the small patch of sand where Nilo and the others hadnded, more than twenty corpsesy on the ground, dragged back and forth on the sand by the rough motion of the waves.

    "The number decreased. I think that the test consists in killing ten thousand of these puppets." Said Finn who, while protecting Sigg and Ivan, had kept an eye on the number that was floating above the volcano.

    If what Finn said was true, then the test could not be considered that hard. After all, more than ten thousand cultivators had been teleported into this ind, and even though the number of their targets could more or less match their numbers, the speed at which these oceanic warriors were emerging from the water, was extremely manageable for those three massive groups.

    While the rest of the group were making their own assumption based on Finn¡¯s idea, Nilo was thinking about something else. From their position they had noticed many more of these warriors emerge further down both sides of the beach, but instead of joining in, had ignored them, and kept walking towards the core of the ind.

    "It can¡¯t be that easy. There has to be a condition." muttered Nilo while looking back in the direction of the volcano. The target of the blue-skinned warriors, their starting point, the condition for the failure, all of these details slowly became puzzle pieces that, soon after, stuck together and turned into an idea. "We have to go back to the crater. Right now!" He said before disappearing.

    The rest of the group followed right after, and when they reappeared around fifty meters from the crater, they finally noticed them. A row of heavily armored archers that stood on the borders of the volcano¡¯s crater, and right in the middle of it, a man with regal clothes, and a crown on his head.

    The archers immediately took notice of Nilo¡¯s group, but contrary to the oceanic warriors, they did not seem to care for their presence. Instead, their attention was directed at the woods that surrounded the volcano, from which they seemed to expect their mortal enemy to appear at any given moment.

    Nilo had a theory. What if killing ten thousand of these blue-skinned cultivators was not the only requirement? What if the number indicated how many of them needed to die while they did something different? Something like surviving an assault, or even protect something, or somebody.

    This idea was supported by the simple fact that not every oceanic warrior would bother to fight against them, unless they entered a certain area around them, meaning that their first priority had to be somethingpletely different.

    These archers were ced in a protective circle around the edge of the crater, and from the power they emanated, one could feel that each of them was stronger than any of the humans or blue-skinned cultivators present on the ind. However, just like the humanoid race that hade from the sea, theycked any form of thought process, and weremanded by a will that, instead of ordering them to attack anyone that appeared within a specific area around them, simply ordered them to protect the king from the invading force.

    What forced Nilo¡¯s group to take a sharp breathe in, was the fact that there were only a hundred archers, while ording to the floating number, the test would send more than ten thousand oceanic warriors to kill the king that these archers were tasked with protecting.

    The test had put them in the difficult position of defending a weak party from a massive assault.

    While worried, none of them let himself fall into panic. From the speed these cultivators were walking, it would take them five hours to reach the middle of the crater, and that meant that they would have enough time to share this discovery with the rest of the cultivators and organize a n.

    Unfortunately, this theory was quickly proven wrong by one of the archers, who nocked an arrow, drew it to the anchor point next to the corner of his eye, and released the string. The arrow was extremely quiet, and traveled past what Nilo and the others could sense,nding directly into a patch of the woods that surrounded the base of the volcano.

    Before the arrow couldnd, however, the group turned to look up at the number in the sky, that had decreased by around fifty more, and noticed that immediately after the arrow disappeared, the number decreased once again.

    "It hit." Said Finn before approaching the archer that had just shot the arrow, and looked at the patch of wood in which the arrow had disappeared. What he saw next made a cold shiver run down his back.

    While the oceanic warriors had not reacted to the death of theirpanions when Nilo and the rest had killed them, that was not the case for the Royal archers. When one of the blue-skinned warriors was killed by one of them, every oceanic warrior that was within a radius of fifty meters from the hit one, became enraged, and dashed towards the volcano with a much faster speed, giving only a few seconds of time from the shot arrow, to the arrival of their group.

    Unable to even discuss with each other, Nilo and the rest of the group approached the area from which the oceanic warriors wereing from, and prepared themselves for battle.

    Originally Nilo had thought that this test would give them enough time to organize, and everything would have worked out if the thousands of participants had waited enough for the royal archers and king to appear, but they had acted too rashly, and abandoned the very ce they needed to protect.

    To make things worse, while the royal archers were extremely powerful and would be able to kill a foe with a single arrow, they were ced there not only to defend the king, but to taunt the oceanic warriors, and push the participants into a more difficult, and even desperate defensive attempt.

    Nilo and the others observed with worry as a path was formed out of demolished trees, they were hoping that the more than ten thousand participants would notice that something was wrong. After all, they were only seven.

    What they did not know, was that the three groups had now formed a perimeter around the tunnel¡¯s entrance, and were guarding it from the iing oceanic warriors that, due to the size of the area that the participants were upying, were killed at a rapid rate that masked the kills performed by Nilo¡¯s group, and the royal archers.

    Ivan and Sigg had been sent into the One Above All just to deter the suspicion of the leading figures of the Hiel Academy and Golden Karmapany, after all, anyone would have found it odd if one of the most greedy conglomerates decided to simply give up five tokens for a group that wasn¡¯t even one of theirpanies. That made Ivan and Sigg the two sacrifices who, unaware of the conglomerate¡¯s real ns, had been sent into apetition that, as cultivators at the middle andte stages of immortality, was way above their reach.

    However, that did not mean that Nilo and the others would leave them to die.

    "You two, stay behind us, and warn us if any other archer moves!" Ordered Nilo before putting his reinforced gloves back on, and turning to look at the bottom of the volcano with a serious and focused expression. Yet, just as the iing enemies appeared in their line of sight, from the corner of his eye, Nilo noticed that one more Royal archer had reached for one of the arrows in his quiver.

 Chapter 383 The Hunt of Outer Island Part 3

    Cato, Two hourster.

    Two hours had passed since the beginning of the contest, and yet, the streets that surrounded the headquarters of Cato¡¯s conglomerates, were still full of cultivators. All of them were spectating thepetition thanks to a few floating arrays that had been installed in the skies of Cato¡¯s main cities. These arrays would produce three-dimensional illusions, which the observing cultivators could use to follow the movements of the participants.

    Only four of these arrays had been left in Cato, and each of them depicted a single one of the four inds in which Cato¡¯s participants werepeting on.

    In between the territories of the three conglomerates whose participants had been ced in the same ind as Nilo, Finn, and the others, was an illusion which, along with depicting every event that was taking ce in the volcanic ind, gave an outsider perspective of the entire test.

    While in three of the four illusions the observers were watching their students and children struggle to pass their test, the observers of the volcanic ind were too ashamed to even speak.

    In the two long hours since the beginning of the test, the only reason why none of these twelve thousand cultivators had failed, was thanks to the strenuous efforts of five cultivators. However, as cultivators themselves, they knew that, at some point, Nilo and the others would run out of immortal essence, and would be overwhelmed by the oceanic warriors.

    That was unless the other participants figured out the real objective of the test, which was not as simple as staying next to the tunnel¡¯s gate, and kill a few hundred oceanic warriors as they emerged from the sea.

    The participants of the other inds were going through simr tests, but with different kinds of enemies. Luckily, they had been able to assess their situation earlier, thanks to theck of limitations to their sight, and hadn¡¯t had any problem with figuring out the objective of the test.

    "Just go back to the volcano!! YOU DAMN IDIOTS!" Shouted one of the observers with exasperation. He was forced to watch as, for two long hours, twelve thousand cultivators were carried through the first test by a small group of unknown warriors. The state of how things were now was not only disappointing to them, but in embarrassing.

    Finally able to take his hand off of his face from the shame, another one of the observing cultivators said with disappointment, "These idiots will end up getting killed by the first cultivator that offers some damn candies to them.."

    "It is better that they fail like this ande back home alive, than die like them." Said an olddy to the two enraged cultivators. However, when she directed her sensing ability towards the volcano¡¯s crater, she immediately noticed that not only were Nilo and the others still alive, but that they were not showing any sign of exhaustion.

    Floating right above the crater, not at all surprised about how things were going, were the old man Golden Cauldron, and his son, the Silver Alchemist.

    An additional two and a half hours passed, and during each second, Nilo and the others kept fighting wave after wave of oceanic warriors without letting any of them through.

    Only minutes after the first arrow had been shot, Fyro had noticed that these royal archers would voluntarily attract a group of oceanic warriors at regr intervals. Knowing this, the group had created a rotation which consisted in splitting the group into two teams of two, that took care of two different waves at the same time, while being supported by Fyro¡¯s ranged attacks. Each couple had a limited amount of time to finish their wave before having to move on to the next one.

    Ivan and Sigg, unable to contribute to the killing effort, had tried multiple times to stop the archers from speeding up the arrival of these already marching warriors, but s, these archers were protected by powerful barriers that would prevent them from approaching further than arm¡¯s reach from their armored bodies.

    The attention of each of the observing cultivators had slowly shifted from the disappointing crowd that had been waiting in front of the cage for almost five hours, to either Nilo and the other four, or at the father and son couple that had been floating above the ind from the very beginning of thepetition.

    When the fourth and a half hour mark passed, Nilo and the others were starting to feel anxious. Only small groups of enemies were attracted by the royal archers, but the five hours mark, was the moment in which the undisturbed oceanic warriors wouldplete their march towards the volcano. If nothing changed, they would be overwhelmed.

    The seemingly grim luck of the five of them appeared to change at that moment, when on the other side of the ind, the green-clothed cultivator turned to look at the number ced high up in the sky, which was now at six thousand, and was going down at a steady pace.

    By keeping their perimeter, they had had the chance to kill their fair share of warriors, yet, from a single nce, one would notice that there weren¡¯t four thousand corpses on the sand that surrounded their perimeter. At best, there were five hundred.

    The green-clothed cultivator did not fail to notice this, and suddenly said, "RETREAT DEEPER INTO THE PERIMETER, AND STOP ATTACKING!"

    "What are you on about?" Asked the teenage-looking woman that lead the second conglomerate of Cato, with deep confusion.

    "Just do it, I only need a few seconds." Responded the green-clothed cultivator with a tone that betrayed his confident attitude, and revealed a fair amount of urgency.

    "What makes you think that you can order my people around?!" Asked a lean man in dark red and ck clothes with anger. He was the leading figure of the participants of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, as well as the grandson of its leader, Gen Stein.

    The green clothed cultivator did not waste any time arguing, and instead said, "The number is decreasing too quickly. We haven¡¯t killed that many of them. We might not even be supposed to kill these warriors!"

    "Fine.." Said the young cultivator in dark red robes before turning to look at his group, and shouting, "Do as he said!"

    After the young woman did the same, the three of them turned to look at the number in the sky, and noticed that it was decreasing at almost the same speed as it was before, which meant that, of the thousands of warriors that had been killed, their contribution was much smaller than they had thought.

    "Oh no.." muttered the green robed cultivator aftering to a conclusion.

    "What is it?" Asked the teenage-looking woman.

    "How many people are missing from your groups?!" He asked with clear urgency.

    The young woman did not think twice about it, and instead turned towards her group, and after a few seconds, said, "Aside from a few that have died, it doesn¡¯t look like anyone is missing."

    Simrly, the green clothed cultivator turned to look at his group, and made a quick head count through the use of his limited, yet sharp sensing ability. He soon found out that aside from the few that had died against the oceanic warriors, no one else was missing from his group either.

    "What about you?" Asked the green-clothed cultivator to the cultivator in dark red clothes.

    "We are all here. Just.. a group of seven people disappeared soon after we were teleported." Responded the young cultivator in dark red clothes.

    "It can¡¯t be them. Look at how fast the number is going down, there has to be a reason why these warriors are heading towards the volcano." Said the green robed cultivator before turning pensive. After a few long seconds, he raised his head, and said, "They might not be our targed. What if there is something we have to kill in the volcano, and we only have ten thousand warriors to aid us?"

    "That is ridiculous. Why teleport us in the volcano then? Why not directly to the beach?" responded the cultivator in dark red clothes.

    What the dark red-clothed cultuvator had said made sense. Why ce them here if they had to support these warriors?

    "You are right. We-Oh shit.." Said the green-clothed cultivator as his eyes opened wide in realization. "THERE IS SOMETHING WE HAVE TO PROTECT! GO BACK TO THE VOLCANO! NOW!!" he then ordered as loudly as he could before disappearing along with the young looking woman, and the cultivator in dark red clothes.

    When the three of them reappeared next to the volcano, their jaws dropped from the shock. In front of them were a hundred royal archers that surrounded what appeared a lone crowned individual, but what was truly shocking about this sight, was the amount of corpses littered on the space between the line of archers, and the king they seemed to be trying to protect.

    In the same area five figures shed by at an amazing speed, and whenever one of them would approach one of the oceanic warriors, thetter would fall on the ground and join the others as a harmless corpse.

    Surrounding the volcano, was a wave of oceanic warriors who mindlessly marched towards, and climbed up its ridge. Their numbers were muchrger what the floating figure showed, and it amounted to at least tens of thousands.

    "GET DOWN AND HELP THEM!!" Ordered he green-clothed cultivator soon after, causing thousands of participants tond on the crater, and join the defensive effort of Nilo and the others.

    The young woman immediately followed the example of the green-clothed cultivator, and gave the order to her group tond on the crater and give their support to the archers, while on the other hand, the young man in dark red clothes was looking at Nilo and the others with worry. The five of them were now in the spotlight, which meant that carrying out their primary objective was out of the question.

    Their only hope was toplete this test, and hope that the next one would give them a better chance.

    With all of the cultivators where they were supposed to be, the strain on Nilo and the others was greatly decreased, despite the muchrger number of iing enemies.

    For the following hour, guided by the tactics of the green-clothed cultivator, the many participants were able to handle the constant wave of oceanics warriors who, as soon as the floating figure in the sky reached the zero, stopped advancing, and retreated back into the sea.

    Immediaetly after, the limitation to the sensing ability of the participants was released just in time for them to sense the explosion of power that came from the tunnel¡¯s direction. This explosion had been caused by the removal of the gates, and while it left no damage to thendscape, its impressive power was indicative of the fact that, had any participant stayed next to it when the counter would reach zero, they would have likely not survived it.

    As soon as the gate was destroyed, the twelve thousands of cultivators teleported right next to the entrance of the tunnel, but before they could go through it, they noticed a list of ten names and numbers which was not present before.

    It did not take long for the many participants to realize what this list meant. It was a list of the top ten performing participants in the test.

    What was unsightly about this list, however, was the fact that the first five individuals outssed the others by manyfold.

    ____________________________

    Fyro Tigg - 1008

    Cynna Lon - 976

    Zack Rei - 972

    Finn - 954

    Nilo Grea - 922

    Dahlia Icefire - 41

    Ga Stein - 34

    Lorwin Fenice - 31

    Non Seahawk - 23

    Meek Toel - 19

    ____________________________

    Lorwin, Ga and Dahlia were the respective leaders of the three groups that had been teleported in this ind, and while everyone expected them to be at the top of anypetition they were part of, their performance was, while more impressive than that of most others, quitecking whenpared to the top five.

    However, a test was a test, and as long as they managed to pass it, they had no problem with not being at the top. So, instead of bothering with their position, they headed towards the entrance of the tunnel.

    Ga, the leader of the group which belonged to the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, was the first one to enter the tunnel, and as soon as he did, a barrier formed behind, and in front of him, trapping him at the entrance.

    Before he could even begin to panic, however, a transparent box of spatial essence slowly formed right next to him. Oncepleted, inside it, one essence gem after the other began to appear from out of nowhere. When they stopped, this box contained exactly three hundred and forty essence gems.

    Unable to even breathe-in from the surprise, the thousands of participants collectively turned to look at Nilo¡¯s group horror, before swallowing a mouthful of saliva.

 Chapter 384 The Tension Increases

    Forpanies that were as active in the universal government¡¯s market as the ones that formed the conglomerates, a hundred, a thousand, or even ten thousand essence gems were not of much value. However, that was not necessarily true for the cultivators in it. After all, most of the funds of apany were kept for business purposes, and each conglomerate had to nurture millions, if not tens of millions of cultivators at the same time.

    What had shocked Ga and the others, was not the amount of essence gems they had received, but the amount that each of the top five cultivators would receive. Such an amount could bepared to what high-endpanies made in a year, and was generally much more than a single cultivator would consume in their life.

    Naturally, the looks of greed and envy did not stay for long on the faces of these thousands of cultivator, who instead of following Ga into the tunnel, waited for Nilo and the others to walk in.

    During the time spent in Cato, and in close contact with the members many merchant families, Daniel¡¯s group hade to learn about essence gems. They were the only form of cultivation resource that would work for cultivators at the stage of high immortality, along with being used as a high-end currency. This knowledge allowed them to recognize these objects the very moment they had appeared in the spatial box which contained Ga¡¯s reward.

    Contrary to the reaction of everybody else, Nilo and the others were not happy about what they had seen. After all, these rewards were awarded in front of everybody else, and if the contest did not allow them to deposit them, that would mean that, for the following tests, they would be the target of twelve thousand cultivators.

    Slightly annoyed by the attention they were receiving, Ga gathered his reward, and walked past the second barrier, which immediately turned into a solid wall of space behind his back.

    Aware that nobody else would take a step through the first barrier before them, Cynna snorted with disappointment before walking towards the tunnel¡¯s entrance. Once in between barriers, a muchrger spatial box began to form. Onceplete, just like had happened with Ga, one essence gem started to form after the other. This time, only stopping when the number of gems was exactly ny thousand seven hundred and sixty.

    Following her, were Nilo who received nine thousand two hundred and twenty, Zack who received nine thousand seven hundred and twenty, Finn who received nine thousand five hundred and forty, and Fyro, who received ten thousand and eighty gems.

    Whenpared to them, the rewards received by the rest of the cultivators were quite scarce.

    Due to the limited number of oceanic warriors, the number of cultivators who had been able to perform a kill during the previous test was drastically smaller than that of any other ind, so when any of those cultivators passed the first barrier, instead of being allowed through without a reward, they would directly be teleported out of the One Above All, meaning that they had failed the test altogether.

    Unknowingly, the feat of Nilo¡¯s group had reduced the numbers of their ind¡¯s participants to a tenth of what it was originally, turning the spectacle of Volcanic Ind into one of the most shocking results in the One Above All so far.

    Of the twelve thousand cultivators that had started in the Volcanic Ind, barely more than a tenth had remained, who along with their different ranges of rewards safely ced in their spatial containers, marched through the extremely long tunnel that lead to the inner ind.

    From what the participants could see from afar, the inner ind was more than double the size of Volcanic Ind, and connected to it through bridges, was not only their ind, but also the one to their right, which likely meant that their next test would include the participants of the temple ind. Simrly, the other inner inds were connected by two outer ind each.

    After an oddly quiet walk through the tunnel, the group of around twelve hundred participants found itself in front of a gate simr to the one that had blocked their path before. As they approached it, they noticed that on its surface was a circle formed by six hundred and sixty-six small bulbs of light.

    This circle of shining bulbs was, however, notplete. Two of the bulbs appeared tock the shine that the others had. One of which lit up the very moment the tail of their group reached the open area in front of the gate.

    "This seems to be a waiting room." Said Lorwin, the green-clothed cultivator in dark brown leather armor that had managed to realize what the objective of their first test was, before it was toote. He then added, "Six hundred and sixty-six ind, twelve thousand cultivators each. Eight million participants.. Impressive."

    "Since we have to wait, we might as well rest for a bit." Said Dahlia before taking one of her essence gems, and a white velvet glove out of her spatial ring. On the palm side of the glove, was what looked like a hollow part that was just the right size to fit the gem.

    After wearing the glove, she stuck the gem into the hollow part of the glove, and sat in meditation with her eyes closed.

    "Since when do you carry an essence extractor?" Asked Lorwin with curiosity.

    An essence extractor was, just as the name implied, an item that was of great use to the merchant groups. Its objective was to test the purity of the gem, as well as verify whether the gem was real, or a construct of pure essence produced by a cultivator with perfectprehension.

    The way this object worked, was not exactly by extracting the essence from the gem, but actually by gathering the imperceptible emanations that the gem would lose in the air, and automatically redirecting them into the body of the cultivator. The amount of power gathered by this equipment was too scarse to culivate, but was enough to allow a cultivator to quickly restore the lost immortal essence.

    Another use of this object was its military one. The portion of the army that would support the infantry with ranged elemental attacks would usually have multiple of these extractors installed in their armor, allowing them to increase their rate of recovery of immortal essence.

    This type of technology was extremely widespread, and through time, had developed in other ways that could fit the cultivation lifestyle of the majority of the universal government.

    One of the most notorious examples of this, was the staff of the explorer who had participated in the Xeno Protocol mission a few years earlier. A prototype weapon on which multiple perfect essence spheres had been mounted, and that allowed him to increase the power, and speed of his elemental attacks by manyfold.

    The mostmon use of this technology, however, remained the essence extractor.

    "I have prepared for this. Maybe you should have too." Responded Dahlia with arrogance, before adding, "Now shut up. Stop distracting me."

    Lorwin stopped bothering with Dahlia, and instead turned towards hispanions, who now counted in the hundreds. He wasn¡¯t particrly worried about losing so many of his group, as much as he was about going back. After all, his quality had always been his quick wit and intelligence, but his performance in thest test had been less than satisfactory.

    "Are you guys not going to recover?" he then asked to Nilo and the others, who contrary to the rest of the cultivators, stood around casually.

    "We are fine." responded Finn with a polite smile. Next to him, were Sigg and Ivan, who by miracle, had been able to finish one of the already injured oceanic warriors, and therefore, were barely able to pass.

    "I can see that." Responded Lorwin while narrowing his eyes with suspicion. He then asked, "How the hell is it possible?"

    The moment he asked this question, the attention of each of the twelve hundred cultivators present, included Dahlia and Ga, was suddenly moved on them.

    The same situation was taking ce in Cato, where the three leading groups of the three conglomerates had begun to focus more on the old man Golden Cauldron and Silver Alchemist, than the contest itself. One amongst them, appeared to be particrly annoyed.

    All of the conglomerates were aware of the connection between Daniel and the golden karmapany, but ording to the rumors, the students of Hiel academy could only pass as particrly talented prodigies. It was only after seeing their performance in the first test, that they had reached the same conclusion the leader of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics hade to.

    A new items which belonged to one of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones had appeared. One that could turn cultivators into never seen before prodigies with seemingly unlimited immortal essence.

    The three leaders of the conglomerate looked at each other with understanding. While the Egregious Mercantile Ethics had lost its opportunity to obtain this object before anybody else could learn about it, not everything was lost.

    As of now, only three conglomerates knew about it, and with a single look, they were able to agree to keep the matter quiet before they were able to put their hands on whatever it was that Daniel had left them.

    "Those damn kids. If it was not for them, our group would not be so small. With their numbers like this, they will all be eliminated in the next test!" Said one of the two leaders with disappointment, and anger.

    When it appeared that the third leader was about to support him, however, the calm voice of the old man Golden Cauldron interrupted their teatrics by saying, "If not for our students, nobody would have a chance to be eliminated in the next test. It is not their fault the other participants werete to understand the purpose of the test. They can only me themselves."

    The observers were taken aback. All of them knew that if three different conglomerate leaders would, for some absurd reason, decide to coborate, it would be to get rid of someone. So while they were unaware of the exact reason why they would do such a thing, they still knew that what they were saying did not need to make sense, but just to be said by them.

    However, there was no doubt that what the old man Golden Cauldron had said, was the truth.

    The man with light blue and red clothes, who was the one who had spoken before, as well as Dehl¡¯s grandfather, was about to respond to his words, but before he could, the old man Golden Cauldron said, "If you are not convinced of that, I am sure that we can find someone within the universal government to whom we can ask an opinion."

    Unable to retort to the old man¡¯s words, the three conglomerate leaders turned to look back at the illusion. Thousands of culivators were observing each and every one of their actions, and while all of them worked for their three conglomerates, there was no way for them to be sure that none of them would ever say a word about an unjust killing.

    Naturally, they could have simply killed the two and apologizedter, but while they did not need a good reason to do so, they needed a reason nheless.

    "I would dly tell you, but then again.." Responded Nilo before turning to look at the circle of lights of which thest light had yet to turn on. He then added with a hint of embarrassment, "I was hoping to get saved by the bell, but.."

    Finn could barely hide the smile that had formed on his lips, when out of the blue, he burst outughing hysterically. When the attention of those who surrounded him turned in his direction, he keptughing while pointing his finger at the circle of lights, where thest light, had actually turned on.

 Chapter 385 Fear Greed and Death

    As soon as the gate opened, a mechanical sound began to resound from within its interiors. The participants instinctively remembered about the explosion of the gates that had blocked the entrance of the tunnel, and took a few steps back, but their worries were put at ease the moment the mechanic sound ended with a loud click, and the two massive doors parted from one another.

    The world that stood on the other side of the ind, was that of an extremely dense jungle. The trees were not particrly big, but their roots prevented any natural path to form, with exception made for an artificial dark path that led deeper into the jungle.

    Just before the beginning of the path, was a wooden sign nted on the ground. On it, were the words "The prospect of fear, greed, and death may be confused with caution, aspiration, and survival. What tips the scale, are circumstances. Chose well."

    The content of this sign was the first hint towards the next test.

    Not sure what the meaning of these words was, the group had no choice but to walk down the path as carefully as they could.

    The thick jungle they were in was not unlike any other they had seen during the years, with exception made for the density of its trees. With trunks as thick as carriage wheels, and crowns big enough to bloat the sun with their arm sized green leaves, exploring this jungle was a logistical nightmare. The space in between trees was barely wide enough for a man to move through, and the density of the jungle was so incredibly high, that on the other side, only more trees could be seen.

    After about thirty minutes of walking, the participants found themselves in an open space within the jungle. The area of this space reached around a thousand square meters, and inside it was nothing but a beautiful long-stem flower, with petals colored with different shades of yellow, orange, and red.

    The smell of this flower was oddly appealing, and the tightly packed trees seemed to have created a natural dome for its perfume to saturate the semi-closed environment.

    "That is a Star-Fed flower!" Eximed one of the participants with shock. Thepany of his family was part of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, and specialized in alchemy, which had led to his deeper understanding of rare, and expensive herbs.

    The Star-Fed flower was an extremely rare and useful nt which was used for the production of a pill called "Insight of Adiral". This pill was extremely useful for every cultivator who was preparing himself for ascending to high immortality, as it allowed the cultivator who consumed it, to enter a state of full concentration. This state was known to increase the chances of obtaining a better version of the gift that one would receive during their ascension to high immortality.

    The characteristics that dictated the possibility of a gift to appear were present in every individual, yet in different intensity. The level in which that characteristic was defined within a cultivator, would allow him or her to gain a more powerful version of their gifts.

    An example of this, was the will to protect and serve. This quality was crucial to allow an individual to have a chance of obtaining the soldier¡¯s gift. However, when found with more intensity, this quality could allow one to be a general, or more.

    The Insight of Adiral would help a cultivator in repressing the other qualities, and focusing one¡¯s entire cognitive ability towards the ones in which he excelled in. The main ingredient of this pill, was the Star-Fed flower, and thanks to its unique use, its value had only exploded upwards through the years. Currently, the price for a thousand years old Sun-Fed Flower was close to five thousand essence gems. An outrageous price justified by its single use, that could potentially change the entire scope of the cultivator¡¯s strength.

    "Look at the dark red color at the base of the petals! It must have at least ten thousand years!" Said the young alchemist to Ga, who waspletely oblivious on the matter regarding alchemical nts or herbs. What he understood, however, was a tone which implied "money".

    "Go pick it up." Said Ga to the young alchemist, who followed the order while beaming with joy.

    "Hold on.. Are you sure this is a good idea?" asked Lorwin. For some reason, he could not take the words fear, greed, death, caution, aspiration, and survival out of his mind.

    Used topete for resources with others, the first idea that came to Ga¡¯s mind, was that the others would try to im the flower for themselves. That was unless his group picked it before the others could even recognize it. "We saw it first, so we will be keeping it. You can fight with her for the next item we find." He said while turning to look at Dehl.

    "Why is the flower called Star-Fed Flower?" Asked Nilo loudly with curiosity.

    "Are you stupid? Because it¡¯s fed by starlight, of course." Responded the young alchemist with arrogance, while keeping on walking towards the flower.

    "What light?" Said Nilo while looking up, where a thick dome of leaves prevented any light from passing through. The area was so dark, that if not for their extremely acute sense of sight, they would be walking inplete darkness.

    This question was enough for the young alchemist to stop his motion, and turn to look back at Ga with doubt.

    "What? They probably nted it here for the test. It¡¯s unlikely that it was grown here." Said Ga, managing to convince the young alchemist to smile with embarrassment, and proceed.

    The group of cultivators looked attentively as the young man approached the flower, and with experienced hands, remove the whole body from the fertile soil. He then turned to look back at Ga, and said, "You were right. Nothing wrong." with a wide smile.

    "See? Not a problem. We will be taking this one." Said Ga while showing a satisfied smile. However, when he turned to look at the young alchemist, he noticed that he had stopped walking in his direction. "What is it?" he asked.

    "No problem." Responded the young cultivator while keeping his head down, and resuming his march. After a few seconds, the young alchemist had reached Ga, who moved his hand outwards, expecting him to hand over the flower.

    Even outside of the One Above All, Ga¡¯s grandfather was overjoyed about their discovery. A ten thousand years old Star-Fed Flower could be used to create hundreds of pills, and its value was exponentially higher than its younger counterpart.

    However, while he and his offspring were keeping their minds busy counting money, instead of cing the flower on Ga¡¯s hand, the young alchemist ced his own hand on it. He then gripped it tightly, and said, "This is a great flower. Is it not? It¡¯s the best flower." His eyes were bloodshot, and the veins of his wrists seemed ready to pop at any moment.

    Ga was taken aback by the scene, and tried to take a step back and pull his hand away, but before he could even ce his right foot down, the confusion disappeared from his face, and in its ce appeared an oddly wide smile. "This is the best flower. Take a look at it." he said before walking towards his otherpanions.

    Lorwin immediately noticed that the two of them were acting strangely, so he shouted, "DON¡¯T TOUCH HIM!"

    Shocked by Lorwin¡¯s sudden outburst, Ga¡¯spanions instinctively took a step back, and observed the almost obsessive expression on his face. His lips were constantly moving, and he seemed to be muttering the words "this is the best flower" over and over again.

    "He has been acting strangely since the guy who picked the flower touched him!" Added Lorwin after noticing the quiet young alchemist who was still holding the flower, and smiling happily.

    "SHUT UP!! YOU ARE JEALOUS! THIS IS THE BEST FLOWER!!" Screamed Ga with fury, before unsheathing his sword, and walking menacingly in Lorwin¡¯s direction. If someone did not know their rtionship, based solely on Ga¡¯s expression, they would guess that Lorwin had killed his entire family, and that one of them had to die for the other to be at peace.

    "Ga, wake up!" shouted Dehl. "What is wrong with you?!"

    Almost as in response to Dehl¡¯s words, Ga disappeared from where he was standing, and reappeared in front of Lorwin.

    Lorwin was barely able to unsheathe his own sword and parry the attack that had threatened to split his body in half. "Don¡¯t intervene!" He shouted to hispanions, who were about toe to his rescue. The two exchanged numerous blows, and from an outsider¡¯s perspective, it was clear that Ga was giving his all, while Lorwin was desperately trying to keep him from touching his skin. "Dehl, help me stop him, but don¡¯t let him touch your skin!" he then said.

    It was at that moment that Fyro stepped in their direction, and pointed his fist towards the enraged Ga.

    Suddenly, the ground underneath Ga¡¯s feet turned into thin sand, on which he sunk into, and fell over. As soon as his body touched the ground, the sand turned into a metallic liquid substance that spread all over his body before solidifyingpletely.

    The speed of Fyro¡¯s actions were of a great shock to each of the observing cultivators. After all, none of the members of Nilo¡¯s group were at their stage of cultivation, and yet, they had the power to subdue any of them at a moment¡¯s notice.

    However, that was not all. After he finished binding Ga to the ground, Fyro approached the young man who was still holding the flower, and said, "This is a beautiful flower. Show it to me."

    The young alchemist was overjoyed by Fyro¡¯sment, and immediately raised the flower up to his face with ecstasy. "Is it not beautiful?" he then asked.

    After the young alchemist showed the flower to him, Fyro started to release waves and waves of immortal essence. So much so, that in a matter of seconds, the entire open area was filled with it. The other participants looked at his actions with confusion, but the young alchemist did not appear to be bothered by it in the least.

    The immortal essence Fyro released was overbearing, and it masked the presence of the other cultivators from the sensing abilities of the young alchemist.

    Something changed when Fyro¡¯s immortal essence turned into fire essence, setting the whole area aze, and yet staying away from the bodies of the other participants.

    As soon as the surrounding area was filled with fire essence, the flower started to change. Its shape became slightly irregr, and its surface began to bubble.

    Secondster, the shape of the flower had changedpletely, and what remained in the hands of the young alchemist, was a scorching hot rock that emanated perfectprehension of fire essence.

    The spectators were shocked by what they had seen, but were also able to understand. The item they had found was not a star-fed flower that had been left to them as a reward, but a fungus called ¡¯Deadly Hysteria¡¯, a sort of parasitic organism that changed its shape into what would increase the chances of being picked.

    After being touched, the Deadly Hysteria would leave spores that would seep into the skin, and reach the victim¡¯s brain through the bloodstream. Once there, they would limit a person¡¯s thoughts into positively presenting the fungus to other potential hosts, which it would use to spread the spores through touch.

    Fyro had only heard about this kind of fungus, and its existence only came to his mind when he started to think about why would the government waste that many rare ingredients, for cultivators that could as well be eliminated minutester. After all, the contest had just begun, and such treasures were better spent on the winners, then on random participants. The only reason why there would be an item that every single one of them needed so early in the event, was clearly for a test.

    All of them were emanating immortal essence at the peak of immortal cultivation, meaning that nothing was of more value than a Sun-Fed flower. However, the moment he changed the surroundings into a world of me, the fungus tried to adapt, and transformed into a perfect fire treasure, almost as if aware that as such, he would have the highest chances of being picked up.

    The Deadly Hysteria was widely known as one of the most dangerous fungi in the known universe due to its peculiar way of spreading, and most of all, deadliness. In fact, it was known that there was no cure from having one¡¯s brain controlled by it, and that the cultivator¡¯s life would untimatelyst only as long as the parasitic spores were kept in charge of their brain.

    Knowing this, Fyro focused the fire essence around the young alchemist, and set him on fire along with the fungus.

    The young alchemist looked back at him with his usual bright smile, almost as if being killed, was not a problem for him in the least.

    After killing the young alchemist, Fyro approached Ga, and said, "There is no need for you to die while being angry. That flower, was truly beautiful." He then waved his hand in front of him, causing multiple metallic spikes to protrude from the internal surface of the metallic nket, and pierce his organs.

    As a few drops of blood came out of Ga¡¯s mouth, and a smile appeared on his face, he said, "B-Beautiful.." then his head fell on the ground.

    "Aspiration without caution turns into greed, and greed lead him to his death." Said Fyro as he slowly stood up, and walked towards Nilo and the others.

    Standing right next to Ga¡¯s corpse, in the illusory version of the ind, was his grandfather. His arms were draping down his sides, and his fists were as tight as rocks. His teeth pressed tightly together with enough power to produce an ominous sound that reached the far ends of the illusion.

    "Your students killed my grandson.. I will kill everyst one of you, and burn yourpany to the ground." He said while showing the full extent of his cultivation at the hundredth and sixth phase of high immortality, and showing how deep his hatred was for the members of the Golden Karmapany.

    While at first him and the other two were hoping to find a good reason to destroy the golden karmapany just so they could obtain their treasures, the death of his grandson, had turned this into a personal matter.

    However, before he could even take a step towards the old man and his son, a young man had appeared right next to him.

    "Don¡¯t do anything stupid. Your family already has enough to mourn today." Said Daniel while casually cing his hand on the man¡¯s shoulder.

 Chapter 386 A Different Kind of Enemy

    "Don¡¯t do anything stupid. Your family already has enough to mourn today." Said Daniel while casually cing his hand on the man¡¯s shoulder.

    The leader of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics was too enraged to listen to reason, so the moment he felt the power that was emanated by Daniel¡¯s body, he sent a powerful backhand punch thatnded perfectly on Daniel¡¯s face, blowing his head to bits.

    As Daniel¡¯s body fell limp on the ground, Leader Stein turned to look back at the old man Golden Cauldron and his son with the highest degree of rage. His march towards the two, however, was interrupted by a voice that came from the ground next to him, where Daniel¡¯s whole body was slowly lifting itself up to a standing position.

    "I will let this slide.. Once." He said.

    The only thought that was able to form in Leader Stein¡¯s mind, was that a lesser cultivator was trying to stop him, in his home, a ce where he had full control, from killing the people connected to those who had killed his grandson. To him, it did not matter if their motive was just or not, or even if there was a reason altogether. He just wanted to kill them.

    The moment Daniel stood up straight, he felt the powerful hands of Leader Stein wrap over his head, and cover his forehead and eyes. The grip was supported by all of the power that a cultivator at a level of cultivation slightly higher than Daniel possessed, as the objective of the enraged man was to slowly feel Daniel¡¯s skull crack within his fingers.

    Instead of fighting back, Daniel lowered his shoulders in disappointment, and slowly wrapped his hand around the man¡¯s forearm without a single hint of urgency.

    A few soft cracks were hearding from within the man¡¯s fingers, which were apanied by the bright white light of healing essence which constantly healed the fractures on Daniel¡¯s cranium whenever one would form. However, before long, the cracking noises turned into the grim sound of ripping sh.

    What left the observing cultivators on edge, was the fact that the sounds of ripping flesh were noting from Daniel¡¯s head, but from Leader Stein¡¯s forearm.

    Blood started dripping from within Daniel¡¯s fingers, until finally, momentster, the chunk of flesh and bone which he was gripping on, exploded into a mist of blood with asional chunks of flesh mixed in it.

    This amount of damage was enough to awake Leader Stein from his crazed state, and react with haste as Daniel¡¯s other hand moved in, trying to grab his throat.

    With a swift shing motion of his remaining hand, he was able to rip Daniel¡¯s arm almostpletely, however, he had also made himself vulnerable to his remaining hand, which instantly grabbed the arm he had just swung, and blew it to bits with a gentle, yet firm grip.

    The power that had damaged his arms to such a state was neiher raw strength, or power obtained throuh the enhancing effects of immortal essence, but a power that had prevented his strong cultivation from offering any resistance to whatever it was that had grabbed every bit of his flesh at the same time, and ripped it to pieces.

    In a fit of panic, Leader Stein immediately tried to teleport to safety. Unfortunately, the space on which he was floating had suddenly started to behave in an extremely odd way. No matter how much he tried, he could not manage to force his immortal essence into forming a path from point A to point B. The very essence of space that surrounded him felt like jelly, and made his essence, which usually would move as straight as a sword, behave like something more alike to a singr boiled noodle.

    The moment he felt Daniel¡¯s fingers wrap around his neck, the man realized he had offended someone he should not have.

    "I thought you were noting here to cause trouble." Said a voice that came from outside of the¡¯s atmosphere.

    When Daniel looked towards the direction from which the voice hade from, he immediately noticed the familiar barrage of ships, along with the floating six figures he had encountered when he had entered the ring ofmerce.

    "I didn¡¯t, but he tried to kill my friends." Responded Daniel. He had immediately recognized the voice of the man who had just spoken. It was the man in ck armor and demonic mask, whomanded the ship-shaped pocket dimension which was inhabited by arge number of cultivators at various phases of high immortality.

    "Your friends killed his grandson." Stated the man in ck armor, almost as in an attempt to even things out between the two, and prevent things from escting any further.

    "He killed me." Runched Daniel with a serious expression.

    "And you blew both of his arms off." Retorted the man in ck armor with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "You can have both of my arms if I die once and for all." Responded Daniel before turning to look back at Leader Stein. Then, without waiting for a response, he modified theposition of the space inside his grip, and turned it into an unstable patch of space, which paired with Daniel¡¯s power, was able to rip the pieces of flesh, bone, and skin that formed the man¡¯s neck.

    Momentster, his head was making its way through the unstable space down to the ground.

    "You shouldn¡¯t have done that." said the scarred old man in silver armor as he and the other five unsheathed their weapons. "I don¡¯t care that you are a chosen of Iewah. You went too far." He then added as tens of thousands of cultivators began to float out of the ordered fleet of ships.

    Daniel slowly turned to look back at the figures of these six cultivators. Each of them with a cultivation that surpassed his by at least twenty phases, but without a hint of fear in his eyes.

    "You are not going to ruin my reunion with my friends, and I have no problem with the lot of you. So I will give you a chance like I gave it to him.. One." Said Daniel as his eyes narrowed just enough to let out a thinyer of golden light, before adding with dead seriousness, "I am a different kind of enemy.."

    "And what kind of enemy is that?" Responded the man in ck armor and demonic helmet.

    "The kind historians will forever admonish you for provoking." Responded Daniel as a familiar rock appeared inside his bloody palm, and began to float around his body. He then watched in silence as these six powerful cultivators decided whether to attack, or not.

    Feeling the presence of the system¡¯s protectors, each of the leading figures of the conglomerates of the Ring of Commerce gave up paying attention on the One Above All, and immediately teleported in the area where Daniel was about to face these cultivators. Their intentions, however, were not to spectate.

    Before Daniel entered the system, if a battle broke out, there would not have been any coteral damage. After all, even the fallout of a fight between cultivators at the hundredth phase of high immortality were not able to travel through millions of kilometers of space. But now, they were in the main of the system, and each serious blow could possibly destroy the entire.

    If that was not enough, a fight against one of Iewah¡¯s children was never a good idea, as their infamous ability to escape death was known throughout the entire universe.

    Unsure whether to proceed or not, the six cultivators turned to look at the conglomerate leaders in waiting for their orders, but before they could order them to stand down, a horizontal slit opened in the space next to the massive illusion, appeared.

    Before long, the space under this slit was rolled down like a papyrus, revealing a door sized entrance to a world of golden light. Soon after, from the other side of this portal, walked out a well behaved man with traditional grey clothes, and a long grey salt and pepper beard, followed by ten cultivators at the peak stage of immortality. Each one of them was under fifty years of age, and if allowed to, they could have easily participated in the One Above All.

    As soon as he walked out, the man ignored the presence of the most powerful merchants within the universal government and the powerful mercenaries they had hired, and instead focused on Daniel. He then said, "Brother, you are not the only one of us that has sent some of their people in this contest. Why not stop causing trouble, so that we can enjoy the show?"

    The word ¡¯brother¡¯ was all the others needed to recognize this man as one of the very few children of Iewah that could effectively control their instinct to fight. A warrior that had spent tens of thousands of years focusing on studying, and share his knowledge to the young talents he deemed worthy. A man known as ¡¯The Teacher¡¯.

    By now, Daniel had not only shared his body with one of Iewah¡¯s children, but also saw many others, so when he saw how calm and polite the Teacher was, he couldn¡¯t help but be surprised.

    "Would you not rather join them, and have a go at me?" asked Daniel as the edges of his lips curved into a smile.

    After listening to Daniel¡¯s words, the observing cultivators began to worry. Nothing was worse than a battle amongst two psychopaths, and from what they knew, Daniel was one of them.

    In reaction to Daniel¡¯s words, the Teacher closed his eyes, and took three deep breaths, almost as if in an attempt to calm himself from jumping at the chance that he had denied himself for so many times in the past. He then opened his eyes, and with a peaceful expression, said, "Only if you cause trouble."

    "That is not up to me, brother." Responded Daniel as his eyes moved from the Teacher, to the observing merchants.

    Daniel¡¯s intention was to avoid a fight, after all, the was filled with innocent people. Unfortunately, he also knew that he would not get out of it by asking. He needed to act the part of the one who would not care about coteral damage, and make it clear that the fallout of challenging him, was more than they were willing to pay for.

    The arrival of the Teacher had been a great support to his cause, as nobody wanted two of Iewah¡¯s children to fight in the base of their operation, and homes.

    Luckily, a few of the conglomerate andpany leaders were smart enough to understand this, and as soon as Daniel gave them a chance, one of the two who had spectated to the entire scene, took the initiative to say, "Gen attacked first. He had no reason to want them dead, and tried to kill him as well. He went overboard despite being given a chance to stop. The Outcast acted appropriately."

    "I agree, we should be enjoying the event instead." Added Dehl¡¯s granfather, followed by the rest of the leaders, who had only now caught up on the entire situation.

    The protectors of Cato¡¯s system were mercenaries, and even if one of their employers had died, as long as the others did not order them to avenge him, they would not be bothered. So instead of insisting, the scarred old man made a sign to the army that had formed in the space behind his back, which immediately reacted by boarding the ship.

    "Maybe after the One Above All, you coulde and see us." Said the man in ck armor and demonic helmet menacingly, before disappearing with the other five, and the fleet of spaceships. One by one, the conglomerate leaders followed suit, and went back to spectating thepetition.

    "Your growth is impressive, but you are far from being the strongest here. Be d I was the first one who came.. So long." Said the Teacher before walking back into the door like portal along with his students, which closed right after.

 Chapter 387 The Life of Humans

    As soon as Daniel was left alone, he slowly walked towards the old man Golden Cauldron, and his son, the Silver Alchemist. Thetter was the one amongst them who knew Daniel the most, but from the way he had acted, he wasn¡¯t sure whether Daniel was actually back to his former self, or was still possessed by Sewah. This changed when he was able to recognize Daniel¡¯s smile the moment he approached them.

    "Where the hell have you been?" the Silver Alchemist suddenly blurted out.

    "I will tell you everything.. Just not here. Let¡¯s try to get through this event without anybody else trying to kill us." Said Daniel after reaching the two, and standing next to them as if they had never been separated to begin with.

    Back in the inner ind, Nilo and the others had proceeded through a second path which had opened after the death of the Deadly Hysteria. Simrly to the previous one, this long walk had gone on inplete silence, but to its ufortable quietness, had been added an eerie feeling. The type of feeling people would experience when going in the ring with a person they were sure to lose to.

    Their numbers had decreased again, and this time, it was not due to elimination, but due to a definitive and irreparable death.

    "If you are going to keep those long faces through the entirepetition, you might as well forfeit at the next chance you get." Said Cynna, who had spent the past few minutes walking behind the dispirited group of cultivators, and had decided to break the ufortable silence.

    "You might not care about it, but some of those who died were no strangers to us. Try to have a bit of respect." Said Dehl when remembering the dead cultivators that were part of her group, and had perished when facing the oceanic warriors.

    This response was enough to stop Cynna in her path, and with an expression of disbelief, she responded by saying, "Do you even understand where we are?"

    "What do you mean?" Responded Dehl. Her words had been clear, and yet they seemed to have shocked Cynna beyond belief, and she could not understand why.

    "Cynna.. Stop." Said Finn, who knew exactly what Cynna was talking about, but did not wish to be pitiless on a group of grieving cultivators.

    "Let her speak. They need to hear this." said the usually quiet Zack.

    "You live the lives of humans. You allow money and reputation to open doors for you, but when that ¡¯skill¡¯ ceases to be useful, you find yourself unable to react. This is a cultivation world. Deathe daily, fear is a constant, and survival cannot be bought. Wake up. Use your cultivation to keep death out of the door. Find a way to deal with loss when your survival is not at stake, because as soon as the finances of yourpanies start to go south, you won¡¯t have the time to cry for your own death."

    Cynna¡¯s words were harsh, but necessary to correct a mentality which, for a cultivator who at some point would have to rely on his own power to survive, was deadly.

    Emotions were not different for cultivators, but the way they differed from humans, was in what was at stake. Short and peaceful lives had been exchanged for power, and a longer lifespan. The price that they had paid, was peace. As cultivators they would constantly have topete, fight, and even kill. Any action that moved a cultivator a step closer to the death that they had so desperately tried to dy, was poisonous, and they knew it.

    Theyer of safety that resources and protection had created for these young cultivators had be their biggest limitation. It had turned them humans again.

    The following minutes went by simrly to the previous one, as after Cynna¡¯s speech, the remaining cultivators had gone back toplete silence. However, her words had not gone to waste. Had someone with a mental cultivation been there, they would have been able to see the changes that these cultivators were starting, or at the very least trying to make to their mentality.

    After about an hour, the group found itself in front of a crossroad.

    In front of them were three paths. The first one was a stone path that led to a small metallic gate to their left, behind which the path continued hidden by the thick trees. The second one was a mountain path, with seemingly unstable steps that lead up the rock wall that was to their right, and finally, the third path consisted in a cave that lead into the depts aforementioned rocky wall.

    In the middle of the crossroad was another wooden sign, on which were written the words "One talks, one flies, one crawls."

    The meaning of this sign was clear. Each path contained a different kind of being, and the participants had to choose which one to face.

    "If we have to pick one, the best choice would be to pick the one who talks. We might be able to reason with them, and if a fight breaks out, we won¡¯t be in an odd environment." Said Lorwin after carefully pondering their three choices.

    "What if they are in great numbers? I would rather face the predictable attacks of ten insects, than to face just as many warriors whose abilities I am not familiar with." Retorted Dehl.

    After listening to her response, Lorwing shook his head in disagreement, then said, "There are millions of participants here. Even the universal government would not put such a big army that can face us just for the purpose of testing us.. Or at least not twice in a row. We aren¡¯t even sure our test will be a physical one, we might be able to reason to our opponents if we go to the left path."

    As the two discussed their next move, Nilo¡¯s group was standing aside, having their own conversation.

    "Alright. We will split this way then." Said Finn after finally agreeing to Nilo¡¯s n, which consisted of splitting into two different groups that would take the two least traveled paths.

    Thest test had reassured them that this portion of thepetition was not as dangerous as one would have thought, and since they had joined the event to impress others, in order to do that, they had to branch out from the rest of the group. The first of the two groups wasposed of Cynna, Zack, Nilo, and Sigg, while the other, was formed by Fyro, Finn, and Ivan.

    Not long after Nilo¡¯s group concluded their preparation, the others did so as well by deciding to take the stone path that led to the left.

    As the group of roughly a thousand cultivators took the left path, Nilo¡¯s group split into two, and took their own. However, before following Zack and Nilo into the underground path, Cynna stopped to look at the back of the participants that were dispiritedly walking into he left path.

    "You should not bother with them. You can¡¯t change years of bad teachings with a single speech, nor can you hold their hands until they manage to fix their attitude." Said Nilo, who had noticed Cynna stop her motion, and watch the rest of the group disappear into the stone path.

    "It is not their fault they were taught wrong." retorted Cynna with uneasiness.

    Nilo let out a deep breath of resignation, and after shaking his head slightly, he said, "Fine. Don¡¯t get yourself killed for them." He then disappeared into the underground path with Zack and Sigg.

    "I won¡¯t." Responded Cynna before turning towards the stone path, and disappearing.

    When she reappeared, she was at the back of the long line of cultivators who were going through the iron gate.

    The stone path did not appear different from any other. The rocks which formed it were cleanly cut, and the grass grew between them was well kept, making the pathway look like the entrypoint of a secret manor hidden within the thick jungle, so when after a few minutes they found themselves in front another iron gate, they were not surprised.

    This iron gate was bigger than thest one, and was mounted on two stone walls that stood at least three meters high, and disappeared inside the thick barrage of trees. Behind the gate, was a massive round square that one could easily mistake for a training ground, and at the opposite side of the square¡¯s entrance, was an identical gate that worked as the exit point of the closed off area.

    In the middle of the square, stood a woman with closed eyes. Her face was covered by her long ck hair, and her body was d by a leather armor that did not impede the movements of her knees, elbows, or shoulders. Her hands were gripping the handle of a greatsword which was halfway pierced into the stone floor.

    "Is that a half immortal puppet?! No way!" Said one of the cultivators with shock.

    A half immortal puppet was simr, and yet different from a normal puppet. Controlled through the injections of the consciousness of its controller inside a cultivator¡¯s empty body, a puppet could be used the power that the cultivator posessed when he was alive, to fight alongside, or in their controller¡¯s stead. However, half-immortal puppets were slightly different.

    In order to cultivate immortal essence, one needed to cultivate the spirit and body at the same time. This concept had been challenged through the many eras of cultivation, until finally, someone began to question how important the mind was in one¡¯s cultivation, and if this weak point of a being could be exploited to control them.

    Through many tests, some cultivators had discovered that, by injecting a portion of their consciousness into a cultivator at the peak of the immortality stage right after their death, and before the spirit could dissipate, they were not only able to control the body, but if they wanted, even force it to ascend.

    After many attempts, this desire to find a way to have an army of puppets that could cultivate had been destroyed by a simple fact. The mind was, to a certain extent, part of the being. While it was not impossible to substitute one¡¯s dead mind with another, this mind would never fit the body and spirit, and during the ascension, would cause the puppet¡¯s cultivation to be unable to fully advance, creating a broken cultivation at a stage that had been called "half immortality".

    A half immortal puppet was stronger than a peak immortal cultivator, and yet not as powerful as a high immortal. It alsocked any form of gift, as during the ascension, the nature of the mind, and the feelings produced by the spirit, could not sync well enough for a gift to be created.

    The way many schrs would exin this to their students, was by telling them that trying to make a puppet ascend was like removing a steel ring from a chain, and put a ss one instead. The chain could still lift a certain amount of weight, but it would be limited by its weakest link.

    Despite not being an actual high immortal, the power this woman emanated was still much higher than that of a peak immortal cultivator, and that was the cause of the shock that many had felt the moment she had appeared in their sight.

    The first ones to enter the square were the members of Lorwin¡¯s and Dehl¡¯s groups, who cautiously walked past the opened gate, while ready to fight off this dangerous foe the moment she would move a muscle.

    However, nothing happened.

    More and more participants walked into the square, but no matter what they did, this woman would not move, and would instead pose as a statue erected out of respect for a powerful cultivator.

    A half immortal puppet was technically not difficult for such a big group to kill, but there was no dobut that there would be victims. So instead of focusing on the woman, Lorwin and Dehl tried to approach the gate on the other side of the square in order to see if they could just leave.

    Just like they were hoping, when they reached the gate, they quickly discovered that not only it wasn¡¯t locked, but that the puppet did not seem to care whether the participants walked out of it or not. Before they could all leave, however, they heard a familiar voice that, due to the tension they were feeling, was able to send a shiver down their backs.

    "Can you talk?" Asked Cynna to the woman.

    "I can." responded a disembodied voice that came from the puppet¡¯s general direction, and yet did not seem to actually belong to her.

    Cynna had already guessed that the woman would respond if spoken to, so she was not particrly surprised about it. What she was interested in, was why a puppet ced in the middle of a square to test them, would have a spatial ring. "Why are you here?" She then asked with curiosity.

    "To be challenged, and rewarded the survivors."

 Chapter 388 Half Immortal Puppe

    "To be challenged, and reward the survivors." Responded the voice with a cold, and intimidating tone.

    At the mention of a reward, the group stopped walking towards the exit gate, and turned to look back at the half immortal puppet.

    "What is the reward?" Asked Cynna with curiosity, but without obtaining a response.

    Differently from a normal puppet which required a constant input of consciousness to work properly, the unsessful ascension of a half immortal puppet would bind the intent left within the body by its owner, and turn it into an artificial form of consciousness that would never be able to evolve ever again.

    This process was extremely difficult, and required an absurd amount of mental power and concentration, ultimately allowing for a limited amount of predetermined trains of thoughts to formte in the mind of these puppets.

    What the woman possessed, were the responses to a few questions, the will to fight whoever challenged her, and the ability to reward the cultivators who would fulfill the set requirements to receive a reward.

    "So you only answer certain questions.. Okay. You have said that we need to survive against you. What exactly did you mean? Do we need to survive an attack from you?" Asked Cynna after a long minute of silence.

    The puppet did not appear interested by what Cynna was saying at first, but as soon as she started asking about the rules of her test, the voice said, "Survive three minutes, and you will be rewarded. One attempt per participant."

    While dispirited, the participants of volcanic ind had not forgotten what the reward for their previous test had been, after all, despite their bad results, if a chance was given to any other cultivator to kill a peak immortal in exchange for ten essence gems, they would ept in the blink of an eye, and never stop.

    The mention of a possibly better reward, was enough for them to reconsider not taking the risk.

    "Do the duels need to be one against one?" Asked Lorwin while walking back from the area in front of the exit gate.

    "Five participants is the limit. The reward is split." Responded the voice right after, clearly set to be able to answer such a question in case it was asked.

    After obtaining a response, Lorwing turned to look at Dehl, then said with uncertainty, "What do you think? Want to give it a go?" Dehl was, without a shadow of a doubt, the strongest participant that hade from Cato, and while Lorwin was the mind amongst the group of remaining participants, they needed a strong cultivator who could receive most of the puppet¡¯s attacks while the others acted as his or her support. No one was more qualified for that job than Dehl.

    Naturally, a better choice would be Cynna, but due to her previous speech, the participants could not help but dislike her, despite knowing that she was right. If they had no other choice but Cynna, they would likely choose to leave the area instead.

    "I am not sure." Responded Dehl before turning towards the rest of the group, and asking, "What do you think, Meek, Non, Filly?" Meek and Non were, along with Nilo¡¯s party and the three group leaders, those who had ultimately managed to enter the top ten of the first test in the volcanic ind, while Filly, was a young woman that had been pushed out of the top ten because of a small difference in kills.

    Had Nilo¡¯s party not been there, the five of them would have, without a doubt, obtained a higher position during the previous test.

    "Three minutes.. I don¡¯t have a problem with it." Said Non, a tall and muscr young man dressed in a white sleeveless training vest, and fitting pants. In his right arm, he was holding a winged spear.

    Of the three, Meek was always the most quiet, and even when talked to, he would only respond with a single nod, hardly ever speaking out loud. He would spend most of his time throwing his knives, and deconstructing them as soon they would hit, just to reconstruct them back in his hands. His short stature and quiet behaviour were reflected the style ofbat of his family, which specialized in stealth and assassination.

    Filly and Dehl both belonged to the icefire family, but while Dehl was the direct daughter of the Hot and Cold conglomerate, Filly¡¯s father was only a distant rtive, therefore making her more of a friend than a family member. Their connection, however, were enough for Filly to follow Dehl everywhere, and never refuse anything she would propose. "If you want to, I am in." She responded to her friend¡¯s question.

    As soon as the three epted, Lorwin walked in front of the puppet, and asked, "Are you allowed to kill us?" A question to which the puppet never responded. He then asked, "Okay then. Are you allowed to attack the others?"

    "I am only allowed to attack those who challenge me." Responded the voice that came from the woman¡¯s direction with her usual indifference.

    "Very well. We challenge you." Said Lowrin as the other four reached him in front of the puppet.

    The moment he finished speaking, the ground began to tremble, and the crack formed by the tip of the puppet¡¯s greatsword started expanding in the two directions. Soon after, the body of the sword slowly moved out of the fissure, showing its impressive body.

    Before the very tip of the greatsword could move out of the ground, however, an invisible wave of mental power was released from within the puppet¡¯s body in an outward motion. The participants who were spectating were pushed behind a radius of about fifteen meters from the puppet.

    "Dehl, keep her busy. We will support you as soon as we find a chance." Said Lorwin, showing his talents in leadership.

    Dehl immediately unsheathed her sword, and shot at max speed towards the puppet in hope to attack before she could prepare, but the movements of the puppet suddenly caught up with her speed, and parried her attack without budging.

    Two throwing knives whistled past the two sides of the massive greatsword, aiming for the shoulders of the puppet, but the moment they touched the skin, the simply bounced off, leaving two white marks. The same happened when Non tried to sh the back ligaments of the puppet¡¯s knees, only to feel the edge of the spear brush over something that was too hard for it to cut through.

    While thisst attack was as ineffective as the previous ones, thanks to it, the group had been able to realize that, when fighting against a stronger enemy whose defenses they couldn¡¯t breach, they could still use the enemy¡¯s anatomy to hinder their movements.

    "Non, stay behind here and keep attacking the back of her knees. Meek, try to aim at her eyes, while Filly and I will hinder the movements of her arms!" Ordered Lorwin before dashing towards the puppet which was about to sh down on Dehl, and used his sword to pierce her elbow mid sh, causing for the motion of the attack to be disturbed, and for the attack to be harmless.

    All of this happened in mere seconds, and had required the highest amount of concentration from the five of them.

    When it seemed that the puppet would be bullied by the five of them, it instead adapted to their fighting style, and made use of the movements she was forced to follow to perform powerful attacks.

    After three long minutes, the five of them were in a mess. Multiple severe injuries were covering their bodies, and both Dehl and Non had at least a missing limb. The puppet, on the other hand, did not have a single scratch on its body, and was standing casually in the middle of the square as if she hadn¡¯t been challenged to begin with.

    As soon as the three minutes passed, she quietly walked back to her position, and waited for her next opponent.

    Lorwin and the others remained on the ground, with powerful beams of white light that were slowly trying to reform their lost limbs, or close their injuries. In their minds, they knew that their collective power was barely able to fulfill the requirements of the test, and that, had any other of the participants took part in the test in their stead, they would likely all be dead now.

    After about thirty minutes, the five of them managed to fully heal. They then stood back up, and approached the puppet with a hint of excitement.

    Once within arm¡¯s reach, the puppet opened her right hand, and revealed five small rings.

    Each of these rings contained exactly two thousand essence gems each.

    "AHAH! It was worth it!!" Eximed Non with joy. His and Meek¡¯s families were much less affluent than Dehl and Filly¡¯s, or Lorwin¡¯s, making these resources much more valuable for them than for the others. Even on Meek¡¯s usually stern expression, the semnce of a smile appeared.

    However, while the others were happy about their results, Lorwin and Dehl were looking at the puppet with curiosity. "Does that mean that if one person goes through the test and survives, they receive ten thousand gems?" Asked Dehl.

    "Maybe. I doubt we will ever know." Responded Lorwin before turning to look back at the gate, where the rest of the participants were waiting for them in admiration. "Let¡¯s go." he then added.

    When the five of them passed through the gate, what they failed to notice, was that Cynna had remained behind with the puppet.

    On the other side of the gate, was a path identical to the one that connected the previous crossroad to the square from which they had arrived. A path which they were able to thread without meeting any sort of danger.

    A few hourster, the group of participants were able to see another crossroad, which instead of splitting, merged three different paths. Their stone path, one that lead on a mountain path, and the one that led into the cave underneath the rocky wall.

    When the group arrived at the crossroad, the first thing they noticed was the presence of six individuals. It did not take long for the participants to recognize them as Nilo, Fyro, Finn, Zack, Ivan, and Sigg.

    Four of them were chatting casually while changing their slightly ruined clothes. The clothes on Nilo and Zack were covered in small cuts, while Fyro¡¯s and Finn¡¯s were slightly burnt off. Ivan and Sigg, on the other hand, were standing quietly by the side, still shocked by what they had seen just a couple hours before.

    "You are already here?" Asked Lorwin with confusion.

    "We just got here." Responded Nilo while putting on a clean grey shirt. "Where is Cynna?" he then asked.

    Cynna had spent the hours they hada walked between the first crossroad and the square in silence, so her absence had not been noticed by the rest of the participants. It was only after Nilo asked about her directly, that the group remembered of her presence, finding themselves unable to respond.

    "Wasn¡¯t she with us?" asked one of the participants in confusion.

    Nilo knew that these people would not have the power to subdue, or even kill Cynna, so the moment the group was unable to answer, he began to worry. However, before he could even consider to go back and look for her, Cynna appeared in sight a few hundred meters deeper into the stone path.

    Her armor was heavily damaged, and the width of the cuts on it showed that the de which had made them, should have directly cut through her body as well.. but she had no injuries. Instead, she walked as if nothing had happened, and joined the rest of the group.

    As Cynna walked past them, Meek, who was the most observant member of their group, immediately saw that in her right hand, wrapped around her fingers, was not one ring anymore, but two. One of the two was simple, and he had seen her wear it before.. but the other one was just as familiar. It¡¯s pattern was simr to the one he had observed when wondering what the reward for winning a duel against the puppet would be.

    "Is that.. The puppet¡¯s ring?" he muttered just loud enough for the rest to hear.

 Chapter 389 A Cultivatorâ€™s Journey to the Peak

    "Everything alright?" Asked Nilo to Cynna, which had just stopped walking in their direction, and began to take off the damaged parts of her armor in order to put on one in better conditions.

    After taking off the damaged leather chestpiece, she turned to look back at Nilo casually, and said, "I am alright. Nothing too serious. What did you guys find in the other two paths?"

    "Two beasts." Responded Finn while casually cleaning his sword from what appeared to be a dense dark-colored blood-like substance. He then noticed the new ring in her hand, and added, "Did you get a souvenir?" On his face was a smile ofplicity.

    "You two seem to have your own." Responded Cynna while fastening the straps of her new leather armor. What she was referring to, were two spatial containers that she had seen hanging from Nilo¡¯s neck, and hidden inside Fyro¡¯s pocket.

    Nilo¡¯s object appeared to be the fang of what one would assume was a veryrge snake-like animal, as shown by its thin and curved shape, which appeared like a small and sharp rib tied by a makeshift string tied around his neck. Fyro¡¯s object, on the other hand, was a red reptilian scale with a rough surface as big as the palm of an adult human.

    A few hours before, just when the rest of the participants had moved on from the square in the middle of the stone path, Cynna had decided to try her luck against the half immortal puppet. However, her objective had never been to simply survive three minutes, nor to win the duel. Her objective was to obtain the puppet¡¯s ring.

    Her original cultivation was already close to the peak of immortality, making her able topete with any cultivator underneath the high immortality stage, and with the boost in battle prowess granted by Daniel¡¯s system, she was able to not only face the puppet, but even injure it slightly.

    Unfortunately, despite her strength, to remove the ring off of a person¡¯s hand, a simr power was not enough. What one needed was an extremely higher one instead. Her attempts in the three minutes of the duel had been many, and yet, their duel had concluded in a draw.

    When she was starting to feel bad for losing her chance, she found relief in the thought that she would still receive an extremely high amount of wealth as a reward. However, when she approached the puppet, which was waiting for her with an open hand, and a small ring resting on its palm, a wild idea appeared in Cynna¡¯s mind.

    When the previous challengers had obtained their reward, she had not paid too much attention to the puppet¡¯s movements, but now that she could observe it from up close, she noticed that the hand which the puppet was using to give Cynna her reward, not only was the same one on which she was wearing her main ring, but her fingers were parted together just enough for the ring to slide off.

    "I will only attack those who challenge me." This phrase suddenly made its appearance in Cynna¡¯s head. What if it didn¡¯t only mean that the puppet would not harm the observing participants? What if it meant that the puppet would only attack within the three minutes time, and would never react after that, keeping her hands permanently wrapped around the sword¡¯s handle?

    With this idea in mind, Cynna slowly moved her own hand above the puppet¡¯s, but instead of grabbing the ring that was resting on the puppet¡¯s palm, she pinched the ring on her ring finger, and pulled it off. Just as she had hoped, the puppet did not have any form of reaction, showing what the true meaning of this test was about.

    To think outside of the norm, to aspire to the best rewards, to gamble a lower reward for a bigger fortune, to risk one¡¯s life for an opportunity. All of these concepts were, ording to anyone who had obtained some sort of result in their life path, be it the career of a human being, or the cultivation path of a cultivator, essential for achieving sess.

    The option to take the best reward possible had always been there, and had Lorwin and the rest of his team not been so narrow-minded, they could have taken everything.

    After taking the ring off of the puppet¡¯s hand, Cynna grabbed her reward and left.

    On her way through the second stone path she tried to check the content of the two rings, but while she could see the content of her reward, which as Lorwin had guessed consisted in exactly ten thousand essence gems, she had been unable to take over the space within the puppet¡¯s ring, making her unable to overwrite the mark of the puppet¡¯s owner.

    Something else that she was not able to do, was to keep the ring inside her own. The object was bound to the space in which they were being tested, and the owner of the spatial ring was too powerful for her to force the ring in.

    The same had happened in the two other paths, as after being able to kill their own opponents and recovered the two spatial containers formed through the use of a body part of the two beasts, Nilo and the others had found themselves unable to open the spatial containers, and had been forced to carry them around, unable to store them away.

    "What happened in the other paths? Who did you encounter?" Asked Lorwin with curiosity to Sigg and Ivan, who were looking around with trembling hands.

    Ivan, who was he calmer one between the two, not willing to ignore a cultivator of a higher standing, said, "An Emerald Cave Snake, and a Horned Wyvern of Nuravia.."

    "Is that it?" asked Dehl with doubt. The two beasts described by Ivan were extremely dangerous beasts, but their power could only be feared by cultivators at the early stages of immortality. For cultivators at the peak of immortality, these beasts should not be able to pose a threat.

    However, before the two could misunderstand, Sigg interrupted their train of thoughts by saying, "They were both puppets. H-Half Immortal puppets."

    What Ivan said was of great shock to Lorwin and the others, after all, they had either seen, or felt the presence of a scale, which clearly belonged to the horned wyvern, and the fang of the emerald cave snake. The only way they could have obtained these items, was by killing their owners.

    What was even more shocking to them, was the fact that their already small group had split through each of the three paths. As thisst piece of information made its way into their minds, they turned to look back at Cynna with horror. From what they knew, Cynna could have simply killed the human-like puppet in the three minutes of her own test.

    They could only imagine the amount of resources that each of these spatial containers were hiding.

    Once Nilo and the others finished changing, instead of resting, they prepared to follow the path thaty in front of them. It was only then that they noticed the wooden sign that had suddenly appeared at the beginning of this path. On it, was written "Beware greed.. Be it yours, or that of others."

    After reading these words, Nilo could not help but smile withcency. He then said, "I knew it. I knew they were not just casually giving out wealth to us."

    "What do you mean?" Asked Lorwin in confusion.

    For a very long time, Nilo had started to wonder why the universal government would give them cultivation resources so powerful, that if used to increase their strength at their current stage, would cause their bodies to explode.

    In the past few hours, he had developed a theory, and the first evidence that supported it, was the fact that thepetition would publicly reward them in front of everybody else, as well as kick out those who failed their tests. Another suspicious detail, was the fact that while the participants of two different inds had joined the inner one, their path had yet to cross.

    The few words written on this wooden sign were enough for Nilo¡¯s theory to be proven true. The rewards were not actual rewards, but an object that would turn the highest achieving cultivators into the main targets of others.

    "You will see soon." Responded Nilo as he and the members of his team started walking towards the path. The rest of the participants followed right after.

    -----

    The group of roughly twelve hundred cultivators made their way through the artificially made path for about four hours, when suddenly, in front of them, appeared a light. This light was not shed through the tree trunks, but from the end of the path. The power it emanated, was that of starlight, likely originated by the sun.

    "Are we out of the jungle?" Asked Filly with eyes filled with hope.

    "I hope so." Responded Dehl from right beside her.

    After a few more minutes, the group was finally able to leave the forest. In front of them was a massive expanse of grass with a few small trees strewn about. To their right, a few kilometers away, was another entrance to the valley from which thousands of cultivators were pouring in.

    However, before either the participants of volcanic ind or temple ind could notice each other, their attention was caught by the massive white tower that stood two hundred meters in height, right in the middle of the field of grass.

    On the roof of this tower, was a tunnel simr to the one they had used to reach this ind, that extended beyond what their eyes could see.

    "So we need to climb that tower to pass this test." muttered Lorwin while squinting his eyes, in an attempt to see whether he could spot the next ind at the end of the tunnel.

    His attempt was interrupted the moment Dehl said, "What is that on your chest?"

    "What?" he muttered before looking down on his chest, and noticing an upside down number. From other people¡¯s perspective, the number was two thousand and thirty-one. Simr numbers had appeared on the chests of each of the participants.

    "Oh no.." said Lowrin, clearly aware of what that number meant, before turning to look at Nilo and the rest of his group.

    Instead of paying attention to the number that had appeared on their chests, Nilo, Cynna and Fyro immediately noticed that something had changed in the spatial containers they had taken from the three half immortal puppets. Ever since they had entered this grass field, the indestructible mark that had kept the three objects sealed, had disappeared.

    When the three of them looked down on their chests, they gasped in shock.

    The number on Fyro¡¯s chest was the highest one, disying 301,008. Slightly lower than that, was Nilo, with 300,922, while the lowest, was that on Cynna¡¯s chest, which disyed 290,976.

    The three immediately focused their attention on the three spatial containers they were carrying, and after injecting a wisp of consciousness into them, they quickly realized that each of them contained roughly three hundred thousand essence gems. Enough to reward fifteen hundred team duels, or three hundred one on one duels against either of the three half immortal puppets.

    The meaning of these numbers was quickly realized by all of the cultivators, who found themselves with one that matched exactly the number of essence gems in their possession. This was also proven the very moment one of these participants took one of the gems out of their spatial container, and after handing it over to one of theirpanions, noticed the number decrease by one.

    After barely being able to regain a portion of their calm, the participants finally took notice of the stone b that was standing in front of the jungle¡¯s entrance. On it, was carved a list of rules.

    ____________________________

    A cultivator¡¯s journey to the peak

    -The entrance to the tower is only allowed for those with a number higher than 500;

    -If the number reaches 0 at any point, the participant will be eliminated, and sent out;

    -To steal, rob, kill, and trade, is NOT prohibited.

    ____________________________

 Chapter 390 An Unfair Agreement Part 1

    Aftermitting these few rules to memory, the two groups moved towards the base of the tower, where they encountered one another.

    The group of participants that hade from temple ind was much bigger than the one from Volcanic ind. In their own ind, during the first test, they had found themselves inside an old temple ced right in the middle of a forest. Since they did not appear to be in danger, they had taken much more time to explore their starting point, and had remained long enough to notice the appearance of the beings which they had to protect.

    What had caused the elimination of the majority of the participants of the volcanic ind, was the fact that Nilo and the others were too strong, and had not left enough oceanic warriors for arger number of them to pass the test, which at best, could have reached ten thousand.

    That was not true for the other group, which did not have the luxury of having five unstoppable warriors on their side, and were forced to retreat, and rotate so that only the warriors that were at the top of their form, could battle with the iing warriors. Their methods were extremely efficient and focused on minimizing the losses, and at the end, had allowed for about seven thousand participants to be able to advance.

    When the two groups came in contact, on the faces of the thousands of participants of temple ind was sheer confusion. Just like Nilo and the others, they had guessed that the numbers would match the amount of essence gems that had been given to them as a reward until now, but now that they had encountered Nilo¡¯s group, and the five people who had fought against the humanoid puppet in the stone path, they had started to secondguess this theory.

    While it was stated within the rules that stealing was allowed, the participants of temple ind only possessed about one, two, or three gems each, meaning that none of them had gambled with their life against the half immortal puppets, so when they approached the smaller group of which Nilo and the others were part of, they showed no ill intentions.

    There was no reason for them to believe that anyone had arger amount of gems than they would have, so from the very moment they read the rules, they had instinctively agreed to select twenty people who would proceed into the tower, while the others would give up.

    However, everything changed when they saw the numbers on Nilo¡¯s, Fyro¡¯s, and Cynna¡¯s chests.

    "Lorwin.. In the name of all living things, how in the hell did you manage to obtain so many essence gems!?" Asked a young man with long ck hair, and extremely good looking facial features. He was wearing a silver temr armor with a green gamberson underneath. Behind him, were around three thousand cultivators.

    This young man was one of Lorwin¡¯s friends, as well as the leader of one of the three conglomerates which had been left in temple ind.

    "The half immortal puppet. We were lucky enough to survive three minutes against one of them, and to be rewarded two thousand gems each." Responded Lorwin, unable to find a reason to lie.

    "What about.. Them?" added a stout young-looking man with a patchy beard and narrow eyes, after turning to look at Nilo and the others. He was dressed with elegant merchant¡¯s clothes, and just like the other young man, he was one of the three leaders of their group of participants. After a failed attempt to recognize the symbols on their clothes, he then added, "Are they part of your conglomerate¡¯s entourage?"

    "No. They were with Ga." responded Lorwin while turning to look at the rxed expressions of Nilo¡¯s group, who were sitting peacefully on the soft des of grass without a care in the world about a hundred meters away from them.

    It was only after hearing Ga¡¯s name, that the three other group leaders noticed the members of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics.

    "Where is Ga? Did that idiot got himself eliminated?" Said a young woman in a light blue dress, while silently stepping forward to join the conversation. She was the third group leader of the participants of temple ind.

    Now words were spoken, but the looks in the Dehl¡¯s and Lorwin¡¯s faces, was more than enough to answer their questions.

    "Ga was the strongest one amongst the participants of his group. If he is dead, then the rest of his team should leave as well." Said the stout young man while keeping his eyes on the three massive numbers on Cynna¡¯s chest.

    As he finished speaking, the young woman in light blue clothes chimed in by saying, "I agree. We are all on the same boat, and we only have enough gems to allow twenty of us to go. We should at least split them evenly to increase our numbers."

    "You better leave them alone. They are not-" muttered Lorwin before being interrupted by the words of the stout young man.

    "This isn¡¯t the time to be selfish! We have all seen people die! We don¡¯t know if we will survive that tower if we go in with only thirty people!" Said the stout young man with conviction. Ever since they had noticed the amount of gems in Nilo, Cynna, and Fyro¡¯s possession, they had unconsciously began to think of ways to justify taking them away from them.

    Danger and survival were two excellent reasons which everyone could get on board with, and hardly anyone would refute.

    "No, you don¡¯t understand.." Muttered Lorwin as the three group leaders walked past them, and towards Nilo¡¯s group, leaving most of their men back.

    "Let him go." Said Non, the tall and muscr young man. He then reacted to Lorwin¡¯s confused expression, by adding, "I am curious to see how they will act against so many of them."

    As therge army of cultivators approached, Nilo moved his head past Finn¡¯s head, and said, "Here we go. It¡¯s your turn."

    "Very well." Responded Finn before slowly standing up. "Fyro, do you want to do the honors?" He then added. Fyro nodded in agreement before standing up, and walking next to him. The two waited quietly for the other cultivators to arrive.

    The two of them observed as the three leaders, followed by nine of their strongest members, stopped only a couple of meters away from them.

    "My name is Jova, and these two are Rosa and Kenno. Just like your former leader Gu, we are the ones who have been given the task to lead our own group through this dangerouspetition." Said the young man in temr armor, which had taken upon himself the duty to speak for the three of them.

    Finn nodded with courtesy, before saying, "I am Finn, and this is my friend Fyro. What can we help you with?" His tone was only as polite as the young man¡¯s.

    After noticing Finn¡¯s good looks, the young woman in light blue clothes called Rosa, felt her cheeks flush with warmth. She then said with a gentler tone than intended, "We are here to request you to share your rewards. There is no telling about how dangerous our path will be. We need numbers, or we might die."

    "I agreepletely."

    "Well, it is n-what did you say?" asked the stout young man instinctively, before finally working Finn¡¯s words through his head.

    "I said that I agree with you. The tower could be the most dangerous ce of all, and the more we are, the safer we will be." Responded Finn with calm and politeness. His tone denoted anything but willingness in cooperating.

    "SPLENDID!" Eximed Kenno with enthusiasm. On the other hand, while he started to celebrate, the other two group leaders kept their calm, and waited for the inevitable ¡¯but¡¯.

    "But, you will have to buy them." added Finn with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Finn¡¯s voice relied the feeling that the simple idea that he would willingly give up their rewards, was ridiculous beyond reason, just like a merchant would not give up their wares for free. The only way they would be able to obtain it, was by buying it.

    "What can we possibly give you that is worth hundreds of thousands of essence gems?" Asked Jova with doubt. One of the requirements to participate in this event, paired with the limitations to one¡¯s age and cultivation, was to not bring any form of cultivation resource, after all, if someone decided to ascend while inside thepetition, they would be able to stomp all of thepetition?

    While maintaining his calm and polite behaviour, Finn responded by saying, "Of course. I know you don¡¯t have much on you. But we are being observed. What we give you here, will be paid by your families, to our masters. How does five hundred gems here for a thousand outside sound?"

    The jaws of each and every cultivator in earshot collectively dropped.

    "WHAT!? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND!?" Lenno burst out shouting with indignation. What Finn was asking for, was close to two million essence gems.

    After noticing Lenno lose his temper, Jova immediately ced a hand in front of him in order to prevent him from doing anything rash. He was the strongest and most talented cultivator that had entered the event through temple ind, and was not much weaker than Dehl herself, so when he inerveened, Lenno decided to give him some face, and remain quiet.

    "Is there no other way?" He asked while looking directly into Finn¡¯s eyes.

    "Of course there is. You have read the rules. There is always the violent way." Responded Finn without the slightest hint of worry.

    As Finn finished speaking, Jova ced his hand on the pommel of his sword, and muttered with disappointment, "So be it.. The hard way it is th-" His words were stopped by a sudden trembling of the terrain, which threatened to rob him of his bnce.

    The trembling soon turned into an earthquake which caused the ground underneath them to crack and split open. However, instead of falling apart, the loose pieces of rock moved closer together. As soon as the clump was big enough to be easily mistaken for a newly formed mountain, its shape began to morph.

    Two legs formed at the bottom of its massive body, along with two handless arms, and a ttened head. A massive golem that stood a hundred meters in height had appeared right above them, looking down on them as if waiting for the order to tten them until nothing remained.

    "PREPARE FOR BATTLE!" Shouted Jova, who had immediately felt the connection between the massive golem, and the quiet young man that was standing next to Finn. "Lenno! Have your men fight off that golem! It will fall apart once we neutralize its controller!" he then added before unsheathing his sword.

    While surprised by how quickly their oppent had been able to create such a massive golem, their group¡¯s morale was high. The amount of resources asked by Finn was obscene, and enough of a reason to start a fight. Unfortunately, it was the eartquake that they felt a few momentster, that made their hearts sink.

    The earth began to shake violently once more, and soon after, five more mountains formed in the vicinity. These mountais followed the example of the one that had already formed, and quickly began to take the shape of golems. Each as big as the first one.

    "W-What? Where is he taking all of that immortal essence?" mutered Jova in shock.

    Lenno was quick to adapt, and immediately turned towards the rest of the thousands of cultivators that had remained behind, and shouted, "TAKE CARE OF THESE GOLEMS!"

    Unfortunately, the worst had yet toe.

    Theposition of each of these golems began to change. Their surface began to be smoother, and emanate a warm red glow. From beings made out of pure earth essence, they quickly turned into a perfecly bnced mixture of fire, earth, and metal, causing the temperature in the surroundings to increase by hundreds of degrees.

    From the point of view of the enemy cultivators, they were facing against the humanoid version of six¡¯s cores.

    "However, I would not suggest the violent way.." Said Finn while losing his calm and polite tone, and while grabbing the hilt of his sword, showing a cold demeanor that, despite the heat, was able to send cold shivers down the backs of those who had threatened them.

 Chapter 391 An Unfair Agreement Part 2

    "It has to be an illusion! It is not possible to create these types of golems with the immortal essence of a peak immortal! Don¡¯t be scared! ATTACK!" Shouted Kenno to therge army that had momentarily stopped their march towards Finn and Fyro.

    It is important to understand that a cultivator would only be able to create a golem that was limited by the amount of immortal essence that its creator possessed. After the creation of one of these golems, a cultivator would need to wait for more immortal essence to be produced by his body, before he could create another one. From Lenno¡¯s point of view, it was much more likely that Fyro had aprehension of multiple essences, and was using them to trap their army into a massive illusion.

    What they hadn not realized, was the fact that while each golem felt as powerful as a peak immortal, they had been created through the usage of an amount of immortal essence that would match a mid stage immortal. The feeling of power that they emanated, was only due to the increase in battle prowess granted by Daniel¡¯s system, and their numbers, was thanks to the higher rates of regeneration of his immortal essence, which he had started to eject and umte underground ever since they had arrived in the grass field in case of a battle.

    Naturally, between an incredible possibility, and a more realistic one, the warriors did not hesitate to believe in thetter, and intead of staying still, they decided to ignore the golems.

    "You overdid it. It seems they don¡¯t believe you." Muttered Finn to a quiet and calm Fyro, who hardly seemed to be paying attention to what was happening around him.

    Finn was speaking the truth. His intimidation was too absurd to be taken seriously, and had been discarded as a simple bluff. However, the army of cultivators started to change their minds when Fyro took a step forward, and began to focus on the movements of the golems.

    His eyes were the only part of his body that was moving, and yet, had caused for each of the massive golem to raise both of their arms above their heads, before hammering down against the wave of fearless cultivators.

    One of the cultivators that was standing right underneath one of the golems, said, "Do you think we will fear an illusion? Who do you take us for? Haha-huh?"

    The moment the joined fists of the golems touched the ground, there was no sound. No eartquake, gust of wind, explosion, or shock wave. What could be heard insetad, was the sound that a semi-solid liquid made when falling down from a great height. The extremely hot body of the golems turned liquid upon impact, and propagated through the entire area upied by the thousands of cultivators.

    Massive clouds of vapor began to emerge, bubbling through the wave of liquid mes and molten metal and rock, just to join back with the atmosphere. Only a few hands could be seen moving over its surface, almost as if in an attempt to swim up.

    While only at the peak of the immortal stages, the bodies of these cultivators, paired with the protective effects of their immortal essence, were still enough to protect them from the extreme heath. However, right when they were starting to panic due to the essive consumption, the liquid of which they were covered with began to solidify, blocking them into a massive b of solid metal.

    The attemps to free themselves were desperate, but their immortal essence could do nothing to oppose against the higher quality immortal essence of which this b was made out of.

    To escape, was impossible.

    Lenno, Jova, Rosa, and the nine cultivators that followed them observed with horror as seven thousand participants were yed around with by a cultivator who was part of a group that he did not seem to even be the leader of. Their idea of taking the gems away from these cultivators quickly turned from ¡¯the right thing to do,¡¯ to a really bad idea, but what they were more wary of, was about what would happen if Finn, who had been calm and polite until now, would unsheathe the rapier whose hilt he was holding on.

    "Hold on.. Wait." said Rosa with trembling hands. She couldn¡¯t see a bit of the attractive and polite gentleman she had seen a few minutes earlier. Only an extremely dangerous warrior which they had done the mistake of provoking. "I am okay with buying your gems." She then added awkwardly.

    "Me too! Me too.." chimed in Lenno, the stout young man which was more than happy to fight it out with them only a few seconds earlier.

    Surprisingly, Finn did not push his threatening behaviour, and instead smiled back at them, and while letting go of the hilt of his sword, he said, "Of course. We are all on the same boat. We should not fight amongst ourselves."

    The reason why Finn and Fyro had not bothered with killing or robbing these cultivators, was because there was much more to earn from them, than there would be otherwise. After all, there was no guarantee that they would be able to keep the gems they had obtained during the test. To sell them, was the best option.

    "Are you guys done?" asked Finn to Nilo and the others, who until now, had been writing something on numerous sheets of paper.

    "What? No. It¡¯s hundreds of papers, what do you take us for?!" Said Nilo with annoyance, before picking one of the finished sheets of paper, and using his control over the wind to make it float next to Finn.

    Finn casually grabbed it, and without even reading it, he stepped towards the twelve scared cultivators, and handed it over to Jova.

    ____________________________

    I ___, represent the ____pany in the purchase of five hundred (500) essence gems in exchange for one thousand (1000) essence gems that must be delivered to the Golden Karmapany before the conclusion of the ¡¯One Above All¡¯petition hosted by the universal government. This contract is eligible to be enforced in case of a dispute caused by nonpayment.

    From the moment of the purchase, the members of the Golden Karmapany, or Hiel academy, will never forcibly reim the possession of the gems. However, the responsability of said gems will befall on the buyer. The payment must be made regardless of whether the item¡¯s possession will be maintained, or lost. The interest rates is set at 100% per year of failed payment.

    Signature: _____ Company stamp: _____ Personal stamp: _____

    ____________________________

    "What the hell.. Is there a need for this?" Asked Lenno, who had never been asked for guarantees when making a deal with another cultivator. Usually, the name of hispany was more than enough.

    "We can¡¯t make this decision for ourpanies. We would have to ask for their permission before epting. What if we agree, and they decide they are not ountable for our decision?" Asked Jova with curiosity.

    Jova¡¯s words were true. They were amongst the strongest young cultivators of Cato, but not all of them were the inheritors of thepanies to which they belonged. Most of them were only talented members who had been selected to represent their groups.

    "It won¡¯t be a problem. I know a few people that will be able to enforce this agreement. It might take a bit, but the contract will be respected.. Willingly, or not." Responded Finn casually, showing theplete absence of a doubt that anything could go wrong. When talking about ¡¯a few people¡¯, he was naturally thinking about Daniel and the others. What he did not know, was that while he spoke, Daniel was already outside, barely containing hisughter.

    "Smart kids." said Dehl¡¯s grandfather just loudly enough to reach Daniel¡¯s ears. "They will make you rich." He then added.

    "They are making themselves rich.. But I will help them if they need it." Responded Daniel calmly, but with a tone powerful enough to reach the other end of the. A warning for all of the conglomerates orpanies that chose not to respect the contract in case their children decided to sign it.

    A strange feeling was looming all around the. For the very first time, thepany owners and conglomerate leaders were unable to make a decision for theirpanies. Their involvement was forced by one of their members, and they did not have a say in it.

    Naturally, each individual was free, and if they wanted to, they could have easily chosen not to repect the contract, even if that brought them to face a monster of gctic proportions.

    As soon as Jova and the others began to use the friendlier approach, Fyro dissipated the massive b of solidified metal, and let the thousands of cultivators go.

    "So, who wants to enter the tower?"

    -----

    After more than five hours, the number on the chests of Nilo and the others had decreased to exactly 500, just like that of roughly eighteen hundred of the participants, who were now quietly standing in front of them. However, on the faces of these cultivators was no trace of happiness.. Only doubt.

    They did not know if they had made the right decision by epting Finn¡¯s terms. After all, their parents and leaders were the ones forced to pay double of what they had signed a contract to obtain. Who knows if they would be scolded once back, or if they would end up making their groups waste a thousand essence gems by being eliminated immediately after entering the tower?

    As one participant after another epted the agreement, the same did their group leaders, who teleported next to Daniel, the old man Golden Cauldron, and the Silver Alchemist, to deliver a spatial ring that contained exactly what was owed to them.

    "Now that this is done, let¡¯s move." Said Jova to the member of his group, who counted around three hundred and fifty people. The rest had, at some point during the past few hours, given up to the one or two gems in their possession, and had been teleported back to Cato.

    The other group leaders followed suit, and prepared their own groups to move. Since Ga¡¯s death, the members of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics had decided to give up, leaving only eighteen hundred out of the original twenty four thousand participants of the two inds.

    The group quietly moved towards the tower, which became bigger and bigger the more they closed in. The gate of the tower was extremely simple, to a point where, had the participants not known where they were, they would have thought that they had stumbled upon a run down castle. From the other side of this gate, the sound of stepping was the only thing that could be heard.

    The group of cultivators waited quietly a few meters away. They were trying to gather as much information as they could before entering. However, before they could even discuss about what there could be on the other side, they noticed Nilo and the rest of his team walk past them, and approach the gate.

    "Hold on!" Said Lorwin with worry.

    "Nothing inside wille out. Otherwise there would be no use for the first rule." Responded Nilo while keeping on walking.

    Before Lorwin could respond, Zack grabbed the tworge iron knockers, and pulled the gate open. What appeared in front of them, however, was not the source of the noise they were hearing before, but a wall of ck smoke.

    "Come on. You might not want to fall behind." Said Finn as Nilo, Zack, Fyro, and Cynna walked into the smoke wall, disappearingpletely.

    "Damnit.. Okay, let¡¯s go." Said Lorwin before unsheathing his sword, and following Nilo¡¯s group. The rest of the teams followed suit right after.

    Once inside, the participants felt a deadly sensing ability probe into their spatial containers, only leaving them be after verifying the amonunt of essence gems in their possession. From how aggressive this power was, the participants realized that, had they tried to enter without the correct amount of gems, they would have probably died.

 Chapter 392 To Better Oneself

    The moment the cultivators entered the smoke barrier, they found themselves alone. Their enhanced sight could only give them a view of a few meters, and theck of natural light that was supposed toe from their backs, showed that they had been teleported somewhere else.

    After the murderous sense disappeared, a path made of white colored smoke formed in front of them. This path was only a few meters long, and at the end of it, was a white colored campfire, and a doorframe. Carved on the doorframe, was the phrase "Know to respect your limits, unless you wish to excel."

    Most participantsmitted this phrase to memory, and began to walk towards the door while ignoring everything else. When they approached the white mes, however, they felt an immensely powerful, yet benevolent power crawl in their direction.

    Some of them, attracted by the fire, moved their hands into it, and after they touched it, they felt something that they could only describe as the essence of life. A power so sharp and peculiar, formed by the merging of the essences of time and life, but that contained two specific concepts of life and time which were not present in normal healing essence.

    These two concepts were the concept of eternal life, a power that was obscure to all of the cultivators of the universal government, with exception made for two of Iewah¡¯s children. The Deathbringer, and the Doctor.

    The concept of time present in this me, on the other hand, was that of the ¡¯golden age¡¯. A concept of time that grazed each cultivator at least once in their lives, and was able to be felt only once when one would reach the peak of power of their lives.

    Time was a strange andplicated form of essence. Almost conscious of past and present events, this concept would reveal itself to the cultivator at the moment in which they would reach the highest level of power in their lives, regardless of injuries, age, or death. This power was extremely fleeting, and the moments that it would appear, it would do so quietly, making it nearly impossible to notice it, andpletely impossible toprehend it.

    The only individual that had ever been able toprehend this concept of time, was again, one of Iewah¡¯s children.

    Unaware of its origin, the participants could feel the two concepts work together to bring those who touched it, to their peak condition. Had they been on the brink of death, or even out of immortal essence, there was no doubt that this me would have been able to restore their bodies, spirits, and powers in a matter of seconds, and even allow them to feel the strongest they had ever been.

    However, this was not a reason to celebrate.

    The presence of such a godly power could only mean one thing. What was waiting for them on the other side of the door frame, was not only dangerous, but they would be facing it alone.

    The first participant to enter the tower, was Zack, who right after noticing the doorframe, walked right through the white fire, and into it. When his body crossed throughpletely, he found himself inside a throne room.

    By the sides of this massive throne room, were two rows of pirs, from which numerous banners draped all the way down to the ground. On the other side of the room, was an elevated area with a throne right in the middle, and sitting on that throne, was Zack himself.

    His clothes were identical to his own, and even the weapons that were resting on his legs were the same. However, what was more surprising was that this individual emanated exactly the same immortal essence, and its power matched perfectly Zack¡¯s after being boosted by Daniel¡¯s group system effect.

    The moment Zack appeared, this figure stood up, and with a vicious look that he had seen many times in the past, he said, "Look who is here.. The rapist." His voice was filled with disgust, and was apanied by a feeble murmuring of voices that gasped in shock while saying, "It¡¯s him", "Why haven¡¯t they killed him yet?", "Castrate him!"

    For a moment, Zack went back to the darkest period of his life. When his closest friends had betrayed him, caused him to lose a portion of his spirit, abused him constantly, leaving him with just enough life to recover, before stomping him back to the ground.

    The same was happening to the others.

    Nilo was facing the insecurities he had regarding his weakness. About being unable to protect his wife, his son, and his friends. About being a weight for people like Daniel, and not being worthy of being part of his family.

    Finn was tasting the regret of not having a normal family, and allowing this to mark his life, and ruin his rtionships to a point, where the only rtionship he was able to maintain, were within the memories of the friends that would leave him like his family had.

    The idea of being a disappointment for his father, grandfather, and family members, was Fyro¡¯s weak spot. A crippling fear that, so many times in his life, could have easily led him to make the wrong decision.

    Finally, Cynna was dealing with the idea that she could never be good enough. That being the best was the only thing that would have allowed her to be worth something, and that unless she was, he would have nevere back to her.

    The dark thoughts that appeared in their minds, however, onlysted a few moments. The time to take a deep breath was all it took for them to remember how they had decided to face these fears. Be it by bing stronger, or by having faith in the strength of theirpanions.

    Instead of allowing himself to fall into the dark thoughts in which he had lived in the past, Zack unsheathed his two short sword, and began to walk towards the throne, where his identical copy was waiting for him with a smirk.

    It only took seconds for this copy¡¯s head to be cut right off his shoulders, making his body dissipate in the stale air of the throne room.

    On Zack¡¯s face, was a confused expression. He could understand why they would test their psychological state, but he could not understand what the purpose of creating a perfect clone was. Why create a powerful clone if he had no intention of fighting back?

    Unable to find an answer to this question, he turned around, and left the throne room from the door frame from which he had entered. When he crossed the door frame, he found himself back to the room with the white me.

    Zack looked around in confusion, unsure whether he was supposed toe back into this room after killing the copy. There was only a difference between this room and the one he had been in before, and that difference, was that this areacked the small white path that led to the white me.

    ¡¯Maybe I have missed a door." he muttered before turning back towards the door frame, and walking through it. What his vicinity to the door had not allowed him to notice, was that carved in the frame, instead of the sentence he had seen before, were two different words.

    These two words, were, ¡¯Second Floor¡¯.

    Once back on the other side the door frame, Zack found himself once again in the throne room he had been in before. The room was exactly like he had left it, but instead of being empty, on the elevated ground on which had been ced the throne, were two individuals.

    Both of these individuals looked exactly like him, and while one was sitting on the throne just like the one he had fought before, the other was standing next to him, almost as if he was the first one¡¯s henchman.

    As soon as Zack appeared, the two did not waste their time with psychological attacks, and instead unsheathed their swords, and dashed in front of an unprepared Zack. The two attacks came from both sides, and each of them were aimed at decapitating him. The power of these two attacks was a perfect match to Zack¡¯s powers.

    What surprised Zack, was the fact that while the first clone he had fought had killed quietly in its ce, almost as if unaware of how to use his weapons, or how to react to his weapons, these two had attacked him promptly, and used the same basic moves he had used against the first clone.

    While sudden, these moves were easy for Zack to avoid, which he did by lowering his head, and impaling their bodies with his two short swords. These two attacks were perfectly timed, and were able to pierce the heart of both of his enemies, killing them on the spot.

    As the two bodies fell on the ground and started to dissipate, Zack searched around the massive throne room for another entrance. However, he was unable to find any other entrance but the door frame from which he hade from.

    With no other choice, he walked back through the door frame, only to find himself back into the area made out of smoke, which contained the white me.

    ¡¯What was the purpose of this test?¡¯, ¡¯Where were his friends?¡¯, ¡¯And was he going the right way?¡¯ Zack began to wonder as he approached the white me, and sat next to it, feeling every bit of immortal essence regenerate, and his body go back to its peak state.

    He spent the next few minutes thinking of an answer to these questions, but no matter what, he could not find an answer to them. The only thing that had changed between hisst two visits to the throne room was the number of enemies, and the way they decided to attack him, so the test had something to do with that room.

    After about five minutes, he decided to make another attempt. He stood back up, and turned to look at the door frame that stood behind him. It was then that he finally noticed the change in the frame¡¯s carvings.

    Instead of the phrase he had read before, now only two words were present on the frame. These words, were, ¡¯Third Floor¡¯.

    "So this is not the same room.." he muttered as a faint smile formed on his lips. He then went through the door frame without waiting any longer.

    Just like he was expecting, he found himself back into the throne room. However, on the elevated area around the throne, were not two of his clones, but three.

    The three clones did not give him the time to react, and as soon as they noticed him, they disappeared from where they were standing. Zack was only able to unsheathe his swords in preparation.

    Almost as if copying the previous two he had fought before, two of the three clones reappeared by his sides, and immediately shed horizontally in an attempt to decapitate him. Just like before, Zack lowered his head, and started the initial movements necessary to pierce the hearts of the two clones, but just as he was about to thrust his swords in their hearts, the third clone appeared in front of him.

    The attack of this third clone was different from that of the other two, as he appeared with his head lowered, and thrust his sword towards Zack¡¯s lowered head.

    "Damnit!" he eximed while jerking his head back, and allowing himself to fall on the floor back first, barely able of deviating the attack of the third clone by hitthing his hand with his knee.

    Once on the ground, Zack noticed that the three clones had stopped attacking him, giving him enough time to cut both legs of each of them with a horizonatl sh, stand back up on his feet, and finishing them by piercing their hearts.

    After the battle was over, instead of walking back into the white me room, Zack stood in a pensive state. He remembered how the first clone did not attack him at all, and that the two in the first floor had attacked him, but only in the way he had used to kill the first one.

    Now, on the third floor, the three clones had used not only the attack he had used on the first floor, but the one he had in the second floor too.

    It did not take long for Zack to realize what this meant. These clones, were learning from him.

 Chapter 393 Talents Everywhere

    The objective of the tower was to make the participants test themselves, be it mentally or physically, and possibly break their limits. All of the participants had to go through simr tests, and were advancing at their own speed.

    From the outside, the observing cultivators were looking on nervously. The tower was the first test which they were unable to observe, as it contained things whose existence the Universal Government was not willing to share, or at the very least, not with those who could understand their nature.

    What the observers saw from the outside, were red lights that shone through the tower¡¯s walls. Each light indicated the presence of a cultivator, as well as the floor in which they were currently staying.

    "This could take awhile." muttered Daniel before turning towards the Silver Alchemist, and asking, "Teacher, who has the ring?" He could have easily been able to pick the old man¡¯s mind if he had wanted, but ever since obtaining this power, he had decided to never forcibly read the mind of one of his friends unless necessary.

    "Lady Saullet." Responded the Silver Alchemist before turning quiet.

    Daniel was quick to notice the expression of his old teacher. The face of a man with a thousand questions.. so he asked, "Can you tell me what happened after that day in the ck castle?"

    "After you have changed, we have tried to carve a ce for ourpany in the market of our system, but the people we thought we had subjugated, were easy to jump ship and coborate with the new powers that arrived soon after the was opened to intergctic travel."

    "We have spent months trying to resist the increasingly ridiculous attacks of the other powers, and in the end, some groups tried to eradicate us. Left with no other choice, we tried to escape through space, but we ended up being swallowed by a massive spatial rift that threw us into the void."

    "Most of us were within the spatial ring when it happened, but we were separated from Der, Edmund, Roley, Jerigh, Gai¡¯ha, Lucious, Heimart, and.. Alesia. We haven¡¯t had any contact with them ever since when we got separated. When we were thrown out of the void, we found ourselves here in Cato. Not the worst ce for apany to flourish, but not weing to strangers." Recounted the Silver Alchemist, almost hesitant when revealing that Alesia was missing.

    Roley, Der, Alesia, Gai¡¯ha, and Jerigh. Those were the people whom Daniel had gone through most hardships with. People whose loss would destroy him. Not knowing where they were, or how they were doing, was enough of a torture by itself. However, he needed to be strong, as many other members of his group needed him.

    "Have the groups of the ring ofmerce bothered you?" He asked in an attempt to change the topic of conversation not for the Silver Alchemist, but for himself.

    "Not really. None of them has tried to harm us yet. I am assuming it is because of you." Responded the Silver Alchemist while looking at him from the corner of his eye. He could remember how, only a few years earlier, Daniel was only an immortal. Stronger than most, yes, but still within reason for his age.

    Now, on the other hand, he was able to kill with no effort, monsters that were supposed to rule over billions, and that possessed trade routes that extended through multiple gxies. People to whom a sr system was not any different than a series of moving rocks which they could rearrange at will.

    "Heimart and Edmund are with me." said Daniel with a matter-of-fact one.

    The father and son couple immediately turned towards them with eyes opened wide in shock. "The are?" said the old man Golden Cauldron, finally breaking his silence. Edmund had been the only person to which he had been able to speak casually about his obsession towards one of the mostplicated essences of the cultivation world. From that, they had built their friendship.

    "Yes, but there is something wrong with them. Please, keep it a secret from Emelnie and Alis. At least until I find a way to fix their problems." responded Daniel before noticing something a few meters away.

    Floating in the air next to a fat merchant, was a man on the verge of a panic attack. He kept pulling on the cor of his clothes, and inching away from the fat merchant as if worried that he would attack him at any given moment.

    This behaviour was odd for Daniel, so he decided to take a look into his mind.

    What he found inside this man¡¯s mind, was the worry that the fat man would kill him, take hispany, and above all, kill his family.

    Curious about what could possibly be the reason of this worry, Daniel delved into his memories, where he found a series of scenes he found interesting. For a few minutes he kept looking, until finally, he reached a scene in particr. A scene where a man and his son were in a meeting with two people he had recognized. One of them was the fat man that stood next to him, while the other, was the man he had killed only hours earlier.

    From each image he saw, he was able to obtain a piece of the puzzle, that not long after, wasplete. This man was the head of a family of merchants that was part of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, and the man he had killed earlier, was none other than his boss.

    What worried this man, however, was not the loss of his leader, but the future of his family andpany. This man was Ivan¡¯s father, and ever since the death of the leader of their conglomerate, he had began to fear that, in order to bury the secret of their shady actions towards Daniel¡¯s academy andpany, the fat man would kill him.. And he was not wrong.

    It only took a look for Daniel to feel the hostility the fat man felt towards this man. Reason why he was standing so close to him.

    What left a good impression of Ivan¡¯s father in Daniel, was the fact that while worried, he was still thinking of ways to negotiate the safety of his family members. What he was willing to offer, was his own life and promises of silence.

    "That man is not too bad. No wonder you allowed his son to join the academy." Said Daniel to his old teacher, who only understood what he meant after following the direction where Daniel¡¯s eyes were pointing.

    "How did you know?" Asked the old man Golden Cauldron with curiosity. The only thing he had heard about mental power were a few rumors when walking around the city, so for him, the concept of mind reading was still out of the spectrum of hispetence.

    "I¡¯ll exinter. Just know that it will be something to be taught in the academy to whoever wishes to learn it." Responded Daniel while turning to look at the fat man, and focusing on his thoughts.

    Just like he thought, the fat man was painfully aware of Daniel¡¯s presence, and while he was doing a good job at not staring back at him, he was sweating cold. In his mind, only one n had formed. He was waiting for all of the participants that were aware of Gen Stein¡¯s n toe out, and killing them in secret. After all, he was in the position to take over the conglomerate, and thest thing he wanted was for a chosen of Iewah toe for his blood.

    After reading his thoughts, Daniel was able to understand why this fat man would have such a negative karma. He was a snake who was waiting for the first chance to take thepany off of the hands of his leader, and Daniel had inadvertently given him a helping hand.

    From walking through Mister Mir¡¯s memories, Daniel was able to learn about the existence of objects created by the children of Iewah. Items simr to his own, which he had been able to turn into a part of his body during his ascension to high immortality.

    Daniel did not wish to cause anymore trouble at the moment. His friends were risking their lives inside a deadlypetition, and he had barely avoided an encounter with six individuals of much greater strength than his, so if he wanted to kill this Mister Mir, he needed to find a better moment in the future.

    Right now, all he could do was to observe, and put his trust in Karma X Luck.

    -----

    Time passed uneventfully, and soon enough, a day had passed.

    In many different ces in the universal government, a few lucky cultivators were able to witness different shocking events. Some were able to see a single red dot rise through the tower¡¯s floor as if there was no obstacle to begin with, and some had small groups of people which would advance mechanically, almost as if at the same speed.

    Regardless of which of these ces was taken into ount, a few powerful participants werepleting this test at a speed that outsses that of the masses. These people, were the highest level of prodigies that had appeared within the universal government.

    A simr scene was taking ce in Cato, where five red dots were advancing at ten times the speed than the others.

    What was not allowed for the observing cultivators to see, was the white me that would appear after thepletion of every floor. That was the condition that the two children of Iewah had agreed upon before helping to create this tower. After all, they knew that there would be more of their siblings, and they did not wish for them to learn about their secrets.

    By not being allowed to know that no time was required for recovery in between floors, they also did not know that the speed in which they managed to advance, was purely thanks to their ability to eliminate their enemies their enemies as quickly as possible. Therefore, there was no way for them to know to whom each red spot belonged.

    Suddenly, a few of the conglomerate leaders that were observing the testing of another group, appeared within their illusion. On their faces were a mixture of emotions. Some were happy, and some were disappointed.

    "I can¡¯t believe my grandson left so early!" said an old woman with disappointment.

    "Don¡¯t me him, it was a difficult test." Responded a middle aged man while hiding his feelings of pride towards his own granddaughter.

    "Whatever." Said the woman before turning to look at the five conglomerate leader that were observing the test of the participants of Volcanic and Temple ind, and said, "Which one of your kids managed to pass?"

    Before any of them could respond, the two cultivators turned to look at the massive tower, and noticed five dots shine through the wall of the fiftieth floor. Their jaws dropped.

    The reason why the two were so surprised, was because the test was not made to allow the participants to reach that height. The number of lights would decrease as the participants would find themselves at the limits of their abilities, and give up. When only around fifty participants were left, the test would stop. At that point, the enemies would stop appearing within the tower, allowing for the participants to walk to the top, and proceed to the next test.

    What was different with this test, was not only the fact that five red dots had appeared in the highest floors of the tower, but because the number of lights in the lower floors, was massive.

    -----

    Back inside the tower, the figure of an injured young man covered in blood walked out of a door frame, and towards the white me ced right in the middle of the smoke room. He then stepped into the me, allowing it to seep into his body, and repair the injuries of which his body was covered with.

    It only took seconds before these disturbing injuries closedpletely, and the blood that covered his appearance was reabsorbed into his body, revealing Zack¡¯s face.

    Once back at his peak condition, Zack turned to look at the door frame, on which were now carved the words "Last Floor", and walked straight into it. When he reappeared, he found himself in the ever so familiar throne room.

    Waiting for him in this room, were fifty middle aged individuals with whom he had a striking resemnce. Some of them were wielding heavy weapons and were d in different types of heavy armors, while others were simple martial arts, swordsmen, spearmen, and bowmen covered in leather armor. Each of them was giving off the vibe of being a different version of an older Zack, which hade from different alternative reality just to kill him. All veterans in their own styles, which matched precisely what Zack had learned about them.

    Each of them represented Zack¡¯s future, and what made them apart from one another, was a simple choice.

 Chapter 394 Pop You Like a Balloon

    The amount of cultivators stuck within the tower quickly began to decrease, to a point where only a few hundred participants were left climbing up. In most of the other towers, only a few tens of cultivators per ind had managed to gain ess, and once their numbers reached fifty, the test would end.

    Now that a full day had passed, only the tower where Nilo and the others were being tested was still active, with hundreds of participants stuck on the numerous floors, or trying their best to fight their way into the following one.

    From an outsider¡¯s perspective, the observing cultivators could not deny the efficiency of thepetition.

    The first one was a test of power and leadership. The participants would be evaluated based on how they would manage to sessfully protect the puppet, and do so in the most efficient way possible.

    The second test was a test of knowledge and decisiveness, for which there would be no judgement, but a life and death crisis that, with very little time, could have killed them all.

    The third test was a test of prowess, survivability, and talent, and rewarded their ability toe out alive from a challenge against a more powerful opponent.

    Finally, the tower in which they were now, was a test of character. The first levels would test the grip that their past and fears had on their psyche, the middle levels challenged their ability to survive an increasingly more hopeless battle, and the finalyers, would show them that their path to being homeless, ves, bloodthirsty mercenaries, thugs, and all types of low life individuals, was one bad decision away from where they were.

    These psychological tests were aimed at distracting them, allowing for the increasing difficulty of their fights to throw the weakest minded, and least talented individuals out of thepetition.

    Along with being an opportunity for these young cultivators to gain experience and fame, the One Above All also worked as a way for their teachers and parents to better understand their sudent¡¯s talents.

    With eight million participants at first, only a maximum of around fifteen thousand were allowed past the tower, and into the next test, and as time went by, one cultivator after another gave up climbing, or died fighting against their demons.. until finally, only a hundred were left.

    The sight of one of the participants emerging from the top of the tower was extremely rare, and in cato, it hadn¡¯t happened yet. However, while the observers got used to the idea of having to wait for half of the remaining participants to give up, from the door frame ced right next to the next tunnel, walked out a young woman with short ck hair.

    Her body was covered in blood, which gushed out of a mixture of heavy and light wounds that did not impede her mobility.

    "Someonepleted the tower!" eximed one of the observing cultivators with shock. His voice was so powerful that it traveled through the entire. His words were enough to attract the attention of the observers of the other towers, who had been waiting for the participants of thest of the four towers, to go down to fifty.

    "But.. There are still too many participants. How?" Asked another cultivator with confusion.

    Many of the participants had gone back and forth from one formation to the other in order to see the different results, and it had be clear that, once the number of participants would reach fifty, the test would be over. The participants would be allowed to simply climb without any obstacle.

    Bloodied and covered in bruises and injuries, Cynna sat on the cold floor, and started to focus her power into the production of healing essence, which slowly absorbed her blood back in, and closed her wounds.

    After Cynna, Fyro, Zack, Finn and Nilo arrived as well.

    At this point, most groups that knew of the connection between this small group of cultivators and Daniel, had already guessed that, as a chosen of Iewah, his powers must have had something to do in increasing of their prowess. This information quickly spread beyond cato, and reached the figures which, from the dark, would constantly try to obtain information about Iewah¡¯s children.

    In the tower, the red dots that indicated the presence of a cultivator became more sedentary. After all, the more time passed, the closer to their limits the other participants woulde. After that, the tower would be a test of patience.

    Even by staying to the first floor, as long as one would not give up and kept trying, they would ultimately be able to be one of thest fifty standing. That was what was happening with the remaining hundred participants, who while stuck on their respective floors, had yet to decide to give up.

    In the following few hours, more and more of these persistent cultivators began to see where their limits were, and as soon as their thoughts turned from positive ones, into ones of defeat and resignation, they were immediately teleported back to Cato.

    Amongst these few cultivators, were Ivan and Sigg, who within the tower, had found a test in which they could not be carried by Nilo and the rest of his group.

    After being teleported back to Cato, the two of them were weed by their parents.

    While Sigg¡¯s parents were proud of her, Ivan¡¯s father was clearly worried. In an attempt to leave, he grabbed his son¡¯s wrist, and tried to teleport away, but he was stopped by Mister Mir, who turned to look at him with a seemingly friendly smile, and said, "These two did great. The best results within our conglomerate! Come, let¡¯s go back, so that we can find a proper reward for them."

    "Great results indeed." Said a voice that came from right beside the fat Mister Mir, who after turning around, felt his heart jump into his throat, and his muscle twitch in response to the fear he was feeling.

    Next to him was Daniel, who ignored the man¡¯s reaction, and after turning to look at Ivan and Sigg, said, "Brothers, you did great. Come, the teachers are here."

    Ivan and Sigg were confused. They had never seen Daniel, but from what he looked like, he did not seem older than they were. Furthermore, they could not feel any power from him.

    "Sir Out-Mister Sewah. Please allow this couple of father and son to catch up. I will personally bring them to you after getting some well-deserved rest." Said Mister Mir nervously, but while also using every method he had ever learned in his life as a merchant.

    There was no need for Daniel to read his mind, to know that all he was thinking about, was how to justify killing the two, after managing to leave with them. However, that could only happen if Daniel allowed him to leave. Something which he had no intention of doing.

    Unfortunately, he had already caused enough of a ruckus, and the more thepetition approached itstest stages, the more those who still had students or children in the event, would want to avoid a fight from breaking out.

    "Oh, don¡¯t be silly. They are in perfect conditions! I am sure they would rather spectate the rest of the event than to be within four walls. Who wouldn¡¯t want that?" Responded Daniel with odd friendliness for one of Iewah¡¯s children, as opposed to their domineering and aggressive menthods in obtaining what they wanted, whenever they wanted it.

    Mister Mir, on the other hand, was not willing to give up. While he could have said that he had no choice in the decisions of his former leader, he was not willing to give up the fortune that he would be able to gain from taking his position, so instead of showing his happy and polite side, he became serious, and said, "These two families are part of our conglomerate, so I am afraid that I must insist."

    "I am afraid that I will have to pop you like a balloon then." Responed Daniel before slowly raising his hand, causing Mister Mir to shriek in horror. Just as raised his hand, he felt the presence of the six mercenaries that had been observing him since he had appeared. It was clear that they would intervene if he tried anything.

    Instead of harming Miser Mir, however, Daniel lowered his hand, and said, "Just a joke. Don¡¯t take it too seriously. Just let theme with me." He then slowly floated next to Mister Mir, and with a tone that only he could hear, he whispered in his ear, "They have no secret that is a secret to me."

    Mister Mir froze in ce. "I-It wasn¡¯t my i-idea. I was f-forced into it." He muttered while trying not to panic. He was expecting to die at any given moment.

    "Of course." Said Daniel while cing his hands over Mister Mir¡¯s round shoulders. He then added, "Get out of here, before I change my mind and turn you into a bunch of more likeable specks of dust."

    "Y-Y-Yes.. Excuse me." Said the shivering Mister Mir before teleporting away. Daniel had already revealed to him that he was aware of what he and his former leader had done, so there was no reason for him to bring harm to any of the participants who had been tasked with spying, or killing his friends.

    Ivan watched as his father took a deep breath in relief. He had juste out of thepetition, and he didn¡¯t know what had happened before. All he could understand, was that this young man who he had never seen before, seemed to have saved them from a bad situation.

    "Thank you, Outcast." Said Ivan¡¯s father before turning to look at his son, and adding, "Let¡¯s go."

    "Father. I would like to watch the rest of thepetition." Said Ivan, unwilling to lose this opportunity.

    Ivan¡¯s father seemed unwilling to concede, but stopped as soon as a strand of sound essence reached his ears. He then turned to look at his son, and with a more peaceful expression, said, "Okay. But stay close to this young man."

    Once again, Ivan found himself lost in his own confusion. Why would his father change opinion in the span of a few seconds? Why trust this young man who he had never seen before? His father had always been more than protective towards him, and to him, this behaviour appeared very odd.

    "Father, I¡¯ll be watching the rest of the event too." Said Sigg before dashing towards Daniel and Ivan, not paying attention to whether her parents agreed or not.

    Daniel noticed the odd expression of Sigg¡¯s parents, who were aware of who he was, but not close enough to speak to him. Their doubts were eased as Daniel assured them that he would keep an eye on them, and that no other ce in the was safer than with him.

    Once only the three of them remained, Daniel turned to look at ivan and Sigg, and said, "Come, let¡¯s go join back with the teachers. Things are about to wrap up here."

    On cue with Daniel¡¯s words, thest few cultivators finally lost their patience, and gave up on the test, reappearing next to their teachers, masters, and rtives. For the remaining fifty, each floor was suddenly emptied out, and they were able to climb straight up without a problem.

    When the first ones startet to emerge from the tower, they found the injured digures of Nilo and the other. "Why are you guys in this state?" Asked Lorwin with confusion. He had been stuck in the thirty-seventh for hours, and he was unaware that only those who managed toplete the tower, would not have a chance to heal.

    Nilo and the rest did not appear to be in the mood to have a chat, so they remained quiet, and focused on healing. However, this moment of quiet did notst long, as only moments after thest of the fifty participants emerged from within the door frame, they group of fifty were forcibly pulled into the tunnel that lead into the clouds, far off in the distance.

 Chapter 395 Surrender or Death

    The moment the remaining participants were teleported away, numerous portals appeared within the various illusions. Each one led to the location where the final test would take ce, which instead of being only projected in the form of an illusion by arge formation, was in fact a real ce.

    When this portals appeared, Daniel threw a small pebble that he was holding in between his fingers with the flick of his thumb, then walked through the portal along with the old man Golden Cauldron, the Silver Alchemist, Ivan, and Sigg.

    "What is this ce?" Asked the Silver Alchemist with curiosity, after finding himself into a suspended booth created out of spatial essence. In it, were numerous chairs, and a table full of refreshments. From the number of seats ced in the booth, it was clear that it had been prepared for the leader of the Egregious Mercantile Ethics, and hisrge following.

    Attached to all sides of this small ce were other booths, inside which other cultivators could be seen looking as confused as they were. Warlords, Bandits, Elite members of prominent factions, Leader of mercenary groups, rich merchants, military representatives, and even solitary cultivators. Every kind of individual was present, and their interesty in the same thing. To see their children and disciples make their own name in the universe.

    Ever since they had arrived, Daniel had immediately noticed the Teacher, who was sitting next to his students, and was sharing his attention between him, and a few other cultivators. His appearance had also caused for numerous sensing abilities to focus on him.

    Underneath all of these booths was a massive stage, around which the numerous participants had already been teleported into orderly rows.

    It did not take long for Daniel to recognize his friends, who were unable to see them, and were instead focused on observing the other participants. Their attention was immediately attracted by a few of these participants. Something was different in them, and just like they were doing, these cultivators were noticing each other.

    Of all of these participants, the only oblivious ones were the members of Nilo¡¯s group, who were unaware that, just like how their leaders did, the followers of Iewah¡¯s children could not help but recognize, and notice one another.

    Amongst these participants, was a group of twenty young men and women dressed in dark coats identical to those worn by the Teacher¡¯s students, five noble looking young individuals that appeared to be looking down on everybody else, a dozen of humanoid beasts, and at least a hundred young men who had eyes for nothing but the face that kept appearing in their minds.

    The presence of a stage was enough to give them a hint on what would be tested in thest test of the One Above All. The other tests had removed the weakest minded, and less powerful individuals, and now that only a bunch of the original eight million participants, it was time to find who the one above all else was.

    Just as the participants and observers started to wonder for how long they would need to wait, an old man appeared in the middle of the massive stage without making a sound, or creating any ripple in the surrounding space.

    With a long white beard, and a staff encrusted with perfect essence spheres, most people recognized him as one of the most notorious explorers of the universal government. A legend who had explored more space than most people would ever see in their whole lives.

    "First of all, I would like to thank you all for taking part with this event. Members of the universal government, future promises of the many factions, beloved sons, students, and disciples." Said the old man before taking a faint, yet respectful bow directed not at the observers, but participants.

    "Now that you havee this far, it is time for you to know why this event was created." he then added with a grave tone, after straightening his back. "For many ages, ourmunity of cultivators has grown, and expanded towards each direction like a drop of life into a vast, and quiet sea. Along the way, we have found as many enemies as we found new friends, but that never stopped us."

    "We now live as a beacon within the darkness. A darkness inside which we walk unaware of our surroundings, or next encounter. I should know, as I have spent thest seventy thousand years pushing that line to make a little contribution to themunity I serve.. Unfortunately, we have stumbled upon an enemy that cannot be turned into a friend. An enemy that lurks in the evesting darkness of space."

    "Ladies and gentlemen, we have made contact with a group whose power rivals ours. A group against which we cannot conduct a war without catastrophic results." He said to the shock of many observers.

    The universal government had grown from being a group the size of any of the other factions. Through conquest and partnership with the groups they encountered in the space they explored, they had be a giant, against which no other faction couldpete, be it small, or big at the moment it was found.

    Technically, just because they were the only power around, that did not mean that there couldn¡¯t be another group of simr size, and even if there was another one, they would have to live far away in order to not have spotted. After all, thanks to the help of the explorers, the universal government had already mapped a territory outside its borders, that was much bigger than its own size.

    All of these circumstances had given the citizens of the universal government the impression that no other group simr to the universal government existed. Hence the surprise they felt when the old explorer revealed what the true objective of the One Above All truly was.

    "I know, I know." He said, interrupting the murmuring of both participants and observers. "We have encountered this new civilization only due to extremely odd events.. A wormhole. A massive portal hidden by a ck hole, which connects the borders of our territory to theirs."

    Seeing how most of the observers began to worry, the old explorer quickly added, "Do not panic. We have already met with them, and discussed with their ambassadors on how we will handle the encounter between the two civilizations."

    As he finished speaking, he waited to make sure that each and every individual was paying attention to him, then said, "Apetition. Our methods of cultivation against theirs. A battle amongst the most powerful and most talented. Apetition that we cannot afford to lose. The One above All, just like the name implies, is thepetition that we have created to find that one individual that willpete for the face, and the sake of our government."

    "Compete for your homnd, win for us, and be the type of hero in the history books that no amount of time will ever be able to erase." He said before taking a suspensful pause. He then added, "Now, anyone who is not up for it.. I suggest you leave right now. Do not throw your life away for a chance at this title, as thispetition was not made for you."

    This revtion was beyond shocking for most participants. One of the most well kept secrets of the past few years had been revealed to them. A secret which easily destroyed the sense of security that these powerful individuals felt, while under the protective umbre of the universal government.

    The observers, on the other hand, as powerful cultivators, were used to the idea of never being safe, so when this secret was revealed to them, the idea that their students and disciples could be heroes, was able to match any form of worry that they could have felt.

    Unfortunately, not all of them had this mentality. Some knew that their kids had no hope at winning this event, so they began to hope that they would be smart, and not give up their lives just to boost someone else¡¯s glory.

    To many people¡¯s disappointment and relief, a good portion of the participants decided to give up. Most of which had spectated to some absurd performances during the past few tests, or felt that they would not be able to defeat the majority of the opponents that stood in front of them.

    When only four hundred people remained, the old man spoke once again, saying, "Do not regret this decision. The previous tests were not easy. Your ability to pick your battles is a merit, not a fault."

    "For the ones who did not leave. We have tested your mind, your cultivation, your ability to fight in groups, and take advantage of an opportunity. What is left, is to test your battle prowess."

    As soon as he finished speaking, a number of tokens that matched the number of participants appeared on the stage. Before anyone could wonder what the use of these tokens was, the wind sphere encrusted in the old man¡¯s staff began to tremble, and emit enough power to cover the entire staff, and turn it into a stable tornado.

    The winds began to change, picking up each of the tokens, and sending them flying towards each of the participants. On each of these tokens, were carved the numbers who went from one to four hundred, meaning that each participant, would have topete against the cultivator whose number corresponded to their own. For example, the cultivator with the number one token, would have to face the four hundredth, the second would have to face the three hundred and ny-ninth, and so on.

    "The rules are simple. Surrender, or death." Said the old explorer before turning to look at the participants, and adding, "Number one, number four hundred,e on stage."

    From within the crowd that surrounded the stage, a young man in leather armor and long tinum blonde hair, and a young woman with delicate appearance, light red dress, and sharp eyes, teleported on stage. They then stood one in front of the other,waiting for the fight to begin.

    Both of these two young cultivators were prodigies, to a point where the fame they had obtained, had allowed them to be rtively known amongst their peers. Stars of the universal government¡¯s most prominent academies, with apetitive spirit that burned through their bodies.

    "You will not receive any sort of help here, so if you don¡¯t n on winning, I suggest you do not pass out." Said the old explorer menacingly, while looking at the two young warriors. He then added, "You may begin."

    As soon as thest three words left the old man¡¯s mouth, the two of them disappeared, reappearing in the middle of the stage, as the stone tform submitted to the power of their shing weapons with a spider web pattern crack.

    Such power would have probably not been able to destroy a, but if the objective was a mountain, nothing would remain of it. The shockwave was powerful enough to strip the ground off of its softer surface, had they been on a more natural ground.

    Luckily, a spatial barrier was present to protect the other participants from the remnants of their attacks, which otherwise, would have gone past their opponent, and traveled for thousands of miles.

    As the two fought, amongst the rows of participants, the disciples, students, and subjects of Iewah¡¯s children were looking up with confusion. Despite the immensely powerful barrier that kept their leaders hidden, they could feel a faint familiar presence.

    Nilo, and the others, who were the only ones of their group that had chosen to stay after the old man¡¯s warning, were not used to this feeling, as they had not spent enough time with Daniel.

    "Did you guys feel anything strange up there?" Asked Nilo with narrowed eyes. His only answer, however, was the silence of hispanions, who were just as confused as he was.

    The only one amongst them who had felt familiar with this feeling, was Zack, as he was the one who had managed to spend a longer time with Daniel during their travel back to his home.

 Chapter 396 Not Special Anymore

    The fights went on one after the other. The power that these young cultivators possessed was beyond that of any of the participants who had abandoned thepetition, and the spectacle that their fight caused, was on a different level of entertainment. However, not many were able to shock the observing cultivators. After all, they had seen these young men and young womenpete against one another more than once in the past.

    After every fight, the old man was forced to repair the stage, which despite its solid construction, could not stand the impact of thepetitor¡¯s blows.

    Despite the destruction that each fight caused, most of them went by rtively uneventfully. The only ones that aroused some interest, were the ones in which the elite members of the factions would participate. Factions like the Spiritual faction, the mental faction, the corrupted faction, and a few more, which were considered to be at a higher level amongst the many factions within the universal government¡¯s territory.

    By fighting through odd and unique methods, these participants would always garner a certain level of attention, which unfortunately, was closer to entertainment, than interest. That was until the turn of the numbers 105 and 296 came.

    Number 105 was one of the feared students of one of the present members of Iewah¡¯s faction, the Teacher. Along with neen fellow students, and the eleven thousand nine hundred and eighty more participants, he had passed one test after the other with flying colors, to a point where, once in the in at the feet of their tower, neither him or his neenpanions had entered the tower with a number inferior than ten thousand.

    The second participant, was a young man dressed in pure white clothes. His eyes were fierce and emanated a thick white smoke, and his hair were possibly even whiter than his clothes. He was one of the true emissaries of the Spiritual Emperor, and from his almost lean body, was emanated a thick and pure spiritual essence.

    "I am destined topete with cultivators on the league of your teacher, student. I won¡¯t be defeated by someone like you." Said the spiritual cultivator with an extremely domineering, and pretentious tone.

    The number of spiritual cultivators present within the spiritual faction was immense, but due to their difference in strength, they were divided into different categories. Those whose power couldpete with immortal cultivators were considered elite members, and were ranked based on their power, and talent. The weakest would be Acolytes, the mid level ones would be Emissaries, and those who could bepared with peak immortals, were true Emissaries.

    Daniel had met four members of the spiritual faction in the past. The second and fourth emissaries, and their two followers, the acolyte Nia, and her great grandson Noah. However, neither of them were true emissaries. After all, while each of them were extremely powerful when Daniel had met them, they were all extremely old cultivators, and hardly the best that their faction could offer.

    Inparison, a cultivator that had reached a higher level of cultivation while being under fifty years of age, was much more valuable. Only they would have a chance of breaking through the level of true emissary, and be a spiritual warrior.

    The student was not bothered by the tone of the spiritual cultivator, and instead smiled politely, and said, "I am sure that there is much that we can learn from one another."

    Too proud to allow an enemy he considered to be beneath him to talk to him like that, the spiritual cultivator took the initiative by letting out an impressive amount of pure spiritual essence, which immediately marked the essences that engulfed the entire area within the barriers of the stage.

    Pure spiritual essence, while not as refined and dense as immortal essence, was a form of natural mana, so it was the type of power that matched the natural essences the best. No other form of power could mark the mana present in the surroundings faster that spiritual essence.

    As soon as the spiritual cultivator was able to take control over the surrounding mana, the many types of essences began to separate. The wind and water essences were pulled away from around the student, just like the earth essence of which the stage was made out of, which bend downward, and away from the soles of his feet.

    Around the student a spatial bubble quickly formed, and inside this bubble, an extremely hot me was lit aze. This me kept burning until no form of gas remained inside it.

    The n was simple. A cultivator with a basicprehension of wind essence would be able to create oxygen to breath in case there was none. That was how travel through space would work. This oxygen would work like its natural version. It would travel from their lungs to their blood, and from their blood, to their cells.

    Provided that the production of oxygen was almost irrelevant for the power of an immortal cultivator, once a cultivator would rece all of the oxygen in his body with its constructed counterpart, if he happened topletely run out of immortal essence, they would find themselves in trouble.

    Naturally, a cultivator¡¯s body was much stronger than a normal human¡¯s, and the cells would not deteriorate as easily, but that did not mean that they would not suffer, given enough time.

    The n of the spiritual cultivator was to not give the student a chance to react.

    The student, on the other hand, did nothing, and allowed himself to be trapped. Once captured, he looked around, only letting out from his back enough immortal essence to slowly propel him in a forward motion. However, as he moved, the ball of empty space followed him, keeping its surface far away from his reach, and his body in the middle.

    Seemingly unable to do anything, he pointed his finger towards the spiritual cultivator, who was looking back at him while putting all of his attention into controlling the position of the spatial bubble, and let out a burst of immortal essence which, right before shing against the barrier, turned into a powerful horizontal sh that matched the bubble¡¯s power perfectly.

    When it seemed that the two forces would sh with one another, the spatial bubble opened wide enough for the student¡¯s essence to move past it. Once out, the immortal essence that was now present into a different space than his owner, dissipated due to their cut connection.

    After numerous attempts, the student started to feel that something was wrong. His state of mind was not as calm as he usually was, and his emotions appeared to be riled up beyond his control.

    That, was an effect of one of the powers of the spiritual factions.

    The spirit was the part of the being that, when mixed with the mind power, formed the individual. Nevertheless, even when merged with an immortal cultivator¡¯s body, a cultivator¡¯s spirit was still weak to the interference of the elite members of the spiritual in, who were able to affect them. So instead of hoping that the student would willingly waste his immortal cultivation into vain attempts at freeing himself, he decided to affect his feelings of anger, worry, impatience, and fear.

    "Why don¡¯t you surrender? You will never best me. Your spirit is weak." Said the spiritual cultivator while trying to fuel the student¡¯s anger. His hope was that the student would start to panic, and waste more and more of his power into additional useless attempts.

    "Teacher, I did not expect your students to be socking." Said a tall man with white hair, smokeless eyes, and a white robe with golden decorations on it. He was one of the most powerful cultivators within the spiritual faction, and a spiritual warrior that matched the hundred and fiftieth phase of high immortality.

    "Is it not better for him to face situations he knows nothing about? Only then he can learn." Responded the Teacher casually, showing a faint smile at he finished talking.

    -----

    What the spiritual cultivator on the stage was hoping for, never happened. Instead of panicking, the student smiled politely once more, and said, "I appreciate your teachings. Allow me to end this now."

    As soon as he finished speaking, he let out of his body a powerful wave of immoral essence, which he quickly turned into a second spatial bubble, whose surface only stood a few millimeters separated from the barrier formed by the spiritual cultivator.

    Once this internalyer was formed, he approached the internal part of the barrier, and with as much power he could muster, he threw a punch that ripped a hole into both barriers.

    The spiritual cultivator immediately tried to maintain control over the second space he had created by keeping the outside to the inside of the bubble, but it was toote. The student had already disappeared from within the bubble, and had reappeared right behind him.

    In the fraction of a moment, multiple spatial ripples started to form around the spatial cultivator as he tried to teleport away, but he quickly found himself unable to, as a powerful grip tightened around his neck.

    The first reaction of the spiritual cultivator was to try and affect the student¡¯s spirit, hoping that he could let him go, but unfortunately for him, the student was a different person than before.

    While before his spirit was like that of any other cultivator. Powerful, and yet somewhat controlled by his ability to keep his emotions at bay, his spirit was now as stable as steel. If forced to exin this, the spiritual cultivator would have sworn that the student had learned to perfectly control his emotions in the few minutes that passed since the beginning of the fight.

    Seeing that there was no chance for him to affect his spirit, the spiritual cultivator tried to use his spiritual essence to attack him from up close, but as he tried, his eyes opened wide in horror.

    The way spirit essence was able to be used, was thanks to an extremely weak body, which did not resist the ejection of this type of power. The more powerful the body, the more resistance the skin would make, trapping the spiritual essence inside. While not true for immortal essence, who had turned spirit and ki into one, that was the case for the members of the spiritual faction.

    The easiest way to defeat a spiritual cultivator, was to stop him from ejecting spiritual essence, and the student did just that. He let out a thickyer of immortal essence, and forced it to cover the body of the spiritual cultivator.. Trapping his spiritual essence into his body, and turning him into amon human.

    Something else that the student had learned, was the weak spot of spiritual cultivators. A weak body from which they did all they could to keep their enemies away from. Be it thanks to their spiritual maniptions, or the ranged attacks fed by the infinite reserves of spiritual essence supplied by their deep connection to the spiritual in.

    With the life of his enemy in his hand, the student did not allow himself to be lost in the moment, and instead said with a hint of embarrassment, "I would rather not break your neck. Would you mind?"

    Utterly defeated in body and spirit, the spiritual cultivator weakly raised his right arm in a sign of defeat.

    As a result of the end of this fight, the spiritual cultivator was teleported out of the stage, and into the booth of the spiritual warrior who, until just a minute ago, was boasting against the Teacher.

    The remaining participants took notice of this fight, and started to pay attention to the group of simrly dressed students, who stood by the edge of the stage in silence, and waited for their turn.

    Once the student left the stage, the voice of the old explorer resounded in the entire area, saying, "Number one hundred and six, and two hundred and ny-five. Come on stage."

    In response to his word, two individuals disappeared from the edge of therge stage, and reappeared on the two different sides. One of them was a three meters tall woman with striped fur on her arms, legs, and face, and voluminous hair that looked closer to a mane, than human hair. She was an evolved version of a species called God of lions, and was one of the humanoid beasts sent to participate in the event by the Tamer.

    Her opponent, was Nilo.

 Chapter 397 A Battles Between Grandchildren

    After receiving the permission to begin the fight, Nilo and the female humanoid beast stood still, and observed one another.

    "So, whose chosen one are you a follower of?" she asked with curiosity. Just like the students, Nilo¡¯s group, and the others, she had felt that her opponent was different by themon participants. He was being affected by a familiar, and yet different power than the one that was affecting her.

    Nilo did not know much about Daniel¡¯s circumstances. What he knew, however, was that the increase in his powers came from him, so it did not take long for him to understand to whom this humanoid beast was referring to. "How about we get this over with? It won¡¯t be toote for me to answer that.. If you win." he said, choosing to ignore the question.

    The God of Lion race was a matriarchal one, lead by the females of the species, whose sizes matched that of their male counterparts. In order to maintain their standing at the top of their specie¡¯s hierarchy, the females had to physically dominate the pretenders, who would otherwise kill her, and put another female in their stead as the head of their prides.

    Due to this, the females of this particr kind of beasts were excessivelypetitive, so when Nilo challenged her, her face contorted into a snarl, revealing a set of four sharp fangs. Her pointy fingernails appeared to be growing as well, but for those who knew something about her kind, it was clear that they were originally retracted underneath her skin, and she was now exposing them on her own ord.

    "If there is something left of you." She responded before bending her knees, and allowing for her muscles to bulge. The joints of her legs seemed to change as well, as her knees suddenly bent backwards.

    As he went through this transformation, her power started to increase to an absurd level. In her humanoid state, she was already as powerful as a cultivator at the peak of the immortal stage, but the more she turned into a beast, the closer her power would get to that of the half-immortal puppet, which Nilo was sure she had defeated on her own during her tests.

    This changes only took a few seconds, which Nilo did not waste, and spent by wrapping his knuckles into a thin white band in order to protect his bones. He then put on a set of gloves, on which he created steel reinforcements around his knuckles.

    "Come on." He said before taking his leather armor, and shoulderguards off. He knew that either of these objects would not be able to stop any of the attacks of such a powerful individual, so he preferred to have mobility.

    The lioness did not let him ask twice, and disappeared from where she was standing. When she reappeared, only a fraction of an instantter, she was swiping down with her massive hand at lightning speed.

    The attack happened so quickly, that Nilo¡¯s afterimage was cut apart before it could even disappear.

    The lioness was extremely surprised by the fact that Nilo could keep up with her speed, but her surprise did notst long, as she remembered who she was fighting against. If the Tamer¡¯s gift was able to give her a boost in battle prowess, nothing stopped that of the others to do the same.

    As her massive hand swiped past the ground, the solid rock in front of her was disintegrated, not even leaving dust or pebbles behind.

    Unaware of Nilo¡¯s position, the lioness allowed for her boosted instincts to chime in, and caused her to jerk her upper body and head backwards. As she did, two feet grazed past her chin.

    Without even looking down, she decided to swipe blindly in front of her, where she was sure Nilo was standing on a headstand, but before she could, she felt a powerful tap strike her nose. This heel hit was not enough to do any damage, with exception made for a minor blood loss, but was enough to allow her to stumble backwards, and let her second swipe miss her opponent¡¯s body.

    The lioness growled in anger, and while lowering her sight, she tried to grab Nilo¡¯s body, but once again, she missed. When her eyes finallynded on Nilo¡¯s body, she noticed that he was bncing on his right hand, as that his lower body parts were sweeping at the side of her legs.

    Once again, the power of the impact was not damaging, but powerful enough to counteract the gravity that kept herrge body steadily on the ground.

    As she fell on her side, Nilo ced his right arm on the ground, and with the power of both arms, he lifted his lower body as high as it could go, and sent a powerful kick right where her head was.

    The lioness was barely able to move her head away, before Nilo¡¯s foot crashed onto the ground, and instead of creating a massive spider web crack, pierced cleanly into the solid surface of the stage.

    The observers were shocked. Just from looking at Nilo, the student, and the lioness, each of them were reminded that none of their students, disciples, or children, were at the same level of a children of Iewah, or their followers. Their belonging to these groups put them into a different category, in which each person possessed a quality that would put them above all of the others.

    Throughout history, this advantage had been enough for the many factions to wage war at one member of Iewah¡¯s faction or another, but after a massive loss of people, these pointless wars had stopped. What stopped these "witch hunts", however, was not the number of casualties, but the fact that most of Iewah¡¯s children would not care particrly about their followers, which turned them into slightly stronger but disorganized warriors, with an unreliable leader.

    Unfortunately, there were exceptions to this. Specifically, the Teacher, and from what transpired from the recent events, Daniel.

    The one that was the most surprised about Nilo¡¯s ability, was the lioness, who immediately jumped back in order to avoid any possible follow-up attack.

    She now knew that she had to take this fight seriously, or she would lose.

    The power granted by the Tamer was, simrly to Daniel¡¯s group effect, a boost in battle prowess. However, instead of being effective whenever the leader was present, in the group base, or like it was now, permanently, it only worked when a beast would turn into their original beastly state. That was the reason why the four beasts summoned by the Tamer during her encounter with the Swordsman, were all in their most natural beast forms.

    For the lioness, it was not different. So instead of keeping on pushing in in her half humanoid and half beastly form, she dropped on her four, and started to change once again.

    Her body grew to three times the size, a tail as wide as an adult¡¯s male leg sprouted from her lower back, and her skin and fur became white gold, making her look just like the name implied, as a deity for all lions.

    Once on her final form, she disappeared from the point where she was standing, and before Nilo could say, ¡¯Damn it!¡¯ he felt a wall strike against his body, and send him crashing against the stage¡¯s barrier.

    Nilo sputed a mouthful of blood before he could even fall on the ground. However, instead of taking a breath on the hard and cold surface of the stage, as soon as his feet touched it, he bent forward, barely avoiding the second powerful swipe of the lioness, which hit the barrier with enough power to make it tremble.

    The only thing that worked to Nilo¡¯s advantage, was the fact that the massive body of the lioness was impractical in such a rtively small area, making it a slower process for her to turn towards the smaller Nilo to attack again.

    For the next minute or two, Nilo healed at a visible rate while making rounds around his opponent¡¯s body, which was only able to attack him from the front. At the same time, he tried all he could to avoid any of her attack, which came at such speed, that required him the use of massive bursts of immortal essence to avoid.

    Due to these dodging maneuvers, it was impossible for him to find his footing to create a chance for an attack powerful enough to injure the muscr body of this intelligent beast.

    -----

    After fifteen full minutes of this stalemate, the observers finally noticed a change. The beast was clearly stronger and quicker, but her production of beast essence did not appear to be as quick as that of her more agile opponent.

    At the same time, the wounds had umted on Nilo¡¯s body, as he had been unable to sessfully avoid each and every attack that was sent his way.

    A white glow was present in his wounds, which showed to her opponent that he was slowly healing.

    The lioness was perfectly aware that this fight could not go on any longer, otherwise, she would eventually find herself on the losing end. So she stopped moving, and backed away from Nilo. In a nature setting, the first thing she had ever learned, was how to hunt. Hunting required patience, and made use of the full extent of a lion¡¯s power for a short burst towards their prey, so she backed away to the other side of the fighting ground, and started to observe her opponent¡¯s movements.

    Nilo, on the other hand, had never had anything to do with this type of beast. Each beast has its particr way of hunting, while all he had seen, were the asional bandit attacks which he had had to deal with on his way between one city to another, when he was only the son of a rich family of martial artists.

    What he could see, was that in front of the lioness, was a cone shaped range in which she could easily predict his movements and adjust her own ordingly, and he was right in the middle of it.

    Unable to find a way to escape this position, Nilo noticed the lioness pounce at a hardly noticeable speed, so instead of trying to dodge, he dashed forward to meet her directly.

    The lioness epted this challenge, and sent an extremely powerful paw strike against him, which Nilo met with his knee. The impact was powerful enough to strip the space that surrounded them from any sort of essence.

    Upon impact, the lioness¡¯s paw was sent back a few meters, while the downward motion of the paw strike forced Nilo¡¯s suspended body, to spin in ce multiple times.

    After only moments, however, from the spinning mass that was Nilo¡¯s body, a protuberance that was nothing but Nilo¡¯s leg extended outwards, and met with the top of the lioness¡¯s head, sending her crashing against the ground. Unfortunately, the power of the kick was not enough to make the lioness lose consciousness, sending her on a rampage instead.

    As soon as Nilo¡¯s legs touched the ground, she pounced once again, and bit on his body, caging his entire left leg in between her sharp set of teeth. The power of her immensely strong jaw was her strongest asset, so it only took a portion of her power to crash the femur, tibia, and fib of his leg.

    Inside his booth, Daniel was now standing, and nervously ying with a small ball of copsed space which, while much weaker than the constructed solid space of which his booth was made of, could have easily shattered it upon contact.

    However, before he could act, he saw Nilo grab onto the mane of the lioness¡¯s head with his left hand, and send in only a few seconds, more than a hundred devastating punches against the softest part of her head, which was her eye.

    The lioness instinctively closed her eyelids and tightened her hold of Nilo¡¯s body, now sinking her teeth into his flesh, but that did not work. From the fissure of her eyelid, blood started toe out, and her eye was pushed back into the socket enough for the impact to reverberate through her skull, and reach her brain.

    Nilo kept punching, and punching, and punching, until finally, more than a minute, the lioness finally fell on the ground. Her form was slowly turning back into that of a humanoid beast, whose only movement was that of a feeble breath, which showed that she was not dead yet.

    Nilo immediately dropped on her body, and while squeezing her throat with his left hand, sent a powerful p across her face with his now mangled right hand. This p was enough to shake the lioness awake, who unable to summon any strength, or even talk, did nothing but look up at Nilo¡¯s face with fear.

    "Surrender, or I will kill you right now." He said in between deep breaths, and sharp waves of pain.

    Luckily, his tone was serious enough for the lioness to not want to test it, so with thest bit of power she could muster, she slowly raised her right hand in surrender.

    The old explorer quietly appeared on stage and noticed how, as the cloud of dust settled, the lower part of Nilo¡¯s body was uncovered, showing that his left leg had, at some point during his flurry of attacks, been ripped right off, and he was now standing over a pool of blood.

    Seeing that both of them were unable to move, he lifted the two of them up with his control over the wind essence, and sent Nilo out of the stage, while the lioness was teleported back into one of the observing booths, where an oddly tall man with skin covered in scales, and long horns was watching with disappointment.

    It did not take long for Daniel to recognize this man as a member of the draconic race, and a royal one at that.

    Meanwhile, Nilo was sent directly towards Finn, who immediately began to heal him with hisprehension of healing essence and a few healing pills.

    "Number one hundred and seven, and number two hundred and ny-four. Come on stage." He then said while instantly repairing the devastated stage.

 Chapter 398 Old Grudges and Older Enemies

    The rest of the fights went on uneventfully. No other duel was fought between two members of Iewah¡¯s children, leading to a boring and predictable spectacle.

    After thest of these two hundred fights, the old explorer concluded the event for the day, and teleported the remaining participants into a pocket dimension that contained a small scale city. He then invited the observers to a banquet.

    More than two days had passed since the beginning of the One Above All, and even for the standard of a cultivator, such length was beyond their limits of patience. After all, to send their most talented young cultivators into a death trap required them to be constantly on edge.

    Naturally, Daniel and the other observers knew that this break from the event was not out of courtesy. The universal government had a second objective, and that objective, was to rope in the most powerful factions in case a war between the two civilizations was unavoidable.

    Daniel was sitting at a table that had been prepared, and reserved for him and hispanions. This table was ced right next to the main table, where the members of the universal government, or more specifically, the military, explorers, and judge¡¯s representatives were sitting.

    The positioning of the tables had been selected out of the respect that the government felt towards the many factions,panies, and solitary cultivators present. The closest tables went to each of the members or representatives of one of Iewah¡¯s children, as well as the major factions.

    Through the banquet, many dishes were brought in along with different sorts of specially made beverages which were powerful enough to numb even the mind of a high immortal.

    Daniel and the old man Golden Cauldron stayed seated, and observed as the Silver Alchemist was approached by many groups in hope to be introduced.

    For one of Iewah¡¯s children, Daniel had shown himself to be extremely civilized, and that was a rare sight for those who had had anything to do with any other of their kind. That was also the reason why only he and the Teacher hade to observe the event personally, while the others had sent proxies instead.

    After more than an hour, Daniel¡¯s teacher found himself unable to stop a few people from walking past him, and sit in the empty spots of Daniel¡¯s table. However, as they made themselvesfortable, Daniel pretended that they weren¡¯t there, and kept talking to the old man Golden Cauldron.

    "You have costed my faction quite the sum, Outcast." Said the white clothed cultivator who had been sent as the representative of the Spiritual Faction. Standing behind him quietly, was the participant who had been defeated by one of the Teacher¡¯s students.

    A second cultivator, whose body was covered in precious merchant clothes, but that was not part of any of Cato¡¯s main merchant conglomerates, chimed in by saying, "Not only you. Because of him, we were cut out of Hell. We have lost an extremely important business partner." He was one of the leading figures of the merchant faction.

    upying two more chairs of Daniel¡¯s table, while staying quiet, were two more cultivators. One of them was a woman in blood red clothes with red hair and eyes, while the other, was man in dark purple clothes, with eyes that resembled two small vortexes of death-like essence. His skin was almost entirely covered by a dark spot, that had only spared his face, and hands. These two were the representatives of the Parasitic faction, and the Sovereign of Corruption.

    The power of each of these four individuals was simr, and each of them could bepared on a cultivator at the hundredth phase of high immortality. However, their power was not enough to catch Daniel¡¯s attention, so he continued his conversation with the old man Golden Cauldron.

    "I would assume that, once he will wake up, he will give you an earful about what he has learned." Said Daniel while chuckling lightly.

    The old man smiled back, and with reminiscence, he said, "It can¡¯t be any worse than it was before. We once had a debate regarding the depths of space and time, and on my life, the next five hours were filled with his bbering!"

    "Who knows. Maybe this time you two will manage to finish that conversation." Added Daniel while taking a sip of the liquor in his ss, but instead of swallowing it, he destroyed it while in his mouth. His actions were not caused by any type of suspicion, but by the fact that he preferred not to be intoxicated, while surrounded by enemies and strangers.

    Suddenly, their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a clearing throat.

    "Can I help you with something?" Said Daniel before slowly turning towards the Spiritual Warrior, which was the one who had tried to catch his attention. "Maybe some directions to your own table?" He then added, while showing a faint smile.

    In response to Daniel¡¯s tone, the spiritual warrior lost any form of politeness, and with a more aggressive tone, he said, "Brat, watch your tone. I have about a hundred thousand years on you, and I could rip your spirit right off your body."

    "Well, you better make sure you kill me, then." Responded Daniel before casually taking another sip of his drink.

    Daniel¡¯s simple words carried a clear message. He was not afraid of him, and even if he used his means to kill him, he was sure toe back alive, and set his faction on fire. There was no situation in which theck of fear and the absolute confidence in one¡¯s own ability would not change another person¡¯s opinion of oneself, and this was the case for Daniel.

    Although a rule that prohibited these powerful individuals from fighting had not been set, they were still respectful. After all, they all belonged to the universal government, and if they created a situation that would damage the holders of the event, they would ultimately have to pay for it, so instead of pushing it, the spiritual warrior turned to look at the merchant, and said, "You talk to him, before I change my mind, and choose to try my luck with the government."

    "Of course." Responded the merchant before turning to look at Daniel, and saying, "My problem with your actionsys in the effects it had on Hell¡¯s policies. We have tried more than once to enter in contact with them, but we were denied entrance multiple times. When asked why, they said to get your permission. Can you borate on that?"

    At the mention of Hell, Ivan and Sigg turned to look at Daniel with curiosity. As sons of merchants, they had heard of that dimension, and about the exchanges between the territory of the universal government and the demons. To them, it had grown to being a myth. A ce that they would likely never see in their lives, but of which they heard about more than once before.

    What shocked the two the most, however, was what Daniel said next.

    "I don¡¯t think that whoever you have talked to meant me. I believe they meant the King of Hell." Responded Daniel Cryptically.

    The merchant tilted his head slightly in confusion, then asked, "Are you saying that you are the king of hell?"

    "Of course not. The king of hell needs demonic power coursing through their body. Neither I, or anyone else present here could ever do that." Responded Daniel while putting his ss down, and making himselffortable in his seat.

    "Very well. How can we enter in contact with this ¡¯King of Hell¡¯? Is there a way we can find him?" Asked the merchant with interest. His only priority was to gain ess to Hell. Nothing else mattered to him.

    "Right here." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone, and while opening his arms.

    Once again, confused by Daniel¡¯s words, the merchant narrowed his eyes, and said, "Please, enough games. Can¡¯t we just be direct?"

    Daniel smiled in response, as a dark smoke started to emerge from his ck hair. Once plentiful, this smoke quietly turned into the shape of a wolf cub with demonic semnce.

    The apparition of the demonic wolf cub was surprising enough to catch the attention of those that were observing from Daniel¡¯s surroundings, but also to catch the interest of the humanoid dragon, and the dispirited humanoid lioness which Nilo had fought in battle only hours earlier.

    "That is the king of hell?" Asked the merchant with a confusion shared between himself, and the others.

    "I know, it is much cuter than the name suggests, don¡¯t you agree?" Responded Daniel while grabbing the fluffy sides of the cub¡¯s body in order to stabilize him over his head, and preventing him from falling.

    The cub had been hiding within the shadows of Daniel¡¯s hair, and would onlye out to eat the dark spheres. However, despite its appearance, he had already reached a level of power that would match an early immortal, and if allowed to take its real shape, he would grow to twenty meters in length.

    The only reason why the cub would remain in its infant appearance, was because it was convinced that if he was bigger, he would have to be separated from Daniel, and as a consequence, lose a portion of its meals.

    "So, you do have control over Hell." Said the merchant while looking at the wolf cub munch on a dark essence sphere. He then added, "How much do you want for him?"

    The merchant¡¯sst question was able to remove the smile from Daniel¡¯s face. "I am going to pretend that you didn¡¯t ask me that."

    In response to what Daniel said, the merchant leaned toward him, and said with a low tone, "Sir Outcast.. That gentleman over there with the scaled-skin, is one of the Tamer¡¯s followers. He has already noticed this odd beast, and I can assure you that your actions have just confirmed that this creature is indeed the ticket to enter Hell. It would be much better for you to get rid of it. We would dly take it off your hands, and maybe sell it to the Tamer in your stead due to.. Your inherent differences."

    "I already have apanion who the Tamer wishes to acquire. I don¡¯t see why adding another would bother me." Responded Daniel before taking a look at the two humanoid beasts that had started to stare at him since the wolf cub hade out.

    "I understand. No luck then." Said the merchant without the slightest hint of disappointment.

    Daniel was not in a good mood anymore, so he turned to look at the remaining two cultivators, and said, "Go on with your threats orints, then fuck off."

    "Neither of the sort." Responded the High Herald of the Sovereign of Corruption, as he slowly stood up from his seat, and said with a smile, "I was tasked with extending an invitation to visit the Sovereign of Corruption, and now that I did, I¡¯ll be on my way."

    As the Herald stood up, the woman in red followed suit. "My Lord sends his regards. He can¡¯t wait for you two to meet again, Outcast." she muttered before following the man in purple clothes.

    The merchant and the Spiritual Warrior did not leave, and instead turned to look at the approaching individuals. One of them was the tall humanoid dragon, while the other, was a man which appeared to be in histe seventies.

    Of the two individuals, the one whom Daniel was the most wary of, was the old man.

    "Outcast. My master wishes to have a word with you and my nephew.. after all of this will be over." said the humanoid dragon before walking past his table, and along with the lioness, heading towards the enrance of the ballroom.

    Daniel smiled in response to his words, and said with a tone loud enough for him to hear, "Tell her that we will meet when I¡¯lle to free your kin. I have already promised that to your nephew."

    Once the two left, the old man sat on the free chair next to Daniel, and with odd friendliness, he said, "Outcast. My beloved mistress has a score to settle with you. Why not be mature, and have a talk with her? I am sure that there is nothing that cannot be solved with a chat."

    The words of this old man made a few memories resurface in Daniel¡¯s mind. He could see a beautiful young woman, who looked at him at the moment of his death. A woman whose throat he had broken aftering back to life, only to see her escape thanks to the sacrifice of one of the people which she had bewitched. A woman that in the past few years had gained a massive fame through the territory of the universal government, and had been named as ¡¯The Charmer¡¯, or as he knew her as, Kreah.

    As these memories resurfaced, and Daniel remembered Kreah¡¯s face, he suddenly felt a grip around his heart. To his shock, he was feeling affection towards her. An affection that was not supposed to be here.

    It was right when this feeling started to develop into love inside Daniel¡¯s mind, that Aeron came out of the ring he was wearing, and ced his hand over his head.

    In a matter of moments, the memories of Kreah were locked away in the depths of Daniel¡¯s mind, and he came back to his senses.

    With a drop of cold sweat that moved down his back, Daniel thought of how terrifying her gift had bepared to the first time they had met. To be able to bewitch another child of Iewah without even being there, was a demonstration that the gifts of the other children of Iewah were not inferior to his own.

    As Aeron appeared, the mental warriors present to the event turned to look at him with horror.

    As mental beings, they were able to scan Aeron¡¯s body the same way an immortal cultivator was able to scan another¡¯s, and it did not take much for them to see that, while still weakpared to the others, his mental power was profound, and extremelyplex.

    To put it in simple terms, while their mental power was a simple color based on the type of mental powers that they would obtain during their ascension, Aeron¡¯s mental power was a palette, which contained every color imaginable.

 Chapter 399 Bittersweet Family Reunion

    "Aeron!" Shouted a woman in simple clothes, and whose face was covered by a mask simr to the one which Aeron always wore. She was part of the entourage of the mental factions, and more specifically, a member of the Psionic Dimension, who along with a few other simrly dressed individuals, approached Daniel¡¯s now crowded table.

    At the same time, the old man who had been bewitched by Kreah looked at Daniel and Aeron with annoyance, before excusing himself from the table.

    As she grew in power, Kreah had gained the ability to bewitch people from within their imagination. All she needed for that to happen, was for them to possess a mean that allowed them to fall in love with her, like for example, a memory, or a mental image. Due to this, one of the tasks that the Charmer had given to her strongest followers was that, if they ever met the Outcast, they would have to make the memories of her resurface from within the depths of his mind.

    Daniel¡¯s mind was oddly powerful, and instead of taking effect immediately, these artificial feelings were built in slowly enough, to give Aeron a chance to stop them. If not for him, there was a good chance that Daniel would have fallen prey to Kreah¡¯s powers once again.

    Utterly confused, Daniel looked in silence as the old man walked away, then turned towards the approaching mental warrior. His memories of Kreah had been pulled out, and stored separately by Aeron, unable to be essed. For all he knew, after saying a few words, the old man had simply decided to leave.

    That was until a string of words reached Daniel¡¯s mind, which exined to him how he had just risked his life, and that he had been unknowingly carrying a bomb in his mind for so long.

    Daniel nodded at Aeron with appreciation, before standing up, and cing himself between him, and the mental warriors that now stood only a few steps away from him.

    "Can I help you with something?" Asked Daniel to the masked woman, who stood in front of the small group of cultivators of the Psionic Dimension faction.

    After stopping in their tracks, the woman slowly turned towards Daniel, and said menacingly, "Move, Outcast. This has nothing to do with you." As she spoke, Daniel felt a subtle power wrap tightly around the imaginary confines of his mind and consciousness.

    "As long as the Psionic Dimension has problems with one of my people, it does have something to do with me." He responded,pletely indifferent to the mental threat. While confident, Daniel was wondering what methods he could use to defeat someone like this group of powerful mental warriors. After all, their karma was nowhere near the point where karmic retribution would be more than a nuisance. His only hope would be to deter any aggressive action with his nuclear option.

    The mental factions were one of the few factions not scared of Iewah¡¯s children. Unable to possess ki, they lived as bodies of solidified mental power merged with their spirit, and while that body was not as resistant as a body made of ki, and their spirit was not as powerful as a pure spirit, their mind was their own power.

    With their mind, at a high enough level, they were able to protect themselves not only from the damage, but from the intent. Amongst them, were ascended mental warriors with powers that allowed them not only to control one¡¯s mind, but also to protect themselves against any form of corruption, like induced feelings.

    While specific, and not always useful, these powers were the most powerful shield against beings like the Charmer, the Merchant, and even the Monarch, who by ying on the feelings of love, greed, and submissiveness, would be able to control, or convince their opponents to do their biddings.

    Thanks to this safety measures, they were able to avoid any conflict with most of Iewah¡¯s children, with exception made for one, whose entire system revolved around the power of the mind.

    The situation for Daniel, however, was slightly different.

    While he did not possess a system that allowed him to control the minds of others, someone next to him could, and to a point where he was able to deflect the power of one of Iewah¡¯s children while not even being particrly powerful. His sess, was simply due to the purity of his power.

    Naturally, only a mental warrior could have achieved that, and it did not take long for those who had practiced in simr cultivation methods to recognize him immediately.

    Annoyed by Daniel¡¯s behaviour, the woman turned to look at one of the masked men that was standing behind her, and said, "Make him move."

    The man¡¯s masked face slowly turned towards Daniel, and as their eyes locked, his eyes started to glow with a dark green hue. Daniel narrowed his eyes with suspicion, but even after a few seconds, nothing happened.

    "He is blocking me." said the man as the glow of his eyes lessened, and went back to their original color.

    "He blocked you?! How is that possible? He barely ascended!" Said the woman with shock, through a mental transmission.

    The man shrugged his shoulders in hope to show his confusion, before saying, "I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s was like trying to pierce through a thinyer of ice, with a ss of water. I can force myself in, but it will harm him."

    After this mental conversation, the woman turned to look pass Daniel and towards Aeron, then said, "I just want to talk." Contrary to what she was hoping, however, Aeron ignored her, and took a sit on the empty chair next to his friend¡¯s seat.

    Daniel stood in between them, not sure what the rtionship between the two was, but since she had called him by his name, it was clear that the two knew each other.

    "Let me speak to my descendent." Said the woman after turning to look at Daniel.

    Shocked by the woman¡¯s words, Daniel turned to look at Aeron, who simply nodded his head in confirmation.

    Seeing that this group of mental warriors did not mean any harm to hispanion, Daniel sat back in his chair, allowing the woman past him, and towards the empty seat next to where Aeron was sitting.

    "A crazy night." Said the old man Cauldron, who had quietly observed the events unfold.

    At the same time, happy with the information they gathered about Daniel¡¯s enemies and connections, the spiritual warrior and the merchant left to either go back to their tables, or to entertain another of the known figures present.

    When it appeared that the conversation between Aeron and his ancestor was about to begin, Aeron suddenly turned to look at her, and said, "Out loud."

    The woman was slightly taken aback. It wasmon practice between mental warriors, when surrounded by other kinds of cultivators, to read each other¡¯s mind instead of talking. However, Aeron¡¯s words relied a clear message. He wanted Daniel to hear what she had to say, which meant that he cared more about his rtionship with him, than he did about theirs.

    "W-When did you ascend? And how is.. This.. possible?" She asked out loud with confusion. As a mental cultivator, she could feel Aeron¡¯s gift in his very body. It was a pool of undeveloped powers which, individually, would match the advancement of his cultivation, but all together, shattered the concepts of gifts of the mental path.

    Most mental warriors were jack of all trades, and master of one, which meant that all of them possessed every known mental power just like an immortal cultivator would possess all physical attributes, but that through their ascension, they were only able to master one. The possibility that a mental warriors would have multiple masteries existed, but it was notmon, and five powers at the same time, was the historical record.

    Aeron¡¯s mental power, on the other hand, showed indications that none of his powers weretent, and if he wanted, he could have developed all of them at the same time.

    "Just ask me what you wish to ask, Ancestor." Responded Aeron, unwilling to reveal a single fragment of Daniel¡¯s secrets.

    Disappointed by his detached response, the woman said, "Okay then.e back with us. When we leave, let us go home together."

    "I don¡¯t remember you being so affectionate towards me. Be it when I was sent to war, or when I chose to leave. I always thought that the best I would have gotten out of our rtionship, was to not be hunted down by bounty hunters." Said Aeron in the seemingly longest phrase he had ever uttered since Daniel had met him.

    "Things are different now. Your powers.." She said before stopping, and thinking, "Your powers are abnormal. We can protect you.. Nobody will ever hurt you while you are in our care, and nobody else can help you grow better than we do." As she finished, she said out loud "We are your family."

    "I am sorry ancestor. I have already found my ce. The risk is worth it." Responded Aeron confidently, but with an imperceptible sadness attached to it.

    The woman turned to look at Daniel with confusion. She knew that he was one of Iewah¡¯s children, but nothing led her to believe that he was the kind which could brainwash people. All she could see was an obscenely powerful young man with an odd amount of enemies for his age. Enemies to which, she knew her faction would soon be part of.

    As the woman¡¯s eyes turned towards her maskedpanions, she immediately realized that, since they had witnessed Aeron¡¯s powers, it was only a matter of time, before the faction would change their policy towards him. After all, his millennia as an outcast had yet toe to an end, and if they wanted, they could easily put a bounty on him at any time.

    "I understand. Just know that as soon as the word gets out, your group will have to face another world of pursuers." She said through her mind power.

    Aeron responded with a faint nod, and the words, "I know. It was good seeing you, ancestor."

    "Good luck, child." Responded the woman after standing up, and while pressing her hand on Aeron¡¯s shoulder. She then walked back to her group, where a few masked men were looking at her with hidden expressions of confusion, anger, and urgency. From their point of view, their faction had produced the most incredible monster of the history of mental warriors, and they were going to let him free.

    Back at his table, Daniel was finally alone with the old man Golden Cauldron, and Aeron, while the silver alchemist was still entertaining the lower participants of the banquet.

    "A bittersweet family reunion. Outcast, let us show him that we can do better than that." Said the Teacher who, at some point, had appeared in one of the empty chairs of Daniel¡¯s table.

    "I¡¯m never going to enjoy five minutes of peace here.." muttered Daniel before taking a long sip of his drink, but this time, actually ingesting it. "Call me Sewah, brother. I don¡¯t like titles." He then added with a faint smile.

    As Daniel finished speaking, the teacher looked at the old man sitting next to him, then said with a faint smile, "You are not one of us, are you? That must be the reason why you are the outcast."

    "I don¡¯t know what you are talking about." Responded Daniel, slightly surprised by the Teacher¡¯s words.

    "Oh, do not bother. You and I both know that our powers extend way past their literal meaning. There isn¡¯t much I can¡¯t learn, as long as I want to.." Responded the Teacher beforeying back on his chair, and adding with a reassuring tone, "But if it makes you feel better, it was the covering of your mouth, and the moment of surprise in the face of this gentleman over there, that gave you away."

    "I assume you were never the fun one in the family reunions, were you?" Responded Daniel ironically.

    The old man responded to Daniel¡¯s words with a smile, before suddenly breaking out in an amusedugh. He then added, "ording to my brother¡¯s standards, I really am not. I was actually eager to have a conversation with the other boring member of our family, but it looks like you are closer to my brothers than I am."

    The more Daniel talked to the Teacher, the more ufortable he felt. Every form of information, no matter how irrelevant to the topic, was being registered and processed by him. Be it his attitude, or tone. However, he did not show his feelings on the outside, and instead said, "Well, we are still talking. We can still give it a shot. How about we start with your name?"

    "Romah. My name is Romah."

 Chapter 400 The Likeable Middle Child

    "My name is Romah."

    After learning about the Teacher¡¯s name, Daniel turned to look at his surroundings. At least half of the cultivators present were either looking at him, or observing him through their sensing abilities, so instead of talking casually, he turned to look at Aeron, and said, "Do you mind?"

    Aeron responded to these words with a simple nod of his head, before opening his right hand. Soon after, a small green orb emerged out of his palm, and stopped once it floated in the air just a few centimeters above his skin.

    "Do you mind?" He then asked to Romah, who by observing how Daniel had looked at his surroundings, made a request to his mental warriorpanion, and made an invitation to him, was able to realize what the use of the orb was.

    "Of course." Responded Romah before reaching for the green orb, and sending a portion of his mental power and consciousness into it.

    The speed and simplicity with which Romah had acted, came to a great surprise to both Daniel and Aeron, who were ready to exin to him how the green orb had to be used.

    The green orb was simr to a spatial container made out of mental power, and instead of being able to contain objects, it was a hub for consciousnesses to interact. This power belonged to the tree of powers under the spectrum of mental projection, and only mental warriors with simr powers would be able to interact with it, making it a perfectly safe room where two people could have a conversation undisturbed.

    Not many had ever thought of this method, and of the people present, only the mental warriors were aware of what the small green orb was.

    What had surprised both Daniel and Aeron, was how quickly the Teacher had picked up on what they were doing, making it seem that his power, consisted not only in learning things, but also in making educated guesses that would allow him to ¡¯learn¡¯ the truth of something he knew nothing about.

    "Be careful.." Said Aeron in a low tone, before Daniel nodded in acknowledgment, and just like the Teacher had done, injected a portion of his mind and consciousness into the green orb.

    "So this is how you got rid of him. Your friend must have found him before he grew powerful enough to devour you, and take over your body. Seeing how oddly powerful your mind is, I would assume you then devoured him back." Said Romah casually.

    "Don¡¯t people find this off-putting? Stop prying and let¡¯s have a conversation." Responded Daniel to the void, as the two were unable to see each other, while existing within the same small space.

    Their presence within the green orb was in the form of wisps of mental power controlled by a portion of their consciousness. That was why Daniel had decided to have this conversation within Aeron¡¯s mental orb. He wanted to limit the guessing power of the Teacher¡¯s system as much as possible.

    "More off-putting than you would realize. Enough to force me not to have any more sess than my siblings in social situations. Hehe." Responded Romah before letting out an ironicugh. "I assume you have questions for me, but before you do, know that I have met my father before, both in his human and his original form, and my powers turned out to be useless against him." He then added.

    Surprised that Romah could guess the nature of his questions before he even started asking them, Daniel could not help himself but say, "Your powers are impressive."

    "You jest." responded Romah immediately after. "You clearly have not seen much about the rest of us. I once met one of us who could turn his drawings into reality, one who could mirror people¡¯s perception of the world, and even one who could bring people¡¯s consciousness back from the dead."

    "How did you fight something like that?" Asked Daniel, shocked about what he had just heard.

    "You don¡¯t. I have used my abilities to get away from them. Some of us are powerful, or smart enough to ignore our urges. I am none of the two. It just happens that I was quick enough to learn my limits, as well as find a way to stay away from them." Responded Romah as honestly as he could.

    "So your title is wrong. Your system has to do with learning more than teaching."

    "Those who gave me this title know nothing of my kind. They name us based on our achievements, because the know nothing of our abilities. Look at yourself for example. I doubt that the system that my father granted you has anything to do with you being an outcast."

    Not willing to allow the conversation gravitate towards his powers, Daniel changed topic by saying, "Speaking of your father, have you made any guesses on who he might be?"

    "A hard question.." muttered Romah before taking a small pause. He then said, "You know, the government did not know what he was at first. At first, they thought he was a simple tree which quietly floated in space. That was until he was moved into one of the ancient capitals."

    "What happened?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "The son of the leader of the universal government of that time imed to have encountered a mysterious old man during one of his travels. He then became obsessed with the study of Death. His powers, beyond what a normal cultivator should have possessed, became not only a threat to most of the powers of which the government was made of, but also the reason why the cults of the worshippers of death started to appear. Nobody knew that he was one of us at first, and soon enough, he became too powerful to be allowed to live."

    This was the first time that Daniel had heard about one the Deathbringer. The first known children of Iewah, whose powers revolved around death, and extended to a point where he could grant it, or deny it to whomever he wished to.

    "Let me guess.. He did not take it lying down." Said Daniel, painfully aware of the character of Iewah¡¯s children. Especially those who had just been able to take over their host¡¯s bodies.

    "The greatest extermination in the history of the government. The only time our father appeared, just to stop my oldest brother from leaving nothing but death in the known universe." Responded Romah with a stern tone.

    Daniel never had a chance to study the history of the universal government, so he had never heard any of these stories, but while interesting, his attention was caught by another detail. "He doesn¡¯t wish for the universal government to perish, and yet he does nothing but grant gifts to clueless people. Gifts who turn into casual powers created from the host¡¯s intentions, interests, and personalities. Is he waiting for a specific one to be created?" Daniel asked.

    "Oh, quite the bright one." Said Romah with surprise. He then added, "That¡¯s what I thought as well. There has to be a specific power that he is waiting to appear. Powers akin to universe¡¯sws or primordial forces, like destruction, chaos, karma, fate, or even luck."

    "What about creation?" Asked Daniel in a hurry to change the topic from any of those which Romah had mentioned.

    "I don¡¯t know. If he didn¡¯t have so many limitations, I would have said he himself possessed the power of creation." Responded Romah with a hesitant tone. For many centuries he had wondered why his father would only create an extremely small amount of his siblings. Was his power limited? Was he really able to create the powers? Or was he only the vessel to grant these powers to the chosen ones? Unfortunately, no matter for how long he tried, these questions would always remain unanswered. "I do have a question for you." He then asked.

    No body reaction could be seen within Aeron¡¯s green orb, so the Teacher would not have been able to see Daniel¡¯s suspicion as he said, "I cannot guarantee an answer."

    "Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t ask anything about your powers. I just want to know what your first interaction between you and my father was like. I think that there has to be a clue within the first encounter between you people, and him. What happened?" Asked the Teacher after a brief exnation.

    "When I met him, he was sitting in the shade of a massive tree. He seemed at peace with his surroundings, but to the young me, he looked like an old man in distress. I offered help and gave him food, and he told me about the tree¡¯s magical fruit." Responded Daniel.

    After listening to Daniel¡¯s story, Romah mentally shook his head in disappointment, before saying, "Very simr to my host¡¯s story. He mistook him for a beggar who rested at the foot of the tree where he used to read his books, and gave him some gold coins."

    "And now he is dead." Said Daniel, unhappy about the true nature of the ¡¯benevolent tree¡¯ of legends.

    Before Daniel could go deeper into the conversation, however, he was shocked by what he heard next.

    "My host is not dead." said Romah with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "What do you mean?" Asked Daniel with surprise.

    With a tone filled with an annoyance to which Daniel could easily rte to, Romah responded by saying, "You were able to use your power before my brother tried to take over your body, and so did my host. Let¡¯s just say that there isn¡¯t much you can hide from my system."

    Daniel did not know what to say. He had always thought that he was the first one to defy the path created by Iewah¡¯s gifts, and now, he had learned that there was another, and possibly more survivors.

    However, there were differences between the two of them.

    Even without asking, Daniel knew that the one who had managed to keep the body was not the original host, but Romah himself, as the gift was stored within the body, and not in the mind or the spirit. Daniel, on the other hand, had taken back control over his own body, and used his mental power to push Sewah out, and put him into the dead body of the Oni leader.

    Extremely curious about the conditions of Romah¡¯s former host, Daniel was ready to ask for more details, but he was interrupted when Aeron said, "The speech is about to begin. Time is up."

    Almost aware of what Daniel wished to ask, before leaving the green orb, Romah said, "I have no idea where he is now. I left him with the mental factions, which promised to keep his consciousness alive long enough for him to create a body of mental power. Maybe, if fate allows, you two will meet. If that happens, please send him my regards.."

    As he finished speaking, Romah¡¯s consciousness disappeared from within the green orb, and went back into his body.

    When Daniel did the same, he immediately noticed four individuals that had been sitting in the middle of the main table before, now stand in silence. The one to the far right was a heavily armored man with multiple scars on his face, the one to the far left was the old man in charge of the One Above Allpetition, the second person from the left was a woman dressed in grand judge clothes, and finally, sitting in between the female judge and the general, was a middle aged man dressed in regal clothes.

    From the demeanor of this man, Daniel was able to realize that he wasn¡¯t a simple person. If that was not enough, he also could not even begin to feel the level of his cultivation. No matter if a participant of the event, the owner of thepanies, the leaders of the factions, or even a chosen of Iewah. There was no doubt that this man was unmatched.

    As these four people stood up, every person within the hall in which the banquet was being hosted went back to their seats, and remained quiet.

    Once no other noise could be heard, the man in regal clothes said, "As per agreement of the treaty of peace that was signed by the faction leaders who joined our government, every warrior at the stage of high immortality orparable, will be a reserve of the universal government¡¯s army, and will be employed in case of war."

 Chapter 401 Playing Dirty

    "Hold on a moment! The agreement states that we have to grant our support in time of war, not that we have to give out our entire armies in case a war breaks out!" Said one of the Leaders of one of the mid-level factions which had been invited to the One Above Allpetition.

    Another cultivator, simrly enraged by the man¡¯s announcement, chimed in by saying, "That¡¯s right. How will we protect our territory like that?"

    When the peace treaty had been signed, the universal government had made sure that, in case a new faction was discovered in the depths of space, the other groups would have to give their support in subduing it. However, until now, that had only meant that a small portion of their warriors would be sent to join the army of the government.

    This time, on the other hand, from the way the man in royal clothes had phrased it, it seemed that the immortal government wanted a different kind of support. A total one, which required for every high immortal to join the effort against an obscure and powerful group.

    If a war really broke out, this would mean leaving their massive territories to the care of individuals at the same level of the participants of the event. Kids, or untalented individuals who hardly had any experience in ruling over massive territories.

    For any respectable leader, this request was out of line for a simple reason. All of these factions had, at some point, formed a grudge against one another, as well as gained a good amount of enemies for themselves and the people that followed them.

    That meant that, in case a war really broke out, these massive territories would fall into chaos while their owners would be forced away, to fight a war that would ultimately only benefit the universal government.

    "This isn¡¯t just a faction we are talking about." Responded the old man after mming the end of his staff on the ground to regain silence. He then added, "We are talking about a civilization so powerful, that it can afford to send scouts that would match in power most of the people present. Scouts whom a group of explorers, as well as a battalion of the army had difficulty facing. I have seen this myself, I was there!"

    For the first time, the news of how the first encounter between the two civilizations had gone, had been revealed,ing to a great surprise to the observers. Everyone knew how powerful the army was. To a point where a single battalion was able to destroy a small scaled faction in a matter of days.

    If that was not enough, the power of each member the explorers corp was even higher, making up theck in organization, with their individual prowess and resourcefulness. To think that a scouting group had been able to face this line up, was truly shocking.

    "I understand the gravity of the matter, but we still cannot empty our territories. How can we protect them in case of an attack?" Asked one of the observers.

    "You won¡¯t. For reasons of which you are already aware of, the power of the Judges is not useful for military situations. This means that, in the eventuality that a war breaks out, for as long as it will go on, the judges will take care of every dispute between factions." Responded the old man.

    Seemingly aware of what the purpose of this banquet was, the man in purple robes which had previously sat at Daniel¡¯s table stood up from his chair, and said, "The Sovereign of Corruption offers to employ ten thousand high corrupted, and ten thousand more in case of necessity."

    "The Spiritual Emperor offers fifteen thousand spiritual warriors." said the man in white clothes as soon as the herald of corruption finished speaking.

    After the two finished, every representative of a major faction stood up, and gave their response. The meaning behind these offers was clear. While weaker than the universal government, they were still too powerful to be pushed around.

    As thest of these dozen individuals finished speaking, the man in royal clothes turned to look at the Teacher, then while showing clear disinterest towards the words of the other cultivators, he asked, "What about Iewah¡¯s faction?"

    Romah had long learned about the true meaning behind this banquet. Contrary to what the representatives of the other major factions believed, the main target of this event were not their groups, but the members of Iewah¡¯s faction who had the kind of power that allowed them to produce oddly powerful warriors.

    Without hiding his smile, the Teacher looked back at the man in royal clothes, and said, "As you might know, Sir, my father does not bother with the government¡¯s affairs. As always, I suggest the government asks for support directly to each of my siblings."

    In a general sense, the behaviour of Iewah towards the universal government could be summed up with a word. That word, was indifference. Not one time had he bothered with the wars for conquest, or in making decisions for his own faction. He would simply stay aside, and give orders whenever he wanted.

    Even the wars fought for the expansion of his territory were not fought by his orders, but by his oldest children¡¯s decision, who after seeing their father¡¯s disinterest towards the newly discovereds, systems, and gxies, had decided to act on their own.

    Unfortunately, contrary to when Iewah would give one of his rare assignments, his children would only act based on whimsical decisions, and that was the reason why they were considered unreliable. That meant that, in order to be sure that in case a war broke out the government would receive the help of Iewah¡¯s powerful children, the government needed Iewah¡¯s word.

    "I am afraid that you will have to bother him, this time." Responded the man in Royal clothes, clearly unhappy about Iewah¡¯s usual indifferent behaviour. "I want a promise of cooperation from him, just like any other member of the universal faction."

    Already aware that this important man would not concede, Romah, as the only member of Iewah¡¯s children who was personally here, was left with no other choice but to nod in agreement.

    Through this entire announcement, not a single person had minded Daniel¡¯s presence. The reason for that was the fact that Daniel was a rtively new member of Iewah¡¯s faction, and that whenpared to factions that were counted in the tens of thousands, his group¡¯s overall power could notpare.

    Despite the deep feelings of unhappiness of the leaders of mid and small sized factions and groups, no one dared to oppose the words of the man in royal clothes, who after getting what he wanted, sat back and ignored the guests.

    To speak next was the old man, who while pointing at arge double door at the far end of the room, he said, "You may continue to interact with one another, or retire for the night in one of the suites we have prepared for your. Thepetition will continue tomorrow morning."

    As he finished speaking, he, along with the army officer, the judge, and the man in royal clothes left therge room where the banquet was being hosted, leaving the guests alone.

    Daniel did not wish to stay either, so he decided to retire for the night with hispanions, but as he tried to leave, a rich looking cultivator in his forties approached him, and said, "Mister Sewah, a moment, please."

    -----

    Meanwhile, in another area specifically created to hold the remaining participants of the event, was a massive square filled with two hundred participants. Around the square, were a few numbered and elegant inns, and in the hands of each of the cultivators present, was a small wooden nk on which the number of the inn, as well as the number of the room had been carved.

    "Do you guys think they simply ced us here to spend the night?" asked Finn with curiosity.

    While not at all powerful whenpared to the high phases of high immortality, a peak immortal cultivator was still powerful enough to recover from most injuries in a few hours.

    Theck of sleep was also something that separated a cultivator from a human, as a cultivator¡¯s strengthened organs required less and less rest the more powerful they became. This was the reason of Finn¡¯s confusion, as he could not understand what the reason for stopping the event at such ate time, was.

    "It¡¯s likely due to an event hosted by the organizers of the One Above All." Said a young woman dressed in grey clothes, while approaching the group of five along with two of herpanions. She was one of the participants of the event, as well as one of the twenty students of Romah, the Teacher. From the way she approached, it was clear that she was not there with ill intent, but simply to start a conversation.

    "What makes you say that?" Asked Finn with politeness.

    "We are not important enough for the universal government to spend a night waiting for us to do something as useless as sleep." Responded the young woman with a matter-of-fact tone.

    It was only after this young woman finished speaking, that Nilo chimed in, and asked, "Are you here for the second reason why we have been sent here?"

    "Which is?" Asked the young woman back with feigned curiosity, failing miserably in pretending that she did not already know the answer to that question.

    "What are you two talking about?" Asked Finn with confusion.

    Nilo turned to look at his friend, and responded by saying, "All the tests we have had to go through since the event has begun, have been challenges that put our character to the test. However, there is one side that has been ignored."

    "What is that?"

    Before Nilo could say something, Fyro broke his usual streak of quietness, to say, "ying dirty."

    As Finn showed an expression of realization, Nilo turned to look at the young woman and herpanions, and asked, "This is why you are here, but is there a reason for your group to worry?"

    "Not worry. It is out of precaution. Your group and oursbined are exactly an eighth of the amount of participants left. Would not hurt us to keep an eye out for each other" Responded the young woman.

    At this point, the woman did not believe Nilo to be aware of the real reason why she was seeking this brief alliance between their two groups. After all, the improved understanding of a situation was the power they had gained by being Romah¡¯s students.

    However, to her surprise, Nilo turned to look at the roughly hundred seemingly distracted cultivators that stuck together, and said, "Are you worried about them?"

    These hundred cultivators were, just like Nilo¡¯s group, the three rich looking young men, the humanoid beasts, and the twenty students, followers of one of Iewah¡¯s children. Specifically, the Charmer.

    "Their powers are strange. We don¡¯t understand their nature yet, but they are of the maniption kind. I would rather not have to face them with a five against one ratio." Responded the young woman with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Why not ask the beasts, or the three rich guys over there?" Responded Nilo with curiosity. He had kept an eye on this group of students, and he knew for a fact that he and his friends were the first ones these students had decided to approach, after being teleported into this square.

    "Because if they¡¯ll decide to target someone, it won¡¯t be those two groups. The beasts are subdued by their master, and no mental power that will try to stop that connection, will ever work with them. Simrly, the followers of the Merchant have abandoned their interest towards anything but wealth." Exined the young woman, after realizing that if they wanted to coborate, they might as well be honest with them.

    For a few moments Nilo pondered about what could happen during the night, and whether they should ept or not.. When suddenly, right before speaking his mind, he, Fyro, and the young woman turned to look at the group of one hundred cultivators.

    Two members of that group had started to move towards one of the few cultivators who were not part of the following of Iewah¡¯s children.

    Their actions appeared polite, enough for the lone cultivator to not be wary of them. Once next to him, one of the two cultivators took a square, and solid looking piece of paper from within the inside pocket of his robe, and showed it to him.

    After seeing this piece of paper, the lone cultivator appeared to be stunned. This gave enough time for the one of the charmer¡¯s followers to approach him, and whispered something in his ear.

    Once done, the lone cultivator smiled widely, and quietly joined their group.

    "We ept." muttered Nilo as a cold shiver started from the back of his head, and reached all the way down his lower back.

 Chapter 402 Not by the Rules

    Later in the night, the square was empty.

    Most participants had gone to rest in their respective rooms, and prepare for thest day of the event, leaving the entire area as quiet as a cemetery.

    By the time Nilo and the others had retired to their rooms, the group of a hundred cultivators that was part of the Charmer¡¯s group had raised to a hundred and twenty. Twenty of which seemed to have willingly joined their group after just after exchanging a few words with the original members.

    In the middle of the night, no sound could be heard except for a few feeble stepping noises in the hallways of the buildings, right outside a few of the rooms. After many hours, theplete silence was interrupted by an ever so slight creak of doors, each of them leading into the rooms of Nilo¡¯s group members, or Romah¡¯s students.

    As the doors slowly opened, around five dark silhouettes creeped into the rooms without making a single noise, finding themselves, in a matter of moments, around the bulging beds.

    In each room, simr scenes took ce. Two of the five silhouettes slowly leaned over the beds, and while one of them whispered a few words to the sleeping cultivators, the other ced a stick of incense on the bedside drawer. At the same time, in each room, three shiny gleams of tempered metal appeared from within the remaining three cultivators, revealing sharp knives.

    After roughly twenty seconds, in Nilo¡¯s room, the cultivator who was whispering to him felt that something was wrong, and without waiting, he grabbed the sheet that covered Nilo¡¯s body, and pulled it away, revealing his sleeping, half naked body.

    Immediately after his body was uncovered, the three cultivators did not hesitate to sink their knives into it, but right when they were expecting to feel the resistance of a peak immortal cultivator¡¯s skin, they instead felt an oddly resistant bubble pop, before hitting the solid surface of metal.

    This bubble was made out of spatial essence, and was only slightly more resistant that a typical bubble made out of soap and water. However, when faced against the power of a peak immortal, such a barrier did not offer any more protection than thetter.

    Nevertheless, it was not the presence of the bubble that should have worried the cultivators, but what was inside it. Vast amounts of mmable gas, condensed to a point were the popping of the bubble forced it to flush through the entire room.. but before it was able to fill it, the shing of the knives against the metallic bars hidden in the bubble, produced a few small sparks, which were all was needed for the highly mmable gases to be lit aze.

    From within arge bubble of spatial essence in the middle of the square, Nilo¡¯s group and Romah¡¯s students observed as just as many explosionspletely destroyed the buildings, and kept expanding until they found a thickyer of spatial and sound essences, which stopped their advancement.

    "As I thought. The Charmer must not trust her followers to do the dirty work, so she must have messed with their minds. They act as a dumb group, instead of like a team of infatuated individuals." said the female student to Nilo, whose face was brightened up by the lights of the explosions.

    Right after the explosions, the remaining cultivators who had not been subjugated by the Charmer¡¯s team yet, appeared one by one in the roofs of their buildings, from which they quietly observed the events unfold.

    "We both know that that probably did not do a lot of damage, right?" Asked Nilo.

    "Of course. I was hoping that they would give up, knowing that we are prepared for them." Responded the young woman before turning to look at the burning remains of the buildings, and adding, "However, it does not seem like they would care."

    Almost as if onmand, the more than hundred cultivators caught in the explosion began to emerge from the rubble of the buildings. Each of them uncaring about their small injuries, or the state of their clothes.

    After emerging from the rubble, they immediately turned to look towards the middle of the square, right where Nilo and the others were hiding. For as robotic and unnatural these cultivator¡¯s behaviour appeared, they were not dumb. After all, it was only due to their leader¡¯s orders that they werepelled to act as a team, instead of ying on their strongest attributes.

    Once separated by the massive explosions, it did not take long for them to act as individuals once again, and realize that there was only one ce where Nilo and the others could be. That ce was, of course, the most spacious one in the whole area. The middle of the square, protected by a spatial barrier that made them invisible to the eyes of the other cultivators.

    "How do you want to y it? Their powers are not as enhanced as ours, so we should be able to deal with them through the rest of the night." Asked Nilo with curiosity.

    The young woman immediately noticed how there wasn¡¯t a single trace of worry in Nilo¡¯s tone, nor in the expressions of hispanions, which seemed to be unfazed about the idea of fighting for an extremely long period of time.

    That was not the same for the students, as the power that the Teacher had given them, was the ability to improve their skills at an abnormally fast pace, better their perception, and be able to memorize most of what they read as long as it was of interest to them. What they, along with their teacher,cked, was any form of boost in power that elevated them above any other type of cultivator at the same level.

    Nilo¡¯s words made the students extremely curious about his and his team¡¯s powers, but they were not convinced that their immortal essence wouldst all night. So instead of facing them directly, the young woman turned to look at one of herpanions, and said, "Erge the affected area, and start the defensive illusions."

    The young man to which she spoke to simply nodded, before letting out as much immortal essence as he could. All of which was focused on making spatial barrier bigger, while also keeping them hidden.

    As the barrier became big enough, the student sat on the ground, and focused on recovering immortal essence, while at the same time, nine more began to move. Each of them stood in a specific point within the barrier, and formed their own illusory area within theirpanion¡¯s.

    All of this took about a minute, and waspleted right before the first one of the Charmer¡¯s minions barged into therge illusory spatial sphere.

    After entering the barrier, the first cultivator found himself within a maiden¡¯s bedroom.

    Sitting on the bed, but giving her back to the cultivator, was a young woman. The two were alone, and outside of the room¡¯s window, came the chilly breeze of the rainy night.

    "Lady Kreah?" muttered the young cultivator.

    Suddenly, the head of the woman that was sitting on the bed leaned forward and onto her own hand, and she started to cry. The sound of her voice was distorted by the noise of the heavy rain, making it impossible for the young man to know for sure if she was the woman that had charmed him, or not.

    Unfortunately for him, the deep love she felt towards the Charmer was enough to make his desires get a hold of his reason, and make him believe that he was finally alone with the woman of his life.

    The woman¡¯s actions had a deep impact on the young man, who worriedly approached her while saying calming words. However, as he got to roughly two meters from the bed, the sh that came from outside of the bedroom blinded his sight for just a moment.

    After this moment passed, the young man noticed the woman he loved,y lifeless on the bed.

    A feeling of desperation immediately kicked in, but before he could act on it, he felt the presence of another individual in the room. He suddenly turned around, and standing next to the bed, he saw another young man. In the second man¡¯s hand was a bloody knife, and on his barely visible face, was a smile.

    As the two notice each other¡¯s presence, on their faces seemed to appear an expression of sheer hate which caused them to pounce at one another, without even caring to unsheathe the weapons they were carrying.

    "Redirect their obsession and make them fight themselves. Impressive." Said Nilo as he looked at one of the Charmer¡¯s followers after the other enter the student¡¯s illusion, and after a few moments, engage each other in a furious battle. However, while he was impressed by the quick thinking of the students, he was certain that this was not enough. After all, even if each illusion could hold three cultivators, only twenty students were present.

    "We will help out from the other side." Nilo added as Cynna, Zack, Fyro, and Finn stood up from the ground, and prepared to teleport outside of the spatial formation.

    At this point, only half of the hundred and twenty cultivators had been captured into the illusion, and while the young students were confident, they knew that their tactic would only work if the charmed ones injured themselves before engaging them in battle.

    "Can you really take care of that many?" Asked the female student with doubt.

    "Taking care of them is not the problem. Subduing them without killing them, is." Responded Nilo before teleporting out with his fourpanions, leaving the twenty students with confused expressions.

    Logically speaking, there was no reason why someone who was attacked should have spared their attacker in the cultivation world. An attacker would not attack for nothing, and an unresolved matter would only cause a deeper grudge between two cultivators. However, after listening to Nilo¡¯s words, the students suddenly remembered one of the many lessons that their teacher had imparted to them.

    -----

    "The rules of survival of the cultivation world were never established by someone. They were notions carried down by the survivors. After tens of thousands of years, if you survive by abiding to your rules, those rules will be one of the most threaded paths. People will talk about them, they will impart them to their children, and even challenge them at some point."

    "Never underestimate those who don¡¯t y by the general rules. They are either crazy, or powerful enough to establish new ones."

    -----

    From the way Nilo and the others had reacted towards the charmed ones, as well as from what he had just said, the students were able to roughly understand their motivations. The charmed ones had been brainwashed by the Charmer¡¯s power, and if there was a possibility of subduing them without killing them, they were going to try.

    Unfortunately, they did not have that luxury, as their production of immortal cultivation was nowhere near as high as the members of Nilo¡¯s team and could not drag the fight on for too long.

    After teleporting out of the spatial formation, Nilo and the others reappeared within the square, where more than sixty injured cultivators were walking towards its center, right where the students were hiding.

    As soon as they appeared, however, these sixty students changed their target, from the spatial formation, to them. They immediately unsheathed their swords and began charging towards them at full speed.

    "A little help?" Said Nilo to the observing cultivators, who looked at them as if they were idiots. In their mind, the more they tired each other out, the less they would have to worry about them the next day.

    "You don¡¯t need help. You¡¯ve got this. Haha!" Said one of the humanoid beasts with tion.

    Nilo did not really expect for these cultivators to help, so after their refusal, he turned towards hispanions, and said, "No weapons."

 Chapter 403 Underhanded Tactics

    One hour after the other went bye, and soon enough, it was three in the morning.

    Inside the massive illusion in the middle of the square, the students were starting to get nervous. By rotating, they had tried to stop the charmed ones into the illusion for as much as they could, but their immortal essence was starting to run thin.

    The consumption of essence was way higher than the amount which the resting ones recovered, and soon enough, they would find themselves not only having to face these sixty cultivators, but do so while having close to no power left.

    If that was not bad enough, the difficulty of their feat was high enough for them to be unable to keep an eye on what was happening outside, and instead have to focus on their illusion, or recover as much of their power, in as little time as possible.

    "We can¡¯t go on like this." Said one of the resting students with worry, before adding, "At this rate we will have no power left to face them. We have to start implementing some killing methods in the illusions. And what happened to the Outcast¡¯s followers?"

    "They are not back yet, so they probably haven¡¯t won." Responded another resting male student.

    The third one to speak was the young woman who had interacted with Nilo and his group, and said, "The other sixty charmed ones are noting either, so they must be upied with them."

    "This is all your fault, Tianna. We should have picked the beasts." Said the first young man with dejection, implying that they had proposed a simr agreement to the beasts, before going to Nilo¡¯s team.

    "You have heard what they said! No alliances with the Outcast¡¯s followers! We also all agreed that they were much less reliable than Nilo and the others." Responded the young woman right away. While they were in clear danger, taking the me for something for which she had no fault, was still something she was not willing to do.

    "You know it better than us. After three hours of fighting one against twelve, they must have ran out of immortal essence. They probably hid somewhere. The moment the other half of the charmed ones stops looking for them andes at us instead, we are done." Said the second resting young man in response to the young woman¡¯s words.

    Slightly annoyed by what her twopanions were saying, the young woman responded by saying, "Enough! It doesn¡¯t matter what they are doing! Remember what Teacher Romah taught us? The moment you worry about problem number two, problem number one will smack you in the face! Focus on these ones first!"

    Suddenly, just as the young woman finished peaking, one of the attacks of the charmed ones moved past the barrier of one of the students, and reached his body, striking him in the stomach, and sending him flying backwards.

    While the blow was hardly able to deal any damage to the student, it was enough for him to lose his focus over the illusion, dispelling itpletely.

    The now free six charmed ones, who had done nothing but curse and attack one another, finally found themselves in a clearer space in the shape of arge dome. Inside thisrge spatial dome, were more room sized illusions inside which a simr number of theirpanions were fighting amongst themselves.

    In the middle of this dome, was a clear space where ten of the students were sitting in rest.

    "Damn it! Don¡¯t let them interrupt the other illusions! Attack!" Shouted the young woman before disappearing, and reappearing in front of one of the charmed ones. In her hand, was her flexible sword.

    The charmed ones looked at one another for just a moment, then disappear from where they were standing. When they reappeared, they were standing right next to the students who were keeping the illusions up, and trapping the rest of theirpanions.

    As soon as these cultivators approached these focused students, the remaining ten immediately realized that keeping the illusions up was not possible anymore.

    "LET GO OF THE ILLUSIONS! We need to regroup and reorganize!" Shouted the young woman promptly.

    Just like the young woman, the students were aware that this was their only option. If the charmed ones managed to split their powers into fighting them six on one, it would have been a disaster. At some point one of them would be unable to hold on any longer, and after being defeated, the number of opponents per individual would slowly increase, until finally, thest one standing would have to face sixty people by themselves.

    Left with no other choice, the students dispelled the illusions, and backed away with ultrasonic speed. However, instead of dissipating therge dome, while most of the charmed ones were still confused about their situation, the young female student shouted "IGNITE!!"

    While used to hide them from the outside, this spatial formation was still the domain of these students, and while not useful anymore, that did not mean that it was not an advantage. After all, every bit of space within the dome was being controlled by the students, who after heeding themand, turned the space within the dome into extremely mmable gas, and set it aze right after stepping out of it.

    This time the power of the explosion was not limited by the weak walls of the buildings, butpressed by the spatial dome, which turned it into a st wave of colossal proportions. The extremely small, and nearly invisible opening in the top of the dome had been ced there to direct the st upwards, turning it into a column of fire hundreds of meters tall.

    The massive shifts of essences came to a great strain for the students, who unfortunately, knew that even this explosion was highly unlikely to kill their opponents. After all, while part of the charmer¡¯s brainwashed army, these cultivators were still extremely resourceful, and just like them, they likely had measures that would save their lives in desperate situations.

    "Good, now back away, and try to recover as much as possible while the dust settles!" Said the young woman, ordering for herpanions to retreat.

    However, before long, "AAAAH!" Screamed one of the female students, causing the other neen to immediately turn in her direction.

    After turning to look back at her, the group quickly noticed that there was a hand wrapped around the girl¡¯s ankle, which right after she pulled her leg away, moved randomly in every direction. This odd event prompted the young students to look around, only to find themselves shocked by what they were seeing.

    More than twenty people were currently stuck inside the ground, almost as if they had fallen through a liquid version of it right before it solidified back. Their free limbs moved frantically as they tried to free themselves from this trap. However, that was not all. Littered on the ground, were unconscious people with broken knees and elbows, as well as people halfway stuck into the walls of the remaining buildings and walls.

    The now alerted students looked at each other with confusion, while also being aware of their surroundings, but it was only after the dust settled that they understood.

    In the area that had just exploded, the sixty cultivators were slowly getting back on their feet, while also ingest their pills, or healing themselves. However, the eyes of the students did notnd on them, but on the backs of the five individuals who were currently facing sixteen between noblemen and high beasts.

    Blood covered each of the bodies of these five individuals, and no piece of clothing had been left intact. On the surface of their injured skin came a constant white gleam, which made them look like a group of humanoid stars.

    Past them, were the seemingly injured golden figures of the noblemen, and the tired silhouettes of beasts of all kinds, from massive reptiles, feathery beasts,rge goris, and even the infant state of legendary beasts, like dragons, quillins, and minotaurs. All of them forming amon front against the outnumbered five.

    Despite the difference in numbers, however, these two groups exuded a different feeling.

    While the group of sixteen beasts and noblemen were wary of the five, thetter were quiet, and focused.

    The students immediately understood what was happening. This event was not only set to see which one was the most capable between the participants, and to allow for people to form alliances to get rid of dangerous individuals. There was also a reason why this pause between fights had been ced in between the rounds of the elimination type event.

    The government wanted the participants to witness which one of them was the most dangerous, and use whatever means necessary to get rid of them in order not to prevent them from bing an impossible obstacle to them the very next day.

    The reason why the beasts and noblemen were not willing to join the effort in protecting themselves against the charmed ones, was because their objective was different. They wanted Nilo and the others. They had wanted them ever since they had seen them fight in the morning, and even before, when the chosen ones they followed, had oddly predicted that the disciples of the Outcast would participate to the event.

    This thought formed in a few moments, just long enough to witness how one of the beasts broke the line, ande charging at the members of Nilo¡¯s team.

    Before the ten meters tall minotaur could take five steps, Fyro alone stepped forward, gaining speed at every step, bit by bit, until the Minotaur was only a few meters of distance. Just before shing, however, Fyro swept the ground with his hand, causing for a twenty meters long rocky hand to emerge from within the floor.

    The massive hand was double the size of the minotaur, but the moment the two came in contact, almost as if made out of paper, the hand exploded into small pebbles. Unable to slow the minotaur¡¯s motion in the least, he kept charging, unaware of the building sized rocky stctite, which came down on him fast enough, to strike him right in the back of his mighty back, and force him to the ground.

    Fyro immediately reacted to his sessful attack by raising both of his arms, but right as the ground underneath the minotaur started to turn into metal, two flying beasts appeared from within the still floating rocks, ready to peak his arm and leg right off.

    Capable enough to see the attack, Fyro decided not to avoid, and instead focused on his target.

    Just as the two flying beasts were about to strike him, Zack¡¯s figure appeared out of nowhere, lying horizontally in the air, while holding a sword with each hand. One which parried the attack aimed at Fyro¡¯s leg, and one which parried the attack aimed at his arm.

    Thanks to this action Fyro was able to take full control over the ground underneath the minotaur, but right as he was about to make numerous metallic spikes emerge from underneath it, a few golden coins reached him at an absurd speed. However, instead of hitting him, they entered his pocket, causing him to lose control over the ground underneath the minotaur, who had already started to get up.

    After parrying the attack of the two flying beasts, arge dark shadow approached from behind the dust, bing bigger and bigger, until it was revealed to be the fist of the ten meters tall gori.

    Zack was unable to avoid the punch, so he crossed his arms in front of his chest in order to parry.

    The punch was strong enough to make his bones tremble, and sent his body flying past the standing Fyro, and towards their side of the line-up. Before he could go far, Cynna pointed her shield towards Nilo, who without thinking twice about it, stepped on it with enough power to be sent flying towards Zack¡¯s flying body.

    As the two met mid-air, Nilo grabbed Zack¡¯s belt, and with every bit of power of which he was capable of, used his motion to cast hispanion back from where he came from.

    Zack tightened the grip around his the hilts of his swords, and after putting them above his head, he focused the emission of his immortal essence in the right side of his body, starting a spinning motion which soon enough allowed him to be difficult to see, and for his body to be surrounded by a quickly forming tornado.

    The gori watched with horror as Zack approached him with an attack so fast and powerful, that he was certain he would not survive.

    Unfortunately, right as the tip of Zack¡¯s swords could meet with the Gori¡¯s strong body, an enormous leathery wing wrapped him, right before turning itself into imprable metal.

    As Zack¡¯s attack shed against the dragon¡¯s wing, the shock wave sent the two of them, as well as Fyro, the minotaur, and the gori flying back, signaling the end of the umpteenth of the many exchanges these tired cultivators had had in the past couple of hours.

 Chapter 404 Blood of the Ancestor Beasts

    "Wha-What is going on?" Asked one of the students with worry.

    The young woman once again looked at her surroundings, then said, "They took care of their half of charmed ones, then right as they were about to lend a hand to us, the other groups took advantage of their tiredness, in order to get rid of them for the rest of the event."

    "Damn it! Do we help them?" Asked the student who had spoken before, right after.

    During this short exchange of words, Nilo and the other two groups had already exchanged blows at least twice, showing the students that this was a battle in which they had no right to meddle with. To reiterate this point in the minds of the students, were the slowly rising charmed ones, who were preparing to meet the smaller group of students in battle.

    "Forget it. It¡¯s unlikely that Teacher and the others are observing us. We can¡¯t afford to be brainwashed by the charmed ones without him knowing." Said the young woman before turning to look at therge group of injured cultivators, and adding, "Do what the outcast¡¯s disciples are doing. Keep a defensive position, and as soon as a single person attacks, take him out in small groups."

    "Ha! To think that those brats would still be alive!" Said one of therge beasts after noticing therge number of cultivators that had appeared in the middle of the massive square.

    "Stop getting distracted!" Said the Dragon before growling with anger. Ever since he had used his wing as a shield for the primate beast, he could not shake off the trembling feeling he felt on it. What was even more frustrating, however, was the fact that despite how long they fought, it did not seem that their few opponents would tire out at any moment.

    Their production of immortal essence was abnormal, and their power, while inferior to that of a fully transformed beast, was still far beyond what a peak immortal cultivator should be. If that was not enough, their cooperation was so efficient, that one would mistake them for a single being with multiple bodies, making the difference between them and their opponents look like five connected gears, and a pile of random rocks.

    The merchant¡¯s followers had inherited the powers of their leader, who couldpel people into doing their bidding by "purchasing" an intention. By paying them, they were able to interrupt their train of thoughts, and prevent them from carrying their strategies on to victory. Their contribution was one of the main reasons why the coboration between Nilo¡¯s team had only led to a stalemate, instead of a victory.

    Following the young woman¡¯s suggestion, the students spent the next two hours struggling to keep herpanions in check. If not for their ability to understand their situation at an impressive speed, and find an optimal path to counter their enemies, they would have never been able to survive for so long.

    However, after more than five hours, everyone was starting to feel the strain of the prolonged fighting. The attacks of the beasts were bing less and less frequent, and the students and charmed ones were respectively relying on their organization and willpower to keep going. Even Nilo¡¯s team was struggling to keep up with the many small wounds they had gained during the hundred of exchanges.

    It was now five in the morning, and the first lights of dawn were starting to shine from behind the few still standing buildings. Of the faces of the many participants was a wide range of emotions, amongst which the mostmon was worry.

    From what the beasts and merchants had realized about Nilo and his team¡¯s abilities, the power they had been granted by the Outcast had something to do with battle prowess, as well as the speed of production of immortal essence, and while more injured, this had allowed them to obtain the upper hand.

    Unsure when the event would start, or if hey would be granted enough time to recover to the peak of their powers, the beasts were starting to think that their n had backfired, as at their level of cultivation, injuries were much less important than theck of essence during a fight.

    In this battle of attrition, they were on the losing end.

    Left with no other choice, the three legendary beasts stepped forward, and took three small vials from within their spatial rings.

    As soon as the other beasts saw these vials, they immediately gasped in shock. "BROTHER! NO! You will end up hurting yourself!" Said therge gori to the Minotaur, who looked at him with a stern expression before turning to look back at Nilo and the others.

    "We have to use it, or we might not have a chance to participate in the rest of the event," said the young dragon before taking the cork off of the vial, and drinking the dark red colored liquid in it. "We will try to take out as many as we can, while the effectsts." he then added, as the quilin and the minotaur followed in his steps.

    The liquid that these three beasts had ingested, was the blood of their ancestors. The essence of a beast was much less personal than that of an immortal cultivator, as instead of containing a portion of their spirits and mind power, it contained the beastly instincts of their kind. So when this type of unique beast consumed the blood of a much older member of their kin, the essence contained in the blood would try to merge with the beast¡¯s essence.

    To absorb the power was impossible, but the essence contained in the blood, once diluted with the beast¡¯s own essence, would remain in the body as a form of one-time-use power.

    The very instant the blood touched the tongues of three beasts, its power flushed through their bodies, and began its violent reaction. Slowly, the bodies of the three beasts became visiblyrger and more muscr, and the power that before was dwindling, was revived in a matter of moments, bing even stronger than before.

    It did not take long for Nilo to understand that things were not going to go well for them if they were forced to fight these three powerful beasts along with the other twelve cultivators, so he immediately began to formte a new n.

    Momentster, he turned to look at the students, and said, "TIANNA! Have your people face off against the three merchants and the other beasts! We will take care of the other three!"

    "What about them?" She asked while avoiding the attacks of two charmed ones.

    Nilo did not respond to her, and instead turned to look at Fyro, and said, "Take care of them."

    Fyro nodded in acknowledgment before disappearing, and reappearing in the middle of the stage, right where the battle between the students and the charmed ones was taking ce.

    The students were not stupid, and as soon as they saw Fyro, they immediately understood that Nilo¡¯s n had the highest chance of sess. So without thinking twice about it, they gave up on fighting the charmed ones and joined Nilo and the others in a morefortable fight which, instead of requiring them to fight three people each, allowed them to fight the beasts two against one.

    The charmed ones immediately tried to react to the students¡¯ movements in order to strike them from the back, but as they turned away from Fyro, they felt the cold threat of death dash past their necks, as they were barely able to avoid a deadly hit.

    This exchange took only a few seconds, which were enough for the legendary beasts to turn into their boosted, and final form.

    "Cynna, take the dragon. Zack, go for the quilin, and I will take care of the Minotaur. Finn, support us whenever you are able to." Said Nilo while keeping his eyes glued on the three fuming beasts. However, before he could receive a nod of understanding, the three beasts disappeared, and when they reappeared, they were already standing in front of them.

    Cymma was barely able to ce her shield in front of her chest, before the petrified hand of the dragon shed against it with enough power to shatter it, and send her flying directly into one of the buildings. Zack¡¯s attempt to avoid the quilin¡¯s attack was also a failure, and one of his antlers opened a gash on his back, and sent him spinning in the air. Nilo was the slowest of the three, and was left with no other choice but to try and defend himself from the descending palm of the massive minotaur, from which he protected himself by crossing his arms above his head. However, the impact was so powerful, that his bones started to crack, and he was pushed a meter into the ground.

    As Niloy t on his back under the pressure of the minotaur¡¯s power, the minotaur decided to follow the first strike with a second one, but just as his fist was about to do some serious damage, a nearly invisible sh appeared next to his head, and before he could react, the vision in his left eye went out.

    This sh then reappears at his feet, and with incredible speed, grabbed Nilo, and pulled him out of the minotaur¡¯s range.

    After leaving him at a safer distance, the sh of light moved in the air, right where Zack¡¯s injured body was spinning, and releasing a spray of blood which was simr to a red ribbon.

    Cynna was able to pick herself up, and walk out of the pile of rubble that just seconds earlier was arge building while holding the side of her torso, where nearly all of her ribs had cracked.

    "Tianna! How long can they keep this up?" Asked Nilo to the young woman that lead the students. While he knew that he could make his own guess, he had seen how quickly these students were able to analyze the situation, and find details that he could miss while in the middle of a fight.

    Luckily, the young woman had already spent the past few seconds making this calction, so without turning to look back at Nilo, she said, "They have to use all of the power within three minutes, or they will start to go crazy! Hold on until then! They will be weakened then!"

    "Easy to say.." muttered Nilo while feeling his bones crack, and every muscle in his body hurt.

    As soon as the dragon¡¯s eyesnded on Cynna¡¯s body, it dashed in her direction, but his charge was met by a ten meters long sword, which came down upon his head with as much power as Cynna could muster. Unfortunately, her power was nowhere near enough to do any damage, and was instead barely able to push the dragon back due to itsck of footing.

    At the same time, Nilo made use of the blind spot created by the loss of the Minotaur¡¯s left eye, to avoid his powerful attacks. He knew that another attack from the minotaur would destroy his bones, and if that were to happen, the situation would go south very fast for him and his friends.

    Finally, Finn and a slowly recovering Zack were handling the quilin by trying to stay by its sides, and make it impossible for him to charge at them with his powerful antlers.

    -----

    For the following three minutes, Nilo and the others were not always they able to avoid any form of damage, but their luck was powerful enough to help them avoid any deadly blow.

    "It is time! Release the power!" Shouted one of the flying beasts while trying to avoid the attacks of two of the students.

    The suggested time limit for this type of boost of power had already passed, and after every additional second, the three legendary beasts would lose more and more of their sanity.

    The three beasts did not appear to be listening to theirpanions, and were too focused on the slippery methods of Nilo and the others. What they were not realizing, was that the more time passed, the less chance they would have to reawaken. It was only out of sheer luck, that a now semi-crazed dragon had felt the presence of the quilin, and instinctively reacted to it by sending a powerful tail strike in is direction.

    The quilins and the dragons had evolved as enemies, and only thanks to their increase in intelligence had the two races started to get along. However, the instincts passed down through the blood of their ancestors recounted of a time where the two races could not live under the same sky, and the lower their control over their minds was, the more important this fact became.

    Soon enough, the dragon and the quilin stopped caring about Cynna, Finn, and Zack, and charged all the power they had left into their bodies, to release it against one another.

    A massive ball of ck mes formed inside the opened mouth of the dragon, while a sphere formed by the mixture of beast and light essence, formed in between the quilin¡¯s antlers.

    These two powers created two storms which were powerful enough for the Minotaur to be shaken awake, and release all of the excessive power before losing his mind.

    When released, these two powers shed against one another, and formed an explosion that expanded through the entirety of the massive square, cancelling every bit of essence present in their surroundings. Each cultivator present, including the participants who were simply observing, were pushed back, and pressed against the spatial barrier present in the edge of the square, or against the crater that had formed, leaving them within an inch of their lives.

 Chapter 405 We Want Ou

    For a few minutes, the square became the most peaceful of ces, with the silence only being broken by the asional sound of rock falling from one of the now destroyed building walls.

    "The beasts of the Tamer. They never cease to surprise, don¡¯t they?" Asked an old man in light blue clothes who, along with another old man in simr yet grey-colored robes, had quietly appeared right in the middle of the square without being noticed.

    For a long minute, the second man observed his surroundings in an attempt to evaluate those who had participated in the fight, then said, "We knew they would make use of their ancestor¡¯s blood in case of danger. I am just disappointed by their timing."

    "What do you mean? Was it not appropriate?" Asked the man in light blue robes with confusion.

    "If they did not have to fight today, it would have been appropriate. They should have not started this fight to begin with. Now look at them, nobody seems to be in the condition to fight. They clearly did not feel that they were at an advantage, and decided to level the ying field by taking out everybody else at the same time, including themselves." Responded the grey-clothed man.

    "What do you think about the others?"

    "The independent cultivators were wise not to meddle in. This was a matter between the followers of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones. I was surprised about the students. The beasts were clearly the best prowess wise, and chose the right time to attack. The charmer¡¯s followers are a disappointment. You can see the charmer¡¯s inexperience through the simple minded orders she gave to them. The idea of increasing their numbers within the event by itself was not wrong, but it was immediately seen through by the students."

    "Now, aside from the student¡¯s known judgement, I was surprised by the outcast¡¯s followers. They were not the smartest group, or the most powerful.. Certainly not the most unique, considering the odd powers of the three merchants. They are normal cultivators, but everything that makes one a cultivator, in them, is boosted to an unnatural degree. I can only see them as a better kind of cultivator than the rest. If only the possibility of a war was a thousand years in the distance, this would have been the most important piece of information of the event."

    The man in light blue clothes could not help but to agree with the words of the grey-clothed man, and after looking around for a few more seconds, he asked, "I doubt any of them will be able to fight for the following few hours. Should we ask the old mage to aid them with the fires of light?"

    "No other choice.." muttered the old man in grey clothes before adding, "Damn it. We should have stopped them before. I¡¯m too old to get a scolding."

    "Alright then. I¡¯ll go call him, be right ba-" Responded the old man in light blue clothes before being stopped by something unusual. Right on the south edge of the square, five little mounds of dirt were being formed by the pushing of just as many bodies.

    As the dirt made way for these five bodies toe out of the ground, the two old men watched with surprised expressions.

    Nilo and the others were the first ones to wake up from the impact, showing that their mental recovery, just like that of the production of immortal essence and healing, was above that of any other cultivator at their level.

    "Impressive." Said the old man in grey clothes before turning to look at hispanion, and saying, "Go. If by chance these little monsters start to kill the others, it will be even worse for us."

    Without needing to be told twice, the old man in light blue clothes disappeared, and when he reappeared around minuteter, he was in thepany of the old explorer, who stood next to him whileying over hisrge staff.

    "You idiots. Did I not tell you to stop them before they could be this badly injured?" Asked the old explorer to the two old men, that next to him, behaved like two embarrassed juniors caught doing something very stupid.

    Instead of waiting for an answer, the old explorer looked at Nilo and the others, who were the first ones to recover a sliver of their power, and with eyes filled with curiosity, he took a white seed from within his spatial ring, and ced it in the middle of the square, right where the high level spatial sphere which maintained the space which contained the entire area had been locked in.

    As soon as this seed touched the spatial essence sphere, a feeble white smoke started toe out of it, and extend in every direction in a gentle waft. After reaching the far ends of this space, the white seed fell apart, and the smoke disappeared as if it had never been there before.

    The only ones who had been able to see this seed, were Nilo and the others who, while being heavily injured, had been the only ones that were awake during the actions of the old explorer.

    When the white smoke had reached them, they had felt a surge of healing essence within their bodies, which they immediately recognized as a weaker form of the white me they had seen in the tower. However, instead of bringing them back to the top of their form, this smoke was only powerful enough to cure the serious injuries, and force the mind to recover.

    After the white smoke disappeared, numerous other people emerged from underneath the destroyed surface, just like Nilo and the others had.

    Beasts, merchants, students, charmed ones, and even the few dozens of independent participants were able to recover from the explosion caused by the impact between the two legendary beasts, from which they had been barely able to protect themselves from thanks to their treasures. Unfortunately, they did not possess treasures that could shield their weak minds, which were unable to stand the shock of such a powerful attack, causing them to fall unconscious.

    As soon as the student¡¯s attentionnded on the charmed ones, they became alerted, and prepared to continue their battle. Simrly, the beasts became wary of Nilo¡¯s group, which shockingly, had been able to survive so far while having to fight against arger, and more powerful group.

    "Cut that out!" Said the old explorer with a voice powerful enough to threaten to destroy the ear drums of the participants. Then, after making sure that everyone¡¯s attention was directed at him, he added, "There will be no more support from us. You only have two hours to recover before the final part of the event. If you wish to waste your chance on an idiotic brawl, then tell me now, so that I can kick you out myself."

    Not many had noticed the presence of the three old men after waking up, yet, the old man¡¯s tone was enough for these two hundred participants to be reminded that they were nothing but ants in the eyes of people like the explorers, and that their feuds were of even less importance.

    While the charmed ones and the beasts immediately gave up and focused on healing themselves, their actions were interrupted by the shocking words that they heard only momentster. "We want out." Said Nilo with a calm, yet decisive tone.

    The faces of every participant collectively turned him and the others. Their expressions were filled with shock, as they could not understand why the now favorites of the event would decide to abandon right before the very end.

    The only one who did not share this level of surprise, was Tianna, the young woman who led the group of students. She had immediately understood what the motivation of Nilo and the rest of his group for wanting to leave, was.

    By winning the event, one would likely receive great rewards and a massive amount of fame, but there was likely a massive condition attached to it. Specifically, to be under the attentive eye of the Universal Government, and fight for them during the meeting between the two civilizations.

    The only other motive to participate in this event, for the followers of Iewah¡¯s children, was topete against one another, and if that was the case, this exchange had been more than enough for all of them to find the answers to the questions they could have had.

    At the end of the day, Nilo and the others had distinguished themselves within the event, had obtained a massive amount of resources from its participants, and had gathered every bit of information there was to discover. Their gains were the best they could obtain without having to be shared with the obligations of winning the event. So for them, it was time to quit.

    The old explorer, with his more than a hundred thousand years of experience, was quick to realize what Nilo¡¯s motivation was, so he said, "You can¡¯t quit now. Your fights have already been scheduled."

    However, just as he finished talking, he felt the heavy emissions of Fyro¡¯s immortal essence increase exponentially, as he turned to look at the now resting participants. On the other hand, before Fyro could attack the participants and cause them to be kicked out, Nilo ced a hand on his shoulder, and said, "Sir, you have two hours to rearrange the fights, or you can just watch us surrender as soon as it is our turn. Why don¡¯t you let us out directly instead?"

    For how irritated by Nilo¡¯s words the three old men were, they had no choice but toply. After all, while they could have forced them to participate in the event, they would not be able to keep them from surrendering as soon as it was their turn to fight.

    "Very well.." muttered the old explorer with irritation before waving his hand, and forcing the group out, and into Daniel¡¯s empty observation booth.

    "Where are we? Did he imprison us?" Asked Cynna with curiosity. From the booth where they were standing in, they could see the stage in which they hadpeted yesterday down underneath, while connected to the booth, they could see many more simr, yet empty booths.

    "No. Tianna was right. This must be the ce that the government has organized for our carers to observe the event from. Master Golden Cauldron and Master Silver Alchemist must be amongst the owners of this booth, and during the night, they were likely upied elsewhere, just like the owners of the other booths." Responded Nilo after a long minute spent in consideration.

    In agreement to Nilo¡¯s words, Finn sat in one of the many chairs, and said, "The old explorer said that the second part of thepetition would start in two hours. We might as well wait for them toe back."

    Left with no choice, Nilo, Cynna, Fyro and Zack followed Finn¡¯s example, and upied four other chairs, and focused on recovering to their peak state instead of waiting without doing anything.

    "Were they as you guys expected?" Asked Zack without bothering to exin to whom he was referring to.

    The first one to speak was Nilo, who opened his eyes, and while looking at the empty space, said, "I really thought we were special before. But now, between the beast¡¯s raw power, the student¡¯s wisdom and intelligence, or the other¡¯s odd powers.. We look li-"

    "We look like the mostmon form of special." Said Finn, finishing his sentence.

    The group once again became quiet, almost as if each one of them was busy thinking about their own weaknesses and strengths. This silencested until Cynna said with mncholy, "I still can¡¯t see myself winning against him. I keep thinking about it, and whenever I imagine him being in the situation we were in a few hours ago, all I see is a sea of blood, and him standing in the middle of it, unscathed. But the universe is so vast.. I wonder if he is still alive."

    All four of them knew to whom Cynna was referring to, but none of them were able to say anything. Instead, it was a different, yet familiar voice that tried to give herfort, by saying, "He will find his way home. You can count on it."

    As they heard this voice, Nilo and the others turned around in shock, only to see Daniel stand right behind them.

 Chapter 406 A Change of Plan

    For the next few seconds, Nilo and the others did not pay attention as the other spatial booths slowly filled with the cultivators to which they had been assigned to. Even Aeron, Ivan, Sigg, and the father and son couple failed to be acknowledged, almost as if they hadn¡¯t been there to begin with.

    To stop Nilo and the others from rejoicing about Daniel¡¯s appearance, was the shadow of a doubt that he was, in fact, the same person who did not want anything to do with them, and had ultimately sent them away from his own.

    The only one who spent enough time with Daniel to recognize him, was Zack, who before everyone else could, walked in his direction, smiled widely, and gave him a short and friendly hug.

    Before being separated from Jerigh, the group had learned from him that Daniel¡¯s family had not been kicked out by Sewah just like they had been, but that they were sent away by a recovered Daniel for reasons which he had refused to exin, as well as convinced them that it was much safer for them to stay as far away from him as possible.

    This news had been a source of doubt for a very long time, as the more time went by without Daniel finding them, the less they would believe what Jerigh had said to be urate. Only now that they had seen Zack¡¯s reaction, and thefortable faces on their two teachers, had they realized that this was in fact the person they had known in the past.

    "About time you showed up! Haha!" Shouted Finn with tion before patting Daniel¡¯s shoulder. Fyro, on the other hand, simply walked closer, and as their eyes met, he gave him a simple nod.

    The only two people who stood back, were Nilo and Cynna, who for two different reasons, were buried in their thoughts.

    Cynna had never been particrly close to Daniel. The two had been students in the same academy for one of the factions that Daniel had destroyed, but aside from that, they had little to no interaction with each other. However, she knew that Daniel was the star around which Jerigh gravitated, so while she had heard the words he had spoken only moments earlier, she still wanted to talk about him.

    Nilo, on the other hand, was simply feeling ufortable about the fact that, after Daniel¡¯s body had been possessed by Sewah, he and Re had started a family, and even had a child together. Ideally, he would have preferred to talk to Daniel about it before any of that happened, but no one knew if he would ever go back to being himself, or if he was gone forever.

    Daniel could not only see the embarrassment on their faces, but hear it in their thoughts. So before the situation could be awkward, he turned to look at Cynna, and with a wisp of sound essence, he said, "I can¡¯t tell you how I know this, but I can assure you that he is fine. If there is someone I can be assured would survive anything that is thrown at them, that is Jerigh."

    At the same time, he sent another wisp of sound essence towards Nilo, which contained the words, "It is not my ce to make a decision about my sister¡¯s rtionships, and even if it was, I would not argue about the choices she has made. I just hope you won¡¯t mind introducing me to my niece,ter."

    These few words were enough to reassure the two of them.

    -----

    For the following couple of hours, the remaining participants desperately tried to recover their powers, while the other observers minded their own business.

    Meanwhile, outside of this massive spatial formation, the seven organizers of the event were having their own conversation, and the topic, was none other than Daniel and his group. Of these seven people, six of them were discussing calmly, while the seventh, was making an adamant opposition towards any of what the others were saying.

    "This is ridiculous! I don¡¯t care how capable they appeared to junior explorers like you! Are you doubting the powers of my men?!" Asked the army general with clear anger.

    "Sir, with all due respect, there is no way that a group of soldiers of the same cultivation base would everpare to any of the participants of today¡¯s event. Not unless they are in great numbers! I am telling you, they are individually superior cultivators, even without gifts." Responded the old man in light blue clothes.

    The One Above All was born out of necessity. Specifically, to find talented young cultivators who couldpete in the many individual fights of thepetition between civilizations. The most promising participants would be aided in their ascension, as well as trained in their individual survivability.

    The use of this event was simr to the Patriot Academy, but aimed at recruiting the most talented individuals within the many factions, instead of the second ss students that had been handed over when requested.

    However, while focused on finding powerful cultivators who could hold their own against unknown challenges, the two explorers who had stopped the battle between the participants, had found something different.

    They had not only found powerful cultivators amongst the participants, but two groups which were able to cooperate, and fight efficiently against bigger, and stronger groups. These two groups were the students, and Daniel¡¯s followers.

    Without wasting a single moment, the two cultivators had reported what they had discovered to the organizers of the event, who during the fight, had been busy interacting with the observers of the event.

    The team fights of thepetition between civilizations had, ever since thepetition had been established, reserved for the army, who prided itself with their historical sesses whenever a war was fought against new, or rebellious factions. This was the reason why, after the two junior explorers had suggested to recruit the students of the Teacher, and the followers of the Outcast to participate as teams instead of individuals, the conversation had turned into a vivid debate.

    As the grey-robed and the light blue-robed cultivator discussed with the army representative, the man in royal clothes, the old explorer, and the grand judge remained quiet. On their faces, were pensive expressions.

    "Did you see what happened?" Asked the man in royal clothes to the seventh individual with a respectful tone. A person whose body waspletely covered by a ck hooded coat which made it impossible for any part of his body to be seen. This person was the cultivator who had been in charge to create a venue for the entire event, starting from the inds, the tunnels, the towers, the illusory formations, and even the area where the participants, observers, and organizers were in now. He was also the only other person who had seen the battle between the participants, instead of participating to the banquet.

    "I did." Responded the man with a ghastly voice.

    "What do you think?" He then asked.

    This simple question was able to quiet down both explorers and army general, who turned to look at him. It was clear that this ck-robed individual had a very important role within the government, and was a person whom even the man in royal clothes had to respect to some degree.

    "I agree with the two youngings. The numbers for the team fights are limited to twenty cultivators per team. Even with the soldier gift, only in the thousands can the army show its prowess." Responded the ck-hooded man.

    "SIR! This is ridiculous! We have hundreds of thousands of years of history behind us. The government would not exist the way it does without us!" Said the general with indignation, after turning to look at the man in royal clothes.

    It was only at the mention of the government¡¯s history, that the man in royal clothes raised his head, and asked, "Twenty of your most talented soldiers, against a team of twenty explorers. Can you swear on your cultivation that the army woulde out on top?"

    This simple question was enough for the army general to feel dumbfounded. Even as a representative of the army, he knew perfectly well that a soldier was notparable to an explorer. By nature, an explorer was required to be an excellent warrior even on his own, while the soldier was dependent on his group. Simrly to the judge¡¯s gift, the soldiers would be stronger with numbers.

    Yet, unable to simply give up, the general said, "Sir, this is an unfairparison. The explorers are expert cultivators. These are just kids."

    "Kids whoe from the same group. Kids who know each other, and excel in both individual and team fights. Do you deny that?" Asked the man dressed in royal clothes.

    Unable to insist on his point, the army general¡¯s only option was to yield. "Very well. But we can¡¯t allow the government¡¯s main force to be unrepresented. We are the face of our civilization, as well as the main deterrent to an all out war."

    The army general was not in the wrong. The team fights had been conceived in order to test the power of the main armies of the two civilizations, and if all of those fights were fought by members of inferior factions, that would reflect negatively to the main power of the government, increasing the chances of a war between the two massive powers.

    "We will present them as elite members of the army." Responded the man in royal clothes with a reassuring tone, before turning to look at the old explorer, and adding, "The same goes for you. Give up a few individual cings for the Tamer¡¯s legendary beasts, and the outcast¡¯s best fighters. They will participate along with the strongest members of the academies."

    While this was a great humiliation for the army general, for the old explorer it was only normal that the stronger individuals were allowed to represent the government in such a delicate situation. So instead of protesting, he quietly nodded in agreement.

    "Very well." Said the man in royal clothes before turning to look at the ck robed cultivator, and adding, "After the event, please keep both the Teacher and the Outcast here."

    The ck-hooded cultivator responded with a faint not.

    -----

    For the following day, the event went on smoothly, until finally, only a handful of participants were left. Of these twenty cultivators were the three legendary beasts that were part of the Tamer¡¯s group, ten students, and finally, seven individual participants.

    Each of thest seven participants had shown a great predisposition towards their own factions, and powers that allowed them to counter the unique abilities of the otherwise favourites ¡¯followers of Iewah¡¯s children¡¯. Each of them belonged to the major factions of the universal government.

    The n of the organizers of this event was to put all of the greatest talents in the known universe together, and despite the name of the event, never to simply find one that was above all. So even though the event had ended with the legendary beasts finding themselves at the top three positions, all of the others were asked to stay as well, as each of them would receive simr invitations.

    At the end of the day the event was concluded, and after giving out the rewards and a long speech that was particrly focused on the importance of the universal government, the participants were sent back to their factions, and together with their carers, they were sent out of the spatial formation.

    The numbers of booths around Daniel¡¯s quickly started to decrease, until finally, only his, and the Teacher¡¯s were left.

    "Why haven¡¯t they let us out along with the others?" Asked Cynna nervously.

    "I thought we were too small to be in the government¡¯s scope.. Yet, it looks like they have something they want from us." Said Daniel casually, and without showing the slightest hint of worry.

    Just as he finished speaking, the two booths moved closer to one another, and as their confines touched, they merged into a single, bigger one.

    There was only enough time for Daniel and Nilo to respectively nod in greeting to Romah and Tianna, before a small portal was opened right in front of them, and the seven organizers of the event walked out of it.

 Chapter 407 To Shock An Exper

    "And here I thought we hade to an agreement." Said the Teacher while showing a grim smile. During the final part of the event, he had heard about what had happened during that night, and had already assumed that not only his followers, but Daniel¡¯s followers as well would catch the eye of the government. Now that they had been left behind, he was sure of it.

    The first person to react to Romah¡¯s words was the old explorer, who took a step forward, and said, "Apologies. This was the only way to make you two stay without drawing any attention. I can assure you, this has nothing to do with what we have discussed before."

    "Well then, let¡¯s talk. I have many more students to go back to. I am sure you have heard about what the mice do when the cat¡¯s away." Said Romah while showing a polite smile.

    Now it was the turn of the woman dressed in grand judge clothes to talk, so she stepped next to the old explorer while ignoring the irritated expression on the general¡¯s face, and said, "We have already exined to you what the purpose of the event was, but in your students and.. followers, we have seen potential for something different." She then turned to look at Nilo an the others, and added, "Your ability to fight in a team was impressive, and we would be happy to have you join thepetition as teams."

    As she said these words, the grand judge gave off a feeling of righteousness. She was tasked to make this proposition because she represented everything that was right in the government, and her powers include the ability to be perceived as a being with higher, and indisputable judgement.

    These feelings made it inherently difficult for Nilo and the others to refuse, but not for Daniel, who said, "There is no idiot here. We all know why my friends decided to retire from the event. They are clearly not interested in thispetition between civilizations."

    The use of the word "friends" surprised the organizers of the event, who by experience, had never seen one of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones put himself nowhere near the same level as his followers. The kinder example they had seen of this, was the Teacher himself, who while he did not treat his followers as ves or puppets, still viewed himself as their teacher, which was still a position of control.

    "It would be a good opportunity for you. Based on what I have seen during the banquet, your friends do not increase as fast as your enemies." She then said before taking a small pause, and adding, "It would also be a great contribution to the society to which you belong."

    "Spare me your words, judge. I was born in an ownerless, and became an outcast way before my faction decided to turn me into one." Said Daniel right after. He wanted the organizers of the event to know that he and his people owed nothing to the universal government, and therefore, any kind of patriotic argument would be wasted on them.

    "As I recall, didn¡¯t two of my judges save your life in the very near past?" Asked the grand judge, slightly annoyed by Daniel¡¯s disregard about the universal government.

    At the same time, the old man in light blue clothes, who had witnessed the entire One Above All take ce, stepped forwards, and said, "Now that your group is leaving with a significant amount of wealth, with what courage do you say that the government has done nothing for you?"

    Daniel had not forgotten about the two asions in which the judges had saved his life, but he also knew that neither of those actions had been performed because of pity, or kindness.

    During the first time, the appearance of the judge had been required to resolve a dispute between the factions of the Sovereign of Corruption and the faction of the Spiritual Emperor, while the second time, it had been one of elite members of the parasitic faction that had called them in order to save himself from the unlucky events that were put into motion by Daniel¡¯s Karmic Retribution.

    Either way, his life had been a coteral of the Judge¡¯s action, and therefore, he did not feel that he owed them in the slightest.

    "I am but an outcast. Your actions saved yourself more trouble than they did to me." Responded Daniel before turning to look at the old man in light blue clothes, and said, "About the other matter, I thank you for creating the opportunity that gave my friends the chance to think of a way to make a profit."

    The organizers of the event found themselves at an impasse. They knew nothing about Daniel or his powers, and therefore, they were unwilling to have a falling-out with him. Unfortunately, that was not the same for the general, who enraged by Daniel¡¯s sarcasm, shouted in anger, "You fucking brat! This isn¡¯t a conversation! Five years from now we will point a finger in one direction, and you will go there and fight, or else I will smite you myself."

    Ever since the universal government had discovered Iewah¡¯s sentience, they had studied his chosen ones very carefully. Without exception, those who grew up past a certain age, would be able to be beings beyond normal spectrums of power, and would have to be treated carefully.

    However, Daniel was still young at age, and he and his group were far from being a threat for the government¡¯s existence.

    At the moment, with Daniel trapped within the spatial formation of the ck-robed cultivator, and too weak to fight back, it was the only chance for them to impose on him, as well as a rare opportunity to interfere with the growth of one of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones when they were that young.

    These words were relied with enough power to break apart the body of a low ranking cultivator, and delivered with themanding effects of the man¡¯s general gift.

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s mind was too powerful.

    He breathed out in what looked like disappointment, then said, "This conversation is over. Find somebody else."

    The general had clearly behaved out of ce, and from what it looked like to the other organizers, this had caused Daniel to shut himself in, and refuse their proposition adamantly. Fortunately, the space in which they were now, was in their control, and without their permission, there was no way for Daniel to leave.

    Or so they thought.

    As he finished speaking, Daniel turned to look at Romah, and said with politeness, "We will meet again if fate allows." He then turned towards the members of his group, and added, "Let¡¯s go."

    It was at this point that the old explorer scowled at the general, and with a hint of embarrassment, he said, "Please do not take offense, the general was simply irritated because the participations reserved for your followers, were taken away from the army."

    Unfortunately, Daniel had no intention of going back on his word, and instead began to feel his surroundings with his immortal essence in order to find a connection between them, and the familiar outside world.

    "Kid, there is a limit to the amount of unreasonable behaviour I can tolerate. Have a seat and let¡¯s conclude this conversation, because the longer you act like this, the longer I am forced to keep you locked here." Said the ck-robed cultivator, causing the others to quiet down.

    The confines of the space that he had created were truly too powerful, and as a cultivator past the hundred and seventieth phase of high immortality, to try and feel a connection through his power, was like trying to see through a metallic wall with the naked eye.

    However, Daniel was nomon cultivator.

    Instead of agreeing to the man¡¯s terms, he turned to look towards him, and said, "It is not every day that I get to shock such an old and powerful cultivator." He then opened his palm, and closed his fingers into a tiger w.

    At the same time, in Cato, a seemingly unimportant pebble thaty on the side of the road began to shine, catching the attention of every individual that walked next to it. The most curious, were the cultivators, who could feel massive amounts of immortal essence that were being emitted by it.

    The man in ck-robed looked at Daniel with simple curiosity, which after a few seconds, turned into deep shock.

    Against his control, the space right in front of Daniel was starting to crack, and any attempt at repairing it was pointless, as this shattering was not a matter of power, but a matter of nature. Just like fire could not burn thunder and life could not consume death.

    "What is happening?" Asked the man in royal clothes to the ck-robed cultivator, who did not respond, and from underneath his hood, looked on with sheer shock.

    What Daniel was doing, defied any knowledge that the ck-robed cultivator had about space.

    Theoretically speaking, spatial essence was a physical power which could separate anything with a power that was supported by the cultivator¡¯s strength.

    When entering the portal in Cato, not knowing where it would lead, Daniel had decided to leave his outside, as by being part of his body, he would be able to feel it no matter how many barriers or dimensions they were separated by.

    This feeling had created a connection which would otherwise be impossible, and when used alongside hisprehension of shattered space, it was able to disassemble the very space that was keeping him trapped, no matter how powerful.

    Soon enough, the ck-robed cultivator, unable to keep his control over the shattered space was forced to let go of it.

    The shattered space was quickly taken over by Daniel, which did not find a single difficulty with keeping it under control, and turn it into a simple portal that lead to the streets of Cato.

    Before Daniel and his friends could leave, the ck-robed cultivator immediately tried to trap them into a second barrier, but for some reason, the moment the spatial essence he controlled tried to solidify around them, it would simply drift away, as if unable to do so.

    One by one Daniel¡¯s friends left, leaving him behind. Just before walking into the portal, Daniel turned to look back at the organizers of the event, and said, "I won¡¯t oppose them if they decide to ept your request, and if that happens, I will find a way to let you know.. But the next time you try to coerce me or any of my friends, you will have to deal with a lot more than a hint of disrespectful behaviour. So long." He then left without waiting for a response.

    After Daniel left, the portal slowly closed, and the shards of shattered space quickly merged with one another into simple space.

    "What the hell happened?.." muttered the main in royal clothes before once again turning to look at the ck robed cultivator. He then asked, "Is he.."

    "No." Responded the man in ck robes before letting him finish asking his question. He then added, "He is not stronger than me.. But I think that hisprehension of space might be deeper than mine."

    This answer came to great shock for the others, who knew that this man was one of the leading figures of the Void Dwellers, and therefore, possessed aprehension of space second to none other within the universal government.

    The organizers of the event fell into an ufortable silence whichsted for a few long seconds, and was interrupted by the dry, and fake cough of the Teacher, who after catching their attention, said, "My students have no reason to refuse, as they have already epted to participate in the individual fights. However.."

    "However what?" Asked them an in royal clothes with a not so hidden irritation.

    With an embarrassed smile, Romah added, "However, we will need your help in getting out of here."

 Chapter 408 Lost Little Mouse

    A few hours went by, and Daniel found himself in a room within his ck castle alongside Aeron, and an unconscious Edmund. The two of them were observing as thetter groaned in his sleep, almost as if pained by what he was seeing.

    While his mind had been anchored by Aeron¡¯s powers to his body, his consciousness was still being rocked around by the powerful andplicatedws that went beyond the perfectprehension of spatial essence. A sense of confusion that made it difficult to distinguish where he came from, and how to wake up.

    In the next room, Emelnie and their younger son Tigue were waiting for good news.

    "Are you sure this could work?" Asked Daniel to Aeron with clear doubt.

    By the annoyed sigh that Aeron let out next, it was clear that Daniel had asked him the same question more than a few times before. "He needs someone familiar totch on to, and find his way back to this dimension.. And again, I am not sure of anything. There is no record of either mine, or his powers. I just feel that this might work." He said with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Okay, but why me? There are his wife and son next door." Said Daniel.

    "They don¡¯t have the mind power to handle this. One of my powers makes my consciousness, as long as I am careful, virtually immortal. You on the other hand, are the only one amongst your friends who has a mind powerful enough to resist even the reduced effect of his powers. So we are the only ones who risk nothing by doing this."

    Slightly nervous, Daniel paced around the room for a few seconds, then said, "It didn¡¯t look pleasant thest time you did it."

    "It wasn¡¯t." Responded Aeron with a stern tone.

    "Alright." Said Daniel before taking a deep breath. He then walked next to Aeron, and after cing his hand over his shoulder, said, "Let¡¯s do this."

    Aeron nodded faintly before cing his hand over Edmund¡¯s forehead. The moment their skin touched, Daniel felt himself being pulled right out of his body, and forced into Edmund¡¯s mind.

    In such an asion, "to see one¡¯s surroundings" would not be the appropriate figure of speech, as the mind in itselfcked eyes. However, once sessfully entering Edmund¡¯s mind, the world around Daniel and Aeron appeared normal. They could see things just like one could see a thought, and yet the inability to change these flick images, made them feel extremely ufortable.

    Most of what they were seeing were images that depicted the darkness of space, which could hardly be distinguished between the one from which they came from. More rare, were the images that showed different civilizations, different forms of powers, different structures, scenery, and magical beasts and territories.

    In the midst of all of this, was the solitary figure of Edmund, who was in a state of confusion that was caused by the, while reduced, still massive amount of information that constantly weighed on his mind.

    Unable to differentiate between the dimension from which he came from originally, and the one where he was at the moment, he kept feeling the surprise, confusion, and horror that came with each new one.

    Visibly pained by these images, Daniel dropped on his imaginary legs, and felt himself on the verge of vomiting. His figure was wobbling, as if a gtinous substance was left to withstand the power of a powerful earthquake. Yet, he did not disappear.

    "W-What do I do now!?" He asked with a clear amount of hurry.

    Aeron, on the other hand, was keeping his eyes closed, and soaking his mind into the sea of torture to which they were being exposed to. "I get it now." He then said.

    "Get what?"

    "His gift, it¡¯s not made for high immortals. It is made for people who cultivate the mind and the body." Responded Aeron while still focusing on the effects that Edmund¡¯s peculiar power, was having on his mind.

    As an ascended mental warrior, Aeron¡¯s only way to cultivate was through the strengthening of his mind. Be it by strengthening his control over it, developing his gift, or tempering it by exposing it to powers that would cause him heavy mental strain. That meant that for Aeron, this was not a torture, but a training opportunity.

    That was not the case for Daniel, who being a true immortal, could only cultivate the mind, spirit, and body at the same time. His mind was bound to his spirit and body differently than any other cultivator, and it was impossible to strengthen one without strengthening the others. Unfortunately, he was only there as a consciousness that was being supported by Aeron¡¯s mental power.

    "So, now that we are here, what do we do now?" Asked Daniel once again.

    "Actually, ¡¯We¡¯ do nothing. He does not know me, and if I were to talk to him, my voice would pass as that of any other voice thates from these infinite dimensions. His consciousness is hooked, now it¡¯s your turn to reel it back in." Responded Aeron before sitting with his legs crossed, and trying to enter a meditative state.

    "What about you?"

    "I will keep your consciousness from falling apart, and try to cultivate while I am here with you." Responded Aeron before turning quiet, and focusing on refining his mental power.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel turned to look at the confused figure of Edmund, and started to call his name.

    After more than an hour passed without any apparent results, he turned towards Aeron with dejection, and asked, "Are you sure that this will work?"

    "Keep trying." Responded Aeron while keeping his eyes closed.

    Daniel once again observed his surroundings, and right away, he noticed that,pared to the moment that they had arrived, something had changed. The images which depicted the dimensions were still changing, but at an almost imperceptibly slower pace.

    Reassured by this small amount of progress, Daniel stepped closer to Edmund, and said in his ear, "Wake up. Your family is waiting for you."

    -----

    This went on for a seemingly endless amount of time, and in the blink of an eye, six months went by.

    The sceneries that were surrounding Daniel and Aeron were not blurry anymore, and were changing very slowly. The pressure that the two of them were feeling had decreased to an inexistent level, and that had lead Aeron to find no reason to cultivate any longer. He was now observing as Edmund¡¯s unconscious would narrow the scope of dimensions from which this familiar voice could possibly being from.

    In the past few days, Daniel and Aeron had understood what, along with being conscious of every dimension at the same time, was destroying Edmund¡¯s psyche. And that was the nature of a few dimensions which he, as a living being, should not be perceiving.

    Between the shadow realm, the corruptednd, the spiritual in, and even dimensions which attracted the homeless spirits of the dead like different kinds of underworlds, and heavens. Each of them shocking enough to cause a person to fall into madness, they all took a toll on Edmund¡¯s weak mind.

    From Edmund¡¯s perspective, during the past six months, he had kept hearing Daniel¡¯s voice, which had caused him to regain a portion of his calm. At the same time, his control over his power had slowly grown, and while unconsciously, from being in every dimension at the same time, he started to limit his presence to the dimensions that were not hurting him.

    Soon enough, he was able to put aside most of the dimensions that were not simr to the one he was most familiar with, finding himself within hundreds of different worlds of cultivation.

    Most of these dimensions were inhabited by weak individuals which, by using a power simr, yet different from mana, were able to perform magical skills, strengthen their bodies, or even disy supernatural talents, but nothing that could bepared to the world of cultivation to which he belonged.

    This sort of spectacle kept going until he found himself stuck in a dimension in particr, which showed nothing of that dimension, with an exception made for a massive hall.

    This hall was filled with people who kowtowed in orderly rows that were directed at an altar, on which a naked middle-aged man was standing. Edmund was standing in the middle of this group of subjects, while observing what the middle-aged man was doing.

    As he watched, the naked man pointed his finger towards a naked young boy that was lying unconscious on the altar, and whom soon after, began to float.

    Edmund could not understand the nature of the man¡¯s powers, but for some reason, his mind was shrieking at the thought of encountering him in person. Unfortunately, something was keeping him locked in this dimension, making him unable to shift back.. be it willingly, or not.

    After the young boy was raised to about two meters in height, his body began to wobble and contort, until finally, the horrifying noise of flesh melting and bones crashing could be heard. His skin became darker in color, and as his muscles and bones lost solidity, his body began to cave inwards.

    Compressed more and more by the second, this went on until nothing had been left of him but a brown fist-sized sphere.

    WA%E ¡êP!

    Oncepleted, the sphere moved towards the palm of the middle-aged man, who after grabbing it from the air, moved it above his face, which he then turned in its direction. After that, he opened his mouth, and let out his oddly long tongue, which wrapped around the sphere, and pulled it into his mouth."

    &DM¨´#D %¡êKE UP!

    The sphere seemed too big to be ingested, but the middle-aged man was not a simple man. Like the body of a snake would, his neck began to stretch to give way for the passage of the sphere, which made his throat bulge to an absurd degree.

    Once the sphere went all the way down and reached his stomach, it dissolvedpletely, turning into a form of unnatural power flushed over the middle-aged man who in the span of a minute, seemed to be at least twenty years younger, and go back to his early twenties.

    As this process waspleted, the now young man turned around in satisfaction. However, instead of looking at those who appeared to be his subjects, he was looking at the spot in which Edmund was standing.

    "Oh little mouse, little mouse. Why are you lurking in my house?" He sung with a yful tone while gliding over the air, and towards him. Once in front of him, he added, "What are you? A spell? A saint art? No.. no you are not from here. From which dimension do youe from, little mouse?"

    Edmund was utterly terrified. The sheer look of this man was enough to make him fall on his knee and implore forgiveness, and that was what he would have done, if he wasn¡¯t a simple incorporeal consciousness. All he was hoping for, was that this man could leave him alone soon, so that he would be able to shift into another dimension.

    ..KE UP!

    "Don¡¯t fear little mouse." Saide the man with a reassuring tone, almost showing that, if he wished to, he could have easily taken Edmund¡¯s consciousness with his hands, and kept him there forever.

    EDM.. ..ME O..

    "I will take care of you. I will keep you with me, so that you can squeal to me the stories of the ce from which youe from." Added the man before raising his right hand, and reaching for him.

    WAKE UP!!

    Suddenly, Edmund felt an enormous power pull him backwards, and forcing his mind to go nk. Right then, he felt another form of essence encapste his consciousness, making the power that had kept him stuck in his mind for months now, disappearpletely.

    What he felt instead, was the sudden pain that caused him to be shaken awake with a bright red handprint on his left cheek, breathing heavily, covered in sweat, and confused beyondprehension.

    In front of him were Daniel, and Aeron.

 Chapter 409 A Moment of Peace

    "Wha.. where am I?!" Asked Edmund with confusion while looking at his surroundings, almost as if unable to remember why the four walls of the room, as well as the two men who were standing in front of him, looked so familiar.

    After listening to Edmund¡¯s question, Daniel stepped closer to him, and said, "Edmund. This is your home. You have a wife named Emelnie, a daughter called Alesia, and a son called Tigue. I am Daniel. You¡¯ve taught me spatial essence a few years back."

    "Em.. yes.. I have a family!" Said Edmund with realization after finally being able to fish these memories out of the infinite number of images he had seen in the past few months. He then turned to look at Daniel, and added, "Dan. We wereing back.. What happened? I remember that I was doing something. I was raising? Thinking? NO! I WAS ASCENDING!"

    "Yes. You were ascending, and obtained a gift that allows you to visit other dimensions. Unfortunately your mind was unable to withstand that power, and you fell unconscious. We have only managed to help you wake up." Said Daniel in an attempt to help him recollect his memories, and find a meaning to what he had gone through.

    Still slightly confused, Edmund turned away for a moment, then asked, "Where is my family?"

    This time, it was Daniel who remembered something important. When he and Aeron had entered into Edmund¡¯s mind, they did not expect to have to stay there for months. So with hurry, Daniel stood up, and said, "I¡¯ll go call your wife and son immediately. They have been waiting for a very long time to see you."

    However, before he could walk out of the room, Aeron grabbed his arm, and said, "I did not know this before going in personally, but the time inside his mind was highly elerated. It has only been a few minutes in the normal passage of time."

    This revtion had been received in two different ways by Daniel. At first, he was relieved that in the precarious situation in which his group was in, they hadn¡¯t been missing for six months. Secondly, he was shocked by the increase in Aeron¡¯s powers which, from the perspective of someone that was observing him from the outside, had increased his power from a levelparable to the first phase of high immortality, to oneparable to a fiftieth phase in mere minutes worth of real time.

    By locking Edmund¡¯s powers, Aeron had given up to a miraculous training ground for himself, in which he could have grown to be an impressive individual in little to no time. That simple action, more than each instance when he was helped by him, had shown to Daniel how good of a character Aeron truly possessed.

    Before leaving the room, Daniel muttered, "Thank you for helping him." then left.

    Once alone, Aeron stepped closer to Edmund, and said from behind his mask, "I cannot keep your mind and consciousness locked in your body forever. After you recover, I will help you get used to your powers, and strengthen your mind."

    Suddenly, before Edmund could process what Aeron meant, the door burst open, and from behind it, walked a blonde teenager followed by a woman with tinum blond hair. On their faces, were expressions of joy, relief, and worry.

    "Father!" Said Tigue emotionally, as he had not seen him in years. He then sat on the bed next to his father, and embraced him.

    "Tigue.. Heavens, you are so big.." Said Edmund with shock. Behind his son, was the serious figure of his wife who, as always, was keeping her coldposure. Yet, it did not take long for him to notice her eyes start to well up.

    As the family reunited, Aeron quietly disappeared from the room, and reappeared next to Daniel, who was now walking down the corridor that lead to Heimart¡¯s room, where Alis, their two children, and Ligart were waiting, while looking at the unconscious state of their rtive.

    Before taking care of Edmund, while Heimart¡¯s situation was less severe than his, since Daniel was not sure how long treating Edmund would take, he had decided to exin what had happened to Heimart to his family first.

    Technically speaking, there were no problems with him. However, there was no certainty that the method which the Mindhive had used to brainwash him into bing a bloodthirsty warrior, would not have permanent effects on him. That was the reason why, after breaking the mental loop, Aeron had changed reced it with one formed by Heimart¡¯s real memories, in hope to brainwash him back into being his former self.

    The Mindhive¡¯s methods were to make the warriors remove any attachment to their old lives in order to be bandits, and with the scenes he had been exposed to, if Heimart had been awake now, he would have likely seen his family as enemies, and tried to kill them.

    Now all that was left to do was to wait for him to embrace this memories before being forced to wake up by Aeron.

    Unable to do anything for him, Daniel left their family alone, and walked past their room with a look of dejection, and hatred. In his mind, was the faceless figure of the Mindhive, which had almost forced him to kill his own friend.

    After a few minutes of pacing in silence, Daniel finally muttered, "You have helped me more than I have helped you. Your enemies are my enemies now."

    Aeron did not respond, and instead stopped walking. He had understood Daniel¡¯s words, and yet, he knew that at the moment he would prefer to be alone, so he went back from the way they came from, leaving Daniel to walk by himself.

    Buried in his own thoughts, Daniel mindlessly walked out of the castle, where arge number of young men and young women were grouped up. In the middle of this group were the seven who had participated in the event, and all around them, were the students of Hiel Academy who since they hade back, hadn¡¯t stopped asking them about the details of thepetition.

    Standing by the side, while looking particrly confused, were Virgil, Hannah, George, Josh, James, Alex, and Felix. While they had seen the magical side of the world of cultivation, they had never seen elementals, people that floated in the sky while using wind, or even humanoid beasts.

    For them, their surroundings appeared like something that, in a world governed by technology like theirs, they could have only seen inic books, or read in novels.

    As soon as Daniel appeared, Nilo immediately turned to look at him, and with a joyful expression, he shouted, "DAN!" His arms were lifted up high in an attempt to catch his attention.

    Amongst the students, Nilo was not known to be the strongest, but he was still considered as one of the elder disciples of Hiel academy. After all, after Daniel, he was the first person to be epted by Daniel¡¯s teachers after his escape from Phyrri, so when Nilo shouted Daniel¡¯s name, every single one of the students turned to look at him.

    Within the crowd were all the young cultivators which Daniel had met in the past, including Mea, Miri, Riri, and Y, who were immediately able to recognize him. However, in the eyes of the newer students, Daniel appeared like a normal human. After all,pared to them, his power was immense, and they could not hope to see through it.

    "Nilo, who is that guy?" Asked one of the students with curiosity.

    Just as Nilo was about to admonish him for not being respectful towards the owner of the space which they were upying, Daniel interjected, "A new student.. Just like them." he said before pointing his finger at Virgil and the others.

    It did not take long for the students who knew Daniel to understand that he did not wish to be seen as the owner of everything. He did not wanted people to follow him because they knew he had the power, but because they agreed with his methods. Otherwise, he might have as well kept the followers of Sewah, who had followed him simply out of their fanaticism.

    Since Daniel had entered the pocket dimension, the spatial essence which formed it was updated by his power, allowing the area to be much bigger than before. Compared to the size it had before, its surface was nowrger than that of a small star, and was too big for his perfect spheres to affect itpletely.

    Yet, he could observe every bit of it, as if his presence was that of an omnipresent and omniscient God. For example, he could feel the presence of Xargy, who while transformed in his original draconic form, was wandering the pocket dimension in hope to find a good ce to make his own dwelling. Simrly, he could feel the presence of Lady Night, who by keeping her human form, explored the beauty of True Hiel City, tried refined clothes, ate odd foods, and attracted every sort of attention from the young bachelors of the many families.

    It was a moment of peace for Daniel¡¯s friends, so he decided not to bother them. Instead, he turned to look at Nilo, and through a wisp of sound essence, he said, "It is time."

    A smile formed on Nilo¡¯s face, and after nodding faintly, he walked towards him, and together, they teleported away.

    When they reappeared, they were standing outside of a house on the outskirts of the city.

    "When is daddying home?" Asked a young and tender voice from within the upper floor of the house.

    "He won¡¯te back until you finish eating your lunch!" Responded a woman with a voice which, to Daniel, sounded extremely familiar. Each of these words, he had heard them whenever he would find himself in front of the unlikeable food that his sister would force him to eat. The same loving anger which made all the stress caused by spending hours trying to rob people out of their pocket change, disappear into nothing.

    For some reason, Daniel started to feel extremely nervous, to a point where his nervousness was so visible, that it was easily noticed by Nilo.

    "What are you nervous for? This is your family." Said Nilo before reaching for the door¡¯s handle, and opening it.

    As the door was opened, numerous small steps could be heard rushing from upstairs, and before Nilo could even walk in, a small blur came crashing against his body. To both Daniel and Nilo, it was obvious that this blur was none other than Than, but something was odd.

    Instead of weing his father with a heartfelt embrace, he had weed him with a well ced kick to the middle of his chest, which left no damage to Nilo, but whom still fell on his knees, and said with feigned pain, "So s-strong.. I can¡¯t breathe!"

    "Haha! I am stronger than dad now!" Said the little boy with pride, right before being grabbed by the ankle, and being lifted a meter above the ground. "It was a joke dad! A JOKE!"

    "You rascal. I can¡¯t look away for a minute that you stop learning the martial arts of my family, and listen to your uncle!" Said Nilo while making his son dangle in mid air. Only a few days had passed since Nilo had entered the One Above All, so they had not been separated from each other for too long.

    "Nilo!" Said Re while following her son down the stairs, and towards the entrance, where she saw her husband and son y around. Daniel, on the other hand, had instinctively hidden behind the door frame.

    Nilo put down his son as Re walked in his direction with haste, and after reaching him, she gave him an intimate and loving embrace. However, It did not take long for Re to notice the embarrassed expression on her husband¡¯s face, who was looking at someone who was standing behind her.

    When she turned around in confusion, what she saw caused her such a shock, that unable to withstand it, she passed out.

 Chapter 410 Interdimensional Invader

    When Re¡¯s eyes finally opened, she saw the familiar blurry silhouette of her husband Nilo, and her son Than, who kneeled next to her with worry, and gasped in relief soon after realizing that she was fine.

    "Rei, look who is here.." muttered Nilo before helping his wife up, and allowing her a clear view of the tall young man who she had believed she would never see again.

    Re¡¯srge eyes suddenly started to well up, and her heart began to beat rapidly. To see his brother being devoured by an entity which she did notprehend was too much for her, and had caused her to feel the same way the same way she had felt after the death of either of her parents. A permanent loss.

    If not for the child she was carrying, her will to live would have likely been forfeited.

    While Jerigh¡¯s news should have given her some hope, she had never believed that her brother was truly back, and instead thought that this man which owed everything to her brother, was simply trying to look out for them, even if it meant lying.

    To see Daniel stand in front of her, and look at her the same way he did when he came back home, covered in bruises, and unting a scrawny bag of silver coins with a big smile, was akin to see a dead rtivee back to life.

    Now she couldn¡¯t care less if Daniel was truly back, or if the person in front of her was the indifferent entity which had possessed his body. She still used all of the power of her cultivation to rash to him, and wrap her arms around his chest.

    "Hey sis.. I am home.." muttered Daniel, immediately feeling Re tightened her arms around his body, as she realized that this young man was really her brother.

    After what felt like ten minutes, Re finally let go of him, and took a step back to check on Daniel. He was now much taller than her, and with a striking appearance. With eyes that hid a golden hue only intended for heroes and gods.

    It was right then, that Re felt a slight tug at the bottom of her dress.

    When she turned to look back and down, she noticed the cautious figure of her son, Than, who was peeking at the heroic figure of Daniel from behind her leg. "Who is he?" asked Than with cautiousness, and yet a hint of bravery.

    The thought of Daniel when he was at her son¡¯s age, could not help but make Rei smile. She then kneeled next to her son, and said, "This is your uncle. If you want to be the strongest person in the universe, you have to beat him first."

    These few words were enough to trigger the already present fighting spirit of the little boy, who turned to look at her mother with a flippant expression, and said, "Is he stronger than dad?"

    "A little bit." She answered while narrowing her eyes, and looking back at Daniel, who looked back at her with confusion.

    With a naughty expression on his face, Than turned to look at Daniel, and said, "Uncle, I have already beat dad today, so let me show you how strong Than Hiel is!" He then dashed in Daniel¡¯s direction with the speed of a cultivator at the first rank of spiritual, and martial cultivation.

    "What? Hold on!" Said Daniel before raising his hand in surrender. Unfortunately, that did not stop his nephew from reaching him in a matter of seconds, and throw a punch at his stomach.

    Before the punch could hit, however, a small shadow jumped out of the folds of Daniel¡¯s clothes, and after turning into the shadowy silhouette of a demonic wolf, swallowed the kid whole, then disappeared leaving Than on the ground, scared, and crying.

    This sudden event caused Re and Nilo to be shocked, and grab their son with haste. They then looked around in hope to find the beast made out of dark essence, which wasn¡¯t nowhere to be found.

    Than kept crying in his mother¡¯s arms, until finally, Daniel approached him while holding a small wolf cub by its scruff, and said, "It¡¯s nothing. Look, it was just this rascal." While this wolf cub possessed long teeth, and a thin tail much longer than the rest of its body, its semnce was still extremely cute, and was immediately able to warm the coldest heart after a single look.

    As Than looked at the cub with sparkling eyes, Daniel looked at both Nilo and Re with an apologetic look, and added, "I¡¯m sorry. I wasn¡¯t expecting that."

    Seemingly unaffected by what had happened before, Than looked back at Daniel, and asked, "Uncle, what is that??" His voice was filled with interest.

    "This is the king of.." Responded Daniel before stopping himself. Then, before handing a dark essence sphere over to him, he added, "A wolf cub. He means no harm. Here, give him one of these, and he will y with you."

    Still scared, Than grabbed the dark sphere from Daniel¡¯s hand, and threw it out of the house, causing the wolf cub to turn into an intangible shadow, and dash out to give chase. Momentster, the cub reappeared next to Daniel¡¯s foot, munching on the sphere as if it was a piece of candy.

    Amused by this, Than let go of her mother¡¯s dress, and approached the wolf cub, that immediately stood up, and ran away from him by circling Daniel¡¯s legs.

    After seeing Than and the demonic wolf cub y catch, Re let out a breath in relief. She then turned to look at Daniel, and said, "I have just finished making breakfast. Come on, let¡¯s eat."

    Daniel had heard these exact words thousands of times when he was younger, and even if he had more pressing matters at the moment, he was not going to refuse. So he stopped his nephew from runningps around his legs, and after squatting next to him, he asked, "Does your mother still leave eggshells in the eggs?"

    What Daniel saw next on Than¡¯s face, was an expression which could only mean "Don¡¯t even get me started."

    After letting out a heartyugh, he patted Than¡¯s shoulder, "Then I guess she also punishes you for anything you do not eat. Come on." He said before allowing the wolf cub to disappear in his shadow, and followed his sister upstairs.

    -----

    Nether Dimension, Murderous God¡¯s pce.

    "My lord, a confused entity from another dimension? Are you sure about that?" Asked a man in priest clothes, to a man covered by loose robes which left nothing to be seen.

    The half naked man did not even bother to answer back to this priest, and instead waved his hand, and turned him into a fine mist of blood. He then said to a second priest who,pletely unaffected by what had just happened, stood next to the deceased one, "I want to see what kind of dimension can spawn a multi-dimensional being. Bring me the projector, I might have found a new yground after more than two million years."

    "Right away my lord." Responded the second priest before once again looking at the half naked man, and asking, "Who will take your ce while you consciousness is gone?"

    "I don¡¯t care. You can rule this dimension until I get back."

    Overjoyed by the man¡¯s words, the priest fast paced out of the hall, and came back a few minutester while holding a rusty astrbe. On the side of this object were roughly two hundred holes, and only a few of them were still emitting a bright white light. To anyone with a bit ofmon sense, it was clear that this item had only a few uses left.

    Before the priest could say a single word, the half naked man had already appeared next to him, grabbed the artifact, and reappeared back on his throne. Once there, he ced the object on his legs, and after resting his hands over it, he injected his consciousness into it, allowing his body to fall asleep.

    When he opened his eyes, he was floating in a seemingly boundless room. In front of him was a wall which extended beyond what the eye could see, and was covered in man-sized holes. Each hole was as dark as a moonless night, and seemed to give a different vibe than the other.

    Once in this room, the half naked breathed in deeply a few times, until finally, he disappeared, and reappeared a few million kilometers lower than the point where he previously was. In front of him, was a door that, ording to his sense of smell, emanated an odor simr to the one he had felt when Edmund had interrupted his ceremony.

    Without waiting any longer, he floated straight into the door, and when he reappeared on the other side, he found himself standing in the middle of a road.

    As a bodiless consciousness, this man floated around aimlessly, until finally, he found another person. A good looking young man which appeared to be in his early twenties, and was at the fifth rank of martial cultivation. He was walking around with arge pot of soup and a bag empty bowls, which he offered to the homeless people that lived in the run down street.

    "Mhh.. you seem stronger than the others. You will do for now." muttered the floating consciousness in dissatisfaction, before moving towards the young man, and entering his body along with the air he breathed in.

    The young man, who was now pouring a scoop of soup into the bowl he had just handed over to a homeless old woman, appeared to be confused at first, but he quickly rxed, and showed a polite smile.

    "Thank you young man.. We would have died of hunger long ago if not for your kind heart." Said the old woman with tears in her eyes.

    However, instead of giving a dismissive and embarrassed response like he always would, the young man turned to look at this woman, and said, "A heart for a heart then?" He then pierced the woman¡¯s chest with the metallic spoon, and scooped her heart out.

    The other homeless people, which would usually swarm the young man in hope to get some food, were now running away in panic, screaming with horror, and hoping not to be next.

    Unfortunately, the screams ceased one after the other, until once again, silence came back to join the cold night.

    The ground was soaked in blood, and mutted bodies were everywhere. The only person standing, was the young man, who while carrying a lute bag which dripped with fresh blood, walked away while biting onto the heart of the first old woman he had killed, as if it was a juicy apple.

    On his face, was a malignant smile.

    -----

    This peaceful period of time appeared to be longsting, and in the blink of an eye, three years had passed.

    In these three years, Daniel and his friends had been left in peace. Instead, his academy had gained a lot of poprity, attracting a vast number of students who, just like their peers, wanted themselves to be emancipated by their parents, while not actually being in constant peril.

    Many times had Daniel tried to create missions which could help him reunite with thest five members of his group, but unfortunately, whenever he tried to create one, the requirements would always be absurd, and demand him to be at a ridiculously high level of cultivation, or find himself at a specific point in space, thousands of years in the future.

    Unable to find a quick solution to this problem, Daniel decided to increase the strength of his group up to that of a faction, so that his standing within the universal government could grow to a point where he could demand for an intergctic artifact.

    Unfortunately, the only way that his system had found to reach this goal, was by having himplete in thepetition between civilizations, and win as an individual participant in the seniorpetition.

    The requirement for that to happen, was for him to reach the hundredth and nieth phase of high immortality.

 Chapter 411 Bad Apples

    After three years, Daniel had started to realize what the limitations of his system truly were.

    Karma X Luck, which was the passive ability thanks to which he had been reassured about his friends¡¯ well being, was also the biggest obstacle to his own cultivation, as now that he had passed the hundredth phase of true immortality, his consumption of karma points had grown to a ridiculous degree.

    Each additional phase consumed karma points by the billions, and the amount of resources required to nurture the three parts of his being, was fifty percent higher than what anymon high immortal would require in order to cultivate their body, and spirit.

    Unfortunately, Daniel had found himself forced to choose between the invisibleyer of protection granted by Karma X Luck, and the ability to cultivate while using Time Is Precious.

    Against all suggestions, Daniel could not bring himself to take away the protection on which Alesia and the others relied on, so for the majority of these past three years, he had been stuck at the hundred and first phase.

    On the other hand, the power of hispanions had grown exponentially.

    Thanks to therge amount of resources gained by Nilo and the others during the One Above All, thepany had managed to create a foothold for themselves in the universal market, officially bing one of the uncountable mid levelpanies.

    Those for whom Daniel cared the most, had finally managed to ascend to high immortality, but since their ascensioncked the level of danger that was pivotal for the best gifts to be an option, most of their ascensions had created high level gifts which, while of a higher potential than most of the gifts that the explorers possessed, could not bepared to those of Jerigh, Alesia, and the others.

    Due to this, it had be amon use for Daniel¡¯s followers to leave the academy right before trying to ascend, and travel around in order to train in their strengths, and increase their chances to obtain a gift worthy of that name. This practice had also contributed to change the golden karmapany from being a simplepany which dealt in essence spheres and alchemy, to one that would ept mercenary work of many types.

    The numerous sesses of the members of Daniel¡¯s group had allowed them to gain the fame which any other group that belonged to one of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones possessed, making them known all through the universe as a new and superior generation of cultivators. At the same time, the number of enemies of Daniel¡¯s group began to grow exponentially, as even those who did not have a grudge against him, had started to see him as a growing threat.

    This was caused by the fact that his followers were not limited like the followers of the other chosen ones, who would usually be used as cannon fodder by their leaders, and were instead allowed to live freely under Daniel¡¯s protection, making them look more simr to a sect, than a normalpany, or group of mercenaries.

    The increasing number of enemies had also caused for Daniel¡¯s followers to be targeted whenever they would set out for their ascension.

    Unwilling to remain in Cato, Daniel and the rest of his group had decided to move into his, which traveled through space while hidden by a natural formation formed by his unique essence, and which only he was able to control.

    Invisible and unstoppable, the would aimlessly move through space, only stopping every now and then to allow for the members of the golden karmapany to open new branches on any which they would find appropriate.

    Unfortunately, to all the good and bad things that this expansion brought, one stood out.

    Bad apples.

    -----

    Viveki, Imperial city.

    Inside the emperor¡¯s residence of Viveki, one of the oldest and most destes of the universal government, a massive banquet was being held. However, the participants did not appear to be in a joyous mood, as much as anxious and worried.

    The only individual which showed happiness, was a blond young man dressed in the typical clothes of an inner student of Hiel academy. He was currently eating to his heart¡¯s content, and behaving in a manner that any respectable emperor would have punished with a death sentence in the blink of an eye.

    Next to him was an ufortable young woman, whom despite her terrified appearance, could not hide her incredible beauty. Sitting next to her, right in the middle of the table, was an angered middle aged man who could barely witness as the blond young man took the liberty of touching, and teasing the young woman whenever he felt like.

    These two, were Viveki¡¯s emperor, and her daughter, the Maiden of Viveki.

    The cultivation stage of the Princess, which was at thete stages of immortality while only being neen years of age, was high enough to disy her terrifying talent in cultivation, and make her known as one of the greatest promises of the newer generation within their gxy.

    Many academies had tried to ept her before anybody else could notice her talent, but the One Above All hadpletely ruined their efforts. Now, each and every talented individual dreamt of joining Hiel Academy, and discover the secrets that had turned Daniel¡¯s followers into unmatched cultivators.

    The Imperial family of Viveki was not an exception.

    However, as politicians, instead of going through the normal process of eptance to which every new student of hiel academy went through, the Imperial family of Viveki had tried to use their connections to help their prices and princesses to be epted.

    Their connection, was the family of the blond young man, who after discovering who wished to use him, had dly epted their request under a few conditions.

    Another problem which Daniel had recognized about his system, was the fact that he could not interfere with the members of his group. He was unable to allow a person in, just like he was unable to kick a person out, and therefore remove the group¡¯s passive effects that being his follower, allowed them to obtain. Anyone who reached a point of loyalty towards Daniel in which they trusted himpletely, were able to enter his group.

    Unfortunately, not everyone who joined Daniel¡¯s group was a saint, and even if they did not ignore the moral teachings that the teachers tried to impart to them, some of them were apliment away from bing conceited, and evil minded individuals, prone to abuse the power they had just obtained.

    The blond young man was one of such individuals.

    As nobles native of Viveki, the family of the blond young man had always been beneath that of the imperial family. Just a year earlier, the sheer thought that this young man could act so impudently in front of the emperor, would have been unthinkable-but now, things had changed.

    The condition given in order to grant a rmendation that could have allowed for the princess to be epted directly as a senior student, was that she had to either defeat the blond young man in a sparring match, or marry him.

    Being at the early stages of immortality at the age of twenty-six, the blond young man was beneath the princess in both cultivation and talent, and this had allowed the emperor and his family to still have hope that their princess could maintain her independence without having to tie herself to this noble family. However, it took a humiliating defeat for the princess to realize that she could do nothing against one of the mythical senior students of Hiel Academy.

    The banquet went on for the rest of the night, and as time passed, it became clearer and clearer that the young man had no intention of leaving for the night. Instead, he wanted to spend the night with her fianc¨¦e.

    At the same time, enraged by the behaviour of the young man, the emperor tried to find any possible chance to null this agreement, and send him back. After all, even if denied of her first choice, joining one of the other top tier academies did not mean that she would not be sessful in her cultivation in the future.

    The anger that the emperor felt quickly turned into hate, which he was more than willing to transfer towards this young man in the form of a series of deadly ps.

    What stopped him, was the idea of the protector. A member of Daniel¡¯s group which had already reached the high immortality, and followed the students in secret, whenever they left the academy on their pilgrimage.

    This young man had visited home during his pilgrimage along with many other senior students who were currently not present at the banquet, and this meant that, in Viveki, there was a powerful cultivator who was watching over them.

    At the end of the banquet, just like the emperor had imagined, the blond young man stood up from the table, and after turning to look at the beautiful princess with lustful eyes, he said, "Princess, I have always wondered what the difference between the imperial chambers and ours are. Why don¡¯t you show me around?"

    The princess reacted by turning to look at her father in anxiousness and unwillingness, which was enough for him to stand up, and say in her stead, "Young man. We appreciate your willingness to help my daughter in entering Hiel academy, but in the end, I think I will send her to the Diamond Thread Academy. I do not believe a marriage between you two is possible."

    These few words caused the blond young man to turn around in shock.

    "Emperor. What was the point in having the young master and the princess have a duel, if you did not wish to agree to his suggestion?" Said one of the elders of the noble family to which the blond young man belonged, with politeness. His level of cultivation was near, yet slightly lower than that of the emperor.

    As the old man finished speaking, the emperor turned to look at him, and said, "My daughter is not a bargaining chip. You haven¡¯t acquired her by defeating her in a duel. She has to be willing to marry. This is my decision."

    From the expression present on the old man¡¯s face, it was clear that he, along with the rest of the blond young man¡¯s family, still had a certain amount of fear and respect towards the emperor. Unfortunately, that was not the case for the blond young man.

    "How fucking pathetic. You rule a patch ofnd that means nothing in the universe. Now you expect to aim high while being unable to offer anything in return. I am surprised you still have subjects that look at you as their guide." Said the blond young man with a tone that could only be seen as hostile.

    "YOUNG MASTER!" shouted the old man before turning to look at the fuming emperor. He then bowed as deeply as his old age allowed, and said, "Your highness, please do not mind his words. He is young, and he doesn¡¯t know better."

    "Elder, what are you talking about?! Don¡¯t you understand what is happening?! They wanted to use me, and now that they have banged their nose against a wall, they are backing out." Said the blond young man in anger before turning towards the emperor, and adding, "You fucking cowards. I have already reached a level of importance above that of your puny empire. You should be offering this little slut to me willingly!"

    Right at the end of thest sentence, something in the mind of the emperor clicked. In front of him wasn¡¯t one of the prized disciples of a feared individual within the universe anymore, but a monster who had insulted his beloved family and daughter. Caution and fear were put aside in his mind, as only blind rage remained, which he released in the form of a wave of immortal essence that he used to wrap around this monster.

    However, on the face of the blond young man was no fear. More than anybody else, he knew that any group of students who went to their pilgrimage would go back safely with no exception.

    Just as he was expecting, the attack of the furious emperor was stopped, but instead of being stopped by a mysterious old cultivator like the students had spected until now, it was stopped by a young man who had quietly appeared at the entrance of the hall.

    By his sides, was a regr size wolfpletely made out of metal, while sitting on his shoulder, and disying theplexity of dark essence, was a demonic wolf cub.

    "What are you doing?" He asked.

 Chapter 412 A New Anomaly

    "What are you doing?" Asked Daniel to the emperor, who was ready to strike the blond young man dead, along with the rest of his family. His appearance had been too sudden and odd, and had caused the guards that were carefully guarding the door to flinch, and turn to look at him with hostility.

    "Brother Dan! This person wants to kill me! Please call the protector!" Said the blond young man before making use of the moment of shock created by Daniel, to slip away from the small space between the table, and the wall.

    "Who are you? How did you get in here!?" Asked one of the guards with hostility.

    Daniel¡¯s appearance was enough of a deterrent for the emperor to stop his actions. After all, he did not know what kind of backing he possessed, contrary to the blond young man, whose family he had known for thousands of years.

    After ignoring the shocked people present in the ballroom, Daniel turned to look back at the young man. He then delved into his thoughts, seeing what he wished to do to the young woman that sat next to him with a worried expression, or what he had promised them in exchange for it.

    "I will give you one chance. One chance to apologize, and you will live." Said Daniel with a tone that sounded more like a threat than a statement.

    At this point the emperor had alreadye to his senses, and realized what he had almost done. Something that many faction leaders would avoid doing. Give one of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones, a reason to destroy his entire.

    Sitting next to him were the members of his family and loyal subjects, whom he could see show worried, and tense expressions. Some of them were thinking clearly, wondering how long it would take for them to kill both the young blond man and Daniel, and escape the before either the protector or the Outcast came, while some others were hoping that the arrival of what looked like another one of Hiel academy¡¯s senior students, would put an end to the unreasonable behaviour of the blond young man.

    Nevertheless, all of them were thinking about the survival of the imperial family, and the emperor was aware of it. "Father.. Don¡¯t. I will.." Said the princess with her broken voice. Her eyes were welling up, showing that the decision she had made, was a difficult one.

    As the blond young man looked at the emperor with a wicked and satisfied smile, the emperor swallowed all the pride he had umted in the tens of thousands of years he had spent as the head of Viveki¡¯s empire, then turned to look at the blond young man, and said, "I.. I apol-"

    "I wasn¡¯t talking to you." Said Daniel, interrupting this extremely humiliating moment. He then turned to look at the blond young man, and added, "Go on. I am waiting."

    It took thest few words which Daniel spoke, to take the blond young man out of his smug state. He then turned to look back at him, whom he knew as, ording to what Nilo and the others said, the oldest and most powerful student of Hiel academy, with confusion. "Senior brother.. What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Asked the blond young man in response.

    Inside the young man¡¯s mind, Daniel could see the unwillingness to apologize. He could also see that instead of acknowledging his mistakes, the young man was thinking of ways to contact his group¡¯s protector, as well as ways toin about Daniel¡¯s actions once they would be back.

    Unfortunately, he would never have a chance to, as before the young man could waste any more of his time, Daniel forcefully teleported him in front of him, and after grabbing his neck, he broke it without thinking twice about it.

    The reason why Daniel had been merciless, was because he had yet to find a peaceful way to resolve this kind of problem. Just like Sewah¡¯s devoted followers, Daniel was unable to kick anyone out of the group. But while Sewah¡¯s position had allowed him to gain a total control of these people, and ¡¯dictate¡¯ that they had to be good, these students were different.

    The significant increase in cultivation speed granted by Daniel¡¯s group was not permanent. However, the results were. If any of them decided to leave his group to conduct a life dictated by egotistical motives, he would be responsible for helping numerous evil-minded people, raise their level of cultivation.

    Unfortunately, this was not the first time this had happened. He had tried to correct the minds of these corrupted students by having Aeron erase parts of their thoughts, or even talk to them personally.. But he was not satisfied by the results of this approach. By forcing one to be good, the purpose of goodness was lost. One had to understand, want, and choose to be good. Anything other than that, would be akin to making human puppets.

    As of now, the only option he had was to give them an ultimatum to reconsider their negative actions. He would then consider whether the individual was only momentarily blinded by pride and greed, or if they were already rotten to the core.

    From what he had seen, this blond young man¡¯s mentality was far too gone astray to be corrected, and even if Daniel revealed himself to be the person whom he had decided to follow, instead of changing his mind, to the young man, he would have likely be a source of disappointment, causing him to lose faith in him.

    What Daniel had done was cause of great shock to everyone present.

    The emperor prepared himself to wee an eventual protector, whom he was informed would appear whenever something would happen to any of the students of Hiel academy.

    Just as he had expected, in a matter of seconds, something broke through the ancientary formation that encircled Viveki and was supposed to be able to defend against the power of cultivators at the hundredth phase of high immortality, and immediately after, opened a hole on the castle¡¯s roof, and crashed on the floor while in the shape of a bolt of lightning.

    When the sh disappeared, only a young man who stood in the middle of a burnt crater was left. This young man, was Sewah.

    More than once had Sewah been forced to fight off the attackers of many of Hiel academy¡¯s students in the past three years, and soon enough, it had be a sort of habit.

    "Who did this?" He asked after noticing the corpse of the blond young man.

    However, while he was expecting thisrge group of cultivators to attack him on sight, they instead remained quiet, and looked at Daniel with confused expressions.

    Simrly confused, Sewah to turn around, and quickly noticed the presence of Daniel, who was standing right behind him, along with Wolfie, and the demonic wolf cub. Both of whom were able to be asrge as castles, but preferred to remain in this small size for practical reasons.

    "Oh." Said Sewah before turning aroundpletely. He then asked, ignoring the presence of the imperial family and its guests, "Another one?"

    "Yeah."

    "Want me to take him away?"

    "No. His rtives are here. Let them have him." Said Daniel while slowly controlling the space around the young man¡¯s corpse, in order to force it to straighten, and for his arms to unite above his chest.

    This scene was extremely confusing for the spectators. Daniel had allowed for only enough power to make him look like a peak immortal, to be emanated. Yet, from the way the protector behaved, it seemed that he was in charge, and that this was not the first time this had happened.

    As Sewah appeared to be ready to leave from the way he came, the emperor was shaken awake, and said, "Excuse me! Protector.. May I have a word with you?"

    This request did not appear to stop Sewah¡¯s intention of leaving, but before he could, Daniel said, "Hey.. If you want to leave, refuse. Otherwise, listen to what he has to say. Be polite."

    "Fine.." Responded Sewah with annoyance, before turning to look at the emperor, and asking, "What is it?"

    Taken aback, the emperor pointed at his daughter, and said, "P-Protector. This is my daughter. She is extremely talented, and wishes to enter Hiel academy. Would it be possible for you to put in a good word for her eptance?"

    This simple request had taken arge amount of courage from the emperor, as he could feel, deep down, that Sewah was not an individual he would be able to exchange blows with. However, since he was a firm believer that fortune smiled on the brave, he decided to test his luck.

    "There are no limitations to talent, age, or background. Just get the Outcast¡¯s permission, and if he allows her to, she will be epted." Responded Sewah before suddenly turning away, and grabbing his head in pain. This pain onlysted a few seconds before disappearing, only to leave behind a shocked expression on Sewah¡¯s face.

    "W-Where can we meet the Outcast?" Asked the emperor, distracting Sewah from the thoughts that had left him aghast.

    After shaking his head in an attempt to recover his mental state, Sewah randomly pointed at Daniel, and said, "He is the Outcast." he then turned into a ball of lightning, and shot out of the ceiling wall.

    Even before Sewah could leave, the revtion was enough to freeze the blood contained within the spectator¡¯s bodies, who suddenly jumped to their feet.

    Daniel¡¯s attention, on the other hand, had been attracted by Sewah¡¯s action. For a moment, he had felt a small amount of information enter into Sewah¡¯s mind. Information which he could not ess, despite his higher level of cultivation, and stronger mind power.

    Unsure about what to say, Daniel opened a portal that led to the pocket dimension, and said, "Have her go through the eptance tests. If she doesn¡¯t pass, ask anyone to send you back here." He then disappeared from where he was standing, leaving no trace behind.

    -----

    A few minutester, on the peak of one of Viveki¡¯s mountains, Daniel reappeared right next to Sewah, who was currently walking back and forth over a small tform he had created by cutting off the rocky peak of the mountain.

    "What is it?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "I.. I don¡¯t know. I just saw an image from the eyes of one of my brothers." Responded Sewah while nervously biting his nails.

    "What kind of image?"

    "His death."

    "One less we have to look out for." Responded Daniel before turning away, and preparing himself to go back to the rest of the students.

    Before he could leave, however, Sewah added, "It wasn¡¯t. It wasn¡¯t.. His consciousness was erased, and another took its ce."

    "Another host survived being devoured by one of your siblings?" Asked Daniel with renewed interest.

    "NO! NO NO NO NO! It feels so wrong.. SO WRONG. It¡¯s not the host, it¡¯s not one of my siblings either.. It feels so damn wrong." Responded Sewah, seemingly about to go crazy.

    "What?.."

    -----

    Tomb

    Once a bustling with life due to it being the home of one of Iewah¡¯s children, the name Tomb, right now, reflected the state of its inhabitants better than it did in the past thousands of years.

    Each city of the was now covered by ayer of blood, yet, not one body was left behind. Instead, they had been taken away, and amassed on an enormous pile on which, right at the top, was a bloody throne.

    Sitting on this throne, was the lone figure of the¡¯s owner. A child of Iewah known as the Brutal.. owner of the violent system. He was currently looking through the odd sight of his system, which forced one window after the other to appear within his confused, yet entertained mind.

    "Now this is interesting.. This dimension is so entertaining." He said as his lips curved into a smile which uncovered his bloody teeth.

 Chapter 413 Danger Up Ahead

    A few dayster, when Daniel, along with the other traveling students of his group, went back to his, he had received the news that a second outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction had appeared.

    This time, however, there was something different. Instead of simply acknowledging his existence after kicking him out of their protective scope, an additional order had been given. A direct order from Iewah, which dictated that, whomever happened to cross paths with the one called the Brutal, would have to do all they could to kill him.

    "How are you two doing?" Asked Daniel to Aeron and Edmund, who were sitting one in front of the other in one of the training grounds built specifically for Daniel¡¯s strongestpanions. Thetter was trying to get used to his new power, while the former, was cautiously weakening his protection over Edmund¡¯s mind in order to allow him to limit the experience to a bearable level.

    At the same time, Aeron¡¯s consciousness and mind power hovered outside of this protective bubble, and used the connection between the multiverse and Edmund¡¯s mind to refine his own mind power in order to cultivate.

    "He still doesn¡¯t have enough strength to withstand his powers. His mind needs to be at the same level required by mental warriors to form their avatars, but it is overlyplicated for him. It feels like his mind is pressured by an endless ocean." Responded Aeron, slightly annoyed by the three consecutive years of failures.

    While one could believe that cultivating the mind would be easier than body or spirit, that was not the case. The mind was, by far, the most difficult part of a body to strengthen, as shown by the fact that, instead of simply requiring a type of mana which could be absorbed and used, one needed mental strain to cultivate their mind power.

    The mental warriors had solved this by leaving the territories of their factions, and witness to the pain of which the lives of themoners were filled with. Grieving, sorrow, fear, panic, anger, and hate. All parts of the side of human emotions which would shape a mind more than a happy life with one¡¯s family and friends would.

    Edmund¡¯s situation, unfortunately, was different. The amount of strain was too powerful for his level of mind power, which put him in a position simr to that of an immortal cultivator, which instead of cultivating with crystals, tried to refine his body and spirit through the use of essence gems. To use a waterfall to fill a ss of water, one would say.

    "Alright.. Keep trying then. Anything new?" Asked Daniel as he walked past them, and towards his sister¡¯s house.

    "A few new students. One with memories of your appearance." Responded Aeron before once again closing his eyes, and focusing on what he was doing. He then added, "I have already removed your face from her mind."

    -----

    During the past three years, Hiel academy had been moved out of the pocket dimension, causing it to grow to an impressive size, and reach a point where the terrain which included its training grounds wasrger than most cities. At the same time, the uninhabited part of the had slowly been popted with different kind of beastkin, humans, and various kinds of Elementals.

    The terrain of Daniel¡¯s was also perfect for the cultivation of all sorts of nts and herbs, as thanks to Daniel¡¯sprehension of the concept of life of nts, he was quickly able to speed their growth, and turn his entire into an alchemical garden.

    Unfortunately, most nts required the help of other elements to grow, and their growth was left to the care of what, during the past three months, had be the three elemental kingdoms.

    The title of the kingdom was naturally superfluous, as their inhabitants did not consider themselves to be anything but part of Daniel¡¯s group. However, the students had slowly adopted this way of calling these three separate groups of elementals.

    The first of these kingdoms was known as the Kingdom of Fire and Steel, which was mostly inhabited elementals of the fire and metal essence. The second one, was the Storm kingdom, inhabited by water, wind, and lightning elementals. Finally, the third andst one, was the Kingdom of Nature, inhabited by earth, and wood elementals.

    These three kingdoms were a favorite destination for anyone who wished to reach a perfectprehension of the elements.

    At the same time, a few more cities had been erected on the¡¯s surface, and had been popted by therge number ofmon humans which popted the now empty pocket dimension.

    Due to these changes, the limitations employed to keep the enemies out of the pocket dimension had be obsolete. After all, the protection granted by the spatial formation which Daniel had created around his, which was currently being controlled by Nova the spatial elemental, were much more effective than the tricks he had employed to prevent people from infiltrating his pocket dimension.

    To remove an unwanted visitor from his, to Daniel, was as easy as to wish so, and his would teleport away, or simply push him out.

    This, as well as Daniel¡¯s fame as the first outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction, had allowed for his to turn into a ce that could be visited, but which was impossible totch on to by using spatial essence.

    During the years, many had realized that Daniel¡¯s was nothing but a treasure created by his gift, and its perfection, as well as the generally happy state in which its inhabitants were, had lead to the false belief that Daniel¡¯s powers had something to do with happiness, or realization.

    Regardless of what the truth was, many had hoped to form a path between their territories and Daniel¡¯s. If not in order to obtain the for themselves, at least to sell the information regarding its position to another one of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones.

    Unfortunately, each attempt had failed miserably.

    Contained within the formation which surrounded Daniel¡¯s, were the concepts of shattered, and copsed space, and whenever an unauthorized portal would be opened, the two ends would be unable to find each other.

    The only way to reach Daniel¡¯s, was by obtaining permission in what before was the headquarters of Golden Karmapany, and now worked as a point of passage between Daniel¡¯s, and the manypany branches.

    "Uncle Dan! Look, I have reached the eighth rank!" Said Than with a cheerful voice, after noticing Daniel walk up the path that led to his family¡¯s house.

    After meeting Than, Daniel had be very close to him. To a point where, whenever he would have time to, he would spend it by teaching him hisprehension of mana, swordy, and even card tricks. Now that Daniel had found himself unable to cultivate, that amount of time had extended to most of his day.

    To Daniel¡¯s surprise, Than¡¯s talent in cultivation, even before bing part of his group, was extremely shocking, and of all the people within his group, only Cynna and Jerigh could bepared to him. A talent likely attributed by Daniel¡¯s good luck.

    At the same time, his curiosity andpetitiveness allowed him to be extremelyfortable with spending his days exploring the depths of natural mana, by bothering the many elementals who, in order to find Daniel to report the situation in their territories, came to their house on a daily basis.

    When not busy with his cultivation, Than would spend his days in thepany of Virgil, who had helped the Golden Karmapany¡¯s business by inventing what was considered the hottest protective talisman in the market. A weakened version of the essence bomb, which would store, and redirect the essence contained it, into creating a protective barrier, as well as warn the owner of the essence with which it was charged.

    Naturally, protective talismans were not a new object, but their use was triggered manually, and made use of a formation that required a vast amount of knowledge and patience to be created. Virgil¡¯s talisman, on the other hand, would activate the protection automatically.

    The invention of the essence bomb, on the other hand, had been kept a secret.

    Only one time had one of Virgil¡¯s essence bombs been put to use, and that was when, after approaching the territory of the Sovereign of Corruption, a group of students in the middle of their pilgrimage, had been attacked. Instead of calling for support, Lady Night, assigned to their protection, had made use of one of Virgil¡¯s bomb, which had been charged with ten times the full amount of immortal essence contained in the body of a high immortal at the thirteenth phase.

    The explosion had been so devastating, that the st had disturbed the orbit followed by the system¡¯ss, changing its path forever. If not for the fact that only fully corrupted monsters lived in thoses, Daniel would have done all he could to evacuate them.

    "Show me your progress. Give me your best shot." Said Daniel before giving his nephew a yful smile.

    "HEY! Don¡¯t even try it! I just bought those clothes!" Said Re with an angered expression after walking out of her house. She then turned to look at Daniel, and said, "And you! Go get some onions and garlic. I need them to make dinner."

    Slightly annoyed by his sister¡¯s behaviour, Daniel ced his hands on his sides in defeat, and said, "You didn¡¯t even say hi.."

    After seeing Daniel¡¯s defeated expression, Than walked next to him, and after grabbing his arm, he said through a cheeky smile, "She knew you were going to be defeated, uncle. She saved you."

    "You.. you nasty brat." Responded Daniel before grabbing Than¡¯s head, and adding, "You areing with me!" However, before they could take a few steps, Daniel suddenly looked up to the sky. "Stay here." he said before letting go of Than¡¯s head, and disappearing from where he was standing.

    When he reappeared, he was floating in space around a million kilometers away from the, which had now stopped its random march, and was floating behind Daniel.

    Soon after, next to him quietly appeared Sewah, Aeron, Xargy, and Nova.

    After what felt like an hour, from the depth of the endless space, appeared the small figure of a wandering individual. He was shirtless, and was carrying a massive single ded sword filled with veins, which appeared to be able to split the very essence of space.

    It did not take long for Daniel and the others to recognize this man, based on his appearance, as the Swordsman. One of Iewah¡¯s most known chosen ones. A fame created by his constant fights with his sister the Tamer, and his brother, known as the Mindhive.

    The Swordsman did not appear to be looking for Daniel, but had instead simply bumped into him, as shown by the fact that, instead of initiating a fight like he always would, kept moving forward despite the presence of him and hispanions.

    Naturally, the possibility that the two could casually meet in the dept of space was infinitesimal, causing Daniel to believe that he hade specifically for him.

    "Can you read his mind? Why is he here?" Asked Daniel to Aeron.

    Aeron nodded faintly before turning to look at the Swordsman. He then tried to use his powers to reach into his mind, but the moment his consciousness and mind power reached the distance of ten kilometers, an incredibly powerful and sharp power cut it into pieces, causing Aeron to vomit multiple beads of blood which randomly floated in space.

    This form of attack was iprehensible to Daniel and the others, as just like the minimal control over karma rted events was onlyprehensible to Daniel, only the Swordsman knew what sword intent was.

    Seemingly undisturbed by Aeron¡¯s action, the swordsman kept approaching, and the more he approached, the more Daniel felt himself be small. No matter where he looked, he knew that if the swordsman decided to attack him, his body, mind, and spirit, would turn into nothingness.

 Chapter 414 The Arguable Importance of Luck

    Thepetitiveness between Iewah¡¯s children was not, contrary to what most believed, an irrational and blind impulse. After all, if it was, any encounter between them would culminate in the death of one of the two parties.

    Each of Iewah¡¯s children could recognize one another thanks to the presence of their systems, and at the same time, they would feel the system¡¯s development the same way a cultivator would feel whether his opponent¡¯s power was at a stronger, simr, or lower level than his own.

    Simply put, Iewah¡¯s children would pick their own battles, as they cared more about survival than fighting a battle which they had no chance of winning.

    Simrly, those who were too powerful, would sense the low level of development of others, and let them grow until they would be valid opponents.

    Aftering to around twenty meters of distance from Daniel and hispanions, the Swordsman turned to look at Aeron. Then, after a few moments, he turned around, and floated back from where he came from. From the looks of it, it seemed that he was not looking for Daniel, but had insteade to look for something which, apparently, he hadn¡¯t found.

    This guess was not far off, as if Aeron had been able to read the Swordsman¡¯s mind, he would have learned that it was theplexity of his own mind power that had attracted him here, and had caused himself to be mistaken for one of the Swordsman¡¯s main targets, the Mindhive.

    It was extremelymon for the Mindhive to use methods such as hiding his power, or sending human beacons marked with it, in order to stop his siblings from pestering him all day. However, after thousands of battles, the Swordsman had found a way to go around this methods. That way, was to focus on theplexity, instead of the power.

    Since the moment they had felt his presence, to when he had left, no more than a minute had passed, whichpared to the few minutes spent trying to regain their calm, was an extremely short amount of time.

    For that entire minute, Daniel had felt like he was a simple piece of tender meat which had been thrown into a meat grinder. Any step, and his whole existence would be cut into a mist so thin that nothing but memory and fame would remain of his existence.

    After wiping a fewrge drops of sweat from his forehead, Daniel swallowed the frog that had gotten stuck in his throat, and said, "We have all almost died.."

    "How did he find you? Isn¡¯t yourpletely cut out from the rest of the universe?" Asked Xargy in confusion. "And why did he leave like that?"

    "I don¡¯t think he was looking for me." Responded Daniel before turning to look at Aeron. He then asked, "Did you get anything out of him?" Unfortunately, the answer as a single weak shake of Aeron¡¯s head, as he was still recovering from the shock of feeling a portion of his consciousness being cut to shreds.

    This simple experience hade to a great shock for Daniel and the others. The only one who had managed to keep his wits about what had happened, was Xargy, whom had felt a simr obnoxious pressure whenever he was in the presence of his grandfather, whom would constantly release his power in order to assert his dominance over the rest of the draconic n.

    On Daniel¡¯s mind, the same phrase kept going on repeat. That sentence, was, "I need to get stronger."

    At the moment, the development of Daniel¡¯s gift only reached the early middle level, and whenpared to that of the other children of Iewah, he was most definitely not within the top powers. Even when in the presence of the Teacher, he had the feeling that he could notpare to him. Be it for the fact that anything he did was seen through, or because contrary to Daniel, Romah was actually considered someone worth befriending by the universal government.

    Naturally, Daniel possessed a weapon of mass destruction, and if he wanted, he could start the process which, if left untouched, would ultimately lead to the destruction of the universe as it existed. However, that weapon was nothing but a bluff.

    Provided that he could keep his family and friends safe, if he truly used the concept of copsed space in a fight, he would ultimately end up exterminating any living being present outside his sphere of protection, and that was something he did not wish to do. After all, he also lived in this dimension.

    If the risk of using his ultimate power wasn¡¯t enough, the massive number of unknowns was. For one, he was sure that if the Teacher came in contact with shattered of copsed space, he would understand them way faster than Daniel had, and he couldn¡¯t say that the same wouldn¡¯t be possible for the rest of Sewah¡¯s siblings.

    What Daniel needed, was enough power to fend off against the strongest members of the universal government. Regardless of whether they were part of Iewah¡¯s faction, or the leaders of the major factions which, like gods, were able to create their special type of cultivation, as well as bless those who decided to follow them with their gifts.

    Enough power to be worth befriending, instead of being ignored. That was the level of power he needed.

    Finally, after years spent under the protective sphere of his system, Daniel realized what the problem with his current lifestyle was.

    Lucky encounters helped people survive disaster, but constant luck, made people weak.

    Luck had be the main focus of Daniel¡¯s existence, and he relied on it for his own safety, as well as the safety of his friends, and family. However, there was a time where he did not possess any form of luck, and while those were the times when he suffered the most, it was also the time where he was at the peak of his potential.

    He had allowed karmic points to dictate his survival, instead of being a currency which he could use.

    That was a problem that Sewah, when in possession of the system, did not have. Instead, he had kept cultivating despite the increasingly bad luck, and his difficulties had tempered him into a proper children of Iewah.

    When had his friends be too weak to keep their own lives? When had they asked for his protection?

    Those whom Daniel wished to protect, were the ones who had told him to focus on his cultivation, instead of keeping them in this weak bubble of protection which, while effective against small menaces, could do nothing against people whose powers went beyond what could be felt or seen. If Der, Jerigh, Alexia, Roley, and Gai¡¯ha had been there, they would have told him the same.

    "Alright.." he muttered, attracting the attention of his friends, who looked at him with confusion. A confusion that was cleared, when he followed up by saying, "Cultivation it is.."

    -----

    Ten dayster, Alcazar.

    One of the most important buildings of the universal government¡¯s capital, was the senate. This building would host the meetings of a groupposed by the descendents of the original faction that, in time had grown to be the universal government as it was now.

    This senate was in control of all three branches of the universal government, and would coordinate them in order to keep peace within their chaotic territory.

    "What is the report about the foreign forces? Are they still sending scouts in our territory?" Asked one of the senators, a middle aged man who emanated the power of a cultivator beyond the two hundredth phase of high immortality.

    "They are, senator. Ten times since ourst report. Always disguised as ambassadors sent to the major factions. They arrive inrge numbers, then they make use of the limitations of each faction to split up, and gather information." Said a teenage-looking grand judge, who stood in the middle of the round hall, along with the army¡¯smander.

    As the young-looking judge finished speaking, a murmuring noise filled the room.

    This noisested for a good minute, and was interrupted only as the same senator who had spoken before, continued by asking the armymander, "What about the factions? Where are their reports?"

    The armymander took a step forward, and responded by saying, "Senator. Out of the ten factions, in four of the reports we have received, it was imed that the ambassadors mentioned a possible cooperation between them, and their civilization. These four were the Spiritual faction, the Void Dwellers, the Travelers of Unconsciousness of the mental factions, and the Corrupted Faction."

    "Let me guess, it is not a coincidence that the four factions to whom has been proposed an alliance, are also the ones in possession of their own dimensional domain which is separated from our space, am I correct?" Asked the senator with barely hidden anger.

    The actions of the foreign civilization, while not actively in contrast with the existence of the universal government, meant that their opponents were either scouting their strength before thepetition between the two civilizations, or the intention of weakening their structure in case a war would break out.

    "No Senator. You are right. We expect more visiting parties in the next few months. I have already arranged for a few of my generals to be present when that happens." Responded the armymander with confidence.

    "Very well. What about the final matter at hand?"

    This time, it was the grand judge who took a step forward, and said respectfully, "To answer the senator. The Deathbringer and Timelord have given.. Vague responses. When reminded that they belonged to the universal government, they told us to, and I am quoting, ¡¯get the tree to make them¡¯. At the same time, the other chosen of Iewah have be quiet ever since the second outcast appeared."

    The mention of the second outcast was enough to light the interest of the entire room, who sat straight on their seats. One of them asked, "Speaking of the second outcast. Is there any news about him?"

    "Odd news, senator. We have discovered a trail of blood that dates back to three years ago. Strangely enough, however, it did not start with the one called ¡¯The Brutal¡¯. One of my- one of the explorers followed the trail back through at least fiftys, all of which had recently been emptied from their inhabitants, and stopped at a called Noraga." Said the grand judge in response.

    "What are you saying? That what caused the Brutal to be an outcast, may not bepletely rted to him?" Asked the senator in confusion.

    "Senator, I might be in wrong here, but I personally think that the Brutal as we know it, is now dead." Responded the grand judge before straightening his back, and exining, "From what we know, the Brutal was called like that only due to his violent means, and not by his need to cause mayhem. In fact, he was far from being the one who caused the most damage to our government. However, now.. He is purposely attacking one faction after the other, visiting one at a time, and causing the disappearance of the inhabitants of each of theses."

    The grand judge¡¯s words were cause of shock for the senators, who erupted into a vivid discussion.

    After a long minute, the speaker stood up, and with enough power to overtake the voices of those present, he shouted, "SILENCE!"

    As the noise of chatting died down, the speaker turned to look at the grand judge, and asked, "Are you saying that something may have taken control over.. One of Iewah¡¯s monstrous children?"

    "We already know that the elite members of Iewah¡¯s faction are born as consciences which apany their gifts, and if you might recall, for a short period of time, the first outcast behaved more simrly to a proper child of Iewah.. But then, he changed. After changing, he was rejected by Iewah, and became the first outcast in their faction¡¯s history." Said the grand judge before taking a small pause, and after making sure that what he had said sunk in, he added, "We were unsure of what had caused that to happen, but two drastic behavioural changes, followed by two unusual events.. It is hardly a coincidence at this point."

    This exnation gave much to the senate to think about, as seen by the fact that the expression of each of the present, was now showing a deep state of focus.

    The silence was interrupted by the speaker, who said, "Very well, We can use the standing kill order. If I am not mistaken, the Mindhive is ssified at a higher threat level than the Brutal. Offer your cooperation to him in killing him, and if possible, obtain as much information as you can about this matter."

    "Very well, Speaker. What are we allowed to offer?"

    "The Swordsman has pestered him for the past ten thousand years. Offer the full research we have on him." Responded the speaker before standing up, and adding, "This session is adjourned."

    "Speaker, what about the outcast?" asked the grand judge before the senators could leave the room.

    "Keep an eye on him."

 Chapter 415 Proponents of Deep Sleep

    Affecting luck was nowhere near as simple as one would believe. Even with the effect of Daniel¡¯s system, the changes created by his power were specific, and at the same time, extremely vague. These changes existed in time and space, and his luck only allowed them to have a lower, or higher chance to manifest.

    For example, when affected by Sewah¡¯s negative luck, Daniel had been forced to face numerous unlucky events in his travels. However, it wasn¡¯t his negative luck that had created those events. His luck had only controlled the small events that led him to make a decision that, ultimately, put him in front of these unlucky events.

    Like a small fish forced to swim inside an ocean formed by an infinite number of currents, he could only swim in hope that the next current that caught him, would not carry him back.

    Now that Daniel had decided to break loose from these currents, he was once again in full control of his choices. Making him more dependent on his free will, than he was in this invisible, yet always present power called luck.

    Unfortunately, that had also awakened a part of his mind which wondered whether every little negative thing that happened to him and his friends, would not have happened if he did not change his way of looking at his system. Every injury, every loss, or in this case, both.

    He was currently sitting next to Heimart, who had long awakened from his slumber, and was looking at him with a confused expression.

    Waking up was not the difficult part of Heimart¡¯s recovery. What was difficult was the fact that, instead of going back to being the same person as he was in the past due to the imnted memories of his older self, Heimart had now changed.

    Aeron¡¯s purpose to force Heimart to relive his past life in his mind, was to overwrite the changes which the Mindhive had tried to make by making him believe he was a bandit. Unfortunately, due to powers which he had no way to affect, Aeron had been unable to predict, or stop what had happened next. That, was the merging of those two mentalities.

    Heimart¡¯s rationale was split between that of the family man who enjoyed making fun of his gullible cousin and had exceptionally good leadership skills, and a merciless bandit, who saw the wealth in front of him as something he needed to take, instead of something that was simply there. This was what Aeron, who after Heimart had woken up had checked up on him in order to verify whether the Mindhive¡¯s control over his mind was still present, had told him.

    Unfortunately, for as powerful Aeron was, the systems possessed by Iewah¡¯s children were not as simple as one-centered powers. The Mindhive¡¯s power had affected Heimart in was that both Daniel and Aeron could not understand.

    The only thing which could eradicate the power of a system, was another system.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest Started: Shadow of One¡¯s Former Self*

    -Description: Help your friend recover his former self by detaching his mind from the Mindhive.

    Objective set: Kill the Mindhive.

    Optional: Prevent Heimart from murdering any of his friends or family members until the objective ispleted.

    Reward: ???

    Failure: ???

    Time limit: Heimart will die of old age in 933 years, 1 month and 18 days.

    ____________________________

    Since Heimart had woken up, Daniel had spent thest hour sitting in the mess hall of his ck castle, staring at the dish that Imblen and her two adoptive children had cooked for him. His attention was focused on the window that had appeared in his mind, which provided details regarding a quest that he had voluntarily created.

    Theck of a clear reward and penalty were a majorponent in what was causing him to be confused, but more than anything else, was he optional objective of the quest.

    ording to what the system had revealed, at some point, Heimart would give in to the new side of which his personality was made of, and would try to hurt someone that was close to him. That was something that Daniel would never allow to happen.

    What was making him feel somewhat reassured, was the second small window that he had demanded from the system. A window which had provided to him a method to deal with his new mission, and that revealed that, as long as he managed to get to the Mindhive¡¯s main body, he would be able to defeat him through physical power alone.

    However, there were requirements.

    One of which, was to obtain an object that was currently in possession of one of the mental factions. The Proponents of Deep Sleep.

    A faction which, after falling from grace, due to one of the Mindhive¡¯s experiments, had been able to regain their status, and even grow in power. The source of their ascent, was due to the study and use of an object that had been granted to them by the Mindhive himself.

    This object was called the Door to Dream State, and allowed one¡¯s mind to enter, and actively live, in a ce called the Dream Domain. A dimension separated from any other, in which time went by much faster than the outside, and everything was possible.

    ording to the option given by the Karmic System, the only way to find the Mindhive¡¯s true physical body, was by finding the only trace of essence contained within the Door to Dream State. A wisp of essence which connected his body with the Dream Domain, the sase way Daniel¡¯s was connected to his body.

    Unfortunately, no matter how many times Daniel tried to pry deeper in an attempt to obtain more specific information, something seemed to block him from doing so. Something which he could only assume was the Mindhive¡¯s system, which thetter had likely used to protect this specific piece of information.

    The only way Daniel could find this connection, was by entering the Dream Domain himself, and personally find what he was looking for.

    -----

    Dream Gxy, territory of the Proponents of Deep Sleep.

    Thanks to constant eleration, as well as Nova¡¯s and his¡¯ control over stable space, Daniel had been able to alternate traveling and teleporting through an impressive distance, which had helped them to arrive only a couple of monthster.

    Now they had finally arrived at the border of Dream Gxy, which while it was co-owned by multiple mental factions, was notoriously the house of he Proponents of Deep Sleep, and many other smallerponents of the numerous mental factions.

    In front of them, was a spectacle like nothing they had ever seen.

    Instead of being simr to any other gxy, Dream Gxy was formed by an uncountable number of immense and differently colored clouds of gases, as well as floating pieces ofnd which, even before being inhabited by the Proponents of Deep Sleep, had caused it to gain the name it now had.

    In poor words, the scenery appeared like something that hade right out of a young kid¡¯s dream, but in gctic proportions.

    "That looks so Beautiful!" Said Than, who after multiple requests andins to his mother, had been allowed to see the spectacle while apanied by his uncle. "What are those colors? They are so bright!"

    "That is a Neb. An agglomerate of ion.. They are gases and dust." Responded Daniel, refraining from going into an in depth exnation of how a neb would form, or why it could be observed. He did not want to ruin the show by turning it into a boring exnation of the essences of space, wind, fire, and lightning.

    Xargy, who was now in the shape of a dragon big enough to carry Than in his back, said with his deep voice, "You have seen nothing, human cub. These slow moving gases cannotpare to the Night of Fire, a celebration of the draconic race, where we merge our mes to test which one¡¯s warmer, and more brilliant. Eheh."

    "That is so cool!! Can you take me to see it, the next time it happens?" Asked Than to Xargy, whom after hearing the words ¡¯next time¡¯, turned to look forward, and said nothing more.

    Daniel knew that Than was about to insist on the topic, so instead of remaining quiet, he turned to look at his nephew, and after opening a small portal that lead to his home, said, "Go to your parents. Enjoy the view with them."

    "But you can¡¯t see this from inside the!" Retorted Than with disappointment.

    "I will make the formation clearer, so that everyone can see it." Said Daniel with a reassuring tone.

    As Daniel finished speaking, Than reluctantly entered the small portal, and ran into his house. Secondster, he came back out while dragging his parents, Re and Nilo, by their hands.

    When he looked up, he saw the same clear sky he had seen a thousand times, but just as he was about toin, the sky began to change. The¡¯s atmosphere became invisible, allowing for the lights that brought the colors of the neb inside, and for everyone to see.

    At that moment, millions of people, beastkin, and elementals walked out of their abodes, to quietly look at the spectacr sight.

    Meanwhile, right outside of the¡¯s atmosphere, Daniel muttered, "The Night of Fire.. It sounds interesting. The next time it happens, I hope you will invite me to see it."

    These words to Xargy meant more than a simple show of interest towards his kin¡¯s tradition. They meant that Daniel had not forgotten about helping him free his kin from the Tamer¡¯s control. A promise that, one day, they will be powerful enough to take care of all of these loose ends.

    "The Night of Fire, it is a festivity where we try to impress our mate. We better find yours before that happens." Said Xargy in order to break the ufortable silence that had formed after Daniel¡¯s words.

    Amused by Xargy¡¯s words, Daniel smirked faintly before turning towards the Neb, and advancing into it along with his.

    Once inside the Neb, Daniel decided that, instead of personally traveling through the massive gxy with his, it was better to reach the closest inhabited, and use their teleportation devices to get closer to their destination. So he set the course, and along with his friends, he headed towards a free-floating called Curio.

    -----

    Curio, three dayster.

    As a free-floating, Curiocked the warmth that any other star-orbiting would have. However, that was not a problem for its inhabitants, who would use the inhospitable conditions to temper their minds.

    The highest cultivation level of Curio was only at the level possessed by Aeron the moment Daniel had met him, and could bepared to thete stages of immortality, meaning that there was not a single individual on the could possibly be a threat to the current power of Daniel¡¯s group.

    However, that did not stop them¡¯s key keeper from appearing when Daniel, Aeron, and Edmund descended from the skies, and after looking with deep confusion at the three of them, to ask, "What brings you here in Curio?"

    From the keeper¡¯s point of view, Daniel appeared like a normal cultivator with an oddly powerful mind, Edmund was a high immortal whose consciousness was caged beyond what he could perceive, and Aeron was moreplex than any other mental being he had ever encountered.

    If he had to make a guess, the keeper would say that the three of them belonged to three different and secretive mental factions.

    "We have no business in Curio. We just want to use your teleportation device to get as close to the Proponents of Deep Sleep as possible." Said Aeron through the use of telepathy, shattering every form of defence and protection that the keeper had put in ce to protect his mind from the millions of mind warriors of which he was surrounded.

 Chapter 416 An Odd Mental Stone

    "Oh.. I.. yes, go ahead." Said the keeper with a dumbfounded expression.

    It is vital to understand how important a mental barrier was for a mental warrior. Not only was it a barrier needed to safekeep one¡¯s consciousness from other people¡¯s mental powers, but also a curtain that could prevent others from learning the secret methods of another faction.

    That was the reason why these barriers would be usually produced inrge amounts by the stronger members of each faction, or at times, the leader themselves.

    In order to break through these kinds of mental barrier, there were only two viable methods. The first one, was through the use of sheer power, which required a more powerful mind power than the one possessed by the cultivator whom had created the barrier. The second method, was through the use ofplexity.

    Mental power¡¯splexity was not something that could be trained, but obtained during one¡¯s ascension. Reason why of the two methods, that was the least viable option. Generally speaking, only those who had the power to form a new mental faction, possessed theplexity to achieve something like what Aeron had just casually done.

    When the keeper heard Aeron¡¯s voice in his mind, he suddenly stopped seeing in him an odd type of mental warrior, and instead saw someone who possessed a potential beyond that of his very own faction leader. Someone whom he could not afford to offend no matter what.

    After being allowed into the, it did not take long for Daniel and the others to find a portal that would lead to the territory of the Proponents of Deep Sleep, and soon enough, they found themselves in Curio¡¯s main city, where the long distance low level teleportation tforms had been installed.

    However, as they tried to head in, they found their first obstacle. Payment.

    Contrary to Aeron¡¯s former faction, the Psionic Dimension, whose cultivation method required one to temper one¡¯s mental power through empathy, as well as killing their emotions, the other mental factions could not simply use normal mana to strengthen their power.

    Instead, they would use objects that, simrly to essence gems for immortal cultivators, were formed by the solidified mental power of stronger cultivators. These objects were called mental stones, and upon assumption, they would release the mental cultivation on the ones who formed it in the form of a low pressure which could be used to temper their own mental power.

    To put it simply, each mental stone was akin to a tutored training session.

    The requirements to use the teleportation tform was to pay five high mental stones. Each of which contained the full extent of the power of a newly ascended high mental warrior.

    After being asked for the five mental stones, the first instinct of Aeron and Edmund was to turn and look at Daniel, who looked back at them with confusion, and asked, "What?"

    "He isn¡¯t a mental warrior, and if a mental stone made by me appears in one of the mental factions, we¡¯ll be swarmed by members of the Psionic Dimension, and each of their allied factions." Responded Aeron with a matter-of-fact tone. He then added, "Also, it would take me a month to finish five stones, while it will only take a day for you."

    "I don¡¯t know how to make them. I¡¯ve never learned how to turn my mental power into something physical. Didn¡¯t it take you a hundred years to learn how to make your avatar?" Responded Daniel right after. He was not a mental warrior, and what Aeron was asking him to do, was something that only elite members would learn.

    However, the problem that Daniel had pointed out did not seem to bother Aeron, who ced his hand over his shoulder, and said, "That is easily fixed."

    The moment Aeron¡¯s hand touched his shoulder, Daniel cked out. When he came to, he was standing in a familiar, yet unfamiliar ck room. Next to him was Aeron, who was scrolling through Daniel¡¯s memories and experiences like a picture book.

    "Not this one.. You might need this. Not this one either.." muttered Aeron while waving his had from right to left.

    "What are you doing in my unconscious?" Asked Daniel, already aware of where they were.

    Aeron kept muttering and scrolling, until finally, he stopped the moment he saw the figure of a younger Daniel, who trained in the training room of his ck castle right after obtaining it. In his hands were two chakram, which Daniel had learned how to use in his spare time.

    "I have never seen you use chakram.. This will do." said Aeron before grabbing that memory, and removing it from Daniel¡¯s unconscious. He then pinched a memory out of his own mind, and ced it in its stead.

    After he finished manipting the imnted memory, Aeron left Daniel¡¯s unconscious took him with.

    When Daniel woke up, he immediately tried to recall the day he had practiced the chakram, but while he could remember what he had done that day, the moment of his practice was nonexistent.. Not unlike a forgotten dream.

    Shocked by the fact that he could not remember his practice, he summoned what he recalled to be a pair of chakram, and found himself looking at them as if he had never touched that weapon in his life.

    Experience, muscle memory, constant practice.. Everything had disappeared from his memory, and in its stead, a new memory had appeared. A memory which depicted the learning of mental power, and the way to use it, or turn it into something physical that could be used to defend, and attack.

    "Why did you do that?" Asked Daniel with anger.

    "I can¡¯t imnt a new memory in your head. I can only shape it enough to chan-"

    "I AM ASKING WHY!" Shouted Daniel angrily, causing Aeron to realize what he had done wrong.

    No matter the need, Daniel¡¯s mind was his own. It wasn¡¯t the yground of any mental warrior with the ability to y with it. No matter if this person was his friend, or if what he did was done for a good reason.

    Aeron had gone ahead and took it upon himself to change Daniel¡¯s memories into ones that could be of use to him now. While useful, that was also a terribly invasive thing to do. Enough to enrage Daniel.

    "I am sorry." said Aeron after lowering his head apologetically. Used to Daniel¡¯s practicality, as well as numbed by other people¡¯s sufferings, Aeron had failed to see how changing a memory would upset Daniel, and acted on the assumption that he would be okay with his actions.

    Naturally, Daniel would have dly epted if only Aeron had asked. To bother him, was the quickness with which Aeron had simply manipted the memory of one of his friends without even asking.

    After sulking for a few minutes, Daniel focused on the newly acquired memories, and soon realized that he knew how to manipte his mind power. However, he could not manipte simple mind power, the same way he could not manipte spiritual essence, or ki, as all three of these essences were merged together.

    However, while he could not separate his three powers, after learning how to turn mental power into a physical essence, he had discovered that he could modify his true essence into bing simr to mind power.

    Without spending too much time thinking about it, he focused his power into his hand, then expelled it into a nearly invisible white mist which quickly condensed into a translucent bead.

    The whole process took about an hour, and the amount of power contained in the bead, was only at the level of power which he could remember Aeron emanate right after ascending. However, from what the three could see, the color and feeling of the bead was quite different from a normal one, which would usually be light green in color.

    "Is this a mental stone?" Asked Daniel with doubt.

    "It sure feels like one. But it might not be up to their standards, since your essence is not pure mental power." Responded Aeron before looking at his surroundings. He then stopped in one direction, and added, "There is a merchant that way. Let¡¯s try it."

    Left with no other choice, Edmund, Daniel and Aeron walked towards an old man sitting in front of a table, right at the side of the road. In front of him, was a table filled with objects which Daniel and the others immediately recognized as protective talismans of strength that spanned from newly ascended high mental warrior, to levels which Daniel had only felt when in the presence of the mental factions representatives, during the One Above All.

    "Is there something that costs one mental stone?" Asked Daniel while browsing through the man¡¯s wares.

    A single mental stone was not much. After all, any mental warrior with the knowledge to produce one, would be able to do so in a few days. Their value was also not at the same level as essence gems, as their number was only limited by a cultivator¡¯s ability to recover and produce more of them, while essence gems required many years to form.

    So, when Daniel approached with such an odd looking mental stone, the old mental warrior looked at him with irritation, and said, "I have nothing that costs less than five stones. Move along." If not for the odd feeling that the three of them exuded, he would have told them off for wasting his time.

    Slightly disappointed, Daniel straightened his back, and after turning to look at his surroundings, started to scout through the crowd. "Wrong approach." he said before noticing a young girl sitting on the grass, just a few meters in the distance.

    From the feeling that was emanated by her body, she was clearly on the path of ascension, but from the look of her wary clothes, it was clear that she did not belong to a prestigious or rich family.

    "Hey you." Said Daniel before approaching her.

    The girl was stricken by the sudden appearance of Daniel, who looked at her with a valiant and confident expression. "Yes?.." she asked timidly.

    "I¡¯ve made a mental stone, but it is a little different from the others. If you try it, I¡¯ll give it to you for free." Said Daniel before handing over the translucent white stone.

    Not at all tempted, the girl stood up, and said, "I am nobody¡¯s test subject." From her behaviour, it was clear that she had survived solely thanks to her ability to avoid dangerous situations, and if what Daniel had just offered did not sound like one, then none other would.

    As she finished speaking, the girl turned around in an attempt to walk away, but before she could leave, she was stopped by Aeron, who said, "Use it to temper your avatar. If it gets destroyed, you can leave with a headache and form a new one in a couple of weeks. On the other hand, if it gets strengthened, you¡¯ll have more to absorb during your ascension."

    "Alright." said the girl before summoning her avatar, which appeared as a tall and beautiful woman in her mid twenties. She then took the stone from Daniel¡¯s hand, and handed it over to it.

    The avatar did not hesitate, and directly took the stone from the girl¡¯s hand, and ced it into her mouth before swallowing it.

    Just like they were expecting, the stone immediately started to break down, causing the power of which the stone was made of to flush over the avatar¡¯s body. At the same time, a gentle vapor was emitted by the avatar¡¯s body, which made it seem as if its surface was scorching hot.

    At this point, be it Daniel, Edmund, Aeron, the girl, the old mental warrior, or passersby, they all thought that the avatar was on the verge of exploding, but contrary to their expectations, about ten minutester, the brilliance of the avatar slowly started to fade, and go back to its original intensity.

    Nevertheless, two changes had taken ce to the avatar. The first one, was the fact that the avatar had turned from a green color, to being white. Secondly, its power had increased to a ridiculous degree, and if fully absorbed during a mental warrior¡¯s ascension, one would directly reach a higher level of cultivation.

    The girl and the passersby observed this scene in shock, while the old man cursed himself for not just giving out one of his cheapest talismans just to have a look at that odd mental stone.

    However, unbeknownst to them, was the fact that what they had just seen, would only be the second most shocking event they would witness to that day.

 Chapter 417 Stone of Mind and Body

    After the changes in the girl¡¯s avatar had taken ce, under Aeron¡¯s suggestion, the girl had tried more than once to proceed with the process of ascension, and insert her consciousness into the avatar. However, even ten minutester,she had failed to pierce the white surface of which the avatar was made of.

    ording to her, it felt as if the mental power of which the avatar was made out of, had gained a solid body that was different from her own solidified mental power, and was simr to her own immortal essence.

    "I can¡¯t. I just can¡¯t do it." Said the girl after the umpteenth failed attempt. She then turned to look at Daniel in panic, and said, "What did you do?!"

    An avatar was not only a weapon in the arsenal of a mental warrior, but also a crucial part of their ascension. A body which they sculpted themselves, and which they would then possess in order to break free from the limitations that a human form had regarding the capacity of their mind.

    Now, even though she could send it away, and force it to reappear, she was unable to fully dissipate it, and when dismissed, the avatar would live in her mind like a soulless puppet with the mental fortitude that reached that of an ascended mental warrior, and a body which exuded the physical power of a newly ascended high immortal.

    "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!?!" Repeated the girl in between sobs, attracting the attention of the rest of the passersby that hadn¡¯t stopped already.

    "Calm down, calm down. We will fix it." Said Daniel with a hurried tone before turning to look at Aeron, and saying, "Do something before we attract even more attention." However, not only was Aeron not paying attention to him, but was looking at the avatar of the girl with eyes opened wide with shock.

    While before to Aeron this avatar appeared as amon one made out of mental power, and controlled by a wisp of the girl¡¯s consciousness, it now was an independent and spiritless entity which had been detached by the main body, and could be recalled and summoned at will.

    "Create another stone.." Said Aeron without turning to look away from the girl¡¯s avatar.

    Daniel quickly followed Aeron¡¯s instructions, and after following the method imnted by Aeron in his mind, an hourter, he had formed a second translucent mental stone, identical to the first one.

    Before he could ask for further instructions, Aeron grabbed the stone, and approached the still upset girl. He then said, "You do not know me, and you have no reason to believe me. But you have felt the changes in your avatar. Now you have two choices. Live under its shadow, helping it to cultivate and reach a level of power that will allow it to protect you until the day you die.."

    The girl understood perfectly what Aeron was talking about. The feeling of detachment she felt towards her avatar, was akin to having one of your limbs detached, but while still being able to use it. One would still be able to squeeze their hand, but would never be able to reach out, and grab what they needed with it.

    "What is.. The second option?" she asked in between sobs.

    In response, Aeron immediately grabbed her wrist, and after forcing her hand open, he ced the second mental stone. He then said, "You take this, and be a student of our academy."

    Thest few words uttered by Aeron brought great confusion to both Edmund and Daniel, who did not understand his intentions. However, while confused, neither of the two opposed to the idea, as if Aeron had decided to offer this opportunity to the young girl, it was clear that she would also fit the criteria to join Hiel academy.

    As the two talked, the crowd was bing bigger and bigger, and at the same time, the strength of the spectators started to increase.

    Many of these mental warriors had been called by their friends and rtives in order to observe the odd changes in the girl¡¯s avatar, and the only thing that was stopping them from kidnapping the girl to study her, was the odd presence of Aeron, whom in a world of simple triangles and squares, he appeared like a rhombicosidodecahedron.

    "Why do I have to join your academy?" Asked the girl with confusion.

    "Look around you. We are the only ones here with no ill intentions. We put you in this mess, and we will get you out of it." Said Daniel after turning around, and seeing the curious, yet serious expressions on the faces of the hundreds of cultivators that had gathered around them. Some of whom were already quietly testing the fortitude of Daniel¡¯s, Edmund¡¯s, and Aeron¡¯s mind by sending weak messages telepathically.

    Left with no other choice, the girl unwillingly put the stone in her mouth, and started to assimte its power.

    Unlike a normal one, Daniel¡¯s mental stone possessed a spiritual and physical power in it, which along with tempering the girl¡¯s mind power, flooded through her peak immortal body, and began to refine it.

    When the avatar had ingested it, there was no physical power that could temper its body, and the result was a change in the avatar itself, which instead of being damaged, was morphed by it, turning into a being made out of a mixture of mental, and physical power.

    Something simr happened to the girl who, in possession of a physical body, felt her mind, body and spirit be refined by Daniel¡¯s power, and advance all at the same time.

    -----

    Two hourster, the eyes of the girl slowly opened, and in front of her, she found thousands of people, be it standing on the ground, or floating in the sky, look at her with eyes opened wide in shock. Amongst them, were the shocked faces of Daniel and Edmund, but not Aeron, who had already foreseen this oue.

    The girl looked down at her body, and quickly realized something. Her body was not anymore that of a peak immortal, but that of a high immortal, showing that Daniel¡¯s mental stone, instead of working as amon mental stone, had worked like a resource to improve one¡¯s immortal cultivation.

    That was not all, as immediately after, she realized that she had regained her full connection with the avatar. However, instead of being stronger than her, the two shared the same level of mental power, and were both newly ascended to the mental warrior stage.

    The one who could understand the changes in the girl better, was Daniel himself, who being a cultivator of mental, spiritual, and physical power, was in a simr position as she was.

    At first he had thought that his mental stone had changed the girl into a high immortal cultivator just like he was, but soon after, he realized that that was not the case. His stone had not caused the girl¡¯s mental power to merge with her immortal essence, but had nurtured her two powers separately, causing her to ascend in both ways of cultivation at the same time.

    That was something that had never been seen before, as the ascension of a mental warrior required the abandonment of one¡¯s physical body, by transferring their consciousness and spirit into their avatar.

    This girl, on the other hand, through the consumption of two mental stones that had taken only a few hours for Daniel to create, had ascended to the high immortality stage, mental warrior stage, and had gained a permanentpanion which would respond to her everymand and could cultivate alongside her.

    Needless to say, how important this discovery, as well as Daniel¡¯s ability to produce these special mind stones, were for the onlookers.

    After witnessing to this transformation, Daniel was about to say something, but he suddenly stopped. His eyes narrowed and his expression turned into a solemn one. he then said, "Time to go."

    Aeron had obviously felt the same thing Daniel had felt, so instead of asking questions, he formed a blockade around the mental power of the girl, and forced her avatar to willingly go back into her mind. He then grabbed the confused girl by the arm, and pulled her close to him, Daniel, and Edmund. The three then disappeared through the use of Aeron¡¯s teleportation ability, which unlike spatial essence, did not leave any form of trail behind.

    Just as the three disappeared, differently shaped green portals started to open all over the sky, and from each of them, walked out the powerful elite members of the many mental factions, who looked around in an attempt to find the anomaly of which they had been warned of.

    However, it was already toote. The four had long gone.

    -----

    A couple thousand meters north, in a dark alley, the four figures of three men and a young girl quietly appeared. Their faces were neither unsightly or pleasant to see, and everything about them screamed average.

    If encountered in the streets, no one would spare a second look at them.

    "Well, I clearly can¡¯t make mental stones either, so we are back at square one." Said Daniel behind the illusion that made him look like the tallest one of these figures. A man with a hooked nose, and thick eyebrows.

    "Maybe if we didn¡¯t leave, we could have obtained a few stones from those representatives." Said Edmund, a round and short middle-aged man with a high pitched voice, who after hearing himself talk, looked at Daniel with an annoyed expression.

    "With no luck on our side, I would rather not bet our freedom on the fact that no one powerful to capture us, and keep us in an underground prison will appear. Both Aeron and I have experiences about that, and it¡¯s not something pleasant." Responded Daniel before waving his hand dismissively.

    Aeron was not taking part in this conversation, and was instead studying the state of the girl who, still confused by her condition, as well as these three individuals, was standing on her own at the side of the alley.

    "What about her? Can¡¯t she make pure mental stones?" Asked Edmund to Aeron.

    After processing Edmund¡¯s question, Aeron turned to look at the girl, and immediately after, said, "No. She does not trust Daniel, which means that in order to produce one, it will take her at least six months."

    For the next few minutes, Edmund and Daniel went through numerous ideas which included robbing, stealing, oring out of hiding, and exchanging a passage with one of Daniel¡¯s odd stones.. but before this conversation coulde to a conclusion, the girl said, "There is a pawn booth in this city¡¯s auction house. They ept essence gems and crystals as advance for purchases during their events."

    While the use of essence gems was extremely rare in the territory of the mental factions, that was not the same for essence gems, which most mental warriors would use to reach peak immortality before having to give it up in order to ascend to the mental warrior stage. That meant that crystals had a value, even though infinitesimal whenpared to that of mental stones, which required the effort of a mental warrior to be produced.

    "Great! Let¡¯s go there. We only need a few stones.. It shouldn¡¯t be a problem." Said Daniel with enthusiasm.

    "You can¡¯t. Essence gems are foreign currency here. They won¡¯t exchange something that is of use to them, for something that isn¡¯t. They will ept it as coteral, and keep it if you buy something. Your best bet is to buy something at the auction house with essence gems, and then sell it for mental stones to one of the losing bidders." Responded the girl, slightly nervous about being in thepany of three men which she had just met.

    After a few moments spent considering their options, Daniel let out a sigh of resignation. He then turned to look at his twopanions, and said, "To the auction house then." he then added after a few moments, "Aeron, you¡¯ll have to stay outside. Both the girl and I can pass as immortal cultivators, but you can¡¯t hide theplexity of your mind."

    Aeron quietly nodded in agreement.

    "Alright then. Off we go.." Said Daniel before stopping, once again turning around, and once facing the girl, asking, "What is your name?"

    "Cora.. my name is Cora."

 Chapter 418 I Found You, Little Pes

    Still under the disguise formed by Daniel¡¯sprehension of mana, the group reached the middle of the city, where arge castle had been erected.

    This castle was not made out of bricks, nor was it created by shaping stone or metal through the use of the elements. Instead, it was made out of solidified mental power, and appeared like a semi-transparent castle covered by a light green hue.

    Right above its entrance, was arge sign on which the words ¡¯Traveling Thought¡¯ were engraved with a different, and clearly more powerful form of mental power. This auction house was alsomonly known as the Mind Castle, or the Jade Pce.

    The exterior was surrounded by a tight line of mental warriors which, ording to the different insignia present on their identical armor, showed that this auction house was protected not only by their owner, but also by the biggest families and sects of the.

    "I thought you said the next auction would start hours from now," said Daniel with confusion after seeing the formation of guards. Each with a mental power which, had Daniel been a simple mental warrior, would have matched his own.

    For the past hour, Cora had quietly walked behind Edmund and Daniel, wondering whether these people would at some point disy the same level of perversion, or at the very least interest, that she had had to avoid during her years as a lone cultivator.

    However, the more time she spent in theirpany, the more she would realize that they were different from the predators that she had met in the past. Daniel¡¯s entire focus was directed at reaching the Door to Dream State, Edmund would not stop bragging about his wife whenever a beautiful woman would pass by, and Aeron showed the same type of interest towards her, that a scientist which had found an interesting specimen would show.

    "It is to prevent people from tampering with the internal formation." She said in response to Daniel¡¯s words.

    Contrary to its exterior¡¯s appearance, the internal part of the castle was not different from the rest of the auction houses, and in it were different halls, numerous counters, and even a counter made specifically for depositing various kinds of currency.

    The most impressive thing, however, was the powerful formation which, right as the three walked into the castle, weighed on their mind power with the pressure of a billion high mental warriors.

    This pressure was so powerful that it would negate the powers of any mental warrior beneath a certain level, and if not for Daniel¡¯s odd condition, even he would have been affected by it.

    The event that took ce a few hourster went on without any sort of problem, as the mental warriors present had been suppressed, and were prohibited from using their fame or position to obtain one of the objects that were being auctioned. The only ones who could pose a threat to the event were the very few high immortals present, who are aware of therge number of guards in the surroundings, did not bother to cause any trouble.

    The object bought by Daniel¡¯s group was an object called ¡¯mat of mental fortitude¡¯, and was a cultivation mat which contained the life experiences of a powerful cultivator. When ced in a training room, one would be able to speed their mental cultivation by a percentage which depended on how powerful the creator of the mat was.

    Not at all difficult to find, this object was sold for fifty mental stones, which due to the extremely unfair exchange rates given by the auction house to foreign guests, had ended up costing the same amount of much more expensive essence gems. Once purchased, Daniel had sold the object back to one of the other bidders, who after guessing Daniel¡¯s necessity of mental stones, purchased it for half the price.

    With Cora, the price to use the teleportation tform had increased from five to seven, and after paying it, the four were able to make use of the power of a mental warrior whose gift included a form of teleportation simr to the one Aeron possessed, to reach the core of the territory of the Proponents of Deep Space.

    -----

    A few hours after Daniel and the others left Curio, right outside of its atmosphere, arge vessel appeared.

    Just like for Daniel¡¯s arrival, this vessel was stopped by Curio¡¯s protector, who stood in front of its bow, and asked, "State your names, and purpose to wanting to enter Curio."

    Not a single person could be seen on the boat¡¯s deck, and the only reaction to the protector¡¯s question, was a voice which said, "How can a pebble stop the wind from flowing."

    Before the protector could even be confused by these words, his body forged out of mental power started to fall apart, and dissipate in open space as if he was a cloud that was being blown away by a powerful gust of wind, never to be joined up again.

    After the death of the protector, the ship did not move. Instead, numerous powerful mental warriors appeared right where thete protector was standing before, but instead of being angered by the death of the guard, they bowed deeply.

    One of them said, "The protector failed to recognize you.. Please instruct us."

    It was only then that exactly a hundred and eleven cultivators floated out of the ship. A hundred of them wore the same military attire and acted in unison, ten of them appeared as lone wolves that could each start a war by themselves, and finally, a pure mental entity on whose face was showed a satisfied grin.

    "It wasn¡¯t necessary to kill him, Mindhive." Said a middle aged explorer, who had not liked the cruel instincts of the entity which they, along with a toon of soldiers, had been ordered to escort.

    "You should be happy I haven¡¯t killed you all as well." Said the Mindhive with a yful tone. He then turned to look back at the mental warriors of Curio, and ordered, "The Proponents of Deep Sleep. Take me to whichever city they are keeping the Door to Dream State."

    Amongst the mental factions, unless his opponents were the very leaders of the only two major factions themselves, it wasmon knowledge that opposing the Mindhive meanth death. His powers were known to revolve around the use and control of mental power, and what was worse, was the fact that he was able to control other people¡¯s mental power as much as he controlled his own.

    While able to create an army of brainwashed people, his power was still considered to be a single threat, as opposed to that of individuals like the Tamer, the Teacher, or Daniel, who could all create, nurture, and employ armies of above average warriors.

    However, while he posed as a singr threat, his individual power was above that of others, as his system¡¯s powers were, simrly to the Swordsman¡¯s sword intent, beyond what the warriors of this dimension couldprehend.

    This form of power had granted him the ability to, as long as he wouldn¡¯t cause too much trouble, to move around the mental factions just like a whimsical deity would.

    "Are you sure that we need your body to defeat the Brutal? From what I understand, as long as we manage to limit the death to a minimum, he should be manageable." Said the general inmand of the ny-nine soldiers as they were led to the same teleportation tform used by Daniel and his group.

    "Spare the nicknames footman. My brother is long dead. Whatever is moving his carcass, is a mind far more dangerous than that idiot ever was." Responded the Mindhive from the mouth of an olddy who he had quickly possessed.

    As he finished speaking, he moved out of her body, leaving the old woman full of confusion, and moved on to the body of a newborn baby, who while being carried by his mother, turned to look at the passing by general, and said, "It was wise of you toe to me.. Which leads me to believe it wasn¡¯t an idea that came from you." His tone was derisory to both the general and towards the army of the universal government, and lead the unimpressed general to look at the now freed newborn baby with a stern and menacing expression, causing him to start crying.

    The bodiless mental body of the mindhive began tough soundlessly for a few minutes, then stopped ying around, and turned himself back into a physical representation of his original body.

    Not in the mood to y any longer, the Mindhive suddenly became serious, and while walking into the tform, said, "Your documents regarding my brother better have something useful. If I don¡¯t get that thorn out of by back soon, I will ha-" His voice was stopped as the random recalling of recent events of one of the mental warriors that was standing outside of the tform, reached him.

    He immediately jumped out of the tform, and once in front of this cultivator, he stuck his incorporeal hand into the man¡¯s head, and forcibly pulled every bit of mental activity out of it, leaving him in a vegetative state.

    He then started to scroll through the many memories, until he found what he was looking for.

    This memory depicted three men that, while surrounded by an increasing number of people, were trying to get a young girl out of a mess they appeared to have created.

    What had caught the Mindhive¡¯s attention, however, was not the girl, the middle aged man, or even the stunningly handsome young man who was slowly creating an oddly colored mental stone.. But the masked man in possession of a mentalplexity whose depth only matched his own, and the potential to learn anything the system had granted him, but out of sheer talent instead of being given to him by one of Iewah¡¯s systems.

    The same man who had erased his mark on the mind of one of his little ves, and which he had long hoped to encounter.

    Aeron, the outcast of the Psionic Dimension.

    "What is it?" Asked one of the explorers, after seeing the incorporeal face of the Mindhive beam with excitement.

    "I found you, little pest.." Responded the Mindhive before moving back over the teleportation tform, and without even waiting for the operator to teleport them, disappeared, leaving behind the explorers, the general, and his toon of soldiers.

    -----

    Once Daniel and the others reached the territory of the Proponents of Deep Sleep, they found themselves in front of a sight they were not expecting.

    The entire city that surrounded them, while extremely popted, was inhabited by mindless bodies which could onlyplete basic actions, and live the lives of the owner almost as if on auto pilot. Not a single thought went through their brains, except for what was needed for them toplete their tasks.

    "What the hell.." muttered Edmund with shock. The sight was extremely eerie, and of all the ces he had seen in the past, this was within the oddest ones. "How did this happen?" He then asked to Cora.

    "These people have given up living their lives as mortals and low level cultivators. Instead, they chose to live as kings and overlords in the Dream Domain. In here, they left their bodies to sustain their minds through work." Said Cora, clearly ufortable with the entire idea.

    The only cultivators who did not appear to be empty husks, were the guards, whozily patrolled the teleportation device, and a in which the strongest threat to one¡¯s life, was bumping into one of these mindless bodies.

    The only moment in which they were shaken awake, was when they noticed the presence of Daniel and the others.

    The one that seemed to be in charge, quickly stood up fromying back on his chair with his feet onying on a table, and while handing over a form to Daniel and the rest of his group, said, "Sign your names and reason for wanting to visit the Dream Domain."

 Chapter 419 The Dream Domain - First Layer

    Along with being a ce where weak individuals could live their lives in a way they could only dream, the Dream Domain was also a ce where mental warriors could temper the fortitude of their minds.

    While the Dream Domain had been created by the Mindhive just like Daniel¡¯s, unlike him, he did not have full control over it. Daniel¡¯s had merged with him when he had ascended, while the Door to Dream State was an artifact with a specific set of abilities.

    One of these abilities, was to slowly refine the weakest forms of consciousness and mind power that had ess to it, and absorb them in order to increase its own power. This power would then be used to pressure the mind power of mental warriors, but only by those who were powerful enough to withstand the refinement

    .

    This, was the great trade off that the Proponents of Deep Sleep offered. A human would give up their physical body in order to live a few short years in a state of deep sleep, where they were allowed, and could do anything they wanted. At the same time, their bodies would live on as puppets that would work to carry on the lives which their minds had abandoned, forever.

    Contrary to what Daniel and the others believed, many of the husks that carried on working had been living ever since the Proponents of Deep Sleep had decided to settle down in this, hundreds of years back.

    Back then, only a fewmon humans had decided to live their lives in the dreamstate granted by the Dream Domain, but as time went on, and the number of husks increased, the inhabitants either left, or gave up, and joined their rtives and friends in the world that waited behind the door.

    Naturally, the more people were sacrificed in order to nurture the Door to Dream State, the stronger the artifact would be, allowing the Proponents of Deep Sleep to rely on them to strengthen their training ground.

    Due to the nature of the Door to Dream State, the inhabitants of the universal government had changed their view towards this particr mental faction, from being a weak and peaceful one, to being an evil one.

    Unfortunately, to eradicate evil was not an objective of the universal government, as in order to create a government to begin with, the first and main agreement was to never question, or interfere with a joining faction¡¯s methods. Hence why the parasitic faction, the corrupt faction, various former hell factions, and many more had been allowed to exist for so long.

    -----

    Aside from a massive number of invisible consciousnesses which lived in the space behind the door, the Dream Domain did not appear different from any other dimension.

    Completely made out of the mental power of the cultivators, was a massive city. Inside this city, were tens of thousands of houses and manors which, sealed by the powers of those who created them, hid just as many mental warriors who quietly spent their time tempering their minds.

    An unbreakable rule of the Door to Dream State, was that physical bodies were not allowed. After all, this object was created in order to support the Mindhive, who had used it in the past in order to increase his power, and had now given it up because its effectiveness had started to decrease.

    This limitation had made it impossible for both Cora and Edmund to enter, as only Daniel¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s body were made of mental power, or exuded a feeling simr to that.

    After a few questions from the doorkeeper, the two were allowed into this dimension, and quickly found themselves in what was known as the first dreamyer. ording to him, the dream domain was divided intoyers, and eachyer had an increase in pressure. However, mental power was not what was needed to go into the deeper levels. What was truly needed, was a cultivator¡¯splexity of mind.

    Talent in mental cultivation was judged byplexity more than by power, as itpared to a cultivator¡¯s ability to absorb mana, or to anything that could symbolize potential.

    The first dreamyer was the ground where every mental warrior would cultivate, and the more talented they were, the deeper they would reach once able to withstand the mental pressure of the higher levels. Its appearance was that of a ghastly city madepletely out of green, and transparent mental power. However, nothing of the insides of these buildings could be seen, showing that their transparent walls not only stopped mental power from probing, but also the senses.

    Aside from the manors created by the many families which belonged to the Proponents of Deep Sleep, there was an arena, the testing ground, and the faction¡¯s offices.

    Inside the arena, the mental cultivators wrestled through the use of their minds, adding a form of pressure to the already constant one produced by the artifact. The faction¡¯s offices were the way used by the faction tomunicate with its members, and finally, the training ground, contained the threshold between the first, and secondyer.

    The most popted area, was always the testing ground, which wasposed of a seemingly boundless door, through which the cultivators had to walk through.

    Ever since the two of them had entered the Dream Domain, Daniel had felt some form of power weigh on him, giving him a feeling of exhaustion which did not match with his physical state. On the other hand, Aeron waspletely unaffected, and the pressure of the firstyer was unnoticeable to him.

    The two were now standing in a two kilometers long line, formed by the cultivators who had studied, and mastered enough forms of powers to match the artifact¡¯s standard ofplexity.

    Unfortunately, for as many people that tried, almost as many walked back with expressions filled with disappointment, anger, and dejection.

    "THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!! This is the thirtieth time I try, and it won¡¯t budge! There must be something wrong with it!" Said a middle-aged man with unwillingness, after pounding his fists against the solid blue surface of the threshold.

    "Another failure."

    ".. not surprised at all."

    Of the more than two thousand people who tried their luck in the trial, less than one percent were able to walk through this seemingly imprable portal, and after about an hour, came the turn of Daniel and Aeron.

    The only reason why a line was formed, was because in the beginning, the dejected cultivators would end up crowding the portal andin to the heavens, making it impossible for those qualified to actually go through.

    This problem was solved when the Proponents of Deep Sleep had dictated that those who were rejected, needed to leave as soon as possible.

    That did not mean that entering in group was prohibited, but as soon as Daniel and Aeron advanced at the same time, it became clear for the observing mental warriors, that this was their first attempt.

    "The first time one gets rejected is always the most amusing." Said a mental warrior, unaware of theplexity of Aeron¡¯s mind.

    The difference betweenyers was both a qualitative, and a quantitative one. So, as long as a cultivator was able to gain ess to higher levels, they would go right away. The ones that were left behind to keep on trying, were the weakest, and most hopeful cultivators.

    That meant that those who could see the depth of Aeron¡¯s mind were either in the deeper levels, or were too old to attempt the trial, and had decided to cultivate at the speed that the firstyer allowed them to.

    Many more voices came from behind the two. Each showing a sense of schadenfreude which reflected the frustration caused by their numerous failures.

    These voices kept going for a few moments, only to stop when Aeron came to a step from the portal.

    Originally, the portal was a block of physical power that, when facing a foreign object, would either harden to deny ess, or be liquid, and grant passage. However, when Aeron approached it, instead of turning into a jelly like substance and allow him through, its solid surface split into two, creating a path for him to walk through undisturbed.

    This reaction shocked the spectators greatly, causing their jaws to fall, and mouths opened wide in shock.

    Ever since the Mindhive had given this artifact to the Proponents of Deep Space, the mental warriors that entered in order to cultivate had been advised that, if someone that was able to cause the portal to split into two appeared, they were to immediately report to the faction¡¯s office.

    What they did not know, was the reason why this rule had been created, and that the meaning of that event, could only be the return of the Mindhive himself.

    Daniel was fully aware that this reaction had been caused by Aeron, and as someone with no experience in training or developing one¡¯s mental power, he knew he would only be able to struggle through the portal, if able to do so to begin with.. So as Aeron stepped into the path, he quietly followed behind.

    After witnessing to Daniel¡¯s actions, the usual calmness of the observers was broken into pieces, and the dejected participants split into two groups. The first group wasposed of the ones who had remembered their orders, and immediately went back to report what had happened. The second group, on the other hand, was formed by people who had suddenly found a way to break through that seemingly imprable barrier, and decided to follow Daniel into the path created by Aeron.

    Unfortunately, the artifact was smarter than them, and before anyone could push through, it closed a few meters behind Aeron.

    -----

    A few hourster, faction¡¯s office.

    "What is so urgent that it can¡¯t wait until tomorrow?" Asked a man in green clothes to a younger cultivator, who was sitting quietly on a chair right in front of his desk. He was the point of contact between the mental warriors that had been allowed in to cultivate into the firstyer, and the faction.

    As soon as the man in green robes finished speaking, the young mental warrior stood up with politeness, and said in a hurry, "First warrior, the portal. It split into two parts to allow a stranger through."

    Seemingly uncaring about this, the green robed man sat on his chair, and asked casually, "And why do I care about it?"

    Slightly confused, the younger mental warrior said, "Sir, is it not within the rules of the Dream Domain that we have to report any such event?"

    "Is there?" Asked the first warrior with a more serious tone. It was clear that he had forgotten about this rule, or that he hadn¡¯t paid attention to them when he assumed this role. He then opened one of the drawers of his desk, and grabbed a small book from it.

    After scrolling through the small book, he stopped at a specific one, and the more he read through it, the wider his mouth and eyes opened.

    "Mindhive.." he muttered before standing back up on his feet. He then turned to look at the young man, and said with an authoritative tone, "DESCRIBE HIS APPEARANCE! IMMEDIATELY!!!"

    Scared about the man¡¯s tone, the young mental warrior immediately began to describe Aeron¡¯s appearance, not forgetting to add the emotionless mask which covered his face.

    This description seemed to take a weight off the man¡¯s heart, who fell back over his chair, and said, "It¡¯s not him.. Not him.." However, this calmed state did notst long, as he turned to look to his left, and asked, "Who are you?"

    Next to him, a ghastly figure had appeared. A figure which had moved through the mental walls of the building as if they were nonexistent, and had approached them without giving them a chance to perceive him.

    "I am interested in what you were talking about. Tell me about it, before I look at it myself." said the Mindhive while showing a wide smile.

 Chapter 420 Giving Chase

    In the Dream Domain, only the thresholds betweenyers would require a highplexity of one¡¯s mind, while what would change betweenyers, was the amount of power used to pressure the mental warriors who inhabited it.

    That was the reason why Daniel, while not being able to walk past the threshold himself, was easily able to withstand the pressure of the secondyer, which weighed on his mind at more than five times the power of the first one. If not for his cultivation, he would have already fallen to feelings of anxiousness, despair, and fear.

    Aeron, on the other hand, was feeling the pressure differently. While not asplex as his own, the sheer power of the secondyer was beyond his own level of cultivation, and in order to resist its pressure, he needed to put in a constant effort into defending himself.

    This was not a waste of time for Aeron, who could use this pressure to nurture his own mind for as long as they stayed.

    The secondyer was not as hospitable as the first one. Inhabited by more powerful, and significantly lower in number cultivators, its hub of activity was in the form of a massive camp filled with mentally constructed tents.

    A clear division in power was present in eachyer of the Dream Domain.

    In the firstyer, the amount of pressure put on the mental warriors was at the twenty-fifth phase of the mental warrior stage, and after eachyer, the amount of pressure would increase by twenty five more phases. So when Daniel and Aeron entered the second phase, they level of pressure they felt wasparable to the power of an immortal at the fiftieth phase of high immortality.

    This amount of pressure was not a joke, and was an effective training ground even for those who had long went past the fiftieth phase, only stopping once one would reach the hundredth. The only way weaker mental warriors had to survive in the secondyer, was by using artifact that could deaden the pressure.

    After reaching the upper limit of cultivation, one could either leave, or if in possession of enough power to go through the second threshold, start cultivating in the thirdyer.

    -----

    Once in the secondyer of the Dream Domain, Daniel and Aeron were immediately weed by an old man dressed in dark green clothes, who greeted them with enthusiasm.

    This old man¡¯s power was in the upper limits of the secondyer, but due to the fact that he had yet to go through the second threshold, or leave the dream domain altogether, it was clear to Daniel and Aeron that he was in a sort of retirement, and that his task was to wee every cultivator which showed enough promise to pass the first threshold, and was not part of another mental faction.

    "Talented young men!" said the old man with surprise, as the threshold ripped open in front of him just to allow the two inside.

    It only took a look at the two of them for the old man to realize which one was the true talent. After all, Daniel¡¯splexity was onlyparable to that of the inhabitants of the firstyer, meaning that the threshold would have never behaved abornally for someone like him.

    However, unsure about the rtionship between the young man he did not care about, and the rarer-than-once in a lifetime talent that was Aeron, he decided to show the same amount of respect to both of them.

    The chance to invite rogue mental warriors was exclusive to the Proponents of Deep Sleep, who had granted permission to most mental factions to enter the artifact, but at the same time, had retained the right to invite those who were not part of any faction for themselves.

    The only factions not allowed in, were those who had failed to respect this rule, and after encountering rare rogue talents, had tried to steal them away from the Proponents of Deep Sleep, causing their entire faction to be banned from the artifact.

    "Young man, your powers are aplete match for my great faction. The owners of this ce. How about you join us?" The old man asked a masked Aeron, with interest.

    As the old man finished speaking, Aeron turned to look at Daniel in silence, who cleared his throat in response, and said, "We are not interested in joining a faction. We are just passing through."

    Slightly annoyed, the old man turned to look at Daniel with a more serious expression, and said, "Young man, I do not mean to be rude, but your talent alone would not allow you to be where you are standing. If not for your friend, the threshold would be impossible to cross. I suggest you train in the firstyer. You can¡¯t count on your friends forever."

    "Where I go and what I do with my friends is my business. Are people obligated to join the Proponents of Deep Sleep, or will you step aside?" Asked Daniel while showing a polite, yet disrespectful smile.

    Daniel¡¯s confidence was a source of great annoyance to the old man, who said with irritation, "What if I say you are? This ce belongs to my faction. It is out of the kindness of our hearts that we allow mental warriors like you in. If we want you out, I don¡¯t see why I can¡¯t kick you out."

    The old man¡¯s im was received by a simple smile.

    "This ce does not belong to the Proponents of Deep Sleep. This ce was created by the Mindhive, and if not for your superiority in numbers in each of itsyers, you would be unable to keep it. Now move, or I will force my way through." Said Daniel while slowly increasing his power, and only stopping once it matched that of the old man himself.

    The constant increase of Daniel¡¯s power came to a great shock to the old man, who immediately became alerted. The only thing as he witnessed Daniel¡¯s power increase, was to call for reinforcements, who came out in the form of numerous poles of green light from within the many tents on sight.

    "Who are you?" Asked the old man as a few of his peers appeared next to him.

    "Let¡¯s avoid the pointless conversation. If you can¡¯t stop me here, just move aside. We didn¡¯te here for you lot." Said Daniel before stepping towards the group of mental warriors, who stood right in the middle.

    The Proponents of Deep Sleep had been in charge of the Door to Dream State for many years, and the sheer thought that someone would dare to challenge them in their turf, while also being outnumbered, was unheard of. They had a reputation to protect with the other factions, and if they stepped back in front of a single cultivator, there was no saying how many groups belonging to stronger factions would find the courage to try to snatch this blessed sanctuary away from them.

    Daniel¡¯s unreasonable behaviour was a threat to what they had, and a threat to their business, so he had to be eliminated.

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s power was beyond what he was showing, and when two of the old man¡¯spanions tried to apprehend him with the full extent of their power at the nieth phase, they were erased from existence with two simple shes of Daniel¡¯s sword.

    Shocked by Daniel¡¯s power, the old man took a step back, and said, "Kid, even if you kill us, you won¡¯t be able to take the artifact unless you kill everybody within the thirdyer, and you won¡¯t be able to defeat the warriors that are in there. You are only causing unnecessary trouble." In his voice, was now a hint of fear.

    Unfortunately, while a cultivator of the thirdyer coulde down to the second, there was no way for a warrior of the secondyer to enter the third, and sound the rm. The strongest defense that ayer possessed, were the cultivators which belonged to thatyer. Hence why this old man had given up aggressiveness the moment he had learned that he was no match for Daniel, and had started to use threats.

    At the same time, he was cursing himself for not simply letting him through right away, and let the cultivators within the thirdyer deal with him. Now, he had attacked someone stronger than he was, and the conflict had evolved to a point where blood had been shed. So now, fighting was the only choice.

    -----

    Ever since the Mindhive had heard about what had happened on the firstyer, he had felt a deep feeling of uneasiness.

    Contrary to Daniel, hisck of control over the artifact which is system had created, had left the nature of the object shrouded in mystery, to a point where even he had thought that only the owner of the mental system could move undisturbed within theyers of the Dream Domain, and that nobody else would ever be able to reach the core, no matter who tried. That was why he had stored his real body in it. The body which contained his system, as well as the core of consciousness that kept him alive.

    Now, however, he had learned that the talented cultivator whom he only thought would, at best, be able to reach the fourth or fifthyer, was in fact recognized by the artifact the same way he was.

    To the mindhive, this was like learning that somebody else was in possession of the key that opened the chest in which he had left his most precious treasure, and that person, was hours ahead of him in retrieving it.

    Not in the mood to y anymore, after the report given to him by the firstyer¡¯s point of contact with the Proponents of Deep Sleep, he immediately moved deeper into the secondyer. However, while he was hoping to find these two invaders, what he saw after reaching the secondyer, was nothing.

    The very camp that had been created by the mental warriors had disappearedpletely, and the area had be empty just like it was when he had gifted the artifact to the Proponents of Deep Sleep. The only trace left, were the dying wisps of consciousness of around two hundred mental warriors, which had been destroyed.

    "What happened here?! Where are the masked man and the other kid?" Asked the Mindhive with anger, after getting a hold of a consciousness in particr.

    The consciousnesses had already been drifting within the space for a few hours, and had been absorbed by the artifact to a point where speaking was impossible, making the Mindhive¡¯s efforts vain.

    No one was more aware of the dposition of a consciousness when within the artifact, than the Mindhive. After all, when he had received it, the object was not different from a multiyered pocket dimension, and had been nurtured by the MIndhive himself, who had kidnapped and forced millions of people into it in order to strengthen the artifact¡¯s power.

    Hours had passed since the fight had taken ce, and that meant that the people he was following, had long gone. Theck of cultivators was also a sign that the power shown by the two was enough to convince the mental warriors to abandon the artifact, or die along with the ones who tried to fight them.

    The Dream domain was made of only fiveyers and a hidden core. However, the Mindhive was very aware that no one but him possessed a mentalplexity capable of entering the fourthyer. So, the only thing that separated Aeron from reaching the core, were the people within the thirdyer, and the feeble defenses he had left around the core.

    Time was running out, so he did not waste any more of it, and immediately went through the second threshold.

    Once through, he found himself in a chaotic ground thatpletely opposed the scenery of the secondyer.

    Many shes of different shades of green were appearing and disappearing from the sky, and shing with an oddly bright and white-colored one which appeared to be capable to face all of the green ones at the same time.

    The many green colored lights were emitted by the few dozens of mental warriors who cultivated in the thirdyer, while the white colored sh was, of course, Daniel.

    Of Aeron, was not trace whatsoever.

 Chapter 421 Lights Off

    The very moment the Mindhive¡¯s incorporeal eyesnded on Daniel, his anxiousness deepened beyond measure.

    While he had been able to see the appearance of Daniel more than once in the past, be it in Heimart¡¯s mind, or in the memories of the mental warrior that he had killed, those ways had not allowed him aplete understanding of him. What was lost in trantion, was the feeling of the chosen of Iewah. The feeling of the presence of another system.

    To him, the presence of another system changed everything. For all he knew, Daniel could have used his system to create a path that led directly to his body, and while Daniel was significantly weaker than himself, he was more than aware of a system¡¯s unpredictability.

    Just like the Mindhive noticed him as soon as he entered the thirdyer, Daniel noticed him as well.

    After entering the thirdyer, due to the nearly unbearable mental pressure, Daniel had used Aeron¡¯s knowledge to create a mental artifact. This protective artifact was meant to protect his friend as he went ahead and into the core of the Dream Domain. Daniel¡¯s job, on the other hand, was to wait for their pursuer.

    For how much Daniel hoped to wrap things up with these mental warriors before the arrival of the Mindhive which his system had predicted, the power of each of these mental warriors was slightly beyond his own. If not for his semi immortality and better type of power, he would have simply been killed over and over again.

    Unfortunately, the Mindhive was extremely punctual, and had appeared right as the option¡¯s countdown within Daniel¡¯s mind had ended.

    The fact that Daniel was busy was the only thing that had allowed the MIndhive to keep his calm. However, while his instincts told him to fight it off with Daniel, he was aware that his survival was at stake.

    Instead of joining the group of green shes in their effort against Daniel, the Mindhive turned into a semi invisible presence, and tried to sneak past them and towards the third threshold, which as soon as he reached a certain distance from it, just like it had done for Aeron, weed him in by splitting open.

    "NOT A CHANCE!" Shouted Daniel as his true essence wrapped the ghastly form of the Mindhive, and shifted the entire space around him, with the space many kilometers away from the threshold.

    The mental warriors that were engaging inbat with Daniel made use of this moment of distraction, and one of them was able to use his mentally constructed sword to sh past Daniel¡¯s defences, and to cut his left arm clean off. Immediately after, two spears pierced his back, creating two fist sized holes that went from side to side.

    As the Mindhive witnessed Daniel¡¯s death, an idea came to his mind.

    What he had learned about humanity, was that contrary to the body, which could be killed with raw power, a person¡¯s consciousness would go into a dream state, and slowly fade away in a matter of seconds. During those few seconds, the body would be a stringless puppet.

    For people like the Mindhive and Aeron, to take possession of that body was not impossible, and was in fact simr to how Sewah had possessed the body of the Oni leader.

    To eat one¡¯s dormant mind, absorb it, and take control over their body. That was the idea that had appeared in the Mindhive¡¯s mind, fed by questions like, "Can I obtain two systems?", "Who will be able to oppose me?" This was his chance to find an answer to these questions.

    Blinded by greed, instead of dashing past the warring parties and into the fourthyer, the Mindhive moved in Daniel¡¯s direction while ignoring the expressions of the mental warriors which, if noticed, would have immediately told him that something was wrong.

    As the ghastly figure of the Mindhive reached for Daniel¡¯s head with his arm, his eyes suddenly opened, and a smile formed on his lips.

    Suddenly, the space around the Mindhive solidified, and a small shadow emerged from the dark spots underneath Daniel¡¯s clothes. This shadow rapidly traveled behind the protection of Daniel¡¯s essence, and reached the spatial bubble right after.

    Like a waterfall of ck ink into a bowl of water the shadow expanded through the entire bubble, and in a matter of instants merged with it, and turned the bubble into a ck hole.

    Contrary to elementals, which had an innateprehension over the type of essence from which they were born, the race of the elemental demonic wolves excelled in their control. As soon as they would devour an essence sphere, their bodies would gain each concept the sphere contained, and would turn them into living essence treasures.

    That meant that when the wolf cub emerged from hiding, and used Daniel¡¯s spatial power to turn into a ck hole, the ck hole that was created was perfect, and identical to one present in deep space. However, while simr in appearance, this ck hole was special.

    Instead of possessing an immense gravity which attracted objects, sound, and light, this ck hole contained the concept of absolute absorption. A concept which made something physical of the idea that, as long as something was covered in darkness and could not be seen, that thing would not exist.

    Trapped inside this bubble of darkness, the ghastly surface of the Mindhive was slowly absorbed, and turned into nothingness.

    While the Mindhive was drained of his power, he immediately noticed that there was a physical nature in the power that Daniel was using. Almost as if along with mind power, he had brought an immortal body into the Dream Domain.

    This worried him greatly, as differently from immortal essence, mental teleportation was not physical, and therefore, did not allow one to find a physical attachment from one dimension to the other.

    In a matter of minutes, his consciousness and mind power were slowly absorbed, until finally, no form of life remained within the confines of the small ck hole.

    As the Mindhive disappeared in the darkness, the first thing Daniel did was to check the amount of karmic points above he had, which if his opponent had truly died, should have been in the trillions. However, no change had taken ce, showing that whatever was the mind system¡¯s method to keep the mindhive alive, it had been put in ce.

    As if on cue, a small wisp of unreactive consciousness formed within the ce where the Mindhive had disappeared, and once it reached the size of a man¡¯s fist, it quickly retook the shape which the Mindhive previously had, and regained his consciousness.

    Naturally Daniel knew that to kill one of Iewah¡¯s children would not be that easy. After all, the system had led him into the dream domain for a simple reason. As long as the body was alive, the Mindhive¡¯s consciousness would be immortal.

    "Vermin. Just wait here, I will get rid of you after I kill your friend." Barked the Mindhive viciously before expanding his mind power through the entireyer. He then turned to look at the third threshold, and floated in its direction at an impressive speed.

    Once again, in an attempt to gain time for Aeron to kill the original body of the Mindhive, Daniel tried to trap his body into a sphere of spatial essence. Unfortunately, his opponent was prepared.

    The reason why the Mindhive had expanded his consciousness through the entire thirdyer, was because he could freely teleport wherever his consciousness was present. The moment Daniel¡¯s power had started to form around him, instead of letting himself be caught, he disappeared, and reappeared elsewhere.

    Now dangerously close to the entrance to the fourthyer, Daniel gave up attacking, and teleport right behind him.

    The door immediately reacted to the presence of the Mindhive, and just like the other thresholds, it split into two, allowing the artifact¡¯s former owner in.

    Daniel knew that he would not be able to stop the Mindhive. The only thing he could do was hinder him for as long as he could, so instead of trying to free the area of the mind warriors, he followed his enemy into the threshold.

    Many of the mind warriors that were fighting Daniel had been stuck in the thirdyer for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The only thing that had kept them from leaving, was the hope that, with training, they would one day manage to be recognized worthy to enter the fourthyer. That was the reason why, as soon as the door opened, they saw hope, and tried to make use of the situation.

    Unfortunately, they were not as fast as Daniel, and the threshold closed right in front of them.. Taking away the hope which had just been created in their hearts.

    -----

    Fifthyer, Core¡¯s edge.

    When Aeron had reached the core of the Dream Domain, he had found himself in front of a simple house.

    From the way this house appeared from the outside, it was clear that no one had been living in it for hundreds, if not thousands of years. If not for the solid stone walls that stood strong, he would have thought that this ancient building was minutes away from copsing.

    The door was even simpler. Made of old wooden nks, and with a rotten edge from which a gentle flickering light could be seen shine through, the door was held by the seemingly weak, and rusty hinges.

    It only took Aeron a simple look to know that this house was not a mental construct. The walls, the door, the light inside, they were all formed by mana, and had been taken in, and stored within a mental spell. What this spell contained, was a ce where the Mindhive did not expect anyone to be able toe. A house that only existed in his memories, and that had been named by Daniel¡¯s system as ¡¯Dream Core¡¯

    Aeron knew that whatever it was that he was looking for, was definitely inside this house, so without waiting too long, he reached for the door¡¯s rusty handle, and opened the door.

    Before the door could even move, Aeron was teleported inside the only room of this simple house. A study room with empty bookshelves, arge ruined armchair ced above an old rug, and a lit firece that was the source of the light that shone through the rotten edges of the door.

    The rest of the room waspletely empty, with an exception made for a little table that was ced right next to the armchair. On this table, were pieces of a small solid, which when reunited together, would create a cube. A simple game to train the mind which would be given to aspiring mental warriors at a young age, in most mental factions.

    After taking a step towards the armchair, which was currently facing the firece, an old and tired voice suddenly said, "Seven thousand, four hundred and twenty-two years I have yed this game. Not a book to read, not a voice to listen to.. please.. just kill me."

    The moment Aeron heard this voice, his legs gave out, and he fell on his knees. The feelings of sadness, hatred, terror, unwillingness.. All of the worst feelings he had ever felt in his life while cultivating, were present in this single voice, but entuated to a point which Aeron had never imagined possible in a single human being.

    The sheer emotions of this old man were so extreme, that even Aeron could not help but feel hurt by them.

    It was only after a few minutes, that he managed to stand back up on his feet, and wobble towards the armchair, where he found an old man with an extremely long beard, and eyes that begged to whomever looked at them, to end his sufferings.

    "I see.. You havee here to look at me suffer. Time hasn¡¯t changed you." Said the old man with disappointment, before turning to look back at the fire he had been staring at for the past thousands of years.

    This extremely sorrowful expression was broken when, contrary to all of the old man¡¯s expectations, Aeron ced his hand above his, and looked at him with pitiful eyes.

    "Who are you?" Asked the man with a broken voice, seemingly on the verge of crying for finally managing to see someone different from his vicious captor. A man who could feel for him.

    The destion which Aeron was empathizing with was so deep, that he found himself unable to speak. However, he had already seen in the old man¡¯s mind who this person was. Someone who should have been dead long ago.. A chosen warrior of Iewah, and previous owner of the Mindhive¡¯s body.. The host of the mind system.

 Chapter 422 Kige and Akkah

    Of all of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones, the host of the Mindhive was, without a doubt, the unluckiest one of all.

    Back when he was a simple newborn consciousness, Instead of pretending to be one with the system just like Sewah and the rest of Iewah¡¯s children had, the consciousness born with the mind system had convinced his host that he was a helpful entity, and that his presence was nothing but a way for him to reach deeper levels of mental cultivation.

    Being of good nature, the host had believed the Mindhive¡¯s intentions. This had led to the decision to not eradicate him. Instead, he kept increasing both his own, and the mindhive¡¯s mental power with his system¡¯s evolution.

    The more the host used his system, the stronger the Mindhive¡¯s power became.

    However, since both of them grew through the increase of their mental power, the strength of the host had always remained too powerful for the Mindhive to ovee, and devour.

    It was only during the host¡¯s ascension, right when his host had moved his consciousness into his avatar, that the Mindhive had taken over his weakened physical body.

    Once in possession of the host¡¯s body, the Mindhive had immediately formed a quest which allowed him to create a new method of mental cultivation. This method consisted in shedding his physical remains, and live as an immortal mental entity as long as his physical body was not destroyed.

    After obtaining the host¡¯s body, the Mindhive devoured the Host¡¯s avatar, stripping him of every bit of mental power that he had left, and turned him into a simple and powerless consciousness.

    The fact that both of them cultivated the mind, had made taking over the body of the host extremely more difficult for the Mindhive, who required more years than any other child of Iewah. Due to this, his hatred towards the host had grown to a point where simply devouring him was not enough.

    What he decided to do instead was to lock him into his former body.

    The only thing the Mindhive allowed him, was to y a very simple game that would allow him to recover up to the very basics of mental cultivation. He would then go back to visit him after every few years just to strip him away of every bit of mental power that the host had managed to gather, while locked away inplete solitude.

    After many visits, the Mindhive had be bored of it, and had decided to stop visiting his prisoner altogether, leaving him with only a fire, and a kids puzzle to keep himself upied.

    This level of loneliness was absolute, and had affected him to a point where all the memories he had regarding how a voice different than his own sounded, or what the faces of his friends and family members looked like.

    After thousands of years, the only thing left for him to do was to go insane for various decades at a time, only to recover so that he could go insane once again.

    The only warmth he had felt for the past thousands of years was not that of a parent, a lover, or a friend.. But that of a fire, which despite his many attempts, was never warm enough to end his life once and for all.

    That, stoppedpletely when Aeron put his hand over his own, making him feel the contact of another being, and the warmth that his pitiful gaze carried.

    "You are not alone anymore, old man." Said Aeron with a sympathetic tone.

    The man was greatly moved by Aeron¡¯s kindness, but his reality hadn¡¯t changed. He knew that he was still imprisoned within his former body, and that now that Aeron had arrived, instead of enjoying thepany of another person after a very long time, he said, "You are a kind young man.. But this is not a ce for you to be. Leave, before he realizes I am not alone, andes back."

    "I need to be here." Said Aeron before injecting his memories into the man¡¯s mind, showing him what the Mindhive had done in the past years, how they had encountered him, and what he had done to their friend.

    After learning about Aeron¡¯s intention, the man turned to look at him, and said, "You can¡¯t kill him. Even with your talent.."

    Aeron had already delved into the man¡¯s mind, and therefore, was already aware of the problem that stood in front of him. Even with theplexity of his power, or his full strength, Aeron would never be able to hurt the Mindhive¡¯s body.

    That was not something that Daniel¡¯s system had predicted, but something that he had learned after seeing the body that this man was inhabiting. A physical body protected by a mind power that was impossible for him to go through. A power which showed the same level ofplexity he possessed, and worked as the bars that kept the host¡¯s mind caged into the Mindhive¡¯s body.

    ".. but I can." Said the man after noticing the worry in Aeron¡¯s eyes. He then added, "He enjoyed the idea of leaving me here to rot, only leaving me a game for kids to spend time, and a fire I could only wish was hot enough to take my life, but while he constantly drains my mind power, I have found a way to cultivate."

    "While he wasted time fighting his brothers and sisters, I have spent millennia studying the nature of mind.. And I have learned that there is a third factor which everyone ignores. See, it is not the power that allows us to strengthen ourselves, but our experience.. Our depth. He thought that by taking away my mind power he would disable me, but he just paralized me."

    What the man said was true. In reality, mind power was made out of threeponents. The power,plexity, and depth. The power was the strength and amount of mental power which could be produced by one¡¯s mind, and increased as one¡¯s cultivation developed.

    However, power was not a cause, but a consequence ofplexity. The higher one¡¯splexity was, the faster their power would increase, but even as important asplexity was, depth was even more so.

    With depth, the man meant an imaginary cultivation which could, if paired with power, realize one¡¯s cultivation in a more realistic sense. In concept, it was extremely simr to experience. A man could be born with the experience of the strongest being in history, but his body would still be that of a newborn child. It was only thanks to talent and power, that he would grow to match that level of experience he possessed.

    By suffering in solitude for the past thousands of years, during his lucid years, the man had focused on his own depth of mind, carving an imaginary path that only awaited for a big enough trace of power to be paved.

    That trace had finally presented itself in the form of Aeron.

    There was no doubt in Aeron¡¯s mind that, what this man was saying was the truth. After all, while not knowing what it was, or its importance, this theory matched perfectly with numerous forms of mental cultivation present in the universal government.

    For example, the cultivation method of the Psionic Dimension, the faction of which he was formerly a member of, allowed one to deepen one¡¯s mind depth by empathizing with others. The reason why they had never discovered this element of the mind, was because they had nevercked the power in a way that this man had.

    Their power would immediately pave the imaginary path which their depth created, preventing them from noticing that their depth was actually moving ahead from their mental power.

    With nothing less to do, the former host had been left with only time to cultivate in between his episodes of insanity, allowing him to create a path that extended further than the Mindhive¡¯s already paved road.

    "How can I do that?" Asked Aeron with hurry. He knew that Daniel was holding their enemy back, and was unsure of how much time they had left.

    "You know how to create a mental stone, right?" Responded the man while slowly standing back on his feet, and walking to the middle of the room. He then sat on the floor with his legs crossed.

    "We don¡¯t have time for that. The Mindhive will be here soon." Responded Daniel before walking in front of him.

    While smiling for the very first time after thousands of years, the man responded by saying, "You don¡¯t need to make a whole one. Sit in front of me. I will assimte the power as you gradually turn it into a solid. Let¡¯smence."

    -----

    For the past two hours, Daniel had tried everything he could to dy the Mindhive by using his odd control over dark essence, and even multiple uses of Karmic Retribution. Unfortunately, no matter how many times he tried, in the end, he was never able topletely stop him for more than a few minutes.

    At the same time, the Mindhive had tried everything he could to kill Daniel once and for all, but while he was easily able to erase his mind, or even destroy his body, Daniel would always be regenerate to his peak condition right away thanks to his spirit, which the Mindhive was unable to affect.

    The more time passed, the more anxious the Mindhive became. Daniel was stopping him for a reason, and he wasn¡¯t willing to allow this n to have a chance to seed.

    This situation continued until the two crossed through the fourth threshold.

    As soon as they entered the innermostyer, the Mindhive said, "After I kill your friend, I will find a way to squash you as well." He then turned to look at the small house, and bolted towards it at the highest speed he could muster.

    This speed was not something that Daniel was unable to match, but he knew that in order to stop him, opposing him physically was a waste of time. So, instead of following him, he took over the space around the house, and formed a thin and invisibleyer of space that gently forced the Mindhive to change direction as soon as he touched it.

    Annoyed by umpteenth use of this petty trick, the Mindhive closed his eyes, and instead of flying straight towards the house, he felt its presence, and moved in its direction.

    Daniel knew that this method would not work for long, so as soon as the Mindhive broke out of it and went past it, he followed him at the top of his speed. Unfortunately, it was already toote. Daniel could do nothing as the Mindhive went through the entrance of the house-shaped Dream Core.

    The Mindhive entered the core with the intention of ughtering Aeron, but as soon as his eyesnded on the former owner of his body, his ghastly arms fell down his sides.

    The power of the man he had trapped within the artifact was now beyond his own, and he was currently waiting for him while showing the benevolent and kind expression which he had forced him to lose in the past.

    "Kige.. how did you.." Said the Mindhive with shock. A shock which immediately turned into horror the moment his former host, whose name was Kige, snapped his fingers, and turned the physical body of the mindhive, the one which he was inhabiting, into dust.

    As the body was destroyed, it almost felt as if Aeron, the Mindhive and Kige were shaken awake. However, contrary to Aeron¡¯s confusion, Kige was calm, and knew exactly what had happened. The protective measure of the system had protected the Mindhive from his first death, not unlike Second Chance did for Daniel many times before.

    Nn the Mindhive¡¯s face was pure panic. "DON¡¯T YOU FUCKING DARE! YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS IS IN THE BODY! KILL ME AGAIN, AND YOU WILL DIE AS WELL!" Shouted the Mindhive to the top of his lungs.

    Despite the threat Kige was still at peace, and with a calm and fearless tone, he said, "Akkah, you have lived to do enough. It is time to end this." He then snapped his fingers once more.

    "NO!!"

 Chapter 423 Living on Borrowed Time

    Just like Daniel¡¯s karmic system, every other system possessed a way to save its wielder¡¯s life. However, their workings varied greatly. For example, Daniel¡¯s Second Chance turned back time and allowed him a do over, while the Charmer¡¯s system allowed its wielder to use the life of one of her charmed victims, as a ¡¯voluntary¡¯ sacrifice in order to prevent the woman they loved, from dying.

    Naturally, the mental system had its own method, which consisted in turning the entire dimension in which the universal government existed, into a collective dream from which everyone would wake up from, at the same time. The theory behind it was no different from when a person, after finding themselves stuck within a nightmare where their life was currently being threatened, would immediately wake up from it the very moment they would die.

    This experience was quite disconcerting for most people, and would usually allow the Mindhive, who was used to it, to make use of that moment of confusion to escape death. Unfortunately for him, the person who wanted to kill him was not only his oldest enemy, but someone who had used that same power, before he managed to take possession of it.

    After Kige destroyed the Mindhive¡¯s physical body, the core of the artifact became quiet.

    Daniel had just arrived, and was looking at the core of the artifact, where his friend was standing alone, with confusion. "What happened here? Did you do it?" He inquired to a dazed Aeron, with a hurried tone.

    Instead of answering this question, Aeron looked at the empty chair, and with a saddened tone, he muttered, "Thank you for your teachings." He then turned to look at Daniel after a few moments, and with a wisp of his mind power, he showed him the memories of thest few minutes.

    Daniel was shocked. He had no idea that another one of the hosts picked by Iewah had managed to survive being devoured by their consciousness that came along with their systems, and deep down, he wished he had a chance to meet Kige. A person noble enough to kill a dangerous individual by giving up his life, instead of clinging to vengeance, and survival.

    The main reason why Daniel and Aeron hade to hunt down the physical body of the Mindhive, was to help Heimart, who was still connected to the otherworldly effects of the mind system.

    Now that the Mindhive was dead, Daniel was able to take a deep breath in relief.

    "Is it over?" asked Aeron after giving his respects to Kige, whom he had known for only a few minutes, but who had still managed to expand his knowledge of mental cultivation to a point where he had no choice but to consider him a teacher.

    "Yes." Responded Daniel while closing his eyes. He then added, "Heimart should.." Suddenly, his eyes shed open, and he looked at his surroundings with anxiousness.

    Words were not required for Aeron to understand what was happening. Daniel¡¯s expression alone gave a more than exhaustive exnation, so without asking, he immediately began to feel his surroundings.

    The problem with the systems of Iewah¡¯s chosen ones, was the fact that they had drastic limitations when the target was another system. That was the reason why Daniel had not received a more detailed option, nor a detailed exnation regarding how to kill Akkah. All his system was able to suggest to him, was to reach the Dream Domain, and destroy his physical body.

    Originally, after the destruction of the Mindhive¡¯s body, Daniel had hoped that that would be enough, but unfortunately, the mind system was drastically different from the one Kige had known.

    Just like Daniel¡¯s ¡¯Second Chance¡¯ could be upgraded and evolved, Akkah¡¯s ability could as well, and with time, it had turned into apletely different power. The Mindhive¡¯s new and evolved ability was called ¡¯Wake up Safe¡¯, and along with turning reality into a nightmare from which he was able to escape, it also granted him the kind of relief which came along with the realization that what had happened, was just a dream.

    As soon as they started looking for it, it did not take long for both Daniel and Aeron to feel a wisp of consciousness quietly shoot past them, and out of the core. It¡¯s motion was direct, and almost felt automatic, instead of pondered, showing that the wisp of consciousness was not a weakened person, but a candle light shielded from a storm, by an indestructibleyer of ss.

    With all the speed he was capable of, Aeron covered this sphere which protected the wisp of consciousness with his mental power, and tried to crush it into smithereens, but no matter how much he tried, the protection was otherworldly, and could not be damaged by him.

    "Follow him! His system must have a limitation. Even my own failsafe ability only helps me for so long." Barked Daniel before following the sphere out of the core.

    For the following minutes, the sphere led Daniel and Aeron through each threshold, until finally, it barged through the entrance of the artifact as if in an attempt to break out.

    Once through, the two found themselves in the city where the Door to the Dream State was being held. In front of them, were a few confused mental warriors, and the wisp of consciousness which now had no protection whatsoever around itself.

    "MANNERS!" Shouted the guard to the two, who had caused a ruckus while barging out00.

    The two ignored this man, and instead reached wisp of consciousness which had now turned back into a weakened and smaller version of the ghastly figure of Akkah. Their intention was to erase him from existence permanently, but just as Aeron¡¯s power was about to shroud a panicked Mindhive, numerous heavily armored figures appeared in front of him.

    At the same time, around ten cultivators appeared right next to Daniel, each pointing their weapons at either Daniel¡¯s, or Aeron¡¯s vital points. These people, were the army battalion, and the explorers sent to support the Mindhive in killing the being that had taken over the Brutal.

    "Who are you? What is the meaning of this?" Asked the general of the battalion with a domineering, yet careful tone. The entity which they had been tasked to protect was the Mindhive, and if anyone was capable to reduce the Mindhive into that state, it meant that they were dangerous.

    "PROTECT ME! YOU WILL NEVER KILL THE BRUTAL WITHOUT ME!" Screamed the Mindhive with a panicked, and shrill voice.

    The moment these people had arrived, Daniel was sure that he wouldn¡¯t be a match for them. Each of them possessed a power which he was far from matching, and from the speed shown by the explorers, it was clear that if he tried anything, his body would be an indistinguishable mush of flesh in a matter of instants.

    While he could have ignored this, and made a desperate attempt to finish Akkah off if he was alone, the presence of Aeron prevented him from doing so. To lose a friend to save another was not in his style, but so was giving up. The only way to solve this, was through the use of words.

    "I have nothing against the universal government. Let me have him, and it will end here." Said Daniel with a calm tone. On his face, was no trace of fear or nervousness.

    "Outcast.. Why are you here?" Asked the head explorer with suspicion. The fact that they had met one of the two people which the senate had ordered them to keep an eye on, while on the way to kill the other, was extremely suspicious to him, and the idea that the two were working together had started to form in his mind.

    "A personal matter." Responded Daniel with no clue about what had caused the explorer¡¯s suspicion. He then added, "I knew that the universal government would interfere in fights amongst chosen of Iewah, but I did not know you would be this fast.. There won¡¯t be any damage. He is in no state to resist."

    Slightly annoyed that the head explorer had taken over him, the general prepared himself to face Daniel, but before he could, the head explorer said, "We did not know that you had a score to settle with the Mindhive. We have employed him, and therefore, we have to preserve his life. You have a debt towards the government. This would be a good way to repay it."

    Naturally, despite his immensely more powerful cultivation, due to the small amount of information he possessed about Daniel¡¯s system, the explorer was not willing to test his luck against such an unpredictable opponent. He also did not care for the Mindhive¡¯s life, and would have allowed Daniel to rid the universe of such a being, if only he was not of use to the government at the moment.

    The debt which the explorer was referring to, was the destruction of the Garden of Death. While forced in a way, they had still rid Daniel of a faction which wished nothing but his death, so while this favor had been granted under the threat of blowing things out of proportion, it was still a favor.

    Unfortunately, Daniel had a good reason to want Akkah dead. A reason that, for him, was valid enough to turn that favor into something that he did not necessarily have to return.

    Luck was not on Daniel¡¯s side. He and Aeron were facing immortal cultivators while in the territory of a mental faction. If Daniel¡¯s body was destroyed, there was a chance that the cultivators of the Proponents of Deep Sleep would realize that, what his body would reform around, was his mind. If that happened, therge group of cultivators would not only target his body and spirit, but his mind as well.

    If that happened, he would die, and Aeron would be captured.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel could only bluff.

    "What you ask is worth more than you¡¯ve done. I never asked you to wipe out that faction. I merely wanted to donate my research to the world of cultivation. To let him go, is to ask me to give up on the lives of my family members." He said with a convincing tone, and slightly exaggerated words.

    These words confused the members of the universal government. From what they knew, this was the first time that one of Iewah¡¯s children had cared for one of his coborators. To them, it sounded just as odd as the changes in the Brutal¡¯s behaviour.

    If not for the fact that the Mindhive was the only one who could pry into the minds of both Daniel and the Brutal, the explorer would have dly agreed to let Daniel kill him. However, the priority was the assassination of the Brutal, and ording to their research, for as much as they disliked him as a cultivator, the Mindhive was the person that the government needed.

    "If you want a fight, then a fight you¡¯ll have." Said the head explorer before putting his right hand over the karambit that was sheathed on a leather strap that went around his chest, and once he unsheathed it, his demeanor turned from aposed and quiet one, to that of a deadly machine which was able to make even Daniel, shiver in fright.

    Regardless of Daniel¡¯s state of mind, he was able to keep hisposure. Unfortunately, there was no way for him to finish the job without going through a huge risk.

    Unwilling to risk his friend¡¯s life, he looked at the Mindhive, and after showing a faint smile, he said, "I will give you a month to bring your contract to an end. After that, if you meddle once again, I will ept your challenge." Akkah was now only a wisp of consciousness, and the mental power he emanated, was that of a cultivator at the base of his power. His entire mental cultivation had turned into trash.

    While he had just escaped death, Akkah had also found fortune. Along with losing all of his cultivation, he had also discovered, just like Kige had, the presence of depth, which if present, would have allowed him to recoverpletely in a matter of hours with the help of the Dream Domain.

    Unfortunately for him, his now calmer and mildly happy state of mind was destroyed as Daniel stopped his retreat, and after turning to look at him, he said with a smile, "I will take this aspensation."

    While he said these words, Daniel formed a second quest within his mind, which he then shared with Aeron. This quest had only one purpose.. And that purpose, was to gain control over the Door to the Dream State.

 Chapter 424 Claiming the Spoils in Advance

    "DON¡¯T YOU DARE!" Shouted Akkah with panic. In his mind, he was already nning to cancel his agreement with the universal government, and use his former artifact to recover his power to the peak, but Daniel had seen through his intentions. "STOP HIM!" he then added after turning to look at the explorers.

    This time the explorers did not move, and instead, waited for Daniel to speak.

    "What is the problem, brother? You have discarded this artifact years ago, so it should not bother you." Said Daniel before closing his eyes, and creating a quest that gave him a method to gain control over the artifact that was created by the mind system.

    It did not take long for Akkah to realize what Daniel was doing. He had already lost his system during the destruction of his body, but since he had lived with one all his life, he was able to think the same way as Daniel did.

    His need for the artifact was critical, since without it, his cultivation would have to rely on his talent. At the same time, without his full powers, his greatest rivals would easily find him and settle their oldest scores. If not them, he would lose his life by the hands of the Brutal, or the universal government itself the moment they would realize he would not be able toply with their request like he had promised.

    While extremely nervous, Akkah was still an ancient cultivator, and his mental fortitude was amongst the strongest in the universe. So, before his escort could think that something was wrong with him, he calmed himself down, and said to the head explorer, "We havee here for a reason. I need my artifact to defeat the Brutal. Without it, I am unsure of the result."

    Naturally, the explorers had never thought that someone like Aeron could exist. Someone which could match the talent in mental cultivation with that of one of the monstrous children of Iewah. A person which the Mindhive would want to kill personally.

    At the same time, the true motives of the Mindhive foring there had remained a mystery to them, and this lie, fit perfectly the empty void which had caused their confusion.

    "Outcast. I am afraid I have to insist that you take a step back." Said the head explorer as his knife started to glow with a dark power which Daniel recognized as the concept of istion of dark essence. A concept which allowed one to deprive the senses of their opponents, and that this explorer clearly used to fight.

    Despite the clear menace, Daniel was not willing to budge on this, so instead of giving up, he said, "This isn¡¯t a discussion. This artifact is already mine. It does not matter what you do. You should instead focus on why Akkah needs the artifact, and whether he will be able to follow your agreement if he manages to get a hold of it."

    While he spoke, an invisible streak of darkness moved out of Daniel¡¯s shadow, and into the cracks of the cobblestone road. It then stretched towards the closing entrance of the artifact.

    "What is he talking about?" Asked the general of the government¡¯s army to the weakened Akkah.

    Instead of answering the question, Akkah shouted, "DON¡¯T LET HIM FOOL YOU!!! LOOK AT WHAT HE IS DOING!"

    These words were instantly borated in the mind of the explorers, which immediately released their quickest attacks, tearing both Daniel¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s bodies into shreds.

    After killing the two of them, the explorers did not lower their guard. They were headed to fight one of Iewah¡¯s children along with another, and they were more than aware of how slippery they were when their lives were threatened. Unfortunately for them, the only traces of them left, were two streaks of consciousness which hid beyond their scouting abilities.

    It was only when Daniel¡¯s body tried to reform, that the explorers struck again, turning him one more time into bloody shreds.

    "The minds you idiot!! Kill their consciousness!" Barked Akkah with panic as Daniel and Aeron hid into the thread of darkness, and jumped back into the artifact. He could only look in horror as the words e back in, if you dare¡¯ reached his ghastly ears.

    The explorers were starting to feel reassured that no odd event would befall them, but due to Akkah¡¯s tone, they were unable to rx. What Akkah¡¯s tone suggested, was that both Aeron and Daniel were still alive, and that they had escaped after they had offended them, which was against the original orders of simply keeping an eye on Daniel.

    Regardless of what happened, the head explorer kept his calm. He quietly turned around, and stopped when his eyes met with a young looking woman with dark green hair, and eyshes. "What did you see?" he asked.

    The young woman quietly closed her eyes, and after thinking for awhile, she said, "Hundred and fortieth phase, mind, spirit, and body developed at the same level, can preserve his life as long as one amongst his consciousness, body, or spirit isn¡¯t destroyed."

    "Do you have a guess about what his unique power revolves around?" Asked the head explorer right after.

    After focusing one more minute on her thoughts, she responded, "Based on this small amount of information.. It could be many things. The highest probability is.. Bnce."

    "Weaknesses?"

    "After we have destroyed his spirit and body, they reformed around his consciousness. It is possible that killing him will require the help of a mental cultivator." Said the young woman, whose gift was simr, yet weaker to that of the Teacher himself. Her ability to take in and borate information was unparalleled, and had made her known as the most perceptive explorer in the universe, even superior to the Teacher¡¯s students.

    "Very well." Responded the head explorer before turning to look at the weak ghastly image of the Mindhive. He then added with a threatening tone, "By your own words, this was a small stop from our primary objective. You have now fallen into dire straits, and we will help you recover, but if you do not fulfill your promise, we will notify your brothers of your current state, so even if we can¡¯t kill you, they will."

    Akkah was fuming. Not only had he lost his system and ended up in the same state Sewah had been in the past, but now he was at the mercy of a group of people whom he would have easily been able to escape from. Unfortunately, he did not have that opportunity anymore, and as a simple mental warrior, regardless of how powerful his mind power¡¯s potential was, he had no hope of resisting if he did not recover.

    Left with only the permanent effects of the system and his own life, Akkah swore to take his revenge on Daniel. In his mind, the images of him ripping Daniel¡¯s consciousness out of his body and taking his system for himself, were forming rapidly.

    At the end, the only thing that was left for him to do was to ept his situation, and unwillingly say, "Very well.."

    As soon as Akkah finished speaking, the head explorer turned to look at the area in front of the entrance of the artifact, where the current leaders of the Proponents of Deep Sleep had now appeared. They were currently witnessing as their faction¡¯s members were pushed out of the artifact one by one.

    Able to guess that Daniel had already started to take control over the artifact, he threw a small pouch towards one of the other explorers, and said, "Go buy ten thousand mental stones. We will leave right away."

    The presence of the explorers and soldiers was quickly noticed, causing the patriarchs of the Proponents of Deep Sleep to disappear from where they were standing, and reappear in front of them.

    "We greet General Gora, and the noble explorers." said the oldest and most powerful of them before noticing the weak wisp of consciousness that they were protecting. He then added, "Lord Mindhive, the artifact you have given us to safekeep is being stolen. Please instruct us."

    Unfortunately, there was no response.

    Slightly nervous, the patriarch of the Proponents of Deep Sleep turned to look at the general, whom in absence of a Judge, was considered as the holder of peace, and said, "General Gora, we are sustaining an unsolicited attack. Please lend us your strength." In his voice, a faint trace of panic could be heard, after all, without the Door to Dream State, their faction was a weak one, with a weak method of cultivation.

    "This matter has nothing to do with us. It is a matter between a faction, and their outcast. There is nothing we can do." Responded the general with an emotionless tone.

    For the Proponents of Deep Sleep, there was no hope. The artifact around which their entire value revolved was being stolen, and the only chance to stop this was to meddle in a fight amongst legendary figures. One which had made them, and one that could likely destroy them.

    Soon after the general finished talking, the explorer came back from his task while holding the same pouch he had been given, but that instead of being filled with essence gems, was now filled with mental stones.

    However, they did not leave right away. Instead, they moved further out of the¡¯s atmosphere, and observed Daniel¡¯s actions. The chance to gather more information about not only one of Iewah¡¯s children, but one that looked special at that, was a chance they were not willing to let go.

    The mental warriors kept walking out of the artifact¡¯s entrance, until finally, no one was left inside but Daniel and Aeron. It was right then, that the seemingly unstable entrance of the artifact stabilized, and its opening turned into that of a normal door frame.

    Many tried to enter the door frame the moment it stabilized, but for some reason, they found themselves unable to go through the door, just like they were unable to walk through the threshold which prevented them from entering theyers which required a talent they did not possess.

    The explorers and soldiers looked down at the event with curiosity, but their curiosity was soon caught by the eyes of the many disgruntled mental warriors, which instead of looking at the door frame with dejection, were now looking past them with eyes opened wide with shock.

    "What.. where did thate from?!?" muttered one of the explorers, causing the others to turn to look at him, and soon after, towards the thing he was staring at with so much shock.

    What they saw after turning around, was a flourishing whose size was closer to that of a star, and that had appeared behind them as quietly as a cat on the hunt.

    Standing between the and the observers, were two individuals. A scaly and robust man with reptilian eyes, and a man with long hair, and an expression filled with indifference.

    "Brother, how low have you fallen. Your appearance does not fit the stories I have heard." said one of the two while looking at the wisp of consciousness that was desperately recovering through the use of one of the recently acquired mental stones.

    "Brother?!" Barked one of the explorers as their group immediately prepared to battle. Not many knew that Iewah¡¯s children considered themselves siblings, and amongst the few of them who did, were the present explorers.

    The sudden appearance of another one of Iewah¡¯s children was always an important matter, even more so when nothing was known of them. However, despite their preparations for battle, Sewah did not appear to be willing to fight. Instead, he appeared to be waiting for someone.

    Almost as if on cue, from the door frame emerged two cultivators which the observers immediately recognized as Daniel and Aeron.

    The fact that the two had left the artifact was offort to the members of the Proponents of Deep Sleep, who thought that they had failed to take control over the artifact, but their hopes were shattered when the door shrunk into a small green gem, which immediately after floated towards Aeron, and lodged itself firmly on the forehead of his mask.

    After the gem lodged into Aeron¡¯s mask, the two floated past the group of explorers and soldiers, and joined Sewah and Xargy.

    "You have one month." Said Daniel to Akkah before disappearing along with his friends and, as if they hadn¡¯t been there to begin with.

 Chapter 425 Broken at Birth

    After the events that took ce in the core of the territory of the Proponents of Deep Sleep, the party of the universal government had decided to postpone their assault directed at the entity known as ¡¯The Brutal¡¯ in order to allow the Mindhive to recover.

    Deep space, five dayster.

    ".. the Outcast looks terrifying." Said one of the resting soldiers to two of hispanions. In his voice, was the immense stupor he had felt the moment he and his toon had faced the two entities which had beaten the Mindhive into such a helpless state.

    Of the people who bothered themselves with listening to this soldier, was a man dressed in military gamberson who, whileying on his folding cot, said, "I don¡¯t believe he is as scary as the Mindhive. What we have seen is barely noteworthy whenpared to what we know the others have done. A trap, is how you exin what happened."

    "When was thest time a the size of a star sneaked up on a group of explorers? Get your mind out of the gutter." Said a third soldier while tending to his weapons.

    "Do you guys think that the female explorer was right? Bnce.." Asked the first soldier while showing a pensive expression. He then added after a short pause, "What does that even mean? That he can¡¯t fall over?"

    "Now you know why people think that you are an idiot." Said the second soldier in response, before letting out a heartyugh.

    Hisugh was quickly interrupted by the third soldier, who said, "Leave him alone." He then turned to look at the confused first soldier, and exined, "Don¡¯t let their nicknames trick you.. Their powers are not exined by their names. The exnation of their powers is abstract, more than realistic. Bnce could be harmony, or the ability to even things out. Don¡¯t waste your time thinking about it. Unless one of them personally exins it to you, you¡¯ll never understand thempletely."

    This response had failed to stop the soldier¡¯s curiosity, who instead turned to look at the other side of the room, where the female explorer which had analyzed Daniel¡¯s power, was sitting quietly in meditating.

    "I can always ask." He said before showing his most cordial smile, and walking up to the woman.

    The bad blood that flowed between the army and the explorers was almost exclusively between the highest positions of the two faction. That meant that, while not always able to interact with each other, and always on different levels of ability, not every soldier hated the explorers, or vice versa, so when the soldier approached the female explorer, she did not take it to heart, and simply ignored him.

    "Can you tell us what you meant by ¡¯Bnce¡¯?" asked the soldier with a big smile while grabbing a chair. He then ced it in front of the woman¡¯s cot, and sat on it.

    "Nothing you should be concerned about." responded the woman with a calm tone.

    The soldier did not take the woman¡¯s words to heart. He knew that the explorers were solitary entities, and that as she said, what he was asking was information that was beyond his paygrade. Even if he learned about it, as a soldier, he would likely never be sent to fight against Daniel, so there was no reason for him to know.

    However, since he was trying to feed his curiosity, the soldier kept pestering the woman with questions for the following few minutes.

    At first the woman ignored the soldier, but as she noticed that his character was not as unpleasant as she had thought, she began to engage in conversation with him. The information she was in possession were few, and due to that, the topic soon changed from the magical nature of Iewah¡¯s children, to the peculiar life of an explorer. An hourter, the two were talking about the families, lovers, and friends they had left behind, or lost many years ago.

    The soldier seemed to have forgotten the reason why he had approached the woman, but as the two walked out of the bridge where they were staying in, in order to stop bothering the other soldiers who had now gone back to their usual habits, it did not matter anymore.

    "You have seen so much of this universe.. All I have done can be considered killing and destruction." Said the soldier with jealousy. Not all soldiers wished to be one, after all, their gift was born out of their qualities, and not hopes and dreams. Many soldiers had dreamed of different lives. Lives spent cultivating, exploring, and maybe start a family which they could witness be arge and powerful n.

    "It is a good life, at first. You have all of this time at hand, and so many things to see.. But I envy the friendship you soldiers found in the battlefield." Responded the woman, simrly envious of the man¡¯s situation.

    For the following couple of hours, the two talked,ughed, and came to know each other, only stopping when it was time for the soldier to join hispanions in their daily group exercises. "I have to go now, if I do not show up for daily exercises, I will have to clean the armor of the entire toon for a month. It was nice talking to you." Said the soldier before walking back into the ship, and towards the training area of the ship.

    His walk was quick, and on his face was a big smile, but both of them were interrupted when, as he approached the area where the Mindhive was resting, a wisp of mental power reached his head, bringing his march to a halt.

    "So sweet. You do not get to see love at first sight very often. Hehe.." said a disembodied voice to the soldier, who stood motionless, almost as if not in control of his body anymore. "But you two belong to two different worlds. I will spare you the disappointment of never having to see her again."

    As this voice stopped speaking into his head, the consciousness of the soldier was forcibly erased, turning him into an empty shell of the man he was only moments earlier.

    "I will take over from now..."

    The female explorer, who was now looking at the familiar depths of the universe with a gentle smile on her face, immediately turned to look at the door inside which the soldier had just walked through a minute ago.

    "I thought you were in a hurry.. But I can see how my stories are worth cleaning a few armors for.." said the woman as she noticed the soldier walk back out of the bridge. However, instead of acknowledging her, the soldier walked up to the edge of the deck, and with as much power as he could muster, shot into the depths of space.

    Confused about the soldier¡¯s sudden actions, the female explorers followed him in the distance for tens of millions of miles, stopping only after the soldier himself stopped.

    He was floating in space a few dozen meters away from another individual, which for some reason, appeared familiar to her.

    "Fellow cultivator, why do you block my path?" Asked the soldier with a firm tone. His cultivation was beyond that of the individual who had stopped him, so there was no fear in his words.

    Amused by the soldier¡¯s words, the new individual showed arge smile, and said with confidence, "There are no idiots here, so don¡¯t treat me like one.. Brother."

    As soon as he heard the word ¡¯brother¡¯, the soldier¡¯s face was cleared of any hint of calmness or benevolence. What appeared in its stead, was a malevolent grin. "Look at that. The two idiots who have failed to take over their host¡¯s body reunited. The failures of our family.. But I see your host has been kinder than mine." Said Akkah with the mouth of the soldier.

    "It is what it is." Responded Sewah while shrugging his shoulders in feigned disappointment for his failure. However, since he was not there for, nor was he in the mood to make idle conversation, he said, "ck sheep, yes, but still sheep. How about having a go at me?"

    Ever since the loss of his system, Akkah had felt terribly aggravated. He knew for a fact that both Aeron, Daniel, and Sewah were nothing whenpared to him, and if not for his host, he would have fed their minds to his artifact. Due to this, Sewah stopped looking like a cultivator in his eyes, and quickly turned into an outlet which he could use to get rid of these pent up emotions, so after making sure that none of Sewah¡¯spanions were around, without thinking too much about it, he released the full power of the soldier, and shot towards the calm andposed Sewah.

    His motion was so quick that it caused the space that surrounded his body to warp, only stopping as his right fist went through Sewah¡¯s stomach, and out of his back.

    He then took a step back to look at Sewah¡¯s expression as he withered in pain. "I might not be a match for the rest of our siblings, but I can still kill you.. Little brother." He said with satisfaction as Sewah¡¯s blood turned into beads, and started to float aimlessly in space.

    "You talk so damn much." said Sewah in between grunts, right before the power of his immortal essence began to increase at a rapid rate, allowing him to go from the fiftieth phase to the eightieth phase in a matter of seconds.

    This sudden increase of Sewah¡¯s power erased the idea of ying with him from Akkah¡¯s mind, which realized that something was wrong, and that if he didn¡¯t kill Sewah immediately, something catastrophic would happen.

    Unfortunately for him, before he could do anything, a sphere with mechanical appearance hidden within arge bead of blood which had previously gushes out of Sewah¡¯s injury, exploded next to him with the power of a thousand high immortals.

    Akkah was pushed back by the immense explosive power for tens of thousands of kilometers, only to crash against arge mass of ice which happened to float in his trajectory.

    The explosion was caused by one of Virgil¡¯s charged bombs, and possessed thebined power of a thousand high immortals at the first phase of high immortality. A power which was unable to injure the resistant body of a soldier at the one hundred and fiftieth phase of high immortality, but enough to take him by surprise, and gain a few precious seconds of time.

    "You little shit. You think you can kill me with just this?" Barked Akkah while brushing the shards of ice from his clothes.

    "ytime is over, brother. It is time to end this." Said Sewah after teleporting a few meters in front of him. He now possessed the power of a cultivator at the hundred and thirtieth phase of high immortality.

    Shocked by the constant increase of Sewah¡¯s power, Akkah charged his arms with as much power the body of the soldier possessed, and used it all in a single blow. However, surprise once again took over his face as he noticed that Sewah chose to take the punch head on, instead of avoiding it.

    As the knuckles of the two touched, the space immediately cracked outwards, forming a spider web of shattered space, and along with it, the skin, muscles, and bones in the soldier¡¯s hand, which exploded into bloody shreds.

    On Akkah¡¯s face was panic. Sewah¡¯s powers had now reached the same level possessed by the soldier.. A power which he knew for a fact, did not reflect the true battle prowess possessed by his brother.

    "Hold on! Hold on.. You don¡¯t have to do this. We are in the same situation.. We can work together!" said Akkah while secretly making preparations to make sure that his consciousness would survive this encounter.

    However, it was already toote. Not willing to give parting words, Sewah used his boosted strength to send his fist through the soldier¡¯s heart. He then used hisprehension over the essences of darkness and fire to create a ck fire which burned his body, his spirit, and remnant of Akkah¡¯s mind into nothingness.

    The female explorer witnessed to this event from afar, and thanks to the conversation between the two, she quickly realized what had happened to the soldier she had spent thest few hours with.

    After Akkah¡¯s death, she ignored Sewah, and quietly flew back to their ship, where she was weed by the head explorer.

    "What happened? I have a report of a soldier missing. He wasst seen talking with you. Where were you?" Asked the head explorer with an authoritative tone.

    "The Mindhive used his body to escape.. I have killed him." She said with a weak, and saddened voice.

 Chapter 426 Needs Must When the Devil Drives

    Six monthster.

    Without the help of the Mindhive, the government¡¯s effort against the Brutal were gone to waste. No matter how big of an army, or how expert of a mental warrior was sent, nothing but mutted corpses and rumors came back to exin the changes in this particr son of Iewah. At the same time, the news of the death of the Mindhive was spread far and wide, reaching new ears every single day.

    Unwilling to face, or even know what the repercussions of killing one of Iewah¡¯s mature children was, instead of attributing his death to the female explorer, the universal government had decided to me Daniel, who ironically enough, was the actual perpetrator.

    This event caused the fame of both Daniel and his group to grow as quickly as the infamy of the Brutal, turning the two into the most talked about children of Iewah of their generation.

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s.

    Thanks to the disappearance of the mind system, the underlying connection between the Mindhive and Heimart¡¯s mind had disappeared, and a few weeks after Aeron¡¯s treatment, Heimart had been able to reunite with his family and friends as a loving father, and charismatic leader that he had always been.

    Aside from treating Heimart, the entirety of Daniel¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s time was spent studying the Door to Dream State, the artifact created by the mind system, for the mindhive. In the past six months, each discovery shocked them more than thest, leaving them in awe of the mythical powers of the systems.

    However, along with shock and awe, came exasperation.

    "We have been trying for months! I¡¯ve told you, it¡¯s a matter of depth!" Said Daniel with irritation to a simrly nervous Aeron.

    "When did you get so stubborn on matters regarding the mind?! Listen to me! Focus on refining it, and we can get this over with!" Responded Aeron with exasperation, showing that the two had had this conversation multiple times in the past few months.

    Ever since obtaining the Dream to Door State, Daniel and Aeron had tried to find a way to make a bigger use of it than just helping Aeron to cultivate. Unfortunately, as an item created by a different system, Daniel¡¯s system was unaware of how it worked, forcing them to have to experiment with it in a trial-and-error process.

    After refining the artifact for himself, Aeron had discovered that the Door to Dream State was not actually an artifact which absorbed, and developed mental power, but an object which could absorb any type of power, and through a form of artificial cultivation, would produce a simr power which could be used to cultivate.

    The only reason why Akkah had set the artifact to absorb and produce mental power, was due to an option suggested by his system. By offering a beautiful dream, he would attract those who were too untalented to cultivate, and offer to them a life which they could have only dreamt in exchange for their lives.

    This discovery was shocking, to a point where numerous theories and ideas hade to both Aeron¡¯s and Daniel¡¯s minds. However, amongst these ideas, one stood out.

    Daniel¡¯s true essence was equallyposed by ki, spiritual essence, and mind power, making it one of a kind and inimitable, but what would happen if it was used to feed the artifact?

    Unfortunately, the artifact needed to permanently a type of power in order to refine it, and reproduce it back. In order to do that, Daniel needed to refine the artifact, and feed it his power until the artifact itself would start to produce an ownerless true essence.

    Amongst the many obstacles to this, was the fact that the artifact would strip the person away from its power. However, that did not mean that there wasn¡¯t a way around it. Daniel¡¯s emanated his own essence, and while it was impossible for the inhabitants to cultivate it, it was very useful in helping Daniel to keep track of it, or control it.

    If he managed to insert his into the Mindhive¡¯s artifact, the would constantly feed the artifact with Daniel¡¯s power, while his consciousness was safe and sound within his own body. If sessful, they would create a secret domain where cultivators of true essence would be born.

    s, it was only after forming a n, that things started to go wrong.

    In order to produce Daniel¡¯s power, the artifact needed to be set by someone who could emanate it, and since Aeron only owned mental power, there was no way for him to do it.

    For weeks Daniel¡¯s and Aeron¡¯s focus has revolved around how to help him refine the artifact, but unfortunately, they had yet to have any amount of sess in that.

    ording to Daniel, the artifact was tooplicated for his mind power to resonate with, while ording to Aeron, who had a better understanding of the artifact, he was not focusing enough on it, making it harder for himself.

    "I just can¡¯t! It¡¯s like trying to break a rock using eggs. What don¡¯t you understand?" Asked Daniel with sheer anger.

    "You are looking at it the wrong way! It¡¯s not a matter of power, it¡¯s a matter of understanding. You¡¯ll never understand the rules of chess if you keep banging the board with a damn rock!" Retorted Aeron for the umpteenth time.

    The two could note to an agreement because neither of them had a clear understanding of the other person¡¯s perspective. Daniel felt that the artifact was too difficult toprehend with his power, while Aeron felt that there shouldn¡¯t have been a reason for Daniel to be unable to understand it. Had they been in each other¡¯s shoes, they would have likely understood where both of theirints wereing from.

    After weeks of failed attempts and nervous breakdowns, the two were left without the will to speak another word to each other. For hours the two remained quiet, until Aeron finally gave in, and said, "Alright. Let¡¯s try to develop theplexity of your mind, then."

    -----

    Universal Government¡¯s territory, Senate.

    "I can¡¯t believe your people couldn¡¯t even survive a damn encounter with him! We have lost thirty explorers and a battalion of the army, and for what? You idiots couldn¡¯t even get back with a bit of intelligence!" Shouted the Speaker with a rage that was shared between the many members of the senate.

    In the middle of the room, were the representatives of the army and the explorers, who looked down in shame due to their multiple failures, as well as their losses.

    The only person who could afford to look up with pride, was the representative of judges, who observed as the two others were reprimanded for their failures.

    Exasperated by everything that went on recently, the Speaker said, "I don¡¯t know what the hell is going ontely. First that damn tree starts kicking his disgusting children out of his faction, then they start to kill each other, and now one of them has gone crazy! Is there anything more that can go wrong? Isn¡¯t a war between civilizations enough of a problem already?! I-"

    The enraged rant of the Speaker went on for a few more minutes, until finally, he took a deep breath, and after turning to look at the grand judge, said, "We are breaking protocol. I don¡¯t care if this matter regards explorers or military, just find him, ande back alive with an exnation for whatever the hell is going on! Bring the artifact of the Deathbringer if you have to. Juste back alive."

    After a faint nod of the grand judge, the Speaker turned to look back at the other two representatives, and said, "You two have disappointed the government.. Greatly."

    While these words did not mean much for the explorers, they were a hard blow for the general, who was deeply loyal to the government. In his mind, all of these expeditions had failed due to bad leadership, which had been left to the explorers.

    After hearing these words, something broke in the mind of the general, who lifted his head, and said with anger, "Mr Speaker, if only you had allowed us to lead our troops, I guarantee the result would have been different!"

    "How dare you say that." Said the representatives of the explorers while slowly raising his head. "Do you believe that I will p you twice before you can even see me? How can you lead a fight against an enemy you can¡¯t possibly hope to defeat? You are soldiers. Intelligence gathering is our job." he then said before starting a staring contest with the furious general.

    Once again, the Speaker looked at the two with disappointment. Their childish behaviour andck of cohesion was likely the reason why their missions had failed so spectacrly.

    Ready to put an end to the discussion by hammering his mallet over the sound block, he was stopped by the general, who said, "Your poor decisionary skills have stopped you from sending the only person who is guaranteed to survive a deadly encounter! Why don¡¯t you send that brat with the judge?"

    The mention of ¡¯a brat who was guaranteed to survive a deadly encounter¡¯ immediately reminded the senators of a young man who had appeared in one of the many schools that had been created by the universal government in preparation for thepetition between civilizations.

    The general¡¯s words enraged the explorer more than he already was. However, he knew that starting a fight in the senate, would be a suicide for both of their careers, so instead, he turned to look at the senators, and with a respectful tone, he said, "Senators. The kid has just graduated the Patriot Academy. We are training him for thepetition, and even before training, he was a guaranteed win in the junior individualpetition. We can¡¯t risk losing our future best explorer in this sort of mission."

    "I thought that the survivor¡¯s gift would help him stay alive no matter what." Added the general, adding salt to the wound.

    "That doesn¡¯t mean that he can¡¯t be captured, or forced to recover for tens of years. We don¡¯t even know if a gift of high immortality can counter the odd powers of Iewah¡¯s children!" barked the explorer with dissatisfaction. It was clear to him that the general wanted to damage the explorers¡¯ faction, and the best way he found to do that, was to remove the biggest promise of their faction from the equation.

    Unfortunately for the explorers, the senators were already tired of failures, and the assurance that someone could eventually get back from that ordeal with information regarding a cancer that was eating their government from inside, was exactly what they wanted.

    "What level of power has he reached?" Asked the Speaker, already aware of this person¡¯s existence.

    "The.. the eightieth phase of high immortality, mister Speaker." responded the explorer reluctantly.

    "Already.."

    ".. incredible."

    "What a prodigy!"

    The senators were in awe of such an unmatched talent, causing them to be inclined to not send him into a truly dangerous situation.. But s, the general was a man of quick words, and retorted by saying, "A sword that never leaves its sheet will never kill, no matter how sharp it is."

    After a few minutes spent muttering amongst themselves, the senate came to a decision.

    "Take the kid along. I want both of them back, and with something useful about that damn monster. So it is dec-" Said the speaker to the judge before being interrupted by the hall¡¯srge double doors which shut open, weing in a man in guard clothes who walked in in haste.

    "SENATORS! My apologies, but there is someone who wants to join the next party against the Brutal." said the man before approaching the open area where the three representatives were standing in.

    Slightly angered by the guard¡¯s poor timing, the Speaker said, "I was about to conclude this session. You better speak, and speak fast, before I send you to guard the stables of the explorer¡¯s beastpanions. Who is it?!"

    "Well.. sir.." muttered the guard as a tall shirtless man walked into the senate hall. Strapped to his back, was arge single-edged sword with veins that extended through the entire de. The aura emanated by his body seemed to be able to cut everything it encountered into shreds, causing the powerful senators to suddenly feel ufortable in their seats.

    Known for not being a man of few words, this man shocked everyone as he pointed his sharp eyes at the Speaker, and said with a deep voice, "Father sent me. Kill whoever is possessing brother."

    This man was none other than the Swordsman.

 Chapter 427 The Brutal and the Swordsman Part 1

    To the senate, the arrival of the Swordsman was both a wee and unwee surprise. While his power and fame could easily match that of the Mindhive, the fact that he brandished a sword which bled its owner¡¯s blood and wielded a power that was beyond anyone¡¯sprehension, made the Swordsman one of the most mysterious figures in the universe.

    Unfortunately, they needed him more than they would be willing to admit.

    While the senators had no doubt that the grand judges would be able to obliterate the Brutal, due to the unpredictability of the gifts of Iewah¡¯s children, the only way to ensure their death, was by having them face one of their own, and since their original n to send the Mindhive against the Brutal had failed, they were left with no other choice.

    Iewah had decided that dealing with the entity which had stolen one of his gifts was for the Swordsman to do, and even if the government disagreed, they would not be able to pick and choose amongst his children anymore.

    After reluctantly epting the Swordsman¡¯s request, those assigned to this task were ordered to assemble.

    -----

    Two dayster, Alcazar¡¯s atmosphere.

    Floating a few hundred meters outside of Alcazar¡¯s atmosphere, were three individuals. One of them was the Swordsman, who patiently and quietly waited for thest members of their party to arrive, while the other two, were a man and a woman in Grand Judge clothes.

    Seemingly bothered by this assignment, the male judge hid his gaze underneath his long ck hair, which were unable topletely hide his opened mouth, as he sighed in annoyance every few minutes. This man¡¯s posture was slightly curve, and hisnky build showed that, despite his tall stature and wide shoulders, he spent more time bent on a desk reading, than he did with a weapon in his hand, or training in martial arts.

    By his waist, hung a gavel-shaped hammer made bypressed starcore steel, an extremely solid metal which was known to only form during the implosion of a blue giant star.

    During the implosion of the star, its metallic content would press together so tightly, that the molecules which formed the metal and mes would merge into apound, forging the most durable and resistant metal known in the universe. Only a giant blue star possessed the temperature and mass to create starcore steel, and the possibility of some of it to form, was directly dependent on the metal present within the star.

    Ever since the metal¡¯s discovery, only enough of it to produce three weapons had been found.

    The woman judge appeared to be theplete opposite, and underneath her short scorching-red hair which were too short to hide the paleplexion of her face, was a small nose, and cheekbones covered by freckles. She showed a polite smile to anyone who looked at her.. Especially her judgepanion, which found this behaviour extremely annoying.

    Hanging from her waist was a double-edged sword made of the same material as the weapon of her malepanion, and around her neck, was an extremely thin yet very resistant thread, which hung a dull white pearl right underneath her vicles.

    "I cannot even imagine the amount of wrinkles you¡¯ll develop after a hundred thousand years of unceasing smiling." Said the annoyed judge after briefly looking at his happy lookingpanion.

    From the outside, the female judge did not appear to be annoyed by her malepanion¡¯s words, but as soon as he finished speaking, her smile widened, showing her pearly white teeth, and she said, "I am surprised that you can still look up at my face with that curved back of yours. It is a good thing that you have already started practicing your cane walk."

    For the past hour and a half, the two grand judges gave the Swordsman no doubt that, while the two were not actually on bad terms, some sort of rivalry caused them to verbally attack one another at every chance they got. However, he did not care about that. Instead, his gaze was directed at the emptiness of space. The only time his eyes had moved over the body of the female judge, was when one of her sudden movements had caused the dull white pearl to fall out of her bust.

    However, after a single look at this pearl, he had gone back to mind his own business.

    About two hourster, the spatial essence that was directly in front of the three slowly started to turn into metal and wooden essence, which in turn,pressed into a medieval door with elegant decoration, and a golden pommel.

    This door quickly opened, showing the figure of the explorer Krit, and a blonde tall man who quietly followed behind him.

    The appearance of the first individual left no particr impression on the judges, who were at the peak of their governmental faction, while Krit was only one explorer amongst many. However, the appearance of Jerigh was different. Not only were the two judges extremely interested in seeing the much talked about man with the legendary survivor¡¯s gift, but so was the Swordsman, who after noticing the two single edged swords by Jerigh¡¯s waist, and the feeling which he emanated, forced on his face the very first smile of his entire life.

    The characters of the two were incredibly simr, but while the Swordsman lived by his sword and his own enjoyment, Jerigh wielded his swords with nothing but the wish to gain enough power to go back to his friends, whom he was unsure whether they were still alive or not.

    Just like the Swordsman noticed Jerigh, Jerigh noticed him as well, feeling all of the pressure that the sharp features of this son of Iewah emitted.

    "Young man, I have heard so much about you. A future explorer of our government, and once you retire, one of us." Said the female grand judge before even weing the arrival of Krit, and a confused and unaware Jerigh.

    Jerigh responded to the woman¡¯s words with a simple bow. In his mind, on the other hand, were thoughts of gaining enough contribution to grant him a request. To be allowed to go back to the person whom he has sworn his loyalty to. Daniel the Outcast.

    The male grand judge did not appear to be too interested about Jerigh¡¯s arrival, and instead of greeting him, he straightened his back, and said, "Since we are all here, let¡¯s get this over with." He then threw a fingernail sized ring in the space in front of him.

    Instead of keeping on traveling, the ring stopped a hundred meters away, and began to spin so fast, that its attrition with the microscopic molecules of dust that were everywhere in the outer atmosphere of Alcazar, caused it to shine with thousands of sparks.

    This minuscule ring slowly became bigger and bigger, until finally, it reached the size of two hundred meters in diameter.

    An inexperienced cultivator would wonder why five individuals would require such a huge portal, but anyone with a decentprehension of space travel and essenceprehension, would know that the bigger the distance the portal covered, the bigger the connection needed to be in order to prevent it from shattering somewhere in the middle.

    As soon as the portal opened, the Swordsman walked in without waiting for any word of caution ormand. He was there to kill the Brutal, and nothing else. Following him were the two judges, who suddenly lost their respectively annoyed and happy state of mind, and became extremely serious.

    It was now time for Jerigh and Krit to enter, but before the former could cover the distance, he was stopped by the explorer, who ced his right hand over Jerigh¡¯s right shoulder, and said, "I think it was a mistake to send you here.. At least now. You have an amazing future, but only as long as you stay alive. If worsees to worst, and your instinct tells you to run.. Follow it."

    As Krit finished speaking, Jerigh nodded his head faintly, and followed the three into the portal.

    When Jerigh reappeared on the other side of the portal, he found himself in front of what appeared like an asteroid madepletely of chunks of flesh, blood, and bones, and with a size big enough to cause a catastrophic event in case of a collision.

    Next to him, were the two judges who for the first time, had started to feel worried about their assignment.

    What they did not know, was the fact that while the sight was a shocking one, the fear they were feeling was not out of their own true feelings, but was entuated by one of the powers of the brutal system, which awakened in one person¡¯s mind the primal fear of blood and pain that flushed into the mind of someone that witnessed to this sort of spectacle for the first time.

    The Swordsman, on the other hand, was able to ignore this effect and immediatelynd in the red world, sinking his bare feet ten centimeters into ake of blood, and resting over the feeling of fresh meat.

    Luckily for Jerigh, his brutal upbringing had been enough topletely desensitize him from the sight of blood, allowing him to keep hisposure, as opposed to the grand judges, who had spent the majority of thest tens of thousands of years, closed into an office, meeting politicians, and giving orders to normal judges.

    The moment the Swordsmannded on the asteroid, his surroundings were cut into extremely thin strips, which soon after, merged back together.

    "There is more than one of you! HA! I am starting to love this dimension." Said a yful-sounding disembodied voice. At the same time, the pool of blood started to evaporate into a thin mist.

    From its appearance, this mist of blood seemed harmless, but the moment each molecule of blood started to attach itself onto the body of the Swordsman, Jerigh realized that that was not the case.

    These molecules of blood engulfed the Swordsman, covering his entire body with ayer of fresh blood, but just as this blood tried to seep into his body, from each pore of the Swordsman¡¯s skin oozed out his sword intent. A power so sharp that it was able to cut the control over the blood used by the Brutal.

    Thrown in every direction, the droplets of blood dissipated into a thin mist which would never be controlled again.

    "Oh, yes! You are much more powerful than this sack of flesh was." Said the disembodied voice as the surface of the bloody pool curved upwards, and from it emerged a thin man with loose robes which looked like they would fall at any moment, leaving him naked.

    While this happened, the defensive action of the Swordsman was able to cut into two the effect that was forcing the two judges into a state of fear and shock.

    The two judges were quick to recover, and after sharing a nod, they activated the power of their gifts, which allowed them to quickly gather a portion of the power of every other judge in the universe to fuel their own.

    Only seconds after, the two pointed their opened hands at the figure of the Brutal, and closed them.

    The pressure on the body of the Brutal was inhuman, and caused his flesh to tear apart like a red rose that bloomed in an instant. His bones immediately turned into dust, and his soul dissipated into nothingness.

    The only thing that remained was a wisp of consciousness, which shockingly enough, they had found themselves unable to remove from existence.

    "Little ants, I can feel your bodies age from over here.. Hehe." Said the wisp of consciousness as a terrifying mental power started to emerge from its depths. "How many centuries of your lives did you waste, just for a pointless attack?! HAHA! I bet you won¡¯t.. You won¡¯t dare to.. Oh."

    The tone of the wisp of consciousness suddenly changed, turning from one of enjoyment, to one of curiosity. His nose had finally perceived Jerigh, and on him, he had smelled the scent of the two little mice he had traveled through dimensions to look for.

    "Hello there.."

 Chapter 428 The Brutal and the Swordsman Part 2

    "Hello there.." Said the wisp of consciousness with a yful tone.

    In the mind of the two grand judges, it sounded that a kid had found a new toy to y with, making them the useless old toys.

    After acknowledging the presence of Jerigh, the wisp of consciousness moved towards him in an attempt to enter his body, but before he coulde too close, a wave of sword intent washed over him, tearing his presence into shreds.

    The two grand judges felt a level of reassurance, but in the face of the Swordsman, all but happiness was present. For thousands of times he had fought against the consciousness of the mindhive, and even when he had been able to destroy it with his odd power, Akkah had been able toe back to life soon after. That, was the difficulty of dealing with overly powerful minds.

    Furthermore, the level of threat that he felt towards this specific consciousness was iparably higher than when he had faced his brother, to a point where he was reminded of the pressure he had felt the time when, just like any other of his brother before, he had tried to attack Iewah during their first encounter.

    To the group¡¯s surprise, not only did the consciousness reform, but so did the body of the brutal, which emerged intact from the thick surface of blood.

    Instead of merging back together, the invader did something that had never been seen before in their native dimension. He injected a portion of his consciousness into the body of the Brutal in order to face both the Swordsman, and the two judges at the same time.

    The practice of reanimating a corpse and controlling it with one¡¯s mind was what, in the invader¡¯s dimension, was called necromancy. A practice drastically different from puppeteering, which required a constant effort of the puppeteer to control his puppet.

    A necromancer, on the other hand, could leave a certain amount of consciousness into a dead body, and reanimate it as a spiritless dead thrall. At the same time, one experienced with the power of the mind, would even be able to recall the thrall¡¯s own consciousness.

    What was injected in this specific thrall, was a copy of the consciousness of the only entity which knew the Brutal¡¯s system better than he did. The original Brutal.

    "Brother?" Said the Brutal after opening his eyes, and noticing the Swordsman.

    Caught by surprise, the two judges ignored the wisp of consciousness, and turned to look at the thrall who, seemingly terrified, had recognized the person whom he was facing.

    "You are still alive?" Asked the male judge with shock.

    To respond to the judge¡¯s question was not the Brutal, but the wisp of consciousness, who said, "Do not worry about this. He is one of my little ves now. As you will all be soon enough." As he finished speaking, the mental power that he emanated started to take the shape of a humanoid being, and soon after, turned into the exact appearance of the half naked man which had managed to capture Edmund as he involuntarily entered his domain.

    Unwilling to let this man prepare for a fight, and with their enemies suddenly doubled, the male grand judge ced one of his hands on hispanion¡¯s shoulder, and in an instant, injected more than half of his power into her body.

    Simrly, all around the universe, the members of the judge¡¯s faction felt the connection between their gift and the female judge¡¯s thicken, and a small portion of their powers being absorbed.

    The entire process took only a few instant, and oncepleted, it showed its effect on the skin of the female judge, which began to glow with a light that was difficult to observe with the naked eye.

    Unfortunately, this process was not without harm for the person who started it, and if one could observe the skin of the judge¡¯s body underneath all of that light, they would notice that her skin was starting to crack from the excessive power.

    Without wasting any time, the woman unsheathed her sword, and pointed it at the wisp of consciousness. "I do not know who you are, nor do I know where youe from, but today you will be judged." she said with a tone that sent a wave of sound essence which reached millions of kilometers in the distance.

    As she finished speaking, the glow that surrounded her body started to dim, and at an inverted pace, the tip of her sword started to shine with an even purer light-gold light. This light did not grow in size, but kept growing in intensity, drawing away every ounce in the judge¡¯s body, which went from simple aging, to a mummified state.

    Once the glowing at the tip of her sword reached a critical point, from in between her ashy grey lips, came the words, "Judge¡¯s Decision."

    The moment these two words left her mouth, the small yet intense light shot out in the direction of the now humanoid consciousness.

    The invader was shocked by the power that such small ants could muster, and even he could not help but be petrified by this column of light. He was only able to put a couple of words filled with shock together, before the light washed over him, and erased him from existence.

    The beam of light was charged with the power of every judge in existence, and was so strong, that whenever it was used, its light would outss the shine of most stars.

    Unfortunately, this attack was not one the judges could use randomly, as shown by the state of the female judge, whopared to the healthy and young state she was when they had departed, she now appeared like a mummy that had been unearthed thousands of years after her burial.

    Her life was literally hanging by a thread, and if not for the calm and seemingly useless pearl that was hanging around her neck, her body would have already be cinder destined to drift aimlessly in the infinite space.

    ¡¯Judge¡¯s Decision¡¯ was, without a doubt, one of the most powerful single attacks which any of the members of the universal government were capable of, and could only be used by someone in the possession of the ¡¯Pendant of Immortality¡¯, the artifact created by the death system, for its owner¡¯s use.

    This attack was usually used to showcase the prowess of the government, and its sheer existence worked as a form of deterrent against the leaders of the main factions. Legendary entities who, in order to be harmed, needed legendary measures. It was only thanks to this attack that the government had been able to obtain the allegiance of the Deathbringer, who after personally feeling the power of the Judge¡¯s Decision on his own body, had realized that the only reason why he hadn¡¯t met with death, was because of the very specific powers of his system.

    "How are you feeling?" Asked the male judge to his now witheredpanion. In his voice was an audible worry, which contrasted greatly with the snarky ways the two had treated each other before.

    "I¡¯ll... live..." said the woman with the tone of someone on the verge of breathing theirst breath.

    Convinced that this mysterious opponent had died, the two lowered their guard. On the other hand Jerigh and the Swordsman knew that something was wrong, as the Brutal was still standing.

    "You all better run.." said the Brutal with unwillingness. It was clear that, despite the typical overbearing character of a children of Iewah, he knew that he was just a pawn of a being which he couldn¡¯t hope to defeat. He was a simple ve that could be used, and summoned at will.

    Just like the Brutal foretold, a disembodied voice resounded from the area where the invader had been before the attack. "Now that, was impressive. Maybe this dimension is not as backwards as I thought it was." said the invader with newfound respect.

    Around the area where the voice wasing from, an invisible mist started to converge into a single area, until finally, only momentster, the humanoid was reformed to the image of the invader.

    At this point, the grand judges were starting to feel worried. ording to their sources, no children of Iewah would be able to escape death twice in a row. That was why they hadn¡¯t used the Judge¡¯s Decision against him right away. However, now that the strongest of their attacks had been unsessful, and one of them was in no condition to keep on fighting, the two began to feel the pressure.

    What was pressuring them was not the fear of death, but the fact that they were supposed to be an undefeatable force, and if they were captured, not only would they fail in their task, but they would be handing over one of the most powerful artifacts of the universe, to a mysterious, and seemingly immortal entity.

    Despite the worry, the two quickly came to a tacit agreement.

    "Take the kid and leave." Said the male judge before slowly grabbing the gavel that was hanging by his waist.

    While not at his full power, contrary to hispanion, the male judge was still able to call upon himself the power of the other judges, and even if he was unable to kill this mysterious opponent, he would at least gain enough time for the others to escape, before attempting an escape of his own.

    His confidence came from the fact that, despite quietly observing until now, it did not appear that the Swordsman had any intention of fleeing.

    The weakened female judge nodded in agreement, but before she could try anything, the invader turned to look at the brutal, and said, "Capture that one, and I¡¯ll let you live for a little longer." he then turned to look at Jerigh, and said, "I feel like rabbit meat tonight."

    As soon as he gave the order, the skin of the Brutal began to peel off his body, uncovering his muscles and bones, on which numerous spikes quickly started to grow. This form was known as ¡¯The Aspect of Brutality¡¯, and was one of the active abilities of the Brutal¡¯s system. The sharp and spiky bones at the end of the fingers, elbows, knees, and feet, were a show to the brutality that fighting against him would cause.

    "If you do not want to end up a ve, leave now, brother." said the brutal before his back muscles bloated to ten times the size, and his teeth became pointy as swords. Nothing but a monster was left of the normal appearance he once possessed.

    The swordsman did not budge. Instead, he grabbed the hilt of his sword, and almost as if feeding off of each other¡¯s energy, the veins in both his arm and in the de of the sword, started to pulse uncontrobly.

    Once ready, the two disappeared, and of them, only the noises of sword shing against bones remained.

    The invader quickly noticed the actions of the male judge, who prepared himself to fend him off long enough for Jerigh and hispanion to leave, but he had a mission. He was in that dimension for a reason, and had spent months one body to the other, just so that he could find the two people who had offended him.

    Jerigh was the first and only connection to Daniel and Edmund, and he was not willing to let them go.. so, faster than a bullet, he shot through empty space in an attempt to infiltrate his body, but just as he reached a distance of twenty meters, he was stopped.

    The space in front of him warped, and the empty space in between him and his prey was filled by the metallic color of the judge¡¯s gavel, which ttened his incorporeal being before dissipating him into nothingness.

    The female judge immediately took notice of the sessful blow, and after grabbing Jerigh¡¯s arm with her wrinkled and bony hand, she used all of the power she had left to leave as fast as she could.

    Unfortunately, what neither of them had noticed, was the invisible wisp of mental power which had attached to the male judge¡¯s gavel, and was slowly crawling towards the judge¡¯s hand.

 Chapter 429 Poison in the Water

    For hours Jerigh and the female grand judge escaped from explosions caused by the conflict between two dangerous powers. A sharp and scary energy, and one which would force someone with a weak stomach to shriek in disgust. However, no matter how far they went, they conflict seemed to follow them, making them unable to lose it in the endless space.

    After more than six hours, the female judge stopped her march. With her arms drooping down her side, and a face face filled with worry, she turned to look at Jerigh, and said, "I will open a portal for you, then continue on my own. Report everything you have seen."

    "Chia!" Said a familiar yet disembodied voice that came from behind her. This voice was able to make reassurance appear on the face of the weakened female judge, as she turned around with newfound calmness. Momentster, the heavily injured male judge appeared in the distance. Once only a few meters away from them, he took a few deep breaths, and added, "That consciousness escaped. I have managed to injure it, and it fled."

    The female judge looked past the male judge, and towards the direction where the waves of conflicting power wereing from. After noticing theck of other forms of presence in that direction, she took a deep breath in relief, and said, "Good.. good. Did you find out anything new? Who is he, or where did hee from? Was he a spy from the other civilization?"

    The male judge raised in hands in surrender, and instead of responding, he said, "We can talk about thister. Let¡¯s get you back on your feet first." he then slowly floated in her direction, carrying in his hand a few pills.

    While many would mistake these pills as simple healing pills, they would only be half right. Healing essence was an artificial form of essence created by merging life, and time essence when condensing a pill. These pills would contain the concepts of regeneration of the life essence, and the concept of passage of time of time essence. However, while still considered healing pills, the ones carried the male judge had a different use.

    Created from the merging of the concept of repetition of time essence, and the concept of youth of life essence, these pills were able to restore one¡¯s condition to that of the peak of their lives. These pills were called Pills of Youth, and were extremely expensive and limited pills which were given to the judges to help them recover after using the peak of their powers.

    Unfortunately, not even these pills were able to refill one¡¯s life essence, which was constantly corroded by death essence until the moment of their death. Their only use, was to rejuvenate their cells, and help them live their lives as young and healthy individuals.

    At the sight of these pills, the female judge felt reassured, and slowly floated in the direction of herpanion.. however, just as their hands were about to touch, unbeknownst to the two of them, time began to slow, and before they could react, a light shed past the straightened arm of the male judge, parting his hand from his wrist.

    Just as quickly, Jerigh, who had been standing right next to the female judge, grabbed the two pills that fell out of the judge¡¯s detached hand, and immediately after, he grabbed the female judge by the waist, and shot in the distance at the top of his speed.

    "What are you doing?!" shouted the female judge with anger. She had clearly seen Jerigh cut the hand of herpanion and steal the pills, but instead of leaving right away, he took her along. "What is the meaning of this?" she kept asking, confused by Jerigh¡¯s actions.

    Instead of answering, Jerigh handed over the Pills of Youth to the woman, and after letting go of his sword, he grabbed the sheathed one that was hanging from the waist of the female judge. He then unsheathed it, and after moving the woman behind him, he ced the sword in front of him in a defensive position, focusing every bit of power within his body, in his arms.

    Less than an instantter, the male judge appeared in front of Jerigh with his gavel in hand, and hammered it against his weaker opponent. The impact instantly disintegrated Jerigh¡¯s arms, and created a shockwave so powerful, that sent both him and the female judge flying backwards at a speed difficult to see with the naked eye.

    This attack was clearly meant to kill, or at least injure both of them, and if not for the fact that the male judge had been drastically drained of his power, nothing of Jerigh would have remained.

    Right after meeting with this attack, the female judge realized what had happened, and with the small amount of power she had left, she tightened her hold on Jerigh¡¯s clothes, and used the momentum of the blow to reach a speed which, if not for the blow, the two wouldn¡¯t have been able to reach.

    Theck of attrition and gravitational pull allowed both Jerigh and her to make full use of the burst of speed to distance themselves from their pursuer.. at least long enough for her to ingest the pill which Jerigh had wisely taken from her formerpanion right before attempting an escape.

    Meanwhile, the battle between the Brutal and the Swordsman kept raging on in the distance, bing more and more violent as time went on.

    -----

    After a whole hour, the female judge finally managed to return to a state which allowed her to bear the power of her gift, and therefore, allow her to fight back.

    "That brat has good eyes." Said a familiar voice that came from behind them, right where the male judge was following them at a slightly slower, yet still impressive speed.

    It was only now that the female judge noticed something.

    She turned to look at her formerpanion, and said, "Whatever you are, you can¡¯t use his gift.." her eyes narrowed into two menacing slits, and her hand wrapped around the handle of the sword which she had managed to recover during their escape.

    What the female judge said was right. The invasor had managed to sink into the mind of her formerpanion, and gain control over his body, but while he could use the full strength of his cultivation, immortal gifts were different. The knowledge that required their use resided in the mind, and that was not something that could be assimted by simply prying into someone else¡¯s memories. Only mental entities like Aeron and the Mindhive were able to assimte experiences as their own.

    Specifically, the Judge¡¯s gift required a shared desire to protect something with arge number of people, in order to draw power from them. Without this shared desire, one was left with nothing but selfishness, and the incapability of exploiting this gift.

    Slightly reassured, the female judge stopped the motion forced upon them by her formerpanion¡¯s blow, and decided to face him. With the power of her gift, and the protection of the Deathbringer¡¯s artifact, she was sure to survive this encounter. At least long enough to send Jerigh back to report what happened, and call for more reinforcements.

    "I will force you vermin out of his body." She said as her rejuvenated body started to once again glow with a simr, yet dimmer golden light than before.

    "Yes! There is no point in hunting an already dead prey.. But who says I can¡¯t use that silly gift of yours?" Responded the invader before seeping out of the male judge¡¯s eyes in the form of a faint smoke.

    The judge¡¯s eyes immediately cleared, and he seemed to regain his wits. However, after noticing the small cluster of smoke next to him, he bowed his head, and looked down in fear.

    "Go little one, take care of your friend. No blood is sweeter than that spilled from the hands of loved ones." Said the invasor right before the male judge started to summon the power of the judges, and simrly to her formerpanion, began to glow with a golden light. On his face, was an expression filled with sadness and shame.

    Before the female judge could do anything, her formerpanion rushed in her direction while brandishing his powerful gavel.

    The invasor observed with amusement as the two judges attacked each other relentlessly. The more they fought, the more power was taken from the other judges, and the more they would glow with golden light, turning into two miniature stars whose lifelong objective was to sh against the other until only one of the two remained.

    After more than a hundred exchanges, the bodies of the two went back to their old and weakened state, and the glow emanated by their bodies began to disappear.

    The situation had long passed the point where it could be considered critical, so the female judge gave up on her chance of survival, and instead of parrying the next attack, she turned to look at Jerigh. With a swift motion of her hand, she grabbed the pearl that was hanging around her neck, and threw it in his direction. She then sent a gentle wave of power towards him in an attempt to throw him into the portal she was trying to open behind him.

    The pearl quickly reached Jerigh, and by using the wave of power, sent Jerigh flying back once again right into the portal that had started to form a few kilometers away.

    Unfortunately, contrary to the female judge¡¯s expectations, the attack of her formerpanion never arrived, and instead, a feeble smoke seeped into her skin. It only took moments before her pained expression changed into a malicious smile, and her previously opened hand shut tight, closing the portal even before it could fully open.

    Jerigh was only able to witness as the invasor took control over the body of the woman, unable to do anything to stop him.

    "That was quite fun!" said the invasor with delight through the mouth of the now old looking female judge. He then turned to look at Jerigh, and while slowly floating in his direction, he added with excitement, "Once I find that little dimensional traveler, I will turn him into my personal artifact. So many high quality resources here.. And they bleed so splendidly."

    Jerigh was nothing less than confused by the words of this entity, after all, he was unaware of what had caused him to appear, or from where. If only he possessed the same knowledge of Daniel, Aeron, and Edmund, he would know that this being¡¯s cultivation revolved around absorption of life, and through it, he had managed to gain control over his own dimension.

    With time, the number of people whose lives he and his people could have taken started to be smaller and smaller, causing them to set their eyes onto the other dimensions.

    Unable to take his true power into the other dimensions, his only way to visit another one was through a ce known as ¡¯Tryportas¡¯, a ce of unknown origins, which allowed for consciousnesses to explore different dimensions, while leaving behind their physical bodies.

    In Edmund this invasor had found a power which allowed one to physically travel through dimensions, a power that if he could control, would allow him to invade other dimensions, and continue his cultivation to higher levels.

    All of that started with what was standing just a hundred meters away. A thirty years old man which, by chance, shared the smell of the person he was looking for.

    This search had be an obsession for the invader, to a point where nothing of what surrounded him matter. Not even when the entire area around him started to be filled with sword intent, did he look away from Jerigh.

    Unfortunately for him, while he believed himself to be invincible while within this dimension of weak cultivators, he was forced to think again as he felt an indescribable paine from each fiber of his body. His first instinct was to shriek in pain, but the more he moved, the more he felt his consciousness being cut into shreds.

    What he was feeling, was the strongest and ultimate move of the Swordsman¡¯s system. An active ability called ¡¯World of des¡¯, which turned everything within a certain distance into sharp and deadly des that were able to cut through anything. The only way to survive it, was by possessing a power strong enough to protect oneself, or remainpletely still for the entire duration of the ability.

    The two subjugated and weakened judges were caught by this ability, and without even realizing it, they had been sliced into an unrecognizable meat paste in a matter of instants.

    Suddenly, the space that separated the invader from his prey started to look a million timesrger, and each moment, the two seemed to move further and further away from each other. If only the invader¡¯s mental fortitude had been a bit weaker, none of it would have remained.

    This ability remained in ce for a few long seconds, until finally, it disappeared without leaving traces. In its stead, appeared the injured body of the Swordsman, who had clearly gone through a very hard and painful fight against his brother, the Brutal.

    As the pain subsided, the invader felt his anger towards this ant grow beyond control. Unfortunately, before he could act on it, the Swordsman sliced the empty space, and ripped a portal open. He then grabbed Jerigh by his shirt, and pulled him into it.

    The portal closed right behind them.

    Fuming, the invader cursed the person who pushed him away from his hopes and dreams, only stopping the moment the Brutal approached him from behind. On his body, were numerous slices and cuts from which he had yet to recover.

    "I want you to find him.. FIND HIM NOW!!!"

 Chapter 430 Each Tougher Than the Last One

    After the failed mission against the second outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction, the universe went into an odd time of calm.

    Caught by surprise by the loss of two grand judges, the ruling powers of the universal government took refuge into the monotony of governmental affairs, while handling the most high profile matters in the darkness of the senate¡¯s building.

    The time of thepetition between civilizations was approaching, and in an effort to unite the factions under the same cause, the government prohibited internal fighting, as well as anything that could endanger the people who, only a few yearster, would have to participate in thepetition.

    Ever since thest expedition against the Brutal, his oddly violent behaviour suddenly ceased. To the ignorant minds of the poption, this change was attributed to the intervention of the ruling members of the government, but that was far from the truth.

    In reality, now that the invader had finally found a trail that could lead him to his objective, there was no more reason for him to cause mayhem. Instead, he began a long pursuit of Jerigh, whom along with the Swordsman, had disappeared, and believed as dead as the rest of the expedition¡¯s members.

    This pursuit was unknowingly shared with the explorers, who had been sent by the government in an attempt to interrogate the Swordsman who, ording to the words of the other children of Iewah, was still living, about what happened during their encounter with the invader.

    -----

    Hiel.

    Within the ck castle, was a training room where only a few people were allowed to enter. These people were the leading members of Daniel group, as well as his personal friends. In this room, for thest few months, Daniel had used vast amounts of karmic points with a single purpose. That purpose was not to increase his cultivation, which was now at the hundredth and fortieth phase of true immortality, nor was itprehend the most difficult concepts of essence which still evaded him.. But to do the unthinkable, and develop theplexity of his mind.

    Theplexity of one¡¯s mind was directly rted to the number of mental powers a person was able to understand. That was usually reflected by one¡¯s ascension, which allowed a mental warrior to obtain a deeperprehension of the power they had the biggest affinity with, in the form of a gift. However, that did not mean that someone would be unable to practice in another power.

    With aplexity that was far beyond the teachings of essence, each mental power would require hundreds of years to master. Luckily, that was not the case for Daniel, for whom this process was vastly hastened by the Karmic System, had a teacher in mental power, and did not require rest to recover his mental power.

    "I understand now. Spatial essence is physical, and by using it, I am anchored tows of space. By teleporting with mental power, I be my own imagination, and can go anywhere I want as long as I have a clear picture of that ce in my mind." Said Daniel to Aeron, who for the past few days, had been trying to show to Daniel the difference between teleporting by using space, and by using mental power.

    Of all of the powers in Aeron¡¯s possession, Daniel had chosen teleportation and mind fortitude, and the reason for that was simple. While able to read other people¡¯s minds thanks to his deeper mental cultivation, Daniel believed that that power was more of a curse than not. He did not want to be in control of the lives of others, closing himself in a bubble where only his word was trustworthy, and every lie that was told to him, was a lie despite the good intentions of the person who had said it.

    The reason why Daniel chose teleportation was because, after listening to Aeron¡¯s exnation, he had understood that there was a drastic difference between space and mind. The mind was not bound by people¡¯s powers like space, and could not be caged as long as the enemy did not possess a stronger mind specialized in controlling, or caging other people¡¯s consciousness.

    In order to protect himself from these two forms of attack, Daniel had chosen to learn mental fortitude.

    Mental fortitude was the ability to resist the influence of stronger minds, turning one¡¯s thoughts into whispers too feeble to be heard, turn memories too blurry to be seen, and shape the mind into something too fluid to be grasped.

    Afterprehending mental fortitude, Daniel had started to feel a certain amount of affinity towards the Mindhive¡¯s artifact, which until now, had been used by Aeron to cultivate to what could bepared to the hundredth phase of immortal cultivation.

    Now that hisprehension towards teleportation had reached a state where he could teleport freely at a distance of a few hundred kilometers, he was finally able to grasp the nature of the artifact.

    "Finally.." muttered Aeron before standing up from what felt like years of sitting. He then added, "Telepathy, teleportation, and mental fortitude. This should be enough for you to be able to refine the artifact."

    As he finished speaking, the small gem encrusted in the middle of his mask detached itself from it, and quietly floated above his hand.

    Contrary to Aeron, Daniel was not convinced that theplexity of his mind was a match to hispanion, but he trusted the former¡¯s judgement, so he did not refuse, and quietly followed him into the small portal that had been just created.

    When the two entered, they found themselves back into the firstyer of the artifact. The mental power was still present, but to Aeron, it did not feel quite as oppressive as it had the first time he had entered. Every building, office, or structure, had disappeared.

    The two quietly reached the first threshold, which before would have been enough to stop Daniel in his tracks. This time, however, instead of blocking his passage as a solid wall of imprable rogue mental power, the barrier became extremely fluid, recognizing his worth as a talented mental warrior, worthy of entering the secondyer of the Dream Domain.

    The second threshold was not as weing as the first one, and presented itself as a dense syrup which hindered his movements to half his normal speed. The feeling perceived by Daniel was not unlike swimming in honey, or digging through mud.

    Once in the third threshold, Daniel started to feel the difficulty of moving through. The density of the barrier had started to behave strangely, almost as if applying more pressure would cause it to solidify further, instead of causing it to give in to Daniel¡¯s passage. Nevertheless, after a full hour, Daniel was still able to make his way through.

    "Are you okay?" Asked Aeron to a visibly tired Daniel.

    The tiredness which Daniel was feeling was not a physical one, nor was it due to sleepiness. These challenges were ced by the artifact not only to stop unworthy people from reaching the deeperyers of the artifact, but to break their mind as well. Each moment the barrier resisted his efforts, Daniel¡¯s mind would lose a portion of his fortitude due to the feeling of exasperation, and worry of failure.

    "I am fine. Thest one was just a little tough.. Hehe-" Said Daniel after a deep sigh. His arms were folded, and his fingers were tapping on the internal part of his forearm, showing how the loss of mental fortitude had caused him to enter a nervous state of mind.

    Aeron immediately noticed Daniel¡¯s state of mind, but instead of helping him through it, he remained quiet. After reaching the fourth threshold, which led to the fifthyer and contained the core of the artifact, Aeron said, "Thest barrier won¡¯t be as kind as thest three. I will wait for you on the other side." he then walked straight towards the seemingly imprable wall of mental power, which instead of hindering his passage, split open to wee him in.

    "Show off.." muttered Daniel before taking a deep breath. His blood pressure quickly went down, and his nervous tics began to abate. He then stepped towards the barrier, which appeared to not have a reaction to his presence.

    While showing a confused frown, Daniel ced his hand over the surface of the mental barrier, which gave him a feeling of coldness. He was aware that what he was seeing was not physical, but had he not been aware of that, he would have easily believed that he was standing in front of a block of ice as old as the universe itself.

    "I won¡¯t let you stop me." He said with conviction before forcibly sinking his fingertips into the surface of the barrier. The sheer hardness of this obstacle made him feel as if the bones of his hand were about to break. It took him for than ten minutes for his fingers to sink down to the knuckle, and more than three hours for his arm to sink to his elbow.

    Once through up to his shoulder, Daniel grabbed a handful of the solid substance of which the barrier was made of, and forcibly pulled himself into it.

    For the following week, Daniel proceeded through the passage by exhausting every bit of physical, spiritual, and mental power he possessed. The dense barrier had seeped into his nostrils, clothes, and even mouth, making it a challenge of patience and willpower like none other he had been through before.

    Finally, after a long week, Aeron was able to see the surface of the barrier curve outward, almost as if trying to oppose the passage of Daniel with ast desperate attempt. Although effective, the opposing force which had tested the limits of this barrier for thest seven days kept on perseveering, fighting tooth and nail against the obstacle this barrier posed.

    At one point, the barrier was unable to hold on any longer, and imitating the noise of a rubber band snapping into two, split open to allow Daniel¡¯s hand through.

    This hand was the only thing that had managed to entirely cross through this impressive barrier, and the moment it emerged victorious, instead of stopping, its bent fingers hooked over the barrier¡¯s solid surface. The pressure put on the fingers drained them of all the blood within them, and soon enough, a wrist, forearm, elbow, and finally, a second hand gradually emerged.

    Aeron took a step back, aware that if he stepped too close, or even attempted to help Daniel through thisst moment, all of the work he had put on would be wasted. Instead, he observed as Daniel took thest few steps.

    During his studies of the artifact, Aeron had realized that the fourth threshold not only worked as a way to keep people out from the fifthyer, and the core of the artifact, but also as a test for those who wished to refine the artifact. This meant that there was a high possibility that this artifact hadn¡¯t been created to be used by the Mindhive alone, and that to some extent, he had been forced to reach a certain level ofplexity, before being able to refine it himself.

    This had only been discovered due to the many attempts made by the two, as after mastering mental fortitude, Daniel had believed to be able to understand the artifact, but for some reason, he was prohibited from interacting with it.

    Through a process of trial and error, the two had noticed that this veil that separated Daniel from understanding the artifact would not exist, as long as he proceeded through the thresholds by allowing for the barriers to test him, as opposed to using Aeron¡¯s help to cheat his way to the core.

    The ess to the fifthyer, ording to Aeron¡¯s calctions, required the mastery of at least three mental powers, and now that Daniel had added Mental Fortitude and teleportation to his repertoire of mental powers, he was finally able to reach the fifthyer, where he could finally be able to interact with the core of the artifact.

    With this objective keeping him sane for thest week, Daniel used all of the powers granted to him by his system, and finally emerged from the surface of the barrier as if pulling himself out of quicksand. However, before being able to celebrate his sess, he fell unconscious on the ground, where he entered a state of deep sleep.

 Chapter 431 What Is Yours Is Mine

    For the following three days, Aeron sat next to Daniel¡¯s unconscious body, and used his powers to prevent Daniel¡¯s brain from waking him up before he could properly rest. At the end of these three days, Daniel woke up from his mental exhaustion feeling reborn.

    With wobbly legs, he turned to look around, and quickly recalled where he was, and what he was doing before falling asleep. He had painstakingly managed to reach the core of the artifact thanks to his own power, and in there, he would be able to refine it. "How long?" He asked in between yawns.

    "Three days." Responded Aeron with an emotionless tone while standing up, and rubbing his own legs. This action had no purpose, as Aeron¡¯s being was entirely made out of mental power, and fatigue only existed mentally. If not out of habit, he would have not bothered with doing it.

    "Three days.." repeated Daniel with a pensive tone. He then said with a hint of annoyance, "Are you sure you couldn¡¯t have just removed the artifact¡¯s cultivation beforehand? This took forever."

    As if bored with answering the same question over and over again, Aeron shook his head lightly and responded by saying, "For thest time.. You can¡¯t remove the artifact¡¯s cultivation. You can only rece it."

    "ALRIGHT!.." said Daniel before taking a small pause. He then added with sarcasm, "You tend to forget things when you are trapped in mental sludge for weeks! Let¡¯s get this over with."

    After they finished speaking, the two walked towards the house that was still present in the middle of the fifthyer. In it, were the measures taken by Akkah, in order to trap his former host for all of those years. A torture which he enjoyed inflicting on him, until he got tired of it.

    Daniel had already witnessed how Aeron had refined the artifact, so instead of standing around, he walked to the middle of the room, and sat with his legs crossed. He then closed his eyes, and focused on the space around him.

    What he felt, was a sea of blurriness. A feeling akin to the one he had felt when trying to force himself through the fourth threshold, locking him in ce, and stopping each of his senses from working properly.

    The only thing that saved him from being lost in this blurry sea of nothingness, was a golden rope whose end wiggled in front of him. This rope kept going into the blurry nothingness until it escaped Daniel¡¯s sensing ability, making it impossible to see its other end. With a single thought, Daniel¡¯s consciousness reached for this rope, and as the two were about to touch, the rope unravel into thousands of little threads, which surrounded Daniel¡¯s consciousness.

    On these threads, Daniel could feel the presence of Aeron, who was thest one to have refined the artifact. However, contrary to what Aeron had felt during the process, his presence weed Daniel calmly, backing away as Daniel pushed his own consciousness into these threads.

    Aeron observed as the threads which only he could see, and were connected to the many elements of the artifact, started to disappear. In the span of two hours, Aeron connection to the artifact was erased, disappearingpletely only moments before Daniel stood back up on his feet, and opened his eyes.

    Contrary to what he was expecting, there was no happiness in Daniel¡¯s face, and there was a reason for it. If he had tried to read into his mind, Aeron would have seen a windows inside Daniel¡¯s mind, and on it, was a writing different than most of those he had seen before.

    "What is it?" Asked Aeron, wondering if something had gone wrong.

    "Take a look at this." Responded Daniel, allowing him pry into his mind, and see what he was seeing.

    ____________________

    The wielder of the Karmic System has sessfully stolen an alien system¡¯s (Mental) artifact.

    Artifact already present in the Karmic System.

    Pick one of the following options:

    -Destruction: Will award the wielder with one trillion karmic points.

    -Fusion: Will allow the wielder to merge the two artifacts (75% chance of mutual destruction).

    -Assimtion: Will add two random effects of the Mental System, to the Karmic System.

    _____________________

    "This answers a portion of your questions." Said Aeron, recalling when, during one of their many conversations regarding the children of Iewah, Daniel had wondered what the purpose of such an innate warmongering behaviour was. It was only now that he had learned the truth.

    While many believed the children of Iewah to be needlessly violent, there was an actual reason for why they could recognize one another, and couldn¡¯t help themselves but to fight the moment their eyes would meet. Luckily, through the long years in which Iewah¡¯s faction had existed, none of his sons had ever learned about this. If they had, the wars amongst one another would be even more violent and frequent than before.

    To them, fighting against one another was an enjoyable sport, while bing aware of this secret would mean turning this sport into a bloody race for power.

    "What do you want to do?" Asked Aeron with slight disappointment. He then added, "Assimtion seems the most reasonable choice."

    Aeron¡¯s words were correct. From the standpoint of a system wielder, the ideal decision would be to obtain a portion of the powers of the artifact¡¯s former wielder. These powers were simr to his own, and just like Time is Precious, or Karmic Retribution, they were both likely to be extremely useful skills.

    Nevertheless, for Daniel personal power was not as important, and the karmic points, while useful, were just a currency which he could earn more whenever he wanted. So without thinking too much about it, he thought of the world "Fusion."

    As soon as this concept appeared inside Daniel¡¯s mind, he felt an incredible pain drill into his very being, making him feel as if he had fallen into a pool of acid.

    "Nghh!"

    The reason why Daniel had decided to merge the two artifacts despite the chance of failure, was because, thanks to one of his gifts of True Immortality, he was one with his artifact. Therefore, unless the failure of the fusion eradicated the artifact from its very being, he would at least be able to keep it. Unfortunately, the pain he was feeling was just that.

    The fusion attempt was on the verge of failing, but for some reason, it was unable to destroy either of the two artifacts. This pain kept increasing to levels which Daniel did not believe possible, until every part of his body felt as if it was on fire.

    The agony that Daniel felt was so intense, that he could not even scream, and it went on until, denied of the chance of failure, the two artifacts finally merged into one. When that happened, the pain instantly waned, leaving Daniel on his knees, gasping for air.

    The shock brought by this sudden painsted longer than the pain itself, only stopping when, with the help of Aeron mental powers, Daniel finally managed to calm down. "Are you okay?" Asked Aeron with worry. Pain was not something that could be empathized with, so even though Aeron had guessed what Daniel had felt, all he could empathize with, were his feelings of panic and desperation thatsted for as long as the pain was present.

    "I-I am o-okay.." stuttered Daniel before swallowing a mouthful of saliva. He then stood up as straight as he could, and took a few deep breaths of constructed air.

    After calming himself down, he noticed that the Door to Dream State, the artifact in which they were staying in, felt differently than before. While the artifact¡¯s cultivation hadn¡¯t changed, and still emanated powerful mental essence, the threshold were different from before, and by simply showing the intent of wanting to walk through them, the barrier would disappearpletely.

    "I am assuming things went well." Said Aeron before trying to feel the differences in the artifact. It did not take long for him to realize that now, even if he wanted, he would not be able to retake possession over the artifact, as scanning the artifact did not feel different than scanning Daniel himself. "Do you think you can still do it?" He then asked with uncertainty.

    "We will know only after we try." Said Daniel before opening each threshold. He then stretched his left arm, and opened his hand with his palm facing up.

    Back in Daniel¡¯s, which was now floating in the endless space while covered by Daniel¡¯s spatial measures, to the shock of those who inhabited around it, a small ind rose from the water, and began to fly in the direction of the ck castle at an incredible speed.

    The inhabitants of the city which surrounded the ck castle looked with shock as the floating ind approached, and right when it appeared that it would crash against it, the ind shrunk in size until it reached the size of an adult¡¯s fist.

    This small ind pierced through therge entrance of the castle, and before anyone could stop it, it reached the training room where Aeron had helped Daniel train his mentalplexity for the past few months. Without losing a bit of its motion, the fist-sized ind directly entered the Door to Dream State, and barged through one threshold after another, only to stop once it was above Daniel¡¯s hand.

    As the small ind reached his hand, Daniel put his arm down, allowing the ind to stay right in the middle of the room. He then said, "Let¡¯s go," and along with Aeron, Left the artifact.

    At this point, the artifact was now a part of Daniel, just like his was. He could feel the internal part from the outside, and could control it however he wanted. So with nothing but a thought, he erased the cultivation of the artifact, and allowed it to absorb the power emanated by the small-sized ind.

    -----

    For the following few days, the two observed as every bit of power was absorbed by the portion of Daniel¡¯s, and recycled as ownerless true immortal essence. This true immortal essence was a form of power which could refine the body, the mind, and the spirit of a cultivator all at the same time, and could be found nowhere else in the universe.

    Originally, the Door to the Dream State would consume people¡¯s consciousness until nothing would be left. However, Daniel¡¯s body technically existed in two separate parts, and while his consciousness was safe in his body, the other part emanated the same form of power, which was formed equally by the three kinds of essence. Thanks to that, he had been able to nurture the artifact without losing his life, although having to feel his power be constantly depleted for as long as he left a portion of his body into it.

    After more than ten days, the power within the artifact had reached the level of ten phases peryer, allowing anyone who could reach the fifthyer, to be able to cultivate by absorb true essence of the fiftieth phase.

    Unfortunately, contrary to mental power, true essence had turned the artifact into a mindless cultivation resource, and resources, had limited power. The absorption of this power would drain the artifact, which would require a few hours to be recovered.. making it impossible for arge number of people to cultivate in it at the same time for long periods of time.

    "Seems to be working." said Daniel while sending the small ind back.

    "Was it worth it? You will never be able to cultivate in it." Responded Aeron with confusion.

    "You and I both know this was never meant for me to cultivate."

    "I know." Said Aeron, looking proudly at therge door, which instead of glowing with the green light of mental power, shone with the pure white light of true immortal essence. "The Secret Realm of Hiel Academy.. You know that as soon as someone gets a whiff of this, we are probably dead, right?" He then added.

    "Oh yeah." Responded Daniel as a smile formed on his face. He then added, "Let¡¯s go."

    "Where are we going?"

    Daniel turned to look at Aeron, and with a grin, he asked, "Wasn¡¯t Than close to the state of immortality?"

 Chapter 432 No Fame Without Infamy

    One yearter.

    In thest twelve months, the civilization controlled by the universal government went through a deep change.. A change provoked by rumors. Rumors that a new path of cultivation had been born. A path that could not bepared to others, and which eradicated the limits of cultivation that, until now, were considered absolute.

    These rumors originated by the rare sightings of a few specific individuals. People whom had been able to ascend all three paths of humanity without having to give up on any of them. These people were looked at with awe, and they all had one thing inmon. Their ce of origin.

    This ce, was Hiel Academy.

    After the refinement of the Mindhive¡¯s artifact, Daniel had introduced the academy¡¯s new sacred ground to the members of his group, and along with it, had granted them a new method of cultivation. The path of true immortality.

    This path was originally meant to be kept a secret, but despite the efforts, unless willing to cage the members of the academy to his, he could not stop the word from spreading. After all, the students of the academy were thousands, and each of them was part of a world beyond the academy, of which Daniel and his group were not part of. This left them with no other choice but to let the word spread.

    Despite theck of aplishments, this discovery had elevated Hiel Academy to being one of the most prestigious academies of the whole universe, as well as the best one amongst the academies which were based outside of the Universal Government, leading to people from all over the universe to want to attend to it.

    This massive number of students, who longed for nothing but the best, presented themselves in front of each branch of the Hielpany like a swarm of angry wasps, hoping to pay or tter their way into this mythical academy.

    Of this impressive number of young cultivators, none was rejected. What stopped them from attending it, however, were the academy¡¯s strict requirements, which were the cause for why only an average of one student out of ten thousand applicants were allowed in.

    The number of spies present amongst these applicants was surprisingly high, and their hope was to learn the new method of cultivation and bring it back to their own families and factions.

    The eptance ratio of Hiel Academy increased its prestige, as well as the mystery that surrounded its legendary founder. However, along with the fame, came the infamy.

    Fearful of Daniel¡¯s power, most factions,panies and groups had decided to avoid opposing his decisions to keep his methods secret directly, and instead, decided to scheme in the darkness of their own homes. Naturally, that did not mean that there weren¡¯t any factions who dared to oppose them openly, which in possession of great influence and power within the government¡¯s territory, had shown their outrage towards Daniel, whom had holed up in his own, while the government faced the greatest threat since its birth.

    This outrage was a clear exaggeration, and its purpose was only to rile up the nearly infinite cultivators within the known universe against Daniel. In their mind, a secret was only worth to be kept as long as it was not kept from them, and if they could not be in on the secret, they might as well fight for it to be public knowledge.

    Nevertheless, this campaign found little sess. A demonstration would have been effective, but the impossibility of evening close to reaching Daniel¡¯s, made any effort pointless.

    Left with no choice, many coalitions of groups had attempted to barge their way into the branches of Hielpany, but the very moment someone with ill intent tried to set foot into the territory of Daniel¡¯s group, the branch would immediately shut down, never to be opened again on that.

    While most of these groups were of no concern to Daniel, he was tormented by those who acted in the shadows. Those who backed the outspoken ones, and whose main purpose was to test this renowned method, and judge whether it couldpare to their own. The major factions, and the universal government itself.

    -----

    Second Layer of testing, former headquarters of Hiel Academy.

    Ever since Daniel had managed to reunite with his friends, the dimension which separated thepany from Hiel City had be superfluous. The headquarters of thepany, as well as the millions who inhabited Daniel¡¯s pocket dimension, had moved to his.

    The dimension which was formerly used as a hub for cultivators to deal directly with thepany had now be the core of a spatial formation. This formation had two purposes. To connect Hielpany with its branches, as well as work as a trap for those who tried to force their way into Daniel¡¯s.

    After the official opening of Hiel Academy, this dimension had taken the name of Second Layer of Testing, and had be a ce where those applied for Hiel academy, would be evaluated ording to Daniel¡¯s requirements.

    "Next." said an old woman from the other side of a small wooden desk, with a weak tone.

    This woman was currently looking at a lineposed of tens of thousands of people, who looked at her with confusion. This line was contained in a massive white room inside which was nothing but the desk, and the woman herself.

    Nobody was sure of when or who had created this line. After all, there was no cultivator to impose order, and the old woman that was tasked with judging them, was amon mortal.

    As soon as the old woman spoke, a young and beautiful woman with an aloof expression and provoking clothes, approached the desk. It only took a look at her to cause two types of reactions. Awe towards her wealthy upbringing, or attraction towards her stunning appearance. Next to her, was a girl in her early teens. Her behaviour was extremely polite, and she always stood next, and a step back from the young woman, as dictated by the rules of her job as a handmaid.

    "I am Nia, princess of-"

    "You don¡¯t pass." Said the olddy before the young woman could finish presenting herself.

    "WHAT?!" Shouted the princess with shock. She and her parents had rehearsed an entire presentation based on showcasing the political power of their family, which in theory, should have assured a spot in the academy, but before she could even mention of which nation she was a princess, she had been rejected. "I won¡¯t allow this! Call whoever is in charge! RIGHT NOW!" She added with dissatisfaction. While not at all influential whenpared to ces like Hiel Academy, this princess was still a cultivator, and as such, she could not stand to be rejected by a mortal.

    "I am in charge of this test, Princess. This is my task." Said the olddy before turning to look at the person behind the pair, and adding, "Next."

    The anger the princess was feeling was uncontroble. For months her doting father, who before had never bothered her with a task, had tormented her to make sure that she would be epted into Hiel Academy. That was the first time her adoring father had given her a responsibility, and she had failed miserably. Too much for her to bear, she stood up with anger, and started to pressure the olddy with the power of her cultivation. "Then take out someone worthy of judging me." She then added with a threatening tone.

    Suddenly, before the old woman could even show a response to the princess¡¯s actions, the extremely tall roof of the white room waspletely torn apart by two massive sets of teeth, which uncovered the immense body of a dragon.

    The head of the dragon alone was as big as a mountain, and with each breath he released down onto this group of cultivators, he was able to fill the massive room with the smell of sulfur. "Is there a problem?" Asked Xargy as his crystal green eyes slowly lit aze with the intensity of two small stars.

    The princess looked up with horror.

    The shock of seeing a fully developed dragon had forced her to digress mentally, to a point where she could only spew the mostmon phrase she would use when feeling threatened. "I-I-I am a P-P-Princess.. Y-You-" The intent of this phrase was usually to intimidate, but the way it had been said, made it sound more like a plea.

    "AH AH AH!! This is beyond ridiculous. Do you always threaten a dragon with the title of a princess? I have no tower, nor mountain top to chain you to! Move along." Responded Xargy after letting out a heartyugh. Augh so powerful, that most of the applicants could not help but fall on their knees from the pressure. Their instincts were screaming to run away as fast as possible.

    The ridicule the princess felt was enough to wake her up from the shocked state which seeing Xargy had caused her to fall in. She had been embarrassed by him, and she wished nothing but to go back to her castle.. A safe ce where nobody would dare tough at her, or ignore her words.

    "L-Let¡¯s go!" Said the princess to her handmaid before turning around, and walking down the long line of people who were either focused onughing at her, or looking at the immense dragon who they knew could destroy most of their homes by himself.

    The handmaid strengthened her back, and with disappointment, prepared to follow her master. Before she could move, however, she noticed the old woman, who suddenly dry coughed on her wide sleeve.

    Aware that this olddy could not have gone through all of these events without any form of consequence, the girl approached her, and rubbed the back of the olddy the same way she used to when her grandmother was still alive. She then took a clean tissue from one of her sleeves, and handed it over to her.

    Once the olddy regained her bearings, the girl bowed politely towards her. Prepared to leave in pursuit of her mistress, she was stopped by the olddy¡¯s raspy voice, which said, "You pass."

    -----

    Mindhive¡¯s artifact, firstyer.

    "Stopining, you brat. Do you even know how many people in the universe would want to be in your ce?"

    "Uncle, you always say that if I cultivate here, I will be the strongest being in the universe.. If you don¡¯t let me take a break and y with shade, as soon as I will be stronger than you, I¡¯ll beat you up!"

    "AHAHAH! You will never beat me. I survived fourteen years of eating your mother¡¯s cooking. I am basically invincible."

    This chat between Daniel and a bored Than was interrupted the moment Fyro walked through the entrance of the artifact, and with an expression more serious than his already naturally serious one, he said, "It happened again."

    Daniel exhaled with annoyance. He then turned to look at his nephew, and said, "You can y with him until Ie back. After that, I don¡¯t want to hear any more excuses. Alright?"

    As Daniel finished speaking, Than showed a wide smile, and nodded energetically.

    "Good." Said Daniel right before a portion of his shadow detached itself from the rest, and dashed in Than¡¯s direction, turning into a demonic wolf cub right before reaching him.

    For a moment, Daniel watched as Than happily started to y with his wolf cub. He then turned towards Fyro, and asked, "Who is it?"

    "Giova, twenty-two years old. Her disappearance was reported ten minutes ago. I didn¡¯t notice anything." Responded Fyro with an apologetic tone.

    Noticing the guilty expression of Fyro¡¯s face, Daniel gave him a friendly pat on his shoulder, and said, "Do not worry. I will find her by the end of today."

    The two then disappeared without leaving any trace.

 Chapter 433 Consequences of Greed Part 1

    Spira, Anima gxy, territory of the Spiritual Faction.

    In the depths of the spiritual faction, was a deserted called Spira. A which, despite itsck of inhabitants and resources, was still considered an extremely valuable celestial object, which for the Spiritual faction, was of invaluable historic significance.

    What made this so important, was the fact that it was alien to this dimension, and had entered the known universe from a tear between the then unknown spiritual in, and the empty space.

    The first person to discover this, an unregistered white rock that roamed an already mapped gxy, was none other than the person who in the future would be called the Spiritual Emperor. In this, he had discovered a connection between the two dimensions, and thanks to it, he had been able to create a path of cultivation which could rival that of the mental factions, and the factions whose cultivation path revolved around the use of innate physical powers.

    After embracing the powers of the spiritual in, the Spiritual Emperor had been able to create new passages between the two dimensions by using his overly powerful connection to it, leaving the abandoned of Spira as a relic of old fit for the cultivation of spiritual essence. However, that was not the only way this was used.

    Its belonging to a different dimension allowed the spiritual faction to control it simrly to how Daniel controlled his, making it a perfect space to conduct secret operations. One of these operations, was the imprisonment of the faction¡¯s enemies.

    Hidden in the depths of this small, was a facilitypletely made out of ownerless spiritual essence, which was kept in ce by multiple formations. These formations would forcibly convert the spiritual essence into the kind of mana required to create the facilities, and prevent them from falling apart.

    In one of these facilities, usually upied by captured outcasts of the spiritual faction and only a few guards, were now some of the big names of the spiritual faction. Each of them in the shape of dignified entities shrouded in white clouds, and covered by a brilliant glow which, if seen by an ignorant mortal, would cause them to be confused for deities.

    All of these high ranking spiritual warriors were ascended spirits. Humans with immense magical power paired with amon mind, and a mortal body.

    These otherwise busy entities would usually spend their time focusing on the secret ns of expansion of the spiritual faction, but now, they had been summoned for another reason. In front of them, right behind amon looking set of iron bars, was a young woman.

    Around this woman¡¯s neck was a ne formed by a green pearl attached to a simple thread. A ne which anyone with a basicprehension of mental power, would recognize as a mental formation which would cause its wearer to enter a state of permanent mental tiredness. A state of mind which could only be cured by a deep sleep.

    Despite the clearly weaker cultivation of the young woman, her presence was a source of great interest for the spiritual warriors, who looked at her with confusion, while chatting with one another. "How can this be possible?" and "how do we get the information out of her?" were the two biggest topics of conversation, which were repeated over and over again due to theck of a satisfactory response.

    "I think it¡¯s time we wake her up. I don¡¯t know how long we have." Said one of the glowing figures with a high pitched and unpleasant voice which clearly belonged to a woman.

    "Our agreements were to wait for the others to arrive. If we break them, we might be left out of whatever the others discover." responded a second feminine, yet pleasant and melodic voice.

    To interrupt the conversation between the two, was the husky voice of an old man, which said, "Leave her like this. If things go wrong, we still have the ground advantage."

    The group of spiritual warriors observed the girl for various hours, and the more they looked at her, the more impressed they felt. Her body emanated a power which appeared to belong to each form of human essence at the same time. Essences that instead of hindering one another, were merged into one.

    What was even more surprising, was the fact that this power, while not purely spiritual in nature, connected them to the spiritual in just like theirs did. A connection which drew the purest form of essence from the spiritual in, and that until now, could only be drawn by the members of the spiritual faction.

    "If this power is what I think it is.. If we cannot obtain it, we will have to destroy it before it falls in the hands of the government." Said one of the spiritual warriors. An old man which carried a high level of prestige, and whose few words had caught the attention of each and every other spiritual warrior present.

    What this old man said was exactly what hispanions were thinking. Such a pure form of power was unmatched, and even despite their immense strength, they could feel that nobody at the same level of cultivation could match a being in possession of this power. Not when a single cultivator had the ability of three.

    Between them, the mental factions, and the universal government, they were the ones that in case of a cooperation, would have the least amount of leverage at their disposal. After all, they were not the ones capable of reading minds, and while their control over the spiritual in would allow them to affect the spirits of immortal cultivators, the government was truly too vast for them to challenge.

    What they couldn¡¯t allow, was for the universal government alone to obtain Daniel¡¯s secret method of cultivation. This power was bound to change the fate of their civilization, and just like a weapon of mass destruction, was better destroyed than kept as a deterrent to maintain supremacy.

    "Forget it. If all that is left for us is to trust in the fact that the others will not screw us over, we might as well start before they. We cannot fail the emperor once again." Said the woman with with the high pitched and unpleasant voice before floating through the iron bars, and in front of the unconscious young woman. She then pointed her index at the green pearl, and with a faint flick of her wrist, removed it from around her neck.

    The moment the ne was removed, the young woman began to move around. She was still sleeping, but now that her mind was not stopped from its normal activity, she had now started to dream.

    The floating woman did not bother with trying to wake the girl up with conventional methods, and instead, focused on her power. Once able to get a hold of the young woman¡¯s spiritual-like essence, she began to manipte it into forcing her to feel the deepest forms of fear, desperation, and vulnerability.

    These feelings quickly changed the dream she was living into the most horrid of nightmares, which in a matter of seconds, wake her up violently from her sleep.

    Still exhausted by the effect of the mental formation, the young woman screamed with panic before immediately realizing that what she had gone through, was just a dream. However, her feelings were not calming down. Her heart palpitated as her spirit clouded her judgement, forcing her brain into ignore any attempt at logical thinking, and soon enough, she began to have a panic attack.

    In between drawn breaths, the young woman quickly realized what was happening, and what the source of this spiritual attack was. The spiritual entities that stood in front of her were forcing her into a weakened state of mind, and she already knew why.

    "Young woman. Your are only fearful of us because your dirty conscience is tarnishing your spirit." Said the spiritual warrior before slowly floating closer to the captive woman. Her tone, while unpleasant, felt caring, and in the eyes of an inexperienced cultivator, it would seem that she wanted to extend her help. This narrative was supported by her next words, "Your connection to the spiritual in is part of you, and this will never end, unless you get rid of what is troubling your spirit. Do you have something to get off your chest?"

    The other spiritual warriors did not oppose to the woman¡¯s actions. After all, they had limited options, and before cutting bridge with their captive, they had taken the habit to attempt the peaceful resolution. However, their holy appearance was dramatically opposed by their vicious intentions, which were led by greed, just like that of everybody else.

    "I-ugh.. I am a good p.. Person. I will not b-be cheated by you.." Said the young woman while struggling to breath in, and holding her chest in fear.

    The most powerful stages of spiritual cultivation were a mystery for most of the universe, and the sighting of one of these individuals, would usually confuse those who witnessed them. Their appearance was impable, and they would initially portray themselves as benevolent beings. This had allowed for many of their interrogation to end up sessfully thanks to the misconception that, instead of being malevolent kidnappers, they were there to help in a moment of need.

    Unfortunately, there was a group of people with whom these methods were useless, and these people were mental cultivators.

    Capable to maintain a calm mind, mental cultivators would not allow for the feelings formed in the spirit, to dictate their actions. In fact, the resistance of spiritual attacks was one of the ways mental cultivators used to refine their mental power, and an example of this, was Aeron.

    Currently, the young woman was included in the realm of mental warriors.

    Slightly surprised by the mental fortitude of such a rtively weak cultivator, the woman¡¯s attitude changedpletely. The benevolent smile on her face turned into a look of indifference, and her voice became as cold as the bottom of the sea.

    "I will ask you a question. Lie, and I will find a way to rip your spirit out, and drag it back into the spiritual in." She said before quietlynding on the ground. "Are you in possession of the tri-cultivation method?" She asked, revealing the name which the members of the universal government had given to the path of true immortality created by Daniel.

    "No." Responded the young woman.

    Unbeknownst to her, while she had responded, her spirit had revealed to her questioner whether she was telling the truth, or lying. That was one of the powers of spiritual cultivators. A power which allowed for a powerful spiritual entity to see the changes in another person¡¯s spirit, and read in it the emotional changes, as well as pry into that person¡¯s honesty.

    The young woman had not lied, so when she answered, her spiritual-like power remained calm, unperturbed about the menacing presence of spirits of a much higher level than her own.

    "Is the Outcast the only one in possession of this power?"

    "No." said the young woman. The attack on her spirit was too much for her mind to withstand, and forced her to be unable to hold her tongue. Once again, she did not lie.

    After finally seeing the hope of obtaining what they were looking for, the female spiritual warrior increased the pressure by a hundred times for a few seconds, only to bring it back to a reasonable level right after. She then said, "This is nothingpared to what you will feel if you don¡¯t tell the truth. Exin to me the method to obtain this power."

    What the young woman was feeling was beyond traumatic, and if she could have, she would have chosen to have all of her limbs cut off before having to face this torture. At a loss of words, she was barely able to mutter, "I-I c-can¡¯t.."

    "Fine. You have asked for this." Said the female spiritual warrior before starting to increase the pressure once again, but she then stopped abruptly. She and the other spiritual warriors looked towards the sky, where they had felt the arrival of multiple people.

    "You did not n to break her before we managed to get her, did you?" Asked a voice that entered the weak minds of the spiritual warriors by going through their immensely powerful spiritual essence. A voice which soon continued by saying, "Her memories have been removed. If you continue like this, this whole operation will be a waste of time."

    As the disembodied voice finished speaking, in the skies right above the building appeared ten individuals. Five of them in possession of powerful immortal essence, and five men whose faces were covered by mask formed out of solidified mental power.

    The voice belonged to one of the five mental warriors, who continued by saying, "We will take it from here."

 Chapter 434 Consequences of Greed Part 2

    The interrogation of the young woman had been interrupted by the arrival of two more factions, the high immortals of the universal government, and the mental warriors of the mental factions. From the way the spiritual warriors had reacted, it was clear that their appearance was programmed, and that they were being expected.

    "We will take it from here." said one of the mental warriors while slowly approaching the surface of the, along with the rest of his group. Their arrival was immediately weed by the spiritual warriors, who suddenly stopped their interrogation, and appeared in mid air right in front of these cultivators.

    "We were just setting the mood for your arrival." Said the oldest of the spiritual warriors, as the glow that surrounded his body started to dim, revealing his appearance as a noble looking man with sharp features, healthy physique, and white hair and beard. From his eyes, came a white vapor so dense, that it could be confused with milk.

    Without saying nothing more, the group reached the prison in the depths of Spira, and there, they finally met with the prisoner. "This is the seventh attempt. How sure are you that you weren¡¯t followed this time?" Asked one of the members of the Universal Government.

    This was not the first time these groups of people had tried to kidnap one of Daniel¡¯s group members. Unfortunately, each and every time, the agents sent would disappear before ever being able to safely return to their base. This had forced the three factions to reconsider their methods, and in the end, seek an alliance with one another.

    The government was guilty of at least half of those failed attempts, so when the capability of the spiritual warrior was questioned, the old spiritual cultivator said with a hint of irritation, "We may not have failed to begin with, if the information that we have received from the government were not incorrect." He then added after a short break, "We are sure no one followed us. Our actions went unnoticed."

    "It does not matter if you were spotted. We both know that if one of Iewah¡¯s children decides to find someone, there is nothing we can do to stop them. So we don¡¯t have much time." Said one of the mental warriors before approaching the young woman, who was still taking in deep breaths, and trying to calm herself down.

    The young woman backed away the moment she noticed the mental warrior approach her, but she could do nothing as his mental power surrounded her, stopping her in ce. He then ced a hand over her shoulder, and after forming a connection with her, entered her mind.

    For the following minutes, the mental warrior showed a number of different expressions, ranging from anger, annoyance, and resignation. After five full minutes, he turned towards hispanions, and said, "Nothing."

    "You got nothing?? Memory exploration is your speciality. Even if a memory has been removed, you should be able to restore it. Nothing at all??" Asked a second mental warrior, causing the members of the government and spiritual faction to frown with suspicion. The three factions clearly did not trust each other, and this exchange could be considered truthful, as much as it could be considered a performance put up to keep the method to themselves.

    Their worries were eased when the first mental warrior said, "Not exactly nothing. I have new information, but nothing about the method, location, or even requirements for that path of cultivation to be practiced were kept within the girl¡¯s mind. Also, her memories are not missing. They were twisted as she went through the process."

    "How can you say that?" Asked one of the spiritual warriors with confusion.

    "Because in her mind, she cultivated as an immortal cultivator until the peak of immortality, then stopped, and lived her life as a mortal for a week. After that week, she woke up from her sleep, and she was already like this." Responded the mental warrior, describing everything he had seen.

    "The number of people with a betterprehension of memory than you can be counted with the fingers of one hand. How is it possible that there is no trace of what her eyes, nose, and ears picked up?" Asked the second mental warrior.

    The first mental warrior lowered his head in embarrassment, then said, "It¡¯s him. Aeron, the outcast of my faction."

    "Damn it!" burst out one of the mental warriors, which along with the first one, was part of the Psionic Dimension, and had deeply regretted casting out a talent like Aeron.

    The members of the universal government were those with the most knowledge about children of Iewah, so the failure of this mission was not a surprise to them. What they at least hoped to obtain, was any additional information. "There is nothing you have learned?" asked one of them to the mental warrior whom had explored the woman¡¯s memories.

    "Yes." Responded the mental warrior before taking a short pause. Once everybody else was waiting for him to reveal what he had discovered, he said, "They call it true immortality. A path that unlike your high immortality, allows one to merge mind, spirit, and ki into a single kind of power called true essence."

    "From what I have seen, true essence should only be obtainable during the ascension, in a method only known to the first Outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction, and Aeron, the outcast of our faction."

    Ever since Daniel had obtained the Door to Dream State, the universal government had learned about his powers. They knew that even by losing his body and spirit, he could rely on his mind to live on. However, for all they knew, that was simply a limited power granted by his system, or an ability granted by a mental artifact produced by Aeron, the discarded prodigy of the mental factions.

    Now, on the other hand, the universal government had not only learned that his mental power was as powerful as his spirit and body, but that his mind had merged to his immortal essence, making him a being beyond anything a high immortal could be. Even worse than that, he had a method to produce these types of cultivators en masse, and the power to keep this method a secret from them.

    "This can¡¯t be allowed to continue." Said one of the members of the government, who knew exactly how dangerous to their civilization, this discovery could be. Ideally, they would have used this method of cultivation to improve the power of the government, and gain an advantage against the invading civilization, but since there was no way for them to obtain it, only one path was left for them to thread. Destruction.

    "To believe that the most powerful methods of cultivation would be sub-categories.." muttered one of the spiritual cultivators with shock, before turning to look at the members of the universal government, and adding, "If we have to exterminate him, we¡¯ll have to do it as soon as possible."

    The meaning of this person¡¯s words was clear. Daniel had to disappear before he could be powerful enough to threaten not only the factions with which he had a bone to pick with, but the government itself.

    After a quick nod in agreement, one of the mental warriors said, "We will also need help.. He managed to stay undetected until now. I assume that only another chi-" Suddenly, the mental warrior stopped talking, and along with the other members of his group, he turned to look at an empty point in the sky. "He is here." He said.

    "Who is here?" Asked the old man, part of the spiritual cultivators, with confusion. To answer him, were the shocked eyes of the members of both of the other groups, who looked at him as if they had seen a ghost. "What is-" he started to ask, before being interrupted by the gentle pressure of an arm that came to rest around his neck, and above his shoulders.

    "If you wanted to know more about my people, you should have asked." Said Daniel right next to the ear of the spiritual cultivator, which felt a shiver go down his back.

    For a spiritual cultivator like him, to be touched was the worst possible scenario. Contrary to the bodies of the mental warriors, which were entirely made out of solidified mental power, spiritual warriors still possessed a physical body, which made them weak against physical attacks. Their fighting method would always revolve around the usage of their incredibly pure spiritual essence to ovee their enemies with ranged attacks, emotional control, and control of omnipresent mana.

    Unfortunately, Daniel had alreadye close to him, and as a physical cultivator amongst other things, he could break his body apart whenever he wanted. At the moment, he had be the hostage.

    "H-How did you get here?" Asked the old spiritual cultivator with a nervous tone.

    Daniel ignored the question, and instead looked at the young woman that was gasping for air while on the ground.

    To speak, was the leading member of the group which belonged to the universal government, who took a step forward, and while looking at the young woman, said, "Outcast. I suggest you don¡¯t do anything stupid. You are not the first one of your kind the government has ever faced, and you have a lot more to lose than your peers."

    It did not take long for Daniel to understand the meaning behind these words. He was more mysterious than his peers, but at the same time, his weakness was more evident. His group.

    "Well, you have been kidnapping the members of my group regardless of my action, so why don¡¯t you make a proposition, speaker of the universal government?" Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone and showing a polite smile, yet keeping his arm around the neck of the old spiritual cultivator. At the same time, he reminded the member of the universal government that what he would say next, was bound to change the future of his civilization in one way, or another.

    This reminder caused the mind of the immortal cultivator to be shaken, forcing him to take a few moments to rpose himself. He then straightened his back, and after quietly sucking a bit of air through his teeth, he said, "We want the method of cultivation of true essence. Give it to us, and we will put an end to the operations against your group."

    "And what would I gain from this?" Asked Daniel.

    "Your group will be a standing faction under the universal government. We will remove your outcast status, and support you against any member of Iewah¡¯s faction who wishes to harm you, or the members of your group. As well as uncountable resources for your academy." Responded the member of the universal government.

    After listening to this proposal, Daniel¡¯s brows raised with surprise. He then pressed his lips together, and nodded to himself a few times, showing his interest. The then said, "That is an offer if I have ever heard one.."

    Hopeful about a positive oue, the members of the three groups took a deep breath in relief, only to feel their hearts stop the moment Daniel disappeared from where he was standing.

    "I have a better idea." He said as the members of the spiritual faction started to feel an immense power press over each part of their bodies. The sound of broken bones spread through the entire room along with their screams, as that was the only thing they could do while their bodies were crushed into an unrecognizable ball of powdered bones, andpressed flesh. Only one of the spiritual warriors, the old man whose shoulder Daniel was resting on, had been spared.

    However, that was not the end of it.

    Before the other two groups could even react, Daniel appeared in the middle of the group of immortal warriors, and touched the bodies of four out of five cultivators with either his hands, or his feet. Soon after, the touched parts of their bodies started to pull their immortal essence towards it, and consume it as into a ck hole of nothingness which had suddenly formed.

    The mental warriors had had enough time to react, and their first action was to pressure Daniel¡¯s mind with the entirety of their power.. Unfortunately, they were shocked to see that their actions had no effect. While weaker than their own, Daniel¡¯s mind power felt like rubber, and while it couldpressed, it was immensely difficult to pierce.

    They immediately recognized this power, as Mind Fortitude.

    This moment of surprise had disastrous results, as it gave Daniel enough time to teleport right next to them, and lock four of them in ce into spatial cages. He then turned the spatial power of which these cages were made of, into shattered space, causing their pseudo bodies and consciousnesses to be torn apart by the chaotic fragments of space.

    Of the fifteen cultivators present, only one member of the mental faction, one spiritual warrior, and the members of the universal government were still alive. Of thetter group, four members struggled as the ck holes attached to their bodies by Daniel absorbed every bit of essence in their bodies before they could even use it.

    "What is the meaning of this?" Said the immortal cultivator before taking a step back.

    Daniel slowly walked towards his group, and after looking at him, he solidified the space around the heads of the man¡¯s fourpanions, and twisted it by one hundred and eighty degrees, breaking their neck, and killing them on the spot. The temperature of the room seemed to drop, as he said, "I don¡¯t know how many more time do I have to bite you, before you realize that I am fucking venomous."

 Chapter 435 Inevitable War

    The surviving members of each group looked at Daniel with horror. Theirpanions had been exterminated in a matter of moments, and the only reason why they were still breathing, was because Daniel had allowed them to.

    The fear they felt was crippling, and forced them to stand dumbfounded, as Daniel approached the young woman and ced his hand over her head. He then injected heavy amounts of healing essence, whichbined with his power of Mental Fortitude, allowed him to help her calm down, and leave the panicked state she had been in for the past few minutes.

    "Are you alright?" He asked before gently cupping his hand underneath the young woman¡¯s jaw, and perking her head up. While still unsettled about the whole event, the young woman immediately recognized Daniel as the first student of Hiel academy. A young man that was considered the strongest by any of the academy¡¯s core students, despite never having shown his powers.

    "W-What.. What are you doing here.." she asked with confusion, unaware that Daniel was, along with being the first student, the founder of the academy and first outcast of Iewah¡¯s faction. The person whose she, and tens of millions of others lived in.

    As Daniel tried to reassure the members of his group, the three cultivators looked at one another with uncertainty. In their minds, were ideas of escaping, pleading for mercy, or even giving their all into a final attempt against Daniel. However, before they could act, Daniel stood back up from his kneeling position, and without looking at them, he asked, "You know why you are still standing, right?"

    Sure that a wrong answer to this question could easily mean their death, the three started to analyze their situation, and soon, they came to a conclusion. A conclusion which in their minds made absolutely no sense, and which they refused to mention for fear of Daniel¡¯s reaction. It was only after Daniel turned to look at them with expectant eyes, that the surviving member of the universal government said, "You want us to report back.."

    "Right on the money." Said Daniel before turning to look at him. He then added, "Apparently, killing every one of your agents was not enough for you to understand. This time, I hope that leaving a few witnesses alive will have a different oue. Do not disappoint me on this."

    Not interested in hearing a response, Daniel quietly grabbed the wrist of the young woman, and disappeared without making a sound, or leaving a single trace of spatial essence.

    The three cultivators remained quiet for a few seconds, until finally, the silence was interrupted by the surviving member of the universal government, who said, "This matter is not something that the government will leave unsettled." he then turned to look at the surviving mental warrior and spiritual cultivator, and added, "You two areing with me. The senate will want to talk to you as well."

    As he finished speaking, the member of the universal government touched one of the rings in the middle finger of his left hand with his thumb. This unnoticeable action caused for a simple door to appear in front of them, which they then used to reach the core of the universal government¡¯s territory.

    -----

    Back on Alcazar, the three presented themselves in front of the senate, who after waiting for days for a report about the result of their mission, weed them in the moment their arrival was perceived by those in control of the space around the capital.

    "Octa, we have been expecting you." Said the current speaker. His expression initially reflected his high expectations, which were soon put aside the moment he noticed that something was wrong, "Why is it only you? And why are they here?" he asked.

    "Mister Speaker, senators, we have failed to fulfill the primary objective of the mission, however, we bring new information, as well as bad news." Said the surviving member of the universal government to the senators, after a faint, yet respectful hint on acknowledgement.

    The speaker quickly straightened his back on his chair, and said, "Tell us about what you have found out first."

    "Sir, we have discovered a few things about their method of cultivation." responded the member of the universal government, making the senators sit on the edge of their seats. He then continued by saying, "It is called the path of True Immortality, and contrary to what we believed, it does not allow one to be a high immortal, and a mental warrior at the same time. What it does, is to merge the three aspects of humanity into one, just like our spirit is merged with our bodies."

    While these two concepts would appear identical to amon mortal, for an immortal cultivator the difference was abysmal. After all, merging two powers not only allowed a cultivator to obtain the strengths of both paths, but changed their natural power into a more pure form of essence. A power which was believed to be unmatched in the universe, at least until Daniel¡¯s appearance.

    "Go on." said the speaker, who epassed the curiosity of each of the senators into two simple words.

    "We have not been able to obtain a method, but we have a few hints on the origin of that power." Said the survivor of the universal government before turning to look at the masked mental warrior, whose eyes moved on each of the observing senators with fear.

    While nervous, the mental warrior remembered what he and the other two survivors had prepared, and as soon as the immortal cultivator looked at him, he took a step forward, and after bowing politely, he said, "Senators of the Universal Government. Each relevant memory contained in the target¡¯s mind has been masterfully removed. I pride myself with being one of the few who could undo such a job, but it appears that I have overestimated myself."

    It did not take long for the mental warrior to realize that the senators had close to no interest to his apologetic behaviour, so instead of waiting for words of reprimand, or constion, he continued by saying, "While I have failed in my initial job, I was able to see the memories prior, and seeding our target¡¯s change in powers."

    "Get to it. What did you discover?" Asked the speaker, now impatient.

    "The first unaltered memory of the young woman prior to her change in powers, showed her as a simple immortal. A week¡¯s worth of memoriester, she had be a true immortal." Said the mental warrior before taking a small pause. Only after seeing the invested expressions of the senators, did he continue by saying, "Our theory is that the method of bing a true immortal is not a path that must be followed, but the ability of the Outcast, or even an object."

    "What makes you think that it could be an object?" asked one of the senators.

    The mental warrior turned to look at the senator who had just spoken, and responded by saying, "None of the young woman¡¯s memories were altered before the point in time in which she became a true immortal, and we were able to confirm that each and everyone of those who achieved the same, did so after the Outcast came into possession of the Door to the Dream State, the artifact left to the mental factions, by the Mindhive."

    "Interesting." said the speaker while stroking his chin. He then asked after a long minute spent in a pensive state, "What news do you bring? Does it have something to do with why the majority of your groups are missing?"

    It was once again the survivor of the universal government who raised his head towards the speaker, and said, "The Outcast discovered us. We have tried to reason with him, but he started a massacre without showing signs of consideration. We were spared only so that we could report his intention to not coborate with us."

    This news surprised the senators, who knew more than anybody else that Daniel did not belong to a major faction who could afford to instigate them. He was the leader of a rtively small group, and like the other group leaders amongst Iewah¡¯s faction, they were not at a level where they could challenge a colossal group like the universal government. Especially if supported by the other factions.

    To them, Daniel was a kid covered in golden jewels and dressed in immeasurably expensive clothes. Impressive to see, but still a kid.

    "So this is how it is going to be." Said the speaker before turning to look at the other senators, who nodded at each other, while sending messages through sound essence to one another for various minutes. Once they stopped, the speaker turned to look at the surviving mental warrior and spiritual cultivator, and said, "Report back to your factions."

    "Senator, do you have a message you wish us to report to our leaders?" Asked the spiritual cultivator, hoping to be tasked with something important enough to divert the fury of the Spiritual Emperor, after letting him down for the umpteenth time.

    The speaker suddenly stopped stroking his chin, and after crossing the fingers of his hands above his knee, said, "Surveince and negotiations have failed.. The government and the annexed factions will be going to war against the Outcast."

    -----

    After rescuing the member of his group, Daniel went back to his, where he was weed by a grateful Fyro, and an annoyed group of people whose job was to report any sort of problem that arose in his during his absence.

    A few dayster.

    Daniel and a few of his close friends were currently floating in mid air, observing the event that was taking ce underneath them just like hawks would look at mice. What they were looking at, was the massive line that had formed in front of the entrance to the Door of Dream State, which was known throughout the entire academy as the sacred grounds of Hiel Academy.

    "Are you sure that you want to open the artifact to the public?" Asked Edmund with evident doubt.

    "Do not worry about it. I have already locked the secondyer to anyone who does not fulfill the requirements of our group, and the moment someone will try to forcibly absorb the power in order to ascend, the power will solidify around them, and they will be pushed out." Responded Daniel while showing a satisfied expression.

    After merging his artifact with his own system, Daniel had discovered that the control he had over it, was vaster than what he had predicted. At the moment, he could set simple actions to the inanimate artifact, which would use its power to fulfill the orders of its owner.

    "Can I go back in? I am a step away from obtaining another one of the natural powers of us dragons." Said Xargy after seeing hundreds of young men and women rush into the ce where he had cultivated for the past few weeks, and that had helped his cultivation skyrocket to a level which only a few dragons who were ten times older than him had reached.

    "Will you cut that out? We have discussed this already. Your cultivation absorbs too much power, and too quickly. Every three days you spend in there, the artifact requires one just to recover. You will have to wait for the artifact to be more powerful." Responded Daniel with irritation. It was clear that this had not been the first time the two had had this conversation.

    "Whatever."

    "Why exactly do we need the students to reach the peak of immortality?" asked Heimart with confusion.

    Daniel did not respond right away, and instead looked at the great number of students who wished for nothing but to barge into the artifact, and be one of the mythical true cultivators that only this artifact could produce. After a few seconds spent quietly, he said, "Once they reach the peak of immortality, have anyone who isn¡¯t fit for our group graduate. Then send them back to their families. The rest will ascend, and help us with whates next."

    Daniel¡¯s tone was devoid of positivity, and that did not go unnoticed by his friends. Especially from Edmund, who looked back at him, and asked, "Whates next?"

    The response to this question, was a single word, "War".

 Chapter 436 Strange Encounters

    Daniel¡¯s decision to fall out with the Universal Government was not without consequences.

    Soon after the events of Spira, Daniel was forced to shut down the branches of Hielpany, and recall all of the members of his group back to his. At the same time, in order to limit the contacts which his group had with the factions and government he had offended, Daniel had sent back most of the students who would not be able to adapt to the ways of his group.

    These actions had turned Hiel academy from being amongst the most prestigious academies in the universe, to being a secluded academy that was nearly impossible to reach, or join. The outrage caused by this decision was beyond the limits of space, and reached the very edge of the territory of the universal government.

    While being separated by the rest of the government could have been a problem for Daniel and his group in the past, that was not the case anymore. Smaller cultivation resources could be secretly obtained within any auction house of the known universe by his agents, allowing the younger generation that inhabited Daniel¡¯s to cultivate without a problem.

    Even less problematic, was the necessity for high level cultivation resources, which had been substituted with the Sacred Grounds of Hiel academy. The former artifact of one of Iewah¡¯s children which had been turned into a nearly limitless source of power. As long as Daniel could feed it the power produced by his, the artifact would be able to recycle it into absorbable essence that could be used by the member of his group to cultivate.

    Just as upied, was the universal government. The ambassadors of every major and mid-sized faction were called to Alcazar, they were then informed about Daniel, and as stated in the agreement between their factions and the government, they were recruited into what was toe.

    The first factions to show up were the ones which had a history with Daniel. The corrupted faction, the spiritual faction, the parasitic faction, and the mental factions were the spearhead of this army. To refuse, were only two factions. The inhabitants of Hell, which by living independently inside a separate dimension were not forced by the same requirements of the other factions, and ironically, Iewah¡¯s faction.

    The absence of a clear base made Iewah¡¯s faction extremely difficult to attack. ording to the research conducted by many of the factions, Iewah was an entity that could move from to independently of boundaries or distance, as shown by the significant distance between the apparition of one of his children, and the other.

    The universal government had never truly been able toe into contact with Iewah. The person who took care of the factions affairs was one of Iewah¡¯s children, and was known as the Politician.

    During their assimtion into the government, the Politician had agreed to most of the government¡¯s demands, only asking for a condition in return. This condition ensures that in case the target of a military operation was one of Iewah¡¯s children, the faction would not operate as a group, and that the only thing that would stop any of them from joining the effort, was their own individual volition.

    In simpler terms, each child of Iewah was his own power, and unless ordered by Iewah himself, they could do anything they wished, even if it meant killing one another.

    This was only a half good news for Daniel, who for thest few weeks, had seen numerous armies appear in the vicinity of his. These groups would appear out of nowhere, and would interject his¡¯s trajectory. They would then approach him as if they knew that they were there, only to stare at the empty space as the orbited past, and far away from them.

    While the affiliation of these groups was often different, one detail was always the same. Each of these groups was guided by one of Iewah¡¯s children, who had decided to join the factions in their hunt for Daniel.

    What made them join was not Iewah¡¯s direct order, but their curiosity. All of them were in possession of unfathomable powers, and each was a special entity on their own ord, but Daniel was different. He was the first outcast. The one whom their father had taken a direct interest in and expel him from his graces. This made him special, and triggered the innatepetitiveness amongst their spirits.

    Each of these individuals could bring the factions¡¯ armies nearby Daniel¡¯s, and the only reason why Daniel was not forced to fight against one of Sewah¡¯s brothers and sisters on a daily basis, was thanks to his mental powers. With his powers of mental teleportation, Daniel was able to teleport his, as well as its inhabitants, out of danger without leaving traces of spatial essence, turning this constant chase into an enormous and impossible game of whack-a-mole.

    Meanwhile, throughout the universe, the conflict between the Outcast and the government was not the only rumors that caught the attention of anyone who was willing to listen. A trail of celestial bodies found destroyed, either cut cleanly into different parts, or turned red due to the blood spilled by its inhabitants. The strange behaviour of the elementals, who started to migrate towards the core of the elemental faction from all over the known universe, drawn by something, and eager to arrive to their destination. Parties that appeared to belong to the alien civilization, spotted far deep into the government¡¯s territory, gathering intelligence, spying, and at times, testing the patience of the owners of the territory in which they were trespassing.

    Each of these rumors could potentially be the point of attention of entire gxies, but together, they were able to cause a loss of faith in the stability universal government. Symbolizing the start of a chaotic era.

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s

    "Who was that one? Have you encountered him before?" Asked Nova to Daniel, right after teleporting away from the umpteeenth faction apanied by one of Iewah¡¯s children.

    "I have only met a handful of them." Responded Daniel with a casual tone while observing their new surroundings.

    "How were their powerspared to yours? Any hope in defeating any of them?" Asked Nova with curiosity. He had spent thousands of years in the void, where only spatial cultivators lived. Everything he had seen before reaching the stable dimension with Edmund was nothing but different forms of space, so for a long time, he could not help it but to enjoy the sight of so many magical and different forms of power.

    Just like Daniel¡¯s system, the powers of the other children of Iewah allowed them to locate his general position, forcing him to be in constant alert. It was only after he made sure that no other child of Iewah was waiting for him in his new location, that he turned to look at the surface of his, and before going back, he said, "I am as confident as a scorpion battling a centipede."

    "Uncle Dan, look at what Wolfie taught me!" Said Than right as he noticed Danielnd on his house¡¯s yard. Next to him, was Wolfie, the metal elemental born and grown into Daniel¡¯s group.

    Before Daniel could even greet his nephew, Than controlled the immortal essence he was emanating, and turned into metal. He then solidified it around his neck.

    "Why the neck? Why not the chest?" Asked Daniel with confusion.

    "Wolfie said that the weakest part of a man is the throat! That I have bones to protect my chest!" responded Than, slightly annoyed by theck of praise from his uncle.

    Daniel turned to look at Wolfie with an expression which spelled "what the hell are you teaching him?", to which Wolfie responded by shing his sword like teeth, before walking away.

    "It¡¯s good! But if you walk around with a que of metal around your neck, people will try to strike elsewhere. How about you try to evade before defending?" Said Daniel before patting his nephew¡¯s head, and taking a knee in front of him.

    "Can you teach me?"

    "I will, when you will be a little older. For now, go and y with the other children, I won¡¯t hear the end of it from your mother if you grow up into bing a cultivation freak." Said Daniel before standing back up on his feet, and walking towards the door of his sister¡¯s house. However, before he could touch the handle of the door, his shoulders dropped along with his head, and he sighed deeply. "Tell your parents that I won¡¯t make it for dinner." he said before suddenly disappearing.

    When he reappeared, he was back in the¡¯s orbit, right where Nova spent his time controlling the spatial formation that clouded the to the eyes of any outsider.

    The only reason why Daniel would personally teleport there, could only be because they had encountered another group, and they needed to once again escape by teleporting away. However, this time, something was different. Amongst this group of people Daniel could not see any child of Iewah, and at least two amongst this group of hundreds were looking at the exact point where Daniel was hiding. Their faces were covered by masks, and yet, their mannerism showed perplexity.

    "Are they looking at us?" Asked Nova with deep confusion. As a spatial elemental, he knew perfectly well how unlikely that possibility was. After all, the formation that clouded Daniel¡¯s was the mostplex spatial formation in the known universe. A formation which turned the as invisible as a ck hole, while diverting the starlight around it in order to simte the starry void the¡¯s mass was meant to cover.

    In order to see Daniel¡¯s, one would not only need a deepprehension of space, but an understanding of physics. Light bending on celestial proportions, invisible mass, all parts of space that were overlooked due to the evolution of cultivation.

    The only kind of civilization that would understand this, was a civilization that had evolved around the technology of space travel, and not around cultivation.

    Daniel immediately opened a portal to the main office of Hiel academy, a portal from which Master Kye, the Silver Alchemist, and his father Golden Cauldron quickly walked out of.

    "What is it?" asked the Silver Alchemist, curious about what this summoning was about.

    "They seem to be aware of our presence." said Daniel before pointing his finger at the group of unknown cultivators. "Can you tell me to which faction they belong?" he then asked.

    The three looked carefully at the group of people who appeared to be talking amongst themselves in anguage that did not match any of the universe¡¯s mainnguages.

    During the few years spent apart from Daniel, the three had made an extensive research on the major powers that governed the universe, so if there was someone on their who could recognize the affiliation of a group, was them. However, even after a few minutes, nothing but confusion was left in their faces.

    "We are not sure. Their clothes show no crest or affiliation, and I don¡¯t know if you have noticed, but theirnguage teleports from one¡¯s mouth to the other¡¯s ears." Said the Silver Alchemist before noticing a few strange movements.

    "What are they doing?" asked Nova right before half of these people turned into shes of light, and dashed in the direction of Daniel¡¯s at an incredible speed. Just as it seemed that they would crash against it, they split into arge, and surrounded the¡¯s surface.

    Daniel was not eager to see what kind of game these people were ying, so he immediately tried to teleport away, but before he could do that, a mind numbing sound pierced through his ears, causing him to lose focus of any of the thoughts he was trying to formte. This sound was being broadcasted around the entire, crippling its entire poption.

    Before Daniel¡¯s mind fortitude could kick in and allow him to resist this sonic wave, the two individuals whom had spotted him threw a fist sized orb right into the¡¯s atmosphere. When this orb came into contact with the spatial formation, the warped space around the dissipated, and the was revealed in its beauty.

 Chapter 437 Against Ones Will

    These sonic waves kept drilling into the heads of Daniel and the millions of civilians, forcing them on the ground, to vomit the contents of their stomachs, as well as bleed from the ears and scream in pain. Yet, no sound could be heard.

    Even if Daniel had been able to think, he would have not been able to understand what was causing all of this. After all, the attack was auditory in nature, and was exclusive to civilizations which had developed through the use of technology, instead of cultivation. That was the power of ultrasounds.

    Generally used in the world of espionage, sound essence was one of the rare essences which were difficult to understand. The reason for that, was not because of ack of chances to, but because sounds could not be seen, and itsprehension was limited to what the human ear could pick up. While notpletely absent within the territory of the universal government, their technology had only evolved around the support of the known path of cultivation, limiting their progress to a certain extent.

    Beyond those limitations,y the weaknesses of cultivators, or at least, those bereaved of the powers of a child of Iewah.

    After a few painful seconds, Daniel¡¯s mental fortitude took over the state of panic he had felt, allowing him to gain a degree of lucidity. The pain was still torturing him, and he could feel his powerful organs churn in difort. However, his mind was clear enough to formte a n.

    Without stopping to think for too long, he activated Time is Precious, and started to analyze what was wreaking havoc inside his body. There, he found an almost invisible sound wave which used the liquidposition of his body, to incapacitate him with high frequency vibrations, and in a simr way, was hurting the inhabitants of his.

    The formation around Daniel¡¯s was an illusory one, and it was made to trick the senses. However, an illusory formation did not change theposition of the, which remained vulnerable to sound attacks despite its protections.. after all, sound mostly traveled through air and water, and illusory essence was not able to stop it. Knowing what was hurting him and his friends, Daniel was quickly able to stop this ultrasounds from reaching him by separating the space which surrounded his body and from the sources of these sonic waves.

    He then modified a portion of the essence produced by his into healing essence, with which he quickly flooded the cities, and invaded the bodies of its millions of inhabitants.

    Unwavered by Daniel¡¯s abilities, the attackers immediately stopped emitting sound waves, and instead, turned their attention towards him. With a speed which Daniel was unable to follow, these individuals disappeared from where they were floating, turning into shes of light which quickly formed a sphere-like barrier which encapsted Daniel, and his entire.

    On the surface of this reddish bubble, Daniel could hardly see a few shes of light move in a random pattern, just like the electrons of an atom.

    "What is going on? Who are these little ones?" Asked a disembodied voice right before a massive mountain chain present on Daniel¡¯s began to fall apart, and from its rubble, emerged the immense figure of Xargy in his original draconic form.

    "Are you okay?" Asked Daniel while keeping his control over the space which contained his.

    "I heard a loud noise that woke me up from my slumber." Responded Xargy with annoyance, unbothered by the sonic wave, which clearly did not have the same effect on him, as it had on humans.

    The sudden apparition of Xargy came to a great surprise for the attackers, who slowed their motion in order to observe something that, apparently, they had never seen before., almost as if something like Xargy could only be seen in books. However, soon after, this group of warriors immediately went back to their task.

    "Light them up." Said Daniel after turning to look at Xargy, from whom he received a grin.

    Immediately after, Xargy¡¯s massive wings started to p heavily, and along with the mighty muscles of his legs, pushed him off the ground, and into the air. His chest swelled as the air in front of him turned into two typhoons, and entered his city-wide lungs, and with another p of his wings, he disappeared.

    The distance between the ground and the bubble was covered in moments, as he reappeared midway between the two, right outside of the¡¯s atmosphere. From his bright purple nostrils, copious amounts of smoke came out, only to dissipate when in contact with space.

    From in between the scales of his chest, a purple shine foretold what came next. The exhtion of a column of magical purple mes with the power of thousands of volcanoes.. a column of liquid mes which crashed directly against the reddish bubble, and spread for thousands of kilometers in every direction.

    After a long minute, devoid of breath, Xargy closed his mouth and looked expectantly to see what effect his attack would have, but as thest bit of mes were smothered by the empty space, he noticed that the barrier was still present, seemingly unaffected by his attack.

    In Daniel¡¯s eyes this barrier was formed by lightning essence, but he could not understand how that was possible. The gases in open space were too dispersed for these warriors to turn them into sma, and yet, they had been able to shape it into a barrier that surrounded his entire.

    Trapped within this barrier, Daniel considered whether to give up on the spatial barrier and teleport before these warriors could once against attack them through the use of sound, but he quickly gave up on the idea the moment he looked up, and noticed how fast the movement of each of these individuals was.

    His only hope was to dismantle the barrier, and while he did not have a way at the moment, that did not mean that his system could not provide him with one.

    He quietly closed his eyes, and when they reopened only a few secondster, his pupils shed on the surface of the bubble, only to stop a few secondster. From his body dozens of metallic needles started to emerge, and with a faint push of his internal essence, they were shot with a speed which could not match the rapidity with which these people moved on the bubble¡¯s surface, but that was still difficult to see with the naked eye.

    While slower, the moment the first needle reached the bubble, one of the shes of light happened to dash in front of it, and as the two shed, after a faint metallic noise, the warrior¡¯s motion was permanently slowed down, causing the barrier to be slightly weaker.

    Soon after, numerous other needles reached the surface of the barrier, and while most missed their target, the sheer number was enough to grant the sess of Daniel¡¯s n. The shes of light kept slowing down, and at the same time, the barrier kept dimming in power. "AGAIN!" Shouted Daniel to Xargy, who immediately reacted bybusing the content of his lungs, and discharging it against the weakened barrier once more.

    This time, the attack was sessful, and the column of purple fire was able to pierce the reddish barrier, and push through it.

    Following the destruction of the barrier, the motion of these unknown warriors stopped, as they turned to look at Daniel with shock.

    What Daniel had learned from the mission he had formted with his system, was that these individuals were artificially creating a bubble of lightning by using their highly advanced equipment. One item powered by an odd grey metal which was beyond Daniel¡¯sprehension of metal essence, and whose power allowed these warriors to move at a pace close to the speed of light, and a second object, which was able to attract the sparse gases from the surroundings, and release them right after.

    What he did not know, was that the electric charge that was allowing them to move to the speed of light, was used to heat the gases present in space to turn them into sma. This smic barrier was kept in ce by their movements, and was turned into a bubble of lightning with a power beyond the hundreds of millions of amperes. A power which he could not imitate, even with the highest extent of his cultivation.

    The mission which Daniel had created, had allowed him to attack the weak spot of this technological formation, the equipment of these warriors. If not for Daniel¡¯s control over time essence, he would have never been able to hit those specific points on the armor of his opponents, and even though he had, his needles had missed more times than they had hit.

    As soon as the barrier dissipated, he used the moment of surprise he had caused in his enemies to dissipate the spatial barrier around his, and tried to teleport out of danger, but he quickly stopped as he realized that something was wrong.

    For someone with a perfect spatialprehension, space was not different from water. The molecules of water would move around in its container, but no matter what, the water was the same, and a drop of water from another source, would change it forever. Simrly, the space of which Daniel¡¯s was previously surrounded by had a taste, appearance, andposition. One that did not match the space that was surrounding them right now.

    "Something is wrong.. I can¡¯t feel any familiar smell!" Said Xargy with a deep shock.

    "We have teleported. There is no doubt about it." Said Nova, the spatial elemental.. Just as surprised by the fact that they had moved into apletely different area of the universe, without even noticing.

    After hearing the words of hispanions, Daniel closed his eyes, and tried to open what he considered as one of the most important active missions in his system. The mission that would lead him to reunite with Alesia, which only a few hours before, said that the two would be able to meet in a specific ce, within nine years of time.

    Now, on the other hand, the mission had changed. The timing of the mission had disappeared, and in its stead, was a different objective.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Missing Pieces*

    -Description: Reunite with Alesia and Gai¡¯ha.

    First objective set: Reach the wormhole, and go back to the Universal Government.

    Reward: ???

    ____________________________

    "They.." muttered Daniel while staring at the unfamiliar space with horror.

    Daniel¡¯s expression attracted the attention of his friends. The first one to talk was Xargy, "What is it? What happened?" he asked before shifting into his human form, and approaching the dumbfoundedpanion.

    "They teleported us through the wormhole.. We are in alien territory, millions of light years away from our civilization." Said Daniel, shaken awake by the worry of hispanion. However, instead of exining any further, he disappeared.

    Faster than the eye could see, Daniel teleported to each and every one of the enemies who, unable to use their damaged equipment to avoid his attacks, were killed off one by one. In a matter of seconds. The only survivors were the two leaders.

    One of the two, covered by a featureless mask, yet visibly unwilling to stay in the clutches of the monster they had captured, rotated his bracelet by ny degrees, causing the space in front of him to bend.

    To Daniel, Nova, and Edmund, it seemed that the entire universe was folding on itself. The only time they had been present to such a humongous event, was when they had witnessed the cosmic beings which carried the concept of copsed space, and had destroyed the dimension which was now known as the void.

    Daniel observed with curiosity as the space opened, forming a long corridor that led to a different far away point in space.

    Differently from the concept of portals, this corridor did not lock two points in space, and formed a connection by tearing space itself. Instead, it shortened the distance between the two, by creating a shortcut that could be traveled. This corridor needed more time to be created, and yet, it was more stable than a portal, and worked on much longer distances.

    The two survivors had not joined the other warriors in creating the sma barrier, so instead of waiting for Daniel to awake from his surprised state, the two turned into two shes of lightning, and dashed into the spatial corridor, sure that with their max speed, they would be able to escape the danger.

    Their hopes turned into reality, as they were able to cross through the corridor in a matter of instants, and before anybody else could follow them through it, they close it.

    Unfortunately for them, the twocked the knowledge regarding the use of spatial essence, otherwise, they would have known that as long as a spatial cultivator was able to see a point in space, just like Daniel had seen the other end of the corridor, they would be able to teleport there, given enough time for them to create a stable portal.

    Slightly reassured, the two prepared to open another wormhole and report what had happened, when suddenly, the space in front of them tore open, and from it, walked out an enraged Daniel.

 Chapter 438 A Similarly Different Space

    The very moment Daniel appeared, he made use of the moment of surprise of these two individuals to disable their equipment. Immediately after, he used his immortal essence to strip them from anything they were wearing, leaving them in the emptiness of space with only Daniel¡¯s power to separate them from free space.

    Aside from a humanoid body, the appearance of the two was in no way simr to that of normal humans. Starting from their three-fingered hands and feet, to their external appearance. Their skin was dark brown in color, and instead of covering ayer of fat and muscle, covered ayer of bones which hid their internal organs. Thisyer of skin opened in specific points, allowing the bones to emerge. An example of this were their knuckles, from which spiked bones came out of, and their foreheads, which showed a crown made out of numerous small boney horns.

    The innate power emanated from their bodies was unique, and simr to human¡¯s ki, beast¡¯s essence, and Gai¡¯ha and Lucious¡¯s Aura. Yet, it was extremely weak, almost as if it had never been developed since the moment of the person¡¯s birth.

    The faces of the two were also extremely different from that of a human, with the only simrity being the presence of a set of two eyes. Their facescked a normal mouth and nose, and instead, had three consecutive vertical slits that went from right underneath the space in between their eyes, down to their chin, which ended with a pointy bone that pierced through theyer of brown skin like an overgrown petit goatee.

    After capturing these two aliens, Daniel¡¯s first idea was to get as much information as he could from them, but he quickly realized that something was wrong. The chests of the two did not inte with the rhythmic motion of a human¡¯s lungs, and their skin was quickly turning to a darker shade of brown.

    It was clear that the natural environment of these two aliens did not match that of humans, and that sooner orter, they would die.

    For Daniel to understand what form of atmosphere was liveable by simply looking at them was impossible, so instead of trying, he approached them, and ced his hand over their heads. If he could not ask them, he would learn by seeing.

    Daniel¡¯s mental power quickly engulfed the weak consciences of the two, and in a matter of moments, he was able to explore their memories. What appeared in front of him, was a portion of their lives. Born in a world that seemed to be unliveable for mortal humans, these two individuals appeared to have joined a form of military force native to their, and through talent and dedication, they had proceeded through their career until finally, they had obtained the assignment to explore the territory of the newfound civilization.

    What Daniel was hoping to obtain was not the story of their lives, but to at least learn thenguagemonly used by their civilization. For minutes Daniel pried into their minds without sess, as the method ofmunication used by these aliens was of a chemical nature, instead of a sound one. The only reason why they were forced to talk when in outer space, was because their equipment would iste their bodies from free space, making their natural method ofmunication impossible.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel searched for the tranted version of theirnguage, but unfortunately, the trantion between their personal chemical trail and the odd soundingnguage was technological, and did not reside within their memories.

    After numerous instances of trial and error, Daniel realized that the two did not have much time left. Giving up was not something which Daniel was used to, but once he felt their consciences dissipate, he was left with no choice but to let them go, leaving their now hardened corpses as a memento of what they once were.

    Slightly irritated by his failures, Daniel closed his eyes. A momentter, his enormous appeared in front of him, along with the few figures that had observed the attack from within the¡¯s atmosphere.

    "What the hell is going on?" Asked Xargy with an audible degree of anxiousness.

    A dragon¡¯s smelling sense was extremely powerful, to a point where its use¡¯s importance would be beyond that of a human¡¯s five senses. For example, a man could experience blindness by closing their eyes, but dragons would live in the smell that surrounded them, remembering each of them like familiar faces. Thepleteck of familiar smells was not only a nuisance for a dragon, but a stressful situation to say the least. If not for the familiar smells of Daniel¡¯s and its millions of inhabitants, Xargy would have been the first dragon in history to experience what a panic attack was.

    "They brought us here while we were shielded from their sound attacks." Said Daniel before turning to look at the technologicalponents of one of the alien¡¯s suits.

    "How the hell did they teleport an entire without you or Nova noticing?!" Asked Xargy with doubt. He more than anybody else knew that no one had a deeper understanding of space than Daniel, and Nova, the perfect spatial elemental.

    For how absurd as it sounded, however, there was an exnation for what was confusing the dragon. "They opened a wormhole big enough for the to move into, while our vision was shielded by their barrier, and our senses were stopped by the spatial barrier that I created to protect us from their sound attacks." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    In reality, he was as clueless as his draconicpanion. It was only because he had explored the memories of the two aliens, that he had been able to understand what had happened.

    "What do we do now?" asked Aeron, which had quietly appeared at some point in the past few minutes.

    "There is a reason why those two escaped from us bying here." Said Daniel before pointing his arm at a small white light that could be seen in the distance. He then added, "That star should be the core of the territory of these guys¡¯ group. You guys stay here, while I¡¯ll try to find out how to get back."

    As he finished speaking, Daniel hid his as best as he could, and headed towards the star.

    For the following few days, Daniel used the power of his mind to teleport towards the big white star without causing any form of spatial ripple that could give him away, and just as it seemed that he would reach the system without a problem, he was forced to stop abruptly.

    Camouged with the darkness of space thanks to hisprehension of dark essence, Daniel waited in silence, until finally, only momentster, right in front of him, thousands of oddly shaped ships appeared from out of nowhere, and stood in two opposing formations.

    The ships of which the first fleet was made out of were metallic and smooth, their exterior was painted with a rusty white color, with two red stripes which moved diagonally across the ships. The ships of the second fleet were more rough looking, with an appearance that reminded a crustacean¡¯s bumpy chitin shell, and protuberances which resembled a lobster¡¯s antennae.

    Both fleets wereposed of different kinds of ships, which Daniel could only ssify as massive, rtively big, and smaller ones. Nevertheless, the numbers were simr, and it did not seem that a battle between the two would end one-sidedly.

    What shocked Daniel the most, however, was not the number or size of these ships, but the fact that they had not teleported in pace, but decelerated from a speed which he could not possibly hope toprehend. A speed which went against the understanding of space he possessed, and that put the speed of light to shame.

    This hadn¡¯t been the first time Daniel had been surprised by the speed of this civilization, as he had witnessed a simple technological suit allow a person to reach a movement speed that could surpass the speed of a cultivator.

    Almost hopeful that speed was the only thing that this civilization had to show, Daniel opened his mouth in horror as, from out of the blue, millions of shes of light started to be exchanged between the two fleets. Soon after, swarms of suited up warriors emerged from the many ships, and started to engage midway as the bullets of light shed past them, and crashed against the powerful shields of the enemy fleet¡¯s ships.

    The first to fall were the smaller ships, as their smaller size could only allow for a weaker shield which could not hope topare with the power of the cannons of the enemy fleet, leaving behind a cemetery of metal and corpses, as the bullets went through the spatial vessels as if they were made out of paper.

    Following the first barrage of attacks were the strategies, which reminded Daniel of his father¡¯s teachings about how position was sometimes more important than numbers, or how crucial was taking out the strategists of an enemy army.

    This spatial war went on for more than an hour, after which the fleet of crustacean-like ships managed to attain victory by focusing their fire against the main vessels of the enemy fleet. As the battle ended, the rough-looking fleet turned towards the direction where they hade from, and with a burst of their massive propellers, disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.

    Daniel had never seen anything simr. While he had traveled through space with a cruise ship, the only weapons in possession of that kind of ship were dependent on mana, and their main use was to free the path from random obstacles. However, these objects were so rare to encounter, that most ships would be able to travel for years, without encountering one.

    The difference between the ship in which Daniel had traveled, and one of these ships, was the same difference between an ice breaker, and a warship. Armed with weapons which could destroy worlds, and travel between gxies in minutes, these ships were superior in every aspect.

    For the following few minutes Daniel tried to understand what this would mean in case a war between the universal government and this civilization actually broke out. From what he had just seen, there was no doubt that this new technological civilization was not something that could be taken lightly.

    Just as Daniel was about to leave, numerous small ships began to appear near the wreckage of the red striped fleet. From these ships floated out numerous individuals, which slowly took the salvageable pieces of the destroyed fleet, and quietly brought them back into their small vessels.

    This process seemed extremely slow, especially whenpared to the speed which he had witnessed only a few minutes ago, but due to how experienced these scavengers were, the entire process took a little more than a few hours, after which, not a single working piece of technology was left.

    Once they finished salvaging, the numerous ships turned towards one of the fews which orbited around therge white star, and departed with a speed that was still within the scope of Daniel¡¯s abilities.

    Since the scavengers were going in the same direction as him, Daniel decided to follow them quietly, until they led him to a rtively small with an atmosphereposed of gases which could never sustain human life. The itself wasposed differently from any of the government¡¯s inhabitables, starting from the lower gravity, the extremely sharp winds at high altitude, and the different proportions of minerals which, had this been in the territory of the universal government, would have either being mined, or left alone.

    And yet, in this part of space, this was flourishing. Thousands of ships entered and left its surface in mere minutes, its cities glowed from the dark side like clusters of lights connected to one another, and in each city, dozens of different kinds of strange looking aliens behaved simrly to how humans behaved in the territory of the universal government.

    Once again shocked, Daniel came to a sudden realization. In the territory of the universal government, the human race had been the first to expand, taking as much as they could to feed their needs. This, had taken away the chance for other life forms to evolve.

    From that fact, Daniel had managed to gain enlightenment of a concept of life which he was unaware of, the concept of interruption. A concept of life which, ironically enough, existed to remind people that not all life was destined to make its course, and that life could lose its chance to exist as a consequence of anything, including a person¡¯s decision.

    After absorbing this piece of knowledge, Daniel covered himself with a mixture of the most human-like suit he was able to scavenge from the ship cemetery and random pieces of cloth, and quietlynded on the¡¯s surface.

 Chapter 439 A Small Universe

    The uppermost part of the city on which Daniel hadnded on, was constructed at the very edge of a massive earth fissure, while the rest of the city was built in verticalyers that went down the fissure¡¯s depth. If seen from afar, due to the many small ships that constantly took off andnded on the many docks, this city would appear like a massive nest of wasps hanging from a cliff, and on the aforementioned loweryers, Daniel quietly walked around.

    The general shape of Daniel¡¯s body was not much different from that of a few of the alien races which walked around the busy streets of this city, yet, Daniel could not help but feel ufortable. From what he knew, the outfit he was wearing was one used in free space, and by using it while within the¡¯s atmosphere, had caused him attract the attention of more than a few individuals.

    Most of them simply turned what appeared to be their heads around, but soon after, instead of giving in to their curiosity, they went back into doing what they were busy doing before. That, unfortunately, was not the same for all of them. A very few number of aliens would insist by standing in front of him in order to stop him, and would touch a metallic bracelet that everyone wore around their left wrist. This bracelet would then emit a series of sounds which Daniel recognized as thenguage he had heard the group of aliens use right before attacking his.

    Luckily, Daniel would be able to get rid of them by ignoring them, and disappear immediately after turning a corner.

    After a few hours, left with no other choice, Daniel hid in an alleypletely devoid of light, and began to study the options which his system had given him in order toplete his new mission. Neither of the three methods came close to reach the final objective, which was to reach the sector of space inhabited by the universal government, and instead, simply told him how toplete the first step that would direct him towards that goal.

    Of the three approaches, one caught Daniel¡¯s interest. The secretive approach.

    The secretive approach was a rather clever one, which required for Daniel to obtain one of the interracial trantors used by the many alien races he had seen, and present it to Virgil, who would be able to study it, and modify it so that it could be used to trante human¡¯snguage in a matter of a few months. However, what caught Daniel¡¯s attention, was the optional objective of this mission, which gave Daniel the option to steal one of the already existing trantors for the human race which were currently being held in the human embassy, or in a secretive location present in the very system Daniel was in. These trantors were already set to understand humannguage, and they would allow Virgil to reduce the amount of research from a few months to mere weeks.

    Months spent in an unknown ce whose indigenous races were capable of finding him despite his attempts to hide, were much more danger than Daniel was willing to take, especially if the ones at risk were his friends. So the decision to steal an already existing trantion device, was the easier one to make.

    Without wasting too much time, Daniel left the he had been exploring until now for another one, a gigantic cream colored which took Daniel various hours to reach with the help of his system¡¯s directions, and his teleportation abilities.

    The moment Daniel approached this, he sensed itsposition, and discovered that its surface was entirely covered by powerful winds which would tear a human¡¯s body to shreds the very moment they would try to enter it. These winds were in fact so powerful, that they made it impossible for Daniel to scan the inner part of the with his sensing abilities, forcing him to rely solely on his system alone for guidance.

    Something that caught Daniel¡¯s attention, was the fact that contrary to the others of this system which he had entered or passed by, this one was the only one without any form of artificial satellite, which suggested that this was, in fact, a secret base of sorts.

    Without spending too much time thinking about it, Daniel covered his presence and entered the thickyers of winds, which immediately tore his clothes, leaving himpletely naked, and forced to endure the attrition of the dust particles in the air with his uncovered skin.

    The moment Daniel entered theyer of winds, Daniel quickly realized that, had his cultivation been beneath the fiftiethyer of high immortality, the small particles of dust we have been able to scrape the skin off of his flesh, as well as kill him in a matter of minutes. Powerful winds that stood above any form of natural wind he had seen in his life.

    After what felt like tens of miles of flying towards the core of this, a surface finally appeared right in front of him, showing that he had finally reached the¡¯s solid core.

    Following the system¡¯s instructions, Daniel walked naked on the¡¯s surface, an environment that was not supposed to host life, until he finally reached what looked like a sinkhole in the ground closed up by a massive metal door with a diameter of at least two hundred meters.

    This door was clearly the only entrance to this secret structure, and from its size, it was obvious to Daniel that it was meant for the entrance of small spaceships. Unable to find any form of opening where he could sneak in, he looked down at the rocky surface of the, and almost as if rock had suddenly turned into quicksand, he slowly started to sink in.

    Swimming through the rock, Daniel dug down for hundreds of meters, only stopping after finding the metallic outer wall of what was an immense underground structure. Inside the corridors of this structure, he could feel the steps of thousands of workers, which happened to belong to the same alien race of the people who had attacked him, and his.

    Daniel quickly found an empty room, and after entering it by emerging from one of its thick metallic walls, he hid from the aliens which were currently walking down the corridor, and that could enter the room at any moment.

    Ideally, Daniel would have simply barged in and killed his way to what he needed, but since speed was the point of strength of this particr race of aliens, Daniel decided to follow the system¡¯s instructions without asking questions. Luckily, the atmosphere inside the structure matched the liveable environment of the alien¡¯s original, which was the reason why none of them were walking around in the dangerous spatial suits he had seen them wear before.

    After the aliens finally passed through the corridor, he left the room, and with his sensing abilities extended to their maximum range, he followed a path that could allow him to move through the structure undisturbed.

    After what felt like a hundred of corridors and just as many dark rooms, Daniel finally reached what appeared like a dead end. A long corridor filled with rooms on both sides, and a small room right at the end of it. However, instead of turning around and trying another path, he walked into it, as suggested by his system.

    It did not take long for Daniel to realize that the rooms by the sides of the corridor were actually prison cells, and in each of them, was a type of odd entity which was either strapped to a stretched, or curled up into a ball by the far corners of the room.

    Uninterested by what the nature of this structure was, Daniel reached the room at the very end of the corridor, which was closed by a thick metallic door thatcked any type of pommel, and used hisprehension of metal essence to walk through it.

    Behind this door was a small room filled with instruments stained with different colors of fluids, just like the pavement, and the stretcher that was present in the middle of it. By the far end of this room were different cabs, which ording to Daniel¡¯s system, contained the item he was looking for.

    Daniel made a b-line for the cab to the far left, locked not by ayer of steel like every other cab, but by a grid ofsers, which emitted a mild light and a powerful heath. Uncaring about this defensive measures, Daniel dove into thesers with both of his hands, and grabbed the now familiar metallic bracelet thaty behind them. He then closed his hands around the bracelet to protect it from thesers, and pulled them back.

    The moment Daniel took the trantor, the options of his quest was updated, and he was given additional instruction to how ultimately reach the wormhole that would allow him and his friends to go back to the sector of space they belonged to.

    Before leaving, Daniel tried to remember the oddnguage he had heard the aliens talk in during their attack to his, and with a wisp of sound essence, he replicated it right next to the bracelet. Clearly adapted to receive a sound input, the bracelet suddenly turned on, and after repeating the sound Daniel had yed for it, it let out a second sound, this time in humannguage, which said, "..we %¡ì¡ê open the wormhole, you #&op them here!"

    After making sure that this was the object he needed to retrieve, unwilling to stay any longer, Daniel once again walked towards the door, but right as he was about to control the metal of which it was made out of in order to walk through it, he noticed that amongst the many spatters of liquid, were a few drops of blood.. Human blood.

    Confused, Daniel walked through the door with haste, and started to look through the small windows present in each one of them. For the following few minutes all he saw were aliens, but right as he reached the middle of the corridor, opposite to one of the few cells he had bothered to look into while reaching for the end of the corridor on his way in, he saw thest thing he expected to see.

    Inside an oddly clean room, was a naked young girl curled up into a ball. Her knees joined together by her cuffed arms, while forming a less thanfortable cushion for the front of the head, which rested on them as if that was the mostfortable object she had managed toy her head on in years.

    Despite the sorry state of the young girl, Daniel did not feel pity for her, and the reason for that was as shocking as the fact that she was there to begin with. She was not simply any random young girl, but one of the infamous children of Iewah, a chosen one who went by the Necromancer, captured years prior during the first contact between civilizations. Above her head, was the horrifying red number that only a child of Iewah which dealt with death, would have.

    Not for a moment did the thought of helping this young looking girl appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind, who prepared to leave the corridor without even allowing her to see him, but right at that moment, the noise of odd sounding chatter came from the door at the beginning of the corridor, and immediately after, the door slid open, allowing three aliens in what appeared to be fireproof suits to walk in.

    Daniel did not wish to start something now that he had what he wanted, so without thinking too much about it, he walked through the metal door of the Necromancer¡¯s cell like a drop falling into arger body of water. He then hid by the side of the door until, what he thought to be researchers, walked past the girl¡¯s cell and towards another one deeper into the corridor.

    Trying not to make more noise than necessary, Daniel peeked through the window of the door by turning his head to his side. Unfortunately, if he left now, if any of these researchers turned towards his direction while in possession of whatever it was that had helped them spot his, they would find him right away.

    Luckily, this was not a problem for him, as he could just dive into any of the room¡¯s surface and disappear forever, and that was his intention. Or at least, it was until he turned to look forward, and noticed that the head of the necromancer was notying onto her knees anymore, but was raised, and her oddly clear blue and golden tainted eyes were staring at him with as much surprise as he felt when seeing her.

    ".. help.."

 Chapter 440 The Lesser of Two Evils

    ".. help.." muttered Tirah after noticing Daniel¡¯s body stand within her cell. However, immediately after, she chuckled softly, and added, "So, it is induced hallucinations this time.." her expression quickly went from hopefulness to resignation. It was only after a few moments, that she took another look at Daniel, and started to realize that she was able to feel something she hadn¡¯t felt in a long time. The presence of a system wielder.

    "You are real!" She eximed with joy, springing up to her feet, and walking as close to Daniel as her chains allowed her to. "Help me get out of here! Please!!" she then said with a begging tone.

    Daniel naturally remembered this particr children of Iewah, as aside from Sewah and Romah, she was the one with whom he had the most interactions with. However, his memories of her could hardly be considered fond. The one and only time the two had interacted with one another, Daniel had just gained back control over his body, and she had been the first child of Iewah to track him down. If not for Xargy, she would have been able to hand him over to Iewah.

    "It has been awhile, Necromancer." Daniel said while covering the young woman with his power, a power that was far beyond that which he possessed the first time the two had met, and was now closer to that possessed by the explorers which had forced her into participating in the Xeno Protocol, the first encounter between civilizations where she had been abducted, and kept captive to this day. A power that was closer to that of her most fearful siblings, that it was to her own.

    However, that was not all. For some reason, Daniel¡¯s presence was not only more powerful, but felt somewhat deeper. The presence of a system wielder was always the same despite of their powers, but that was not the case for Daniel. After obtaining the Mindhive¡¯s artifact, his presence as a system wielder had be more entuated, almost as if his system had gone through a qualitative transformation of sorts.

    "You.. Da- something.. Dan, right? Can you help me get out of here? For old time¡¯s sake?" she asked with a tone that approached a level of desperation.

    "It was you, wasn¡¯t it? I did not just happen to meet those aliens, you gave them my coordinates." Said Daniel after finally realizing how it was possible that, despite his neutral luck, he would be unlucky enough to encounter a power that not only was perfectly prepared to counter his abilities, but to find them in a random point in open space. Only another one of Iewah¡¯s children could have possibly given that kind of general directions to them.

    "I had no choice.. They put something, something in here." responded Tirah while raising a lock of hair right behind her left ear, showing a now healed scar as long as an adult man¡¯s middle finger. She then let go of her hair, and added, "I cannot disobey.. They forced me to tell them everything I know.. About Iewah, and our powers.. And you, the special one. I can¡¯t even kill myself!"

    Daniel had a clear memory of this young looking girl, which was in fact more than two hundred years old, kill an entire city of people, so pity was thest thing he could possibly feel for her. However, what she had told him was rming. He did not wish to be a target for a group whose powers he could notprehend.

    "If you don¡¯t want to help me, at least kill me!" she said, trying to negotiate a less costly form of help from who before was her target, and was now her only hope of freedom.

    Not exactly against the idea of killing her, Daniel approached the young girl with a serious expression. His fingers curved into a grip which could pierce through her chest, and rip her heart out of her body, and yet, only increasing happiness could be seen on the girl¡¯s face.

    It was only then, that Daniel¡¯s hand rxed, and his serious expression turned into a grin. "You want me to kill you, so that your failsafe will save you from this situation." He said before grabbing the girl¡¯s jaw, and lifting her from the cell¡¯s cold pavement.

    The moment Daniel touched Tirah¡¯s body, he felt arge amount of his power being absorbed by her handcuffs. Once absorbed, the mark of Daniel¡¯s power was erased, and used to reinforce the very material of which the handcuffs were made out of, turning them even stronger than they were before. Simr to the shackles used by most factions within the universal government, these handcuffs were made specifically for cultivators, but instead of simply absorbing the power thanks to the concept of absorption of dark essence, they would turn the absorbed power into a reinforcement, making the handcuffs more resistant, the higher the quality of power they absorbed.

    Luckily, the alien civilization had never been able to test their items on people as powerful as Daniel, so even though the amount of power they absorbed was extremely high, for Daniel, it was like losing a few drops out of a bucket of water.

    Slightly amused, Daniel voluntarily reinforced the handcuffs, then let go of the young girl before taking a few steps back.

    Knowing that her n had failed, Tirah¡¯s helpless expression turned into a grin. She then said, "Host, you don¡¯t have a choice. You are already their target, so unless you want to fight a group of them every other day, you better kill me now, or get me the hell out of here."

    "I can always take my chances against your system. You probably have a way out. You only have to wait for your asion. I can hold them off long enough for you to enjoy your stay." He said, remembering how he had had to wait for two and a half years for a chance to escape prison when he was younger.

    "And you think I would bother myself with talking with you if I had a n?!" She asked with anger. Her expression suddenly turned serious, and she added, "They have experimented on me.. Every day, for months.. Years. Why do you think that only now were they able to find you?"

    Daniel remained silent, waiting for her to borate.

    "After they forced me to reveal that I had a system, they used their damn trinkets to find it inside my body. They put something into my head.. I can only use it when they allow me to." She said before falling down on her knees in resignation.

    "I don¡¯t believe you." Said Daniel, unwilling to think of how horrifying the idea that an entire civilization could have control over a power such as the Necromancer¡¯s system. Especially since their civilization was likely to enter go to war with humanity, and use his power as a weapon against them.

    "Then do it.. ask your system. Create a mission, ask it for a way to save me.. Pay attention to the consequence of failing.." She said while showing a smile tainted by smugness.

    Daniel did as suggested, and soon enough, a window appeared within his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest Started: The Lesser of Two Evils*

    -Description: Prevent the end of human civilization.

    First objective set: Help the Necromancer escape from the alien¡¯s prison.

    Reward: Karma +15,000,000,000

    Failure: ???

    Time limit: The aliens will gain full control over the Necromancer in 71 years, 6 months, and 20 days.

    ____________________________

    Stupefied by the reward of the mission, Daniel shook his head, and as soon as the window disappeared, he once again turned to look at the number that was floating above Tirah¡¯s head. However, the number hadn¡¯t changed, and was still a dark red numberposed of more digits than a man had fingers in both handsbined.

    It did not take long for Daniel to realize what that meant. If saving Tirah was not the reason that could justify such a bountiful reward, then only avoiding a massacre could be. That meant that after gaining control over her powers, the alien civilization would use her powers in a way that no other children of Iewah had ever used theirs for.. To exterminate an entire civilization.

    Daniel had already witnessed Tirah¡¯s power, and could imagine how she would do that. He could see flourishings be turned into ghastly rocks, filled with only the dried corpses of the dead, and ghosts which wanted nothing but to follow the orders of their master, the Necromancer. An army that only grew in size, and could hardly be harmed by any traditional method. That, Daniel could not allow.

    Letting her go was also something that he was not willing to do, as the two were enemies, so he looked at her with a smile of maliciouspliance, before quietly closing his eyes.

    A strange feeling started to creep down Tirah¡¯s spine.

    Moments after his eyes closed, Daniel walked towards one of the walls, and as if entering a portal, he disappeared.

    For the following few minutes, Tirah did not see Daniel, but somehow, she knew that he hadn¡¯t left her to rot in her cell. All she could do was to wait for him toe back, and wonder what he was doing. Her questions found an answer the moment Daniel¡¯s head emerged from the thick metallic wall, but as soon as the rest of his body followed, she quickly saw what he was holding in his left hand. A t rectangr object with a smooth surface, and a thickness of around a centimeter.

    She quickly recognized this object as the item the aliens had used to force her to give out everything she knew, as well as control her into sharing Daniel¡¯s location.

    It did not take long for Tirah to understand what Daniel had done. Instead of freeing her or killing her, he had chosen to take her as a prisoner, however, while not an optimal choice, she was notpletely against this decision. After all, as long as she could escape, sooner orter, she would find a way to gain her freedom back.

    Daniel did not bother to exin to her what was going to happen next, so he approached her, and after grabbed both of her thin wrists with one of his hands, he turned one of his fingers into an invisibly thin de, and cut both of her hands off.

    Tirah immediately screamed in pain, but before these screams could be heard, they were stopped by the sound barrier that Daniel had created beforehand.

    Uncaring about her pain, Daniel removed one of the cuffs from around her right bloody stump, but instead of taking the handcuffs offpletely, he put the second cuff around the left arm, making it look like Tirah was wearing two bracelets attached to one another by a metallic cord. While keeping her arms tied up could be problematic, Daniel was not willing to allow her to recover. After all, had she recovered, it would be a joke for her to take her own life, and use her failsafe ability to escape.

    As he finished putting both cuffs of the handcuffs around her left arm, he grabbed her forearms, and injected into them a massive amount of healing essence, which in a matter of seconds, recreated her bones, muscles, veins, and skin.

    Tirah clearly knew what was going on, so instead of objecting, she looked at Daniel with defeat, and said, "Can I at least have some clothes." only now realizing that both of them were standing in the cellpletely naked.

    Daniel looked at her face with what appeared to be a look of contempt, and instead of dignifying her with a response, he grabbed her face with his left hand, and dragged her into one of the cell¡¯s walls. A few minutester, he and Tirah emerged from the¡¯s solid core, and disappeared within the thickyers of cream-colored winds.

 Chapter 441 The Dragon and the Necromancer

    "Where are you taking me?!" asked Tirah with a muffled voice, after hours of of being dragged through space by Daniel, while covering her face with his hand. It was only after nothing but a speck of light was left of the they had just left, that Daniel finally stopped, and let go of her.

    With a faint smile Daniel responded by saying, "Somewhere where you won¡¯t be a problem to anybody else."

    Slightly confused, the Necromancer thought of how to ask him to exin in a way that could actually grant her some answers, but her words went back down her throat even before being spoken the moment she felt a waft of warm winde from behind her. "I know this smell." said a deep and hoarse voice that came from behind her.

    The familiarity of this voice was not a wee surprise for Tirah, as she could count the number of friends she had in the entire universe, in the fingers of a single hand. However, this voice in particr had left an impression. She slowly turned around to see an immense dragon head. The rest of the dragon¡¯s body was hidden within the¡¯s spatial protection, but from the size of the head alone, it was obvious that his full body, as well as power, could not possibly bepared to thest time the two had faced one other.

    "What is he doing here?!" She blurted out before waving her arms around in fright. Even before Xargy¡¯s increase in power she had been unable to kill him, let alone now that he had reached a power that could match that of the oldest dragons, and that were part of her older sister¡¯s rooster of tamed beasts.

    "Did you bring me a snack?" Asked Xargy while showing his two mountain range-sized sets of teeth, with a menacing tone.

    Daniel could understand what Xargy meant. Tirah had been one of Daniel¡¯s most dangerous enemies. While he could agree that sheer idea of killing her was sweeter than any other bitter alternative, he knew more than Xargy did. "If only it were that simple.." he said before giving a gentle push to Tirah¡¯s back, causing her to float in Xargy¡¯s direction.

    Xargy opened his immense mouth in response, almost as if preparing himself to wee the child of Iewah into his stomach, causing the frightened Tirah to close her eyes and shriek in fear, but just as she was expecting to hear the dragon¡¯s mountain-like teeth close around her, she opened her eyes, and immediately realized that Xargy had turned in his human form, and was currently floating next to Daniel.

    Tirah had now floated a few kilometers away into the empty space, and to her, it did not seem that neither Daniel nor Xargy were caring. A few more kilometerster, she started to worry that Daniel¡¯s solution was to throw her into the empty space, forcing her to float aimlessly in a single direction until she would be lucky enough to crash against something that could kill her, which in terms of probability, the word ¡¯unlikely¡¯ was already more than a generous estimate.

    Scared that that was her actual fate, she started to shout in Daniel¡¯s direction, "HEY! LET¡¯S TALK ABOUT THIS!" she said, however, theck of power made it impossible for the sound of her voice to reach Daniel through the kilometers of empty space.

    Just as she was about to start to panic, her body went through a thinyer of illusory space, and in front of her, appeared a massive flourishing which emanated the same form of essence possessed by Daniel.

    She was barely able to utter the beginning of the word ¡¯What¡¯, before she was caught by the¡¯s gravitational pull, and forced into freefall towards the¡¯s surface. Protected by a simple softyer of spatial barrier that could not entirely stop the wind from pressing against her body, the teenager-looking Tirah kept gaining speed, until she broke the barrier of sound.

    The¡¯s crust expanded in front of her eyes, and in about ten minutes, she finally found herself counting the seconds left to her death.

    Right when she was expecting to be a stain of red which decorated Daniel¡¯s odd, she suddenly stopped a few centimeters above the ground. Next to her were Daniel, Xargy, and a young boy in his early teens who had appeared from out of nowhere.

    After a simple exchange of signs between Daniel and Virgil, Tirah noticed the former hand over the controller of her limitations to thetter, along with the odd bracelet which her kidnappers would use to extort information from her whenever the torture would start.

    Virgil expression beamed with joy. The opportunity to study alien technology different from any form of cultivation-centered technology developed in his home town was more than he could hope for, so when Daniel assigned the task to him, he forgot about his entire monthly schedule of training and study, and dedicated a hundred percent of his attention to the task.

    Soon after Daniel¡¯s return, the leading members of his group approached, eager to hear the stories of what he had seen. Amongst them, were Sewah, and Edmund.

    "You?" Asked Sewah with brows raised high in surprise after noticing his sister. "What the hell is she doing here?" He then asked after turning to look at Daniel, unaware that her powers were sealed, and worried that she would start raising the dead just like she had done in the base of the Poisonous Rose.

    "Hahahahah! Look at you, little brother. You have be thepdog of your host. As if you couldn¡¯t fall lower than thest time I saw you!" Said Tirah after bursting out in a heartyugh.

    While Sewah could usually control himself, this degree of self control instantly broke the moment his older sister started teasing him. His buried feelings ofpetition started to emerge. He took a step in her direction, ready to attack her the moment she would show any sign of hostility, but he was promptly stopped soon after by Daniel, who surrounded his body with a gentle and calm form of mental essence, which instantly restored hisposure.

    "I did not save you so that you could be a problem for me. Behave, or I¡¯ll put you into spatial formation where you will barely be able to move, and throw you into space." Said Daniel with a threatening tone to his prisoner. However, for some reason, Tirah did not appear to be interested in his threats, as much as she was interested in another individual amongst the ones that had appeared with Sewah. The person she was currently looking at was none other than Edmund, who was in turn looking at her with a simr interest.

    "Why do you look so familiar? Who are you?" Asked Tirah after standing back up on her feet, and approaching the middle aged man. "Are you dead?" she then added. Contrary to the young woman, Edmund¡¯s expression did not show as much confusion, as he seemed to understand what was the connection between the two of them.

    Instead of answering to Tirah¡¯s question, Edmund turned to look at Daniel, and said, "If you have to imprison her somewhere, leave her to me."

    "What for?" Asked Daniel with confusion.

    "The power of her system, it grants her a connection to the underworld, right?" Responded Edmund with a question.

    "Yes, what about it?"

    "At the beginning I thought that the underworld was only a theoretical ce where the consciousness of a person would go to rest after their death, but now I am one hundred percent sure that it is in fact a dimension like any other." Responded Edmund before taking a step closer to Tirah. He then added, "Whenever I see someone die, I feel their consciousness cross the barriers of space, and enter the dimension that we call underworld. I have felt the same, and keep feeling it, ever since I haveid my eyes on her."

    This revtion caught everybody by surprise, after all, what Edmund was inferring was that given enough control over his powers, he could possibly enter the underworld, were the consciousness of all of the deceased beings that had ever existed, resided.

    The first person to regain his mental rity and speak was the Golden Cauldron old man, who looked at him with the eyes of a friend, and asked, "Do you want to study the connection between our world, and the world of the dead?" The worry in his voice could not bepletely hidden.

    "I won¡¯t experiment with it. I just want to learn how to bind myself to this dimension. I don¡¯t want to wake up one day and find myself inside an unknown dimension. I can use connection to the world of the dead to learn how to anchor myself here." Responded Edmund in an attempt to reassure the old man, as well as Daniel, who ad joined the former in his worry.

    Right as Daniel was about to decide whether to allow this or not, he felt a gentle tug of his clothes. When he turned around, he saw the figure of Virgil, who held the t rectangr device in between them, and tapped on it a few times the very moment Daniel¡¯s eyesnded on it.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel let out a sigh in resignation, and said, "Alright, I¡¯ll leave her to you two. But follow my rules. Do not free her, and more importantly, do not kill her." After making sure that the two had understood his instructions, Daniel left for a few hours of deserved rest.

    Later that day.

    In the balcony of his castle room, Daniel sat over one of two wicker chairs ced one next to the other, facing the the scenery. In his hand was an empty clean ss, and on the table ced in between the two chairs, was an empty bottle of wine.

    Sleeping had long since be an optional practice for Daniel, a practice in which he indulged for the sheer pleasure of it. The only thing that stopped him from doing so, was the action of falling asleep. Ever since he had lost the need for it, he had found out that spending his time sitting around and drink would usually help him rx, and so he would do.

    However, this time, no matter how many hours he spent looking at the stars, or how many sses he drank, he could not reconnect to this now foreign concept. What prevented him from sleeping was not something he was doing wrong, but someone who was missing. Someone that upied a great importance in his mind, and if possible, he would have wanted to encounter much sooner.

    "For old habits.." he muttered after retrieving another bottle of liquor out of his spatial ring, and pouring its contents into a second ss present right next to his own, one that hadn¡¯t been used. He then stood up, and left the castle without touching his bed.

    -----

    Three weekster.

    "Do I just talk while wearing this, and my words will be tranted into thatnguage?" asked Daniel to Virgil by talking directly into his head while holding one of the helmets he had recovered from the attacking party of aliens.

    Virgil quickly nodded in response, before starting a long series of signs with his fingers.

    "Oh, really?" said Daniel with surprise.

    ording to what Virgil had told him, thanks to an additional, yet simpler sample of technology like the universal trantor that Daniel had given to him, he had been able to understand more of the alien technology, to a point where modifying the alien¡¯s spatial suit so that it could fit a human¡¯s body was possible.

    Unfortunately, these modifications could only allow Daniel to be less suspicious when walking around in it, and not to use the suit¡¯s full capabilities, which required a specific chemical signature that Virgil hadn¡¯t been able to replicate.

    Nevertheless, this was more than Daniel could ask, as the next step of his mission did not require him to fight, but to impersonate one of the aliens.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest Started: A Way Back Home*

    -Description: Return to your sector of origin.

    Second objective set: Reach the military headquarters of the alien race, and infiltrate one of the frigates assigned to the reinforcement of the wormhole¡¯s entrance.

    Optional: Avoid being discovered.

    Optional: Avoid being captured.

    Reward: ???

    Cooldown: 3 days, 6 hours.

    ____________________________

 Chapter 442 Unnatural Energy

    Three dayster, Daniel andpany finally arrived to a ce which, ording to the memories of the two aliens whose memories he had been able to explore, possessed a name which in the humannguage, would trante as the phrase ¡¯Starting point of conquest¡¯. The capital of the Kruga alien race.

    The atmosphere of this was very peculiar, and matched perfectly the one contained within the research facility in which Tirah was being held before Daniel had rescued her. The concentration of oxygen in the air was very scarce, and while perfectly liveable for the horned race of the Kruga which Daniel had faced, a human would suffocate before the lethally high temperature could kill them.

    Nevertheless, if not for these frightening aspects, the would not appear any different that any of the inhabiteds that were part of the universal government. Thousands of ships with different appearance, use, and size would depart its atmosphere at every minute, and just as many wouldnd back on its surface for various reasons.

    Floating at about a thousand kilometers of distance from the¡¯s crust, yet fully visible due to the low density of the atmosphere, was a continent sized spaceship. An immense construction which had started as a simple spatial station for a civilization new to space travel, and had now be a liveable moving continent, detached from the it had spent so much time overlooking.

    The most interesting detail of this immense ship were the hundreds of docks builts by its gargantuan sides, where thousands of battleships were currently docked, and waiting for deployment.

    Back on the¡¯s surface, in what could be described as a waiting room for those who had to reach the space station, waited thousands of fully armed Kurga soldiers, who sat in wait for their turn to board one of the many shuttles that would take them to the space station.

    Whenever their turn would arrive, a handful of these alien soldiers would be required to give up their identification, and be asked to walk through a metallic corridor which would lead them to the shuttle they were assigned to, and where they would meet with their officer inmand, who would remain as such until the very end of their deployment.

    After more than eighteen hours, only around a dozen of these aliens had remained.

    After a simple motion of the supervisor¡¯s hand, these twelve soldiers stepped forward, and just like those before them, approached the desk one by one, and allowed for the screen present in their right arm to be scanned right before being allowed through. Soon after, the group walked through the curved metallic corridor, at the end of which, thest of the shuttles was waiting to carry them out of the atmosphere, and into the immense spatial station.

    From the behaviour of these twelve soldiers one could infer the excitement they were feeling, after all, they had justpleted their training, and that was the first time they would be leaving their and be able to see the vastity of the universe. This state of mind was shared by all but one, who stood behind and looked at the constricting metallic tunnel with more than a hint of nervousness.

    This feeling of entrapment did notst long, and after about two minutes, the training of thisst soldier finally kicked in, and he was finally able to get rid of his nervousness by recing it with the excitement of leaving his behind for new adventures.

    With this newfound excitement he hastened his pace in order to reach the group that would soon be his team ofrades, but just before he could see the bodies that would match the shadows that were cast on the grey floor, he felt the cold metal disappear from underneath his feet, and disappeared into it before he could even attempt to scream for help.

    A few secondster, from the metallic floor where the Kruga soldier had disappeared into, emerged another identical looking one. The only difference between the two was that the helmet of the soldier who had just emerged from the floor was loose, a problem which he solved soon after by properly securing it to the rest of his spatial suit. Then, with an odd looking walk, the soldier disappeared behind the curve of the metallic corridor without making a sound.

    Forever trapped in between bs of metal, right underneath the metallic floor of the corridor, was the corpse of the alien soldier, never to be seen again.

    After taking the ce of one of the soldiers, Daniel approached the gate that stood at the end of the corridor, where another slightly bigger Kruga soldier with different markings on his armor, appeared to be waiting for him. His nervous behaviour reflected hisck of patience.

    Based on the information that Daniel had been able to see in the memories of the soldier whose ce he had just taken, this soldier was his direct superior.

    Daniel approached the gate with an unsteady walk before stopping in front of the angered captain. He then raised his left hand, and tapped his chest with it, a sign of apology in the culture of this particr alien race.

    Hopeful that the captain would not think too much of it, Daniel tried to head into the door and take his ce, but he was stopped by a stretched arm which was suddenly protruded between the two. "Are you drunk? Why are you walking like that?" Asked a mechanical voice right next to Daniel¡¯s ear.

    "Apologies Captain, I just got the armor back from maintenance, they must have forgotten a part or two when reassembling it." Responded Daniel in the humannguage, which was promptly tranted by his modified helmet into the iprehensible gibberish used by the Kruga soldiers, tomunicate when using their spatial suits.

    The ipetence of maintenance was not an old joke amongst the Kruga¡¯s military corpse. Apletely unfounded stereotype that within the years, had be a believable reality, and that was despite the actual verifiable instances of faulty maintenance in a year, could be counted with the fingers of a single hand.

    "Damn maintenance." Said the captain before brushing his hand over the top of Daniel¡¯s helmet, which was stained by a spill of oil. "After we reach the Skyborne Commodore, have it reced with a functioning one." He then added before lowering his hand, and opening the door by allowing for the scanner mounted next to it, to read his authorization.

    After stepping through the door, and going through another short corridor, Daniel found himself into a seed-shaped shuttle. The members of his, as well as the four previous teams, were already in, strapped to the shuttle¡¯s walls, and waiting for the alien which Daniel was impersonating to turn up so that they couldunch.

    Daniel did not bother to apologize to these soldiers, and instead walked towards the smaller of the two empty pods. Once in, he strapped himself in the same way the others had, and as soon as thest of his belts clicked, two halves of a ss dome emerged from the sides of each of the soldiers, and closed them into a separated and controlled environment.

    The captain walked into the shuttle, and without saying anything, he quietly began to make sure that each member of his team was properly secured. If not, the sudden eleration of the shuttle would cause the belts to turn into deadly traps, which while unable to slice through their armor, were more than adequate enough for the soldiers to snap their necks with.

    After making sure that everything was in order, the captain entered thest of the pods and strapped himself in. A simr ss dome closed around him, creating a gravitational secured zone that would allow both him and the others to not feel the pressure caused by the eleration of the shuttle.

    Once done, he started to tap the small monitor present on his wrist into a specific sequence, which ignited the engines of the shuttle, and in a burst of speed unmatched by any object ever created by the human race, allowed it to exit the atmosphere and approach the Skyborne Commodore in only a few seconds.

    As if on autopilot, the shuttle approached one of the hangars of the massive station, which soundlessly opened to wee them in along with a dozen other shuttles.

    "All that wait for a few seconds of travel." Said one of the soldiers after bumping his elbow against Daniel¡¯s in an amicable way.

    Daniel was not in the mood to make friends, so he decided to destroy all of the hopes that the soldier could have in finding a friend in him, by saying, "A meagre price to pay to witness the power of our great navy." His intention was clearly to sound like an obnoxious military man with nothing in his mind but the will to serve and die for his home. A type of individual which, regardless of race, was considered boring to be around.

    With more ships waiting to dock, the shuttles were sent back, and the groups of soldiers were quickly taken to their frigates, where they would have to live when not busy with patrolling the vast expanse of space on their side of the wormhole.

    One after the other these spaceships were filled with soldiers, and soon enough, just like a swarm of wasps that had been warned about an iing threat to their nest, these ships were detached from the spatial station, being left to float in space. Once done, through the use of low-thrusters, the ships distanced themselves from the Skyborne Commodore, before lighting their propulsors, to get in position.

    Daniel observed all of this from his cabin, where he sat over the b of stone that the Kruga race of aliens would call beds, and made use of hisprehension of mana to understand how these beings would move around in space.

    Unfortunately, nothing much of what he saw could be considered an interesting discovery, as both the cold gas thrusters used to adjust the ship¡¯s position, or the Ion thrusters used to provide eleration, were quite simple to understand.

    However, that changed a few minutester, when the many frigates finally managed toe into a formation which surrounded a single different type of spaceship. Round in shape, devoid of any passenger, and equipped with a propulsor whose power matched that of the other ships.

    The moment this packed formation waspleted, the thruster of the round spaceship turned on, followed by that of the rest of the ships, which matched its eleration while keeping their tight positioning.

    For what felt like a million kilometers, the swarm of ships traveled at a decent speed, but nothing that would catch Daniel¡¯s attention. Nevertheless, just as Daniel was about to lose interest in the ship¡¯s mechanics, he started to feel that something was not right.

    Something within the oddly shaped spaceship had been suddenly turned on. A source of power which Daniel had vaguely felt when facing the alien warriors, and that now had reappeared in an immeasurably bigger scale. This spark of immensely powerful energy was forced to move at a superluminal speed within the spaceship, constantly elerating, to a point where its speed was too vast to fathom.

    Once this spark of energy was put into motion, the spaceships that surrounded it, still in their original formation, activated a sort of warp bubble that separated them from the surrounding space, which quickly started to curve around the round spaceship up to radius of half a million kilometers in the distance, creating a shortcut that allowed the floti to travel for hundreds of thousands of kilometers in just a few moments.

    The round spaceship kept moving forward, keeping on bending the space in its path, and extending the shortcut it created for the floti that surrounded it.

    Daniel was dumbfounded. Never in his life had he seen something that wasn¡¯t light, that could travel at such a speed.. nor had he seen an artificial cosmic event of such proportions. The power that fueled the round spaceship, as well as the spacesuits of this Kruga alien race, was clearly not natural in nature, or he would have recognized it. Instead, it was likely to be the pivot around which the era of space travel of which this race was such an expert about, had evolved around.

 Chapter 443 The Beginning of an End

    For the next two hours, the Kruga fleet traveled through the curved space, traversing a distance that couldpare to some extent by teleportation, but whichcked its risks. After all, while bent by a gravitational pull formed by a small, yet highly excited type of energy, the space did not present any sign of being damaged. On the other hand. teleportation was an ability subservient to spatial essence, while the method created by this alien civilization used technology to force space itself to bend to their will.

    The curvature of space could only be captured by the aliens, thanks to the observable starlight that went through it, and that forced to follow the curvature, had allowed them to understand the nature of gravity, and develop the technology they now used. However, that was not the same for Daniel, whose spatialprehension was deep enough to perceive any of the changes within his surroundings. Space, was not an exception.

    To him such an event was as noticeable as a massive whirlpool that had suddenly appeared in the otherwise calm body of water in which he was happily swimming into. Something that affected his sensing ability to a point where it could not be ignored.

    The fact alone that they had been traveling at this speed for hours and had yet to reach the wormhole, was enough to shock Daniel. He knew exactly how fast they were moving, and he was aware that even if the universal government was undoubtedly more powerful than this technologically advanced civilization, in order to make their way to their of origin without the use of their technology from the wormhole¡¯s entrance, it would take them millions of years.

    The mobility of the two armies made cultivators seem like a group of newborn babies that tried to face a line-up of horsemen.

    Still unaware of how much longer it would take for the fleet to arrive, Daniel kept an eye to his surroundings, and started to focus on acting less like a fish out of the water and more like a trained Kruga soldier, as the ones with whom he was sharing the cabin, had started to notice more of his odd reactions the more time went by.

    It was only after noticing that none of the soldiers had unpacked their bags, and guessing that the travel would notst much longer, that Daniel stopped bothering with how he appeared. Instead, he decided to assume the sleeping position of this odd alien race, and started to scan the interiors of the ship while pretending to have fallen asleep.

    From the behaviour of the many soldiers onboard, Daniel started realized how simr the two civilizations were. Starting by how easily a group of bored passengers who did not know each other would try to bond over a game of cards, or how some rejects would often try to stick to their own due to nervousness, or unwillingness to form any form of premature connection with others.

    Thest time Daniel had been in this situation, Heimart and Ligart were gambling their very scarce reserves of coins in a game of cards, while Alis would spend her entire day hidden underneath her nket, unwilling to allow any of the three to even peek at her.

    A lot had happened since that day, starting from the pirate attack which they were forced to repel, and ending with the Kruga attack to his. Thoughts of what could have happened if only he had taken another ship, or if he had pretended not to be awake during the pirate¡¯s attack came and went into his mind, forcing him to think of all of the things he wouldn¡¯t have seen, or all of the people he would have never met.

    Would he have found his family? Would his nephew be born, or Alesia¡¯s family still be a happy noble family within their empire? Would he be the same person that he was now, had things gone differently? The answers to each of these questions were very clear to him, and appeared almost as fast as the very questions they were tailor-made for.

    The answer was that he wouldn¡¯t. In fact, there was a high probability that if any of the events that led him to where he was now changed ever so slightly, he would have never met Aeron, leading him to share the grim destiny of each of the other hosts that had carried Iewah¡¯s children. No matter if it was a simple turn of the head, or a tragic event, each detail had brought him to where he was now. From a petty malnourished thief, to a feared entity, his life had been nothing but incredible.

    Daniel could not help butugh at the appearance of these thoughts, but soon after, the smile disappeared from his face, and was reced by a look of horror, and a terrifying feeling that crept down his spine.

    In the curved space, something had appeared. Invisible to the eyes of the Kurga soldiers, and undetectable to their scanners, seemingly peaceful monstrous beings started to approach the curved space only to be left behind by the fleet¡¯s massive speed. The further ahead they went, the more of these monsters they would find, to a point where Daniel felt as if he had been swimming amongst a bloom of jellyfish.

    What caused Daniel to feel the grim feeling he had felt, was the fact that he could recognize these monsters. As big as asteroids, covered in short tentacles and semi-closed eyes.. They appeared as a more peaceful and smaller version of the monsters which inhabited the void. The same monsters that would showcase their sovereignty over the spatial wastnd by further destroying its already shattered environment, with the concept of copsed space that was contained in their bodies.

    Daniel¡¯s every motion stopped, his body frozen by a fright which locked his jaw shut, and his eyes wide open. In his mind was the sudden realization of what the nature of the void truly was, as well as the origin of these odd and powerful monsters.

    Once a dimension simr to the one in which Daniel lived, the void was now nothing but a wastnd of spatial shards that would tear the weak body of a human into shreds in less than an instant. Now, Daniel had started to realize how that ce could havee to be.

    The spatial monsters appeared to be attracted byrge scale celestial events, which naturally included the artificial deformation of space produced by the energy contained within the odd, round spaceship. The speeding fleet would inadvertently brush against these monster, including them into the curvature of space before dashing past them a few momentster.

    Despite how brief this encounter was, those moments were enough for the monsters to feed off of the anomaly. A few of the closed eyes present around their bodies would slowly pry open, and the short tentacles would grow of numerous meters for every instant they would be in it. Had these monsters been affected for a prolonged amount of time, they would inevitably reach the size of those that inhabited the void. From what Daniel had seen in Edmund¡¯s memories, he was certain that if that ever happened, it would mean the end of his dimension.

    This advanced alien civilization had not only created something that could break the limitations of nature, but something that went outright against it, and that would inevitably cause the end of life.

    Out of the blue, the alien race of which Daniel had no interest in, and with which he shared amon enemy in the universal government, had be the biggest threat to his, and his group¡¯s lives.

    He walked around the corridors of the spaceship, observing the carefree behaviour of this alien race, clearly unaware of what they were doing. If leaving the spaceship and destroying the entire fleet with his own hands was an option, he would have done it. Unfortunately, something told him that if the warp bubble that surrounded the spaceship was as much as damaged while they were traveling at such a speed, his immortal body, spirit, or even mind would not be spared by the same fate as the ship itself, and be vaporized.

    If that wasn¡¯t enough, aside from the fleet in which he was traveling in, dozens of other alien races were part of the intergctic civilization of which the Kruga race was part of, and that meant that what was happening around them without them noticing, could possibly be happening everywhere around the sector of space upied by the alien civilizations.

    Suddenly, every form of enmity that Daniel felt towards the universal government started to lose value, and in his mind, he started to wonder whether the government, after being informed of the detrimental effect that the alien¡¯s technology was having on their universe, would ally with him in their destruction.

    What he did not know, unfortunately, was that while he tried to think of ways to reconcile with them, the universal government had already made him the most wanted individual in the history of their civilization.

    After Daniel¡¯s disappearance, the factions of the government had tried to discover Daniel¡¯s position by hiring the only ones which were able to find him, the children of Iewah.

    However, for the past few days, numerous reports had reached the government¡¯s senate. Each of them reporting of how the coboration with the children of Iewah had been interrupted, because when asked to locate Daniel¡¯s general position, they would always im that Daniel was currently billions of light years away from the government¡¯s borders.

    To the many factions, this information was nothing to worry about. However, that was not the case for the universal government. After the failure of the Xeno Protocol, the universal government had requested the help of the Deathbringer and of the Time Lord, two of the oldest and more reserved children of Iewah, in finding the lost Necromancer in an attempt to calcte the actual distance that separated the sector of space they upied, and the sector which belonged to this newly discovered civilization.

    When asked, the Deathbringer had revealed the general direction and distance that would lead a possible rescue party to the kidnapped Tirah, and now, those details happened to match almost precisely Daniel¡¯s reported location.

    Before the idea that Daniel could have also been kidnapped by this alien civilization could even formte in their minds, the universal government had branded him as a traitor, and a defector of humankind.. iming that he had betrayed his species to ally himself with their, and to plot humanity¡¯s destruction.

    This revtion spread far and wide, and soon enough, all of those with a barely passable connection with Daniel or his academy, were either forced to go into exile, or to hide their rtionship. If found, they would be branded as friends of humanity¡¯s most notorious criminal and betrayer, and would be executed.

    -----

    Back in the Kruga¡¯s spaceship, Daniel stepped back and forth a long corridor nervously. In his mind were the images of the monsters, which slowly evolved further into their mature forms. But what stressed him the most, were the aliens who walked past him as if he was behaving erratically,pletely unaware of what their engines were causing.

    In the blink of an eye three more hours passed, and the round spaceship finally deactivated. The gravitational pull immediately disappeared, and with it, the interest shown by the massive monsters, who floated away in the distance, in wait for another event of such a nature to repeat itself.

    After the deactivation of the round ship¡¯s gravitational field, the ships disabled their warp bubbles, and slowly started to break formation. Each ship traveled for a few minutes, until they reached the sectors to which they were assigned to. These fleets were stationed in a round grid, and formed a hemisphere-shaped imprable. Any and all entities who dared to break through this, would be instantly targeted by the hundreds of cannons mounted on each of the battleships.

    However, none of the details regarding the flotti¡¯s formation was of any concern to Daniem, who had long left the ship while hiding in the darkness of space, and had now stopped right in front of the massive tunnel-like passage between the two sectors of space, the wormhole. Nevertheless, to catch his attention was not the uniqueness of this portal, nor was it its impressive size.

    What he was focusing on, was a much more terrifying spectacle. One that showed thousands of spatial monsters feed off of the spatial anomaly, like ants onto a hog¡¯s corpse.

    "Oh no.." he muttered with horror.

 Chapter 444 To Delay the End

    Dimensional destroyers. That was the only term which Daniel could think of to describe these monsters.

    Only visible to those capable of understanding copsed space, these monsters would feed off of the chaotic celestial events, growing in power as a result. Once strong enough, they would make use of the power they were carrying to destroy everything.

    A dormant gue of dubious origin, that wouldy in wait for its moment to act.

    Now, right in front of Daniel, hundreds of these entities were swarming the gigantic wormhole, a tunnel forcibly opened between two distant points of space right after the spatial expense was folded in itself.

    Daniel was not sure of what to do. His first instinct was to stop these significantly bigger destroyers from keeping of eating, but he was not sure whether attacking any of them, would result in the same catastrophic scenario that he was trying so desperately to avoid. After all, it only took one use of the concept of copsed space contained in the stomachs of any of these monsters, to create a chain event that would ultimately destroy the entire dimension.

    And yet, he could not simply do nothing as these now moon-sized monsters reached theary size possessed by those who inhabited the void, bing powerful enough to fulfill what he believed to be their ultimate goal.

    To stop such a mastodontic event would not be an easy task, but luckily, he at least knew where to start.

    The first thing he did was to summon a small piece of stone, a stone which emanated his very own true essence, and was simr to the one he would feed to the Sacred Grounds of Hiel academy. A portion of his.

    He then ced it on the side of his curved index, and with a flick of his thumb, he sent it flying through space, and in the direction of the massive wormhole. In his mind, he was praying that the Kurga would consider it just a random rock, and would not attempt to destroy it.

    Once he finished doing this, he started to observe the different groups of ships thatposed the defensive grid around the wormhole. It was only then that he noticed that something was odd. The majority of these fleets wereposed of a few frigades, and numerous smaller battleships, but not all of them.

    In a section of space which, considering the position of the ships, could considered the southern part of the wormhole, was a second grid of ships. This grid was entirelyposed of battleships, tightly packed into a defensive formation. In the middle of this prison of battleships, was a gargantuan metallic sphere, with metallic tubes that run across the surface in every direction. This metallic sphere was devoid of any form of propulsor, and it had been built in ce.

    From a simple look, Daniel was able to understand that this sphere was nothing but a more powerful and advanced version of the round ship, which had curved space in order to allow the ships to travel at a superluminal speed. However, instead of containing a single minuscule spark of energy which moved crazily within the round metallic sphere which contained it, this sphere contained thousands of them, all following a specific path, and creating a power so vast, that it could fold billions of light years of space like nothing.

    This massive metallic sphere was the source of power that kept the wormhole opened, and without it, the space would unfold, destroying the tunnel that it sustained. If that happened, the dimensional destroyers would lose their interest, and go back to their dormant state, in wait for more celestial events to feed off of in the future.

    Daniel knew perfectly well that he would never be able to approach the wormhole¡¯s power source without being spotted, after all, more than once had the Kruga soldiers proven that invisibility was not something they had no remedies against, and would only work in ces where they weren¡¯t prepared for it.

    Their side of the wormhole, unfortunately, was not one of such ces. Aware of the cultivator¡¯s powers, the intergctic union of alien races were on constant lookout for invisible entities or objects, and their soldiers, were always ready to act.

    Bad chances had never been something capable of stopping Daniel from doing what he needed to do, so he stored the helmet of his space suit into one of his spatial rings, and merged his body with the darkness contained in the empty space between him and the sphere.

    For a few thousands of kilometers, Daniel was pleasantly surprised that none of the soldiers had gone to meet him in space, and in the back of his mind, he hoped that no one would. But unfortunately, luck was not on his side. Just as his hopes were starting to go up, the hangars of the hundreds of battleships started to open, and from them, emerged tens of thousands of shes of light.

    These shes of light were incredibly fast, and approached him at a speed that he could barely follow with the naked eye. However, he was not there for confrontation, so instead of fighting his way through this swarm of soldiers, he used one of his oldest and most useful tricks. Around his body formed ayer of deflective spatial essence, which would confuse the actions of the soldiers, and prevent their attacks from reaching his body.

    Unfortunately, Daniel had underestimated the importance that the alien races ced on this sphere, as with every kilometer he crossed, a hundred more of these soldiers would appear around him.

    After about two minutes, when only a few tens of thousands of kilometers separated him from the sphere, Daniel found himself surrounded from all directions. He could feel the des of these warriors sh past the surface of his body, only a few millimeters away from his skin. On the surface of these des he could feel a nearly imperceptible smic edge, which would without a doubt be able to slice right through his essence of true immortality, and cut his body at an atomic level.

    Simrly to the feeling of being stuck in the middle of a swarm of wasps, Daniel could not allow himself to be fully surrounded. Thest time that had happened, the Kruga¡¯s assaulting party had managed to bring both him and his into a wormhole. So instead of relying on his evasive methods, he began to emit as much true essence as he could to the unbeknownst of the thousands of shes that menacingly shed by him.

    Daniel¡¯s power started to propagate outwards, staining the otherwise empty space as a drop of ink into a ss of water, and kept on growing until finally, after two more minutes, the invisible power had managed to include all of the attacking warriors.

    "Do not let him get near the key!" Said one of the captains to the rest of the warriors, through the use of theirmunication devices. "ATTACK IN FORMATION!" He then ordered.

    In response to these orders, the thousands of soldiers flew into formation. They could feel the space around Daniel was distorted, so instead of trying their luck by attacking one by one, they assumed one of the formations taught by their military, and turned themselves into an imprable.

    By being bound to one another, one of their attacks was bound to find its target.. however, just as the propulsors with which their suits were equipped with released a burst of power, the invisible power that was engulfing their surroundings turned into lightning essence.

    The sudden appearance of a massive electric discharge blinded the scanners of the ships, which becamepletely unaware of what had happened. It was only after a few moments, that the light caused by Daniel¡¯s attack disappeared, and their scanners were able to pick up on the result of the sh.

    Floating in free space were thousands of soldiers, all safe and sound, and yet, unable to move. The electronicponents of their suits had been fried, and as of now, they were bound to float in space with little to no breathable air, in the hope that someone could soone to their rescue.

    However, it was not the fate of these soldiers that worried the leading figures of the alien¡¯s floti, but Daniel¡¯s, whose body was floating in space while unconscious. On his back was a massive sh which revealed numerous of his bones, and from which he lost numerous droplets of blood that turned into dark red spheres right after flowing out of the wound.

    "Send the shuttles to rescue our soldiers, and capture the human.. alive." Said the flotti¡¯smander. In response to these orders, hundreds of small shuttles started to depart from their battleships, and scoop the disabled soldiers from the space in which they were floating in.

    What they failed to notice was that while the movement of the soldiers was halted by Daniel¡¯s attack, he was still slowly advancing.

    A particrly quick shuttle, which had just departed from themander¡¯s frigate, rapidly calcted the trajectory of Daniel¡¯s body so that they could interjected him before he coulde any closer to the sphere. They then opened the cargo bay¡¯s bulkhead to allow Daniel to float right into the shuttle, but right as his body was about to be recovered by the aliens on board, Daniel¡¯s body straightened, and he directly dove through the other side.

    The thick metallic wall did not obstruct Daniel in the least, as the moment his body touched it, it turned into a form of liquid metal that allowed him to float through, as if he had plunged into the surface of a body of water.

    After diving through the shuttle¡¯s external panels, Daniel focused the entirety of his power on the bottom of his feet, and with the highest speed he was capable of, covered the remaining few hundred kilometers that separated him from the metallic sphere in just a few moments, andnded over its surface.

    The aliens were quick to react, and send thousands more warriors to get him off of the source of power that was keeping the wormhole opened, but it was toote. The moment Daniel¡¯s hands had touched the sphere, every millimeter of it, exterior or interior, was mapped into his head. It only took a few moments for him to take control over the metallic essence contained in its thick panels, and use it to remove a few crucial screws, or break some important parts.

    The many approaching soldiers instantly took hold of him, and separated him from the globe of metal with the fastest speed they could muster, but right as they were about to breathe in relief due to the seemingly intact state of the sphere, they started to notice that something was amiss.

    Their sensors were reading sudden increases in temperature caused by the erratic movements of the sources of energy, which instead of moving in their predisposed pathways, were now wrecking through the interiors of the sphere.

    "IT¡¯S GOING TO EXPLODE!!" Shouted the soldier that was holding Daniel¡¯s arm before letting go of him, and using the top speed that his suit allowed him to, to get as far away as he could.

    Daniel did not bother to run away, and instead observed as the orb of metal started to glow with an increasingly more brilliant yellow color, and after only a few minutes.. *Crack*

    The explosion caused by the copse of the metallic sphere was initially not as catastrophic as the soldier made it out to be. The first thing to happen was the sudden expulsion of the artificial sources of energy used by the structure, which shed past billions of kilometers in only a few instants, never to be seen again.

    It was after the disappearance of the many orbs of energy, that the wormhole suddenly shut close, and the remaining power started to condense to the size of a human¡¯s eyeball. Once this originally vtile energy became as dense as stone, it exploded with a power that could match that a dying star. A catastrophic event capable of destroying an entire system, and that left nothing of what had not managed to escape, unscathed.

    Naturally, that was not Daniel¡¯s fate. Right before the explosion, and immediately after the wormhole had closed, Daniel had teleported right next to the small stone he had thrown into the wormhole a few minutes earlier, reappearing right on the other side of it, weakened, and wounded.

    His actions were only supposed to buy him some time to warn the universal government, but it was what he saw next, that made him lose hope.

    Floating in the space in front of him, were no less than two dozen armies, each belonging to one of the government¡¯s major factions, or the government¡¯s military itself. At the helm of each of these factions were some of their most powerful members, as well as a different child of Iewah, who stood in wait.. Fully prepared for Daniel¡¯s appearance.

    "So this is where the party was.. haha." said Daniel before letting out a grimugh.

 Chapter 445 In One Ear and out the Other

    "So this is where the party was.. haha." said Daniel before letting out a grimugh. In front of him were many familiar faces, as well as unknown faces whose affiliation he could guess from the recognizable attires.

    To lead this line-up of factions, was a battalion of the universal government¡¯s army which would otherwise be busy with defending the area from any possible incursion from the other side of the now closed wormhole. "Would you mind revealing what you were doing on the other side of the wormhole, and why it is now closed?" Asked an oddly muscr old man d in military attire.

    "Does it matter?" Asked Daniel in response, aware that whatever his reasons were, the presence of a few of Iewah¡¯s children meant that the only reason for this reunion was him, and not any defensive measure against a possible attack by the alien civilization.

    After all, there was no possible way that the government and the factions could have known that Daniel would reappear from that wormhole, and exactly at that time, if not for them. At the same time, if an invasion was about to take ce, any of Iewah¡¯s children would have predicted it through the use of their systems.

    "It does not." Said the old general before tightening the grip around his greatsword that was strapped to his back. "Surrender yourself to us, Outcast. No one needs to get hurt." He then added with an authoritative voice, betrayed by an almost imperceptible amount of nervousness.

    "We would rather you don¡¯t." Said one of Iewah¡¯s children while grinning contently, a boy in his early teens dressed in the most regal clothes that Daniel had ever seen. He was the owner of the inheritance system, a system that allowed its wielder to obtain the experience and abilities of a person, by simply being present during the moment of their death.

    Paired with the ability to retain his youth, the ability to obtain a person¡¯s legacy had granted him the name of the ¡¯Hereditary Prince¡¯.

    Daniel had absolutely no intention of surrendering. His was still in the territory of the alien¡¯s civilization, and the only reason why he hadn¡¯t used his connection to it to recall it, was because of the people that were in front of him. Unfortunately, he did not know how long his would remain undetected without him, so it was essential that he managed to escape.

    In the eyes of the children of Iewah, he could see the eagerness that they felt at the thought of fighting him, which was only above the withheld desire to fight one another.

    "Do not fool yourself, old brat. None of you here has the ability to best me." Said Daniel with a tone filled with mockery, and an unmatched sense of superiority. He then shrugged his shoulders in resignation, and added, "What a shame. I would have dly taught a lesson to each of you, at some point. If not for the fact that you were too spineless to find me by yourselves."

    Mocking words were wasted on the ears of Iewah¡¯s children, as their honor was never something they cared about. However, what would hurt them, was the absolute confidence that was relied on by Daniel¡¯s words. To him, the fact that the other children of Iewah present were beneath him, was a certainty, despite not even knowing for sure what their powers were.

    As he finished speaking, Daniel remembered what his task was, and turned to look at the general with a stern expression. "Before you do anything stupid, you better listen to what I have to say. The aliens.." He said before recounting what he had learned, starting by exining what the dimensional destroyers were, to the danger that the alien¡¯s way of life posed to their dimension¡¯s survival, and ending with the importance of joining forces to stop this guaranteed apocalypse.

    "ENOUGH!" Shouted the old general who, much more experienced than any other person present, had already assumed what Daniel intended to do. "Surrender without causing any trouble, this is thest warning." he said, ignoring Daniel¡¯s revtion.

    "You damn idiots, didn¡¯t you listen to a single word I have said?!" Asked Daniel with exasperation.

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s position was not one that would help his case. He was the one being cornered, and as a chosen on Iewah, he was considered part of a group of beings notorious for their cunning, and ability to get out of difficult situations where no one else could. Amongst the opposing group, there was no pair of ears that was willing to listen to any word he said, which was unfortunate, since the very presence of a single Void Dweller could have confirmed his ims.

    "We know you are different from your siblings, Outcast. Your powers may be a mystery, but your weakness isn¡¯t. As we speak, numerous other groups led by members of your kind are tracking down your friends. Surrender yourself to us, and no harm will befall them." Said the old general in an attempt to force Daniel to concede. However, he would soone to wish that he could take those words back.

    A grim smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face, and at the same time, his hands closed into two frightening fists. "Oh really?.." he said as the space around his fists started to crack.

    "ATTACK HIM!" Said the general while moving his greatsword in front of his body, and pointing it upwards.. Ordering his army to start the charge.

    Daniel observed as numerous groups which belonged to different factions approached him with weapons in hand. The mental factions were using their powers to hinder his mind, the spiritual faction forced negative emotions into his spirit in hope to cause him to make mistakes, and the ki factions, along with the government¡¯s army, charged him with the might of their bodies alone.. But that did not matter.

    What caused Daniel¡¯s heart to bleed was not the mental pressure that he was easily able to endure, the negative emotions which he was able to ignore, and certainly not the individually weaker cultivators who tried to engulf him with their sheer number. Instead, what hurt him was feeling all of the karmic points that he possessed be halved time after time again, as a result of multiple uses of karmic retribution.

    All of these uses were naturally directed at those who posed a threat to him. The children of Iewah.

    The army of soldiers and warriors approached his position, but just as their attacks, supported by their immortal essence and ki could reach his body, the cracked space suddenly shattered, causing for arge number of soldiers to be split into hundreds of pieces, and form a cloud of small pearls of blood and chunks of flesh which covered arge portion of the surrounding area.

    Most of those who had survived were ki warriors, who thanks to their more resistant bodies, were able to survive the sudden shattering of space, and retreat with only a few injuries. "We cannot get closer! Stabilize the space around him!" Said the leader of the ki warriors, an extremely muscr man dressed in simple clothes, to the spiritual warriors.

    In response to this order, Daniel started to feel numerous spiritual powers take over therge area of space that he was controlling, causing his true essence to lose ground bit by bit.

    Forced to struggle over the control of the surrounding space, Daniel could only watch as two ki warriors charged in his direction, and swung their swords at his neck, and the middle of his chest. Two bloody wounds appeared in a moment on his body, and almost as fast as they were opened, quickly closed thanks to Daniel¡¯s powerful regenerative abilities.

    These attacks did not stoping, forcing Daniel to take a defensive stance in order to protect his eyes. He took one attack after the other, waiting for his true essence to condense within the small area which he was able to maintain.. And after around two hundred exchanges, he acted.

    He used his true essence to create numerous metallic needles which he positioned in front of his body. He then moved his right hand behind his back, and retrieved one of the objects stored in his spatial ring.

    "STOP WHATEVER IT IS THAT HE IS DOING!" Shouted the general, suspicious of Daniel¡¯s movements.. Unfortunately, it was already toote.

    Daniel¡¯s lips curved into a wide smile as he suddenly brought three metallic sphere in front of his chest. He then injected a potion of his power into them to activate them, before releasing them. Only moments after leaving his hand, three gigantic explosion took ce one after the other, with a st supported by a hundred times the full capacity of someone at Daniel¡¯s level of cultivation.

    These three explosions were so massive, that nothing of the ki warriors, the government¡¯s soldiers, or even Daniel had remained. Or at least, so it seemed.

    Only seconds after the incredible st, the scattered particles of Daniel¡¯s disintegrated body started to merge together, and in a few more seconds, from what appeared like a clump of burnt dirt, his body was restored to the peak of his power.

    After recovering, Daniel did not wait for the survivors to regroup, or for the general to order another attack, and instead disappeared using his mental power of teleportation. When he reappeared, he was right in the middle of the group of spiritual warriors, who were barely able to turn the surface of their bodies into metal in the very moment Daniel¡¯s sword-like left arm had turned into a de.

    An incredible amount of sparks shed by as his sword cut through theyer of metal, and into their spirits, either cutting the bodies of a few of them in half and forcing their spirits to go back to the spiritual in, or injuring them severely.

    Suddenly, the pressure against which Daniel¡¯s power of mental fortitude struggled against became twice as heavy, and from a few kilometers in the distance, came a loud voice that said, "DO WHAT YOU WERE BROUGHT HERE TO DO!"

    As soon as the general finished calling for support, Daniel noticed that at least half of the children of Iewah present had started to move. To lead the attack were the Hereditary Prince, and a short middle aged man with a significant amount of muscles hidden underneath a visibleyer of fat.

    Luckily, Daniel was prepared, and met their charge with two more of Virgil¡¯s bombs. The two bombs exploded creating a massive cloud of fumes, and multicolored lights.

    Daniel had already used karmic redemption on both of these children of Iewah, so when he created a chance for it to work, he expected them to be damaged.. But unfortunately that was only half the case.

    The Hereditary prince was thrown back in the opposite direction with a few injuries that marked his young body, while the stout man, contrary to his disintegrated clothes, waspletely unharmed. The man¡¯s abnormal defence was a consequence of his gift, the tank system, which granted him an imprable body, and had granted him the name of ¡¯the Unmovable¡¯.

    The Unmovable approached him at great speed with a shoulder cocked back, and a fist as big as kid¡¯s head, seemingly ready to destroy Daniel¡¯s body with a single punch, but just before his punch could hit, Daniel¡¯s body bent backwards, and wrapped his arms and legs around his thick arm.

    Without thinking twice about it, he forced a portion of his power down the Unmovable¡¯s lungs, and immediately turned into a fingertip-sized sphere of copsed space.. But to his shock, not even copsed space was able to damage his imprable body.

    Forced to let go of his arm to avoid being grabbed, Daniel was unable to see the bolt that had suddenly appear from out of nowhere, and pierced his throat, emerging from the other side. The burning sensation he felt was that of a poison to which, luckily, he was immune to.

    This bolt had been shot by the markswoman, a child of Iewah covered in animal pelts, and that carried an illusory crossbow and bolts. Her sight was legendary, and her ranged attacks were known to hit the target from one star to another. Named as the Viewfinder, thanks to her precision system, she was known as the second best ranged attacker, right after one of her older brothers, the Killshot.

    After managing to damage Daniel¡¯s body, the six children of Iewah approached him, and floated next to him in silence, showing him their sadistic nature, and their willingness to continue to fight for as long as it pleased them.

 Chapter 446 Dominion of Darkness

    "I will enjoy this.." Said the Viewfinder as a new arrow appeared in between her fingers. The other children of Iewah made simr preparations, and said their own version of what an incoherent rambling about the enjoyment of constant confrontation was.

    Rtively younger in age, and the only ones willing to bother with doing favors for the universal government, these particr children of Iewah did not know that each system belonged to a certain level, and that not all of them were fit topete with the others.

    "Stop talking then, let¡¯s get this over with. I will show you the difference between our powers." Said Daniel as a single sword made of solidified lightning appeared in his hand, and ayer of pure destruction covered the other.

    Even if truthful, Daniel¡¯s words did nothing to deter the fight that would ensue, and instead, prompted the least patient of Sewah¡¯s siblings to attack him with their peculiar, and unique abilities.

    -----

    For the next two hours, the space where once floated a moon-sized wormhole, had be a circus. Between people who sent seemingly pointless attacks in the empty space, only to find their target afterwards, to tricks that in the eyes of those who could notprehend them, would appear like magic.

    Most of these attacks came in Daniel¡¯s direction, and after so much time, many had managed to reach him, wounding him in ways that would have easily killed any other immortal cultivator in the Universal Government. However, he could always manage to get back up.

    The only reason why he could do that, was because of two of his abilities. The first one was Mental fortitude, which protected his mind power and consciousness long enough for his spirit and body to reform and heal, whenever they would be destroyed. The second ability, was the Karmic Syestem¡¯s active effect, ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, thanks to which, he was able to speed his recovery and restoration of power at an incredible level, at the cost of his remaining karmic points.

    Those two abilities alone were the reason why Daniel couldpete against so many children of Iewah, but unfortunately, the more he fought, the more he realized that his system¡¯s abilities were not as unique as its nature.

    Of those whom he fought, the Hereditary Prince was always able to mimic the easiest types of abilities used by Daniel, like the control over certain concepts of mana. If not for theplexity of a few of them, it wouldn¡¯t have taken much for him to understand Daniel¡¯s concepts of the slow rewinding of time, or how to produce copsed space. If that wasn¡¯t enough, Daniel could never manage to inflict a lethal attack to him, and not because he would miss him, but because whenever he would strike a deadly blow, he would stop his actions for fear of actually killing his enemy, just like an instructor would do at the end of an intense training session with his pupil, right before things could get too dangerous.

    Unique as the Hereditary Prince was, he was not the only example of oddness. In his own way, the Unmovable appeared to be able to continue fighting for as long as he wanted, and whenever Daniel would feel his power diminish, and he would make an attempt at injuring him, he would regain as much power as that used in the attack.

    The same was true for the Viewfinder, which Daniel had yet to wound since her abilities included not only a spot-on precision that allowed her to find the pathway to her target, but the pathway to avoid damage as well by making urate decisions when dodging, or using her surroundings to protect herself.

    The only reassuring thought in Daniel¡¯s mind, was the fact that such skills could not possibly be of a passive nature, and that whatever currency their systems was taking away from them, they were bound to run out sooner orter.

    This expected and weed circumstance started to present itself sooner rather thanter, as in the next few minutes, Daniel was finally able to go on the offensive, and do some Damage. Starting with the momentary death of the Unmovable, whose consciousness he could not absorb through his unbreakable skin, but that he was able to dismantle thanks to a type of mental ma he had created for that purpose, and continuing with the death of the Hereditary Prince who, after the destruction of his body, turned into a wisp of unique power, and inserted itself into the body of one of the surrounding cultivators, of which he took the ce of soon after.

    The loss of their failsafe ability was a great change for the pace of this battle, as with only one life left to lose, even Iewah¡¯s chosen ones started to be careful. That, was when Daniel started to get the upper hand.

    "Come on, don¡¯t chicken out now. I¡¯ve died thirty times and I am notining!" Said Daniel as about half of his body, covered in sizzling foam, struggled to regenerate against the corrosive power of a sort of acid thrown onto him by the Rotten, owner of the decaying system whose concept, not unlike Tirah¡¯s system, was a subss of the one possessed by the Deathbringer.

    Despite Daniel¡¯s sorry state, he was at an advantage. He was somehow managing to cause more damage than it was inflicted upon him, which greatly worked to boost his morale. But just as his state of mind started to be more rxed, he felt a sharp paine from the middle of his chest.

    He looked down with confusion, and quickly an arm as ck as space itself pierce his body from the back, all the way through. It didn¡¯t take long for Daniel to realize to whom this arm belonged, after all, he had met this particr chosen of Iewah before. The only one who could catch him by surprise, by using the shadows produced by his clothes¡¯ folds to appear directly behind him, the Shadow. Daniel spat a few droplets of dark red blood, and with a force that only someone with punctured lungs could manage, he coughed with pain.

    "Kill him!" Shouted the old general with urgency, worried that Daniel could somehow escape death one more time.

    Seeing how the Shadow had managed to catch Daniel by surprise, the other children of Iewah swallowed their fear and prepared to finish him, but something stopped them. After a few coughs, Daniel turned his head around, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the silhouette of the Shadow. On his face, was a smile.

    "Youh h-hhave pick-ugh.. wroonghh.. shaahdo.." He muttered through his grin, as from in between his thin ck hair, a dark mist emerged.

    The Shadow barely had the time to look up before his ck silhouette was grabbed by another dark entity, which after turning into the shape of a demonic wolf¡¯s head, bit onto his body. The two silhouettes merged together, but contrary to the rest of the spectators who could not see anything of what was happening, Daniel could feel the demonic wolf rip the Shadow¡¯s body out of where he was hiding.

    About ten seconds after, the Shadow emerged from a patch of shade produced by one of the soldiers, over the body of another. His appearance was now much more physical than before, and he appeared as what one would imagine an assassin to look like, covered in ck bandages from head to toe.

    Simrly, the demonic wolf cub separated itself from Daniel¡¯s body, and went back not only to his physical appearance, but to his original size, which was that of a wolf fifty meters long from nose to tail. He then quietly observed the sorry figure of the shadow, while letting his tongue brush his nose every in excitement.

    "What the hell is that?!" Asked the Shadow, whom not many had heard talk in the past. His voice betrayed the fright that being stuck in a shadow with a demon of pure darkness had instilled in him.

    "Him? he is the Lord of Hell, and he seems to like you." Said Daniel while showing a faint smile, after finally being able to restore his lungs. "How about keeping himpany?" He then added while gently stroking the demonic wolf¡¯s patch of fur in between his eyes.

    The Shadow did not speak any further. He had met numerous dark elementals in his thousands of years of life, and yet, he had never seen a being with so much control over dark essence. For the first time since taking control over the dark system, he felt that darkness was not safe anymore.

    However, he did not surrender. He quickly turned back into his shadow form, and once again disappeared into the ck spot from which he had emerged from, to use his personal dimension to teleport from one entrance to another. In his mind, was the conviction that while perfectly in control over darkness, the odd beast in front of him could not teleport like he did, so as long as he focused on hitting and running, he would be safe.

    This assumption would be extremely urate on a¡¯s surface, where the bright light of a star would separate shadows cleanly, but they were in space. They were floating, fighting, and living in darkness, and that darkness, was the demonic wolf¡¯s domain.

    For the following minute the Shadow used his dimension to teleport from one entrance to the other, only to find the demonic wolf wait for him on the other side. One injury after another started to pile us, and soon enough, his first life was ceded.

    With the Shadow busy, Daniel was able to put some pressure on the other children of Iewah who, left with no other choice, had resorted to using their ultimate skills. Between artifacts and odd looking abilities, Daniel observed as Sewah¡¯s brothers prepared to put their lives on the line in an all out confrontation, but just as their charge separated them from the rest of the group, the space started to vibrate.

    The children of Iewah ignored this and continued with their charge, but Daniel was perfectly aware of what was happening. He could feel trillions of kilometers of space being folded, but instead of feeling the ripping of space of a normal portal, Daniel felt an ominous energy drill a new wormhole. In the distance, he could see a few dimensional destroyers approach the site with curiosity.

    The power of this energy was like nothing Daniel had ever felt before, and the moment it reached the patch of space he was floating in, it caused it to curve just like the top of a mountain, curved by the vapors which waited for nothing but to pierce through.. And that, is what was happening.

    The curved space popped like an inted balloon, and from the other side came a ray of energy that went through the battleground, and stopped only after reaching the ck hole that the aliens had used to cover the wormhole. Its power big enough topletely vaporize the big ball of darkness that had spun in the same ce for billions of years.

    In the battleground where Daniel had faced Sewah¡¯s siblings up until now, were the wounded bodies of the Unmovable, whose body was still in one piece, but presented severe burns from top to bottom, the Viewfinder, whose bodycked both legs, which she had lost at thest moment when avoiding the energy ray, and the bodies of the others, who presented wounds of simr degrees.

    That was the effect of Karmic Retribution, which had taken effect against Daniel¡¯s opponents only now, after hours of fighting. Unfortunately, while easy to finish, Daniel was in no condition to fight either.

    The use of karmic redemption on each of his opponents had left him with close to no karmic points, and the constant use of Time is Precious has taken the rest and more, to a point where, without noticing, he had started to spend points he didn¡¯t have, entering the realm of negative karma.

    His karma¡¯s equivalent of bad luck was the disintegration of his right arm.

    The way this event worked in his favor, however, was due to what happened next.

    Clearly enraged by Daniel¡¯s actions when in their territory, the alien civilization gave up caution, barging through the newly opened wormhole inrge numbers and along with many of their spaceships, initiating their invasion sooner than programmed.

    Daniel did not bother to try and retrieve the artifacts of his now disabled opponents, as his bad luck would definitely not allow a good oue, and instead, used the confusion to recall the demonic wolf back, and escape.

 Chapter 447 A Fugitive Once Again

    In response to the alien invasion, the universal government summoned a great number of their warriors, and soon enough, a gctic scale war started. In the hope of getting to safety, Daniel used all of his means to get as far away in as little time as possible, but his escape wasn¡¯t as uneventful as swift as he had hoped.

    A group of thousands of alien soldiers, apanied by their ships, were sent in his pursuit, forcing him to alternate between standing his ground, and shooting in the distance as fast as he could. But no matter what he tried, In the end, his abilities were too limited whenpared to the alien technology, who could pinpoint his position to the furthest distance he was able to reach in a matter of moments.

    For weeks Daniel desperately tried to get rid of his pursuers, deepening his debt towards karma, and tiring himself out more than he had ever been before.. Until finally, in a desperate attempt to stand his ground, he was engulfed by the attacks of the dozen of spaceships specifically deployed to subdue him. It did not take long for the aliens to realize that their weapons, while effective in damaging his body, were clearly unable to kill Daniel once and for all, as not even vaporizing his body would prevent it from reforming soon after.

    With no hope to fulfill the mission assigned to them by theirmanders, to the aliens, only one option was left..

    -----

    Coming back to life was not aplicated process for Daniel. Thest surviving aspect of his being, unless also destroyed, would be the center around which the remaining two aspects would reform, allowing him to survive any kind of violent death.

    During this process, unless his mind was the aspect of his being that was destroyed, his consciousness would go into a slumber caused by the shock of being forcibly separated by the brain of which it was in control of, and the spirit from which it received the feelings it felt. He would then wake up the moment his body was fully reformed.

    Thanks to Daniel¡¯s powerful regenerative abilities, this entire process would usually take a few seconds, but this time, it was clear to him thating back to life had taken much longer.

    When he woke up from his slumber, he was in an extremely bright cell devoid of doors and windows. Around his wrists were a pair of cuffs that were identical to the onesto prevent Tirah from escaping her prison cell. The only thing that reassured him, was the fact that he could still feel his in the same ce he had left it, meaning that it hadn¡¯t been found yet.

    Daniel stood back up on his feet, weakened by the forceful absorption of power produced by the handcuffs, which stripped the true essence that strengthened the connection between his atoms, and recycled it so that it could be used to reinforce the material of which the handcuffs were made out of.

    For the following few minutes, Daniel inspected his cell. To an inexperienced eye, this room would appear as the inside of a cube, devoid of any kind of entrance, or exist. But that was not the case for Daniel, who thanks to the eyes of an ascended high immortal, was able to find the extremely thin rectangr crevice which indicated the presence of a door masked as amon portion of the wall. However, Just as he was about to start touching the door around, it suddenly opened towards the inner part of the cell, forcing him to take a few steps back, and stand in the middle of the room.

    From the now opened door, came a thin alien that belonged to a race different from the ones he had met before. His thin body was the least impressive detail of his body, whenpared to his purple skin, and abnormallyrge cranium. His clothes were different from those worn underneath the spatial suit by the Kruga soldiers, and were of the same kind worn by the scientists present in the secretboratory of the alien¡¯s prison he had infiltrated to, to steal the alien trantor.

    This odd looking alien fiercely walked into the cell while holding Daniel¡¯s spatial ring, as well as the helmet Virgil had modified for him so that it could trante from humannguage, to the alien one.

    After noticing theck of fear in Daniel¡¯s eyes, the alien brought his extremely thin left wrist up to the lipless slit present in the ce where a human¡¯s mouth would be, and let out an iprehensible series of sounds directed towards his bracelet. As he finished emitting those sounds, from the bracelet came a string of words in the humannguage, that said, "Where did you get this?"

    Daniel did not respond, and instead pointed at the ring the alien was holding, and said, "Do not lose that. I will get it back soon."

    The alien either did not understand the threat, or did not care, and instead let out another series of sounds, this time slightly different from before, right into his trantor. "Who modified this?" He asked while pointing at the rtively new wielding present on the side of the helmet, right where the trantors was installed.

    Once again, Daniel did not bother with answering the question, and instead asked, "Where are we? Is this another secretb hidden underneath a¡¯s crust?" His tone was a casual one, and his expression was devoid of any form of worry. From the scientist¡¯s perspective, it did not appear that Daniel was a prisoner, and that he was in fact able to escape at any point in time.

    "You are in your permanent residence, one whosefort will only get worse if you don¡¯t start answering my questions." Responded the alien before once again lifting the modified helmet, and repeating, "Tell me who modified this helmet. Who gave this to you?"

    Daniel¡¯s words regarding a secretboratory did not escape the ears of the scientist, who willingly ignored its validity due to his conviction. To him, the helmet was enough of a proof that Daniel hadn¡¯t infiltrated one of their bases, and that instead, he hade to learn about theboratory¡¯s existence from one of his interaction with a spy. A traitor who had given a sample of their technology to the enemy, and that had gone as far as modifying it for them so that they could understand their technology better, and learn theirnguage.

    This theory waspletely wrong, and yet, it was the most usible for a civilization that could not understand the concepts of mana, and that could not imagine walking through solid objects, be invisible, or teleportation.

    However, Daniel was in no mood to correct his mistake, and instead decided to feed the alien¡¯s suspicions by saying, "I don¡¯t know what you are talking about."

    Seeing how Daniel had reacted, the alien did not press the topic any further, and instead took another step into the cell, and said, "So you are another one of those special parasites. I have heard a lot about you, and your siblings."

    "Only good things, I am sure." Responded Daniel before smiling, and resting over the furthest end of the wall opposite to the cell¡¯s door.

    "Not particrly positive, no. They call you the outcast, abandoned by a group that did not fit to begin with. That is impressive." Said the scientist, slightly morefortable now that he had seen that Daniel was not rebelling in any way. He then took another step into the cell, and said, "Why don¡¯t you tell me about yourself.. What makes you different from the others?"

    Daniel¡¯s shoulders were raised in response. "As you¡¯ve said, there are degrees of strangeness even amongst strange people. I am one of the strangest ones, I suppose."

    For the next two hours Daniel and the alien scientist kept their back-and-forth in a rtively civil way. For someone who could read the emotions shown by the scientist¡¯s alien race, they would realize how much that had surprised him. After all, he was the one who had interrogated the Necromancer, and only he knew how difficult of a person she was.

    The specificity of the details he was interested in were more easily obtainable when the other party was free to answer, since by nting a controller into the girl¡¯s head, they were only able to demand that she gave a sufficient response, and not an exhaustive one. With Daniel that problem did not seem to persist, as he appeared to be willing to share anything that was asked of him in a sedate, and strangely charming way.

    Initially this was positive, but during thest few minutes, the alien scientist started to feel odd about it. "I had the impression that your kind was not keen on sharing information with people they distrust. Why are you telling me all of this?" He asked with curiosity.

    "It is funny that you ask." Responded Daniel before scratching the stubble that had grown on his face. He then added, "There are actually two reason for that."

    "Please, enlighten me." Said the scientist, now sure that something was up.

    "Well, the first reason is that I was hoping to get on your good side before telling you that the distortions of space caused by your people¡¯s technology are gradually causing the destruction of this universe." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone, before taking a pause.

    From what Daniel had learned about this scientist since the two started talking, was that he wasn¡¯t easily impressionable. He was clearly prepared to hear the most wild ims and crazy stories, and now that he was presented with one, he was left unfazed.

    "Our technology does not leave any form of permanent effect on the space we act on. Whatever plot that ridiculous im was made to serve, it will not work." Responded the scientist through the mechanical voice of his bracelet.

    "Can¡¯t me me for trying." Responded Daniel with a smile before lifting his left foot, and cing it over the wall.

    Slightly amused by Daniel¡¯s behaviour, the scientist took a step back, and after resting over the piece of wall that was right next to the door, he asked, "What is the second reason?"

    "I am waiting."

    "Waiting for what?" Inquired the scientist, even more curious than before.

    "Well, it was when I came to steal that trinket and saw the state in which the Necromancer was being kept, that I have realized that your kind does not understand the origin of our cultivation. You know that our essence makes us stronger, but you probably have no idea of what martial arts are." Responded Daniel ever so calmly.

    The scientist wasn¡¯t so calm anymore. His bracelet had tranted the words martial arts for him, and while he did not know what those words meant, his intelligence was deep enough for him to make a reasonable guess.

    In response to Daniel¡¯s words, the alien suddenly pushed his body away from the wall and tried to reach for an item that was hidden in his pocket, but before he could grab it, Daniel shot through the cell, and pinned the scienting against the wall he wasying on.

    "We are almost there." he said before kicking the back of the alien¡¯s leg, and wrapping his arms around his neck the moment he lowered himself.

    Suddenly an rm went off, and from the right side of the corridor, many soldiers in spatial suits ran towards the other side. This rm was the signal that their ship was under attack, and signified that most guards and soldiers were required to leave the ship to protect it from the hostile forces.

    Once the corridor was clear, Daniel dragged the scientist down its length, only stopping a few meters down in front of two cells simr to his own. In these cells were the quiet figure of the Unmovable, and the sorry figure of the Viewfinder, who sat on the cold floors of their cells with saddened expressions.

    From the look of it their fate wasn¡¯t as colorful as Daniel, and their systems were unable to find a way out for them like the Karmic System had done for Daniel. However, Daniel was already aware of that.

    "Open those two doors." Said Daniel with a menacing tone, and while tightening his grip around the alien¡¯s throat.

    The scientist, clearly not used to physical threats, immediately used his personal code to open the two doors, causing the two children of Iewah to shift their attention from their miserable futures, to looking at Daniel with confused expressions.

    "This ship is going to leave in approximately seven minutes. Surrender your artifacts, and I will allow you to leave with me." Said Daniel while showing the most shrewd smile he had ever been able to showcase.

    The very moment Daniel finished speaking, the two children of Iewah pried into a newly created option of escape from their systems, and after learning that Daniel was actually willing to let them leave, therge man took his belt out, and threw it in Daniel¡¯s direction. This belt was the reason why the ineffective attacks received by the Unmovable would restore his power instead.

    The Viewfinder, unfortunately, seemed to be distressed. She looked at Daniel with worry, and said, "I don¡¯t have an artifact.."

    Aware that she was lying, Daniel looked at her, and with a malicious smile, said, "Then you better shit one, and fast, or you are dying behind bars."

 Chapter 448 A Costly Souvenir

    Seeing how lying gave her no chance of surviving, the Viewfinder bent forward, and reached for her left leg with her cuffed hands. She then slid her fingers into the furry boots she was wearing, and from it, she took out a small magnifying ss.

    This object was not as widely known as the ne of immortality created by the system of the Deathbringer, or the door to dream state of thete Mindhive. However, just like the rest of the artifacts, it¡¯s power was nothing less than spectacr. Named ¡¯Foreboding Mirror¡¯, this magnifying ss was able to assist the Viewfinder by granting her a look at a random moment in the future, that was relevant to her objective.

    Thest time the Viewfinder had made use of this object, was right before Daniel¡¯s return from the alien space. In it, she had seen a battle between him and a group of children of Iewah of which she was part of. In this premonition, Daniel appeared to be struggling to keep up with therger group of chosen ones, and that was the reason why she had been so rxed, and willing to participate in this event.

    The most important aspect of this object, however, was the fact that its ability to show future events was not limited when used against other children of Iewah, meaning that she had a significant logical advantage against the rest of her siblings. Unfortunately, the usefulness of this object was solely relying on luck, and due to a streak of bad luck, she had been able to see the very short moment in which Daniel was losing, and no indication of her current situation.

    Her disappointment towards the object was nothingpared to the pain she felt the moment she begrudgingly handed it over to Daniel, who satisfied by obtaining two more artifacts, put them away. "Put the masks on, and walk ahead." he said while putting on the helmet he had taken back from the alien scientist, and pointing at a cab by the far end of the corridor, which contained a few more sets used by the guards to move the prisoners outside of the area of the containment cells.

    The rm kept going stronger and stronger, and along with it, came the shaking of the ship, that was being attacked by something that Daniel, due to the limitations put onto him, could not see. The Unmovable and the Viewfinder followed their own mission, that identically to Daniel¡¯s, were telling exactly where to go in order to avoid being discovered.

    Of the four people, the scientist could not believe what he was seeing. Whenever they would spot a soldier rush towards the ship¡¯s dock, they would be conveniently running in the opposite direction only to turn corner soon after. To him, it almost seemed that the three had already been in the ship, and that they knew it even better than he did.

    After about twenty minutes of lurking in the cold metallic corridors of the ship, the four of them arrived at an intersection. The two paths by the sides were brightened by wall-mounted lights, and on their walls and floors, were green segmented lines, painted there to indicate the exit. The path ahead, on the other hand, was a flight of stairs that descended into a rtively darker corridor, marked by two parallel red lines.

    Following their missions, the two siblings walked directly into the path on the right, which their systems assured them would be empty of guards and soldiers, but before taking more than a dozen steps, they turned around. Daniel had not followed them into the right corridor, and instead, had walked straight into the descending flight of stairs.

    The two children of Iewah looked at Daniel¡¯s actions with puzzlement. In their minds, they had already made ns to get their artifacts back from him, and yet, their system did not have an option in which, in case they followed Daniel down the stairs, they would be able to safely escape the ship.

    At the end of the day, artifacts were only tools. Extremely useful when apanied by their unique abilities, but still not worth their lives, so the two decided to give up on betraying Daniel¡¯s kindness, and followed their own path towards freedom.. Hoping that one day, they would have another chance to get back what was theirs.

    "This is the wrong way.." muttered the scientist while being forced down the stairs by Daniel, whose arms were still around his neck. "You are only going deeper into the ship!" he then added, worried that in case a soldier would find them snooping into the depths of the ship, he would be the first one to be killed.

    While the scientist was not technically wrong with thinking that Daniel was going the wrong way, that was only because he thought that Daniel¡¯s objective was to simply leave the ship. Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s objective was not the exit, but the room whose name was stered over the walls more and more frequently, the further they walked.. The Ship¡¯s core room.

    Alternating from walking through dark corridors and hiding themselves in the crevices in between pipes, Daniel kept going until finally, he found himself at the beginning of a catwalk. At the end of it, was a metallic double door eight meters high, and more than fifteen wide. Through therge transparent panels present in numerous parts of the door, Daniel could see dozens of alien operators, all of them focused on repairing, and making sure that the ship could work at the peak of its capabilities during this time of war.

    "What do you want to do?? You will never kill all of them before one calls for help." Said the scientist as he was dragged all the way to the door.

    "Shut up." Said Daniel before taking his hands off from the scientist. He then grabbed the arm on which he was wearing the bracelet, and moved it closer to a metallic panel right beside therge door. However, instead of allowing the bracelet to be scanned by the technological lock of the panel, Daniel stopped for a bit, and closed his eyes. In his mind numbers were counted down, "Four.. three.. Two.."

    As the numbers reaches the zero, arge spear constructed by metal essence pierced the external metallic panels of the ship, andnded right into one of the more important panels. The moment the spear destroyed this panel, the artificial gravitational pull within the ship was deactivated, and the many mechanics were sent floating all around therge core room. It was at this moment that Daniel pressed the alien¡¯s wrist against the scanner, and momentster, therge door opened.

    As soon as the door opened, Daniel bent his body forward, and with a push of his legs, he shot himself into the core room, in the middle of which was a massive tubr container, was a grey orb of trembling matter. Their presence was immediately noticed by the workers who, unable to reach for the rms, would point at them, and shout iprehensible words.

    The trajectory of the two did not take them to the thick ss container, and instead, led them to a locker present on the other side of the room, where Daniel found a pistol shaped instrument that was usually used to deactivate any type of faulty piece of technology whose malfunction could prove dangerous to the ship, without damaging it.

    After getting the hang of it, Daniel pointed the object at his handcuffs, and with a gentle pressure over its trigger, shot an electromaic pulse thatpletely deactivated any of the handcuffs¡¯ functions.

    Now back in possession of his powers, Daniel turned his hands into intangible darkness, and slipped out of the limiting object. He then tied all of the floating workers with constructed metallic wires, and turned towards the container in the middle of the room. Like a ghost, he floated right through the twenty centimeters of ss, and without even stopping to think about it, he stored the ship¡¯s core inside his spatial ring, stopping it from operating ever again.

    Naturally, Daniel was aware of how much he had exaggerated when iming that the ship would depart soon to Sewah¡¯s siblings. In reality, he had no intention of letting the ship leave the battleground, as he needed it to cover for his own escape.

    The moment the grey core disappeared from within its casing, the energy shieldings of the ship went from damaged, topletely absent. The trembling of the ship kept increasing, as thousands upon thousands of attacks shook it with increasing force.

    After stealing the ship¡¯s core, Daniel left the tubr container, andnded next to the scientist, who looked at him with a fearful expression while being dragged in front of one of the doors that connected the core room, to one of the engine rooms.

    For the next few minutes, Daniel appeared to be measuring the distance between the door, and a point of that corridor, causing the scientist to once again look at him with confusion. Now that he had his powers, the alien had assumed that Daniel would disappear, but that was not the case. Instead, he calcted around forty steps away from the door, and stood in wait for a few seconds.

    To rify the scientist confusion was Daniel, who grabbed him by the waist, and started to cover the distance with the running speed of a mortal human. The confusion on the face of the scientist was quickly turned into sheer terror, as a few moments before reaching the door, something hit the ship, causing for everything that was on the other side to be sted into empty space.

    Daniel did not stop, and directly hit the door with his shoulder, destroying its hinges, and detaching itpletely from the wall it was mounted on. The scientist began to panic, and think that he would be dead in a matter of seconds, but Daniel¡¯s following actions left him more confused than ever before. This action was to slide one of his hands back into one of the handcuffs, and releasing a weak electric shock to restart them.

    The alien could not understand the reason for Daniel¡¯s actions at first, but as they quietly floated through the battlefield undisturbed, he started to realize. By keeping only one of his hands cuffed, Daniel had halved the absorption rate. If he decided to, he could activate Time is Precious, and boost his production of essence to a point where he would be able to use his powers to a certain extent, but until then, he would bepletely undetectable. Not different than an inanimate wreck that floated away from the chaotic battlefield.

    -----

    For the following couple of days, the two remained in each other¡¯spany while slowly, yet not so slowly, making their into the depths of space.

    "I hope you thought further ahead than just escaping the gship." Said the alien with newfound respect, after all, the absolute sess of Daniel¡¯s brilliant escape elevated the opinion that the alien had towards him.

    Daniel did not respond, and instead, after making sure that the two of them had floated far enough, he quickly removed his handcuffs once and for all, and opened a portalrge enough for the two of them and the door to pass through, and just like that, in a few moments, they were gone. When they reappeared, the two found themselves in a sector of space hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.

    Not many people possessed a deeper understanding of space travel than the alien scientist, so when it seemed that Daniel intended on traveling by using the very limited power of his teleportation, he began to worry. "It will take us years to reach the closest, at this point." He said.

    "What are you talking about? We are already here." Said Daniel as the darkness in front of him dissipated, uncovering a massive and flourishing.

 Chapter 449 Unworthy Risk

    ck Castle.

    "What the hell is this?" Xargy asked right before moving his human-like head closer to the grey orb of matter, which was now exposed in the middle of therge table, locked in a transparent box of spatial essence, and surrounded by Daniel¡¯spanions. He then took a long sniff at it, and said with shock, "It doesn¡¯t have any smell!!"

    The very moment Daniel had gone back to his, he had immediately started to study the grey orb that he had stolen from the alien ship. However, no matter how much, or for how long he looked at it, he could not feel any form of power or essence being emanated, making it look like something which did not belong to their universe.

    ording to the kidnapped scientist, this extremely dense liquid was called grey matter. It had been found in extremely small quantities within the remnants of an asteroid that had crashed into the original of the Kruga¡¯s race, bringing them close to extinction. It was only after a few years, that the Kruga race had been able to restore their civilization, and were able to discover the grey matter in the crash site.

    Finally, after a hundred years, the most prominent Kruga scientists of their time were finally able to find a way to use it.

    Found out to be an extremely powerful fuel, this matter was the core around which revolved the technology that allowed them to bend space. These discoveries had brought the Kruga race through a series of technological revolutions, which ultimately lead them to space travel, and the conquest of arge number of gxies.

    A few thousand yearster, the Kruga race had elevated itself as the core of an intergctic alliance, formed by them at the head of many alien races that were at a level of advancement simr to the one they possessed before the asteroid fell. This intergctic alliance had a single objective, and that was to explore the depths of the universe, and discover anything that was left to discover, including the origin of the grey matter.

    It was because of this constant search for more grey matter that the Kruga race had reached the gates of the world of cultivation, by stumbling upon a sentient being that was too powerful to submit to their hegemony.. A human explorer.

    Unfortunately, this first encounter between the human race and the intergctic alliance was not any less disastrous than the more recent expedition, the xeno protocol.

    The territories to which the two parties belonged were extremely far away, and while it would take years for the explorer to return, the Kruga ship could cover that distance in a much smaller amount of time, so instead of going back to report the discovery of another sentient and advanced race, the explorer had decided to ept the invitation to visit the intergctic alliance, which promised him that they would escort him back to his territory after a few days.

    But, s, a few days was all it took for the alien scientists to develop their suits, which fueled by nanoscopic amounts of grey matter, were able topete with the mystical power of the cultivators.

    The Kruga were not originally keen on starting a war, but the more they learned about the world of cultivation, the more they started to covet its secrets. After all, the idea of living tens of thousands of years, and destroying stars with a single sh of a sword, was even more inviting than being glorified scavengers of grey matter.

    However, along with the good part of the world of cultivation, came the bad, in the form of an autoritary group of cultivators to which every new faction was forced to swear loyalty to. Unwilling to suffer the same fate of the other factions, the aliens killed the explorer, stopping him from ever going back to report what he had found.

    For the universal government, the following five hundred years were nothing worth remembering, as the loss of an explorer was amon thing, but for the intergctic alliance, it was a race against time.

    Focusedpletely on their military advancement, numerous techniques that were particrly effective against cultivators were created, and soon enough, once ready to strike, they opened a wormhole that could bring the full might of their technologically advanced army into the human¡¯s territory.

    All of this had happened because of an asteroid. A minor that, after bringing the Kruga civilization close to extinction, had granted them a fistful of grey matter that changed everything.

    "So, this is it? I can¡¯t feel anything from it." Said Nova, just as confused as the rest of Daniel¡¯s friends. However, for how confused as the group was, that was not the same for Daniel, who felt some sort of familiarity towards the grey clump.

    Daniel did not know more than they did, so after throwing out a few guesses, the crowd dispersed, and Daniel went back into his room, where he started to examine the two artifacts he had obtained from the Viewfinder, and Unmovable.

    The two windows that had appeared in his head were identical to the one he had seen after refining the Door to the Dream State, which gave him the chance to destroy them in exchange for karmic points, merge them with his own artifact with a risk of mutual destruction, or assimte it, obtaining two random effects of the system that had created them.

    Both of the two artifacts had been created by two minor systems, and as such, had a limited use. Tailor-made for the defensive system¡¯s owner, the belt that absorbed the force of impact was useless to Daniel, as his body was not as indestructible as the Unmovable¡¯s, and could not make use of the absorbed power when mortally wounded. At the same time, the mirror¡¯s main use was directly rted to the Viewfinder¡¯s ability, which thanks to her system, was able to focus the premonitions to events on a narrower, and more useful range.

    While still be of some use to him, the mirror could only be merged within his, a massive object which he could not easily carry around or bring up whenever needed.

    That made both of these systems rtively useless to him. None of their power was anything he would bother with risking the destruction of his artifact for, so instead of trying to fuse them with his own, he decided to use them in another way.

    What worried him the most at the moment was his negative karma, a problem that he decided to solve by sacrificing the belt of the Unmovable in exchange for karmic points. Unfortunately, the trade only granted him a few billion points, which whenpared to the trillion promised in exchange for the Door to the Dream State, was a meagre amount.

    The moment he made up his mind and epted the system¡¯s conditions, the object he was holding disappeared from existence, causing its former owner, which felt the destruction of his artifact from afar, to scream in rage.

    Going back to a positive karma was not the end goal of destroying the Unmovable¡¯s artifact. The real goal was to make use of the luck granted with that amount of karmic points, in order to obtain the best effects he could from the precision system.

    Once Daniel made up his mind, he epted the third option, causing the small mirror to turn into an invisible form of power, and see into his hand. Momentster, a window appeared within his mind.

    ____________________________

    The two following abilities have been added to the Karmic System:

    Pathfinder = Activate this ability to highlight the sess scope of an action.

    Optimal State = Activate this ability to reach your optimal state of being.

    ____________________________

    Daniel read the description of these two abilities over and over again, until finally, he formed an opinion on them. Based on their description, their use did not appear to be that useful, so the only way he had to evaluate them, was to test them directly.

    The moment he activated Pathfinder, his karmic points started to gradually decrease at around the same speed of consumption of Time is Precious, but nothing else happened. ording to the description the ability¡¯s effect required him to perform an action, so he constructed a small knife, and pointed it at the wall on the far end of his room.

    The moment he moved his arm back, a series of images appeared in Daniel¡¯s mind. Depicted on them were the movements, aiming position, and power needed to throw the knife at the point Daniel had aimed for, and do the exact amount of damage which he intended on doing. This showed to him the usefulness of this ability, which in short, was an aim assist for any form of action, which helped the owner to perform whatever he was hoping to achieve in the most optimal way possible.

    Satisfied by the usefulness of the first ability Daniel moved on to the second, that not unlike many of Daniel¡¯s powers, was an ability that would consume a predetermined amount of karmic points when activated. In exchange, this ability would reshape Daniel¡¯s being into the peak of his condition. Unfortunately, this ability could not be used consecutively, and could only be used once a week.

    After testing his new abilities, Daniel walked out of his room. "What time is it?" he asked after stopping a mortal human that was busy cleaning the corridor.

    The young woman sprung up on her feet, and with a nervous voice she said, "It is almost noon, sir.." her hands were trembling even more than her words.

    Daniel was taken aback by the woman¡¯s reaction, but he also knew that nothing he could say would make working around people who could snap her out of existence any less stressful, so he simply nodded in appreciation, and disappeared.

    When he reappeared, he was standing on an oddly t metallic surface on the other side of the, in the middle of which were a transparent room, and next to it, littered on the ground, hundreds of disassembled metallicponents.

    Alone in the transparent room was the scientist, which required a special type of atmosphere to survive, while bent over a few metallicponents, were Virgil and a tall young manpletely made out of metal metal.

    "Are you done?" Asked Daniel to the alien, who heard his words being yed by his bracelet before he could hear the original untranted version with his own ears.

    "Done?! I said I would be done in a few hours with some help, but you gave me a mute kid, and that thing, which also doesn¡¯t talk! How do you expect me to finish?" Said the scientist with exasperation. He had spent the past few hours trying to exin to Virgil and Wolfe, the metal elemental, the shape and materials of each of the items he needed, and now that the deadline had arrived, he was only halfway done.

    Once again, Daniel was astounded by how well his luck worked, as one of the powers he had just obtained, was perfect for this asion.

    He walked towards the expanse ofponents, and after saying a few words to Wolfe and Virgil, he turned to look at the scientist, and asked, "Are all the pieces here?" To which the scientist responded by nodding hisrge head.

    For someone who could read the emotions on the face of a member of the scientist¡¯s alien race, it was clear that he was exhausted, and about to start a rant about why he couldn¡¯t finish in time because of theck of proper help, however, before he could do that, he noticed Daniel pick up one of the pieces of whatever it was that the three of them were building.

    Daniel looked at this metallicponent for a few moments. In his mind, there was no way to understand what its use was, but instead of putting it back down to avoid causing trouble, he activated Pathfinder, and began to mount piece after piece together.

    The lipless mouth of the alien opened with shock, as the machine he had promised Daniel to build was slowly put together by him one piece at a time. However, the surprise that Daniel could build the machine was nothing whenpared to the fear he felt when Daniel purposely left out a fewponents. The reason for that was that those particrponents were a beacon that, if properly mounted in the machine, would have allowed the intergctic alliance to pinpoint the¡¯s position for as long as the machine was on it.

    Daniel ignored the shock of the scientist, and instead looked at what he had just built. A scale copy of the metallic orb that, fueled with the grey matter, would create a gravitational pull able to curve space, and grant superluminal light speed to those unaffected by it.

    "H-How did you know ho..." began to ask the scientist before stopping abruptly. He then said, "You are a remarkable creature, but you have forgotten a few pieces."

    Daniel did not bother to turn around, and instead, injected a few of Daniel¡¯s memories into the scientist¡¯s weak mind. In them, the scientist saw all of the people that had thought to be smarter than him, as well as their untimely deaths.

    A few momentster the scientist fell on his knees, and muttered ¡¯I am sorry.. I was wrong.¡¯ over and over again.

 Chapter 450 Unknown Essence

    Daniel ignored the scientist, and instead focused on the metallic orb.

    The reason why he had stolen the grey matter, was because he wanted to test at what level a cosmic event caused by the use of the grey matter, would attract the attention of the monsters that only he, Nova, and Edmund could see.

    Unfortunately, the amount of grey matter in Daniel¡¯s possession was not enough to be used in a propulsor that, installed on Daniel¡¯s, could make it travel at a speed faster than light, or at least, not if the maintained its size, and definitely not for too long.

    All he could do was to force the scientist to build a burner that would consume arge amount of grey matter all at once. A task which the scientist hadpleted by simply reengineering the object he was so familiar with, and remove any of the dozens of limitations built to dose the quantity of grey matter that was consumed.

    After a few days, thepleted product was a smaller version of the metallic orb he had destroyed, also known for what it was used for, as a wormhole creator.

    "Step out and set it up." Said Daniel, already aware that the scientist could only program something that his race knew how to use. After all, creating a version that could be used by humans, and that was set in the humannguage required a whole new level of knowledge, that the memory contained in the scientist¡¯s bracelet did not possess.

    The scientist was terrified by the idea of leaving his safe box, as he, along with various generations before, had lived between spaceships. The idea of not having a roof above his head while standing on hard floor, made him think that he would fall in the sky at any moment, causing him to be nauseous. If that was not enough, the fact that the concentration of oxygen present in Daniel¡¯s was highly toxic for him was enough of a deterrent. However, Daniel¡¯s tone did not leave space for discussion, so he could do nothing but to do what he was told, and trust in the fact that Daniel needed him alive.

    To his surprise, the spatial barrier he tried to prate stuck to his body like a protective film that, other than following his movements, was able to change theposition of the gases that moved through it, into the ones required by him to survive.

    Slightly reassured he walked towards the panel, and after pressing a few buttons, the metallic orb turned on, opening thepartment in which the grey matter needed to be ced. "What are the specifics?" He asked Daniel with a timid tone, which was quickly tranted by his bracelet into a neutral human voice.

    "As wide and as far away this amount of matter can make it. It has to stay open for at least a minute, I don¡¯t care if this thing has to break down for that to happen." Responded Daniel with a cold and indifferent tone before taking out the entirety of the grey matter in his possession, and cing it into thepartment, which was barely big enough.

    After a few more clicking sounds, the scientist turned to look at Daniel, and said, "Press this, and the machine will do the rest."

    Daniel did not ask any questions, and instead said, "It¡¯s time." These two words were not loud, and yet could reach all the way on the other side of the, and into the ears of Edmund, who was spending time with his family, and all the way to the spatial formation that covered the, where Nova resided. He then ced his right hand over the metallic orb, and disappeared with it.

    When he reappeared, he was standing far away from his along with Edmund, Nova, the old man Golden Cauldron, and anyone who was curious enough to watch. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Asked Edmund with brows furrowed from worry, still fearful of what he had seen when in the void.

    After a few seconds spent in a pensive state, Daniel turned to look at hispanions, and said, "If events of cosmic proportions are what these monsters want, then our universe would have already been gone way before their discovery of the grey matter. There has to be something.. A form of power that helps them mature into the monsters that inhabit the void."

    The group could not find any argument against Daniel¡¯s ims, so they remained quiet, and did not meddle any longer with what he was doing.

    Seeing that no one had anything to say, Daniel pressed the button, and witnessed as the metallic orb was activated. The entirety of the grey matter was split into microscopic molecules, and forced to travel into forced path at a speed that went beyond that of light.. and soon after, the space around them began to fold.

    The radius of folded space was around a light hour, meaning that as soon as the wormhole would open, it would create a shortcut that if used, would save them just a bit more than a billion kilometers, which was only a fraction of what the wormhole he had destroyed was capable of.

    Soon enough, the two edges of the affected space arrived at a distance so close, that the spatial essence present on both sides began to be drawn together, and turn into an invisible spatial tornado, which from both sides, would appear as if two whirlpool connected to one another from their deepest point, had suddenly formed.

    Daniel did not pay attention to the opening of the wormhole, and instead focused on his surroundings, trying to capture the exact moment in which these monsters would appear, but of them, there was no trace yet.

    The whirlpool kept growing in size more and more, until finally, when about asrge as a city, its deepest part opened up,pleting the formation of the wormhole. It was right at this moment, that Daniel turned to look at the newly formed wormhole with a confused expression.

    Once fully formed, the wormhole had started to emit a negligible amount of power which only he could see. A power of which even he could barely feel the familiarity with, and from which he could not look away.

    The entrancement he felt was so vast, that he had failed to notice the appearance of a few dimensional destroyers, only noticing them after their smallish and undeveloped bodies appeared in his sight while approaching the whirlpool, and tried totch onto it.

    "It¡¯s them! IT REALLY IS THEM!!" Shouted Nova, who was originally from the void, where these creatures were unstoppable destroyers whose objective was none other than to further destroy what was already un unlivable environment.

    Edmnund also possessed a perfectprehension of space, but while he had noticed the monsters and was reassured by the fact that they were so much smaller than their more dangerous counterparts, most of his attention was directed at Daniel, who appeared to be on the verge of dashing into the cosmic event head first.

    Almost as if to confirm Edmund¡¯s worries, Daniel said nothing, and after covering his body with a solidyer of space, flew directly to the edges of the wormhole, right where the dimensional destroyers were desperately headed to.

    Once he arrived, Daniel immediately noticed that the monsters were siphoning every bit of that unknown power with their mouths, like a cow¡¯s thirsty offspring. The more they absorbed, the more of their eyes would pry open, and the longer their already massive tentacles would grow, but that was not all.

    Now that he was closer, Daniel could feel that form of power enter the bodies of these monsters, and reach the deepest parts of their stomachs, right where in their mature counterparts, the spatial concept of copse was kept. However, instead of the destructive power, was a nearly imperceptible vortex which would immediately swallow every bit of power was sent in its direction.

    Unfortunately, the concept of copsed space was notpletely absent, and instead, grew more powerful the more of that unknown power was absorbed in a trade that was simr to how humans would absorb natural mana, and give it up to the spiritual ne just to receive the spiritual essence they needed to perform their abilities in exchange.

    Where this vortex led, or why it would emit a concept which with time would inevitably lead to develop into a weapon of mass destruction, Daniel could not tell. His only hope to understand more of what was going on, was to study the power that was emitted by the wormhole. With that objective in mind, he approached the edges of the wormhole, and started to guide that form of power towards him.

    The moment some of this power approached his position, however, the closest of these monsters, which until now were peacefully feasting on the power, started to fling their tentacles in Daniel¡¯s direction.

    The speed of these attacks was enough to prevent Daniel from ever being able toe in contact with any amount of that power, but to the current him, neither the speed nor power were a danger of any capacity. He quickly floated out of the monster¡¯s reach, but just as he was preparing himself to attack them, the monsters lost interest in him, and after turning to look back at the wormhole, theytched on to it one more time.

    While not particrly appreciative of what had just happened, Daniel was d to have discovered something more about these monsters. The fact that they were conscious enough to want to protect their food, or at least, they were created to do as much.

    Now more cautious, Daniel once again approached the edge of the wormhole, and once again began to absorb the power, causing a few of the closest monsters to attack him, but this time, the moment their tree-sized tentacles would reach a distance of about a kilometer from him, they would be torn to shreds by the invisible of atom-wide spatial threads that Daniel had erected around him.

    Being hurt appeared to be nothing of importance for the monsters, who instead increased the numbers of attack by the dozens, and quicker than ever. But before any of these attacks would reach him, the wormhole began to destabilize, and the unknown power stopped being produced. Soon after, the wormhole began to shrink in size, until finally, in unison with the sudden explosion of the metallic orb, it closedpletely.

    The disappearance of the wormhole made the monsters lose interest in that particr section of space, and leave as quietly as they had arrived.

    Where only a few moments earlier was a wormhole, now stood Daniel, closed in a spatial bubble, and surrounded by every bit of unknown power he had managed to rake in before the wormhole closed.

    Unsure of what to do, Daniel found himself with a choice. He could let go of this oddly familiar yet potentially lethal power and take stock of what he had discovered, or go all in in his research, and allow the power into his body, so that he could understand it better.

    To willingly allow a strange power to invade one¡¯s body was a great taboo for cultivators. After all, no one could tell whether this power would be beneficial, or if the sheerposition of that power, simrly to the essence of corruption, would be harmful, and end up killing the person who had absorbed it. But luckily, Daniel was nomon cultivator, and after a few seconds, he decided that it was unlikely that this power would destroy every aspect of his being, and even if it did, he still had his failsafe ability. So without thinking too much about it, he inhaled deeply, allowing the odd essence to enter his lungs, and permeate into his body.

    The very moment the essence entered Daniel¡¯s body, he finally understood why it felt so familiar to him, or more specifically, to healing essence. What this power and healing essence shared, was the fact that they were both merged powers, and more importantly, they both contained the fickle essence of time. What was merged with time instead of life essence, was the essence of space.

    This unknown power, to which the monsters were attracted to, and that could feed their power of destruction, was nothing other than the essence of spacetime.

 Chapter 451 A War for Nothing Part 1

    The small battle that took ce right outside of the wormhole soon exploded into a full fledged intergctic war, a ze formed by an uncountable number of sparks of light created by the fighters of the two civilizations, and fueled by the reinforcements that came from both sides of the conflict.

    On the human side, massive spatial formations were used to forcibly open a significant amount of different-looking portals. From these portals, millions of cultivators charged in like a swarm of wasps, ready to give their lives against a power of which, even now, they knew close to nothing about. At the same time, on the other side of the battle, hundreds of warships invaded the space by stepping through the newly opened wormhole. They would then release hundreds of thousands of soldiers who, d in their spatial suits, and confident in their speed, were ready to join the fray.

    The more time passed, the more vast the conflict became, until finally, after a few hours worth of death and destruction, some sort of bnce started to form.

    While higher in numbers, the high immortals of the universal government could notpete with the speed of the alien warriors, but to make up for that, were the more peculiar kinds of cultivators. Amongst them, the corrupted faction, the spiritual faction, the mental factions, and many more. Beings whose main strength wasn¡¯t the destructive power of their form of cultivation, but something that went beyond the more basic qualities of a human. Things against which the aliens had no form of preparation.

    These factions were able to use their powers against the aliens who, aside from their highly effective spatial suits and technological means, were the equivalent of human mortals, and therefore, possessed the same mind, spirit, and body of entities they would otherwise look at, as if looking at nothing.

    One more thing that was making it possible for the universal government to stand its ground, was the presence of the children of Iewah, who one by one, would appear from out of nowhere, hidden amongst the reinforcements.

    Usually Iewah¡¯s children would not bother with the war of cultivators, and would instead spend their time preparing, or actively seeking to battle one of their siblings, but this was an exception. The scale of this battle was beyond anything that had ever been seen by humanity, and therefore, they could not miss it. With the power of their systems, and at times apanied by their armies, they began their onught.

    What followed were twenty-four hours of essences of different nature being released within the surrounding space. Powers that before long would merge together, and form a patch of indistinguishable mana that was stirred together by the quick motion of the now tens of millions of warriors.

    After so much time spent fighting, the essence within the bodies of the cultivators started to run thin, just like the grey matter that fueled the aliens¡¯s ships and suits, forcing the two factions to slow their aggressive behaviour, and create rounds of fighting, and rest.

    The worst aspect of this war, was not knowing exactly how big the enemy¡¯s army truly was. In fact, while the objective of both civilizations was the supremacy over the other, neither of the two groups were aware of how many warriors the other possessed, or for how long they could go on fighting like this. Thisck of knowledge had turned this misunderstanding, into a war of attrition thatsted a whole day, and reaped millions of lives.

    Any attempt at a truce waspletely broken by the opposition¡¯s argument, as for the universal government the alien were the invasors, while for the intergctic alliance, the cultivators were the attackers who had infiltrated into their territory, destroyed their property, and killed thousands of their people in the process.

    This war was entirely caused by Daniel¡¯s attempt at correcting the dangerous ways of the alien civilization, but unfortunately, his actions had the opposite result.

    The mixture of essences was, along with the smaller amounts of spacetime essence produced by the collective consumption of grey matter, a big enough cosmic event to attract the surrounding dimensional destroyers. In fact, these monsters would, while the millions of warriors fought to their death, bask in the thin essence of spacetime contained within the residue of essences.

    The reason why no one could see these monsters, was because they resided into a different part of space, a ce called negative space that superimposed with the stable space. From there, they could reach any form of celestial events of proportions big enough to cause the production of spacetime essence.

    What was possibly even worse, was the fact that the cultivators and aliens were fighting for something that, if they didn¡¯t stop, would ultimately be destroyed. But instead, they kept receiving reinforcements, and from within their gships or constructed bases, they allowed for the war to grow bigger and bigger.

    -----

    Five dayster.

    "We could damage one of their gships. Just enough to allow the Shadow into their barrier, and assassinate whoever is operating those damn cannons. We lose a thousand men whenever they shot." Said arge middle-aged man d in silver armor. A general of the universal government that was not too happy with how the war was going.

    Along with around a hundred more people that wore simr armors, he stood right in the middle of the room. His back curved over arge round table, and next to nine more people who, just like him, stood around the map, seemingly in possession of a higher ranking.

    "What is the point? Don¡¯t you see their fleet? We have destroyed at least a dozen of their ships, and yet their numbers remain consistent. If we destroy one, another takes its ce." Said a young looking woman with a lighter version of the man¡¯s armor.

    "Then why don¡¯t you give a suggestion?!"

    "And miss your worthless propositions? I¡¯ll pass."

    "You!.."

    "ENOUGH!!" Shouted a woman that stood in the middle, the only person d in golden armor, and that nobody dared to bring include into their bickering. "Do I need to remind you all that these invaders are taking out chunks of our powers?! Are you nning on making things easier for them? If you do, tell me right now so I can kill you myself." She said with all the authority that her role brough. She was themander of the military, the highest person in charge within the government¡¯s army, and her position alone was at the same level as the whole senate.

    Her few words were able to quickly calm down the two generals, who looked down apologetically. "We cannot win like this.. We have to do something." She then said before lowering her head and entered a pensive state.

    For the next few minutes none of those present spoke a word. They were all aware that the reason why she was themander was not only because of her cultivation past the two hundredth phase of high immortality, but also because of her strategic brilliance.

    The history of the universal government was littered with military campaigns against factions which, thanks to their mysterious abilities, could pose a threat to the government¡¯s survival. However, despite theck of knowledge on their enemies, the government had never lost. The reason for that was the existence of a specific gift.

    This gift would appear in those who had a particrly calctive mind, and was referred to as the gift of the strategist.

    Every single major war in which the universal government had taken part of was won thanks to the presence of a strategist. While not always able to fight in the most advantageous conditions, or against the right type of enemy, the strategist was always able to outsmart the opponent¡¯s leader, and find a way to achieve victory. She was the current strategist of the government¡¯s military.

    The expectations for her to formte a n were high, and were fulfilled when she suddenly lifted her head up, slowly turned it to her right, allowing her horsetail to slip from over her shoulder to behind her back, and said, "Go back to the encampment of the mental factions. Find the person in charge of the Masters of Psiche. Tell them that I want one of those soldiers, alive. Assign as many soldiers as necessary."

    The man to whom she was talking to nodded his head in understanding, then disappeared.

    Just like ordered, the general reached the base of the mental factions, and along with arge group of warriors and one of the Masters of Psiche, departed for their hunt. About two hourster, they came back along with one of the alien soldiers, which they immediately brought back to the strategy room.

    "Can you still control him?" Themander asked the mental warrior, who looked at her with a pained expression which expressed how much he was struggling to maintain control. The mental warrior nodded weakly in response. "Very well." She said before unsheathing her sword, and cutting both of the alien¡¯s legs clean off, causing him to fall like a bag of rocks.

    "Make him try to escape, but stop before he does." She then said to the mental warrior.

    The mental warrior followed the woman¡¯s instruction, and soon after, the warrior activated his suit and tried to disappear. Before he could, he once again lost any form of consciousness, and went back to being a puppet.

    At first none of the generals could understand what was going on. It was only after themander cut the alien¡¯s right arm off and made the same request, that the others finally realized.

    She had guessed that the power that was allowing these aliens topete with them was artificial, and that it had something to do with their suits. As a result of that guess, she started cutting the soldier piece by piece in order to understand from which part of their armor this power wasing from.

    The soldier was cut to pieces, and after every limb was removed, he would be allowed to regain enough consciousness to escape, only to stop right before doing it. That went on until themander cut his left arm. Once she did that, after the mental warrior allowed him to try and escape, all the alien could do was to use the muscles of his stomach to try and slither out of the room, showing that he was unable to use his suit anymore, or even move properly.

    After seeing what she was hoping to see, themander finished the soldier, picked the left armor off of the floor, and dismissed the mental warrior. She then turned to look at another general, and said, "Bring me the old mage." The general nodded and left the room. When he came back a few minutester, he was in thepany of the old explorer which had participated in the xeno protocol.

    "Can you examine this for me?" She asked, aware that he was amongst the most knowledgeable people on the matter of elemental essences.

    The old man did not need to approach themander to feel the materials of which the gauntlet was made of. However, what surprised him, was what he saw inside. The gauntlet contained a small circr tube, and inside it, just as big as the head of a nail, was a small piece of grey liquid. He could also see, based on the direction of the metallic threads connected to this metallic tube, how the small clump of grey liquid could be the very core of the object.

    Something else that he noticed, was the presence of a small and separate que of metal present in the palm of the gauntlet. The internal part, unlike most of the soldier¡¯s armor, was connected to the tube through numerous metallic wires.

    After a quick exnation which left the majority of the onlookers puzzled, themander pressed the button on the gauntlet¡¯s palm, and after a few moments, the small amount of grey matter started to elerate into the metallic tube. Once it reached a certain speed, the hair of themander began to rise, and be pulled in its direction.

 Chapter 452 A War for Nothing Part 2

    Aside from the slight gravitational pull that came from the gauntlet, nothing seemed to attract the attention of themander, and the onlooking generals. The only one who realized what was truly happening was the old explorer, who quietly covered himself with ayer of spatial essence.

    Before anyone could ask him what he was doing, he had disappeared and reappeared in the same ce in less than a few instants. When he reappeared, he was holding the greatsword of one of the generals, who immediately recognized it, and reached for his back with his hand only to find nothing.

    Thanks to his nearly perfectprehension of spatial essence, The old man was able to see the warped space that surrounded the entire room. He then realized how the soldiers were able to move at such speed, and how to emte it. Anyone who wasn¡¯t inside the folded space as a foreign object surrounded by a separate space, would be affected by it, and therefore, while nothing had changed in their eyes, from the perspective of the old man, their figure, as part of the surrounding space, where bent along with space itself.

    "They use these instruments to fold space. They use the curvature in space to move further away with the same effort.. That is how they are able to move that fast." Exined the old man to themander, leaving the rest of the generals with brows furrowed in confusion.

    Themander was the only one who understood the theory of the old man¡¯s guess, and after a few seconds spent thinking, she asked, "Did you move using your immortal essence?" What she meant to ask was whether the aliens were able to reach the same speed a high immortal could achieve, without this object. After all, even if their speed was multiplied by a thousand times, they should have not been able to reach a high immortal¡¯s speed.

    Quick to understand what themander was asking, the old man shook his head from left to right, then said, "I did not. I simply stepped towards General Buria, took his sword, and walked back here. It is not only a matter of space, I am afraid. Whatever that little material in the gauntlet is, it seems to be able to bend both space and time."

    "So you¡¯re telling me that these aliens not only have a machine that makes them move faster through space, but that they can use the curvature to elerate the time around them?!" Asked themander with a hint of irritation, that in the eyes of her generals, was reced by fear and shock.

    The old man responded by nodding faintly.

    Amongst the fearful expressions and words of worry exchanged between the generals, themander was smiling. "Commander, what do we do now?" Asked the female general d the lighter silver armor.

    "The same thing as before.. But bigger." She said before looking down at the small pool of blood and cut limbs. She then turned towards the tallest man in the room, also d in silver armor, but oddly thin, and asked, "The enemy ships are all built simrly, right?"

    "Yes, ma¡¯am. Frigades and gships are different, but every ship seems to be built ording to its category¡¯s specifics." Responded thenky general.

    This response was exactly what themander was hoping for, as shown by how quickly she raised her fingers, and after pointing at a few more generals. To the lot of them, she ordered, "Take your divisions and single out one frigade each. Select a specific point of the ship, and focus your attacks on that sector. Once destroyed, retreat and report." The generals immediately headed out of the room, but before they could leave, the old explorer stopped them, and said, "Encase your attacks with spatial essence."

    The generals nodded in acknowledgement, then left the room.

    After about two hours, the generals started toe back one by one. Some of them were unharmed, some of them were heavily injured, and four of them were missing altogether. To take their ce were four captains. Amongst the missing ones, was thenky general, who had died during his mission.

    "Ma¡¯am, we have sessfully destroyed the bow, but it did not seem topromise the functioning of the ship." Said the first general toe back, starting a series of just as disappointing reports.

    "The left side of the bridge.."

    "They spotted us after destroying the right side of the bow.. The general did not make it."

    "Numerous soldiers left the ship, but.."

    This went on for awhile, until finally, one of the generals came back without the hint of a bruise, and said, "Commander, my division was in charge of destroying the left side of the stern, right behind their burners. After extensive damage, the ship stopped working, and the protective shield disappearedpletely."

    Themander¡¯s n was simple. She had already assumed that whatever the strange object the old explorer had mentioned was, it would be some sort of source of power for the majority of the alien¡¯s technology. Now that she knew this, she wanted to know exactly in what part of the ship this "core" was being kept.

    "Spread the word, focus the attacks on the left side of the stern, let¡¯s see how many more ships they are willing to waste, now that we know exactly how to destroy them." She said while showing acent smile. As themander finished speaking, the little less than one hundred general went back to their groups, and shared what they had just discovered.

    What happened next was a tilting of the bnce that had been created, caused by the hundreds of thousands of cultivators that struck directly into the heart of the enemy¡¯s forces by destroying their ships one after the other.

    The aliens desperately tried to protect their ships by the magical attacks of the cultivators, but unfortunately, not even their barrier could withstand the concentrated effort of an entire division of high immortals. The only thing they could do was to use their cannons for as long as their ships allowed them to. Nevertheless, that was not enough to save the ships which, soon enough, joined the dozens of others that had turned the battlefield into a cemetery of metallic wreckages.

    For the next few hours, the universal government appeared to be gaining the advantage in this war. The ships were being destroyed faster than they would be resupplied, and without their leaders to give them orders, the soldiers did not appear to be as organized. Those who did not work in group would be generally picked off by the members of the odd factions, and killed soon after.

    The universal government gave its all to destroy as many ships as quickly as possible, making use of lightly wounded soldier, and even deploying those who were currently resting. With this joined effort, for a moment, it appeared that they had sessfully repelled the invaders.

    That, at least, was until a single round ship dashed through the length of the recently opened wormhole at the speed of light, and reached the very core of the battlefield, right in the middle of all of the destroyed ships.

    This ship did not appear menacing in the least. It¡¯s perfectly round surface made it look like a tiny metallic, and would be mistaken as one if there hadn¡¯t been arge burner in its stern.

    Soon after this smaller ship stopped, before any of the members of the government could wonder what its use was, something within the ship activated. An immensely powerful gravitational pull started to form, which in turn, attracted every bit of destroyed ship towards it. No matter the distance or the size of the wreckage, every bit of metal was pulled in.

    The generals, busy in the strategy room, quickly sensed the lower intensity of the conflict, and immediately left the strategy room. "What is that?!" Said the female general d in lighter silver armor.

    The confusion attracted the attention of themander, who left the strategy room right after the rest of the generals, and soon found herself looking at what was going on. Luckily, It didn¡¯t take long for her to understand what was happening. Dragged along with the spaceship¡¯s wreckage, were the orbs of grey matter, which wouldnd on the surface of the ship before being buried byyer uponyer of metal. "They are retrieving their fuel! STOP THAT SHIP!" She shouted to every captain, general, or soldier of the military of the universal government.

    Hundreds of thousands of cultivators heeded the order and shot words the ship, and once close enough, they unleashed the full power of their cultivation against it.

    Layer afteryer of metal was stripped from around the round ship by the multicolored lights of thousands of attack, when finally, a few minutester, one of the archers of the government¡¯s military was finally able to spot the surface of the round ship.

    Eager to obtain a medal, the soldier tightened his grip around the bow, and after nocking the arrow, he set it off with a silent twang which only he could hear.

    The arrow pierced the invisible space for only a few moments, perfectly aimed at the finger-sized exposed part of the ship¡¯s surface, and momentster, it hit its target, piercing through the outeryer, and reaching the core right away.

    Suddenly, time seemed to stop. An ufortable silence took over the entire battlefield, and a glow started to seep through the nearly invisible slits in between the pieces of metal. And then, before anyone could even think of escaping, the round ship cracked, and the metallic mass that until moments earlier appeared like a small, exploded with the power of a thousand stars.

    A horizontal wave of power shed through the battlefield, vaporizing anything that it went in contact with, followed by a rapidly expanding sphere of power that disintegrated any form of matter, essence, and existence through which it passed.

    The most terrifying aspect of this explosion, was the fact that none of the remaining alien ships, nor the soldiers who had valiantly fought against the government¡¯s forces, had been warned beforehand. Whoever was in charge of the military effort of the intergctic coalition had decided to sacrifice the members of their own military, just so that they could im a muchrger number of their enemies.

    Unfortunately, while brutal, that action was also a sess, as the explosion, beforepressing back into nothingness, had been able to vaporize more than ny percent of the government¡¯s warriors, leaving only those who were upying the constructed camps alive.

    The generals, shocked beyondprehension, turned to look at themander in hope that she would know what to do. But it was not long before they realized that on the woman¡¯s heart was even less confidence than inside their own. She had been bested by the enemy¡¯s general. The only thing that was left for the alien¡¯s army to do, was to go for the kill before they could recover.

    Her guesses were once again spot on, as right after the explosion disappeared, more than twenty wormholes opened in the now empty space, and from each of them, came hundreds upon hundreds of ships.

    "Summon the reinforcements.." Said themander with a dispirited voice.

    "How many?" Asked one of the generals.

    "All of them.."

    The situation was grim, and from the government¡¯s point of view, their forces would soon be wiped out, and the invaders would soon proceed to the deepest parts of their territory, probably destroying the majority of it. Nevertheless, even this was nothing worth mentioning against the true danger they faced. A danger that had roamed around them ever since this fight had started. A danger that had fed on every bit of essence of spacetime produced by the warriors¡¯ suits, the ships¡¯ engines, the immense explosion, and now, the many wormholes.

    "Hey, do you see that?" Asked one of the generals as the outline of a-sized monster started to appear in the distance.

 Chapter 453 A War for Nothing Part 3

    As big as a small, covered in semi-opened eyes, and with tentacles that seemed to be able to reach the other end of the universe, this destroyer showed itself in front of the intergctic coalition¡¯s floti, and the few thousands of cultivators that were left standing.

    "What the hell is that?" Asked the female general dressed in siler light armor, spelling what each and everyone of her peers were thinking at that moment.

    Of all of the destroyers present, this one had had its fill. Lucky enough to be near its awakening, and still the closest one to the explosion, it was able to absorb every bit of the essence of the spacetime that was produced. This power was enough toplete the concept of copsed space contained within its stomach, which gave it a firmer grasp over the space it upied.

    Now free from the limitations of negative space, this monster was the first universal destroyer of this universe, and simrly to the ones present in the void, its only purpose was pure and indiscriminate destruction. A destruction which started with a seemingly imperceptible yet deafening banging noise that came from the depths of his stomach.

    Initially these banging noise would propagate through space like the ripples left in the water by a small and harmless pebble, but after every rumble, the ripples would be more violent and invasive. After no more than twenty, the entire space that surrounded the battlefield started to be unstable, and even the wormholes created by the coalition were starting to be affected.

    While the cultivators possessed senses that allowed them to feel the power of that monster, the aliens didn¡¯t. What they saw was a being that was trying to destroy their way back home, and if that happened, the cultivators would have enough time to call for reinforcements, and they would be left between the mallet and the anvil. The coalition was clearly unprepared for such an eventuality, so their only option was to kill whatever this strange monster was.

    In their eyes the destroyer was only an organic being which possessed the size of a small, and therefore, it shouldn¡¯t have been a problem for them to destroy it. It was only after they charged their cannons and tried to shoot it down, that they started to understand their mistake.

    After awakening, the destroyers would maintain a passive behaviour, at least until they would be able toplete their first objective.. To fragment the space around them. However, that did not mean that they had no means of protecting themselves.

    The thousands of missiles and bullets reached the body of the destroyer at the same time, but before they could even touch it, their motion would be stopped by the violent ripples of space. Their fate was to explode one by one, leaving behind only a barrier of mes which suffocated into nothing immediately after.

    The destroyer did not take this attempt at his life lightly, and while continuing the destruction of the surrounding space, it sent hundreds of tentacles in the direction of the ships, cutting through each one that attacked him as if they were made out of paper.

    The bodies of the cultivators, as well as the few alien present within the surviving few ships shrieked back in a collective shock. The whole process had only taken a few moments, and even if they saw thating, the ships would have never been able to avoid it.

    Something became extremely clear to all those present. If they were alive, was only because this monster was busy doing something else.

    The aliens immediately ordered a retreat, but it was toote. As if aware of the ships¡¯ intentions, the destroyer increased the intensity of its internal processes and turned the ripples into massive waves that, as soon as they came in contact with the wormholes, turned them into mortal weapons. The unlucky first ship that was already halfway through was ripped into pieces, which were then left moving erratically through the entire canal.

    Even cultivators¡¯ attempts to leave or call for reinforcements were useless, as the disturbed space would not allow the creation of any spatial connection that could be used to open a portal, or teleport inside or outside of the affected area.

    Trapped within the monster¡¯s reach, the survivors of both sides could only witness as the rumbles increased in intensity, applying pressure over the ss like stability of space, until finally, it cracked. A web-like crack quickly spread outwards, reaching in a moment the hundreds of thousands of kilometers in radius, and epassing the rtively safe zones in which the survivors of both parties were watching in fear.

    Everyone felt the different parts of their bodies being tugged on by the now split portions of space they upied, and this pulling was getting stronger by the moment. If not for the basic control of space of the cultivators, or the spatial suits of the aliens, the atoms that made up their bodies would have already separated, and they would have died an instantaneous death. Even the children of Iewah who, after surviving the explosion thanks to their failsafe abilities, were trembling in fear at the very realistic chance of dying once and for all.

    Right when the chances of surviving started to turn bleak, from out of nowhere, a perfectly stable portal opened in between the camps of the two armies. Easy to see thanks to its size, this portal seemed to be able to fit the passage of an entire.

    Both sides hoped for a power strong enough to destroy this monster, but instead, from it, only came out five humanoid beings.

    Who these microscopic beings were was beyond important at this point, as from the point of view of the aliens, a way out of this nightmare had just appeared. However, that was not the same for the cultivators, who thanks to their incredible sight and sensing abilities, were able to recognize two of them as Daniel and Aeron, the outcasts of Iewah¡¯s faction, and the Psionic Dimension.

    The ships of the aliens turned towards the massive portal, ready to burn as much power they needed to go through the portal, but just as they were about to give the order, a massive scaly head breached the water-like surface of the portal, followed by the rest of Xargy¡¯s immense draconic body, which was so big, that it could easily bepared to the destroyer¡¯s body.

    Once Xargy joined Daniel, Aeron, Sewah, Nova and Edmund on the other side, the portal closed, leaving them in the same position as the rest.

    Daniel and his group ignored the looks of the cultivators. They were there for one reason alone, and that reason was to prevent their space from bing identical to that of the void.

    Without needing to say anything, Aeron¡¯s body expanded to a size that couldpete with that of his draconicpanion, and the monster they were here to face. In his green transparent hand appeared a massive sword made out of mental power, and once ready, he dashed towards the destroyer along with the enormous dragon, and the human-sized Sewah.

    The destroyer immediately tried to defend itself, but its soft tentacles could do nothing against Aeron¡¯s constructed sword, Xargy¡¯s mountain-sized sharp ws, and Sewah¡¯s concentrated power, who allowed him to easily pierce through the destroyer¡¯s body like a bullet.

    At the same time, Edmund and Nova started to work on their task, which required both of theirbined powers to bepleted.

    The only one who had yet to move was Daniel, who instead was focused on the surrounding space. He could feel every ripple around him, see the cracks, and sense the concept of copsed space within the destroyer¡¯s body. His job was to stop this process, so with all the power that his improved cultivation granted him, he started to slowly take control over the surrounding space.

    At first, the ripples of space stopped advancing, and stabilized. Then, the cracks started to be repaired, restoring the space into the disturbed state that preceded the shattered one. Finally, after various minutes, the waves of destruction stoppeding out of the destroyer¡¯s body, blocked by Daniel¡¯s control, and unable to leave the monster¡¯s body. Weakened by the constant ripping, piercing, and cutting of its sh, the destroyer was unable to fulfill its purpose, and that had allowed Daniel to repair whatever damage he had done.

    For the following few minutes, Daniel continued to wrestle against the destroyer over the control of the surrounding space, while hispanions injured the destroyer for as long as they could. Unfortunately, due to the incredible regeneration of thetter, it did not appear that Daniel and hispanions could finish the job.. But, s, to kill the monster was never their n.

    The onlookers observed as even after ten minutes, nothing had changed. Daniel was still struggling, and the others were still fighting. What they did not know, was that the four of them were waiting for something. "Use your memories. Focus on the shattered space around you." Said Nova while pressing his hands over Edmund¡¯s shoulders.

    "I am almost there.. I am almost there." muttered Edmund as the memories of thousands and thousands ofs appeared in his mind. He had spent thest ten minutes trying to single out a single dimension from the thousands contained in his memories, "I am there!" He then said with an ted tone.

    As he heard these words, Nova started to emanate an immense amount of spiritual essence, and soon after, he shaped it into the form of an enormous portal, just asrge as the one from which Xargy had just gone through. The only difference between this protal and the one opened by Daniel, was that this one was not as dense, and from each side, the other could be seen through.

    What everyone saw on the other side of this portal, was the destroyed space of the void, or at least, a dimension that shared the same fate of the void.

    The moment the portal was opened, the two moved out of the way, leaving Daniel alone.

    Once alone, Daniel stopped controlling the space, and instead, started to emit an extremely faint amount of spacetime essence, which until now, he had keptpressed onto his body, and covered by ayer of spatial essence that separated him from the normal space.

    As soon as Xargy, Aeron and Sewah noticed that the portal had been opened, they stopped attacking, and instead focused on defending themselves against the onught of the monster¡¯s attacks.

    These attacks did notst lost, as soon after, the thousands of eyes that covered the destroyer¡¯s body converged towards Daniel¡¯s direction. Once it recognized the essence that surrounded Daniel¡¯s body, the monster started to fluctuate towards him.

    Daniel did not move, and instead looked at the silhouette of the monster grow bigger and bigger as it drew close. When its body was almost as big as the portal, and its stomach opened to swallow the entire area around Daniel¡¯s body, he shouted, "NOW!!" and disappeared immediately after.

    Only moment¡¯s after Daniel¡¯s signal, Xargy¡¯s massive body came crashing against the monster¡¯s back, pushing it right into the portal, which started to close right after.

    The monster instinctively wrapped its tentacles around the dragon¡¯s body, but just as it seemed that Xargy would be pulled in as well, the vertical sh of an immense green sword came down the monster¡¯s tentacles, cutting them clean off. Before the monster could recover or once again try to reach through, Nova finished closing the portal, banishing the monster to live alongside its mature peers in the deste expanse of that destroyed universe.

    The actions of each of Daniel¡¯spanion had required an incredible amount of effort, and now, they were beyond exhausted. However, after regrouping, the did not leave. Instead, they moved further in between the two armies.

    To the cultivators, it was clear that what Daniel had said before was the truth, and that he wanted to talk, but that was not the same for the aliens, who made use of the once again stable wormhole to try and escape.

    Before the fastest of the gships could leave, Daniel interjected it by teleporting near the wormhole, and with a simple thought, he took control over the spacetime essence emanated by it, and distorted it, forcing the wormhole to dissipate into nothingness. He then released a faint wave of sound essence which relied only two words to each of the two army¡¯s survivors, "Let¡¯s talk."

 Chapter 454 Aspect of Existence Part 1

    In the vast expanse of uncharted space thaty beyond the government¡¯s territory, was a called Triune. This was once rich of crystal veins, but the aggressive mining had turned it into a barren rock thousands of years ago. With no worth left for the cultivators, this was abandoned, and left to follow its original trajectory that brought it outside of the government¡¯s territory, where it would float alone, never to be visited again.. Or at least, until now.

    Now, this was popted by thousands of people, all there for the same reason.

    Dozens of spaceships were stationed right on one side of the¡¯s orbit, while on the other, on one of its moons, was erected a building which contained numerous cultivators. Both parties ready to intervene at any moment.

    These two groups were observing the¡¯s surface, above which, inside one of the¡¯s ancient yet still strong buildings, three parties were sitting at a table, discussing the terms of an armistice. These three parties were the universal government, the intergctic coalitions, and finally, Daniel¡¯s group.

    To represent the intergctic coalition were two generals of the Kruga race fully dressed in their spatial suits, and the scientist that Daniel had kidnapped, and released back to its faction the moment the group agreed to have a conversation. On the government¡¯s side were themander, also known as the military strategist, one of the senators, and finally, an appointed representative of the many factions, a child of Iewah called whom Daniel had met before, Romah the Teacher.

    Sitting behind their respective representatives, were nine alien soldiers d in spatial armors, six cultivators, and three of the Teacher¡¯s students.

    This meeting had been imposed by Daniel in order to findmon ground between the two warring civilizations before their conflict would ultimately bring the destruction of their universe.. But unfortunately, it was too early for that. The misconception that each faction had of the other would cause the two sides to start a fight before any good points could be made.

    "How can we know that you are telling the truth?! For all we know, you have summoned that monster as a desperate measure after we turned your armies into nothing!" Said one of the alien generals through a speaker that tranted his odd sounding voice into the humannguage, and vice versa. An object that, along with the return of the scientist, had been granted to the aliens by Daniel¡¯s group.

    In response to these words, the senator, who had only heard about the war and was not personally himself, sprung up on his feet, and said, "How dare you use of something the stupidity of your civilization caused!"

    Both sides were clearly too angry at one another, but fortunately, in each side, was at least a member willing to listen. The two who had already talked to Daniel, the alien scientist, and Romah the Teacher. The two of them were the only reason why the escorts of the two factions didn¡¯t start another battle right then. That, and the immense pressure that they were feeling from Daniel, who observed their exchanges in silence.

    "We have been using this technology for hundreds of years, and nothing ever happened. Are you implying that it is only a coincidence that that thing appeared once we were on the verge of wiping your armies?" Retorted the alien general with a tone that matched the anger and volume of the senator.

    This exchange went on for awhile, until finally, Daniel, unable to wait for a moment to intervene any longer, mmed his fist on therge wooden table, turning it into sawdust, and barked, "ENOUGH!"

    Shocked by Daniel¡¯s outburst, the alien soldiers immediately pressed the buttons on their gauntlets and prepared to extract their generals from the buildings. The same did the cultivators, who unsheathe their weapons, and prepared to fight. Their actions were interrupted the moment Daniel continued by saying, "This is more important than any battle for the territory or silly contest. Your actions are destroying the universe, and with it, every being that lives in it. It has to stop! This is not a discussion."

    Thanks to the information obtained by the scientist, the aliens were aware of the enmity between Daniel and the government, and that was the only reason why they would listen to his words. That, and the fact that he had saved the lives of the generals present by banishing the dimensional destroyer.

    "How do we know that you are telling the truth? How could you possibly know what would have happened if you were unable to cast that creature away?" Asked one of the alien generals in a more amodating tone.

    Daniel knew that there was no way for him to convince the aliens to give up their technology out of good faith, so he had already prepared a demonstration.

    "That is a good point." Said Daniel before turning to look at Edmund and Nova, who sat at his left. He then said, "Pick any of your soldiers to go with my twopanions, They will show them."

    The members of the government looked at Daniel with interest. They already knew that Daniel¡¯spanions were able to freely open portals that lead to the void, but they did not understand how that could be possible. After all, not even the humans who lived in the void had ever found a way toe and go as it pleased them. They would simply use theirprehension of shattered space to predict the formation of the rifts, and use them to travel to the stable space.

    The generals noticed the interested expressions of the cultivators. "Where would you take them?" Asked one of them.

    "You may not know, but our universe is but one of an uncountable number of dimensions. From some of theme our powers, while many others are liveable universes. Apparently, the universes live on a countdown. When a dimensional destroyer is able to mature, they will bring the destructive power of space, which in time will propagate through the whole universe, making it unliveable." Said Nova, the spatial elemental.

    "We can take one of your soldiers to visit the void, one of the dimensions that have been already destroyed. You will understand once you see it with your own eyes." Added Edmund with a in and unbothered tone.

    As soon as Edmund finished speaking, themander of the government¡¯s army turned to look at him, and said, "Why didn¡¯t the Void Dwellers ever reveal to us the nature of these.. ¡¯Destroyers¡¯? Why are you the only ones aware of what they do?"

    "I can answer that." Said Nove before leaning over his chair. He then started to exin, "I was formed in the void, and have lived in contact with the dwellers for all of my life. None of those who dared to venture close to one of those monsters have ever been able toe back. Me, him, and a servant of the Tamer are the only exceptions."

    Not really satisfied with the answer, one of the escorts of themander stepped forward, and said, "Commander, I¡¯ll go."

    None of the aliens did the same, and it was only after the general covered the microphone and exchanged a few words with the scientist, that he turned to look at one of the soldiers that was standing behind him, and ordered him to go.

    After the nervous soldier joined the cultivator in the middle of the room, Edmund and Nova joined them, and opened a portal to the void, and along with the two warriors, entered it.

    For the following five minutes the two sides looked at one another with hostility, wondering whether this process was meant to take so long, or if Daniel had tricked them into killing two of their warriors. Luckily, right before they could startining, the portal opened once again, and from it, walked out a calm looking Edmund, an indifferent Nova, and the two shocked warriors, who weakly walked towards their factions, and reported what they had seen.

    The reason why it had taken five minutes, was that instead of simply showing them the mature destroyers that lived in the void, the two had brought them into the stomach of one, where the concept of copsed space was held. If not for Edmund¡¯s rtively new ability to travel between familiar dimensions, the three would have been stuck there, unable toe back.

    Surprisingly, of the two factions, the one who showed the biggest reaction were the cultivators, who suddenly understood how close to losing everything they had built they truly were. The aliens, on the other hand, remained quiet.

    For a moment, everyone in the room knew what needed to be done.. The aliens were bringing the destruction of the universe, and the only way to stop this was to stop their consumption of grey matter.

    "Don¡¯t listen to them.. Those troglodytes are tricking you into giving up what makes you strong. They are jealous of you.. They will use their brute strength to turn you into ves." Said a disembodied voice that came from behind the aliens, but that did not require a trantion to be understood by all races present. This voice was grating, and not at all pleasant to the ear.

    All those present sprung up on their feet. None of them had felt any form of presence around them, and yet, they had all heard this voice.

    "Who is speaking?" Asked themander.

    The question of themander was left unanswered by a second disembodied voice that came from behind her, the senator, and the Tacher. "What is the point of this meeting.. They will never give up what they have. They will keep using their trinkets to take and take.. Until there is nothing left.. Kill them all now." Said a second voice, husky and orotund.

    Daniel was beyond confused. Between him and hispanions, his group wasposed of those who could see the most of the universe, and yet, even he could not perceive the source of these voices. Different in more than just tone and sound, almost pr opposite in nature, they seemed toe from nowhere and yet everywhere.

    "Who are you?" Daniel asked, unwilling to let these entities manipte the two factions into mutual destruction.

    As soon as Daniel finished asking his question, two figures appeared behind the two factions. The one that appeared behind the aliens was that of an old Kruga, covered with an armor that was clearly beyond their race¡¯s level of technology. The second individual was a distinct middle aged human with a dignified appearance, and a feeling of power that was emanated by his body..

    "You can refer to me as Evolution. I am the personification of the natural path of life." Said the human-like being with a dignity that not even an emperor would deem himself worthy of.

    "A step under anything that is important." Said the alien-like being with a derisive tone. He then added, "I am Ingenuity. I inspire the intelligent, and are to thank for anything that separates you from beasts."

    No matter from which faction, all those present were left with no words. These beings were inconceivable, and from the way they described themselves, it seemed that they were talking of themselves as superior beings which had descended heaven to advise their pupils. Evolution to the humans, who had managed to better their race through natural selection and power, and Ingenuity to the alien races, who had abandoned the evolution of their bodies to embrace technology and development.

    "This alliance is unnatural.. Their knowledge cannotpare with your own, and allying with them is as wise as allying with a pet. Your poweres from creativity and imagination.. Follow their path, and you will lose what you are." Said Ingenuity to the aliens, who until now, had been having simr thoughts.

    Simrly, Evolution said to the cultivators, "They cannot offer anything to you. They have reached their limits, but you haven¡¯t. Ambition and greed will make you stronger. Kill them all, and take your ces at the top."

    "DON¡¯T LISTEN TO THEM!" Shouted Daniel, grabbing the attention of the nearly swayed cultivators and aliens. "Remember what happened a few hours ago? Remember what we have risked?!"

    "The end is but a part of existence." Said a hoarse and guttural voice that came from right next to Ingenuity, right where immediately after, appeared another being with the semnce of a member of the Kruga race, showing which side he was supporting.

    "Conclusion.." muttered Evolution, whose nature was constant, neverending, and opposite to that of both Ingenuity and Conclusion. He then turned to look at the former, and with a faint smile, he said, "I did note alone either."

    By the side of the cultivators, a fourth figure appeared. However, this time, the entity was recognizable to at least five of those present in the room. Daniel, Sewah, the Teacher and all of his students immediately felt the powerful familiarity towards this figure. An old man whom they quickly recognized as Iewah himself.

 Chapter 455 Aspects of Existence Part 2

    "Father.." muttered Romah after finding out that Iewah, his unfathomable father, was only standing a few centimeters behind him.

    "You are Iewah? What is the meaning of this? What the hell is going on?" Asked themander with exasperation. She knew the old man only by name, and had never met him in the flesh before.

    Despite the looks of shock of those who considered themselves as his children, or descendent, the old man did not react, and instead looked at the two entities which had called themselves as Ingenuity and Conclusion, with an expression that was devoid of fear.

    "You.." Muttered Conclusion, clearly surprised by the old man¡¯s appearance. His surprise did notst long, and was soon reced by an unfriendly expression right before he added, "A stupid choice to show up here, odd one. Now that this dimension has seen a glimpse of the end of times, your powers will dwindle."

    The old man smiled in response, humored by what Conclusion had said. He then nced at Daniel for a few moments, and responded by saying, "Isn¡¯t the blink of an eye but a glimpse of darkness? Save your speeches for when the lights will be out for good."

    Along with Evolution, Iewah formed the direct of position of Ingenuity and Conclusion, and yet, no one bothered to even utter his name.

    Seeing the reaction of the couple, the expression on the face of Evolution becamecent, as opposed to that on the face of Ingenuity, which looked at the former with irritation, and said, "This ne belongs to us. Its future was decided ever since our champions discovered the residue of origin. Only he and I are suitable to contend for this dimension."

    "How ridiculous. Cultivation is the predominant force in this dimension, and without your intervention, this ne would belong to me." Responded Evolution in disagreement. As he finished speaking, his expression turned significantly more malicious, and his body started to emit a power that forced all of those present on the brink of desperation. "If not for the rules, I would have already taken you out myself." he then added with a menacing tone.

    It was clear to all those present that Evolution¡¯s power was amongst the strongest of the four, a power that was matched only by Iewah, who appeared to be unaffected by the pressure emanated by hispanion.

    Evolution favored the cultivators, whom had found a way to gain power through the concept he represented and with whom he shared individual power, and therefore, he considered his subjects. Unfortunately, strength was not the only useful power, as to match Evolution¡¯s strength, was Ingenuity¡¯s intelligence.

    "Always ready to throw hands. So unsophisticated.. Our words have already tainted this universe¡¯s free will. How about we restart this ne, and see how it ys out the next time?" Said Ingenuity, who had already predicted that the knowledge of copsed space would ultimately force the side he favored into abandoning technology, and moving on Evolution¡¯s side. In order to avoid losing the ne, he had intervened only so that he could justify what he had just proposed. That, was the cunning of Ingenuity.

    Daniel and the others listened to the words of these four beings with horror. To them, it seemed that their existence, as well as the existence of every member of their family, friends, andrades, was nothing but a piece of meat coveted by four hungry wolves.

    The possibility that their civilization could be wiped out just to save the time of a discussion was disgusting to Daniel, and in his heart, he started to despise them, just like the others did. In their mind thousands of different words formed thousands of different phrases. Comints and arguments about why they deserve to live, questions about things that were beyond theirprehension and much more, but before they could turn these words into sounds, their voices died in their throats.

    Ingenuity¡¯s proposition, while unfair, seemed to be the best solution for Evolution who, unwilling to concede, would rather try his luck with the next attempt. Iewah and Conclusion did not appear to be bothered by the decision, as they were only there to make sure that none of the other two would im the universe through unfair methods.

    Evolution looked at the cultivators with what felt like the displeasure of losing a good hand of cards, then turned to look at Ingenuity, and said, "Very well. Restart it."

    Extremely satisfied by Evolution¡¯s agreement, Ingenuity raised his left arm, and reached for the empty part of space that was right in front of him. As his arm was extended to its limit, the entire universe seemed to be pulled in between Ingenuity¡¯s two fingers,pressed into a sphere that included everything that existed had ever existed.

    With hisprehension of spacetime, Daniel was able to feel the catastrophic effect that whatever Ingenuity was doing would have, but unfortunately, he was powerless to stop him.

    The feeling of pressure became more and more intense, when suddenly, "Do I have a say in this?" Asked a fifth disembodied voice, forcing the pressure to disappeared.

    Behind Daniel, appeared a fifth entity.

    The reaction of Evolution, Ingenuity, and Conclusion was to immediately take a step back, right as their bodies began to tremble uncontrobly. "Y-You are h-here.." said Evolution with a tone filled with fear, and what felt like respect.

    Iewah was the only one who stood his ground, but on his face, it was clear that he was wary of the neer. "Of course you have a say in this.. Conflict.." Said Ingenuity, hiding his displeasure as deep as he could, so that it could not be perceived.

    The moment the word ¡¯conflict¡¯ was spoken, Daniel turned to look at the entity that had appeared behind him, and immediately felt some sort of familiarity with him. Not only had he seen the man¡¯s middle aged appearance before, he could also recognized the immense power that his body was emanating.

    "Interference is usually prohibited, but since all contenders have shown themselves, this universe will proceed in awareness, and thepetition will continue." Said the newly arrived entity with a dead tone. In the minds of the aliens and cultivators present became clear that he was not giving a suggestion, but dictating what would happen, regardless of the other¡¯s opinions. "Do you have any objections?.. Because if you do, I am more than happy to settle it in the pantheon."

    Evolution, Ingenuity and Conclusion looked at one another with defeated expressions. They then politely agreed to Conflict¡¯s proposition, and disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

    Iewah was the only one left, and was currently looking at Conflict with the intention of asking for something. From his unstable gaze, it was clear that he wanted to be allowed to talk to Daniel, but before he could even express this request through words, it was denied by Conflict, who said, "Leave me to my champion. The two of us have much to talk about."

    With no other choice, Iewah looked at Daniel one more time, and left while ignoring the presence of the Romah and Sewah. Once alone, Conflict the other¡¯s actions, and disappeared while leaving a few words behind, "Conclude your business here. I will wait for you on your."

    The desire to obtain immediate answers was extremely enticing to Daniel, but he had other matters to attend. In front of him the two factions that before only saw him as a mediator, now, based on the actions of the five mysterious figures, considered him as a person of a ranking higher than their own. A person with an unfathomable backing.

    Unwilling to stay much longer, Daniel proposed that the intergctic coalition would abandon their use of grey matter, and in exchange, they would be allowed to study the mostmon ways of cultivation. As an additional part of the armistice, the universal government would be prohibited from attacking or entering the alien territory for the following fifty thousand years, time in which the members of Daniel¡¯s group would be allowed to monitor the abandonment of the technology that was dependent on the grey matter.

    Once the agreement was reached, the three factions separated, and went their separate ways.

    -----

    After the conclusion of the meeting, Daniel teleported directly to one of the most deste parts of his, where a small me of alien power was signaling its present to him like a lighthouse through the night.

    When Daniel appeared, this little me turned into the figure of Conflict, whose first action was to pick a rock from the ground, and look at it with interest. "So, this is also part of your body.. Interesting." he muttered before letting go of the rock, and turning to look at Daniel.

    For a few seconds he waited for Daniel to start asking questions, but even for someone like Daniel, bing used to beings such as him was not something that could happen in a matter of minutes, so he decided to start things off by saying, "I am Conflict. It is not my name, it is just what I am. To people like humans, I can be considered a sort of.. Deity."

    "The four that you have met, like me, are the embodiment of one aspect of existence. Evolution, born from the everchanging adaptation of life, Ingenuity, born from the intelligence and cunning of sentient beings, and Conclusion, created by the end of any form of process. Finally, there is the one that made you into what you are.." Exined the middle aged man, in the hope that a bit of rity would allow Daniel to gain enough confidence to speak.

    "I.. Did you save our universe from being erased?" Asked Daniel with an unsteady tone, still not sure in what capacity he had understood the situation he was in just a few minutes earlier.

    "I am a multidimensional being, your universe is as important as one of your precious essence gems is to you." Responded the middle aged man with a t tone.

    From Conflict¡¯s reaction to his question, Daniel was able to confirm what he had suspected. His universe was of no interest to someone like him. However, what he truly meant to ask was whether the three that were so casually deciding the fate of an uncountable number of lives were enemies, or not. Unfortunately, he could not ask that, so instead, he settled for something simpler. "Why would you do that? What makes me your champion? Have we met before?" He asked.

    "We did meet once, when two brats of the spiritual faction brought you to the I was taking a look at. That was when I have noticed your gift.. Karma." Responded Conflict with a matter-of-fact tone, leaving Daniel speechless. "You are definitely a special one, but to answer your question.. You are not my champion. You are merely bringing him along." He then added before pointing his finger at Daniel, and dragging the demonic wolf cub out of his shadow.

    Finally Daniel understood. Conflict was the being to which Hell belonged to, and therefore, the king of hell was his only true champion.

    "Why were the others so respectful to you?" Asked Daniel, seemingly unbothered with the sudden revtion.

    Conflict grabbed the wolf cub by the scruff and took a closer look at it. "Because they have a lower standing than mine. Their aspect of existence is.. Circumstantial. It takes a beginning to reach an end, and you need a life to have evolution and intelligence. My aspect is of a broader spectrum. I am the opposition between any form of forces." Responded Conflict with a matter-of-fact tone, and a subtle pride.

    "What about Iewah? Is he different?" Asked Daniel, curious about one of the biggest mysteries of his life.

    "Iewah? What is that?" Responded the middle aged man, slightly distracted by the cubs silly attempts at biting him.

    "The one who made me.. The old man that gave me my gift." Said Daniel, rifying the deity¡¯s confusion.

    At the mention of Iewah, Conflict put down the wolf cub, and said, "Oh, right. That one.. He is Destiny."

 Chapter 456 A New Chaotic Era

    "Destiny?" asked Daniel with visible surprise.

    "That is what I¡¯ve said." Responded Conflict with his usual calm and emotionless tone.

    After confirming that he hadn¡¯t heard it wrong, Daniel started to understand why Iewah¡¯s faction was how it was. Their systems matched the character of the original hosts, and thepetitiveness of the newly born consciousness was nothing but a trait necessary to manifest one¡¯s destiny.

    Unfortunately, along with answering to a few of his questions, this revtion added some mystery to the matter. "Destiny sounds pretty important.. Is that why he wasn¡¯t as fearful towards you as the others? Is he special?" he asked with curiosity, while sitting on a chair that formed right underneath him.

    "Oh, he is definitely special. You can say that he is the youngest of us, but he is also not quite like us." Responded Conflict before sitting onto a second chair that Daniel had created for him. He then picked the demonic wolf cub, and after cing him onto his legs, he continued by saying, "While he is unequivocally part of our kin, his existence began the very moment the first sentient beings developed conscience, and started to aspire to more than just banging rocks together. However, instead ofing to be, his existence was born from a fraction of Fate."

    "Fate? Isn¡¯t it the same as Destiny?" Asked Daniel with confusion.

    "Destiny is an ever changing consequence to a being¡¯s actions. Fate, on the other hand, is an already written story that transcends time, and has already taken into consideration the changes that a being¡¯s free will, will have on the future. Now that I say it out loud, they don¡¯t seem to be much different, but that little change in perspective is what separates Destiny, but one of the low-tiers of our kin, from Fate.. A ruler in our pantheon." Exined Conflict with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Daniel slouched onto his chair, and after a few moments, he muttered, "So that is how it is.. We are little gears in a machine that provides power to your kin.."

    "If that is how you wish to see it." Responded Conflict while once again observing his champion.

    "How else am I supposed to see it? Aren¡¯t we still breathing because of your whimsical decision? I don¡¯t believe he is more important to you than any other champion you have in any other dimension." Said Daniel while pointing his finger at the wolf cub, who straightened his ears and tried to reach for it, but was stopped by Conflict¡¯s hand.

    "You seem to have misunderstood something. We do not live to rule over you, nor do we care to. We simply exist. Would something change for you if you discovered that this sky has feelings? Would you feel dejected if I told you that your sword is thinking about something else other than how you are going to use it?" Said Conflict, slightly annoyed by Daniel¡¯s attitude.

    Daniel was taken aback from the deity¡¯s words, which to him, were both reasonable and absurd at the same time. "Be as it may, can you understand how dispiriting it is to know your are but an unaware ant that hasn¡¯t been stepped on yet, right?" Asked Daniel.

    "If only you knew the stupidity of what you¡¯ve just said. You would be surprised about the degree of struggle that ants put on to survive a world where they can be stepped on at any time.. Calling your race ants is overpraising yourself." Responded Conflict with a hint of irritation.

    What Conflict said gave Daniel made him realize something important. Ants would not stop trying to survive just because there was a chance of dying a pointless death. Was that not the same as cultivators, who strived for power despite how many more cultivators were able to snap them into nothingness?

    For the next few seconds Daniel felt ashamed of his defeatist attitude, and was d that conflict could help him get rid of it with a few right words. "What do you gain from helping me? Why are you sitting in front of me and exining this to me?" Asked Daniel with visible interest and a deeper confusion.

    "I am trying to satisfy my curiosity," said Conflict.

    "Regarding what?" Asked Daniel after straightening his back.

    Conflict did not answer right away, and instead put down the cub, stood back up, and started pacing back and forth for a few seconds, considering whether it was appropriate for him to share what he was thinking. After about a minute, he finally said, "An idea."

    "Does this idea have anything to do with Iew.. Destiny?" Asked Daniel while reaching for the cub with his hand, and allowing it to once again retreat in thefort of his shadow, where it would feel the closest it could be to Daniel.

    For the first time, Conflict showed the parvence of a smile as it looked at Daniel, pleasantly surprised about his intuition. "Him, you, those who call themselves as his children, and their followers," he said before turning to look at the vast line of trees that appeared in front of him as a natural barricade. He then added, "We may be powerful, and above everything else.. But even we have a limit. Do you know what that is?"

    "..you cannot procreate." Said Daniel right away.

    The smile on Conflict¡¯s face widened, but only for a moment. "Once again, you are almost correct.. We couldn¡¯t procreate, not until Destiny was born." He said before taking a small pause, after which he added with what felt like a passionate tone, "Think about it, how infinitesimal the chances of this happening are. Mortals gain self-awareness, and suddenly, Destiny branches out from Fate, and we be linked to one another. To create beings who can dictate death, time, feelings, karma even! That is no trivial matter. Children of Iewah, as you call yourselves in this dimension, are my kin¡¯s spawn.. And thanks to your ambition and strive for conflict.. I should be your most favourite rtive." As he reached that point, he took a small pause, rposed himself, and after turning to look at Daniel, he added, "Well, all but you, of course."

    "Because I am an anomaly.."

    Conflict did not respond, and instead slowly nodded his head once.

    "What now, then? Do we go on like nothing happened?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "I am afraid that won¡¯t be possible. Your ne has already been marked as a disputed dimension. The champions of the other aspects of existence will be attracted to this ce.." Said Conflict after recovering from his passionate tirade, and regaining his emotionless state of mind.

    "How much time do we have?"

    Conflict once again showed one of his extremely rare smiles, and responded by saying, "They are already here."

    -----

    Just like Conflict had said, to the portal that led to Daniel¡¯s universe was removed any form of limitation, allowing the inhabitants of the other dimensions to visit his ne, ande in support to the champions already present.

    It did not take long for Daniel to see the effect that these invasions had had in his universe.

    In hope to maintain the bnce that he and the two civilizations had barely managed to build after the bloody war, Daniel had spent months visiting their bases one by one, but unfortunately, it was always toote. Whenever he would arrive at the base of one of the factions, he would find out that some foreign entities would have arrived before him, and formed a connection with the faction¡¯s members.

    Starting from unfathomable beings who offered to teach their ways, while promising higher levels to the cultivators, to technologically advanced races who deepened the understanding of technological advancement of the alien civilizations.

    Soon enough, each separated group within Daniel¡¯s universe was visited by their respective counterparts, and in the short span of a single year, any form of cohesiveness amongst the different factions and the many alien races disappeared, bringing the universe back to a tribal state. Not anymore bothered with maintaining what could be called a government, each faction had quickly started to develop and improve its methods, using them to live freed by any of the rules that, until now, had stopped them from attacking one another.

    The more Daniel saw of this new universe, the more he understood why the aspect of Conflict would prefer this reality over anything that the others had chosen, since now that chaos had been let loose, the easiest aspect of existence to observe was, in fact, conflict. However, while much more chaotic and dangerous than before, Daniel did not hate Conflict for what he had turned his universe into. After all, the alternative was to be erased from existence by Conclusion, Evolution, and Ingenuity.

    The beginning of this chaotic era slowly chipped at Daniel¡¯s feelings of belonging, and before he could even notice it, he found himself not caring about the future of this universe. All that mattered to him were the people who relied on him, and wanted to pursue their dreams without caring about which aspect of existence their actions would be aiding.

    Nothing was left for him and his group in this universe, and that had formed the idea of using Edmund¡¯s powers to leave this dimension along with the rest of his group, in hope to find a universe where they could live peacefully. But for that, it was still too early, as this universe still had things he would do anything to protect. People he would never leave behind.

    With the faces of these few people still extremely clear in his mind, Daniel, along with his and the people who lived in it, began his voyage towards his reunion with the lost members of his group.

    -----

    In the outskirts of what was now the territory of the disbanded universal government, opposite to where the wormhole had appeared, was the domain of the corrupt faction. A gxy cluster painted with the grim color of death-like power, that had corrupted any form of living being, and devoured the once livablend.

    The corrupted faction was one of the first major factions to abandon the government after the opening of their dimension, and along with many of the minor factions that were subject to it,

    like the parasitic faction and poison factions, they were approached by the champion of one of the aspects of existence.

    However, this champion was slightly different from the others.

    What made him different was the fact that he had been in this dimension for a bit longer than the others, and his business in this ne were much more personal.

    Once only a consciousness that was able to roam this ne by possessing other people¡¯s bodies, he was now able to invade this dimension with his full power, and his physical body. His ne of origin was theher realm, which he had conquered an uncountable number of years earlier, and there, he was referred to by his followers as the Murderous God.

    Half naked, and with only a loose robe that fell down his shoulder, the Murderous God observed the emptiness of space, hoping to find a trace of those whom he had pursued for so long, and that he had never been able to capture.. The Swordsman, and Jerigh.

    Behind him stood politely two men. The first man was an exceptionally good looking young man dressed in a blood red robes that matched the color of his eyes, which shone through the cascade of ck hair that came down the sides of his head, and fell on top of his shoulders. He stood a step behind the Murderous God and the other man, while maintaining a respectful silence.

    The second man possessed a healthy physique that was covered by simple dark grey clothes, but hismon body type and attire were his least notable features. To jump to the eye was the immense pressure that came from his short ck hair, which felt like strands of death that would kill anyone that dare to touch them. Even more powerful, was the death-like essence that was emanated from his mouth, nostrils, and fully ck hair, which made him look like the container for a power that could im the lives of billions.

    These two men were the Parasitic King and the Sovereign of Corruption, who along with the Murderous God, contributed to the aspect of existence of Sacrifice.

 Chapter 457 Old Enemies and Lost Friends

    The three entities stood in silence, observing the emptiness of space almost as if waiting for something to happen, and soon enough, after no more than a few minutes, a bloody portal opened in front of them. From this portal walked out the Brutal who, covered with superficial cuts, showed to the three only a fraction of the entity of the original injuries.

    On the Brutal¡¯s face there was no trace of the pride of Iewah¡¯s children, and instead, was only fear. With shoulders lowered, and his line of sight pointed at the feet of the Murderous God, the Brutal opened his mouth to talk, but before a single word could some out of it, a powerful p came crashing down against his head, and his entire body was turned into a mist of blood.

    While the Sovereign of Corruption did not appear to be bothered by the death of the Brutal, the parasitic king shrieked back in shock, and was only able to stop himself from letting out a fearful high pitched scream by moving his arms in front of his face to protect himself from any imaginary p he was assuming would hit him, right after hitting the Brutal.

    After seeing that killing the Brutal had satiated the anger of the Murderous God, the Parasitic Kingposed himself, and forced his arms down the sides of his body. However, he was unable to stop his hands from trembling. With the corner of his eye he tried to findfort in a simr reaction from the Sovereign of Corruption, but he was disappointed, as he quickly noticed thetter¡¯s detached and calm demeanor.

    The mist of blood that had now expanded to a point where the microscopic droplets of blood could not be seen anymore, slowly started to move back together as a result of the Brutal¡¯s failsafe ability. These droplets quickly turned intorger drops, which soon amalgamated into a glob of dark red liquid.

    Once everyst bit of blood had joined back into this bubbling red glob, its shape began to change, and in a matter of just a few seconds, turned back into the body of the brutal, who trembled in fear at the thought that Murderous God could still be unsatisfied by killing him once, and would kill him again.. This time once and for all.

    "Speak." Ordered the Murderous God, sending a shiver down the backs of the parasitic king, and the Brutal, who instinctively floated a few centimeters back before stopping abruptly.

    Still terrified, and yet slightly reassured that he was allowed to live a bit longer, the brutal lowered his head respectfully, and said, "M-Master, I couldn¡¯tplete my mission. It is not possible for me to capture them without risking my life.. My weakness is unforgivable, please punish me as you see fit."

    In thest few millions of years, the Murderous God had reaped an uncountable amount of lives, and killed for the smallest and most insignificant reason. To kill as a way to vent out his anger was not only eptable to him, but something he had to do. Unfortunately, despite feeling the powerful instinct of sending another p that would end the existence of the Brutal once and for all, he calmed himself down.

    Without looking back at him, he reached for the Brutal¡¯s neck, and squeezed hard enough for the chosen of Iewah to gasp for air. "Your ipetence is revolting.." He said before looking at the Brutal¡¯s body up and down with disgust. He then let go of him, and with a calmer tone, he added, ".. but I wasn¡¯t expecting any better from you. You are only alive because you can help me find them. I will decide whether to spare you depending on your performance. Now, find them for me." An expression of reassurance appeared on the face of the Brutal who, for some reason, along with relief, also felt gratitude.

    Before letting his unforgiving master repeat himself, the Brutal closed his eyes, and used his system to create a new quest that could tell him the general time and ce where he could find Jerigh, and his brother the Swordsman.

    Seemingly aware of when the Brutal hadpleted his task, the Murderous God turned to look at the two faction leaders who stood behind him, and said, "You two will capture them for me."

    After listening to the Murderous God¡¯s assignment, the Sovereign of Corruption remainedpletely calm, but that was not the same for the Parasitic King, who felt an indescribable feeling of worry erupt from the depths of his spirit. He once again looked at the Sovereign of Corruption for support, but once he saw that he his expression was devoid of any form of reaction, he muttered, "My lord.. I am afraid that we-"

    "Quiet!" Said the Murderous God with enough power to force the next words down the throat of the once powerful and proud Parasitic King. He then added, "I know perfectly well that you two maggots amount to nothing." As he finished speaking, he gave the two onest look of disgust before reaching for his blood red belt, which was keeping his loose robe from floating out, leaving his bodypletely exposed. After his hand approached the small golden bell that was hanging from the belt, which to others appeared to be just a decoration, he tapped his fingers over it.

    The moment his finger touched the bell, an extremely thin thread of blood came out of it, and reached for the two factions leader, only to stop about a meter in front of them, and turning into a small whirlpool. From this bloody whirlpool emerged two clean pages.

    "Follow this method to the letter, and if you will still be unable toplete the mission I gave you, I will kill you." Said the Murderous God before turning back towards the immense expanse of empty space, giving his back to the two cultivators.

    The Parasitic King snatched one of the pages with enthusiasm, and quickly began to read every word that was written on it. He immediately noticed that while the entire page was covered in words written in dried up blood, only the first paragraph was readable, while the rest of the words were blurred beyond recognition.

    Despite the method was an iplete one, the Parasitic King memorized the first paragraph as quickly as he could, and after bowing respectfully to the Murderous God, he said a few words of gratitude, and left.

    On the face of the Sovereign of Corruption, however, was a different expression. While his face was still mostly devoid of emotions, his eyelids had narrowed into two slits the moment he read what was written on the sheet of paper.

    ____________________________

    When the body is spent and the soul is tired,

    Findfort in the purity of newborn¡¯s blood,

    For only the purity of innocence can restore you.

    ____________________________

    Thanks to his dark ck sclera and irises, it was impossible for others to see exactly towards what the Sovereign of Corruption was looking. Only through the eyes of the Sovereign himself one could see that he was observing the Murderous God.

    After noticing the looks of envy of the Brutal, the Sovereign of Corruption decided to say nothing, and instead bowed his head slightly, and dissipated immediately after by turning himself into a dark mist.

    Once the two left, the Murderous God turned to look at the Brutal, and said with a domineering tone, "Tell me anything you know about the other members of your kind. Tell me about the sons of Destiny."

    -----

    Back in Daniel¡¯s, he and hispanions were sitting onto the many seats present in the main hall. From the mood present inside the room it was clear that they weren¡¯t there to have fun, or catch up on each other¡¯s day, but to discuss something important.

    ".. Hold on a second.. I still don¡¯t understand what.. Are we talking about actual gods?" Asked Ligart with clear confusion. He was one of thest ones to hear about Daniel¡¯s encounter with the five aspects of existence, and hadn¡¯t had enough time to wrap his mind around the matter yet.

    Xargy, who was present in the meeting along with Daniel, Aeron, Edmund, and Nova, let out a sigh of exasperation, and said, "They are not gods. They stillpete for power, live in a hierarchical society, and are wary of the progress of one another.." He said before taking a small pause, after which he added, "But if we consider the difference in power between us and them, we might as well call them gods."

    "It does not matter how we call them. The fact is that we cannot stay here any longer. We have too many enemies, and they are getting stronger by the day." Said the silver alchemist while packing his pipe with a mixture of herbs and weeds.

    The group kept discussing about their options for a few minutes, but Daniel appeared to be thinking of something else. He was sitting with his legs crossed in front of arge firece, with orange light thatnded over his focused expression in an attempt to move through his closed eyelids, and make him notice it.

    ".. Dan, what is our next move?" Asked Heimart in an attempt to get Daniel to contribute to their conversation. But, s, Daniel never responded. Instead, he began to move around nervously, scratching his knee, resting his chin over his palm, trying to sit morefortably, showing the increasing nervousness he was feeling.

    ".. damn it.." he muttered after stopping. The rest of the group looked at him with confusion, but before anyone could say anything to him, "DAMN IT!" he shouted in anger, extinguishing therge fire that until a moment earlier, was dancing loudly in front of him.

    "What is the matter with you?" Asked Alis, shocked by Daniel¡¯s sudden outburst.

    "It¡¯s getting worse." muttered Daniel, leaving his friends into an even deeper state of confusion.

    The only ones who understood what had happened, were Aeron and Sewah, whom either by knowing how the system worked, or by being able to read his mind, were aware of what Daniel¡¯s words meant.

    During the year that followed Daniel¡¯s encounter with Conflict, him and his friends had focused all of their attention into reuniting with their lostpanions, before deciding what to do or where to go. After examining the four quests, Daniel had decided that Jerigh would be the easiest one to look for, as his position was the closest to their own.

    However, the moment Daniel pried deeper into Jerigh¡¯s mission, he had discovered that contrary to how it was before, the details of Jerigh¡¯s rescue were extremely vague, and that the only information that the system would give out were his general position, and his time of death. After making this discovery, Daniel had immediately asked Sewah whether he knew what the reason for that could be, and he did not like the response.

    ording to Sewah, he had seen something simr when he had been in possession of Daniel¡¯s body. Just like any other child of Iewah, hispetitive nature had brought him to look for his siblings, but when he had tried to create a mission that could help him with that, he had found out about one of the system¡¯s limitations. The gifts would interfere with one another, making it impossible for two children of Iewah to solely rely on their system¡¯s missions to defeat one another, instead of their powers and abilities.

    Knowing that Jerigh was probably in thepany of one of Iewah¡¯s children, Daniel hurried to rescue him, but now, something else had changed. Instead of reporting his moment of death to be tens of thousands of years in the future, in the time limit of the mission, the system reported that Jerigh would die in exactly thirty days, and four hours.

    Still years away from Jerigh¡¯s general position, Daniel was forced to do something he would prefer not to do.

    With no other option left, Daniel closed his eyes, and let his consciousness leave his body, and travel deep into the. When he reached the innermost part, he emerged from a rocky surface, and found himself in front of what, instead of being a ball of scorching fire, was a cold metallic sphere. This sphere was identical to the one used by the intergctic alliance to warp space, and allow their fleet to reach superluminal speed, and stored inside it, was a small moon¡¯s worth of grey matter. Or how the aspect of Ingenuity had called it, residue of origin.

 Chapter 458 Heinous Path of Blood

    Five dayster.

    Ever since the universal government had fallen apart, and each faction had be an independent power, the shared gxies had either be immense battlefields, or given up but those who did not possess a high enough share topete for their egemony.

    In one of the abandoned gxies, previously owned by arge number of smaller factions, which had now either grown enough in power to conquer bigger territories or were wiped out by the rise in strength of their formerpetitors, was a small deste called Homia.

    Only inhabited by a few surviving members of its natives, the poption of this only reached the hundreds, and only with tens of thousands of years they would finally be able to repopte.

    Unfortunately, to arise from its ashes was not Homia¡¯s destiny, as instead of the battles between cultivators that had already destroyed most of it, to bring it to its end, were two men. These two men were the Brutal and the parasitic king, and they were floating outside of the¡¯s atmosphere, observing the surface with interest.

    "Are you sure they are hiding here? I doubt master will forgive another screw up." Said the parasitic king to the Brutal, with a tone filled with contempt.

    In the past the Brutal would have never allowed anyone to talk to him like this. But now, he was only a ve of the Murderous God, and as such, he had been beaten into a submissive state. The only remaining spark of pride present in the Brutal¡¯s mind red up, and for a moment he thought of fighting the parasitic king, who would have never dared to speak to him like this only two years earlier, but he didn¡¯t. He could feel that the parasitic king was different than before.

    "They are somewhere in his." he muttered while keeping his head low, and keeping his cards for the fight ahead.

    The parasitic king, former leader of a mid level faction, found indescribable pleasure in provoking those who before, had treated him like he was nothing. But more than that, he was eager to try his new powers. With his lips curved into a smile, the parasitic king opened his arms. Suddenly, the skin that covered his body cracked, and momentster, his body broke apart, and started to grow in size.

    The disgusting rubbery sound of chitin rubbing together, and sight of insect legs moving around sent a shiver down the spine of the Brutal, who could do nothing but observe as the parasitic king turned into a monstrous clump of worms.

    Once it reached the size of an asteroid, from deep within the moving clump of insects, the head of a massive worm emerged, and after opening up and showing its many circles of sharp teeth, plunged into the¡¯s crust.

    What followed were a few minutes of eerie silence which was soon disturbed by a series of devastating earthquakes, that along with wiping out the remaining survivors of the¡¯s poption, split the various continents into smaller inds. From the many cracks that divided these inds could be seen the king¡¯s body, lurking and digging.

    Bit by bit the surface of the was chipped away by the parasitic king, leaving the¡¯s core with less coverage by the minute, until finally, almost directly exposed by the colder temperature of the sidereal space, and constantly stripped away of its heath, the core solidified.

    Chipping away at the¡¯s mass, the gravity of the quickly decreased, ultimately turning from a round mass of dirt, water and stone, to a three-dimensional archipgo of cold and uninhabited rocks. In between these massive rocks, were millions of kilometers of worms and insects which used their sharp teeth to grind the boulders that kept them together.

    This went on for two long hours, when finally, the parasitic king started to lose its patience. "Ipetent idiot!" Said a deep and monstrous voice that came from the depths of the king¡¯s main body. However, before the Brutal could respond, the parasitic king lost an immense portion of his body.

    Seemingly unaffected by this amount of damage, the parasitic king retreated outside of the, and observed in silence as two figures emerged from in between the inds, and both covered in tattered ck robes that hid their appearances, floated out in silence.

    After finding them, the body of the parasitic king quickly shrunk, only stopping once he had turned into a humanoid being covered by a chitin shells built inyers, and a size that reached the twenty meters in height, and the thousands of kilograms in weight.

    "You keep the other one at bay while I capture that kid.. I wille and help you when I am done." He said before shooting through space in the direction of the figure that was holding two single-edged des.

    The Brutal seemed to be taken aback by the actions of the parasitic king, and raised his arm in an attempt to stop him, but then, he remained quiet. Instead, he turned towards the Swordsman, who had already grabbed his sword, and injected his power into its veins. Then, like tradition in every encounter between two children of Iewah, the two engaged in a violent fight.

    The parasitic king was ecstatic. Not only had the Murderous God taken him in as a follower, took away the stress of leadership from him, and given him a method of cultivation, but had also promised him that if his mission was a sess, he would be granted the next step of what was called the ¡¯Heinous Path of Blood¡¯, the method of cultivation invented by the murderous god himself, and practiced by his sect in his ne of origin, the Nether dimension.

    In the cultivator that stood in front of him, he saw a way to rise above those whom he had to bow his head to until now, and nothing but sess was eptable.

    As he reached the hundred meters of distance from the lone warrior, theyered body of the parasitic king opened up into thousands of mandibles, revealing a massive mouth where he would trap him, but before he could reach him, the hooded figure let go of his left sword, and grabbed the remaining one with both hands.

    He then raised it up above his head.

    The shing motion that came after was not at all impressive. In fact, if any master of the art of the sword had seen it, they would im that it was just the training of apetent fighter, but that was far from the truth. The space sliced by the sword followed the path traveled by the de, and with a white shine, shot towards the massive body of the parasitic king.

    Unable to avoid it in time, or even pose any form of resistance against it, the body of the parasitic king was cut cleanly into two parts, who parted further away the closer they came, and floated past him.

    What the Brutal had stopped himself from revealing, was the fact that the real problematic one amongst the two was not the Swordsman, whom he had fought hundreds of times in the past, but Jerigh, who in the time between the numerous fights that took ce during thest year, had risen to the strength of the two brothers, and learned the sword intent, a power that was believed to be exclusive to the swordsman himself.

    Unfortunately, Jerigh was not the only one that had grown in power, and right after moving past him, the two halves of the parasitic king joined back together. Once whole, the face of the parasitic king disappeared from where it was, and reformed on the back of his head. Simrly, his elbows and knees twisted around, making him look as if he was always facing Jerigh¡¯s back.

    Before Jerigh could react, the parasitic king extended his arm, and pointed his palm towards him, and from the middle of it, emerged a column of insects that washed over Jerigh, covering his bodypletely.

    The excited expression quickly disappeared from the monstrous face of the parasitic king, as he began to feel how every single insect that approached the young man¡¯s skin, would be cut into pieces.

    Inside this living hurricane Jerigh focused to maintain his thin barrier of sword intent, while he would only directly slice personally when a particrly big part of the parasitics king¡¯s body would approach him.

    This situation went on for what felt like hours, and after so much time wasted in consuming power, and turning it into waves of insects only so that they could be destroyed right after, the parasitic king was running out of patience. To add salt to the injury, was the fact that whenever he could feel himself close enough to get a hold of Jerigh¡¯s body, he would always avoid him just in time, no matter how many times, only able to rip his ck coat one piece at a time.

    The Murderous God had given him a time limit, which once remembered, quickly turned his impatience into frustration and worry. With this state of mind to poison his mind, he kept on trying and failing, until finally, he noticed how the swordsman and the brutal came to a stalemate, and due to the impact of a particrly powerful exchange, the injured body of thetter was thrown in his direction.

    The parasitic king did not think twice about it, and moved himself to stop the motion of the brutal, but instead of deaden the impact with his body, his arrival was met with the opened mouth present on his chest.

    "WHA-NO!!" Shouted the brutal as the king¡¯s lines of teeth moved independently,pulling him deeper into his mouth, crushing his bones, ripping his flesh, and soaking in his blood.

    One of the very few exnations given to him by the Murderous Gods about the Heinous Path of Blood, was that once one would purify their body and begin cultivating it, they would turn every living being around them into their personal cultivation resources. Their blood, flesh, bones, and even spirits, would be something that they could devour, and from which they would be able to draw an immense amount of power.

    Sure enough, after the body of the Brutal was turned into bloody shreds, and swallowed by the parasitic king, an odd form of power began to appear on thetter¡¯s body. Blood red in color, and powerful enough to put any individual cultivator in the former universal government into shame. That power, was blood aura.

    While the blood aura was a power that the parasitic king could momentarily use, it was not his own, and instead, like spiritual essence, would need to be absorbed by the cultivator, and turned into a blood child. Only then would the cultivator be able to produce his own blood aura.

    The blood aura that was reinforcing the parasitic king, on the other hand, was quickly dissipating, as he had decided to devour the brutal not because he wanted to use him to cultivate, but to augment his power. As of now, this power was nothing but a taste of something that he could obtain if allowed to cultivate the path created by the Murderous God.

    Exhrated by this immense strength, the parasitic king turned back into his human form, and suddenly disappeared. When he reappeared, he was floating right behind the swordsman, and inside his area of absolute destruction. However, he was not being injured. With a smile that went from ear to ear, he looked at the skin of his hand as the invisible des brushed past him, leaving only white marks.

    With a confidence as high as the moon, he turned to look at the Swordsman and reached for him with his arm, but right as he was about to touch his ck robe, thetter¡¯s sword shed past his hand, cutting the webbing in between his fingers, and causing him to instinctively retract his hand.

    Enraged by his exaggerated reaction over what was only a small cut, the parasitic king once again reached for the swordsman¡¯s body, but this time, he ignored the millions of small cuts, and managed to grab him by the throat. Then, with a power supported by arge portion of the blood aura.. *SNAP*

 Chapter 459 The Murderous God vs Daniels Group Part 1

    The body of the Swordsman suddenly went limp, and his arms started to float due to theck of gravity.

    With his hand still wrapped around the Swordsman¡¯s throat, the parasitic king looked at his body with amazement. "Spectacr.." He said as a wide grin appeared on his face, which quickly disappeared the moment he remembered how all of the children of Iewah, had a failsafe ability that would resurrect them after dying once. If that was not enough, being aware of his gradually decreasing power, the parasitic king knew that the more time passed, the worse off he would be in facing the two.

    For the following few seconds he tried to think of a way to kill the Swordsman once and for all, when suddenly, an idea came to his mind. The murderous god did not care about the Swordsman, and the only person he needed to capture was Jerigh, so even if the Swordsman were to disappear, he would not have to fear the anger of his new master.

    With only a portion of the exhrating blood essence left in his body, his entire body started to break apart into what appeared like a sea urchin, and a momentter, he swallowed the dead body of the Swordsman before he coulde back to life.

    Horrifying noises of crunching and tearing could be hearding from within him, but soon after, they stopped. "I don¡¯t believe I cannot eat you!" Said the parasitic king, while feeling that instead of turning into blood essence, the mangled body of the Swordsman was being covered by a sort of cocoon.

    Instead of silk, this cocoon was formed by a thread of sword intent, which could cut almost anything it woulde in contact with. This thread was constantly trying to cut the parasitic king from the inside, forcing him to focus all of the blood essence left to protect his stomach.

    The sword intent chipped away at the blood essence, and before he could realize it, the parasitic king started to receive injuries to his stomach, which would be ground to nothingness the moment it would touch the cocoon. Unable to devour him, the parasitic king had no choice but to spit the Swordsman right out, and allow him to be resurrected before killing him onest time.

    What the parasitic king did not know, was that embedded into the thread of sword intent, was something different. While his sword intent came from his body, the swordsman was using a second form of power which originated from his very own artifact.. The living sword.

    Originally a simple instrument that could improve his battle prowess and cut anything, the living sword possessed its own consciousness, and was able to absorb, distribute, and channel the sword intent of the Swordsman on its own ord, based on the enemy the wielder was fighting. Now, however, this sword had a new power, and this power, was none other than the concept of immortality, which was added to it when it had been merged with the Deathbringer¡¯s artifact.

    This had been done out of necessity, during the many encounters he and Jerigh had with the followers of the Murderous God, resulting in the Swordsman reachingplete immortality.

    Whenever the Swordsman would die, his own sword would immediately activate, ejecting a mixture of the swordsman¡¯s sword intent, and the concept of immortality that the sword possessed. This particr fusion of essences would be extremely damaging against natural life essence, making it the perfect protection against any living being who wished to attack him while he was regenerating.

    The parasitic king was in trouble. The blood essence in his body was now but a fraction of that he had obtained by sacrificing the brutal, while Jerigh and the Swordsman did not appear to be affected in the slightest.

    After a few more attempts at killing the Swordsman, this feeling of danger turned into worry, and the worry turned into the fear he had always felt when interacting with beings more powerful than him. His newly built world of power and dreams of dominance rapidly crashed down in front of these two seemingly undefeatable de wielders, leaving only the will to escape into his mind.

    "Worthless. Truly worthless." Said a disembodied, yet familiar voice with anger. Following the resounding of this voice was the appearance of two entities, that the parasitic king weed with looks of relief. These two entities were the Sovereign of Corruption, and the Murderous God.

    "Master, I have failed.. These tw-"

    "QUIET!" Barked out the Murderous God, already annoyed about having to even look at the parasitic king. "Giving you the Heinous Path of Blood was a mistake. I will deal with youter." He then added with a menacing tone right before turning to look at the Swordsman, and Jerigh.

    "I have been looking for you for over a year now. It cost me a lot toe here personally." He said as the angered expression on his face turned into an even deeper frown. After no more than a few seconds, however, the frown disappeared, and he went back to his expression of calmness, contempt, and sense of superiority. "But now I have you.. And you will bring me to the little dimension jumper." He said with a smile while looking straight into Jerigh¡¯s eyes.

    Jerigh and the Swordsman looked at one another, and without saying a word, they came to the mutual understanding that there was no hope for them to face this being. However, before either of them could attempt an escape, two strings of blood shot out of the golden bell that was hanging from the Murderous God¡¯s belt, and wrapped around their bodies.

    While the string that was wrapped around Jerigh¡¯s body stopped, the one that had captured the swordsman didn¡¯t, and instead expanded to a point where his body could not be seen. This thick dark red thread soon turned into a glob of blood, which engulfed himpletely.

    The extremely corrosive blood essence of the Murderous quickly dissolved the body of the Swordsman, but right when he tried to absorb him, he noticed that an unextinguishable spark of life was present in his sword, and that as long as it existed, he would never be able to absorb any of the Swordsman¡¯s power.

    Slightly annoyed by this, the Murderous God solidified the blood essence, and trapped the Swordsman into a bloody prison. He then turned to look at Jerigh with a malicious smile, and said, "I will have my fun with you.."

    As he finished speaking, the Murderous God retracted the thread of blood along with the currently bound Jerigh, but right before he could get a hold of him, ayer of space suddenly solidified, locking the thread in ce.

    "Or maybe there won¡¯t be a need for that." He said right before turning to look right and showing a smile even wider than before. His eyesnded on the figures of Daniel, Sewah, Aeron, and Xargy, who looked at him from only a few kilometers away. "I was going to search his soul to find out where you were, but now that you are here.. Oh, who am I kidding, I will still do it eheh" He said.

    Daniel ignored the words of the Murderous God, and instead turned to look at Jerigh, whom he hadn¡¯t seen in years. No words were needed, just a faint nod which reignited the camaraderie between the two.

    "How cute." Said the murderous god before disappearing, and reappearing right next to Jerigh. His hand was ready too hook thetter¡¯s throat, and rip his windpipe right out, but instead, he felt the hardness of a set of knucklesnd squarely on his mouth, sending him flying back at an impressive speed.

    This punch was not particrly powerful, and left no damage, but for some reason, the Murderous God was unable to avoid it. Clear in his eyes like any other attack, this punch felt like it came out of nowhere, and yet everywhere at the same time. Seemingly seconds away, and yet alreadynded before he could even react to it. That, was the power of spacetime.

    The Murderous God stopped his motion only a few kilometers after being hit, surprised, but not damaged in the least. He looked at Daniel, and said, "I¡¯ll be damned.. This universe gets more and more interesting by the day. But I wonder for how long you can defend your friends." With the power of his blood essence, the murderous god shot through those few kilometers like aet, throwing a punch at Jerigh, but right before it could reach, Daniel¡¯s head moved in front of him, and exploded like a watermelon that had been dropped from the hundredth story of a building.

    Jerigh¡¯s eyes opened in shock, and for a moment, all of the sword intent that he was able to produce focused on the edge of his sword. He then shed with all of the power he was capable of, "AAAARGH!" he shouted in blind rage.

    The murderous god did not bother to avoid this attack, and instead blocked Jerigh¡¯s sword by grabbing it in between his index and middle finger. Then, with a light pressure, he dissipated the sword intent, and snapped the sword¡¯s de like a stick.

    Slightly disappointed by Daniel¡¯s unavoidable death, he then once again reached for Jerigh¡¯s throat.

    With his fingers wrapped around Jerigh¡¯s neck, he turned to look at Daniel¡¯spanion, and said, "Bring the dimensional jumper to me. Or I will kill you-" right before his eyesnded on Aeron¡¯s, which were shining with a dark green color.

    Suddenly, the Murderous God found himself somece else. He was standing in line along with thousands of kids, right in front of what appeared to be a pool of water colored red by all of the blood that had been poured into it. By the side of this pool, was a mountain of tens of thousands of bodies, all kids that, like him, were being sacrificed.

    "Come ahead." Said the cold voice of the executioner, who had just thrown the body of a five years old girl onto the pile, and was holding a ck dagger from which fresh blood was still dripping.

    The murderous god could remember this scene from millions of years ago. How instead of simply letting himself be killed, he had jumped into the pool that was being prepared for the sect master¡¯s son. Reborn from blood, was the tradition that he woulde to include to the Heinous Path of Blood, the cultivation path that he had invented during his life.

    Aware that he was being forced to relive his memories, the murderous god looked at his surroundings. The old sect he had destroyed, all of the cultivators that he had ughtered, the cruel and aloof leader whose heart he had eaten while he was still alive. Everything was identical to how he remembered it.

    However, while he was enjoying this look at his past, he was no prisoner. He simply closed his eyes, and while reopening them, he said, "These petty tricks won¡¯t work.." he then stopped as he noticed what was in front of him.

    Daniel had wrapped his right arm around the murderous god¡¯s neck, while the left was covering his head. Only a slit that connected his eyes to Aeron¡¯s was left uncovered, while on the rest, he felt his blood essence being absorbed at an incredible rate by the concept of absorption of dark essence.

    He tried to use his arms to reach for Daniel, but quickly noticed that both of them were already gone. One carried by the quiet and tired figure of Sewah, who had hacked into it with all of the power he possessed, and Xargy, who had bit into his other arm, and spent the few moments he had to twist in ce, until the arm snapped off.

    The murderous god tried to say something, but right as he opened his mouth, Jerigh¡¯s sword pierced his tongue, and impaled it onto the back of his throat.

 Chapter 460 The Murderous God vs Daniels Group Part 2

    With a sword pierced through his tongue, and into the back of his throat, both arms gone, and the majority of his power being pulled out of his body by the concept of absorption of dark essence, the murderous god stood there. On his face, not a trace of pain could be seen. Only an increasingly more evident anger.

    With very few who could match his power, and people who idolized him like a true deity, the murderous god could not stand this amount of disrespect. A slight that brought him way past his breaking point. "ENOUGH!" He shouted in a fit of rage, forcing an immensely powerful wave of blood essence out of his body, and expand until it was able to engulf all of Daniel¡¯s friends.

    The murderous god did not care anymore what he hade here for. He had been humiliated, and he needed to teach a lesson to these insects. To alleviate his anger was the thought that in that very moment, their bodies would be consumed, and be nourishment for him.

    Unfortunately, that never happened.

    When his mind caught up with his actions, he quickly noticed that trapped in this field of blood, were only Daniel and Aeron. This was an additional source of irritation for him, but now that he had captured at least two of them, his sadistic side kicked in, and he decided that he would enjoy looking at Daniel¡¯s friends expressions as he would kill him in front of them.

    However, once again, he was wrong. Jerigh was the only one who could be considered worried, but as soon as he noticed the calm and unaffected demeanor of Xargy and Sewah, he calmed down, and looked at what was happening with slightly less worry.

    Looking forward for the begging and crying, the murderous god used his power to try to melt the bodies of the two imprisoned cultivators, but quickly realized that something in them was different than any other cultivator he had met.

    Aeron¡¯s body was easily consumed by his blood essence, but no matter what, he could not absorb any of his power. He could do nothing but watch as his intangible consciousness left field of blood, and once outside, shaped back into his body. Daniel, on the other hand, was shielded by a power that the murderous god could not understand, and that would consume Daniel¡¯s body at a rate that was neglectable to him.

    Offended by Daniel¡¯s ability to resist his attacks, the murderous god moved his arm to grab him, but right before he could, Daniel had disappeared, and reappeared outside of the blood field.

    Like a bunch of flies buzzing around his head, the murderous god looked at them with a seemingly boundless anger, until he lost his patience. He dissipated the field of blood to end this circus once and for all, but right as the sight of his surroundings became once again clear, two fingers dug into his eyes, and before he could even react, after feeling the gentle pressure of Aeron¡¯s hand onto his head, he once again found himself into one of his past memories.

    He was once again a kid, now younger than he was in his other memory, and with him, were his parents, whose names and faces, after all these years, he could not remember. However, there were no feelings of affection in his heart. Not even when outer disciples of his former sect raided his vige, killed them in front of him, and kidnapped him so that he could be sacrificed. His hate towards weakness had started with his parents, who were even weaker than the lowest form of cultivators of a then low-tier sect.

    All that forcing him to relive this memory did, was to fuel his anger, which he thought could only be satiated by drinking the bone marrow out of the bones of these cockroaches.

    When he left his memory, he was once again in an ufortable position. His body was pierced by at least thirty swords, making him look like a pin cushion. The absorption of his blood essence was once again present, as Daniel pressed his hands over his head in order to clear him off of his power, right before he could try to erase his mind once it would be left without protection.

    While not particrly damaging to him, the loss of power was still something that cultivators of any degree of power needed to be wary of, and an enemy that was hard to kill and that could directly absorb his power, was the enemy of any cultivator. Unfortunately, he still did not understand the degree of danger that Daniel¡¯s group posed to him.

    In a second attempt to get them off of him, the murderous god blindly tapped onto the golden bell that was hanging by his waist, from which hundreds of strings of blood came out and shot in the direction of Xargy, Sewah, and Jerigh, whom he knew he would be able to hurt.

    Now prepared, Jerigh was able to use hisprehension of spatial essence to gently deflect the threads of blood, while Xargy was pushed out of the way by Daniel, who at some point, had appeared next to the humanoid dragon, and moved him out of the way faster than the motion of the threads themselves.

    The only one who was caught by them, was Sewah.

    Satisfied by at least catching one of them, the murderous god showed a smile that, unfortunately, did not remain for long. At a faster rate than he was being consumed, Sewah¡¯s power was increasing to a point where, if it kept on going, it would reach the power of the murderous god himself. This was the ability that Sewah had gained from his ascension. The ability to momentarily increase his power, the more powerful his opponent would be.

    This exchange between the two parties was repeated over and over again, until finally, the murderous god started to get nervous. His reserves of blood essence were going down to critical levels, and for some reason, he knew that if presented with the opportunity, this group of inferior cultivators would be able to trap him, or banish him in some mysterious way.

    He had severely underestimated Daniel and hispanions.

    As a god in his own universe, his rise had put a stop to any other path of cultivation, and by extension, made the cultivation of those who followed his path, highly dependent on him. Pampered and spoiled, he had spent thest million years cultivating in the mostzy and uneventful way possible, and if not for the appearance of Edmund, he would still be receiving his human sacrifices, while being adored by his subjects.

    But the cultivators in Daniel¡¯s universe were different. They were used to the never ending conflict of a generally free and less totalitarian society of cultivators. However, at the end of the day, he was still a cultivator.. And an immensely powerful and vicious one at that.

    His viciousness in particr was the reason why he had spared two powerful cultivators like the parasitic king, and the sovereign of corruption, whom he had brought for more than just spectate to what he was doing.

    After more than an hour spent feeling his power being taken away, the blood essence of the murderous god finally reached a critical point. Each of his attacks had failed miserably, and if he continued to this path, he would end up in dire straits.. but even to escape, he needed more power than what he had left.

    It was right then that, instead of focusing on Daniel and hispanions, he dashed towards the extremely worried parasitic king and the unfazed sovereign of corruption. However, instead of barking out orders like he usually would, he extended his hands outwards, and grabbed their necks.

    Before either of the two could react, two small and yet extremely powerful vortexes appeared in the palms of the murderous god, which in a matter of moments, absorbed their bodies as if specks of dust being breathed in by a giant..pletely unable to fight back, or resist in any capacity. The absorbed bodies of the two cultivators immediately turned into a new wave of blood essence, which washed over the body of the murderous god, and allowed him to regain arge portion of his power.

    As soon as he finished absorbing his two servants, the murderous god immediately thought of protecting himself from one of Daniel¡¯s random and unpredictable attacks, Sewah¡¯s dangerous strikes, or Aeron¡¯s inevitable mind tricks, but none of those happened. Instead, Daniel and the others observed him in silence.

    After this catastrophic failure, the n of the murderous god was to escape, and find them again once he would be more prepared for their odd abilities, but now, all of those reasonable thoughts had left his head. What was left in it, was the only possible reason why Daniel and hispanions would quit while they were ahead, and that was that they were unaware of his background.

    In his head, the fact that Daniel and his group did not know who they were fighting against, was a huge deterrent. Were they afraid that his sect woulde to find revenge? Were they afraid to kill the champion of another aspect of life? He did not know. What he knew, was that this was his chance.

    He quicklyposed himself, and after recovering his sense of superiority, he looked at Daniel, whom he had realized was their leader, and said, "You are more sensible than I had realized."

    Daniel did not respond, and instead, pointed his eyes at the uncoveredyer of skin of the murderous god.

    The murderous god took this as a sign of submission, and with an even higher level of confidence, he said, "I admit that I have underestimated you. Your abilities makes you extremely difficult to kill, but I wonder if you would be able to resist thebined attack of multiple universe¡¯s worth of cultivators." On his face was a confident smile.

    For a few seconds he waited for a response from Daniel and hispanions, but after noticing that the group had no interest in talking, he continued by saying, "Of course, you could avoid that, if you hand over to me the dimensional jumper." Once again he stopped, but yet again, he found himself almost talking to himself. Daniel and the others not only refused to talk, but appeared uninterest about what he was saying.

    Being ignored irritated the murderous god greatly, but unfortunately, he was no longer in the condition to fight.

    All he wanted to do was to go back to his dimension and recover, and once back to his peak form, he would find a way toe back to Daniel¡¯s dimension, and finish these little ants once and for all. Nevertheless, in his mind was a certain level of regret. He regretted being cocky, anding to this dimension personally, allowing his power to be greatly limited by thews of the kin of aspects of existence. All that because he wanted to be the only one to know about Edmund¡¯s power. A power that could allow him to travel between dimensions without any limitation, which would be desired by anyone in the multiverse, if public.

    It was his greed that had led him to be in this sorry state, but in his mind, there was still time.

    Unfortunately, his thoughts and reality refused to match one more time, and they would never again.

    Unbeknownst to him, multiple dark grey spots had appeared on his skin, and they were bing bigger and bigger by the second, trying to cover his entire body. "Wha-COUGH" he muttered before letting out a dry cough, and spewing small beads of ck liquid.

    "No.. no no no.." he said as he finally noticed the changes to his body, rubbing over them with his hands, trying to take them off of him. But, s, it was toote. The temporary power he had obtained by absorbing the two faction leaders quickly turned into a death-like dark grey-colored essence, of which he lost control over. His life essence, kept strong by the uncountable sacrifices that had been offered to him, started to dwindle, and on his face, nothing was left by horror, anger, fear.

    The body of the murderous god began to rapidly age, to a point where he was nothing but dark grey skin, and bones. "Not like this.. I will not.." he muttered with his dried up lips, clearly on the verge of death.

 Chapter 461 Mark of Death

    ".. I will not.. die.. like this.." said the voice that came out of his decrepit lips, as the wrinkles on his face became even deeper than before. This happened so fast, that he didn¡¯t even have the time to show the panic and fear he was feeling through his expression.

    Daniel, already aware that this would happen, looked at the dying murderous god. He was hoping that he would die once and for all, as he was too big of a threat for his group, and knew enough about the kin of the children of Iewah to know how to find them. What reassured him, was the fact that they had fulfilled all the requirements they needed to fulfill in order to cause his permanent death. Now, all that was missing, was for the murderous god to be consumed by the death-like essence of corruption.

    After a few seconds, full of dejection, the murderous god realized that he was going to die, and that there was no way for him to avoid it. But, s, that form of realization quickly brought peace of mind to him. The sort that allowed him to think clearly on what to do.

    Even if unable to save himself, the murderous god was not going to die without doing some damage. He was far from being the strongest entity in the universe, and yet, very few had as many enemies as he did. For that reason he had expected to find himself in an impossible fight at some point in the future, and in preparation for that, he had created a counter measure.

    With all of the strength he had left, he moved his bony hand near his belt, and tapped the golden bell that was hanging from it with a nearly imperceptible force. However, even though imperceptible, this force was just enough to activate the bell, whose mouth instantly turned to face Daniel, and spewed a small glob of blood.

    Daniel was not willing to test the power of this glob on his own body, so despite its extremely slow moving speed, he decided to use the essence of spacetime to move out of the way.. But the moment Daniel moved aside, this small orb of blood changed direction, and followed him.

    The speed of the glob of blood was easy to follow, but for some reason, it did not appear that increasing the distance between the two would give him any more time. The globe was approaching, and no matter if he slowed it down with time, or moved back by thousands of kilometers, the glob kepting closer, and closer.

    Unable to avoid it, Daniel used all forms of essence he had aprehension of to stop the glob from reaching him, but it was all useless. Almost as if not bound to thews of this dimension, the small bead of blood reached his forehead, and seeped into his skin. However, instead of digging into his head, it stayed on the surface, changing into the symbol of a blood red sun that apparently, the others could not see.

    Daniel immediately tried to rub this mark off of his forehead, but there was no result.

    "What is this!?" He asked the murderous god with a solemn expression, and a matching tone. On the mummified face of the murderous god a smile seemed to be present, but he was already dead. "Damn it." he muttered before closing his eyes, and creating a new quest with his system¡¯s help.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Mark of Death*

    -Description: You have been branded with the blood mark of the murderous god. In it is his legacy, thest scripture of the Heinous Path of Blood. Find a way to remove the mark while surviving the attacks of the cultivators of the Heinous Path of Blood.

    First objective set: Survive the first wave of blood cultivators.

    Reward: ???

    ____________________________

    "Piece of shit.." muttered Daniel before quietly asking the system for his options, hopeful that it could give him a simple way to remove the mark of death, but instead of reassurance, his jaw tightened due to the shock.

    Instead of the three options that his system would usually give him, there were only two. The first option was the most radical option he could have ever thought of, and it said that if Daniel wanted to free himself from the dangers of carrying this mark, he would need to exterminate every blood cultivator in existence, whose numbers reached the billions.

    If that was not bad enough in itself, the option had given him a time limit of twenty years, after which the blood cultivators of the multiverse would reorganize under a new leader, and flood Daniel¡¯s dimension in search for theirte leader¡¯s legacy, bringing death to an uncountable number of people.

    The second method required him to be a blood cultivator himself, and cultivate the Heinous Path of Blood to the highest level. Only then would he be able to obtain the legacy of the Murderous God, and remove the mark of death that was turning him into a living manual for any blood cultivator willing to kill him, and obtain the legacy.

    Daniel had in mind a few things to say to the Murderous God, but he was only in time to take ast look at his smiling face, before his now mummified body turned into a cloud of dark grey dust, and he disappeared forever. In the spot where the murderous god was only a few seconds earlier, was now a glob of dark grey essence, which quickly took a human form, and turned into the body of the sovereign of corruption.

    With his usual calm tone, the sovereign of corruption waved his hand against the grey dust that was left of the body of the murderous god, and said, "There is only one person allowed to take control over this universe." He then opened a portal, and left without even bothering to look back at Daniel or his friends.

    What happened left a big impression of the sovereign of corruption in Daniel¡¯s head, but unfortunately, that was not enough to rece the bad situation that was currently flooding his mind. He looked down with uncertainty before taking a few deep breaths. Once calm, he turned around, and floated next to Jerigh.

    The two were finally facing one another, after years of being separated. The others remained quiet as they expected one of the two to say something, but that never happened. Instead, Daniel reached for a handshake.

    The time Jerigh had spent in the patriot academy had allowed him to get more used to human interactions, so when he saw Daniel¡¯s arm move that way, he knew what that meant. With a very well hidden joy he reached for Daniel¡¯s hand, but right before their hands could touch, Daniel grabbed his forearm, and pulled him closer, giving him a hug that showed him how much he was happy to see him safe and sound. In response to Daniel¡¯s actions, Jerigh grabbed Daniel¡¯s forearm, and reciprocated the hug.

    After a couple of seconds the two separated. Daniel ced his hands over Jerigh¡¯s shoulders, and said, "It¡¯s good to have you back." He then turned to look at the others, and added, "We need to go, there is something I have to tell you guys."

    The others did not dally, and instead nodded, and teleported back on Daniel¡¯s.. But not Jerigh. Before Daniel could leave, Jerigh once again grabbed Daniel¡¯s forearm, and once he got his attention, he turned to look at therge bead of solidified blood essence inside which was the wisp of life essence that constantly tried to resurrect the swordsman, but that was stopped by the corrosive nature of the blood essence from seeding.

    Daniel immediately understood what Jerigh meant, and yet, he still couldn¡¯t help it but ask, "Are you sure?"

    Jerigh nodded, "I owe him my life.." he said with an extremely serious tone.

    Therge sphere of blood essence still possessed the corrosive power it originally had before its controller died, but now, it wasn¡¯t marked. Instead, it was an ownerless construct of blood, extremely simple to destroy. It only took a simple thought for Daniel to create a sma de, and split it into two, freeing the trapped sword.

    Once freed from the corrosive prison, from the sword handle began to form the bones of a finger, followed by the bones a the palm, and of a wrist. As the bones of the forearm began to regenerate as well, fibers of tissue started to appear on the fingers, bing denser and denser, until finally, when the humerus began to reform, the hand onlycked the skin to be aplete.

    After the arm, the rest of the body followed suit, until finally, the swordsman was whole again.

    The two observed his motionless body for a few moments, after which the eyes of the swordsman opened, and moved on Daniel, and Jerigh.. Two people for which he felt natural enmity, and a certain familiarity.

    The eyes of the swordsman remained on Daniel¡¯s body only for a few moments, almost as if assessing his power, and once satisfied, instead of acting on his enmity, he turned to look in the emptiness of space. Then, he started to float away in silence.

    The nature of the friendship between him and Jerigh were extremelyplicated. After all, even after a year and a half spent together escaping from the Murderous God, the two had almost never interacted with one another, and instead, they had simply supported each other through their fighting abilities. However, Daniel could see the disappointment in Jerigh¡¯s eyes the moment the swordsman left without saying a word. A disappointment that showed a spark of gratefulness.

    For the next few minutes, Daniel remained in silence as Jerigh stared at the empty expanse of space, after which he bowed his head in gratitude towards the direction where the swordsman had disappeared. He then turned to look at Daniel, and said, "I am ready to go."

    Daniel nodded, and quietly opened a portal which led both of them to the square in front of the ck castle.

    -----

    Due to his young age, Daniel had decided to keep his identity as the founder of Hiel academy a secret to its students, allowing only a few of them to know the truth. His identity was that of the academy¡¯s first student, which he could justify by being the first student of the most senior professors in the academy. Just behind Daniel¡¯s position, was that of Jerigh, who despite never being seen by most of the students, was considered as one of the strongest individuals of their age.

    Their legendary reputation had brought to the erection of their statues and creation of paintings, of which numerous copies had been ced in many of the academy¡¯s buildings.

    For that reason, when Daniel and Jerigh appeared in the square in front of the ck castle, the thousands of students that were busy going back and forth the square, immediately stopped what they were doing to look at them.

    "Don¡¯t they look familiar to you?" Asked a young woman with curiosity to one of her girl friends.

    The two girls who walked along with the first one turned to look at Daniel and Jerigh, and one of them asked, "They kind of look like the first and second students."

    "Oh yeah.. They do look like them.. But I don¡¯t think it can be them. I heard that they died years ago. That¡¯s why there are so many statues of them." Said the third young girl.

    Before any of the two girls could say anything, the three heard a loud "What?!" and turned to look in the opposite direction. There, they saw the students ranked from third to seventh in the crowd. The one who had spoken was Cynna, and she was making her way through the crowd while saying "Let me through!" in a hurry.

    Once at the front of the crowd, Cynna dropped the sack of spiritual herbs she had gathered for her mission, and looked at the two with eyes opened wide with shock. This shock did notst long, and quickly turned into anger. She suddenly clenched her fist and ran towards the two, but right before her punch couldnd on the body of a distracted Jerigh, he turned around, and blocked the attack with ease.

    As the two looked at one another, a faint smile appeared on Daniel¡¯s face. He was already aware that this would happen, and in fact, he had nned it.

    Not willing to get in the middle of their reunion, Daniel turned towards the entrance of the castle, and said, "I¡¯ll wait for you inside." he then walked in. In his mind formed images of when to reunite, would be his and Alesia¡¯s turn.

 Chapter 462 Feelings of Impending Doom

    ck Castle.

    "It happened when he was on the verge of death. He used thest bit of power he had to leave his legacy on this mark." Said Daniel while tapping his forehead, right where the blood red sun was printed like a fresh tattoo.

    Hispanions looked at him with confusion, squeezing their eyes as if unable to see what Daniel was pointing at. "I can¡¯t see anything. Are you sure it wasn¡¯t just a bit of blood you¡¯ve already rubbed clean off?" Asked Ligart while mimicking the motion of rubbing his own skin.

    "It¡¯s here.." added Daniel after putting his hand down, and leaning over the back of his chair with crossed arms. "I don¡¯t know how many wille this time, but I have to assume that this mark is some sort of beacon, and that finding us will only be a matter of time from the moment they¡¯ll enter this universe."

    Daniel¡¯s friends silently looked at one another with serious expression. To break this silence, was Xargy, "What numbers are we talking about here?" he asked before exhaling a weak cloud of smoke from in between his sharp human-like teeth.

    "Multiple dimensions¡¯ worth of cultivators." he said in response, causing the others to suck air through their teeth, and turn rigid onto their chairs. However, in their faces there was no fear. It was clear that they had full faith in the fact that Daniel would manage this. So they didn¡¯t say anything.

    Seeing as hispanions trusted him with their lives, Daniel decided to change the topic. He turned to look at Ligart, and asked, "What about what I had asked you?"

    "Most of the families of the students have moved into the. Those who chose to stay behind imed it was because they did not mind the changes in their factions. If you ask me, they were just worried that they would lose their standing by starting over on another." Said Ligart with a matter-of-fact tone, and shrugging his shoulders.

    Ever since Daniel¡¯s universe had be one of the dimensions aware of the existence of the multiverse, the many factions that formed the intergctic alliance and the universal government had started to receive help by the numerous visitors that came from the other dimensions.

    In the universal government this meant that the immortal cultivators had lost any form of interest in keeping their hegemony over this speck of existence that before, they would call everything. Now, all they cared about was to cultivate the paths given to them by the champions of Evolution, the aspect of existence which better represented them.

    Because of this sudden division, Daniel had decided to extend the invitation that the students of his academy had received, to their families. Most of these families had heard about Daniel¡¯s feats, and since there were close to no negative rumors about his character, they had decided that they would not mind finding stability under a reasonable individual. However, that was not the same for everyone.

    Some of the students of Daniel¡¯s academy came from families who ruled their owns, or possessedpanies that expanded through many sr systems, and even gxies. Conglomerates that had taken tens of thousands of years to build.. Empires which they couldn¡¯t not afford to abandon.

    Naturally, Daniel decided not to push them.

    The students of his academy had already gone through numerous purges, which allowed the members of Daniel¡¯s group to dismiss those who were not suitable to follow the path he created, and that was the only reason why he had taken the initiative to offer a safe haven to these families. But that did not mean that he would force them to ept.

    Rtively satisfied with the response, Daniel turned to look at Emelnie, and asked, "What are the major changes within this universe?"

    Emelnie was the chairman of Golden Karma, thepany that Daniel¡¯s group would use as a connection between the market of the thousands ofs they had visited, and their own. Because of its nature, the golden karmapany was also their main source of information, which merchants would often exchange during their business transactions.

    As the core of the information gathering of Daniel¡¯s group, Emelnie was the one who would update Daniel to the most noteworthy events of the universe, including conflicts, business opportunities, and much more.

    Now that their universe was opened to the other dimensions, interesting news were all butcking. "Thanks to the help of the champions of the aspect of Consciousness, the spiritual faction has be the group with thergest growth margin. However, they stick to their territory, and hardly evere out. The universal government is now allied with the ki factions, and together, they have been representing Evolution in their conflicts against Ingenuity, whose champion is the race of aliens of which the scientist you have captured a year ago was part of.."

    "Have they separated from their alliance as well?" Asked Daniel with confusion. For all he knew, the alien race of which the scientist was part of, was referred to as the Nevia race. They were highly intelligent aliens which, paired with the highly advanced technology of the Kurga race, had allowed them to slowly take over the roles which required high intellect. Thanks to their intelligence, their race had quickly turned into the mind of their alliance, as opposed to the Kruga, who were the brawns in control.

    What Daniel did not know, was that the only reason why Ingenuity had chosen to support the intergctic alliance during their first appearance, was because of the Nevians. Unfortunately Daniel could not understand the importance their race had for the alien alliance, so all he could see them as, was weak eggheads.

    "Yes. Ever since the use of grey matter has been exposed to cause the destruction of the universe, the Krugans have been forced to give up on their reliance on military technology. Unfortunately, that cost them the favor of Conclusion, whose only interest was in using the Kruga to help him nurture his champions, the dimensional destroyers.. Helping them put an end to this dimension." Exined Emelnie, clearly more than prepared for these kinds of questions.

    "Okay, continue.."

    "The parasitic faction is no more.. new leader of the elemental factions.. have trained the other children of.." Emelnie kept reporting one event after another for the following few minutes, until finally, she stopped.

    Daniel had long since realized that the changes in his universe would be drastic. However, he had never realized how much. In only a short year, the opening of their dimension had destroyed any form of stability that had been created through hundreds of thousands of years of effort. Formerly allied factions would now wage war amongst each other, peaceful groups would now set out for conquest, and already powerful factions would strengthen themselves by the day. What was once a block of neatly stored knives, was a deadly storm where anyone could get hurt.

    After Emelnie¡¯s report, Daniel made sure that nothing was wrong on his. That the resources of food would be more than support even double the number of mortals, that the academy would go ahead without any problem, and that its students would have enough resources to cultivate. Then, he dismissed hispanions, and went back to his room.

    Once alone, hey down on the right side of his bed, and with one leg over the other, and his arms crossed over his chests, he closed his eyes, and began to think.

    The pressure of having to assure a good life for what was now a poption of tens of millions was not an easy thing to bear. Especially not for someone who had so many things he needed to solve. But that was the path he had chosen. The only thing that could have eased this stress was what was missing from the other side of his bed.

    However, for how much he wanted to forget about the turmoil the universe was in and go to see her, just as he nned before the encounter with the murderous god, that was not the time yet.

    The gloomy feeling of impending doom filled his mind. An army of cultivators whom, after millions of years spent kissing the feet of the creator of their cultivation¡¯s path, would unleash their greed, frustration, and thirst for violence on his people. What worried him the most, was thinking that many of them were unlikely to be much weaker than the murderous god himself.

    The fact that the murderous god had a legacy yet to impart after so many years, in Daniel¡¯s mind, was enough to only imagine the number that woulde for him. He needed power, and he needed it fast.

    After a few minutes spent in silence, Daniel stood up, and headed for the window.

    Once he reached it, he leaned over it, and began to hear noisesing from one of therge gardens which surrounded the castle. There, he saw Jerigh and Cynna face one another. Her unsheathed weapon pointed menacingly towards the blond man, seemingly ready to start a fight at any moment.

    A few words were being exchanged between the two, but while Daniel could have easily listened to them, he chose not to. Instead, he simply observed as Cynna became increasingly angrier, until finally, she disappeared. When she reappeared, she was in the middle of an attack.

    Cynna had drastically improved in the past. She had be a true immortal, and cultivated to mid phases, but Jerigh was a different kind of monster. His cultivation was now past the hundredth phase of high immortality, and while the essence he emanated was weaker than hers, he would still only lose once in a million, and only if they stuck to rules that would not include death.

    This was shown by his reaction to her attack, which he effortlessly stopped by grabbing her descending wrist, and locking it against her chest.

    Almost as if offended that Jerigh hadn¡¯t allowed her to hit him, Cynna sent a p with her free hand, but unfortunately, once again, her wrist was stopped right before joining her other hand right against her chest.

    Jerigh clearly did not want to fight, as shown by hisplete indifference towards retaliating. Instead, he looked at the ck haired young girl with an apologetic expression, and said, "I am-khh" he was stopped by the girl¡¯s head, which came crashing against his bottom lip, causing him to bite his own tongue.

    Daniel could not help but smile at this, but then, instead of keeping on watching, he shook his head, and disappeared from his room.

    When he reappeared, he was standing in the most popted area within his. The entrance to hiel academy¡¯s sacred grounds. In front of him were thousands of young men waiting patiently in line to enter, eager to spend the following few days using the true essence emanated by the artifact, to develop their mind, and ascend to true immortality.

    The line was hundreds of meters long, and at the head of it, right next to the entrance of the sacred grounds, were Xargy and Aeron, sitting at a small table, and ying chess.

    Daniel ignored the line and quietly walked ahead, attracting the attention of the many students.

    "What is he doing? Is he skipping the line?" Asked a bald young man dressed in a yellow training attire, and carried a simple staff.

    In a ce filled with students eager to cultivate, skipping the line was about the biggest crime one couldmit, so when these two words reached the ears of the others, the crowd went into an uproar, from whichints and usations could barely be distinguished.

    Daniel and Aeron ignored theseints, until finally, "Mister protector dragon! Someone is skipping the line!" Shouted a young woman in a skimpy purple dress with a particrly squeaky voice.

    The shrill tone of the young girl pierced into Xargy¡¯s focused mind, and distracted him right as he was about to make his move. "WHY ARE YOU MAKING SO MUCH NOISE?!" He shouted after suddenly standing up, and pointing at random students in the line.

    "Sir, someone is jumping ahead!" Said the second person in line, which was very close to going in, and finally start cultivating.

    Xargy was known to be extremely strict with guarding the entrance of the sacred grounds, and whenever someone would try to skip the line, they would be sent back and would be banned from entering the sacred grounds for at least a week. To this rule there was no exception, and no forgiveness. No matter how much was offered to him to revoke the punishment, his words werew.

    When Xargy¡¯s eyesnded on Daniel, however, instead of going on his usual tirade where he would joke about eating the student whole, cooking him in a stove with his purple mes, or just huff and puff them in the air, he instantly calmed down. He then, along with Aeron, stood up and walked towards Daniel, who was still a few meters away.

    After reaching him, the three started to talk to one another.

    About a minuteter, when it seemed that the conversation hade to an end, Xargy turned to look at the long line of cultivators, and said with a tone that resounded all the way to the back of the line, "The sacred grounds will close indefinitely. We will tell you the next time it will be open for the students. Go back."

    "WHAT?!"

    "What does that mean??"

    "But! IT WAS MY TURN!!"

    Theints of the students came all together, piling up over the already extremely thin line that was Xargy¡¯s patience, until finally, "Anyone who is still here after twenty seconds will turn into human stew! TWENTY.. NINETEEN!!"

 Chapter 463 Like Moths to Flames

    After closing the sacred grounds of hiel academy, Dan had begun to make some improvements to it. Like a furnace that needed the constant shoveling of coal to keep going, Daniel kept cultivating the Mindhive¡¯s artifact with his power, sacrificing bits and pieces of his which would recover with time, and improving its natural essence.

    Daniel really had to thank his lucky star for finding an artifact with the power of the Door to the Dream State. Most other artifacts would have simply allowed him to gain an increase in battle prowess, but whenbined with his own, no other artifact was as useful to him as that one was. An artifact that would allow him to recycle his own power, and turn it into ownerless true immortal essence which could be used to cultivate not only by him, but his friends and followers.

    Separately, these artifacts could be considered extremely convenient objects to possess, but merged together, they had without a doubt be the most precious artifact in the whole universe. The only other possession that couldpete with it, was the spiritual in, from which the spiritual essence used by any cultivator who nurtured his spirite from, and that was used by the members of the spiritual factions to cultivate under the rule of their mysterious Emperor.

    The most important difference between these two sources of power was the fact that, while the sacred ground of hiel academy could be slowly improved by feeding itrge amounts of its selected kind of power, the main connection between the spiritual in and the universe, worked as a tap. This sort of connection would only allow a certain amount of spiritual essence in, and that was the reason why despite having an infinite stream of power, the members of the spiritual faction were unable to cultivate past the level of the high immortals of the universal government as a group.

    However, now that the universe had be aware of the multiverse, the spiritual faction started to receive visits from the champions of the low-tier aspect of existence called Emotion, and since the spirit was the human aspect which controlled human emotions, toe were different entities of spiritual nature. What these entities taught to the spiritual cultivators, was how to gradually widen the connection between their universe and the spiritual in, so that they could increase the presence of spiritual essence in their dimension, and be able to cultivate at a higher level.

    Simrly, and yet on a smaller scale, Daniel constantly increased the cultivation of the artifact so that he could use it to increase his own power, and after more than three months spent dumping chunks of his of his into it, he entered it, and instructed Xargy with closing the entrance behind him.

    -----

    For the following six months, the chaos that had taken over the modern era had done nothing but worsen.

    Rumors about the disappearance of what, before, were considered powerful factions to the hands of lower level groups, powerful merchant families and groups drained of their wealth by the factions they belonged, and daily wars of a scale that only took ce once every few thousand years, reached the ears of the inhabitants of Daniel¡¯s.

    Amongst them, were the families of the young cultivators that attended Hiel academy, and that had only avoided finding themselves in the middle of an intergctic war, by epting Daniel¡¯s invitation to evacuate theirs, and move into his. Less d about it were those who had friends and family members who had refused to leave their ancestral homes, and had now joined their ancestors under the pile of rocks that buried them.

    These rumors were not only spread by the few people who were in charge of dealing with external merchants, but by Daniel¡¯s group as well. The reason for that, was that Daniel did not want the cultivators who lived on his to lose themselves in the protection it provided. Just knowing that deathy in wait everywhere outside of the¡¯s atmosphere, gave a reason to the families to increase their power, and for the young cultivators to prepare for their chaotic future.

    Left with only the cultivation resources in their pockets, these families began to explore Daniel¡¯ss to find territories in which they could settle in. Unfortunately, the nature of the was obscure to these cultivators who, oblivious to the fact that the whole was part of Daniel¡¯s body, had started to contend over its rich resources, and livable territories.

    These disputes would go beyond the head of Daniel¡¯s group, since only he was able to see everything that was happening on his. Whenever someone would report this behaviour, these families would pretend that it was nothing worth mentioning, and that it was all a misunderstanding.

    That was not to say that if Daniel had been present he would have stopped them. After all, to stop all forms of conflict was not in his interests. It was within people¡¯s nature to fight over things. The only form of conflict he would stop would be those who would involve a weaker party suppressed with the use of violence, in which case, he would simply kick the perpetrators out of his.

    The same was for the academy, inside which rivalries and non deadly fights over petty reasons and different points of view were not encouraged, but not prohibited either.

    Outside of the atmosphere, where the spatial formation had been ced, thest few months had gone by almost uneventfully. The was constantly on the move, headed for the direction where Daniel¡¯s system had told him he would find Alesia, and its path had only been disturbed by the asional group of cultivators headed for their own battleground, or a curious chosen of Iewah interested in facing Daniel, however, all of these people would usually not even realize they were there, or in the case of Iewah¡¯s children, leave with disappointment.

    To control the formation that had allowed them to avoid any conflict was Nova, the spatial elemental that along with Daniel, possessed a perfectprehension of this universe¡¯s space. He was sitting over an imaginary chair right in front of the formation¡¯s control panel, right like a navigator would at the helm of a spaceship. Next to him was an old woman with snow white hair, dressed in light green robes.

    "This young lord sounds like an amazing individual.." said the old woman with a voice that seemed to disappear in the wind, but that did not escape from Nova¡¯s reach.

    "I am the wrong person to ask. I don¡¯t even belong to this dimension." Responded Nova while looking at the depth of space, almost as if on constant alert. After a few moments, he turned to look back at the old woman, and added, "But yes. He is the most incredible human I have met until now."

    The old woman to which Nova was talking to had just moved into Daniel¡¯s along with her entire family. However, she was not a human cultivator. What she was, was a wind elemental, which after learning about Daniel¡¯s extremely strict rules about not bothering the elementals that lived peacefully on his, had dly chosen to move in. The fact that to Daniel¡¯s academy had been donated the perfect treasures of wind and lightning by one of the most powerful immigrant families, was also part of the reason why this n of wind elementals had decided to join, and now lived free from the worry of being exterminated by low level mercenaries in search of a quick payday.

    Wind elementals were a nomad form of elementals that most of the time, would roam the skies of mosts without being noticed, looking down at the lives ofmon humans. However, this was nomon, and ever since they had arrived, right above them, they had noticed the presence of a type of elemental they had never encountered before.

    Right after arriving, the leader of the n of wind elementals had interacted with Nova, and whenever she could, she would ask questions about the mysterious host that had given them a ce to stay.

    Nova did not mind thepany, as most of the times, the other members of Daniel¡¯s group would spend their time taking care of the and everything that was in it, while the other kinds of elementals would spend their time in their natural element, that were separated from him by around five hundred kilometers of air.

    Amongst the few people who would visit him daily, were Edmund, and now, the chief and oldest member of the wind elementals. "In the air.. I feel a different form of power. This is not a simple, is it?" Asked the old woman with curiosity. She had noticed the presence of Daniel¡¯s true immortal essence ever since she had arrived, and had been extremely curious about it.

    Nova was fully aware of what that power was, but before he could even restrain himself from revealing one of Daniel¡¯s secrets, he stood up, and leaned over the control panel.

    In the space that was in the¡¯s trajectory, just a few hundred thousand kilometers ahead, seven figures had appeared. Four of which were women, while the remaining three, were men.

    The clothes worn by six of these seven individuals were very simr, with identical embroidery and colors. The only difference between their induments, were the personal choices which happened to reflect these people¡¯s observable behaviour. Starting from the sleeveless shirt that left the arms of the more muscr man amongst them uncovered, followed by the formal attire of the more serious one, up to the skimpy clothes of the younger amongst the women, who behaved as if millions of people were doing nothing but observe every movement she made. On their mainly white clothes, violent images of seemingly religious nature were embroidered with golden and red threads, and pinned above their hearts, was a sun made out of what appeared like a blood-red metal.

    These six cultivators were clearly strangers to Daniel¡¯s group, but unfortunately, that was not the same for the seventh, who stood behind them with anticipation and nervousness in her eyes. With her fur clothes, and unique features, Nova immediately recognized the fourth woman as one of the people whom Daniel had made sure they would look out for. Someone who had the means, the motive, and the will to bring their enemies straight to him. The Viewfinder.

    This group seemed to be unable to see Daniel¡¯s, but it was clear by their behaviour that they were expecting it to appear at any moment. Another detail that Nova could discern from their behaviour, was the fact that these six people were not allied, and that instead, they behaved more likepetitors on a temporary truce.

    Like he would do whenever a foreign group would appear in front of them, Nova immediately activated the ability that, until now, had allowed them to redirect anything thate close enough to Daniel¡¯s, gently forcing it in another direction.

    "What is going on?" Asked the old wind elemental with a hint of worry. She could feel the terrifying power emanated by each of these cultivators, as well as see the malicious intentions they possessed.

    "Nothing worth talking about." Said Xargy, who had quietly appeared behind the couple of elementals along with Aeron, Sewah, Jerigh, and Edmund.

    The more time passed without being able to spot Daniel¡¯s, the more restless these cultivators became, until finally, the moreposed and well dressed of the six turned to look at the Viewfinder, and with an unbothered expression, took his sses off to clean them, and said, "I thought he was bound to appear here ten seconds ago."

    The Viewfinder was extremely nervous while in the presence of these six cultivators, but the rxed tone of the elegant man caught her by surprise. She once again controlled her mission, and after a few moments, she opened her eyes, and said, "They must be in the vi-"

    Her words were quickly interrupted by the bloody that shot out of the elegant man¡¯s brown eyes, and passed through her at a speed which she had failed to even notice. Before the nervous smile could disappear from her face, her body fell apart, and floated away into a bunch of meat cubes. "You have already said that.." muttered the elegant young man while putting his sses back on.

 Chapter 464 Inheritors of Blood

    After killing the Viewfinder, the man with sses turned to look at the empty section of space in front of them, right where the was hiding. However, he couldn¡¯t feel anything there.

    "Aren¡¯t you going to absorb her?.. Plenty of nutrients in a spawn of Destiny." Said a young and serious-looking young man in leather armor, who carried a decorative spear made of simple steel and wood strapped to his back. He was looking at what was left of the Viewfinder with what someone could mistake as hunger.

    The man in sses shook his head, then said, "Let here back. You can have her after we take the legacy."

    As soon as the man with sses finished speaking, the woman in skimpy clothes ced her right hand onto her side, and said, "Speaking of which, why can¡¯t I feel it? It has been three months since we have lost traces of it.. Is his lordship really dead?"

    "The little spawn of Destiny would not dare lie to us." Said the man in sses with a calm andposed tone. Soon after, his lips curved into a smile, and he added, "If there is something we can be sure of, is that that bastard would have never kicked the bucket without leaving behind the rest of his lifework. Thinking of us murdering each other for it, that is a plus. He must have died with a smile on his face."

    From behind came the loudugh of the muscr man in the tanktop, "haha, but he was right, wasn¡¯t he?" he asked, already aware of what would happen the very moment their eyes wouldnd on the person who was holding the missing step of their cultivation. The step that would elevate them from being servants to a tyrannical god, to the state of the Murderous God itself.

    The blood cultivator with sses ignored the question of his muscrpanion, and instead, he once again removed his sses. His hazel-colored irises, ck pupils, and white scleras quickly changed into red, charging with the blood essence contained in his body. Once identical in color to fresh blood, this film of concentrated blood essence separated from his eyes, and shot out in the distance.

    This film was simr to the one he had used to kill the Viewfinder, but instead of being a big enough to kill a single person, it quickly expanded to a point where it could split a as big as a star into rows of cleanly cut and identical squares.

    The moment Nova saw this, he activated one of the functions of the spatial formation.

    The space contained in the formation began to stretch and curve, until finally, when the reached the, the side that was closer to it had be narrow enough to go in between threads of blood. The narrow part of the followed the path of the, turning the into what would appear like a very exaggerated hourss, and ended the moment the passed itpletely, changing the back into its original round shape.

    Nova had already guessed that this attack was nothing but an attempt to force them out of their hiding spot, but right when he started to think that they might have avoided the trouble, the man in sses showed an amused smile, and put his sses back on.

    Before Nova could realize it, the immense that had moved past them not only had stopped its original motion and wasing back, but while maintaining its grate-like pattern, it had started to spin at a speed that turned it into a pink dish.

    When this spinning te touched Daniel¡¯s, it came in conflict with the defensive measures of its spatial formation, which in need of all of the power emanated by the artifact, redirected the sustainment required to keep up the spatial shield that made thepletely invisible, into reinforcing its defences. This forced the to appear in all of its splendor, right in front of these six cultivators, and the recovering Viewfinder.

    "There they are.." Said a girl in her early teens, dressed in the kind of formal clothes that only a member of an imperial family would wear. However, in her tone, just like on the faces of all of herpanions, there was no happiness. The reason for that was that while they had found something, they still couldn¡¯t see or feel the presence of their legacy.

    Just when the failsafe ability of the Viewfinder¡¯s systempleted its job and brought its wielder back to life, the skimpily dressed woman turned to look at her with an expression filled with irritation, and asked, "Where is he? You said he would be here!!"

    Terrified, the Viewfinder lowered her eyes and said while stuttering, "H-He is h-here.. I am s-s-sure of it.." In her mind there was nothing but regret. In hope to recover her artifact, she had used her system to create a mission that could allow her to find Daniel. This mission had tasked her with forming an alliance with these blood cultivators, bringing them to Daniel¡¯s general position, and using their power to kill him.

    What she was not aware of, was how little these individuals would care about the life of others. Even those who helped them were nothing but little dots in the tapestry of their lives, which they would not think twice about erasing the moment they would stop being useful. A hasty feeling of irritation had already cost her a life, and now that she had witnessed their power, she knew that she had put herself in between the rock and a hard ce.

    Now that one of these moody cultivators was looking at her with anger, she felt her life slip away, just like someone who would witness his death approach when free falling onto a rocky wall. However, for how close she had felt it, her death never arrived. Instead, the attention of the blood cultivators was taken away by a pair of immense green eyes, which appeared in their sight right before the lights went out, and they found themselves living random memories of their past.

    This trick did not work long, as opposed to the Murderous God, these cultivators were the ones sent by him as the generals of an army whose only purpose had been, for millions of years, to exterminate any form of cultivator that would refuse to submit, or join the multidimensional domain of the blood sect. In millions of years spent campaigning against mysterious forces, there wasn¡¯t a single one of them that did not have experience against mental attacks, so when they encountered one, it was just as easy for them toe back to their senses, as it had been for theirte lord.

    When they opened their eyes, however, the starlight that delivered the images of the faraway stars had disappeared, and around them, was nothing but darkness.

    "What trick is this?" Asked the young girl in royal clothes right before looking down, and finally noticing that underneath them, instead of the infinite dark expanse they had seen ahead,y a discolored pink surface, which became grey in the middle.

    After noticing the rosy pavement, they looked in the distance, and in the darkness of their surroundings, recognized the silhouette of what appeared to be a white and smooth mountain chain that surrounded them like an immense prison.

    The blood cultivators put two and two together, and realized inside what they were currently trapped, but before they could react, a blinding blue light started to shine against their backs, increasing in intensity by the moment, and carrying a heath that from the distance, would be able to vaporize the body of any low level cultivator in the universe, leaving nothing but the memory of them.

    The nature of this light was quickly revealed to be a wave of blue mes, which brightened the area, showing the inside of Xargy¡¯s immense mouth. This wave engulfed them, consequently trying to find a way out of his mouth by rushing towards the openings in between his teeth, but of the end of this wave, no trace could be seen yet.

    After more than a minute, Xargy ran out of thebustible gases and liquids produced by his lungs, so just as he was about to stop, he opened his mouth, and allowed his mes to push anything that was inside his mouth out, and into space.

    The blue mes were thest power Xargy had obtained. They were the hottest mes of the draconic kin, and at his level of power, they could outperform any fire construct that a normal cultivator would be able to create. This had been the first time he had used them, so as he stabilized his breathing, he looked at the result with curiosity.

    The mes of destruction would burn anything that existed in nature, with an exception made for superior elements like space and time. This was the reason why the mes kept expanding in space like gigantic nuclear mushrooms before finally disappearing.

    When the light produced by the mes disappeared, Xargy, as well as the others who had joined him after he had turned back to his human size, quickly noticed the figures of the six cultivators. All of them were covered in injuries of varying seriousness, and yet, none of these injuries were caused by his mes.

    Xargy swallowed with difficulty as he realized that, not only had his mes failed to injure these six cultivators, but they posed such a low level of threat, that they had used their incapacitating abilities to attack one another, and gain an advantage for when they would bepeting for the legacy of the Murderous God.

    What Daniel and hispanions did not know, was that there was a limitation that would be ced on the cultivators that would visit an aware and ownerless dimension. This limitation had been ced by the kin of the aspects of existence, so that they could stop their immensely powerful champions from stomping the weaker dimensions into submission in a matter of days.

    The existence of this limitation was part of the reason why the Murderous God had taken such a liking into Edmund, whom he believed he would be able to use to travel between dimensions without having to suffer the limitations.

    Unfortunately, the presence of a limitation, at the moment, was of no use to Daniel¡¯s group. After all, each of these blood cultivators possessed, just like the murderous god whom they had faced, a cultivation that went far beyond that of the limitation, and therefore, each of them was in no way weaker than the person they had barely managed to kill.

    "You are nasty as always.." Said the woman in skimpy clothes to the man with sses. On her face was an amused expression, which was strange to see since both of her legs were missing, cleanly cut off at the height of the knee, and already reced by two new ones madepletely out of blood essence, which signified the beginning of her recovery. The man with sses was not faring any better. His fancy clothes were covered in holes, from which small beads of blood floated out like confetti.

    The rest of the blood cultivators were in simr situations, and had barely managed to infer some damage before being damaged themselves. They stared at one another as if ready to go for another round.

    After a moment of silence, the girl in regal clothes, whose chest had been shed by what appeared like the ws of an animal, said, "Shouldn¡¯t we do this after we get the legacy? We don¡¯t even know if it¡¯s here."

    By the time the young girl had finished speaking, the majority of the injuries present on their bodies had healed. "Very well." Said the man with sses before turning to look at the figures of Xargy, Edmund, Nova, Sewah, Aeron, and Jerigh. "He better be here.. Since our guide is gone." he then added after finally noticing that the Viewfinder that was standing a few meters from their previous position, had been vaporized by the blue mes of the dragon.

 Chapter 465 A Bloody Competition

    The six disciples of the blood sect looked at Daniel¡¯spanions as if they were looking at a bunch of idiots. They were fully aware of the degree of power emanated by their bodies, and what this kind of powers should cause in the minds of weaker cultivators, and yet, there was no fear in their eyes, only the sort of alertness one would feel right at the beginning of a violent encounter.

    In their minds, only ignorance could be to me for this unreasonable confidence.

    "This is ridiculous. I will take care of them, then look for the legacy on every speck of dust on this." Said the muscr man before starting to float closer to the group, and the they were protecting. His left arm waspletely covered by a skin rash, which was all that was left of the thousands of blood blisters caused by the attack of one of hispanions.

    The more elegant of the group adjusted his sses over his nose, and with a smile, said, "Are you sure you want to go alone? They did kill the lord, even if limited to using a fragment of his power."

    The muscr mad ignored the words of the man with sses, and instead, he kept approaching Daniel¡¯s friends. As he got halfway through, the oppressing feeling his body gave out doubled, and from in between the atoms of the skin of his fingers came out a thinyer of blood that covered his hands up to the elbow. At the same time, a second stream of blood formed tworge hammers, which he held in both hands.

    "It will only take a second." He said before letting out a chillingugh.

    As soon as the muscr cultivator arrived at about thirty meters of distance, the few scales that marked Xargy¡¯s face increased in number, until only a few momentster, his entire body was covered in them. These scales were different than the usual ones, and not only were about an inch thick, but were also made out of a rubbery form of material. Underneath these scales, his muscles turned into a simr material, stic and resistant beyond measure.

    This ability was one of the inheritable powers of the draconic race, a power which made the body of the dragon close to impossible to break through blunt impact.

    Xargy then floated ahead and in front of the muscr cultivator, who looked at him with interest, before raising the hammer he was holding in his right hand, and moving it down in a quick downwards motion. The space around curved, following the motion of the hammer, and crashed against Xargy¡¯s head in an attempt to swat him like a mosquito.

    However, instead of posing any form of resistance against the attack, Xargy used the stic nature of the fibers of his body to inhale, turning himself into a scaled balloon just in time for the hammer to hit.

    The powerful strike hit the bloated humanoid dragon with enough power to tten a, forcing every bit of smoke contained in his lungs out like a geyser of steam that covered the surroundings. His body, rocked by the impact and yet seemingly undamaged, flew away like a meteor.

    The grey smoke made it impossible to see one¡¯s surroundings. Only noises and shes of light could be seen through the smoke, showing that once they had separated the muscr man from hispanion¡¯s sight, the entire group of Daniel¡¯s friends had attacked.

    To initiate the attack was Aeron, who used his mental tricks to distract the muscr cultivator long enough for the others to strike. Jerigh and Sewah followed right after, and used their sword intent and boosted power to injure the cultivator. The same did Xargy, who tried to recover from the impact of the previous attack before turning himself back into a small version of his draconic form, and rip the body of the muscr cultivator into shreds with his teeth and ws.

    While the three of them tried to hurt him physically, Nova and Edmund coborated so that they could open an interdimensional portal right around his throat, hoping that when they would close it, they could decapitate him, killing him once and for all.

    Aeron¡¯s mental attacks and the appearance of an interdimensional portal were enough to distract the cultivator who, after seeing the portal, immediately realized why their lord had randomly left the sanctuary he had lived in for the past tens of thousands of years, just toe to this dimension.

    After having seen the importance of the discovery, the muscr blood cultivator remained quiet, and focused on defending his body against these cultivators. To him, the power to freely move in between dimensions was much more important than thest path of blood cultivation, which he was more than willing to abandon in exchange for Edmund¡¯s power.

    Unable to find out to whom exactly this power belonged, the muscr cultivator focused on defence, receiving one attack after the other, until finally, right as the smoke was about to disappear, he let out a powerful warcry that sent Daniel¡¯s friends flying back, and shaking their consciousness into a confused and threatened state.

    The warcry took a heavy toll on the minds of the group, who covered their ears due to the pain. Simrly, the shockwave forced the smoke to dissipate, leaving the now injured muscr cultivator in in sight.

    The muscr cultivator slowly turned to look back at his peers, and with a slightly embarrassed smile, he said, "You can go on ahead, I want to take my time making these insects suf-ugh" Before he could finish speaking, however, hundreds of projectiles, arge spear, a palm, a whip and numerous bloody threadsnded on his body and pierced him, wrapped around his body, and destroyed his organs. He was only able to look at his fivepanions with hate, before losing consciousness.

    "I cannot bear to be ced in the same category as someone that lets some maggots of an inferior dimension injure him.." Said the man who had thrown the blood spear, with an expression filled with disdain. A sentiment that was shared by the faces of the others as well.

    Despite their calm behaviour, and rtive reasonable words, the real reason why they had attacked the muscr man was to take him out of the race for the inheritance, which would be easier with one less person topete against. However, once they had defeated him, another problem arose.

    The group looked at the badly injured body of their formerpanion, and in each other¡¯s eyes, they could see the interest in his power. If only they could absorb him and turn him into power, the one who would get a hold of his power would be the strongest. Strong enough to kill the rest before going for the inheritance by himself.

    The man in sses was the first to move, inching towards the body, and the member of Daniel¡¯s group with an expression devoid of any ill intention. "Where are you going?" asked the woman dressed in skimpy clothes.

    "To kill the little flies, of course. You can skin each other for the remains of this fool.. I don¡¯t mind. That is not why I am here for." Responded the man with sses without stopping.

    The moment in which a blood cultivator would try to devour a source of power, at least for another blood cultivator, was the moment in which the opponent would be the most vulnerable, and therefore, an opportunity to strike. So instead of helping, they decided to observe in silence.

    When the cultivator with sses passed by the body, instead of stopping, he flew past it, only bothering to send a thread of blood to decapitate the weakened muscr cultivator, and finish him once and for all. He then kept moving towards Jerigh and the others, who looked at him with expressions filled with alertness.

    To Daniel¡¯s friends, there was a clear difference between the muscr cultivator, and this man. It was clear that their age had not affected the nature of their characters, and that while the muscr cultivator was the direct and rash kind of individual, this man was calctive and focused. This was confirmed by the next attack, which left no chance for the survival of most of them.

    From his back, almost as if folded into a thinyer of blood, unfurled eight massive legs made out of blood essence, simr to those of a spider. Each covered by hooks and spikes which nobody would dare toe near to. Then, without saying a single word, he turned into a sh of red, and disappeared. When he reappeared, he was standing in the middle of the group of Daniel¡¯s friends. Before any of them could say anything, the spider legs were sent towards them with the intention of taking them out right away.

    The first one to react was Aeron, who used his mental power to move hispanions out of harm¡¯s way. After his actions, Xargy, who had been teleported only a few centimeters away from certain death, turned himself into a full fledged dragon, and with his mastodonic mouth, bit off one of therge legs.

    The man with sses looked at Xargy with what appeared like a derisory smile. His blood essence was amongst the most corrosive, made explicitly to increase the sharpness of his usual attacks.. So when Xargy bit off the leg, he expected his mouth to begin to corrode right away and turn into power for himself, but before that could happen, his blood essence was erased.

    Distracted, the man with sses did not notice the sh of light that came from his left side, and that pierced his lower abdomen.

    Pure embarrassment filled the man with sses, who turned to look at hispanion as if in fear that they would attack him while in a moment of distraction. Nevertheless, this bit of damage he had taken did not decrease his dangerousness in the least, and his remaining power was still enough to deter any sudden attacks.

    Once sure that hispanions were not going to try anything, he turned around, locking his blood red eyes onto Daniel¡¯s friends, who had, for the first time since hundreds of thousands of years, made him lose his patience. His sadistic and calctive nature kicked in, and at a moment¡¯s notice, he put all of his attention into what appeared to be the weakest link.

    The eight bloody legs all moved towards Edmund at the speed of lightning, and for a moment, it appeared that they would hit, but right before they could tear his body apart, unable to hide anymore, a shadow shot out of Xargy¡¯s mouth, and with the speed of light, formed a barrier of darkness in front of him.

    This dark barrier took the shape of a wolf¡¯s mouth, which allowed the eight legs to move into his two sets of sharp teeth.

    Finally able to see what had erased his power, the cultivator with sses tried to force his legs to rotate and turn into a drill that could kill this entity of darkness, but his connection to his power was cut abruptly by Jerigh, Sewah, and Xargy, who used their strengths to cut severe it.

    When left without a connection to their owner, the massive demonic wolf devoured the detached legs, which despite their corrosive power, could do nothing against the absorption of pure darkness.

    Now, the cultivator with sses was in danger.

    He had lost another chunk of his power, which this time,prise a fifth of the power he was allowed to have when visiting the dimension. He was now floating in between two groups of enemies. One that was extremely hard to kill, and one that was one step away from joining in.

    Once again, he turned to look at hispanions, but this time, just like he had expected, it did not appear that they would keep observing in silence. They had already inched ahead, as well as began to concentrate their blood essence to send their attacks.

    As the most calctive and calm member of the six, this situation did not make him panic, and instead, he began to analyze his situation. Close to him was the body of one of hispanions, which he could try to absorb to restore his power.. He could also retreat, giving up on the legacy, or try to fight back.

    In his mind one of these choices made the most sense, but before he could act on it, he, along with the rest of his livingpanions, turned to look at the in unison, attracted by the extremely powerful red light which only they could see.

    On the, the entrance to the door to the dream state had opened.

 Chapter 466 To Bleed Unwillingly

    The moment the door to the sacred realm of Hiel academy opened, an imaginary path of blood that started from behind it, and that reached all the way to the inheritors of blood, appeared.

    As soon as this path formed, a new idea came to the mind of the cultivator with sses. As the closest one to the, he gave up on acting on the feelings of humiliation and anger he felt towards Daniel''s friends, and instead, shot into the, with hispanions following right after just a few kilometers behind.

    Like living blood meteors, the five shes of red light went through the''s atmosphere, reached the ground, entered the city, but right as they were about to barge into the door inside which the red path lead to, they were pushed back out of the city, and straight into space. When they realized what had happened, they looked at one another with confusion, and minds cleared by the painful sensation that came from their faces.

    Cleaning their bloody noses, swollen eyes, or cut lips, the group noticed the figure that had just appeared in front of the door. A young-looking man with a blood red colored sun mark on his forehead, which was the very source of the imaginary path of blood, as well as the inheritance of theirte lord.

    Despite theirck of attentiveness, just from a look at him, the five cultivators knew that he wasn''t a weak cultivator, and that he probably was the reason why their lord had died in the first ce. However, thanks to the numerical superiority, that did not bother them.

    "Young man, you have something that belongs to us." Said the young girl dressed in regal clothes, who despite her appearance, wasn''t any younger than the rest of them. Her voice was projected through the entire, and showcased the domineering behaviour she would reserve to the inhabitants of the domain which her former lord had assigned to her.

    Daniel did not respond, and instead teleported next to hispanions, to whom he asked, "Is everyone okay?" In response to this question, Jerigh and the others nodded faintly, right before the wolf cub jumped out of the shadows of edmund''s clothes, and into his. Only after making sure that none of hispanions were badly injured, did he turn to look at the five cultivators, and added, "You and I both know there is no possible way of taking this legacy without killing me, so there is no point in idle chatter."

    What Daniel had said was true. It was part of their sect''s teaching that, in case the Murderous God would pick a suitable candidate, he would give out a mark made out of something called the root blood, an extremely limited form of blood cultivated by the blood cultivators, and that connected their mind, spirit, and body, to the blood essence they would use to attack.

    Consuming the root blood would usually mean the death of the blood cultivator, and that created the assumption that whenever the legacy of blood would appear, that would mean that the Murderous God would already be dead.

    The mark of blood would merge with the blood of the cultivators on which it was used, and in case that individual would be a blood cultivator themselves, this mark would reveal thest step of the Heinous Path of Blood. However, now that the mark had been left on someone that wasn''t a blood cultivator, there was only one option left to obtain it.. And that option was also the reason why the inheritors of blood would never be able to share this legacy.

    In order to take away the legacy, Daniel''s body needed to be absorbed.

    Naturally Daniel was unaware of all of this, and the only reason why he knew that he couldn''t simply hand over the legacy to them, was because his system had never given to him the option to, and therefore, none existed. Another idea that came to Daniel''s mind was whether he could obtain this legacy for himself, but after learning the requirements of cultivating the Heinous path of blood from his system, he became nauseous at the sheer thought of even considering it.

    Now that their only chance to trick Daniel had been discarded, the five cultivators looked at one another, and almost as if agreeing on what to do, they condensed their power into their most powerful attacks, and sent them towards him.

    Daniel observed as six blood whips as thick as thumbs shot towards him, and wrapped around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck, holding him still as thousands of spears as big as trees, an uncountable number of blood-made insects, hundreds of menacing palms strikes, and what appeared to be a colossal spider-centipede hybrid with hundreds of long legs approached him..

    However, before any of these attacks could touch him, time stopped.

    He quietly unraveled the whips of blood from around his body, and while casually avoiding the thousands of blood constructs that surrounded him, he approached these five cultivators. Specifically, he flew close to the one dressed in monk clothes, who had attacked him with her blood infused palms. Then, almost as if unable to keep time stopped any longer, he curled his fingers into a w, and pierced the woman''s chest with it, ripping her heart out on the way out of her back.

    When time started moving once again, the four cultivators did not notice right away, and instead thought that they had hit the target. It was only as they heard a weak grunt that preceded the noise of steel cutting flesh, that they turned around, and noticed that Daniel had already killed one of theirpanions.

    The young girl with regal clothes, who was at arm''s reach from the Daniel and her killedpanion, reacted by panickingly shooting numerous blood bullets at him, in hope that she could gain enough time to back away, but before she could go far, a powerful kick struck her face, and sent her towards the at an incredible speed.

    As the young girl descended onto the, Daniel felt the many other attacks that came from the remaining three blood cultivators, but his focus never left the young girl, next to whom he teleported after being struck by one of the spears of the cultivator in leather armor, that caused him to lose his right arm.

    When Daniel reappeared, he was in between one of the newly built cities and the young girl, which she was threatening to destroy bynding heavily against it. However, before she could touch the ground, Daniel met her descent with his tense leg, which struck her lower back and split her spine into two.

    The young girl was utterly shocked, but instead of letting herself fall into panic, she turned her own body into blood, and tried to engulf Daniel.. But quickly came to regret that decision. Instead of escaping, Daniel started to eject massive amounts of dark essence, or more specifically, the concept of absorption, which quickly swallowed every bit of blood into its oppressive darkness.

    When the young girl stopped and tried to reform her body, she had turned into a mummified woman, devoid of most of her blood, muscles, and covered in dried up skin. Before she could even begin to plead for mercy, Daniel grabbed her by the throat, and absorbed what was left of her consciousness.

    The ease with which Daniel had killed two of theirpanions had left the rest of the blood cultivators paralized in fear, and for the first time, the idea of retreating had started to appear in their minds. But, s, ording to the words of the now deceased Viewfinder, Daniel was also one of Iewah''s children, or how they knew them, a spawn of Destiny. That meant that if he wanted to, he would have no problem hunting them down one by one, in which case they would not have a chance to survive.

    Their only choice was to fight him right here and now, or face the very low possibility they had of escaping, and going back to their dimensions before Daniel could get to them. However, not all hope was lost.

    While the woman dressed in skimpy clothes and the man in leather armor looked at Daniel with alertness, the man with sses had be interested in the, on which he could feel the presence of millions upon millions of people. Why was he protecting that? Were these millions of humans important to him? These were the questions that appeared in his mind.

    After thinking about it for a few moments, he turned to look at his remaining twopanions, and said, "Regardless of who obtains the legacy, if we don''t kill him together, we are dead.. Killing the others must have tired him out.. We will never get another chance like this." Despite not wanting to admit it, the other two knew that the man with sses was right, so for the first time ever since they hade to this universe, they began to cooperate.

    "Attack him from a distance, while we will keep you safe." Said the man in sses to the one in leather armor, right before he and the woman turned to look at Daniel, and prepared themselves to follow the instructions.

    The man in leather armor was the first one to act, and turned all of the blood essence he had shot before into a single spear, which he shot in Daniel''s direction with an even higher speed and power than before.

    Just like before, Daniel disappeared from where he was standing, but right as the skimpily dressed woman turned to look at herpanions to organize a defence, she noticed that the man with sses had disappeared along with the bodies of their two deceasedpanions.

    She was barely able to breath in with shock before Daniel''s sword-like arms came down onto her, splitting her body into three parts.

    After killing the woman, Daniel was spent. Using the power of spacetime for so long, and for so many times had consumed more power than he possessed, and left him with barely enough to keep a smallyer of wind essence around his body. However, Time is Precious was working tirelessly to increase his recovery of true essence, which reformed at a speed that was unseen in the history of cultivation.

    Naturally, the blood cultivator in leather armor did not allow him to fully recover, and after forming a spear with all of the blood essence left in his body, pierced it through Daniel''s chest from behind. Daniel''s head fell forward, as if he had died, but right when the cultivator in leather armor started to feel some sort of relief, he found himself unable to pull the spear out.

    A feeling of doom filled his mind as Aeron ced his hand over the back of his head. When he woke up a few momentster, he was floating in front of the impaled body of Daniel, but his arm, which was still holding the spear, was not attached to his body anymore. What was left of him was only his torso, and before he could even realize that none of his limbs were there, the dark figure of a wolf came out of the wrinkles of Daniel''s body, and ate him whole.

    After a few moments spent recovering, Daniel removed the spear from his chest, and turned to look at the wolf cub, which was struggling to erase the existence of the man in leather armor due to him fighting back.

    Due to their connection, Daniel could feel its suffering, so he tried to help him by injecting his true immortal essence into his body. About a minuteter, the pain disappeared from the face of the demonic wolf cub eased, and the blood cultivator was no more.

    When Daniel turned to look for thest of the blood cultivators, he noticed that his waspletely covered in red mist. In between him and the was the man with sses, who after absorbing the bodies of his twopanions, had recovered his full power, and became even more powerful than before.

    "I now know how you have killed the lord.." he admitted before taking a small pause. He then straightened his back, and added, "I am going to leave now, and I will do so undisturbed.. If you follow me, my power will fall onto this like rain, and everyone on it will die."

    Daniel could not help but smile at the words of the man in sses, who looked at him with suspicion. He then said, "If you wanted to threaten me, you shouldn''t have picked the.." As he finished speaking the entire external part of the atmosphere frozepletely, locking the molecules of blood in ce.

    When the man with sses noticed this he gave up on his ns and tried to escape, but Daniel had already appeared right next to him, and grabbed his throat. ".. but I will still kill you," he said.

    The blood cultivator with sses tried to overpower the clearly tired Daniel, but while it was true that there was close to no power left in his opponent''s body, he still found himself unable to overpower the true essence emanated by the, which moved into Daniel''s body, and replenished him with a nearly infinite supply of power. Daniel''s face was thest thing he saw before his consciousness quite literally drifted into darkness, and he died.

 Chapter 467 Unknown Stages and Lost Friends

    After the death of thest blood cultivator, Daniel¡¯s friends approached him. "How long do you think we have before the next group arrives?" Asked Edmund with a hoarse voice, dragged down by the tiredness he was feeling.

    Daniel did not respond right away, and instead, maintained his pensive state for a few more seconds. He then suddenly turned to look at hispanions, and said, "Weeks.. Maybe.." He then quiet down once again. After realizing that hispanions had noticed that there was something in his mind, he added, "Killing them might not have been the right choice. The next group will be bigger."

    "Did we have a choice?" Asked Nova, confused by Daniel¡¯s words.

    "We did before, but now we don¡¯t." Responded Daniel, hinting that there was more to it than they knew. Once again Nova was about to speak, but before he could say anything, Daniel added, "It wasn¡¯t impossible to avoid this fight, but the next time we would have encountered them, they would have obtained more power through the sacrifice of countless people, and the fight would have been harder. Now we have time to grow in power."

    Daniel¡¯spanions immediately understood his motive, but still couldn¡¯t wrap their minds around what he meant with ¡¯grow in power¡¯. It was only after nobody said anything for various seconds, that Xargy finally asked, "Do you mean that you want us to cultivate in the artifact? Because if we all go in at the same time, none of us will make any progress by the time the next group arrives."

    Once again Daniel did not respond, but this time, it was for a much longer time. The only one who understood what was going on was Aeron, who looked into Daniel¡¯s mind, and noticed the window thattter was busy observing.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s Wielder.

    Age - 29

    Power Level

    -Birth of Godhood

    Battle Prowess

    -Early Godhood

    Karma - 586,579,023,475,938

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.100

    Reduced Cost Lv.50

    Bonus Points Lv.50

    Second Chance (Upgrades 5/5) Lv.25

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 3/3)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    ____________________________

    System Upgrades (Details) AVAILABLE

    ____________________________

    What Daniel was currently focused on, wasn¡¯t the enormous number that appeared underneath his name, but the terms which the system had used to describe his level of cultivation. There weren¡¯t many theories in his mind about what the Birth of Godhood could possibly mean, and the only reason he was not beyond a simple state of confusion, was because of what had happened not that long ago.

    -----

    Core of the Sacred Grounds, one day earlier.

    For thest three months Daniel had constantly drained the door to the dream state of all of its cultivation, using its ownerless power to cultivate, and reach the highest phase of true immortality he could achieve. All he needed was enough power to be able to use the essence of spacetime, after which he would be able to manage many of the uing fights.

    However, the higher his cultivation phase reached, the more worried he became.

    While his cultivation level kept increasing without a problem, he soon realized that the power of spacetime was not something that someone in his realm was supposed to possess, and that was confirmed when finally, after reaching the two-hundredth phase of true immortality, he found himself in front of a bottleneck, only days before the arrival of the first wave of blood cultivators.

    Despite the failure in controlling the essence of spacetime, he had discovered that there was a change with his body. His true essence had be less stable than before, almost as if trying to change, but unable to find a way to. Unsure of what to do, Daniel tried to create a mission through the use of his system, but for the first time since he had received it, nothing happened.

    With his mind filled with questions, after many hours spent guessing, he finally gave up on cultivation, and decided to leave the artifact, so that he could support hispanions the moment the enemies would arrive. However, the moment his consciousness entered his spatial ring to retrieve a clean set of clothes, his attention was stolen by a small orb of grey matter, or how the aspects of existence had called it, residue of origin.

    This dull orb of grey matter now appeared much more important than before, and almost as if essential to him, he couldn¡¯t stop looking at it, to a point where, if not for his mental fortitude, he would have forgotten about the iing danger, and would have spent months staring at it. After shaking this feeling of importance out his head, Daniel left the spatial ring, along with the residue of origin.

    The moment Daniel¡¯s consciousness left the pocket dimension with the grey orb, he opened his eyes, curious to see if that strange phenomenon would reappear once again, but when his eyelids opened, the grey orb had already stuck to his body, and was seeping into the pores of his skin. Shocked by what was happening, Daniel tried to force the grey matter out of his body, but the moment his true immortal essence would sh against the now liquid grey matter, it would simply dilute it, and allow it to navigate through the atoms of Daniel¡¯s body with more ease.

    The feeling left behind by the passage of the residue of origin was akin to that of moltenva, burning through skin, flesh, blood, and bone. This amount of pain couldn¡¯t be contained by Daniel¡¯s recovery, and was so oppressive, that after only a few seconds, caused him to fall on the ground, unconscious.

    When Daniel woke up, hourster, he found that his body had changed. The mist-like essence that had filled his body was now more simr to a liquid, and by the feel of it, he knew that a smaller amount would be able to achieve much more than his true immortal essence. This power bound the atoms of his body even more tightly, making his bones sturdier, and muscles more stic. However, what surprised him the most, was the fact that while manipting the essence of spacetime was an extremely taxing action before, now, it wasn¡¯t any more difficult than when he had gained the very first bit ofprehension of fire essence.

    Curious about the changes that had taken ce in his body, Daniel tried to open the window that would usually describe him, but right as he was about to, the sudden realization of how much time had passed came to his mind. It was right then that he left the sacred grounds of Hiel academy, and joined hispanions in fighting the six blood cultivators.

    -----

    "Can you handle them like this?" Asked Aeron after noticing the changes in Daniel¡¯s profile.

    Daniel ignored the looks of confusion of his otherpanions, and after turning to look at Aeron, he shook his head lightly. "This was the best I could handle with the power I have. If they hadn¡¯t killed one of their own, things could have gone differently."

    "Are you doing that mind thing you always do? Can¡¯t you just talk like normal people?" Said Xargy with exasperation. He was the one who had spent the most time with Daniel and Aeron, and no one more than him knew how unnerving being in thepany of two mental cultivators could be.

    "Alright, calm down.. Here is the problem.." Said Daniel before starting to exin everything that had happened since he had entered the sacred grounds. The people in front of him were those whom he trusted the most, and therefore, he had no secrets with them.

    A few minutester.

    ".. and this is where we are now."

    "Wait, hold on a moment." Said Nova after raising his translucent hands in front of his chest in a waiting motion. "Are you telling us that you are some sort of God now?"

    Daniel shook his head gently before saying, "Of course not. I probably just broke into a realm of cultivation that is used by a species that inhabits one of the other universes. That is the only reason I could think of, for why the system would create a name for a stage of cultivation that I should have been the first one to reach."

    Daniel¡¯s friends looked at one another with worry. What worried them was not the fact that their leader and friend had no idea about the realm he had reached, but because of a new problem that they would have to deal with from now on. What resources would Daniel need to cultivate now? Would they be able to survive the assault of the blood cultivators if Daniel were to stay at this stage of cultivation? These questions were the first ones to appear in the minds of Aeron and the others, whom as cultivators, were bound to always think about resources, and danger.

    There was no need for Daniel to read their minds to understand what his friends were thinking, "We will pull through it, don¡¯t worry.. Now let us go back, I need to rest." he said in an attempt to reassure his friends, before leading them back to his. Once they reached the ck castle, Daniel closed himself into his room.

    For the following few hours the leading members of his group remained in wait for an exnation, pacing around the halls of the castle while thinking over the fight that had just taken ce, and about how powerful the singr members of the blood sect truly were. When their patience was starting to run thin, the invisible winds and gentle waves of the seas and oceans stopped all around the world, and were reced by a wave of sound essence that reached the ears of every single member of Daniel¡¯s group¡¯s system. This wave of sound essence carried a horse and disembodied voice, which said, "What is about to happen will shock many of you, but do not worry, you are perfectly safe. Try not to panic or overreact."

    The moment thest of these words entered the ears of the tens of thousands of cultivators, before they could even think of what the meaning behind these words could be, their power began to surge, increasing beyond the limits to which they were so familiar with.

    Many of the cultivators recognized this surge of power like the one they had felt when they had decided to follow the leader of this benevolent group of cultivators. A permanent improvement in their cultivation on which they could rely on, and that would ce them above anybody at the same level of cultivation.

    However, that was not all. These boosts in power came one after the other until finally, after the tenth time, they finally stopped.

    This form of power surge would happen regrly when Daniel¡¯s group would be in contact with the others, but now that they had been forced to hide, and move around in secret, theck of chances to gain karmic points as a group, had caused their advancement to stagnate. Now that Daniel had obtained arge amount of power, however, he had made use of the group¡¯s ability called Karmic Donation to donate many of the points he had received, and used them to increase the power of his group.

    After ten updates to his group¡¯s system, Daniel finally left his room, and met with hispanions in the main hall of the ck castle.

    "What was all of that about?" asked Xargy who, just like the others, felt like he could face a dozen guards of the draconic¡¯s royal army.

    After taking a quick look at hispanions, Daniel responded by saying, "This will give us a chance while we find the others." In the small crowd Daniel could see Lucious, Mea, Edmund, and Emelnie, who more than anything, wanted him to find their lost family members and friends.

    "Who are we going to look for?" Asked Imblen, who in the past few years, had given up to her share of responsibility in exchange for a simple life with the two orphans she had adopted. However, she had never forgotten about Roley, whom she missed just like the others missed their daughters and father.

    Daniel looked back at Imblen with an apologetic look, shook his head gently, and remained quiet. He knew that if he left the choice to them, each of them would press him to save their loved ones, so he was left with the burned of making one of them happy, and the others miserable.

    "We are headed towards the territory of the spiritual faction, to find Gai¡¯ha, and Alesia." he said before closing his eyes, and revisiting the content of one of his old missions. However, after only a few moments, his eyes opened in shock for what he had read.

 Chapter 468 Connected by the Red Thread of Destiny

    Seemingly horrified by what he had just seen, Daniel once again closed his eyes, and hurriedly read what was written in the old, and yet updated mission that would bring him to once again see Alesia. As his eyes reached the end of the description, his heart sank.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Connected by the Red Thread of Destiny*

    -Description: Alesia¡¯s peculiar nature has caught the attention of the Spiritual Emperor, who after seeing her, has be infatuated with her.

    First objective set: Reach the territory of the Spiritual Faction.

    Optional: Reunite with Alesia before she can be forced into a marriage with the Spiritual Emperor.

    Optional: Reunite with Alesia before she can be used as goods in exchange for superior cultivation methods of spiritual nature.

    Reward: ???

    Time limit: Alesia will die in 2 years.

    ____________________________

    Daniel had always been a rtivelyposed individual. He could always n his course of action and follow that path regardless of hitches, and most of the times, with a bit of luck, he coulde out sessful.. But not this time. This time his mind was nk. His eyes locked on an unimportant patch of dark grey rock of which most of the castle was made out of, but inside him, all but calmness remained.

    It did not take long for hispanions to notice that something was wrong with him, but before any of them could step forward, or even talk to him, the hair on the back of their necks suddenly rose, and their muscles began to shiver uncontrobly.

    The feeling that dawned upon them was one of pure bloodlust and killing intent, and was so horrifying, that the weakest of those present could feel their stomach churn, and their content rise over the bottom of their throats, threatening to rush out from the same entrance from which it had passed on the way in.

    This terrifying feeling came out of Daniel¡¯s body like a deadly stench, taking a nearly-physical form that pushed the essences of wind, water, light, and even space, away from his body. Onceing in contact with this bloodlust, the water essence crystalized, causing the temperature of the room to drop as fast as the lights dimmed down.

    Unable to handle this anymore, the weakest people present fell on the ground unconscious, while the rest tightened their jaws in hope to resist this nauseating pressure. Most of those who had maintained their consciousness were trying to say something, but a simple action like opening their mouths or even thinking of what to say, were now impossible to perform.

    Every single sense in their bodies screamed at them to run away, warning them that if they stayed, they would die the most horrible and painful death they could possibly imagine. However, just as a few drops of sweat and tears were starting to stream down their foreheads and corner of their eyes, Daniel took a deep breath, and the feeling suddenly disappeared.

    "What the hell was that!?" Barked Xargy with anger as the others gasped for air, or tried to wake up those who had lost consciousness. Daniel turned to look at his angeredpanion with confusion, and only then, he noticed the mess he had created.

    "What is going on? What happened?" He asked with confusion.

    Daniel¡¯spanions looked at him with confusion. The power they had felt clearly came from him, and they knew that he would never willingly hurt them, but from his reaction, it appeared that he was unaware of what he had inadvertently unleashed.

    What neither Daniel or hispanions knew, was that the power used by Daniel was a form of attack that turned their power into a representation of their emotions, releasing it in the air so that it could reach the hearts of others. While this power had never appeared in Daniel¡¯s universe before, it was rtivelymon in other dimensions, and was an ability that only cultivators that, just like him, had broken into the early stages of godhood.

    After listening to the exnation of what happened, Daniel immediately apologized, but that could not stop many of hispanions from leaving the room with expressions full of anger.

    When only his closest friends were left, Emelnie approached him. She then caressed his hair a few times before taking his hand, and squeezing it between hers. "What happened? Talk to us.." She said with a kind expression.

    Daniel looked back at Emelnie, and for a moment, he couldn¡¯t help but hear her thoughts. In her mind he could hear genuine concern for him, but more than anything, was the worry she had felt for Alesia. A worry that she had buried underneath loads of work for the past few years, and which she couldn¡¯t keep quiet anymore. He was the cause of this worry. He who had shown her such a terrifying power, right after iming that he would finally save her daughter.

    The feelings of guilt and shame emerged into Daniel¡¯s mind, as he looked at his other equally worriedpanions. Then, when his eyes once againnded on Emelnie¡¯s, who was still holding his hand while hoping for an answer, he showed a confident smile, and said, "It¡¯s nothing. Let¡¯s go get your daughter back."

    Terrified that her daughter could have died, tears of happiness threatened to fall down the corners of her eyes, but she was able to keep them in. Instead, she once again cupped Daniel¡¯s cheek with her hand, "Okay" she said with a broken voice, which showed that she was on the verge of crying from relief. She then stood up, and left the room without saying anything more.

    -----

    Territory of the spiritual faction, Anima, ten days earlier.

    In what was considered by most low level cultivators as the very core of the universe, was Anima. An entirely constructed of which seas, mountains, skies, and even its core, were made entirely out of morphed spiritual essence.

    What made this special, however, was not the uniqueness of itsposition, but the reason why it was given the honor to be considered a ma for all of the immortal cultivators, and spiritual cultivators throughout the universe. That was the connection between the spiritual in, and their universe.

    This connection between the two dimensions, contrary to what people believed, was not a crack in space, or a door that led from one dimension to the other. Instead, it was more simr to a small sprout that had grown out of the ground, and waited to turn into a majestic tree. However, even from before its discovery, this little sprout had never grown in size, and had stayed the same for eons.

    Despite his size, however, this little connection was able to supply the entire dimension with an unlimited amount of pure spiritual essence, and was the channel that connected all spirits to their ce of origin, the spiritual ne itself.

    The importance of this ce was so big, that a whole faction had been built with its existence at its core. The spiritual faction had prepared itself to even face destruction when found by the universal government, as they were ready to die before letting another group upy the territory around the connection between the universe, and the spiritual in.

    For tens of thousands of years, the spiritual root had been hidden in the most peculiar andplicatedbyrinth ever conceived, and buried deep beneath the white castle, a majestic construct madepletely out of white stone, and inhabited by the spiritual emperor.

    The entrance of the white castle was always filled with prominent cultivators who, despite their age and cultivation level, had to respectfully wait for their turn to enter in hope to meet with the Spiritual Emperor, and maybe, even get a peek at the spiritual root. However, there were some exceptions to this rule.

    Being escorted past the long line of cultivators by numerous spiritual warriors, was a rtively old high immortal. Skipping the line would usually cause one to be banned from ever entering the territory of the spiritual factions again, or at times, even death, but no one argued about this man, who was escorted straight to the head of the line, and led into the white gates which opened for his arrival.

    This was the first time the old man had ever been in the White Castle, a ce which he had always wanted to visit, so he tried to enjoy every detail he could while being hurried to where he and his escort were headed. Every breath he took led into his lungs copious amounts of spiritual essence, which invaded his body with the same power as an essence gem would. He would have sat down on the floor and started to cultivate right away, if only that would not have granted him a death sentence.

    After a few minutes of walking, the old man was finally led into one of the studios in the southern side of the castle. In it, a man in his early twenties stood in front of arge library, scrolling through books, while an older looking gentleman stacked papers and organized arge constructed desk.

    The moment the old high immortal entered the room, one of the guards closed the door, leaving him in thepany of the young man, and the old gentleman.

    Seeing how naturally the old man took care of the papers present on the desk, the immortal cultivator approached the desk, and with an extremely polite tone, said, "It is an honor to be in your presence, first bishop. Thank you for granting me an audience."

    "You have a minute." Said the bishop with a casual and uncaring tone.

    "Sir.. Word that you enjoy a good story regarding the spiritual world has reached my humble, and I do believe I might have something that might interest you.." Said the old man while straightening his posture, and ncing a little higher.

    "And this is how you have wasted half of your minute." Responded the bishop before raising his head, and looking at the old man.

    The old man was caught off guard by the words of the first bishop, but then, he quicklyposed himself, and began to exin. "I have spent all of my life in the Dominion of the War God, so I am very familiar with the many types of cultivators.. Especially those rejected by their factions. However, what I have seen now is unlike anything I have seen before."

    For the first time, the bishop seemed to be interested in the words of the old man. "You havee to tell me about the spiritual weapons of the inheritor of the first War God?" He asked with interest before sittingfortably on his chair.

    Almost as if afraid to give bad news to the bishop, the old man bit his lower lip, then responded by saying, "No sir, that is still a very well kept secret. But I have something that could be equally as interesting."

    "Go on then."

    "As you might have heard, the inheritor of the first War God is a young woman with grey skin. She is a talented warrior and possesses a different kind of power from the moremon Ki.. which made her the center of the attention of the many ki factions. I have had the pleasure to see her a few times in Arena, the capital.. And she was always apanied by another woman."

    The minute had clearly passed, but after seeing that the bishop was not interrupting him, the old man felt reassured, and continued, "This young woman, other than being exceptionally beautiful, is equally as unique as the inheritor of the first War God."

    "What makes this woman so special?" Asked the bishop while leaning over his desk.

    "I was there when the two were discovered, I was amongst the observers to one of the collective ascensions.. When she turned into a beingpletely made out of spiritual essence." Said the old man while trying to recall the details of what he had seen that day.

    Suddenly, the interest disappeared from the face of the bishop, and he slouched on the back of his chair. "That is just a spiritual mirage.. It happens when a cultivator of the martial and spiritual path fails to enter immortality.. Get out." He said with a dismissive tone while waving for him to leave.

    The old man noticed the disappointment on the face of the bishop, but instead of leaving, he lowered his head, and said, "Sir, you have misunderstood.. The woman wasn¡¯t at thete ranks of spiritual and martial cultivation, and she wasn¡¯t trying to break into immortality. She was already an immortal cultivator that was trying to break into the stages of high immortality."

    Thesest few words reignited the interest in the face of the bishop, and even the young man that was going through books, put the one he was holding down, and began to pay more attention.

 Chapter 469 An Enhanced Minor Interes

    "That is impossible." Said the bishop with a confident tone. He then stayed quiet the moment he noticed that the old cultivator wasn¡¯t over yet.

    The old man caught on with the bishop, and once he saw a chance, he continued by saying, "This isn¡¯t all, Sir.. I was looking closely at the young woman at that moment, and for a few seconds, I am certain to have seen her jump from being a ki cultivator, and back to a spiritual entity multiple times.. However, when the ruckus ceased, she was an immortal cultivator once again."

    The bishop thought deeply about whether he had heard about something like that before, but no matter how much he tried to recall, what he had heard should have been impossible. "Does anybody else know about this?" He asked with a serious tone.

    "Her ascension happened right during the ascension of the inheritor of the first War god, so no one else should have noticed it. If they do know about it, then they have decided to ignore it." Said the old high immortal with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Very well. You may go." Said the bishop with a dismissive tone.

    The old immortal flinched at the words of the bishop, and for a moment he considers whether to step out of the room or not, but then, he stood his ground, and with a somewhat embarrassed tone, he says, "First bishop, I have heard that valuable information is rewarded by the spiritual faction. I wonder if that is true?"

    At no point in time had the bishop thought that the old man could have simply decided to go from the territory of the Domain of the War God, all the way to the white castle just to report this story out of the kindness of his heart.. and he wasn¡¯t wrong.

    Right before this old man, many others had, after noticing the declining of their own groups, and the increasing power of the spiritual faction, had tried to jump ship, but what separated them from this old man, was the fact that the information given by this old man, were at least relevant to their nature as spiritual cultivators, and therefore, were of interest to them.

    "Let¡¯s see if what you want is worth what you have shared."

    The old man was ecstatic. For the past year he had seen the faction that had weed him as a mercenary, fight over the smaller and smaller resources present in their territory, all the while he heard rumors about the strengthening of the universal spiritual roots, that granted more resources to everyone who could use spiritual essence to cultivate, just like spiritual entities, or immortals. Not only as a cultivator, but as a person, he wanted to move from a dried up piece ofnd, to a flourishing environment where he could cultivate with no boundaries. Now, he had a chance.

    "I would like to be an associate of the spiritual faction, and serve the Spiritual Emperor however I can." He said with a solemn tone before raising his eyes to check on the bishop¡¯s reaction. However, what he saw were eyes filled with doubt, and pointed at the young man that stood casually near the library. Worried that he hadn¡¯t offered enough, he continued in a hurry, "I know the faces of the two women, and I am very familiar with the capital, it would not be a problem for me to escort you to see these two unique specimens for yourself."

    Once again, there was no positive reaction in the face of the bishop, so with a bit of anxiety, the old immortal shot hisst shot by adding, "Originally, I had decided to share this with the ten moon holders and the war god.. If what I saw was the birth of a uniquely multi-gifted cultivator, reporting it would be of great significance. Keeping me here, by your side, would grant you that this information will never reach any other ear."

    Suddenly, as soon as the old immortal spoke his veiled threat, his eyes opened as widely as they could, and he fell on his knees. On his shoulder a pressure which he couldn¡¯t possiblyprehend, and in his mind, thoughts of him being killed in a million different methods shed like vivid memories.

    With his hands wrapped around his throat he gasped for hair, struggling to even consider saving his own life with his immortal essence. He was like a kid, stuck in between moving walls filled with spikes, no light to see, and no air to breath, and this pressure only kept increasing, until finally, after more than a minuteter, he unsheath a dagger, nted its pommel on the white stone floor, and headbutted it, forcing it to pierce his eye, and reach all the way to his brain.

    After a faint wet cracking sound, his body fell lifeless on the floor.

    The bishop could only observe in silence as the stench of psychological horror left the corpse of the old immortal cultivator, and moved back into the body of the young man. He then said while trying to hide the trembling of his hands, "My emperor, your progress is astonishing.."

    The young man did not respond, and instead looked at the library for one minute longer, after which he turned to look at him with his milk white eyes, and said, "Let us go look for that woman. He made me curious."

    Almost as if he had heard exactly what he didn¡¯t want to hear, the bishop sprung up on his feet, and said with urgency, "My emperor, you remember what the envoy of the soul n told us.. Your ascension has sent your spirit in turmoil.. Your feelings are entuated by a hundredfold right now. That is why you have found these old tomes so interesting to begin with. I am afraid that if youy eyes on a woman.. You might.."

    The Spiritual Emperor did not appear to be bothered by the bishop¡¯s words at first, but then, he remembered what to do before taking any form of decision. He then took ten deep breaths. After about a minute, his mind was once again calm and clear of any overwhelming feeling. Once calmer, he turned to look at the bishop, and said, "Your cultivation has reached mine from a couple years back.. You haven¡¯t been cking off.. Go test your strength with the current War God, and take the two women on your way back."

    Relieved by his emperor¡¯s ability to maintain his calm despite his condition, the bishop nodded, and walked out of the room.

    -----

    Arena

    Back in the core of the Dominion of the War God, was Arena. One of the very fews that were not used as a battlefield for the billions of native ki warriors, mercenaries, and outcasts. Flourishing in natural resources, and a sight to see, this¡¯s habitat had been preserved by thepleteck of conflict between its many forces, and that was because the itself, as a whole, was house to the current War God.

    The only portions of territory not owned personally by the War God, were the¡¯s ten moons, which revolved around the, protecting it like a system-wide formation. These ten moons were awarded to the ten most powerful individuals under the war god, and were for them and their families to live in.

    ording to the faction¡¯s rules, the leader of any other prominent family would be able to im one of these moon by simply winning a bout against one of the ten current owners. This method had allowed the faction to never decline in power, as whenever one family would bezy in their cultivation, a stronger one would be able to strip them of their territory, and force them back into the warrings of their territory.

    Attached to this method, was the im to the title of the war god, which was decided throughbat. As long as one of the ten families were able to maintain ownership of a for a thousand years, their leader would be granted three chances to fight against the current war god. By tradition, if the first attempt was a failure, the challenger would be sent back with as few injuries as possible. After the second failed attempt, the challenger would be heavily injured, and if lucky enough to maintain their territory long enough for a third attempt, in case of a third loss, the war god would decide whether to kill the challenger, or deprive them and their family of their moon.

    These were the crude rules of the higher echelons of the Domain of the War God.

    In present time, virtually all of the current moon warriors were centuries away from having the right of challenging the War God, and that, meant that the faction was currently at peace.

    In this time of peace, two young women and a middle aged man dressed in training attire, were sitting with their legs crossed over just as many rocks ced in the middle of a sand garden, that in reality, was the size of an actual desert.

    The middle aged man¡¯s thick stubble and short hair contoured a rxed and kind looking face, which drastically countered the hundreds of scars that marked his neck, face, and tall and lean body, reminding those who looked at him of his experience. In front of him, by his left, was a woman with dark hair, and grey skin. Laying over her shoulder was a sword, and a shield which could notpare in elegance with the former. By his right, was a fair looking woman with bright red hair, and surrounded by a simrly colored ki power, which for some reason, was more pure than that of any other ki warrior present in the whole domain.

    These two young women were known through Arena respectively as the inheritor of the first war god, and the disciple of the current war god.. But for those who knew them, they were Gai¡¯ha, and Alesia. The man in front of the two of them, who insisted on considering himself as Gai¡¯ha¡¯s junior in standing, and was currently Alesia¡¯s teacher, was called Inos, better known as the current War God.

    "You are too nervous." Muttered the War God after what felt like hours of silence.

    "It doesn¡¯t feel possible. It feels like I am trying to move water through sand. There is no way I can be that fast.." Said Alesia with exasperation.

    "I told you, it¡¯s because you are not used to a body strengthened by ki. We are solid built cultivators, there is no harmony between aspects, only brute force. I told you this since you chose to learn martial arts. It would be easier if you simply stuck to your form as a high immortal." Responded Inos, who knew exactly what Alesia¡¯s problem was.

    Ki was the innate form of power of modern humans, and allowed a cultivator to increase the resistance and strength of their bodies. However, getting used to that form of cultivation was a requirement to practice the use of ki, a practice which Alesiacked due to her history of being an immortal cultivator.

    Usually a cultivator would reach the stages of the two hundred phases in hundreds, if not thousands of years, but thanks to Daniel¡¯s system, both Alesia and Gai¡¯ha had managed to reach it in their midte twenties. Unfortunately, Alesia¡¯s ability toprehend the theory of cultivation was ascking as that of his mother, and that was the reason why instead of relying on his father¡¯sprehension of the magical side of cultivation, she had preferred to follow the teachings of her mother, who had spent her youth learning the physical side of cultivation.

    The ability that she was trying to master was the current War God¡¯s signature move, a ki technique called ¡¯Thunderous Piercing Impact¡¯, an ability that, through a burst ejection of ki during a strike, allowed one to use the power of the motion and power of their strikes to create knives of ki that would pierce on contact. However, in order to be used, this power required a perfect mastery of ki, of which Alesia was currentlycking.

    After many more failed attempts, Alesia started to get a hang of it, but right when she was about to reach the earlier sess in it, a serious-looking bald young man appeared next to them, "Master, the patriarch of the Lont family has challenged the owner of the fifth moon. Your presence is required." He said respectfully after bowing his head to the War God and Gai¡¯ha, but not to Alesia.

    "Very well, let¡¯s take a break." Said Inos before standing up slowly, and yet causing the distant dunes of sand to tten under the pressure of his presence.

 Chapter 470 Strict Traditions

    The peculiarity of Arena¡¯s moons was that while they once were uninhabitable rocks that orbited Arena, thanks to many centuries of work, they had been terraformed into inhabitable miniatures.

    The fifth moon was known as such because it was the fifth in size, and on it, were built a dozen cities inhabited by the main branch, side branches, and servant families of the warrior who had defeated the patriarch of the former owning family.

    But now, the fifth moon waspletely empty.

    A battle for the control of a moon was not a rare event, but there were limitations. An owner could only be challenged once every ten years, a measure put in ce to stop lower families from forcing a war of attrition against a single defending warrior. This limitation did nothing but add to the importance of a challenge whenever one was issued, causing the entire family of the defending owner to abandon the moon, so that they could witness the battle that would either grant them ten more years of easy living as one of the ten major families of the faction, or force them to relocate in one of the millions of warrings along with the rest of their family.

    Now, ten years had passed, and after a harsh selection conducted through constant conflict, a warrior had risen from the dust and dirt of one of the dominion¡¯s warrings to fight for the fifth moon, and bring honor to himself, and his family.

    The entire defending family had gone to witness the fight that would take ce in the Amphitheatrum, a structure built on Arena specially built for this kind of bouts. A building which the War God would need to personally enhance with his own ki to keep it from being destroyed by the two fighting parties. This was one of the roles of the War God, and worked as a constant reminder of who possessed the greatest power in the whole domain.

    Warriors such as the two contestants, who were well over what corresponded to the hundred and fiftieth phase of high immortality, would not have a problem with destroying the whole with a single punch. It was only thanks to the peculiar formation ced on the amphitheater, that the impact of their blows was unable to reach the spectators, or affect anything that went beyond the fighting stage.

    This was possible thanks to a formation that was set in ce to allow something that ki cultivators were usually unable to do, and that, was to take control over the space of the stage, and turn it into a pocket dimension that was physically separated from the original universe, and only prable by light, and sound essence.

    For the two contenders, to be able to break this formation, would mean that the War God was weaker than them, and that would make him eligible to be challenged despite how much time would still be missing to the next challenge.

    The Amphitheatrum was a majestic round stadium which weed tens of thousands of spectators. It was built inyers filled in stone-built seats, and separated into multiple sectors with ten ces of honor built around the stage. Nine at the height of the stage, and one built half a meter above.

    The entire stadium was packed with spectators, and yet, themon buzz of chatter that any other stadium in the universe would have, was not there. Only a few of the tens of thousands of spectators appeared to be excited about being there, while the rest, appeared to be witnessing something they would have dly avoided.

    To thetter kind belonged the family members of the defender, the fifth moon¡¯s owner, while the more enthusiastic spectators were the hopeful family members and friends of the challenger, who in case of victory, would be allowed to move into the fifth moon, and bask in its glory for ten years.

    upying nine of the ten seats of honor were the remaining nine moon owners, who were discussing whether the Lont surnamed warrior would have a chance at defeating one of their own. The two were standing in the middle of the stage, preparing themselves mentally, and waiting.

    After more than an hour since the arrival of thest of the spectators and family patriarchs, the spectators started to be restless.. But then, the nine moon holders stood up in unison, bringing an unnatural silence to the entire Amphitheatrum. A few secondster, the War God walked out of the dark corridor present behind his elevated seat, and sat down onto it. Then, without even acknowledging the spectators or the nine warriors that sat just half a meter below him, he waved his hand dismissively, and said, "Begin."

    No one took offence to this behaviour, after all, the figure of the War God was never one that others saw as something that had to be loved. He was the strongest individual at the time, and therefore, he had the right to be cocky. If someone stronger appeared amongst the ten families, his role would be quickly usurped, but until then, his strength was all that was needed for him to be respected.

    This kind of harsh reality was the reason why no one under the War God would expect any form of appreciation from their leader, nor would they care for it. There was no need to pledge loyalty to someone that, at some point in time, they might have topete against.

    After that single word was spoken, massive amounts of ki were injected into the stone seat of the War God, which quickly spread through the entire stage, reinforcing it with the power of the strongest member of the dominion. Once the stage was full of the War God¡¯s power, the challenger, a muscr man dressed in ripped training clothes that appeared to be in histe thirties, and the defender, a slightly chubby old man dressed in a spotlessly clean set of clothes, disappeared from where they were standing, and turned into two shes of red light.

    The demeanor of the two ki warriors was drastically different. The challenger was extremely aggressive and eager to fight, showing the aggressiveness that had allowed him to be considered as the strongest individual underneath the War God, and the moon holders, while the chubby old man was moreposed and rxed.

    The flurry of vicious blows from the challenger was well-timed, and its rapidity and unpredictability showed that he was well prepared to fight against this particr moon warrior.. However, as time passed, it became clear that preparation was not enough. For some reason, none of the challenger¡¯s attacks had managed to reach the older warrior, who was able to avoid any damage thanks to something that a cultivator that had never experienced a healthy and peaceful training environment would have.. A more refined technique.

    The technique of the challenger was like a sword, sharp, dangerous, and made to sh against another until an opportunity would appear for it to strike.. That was how the ki warriors of the dominion would grow up. However, whenever one would be able to obtain a moon, their view would change drastically, or their reign would notst long. The more peaceful environment had allowed them to mutate their originally brute style of fighting into something that could be used for defence.

    Unable to inflict any damage due to the defensive style of fighting of the defender, the challenger was forced in a battle of attrition, which after no more than a few minutes, ended with a defeat followed by the deafening roar unleashed by the relieved members of the defender¡¯s family.

    Alesia and Gai¡¯ha observed this process from the upper sector of the stadium, where they were sitting along with the other young ki warriors that belonged to the families of the ten moon holders, as well as the five disciples of the War God, which included the bald young man that had collected them before, Alesia, and four others.

    Gai¡¯ha¡¯s special identity as the inheritor of the first War God had elevated her standing in the dominion to a level of importance simr to that of the War God himself, but Alesia was different. In the eyes of the other direct disciples she was just a talented warrior that had never had to go through thousands of years of blood baths like they had, which caused her not to be liked by her peers. The only reason why this opinion did not evolve into a physical or verbal confrontation between them and her, was out of respect for the War God.

    "Senior sister, what do you think of our traditions? Pretty impressive, no?" Asked a young woman dressed in clean and refined clothes to Gai¡¯ha. She was the daughter of the owner of the second moon, and as such, she never had to struggle like her father had.

    "A clever method to keep the faction strong.. Nothing more." Responded Gai¡¯ha with a detached tone. She clearly did not care about the traditions of the Dominion of the War God. All she wanted to do was to cultivate the path left for her by her ancestor, so that she could protect herself and Alesia until one day, they would be able to reunite with Daniel and the others.

    Many had noticed Gai¡¯ha¡¯s cold behaviour, but due to her status, no one dared to say anything. After all, she was considered to be someone that, with enough time, would overtake the current War God.

    "Senior sister is right. It also works to remind inferior warriors of their ce." Said a young man in his early twenties. He was the son of the owner of the first moon, who was already set to be the next aspirant War God a few years in the future.

    Gai¡¯ha was about to point out that that was not what she meant, but was stopped by one of the disciples of the War God, who interjected by saying, "Do not pay attention to these kids. The battlefields they have been in can be counted with the fingers of one hand."

    There was a clear rivalry between the children of the moon owners and the disciples of the War God, but when it came to fighting, none of the former would ever dare to challenge any of thetter. After all, the disciples of the War God were groomed into bing pirs of the dominion, while the children of the moon holders were essentially leeches to their powerful parents.

    "When my father will defeat the War God, you will go back to those battlefields you have been missing so much." Responded the son of the first moon¡¯s owner.

    The disciple looked back at him with irritation, but before he could say anything, the children of the moon owners and the disciples bowed in silence. "Greetings War God!" They said in unison to Inos, who had appeared next to the group without saying a single word.

    "It¡¯s time to go." Said Inos to Gai¡¯ha and Alesia, who were waiting to hear those words ever since they had arrived. His expression was as warm as usual, an expression which he would show only when talking to Gai¡¯ha and Alesia, but then.. the warmth disappeared from his face, and he turned to look at the sky.

    "I hope we haven¡¯t missed the show." Said a disembodied voice that came from beyond the¡¯s atmosphere. As thest of these words reached the ears of Arena¡¯s inhabitants, five figures descended from the sky, andnded on Arena¡¯s surface. They were the upper echelons of the spiritual faction, led by the first bishop. Their arrival was met with alertness by both the moon holders and the War God, who disappeared from the amphitheater, and reappeared around them in a formation.

    "To what do we owe this visit?" Asked Inos with alertness. He could feel that the power of these spiritual cultivators was not something he could underestimate.

    To respond was the first bishop, who decided to hide his true intentions by saying, "We have heard stories about the dust-skinned fairy that inherited the ability of the first War God to make spiritual weapons.. My Emperor remembers his encounters against those weapons fondly, we only want to pay homage."

 Chapter 471 Spiritual Matters

    "You bring a considerable amount of power just to pay homage, bishop." Said the owner of the tenth moon while trying to evaluate the power of those in front of him.

    The bishop did not dignify the owner of the tenth moon with an answer, and instead, said to the War God, "This isn¡¯t just a courtesy visit. The emperor has asked me to invite you to see him. He would like to exchange words with the inheritor of the first War God."

    The War God was aware that this would happen sooner orter. He could remember all of the stories regarding the Spiritual Emperor¡¯s interest in the spiritual weapons, and how he had tried many times to obtain the method to create them.. weapons that could injure their spirits, and in theory, free them from the weak shells that their bodies were.. But, s, he had failed many times.

    Due to the rise of the spiritual faction, Inos had already guessed that, at some point, the spiritual emperor woulde knocking at his faction¡¯s door. However, he had never expected that they woulde so soon, and more than anything, without the emperor himself.. Although, just by feeling the power of the bishops present, he had understood why.

    Each of these bishops possessed a power that was close to rival his own. A power that matched that of the spiritual emperor thest time the two had met. This demonstration of strength would have had no purpose if what they wereing to rely on to them was a simple invitation. However, they were here to intimidate, and possibly kidnap Gai¡¯ha.

    "Your invitation is most weed, first Bishop, and we ept it wholeheartedly. Go tell your emperor that we will visit soon, when the training of thedy will be at a stable level." Said the War God with a polite smile that hid the extremely pureyer of ki that hid underneath his skin, and reinforced his body.

    Both knew that the words of the other were nothing but lies, and they did not care, since they were both aware of each other¡¯s intentions. "Why don¡¯t we go right now? The Emperor happens to be free at the moment, and it doesn¡¯t seem to me that thedy is busy practicing." Said the bishop beforending gently over the stage, and allowing his spirit to leak spiritual essence through the entire amphitheatrum.

    The smile suddenly disappeared from the face of the War God, and with a chilling tone, he said while looking at the other bishops, who were following the example of the one in charge, "You better think carefully about what you are starting.. I can assure you, your travel back will be much longer, and lonelier."

    The first bishop couldn¡¯t help butugh at the words of the War God. "I thought that of all people you would appreciate an opportunity to fight. I must be a better choice than your own people, am I not?" He said while unleashing his spirit, which in turn, quickly started to affect the weak spirits of the moon holders, and of the warriors that had yet to leave. "You are as terrible a host as ever.. Maybe one of them is more fit to your job than you are."

    Within the hearts of the moon holders something changed. Their feelings were being entuated, to a point where resisting these impuls required an active effort from all of them.. If that was not enough, the words of the bishop were aimed at boosting the hidden feelings of aspiration andpetitiveness that, due to their traditions and respect for the powerful, the moon holders had buried in their hearts.

    However, that was not the first time any of them had faced a spiritual cultivator, and while they couldn¡¯t stop wanting to challenge the War God right there and then for his position, those were just feelings, and feelings could be ignored.

    "Very well. Let us begin then." Said the War God before straightening his arm, and waving it in the direction of the group of bishops.

    While this attack did not seem menacing due to the many meters of distance between the two, the bishops did not remain still, and instead created as many shields in front of them as possible.

    From the tip of the War God¡¯s fingers emerged a whip of ki that, following the motion of his hand,nded heavily against the barriers of spatial, metal, and earth essence, ripping them apart as if they were made out of paper.

    The moment the fight started, the bishops immediately took off, and left the¡¯s atmosphere. The solid ground was an advantage for ki warriors, while the open space gave them a much bigger area to fight their opponents, which followed them in the form of shes of red light that flew by stepping over invisible tforms formed by their own ki.

    Booming noises resounded around the entire as the moon warriors and the War God faced the bishops, using their immense reserves of spiritual essence in an attempt to wrestle against their ki, and break their bodies apart.

    While this happened the disciples of the War God grabbed Gai¡¯ha, and with a strength which she could not resist, dragged her away, but right as they were about to reach a spatial formation to teleport into a random in the domain of the war god, the weakest of the bishops appeared in front of them, stopping them from reaching the tform.

    In orbit, the situation was quickly taking a bad turn for the ki warriors.

    While the spiritual cultivators were less in number, their cultivation was higher, and soon enough, they started to get an edge over their physical counterparts. The only reason why the spiritual cultivators could not walk all over them was due to the massive pressure of the War God who, while there was virtually no difference between his and the cultivation of the first bishop, the sharpness of his control over ki and powerful techniques was enough to keep an unbelievable amount of pressure on many of them at the same time.

    "Come with me, or I will force you." Said one of the bishops to the group of disciples, and young ki cultivators.

    The disciples of the War God were all veterans of war, and the moment they were unable to see a path for retreat, they reacted instinctively and jumped to the attack. Unfortunately, while exceptional for their age, their strength was not something that could bepared with the power of a bishop of the spiritual faction, and before they could react, the bishop had already teleported in the middle of the group, and locked them into statues of ice.

    The spiritual cultivator approached the two statues in which Alesia and Gai¡¯ha were stuck, but right as he was about to touch them, his attention was taken by an immensely powerful entity that was moving at an incredible speed in his direction. Caught by surprise, he took control over the air that surrounded the entire area, and turned it into mist.

    From the sky descended the figure of the War God, which after a few long minutes of fighting, had been able to use his experience and control to overpower most of the bishops, forcing them to retreat. The only reason why he hadn¡¯t started a pursuit was because he had felt the presence of one of them near his disciples.

    When hended, the impact forced the mist away, clearing the area for everyone to see.

    After him, the injured figures of the ten moon holders arrived. "War God, what is going on?!" asked the owner of the third moon while digging his sons out of the statues of ice.

    "Why would they attack us like this?" Asked another of the moon holders with confusion.

    "They could have wiped us out if the Spiritual Emperor had joined them."

    The confusion did not leave the minds of the many warriors present, and before long, it turned into a loud buzz of chatter, to which Inos responded by shouting, "Quiet! Finish freeing them, and thene to the hall of war. There are things we have to discuss." He said before turning towards the only castle built on Arena.

    He was ready to dash in its direction and prepare a speech, but he was stopped by a familiar voice. A voice filled with panic that said, "ALESIA!? ALESIA WHERE ARE YOU!?" The War God instinctively turned to look at the panicked Gai¡¯ha before joining in in looking for her, but even after a couple of minutes, of her, she had found no trace.

    It was right then that Inos understood. The Spiritual Emperor had no interest in Gai¡¯ha. He did not care about spiritual weapons, and the bishops hadn¡¯te to take her to meet him.. They had clearly heard of Alesia, a being capable of controlling the amount of spirit that she could merge to her ki, so that she could change her path of cultivation based on her needs.

    In hindsight, the War God should have expected for this to happen. ording to what Gai¡¯ha had seen in her memories, only a member of her race of humans, which instead of having ki would have an innate Aura, would be able to create spiritual weapons. That was a requirement that a spiritual cultivator could not fulfill since for a spiritual cultivator, to lose a portion of one¡¯s soul, meant downgrading their spirit¡¯s connection to the spiritual in, crippling themselves. And even if by absurd the spiritual warriors would be able to create spiritual weapons, their power of those weapons would be bound by the power of their bodies.

    A weak body would not be able to use a spiritual weapon, and therefore, there shouldn¡¯t have been a reason for them to want it. What they truly wanted was to study Alesia¡¯s unique condition.

    Cheated and humiliated, the War God stood in silence. Nobody dared to say a word either because they didn¡¯t want to further anger him, or because they couldn¡¯t bring themselves to speak.

    "Spiritual Emperor.. This is how you want to y it.." muttered Inos while ignoring the string of blood that streamed down the corner of his mouth. He then turned to look at Gai¡¯ha, who was looking around in a panicked state while refusing to consider the truth, and waited. After a few minutes of pointless search, the War God turned to look at the moon warriors, and said, "To the war room. Give me a minute with her." to which the warriors responded with a faint bow before grabbing their children, and disappearing.

    "Alesia.. Alesia.." Gai¡¯ha kept muttering while slowing her pace, until finally, her eyesnded on the War God. "Y-You have to save here! I-I-I.." she stuttered while holding back her tears.

    The War God ced his hands over her shoulders, "It¡¯s alright.. Everything is alright.. I will do my best to save her." He said in a reassuring tone. Then, when Gai¡¯ha seemed to have calmed down, his face became more stern, and he added, "Gai¡¯ha.. those people were the bishops of the spiritual faction, and they serve the Spiritual Emperor. Their faction has grown in power for thest year.. And I am not confident in fighting the spiritual emperor anymore.. I need a spiritual weapon."

    Gai¡¯ha looked at the War God with doubt for a few moments, then began to mutter with a broken voice, "I-I can¡¯t.. Your spirit is too w-weak, if I make a mistake in splitting your soul, you will die."

    The method to create a spiritual weapon was absurd in practice, but very intuitive in theory.

    The idea of ripping a portion of a person¡¯s spirit out, and putting it into an object was a known method of punishment, but from that and the creation of a spiritual weapon, not much changed. What differed, was the ability to part a portion of one¡¯s spirit away from the rest without damaging either of the two. And that, was what was contained in the memories of the first War God.. but while the first founder of the ki faction had had thousands of years to practice, Gai¡¯ha had only done that once during her ascension, when she had inadvertently severed Alesia¡¯s spirit from her body, turning her whole physical body into a spiritual weapon.

    ording to her future tests this result was the oue of a nearly infinite amount of luck, as she would have failed the following nine hundred and ny-nine attempts if she had tried it a thousand times, killing her on the spot.

    After noticing the concern in Gai¡¯ha¡¯s eyes, Inos added, "We will take the risk, or the next time they wille, let alone getting my student back, I will not be able to stop them from taking you as well."

 Chapter 472 Overdose of Love

    Anima, three dayster.

    After the fight against the ki warriors, the bishops had gone back to the white castle with good news, and in high spirits. It did not matter that most of them were injured, that they had not inflicted any substantial damage to the Domain of the War God, or the fact that they were the ones forced to a hasty retreat.. All that mattered, was that they hadpleted their assignment, and that for that, they would be rewarded.

    However, amongst the returning bishops, there was one who did not appear to share the same enthusiasm, and that person, was the first bishop, who had spent thest day staring at the bound Alesia with doubt.

    "We should start with the bad news, and report our sess right after. In the state he is now, he¡¯ll forget about the former the moment he hears thetter." Said one of the bishops with a matter-of-fact tone.

    As bishops they were the upper echelon of the spiritual faction, and their role was only second to that of the spiritual emperor himself, so when the champions of another dimension came to visit, and left a new path of cultivation that had helped them rise in strength, they were amongst the few who knew.

    "I say we don¡¯t tell him about the fight altogether. We were sent to take this little broad. No point in risking it." retorted a third bishop while pointing his fingers at Alesia, who was chained, and locked inside a sphere of spatial essence.

    The first bishop looked at hispanions with doubt, and for a few moments, on his face appeared what one would recognize as disdain. "Bera," he called with a serious tone, causing the fourth bishop to turn to look at him right before he ordered, "Take the girl and lock them away from the white castle. I need to have a few words with the emperor before he meets her."

    There was no real difference between the rankings of the various bishops, but even though they were all at the same level, the first bishop was currently the strongest entity after the emperor, as well as the one who the spiritual emperor had tasked to make sure that he would not do anything stupid while his spirit was affected by his cultivation. To the other bishops he was the person in charge, and his word, at least until the emperor could go back to being his former self, had the same weight of the emperor¡¯s.

    The first bishop could see that there was confusion in the eyes of his peers, but instead of bothering himself with exining, he opened a portal that led directly outside of his office, where he knew the spiritual emperor would spend most of his free time.

    Sure enough, when he opened the door, there he saw him. Sitting at his desk, reading a novel, and overreacting to every minuscule detail he would gather from it.

    "My emperor, I am back." Said the first bishop with as t of a tone as he could muster.

    "Yuto!" Eximed the young-looking emperor with enthusiasm. "Were you sessful? Is she here?" he then asked with a deep interest.

    The first bishop frowned. He knew that this interest was only fueled by an entuated curiosity, and that the emperor of before would have only shown interest for the odd nature described by the old immortal cultivator.. But now, his spirit was feeling the devastating weight that a deeper connection to the spiritual in would have on him.

    "Yes, my emperor. She is unconscious, I will bring her here as soon as she wakes up. It will only take a few days.." He said in hope to keep Alesia far away from the emperor for as long as possible.

    Dealing with the spiritual emperor during thest half a year had been extremely taxing to the first bishop. Due to his role and power, the spiritual emperor was the undisputed sovereign of his faction, and yet, now, he had to be treated like a whimsical kid. To find a way to deter him from doing anything stupid without himshing out in a disastrous manner, was his task.

    Unfortunately, every now and then, something that would trigger the spiritual emperor would happen. A simple feeling of curiosity, irritation, or even worry, would immediately spiral out of control, and turn into obsession, rage, and terror.. Unable to stop him when this would happen, the first bishop could only let things run their course, and hope for the better.

    Whenever something happened, he would hope that that would not be the case, but unfortunately, at least this time, he was unlucky. The spiritual emperor had thought about the kind of being the old immortal cultivator had described, and in her being, he had shown a genuine interest. However, that interest rapidly increased in intensity, until finally, he became obsessed with wanting to unsolve this mystery. To learn whether a method to abandon his body and live as a pure spiritual entity, truly existed.

    "Wake her up, I want to see her now." He ordered with a calm tone.

    The lips of the first bishop tightened for a moment, and his head shook from side to side. "My Emperor, the young woman is tired, wouldn¡¯t you want to at least wait for her to-"

    "I SAID NOW, YUTO! NOW!!" Roared the spiritual emperor with anger, forcing a feeling of anguish down the spine of the first bishop, and causing him to fall on the ground and gasp for air.

    "Y-Yes.. Emperor.." he responded before opening a portal, and crawling into it. Once through, he closed the portal and sat against the wall before cleaning his forehead from the sweat, and breathing in and out in order to catch his breath.

    After a few minutes, he stood back up, opened a second portal, and entered it.

    On the other side of this portal was a small room, inside which Alesia had just been chained to a metallic table merged with the floor. By the back of the room was a bed, on which she was sitting with a fearful expression. The first bishop walked into the room, and without even acknowledging her, sat at the table. He then turned to look at her, who was alerted by his presence, and said, "In two minutes, I will take you to meet a person. At no point in time will you be allowed to look at him, or plead for your freedom. Respond to his questions, and I will release you.. Say anything unnecessary, and I will kill you on the spot."

    As he finished speaking, the bishop took the chains off of Alesia¡¯s wrists, and dragged her into a portal he had just created. A portal that led them to the corridor right outside of his office.

    *Knock Knock*

    "Come in." Said a calm voice that came from the other side of the door.

    Alesia was extremely nervous. She did not know what these people wanted, and for all she knew, she could have simply been the unlucky one, picked amongst the various disciples as leverage for the Dominion of the War God.

    She looked at the old man that had taken her with confusion, but just as she was about to say something, the bishop turned to look at her, and said, "You are an immortal cultivator. Nothing else. Am I clear?"

    Alesia could only nod before the bishop grabbed her arm, and dragged her into the door.

    The moment she entered the room, she felt an indescribable feeling down upon her. A form of pressure that did not threaten her physically or mentally, but that heightened her feelings, including the fear that had never left since they had taken her from Arena. This pressure wasing from the young man that was sitting at the desk, and quietly reading through the pages of an ancient dusty tome.

    "My emperor, this is the woman. I am afraid the words of the old immortal were simple unfounded rumors.. She is just an immortal cultivator." Said the bishop with an apologetic tone.

    "I will verify that myself." Said the spiritual emperor without taking his eyes off the book. It was only after he reached the end of the page, that he finally closed the book, ced it over the desk, and turned to look at Alesia.

    The moment the eyes of the two met, the spiritual emperor was stricken. He quickly tried to fix his white hair before standing up, and straightening his white robes. He then walked towards the frightened young woman with a dignified expression, and said, "I am surprised that the rumors that reached me had nothing to do with your beauty."

    The first bishop sucked air through his teeth before shouting curses in his head.

    "I don¡¯t know what you are talking about.. I am just an immortal cultivator.. Why did you order for me to get kidnapped?" Asked Alesia before taking a small step backwards. She was feeling intimidated by the odd behaviour of the young man, which in her eyes, seemed to be that of someone who was genuinely in love.

    Suddenly, the first bishop saw a chance, "HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO THE EMPEROR LIKE THAT! DIE FOR ME!" he shouted with indignation before taking over the space around her. His intention was to twist the space into blending her out of existence before her presence could affect his vulnerable emperor any further, but it was toote.. Before he could hurt her, The first bishop felt the mark of his essence disappear from the room, followed by the apparition of a faint mist that left the body of the spiritual emperor, and seeped into his skin. What followed was the most horrifying minutes that the bishop would ever go through in his life, which he spent trapped into a nightmare that had invaded his mind.

    The sheer sight of the representation of the emperor¡¯s emotions was enough to shock Alesia, who stumbled backwards while trying to make her way to the door.

    "Do not worry, I will not hurt you." Said the spiritual emperor before walking up to her, and grabbing her hand. He then closed his eyes for a few moments, and when he reopened them a few momentster, he had a big smile on his face.. A warm smile filled with affection, and a hint of pride. "Can you show me your spirit? Only your spirit." he asked with a calm tone. The same a lover would reserve for their partner.

    Alesia tried to pull her hand away, but when she found herself unable to, she muttered, "I-I don¡¯t know what.. I am just an im-"

    "There is no need to lie to me. Your connection to the spiritual in is absolute, and that should not be possible due to your physical body. Show me.." Said the spiritual emperor, this time, however, there was a lot less warmness in his voice, and was reced by a visible hint of irritation.

    For the frightened Alesia there was no chance to hide her secret from this young man. He could see things of her spirit that not even she could understand, and from the way he had been acting, it was clear that any small lie would be akin to gambling with her life.

    Left with no choice, she transformed her entire immortal cultivation into a spiritual one, turning into an intangible fairy with snow white hair that fluctuated in the air like snow, and porcin skin.

    Before the spiritual emperor could even notice Alesia¡¯s ethereal beauty, he felt a change in the spiritual root that was hidden deep into his castle, which reacted to Alesia¡¯s presence by trying to reach her, almost as if trying to join back with something that had been lost.

    "Spectacr.." he said as the smile on his face widened, and his heartbeat elerated. He then added, "Finally someone worthy of me.."

 Chapter 473 Worth the Pain

    Dominion of the War God, Arena.

    "KAH!"

    "Sorry! I am sorry.." said Gai¡¯ha with an apologetic tone after stopping what she was doing, and getting closer to Inos, whose spirit she had damaged during herst attempt at severing it into two parts.

    After the kidnapping of Alesia, the War God had convinced Gai¡¯ha to use the methods of the first war god to split his spirit into two, and put the separated part of his spirit into a weapon. This weapon would be his personal spiritual weapon, and would act as his most effective card against spiritual entities, giving him the ability to injure spirits, and by extension, arger chance at rescuing Alesia.

    However, even after five days of failed attempts Gai¡¯ha was nowhere near seeding, and each additional attempt would bring Inos¡¯s spirit closer and closer to the breaking point. "I can¡¯t do it! I just can¡¯t.." she muttered while on the verge of crying.

    Her innate ability toprehend theoretical notions was not as deep as that of many of the members of Daniel¡¯s group, and while she was powerful for her age, and was aided by the passive effects of Daniel¡¯s group system, to split one¡¯s spirit without damaging either of the two parts was something that the first War God, a great prodigy in their own right, had learned to do in a span of tens of thousands of years.

    While hurt, Inos knew that this process was necessary. Not only because he wanted to save Alesia, or because he wanted to take revenge on the spiritual faction, but also because he knew that Gai¡¯ha was the answer to the question that had appeared in his mind over and over again in the past year. She was the only chance his faction would have to survive, and if him bing a test subject so that Gai¡¯ha could learn how to create spiritual weapons was necessary for that to happen, then he was more than willing to do that.

    Unfortunately, the continuous failed attempts kept piling up on Gai¡¯ha¡¯s psyche, which paired with the worry she was feeling for Alesia, made it even harder for her to aplish what she was trying to do.

    "I-It¡¯s nothing." Said Inos while squeezing his right eye shut in a blinking motion that could hardly cover the waves of pain that were coursing through his body. "Give me a minute.. And we can try again." He then added before standing back up on his feet, and stumbling out of the room.

    "Damn it.." cried out Gai¡¯ha with exasperation. What she was trying to learn was one of the mostplex procedures in the universe, and yet, all she could think of was how she had let Alesia be taken away, and how disappointed of her Daniel would be. After many failed attempts, the anxiousness took over her mind, and she started to cry for the very first time since the years of her youth, when she had lost many friends to the harsh environment of her corrupted home.

    ¡¯If only my father was here¡¯, ¡¯I cannot do this by myself¡¯.. These thoughts were a constant in her mind, and continued until finally, she remembered one of the darkest days she and Alesia had spent together.. The day Der was taken by the observer of the universal government, and the two of them were left alone on the warrings of the Dominion of the War God.

    The night Der was taken, Gai¡¯ha had begun to feel hopelessness. She had been forced to part from one friend after another, and there was nothing she could possibly do about it. Now, only Alesia was left, and in her mind, to part from her was something that sooner orter, was bound to happen. When that would happen, she would be alone.

    However, when the feelings of fear and loneliness were about to take over her, Alesia had made a promise to her. She had taken Gai¡¯ha¡¯s hands into hers, and while looking straight into her eyes, she had said, "Dan.. he will never allow for anything to happen to us. He will find us no matter where we are.. But we have a part to y. We stay alive at all costs. Until we feel his power course through our veins, we survive no matter what."

    Alesia¡¯s words had always been able to keep Gai¡¯ha from giving in to her worries, except that now, she was not there. All Gai¡¯ha had were the memories of her words, but then, right when the words contained in these overyed memories started to lose meaning to her, almost as if doubling down on Alesia¡¯s words, the power within Gai¡¯ha¡¯s body began to surge, coursing through her flesh, skin, and mind.

    After this had happened multiple times, Gai¡¯ha smiled, and muttered, "I got your message.. I will take your girl back. I promise."

    Two dayster.

    After two long days, Inos had gone back to see Gai¡¯ha.

    After going through six attempts at parting his soul into two, he had be aware that after every failed attempt, the damage to his soul would be gradually bigger, forcing him to take more and more to recover. Two days had passed since the sixth attempt, and now, he was back for another.

    However, while he wasn¡¯t sure about this n anymore, the moment he had entered Gai¡¯ha¡¯s room, he had realized that something was different in her. Her Aura felt stronger, and her gazecked the worry that had afflicted her ever since Alesia had been taken. She was currently sitting on her bed with her legs crossed, and behind her closed eyelids, he could see her eyes moving, sign that she was focused on practicing in her head.

    "Are you ready?" He asked while sitting in the middle of the room with his legs crossed.

    Gai¡¯ha slowly opened her eyes, and instead of responding, she joined Inos in the middle of the room. She then extended her arms towards him, which Inos grabbed with his gloved hands.

    These ck leather gloves not only covered his hands, but were also connected by two leather stripes that moved up his forearms until reaching two elbow pads. These protective pads were connected in a simr way to a pair of shoulder pads, which in turn, were connected to two leather stripes that moved across his chest, wrapped around his waist, moved down his thighs, and formed a set of knee pads. Finally, the kneepads were connected with another set of leather stripes that turned into leather boots as they reached his feet.

    That interconnected leather armor was a tailor-made item created to match the skills of the War God, and was created for the sole purpose of bing a container for the part of spirit that Gai¡¯ha would separate from the rest.

    The moment their hands touched, Alesia¡¯s aura made its way into Inos¡¯ body, and soon after, grabbed a portion of his spirit. A hint of pain appeared on the face of the War God, but this time, it was much more bearable than the previous attempts. This portion of Inos¡¯s spirit was then forced into his armor, and spread evenly on its surface.

    The difference between ripping away a portion of a cultivator¡¯s spirit to cripple him, and parting their spirit into two parts, was that when a spirit was forced apart, its iplete nature would damage its connection to the spiritual in, and therefore, make it impossible for them to cultivate any further.

    What the first War God had discovered, on the other hand, was that it was possible to move the connection to the spiritual in into a partition of the spirit.

    By doing so, the body of the ki warrior would be detached from the spiritual in, giving its connection up to the spiritual weapon, which they would be able to cultivate while refining their own bodies with ki. The remaining portion of spirit left in their bodies would then be the key to handle the spiritual weapon.

    While simple in theory, to force the connection to the spiritual in out of a person¡¯s body was an extremely dangerous procedure, and the main reason why Gai¡¯ha had failed so many times. It was only thanks to the passive boosts of the karmic group system that she had made progress, so without starting to think of all the things that could go wrong, she began to slowly split the spirit of the war god.

    -----

    Motus, territory of the spiritual faction, ten dayster.

    "Are you sure this will work?" Asked Edmund with a stern expression that could not hide the worry he was feeling. He and Daniel were standing in line in one of Motus¡¯s main cities along with thousands of people, and were waiting for their turn to use a teleport tform above which floated a wooden te with the word ¡¯Anima¡¯ carved in white.

    "There is no other way." Responded Daniel with confidence.

    After he had learned about the changes to Alesia¡¯s rescuing mission, Daniel had carefully studied each and every one of his options. Soon enough, he hade to a realization. At the moment, he was not the only cultivator at the early stage of godhood, and the reason why he was able to guess as much, was that all three of his optional paths had required him to sneak into Anima instead of barge in recklessly. From that, he had assumed that any direct attempt would end up in the spiritual faction killing Alesia before he would have a chance to rescue her.

    Of the three options given to him by the system, Daniel had chosen the third one. To infiltrate Anima during one of its most chaotic days, right when most of the high profile figures of the faction would be busy worrying about their guests, friends, and more than anything else, making sure that the Emperor¡¯s wedding would go on without any problem.

    This option demanded that he infiltrated the wedding, which would be interrupted by an unspecified event that would catch the attention of the spiritual faction, giving him a chance to take Alesia, and escape unnoticed.

    In order to sneak into Anima, Daniel had presented himself as a guest to the wedding, and was apanied by only one of hispanions. That person was Alesia¡¯s father, Edmund. When their turn to use the tform arrived, the two revealed their identities, hiding the connection to the bride to be, and expressed their deep interest in participating in the wedding.

    After reporting their presence to the bishop in charge of the receptions of the guests, Daniel and Edmund were invited into the capital of the spiritual faction as honorable guests.

    The moment the two were teleported into Anima, both had had to muster all the self control they possessed to stop themselves from swiping the with their senses, and to look for Alesia.. They knew that if they did, their presence would be suspicious, and if a battle broke out, due to the number of powerful cultivators present, they would likely find it hard to escape.

    The wedding was scheduled for two days from their arrival, which they had decided to spend locked in their residence, avoiding old enemies and rivals that had joined the celebration.

    Ever since their arrival, Daniel could not help but be in awe by the thick spiritual essence present on the, which saturated the air with a greater intensity than the true essence of his very own artifact. A level of power that was beyond that from a year ago, and that had strengthened thanks to the aid of one of the visiting champions of another dimension. He could feel the origin of this power in the depths of what appeared like the natural opposite of his ck castle. A construct of white stone that towered above every other building, like a monument to the gods.

    Despite the interest the two felt for the¡¯s odd nature, none of it could evenpete for the first ce in their worries, which revolved entirely around Alesia, so they locked themselves in the luxurious residence, choosing to onlye out to participate in the wedding. But, s, right when they were hoping to go unnoticed, someone came knocking at their door in the middle of the night.

    When Edmund opened the door, he saw a single man standing behind it. Before Edmund could ask this man to identify himself, the man removed his white hood, revealing an old face twisted into a friendly smile. "Excuse the timing.. My name is Yuto. I was hoping to have a word with the outcast." Said the old man who, to those who knew him, was known as the first bishop.

 Chapter 474 The Bishops Plan

    "Let him in." Ordered Daniel with a domineering tone that came from the main hall of his designated residence. Normally, Daniel would have never talked to Edmund like that, but in the eyes of the spiritual faction, he was one of Iewah¡¯s children, and therefore, he had to act like one.

    Edmund quickly understood, and after a forty-five degrees bow directed at the ce from which the voice had originated, he turned to look at the first bishop, and said, "Please,e in." He then led him in, but not before noticing how, before entering the residence, the first bishop had observed his surroundings in an inconspicuous manner.

    When the two reached the main hall of the residence, they found Daniel sitting in front of a firece, and scrolling through one of the historical books on which was written in detail the history of the spiritual faction. "It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you, Outcast." Said the first bishop before following Edmund¡¯s directions, and sitting on the armchair ced on the opposite side of a small table that was right next to Daniel.

    "The pleasure is all mine, Mister Yuto." Responded Daniel while slowly closing the book, and cing it over the small table. He then twined his fingers over his already ovepped legs, and added, "To what do I owe a visit from one of the notorious bishops of the spiritual faction?"

    "Ahah" chuckled the first bishop before pressing his back over the internal back of the chair. Then, right after mimicking Daniel¡¯s action of twining his fingers, he said, "My name doesn¡¯t have a fame that can precede my persona. You are even more impressive than people give you credit for."

    Daniel did not respond to thepliment. He had already felt the power of the first bishop, and he knew that a cultivator at a stageparable to the two hundredth phase of high immortality, could not be a simple gate keeper for his faction¡¯s event. To connect him to the figures called bishops was the least Daniel could do, and therefore, he did not feel that he deserved to be praised.

    As he noticed that his words were received coldly, Yuto straightened his back, and asked with a more serious tone, "Your desire to participate in my Emperor¡¯s marriage is a surprise to say the least. Are you perhaps willing to share with me why you have decided toe?"

    Daniel let a faint smile curve his lips. "Your faction and I have a troubled history. I thought that paying my respects on such an important day would.. Ease things between us." He said calmly.

    Yuto was well aware of what Daniel meant. The punishment they had received whenpeting against the Sovereign of Corruption for Gai¡¯ha¡¯s of origin had hurt them, and since then, based on the vindictive behaviour of Iewah¡¯s children, Daniel had been assumed to be hostile to their faction. What Daniel had said now seemed to show otherwise, but he wasn¡¯t yet convinced.

    "So, in the spectrum of craziness of which your kin belongs, you are on the smart side." He said before moving his twined hands closer to his stomach. He then asked, "Does your decision to pick a peaceful resolution over an all-out ware as a result of the progress of my Emperor¡¯s cultivation?"

    Daniel confirmed the bishop¡¯s suspicions with a smile.

    The bishop let out a dryugh, and said, "I reckon that a year ago, with your power, you could have gone hand to hand with him, and maybe even defeat him. Now, I can understand why you¡¯d choose this path." Then, almost as bing nostalgic all of a sudden, he muttered, "Power sure attracts friendship.. But sometimes, there is a cost to that."

    "I cannot imagine what could be worrying someone of your stature." Said Daniel with feigned confusion.

    The first bishop was waiting for this question, and as soon as Daniel asked, he showed a troubled expression, and said, "I am the closest my emperor has to a family member, and in this matter, I feel like the voice at the back of his head that is telling him to reconsider this whole wedding."

    "You do not approve? I have heard that the bride-to-be is as talented as she is beautiful." Asked Daniel with undeniable curiosity. He more than anything wanted to hear the bishop talk about Alesia, and this was his first chance.

    "I don¡¯t deny either her talent or her beauty.. But two cultivators can only bear each other¡¯s presence for a few decades, and will inevitably end up separating.. and regretting the time wasted on one another instead of focusing on their cultivation." Responded the first bishop with a matter-of-fact tone.

    What Yuto had said was not entirely wrong. While it was true that sessful marriages were hard to find in the world of cultivation, that had more to do with the fact that cultivators would marry for power, and not for love. Those kinds of marriage would usually end in a divorce the moment the two parts would stop gaining benefits from one another.

    Daniel could not deny Yuto¡¯s words, but he also knew that there was more to it than what he had heard. "I haven¡¯t heard any rumors about the power behind the bride. For what reason but love would the spiritual emperor decide to marry her?"

    "I have no doubt that my Emperor loves the woman.. But I know him. One day he will realize this marriage was a mistake, and will get rid of her." Yuto said with a hint of disappointment. He then sighed slowly before adding, "Instead of both of them wasting time, it would be better if this marriage wouldn¡¯t happen to begin with."

    Here it was. The true reason why the first bishop had personallye to visit one of his faction¡¯s enemies. Expressed in the form of an outspoken random thought which no one would take seriously.. Were his true intentions. He wanted Daniel to kill Alesia.

    Both Daniel and Edmund realized what the intentions of the first bishop were, and in their hearts, they felt a strong anger surge through their bodies and invade their minds, but thanks to Daniel¡¯s mental fortitude, he was able to calm down right away. But, unfortunately, that was not the case for Edmund, who looked at Yuto with what looked like the intention to start a fight.

    If that happened in front of anybody else, nothing would havee out of it.. But the person they were facing was a spiritual cultivator, and a high ranking one at that. The first bishop immediately noticed the fluctuation in the spirits of both Daniel and Edmund, and after looking at Edmund from the corner of his eye, he turned to look at Daniel with a fair amount of suspicion.

    Daniel gave Edmund a minute to calm down before looking back at Yuto, and with an embarrassed expression, said, "I apologize for his bad behaviour. He probably thought that you wanted us to do your dirty work by killing the spiritual emperor¡¯s bride-to-be, only to me us when things would get serious."

    As soon as Daniel finished speaking, the suspicion disappeared from Yuto¡¯s mind. Instead, he suddenly started to feel more at ease. The first obstacle had been crossed, and Daniel did not appear to bepletely against the idea, so in his mind, there was hope to convince him.

    Yet, he needed to maintain appearances. "I would never do that!" He said with evident indignation.

    "Once again, our apologies." Said Daniel with a faint nod.

    After Daniel¡¯s apology Yuto pretended to vent his anger with a few deep breaths, then sat back down on his seat, and with what felt like exasperation, he said, "I will admit, protecting the emperor¡¯s beloved has been a nightmare so far. By tradition, she is kept on the opposite side of Anima, and the two need to meet halfway to celebrate their marriage.. Can you imagine how many things can go wrong until that moment?"

    "I can only imagine.. But why would anyone hurt the future bride of the most powerful entity in our universe?" asked Daniel with curiosity. He knew that Yuto was trying to rope him into assassinating Alesia, and in order not to appear suspicious, he needed to show interest towards anything that could be gained from it.

    "Apparently, after hearing about the odd nature of the young woman, the envoy of the soul n has started to show a particr interest in her." Said Yuto with feigned worry.

    Daniel did not leave the bishop waiting, and after straightening his back, asked with an even deeper interest, "But why would they want her dead?"

    "For her body. The soul n cultivates something that they call soul, which to us is a power simr to a mixture between consciousness and spiritual essence. One of their main abilities is possession, and I fear that someone with such a peculiar body will do nothing but entice the envoy of the soul n.. I cannot imagine what kind of treasure they would offer in exchange of the woman¡¯s body.." Responded Yuto with a tone filled with worry.

    For the following few minutes the two kept discussing different matters, but Daniel never entirely dropped Alesia¡¯s topic. Every few exchanges he would pretend to care about the possible rewards that the soul n could offer, whether the arts of the soul n could be taught to high immortals like himself, or whether the spiritual emperor would ept that his bride-to-be would be offered to the envoy. The bishop would respond to each of these questions by keeping a vague tone, pretending that the entire matter was a bother left for him to bear, and that making sure that nothing like happened in the next two days, would be a real headache.

    After more than twenty minutes, when Daniel appeared to be more pensive, and less interested in keepingpany to his guest, Yuto decided to leave.

    Daniel decided to apany the bishop to the door, and when they reached it, thetter covered his head, and before leaving, he said, "I hope that what we have discussed will remain between us."

    "Of course." Said Daniel with a solemn tone.

    "It was a pleasure making your acquaintance, Outcast.. and in case we won¡¯t see each other again, goodbye." Said the bishop before walking out in the rain, and disappearing behind one of the residences built right next to Daniel¡¯s.

    After closing the door, Daniel walked back into the main hall, where Edmund was waiting for him with hands trembling with rage. "We have to kill them all.. Kill them all, take my daughter, and leave." He said while stomping towards Daniel.

    Daniel could see a blind rage build in Edmund¡¯s mind, so he approached him, and ced his hands onto his shoulders. "We can¡¯t. You have felt it.. The source of all spiritual essence. If we start a fight here we¡¯ll die, and no one will be left to save your daughter. We have to follow the n." He said while using his mental fortitude to try and calm Edmund¡¯s spirit.

    Edmund hadplete trust in Daniel, so his reassuring words were all that was needed for him to go back to his calm and collected state of mind. He then decided to ask what their next move would be, but right before he could speak, Daniel took a ck set of clothes out of his spatial ring, and began to put it on.

    "What are you doing?" asked Edmund with confusion.

    Daniel did not stop, and while putting the ck top on, he said, "Do you think we are the only one he tried to convince? We are lucky if we were thest one he asked to. We need to protect Alesia until the wedding date.. There is no other option."

    What Daniel had said was right. Beforeing to them, Yuto had had a simr conversation with the entourage of many different groups and factions, and amongst them, were some of the other children of Iewah, whose moves, due to their conflicting systems, Daniel could not predict.

 Chapter 475 I Will Protect You From the Shadows

    Empress¡¯s pce, midnight.

    Anima was a constructed, and as such, it did not possess a night and day system which would separate its opposite sides into two different times of the day. Just like the ground and sky, the time of the day was carried by a formation, which would cover the with ayer of sr light during the day, and remove it during the night, allowing the entire globe to fall into the familiar darkness of the night.

    Despite this odd detail, neither night time or day time appeared different than that of any other, and yet, while Alesia looked at the expanse of grass that extended far away into the horizon from behind her room¡¯s window, she felt ufortable.

    What was making her ufortable were not the numerous seamstresses who had been tasked with sewing her dress on her body, nor were the looks of hostility that she had had to bear for thest few days. What was making her feel weird was the unnatural silence caused by thepleteck of animals and insects.

    Trapped in her own mind, she had tried to takefort into the beautiful scenery, just like she used to do after a long day of training on Daniel pocket dimension, but for some reason, this felt infinitely colder. Not a living sound was produced by the constructed, and the otherwise noisy night was now ufortably quiet.

    "Please, do not move." Said an old woman right before starting to adjust the waist of the dress, which so far, looked like a crude mess of snow-white silk and golden threads.

    Alesia had be dull to other people¡¯s interactions, and at this point, she had decided to live these days in her own mind, not paying attention to what was happening to her body. Not even when one of the seamstresses had erroneously pierced a needle into her pale skin, and sewn the dress onto her body, did she react, causing the seamstress to panic as soon as she noticed the bloodstain ruin hours of work.

    Her dull expression was only disturbed once by a faint shine that came from a few kilometers in the distance, right behind a treeline that marked the beginning of a thickly constructed forest. However, this faint shine disappeared as soon as it appeared, leaving her to guess what its origin could possibly be, and a few secondster, back into her estranged state of mind.

    -----

    Right where Alesia had seen a shine of light, was now a crowd of cultivators whose appearances were covered byrge hooded robes. This crowd was divided into different smaller factions, whose leaders were grouped up in a clear patch of ground in the middle, and busy discussing an important matter.

    "Why are you here?" Asked a tall man with pale skin, long sharp nails, and two glowing eyes that shone through the shade produced by the hood. Despite his disguise, all of those present were aware that this man, along with those that followed him close behind, were the members of a faction called ¡¯Dark Crawler¡¯, a form of vampiric kind of ki warrior which would cultivate through the consumption of human blood at the expense of a weakness to light.

    "We are just enjoying the majestic view.. We don¡¯t have many chances to enjoy the work of our Emperor." Responded a woman covered in a simr, yet slightly more refined ck robe. She was the leader of a small faction called ¡¯Spirit Hunters¡¯, a minor group of spiritual cultivators that since the day of its creation, had been subjected to the spiritual emperor, and was tasked with hunting talents spiritual cultivators for the faction to ept as apostles.

    After giving a vague answer, the woman turned to look at the leader of the Dark Crawlers, and asked, "What about you? I am really curious about what reason would bring a group of ki warriors to wander a constructed by spiritual essence."

    "Oh, you jest. Darkness is the moment in which we are the mostfortable. If we could have wandered this beautiful during day time without feeling weakened, we would have." Responded the tall and pale man with a smile shrouded in a darkness that could not hide his oddly long and pointy canines.

    Simr exchanges were happening between the leaders of many other groups, who fabricated the most ingenuous excuses to justify their presence. However, no matter how clever or reasonable these excuses were, all of them knew that they shared the same objective. As part of those visited by the first bishop, after listening to his words, they had decided to try their luck, and gamble their whole existence for a chance at breaking through the limits of their universe.

    However, there was only one Alesia.

    While these groups stood in a stalemate, perched over a tree branch a few kilometers away from this odd assembly of cultivators, was Daniel. He had been lying in wait for hours, and now, he had finally found the first wave of cultivators who had decided to fulfill the request of the first bishop.

    Since he could not use his senses to feel his surroundings, Daniel had decided to observe the entire continent with the use of some boulders he had collected from his, and released into Anima¡¯s atmosphere right after Yuto¡¯s visit. These boulders contained his power, and with them, Daniel had created a of satellites with which he could observe the entire area around the castle where Alesia was being held.

    After discovering the group of cultivators, Daniel did not act, and instead maintained his position, observing how things would evolve. If he was lucky, the various groups would see too many risks in acting after being discovered, and would soon disperse.

    But, s, his incredible luck was not high enough to counter the desire that these cultivators felt towards changing the destiny of their factions, and after no longer than twenty minutes, they seemed to agree on sharing the possible rewards they would obtain by giving Alesia¡¯s body to the envoy of the soul n.

    When Daniel saw them preparing an attack, he sucked air through his teeth. He then looked at the dark sky, and pointed his opened hand towards it.

    In the dark sky, where the individual lights of thousands of stars could be seen, a few of these lights started to behave abnormally, growing in size, and changing color from the faint white light they possessed before, to a reddish glow.

    The assembly of cultivators seemed to have reached an agreement, but right before they could send the designated assassins to kill Alesia, the leader of the Dark Crawlers turned to look at the sky, "What is that?" He asked with confusion.

    This confusion was immediately erased from his mind as the many individual star-like lights kept growing in size, forming long trails as they moved closer to the surface. Horror appeared on the pale face of the ki warrior as he barked, "A meteor outburst! Disperse!"

    After hearing the words of the ki warrior, the other cultivators turned to look at the sky, and quickly noticed the impressive number of meteoroids that seemed to be heading in their direction. Without waiting a second longer, any form of agreement was forgotten, and in fear that this odd event would attract unwanted attention, the groups dispersed without leaving any trace of their presence behind.

    A few minutes after the disappearance of the assembly of cultivators, the many bright meteors dissipated before evennding on the¡¯s constructed surface, leaving the terrainpletely unaltered.

    Daniel looked at the now empty area with a smile, as numerous spiritual cultivators appeared on site, and started to wonder what had happened.

    "How the hell did you miss a meteor outburst until just after it entered the¡¯s atmosphere?" Asked an old woman dressed in bishop¡¯s clothes to an even older, yet lower ranked cultivator.

    "Ninth bishop, there is no damage to the¡¯s crust, nor are there residue of the meteors.. It is likely that it was just a small cluster of fist-sized rocks that escaped our control. We usually don¡¯t pay attention to these events.. Because it¡¯s nothing worth mentioning." Said the old man in an attempt to calm the anger of the ninth bishop. He knew that she was amongst the most loyal members of the spiritual faction, and to her, this small event constituted a potential threat for the future empress, who was resting in the pce just a few kilometers away.

    Naturally, neither of the two could have imagined that this event would have never been a threat to Alesia even if ten thousand times in magnitude. After all, it was Daniel who had created it by using the fragments of his to ruin the ns of the scheming cultivators, not unlike turning on the lights around a building that was about to be robbed. Not to mention being a threat to Alesia, this action had likely saved her life.

    Unhappy about his unbothered reaction, the ninth bishop scolded the old man¡¯s ipetence, and then, went back to her pce along with the rest of the spiritual cultivators.

    With Alesia out of danger, Daniel leaned onto the tree¡¯s trunk, and closed his eyes, but soon after, he was shaken awake by an oddly sweet voice that reached his ear from far away. Daniel turned to look at the deeper part of the woods, right where this enticing voice wasing from, and after a few moments, he jumped down the tree, and walked towards the voice¡¯s origin.

    Daniel casually threw a hundred more small rocks in the sky as he went deeper and deeper into the woods, only stopping when, after a few hundred meters, he finally saw a group of hooded cultivators.

    This group of cultivators wasposed of around ten people, a group which Daniel would have preferred to avoid, if only the woman to which the voice belonged, hadn¡¯t spoken directly in his ear. Since this group was already aware of his presence, and Daniel had felt some sort of familiarity with the voice, he had decided to investigate.

    After sensing these warriors, Daniel felt surprised to learn that virtually all of them belonged to different kinds of cultivation paths, with ki warriors, spiritual, mental, immortal, and odd kinds of cultivators in their midst. However, while such a diversified group was strange to see, for some reason, his attention was taken by the shortest person within the group, who due to the curves present on the chest area, Daniel guessed to be a woman.

    "It has been awhile.. Host." Said the woman before bringing her slender fingers up to the hood that was covering her face, and removing it, revealing a face which Daniel recognized right away as that of one of Iewah¡¯s children. Kreah, also known as ¡¯The Lover¡¯.

    Kreah¡¯s voice sounded extremely sweet to Daniel¡¯s ears, to a point where, if not for his mental fortitude and mental cultivation, he would have undoubtedly fallen on his knees and confessed his love for her.

    However, after a few minutes of struggle against the seductive methods of Sewah¡¯s sister, his expression rxed, and he found peace by looking at the young woman with an enamoured smile.

    After seeing that her powers had seeded, Kreah approached Daniel in a seductive manner, and cupped her hands over his handsome face. "Oh Outcast.. So special and powerful, and yet no different than any other man.." She said with contempt as Daniel grabbed her wrist, and lowered his head in an attempt to kiss the back of her hand, but he was quickly stopped by the young woman, who added, "Just like a little pup.. I have wanted to kill you for such a long time, but maybe, before I do, you can show me how much you love me, and be of use to me."

    Daniel responded with a sweet smile which reflected his desire to do anything that the young woman would ask him to do.

    Satisfied by Daniel¡¯s response, Kreah said, "Bring me the corpse of the girl. Then, attack the spiritual emperor." Her intention was not only to force Daniel to kill Alesia and bring her corpse back to her, but also to send Daniel to his death once he wouldplete his first task.

    The smile on Daniel¡¯s face turned into an expression of pure happiness.. One that showed how important it was for him to fulfill his love¡¯s desire, but right as he was about to ept the task, his enamoured expression turned into one of amusement, followed by a loud chuckle.

    Kreah looked at Daniel with confusion, and for a moment, she felt a feeling of shback thunder in her mind, but before she could react, Daniel¡¯s fingers were already wrapped around her throat, and her power was being siphoned by Daniel¡¯sprehension of dark essence.

    "I can¡¯t believe you have fallen for the same trick twice.." muttered Daniel while shaking his head in disappointment.

 Chapter 476 A Peaceful Resolution

    For the past few years, after barely escaping the death that Daniel had inflicted upon her, Kreah had wandered the universe simrly to how the rest of her siblings had. She would often challenge other children of Iewah, or participate in wars as a mercenary, and at the same time, just like her sister Minah, the Tamer, whenever she would find a cultivator worth taking in, she would use her system to force them into submission, creating a group of loyal cultivators that would do anything for her out of sheer love.

    The power of her system was of mental and spiritual nature, and forced the spirit of cultivators into developing an infinite love for her the very moment their eyes wouldnd on her, poisoning the cultivator¡¯s mind into bing one of the Lover¡¯s followers.

    This power, just like the ability to enforce karmic retribution on others of the karmic system, worked on other children of Iewah too, and was extremely difficult to avoid. Yet, ever since she had obtained this power, only one person had managed toe close enough to her while avoiding bing one of her loving ves.. And that person, was Daniel.

    Now, for the second time, Daniel¡¯s fingers were wrapped around her neck, and in her mind there was no doubt that her death was only a matter of whether Daniel felt like killing her, or not.

    "Kuh! H-How..?" she muttered while grabbing Daniel¡¯s wrist in an attempt to force herself out of this situation. But, s, her power at the eightieth phase of high immortality could do nothing against Daniel¡¯s power, which he was voluntarily limiting at the two hundredth phase of true immortality.

    "You should have done anything in your power to avoid reappearing in front of me.. This is the problem with you spawn of Iewah. You obtain a bit of power, and you fool yourself thinking that you are unbeatable.." Said Daniel to the angered, and yet fearless Kreah, who instead of arguing or pleading with him, painfully turned her head towards the hooded figures that stood behind her.

    Daniel could feel the terrifying power hidden behind those ck robes, and behind at least one of them, he could feel the presence of another system, but to his present self, this level of power was of no threat whatsoever.

    "No no no.." Said Daniel before tightening his grip around the girl¡¯s throat, and forcing her to look back at him. He then turned to look at Kreah¡¯s loving ves, "A single move and I will throw her into the void. We will see then if her failsafe ability can transcend dimensions." he said before opening a small portal, behind which one could see the shattered and chaotic space of the void.

    The tallest of the hooded individuals uncovered his face, revealing a young face with sharp features, and an expression filled with worry. He alone was the most powerful entity within their group, and the main power within the Lover¡¯s army, but to those who knew him personally, he was known as the Elementalist. "What do you want?" He asked with a worry that bordered anxiety.

    What Daniel wanted was to kill this problematic shadow of his past, but above any violent instinct he was feeling, in his mind, was the image of Alesia. Rescuing her was the most important thing, while this night event was an unknown factor to his n. He knew that if he simply killed Kreah, she would be resurrected into one of the bodies of her followers, and the only result would be to start a war against her group members, which could possibly cause him to be kicked out of the before the wedding.

    As he thought of what to do, the nervousness of her followers started to increase, to a point where they began to consider attacking while Daniel seemed distracted.

    However, right before this stalemate could advance in any direction, the group of spiritual cultivators that had investigated the sudden meteor outburst noticed suspicious movements in the forest, and reached the area where Daniel and the others were currently in.

    "What is going on here?!" Asked the old female bishop with anger.

    "This is a personal matter, bishop. I would be grateful if you wouldn¡¯t meddle in it." Said Daniel while once again tightening his grip around Kreah¡¯s throat, and forcing her to start waving her legs with panic. This simple action sparked a fire in the hearts of the subjugated cultivators, who stepped forward and prepared to attack.

    "STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" Shouted the old woman to the Elementalist right before he and hispanions could pounce at Daniel. Then, after making sure that Kreah¡¯s followers would not attack, she turned to look at Daniel, and barked, "You are a guest here! Isn¡¯t it impolite for a guest to kill another in their host¡¯s home?"

    Daniel turned to look at the old woman with a grim smile, "If I wasn¡¯t strong enough, by now, one of your guests would have killed me already." He said, omitting Alesia¡¯s involvement, or any other events that had taken ce that night. It was imperative that the spiritual faction thought that what was happening, was a ssic encounter between two children of Iewah.

    The old woman looked at Kreah¡¯s group with confusion, but just as she was to start questioning the reason why they were there in the middle of the night, Daniel continued by saying, "Oh well, I am not as barbaric as my siblings. I will let her leave, in a moment." He then turned to look at the Elementalist, and presented his free hand to him.

    This action caused confusion on the face of the Elementalist, who looked at him with a puzzled expression.

    Daniel shook his head in contempt, "Your artifact. Give it to me, or I will throw her into the void.. Even if it will end up starting a war." He said with a threatening tone.

    The Elementalist finally understood what Daniel wanted, but while the love he was feeling would have caused him to hand over the artifact without thinking twice about it, all he did after hearing Daniel¡¯s words was to look at Kreah.

    "You have three seconds." said Daniel after noticing the restlessness of the spiritual cultivators, which increased in number by the second.

    "I don¡¯t have one!" barked out the Elementalist after realizing that there was no other option but to tell the truth. Then, as he realized that Daniel did not seem to believe him, he added, "She has already absorbed it.. I don¡¯t have one anymore."

    Daniel tsked at him before turning to look back at Kreah. He then said with a smile, "At least I know you have one too." As he finished speaking, he moved his right hand into the girls robe, and started to poke around. After about a minute, Daniel found a small bottle of perfume hidden inside one of the robe¡¯s pockets, inside which was a transparent pink liquid that emitted an enticing smell capable of numbing one¡¯s mind.

    Just by casually looking at it, Daniel realized that that object was the artifact of Kreah¡¯s system, and by smelling the residual scent left on the external part of the small bottle, he immediately understood what its use was.

    Created topensate for the weaknesses of the owner¡¯s ability, this artifact produced a scent that, once smelled, would numb the mental power of a cultivator of any level, causing them to be weaker against the powerful love that their affected spirits would unleash onto their minds. The name of this artifact was ¡¯Love at first Sent¡¯, and its power was the reason why a rtively weaker cultivator such as Kreah, had been able to control a feared entity such as the Elementalist.

    To prove the im that the Elementalist had gifted his artifact to his beloved, was the fact that this scent seemed to be unaffected by the presence of the elements, and instead, would use them to travel towards any direction dictated by its owner. This proved that Kreah had indeed taken the artifact of the elementalist, as well as merged with her own to increase its power.

    After taking the small bottle away from her, Daniel noticed the hate in Krewah¡¯s eyes, which did nothing but widen his smile, turning into a sight that sent a shiver down her back.

    "Can you give me as many mental protective talismans as there are cultivators here? You will get them back in a few minutes." Daniel said to the female spiritual cultivator.

    "What do you want to do?" She asked with suspicion.

    Daniel responded by saying, "I am resolve this peacefully. You have my word."

    The bishop did not like having to trust the word of one of Iewah¡¯s children, but since they were so close to the Empresses¡¯ pce, she would have done anything to avoid any disturbance to her emperor¡¯s happiest day.. So she agreed, taking a few protective talismans from within her spatial ring, and throwing them towards Daniel.

    Daniel quickly grabbed them in mid-air with his essence, then injected his own power into the formations ced on them, causing the formations to start to change.

    These talismans had been created by a powerful mental warrior who, at the moment of ascension, had obtained the gift of mental fortitude. Unfortunately, his mastery towards that ability was much less perfected than Daniel¡¯s, who was easily able to overwrite the formations he had left with his own.

    The spiritual cultivators looked with shock as Daniel transformed these talismans, on which the spiritual faction had had to rely on during their many hostile encounters with the mental factions, into something that perhaps, not even the leader of a mental faction would be able to create.

    For a moment, the old bishop felt that no matter what would happen next, her faction would still gain from what Daniel was doing, so she decided to remain quiet, and observe.

    As Daniel finished to boost the power of thest one of these artifacts, he summoned a series of gentle streams of wind that picked up each individual talisman, and carried them towards the members of Kreah¡¯s group.

    It was only now that the Lover realized what Daniel was doing, forcing the anger present on her face to turn into worry.

    The moment thest one of these warriors took hold of these talismans, the mental fortitude embedded into them invaded their minds, creating a shield that separated their consciousness, from the endless stream of love of which they were constantly being poisoned.

    With the smile still present on his face, Daniel finally let go of Kreah, which did something that none of the spiritual cultivators expected. She opened a portal that led as far away as her powers allowed, and crossed it without turning back.

    Soon after Kreah left, the subjugated cultivators began to shake their heads, almost as if in an attempt regain their rity, and renounce the feelings of love on which they had acted for thest few years. They could still feel the residue of Kreah¡¯s system, but now, their minds were free to rationalize these feelings¡¯ true nature and intent.

    The first person toe to was the Elementalist, who looked down in shame at the thought of all the things he had done.

    "Why the long face?" Asked Daniel with his still present smile, a smile which pierced the man¡¯s ego right when there was no confidence that could protect it.

    The elementalist¡¯s mind filled with anger.. an anger that due to Kreah¡¯s absence, he could only unleash on Daniel, but he quickly stopped himself as he noticed the powerful spiritual cultivators, who were observing his every move, and were ready to act.

    "No fighting on Anima." Said the female bishop.

    It did not take long for the Elementalist to change the target of his anger towards Kreah, whom if possible, he would have killed on the spot.. But since he still had his system, he found sce on the thought that for that, there was still time. "I won¡¯t be staying for the emperor¡¯s wedding. Extend my congrattions to him and the bride." He said before waving his hand, and opening a ming portal. He then turned to give ast disappointed look at the small bottle that Daniel was holding, before walking through the portal.

    Before the portal could close, however, the protective talisman flew back through it, andnded on Daniel¡¯s hand.

    Without her artifact, for Kreah to be able to once again subjugate the Elementalist would be as difficult as it had been when she had tried to bewilder the Tamer and the Swordsman, who would have easily killed her if not for the support of the already subjugated Elementalist, so there was no reason for Daniel to leave such a powerful mental talisman to him.

    Simrly, he took each and every talisman back from the recovered cultivators, who joined the elementalist in their hunt for the woman that had controlled them like puppets.

    As thest of these cultivators left, only Daniel and the spiritual cultivators were left. In the former¡¯s eyes Daniel could see the desire for both the mental talismans and the Lover¡¯s artifact, but before they could think of a way to obtain them, Daniel pocketed the small bottle, and threw the piled stack of talismans back the them, which right before reaching the female bishop, went back to their original power.

    "A peaceful resolution." Said Daniel with onest smile before walking deeper into the darkness of the forest, and leaving the group of spiritual cultivators without words.

 Chapter 477 A Stain of Blood in the Snow Part 1

    After the night of the encounter between Daniel and Kreah, the ninth bishops had decided to increase the security around the Empress¡¯s castle. These heightened safety measures made it impossible for anyone who was still interested in kidnapping Alesia to go ahead with their ns, and ultimately ruined Yuto¡¯s schemes.

    With the assurance of Alesia¡¯s safety, Daniel decided not to create any more problems for the spiritual faction, and closed himself in his residence until now, two dayster, the day of the wedding had finally arrived.

    ording to the traditions of the spiritual factions, whenever the spiritual emperor would marry a woman, the bride and the groom would need to go on two different pilgrimages that would start from the white castle for the groom, and the empress¡¯s castle for the bride. The ceremony would take ce in a ce called ¡¯Garden of Union¡¯. Arge expanse of grass and flowers build right in the middle, and on which the two spouses would promise eternal loyalty to one another.

    Usually the two would be apanied in their pilgrimages by the family members or friends who had decided to attend, and testify to this union on their behalf. However, since Alesiacked any background with exception made for the Dominion of the War God, her pilgrimage was walked by herself, a few maids, and thousands of guards.

    Daniel, on the other hand, since officially he was there to pay respect to the spiritual emperor and his faction, in order not to appear suspicious, was forced to join the spiritual emperor in his march from the white castle to the garden of union. Alongside him were Edmund, and virtually every single guest who, just like him, was attending in honor of the emperor.

    In this grand procession, Daniel was ced right behind the spiritual emperor, various bishops, and a scrawny looking man dressed in purple and ck clothes. Alongside him were the faction leader of many different groups, and the most loyal allies of the spiritual faction.

    The reason why Daniel was in that position was not because of his close rtionship with the emperor, but out of respect. After all, Daniel was a child of Iewah as well as believed to be the champion of Conflict. Both of these identities granted him a vast amount of respect from the majority of the cultivators in their universe.

    As far as recognition went, he was valued more than the universal government, whose envoys were ced almost at the back of the procession, and could be seen trying their best to hide the feelings of humiliation and anger they were feeling. Just a few years back, the spiritual emperor would have had to obey to their rule, and live ording to their conditions, but now that their universe was part of the aware multiverse, their improvements were not as noteworthy as those of the spiritual emperor, whose power was said to be able to trump that of the strongest entities within the once feared universal government.

    In therge crowd that followed Daniel¡¯s steps, he could feel the presence of at least a dozen more children of Iewah, but contrary to what most believed possible, they were acting in a well behaved and respectful manner.

    The reason for that was obscure to most of those present, but for Daniel, it was very clear. The only reason why a child of Iewah would maintain a controlled behaviour, was at the sight of true power, and that power, presented itself in the form of the two individuals who were walking one next to the other, right at the head of the procession.

    These two people were the Spiritual Emperor, and the envoy of the Soul n, which had decided to participate in the wedding to apply ayer of pressure on the leaders of the other factions, and facilitate the universe¡¯s domination at the hands of the faction he was supporting. However, his decision to participate was not a happy one, as shown by his absolute indifference towards the many powerful warriors that tried to approach him with gifts and ttering words, and the bored expression that had marked his face since the moment of his arrival.

    Amongst the people that couldn¡¯t be offended, at least for the other children of Iewah, Daniel was the third andst person.

    "I heard that you have freed Tennah from the minx.." Said a middle aged man dressed in chainmail, and that carried a shield strapped behind his back, and a mall by his side to Daniel. Originally this man was walking only a few steps behind Daniel, but he had advanced towards him as they had started walking.

    Daniel had heard about this man. He was one of Iewah¡¯s children, and ording to his fame, possessed a power that was simr to that of the Elementalist, and inferior to that of a very few others. He was known as the Crusader, and very little was known of his powers.

    The presence of another one of Iewah¡¯s children was always a problem for Daniel¡¯s ns, so he decided to ignore this man, who after waiting for an answer for a few moments, tried to once again start a conversation by saying, "Don¡¯t be cold Outcast. I know you are the host of my pathetic little brother, and there is no animosity between the two of us."

    Once again Daniel tried to ignore him, but unfortunately, it did not appear that this method would work, as for the third time, after marching for only a few hundred kilometers in the span of ten minutes, the Crusader said, "I bet you took their artifacts. Can you show them to me? I could trade them for those in my possession."

    At the mention of the artifacts, arge number of powerful cultivators turned to look at Daniel, almost as if ready to start the negotiations, but before any of them could say a word to him, Daniel turned to look at the crusader, and with enough power to alert the rest of the procession, he grabbed his cor, and covered him with enough essence to crush him into dust. "Unless you want me to take yours too, you better scram!" He barked out with a cold tone.

    The Crusader felt a shiver go down his back, which forced him to stand his ground as the procession kept going past him. This sort of feeling was something that he had only felt when he had encountered their oldest brother, the Deathbringer, which had spared his pitiful life after easily overpowering him.

    As the procession left him behind, the Crusader turned to look at his other siblings, expecting to be mercilessly ridiculed, but on their faces was nothing but nervousness. They had all felt Daniel¡¯s power, and were now starting to think that maybe,ing here might have been a mistake.

    The rest of the procession went on peacefully, until finally, a few hourster, the emperor and his following finally reached the garden of union, whose appearance waspletely out of everyone¡¯s expectations.

    The venue where the two spouses would marry was bell-shaped, and was surrounded by what appeared to be a snow white hedge covered in multicolored flowers and herbs of spiritual nature. At the round part of the venue were thousands of seats, separated in rows that signified stature and rtionship to the spouses, while in the narrower part was a small tform on which, ording to tradition, the spouses would unite in marriage. Further back was a small flight of stairs that lead to a low hanging cloud on which three seats were ced.

    As soon as the emperor¡¯s entourage arrived, they immediately upied their seats, with Daniel and Edmund sitting at the row closest to the stage, and the emperor and the envoy of the Soul n upying two of the three seats ced above every other. What was left to do, was for them to wait for the bride¡¯s arrival.

    During that short wait, which felt interminable, Daniel noticed Edmund¡¯s lost expression. He was looking at a fixed point in space while nervously rubbing his hands together.

    "You will see your daughter in a few minutes. Stay calm, don¡¯t overreact, and mimic other people¡¯s reactions.. Our chance wille." Daniel said through telepathy in an attempt to calm Edmund¡¯s mind, to which he responded by folding his arms over his chest and taking a few deep breaths.

    After helping Edmund calm down, Daniel could not help but look at the envoy of the soul n, who had spent thest few minutes staring at the guests with an expression filled with annoyance. It did not take mind reading for Daniel to guess that the envoy felt like he was entertaining a herd of animals, and that he considered this whole event nothing but a waste of time. Yet, Daniel could only imagine what kind of rewards would conquering a dimension bring to him, which was likely to be the reason why he was putting so much effort into it.

    Something else that Daniel had noticed, was the instability of the emperor¡¯s spirit, which instead of resembling a light mist that converged into his body, was a spinning cloud of emotions which he had great difficulty controlling. He could also feel the degree of power that the spiritual emperor had reached, which was matched exactly by that of the envoy, and was just like his, at the early stages of godhood.

    The fact that the limitations of power were bound to the power of the strongest entity in the universe was the reason why Daniel had not yet cultivated further into godhood, as the stronger he would be, the stronger would the invaders of the other dimensions allowed to be in their universe.

    The fickle state of mind of the emperor was a clear result of his hurried advancement in cultivation, and to Daniel that exined why he would decide to marry someone. What he did not understand, however, was why he wanted to marry Alesia. From what he remembered, aside from her appearance, Alesia¡¯s strength was not different from that of many other cultivators.. So why her?

    With this question buzzing in his mind, Daniel waited in silence, until finally, after about half an hour, the noise of horse¡¯s hooves striking the ground at a calm pace started to resound in the distance.

    The crowd turned to look at the arriving party with interest, and soon noticed that the procession was led by a floating royal carriage pulled by two rows of spiritual bests, a sort of snow-white horse-like beings which possessed two sets ofrge wings tied within the reins. The carriage that was being pulled was, just like the beasts, of a pure white color, and devoid of windows. It was followed by exactly half of the bishops of the spiritual faction, who had been assigned to apany the bride¡¯s side due to herck of friends and family.

    As the bride¡¯s procession arrived, it caused a normal reaction to both the emperor and the guests, who respectively looked at the iing carriage with excitement, or began to chat with one another. However, amongst these normal reactions, that of two people stood out.

    Both Daniel and the envoy were now looking at the carriage with eyes opened wide in shock, to a point where the envoy could not stop himself from springing up on his feet to get a better view of the carriage. The nature of the shock in both of their minds was identical, and was caused by the pure spiritual essence emanated behind the sealed boards of the carriage, and yet, they were asking themselves different questions.

    Daniel could not recognize Alesia by her power anymore. He knew that it was her behind the wooden walls of the carriage, and yet, she wasn¡¯t the same immortal from whom he had separated, but a spiritual being that possessed an even more pure connection to the spiritual in than the emperor, or even the envoy himself, which despite their dedication to the spiritual path, needed a weak body to survive.

    The bride¡¯s procession stopped a few meters to the side of the venue, in a path that separated the square elevated area, from the round part where the guests were sitting, and once there, after a long minute, the door of the carriage finally opened.

 Chapter 478 A Stain of Blood in the Snow Part 2

    The loud beating of Daniel¡¯s heart resounded in his ears, and the feeling of a lump formed at the bottom of his throat. His vision narrowed over the carriage, whose movements appeared in his head like a memory that did not belong to him.

    "Is everything okay, Outcast?" Asked a particrly old bishop, who was looking at him with confusion from the seat to his left.

    Daniel did not look away from the carriage for even a moment, and the moment the bishop¡¯s words reached his ear, he mindlessly muttered, "Of course. Just some old memories.."

    The door of the carriage was directed towards the side where the emperor and the envoy were sitting, and therefore, it was impossible for Daniel and Edmund to see Alesia. All they could see were a pair of pale and bare feet step over the carriage¡¯s steps, and onto a small cloud-like patch of spiritual essence which formed underneath just before she could touch the ground.

    Once Alesia left the carriage, a few spiritual warriors walked past her, and with noble and dignified movements, they mounted the winged horses, and with a weak tap of their boots, forced the reins that kept their wings tied to their backs to disappear. The horse-like spiritual beasts quickly unfolded their wings and stretched them backwards, releasing a white smoke from the ends of their feathers, and then, after a weak verbal sign from the knights that were riding them, took off in the sky while carrying the now empty carriage with them and uncovering Alesia¡¯s figure.

    Alesia¡¯s appearance was a shock for the guests, who in the white-haired young woman dressed in a just as white strapless trumpet cut dress whose bottom of the hemline turned from fabric into threads of spiritual essence that hovered over her ankles, they saw something more ethereal than a woman. Something more simr to a fairy.

    However, that was not the same for Daniel.

    The happiness he was feeling for seeing that Alesia was well was forced down his throat by her expression, which was devoid of any of the happiness, cleverness, and mischievousness he was so used seeing on her face. The only feeling he could see now was one of resignation, and this seemed to hurt him to his core, more than anything else that had happened to him in his life.

    It took all of the self control he possessed to stop himself from just starting a massacre, and he was sure that, had he not been in possession of mental fortitude, that was exactly what he would have done. Daniel could also feel Edmund¡¯s mindset, which was full of a nervousness that had taken control over his body, making him too focused on the n to even notice Alesia¡¯s state of mind.

    "What a beautifulss." Said the leader of one of the mental factions to hispanions, who were sitting right behind Daniel.

    "Beautiful indeed. The Spiritual Emperor really knows how to pick them." said a bearded man d in heavy ceremonial armor, butting into the conversation between the two mental warriors in hope to start a conversation. However, his words were ignored.

    After seeing that the mental warriors did not appear to have any interest in talking to him, a general of the army of the universal government, the general turned to look at Daniel, and noticed how he was looking at Alesia. He then leaned forward, appearing in between Daniel and Edmund, and said, "I know that Iewah¡¯s children don¡¯t have that kind of interests, but even you can concede on this, don¡¯t you Outcast?"

    The words of the general shook Daniel from the state he was in, and after breathing out slowly, he rested his head over the back of his hand, and with as much indifference as he could muster, he said, "I have broken a lot of pretty things.. Why should I care for this woman¡¯s beauty?" Almost as if he was expecting this kind of answer, the general let out a dryugh before leaning back over the back of his chair, and focusing on what was happening.

    Once the carriage left, the maidens that had apanied Alesia until now kneeled behind her, and she, just as instructed, began to walk on her side of the tform. Each step of her bare feet created a new cloud which allowed her to walk a few centimeters above the ground.

    Her expression had not changed for even a moment, and the feeling of resignation she had felt was enough to take away the curiosity even to look around to see who could be in the guest area, so she continued to walk until finally, she reached her side of the tform, where she was quickly reached by the happy looking spiritual emperor.

    Just like tradition dictated, the spouses would need to face each other from the opposite side of the tform, bow to one another, and then, find each other through the use of their spirits. Once these extensions of their spirits would touch, the two would need to merge them to a point where neither of the two could be perceived by their guests. Only then, would they be considered a married couple.

    This form of merging required beingfortable with one another to a point where one¡¯s spirit would not reject the other, but from what anyone could see from Alesia¡¯s expression, it was clear that the love in this rtionship only went one way, and not the other. However, since they were guests, and in the end their objective was to please the spiritual faction, the factions leaders and important individuals decided that, during the part in which they would be required to contest the union of their spirits, they would remain quiet.

    Soon after Alesia¡¯s arrival, the spiritual emperor walked down the white steps and joined Alesia in the tform, where he looked at her with happiness and love.

    The crowd suddenly became quiet for the most important part, and almost as if on cue, the spiritual emperor grabbed the hilt of his ceremonial sword, ced his right against his heart, and bowed deeply, until he was facing the ground. Alesia instinctively hesitated for a few moments, but then, grabbed the lower part of her dress, lifted it up to just below her knees, and bowed in feigned reverence.

    The actions of the two were extremely well prepared, and pleasant to the eye, causing the crowd to burst in loud ps which stopped only after the two went back to their standing position.

    Once there was once again nothing but silence, a smallpartment in the middle of the tform opened, and from it, emerged a transparent sphere.

    This sphere confused the members of the spiritual faction. Especially those who had witnessed other weddings, as the merging of the two spirits would usually be done in the open, as to show that there was true love from both spouses and that not even the elements could stop their union.. And yet, in this marriage, a spiritual container was being used. A sphere that would entrap the portions of the spirits of the two, and make it easier for them to be merged.

    This method was usually used for arranged weddings between the noble families of the spiritual factions, and prevented the spirit of either of the two parties to reject the other, forcing them into a constrained space, which ultimately, would bring them together. Regardless, the guests did not know the difference, and since the members of the spiritual factions weren¡¯t in any hurry to humiliate their emperor, the ceremony went on without a problem.

    With great difficulty, both Alesia and the spiritual emperor released a portion of their spirits, and guided them into this sphere, which just like expected, trapped them, and forced them to sh with one another.

    At first Alesia¡¯s spirit could be seen dashing on the edge of the sphere in an attempt to avoid the Emperor¡¯s, but as more of their spirits filled the sphere, evading became too difficult, and the two started to press against one another.

    It was extremely clear to anyone who knew this process that this marriage was a farce, but no one said anything. After all, no one amongst the guests was bothered by what was best for Alesia. Or at least, that was what Alesia was thinking..

    Unbeknownst to her, one of the guests was counting the seconds in his head.. Looking at the spirit of his belovede in contact with that of another person, and feeling an irrational hate for the flow of time, which in his head, could not go any slower.

    And yet, time still passed.. One second after the other, until finally, Daniel muttered while inadvertently following the beating of his heart, "three.. two.. one.."

    "I hope that we are not toote for the ceremony." Said a voice that resounded through the entirety of Anima, reaching the ears of every single living being on its surface like the drums of war that foresaw a massacre.

    This voice brought a bright smile on Alesia¡¯s face, who turned to look at the sky just in time to see a floti of ships who wore the mark of the Domain of the War God. The voice belonged to the war god himself who, along with millions of warriors, was floating around ten thousand kilometers outside of Anima¡¯s atmosphere.

    Suddenly distracted by the domain¡¯s apparition, Alesia pulled her spirit back, stopping the process of spiritual merging right when it was about to show some result.

    Silence reigned for the following few moments, but the feeling was all but peaceful. A faint dark mist was being emanated from the body of the Spiritual Emperor, which relied all of the heightened feelings of anger, hate, and violence that he was feeling. This mist shrouded the area, weighting over the guests like a solid nightmare. "Kill them all." he ordered the bishops while using every bit of self control he possessed to stop himself from acting overboard.

    The bishops reacted in just a moment, disappearing from the chair where they were sitting, right next to Daniel, and reappearing outside of the atmosphere. The first and second bishop directly attacked the war god, while the rest focused on keeping the other moon warriors at bay. However, right as Yuto and the second bishop reached the war god, thetter¡¯s body moved in a sh, and the second bishop found himself falling towards Anima¡¯s surface like a meteor before even realizing what had hit him.

    When hended onto the expanse of grass within the garden of union, the guests of the wedding noticed that he was on the verge of dying, and that not only was his body almost split cleanly into two, but so was his spirit.

    Yuto immediately stepped back, and observed the war god from afar, but before he could order hispanions to do the same, each of the moon warriors unsheathed a weapon which emanated the power of their spirit, their own personal spiritual weapons, and advanced towards the other bishops.

    The envoy of the soul n looked at the body of the second bishop with surprise. In the millions of years he had lived, he had never been able to see a weapon that could injure people¡¯s spirits. A weapon such as that would be a bane for any form of spiritual cultivator, and that included him, and his whole n.

    Such a dangerous weapon could not be allowed to exist, so he turned towards the enraged spiritual emperor, and ordered, "Bring the one who made those weapons to me. Kill the rest." If not for the limitations that prevented him from meddling with the universe¡¯s indigenous forces, he would have acted personally a long time ago.

    The soul of the envoy was different from the emperor¡¯s spirit, and due to its mental and spiritual nature, it allowed him to have control over the emperor, calming him down when he wanted, or riling him up when needed. This time the envoy needed the emperor to kill everyone, so he used his power to affect his spirit so that he could unleash all of his power at the early stages of godhood.

    After listening to the envoy¡¯s orders, what was left of the spiritual emperor¡¯s sanity was just enough to allow him to turn towards Alesia¡¯s maids, and order, "Take her back to her chambers." He then joined the envoys in the battlefield.

    The maids, apanied by the spiritual warriors that were part of Alesia¡¯s procession, walked towards her with hurried steps, but just before they could get a hold of her, Alesia¡¯s body disappeared.

    Confused beyond words, the maids and guests looked around in search of Alesia. None of them had felt the signs of either spatial, or mental teleportation. She had just disappeared in thin air, and no one could find her.. Unfortunately, what had happened did not escape the envoy¡¯s eyes.

    Standing in mid air a few kilometers away from the garden of union, was the envoy of the soul n. He was standing in front of a constructed bubble of time essence fed by a wooden trinket wrapped around his wrist. Inside this bubble, were the figures of Edmund, Daniel, and the girl that he was holding in his arms, Alesia. She was looking at him as if unable to believe what she was seeing, but after only a few seconds, two tears formed by the corner of her eyes, and as they started to stream down her cheeks, she sobbed, "You took your time.."

 Chapter 479 A Stain of Blood in the Snow Part 3

    An overwhelming feeling of guilt invaded Daniel¡¯s mind. He knew for a fact that a faster way to find Alesia did not exist.. Otherwise, he would have done it. But that did not change the fact that every single day since they had parted, she would hope that that, would be the morning in which Daniel would once again appear in front of her, and bring her back to her family and friends.

    This feeling of guilt soon turned into a need to apologize.. A need to let her know why he hadn¡¯te for her sooner, but now was not the time for that. Now Daniel, Alesia and her father Edmund were trapped into a spherical formation that was locking them into a frozenyer of time essence.

    "What do you think you are doing?" Asked the Envoy, which appeared right next to the time trap. He then looked at Daniel with contempt before adding, "No matter which dimension youe from, in the end, your kin can never be trusted." As he finished speaking, almost as choosing to interrupt Daniel¡¯s destiny like a petnt child would to an ant, he touched his wooden bracelet, causing the time within the trap that surrounded Daniel¡¯s body to twist and morph.

    The constant shifting of time over Daniel¡¯s skin should have rejuvenated and aged his body at a molecr level, and ultimately disintegrate him into dust. Nevertheless, Daniel bore this attack with a calm and unbothered attitude, and once over, he stood where he was before,pletely unaffected by it.

    What was stopping the time essence from even approaching Daniel¡¯s body was an extremely thinyer of essence of spacetime, which was a power of a superior tier than time alone, and that Daniel was using to protect both his body, and that of Alesia and Edmund.

    For a moment the envoy was surprised by what he saw, but the surprise onlysted a few moments. "You are also at the godhood stage." he said in amusement, and an extremely well hidden hint of embarrassment caused by his failure in noticing this, despite spending hours at just a few meters of distance from Daniel.

    Daniel did not bother with the envoy, and instead, tried to use his power to open a portal that could lead them away from Anima, but after a few attempts, he quickly discovered that his means of teleportation were unusable. The thick spiritual essence of which Anima was made of made it extremely difficult for a connection to be formed to the outside, and the time formation in which the envoy had trapped them interfered with his mental powers, locking them not in a different point in space, but in a still point in time.

    However, Daniel hade prepared. He turned towards Edmund who, after a quick nod, used his gift to create an interdimensional portal that led into the void. Once through, he would be able to open a second one that would lead them back into their universe and into safety. All of this happened in just a few short seconds, which were just enough for Alesia to realize what was happening, and burst out with hurry, "Stop!"

    Edmund and Daniel turned to look at Alesia with confusion, but before they could ask, Alesia said while pointing at the sky, "We can¡¯t leave yet. They came to rescue me.. Gai¡¯ha is with them!"

    Daniel said nothing. Instead he closed his eyes, and opened a window with the use of his karmic system. This window was the mission that would allow him to find Gai¡¯ha, and what it described now, confirmed Alesia¡¯s words. Gai¡¯ha was in the midst of therge army of the Dominion of the War God, and had apanied the entire faction in saving Alesia and in dering war on the spiritual faction.

    In orbit Daniel could see the enraged spiritual emperor exterminaterge parts of the dominion¡¯s army, and felt an urgency to intervene. He couldn¡¯t leave Gai¡¯ha to die, so he turned to look at Edmund with the intention of telling him to leave first with Alesia, but before he could, the envoy said with audible irritation, "I hate being ignored."

    As he finished speaking, two eerie light blue lights appeared in the spot where his eyes were, and a dark aura started to be emitted from his body. The sheer presence of this aura was enough to force the observing cultivators on their knees, however, by itself it wasn¡¯t enough to kill anyone.

    Before Daniel could order the karmic system to create a path that would help him save Gai¡¯ha from the emperor¡¯s rage, Daniel turned to look at the envoy, who after finally obtaining his attention, showed a smile which glowed with a simr light-blue hue of his eyes. It suddenly became very clear to Daniel that he would not be able to do anything before getting rid of the envoy of the soul n, so he formed a shield of space time around both Edmund and Alesia, and floated out of the trap as it wasn¡¯t there to begin with.

    It only took a look at the envoy for Daniel to realize the nature of his cultivation. He wasn¡¯t exactly a spiritual cultivator, just like he wasn¡¯t quite like a mental warrior. He could be considered either a spiritual warrior with a powerful mind, or a mental warrior with strong spirit, but regardless, he was different from anything that existed in Daniel¡¯s home universe.

    While this kind ofbination was difficult to face due to its unknown powers, to Daniel, who possessed a strong body, spirit, and mind, the envoy was less than menacing. After all his physical resistance should not be above that of amon spiritual cultivator, and his mental power should not be above that of a mental warrior, both of whom he had faced before, and would not fear.

    However, Daniel could not help but notice that there was an odd calm in the face of the envoy. A feeling that created a sort of urgency, to which Daniel reacted to by covering himself with the power of spacetime before disappearing, and reappearing next to him in the blink of an eye. The sword he had constructed in between movements shed down on the body of the envoy, but right as he was about to strike him, the long nail of the envoy moved inwards, causing an indescribable pain to go through Daniel¡¯s body.

    "AARGH!" he screamed while sinking his nails into his scalp.

    This pain was excruciating, to a point where not even having his mind devoured by a parasitic entity like Sewah couldpare. It was a mixture of physical, mental, and emotional pain that tested the resistance of his mental fortitude, and almost drove him to insanity.

    "Oh, what do we have here?" Asked the envoy with curiosity before moving closer to Daniel¡¯s body, and pinching the empty space next to him one more time.

    Once again Daniel felt another wave of excruciating pain even stronger than before, and a few secondster, when the pain seemed to be decreasing, the envoy pinched the air again and again and again while saying, "I didn¡¯t hear you.. More.. let me hear more.."

    "STOP!" Shouted Alesia while trying to jump out of the time trap, but she was stopped by Edmund right before she could.

    "You thought that just because you are at the godhood stage, you¡¯d be able to defeat me? I have been at the godhood stage FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS!" said the envoy with an increasingly angrier tone, but then, after about two minutes of this torture, the envoy regained his calm and indifferent demeanor.

    Instead of his nails he used his whole hand to grab an invisible string in space, which the observers could only guess was what he was picking on to torture Daniel, and said, "I have had my fun.. Let¡¯s end this." as he finished speaking, he tightened his fingers around the string, and jerked his whole arm backwards.

    A sudden snapping sound resounded through Daniel¡¯s whole body, and a momentter, the face that was pained by the most excruciating pain that could possibly be felt, suddenly disappeared, and his body went limp. At the same time, the two barriers of spacetime that were covering Alesia¡¯s and Edmund¡¯s body disappeared, leaving them powerless against the time trap.

    "What.. W-What did you do to him?!" Asked Alesia with tears threatening to mark her face.

    Now that the spacetime barrier had disappeared, the envoy finally noticed the fluctuations of Alesia¡¯s spirit. What before had indifference and resignation was now filled with anxiousness, as well as a sentiment that was extremely rare in the cultivation world. At that moment, the envoy understood that Alesia was in love with the man he had just killed.

    The amused smile reappeared on the face of the envoy, who floated closer to the time trap, and said, "I have erased his connection to the spiritual in. Not even the cockroach ability of his system will be able to save him. He is gone. Dead."

    Every spirit possessed a connection to the spiritual in.

    This connection would be the path that a cultivator would use to exchange the absorbed mana with spiritual essence, and for spiritual cultivators, as well as immortal cultivators, this path was vital. The disappearance of this connection would be like separating a drop of water from a sea. Sooner orter, the drop of water would evaporate, or be absorbed.. Simrly, the moment the connection between one¡¯s spirit and the spiritual in would be severed, the cultivator would die with no exception.

    What the envoy had used to torture Daniel was this connection, which thanks to the abilities of his n, he was able to see as a thread that connected the spirit of every cultivator to the crack that provided spiritual essence to the universe. That was also the reason why Daniel was so overwhelmed with pain. By possessing a spirit that was merged with his body and mind, any damage that he had endured was tripled in intensity.

    At the mention of the word ¡¯dead¡¯, both Alesia and Edmund lost a bit of their sanity. They looked at Daniel¡¯s floating corpse in hope to see it move, but every second that it wouldn¡¯t, would feed the little bug that the envoy had put in their minds.

    The shock they were feeling was so vast that they didn¡¯t even notice the envoy approach them, "I usually would not be able to interfere with another universe¡¯s matters, but I am sure that anyone here would be able to confirm that he attacked first." he said while willingly omitting the fact that, if not for Daniel¡¯s ability, the envoy would have killed him with his time trap. He then ced himself in the line of sight between Alesia and Daniel, and added, "Since I have been wronged in this universe, I will take you with me in mine. My lord will reward me for a unique specimen such as yourself."

    These words seemed to be able to catch Alesia¡¯s attention, but not a single word could be made out by her mind. What entered her ears was just white noise, and the only desire she had left was for her eyes to never move away from Daniel¡¯s body.

    The envoy found Alesia¡¯s reaction quite amusing, and after enjoying her struggle within the time sphere for a few moments, he became bored, and reached for her body. He did not care for Daniel¡¯s universe, as for him that was just a weak battlefield which would not be of any use to his faction. He only cared about Alesia, whose nature was somewhat simr to that of the leader of his n.

    Contrary to his words, what he really wanted to do was study her, and find out her secrets, so that he could be like her.. But, his dreams remained just dreams, and were interrupted by a voice that came right from behind him.

    "Let me refuse in her stead." Said Daniel before piercing the envoy¡¯s body with both hands, through which he released what looked like dark mes. A mixture of dark essence and fire essence that had the power to erase any form of existence. Be it one¡¯s body, spirit, or mind.

    Engulfed in these mes, the envoy desperately looked around in hope to find Daniel¡¯s connection to the spiritual in which he was so sure to have severed, but as his eyes were eaten away by Daniel¡¯s dark mes, he found nothing. After his body was turned into nothing, his cloak fell on the ground and towards the guests area of the emperor¡¯s wedding, which was filled with power cultivators that had witnessed the fight since it had started.

    The death of the envoy deactivated the time sphere, and turned the wooden bracelet used by the envoy into a seemingly useless trinket that fell alongside his robes, and was quickly pocketed by one of Iewah¡¯s children, next to whom it had fallen.

    Seeing Daniel alive was too much of a relief for Alesia, who burst into tears while diving into his arms. Daniel knew that nothing could be done to reassure her but to let her cry, so he tightened his arms around her, and said nothing.

 Chapter 480 A Stain of Blood in the Snow Part 4

    Daniel and Alesia decided to spend the following moments in silence, enjoying each other¡¯spany while embracing one another. However, along with the happiness that invaded Daniel¡¯s heart and mind was a lingering feeling, which constantly reminded him that something within his body had changed forever.

    After about a minute spent in between feelings of happiness and confusion, Daniel suddenly recalled that it was not over yet, so he grabbed Alesia¡¯s shoulders, and gently moved her back. He then alternated between looking at her, and the space where the resounding sounds of ongoing battle wereing from.

    Alesia was just as worried about Gai¡¯ha¡¯s safety as Daniel was, so she did not take his actions at heart. Instead, she said while gently cupping her hand against the side of Daniel¡¯s face, "Go.. you have already saved me." Daniel did not like the idea of letting Alesia out of his sight right after finding her even for a single moment, but the urgency of the situation did not allow him to take care of both her and her father in a battle against a cultivator at the godhood stage.

    Every second the spiritual emperor was killing tens of thousands, and Gai¡¯ha¡¯s turn was less than a few minutes away, so he took a mental photograph of Alesia¡¯s face before disappearing, and reappearing in orbit, where the battle was taking ce.

    Of the ki warriors thatposed the domain¡¯s horde was now left only a small fraction, amongst which were about half of the owners of Arena¡¯s moons, Gai¡¯ha, a few thousand powerful ki warriors, and the War God himself, who were still alive not thanks to their own power, but because of the sadistic intention of the spiritual emperor, who wanted the leading members of the Domain of the War God to watch as he disintegrated their faction¡¯s army before killing them.

    The spiritual weapons created by Gai¡¯ha¡¯s methods were extremely effective against spiritual cultivators, and if not for the presence of the spiritual emperor, the war god alone would have been able to wipe out the whole Anima, but unfortunately, that was not the case. While the spirit of the emperor was not immune against his spiritual weapon, his power was just too vast to be affected, and any damage it received, due to both his stage of cultivation and the vicinity to the spiritual vein, would recover in a matter of instants, making his spirit nearly indestructible no matter how many times it was damaged.

    Gai¡¯ha was behind a lineposed by the domain¡¯s strongest warriors, and on her face, was nothing but horror. Even though she and Alesia were important people to the domain, the lives of millions were not something that she believed was worth sacrificing for either her, or Alesia¡¯s life. After all, they did not belong to the domain, and were only waiting for Daniel¡¯s arrival to join his side.. Now that millions had died in this attempt at rescuing Alesia, however, her guilt would only increase whenever she would hear the screams produced by one of the ki warriors who, unable to resist the emotional aura produced by the emperor, was driven to madness.

    What she did not know was the fact that the spiritual faction and the kid warriors had been at odds for tens of thousands of years, and that the former¡¯s rise in power was nothing but a reminder that, at some point, they would be destroyed. This general feeling of resignation changed after Gai¡¯ha¡¯s appearance, which granted them a hope that was much needed within the domain. A weapon which would allow them to have a chance in their war for survival.

    Even if Gai¡¯ha had known about this, that wouldn¡¯t have stopped the feelings of guilt that she was feeling, which only increased in intensity as the figure of the war god was slowly, but inevitably brought closer to his death.

    Inos¡¯s weak spirit was being constantly pressured, stomped by the oppressive aura of a cultivator at the early stage of godhood. What was even worse than his inability to inflict any significant damage, however, was the fact that he was unable to even force the emperor into seeing him as a threat. He had seen his men die an avoidable death, and in his heart, frozen by the thousands of battles that he had been forced to fight to reach the position he was currently, he began to feel regret.

    "Enough.. We surrender." muttered Inos with resignation, and in hope to stop this madman from destroying his whole faction.

    Unfortunately, a human who could cool the emperor¡¯s boiling spirit did not exist. Instead, the emperor¡¯s reaction to the words of the war god was one of enjoyment, which only furthered the desire for destruction that was fueling his actions.

    "You dare attack my people, and during my wedding nheless.." Said the spiritual emperor while increasing the density of his emotional aura in the surroundings, and inching towards the now spent war god. He then traveled thest few dozen meters while adding, "I will rip your spirit into shreds, and that of every single member of your faction.. Then, once I will get to enter the spiritual in, I will find the roots of your spirit, and eradicate you from existence!"

    His anger increased to a point where his feelings alone were enough to kill, and yet, on the faces of the surviving ki warriors was nothing but an increasing sense of relief, almost as if the oppressive feeling that had been crippling them until now had been lifted off their shoulders.

    The spiritual emperor, now alerted by Daniel¡¯s presence, turned around with an expression filled with caution. A feeling which just like the attraction and irritation he had felt towards Alesia and Inos, was heightened to an unbearable degree.

    The thought of a peaceful resolution with Daniel did not cross the emperor¡¯s mind, and instead, the emperor released his emotional aura and forced it towards Daniel, who stood in silence as this dark aura, which would have killed anyone that would have been unlucky enough to be trapped inside it, quickly merged into a smooth ck orb that surrounded his whole body.

    The ki warriors looked at the figure of Daniel with confusion. They were unsure whether he was an ally, but even if he wasn¡¯t, his appearance would have bought them enough time to escape.. or at least, that was what the war god and moon owners had thought. Their escape was stopped the moment Daniel¡¯s body was surrounded by the emperor¡¯s power, which erased the spark of hope that they had felt, leaving as soon as it hade.

    The only ones who showed different reactions were Gai¡¯ha and Inos, who were respectively looking at Daniel with either shock, or confusion.

    Based on the expression of the emperor¡¯s face, Inos could see that this attack did not have the effect that the emperor had hoped, and that was proven a few momentster, when a pair of hands covered in a ss-like substance emerged from the smooth surface of the deadly sphere, and forced it open. From this opening emerged Daniel, who looked unaffected by the emperor¡¯s power.

    Daniel¡¯s casual actions only made the emperor angrier, but before he could do anything, Daniel raised his right arm, and casually swiped downwards in his direction.

    This casual motion created a de of spacetime that split the space it went through, turning it into a ce devoid of the three dimensions of space, and the dimension of time. This de traveled at an extremely slow pace, and yet, the impression that stuck to the mind of those who saw it, was that it would reach its target eons before they could ever hope to avoid it.. And so it did.

    The dended squarely on the emperor¡¯s chest, splitting his body into two.

    The spiritual emperor looked in horror at the severed part of his body floating away from the rest of it, but he did not lose his mind. Instead, he started to draw copious amounts of spiritual essence from the spiritual vein, which invaded his body through the string-like connection between his spirit and the spiritual in. He then turned this extremely pure spiritual essence into healing essence, with which he bridged the two halves of his body, and drawed them together.

    As the clean cut halves of his body rapidly reattached, the emperor looked at Daniel with a nervous smile, and said, "As long as I am next to Anima, I am invincible."

    Daniel said nothing, and instead slowly raised both of his arms, taking control over the surrounding space. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of des of spacetime simr to the first one formed all around Daniel, and following hismands, they flew at the horrified spiritual emperor who, before being able to beg for his life, was split into thousands of pieces.

    The spirit of the emperor was then pulled back into the spiritual in, and his mind, left with no spirit or body to inhabit, dissipated, marking the death of the feared Spiritual Emperor.

    The surviving members of the domain¡¯s army looked at Daniel with shock. They had felt first hand the power of the spiritual emperor, and more than anybody else, they knew that it his cultivation was not something that belonged to their universe, so when they saw Daniel kill the spiritual emperor with such ease, they had no words to express their surprise, and were forced to stand back in silence.

    However, in between this rtively small group of quiet cultivators, a figure in particr dashed towards Daniel, and stopped a few meters away from Daniel. That person was Gai¡¯ha, and she was standing in front of Daniel with a fearless posture.

    The War God was shaken awake by Gai¡¯ha¡¯s actions, and immediately moved next to her, but before he could reprimand her, and try to mediate things with Daniel, thetter turned to look at her, and with a look ofplicity, he said, "Here you are."

    "Yeah about damn time!" Said Gai¡¯ha, whose rtionship with Daniel was akin to that of an older sister despite their difference in power. Then, before Daniel could defend himself, she added with worry, "Did you rescue Alesia?"

    Daniel smiled in response, but said nothing. Instead, he turned towards an empty point in space where a portal suddenly opened, and from it, walked out Edmund and Alesia, who had been waiting for the fight to end before joining Daniel in outer space.

    After Inos noticed that Gai¡¯ha had a very close rtionship with the one whom he had recognized as the Outcast, he decided to observe in silence. It was only after Alesia¡¯s arrival, that he finally understood. The young man in front of him was the cause of Alesia¡¯s gloomy state of mind, which now had been reced by what he believed to be happiness.

    As soon as Gai¡¯ha saw Alesia safe and sound the two hugged like long lost sisters, a sight which forced a smile on Inos¡¯s face that Daniel did not fail to notice.

    After the two separated, Gai¡¯ha realized that Inos was still standing there, so she hurriedly said to Daniel, "This is Inos, the leader of the Domain of the War God, and the War God himself." She then turned towards Daniel, and added, "This is Dan. You probably know him as the Outcast."

    Inos did not care about the fact that Gai¡¯ha and Alesia had kept this connection hidden. In fact, he was d that the two girls had such a powerful entity protecting them, so he simply turned towards Daniel, and nodded in a simple and yet respectful greeting.

    Daniel was more curious about Inos¡¯s rtionship with Alesia and Gai¡¯ha, so he quietly navigated past Inos¡¯s mental protective talismans, and explored his memories. In them, he saw the many ways in which he had helped the two, as well as a genuine concern and sense of camaraderie towards them, which drastically improved Daniel¡¯s opinion of him. "I have to thank you for keeping my friends safe, War God." He said with a respectful tone while bowing his head in appreciation.

    It did not happen often in the domain that a much more powerful entity would show respect towards a weaker one, nor did Inos remember how it felt to not be the most powerful individual in a group, so he found himself unable to respond to Daniel¡¯s respectful attitude.

    Gai¡¯ha noticed Inos¡¯s struggle, but right when she was about to intercede, Daniel opened a portal that lead to his, and said to the War God, "If you don¡¯t mind, while the two of them see their families, let us talk in front of a ss of wine. This way."

    Inos turned to look at Gai¡¯ha to confirm whether it would be okay for him to do so, and after a quick nod of her head, he said, "Let us do that." he then walked through the portal with the remaining few thousand warriors of his faction¡¯s army.

    Daniel waited patiently for thest of these warriors to cross through with Gai¡¯ha, and when all of them were through, he turned to look at Alesia and Edmund, who were talking to each other in a low tone that could not escape Daniel¡¯s ears.

    From Edmund¡¯s behaviour Daniel could see that he was extremely nervous, after all, Edmund knew how hard it had been on his wife to not be able to see her daughter, and that had put an enormous pressure on his heart that had buried his own feelings of anxiousness and worry. Now that she was safe, and at arm¡¯s reach, the happiness he felt struggled to break his stern and serious persona.

    Alesia noticed this, and immediately jumped into her father¡¯s arms for a big bear hug. "I am fine.. I am fine.. We are going to be fine." She said while Edmund struggled to keep his tears from streaming down cheeks with a rapid nodding motion of his head. Daniel let this go on for a long minute, after which the father and daughter separated, and together, headed towards the portal.

    As the two reached Daniel, he offered his hand to Alesia. An action which she epted with a sweet smile.

    The smile on his daughter¡¯s face forced Edmund¡¯s lips to instinctively curve in satisfaction, so he decided to walk ahead, leaving Daniel and Alesia alone to catch up, while heposed himself.

    However, in a moment, everything changed.

    Alesia¡¯s paleplexion suddenly turned sickly white, and on her otherwise happy face appeared an expression filled with confusion. Daniel tried to grab her hand, but his hand went through hers as if he had touched nothing but a mirage of the girl he loved.. Then, suddenly, a venomousugh.

    Augh that came from Anima¡¯s surface, and originated from a white spectre that at some point, had appeared next to the deceased body of one of Iewah¡¯s children, which wasying next to the wooden trinket that belonged to the envoy of the soul n.

    "Feel the suffering.." whispered the spectre as his ghastly hand tightened around the invisible string that he was holding.. *SNAP*

 Chapter 481 In Life and Death

    "NOOOO!" Shouted Daniel with fright as the connection between Alesia¡¯s spirit and the spiritual in was severed.. He immediately tried to reach for her, but her existence as a spiritual entity had already started to disperse, causing his hand to go through hers with no opposition.

    The words of the envoy were spoken loudly, and had not only reached Daniel¡¯s ears, but Edmund¡¯s as well, who turned to look at the couple right before walking through the portal that Daniel had opened. When he realized what was happening, his heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively dove towards his daughter. "ALESIA!" He shouted.

    Daniel, who was nowpletely overtaken by the panic that seeing the death of his loved one was causing in his mind, turned to look at Edmund without knowing what to do.

    Edmund flew through the few meters that separated him from his daughter in an instant, and just like Daniel, he reached for his daughter¡¯s hand. The happiness that he had felt since the two had been reunited was amongst the most relieving feeling which he had ever felt, and now that Alesia was dying right in front of him, only minutes after reuniting, only made the fall of Edmund¡¯s state of mind harder.

    The staggering feeling went through his body like a wave, which started from the top of his head, and straightened every hair of his body, forcing his heart to hasten. However, this all suddenly ended when his hand, which had reached Alesia¡¯s ethereal body only a fraction of a second after Daniel¡¯s, pierced an invisibleyer of space that separated him and Daniel from her, and wrapped around her wrist.

    After managing to grab Alesia by her wrist Edmund felt a sense of relief wash over his body, "Don¡¯t worry child, I¡¯ll take you out of there!" He shouted while trying to pull her back into his side, but while his arms could easily move through the rupture in thisyer of space, Alesia¡¯s could not.

    Daniel noticed the difference between his attempt and Edmund¡¯s, as well as theyer of space which felt different from the interdimensional space that he was so used to controlling, and more simr to the omnipresent space that separated their dimension, to the void. He then noticed Edmund¡¯s failed attempt at pulling her back, and immediately joined him, pushing through the rupturedyer of space with both hands, and grabbing both Alesia¡¯s, and Edmund¡¯s wrists. He then started to pull.

    Unfortunately, nothing changed. Even with Daniel¡¯s help, Alesia¡¯s ethereal body was unable to cross the rupture in space, and to make things worse, at every passing second, the force that pulled her into the obscurity thaty on the other side of the rupture became stronger and stronger, until finally, after a few painful breaths of time, the pulling force became stronger than Daniel.

    Anxiousness overtook Edmund¡¯s mind as he kept shouting words offort to his confused daughter, while Daniel suddenly became calm, as he had realized what he needed to do.

    He looked at the more and more agitated Edmund with an apologetic look, and ced his hand over his chest. He then pushed him away with enough force to make him release the hold that he had on his daughter, and fly backwards of a few thousand meters.

    Edmund looked at Daniel with confusion, but before he could stop or say something, a portal that led to Daniel¡¯s opened in his path, and closed in front of him immediately after his body went through it, leaving the two alone.

    Once alone, Daniel looked at Alesia from the other side of the rupture, and noticed the fear she was hiding behind her confident expression. "I will find you again. I promise." He said with a sweet and reassuring smile before the pressure became too strong, causing him to lose the hold he had on Alesia¡¯s arm, and leaving him unable to do anything but look as she was dragged into this unfamiliar darkness.

    Still halfway through this rupture, Daniel briefly turned towards the direction of his, and after a few moments, he turned to look back at the slowly closing rupture, and entered it, allowing it to close behind him.

    -----

    As the rupture closed, Daniel found himself alone in apletely obscure environment. While he was familiar with dark essence, and this darkness was the most absolute form he had ever experienced, Daniel could not feel any form of essence inside it.. In fact, there was no trace of natural mana, or essence of any kind.

    This darkness was not as oppressive as the one that needed to be pushed away by its counterpart, and instead embraced others like a nket that one would use to cover themselves at night. However, for some reason, thisforting feeling only partially applied to Daniel. He could not exin it, but for some reason he felt bothfortable and ufortable, and that feeling was reciprocal, as the space around him would ripple in response to any of Daniel¡¯s movements. The more he moved, the bigger these ripples would be, and the further they would reach.

    The first thing Daniel tried to do was to close his eyes in an attempt to create a mission that could guide him towards Alesia, but to his surprise, he discovered that nothing happened. He then tried to check whether the problem simply included his ability to create missions, but even when he tried to activate his active abilities like Time is Precious, or verify whether his passive ones were still active, he found himself unable to. No matter how much he focused, not a single window would appear in his mind.

    After numerous failed attempts, he finally stopped trying. It was clear that whatever this ce was, it did not allow his system to work, so the only thing left for him to do was to find a way by himself. With no one to ask, and no ground to walk on, Daniel waited for what felt like hours.. But s, nothing happened.

    Left with no other option, Daniel started to explore the only interaction he had with this empty dimension, and that was causing ripples with his body. He began to move around, causing the ripples to increase in size, sh against one another, and reach further and further while withstanding the increasingly ufortable feeling that he had felt since his arrival, keeping on going until finally, the ripples created by his body became an interference that traveled the empty darkness like a current through water.

    This interference kept growing in intensity, convincing Daniel that his actions were actually having some sort of result, so he kept going in high hopes until his eyelids closed, and the interference instantly stopped.

    Confused, Daniel opened his eyes to see why the reaction to his movements had stopped, but now, in the middle of the darkness, were two individuals.

    The first person was a gentle-looking old woman dressed in simple clothes, and white hair gathered in a bun. She was sitting on an armchair with no apparent interest in Daniel¡¯s presence. In her hands were two hooks, and next to her legs was a ball of yarn made of a strange substance that Daniel could neither recognize nor understand. She was using these items to crochet something that would dissipate as soon as she would start making any progress.

    The second person was a young man in histe teens with dark brown skin, and very short afro-textured hair. He was sitting on the ground a few meters away from the olddy, with his knees joined together facing her direction. He appeared to be waiting for her to finish what she was doing before bothering her. Both of these two people had noticed Daniel¡¯s presence, as shown by a faint interruption of their actions before going back to what they were doing.

    Daniel still needed to understand where exactly he was, and these two people were the only two to whom he could ask, so he created a small tform out of his own essence of true immortality, and used it to reach the t surface on which the two individuals were resting on.

    The moment his feetnded on the invisible floor, the olddy stopped what she was doing, and turned to look at him. "You should not be here. Leave, and take him back with you." she said before lowering her forearms over her legs to rest, and pointing at the young man with a tilt of her head.

    "I don¡¯t even know where ¡¯here¡¯ is.." Said Daniel with confusion.

    "You don¡¯t look that stupid. I am sure you can get there on your own." Responded the olddy before once again raising her arms, and resumed working on the odd thread. Then, without looking back at Daniel, she added, "But do it after you get out. You don¡¯t belong here." As she finished speaking, a portal that led to Daniel¡¯s original universe opened right next to him.

    After seeing the portal, Daniel took a step away from it, and said, "No. I am going nowhere without my friend. She was taken here only a few moments before me. Can you help me find her?"

    The olddy was clearly annoyed by Daniel¡¯s behaviour, and said with the kind of irritation that one would see in a disappointed mother, "How typical of Destiny¡¯s spawn.. Or whatever it is that you are. You always think that you can shape your fate however you want, so you start buzzing around your little universe like you matter more than anybody else.. But this side of your universe is my territory, so behave." As she got to the end of her point, she turned to look at the young man that was sitting next to her, and added, "That applies for you too."

    Daniel finally understood.

    "You are the aspect of Death." he said with a low tone.

    The olddy did not respond, and instead, kept doing what she was doing, confirming Daniel¡¯s suspicions.

    Daniel did not wait for her to respond before adding, "And if this is your domain, this must be the underworld.. Where people¡¯s consciousness goes after they die. That must be why I feel so ufortable here.."

    What Daniel had said was right. He currently was in his universe¡¯s underworld, a side of his universe which, paired with the physical realm where the body would remain, and the spiritual in in which the spirit would take refuge,posed the three realms of every universe.

    The reason why Daniel felt so ufortable here was because only the consciousness of an individual was supposed to enter the underworld, and while he felt the sort offort that a consciousness was supposed to feel once in the underworld, the other two aspects were out of ce, and to me for the ufortable feeling he had been forced to bear since his arrival.

    The olddy was not impressed by Daniel¡¯s urate guess. Instead, what made her once again put down what she was doing, was the fact that Daniel was still refusing to leave.

    "If you don¡¯t give me back my friend, I will stay here, and disturb your realm for as long as I live." Said Daniel with a calm andposed tone which sessfully relied his sincerity.

    "Of all the aspects of existence, you threaten Death.." muttered the woman before letting out a dryugh. She then turned serious, and asked, "What makes you think that I won¡¯t erase you right now?"

    Daniel smiled, "Because if I am right, and he is who I think he is, then you can¡¯t kill people who can¡¯t die of natural deaths." He then said while turning to look at the young man, who had finally taken his presence into consideration, and briefly turned to look back at him.

    Naturally, Daniel was once again right. This young man was, just like him, a living entity, and he shouldn¡¯t have been able to enter the underworld. Yet, here he was, sitting respectfully next to Death herself despite her not appreciating his presence. Ever since learning that the olddy was the aspect of Death, and that the ce where he was now was the underworld of his universe, Daniel had narrowed the young man¡¯s identity to a single person. And that was the eldest of Iewah¡¯s children. The owner of the system of death, known as the Deathbringer.

 Chapter 482 The Will of the Dead

    Between the aspects of existence, certain regtions would exist. Most of them were set to limit the interference that an aspect could enforce over another, and an example of this, was the constant struggle between the aspects of life, and the aspect of death. The natural course of each of these two contrasting powers were the weapons of these two aspects of existence, while the survival of every single entity that existed in the multiverse, was the battlefield on which their eternalpetition would be fought.

    The only mean Death would have to take away a living being from the aspect of life, was to wait for their life essence to sumb to the corrosive power of death essence, or for them to die of unnatural causes. What she wasn¡¯t allowed to do, was to be the artificer of the entity¡¯s death, as that would mean actively affecting the oue of the natural order, and interfere with a person¡¯s fate. To disturb this fragile equilibrium between the two lower ranking aspects of existence, was the rare appearance of specific individuals, who, one way or another, would be able to obtain some form of immortality.

    The immortality of the Deathbringer was caused by his ability to stop the death essence from corroding his life essence, which was what had stopped his aging process to his teen years despite his age being in the hundreds of thousands, and made him unable to die of a natural death. Daniel¡¯s resistance to the corrosive nature of death essence, on the other hand, was due to the regenerative abilities present in his true immortal essence, which kept the cells of his body from degenerating the way a normal human¡¯s would. This had made Daniel truly immortal, and unable to die of old age or any form of sickness.

    These two different powers had moved the two of them closer to the realm of the aspect of Life, and had turned them from contended entities, to champions of Life whom the aspect of Death was not allowed to kill. This odd circumstance had put Death in an ufortable situation in which she could not kill these invaders no matter how annoying they were, even in her own domain. Nevertheless, Daniel and the Deathbringer were not the first immortals to ever enter her domain.. after all, she, along with her counterpart, had existed ever since the first organism had been born.

    Daniel noticed that his words seemed to be correct, so he decided to insist. "I won¡¯t leave without her, and if you force me out, I will keeping and disturb this ne until you¡¯ll let me take her away." he said with a decisive tone.

    The olddy once again stopped what she was doing, and ced the hooks onto her legs. She then turned to look at Daniel with a solemn expression, and asked him, "Why would you want to take her back? She has suffered greatly in life, and now she is at peace. Can you even understand what level of arrogance and selfishness it takes for you to want her back?"

    These words hit Daniel straight to his core. He had been the cause of much of Alesia¡¯s sufferings, after all, it was his appearance that had changed everything for both her, and her family. If he had never appeared, her life would have been a more peaceful one, in thepany of his family and friends. Instead, she was forced to escape her city, leave her, and separate from the people she loved the most. All of that could be attributed to him, and Daniel was more than aware of it.

    Shame was an understatement for what Daniel was feeling, but deep in his mind, his egoism was preventing him from letting go. These feelings created an ufortable knot in his throat, and forced tears to well up in the corner of his eyes. "I.. I need her to know happiness in life. I need her to leave with no regrets.." he said while struggling not to choke up. He then waited for a moment, before adding, "Please.. Let me talk to her."

    Death could hear the sincerity in Daniel¡¯s words, but unfortunately, she knew more than he did. Afterlife was not something that was for the living to decide on, and that was not different for Alesia, no matter how much Daniel wanted her back.

    "What if she decides not toe back?" She asked while briefly turning to look at the Deathbringer, who clenched his fists over his thighs. The olddy then turned to look back at Daniel, and asked, "Do you think that your selfish reasoning will move the dead?"

    Daniel ignored the two tears that streamed down his face, and responded, "I need to try.."

    The olddy gently shook her head in what appeared to be the first semnce of human emotions that she had shown so far. She then unhooked the threads which she was using to create the slowly dissipating piece of fabric, and used the one she was holding with her right hand to catch a specific thread within the thousands that had formed this fabric.

    Once the hook had separated this thread from the others, the surrounding darkness suddenly lit up with an infinite number of lights, which filled the surroundings like a swarm of fireflies. These lights were white in color and shone with identical intensity, and yet, despite how alike they appeared, they all felt extremely different.

    "Call for her. If she does not answer, leave her, and nevere back." Said the disembodied voice of death as her body disappeared, leaving the Deathbringer to stare at these lights with an odd expression that was unlike his usual cold and emotionless behaviour.

    Grateful for this opportunity, Daniel wiped his face before trying to reach a light that was floating right in front of him. As his finger came to just a few centimeters from it, however, the light moved away, almost as if against the idea of being touched by Daniel.

    It did not take long for Daniel to realize what these lights were. The fabric that Death was weaving was the real underworld, and every thread corresponded to a dimension. What was contained in these threads, were the uncountable lives that, at some point in history, had ended.. Amongst these uncountable lights, was that of Alesia.

    -----

    For what felt like thousands of years, Daniel roamed the underworld in thepany of the Deathbringer, who just like him, seemed to be searching for a specific light within this infinite sea. Unfortunately, no matter how much Daniel called for Alesia, or searched for her, he had made no progress whatsoever.

    While never speaking a word to one another, with time, Daniel had finally understood what the Deathbringer was doing there. Like him, he had be obsessed with the idea of bringing someone back from the underworld, and it was clear that this had not been his first attempt.

    Daniel¡¯s constant failures rapidly started to weigh on him, and at some point, he began to think that the reason why he could not find Alesia, was because she didn¡¯t want him to.. These kinds of thoughts sent him spiraling into an unbearable sorrow that made him question what he was doing.

    When it appeared that both Daniel and the Deathbringer were ready to stop their search, Death once again appeared in front of them, and with a somewhatforting voice, said, "Peace is life¡¯s ultimate goal, and that is what death offers. You two are not the first ones to attempt this, but no one, in any dimension, has ever seeded."

    These words had the intention offorting the two, and yet, the only effect they had, was to worsen the state of mind in which Daniel had been in, which caused him to fall on his knees and be ovee by grief. The sadness he was feeling was so deep, that it was emitted by his body in the form of an emotional aura, which expanded outwards, and forced the uncountable small lights to back away.. All but one.

    Of all of the lights that were in front of him and that had backed away, one had remained. It hovered in front of Daniel¡¯s kneeled body, shining its gentle light onto his face.

    The moment Daniel noticed this light, which was moving in the small space in front of him, he cupped his hands together and reached for it. Contrary to any other light, this one was not afraid of Daniel, and allowed itself to be held in his palms.

    Once he had a hold of it, Daniel turned towards Death, whose cold expression had now turned into one of confusion and stupor, and with tears streaming down his face, he asked with a voice filled with hope, "Is this her?.."

    For the first time ever since it hade to being, a faint smile formed on Death¡¯s lips, right before she nodded in confirmation.

    As Daniel¡¯s sorrowful aura moved back into his body, he turned to look at the light that was floating over his palm, which he held as gently as he could, and without moving his eyes away from it, almost as if fearful that it would disappear, he asked, "Does this mean that she.. she wants toe with me?"

    Death was left speechless. The nature of the underworld was benevolent, and gavefort to each and every consciousness that inhabited it. To choose the chaos, pain, and tragedies that Life would infer on living beings, was something that she had never believed possible. It took her more than a minute to shake this surprise away, and to walk next to Daniel and the small light. She then picked Alesia¡¯s consciousness off of Daniel¡¯s hand, and asked, "Are you sure that is what you want, child?"

    The light responded by increasing its glow, an action to which Death reacted with a gentle nod. "The underworld is her home now.. But she chose to leave with you.."She said before handing Alesia¡¯s light back to Daniel. She then added with a solemn tone, "But, heed my words, human.. Her consciousness cannot survive in the ne of the living for long. Recover her spirit within a year, or her existence will belong to Chaos.. At that point, not even I will be able to save her."

    Daniel nodded before gently caging Alesia¡¯s light in between his fingers, and moving her closer to his head. He then slowly pushed her into the side of his temple, which she entered as if moving through a portal. Once inside Daniel¡¯s mind, she was covered by his true immortal essence, which would protect her at all costs.

    Once done, Daniel stood back up, and bowed deeply towards Death, who opened a portal that led to the world of the living for him. He then walked into the portal, and left the underworld. "Remember, one year." Said Death¡¯s voice into his ears right before the portal closed.

    As the portal closed, the olddy once again found herself in thepany of the Deathbringer, who was currently looking at the many lights with mncholy.

    "It has been a long time since you have killed him, Jorah.. If he had wanted to meet you, he would have done it already." Said Death to the Deathbringer, whom she had seen looking at the dead of his universe for tens of thousands of years now, but who had never had Daniel¡¯s sess.

    However, while usually the Deathbringer would respond to Death¡¯s words with a stubborn behaviour and without saying a word, this time, he looked at her with resignation, and said, "Every day, he would hate being alive.. even when he asked me to absorb him, I knew that what he really wanted was to stop being sad.. for someone to save him.. but I was the only one listening.." He then turned around, and with his own power, he opened a portal that led out of the underworld. "I wish I could have told him that he was wrong, to trust me to be the one to save him.. But maybe he knows." he then added while going through the portal, with no intention of evering back again.

 Chapter 483 Hunting for Spirits

    When Daniel left the underworld, he found himself back in Anima¡¯s orbit.

    Due to the presence of many of the guests at the emperor¡¯s wedding, and numerous confused spiritual cultivators who were unsure of what to do, Daniel was able to realize that despite his permanence to the underworld had felt like it hadsted years, in reality, only a few minutes had passed.

    The moment he reappeared, the many spiritual cultivators and guests turned to look at him with confusion. Daniel had proven to be the most powerful entity in the universe, and that was the reason why they hadn¡¯t left yet. Anima could now be considered his territory, and for them to leave without saying anything, would not help them build a good rtionship with him.

    Of all of those who had chosen to participate in the event, only the children of Iewah that had survived had left, as they were afraid that if they stayed, Daniel would have demanded for their artifacts in exchange for their lives.

    What none of these people knew, was that their actions were the least of Daniel¡¯s concerns. He had more important things in mind, and thest thing he would do right now, would be to receive one cultivator after another for political greetings and insincere congrattions.

    However, while Daniel had no interest in entertaining these people, he could not leave Anima yet. The was created around the only connection between the physical universe, and the spiritual in, a connection which he required to recover Alesia¡¯s spirit, so he turned towards the, and with a domineering tone filled by a weak version of his emotional aura, he said, "Anima belongs to me now. You have until Ie back to leave. After that, you won¡¯t be able to anymore." As he finished speaking he waved his hand lightly, forcing a portal to open next to him. He then took a deep breath, and walked in.

    As he stepped into the portal, Daniel emerged in front of his ck castle, where many of hispanions were discussing what had happened. Amongst them were the panicked Emelnie, and the enraged Edmund, thest of whom, the moment he saw Daniel, dashed in his direction, and punched him solidly in the face. "WHERE IS SHE!?" He shouted before grabbing Daniel¡¯s cor with both hands.

    The moment Emelnie noticed Daniel¡¯s appearance, she ignored her husband¡¯s actions, and gently pushed him away. She then grabbed Daniel¡¯s hand, and with hopeful eyes, she asked, "Where is she.. Daniel? Where is she?" The shame that Daniel was feeling prevented him from answering this question. Instead, he watched past Emelnie¡¯s worried expression in hope to see Aeron, who after noticing him, quietly walked next to the trio.

    While walking next to the three of them, with Daniel¡¯s permission, Aeron went through his memories, and inside them, he saw everything that happened. Once next to them, he turned towards the couple, and said, "Both of you, ce a hand on my shoulders."

    The anxious couple looked at Aeron with confusion, but then, they did as requested, and ced their right hand over each of Aeron¡¯s shoulders. Once connected to him, Aeron ced his own hand onto Daniel¡¯s shoulder, and used his mental powers to force Edmund¡¯s and Emelnie¡¯s consciousness into Daniel¡¯s mind, where Alesia¡¯s consciousness was currently residing.

    As soon as Aeron¡¯s hand touched Daniel¡¯s shoulder, Emelnie and Edmund found themselves in front of the ck castle, but instead of being surrounded by theirpanions and friends, there was no one else. The two looked around with confusion until finally, a few moments after their arrival, the castle¡¯s ck gates opened, and from behind them, walked out a young woman in a snow white wedding dress, and silver hair.

    Without waiting for even a second for her to walk out of the castle, both Edmund and Emelnie dashed towards the young woman, who gave them an affectionate smile and weed them with opened arms.

    A few minutester, which in Daniel¡¯s hastened consciousnesssted hours, Emelnie and Emelnie caught up with their daughter, learning what she had gone through since they had parted, how she and Gai¡¯ha had fared in the a world of ki warriors, and how during her ascension, she had found her personal path of cultivation.

    Finally, when the joy of reuniting started to settle down, Alesia revealed how she had died, and spent what felt like an eternity in the underworld, which now felt like nothing but a simple memory.

    After hours spent talking, Daniel, Aeron, Edmund and Emelnie collectively opened their eyes. Emelnie and Edmund weren¡¯t happy about their daughter¡¯s death, but since they could still talk to her, and interact to her for as long as they wanted, they hadn¡¯t really felt that she had died, so they looked at Daniel with gratitude for bringing their daughter back from the dead, and confidence that he would manage to help her recover. After making sure of the strength of Daniel¡¯s will towards that goal, the two then retired into their quarters to give the news to their son.

    As the two went back into the ck castle, to approach Daniel was a small group of cultivatorsposed of the War God, Gai¡¯ha, the surviving owners of the ten moons, and a cautious Jerigh, who was observing their every movement. On the face of the War God, as well as Gai¡¯ha¡¯s, was genuine worry, so in an attempt to bring them some relief, Daniel said confidently, "She is safe with me. I will protect her until no one will be strong enough to harm her."

    Daniel¡¯s words were of greatfort to both Gai¡¯ha and the Inos, who sighed in relief. "That is good." Said thetter before turning to look at hispanions, and giving a faint nod of his head to them.

    As she noticed that the War God¡¯s group was about to leave, Gai¡¯ha turned to look at Daniel with a semnce of worry before rapidly turning to look back at Inos¡¯s group.

    Daniel noticed Gai¡¯ha¡¯s actions, and quickly realized what she was hoping for him to do. "What is the condition of your faction?" He asked the War God, who was taking out a small ship from within his spatial ring.

    Inos momentarily stopped what he was doing and turned to look back at him. "It is our domain¡¯s rule that when we wage a war that we are not confident of winning, we take anyone who wishes to fight with the faction, and send the others to join a ki faction of their choice. Regardless of whether wee back as winners or losers, our warriors will have the same chance as the domain offered, and if we win, we start from scratch with the survivors." He said while releasing the small ship into the sky, and letting it float towards outer space, where it would grow to thousands of times its current size.

    Only a few moments away from leaving, Gai¡¯ha once again looked at Daniel with imploring eyes, to which he responded by saying, "You are my people¡¯s teacher and sworn brother, and did not fail toe to their rescue when needed. If you wish, both you and your faction¡¯s survivors are free to live on my. I owe you that much." Despite needing Gai¡¯ha¡¯s convincing, Daniel¡¯s words were genuine, and contained the gratitude that he had felt towards the War God for having taken care of both Alesia and Gai¡¯ha.

    Inos stopped his actions, and along with the remaining moon warriors, he looked around. They all knew that their faction had never seen a more obscure time, after all, their number was now barely in the thousands, and their forces had decreased to that of an ordinary mid level faction. In a time where every faction of that level could gain the favor of an aspect¡¯s champion, and grow in power the same way the spiritual faction had, a weak existence such as them was nothing but easy prey.

    Amongst them, the one that was the least convinced was Inos, who as the War God, was in charge to keep the faction alive. However, he could see in the faces of his followers that this proposal was an opportunity for a better life not only for the moon warriors, but for their family members, as well as the families of the fallen ones, which he needed to take care of.

    Daniel saw the spark of doubt on Inos¡¯s face who, by not feeling like he was owed anything, saw this proposal as a charitable offer, so he said, "You don¡¯t have to disband your faction. Turn it into a school of martial arts, find a suitable ce on this to settle down, and pass down your faction¡¯s history. You can find students within my¡¯s inhabitants, or teach your martial arts in my academy."

    This proposal was too good to refuse, as shown by the faces of the moon warriors, whose doubtful faces had changed into hopeful ones as they turned to look at the War God.

    Inos had no reason to refuse, so, without turning back, he said, "Very well. We¡¯ll be back with the other members of our faction in a few days."

    "Sewah, Jerigh, Xargy, go with them. Make sure there is no trouble as they move in." Said Daniel before turning to the side, and opening a small portal, from which a few secondster, walked out Edmund. "Are you ready?" Asked Daniel.

    "When you are." Responded Edmund right before Daniel opened a second portal that led back to Anima, which was now only inhabited by the surviving spiritual cultivators that had chosen not to leave.

    When Daniel appeared, these cultivators showed no enmity, and instead fell on their knees, and said, "We harbor no ill intentions. We merely wish to live close to the connection to the spiritual in." To speak was one of the few surviving bishops, who along with his emissaries and acolytes, were prostrating themselves in submission in hope to be allowed to keep their ce of cultivation, even if under Daniel¡¯s rule.

    Within the emissaries and acolytes Daniel could see some familiar faces. Specifically, four spiritual warriors whom he had met in the past. The second and third emissaries, who had been punished for trying to cheat him after the events of Gai¡¯ha¡¯s and Lucious¡¯ of origin, and Nia and Noah, the two acolytes that had been assigned to be his intergctic chauffeur, but had cheated him by leaving him far away from his destination.

    All four of them were the disciples and grand disciples of the fourth bishop, who was now prostrating himself in front of Daniel just for a chance of being allowed to stay on anima. The four were now kneeling to Daniel inplete silence. They knew that if their master learned about how they had offended him in the past, he would have likely sacrificed them to appease him anger, so they were in no hurry to be recognized.

    Naturally, their presence did not escape Daniel¡¯s senses, but since he could not be bothered with dying his ns for such a small matter, he simply walked past them and towards the white castle, pretending that they didn¡¯t exist.

    As Daniel and Edmund reached the white castle, they forced an opening on therge constructed stones that formed its walls by erasing the control enforced by the formation, and soon enough, the two found themselves in front of the vein which provided the entire universe with spiritual essence. "It¡¯s up to you now." Said Daniel after taking a step back, and letting Edmund walk closer.

    Daniel did not leave, and instead pressed his hands against Edmund¡¯s back, and injectedrge amounts of his true immortal essence into him. He then waited.

    Just like he had been able to open a portal for the underworld, Edmund knew that he would be able to open one for the spiritual in. However, he was unsure what the effect would be. After all, the underworld was a passive domain, while the spiritual in would constantly emit an immense quantity of power with no sign of ever being close to stop.

    The moment Edmund¡¯s hands hooked onto the two sides of a portal that only he could see, the spirit contained in his body threatened to be ripped out and be absorbed by the crack that he had just opened. If not for Daniel¡¯s power, which had caged his spirit within his body, Edmund would have been long gone.

    With a significant consumption of his power, after a few minutes of strenuous attempts, Edmund was finally able to open a portalrge enough for a person to walk through. He then tried to enter it, but was promptly stopped by Daniel.

    "Edmund, you can¡¯t enter. Your spirit will disperse the moment I move my hand away." Said Daniel to the worried father, who wished for nothing but to be able to help recover his daughter¡¯s spirit.

    After seeing Edmund¡¯s disappointed state of mind, Daniel stepped in between him and the portal, and said, "I don¡¯t know if I¡¯ll be able to use my system when I¡¯m in the spiritual in, but I am almost sure that as long as I am in there, none of the blood cultivators in search for the legacy of the murderous god will find you. Take care of the others. I¡¯ll be back with your daughter¡¯s spirit in no time."

    He then entered it without waiting for Edmund¡¯s response.

 Chapter 484 The Spiritual World

    The moment Daniel stepped into the portal, he found himself in an white room. This room would bepletely empty, if not for the presence of a young woman with grey hair who appeared to be standing in wait for his arrival on the side opposite Daniel¡¯s. From the power that her body emanated, it was clear to Daniel that this woman was a spiritual cultivator of sorts, but of a kind that he had never seen before. Instead of emanating immortal essence, which was a power that was born from merging an equally developed ki and spirit, or a soul, which was the result of merging a powerful mind to one¡¯s spirit, this woman possessed, very much like Daniel, a developed mind, spirit, and body. However, these three powers were not merged together, and coexisted individually within her body.The moment this young woman saw Daniel, she looked at him with the same expression a receptionist would show to her guests, and said, "Wee to the spiritual world. Due to Spirit¡¯s regtions, only one group per universe is allowed to visit the spiritual world, and as the first visitor from your universe, this passage belongs to you, and is free for you to use. You are free to sell or gift your ownership of this passage whenever you like."Usually, whenever a universe would be aware of the multiverse, a champion of the aspect of existence of Spirit would visit that universe¡¯s indigenous spiritual cultivators, and would introduce them to the spiritual world. That was what the emissary of the Soul n had tried to do with the spiritual emperor of Daniel¡¯s universe before he had interrupted their ns. However, Daniel had never been introduced to the spiritual in, and therefore, he knew nothing of what to expect.For a moment Daniel ignored the presence of the young woman, and instead, closed his eyes and tried to formte a mission with the use of his system.. However, he soon found out that his fears were founded, and that just like in the underworld, his system was not allowed to function by the owner of this domain, which Daniel had guessed to be an entity on the level of Destiny, and Death."Your ability to read and change destiny won¡¯t work here. Anything but that is allowed." Said the young woman, almost as if reading right into Daniel¡¯s mind.The words of the young woman sounded oddly specific to Daniel, who once again closed his eyes, and this time, tried to start ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, which activated without a problem. "How did you-" He started to ask before being interrupted once again."The arrival of one of you sets off all kinds of rms in Lord Spirit. Your apparition did not go unnoticed." Said the young woman with a matter-of-fact tone. She then turned to the wall that was erected behind her, and in front of Daniel, and ced a hand over it. As her hand touched its cold surface, the six walls of the room detached from one another like the paper walls of a box, before melting into an ownerless spiritual essence that dissipated in the air, revealing an immense constructed swamp that reached beyond the eye could see.The young woman noticed the swamp, and reacted to it by muttering, "So many dirty souls in your universe.." she then once again turned to look at Daniel, and added, "Remember this ce, this is your way out if you wish to leave the spiritual world. Good luck."As she finished speaking the young woman started to leave, but before she could, Daniel said, "Wait.. I have some questions."In Daniel¡¯s tone the young woman was able to feel a hint of desperation, so, in a fit ofpassion, she decided to stop, turn to look at him, and asked, "What is it?""I am looking for the spirit of a dead person.. It dissipated a few hours ago in my universe, and went back here. How can I find it?" Asked Daniel, hopeful that a method to reconnect with the spirit of a deceased person actually existed.The young woman looked at Daniel with a somewhat confused expression, then pointed her to her surroundings, and said, "Look around.. Every bit of this world is made of mindless spirits. There are quintillions of them. This person¡¯s spirit better be a special one in life, or you¡¯ll never find it.. Now, if you have any more questions, now is the time, or I will be on my way."While this answer was the exact opposite of what Daniel was hoping to obtain, there was nothing that he could do. However, that did not mean that he had no idea where to start. When he had created the mission with the goal to rescue Alesia, Daniel had read that the second optional objective required him to save her before she would be handed over to the emissary of the Soul n, an eventuality which would have led to her demise exactly two yearster."Where can I find the Soul n?" He asked while struggling to hide his hostility towards the group he had mentioned.The young woman shook her head in disapproval. She knew perfectly well of how unruly the Soul n was. Their reach and power within the spiritual world was incredibly vast, and that was due to the control they had over numerous universes, which they had invaded by purchasing, or stealing their newly opened paths to the spiritual world. They, along with a few other groups, were those against whom the young woman would have suggested him to cross paths with. However, now that Daniel had mentioned them, while she wanted to warn him, she felt like her words would be wasted.Instead, she turned north east from where she was standing, and said, "That way is the closest trading post. In it, you should be able to find some members of the Soul n. You should be able to manage it on your own from there. Good luck with your search." As she finished speaking, she stepped away, and turned herself into a mist of white smoke which disappeared in the wind.The information that the young woman had given to him were not many, but at least now Daniel knew where to start, so turned to look at the direction that she had pointed out for him, and with as much power as he could muster, turned into a beam of light, and shot in the distance.The first thing that Daniel realized about the spiritual world was that it was not a. Even after using his cultivation at the early stage of godhood to dash in a straight line for two hours, he had yet to see a city or a town. At the same time, the spiritual worldcked the curve that a would possess, which convinced Daniel that the spiritual world was, in fact, a t in that extended beyond anyone¡¯s imagination.On his way towards the city, he had seen frozennds, deserts, snowy forests and tropical jungles, but not a single living entity aside from a few spiritual beasts every now and then. These beasts inhabited the spiritual world, and differed from normal beasts by a powerful spirit which was caged within their simrly powerful bodies. If not for a strong body that could protect them from the nature of the spiritual world, their spirits would be ripped out of their bodies, and end up being forced to be part of thendscape.Something that Daniel had noticed, was the fact that every de of grass, tree, boulder, or even pebble, were formed out of lifeless spirits. These object-shaped spirits were once living beings, which after dying, had gone back to the spiritual in in wait to be reincarnated into a living being that was still at its earliest stages of formation. The stronger the spirit would be in life, the bigger and more majestic its form would be in death, but aside from their appearance, there was no real difference between one another.After more than a day spent flying in the same direction at full speed, Daniel finally found a massive city, which appeared underneath him in an instant, and almost went unnoticed.Daniel¡¯s n was toy low, and gather the piece of information that would allow him to pinpoint the location of the spiritual n, a n of spiritual cultivators that focused on merging their spirit and minds into a soul that would allow them to maintain their memories even after being killed in the physical world, and being sent back to the spiritual world.The nature of the soul of the envoy was the reason why Daniel had failed to protect Alesia. He was convinced that by killing him he had solved the problem, but when the child of Iewah had picked up his trinket, which the envoy used as a rope to go back to the physical world soon after, he had moved outside of his system¡¯s spectrum of prediction. Luckily, Daniel had noticed the envoy¡¯s interest in the nature of Alesia¡¯s spirit, an interest that had led him to believe that during the transition of her spirit, the envoy would have found a way to take her spirit and bring it back with him, so that he could study it in the safety of the spiritual world.While his intentions were to go unnoticed, unfortunately, his reckless flying had already caused thousands of people to notice him. These people immediately flew out of the city and stopped him from entering."You don¡¯t have any respect for your surroundings.. Nor your elders, young immortal." Said a decrepit old man who floated at the head of a group of around a hundred people. By his sides, positioned all around the floating figure of Daniel, were twenty more groups which, just like the first one, were led by a single individual, and supported by a hundred more."What do you want?" Asked Daniel with a calm and unperturbed tone. He had noticed that every single one of these thousands of cultivators possessed a cultivation at the level of the early stages of godhood, and that their leaders were already at the mid stages. These groups were clearly part of different factions within the spiritual world.. Factions which, if possible, he would rather not add to his enemies.The leader of a second group, a middle aged man with rough appearances, moved slightly forward and responded before anybody else could, by saying, "Sell your pathway to the Gate of Seven Sins, we will forget the offense, and let you use it for free in the future."Daniel had long since wondered why someone would sell the ess to their own universe, or how it was possible that someone could steal it from its holder, but now that he had met someone that belonged to other universes, in their spirit, he had felt the connection to spaces different than his own. Simrly, other people could feel his own, which by not being separated into the millions of people which had entered the spiritual in from the same universe, marked Daniel as the only user of that pathway, and by extension, as its sole owner.The words of the middle aged man were sessful in riling up his peers, who started to argue to whom Daniel¡¯s connection should have gone to. Daniel¡¯s opinion, or willingness to sell it, were beyond irrelevant to them, and the only reason why they hadn¡¯t ripped it out of him yet, was because that would cause a battle to take ce."This trading post belongs to our n. If anyone has a im on that connection it¡¯s none other than us."".. You wish, you decrepit old mummy. Our leader spotted him first, and we were the first ones on site."This discussion went on for a few minutes, until finally, Daniel, the only one who had yet to talk, asked, "Who are the members of the Soul n?"The thousands of cultivators suddenly turned to look at a group in particr, whose leader smiled in satisfaction, and said, "You are smarter than you look, kid. You have picked the right group." However, by the time he had finished speaking, the looks of the observing cultivators had turned from looks of irritation and jealousy, to looks of horror. "What is wrong with you lot? You have to learn how to take a loss." He added after noticing that the other groups, along with their leaders, were slowly backing away, almost as if horrified by him and his group.Confused by their behaviour, the leader of the spiritual cultivators of the soul n turned around, and where before were a hundred of his people, now were only corpses engulfed in pitch ck mes.In disbelief he turned to look back at Daniel, but before his eyes could point out his position, a handnded onto his forehead. The light in his eyes went out as his consciousness was forcibly pulled out of his weak body, which due to being fused to his spirit, dragged it along in the form of his soul.Daniel incinerated the physical body of the cultivator while holding his soul in his hand, then turned to look at the spectral being, and said with a calm and unhurried tone, "One question. Answer, and I¡¯ll let you go.. lie to me, and I will erase you."

 Chapter 485 Highest Stakes

    ".. lie to me, and I will erase you." Said Daniel to the utterly terrified member of the Soul n, whose spectral head nodded faintly in response. "Good." he then muttered before letting go of him, and turning to look at the other groups. "If any of you has any business with me, say it now, I don¡¯t have much time to deal with you." He said with a domineering tone.The twenty-odd leaders of just as many factions shook their heads in embarrassment before quietly heading back into the city, happy that they weren¡¯t the ones to have been picked by this newly arrived monster.Once alone, Daniel created a bubble of spacetime around himself and the spectral figure, and after letting go of it, he said, "About a year ago, my dimension was opened to the multiverse. An emissary of your n was sent to our major spiritual faction to nurture them into opening our pathway to the spiritual world. However, less than a day ago he was sent back here without a body. I want to know his name, and where I can find him."The soul cultivator, of which nothing but an ethereal ghastly form had remained, looked at Daniel with a pensive expression. After a few seconds, he shook his head, and said with an apologetic tone, "I am sorry, but the multiverse is limitless. The number of dimensions opened in a year alone is in the tens of thousands, and in a good portion of them our faction sends an envoy.. I don¡¯t have the information you are looking for.." As he got to this point, the spectre noticed Daniel¡¯s decreasing level of patience, and before he could do anything, he added, ".. But I can find out!""How are you going to do that?" Asked Daniel with a calmer tone than before.The spectre knew perfectly well that what he was about to say was extremely suspicious, and that this monster would have absolutely no reason to believe him, but now, he had no other choice. "Every emissary is required to leave a report at the end of each of their missions. I can get my hands on it.. But you have to let me go." He said with an odd calmness. Deep down, he was preparing himself for Daniel¡¯s burst of anger, and the eventuality of being erased from existence.However, contrary to what he had thought would happen, Daniel pressed his lips together, and nodded in agreement. "Very well.." he said before releasing his emotional aura, and directing it towards the less resistant mind of the spectre. As this dark aura started to affect the soul of the cultivator, Daniel¡¯s consciousness inserted itself into his mind and pried into his memories, in search for the man¡¯s name. "Bertus.." he muttered before floating closer to the spectre. He then ced his hands over his ethereal shoulders, and with a calm expression which was a pr opposite to the threatening emotions that he was emanating, he added, "Cheat me, and I won¡¯te for you, no.. Instead, I will spend the next tens of thousands of years picking the members of the soul n one by one, and when I¡¯ll be done with them, what will remain of them will be nothing but empty corpses with your name carved on their backs.. I will be a disaster for your n, and live to make sure that everyone knows that you are what caused me to befall on your people.. Have I been clear?"If the soul cultivator had a body, he would have felt a shiver go down his spine. As an entity of mind and spirit he could tell that Daniel meant every word he had spoken, and for a moment, he could not help but wonder what this fool of an envoy could have possibly done to anger such a monster. However, these questions soon disappeared as he agreed to Daniel¡¯s terms by nodding vigorously.Satisfied by his response, Daniel undid the sphere of spacetime that was isting them, and observed as the spectre hurriedly dashed towards the city, where he would do all he can to respect the promise he had made to him.Once alone, Daniel found a mountain cave just a few kilometers away from the city, and closed himself in it. He then activated ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯, and began to cultivate for the first time ever since he had reached the early goodhood stage. The omnipresent pure spiritual essence around him reacted to the attraction created by his power by turning into a vortex that reached all the way, and past the trading post, gobbling up every bit of spiritual essence in the region. Every n¡¯s detachment could feel the sudden movements of spiritual essence in their surroundings, but when they went to investigate what was causing this strange behaviour, and realized that it was Daniel, they decided not to pursue the matter, and instead, patiently waited for him to stop, and possibly leave this region forever.While his body cultivated, Daniel had decided to retire in his mind, where Alesia could keep himpany. Once in, he found himself sitting on the familiar chair in the balcony of his room. Staring at the constructed expanse of stars thaty in front of him, just like he remembered her, was Alesia."You are much more decisive than how I remember you." She said as Daniel joined her in what they were used to doing in the past."I am the same person.." he muttered while taking the cup filled with a constructed liquid that was there just as an added detail to their shared moments. He then put the ss down, and added, "It¡¯s the stakes that have never been higher.."Alesia let out a faint smile which disappeared as fast as it appeared. The two spent the following few minutes in silence. A silence that was interrupted when Daniel asked, "What was death like?""Like the moments before falling asleep. No worries, no burdens, no thoughts.. It was just.. Peaceful." Responded Alesia in an attempt to describe theplicated feeling of being dead with words. However, even she knew that what she had felt could not be easily exined, so she stopped trying soon after starting.Daniel could see the fondness with which Alesia talked about death, and for a moment, he doubted whether he had taken her away from a better ce. "It sounds lonely.." he said without knowing why."It should be, but it is.. Comforting.""Why did you choose to leave?" Asked Daniel with confusion.Once again Alesia smiled, but this time, she didn¡¯t stop. "¡¯I need her to be happy in life¡¯.. That is what you said.. I guess those words mean a lot more than a peaceful rest, if theye from the one you love." she said before once again turning to look at the familiar starry sky, which was identical to the one that covered her home town like a unique nket.Daniel could not help but smile at Alesia¡¯s words, and then, after a few moments of embarrassment, he turned towards her, and in an attempt to break this odd silence, he asked, "Tell me what happened to you.. Was there a moment where you had fun in the past years?" Alesia did notck stories, and as soon as Daniel asked, she mimicked his action, and once facing him, she began to recount all of the odd things that she had seen, which Daniel alternaternated with some stories of his own. This went on for three long days, when finally, Daniel felt someone approach the area where he was hiding."He is back.. Get your mean face on." Said Alesia in a teasing manner to Daniel as he stood up, and left the world he had constructed inside his mind."What do you have for me?" Asked Daniel after waking up from the deep state of concentration with which he was drawing the spiritual essence in the surroundings, and using it to temper his true essence, that was now one step away from the peak of the early stage, and close to the mid stage.As Daniel opened his eyes, he immediately noticed that the soul cultivator who he had left as a spectre without a body, was now living in another body which was not his own. It became clear to Daniel that the soul cultivator had used evil means to obtain this body, but to him, that did not matter. What he cared about was Alesia¡¯s spirit, and he was willing to make a pact with the devil if that was what it would take for him to seed.The man, who had been waiting politely outside of Daniel¡¯s cave, entered as soon as he heard of his voice. Then, as he reached him all the way to the deepest parts of the cave, without waiting for him to ask again, he said, "The name of the envoy you are looking for is Yaqi. He came back in his spectral form reporting his failure in nurturing a champion for the aspect of the Spirit.. But he.."Daniel noticed the confusion in the words of the soul cultivator. "He what? Go on." He said with a hint of impatience."His failure was meant to be punished, but before the n could formte an appropriate punishment, he gave up his position as an envoy.. A prestigious role, which is far more valuable that anything that would have been taken away by the n elders." Added the soul cultivator with a matter-of-fact tone."Did you find out where I can find him?"The soul cultivator nodded in a hurry, "Yes. He requested to retire to the Laboratory, a city a few weeks of travel in that direction." Said the soul cultivator while pointing his hand south-east from Daniel¡¯s position."The Laboratory?" Asked Daniel with confusion.The soul cultivator did not allow Daniel to borate, and preceded him by saying, "Also called the Spirit Grinder, a city where the most powerful kinds of spiritual cultivators test their theories on the nature of a spirit, on the people they capture."As he finished reporting every bit of information which he had gathered, the soul cultivator looked at Daniel with impatience, before asking, "I did what you¡¯ve asked.. Can I go n-" Just as he reached the end of his question, the soul cultivator blinked, and when his eyes opened, Daniel had already disappeared.Already tens of thousands of kilometers away, Daniel dashed through the sky while absorbing the spiritual essence that he could gather while moving at his current speed. In his mind, was the thought of the envoy conducting tests on Alesia¡¯s spirit, a thought that made his blood boil from anger.-----Meanwhile, billions of kilometers away, at the edge of a city that in no way differed from any other amongst the uncountable number of cities present within the spiritual world, was a modern looking building with walls of grey stone, ck colored windows, and a metal door.Around this small building were numerous formations which were set not only to keep intruders away, but also to block any form of light or sound to move in or out of it, leaving only the simple design of the building as the one and only hint regarding what was happening inside.On the other side of this stone wall, was arge and rtively empty room. The walls of this room were decorated with many instruments and trinkets, and the only piece of furniture contained in it, was arge metallic bed on which wasying the body of a white-haired young woman.Tests over other people¡¯s bodies were not rare in the spiritual in, but what was happening in this room would leave most people with eyes opened wide in disbelief. The reason for that, was the fact that the body of the white-haired young woman, while physically tangible, was that of a spirit, which instead of turning into aponent of the spiritual in in wait to reincarnate into a random forming fetus, had maintained its human appearance.Standing next to this table was the figure of a middle aged man, who was using a long metallic needle to pierce certain parts of the woman¡¯s body, while muttering, "What are you.. What makes you so special.." This middle aged man was the envoy which Daniel had encountered, and the spiritual body on which he was carrying his experiments was, of course, Alesia¡¯s spirit.

 Chapter 486 Entering Shark Infested Waters

    In the past millions of years, the study of the maniption of the spirit had slowly and yet constantly evolved into bing a full fledged science, more advanced than any other types of cultivation. This science included, amongst the most notorious topics, the merging of different amounts of one¡¯s spirit with an uncountable number of innate powers, splitting one¡¯s spirit into their own bodies, moving spirits from one species to another, and many more. All of this was possible thanks to the versatile nature of the spirit, but this versatility had never been something evident to the spiritual schrs. What was known of the spirit in the present, was the fruit of millions of years of testing, and had required countless experiments which, just like trying to guess a number between one and a million by starting from one and moving up, were conducted by using a constant stream of souls in a process of trial and error.Originally, these schrs were kept in the territories of their groups of origin to prevent their research from being stolen, but as time passed, the ruling conscious inhabitants of the spiritual world had realized that researchers would benefit from one another, and that what was needed was not a study room where they could dedicate themselves to research, only to be burdened by the problems of their faction at the end of the day.. But a sanctuary where they would live and breath their own research.In order to aid this level of dedication, the Laboratory had been created. A city inhabited by the most brilliant and often sadistic spiritual cultivators, who had decided to dedicate virtually all of their nearly-infinite lives in the pursuit of a form of collective white whale.. The perfect and most powerful path of spiritual cultivation. Now, thousands of researchers lived in the Laboratory, focusing on their individual research and only interacting with each other when they needed suggestions, validation for their theories, or to check whether one of the others had already conducted the same research.-----For two long weeks Daniel had traveled towards the Laboratory at full speed, and without taking a moment of rest. Even when attacked, he would curve the space around his body to create a spatial curvature that would allow him to leave his pursuers in the dust. Finally, at the end of these fifteen days, he found himself standing in front of it.. A squarely built city that extended for hundreds of kilometers in each direction, and that was filled with identical simple buildings, all protected by numerous powerful formations.Daniel¡¯s first instinct was to barge into the city and ughter his way to Alesia¡¯s spirit, but the moment he saw the size of the city, and felt the power of many of its inhabitants, it became clear that forcing his way in was not a good choice. Without the power of creating missions he was as clueless as everybody else, so moving with caution was a necessity which, fortunately, he had not forgotten.Instead of barging in, hended on the entrance of the city and walked towards the gate, where he was stopped by a cultivator at thete godhood stage. "Halt. Show me your identity medal, and state who you are visiting, and for what reason." The guard ordered, unbothered by the fact that Daniel was holding the rights to a whole universe in his body, and seemed to be traveling alone. In his mind, since this young man could afford to reach the city without being robbed or killed, then he must have been the young inheritor of a big n, and a famous one at that."I am not here to visit. I am moving in." Responded Daniel with a t tone and an aloof expression. After thinking carefully about it, Daniel hade to the conclusion that there were only three ways for him to enter the Laboratory. The first way was to kill his way in, an option which he had discarded the moment he had seen the degree of power of which the city could count on. The second way was to pretend to be a member of the Soul n, and im that he was there to visit the former envoy that had just moved in. This path would have allowed him not only to enter, but also to find Yaqi, and by extension, Alesia¡¯s spirit. However, this path had be unavable the moment the guard had spoken. He was not aware that he needed identification to enter the Laboratory, and from the behaviour of the guards, Daniel had no doubt that, even if he said that he had lost it, they wouldn¡¯t have believed him.What was left was for Daniel to pursue his third option, which was to try and enter as a researcher.After Daniel¡¯s response, a second guard disappeared from his post, and reappeared a few secondster along with a scrawny man dressed in a white coat. He was wearing a pair of thick sses partially covered by his long, greasy and unkept grey hair."Which n or ns are your patreons, and what is your research about?" Asked the scrawny researcher without bothering with stating his name, or asking for Daniel¡¯s.Daniel looked at this researcher with contempt, then said, "I am the leader of my n, and my research is none of your damn business.""Ohh, well said." said the researcher while letting out a faint smile. This was not the first time that a cultivator new to the spiritual world had tried to enter the Laboratory. After all, each founder of a faction was a pioneer in their personal path of cultivation, which they would simplify and distribute to their followers. Once these cultivators would reach the spiritual world, they would often begin to research their personal path of cultivation, usually in hope to find their limits, or even to replicate it.The smile on the researcher¡¯s face disappeared soon after, as he said with a more polite and yet colder tone. "It isn¡¯t impossible to grant you entry to our little paradise, but as a requirement, you have to justify your permanence. Give me a broad description of your research, or leave. Who knows, you might make it to the next city without being killed by those who are eyeing you as we speak.."In the physical world, revealing the nature of someone¡¯s unique ability was a huge taboo, so as to ask about it, but, s, Daniel had no choice.. So he let out a bit of his true immortal essence, which contained his ki, spiritual essence, and mental power in the space around him.The moment Daniel¡¯s essence left his body, dozens of cultivators left their buildings, and regrouped in the space a few hundred meters above the city, where they looked at Daniel¡¯s power with faces and hearts filled with shock. What bound these cultivators together was the fact that their research was either focused on merging spiritual essence with a human¡¯s two other natural powers, or researched how to make a spirit independent from the spiritual in."That¡¯s impossible.." muttered an old man who suddenly appeared next to the scrawny researcher, and without asking for permission, trapped a bit of Daniel¡¯s essence into his own to analyze it.Daniel¡¯s power was currently floating within the old man¡¯s essence and around his own body, and yet, while it was obvious what one of itsponents was his spirit, this true essence had absolutely no connection with the surrounding space, and almost did not feel as it should have been in the spiritual world. In a way, it almost felt as Daniel¡¯s true essence was a microscopic contrasting version of the spiritual in itself, where only his spirit was allowed to exist."What are you seeing?" Asked the scrawny man with interest.The old man did not respond directly, and instead looked at the essence of true immortality with curiosity, while muttering, "How can they have merged so cleanly.. they should fight one another before being able to.. It is not constructed either, but maybe alchemical.. No, no.. this doesn¡¯t make any sense."After talking out loud for a few more seconds, the old man released Daniel¡¯s power. He then turned to look at the scrawny researcher, and said, "I want him." The scrawny man scoffed at the old man¡¯s words, who added with a matter-of-fact tone, "Having him as a test subject will be of great benefit to my research. No one can use him better than I.""Are you kidding? Your research is worth nothing anymore. You have spent the past four hundred thousand years trying to find a way to merge mind power, physical essence and the spirit into one essence. Just by existing, he is ahead of you on your own research." said the scrawny man in reprimand.The words of the scrawny man caused the old man¡¯s pride to go down like a castle of cards. He could not deny what his colleague had said, so after a few moments spent wondering whether he had wasted half a million years or not, he went back to his building while feeling humiliated and with no purpose."The same goes for you too. Go back to your research, or I will personally escort you out of the city." Said the scrawny man to the observing cultivators, who were thinking of trying their luck the same way the old man had. Once alone with Daniel, he turned to look back at him, and asked with an extremely serious tone, "I assume that you are already aware of how to replicate your path of cultivation, and that your research is more about the.. Detachment of your spirit from the spiritual in.. Am I correct?"Daniel nodded faintly in response.Satisfied by Daniel¡¯s response, the scrawny researcher fixed his sses, and with a big smile, said, "Well, you are going to need a lot of spirits to test that on. You may enter the Laboratory.. Feel free to pick an empty facility, and let me know if you are in need of materials, or test subjects.. I will take care of it for you."As he finished speaking, the scrawny man turned towards the guard that had called him, and with a hint of his head, ordered him to escort Daniel in picking his residence. However, before the two could part ways, Daniel stepped forward, and said, "I would like to reside around people that research the purity of a spirit, if possible."The scrawny man once again fixed his sses while looking at Daniel with a face twisted in confusion. He could not understand why Daniel, who possessed a power which was the pr opposite of a pure spirit, could have to gain from moving next to those who researched it.. Regardless, since there was no reason to refuse, he said, "Of course, and if you wish to exchange pointers with your colleagues, just write your questions on the board present in the square right in the middle of the city.. Someone might answer with a date and location, when you will be able to discuss your problem."Satisfied by this answer, Daniel bowed in appreciation before following the guard into the city.Around twenty minutester, Daniel had found an empty facility right at the edge of the section of the city that was dedicated to those who researched the degree of purity of spirit that one could achieve in the physical realm, after which he parted from the guard. Once alone, however, instead of settling down in his new house, he went directly to the core of the city, where a square with arge stone pir in its middle had been built. On this pir were tens of thousands of sheets of paper, and on each of them was written a request, or a question.Daniel ignored the odd looks of the other researchers, and directly approached the pir, on which he ced a message of his own.____________________________Looking to discuss the possible short and long-term drawbacks of achieving a clean separation between the physical body, and a conscious spirit. Open to a partnership regarding my next experiment (Selection will be based on the aforementioned discussion).____________________________

 Chapter 487 A Risky Plan

    Daniel¡¯s idea was simple in theory. Since most researchers would choose to close themselves into their facilities to focus on their work, and would onlye out when they needed something, Daniel had decided that instead of personally looking for the former envoy, it would have been better to set a trap, in hope that he woulde to him. Naturally, Daniel was aware that this method would require some time, but without his system, that was the best approach he could think of.By following this path Daniel was aware that he would be forced to entertain a lot of other researchers before finallying face to face with Yaqi, and that was what happened for the following few weeks, but thankfully, those conversations were not pointless.Initially most of these cultivators would be confused by Daniel¡¯s interest in the topic. After all, word regarding the nature of his research being the detachment of a spirit from the spiritual world had spread far and wide in theboratory, to a point where only the most reclusive within the city had yet to learn about it. However, Daniel would always manage to connect this suspicious interest with the nature of the research people knew him for.After three weeks, Daniel had talked with more than twenty researchers, and from them, he had tried to gather enough information to narrow the scope of his search.. He did so by inquiring about the facilities inhabited by reclusive researchers, cultivators who had just recently moved into the Laboratory, and about facilities inhabited by the cultivators of the Soul n, who were the only ones who would be aware of where Yaqi was hiding, or how to find him.Due to the strict security protocols of the Laboratory, it was impossible for other researchers to know who inhabited which facility, and that was the reason why Daniel had been forced to, as inconspicuous as possible, inquire about the empty buildings which had been recently upied, as well as the new faces.Unfortunately, even after a month of intel gathering, Daniel was still left with a long list of a few dozen buildings spread all around the city. Even though the number was manageable in case he decided to break into each and every one of them, Daniel could not help but consider whether doing so would alert those around him before he could find Alesia. Even if the right facility was within his list, he needed to learn more.-----"A millionth of one percent of mind power, a hundredth of one percent of physical essence, and the rest is spirit. You cannot lower them any more than that. Otherwise you either lose consciousness, or the spirit gets pulled out of your body by the connection, and is taken back here. Either way, your spirit is back here in the spiritual world! What is so hard to understand?" Asked a middle aged woman dressed in worn out researcher clothes with exasperation.This woman was sitting at arge round table in thepany of three other people, with whom she was having an extremely heated conversation. Amongst these three people was Daniel, who had observed in silence as she and another of them ripped each other¡¯s work apart with sarcasm and veiled insults."Unbelievable.. If I was as wrong as you are, I would be this hysterical as well. I would feel like I had wasted thest few thousand years of work. My research is public, so do not act as if you didn¡¯t know that it proves you wrong." Responded a man who appeared to be in histe twenties. His tone was calm andposed, and along with his rtively younger age with which he challenged the woman¡¯s vast experience, he was to me for most of the woman¡¯s irritation.The woman scoffed in disdain, then added, "Your research proves nothing. As if those dumb thralls could be considered cultivators. If anything, it proves me right. Anything lower than a millionth of one percent of mind power is not doable. You might as well be raising strong beasts at this point."As the two argued, Daniel remained in silence. He and the fourth researcher were trying to find a moment in which they could intervene, and maybe turn the conversation into a more productive one, but the exchange between the two seemed to be nowhere near an end."They do not like each other, do they?" Asked Daniel while taking a sip of his tea."This discussion is on the more polite side. At least they are not fighting it out.. yet." Responded the fourth researcher, an amiable man in his thirties, who had spent thest hour mimicking Daniel¡¯s actions in an attempt to make him feelfortable in his presence.After a few more pointless minutes spent in wait for the two to stop, Daniel put his cup down, and asked, "What is the point of cultivation if you can¡¯t retain the full extent of your consciousness?" "EXACTLY!" Eximed the middle-aged woman, happy that Daniel seemed to have taken her side.The younger researcher turned to look at Daniel with disapproval before saying, "The point of cultivation is to gain power, and that does not necessarily have to be your own. Every warrior produced by my research is loyal, and they follow my orders to the death. It took me millions of attempts to perfect them.""And it sounds extremely useful, but our research is dedicated to the attainment of individual power, while what you are producing weapons. It doesn¡¯t sound like a reasonableparison." Said Daniel with a dismissive tone that caused the young-looking researcher to feel embarrassed. He then casually turned to look back at the calmer of the four, and added, "I have been having problems with my tests.. I am trying to find the point in time which is the most appropriate to merge the mind with the spirit. Do you know anything about that?""I still find it hard to understand why you would bother with researching something that is the pr opposite of your cultivation. If anything, I would try to replicate that.. a n with such a unique power would be a force to be reckoned with." Said the middle aged woman before her colleague could answer his question.Daniel had found himself in front of thesements more times than he had bothered himself to count, and would always answer it by saying, "I have just joined theboratory, and don¡¯t have any data.. I am trying to gather themon knowledge that you all possess before starting the testing.""It¡¯s not like we haven¡¯t done the same thing when we first came here." Said the calmer researcher before turning to look at Daniel, and adding with a serious tone, "What you are asking is not reallymon knowledge. The span of life of a cultivator is so long, that such a research would require a truly uncountable number of test subjects, researchers, and time. Only the ns who have studied such paths of cultivation for eons, have bothered themselves with doing that.. ns like the Soul n, and the Living Animus.After hearing the name ¡¯Soul n¡¯, Daniel straightened his back, and said, "I have heard of the Soul n. Cultivators who merge spirit and mind evenly.. I wonder when I will get to meet them, and have a chat with them about it.""Nothing as impressive as your own path. Spirit, body and mind all merged together into a stronger form of power.. I would pay anything to know how you achieved that." Said the younger cultivator, brushing off the embarrassment he had felt from Daniel¡¯s previousment.At first, when Daniel had just arrived, he had felt confused by other people¡¯s interest towards his true immortal essence. After all, the multiverse was infinite, and he believed that someone was bound to discover the same path of cultivation on which he had stumbled on. Even in the spiritual world there existed cultivators with three developed forms of power, like the young woman that had weed, but he was quickly proven wrong.Amongst an infinite number of cultivators, only an infinitesimal part had be a champion of Destiny, and amongst them, only Daniel possessed the ability to influence karma, and by extension, affect his luck, making him unique on a multiversal level.Daniel brushed off the words of the young-looking researcher with a faint smile, but decided to remain quiet. A few momentster, when he started to believe that this meeting had been as unsessful as the others, the fourth researcher said, "The Soul n are a major power in the spiritual world.. They have awork of researchers that interact with one another if need be.. but even they need to explore different paths to verify whether they are on the right path, or when they get stuck. I have heard that one of them will appear in the next forum, three days from now.""A forum? What is that?" Daniel blurted out in an attempt to stop himself from asking the name of this researcher."It is what we are having right now, but on a muchrger scale. Some researchers expose their problems to arger group that can aid or ask questions." Responded the fourth researcher.Knowing the location of a member of a researcher of the Soul n had been the very first concrete step forward towards Daniel¡¯s goal, and if not for his self control, he would have beamed out with joy. Luckily he was able to contain himself. "I might join then. Maybe I will have a chance to have a conversation with them." He said before picking his cup back up, and taking another sip of his now lukewarm tea.For two more hours Daniel entertained the three cultivators who, the morefortable they became with him, the more invasive and personal their questions about his cultivation would be. Finally, after five long hours since the beginning of their meeting, he was able to take his leave, and go back to his facility.-----"Your n is too dangerous." Said Alesia from within Daniel¡¯s mind, as he studied the map of the Laboratory in an attempt to find a facility closer to the site where the forum would take ce.As one day after another passed within the spiritual world, Daniel had started to feel a certain degree of anxiousness. He knew that before his intervention on Anima, the spiritual emperor would have given Alesia to the envoy right after regaining his rity. Yaqi would have then taken her back into the spiritual world and conducted his experiments on her for two years, after which she would have died. However, since his actions had already affected the future, Daniel was not sure whether he could rely on his system anymore.This uncertainty had started to weigh on him to a point where he became more daring, and willing to thread the more risky path. The n he had formted was to kidnap the researcher of the Soul n from the forum, take them back into his facility, and once there, force Yaqi¡¯s position out of them in any way possible.Alesia had noticed Daniel¡¯s state of mind. In fact, she was surrounded by it.. but no matter how many times she tried to discourage him from going through with it, or how many times she listed all of the things that could go wrong, due to theck of a better option, nothing would change in Daniel¡¯s ns.The ce where the forum was held was a ce called Agora, a sort of small venue built as a half stadium or an auction house, in which the researchers who registered would be able to expose their problems from a small stage, to a bigger crowd of researchers.The Agora was built right in the middle of the Laboratory, and was surrounded by the city¡¯s many research districts. The district where Daniel was staying was on the edge of the Laboratory, and therefore, was not appropriate for his n, so he paid a visit to the researcher with sses, whom heter found out to be one of the researchers of the biggest n in the spiritual world, and asked to be moved closer to the core of the city, a district a few hundred meters away from the Agora.In the following three days prepared for the forum by moving into his new facility and filling it with protective formations. Then, he began to wait. At the end of these three days, the date of the forum had finally arrived.

 Chapter 488 The Forum

    ording to rules, the attendance of the forum was opened to all the researchers within the Laboratory, but only those registered were allowed to ask questions. Most of those who had decided to attend the forum did so out of boredom, or in hope to deepen their knowledge of different paths in the same way a schr would delve into different perspectives in hope to correct, or deepen their own opinion.

    Supposedly, Daniel¡¯s presence was caused by the novelty of the event, but in reality, he could not possibly care less about his knowledge regarding the spirit, or the spiritual world. All he cared about was to find the researcher of the Soul n.

    When he reached the middle of the city Daniel found himself in front of a simple structureposed ofrge white columns that surrounded a semi-circle of stone-cut stands, where all of the attendants would sit. The stands were built around a small round tform with a simple podium in the middle, behind which was arge stone wall that would be used as a board on which, if needed, the participants would carve their questions as clearly as possible for everyone to understand.

    At the entrance of the Agora was a line of guards that had been stationed there not to regte the entry of the attendants, but to make sure that no one would cause any trouble to the researchers who had decided to participate. That was one of the conditions requested by the many ns who had started the Laboratory. As long as nobody would interfere with the conceptual idea of the Laboratory, the guards would do nothing, and act as if they were just part of the scenery.

    "Young man!" shouted an old man in red robes to Daniel, who had just walked past the line of guards, and was currently looking for a ce to sit. The red-robed old man was sitting in the second line from the front and to the left side, right within the area reserved for the most knowledgeable researchers within the Laboratory, and as he saw Daniel, he waved his hands with the intention of making him join him.

    Daniel had met this old man before. He was the very first researcher that had answered to the request he had left in the column, right after entering the Laboratory, but instead of caring to discuss Daniel¡¯s reported perplexity on the achievable purity of one¡¯s spirit in the physical world, he had spent the whole encounter trying to pry into his path of cultivation. From the question that he had asked, Daniel was sure that this old man had already guessed that his independent spirit, while never seen before, was likely to be a consequence of his cultivation.

    Of this old man, Daniel knew that he was one of the founding researchers of the Laboratory, and that he had created the path of cultivation used by the young woman that he had met at the entrance of the spiritual world. A path that created cultivators in possession of an equally powerful, and yet separated spirit, mind, and body.

    While this method was unique and the results were interesting to him, Daniel felt nothing but disgust for this man, as from what he had heard of his research, the discovery of this method, as well as the creation of one of those cultivators, required the sacrifice of billions of bodies and spirits just to find those with the right affinity to the consciousness. Daniel was sure that if he could have read the karma of this old man, the number would have been negative, as well as astronomical.

    Unfortunately, Daniel needed to conform to the cruelty of this city, and therefore, could not afford to show his disgust no matter how much he despised every single entity that surrounded him. "Professor Liang." Said Daniel while feigning a smile and walking towards the old man, next to which he sat right after.

    In the extremely vast amount of time in which the Laboratory had existed, no other new researcher had ever dared to sit close to the stage, but for Daniel, no oneined. That was not only because of the support he seemed to have from the old cultivator, but also because he was believed to possess a knowledge on cultivation whose usefulness rivaled their own.. After all, the value of a researcher was not dictated by how extensive their knowledge of petty things was, but from the power that their research could generate.

    By being the first cultivator with an evenly matched body, mind and spirit, Daniel was seen highly by the other researchers. This had granted him a status that had permitted him to meet with ancient and important members of themunity.

    "What have youe here to do? I don¡¯t remember any of today¡¯s topics being of interest to you." Said the old man while stretching his legs forwards, and folding his arms in front of his chest.

    Daniel smiled in response, and after a few moments, he said, "My interest is in the event. If I have to be here for a long time, I might as well get used to the traditions of the Laboratory.. And make friends."

    The old man nodded in approval. He more than anybody else had a great impression of Daniel, who, despite his spirit, body and mind revealed an age in thete twenties, he not only was a powerful entity at the early godhood stage, but also acted in a clever way,pletely opposite to the behaviour of the many generations of young men and women at his age present in his extremely vast family tree.

    The two kept discussing different topics while the Agora filled out, after which, around twenty minutester, two people walked out of the line of pirs that surrounded the stage and in the direction of the podium. This couple wasposed of a young man in histe teens, and a rough looking old man. Once on the podium, the young man stood to the side, while the old man said, "Emotional Seekers. My problem is simple. As many of you know I have been researching a method to create spiritual zombies. Specifically, to damage the mind permanently, extrapte the spirit, and nt the two powers into an empty and more powerful body."

    "Unfortunately, I find myself unable to damage the mind without causing the spirit to dissipate into the spiritual world. I seek the knowledge of those with an expertise in the connection between mental power and spiritual essence." The words of the rough old man were of no real interest for most cultivators, who looked away, or started to talk to one another in wait for the next request. However, amongst the many researchers, there were a few interested ones.

    "Have you tried holy fire? It should slow the damage and heal the mind just enough to keep it working."

    "Holy fire? That will turn them into vegetables. The essence of darkness is what he needs."

    "You are both wrong. It can only be done through surgery. You have to get in their heads, and start chopping pieces of their brains out."

    One after the other the observers gave their solutions, which other than giving Daniel the creeps, did absolutely nothing to help the cultivator. However, just as the timer wasing to an end, and the rough-looking old cultivator needed to leave, the red-robed researcher that was sitting next to Daniel said, "Why don¡¯t you show us how you do it? We might find the error if we see it."

    The answer of this revered researcher seemed to be received with tion from the rough looking old man, who nodded in approval, and hastily grabbed the shoulder of the kid that was standing next to him and pulled him next to him. Once in the middle of the stage, the rough looking old man took a small gem out of his pocket, and ced it on the forehead of the young man.

    The expression of the young man slowly started to unfocus. To a normal human this process would make absolutely no sense, but for those with a powerful mind and spirit, it was clear what was happening. Once the gem had touched the forehead of the kid, it had synchronized to his body, absorbing his essences into its atoms, and effectively bing a part of the young man¡¯s body.

    Once a part of him, the gem started to pull the consciousness out of the young man¡¯s original body, and slowly grind it into nothingness.

    The face of the young man became more and more unfocused, until finally, around a minuteter, his consciousness suddenly disappeared. Following his consciousness was the spirit, which left the body, that dropped lifeless on the ground, and merged into the spiritual world that surrounded them.

    Daniel observed this whole experiment with his eyes closed. In his mind were images of how he would have ripped the windpipe out of the throat of each and every one of these cultivators, but unfortunately, he could not. In fact, since they were cultivators, he could not even afford to show fluctuations in his spirit, which he was able to hide behind theplexity of his unique type of essence.

    "I think that that youngster over there was half right. The mind cannot be a cultivated one, the body needs to be modified, and the control over what is left muste from some form of mental power. It is either that, or you create a product that can stop itself from damaging too much of the subject¡¯s mind." Said the red-robed old man that sat next to Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Just as he finished speaking, a loud and clear gong resounded through the whole venue. This gong caused the rough looking old man to quiet any form of curiosity towards the old master¡¯s opinion, and quietly leave while writing notes into his notebook.

    As the cultivator of the Emotional Seekers left, the old man turned to look at Daniel, and with a half smile, he said, "Minor ns only get five minutes."

    What followed were a series of eight more cultivators which requested for help in their, to say the least, atrocious and brutal experiments. Each of them worse than the other, causing Daniel¡¯s opinion of the spiritual world, as well as the aspect of Spirit, to fall below ground level. Of one thing he was sure. If there was ever a choice for mercy when dealing with one of these cultivators, he would not even consider it.

    Thest two of these nine consecutive researchers were members of high level ns, and as such, they were granted thirty minutes each. As thest of these researchers left the stage,st on the queue of that day¡¯s forum, walked in a stunningly beautiful young woman. She was wearing a grey robe with a cut to the side that uncovered her right leg all the way up to her waist, and an upper part that couldn¡¯t contain her ample chest.

    This young woman, who appeared to be in her mid twenties, walked into the stage with an aloof expression. She then looked at the first two lines of researchers, as if prohibiting the others from answering a question she had yet to ask, and said, "Soul n. I am researching interspecies resonance of the Soul to the bodies of legendary beasts."

    At the mention of the Soul n Daniel straightened his back, and looked at the young woman with interest. She was the person that he had been waiting for, and right now, he was memorizing her face, her silhouette, and the sound of her voice.

    The young woman noticed Daniel¡¯s attentions, and for a moment she thought of asking him whether he had a method to solve her problem, but before she could, an old woman sitting in the front line interjected by saying, "Why don¡¯t you tell us what happens when you use the same technique used for human possession?"

    Daniel had just been saved from ending up in an ufortable situation, so he tried to rx and go back to nning while sighing in relief.

 Chapter 489 A Surprisingly Forced Invitation

    Contrary to most of the others, the question of the young-looking researcher of the Soul n was only answered by a few selected individuals, and the reason for that was obvious even for a first-timer like Daniel. The time on stage for each researcher was limited, and while those who belonged to big ns were allowed to stay as long as they would like provided that there was nobody else after them, they would rarely do so. This slightly different form of exchange was conducted more as a public conversation between a few high ranking researchers, to which, as a show of respect, those whocked a useful take to the problem would stay out of to avoid wasting time.

    Daniel was quick to realize this, and since he was not in the position to intervene even if he wanted to, he chose to stay quiet, and let the exchange of opinions proceed without him. Instead, he spent the following ten minutes pretending to be bored by the subject that was being discussed, until finally, after only fifteen minutes since the beginning of the exchange, he extended a polite greeting to the red-robed cultivator that was sitting next to him. He then sprung up on his feet, and walked away in front of all of those present.

    To walk out in this situation was considered an offence towards a researcher¡¯s work, but Daniel had a reason for acting like that. He needed to appear uninterested and unrted to the very existence of this young woman, so that he would not appear suspicious in the future of what he was nning to do.

    -----

    Soon enough, one question after another, the thirty minutes had passed. No one would have stopped the researcher of the Soul n from continuing, had she wanted to, but it was tradition that the researchers respected their time limit, both to allow the researchers of smaller n, who would never dare to leave while in the middle of a conversation, to go back to their work, as well as to prevent researchers from finding a distraction from their work in what was being discussed.

    The Soul n was known as an overbearing n, and yet, since the young woman had found this conversation useful, and had managed to find a certain level of inspiration that would fuel her research for the following few hundred years, she decided to respect this tradition. After greeting the researchers whose standing could match her own, she left the Agora, and headed back towards her research facility along with a few other researchers, who could be considered her juniors.

    The walk backsted a few minutes, in which the researchers that had apanied her asked for her guidance in their own problems, only to leave soon after. After roughly ten minutes, her facility appeared on sight, and she was left alone. She dragged her feet towards the familiar building in which she had spent so many years, thinking of the direction towards which her inspiration would take her research. However, just as she came close to the entrance of the formation that protected what had been her private space for thousands of years, her surroundings became a blur, and she found herself inside arge empty room.

    Her power surged in an instant, and she tried to use it to force herself out of this unknown space, but the room was protected by a spatial formation constructed with the essences of darkness.. More specifically, the concept of absorption, which would absorb a great amount of her power almost as fast as it would be produced, depriving her of the strength to escape.

    Unable to leave, she suddenly calmed down and looked around the room in hope to find her bearings. It was only a few momentster that her eyesnded on Daniel¡¯s figure, who was resting against the wall while looking at her with aposed attitude.

    "You.." she muttered before releasing more of her power in an attempt to wrestle the control of the surrounding space out of Daniel¡¯s hands. Unfortunately, it did not matter how much power she tried to use, the formation seemed to be a bottomless pit that would absorb as much as she would release at an even speed.

    "It¡¯s pointless. Even if you were to destroy this formation, there are a dozen more that will keep you trapped there.." Muttered Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone and a faint smile. Then, after suddenly turning serious, he added, "At least this one isn¡¯t painful."

    The young woman stopped trying to escape. Instead, she turned to look at him and with a calmer attitude that betrayed her seething anger, she said, "You are making a big mistake. Release me this instant, or your existence will be obliterated by the end of today." There was no fear in her voice. Just an immense anger paired with a vast degree of shock. Daniel¡¯s actions were so random, sudden and in the open, that kidnapping someone from the Laboratory was akin to murdering someone while in the middle of arge crowd.. And yet, he had had the guts to do just that.

    Daniel ignored the threats of the young woman. He used his elbows to push himself away from the wall, and walked in her direction. Once just a few steps away, his right arm became a blur that approached her face, grabbed her, and pulled her closer to him. The young woman had noticed Daniel¡¯s hand approaching, but due to the restriction of the formation, she was unable to react in time.

    While wing at the mouth of the young woman Daniel released his emotional aura, charged with the hate, disgust and killing intent he felt for her and the other researchers he had met, and said with a bone chilling tone, "Yaqi. Tell me where he is, or I will make you wish for a quick death."

    The young woman noticed Daniel¡¯s seriousness, and yet, she scoffed at him. She then grabbed his wrist and pulled her head away from his grasp. "You don¡¯t understand.. You are already dead, and you don¡¯t even know it yet." She right before the sound of knocking reached Daniel¡¯s ears.

    Daniel silently looked at the door from which originated the rhythmic sound, and before long, he turned towards the young woman, and said, "This is yourst chance to answer. I won¡¯t be as nice if I have to ask again." His tone was calm and unbothered to a point where, to the young woman, it did not seem that Daniel had understood in what kind of situation he was. In her mind that could have only been because Daniel was new, and had no idea of the degree of power possessed by the inhabitants of the spiritual world, and yet, as she saw his confidence, she could not help but feel slightly uneasy.

    Her silence was answered by a look of disappointment from Daniel, who calmly walked towards the door, and opened it. "What is it?" He asked the group of guards that were waiting outside, apanied by the researcher in sses whom he had met when moving into the Laboratory.

    "Sorry to bother you.. but the temporal rm of one of the Laboratory¡¯s VIPs went off. When we went to check whether she had simply forgotten to reset it once back at her facility from the forum, we found it empty. We are currently looking for her." Said the man in researcher clothes with messy hair, and thick sses. Despite his appearance, this man¡¯s main upation was not his research, but the security of the Laboratory. That was a task that had been assigned to him ever since the very creation of this sanctuary.

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders in confusion. "Who is it that you are looking for?" he asked.

    "A researcher of the Soul n. A young and good looking woman with a cultivation at thete godhood stage. She wasst seen wearing brown robes with a cut to the right side. She was thest speaker at today¡¯s forum." Said the man with sses while taking a step closer to the door.

    With feigned confusion, Daniel pressed his shoulder against the door frame, and said, "Was there someone like that at the forum?"

    The first thing that the man with sses had done after the disappearance of the young woman, was to check with the guards of the Agora, who had reported that Daniel appeared uninterested by the young woman¡¯s question, and left early, which gave legitimacy to Daniel¡¯s reaction, but his instincts told him that something was odd.

    "Yes. She was thest one.." He said before letting the phrase trail off. After a few moments of silence, he looked past Daniel¡¯s figure and into the room, but the interior was clouded by various formations. "Would you mind if we took a look inside?" He then casually asked.

    Daniel¡¯s expression turned from one of confusion and irritation, into one of outrage. "This is ridiculous. What is the point of having a private research facility if you barge in whenever something happens? Is this really about a lost researcher? Or is it really about my own research?" He asked with indignation.

    "It¡¯s nothing like that. There has never been a kidnapping of a high profile researcher in the Laboratory ever since it was created.. And even when it happened before that, we would at least have a trace of the spirit.. But she is just gone. We are looking for her in other facilities as we speak, starting from those who have seen herst." Responded the man with sses with what appeared like a genuine apologetic attitude.

    Daniel appeared to be halfway convinced by these words, but before he could say anything, the man with sses added, "We can wait right here while you gather your research, but you have to release the protective formations right now."

    With no reason to refuse, Daniel sighed in resignation, and muttered, "Fine.." he then deactivated every single cloaking formation around the facility by waving his hand, revealing a room filled with basic furniture whose surfaces were entirely covered by uncountable sheets of paper. Once finished, Daniel quickly made sure that the group of guards had no intention of barging in before going back inside, and starting to collect what appeared to be the research on which he had worked on since his arrival to the Laboratory. Daniel hurriedly recovered every single piece of paper, and erased the ckboards mounted on the wall almost as if to protect the work of his life.

    The researcher with sses noticed this behaviour, but paid no mind to it, as it was not odd in the situation Daniel was currently in. When Daniel was visibly done, he once again moved closer to the door, "Can we enter now?" he asked while poking in with his head.

    "Come in.." Said Daniel while piling up his research, and hiding it into his spatial ring.

    "Enjoy yourst moments." Said the young woman with contempt. She was standing in a cage about a third of the size of the main hall ced in the left corner, and that could only be seen once inside the residence. She could not understand why Daniel wouldmit suicide by letting them in, but as she saw the guards and the man with sses enter the hall, she could not help but begin to think of all the ways she could have killed Daniel once freed. "I am here! It was him! He kidnapped me!" She shouted with anger and indignation.

    Unfortunately, her hopes for revenge were shattered as the man with sses scouted the room with his eyes, and ignored her presencepletely. "Hey! I am here!! LOOK AT ME!" She screamed repeatedly while using every bit of power left in her body to struggle against the formation.. But, s, that was all for nothing.

    What she did not know was that the cage in which Daniel had trapped her was not amon one. Space and darkness were the essences that were incapacitating and trapping here, but there was another essence within the formation. One that separated her from the rest of the facility not by solid space, but by time. Where she was standing, the man with sses could see nothing but an empty corner of the room, as her cage was physically there, but stuck twenty minutes in the future.

 Chapter 490 Systemless Karmic Retribution

    The researcher of the Soul n kept punching the barrier that was trapping her, unaware of why the man in sses could neither hear, or see her. The thought of him being in on the kidnapping would have crossed her mind, had the guards not been acting the exact same way, looking for her in every room of the residence with diligence.

    "Is this something I will have to expect to happen often in the future?" Asked Daniel with irritation while sitting onto one of the now clean chairs.

    The man with sses looked at the empty residence with alertness, but after failing to notice any kind of suspicious activity, he turned to look at Daniel, and said with a sheepish tone, "I assure you this is a special asion. As I have told you, this has never happened before." Even when answering to Daniel, he never stopped going through the residence¡¯s many rooms, checking for the presence of any source of power or small formation left active despite his initial request of deactivating them.

    Luckily for Daniel, none of these cultivators had any form ofprehension towards the essence of spacetime, whose nature wasposed of both space and time, but appeared as a kind of essencepletely different, and almost impossible to notice without at least a basic knowledge of it. To the eyes of an inexperienced individual, a formation created with the essence of spacetime would bepletely undetectable, and to their senses, the area it upied would appear like normal empty space.

    "So you say, but it is an awful coincidence that this happened only weeks after my arrival." muttered Daniel while trying to hide his spatial ring within one of the spatial pockets he had created on his clothes. The man with sses noticed Daniel¡¯s actions, and interpreted them as him being protective of his research, so he did not pursue it. Instead, he took a seat in one of the free chairs ced next to the one that Daniel was using, and waited in silence.

    Around ten minutester, the guards regrouped in the main hall, where Daniel and the researcher with sses had waited without speaking a word to each other. This silence was broken by one of the guards, who approached the man with sses, and said, "There is no trace of active formations in the residence. She isn¡¯t here."

    The man with sses nodded in understanding before standing up, bowing politely in Daniel¡¯s direction, and saying, "My apologies. We will take our leave now." He then left in a hurry before Daniel could have a chance toin about their action, or the situation.

    Throughout this whole encounter, the young woman hadn¡¯t stopped screaming, or attempting to escape for even a single moment. Her state of mind became less stable by the second, and filled with pure horror the moment the man whom she believed to be her saviour, had left the house, convinced that she wasn¡¯t there. Once alone with Daniel her shoulders slouched, and she fell on her knees, but this horrifying moment of realization onlysted a moment, as that was all it took for Daniel to reactivate the dozens of cloaking formations to hide the insides of his residence, and walk in her direction.

    "We were interrupted the very moment you were about to answer my question.." he said while moving a chair in front of the woman¡¯s cage, and sitting on it. He then crossed his arms and legs, and added, "I am all ears."

    Seeing the smug expression on Daniel¡¯s face caused the young woman to instinctively spit in disgust. With her hatred towards Daniel more powerful than anything he had inflicted upon her, she instinctively decided that she would never talk. Instead, she said, "Come on then, brat. Do your worst. I have lived longer than all of the people you have metbined. Even if you had the power to kill me, I would wee death with open arms."

    Daniel nodded in agreement. He knew that someone who had lived as long as a researcher of the Laboratory would not care about death, and that was even more true for the members of the Soul n, whose consciousness would simply be reborn along with their spirit in the spiritual world, where they were virtually immortal. If that was not enough to take away Daniel¡¯s intimidation value, the young woman was at thete godhood stage, and therefore, much more powerful than he was. If not for hisprehension of the spacetime and herck of an awareness that a fighter would have, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to capture her to begin with.

    Nevertheless, Daniel was never one to improvise.

    "That is true. I cannot kill you." he said with a matter-of-fact tone. However, while to the young woman it appeared that he was considering whether what he had done had been a good idea or not, or whether to let her go, Daniel casually waved his hand, and activated the formation that was trapping her. This formation focused all of the dark essence present in it to focus around her head, and absorb something very specific. That was a portion of her consciousness.

    The young woman staggered in response to the faint pain she had felt at the back of her head, but after a moment, this pain disappeared, and she regained herposure.

    "That was.. Ten thousand years of memories, lost forever." He then added.

    Initially the young woman looked back at Daniel with confusion, but as she went through her memories, she quickly realized that in the infinitely long film of her life, were now a number of holes which added up to around ten thousand years of memories. These memories were lost forever, and she could not picture them no matter how much she tried.

    Daniel knew very well that the threat of violence would not be an effective strategy to these people. However, thanks to the time he had spent in the Laboratory, he had realized that there was something that these researchers cared about more than their own lives, and that was their knowledge. Luckily, Daniel¡¯sprehension of dark essence had helped him take care of stronger entities more than once before.

    "WHAT DID YOU DO!?" shouted the young woman with pure anger. Within the ten thousand years of memories loss was an immense amount of knowledge, some of which had helped her research to that very day.

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and said, "I only wanted to erase a thousand years. I don¡¯t exactly have full control of what I can take out of you, since you are stronger than me.. I¡¯ll try to be more precise from now on."

    "No! STOP!" she uttered in panic as he once again waved his hand with a casual motion, which activated the dark essence within the formation, and this time, erased over thirty thousand years of random memories.

    A simr, and yet stronger headache red up in the mind of the young woman, who was now conscious of what it indicated. "Wait! WAIT!" she said as the pain dimmed while looking at Daniel with a crazed expression.

    Daniel ignored her, and instead, observed her reaction. He then said with a carefree tone, "I don¡¯t know what you are forgetting, but it must be pretty important. Let¡¯s try one more time." As he finished speaking, he waved his hand a third time, taking a few more thousand years out of the memories of the young woman.

    At this point the young woman was dumbfounded. It did not appear that Daniel cared about receiving an answer to his question. He was simply torturing her, with no apparent reason. This degree of unreasonable behaviour destroyed any form of mental resistance she had built in her years of "justified" atrocities, and sent her back to a time where she was weak and helpless.

    Naturally, Daniel was not enjoying this, as there was a chance that the memories he was randomly erasing would contain the information he needed, but he needed to appear unreasonable enough for her to find no way to give an half answer, or even worse, to give him a convincing lie that would lead to his death. He could not allow either hope or hate to spawn within her heart.. He needed her to be in a state of pure desperation.

    After the third attempt, Daniel stood back up and left the room, almost as if bored of what was happening, and leaving the young woman to quantify the degree of what she had lost.

    When Daniel came back, around two hourster, instead of listening to the answer that he was so ready to give, he once again forced the dark essence within the formation to erase a portion of her memories, taking away more than fifty thousand years at once.

    "Enough.. Please stop.. I¡¯ll talk." Said the young woman with a crazed expression.

    "All of this talk about you answering, and yet I still know nothing. I wonder how many times before you¡¯ll learn." Said Daniel with disappointment. He then started to move his hand in the same casual motion with which he hadmanded the formation to erase so many of her memories in thest few hours.

    This time, however, before he could wave his handpletely, the young woman blurted out, "I-I don¡¯t know the name Yaqi, but the Head Soul asked me to.. He asked me.. Something about a neer, about helping him in his research however he needs it." As she spoke, the young woman appeared confused. The memories that she had lost were not linear, and instead, were small fragments that were split through the entirety of her life. This had led her to be unable to recall small details, like for example, pieces of conversations.

    From a simple look the young woman knew that Daniel wasn¡¯t satisfied, so before he could once again remove a portion of her precious memories and knowledge, she continued, "He was a big shot from the n, and we were tasked with reserving a residence in the purity district for him to use.. But we were never told what his research was about. It is the building marked with the number eighteen. That¡¯s all I know, I swear!"

    After the woman answered Daniel¡¯s question, he continued to pry by asking what level of protection was present in his facility, or what level of power would be alerted in the city in case he tried to break in. To these questions the young woman answered immediately, scared that a moment of hesitation would trigger Daniel¡¯s psychopathic tendencies that would lead to a loss of even more of her precious memories.

    Once in possession of all the information he needed, Daniel ignored the young woman, and moved towards the entrance of his facility.

    "Wait! Where are you going? I told you what I knew! Free me, I won¡¯t say a word, I promise!" She said in a hurry.. but her words fell on deaf ears.

    While erasing a portion of her subconscious, Daniel had been able to see fragments of her memories. In these fleeting images he had seen millions of tortured souls, beasts and humans, which were provided to her as test subjects, and consumed faster than a sheet of paper. If not for this level of brutality and disregard for life, Daniel might have erased her mind and allowed her spirit to go back to its dormant state, where it would be ced in another being the moment they would be born, but even if she came through with her promise to stay quiet, due to what he had seen, Daniel had decided that this good-looking butcher deserved much worse than simple reincarnation, and a ce in the underworld.

    What she deserved was to be trapped into the spacetime formation for the natural duration of her life, forced to see peoplee and go in that facility where she was trapped, while hoping that one of them would happen to possess Daniel¡¯s abilities, and would be able to free her.. only to be ultimately disappointed, and be forced to face another eternity trapped.

 Chapter 491 Hit and Run

    \"Greetings Master Klio, we are looking for Lady Arrin. She disappeared right after the forum.. I wonder if you would happen to know where she could have gone, or who could have wanted to take her while on the way to her residence?\" Asked a guard with politeness to the same old man in red robes who had invited Daniel to sit next to him during the forum.

    The high degree of respect that the guards were showing towards this old man was justified by the fact that, while virtually all of them belonged to a group that was co-owned by the major ns of the spiritual world, and used as a form of policing force for the Laboratory and most of the dimension¡¯s biggest cities, this old man was the one who had personally created each and every one of them.

    Contrary to many others, the old man did not get angry by the sudden visit, and simply shook his head from side to side, a simple action that was a source of great difort for each of the guards. After a few moments of silence, the captain lowered his head, and said with a low tone, \"Would you mind if we took a look inside your residence?\"

    The red-clothed old man reacted to this question by showing a warm smile, and with a gentle tone that someone might mistake for that which a grandfather would reserve for their grandchild, he said, \"I don¡¯t think that there is a need for that.\" His voice was raucous, and if not for his cultivation at the peak of the godhood stage, the guards could have mistaken him for an amiable and feeble old man that was hoping to avoid a long and annoying procedure.

    The group of guards looked at one another with uncertainty, until finally, a voice resounded in their ears. \"I am afraid that we have to insist, Researcher Klio.\" Said the man with sses as he appeared next to the captain of the guards. He then added with a serious tone, \"We are controlling every residence with no exception.\"

    Surprised by the appearance of the man with sses, the red-robed old man lost his amiable attitude, and said with a threatening tone, \"You know.. I could disassemble their bodies before they could even set foot into myboratory.. Maybe then I would be able to get back to work.\"

    The man with sses was not offended or threatened by these words. \"Let me remind you, Researcher Klio.. Despite your contribution to the Laboratory, the city belongs to the major ns. So, let me do my job, or I will be forced to show you that your presence here is only valuable as long as you don¡¯t interfere with the major ns¡¯ business. Please step aside.\" He said with a matter-of-fact tone while showing a power identical to that of the old man.

    Unfortunately for the old researcher, the man with sses possessed a backing infinitely bigger than his own, despite him being the patriarch of his own n and the strongest entity in his circle. The man with sses had been appointed as the keeper of the Laboratory, and his word wasw.

    Before the old man could respond to his threatening words, the man with sses showed a polite smile, and said, \"We will be respectful of your research. Deactivate your formations and allow us to walk in. It will be just the six..\" As he reached this point, the man with sses stopped talking with the old man, and instead turned towards the captain amongst the group of guards, and asked, \"Why are you only four? Where is your fifth?\"

    -----

    Purity district, building eighteen.

    *knock knock knock*

    \"Who the hell is there? I have asked not to be disturbed!\" Shouted a muffled voice through the thick door with anger.

    In response to this question was nothing but silence. A silence whichsted for a few more seconds, and was once again interrupted by the irritating and familiar knocking sound. \"Damn it!\" shouted the muffled voice once again before turning into an iprehensible muttering that became clearer and clearer the closer the resident walked to the door. \"What the hell do you want?\" Asked the owner of the voice, a scrawny man in histe forties and dressed in loose robes, to the single guard that stood on the other side of the door which he had angrily forced open.

    On this guard the man could feel the faint presence of the fragment of a pathway that connected one of the physical universes to the spiritual world.. something that a n would only give to their worthy members to keep, but that was odd to see on a guard. However, since he was new to the Laboratory, and he was unaware of what was normal or not in this city, he ignored it, and instead waited for this guard to state his business.

    After a few moments of silence, the guard stepped confidently towards the door, and said, \"A researcher of the Soul n has disappeared. I was ordered to inspect your residence. Please disable your formation, and step aside.\"

    Yaqi, whose soul now inhabited a new body, was taken aback by what he had heard. He was an extremely old entity, and he had never heard of a disappearance within the Laboratory. The nature of his job had always been to visit new universes, and train their residents into opening a path to the spiritual world, but while this request sounded suspicious, what the Laboratory¡¯s guards were allowed to do or not, was beyond his knowledge.

    Due to this, he took a step back, and said, \"Let me store away my research, and I will let you in.\" He said with the intention ofplying with the guard¡¯s request.

    However, while coborative, Yaqi¡¯s words did nothing but rile up the guard, who got closer to the door, and said with an authoritative tone, \"Disable your formations first. I will wait for you to store away your research afterwards.\"

    Yaqi was slightly confused by the guard¡¯s behaviour, but since he could somewhat understand why the guard would ask something like that in this situation, he found no reason to doubt his intentions. Unfortunately, before he couldply with the guard¡¯s instructions, a second guard appeared around twenty meters down the road. \"HEY! What are you bothering a member of the Soul n for this? And why are you carrying..\" The words of the second guard trailed to silence as its suspicion towards the first guard turned into alertness.

    Aware that something was wrong, Yaqi immediately tried to close the door and retreat into the safety of his residence.. But despite his higher cultivation, he was too slow. In the blink of an eye an immense power surged from within the body of the first guard, which instantly shattered the formations that kept Yaqi¡¯s residence isted from the outside. The second guard could not react in time, and by the moment he made the conscious decision to sound the rm, Yaqi¡¯s residence had already exploded, and the guard had disappeared, taking the confused researcher of the Soul n with him.

    Hundreds of guards hastily reacted to this breach of the security measures by immediately giving up what they were doing to regroup on site, where they saw but a single one of their colleagues standing in front of a destroyed residence. Amongst these hundreds of guards was the man with sses, who had appeared next to the lone guard instantly after the event, and asked, \"What the hell is going on here?\"

    The lone guard looked at him with confusion, \"I don¡¯t know.. There was someone suspicious here wearing a guard¡¯s attire, and as soon as I questioned him.. he just disappeared..\"

    The man with sses took a look around, and soon put the pieces together. Instead of coordinating a reaction, however, he reached for his pocket with his left hand, and from it, he pulled out a small ocarina which he moved up to his mouth. As he blew air into it, an unidentified white smoke emerged from the item¡¯s small holes, and expanded until bing a mist that surrounded the whole area.

    This artifact,monly known in the spiritual world as a ¡¯Spiritual Dissonance Revealer¡¯, was a product of spiritual manufacture that allowed the user to see the disharmonious movement of the omnipresent spiritual essence, in the shape of a stain in the otherwise calm surrounding power. This dissonance could only show recent movements, and was used in the spiritual world to find, and follow someone¡¯s trail.

    As the smoke emanated by the artifact reached past Yaqi¡¯s residence, a faint ck path formed within the white smoke.

    Compared to the other smaller ck spots that surrounded the guards to highlight the dissonance that their teleportation had created, this path was much more evident, and yet, it had already started to dim down in intensity, showing that the suspect had left for a longer time than the guard had reported.

    Once in possession of a direction, the researcher with sses turned to look at the closest guard captain, and ordered, \"Find a member of the Omnipresent Spirits, and request an emergency teleportation to their base. Once there, demand for the intervention of one of their ancestral souls.. If they refuse, tell them that our suspect has aprehension of spacetime.\"

    \"Sir, what if they refuse to help after that?\" Asked the captain with urgency.

    \"Then tell that you¡¯ll go to the Soul n next to report that they have refused to lend a hand.\" Said the man with sses before turning into a sh of light, and shooting into the sky in the pursuit of the suspect.

    -----

    Millions of kilometers away from the city, Daniel, still dressed in the Laboratory¡¯s guard attire, was shing through space and time at a speed that not many would be able to even exin, while carrying two bodies in his arms.

    Carefully wrapped by Daniel¡¯s right arm, and ced over his right shoulder was the spiritual form of Alesia¡¯s body, which after being separated from her consciousness, had been dragged into the spiritual in where Yaqi had found her. The purity of her spirit had allowed her to maintain her original shape, and not be processed by the recycling nature of the spiritual world, which would have turned her into a faceless element of its environment until she would finally have a chance to reincarnate.

    In his left hand, Daniel was dragging Yaqi, which he was dragging by his ankle right outside of the bubble of morphed space that he was using to skim through the sky at superluminal speed. Forced to face the attrition of the air at such a speed, Yaqi¡¯s new body did not hold, and rapidly disintegrated, leaving only his soul to be levigated by the surrounding spiritual essence.

    Daniel was moving towards the direction from which he had originallye from, the swamp with which the universal key left within his body after his arrival was resonating. In his mind was the uncertainty of having chosen the wrong path, and the worry that soon he would be caught, and that both him and Alesia would have to face a fate worse than death.

    -----

    A few tens of thousands of kilometers away from the Laboratory, the researcher with sses was flying through the sky while following the path highlighted by the ocarina, a path that became fainter and fainter the longer he followed it. The disappearance of the path left no doubts in the mind of the man with sses that he would soon lose the trail, but he did not appear to be worried about this eventuality.

    After various minutes spent diligently following the trail, right when it seemed that he would ultimately lose it, two men dressed in white and golden friar robes appeared next to him.

    The appearance of both of these two individuals was covered by the baggy hoods of their robes, which were unwrinkled thanks to the fact that, instead of shooting through space in a hurry by releasing massive amounts of power, they had calmly arrived here by using the essence of space time.

    What the man with sses noticed before that, however, was the fact that one of these two individuals was carrying a severed head, which only seconds earlier had been attached to the rest of the body of the captain of the guard, and was currently still dripping with fresh blood.

    \"Was it necessary?\" He asked while looking at the remains of the man he had sent to die.

    The cultivator on the left, who was the one holding the head, released his hold on it, allowing it to fall on the ground before saying, \"I didn¡¯t like his tone.\"

    The man with sses seemed to have an answer ready for that, but before he could say anything, the second cultivator said, \"Enough. Just show us in which direction the suspect went.\"

 Chapter 492 An Unforgivable Offence

    Seeing that the two members of the Omnipresent Spirits n had no interest in wasting their time, the cultivator with sses once again blew into his ocarina, which soon after emitted the familiar white smoke that in turn, highlighted an extremely faint ck path. However, while almost invisible, this path was all the neers needed.

    The two teleported by the sides of the cultivator with sses, and without the slightest hint of struggle, they picked up tens of thousands of kilometers of space, and bent it. They then turned into shes of light that shot through space at a speed that not even the most powerful alien machines from Daniel¡¯s universe would have been able to reach.

    This traveling speed was fueled not only by the speed that their higher level of cultivation allowed them to reach, but also by their ability to bend a bigger area of space, which permitted them to shave off a lot more of the distance they had to travel than Daniel.

    Based on the disappearance of his traces, the two cultivators of the Omnipresent Spirits n had predicted that, within a span of maximum thirty minutes, they would be able to reach Daniel, but after only a few seconds, their motion came to a sudden stop. In front of the three was a massive rocky expanse formed by uncountable dormant spirits, a sight that could be witnessed in many other ces throughout the spiritual world. However, while there was nothing wrong with this sight, the sensing ability of the three cultivators was telling them that something was missing within this rocky field. That something was spiritual essence.

    \"What the hell is this?\" Asked the bloodied of the three. A few momentster, as the other two examined their surroundings with confusion, he added, \"There isn¡¯t a bit of spiritual essence for thousands of miles in every direction.. Where is it gone?\"

    No matter how insistent the bloodied of the two members of the Omnipresent Spirits n was, neither hispanion nor the cultivator with sses had an answer for his question. What thetter was feeling, however, was the urgency to reach Daniel and get back the two cultivators of the soul n, because if for some reason he would be unable to do that, not only would he lose his job as the keeper of the Laboratory, but his life as well.

    \"We have no time to find out what happened here.. The trail will disappear soon, we need to go.\" Said the man with sses with urgency.

    To his words, the two members of the Omnipresent Spirits n reacted by turning to look at him with confusion. \"Why do you think we stopped? Do you truly believe that all the power used to bend spacees from our own cultivation?\" Asked the one dressed in clean clothes.

    What the more serious of the two cultivators had said was correct. While the term ¡¯superluminal speed¡¯ implied that a person or object had reached a speed faster than light, in reality, it was the space that was bent in a way that allowed the cultivator to cut through from one point in space to another. To create this effect while using one¡¯s own power was extremely taxing, and that was why the cultivators capable of such a feat would instead perform it by taking control over the essences present in their surroundings, instead of using their own.

    Unfortunately, the two were quick to notice that the entire area that separated them from the person they were chasing, was nowpletely devoid of power, and therefore, became impossible to manipte, even for someone with aprehension of the essence of spacetime, which was the speciality of their n.

    Shocked by this revtion, the cultivator with sses quietly stared at the slowly disappearing ck path that extended in front of him, but after only a few moments, he shook the surprise and uncertainty out of his mind, and asked, \"Can we go around the path devoid of power, and nk him? Would our speed allow us to do that?\"

    \"The problem is that we cannot curve the space around him. The moment we reach his area of absorption, we are forced to travel at the speed of ate godhood cultivator. He¡¯ll disappear before we can evene close to him.\" Responded the cultivator dressed in clean clothes with a matter-of-fact tone.

    \"Shit..\" muttered the cultivator with sses as the ck path finally disappeared. Unsure of what to do he took off his sses and used the lower part of his shirt to clean them. He then put them back on. Almost as if this pair of simple sses was magical, as soon as he put them on a n formted in his mind.

    Without saying anything to the two members of the Omnipresent Spirits, he emitted a small amount of his spiritual essence from within his body, and forced it to take the shape of arge sheet that extended for over thirty meters. Once in ce, the spiritual essence of which this sheet was formed morphed into different kinds of mana, turning it into an extremely urate physical map.

    \"He is going in this direction. We don¡¯t have a ck path anymore, but if he is causing the absence of spiritual essence, then you should be able to follow him. Make sure that he doesn¡¯t change course.\" Said the man with sses to the bloodied of the two cultivators. He then turned to look at the other, and while highlighting a specific sequence of locations within the map with his index finger, he added, \"Based on the direction, he should be heading towards the connection to his universe. If we follow this path, we should be able to hop from one city to the other thanks to their formations.. If the ns do not dy us, we should be able to get there before him.\"

    As the cultivator with sses finished speaking, the bloodied of the two turned to look at hispanion, almost as if asking him with his eyes whether they should still follow this man in the pursuit of this criminal, or if their duties towards the pact between the main ns had already been fulfilled. The bloodied of the two had no intention of keeping on helping, but as hispanion nodded, he sighed in annoyance, and as suggested by the cultivator with sses, he turned into a sh of light, and shot in the pursuit of Daniel.

    Grateful for the help, the cultivator with sses breathed out in relief before turning towards the remaining cultivator, and saying, \"We shouldn¡¯t dally. I am not sure how long it will take for us to obtain permission from that many ns.. The sooner we go the better.\" The remaining member of the Omnipresent Spirits n was not one to waste time, so he nodded in agreement, and as the cultivator with sses departed, he followed him in silence.

    -----

    Due to the fact that the member of the Omnipresent Spirits n was bending a different sector of space to follow his essenceless trail, Daniel spent the following few days unaware that someone was following him. This time was spent cultivating with the use of Time is Precious, which allowed him to swallow an immense amount of spiritual essence faster than it could be replenished. During this time Daniel had finally reached the mid levels of the godhood stages.

    Held in his arms were still the unconscious bodies of Alesia and Yaqi, which he treated with opposite degrees of carefulness, by letting thetter¡¯s soul be sanded by the sharp attrition with the surrounding air, while the former was gentlyid in rest over his shoulder.

    The reason why Daniel had not simply killed Yaqi or allowed Alesia¡¯s consciousness to move back into her body yet, was simple. If he killed Yaqi in the spiritual world, he knew that his soul would dissipate in the surroundings, only to reform soon after along with his consciousness.. Therefore, killing him was akin to releasing him, and since he had other ns for him, he decided not to do that.

    Regarding not allowing Alesia¡¯s consciousness into her pure spirit, Daniel was simply being careful. Once back in her own body, Alesia would once again be alive, but if something tragic were to happen, and she died once again, her consciousness would go back to the underworld, from which he doubted Death would allow him to take her for a second time. In his universe he was amongst the most powerful living entities, and therefore, he was able to protect her, but in the spiritual world, the risk was too high.

    With what he would do after escaping clear in his mind, Daniel flew as fast as he could towards the ce where he would finally be able to feel safe, and around ten dayster, he reached it. Unfortunately, the ce was much less isted than he remembered.

    As soon as he had reached the edge of the swamp, Daniel had started to notice numerous patrols appear in his sight, only to disappear as he shed past them at a speed faster than the speed of light. However, while these cultivators were unable to even notice him, they seemed to increase in number the closer he came to his personal exit from the spiritual world.

    The suspicion that his pursuers had, instead of chasing him, directly gone to his destination only to wait them there, quickly formed in his mind, and was confirmed only minutester as his motion came to an end in front of a barricade of extremely powerful spiritual cultivators, led by numerous members of the Soul, Omnipresent Spirits, and many other ns, both major and minor.

    \"So, it was you..\" muttered the man with sses while realizing that the culprit was Daniel, who had appeared in front of him while carrying the most pure spirit anyone had ever seen, and a white thread, which was all that was left of Yaqi¡¯s soul.

    Daniel observed the cultivators that were surrounding the man with sses, and quickly noticed how interested they seemed to be regarding the spirit that he was carrying over his shoulder. This interest had been put before any thought of arresting Daniel for breaking the Laboratory¡¯s rules, taking back the kidnapped cultivators, or the boredom that had brought them to act, and had be the first thought in their minds.

    Alesia¡¯s body was the demonstration that an extremely pure version of the spirit existed. A form of being that did not require a weak body to be kept from dissipating in the spiritual world. For them, as spiritual cultivators, that was akin to finding a path of cultivation that along with increasing their power, allowed them to reach the highest possible level of foundation and talent in the realm of spiritual cultivation.

    \"It would be in everyone¡¯s best interest if you moved aside, and let me through.\" Said Daniel to the formation of cultivators, who had now put the recovery of Yaqi and the female researcher aside, and were now focusing on Alesia¡¯s spirit, which they looked at with greedy expressions.

    \"You are going nowhere, kid.\" Said a woman dressed in a ck robe that showed the insignia of the Soul n. She then added while pointing at Alesia¡¯s body, \"You attacked our n directly, and stole our property in the process. Release my n member, and give that back.\"

    The words of the woman struck a chord in Daniel¡¯s mind. \".. what did you just say?\" he muttered with a low tone as his surroundings quickly filled with his emotional aura, making him look as if his body was surrounded in ck mes.

    Daniel was aware that in the vast multiverse there were people who thought of others as objects at their disposal, but these events were so far away from him, either emotionally and physically, that they would not affect him as much.. However, when the same level of disregard was shown to the woman he loved, the feeling of abhorrence he felt caused something in his mind to break. Even when faced with a thousand of entities more powerful than him, and left without the safety of the karmic system, Daniel could not tolerate it.

    The many cultivators looked at Daniel¡¯s fit of rage as that of a spoiled kid, with expressions filled with contempt, but these expressions suddenly changed the moment the space that surrounded them began to crack, and show signs of instability.

    \"STOP HIM! HE IS TRYING TO COLLAPSE THE SPACE!\" Shouted the bloodied member of the Omnipresent Spirits n, who had just appeared behind him.

    However, it was already toote.

    As the cracks deepened, and in some points could already be seen the absolute nothingness of negative space, Daniel said, \"I will make you regret speaking those words..\"

 Chapter 493 Bad Deal and Idiotic Words

    Daniel¡¯s words ringed in the ears of everyone present as a foreshadowing of a dire future.

    What shocked the observing cultivators the most, was his ability to directly force the space to right out copse without the need to shatter first. This concept of space was the missing piece for every cultivator that had decided to study spatial essence, and that had stopped many of them from reaching a perfectprehension of it. This limitation did not only affect their overallprehension of space, but the degree to which they could study the essence of spacetime as well.

    A simr problem persisted in the rtionship between the essences of life and death, two essences widely known and easy to observe. While some could choose to take a life or create one to follow their concepts, no one had ever learned how to fully manipte these two essences, let alone discover a way tobine them.

    The copse of space, which was part of theprehension of spatial essence, was a concept contained within the agents of Conclusion. These monsters, known to Daniel and many others as universal destroyers, were entities that, after being nurtured by the natural essence of spacetime that was produced by celestial events of devastating proportion, were able to develop the ability to destroy.

    To be able to understand the concept of copsed space without perishing was a miracle that had only been enjoyed by Daniel, but that did not mean that nobody else had ever been unable to at least witness a simr sight, or learn how to defend from it.

    \"STOP HIM! HE IS TRYING TO COLLAPSE THE SPACE!\" Shouted the bloodied member of the Omnipresent Spirits n, who had just appeared behind Daniel, aware of what he was doing. But, s, his warning was only understood by the members of his n, who after trying to take over the space around them, found themselves unable to act.

    \"Why aren¡¯t you stopping him?\" Asked the man with sses to the cultivator dressed in clean clothes, who was currently looking at the small holes in space created by Daniel with uncertainty.

    After a few moments, the cultivator dressed in clean clothes turned to look at the other cultivators present, and ordered, \"Ignore him! Spread out and use all of your power to stop these fractures from expanding! DO IT NOW!\"

    While a fragment of copsed space was something that he or any other members of his n could handle, therge number of these fractures were absorbing the spiritual essence present in the surroundings, leaving them unable to use it to stop them from expanding. To prevent that from happening they only had one choice, and that was to have the others focus on containing these holes, while they stopped Daniel from creating more of them.

    Once Daniel would be out of the equation, the members of the Omnipotent Spiritual n would be able to painstakingly repair these holes in the space of the spiritual in one by one.

    Therge number of cultivators that hade to witness the spectacle found themselves thrown into a crisis, and while not necessarily allied with the Omnipresent Spirits n, they did not want to see their spiritual world ruined, so they followed the order that was given to them and immediately split into different teams which focused their attention on locking the space around the holes in space, and stop the cracks that surrounded them from expanding.

    The members of the Omnipresent Spirits n, all capable of controlling the spacetime to some degree, instead of helping them headed in Daniel¡¯s direction, but as they came to a few meters of distance from Daniel, they noticed that there was acent smile on his face.

    In the space above Daniel¡¯s head, five smaller holes appeared. These holes were different from the others, and were not surrounded by the concept of shattered space like the others were. Instead, they were extremely stable, and appeared to be locked into orbs of solidified space.

    The members of the Omnipotent Spirits looked at these five orbs with alertness, aware that they were there as a threat rather than an attack, which caused them topletely change their attitude, stopping in wait for Daniel to make his demands. Nevertheless, before even bothering to state his conditions, Daniel sent these five orbs shooting in different directions, and out of people¡¯s sight.

    These small orbs were traveling at lightning speed, covering an incredible distance with every passing moment..

    As the cultivators of the Omnipotent Spirits noticed Daniel¡¯s actions, the idea of taking the two kidnapped researchers and Alesia¡¯s spirit back became something unimportant, as shown by the cultivator dressed in bloodied clothes, who rapidly grabbed his ne and snapped the cord, which caused it to dissipate in the space and into nothingness. This was a call for reinforcements from his n, which he hoped would arrive soon enough to help them contain the destruction of the spiritual world.

    Once reinforcements were called, the five members present of their n turned into shes of light, and shot in the pursuit of the five orbs, leaving the other cultivators to contain the expansion of the other holes in space, and the researcher with sses to face Daniel.

    Daniel had no intention of destroying the Spiritual world. He knew that the spiritual world was as necessary to life as the underworld was, and that without it, humans would be born with no spirits, turning the future generations of cultivators and mortals into a race of sociopaths. What he wanted was to make enough noise to attract the right kind of attention.

    \"That¡¯s enough!\" Eximed the man with sses in anger before appearing right next to him. Then, before Daniel could even react, he pierced his throat with fingers, reaching all the way to his spine, and outright breaking his neck, leaving his body to fall on the ground along with Alesia¡¯s spirit, and what was left of Yaqi¡¯s soul.

    Enraged by the damage caused, and yet reassured by Daniel¡¯s death, the cultivator with sses turned to look at the other warriors, who were struggling with keeping the space in their possession from cracking, but right as he was about to join them, the sound of someone clearing his throat resounded behind him, sending a shiver down his spine.

    By the time the cultivator with sses turned around, Daniel was already holding in his hands a clean fracture of space as big as a human¡¯s head. If released, not a single one of those present would be able to stop it from bringing destruction to all of the spiritual world.

    \"Alright, you have done enough.\" Said a calm and silvery voice that resounded through the whole spiritual world. A disembodied voice that sent trillions of unaware cultivators scouting their surrounding in confusion. The only ones who were not confused, were Daniel and the cultivator with sses, who had noticed a mature looking woman appear right next to them.

    \"Lady Spirit.\" Said the researcher with sses before prostrating on the ground, hitting the spirit made dirt with his forehead.

    \"Now it is a party.\" Said Daniel while smiling, right before allowing the sphere of pure destruction to be twice as big, and an ever bigger threat to the dimension.

    The woman that the cultivator with sses called Lady Spirit ignored Daniel¡¯s words, and instead, waved his hand casually, closing every single fracture in space at the same time. Once done, she turned to look at Daniel, and said with an emotionless tone, \"Out of respect for Conflict, I will not kill you. You have one chance to state what you want? Ask the wrong thing and neither your minds or spirits will exist long enough to find peace.\"

    Ever since she had appeared, Daniel and the others had recognized this woman as the aspect of the Spirit. She, along with the aspects of Death, Life, and many others, was a minor aspect of existence that had been born the moment life had started. She represented emotions through the whole multiverse, and her domain was the spiritual world, where her champions resided from the moment of their consciousness¡¯s death, in order to reincarnate into a new life.

    While it is true that Daniel¡¯s n was to make enough noise, the attention he wanted to obtain was not that of the inhabitants of the spiritual world, but instead, of its owner. Luckily for him, instead of outright erasing him from existence, the aspect of the Spirit had simply stopped his reckless destruction, and instead, granted him a request. \"You have directly taken action to aid your champions in stopping me from erasing arge part of your world.. I think that letting our three spirits leave is more than a reasonablepensation for your intrusion.\" Responded Daniel, aware that the fact that Spirit had acted, was already a vition of the rules set by the ruling aspects of existence. Entities like Fate, or its counter Caos.

    Spirit let out a faint smile at Daniel¡¯s request. A dormant spirit for her had as much importance as a speck of dust had for the rest of the universe, hence why she considered Daniel¡¯s request a simpleminded one. However, the smile disappeared as she noticed the opening to Daniel¡¯s universe. It was at this point that the sadistic part of her emotive nature emerged.

    \"How about this.. I will give you the power to close and open the path to your universe and my in at will.. Not one of my champions will ever dare to set foot in your universe for as long as you wish.\" She said while showing a benevolent smile.

    Daniel was aware that, now that the path between his universe and the spiritual world had been officially opened, even though he possessed the key to this door, the uncountable ns present within the spiritual world would try invade it in an attempt to im it for themselves, but while the proposition of the aspect of Spirit sounded perfect, he knew better than to think that it was a charitable act. \"That sounds nice.. what would you want in return?\" he asked with suspicion.

    Spirit looked at Daniel as if amused by his suspicion. She then pointed at Alesia, and said, \"I will allow you to leave with that stained spirit, but she stays with me. She will be my handmaid for the rest of eternity.\" From her tone she made it seem that it would be an absolute privilege for Alesia to be granted this title.

    After briefly looking at Alesia, Daniel turned to look at Spirit, and while showing an amused smile, he said, \"Had I know it was such a shitty deal, I wouldn¡¯t have listened to your idiotic words to begin with.\" The expression of both Spirit and the cultivator with sses dropped, but Daniel¡¯s remained a jovial one, directed at the same aspect of existence he had just heavily insulted.

    Despite the man with sses expecting the aspect of Spirit to react by erasing him, Daniel, and everybody else present out of existence, she didn¡¯t. Instead, she simply forced the entrance to Daniel¡¯s universe to open, and with more anger than she intended to disy, forced them out of her home. She then observed as Daniel¡¯s body disappeared into the canal, a sight apanied by a wisp of sound essence, which reached the back towards the aspect of the Spirit, relying on the message, \"Send as many as you want.. But be sure to give them enough money for their funeral.\"

    Spirit spent the following minutes standing in ce, seething in anger, thinking about whether it would have been better if she had simply killed Daniel, and then faced the punishment of the higher echelons of her kin. However, for as powerful as she was, she wouldn¡¯t dare challenge the hierarchy of the aspects of existence. After all, like many others, she was only allowed to exist.

    Once alone with the man with sses, and the rest of the even more nervous cultivators, she ordered, \"I want you all to invade his universe.. Send their spirits back to me.\" She then disappeared, leaving no trace behind.

 Chapter 494 Eight Years Later

    Eight yearster.

    After Daniel¡¯s improvised escape from the spiritual world, his universe fell into a state of orderly chaos.

    In these eight years, following the orders of the aspect of the Spirit, thousands of spiritual cultivators at the godhood stage had left the spiritual world, and used the connection between the physical dimensions in their possession to reach Daniel¡¯s. Their hope was to be the ones to fulfill their deity¡¯s request, but unfortunately, in just a few months time, the ns that inhabited the spiritual world had started to notice that something was amiss.

    Whenever a cultivator would look for Daniel after entering his dimension, without a single exception, they would nevere back. These disappearances came with no small degree of suspicion, as for spiritual cultivators, death would mean being sent back to the spiritual world, while these cultivators had disappeared altogether, almost as if they had been captured, and were being held somewhere.

    After the disappearance of over a thousand of these cultivators, the spiritual ns had decided to interrupt their hunt, and instead, they had chosen to establish in Daniel¡¯s universe in order to gain enough power for a collective and final attack. This break in the hostilities had allowed for many other groups to rise with the support of powerful multiversal faction, and for numerous conflicts and wars to take ce.

    At the end of these eight years, Daniel¡¯s universe was governed by only five major factions, which ruled their sector of space while trying to trample over one another.. All but one.

    -----

    \".. small matters aside, we have two more factions willing to enter our domain.\" Said a distinct old man with short and well kept hair. He was dressed in an extremely clean white shirt covered by a dark grey waistcoat, and tucked into dark grey pants of a simr fabric. In his hand, he was holding a stack of papers which contained the agenda of the meeting, which he was discussing with a man in his mid twenties, who was sitting with his legs crossed and facing the other side of the room, and right into a firece lit with ck mes.

    The room inside which this man was sitting was extremely dark, and aside from the feeble light that shone through the opening of the door and onto the young man¡¯s back, only a pair of beastly yellow eyes could be seen pointing at the old man holding the agenda. \"Who is it?\" he asked without turning back.

    The old man tried to ignore the unmoving and menacing yellow eyes that were pointed at him, and said, \"One of these groups are the Void Dwellers, who have promised to never aid ourpetitors as long as you create a stable passage to this universe. I assume that they wish to move here, since you already possess what they have been trying to obtain since the times they moved into the void.. A fullprehension of space.\"

    After a brief pause, the man continued by saying, \"The other faction is the Beastfolk Nation. They seem to have learned that discrimination towards their kin isn¡¯t tollerated here, and wish to move in.. but I believe the real reason is that they have wanted to join King Xargy and the rest of the dragonkin ever since you have defeated your.. Well, the Tamer.\"

    \"You don¡¯t need to mention these matters to me, just bring them to Nova and Xargy. They can handle them on their own.\" Said the man who sat in the dark room with a slight degree of annoyance. From his tone, it was clear that he had had to repeat these words many times in the past, and yet, they had yet to sink in.

    \"I did, but they insisted that I asked your permission before they could ept.\" Responded the old man before taking another small pause. He then scrolled through the pages he was holding, and added, \"I will tell them that you are okay with it. Speaking about the situation in the universe.. More blood cultivators have been pouring in by the day. They seem to have learned from thest few lessons you gave them, and have now decided to build their number before attempting another attack.\"

    Once again the old man waited for the man shroud in darkness to respond, but after a few moments of silence, he decided to continue with his report. \"The spiritual factions are acting in a simr way, but they aren¡¯t openly building their numbers. Instead, they seem to have settled into our universe, and are mingling with the native factions and warring with those who want nothing to do with them.\"

    \"The overall situation hasn¡¯t changed. The coalition of the Elemental factions has now merged into a single group which follows a new leader. Unfortunately, the name of this entity isn¡¯t clear. I have heard people call him the Elemental King, Mana¡¯s Ancestor, or the Lord of the Elements, but the elementals seem to refer to him as the Guard of Nature. Their group often shes with the spiritual factions, which still sees them as living resources waiting to be turned into dead ones.\"

    \"Simrly, the former Universal Government is now being controlled by that mysterious mercenary group that appeared a couple of years ago. Since this change of management they have gained power, which they have demonstrated in the shes against the blood cultivators. Other than this, there is nothing else.\" At the end of the report, the old man removed his reading sses, and hanged them by the pocket of his waistcoat. He then waited for the man shroud in darkness to respond.

    \"Thank you, you can go.\" Said the man sitting in the dark, causing the old man to bow down respectfully, and walk out of the door, which he closed behind him, restoring the room¡¯spletely dark environment.

    Once alone, the man shrouded in darkness opened his eyes, releasing a golden glow in the surroundings, which in turn softened the cold yellow eyes of the beast that stood next to him, right as they turned in his direction. \"Just because you are the king of hell, it doesn¡¯t mean that you have to scare everyone you see away.\" Said the man with golden eyes to his beastpanion, which blinked twice while whimpering and growling in disagreement.

    The eyes of the man narrowed in amusement. \"Alright, if you don¡¯t feel like cultivating anymore, then we might as well leave..\" Said the man. He then stood up, walked towards the door, and opened it, allowing the light tond on his face. \"Come on.\" Said Daniel to the adult demonic wolf, which stepped out of the room ahead of him, and once in the open, grew to the impressive size of a mountain which towered in front of the small shack in which the two were hiding to cultivate.

    Daniel looked at the impressive size of the demonic wolf with satisfaction. He knew that the demonic wolves could grow as big, or even bigger, but he had yet to get used to seeing hispanion in its full size. This size in particr was one he had seen only a few times, but instead of standing there to admire the sight, he teleported right above the arch in between the wolf¡¯s eyes, and satfortably over the patch of fur, which was now as wide as a road. Once Daniel wasfortable, the wolf jumped towards the sky, and disappeared in the darkness of space.

    -----

    After about an hour of travel, the two arrived in an odd looking systemposed of fives of differentpositions. Theses were all extremely close to one another, enough for a cultivator at the high immortal stage to cross the distance in only a few minutes.

    What was odd about this system was the fact that there wasn¡¯t a star at the center of it, but an even number ofrge orbs of light created with the concept of sunlight of light essence. These orbs were ced outside of the atmosphere of each individual to simte a day and night cycle.

    Even from outer space it was clear that each was inhabited by a different kind of entity, as shown by the peaceful and vibrant color of the biggest of these fives, inhabited by elementals and low level beastfolk, by the nightlife that shone through the dark side of the second biggest, which was inhabited by humans, by the volcanic and deserticposition of the smallest, inhabited by the citizens of hell, who had moved out of what many called home, and others called prison, and finally, the rocky covered in high peaks and snowy mountains, home to the draconic race, and other legendary beasts.

    These fours were respectively controlled by Nova, Daniel¡¯s teachers, the demonic tribes which had survived the second war of hell, and finally, Xargy, who in thest eight years, thanks to Daniel¡¯s help, had been able to defeat the Tamer, and release the draconic races and other legendary beasts from her control. The power demonstrated during that fight was enough for the royal family of draconic race, including his grandfather, the former Dragon King, to acknowledge him as the most powerful entity of their race, and therefore, their new ruler.

    In the middle of these fours was the fifth one. Third in size and average in appearance, but while there didn¡¯t seem to be anything special about this, each inhabitant of the previous fours would never dare to underestimate its importance. This was Daniel¡¯s group base, and was home to Hiel Academy, and Daniel¡¯s group, to which the inhabitants of the other four groups had sworn allegiance.

    The demonic wolf ignored the presence of the other fours and directly moved into Daniel¡¯s world, entering its atmosphere, and shrinking to a reasonable size right before touching the ground outside of a small town.

    This town was built in a breathtaking valley, surrounded by woods, rivers, and ills covered in grass and flowers. However, despite therge space avable for expansion, this town only contained a dozenrge houses, all inhabited by Daniel¡¯s closest friends, and family members.

    The two did not make a big deal out of their return, as they had only been missing for a few days, so they walked into the small town and towards the northernmost house without making their presence known.

    As they walked through the city, Daniel heard the chatter that came from the first house, inside which he could hear the challenging words thrown towards Heimart by his oldest son, which was now old enough to challenge his ability in the martial arts of their family. In the second house, Daniel heard the shing of wooden swords. These noises were something natural in this town, and came from Jerigh¡¯s house, where he and Cynna would train and duel almost every day with the same result, Cynna¡¯s inevitable defeat.

    Daniel could remember when one day he had suggested letting Cynna win to Jerigh, but when he saw him the next day with the mark of a p on his cheek, he realized that he had meddled with something he didn¡¯t understand. Unwilling to find himself in that situation again, he quietly walked past their house, as well as Ligart¡¯s, Imblen¡¯s, Aeron¡¯s, his sister Re¡¯s, and a few more, only stopping when they finally reached the northernmost residence. A well kept vi with numerous rooms, but from which came no sound.

    As they reached the residence, the wolf immediately ran around the house in hope to find someone to y with, but came back to Daniel a minuteter, disappointed about the fact that the house seemed to be empty.

    Just as disappointed, Daniel walked towards the house, but right when he was about to open the door and enter, a portal formed in the front yard of the residence. From this portal walked out Edmund, a young man in his mid teens, and finally, a set of twins. A little girl, and a little boy.

    Edmund had an uncharacteristic wide smile stered on his face, which matched the excitement shown by the little girl, whom he was holding in his arm. The teenager was less enthusiastic about their travel, and was the first one to notice Daniel.

    \"Uncle Dan!\" Than shouted before dashing in Daniel¡¯s direction with the speed of a cultivator at the peak of martial cultivation, a stage which he had voluntarily maintained in order to avoid being unable to age past his early teens.

    As these two words left Than¡¯s mouth, the two twins immediately turned towards the man that stood a few meters away, and in unison, while running in his direction, they screamed, \"DAD! YOU ARE BACK!\"

 Chapter 495 A New Generation

    \"DAD! YOU ARE BACK!\" shouted the two jet-ck haired kids with joy while running towards their father. Before the two could reach Daniel, however, their motion was interrupted by the demonic wolf, who instinctively stepped in front of hispanion and sat on the ground in an attempt to showcase its majestic appearance.

    The appearance of the demonic wolf seemed to be enough to attract the attention of the little girl, who jumped into the softness of its absolute-ck fur with a bear hug. Her twin brother, on the other hand, ignored the demonic wolf and ran around it to reach his father, who weed him with open arms.

    While feeling the small arms of his son around his neck, Daniel could not help but feel both happy and bitter. What made him bitter was the fact that his adored daughter had chosen to wee back her father¡¯spanion rather than himself. If that was not enough, this bitterness was turned into irritation the moment he noticed the wagging tail of his beastpanion, which waved left and right in satisfaction, and tapping rhythmically against his leg.

    \"Dad, when did you get back? Where have you been?\" asked the young boy right as Daniel wrapped his right arm around his son¡¯s legs, and lifted him above his waist, making him match his line of sight.

    \"Nowhere important. We just came back.\" Said Daniel after kissing the side of his son¡¯s head. He then reached for the left pocket of his pants, from which he took out a pink bead the size of a fingernail. \"Here, for your collection.\" He said while handing over the bead to his son.

    \"Cool! How did it form?\" Asked the kid while looking at the many shades of color hidden within the pearl.

    Overjoyed by his son¡¯s reaction, Daniel said, \"I¡¯ve seen the entire process personally. A huge meteorite fell onto the I was visiting. The explosion sh-melted an entire beach. I cut this one just for you.\"

    The young boy looked at his father with interest, but this interest did not match his previous enthusiasm. \"That is awesome, but I want to start a new collection. Grandpa said he¡¯ll take me to collect gems from different dimensions!\" He said with enthusiasm.

    \"Did he now?\" said Daniel while turning to look at Edmund with narrowed eyes, not looking away even when thetter pretended not to notice his grim look. A few momentster, Daniel turned to look back at his daughter, and asked, \"Lia, Where is your mother?\"

    The little girl who had dived face first into the fur of therge demonic wolf suddenly emerged from it, and said, \"She left Eli and I to grandpa before going to the academy. She said she had to test the students before they could graduate.\" As she finished speaking, the little girl pushed herself away from the demonic wolf, and walked in front of Daniel. She then extended her arms, and opened her palms.

    \"What?\" Asked Daniel with feigned confusion.

    Lia looked at Daniel with bright eyes, and said, \"What did you get me?\"

    Daniel wanted to pretend to have forgotten his daughter¡¯s gift to get back at her for not greeting him first, but seeing his daughter¡¯s expression, his intentions quickly fell apart. He put down his son, who ran straight into the house with the new additions to his collection in his hands, and reached for his spatial ring, from which he slowly pulled out a white fencing sword with a light pink de.

    The very moment Edmund noticed this sword, he prepared himself to scold Daniel for giving such a dangerous weapon to his mortal daughter, but he quickly stopped the moment he noticed that on the pink de of the sword were engraved numerous small spatial formations. The purpose of these formations was to deaden the impact of this sword, be it piercing or shing, turning it into apletely useless weapon.

    \"So cool!\" Said Lia while examining the sword like one would expect a kid of her age would.

    Daniel looked at his daughter¡¯s reaction with satisfaction, and after a few moments, he fell down on one knee next to her, and said, \"What do you say?\"

    The little girl immediately lowered the sword, and said, \"Thanks dad!\" She then kissed Daniel¡¯s cheek before going back to focus on her new toy.

    \"Good.. now go back in. I have to check on your mother. Grandpa will take care of your dinner.\" Said Daniel before standing back up on his feet, and turning towards the academy, which was built on the other side of the.

    Daniel was ready to leave, but before he could, his daughter¡¯s voice reached his ears one more time, relying on the words, \"Aunty Rei already cooked us dinner. She made some for you too.\" By the time Lia reached the entrance of the house and turned to look back towards her father, however, he was already long gone, leaving Edmund to stare at the empty space where he once was, by himself.

    \"Your dad is a quick thinker..\" muttered Than before gently pushing his younger cousin in the house. In his heart, he hoped he could have skipped this meal as well, as he, more than anybody else, was familiar with his mother¡¯s cooking.

    -----

    During thest few years, Hiel academy had grown to a sizerger than that of a normal empire. Its students now numbered in the tens of millions, who upied half a dozen cities interconnected with one another throughout easy and free-to-use spatial formations.

    The increase in the number of students, however, along with turning hiel academy into the biggest educational institution in the whole universe, had brought certain difficulties. An example of this was the graduation ceremony, which took ce every year on Daniel¡¯s, and required the presence of hundreds of teachers to test the overwhelming number of young cultivators which had relied on the academy for their education.

    Luckily, those who had managed to graduate from hiel academy were always free to participate in the guardiation ceremony by acting as examiners. Along with helping the staff of the academy handle therge number of graduates, the chance to represent such an important institution was a source of great honor for the former students, who would hardly ever miss a chance to participate.

    The day Daniel hade back happened to be the day of the graduation ceremony, to which he would usually take part to as the academy¡¯s champion, a role appositely created for him to defend his title as the first student of hiel academy from the hundreds of thousands who, for thest few years, had one day hoped to take that title from him.

    At the moment, on one of the endless fields that surrounded hiel academy, a massive stadium capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people had been built. These seats were all upied by the rtives of the graduates, whose number of guests was limited to two per person. That was due to the massive number of participants that would graduate every year.

    In the middle of this stadium were built as many small stages as there were examiners, and they were constructed not only in neat rows, but in suspended floors as well. On each of these small stages was a single examiner who tested the abilities of one of the graduates, who gave their all to showcase their ability while their opponents limited their cultivation to their own level.

    On the uppermost stadiums were the figures of Alesia, Nilo, Finn, Fyro, Y, and others. They were the first graduates of Hiel Academy, and their job was to test those who had excelled in their studies, and hade out of the academy as its most talented prospects.

    For more than ten hours, the former students tested the abilities of their juniors. Starting from their understanding of elemental essence, all the way to their mastery of weapons, and after more than fifteen hours, of the hundreds of thousands, only a tenth had passed. These students were officially qualified to graduate from the hiel academy, and allowed to proudly say that they were students of the biggest educational institution to ever exist. However, for a hundred of them, the test had yet to end.

    These hundred cultivators were the most capable students of their year, and as such, they had the right to challenge Daniel for his spot as Hiel Academy¡¯s top student. As long as they would be able to defeat him in a discipline of their choice, they would be considered the best of the best, and bring honor and fame to their.. be it as elementals, as beastfolk, as demons, or as humans.

    Overjoyed to have this opportunity, the students stood in wait.. But seeing the faces of the few examiners left on stage to wait with them, they began to feel that something did not seem right.

    On stage with them was the figure of the Silver Alchemist, the director of the Alchemical Padillion of hiel academy, the name with which one of the various cities thatposed Hiel Academy was known as. On his old and amiable face was an expression that hinted embarrassment and unease. Daniel had yet to arrive, and he wasn¡¯t sure whether he should simply conclude the ceremony, or keep on waiting.

    Luckily, he would never have to make that decision.

    Suddenly, the space a few meters next to him cracked like a spiderweb. This crack, originally the size of a fist, quickly grew in size, releasing a screeching sound in the surroundings that forced many to cover their ears. This crack kept growing in size until finally, when it reached the ground, and around two meters in diameter, its innermost part copsed.

    Unlike what many thought would happen, this portion of copsed space did not naturally expand, and instead remained as a hole in suspended in space from which, soon after, two hands emerged. These hands hooked onto the shattered space-like ss that, with a bit of pressure, broke apart, revealing the rest of Daniel¡¯s body, who walked out of it as if walking out of a shallowyer of mud that had beenid over his body.

    After Daniel emerged from this hole, the surrounding shattered space automatically repaired and rejoined over the hole, sealing it in mere seconds.

    The hundred young cultivators looked at Daniel with reverence. They had seen his statue everywhere in his system, including the surroundings. He was as much of a myth as he was the person that every single student aspired to be, and dreamed to be.

    d that Daniel hadn¡¯t forgotten about this little tradition, the Silver Alchemist cleared his throat, and said with enough power to resound throughout the whole arena, \"These hundred students have shown dedication towards what defines the path of a cultivator. Not the sheer power we obtain by blindly strengthening our bodies, spirits, and minds.. But the disciplines that make us different from everybody else. The disciplines that define us as cultivators.\"

    \"Through hard work they have developed and tempered these paths, and now, the day they are recognized as true cultivators, they have earned the opportunity to challenge the crown. A fair chance to test their power against the best our academy could offer since the day it was funded.\"

    As he reached this point, the Silver Alchemist asked for the students to move into a line, and to approach Daniel one at a time, stating the discipline that they wished to be tested on along with their names.

    The first person to approach Daniel was a nervous-looking young man with dark brown hair. Hanging by his waist were two short swords, which he unsheathed as he stepped towards Daniel¡¯s confident figure.. However, despite his desire to present himself to his idol, no words left his mouth.

    Before the test could begin, Daniel suppressed his power to that of a peak immortal, which matched precisely the power emitted by the mid stage of high immortality of his opponent. He then said, in an attempt to calm him down, \"Chances do note by often, so don¡¯t waste yours. Leave everything on stage, and you¡¯ll go home happy regardless of the result.\" As he finished speaking, he constructed two des identical to that of the young man, and with a respectful tone, he added, \"My name is Daniel.\"

    These few encouraging words were enough for the young man, as well as those who stood behind him in wait, to get rid of their nervousness, and feel theirpetitive spirit reignite to the state it was when they hadpeted with one another to earn those hundred spots.

    \".. my name is Viktor.\" Said the young man before bowing politely, and assuming his fighting stance.

 Chapter 496 Leave No One Alive

    After giving a proper presentation, the young man assumed his fighting stance, and started the match without notice by disappearing from where he was standing.

    When he reappeared, he was already within Daniel¡¯s reach. His upper body was hanging low, held a few inches above the ground in a horizontal position by his legs, which were bent in order to dampen the speed of his dash, and bring his motion to a halt.

    Convinced to have caught his opponent by surprise, the young man used both arms to sh at Daniel¡¯s legs, but just as the strength built in his arms, right before he could force his muscle to perform the action, Daniel stepped behind his arm and out of danger.

    Seeing Daniel¡¯s footnd past his arm and beside his chest was surprising for the young man, but not enough to stun him. Instead, hundreds of motions that could bring him to an advantageous position came to his mind.. Unfortunately, he was alreadyying down on the ground before his mind and body could turn those images into reality.

    "Using short swords instead of daggers might give you additional reach, but what is the point of a longer reach if you fight as an assassin?" Asked Daniel with a calm tone after gently tapping the bridge of the young man¡¯s foot, and causing him to fall t on his face. His motion was fluid to a point where, instead of creating second-hand embarrassment for the spectators, it caused them to take him even more seriously.

    The young man was not an exception. He quickly rose up to his feet, and after instinctively dusting his clothes clean of the inexistent dust, he turned to look at Daniel, and asked, "What do you mean?"

    "Reactivity is for swordsmen, and speed is for assassins. You should either train your reactivity and keep your current weapons, or use two daggers instead." Responded Daniel before morphing the two shortswords he was carrying into two curved daggers.. then disappeared.

    When he reappeared, he was underneath the young man. His body low on the ground, legs holding him parallel to the floor by just a few inches. His position was identical to that of the young man, but his movements were slightly slower. A sign that he wanted the young man to examine them.

    Viktor, extremely talented in his own rights, immediately caught on to Daniel¡¯s intent, and just like Daniel had done with him, he stepped past his lowered arm and kicked the bridge of Daniel¡¯s foot in order to make him lose the only point of contact with the floor. However, after his foot connected with his opponent¡¯s, instead of falling, Daniel remained suspended in mid air. He had made use of the momentum caused by the kick of the young man to raise into a one arm handstand.

    It was at this point that Viktor realized why Daniel had suggested daggers. Not only because they were more suited for quick and deadly attacks, but also because their smaller size would allow for the wielder to maintain enough dexterity in their hands to adjust to the quick changes of a battle.. A lesson that could only be learned in battle.

    By the time he had realized this, Viktor was already on the floor, with Daniel kneeling above his chest and a knife pointed at his neck. Only the spectators had noticed how one of Daniel¡¯s legs had swiped Viktor¡¯s legs, followed by the gentle kick to the chest that brought him down on the floor. In their minds there was absolutely no doubt. This match hadn¡¯t been a contest at all, but a training lesson.

    Daniel did not remain in that position for long, and got off of the young man¡¯s chest a few momentster, allowing him to get up. Viktor¡¯s dumbfounded expression directed at him, devoid of any form of embarrassment or defeat. Even he was aware that this attempt had been nothing but a joke, and that if there was a person capable of defeating Daniel, then that person had yet to make their existence known.. After all, Viktor was amongst the best students of his year, and his chances of winning were pretty much nonexistent.

    Viktor maintained the surprised state of mind for a few seconds, when he was shaken awake by the noises made by hispanions, who wished to have their go at the academy¡¯s champion. Once clear minded, the young man put his weapons back into his spatial ring, and bowed deeply towards Daniel. "Thank you for your teachings." he said before stepping out of the stage.

    The Silver Alchemist looked at Daniel with satisfaction. In his mind appeared the memories of when he was nothing more than a teenager with an average cultivation, and an absurdly fastprehension of the various aspects of mana. Now, on the other hand, his knowledge of both martial arts and spiritual essence had surpassed them as their teacher. Pride was nowhere near enough to describe the feeling that the Silver Alchemist, Master Kye, and Edmund felt towards him as his teachers whenever they would see the man he had be.

    However, this was not the time for the Silver Alchemist to lose himself in mncholic thoughts, so he turned towards the line of young graduates, but before he could ask for the next in line to step forward, the young woman who had been waiting for her chance as the second in line stepped forward, and summoned arge polearm, which she brandished with no effort.

    For the following three hours, one young cultivator after the other tried their luck against Daniel, but while they couldn¡¯t leave the stage with the title they had always aspired to take away from him, they would always leave with something to think about, as well as a new idol.

    After thest of these young men, the Silver Alchemist dered the graduation ceremony concluded, allowing the students to go back to their families, who currently inhabited one of the fives contained within Daniel¡¯s system.

    -----

    "Hello stranger." Said Alesia with a big smile after freeing herself from an unavoidable series of encounters with different families and former students. Finding Daniel was the first thing she had done. Daniel, however, did not respond to Alesia¡¯s words, and instead dashed in her direction.

    Before she could notice it, her head was already resting on his chests, and while these sudden actions would have scared many, to Alesia, Daniel¡¯s familiar body, smell, and warmth were moreforting than anything else. "Hello beautiful." Said Daniel after finally loosening the hold he had of her body, giving her enough space to move back a little and look up to him, only to find him press his lips against hers.

    Alesia, now in the red-headed physical embodiment of her being flushed red in embarrassment, as while the two were alone on stage, many thousands of people had yet to leave the stadium, including many of their friends.

    Daniel enjoyed Alesia¡¯s flustered expression for a few moments before saying with a smirk, "Sorry, I don¡¯t get to see you embarrassed often."

    Slightly annoyed by Daniel¡¯s teasing, Alesia looked back at him with narrowed eyes, but before she could say anything, she noticed the yful expression disappear from his face, and be reced by a serious one. "Again?" She asked, already aware of what was happening.

    "It won¡¯t take long.." Responded Daniel before letting go of his wife.

    The moment his hands parted from hers, Sewah appeared next to him. On his face an expression that matched Daniel¡¯s in seriousness. "It¡¯s time. We have already regrouped. Nova said that they will be here in a few minutes."

    Daniel responded to these words with a nod of his head before grabbing Alesia¡¯s wrist, and bringing it up to his face. He then kissed her palm before saying with a warm smile, "I¡¯ll be right back."

    "Be careful.." Said Alesia only moments before the two disappeared.

    -----

    When Daniel and Sewah reappeared, they were standing in outer space, surrounded by many other cultivators.

    By their left was the figure of Xargy who, currently in his human form, was apanied by his grandfather, the former king of the draconic kingdom, and various other legendary beasts whom him and Daniel had freed from the Tamer years back, and that had decided to live under the peaceful rule of Daniel¡¯s power.

    Naturally, this assimtion wasn¡¯t smooth in the beginning. Many of these legendary beasts had left right after being freed to find their own ns, but hade back soon after with the few survivors they had found after discovering that the universe was not the ce they knew in the past, and that in the eyes of the multidimensional warriors that constantly invaded it, they were nothing but walking ingredients and materials.

    Amongst them were humanoids withrge antlers and scaled skin, some with yellow eyes and white fur that covered most of their bodies, some with serpentine skin and forked tongues and many more. These people were the rulers of their own legendary beast ns, which had been on par with the Draconic n since memory could recount. All of these ns inhabited the rocky under Xargy¡¯s rule, and by extension, followed Daniel¡¯s leadership.

    upying the space to Daniel¡¯s right, were numerous teamsposed by two different entities. These small groups were formed by the pairing of adult elementals with matching elemental demon wolves, which after leaving Hell along with the other demons, had found a perfect home on the reserved for the elementals and low tier beasts. In theses they would find perfectpanions in the elementals, with whom they would form a fearsome pair which possessed the perfectprehension of a perfect elemental, and the perfect control of an elemental demonic wolf.

    Past the teams of elementals and demonic wolves, were the surviving leaders of Hell¡¯s demonic n who, just like the already powerful legendary beasts, the strongest human cultivators that had joined Daniel¡¯s side, and some his friends, thanks to Daniel¡¯s virtually infinite resources and the effects of the group system, had been able to advance to the early godhood stage at some point during thest few years. That included those who stood behind him, a small group of human cultivators led by the person formerly known as the War God, but that now ruled the human while going by his first name, Inos.

    At a closer distance, standing right next to Daniel and Sewah, were the figures of Jerigh, Aeron, and Edmund.

    This formation of cultivators had regrouped a few million miles away from the system, which was still visible in the distance behind them, and were all facing the depths of space that extended on the opposite side. No matter if humans, demons, beasts, or elementals, they were all focused on what wasing.

    For the following few minutes not a single noise was heard, only a deafening silence which turned the people present into a part of the quiet and dark outer space.

    To symbolize the imminent conclusion of these moments of this silence, were the thousands of lights that appeared in the distance like a nked of additional stars. These lights kept bing bigger and brighter by the second, until finally, those who stood by the edge of Daniel¡¯s group started to see the trail that some of these lights were leaving behind.

    The moment the first of these lights disappeared, a person took its ce.. A shirtless muscr man with venous blood-red hair and tattered ck pants. In his right hand, this man brandished a massive scythe with a de that seemed to have been recently coated in blood.

    The man was slightly surprised about seeing so many cultivators at the godhood stage, but this surprise onlysted a few moments, after which, his eyesnded on Daniel, never to move again. "Now I see how you have managed to keep your puny life for so long.. But I came prepared." He said right as each of the other lights turned into a blood cultivator ready to fight to the death. "I will take the legacy from your corpse, and be the next Murderous God."

    Daniel observed in silence as hundreds upon hundreds of cultivators joined the side of their leader. This army of blood cultivators was uniquelyposed by cultivators at the godhood stage, and their number was more than fifty times that of Daniel¡¯s side.. But, s, there was no trace of fear or nervousness on Daniel¡¯s face.

    Almost as if uninterested in the arrival of a group of enemies, Daniel turned to look towards an oddly dark point in space, and nodded. In response to this action, a nearly invisible shadow shed towards, and past the group of enemies.

    The blood cultivators looked at one another with confusion, they couldn¡¯t understand what this agglomeration of darkness could possibly be, but in the middle of their confusion, one of them finally noticed that their leader had disappeared, taken by the very shadow that had rushed in his direction, swallowed him, and disappeared before they could discern its nature.

    Before the group of enemies could reorganize or call a retreat, Daniel muttered, "Leave no one alive."

 Chapter 497 War on Two Fronts

    Despite the disadvantage in numbers, and the overall equality in cultivation all throughout the field, the battle was a one-sided one. As members of Daniel¡¯s group, the participants from his side were significatively stronger than cultivators at the same level. A gap that could not be filled through sheer numbers.

    This advantage in battle prowess was not something that could be felt by the blood cultivators, as opposed to the lower numbers of Daniel¡¯s side, which made the blood cultivators confident enough to give up any form of strategy. It was this misconception that, along with the urgency of being the first one to obtain the blood inheritance, and theck of information regarding Daniel caused by the absence of survivors that could tell the story, had led many groups of blood cultivators to their death.

    Not unlike any previous one, this battle was over in minutes, with Daniel and hispanions surrounded by droplets of blood, chopped up body pieces, and charred bodies which floated in outer space like the most gruesome of sights.

    -----

    As soon as this battle ended, instead of going back like always, the leaders of the fours approached the lone figure of Daniel, who was staring at the depths of space absentmindedly. "Daniel, we need to talk about something." Said Inos, the former War God, and ruler of the human faction under Daniel.

    Daniel maintained his pensive state, and only after a few minutes he reacted to Inos¡¯s words by opening a small portal that led to a brightly lit room with nothing but a table and a few chairs in it. He then walked through it along with Jerigh and Sewah. Nova, Inos, Xargy, and the leader of the beastmaster n, the selected representative of hell¡¯s demons, followed right after.

    Once everyone took their seat at the table, Inos turned to look at Daniel, and said, "The attacks are bing more frequent, and soon, the war between the elemental faction and the spiritual faction will end. Same for the war between the former universal government and the blood cultivators.. At that point, we might have to face the opposition of more than one group. At the same time if we are unlucky."

    After Inos finished speaking, Daniel¡¯s friends and followers remained quiet.. waiting for him to recognize the possibility that the warrior had presented. However, after two long minutes of silence, Nova added, "We have talked about it, and we came to the conclusion that it would be better for us to move."

    Once again the group turned quiet, hoping for him to say something, but yet again, Daniel said nothing, forcing Nova to break the silence one more time by adding, "Edmund and I have been experimenting with multidimensional travel, and we think that we might be able to keep us constantly on the move. That would make it nearly impossible for the blood faction and the spiritual cultivators to follow us."

    "We are not going anywhere." Responded Daniel, clearly against the idea.

    "Is this because of Der and Roley? I thought you had lost track of them four years ago. We have tried to find them ever since you came back from the spiritual world.. We don¡¯t even know if they are still alive." Said Xargy with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Ever since Daniel had recovered Alesia¡¯s spirit from the spiritual world, he and hispanions had started to look for thest two members of his group, Roley, and Der. This search had gone smoothly at first, and had led them halfway from finding thetter of the two, but for a reason unknown to either Daniel, Sewah, or every other children of Iewah which they had interrogated through the years, both of them had turned into entities that could not be traced by one of Destiny¡¯s systems.

    Hopeful that the previous predictions of the system were still useful, Daniel and hispanions tried to find Der at the point in space and time in which he should have died, but when they had arrived, there was no trace of Der, or of the battle that should have caused his death. Daniel considered that event as the first time that one of the predictions of his system had been wrong, but with time, he quickly realized that that was the wrong way of seeing it. After all, the prediction was once right, but had been changed into a different destiny by the subject.

    In search of an exnation for this, Daniel had tried to look for the figure of Iewah, the aspect of Destiny which had granted him and many others free control over their predetermined fate. But, unfortunately, ever since Daniel¡¯s universe had been opened to the multiverse, Iewah had disappeared, leaving Daniel to chase ghosts.

    "Dan, their names are not in the list of your followers anymore.. You know for a fact that they would have never left your side.." Added Aeron, implying that now that both Roley and Der could not be found amongst the members of Daniel¡¯s group system, it was more likely that they had died, than simply disappeared. Unfortunately, this could not be confirmed, as any attempt from Daniel to enter the underworld in search for their consciousness, or to sneak into the spiritual world in hope to find their spirits, had been blocked by the aspects of Death and Spirit.

    "It isn¡¯t just about them." Responded Daniel before finally lifting his gaze from his entwined fingers. He then added, "As long as we are in this universe, I am the limit of power of our enemies.. But if we enter a dimension whose natives are past the godhood stage, we will be wiped out in the blink of an eye."

    Already aware that Daniel would bring this up, Nova said, "We can jump into destroyed dimensions then. Nobody wille looking for us there, and unless we are unlucky enough to step into a dimension with a lone blood cultivator that can sense the mark on your head, we¡¯ll be fine."

    The idea of Daniel¡¯s followers was well thought out, and worked in theory, but only because they had given up on finding Der and Roley. That detail had separated them from Daniel who, by abandoning the twopanions he had lost almost a decade ago, would feel like he had left his friends behind, and disappointed a lot of people who, just like Edmund and Lucious had in the past, counted on him to bring back their friends and family.

    Daniel kept discussing with hispanions the idea of turning their system into a nomad formation that could travel through dimensions for hours, but in the end, he couldn¡¯t bring himself to ept their proposition. The most he could do was to ask them to turn this idea into a feasible project before asking him again. With that, he hoped to gain enough time to find his friends.

    -----

    Many millions of lightyears away, right at the border of the territory of the group formerly known as the universal government, arge-scale war was taking ce.

    On the two opposite sides of this war were the red robed cultivators of the blood n, who had spent thest few years establishing their presence into the universe. And the former armies of the universal government, the thousand of explorers, now back from their individual expeditions, and the judges.

    This conflict was fought on an extremely vast portion of space, and had continued for over a year.

    In one of these specific battles, the universal government was defending a system inhabited by mortals, that had been eyed by the blood cultivators. If left unprotected, the billions of humans that inhabited theses would be exterminated, and turned into cultivation resources for the younger generation of the blood n.

    This battle was being fought just outside of the gravitational pull of the system¡¯s sun.

    The side of the immortal cultivators wasposed by a few thousand immortal cultivators at the peak of the high immortal stage, who stood in formation like a trained division of soldiers, ready to charge at any given moment. On the side of the blood cultivators, on the other hand, were half a dozen young men and women, each with no more than a hundred blood cultivators at the early and mid godhood stage that acted as their personal guards. Each of these six young blood cultivators was the inheritor of one of the universes that belonged to the aspect of Sacrifice, and their method to gain cultivation resources was to invade one universe after the other, and exterminate its inhabitants one at a time, turning them into the blood essence they needed to practice the path of blood.

    The two groups were observing one another in hope to gauge each other¡¯s strength before the battle began.

    From the perspective of someone who knew the politics of the former universal government, it was clear that the immortal cultivators acted differently from before. The infighting between the three factions of the universal government had ceased, and instead, these three groups could be seen cooperating as one within this division of soldiers. Thisck of hostilities had allowed for them to maintain their ground during this war despite their enemies being much more powerful. This cohesion had been a result of a change of leadership.

    "Why don¡¯t you give up? You have been losing ground to us for over a year now, why don¡¯t you call it quits? Give us yourmander, and we will let the rest of you leave." Said a young man dressed in red and golden robes, and who stood on the side of the blood cultivators. His voice was sent through the thousands of miles that separated the two groups along with the image of his eyes, which shone from the distance like rhomboid-shaped blood-red stars.

    The members of the former universal government had seen this more than once before. Most of them were veterans in their war against the blood n, and every time, one of the spoiled lords would try to intimidate them into submission. Luckily, they knew better than to run, as history showed that their words were nothing but lies, and that dying fighting was their only option.

    Seeing that his attempt at intimidation had failed, the young man scoffed in annoyance. He then turned to look at hispanions, who possessed a status simr to his own, and said, "So, who takes this one?"

    To float forward was a young woman who, despite possessing a powerparable to that of a high immortal at the hundredth and nieth phase, was only twenty years old. This level of cultivation was a testament to the uncountable number of lives she had consumed in her very short life in order to reach such an extreme power. "I¡¯ll go, but If I win, I want them. You guys can split thes amongst yourselves afterwards." She said in an attempt to ensure the biggest prize out of them all to her group.

    The other young nobles did not seem to mind, as in her position, they would have asked the same, so they all nodded quietly, and observed as she, along with the hundred cultivators at the godhood stage that were there to protect her, headed towards the division of immortal cultivators.

    As the young woman and her escort passed the halfway mark between herpanions and her enemies, the immortal cultivators had yet to move. In her mind this could only be motivated by the fear they felt towards her escort, but her guards knew better than to let her dash ahead into a cohesive group of cultivators.

    As veteran, these blood cultivators had seen many strategies in the past, but even they were unsure of what to do when the division of immortal cultivators suddenly split into two, revealing an old man and an old woman dressed in simple elegant robes with the insignia of the judges pinned on their chest.

    If there was something that the blood cultivators had learned to fear about immortal cultivators, was what was known in Daniel¡¯s universe as a Judge. An entity capable of tapping onto the power of every other judge in existence to enforce justice against those who would break the rules.. And now, two of them were standing in front of them.

    The young woman that led this group of blood cultivators was too ignorant to understand who these two entities were, but that was not the same for the leader of her guards, who grabbed her by the arm, and prepared himself to retreat back into therger group of blood cultivators. But, s, he was toote, as before he could leave, the two judges, strengthened to the power of a cultivator at thete godhood stage, turned into twoets that came crashing around, and behind their group.

    The impact created a shockwaveparable to that of an exploding sun, but thatcked its heath and simply sent the blood cultivators flying away from theirpanions, and towards the army of immortal cultivators, which made use of the chance to advance as a unit, and kill the blood cultivators as they came crashing into their formation.

    Those that flew out of the range of thepact army of immortal cultivators were in no way more lucky, as their uncontrolled dash through space was met by the explorer, which appeared as shes of light with the only purpose of killing any survivor before disappearing once again.

    Once thest of the blood cultivators was dead, the army¡¯s soldiers flew back in their initial formation, and the two judges went to hide behind them. Of the explorers no trace could be seen, with exception made for their victims.

    The noble young man that had spoken earlier had felt everything that had happened, and suddenly lost every desire to take this fight easily. "Everyone! Split into groups of five, don¡¯t let them separate you, and if you are thrown away, defend yourself before trying to stop your motion!" He shouted while taking control over his side, and ordering to start the assault.

    After a small nod of confirmation from their own protegee, the guards followed the orders of the young man, and advanced towards the army of immortal cultivators, but just as they came close enough to see them, "HALT!" Shouted the noble young man after noticing a man that wasn¡¯t there before. Tall, muscr, andpletely covered in heavy armor. In his left hand he was holding the wounded body of the young woman.

    "Let her go, and we will leave." added the young man, aware that letting the young woman die would cause more trouble to his parents, then having to report a failure in this campaign.

    Unfortunately, the tall man was not there to discuss, as the moment the young man finished speaking, he tightened the grip he had around the young woman¡¯s head, and crushed it into a bloody pulp. He then observed the enraged young man, caught by an emotional outburst, charged towards his army along with the rest of the blood cultivators.

    "Formation twenty-two. Take the kids, kill the others." He ordered, sternly, through his heavy helmet. He then turned around, and retreated behind the formation of immortal cultivators.

 Chapter 498 The Warlord

    Against the clever tactics used by the cohesive coalition of immortal cultivators, the disorganized groups of the blood sect could do nothing but throw themselves to their death.

    Every single maneuver which possessed a semnce of strategic significance was promptly countered by their opposing force, and in just a few minutes, this led to a catastrophic loss for the blood sect.

    To validate this victory was the minimal number of losses on the side of the immortal cultivators, which had been possible only thanks to thepetence of their leader, a mysterious man who, in thest couple of years, had united a few mercenary groups and used them to take over what was left of the once powerful universal government.

    This change in leadership had only been possible due to the desperate situation in which the former ruling group of Daniel¡¯s universe was left to deal with. Specifically, to defend a territoryrger than their numbers allowed, and to protect more citizens than they could count.

    Faced with the menace of the blood sect, which saw the weaker cultivators of their universe as nothing but cultivation resources, the senate of the universal government had split into three sides, each supported by one of the three main bodies that, through arguments and small scale conflicts, tried to elevate their representatives into bing the person that would lead humanity out of this difficult situation.

    Unfortunately, while the judges, military and explorers fought against each other to gain the control of their now weakened faction, the blood cultivators ran rampant throughout their territories, ughtering billions of people every single day, one at a time.

    During those chaotic times, from within the terrified poption of the universal government, arose a group of mercenaries led by a man that was simply referred to as "The Warlord." A man who, by piling one victory after the other in his efforts against this brutal invasion, quickly gained the support of the citizens of the universal government, and after that, of the military, the explorers, and the judges.

    In just a couple of years, he had been recognized as a hero born to protect the universal government, and gained enough respect to be nominated as the temporary and sole ruler of this falling civilization.

    Thanks to the strategic brilliance and peerless leading abilities that he possessed, the universal government was able to reunite as one, absorb many of the faction that had left after the opening to the multiverse, and managed to be one of the major powers in the universe.. But more importantly, they had grown to a state where, surviving the invasions of the fearsome blood sect, was not just a dream.

    Thest battle was nothing but the new addition to a long streak of victories achieved by the Warlord.

    -----

    Alcazar.

    Amongst the most important ces in Alcazar, the that was once considered the very core of the universal government, were the headquarters of each of the three forces of the universal government.. The Military Barracks, base of the army, home to grand generals, and ce where most important military operations were nned and directed.. The Sextant, base of the explorers corp, home to retired scouts, assassins and cartographers, and the ce that contained the most detailed map of the explored universe in existence, as well as the second most vast collection of knowledge after Hiel Academy. Last but not least, was the Tribunal.

    Other than being home to the grand judges and the ce where the factions of the universal government could solve their problems without having to go to war, the Tribunal contained Alcazar¡¯s only prison. An underground structure where important prisoners of war would be kept captive and used as leverage over their factions, or tortured for information.

    Right now, this dark dungeon was reserved for only four individuals. This small group of prisoners wasposed of three young men and one young woman, all dressed in tattered red clothes and covered in shallow wounds. Their wrists and ankles were tied to the walls with suppressing chains, which absorbed any form of essence within their bodies before they could even use it to treat their injuries. These four people were the young nobles that had just led an expedition of blood cultivators to attack the universal government, and had been captured as a result of their defeat.

    "How did this happen.." muttered one of the young men while behaving in a panic-stricken way. From his behaviour, it was clear that this was the very first time he had been in real danger, and that was shown by his difficulty in maintaining his calm, "They are so weak.. How did we lose..?"

    "Fucking vermins.. Just wait until my father realizes that I have disappeared. He¡¯ll bring our whole damn universe to find me." Said the young woman with indignation. In her mind, despite believing that being stronger gave her the right to consume humans as mere cultivation resources, the idea of being mistreated was unfathomable, and the greatest offence of all.

    Of the four young blood cultivators, only two had maintained theirposure, and they were the young man dressed in red and golden clothes, and anky young man who appeared to be in histe teens. Thetter appeared to be looking around, in hope to find a way to free himself from the chains, while the former, was staring intently at the door.

    "They won¡¯t kill us. If that was their n, they would have killed us already. They brought us here to interrogate us." Said the young man with the highest status, a noble of the original universe of the blood sect, and a direct descendant of the now deceased Murderous God.

    "How can you say that?" asked his terrifiedpanion.

    "The man in heavy armor, that must be the one they call the Warlord, the man who took down many of our parties in thest two years. Since he was there personally, then it¡¯s clear that others were captured before us. They will likely interrogate us, and keep us alive to use us as leverage against the sect. If your universes have followed protocol, you should be trained for this.. Only give half truths and make them struggle for the information." Responded the leader of this group of young cultivators with a matter-of-fact and confident tone.

    What he said was able to ease the anxiousness that the most outspoken amongst the four were feeling, but it didn¡¯t seem to do anything for thenky young man, who turned towards him, and said with as much confidence, "Or they¡¯ll execute us in front of an angry mob of mortals."

    The young man dressed in red and golden clothes was about to retort, but he was interrupted when suddenly, the door of their cell opened, revealing the figure of a man d in heavy armor. This person was the one they had seen during the battle that took ce a few hours before.. The man known as the Warlord.

    Completely alone, the tall and muscr man entered the room.. Then closed the door.

    The moment he set foot into their cell, a feeling of oppression fell over the shoulders of the four blood cultivators. This pressure was not one caused by the presence of a higher power, but instead, by the presence of someone that upied a higher standing. In their eyes, he was someone worthy of being followed, even if following him brought them to their early demise.

    Looking at the slits that uncovered the man¡¯s eyes became extremely difficult for the four, just like it was not falling on their knees as a sign of submission. However, this oppression was nothing but a form of mental pressure, something that they had encountered in the past, and that they knew better than to allow to take control over their actions.

    In order to fight this oppressive feeling, the young woman turned to look at the noble figure of the Warlord, and said with indignation, "Do you have any idea who we are? Release us at on.." *CRR-SQUELCH!* her words were interrupted by an eerie crunch, followed by a loud squelching sound.

    As soon as these two sounds reached their ears, a dense liquid sttered over their eyes, forcing them to brush them clean with the back of their hands.. Unfortunately, the sight that appeared in front of their now clean eyes, was one of horror.

    The walls, ceiling, and floor of the room was now covered in blood, pieces of flesh, and blood-soaked fragments of bones. Where the young woman was standing just a second before, was now nothing but a mound of red paste, with arge war hammer nted right in the middle of it. That was all that was left of the female blood cultivator, who had smitten out of existence before being given the chance to apologize for her rudeness.

    Witnessing to the brutality and decisiveness of the Warlord send a shiver down the spines of the three surviving cultivators, who looked in silence as the man in heavy armor summoned a rag from within his spatial ring, and used it to remove the bits of flesh from the t part of his hammer, but without touching those that now decorated his helmet and cuirass.

    Once done, the Warlord turned towards the three survivors and let his cold eyesnd on each of them several times, only stopping the moment his gaze locked on the more terrified of the three. "Talk." He said with a cold and emotionless tone.

    The terrified young man pressed his back against the closest wall, and as the Warlord stepped closer to him while still holding the hammer, he muttered, "What.. I don¡¯t.. What do you.." Completely panic-stricken, the mind of the young man becamepletely nk. He was barely able to mutter a few words before his captor grabbed his head with his left hand, and rammed it against the wall over and over again.

    When the crunching sounds ended, and nothing was left of the young man¡¯s head but meat paste, the Warlord stopped, allowing his headless corpse to fall on the pool of blood that had formed under his limp feet.

    In the mind of the two survivors started to appear random pieces of information and details that they could give up to avoid a brutal and untimely death, but as the single word said by the Warlord resounded once again in their ears, these thoughts fell apart, unable to be ced together.

    Without wasting a single moment, the Warlord took a step back, and quickly eyed the two young men left. The one dressed in gold and red clothes, and the tall and quiet one. He then repeated, "Tal-"

    Before he could finish repeating himself, the Warlord was interrupted by the taller young man, who blurted out, "There will be two more partiesing in ten days. Each will have no less warriors than the ones we came with. Their objectives are the systems closest to.." As he reached this point, however, the tall young man was silenced by the index finger of the tall and muscr man, which was straightened in front of his face to make him be quiet.. An order which he didn¡¯t dare to refuse.

    Now terrified, the taller young man was only able to watch and tremble in horror as the Warlord approached the now begging young man dressed in gold and red. This horror kept increasing as thetter was turned into minced meat by an endless series of blows fueled by a fury that he had never experienced in his life. This sight was so terrifying, that he failed to notice the stream of warm urine that went down his legs, and the small shreds of flesh that flew on his face, and into his opened mouth.

    What followed were ten minutes of pure brutality which destroyed any of the young men¡¯s mental defenses.

    When the Warlord was finally over with what he was doing, the young man did not think twice before starting to reveal a vast amount of intel that included the location of the camps of the blood warriors, the location of their main base, the numbers of forces left in the universe, the number of reinforcements, and their main objectives.. but most importantly, the reason why they were so eager to invade their universe.

    This entire interrogation was heard by a young-looking man dressed in grand judge¡¯s clothes, who stood in the corridor outside of the cell while taking notes of what was revealed. He had been waiting in the same exact spot ever since the Warlord had entered the cell, and his job was to take note of everything that could be of importance.

    When ten minutester the tall young man ran out of information to give.. The grand judge ced the pen over the sheet of paper, and pretended not to hear his cries of desperation paired by the now familiar, yet still extremely disgusting brutal noises, which ended a couple of secondster. Once nothing but silence could be hearding from the cell, the grand judge straightened his back, and waited for the Warlord to walk out.

    As if on cue, the tall man in heavy armor walked out of the cell. His armor now painted red, with bits and pieces of bones, flesh, and organs resting over the once shiny metal. His eyesnded on the grand judge, who looked back at him with a nervous smile. Instead of saying anything, however, the warlord raised his arms, and reached for the helmet that was covering his head.

    With a fluid motion he removed it, revealing a middle-aged man¡¯s face. That of a stern individual, veteran of many wars, and to some people, like Daniel and hispanions, extremely familiar features. He was one half of Daniel¡¯s two missingpanions, Der.

 Chapter 499 Winds of Change

    "One day you might want to keep one of them alive, and try some sort of peaceful resolution. It might earn us a couple of days of rest." Said the grand judge before putting the transcription of the interrogation away.

    After finally being able to take out the helmet in at least twenty hours, Der took a deep breath and turned to look back at the grand judge, causing him to feel the same immense pressure that a simple soldier would feel when meeting themander of the military. He then said, "A predator doesn¡¯t respect its prey enough to give up the hunt.. Unless the prey starts biting back."

    Overwhelmed by this pressure, the grand judge was forced to use his gift just to be able to stand straight, then retorted, "But wouldn¡¯t a clear provocation, like killing their nobles, instigate them to send more at us? ording to the intel we have gathered so far, it is a miracle we haven¡¯t been wiped out already."

    As the grand judge finished speaking, Der began to walk down the dark corridor that led outside of the dungeon, "Harvesting humans is only a side project for them. They are here for something else. We just need to find out what that is." he said with a matter-of-fact tone before walking through a series of corridors that lead to the main hall of the Tribunal.

    Once out of the tunnel, the two were weed by all themanders, veteran explorers and grand judges that had agreed to fall under Der¡¯s control in these troubled times. They had been waiting for him to finish the interrogation ande back with new orders ever since their return from thest battle.

    Der paid no mind to the respectful behaviour of these people, and simply ordered, "Division one and seven, leave for system A19 and start building portals in the inhabiteds. Divisions two to six build a camp outside of Aquilia, the next party of blood cultivators will arrive in four days. I want at least eighty percent of the poption gone by the time they arrive. Divisions nine to.."

    As he went on giving the new assignments, the generals took their leave one at a time, leaving him alone as thest followed suit.

    "Look at you.. Big boy Der, saving all those townsfolk from the big bad wolves." Said a disembodied voice within Der¡¯s head. A voice which he tried to ignore as he walked towards his room. "Still going with the silence treatment? Shouldn¡¯t you treat me with a bit of respect?"

    "..shut up.." muttered Der in response before barging into his room, where a boy no older than six, and dressed in regal clothes, was quietly observing the world from the other side of the window. Der ignored this boy and walked towards the bedside table, on which was arge bowl filled with clean water. He then scooped a handful of it with his cupped hands, and used it to wash his face.

    "Is it still bothering you?" Asked the young boy without looking away from the window.

    Der shook his head almost as if trying to throw the headache he was feeling out of his head, and said, "I didn¡¯te here because I appreciate your presence."

    "I told you, you shouldn¡¯t have epted his help.. Especially since you knew what the consequences would be." Responded the boy before turning around, and revealing a face with no features.

    Seemingly tired of having to listen to these words time and time again, Dery on his bed, covering his eyes from the stressful world that surrounded him. When he opened his eyes once again, the young boy had disappeared, unlike his headache, which reappeared the moment the voice inside his head came back, "You know, dealing with an aspect of existence never fares well for your kind.. Especially Hierarchy."

    "He works well enough in keeping you quiet." Responded Der with a dismissive tone.

    "That is so silly. What advantages does being his champion bring to you? Just use the system! You would be able to force anyone under your control.. And you know what I am already, so are you really risking something?" Said the voice before being ignored once more.

    -----

    Back on his-shaped artifact, Daniel was sitting with his legs crossed in the backyard of his house. There, he was trying to ignore the screams of his son, who was using low level spatialprehension to escape from his sister, who chased him while riding the demonic wolf and brandishing a training sword all around therge yard.

    On a more isted area of this backyard, were Than, and the two children of Heimart and Alis, who had now reached their mid teen years, and spent most of their time practicing the martial arts of their families, or theirprehension over mana in preparation to join Hiel academy in a few years. Theirmon goal was to be as powerful as their legendary uncle, whom they admired from the distance as he meditated.

    To the people that inhabited Daniel¡¯s system, this was the kind of day where nothing of importance would happen, and life would be allowed to go on uneventfully, but unfortunately, that was not true for everyone.

    After only being able to meditate for a couple of hours, Daniel was interrupted by Edmund, who made his presence known by disturbing theyer of space that surrounded him. "It has been five years. It¡¯s time." Said Daniel right as Edmund appeared, and before standing up, and walking in front of him. The two then sat on the space which solidified under their bodies. "What did you find out?"

    Three years after Alesia¡¯s rescue, Edmund had managed to achieve a level ofprehension of multidimensional travel that allowed him toe and go from other dimensions. To best use this ability, and at the same time help him get used to this sort of use, Daniel had asked him to do what he and the rest of the group needed the most, and that was to gather information.

    While Daniel¡¯s friends wanted to use this power to find a safe universe to move their self-sufficient system into, Daniel had requested five years of time for Edmund to perfect the skill, and at the same time, give him enough time to find Roley and Der.

    Now, five years had passed, and as per agreement, Edmund had to report everything he had discovered, and based on that, they would need to decide on what to do.

    As soon as Daniel asked that question, Edmund took a set of ck and white hexagonal pieces from within his spatial ring, and ced them over theyer of space that had solidified over their legs. "I¡¯ll start from theposition of the multiverse.."

    By visiting one universe after another, Edmund had discovered much about the multiverse and his gift. Starting from how the multiverse was formed, to how his unique power worked. From what he understood, the multiverse was not made up by infinite universes that existed on different nes, or at least, not all of them.

    The only nes that existed in the more conventional understanding of the multiverse, were those inhabited by aspects of existence, like the underworld, and the spiritual in, which existed as secondary nes for every single universe.

    The rest of the universes were contained in the negative zone, and ced in ordered rows inside an infinite expanse of nothingness. A form of void thatcked anyw of physics, time, and space.

    This discovery left no small amount of confusion in Edmund¡¯s mind, as he had always believed that the connection his universe had to the void was due to the fact that the two universes existed in the same ce, and that the chaotic nature of thetter would randomly create an opening for people and objects to cross through, but in reality, it was only because the two universes adjacent to one another.

    The instability of the void were indeed the cause for the appearance of the ripples, but these ripples were nothing more than portals sent across the negative zone, and caught by Daniel¡¯s universe.

    In his mind, Edmund could only exin this by thinking of the negative zone as a vast ocean, and of the many universes as ships. The close distance between two universes was akin to two ships spotting each other at sea, and the awareness of not being alone was the connection between the two universes. The ripples were nothing but the messages sent from one ship to the other.

    What Edmund had discovered about his power was that his form of multidimensional travel was not a power that allowed him to shift from one dimension to another, but one that allowed him to perceive the tens of thousands of universes closest to his own the same way someone would feel the presence of an outside space when inside a pocket dimension, which was the most basic form of multidimensional travel, and only possible thanks to the advanced stage of instability of the void, which would keep the two universes constantly connected.

    That was all he had discovered about the nature of the multiverse and the nature of his power, and by exploring many universes in the past five years, he had learned about its political situation.

    For the sake of convenience, multiversal travelers had divided the universes into four colors. Grey, white, blue, and red. A universe was considered grey if it was locked to multiversal travel, and it would turn white after being exposed to the multiverse, and be a territory contested by the champions of the aspects of existence. A universe assigned as blue was one that belonged to the aspect of existence served, and a red universe was one owned by another aspect of existence. For example, to the blood n, which served the aspect of Sacrifice, the universes they controlled were considered blue universes, while the universes that belonged to every other aspect of existence, were considered red universes. Daniel¡¯s universe was currently a white one.

    Since the power of an aspect of existence matched the presence of the aspect they represented in the multiverse, the vastness of their territories was directly proportionate to their power, and by extension, to their standing in their pantheon¡¯s hierarchy.

    "Alright.." said Daniel while rubbing his temples in an attempt to digest thisrge amount of information. After a good minute, he stopped and asked, "What about the other thing I have asked you? What have you found?"

    "Unfortunately, I haven¡¯t. The Blood n is the only power that works under the aspect of sacrifice, so his territory is their territory. With that being said, despite their weaknesspared to many other groups, they are left alone because of their ability to rapidly boost their power by absorbing fallen warriors.. We are lucky that our universe is limited by your power at the moment.." Exined Edmund.

    The second task that Daniel had given to his father-inw, was to gain a deeper understanding of the real power of the blood n in the multiverse. From this investigation Daniel hoped to learn about some of his opponent¡¯s enemies, but unfortunately, he had underestimated the potential of the path of blood.

    "What do you think?" Asked Daniel after noticing Edmund¡¯s mental activity.

    "Leaving is impossible. We cannot rely on your luck, because if you happen to run out of Karmic points, it will take a second for them to find us, and to wipe us out." Responded Edmund, clearly prepared to give his opinion on the matter.

    Daniel tapped his fingers a few times against the solidified space under his arms in a pensive way, then, after a few minutes, he muttered, "One day word of the death of the Murderous God will spread further than just a few upper echelons of the blood n, and at that point, we won¡¯t be able to contain the invasion.."

    "That is the same conclusion I have reached." Said Edmund.

    "There is only one option left.." Added Daniel before standing up, and looking at the kids that were either ying or training in his backyard. He then turned to look back at Edmund, and added with a decisive tone, "It¡¯s time to make them some enemies."

 Chapter 500 Protect You From Afar

    "You are leaving?" Asked Alesia with a tone marked by surprise and worry.

    Daniel responded with a simple nod, before taking a seat on one of the kitchen¡¯s chairs. He then said, "Your father and I came to the conclusion that moving as a group won¡¯t do. I am confident that I can survive on my own anywhere, but I won¡¯t be able to protect everybody else when the attacks of the blood sect will be more frequent and ferocious."

    "No! No... we need you here. What if the spiritual ns and the blood sect attack us all at the same time? And.. our kids are here, I am here.. We need you here, and you need our help!" Said Alesia with an increasing degree of worry. In her mind, the memories of being separated from Daniel for years were still vivid, and the sheer idea of having to relive them, was enough to cause her to panic. Before her state of mind could fall into chaos, however, Daniel sprung up on his feet, walked up to her, and weed her into his arms.

    After Edmund¡¯s report, Daniel had realized that even though he was the strongest entity in the universe, the bigger his group became, the more people he was in charge of protecting. While this had never been a problem for him when he was able to use his system to avoid danger, it had be a great source of worry now that the inheritance left on his body constantly gave out his position to his enemies.

    By staying as a beacon for thousands of enemy cultivators to see, Daniel realized that he had be the source of most of the danger that his family and friends had to face, and because of that, he had decided to leave until he would be able to take care of the Blood Sect.

    Due to the Murderous God¡¯s inheritance, the only options Daniel had to remove this looming threat over his group, was to either be absorbed by one of the blood cultivators and die, or kill anyone that was proficient enough in the path of blood to be able to heed the call of the blood inheritance.. In other words, he needed to remove the path of blood from the multiverse, and in order to do that, he needed allies .. entities powerful enough to face a multiversal organization like the blood sect.

    "I can¡¯t go on like this. I can¡¯t fend off one assault after the other wondering if the next one will be the one where they¡¯ll have enough people to hurt you, Eli, or Lia." Said Daniel while clearing the tears off of Alesia¡¯s cheeks with his thumb. As he saw that she was starting to calm down, he let out a reassuring smile, and added, "And it¡¯s not like I¡¯ll be out of reach if anything happens. Your dad will be able to keep track of the universe I¡¯ll be in, and I¡¯ll always know that you are safe on the artifact.. So don¡¯t worry about me, okay?"

    Finally convinced, and yet not happy, Alesia nodded in understanding. She was a cultivator above everything else, and she knew that if there was someone capable of aplishing anything that seemed unlikely to happen, that someone was Daniel. If that was not enough to convince her, as a mother, she couldn¡¯t ignore a measure that would grant her children a higher degree of safety.

    After a few more exchanges between the two, Daniel sighed in relief at the thought that his wife was supporting his decision. However, what she said next, caused his morale to worsen by a few degrees. "You have to tell them.." She said while turning to look out of the window, through which Eli and Lia could be seen ying around.

    Daniel nodded in silence before letting go of Alesia, and walking out of the door with an oddly slow pace. Even after walking out of the door, it took him more than five minutes to find the courage to say, "Eli, Lia,e here."

    The two kids suddenly stopped ying, and approached their father. In their eyes, Daniel could see that they had already realized what he wanted to tell them, after all, that was not the first time that Daniel had left the system for one reason or another. This time, however, it was different, as while he didn¡¯t know when he would return, he knew that it would be longer than the usual few days.

    "You are going again, dad?" asked Eli, who was the first one to arrive by gliding through air. Just behind him was his sister, who rode the grey wolf-sized demonic wolf.

    Daniel nodded faintly before gently falling over one knee. He then put a hand over the shoulder of each of his kids, and after looking at them with immense pride, he said, "You two will have to take care of your mother for a little longer this time. Can you do that for me?"

    Both kids nodded vigorously in response.

    "Good." Said Daniel as his lips curved into a proud smile.

    Daniel was aware that two, five, or even ten years meant nothing for the life of a cultivator.. And yet, as he tried to memorize every detail of his children¡¯s voices and faces, he could not help but feel bitter at the thought that the next time he would see his children, they would be much different.

    After a few minutes spent making sure that they would follow their cultivation properly in his absence, Daniel stood to watch as the two kids ran into the house to check on their mother. He then turned towards the demonic wolf, which turned into a ck cloud, and jumped into his shadow. Before he could enter his shadow, however, he was stopped by a spatial barrier, which forced him back.

    The demonic wolf spent the following twenty seconds making more attempts at entering Daniel¡¯s shadow, but none of them were sessful, leaving him with no choice but to look at Daniel with confusion.

    While the demonic wolf could tolerate being separated from hispanion for a few minutes, his connection to Daniel was a spiritual one. Ever since he had encountered him in Hell, Daniel had been his whole world, and the two had never been separated.

    Unfortunately, while he would have liked to, Daniel could not take the demonic wolf with him. As the owner of hell, the demon wolf was the ruler of the demonkin, and the connection their race had with the sub dimension that had created their race. There was no telling what would have happened to Hell and the demonic race if its owner and ruler left the universe.

    "I have to do this on my own." Said Daniel while cing his hand over the wolf¡¯s head.

    The wolf immediately understood the meaning of Daniel¡¯s words, and quickly showed his unwillingness to part from him by whimpering, and trying again and again to hide into Daniel¡¯s shadow, but after a few more failed attempts, Daniel stopped him.

    "I need you to stay here, and protect the most important people I have in this world." He said while patting the sides of therge wolf¡¯s head for a few moments. As the wolf stopped whimpering, he added, "I will only feel at ease knowing that you are here with them."

    The demonic wolf was directly connected to Daniel, so when he asked him to protect his family, the wolf could feel Daniel¡¯s trust. It was only then that the wolf made ap around Daniel¡¯s body, rubbing his body against his legs and hips, and then turned into a dark mist that disappeared into the shade of his house.

    Once alone, Daniel muttered, "It¡¯s time."

    Almost as if ready for Daniel¡¯s summoning, Edmund suddenly appeared next to him. On his face was an expression filled with confusion. "Was that it? Don¡¯t you want to at least spend a day with them before leaving?" He asked, worried that Daniel¡¯s sudden disappearance would hurt his daughter and grandchildren even more.

    Daniel shook his head in response, then said, "I don¡¯t want them to say goodbye to be as if they won¡¯t be seeing me again."

    "What about everybody else? Aren¡¯t you going to at least tell them what you n on doing? You don¡¯t have to do this alone."

    Instead of answering the question, Daniel picked up a seemingly unimportant pebble from the ground, and handed it over to his father-inw. He then said, "If I told them, they would want toe with me.. But I am not willing to take anybody¡¯s strength away from the system we have built. Keep the artifacts, and follow the rules we have set. With the sacred grounds of the academy, you¡¯ll be unmatched in the universe. Justy low until Ie back."

    "What if something happens and we need your help?"

    "Use that." Said Daniel while pointing his finger at the pebble that Edmund was holding in his hand. "As long as you manage to get one of those into the universe I am staying, I will feel it, ande back as soon as possible. I trust you and Nova will be able to use the formation to avoid trouble."

    "Very well." Responded Edmund while dropping the pebble on the ground, as he had realized that any part of Daniel¡¯s would work for that purpose, and not only that specific stone. He then cleaned his hands, and asked, "Where do you want to go?"

    "As far away as possible from here." Responded Daniel.

    Edmund nodded in understanding before focusing on a point in space between the two of them, and opening a portal that to Daniel, felt different from any other.

    From a single look Daniel could see that he would never be able to create this sort of portal. He could not feel the presence of the other universes, and even if he did, without Edmund¡¯s vast perception, a moment of distraction would cause the portal to fall apart, and for him to be split into atoms, and spread through the negative zone that separated the universe where he was now, and the one that was on the other side.

    "Take care of yourself." Said Edmund as Daniel began to walk towards the portal.

    "See you soon." Responded Daniel right before crossing through without looking back.

    -----

    Somewhere in the territory of one of the former factions of the now disbanded universal government, was a that, only a few months before, was full of life. Used as a hub for merchants and mercenaries, the¡¯s poption numbered in the billions, but now, not a single person or animal could be seen roaming its crust.

    While most of this appearedpletely deserted, that was not the case for one of its main cities, where thousands of cultivators dressed in red robes, were seen moving rows and rows of chained people through the separated camps, and towards the city¡¯s pce, from which they would make no return.

    This was currently being used as the headquarters of the blood sect within Daniel¡¯s universe, and was inhabited by their main forces in the territory. In this camp, the newly arrived young nobles would be able to im a portion of the universe for their families and universes, and start harvesting its inhabitants to be used as resources.

    For thest eight years manys had suffered a simr fate, but while the invasion of the blood sect was believed to be a hunt for resources by most surviving factions, there was a secret reason for why they had decided to invade this specific universe.

    That reason was the inheritance of the Murderous God.

    While the death of the Murderous God was a heavy blow for the blood sect, this loss would have absolutely no consequences as long as one of his inheritors would manage to obtain his legacy, and use it to the level of their former overlord. That was the reason why, regardless of thepetition between the strongest entities within the blood sect, they had never asked for support from other groups, or allowed for the news of the death of the Murderous God to spread.

    For years greed had blinded the mind of these inheritors, causing them to be unable toe to an agreement.. Or at least, not until now.

    After eight long years, and the umpteenth raiding party lost to their greed, the inheritors had realized that the person they were facing was their worst natural enemy. Not amon cultivator, but someone blessed by Destiny¡¯s gift, and capable of empowering his allies.

    After multiple negotiations conducted between the families, the inheritors hade to the conclusion that the only way they would be able to obtain the inheritance, would be by overwhelming their enemy with sheer numbers.

    After months spent defining details, and arguing over who had the biggest im over the inheritance, these negotiations were finally concluded with the signing of a treaty.. but right when the treaty was about to be signed, the bright beacon that they had felt every moment they had spent in this universe, suddenly disappeared.

 Chapter 501 Brave New World

    Multidimensional travel was not as easy on someone¡¯s body as normal teleportation. Theck of time and space within the negative zone worked as an interference over the connection formed between the universes, impacting the body of the cultivators right after they wouldplete their instantaneous travel.

    This disturbance was something that affected those who were not used to multidimensional travel. These people would, just like Daniel had after walking through the portal, feel a sense of extreme dizziness take over their minds, and if unable to control their body, be forced to bend forward in order to empty the content of their stomach.

    Luckily, Daniel had a perfect control of his body, and while he couldn¡¯t avoid the dizziness, he was able to maintain a somewhat dignified posture, and avoid making a spectacle out of himself.

    When the dizziness started to dim, Daniel was finally able to separate the uneasiness he was feeling due to the multidimensional travel, from the noise produced by the hundreds of voices that could be heard around him. The origin of these voices only became clear after Daniel managed to focus his sight and look around.

    From what Daniel could make out of his surroundings, he could guess that he was in the middle of a city, and he was standing amongst a massive crowd of cultivators of age and power simr to his own. Some of these cultivators were apanied by who appeared to be guards or rtives, who stood next to them with dignified mannerism.

    Within this crowd, many interacted with one another while exchanging polite smiles and greetings, while those who kept to themselves, were looking down therge road, where a column of their peers which marched in unison.

    What surprised Daniel the most of his surroundings, was not the fact that there were so many people at a rtively young age that possessed a cultivation at the godhood stage, but the fact that their escorts, either guards or rtives, emanated a power that Daniel couldn¡¯t understand. Somehow simr to a power that he had felt in the past, and yet different.

    While he couldn¡¯t make rity of this power in his head, Daniel had no doubt that it was above his own, which meant that he had been sent in a universe where the standard of cultivation was above and beyond that of his own universe.

    Despite feeling rtively unsafe, Daniel was happy about his circumstances. His hope was toe to a universe that the blood cultivators would think twice before attacking, where he could gather information about the multiverse and its powers, and possibly, where he could blend in. Considering the infinite number of ces where he could have appeared, this optimal oue would have been considered a miracle, if not for his system¡¯s ability to impact his luck.

    Not sure of what to do, Daniel approached a group of young people at the mid godhood stage, and asked, "Excuse me, can you tell me why there are so many people here? Is it some sort of special asion?"

    The group of cultivators looked at Daniel with confusion, then turned to look back at one another as if unsure of what Daniel was saying.

    Daniel had seen that kind of confused expression before, but before assuming, he decided to verify his theory by singling out a few of the many voices that came from every direction. What he heard was iprehensible gibberish.

    "Damn it.." he muttered after confirming that he had been sent into a universe in which hisnguage was not spoken.

    Luckily that was not a problem, as he could easily navigate through the memories of these people, and learn theirnguage through their past experiences, so instead of wasting anymore time with these cultivators, he gave an apologetic and awkward nod of his head, and walked away from them.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel began to search the minds of the cultivators around them, but before he could sessfully read the memories of a single person, he discovered that the mind of every individual within the crowd was impossible to read. That was the case not because of a higher level of mental power, but instead, because they were likely in possession of artifacts that protected their minds.

    Slightly annoyed, Daniel made a second attempt by focusing on the city¡¯s weak inhabitants that could be seen walking through the crowd, while desperately trying not to offend anybody. He then pretended to follow the marching group down therge street while trying to pick up bits and pieces of thenguage.

    After about thirty minutes, the motion of the crowd came to an end.

    Daniel stopped what he was doing to check why the others had stopped, and when he opened his eyes, he saw in the distance a flight of pearly-white stairs as wide as the road which the crowd had walked so far, and that reached beyond the clouds.

    While Daniel could not feel or see where these stairs led, at only a few steps above the ground, he could see a young woman. She seemed to be trying her best to go up the steps, but for some reason, her body was shaking, and she was unable to move even an inch further from her current position. After no more than thirty seconds, she finally copsed to the power against which she was struggling, and she fell down the side of the flight of steps unconscious.

    After her, a second young woman began to go up the stairs, showing the same difficulty in proceeding that her predecessor had had, but after managing to climb three steps higher.

    Daniel let out an annoyed sigh. He knew that he had stumbled into some sort of test, and to make things worse, it appeared that it would take a very long time for his turn to arrive, so, that detail in mind, he decided to relieve his boredom by walking to the side of the road, where the side of the road opened into arge square.

    In this square was a newly built stage surrounded by hundreds of curious cultivators, and over it, were two people.

    It only took a moment for Daniel to enter the mind of one of the city¡¯s inhabitants, and discover that the stage he was facing was specially built for these visiting cultivators, and its purpose was for them to exchange moves while waiting for their turn to take the test, or to solve old grievances.

    From a simple look, Daniel could guess that the fight that was taking ce on stage was of the earlier kind, as the two warriors seemed to be respectful of each other¡¯s skills, and their spirits did not release any form of killing intent .. but what surprised him the most, was the fact that these two warriors were showing off the full power of two cultivators at the early godhood stage without holding back.

    Theoretically the power of each of these attacks should have disintegrated a, but aside from a particrly spectacr show of light, no power left the edges of the stage. The aftermath of these attacks was stopped by a barrier that even Daniel doubted he would be able to pierce through with sheer strength. A barrier that possessed the power to stop anyone at the godhood stage, or below.

    The fight was between two fierce looking young men. One tall, muscr, and dressed like a mountain bandit, and one scrawny, and dressed as a schr. Each of them relied on their weapons to try and showcase their ability and superiority, but in the end, with a swipe of his sword that could have split a star into two, the cultivator dressed in bandit clothes was able to incapacitate the noble-looking cultivator, and throw him off the stage.

    The crowd roared in support of the winner as he walked down the stage, and allowed for another couple to walk in. However, contrary to the first one, this match appeared of the second, more entertaining kind.

    The first person to walk on stage was a young looking woman dressed in light green embroidered in gold. From her arrogant behaviour and aloof expression, one would be able to guess that she was of royal descent, and that she believed to be above everybody else.

    Just outside of the other side of the stage, were two tall men d in identical shiny armors. On their chest tes an insignia simr to that sewn on the woman¡¯s green dress in gold. The two were carrying an injured red headed woman. As they got to the edge of the stage, they roughly threw her on as if she wasn¡¯t a human, but a bag of trash.

    As soon as the second young woman entered the stage, the one dressed in royal clothes spoke a few iprehensible words filled with contempt, and summoned a leathery spiked whip. She then began to crack it at the second young woman, who took the beating without fighting back, or even protecting herself.

    This punishment was hard to watch for most people in the crowd, but not for Daniel, who appeared to be focused on what was happening on stage.

    In reality, what Daniel was observing, were the numbers present over the heads of the two young women. One barely positive, and one extremely negative.

    The arrogant woman was the one in possession of a negative karma, which became worse and worse every time her whip would strike the defenseless body of the second young woman, showing that she was doing something that could be considered evil. On the other hand, the second young woman was in possession of a rtively neutral karma, which likely meant that she had spent most of her life cultivating, and not worrying about helping, or harming others.

    As the first young woman proceeded to strike the second one with a flurry of blows, she kept letting out a few words filled with disdain and hate. Daniel could still not understand these lines, but he could make out a few words every now and then, which were on the line of "filthy half-blood," "ve," and so on.

    The more attacksnded on the defenseless young woman, the more ecstatic the first one appeared to be. However, while virtually every other cultivator showed ack of interest for what was happening, that was not the same for Daniel, who was getting more and more irritated by the moment.

    After a hundred more blows carefully aimed at preventing the second young woman from crawling off stage, Daniel finally lost his patience, and he started to walk towards the stage.

    As he reached the steps of the stage, the surrounding cultivators turned to look at him with confusion. It wasmon knowledge that a barrier would form on the edge of the stage the moment two cultivators would step foot on it, and yet Daniel kept walking.

    What was odd about his behaviour was not that he was walking on stage, as that was not a rare asion .. After all, it wasn¡¯t rare that the rtives of defeated cultivators would try to jump on stage to support their dear ones, but they would always be striked down by the barrier.

    Daniel, on the other hand, showed no urgency, almost as if his intent for walking on stage was beyond that of helping the young woman that was being tortured.

    Finally able to see a real show, the surrounding cultivators turned to look at Daniel with anticipation, but the moment his body came in contact with it, the barrier made way for him, and he simply walked through it.

    The woman dressed in regal clothes immediately stopped inflicting the punishment onto the second young woman, and turned to look at Daniel with hostility. However, to Daniel¡¯s surprise, there was no shock in her eyes, only mild surprise and a hint of envy. This mild reaction to his use of the essence of space time showed that, while extremely rare, Daniel was not the only cultivator in possession of a basicprehension of spacetime.

    Irritated by Daniel¡¯s interruption, the arrogant young woman cursed at him with her ownnguage, but she was ignored. Instead of paying mind to her, Daniel walked up to the curled up body of the second young woman, and stopped only half a meter in front of her.

    The surrounding cultivators started to feel curious about Daniel¡¯s intentions, but right when they started to wonder whether he wanted to help the injured young woman or not, Daniel put his weight onto his left foot, raised his right heel lightly, and kicked the injured young woman hard enough for her to be thrown off stage.

    He then turned around, and while looking at the arrogant woman with cold eyes and a colder expression, he pointed outside of the stage with his finger, and tapped the air twice. There was no need for spoken words for the observers to understand what he meant, and that, was for the arrogant woman to "get off stage, now." In his behaviour was no indication of the fact that this could have been a request instead of a demand.

 Chapter 502 Stairway to Heaven

    Daniel¡¯s action left nothing but a dumbfounded expression on the face of the arrogant woman, whichsted for as long as he kept pointing his finger down the steps that led off stage. From her reaction, as well as that of her guards, who angrily crowded the area around the stage, Daniel could imagine what this woman¡¯s upbringing was like .. and yet, he couldn¡¯t care less.

    Her actions had annoyed him, and while there was a good chance that he would have minded his own business in the past, the years spent as a father had opened his mind to thoughts on the line of, "What if that was my daughter?" which made him aware that, to some extent, he had gone soft.

    With her guards unable to walk into the stage due to the barrier ced on it, the young woman spent a few seconds observing Daniel¡¯s appearance.

    While she came from arge family that stood above most others, she was more than aware that her existence was far from being an untouchable one .. especially where she was at the moment. That was why she had used this opportunity to show off her brutality against someone with whom she had a past grudge, and whose background she already knew she could handle.

    Daniel¡¯s appearance was an odd one in her eyes. Not only was he dressed in an attire that could be seen being worn by any low level entity, but he alsocked any kind insignia that could confirm his identity. From what she could see, he was a mortal with the power of someone at the peak of the godhood stage.

    Unsure of what to do, the young woman turned to look at the people that had crowded around the stage, and in their eyes, she saw the looks that a hunter would have, after spotting a defenceless prey. The purpose of her disy of brutality was to show herself as an entity that should have been avoided, but Daniel¡¯s interference had ruined that n. Had she left now, she would be remembered as the girl that abused the injured, but shrieked in fear at the first sign of confrontation.

    For her, this was the worst possible scenario.

    Unwilling to be seen defeated, the young woman decided to bet on the fact that the power that had raised the strange man that stood in front of her, was not stronger than her own, so instead of following Daniel¡¯s instructions, she tightened the grip around her weapon, and with newfound ferocity, she took a step forward.

    Daniel had learned a lot of this universe just from this short event.

    Before, he had simply guessed that this assembly had something to do with the massive flight of pearly-white steps that he had seen from the distance, but now, he had guessed that these young cultivators were not only there to take a test, but to enter a long-termpetition. No other option would have exined why rtives and guards would escort their young masters and mistresses, or why it was so important for these young prodigies to show off their power to their soon-to-bepetitors.

    By understanding this, Daniel realized what he needed to do to blend in.

    While muttering a few words filled with indignation, the woman walked towards Daniel with her whip in hand. Coming from her body, he could feel a murderous emotional aura, which made her intentions clear. Then, as she came to only a few steps from Daniel, she raised her arm and flicked her whip towards him with enough power to easily destroy a. *SLAP*

    "..."

    "Do not worry. I won¡¯t make it seem like you had a chance of winning." Said Daniel to the ear of the woman, whom he had just pped right after teleporting next to her.

    The woman instinctively held her reddened left cheek. The pain she was feeling could not ovee the realization that, had these ps been slightly stronger, her neck would have snapped, and her head would have rotated a thousand times over before stopping.

    Knowing exactly how close to death she had been, made herpletely oblivious of what Daniel had just said, or even the fact that he wasn¡¯t talking anguage that she could understand.

    Nevertheless, when Daniel raised his hand once again, she understood that it wasn¡¯t over. But, s, it was toote. Both her, her guards, and the dignified man that stood behind her escorts could do nothing but observe as Daniel pped the woman¡¯s face a hundred times more, all in the short span of a second.

    By the time he had pped her for the hundredth time, the girl fell on the ground. She had lost consciousness way before the number of ps could get to three digits, but that hadn¡¯t stopped Daniel from rounding up the hits to a hundred.

    From theck of death essence in the surroundings, Daniel had guessed that killing was not allowed in thispetition, so, instead of finishing the woman, he kicked her off stage simrly to how he did with the other one, and walked on the other side of the stage, waiting for another challenger.

    For a few moments Daniel looked around, waiting for a challenger to step up, but aside for the few guards of the woman he had just humiliated, just like he had expected, it did not seem that anyone was up for the challenge .. After all, while Daniel possessed a cultivation identical to that of the strongest prodigies around, he had easily defeated someone at his own level. A feat that not many would be able to boast.

    With no one left to challenge him, Daniel decided to leave the ring, but before he could jump off stage, a young man that appeared to be in histe teens, but that in reality was in histe thirties, jumped on stage, and bowed politely towards him, epting his challenge.

    Daniel immediately noticed thepleteck of arrogance in the behaviour of this young man, as well as the positive karma that hovered above his head. Pleased with his opponent, Daniel reciprocated the bow, and picked a sword simr to the one the young man was carrying from within his spatial ring. The two then sparred for a few minutes, time in which Daniel restrained his power so that their spar could appear somewhat even.

    After roughly a hundred exchanges, the young man sheathed his sword, bowed towards Daniel in disappointment, clearly aware that Daniel was restraining himself, and left the stage.

    Unwilling to fight any longer, Daniel stepped down from the stage, walked through the group of enraged guards, whom he had already guessed would not attack him despite the hostility they were emanating, the middle aged man that was now tending to the injured woman he had humiliated, and merged back into the crowd, which had never stopped advancing towards therge flight of stairs.

    For a few minutes Daniel kept moving along with the crowd towards the pearly-white flight of stairs, and the closer he got, the louder the noise of chattering became. Even though he was unable to understand what was being said, it was clear from the feelings of disappointment, and schadenfreude emanated by the spirits of the observers, that the test of the flight of stairs was a much bigger event than he had imagined.

    Small details kept adding themselves to the whole picture like pieces of a puzzle within Daniel¡¯s mind, but thenguage barrier kept hiding a few essential parts. In order to understand exactly in what kind situation he had fallen into, he needed to finish learning thenguage as soon as possible.

    Before he could go back to delving into the minds of the weak cultivators that inhabited the city, however, Daniel felt a gent hand grab his wrist.

    When he turned around, Daniel noticed the woman that was being tortured on the ring. The woman whom he had rescued by kicking her off stage. She was wearing a new dress of fair quality, and on her body there were no traces of injuries. On her face she wore expressions of gratitude and relief.

    After finally managing to catch up to Daniel and attracting his attention, the woman began to speak in her ownnguage.

    There was no need for Daniel to know thenguage to understand what the woman was saying, nor was he surprised to see her in that healthy condition. After all, when he had kicked her off stage, he had injected into her bodyrge amounts of healing essence.

    The reason why he had kicked her was so that his interference would not make things worse for this woman in the future. He only wanted to appear like a talented young man eager to make a name for himself on stage .. even at the cost of interrupting the spar between her and the arrogant woman, or offending their families.

    At the same time, he didn¡¯t want the arrogant woman, her family, or any of the observers to think that he had any connection with her.

    For the following two minutes the woman kept speaking, and trying to talk over the buzz of chatter, but in the end, Daniel¡¯sprehension of thenguage was still too basic for him to understand. So he moved his hand away, and dismissed the woman with a casual nod of his head, with which he hinted that what she had been thanking him for until now, was not a big deal for him.

    He then pulled his hand out of the woman¡¯s gentle hold, and disappeared from her sight by morphing the space around him, and sliding through the thousands of people that were still marching towards the flight of stairs.

    Like an eel in between corals, in just a few minutes, Daniel made his way to the front of the crowd, where he was able to see better. There, the disorganized group of young cultivators was forming a single line, taking turns in taking part in the test.

    Next to this flight of stairs stood a scrawny-looking middle aged man. His attire was that of a normal cultivator, and yet, the power emanated from his body was more terrifying than that of any other entity Daniel had felt since arriving to this universe. In this man, the strangely familiar feeling Daniel had felt in the most powerful entities he had seen in this universe, was even stronger.

    Originally Daniel had no intention of participating in this event, as he had no idea of what the risks, benefits, or obligations of either failing or seeding would be. However, that choice was taken away from him when, eager to be the next one in line, a small group of cultivators pushed Daniel out of the disorganized group, and into the line.

    The moment he stumbled into the line, just as he decided to apologize to the middle aged man for the misunderstanding and leave, the only person that stood in front of him, fell out of the pearly-white flight of stairs, failing the test.

    At this point, Daniel did not need his system¡¯s reminder to realize that these events were enforced upon him by his luck, which meant that the chance to take part in this test, was something that he should have felt lucky about.

    The middle aged man noticed Daniel¡¯s uncertain behavior but decided to remain quiet. He had seen many young masters give up their attempt because of ack of self belief, but Daniel was different. There was no trace ofck of confidence in his uncertain behavior. Instead, he appeared to be evaluating his options.

    While the guard waited patiently, the cultivators that were waiting for their turn weren¡¯t as kind, and started to express their discontent towards Daniel who, bothered by their impatience, was left with no choice but to move ahead, and onto the lowest step of this flight of stairs.

    The moment his footnded on the first step, Daniel felt a powerful pressurend onto his shoulders, which immediately made him realize what this test was about.

    This pressure wasparable to that of someone at his cultivation level, but that emitted a pure and unstoppable killing intent. One devoid of fear, uncertainty, and remorse .. a kind of pressure that Daniel had rarely felt before despite his many battles.

    Completely unaffected by this pressure, and yet intrigued, Daniel took another step forward, reaching the second step, and causing the pressure to increase to a level beyond the perfect godhood stage.

    The middle aged man looked at Daniel with interest. Usually a cultivator would be heavily rmed by a killing intent that matched their own power, but even though Daniel had reached the second step, he didn¡¯t seem to be affected in the least. This had ignited the guard¡¯s curiosity, but that curiosity was short-lived. After all, this test was meant to see the cultivator¡¯s ability to withstand pressure, and was meant for them to fail.

    In his mind, Daniel was only slightly more impressive than the others, but he would ultimately fail. That was what the middle aged man was thinking .. or at least, until Daniel¡¯s lips turned into a smirk, and with the help of his mental fortitude, he started to climb one step after the other without stopping.

 Chapter 503 Nothing But an Argumen

    The mental pressure to which Daniel¡¯s mind was subjected kept increasing with every single step he took, forcing him to feel as if something as easy as walking had turned into something akin to an insurmountable obstacle.

    Luckily, for someone with the rare ability of mental fortitude which Daniel had learned from Aeron, this pressure was easily revealed for what it truly was... an illusion.

    An illusion which after just a few minutes, in front of the shocked and dejected eyes of the observers, he was able to defeat by reaching the top of the flight of stairs with what appeared to be no effort whatsoever.

    During this ascent, Daniel had wondered what he would find once he would reach the top. Whether it was a legacy of sorts, whether he would gain the favor of the powerful cultivators he had seen, or even if he would be killed on the spot. Thenguage barrier had made it difficult for him to understand what was at stake, leaving him with no choice but to trust his luck.

    The moment Daniel reached the top, he found himself in a small square tform, around which four walls that were not there at first, had formed as soon as he had set foot on it. In the middle of this newly formed small room, was a shiny ck pedestal on which a few words had been carved, and filled with a liquid golden substance.

    Despite being unable to understand the meaning of these words, Daniel could feel a familiar form of power being emanated from them. The same kind of familiarity he had felt being emanated by the cultivators who had managed to cultivate beyond the peak of the godhood stage whom he had encountered since reaching this universe.

    Unable to understand theplexity of this universe¡¯s alphabet, Daniel sat in front of the podium with his legs crossed, and closed his eyes. He then activated Time is Precious, and began to delve into the memories which he had observed during the march towards the testing site. There, he relived the lives of the owners of these memories, and with them, he tried to learn thenguage that had been taught them during their younger years.

    Thanks to his system, something that the young and fresh mind of a toddler could learn in a few years, was absorbed by Daniel in less than ten minutes... Time in which he achieved around eighty percent of mastery over thatnguage.

    What was stopping him from learning the remaining part, unfortunately, was the fact that the older a person became, the less they would learn, and the longer the learning process would take. That had forced Daniel to have to go through dozens of times the number of memories in order to learn what his knowledge was stillcking.

    Not sure about how much time he had there, Daniel rose back to a standing position, and moved towards the podium with the intention of making another attempt at reading what was carved on it... but when he found himself in front of it, he realized that what was written on the podium required a level of knowledge that both the mortals and low level cultivators from which he had learned thenguage, clearly did not possess.

    However, the twenty odd minutes of meditation hadn¡¯t gone to waste, as of the few words carved on the b of ck stone of which the pedestal was made out of, Daniel recognized one word. That word was "Champion."

    It did not take long for Daniel to guess that what was written onto this b of stone was a chant regarding cultivation, and therefore, was about something that went beyond the knowledge of mortals and low level cultivators.. or at least, very word but the one he had recognized, which was of rtivelymon use.

    After recognizing that word, Daniel pinpointed the pronunciation from within the memories of the mortals¡¯ minds he had explored, and soon after, "Ragora." He muttered to himself.

    "How did you get in here?" Said a voice that came from behind Daniel, in thenguage of his universe. Taken by surprise, Daniel instantly turned around only to find an old man d in golden armor standing behind him.

    Thanks to his experience, it did not take more than a simple look for Daniel to recognize this man as an aspect of existence. The very personification of one part of the universe.

    Before Daniel could even respond to his question, the aspect of existence looked him up and down, and asked with confusion, "You are a champion of Destiny.. So why do I feel the mark of allegiance to Lord Conflict in you?"

    The moment thest sentence reached Daniel¡¯s ear, he finally realized why the cultivators that had broken past the godhood stage, gave off such a familiar feeling.

    Between Iewah, Conflict, and the rest of the aspects of existence that had tried to influence the factions of his universe less than a decade ago, Daniel had met more aspects of existence than most other people, and that was the reason why he felt a familiar feeling present in the power emanated by cultivators of this universe.

    At first he couldn¡¯t make out the connection, but when this aspect of existence asked him why he could feel the mark of two aspects of existence, which Daniel guessed he was referring to as his system as ¡¯Destiny¡¯s mark,¡¯ and his connection to the demonic wolf cub that had left a trace of Conflict¡¯s mark in his body, he had realized that the method to cultivate past the stage of godhood, had something to do with a form of power granted by the aspect of existence themselves.

    "Why should I answer your questions? I don??t even know who you are." Said Daniel with a dismissive tone.. A tone which he dared to use only because of how this aspect of existence had referred to the aspect of conflict, almost as if he was a follower of Conflict himself-a behavior that had led him to believe that he wouldn¡¯t kill him easily.

    Visibly irritated by Daniel¡¯sck of respect, the unnamed aspect of existence narrowed his eyes before saying, "I am Competition, the aspect of existence around which the cultivation of your kin revolves. Now speak, how did you get in here?"

    Something that Conflict himself had exined to Daniel, was the fact that the standing of an aspect of existence was based on the influence it possessed in the multiverse. That meant that while all of them could be considered deities of sorts, there were immense differences in the powers they possessed, which led to a clear hierarchy. An example of this was the rtionship between Conflict and Competition.

    To define the aspect ofpetition was the drive that pushed the multiverse¡¯s sentient beings to reach the top, but at the same time, that form ofpetition was not only included, but also a small part of the higher aspect of Conflict, which had existed way before sentient life was born. Simrly, in the pantheon of the aspects of existence, Conflict possessed a lower standing than his older kin, entities like Fate, Chaos, and a few others, which had existed ever since the beginning of times.

    ??I am just taking a look at this universe. I would have avoided this encounter, had I known it was reserved for the champions of your universe." Said Daniel with a calm tone.

    "Such a small existence, and yet you dare avoid my questions.." mutteredpetition before once again looking at Daniel up and down. In him, Competition could feel the remnant power of nigh-omnipresence. A power that the aspects of existence possessed since the moment they were born, and that allowed them to move from one universe to another without having to go through the immense pocket dimension that contained the Triphort.. The grid of portals that connected the many universes together, and that was used to limit the power of the mortal cultivators who visited other universes.

    Considering that the power to move freely throughout the universe without having to use the Triphort was exclusive to the aspects of existence, Competition had no doubts that Daniel was hiding something from him. However, since taking mortals from one universe to the other was a vition of the rules dictated by the higher aspects of existence, the only reasonable exnation for Daniel¡¯s situation was that he had been helped by an aspect of existence capable of acting while remaining unnoticed, and in Competition¡¯s mind, that automatically narrowed the field to those who possessed a much status than his own.

    Unwilling to offend an older and more powerful entity, Competition looked at Daniel with newfound indifference, and said, "I have created this test to select the most talented amongst my champions. Your result, if I decided to grant you my blessing, would make you a candidate to rule this universe under my name."

    While this revtion could have been received extremely well by anybody that lived inside the universe, to Daniel, there was nothing worse. In this universe he was far from being able to defend himself, and now that he had shown himself to be able topete for the ownership of this universe, he had effectively turned himself into an enemy in front of the eyes of tens of thousands of powerful cultivators.

    "I don¡¯t want your blessing. Can you just send me out?" Said Daniel while taking a step back.

    "As if-If you believe I would meddle into the matters of Fate just to find a ruler for this corner of the multiverse, then I have grossly overestimated your intelligence." Responded Competition after scoffing at him.

    Slightly confused by the words of the aspect of existence, Daniel asked, "I thought I was champion of Destiny. What has Fate to do with me?"

    Daniel¡¯s ignorance came to no surprise for Competition, who sighed in exasperation before saying, "Of course you don¡¯t know. Your existence as a spawn of Destiny is but an experiment.. Or more urately, an argument."

    "What is that supposed to mean?"

    "Fate and Destiny. Many consider them to be different entities, and some think they are one and the same. Regardless of which side is right, however, we all agree that they are two sides of the same coin, with only perspective to separate them." responded Conflict before creating a single coin with nk sides, and showing its opposite sides to Daniel.

    "Your existence is Destiny¡¯s argument that the future isn¡¯t set in stone, and that with enough power, one possesses true freedom. That is how Destiny¡¯s peculiar blessing was born, but at the same time, every decision that leads to an undesired result, which would include your death, is Fate¡¯s counter argument."

    As he reached this point, Daniel could not remain quiet anymore, and asked, "If Iew... If Destiny picks us to prove that our future is in our own hands, why does he nt a personality whose objective is to kill us?"

    "We aren¡¯t certain of that." Responded Competition. "The most credible theory is that, by giving out the power to change one¡¯s future, Destiny isn¡¯t birthing another entity, but is in fact creating a smaller version of itself. A consciousness that, along with the power granted to his champions by Destiny, is able to be a demi-aspect that stands in between the kind of mortals, and mine... But this is just one of many theories."

    Competition¡¯s exnation gave Daniel much to talk about, but unfortunately, now he had more pressing matters to worry about. He still needed to find a way to avoid theplication of bing this universe¡¯s ruling candidate.. After all, this universe was much more dangerous than his own.

    After noticing that Daniel seemed uninterested in delving deeper into the topic, Competition said, "Very well. I have aided you out of my allegiance for Lord Conflict, and I won¡¯t erase you out of respect for Lord Fate. Now, prepare yourself, I am sending you out."

    As thest sentence reached Daniel¡¯s ears, he turned to look at Competition with a face filled with panic. He had hoped that he would be allowed to stay long enough to formte a n but that was not the case, and before he could say "Wait!" he had already been teleported back into the city he had arrived in a few hours earlier.

    Behind him the flight of stairs hadpletely disappeared, and around him, what before was a crowd of young cultivators, was now a smaller crowd of just around two hundred men and women of different ages, who attentively observed every single detail of him, and movement he made.

    Left with no time to think, Daniel closed his eyes, and created a new mission with his system. One that would grant him a chance to survive this event.

    When he opened his eyes a few secondster, the man that had weed the young cultivators to test themselves at the bottom of the flight of stairs just a few minutes earlier, was now standing in front of him. His arrival had been so quiet, that even Daniel had been unable to notice it.

    The moment Daniel¡¯s eyesnded on the man, he said a few words to him, words which Daniel did not appear to understand.

    Confused by theck of a response, the man kept asking questions to him, but none of these numerous attempts were more sessful than the first one.

    After a multitude of failed attempts atmunication, the man ced his hand over the shoulder of a confused Daniel. Then, he closed his eyes. What appeared in his mind, were memories of a young man being raised by a traditional n native to this universe. A n that had been brutally wiped out by a rival family, and of which only its young master had survived after recovering from a brutal head trauma that had left him unable to talk, or to even formte thoughts different from the thing he had desired for the most before the ident.. And that, was to participate in this event. That person appeared exactly like Daniel.

    A few moments after cing his hand onto Daniel¡¯s shoulder, the old man removed it. He then turned to look at the other warriors, and said in theirnguage and in a tone filled with disappointment, "His head.. He is not right."

 Chapter 504 Half Moon Sec

    "His head.. He is not right." Said the distinct old man with perplexity, and a deep disappointment.

    A general feeling of confusion flooded the minds of the observing ancient cultivators, who had been waiting for Daniel toe out of the trial as their awaited candidate for the rulership of the universe. Instead of a smart, talented, and ambitious young man, however, what they had obtained was a simple minded individual.

    "How is that possible? There isn¡¯t such a thing as a permanent injury for a cultivator at the godhood stage!" Eximed in exasperation an old woman with long grey hair, who was standing at the front row of therge group of cultivators.

    The distinct old man that approached Daniel first ignored the words of the old woman, and instead walked a few steps closer before raising his left arm. When his hand reached for the space over his head, Daniel pretended to be alerted, and instinctively covered his head in worry.

    Once again, the old man shook his head in disappointment. He then turned to look at the group of observers, and said with a matter-of-fact tone, "His head was injured during an attack on his n, of which he is the only survivor. It is possible that his cultivation kept him alive long enough for him to be stable, but that also, due to the natural recovery of his brain injury, the damage remained, like a scar."

    "Is it something that can be fixed?" Asked a third cultivator. A middle aged man dressed in a noble attire. This question was directed at a hunchback olddy dressed in ck robes, who appeared to be holding her weight over a walking stick made out of white-colored wood that she was holding with her right bony hand.

    The woman¡¯s hood slowly turned towards the distinct old man who was still standing next to Daniel, and then she asked with a raucous voice, "How long?"

    "All the stable memories are from at least three years ago. Anything more recent is but an unstable image that floats his mind. I don¡¯t think he is able to retain any new memory." Responded the distinct old man after turning to look at Daniel, and being once again tricked into believing his fabricated past. "Do you have a way to fix him?" He then asked.

    The old woman shook her head before saying, "After so long, the injury has be part of him. Even if the injured part of his brain was removed, and restored through healing essence, the recovered injury would be restored too. I am afraid the damage is a permanent one."

    "What do we do then? He can¡¯tpete like that. Shouldn¡¯t we just kill him?" Asked the grey-haired old woman before turning to look at the rest of the spectators. As she noticed ack of support towards her proposal, she added, "There is still six months before thepetition.. We should have enough time to find another candidate."

    As the white-haired old woman finished speaking, therge group of powerful cultivators started to discuss amongst themselves. Some imed that having Daniel as a candidate was better than nothing, while some others imed that having him as their candidate would ruin the prestige of their sector of space. Nevertheless, none of them dared to impose their opinion in front of the old man who was standing next to Daniel, who was clearly the person in charge.

    "Alright, be quiet now." Said the old man, causing the group of ancient cultivators to stop talking. He then turned to look at them, and while emanating a domineering and oppressive power, he said, "Lord Competition does not care for politics. If his test allowed the kid to pass, then it means that he is as eligible as everybody else."

    As he reached this point, his attention was caught by the grey-haired old woman, who appeared to be about to express her discontent. However, before she could say anything, the old man added, "We will spread the news that our sector has found a candidate, and at the same time look for a better one in the following six months. If we are lucky, we will have a realpetitor by the time thepetition starts.. If we aren¡¯t, we¡¯ll decide whether to let him participate, or not. Any objections?"

    Despite some disagreement on whether to let Daniel hold the reputation of their faction in his hands, none of the observers had the guts to refuse the old man¡¯s decision, so they nodded in silence.

    "Very well." said the old man, ignoring the few amongst the group of ancient cultivators that appeared to be holding their dissatisfaction. He then turned to look at a younger looking man with white hair and dressed in noble robes, and said, "I think it would be best if he stays in the Half Moon Sect. What do you think?"

    "With all due respect, Ancestor, but why us?" Responded the young-looking cultivator with confusion. He was the ancient elder of the Half Moon Sect, a sect that he had helped to create, and that he had protected for millions of years.. What left him with nothing but confusion, however, was the fact that he had been chosen to look after Daniel, despite the opinion he had expressed a few moments earlier, which was to kill Daniel, and to continue their search for a better cultivator.

    "Because regardless of the damage to his head, his talent is stillparable to that of a cultivation prodigy, and your sect trains all the prodigies of our sector. Let him stay amongst his peers until we find a better candidate.. Or if we are unlucky, until the day of thepetition." Responded the old man before cing his left hand against Daniel¡¯s back, and pushing him towards the young looking man.

    Daniel noticed the extremely faint expression of dissatisfaction that appeared on the face of the young-looking cultivator, and while he was following the vague suggestions of the system and couldn¡¯t really understand what was going on, he had more or less understood who was in charge amongst these people.

    The feelings of dissatisfaction disappeared as fast as it appeared from the face of the young-looking cultivator, who grabbed Daniel¡¯s arm, nodded towards the one he called ancestor, and disappeared. The following few moments were nothing but a nk image in Daniel¡¯s mind, whichsted for just a few moments.

    When Daniel finally came to, he looked around in an attempt to get his bearings, and immediately realized that he was standing in apletely different ce. Next to him was the young-looking cultivator, and in front of the two of them, were two identical looking old men who possessed a power only second to the young-looking cultivator. The only apparent difference between two was the length of their hair.

    When Daniel opened his eyes, the two were in the midst of bowing towards his escort.

    What followed was an exchange of looks and words between the three cultivators, who looked at Daniel with a variety of emotions which varied from disappointment, annoyance, and hostility. These exchanges ended as the young-looking ancestor waved his hand at the two grand elders, and after saying "Get this fool out of my face." he walked off, leaving Daniel along with the two old men.

    Once the grand elder of the Half Moon Sect left, the two grand elders exchanged a few more words amongst themselves while Daniel looked around, and noticed the mystical scene that surrounded him.

    He and the two elders were currently standing in the middle of a white marble tform suspended above a sea of clouds. Covering a third of this round tform was an impressive looking white frame, at the top of which were carved the words Half Moon Sect, and filled with a golden substance identical to the one Daniel had seen in the ck pedestal, at the top of the flight of stairs.

    Within thisrge white frame, was a golden-colored double-leaf gate whose shiny bars could hardly stop those who observed it from seeing whaty on the other side.. and that, was an immense floating archipgo that was holding a just as big mountain chain, at the bottom of which were built hundreds of buildings and tforms connected to one another by sturdy bridges.

    The first thing that Daniel noticed, as he stood at the edge of the tform, was that he could not feel the bottom of the abyss. No matter how far he pushed his sensing ability, underneath him was nothing but an endless descent into what appeared to bemon fog. The sky was in no way different. Past the observable bluyer that could be seen, Daniel could not feel the crust of the atmosphere, only more sky.. Meaning that this was not amon, or that the itself was of a size that went beyond Daniel¡¯s wildest imagination.

    Past the bridge that connected the tform and the immense floating archipgo, Daniel could see some microscopic ck dots that moved in groups, floated around, or roamed from one building to another.

    After spending a few minutes looking around, the two old men finally finished talking.

    Based on what Daniel could understand of their conversation, the two were deciding about his amodations. ording to the one with shorter hair, Daniel needed to be ced amongst the prodigies who possessed his same level of cultivation, while the elder with longer hair believed that if they did that, sooner orter, people would find trouble with him.

    At the end, the two decided to go with the suggestion of the old man with longer hair.. and that, was to ce Daniel along with the outer disciples. There, while his power would make him appear as an anomaly, he was guaranteed not to be bothered by the other prodigies.

    The amodation for the outer disciples was located on the side of the first mountain one would encounter after going through the gates of the Half Moon Sect, and consisted in many rows of small private caves. Some of these caves were sealed byrge rocks, while the entrance of the others was clear.. A sign that they were not being used.

    Once the two old men arrived in the proximity of the lodgings of the outern disciples, the thousands of cultivators that were walking around fell on their knees, and prostrated as a sign of respect. "We greet the great elders!" They shouted in unison.

    The two elders did not bother with the greeting, and instead, the twin with longer hair pointed at a young man with the lowest level of cultivation, and as soon as the young man took notice of his actions, he said with a domineering tone, "You. Take this kid, find him an immortal cave, and take care of him. Am I being clear?"

    The young man with short bark-brown hair who had been selected, without even looking back at Daniel, bowed his head down to the ground, and screamed, "DISCIPLE ACCEPTS THE TASK!" Then, along with the rest of the outer disciples, he kept prostrating in wait for the two elders to give out more tasks.

    It was only after two full minutes spent with their foreheads pressed against the ground, that the outer disciples realized that the two elders had long gone, and that only Daniel was left standing in the midst of thousands of prostrating cultivators.

    When the outer disciples noticed that the two elders had left, they stood up, and approached Daniel. They then bowed politely towards him.

    Despite possessing a cultivation that did not surpass the early godhood stage, these cultivators were still able to feel Daniel¡¯s power, which was leagues above their own. To them, he was a prodigy amongst prodigies who had likely misbehaved, and whose punishment was to be sent to the outer caves. A ce where he would be forced to live and interact with weaker and less talented cultivators.

    However, that was not a punishment for the young man, as serving a prodigy such as Daniel was something that many of them would envy.. but before any of them could express this feeling towards the selected young man, the most attentive amongst them started to notice that something was wrong with Daniel.

    "Senior, my name is Wu Yue. Please follow me, I will take you to the best unupied cave in the outer lodgings." Said the selected young man before pointing towards the rows of caves. Then, and after making sure that Daniel was following him, he walked towards the side of the mountain, where the caves were built.

    As he followed the young cultivator that had been tasked with taking care of him, Daniel was able to hear the cloaked voices of the other disciples, who were whispering to one another by transmitting their voices directly into each other¡¯s ears. The topic of conversation was whether Daniel had been sent there as a punishment, or if something was wrong with his head, and he had been discarded as a cultivator from the sect.

    It was only thanks to Daniel¡¯s control over the essence of spacetime, that he had been able to curve the space that surrounded these threads of sound essence, and cause them to reach his ears before they could reach their original target.

 Chapter 505 Hot on the Trail

    The Half Moon Sect was unlike anything Daniel had ever seen.

    In Daniel¡¯s universe of origin, a sect was an organization whose main focus was to spread the notoriety and influence of a certain path of cultivation or martial discipline. They would do so by epting any students they deemed to possess enough talent in cultivation, and by pouring time, effort, and resources into them... instructing them in the signature path until that very discipline would be part of their being.

    This personal connection between the sect and the students was employed so, once the student would learn everything the sect could teach them, they would develop a form of loyalty towards the sect. This loyalty would prevent them from leaving, and instead, would convince them to spend their lives spreading the path that the sect had taught them.

    Most of the time, the teaching of these sects would be apanied by a certain degree of danger for the students, but in order to ensure a constant level of expansion, and by extension a continuous increase of influence and notoriety for the sect, infighting, or any form of self harm within the sect was heavily prohibited. In order to prevent these practices, the resources distributed by the sects were based on merit and rank.. And would usually be consumed on the spot as to prevent people from trying to steal another student¡¯s possession.

    This method was what, in Daniel¡¯s universe of origin, separated a sect from a school.

    The way in which the sects that Daniel knew differed from the Half Moon Sect, and every other sect present in the territory that fell under the domain of the aspect of Competition, was in fact,petition itself.

    Just by staying a few days into the Half Moon Sect, Daniel had realized that none of the rules that prevented the young cultivators of his universe from harming one another existed in this sect, and in fact, the more powerful one was, the more to them was allowed. Robbing, killing, kidnapping, threatening and even worse was allowed in this sect, and that was because as champions ofpetition, any rule that invalidated any form ofpetition, was severely frowned upon.

    In thest few days, Daniel had managed toplete hisprehension of the universe¡¯snguage by walking around the territory of the sect, and listening to thousands of young disciples speak. It was only thanks to a mixture of trial and error and his boosted perception, that he had managed to achieve this.. But s, that was not his first option.

    At first, Daniel had decided to enter one of the sect¡¯s many libraries, as reading the words from a book would have made things much easier for him, but unfortunately, rumors about him had already spread through the sect. Wherever he went, he would be treated as someone with a mental retardation, causing him to be ridiculed by those with a lower cultivation, and despised by those with a simr power.

    What made things even worse for him, was the fact that rumors which imed that a contestant for the rulership of the universe had appeared in their sector, as well as the fact that he had already been sent to the half moon sect, had started to spread throughout the sect.

    Once that notion becamemon knowledge, the disciples began to make connections to any strange event that took ce in the sect, and before long, due to his sudden and timely appearance in the sect, Daniel had be everybody¡¯s first guess.

    Being one of thepetitors for the rulership of one of Competition¡¯s universes was one of the greatest honors for his champions, and the fact that someone with a damaged brain had stolen that opportunity from the extremelypetitive students of the half moon sect, was uneptable.

    Luckily, the sect¡¯s freepetition andck of rules did not breed stupidity in its students.. Or at least, not in the minds of its inner and core disciples, who, as soon as they realized that Daniel was currently the only person that had been selected topete for the universe¡¯s rulership, understood that despite theck of care with which he was treated in the sect, his existence was still of some use to the leadership of their section of space, and therefore, he was untouchable.

    That was something that Daniel had learned from the many of the conversations that would take ce in his presence.

    -----

    Four days had passed since Daniel had been thrown into the Half Moon Sect, and like most other days, he had decided to spend it by walking around the sect¡¯s territory.

    With clean clothes and an emotionless expression, Daniel left his personal cave to find himself in the midst of a sparse group of young cultivators. Most of them had learned to ignore his presence, as they had gotten used to seeing him walk around, while some others would still turn to look at him with hostility, irritation, and jealousy. However, none of them dared to take a step in his direction.

    Before the rumor of Daniel being the apetitor had reached the ears of the outer members of the sect, many students had decided to make him go through the treatment reserved for every single new student of the sect, and that was to be stripped down to their underwear, be robbed of all of their possessions, and be beaten within an inch of their lives.

    When these students had tried to do the same with Daniel, however, as soon as their hostile aura came even close to him, Daniel had ughtered them all without the slightest hint of hesitation, cutting their bodies into unrecognizable slices of flesh, and erasing their souls and minds with swords of absolute darkness.

    He had done so in full view of the thousands of outer students, and many inner students that would oftene down from the mountains in which they resided just to enjoy the initiation of the neers, as well as to receive the tributes from the outer disciples as "protection fees." Daniel had decided on this course of action not only to prevent others from bothering him, but also because of the persona he was ying.

    While simple minded, Daniel¡¯s character needed to show apetitive spirit supported by a passive, and yet ruthless personality... which was all that was left when his memories and social skills had been taken away from him by his injury. Only by portraying those qualities his cover as Competition¡¯s chosen one would be believable.

    After walking out of the area which contained the caves where the outer disciples lived, Daniel headed out of the ind, and into one of the wide stone bridges that were built to separate the floating inds thatposed the sect.

    "Tomorrow I will challenge rank eighty-eight for his cave. Wish me luck.."

    ".. because if another candidate doesn¡¯t appear in the next few months, our sector might lose our participation."

    "Howe that whenever I see you, you are always eating?.."

    The many students on their way to and from the floating inds discussed the daily events, ignoring that Daniel was using their conversations to catch up with the current state of the universe in which he had ended up. However, after two days, he had already heard it all. Starting from the ranked system used by the Half Moon¡¯s sect increased its disciples¡¯petition, to the reason why he had been taken to half moon sect instead of being killed on the spot.

    All of these pieces of information were of no interest to him, as the political system of this universe would not affect him once he would leave, so he kept walking past these young prodigies while pretending not to listen to their words, or at least, he did so until a single spoken sentence reached his ears.

    "They have entered our universe? What reason could they possibly have to do so?" Asked a young woman with short red hair and freckles that covered her cheekbones and nose, to her group of female friends.

    To respond to her, was a second young woman with long straightened ck hair, and the appearance of someone that would be the center of attention in every crowd she would be in. "That is what I have heard my mom discuss with her friends. They were talking about sightings of various parties of the Blood Sect, thest of which was pretty close to the sect." She said with clearck of interest.

    Contrary to the second girl, the red haired girl and the other members of their group showed a higher degree of worry. Nobody that had any knowledge of the multiverse was oblivious to the kind of universes whichposed the territory of the aspect of Sacrifice, and amongst these universes, the most notorious were those in possession of the Blood Sect. A powerful group that would infiltrate contested universes, and strengthen the influence of the aspect of sacrifice by teaching the path of blood to its inhabitants, who in turn would exterminate the majority of the poption of the universe before turning the rest into followers of the sect.

    This was the kind of news that Daniel had been waiting for, as the only reason why he had decided to leave his universe, was to attract the blood sect away from his group, and force them to sh against stronger powers.

    Instead of walking past the group of young women, Daniel leaned over the banister of the bridge, and pretended to observe the immense inds that floated in front of him. His attention, however, was directed at the conversation that the group of female cultivators were having.

    "If they have been sighted, doesn¡¯t that mean that they are not guests? Isn¡¯t it an invasion? Why would they invade us?" asked the red-haired young woman with an increasing degree of worry.

    While picking her nails, the long haired young woman looked back at her friend¡¯s worried expression with irritation. She then let out an exasperated sigh before adding, "Would you calm down? Their little sect would never dare to invade Lord Competition¡¯s universes. Also, I cannot possibly think of a reason why they would want to do that."

    "I guess you are right.." responded the red headed young woman before noticing Daniel¡¯s figure as he leaned over the banister, and looked at the horizon. "Isn¡¯t that the guy that the great elders left at the caves a few days ago?" She asked.

    As Daniel pretended not to hear their words, the three young women that were apanying the red-headed girl quietly turned to look at him. On their faces was a hint of alertness.

    "He is. Let¡¯s leave." Said the girl with ck hair before blowing air against her sharp nails, and nodding towards the end of the bridge.

    "Why? Do you have something against him?" asked the red-headed young woman in response.

    "You wouldn¡¯t know because you started cultivating in seclusion right after he arrived.. But two days ago he killed over twenty students in the blink of an eye. They didn¡¯t even attack him.. The moment they released their hostility through their emotional aura, they just died." Said a young woman with dark brown hair tied up into a ponytail and dressed in a training attire, with a matter-of-fact tone.

    After being slightly surprised by Daniel¡¯s feat, the red-headed young woman showed a hint of feigned disappointment, and while looking at Daniel¡¯s figure, she said, "Too bad, he doesn¡¯t look half-bad."

    The three young women that were apanying the red-headed young woman looked at her with confusion, but before any of them could say anything, a voice came from the end of the bridge. "NUMBER ONE HAS CHALLENGED AN INNER DISCIPLE!! A BATTLE FOR PROMOTION IN THE ARENA RIGHT NOW!" Shouted a scrawny looking man while holding his hands into a cone around his mouth. He then turned around, and started to run towards the ind that was in between the one that contained the lodgings of the outern disciples, and the one that supported the mountain range formed by dozens of peaks, each inhabited by around a hundred inner disciples.

    To follow the young man¡¯s example, were each and every outer disciple on which Daniel could ce his eyes on, including the group of young girls whose conversation he was eavesdropping, and whose expression lit up in excitement right before they followed the crowd that had started to form.

    News about the Blood Sect was exactly what Daniel was hoping for, so he couldn¡¯t help but feel slightly dejected by the interruption. However, these feelings onlysted for a few seconds, after which, in order to spend some time, he decided to follow the crowd, and head towards the arena.

 Chapter 506 A Strange Space

    At his age Daniel had already visited countless different civilizations, witnessed fantastical cosmic events, and traveled between dimensions and odd nes of existence, so when he found himself in front of the simple dome-shaped building that was used as the arena of the Half Moon Sect after following the group of female cultivators, he felt slightly disappointed.

    In the midst of his disappointment, a spark of curiosity was born the very moment he, after losing interest in what was happening and turning around to leave, saw the massive crowd that was currently marching as a group towards the arena.

    The reason why this massive crowd left Daniel filled with confusion, was the fact that provided that the whole archipgo could resist the magnitude of a fight between two cultivators at the peak of the godhood stage, the number of outer disciples that were approaching in an attempt to witness the fight was definitely not something that such a small building would be able to amodate.

    Nevertheless, despite Daniel¡¯s perplexity, it did not seem that the cultivators of which thisrge crowd was formed were in a hurry to find a seat.. as shown by how calmly and orderly they were strolling towards the arena.

    The oddity of this event was enough for Daniel to change his mind, so, instead of leaving, he once again turned around and continued to follow the group of four female cultivators into the arena while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Just a couple of minutester, Daniel had finally managed to follow them into one of the human-sized entrances present at the bottom of the building..

    The very moment Daniel set foot into the dome, he found himself alone in what appeared to be a section of empty space. Uncountable streams of light sent memories of distant stars from every angle, a spectacle simr to that one would see in outer space.. but somehow fake. It did not take long for Daniel to attribute this starlight to an illusory formation.. One that was too powerful andplex for him to understand.

    At the same time, Daniel could feel a real force of gravity which kept him nted onto an invisible floor just like he would be outside of the dome, and the presence of water and wind essences, which formed the air he was breathing.

    While at first Daniel believed to be alone, he soon noticed that in front of him, just a few dozen meters away from where he was standing, was a square b of stone that resembled a stage. On top of this stage was a young man with long ck hair, a spotlessly clean gold and white set of training clothes, and a sword that despite being worn out, was still as impressive-looking as the ceremonial sword of a king.

    This young man appeared to be no more than twenty years of age, and possessed a cultivation that had reached the very same level that Daniel had reached with the help of his system, the peak of the godhood stage.

    With his striking appearance, this young man presented himself as the confident and prideful hero of a bad.. Ready to jump into a fight to protect the weak, and capable of stealing every woman¡¯s heart with his hands tied behind his back.

    Most male cultivators envied this young man, and many of the female outer disciples worshiped him. Despite the different ce that this young man took in the hearts of male and female students, he was known by all as the first ranked outer disciple of the half moon sect.

    Daniel was already aware of who this young man was. He had seen him once during the past few days, and during one of his walks, he had casually heard people talk about him when listening to their conversation.

    But, s, knowing this person¡¯s identity did not resolve Daniel¡¯s confusion. A confusion caused by the fact that only himself, the stage, and this young cultivator were present in this empty space, making him doubt whether he had entered the right entrance, and had somehow be a participant instead of a spectator.

    What made the situation even stranger, was the fact that the young man did not seem to be bothered by Daniel¡¯s presence, and instead, he was looking around while smiling in excitement, skimming past him with his eyes as if Daniel was just one small dot amongst an immense sea of people. Before Daniel could consider his options, however, another man made his appearance on stage.

    This man was drastically different from his opponent. He was extremely muscr, but these muscles were covered by a thickyer of fat, which was exposed to Daniel and his opponent by the strained sleeveless shirt that he was wearing. His head was shaved clean, and his facial features made him look more like an anthropomorphized pig than a person. On his face was an expression of disdain and confidence directed at his challenger, who stood fearlessly in front of him. In his hands, was a two-handed warhammer.

    "The fact that you have picked me to win a spot amongst the inner disciples.. I will take it as an offence." Said therge inner disciple before mming the pommel of the warhammer into the surface of the stage with the full might of a cultivator at the peak of the godhood stage. A strike that formed a shockwave which, to Daniel¡¯s surprise, went past him as if he was incorporeal.

    "Why should you." Said the young cultivator while slowly unsheathing his sword. He then added while menacingly pointing his sword at his opponent, "You haven¡¯t been challenged for years, nor have you challenged anyone to earn a higher ranking. You have grown ustomed to your spot, and have bezy. I will make you surrender your ce to me."

    Despite the many usations, therge inner disciple was not bothered by the words of his opponent, and instead, he appeared to find them amusing. "Do you want me to show you why outer disciples have stopped challenging me? I will show you." He said before grabbing his warhammer with both hands, and charging at him, starting the duel.

    In the fight that ensued in front of Daniel, the challenger took a defensive position. It was clear to the most inexperienced observer that the outer disciple had no knowledge regarding his opponent¡¯s style, so instead of attacking blindly, he chose to do exactly what a teacher would have suggested to his students on this asion.. And that was to defend until an opportunity to strike would present itself.

    Between the fluid movements of the outer disciple and the rough and chaotic movements of the inner disciple, Daniel could see uncountable mistakes. It was clear to him that, in this universe, the pursuit of a higher cultivation was much more valued than one¡¯s attitude at martial arts, or theprehension of the many kinds of mana.. and that was reflected in the many useless movements present in the actions of the two fighters, as well as the simplicity of the essences that they were using to strengthen their attacks.

    Of the two, however, Daniel could see that the outer disciple had a slightly better understanding of melee fighting than his opponent. That was demonstrated when, instead of stupidly blocking the attacks of his bigger opponent, the young man would deviate the attacks.. Something that the outer disciple appeared to be slightly adept at, but that at the same time, any of the students in Hiel academy would be able to top.

    The inexperience of both fighters prolonged the duel, whichsted for more than three minutes, and after which, the young swordsman finally found an opportunity.

    After the inner disciple performed a wide swipe with his hammer, the young swordsman saw his opportunity, and with minimal effort he took a step back, and allowed for the hammer to graze his neck, and move past his body.

    As therger cultivator found himself in a position that would make it difficult for him to raise his weapon and defend himself from any iing attack, the outer disciple used all of his power to sh his sword horizontally against his arms. His intentions were obvious.. He wanted to sever both of the inner cultivator¡¯s arms.

    This whole exchangested for no longer than a few moments, and in that brief moment, Daniel was able to see thecent smile on the face of the challenger as he believed that victory had appeared in front of his eyes.. But, s, Daniel did not share that enthusiasm. Instead, he shook his head in disappointment.

    Right as the sword could cut the arms of his opponent, the inner disciple let go of his warhammer, and instead, grabbed the wrist of the arm with which his opponent was holding his sword.

    The outer disciple instantly realized that he had fallen into a trap, but as he desperately tried to pull his arm out of his opponent¡¯s tight grip, the lips of the fat cultivator curved into a smile that would have sent shivers down the back of anyone who would have seen it.

    "You wanted me to show you why people avoided me for so long, right?.." Said the inner cultivator before forcibly pulling into his arms. Then, amongst the panicked screams of the once prideful and heroic first ranked outer disciple, the inner disciple began to rip his body apart limb for limb, finishing with his head, which he showed to an imaginary crowd that seemed to be surrounding the stage before losing interest, and dropped it on the ground.

    Once the duel ended, and the inner disciple disappeared from the stage, Daniel felt a gentle pulle from behind him. Unsure of what to do, he decided to follow this gentle pull, and as soon as his body moved alongside this power, a light appeared in front of his face, and before he could act, he was out of the arena from the very door he had entered it.

    Around him were all the cultivators that had entered alongside him, and in their faces Daniel could see the residual emotions that the duel had caused in them, starting from dispirited attitudes, and in a smaller number, expressions of disappointment and sadness.

    Once outside of the arena, Daniel tried to forget the duel he had witnessed, and instead focused on the real mystery.. the nature of the space he had been in.

    Based on what he had seen, Daniel had already realized that despite being unable to see anybody else but himself and the two participants, he wasn¡¯t the only spectator. In fact, it was more likely that he was in a position that prevented him from seeing any other spectator. The only way that would have been possible, was if every spectator was ced into a newly created superimposed dimension the very moment they would enter the arena.

    His theory regarding the nature of this arena was that it contained a boundless pocket dimension with a built-in stage, but instead of containing physical boots or stands from which the spectators could observe the fights, the arena would create a new dimension that superimposed with the dimension that contained the stage whenever a spectator would enter it. This system gave each spectator the chance to witness the fight without being distracted by the crowd, which the fighters could still see from their original dimension.

    This form of multidimensional sub-dimension was unheard of in Daniel¡¯s universe, and even with his knowledge of spatial essence, he struggled to understand how that could have been possible.

    As he pondered about the method that was used to create this kind of artifact, Daniel walked back towards the outer disciples area along with the rest of the crowd, but before he could even reach the first bridge, he bumped against the group of young girls which he had followed. They had left a few moments before him from the same door, and since he was distracted by other thoughts, he had failed to notice them.

    "Hey, watch where you are.." muttered the red-headed girl before turning around, and noticing Daniel??s now familiar stature and cold expression. Following the girl¡¯s reaction, the rest of her friends turned around as well, and noticed Daniel¡¯s striking appearance.

    "What is he doing here? Did he follow us here from the caves?" Asked the girl with straight ck hair with suspicion.

    "He might have.. I doubt he would have found any interest in seeing two people fight." responded the red-headed girl before taking a step towards Daniel. On her face was an expression of curiosity.

    "He is so creepy.. Don¡¯t get too close to him, have you forgotten what he did to those guys a few days ago?" Said one of her friends with worry.

    The red-headed girl looked at Daniel with narrowed eyes, who in turn, was looking back at her with his usual inexpressive stare, and showing that while his brain was supposedly damaged, he would still try to determine whether someone would be a threat to his person or not.

    After looking at Daniel¡¯s expressionless face for a few moment, the attention of the red-headed girl was caught by something located past Daniel, and before thetter could turn to look at what had caught the girl¡¯s attention, he felt her hand wrap around his forearm, and saw her body take two steps back while at the same time trying to pull him out of the way.

    Unfortunately, Daniel didn¡¯t budge. Neither when the girl tried to pull him aside by his arm, nor when arge individual bumped against him, halting his march, and interrupting his jovial conversation with his friends.

    When Daniel turned around to see who had bumped into him, he recognized the wide figure of the inner disciple that had just fought in the arena, and on his face, was nothing but an expression filled with hostility.

 Chapter 507 The Guilt of Incompetence

    "Would you look at that.. Isn¡¯t that the chosen one from our sector?" Asked a young man with a hooked nose and long silver hair tied up in a bun, to the inner disciple that had just fought in the arena, and who was now standing right in front of Daniel. He then added, "Big shot here.. You better not bother him, Yonn."

    These few words were enough to draw the attention of Yonn, the stout inner disciple that had walked out victorious from the recent event, and who had murdered the strongest amongst the outer disciples less than ten minutes before. "He is the one who is standing in the middle of the bridge like a dead animal." He said with a hint of irritation.

    "Hey, I am just looking out for you.. You don¡¯t want to mess with the kid, he might just seed where the other one didn¡¯t." Responded the man with silver hair while raising his hands in surrender. Meanwhile, around him, the stout man, the woman that had been following the two of them, and Daniel.. The crowd had already retreated by at least ten meters.

    What the man with silver hair said seemed to hit a soft spot in the stout man, whose irritation quickly turned into anger. However, before he could find a way to unleash his anger, the woman with tinted purple hair who was following the two, said, "Cut it out, Yonn. We have lost enough time here. Let¡¯s go back."

    The words spoken by this woman had a pr effect on her twopanions, calming Yonn, and infuriating the silver-haired cultivator, who allowed his irritation to show for just a moment before managing to hide it, and regain his calm. "She is right, we have wasted enough time.. But the kid hasn¡¯t moved yet." he said while pointing his finger at the calm andposed Daniel, who was observing them in silence as the crowd thickened around them. He then turned to look at Yonn, and added, "Are you waiting for either me or Sasha to ask him to move?"

    From the behavior of the three cultivators, Daniel was able to guess their intentions.

    The stout man called Yonn wanted to maintain his position as an inner disciple that shouldn¡¯t be challenged, and therefore, he couldn¡¯t afford to appear weak. His reaction to the girl named Sasha revealed that he had unrequited feelings for her, which was the reason why he was so keen to listen to her words. From what Daniel could see, this young woman did not appear to have any ill intent towards him.. Or at least, not like the silver-haired young man, who had tried to instigate Yonn into attacking him ever since they had bumped into him.

    Despite being able to easily read the behavior of other people, Daniel could do nothing. He could neither defuse or worsen the situation, as he had taken a passive role in his visit to the universe. A reactionary behavior that was entirely dependent on the actions of those who surrounded him.

    The intention of the young man with silver hair was clear to Daniel. He had obviously heard of him before, and wanted to use Yonn to test his strength. This was demonstrated by what he said after noticing Yonn¡¯s slow reaction. "You either ask him to move, or move around him. We don¡¯t expect you to beat him anyway." he said while merging his point of view to that of the young woman, giving the illusion that she agreed to what he had just said.

    These words were the match that lit the fuse, and caused Yonn to turn to look at Daniel with anger, and say, "I won¡¯t tell you twice.. Move, or I will hurt you."

    Daniel had no intention of spending his time in the half moon sect while in the limelight, but his system had given him a clear path which he could not defy.. So he chose to remain quiet, and pretend not to understand what the stout inner disciple said.

    The purple-haired girl shook her head in disappointment. While she didn¡¯t reciprocate Yonn¡¯s feelings, she respected his position as an inner disciple, one that the three of them shared. Any form of embarrassing situation in which an inner student would find himself into, would reflect poorly on all of them, and this included bullying outer disciples publicly.

    "Chubby as he is, he doesn¡¯t look that menacing.. No wonder the guy isn¡¯t afraid of him." Said the silver-haired young man to Sasha loudly enough for Yonn to hear him. He then let out a heartyugh.

    The girl looked back at her slypanion with anger, but just as she was about to speak her mind, Yonn took a step closer to Daniel with open arms, which he then closed in an attempt to catch him into a hold.

    Even if Daniel hadn¡¯t seen this man fight just a few minutes prior to this encounter, he would have been able to read his actions from a mile away.. So when Yonn tried to wrap his body with his arms, instead of dashing out of his reach, summoning elements, or weapons, Daniel leaned back with his upper body, put his entire weight onto his left leg, and raised his bent right leg upwards upwards. Before Yonn could notice what Daniel was doing, his right leg straightened, and hit him squarely on his jawline.

    With a quick snap of his head to the right, Yonn¡¯s body turned into a sack of potatoes that fell at Daniel¡¯s feet like a pair of oversized pants.. leaving the observing cultivators at a loss for words. Then, seemingly unbothered by what had just happened, Daniel went back to a standing position before once again lowering his upper body, and reaching for Yonn¡¯s unconscious body with his right hand. Finally, he grabbed his wrist, and dragged him towards the edge of the bridge.

    Once Daniel raised the limp body of the unconscious inner disciple over the railing of the bridge, Yonn¡¯s twopanions realized what Daniel wanted to do.. and while the young woman chose not to intervene, her silver-hairedpanion chose to act.

    Originally the silver-haired cultivator wanted to use his irritablepanion to probe Daniel¡¯s strength, but now that Yonn had been humiliated and brought shame to the inner disciples, he chose to act.. So as Daniel was about to drop hispanion down the bridge, he stepped forward, and shouted with anger, "STOP!"

    Daniel did not stop. Instead, he let go of the stout man.. causing him to fall over the railings, and into the seemingly bottomless abyss.

    In response to Daniel¡¯s disregard for his words, the silver-haired cultivator dashed in his direction, ready to attack.

    The extremely low standards of training shown by these cultivators once again left Daniel dumbfounded. While their power would allow them to wipe away sr systems in a matter of hours, the danger they posed to Daniel, who shared their cultivation level but had a perfect mastery of multiple weapons and essences, was the same that a child with a sword posed to a soldier..

    That was shown when the silver-haired cultivator unsheathed the sword that he was carrying by his waist, and charged at him with the ability of a warrior that had survived but a few spars. A charge which Daniel broke by casually avoiding the diagonal sh of his opponent¡¯s sword, and then, by thrusting his thumb into the muscles in between the man¡¯s thumb, and index finger.. causing them to stiffen, and for him to lose the grip over his weapon.

    Before the weapon could even touch the ground, Daniel grabbed the throat of the silver-haired cultivator with two fingers, obstructing his carotid and jugr.

    With an enormous pressure building in his head, the inner disciple quickly began to panic. The second-hand embarrassment he felt towards his defeatedpanion disappeared, just like the facial features of the surrounding cultivators.

    As he observed the silver-haired cultivator struggle against such a simple move, Daniel felt a hint of embarrassment. These cultivators were killers, and yet, their foundations were as stable as that of an air balloon, which caused him to feel as if he was bullying the weak. However, that did not stop him from keeping the pressure onto the young man¡¯s throat, who desperately tried to hit him by iling his arms and legs around. Unfortunately, each strike slid past Daniel¡¯s body as if meant to miss.. Only stopping when, just like hispanion, he lost consciousness, and turned into a limp body that hung from Daniel¡¯s hand.

    Once unconscious, Daniel did not think twice before throwing him off of the bridge as well. He then turned towards the lodgings of the outern disciples, and while ignoring the dumbfounded expressions of the observers, he started to walk away.

    When leaving, Daniel felt that something was amiss. He had just killed two feared inner disciples, and yet, no discussions were taking ce amongst the thousands of the outer disciples who had witnessed his actions. Even the woman that had apanied the silver-haired cultivator and Yonn was keeping quiet, and instead of leaving, she chose to wait right where she was.

    By the time he took the fiftieth step towards the mountains reserved for the outer disciples, Daniel started to hear the surprised and excited voices of a few cultivators. "Look! They areing down!" said one of the young women who were part of the group that Daniel had followed into the arena.

    Confused about these words, Daniel turned around just in time to see the unconscious bodies of the stout cultivator, and the silver-haired cultivator fell at extreme speed from the sky. The two were still unconscious, and aside from the small damage made by Daniel attacks, they were rtively unharmed.

    With an embarrassed expression, the purple-haired woman caught the two before they could once again fall below the bridge¡¯s level, then left while carrying their still unconscious bodies away.

    After witnessing this scene, Daniel resumed walking towards his cave as if nothing had happened.. Yet, at the same time, he could not help but to cover his mouth with one of his hands in order to hide the smile that had appeared on his face.

    Once able to regain hisposure, Daniel resumed walking towards his cave while wondering how the formation that surrounded the half moon sect truly worked.

    -----

    A Magna, Half Moon Sect. Two hourster.

    "Ancestor, I have an update regarding my.. assignment." Said a young woman with wavy hazel hair and dressed in the attire of an outer disciple. If Daniel could have seen this young woman, he would have recognized her as one of the four women that Daniel had followed to the arena. More specifically, the quiet one, who had silently observed her group¡¯s interaction with Daniel, while her friends spoke freely.

    She was currently standing in a rtively dark hall, facing a door frame which reached at least forty meters in height, and ten meters in wideness. Behind this stone frame wasplete darkness, in the middle of which was the silhouette of an individual that sat with his legs crossed inplete silence. This person was none other than the Ancestor of the Half Moon Sect, the man to whom Daniel had been given to.

    "This better not be about another skirmish with the outer disciples.. Or you will lose your position as a core disciple." Said the man with irritation.

    "N-No ancestor.. Well, it is about a fight that took ce between two juniors and him. Inner disciples." Said the young girl while trying to give grandeur of the whole event with her tone.

    "Speak."

    "Mast-Ancestor.. When you gave this assignment to me, you¡¯ve told me to protect him secretly.. But he doesn¡¯t seem to need it. His experience in hand to handbat is far beyond that of us core disciples. Personally, I doubt that I would have a chance against him." Exined the young girl with a matter-of-fact tone.

    A scoffing sound came from the depths of the dark hall, followed by a few words, "me it on your parents. The forging of your cultivationes at a price. His parents might have dyed it by a few years in order to allow him to train. It is an old practice, as cultivators learn faster.. But not as odd as you think it is."

    "Thank you for your teachings, Ancestor. His amusement towards the spatial loop does validate your words." Said the young woman before bowing politely. She then prepared to bid farewell and leave, but before she could, she noticed the silhouette of the Ancestor rise into a standing position.

    "He looked amused?" He asked.

    "Y-Yes Ancestor. He smiled at the sight of the inner disciples falling into the infinite loop.. Just for a moment." Responded the young woman with confusion.

    "Very well. You may go. Keep paying attention to what he does." He said dismissively to the young girl who, once again, bowed with politeness before leaving the hall. Once alone, he muttered to the empty hall, "Come here, Iacob."

    Moments after he pronounced these words, a tall and athletic-looking man dressed in refined core disciple clothes appeared from one of the dark corridors. "I am here Ancestor. Do you have a task for me?" He said after bowing politely.

    "Yes. Go to the where the stairway to heaven appeared thest time. Investigate the family of the chosen kid. Bring me anything you can find about them." Ordered the ancestor.

    "It will be done." Responded the tall young man before bowing once again, and disappearing in the shadows.

 Chapter 508 Between a Rock and a Hard Place

    The two weeks that followed Daniel¡¯s encounter with the inner disciples of the half moon sect, were spent by him mindlessly roaming the sect¡¯s territory. The reason for that was that he needed to gather as much information as he could regarding two specific topics, which were the method to cultivate past the godhood stage, and any rumor regarding the appearance of the blood sect in the territory of the Half Moon Sect.

    Unfortunately, due to how the system had encouraged Daniel to present himself to the sect, the only source of information left for him to draw from, were the rumors passed around from one student to another.. which unfortunately, were all but reliable. Unluckily, If not for the person that had been tasked with keeping an eye on Daniel, and whom he had noticed almost immediately, he would have already explored other means to gather information.

    After two uneventful weeks, what Daniel had learned could hardly be considered much. Aside from the confirmation that multiple parties of blood cultivators had been spotted visiting the various sects of the current universe, Daniel had learned a few things about this universe¡¯s cultivation method.

    Every student of the Half Moon Sect belonged to a rich cultivation family, and as such, all of them had gone through a treatment created specifically to produce high level cultivators. This treatment was called the Refined Birth, and consisted in creating a gentle vortex, and cing it into the body of a newborn at the moment of their birth. These children would then be ced into a pocket dimension created solely with time, healing and spatial essence, and filled with uncountable cultivation resources. In the pocket dimensions, thanks to a specificbination of time and healing essences, these children would be put into a long period of stasis that would keep them from aging.

    During the stasis, the immense power contained in the resources would be slowly absorbed by the vortex left inside the children¡¯s bodies, and would gradually condense into an object called a "cultivation core."

    A cultivation core was nothing but a condensed reserve of mana that belonged to the cultivator inside which it was formed. An immense source of power that could be absorbed to cultivate throughout the years. Its use was in no way different from the crystal that Daniel had encountered in his universe.. But differed from them due to the immeasurable difference in power between the two. Every bit of power contained inside it would refine the bodies of its owner with nothing of it going to waste, allowing for anyone who possessed one to cultivate at a speed that went beyond the limits of talent, and easily reach the godhood stage twenty or so years of age.

    The way in which talent was measured in this universe was not based on a cultivator¡¯s speed in absorbing and refining their bodies with mana, but instead, by which age they would be able to reach the godhood level. With the most talented being barely over twenty, and the most average being older than thirty.

    After learning about this method of cultivation, Daniel had realized why these students possessed such an abysmal mastery of martial or spiritual training. By never needing to pause between cultivation sessions due to their nearly infinite core, these cultivators would spend every bit of their time absorbing power, and rising through the stages as quickly as they could. This path would inevitably turn them into extremely powerful, and yet inept fighters.

    It was only after exhausting the pool of essence contained in their bodies, that these cultivators would start learning how to wield weapons and control the essences. Unfortunately, a person¡¯s ability to master weapons andprehend the elements of mana was something entirely dependent on someone¡¯s perception, which made it in no way easier to learn whenpared to the cultivators of Daniel¡¯s.

    While he could see how this method of cultivation could increase the overall power of a faction as time went by, as a father, Daniel could not imagine freezing his children in time inside a pocket dimension for thousands of years. But, s, this was the tradition of this universe, and he had no intention of meddling in it.

    The only thing that had bothered him during the past two weeks, was his inability to find any information regarding the ascension to the stage beyond the godhood stage.. Something that even his system refused to reveal to him. It quickly became clear to him that his existence as the board on which Destiny and Fate yed their game, was much more peculiar than what Competition had revealed to him.

    -----

    While Daniel spent his days waiting for the Blood Sect to make their move against him, behind a distorted patch of space that worked as the entrance to a pocket dimension, was an enormous camp that contained tens of thousands of tents inhabited by ten times the number of warriors. On these tents was the insignia of the Blood Sect.

    "Father.. This is madness. It is a miracle that we haven¡¯t been found yet, and you want us to attack an already imed universe?! Have you lost your mind!?" Asked a young looking man dressed in blood red clothes and partial heavy armor.

    The man that this young man called father, and that was currently staring at his army¡¯s camp from his elevated tent, was the current owner of one of the universes that belonged to Sacrifice, the aspect of existence that the Blood Sect represented. He was a man who appeared to be in his mid forties, and whose left eye appeared to be blinded by a vertical sword sh. Despite his injury and his refined clothes this man¡¯s appearance was forgettable, but just like his son, he had stopped counting years after his age had reached the seven digits.

    This man did not appear to be angered by his son¡¯s tone.. Instead, what was shown on his face was disappointment. "You are old now.. But still so foolish." He said before taking a deep breath. He then turned towards his son, and added, "The final step of the path of blood is the only thing that kept the champions of the other aspects of existence from wiping us out.. Even if we, as the direct disciples of the Murderous God felt no greed towards it, we would still need to recover it.. You have no idea of the amount of enemies that the Murderous God has umted for the Blood Sect throughout the eras."

    "Father, we are trying to suffocate a fire with a paper box! A war will start before we¡¯ll ever get close enough to see the legacy." Responded the son with anger. From his tone, it was clear that being treated as an ignorant fool by his father had bothered him more than he cared to admit. "And to make things worse, we don¡¯t even know if the brat is hiding, or if he is a refugee. For all we know, the champions of Competition are already aware that the Murderous God has died."

    "He won¡¯t tell them." Said the middle aged man before once again turning to look at the tents of his army, at the bottom of which countless pools of blood were forming as a result of the cultivation of those who upied them. "If he did, we would already be dead."

    "Why shouldn¡¯t he? If his n is getting rid of us, wouldn¡¯t it be logical for him to reveal that the Murderous God has died and that our sect is weak?"

    "He won¡¯t because his gift won¡¯t allow him to do that." Responded the middle aged man with a matter-of-fact tone.

    The young-looking cultivator raised one of his brows in confusion. "What is that?"

    "You wouldn¡¯t know.. The power that was given to him by Destiny. It expands on his free will by revealing the future. Consequences, options, and other details." Responded the middle aged cultivator before taking a seat behind arge wooden desk. He then added, "That kind of power makes these champions extremely resilient and dangerous.. If allowed to grow. That is why they are wiped out whenever one is found."

    The young man had clearly never heard of such a peculiar type of champion, and that was because thest of Iewah¡¯s children had been eliminated from his universe by his father and the Murderous God thousands of years before he was even born.. Right when they had taken over the universe. "So that is why he won¡¯t expose himself.. The moment they¡¯ll learn about his identity, they will kill him.. But isn¡¯t the information he has on us worthy enough for him to keep his life? He is just a little cultivator at the godhood stage."

    "A little cultivator who killed a man that was feared by most overlords in the multiverse.. A man who could have killed you and absorbed you with the same effort it would have taken him to absorb a handful of mana. Do not underestimate him.. There is a reason why these beings are hunted." Responded the middle aged man.

    The young man appeared to learn from his father¡¯s words.. After all, while he had never known the Murderous God, his father was one of his direct descendents, and there was no one whom he respected more than him. "So.. what is our next move? Do we storm the Half Moon Sect before they can call for reinforcements? Every attempt to infiltrate the sect¡¯s territory so far has failed."

    The middle aged man remained quiet. While he could feel Daniel¡¯s exact position even from millions of light years of distance, something that he could cover in a matter of hours if necessary, he still could not help but feel pressed for time. He was aware that many of his peers were on their way to im the legacy, and not all of them were allies.

    After spending a few minutes immersed in a pensive state, his brows finally raised in realization, almost as if he had remembered something. He then turned to look at his son, and said, "A possession."

    "What is that?" Asked his son with confusion.

    "Amongst the abilities of the path of blood there is a practice called ¡¯Blood Thrall¡¯. It is an ability that master took from the blood sect from whose ashes our sect has risen. It allows us to possess a cultivator with a weak consciousness with our own." Exined the middle-aged man.

    "You want us to possess the disciples of the sect and attack them from inside?"

    "No. It only takes one cultivator to notice that something is wrong for the whole universe to realize that something is going on.. It¡¯s too risky. I have a better idea.." Said the father before cing his hands over his son¡¯s shoulders. He then added while looking straight into his eyes with what looked like an expression formed by fifty percent confidence, and fifty percent obsession-fueled insanity, "You¡¯ll go in alone. Possess a disciple, infiltrate the sect, and once you find the kid who stole the legacy, find a way to kill the disciple and take over his body instead. You might not be able to take the inheritance from him, but finding a way to bring his body out of the sect should not be a problem."

    For the first time the younger-looking cultivator was able to see the sort of obsession that the legacy of the path of blood created in its inheritors. However, as a champion of sacrifice, he was not only keen to take innocent people as sacrifices to strengthen his power, but also, ironically enough, to sacrifice himself for what he considered to be the right cause.. Which in this case, was to prevent the legacy from falling in the hands of a hostile inheritor, or worse, make it known to the champions of Competition that they were now at the weakest they had ever been in thest few million years.

    In the end, the young man had no choice but to take the risk, and agree to his father¡¯s n with a reluctant nod of his head.

    -----

    While the Blood Sect made their preparation to extract Daniel from the Half Blood Sect¡¯s territory, back in the patriarch¡¯s room, the young man called Iacob finally came back from his assignment.

    "What have you found out?" Asked a voice that came from within the darkness of therge room.

    "Patriarch, I have something strange to report.. I have traced back his family. They were a medium sized cultivation family called Yen, which belonged to the third sector of this universe and was barely able to nurture one of their progeny with the Refined Birth. They found their demise due to their family head, which had some old animosity with the head of a rival family. They were wiped out around twenty-five years ago." Exined Iacob patiently to the darkness in which the patriarch was hiding.

    "Your report seems to match the history that the ancestor read in his mind.." said the disembodied voice with curiosity.

    "Well.. the strange thing is that the Yen kid, the one who survived, is currently roaming the streets of the city where the stairwayst appeared. The one that he climbed to the top."

 Chapter 509 A Risky Play

    "Patriarch, is everything okay?" Asked the young man named Iacob with confusion.

    After reporting his findings to the Patriarch, he had found himself waiting for a few long minutes without receiving any answer or further instructions. "Patriarch." he repeated while nervously taking a step closer to the door frame.

    In the middle of the dark room, the Patriarch of the Half Moon sect was thinking in silence. In his mind were no less than a hundred questions, and all of them were in regards to Daniel. Who was he? How could he fool the Ancestor, the most powerful entity of their sector, and one of this universe¡¯s mainpetitors? All these questions were formted in a dozen different ways and paired with just as many guesses, but the most important question was, who sent him?

    "Iacob.. I want you to go back to the city, and once you get there, I want you to get rid of the real survivor of the Yens, and the family that destroyed them. Bring the grand elders with you." He ordered after making the core disciple wait for a few more minutes. Iacob¡¯s brows furrowed in confusion. He knew that secretly killing an entire cultivation family could only mean one thing.. The patriarch was trying to cover something up. In hope to get some answers he took another step towards the dark room.. but before he could ask any question, the patriarch added, "Do as I¡¯ve said. Don¡¯t speak a word of what you¡¯ve discovered to anybody, or I¡¯ll put you back in the cave of the outer mountain where you¡¯ve started."

    "As you wish, Patriarch." Said Iacob before quietly disappearing.

    After spending a few more minutes in a pensive state, the Patriarch of the Half Moon sect, an entity that had lived millions of years in Competition¡¯s domain, was able to formte the most realistic guess to justify Daniel¡¯s presence in his sect.

    The part of the multiverse which belonged to the aspect ofpetition was ruled by a mentality that was referred to as the ¡¯survival of the fittest¡¯.. and this sort of mentality was embedded so deeply into the history of the groups that ruled it, that it made the creation of a single governing body impossible. What ruled these universes instead of a government were factionsposed of differently ranked groups, which were tasked with gaining rulership over certain universes for the sake of expanding the Competition¡¯s domain.

    These factions were ruled by first ranked groups.. A term used to describe families and sects powerful enough to directly own a portion of Competition¡¯s immense domain. These territories, being too big to be governed by a single group, were in turn split between multiple second ranked families who would rule over fractions as big as ten to twenty universes for the sake of the first ranked families that owned them.

    The territory of a second ranked group was simrly split between those who belonged to the third rank, who ruled two to four separate universes, that in turn, were individually controlled by a fourth ranked group.

    At the bottom of the rankings were the families and sects that belonged to the fifth rank. Groups that had no control over any of the universes that belonged to Competition¡¯s domain, but that had been given by their faction the opportunity to rise in ranks.

    In order for that to happen, they needed to recruit a native champion of Competition and help him throughout thepetition between its peers. If sessful, the newly acquired universe would be assigned to the group that had discovered the winner, allowing their group to rise to the fourth rank.

    At some point in time, right as Daniel¡¯s home universe had opened to the multiverse, many fifth rank families had prepared to be sent in it, but any intention of adding Daniel¡¯s universe to Competition¡¯s domain were immediately abandoned as soon as the faction¡¯s leaders had learned about the presence of a champion of Conflict. For those who had studied the hierarchy of these deities, it wasmon knowledge that Competition was one of Conflict¡¯s direct followers, and trying to snatch a universe from his domain was uneptable.

    The Half Moon sect, being a group that had no ownership over any of the universes that belonged to Competition¡¯s domain, were considered to be an unranked group. They, just like every other group in the universe, followed one of the fifth rank families, which in their sector, was owned by the man whom they called Ancestor.. An old man who Daniel would have recognized as the man who had tried to pry into his memories, and who, after being sessfully fooled by his act, had left him to the Half Moon sect.

    His family¡¯s job, as part of the fifth rank, was to find the ones chosen by the test prepared by Competition, and help them through the tests that would determine which one of them deserved the ownership of this universe. The fifth ranked universe that had raised the winner, would ultimately gain the ownership of the universe, and they would be a fourth ranked group.

    This was the system that had naturally formed after millions of years.. A pyramid of power created to facilitate the distinction between each group.

    The reason why such such a method was supported, was because it allowed for groups that belonged to the same rank, but were part of different factions, to have groups of simr power topete with.. allowing for peace to be impossible, and for fairpetition to keep being the driving force of this domain.

    Naturally, this system did not work for every group within the domain.

    While this method worked for greedy and power driven groups, the same could not be said for the least ambitious groups who, just like the Half Moon sect, lived in the fear that, at any point in time, they would be caught in the crossfire between the fifth ranked families that werepeting for the ownership of their universe through scheming, plotting, battling, and much more.

    When the patriarch of the Half Moon sect had discovered that Daniel was faking his condition, the first thought that appeared in his mind was that he was a spy of another faction, or that maybe, the fifth ranked family that he followed, had already given up on winning thepetition, and instead of finding a legitimatepetitor to represent their faction, had nted a fake one who would help anotherpetitor win.

    This had happened many times before, as while many fifth ranked groups would explode with joy at the thought of being given a chance to rise to the fourth rank, that would also mean that if they seeded, they would be the enemies of every single fourth ranked group that did not belong to their faction. Before that happened, because of their inability to give up on the task, these families would choose to sell their cing to one of theirpetitors, and help them in taking ownership of the universe.

    If that was the case, the patriarch of the Half Moon sect knew that his sect was doomed.. After all, they were unknowingly aiding a fifth ranked family in betraying their faction, and for such a heavy crime, ignorance was not an excuse. Unfortunately, once caught in this sort of manoeuvres, even if they suddenly realized what was going on, they would already be out of choices, as once they would realize that the fifth ranked group that they were following had given up on their universe, before they would be able to report them to the third ranked group that had assigned the universe to them, they would be ughtered.

    Unwilling to risk his sect¡¯s existence, the patriarch had decided to erase any proof that Daniel could have been nted to aid another fifth ranked family. By doing this, the patriarch of the Half Moon sect hoped that the group that they were following would be sessful in their plot, and that nobody would look at them as aplices.

    Naturally, all of these guesses could not be further away from the truth. Daniel was not a spy, and the leader of the fifth ranked group that had taken him after getting down from the stairs was not a traitor. He was only desperate to find apetitor, and was willing to ept one even if that meant taking in someone with brain damage.

    At the same time, while Daniel had no idea that he had been discovered, that was not the same for his system, which had already predicted that the patriarch of the half moon sect would not only choose to feign ignorance, but reinforce his act by eliminating what could have exposed his lies.

    -----

    Back in the floating archipgo, Daniel was walking around like he used to, eavesdropping on the conversations of the other disciples of the sect in hope to learn more about the sightings of the Blood Sect, or at the very least, other forms of useful information regarding the universe he was currently in.

    Ever since Daniel¡¯s encounter with the inner disciples, it had be clear for most of the disciples of the half moon sect that the damage that was making him act the way he was, in no way lessened his battle prowess.. and that, had caused him to be a feared individual in the sect who most disciples would rather avoid.

    The few who didn¡¯t, were the group of young women that Daniel had followed to the arena. They did not appear to be bothered by his presence, as shown by their refusal to leave as soon as they¡¯d see him walk in their general direction.

    Amongst these four young women, Daniel had discovered the presence of a guardian. She was the one amongst the four who spoke the least, but also the cause for her group¡¯s frequent encounters with him. She would never directly observe him, and would only look at him from the corner of her eyes, but unfortunately for her, one of Daniel¡¯s strengths was a powerful mind, and he had no problems with hearing her taking mental notes of everything he would do.

    *thump* "Oh, I apologize." said a woman in her mid twenties with worry while trying to pick up the stack of books which she had dropped a moment earlier, when she was hurrying towards her cave, and had crashed against Daniel¡¯s standing figure. "I am so sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to bump into you, I didn¡¯t see you." She said with her extremely attractive appearance twisted into a flustered expression.

    The few cultivators that had yet to leave recognized this young woman. She was the granddaughter and only living rtive of one of the sect¡¯s elders, and was known as a sweet, yet highly untalented cultivator. A fame she had gained due to her numerous failed attempts at mastering any form of martial art due to her totalck of grace.

    Despite this being the first time Daniel had met this young woman, he did not share the opinion of the other students. As a teacher himself, he knew that ack of grace in martial arts was not a permanent trait, but the consequence of ack of training. In his mind, it was more likely that the reason why shecked any form of skill in martial arts was because her guardian never had time to teach her the basics, and considering his position in the sect, that was likely to be the case.

    "Hey, what¡¯s wrong with you? I didn¡¯t hit your head or something, right?" she asked before taking a step closer to check Daniel¡¯s eyes with her own pair of light blue eyes.

    The surrounding cultivators looked at the scene with confusion. Not only were they expecting Daniel to attack her at any moment, but were also curious about the behavior of the young woman. Being the hottest topic between the outer and inner disciples of the sect, it was odd for this young woman to not know about Daniel¡¯s situation. Yet, she behaved as if she was expecting him to respond.

    Naturally, Daniel did not respond, and instead moved his sight past the young woman, and walked past her as if nothing happened, forcing her to make way for him.

    The young woman looked at Daniel with genuine confusion from which she snapped out of a few momentster. "Hey, hold on!.." she shouted before Daniel could get too far away.

    Her attempt to catch Daniel¡¯s attention was interrupted by a sudden pressure that covered the entire outer area like a steel nket. A pressure whose source could be felting from the top of the outer mountain that housed the caves of the outer disciples. There, an elderly man apanied by two tall young men dressed in core disciple¡¯s clothes, were standing quietly.

    "The stairway has appeared once again. For those who wish to climb it, get your equipment and regroup outside of the gates. We depart in five minutes." Said the voice of the elderly man, reaching the ears of every single disciple within the sect, no matter if part of the outer, inner, or core circles.

 Chapter 510 To Swim Against the Curren

    The announcement made its way throughout the sect, catching the interest of virtually every single disciple within the floating archipgo, who collectively headed towards the tform indicated by the elder with enthusiasm. However, this excitement was not shared by everybody, as three disciples in particr, did not appear to be affected by this news. These three disciples were Daniel, the core disciple who had been tasked with keeping an eye on him by the Patriarch, and finally, the young woman whom Daniel had just met.

    During the past weeks, Daniel had maintained a facade that allowed him to explore the sect, and eavesdrop conversations without appearing suspicious.. And that was only possible because he showed no personal interest in anything that was said, or that happened around him. As a drawback, he was forced to follow whatever the masses would do like a curious stray dog, and pretend to lose interest soon after. Once he had experienced the various events that took ce in the sect at least once, he would learn how to avoid them the next time.

    Since Daniel had already seen the selection of Competition¡¯s champions, he knew that there was no reason for him to go, so without waiting a second longer, he ignored the young woman whom appeared to be having an internal conversation with herself only a few steps away from him, and started to head towards the caves of the outer disciples. However, his motion was halted only momentster by the grip he felt around his wrist.

    "Where are you going? Don¡¯t you want to take the test?" She asked while looking at Daniel with an enthusiasm that only a few moments earlier, waspletely absent.

    Pressed for time, Daniel began to consider whether to attack this young woman to prevent her from bothering him again, but before he could, a second voice came from the direction of the group of young women whom Daniel had found himself in front of several times in the past. "Don¡¯t touch him!" Shouted the undercover core disciple with worry.

    "Why not?" asked the daughter of the sect¡¯s elder with an unusually cold tone.

    Slightly surprised by the sudden change of her demeanor, the core disciple let out a polite smile, and responded by saying, "You are very lucky that he doesn¡¯t attack people who show no hostility towards him, or someone would be picking your pieces up from the floor by now." As she spoke, her eyes kept trailing between her hand, and her cold and almost hostile eyes.

    "And who are you? His protector?" asked the elder¡¯s granddaughter,pletely unbothered by the warning of the core disciple. Her narrowed eyescked any form of gratitude or wariness, as opposed to the underlying hostility that she felt for her, and that she wasn¡¯t bothering to hide.

    "HEY! She was only looking out for you!" said a young woman with freckles and short red hair with irritation, and while marching towards the three of them along with the rest of her group. Next to her was the cold young woman with long ck hair, and the fourth member of her group, a girl with dark brown hair tied up into a ponytail.

    The three of them had been surprised by their friend¡¯s sudden intervention, as they had gotten used to Daniel, and they knew that even if this young woman grabbed his wrist, he would not attack her unless she would show hostility. However, when the daughter of the elder began to show disregard and ack of respect, they chose to intervene.

    As all of this happened, Daniel noticed the increasing stream of disciples that walked past them, and towards the tform located at the edge of the archipgo. In his mind was forming a perfectly well hidden irritation, which was caused by the invasive actions of these five young women, who were preventing him from leaving the area before he could be pushed towards the tform by the iing crowd.

    The elder¡¯s granddaughter looked at the four outer disciples with an unprecedented coldness. One that, if paired with enough battle prowess or the presence of a weapon, could have been mistaken for a threat. However, before she could say anything to get rid of these four young women, she felt Daniel¡¯s attempt to force his arm out of her grip, to which she reacted by letting go. Instead of leaving, however, she took a step closer to him, and embraced his arm altogether.

    "I am all personality and no strength, while he is the opposite. We are a good match." She said as her cold demeanor softened, and her lips curved into a smile.

    The actions of the young woman left the group of friends dumbfounded, a feeling which Daniel shared wholeheartedly. To them it was already odd that she had never heard of Daniel during the past month or so, but even more strange, was her excessive friendliness towards a person whom she had never met before.

    Fed up with this young woman¡¯s behavior, and unable to read into her mind, Daniel prepared himself to scare her away, but then, he stopped. Around him were now thousands of people who had almost clogged the road.. A crowd that the person he was impersonating, would follow mindlessly.

    "Why are you all standing here?!"

    "Move out of the way!"

    Theints of the hurried disciples reached the six of them one after the other, forcing Daniel to realize that it was already toote.

    "If she wants to risk staying with a time bomb like him, then leave her to it." Said the one with long ck hair whom, despite her cold behavior, was the most sensible one within her group of friends.. a quality which had caused her to be extremely wary of Daniel from the very first moment she had seen him.

    "Right.. And even if he attacks her, he probably won¡¯t kill her. Let¡¯s go, I don¡¯t want to lose this test like thest one." Added the brte with the ponytail in agreement. She then turned towards the tform, and followed the crowd along with her red-headed friend.

    The only reason why the core disciple had chosen to intervene despite the two had never met, was out of respect for her grandfather. What she never expected, was for her warning to be weed with such hostility. One which was very unlike how the rumors she had heard of her, described her, and that she would have weed with a matched hostility if not for her identity.

    Luckily, Daniel joining in the journey would make it easier for her to keep an eye on him, as she wished to participate like everybody else, and was on the verge of making up an excuse for why she wouldn¡¯t join her friends this time and remain in the sect in case he did. While annoying, the actions of the elder¡¯s granddaughter had yed in her favor.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel could only follow the young woman who seemed to have taken an interest in him, while at the same time, adding her to his list of people he would be better off avoiding in the future.

    After a few moments of walking, Daniel and the five female cultivators sessfully merged into the massive crowd, and marched towards the tform indicated by the elder.

    While this tform was clearly not big enough to wee all of the disciples who were walking towards it, to Daniel¡¯s surprise, the tform began to react to the increasing number of people by expanding in size the more of them would step onto it. A feature which Daniel found as much interesting as it was unexinable, since there was no trace of essences being used in the process, nor was there a formation carved into it.

    The moment the most tardy of these students reached the tform, the figure of the old man apanied by his two personal disciples suddenly walked past the gate, and towards the middle of the tform, which, almost as if aware of his arrival, split the crowd into two, creating a path for him to walk into.

    Once this old man reached the middle of the tform, the archipgo disappeared like a mirage, leaving thousands of unbothered disciples surrounded by an endless peaceful sky.

    This sight reminded Daniel of when he was still a mortal, just a few years ago. When the sky marked the limits of his senses the same way the sea level did, protecting the weak existence of humans from the monstrous dangers thaty beyond them. A memory of humanity that the leader of the half moon sect had chosen to safekeep the same way Daniel had when his group lived in his pocket dimension.

    Despite the confusion and danger he was facing, seeing a sky that he couldn¡¯t breach, put Daniel¡¯s mind at ease.. A feeling that, unfortunately, was broken the moment the space around the tform was grabbed by an invisible power, and pulled and twisted into an immense spatial whirlpool right in front of his eyes.

    This sudden event was able to catch the attention of the few disciples who had not yet gotten used to it, while the rest, aware that the journey would take a few hours, began to interact with one another.

    Between the lowest ranking core disciples being surrounded by the members of the inner circle, who praised their talent and expressed their desire to join their ranks, and many of the inner disciples who experienced the same treatment from the outer disciples, Daniel saw familiar social interactions, as well as some odd events like the separation between circles, or the attempts of a core disciple to approach the young woman who had been tasked with keeping an eye on Daniel, but that had given up after noticing her angered expression.

    The most odd event, however, was when the elder himself walked past the disciples, and towards the figure of Daniel and the young woman who was standing next to him.

    "Greetings Elder." Said the young woman the moment he came to a few feet of distance from them.

    "You know that you don¡¯t need to call me Elder, child. Just call me uncle, like you used to when I taught you how to write." Said the old man with a genuine and warm smile. It was clear to Daniel that the two knew each other, and that their rtionship put this touchy young woman above anybody who stood on this tform. A rtionship that was likely to exist due to this old man¡¯ rtionship with her grandfather, with whom he shared the same position in the sect.

    The smile of the elder onlysted until the young woman smiled back at him. An action which Daniel found maniptive, as despite her looking as happy to see the old man as he was to see her, her spirit did not fluctuate, showing that she had no emotions towards him whatsoever.

    Happy to see her safe and sound, the old man turned to look at the person who was apanying her.. An action that caused his previous smile to disappear the moment his eyesnded on Daniel, whom he was not expecting to see there. This well hidden surprise turned into disappointment the moment he turned to look at the group of four female cultivators, or more specifically, the one who was tasked with making sure that he would stay within the sect¡¯s territory at all times.

    "Why are you with him, little Shah?" He asked the young woman who was standing closer to Daniel than anybody else.

    "It looked like he had nowhere else to be, so I have brought him along." she said while showing an innocent smile. She then turned serious, and asked, "Uncle, have you found anything about my friends?"

    The old man seemed to forget about Daniel¡¯s presence, and instead, she looked back at Shah, and said with an apologetic tone, "I am afraid not child. We have explored every path, but there was no trace of your friends.. Nor of those who attacked you. At this point, I would not hold high expectations about their return."

    "I understand." Said Shah, showing a saddened expression that, once again, did not match with her indifferent spirit.

    "Alright then. Don¡¯t overdo it during the next test." Said the old man, once again showing his affection for his friend¡¯s granddaughter with a warm smile. He then turned to look back at the center of the tform, "Keep an eye on him." He said to Daniel¡¯s guardian before walking off.

 Chapter 511 Back in Harms Way

    For the following three hours the tform kept dashing into the seemingly infinite canal of warped space, leaving the students with no other choice but to spend their time talking to one another, or mentally preparing for the test.

    The young woman named Saha had decided to spend this time by standing right next to Daniel, while the core disciple tasked with guarding him, as well as her friends, stood a few meters away. Daniel, on the other hand, had spent these three hours feeling an increasing degree of nervousness.

    This feeling was caused by the failure of the mission that was supposed to keep him alive in this universe, where many cultivators would be able to disintegrate every form of his being with a wave of their hand. In his mind, he kept wondering whether he should have been more forceful in his attempt to not join this expedition, and if that would have prevented the quest from failing.

    Now back in the dangerous position he had been in when he had first reached this universe, he could only thank his ability of mental fortitude for allowing him to maintain his calm, and think ahead.

    At the end of these three hours, the azure canal inside which the tform was dashing through suddenly turned into a reddish one, which reminded people of the colors one would witness at dusk. This change greatly worried a few of the students, who also happened to be the ones who had never experienced this kind of travel.. But before they could ask their more experiencedpanions for an exnation, the warped space stabilized around them, and the tform stopped.

    Once again, Daniel could not help but feel in awe for the odd form of transportation that existed in this universe. One that, like his mental teleportation, at least for cultivators who relied on the use of the surrounding mana, left absolutely no trace behind. What surprised him even more, was howmon these methods were in this universe, as shown by the tens of thousands of simr tforms which were currently upying the same sky as theirs.

    Under this fleet of tforms, and the hundreds of thousands of students that they carried, was a whose surface waspletely covered by metal. Be it buildings, streets, or small spaceships that roamed over therge cities-with an exception made for a few nts, artificial gardens, and a peculiar round sea of clean and drinkable water that could be seen in the distance, everything on this emitted the distinctive essence of metal.

    It did not take long for Daniel to realize that this housed a society which revolved around technology, and therefore, was likely unaware of the existence of lifeforms alien to their. A society that, if more advanced in their own means of survival, could have been a champion for the aspect of Ingenuity. Unfortunately, since their technological advancement wasn¡¯t enough to allow them topete for the universe, as shown by the fact that their biggest feat had been to find a mostly metallic asteroid on which their society could move into. Their whole existence could have been obliterated by any of the young cultivators present on any of the tforms that seemed to have invaded their home, erasing their existence from history with a snap of their fingers.

    What the citizens of this were unaware of, however, was that as followers of Competition, these invaders would never bother to harm any of them. After all, their society revolved aroundpetition between equal or simrly powerful entities.. A society where killing a harmless mortal was amongst the most dishonorable actions. Instead of this¡¯s poption, these cultivators were much more interested in the stairway that had appeared in the middle of one of the¡¯s cities, and who appeared extremely out of ce whenpared to the dull metallic jungle that surrounded it.

    One by one these tforms descended from the sky, allowing for the hundreds of thousands of disciples that they were carrying to jump off, and create a line in front of the base of the stairway.. One that soon turned into a column of people that crowded numerous of the city¡¯s wide streets.

    Daniel, still held by his arm by Saha, could do nothing but follow her onto the¡¯s surface, where theynded about two hundred meters from the head of the line.

    "He should not be here. At least make him put a mask on. Some people might recognize him." Said Daniel¡¯s guardian, who despite Saha¡¯s attempts, had easily managed to follow them and was now standing next to them along with her group of friends. In her hand was a simple white mask with curved ck brows, a van dyke mustache, rosy cheekbones, and lips curved into a smile, which Saha took from her and put on Daniel¡¯s face.

    Daniel was barely able to hold the irritation he was feeling from being treated like a dummy from these two women, but since a mask could help him in maintaining his anonymity, and he couldn¡¯t have protested even if he wanted, he tried to distract himself by paying attention to his surroundings, which kept his mind upied during the long march that awaited him.

    -----

    "So I just climb it like every other flight of stairs?" asked a young man in histe teens to his brother, who was walking confidently alongside him.

    "Yes. That is about it." Responded the brother with exasperation. It was clear that this wasn¡¯t the first time that they had had this conversation, nor did it seem like it would be thest one. However, while irritated by his younger brother¡¯s stubbornness, he could not help but remember how, only a couple of years back, he had pestered his father in a simr way when he had apanied him to his first attempt at taking this test.

    The words of his older brother seemed to do nothing but deepen the confusion of the younger one, who asked, "You are telling me that this test takes ce several times in every single universe of Lord Competition¡¯s domain, and that the guide created by the umted knowledge about it is ¡¯just climb it¡¯? Really??"

    Numerous young cultivators who stood around him could not help but burst outughing, while the more experienced ones, as well as their older family members, scoffed at the older brother with disdain, almost as if they were disappointed with how he had instructed his family member.

    "You idiot." muttered the older brother while covering his face in embarrassment. "The stairway tests your will topete. It presents deeper degrees of power as you climb it, and if you manage to resist until the end, showing your drive andck of fear, you be a champion of Lord Competition. It is a mental test."

    "Oh, you could have said that earlier! Mom gave me a mental talisman.. Should I wear it?" Asked the younger brother after finally understanding the nature of the test.

    Once again, the older brother could barely contain the shame he was feeling. "Do you really think that the will of an aspect of existence could be stopped by mom???s trinkets? Wouldn¡¯t we all be champions if all it took was a damn pendant?! There has never been a mental protection capable of protecting someone from that kind of pressure.. The ones who seeded had a naturally stronger mind." Responded the older brother before finally going quiet.

    "That sucks.." responded the younger brother with disappointment.

    This conversation had taken ce only a few meters away from Daniel, and was quickly able to catch his attention. The part that he had found most interesting was the fact that even though the older of the two brothers was fairly knowledgeable about the test, based on the reaction of the surrounding cultivators, it did not appear that they were aware of what was truly tested when climbing the stairway.

    What he had noticed the first time he had climbed the stairway was that the pressure was not the real obstacle, or at least, not as much as the extremely thin veil of killing intent present in it. This imperceptiveyer of killing intent, paired with the immense pressure, would slowly take an extreme toll on the mind of the participants, who would soon lose theirposure, or worse, lose their senses.

    This killing intent was representative of the underlying menace present in the existence of stronger cultivators, and formed a barrier that, without the properpetitive drive, would hinder someone¡¯s future progress. The presence of this hidden obstacle was the reason why so many people were eliminated, but at the same time, the reason why almost every young cultivator who had seeded in the past, had been an unstable individual, or a sociopath incapable of fear for their life.

    As the line advanced, and Daniel¡¯s eyesnded on the elders of the various unranked groups who were in the midst of talking down this¡¯s governor and chief of the military.. He began to wonder whether these powerful entities were aware of the real nature of this test, or if they were just clueless and greedy followers of a fifth rank group who followed orders blindly.

    -----

    Around two hours after their arrival, Daniel was once again in front of the magical looking staircase. However, this time, any form of interest or curiosity were absent from his eyes, so instead of climbing it once again, he chose to follow the rtives of the young participants and step out of the way. This decision was, to his surprise, shared by the young woman named Saha, who decided to follow him while showing an absoluteck of interest in taking part in the test.

    Less surprising, was the result of the test of the other disciples of the Half Moon sect, who failed miserably regardless of whether they belonged to the outer, inner, or core circles of the sect. But, s, that type of result was not odd, as shown by every other group, which had no better result to boast about.

    "Why are youughing? It is more dishonorable to give up without even trying, than trying and failing." Said the young woman with long dark hair to Saha, who was enjoying the spectacle from beside Daniel while showing a satisfied smile.

    "A mentality shared by those who have mastered the art of failing spectacrly." responded Saha,pletely unbothered by the hostile attitude of the group of young women.

    The already hurtpetitive nature of the four young women was further damaged by Saha¡¯s words, but since they were not in a ce where fighting was allowed, they could do nothing but send verbal shots at her-something that she seemed to find extremely pitiful and, at times, amusing.

    At this point Daniel had spent almost a month in this universe, and had already gotten used to the behaviour of the disciples of the half moon sect. It was for that reason that he could not help but to feel a newfound curiosity towards the woman that kept following.

    Saha¡¯s stoic and careless behavior in the face of many insults did nothing but further irritate the other young women, who became more and more vicious in their attacks which kept going until the young woman with straight ck hair said, "How someone as defenseless as you can have such a big mouth and careless attitude is beyond me. No wonder that those who attacked your group left you alive. They must have mistaken you for a mortal."

    As the young woman finished speaking, Daniel felt the sharpest killing intent he had ever perceived re up within Saha¡¯s body, surprising him to a point where he couldn¡¯t stop himself from turning to look at her with alertness.. Only to see a face thatcked any trace of hostility. Instead, her lips were curved in a malicious smile that sent a shiver down the back of anyone who looked at it.

    "What happened to your eye.." muttered the young woman with short red hair while pointing at Saha¡¯s right eye, which for only a few moments, had turned from a green color, to a bright blood-red one.

    While this detail went unnoticed by Daniel, something else had caught his attention.. Something that only he could have noticed. And that was the rapid change in Saha¡¯s karma, which went from a positive four-digits number, to a negative one with more numbers than he could have counted during the few moments before the number changed back.

 Chapter 512 Live to Fight Another Day

    "What are you talking about? It¡¯s just the light.." Responded Saha right before tilting her head to the side, and stroking her red eye with her left hand. When she lowered her arm a few momentster, she opened her eyelids to reveal an eye that matched the color of her other one.

    While Saha¡¯s response could somehow exin this odd detail to the group of young women, that was not the case for Daniel, whose demeanor had changedpletely. His body had suddenly turned rigid, and his head and shoulders had started to unconsciously inch away from Saha, whose arms were still locked around his own.

    "Make a move, and I will obliterate you where you stand." Said the young woman with a jovial tone that she didn¡¯t bother to hide from others.

    These few words were able to catch the attention of the female core disciple, who turned to look at her with suspicion, and asked, "Who are you talking to?"

    "If you could have killed me, you would have done that already." Said Daniel, shocking both his guardian, and her three friends. He then turned his head towards Saha, and added, "Letting out your murderous aura and allowing for the nature of your cultivation to show in the eye of the person you are possessing.. You are not as adept to that skill as the first of you leeches that I have killed."

    "What the hell is going on!?" Asked the young woman with straight ck hair while the female core disciple reached for the talisman that she was carrying around her wrist, and broke it. Unfortunately, when she broke it, she realized that her message was unable to get past a few inches from the now shattered talisman.

    The distortion that had stopped the young woman¡¯s message from reaching the elder of her sect was something that she could have never seen, as it was one of the mostplicated abilities included in Daniel¡¯sprehension of spatial essence. One which Daniel and Edmund referred to as ¡¯Borderless Separation¡¯. This ability allowed him to iste a specific portion of space without having to create a divisoryyer of solidified space, and was most useful when used to disturb weak movement of mana like transmissions of sound essence or mental power.

    "Smart boy." muttered Saha while raising her left arm, and pointed her fingers towards the group of alerted young women.

    Before she could kill them, however, Daniel removed his mask and said, "The ability I have used does not prevent people from seeing through. If you kill them, the ancient cultivators present here will notice you.. And since I know you would rather kill me than give me a chance to escape, I would appreciate it if you didn¡¯t."

    Saha looked at the four young women whom she had wanted to kill for a long while, but in the end, since she could not argue with Daniel¡¯s point, so she lowered her arm, and once again entangled it around Daniel¡¯s. "Here is what is going to happen. The six of us will take a walk.. We will chat happily and stop to look at a few constructions and shops-But most importantly, we will do that with a happy smile on our faces. Have I made myself clear?" She said while momentarily releasing two portions of her power.. One that in the eyes of the four young women was in no way weaker than that of the patriarch of the sect, and another that seeped into Daniel¡¯s body and merged into his blood.

    As the four young women felt this terrifying power that could erase their existence before they could even begin to look for help, they finally realized that this young woman was not the Saha that was known through the sect as the lovable and yet untalented granddaughter of their sect¡¯s Elder.. Or at the very least, not anymore.

    What they did not know yet, was that within Saha¡¯s body was a member of the Blood Sect. A cult-like group that cultivated by consuming the body, mind, and spirit of living humans in the name of the aspect of Sacrifice, and that possessed a power that, whenpared to the society that inhabited the domain of Competition, was just below a first ranked group-A position several times higher than the unranked Half Moon sect.

    The ability used by this blood cultivator was the same used by the Murderous God to take control over the body of a living being, but since this possession was not as seamless as the one which Daniel had witnessed in the past, the blood cultivator was unable to prevent a few revealing details from showing. Instead of controlling Saha¡¯s still living consciousness and body, in a moment of irritation, the blood cultivator had taken over Saha¡¯s body, allowing for his cultivation to show in her eye, and for his karma to take the ce of her own.

    It was only thanks to this sudden change in karma that Daniel had realized who was hiding inside the body of the young woman that had pestered him for the past few hours.

    After seeing the terrified expressions on the faces of the four young women, Daniel turned to look at them, and said, "If you do what he says, you might live to find a way out of this situation. If you don¡¯t, you will die here. Do you understand?"

    His tone was reassuring, and carried through the air and towards the ears of the four young women along with as much mental fortitude Daniel could share from the distance. Luckily, this was enough for the four of them to snap out of their horrified state of mind, and weakly not at the possessed young woman in understanding. They then followed as Daniel was dragged away from the crowd, and into one of the side roads.

    -----

    "It took your people a while to find me." Said Daniel to the still jovial-looking Saha, who was pointing at the ss panels behind which different kinds of merchandise were put on disy. Just a few steps ahead, the group of four young women were desperately trying to do the same without appearing suspicious.

    "We have always known where you were, we just didn¡¯t know how to get to you." Said the blood cultivator through Saha¡¯s mouth with a matter-of-fact tone. He then turned to look at Daniel¡¯s uncovered face, and after swallowing a mouthful of air and saliva, he added, "Lord¡¯s legacy shines on your forehead like a star, and that is insignificantpared to the glow that my father and the rest of Lord¡¯s direct disciples see. It is as annoying as it is enticing."

    Daniel sighed in relief. While the blood cultivator had not let out a lot of information, he had at least confirmed that not every blood cultivator could obtain the legacy.. Or at the very least, inherit its content. That was probably the reason why Daniel wasn¡¯t dead yet. He was being taken to this cultivator¡¯s father, who ording to what he had just said, was one of the direct disciples of the Murderous God, and as such, should be able to obtain the full Legacy.

    "And that is when you thought of using this possession art? That was a big risk. If you had lost control within the sect¡¯s territory, you probably would have caused the destruction of your sect." Said Daniel while smiling, and pretending to act as if what Saha was happily pointing at with her finger, was amusing him.

    The blood cultivator could not help but scoff at Daniel before saying, "Finding a way to get you out of that rathole wasn¡¯t my primary objective. I could have simply taken your body and dragged you out.. Who would have thought that your mind was this powerful."

    "Then what is next? You take me to your father, he kills me, and he bes the new Murderous God?" Asked Daniel with a casual tone that was able to catch the attention of the four female cultivators, who finally realized whom they were dealing with.

    "A foolproof n, isn¡¯t it?" Responded the blood cultivator while forcing Saha¡¯s lips into a malicious smile.

    "I agree with you about the fool part." Responded Daniel before stopping in the middle of the road. He then slowly removed his arm from in between Saha¡¯s, and while looking straight into her eyes, he said, "Your father should have taught you the importance of a strategic retreat."

    "Don¡¯t think that just because I haven¡¯t killed you, I do not dare to. I would rather take the legacy from you and let my father kill me for it, than let you run away with it." Said the blood cultivator, who had suddenly turned serious. Then, once sure that Daniel had understood, he added, "And I always have the choice to kill everyone here.. Once we will have the legacy back, Competition¡¯s domain won¡¯t start a war with us to avenge the lives of a few puny cultivators. There is no one here who can stop me from dragging you away.."

    Daniel nodded in agreement. He knew that blood cultivators were extremely resilient, and with so many powerful cultivators around, this one would have no problems withsting until he would be thest one standing. However, while he could not deny his power, he still showed a calm andposed attitude.

    "Truly a fool.. To think you¡¯d be able to catch me without even knowing the most basic rule of a magic trick.." Said Daniel while curving his lips into a smile.

    Irritated by Daniel¡¯s insult, the blood cultivator asked, "What do you mean? What is a magic trick?"

    "You have made two crucial mistakes.. But exining them would be boring. How about I show you?" Said Daniel before moving his eyes past Saha¡¯s head, and towards her back.

    While Daniel¡¯s confident attitude wasn¡¯t able to break the self-assurance of the blood cultivator, his existence as one of Destiny¡¯s champions was enough for him to feel alerted, so he hurriedly turned around only to see.. Nothing. "To be careless against someone with a stronger mind than you.. Was your first mistake."

    The blood cultivator did not need to turn around to know that both Daniel and the four young women had gone, after all, he had felt their consciousness disappear like mirages along with their bodies, that were nothing but clones made out of water and earth essence by Daniel. He had been trapped inside of Daniel¡¯s illusion ever since they had split away from the crowd, and had fallen for it due to Daniel¡¯s constant injection of mental fortitude, which had caused him to feelcent.

    However, while caught by surprise, the blood cultivator did not panic. He instead turned towards the stairway, where the light emitted by the blood legacy was shining brilliantly, and disappeared. When he reappeared, he was standing at its base, surrounded by thousands and thousands of cultivators who were currently staring at it with confusion.

    At the hundredth step mark, Daniel was standing along with the immobilized figures of the four young women, who were looking around with panic. He, on the other hand, was looking at Saha.

    "This was your second mistake. You should have taken me back in the sect." Said Daniel with a sound transmission while ignoring the shocked expressions of the crowd of cultivators. "Now tell me, why I shouldn¡¯t out you right now? Even if you kill everybody here, the domain of Competition will know it that the culprit was a member of the Blood Sect. how long will it take for them to learn that the Murderous God is dead, and that they can crush your sect with ease?"

    The blood cultivator could not help but squeeze Saha¡¯s lips in irritation. He could feel the power of Competition in this stairway, and he knew that as a champion of a different aspect of existence, he would be killed the moment he would step on it, and therefore, as long as Daniel stood there, he was safe.. Which meant that his n had failed miserably. However, not all was lost, and instead of panicking, he said with a sound transmission of her own, "I can keep my life in this universe.. I wonder if you would be able to do the same if I were to reveal whose champion you are to these cultivators."

    Daniel was already aware of the fact that Iewah¡¯s children would be killed in Competition universes-After all, that was the first thing he had learned about this universe as soon as he had arrived in it. He had tried to create a mission that could allow him to reach one of Sewah¡¯s kin, but since the system could note up with anything, he had guessed that those who had existed in the past, were likely all dead.

    "A ssic case of ¡¯mutual destruction¡¯ versus ¡¯live to fight another day¡¯.." muttered Daniel, casually suggesting a momentary truce. One that the blood cultivator could not help but agree with.

    With a bitter feeling in his mouth, the blood cultivator said, "Another day it will be, then.." He then turned around, and quietly disappeared in the crowd.

    Once sure that the blood cultivator would uphold his part of the deal, Daniel turned towards the top of the stairway while carrying the four young women with him, and after reaching the tform at the top, he disappeared.

 Chapter 513 A Champion of Destiny

    After the few hours that followed Daniel¡¯s second climb of the stairway, the crowd had almostpletely disappeared. In its ce were the leaders of the unranked groups, and with them, was the old man whom they referred to as the Ancestor, who was also the leader of the fifth rank group that was tasked with obtaining this universe for his faction.

    The presence of a person of this calibre at one of these events was usually indicative of the fact that a champion of Competition had finally appeared, which was a joyous event that the leaders of the unranked groups would normally celebrate. However, this time, not only was there no trace of happiness, but the area was shrouded by an ufortable silence.

    Most of these cultivators were staring intensely at the stairway, waiting for Daniel toe out for a second time and investigate why and how he had tricked them and the Ancestor. Amongst these few hundred people, however, two individuals appeared to be much more nervous than the others. They were the elder that had led the disciples of the Half Moon sect in their journey to this, and the sect¡¯s Patriarch.

    During the past few hours their eyes had been constantly shifting from the top of the stairway, to the angered expression of the ancestor.. waiting for him to finally burst out in anger, and give them their punishment.

    "Tell me again about him." Said the Ancestor out of the blue, causing the two cultivators of the Half Moon sect to flinch in surprise.

    "Since the day you have given him to me, he has never spoken a single word, nor has he behaved in a way that would show rational thought. He would follow fellow disciples around, and protect himself when threatened. Nothing more." Responded the Patriarch of the Half Moon sect while making sure to put emphasis on the fact that the first person to be fooled by Daniel, was none other than the ancestor himself. With this, he was hoping that not all of the fault would be put on his sect, and that maybe, they would survive this disaster.

    Aware of the Patriarch¡¯s intention, the Ancestor clenched his jaw in anger, but did not pursue the matter. Instead, he kept inquiring, "Describe to me how he fought. Did you recognize any signature style?"

    "Based on his guardian¡¯s report, he appeared to be an expert in multiple kinds of weapons, but his method of fighting seemed to be focused on efficiency more than a style perse." Responded the Patriarch before suddenly bing quiet. His lips were tightly pressed together, showing that he was unsure whether to share this information. It was only after the ancestor turned to look at him, that he added, "One detail that his guardian insisted on, was about how unlikely it was for any of my sect¡¯s disciples to be able to defeat him."

    The reason why the Patriarch did not want to share how capable Daniel was, was because that would only worse his situation. After all, to find the most capable amongst this universe¡¯s selected champions was the Ancestor¡¯s main goal, and if he knew that he already had him, but had let him go, wasting his chance of gaining control over this universe and raising his family¡¯s rank, he would never forgive himself.

    Unfortunately, Daniel¡¯s ability was not a secret, and a simple investigation in his sect would bring out thousands of witnesses.. So in the end, he decided to bite the bullet, and say what he needed to say.

    Just as the Patriarch had imagined, this piece of information struck a chord in the Ancestor, who raised his hand and used it to cover his face, now twisted in anger. After a few moments spent twitching and trembling, he muttered, "a month.. You had him for a whole month." Before the Patriarch could ask what he meant, the ancestor uncovered his face, and repeated with an increasing degree of rage, "You had him for a whole month.. AND NOW YOU REPORT THIS TO ME!?"

    His tone was powerful beyondprehension. So much so that the metallic asteroid on which they were standing could not resist the shockwave it had created, and a portion of it had detached and begun to drift away in space.

    Slightly panicked, but still clear-minded, the patriarch lowered his head, and said, "Ancestor, I didn¡¯t think of bothering you for something that we all had thought you had already seen in his memories. I apologize."

    Once again, the ancestor could do nothing but repress his anger. "Have you conducted any investigation towards his family, or the family that has attacked his own? If we can at least find which group destroyed his family, we can use them to convince him topete for our faction."

    "If I had conducted an investigation, I would have definitely reported my findings to you, Ancestor." Responded the patriarch, lying through his teeth. In his mind there was no doubt that, if he had admitted that he had already ordered for the other family¡¯s destruction, he would have died on the spot.

    "Your ipetence andck of initiative does not surprise me anymore..??? Said the ancestor while turning to look back at the flight of stairs. He then added, "Luckily, it isn¡¯t toote. We only need to wait for him toe out.. Then.." his words began to trail off as his eyes opened with confusion. In front of his eyes, the flight of stairs had begun to disappear, showing that the time limit of the test hade to an end. "What is going on?! Where is he?!" He shouted before extending his sensing ability outwards, reaching as far as possible.

    Around him, the many group leaders shared the same degree of surprise. They had all seen Daniel reach the peak of the stairway, as well as the young women he was carrying.. But instead ofing out of it like he had the first time, the stairway disappeared as if it had been left unused until the time limit of the test hade to a natural end.

    "Has anybody seen hime out?" Asked one of the old and powerful cultivators with confusion.

    "I am positive that no one came out. My eyes never moved from the stairway."

    "Did we lose him?"

    This shared confusion and helplessness did nothing but heightened the anger that the Ancestor was feeling, bringing him close to a boiling point.. But before he could unleash his rage once and for all, the Patriarch of the Half Moon sect, worried that his sect would be the recipient of this anger, tried to reassure him by saying, "Ancestor, the guardian I have assigned to him was one of the four young women he took along. They all have talismans to make their position known.. If they are still alive, they will find a way to reach out."

    After hearing that not everything was lost, the tightened hands of the Ancestor finally rxed, allowing for his blood to flush into them. "You better find him." He said before stomping on the ground with his right foot and using the power of his leg to shoot himself into space.. uncaring of how that simple move had created a crack on the¡¯s surface that, in just a few minutes, would lead to the destruction of the whole.

    -----

    Meanwhile, countless light years away, a weak sh of light barged out of a randomly opened rift in space, and came crashing into aet that, for thest few millions of years, and drifted through space undisturbed. On the small crater that formed, were the bodies of Daniel, and the four disciples of the Half Moon sect.

    Daniel was currently resting on his knees onto theet¡¯s cold surface, while the four young women had finally managed to free themselves from Daniel¡¯s power, and were assuming their fighting stance. They knew that Daniel was powerful and scheming, and now that he was the only threat left, they could not bring themselves to trust him.

    However, when the four young women turned to look at the kneeling figure of Daniel while ready to fight, they saw his face contorted in the worst pain imaginable, with blood dripping from his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. "What is wrong with you?! Where are we?" Asked the young woman with the ponytail while looking around.

    "Quit asking questions and break your beacon talisman!" Said the core disciple with hurry. If only she had not wasted her own a few hours earlier, she would have already used hers to call for help.

    The eyes of the young woman with the ponytail opened in realization. She then moved her left hand near the ring that she was wearing on the right one, and with the use of a small portion of her consciousness, she fished a bracelet from its pocket dimension.. one identical to the one Daniel¡¯s guardian had broken before-A talisman given to every member of the Half Moon sect to signal their position in case of danger.

    Before she could break it, however, with a painful wave of his arm, Daniel snatched the talisman from her hand, and threw it in outer space. Then, before the young woman with the ponytail could even think of going after it, a small rift opened in front of it, and closed as soon as the talisman went through, disappearing forever.

    This simple action was extremely taxing for Daniel, who let out a mouthful of blood from his mouth and fell weakly on his stomach. On his skin, numerous ck veins could be seen bulging like earthworms that had crawled out of the ground after a rainy day. This was an effect of the kind of blood poison that the blood cultivator that had possessed Saha had left in his body right after being discovered. One that had settled into his blood, and that attacked the connection that kept the atoms of Daniel¡¯s body together.

    Despite Daniel¡¯s resistance to poison, this attack was more akin to acid, and therefore, could not be stopped. It was only thanks to his extreme regeneration ability that he was able to recover almost as fast as this terrifyingly invasive power damaged him. With gritted teeth and bloodshot eyes, Daniel became unable to bear this level of pain, and finally fell on the ground, unconscious.

    -----

    ".. us here? Don¡¯t you.."

    "It¡¯s possible.. .. in danger to begin with."

    An unspecified amount of timeter, the deadened sound of conversation between the four young women was able to wake Daniel up, who could still feel the blood poison ravish his body with a much less invasive power. When his eyes opened, he found himself surrounded by multiple cages, each created by different formations, and reinforced by a power that matched Daniel¡¯s level of cultivation.

    Sitting around a spark of artificial light just a few meters away, were the four young women, who were currently discussing how they had arrived there, or what they would do next. A conversation that went on until finally, the young woman with freckles and red hair noticed that Daniel had woken up, and while pointing her finger past her friend¡¯s shoulder, eximed, "He is awake!"

    As Daniel rose to a sitting position, the four young women stood up, and approached him. The first person to talk was Daniel¡¯s guardian.

    "These cages are created by portable talismans that contain the perfect elementalprehension of our elders. They allow us to create cages of perfectprehension infused with our power. You won¡¯t be able to get out of them no matter how much you try." She said in an attempt to make Daniel understand who was in control.

    Daniel looked at the first cage, one made out of a strong metallic alloy that, if not for the existence of spiritual weapons, and weapons created out of the power of dying stars, would have been the most resistant and powerful material in the universe. In it was the power of a cultivator at the very peak of the godhood stage, which made it even more resistant.

    "Just ask me what you want to know." Said Daniel while crossing his legs, and got into a position to meditate.

    "Let¡¯s start with who you are." Said the young woman.

    Daniel¡¯s lips curved into a smile. "My name is Dan. I am not from this universe, I do not belong to Competition¡¯s domain.. And I am a champion of Destiny."

 Chapter 514 An Honest Liar

    ".. And I am a champion of Destiny." Responded Daniel while taking a few deep and slow breaths, and wrapping his right arm around his stomach in an attempt to ease the pain he was feeling. While the effect of the blood poison had vastly lessened, it was still powerful enough to make a cultivator at the godhood stage wince in pain. It was only thanks to Daniel¡¯s mental fortitude that he could maintain hisposure.

    Unfortunately, that was not the same for Daniel¡¯s captors, who, after hearing the words ¡¯champion of Destiny¡¯, had rigidly taken a step back and gasped in surprise. "ROSE! DO IT NOW!" Shouted the young woman with straight ck hair to Daniel¡¯s guardian, who was holding the only two beacons that were left in their possession.

    After noticing Rose¡¯sck of reaction to her friend¡¯s words, the young woman with brown hair tied into a ponytail decided to join in by saying, "Rose, if what he said is true, we don¡¯t know what his powers are. We might die before even knowing how. I agree with Lilith, you should just do it."

    "Calm down, you two!" Rose barked out to the two of them. She then pointed her left hand towards Daniel, and said, "Can¡¯t you see that he is injured? He can barely maintain his consciousness by meditating. This is the right moment to ask questions." As she finished speaking, she once again turned towards Daniel. "If you are who you say you are, how did you reach this universe? There is no way you¡¯d have been able to enter through the main portal without being noticed." She said with suspicion. In her mind, she was not sure whether Daniel was trying to scare them with a lie, or whether he was truly one of the most infamous kinds of cultivators in the multiverse.

    Unfortunately for her, Daniel had no intention of answering this question. Instead, he shook his head lightly, and said, "You should ask me why I have brought you here, instead of asking stupid questions."

    "You don¡¯t seem to understand in what position you are in." Said Rose before raising her left hand, and tapping her middle finger against the empty space in front of her. As soon as her finger retracted, the barrier created by lightning essence started to shrink, focusing its entire power into a single point which increased in brilliance to a point where it looked no different from one of the stars visible in the sky. Then, once nothing but a small yet extremely brilliant spark of light was left, a thunder bolt split the space that separated it from Daniel, and struck him cleanly on the chest.

    "Mhhh.. That was not nice." Said Daniel as the lightning essence moved freely into his body, causing his muscles to twitch while doing close to no damage.

    "How did you fool the Ancestor into believing you had brain damage? Is that the power of your gift?" Asked Lilith, who more than anybody else wanted an answer to the questions that more than any other she believed to be absurd.

    The lightning essence within Daniel¡¯s body dissipated as soon as this question was asked, allowing him to respond. However, instead of responding, he shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Look, we are about thirty million light years from your sect, which means that whatever is following me, and is now you as well, is not going to take long to arrive. Even if you call someone from your sect, they¡¯ll arrive toote."

    "What do you mean with ¡¯following us too¡¯? Wasn¡¯t that blood cultivator after you?" Asked the young woman with short red hair with worry.

    After seeing the worry in her eyes, Rose approached her and put a hand on her shoulder. She then said with a reassuring tone, "Don¡¯t let him fool you, Cassie. He is just trying to avoid answering our question." She then turned to look at Daniel, and added, "And if he is truly following us, then it means that he must have something that the Blood Sect wants. What is it?" She asked, moving her fingers in a threatening manner.

    "That is a question I can answer.. I have killed the Murderous God, and stolen the legacy of the Blood Sect. Something they call thest passage of the path of blood." Said Daniel casually, uncaring of how absurd these words must have sounded to the four young women.

    "Just use the beacon, Rose. He is trying to gain time by lying." Responded the young woman with the ponytail, who had gotten tired of listening to what she believed to be absurd lies.

    If he had to be honest, Daniel could not me them for not believing him. After all, they were all at the bottom of the food chain of Competition¡¯s domain, while Daniel, someone who had a cultivation simr to their own, had just imed to have killed the apex predator.

    Rose, simrly annoyed by Daniel¡¯s behavior, tightened her hold around one of the two beacon talismans and shattered it into a thousand pieces. In her mind she could not help but feel disappointed. This was her chance to contribute to the sect, but she wasn¡¯t able to gain anything of importance.. And while she could have tried more, she knew that if the young woman with the ponytail was right, and Daniel was just bidding for time in order to forward an escape n.. If he managed to escape, she would be in a world of trouble.

    "That was not a good idea." Said Daniel with an unbothered tone. He then uncrossed his legs, and rose into a standing position. "I have taken you here because you found out about the blood cultivator that had infiltrated the half moon sect. His objective was to take me back to one of the disciples of the Murderous God, whom I assume is hiding in this universe. If I hadn¡¯t taken you, you would have died before reaching the sect."

    As he finished speaking, Daniel casually dusted his clothes a few times before adding, "The moment the blood cultivators who are hiding in this universe realize that you¡¯ve reported to your elders, they will attack the Half Moon sect before going back to hiding. They will theny low, waiting for the next chance to capture me while your domain will be left wondering what your sect¡¯s connection was with the members of Sacrifice¡¯s domain. Were you spies? Were you enemies they had a grudge against?.. But that won¡¯t matter. Ultimately, they will not deem the loss worthy enough to start a war, and let go of the matter."

    The more Daniel talked, the more the expressions of the faces of the four young women fell. Even if Daniel had lied about killing the murderous god, they would not be able to argue against his logic, as what he had described was exactly what they believed would happen if their sect was wiped out of existence.

    As they came to the conclusion that Daniel was right, the four young women began to show different expressions ranging from dismay to anger.

    "It¡¯s your fault! Why did you have to pull us into this mess?!" Shouted the usually calmer young woman named Cassie. In the corner of her eyes two droplets had formed, and were threatening to stream down her cheeks at any moment.

    As he heard these words, Daniel raised his hands above his shoulders in surrender, and while moving his eyes towards Rose, he said, "Don¡¯t look at me. I didn¡¯t bring you into anything.. And before you call me a liar again, why don¡¯t you try to ask your friend whether I am telling the truth or not."

    The three young women turned towards Rose with confusion, only to see her look down in shame. "I am sorry.. I approached you guys because I needed to blend into the outer circle.. For a task assigned to me by the patriarch.." She said before any of the others could ask, revealing to them that they were nothing but a cover for her mission.

    For a whole month she had acted as a big sister to these three new students, whose life in the sect had revolved around her.

    "Is this why we always ended up bumping into him? I thought he was the one following us.." Cassie in realization.

    While the three young women wanted to speak their mind to the one whom they had believed to be their friend, they couldn???t. After all, they were still outer disciples, while Rose was an entity within the sect that was only inferior to the elders and the patriarch himself. They could only swallow their disappointment in silence.

    Rose noticed as the hearts of her threepanions drifted away from her, and could not help but feel guilty. After all, throughout this month, she had grown to like these three girls, whom she now considered friends.. But, s, her mission came first. "This doesn¡¯t change anything. We are in this situation together. We just need to wait for the patriarch to arrive.. He¡¯ll know what to do."

    "Oh, no. If you want to wait and die, you are free to do that.. But I won¡¯t be apanying you." Said Daniel before advancing towards the multipleyers that were entrapping him, which dissolved as soon as his body approached them.

    Shocked by how casually Daniel had walked out of the cages she had created to trap him, Rose immediately tried to detonate the residual power of each of the formations in an attempt to at the very least injure him, but her efforts were in vain, as it only took Daniel a simple wave of his hand to send the elemental concept contained in these traps into chaos, turning them into useless clouds of disorganized elemental essence.

    "I only need one of you to lead me to the portal to the multiverse. The rest can do whatever they want. I have already pulled you out of troubles.. I have no obligation to do that again" Said Daniel as his eyes scrolled past each of the four young women.

    After a few moments spent looking at one another with uncertainty, the young woman with the ponytail took a step forward, and said, "My name is Dawn. I will show you the way.. But we will alle with you."

    Seeing that at least one of these young women was cooperative was a relief to Daniel, a feeling that he lost immediately as she came to the second part of what she wanted to say. "I have already saved you once. Can¡¯t you manage on your own from now on?"

    "If what you¡¯ve said is true, then multiple blood cultivators are on their way here, and will arrive before any of our elders cane here. Those of us who will stay here will die." Said Dawn with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Daniel wanted to respond to Dawn¡¯s words by saying that he was likely to attract the attention of the blood cultivators, but since he needed one of them to apany him momentarily, he chose not to share that detail. What was worse, he wasn¡¯t sure whether the blood cultivators would follow him directly, or inspect the ces in which he had spent time in, like this smallet.

    While quietly rubbing his forehead with his right hand in an attempt to anticipate the headache he felting, Daniel tried to find a way to refuse Dawn¡¯s proposition, but in the end, he could not bring himself to do that.. After all, if not for his appearance, these four young women would have spent the past month training peacefully and without any danger.

    "Fine.." he muttered before once again scrolling past the faces of the four young women with narrowed eyes. "I agree with your request.. But before we go, there is something I need to do." Said Daniel before stretching his arms outwards and opening his hands, from which came out an immense amount of his personal essence. This essence quietly seeped into the ground around him before taking the shape of various elemental formations filled with perfectprehension of water, wind, metal, and spatial essence which surrounded himpletely.

    Once finished, Daniel turned to look at the four young women, and before taking a deep breath, he said, "You might want to take a step back.." He then activated all the formations at the same time with a snap of his fingers.

    Right after the clicking sound began to resound outwards, from each of these formations came out uncountable des made out of solidified space, sharpened metal, frozen water and fast winds whichnded on Daniel¡¯s body as if he had stepped onto the most terrifying of traps. Each of these desnded squarely on his body, slicing and cutting, piercing through, and separating his skin and flesh from his bones.

    What were initially simple sprays of blood quickly turned into a red mist that engulfed Daniel¡¯s body before being carried away and into open space by a constructed breeze.

    The four young women looked in horror as Daniel mutted his body again and again for several minutes, until nothing but a clean skeleton was left.. After which the attacks finished, and Daniel¡¯s remains fell lifelessly on the ground.

 Chapter 515 A Cosmic Game of Wack-a-Mole

    "What.. Did he just k-kill himself?!" Asked Lilith while taking several steps back.

    Cassie, Dawn, and Rose turned to look at her, then looked at one another with just as much confusion. Less than a minute ago they hade to an agreement with Daniel, and now he had not only shown a degree of essenceprehension that only their elders had.. But he had also taken his own life in front of them.

    "Why would he do that?" asked Cassie as her paleplexion turned even paler, highlighting the freckles that covered her cheekbones and nose.

    Daniel¡¯s bones were extremely clean, without a single strip of flesh or droplet of blood left on them. If not for what the four of them had witnessed, Rose and the others would have believed that Daniel¡¯s remains were not real, and that they were made with the purpose of teaching human biology, or to be used as decoration in one of the many clinics that could be found within most of the cities inhabited by mortals.

    "Hisprehension of mana is.. It was absolutely perfect.." muttered Rose as she unconsciously took a step towards Daniel¡¯s remains, while purposely ignoring the formations that, now that they had lost their controller, had deactivated and became dormant.

    "Forget that! Doesn¡¯t a formation require constant input from its creator? How could he keep it functional while going through that?! What kind of monster is he?!" Asked a panicked Lilith, who more than any other member of her group, was against the idea of following a suspicious entity such as Daniel.

    "Preaching to the choir, Lilith.." said Rose while slowly reaching for Daniel¡¯s bony hand.. However, right as her fingers were about to touch the smooth surface of Daniel¡¯s bones, a faint light emerged from his hand and from many other points of his body¡¯s remains. This light rapidly spread throughout the skeleton¡¯s entire surface until none was left uncovered.

    Once fully covered, the healing essence of which this light was made out of began to expand outwards, leaving behind reconstructed blood vessels, connective tissue, muscles, organs, fat, andstly, new skin. From a clean skeleton, and back to a fully formed human, the process had taken no longer than thirty seconds.. A time frame which had shocked the four observing cultivators even more than what they had believed to be Daniel¡¯s sessful attempt at taking his own life.

    Whole once again, Daniel scanned his newly formed body in hope to find no trace of the blood poison, uncaring of the shock of the four young women, or the fact that he was standing naked in front of them.

    A few momentster, Daniel¡¯s narrowed eyes rxed, and he felt a sense of relief. Just as he had suspected, the blood poison acted from within his blood, and moved outwards in an attempt to devour the body from inside. If not for his automatic and extreme regenerative abilities further quickened by his system, it was possible that the poison would have reached the bones, and once it would have devoured those, it would have moved on to devour his spirit, and consciousness.

    "Good.." he muttered before turning to look at his spatial ring, which contained all of his clothes and equipment.. But stopping when he realized that his flesh had grown around the ring, trapping it between the bone and skin of his finger.

    After realizing that he had forgotten to remove his spatial ring before freeing himself of the poison, he let out an exasperated sigh, and constructed a simple de which he held with his left hand. Then, without thinking too much about it, he thrusted it at his ring finger, chopping it right off. On his face were no traces of pain and from his mouth came no sound, almost as if the finger that had just cut off was not his to begin with.. Instead, he casually bent his body forward to pick the ring up, with a new finger reformed even before his hand could reach for the severed one.

    He then put the ring on, and from it, he took a simple ck shirt, a pair of grey pants, and a pair of ck boots. "Alright. Time to go." He said right as he finished getting dressed.

    When he turned to look at the four young women, however, he noticed that readiness was thest thing on their mind. Between Cassie¡¯s flushed red nose and cheek bones, Lilith¡¯s brooding expression, and Rose¡¯s and Dawn¡¯s curious looks, none of them seemed to be ready to leave.

    "If you don¡¯t close your mouths, some.. Space flies will crawl in them." Said Daniel, amusing himself more than the ones he was speaking with.

    "Hold on.. Before we go, I have a few questions." Said Rose after shaking her confusion out of her mind, and taking a step towards him.

    Daniel sighed in annoyance. He expected them to have questions, but he was hoping that, at the very least, these young women whom he was stuck with would be sensible enough to ask them once they would be safe. After all, they were being chased by powerful beings, and they didn¡¯t have much time left. "Be quick." he casually said.

    "Why did you do that?" Asked Dawn, beating Rose to the punch. She had noticed Daniel¡¯s irritation, and therefore, she had no intention of beating around the bush.

    "I was poisoned.. I got rid of it." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone while fixing his clothes.

    Fed up with all the odd things she had seen, in hope to get rid of the embarrassment she had felt when seeing Daniel¡¯s naked body, Cassie joined into the conversation by blurting out, "Just like that?"

    "Just like that." Responded Daniel. He then turned towards Dawn, who seemed to not be satisfied with this answer, and said, "No. Even though I got rid of the poison, that was not what made my presence known to the blood cultivators. They are stilling, and if we don¡¯t start moving, they¡¯ll get here soon.." As he finished speaking, Daniel turned to look at Rose, whose consciousness was brooding as if a thousand thoughts were spinning, changing and begging to be expressed through her mouth, and added, "Anything else?"

    Rose nodded weakly. "You said that we are over thirty million light years away from the sect. That means that we are in another faction¡¯s territory.. How could you possibly get us this far in just a few hours?" She asked, realizing that since that question was about the method they were likely to use to travel, Daniel would be willing to share it.. And luckily, she was right.

    "That is a good question. Have you ever been inside of a shattered universe?" Asked Daniel before ttening his opened hand, and using it to make a vertical sh about a meter long in the space in front of him. This simple motion wasn¡¯t powerful by any means, and yet, following the passage of Daniel¡¯s hand, the stable space suddenly split, forming a rift from which came the screeching sound of ss grinding against ss.

    When Daniel had escaped from the staircase, he was aware that he would never be able to outrun any of the blood cultivators who were chasing him. His only chance of escape was for him to find a shattered space that bordered this universe the same way the void bordered his home universe. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t have much hope, as the chance of one of these universes would be there was infinitesimal.. However when Daniel tried to use hisprehension of spacetime to search for one, he was ecstatic to find that such a universe was actually present.. An eventuality that was likely to be attributed to his system-boosted luck more than chance.

    The four young women looked at the shattered space with grim expressions. Deep down, despite theirck of knowledge of spatial essence, they knew that the ce thaty beyond the rift was extremely dangerous. Only Rose, who had earned the position of a core disciple only thanks to a higherprehension of martial arts and use of mana, was aware of why the void was able to instinctively scare herpanions.

    "Off we go. Said Daniel right before stepping through the rift, and disappearing in its darkness-leaving his four temporarypanions alone on theet.

    After a few seconds spent in silence, Lilith said, "So... we either stay here and die in a few minutes, or follow him, and die straight away." Her tone devoid of hope for their survival.

    Cassie and Dawn were thinking the same thing. After all, how important could their lives be for someone who would not hesitate to cut his own finger in order to recover a simple spatial ring? Ultimately, only Rose, who had spent more time around powerful cultivators was able to maintain her calm. "We have no other choice.. We can only fol-"

    "BE QUIET!" Dawn bellowed in anger. "Do not act like you care about us. Without you, we would not be in this situation!" She then added through gritted teeth.

    Shocked by this sudden outburst Rose looked at herpanions, and after seeing their faces, she realized that both Cassie and Lilith shared Dawn¡¯s feelings towards her. There was no trace left of their friendship, nor any of the respect that an outer disciple would have towards a core disciple.. Only contempt.

    Unable to me them, Rose lowered her head and followed Daniel into the rift- an action that the remaining three young women copied a few momentster, after exchanging a few words of encouragement.

    -----

    A few minutes after Daniel and the others entered the void, on theet on which they hadnded less than half an hour earlier, appeared the figures of four cultivators dressed in blood-red robes. This group wasposed of two middle-aged men, an old woman, and finally, a young woman who both Daniel and his fourpanions would have recognized as Saha.

    "He was here, I am sure of it." said the old woman before raising her head, and breathing in deeply, as if in an attempt to catch a scent. "I can still smell the legacy.. But even with our power, we are hours away from the portal. Where could he have gone with his meager cultivation?"

    Saha looked around with a face as confused as that of the old woman, when suddenly, her eyesnded on a particrly dark and far away point in space. She then pointed her opened hand toward it, weing a small blood-red bead thatnded into his palm as if eager to rejoin him.

    As soon as this bead appeared, the three older cultivators collectively turned to look at her. "DID YOU USE YOUR BLOOD POISON ON HIM!?" blurted out the older-looking of these two middle aged men.

    "Calm down Uncle. I have only used a first level poison. It was supposed to hurt him the moment he would get away from me, stopping him long enough for me to catch up. I would have never imagined that he coulde so far with such a poor cultivation." Responded the blood cultivator that had possessed Sasha¡¯s body. From her bright red eyes, one could guess that he had given up with trying to control her, and had instead chosen to take over her body altogether.

    "AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED! IT DEVOURED HIM!"

    "It didn¡¯t. If he was truly dead, the legacy would have passed onto my son." Said the second middle-aged man. He then crossed his arms around his chest, and said with confidence, "I can only think of two possibilities. Either another group of blood cultivators found him, and took him away from this universe.. Or.."

    The words of the middle aged man trailed into silence, increasing the curiosity of the other three cultivators. However, before any of the two older cultivators could, the one who was in possession of Saha¡¯s body asked, "Or what, father?"

    "He is freely shifting through rifts." Responded the middle aged man with a grim tone.

    "Brother, can we reach him?" Asked the older of the two middle-aged blood cultivators.

    "No.. a foot in broken space could lead you to the other side of this universe. We can only wait for him toe out of it." Responded the leader of the group and owner of his own universe. He was aware that following someone within shattered space would not be different than trying to follow someone while swimming through a hurricane, with dozens of different winds that would force a person towards just as many directions at the same time.

    To speak next was the old woman, who took a step forward, and asked, "How do we know he¡¯ll reappear here?"

    "Shattered universes are inhabited by Conclusion¡¯s beasts. They long for destruction, and once they are done with their universe, they try to reach for the closest one. Luckily, they cannot move through, even though they will never stop trying. Nevertheless, their attempts at crossing through will bind a shattered universe to the closest stable one, which I assume is this one." Responded the leader of the group.

    Uncertain about his father¡¯s words, the blood cultivator in possession of Saha¡¯s body asked, "Are you sure this is it, father? It seems more usible that another n of our sect might have taken him."

    The father did not bother to exin, and instead, just like Daniel had a few minutes earlier, he ttened his palm into a sword, and shed down vertically, causing a rift in space to be forcibly opened. This rift was identical to Daniel¡¯s but while it had the same function, and showed a portion of the same shattered space, in the eyes of these four blood cultivators this rift emanated a faint red glow.. A trace left by the legacy of blood for anyone who belonged to the blood sect to follow.

 Chapter 516 A Cosmic Game of Wack-a-Mole Part 2

    After Rose and the others walked through the rift that Daniel had created, they found themselves in a small room formed out of stable space, outside of which was nothing but a sea of what one would believe the interior of a bag filled with ss shards to look like. There was no doubt in their minds that, had there not been six walls that separated them from that space, their bodies would be ripped apart.

    "Wee to Conclusion¡¯s domain." Said Daniel from behind the four dumbfounded cultivators, who anxiously turned to look at him.

    When the four young women turned around, however, before their eyes couldnd on Daniel, they couldn¡¯t help but notice the star-sized monster that was casually drifting beyond the thin and seemingly weak room that Daniel had constructed. "W-WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT?!" Screamed Cassie in horror.

    In response, Daniel turned to look in the same direction towards which the trembling finger of the red-haired girl was pointing. He had already felt the presence of the concept of copsed space contained in the bodies of the monsters that inhabited Conclusion¡¯s domain, but when his eyesnded on this one in particr, he couldn¡¯t help but feel bbergasted himself. He had been inside the void of his universe countless times, but never had his eyes set onto a beast of a simr size.

    "That is.. A Universal Destroyer. A particrly big one too." he said with a mildly surprised tone.

    "What d-do they do?" Asked Rose, who was just as unprepared as her three outer disciplespanions towards the appearance of such a creepy and enormous monster.

    "They destroy universes.. Obviously." Responded Daniel with a deadpan face. He could not help but recall how his son had asked him the same identical question the very first time he had taken him into the void. However, while these young women were terrified, Eli¡¯s eyes were full of curiosity, and his heart devoid of fear. To see his son trust him to a point where not even such a fiendish creature could scare him, was one of Daniel¡¯s favorite memories of his life as a father.

    Before Daniel could lose himself in his memories, he turned towards the center of the safe room he had created, and in it, he ejected a faint amount of his personal essence from the tip of his finger-A power which once free, morphed into light essence and took the shape of a cylinder about two meters tall, with just as wide a diameter.

    Once this construct was fully formed and stable, Daniel moved his finger towards the upper part of the cylinder, and as his fingernded on a specific point, a small light blue dot of light emerged from his finger, and stayed in ce. "This is where we have entered the void." He said before repeating the action one more time.. this time leaving a white dot near the edge in the eastern part of the cylinder, about a meter and a half from the bottom. "And this is where your sect is. I need to know where the portal for the multiverse is.. Be precise."

    "Is that.." muttered Rose.

    "Your universe, yes." Responded Daniel with a hint of irritation.

    Once again, Rose and the others turned to look at one another with dumbfounded expressions, warning Daniel that nothing but more questions wereing. This time, the first one to ask was Dawn, who said, "How can you possibly pinpoint the exact position of our sect in a universe you are not even from?"

    "Just answer the damn question!" Daniel barked out in response. He had already answered numerous questions in hope that this would make these four young women more coborative, but he had never guessed that the inhabitants of such a powerful universe would act like curious children in front of him.

    This general ignorance was caused by the lives that these cultivators conducted. Shut in their homes, consuming their essence cores all day ever since they had been taken out from their stasis.. Prohibited from studying nature, exploring the universe, or experiencing events that were verymon even in inferior universes.

    Daniel was used to being interrogated by the many students of his academy, but never when he was so pressed for time. This outburst was in demonstration that, while he didn¡¯t show it, he was still feeling slightly nervous. However, when after his outburst he noticed on their faces expressions that he would have only expected to see if he had threatened to throw them out of the safe room, he started to feel guilty.

    "Look.. we cannot stay here long. I will answer more of your questions once we are in a safer ce, but for now, please tell me where the portal is.." Said Daniel with an apologetic tone before taking a spall pause. He then added, "Unless you¡¯d prefer waiting for that monster to notice us, and attack us. I can guarantee you that it has the power to break these walls."

    While Rose, Lilith and Dawn knew that Daniel was probably joking, Cassie could not stomach the idea of being surrounded by this monster¡¯s eyes-covered tentacles. The idea alone sent a shiver down her back, and formed goosebumps all over her body. "Here! It¡¯s here!" she said while stepping into the cylinder and pointing at a point about a foot lower than its very center.

    Daniel quietly turned to look at the other three young women, who nodded at him in confirmation.

    "Very well." He said before opening his hand near the spatial ring. He then used a wisp of his consciousness to fish a small rock out of it. Any of Daniel¡¯s friends would have recognized this rock as a piece of his artifact, but to the four young women, it was only amon-looking rock which, oddly enough, emitted an essence identical to Daniel¡¯s.

    The moment Rose saw this rock, her first instinct was to ask Daniel it was, but after remembering how annoyed Daniel had been from all of their questions, she chose to observe in silence as Daniel wrapped both hands around it, and moved them outwards right after. The stone followed his hand¡¯s movements, expanding in size until it could fit perfectly in Daniel¡¯s opened arms.

    When the rock reached the meter in diameter, it suddenly turned to fine sand, which instead of falling on the floor around and onto Daniel, floated in ce as if constantly picked up by a gentle breeze.

    Once surrounded by it, Daniel puffed his cheeks, and blew at the floating cloud of sand, which flew towards the walls of the space-made room and went through its walls without encountering the slightest amount of opposition. They then disappeared inside various microscopic rifts.

    The moment each of these specks of sand would disappear, a golden dot would appear in the cylindrical map, showing exactly to which part of the stable universe each fragment of shattered space was connected. From hundreds to millions, these small golden lights kept appearing until finally, they suddenly stopped, showing on the tridimensional map like a mist made out of pure gold.

    As soon as these golden lights stopped appearing, Daniel stepped into the cylinder, and began to erase them with his palm, leaving only the one closest to the portal indicated by Cassie just a minute earlier.

    Contrary to Lilith and Cassie, who were keeping their eyes glued to the oddly peaceful body of the universal destroyer that was floating just outside of their safe room, Rose and Dawn had chosen to observe attentively what Daniel was doing. "What are those golden dots?" Asked Dawn, forgetting about Daniel¡¯s previous reaction to her question.

    Daniel could have easily answered this question by revealing that each grain of sand was as much a part of his body as his flesh and blood were, and that he had thrown them outside in hope that one of them would find the fragment of broken space that was closest to the interdimensional portal.. But instead of answering, he stood up and walked towards the edge of the safe room he had created.

    He then extended his arm past the wall of solid space, and while ignoring how the closest shards of space began to rip and cut the skin of his arm apart, he reached for a specific fragment that was constantly grinding against the surrounding pieces, and as he got a hold of it, he pulled it back into the safe room. "This is the closest we can get.." He said while bringing the fragment of shattered space near the remaining golden dot.

    "It¡¯s not that bad.." Muttered Rose with a hopeful tone. Initially neither her or herpanions could understand what Daniel was doing, but after seeing the entire process and its result, she was able to connect the pieces together.

    From what she had understood, the rock that Daniel had taken out of his spatial container had an extremely powerful connection to him. This was proven when, after he turned the rock into grains of sand and threw them back into their universe, Daniel had been able to feel the position of each grain, adding them to the map based on their position. Once the map waspleted, Daniel had found the one closest to the interdimensional portal, and erased the others.

    Even in theory, this entire process was mind boggling.. And that was because in order to take into ount the position of millions of grains of sand at one time would require a significant mental power. But, at this point, Rose had be immune to Daniel¡¯s strange abilities. She had seen enough to believe that his belonging to Destiny¡¯s spawn was not a lie, and that it was likely that he possessed many more mysterious methods than he had shown.

    "It¡¯s not that close either.. We still need to cross through a few thousand light years on our own. I reckon it would take us about two hours of superluminal travel to get there." Said Daniel while ying around the shard of the shattered universe with his fingers.

    Then, after a few minutes spent in a pensive state, Daniel¡¯s fingers stopped. He turned towards the four young women, and said, "We¡¯ll have to make do. Just remember to stay behind me when they¡¯ll reach us, and everything should be fine."

    "That¡¯s it?! We cannot avoid encountering them?" Asked Lilith nervously. While she had always been the most distrustful of Daniel, now that they were all in the same dangerous boat, she had chosen to have faith in him. However, Daniel¡¯s casual attitude and simplistic n hadpletely shattered her hopes.

    "I did say everything will be fine, didn¡¯t I?" Daniel repeated before pinching another piece of broken space from outside of the safe room, and pulling it in. He then locked the first one into a small box of stable space, and left it near the tridimensional map.

    Before the four young women could ask him what he was doing, Daniel used the second shard to slice one a rift big enough for him to walk through, and so he did.

    The four young women looked at one another with confusion before finally deciding to follow him, but when they approached the rift, they noticed that Daniel was simply floating on the other side, whistling and seemingly waiting. His eyes were closed and the middle finger of his left hand was tapping on his right wrist, around which his left hand was wrapped.

    "Wait there." Said Daniel before resuming counting seconds with closed eyes.

    After about twenty-five minutes, Daniel opened his eyes, and once again reached the safe room in the void by stepping through the portal, which began to close right behind him.

    Before the portal could closepletely, the four young women were able to see the figures or around ten people dressed in red robes, who had appeared just in time to see Daniel escape from their grasps.

    Daniel, seemingly amused by the expressions of these blood cultivators, randomly picked a few more sharts of space, and repeated the same process over and over again, until finally, he picked the original shard connected to the closest point to the interdimensional portal, and used it to open a rift. This time, however, Daniel did not walk through it. Instead, he pulled another stone from within his spatial ring, and gave it Dawn. He then said, "Keep this with you and head for the portal. Go at your fastest speed."

    "What about you? Aren¡¯t youing?" Asked Lilith who instinctively thought that Daniel was abandoning them, and would escape on his own.

    "Who says I am noting." Said a familiar voice that came right from within the rock in Dawn¡¯s hand.

 Chapter 517 Through the Iron Curtain

    "Who says I am noting." Said a familiar voice identical to Daniel¡¯s, but that came from within the stone that Dawn was holding.

    "Ah-What was that?!" Asked Lilith after jolting in surprise. At the same time, herpanions turned to look at themon-looking stone that, even now, aside from emanating Daniel¡¯s essence, appeared like any other.

    Time was of the essence, and since Daniel was tired of answering questions, he decided to quietly pick up the first shard of shattered space he had harvested from the surroundings of his safe room, and used it to cut a rift wide enough for all four of them to walk through at the same time. Then, before any of the four young women could even think of asking him what he was doing, Daniel pushed them into the rift with the use of his solidified essence. "Safe travels." He said with a smile as they passed through.

    Taken by surprise, the four young women could do nothing to stop Daniel¡¯s power from pushing them through the rift, and back into their original stable space, where they were left with only each other¡¯spany, and Daniel¡¯s strange rock.

    "Do you think he left us to die?" Asked Cassie timidly, before noticing Lilith¡¯s state of mind. She then wrapped her left arm around her frightenedpanion with ck hair, who was holding her hands in front of her chest while anxiously biting her own fingernails.

    Rose turned to look at the two panic-stricken young women in order to say something, but while she wanted to reassure them, she couldn¡¯t think of the right words to say. She didn¡¯t know whether Daniel had abandoned them in a random point in space, or even if they were in their original universe. For all she knew they were lost, and would likely never manage to go back to the Half Moon sect.

    However, as she began to rationalize their situation, she came to a conclusion.

    Since they had nowhere to go, following Daniel¡¯sst instructions was their only choice. "If we are really near the portal, going to the sect would take us centuries. We can only do as he said." Rose said with a matter-of-fact tone to the two young women, who despite the power they had at their disposal, and the nature of the universe they had lived in until now, were still extremely frightened by the immensity of space that separated them from their homes.

    Luckily, while she was unweed in their group, Rose¡¯s words were able to dispel the anxiousness that Cassie and Lilith were feeling, as shown by how they straightened their backs, and took a series of deep breaths.

    Seeing that her words had worked, Rose turned to look at Dawn, expecting to need to convince her too, but when her eyesnded on the young woman with the ponytail, she realized that not only was she not scared, but she was waving the rock given to her by Daniel with curiosity.

    "What are you doing?" she asked.

    "I.. I don¡¯t know. This rock is just.. So easy to move around." Responded Dawn before mindlessly widening her movements in order to test her own words.

    Rose looked at the rock in Daniel¡¯s hand with confusion, but in it, she saw no difference from any other rock. Even Daniel¡¯s power had disappeared from it, making it look even more like something one would pick from the side of the road.

    "Dawn, keep your wits about you. We need to go." She said in hope that the young woman with the ponytail would focus on the task at hand.. An attempt that seeded, as Dawn stopped waving the rock around and quietly floated next to the rest of her group, which had now regained a calmer state of mind.

    "If what Dan said is true.. the inter-dimensional portal should be that way." Said Rose while pointing her finger to her right, after a few moments spent looking around.

    *BZZZT* "Ouch! This thing just zapped me!" Said Dawn after letting go of the rock.

    Once free of her hold, instead of drifting through space in the direction where Dawn¡¯s hand had nudged it, the rock stabilized. Then, the moment the eyes of all four members of the groupnded on it, it started to move towards apletely different direction than that pointed by Rose.

    "Should we just.. Follow it?" Asked a now calmer Lilith.

    Rose shrugged her shoulders, and said, "I guess.."

    "It¡¯s elerating!" Shouted Dawn as Daniel¡¯s rock began to move faster and faster, almost leaving their sight in just the moment they had turned away from it. She then shot in the rock¡¯s pursuit, making sure that her eyes would never lose sight of it. Her actions were followed by the remaining members of the group only momentster.

    As the four young women reached the moving rock, to their unbeknownst, the space that surrounded them began to curve around them, allowing them to increase their speed more and more until finally, they began to progress in their journey at a faster-than-light speed.

    From their point of view, these four young women were moving at the maximum velocity that their cultivation at thete and peak godhood stage allowed, however, anyone with a deepprehension of spatial essence, or a moderateprehension of the essence of spacetime, would be able to see that while they weren¡¯t actually moving faster, by bending at their passage, the path they were following had shortened greatly.

    -----

    Something of which the four young women were unaware of, and that was currently happening in most sectors of their universe, was the game that Daniel was ying with the powerful cultivators of the blood sect. This game consisted in appearing at a random point in the stable universe, waiting long enough for the blood sect¡¯s members to rush over, and disappear just before they could catch him. Then, by the time they would realize that Daniel was gone, they would feel the legacy reappear in another distant point in space, which they had no choice but to get to as fast as they could.

    To y this game with Daniel were thousands of blood cultivators, who after realizing what he had been doing for the past hour, had decided to spread throughout the entire universe so that they could increase the chances of catching him. But, unfortunately, this strategy was met with no more sess than their earlier attempts, as Daniel would disappear right before their arrival, no matter how far or close they were from the point he would re-enter the stable space from.

    "Brother, he is just ying with us. We need to find a way to stop this before your senior brothers and sisters decide to join the hunt. They gave you two months.. But there is no certainty that they won¡¯t just go back on their words." Said a middle aged cultivator in red clothes to a simr looking man, leader of their universe of origin.

    The second of the two brothers was currently pacing back and forth inside his tent. On his face was a pensive expression, and in his hands, were two translucent beads that he would grind together in an attempt to alleviate the stress of the situation. To attract his attention, more than his brother¡¯s warning, was his son¡¯s arrival, who, followed by a scared yet subjugated Saha, entered his tent confidently.

    "Father. We are nearing the limit of cultivators we can bring into this universe without being noticed. I don¡¯t see an oue where we can avoid entering a conflict with Competition¡¯s followers. Wouldn¡¯t it be better to attempt to take over this universe?" Asked the son after giving his opinion on their current situation.

    His father nodded with disappointment. "Forget that. In order to do that we would need to take the inter-dimensional portal.. And to ensure that none of its guardians would escape to find reinforcements, would require us to outnumber them ten to one. Focus on what I have asked you to do." Responded his father with a dismissive tone.

    "Yes, Father." Said the younger-looking man while bowing in sign of respect. Once done, he straightened his back one more time, and added, "We have moved people to the Half Moon sect, and the inter-dimensional portal. They will only act in case they will see the boy, or one of the four young women approach. Otherwise, they¡¯ll maintain their position indefinitely."

    "How long until they reach the portal?"

    "They could be there in minutes, but in order to avoid being noticed by patrols, I have ordered them to keep a low profile. They should get there in roughly two hours." Responded the son proudly. It was clear to his uncle, and anyone that would have witnessed this conversation taking ce, that the son had a high opinion of his father, and in exchange for following his orders blindly, he wished for nothing more than his approval.

    Unfortunately, the father did no such thing. Instead, he nodded his head in understanding, and after putting the two translucent beads he was holding onto the desk, he said, "Good. Go with them."

    "What? Father, I can be more of use here with you. Or I could join the hunting party.." responded the son with surprise.

    "This is not a punishment. I know that sooner orter the boy¡¯s attempt of escape will bring him to the inter-dimensional portal. You have learned how to possess bodies, so you can get closer than the others." Said the father with a matter of fact tone. He then sat on his chair, and after a few moments, he added with a more serious tone, "If you wish to redeem yourself from your previous failure.. That is up to you."

    While he hadn¡¯t said it directly, the son was fully aware that his father felt disappointment towards him. After all, he had gotten so close to capturing Daniel, retrieving the legacy, and saving the entire Blood Sect.. but his attempt had gone up in smoke.

    Nevertheless, instead of making excuses, he chose to be grateful of the chance he was given to redeem himself, and said, "Very well. I promise you, Father. I will die before they can get through me." He then bowed politely to his father, his uncle, and then left.. Followed by the scared yet quiet Saha.

    -----

    Two hourster, open space.

    "He said two hours at superluminal speed.. What did he mean?" Asked Lilith with confusion. She and the others had spent thest two hours in silence.. But as they approached the two hours mark, Lilith remembered Daniel¡¯s words, who imed that they would reach the portal in two hours as long as they would maintain a speed which they did not understand.

    Dawn and Cassie did not respond, and instead, they turned to look at Rose, which was the person to whom Lilith¡¯s question was truly directed at.

    "I think he meant a faster-than-light speed.. But I don¡¯t know why he would think that we can do that. Without a deepprehension of space and time, or the cultivation of our patriarch.. We can¡¯t move that fast." Responded Rose with a dispirited tone. A state of mind which she had felt in preparation to the question that one of herpanions would inevitably ask her next.

    Sure enough, Cassie asked, "Then how long do you think it will take us, at our speed.. To get to the portal?"

    "Years.."

    "YEARS?!" Barked out Lilith in response, with eyes opened wide in shock.

    Despite her high cultivation, Lilith was only a young woman in her mid twenties, and that was the same for her threepanions. As such, she had never experienced such long periods of solitude, nor was she used to feeling threatened every second of the day. To think that she would have to spend the next years flying towards a single direction was enough for her to lose her mind..

    That worry was shared by Cassie, who after hearing Rose¡¯s response, began to show the first signs of a mental breakdown.

    The only one who could maintain her calm was Dawn, who more than any other member of her group, had been eager to see the universe thaty beyond the skies which she was so used to staring at. Her calmer attitude allowed her to remain focused on their destination, which to her surprise.. Had suddenly appeared in front of her eyes.

    "Maybe it is better that the three of you take a look at that.." She said After grabbing the now still rock that Daniel had entrusted to her.

    The three young women turned to look towards the same direction as Dawn, and there, they saw an enormous metallic grey ring with a diameter of tens of thousands of kilometers, and in front of it, a small nt around which uncountable cultivators flew back and forth, swarming it like a bee hive.

    "Isn¡¯t that..?" Asked Rose while blinking rapidly with disbelief.

    "The inter-dimensional portal.. Obviously." Said a familiar voice that came from beside Dawn. When the four of them turned to look at who had just spoken, they noticed the presence of Daniel, who was casually floating in space as if he had always been with them. Before any of them could say anything, however, Daniel turned to look at Dawn, and said, "You can let go of my hand now."

 Chapter 518 The Independent Faction

    Before Dawn could even feel surprised by Daniel¡¯s sudden appearance, she looked down at the hand with which she was holding his odd rock a few seconds ago, and noticed that now, she was his wrist instead. ".. Sorry.." She muttered apologetically before letting go.

    "Don¡¯t worry about it." said Daniel with indifference before casually floating in front of the four young women. He then added with newfound interest, "So that is the inter-dimensional portal."

    Rose and the others looked at Daniel with the umpteenth confused expression, until finally, the former managed to regain her wits, and ask him, "What do you mean? Isn¡¯t that the portal you¡¯ve used to enter this universe? And how did we.. How did YOU get here so fast?!" In her tone, Daniel could sense a hint of exasperation, a feeling that her threepanions were visibly sharing.

    To their surprise, instead of answering these questions, Daniel began to giggle.. An action which they had believed to have been caused by their helplessness and desperation for answers, but that in reality, had nothing to do with them. In fact, If they could have seen what Daniel was seeing in his mind, while they wouldn¡¯t have joined him, they would have at least understood why he wasughing.

    -----

    Meanwhile, In a sector of space tens of millions of light years away, three blood cultivators were floating in a still circle. Two of them were observing the third with faces filled with high expectations, while the third, was standing still with hisrge back pointed in the direction of hispanions.

    "WHAT IS THIS?!?" Bellowed therger cultivator with sheer rage.

    The other two cultivators approached their now shakingpanion, and the shorter of the two ced his hand onto thetter¡¯s shoulder before asking, "Did you kill him by ident?" To this question, therge cultivator chose to answer by simply turning around.

    However, when therge blood cultivator looked at them, the two noticed that instead of holding Daniel, or at the very least his dead body, therge cultivator was holding a well defined hand-shaped rock with four out of five fingers closed into a fist, and the fifth one straightened into a vulgar gesture.

    "I had him.. I swear I had him.." Said therge blood cultivators as his blood emerged from his skin, and engulfed the rock, consuming itpletely.

    -----

    After spending a few moments enjoying the pictures that appeared in his mind, Daniel felt more at ease. His separation from his family had caused him to allow the worst possible scenarios to take a prevalent spot in his mind, forcing him to feel nervous. ying around with blood cultivators had been the first time since he hade to this universe in which he had been able to enjoy himself.

    Now more rxed and confident, he turned to look at Rose and the others, and said, "To answer your questions without exining to you the full extent of my capabilities would be useless, and since I do not intend to, save yourself some time, and avoid asking how I do things in the future."

    Daniel¡¯s response left the four young women at a loss for words. Throughout their entire lives, their questions were always met with a satisfactory answer, and that was because their families would spare no effort in teaching them anything they knew. As nk tes, they would be filled with notions and methods regarding essences and martial arts, so that once they would finish increasing their power, they could start learning how to use it efficiently.

    That had not changed when the four of them had entered the Half Moon sect, a ce where no knowledge was secret. Each student was allowed to learn whatever piece of knowledge the sect possessed, and their standing would change based on the result they would show.

    While being curious would have aided these four young women in their path of cultivation, that was only provided that they would remain in Competition¡¯s territory, a ce where greed was not a passive state of mind that birthed scheming and hatred, but a reason for challenging and stealing from one¡¯s peers.

    Unfortunately, in the vaster world of cultivation, this mentality was extremely wed. In other domains, martial arts and the concept of mana were personal experiences.. And as such, one would not share them with the first person that would ask for them. Daniel had discovered this wed mentality in the society of Competition¡¯s domain not because he had observed it during his stay in this universe, but due to the time he had spent with these four young women. No cultivators of his universe would have dared to ask for another cultivator¡¯s secret, and that was a crucial and unspoken rule throughout most of the multiverse.

    Thankfully, while ¡¯keeping one¡¯s cards close to one¡¯s chest¡¯ was a philosophy that wasn¡¯t used in this universe, that did not mean that it was unknown. This was shown by Rose¡¯s reaction, who instead of showing annoyance caused by Daniel¡¯sck of willingness to share his knowledge, showed a realization that, maybe, what she had asked might have not been appropriate.

    "Very well." She said before turning towards the, which could be barely seen through the fleet of ships and artifacts used by those who wished to use the inter-dimensional portal, and added, "What do we do now?"

    "I heard that these portals are guarded by a fourth-ranked group that belongs to the independent faction" Said Cassie, aware that that would be a piece of information that Daniel would need.

    Sure enough, at the mention of a seemingly special group, Daniel raised his brows with interest, and asked, "The independent faction.. What is that?" At the same time, he took a miniature ship from within his spatial ring, ced it in the space in front of him, and let it float on its own.

    Instead of answering the question, Cassie turned to look at Lilith, whom she knew as the most knowledgeable in the political sphere of Competition¡¯s domain.

    Lilith did not appear willing to share what she knew with Daniel, but after she noticed the expecting looks on Dawn¡¯s and Cassie¡¯s faces, she let out a helpless sigh, and began to exin. "The independent faction is the only faction that does notpete for universes.. But despite their passive attitude, they boast the strongest entities in our domain. Their job is to policy the other factions, and make sure that the status quo amongst differently ranked groups is maintained."

    "Isn¡¯t ack ofpetitiveness considered cowardly behavior, in this universe?"

    "It is.. But the reason why they can afford to do that, is that no other faction canpete with them. When a first ranked group grows more powerful than any other, they challenge the previous independent group, and if they win, they be the new independent faction. They then lose any im on the universes they possessed, and take the task of guards for every single one of them." Responded Lilith with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "Interesting.." Said Daniel before seemingly losing interest in the subject, and once again turning towards the small ship. He then emitted a faint string of his essence and guided it into the ship, which immediately started to grow in size as a result.

    As the ship kept growing, Rose and the others noticed how peculiar it looked. With its metallic surface covered in white paint, itsck of masts, veils, or even cannons mounted at its sides. What it had, were smooth curves, ckened windows mounted in stories, and a shape that resembled that of an arrow head.

    "What a beautiful ship." said Dawn while following Daniel onto the deck. Then, once her feetnded on its smooth wooden surface, she asked, "What do we need a ship for? We are already here."

    Once again Daniel ignored Dawn¡¯s question, and instead, he emitted another wisp of essence which entered into the wooden deck, and only momentster, emerged in the shape of a formation that contained the power of the essence of spacetime.

    It became clear to both Dawn and herpanions that Daniel had decided to use the ship in order to not only blend with the other ships, but also to hide his abilities. After all, whenpared to the more realistic possibility that an old and powerful cultivator had created that spacetime formation.. The idea that Daniel had personally curved the space to allow his group to reach their destination in record time, was much more difficult to believe. In fact, even Rose and the others, who had just seen it with their own eyes, were struggling to believe that Daniel had obtained a level ofprehension of the essence of spacetime at that age.

    Once done, Daniel turned to look at the four young women, and said, "Go below deck, pick a room, and change out of the sect¡¯s attires. The showier the clothes, the better."

    Aware of why Daniel had made this request, the four young women walked below deck, and suddenly found themselves in what appeared like an immense valley covered in bright green grass, and bordered by a clearke, a thick forest, and tall snowy mountains. Built on this valley were several vis, each with an architectural style that belonged to one of the civilizations that Daniel had visited in his travels, each more luxurious than the other.

    "This ce feels.. It¡¯s too perfect. Are those wless mana orbs?!" Asked Cassie the moment she felt the presence of what, in Daniel¡¯s universe, was known as perfect essence spheres. These perfect spheres were hidden in the elements that they represented, which had been programmed to replicate from within invisible formations.

    "Stop dawdling!" Said a disembodied voice that resembled Daniel¡¯s, and that resounded throughout the whole valley.

    While universes were left for lower ranked groups to manage, that was not the same for resources such as essence treasures. Once found, these treasures would be immediately given to the higher ranking members of a faction, so that they could be refined into essence spheres, and given to the young cultivators whom, after sessfully finishing to consume their essence cores, would be able to focus solely on studying the concepts these spheres contained.

    This had left lower groups like the Half Moon sect with nothing but mid, or low level treasures, which would then be used to teach specific concepts to the group¡¯s younger cultivators.

    What Daniel had casually left in his ship, were the resources that only a first or second ranked family would possess. There was no need to mention how much these four young women would benefit from these treasures, if only they were allowed to spend time in Daniel¡¯s ship. But, s, time was scarce, so they could only put on their most disappointed expressions, and head towards the closest vi, inside which they changed into their most expensive looking clothes.

    -----

    A few minutester, the four young women emerged from below deck with gaudy clothes, which Daniel had asked them to wear so that they could appear like a group of dignitaries sent on a diplomatic mission-The likes that was currently flooding the small that floated in the space right in front of the inter-dimensional portal.

    "Good enough." muttered Daniel before once again taking over the controls of the ship. He thenmanded it to advance at max speed, which it maintained until, a few momentster, the ship joined the rest of the fleet around the.

    As Daniel¡¯s ship merged with the others, he noticed that thousands of eyes moved in his direction. Mostly focused on the odd shape of the vessel he was traveling in, or the four young women that were in hispany.

    "I don¡¯t like it here.. So many shameless people staring." said Cassie, who had put more effort in her attire and make up than any other of herpanions.

    Daniel ignored herints, and instead turned to look at the immense portal, in which exactly five hundreds ships were allowed to use at one time, and after a ten minutes dy. Once he made sure that there was no control done inside the ship, and that he would only need to present a permission, Daniel locked the ship in ce. "Let¡¯s go. Present yourselves with your own names, and if anyone asks, I am just your bodyguard." He said while unconsciously using a term for the word bodyguard that, in thenguage of the universe he was in, was extremely simr to the word for ¡¯lover¡¯.

    With flushed expressions, Rose and the other nodded in agreement while trying to appear unaffected by Daniel¡¯s odd instructions. Then, as he joined millions of others in their descent onto the¡¯s atmosphere, they followed quietly.

 Chapter 519 An Annoying Encounter

    As they entered the atmosphere, Daniel and the others joined the immense number of cultivators who turned into a stream that descended into the only visible city on the¡¯s surface.

    This city was not unlike many others that Daniel had seen. In fact, it was quite simr in its architecture and in how it was constructed, to the one he was born in. Round in shape, surrounded by a twenty meters tall wall, and separated into sections that belonged to each different faction that contained the offices of their strongest groups.

    These separate sections were built around the city¡¯s core, which contained the buildings of the independent factions-The ce where every cultivator would go to ask for the permit to use the inter-dimensional problem.. but only after reporting their arrival to their faction of belonging.

    "Can any of you get us into the core area?" Asked Daniel afternding on the sector of the ckrose faction, which existed to manage the territory of the first ranked ckrose family, and to which the Half Moon sect belonged.

    In response to Daniel¡¯s question, Rose, Dawn and Lilith turned to look at Cassie, who said timidly, "My family is only a branch of a fifth ranked group who resides in another universe. I should be able to get us a permit to visit the main family."

    Cassie was not the only one amongst her friends who had this type of connection.. After all, each of their families had not always existed in this universe, and instead, had been sent to support another fifth ranked group in their task of winning thepetition, and adding this universe to the ckrose Faction¡¯s territory. Nevertheless, Rose, Lilith and Dawn knew that their connection to other unranked families was much less valuable than the one Cassie could provide, and for that reason, they chose to remain quiet.

    "Very well." responded Daniel as the group of five reached the office of the ckrose faction, which was surrounded by what looked like taverns, hotels, and gamble houses.

    Before they could join the line that reached all the way outside of the building, however, a group of a dozen male cultivators approached them, led by a well-dressed young man with short blonde hair, and who showed an aloof expression and arrogant mannerism. "Beautifuldies, where are you going all dolled up like that? Somewhere I should be invited in?"

    Lilith¡¯s cold personality took the better of her, and she turned to look at this young man in order to tell him off, but when she noticed the insignia that was sewn on his shoulders, she immediately closed her mouth. That was because she had recognized the insignia as the crest of the fifth ranked family that was in charge of the ckrose faction in this universe, and therefore, recognized him as someone that not only her, but the patriarch of the half moon sect would need to show respect to.

    "We are only here to request for a permit." Said Cassie, who was the recipient of most of the lustful stares from this blonde young man, and hispanions.

    "In that case, why don¡¯t you join us for a cup of tea? If losing your ce in line is what is bothering you, I can speed things up. It will save you a few hours of waiting." Said the blonde young man, unwilling to give up on his attempt yet.

    Cassie turned to look at herpanions, unsure of what to say, but before she could think of anything, Daniel responded by saying, "How arrogant. Why do you believe that a cup of tea with you is more enjoyable than waiting in line? Don¡¯t you know that some people like this sort of thing?"

    "What did you say?" Asked the blonde young man, baffled by what he had just heard, and yet too proud to believe in his own ears.

    "See? You can¡¯t even listen when people are talking to you. What makes you think that yourpany is worthy of the time of a cup of tea?" said Daniel, embarrassing the blonde young man even more than he had before.

    As thetter closed his hands into fists, and began to tremble in anger, Cassie turned towards Daniel, and said, "Stop, he is someone from a fifth ranked family." Her tone filled with worry.

    Daniel¡¯s narrowed eyes moved towards Cassie, then back towards the young man. "Can he stop us from getting a permit?" he asked.

    "I.. I don¡¯t think so." Responded Cassie. What was worrying her, were the rules of this universe which allowed cultivators of simr level to challenge one another because of the smallest slight.. and while the young man from the fifth ranked family had no rights to stop unranked groups from traveling to see the groups to which they were rted, offending him would possibly slow the process.

    "Ignore him then. At some point he will get bored, and will leave along with the rest of his pack." Said Daniel while making the subtleparison between this group of cultivators, and a pack of wild dogs.

    Originally, Daniel would have preferred to avoid finding trouble, but he knew that the intention of these young men wasn¡¯t to simply have a cup of tea with hispanions. In fact, having a cup of tea was only an expedient to get them to apany them to a tavern, and once there, they would use their position and reputation to convince them to concede more and more. This was a behavior that Daniel had seen many times in the past, and knew that the only way to stop it, was to force them to give up.

    "Did he just call big brother a dog?"

    "Dead man walking over there."

    ".. he had guts, at least."

    Thepanions of the blonde young manmented on Daniel¡¯s behavior, and as the nasty ticks they were, they did not fail to instigate the blonde young man to act-Something that he could have not avoided unless he would have wanted to appear weak in front of others.

    However, contrary to what Daniel had predicted, the blonde young man kept hisposure, and after taking a few steps closer, he joined his hands in a traditional greeting, and said, "My invitation has been met by the rude words of someone at which it was not directed. Before anything happens, tell me who you are."

    "I am their bodyguard." Said Daniel, once again using the word that, because of his ent, sounded very simr to the word used to indicate a lover.

    After hearing Daniel repeat what he had said a few minutes earlier, Rose and the others couldn¡¯t help but lower their heads in embarrassment. However, since they were unaware of the fact that Daniel did not mean what he had said, they chose to remain quiet.

    "Which one¡¯s?" Asked the blonde one young man, surprised by Daniel¡¯s frankness.

    "What do you mean ¡¯which one¡¯s¡¯.. All of them." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. One that caused the surrounding cultivators to turn to look at him with looks of envy, surprise, or a mix of the two.

    The blonde young man looked at the four young women, unsure of what to say, but when he saw their faces flush red from embarrassment, and their unwillingness to contradict his words, his face contorted in disgust. He then said, "I regret giving attention to these tramps, but I cannot allow your insult to go unpunished. Will you ept my challenge, or will you act like a coward?"

    As soon as he heard the insult directed at hispanions, paired with their embarrassed expressions, Daniel was finally able to put the piece together, and understand what had caused the misunderstanding. However, instead of correcting it, he chose to say, "There is nothing honorable in fighting a weakling. I ept your apology.. Leave us to our day, or I will p you once for every time that I have felt annoyed by your intrusion."

    "A WEAKLING?!" barked out the blonde cultivator in anger. In Competition¡¯s domain, being called a weakling would be at the top of a list of insults, and whoever would be willing to take that insult without acting, would basically forfeit their dignity, as well as the respect of those around them. As a member of one of the fifth ranked groups that werepeting for this universe, that was something that he could not allow. "You went too far. I won¡¯t give you a chance to back away now." he then added while putting on a pair of gloves with metallic ws mounted in between the knuckles.

    Daniel shook his head in annoyance. "Keep the spot in line." he said before stepping out of the line, and summoning an identical pair of wed gloves.. A move that, in the eyes of the blonde cultivator, was made to humiliate him, but in reality, was a choice made on a whim, as Daniel was a master at wielding many types of weapons, and pantera ws happened to be one among them.

    From a single look at the young man¡¯s posture, Daniel could see the difference between him, and a disciple of the Half Moon sect. It was clear that despite their identical cultivation, this young man had better teachers as well more resources to learn from, and therefore, was a more experienced cultivator than even the core disciples of the half moon sect.

    However, to him, or even for most of the disciples of his Hiel academy, this difference was as relevant as choosing whether to fight a five years old kid, or a six years old one. A kid was a kid, and to Daniel, the young cultivators of this universe were infants.

    "When I¡¯ll win, you and your buddies will stop bothering us. Deal?" Said Daniel while fitting his right into one of the pantera ws.

    Too deep into his outraged state of mind, the blonde cultivator couldn¡¯t help but smirk, and say, "When I¡¯ll win, I will take your li-"

    His conditions were suddenly interrupted by Daniel¡¯s indifferent voice, as he said, "Whatever. Let¡¯s begin." He then scratched the side of his head with the tip of the knives mounted on his left pantera w, and taunted the blonde young man with his other hand.

    The blonde young man did not wait for a second invitation, and with the use of a very basicprehension of time essence, he dashed towards Daniel at a speed that, for people at his level, was unmatched. As he reached the three steps of distance from Daniel, the young man pushed arge amount of his essence into his pantera ws, crossed his arms, and made a cross attack by shing his arms in perpendicr diagonal lines.

    Trained in fighting with an initial outburst of strength aided by the use of the rare time essences, this young man was sure that Daniel would not be able to avoid this attack.. However, this conviction was shattered when the sole of a boot appeared in his field of vision.

    Before he could react, the young man dove face first against the bottom of Daniel¡¯s foot, causing him to wave his arms and legs aimlessly before inevitably falling on his back.

    As hey on the ground, shocked about Daniel¡¯s instantaneous reaction and speed, as well as embarrassed, Daniel took his ws off, and while standing next to him, he said, "I do not like to bully the weak. Leave now, and avoid further humiliation.. Or wait enough to see the pping start."

    Thepetitive spirit of the blonde young man waspletely broken. As dictated by the fighting style of the blonde young man, the cultivators of his family would start a fight by giving their hundred percent to gain the initiative. That was the reason why his n had shown enough promise to be promoted as a fifth rank group. However, when this young man found himself lying at Daniel¡¯s feet, he realized that his cockiness was not a facade, and that like the young talents that belonged to higher ranked groups, Daniel was a better fighter than he was.

    As he came to this realization, the dishonor in the loss disappeared, and instead of showing resentment, the blonde young man stood up, bowed respectfully, and left along with hispanions.

    Apetition of strength was the only way to solve a conflict in Conflict¡¯s domain, and along with that, came the disrespect towards the weak, and the respect towards the strong. To be able to humble oneself and ept a defeat was something peculiar for entities as proud and entitled as cultivators, and that was something that Daniel could respect. That was the reason why he had not insisted in humiliating the young man.

    At the same time, he had seeded in his second objective, which was to gain visibility to prevent the blood cultivators that were observing him in the shadows, from simply kidnapping him.

    Once the group of cultivators left, Daniel walked back in line. He then turned to look at Rose and the others, and said, "A personal guard. That is what I meant."

 Chapter 520 How Tables Have Turned

    Daniel and the others spent the following few hours waiting in line for their turn, after which, thanks to Cassie¡¯s help, they were able to obtain a traveling permit from the ckrose faction.

    This permit was required by the Independent faction to justify their use of the inter-dimensional portal, and to obtain one was not difficult, as neither the faction of belonging, nor the independent faction itself had any rights in probing into a group¡¯s internal dealings. As long as the journey was roughly justifiable, one would generally be issued without a problem.

    Unfortunately, obtaining the permit from one¡¯s faction was not the most time consuming part.

    As the guardians of the only inter-dimensional portal in the universe, the independent faction was forced to handle the constant influx and outflow of cultivators, whose sheer number was the cause for this slow process. This problem was not exclusive to Competition¡¯s domain, but present in every domain in which the inhabiting cultivators would try to regte the use of the portal, instead of leaving it free for anyone to use.

    As a result, many attempts had been made to ease the strain caused to those who tried to regte the portal, including the sorting of iing cultivators that would be teleported into remote branches at the moment of their arrival, or various other methods that would make their number more manageable.. But, s, none of those attempts had ever worked, and that was because of how oddly stable the space that surrounded the inter-dimensional portal was.

    Covering an area that included the small, the area that surrounded the inter-dimensional portal was extremely stable, to a point where any attempt at creating portals, or even opening a rift in space to teleport away, had ended up in disaster.

    Once created, these portals would instantly try to repair, and if used, they would be capable of allowing a person through, but not stable enough to take them to their destination.. Or at the very least, not in one piece. The same was for iing cultivators, who had proven that teleportation into this stable area would not work by making their appearance near the inter-dimensional portal as an anonymous mist of blood. That was the reason why people traveled with the use of ships, instead of bending space and time.

    Antecedent to any form of civilization, these portals had be a subject of many studies, especially for their odd ability to forcibly stabilize space.. Something that, if able to be replicated, would be employed by any group, regardless of the rank, as a protective measure for their territory.

    Daniel had noticed this peculiarity way before his group had reached the portal.

    As a cultivator who hadprehended the essence of spacetime, Daniel was able to feel therge area affected by the portal¡¯s power as a separate section of indestructible space, as well as the fact that it had been as such for countless years. If he would have been asked to describe it to a person that had never seen it, he would describe it as theplete opposite of a shattered universe, or an intangible solidified space.

    Through thousands of years of perfecting, the various domains had created the methods used in the present.. And that was to take turns. A method that had reminded Daniel of when, back on his own, he would see hundreds of merchants in line to enter the city in a simr way.. Something that he was used to seeing thanks to his job as a pickpocket and fake guide.

    Surprised by how simplistic this domain¡¯s bureaucracy was, Daniel decided to find a tavern where he and the others could spend the estimated ten or so hours that it would take for their turn toe. He then led his group to the least popted restaurant he could find, and ordered a table for six.

    "Wee, kind clients. This is the list of our wines and teas. Feel free to call me whenever you have made your choice." Said a thin-looking man with a well kept beard, and a waiter attire before leaving a single one-inch thick menu right in the middle of Daniel¡¯s table. He then bowed politely, and tried to leave.

    Before he could leave, however, Daniel stopped him by asking, "Do you have any food?"

    "Food?" asked the waiter while raising one brow in confusion.

    "Yes. Food. You cook it, put it in your mouth, and then start chewing.. Want me to go on?"

    Slightly embarrassed, the waiter walked back to the table, and while bowing apologetically, he said, "Yes, of course. My apologies, we do not get as many requests for food here. This is our menu." He then took an old-looking sheet of paper on which were listed around twelve dishes before leaving.

    Daniel went through the dishes listed on the menu, and after seeing that none of them was appetizing, he turned to look at his extremely confusedpanions, and asked, "Is this what you traditionally eat in this universe?"

    Even more confused by this question, Rose looked at her simrly baffledpanions, hoping that they would be more ready for this question, but when she saw that they were even more confused than she was, she turned to look at Daniel, and said, "There is nothing we.. eat in the domain of Lord Competition."

    "Oh, yes. Because after your families defrost you, you spend the following years cultivating." Said Daniel in realization. He then put the menu down, and asked, "When was thest time you¡¯ve eaten something?"

    "I.. My teachers told me that it took me two months to ascend the first time.. So when I was a little older than five." Responded Rose without bothering to hide a hint of pride.

    By looking at the faces of the other three young women, Daniel realized that they had lived through a simr experience. "That sucks." he muttered before putting the menu aside, and casually waving his hand on the table, above which various home-made dishes appeared immediately after. He then went through them, and as his eyesnded on a simple toast with a fried egg on top, he picked it, and began to eat.

    The four young women looked in silence as Daniel enjoyed his meal. They knew that eating had no purpose for cultivators, and that their essence was powerful enough to sustain their bodies, but unfortunately, just like their eyesight and hearing, their cultivation enhanced ther sense of smell as well, causing them to be constantly distracted by the dishes that were covering the table.

    The first one to crack was Dawn, who moved her ponytail behind her back, and after creating a sort of wooden spike with her poor knowledge of wood essence, she pierced a slice of meat rode, and brought it to her mouth. As her mouth bit into it, and she began to chew, a smile appeared on her usually serious expression.

    Cassie and Lilith followed suit right after, respectively picking the dish they personally found most appetizing, which happened to be a slice of strawberry cake, and a chocte pudding.. Two desserts which Daniel thought matched their preferences in behavior and clothing.

    The only one who was still not eating was Rose, who had chosen to observe as her friends stuffed piece after piece of food in their mouths while trying to maintain theirposure. Once she was done with that, before picking a dish of her own, she looked at Daniel¡¯s toast, and asked, "You¡¯ve picked that because it¡¯s the best one?"

    "No." Responded Daniel as his moving lips curved into a smile. "This is definitely the worst one.. But I would never be stupid enough to say that to the person who made it." he then added before resuming eating. In his mind shed the memories of when he would wake up in the morning to find that his sister had already gone to school. Before leaving, however, she would always leave a toast with an egg on top on the table for him.

    "You didn¡¯t make these?" asked Rose.

    "Aside from what I am eating, my wife made everything else." Responded Daniel, causing the others to stop eating, and turn to look at him in surprise.

    "Wait.. you are married!?" asked Dawn while letting go of the control she had over the constructed wooden spike, and causing the piece of meat she was eating to fall on her legs.

    Daniel responded by nodding casually in between bites.

    "But, if you are married, why aren¡¯t you with her?" Asked Cassie who, contrary to the others, seemed to be genuinely curious. However, as she finished speaking, she noticed that herpanions were already looking at her in disapproval, almost as if she had asked something obvious.

    Seeing that Daniel had no intention of answering either, Rose picked a dish of her own while Cassie and Lilith resumed eating. Dawn, on the other hand, decided to ask, "What is the n after we leave this universe?"

    Daniel put his half-eaten toast down, then turned to look back at Dawn, and said, "Coming to this universe was aplete waste of time.. Once I leave, the blood cultivators should follow me to the next universe.. It should be safe for you to return, at that point. Just give them a few weeks. Visit Cassie¡¯s family, do whatever you want, I don¡¯t care."

    As Daniel finished speaking, Rose and the others continued with their meal in silence for several minutes. The only one who had stopped eating was Dawn, who was looking at Daniel as if on the verge of asking something.

    "Speak, unless you prefer to drill a hole in my skull with your staring." Said Daniel with eyes closed in irritation.

    "Did youe to this universe to start a war between our domain, and the blood faction?" Asked Dawn with an extremely serious tone.

    Her question caused Rose and the others to open their eyes in realization. Until now, they had not thought about the reason why Daniel hade to this universe.. But after learning that the blood cultivators would have found him no matter which universe or domain he would try to hide in, Dawn, the most rational of the group, had finally put the piece together.

    "IS THAT TRUE?!" Shouted Lilith after springing up on her feet, attracting the attention of the dozens of cultivators who were upying the other tables.

    "Lower your voice." said Daniel with a threatening tone after noticing other people stare in their direction.

    "OR WHAT?! You will instigate someone into dealing with me?!" Added the now furious Lilith.

    The ruckus caught the attention of the waiter, who walked in their direction, and asked with a polite tone, "Is everything alright, miss?"

    "Everything is fine.. Leave us, we were having an important conversation." Said Daniel.

    The waiter did not follow Daniel¡¯s instructions. Instead, he turned to look at Lilith who was still standing and ring at Daniel with furious eyes. It was only after she noticed him, that she folded her arms in an attempt to bottle her anger, and sat back down.

    As soon as the waiter left, Lilith turned to look at Daniel, with none of the previous anger absent, and said, "Give me a reason not to leave this tavern, and denounce you to the independent faction right now."

    Once again, Daniel looked around, and noticed that few people were still looking. Even if he wanted to do anything to Lilith, he would not be able to as long as they were on this, and especially, not while he was surrounded by cultivators more powerful than he was. His only choice was to talk this out.

    Lilith crossed her legs and pushed her back against the backrest of the chair.. Clearly aware of what Daniel was thinking about. She then said while smiling maliciously, "What¡¯s the problem? you can¡¯t run away with one of your little rifts here?"

    Anywhere else, Daniel could have erased Lilith from existence and from the memories of others, but right now, he was at his most vulnerable. Not only was he surrounded by powerful cultivators, but he needed the four of them to coborate with him. Without their help, he would not be able to walk through the portal, and if any of them reported him, he would have much more than a few blood cultivators hunting him, to worry about.

    "What do you want..?" Said Daniel begrudgingly.

    Initially Rose and Cassie would have not approved of her asional acting out in public, like she would do every now and then. However, after learning of Daniel¡¯s original n, that changed. When Lilith turned to look at them in search of their approval, she saw nothing but that.

    Before she could respond, however, Dawn said, "We get you out of this universe.. And in exchange, we keep your ship."

    At first Dawn wanted to demand that Daniel helped them with their studies of mana, as he had shown to have mastered multiple forms of it, but now that Lilith had antagonized him, and there was no guarantee that he would not kill them once on the other side of the portal, she moved on to the second most valuable thing Daniel had in their eyes.

    "Fine.." Said Daniel before signaling for the waiter to approach the table. When he did, he said, "Get me a bottle of your strongest wine.."

 Chapter 521 Catch Me If You Can

    For the following few hours, Daniel and the others kept sampling drinks and testing the traditional dishes of the civilizations that Daniel had visited.. two habits that would not bring any benefit to their bodies, but in which they indulged regardless.

    What they ingested would be processed by their metabolism in a matter of instants, leaving them unable to feel the familiar feeling of fullness that a mortal would experience after a meal, no matter how long they kept eating.. But at the same time, their abilities allowed them to, if they so wished, keep eating forever.

    While only able to taste food, however, that was not the same for the drinks, as drinking was a habit that had been brought from mortality into the pseudo-immortality that humans would obtain from cultivation, and alongside which it had evolved.

    In order to bypass the enhanced abilities of a cultivator¡¯s body, these beverages would be brewed and embedded with different forms of essences, which would give them peculiar abilities. The feeling of warmness that a mortal would obtain from ingesting a warm cup of tea was reced by a wave of benevolent fire essence, the dizzying power of liquor was reced by a mild form of mental attack aimed at numbing one¡¯s mind, and so on.

    Differences in power,prehension, ingredients, and preparation, had turned the act of brewing into an art of which every practitioner had their unique style and vor. With such a vast degree of choice, many cultivators had found a habit in experiencing and collecting wines, teas, and other forms of what were referred to as ¡¯immortal spirits¡¯.

    Daniel was not a stranger to this habit, as he and his wife Alesia shared many moments in each other¡¯spany, while trying the most peculiar drinks they could get their hands on. But, s, times had changed, and ever since Daniel had learned the ability of mental fortitude from Aeron, he had lost this weakness.. Limiting his experiences with alcohol to taste alone.

    While unable to feel the dizziness, when in thepany of Rose and the others, who were currently giggling while jovially spluttering their confused thoughts to one another as if they were colleagues in the midst of celebrating their biggest business contract to date, Daniel yed the part.

    He sat quietly, staggering on his own chair as if way beyond his tolerance level.. And yet, still attentive towards his surroundings, where he could see some people look at him while trying to appear inconspicuous.

    *Clink* "You are a baaaad pershon." said Lilith after tipping over an empty bottle with the finger that she used to point at Daniel. She then jerked her head from side to side, where herpanions were sitting, and asked "Ri-Right? Am I right?"

    "Yes.." responded Cassie with eyes narrowed in a piercing stare which was opposite to her usual warm and friendly behavior. After a few moments, her serious expression softened, and with a rxed smile, she added, "He is so cute tho-.."

    Before she could finish speaking, Dawn leaned over the table, ignoring as her bust pressed against what was left of the food, and moved her fingers against Cassie¡¯s lips, shushing her. "No.. Stop. Lilly is right, he is b-what.. What is in this cup?" She mumbled before grabbing a half-filled cup that she found next to the hand she was leaning on, and downing its content before receiving an answer.

    While Lilith, Cassie and Dawn enjoyed their first intoxication, Daniel yed the part of the reserved drunk alongside Rose, with whom he kept ordering bottles and drinking for hours while pretending not to notice the increasing number of cultivators who were paying attention to his table.. either because of the ruckus Dawn and the others were causing, or for a more serious reasons.

    As the time for them to use the portal approached, and the number of cultivators with astronomical amounts of negative karma increased, Daniel slouched on his chair, and remained in that position for a few minutes.

    Once the observing cultivators got used to his new position of choice, Daniel moved his leg underneath the table, and reached for Rose¡¯s.

    When Daniel¡¯s leg touched Roses, a faint wave of mental fortitude poured into Roses body, and reached her mind, clearing itpletely from the numbing mental power contained in the liquor she had consumed. This wave was followed by a voice that resounded in her head, and warned her by saying, "Do not make any sudden movement, and don¡¯t look around.. Keep acting like you have been for the past few hours."

    After a moment of surprise, Rose grabbed an empty ss and brought it to her mouth, but when she realized that it was empty, she went into a fit ofzy anger before dropping the ss on the floor.

    Satisfied by her acting, Daniel added, "In a few seconds, express yourints towards this tavern, and try to convince me and the others to leave in order to find a better one."

    "Are we in danger?" Rose thought, aware that Daniel could read her mind. The seriousness in his voice was deep enough for her to forget that she was wearing a mental protection, and that somehow, Daniel had managed to break through it, and reach into her mind.

    "I have a n."

    Still worried, and yet oddly confident in Daniel¡¯s words, Rose turned to look at her friends, and after catching their attention with a few chaotic gestures, she said, "I am tired of drinking this.. This *hic* rat piss.. Let¡¯s leave."

    Lilith, who was enjoying her time more than any other among her group of friends, moved her lips into an upside down curve, and said with disappointment, "But were we hav.. No.. eheh.. We were having fun here."

    Her disappointment seemed to be shared by Cassie and Dawn, who were ready to support her in her pleas to stay, but before any of the two could could say anything, Rose pinched Lilith¡¯s rosy cheeks, and while squeezing, she said, "We can *hic* get more b0tros.. botsles.. We can get more drinks in another tavven!"

    At the mention of more drinks, Lilith¡¯s eyes light up with a never-before-seen happiness. "YES!" She shouted before springing up on her feet. Then, while holding onto Rose¡¯s arm, she marched towards the door.

    Before being pulled away, Rose was barely able to grab Cassie¡¯s wrist, who after letting out a faint surprised cry, followed her out of the tavern with Dawn.

    Daniel pretended to be surprised by hispanions¡¯ sudden exodus, so he stood up, and began to walk towards the door, but he was stopped by the waiter, who reminded him that he still needed to pay for what they had ordered.

    During the time Daniel had spent in this city, he had learned that most services did not require to be paid with coins or valuables. Instead, the cultivators would be asked for a form of identification, and once verified to which group they belonged, the bill would be sent to the group, which would then pay for it.

    Despite knowing this, Daniel frantically apologized to the waiter. He then started to rummage into his spatial ring, taking out a few random items that had no apparent corrtion with one another, but that in this universe, would still have some value. High level essence treasures, exotic potions and various manuals fell on the ground along with a medallion that depicted the crest of the Half Moon sect.

    Once done, Daniel apologized once more while casually cleaning his greasy hands on the clothes of the waiter, and stumbled out of the tavern.

    As soon as Daniel left, the waiter dropped on his knees and began to pick up what Daniel had left as payment. In his mind, he was overjoyed about the idea of sending the bill to the half moon sect, and at the same time, keep Daniel¡¯s items as a tip. He was so over the moon, that he failed to notice as a dozen or so of the cultivators who had spent the past few hours in the tavern, stood up in unison, and followed Daniel outside of the tavern.

    -----

    Once outside, the first of these cultivators instantly turned to look at the sky, where Daniel, Rose, and the others were floating.. Almost as if constantly aware of his position. "They are heading towards their ship." Said the cultivator to hispanions, who hade out right after him.

    "Do we try to capture him now that he is intoxicated? We could pretend to help him to his ship.."

    "No. There is no way for us to leave with him without being noticed." Responded the first cultivator before entering a pensive state. "We follow the first n. We use the portal with him, and capture him in the Trigate. Let¡¯s go back to our ship." He then added after removing his hood, revealing his identity as the son of the leader of this group of blood cultivators.

    Next to him was the hooded figure of Saha, whom he had used to obtain a permission of their own to use the portal at the same time as Daniel.

    -----

    For the following few miles Daniel and Rose ignored theints of Dawn and the others, who kept protesting, and demanding to know why they couldn¡¯t visit another tavern to get some ¡¯supplies¡¯ for their journey.

    Luckily, thanks to Rose¡¯s peerless acting, she was able to mumble something that would only make sense to the ears of an intoxicated person, alternating them with reminders that their turn to use the portal was about to arrive, and that if they did not hurry, they would be forced to wait there for a few more days.. An eventuality that Dawn and the others did not seem to mind as much as Rose had hoped.

    Unable to use his senses without being discovered, Daniel purposely flew into Rose, around which he wrapped his arms as if unable, or unwilling to fly by himself any longer. "p me." he said with a wisp of sound essence that passed through the contact of their skin.

    Rose seemed prepared for this eventuality, and as Daniel touched her body, she pushed him away in anger. Then, as his face was within range, her hand shed through the air, andnded squarely on Daniel¡¯s cheek, causing his head to jerk to the side, and towards the group of blood cultivators that were following them.

    After scouting his surroundings, Daniel tried to apologize before going back to flying towards the ship, "S-sorry I did-"

    However, before he could finish, Rose pped his other cheek, and with blind rage, she shouted "You pervert! Y-You have been *hic* grazing me all night! Enough if enough!!" Dumbfounded by Rose¡¯s dedication, Daniel moved his hands in front of his face in an attempt to parry the next blow, but when he didn¡¯t feel iting, he once again mumbled an apology.

    As Rose turned towards the ship with an angered expression, she resumed moving in its direction along with Dawn and the others, whose faces showed enough satisfaction to irritate Daniel, who could do nothing but follow them reluctantly.

    Once Daniel and the others managed to stumble their way into the ship, they disappeared below deck.

    "What is going on?" Asked Cassie with worry after Daniel dispelled the effect of the liquor they had consumed.

    Daniel ignored Cassie¡¯s question, and instead, he took control over the spatial formation of the ship, and controlled it so that the ship would turn irregrly and in random directions, almost as if a drunken man was at the helm. He kept doing that until the bow of the ship was pointed towards the deep and empty space, and the stern was facing the portal. Then, hemanded the ship to advance.

    -----

    "Young leader! They are leaving!" shouted one of the blood cultivators.

    The eyes of the young leader had never moved from Daniel and his ship, so when it started to move away from the portal, not only was he the first one to notice, but he had already formted a n. As long as Daniel would maintain his course, while still in the stable space, Daniel would not be able to teleport away.. And that meant that he had a chance to capture him at the border of the stable space that surrounded the inter-dimensional portal, and leave before anyone could notice.

    "Follow them.. Keep as much distance as we can." Said the blood cultivator while barely keeping his calm.

    -----

    Back in the ship, after setting the course, Daniel waved his hand, forcing hundreds of metallic chests to leave his spatial ring, andnd gently onto the patch of grass thaty in front of him.

    Each of these boxes was entirely made out of metal, and from the chink underneath their lids, came out a few strands of hay. Embossed on the top of these chests, were a series of symbols whose meaning Rose and the others could notprehend, but which they guessed formed a word, or a sentence in Daniel¡¯s nativenguage.

    Daniel ignored the confused expressions of the four young women. Instead, he knelt in front of the closest one of these chests, brushed his hand over the words ¡¯Virgil Tech¡¯, and with lips curved into a malicious smile, he opened it.. revealing its content.

 Chapter 522 A Magic Trick Gone Wrong

    "What are those?" Asked a now clear-minded Dawn as she noticed the dozens of spherical objects contained in the crate that Daniel had opened, and most likely, every other.

    "You¡¯ll know in about ten minutes." Responded Daniel with a grave tone which revealed a great degree of urgency. He then stood up, and used the control over the space within the ship to lift the hundreds of crates, and stack them into an orderly bunch before covering them with ayer of spatial essence that prevented others from seeing, or even perceiving them.

    As he finished handling the crates, Daniel stretched his left arm outwards and forced every perfect essence sphere to detach from the ship, and rush towards his palm, above which they orbited like a miniature sr system.

    "What are you doing?! You promised that the ship would go to us as it is!" Said Lilith with worry the moment she saw Daniel remove the valuables from the ship that, now, belonged to them.

    Her first reaction to what Daniel was doing, was to think that he intended to go back on his word.. and that he was currently taking her and the others away, so that he could kill them before using Cassie¡¯s permit to go through the inter-dimensional portal. But, luckily, her worries were proven wrong when Daniel put the elemental spheres into an empty spatial ring, and casually tossed it at her. "Pipe down, will you?" he said.

    Lilith grabbed the small ring and immediately pushed a small portion of her consciousness into the space that it contained. Her expression eased as, inside the ring, she saw every single sphere that were previously mounted into the ship that Daniel had promised to give them. She then looked at herpanions, to whom she faintly nodded in confirmation that Daniel was, in fact, not trying to cheat them.

    The four of them then turned to look at Daniel, who stood in the middle of the now grey and unweing space with closed eyes, and noticed that his lips were moving rhythmically, almost as if in the middle of counting, or keeping time.

    "What are you doing?" Asked Rose with confusion. Daniel¡¯s actions were taking them away from safety, and he did that only minutes before their turn to leave the universe would arrive.

    "Stand behind me, and hold hands. Do not move away or let go, no matter what happens.. do you understand me?" Asked Daniel while keeping his eyes closed, and reserving a portion of his attention to keep counting, as well as to maintain the course and speed of the ship.

    Rose and the others looked at one another with confusion, but then, they hurried towards Daniel, where they held each other¡¯s hand while standing as close to one another as they could.

    Time went by slowly, one minute after another just like it had always done, and yet, seemingly slowed by Daniel¡¯s constant counting.. The seriousness in his voice pushed their nerves to the edge, as shown by how increasingly hard it was for them to stand still, or remain quiet.

    In their minds, Rose and the others imagined the dangers that would suddenly appear in front of them, and the closer they got to the time in which they were scheduled to use the portal, the more prevalent and terrifying these thoughts would be.

    This went on until only a couple of minutes were left, a moment in time in which Daniel was able to distract them from their fervid imagination by moving a hand behind his back and wiggling his fingers, hinting to any of them to grab his hand.

    Dawn was the first one to react, and she grabbed Daniel¡¯s hand just in time to witness the sudden arrival of around ten blood cultivators, and a young woman, whom she recognized as Saha. They had appeared only a few meters away from them, on the opposite side of the grey and unweing space.

    "If I feel the slightest flow of mana, I will strike to kill." Said the leader of the group, whose face expressions Daniel had seen more than once during the brief conversation the two had when the former was still in Saha¡¯s body.

    "Nice to see you again!" said Daniel with a smile one would only expect to see on the face of a long lost friend. He then raised his left arm in surrender, "Don¡¯t worry, I would not be able to open a portal even if I wanted to.. Because of this damn space.. Before you do what you have to do, however, can you tell me what would have happened if I got into that portal? Would you have followed us?" he asked.

    "Take him, before the ship leaves the stable space.. Take all of them." Ordered the person to whom Daniel was talking to, to his followers. "Father will be pleased.." he then muttered.

    At the mention of his father, Daniel¡¯s lips curved into a smile. "Isn¡¯t it odd that such an old entity is still so reliant on their father?" he asked. A simple question was able to get under the skin of the leader of the blood cultivators.. "Did he punish you thest time you¡¯ve failed?.. Did he.. Oh man, how many spanks are we talking about?"

    The blood cultivator tried to maintain his calm, but as soon as Daniel started to imply that his father and him shared some sort of disturbing rtionship, any form of rational thought disappeared from his mind. He then approached Daniel, and with a snapping motion, he grabbed his throat, and lifted him off the floor.

    "Laugh while you can. I promise that my father and I will spend a great deal of time finding the most painful way to kill you." he said while smiling maliciously. He then put Daniel back down, let his hand slide onto his shoulder, and added, "After that, I will go to your universe of origin, and look for anyone you know, anyone you¡¯ve ever met.. I will take my time in dealing with them."

    Disgusted by the man¡¯s expression, Daniel weakly pushed his hand off his shoulder, and with a now serious face, he said, "Thanks, this is all I needed." He then disappeared from where he was standing, almost as if he had never been there to begin with.

    The sudden disappearance of Daniel sent a shiver down the spine of the blood cultivator, who, in less than an instant, turned around to see that the bright red light which indicated the position of the legacy, was now in the proximity of the inter-dimensional portal. At the same time, he noticed that Saha, the ve whom he had used to obtain permission to travel, and whom he needed in case he would need to use the portal to follow Daniel into the Trigate, was now gone as well.

    Unwilling to think of what would happen if he allowed Daniel to leave the universe, the blood cultivator opened his mouth to give his orders, "DON¡¯T LET HIM G-" However, before he could finish, an ominous feeling creeped up from behind him, followed by the shockwave that ttened the him and the other blood cultivators against the walls of the ship¡¯s formation before shattering it, and allowing for the immense amount of energy to expand outwards.. and show a degree of power that, inparison, would put the death of the biggest star in the universe to shame.

    -----

    The content of the chests that Daniel had left on the ship was something that Rose and the others could have never hoped to recognize.. After all, each of those spherical objects had been invented, perfected, and mass produced by Virgil, a member of Daniel¡¯s group.

    In the past few years Virgil had started a business of his own, apany specialized in the study, invention, and mass production of most of the technology present in Daniel¡¯s system. Under his guidance, Virgil Tech had made several technological advancements that had been found incredibly useful in increasing the quality of life of both mortals, and weaker cultivators.. and yet, the item for which they were best known for throughout their universe, was the Essence Battery.

    Born as a simple bomb whose power was determined by the type of essence that it had been charged with, Virgil had perfected this item to a point where each one could store the full power of a hundred cultivators at the peak of the godhood stage.. A result that he had only achieved thanks to the help of Daniel, the person for whom the production of these batteries was strictly reserved.

    The hundreds of crates present in Daniel¡¯s ring, each filled with dozens of essence batteries that had been painstakingly charged with a hundred times the full extent of Daniel¡¯s power, were his strongest weapon. One that could erase an entire interster cloud, and that had required the intervention of multiple members of the independent faction, to stop the shockwave from washing past the entire area, disintegrating the, and striking the millions of cultivators in the process.

    -----

    "W-What the hell was that?" shouted Lilith, who, along with the others, was staring at the massive supernova that had brightened every corner, and even the opposite side of the.

    "NOT NOW!" Said Daniel while tightening his grip around Dawn¡¯s and Saha¡¯s wrists, and hurrying towards the inter-dimensional portal as fast as he could.

    "COME BACK HERE! YOU BASTARD!!" said a disembodied voice that resounded throughout the entire system, and caught the attention of every single cultivator present in the. Then, before anyone could volunteer to meet the voice¡¯s owner, it continued by saying, "Kill them.. KILL THEM ALL!!"

    Thest shout was charged with vast amounts of blood essence, and was powerful enough to dispel the still present inferno of essence caused by the explosion and reveal the mauled bodies of dozens of blood cultivators, who, as soon as theymand of their leader, charged at the with blood-thirsted eyes.

    "Shit!" eximed Daniel while trying to navigate through the ripples of space caused by the unaffected portal, which were greatly slowing the movements of Rose and the others.

    In the few moments that it took for Daniel to reach the portal, the blood cultivator was able to ughter dozens of opposing and unprepared cultivators, who threw themselves at him in an attempt to stop him only to be absorbed, and added to the power at his disposal.

    "YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE!!" Shouted the leader of the blood cultivators to the top of his lungs. In his voice, Daniel could hear a deep thirst for blood, which paired with his murderous emotional aura that his body emitted, ensured him that there was no more ce for words, or for capture.. He wanted to kill him, and he would do the same with anyone who would stand in his way..

    The extremely stable space was nothing in front of the power of the blood cultivator, who shot towards Daniel with his fist cocked behind his head, and enough power in it to copse space.

    Left with only instants to live and no other choice, Daniel decided to use hisst resort.. He pushed outside of his body as much power as he could, and morphed into a time essence which automatically merged into the stable space that was surrounding them, and into an extremely peculiar form of essence of spacetime. Given the concepts of time that Daniel had inserted into the surrounding space, he had hoped that he could project himself and the five young girls into the near past, just long enough to allow them to avoid the strike, and reach the portal.. But, s, this time luck did not seem to be on his side.

    As he approached, and the members of the independent faction moved aside to avoid his attack, the enraged blood cultivator struck the solid space with all the power that was left in his body, bending the very fabric of spacetime, and pushing the now solidified part of space in which Daniel was trapped, directly towards the inter-dimensional portal. Contrary to its usual passive and stable presence, the surface of the portal reacted to the blow with massive ripples that extended all the way to the edge of the portal.. One of these ripples met the nearby Daniel in space, and the moment its translucent surface touched him, it pulled him in along with the others.

    Thest thought that was able to form in the mind of the leader of the blood cultivator, right before being struck down by dozens of members of Competition¡¯s domain, was that once Daniel had gone through the portal, instead of dimming, the red light which indicated the blood legacy had disappeared altogether.

 Chapter 523 Powerless Awakening

    Being swallowed by the inter-dimensional portal was a physically and mentally traumatic experience for Daniel and the others, one which, despite their cultivation, and Daniel¡¯s mental fortitude, none of them had been unable to withstand.

    Mighty tides of natural spacetime essence struck against the bodies of the six cultivators over and over again, shaking them like leaves carried through an infinite series of the most violent of rapids. A treatment which resulted in them losing their consciousness before they could get a glimpse of what kind of ce they would end up in.

    What followed, wasplete darkness.

    -----

    What woke Daniel up, after an unspecified amount of time, was not a loud noise, nor the feeling of the wind that carried sand past his dried up lips and into his mouth.. But instead, something that Daniel hadn¡¯t felt in years-The unbearable warmness of the sunrays. He opened his eyes in an attempt to get his bearings, but the only thing he saw was the blinding light that downed upon him.. A light which he was only able to get used to after several seconds of constant blinking, and which, once gentler to his eyes, revealed a scenery that left Daniel speechless.

    Around him were massive dunes of sand as tall as a hundred feet, and aside from the asional stone that jutted out of the sandy surface to point at the cloudless bright sky, Daniel could see nothing else.

    Still hazed by the previous experience, Daniel muttered, "Where the hell am I.." before waving his hand over his head in an attempt to create a cover from the sun. However, when nothing appeared to protect him from these scorching rays, Daniel realized that something was wrong with him. With elerated breathing, chapped lips, sweat that stuck his clothes onto his skin, and the reduced capacity of his senses.. Daniel suddenly remembered what it felt like to be a mortal.

    With increasing worry, he tried to use his powers time and time again, but no matter how many times he tried, not only was there no result, but there was no trace of essence in his body altogether.

    *Cough Cough* Before Daniel could even begin to analyze his body, a familiar noise that came from behind him caught his attention.

    When he turned around, he saw the bodies of Rose and the others, who like him, had lost consciousness after being dragged into the inter-dimensional portal. Of the five young women, Rose and Dawn were the first ones to wake up.

    "What.. *cough* what is this feeling..?" cried Rose while instinctively covering her eyes with her hand. She and the others had lived their whole lives in a world of cultivation, and because of that, they had never been able to experience the effects that something as insignificant as weather had always been to them, would have on a person.. And that included the oppressive rule of the sun, under which every mortal lived by.

    As Cassie, Lilith and Saha woke up, and Dawn and Rose finally managed to get partially used to the light, Daniel staggered in their direction with a dragged pace. "Is.. everyone okay?" he asked with a hoarse voice.

    "If you call this being okay.." muttered Rose in response. She then asked, "Where are we? Why can¡¯t I feel any form of power in my body? And why is it so hot here?!" What she asked, were the exact same questions that had appeared in the minds of each one of them.

    Daniel had a theory regarding the situation they were in, but since he wasn¡¯t sure of how realistic it was, in order to avoid creating panic, he simply said, "Help the others up.. We need to find cover." He then approached a recently awoken and still confused Saha, and after grabbing her weak arm, he helped her stand on her feet. Rose and Dawn did the same with Cassie and Lilith, who joined the former two inining about the harsh weather conditions.

    Aware of the dangers that they were facing, Daniel ignored theints of the four young women, and instead, he began to observe his surroundings more carefully. When he stopped, he was staring at the biggest dune of sand.

    With his first objective set, he turned around in order to give instructions, but before he could, "Don¡¯t take it off!" he barked in Cassie¡¯s direction as he noticed her attempts to remove the heaviestyer of clothing that she was wearing.. One that was covering her shoulders, and her neck.

    "Wh-Why?" Cassie asked in response, frightened by Daniel¡¯s sudden shout.

    "Keep your skin covered, wrap something around your heads, and keep your mouths closed.." muttered Daniel before starting to climb the dune, which crumbled under his feet, making his efforts half as efficient.

    "What are you talking about? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US?!" Asked Lilith with exasperation.

    "Oh, that¡¯s right.." said Daniel before once again turning to face the others. He then stretched his arms outwards in a weing gesture, and said, "Wee back to mortality." He then resumed climbing while ignoring the confused and constant chattering that was taking ce behind his back.

    After a few minutes spent climbing with the help of both arms and legs, Daniel finally managed to reach the top of the highest dune sand, on which he stood in hope to spot their hope for survival. Luckily, this hope presented itself in the form of a forest of pointy rocks, underneath which he hoped would be shade, water, and possibly, something to eat.

    "We need to go that way!" Shouted Daniel from the top of the dune before rxing his body, and allowing himself to be dragged by a sand avnche all the way to the bottom, where the five young women were waiting for him. Then, as the five of them adjusted their clothes in order to follow Daniel¡¯s instructions, the six of them began to walk towards the rocky forest.

    -----

    "I feel so weak.." said Cassie before digging too deep into the sand with her left foot, and falling on her knees. She then added after Dawn helped her up, "What is this awful feeling.. I-"

    "You are thirsty. Your body is trying to regte its temperature by sweating." Daniel said through ayer of fabric which he had ripped from the bottom of his pants, and that he was using to cover his mouth. "The bad side of that, is that in such extreme temperatures, that makes you lose liquids.. Just like opening your mouth, So STOP TALKING."

    After about an hour of walking, the group managed to reach the rocky forest, at the bottom of which, to Daniel¡¯s relief, were shade and water, but no trace of edible nts or animals. Under Daniel¡¯s instructions, Rose and the others took cover under the shade as he approached the closest pond to where the others were resting, and used the curved part of his knee pads to scoop enough water to fill one¡¯s mouth.

    Once he made sure that the water was not contaminated or poisonous, he approached his fivepanions, who were now huffing and puffing on the ground, and said, "If it¡¯s too hot, you can uncover yourself.. Just as long as you don¡¯t go under the sun. Also, if you feel light headed, go and drink some of that water, It will help. Stay here for now, I¡¯ll be back soon."

    "Where are you going?" asked Rose with worry. Nothing had prepared her and her friends for such a dangerous situation, and now that they possessed none of their power, she felt even more defenseless than she would find herself in front of a cultivator more powerful than her. While in that state of mind, to see Daniel, who seemed to be prepared to handle these sorts of situations, leave their sight, made her panic.

    Daniel looked up at the sky, where the sun that was high up over their heads when they had woken up, was now closer to the horizon. "It will be dark soon.. I have to find something to start a fire, and materials to keep it burning throughout the night."

    "WHAT?! You want to start a fire with this heath?" Asked Lilith with shock.

    "This is a desert. The amount of water in the air is minimal, which means that as soon as the sun sets, it will get cold.. And fast." Said Daniel while rummaging in his pockets in hope to find anything useful. He then turned to look at the five young women, and asked, "Do any of you have a mirror?"

    Rose and the others shook their heads before turning to look at one another. Each of them possessed many mirrors, all expensive and of fine workmanship.. but unfortunately, they were all in their spatial containers, to which they had no ess to.

    "I do.." said Saha timidly before pulling a palm sized mirror from within one of her pockets. A mirror that the blood cultivator that had enved her, had used to check the result of his possession the first time he had been into her body.

    "Lend it to me." Said Daniel before walking towards her and taking the mirror off her hand. "Remember what I said. Stay here, stay in the shade." he then added before walking further into the rocky forest, and disappearing from their sight.

    Once alone, the first thing that Daniel did was to find a patch of shade, and sit on the slightly cooler sand with closed eyes. He then tried to focus on his status.. A thought to which, to his relief, his system reacted to by opening his profile like it would usually do.

    ____________________________

    Dan Hiel - Karmic system¡¯s Wielder.

    Age - 23

    Status

    -Adulthood

    Strength

    -Male Adult

    Karma - ???

    ____________________________

    Weapons Masteries (Details)

    Martial Arts (Details)

    Skills (Details)

    Spells (Details)

    ____________________________

    Reap What You¡¯ve Sown

    Time Is Precious Lv.200

    Reduced Cost Lv.70

    Bonus Points Lv.65

    Second Chance (Upgrades 5/5) Lv.25

    Karma X Luck

    Karma Debt

    Karmic Retribution (Upgrades 5/5)

    Devil¡¯s Advocate

    Regtor¡¯s Will

    ____________________________

    System Upgrades (Details) UNAVAILABLE

    ____________________________

    What the window that Daniel¡¯s system had created in his mind reported, made no sense to him. Starting with the fact that his age had gone from his mid thirties, back to his early twenties.. Followed up by the changes in the section which, in the past, would show his cultivation level and battle prowess, but that now reported at which stage of his life he was, along with the corresponding physical strength.. and ending with the fact that he could not see his own karma.

    More confused than he had ever been, Daniel once again closed his eyes, and tried to activate Time is Precious. This time, however, he felt an extremely faint amount of his personal essence appear in the depths of his body, only to disappear right after.

    This reaction was extremely brief, but for someone that could understand the behavior of essence as much as Daniel did, it was enough for him toe to a conclusion.. In the world, or more likely the universe where he had ended up in, natural mana did not exist.

    The sand on which he was sitting was made out of finely broken down minerals and rocks, the air that he was breathing was a mixture of gases, and the water he had drunk a few minutes earlier, was what was left of thest rainy day that this desert had seen.

    While Daniel had never seen something like this, thanks to hisprehension of space, he was able to specte that, in this manaless world, essence would act in a simr way as gases, when exposed to a vacuum.. In which case, it would be forcibly pulled out of its container in hope to find an equilibrium of pressure.. And that was what Daniel believed was happening to his body.

    Due to thepleteck of mana in the surroundings, every bit of power stored in Daniel¡¯s body was being taken away, and pushed into the surroundings in hope to reach equilibrium. Because of this effect, every bit of essence that connected his atoms to one another, and regenerated his cells, was stripped away from his body, turning his body back to that of a simple mortal.

    To support this theory was the fact that Daniel¡¯s system had recognized him as a twenty-three years old man, which to his memory, was the age in which he had stopped aging, and he had reachedplete immortality.

    If Daniel¡¯s theory was correct, as of now, Daniel was once again a mortal.

 Chapter 524 Up For a Ride

    After spending a few minutes roaming the stone forest, Daniel walked back to where he had left Rose and the others. In his hands were a bunch of dried up twigs and leaves, which had given him hope that, somewhere beyond the desert¡¯s boundaries, was a less dangerous forest from which the asional strong winds had stolen Daniel¡¯s current haul.

    As he approached the camp where he thought he would find the others in the midst of resting, Daniel suddenly heard a woman¡¯s sharp and piercing scream, to which he reacted by shoving what he was holding into the pocket of his pants, and started running.

    When he arrived at the camp, only a few minutester, Daniel saw Rose and the other perched over a rtively small boulder, at the bottom of which, a seven feet long beige-colored lizard was waiting for them, hissing and licking the air with its forked tongue. As he saw what kind of monster had scared hispanions to such a degree, Daniel could not help but ce his palm against his forehead in an attempt to handle the second-hand embarrassment he was feeling.

    "To think that their first contribution to our survival, is to be bait for our dinner." Muttered Daniel while slowly taking out his shirt, which he then wrapped around his forearm. He then started to look at the ground around his feet in hope to find something that could work as a weapon. Unfortunately, the best he could find was a rock shaped as a fruit slice.. With a thin and not so sharp side, a wider one which he could hold on to, and smooth sides.

    "Careful! There is a monster down there!" Shouted a panicked Cassie as she noticed Daniel¡¯s approaching figure.

    Daniel ignored her warning, and instead threw a small pebble at the beast, which immediately gave up on the unreachable bouffet of female humans, and focused on a more modest meal. As it locked onto its new prey, the lizard used all four of itsrge and muscr limbs to propel itself towards Daniel.

    -----

    This was not the first time that Daniel had seen a simr beast. In fact, in the very forest that surrounded the city in which he had grown up, lived beasts just like this one.. and even slightly bigger ones. These reptiles would usually hide in the tree line, waiting to attack the smallest groups of travelers and caravans in disorganized packs, and at times, they would approach the city walls, attracted by the carrions of pack animals, feral cats, or dogs.

    "It¡¯s easy to kill them, kid. You just need to be careful of when they charge.. Bet you can¡¯t guess how.. ahah!" Would say the guard tasked with taking care of the asional beast that would get too close to the city gates to a curious Daniel, who would pester him while waiting to find a target.

    "They are long, and turn slowly.. You dodge to their side, obviously." Daniel would respond with a matter-of-fact tone, sure that he was right.

    The guards would burst outughing, almost as if they had heard the most hrious joke ever created. "Brat, that¡¯s not a crocodile. If you stick to its side, it will knock you out with a whip of its tail!" Would say the guard with a derisory tone. "No... you jump on them! But be prepared for a nice ride. AHAH!"

    -----

    With these memories still fresh in his mind, Daniel stood in front of the approaching lizard, waiting to the veryst moment.. Then, he jumped. Unable to stop, the lizard bit into the space that Daniel¡¯s body was upying only momentster, only to tten on the ground the next second as Daniel¡¯s entire weightnded onto its scaly back.

    By using its powerful muscles the beast desperately tried to out wrestle Daniel, who was shoving his feet against the beast¡¯s legs in an attempt to stop it from moving, and at the same time, forcing its head onto the ground by pressing his covered forearm against the back of its neck.

    The beast kept struggling, hooking its ws into the ground in order to drag itself out of Daniel¡¯s hold while hissing menacingly, and waving its tail on both sides.. But Daniel never let go of it. This went on for several more minutes, until finally, the beast began to tire down.

    "A little help here!" Shouted Daniel while putting even more pressure onto the lizard¡¯s neck. He knew that the beast was faking it, and the moment it would feel him rx, it would use every bit of strength it had left to shake him off, and possibly turn around to bite a good chunk out of his body. He was also aware of the fact that these kinds of beasts usually relied on a venomous bite, and despite his immunity to poisons, he was well more than willing to avoid the injury.

    To answer Daniel¡¯s request of help were Dawn and Rose, who jumped off the boulder, and approached him. "What do we do?" Asked Rose in a hurry.

    "W-What do you.. Just hit its damn head!" Said Daniel as the lizard shook its powerful body one more time, almost seeding in tossing him off his back. Then, as Rose looked for something that she could use as a weapon, Dawn reached for the rock that Daniel had picked a few seconds earlier, and started to bash its sharpest corner against the head of the lizard.

    After every blow the beast would wiggle around, and hiss in a fit of rage, but even after two dozen blows, of injuries, there was no trace. "Stop!" Said Daniel before turning to look at the others, "The three of you,e down here! We need your help!" The hurry contained in his voice took over the fear that was clouding the minds of Lilith, Cassie, and Saha.. who jumped off the boulder and ran towards Daniel and the others.

    With enough hands to handle the job, Daniel tasked Rose with immobilizing the beast¡¯s tail, Lilith and Cassie with sitting onto its back, and finally, Dawn and Saha with putting pressure onto the beast¡¯s neck with as much weight as they could move onto their hands. Once secured, Daniel got off the lizard and walked all the way in front of it. He then sat on both knees in front of its head, and after grabbing the rock he had picked with both hands, he began to bash the beast¡¯s skull with as much strength as he could muster.

    Each blow resounded in the ears of the six cultivators, causing the beast to struggle in a desperate attempt to get away, but after each strike, it would feel dizzier, and weaker.. This kept going until, an unknown number of strikester, the rhythmic sound of rock hitting scales turned into the nauseating noise of broken bones, and ripped flesh.

    Daniel did not stop, and continued striking the same spot from which shreds of brain matter and blood soaked scales started to fly as a result of the constant pounding. When he finally stopped, little of the lizard¡¯s head was left intact, and its body had stopped moving.

    Covered in sweat, chunky blood andpletely devoid of strength, Daniel put the rock down and painstakingly rose back to his feet. He then unwrapped his shirt from around his sore forearm, revealing a few minorcerations, and used it to clean his face. Once clean, he put his shirt back on, and said, "Dawn and Rose,e with me.." he said as he headed towards the smaller ponds, around which he had seen a few dried up bushes that he could use to get the fire started, and keep it burning through the night.

    -----

    In the few hours that followed, Daniel was able to start a fire by using Saha¡¯s mirror to reflect the sun rays onto the handful of dried up leaves he had picked, and fueling the me with the branches that he had gathered with Rose and Dawn. He had also managed to rip off one of the lizard¡¯s ws from its toe, and used it to slice a few strips of meat which he left to cook on a t stone that he had ced right next to the fire. What remained of the meat was left to smoke into a cone-shaped oven that he had instructed Lilith, Cassie and Saha to build.

    With food, water, and a fire sorted out, Daniel was finally able to take a breath and prepare for the night.

    As the sun retired, and the cloudless blue sky turned to a darker shade, the temperature began to drop. To Rose and the others, the cold reminded them of when, during their youth, their failures in cultivation would cause their guardians to feel a disappointment that was reflected into their emotional aura, and that would seep into their bones, giving them a semnce of coldness.. A feeling that cultivators like them, contrary to mortals, were not used to.

    "Daniel.." muttered Rose while lowering her portion of half-burnt lizard meat.

    "You didn¡¯t lose your cultivation." Said Daniel, already aware of what Rose wanted to ask him. His words eased her worries, as well as those of the others, who let them out with a sigh of relief.

    "But then why can¡¯t we.."

    "This dimension seems to be devoid of mana.. Every bit of power generated by our bodies is forcibly taken away in an attempt to form a natural equilibrium with our surroundings, and that is what is making us mortals. As long as we are able to find a source of power that isn¡¯t affected by this phenomenon, I should be able to get us out of here." Daniel exined right before ripping thest piece of meat off of the lizard¡¯s leg that he was eating. He then grabbed the clean bone, and hammered it against the boulder he wasying on, splitting it into two pointy spikes.

    Daniel looked at these two bone knives, and once he realized that one of the two was barely longer than his palm¡¯s width, and therefore unfit to be used as a weapon, he threw it away. The second knife, on the other hand, was perfect for him. It was double the size of his hand, and pointy enough to pierce into the skin of another lizard, in case they would encounter one.

    Reassured by finally having a weapon, Daniel turned to look at Rose and the others, who were still eating. In them, Daniel could not see women, but newborn babies. Having been cultivators for all of their lives, these five young women had never known hunger, thirst, or even a longsting injury. They alsocked awareness for their surroundings, and most importantly, a concept of the flow of time.

    Thanks to their nearly infinite lives, a cultivator would always have the chance to take things slowly, as time was not something that he would run out of. For a mortal, on the other hand, time was everything. The awareness of passage of time was what made every living being able to survive, forcing them to learn how to sustain their lives by hunting, eating, and resting. Without these concepts, a mortal would be unable to survive for long.

    By seeing these powerful cultivators at the godhood stage being brought down to mortality, a state in which one could only try to find happiness while surviving day by day, Daniel could not help but feel guilty. For someone who had always tried to live decently, this time, he had definitely ruined the lives of a group of innocent people.

    However, not everything was lost, as they still had their lives.

    With the end goal of finding a way to take these women back to their universe, he steeled his resolve. "From now on, forget anything you have learned about essences." Daniel said to the five young women, who stopped eating, and turned to listen to him. "Try to remember what little of martial arts was taught to you.. You will need it to survive in this world." He then said while adding a few more branches to the fire. As he finished speaking, hey down on his back right next to the fire, and closed his eyes.

    "What are you doing?" Asked Dawn with curiosity.

    "I am trying to sleep, and once you are done eating, you should do the same." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. However, when he opened his eyes a few secondster, he noticed that his words had done nothing but deepen the confusion of the five young women. "Lay on your back, close your eyes, and try to create a world in your mind.. The more detailed you imagine of it, the better."

    Annoyed by Daniel¡¯s attitude, Lilith asked, "We don¡¯t even know what sleep is! How will we know that it is working?"

    Daniel¡¯s lips curved into a smile. "If it works, the next time you¡¯ll open your eyes, it will be morning." He then closed his eyes once again, but instead of trying to fall asleep right away, he decided to listen to the voices of the five young women, who kept trying to discover the secret of his rapid descent into sleep.

    After about ten minutes, Rose and the others stopped talking, leaving only the crackling noise of the fire to resound in his ears. It was only then that Daniel emptied his mind, and allowed himself to fall asleep.. Missing the humanoid silhouette that had suddenly appeared on top of one of the towering rocks that surrounded the camp by just a few seconds.

 Chapter 525 Not Alone

    The next morning, the first to wake up from her first night of sleep, was Dawn. Her eyes opened to meet the faint morning lights, and narrowed as a throbbing pain made itself known in her head. As she tried to rise in a sitting position, her sore muscles reminded her of the part she had yed in killing the massive lizard the day before, as well as the fact that she was not a cultivator anymore.

    As she sat rigidly, still unaware of how to stretch after waking up, Dawn noticed two things. The first one was that the fire that had kept her and herpanions warm throughout the night was now almost extinguished.. reason why the temperature had dropped, causing her to wake up. The second thing she noticed was that Daniel was not where he had fallen asleep the night before.

    In between yawns, Dawn looked around until she finally spotted him next to a small boulder, on which he had drawn a humanoid silhouette with a piece of burnt wood, which he was using to practice his knife wielding skills on. "What are you doing?" Dawn asked with curiosity as she approached him. She could not help but feel surprised by how Daniel, who had done more than anybody else the previous day, could have all this energy so early in the morning.

    "Training." Said Daniel while thrusting his bone knife into the eyes, and the guts of the drawn figure, stopping only a few millimeters away from the stone¡¯s surface in order to avoid damaging the weapon. Then, as he finished his rotation, Daniel turned to look back at Dawn with a stern expression, and said with a matching tone, "You are a mortal now, which means that your body is quickly decaying.. And that is especially true for your muscles. If you don¡¯t train, you won¡¯t be able to maintain them, and will be weaker."

    Dawn was aware that the loss of her powers had made her only slightly more self-sufficient than a kid, but at the same time, she had no intention of dying in this dimension. In her mind she had already steeled her resolve to learn how to survive as a mortal, and the fastest way to do that was tomit each of Daniel¡¯s teachings to memory.

    After listening to several of his suggestions, Dawn started to realize that Daniel¡¯s teachings were not aimed at turning her into a cog in Competition¡¯s machine, but at helping her survive the dangers ahead.. A motive that she believed to be nobler than that of her cold and uncaring parents, whom she had seen only a handful of times in her life, and whom at some point, would marry her off to another family to sweeten a business deal, or as the prize of a lostpetition.

    As she became aware of this, she could not help but develop a feeling of gratitude towards Daniel, which preceded a sudden surge of power that red through her body, and reinforced her muscles, bones, and flesh way beyond the strength she possessed since arriving to this universe.

    Even though Daniel could not feel the increase in her strength without his senses, Dawn¡¯s expression of confusion and shock were evident enough for him to guess what had happened to her.. So as she looked at her strengthened body with confusion, Daniel approached her, shook her awake by grabbing her shoulders, and after making sure that he had her attention, he whispered in a reassuring tone, "Remain calm. The change you have felt is part of my powers as a champion of Destiny. Nothing is wrong with your body, and you are still mortal.. Just stronger than before. Do you understand me?"

    Still slightly shocked by the experience, Dawn nodded vigorously in response.

    "You need to keep this to yourself. I can¡¯t control who is affected by this power, and if you reveal it to others, their desire to obtain it will turn into an obstacle." Daniel exined in a hurry while looking past Dawn¡¯s shoulder, and towards their still sleepingpanions.

    Ever since he had unlocked the group section of his system, Daniel had tried to find the best way to include trusted people in its effect, and at the same time, prevent those whom he did not find suitable from joining his group. With that objective in mind, after discovering what the requirements to join his group were, Daniel had convinced himself that controlling who was allowed to join the system would be easy, as long as he only shared his group¡¯s knowledge to those whom he had picked personally. However, it did not take long for him to realize how wrong he was.

    Joining Daniel¡¯s group was only possible if one chose to willingly follow the path that he was creating, and in order for that to count, they needed to fully believe in him. Unfortunately, when this promise of power was given to someone who had yet to willingly dedicate themselves to following Daniel¡¯s cause.. Someone who still ced his own interests above the group¡¯s, greed would make its appearance.

    Whenever Daniel would share the effects of his system with someone that was not yet part of his group, this person would actively try to join him as a result, but would do so with greed rather than sincerity. This greed prevented these people from trusting Daniel, as the trust that the system required was not something that they could create on the spot.. Their failures would turn to bitterness, and ultimately, hate towards Daniel, whom they believed to be the obstacle that was stopping them from ascending to this higher power.

    After witnessing multiple such cases, Daniel had ordered that the knowledge of his group was to be kept secret, as being aware of it beforehand would not only ruin people¡¯s chances of bing his powerful allies, but would also turn potential friends into enemies.

    That was the reason why Daniel had asked Dawn not to share her experience with the others.

    The change in Dawn¡¯s body had surprised Daniel as much as it had surprised her. After all, the existence of his group system was something that would reside passively in the back of his mind, and that was because most of the people he would interact with on a daily basis, were already part of it.. However, now that his group system had made its appearance once again, Daniel was not only reassured about having one less person to babysit, but also reminded that he still had a way to know how his people were doing.

    "Go wake up the others. This is the best time to get some work done, before the temperature starts to rise again." said Daniel before turning to look back at the figure he had drawn on the boulder. Dawn responded by nodding once again, and while keeping on checking her strengthened body, she headed back towards the camp.

    After Dawn left, Daniel did not resume his training. Instead, he stood in front of the boulder with closed eyes. In his mind was the window of the group system, which instead of presenting itself as an enormous list of names, now, only had one.. ¡¯Dawn Abbott¡¯.

    "What.." he muttered in utter shock as a lump formed in his throat, and a feeling of lightheadedness turned his mind hazy, forcing him to struggle against the anxiety attack that he could feel building up in his chest. Before his legs could give in, Daniel leaned onto the boulder with his forearm, and began to breathe deeply while staring at the sand that was at his feet.

    For a few seconds he maintained this state of mind, until.. "AAAAHH!" screamed Saha only moments before Dawn could approach the camp. "HE IS HERE! HE¡¯LL KILL ME.. HE WILL KILL US ALL!!" She cried in terror before burying her head in between her knees, which she then covered with her arms. Rose and the others were shaken out of their deep sleep by her screams, to which they joined in, still hazy-minded and worried about a possible danger.

    This moment of panic was also able to shake Daniel out of his state of mind, allowing him to put the matter of the group system aside and snap back to reality. He then turned to look at Saha, and noticed that she was covered in cold sweats, and was trembling in fear. Aware of what had happened, he headed towards the camp, and as he arrived, he said, "Stop screaming. It was just a nightmare."

    Saha¡¯s head emerged from in between her knees, and she asked with a helpless expression and a cracked voice, "A nightmare?"

    "A bad dream. An illusion of the mind that reflects fears, desires or memories.. Mortals have those when they sleep." Said Daniel before sitting with his legs crossed in front of the dying fire. Then, as the others calmed down, he pointed his finger to his left, and said, "I believe that heading east would be the fastest way to get out of this desert."

    "How do you know where we need to go?" asked Rose after taking a few calming deep breaths.

    Daniel moved his finger towards the bottom of one of therge stones next to the camp, where a few dry leaves were stuck in between the sandy ground and the rock itself, and responded by saying, "When I was out looking for materials to start the fire, I noticed that it was easier to find them in the crevices on the east side of these stones. That means that the winds thate from east carried them from a forest."

    "How long will we have to spend in the desert? Mere hours almost killed us yesterday." Said Lilith with worry.

    "Because we don¡¯t know how far that wind had to travel to get here.. It could take us weeks to reach the forest, provided that we don¡¯t encounter a sandstorm, and get lost. That is why we will go deeper into the stone forest instead, and head northeast, keeping to the edge until we reach the easternmost part of the stone forest." Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. Then, before Rose and the others could ask any more questions, he continued by saying, "We also have other problems.. Once we are in the stone forest, it will be impossible to start a fire, so we need to carry the embers.."

    For the following few minutes, Daniel exined the next steps to his still sleepy, yet attentivepanions, who would often stop him to inquire about every little detail that, for them, did not make sense.

    Daniel¡¯s n was to go deeper into the stone forest, and while moving towards the direction that they believed to be northeast, gather enough materials to craft a few objects that they would need to cross the desert, such as water bags, weapons, and enough food tost them several days. Once they would reach the easternmost part of the stone forest, and have everything they needed, they would cross the desert in search of the forest to which all of these leaves and sticks belonged to.

    Daniel was sure that, if there were sentient beings in this world, a forest was their best bet at finding them, so, with a clear n in mind, him and the others began their journey by heading deeper into the stone forest.

    -----

    Several dayster.

    In the few days that they had spent traveling through the edge of the stone forest, Daniel and the others had stumbled into clear signs of life. Starting from remains of massive animals that had been cut through by des, faint remains of bonfires and abandoned camps, old battlefields, and dead beasts with missing limbs or ears, and puncture wounds.

    Daniel had seen these types of signs when, right after bing a cultivator, he had joined a hunting team in order to make money.. so it did not take long for him to realize that this ce had been a hunting field of sorts which, for some reason, had been abandoned.. And had remained as such for quite some time. This discovery had changed Daniel¡¯s approach in how he had decided to manage the group.

    At first, Daniel had focused on teaching hunting and survival skills to hispanions, but now that the existence of sentient warriors and hunters on this had been proven, Daniel had moved on to teaching Rose and the others martial arts, improving their weapon wielding abilities, and finally, to giving them an exercise schedule that would allow them to maintain their muscle mass.

    These teachings had prevented Rose and the others from relying too much on him, and in time, had allowed Cassie to join Dawn as a member of Daniel¡¯s group.

    With water sacks made out of leather, packs full of furry nkets, and weapons made out of the bones ofrge animals, Daniel¡¯s group kept heading northeast into the forest, until finally, their journey was stopped when, in thete evening of the seventh day, they saw a dpidated bridge that connected the top of two different stone towers.

 Chapter 526 All Along The Watchtower

    It only took a moment for Daniel to realize that these two connected towers were different from any other standing rock he had seen in the stone forest. The biggest indication of that was the fact that their wider base, instead of being nted into the sandstone like a sword pierced into the ground, was covered from it and likely stretched underground. If seen separately from the rest of the stone forest, one would describe these two towers as extremely thin twin mountains.

    "That bridge has seen better days.." Dawn muttered to the others as Daniel walked past her and around the closest tower, at the bottom of which he spotted a ground-level entrance hidden in between tworge boulders.. A few inches above ground, he also noticed the presence of a tripwire trigger, made almost invisible by its clever positioning.

    In the past few days, Daniel had been forced to rediscover his mortality. Specifically, the notions that had allowed him to survive before his life as a cultivator-Notions that he was used to rely on, like awareness to danger, which had been numbed by his nigh-invincibility and high speed recovery, his observation skills, which he had given up for his system¡¯s ability to indicate a path to sess, and most importantly, the value of time.. Something he previously had in abundance, and that now had taken back control over his life.

    All these notions had be obsolete the moment he had reached a certain level of cultivation, But now that he had been stripped of virtually all of his power, and many of his system¡¯s functions, Daniel was left with no choice but to once again rely on his dulled instincts, which at this moment, were telling him to explore these towers-The first real sign of civilization that they had encountered ever since they hade to this.

    "Stay there.. And keep an eye out, this ce was visited recently." Said Daniel to the others before stepping over the tripwire, and into the tower¡¯s dark entrance.

    Once inside the tower, Daniel found himself in a rtively empty room, which only contained a few boxes made out of rotten wood and nothing else. These boxes were all identical, and left on the far edge of the room in a rough semi-ordered fashion, indicating that the main use of this room was likely to be that of a storage. The only other point of interest within this room was a rectangr door frame made of stone, behind which was the bottom of a flight of stairs that had been directly carved into the stones that formed the inner parts of the tower.

    Instead of going up the stairs right away, Daniel decided to inspect the broken boxes in the hope to find some clues, but with little sess. It was only after several minutes that he was able to find, hidden in between two rtively intact crates, a small rocket in the shape of a paper-covered cylinder, and impaled on a thin wooden stick. Nothing of its fuse remained, which exined why it had been left unused.

    With nothing left to see on the bottom floor, Daniel began the climb of the five-hundred feet tower, which became narrower the higher he would get.

    From the very moment Daniel had spotted these two connected towers, his first thought had been that, if there was ever a natural construction that was made to be used as a watchtower, that would have been the two columns of stone that stood in front of him. A thought that had formed as he realized how well the two towers were camouged within the stone forest, as well as how, due to being significantly taller than any other peak, these towers would allow a full view of the horizon to whomever owned them.

    Daniel¡¯s guess was proven right the moment he had found a defective signal rocket at the bottom of the tower, which also gave him a hint regarding this ce¡¯s story.

    A watchtower was usually inhabited by scouts, some of whom would keep watch for iing forces, while the rest spread in the surrounding area to make sure no one would try to sneak from the tower¡¯s blind spots. What Daniel found odd as he climbed the tower, however, was the fact that despite there being more than enough room for half a dozen people to live in, he had yet to see any sign that this tower was once inhabited.

    Paired with the presence of a single defective signal rocket, theck of furniture could only mean that whomever had inhabited this towerst, was expecting to be attacked, and had prepared to abandon the watchtower right as they would spot the enemy, and signal their arrival to the forces to which they belonged.

    Unfortunately, knowing this did nothing but deepen Daniel¡¯s confusion.. As based on the state of the traps that Daniel had carefully avoided, as well as the state of the few empty boxes left in the storage, this battle could not have happened more than twenty years ago. In his mind he could not help but wonder what sort of army that could be spotted from miles away, would cross such a dangerous and inhospitable desert.

    Unable to find an exnation, Daniel kept climbing the flight of stairs until finally, he reached the top of the tower, where the ustrophobic ascending path expanded into a small room illuminated by the sunlight that came from the opening that led to the bridge which united the two towers.

    Daniel gave a quick look at his surrounding, and immediately realized that the ce he was currently in was not only an abandoned watchtower, but a currently used hideout, as shown by the poor camp bed ced by the deeper and darker side of the room, the still warm campfire built in the middle of the room, and the many animal remains scattered around the floor.. Some of which were dry and clean, while some others had bits and pieces of meat still attached to them.

    The most curious thing in the room, however, were the uncountable marks left on the walls. Grouped in four parallel diagonal lines, cut in the middle by a horizontal one. These marks covered the entire wall, and were clearly used to keep count of either time, or of something different.

    Left with nothing to discover Daniel decided to head towards the second tower, so he left the small room from the opening opposite to the stairs, and stepped into the wooden bridge, which, to his surprise, was in better condition that he would have guessed.

    While making sure not to step onto any rotten nk, Daniel walked the few dozen meters that separated the two towers, and a couple of minutester, he reached the room on the opposite side.

    Due to the current position of the sun, whose rays were shining directly into the door to the first room, the second one waspletely dark. Thankfully, Daniel was still in possession of Saha¡¯s mirror, which he used to reflect some of the light straight into the room.. A decision which he regretted immediately after.

    The second room was roughly the same size as the first one, but instead of being decorated with the bare minimum necessary for a camp, it was filled with humanoid skulls and severed heads, which, when examined attentively, had close to nothing inmon to a human¡¯s appearance. With rows of pointy long teeth and a mandible that could open widely enough to allow these beings to rip both of a human¡¯s hands off with a single bite, Daniel could barely imagine how monstrous these beings would have been when they were still alive.

    Seeing how some of these skulls still had some dark grey-colored flesh covering them, Daniel could not help but wonder if avoiding these monsters had only been a matter of luck, or because the owner of this hideout had simply killed every member of their species in the region. Regardless, he had no intention to remain long enough to find out, so he left the second room, and once back on the bridge, he looked down in search of hispanions.

    "DAWN! CASSIE!" He shouted in hope for his voice to reach hispanions, whom he believed to be waiting for him in somewhere where he couldn¡¯t see them.

    After a few seconds spent without any response, he decided to head down right away.. However, as he turned to look at the other end of the bridge, Daniel noticed a person standing by the entrance of the first room.

    This figure belonged to an extremely muscr two-meters-tall man with ebony-colored skin, half of which was covered by ayer of white paint in a maze pattern. Only dressed in a pair tattered pants, rudely made sandals, a rope belt from which hanged two curved knives, and a beige cloth that was wrapped around his head and face, leaving only his dark brown eyes uncovered, this person stared at Daniel without moving a muscle.

    To startle Daniel more than the appearance of this individual, was theck of a response from his group, as in order to follow Daniel all the way to the top of the tower, this man would have had no choice but to run into them.

    The two looked at one another for a few moments, but as Daniel¡¯s hand inched towards his knife, the dark-skinned figure stepped back, and disappeared into the dark part of the room.

    "I just had to check this damn tower, didn¡¯t I?" Daniel muttered before letting out a sigh of irritation. He then unsheathed both of his bone knives, and after taking a run-up, he dashed past the length of the bridge, and shot into the room, hoping to avoid any form of trap that the talk dark-skinned man could have prepared for him.

    Just as he had expected, the moment Daniel¡¯s body shot into the room, he felt the sound of a de cutting through the air behind him, missing him by only a few inches. In order to avoid a potential second attack, Daniel shifted his weight and rolled into the room with a somersault, but by the time he was able to regain his bnce, and turn towards the man that had attacked him, he was forced to snap his head to the side in order to avoid the knife that the dark skinned man at thrown at him, before charging in his direction and attempt to sh right across his thigh, which Daniel struggled to avoid.

    For a few seconds the dark-skinned man maintained his relentless flurry of blows, forcing Daniel into a defensive position from which he could observe his opponent in amazement. It only took a couple dozen exchanges with this man for him to realize that his opponent¡¯s fighting style was not suited to fight a single person, but to single-handedly fight arger group, as shown by his consecutive dirty attacks, and his seemingly endless stamina.

    If not for the perfectly healthy body that his cultivation had maintained for him, Daniel would not have been able to keep up with the endurance of this giant, and would have likely sumbed to his attacks.. But luckily, that was not the case. With his mastery of many martial arts Daniel was able to defend himself from most blows, only allowing the least threatening attacks to go past his guard, and graze his skin and clothes.

    Unable to find a chance to strike back, Daniel kept avoiding and deviating attacks until, finally, the dark-skinned man stopped attacking, and took a step back.

    Daniel¡¯s first thought was that the man had gotten tired of attacking without stopping for a single moment, and that he wanted to rest for a few moments before resuming the onught, but the grunting noises that came from the staircase, paired with the noises of armor scraping against the rock, proved him wrong. Something wasing, and it wasn¡¯t Daniel¡¯spanions.

    As these noises came closer, the dark skinned man grunted in anger before dashing towards the exit that led to the bridge that connected the two towers. Then, instead of crossing it, he turned towards the external part of the first tower, and with the use of the metallic hooks that were mounted on the leather bracer that covered his left arm, he started climbing the exterior of the first tower, leaving Daniel alone in the room.

    Toote to find somewhere to hide, Daniel could only look at the entrance of the hideout as five monstrous creatures d in ck te armor barged in, and stared at him as if they had found their next target. From their uncovered rows of pointy teeth, grey-colored rough skin, and oddly wide mouths, Daniel was able to associate these monsters to the hundreds of skulls and partially rotten heads that were stored in the room at the top of the second tower.

    At no point in time Daniel had hoped that these monsters weren¡¯t waiting for the first chance to jump on him and rip him apart.. And yet, they never did. Instead, they kept staring at him for a couple of long minutes until finally, the group split into two, and opened a path for a sixth even taller and scarier-looking humanoid monster to walk into the room.

    The initial five monsters unsheathed their ck des in excitement, waiting for the order to attack, but were stopped by the taller one, who, after looking at Daniel up and down, grunted a few words in an obscure and gutturalnguage before turning to leave. The five monsters responded by sheathing their sword, and advancing towards Daniel, clearly intending to capture him.

    Daniel had no guarantee that he woulde out unscathed in a fight against these six monsters, so he chose to let himself be captured. At least until he would find out whether Dawn and the others had hidden after noticing the arrival of this party of monsters, or if they had been captured as well.

    Before they could apprehend him, however, a small rock flew through the room, and hit the back of the head of the leaders of these monsters. The damage was minimal, and yet, it was able to trigger something in the mind of these barely sentient beings, who let go of any form of rational behavior, and unsheathed their weapons in a blind range.

    "Fuck.." muttered Daniel as he prepared to fight.

 Chapter 527 A Mortals Struggles

    Left to face this crisis by himself, Daniel could do nothing but observe as the five fully armored warriors charged him with blind rage, each the size of a full grown man, armed with not-so-sharp iron-made that they waved in excitement. However, despite feeling the now unfamiliar feeling of urgency creep into his skin once again, Daniel did not panic, as he had already mentally prepared himself for this.

    Theck of mana in this universe had left Daniel wondering whether his system, which had the ability to bring him back to life by using the surrounding essence to rewind time, would be able to revive him in case he was struck down-A question for which he was not willing to risk his life to find an answer for.. At the same time, dying was just the oue of many scenarios.

    In order to survive, Daniel not only needed to be thest one standing, but also to protect himself, as even though his system was still able to quicken his healing factor, the multiplier was not applied to the effects of his healing essence, but only to his natural ability to recover. A light injury would still weaken him for a few hours, and a would bad enough to force him on a bed for months, would still leave him incapacitated for days.

    Daniel knew only one way to fight while avoiding damages, and that.. was to fight dirty.

    Luckily, the room at the top of the tower was not big enough to allow six adults to move and fight freely, reason why only two of these monstrous warriors stepped approached him while the rest formed a semi-circle. These two warriors brandished their poorly made weapons with the intent of leaving nothing but pieces of Daniel, who instead of retreating, tightened the grip around his bone knives and waited for his opponents to get closer.

    Daniel¡¯s heartbeat slowed down.. his breathing became extremely quiet as he observed the two monsters take one step after the other while grunting in excitement. Then, as they reached the right distance, Daniel gripped one of his knives the same way one would hold a dart, and threw it in the direction of one of the monsters, who easily deflected it with the small shield that was mounted in their left iron bracer.

    The second monster stopped advancing, and reacted to Daniel¡¯s attack by turning to look at hispanion, who was safe and sound. Enraged by this ridiculous attack, the two monsters once again turned to look at Daniel, who, by now, had already taken a few steps in their direction, but was still out of range. The first reaction of the two monstrous looking warriors was to prepare for the iing fight, which left thempletely unprepared for when Daniel swiped with his leg on the remains of the dying bonfire, and sent a cloud of ashes and embers right in their direction.

    With eyes covered in ashes, and burning embers that crawled into the crevices of their te armor, the two monsters became even more enraged, and waved their weapons and shields aimlessly to keep Daniel from approaching.. However, before their eyes could recover, or the cinder could settle, Daniel appeared behind the closest of the two.

    He wrapped his arm around the head of the monstrous warrior, feeling the pustules-covered and greasy skin against his arm, and stabbed his eye with his remaining knife. Then, just to be sure, he stabbed the side of his neck and sliced his throat open, causing the warrior¡¯s ck and smelly blood to drip onto his hand, covering itpletely.

    As gurgling noises resounded in the room, and the warrior began to choke in his own blood, Daniel grabbed his sword, and after a single rotation of his arm, he cleaved it into the skull of the second incapacitated warrior, splitting it into two. With a heavy breath, he then grabbed the sword of histest victim, and prepared for the following battle.

    At the sight of two of theirpanions being ughtered, the remaining three warriors did not react. Instead, almost joyous about having a chance to fight, they let out a crazed war cry before advancing in Daniel??s direction, uncaring about stepping over the bodies of their fallenpanions.

    The first of these three monsters, clearly more eager than the others, used one of the dead bodies to leap in the air, increasing the weight that his already muscr arm had charged his sword with.. An attack that came down on Daniel like a thunderbolt sent by the heavens to smite him. Unable to retreat, Daniel could only move his swords together, and use them to block the iing attack.

    As the swords shed, the entire power of the strike traveled into the muscles of Daniel¡¯s arms, leaving them trembling and sore. But, s, there was no time to recover, as while the first warrior kept him pinned on the ground, barely able to maintain a standing posture, the second of these monstrous warriors approached him from the side, and tried to hack the back of his knees.

    Daniel moved the weight of the first warrior by letting both swords slide behind his back, and causing his weapon to slide past their poorly sharpened edges, andnd on the ground just in time to parry the attack of the second warrior. As his sword were pushed against the back of his legs, Daniel let go of the one he was holding with his right hand, and with all the power that his half kneeling body could muster, he swiped his sword horizontally, and against the armored legs of the first warrior.

    Unfortunately, due to the weapon¡¯s poor condition, Daniel¡¯s attack was unable to cut through the light chain mail that was covering the back of the warrior¡¯s knee. Nevertheless, the blow was precise enough to cause him to fall on his back, giving Daniel enough time to pierce his throat with his sword, before the thought of standing back up could even form in the monster¡¯s head.

    While holding onto the sword, Daniel grabbed the sword of his third victim before getting up, and Dashing towards the third approaching warrior, who, still unprepared, found himself having to defend against Daniel¡¯s iing sh. The warrior was quick in his reaction, and formed a defensive triangle with his small shield, shoulder te, and elbow pad to protect his only two uncovered ces-his head, and his neck.

    Prepared for the attack, the warrior hid his face in order to avoid getting hit, but instead of feeling the pressure and shock wave that came with blocking a blow, he felt the weight of Daniel¡¯s body as he somersaulted over and past him,nding right behind him. Thest feeling this monster felt was the pointy end of Daniel¡¯s sword as it slid past his shoulder des and vicle, and wrecked havoc into his chest.

    As the body of the fourth warrior fell limp on the ground revealing Daniel¡¯s body, for the first time, in the face of thest of the five monstrous minions, appeared a hint of hesitation. One that disappeared the moment his observing leader grunted in disapproval, after which thest monstrous warrior regained his courage, and shot towards Daniel, who was waiting for him while keeping his swords pointed down by his sides.

    The monster charged as if it had not seen four of itspanions fall by Daniel¡¯s hand, but before it could reach him, a faint shine of metal pierced through the darkness of the poorly lit room, andnded directly in the throat of thest warrior, who produced a few gurgling sounds before bleeding out on the floor.

    Daniel¡¯s eyes moved to the exit that led to the bridge, where he had seen the shadow of the dark-skinned warrior lean into the door just enough to throw the knife, and rid Daniel of one of his attackers before disappearing once again.

    Help was not something that Daniel could afford to refuse, but there was still one monster left-the leader of this party.

    This slightlyrger monster was d in a darker shade of iron armor, which had been damaged to a point where Daniel could not help but wonder why he hadn¡¯t reced it. It only took a look at the monster¡¯s beady and lucid eyes for him to realize that, for this kind of warriors, damage to the armor, as well as the presence of scars on their bodies, was likely something to be proud of, and a sign of seniority between their monstrous kin.

    Contrary to the members of the party it led, this monster was much moreposed, and from the way he moved, Daniel could recognize his much wider experience as a warrior. His sword was also of greater value, as while it was in the same shape as that of the others, which meant that it had been made by the same cksmith, was visibly sharper and made out of low quality steel.

    Regardless, none of this mattered to Daniel. Only one more warrior was stopping him from checking up on hispanions, and even though he was feeling tired, and was almost out of breath, he was confident.

    The warrior seemed to perceive this confidence, which he immediately tried to dispel by mming his sword against his shield, and roaring in a war cry that forced Daniel to take a step back and cover his ears in pain. After the war cry, the monster kept mming his sword rhythmically, faster and faster, until finally, he leaned forward and advanced.

    "Come on, big guy." Daniel said while cleaning his right hand, which was still covered with the ck blood of the monster¡¯spanion.

    Thirsty for Daniel¡¯s blood, the monster lifted the hand with which he was holding his sword, almost as if intending to split his body in two, but as Daniel raised his right arm to parry the blow, the monster bent his knees, raised his shield at shoulder height, and while putting all of his weight into it, rammed against the unprepared Daniel, who was mmed heavily against the wall.

    With a mouth slowly filling with blood, Daniel had no time to consider how vast the difference in fighting ability was between this monstrous warrior and his minions, especially since a diagonal sh wasing to separate his head and right shoulder from the rest of his body.. An attack that he barely avoided by lowering his body and leaning to his left.

    Contrary to what Daniel expected, instead of moving his arm back to attack again, the monster curved the path of his hacking motion downwards, until his sword reached right above Daniel¡¯s knee, on which he pushed its sharp de right before shing his flesh, leaving a third of an inch deep wound.

    Between using the advantageous position to swing his sword, and his shield to bash on Daniel¡¯s body whenever he would try to move away from the wall, the monster kept his flurry of blows going, leaving more and more superficial, and internal wounds whenever an attack wouldnd.

    With his back against the wall, Daniel could nothing but keep avoiding being fatally wounded.. And so he did, waiting for an opportunity.

    This opportunity presented itself when the monster threw a punch at Daniel¡¯s throat in an attempt to use the edge of the shield to decapitate him, or at least break his neck-but Daniel was quick to avoid the attack. He then slid the sword he was holding with his left hand in the little crevice that separated the internal part of the shield, from the warrior¡¯s forearm.

    Once in control of the monster¡¯s shield arm, Daniel pivoted in ce, causing the monster to follow his movement and fall on his knees, with his arm bent ufortably behind its back. The blood loss was causing Daniel to feel gradually weaker, so instead of wasting time, Daniel pierced his remaining sword in between the tes that covered the monster¡¯s back. He then pulled the other sword out of the monster¡¯s shield and did it again.

    Mistakenly convinced that it was finally over, Daniel was shocked to see the monster rise back to a standing position despite being on the brink of a death that he clearly was unwilling to ept.

    Before the monster could attack again, Daniel picked up a third sword which he found near his right foot, avoided the warrior¡¯s weak horizontal sh by lowering his head, and after stomping the back of its knee, and causing it to fall on his knees once again, he pierced his body for a third time.

    Unwilling to wait and see whether the monster was any closer to death, Daniel picked up the remaining two swords, approached the kneeling monster from behind, crossed the swords in front of his throat, and with a well ced kick to the back of the head, he decapitated it, killing it once and for all.

    He then fell on the cold stone floor, exhausted.

 Chapter 528 Following a Trail of Blood

    Exhausted and injured, Daniel rested on the stone floor in order to allow his body to recover his strength, and heal from his internal and external injuries as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the natural healing he was left with only allowed his body to recover from tiredness if he rested, as contrary to cultivators, who only needed essence to restore their physical strength, a mortal¡¯s body could only recover while resting-if not for that obstacle, Daniel would have already left to check up on Dawn and the others.

    Nevertheless, while the mortal way of healing had limitations, Daniel¡¯s system was able to boost it to an unnatural degree, allowing the blood that had been flowing out of his wounds mere minutes ago to clot, and almost turn into scabs in just a couple of minutes. In the same span of time, his breathing and heartbeat had stabilized, almost as if he had rested for several hours.

    Daniel knew that, if healed without the use of healing essence, these wounds would leave permanent scars on his body which would remain with him even if he regained his powers.. but unfortunately, he had no alternatives. He needed to recover as quickly as possible, as he and hispanions had inadvertently entered a ce that had bigger dangers than a fewrge animals, and he was unsure whether they were fine.

    After about ten minutes of rest Daniel rose to his feet, still sore but overall healthy, and began to rummage in the belongings of the six warriors he had just defeated. A search that turned out to be as disturbing as it was unprofitable.

    What Daniel discovered about these monsters was that their armor was not simply worn, but actually wielded and nailed through the light chain mail that was hidden underneath, and their flesh.. Making it impossible to remove. The wounds created by these nails had recovered a long time ago, and the skin had cicatrized around the entry and exit holes. He also noticed that the ck and smelly blood that came out of the wounds he had created, despite having been in contact with the warm and dry air of this desert for several minutes, had maintained its near liquid state it had when it had been spilled.

    Unable to asses the origin of these beings from their belongings, Daniel recalled the room filled with thousands of skulls and severed heads simr to the ones of the monstrous warriors he had killed, and realized that this party had likely followed the painted warrior back into his hideout, where, if not for his intervention, they would have either killed him, or more likely, he would have killed them just like he had the thousands that came before them.

    It was possible that the painted warrior had mistaken Daniel for one of these monsters¡¯ allies, and that when he found himself locked in a fight with him, right as the party of monsters arrived, he chose to retreat, only giving a helping hand when Daniel and the monsters had engaged in battle.. Or at least, that was what Daniel was thinking. If his guess was right, the painted warrior¡¯s perception of Daniel should have changed from enemy to ally, and yet, he had refused to show up.. be it during the fight, or during the time Daniel had taken to rest afterwards.

    If Daniel had to pick whom to question about the ce he and hispanions had found themselves in, he would have picked the painted warrior ny-nine times out of a hundred. But, s, since he was still unsure about the status of hispanions, and could not afford to wait for the painted warrior to growfortable enough to approach him, Daniel grabbed the steel sword of the team leader and a couple of iron ones, and after sheathing them in one of the rings of his leather belt, he left the room from the door that led to the staircase.

    -----

    Once out of the tower, Daniel immediately noticed a few traces of battle. With a few drops of human blood scattered on the ground, hundreds of footprints of different shapes, and the sword that Daniel had created for Dawn from the leg bone of arge animal, broken near the entrance, he was able to paint a clearer picture of what had happened.

    The painted warrior lived in this tower, which he would use as either a base, or a trap for hunting the monstrous beings that Daniel had fought with. When out for one of his hunting trips, Daniel and the others discovered the first sign of civilization ever since arriving on this.. And that was his tower, which Daniel decided to explore to look for clues.

    When the painted warrior returned, followed by a team of enemies, he had likely spotted Dawn and the others near his base. However, just from the traces he had seen, Daniel could not make out whether Dawn and the others had fought with the painted warrior and somehow escaped, or not. After all, Daniel had fought with the painted warrior, and despite being able to improve Dawn¡¯s swordsmanship with his teachings, he knew that he wouldn¡¯t have had a problem with taking out the entire group at once.

    The only alternative was that either one of the two towers had a hidden entrance that the painted warrior had used to sneak into the tower, which would exin the presence of a trap at the main entrance.

    To reassure Daniel, was the fact that the six monstrous warriors he had fought, while not friendly in any way, before being provoked by the painted warrior into attacking Daniel, were still able to maintain their calm. This was shown when, right after spotting Daniel, the leader of the six warriors hadmanded for him to be captured alive, instead of being attacked right away, and that meant that maybe, if Dawn and the others had encountered these monsters, they might have been taken alive somewhere.

    This theory was far fetched, as there was a possibility Daniel¡¯s was a special case, and yet, it was proven to be somewhat right when, after looking a little more attentively at the surroundings, Daniel noticed several sets of footprints that dug deeper into the sandy ground, as if those who had created them had suddenly gained a significant amount of weight. These sets of footprints headed far west from the tower, and deeper into the stone forest.

    Hidden in between footprints, was the asional drop of human blood, left by the same person that had been injured in front of the tower.

    Left with no other choice, Daniel could only follow this trail into the stone forest.. Alone, and with only his clothes and three swords to weigh him down, he was hopeful to reach hispanions before they could be used for whatever purpose they had been taken away for.

    As Daniel left the area, with the shade of the two towers pointing westwards, he noticed a shadow leap from the top of a tower¡¯s shade, to that of the stone that he had just passed by.

    -----

    Meanwhile, around two miles to the west, a group of twenty monstrous warriors, identical to those Daniel had killed, were marching in a straight line westward. This path, which they seemed to know by heart, led them deeper into the core of the stone forest, which they were trying to reach as fast as possible while carrying the tied up bodies of Dawn and the others.

    The animals that noticed the approaching of these monstrous warriors hid instinctively, as the stomping of their feet and the nking of their armor was enough to show that they were not prey. If Daniel had been here, he would have immediately noticed that this party wascking a leader, whom he had already killed in the watchtower, and that they had likely been ordered to bring the captors back, while him and the party of five followed the painted warrior into the tower.

    On top of the fourth warrior from the head of the line was Dawn, who, after spending an unidentified amount of time being manhandled by the monster that was carrying her while she was unconscious, had finally woken up.

    When she had seen these monsters approach the tower, she had told the others to hide into the stone forest as Cassie and her tried to stop the monsters from entering the tower, and catch Daniel by surprise. Unfortunately, even though she possessed a strength slightly above that of a male adult, the brutality, unpredictability, and advantage in numbers of these monsters was too much to handle, and after no more than two exchanges, she had been disarmed and injured lightly. If not for the grunts of therger and better equipped one of these monsters, she and the others would have been killed without a doubt.

    Thest thing she remembered before the lights went out, was the sight of more of these monsters emerging from the stone forest where Saha, Lilith and Rose had run off to, while carrying their unconscious bodies on their shoulders.

    Now that she was awake, Dawn had no intention of having these monsters knock her out once again, so instead of trying to escape, she decided to pretend to still be out while quietly memorizing the path that these monsters were following, as well as marking the path with the only thing she could drop on the ground inconspicuously.. Her blood. When she touched her arm in hope to find the light wound that one of these monstrous warriors had left on her, however, she noticed that the wound had already stopped bleeding.

    Confused, Dawn started to wonder how long it had been since she had lost consciousness, but instead of letting herself be distracted, she mmed her hand against the sharp edges of the armor of the warrior that was carrying her in a failed attempt to open her wound once again. Unwilling to give up, Dawn kept trying until, a few minutester, right as the warrior that was carrying her made a sudden turn to the right, she saw a pointy part of his armor, and struck it with her wrist.

    The light blow was enough to catch the attention of the monstrous warrior, who turned his lucid and beady eyes to the right to check whether Dawn had woken up.. However, after seeing no sign for several seconds, he turned to look back at the warrior he was following, and focused back on marching, unaware that the young woman he was carrying was dripping flesh blood onto the back of his legs, and into the sandy ground he walked on.

    Therge party of monstrous warriors kept marching for several long minutes, until they reached a part of the stone forest where the towering rocks were all interconnected with one another, and while not too tall, they were close enough to turn the path more and more simr to a cave system than a trail.

    Dawn spent all of this time trying to look unconscious, while also trying to keep the cut open enough to keep bleeding. She did so until finally, around half an hourter, the light that her eyes could perceive through her closed eyelids, went outpletely. When she opened them, she realized that they had entered a cave.

    Once inside the cave, the group of warriors suddenly stopped moving, and dropped Dawn and the others near one of the cave¡¯s walls, causing those who were still unconscious among her group, to wake up violently.

    "Wh-Ow! What is going on?" asked Lilith while rubbing the back of her head, where she felt a big and painful bump. She was followed by Rose, Saha, and finally, Cassie, who just like Dawn, had woken up a few minutes after being knocked out and was only pretending to be unconscious.

    After noticing that these monsters did not appear to be bothered by the fact that her friends were awake and talking, Dawn opened her eyes and looked around. She and the others were currently at the side of a rtively small and empty cave along with the party of monstrous warriors that had captured, who were standing in a straight line while looking down on them with indifference.

    At first Dawn thought that this was the ce where they would be killed, but as time passed, she realized that these warriors were waiting for something, or someone.

    Her guess was proven right when, from an entrance to this cave opposite to the one they had entered from, walked out a being simr to the warriors. This being was just as monstrous, but contrary to the others, he wore nothing but a tattered loincloth, a mouth piece made out of the jaw of a predator animal, and carried his scrawny build on what appeared to be a staff decorated with a human skull on top.

    The other monsters seemed to revere this sort of shaman, and stepped back the moment he had appeared.

    The shaman, on the other hand, did not care for their existence, as shown by how it walked in front of them as if they were not there to begin with.

    Once in between the monsters and Daniel¡¯spanions, this shaman lowered himself, and began to analyze the party¡¯s prize, finding great interest in them. He smelled them, touched their pale skin with the end of his staff, and looked at them with amazement, until finally.. He took a step back, and began to dance with joy. A few secondster he stopped, and walked back into the inner part of the cave while grunting some orders to the party of warriors, who immediately reacted by grabbing the legs and arms of the five girls, and dragging them into the darkness of the inner cave.

 Chapter 529 The Stuff That Nightmares Are Made Of

    About a mile and a half from the cave entrance, was Daniel.

    He had been following the traces left by the retreating group of monstrous warriors for several minutes now, and yet, he had only been able to cover about half a mile of the way. To cause this dy were the various animals he encountered, which, contrary to how they had reacted to the marching group of the monstrous warriors Daniel was following, saw him as a prey they would not hesitate to attack.

    Even more problematic, were the several patrols that Daniel had encountered while following the trail, which he had no choice but to avoid by leaving the trail to hide in the shade of the standing stones. At first Daniel had thought that these small parties were simply hunting for prey, so he would avoid confrontation by keeping to the shadows, and waiting for them to walk past him.. but as soon as these patrols would disappear behind the stones he had left behind, he would inevitably hear the familiar sounds of battle.

    The urgency Daniel was feeling prevented him from taking the time to check who or what these monsters could be fighting against.. But even if he wasn¡¯t sure, he could still make an educated guess. In his mind no one but the painted warrior would have the skills to keep up with him, and even fight against several groups of warriors without rest, and the reason why he had thought of him and not of another person, was because of what he had seen in the man¡¯s hideout.

    The remains that Daniel had found in the second tower were proof that the painted warrior hated these monstrous beings with a passion, and since arge group of them had taken the time to follow him all the way to his hideout, it was clear that the sentiment was mutual.

    Unfortunately, while Daniel would have liked to verify this theory either by checking the injuries of the members of the patrol, time was of the essence, so he kept following the trail which, after another half mile, turned from one of footprints, into one of blood. "It¡¯s still humid.." thought Daniel after pinching a lump of reddish sand. Then, after making sure that there were no bodies in his immediate surroundings, he hastened his pace.

    -----

    After around ten minutes spent dashing through standing rocks and underground tunnels, Daniel finally found himself in front of a cave entrance, which was guarded by no less than a dozen monstrous warriors.. All armed to the teeth and ready to storm anyone who would dare approach. Behind these guards was a small entrance, inside which the trail of blood left by one of hispanions continued into the darkness.

    Daniel was not too confident about challenging such arge number of warriors, so he began to wonder whether allowing himself to be captured earlier on by the party he had fought in the tower, would have been wiser. Unfortunately, theck of a leader made him doubt that, if he dide out of hiding, these guards would calmly take him in and not kill him on the spot.. so he chose a different approach. He climbed onto the connected rocks that covered the entrance of the cave, and while making sure not to project his shadow anywhere these monsters could see it, he tried to find a second entrance.

    While moving as quietly as possible, and staying low, Daniel kept looking for a hidden entrance, but with no sess. It was only when the sky began to darken, two hourster, that Daniel saw a red light shine through the crevice that separated tworge rocks. Through it, he could see shadows walk back and forth, and hear grunts alternated with the noises of chomping through flesh and bone in a barbaric manner. The smell that came from this crevice was one of death and decay, one which Daniel had gotten used to a long time ago.

    Seeing how this passage was sealed off with rtively small and pickable rocks, Daniel could guess that this was once a natural entrance connected with the rest of the underground tunnels, and that had now been blocked off. A path that hopefully, he could open once again.

    With a good enough entrance, Daniel began to pick these rocks, and ce them where they wouldn¡¯t roll down the side of the cave. One at a time, he lifted, moved, and put down, risking more than once to have the newly formed pile of rock fall from the side of the cave like the loudest avnche ever, but after a few minutes, he was able to create a passage big enough for him to go through.

    The smell that came from the other side of this hole was strong enough to make Daniel¡¯s eyes tear up, and made him reconsider trying his luck with the monsters left to guard the entrance.. But not for long. It was the very source of this smell that convinced him of the danger hispanions were currently in, so after mustering enough courage, Daniel focused on breathing through his mouth, and crawled through the entrance he had just created legs first,nding a few momentster into a dark room, and onto an irregr and equally soft and solid surface.

    The way the ground moved under his feet sent a shiver down Daniel¡¯s spine, making him wish that he could simply dash at full speed out of this room, and into the corridor from which the reddish light came from. But, s, keeping what he was stepping on outside his mind was something beyond his capabilities, as the moment he moved away from the hole he had crawled out of, what remained of the daylight shone through it, and illuminated the area around him.

    What appeared underneath him could only be described as a nightmare. Human bodies at different stages of decay melted together into a puddle of semi-liquid substances, which reached from one end of the room to the other, covering the ground almostpletely. Bones sticking out from ripped flesh, and poking out like dozens of little spears pointed at the ceiling.. With maggots festering on what hadn¡¯t been eaten.

    This sight, paired with the feeling of his feet slowly caving into what remained of the rib cage of a recently killed woman, made him want to puke.. It was only thanks to the effects of ¡¯Time is Precious¡¯ that Daniel was able to stop his senses of touch, smell, and even taste, from affecting his mortal mind, and allow him to take the necessary steps to find himself at the edge of this mound of corpses.

    Once on rtively clean yet solid ground, Daniel turned to look at the piles of corpses, and noticed a few odd details.

    On the little bit of skin left intact on the most recent of these corpses, Daniel could see stripes of white paint over a dark brown skin.. A clue that led him to believe that these people were connected to the white painted warrior, and that they were most likely the reason why he hated these monsters so much.

    What was even more odd, however, was the fact that some of these bodies were deformed, with teeth slightly longer than those of a normal human, arms burlier and longer than the other, and for those who still had them, beady eyes that resembled those of a fish.. Details that connected these corpses to the monsters he had seen, as much as they did to the painted warrior.

    Daniel¡¯s first guess was that the monsters had kidnapped these people like they had kidnapped hispanions, and forced them to undergo a transformation that would turn them into their own. However, what did not match with this theory, was the fact that some of those bodies appeared to have been there for several months, if not years, while others were only there for a few days.

    If these monsters were truly turning this world¡¯s inhabitants into their own until only a few days ago, why did the stone forest show decades of abandonment? Daniel couldn¡¯t help but feel that something was wrong, but the only way to find out what, was to move forward.

    When he turned towards the corridor that led outside of this hellish room and deeper into the cave, however, Daniel noticed a shadow appear on the illuminated stone wall, as well as heard the sound of steps moving in his direction. He instinctively moved to the side, and hid behind the wall by the right of the corridor.. His hand wrapped around the hilt of the sword, ready to strike whoever, or whatever came into the room.

    For a few moments he stood in silence, listening to the nearing heavy steps of one of the monsters, which instead of fully stepping into the room, remained at the end of the corridor, and after a few final crunching sounds, chucked what appeared like the half chewed head of a dark-skinned woman right onto the pile of corpses.

    Hopeful that he could maintain his presence secret, Daniel remained quiet, hoping to hear the monster leave from the way he hade from, but, s, luck was not his side. Therge silhouette of a muscr and tall man had appeared right behind the hole Daniel had created to enter the room, appearing in full view of whatever was standing in the corridor.

    The monster, clearly alerted by the shadow, moved further into the room to try and get a better look at it, but before it could realize what had happened, or even call for reinforcements, a de slid past his chin, through his pte, and ended into his brain, causing it topletely to fall on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

    When Daniel turned to look angrily at the silhouette, he realized that it was already gone. "Damn you.." he muttered, annoyed by the painted warrior¡¯s evasive behavior that had already put him in danger twice.

    Alone once again, Daniel dragged the corpse in a dark corner of the room, then walked into the corridor, which led him into abyrinth of tunnels and passages.

    After about ten minutes spent in hope to avoid monsters, Daniel came to the realization that the luck boost of his system was probably not working, as he had been spotted several times, only escaping thanks to his abilities in assassination and hiding.

    Thebyrinth was built in a circle, and despite which path Daniel took, every corridor either led him towards the exit of the cave, or deeper towards the core.. The further in he would go, the more monsters would appear, and the more danger he would be in, but he kept going regardless, fearless and motivated, until finally, the path he was following opened into a massive cave with a one mile-long diameter, a smooth and round ceiling, and an ind in the middle of their that emerged from avake.

    This ind was several hundred meters wide, and was connected to the circr stone tform by several bridges from which hung hundreds of corpses, and chains that held cages filled with living humans just above the surface of thevake.. enough for them to feel the oppressive heath, and slowly cook from the inside.

    The walls of the cave were covered in corpses, either crucified or hanged, and on the stone tforms from which one could ess the ind from the bridges, thousands of monsters formed circles in the middle of which, animals, humans, or even monsters themselves were ughtered, eaten alive, or tortured to death.

    Contrary to the chaos that ensued on the edges of the undergroundir, the top of the ind was very pacific.

    On it, thousands of people bowed, and prayed religiously to the giant dark red orb that floated right in the middle of the ind as if their lives depended on it. Not a single monster, except for the shaman, dared to step foot on the ind.. Showing that it was a sacred ground reserved for the prayers of the vast group of kidnapped humans, among which Daniel could see his fivepanions.

    Despite the astounding amount of chaos that ensued in this dwelling, Daniel¡¯s eyes had never moved away from the dark orb, towards which he felt a sense of familiarity that reminded him of his encounter with the other children of Iewah, as well as the aspects of existence. However, the feeling that this orb gave out was more innocent and pure, almost as it had never been touched by the world.. Or as if the entity was just being born.

 Chapter 530 A Struggle of the Mind

    Despitecking a consciousness, this dark-red orb gave Daniel the same terrifying feeling of pressure that any of the aspects of existence that he had met in the past gave him, but in its own unique way. Oppressive, nauseating, and disgusting to look at.. Daniel felt simrly to how he had felt when he was standing over the mountain of rotten corpses after infiltrating their, but for some reason, the feeling now was a thousand times worse.

    In the eyes of the inhabitants of this world, be it monsters or humans, this orb floated in mid-air, emanating an ufortable feeling that would make anyone feel as if they were trapped in their worst nightmare. Those who had known the world of cultivation, on the other hand, could feel the immense power that it contained. A power that this world¡¯s indigenous life would easily mistake as that of a god.

    Like a puddle of mud in the rain, the power contained in this orb slowly expanded, fueled by each of the atrocitiesmitted around it, and pulsating the sound of madness into the ears of these monstrous creatures in response.

    Daniel stood the entrance of this underground chamber, entranced by the orb, which tried to drill into his head the idea of letting go of any form of rationale, and eat, kill, torture anything and anyone. If still in possession of his powers, Daniel would have easily resisted this sort of spell, but that was not the case. Like any other mortal, he could only feel his anger, despair, and desires take over his consciousness, causing him to slowly slip into a frenzy.

    Nevertheless, before Daniel could act on these feelings, "ZUWENAAAAA!!" the foghorn-like voice of the painted warrior, who had followed him all the way from the entrance of the cave to their, shook him awake.

    With hazy eyes Daniel turned to look to his right, where hisrge and tall figure was standing, not as shocked by what was in front of him, but a hundred times more worried than he was feeling. "ZUWENA!!" he kept shouting in angst as he walked past Daniel, and into a small path that led in between the many crazed groups of monstrous warriors. His eyes kept moving past them, and towards the humans they were torturing, abusing, and devouring.

    "Damn it!" Daniel barked with worry before turning towards the closest one of the stone bridges that led to the inner ind. Had Daniel been conscious when the painted warrior arrived, he would have tried to stop him from running straight into the horde of crazed monsters, but it was toote now. The only thing he could do was to find hispanions and get them out of here. He would then think about what to do about the orb, which emanated enough power to destroy the entire.. A power that maybe, he could have found a way to use.

    With the attention of most of the nearby monsters directed at the distressed painted warriors, Daniel walked through the small huts, and groups of frenzied monsters.

    As he advanced, Daniel noticed multiple lines of naked monsters walk straight intorge huts, which were highlighted by the massive columns of smoke that came from the top, and from which they woulde out of a few minutester with their new armor wielded around their bodies. The smell of burned flesh emitted by theserge huts did nothing but add to the metallic smell of blood that engulfed therge cave, which was caused by the rivers of blood that flowed in between huts as conscious, and yet unresponsive dark-skinned humans were ripped apart and eaten alive.

    What contributed the most to the ufortableness that Daniel was feeling, however, was not the horrific scene, but the fact that none of the humans that were being tortured was making any sound. Leaving only the repetitive screaming of the white painted warrior to resound in the cavern.. Paired with the noises of crunching, cutting, and hammering.

    By the time he reached the bridge, Daniel had already caught the attention of the few monstrous warriors who had not joined the others in stalking the screaming warrior. Instead, they followed him in a daze, as if they had seen the next thing they needed to brutalize after finishing their first victim, until, the very moment Daniel set foot onto the stone bridge that led to the inner ind, theypletely lost interest in him and went back to what they were doing before.

    Confused, Daniel walked through the bridge while trying not to slip and fall into theva, above which numerous dark-skinned men and women were sizzling in silence, inside the iron bars that caged them. Once through, Daniel found himself at the edge of the inner ind, above which thousands of people were prostrating in ordered rows around the dark red orbs.

    It was only when Daniel entered the inner ind, that next to him, appeared a dozen of oddly calm monstrous warriors.. Each exhibiting conscious behavior, and armored with the same kind of weapon possessed by the leader of the party whom he had killed.

    These monsters stood menacingly, and looked at Daniel as if ready to charge.. but at the same time, their behavior showed how carefully they wanted to avoid disrupting the prostrating humans from keeping on praying to the orb. It was clear that this ce was sacred to them, and that it was their job to protect it, a detail which gave Daniel courage. He knew that these monsters would never allow him through, but also that they would avoid starting a battle on this sacred ind, so he unsheathed his two swords, and stepped closer to the edge of the small ind in order to avoid being nked.

    He then observed in silence as these warriors grunted at each other for several seconds in what looked like irritation, until finally, thergest of them, who was carrying a roughly made steel greatsword, stepped towards him by himself.

    With the intention of using hisrger build and bigger weapon to throw Daniel off the ind, therge warrior tightened his fists around the handle of therge greatsword, and with a powerful swing, he nted it a few centimeters away front of Daniel¡¯s feet, causing the rocky ground to crack under his weight.

    Unwilling to wait for the ground he was standing on to crumble, Daniel stepped over the unsharpened edge of the sword, and after a weak jump, he joined his swords together into a vertical sh. To his surprise, the warrior let go of the greatsword, and after moving the shield mounted in his left arm above his head, he reinforced it with the right one in order to block the blow.

    After the loud ng, Daniel fell back on the unstable ground, with therge monstrous warrior ready to grapple him with hisrge and muscr arms.. However, before his arms could wrap around him, Daniel lowered his upper body, leaned onto his left leg, and right after the monster¡¯s arm went past him, he sprung back on his feet, and used the momentum to send a low back kick against the back his opponent knee, robbing him of his bnce.

    This kick was not powerful enough to hurt the warrior in any way, but enough for thetter to step forward in order to avoid falling on his knees.. But before he could get back up on his feet, and get away from the cliff edge, Daniel pressed his right foot against his back and pushed him off, causing him to roar with anger before disappearing into the river ofva.

    After seeing one of theirpanions die, the remaining guards looked at one another for a few moments, then, they advanced together fearlessly. It became immediately clear to Daniel, who couldn¡¯t see the slightest hint of fear in their beady eyes, that they would eliminate the disturbance that stood in front of them even if that meant falling into theva with him.. But while threatening, their obsessive behavior gave Daniel an idea.

    Instead of retreating, or trying to slip away from their grasp, Daniel threw one of his swords past them, and towards therge group of praying humans. This action seemed to trigger a primordial sense of fear in the hearts of the warriors, who immediately forgot about Daniel¡¯s existence, and turned around in a hurry to check whether the sword had struck someone, or disturbed either the shamans or the orb.

    As the sword bounced against the rock in between two women with a few loud noises, right before the enraged warriors could turn back to deal with the intruder, the figure of Daniel dashed past two of them, and ran straight into the area which the guards were so careful not to disturb.

    Panicked by Daniel¡¯s actions, the warriors ran behind him, but as their massive bodies entered the area, they found themselves stumbling over the bowing humans, which seemed to cause an even deeper anger in theirpanions than Daniel¡¯s very intrusion.

    For the following few seconds Daniel stepped through therge crowd, observing as the warriors reached a deeper level of restlessness and anger, to a point where they seemed to have forgotten the reason why they were there, and instead, they were turning against one another.

    It did not take long for one of these monstrous warriors to be too offended by his peers¡¯ carelessness to care about Daniel, and to start attacking one of hispanions in a blind rage, giving Daniel the opportunity to walk around undisturbed. But, s, that did not put an end to the ufortable feeling that was spreading in his mind.

    As he walked through the thousands of kneeling people, Daniel noticed that some of them had begun to change. Their eyes had lost rity, their skin had started to turn lucid and greasy, and some even chewed on their own lips, as their teeth were bing too numerous and pointy to fit into their mouths. The most nauseating detail, however, was how the skin and flesh of even the most human of these people had scraped off their knees after what he believed to have been years of constant kneeling.

    What was even worse, was the fact that the oppressive feeling emanated by the orb was clouding his mind, causing him to feel as if he was the odd one amongst these thousands of people, and that everything would be better if he just got on his knees, and joined the others.

    Barely able to maintain his rationale by pping himself multiple times, Daniel kept unconsciously walking towards the core of the cave, where he saw the figure of the several shamans who stood around the orb, and swayed their arms in reverence. It was only after reaching these shamans, that Daniel noticed Dawn and the others, who were kneeling and praying like everybody else.

    Ignored by the entranced shamans, Daniel reached hispanions with a quick step, while also trying to ignore the voices that had suddenly appeared in his head. "Hey.. wake up.." He said gently after cing his hands onto Cassie¡¯s and Dawn¡¯s shoulders.. but there was no response. "We need to.. We have to get out of.. We have to pray and.. Pray, and pray, and pray.. No! We have to leave, and ughter and eat and PRAY!"

    At such a close proximity to the orb, Daniel¡¯s sanity was constantly chipped away by the voices and horrifying sounds that kept drilling into his consciousness, until close to nothing was left of it..

    Ready to fall into madness, Daniel used thest bit of sanity he had left to turn towards the orb, the sight of which robbed him of it, and caused him to body fall limp on his knees and onto a few sharp rocks, which ripped his pants and scraped his skin. It was only thanks to this pain that Daniel was able to momentarily regain focus, and produce the veryst thought before his mind wentpletely nk. That thought was aimed at activating one of the few effects left working in his system, and that, was ¡¯Time is Precious.¡¯

    After a few moments spent in apletely crazed state of mind, a wave of calming consciousness pushed back against the orb¡¯s brainwashing, allowing him to regain hisposure for a few seconds before the seemingly reactive orb increased the pressure onto his mind.

    The pressure kept increasing until it reached a point where even the system¡¯s effect could not maintain his consciousness.. So in a moment of desperation, Daniel rose back up to his feet, and while wielding the only sword he had left, he walked past the shamans, and towards the orb. He then raised his arm, and with all the power that his mental state allowed him to muster, shed downwards.

    Moments before the de reached its surface, the orb began to pulsate the sound of desperation into Daniel¡¯s mind at a faster rate, almost as if terrified of his attack.. But then, it all ended. The noise disappearedpletely, and the sword bounced against a protection that had formed around the orb.

    With a clear mind, and yet confused about what had happened, Daniel turned around, and behind him, standing behind his just as confusedpanions, and half-transformed humans, a tall man stood in silence while looking at him with eyes filled with curiosity, and lips curved into an insane smile.

 Chapter 531 When a Persons Destiny Is Born

    <h4>Chapter 531 When a Person¡°s Destiny Is Born</h4>

    In the position that Daniel was currently in, lost, powerless, and surrounded by death, seeing an aspect of existence should have been something positive. After all, while not human, the aspects of existence he had met in the past were being with whom one could reason, and ask favors to.. However, when Daniel¡¯s eyesnded on this crazy-looking man, his heart dropped, and he found himself unable to move a muscle. Even doing something as natural as breathing became extremely difficult, to a point where he even failed to notice as time came to aplete stop.

    This man, averagely built and with poor self-care, took a few steps towards Daniel. From behind his long and scruffy hair, one would be able to see his widely opened eyes, which were shining through the locks and pointed at Daniel. "Now, this is interesting!" He said.

    From the way this man looked at him, Daniel could not help but feel that to him, he was not as much of a person, as he was an oddity. Before he could say anything, however, the man came to a stop a couple of feet away from him, pointed his index finger at Daniel¡¯s forehead, and while tapping it a few times, he asked, "What. Are. You?"

    The tapping was not powerful enough to physically hurt Daniel, but each time the man¡¯s fingertip struck his skin, it was apanied by a tremendous wave of power that made his organs churn. At the third tap, Daniel could not hold it anymore, and with dizzy eyes, he fell on the ground and vomited the entire content of his stomach.

    "Disappointing. Odd, but still frail." said the crazy-looking man before lessening the pressure emitted by his presence. Then, as Daniel tried to regain hisposure, he said with a less excited tone, "Speak."

    Still shook by this entity¡¯s presence, Daniel took a few deep breaths and responded by saying, "*Cough*.. I don¡¯t understand the question. Are you not an Aspect of Existence? Can you not tell?"

    "An aspect of existence.." muttered the crazed man in a deep confusion. "Why did you call me that? But now that I think about it.." The more he considered Daniel¡¯s question, the more visibly excited this man appeared to be.. Almost as if he had spent an eternity wondering what kind of existence he was, and now he had finally found out. "Yes! Of course I am! Ahahaha.. An aspect of existence. Why did I never think about that? What else do you know? You are not one of my brethren, and yet I feel the power of my little brother in you. What are you exactly?"

    Daniel¡¯s state of mind was beyond simply confused. From what he knew, the aspects of existence were nigh omnipotent beings, capable of ending a universe with a single thought.. and this man felt like the most powerful one Daniel had ever encountered. There was no chance that his existence could have remained separated from that of the rest of his kin.. And yet, his surprise appeared genuine to Daniel.

    The questions came out of the entity¡¯s mouth with no pause, making him sound like a curious child who could not hold back when asking questions to their omniscient parents.. but in the midst of his incoherent rambling, Daniel was able to hold on to three words ¡¯my little brother¡¯.

    "Are you Fate?" Daniel asked with uncertainty.

    "Fate.. no, it doesn¡¯t feel right." responded the man as his brows furrowed in confusion, almost as if uncertain about which aspect of existence he represented. "Fate is boring. Why would anyone ever choose to believe that everything is already set, instead of navigating through infinite possibilities?"

    In Daniel¡¯s eyes, the man seemed quite passionate about this topic, but the string of incoherent questions and monologues was preventing him from understanding who this being was-It was only a few minutester, that the man came to a realization.

    "No I can¡¯t be Fate. My sister is more fit to that role.. Oh! Yes, yes yes! She is Fate without a doubt." He said with excitement right before going back to its previous pensive state, and resuming his monologue. "I am quite the opposite. I could be.. What do you think I am?"

    "You are.. Chaos." Said Daniel before instinctively taking a step back.

    After listening to his name, the man let out a chillingugh that resounded through the entire universe. "That I am!" He said before disappearing, and reappearing right next to the dark red orb, which he gently caressed a few times while saying, "And this is.. Or maybe I should say ¡¯will be¡¯ Horror.. Why did you try to hurt such an interesting little bringer of chaos?"

    At first Daniel did not know how to answer, but that changed as he turned to look at the horrific sight that surrounded him. "Can you me me? I barely escaped that psychopath¡¯s influence with my life." He said while pointing his finger at the red orb, which was trembling under the Chaos¡¯s touch as if aware of its insignificance whenpared to it.

    "I guess that is fair. What about my other question? Why do you have the power of my brethren in your body? I can feel the faint presence of the little rascal in you.. What do you call him?" Asked Chaos while slowly walking away from the dark red orb, and once again towards Daniel.

    "Conflict." responded Daniel, aware of what Chaos meant.

    "YES! That fits him perfectly! Ahahah!" Said Chaos before letting out a dryugh, and adding. "So, tell me, what are you exactly?"

    At this point, it had be quite obvious to Daniel in what kind of situation he was currently in, so he looked down in dismay, as if unable to think of a next step, and said, "My name is Dan, I am a champion of Destiny.. and I don¡¯t think I belong to this time."

    At the mention of time travel, Chaos¡¯s eyes lit up in an amazement. Even his kind did not have the ability to control time, and yet, despite being immortal, he had always wondered whether the future would be more interesting than the quite boring billions of years he had seen in the past. "I knew you were interesting. Tell me about this Destiny, and these champions.."

    -----

    For the following few minutes, Daniel exined to Chaos how, in his time, the aspects of existence had created an organized pantheon, and instead of simply witnessing what happened in the multiverse, they would actively seek to extend their influence by granting powers to what were called champions. At first, Chaos did not believe Daniel¡¯s story, as humans were not powerful enough to affect anything but a patch ofnd on their own respective, but he changed his mind as Daniel¡¯s mentioned the existence of mana.

    The more Chaos heard about mana, the more excited he became, to a point where he eagerly listened to every word of Daniel¡¯s exnation.

    "I get it, mana is like us.. We are the power that represents the abstract aspects of existence, while mana represents the physical ones." Said Chaos while walking back and forth.

    Daniel had never seen the nature of mana that way, but now that he had, he could not help but agree with Chaos. Nothing much was known of the birth of mana, but in the time he had lived, every element contained a particr type of essence.. Even living beings. If mana as a broad concept had developed a consciousness, there would truly be no difference between it, and any other aspect of existence.

    ".. and you used time and space toe here, right?" Asked Chaos.

    Daniel shook himself out of his pensive state. "It appears so. I am stuck here." He said in response.

    "That¡¯s wonderful! You can show me about this mana while you go back." Said Chaos before sitting on the bloody floor with his legs crossed, eager to see the wondrous word that Daniel had described to him.

    "I can¡¯t. There is no mana in this time.." said Daniel in response. He knew that, had there been mana in this era, he would have felt the difference in the nature of time essence, and would have immediately realized that he was not stuck somewhere unknown, but when.

    Chaos appeared to be slightly disappointed, but not for long, as he stood back up on his feet, and said, "That can be fixed." He then reached for his chest with his right hand, from which he pulled out a string of his power and released it into the space in front of him.

    The moment this microscopic part of Chaos¡¯ power left him, Daniel felt a surge of infinite power explode right in front of his eyes, granting color to what, ever since he had arrived, had felt like a dead greyish world. This primordial power attached itself to the stone, wind, water,va, and living beings of this, morphing into what felt like raw and poorly defined forms of essencepared to the one Daniel had known.

    The same was happening for the rest of the multiverse, as proven by the fact that the pulling force that was draining Daniel¡¯s power right out of his body and suddenly disappeared, allowing his essence to once again flow through his veins, and attach itself to the atoms of his body.. As Daniel observed this primordial form of mana take over the universe, something clicked in his mind. A form of mental limitation had been lifted, making him feel as if going over the limits of the godhood stage was nothing difficult.. But, s, that was not the end of it.

    While recovering his powers and gaining enlightenment should have made Daniel feel d, the primordial essence created by Chaos was not gentle as the mana he knew, and instead, it was constantly defining itself by invading the surrounding elements, prying into them even if it meant destroying them..

    A feeling of urgency took over Daniel¡¯s mind as the space began to copse, and the world under his feet cracked. His senses could reach every bit of this, and he could feel the core be agitated by the primordial fire essence, the trees grow big enough for their roots to split continents apart, oceans freeze and liquefy in a matter of moments.. And the same was happening in every other of this universe, which were doomed just because Chaos¡¯ experiment needed calibration. Worst than any other form of essence, was the primordial space essence, which was threatening to copse this entire universe and cause a destruction beyond anything Daniel could handle.

    When everything seemed to be lost, and Daniel started to wonder whether this was the end, the figure of a pale woman with white hair, and dressed with just as white clothes, appeared in front of Chaos. Her demeanor was gentle, and contrary to Chaos¡¯, and her figure appeared eternal and never changing. The calming power emanated from her body was easily able to stop the invasive power of the primordial and chaotic mana from destroying everything.

    "This was never meant to be.. Why did you do that?" she asked Chaos, who appeared to be annoyed by her presence.

    "It will make things more interesting.. Fate." he said in response, while noticing as the immense power he had released a few seconds ago turned gentler under the woman¡¯s influence, and more simr to the one Daniel had described in his story.

    After listening to Chaos¡¯ exnation, the very nature of the woman appeared to change, and her demeanor lost the warmness she had shown until a few moments ago, and obtained a feeling of deep coldness. A change that was weed by Chaos with enthusiasm.

    The woman did not object to Chaos¡¯ decision to create mana. Instead, she turned to look at Daniel with confusion. "I won¡¯t allow any more changes. Send him back." She said before disappearing.

    Almost excited by the woman¡¯s reaction, Chaos picked another fraction of his power from within his chest, and threw it at Daniel. He then said, "I¡¯ll only get away with this much interference. It¡¯s time for you to go back to your time." As he finished speaking, a nearly infinite, yet calm amount of power entered Daniel¡¯s body. Enough for him to replicate the surge of power that had broken the barrier of spacetime, and sent him back in time.

    Daniel turned to look back at Chaos with the intention of thanking him, but like Fate, he had already disappeared.

    With the on the verge of copsing, Daniel teleported hispanions next to him and prepared to leave.. but before doing so, the figure of the painted warrior appeared in the corner of his eye. He was kneeling on a pool of blood, surrounded by the bodies of the monstrous warriors he had killed while holding the mauled body of a woman, whom he looked at with a deep sadness. Around him were hundreds of monstrous warriors, frozen in time right before they could sink their swords, teeth, and nails into his body, and give him the death he appeared to have resigned to.

    Affected by the man¡¯s expression, Daniel pried into his memories, and in a second, he saw the entire history of this. How a virus had turned its inhabitants into bloodthirsty monsters.. Beings brutal enough to cause the birth of Horror himself. The painted warrior was thest survivor of a nearly extinct species of humans, who had refused to die by hanging on to the hope that, one day, he would find his daughter Zuwena, which had been taken away from him two year back.

    Unfortunately, while he had finally found her, he was toote.

    In the mind of this warrior Daniel could feel the willingness to die, but he could not bring himself to let him to his fate.. so he teleported him next to hispanions, and used all of the power granted by Chaos to once again breach the barrier of spacetime, and reach, in the infinite flow of time, a point where he could feel the presence of friends.

    This action resulted in the opening of a rift, which forcibly pulled all seven of them in, and closed right after.

    Once Daniel disappeared, time resumed its normal course, allowing the, and the rest of the multiverse, to get used to this newly acquired power.

    -----

    When nothing of the was left but a bunch of immense rocks that floated aimlessly through space, the figure of Fate and Chaos quietly reappeared.

    "It took awhile, but something that goes beyond your stale existence has finally happened. How does it feel, sister?" Asked Chaos to the pensive-looking Fate.

    "I don¡¯t like it." Said Fate in response.

    As she finished speaking, Fate lifted her right hand up to the side of her head and used her slender and pale fingers to pinch her right temple, from which she pulled out what looked like a normal seed. She observed this seed for a few moments before letting go of it, allowing it to float in space, andnd onto one of the floating rocks.

    Then, as she observed the seed bury itself underground, she asked, "How would that person define this one?"

    Chaos smiled once again, and answered, "That is Destiny."

 Chapter 532 No Time Like the Presen

    <h4>Chapter 532 No Time Like the Presen</h4>

    Compared to the feeling that a person would experience when opening a rift in space, a rift in time was much more extreme. Simrly to how one would slowly sink to the depths of the ocean when tied to a rock, time forced Daniel and the others into its eternal flow, dragging them through the billions of years that separated his present, from the past he had spent thest two weeks in.

    The difference between this portal and the one that had been forced open by the momentary copse of the inter-dimensional portal, was that this time, Daniel was in full control over the power that had created it.. And while the process was still as violent for him, at least now he was prepared for it, allowing him to maintain his consciousness, as well as protect the painted warrior, who as a mortal, shouldn¡¯t have been able to survive this violent process.

    The closer Daniel got to the present, the more he felt as if he was emerging from the depths of an abyss in which he had spent what felt like an eternity inplete darkness.. And was only now starting to see the light. The surroundings became warmer, and brighter, until finally, his head emerged and he was able to take a deep breath.

    When his eyes opened Daniel realized that he was standing on a foreign, on whose surface he had slowly descended as if he was a god visiting a world of mortals. As his feet touched the ground, and he observed his surroundings, Daniel saw a valley of mchite-colored soil and gravel, littered with clean bones, and rusty weapons. In front of him, was the figure of the painted warrior, who was still kneeling on the ground while holding the remains of his daughter¡¯s body, which Daniel had taken along. It almost seemed that, to the painted warrior, the change in scenery was nothing whenpared to his grief, and Daniel did not need to read his mind to know that that was likely true.

    Of Dawn and the others was no trace, but thankfully, when Daniel decided to use his group system to make sure that they were okay, and not lost in time, he was able to see Cassie¡¯s and Dawn¡¯s names amongst the tens of thousands of people that were part of his group. That meant that while they had ended up somewhere else, they had sessfully made it safely to the present, and were probably somewhere in the same system or gxy.

    With this massive weight lifted off his shoulders, Daniel was finally able to take a deep breath in relief. Being stuck in a mortal¡¯s body was bad enough, but it was nothing whenpared to the realization that he was stuck in the past, with no chance of ever being able to see his family and friends again. Now that he was back in his time, and he had the assurance that the people he cared about were safe and sound, he could not help but feel relieved.

    Now calmer, Daniel decided to let the painted warrior grieve in peace, and instead, he turned to look at his surroundings. It was at that point that he realized that the two of them were not alone.

    The valley he hadnded on was in the middle of two different biomes. An immense forest to the east and an endless ocean to the west, separated by tworge mountains ced in front and behind him, which were joined into a single mountain range that epassed the entire, splitting the entire into two. At the opposite edges of this mchite-colored valley were two massive armies, which had converged in this rtively small opening as if prepared to use it as a battlefield.

    The army on the forest side wasposed of pale and thin humanoid creatures with pointy and long ears, and big light-colored eyes. Each of them d in armor made out of amber, and armed with a sword that hung by their waist, a shield strapped to their back, and a longbow held in their left arm. Their battle formation was extremelypact, and ready to obscure the sun with an endless shower of arrows before engaging the survivors in meleebat.

    The army that had emerged from the sea was alsoposed of humanoid creatures, but instead of having pale skin, their bodies were covered in grayish lucid scales, with holes where their ears were supposed to be, and gills in between their vicles and the bottom of their necks. Their armor was entirely made out of the salvaged carapaces of dead sea animals paired by spears made out ofrge fishbones.

    While poorly equipped, their bodies were much more impressive than those of their counterparts, as each of them were tall, muscrly built, and had broad shoulders capable of sending those spears flying at incredible distance.. But the differences were not limited to their build and equipment. Their formation was not that of a traditional army, and instead, they stood like an horde, apanied by massive crustaceans that they used as mounts.

    Both armies were led by the two most impressive specimens of each race, who had already prepared to lead the charge into a battle that was dyed by the sudden appearance of a small, yet visible portal.. Which had formed above the ancestral battlefield, and spit two people right in front of them.

    In the surroundings, Daniel could feel the presence of the many kinds of mana, as well as the innate powers of these two humanoid races. Before letting himself be engrossed by the feeling of being surrounded by the powers of nature, or even think of extending his senses through the whole system in an attempt to find Cassie and the others, the leader of the eastern army shouted amand to his army-to which the warriors responded to by immediately tightening their formation, and pointing their bows at the sky in unison.

    The general of the western army reacted simrly to Daniel¡¯s presence, giving an unspecifiedmand to which his soldiers reacted by pointing their spears forward, preparing themselves to charge through the rain of arrows, and towards the eastern army. Both of these actions were a warning directed at Daniel, intimating him to move away, or be treated as part of the enemy army.. A threat which he ignored.

    Instead of bothering with the two armies, of which he could feel peculiar powers that were of no threat to him, Daniel approached the painted warrior. He then pointed his finger at one of the trees of the massive forest thaty behind the eastern army, and from the distance, he pulled it right out of the ground, and towards the middle of the battlefield.

    The tree floated in mid air for a few moments, before breaking into a set of perfectly cut boards that, momentster, took the shape of a coffin. One that Daniel could have made to easily fit the head and torso that were left of the man¡¯s daughter, but which he made big enough to contain her whole body, had there been one.

    Both armies looked at what Daniel did with shock. Neither of their respective races practiced cultivation, and their entire lives were spent in their element.. Reason why they were strangers to a level of cultivation high enough to allow them to control objects from thousands of meters in the distance.

    While spectacr to see, Daniel¡¯s actions were disyed when both armies were ready for battle, so when he began to show his spectacr abilities, the leaders of each army began to wonder whether Daniel was a secret weapon deployed by their enemies.

    Daniel kept ignoring the two armies.

    For some reason, despite the painted warrior not being a cultivator, he couldn¡¯t help but feel the deeply sorrowful aura that was emitted by the body of the painted warrior. A feeling simr to the one he had experienced when in thepany of spiritual cultivators, but that contrary to spiritual essence, felt more primordial and violent.. Almost as if the painted warrior had brought with him the primordial and chaotic form of essence that Chaos had gifted to the multiverse billions of years in the past, into the present.

    Unaware of this, Daniel recalled the funeral rite that was depicted in the memories of the painted warrior, and replicated it by creating a coffin which needed to be buried into the soil, and under a pile of rocks. Once he finished creating the coffin, he let it float beside the painted warrior, who kept looking at the mauled body of his daughter while wailing in sorrow.

    As the coffin thatnded in front of him was noticed by the painted warrior, he turned to his right, where Daniel had quietly appeared, and realized that this odd young man he had met a few days ago was now helping him bury his daughter.. Grateful, the painted warrior turned to look down at his daughter onest time before putting her into the casket.. Only to find her body whole again-An illusion that Daniel had created after seeing her original appearance into the warrior¡¯s memories.

    The warrior looked fondly at his daughter, who now looked asleep. If not for the fact that he was holding her, and he knew that her heart was not beating, he would have dly let himself be fooled by the illusion that she could have been saved.. But, s, despite how magical this all seemed, he knew better than that.

    Confused, and yet grateful towards Daniel, the warrior lifted his daughter¡¯s body, and gently ced her into the open coffin, which Daniel approached momentster.

    Before the painted warrior could close the casket, Daniel removed the ne which the father had made for his daughter from one of his most rare kills, and handed it over to him as a memento.. One which the warrior observed for a few moments before tying it around his wrist. He then closed the casket.

    As the casket was closed, a patch of clean dirt appeared next to the warrior, along with a bunch of rocks that needed to be used to mark the grave. Daniel observed in silence as the painted warrior moved the casket into the grave, and slowly set the pile of stones on top of it, as his people¡¯s traditions dictated.

    Once done, Daniel used his essence to lift the entire grave, which he shrunk through the use of spatial essence to the size of a finger, and stored into the memento that he had given the painted warrior. He then shared with the painted warrior the method on how to use his newly acquired powers to visit his daughter¡¯s grave whenever he wished to.

    It was only at the end of this long process, that the painted warrior was able to find some peace, releasing Daniel of the forceful feelings of empathy he had inadvertently found himself stuck into.

    Grateful for what Daniel had done, the painted warrior looked down at his daughter¡¯s pendant for a few moments before finally putting his mind at peace. When he looked up, the warrior turned to look at Daniel, and after speaking a few iprehensible words and mming his fist against his chest, the name Ashura Jabali appeared in the list of members of Daniel¡¯s group system.. An action that caused a sudden surge of chaotic power to travel through his body, and settle permanently into each atom.

    Before Daniel could realize that the painted warrior had sworn to repay his actions with his life and joined his group, a loud battle cry came from his right side, where he saw the army of pointy-eared soldiers advance as a whole towards them. This battle cry was followed by a second one, which propagated through the whole army of scaled warriors like thunder through water, causing them to throw caution to the wind, and charge through the mchite-colored valley as if uncaring of Daniel¡¯s existence.

    Daniel did not react to the two approaching armies. Instead, he slowed the surrounding time, and let out his sensing ability, which spread through the entire system. It only took a few seconds for him to finally understand what was happening.

    When his senses reached orbit, Daniel noticed the presence of a single cultivator, who appeared to be sitting around, waiting for the battle between the two races that inhabited the to begin. He also noticed the presence of two perfect essence treasures. A wooden one, buried in the deepest part of the ocean, and a water one, hidden in the fittest part of the forest.

    It was clear that the observing cultivator had caused the two civilizations to go to war against one another by stealing their respective treasures, but the reason why he had done that, escaped him. What he had learned from the number of remains scattered through the valley, as well as the soil of the valley itself, whose color was a mixture of the dark blue blood of the oceanic army, and the green blood that flowed into the veins of the pointy-eared kin, this process had been repeated many times in the past.

    Originally, Daniel wouldn¡¯t have bothered with this, and would have simply left with the painted warrior.. but in the body of the cultivator that was guarding the system, Daniel could feel the power of an aspect of existence which had tried to harm him billions of years in the past, which to him, were mere minutes.. The aspect of Horror.

    In a fit of pettiness, Daniel snapped his fingers, causing the two treasures to teleport from the edges of the world, directly next to him.. An action which caused the two armies to stop their charge, and kneel in reverence as soon as they noticed their sacred relics appear in front of them.

    "What are you doing?" Asked a voice that resounded through the entire, and that was apanied by the sudden appearance of a tall and muscr humanoid creature, which to the surprise of both Daniel and Ashura, appeared exactly like one of the monstrous warriors that had hunted the kin of the painted warriors to extinction. A race whose brutality had created Horror billions of years ago, and that after gaining sanity, had thrived as the first champions of Horror.

 Chapter 533 This Time We Figh

    <h4>Chapter 533 This Time We Figh</h4>

    "What are you doing?" Asked the monstrous cultivator, right before appearing a few meters away from Daniel.

    It only took a quick look for Daniel to realize that the only detail that this being and his ancestors had inmon, was their appearance. Among the many differences was the armor that he was wearing, which was not wielded and of a much better workmanship, as well as his behavior, whichcked the barely restrained brutality that Daniel had seen when fighting an entire group of them.

    At the same time, the power contained in this warrior¡¯s body was not primordial like Ashura¡¯s, but while calmer like that of any modern cultivator, the contact with mortals and weaker cultivators would send them into a spiral of anxiousness, akin to the one they would experience when stuck in their worst nightmares.

    The appearance of a member of the monstrous race was not as much of a surprise for Daniel, as it was for Ashura.. after all, it was only thanks to this race¡¯s brutality that the aspect of Horror had been born, making them the very first champions of Horror, and therefore, the most favored among his champions. It was not odd that, as a race, they had survived billions of years under Horror¡¯s influence and protection, and that at some point in time, thanks to their newly acquired innate power, they had managed to regain a human-like consciousness.

    "We are in Horror¡¯s domain." muttered Daniel in realization while ignoring the angered monstrous cultivator, whose presence exined what kind of world this was-A farm created and maintained by the champions of Horror for the sole purpose of increasing its influence through the consequences of war. The proof of this were the two warring races, who appeared to have a deep-seated hatred towards one another.. One that exined the presence of so many of their ancestors¡¯ remains in the mchite-colored valley.

    All these details fell in ce within Daniel¡¯s mind in just moments after seeing the monstrous cultivator. A thought that came and went with the same speed a crazed Ashura unsheathed both of his curved knives, and dashed towards the newly arrived cultivator in a fit of rage.

    The cultivation of the monstrous cultivator was onlyparable to that of someone at the high immortality stage, and yet, whenpared to the body of a mortal, the difference was the same as that between an ant, and a God. Nevertheless, Ashura rushed towards him in blind anger, as if he was facing the one that had devoured most of her daughter¡¯s body, killing her.

    The monstrous cultivator looked on with confusion. The movements of this dark-skinned warrior were those of a mortal, and while his innate power was odd and chaotic, it was almost imperceptible.. Showing that it had never been cultivated. In his eyes, Ashura was a little fish attacking the very ocean itself.

    As Ashura arrived next to him, the monstrous cultivator decided to rid himself of a nuisance, and waved his hand in hope to pulverize this madman before the smell of his body could evere close to reach the holes that were where his nose should have been, but then.. As his horrific power grazed Ashura¡¯s body, he immediately lost control over it.

    Ready to stop the monstrous cultivator from killing his newpanion, Daniel stopped the moment he felt the small surge of power contained in Ashura¡¯s body, which instantly dispelled the mark contained in the immortal essence of the monstrous warrior.. But that was not all. Instead of lingering in Ashura¡¯s body, the chaotic power attached to the immortal essence of the cultivator, seeping into his body.

    Almost as if melting ice back into water, the link that connected the power within his body and consciousness started to erode, causing his essence to turn into ownerless once, and be expelled from his body. "What?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" screamed the monstrous cultivator with panic, as the atoms of his body lost the essence that kept them packed together.

    As he stepped backwards, hoping to get away from Ashura, the monstrous warrior was only able to watch in horror as his flesh dried up, and the molecules of his now mortal body drifted away into the wind, carried by his disconnected immortal essence. Daniel tried to move closer to get a better look at what was happening, but before he could, his newpanion thrust his knife into the cultivator¡¯s chest, causing his ck blood to turn into a dark stain on the ground, and for his flesh and muscles to turn into dust.

    Confused by what had just happened, Ashura began to realize how different the ce he waspared to his world. A ce where people could appear from out of nowhere, where they could fly, materialize objects from out of nowhere, create things as they pleased.. Yet, the spiral of confusion that was starting to cloud his mind came to a halt the moment he felt a firm grip around his wrist. When he turned to his right, he saw Daniel, who had suddenly appeared next to him without making a sound.

    Curious about Ashura¡¯s devastating power, Daniel let a portion of it seep into his body, where it immediately tried to wreck havoc at a much slower speed than it had in the body of the unaware monstrous cultivator. Struggling to keep control over his essence Daniel felt waves of pain go through his body, causing him to feel shocked by how much damage a simple mortal could do to a cultivator at the godhood stage. Once he had a clear idea of the nature of Ashura¡¯s power, Daniel reinforced his essence, gaining back control of it faster than he lost it. He then pushed the chaotic essence out of his arm.

    Once done, Daniel threw the treasure of water essence and wood essence to the respective armies, and after lifting his newpanion off the ground with his essence, he created a peak thatpleted the mountain range that epassed the entire, separating the two rival armies permanently, and along with Ashura, he left.

    The feeling of being picked up by an invisible power and dragged into the sky had shocked Ashura greatly, causing him to shout in a panic one would only feel when falling to a certain death. He only started to calm down as his surroundings turned from a blur to a quiet darkness, and he found himself floating in space.

    "Remain calm. Nothing will happen to you." Daniel said in Ashura¡¯s nativenguage, which he had picked up from reading his memories in the few minutes the two had spent after going back to his present. He then closed his eyes.

    The familiar sight of a system window appeared in his mind, offering a quest to find the five young women he had lost while on his way back to the present, as well as multiple options to achieve that. Luckily, Daniel¡¯s power was beyond the reach of a simple sr system, and that was proven by how, in one of the suggestions, he was give the exact location of each of the five young women he was looking for, whom he could have reached as easily as teleporting to them-An option which he followed by simply opening five spatial portals, through which he dragged them in a matter of seconds.

    "Dan, what is going on?!" Asked Rose with confusion.

    Before Daniel could respond, Dawn chimed in by saying, "We were waiting for you at the bottom of that tower.. And then some monsters appeared out of nowhere! We tried to fight them but.." her voice trailed off the closer she came to say what she wanted to say.

    Daniel noticed this, and asked, "But what?"

    "We were too weak." said Lilith with clear embarrassment.

    Like the others, Lilith had been raised into apetitive domain, and never before, when forced to face against someone at an identical standard of power, had she ever felt as powerless as when she and the others had been ambushed by the monstrous warriors. In her mind, she couldn¡¯t help but relive the moment Dawn, Cassie, and Rose had been overpowered, and instead of helping, she had taken Saha, and tried to run into the stone forest. Embarrassment was thest thing she had felt before a bang on the head had sent her limp on the ground.

    Rose, who had always acted as a leader of sorts among her group, noticed Lilith¡¯s state of mind, and tried to change the topic by saying, "What happened? Why do we have our powers back? I thought you said there was mana in this universe.. And who is that?"

    "Yes, turns out we were not lost in a universe devoid of mana, but a time that preceded the birth of it.. And this is Ashura." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone, while purposely choosing to leave out the fact that those who had kidnapped them, had tried to turn them into the same monstrous warriors they had fought, as well as his encounter with Chaos and Fate. He knew that there wasn¡¯t a convenient way to exin to Dawn and the others that their little travel in time had likely birthed the creation of the world of cultivation, or at the very least, started a loop that had anticipated it.. That was not a conversation he was willing to have to begin with.

    "I didn¡¯t ask for his name, I meant.. Wait, what?!" Said Rose with a dumbfounded expression.

    "It appears that fiddling with the spacetime while in the vicinity of a portal, is not a good idea.. But now we have bigger problems. We are in Horror¡¯s domain, which if I recall correctly, you once mentioned was the direct superior of Sacrifice." Said Daniel with increasing urgency to her.

    Rose recalled how one time, back in the Half Moon sect, she had helped Cassie with memorizing the pantheon of the aspects of existence. Specifically, the one considered problematic. At the bottom of this category of aspects of existence, along with many others, were entities like Competition and Sacrifice, who represented specific portions of their direct superiors, Conflict and Horror. In turn, Conflict, Horror, and a few others, were all existences that were born from an aspect of pure Chaos.

    During his encounter with Chaos, the mention of a portion of power left by his "little brother" made Daniel¡¯s mind go directly towards Conflict, who had selected his bond, the demonic wolf cub, as his champion-a power whose residue Chaos was able to recognize in his body.

    "We probably only have a few days before the blood cultivators notice the legacy from the Trigate, and start hunting us here." Said Daniel before pointing his finger towards the he had just left, and that now only looked like a half green-half blue ball in space.

    "We can¡¯t outrun them here. We don¡¯t even know where the portal is, or if there is a void to hide in." Said Cassie with confusion while trying to calm down Saha, who was starting to panic over the possibility of having to go back into the possession of the blood cultivator who had controlled her like a puppet for days.

    As Ashura observed the conversation in foreignnguage with confusion while still trying to get used to floating through space, Dawn and the others attentively observed Daniel, whom they were hoping would already have a n to escape. However, this time, instead of pulling another trick out of his endless sleeve, Daniel said, "We are not escaping this time."

    As he finished speaking, several materials appeared from the distance, and the moment they came near the group, their shape and nature began to change in both shape andposition, until finally, a few minutester, they stopped. They then all assembled into a ship identical to the one Daniel had used as bait with the blood cultivators. Once fully built, Danielpleted the preparations by filling it with several formations that could maintain the control over each piece, without him having to pay attention to them.

    Formations to bend time and space, to cloak the ship into the surrounding darkness, to maintain the shape of each metallic panel, nail, andponent of the engine Virgil had engineered, everything was done in a matter of minutes.. after which, Daniel reached for his right shoulder with his left hand, and after making an incision about two inches deep into his flesh, he inserted his fingers into the wound, and pulled out three nail sized grey beads, or how they were known in his universe, grey matter.

    He stuffed two of these beads into his pocket, and sent thest one flying towards a small bead-shaped opening by the side of the engine, which closed immediately after. Once done, Daniel said through a smirk, "A few days is all I need.. This time we fight back."

 Chapter 534 The Faith of Destinys Spawn

    <h4>Chapter 534 The Faith of Destiny¡°s Spawn</h4>

    "I don¡¯t like this.." Lilith muttered while standing nervously next to Dawn, who had spent the past two hours looking ahead, and into the depths of space in hope to spot any possible approaching threat. In her hands were the controls of the ship, which, thanks to the spatial formation created by Daniel, and boosted with one of the beads of grey matter that he had hidden inside his chest, was allowing the ship to reach a speed that even the blood cultivators would have a difficult time catching up to.

    Daniel had prepared these three beads of grey matter in advance to be used in case he needed to run away from someone he could not escape with his own powers alone. The reason why he had hidden them in his body instead of his ring, on the other hand, was based on how space worked.

    Connected to a spatial container, pocket dimensions were simply portions of stabilized and immovable space present in shattered universes, and since the universes, even when shattered, were physical locations, once Daniel had left his own, he had lost the connection to his void, where the pocket dimensions of his spatial containers were located.

    In order to move objects from one universe to another, One had only two options. To physically carry the items he needed through the trigate, or by using the spatial concept of upation-an abstract concept that allowed the user to shrink space itself for it to be stored into objects.

    The drawback of this method was enormous, as creating containers through the concept of upation required extreme levels of mental power and focus, to a point where maintaining one for longer times was extremely difficult even for Daniel. His first ship, along with all of the bombs he had already used to escape the blood cultivators the first time, were virtually all of what Daniel had been able to take with him when leaving his universe.

    By physically moving objects through inter-dimensional portals, on the other hand, Daniel would have risked inspections that could have led to the discovery of his belonging to the champions of Destiny. The three orbs of grey matter were ast resort in case he would find himself on the run, and were small enough for him to hide them in his body.

    Unfortunately, with his reserves of bombs emptied out, and a severeck of time, using the grey matter was the only method he had left.. But luckily, he now had a n. Hoping that the grey matter wouldst long enough, he decided to reconstruct the ship he had lost, and left the controls in Dawn¡¯s hands, who said in response to Lilith¡¯s umpteenth discouraging outburst, "We have been out of options from the very beginning, stopining."

    "We could leave right now. You wouldn¡¯t even have to betray him, just set a steady course, and we can jump off. Trying our luck in this universe is better than waiting for the executioner¡¯s axe." Pleaded Lilith in hope to convince her friends Dawn and Cassie who, ever since having been to the past, appeared to show more loyalty towards Daniel than worry towards their situation.

    "You are a fool if you think you¡¯ll survive a minute in Horror¡¯s domain." Said Dawn while trying to focus on the sea of darkness she was pointing the ship¡¯s bow towards. She then added, "If you want to try your luck, then nobody is tying you to the ship."

    Unhappy about her friend¡¯s response, Dawn turned to look at Rose, who along with Saha was the only one who still seemed to make sense out of their group. However, instead of seeing the looks of worry that had struck her own face for thest few weeks, she saw uncertainty. "Do you have nothing to say?! It¡¯s still your fault that this is happening to us!!"

    There was no need for Lilith to remind Rose of who had caused them to be in this mess. After all, while she had been instructed to do so by the patriarch, Rose had never signed up to such a dangerous mission, nor had she agreed to risk the lives of the young women who she had befriended to keep her cover. Observing Daniel was supposed to be an easy job, and instead, had thrown her, and a group of innocent girls into a blender of deadly situations. If not for the feeling of guilt that had haunted her every day since leaving their universe, Lilith would have promptly reminded her of this.. usations which she felt she had no rights to argue against.

    Nevertheless, while guilty, Rose was still able to maintain her calm, and look at her situation from a clear point of view. The changes in both Dawn¡¯s and Cassie¡¯s behavior had appeared as odd to her as they had to Lilith, and with time, she had felt that her seniority within the sect had lost value the more she remained in the presence of Daniel. These changes in her group¡¯s mechanics did not bother her, but instead, made her curious.

    "Why do you have so much trust in his ability to keep us safe? Even if he had thousands of years to cultivate, he will never be able to fight back against an awakened champion." Rose said, aware of the difference between someone at the godhood stage like them, and someone that, just like the elders and the patriarch, had cultivated far and beyond that level.

    "You would have said the same about time travel, escaping the blood cultivators the first time, and surviving in that sted desert as mortals.. He is beyond logic." Said Dawn with a matter-of-fact tone.

    "It¡¯s not! this is different, because.." Retorted Rose before letting her voice trail off into silence.

    Cassie was the first one to notice Rose stop herself from talking, as well as the small twitches of her face that she once believed to be parts of her personality, butter learned to be signs of her lying. She asked, "What? What are you hiding now?" Her words were able to catch the attention of the rest of the group, who turned to look at Rose with brows narrowed in a suspicious confusion.

    Rose quietly cursed her inability to keep her mouth shut, but after noticing the faces of herpanions, she said, "I have once asked about the children of Iewah.. To the patriarch." As she saw that the others were carefully listening to her, she took a deep breath, and asked, "Do you know why the children of Iewah are killed?"

    "They are powerful, and have strange and powerful abilities that they use to live chaotic lives and wage war on one another.. That is what my grandfather said to me." Said Saha, breaking the vow of silence which she seemed to practice for most of the day.

    "That¡¯s only partially true." Said Rose in response. She then added, "Everything you said is true, but they aren¡¯t killed off for that reason. The truth is that they are immediately hunted down the moment they appear to prevent any force from taking control over them, and making use of their abilities.. And that¡¯s because they can¡¯t cultivate past the godhood stage."

    Confused yet interested, Dawn turned to look at Rose and asked, "What are you talking about?" The topic of the children of Iewah was a very rare one for someone that came from a simple noble family of Competition¡¯s domain.. after all, the ones who were born in their universe had been killed off so long ago, that their existence had been long forgotten, let alone taught in the sects or academies.

    "This is what the patriarch told us core students when mentioning the ascension to beyond godhood. It requires a portion of power of the aspect of existence we follow-That is why our society revolves aroundpetition. Because otherwise, our cultivation would stale at the godhood stage. A champion of Destiny is still a champion, but since they live following their own path, instead of a specific one represented by an aspect of existence.. They can¡¯t ascend." As she finished speaking, Rose became quiet, and allowed for what she had just exined to sink in.

    When she believed that Dawn¡¯s and Cassie¡¯s blind faith towards Daniel was being shaken, she added, "This is why they are killed. Not because they would be a threat, but because they would be taken, enved, and forced as a weapon by the various domains.. There was a time when the domains would keep them in secret, but all of them are extremely resilient. No domain has ever been able to keep one for more than a few years, after which they have always managed to escape.. No matter how many measures were taken."

    Once again, she took a small pause. From the faces of both Dawn and Cassie she could see genuine disappointment, and that was something that she couldn¡¯t believe, as Daniel had never done anything to deserve that level of faith.

    When Cassie¡¯s and Dawn¡¯s gazes were pointed at the floor, marked by their uncertain state of mind, Rose decided to give the decisive stroke by saying, "Is Daniel so different? How many ways does he have to escape without having to leave us behind?" She then grabbed Cassie¡¯s left hand, and asked, "I don¡¯t know what he gave you two to start believing that he can save you from anything, but that does not make him different from the others."

    Rose¡¯s words made too much sense for them to ignore, as everything she had said matched what they had experienced with Daniel. About his timely methods of escape, about his oddly convenient powers which were able to aid both him and them in any situation.. And his exploitable ability to grant powers to others. Everything matched perfectly, causing the seed of doubt to form in their minds, ready to bloom.

    Before that could happen, however, their trains of thoughts were interrupted by Lilith, who while looking at the space past the stern of the ship with narrowed eyes, said, "Those are some oddly lined up stars.."

    When Dawn turned to look up to and past Lilith, and noticed the lights she had mentioned, her eyes lit up with worry. She immediately ced both hands on the controls of the spatial formation, and said, "Those are not stars." As she finished speaking, the twenty or so bright lights began to move in their direction in unison.

    -----

    For the following three hours, Dawn tried to pilot the ship away from these approaching lights by pushing its engine to the fullest of its capabilities.. which became increasingly more difficult as, every few seconds, one of these lights would sh out with the intensity of a dying star, warning them to stop before ultimately dissipating in space.

    With time, these attacks became brighter and closer just like the lights from which they came from, which increased as others joined the pursuit from every direction after separating themselves from the distant slow moving stars.. On the ship Rose and the others looked on in horror, aware that it was toote to abandon the ship, and that if they got off of it now, they would be killed by one of the many attacks before even thinking of what to say to be spared.

    Dawn, on the other hand, was fully focused. She had been instructed for this moment, and despite having her conviction shaken by doubts, she knew that ignoring Daniel¡¯s instructions at this moment meant certain death.

    As time passed the shes of light kept increasing in size, and changing into a dark red color that despite being harder to see with the naked eye, emitted a feeling of death that could pierce through space, and reach all the way to the ship.

    "AAAHH! That one was too close!" Screamed Lilith as the ship was shaken by an attack that exploded right outside of the ship¡¯s spatial formation.

    "They are approaching us from the sides too.." Added Rose as she began to wonder whether there was something that, after being caught by the blood cultivators, she could offer to her captors to let her, or at least her friends, go unscathed. However, after thest one, the attacks stoppedpletely, showing that those who were pursuing them did not intend to kill them, but simply scare them into stopping.

    Dawn took a deep breath, and prepared to make use of all of the odd evasive measures that the ship¡¯s formation was equipped with, but before she could use any of them, right before the pursuers could reach and surround the ship, she felt a handnd on her shoulder in a calming manner. When she turned around she saw no one standing by her side, but with her hands, she felt the formation turn off, causing the ship¡¯s motion toe to a halt.

    With hurry, she turned to look at the stern of the ship, where she noticed the figure of Daniel floating in between the ship and the line of blood cultivators who had caught up after a mere fraction of an instant after the ship had stopped. However, for some reason, he felt different in her eyes. His body was not emitting any form of essence, nor did he seem human anymore.. And while the feeling his figure gave off was not much stronger from that of a cultivator that had just moved past the godhood stage, he gave off a feeling of absolute power that only those who had had the pleasure to meet an actual aspect of existence would have recognized.

 Chapter 535 Weight of an Active Conscience

    <h4>Chapter 535 Weight of an Active Conscience</h4>

    Rose and the others were not the only ones to feel the oddity of Daniel¡¯s presence, as shown by the twenty odd cultivators who, after catching up with the first one of this long trail of pursuers, had also found themselves looking at him with confusion. Three of the cultivators present were members of the Blood Sect, while the rest were members of Horror¡¯s domain, who after learning about the predicament of one of Sacrifice¡¯s strongest factions, had been ordered to help their allies in their effort to recover their legacy.

    In Daniel, these cultivators felt a power that resembled that of an aspect of existence. Absolute in form, but also of smaller magnitude, like a sharp kitchen knife that reminded others of a sword.. Both sharp, potentially deadly, and yet weaker. While less threatening, however, when the observing cultivatorspared the feeling emitted by Daniel¡¯s body with the immense powers they had developed through countless years of cultivation, but that only contained a trace of the aspects of existence they followed, they could not help but feel an extreme sense of inferiority.

    "Move a finger or look at the wrong direction, and we will kill you." Said a woman of stunning appearance, and dressed in a red attire that left her shoulders uncovered, but thatpensated with a flounce that extended past her feet for several meters of red fabric that was left to slowly wave around in space as she moved. "We have a method to take the legacy from you without killing you.. So unless you would prefer to keep escaping for the rest of your life, it is in your best interests that you follow me." She said, lying through her teeth.

    "Why waste time? Kill him, before he escapes again." Said a second female cultivator dressed in a red and ck cultivator attire, while trying to suppress a devious smile. "To personally deliver the legacy to our leader.. Along with your life. There is no bigger sacrifice." She then added. It was clear to the eyes of everyone present that the two blood cultivators, while allied and part of the same faction within the blood sect, were not on friendly terms. Both of them were aware that killing Daniel meant taking the burden of a legacy which they would be unable to inherit. Once that would happen, their lives would be doomed to end soon after.. Either by the hands of the other direct disciples of thete Murderous God, or the hands of the one they followed.

    The two female cultivators exchanged a few more words, filled with sharpebacks and veiled threats, but were soon stopped by one of the monstrous cultivators of Horror¡¯s domain. A scrawny humanoid being with grey skin tainted by ck blotches, who interrupted their bickering by saying, "We don¡¯t allow entry to members of other domains anymore. You should be worried about how he got into Lord Horror¡¯s domain, and whether he can leave it just as easily."

    As if spoken to by someone worthy of respect, the two female cultivators immediately stopped arguing. As followers of Sacrifice, they could not contest the dominance of Horror.. After all, when the cruelty of their ways was turned into the influence that gave strength to the aspects of existence, much of it went to Horror himself, as sacrifice was what reaping lives meant to the blood cultivators, while horror was what appeared in the hearts of their victims.

    Seeing how these two women were hesitating in taking the legacy from Daniel, and were instead hoping to find a better oue for themselves, a third blood cultivator,pletely covered in a dark red robe, stepped forward, and with a crisp and heroic tone, he said, "If you two won¡¯t do it, I will." He then removed his hood, uncovering the face of a malformed man."

    The two women let out a breath of relief. They knew that this particr member of their faction, due to his malformations, had always found ways to show his gratitude and devotion towards his faction. If there was someone willing to sacrifice his millions of years of cultivation for the greater good of the blood sect, that person was him.

    "Nothing would make the lord happier.." Said the first woman.

    "Your courage shames us, brother." Added the second one, steeling the resolution of herpanion, who straightened his hunched back as much as he could, and approached Daniel.

    Before he could attack, however, Daniel¡¯s lips curved into a smile. "The legacy.. Yes." He said before closing his eyes.

    Believing that Daniel had decided to surrender, the malformed cultivator moved closer, while staring at the legacy with soaring pride and joy. He knew that while he would never be able to cultivate it, recovering it for the entire blood sect was an immeasurable contribution. The future leaders of the sect would sing his praise for eons, recounting how he had been the one to make the ultimate sacrifice, so that their sect could remain a feared power all across the multiverse.

    As the malformed cultivator came to arm¡¯s reach, however, the clear and brilliant Legacy that could be perceived from the other side of the multiverse, and had pointed to Daniel¡¯s position for years now, lost its luster. At the same time, its shape started to gradually disappear like an old tattoo, and kept on disappearing until finally, in a matter of moments, it vanishedpletely.

    When Daniel opened his eyes, revealing two irises as brilliant as lighthouses and more golden than gold itself, the observing blood cultivator felt their hearts drop. On his forehead there was no visible trace of the legacy anymore, nor could they perceive its brilliance and power.

    "W-What.." muttered the female cultivator in the red dress before instantly appearing next to Daniel, and mindless grabbing his head. She touched his forehead as if trying to find a secretpartment, unbothered by viting Daniel¡¯s personal space. Her mind mudded by thoughts that left her wondering.. if the Legacy was truly gone, that meant that her indecisiveness had caused the destruction of her sect, and if that was the case, she could not even fathom the degree of suffering she would have to endure before being granted the most painful of deaths.

    While the malformed cultivator, stripped of the chance to be a beloved hero of his faction, stood to watch in disbelief.. the second female cultivator joined the first one, and with a broken voice, she asked, "D-Did you f.. Find it?" After noticing that the first female cultivator was too shaken to bother with her, however, she turned to Daniel, grabbed his arm, and with her fingertip, she made a small cut in which she injected a bit of her blood essence.

    The blood essence washed through Daniel¡¯s body, mixing with his own blood, and analyzing it to the smallest molecule.. A thorough search that came out with the most dire of results.

    "What is going on?" Asked the monstrous cultivator who, not being able to perceive the legacy to begin with, had only noticed that something was wrong due to the odd behavior of the three blood cultivators.

    "It¡¯s not.. Here.. it is not here.." muttered the first female cultivator before grabbing Daniel¡¯s throat and squeezing just enough for his neck not to break. An action that seemed to be unable to bother Daniel, on whose face was the usual smile which he had maintained throughout the entire encounter, as if unaffected by the behavior of the two blood cultivators, or the danger he was in.

    Daniel¡¯s confidence was a direct hit to the morale of the blood cultivators, who would have loved to kill him right there and then, but couldn¡¯t, since they did not know whether they would be able to recover the legacy if they killed him now, or if Daniel had somehow hidden it. "We¡¯ll take him back to our universe.. Kill the others." Said the second female cultivator to herpanion, in whose face she saw a deep anger that she would rather see her satisfy with Daniel¡¯s friends, then with him.

    However, things were about to change.

    As soon as she finished speaking, the female cultivator felt a lump in her throat.. A feeling that a cultivator of her level should not have experienced, and that left her confused. Nevertheless, she tried to clear it with a few dry coughs but the feeling did not disappear. Instead, it started to grow, and spread through her skin, muscles, and blood. The more this feeling spread into her body, the more it turned from a feeling of uneasiness, and after that, to one of doom. When she realized that something was wrong, a few secondster, her body was crippled by an immense pressure.. Simr to drowning, being squeezed to death, being cut into a billion pieces, turn into an ice statue, and burn alive and all at the same time, but a thousand times worse.

    As panic blossomed in her heart, she turned to look at herpanions, whom she was hoping would support her, but from their panicked faces and erratic behavior, she could guess that they were experiencing the same horror she was.. With some of them experiencing something even worse.

    *Cough* "What.." muttered Lilith who, along with the others was still hiding inside the ship, and feeling an odd sense of uneasiness go through her body. "What is this?" she asked as a sharp headache made its appearance in her head. The others seemed to also be affected by this feeling, but less so, as they cleared their throat in hope for this mild feeling to pass.

    The only ones who were unaffected were Dawn, Cassie, and Ashura, who were experiencing a refreshing and calming feeling that invaded their minds, allowing them to enter a state of enlightenment that helped them make rity over several of the issues that had impeded their progress. including concepts of certain essences that had turned into obstacles, or the mostplex sections of their martial arts.

    Outside of the ship, Daniel observed as the pressure increased within the bodies of his pursuers, to a point where it had be an unbearable torture. If interrogating them had been Daniel¡¯s purpose, they would have revealed the weak spots of their own mothers, were they given a chance.. But that was not the case.

    As the hand of the first female cultivator left Daniel¡¯s throat, he quickly grabbed it, and moved it close to his chest, preventing her from floating away in space. He then pointed his bright golden eyes at her, and asked, "Is it heavy?"

    The woman, terrified by Daniel¡¯s cold and indifferent expression, tried to grab his shirt while looking at him with imploring eyes. She desperately wanted him to stop whatever he was doing to her. Now close to losing her mind, her lips moved in an attempt to beg for mercy, but before she could speak, Daniel added, "I am not doing anything.. Stop fighting it. This is the weight of your own actions. This is your karma."

    Despite being already unbearable, the pressure kept increasing exponentially.. Until finally, unable to bear it anymore, the bodies of the affected cultivators cracked under its might, turning to a dust that disappeared in the darkness of space immediately after.. leaving Daniel to float alone.

    Once thest of these cultivators perished, the pure golden glow emitted by Daniel¡¯s eyes began to dissipate and the peculiar feeling of an aspect of existence retreated back into his body, turning him back into a normal cultivator who had just ascended into the true champion stage.

    Daniel spent the following few minutes in silence, while contemting the nature of his newly acquired abilities, among which was the one he had just used-an evolved form of Karmic Retribution called ¡¯Active Conscience¡¯, which at the cost of every single point of karma he had, would turn the karma of every person in the proximity, into a power that could benefit them, or destroy them. The more karma was used to activate this power, the higher was the chance of this ability being truly beneficial to those with a positive karma, or truly deadly.

    Before Daniel could fully realize that he had just spent trillions of karmic points, a voice pulled him out of this train of thoughts. "What happened? Did we escape somehow?" Asked Rose after leaving the ship, and approaching Daniel along with Cassie and the others, who shared a simr level of confusion.

    The only one who was showing more amazement than confusion was Dawn, who, by being in control of the ship¡¯s spatial formation, was sure that they hadn¡¯t moved. "D-Did you.. Kill them all?" she asked.

    "No, one of them.. He chose not to fight me, and instead used all of the power in his body to send a message outside." Said Daniel with a calm tone before looking at the spot in which, a few seconds earlier, the malformed blood cultivator was floating proudly. He then added, "Truly worthy of a champion of Sacrifice."

    Daniel could feel the confusion deepen in the minds of hispanions, but before they could overwhelm him with questions, he floated towards the ship while saying, "They won¡¯t find us for a while.. But we need to prepare for when I won¡¯t be able to hide the legacy any longer.. Let¡¯s go." As he finished speaking, he closed his eyes, and formed a quest that pointed him towards the biggest, and closest source of karmic points.

 Chapter 536 In Search of a Meaning

    <h4>Chapter 536 In Search of a Meaning</h4>

    Doom Pce, Horror¡¯s Domain.

    Within the deepest and darkest corner of the universe, was the Doom Pce. An immense castle built entirely of ck stone, and hidden by the massive fragments of a long copsed. Known as the birthce of the aspect of Horror himself, the Doom Pce was the first and most important stronghold of the entire domain, and the ce where the leading champions of Horror resided.

    While usually scattered around the universe these leaders were now reunited under special circumstances, and along with one of the disciples of the Murderous God, and his direct descendant, they were all quietly waiting within the throne room of the Doom Pce for the Overlord to make his appearance.

    The very walls, floor, and pirs of this castle emitted an ufortable feeling-A heavy breath which crept from the back of one¡¯s neck, and reached all the way around and into their ears.. A nightmarish feeling that reminded them that despite their power, they were still prey in a world of predators. The despair and anguish that these blood cultivators felt was reflected in their expressions, which were directed at the hooded figures that were standing quietly around them in hope to discern their intent. Their minds filled by a thousand guesses, all regarding the reason for this summoning.

    The disciple of the Murderous God, an emaciated old woman with short white hair and dry skin, had arrived in Horror¡¯s domain along with her descendant only minutes earlier, right after receiving the news that the people to whom she had given the task of recovering the blood legacy, and whom she had entrusted to the Monstrous n, had suddenly died. She had epted the invitation of the Monstrous n in hope to find what had happened to her people, but more importantly, what had happened to the blood legacy, whose beacon had suddenly disappeared.

    From what she knew, Daniel was a champion of Destiny at the godhood stage, the highest level of cultivation achievable by his kind. For such a weak cultivator to be able to defeat three of her followers should have been impossible, let alone the whole party. It was much more likely that they had perished by the hands of the Monstrous n, and that was why she had epted the invitation.. Not to demand justice, but to apologize for any action that might have caused her followers¡¯ deaths..

    When she arrived at the Doom Pce, however, she found that things were not that simple as she had thought. Instead of being weed by one of the leaders of the Monstrous n, she had been asked to wait for the arrival of the Overlord of Horror¡¯s Domain himself, an entity that even herte master, the Murderous God himself, would have treated with the respect that a peer was due.

    After a few excruciating minutes, a screeching sound resounded within the vast hall, apanying the appearance of a portal made entirely out of a gloomy and terrifying essence which contained a good amount of Horror¡¯s very own terrifying power. At the sight of this portal, the old blood cultivator and her grandson struggled not to shriek in fear, and managed to maintain their calm just long enough for the figure of a monstrous entity to crawl out of it and onto the throne, over which it sat casually as soon as the portal closed.

    Had Daniel or hispanions been here, they would have immediately recognized this monster, as while their encounter had happened an eternity ago for the Overlord, only a few days had gone by for them. With the same greasy skin, beady and lucid eyes, and a thin and crooked build whenpared to that of his n members, this monstrous cultivator had a perfect resemnce with the shaman that Daniel had the others had encountered when stuck eons in the past.

    As the shaman, now known formerly as the Overlord of Horror¡¯s domain, sat on the throne, the blood cultivator nervously said, "S-Sir.. I don¡¯t know what my foolish disciples did to deserve what happened to them, but allow me to apo-"

    "Did I ask for an apology?" Said a cold voice that came from within the Overlord¡¯s unmoving rows of pointy teeth, along with an oppressive wave of horrendous power that attached itself onto the mind of the old woman, eroding it like water thrown onto a sand castle. Barely able to maintain her sanity, the blood cultivator closed her mouth shut, and patiently waited for the purpose of this assembly to be made known.

    Once everyone was quiet, a second monstrous cultivator stepped out of line, and after removing his ck hood, and uncovering his disgusting and scarred appearance, he said to the disciple of the blood sect, "Three days ago, a party blood cultivators requested our help in recovering your sect¡¯s legacy. We have locked the universe, as requested, and allowed seventeen of our best soldiers to join the pursuit of the thieving traitor. We have lost contact with them.."

    The disciple of the Murderous God could not believe what she had heard. After the death of her disciples had been reported by their individual blood vitality beacons, she had believed that they had died by the hands of the monstrous n, but ording to the words of this monstrous cultivator, that did not seem to be the case. In her mind she formed several questions aimed at helping her understand, but before he could ask any of them, the monstrous warrior added, ".. Until a few hours ago."

    "A message from a member of your sect arrived, iming the impossible." Said the monstrous cultivator while revealing a hint of anger. He then took a step towards the blood cultivator, and added, "He imed that the CHAMPION OF DESTINY that they were following, has broken through the true champion stage. Care to exin yourself?"

    It was only days ago that the disciple of the Murderous God had made sure to remind his people to hide this particr detail. If aware that Daniel was a champion of Destiny, there was no knowing whether the Monstrous n would have bothered to help them recover their legacy, or if they would have killed him right away. Instead, she had given the order to im that Daniel was nothing but a peculiar blood cultivator that had killed the Murderous God while on visit to a newly opened universe, where his power had been drastically limited to that of a high immortal.

    The nostrils of the blood cultivator red in anger. She knew exactly which one of her disciples would have been so devoted as to send an incriminating report back, however, while she wanted to curse the name of the malformed blood cultivator out loud, she kept her calm, and said, "I chose not to share that detail, because we were not sure. All we knew was that he had disappeared from Competition¡¯s domain a few days ago along with the legacy.. Him being a champion of Destiny was only a rumor until now."

    As she reached this point, the disciple of the Murderous God decided to take a risk, and said with a righteous tone, "But that changes nothing. Without our blood legacy, the domain of lord Sacrifice will eventually fall apart. I am sure that Lord Horror will not be happy with losing such a vast source of influence."

    "We will still help.." said the clear and powerful voice of the Overlord as he quietly reappeared next to the blood cultivator. Then, before thetter could react or even realize what was about to happen, he engulfed her with the obnoxious and horrifying power of his n, which immediately erased her consciousness, and caused her to fall limp on the ground, still alive. As the skin of the blood cultivator started to turn pale and her eyes lucid as a sign of her transformation, the Overlord added, ".. but we won¡¯t help you." As he finished speaking, he once again disappeared, and reappeared on his throne.

    "Overlord, what do we do with the other?" Asked one of the hooded figures while slowly turning towards the old woman¡¯s grandson.

    The eyes of the overlord shifted to the surviving guest, but right as he was about to give the order to kill him and begin the hunt for Daniel, the head of the blood cultivator twisted to the side, and he began to stare at an empty point in space.. Where the others could see a ck stone in front of him, the blood cultivator could see a blinding light, eager to be reached and retrieved by anyone who had cultivated the path of blood.

    Aware of what the look in the eyes of the blood cultivator meant, the Overlord said, "Take him with you.. Give him a chance to recover their legacy, but if he fails he dies, and his sect with him."

    -----

    In a dark patch of the endless universe, observing the dashing silhouette of a spaceship, was the figure of an inhumanly tall man with long ck hair suspended in mid air, and eyes that contained a darkness wider than space itself. Around this humanoid being was nothing, and any rock, or piece of ice that approached him, was instantly consumed by the power that was emanated by his body.

    "It¡¯s him.. After all this time.. I haven¡¯t forgotten." Said this entity as the corners of his mouth moved downwards, and his upper lip rose into a faint snarl. "I could take him out right now.." he added, fighting against the instincts of taking the entire universe into his hands, and copsing it, putting an end to its history with just the flick of one of his fingers.

    His eagerness to act on his instincts, however, dissipated the moment another voice reached him. "But you won¡¯t.. You know the rules." The voice said, resounding clearly in the ears of the first entity, and forcing him to regain itsposure.

    When the first entity turned around, he saw the figure of Conflict, who was floating next to him as if he had always been there. "He is not human anymore, older brother.. And I owe him." Said therger figure as the surrounding thousands of miles of space turned into pure horrendous essence.. A power that only the aspect of Horror himself could disy.

    While still in its infancy state, the aspect of Horror had a clear recollection of the day of its birth.. Be it the brutal behavior of the race that had created him and which he had saved from their¡¯s copse, being saved by Chaos during their first andst encounter, the origin of mana.. And more than anything else, he remembered Daniel. The human who had almost killed him, and against whom he had sworn to take revenge upon.

    What had stopped him from killing Daniel at any point since the moment he had been conceived, was one of the rules created by Fate and Chaos. A rule that stated that, as aspects of existence, they were the consequence of a nature created by the objects and creatures who were part of it, and therefore, their existence was dependent on them.

    As an entity dependent on the horrific behavior of the worst kinds of creatures, the aspect of Horror belonged to this category, and as such, he was forbidden to harm any sentient living being. With this limitation, the omnipresent Horror could only observe as Daniel grew to the cultivator who would one day travel to the moment of his birth, and by threatening to kill him

    had be part of the loop that had changed the course of history.

    "He still feels human, to me." Responded Conflict before emitting a faintyer of power that instantly dispelled the oppressive and horrifying essence.

    With a clearer mind, Horror turned his massive body towards Conflict, and while pointing his squinted ck eyes towards him, he asked, "Why are you protecting him?"

    "Why? You are still too young.." Said Conflict with a tone that resembled that of a grandfather, disappointed by the ignorance of his descendant. He then added as his eyes narrowed, and his lips curved into an enthusiastic smile, "Neither a being of order or chaos.. His very existence goes against everything we are.. Maybe he can give us a meaning.."

    "A meaning?" Asked Horror, "A meaning to what?"

    "The our existence."

 Chapter 537 Changes Within

    <h4>Chapter 537 Changes Within</h4>

    Back on the ship, Daniel quietly sat on the cold floor of a small training room, with his legs crossed and hands resting heavily on his knees. Fully rxed, and with eyes closed, he was letting his consciousness be carried by his essence through his body, inspecting it for changes that, due to the urgency of the situation, he did not have the time to observe or understand before.

    To a cultivator of his level, every small difference within his body would appear as clear as a ck smudge on a pristine painting.. but what Daniel saw as soon as he started paying attention, was the entire canvas dipped in ink.. Drastically different from anything he had ever felt, or seen before.

    While simr in shape and prowess to before, Daniel¡¯s current essence was hiding a form of power which he could feel had the potential to destroy universes and obliterate immovable obstacles, but that was dormant within the depths of his spirit, mind, and body. Only awakened by an infinitesimal part of its potential, this power had changed his body to both his eyes, and the eyes of anyone who had ever met a true aspect of existence.

    The first time Daniel had somewhat felt this change happen to his body, was when Chaos had created mana.

    He had observed as the Chaos¡¯ primordial power sprouted from every rock and drop of water, and blossomed as flowers of absorbable energy in front of his eyes.. An event that very few people had had the honor to witness with the full knowledge of what was going on, and that had changed forever not only the universe, but him as well.

    Aftering back to the present, and assimting this change, Daniel had finally understood.. Not only what kind of entities Iewah¡¯s children had the potential to be, but also why their powers were shaped by the nature of their hosts. Even more importantly, he had learned what was stopping them from advancing past the limits of the godhood stage, with no hope of breaking out of it.

    This reality was simple. It was not a matter of paths of cultivation, or systems being above others.. It was all a matter of understanding what destiny truly was, as they were all born from Destiny.

    By witnessing the birth of mana, Daniel had seen the beginning of a new era. An era where luck, chances and opportunities allowed people to change their destiny, and where talent and passion could were fate¡¯s natural enemies.

    From the beginning of his cultivation journey, Daniel had fought against Fate by using his instruments of free will to carve a new destiny for himself, and the people he cared about.. But it was only after witnessing to the moment where the theory of destiny became real, when Destiny was truly born, that he finally understood.

    As a champion of Destiny, he could not embrace another aspect of existence, and enter the realm of championship, but that was because he was an aspect himself-A seed of what existed beyond humanity, born within the infinite flow of time, and present in the entirety of space.

    Everyone of Iewah¡¯s children was the same. Taken from the infinite tapestry of fate, given free will, and allowed to break free as a true aspect of existence. That was the nature of Destiny¡¯s champions.

    The dormant power Daniel could feel in his body identified him as the aspect of Karma.. Weak due to the minuscule influence he possessed, unusable, and yet present. Nothing of what he tried did anything to rekindle this power, except for when he had first broken through to the stage beyond godhood.. A moment in which the power had red through his body and out, eager to be created, before inevitably going back to sleep.

    Luckily, this power was in no way a limitation to Daniel¡¯s cultivation, as shown by how, when his ship¡¯s formation attracted one massive wave after another massive wave of natural essence from the surrounding space, and moved it directly into Daniel¡¯s body, he could feel no limitation that would stop his cultivation¡¯s progress in either the short run, or the long one.

    -----

    Three monthster.

    With this increased variety of opportunities, Daniel spent his time hiding from the natives of Horror¡¯s domain, the Monstrous n, while also chipping away at the faction¡¯s forces by hunting its biggest karmic debtors with the restored functions of karmic system, and starting a one-sided war of attrition against the very aspect of Horror, and its domain.

    He did this while constantly making sure that the legacy of the blood faction would remain hidden within his dormant power, which, while still unusable, was perfect for masking the presence of the aspect of Sacrifice. A remnant of the Murderous God that had been ingrained into the blood legacy, and that was the reason why the legacy could be perceived through the limitations of the multiverse by other blood cultivators.

    After just a month of this abuse, champions of Horror that did not belong to this universe started to appear, showing that Daniel¡¯s threat was starting to be taken seriously, and that he was not only this universe¡¯s problem.. But, s, that changed nothing. Daniel¡¯s evasive means were at the level of a child of Iewah, and his power was growing beyond any domain believed to be possible. At the end of the third month, the damage done by Daniel to Horror¡¯s influence in the universe was thest of its inhabitant¡¯s worries.

    Destiny¡¯s spawn were killed on sight for a reason, and now, one that could cultivate beyond the godhood stage had appeared in their universe. None of their attempts at hunting him down had worked, and now, within the Doom Pce, the winds had changed.

    The confidence of a quick resolution had disappeared from the monstrous faces of Overlord and his followers, reced by the anxiousness caused by having a ticking bomb in their own house.. But of this, Daniel was not aware. What was bothering him at the moment, as he looked at the empty space beyond the spatial formation that was moving his ship, was not knowing how his family was doing.. Or whether they missed him. Only sporadically distracted by the chatter that came from behind him, or the screams that could be hearding from within the depths of the ship, where Ashura was trying to cultivate his extremely primordial and chaotic power.

    "What are you looking at?" asked Rose after slowly appearing next to Daniel¡¯s lone figure.

    Having noticed her long before she could get closed to him, Daniel did not turn to look back at her, and simply said, "Home."

    "Is that where home is? None of us is from this universe." She said, confused by Daniel¡¯s answer.

    Daniel shrugged gently, and said with a matter-of-fact tone, "I am not looking with my eyes."

    Slightly embarrassed by his response, Rose cleared her throat, and said, "Has.. something changed since we havee back to the present? You seem.. Different." In her eyes Daniel appeared more solemn than before, but after talking to him, she had realized that this change was likely not due to a change in his personality, but something that had to do with Daniel¡¯s mystical nature as a champion of Destiny.

    Daniel did not respond, and instead, while still looking at the depths of space, he said, "Where is home for you?" he then added before Rose could have a chance to respond, "The others, they always ask me when they¡¯ll be able to get home, and I get it. They want to be safe again.. And I can¡¯t say Ashura and I are much of apany." As he reached this point he turned to look at Rose, and while leaning on his right elbow against the metallic railing, he said, "But you haven¡¯t.. ever."

    "A cage is safe, but a cage nheless." Said Rose without having to think too much about it.

    As soon as Rose finished speaking, Daniel burst outughing as if he had just heard the most cliched sentence ever conceived. Augh that did not embarrass Rose, as much as bring a smile on her face, since she knew he was not mocking her. "Well, whoever made your cage is a shitty cksmith." he said before once again turning to look at the emptiness of space. Then, after a few long seconds of silence, he added, "Maybe breaking out of your cage, means that you are really starting to live."

    Rose knew what Daniel¡¯s meant, but somehow, she felt that those words were not only valid for her, but for Daniel as well, and for every other being she had ever met, seen, or heard of. An idea that left a bitter taste in her mouth, as if she had just realized that everyone had their own cage, and that the only truly free person she had ever encountered seemed to be the man that was casually looking at nothing, just a couple feet away from her.

    "Are you alright? Are you still.. Dan?" She asked, now more than ever convinced that something had changed.

    Daniel was not expecting this question, but as he thought about it, he found himself unable to give a clear answer. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders, and said, "I don¡¯t know.. I hope I am." This answer was able to turn some of the odd feelings Rose was experiencing at the sight of this new Daniel, into a sort of worry.. Yet, before she could push on the subject, the light which Daniel was staring on until now suddenly expanded, and in the blink of an eye, they found themselves within a new sr system, with a rtively small green star at its core, and half a dozens orbiting around it.

    From the moment of their arrival to the system, it only took a few more seconds for Daniel¡¯s ship to reach what appeared to be the only inhabitable world-A with a dusty and grey atmosphere, rednds and green oceans. Once there, it took even less for him to find the warrior that had created the horrific scenario that, for the past millions of years, had constantly generated horror and desperation from the sufferings of the¡¯s inhabitants.

    Aware of Daniel¡¯s arrival, this monstrous cultivator could do nothing to avoid his destiny.. Which was to be mercilessly obliterated by an indifferent Daniel who, immediately after killing him, quietly muttered to himself "Next.." before closing his eyes, and reading the update instructions given by his system.

    -----

    Meanwhile, in the Doom Pce.

    *BANG* *CRACK* The noise of the Overlord¡¯s fist mming on his throne resounded within the entire main hall, alerting the cultivators that were present even before he could bark out in anger. "ANOTHER ONE!"

    Standing quietly in front of him were the hooded elders of the monstrous n, as well as the blood cultivator who, after being spared his grandmother¡¯s fate, had been used as a livingpass whenever the Blood Legacy would reappear.

    The number of the elders was slightly smaller than what it was before, and that was because of what had happened only a couple of months before, when five of the elders had managed to reach Daniel before the legacy could once again disappear.. But instead ofing back with good news, of these ancient monstrous cultivators, nothing was heard of ever again. Only the blood cultivator had been spared from that incident, and forced to go back to lead more and more people to Daniel whenever he felt ready to face them.

    "Lord, this is getting out of hand. Losing farms is not a problem, but if he can kill us whenever he wants.. We only have two choices.." Said the oldest of the elders before taking a few steps towards the throne. He then added with confidence, "We either retreat.. And leave this universe to him.. Or.."

    "Or what?!" Said the Overlord with irritation. He himself had taken part in half a dozen failed hunts, but for some reason, he had never been able to catch up to Daniel before he hid his traces.

    "We call for an Exalted Assembly, and make him a problem of the multiverse." Said the elder, causing a number of gasps to precede a deafening silence that took over the entire hall.

 Chapter 538 Exalted Assembly

    <h4>Chapter 538 Exalted Assembly</h4>

    "An Exalted Assembly.. HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?!?!" The Overlord yelled out in a fit of rage, sending a shock wave of horrific power in every direction, and causing the entire Doom Pce to tremble and for the lone blood cultivator who was standing by the side, to fall on his knees in panic.

    He then looked at the elders with narrowed eyes, and said with a threatening tone, "I don¡¯t want any more ideas on how to worsen our situation. Am I being clear?!" As he finished speaking, he let his body slouch over the throne and his head drop onto his hand, on which he rested for the following few minutes as he tried to think of a way to get rid of Daniel-A small problem that, like a cancerous cell, had the potential to grow disproportionately.

    -----

    For entities as powerful as the leading champions of the existing domains, the limitations of a universe were not much different than a wall was for a sect, or a martial arts school. A division that defined the confines of a faction¡¯s territory, and that symbolized the reach of their influence.

    Unfortunately, while the scale of the multiverse was something that granted every domain more space than they would ever need in their nearly infinite lives, conflicts were still bound to happen. Most of these conflicts were between lower domains that belong to the same main branch, like the domains of Sacrifice and Competition, which were low ranking domains that were respectively subjected to the bigger, yet not equal, domains of Horror and Conflict.

    More rare were the conflicts which included domains that belonged to powers known as ¡¯primal domains¡¯. A category of domains that served the highest ranking aspects of existence which had existed since the beginning of time. Entities like the aspects of Fate, Chaos, Conflict, Change, Cause \u0026 Effect, and more.

    In case of a conflict that affected several small domains, two primal domains, or an event of simr magnitude, in an attempt to prevent an avoidable and mutually destructive war, the impartial upper domains would try to smooth things over by calling an Exalted Assembly. A council to which the members of each domain were invited.

    While perfect to make the multiverse aware of Daniel¡¯s existence, the Exalted Assembly was not an event that was easy to organize, as it had severe and costly regtions. The most notorious one was the rule that dictated that, in order to avoid wasting the time of the other domains, the possession of five thousand active universes was required as a deposit.. A deposit that, in case the matter to be discussed was not worthy of an Exalted Assembly, the participants would have the right to share among themselves.

    This rule had been created to ensure that only domains of a certain level could call an Exalted Assembly, and that there would be a good reason for it. This rule was also the reason why the Overlord of Horror¡¯s domain had responded so negatively to this suggestion. He knew that the primary universe of Horror¡¯s domain was slowly losing influence because of Daniel, but he also knew that elevating him to a multiversal-level threat was basically like giving away a huge portion of their domain, as he had seen domains being forced to pay for calling an Exalted Assembly, despite having a much more valid reason.

    However, while theck of contacts from the aspect of Horror had made the Overlord too impatient to consider this decision thoroughly, the calmer elders of the Monstrous n had already thought things through.

    "Lord, I am unable to guarantee that we will capture the intruder." Said a second elder after taking a few steps towards the throne-A monstrous being that possessed a much burlier and muscr build than the first elder, as well as anybody else in the hall. He was the elder that handled security in the entire domain, the chief of the legions of the Monstrous n, and the one that had been put in charge of capturing Daniel.

    Hoping to have sessfully caught the attention of the Overlord, the second elder pointed his greasy finger at the blood cultivator that was standing quietly to the side of the hall, and added, "The only information we have gathered regarding the intruder, is that he doesn¡¯t shy away from a fight. He immediately eliminates anyone we send whenever the blood legacy reappears, leaving only the mouse of the blood sect alive as an invitation to send more people. We do not even know how he managed to infiltrate into our universe."

    As he finished speaking, the second elder looked at his peers, hoping to trigger a few supporting utterances from them, but aside from a few nods, he found no support.

    The only one who chose to support him was the first elder, who joined him closer to the throne, and said, "The threat of a champion of Destiny that is able to move freely between universes, has to be worth summoning the Exalted Assembly for.. Recovering that ability must have been the reason why the Murderous God left his universe, and was killed as a result. He probably tried to take over his body, and was killed while his powers were sealed."

    At no point during the speech of the two elders did the Overlord look up at them.. After all, he had already thought of what the two had said many times before, unable to see what they were proposing as a valid solution. However, that changed at the mention of the Murderous God, which prompted him to look up with interest.

    Mentioning Daniel did not need to be the main reason for the Exalted Assembly, as that matter was something that could be simply mentioned casually while in the presence of the leaders of the other domains. Instead, demanding to know who had killed the Murderous God under the pretext of wanting to recover the blood legacy for the blood faction, which was part of a domain allied to theirs, was a much more usible excuse, as stealing one of the legacies of another domain was, historically, the mostmon casus belli.

    As he looked at the blood cultivator that trembled by the side of the main hall of the doom pce, the Overlord considered whether it was worth it to throw their allies to the wolves just so that they could get rid of an annoying tick, but as he imagined the consequences of the other domains learning that Horror¡¯s domain was crumbling from within, he steeled his mind.

    He slowly turned to look at the first elder, and said, "The leader of one of our branch domains.. the Murderous God has been killed, and his legacy was stolen. Horror¡¯s domain, as well as all of our affiliates, are honor-bound to get to the bottom of this. We will call an Exalted Assembly."

    As the Overlord stated his intentions, the blood cultivator became as rigid as a statue. He knew that spreading the news about the death of his sect¡¯s leader was just like leaving a tiger cub in a dragon den, and it meant that Horror¡¯s domain had given up on helping them. Yet, before he could even think of how to beg for the Overlord to change his mind, a pool of grey and bubbly liquid appeared underneath his feet, and began to seep into the pores of his skin.

    This liquid washed through the body of the blood cultivator in mere fractions of an instant, pushing the blood and blood essence out of every orifice of his body. When nothing but ck goo was left leaking from his eyes, nostrils and mouth, the cultivator fell lifeless on the floor.

    -----

    As this happened, on the other side of the universe, Daniel was continuing his campaign against Horror¡¯s domain.

    Like he had done for most of the past two months, he was following a n that allowed him to find the that the Monstrous n used to farm influence for the aspect of horror.s devoured by catastrophes, shroud in never ending nightmares, or where the inhabitants were forced to live in a constant state of anguish and fear.

    Thanks to how organized this universe was, it had be a simple feat for Daniel to simply kill off the few monstrous cultivators responsible for this torment, harvest the billions of karmic points in their possession, and move on to the next right away.. Leaving him to spend most of their time on the ship, either cultivating, or training inpanions in martial arts, or essenceprehension.

    For a member of Daniel¡¯s group, two months were enough to earn a significant advantagepared to those who weren¡¯t. An advantage that had allowed thepetitive Dawn and the light-hearted Cassie to reach a level of prowess far beyond that of Rose, who had always been the mostpetent fighter among the group.

    The most noteworthy of Daniel¡¯s currentpanions, however, was Ashura.

    Being an experienced fighter already, Ashura¡¯s main necessity had been to find a suitable path of cultivation.. A feat made impossible by the peculiarity of his innate essence.

    Historically, it was only after several millennia from the creation of mana, that the chaotic natural essence that had suddenly appeared inside every living being, had started to settle, allowing the ancient humans of that time to be able to interact with it, and to create the first paths to cultivate it.

    Unfortunately, while the time in which humans possessed a chaotic essence such as his had disappeared from recorded history, Ashura was alive and breathing.. Still able to use his chaotic power to undo the intricates created by the essence of a modern cultivator, and make their bodies fall apart like a sand castle.. A power that many would find extremely fearsome, but that was also extremely difficult and dangerous to handle.

    The first time Daniel had helped Ashura in his cultivation, he had driven a small portion of his power into his own body in an attempt to force it into submission.. He had hoped that by suppressing it, he would have been able to turn it into a softer form of essence that Ashura could have used to temper his body without killing himself.. However he soon realized how careless he had been. Ashura¡¯s power possessed a speck of Chaos¡¯s existence, which had responded to Daniel¡¯s power by exploding into a chaotic wave of power that had destroyed his physical body.. A reaction that made him conscious of the dangers, and convinced him to rely on his system to find a safer way in which Ashura could cultivate.

    -----

    In a rtively small training room below deck, Daniel was now standing behind the sitting figure of Ashura. His hands were resting onto thetter¡¯s shoulders, allowing his chaotic essence to enter Daniel¡¯s body from his left arm, and after being restricted in quantity by Daniel¡¯s power instead of behavior, went back into Ashura¡¯s body, making its use more manageable.

    Unfortunately, even in small amounts, this power was too strong to be used by a mortal.. reason why Daniel had been left with no choice but to constantly heal Ashura in order to prevent the chaotic power from destroying his body before it could go through any degree of reinforcement..

    Hours of this treatment, paired with the devastating power of Ashura??s chaotic essence dampened by Daniel¡¯s healing, had allowed the strength of his body to soar, pushing him out of the earlier stages of martial cultivation, straight into the immortal phase, after which Daniel stopped.

    "This is enough for now.." he said in Ashura¡¯snguage.

    Ashura turned to look at him in a reassuring manner, as if meaning to tell Daniel that he could take more than that. Before he could, however, Daniel added, "I know you can go on, but you need to get used to your power first. We will continueter." He said before making his way out of the room, and towards the ship¡¯s deck. He had felt the blood legacy emerge from within his body, a sign that he was once again visible to the blood cultivators, and that another party of monstrous beings and blood cultivators was on their way there.

    He slowly flew away from the ship, and floated right at the edge of the formation in preparation, ready to jump off the moment he would feel someone approaching.. Something that would usually take a couple of minutes since the surfacing of the legacy.. Yet, after more than ten minutes, Daniel started to realize that something was amiss, as no one hade for him.

    Two more uneventful hours passed, and after that, a whole day.. And yet, no one came.

    Left with nothing but questions in his mind and a sudden feeling of worry, Daniel closed his eyes, and asked his system for a safe way to escape the universe, as well as the most secure option.

    While the first window that appeared in his mind was exactly what he had expected, the option that appeared in the second window turned his fears into reality..

    ____________________________

    Direct approach

    Difficulty: Easy

    -Reach the unsecured inter-dimensional portal.

    -Leave.

    Time Limit: None

    Reward: 50 karmic points.

    ____________________________

 Chapter 539 In Plain Sigh

    <h4>Chapter 539 In in Sigh</h4>

    While he hadplete faith in the Karmic system, after being told by it to simply reach the inter-dimensional portal and leave, as if there would be no opposition, or even a simple obstacle that he needed to avoid or go through, Daniel could not help it but feel perplexed. Luckily, this feeling did notst long, as Daniel¡¯s enhanced thought process only required connecting a few dots in order to match his previous guesses to what was likely going on.

    He had harassed Horror¡¯s domain for quite a while now, and he had already guessed that, sooner orter, the Monstrous n would either have to focus all of their attention on him, possibly calling for allies from other universes and domains.. or would simply let him leave. From what it looked like, after almost twenty failed attempts at capturing him, the Monstrous n had finally opted for the second option.

    Unfortunately, every one of Daniel¡¯s previous attempts at creating a way out of this universe by using his system, had failed to present a good opportunity.. Or at least, not one that did not require him to reach a level of cultivation that made him unstoppable. Now, however, that had changed. The system had found a simple way for him to escape. One where he would not have to fear the millions of true champions of Horror that were eager to put their hands on him.

    While for anyone with little to no awareness this could have been a good news, Daniel was not stupid. He knew that Horror¡¯s domain would not simply forgive his constant harassment, or allow his existence to go unnoticed in the multiverse. If they were letting him go, it was only to see him jump from the frying pan, into the fire..

    His identity as an evolved champion of Destiny was sure to spread far and wide, possibly in the whole multiverse, and that meant that he would be enemy number one wherever he would go.. A possibility that, to Daniel¡¯s own surprise, he neither feared, nor hated.

    As a slight smile formed on his lips, he remembered. The feeling that would creep down one¡¯s spine and under their skin when faced with uneven odds. The focus that only a hare that had been spotted by the hunting dogs would understand. The thrill he had felt when hiding his existence as the first dual cultivator of his world from everyone around him.. An odd form of excitement that coursed through his veins, making him look forward to his future adventures.

    Surprised by his own emotions, Daniel threw these feelings out of his mind with a quick shake of his head. He then took over the spatial formation of the ship, and effortlessly made it turn around, and head towards a direction almost opposite to the one they were heading towards only moments earlier.

    "What is going on? Why has the ship suddenly turned around?" Asked Rose with a calm tone only a couple of secondster. A calmness that was betrayed by how she fixed her hair, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.. Two actions that she had the habit to perform whenever she was nervous.

    Behind her were Lilith and Saha, who along with Rose, were the only ones among Daniel¡¯s currentpanions to not fully trust in Daniel¡¯s abilities. Ack that caused them to fail to join his group. For the past months, the three of them had felt abandoned by their other two friends, Dawn and Cassie, who had be part of Daniel¡¯s group and whom, by supporting him in every decision, had distanced themselves from the others. This feeling of abandonment had caused them to be each other¡¯s support.. A circle in which their suspicions would find enough support to at least be kept alive.

    After months, Daniel¡¯s direct and unchanging actions had be a routine for the group. Heading towards a system, eliminate the monstrous cultivator, passing out from the sudden pressure that would appear whenever a group of monstrous cultivators would appear in the distance, and waking up safe an unspecified amount of timeter. That was the norm, as opposed to the sudden change of course.

    "We are leaving." Said Daniel before taking a small coin from within his pocket, and tossing it on the deck¡¯s surface. When the coinnded on its rough side, made of bronze just like its rim, it suddenly flipped around, revealing a smooth ck surface that covered the other side.

    Mere moments after flipping around, the ck surface of the coin lit up brightly, projecting arge upside down cone of light in mid air. Inside this cone, formed an illusory tridimensional map of the universe-One that Daniel had obtained from one of the worlds he had freed from Horror¡¯s champions.

    "What do you mean ¡¯leaving¡¯? They kept sending people at us for months.. What changed?" Asked Lilith with a doubtful tone.

    While looking at their position in the map, which was marked with a nearly invisible speck of white light, and the inter-dimensional portal, which was instead marked with a brighter blue orb, Daniel muttered, "It would appear that hunting us has be more costly than it is worth to Horror¡¯s domain. We are free to leave from the inter-dimensional portal.. They will not stand in our way."

    Daniel¡¯s words were received with no small degree of doubt by Rose and the others. How could Daniel possibly know the intentions of Horror¡¯s domain, when he had never left the ship?

    To create these doubts was the extremely limited knowledge that the three of them possessed regarding the powers of a champion of Destiny. The existence of an omniscient system that could urately predict the future was beyond anything most cultivators could imagine.. Let alone a few disciples of a low level sect who had hardly ever left its grounds. Nevertheless, while they still did not trust Daniel¡¯s motives, the three of them had still seen him perform enough miracles to know that he was not simply lying.

    "Does that.. Does that mean that we can g-go back home?" Asked Saha emotionally in one of her rare utterances.

    Saha¡¯s wordsnded on Lilith¡¯s ears like the first rainfall of autumn on dried up soil. "We can go home!?" She asked as a faint mist formed in front of her eyes. She then looked at herpanion for confirmation, but when her eyesnded on Rose¡¯s face, the enthusiasm she was feelingpletely disappeared. "What is it?" She asked her more seriouspanion.

    Trained by her family and teacher to look at the broad picture, instead of what was right ahead, Rose had immediately realized the same thing that had upied Daniel¡¯s thoughts for the past few minutes. "Too costly for them.. alone.." she muttered in response to Daniel¡¯s words.

    As Lilith and Saha came to understand what Rose¡¯s words meant, Daniel finally turned away from the map and towards Rose. Then, while pointing his finger initially towards her and towards Saha right after, he said, "You and her have connections to the leaders of your sect, so you must know about the multiverse¡¯s politics. If you were in the Overlord¡¯s position, how would you turn us into a problem of the entire multiverse."

    "It¡¯s not possible.. Destiny¡¯s champions are a responsibility of their domain of origin. If the others knew that Horror¡¯s domain was having trouble with.. One of your kind.. They wouldy an embargo on them, isting Horror¡¯s domain until they manage to get rid of you." Said Rose with a matter-of-fact tone. As a core disciple, she had been raised to be an elder, and among the specific teachings required to prepare her for the job, was the notions regarding how to deal with the possibility of such a sneaky existence appearing in her territory.

    "That makes no sense.. Why would they let us out, then?" asked Daniel while pensively scratching his chin.

    Rose shrugged in response. While she believed Daniel¡¯s words, she could not find a way how Horror¡¯s domain would be able to get rid of Daniel, without having to face the anger of the rest of the multiverse.

    To clear both her and Daniel¡¯s confusion, was Saha, who stopped nervously biting her lips just to say, "They might have summoned an assembly.." As she finished speaking, both Daniel and Rose turned to look at her, causing her to flinch. After noticing their desire for her to borate, Saha turned to look at Rose, and said, "You might not know this, because that is something even my grandpa knows little about.. But there is a sort of event that the domains use to organize and act together towards amon goal.. An Exalted Assembly."

    "What is that?" Asked Rose with a confusion that could barely hide the bitterness she was feeling due to her ignorance on the matter.

    "From what my grandpa told me.. It is a counsel of-" After a quick exnation, Saha joined her hands together, and remained quiet, waiting for both Rose and Daniel to digest the information.

    Rose was the first one to speak up. "If what you say is true, then Horror¡¯s domain is throwing away a massive portion of their universes just to denounce Daniel. Why would they do that?" She asked with no small degree of skepticism.

    While it was clear to her that Saha had a guess ready, before she could say anything, Daniel muttered through a faint smile, "They will leak the death of the Murderous God.. They are throwing away their allies, just to make me themon enemy. Ahahah!"

    "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?! Do you understand what that means? There won¡¯t be a corner in the multiverse where you¡¯ll be safe!" Said Rose with a matter-of-fact tone which had also relied on the shock she had felt from Daniel¡¯s sudden outburst. "You can only stay here, and hide in this universe."

    "Who said I am going to hide?" Said Daniel as his smile widened. "On my, they say the best hiding ce is in in sight.. Don¡¯t you think that, as the first ¡¯champion of Karma¡¯ I should participate in this.. Exalted Assembly?" As he finished speaking, Daniel injected a portion of his power into the outdated spatial formation, upgrading it to the new level of cultivation he had reached. He then redirected all the power to increase the ship¡¯s speed, causing it to elerate to a point where the visible stars turned into even thinner strings of light, only to be left behind immediately after.

    -----

    During the following few days, hundreds of invitations marked with Horror¡¯s stamp and distinctive power, made their way through the primal universes of the most domains, warning their leaders of the Exalted council that would take ce a month after the arrival of the invitation.

    Some domains threw these invitations away in indignation, while others received it with appreciation, prideful of being part of the domains that were considered worthy of such an honor.. Yet no matter which reaction to this invitation a domain had.. None would ever dare to refuse to participate. Not because they feared Horror¡¯s domain, but because an Exalted Assembly was more than just an event in which to share information and coordinate multiversal-level cooperative efforts, but also to spy, form alliances, and if at fault, gain universes from the domain that had organized it.

    The only domains that had ignored these invitations right away, were the primal domains, which did not exist as powers that possessed a vast territory made out of several universes. Instead, since the influence of the aspects of existence that the inhabitants of a primal domain championed was omnipresent, and not something that was increased through human effort, a universe to operate was more than enough for them.

    With a solemnity that increased as the day of the event approached, the invited domains held their own selections, granting their champions the opportunity to participate in such an historical event to the quota of ten thousand champions per domain.. An opportunity that became the source of an immeasurable amount of greed and envy wherever the rumors about it would reach-and that would keep spreading through the multiverse even years after the end of the assembly.

    Each day thousands of heroes were chosen, uncountable ns were made, alliances were formed.. Until finally, in what felt like the blink of an eye, the day of the Exalted Assembly had finally arrived.

    -----

    Exactly one month after the arrival of the invitations, the universe of Order¡¯s domain, whose natural life hade to an end an uncountable number of years ago, and that was mostly empty with exception made for a single, and a star that had been kept alive just to supply light for it, was now full of life.

    On the lone that existed right in front of the inter-dimensional portal, the champions of Trade¡¯s and Commerce¡¯s domains had established their offices, and set high-end markets that disyed their domain¡¯s most valuable assets for other domains to ce bulk orders on.

    In the sky, all kings of vessels, massive flying beasts, highly technological ships, pces of starmetal, smoky tforms, and evenrge asteroids upied the upper atmosphere, almost cutting off the source of light that came from the only star that had survived the natural lifespan of the universe, and that along with the, constituted the only surviving system in the universe.

    The streets of the one and only enormous city present on the were flooded with the thousands of champions of Law¡¯s domains, which were tasked with keeping a semnce of order-Be it in the streets, markets, or arenas, which were filled to the brim with spectators as the warriors of enemy domains challenged each other for honor and glory.

    Walking through one of the city¡¯s busiest streets, which was currently hosing several newly built auction houses, marketces, and high-end shops, were the figures of Daniel, Ashura, Rose, Dawn, and Cassie whom, among the hundreds of thousands of powerful cultivators who emanated the mark of the aspect of existence they followed, appeared like a group of lost children.

 Chapter 540 Champion of Karma

    <h4>Chapter 540 Champion of Karma</h4>

    Primary universe of Horror¡¯s domain, four days earlier.

    After almost a month of uninterrupted travel, Daniel¡¯s ship finally approached its destination, which from the current distance, appeared like a ring light of a light blue color. The closer the ship came to this light, however, the dimmer it became.. until finally, it revealed what appeared to be a-sized mirror of water surrounded by a ring of starmetal- A construction that most would have been able to recognize as an interdimensional portal.

    From his previous experience with the portal of Competition¡¯s domain, Daniel had learned that these stable and extremely ancient rifts were the only known pathway that allowed people to travel from one stable universe to another. As such, they were a natural hub for information sharing,munication andmerce, as well as house to the offices that regted the transit of millions of cultivators each week.

    Due to their importance, these portals were usually extremely well guarded, sporting the strongest entities and ns of each domain as their protectors.. Or at least, that was the case for Competition¡¯s domain.

    By the time Daniel hade this close to the portal of Competition¡¯s domain, he had already been able to sense tens of thousands of ships traveling back and forth from the area.. But that was not the same form the portal that appeared in front of him. To his surprise, as well as that of hispanions, Daniel had failed to sense a single living being, no matter how far away he tried to extend his sensing abilities. Even the located right next to the portal, that was lit up all year round and usually full of life, was now dark and uninhabited.

    "What.. the hell.." muttered Rose with a dumbfounded expression.

    Just as surprised, Dawn turned to look at Daniel, who was standing on the helm of the ship, and staring at the portal with narrowed eyes, and said, "I know you¡¯ve said we would be able to easily go through the portal.. But I wasn¡¯t expecting this."

    More suspicious than confused, Daniel closed his eyes, and once again summoned the system window on which were written the instructions that he had been following until now. He wanted to make sure that this was not a trap made with the use of another champion of Destiny, the only entity capable of changing the course of history predicted by his system.. However, as he read through the window¡¯s text, his mind was put at ease by the realization that nothing had changed.

    "The n doesn¡¯t change. We leave." He said before resuming his journey.

    It was not difficult for Daniel to imagine why Horror¡¯s domain would let him leave their domain freely. In fact, being allowed to leave did nothing but confirm Daniel¡¯s suspicions regarding the intentions of the Overlord of Horror¡¯s domain.. He had indeed decided to make a public enemy out of him.. Letting him leave Horror¡¯s territory was the only way to prevent his domain from taking responsibility for Daniel¡¯s survival, as well as avoid turning their territory into the hunting ground of the other domains.

    Not sure whether Daniel¡¯s confidence could be trusted, Rose hugged her own chest defensively. She knew that, as the primary universe of Horror¡¯s domain, the entities that should have protected this portal were much more powerful than the ones they had escaped from in the universe she was native of, but since she did not have Daniel¡¯s certainty, she could not help but but feel nervous. Simr thoughts were upying the minds of Dawn and the others, who were expecting thousands of cultivators to suddenlye out of their hiding ce in the dark side of the, and attempt ast minute capture.. But that never happened.

    The ship kept approaching the portal undisturbed for several hours, until finally, it reached the edge of solidified space.. Inside which the control of spatial essence was severely limited, if not impossible for most cultivators.

    The closer the ship came to this area of solidified space, the more Rose and the others felt reassured about the fact that, for how odd it seemed, the portal had indeed been leftpletely unattended.

    This sense of reassurance, however, was destroyed the very moment the ship breached the outeryer of the solidified area, after which a powerful voice that seemed toe from every direction at the same time, and that was capable of piercing straight into their spirit of those who heard it, announced, "An Exalted Assembly is in progress. Anyone found leaving or entering the universe will be exterminated. This warning will not be repeated." This voice was fueled by the full power of a true champion of Horror, and as it struck the ears of Rose and the others, it caused them to drop on their knees, with goosebumps covering their arms, and cold sweats oozing out of their pores.

    "Is this normal practice?" Daniel asked Saha, who was the only one who seemed to have any kind of information regarding this rare event. His voice was charged with the calming effects of his mental power, which quickly dispelled the crippling and horrifying pressure that was weighing on the hearts and minds of those who heard it.

    Saha slowly stood up, and after regaining herposure, she shrugged in response. What she knew about the Exalted Assemblies was only what her grandfather, the elder of an unranked family of Competition¡¯s domain, had decided to share with her. But, s, even her grandfather did not know everything.. After all, even though he had lived long enough to hear of several such events, he had never participated, let alone organized one.

    Unable to obtain an answer to his question, Daniel once again checked the current state of his mission to make sure that nothing had changed-After which, the confusion present on his face was reced by a rxed smile. Now sure that no harm woulde to him in this universe, he regained control over the ship, and after making a few slight modifications to its formation, he shot through the solidified space, past the gloomy and abandoned, and straight into the ocean-like surface of the portal, creating a single ripple which propagated in every direction, and only stopped the moment it touched the metallic edge.

    -----

    The experience of interdimensional travel was nothing like what Daniel had ever experienced before.. Be it traveling at superluminal speed, going through time, spatial portals, or even mental teleportation. He had always been able to feel a degree of connection to nature or mana wherever he went, but as the ship went through the portal, he felt detached from reality, almost as if the very existence of space had been turned inside out. This feeling onlysted a few moments, after which the ship emerged from the other side of the portal, revealing a sight that forced its passengers to open their eyes wide in shock.

    The ce in which the group appeared was the exact opposite of a conventional universe. An infinite expanse of white, with small ck orbs in the distance that instead of reaching outwards with light, projected a darkness that Daniel had only seen in the depths of copsed space. The word nothingness could not even begin to describe how cold, empty, and somber these dark stars were.

    To distract Daniel and the others from thinking over their first impression of this ce, were the thousands of ships and cultivators that shed past them, heading somece to their left. When Daniel and the others turned to look where all of these cultivators were going, they noticed that, behind the ship, was an endless wall that extended in every direction with no apparent end in sight. This wall was not a simple solid surface, but instead, a construction formed by uncountable interdimensional portals, all stacked together like the pods of a honeb.

    Most of the portals in sight, just like the one from which Daniel and the others had juste out of, appeared like calm mirrors of water, identical to their other side.. While some others were either closed by a thin gtinousyer, or appeared as pits of eternal darkness. It did not take long for Daniel to guess that these three different kinds of portals represented the open universes, the ones that had yet to open to the multiverse, and finally, the copsed universes.

    "So, this is the Trigate.." Daniel muttered while turning to look at Saha, who was covering her eyes and shrieking in disgust, deeply disturbed by the appearance of what was in front of her. Cassie was behaving in a simr way, but thanks to her boosted capabilities, she was able to somewhat get used to the horrific sight. Luckily, Rose and the others did not seem to share this phobia, and simply looked at their surroundings with amazement.

    When Daniel turned to look back at the Trigate, he realized that, somewhere on this endless wall, was a portal that could lead him to his universe. However, that was not where he was headed. He had left his people behind because of the danger posed by only a portion of a lower domain.. He could hardly imagine the degree of danger he would bring to his people if the entire multiverse learned about their connection to him.

    What Daniel needed the most right now, was to gather information. He needed to know whether Horror¡¯s domain would make a target out of him, and if that was the case, which domains would show interest in his capture, and what kind of powers he would have to face.. But most importantly, he needed to learn how the multiverse worked.

    Aware of what he needed to do, Daniel focused the majority of his mental fortitude into removing any of these distracting thoughts from his head. Then, before the desire to see his family coulde back stronger than before, he steered the ship towards the direction where all the other ships and cultivators were heading, and after giving the rightmand, he shot in the distance.

    -----

    Portal to Order¡¯s domain, ten hourster.

    After an excruciating wait in a seemingly never-ending procession of odd ships, Daniel and the others were finally able to reach the interdimensional portal of the universe that everyone was hurrying towards.. A portal which they were able to go through without a problem.

    When Daniel¡¯s crew emerged on the other side, they suddenly felt the familiar surface of the ship¡¯s hull disappear from underneath their feet. Before any of them could react, however, their bodiesnded safely on a stone pavement.. It did not take long for them to notice that they were not standing on Daniel¡¯s ship anymore, but inside an extremelyrge and empty room.

    Surrounded by the room¡¯s cold metallic walls, and globes of light that floated around in circles, stood a middle aged man in heavy armor. On his face was a well kept grizzled beard, which he ufortably stroked against the chest piece of his armor as he looked down at the clipboard he was holding.

    "NEXT." He said with a domineering tone, making no effort to hide the irritation he was feeling.

    Daniel briefly looked at hispanions, who shrugged with confusion without saying a word. He then approached the grizzled man with a steady pace, stopping just a few steps away from him.

    "Go on." said the man, showing how little patience he had left.

    "I am the first champion of a new domain. I am afraid you will have to tell me what you need me to do." Said Daniel while straightening his back, and looking directly into the man¡¯s eyes.

    The guard lifted his head, and looked back at Daniel with curiosity.. but the moment his eyesnded on Daniel¡¯s golden pupils, his heart skipped a beat, and he felt the immense desire to fall on his knees, and prostrated himself to Daniel¡¯s presence.

    This man was a leading champion of Law¡¯s domain.. A mid level domain that, instead of taking part in politics and wars, was subjected to the domain of Order, under which they would maintain peace as security for these types ofrge events. As a being devoted tow first, and order next, when this man had perceived the nature of the aspect of existence contained within Daniel, he had felt an unspeakable feeling of reverence-Almost as if the aspect of existence that Daniel championed had a fair im towards the allegiance of Law¡¯s domain..

    This feeling, however, did notst long. Daniel¡¯s immediate attempt to hide his nature, as well as the vast cultivation of the grizzled man, allowed thetter to shake these feelings out of his mind. Once back to his senses, the man looked at Daniel with a significantly higher degree of respect, and said, "Apologies for my rude behavior. I only need to record your name, and to which domain you belong."

    Daniel took no offence towards the man¡¯s rude behavior, and after a polite nod, he said, "Dan.. champion of Karma¡¯s domain."

 Chapter 541 The Secret Domain of Karma

    <h4>Chapter 541 The Secret Domain of Karma</h4>

    "Dan.. champion of Karma¡¯s domain." Said Daniel after a slight and polite bow.

    At the mention of an aspect of Karma, the guard looked at Daniel with respectful confusion for a few long seconds, then said while pensively raking his grizzled beard with the tip of his fingers, "Karma.. Karma.. This is the first time I have heard of it. Give me a moment, please." As he finished speaking, the guard raised the clipboard he was holding in his left hand by a few inches. This small action seemed to be enough to trigger a small formation hidden within it, which projected a massive window of light in the air, on which were written thousands of names, details, and information regarding the domains.

    As the eyes of the guard went through the list a couple of times, his confusion deepened.. Until finally, after confirming that Daniel¡¯s name and domain of belonging were definitely not within the listed domains, he deactivated the formation. He then turned to look back at Daniel, and said, "No, not here. This is quite odd.. There is no record of Karma¡¯s domain in the multiversal records, or even of the existence of the lord Aspect you represent.. And yet, here you are."

    "Does that mean that I am not allowed in?" Asked Daniel with a puzzled, yet still polite tone.

    Daniel¡¯s understanding behavior seemed to shock the guard deeply. "No! Of course you may enter.. I just, well, if this is a first encounter, I have to record your arrival." He said while waving his hands in a hurry, implying that there had been a misunderstanding.

    Despite being given the rtively simple task of verifying that the arriving domains were respecting the regtions, amongst which was the number of allowed participants per domain, as well as being in possession of an invitation, the guard did not dare deny Daniel entry, and there was a good reason for it. That reason was the fact that the importance of a domain was reflected in the aspect of existence they followed, and not the size of their domain, as not all simr aspects were on the same level.

    Karma, as an aspect of existence, was a concept whose creation could have only been possible after the birth of consciousness.. Just like the aspects of Law, Sacrifice, Ingenuity, and many others. However, while the influence of those aspects was limited to the actions of those who followed thew, sacrificed themselves and others, and lived in the pursuit of technological progress, Karma did not have those bounds.. After all, just like Life and Death, humans were ultimately unable to avoid living, dying, or affecting their karma through their daily actions.

    Because of the omnipresent nature of Karma, as well as the secrecy of its domain, the guard had no choice but to treat Daniel the same way he would treat the champions of a high level domain, and therefore, someone whom he could not offend.

    "I am sure that this is all a mistake. I will report your arrival to the domains of Horror and Order, and find you the moment this matter is resolved. Meanwhile, you are free to go in." Said the guard with a respectful tone before waving his clipboard in the air-An action that caused the appearance of a gargantuan gate made out of pure gold whose size implied that its use was clearly meant for a much bigger group.

    Daniel nodded to the grizzled guard in appreciation, then turned towards the massive golden gate, which was now slightly ajar. From this seemingly small opening, came a pir of light that brightened the entire room, projecting a shadow of light towards, and past Daniel and the others, making it difficult for them to see whaty on the other side.

    As Daniel and hispanions approached the door, they realized that this seemingly narrow opening was more than enough for all of them to walkfortably side-by-side. The light that shone through, however, was not as amodating, and instead turned brighter the closer the group came to walking through.

    After almost a minute spent walking under the oppressive rule of pure light essence, the white glow died out, revealing an odd-looking emerald sky tainted by dense red clouds which drifted in the distance, carried by the powerful winds. Under his feet, Daniel found a suspended tform as big as arge city square on which thousands of people could have stoodfortably, and in the distance, he could see dozens of floating mountains, spaceships, sleeping beasts, and suspended castles that emanated the power of the domains to which they belonged. A few miles under the tform was an impressive looking city, with wooden buildings and wide stone streets built over a valley of red dirt.

    Despite the distance from the city, it was not difficult for Daniel and the others to spot the millions of cultivators that were flooding its streets and squares, which appeared like a colony of working ants which had lost any semnce of cooperation.

    "What was all of that.. Karma¡¯s domain? Did you really just bluff our way into an Exalted Assembly?!?" Asked Rose in confusion. Despite not knowing how the security of an exalted assembly was handled, she knew that what Daniel had just done was probably not something that any random cultivator could have pulled off.

    Unwilling to exin himself, Daniel shrugged his shoulders and began to walk towards the edge of the tform. Then, just when he was only a few steps away from falling off, he turned towards the Rose, Lilith, and Saha, and said, "I have kept you safe. You should be able to find members of your domain here.."

    As if only just realizing that what Daniel had said was true, the faces of Lilith and Saha brightened, showing their desire to find someone who could take them back home. However, that was not the case for Rose, who, deep down, had found the past few months more interesting than the unimportant tasks which her sect¡¯s patriarch would assign her every now and then. Nevertheless, whether it was Saha¡¯s and Lilith¡¯s happiness, or the bitter feeling that Rose was experiencing, both sentiments were erased the moment Daniel said, "Unfortunately, you know that I am a champion of Destiny.. So I can¡¯t simply let you go, can I?."

    Right as he finished speaking, before any of the girls could respond, Daniel pointed his finger at Lilith¡¯s chest, where, hidden under twoyers of clothes, was a diamond ne infused with a mental power that was beyond anything a cultivator at the godhood stage could perceive, let alone destroy. Now that Daniel had reached a level beyond that stage, however, destroying these kinds of protective amulets was as easy as snapping a twig.

    With a simple snap of his fingers, Daniel destroyed the mental barrier that had protected Lilith¡¯s mind, and before she could protest, or try to defend herself, he invaded her mind with his own power, and aimed it towards the destruction of the memories that depicted the events that had followed their escape frompetition¡¯s domain. In their ce, Daniel added false memories that showed how the champion of Destiny had abandoned Rose and the others after his escape, forcing them to roam an unknown universe until they were ultimately found by Dan, a champion of Karma.

    The moment Lilith¡¯s characteristically hostile expression softened and she started to look at Daniel with respect and gratitude, two emotions that were so unlike her, Saha understood what had happened. Even though it was unlikely that the champions of Competition who knew Daniel¡¯s face would have been allowed to participate in the exalted assembly, nothing would have stopped Rose and the others from denouncing Daniel to their domain.. And that was too much of a risk for him to take while in the dragons¡¯ den. So, as Daniel¡¯s eyes moved onto her, Instead of forcing him to destroy her mental barrier, she simply removed it, allowing him to rece her memories as he saw fit.

    While she didn¡¯t trust Daniel as much as Cassie and Dawn, she was not as hostile towards him as Lilith was.. She knew that thest few months would have been easier for Daniel if he simply killed them all, and went on his own way.. but since he had taken it upon himself the burden to keep them safe, and even now, at the most dangerous moment, he had simply chosen to erase a portion of their memories instead of killing them, coborating with him was the least she could do. "You have kept your word.. Do what you must." She said right before Daniel¡¯s gentle mind power dove into her mind, and manipted her memories.

    Once finished with Lilith and Saha, Daniel turned to look at Rose, who, unwilling to allow her memories to be erased, instinctively reached for her own mental protection, and turned to look at Dawn and Cassie. However, what she was fearing and expecting at the same time, never happened. On the faces of her twopanions was a calm expression, almost as if they expected Daniel not to touch their memories, or if he did, showing that they werepletely fine with it.

    "They can go if they want, but you need to stay by my side until I leave this universe." Said Daniel to a worried Rose, who breathed out in relief right after hearing his words.

    Now calmer, she let go of her amulet, and asked, "Why?"

    "Do not read too much into it. You know more about your sect than they do, so your amulet is stronger. If I could have, I would have broken it." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. He then ignored the disappointment any sensible person would have been able to discern in Rose¡¯s expression, and instead, reached for his hair.

    With a rapid motion, he pulled a single strand off his hair, which he then rolled up into a ball and threw off the tform, where it turned into a small cluster of dirt that slowly grew in size, and kept growing until it reached the size of diameter of a small city. Once it stopped growing, the dirt on the surface began to shift, caving in on some spots and filling with water, and rising into the shape of a mountain in others before turning into stable rock.

    To the eyes of the tens of thousands of cultivators who witnessed Daniel¡¯s action, it appeared that a small was forming in front of them.. One that was not simply made out of vast formations, but of true natural mana marked with the power of a cultivator, and an unknown aspect of existence.

    As Daniel¡¯s feet separated from the tform, and he, along with the others, floated towards the tear-shaped, the rocky side of the only mountain present on it started to crumble, revealing a perfectly sculpted stone pce which morphed into wood immediately after being revealed. In front of the pce¡¯s entrance, emerged a stoneid path with green des of grass by each side.

    From the distance, Daniel could feel the curious gazes of many powerful cultivators, who had stopped themselves from prying only after feeling how imposing and profound the mark of Karma was.

    "It would seem that you have made quite a spectacle of your arrival." Said Dawn with a not-so-well hidden spark of pride. She and Cassie were the only two members of their group of friends whose memories Daniel could have manipted, but willingly chose not to.. and that was because they were already members of his group. As such, they would not betray him unless they truly believed it would be the best course of action. At the same time, they could not help but feel second-hand pride whenever Daniel was treated with the respect they believed he deserved.

    "Good." Said Daniel right before descending onto the, which after his arrival, took off towards a rtively empty portion of the sky.

    While on his way to the universe where the Exalted Assembly would take ce, Daniel had done his best to formte a n that would allow him to take the target of Destiny¡¯s champion off his back, since despite all the means his system had to prolong his survival and help him avoid danger, he had no intention of living his extremely long life in hiding. Ultimately, the best solution he could think of, was to create a fictitious and secretive domain that revolved around the aspect of Karma, and of which he would assume the role of the sole known champion.

    Under this identity, Daniel hoped to increase the influence of Karma, and by doing so, awaken his nature as a true aspect of existence. If sessful, his existence alone would be something beyond the reach of mortal cultivators, eliminating any existing threat to himself, and his friends and family.

    To do that, there was no better chance than the Exalted Assembly-An event in which he would be able to obtain information regarding the politics of the multiverse, and show the promise of his secretive domain. If that was not enough of a reason to take the risk, joining the hunting party that was tasked with hunting him, would also reveal to him all the means the domains of the multiverse had to capture a champion of Destiny. In order to seed in any of these goals, he needed to gain recognition.

 Chapter 542 Potential Allies and Sure Enemies

    <h4>Chapter 542 Potential Allies and Sure Enemies</h4>

    The few hours that followed Daniel¡¯s attention-grabbing arrival, were spent uneventfully within the small he had created as the temporary residence of Karma¡¯s domain.

    While time was of the essence, and only a few days were left before the beginning of the Exalted Assembly, proper research needed to be done, so while waiting for their presence to be reported, and for the domain of Karma to be officialized and recorded, Daniel decided to spend time trying to prepare himself for the first apparition of his fictitious domain, and it so happened that he knew where to start.

    On the leather parchment given to him by the grizzled champion of Law¡¯s domain stationed at the universe¡¯s entrance, and that he was currently holding in his hands, were listed the names of every single domain that had been invited to this event. The vast majority of these names were written in faded ck ink, withered due to the thousands of years that had passed since the list had been written-while the remaining names were written in a vibrant gold ink, which seemed to be alive, and constantly moving around, confined by the borders of each letter.

    As time passed, and more of the invited domains made their way into the universe, their names on Daniel¡¯s list came to life. It quickly became clear for Daniel that the names written in ck indicated the domains that had been invited, a color which would turn to gold the moment they would arrive. To differentiate between differently ranked domains, was the vivacity of the color, whose vivacity became more entuated the higher the standing of the domain was in the multiverse.

    Of the many listed names Daniel could only recognize a few, all written in golden ink of different intensities. Among these were the domains of Ingenuity and Competition, which were considered low-ranking domains, and the domains of Evolution and Conclusion, which belonged to the mid or mid rank.. The brightest names of the list belonged to domains that Daniel had never encountered in the past, with an exception made for the one that was written at the top, and listed as the organizer of the event-the domain of Horror. What made Daniel curious, however, was the fact that the domain of Sacrifice, with which Horror¡¯s domain had allied itself with in order to hunt him down for the past couple of months, was not in the list.. Be it among the names of invited domains, or those that had already arrived.

    "What are you looking for?" Asked Ashura in his nativenguage, and with an inquisitive tone. He had spent the past two hours trying to get used to the stage of high immortality, which he had been able to cultivate to thanks to Daniel¡¯s help while on his way to the Trigate.. and now that he had started to feelfortable with his new strength, he was itching to move around, explore, and meet new people-A behavior that Daniel could only expect from a person who had spent years by himself, hiding from a barbaric race of monsters that had hunted his kin to extinction.

    Daniel ignored Ashura¡¯s question at first, and instead began to read each name one after another, using the index finger of his left hand to increase his reading speed. Once he was halfway through the list, he asked without stopping, "Your people lived in tribes, correct?"

    "ns." Ashura responded with a cold tone and a nearly imperceptible nod of the head.

    "Right... ns. Well, what would you expect a green hunter to do, once given the chance to join the veterans hunters of the n?"

    In Ashura¡¯s n, a job was assigned to an individual from the moment they were born, and could never be changed. For that reason, Ashura had always been a warrior, an upation that, before the appearance of the brutal Monstrous n that had destroyed life in his world and killed or changed most of his people, had allowed him to see many young men join the ranks of the small army. Daniel had already seen all of this in his memories, so he knew that it would not take long for him to understand.

    Right on time, only a few seconds after Daniel had finished asking the question, Ashura responded by saying, still in his nativenguage, "Prove themselves."

    Daniel shook his head in disagreement. "Maybe that was a bad example." he said after stopping the motion of his eyes and finger. He then turned to look back at the ancient human, and added with a matter-of-fact tone, "Allies. We need allies." As he finished speaking, he once again turned to look at the list, and resumed what he was doing. "The domains exist within a set hierarchy based on each aspect¡¯s influence.. Or at the very least, potential influence. That means that each domain has a specific position and natural allies.. I am looking for our own."

    Daniel¡¯s finger kept moving down the list for several more seconds, until finally, it stopped. His lips curved into a smile as the tip of his eyes moved onto the words ¡¯Domain of Morality¡¯. Of the many names Daniel had read, only a few had the potential to be allies to a domain of Karma. Domains like Vengeance¡¯s, Forgiveness¡¯, Penitence¡¯, and Punishment could all be considered domains that, had the domain of Karma existed in the past, would have been subjected to it. However, Daniel chose to ignore them.

    Each of those domains had a problem that Daniel was unwilling to deal with, like the violent nature of vengeance and punishment, or the passive nature of forgiveness and penitence. Morality, on the other hand, was something created purely out of empathy, and could be pursued peacefully, or if necessary, violently. This made the domain of Morality the best candidate to be the first allies of Karma¡¯s domain.

    Ashura noticed the satisfaction on Daniel¡¯s face, but before he could ask, Daniel folded the parchment just in time for a loud and powerful voice to resound throughout the entire small.

    "Law¡¯s domain requests an audience with the representative of lord Karma." Said a familiar orotund voice.

    "Please, enter." Said Daniel in a calm and polite tone that seemed toe from the very clouds and air that covered the¡¯s surface. He then opened a portal big enough for the middle-aged cultivator he had met after arriving to the universe, tofortably walk through.

    As soon as the grizzled man noticed Daniel¡¯s familiar figure, which was now sitting onto a cushion with his legs crossed, almost as if right out of meditation, he walked through the portal and stepped into the room. Once on the other side, the cultivator said while looking confusingly at the odd, "I.. I have reported the presence of Karma¡¯s domain to the representatives of Order. Unfortunately, the organizers of this Exalted Assembly were too busy. We will make sure that Horror¡¯s domain is notified of your presence by the time the assembly starts, you don¡¯t have to worry about it."

    "That is great." said Daniel with a genuine smile that uncovered two rows of pearly teeth. He then added, "And I apologize if my sudden appearance was an inconvenience to your domain."

    The grizzled man shook his head dismissively. "Not a bother at all. Making first contact with your domain was the highlight of my task, and a good distraction from weeks of holding the doors." He said right before taking a slow and deep breath, and adding, "Which brings me to the reason why I have not left yet. I was tasked with asking a few questions to you, if you don¡¯t mind?" As he finished speaking, the grizzled man noticed Daniel¡¯s calm reaction, which led him to believe that what he had just asked waspletely within his expectations.

    "I was just about to ask the same thing." Said Daniel before standing up on his feet.

    Before the grizzled man could ask whether there was a ce where the two could sit to have this talk, the dull and empty walls of the room expanded, allowing the room to double in size. Immediately after, on the wider side of the room, a massive window opened, letting the rays of constructed light shine into what was now an empty hall, and allowing for those inside it to have a full view of Daniel¡¯s paradisiac. At the same time, two clumps of wobbly matter emerged from the floor, and took the shape of tworge and refined wooden chairs.

    "Please." Daniel said right before taking a seat on the closest of the two chairs, and ignoring how several more wobbly clumps of his personal essence emerged from the wall, and began to form a set of furniture that matched the style of the two refined chairs.. By the time Daniel¡¯s guest approached his seat, the room had turned into an aesthetically pleasing living room.

    "What a spectacr.." said the grizzled man with amazement before upying the second chair, whose size was perfect for his tall and muscr stature, to a point where it felt that the chair had been made specifically for his armored figure. "What is this? I can¡¯t feel any of the mechanical workings of a formation. How are you controlling such a massive construction??"

    "Is that your first question?" Daniel asked with narrowed eyes.

    Slightly embarrassed, the grizzled man gave up his curiosity towards the magical nature of Daniel¡¯s base, and said, "Of course not. Let¡¯s start with your domain.. Is it stationed in a specific universe?"

    "Not at the moment..."

    "... by a sect?"

    -----

    Orbit of Kosmos, Vessel of Horror¡¯s domain.

    Inside the ck asteroid-looking vessel of Horror¡¯s domain, was an underground residence currently upied by the leader of the biggest faction within Horror¡¯s domain, and organizer of the Exalted Assembly-The Overlord of the Monstrous faction.

    From inside this residence, the Overlord of the Monstrous n had spent the past month organizing the Exalted Assembly, a task that included the restoration of Polis, Kosmos¡¯ only city, to provide the working force for its hundreds of restored venues, to set the schedule for the main event of the Exalted Assembly, and finally, to grant the permissions to operate within the city to merchants and domains. These were all tasks that, ording to the regtion agreed upon by the ancient domains that had conceived the Exalted Assembly, the organizers had the duty to fulfill.

    The only tasks that were entrusted to the same two domains, no matter which power had organized, or called for an Exalted Assembly, were to provide a neutral universe, which fell on the shoulders of the domain of Order, and to make sure that the rules were respected, a task that had always been entrusted to the domain of Law, whose millions of championsy hidden within the universe, waiting to intervene at a moment¡¯s notice.

    Many domains over the years hadmented the unfairness of these privileges, iming that this sort of power needed to be shared among all participating domains, as an Exalted Assembly was one of the few events which would grant a nearly infinite number of opportunities for trade and business. However, all of theseints were ultimately ignored, as only the organizers were required to put a huge portion of their universes as a deposit, and if the matters to be discussed turned out to be unworthy of everyone¡¯s time, they would be the only ones to pay.

    Nevertheless, all of these privileges made what was for most domains an enjoyable and entertaining few weeks, the most stressful day in its organizer¡¯s life, as was shown from the irritate demeanor of the Overlord of the Monstrous n who, from hisrge throne made out of clean bones and monster¡¯s teeth, observed the hundreds of champions of Horror waiting for their turn to report problems, or give updates regarding unfinished preparations.

    Now almost out of patience, the Overlord rolled his eyes in exasperation at the sight of the umpteenth elder who, with panicked eyes, approached the throne with bad news.

    Luckily, before the elder could contribute to the stress that the Overlord had umted in the past month, a warrior d in ck armor, and that was wearing an iron mask that covered the entirety of his monstrous head, barged into the hall, and approached the throne while ignoring the many elders of the Monstrous n and leaders of the other factions that belonged to Horror¡¯s domain.

    "Overlord. Shh-We heard back from the shh-seventh Elder. Messenger-shh of Order butchered before reaching shh-Sacrifice¡¯s domain. Shh-they won¡¯t participate." Said the warrior with a deep and guttural voice that was regrly interrupted by the sound of heavy breathing and of condensed humidity and greasy sweat being breathed in, that came from underneath the ufortable mask.

    The Overlord, whose body was covered in a more traditional brutish armor made out of humanoid dirty bones, and adorned with animals¡¯ teeth and bone fragments, looked down at the warrior from on top of hisrge throne. "Nothing yet from Doom Pce?" He asked with a hint of impatience.

    The warrior tightened his hold around the shaft of his ck spear, and after once again sucking air loudly through his pointy rows of teeth, he said, "The portal was used. Shh-No witnesses.."

    Hopeful that, just like he had nned, the champion of Destiny that had killed so many of his warriors had left his domain¡¯s primary universe, the Overlord smiled maliciously underneath his mask. He then waved his hand dismissively. When the warrior refused to leave, the Overlord leaned forward, and asked, "what is it?"

    "Order¡¯shh domain requests an audience as.. shh-soon as possible."

    "What for?" Asked the Overlord angrily.

    "Unexpected arrivals. Shh-An unknown domain."

    At the mention of additional work, the Overlord slouched over his throne, momentarily unwilling to hear anything more of this cursed event.

    -----

    Back on Daniel¡¯s, more than an hour after the arrival of Law¡¯s champion, the portal that united Daniel¡¯s room to the outside opened once again. From it emerged the figures of Daniel and the grizzled warrior. On the face of thetter was visible uncertainty. It was clear that whatever question the grizzled warrior had been tasked with asking Daniel, the answer he had received was anything but satisfactory. Nevertheless, there was no trace of negative emotions in his puzzled expression.

    With a respect that before was aimed at the aspect of existence whose domain Daniel was iming to represent, but that now was aimed at him personally, the warrior said, "This was my first time questioning someone capable of giving such exhaustive answers, and yet saying nothing at all. Luckily, I got what I needed."

    "And that is?" Asked Daniel with curiosity.

    "All sorts of contrasting domains participate in these events, and that means that neers are just minutes away from meeting those whom they¡¯ll regard as enemies for the following million years. It¡¯s unavoidable.." Said the warrior with a matter of fact tone. "At least now I can report that you don¡¯t seem to be looking for trouble.. Although I suspect you would not shy away from any trouble that wille to find you."

    "I¡¯ll try to stick to the trouble thates my way." Daniel said with a smile that caused the grizzled man to instinctively crack one of his own. The two of them had had many simr exchanges during the past hour, so the grizzled man decided not to bother Daniel any further, and after a respectful nod of his head, went back to report his findings to the domains of Law and Order.

    Once alone, Daniel took control over the essence present near the ears of hispanions, who were currently training on the small, and said, "It¡¯s time to go.. Join me."

    The first person to arrive was Ashura, who emerged from the portal that was still open a few meters behind Daniel. "What is the n?" he asked.

    Daniel, seemingly in high spirits, said through a content smile, "This is sort of a party, is it not? Let¡¯s mingle."

 Chapter 543 - The Morality of War

    <h4>Chapter 543 - The Morality of War</h4>

    As the date of the Exalted Assembly drew closer, Polis, the one and only city of Kosmos, filled with cultivators. The dpidated and empty buildings had now been fully reconstructed by the champions of Horror, and given to the highest bidding domains to use as base of operation to strike merchant agreement between friendly domains.

    Of these hundreds of buildings, only a few had been reserved for recreational purposes, like gamble houses, brothels, and restaurants. Virtually all of these establishments were constantly upied by the young and talented champions of each domain, who had either painstakingly earned, inherited, or otherwise received the chance to join their domain¡¯s delegation.

    More than for recreational purposes, these establishments existed, just like the arenas, to allow various kinds of interaction between the future leaders of each domain, who, until now, had only heard rumors of the rivalries andpetition between these civilizations. Whether sessful or not, these interactions would turn into an amusing distraction for the older generation, who would then be able to enjoy thepetition between their descendants in the arenas.

    In one of these recreational buildings, was a simple restaurant operated by the thin and nervous-looking mortals of Horror¡¯s domain. A simple glimpse at the state of these workers was more than enough to imagine what horrors these people had endured throughout their lives, and it was entirely possible that the few days they would spend attending this restaurant, would be the mostfortable part of their lives.. which was otherwise spent surviving the nightmare that was Horror¡¯s domain.

    For the duration of the Exalted Assembly, these mortals were forced to roam around the packed restaurant with drinks and courses they had never even seen before.. serving them to irritable and spoiled entities that could obliterate them with a sneeze. However, that was not the case for all of them. While the majority of the customers were rude and impatient, there was also a polite minority which treated these mortals with a semnce of respect, or at the least, ignored them despite theck of skill in the job they had been assigned to.

    "... I didn¡¯t! I told him beforehand I would start the simtion with a shield wall ahah! It¡¯s not my fault the idiot did not believe me!" Said a muscr man in his thirties, dressed in a grey military attire. On his chest, cor, and shoulders were several medals and patches, which not only gave color to his dull-looking uniform, but also showed his rank to his peers, who were currently upying the rest of the table, and were in the middle of listening to his story.

    "Bullshit!" barked out a simrly dressed and rough-looking woman while leaning forward, and pointing her finger at her boastfulpanion.

    Not at all offended by the woman¡¯s usation, the male officer shrugged his shoulders, and said, "At least I remember to! Ahahah!" As he finished speaking, hispanions burst outughing, almost as if in on the joke from the very beginning, andpletely unaware, or uncaring, about how noisy they were being to those who were upying the surrounding tables.

    Luckily, not all groups of cultivators were as noisy.

    Sitting at a table on the other side of the restaurant, was a group of five cultivators, all dressed in unique attires. One of them was dressed in a simple monk robe, brown as tree bark, and with a golden rope tied around the waist. His face was covered by a brown hood that hid the upper part of his face. Next to him, was a warrior fully covered in a thickyer of ted armor, with a wide towering shield which gave an unnecessaryyer of protection to his back, a female archer dressed in light green clothes with a refined and elegant shortbow strapped behind her back, a ck-haired young woman who sipped tea while bncing a carved wooden staff on her legs, and a blonde warrior d in white-gold armor, who kept a hand onto his sword¡¯s handle not in preparation for battle, but to make sure that the tip of his sword would not impede the passage of the workers.

    Ever since the moment of their arrival, this group of cultivators had been the least problematic for the inexperienced workers, showing their willingness to forgive their mistakes with indifference.

    "They are so noisy.." Said the archer while looking at the soldiers with irritation, a feeling that was shared by most of the people present in the restaurant.

    "There is always a group like them. Don¡¯t start acting out." Said the second young woman after putting down the now emptied cup of tea, causing herpanion to breathe out in exasperation before turning to look away.

    At the end of this interaction, a nervous-looking waitress approached the table with a small cart. On it, were simple dishes, mostly bread, a pot of warm stew, and slices of cheese. By the thin figure of the staff, one could have guessed that it had been awhile since they had eaten anything, and yet, they did not dare to look at the food they were carrying. In their minds, the memories of their peers being turned into dust for reasons as small as spilling a bit of soup, was enough to keep themselves in check.

    Once next to the table, she quietly checked the order, and after making sure who had ordered what, she began to ce each dish in front of the right person.

    After what felt like an hour for the waiter, but was only a minute, she ced thest dish in front of the man in white-gold armor, who, until now, had spent his time with his eyes closed. That changed when the waiter began to leave, as she felt the cold yet gentle hold of a metallic gauntlet grip her arm. "We ordered this more than twenty minutes ago. Why did it take so long?"

    The waiter, shocked, began to stutter an excuse, but before any of those sounds could make any sense, the warrior stopped her, and said, "We don¡¯t want it anymore. Eat it yourself, throw it away, I do not care.. Just take it away. Get us something to drink instead." As he finished speaking the waiter reluctantly took the dishes off of the table, ced them onto the cart, and started to head towards the kitchen.

    "You know, someday I would actually like to try something." Said the female archer to the warrior in white-gold armor, through a mischievous grin. Her words were able to change the mood of the table, which went from being irritated by the annoying behavior of the group of soldiers, to a general amus.e.m.e.nt caused by the warrior¡¯s failed attempt at inconspicuously helping the worker.

    "I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about." Said the warrior while pulling the hilt of his sword towards the side of his chest, the very moment a second waiter walked by.

    "Stop teasing him. He doesn¡¯t have his helmet on.. You know how silly he looks when he blushes." Said the ck-haired woman while ovepping her legs. At no point in her movements, did the staff that she was holding move from its perfectly stable horizontal position.

    The warrior in white-gold armor ignored the two. Instead, he slowly grabbed his helmet, which was resting on hisp, and quietly put it no, causing the rest of hispanions to burst outughing.

    -----

    "I like him." Said Daniel from a dark corner of the restaurant, where him, Ashura, Rose and the others were eating their meal in silence.

    Lilith, who had long since forgotten what kind of person Daniel was, and only remembered him as the mysterious champion of an unknown domain that had taken the time to take them back to the domain of Competition, said with doubt, "Why? The champion of Horror tasked with managing this restaurant will not simply let them eat the food even if he said so. Is wasted kindnessmendable?"

    Unsurprised about Lilith¡¯s remark, Daniel took a sip out of his wine cup, and said, "If you died today, how many would be thankful for your existence?"

    Daniel¡¯s words surprised Lilith, who, instinctively, thought about her family and friends. However, as this list of people formed in her mind, and she prepared herself to answer Daniel¡¯s question, she found herself unable to speak.

    In her domain, connections were supported bypetition.. Which meant that her worth as a friend and daughter, was ultimately limited to her sess. The more she thought about it, the more she came to the conclusion that, if she really died, those whom she believed to be close to her were more likely to end up mourning the time they had wasted on her, than her passing.

    Unable to answer, she looked down in a feeling of shame that was interrupted by Daniel¡¯s elbow, which tapped the side of her arm. As she looked up, she noticed that Daniel was looking at the waitress, which had juste out with a trail filled with different sorts of beverages. The moment her eyesnded on her, she heard Daniel¡¯s voice say, "In the kitchen, she was forced to throw away the food.. And yet, look at her."

    Lilith paid attention to the waitress, who quietly made her way through the tables. She then noticed how, the moment she reached the table of the heroic-looking warrior in white-gold armor, a warm smile formed on her face. A smile thatsted the entire minute or so that she spent serving the party¡¯s drinks, and immediately disappeared as she moved on.

    "Inconsequential, and silly of him to do.." said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. ".. but if he died right now, he would know that, maybe, the waiter would feel bad about it."

    In Lilith¡¯s mind was left nothing but a feeling of defeat, but due to her prideful mentality, she could not bring herself to simply ept that she was wrong. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders, and said with a disdainful tone, "Why invite unnecessary trouble? Just to feel a little better about yourself? It¡¯s even more pitiful."

    Daniel did not have a witty response to this.

    Many times in his life he had found himself in trouble because he had decided to help someone. However, he had never regretted it. He knew that the consequence of different lifestyles would only be obvious at the end of one¡¯s life.. When one would be able to judge themselves and the person they were, and decide whether to be happy with their life.. so he chose not to continue the argument. Instead, he observed in silence as the waiter reached the table of the soldier-looking cultivators, who had not stoppedughing and chatting loudly until now.

    When theughs began to die out, a third soldier dressed in a simr, yet slightly different military uniform than the others, said, "It is bad luck to exchange war stories without a drink." He then moved his hand up to his face, and rubbed his temples in an attempt to dispel the irritation he was feeling-An action that was shown to be pointless the moment he lifted his right arm, and struck the wooden surface of the table with just enough power to form a small crack.

    When he opened his eyes, and turned to look for a waiter, he felt the feeling of a liquid fall from on top of the table, directly in between his legs, forming a wet stain on his pants that resembled a stain of urine.

    Next to the table stood the terrified waitress, still holding one of the sses with trembling hands. The underdeveloped muscles of her legs were stiff, like those of a cornered animal that had already given up on their lives.. Nevertheless, nothing seemed to happen.

    The soldier quietly looked down at the stain, and with the index finger and thumb of his right hand, he pulled the moisture out of the fibers of his pants. He then turned to look at the soldiers he was with, and said, "Of course you can¡¯t find useful people in Horror¡¯s domain."

    As he finished speaking, the glob of alcoholic liquid became firm, and straightened into what looked like a transparent toothpick, which after being fully formed, shot towards the forehead of the waitress at a speed that was beyond anything that could be captured with the n.a.k.e.d eye.

    None of these small actions had attracted any form of attention from the dozens of cultivators present in the restaurant.. However, when therge figure of the warrior d in white-gold armor appeared behind the terrified waitress in a fraction of a blink of an eye, with two fingers clenched around the toothpick that was just about to pierce the woman¡¯s forehead, the buzz of chatter stopped, and the eyes of every other customer collectively turned towards him.

 Chapter 544 - The Morality of War (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 544 - The Morality of War (Part 2)</h4>

    The eyes of the champion of War¡¯s domain in military uniform were thest ones tond on the Heroic figure of the man in white-gold armor, and yet, it was that very small movement that brought the most severe switch in the mood of the restaurant¡¯s dining hall.

    A deafening silence took over the entire hall, leaving only the slightly hastened breath of the dozens of observing cultivators to be heard by those who had a keen hearing. After what was only an hour of peace and quiet from thest brawl, it seemed that the hopes of these several groups of cultivators were finally starting to be reality.. So, unwilling to say or do anything that could prevent that, they observed in silence.

    Being aware of the belligerent nature of War¡¯s domain, no one present had expected this encounter to be resolved peacefully, and yet, contrary to everyone¡¯s expectations, the champion of War¡¯s domain smiled politely at the warrior d in white gold armor, uncovering two rows of slightly neglected teeth, and while pointing his finger at the toothpick-shaped beverage stuck in between his opponent¡¯s fingers, he said, "Do you mind? That¡¯s my drink."

    The warrior in shiny armor did not respond. Instead, he stared at the soldier while herpanion, the female archer, shouted from her party¡¯s table with indignation, "Do you need me to exin to you how to use your mouth, you dimwit!? You-" What seemed like just the beginning of a long tirade was interrupted by the solemn woman at the end of the table, whose staff was now standing next to her, just like a standingmp. She quietly ced a hand onto her friend¡¯s shoulder, causing her to fold her arms in anger, push her body against the back of her seat, and quiet down.

    Following the woman¡¯s attempt at defusing the situation, the onlookers sighed in disappointment.

    After a quick nce at the other table, the soldier turned to look back at the heroic figure that was still standing in front of him, and with an unchanging smile, he said, "I can hear your thoughts bubbling from here.. You should get back to your seat, unless you have anything to say." As he spoke, the full power of his cultivation at the stage of true championship emerged as ayer of invisible mana, which morphed the surroundings simrly to meless high heat.

    Neither his tone, nor his words seemed to have any effect on the young hero, who instead, kept staring in silence..

    "This is why I dislike you, champions of Morality.. Always unaware of consequences." Said the soldier before turning to look at the emaciated waitress, who was now mindlessly looking back at him.

    Anyone with a developed mind power would have easily been able to see the gratitude this young woman was feeling towards the warrior.. But that was not all. Along with gratitude, was also a hidden desire that this warrior had not interfered, and instead allowed her to have a painless and quick death that, for someone who had led such a horrific life as hers, could have been considered an act of mercy.

    Naturally, the soldier did not care for the waitress, and not even once had the thought of killing her out of mercy appeared in his mind.. And yet, he was not unaware of how humans were treated in Horror¡¯s domain. It was clear to him that the Hero¡¯s action would cause more suffering to her than his actions would have-so instead of pressing the matter any further, he said to the waitress, "I have still not gotten my drink yet."

    The waitress bowed her head politely towards both the soldier and the heroic figure that was standing next to her, and took off for the kitchen, leaving the two cultivators alone.

    For the following couple of minutes, the soldier ignored the presence of the warrior, and instead, turned to look back at hispanions, who had resumed sharing their stories and experiences. It was only after the waitress came back while holding a te with a half filled ss on it, that the warrior in gold armor moved.

    His arm rose in between the table and the waitress, stopping her from serving the soldier. With a quick hand and no hesitation, he grabbed the ss, and gently ced it in front of the soldier. His actions courteous to a fault.. almost patronizing. He then turned to look back at the waitress, and dismissed her with a faint nod of his head.

    As the waitress walked away, the soldier picked the ss up, and brought it to his lips. With an almost elegant motion of his wrist he tilted it, allowing for only a taste of its content to slide into his mouth, right as he looked at the warrior in white gold walk back to his table. Pleased by the taste, he gulped the rest down, and with his elbow pressed against the table¡¯s surface, he raised the ss up to his eyes-level with the intention of ordering another.

    Right before he could call the waitress back, however, the soldier noticed that the rim of his ss was slightly chipped. "Oh.." he uttered in cold disappointment right before slowly cing the ss back on the table. Then, in a motion that seemed to be as fast as the reaction speed of the man in white gold armor, un reached for his waist, drew a handgun, and without even looking, he pointed it at the waitress, and pressed the trigger.

    In just an instant, a sh of light formed at the end of the gun¡¯s barrel, which exploded in a thousand tiny strands of essence that carefully avoided any object that stood between the soldier and his target, only tond on the waitresses¡¯ body before anyone could even realize what was happening. The thud created by her body hitting the ground resounded throughout the entire restaurant, bringing both the customers, and the warrior in white-gold armor to a halt.

    The hand of the champion of Morality instinctively reached for the handle of his sword, pulling it out of its scabbard just enough to uncover a de made entirely out of pure starmetal. From the small cracks between the tes that formed his armor oozed an oppressive mixture of emotional aura and essence, which quickly formed a film around his body a few inches thick.

    Simrly, the soldier tightened his hold on the handgun he was holding, while reaching for a military-style knife with a half sharpened half serrated edge. It was clear that a sh was unavoidable.

    The remaining members of the hero¡¯s and soldier¡¯s parties, as well as the other groups of champions, quietly made their preparation to either take part, or observe fight that was about to start-and yet, right when it seemed that the bubble of pure tension would finally burst, augh resounded in the air, and reached the ears of every cultivator in the dining hall, who immediately turned to look at a table in the darkest corner of the venue with confusion.

    There, Daniel was having a pleasant conversation with the waitress, who stood next to his table unaware of the corpse, identical to her in every way, that wasying onto the floor just a few tables away. "I really enjoyed yourst suggestion. What else would you rmend?" Asked Daniel while resting his head onto his palm, and moving his empty ss closer to the edge of the table.

    Enchanted by Daniel¡¯s smile and cheerful behavior, the waitress said, "T-The.. Many clients have praised the Spearmint Dragon.." As she spoke, she ignored that the eyes of every cultivator present were pointed at her-trying to pierce through her body and get a glimpse of Daniel¡¯s appearance and power.

    "Oh.. That sounds more like a nickname for a friend of mine, more than a drink.." said Daniel while raising a corner of his lips into a yful grin. Then, just as a hint of disappointment was starting to appear on the face of the waitress, he added, "But you haven¡¯t failed me before, so I¡¯ll trust you! One for each of us, five in total." After hearing Daniel¡¯s words, as if struck by sunlight after a long night of sleep, the young woman straightened her back, and with a warm smile and newfound enthusiasm, she marched towards the kitchen, looking forward to her next interaction with this unusual man and hispanions, with whom he resumed his previous conversation as soon as she left.

    In the nces that Daniel ignored, was a respectful alertness. For most of the observing cultivators it had been tens of thousands of years since anyone had managed to sessfully create an illusion that could trick their senses. And yet, not only had Daniel done just that, he had done it while minding his own business.. effortlessly.

    The perfection of the illusion made the observers doubtful of their surroundings and safety.. After all, for all they knew, the restaurant could have been an illusion just like the waitress, and they were just a moment away from having their heads chopped by a de.

    Were they safe? Were they still on Kosmos? Was Daniel a senior they had just annoyed? These were only a few of the many questions that appeared in their minds, distracting them from the still ongoing hostility between the two champions of War and Morality. It was only when the warrior in white gold armor approached once again the table of the champions of War, that the attention moved back on them.

    "Do it, or I will." Said the champion of Morality with a stoic tone.

    Still shocked about being caught into Daniel¡¯s illusion, the soldier turned to look at him, aware of the possibility that he could have been his opponent¡¯s ally. However, as soon as the door of the restaurant opened, and a dozen more cultivators in soldiers¡¯ uniform entered the dining hall, he ced his hand onto the table.

    From the surface of his palm emerged a wisp of essence, which joined the public formations of the restaurant that, once activated, gave the soldier only one option. With no hesitation, the soldier epted the terms set by the restaurant¡¯s formation.. An action that caused the scenery that could be seen on the other side of the restaurant¡¯s windows and door to disappear, and be reced by the cold emptiness of space. Anyone with the right amount of knowledge of spatial essence would have realized that the entire restaurant had been teleported far away from Kosmos, and into an empty point of space where the warriors could fight freely without causing any damage to the city..

    Once the teleportation waspleted, on the restaurant¡¯s entrance appeared a semi-circle of light essence, with one end stable at the top, and the other slowly burning in an anti-clockwise motion. From the speed at which the moving end burned, it was clear that the time limit set before the dining hall would go back to where it originally was, was only twenty minutes.

    This kind of formation had been left in each of Polis¡¯s buildings in order to grant a more free alternative to the rules-bound arenas, in which previously agreed terms, bets, and limitations were set by the battling domains. By leaving the dining hall and entering the open space, each champion, be it challenger or observer, was officially giving up the protection of the domains of Law and Order, and agreeing that anything that would happen next would not be a responsibility of the domains of Law, Order, or the organizing domain.

    Nevertheless, this degree of danger was not enough to discourage the future inheritors of these massive domains.

    The first ones to leave the dining hall were the champions of War, led by the soldier that had attempted to kill the waitress. By the presence of the hero in golden armor, he had already guessed that a fight on even ground was probably a bad idea, but that caution was dispelled the moment he had seen more of his peers enter the restaurant, raising their numbers up to three times those of the hero¡¯s party.. So, after the change of location, he rose to his feet, and left from the restaurant¡¯s entrance along with hispanions.

    Following the champions of War were the spectators, who sprung up on their feet, and rushed out in smallish groups in hope to im a good spot to view the battle.

    Once alone, the party of the heroic-looking cultivator turned to look at him with uncertainty.

    "That probably was not a good idea.." Said the monk from underneath therge brown hood.

    Next to him, the giant in massive armor nodded in agreement.

    "I have to agree with us on this one.. Next time, if you want to act, you need to be more decisive." Said the woman that sat at the end of the table with a stern tone, and while leaning on her staff.

    After listening to the opinions of hispanions, the warrior in golden armor turned to look back at them, and from underneath his helmet, he asked, "Does that mean you are noting?"

    "Hell no. That guy pissed me off.." said the female archer right before mming her palm onto the table, which exploded into hundreds of perfectly carved arrows that automatically flew into her bottomless quiver. She then grabbed her bow, and while approaching the warrior in white gold armor, she said with a cheerful tone, "Let¡¯s kick some ass." Behind her, were the other members of the party.

    Aware of the numerical disadvantage, and yet devoid of hesitation, the party of five marched bravely through the door, leaving Daniel and hispanions alone in the dining hall.

    "Yeah.. I do like them." Said Daniel as he rudely grabbed Lilith¡¯s ss, whose content she had not touched yet, and gulped it down.. "Stay here." He then said before casually walking out of the dining hall, like a happy old man on ate afternoon stroll.

 Chapter 545 - To Bring Morals to a Gun Fight

    <h4>Chapter 545 - To Bring Morals to a Gun Fight</h4>

    As Daniel¡¯s rxed appearance walked through the portal, he found himself standing in open space. Around him was nothing but the four pieces of wood connected into the rectangr wooden frame he had just walked out of, and an infinite expanse of dark and cold spatial essence. It was only thanks to his senses, that Daniel was able to feel the presence of the other champions, who, just like him, were sitting at a table within the dining hall no longer than a couple minutes ago.

    Once in this starless expanse of open space, these cultivators split up, and spread out in order to find a spot from which they could observe the fight between the champions of the domains of War, and Morality.

    In these types of events there were no real rules. A challenge was thrown the moment one of two conflicting groups would leave the safety of Polis, and any form of preparation needed to be done before epting the challenge, and following the challenger through the portal - the reason why the battle had begun even before Daniel¡¯s arrival.. Nevertheless, Daniel¡¯s appearance had brought the exchange between the two groups to a pause only seconds after it had started, causing every cultivator, regardless of whether they were fighting or simply observing, to turn to look at him with suspicion and curiosity.

    "I don¡¯t know to which domain you belong to, but you better not interfere, this time." Said a voice that reached Daniel¡¯s ear from a depth of space that no member of the younger generation of champions could have ever reached in such a short amount of time.

    In the sound essence that carried these words, Daniel could feel an immensely higher power than that of the restaurant¡¯s clients, as well as a stronger, yet less refined, presence of the intimidating and domineering aspect of War. It was clear that this fight was not only being observed by the younger generation, but by older, more powerful champions as well.

    Daniel did not respond to the voice¡¯s veiled threat. Instead, he stood quietly as ck blotches appeared on his skin, and by slowly growing in size,pletely swallowed his figure, erasing him from the scenery as if he had never been there to begin with.

    Immediately after Daniel¡¯s disappearance, the fight between the two domains resumed just a few hundred miles away from the portal. There, the champions of war orbited at incredible speed around the party of champions of Morality, like the electrons of an atom-avoiding the thousands of arrows, elemental constructs, and rays of light that came from the core of a barrier made out of thick vines.

    Snakes of molten metal and semi-solid slush wereing out of the staff of the female summoner, easily moving through the of spiky vines that she had put in ce, creating a blockage that made the infinite number of arrows shot by her archerpanion, and the incandescent light rays constructed by the monk, almost impossible to see. Within this constantly moving formation, the heroic-looking warrior, and the giant in massive ted armor waited in silence, each holding their respective weapons of choice, a sword, and a towering shield that weighed as much as a mountain.

    Dashing in a seemingly random pattern were the twenty or so champions of war, who used their impressive speed to avoid the uncountable ranged attacks unleashed every second by their opponents, while asionally shooting bullets made out of pure essence aimed at the gaps between the vines.. But that were ultimately blocked by the living vines, or by the giant¡¯s towering shield.

    From an outside perspective, it seemed that the champions of Morality were in an advantageous position. After all, while the attacks of both teams were ranged, and the soldiers had a numeric advantage, theycked a defensible position, and were forced to focus on constantly avoiding the constant barrage of attacks from their opponents before they could even think of fitting in an attack or two.

    Theck of a formation within the soldiers was cause of ridicule between the younger champions of the other domains, who conversed with one another despite being far beyond each other¡¯s sight.

    "That is all that talk was about?" Said a female champion from afar in anger. In her voice was a power that expressed the quality of the aspect of Dominance, whose domain she was part of. "They are nowhere near vicious enough."

    Following her remarks were the exmations of agreement that came from the members of the other domains.

    "Does it bother you that your domain is subject to the domain of War?" Said a second voice that came from the other side of the battlefield. This voice belonged to a man, and in it, was contained a power that many would recognize as representative of the aspect of Collectiveness. The tone of the champion of Collectiveness¡¯ domain was scornful, and implied rivalry between his domain, and that of Dominance-both of low level.

    Irritated and embarrassed by her domain¡¯s subservience towards the losing side, the champion of Dominance and herpanions turned to look at the portal, above which the counter had burned only a fourth of the way through. In their mind they were considering whether it was better to bear the humiliation, or leave.

    After the back and forth between the two domains took ce, the situation seemed to be even more dire for the champions of War, as the attack pattern of the other party became more intense. To end any debate on the possible oues of this encounter, was the man in white gold armor himself, who, from within the severalyers of protection created by hispanion¡¯s attacks and defensive means, would swing his sword towards specifically prepared gaps between the vines in instantaneous motions.. causing des of warped space and light, to fly at his opponents.

    Each attack was more urate than the previous one, as the warrior appeared to be gradually getting a hang of the random pattern of movements of his opponents.

    The closer one of the soldiers came to being struck by one of these attacks, the more the pressure on those who had bet on the win of the domain of War became.. To a point where, just like the champions of Dominance, they were considering whether it was worth wasting time witnessing this exchange, or leave to find entertainment elsewhere. Before any of them could leave, however, what everyone hade to expect finally happened.

    The massive of vines opened just enough for a particrly rapid and thin de to pass through, striking an unaware soldier who, after noticing the iing attack, was only able to move his arms in the way of the strike to reduce the impact. Yet, despite being somewhat sessful in protecting his life, the attack was still able to pierce through theyers of protection created by the soldier¡¯s very own essence, and cut through his skin and flesh.

    Pridefully, the hero in white gold armor stared at the injured body of the unconscious soldier he had just hit, from within the core of his party¡¯s formation.. Confirming for both teams, and the observing cultivators, that his party was on the path of victory-or at least, that was what they thought.

    From the moment the vines opened to allow the warrior¡¯s attack through, to the moment the strike hit, only a fraction of a second had passed, allowing the warrior to witness the result of his attack briefly before the vines would close once again-yet, a moment was all the well organized members of War¡¯s domain needed.

    Seemingly renouncing the random evasive measures they had employed to avoid their opponent¡¯s ranged attacks so far, the champions of War suddenly released arge amount of power, and used it to boost their speed as they dashed towards the position of their injuredpanion. Once their movements came to a halt, however, the observing cultivators noticed that the soldiers had not moved in to rescue theirpanion, but instead, had formed a tightly packed formationposed of three ordered lines.

    The soldier¡¯s formation was just the right size to grant each them a clear view of the warrior in golden armor, and was put in ce so quickly, that the champions of Morality could do nothing but open in his in shock as the end of the barrel of the soldiers¡¯ guns charged with vast amount of power. All aimed at the heart of the warrior in golden armor, the soldiers pulled the trigger of their guns at the exact same moment, sending a shower of light beams through the thick vines.

    As these beams of light made their way through, the summoner in control of the vine formation managed to deflect several of the beams, but not all.. Leaving it in the hands of the warrior in gold armor to defend himself from the remaining ones, which he did by raising his sword in an attempt to protect his chest.

    Out of time, the beams of light struck heavily against the warrior¡¯s sword, forcing his arm to jerk back due to thebined impact caused by the full power attack of half a dozen cultivators at a simr stage than his own. Most of these attacks dissipated afternding onto the t part of the sword-All but two, which were instead deflected by the edge of the de, and ended up striking the back of the female archer, injuring her severely.

    Disappointed and enraged, the warrior in golden armor turned to look at the formation of soldiers, who, before he could say anything, turned into beams of light, and resumed their evasive manoeuvres.

    "You were saying?" Asked the disembodied and proud voice of the champion of Dominance.. A question that was met with the silence of the champion of Collectiveness, and the faintughs of the other observers, who were just there to enjoy the show.

    Back on the battlefield, the party of Morality¡¯s domain reacted to the soldiers¡¯ surprise attack like anyone would have expected them to. Their focus shifted to defence, as shown by the ceasing of the barrage of attacks from the injured archer, and of light attacks from the priest, who was now tending to his injuredpanion while the other three focused on defending.. But, s, that was not the only change in behavior within the battlefield.

    Like a pack of hyenas stalking an injured prey, the formation of soldiers reformed below the defending party, with guns already charged, and aimed at the archer. To the eye of the observing cultivators, this attack was identical to the previous one, and was likely being performed not to further damage the enemy party, but to maintain the pressure on them.. Or at least, that was the case for those who did not know how the champions of War fought.

    Another barrage of highly concentrated essence was shot out of the guns barrels of the soldiers¡¯ weapons, but this time, the aim was slightly off. Right before striking against theyer of vines, the twenty or so beams merged into one immensely powerful attack, which pierced through the vines like a hot knife through butter.

    Unprepared for such a powerful attack, the giant in massive armor moved in front of the attack, with his towering shield covering not only his body, but that of his entire party. He then enhanced his shield with as much power he could spare before bracing for the impact.

    Like a hammer striking a scorching bar of steel, the impact caused the shield to bend inward, and for the warrior¡¯s arm to break in several points.. However, it was only after his essence was exhausted, that his body jerked back to an unnatural degree, and he was thrown against the thick vines that formed their team¡¯s innermostyer of protection.

    Shocked by the sudden turn of events, yet suspicious that such a powerfulbined attack could not be repeated more than once, the summoner pushed herself to construct more vines that could cover the massive gaping hole within her protective formation. New and thinner vines emerged from the surface of the untouched ones, and quickly joined together in order to patch the hole, and give herpanions a moment to breathe.. A kindness that her opponents did not possess.

    Before the vines could widen and gain in resistance, the soldiers, still panting from the strain of the joint attack, injected a small portion of their power into their guns, and once again pulled the trigger.. This time, however, the powerful rays came out with a dy of, at most, a fraction of an instant between one another.. Each striking one of the newly formed vines, and blowing it to bits so that the following attacks could move through.

    The vines kept reforming after being destroyed, but it soon became clear to the summoner that the consumption required to reform the vines was much higher than the alternated and infinite attacks of the champions of war. "I can¡¯t resist much longer!" She shouted as her white hands tightened around her staff firmly enough to turn even paler.

    In just a few minutes, the party of the man in white gold armor found itself on the losing end of the battle. Of their five members two were injured, and two were doing their best to protect, and aid theirpanions¡¯ recovery while the fifth member could do nothing but witness the events unfold, unable to help in any way.

    With a grim expression hidden by his heroic helmet, the proud warrior in white gold armor swallowed the lump he was feeling in his throat. In his mind were the memories of the millions who had praised him, boosting his ego by assuring him that he was a hero among men, and that no fight could be lost as long as his cause was just.. A castle of sand that, after meeting with the experienced, disciplined, and relentless warrior of War¡¯s domain, had started to crumble as if caught under a sh flood.

    "Argh!" Screamed the summoner, who, after finding herself unable to repair the barrier as fast as the attacks were thrown, had no choice but to shield her injuredpanions with her body. Unfortunately, despite her attempts to parry the blow with her staff, the shot broke her weapon, and went straight through her right shoulder, detaching her entire arm from the rest of her body.

    Seeing the severity of hispanions¡¯ injuries, the warrior in white gold armor gave up any idea of fighting, and instead, decided to retreat back to the safety of Polis.. where hispanions could heal safely. In order to do that, he used the few moments of protection left from the vines formation to surround hispanions¡¯ bodies with his essence, and without hesitation, he shot in the direction of the portal at full speed.

    Behind them were the figures of the twenty-odd soldiers, who, unwilling to let the party escape, either gave chase, or prepared to hinder the party¡¯s retreat with ranged attacks.

 Chapter 546 - A Hard Pill to Swallow

    <h4>Chapter 546 - A Hard Pill to Swallow</h4>

    "Where do you think you are going?!" barked out the sadistic soldier who, until now, had led the group of soldiers in the battle against the injured and currently retreating champions of Morality¡¯s domain.

    While his words were ignored by the two still standing members of the fleeting party, whose priority was to carry the injured friends back to the portal, that was not the same for the several attacks which obliterated the surrounding spatial and dark essence, and dug straight towards their backs.

    Unable to safely avoid these attacks, the warrior in golden armor stepped in between the beams of essence and his injuredpanions, and with his sword charged to the limit with his innate power, he braced for impact - An action that caused the observing young cultivators to shake their heads in disappointment.

    Many champions of the younger generations would usually look forward to fighting against the members of other domains, and the Exalted Assembly represented a perfect, yet also extremely rare opportunity to do just that. For that reason, unlike the warrior in golden armor and his friends, who were just spending an evening together, virtually every other cultivator present had spent every moment they had since the announcement of an Exalted Assembly, studying the information their domains had collected of their adversaries.

    For a strategic force like the domain of War, who¡¯s fighting patterns were heavily reliant on formting strategies specific to their adversary, the advantage in preparation was not only able topensate for their individual inferiority, but also to allow them to obtain a devastating victory.

    However, their preparation was not all.

    The main reason why the party of the warrior in white gold armor had been so utterly defeated, was not because of an advantage in numbers.. but because as champions of war, morality had no ce in their mentality. Sacrificing a member of their own, making use of a numerical advantage, attacking the injured, or even being ruthless towards a retreating adversary.. were all virtues, while gracefulness and indecisiveness were considered weakness.

    On the other hand, a battle between champions of morality was usually easy to predict, as one¡¯s morality, whether honourable or malicious, would usually give away how each champion would fight. For example, someone whose morals revolved around camaraderie would be selfless towards theirpanions, an honourable character would usually attempt to fight fairly, and a malicious person could often be seen using poisons, or y into their opponent¡¯s weaknesses.. Be it physical, or psychological.

    The difference in preparation, paired with the difference in behavior, made the domain of War the worst possible match, for the champions of Morality.. And everyone was aware of that.

    Having done as much research as the domain of War, the observing young cultivators knew that the closer to victory their domain would get, the dirtier they would fight.. And that was exactly what happened.

    -

    In an attempt to block the iing beams of light the same way he had done more than once in the past few minutes, the warrior in golden armor ced his sword vertically in front of his body, making its hilt cover a portion of his body that started from his knee, and reached all the way up to his eye level. He then prepared to block the blow by injecting as much power as he could into the sword, and leaning onto it.

    With his left eye pointed at the iing attack, the warrior noticed that as they approached his position, the beams drew closer together - Indication of the fact that they would eventually merge into a more powerful attack right before reaching striking. A tactique the soldiers had used before.

    Aware of this, the warrior took control over the power he had injected into his sword, and released it from the other side of its de in a conic shape of pure and dense innate power.. His hope was that this cone could lessen the impact, and make the attack bearable to some degree.. Unfortunately, it would not take long until that hope would s.u.mb to realization.

    As he expected, the beams of power drew closer to one another the more they neared him, but at the moment in which they should have merged into one stronger beam, they instead ricocheted against one another, bouncing shot in different directions.

    A feeling of doom creeped down the warrior¡¯s spine, and for a moment, he realized what pure ruthlessness was. He could only look in horror as the beams of light curved around him, and headed for his injuredpanions.

    Only able to save one of them, the warrior found himself instinctively dashing towards the sorceress, whose body he covered with his own in order to protect her from the iing fatal attack that was aimed at her. Simrly, with great struggle, the monk managed to produce just enough power to attempt to counter the attack that was aimed at the injured archer, leaving unprotected the giant in massive armor, who despite his injuries, was still able to put together a defence that he hoped was enough to protect himself from the third andst beam.

    Finally, in what felt like only a fraction of a moment, all the beams struck their targets at the same time.

    From an observer¡¯s perspective, no sound could be heard. Be it as one of the beams pierced the monk¡¯s attack and managed tond on his chest, as another snapped the warrior¡¯¨¬s unreinforced sword in two pieces beforending on his lower back, or as thest beam pierced right through the body of the already injured giant in massive armor, and created a fist sized hole in his stomach.. Nothing could break the absolute silence of outer space, until a clear voice was heard.

    "STOP!" screamed the warrior in golden armor with the least bit of power he could muster. "W-We surrender.." He said as droplets of blood left the lower part of his back inrge drops, and quietly floated away into space.

    These few words were able to stop the soldiers from continuing their barrage of attacks, as well as convince them to, if possible, talk it out..

    Regardless of their intentions, the soldiers seemed to ept this invitation.. as they stopped their evasive maneuvers, and appeared as a tightly packed formation just a few hundred steps away from the injured warrior, and his unconsciouspanions. Standing a few steps to the front, was the soldier whom the warrior in golden armor had challenged in the restaurant.

    "Why should we stop?" Said the soldier with a malicious grin that, even more than his previous actions, was indicative of the excitement he was feeling, as well as his sadistic personality. "You are more powerful than I am, and after epting your challenge, I have humiliated you. Should I not expect you to want to return the humiliation in the future?" Asked the soldier while stepping closer to the injured warrior, and pointing his gun at his neck, the only uncovered part of his body.

    For the first time, the warrior in golden armor became aware of the difference between the domains.. If he couldn¡¯t appeal to any form of morality, was it still possible for him to at least find a way to keep his friends alive? After all, his opponents were calctive and pragmatic, and therefore, no apology or promise could ever convince them of his sincerity in not wanting to find revenge.

    Nevertheless, he could not allow his friends to die like this. With clear fatigue, he straightened his body, and removed his helmet. He then looked the soldier straight in the eyes, and after slowly turning to look at his unconsciouspanions, he said, "I am their leader, as well as the one who issued the challenge.. Kill me, and allow them to surrender.. Please." In his voice was no trace of fear. If his sacrifice was enough to grant hispanion¡¯s survival, then he was willing to do it.

    As the warrior in golden armor finished speaking, from behind the sadistic soldier came the voice of one of his talkativepanions, who, surprised by how the warrior was able to make his case in terms that they as soldiers could understand, said to his sadisticpanion, "Hike, remember what the generals told us? Our ranking is influenced by every battle, including the ones fought during the Exalted Assembly." He then turned to look at the state of hispanions, and after holstering his gun, he said, "One injured, no losses.. If we let them surrender we get a perfect score.. I know you want to kill them, but don¡¯t screw it up for us too."

    The malicious grin disappeared from the face of the sadistic soldier, but his finger never moved away from the trigger. He then slowly turned towards hispanion, and responded by asking, "What did the generals say about hierarchy on the field?"

    A flicker of annoyance appeared on the face of the second soldier, who immediately tried to cover it by brushing the tip of his nose. "He said that the officer in charge decides strategy and oue.." He said with irritation before adding, "You are going to damage our ranking just to kill these nobodies?"

    While maintaining his rxed attitude, the sadistic soldier turned to look at the pitiful appearance of the warrior in golden armor and his unconsciouspanions.. With their armor and clothes reduced to tatters, and surroundings engulfed by therge beads of blood they were still losing, they awaited the soldier¡¯s decision.

    Seemingly convinced, the sadistic soldier holstered his weapon, and lifted his arm to the height of hispanion¡¯s shoulder. He then wrapped his arm around it in a friendly manner. "I guess you all owe me big for this one.." He said as his lips curved into an amiable smile.

    "Of course." Said the second soldier with a more rxed attitude. It was clear that the survival of the champions of Morality was not a concern of his. However, as a champion of War, his performance was witnessed, recorded, and judged based on his degree of sess, and the best evaluation could only be obtained through a sign ofplete victory, in the form of their opponent¡¯s surrender.

    Relieved, the second shrugged the arm of his sadisticpanion off his shoulder, and turned around to join the rest of the group.. when suddenly, he heard the words, "On second thought.. I don¡¯t really care." followed by the clear sound of gun discharging.

    Enraged, the betrayed soldier turned around to a confusing sight.

    The malicious grin had reappeared on the face of hispanion, as he aimed his gun at their prisoners of war in an attempt to execute them.. From the end of the barrel emerged a beam of light that reached forward by only a few steps before being stopped, frozen in space just like the wielder of the gun was. However, that was not the only confusing part.

    Standing next to the frozen sadistic soldier, was the figure of a calm and unbothered young man. With his elbow resting onto the soldier¡¯s shoulder, he looked at the sorry appearance of the champions of Morality with slight interest. In his hand were a handful of peanuts which he would quietly shell one by one before pushing them into his mouth with an imperceptible thread of essence, and storing the removed shells into the front pocket of the soldier¡¯s uniform.

    "That was stupid." Said Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone. Behind him, the remaining soldiers looked at his figure with alertness. They had never felt Daniel¡¯s presence ever since he had left the restaurant a few minutes ago, nor had they felt him observe the encounter from anywhere their senses could reach. And yet, he had managed toe close enough to not only interrupt, but catch their entire group by surprise. "What did you think was going to happen?" Daniel asked the warrior in gold armor.

    Before the warrior could ovee his surprise, and respond to Daniel¡¯s question, the soldier that was still standing a few steps away from Daniel instinctively retreated back to formation. "Why are you interfering? This is a duel between the champions of Mortality and of War." He said as him and hispanions reached for their weapons.

    Almost as if annoyed by the interruption, Daniel turned his head around, and with an indifferent expression, he said, "I¡¯ll be with you in a minute." he then casually waved his hand in front of his chest, causing a wave of power to engulf the entire battlefield.

    While this casual action seemed to be ineffective to the soldiers, for which Time had stopped, that was not the case for Daniel, the champions of morality, and the observers could see the entire group of War¡¯s champions almostpletely frozen in time, forced to live at a speed infinitely slower than usual.

    Shocked by how easily Daniel could incapacitate a group of soldiers that his team could hardly injure, the warrior in golden armor said grimly, "It was ack of experience on my part.. I should have known better." He then turned to look at the state of hispanions with an apologetic look. Once he made sure that they weren¡¯t in immediate threat, he turned to look back at Daniel, and asked, "Why did you help us?"

    After swallowing a handful of peanuts, Daniel asked, "Why not? I am new here, is there a rule that says I can¡¯t do whatever I want?"

    "Not written.. But.." said the warrior in golden armor with a hint of worry, before being interrupted by an immense and oppressive power.

    "Since you do whatever you want, mind if I join in as well?" Said a voice that resounded throughout light years worth of space, and that was followed by the grizzled appearance of a middle aged man in worn out military attire. On his face was nowhere near as much cordiality as there was in his request, and instead, was an expression filled with open hostility. "I thought I told you to stay out of it." he said with a threatening tone.

    "Sir, this is a matter between us, and your juniors. Please don¡¯t imp-" Said the warrior in golden armor, aware that this man did not belong to the young generation, and therefore, was not someone any of them should be able to handle.

    "Oh, cut it out. Will you?" Said Daniel, interrupting the attempt of the warrior in golden armor to save him from the wrath of the elder of War¡¯s domain. He then turned to look at the middle-aged soldier with indifference, and while grabbing the throat of the sadistic soldier, he added, "Why should I care if you join? Your presence means nothing."

 Chapter 547 - Loud and Clear

    <h4>Chapter 547 - Loud and Clear</h4>

    An astonished expression formed on the face of the middle-aged soldier as he looked Daniel up and down, almost as if trying to find out from which of his pockets he was getting this level of confidence. Despite Daniel¡¯s disrespectful behavior, in order to avoid offending a possibly higher domain, the middle-aged soldier released a wisp of his power and let it wiggle its way towards the disrespectful young man that was floating just a few feet away from him, while holding one of his descendants by the throat.

    During the few seconds of quiet staring that followed, the middle-aged soldier saw nothing but a man in histe thirties with the appearance of a young man in his mid twenties, a cultivation that had just breached through the stage of true championship, and the presence of a power that belonged to an aspect of existence that he had never encountered, and whose purity could bepared to that of the weakest members of his, and the other domains.

    Taken aback by Daniel¡¯s boldness despite not having anything to back it up, the older soldier casually let more of his essence crawl out of his body, and reach for the younger members of his domain, as well as the young man who had locked them in time. When his power touched the space upied by the bodies of these few cultivators, however, instead of following his orders and wrapping itself around them like a formless snake around its prey, the essence moved through, as if nothing was really there.

    "What.." muttered the middle-aged soldier while initiating a second attempt.

    The moment his shapeless essence moved through Daniel¡¯s body a second time, two more powerful cultivators appeared next to him. From their attire and power, it was clear that they did not belong to the domain of War, and that they were likely there to observe the encounter between the young champions of War and Morality the same way the middle-aged soldier had a few seconds ago.

    "Is that what I think it is?"

    ".. it would appear so. What concept of time do you think this is?..."

    The conversation between these two cultivators, an old man dressed in a simple white robe that seemed to be connected to his impressively long white beard and equally as long hair, and an olddy dressed in an entirely pink attireposed by a jacket with stiff shoulder pads, a skirt that covered her legs all the way underneath her knees, shoes with short heels, and a flower hat, was able to catch the attention of the middle-aged soldier, who turned towards them in confusion, and asked, "What are you two talking about?"

    The two old cultivators looked at one another, then, after confirming what they had seen, the olddy turned to look at Daniel, and asked, "Who taught you these concepts of the essence of spacetime? To my knowledge, no one has ever been able to control time to this extent." Her voice could not hide the deep curiosity she was feeling.

    Daniel ignored the question, and instead, looked past the area of space he was controlling to observe the thin film of solid spatial essence which had inconspicuously formed around the battlefield. This barrier was made entirely out of pure spatial essence, which, reinforced by the immense power of the old man dressed in white robes who had created it, had soon be impossible for someone at Daniel¡¯s cultivation level to prate.

    Despite being trapped, Daniel did not panic. Instead, he turned to look at the old man with a seemingly unbothered expression, and asked, "Do you think that barrier would stop whoever taught me how to control the essence of spacetime, from leaving?"

    This question had heavy implications. It was clear that these two ancient cultivators were extremely proud about their knowledge of the essence of spacetime, and that pride had been shattered by someone that even their younger descendants would refer to as a junior. And yet, they did not feel too bad about it, as whoever had a degree ofprehension of the essence of spacetime which could not only rival, but ovee their own, must be quite a legendary figure in the multiverse..

    What was stopping them from releasing Daniel, even if out of respect for this unknown elder, was the fact that his skills were much more likely to have been learned from an extremely rare treasure of time essence, or encountered somewhere in the multiverse, instead of having been taught by someone with a knowledge diametrically opposite to his fame.

    Even if hypothetical, the existence of a treasure of time essence formed by an unknown concept of time, or of a ce within the multiverse where time behaved in a way that could allow those who studied it to gain a deeperprehension of it, had been at the core of every debate between experts of either space, or time essence.. However, no one had ever been able to prove their existence.

    It was for that reason that, after noticing Daniel¡¯s deepprehension of time essence, the two schrs of spatial and time essence had decided to jump in-If not to obtain that knowledge from Daniel, at least to form a friendly rtionship with those who they thought could share it with them.

    Unfortunately, their actions were not perceived as intended, as while the creation of this barrier was only meant to secure the area and prevent Daniel from leaving prematurely, the two schrs had no intention of harming him.. After all, discarding negotiation before even trying would have been foolish of such experienced cultivators.

    Nevertheless, based on Daniel¡¯s response, it seemed that he had jumped to the worst possible conclusion.

    In hope to rify their intentions, the old man in white robes floated next to his femalepanion, but right before he could speak any of the reassuring words that were forming in his mind, Daniel turned towards the middle-aged soldier, and with a cold tone, he while pointing at the injured team of Morality¡¯s domain, he said, "You can take back your descendants, but theye with me."

    "If you ept his request, your domain will lose the fifteen universes you bet on your descendants¡¯ win, as well as each individual bet you have taken on the specifics of that win, for a total of seventy-six universes." Said a silvery voice that was just as powerful as the one of the three elders present, but that was hidden in the depths of space.

    It quickly became clear to Daniel that, while the younger generation of champions were fighting for their lives, the older generation would enjoy the show while betting vast chunks of their domains on the result.. And that was likely to be the reason why the unwritten rule of not meddling in a fight had been created.

    Aware that the two old cultivators had found value in Daniel, the middle-aged soldier did not hesitate, and with his hand straightened into a de, he raised his arm at supersonic speed and shed the empty space that separated him from the disrespectful young man.

    This seemingly ineffective attack was able to stretch the surrounding space beyond its breaking point, after which it split apart-destabilizing Daniel¡¯s formation to a point where it could not prevent the attack from approaching him, andnding squarely on his chest, splitting his body in two.

    "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Barked out the olddy with fury. "YOU OLD IDIOT! Our domains would have paid for your loss, if you had had the decency of letting us speak!"

    "Your decrepit universes mean nothing to my domain." Said the middle-aged soldier while looking at his descendents, who were now free, and trying to understand why their surroundings had changed without them even noticing.

    The two old cultivators looked at Daniel¡¯s corpse with disappointment. "His elder doesn¡¯t seem to be here. Take the body, for now. We can make it presentable, and hand it over to the elders of his domain." said the old man while turning to look onest angry look at the retreating middle-aged soldier.

    "But, whose domain do we deliver the body to? I can¡¯t recognize his breath." Asked the olddy with uncertainty. She had immediately understood the intentions of herpanion, who wanted to build a good rtionship with whomever had taught Daniel such a profound level ofprehension of the essence of spacetime. However, Daniel had never presented himself, nor had he announced to which aspect of Existence the power he had been blessed with,monly known as Breath, belonged to.

    "We¡¯ll find out during the assembly.. There is no other way." Said the old man as a portion of his power emerged from his finger, and drifted towards Daniel¡¯s body. Before it could touch him, however, a formless spirit reformed in each of the two parts of Daniel¡¯s body. These two halves instinctively stretched outside of Daniel¡¯s remains, and reached for one another, as if trying to reunite.

    After finally reconnecting, what was left of his body was forcibly pulled together by Daniel¡¯s intact spirit, merging back into a full one.

    Once whole, the nasty looking wound that went from his right shoulder, down to the left side of his waist began to glow with a white-colored essence which, in just a few seconds, lost intensity, and ultimately disappeared, leaving behind a patch of smooth skin, repaired muscles and bones, and reconnected veins. The entire process took less than three seconds.

    "I am causing you a loss.. So I will take this aspensation." Said Daniel to the back of the elder of War¡¯s domain, who slowly turned around with brows narrowed in confusion-a feeling he shared with the two old cultivators, and the observers. Daniel¡¯s few words were able to strike a chord within the middle-aged soldier, causing him to turn to face the disrespectful young cultivator with his entire body. He then advanced in his direction with the intent of finishing the job he had started.

    Before he could do anything, the two old cultivators appeared in between the two of them. Their expressions shaped into benevolent smiles which they hoped could calm the old champion of War. "He survived a hit from you, let that be. We will pay your losses, and your domains will keep your universes."

    "Then you¡¯ll lose a portion of your territory for no reason." Said Daniel with a cold and detached tone to the olddy that had just spoken in his defence. "My domain refuses your help, and if you insist on meddling with our affairs, you will be owed nothing."

    "This isn¡¯t the time to be prideful, boy! Do you have the power to negotiate a peaceful resolution while still being this arrogant?!" The olddy barked out angrily.

    "I am not giving him a choice." Daniel responded.

    To the eyes of the observing cultivators, Daniel had fallen into madness. Many had already guessed that he had survived by relying on a specific constitution, and yet, none of those presentcked experience against any kind of cultivator, be it mental ones, spiritual ones, or physical ones.

    Daniel¡¯s apparent madness was temporarily ignored by the two old cultivators, who looked at one another in exasperation before once again attempting to stop the old soldier from killing him. From their perspective, Daniel could not possibly have the authority to make decisions that would have created enemies, friends, or debtors for the entire domain.. After all, he appeared exactly like a member of their domains¡¯ younger generation.

    "Keep your face, and leave with no losses." Said the olddy to the soldier while the old man shrunk the solid spatial barrier to fit Daniel, just in case the attempts at persuading the old soldier would fail. But, s, while they paid attention to most details, they failed to notice the most important one.

    Being treated like a child was quickly getting on Daniel¡¯s nerves "Remove the barrier.." he said calmly.

    "I could kill him, let my kids kill their adversaries, and win my bets." Responded the old soldier, who had now joined the two old cultivators in ignoring Daniel.

    The olddy shook her head in disagreement. "You¡¯ll make an enemy out of a domain you know nothing of." she said while quietly reinforcing the barrier around Daniel.

    The conversation went on for several seconds, until finally, Daniel¡¯s attention was caught by the summoner, one of the young champions of Morality. Her life essence had been eaten away ever since she had been injured, and was now close to dying. To prevent her and herpanions from healing themselves, were their now free adversaries, who were now pointing their guns while in a tightly packed formation, ready to end the conflict as soon as their elder would give them permission to.

    "Let me out of here.." said Daniel through his teeth while feeling an indescribable feeling of anger and indignation.

    Aware that there was no chance that the old soldier would concede even an inch, the old cultivator in white robes looked at the young champions of morality with an apologetic look, then said, "You don¡¯t need to kill him. We¡¯ll bring him back to his domain¡¯s elders, and you can end your bat-"

    His words were stopped by a sudden feeling of doom.

    "I said.. LET! ME! OUT!!" Daniel shouted while unconsciously releasing the full extent of his powers as the aspect of Karma, which exploded outwards creating a wave that in just a moment, traveled throughout the entire universe, andnded on the shoulders of every cultivator like a steel nket.

    The pressure created by this outburst was enough to bring the most powerful of cultivators to their knees, and for their mind to instinctively fall back into a pure state of submission, while the weaker ones dropped helplessly on the ground, barely conscious.

    While this feeling was easily recognizable as the power of a rtively young aspect of existence, there was something different in it- And that was Daniel¡¯s anger, which,pared to the neutral or indifferent disys of oppressive power that had been witnessed in the past, had created the most intimidating and crippling feeling that any living being within the multiverse had ever experienced.

    Luckily, this power onlysted for a few moments, after which it retreated back into Daniel¡¯s body, and went back into it¡¯s dormant state.

    "Was that clear enough?" Daniel uttered as his eyes went for being pearls of pure gold, to their original color.

 Chapter 548 - A Dangerous DÃ©butant

    <h4>Chapter 548 - A Dangerous D¨¦butant</h4>

    "Was that clear enough?" Daniel growled in anger to an universe full of immensely powerful, yet staggered cultivators. Who were now straightening themselves back to a standing position, while gazing at their surroundings with humbled eyes.

    The pressure they had felt was onlyparable to that which they had experienced in the presence of the aspects of existence they revered, but this time, there was a distinctive difference. In this power they couldn¡¯t feel the aloofness that these kinds of existence had for cultivators, but a true outburst of anger which matched Daniel¡¯s state of mind, and which terrified them.

    Mere moments after the power disappeared, countless individuals teleported on location. Their powerful bodies clothed in dignified attires, which matched the respectful demeanor they were portraying on their faces.

    "The leadership of Curiosity¡¯s domain greets Lord Aspect of Existence." Quaked a young, yet mature-looking man in schrly clothes to the empty space. He then inquired, "May we be graced with your Lordship¡¯s na-" His attempt to pry for information was quickly interrupted by more voices.

    "The domains of lords Path and Portal are honored to be in your presence."

    "Spirit¡¯s domain offers their.."

    ".. pays respect to.."

    All at the same time, thousands of cultivators who until now had spent thest few days waiting for the Exalted Assembly to begin, were now bowing their heads respectfully towards empty space, hoping to direct the anger of the aspect of existence they had felt, off their shoulders. Of them, not a single one had suspected that Daniel was the source of that power, but instead, that this unknown aspect of existence cared about him enough to intervene once Daniel¡¯s life was threatened.

    In the mind of these cultivators, these attempts to appease this wrathful entity seemed sessful, as no other sign of its existence followed. At the same time, their view of Daniel changed dramatically, as he appeared to have seeded in what each and every one of them had failed miserably for millions of years.. And that was to get one of the aspects of existence that they represented to care for them.

    After making sure that this unknown aspect of existence had no intention of taking out its anger onto them, the thousands of cultivators took a brief nce at Daniel, then took off, leaving him, the party of Morality¡¯s domain, and the two old cultivators alone.

    "We.. We would like to have a word with you, if you don¡¯t mind." Stuttered the olddy who, along with herpanion, had tried to stop the champion of War from killing Daniel. Her condescending demeanor had changed to a respectful one, as while Daniel was not as powerful as either of them, he had shown that he was not a simple member of the younger generation like any other.

    "At ater date." Daniel replied before turning to look at the still injured champions of Morality¡¯s domain, ignoring the presence of the two old cultivators who soon left without saying a word.

    Despite having saved them from certain death, and possessing the power to heal them, Daniel did not interfere any further. Instead, he headed towards the portal, whose countdown had almost reached itsst stage. Before he could leave, however, the disembodied voice of what appeared to be a man in histe fifties reached his ears. "You lent us a hand when it wasn¡¯t necessary. You have my gratitude." This voice stated.

    As this voice reached his ear, Daniel stopped, and without looking back, he inquired, "I have waited as long as possible for you to save your own people. Why haven¡¯t you?"

    The voice remained quiet for a few seconds, then asked, "What is the one and only rule of Morality¡¯s domain?"

    Albeit injured, this question seemed to light a me in the spirit of the injured group of young cultivators, who gathered all of the strength they had left to recite almost religiously, "We live by our morals, and we are ready to die by them."

    "How unexpected." Daniel uttered sarcastically. He then exined, "It seems that the wider you let your sense of morality spread, the more it stops being a driving force, and turns into an excuse. Maybe there is something you can learn from your juniors." As soon as he finished speaking, he resumed heading towards the closing portal.

    Daniel¡¯s words left the owner of the disembodied voice, as well as the younger champions, dumbfounded. Their meaning was clear. By allowing his people to be killed just so that their wish to die by their morals could be respected, was in contrast with the reactionary behavior of a champion of Morality. With this pragmatic mindset, this champion had turned into an entity that would ignore his own morality, and allow for his people to die, instead of supporting the cause they were fighting for.

    After millions of years, for its prideful champions, morality was seen as a candle me. Ideals which were allowed to burn as brilliantly as they possibly could, before ultimately dying out. What Daniel¡¯s words reminded him, however, was that morality was something that needed to be kept alive, for letting a light die out does nothing but let darkness shroud you.

    "I-" said the disembodied voice in an attempt to justify himself.

    Before the faceless cultivator could say anything, however, Daniel added, "To our next encounter." then disappeared into the portal, leaving the members of Morality¡¯s domain alone.

    -----

    When Daniel reappeared within the restaurant, he immediately noticed that the building was now empty. The tables had been left for the workers to clean, the sign on the door had changed from ¡¯open¡¯ to ¡¯close¡¯, and it would remain as such until the restaurant would be ready to wee more guests.

    Aside from the waiters, who quietly dashed back and forth from the kitchen to the dining hall while carrying piles of tes and sses, were Daniel¡¯spanions, who were still upying the table while waiting for his return-Companions whom he rejoined with a slow and pensive walk.

    What had be cause for concern to Daniel, was how, ever since awakening as an aspect of existence, he had felt small parts of his personality slowly slip away from his grasp. With time he found himself thinking less and less about his family, or feeling less sympathetic towards those in need.

    An example of this was his part in the exchange that took ce a few minutes earlier.

    The young man he had been in the past would have never allowed for the conflict between the two domains to end like this, nor would he have allowed for the abuse forced upon the mortals employed as servitude, to continue.. He would have created a mission through his system, and found a way to help them.

    Now, however, regardless of how much he disliked it, saving the waitress, joining the fight, or even healing the injured champions of morality, were not goals that he instinctively considered as worthy of his attention as finding a way for the other domains to acknowledge him, or gain allies.

    This mindset was the reason why, for him, finding the w in the philosophy of Morality¡¯s domain was so easy.. Because the loss of interest in the small and individual picture was something he had experienced personally.

    "What happened? They all stormed out right before you came back." Lilith inquired.

    "Nothing interesting.." Daniel said while turning towards the restaurant¡¯s entrance. "Come on, let¡¯s get you back to your domain." He then added right before stepping out.

    Once outside, Daniel immediately felt a thread of familiar essence, which after touching him, delivered to him a voice message spoken with Cassie¡¯s melodic voice. "Y-You need toe back.. A lot of people want to talk to you. Most of them left after learning you weren¡¯t back yet, but there is an old couple who said they would be waiting for you to return." She stammered with panic.

    "Let them wait, then." Daniel said, sending his message back by using the very same thread of essence that had found him in a city filled with cultivators. He then put the matter to the back of his head, and turned to look at Lilith, who had now appeared next to him alongside Ashura, and said to her, "Go on, then. I¡¯ll follow."

    "I have heard that during these types of events, our domain sticks to arenas. We should be able to find a champion of Competition in one of those." she replied with an uncharacteristic polite attitude.

    After having her memory erased, Lilith¡¯s demeanor towards Daniel had changed. While before she could do nothing but follow Daniel as a victim of bad circ.u.mstances, now she believed him to be her best chance of going back to her life. To cooperate with him, was the least she could do.

    "An arena.." Daniel asked as the corners of his mouth rose into a faint smile. The mention of arenas had made something click within his mind. He had only recently learned about the stakes of thepetitions that would take ce during an Exalted Assembly, and now that he had a chance, as well as the necessary knowledge, he had started to wonder why should he take part in it as well?

    -----

    Six hourster, entrance of the seventh arena.

    "My apologies for wasting your time.." Lilith said apologetically after dragging Daniel in a morning long search for the members of her domain.

    In front of Daniel, Lilith and Ashura,y a pathway of cleanly cut stone which led to a small square packed with people. This square wasid at the bottom of a simple-looking arena made out of stone, and surrounded by grey columns, not unlike the many arenas of the mortal world.

    What was peculiar about this arena, was the ring-shaped pocket of space that, unbeknownst to the participants that were constantly flooding in and out of it, was floating above the main building, and inside which Daniel could feel the presence of dozens of powerful champions.

    "It??s fine. We have the ti-" Daniel said before being interrupted by what he found to be an irritatingugh.

    "Ahahah, what kind of domain brings lower cultivators to an Exalted Assembly?" Said a corpulent young man in distinguished clothes. In his voice was the domineering nature of Hierarchy, the aspect of existence he championed, and he was a young leader that belonged to its mid-tier domain.

    This young man¡¯s tone was extremely loud, and it was aimed at grabbing the attention of the surrounding cultivators who, like he did, gasped in surprise at the presence of Ashura and Lilith, two simple high immortals. However, before this collective outrage could suddenly turn into a ruckus, a thunderous voice pierced the floating ring¡¯s surface, and expanded outwards. "Quiet!" Said the voice, which belonged to a second member of Hierarchy¡¯s domain, as demonstrated by the more pure, yet identical power hidden in it.

    As this happened, simr, yet less evident messages were sent from the other champions to their juniors, who, after heeding them, immediately turned away from Daniel, and resumed minding their own business.

    "What was that? Where did that loud voicee from??" Lilith asked Daniel, who did not share her confusion.

    In the past six hours, Daniel¡¯s existence as the champion of a protective and unknown aspect of existence had spread like wildfire, making the members of the other domains wary of him. Unfortunately, what they were wary of was the wrath of the aspect of existence that was supposedly protecting him, and not his own power.

    Despite being aware of this, instead of answering Lilith¡¯s question, Daniel moved his essence out of his body, and with it, he formed a flight of stairs, which he then constructed by turning his power into spatial essence. This flight of stairs led to the invisible ring-shaped tunnel that was hovering over the arena, a hidden donut-shaped room that only he, thanks to hisprehension of spacetime, was able to see.

    Under the confused gaze of the other younger cultivators, Daniel walked up the stairs, with Ashura following with no hesitation right behind him. Lilith, doubtful, followed only secondster.

    Once at the top of the staircase, Daniel waited for Lilith to get close, then took control over the space around them, turning it into a separate pocket of time essence. Within this pocket, time had reversed to an unspecified point where the barrier in front of the did not exist.

    With two confident steps, Daniel walked into the invisible barrier as if it wasn¡¯t there to begin with. On the other side, he found hundreds of ancient cultivators staring at him with several degrees of shock. "Is this where we can ce bets?" Daniel asked with a polite smile.

 Chapter 549 - Bets are Open

    <h4>Chapter 549 - Bets are Open</h4>

    With his arrival, while expected, Daniel had been able to attract the looks of the thousands of champions present within the ring-shaped pocket of space. In him they all saw the neer who had be notorious within the high circles as the one who was cared for by his lord, and as such, they did not dare to consider him a junior. Unfortunately, that very reputation seemed to have turned Daniel into someone who was better to avoid.

    The only person who initially seemed to be willing to speak to Daniel, was a member of Horror¡¯s domain, who stood right in front of him, and after showing two rows of rotten and fetid teeth in what Daniel could only guess was a polite smile, asked in a low tone, "Horror¡¯s domain wees the first champion of.." his already low voice trailed off into an inquisitive tone.

    "Karma." Daniel said, causing the repulsive grin to disappear from the monster¡¯s face.

    While clearly disappointed that Daniel¡¯s lord was not someone naturally rted to the aspect of Horror, the monstrous champion quickly resumed his task. He turned around, took a step to the side to reveal Daniel and hispanions to the public, and with a louder tone that resounded throughout the entire ring-shaped pocket of space, he said, "The first known champion of Lord Karma!"

    Finally putting a name to his powerful backer created different reactions within the crowd. Looks of indifference, curiosity, and even tion reached Daniel one after another, making him forget what he was there for.

    "Young one!" shouted a familiar tall and scrawny old man from the other side of the pocket of space while trying to make his way through the crowd and towards Daniel. Before he could approach him, however, two simrly dressed men who appeared to be in theirte fifties stepped closer to Daniel. Their facescked the politeness reserved to him by the domains rted to Daniel¡¯s, which were reced by hostile gazes.

    "I will leave you to mingle." the monstrous champion of Horror said with indifference before walking away, and leaving Daniel in the presence of the two cultivators who, at the moment, appeared to be more interested about Lilith¡¯s presence, rather than Daniel¡¯s identity.

    While Lilith could only look away ufortably to avoid these threatening gazes, Daniel had already guessed who these two men were. "You were right, it did not take long." He said to his fidgetypanion.

    Lilith¡¯s confusion deepened for a moment, then she finally understood. The champions of Competition had recognized her not by the presence of Competition¡¯s power, as by not being a champion yet, she did not possess any.. But by the nature of her cultivation, which had been forced into her body when she was just a baby. A method typically used by the domain ofpetition.

    By the time any emotion could appear on her face, Lilith suddenly remembered what kind of entities were allowed to participate in an Exalted Assembly, as well as her extremely low position within her domain. The two middle aged men in front of her were likely to be leaders of first or second ranked families, which put them on an infinite number of steps above her on Competition¡¯s hierarchicaldder.

    Her body straightened, and she immediately tried to put a few words together, but before she could say anything, the taller of the two men looked straight into her eyes, and ordered, "I want to know whose family you belong to, how you got here, and what are you doing with a champion of another domain."

    These words were charged with the full extent of the man¡¯s domineering andmanding attitude, so much so that they left Lilith petrified, like a still breathing hare dangling from the wolf¡¯s jaw. Tears quickly formed just above her lower eyelids, apanied by a series of hups and panicked gasps which, along with her nervousness, prevented her from uttering a single word.

    "You might want to put a stop to that, if you want an answer." Daniel said before brushing the back of his hand against Lilith¡¯s exposed arm, injecting her with a calming stream of mental power thatpletely negated the effect of the champion¡¯s domineering attitude.

    Now calmer, Lilith took a deep breath, and began to answer her elder¡¯s questions. "L-Lilith of the Gardenia fifth-ranked family. Recently studying at the Half Moon.."

    Despite being quite concise, none of the information Lilith was presenting seemed to be of any interest to the two elders. It was only once she got to how her path crossed Daniel¡¯s, that the two cultivators began to pay attention.

    Her story followed precisely the memories that Daniel had imnted into her mind. In them, he was only a wandering cultivator whom she and the others had encountered after being abandoned by the champion of Destiny. From them he had learned of the existence of the multiverse and of his own identity as a champion of Karma, and in exchange for this information, he had promised to escort them back to Competition¡¯s domain. It was only after reaching the Trigate that they had encountered other cultivators, and from them, they had learned about the Exalted Assembly.

    ".. This is how we were able toe here. We were allowed here as his guests." Lilith uttered while looking down in hope to avoid her elder¡¯s gaze.

    Her exnation did not leave any question unanswered, and yet, Daniel could not see any trace of gratitude or relief in the faces of the two elders. It was clear to him that they had no interest in the lives of the lost girls, and that instead, they only cared about ascertaining what sort of connection a few small high immortals from their domain had with the mysterious champion of Karma.

    Thisck of interest was made clear the moment the taller of the two elders unfolded his arms, let them fall by his sides, and said to Daniel with a thankless tone, "We appreciate you taking the time to guide a few lost ones back to the fold." He then turned to look at Lilith, and added, "You may stay with us until we go back."

    "Elder.. The others.." Lilith muttered, confused as to why the two old men had already forgotten that the people Daniel had escorted back to them were five young women, and not just one.

    "We will find your friendster. For now,e to us." Said the taller elder with a seemingly irritated tone, right before reaching for the girl¡¯s arm.

    His attempt to grab Lilith¡¯s arm was suddenly stopped by Daniel, who lifted his right hand up to his chest, and said with a calm, yet cold tone. "On second thought, I should entrust a lost person to their family, and not to a stranger. Can we arrange that, once the assembly is over?"

    "Nonsense!" barked out the second champion of Competition. "Should we assume your domain ns to hold our people hostage? Is that why you have shown up with only one of them?"

    "Think what you will." Daniel said before suddenly grabbing Lilith¡¯s wrist, and walking past the two elders and towards the now familiar old man.

    "Why not let me go with them?" Lilith asked with confusion.

    Daniel responded with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. "You aren¡¯t being held against your will. You are free to go." He said before taking a small pause, at the end of which he added, "But I was just hoping we would not have to spend the next couple of days by ourselves." These words were aimed at giving a more amenable Lilith some sort of gratification, and yet, they did not reflect the truth.

    The real reason why Daniel had chosen not to hand Lilith over to the two elders was a darker one. One which he thought Lilith did not need to know.

    After bing a semi-aspect of existence, Daniel had noticed that the fragments of power hidden within the bodies of the other champions, triggered different sorts of reactions within him. The more an aspect of existence had inmon with the concept of karma, the more he would feel some form of familiarity with them. A feeling which he had felt when, in the restaurant, he had stumbled upon the members of Morality¡¯s domain.

    What he felt towards the fragments of the aspects of Competition hidden within the bodies of the two elders, on the other hand, was a repulsion which, while unable to affect his free will, still made it clear to him that his nature as Karma, and the nature of Competition were ipatible. Simrly, to the champions of Competition Daniel felt like a natural enemy.

    What Daniel had guessed correctly, was that instead of having to justify the presence of a few more people to the organizers of the event, and therefore publicly dere a connection with Daniel¡¯s domain to the entire multiverse, the two elders were better off simply killing Lilith and the others once in their custody. With the few of them dead, no one would have a chance to connect the two domains to one another, and none of Competition¡¯s allied domains would have a reason to use them of foul y.

    "Young one, still instigating left and right, I see." Said the older gentleman whom Daniel recognized as one of the two old cultivators who had tried to save him from the champions of War. As he spoke, he tried to ignore the grievous stares that came from the two entities who were standing behind Daniel, and instead focused on his careless appearance.

    "It wasn¡¯t my intention." Daniel said calmly before slowly looking at his surroundings. He then added after a few moments, "I am here for the same reason as everybody else.. To participate in the betting." As Daniel once again mentioned betting, the surrounding cultivators looked at him with irritation, before going back to their conversations.

    "I am afraid your Lord¡¯s previous intervention has made it.. Inconvenient.. For us to bet with you." Said the old man awkwardly. "No one here would expect you to defy your Lord if he simply decided to aid you during the fight.. Why don¡¯t we leave, and have a chat? My elder sister has been waiting to talk to you for the past few-" He then added before being interrupted.

    Daniel already knew what the old man wanted, and yet, he was not interested in anything he could offer.. As what he wanted was for his name to be even more notorious. "I am not the one going on the ring. He is." Daniel exined while nodding in Ashura¡¯s direction. He then added, "Also, I have something I can bet with." As he reached the end of his exnation, Daniel moved his consciousness into the pocket dimension he had created inside the front pocket of his pants, and from it, he took a fist sized orb.

    From the eyes of an inexperienced cultivator, this orb did not appear special in the least. Its opaque grey color gave it a dull and unpleasant appearance, and yet, not one among the many cultivators present could stop himself from turning their head towards it with a snappy motion.

    Commonly known as an essence orb, this object existed to showcase the concept of a certain type of essence to those who wished toprehend it. An object that Daniel had encountered for the first time in the ck castle, and from which he hadprehended several forms of mana. What was contained within the orb that was floating in Daniel¡¯s hand, however, was not the simple elemental essences left by the owner of the ck castle, but his ownprehension of the essence of spacetime. Within the orb time was not a constant, but moved backwards, bringing back the surrounding space along with it-A concept that Daniel had learned while witnessing his system rewind time to a point before his death many times in the past.

    The appearance of this orb was clearly something that the old cultivator was desperate to avoid. By being one of the few people aware of Daniel¡¯sprehension, he had hoped to exchange his knowledge privately, as that would have saved him a lot of trouble, and yet, Daniel had chosen the more dangerous and inconvenient path.

    With something worth more than a simple universe, and the assurance that Daniel was not the one to fight, hundreds of cultivators gave up on the conversations they were having, and marched in his direction.

    "I am willing to bet twenty universes on yourpanion notsting three blows from my disciple."

    "Fifteen universes in a battle ofprehension."

    "A game of real life chess, mate in 8 moves, fifty universes."

    The many proposals arrived one after the other, each offering an astounding gain regardless of the type ofpetition, and yet, none of them seemed to pique Daniel¡¯s interest. It was only after several minutes that Daniel put the orb back into his pocket, and said, "A one-on-one fight. The duel will end the moment one of the two fighters will be unable to continue.. I am betting with the first one who can offer an untouched universe."

 Chapter 550 - The Outcome Is Fated

    <h4>Chapter 550 - The Oue Is Fated</h4>

    One of the things Daniel had learned about the multiverse since he had arrived at the site of the Exalted Assembly, was the way the universes were categorized and separated into stages.. But most importantly, he had learned that these stages were not indicative of what was inside them, but what degree of influence the domains that owned had on them.

    Every universe within the multiverse belonged to either one of two categories-Unaware, and aware universes. An unaware universe was a universe that had yet to naturally develop a preference in its aspects of existence. These universes were off limits to any domain, and could not be entered without severe restrictions to one¡¯s cultivation. An example of this was Daniel¡¯s universe of origin, which had existed as an unaware universe until the Murderous God had exposed it to the multiverse.

    Once exposed to the rest of the multiverse, a universe would then belong to the second category, and its life as an active part of the multiverse would begin. The stages of such a universe were the Contested, Owned, and Consumed stages.

    To the first stage belonged the universes that had just be aware of the multiverse, and was indicative of the span of time in which the domains with a higher natural influence would be allowed to send their emissaries to aid the indigenous powers in increasing the influence of the aspect they represented over any other, iming it for their domain. Once a winner was decided, the universe would be considered an Owned one.

    Thest stage of an aware universe was the Consumed stage, which was used to indicate any universe whose source of influence had been exhausted during time. An example of this, were the universes of War¡¯s domain, inside which war raged on endlessly granding the aspect of War pure influence. Once war consumed all life in that universe, the domain would either be stripped of its natural resources, or would undergo forced repoption, so that in a few thousand years war could rage on once again. The universes that were used to bet during these kinds of events were usually of this kind.

    What was iparable in value to a consumed universe, was an untouched one-a recently owned universe that had yet to be exploited by its new owner, and was full of both life and resources. Contrary to their older counterparts, recently gained universes represented the most valuable part of a domain¡¯s territory.

    "An untouched universe.." muttered the old gentleman that stood next to Daniel, while trying to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat.

    Simr reactions appeared on the faces of the observing cultivators, who would have bursted out shouting if they didn¡¯t fear the power that was behind Daniel. Instead, they could only bury their words under a surprised gasp, and watch with dejection.

    Daniel had expected this reaction. It wasn¡¯t everyday that a universe would open to the multiverse, and even rarer was the event where an untouched universe would go to a mid or low domain, instead of a high one. For that reason, the number of untouched universes that each of the present domains possessed could be counted with the fingers of one hand, which said a lot about their value. And yet, Daniel¡¯sprehension over the essence of spacetime was unique.

    "I understand,prehension over an essence isn¡¯tparable to an untouched universe, but my domain requires a universe, and this is all I have to bet." Daniel said with feigned embarrassment. He then added while hiding the orb of spacetime into his spatial ring, "Forget I said anything, I will trade this privately with the one who makes me the best offer."

    Daniel¡¯s intentions were clear. While within the exalted assembly even enemy domains had to be respectful of rules, rivalries still existed-The idea that a rival could obtain Daniel¡¯sprehension of spacetime was something that no domain was unwilling to ept, as with it, anyone would be able to easily outperform itspetition whenever a contested universe would appear.

    Within the crowd one could see dozens of hands being slowly raised, but before anyone could say a word, the raucous voice of a middle-aged man in military attire resounded throughout the ring shaped pocket of space, "Ah, you didn¡¯t give us the chance to ept. We are not all cowards.. I¡¯ll take your bet." He said while making his way through the crowd.

    Daniel immediately recognized this man as the champion of War that had tried to kill him for meddling into the fight between his juniors, and the champions of Morality. "We meet again." Daniel said with a polite tone that matched an equally polite smile. "Do you want to add any conditions to this bet?"

    A grin suddenly appeared on the face of the champion of War.

    While the stakes of Daniel¡¯s bet were extremely high by any standards, the reason why he and many other domains were willing to ept it ,was because Daniel¡¯s side had chosen to let Ashura fight, a cultivator at the early stages of high immortality. In the eyes of a cultivator at the godhood stage, this was akin to put a beetle against a diator, and bet their entire fortune on the beetle. In their mind this bet was so absurd, that the only exnation for why Daniel would even consider it, was likely because he was hoping in the assistance of his lord, Karma himself-like everyone believed he had done in the past.

    Luckily, unbeknownst to Daniel, these domains had ways to prevent that from happening. "I have only one.. We swear to respect the oue in front of Lord Fate." Said the champion of War confidently.

    After a brief confused look, Daniel offered his palm to the champion of war, and said, "I will follow your lead."

    The smirk on the champion¡¯s face widened. "The domain of War epts the bet of the domain of Karma. The oue is fate, and fate is undeniable."

    Known as a Fateful contract, this oath was used to guarantee that an agreement¡¯s conditions were respected. Failing to respect its terms would immediately put the insolvent party against the entirety of Fate¡¯s domain, as at that point, they would not only have failed to respect an agreement, but rejected Fate itself.

    As the champion of War finished speaking, Daniel noticed the dejected expressions on the faces of most surrounding cultivators. The middle-aged man had done what they all wished to do, but without any hesitation.

    "The domain of Karma also epts the bet, the oue is fate, and fate is undeniable." Daniel said calmly before turning towards Ashura, and saying a few words in anguage that only the two of them couldprehend.

    As Daniel spoke to Ashura, the middle-aged champion of War sent a strand of sound essence towards his domain¡¯s ship, a city-wide military facility which included the domain¡¯s mobile headquarters, military barracks, and training facilities. This thread of sound essence moved straight through the spatial formation and into the headquarters, a ten-storey tall building in the shape of a pentagon.

    "Your chance has arrived. Come here, and pay them back for the humiliation." said the voice contained in the strand of sound to a young man in grey military attire-a young man who Daniel would have immediately recognized as the soldier that had led the champions of war against the team of the champions of Morality.

    This soldier, who for days had had to stomach losing control over an assured win, and a promotion in his domain¡¯s ranking, was now smiling once again. "Thank you for the opportunity, Sir." He muttered to himself while pulling hisbat knife out of an oddly shaped sandbag. He then left his private quarters, leaving the sandbag to suddenly bleed.

    -----

    "Young man.. What you did was a big mistake.." Said the old gentleman who was currently sitting on the stands next to an indifferent Daniel, and a still nervous Lilith. Together, they were watching the fights that had already been scheduled before Daniel¡¯s arrival. "The domain of War is extremely aggressive.. The rest of the domains can¡¯t allow them to have this advantage to themselves. They will torment you into surrendering yourprehension."

    Daniel had been forced to endure theints of the old man for several minutes now, and yet he did not show any sign of worry or nervousness. "My domain¡¯s wealth is mine to risk, you don¡¯t have to worry about it." Daniel said while picking a piece of fried vegetable from a paper cone, and bringing it up to his mouth-this was the closest he had found to the street food he had made a habit to consume when watching the sparring sessions along with the friends he had made in the martial academy.

    While the old man¡¯s interest towards Daniel¡¯sprehension was in no way less selfish than any other cultivator who had seen it, now his interest had turned into worry. A worry that Daniel¡¯s willful behavior would destabilize the bnce between the domains. "You don¡¯t understand.. Yourprehension of time space-it isn¡¯t something only one domain should possess.." the old man said with a grim tone.

    "This is where you are wrong." Daniel chuckled before taking a bite of another fried vegetable. "That is exactly the number of domains that will ever get a hold of thatprehension."

    The eyes of the old man narrowed suspiciously. If he had to take Daniel¡¯s words for granted, it almost looked like he believed a high immortal could defeat someone at the godhood stage. Unfortunately, he was too old to believe that such a miracle could ever happen. Before he could once again try and talk some sense into Daniel, however, thetter cut him off, "Keep your eyes open, it¡¯s almost time." Daniel said while unconsciously moving the paper cone towards Lilith, who shook her head in embarrassment to refuse Daniel¡¯s gesture.

    Just as Daniel finished speaking, the champion of Horror who had weed Daniel into the ring shaped pocket of space appeared in the middle of the ring, where a young championess of Duel¡¯s domain who brandished a rapier was standing unscathed in front of the corpse of a young man in military attire. While thetter¡¯s body appeared intact, it was actually covered in thousands of hair thin wounds caused by the lightning fast piercing motion of the championess¡¯s rapier.

    "The winner is na, championess of Duel¡¯s domain." Said the monstrous cultivator while casually waving his right hand. This simple motion released a wave of horrific power that hastened the dposition of the soldier¡¯s corpse, causing it to mummify, and fall apart into specks of dust in mere seconds. He then added, as the young woman left the stage, "Fighting for two rounds consecutively, with a chance to recover some of their face, the domain of War sends Victor. His opponent is Ashura.. A high immortal of the domain of Karma."

    The noise of chatter turned into an uproar at the mention of Ashura¡¯s cultivation, as among the tens of thousands that were spectating the fight from the stands, none of them was at a level inferior to the godhood stage. The sheer fact that a domain had wasted a valuable cing to bring a high immortal to the Exalted Assembly was absurd enough for these cultivators, but when paired with the fact that he had been put against a champion at the godhood stage in the arena, it became shocking.

    As the monstrous warrior finished speaking, Ashura and Victor emerged from the entrances of the arena, and stepped onto the stage.

    In victor¡¯s hand was hisbat knife, and by his waist, was the holstered pistol that was used by the champions of his domain. Of his military attire only the pants remained, leaving both his feet and his heavily scarred chest uncovered. In front of him stood the stoic figure of Ashura, with his usual ck head scarf that covered his head, leaving only his eyes visible, and a maze of tattoos that covered his muscr chest.

    An intense silence fell on the arena as both warriors arrived on stage. But while the crowd waited quietly for the champion of Horror to start the fight, thetter looked at Ashura in silence.

    "What is taking so long?" Said Victor after a pause that felt several minutes long, but that in reality had onlysted a few seconds.

    The words of the soldier were able to shake the monstrous warrior out of his trance, after which he sank into a puddle of screeching liquid that had formed by his feet which dried up the very moment it finished swallowing the entirety of his greasy body. "You may begin." Said his now disembodied voice.

    "I usually take my time to enjoy these fights.. But today I cannot afford it.. You¡¯ll have to die for me." Said Victor before grabbing the hilt of the knife backwards, with the de running up his forearm. He then turned into a sh of light, and disappeared-When he reappeared a fraction of a momentter, he was standing on the opposite side of the stage. On the stage¡¯s floor was a bright red half moon, which had appeared quietly around Ashura¡¯s feet just before his head detached from his shoulders, and fell in front of him with a heavy thud.

 Chapter 551 - Second Round of Betting

    <h4>Chapter 551 - Second Round of Betting</h4>

    From the moment the fight had begun, to the moment Victor had attacked, only a couple of seconds had passed, and most of that time had been spent talking.

    The crowd looked on with disappointment as the most expected oue yed out in front of them. What they ignored, however, was the tension that had formed into the ring-shaped room, inside which the leading champions of the many universes eyed the middle-aged champion of War with uneasy expressions. In their mind, they could not help but curse Daniel for giving one of their opponents such a huge advantage.

    The champion of War ignored the looks of his peers, and instead, said in a voice that broke out of the boundaries of the pocket space, and reached far and wide. "I¡¯ll take that orb off your hands." He said before letting out a heartyugh.

    "I don¡¯t think so." Daniel retorted before sinking his teeth into another piece of fried vegetable.

    "Fool, you don¡¯t even know what kind of pact you have made. I¡¯ll take what is mine from your smitten corpse." The champion of War said, uncaring of who might hear his words. In his mind, he was the rightful winner of the bet, and as such, along with the prize, he had the boasting rights.

    Unfortunately, his overjoyed mood was interrupted by a few words. "Am I not still here?" Daniel said before pointing the vegetable towards the stage, where a thick thread of greyish power had emerged from Ashura¡¯s decapitated body, and reached for his head. As the two were connected, the head snapped back in ce, and the injury was healed in a matter of moments.

    The champion of War was shocked beyond words. While he had seen such impossible recovery speed on Daniel, he had assumed that that was a form of blessing that Karma had granted him, and yet.. It had showed up again, and in the body of a high immortal nheless. Before any question could form in the mind of the middle aged warrior, however, his attention was grabbed by Daniel¡¯s words, as he said, "You should pay more attention to your fighter."

    "ARGHHH!!" Before the crowd could process Ashura¡¯s unbelievable healing powers, a scream grabbed their attention. When they turned to look at its origin, they saw the figure of Victor, who was now holding his arm just above the wrist as thick ck veins creeped up from the palm of his hand.

    A maddening and excruciating pain made its way through Victor¡¯s arm as his body, spirit, and power were consumed by Ashura¡¯s chaotic power.. To a point where, out of desperation, the soldier let go of his wrist to draw his gun, and after pointing it at his elbow, pulled the trigger. The beam of light blew off everything underneath the elbow, putting a stop to the advancement of the corrosive power.

    Convinced to have avoided death, Victor took a deep breath and looked at Ashura¡¯s stoic figure with fearful eyes, a feeling he had never expected to feel towards what he should have considered less than an ant. Luckily, he had reacted in time. Thanking his lucky star for choosing not to leave his gun behind, Victor prepared himself to start a battle of attrition with Ashura. He knew that his recovery could only be supported by his immortal essence, and that if the battle carried on for long enough, he would be able to oust him. All he needed to do was to maintain his distance.

    This perfect n quickly took form in Victor¡¯s mind. Triumph was still possible.. It just required a little more effort than he had believed. Healing a lost limb was child¡¯s y for beings like him, and a promotion in the rankings, as long as he won, was guaranteed. The more he managed to calm down, the more he realized that this was nothing he couldn¡¯t handle.. Or so he thought.

    Every aspiration or delusion that had reformed after formting his fool proof n were nothing but a castle of cards, and the now familiar excruciating pain that reappeared at the end of the bloody stump was the wind that brought it all down.

    "NO! NOO!" Victor screamed in panic as Ashura¡¯s chaotic power spread throughout his shoulder, and made its way into his chest.

    "USE LORD WAR¡¯S PRESENCE! QUICK!!" said a disembodied voice that resounded through the entire, but that failed in its intent to awake the young soldier from his panicked state.

    In a wave of never ending pain Ashura¡¯s power ate the man¡¯s organs, soul and essence the way an incandescent star would eat at every meteoroid unlucky enough to be caught by its gravitational pull. The screaming only stopped when the chaotic essence reached the man¡¯s throat, leaving only a speck of consciousness residing in what was left of his head.

    By the time his gun fell on the ground, nothing was left of Victor¡¯s body. His consciousness, his spirit, his body.. All forced to fall apart under the corrosive effect of Ashura power. Not even the formation that had been engraved into his gun had been spared, turning the once feared weapon back into a useless piece of metal that could be sold for a few coppers in a market of a city inhabited by mortals.

    The entirety of the fightsted just about a minute, and yet it had felt like a rollercoaster to the observing cultivators, who were now looking fearfully at Ashura. None of the young champions dared to underestimate him any longer, as none of them could evenprehend how one of their peers had lost to begin with. The only thing that was left, was a deafening silence.

    However, the eerie atmosphere onlysted a few seconds, as it was dispelled by a voice that most within the crowd had taught themselves to fear, "I don¡¯t think he is going to get up." Daniel said while crumpling the now empty paper cone into a ball, and setting it aze.

    Daniel¡¯s words struck a chord in the champion of war, making him realize how easily he had been yed by someone whose age had yet to reach the three digits. This humiliation was fueled by the surrounding leading champions, who until now had been biting their nails for losing the chance of being in his ce, but who now, were looking at him with disdain and contempt.

    If not for the fateful contract, the champion of war could have found a way to back out from this immense loss, but rejecting the bet¡¯s terms now meant defying the very existence of one of the most powerful entities in existence. That fact alone would cause him to be a target in his own domain, as no domain was willing to take that burden, not even to protect one of their strongest fighters. His only hope to respect the contract, and recover the loss, was to convince Daniel to give up on the universe he had just won.

    "Kid, I would forget our grievances, and consider it a personal favor, if you epted another universe." Said the champion of War with a thread of sound essence that reached straight for Daniel¡¯s ear.

    Unfortunately, this veiled threat was only weed with a faint smirk.

    What Daniel was more worried about was the figure of the monstrous cultivator, who had quietly reappeared in the middle of the stage not to dere a winner, but to examine hispanion, whose power he seemed to be interested in.

    "Is there a problem?" Daniel said after quietly appearing next to Ashura, demonstrating theprehension of spacetime which he had used to bet on the fight.

    The monstrous cultivator looked at Daniel with narrowed eyes, then, after looking onest time towards the tattooed warrior, he said, "The winner is Ashura, of the domain of Karma."

    After the winner was dered, Daniel decided to leave the stage along with Ashura and Lilith. Hisst words to the crowd were a reminder that he would be waiting for the domain of War to deliver his untouched universe, and urging them to do so as soon as possible.

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s ship, two dayster.

    ".. they don¡¯t keep universes to themselves, because those aspects exist regardless of who owns what."

    "Yes, but do not forget that .."

    After the fight in the arena, Daniel had found himself entertaining a group of old cultivators who, after witnessing the value of his newborn domain, had decided to establish a friendly rtionship with him. Among these people were some champions that belonged to domains that he had encountered before, like the domains of Curiosity, Paths and Portal and Morality, and some which he had never met, and whose aspect he had barely paid attention to.

    With them he discussed a seemingly never-ending series of different topics. The lengthier of which was the one regarding the powers within the domain, which had given Daniel a rough understanding of what offending a mid-domain like that of War truly meant.

    Unfortunately, while originally full of useful information, it did not take long for the constant chatter to start numbing him, forcing him to ignore most of the discussions or conversation which the guests seemed to be able to prolong forever by intervening on one another. The only positive side was that, after the first few hours, these people had stopped asking him whether hisprehension of spacetime, or even just time, could be exchanged for anything.

    After what was his hundredth ss of wine, Daniel¡¯s eyes opened in relief at the sight of Dawn, who approached the tables he had prepared under the warm light of a constructed sun, and said, "A representative of Conquest¡¯s domain is hoping for an audience."

    As soon as Dawn finished speaking, Daniel put down his ss of wine, and said, "Gentlemen, it was my pleasure to talk to all of you.. But my guest has arrived. Anyone who doesn¡¯t wish to be seen in mypany, should be on their way."

    Many of the guests had expected this to happen, after all, they had only been granted Daniel¡¯s time because he had nothing better to do while he waited for the domain of War toe see him, so when the representative of Conquest¡¯s domain, a low domain subject to War¡¯s domain, arrived, they did not take offence. Instead, they gracefully stood up, and bid farewell, leaving only Daniel, and a few old champions of Morality alone.

    Once thest of these champions bid farewell, a tall and muscr woman in heavy armor appeared in front of them. Her demeanor was that of a king, and the deep scars that could be seen through the chinks of her armor recounted a story of millions of battles that she had purposely refused to erase.

    "Kanna, of the domain of Conquest. Here under the orders of War¡¯s domain to present the list of untouched universes." Said the woman with a callous tone. She then waved the massive spear she was holding in her right hand, causing several cloud-shaped images to appear in the space that separated her from Daniel and the champions of Morality. Each of these images depicted a different universe.

    Daniel was taken aback. He had heard that a mid-domain would likely not have more than one or two untouched domains at hand, and yet, in front of him were no less than twenty universes. "All of these universes haven¡¯t been touched?" He asked with suspicion.

    "Not one of these universes has been in possession of War¡¯s domain for longer than a few months." responded Kanna, the champion of Conquest.

    "That is not what he asked." uttered one of the champions of Morality that had chosen to stay, in anger. It was clear to everyone that the domain of War had tried to get out of the Fateful Contract by dancing around the meaning of "untouched", and instead of presenting him with newly opened universes, they had presented him universes that their domain had yet to touch.. Unfortunately, that included universes that they had recently obtained through betting, which they had technically yet to touch.

    "Ahahah! Of course!" Daniel eximed before springing up on his feet and taking a few steps towards the floating images. He then said while going through the various universes, "She knows that is not what I meant.. But she needed to give me another meaning for untouched, otherwise the contract would have been locked on my meaning, and they would have had no way out.. I can¡¯t deny it was clever."

    With his lips curved into a smile, Daniel took a brief pause, then added, "However, I don¡¯t believe one party can dictate the meaning of the contract¡¯s terms.. So the real untouched universes must be among these ones, am I right?"

    The lips of the championess of Conquest pursed, and her eyes narrowed, and yet, Daniel could feel nothing but nervousness hiding within theyer of power that surrounded her body.

    "I will ept this second round of betting.. But, this time.." said Daniel calmly before turning to look straight into the championess¡¯s eyes. He then added, right before his eyes turned into two pearls of pure gold, "I will cheat." As the golden light was reflected into the eyes of the worried championees of Conquest, Daniel slowly raised his hand, and without diverting his eyes from hers, he pointed his finger at one of the universes. "This one." He said.

    "F.U.C.K!" yelled the championess in a fit of anger before turning around, and charging out of Daniel¡¯s ship.

 Chapter 552 - An Inhuman Pride

    <h4>Chapter 552 - An Inhuman Pride</h4>

    Headquarters of War¡¯s domain.

    "HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!?" Bellowed the middle aged man in military attire who had lost the bet with Daniel, to the championess of Conquest. "I don¡¯t believe a brat like him has that much luck! I CAN¡¯T BELIEVE IT!!" he said as his emotion of rage and worry oozed out of his body into a ck mist that darkened the entire room.

    The woman, belonging to a domain that was directly subordinate to War¡¯s domain, could do nothing but bear the man¡¯s anger in silence. Luckily for her, this anger was eased the very moment the gazes of the other old champions of War turned to look at the middle aged soldiers, an action that caused for his worry to grow disproportionately, and for his anger to almost disappear.

    "Tell us again what happened.." Said calmly the oldest of the cultivators present, who was at the core of the single row of seated champions.

    The woman finally raised her gaze, but dared not aim it higher than this old man¡¯s shoulder. She then said, "As ordered, I have shown him a mirage of only one untouched universe. The others were consumed, or in the process of repoption.. I-"

    "Enough.. I have read the report. Tell me what you think." said the old man, interrupting her.

    The woman, startled by the old man¡¯s interruption, briefly turned her gaze towards the middle aged soldier, who appeared to be as, if not more worried than she was. This worry she saw in his eyes brought her no small degree of delight, as while the middle aged warrior belonged to the domain that ruled hers, she was the lead of her own, and more powerful than he was. Being the target of his anger had left her with no small degree of irritation.

    More than once during the past few minutes he had tried to put the me of losing the untouched universe onto her to lighten the burden on himself, and now she had a chance to rectify. "I think general Han is correct.. I do not believe that luck has anything to do with it. That was my impression."

    "How so?" Inquired the old man with a stern, yet curios tone.

    The championess of Conquest rejoiced, but did not allow for it to show on her face. Instead, she maintained her stoicposure, and said with a matter-of-fact tone. "The young man.. He knew exactly which universe among the ones I¡¯ve shown him was the untouched one. In fact, he imed that he was the one cheating, this time-after which his eyes glowed of a golden light, and he picked the untouched universe without even looking at the mirages."

    Silence fell onto the hall, leaving time for the older cultivator to think. After a handful of seconds, the old man turned to look at the middle aged soldier and asked, "I remember you mentioning his eyes, the first time you¡¯ve met him."

    Panicked, the middle aged soldier lowered his gaze, and while trying not to stutter, he said, "Y-Yes.. I saw it right when we first felt the power of Lord Ka.." As if suddenly realizing his mistake, the middle aged soldier stopped talking, but it was already toote.

    The temperature of the room suddenly dropped to absolute zero, causing every object that wasn¡¯t protected by someone¡¯s essence to instantly lose their energy, and copse into shards that disintegrated momentster.

    The middle aged soldier felt his heart drop. Once before he had observed Daniel being aided by an aspect of existence, and yet he had decided to underestimate the connection between the two, and challenge him one more time. It was his greed and pride that had caused his domain to lose such a big chunk of its territory.

    "You may go now." Said the old aged cultivator to the championess of Conquest, who once again lowered her gaze, and made her way out of the hall while trying to ignore the murderous intent that came from behind her back.

    -----

    Daniel¡¯s ship.

    After the encounter with the championess of Conquest, Daniel had put an end to the meeting with his remaining guests, which mostly belonged to the domain of Morality. These champions agreed to leave with the condition that they would be allowed to have a meeting at ater time to discuss the position of Daniel¡¯s domain within the multiverse.

    Another reason why these cultivators had to leave was because the day of the Exalted Assembly was only a few hours ahead, and contrary to Daniel, they had ten thousand cultivators to prepare for that day.

    Once alone, Daniel had decided to take his time to observe his new territory.

    Sitting quietly on the edge of a cliff, Daniel fumbled with a ck ss cube. His clumsy movements caused the mirage that was in front of his eyes to change, and for it to show different images.

    This ck cube was known in the multiverse as a Universal Projector, and was used to store and project thousands of recordings of a specific universe, effectively turning a universe into a form of currency. These recordings were not made out of chemicals or films, but of true essences held together by small formations. By moving the projector, Daniel wasmanding the formations within the cube to assemble the essences stored inside, and turn them into realistic images, so that he could observe his universe without being there.

    While these images did not show the current universe, but a past version of it, Daniel was not worried, as War¡¯s domain would not dare present a consumed universe as an untouched one. If they did, they would be breaching Fate¡¯s contract, and at that point, losing a universe would be the least of their concerns.

    What Daniel found interesting, however, were not the mirages created by the projector, but the blinding sea of golden lights that could be seen in some of the images. Lights which, as he soon realized, he could only see when he would allow for his power as Karma to emerge from inside him. These lights, he believed to be sources of Karma.

    "What is it?" Daniel suddenly asked a cautious Dawn, who tried to approach him while trying to make as little noise as possible. Standing several meters back was the figure of Rose, who had found herself struggling to maintain Dawn¡¯s pace while walking towards Daniel¡¯s location.

    "Uhm.. Rose wanted to.." Dawn said right before turning to look beside her, and noticing that Rose was not standing next to her. "What are you doing? Come here. Didn¡¯t you want to say something?" She told her.

    Seeing that Daniel was not opposed to Dawn¡¯s words gave Rose a bit of courage, which allowed her to brave on and walk thest few steps while bearing the pressure she had felt until now. "I came to thank you. Lilith.. She told me that you have risked offending our domain to prevent them from getting rid of us.. And cover-up the incident of our disappearance."

    "No need to thank me. I said that I would take you back to your universe safe and sound. I don¡¯t make empty promises." Daniel said while pocketing the ck cube. He then stood up and turned around. "Is there anything else?" He then asked.

    As Daniel focused his attention towards Rose, the pressure she felt in his presence increased exponentially, causing her to breath to shorten, and for her to fidget nervously as her thoughts went haywire. What she did not know, was that this pressure was in reality a psychological trauma which she had developed by witnessing the appearance of Karma. Like a cub weary of its parents, she had developed an instinctive fear of Daniel.

    After noticing Rose¡¯s behavior, Daniel quietly took control over the constructed space around him, and turned the air that the girl was unconsciously breathing into a stream of mental power, which immediately calmed her nerves.

    "I would like to keep my memories." Rose said with a now calmer tone.

    "And here I thought you felt gratitude towards me." Daniel said while showing a forced smile. "I will hear you out.. Why should I do that?"

    Rose cleared her throat, then added, "I have witnessed your mental skills.. And I don¡¯t doubt your ability to manipte our memories, but even if you take us to our sect, or to our families, we will never be safe. We are the only lead in the multiverse of your location, and they will be meticulous in finding every bit of information they can about you, the champion of Destiny.. Or as a champion of Karma.. If they want to know.. They will."

    While these words should have brought Daniel¡¯s illusion of safety crumbling, they did note as a surprise. He had already expected that in the vast multiverse there would be other ways to gather information than to simply read someone¡¯s memories. There was no reason not to believe that a person¡¯s remnant in the underworld, or the hibernating spirit in the spiritual domain could not be searched for information. For that reason, he had never put too much expectations on the fact that modifying these girls¡¯ memories would keep him safe. At best, it would earn him some time.

    "What do you propose, then?" Daniel asked, not anymore in the mood to smile.

    "We tell the truth." Rose said. "Destiny¡¯s champions are hunted down because of their aggressive nature, and unfathomable powers.. But that is not a description that fits your character. You have been kind to us.. and you are not as much of a threat as people believe you to be."

    Rose¡¯s proposition left Daniel speechless. While he knew that Rose¡¯s main goal was to keep her memories of the past events, he could also see that her suspicions towards him had diminished, and had been reced by a form of reliance and gratitude. If she couldn¡¯t have convinced the other domains that Daniel was not a threat, she would have at least wanted to remember him.

    Unfortunately, Rose¡¯s intentions would change nothing. The multiverse would never allow him to live, and more than that, he had no interest in convincing them to. In his heart the pride of an aspect of existence had already been born, and that pride would not allow him any less than annihting any entity that would dare challenge his existence.

    "I will grant you your wish." Daniel said before making a faint gesture with his hand, an action that erased the changes he had made to Lilith¡¯s and Saha¡¯s minds, and restored their former memories.

    ted by Daniel¡¯s decision, Rose bowed her head instinctively, and when she raised it again, a bright smile was present on her face. "I will do everything I can to convince the people of my do-"

    "That won¡¯t be necessary." Said Daniel, interrupting Rose¡¯s words of reassurance. He then added, as a golden light flickered in his eyes, "After the assembly I will deliver you to your universe. Once there, you are free to report every detail of the time we have spent together. Tell them who I am, tell them what I have done, where we have been, and where they can find me.. Hide nothing. I will wee them all with open arms."

    As he finished speaking, Daniel stepped off the cliff and disappeared into the constructed sky, leaving a confused Rose, and a worried Dawn.

    -----

    The following day, after months of preparation, the day of the Exalted Assembly had finally arrived. On that day the representatives of hundreds of domains flocked to the core of the city, where, after confirming their identity, they walked through a milky white portal. When they emerged on the other side, they found themselves in an endless white expanse.

    On the pristine floor were half tables, and as many as ten thrones for each of them. These tables contained a small portion of the power of each domain of existence, and were ced in rows that indicated the tier of their domain, and the domain¡¯s allegiances.

    The first row of tables was reserved for mid tier domains, the highest level of domain that had decided to participate in the assembly. Behind them were the mid-low tier domains, and behind them, the domains of lower tier. Had even just one high tier domain chosen to participate in this exalted assembly, the hundreds of domains present would have been forced to move back an entire row, even if they were the highest representatives of their faction of domains.

    Seen from above, the position of these tables would remind one of a genealogic tree.

    The straight part of these half round tables were all pointed towards the same direction, a wooden podium which any of the domains¡¯ representatives could, in turn, use to talk about matters that required the attention of the more domains. Next to this podium, were two more half round tables. One of which was upied by the members of the hosting domain, the champions of Horror, while the other was empty, and based on the presence of a single seat, reserved for a one man domain.

 Chapter 553 - Link Of Violence

    <h4>Chapter 553 - Link Of Violence </h4>

    In the span of roughly thirty minutes, the thousands of tables were filled with people.

    Each table was upied by no more than ten champions, powerful and domineering in their own aspects, and emanating the terrifying power that was granted to them by the lord they followed. This power lingered around their bodies in a variety of ways, all perceivable with one¡¯s sense. An aura for those who tried to sense it, a glow for those who observed, a screech for those who tried to heed it, and a pungent odor for those close enough to breath it in.

    Theposition of the tables, paired with the colour of the champions¡¯ attires and the aura that surrounded their bodies, gave the empty pocket of space life, making it look like a field of flowers that emerged from the surface of an immense b of milky white marble. Each branch of tables formed a unique rainbow of colors, and together, thanks to the powers contained within the people that formed them, gave anyone who observed the scenery the feeling of leering at the very essence of existence, but split into its manyponents.

    Those who observed this spectacle couldn¡¯t help butment of how the scenery would have been quite nicer, had all the high and ruling domains been there toplete the picture.

    Daniel was among thest people to arrive in the pocket of space.

    He had stood in confusion as the other participants had casually taken their seats, leaving no tables empty but the two ced at the side of the podium. He had long heard of the rules of the Exalted Assembly by the champions of Morality, who had tried to get close to him in the past few days. Yet, now that no table was left for him to use, and he was left standing at the entrance, when he looked for the champions he had befriended by their domain¡¯s table, he saw old champions he had never interacted with.

    Despite being the only one left standing, Daniel did not panic. He knew, thanks to the reaction that the participating domains had towards his power, that the standing of his domain could not be a low one, and therefore, it was unlikely for the organizers to have simply forgotten him - So, instead of bothering with his seating, he took the time to appreciate the scenery while he still could. After all, even though he was now a one-man domain, and he could participate in every future Exalted Assembly, thousands of years may pass before the next one.

    It did not take long before the organizers of the event finally arrived.

    Composed by ten monstrous cultivators led by the Overlord himself, the champions of horror approached the table by the podium¡¯s side. However, they did not sit. Instead, they looked at the empty table by the left, and soon after turned to look at Daniel¡¯s lone figure.

    As if suddenly aware of having forgotten something, the Overlord walked around his table and headed towards Daniel. "My apologies, champion of Karma. We have prepared a seat for you, but it appears we have forgotten to notify you." Said the Overlord with embarrassment, while showing two rows of rotten and pointy teeth.

    "It¡¯s not a problem." Daniel responded. He was fully aware that "forgetting to notify him" had not been a mistake, but he did not care.

    Seeing as he was not offended, the Overlord let go of his feigned embarrassment, and finally opened his beady and empty eyes to take a good look at Daniel.. An action that turned his polite smile into a confused one.

    Aside from the aura produced by Daniel¡¯s power, which the Overlord happened to find extremely obnoxious and domineering, he could not help but feel that Daniel felt somehow familiar, as if he had seen him before. This feeling had been brief, and extremely faint, and yet not without cause.

    Without saying a word, the overlord scanned hisst hundred years of memories in an attempt to find previous encounters with Daniel, but no matter how carefully he dug into them, no shared memories were found. The idea of prying further back in time appeared in his mind, but was immediately discarded due to two reasons: The hosting of the Exalted Assembly, and Daniel¡¯s age, which could not have been more than forty despite him looking like a young man in his early twenties.

    He would have to investigate these doubts at ater moment.

    "Very well. This is your table." Said the Overlord before heading towards the lone table ced by the left of the podium, a table which Daniel had already guessed was his seat, but at which he had not sat yet in case he was mistaken.

    The reason why Daniel had already guessed that this special seat was his own, was because of what he had learned the days that had followed his disy of power as an aspect of Existence.

    The terrifying feeling that Daniel¡¯s power had ced onto the other champions¡¯ shoulders, was proof that the nature of his aspect of existence was of a higher tier than any other aspect represented by the domains that were participating in this Exalted Assembly, which belonged to the low, mid, and mid-high tiers. For that reason, by tradition, Daniel should have been sitting in front of everybody else, along with the other high tier domains.. However, since he represented the only high tier domain present, the domain of Horror had decided to ce beside the podium, as to not force thousands of champions to step back, and make way for him alone.

    While Daniel understood this reasoning, and he could appreciate the special treatment, he couldn¡¯t help but feel slightly bothered by having to be at the center of attention..

    With a faint nod of his head Daniel followed the instructions and sat at his table, after which the Overlord headed towards the podium, and aftering to a stop right in front of it, eximed with a dignified mannerism that was only ruined by his unsightly features, "We are here in the name of our Lords, whom we follow loyally. We vow to solve our grievances peacefully, and ording to the rules of the Exalted Assembly."

    These two sentences were soon repeated by the other champions.

    "Good. Let it begin." The Overlord added, starting the Exalted Assembly.

    Right as the Overlord finished speaking, a single line of cultivators appeared out of nowhere, and epassed the entire area. These cultivators were all champions of the domain of Order, and were there to make sure that things would remain civil, as the rules dictated.

    While the appearance of this row of cultivators was a surprise for Daniel, that was not the case for the other domains, whose champions suddenly stood up, and walked towards the podium, forming a line that separated the branches into different sectors. Not all the domains sent a representative, but in fact, only the weakest ones, as their problems were of less importance.

    ording to the rules, the first ones to talk would be the lowest tier of domains, followed by the mid tier, the mid-high tier, and if present, high domains. Thest one to talk would be the organizer, as his matters were the very reason why the Exalted Assembly had been called, and therefore, had to be the most important ones.

    "Anatole Baudin, champion of lord Duel." Said the first champion to reach the podium, an elegant young man with long blonde hair. His attire was simple,posed of tightly fitting pants, elegant leather shoes, and a baggy white shirt, made to cover the twitches of his muscles when fighting. His hand rested on the hilt of a rapier, ced by the left side of his waist opposite to what appeared to be a single bullet version of the gun sported by the champions of War¡¯s domain.

    "Two hundred of our champions, half of which my direct descendents, were either killed or kidnapped while inside a contested universe that waster imed by the aspect of Treachery. We beseech Competition¡¯s domain¡¯s help to get an exnation." Said the blonde young man while tightly gripping the hilt of his rapier. It was clear from his voice that this matter was of great importance to him.

    In response to the young man¡¯s request, a champion of the mid-low tier domain of Conquest stood up, and after turning towards the table upied by the champions of Betrayal, he said with a domineering tone, "The acquisition of an untouched universe is apetition, not a war. I demand an exnation regarding what happened to the missing champions."

    The domineering behavior of the champion of Competition did not seem to have any effect on the champions of Betrayal, one of whom stood up, bowed politely towards him, and said through a feigned smile, "Our investigation, led the day of their disappearance, roughly three hundred years ago, has led to no satisfactory exnation."

    One would not need mind reading to know that this seemingly polite sentence was nothing but lies, and yet, before either of the domains of Duel or Competition could retort, the champion of Betrayal, an oddly young-looking man with thin eyes and long violet hair, added, "We understand your grief. Our domain wishes to donate two consumed universes to Lord Duel. One from us, and one from Treachery¡¯s domain. We hope this gesture can put your mind at ease."

    The nostrils of the blonde champion of Duel red up, and his fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword to a point where his fingers became white.. And yet, he did not act. Instead, he turned towards the champion of Competition, who shook his head apologetically in response.

    Left with no alternatives, the blonde duelist stormed off the podium, and headed towards his domain¡¯s table, at which he sat angrily. His expression darkened even further as he made the mistake of ncing at the champions of Treachery, whose expressions sported a satisfied grin. Had there not been several hundreds of Order¡¯s champions, he would have made a move.

    As soon as the Champion of Duel left the podium, the second in line took his ce, and after him, more followed.

    What Daniel quickly realized was that there was no real positive oue in these exchanges. While the domains changed, and the offences varied, the result was always the same. The domain who had followed the rules was always the one to suffer, while the guilty party would deny any responsibility right before "gracing" the hurt party with what they considered eptable losses.

    These results did nothing but instigate further conflicts between the domains, who would ultimately have no choice but to seek satisfaction by hidden and prohibited means.. Feeding this cycle of revenge and violence.

    As the assembly went on, and the first row of cultivators ended, the champions of more powerful domains took the stage, and with them, they brought bigger problems. Unfulfilled agreements, broken alliances, discovered spies, assassinations attempts.. All problems that a simple kingdom would encounter, but with consequences that could change the ecosystem of vast portions of the multiverse.

    ".. has to fulfill the agreement. They will surrender the owed universe, as well as an additional ten percent worth of what is owed as interest. Say aye if you agree." Said one of the champions of Horror in an attempt to mediate between two conflicting mid-high tier domains.

    "NAY!" Bellowed a man covered in ck robes with a grating voice that came from behind ayer of green fog that seeped out of his hood and sleeves. "They have upied our universe for two thousand years! It will take us double that to remove their domain¡¯s influence! We want what was owed to us, in the state it was owed to us!"

    The champion of Horror¡¯s domain turned to look at the man in ck robes with what could, with some difficulty, be distinguished as an amiable smile. "I understand your frustration, champion of Sickness, but this matter is beyond us. As per rules, in absence of a high tier domain that can mediate this, we can only vote on it." He said.

    While Daniel¡¯s domain likely belonged to the high tier, Karma was not Sickness¡¯s liege, and therefore, even if they asked him, or if he wanted to, he could not interject.. Not to mention, he had no intention to.

    Unable to counter this point, the champion of Sickness sat back down.

    "Aye!"

    ".. aye"

    "Aye."

    ...

    Soon, the remaining mid-high domains cast their vote, leaving the champions of Sickness no choice but to take the loss, and begrudgingly say, "Aye.."

    The domain of Sickness was part of the faction to which the domain of Horror belonged to, and the two were subjected to the same high tier domain. Unfortunately, while the champions of Horror would have helped him if possible, a problem between two mid-high tier domains could only be resolved by their direct liege. That was the reason why it was impossible for the domain of Horror to aid its allies.

    Nevertheless, while they had failed to help their allies, the champions of Horror did not allow for the matter to bother them. They were the organizers, and as such, the stakes of failing in their duties would cost them much more than any domain could afford to lose. To them, the most important objective was to justify the Exalted Assembly, and with the problem of the domain of Sickness solved, the floor was finally theirs.

    "Now that all other matters have been solved, it is finally time for us to discuss why we have summoned you all here." Said the Overlord after cing his greasy hands onto the white podium. His voice rang through the air, eliminating any unnecessary noise to make sure that only he, within the pocket domain, could be heard.

 Chapter 554 - Fateful Encounter

    <h4>Chapter 554 - Fateful Encounter </h4>

    "The leader of the Domain of Lord Sacrifice, first of Lord Sacrifice¡¯s champions, has perished.." Said the Overlord right after licking his greasy and slightly shiny lips. His eyes, albeit still devoid of life, were now curved in a failed attempt to showcase grief.

    A deafening silence, yet short-lived silence befell the pocket dimension.

    Soon, noises which indicated a variety of emotive reactions resounded in the air. Gasps of surprise, tedughs, angry roars, and much more.. To Daniel, who had met the Murderous God personally, it was not a surprise to see that nobody was shedding tears for him except for the Overlord, whom he knew for certain was only pretending.

    The buzz of chatter kept going for around a minute, after which an oddly muscr old man dressed in a charred cksmith attire stood up from his table, and with the hastiness of a man who had spent thest ten hours working, said, "You have reunited all of us here just to tell us this?!"

    Next to this old man, sat a second man who appeared to be in his early forties, and that was casually resting his head onto his closed fist. With a contemptuous smile, this man twirled his mustache and said, "He must have felt that his domain is too big to manage.. Or maybe he is in a giving mood. Either way, the domain of Labor epts your donation. We will put your universes to a better use."

    Simrints came from many other tables, where their upants let out their indignation, and demanded for Horror¡¯s domain to pay the thousands universes it had used as coteral to call an Exalted Assembly.

    "An expected reaction.." Daniel thought.

    While the death of the Murderous God was a disastrous event for the domain of Sacrifice, he was but a single champion of a specific aspect of Existence. Another Murderous God had existed before him, and many would fight nail and teeth to take his ce afterwards. In the grand scheme of things, this news was definitely not something worth calling an Exalted Assembly for.

    After a few more simr remarks were thrown at the Overlord, he casually raised his right hand and said, "I wasn¡¯t done talking." The pocket dimension went quiet once again. He then added, as the cultivators sat back down, "As I was saying, the Murderous God has perished.. Within a closed domain."

    "What?.."

    ".. There is no way."

    "That¡¯s impossible!.. Unless.."

    Several shocked gasps and doubtful tones merged into a confusing hubbub that would sound iprehensible to a normal human, but that to the cultivators present, was extremely clear. The content of these voices was all around the same.

    Daniel had already imagined that the death of the Murderous God would be mentioned during this assembly. He could guess as much due to the odd absence of the domain of Sacrifice, which had refused to participate under the Overlord¡¯s orders. What he wasn¡¯t expecting, however, was what he heard next.

    The Overlord ignored the questions of the shocked champions, and instead, he continued by saying, "Yes, you have guessed it right. Despite the limitations to his powers, the Murderous God should have had no problems dealing with any indigenous power within a closed universe.. Only one kind of being could have threatened his life" The atmosphere suddenly turned solemn. To Daniel¡¯s surprise, an even deeper degree of silence was reached than before. "A new spawning point for Destiny¡¯s children has appeared.."

    Suddenly, a knot formed at the bottom of Daniel¡¯s throat. He looked at the champions reaction to the Overlord¡¯s sentence, and immediately realized that the hostility the various domains felt towards one another hadpletely disappeared. A wall made of differently colored bricks had now formed a united front against a greater enemy.

    "How long has he been dead?" Asked the old champion of Labor with a solemn attitude.

    "We are not sure." The Overlord lied. The fact that the high champions of Sacrifice¡¯s domain could feel the legacy of the Murderous God was a highly well kept secret-to a point where only the upper echelon of Horror¡¯s domain and the Murderous God¡¯s own disciples were aware of it. If it was known that the domain of sacrifice, which was subjected to the domain of Horror, had been aware of a universe inhabited by Iewah¡¯s children for years, the rest of the multiverse would make them pay dearly.

    The domain of Competition was in a simr situation. They had been aware of the presence of a champion of Destiny within one of their universes, but if they had made his existence known, their territory would have been invaded and searched by the other domains. Unfortunately, they had spent thest few months hoping that Daniel had died while trying to leave for the Trigate. It was only during the Exalted Assembly that the domain of Competition had learned that he hadn¡¯t died, but instead, had ended up in the universe where they believed the first champion of Karma resided.

    For these reasons, all three of these domains were hiding the truth.

    "He disappeared from the scarlet pce several years ago. One of his disciples found traces of his abilities by chance, but his essence had long dissipated." The Overlord added.

    A woman in herte thirties raised her thin and pale hand in an attempt to catch the crowd¡¯s attention, then said, "Maybe we could search the universes that were op-"

    She was soon interrupted by Daniel, who, ording to the ranks as he had understood them, was several ranks above her, and had the right to speak before her. "I am new to this.. What are you talking about?" Daniel asked after clearing his throat.

    Just now remembering that a new domain was present, the Overlord turned to look at Daniel. "Spawn of a fake aspect of existence.. Warmongering brutes and insufferable cockroaches with powers beyond rationale.. They need to be erased from existence as soon as they appear in order to avoid catastrophe. That is the first rule of Fate¡¯s domain." He said with sheer disgust and hatred.

    As he spoke about the champions of Destiny, the Overlord reminisced of when the acts of his universe had given consciousness to their lord, the aspect of Horror. At that time, oddly powerful entities had started to appear in the dark corners of that very same universe, making what should have been the glorious beginning of a powerful empire, a time soaked in blood and desperation for his people-for their rivals were unmatched.

    It was only thanks to the aid of the rest of the multiverse that the champions of Horror hadn¡¯t been wiped out of existence, and coulde out of hiding.

    Unfortunately for Daniel, the hatred towards what the Overlord disrespectfully referred to as the ¡¯Spawn of Destiny¡¯ was a feeling shared throughout the entirety of the multiverse, and justified by the primary domain of Fate. Whenever a universe touched by Destiny was found, the champions that were born within were obliterated in order to ensure they would not grow beyond control.

    Almost forcing himself to stop thinking about those times, the Overlord turned to look at the crowd, and said, "Without being certain when the Murderous God died, or which domain took control over that universe once it was opened, we are left with only one alternative." His tone was grim, and despite his already naturally dark facial features, Daniel could gather that even he disliked this "alternative".

    As he finished speaking, one of the champions of Horror stood up and walked towards an empty spot right between his domain¡¯s table, and the podium. He then gently waved his hand to conjure a portal.

    Compared to the murky portals created by the champions of Horror, this portal waspletely different. Instead of appearing from a source of power and expanding to the right size, this portal was created from an horizontal rip in space, which formed through the separation of the upper and lower part. The borders of this portal were uneven, and once fully opened, it made the portal look like a city¡¯s skyline mirrored in the sky, or an opened mouth full of crooked teeth.

    The power contained in this portal was even more odd. While immensely powerful, it was not threatening or overbearing. There was no hostility towards any of the other aspects of existence, almost as if a rightful, and beloved ruler had stepped down its throne, to stand in the middle of their subjects.

    The only person who felt a hint of adversity towards this power was Daniel, who, contrary to every other observing champion, could feel both a familiarity and hostility within it.

    Once fully opened, two people emerged from the portal.

    The first of these two people was a strikingly attractive young man with long pitch ck hair, porcin skin, and delicate features. Dressed in a white taoist robe with a ck dragon pattern sewn into it, he stood proudly in front of the crowd of champions.

    From this young man¡¯s extremely wide sleeves, which hid his armspletely, came out a chain that reached out to his right, where the second person was standing.

    The second person, chained by her hands and feet to what Daniel could gather was her jailor, was a young woman with dark green hair that reached all the way to her lower back, long and pointy ears, an extremely paleplexion, and more impressively, eyes that shone like a rainbow colored crystal. Her delicate facial features were still visible despite her saddened expression, which indicated that she was not happy to be there.

    What these two people provoked in the observing champions was respect and disgust. Respect aimed at the young man, a proud and powerful champion of Fate, and disgust towards the young woman, whom Daniel had already recognized as a child of Iewah.

    A lump formed in Daniel¡¯s throat as his eyes were glued to the ethereal figure of the young woman. Mentally, he prepared himself to stop suppressing the power of Karma and use themotion to make a break for it.. As if he could recognize a peer champion of Destiny with a sheer nce, she could have recognized one too.

    "WE GREET THE CHAMPION OF FATE." Chanted the entire crowd in unison.

    As cold as stone, the champion of Fate did not bother with the greeting. Instead, he turned to look at Daniel who, contrary to the others, had shown no respect towards him and was instead staring at his femalepanion. "Tch." Snorted the young man with irritation, causing Daniel to catch the young woman¡¯s attention.

    Horrified by the disapproval of the champion of Fate, the Overlord bowed apologetically, then added, "This right here is the first champion of Karma, and he knows little of our hierarchy. I fault myself for failing to exin everything properly before your arrival." As he finished speaking, the Overlord turned towards Daniel and, whilecking the courtesy he had shown when speaking to him before, said, "His Eminence is a champion of Lord Fate, an omnipresent aspect of existence that is above all else. Being respectful to him is a given."

    Daniel¡¯s eyes moved from the young woman to the Overlord, then onto the young man. Proper etiquette was thest thing on his mind at the moment, especially since he was in the presence of one of the few people who could call him out on his lies. However, he did not panic.. His lips slowly curved into a polite smile, and he said, "He came inte. Shouldn¡¯t he greet us before we greet him?"

    For the second time, the hall fell into a silence unbroken by even the sound of breathing, as nobody dared to. However, this time, nervousness and fear could be felt being emanated by the surrounding cultivators. The most fearful of the observing cultivators was the Overlord himself, whose horrid face was distorted into an indescribable expression.

    "YOU DARE MISBEHAVE DESPITE KNOWING WHO I AM?!" Barked the young man in pure anger while taking two steps towards Daniel. The chain he held tensed as he walked further from the young woman he was connected to.

    Daniel tilted his head in feigned confusion, then rested it onto his closed fist. He then said, "Correct me if I am wrong but.. fate is an omnipotent yet passive concept of existence. Should you be using your Master¡¯s name to threaten people? And even if you do choose to do so, what will you do? Read my palm to death? Give me a tarot reading?"

    As someone born within the domain of Fate, the young cultivator had lived the entirety of his extremely long life with people who worshipped the very air he breathed out. Disgust was the least negative feeling he was forced to endure when tasked with interacting with the other domains, and in those events, disagreement and hostility could not exist. In his mind, he was above everybody else, and as such, others needed to act ordingly.. Yet, this stranger had spit on the very honor that had symbolized the entirety of his existence.

    Too shocked to even speak, the champions of Fate looked at Daniel with eyes full of hatred, and from which angry tears threatened to flow like rivers as he gave out his sanity to leap towards him.. But that never happened.

    "Hmph.." A gentle yet short burst ofughter suddenly broke the silence. It came from the young woman, whose upper body was bent forward in an attempt to reach for her chained hands with her mouth to cover the most charming of smiles.

    The young man turned to look at hispanion with a dumbfounded expression. His hand tightened around the chain he was holding, but right before he could say anything, the young woman regained herposure, and moved back to a straight posture. "Young master, if you will lose yourposure in front of all these people, who will respect you in the future?" She said with a silvery and modted tone.

    This single sentence seemed to strike the young man straight to the core.

    While disrespect was shocking beyond belief to him, a truly superior entity would not be bothered by the thoughts or words of someone they considered to be of a lesser standing. To be enraged by Daniel¡¯s words was as much of a disgrace to him as the original insult was.

    With a heavy sigh, the young man immediately regained hisposure. "Since you are the first champion of your domain, I will let it go, this time. There won¡¯t be a next one." He said with indifference right after turning to look at Daniel. He then turned around, and walked back towards his original position, but not before tightening the grip around the chain he was holding and pulling it with enough strength for the chained young woman to fall heavily on the ground.

    She did not react angrily towards this abuse. Instead, she quietly stood back and walked right behind her captor, leaving a few drops of blood on the hall¡¯s milky-white floor.

 Chapter 555 - My Lords Will (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 555 - My Lord''s Will (Part 1) </h4>

    As the champion of Fate dragged the bleeding young woman halfway across the stage, Daniel quietly observed the two. Deep frown lines marked his be, a feature caused by the confusing nature of the feelings provoked by the presence of the two individuals. It had been awhile since the presence of another entity had changed his calctive and calm state of mind, and yet, such a feat appeared all too easy for the two of them.

    The natural hostility he had felt towards the champion of Fate was almost instinctive, and had caused Daniel to childishlysh out in a situation where, if in his natural state of mind, he could have simply bypassed with an insincere show of politeness. Yet, something about this young man had bothered him beyond reason.

    What Daniel did not know, at first, was that the same was true for the champion of Fate himself, who, despite his well cultivated ego, had also enough pride to contain himself.. In fact, anyone who knew him previous to this event, would have expected him to ignore Daniel¡¯s impolite words and treat him like the insignificant ant he believed him to be, rather than to lower himself to Daniel¡¯s level, and let his anger get the better of him.

    The strange connection of familiarity and hostility the two had felt was poisonous to their mind, like an embarrassing memory that crept his way out of a mncholic moment, or an extremely bitter aftertaste.

    To an observer, Daniel seemed to have simply acted out of ignorance against a childish yet important individual, but deep down, he knew that without his mental fortitude, he too would haveshed out as aggressively as his opponent had. This hostility, Daniel was soon able to guess, was caused by the natural opposition between the power of Fate, and the power of Karma.

    While Destiny existed as a true opposition to Fate, the two were also connected-to a point where the distinction between them could be considered a matter of perspective. Karma, on the other hand, was a power that existed outside of the realm of Fate, as its influence was solely dependent on the free will of conscious creatures. The difference was the same as the one between two unlike-minded twins, and two unlike-minded enemies.

    What made things worse for Daniel, was the presence of one of Iewah¡¯s children.. The yielder of a system which, like his own, could pinpoint the general location of another child of Iewah in a matter of moments.

    As he observed the two move towards the podium, Daniel inconspicuously examined the intricate nature of the pocket dimension that surrounded him, and quietly prepared himself to force its copse in case his fears turned into reality.

    -----

    "Due to the discovery of a breeding ground of Destiny¡¯s champions, the domain of High Lord Fate allowed the use of the Seeker." Said the champion of Fate after reaching the pearly white podium. He then pointed his finger at the young woman, whose hands were resting by her waist, seemingly unbothered by the blood that trickled down her nose.

    Most of the domains¡¯ representatives seemed to understand what the young man had just said, while the rest appeared puzzled. "Your highness, what does that mean?" Asked the champion of a mid-sized domain.

    The champion of Fate did not bother to exin. Instead, he turned towards the Overlord of Horror¡¯s domain, and gave him a faint nod.

    The very moment the Overlord noticed this aloof gesture, he enhanced the power of his voice, and exined, "Many of you are new to this, as not often breeding grounds for Lord Destiny¡¯s champions.. When that happens, the domain of High Lord Fate may send a representative. With him, said representative will bring the decision of the high domain of Fate."

    The confusion had yet to leave the faces of the champions, yet, no one dared to ask any further questions, as it seemed that the Overlord was not done speaking.

    "As you all know, the champions of Destiny are blessed with extraordinary abilities.." Said the Overlord with a palpable sense of envy. "One of which is the ability to create a path that leads to what they desire.. Or the desires of the ones who control them." As he came to the end of the exnation, the Overlord casually pointed his arm at the young woman.

    "SHE IS ONE OF THEM?!" Barked out a man who appeared to be in his nies, but whose real age was among the youngest of the cultivators present.

    Simr reactions came from different tables within the pocket dimension, by which just as many frightened cultivators were sent in an uproar.

    "Why are you keeping one of them alive?!"

    "What if she escapes??"

    "ENOUGH!" Shouted the champion of Fate in anger, causing the entire hall to quiet down instantly. "These shackles contain the power of the High Lord. As long as she is bound, none of her powers will work.. For those worried about a possible escape, let me show you why your worries are unnecessary."

    As he finished speaking, the young man reached for his wide sleeve with his left hand, then lifted it, uncovering his right arm.

    The skin of this arm was smooth and muscr, just like what anyone would expect from a cultivator that had likely trained for as long as he had lived.. Yet, this arm was not like any other. Right in the middle of the forearm was a patch of white skin, from which emerged a light that emanated the power of fate, as well as the heavy chain that was attached to the young woman. His hand was tightly wrapped around the chain at all times, ready to pull it whenever necessary.

    Seemingly convinced of the safety of the situation, the cultivators once again began to rx.. But s, that did notst long as, as soon as his right arm was shown, the young man released the hold on the chain, and used the fingers of his left hand to cut through it. Following this simple action the chain fell on the ground, and the white patch on the young man¡¯s forearm began to fade. Soon after, the chain began to disappear as well, freeing the young woman of his control.

    Shocked gasps filled the room as many prepared themselves to fight the young woman- Even Daniel made up his mind to leave as soon as there was a chance.. And yet, what he saw next stopped him and the others in their tracks.

    The young woman did not appear to rejoice in her newly found freedom, nor did she seem moved in any way. Instead, she stood as quietly as she had been while chained, almost as if the idea of running was the veryst thought that would ever cross her mind.

    For the following two minutes the members of the thousands of domains observed in silence, and at no point in that time did the woman show any intention of leaving.

    "The Seeker is unlike any other champion of Destiny." Said the champion of Fate before stepping closer to the young woman. He then added, while moving the hair that flowed down her left shoulder behind her back to show her graceful appearance, "While her kind use the power of Destiny to bring chaos, she is the opposite. The power she was bestowed with is the power of Peace."

    Surprised about this revtion, the cultivators kept looking with suspicion. The domain of Fate had spared no effort in demonizing the champions of Destiny throughout the entire multiverse, to a point where that impression was not something that could be easily changed with a few words.

    That was not the case for Daniel, however, who could confirm the truthfulness of the young man¡¯s im by looking at the number that was hanging above the woman¡¯s head-An emerald-colored number that, at the very least, confirmed that she was an anomaly among her warmongering kin, just like Daniel.

    "Even if harmless, what if she escapes?" Asked a man whom everybody immediately thought of as ¡¯the most innocent cultivator present¡¯.

    "She can answer this question." Said the champion of Fate before stepping behind the young woman. He then grabbed her arms from behind, rested his head onto her visible shoulder, and asked with closed eyes and a rxed tone, "Mirah, tell them how many people died thest time you have escaped?"

    This question seemed to hurt the young championess of Destiny more than the physical abuse, or even herpanion¡¯s creepy behavior had. Her expression now marked by sorrow, her voice broken before it could even emerge from her mouth. Before she could speak, a sharp pain came from right above her elbows, right where the young champion of Fate had started to squeeze with enough power to break bone. It had be a habit of his to pair physical pain with the emotional one during the thousands of years the two had spent together as jailer and prisoner.

    The young woman cleared her throat, and said emotionlessly, "Eleven trillion, five hundred and twenty-five billion, nine hundred and thirteen million, four hundred and seventy-six thousand and eighty-one lives." The coldness of her voice waspletely opposite to her emotional aura which, unfortunately, she was unable to control. This aura brought an unprecedented feeling of sadness throughout the entirety of the pocket dimension, causing the less coldblooded and more humane cultivators to cry.

    "Splendid.. You never make a mistake, no matter how many times you have to say it." Said the champion of Fate while releasing the grip over her arms. He then turned towards the crowd, and added, "See, it is good that she came back after only a few minutes, or the number would have been much higher."

    Almost satisfied by his performance, the young champion of Fate took a step back, then traced a small line on his right forearm with his left index finger, causing the white blotch of skin to appear once again. He then inserted his fingers into it.

    When he pulled his fingers back out, a chain was being held between his thumb and index finger, which he used to once again chain the young woman. Once done, the young man casually walked back on the podium.

    By the time this happened, the observing cultivators regained theirposure.. All but one.

    Daniel was now sitting quietly. His eyes closed, his lips quivering as if trying to contain himself from speaking words he wouldn¡¯t be able to take back. From the corner of his eyes small droplets of watered blood formed, then streamed down his cheeks as he tried to contain the palpableyer of enraged aura that was emanated by his body, to the vicinity of his table..

    His odd appearance quickly began to grab the crowd¡¯s attention, which gradually turned in his direction. The Overlord was the first among the people on stage to notice Daniel, followed by hispanions.

    The young woman named Mirah suddenly turned towards Daniel in confusion, an action that was followed by her cruelpanion-who prepared himself to once again reprimand Daniel.. However, before he could say a word, Daniel¡¯s voice resounded throughout the pocket dimension. "One word.. And you die."

    Shocked by Daniel¡¯s sudden threat, which was clearly aimed at him, the champion of Fate lost his mind. Who do you think you are?!-he intended on asking.. But before he could finish saying the word ¡¯who¡¯, the viscous essence that surrounded Daniel¡¯s body disappeared, and his expression rxed.

    To match this calm, was the endless quiet that had filled the pocket dimension. Time seemed to have suddenly stopped, as the eyes of each and every cultivator present were glued to Daniel, not daring to take a single breath. If any one of these cultivators could find the courage to speak, they would swear that that day was the day of their execution. That their life was in the hands of the young man they were forced to look at, as he held the de which could be brought down on their necks whenever he chose to.

    That was the same for the champion of Fate.. as the natural hostility he had felt towards Daniel had beenpletely erased.. In its ce was a feeling of infinite terror, as the voices of the uncountable people he had killed began to resound in his ears.

    His eardrums broke instantly, his eyesight darkened, and his mind became foggy, only capable of processing the heartbreak he had caused whenever he took a life, only to feel it stop again and again. An eternity of pain, grief, regret and sorrow that stretched the fabric of time, forcing one brief second tost thousands of years.. But only for him.

    The red number above the champion¡¯s head decreased by one whenever a life was lived, and lost.. Until finally, the number reached zero, and the young man regained his consciousness.

    "I ept the punishment.." he muttered humbly as his skin cracked and turned to a sickly grey color. Momentster, the artificial breeze contained within the pocket dimension struck the young man¡¯s body, turning it into a cloud of ashes.

 Chapter 556 - My Lords Will (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 556 - My Lord''s Will (Part 2) </h4>

    As the ashes of the champion of Fate scattered, and Daniel¡¯s presence went back to its original state, the thousands of observing cultivators sprung to their feet-In their hands just as many weapons had suddenly appeared. The pocket dimension began to tremble due to the invisible sh of essences, which tried to wrestle control over the surrounding space.

    "WHAT IS GOING ON!?" shrieked an old man in priest robes while tightening the grip on the bullwhip he was holding. "WHAT WAS THAT?"

    This degree of horror was shared by the champion of most other domains, whose terrified eyes lingered on Daniel¡¯s calm appearance. At times, these gazes would shift towards the Overlord, hoping that the organizer of this event would make sense out of the insanity that had just ensued-only to move back onto Daniel once they noticed the already monstrous appearance of the Overlord twist into an even more frightening sight.

    "What.. what did you do?" muttered the Overlord with a croaky voice.

    The champions of Law and Order took a step forward in unison, while pointing their essence fueled weapons towards the lone champion. Emanated from these weapons were the peculiar powers of the aspects of Law and Order-two powers whose magnitude changed depending on whether the target had broken the rules set, or not. The higher the offence, the more imposing the power would be.

    Before the champions of Law could act against Daniel, and the champions of Order could stop the other domains from escting the situation, several portals were torn open on stage-each resembling the one opened by the champion of Fate whom Daniel¡¯s power had just judged and executed.

    While simr in appearance, the power that these portals were emanating was iparable to the previous one, and that was the case for one in particr-the one that had started to open right next to where the young champion of Fate had just died. Impossible to describe, this power took over the entirety of the pocket dimension, erasing any other form of power present, and forcing the observing cultivators¡¯ personal essence back into their bodies, caging it in.

    Soon after gaining control over the pocket dimension, two hands emerged from the portal¡¯s clear surface. More menacing than the sharpest sword, these two hands were covered in an almost tangibleyer of emotional aura, ck in color and murderous in intent-one that was unleashed the moment the two hands hooked onto the borders of the portal, and forced it open with as much effort it would take someone to open a paper bag.

    As the portal opened fully, theyer of hand-shaped ck energy expanded, then, united into the shape of a full human as the owner barged through. "WHO!! WHO IS IT?! WHO KILLED MY SON!!" Roared the barely visible entity that emerged. Momentster, several more entities almost as enraged yet just as powerful walked out of the rest of the portals.

    The other entities stood still, and aside from one, who stepped close enough to Iewah¡¯s daughter to grab the chain that was constricting her, none other moved.

    "ANSWER ME! NOW!" Roared the first being once again, allowing for his sharp eyes to slice through the ck energy that surrounded him, and cast his monstrous presence over the terrified observers.

    Too frightened to even think, the cultivators could only observe the vengeful aura of the man grow thicker and wider. In their minds, nothing but the conviction that the end was near was able to form, while their hearts gave up any form of pride and desire to struggle for their lives. They were hares, standing in front of wolves whose only resolve in life was to kill them-survival was out of the question and no one would be spared.

    What the observing cultivators were feeling was not an illusion. One¡¯s emotional aura was a reflection of uncontroble feelings.. If the aura portrayed murderous intent, nothing but murder was on its owner¡¯s mind.

    The aura kept growing, engulfing the entire podium and reaching for the closest cultivator, the Overlord, who was too scared to even just take a step back.. But before this emotional aura could touch him, a sorrowful elderly voice said, "My love.. Control your temper." This voice came from the same portal the first entity had just emerged from, and was followed by the appearance of a second cultivator, also surrounded by ayer of emotional aura, but of a different kind.. While one could feel nothing but beastly rage from the first entity, the aura of the second one was mostlyposed of sadness and confusion.

    Touched by these few words, the ck aura of the first entity began to retract, until finally, it poured back into the body of its ownerpletely, revealing an old man with long white beard, and an even longer beard. His sharp eyes glowed with a white hue that was able to outshine his otherwise simple features-his potato shaped nose, bushy eyebrows, and trembling thin lips.

    What this old mancked in physical appearance, however, made up for it in demeanor. Dressed in a spotlessly clean taoist attire, with a long cloth that floated around his head, and that went down his shoulders and by his sides, he presented himself like a being above all else-a cultivator who many would mistake as a deity.

    The woman that had managed to calm him down was of simr age. With her white hair tied up in an orderly bun, and much gentler appearance, she stood next to him with a distressed expression. She pressed her hand gently onto herpanion¡¯s arm, and with a worried tone, asked, "What happened here?" Despite her calmer demeanor, her power was in no way inferior to that of her malepanion, in fact, the concentration of Fate¡¯s gift contained within her was even purer than his, while their cultivation matched perfectly.

    The faces of each cultivator present turned towards Daniel, who was currently standing near his table, almost unaffected by the whole event.

    As the newly arrived champions of Fate noticed Daniel, they felt an instinctive repulsion towards him, just like the younger champion had after entering the pocket dimension. Yet, thanks to their cultivation, they were able to maintain their calm.

    "Sirs.." Said the Overlord meekly in an attempt to grab the couple¡¯s attention.

    "SILENCE!" Barked a high ranking champion of Law before marching towards the podium. He then knelt in front of the old couple and said, "My name is Alexios Zervas,mander of Lord Law¡¯s fourth division, and man in charge of this Assembly¡¯s Security. Before receiving my punishment, I will give a full report of the events.."

    -----

    ".. That is impossible.. it wasn¡¯t written!"

    "It shouldn¡¯t.. could we have missed it?"

    After a quick and concise exnation, the old couple, as well as the other champions of Fate were left baffled. The first one to regain her calm was the old woman who, after understanding the situation, stepped towards Daniel and asked with a calm and almost polite tone, "Young man. I do not know you, nor do I know which Lord you serve.. What I know is that our son was not fated to die today.. I want to know what happened."

    Surprised by the olddy¡¯s benevolent attitude, Daniel could not help but put aside the contrasting feelings he felt for her kind, and say with a polite yet slightly monotone voice, "I am sorry for your loss, but I am afraid your son bit off more than he could chew. He offended my Lord, and was punished for it."

    "LIAR! Which Lord would meddle in a mortal¡¯s business?! Which Lord would dare challenge High Lord Fate himself?!" barked out the old man while unconsciously stepping forward. His anger had once again started to surge, fueled by the natural and unexinable animosity he felt towards the young man that stood just a few steps away from him.

    "One with very little patience, I assure you." Daniel muttered before once again turning to look at the olddy. He then added, "Your son¡¯s actions were never without consequence. Every step we took, the words we speak, the lives we take, and the suffering we caused.. It all piles up. It lingers over our necks like the de of a guillotine, and he went and bothered the executioner."

    Daniel¡¯s words were shocking to all those who heard them, and yet, they weren¡¯t unbelievable. The pressure they had felting from him was not that of a simple champion, but that of an aspect of existence. But why would an aspect of existence meddle with humans, especially the followers of a major aspect like Fate. If they hadn¡¯t seen it with their own eyes, they wouldn¡¯t have believed it.

    Due to being the only ones who hadn¡¯t witnessed the events in person, the champions of fate were the only ones who were struggling to believe Daniel¡¯s word, and the old couple was not an exception. As champions of Fate, they knew that the pantheon of aspects had strict rules like any mortal organization. Fate was at the very top for the simple fact that being born first meant that his influence in the multiverse was unmatched. Every object, idea, living being, and universe lived within the canvas of Fate, and that included the other aspects of existence.

    For an unknown aspect of existence topletely ignore rules or hierarchy, nobody would believe it.

    "That is impossible.. No matter which Lords you serve, his actions are part of the High Lord¡¯s n. What kind of entity could break fate itself?" The old woman asked, now slightly less calmly than before.

    "It matters not whether you believe me." Said Daniel while calmly sitting back in his chair. "All I can tell you is that you are a fool if you think something as trivial as fate can stop the weight of your actions from crushing you." He said before taking a brief pause, after which, he added, "You all said you know nothing of the Lord I serve, so let this be the first thing you learn about him. You all have a debt with Karma.. you may run from it, but he walks way faster than you."

    Daniel¡¯s threatening words resounded in the crowd¡¯s ears like a wake-up call.

    For hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, these cultivators had lived their lives with nothing to worry but politics. It wouldn¡¯t be an exaggeration to im they had existed as gods among men.. But now, Daniel¡¯s words changed everything. For the first time in their lives, they had to face the possible threat of an aspect of existence, and based on Daniel¡¯s words, not a single one of them would be able to slip through the crack.

    Worried about the sudden appearance of such a willful entity, the champions of the various domains could do nothing but seek rification from the champions of one of the most powerful aspects of existence. ¡¯Your Lord will fall in line, like others did before him.¡¯ Those were the words that the crowd hoped to hear from the champions of Fate, and yet, such words were never spoken.

    The fact that ¡¯Karma¡¯ had changed the young champion¡¯s fate was proof that Daniel was not bluffing. His Lord¡¯s power was outside of the spectrum of Fate, and if anything, it was more in line with Destiny¡¯s interpretation of casualty-which meant that the course they could predict of the future was not guaranteed anymore, and that the wrong word could possibly spell their death.

    This simple concept alone sent the extremely ancient and powerful minds of the champions of Fate out of control, causing them to experience something they had long forgotten.. Fear and uncertainty.

    The only two of them who could maintain theirposure were the old couple. "Your Lord¡¯s decisions will make you an enemy to the rest of us.. Are you aware of that?" Said the olddy with a matter-of-fact tone. She felt no hatred towards Daniel, since based on the report she had received, he was not the one who had killed her son. Unfortunately, she also knew that her husband would want someone to pay, and that was Daniel¡¯s fate. All that she could do now was to gather as much information about Daniel and his Lord as she could, while hoping that one day, the High Lord of Fate would get revenge for her.

    "Who knows, we could be great friends after this. After all.. Your divinations were proven wrong before." Daniel muttered through a slight smile while crossing his arms and legs. He then added, "If you have no intention of finishing this, I will dly take my leave."

    Daniel¡¯s taunts did not go unnoticed, especially for the champions of Fate, whom the simple action of being spoken to by him felt somewhat irritable. Yet, no one lost theirposure. To act was the old man, father of the champion of Fate whom Daniel had killed. He gritted his teeth in an attempt to stop himself fromshing out, then turned towards Mirah, the championess of Destiny, and barked out, "Do what you were brought you here to do. NOW!"

    The young woman, clearly terrified by the presence of the old man, nodded her head calmly before closing her eyes, and focusing on her task. At the same time, Daniel sucked his teeth in frustration.. He had hoped to use the ident to take his leave, but he had been ignored. Now that his powers as the aspect of Karma had gone dormant, and entities of much higher power had arrived, he had realized that escaping would be an even harder task than before.

 Chapter 557 - Near-Death Experience

    <h4>Chapter 557 - Near-Death Experience </h4>

    Daniel had experienced many things. He had fought through uncountable battles, witnessed things only a handful of entities could boast to have seen, and survived situations that would have left the most tenacious fighters in dismay.. Yet, despite all the experience he had umted, at this moment, even he could not help but feel his confidence slowly start to crumble.

    Around him, in this unusually quiet pocket of space, thousands of cultivators who could turn him into dust with the snap of a finger, were quietly waiting to be pointed in his direction-his only means to defend himself, was now unusable, forcing him to spend what felt like several minutes, but were only a few seconds, thinking of a new way out. To add to the pressure, was Daniel¡¯s awareness regarding how quickly a system like his could provide an answer to the right question.

    "The universe in question is now part of the domain of High Lord Conflict." Said Mirah with a silvery tone. Her eyelids shed open, revealing a pair of crystal-like eyes tainted by a familiar golden hue. This revtion caused the faces of the old champions of Fate to churn in dissatisfaction, while the observing cultivator looked at one another in doubt. Daniel, almost as if given a new lease on life, breathe a sigh of relief.

    To the higher ranked domains, the conflict between the domain of Fate and it¡¯s counterpart Destiny was no secret.. A conflict caused by a difference of views which, once resolved, would ultimately redefine the veryws of existence. This confrontation had seen many parties involved, to a point where even the aspects of existence themselves could not avoid but getting brought into it.

    Evesting rtionships were put to the test, absolute truths were challenged, and a war for hegemony had started to be a real possibility.. But then, unwilling to see the multiverse that had birthed them be swept by a conflict between deities, Destiny interjected. His nature put importance to free will, a force which shaped one¡¯s destiny and contributed to the creation of the colorful universe his kin was born from. To let everything be destroyed to prove a point would be akin to admitting that nothing mattered, and that everything was written in Fate.. so, instead of fighting, he proposed an alternative.

    After millennia spent arguing, Fate and Destiny ultimately agreed to let the multiverse show its own true colors. Destiny was allowed to passively grant his gifts to noteworthy creatures who earned them, leaving the validity of his existence for its champions to prove-In exchange, the inhabitants of the other domains were free to impede their growth, turning their demise into an undeniable proof of Fate. This was how the peculiar existence of the champions of Destiny came to be.

    However, that was not all. While most aspects of existence would not dare challenge this agreement out of the fear and respect they felt towards Fate, that was not the case for all of them.

    As powerful and as ancient as Fate itself, the aspect of Conflict had chosen to remain impartial. This impartiality was absolute, and any attempt to fight against it meant dering war to the domain of Competition, one of the most dominant powers within the multiverse. For that reason, the appearance of a nest of Destiny¡¯s champions within Competition¡¯s domain was an extremely big deal, as no one would dare to challenge a high Lord¡¯s decisions, not even if ordered by another one.

    As Mirah revealed the birthce of Destiny¡¯s newest champions, the champions of fate started to notice the doubt in the eyes of the observing cultivators. Their domains served Conflict as much as they served Fate, so who were they to demand cooperation from Conflict¡¯s domain, or even invade it.. These doubts spread like wildfire, until finally, one of the leading champions of Competition¡¯s domain stood up, and said, "This problem appears to be above us mid and low domains.. Should we postpone the decision?"

    "Yes, this matter is beyond us." Said a champion of War¡¯s domain.

    "We yield to the peak domains¡¯ decision." Added a champion of the aspect of Victory.

    These few voices belonged to the representatives of the domains most loyal to the domain of Competition, who broke the silence in a sessful attempt to cause hundreds more to rise-each rejecting their responsibility in hunting down Destiny¡¯s champions. Soon enough, these hundreds of voices merged into an iprehensible mixture of sounds.

    The champions of Fate could not help but look in silence. Their most important mission, in fact, the only mission Fate itself had ever bothered himself with giving them, was to prove that Fate was absolute.. And due to something that was beyond their control, that mission was in jeopardy.

    Daniel observed quietly. If there ever was a chance for him to take his leave, this was it, but as he ced his hands onto the cold surface of the pearly white table, the Overlord of Horror¡¯s domain walked next to the old couple whose child he had just killed, and whispered a few words to them.

    The old couple seemed reassured by the Overlord¡¯s words, as they caused them to immediately regain the confidence of the omnipotent and omniscient domain they believed to be. "Silence, please." Said the old woman. "The nest being within the domain of High Lord Competition is extremely unfortunate, and it will require an audience with High Lord Fate to resolve.. But as champions, we still have things we can do."

    As the old woman finished speaking, she turned towards herpanion, and gave him a simple nod, after which he once again turned towards the championess of Destiny, and said, "The powers of a champion of destiny are unpredictable, but while that is an advantage, it is dampened by the predictability of their character. If their universe of origin has been opened to the multiverse, then most of them have likely left it already."

    Suddenly, a feeling of doom crept up Daniel¡¯s spine. Without thinking twice, he closed his eyes and focused on a simple thought.. ¡¯Give me a way out of here.. Now!" Underneath his eyelids, a faint golden color emerged within his irises, signaling the activation of his Karmic System, but right when a window should have formed within his mind, nothing happened.

    "We will hunt down the ones who have left the domain of High Lord Conflict. Meanwhile, we will work on getting the rest with our Lord¡¯s aid." Added the old champion of Fate, turning Daniel¡¯s fears into reality. "Find them." He blurted while tugging at Mirah¡¯s chain.

    Daniel was aware of what ack of response from his system meant. It had happened to him when he and the others had traveled to the past, where his system was unable to help hime back to his time due to ack of ways. Unfortunately, the same has happened now. No path meant that there was no way for him to escape on his own terms, which were the guarantee of his survival.

    Despite this set back, and the increasing feeling of anxiety that poisoned his mind, Daniel kept thinking.. Until he finally found an alternative. In the span of a few moments he took control over the essence present in his body, and used it to gain full control over the space which he upied. The moment Mirah would reveal that he was one of Destiny¡¯s champions, he would step aside, and copse the space he was controlling.

    While dangerous, Daniel had guessed that his system was somehow bound to the multiverse¡¯s spacetime, and that a drastic change like time travel would somehow hinder its function. So what if he left the boundaries of space and time itself? If there was no safety in the time and space that surrounded him, maybe the abyss thaty between the universes would have refuge for him. A simple n was hastily put together, but then..

    "There are four hundred and seventy-two locations. The closest ones being three gathered in the Trigate, right outside of the portal that leads to their home universe." said the young woman with a hint of sadness.

    Daniel was taken aback.

    Seemingly satisfied by the championess¡¯s statement, the old woman turned towards the crowd, and said, "We willpile a list with your tasks, and deliver it to your domains within the next few days. Go back to your territories, and prepare." She then turned around, giving her back to the crowd, and with a simple nod of her head, caused the previously closed portal to once again open, almost as if aware of her intentions. Before walking through it, however, she slowly turned towards Daniel¡¯s confused figure, and added with an uncharacteristic malicious tone, "I won¡¯t forget the one who caused my son¡¯s death. We will be seeing each other soon." She then left, followed by her more agitatedpanion and the rest of the champions of Fate.

    Still at a loss for words, Daniel could not help but stare at the disheartened figure of the young championess of Destiny, whose dispirited expression turned into a confused one the moment her eyes met Daniel¡¯s, right before stepping into the portal.

    The following hour went by without noticing, as Daniel had more important things to ponder than the traditional closure of an Exalted Assembly. It was only as the champions began to leave the pocket dimension that the Overlord approached his table, and snapped him back to reality with much more politeness than he had reserved to him before.

    "The assembly hase to an end. You are free to leave at any time." Said the Overlord right before rejoining with the rest of his domain¡¯s champions. He then left, before Daniel could even think of showing any courtesy back to him.

    In Daniel¡¯s mind, the same few questions kept circling like a dog chasing its tail. The reason why his system had failed to find him a way out was of no concern to him, as he had already made a guess. Despite his beliefs, Daniel was never in danger to begin with-hence why when asked to find a safe way out of the pocket dimension before the woman could denounce him, the system had failed to respond. Not because there was no answer, but because the question was wrong. Had he asked for a way to survive the Exalted Assembly, it is likely that the system would have given him the option to simply wait.

    While he could not help but me himself for this mistake, which could have possibly been lethal had the circumstances been different, this was not what was puzzling him. What he couldn¡¯t understand was why the championess of Destiny had not exposed him. Had she helped him? And if she had, why did his confusion look so odd to her? A malfunction of her system was out of the question, as Daniel himself had verified that his system worked by confirming her existence as ¡¯the closest one of Iewah¡¯s children¡¯.. Yet, he was still alive.

    With these questions still buzzing in his mind, Daniel mindlessly walked past the hundreds of champions of Law and champions of Order, and left the pocket dimension through themunal portal, finding himself back on Polis.

    Originally, Daniel had decided to take part in the Exalted Assembly in order to find a way to get rid of the Blood Legacy of the Blood n, but while he had failed, he had not left empty-handed. An immense amount of information regarding the universe was now at his disposal, as well as a universe which he could use under the protective nket that was the aspect of Karma.

    His only worry was the threat that the other domains posed to his universe, where all the people he cared about lived.. But at least for now, he knew that they were safe under the protection of the aspect of Conflict.

    With some time to spend, and no reason to stay in this universe, Daniel headed back towards his own ship, and alongside Ashura and the others he left Kosmos, and headed through the multiversal portal.

 Chapter 558 - The Power Of Karma

    <h4>Chapter 558 - The Power Of Karma</h4>

    Since time immemorial, the oue of an Exalted Assembly had always been immeasurable. Used as a means to resolve conflict between a few domains at first, it was now used to solve an umtion of thousands of years worth of slights, debts, and quarrels.. Most of which were bound to change the future of entire universes.

    For that reason, most of the leading figures within the multiverse did not consider the assembly in itself the hardest part, but the few centuries that followed its conclusion.

    While initially only felt on a cosmic scale, as time passed, these changes would start to affect the minuscule lives of intelligent life forms as well.

    The unluckiest universes, taken over by the most malicious domains, would see their inhabitants go through what they could only describe as the end of times.. Apocalypses that would bring a terrible end to everything they knew and loved, providing only endless sufferings in exchange. On the other side, the luckiest ones, taken over by benevolent domains like the domains of Peace and Hope, would see the birth of a new era, and flourish under the new management.

    Between the two gargantuan ships that navigated this immense sea of change, however, was a minuscule raft, on which stood the very few domains whose control over a universe had no visible consequences.. Domains whose aspect of existence represented something beyond the control of time, space, or life.

    Once only upied by the two sides of one coin, Fate and Destiny, this small raft now had a new passenger.. The aspect of Karma.

    -----

    Among the uncountable universes, hidden within a nket of stars, was a rtively small. Light blue and green were its main colors, with clouds dancing around almost protectively. Along with seven others, this orbited an impressively vibrant sphere of fire.

    While from space this appeared like the most amazing of marbles, what was truly worthy of notice was the impressive variety of life forms that popted it. Wild animals upied itsnds, forming a bnced hierarchy which challenged that of the creatures which inhabited the sea.. Both overlooked by the feathered creatures that ruled the skies.

    The dominant species of this, however, were humans.

    For hundreds of thousands of years, humans had evolved into the invasive and tenacious creatures that they were. Like ants, they built increasingly bigger colonies, and created societies where each of them could live their lives in the illusion that they were the center of the universe, and that nothing mattered more than their own lives.

    This full of life was adequately given a name that represented the source of all life and caterer of needs. Its name was Earth.

    -----

    Almost as if created to be in the core of any cartographer''s work, hiding in the middle of a closed up sea surrounded by vastnds, was a boot-shaped penins. This penins, while rtively small in size, was considered the center of the world, as it housed the capital of the most powerful force currently present on this world, a sovereign state known as the Roman Empire.

    This empire, through military power, economic expansion and political flexibility had expanded beyond the territory of its capital, with which it shared its name, and obtained the right for its presence to be recorded in the history books for millennia toe.. A fame that came at no light cost, be it of money or blood.

    While extremely long lived, this empire saw close to no peace. The people who lived at its borders would be standing on roads paved onto blood-soaked ground, and beyond them, the sound of swords shing, and of legions marching through mud and dirt were asmon as the sound of rustling leaves and rushing water.

    At the other side of this endless conquest were the battles between politicians, fought through ink and coin, and the constant threat of civil wars, and ve revolts. However, not every corner of this empire was at war, as a vast number of people were able to enjoy a safe life within its confines.

    Currently, Daniel was one of them.

    Clothed in a white and brown toga made out of wool and linen, and a pair of simple sandals, Daniel casually strolled through the streets of the capital. His presence attracted a fair amount of attention, due to his significant height and fierce appearance, yet, thanks to the diversity of the Empire, he did not appear too out of ce. To many, he appeared like a soldier on leave.

    With no interest in the reasons that made him so eye-catching, Daniel seemed to be entranced by his surroundings. Specifically, the tens of thousands of humans that would conduct their lives inplete absence of any form of cultivation. Mortals through and through, who lived by the day.

    Boys, ying in the streets with wooden swords, pretending to be foot soldiers of the famous legions that had conquered the entirety of the world they had ever heard of. Elderly engaged in political discussions in nearby marketces.. Rich men and women haggling to lower the prices of the ve they had set their eyes on. Everything was a world beyond Daniel''s knowledge and experience.

    Yet, what had caught Daniel''s interest, weren''t the actions of these plebeians, but what surrounded them.

    After every action these people took, a minuscule yet brilliant sparks of golden light would emerge from their skin, only to be liberated into the air. There, it would loom around the body of that person as if being an independent, yet inseparable part of it. What was most peculiar to Daniel, however, was the fact that each of these lights felt extremely familiar to him, almost connected.

    Created by every small action taken by tens of thousands of people, these lights increased in number at an impressive speed, making him feel as if he had found a new form of energy that he could use to cultivate.. One that had nothing to do with mana, ormon methods of cultivation, and whose sheer presence brought him an unexinably refreshing feeling.

    It did not take long for him to realize that these lights were nothing other than the power of Karma.

    With a warm smile on his face, Daniel asionally waved his hands in the air, allowing for the golden lights to dance around his body as he walked past the people they were connected to. To him, it felt like these lights were as pleased about his presence as he was about theirs.

    To exin why Daniel walked among the people of this specific world, inside that specific universe, one needed to go back to the Exalted Assembly, which had ended six months earlier.

    During the Exalted Assembly, Daniel had bet with the domain of War his knowledge regarding the concepts of the essence of spacetime In exchange for a universe that his newly formed domain could call home. Bound to the name of Fate, refusal to pay would mean challenging the high domain of Fate itself. This bet had been won by Daniel thanks to the incredibly powerful abilities of his newest follower, the warrior Ashura,st of his tribe, and being from the past.

    Forced to pay up, the domain of War, in an attempt to stem its losses, had decided to work around the wording of the contract by offering Daniel a variety of universes to choose from. Among these universes, only one fit the intended description for an, "untouched universe," which was a universe that had yet to be affected by the influence of its ruling domain. The rest, while still technically untouched by the domain of War, were universes that had already felt the devastation of other domains, from which they were acquired.

    When forced to choose, Daniel had sessfully managed to pick the untouched universe, forcing the domain of War to bear an incredible loss.

    What the championess of Conquest, tasked with presenting Daniel with the choice, considered an incredible stroke of luck, however, was not. The method Daniel had used to discover which universe was truly untouched, was to feel the presence of a power that only he could see or recognize.. The power of Karma.

    From each of these universes Daniel could feel the extremely familiar power of Karma, but while in some universes this power was extremely faint, or muddled by different forms of simr yet unfamiliar power, in one universe the power of Karma shone the brightest.

    Once the Exalted Assembly ended, left with nowhere to go, Daniel decided to visit the universe he had acquired in an attempt to learn more about this new power.. And after months of traveling past and observing thousands of inhabiteds, he finally found one where his presence would not be an oddity, where he could observe the birth of this power from up close.

    A few days had passed since he had arrived on Earth, time which he had spent walking around, observing, and taking in the power of karma which seemingly bowed down to its presence as if a particle of water encountering an endless ocean.

    "Tu illic! Tu a legionarius?" Amanding voice broke Daniel''s entrancement, and caused him to turn around. This voice belonged to a stern-looking man who appeared to be in his early thirties. He was dressed in a slightly loose red toga, iron belt, and shoulder armor made of iron strips. In his left hand this man carried a curved leather-covered wooden shield that reached from his shoulder all the way down to his calves, while his right hand rested on the hilt of a short sword barely two feet in length.

    Next to the red clothed man was a second individual. Slightly shorter in height, yet much burlier, he stood valiantly while holding his slightly shorter rectangr shield, and a javelin. His torso and upper legs were covered in a simr red toga, but on it rested a ted armor formed by rows of iron strips.

    The only piece of clothing which these two men''s equipment shared were a pair of heavy-soled hobnailed sandals, and a shiny iron helmet which covered the entirety of their heads except for their mouths, noses, and eyes. On top of these helmets were various-sized ridges of red fments, which would have made them stick out in any crowd.

    "Responde de quaestione." Barked the first man with an even less cordial tone than before.

    Completely oblivious to the meaning of this man''s words, Daniel let a wisp of his essence drift into the taller man''s mind. In it, he dug through the memories of a little boy learning how to write and read in small rooms made out of curtain walls, while under threat of being caned for the slightest offence by their harsh teachers.

    "Iterare quaestio.." Daniel muttered in a low tone, and no recognizable ent.

    "I asked you, are you a legionnaire?" The taller guard repeated, as the hold on his sword''s hilt tightened slightly in an instinctive manner.

    Daniel shook his head.

    "What is your name?" Asked the second man, now alerted by Daniel''s presence.

    Daniel''s tall stature and athletic build had led the two guards to believe that Daniel was a soldier on leave, which exined why he would spend his time gazing at his surroundings in such a trance, as many of the empire''s soldiers had never had a chance to visit the capital.. Yet, Daniel''s confused gaze left them uncertain.

    "My name is Dan." Daniel said, as per use in his ownnguage. He already knew that this would cause him some problems, but he did not care, as he was there to observe the power of karma in its natural environment, and not affect it.

    Just as Daniel had guessed, the two guards narrowed their eyes in suspicion, after all, a single name was the mark of a ve. Around them, several people had stopped browsing through the marketce and had begun to observe what was happening.

    Too clean to be working in factories and mines, and too in shape to live the life of a simple ve, the suspicion of the two guards began to grow. They had been tasked with gathering the legionnaires that were granted leave by their Legate, as they were needed to start a new campaign, and Daniel''s appearance and behavior fit more that of a deserter, than of a ve.

    After a few moments spent deliberating, the shorter guard turned towards Daniel, and uttered, "You will need toe with us." His tone was imposing, indicating that what he had stated was not a request, but an order.

    Clearly unbothered, Daniel nodded in agreement, but right before he could be escorted away, the two guards were stopped by a stout and greasy man in his mid-forties, apanied by a woman half his age. "Stop, guards!" Said the man. "That is our family''s ve, where are you taking him?"

 Chapter 559 - To New Friends

    <h4>Chapter 559 - To New Friends</h4>

    "Stop, guards! That is our family ve, where are you taking him?" Asked the middle aged man while sweating profusely. His chunky hand held a dirty handkerchief, which he brought up to his forehead to wipe his tiredness away.

    The two guards stopped, and looked at the appearance of the two individuals with alertness. "This is your ve, you say?" Asked the taller guard while trying to assess them.

    "Just bought, too! Paid him two thousand denarii!" Responded the man with a hint of indignation while spraying saliva everywhere.

    Surprised by the price, the two guards were taken aback. "What is your name?" The taller guard asked, suspicious about the man''s words. He knew that the price of a male ve would hardly reach past five hundred denarii, and that a ve would usually be sold naked, and never in as good a condition as Daniel was.

    "Lanista Cossus Favonius Audaios." Said the stout man right before patting his temples with the already drenched piece of cloth.

    While the name of the middle-aged man caused the two guards to frown, Daniel could tell that it was not due to fear. It almost seemed that the man had identified himself as the lowest of the socialdder.. Yet, the answer the man provided seemed to put the minds of the two guards at rest.

    "Now, if you may, release him-or I will take myint to the praefectus urbi!" Added the middle-aged man as his nostrils began to re, and he turned red in the face.

    The shorter guard turned towards hispanion, and after thetter gave him a nod of approval, he ced his javelin against Daniel''s back, and not so gently pushed him towards the two. "Have him and leave, then." He said before turning away, and walking off into the crowd alongside his calmerpanion.

    Before the two guards could even vanish into the mass of busy people, the stout man and the younger woman approached Daniel with cordial smiles stered on their faces. "You are not a citizen of Rome.. I can tell." Said the young woman as she casually wrapped her arms around Daniel''s right arm.

    As Daniel looked down at the flirtatious young woman, she blinked an uncountable number of times, moistening her pair of emerald-green eyes.

    The middle-aged man did not appear bothered by this behaviour. Instead, he looked at Daniel and added, "Standing around like that will only invite trouble. Come, let''s leave the marketce, lest you fancy being arrested."

    Uncaring about the intentions of the two, Daniel quietly followed as the two brought him outside of the city and into a road paved in between wheat fields. Along with the three, as they left the city, a fourth man who had been left to wait at the stable with the stout man''s horses and carriage, had joined the party.

    Compared to the middle-aged man and the younger woman, this man was as tall as Daniel was, and had a twice as muscr body which he covered by arge blue cape. Under the cape, he wore a simple cloth around his waist which covered his leather undergarment, a pair of spiked boots that reached up to his knees, a leather waistband that protected his stomach, and a leather shoulder armor strapped around his scarred bare chest.

    While the other two did not appear to care for the man''s presence, Daniel was able to observe him quietly as he drove the carriage through wheat fields.

    Extremely serious at any moment, the bodyguard gently whipped the horses while looking at his surroundings. His eyes would shift confidently under an unmoving? pair of sharp eyebrows, as if surveying the territory and looking for possible threats. The only times his gaze was averted, was when it wouldnd on Daniel, whom he looked at with short-lived interest.

    To Daniel it was clear that this man was an extremely experienced warrior, and from his behaviour, he could infer that he had a past as a soldier.

    "Young man, where are you from?" Asked the middle-aged man.

    "Far away from here." Daniel muttered as his mind went back to the city he was born in, where he and his sister used to live, to the ck castle, where he and hispanions had created a loyal and peacefulmunity, and finally, to the created by his system, which he had inhabited with his family and friends for years.

    Daniel''s response, while not too cryptic, was way beyond anything the three individuals could possibly imagine, as they simply assumed he was from a poorer far awaynd.

    After spending more than an hour together, noticing Daniel''s severeck of knowledge on both the empire and itsws, the stout man had made the assumption that Daniel was likely to be a runaway ve, who had escaped his former masters in an attempt to find freedom in the massively popr capital. The other alternative was that he could be an immigrant, but he spoke thenguage too fluently, and was too healthy for that to be a real possibility.

    The man had also set aside the idea that Daniel could be a soldier on leave, as from his experience, all of them would carry a symbol that would identify them as members of a certain legion.

    "Well, my daughter and I visited Rome for business. I usually go by myself, but the scoundrel wanted to tag along this time." Said the middle-aged man jovially while looking at the young woman. He then nced at Daniel, and with a bright smile he added, "And good for you, had she stayed home she wouldn''t have noticed you, and you''d be held in public custody, awaiting trial."

    The young woman, who had almost never stopped looking at Daniel, showed her brightest smile yet. In it was a hint of satisfaction, showing that she was proud of herself.

    This mostly one-sided conversation kept going for a while longer, until finally, a few hours after leaving Rome, the party came upon a groupposed of around ten men. Their ages ranged between thirty and forty, and their dirty clothes, paired with the desperate eyes and malicious grins, showed that they weren''t peaceful travelers.

    "Kind people, this stretch ofnd is private property. If you wish to pass, you have to pay a toll." Said a man with a big curved nose and not a lot of hair left on his head.

    The stout man did not appear shocked by this encounter. Instead, he quietly reached inside his toga, and from it, pulled a small bag of coins. He then unceremoniously threw it at the group of men. "This is all the coins you''ll find on us. You are free to inspect our belongings, although I suggest you don''t get near that man." Said the man while pointing his chubby finger at his guard.

    The man with the crooked nose grabbed the bag from the air, and weighed it cautiously. His unsightly face seemed satisfied by the amount, yet, as his eyes moved to the guard, he caught the smell of a floral perfume drift from within the wooden carriage that the guard was driving.

    Before the bandit with the crooked nose could even stretch his neck to take a look at the person that was inhabiting the carriage, the guard jumped off, and with a swing of his right arm, forced the cape to uncover his muscr body. He then walked to the side of the carriage, and from a hiddenpartment, he pulled two short swords.

    As the man''s hands touched the two short swords, his entire disposition changed. His already impressive stoic figure was now that of a tiger, lethal on short distances, and quicker to shorten said distance. Even Daniel, an expert in virtually every form of weapon, could not help but be surprised by the man''s aptitude.

    Needless to say, after witnessing the man''s choice of weapons the bandits could not help but retreat in fear. They knew that even if they came out victorious in that fight, none of them would be spared from a deadly injury, or an untimely death. Unwilling to see such a future take ce, the group of men retreated to the side of the road, and allowed the party to continue undisturbed.

    Before the group could leave, the stout man looked at the bandit with the crooked nose, and said with an almost kind tone, "Use that money to turn your life around. The path you''re taking leads to nothing good." His words vanished in the wind as the group of robbers watched the carriage get further into the distance.

    The travel continued through several more wheat fields, hills and wooden paths, andsted until the sun began to set. The destination of the middle aged man, his daughter, and his bodyguard seemed to be arge square-shaped mansion built on a several hundred meters tall cliff.

    From within this mansion the sound of shing swords and asional screams could be heard incessantly, but that did not appear to bother the party of three, who rode the carriage and horse through therge wooden gate, and enclosed garden.

    "Come inside, take a bath.. Then join us for a meal." Said the young woman while graciously stepping off the carriage. She then walked through a long row of white pirs, and into the estate, where she was weed by a pair of simply dressed young women, who joined her, and followed her wherever she went.

    The middle-aged man nodded at Daniel before following suit, leaving him and the bodyguard to be received by two more simply dressed young men. These two emotionless young men walked Daniel through a series of corridors, as the bodyguard tightly followed behind-then into arge rectangr room.

    Made out of a mosaic of differently colored tiles which created a variety of picturesque images, this room was built to amodate a small pool. Surrounding this shallow pool was a row of white pirs, which were in ce to support the balcony that covered the edges of the room itself, leaving on the roof a square hole that allowed for the moonlight to shine through.

    As the group entered this room, the bodyguard stood by the entrance, while the two emotionless young men turned towards Daniel, and tried to help him remove his clothes.

    Daniel stopped them before their hands could reach him, implying that he could undress himself. The two young men respected this decision, turned around, and headed towards the sides of the room, where a series of jars were resting next to a wall. The surface of the liquid contained in these jars was covered by a thickyer of petals, and each emanated a piercing perfume which could be smelled from the other side of the room.

    Once Daniel entered the small pool, the two young men carried one of the jars, and poured a small portion of its content into it, causing its intense perfume to lighten, and merge with the water. As he bathed, Daniel noticed that the sound of swords shing had be more intense, and was now paired by the constant shouts of a man, whose tone was filled with a mixture of anger, disappointment, and exasperation.

    After the bath, Daniel was given new clothes and taken through a second series of corridors and into another room, were the stould middle-aged man called Cossus, and the young woman, which Daniel earlier during the day learned was called Lucia, wereyingfortably on couches ced in a semicircle that surrounded a few tables filled with food. Alongside them were several other people, among which an aloof middle-aged woman whose appearance resembled that of an older Lucia.

    This group immediately noticed Daniel''s appearance, but their reaction was not that of weing hosts, but of amused guests. They looked at him up and down before takingrge swigs of wine and digging into roasted meat and fruits with their greasy fingers.

    "What price could you have possibly paid for such a perfect specimen?" Asked a man with salt and pepper hair before chomping into a chicken leg. "I did not think you could afford someone like him."

    The aloof woman seemed bothered by the man''sments, to a point where she looked angrily at her husband Cossius, wondering the same thing as the previous man.

    Her anger was not eased even when the stout man raised his greasy hands in an attempt to calm her down. "Not at all!" He said, "He isn''t a ve, he is a friend we have met at the marketce. He was lost, and about to be taken away by the urban cohorts. I simply invited him to share a meal with us."

    This answer caught the group of individuals by surprise. "Then bring a chair in! And a cup!" Said the man that had just spoken, as a previously prepared chair was hurriedly ced by the empty space around the table. Daniel smiled cordially before taking a seat, and epting a cup, which a servant immediately filled with red wine.

    Daniel quietly looked at the cup for a few moments, unbothered by the expressions of the people present. He could not help but remember how, in the past, he was able to live peaceful days, drinking with Alesia as they looked at the artificial sky Daniel had created for her. He could not help but worry that the sweetness of those moments had ruined drinking for him, as nothing could match them.. But that was but a fleeting thought.

    "To new friends!" Eximed the man while raising his cup and pointing at Daniel, bringing him back to the present.

    Aware that this cheap wine wasn''t the fine liquor he was used to drinking, nor were these strangers the friends he was used to drinking with, Daniel epted the toast with a nod of his head, and unceremoniously downed the whole cup. Then, as thest bit of wine went down his throat, Daniel witnessed the stout-man explode into a golden mist, formed by uncountable sparks of karmic power. These sparks kept drifting in the air as Daniel closed his eyes and felt their power be part of him.

 Chapter 560 - The Deity In The Crystal Cage

    <h4>Chapter 560 - The Deity In The Crystal Cage</h4>

    As thest bit of wine went down his throat, Daniel closed his eyes, and let his mind wander in memories while purposely ignoring what was happening to his physical body.

    -----

    When Daniel opened his eyes again, some timeter, he found himselfying onto a stone bed. Around him were three cement walls with irregr stones embedded into their surface. In the ce of the fourth wall, was a grille of t and rusty iron bars that went from ceiling to floor and from one side of a wall to the other, allowing him to see past, and into a dark corridor with an identical room on the other side.

    This was not the first time Daniel had been taken prisoner, and despite this world being the furthest away he had ever been from home, he could still recognize the characteristics of a dungeon, when he saw one-The room he was in, was a prison cell.

    This cell was poorly illuminated, with its only sources of light being a small candle ced on top of a rustic wooden table, and a square-shaped opening in the wall opposite to the grille, right above the bed. From this hole shone a faint white light, indicating that dusk had long passed, and that it was nowte in the night.. Yet, the almost rhythmical shouting and shing of swords implied that it was still not toote to interrupt the activities whose noises Daniel had heard ever since arriving at the estate.

    Clearly unbothered by the sudden predicament, Daniel stood up and began to look around. He approached the iron bars, and as his body came in contact with them, he did not stop, and instead walked through them as if they weren''t there to begin with, finding himself in a straight corridor that led into at least nine more empty cells. The exit, as shown by the moonlight that seeped through its chinks, was a door at the very end of this corridor.

    "Go rest, you useless scum! Training tomorrow starts at dawn!" Said a loud and vigorous voice as the door at the end of the corridor flung open-Behind it, a line of at nine exhausted men, all dressed in a piece of loincloth held in ce by a leather belt, and a pair of simple sandals, showing their bruised and sweaty bodies.

    "This is insanity.." Muttered the first in line as he stumbled through the door. "How can we survive this?"

    The second man, taller and quite calmer, walked past the first man and directly into his cell, the second one to the left. "Save your breath for tomorrow''s training, you''ll need it." He said as snuffed the candle''s me with the tip of his fingers and sat onto his bed. What followed were the whispered cries andints of a few of these men, all hurt and upset about the treatment they had received during that day.

    The fuss only stopped once one of the men walked through the corridor and noticed Daniel, who was standing in his cell, and peering through the hole in the wall, where a patch of dark sky and a bright full moon appeared like a painting.

    "There is new blood." Said the man who first noticed Daniel. A blonde short-haired man with a tall and muscr frame, bronze skin, and brown eyes. His thin lips were pressed together, showing thest remaining bit of unwillingness to submit to his fate-a feeling that was directly opposed to that shown by his tired and dispirited eyes.

    Daniel''s existence did not appear to be a surprise for them, as many of them had been there for weeks now, and had never seen a cell remain empty for more than a few days.. What they called "new blood," which to them was nothing but a new trainingpanion, would usually arrive in the evening, allowing them to exin to him his situation before the evening training session started.

    Unfortunately, Daniel had arrived toote in the evening to join in the training.

    The men were too tired to bother with the new arrival, so they reserved thest bit of energy they had left toin, and to head to their beds. Not long after they entered the dungeon, the sound of locks clicking resounded from the other side of the door, indicating that they were now locked inside. Following this ominous sound, one by one the candles present in each cell were snuffed out, and the men went to sleep.

    As Daniel sat on his bed to meditate, he began to summarize what he had learned about the karmic power he had now spent days observing.

    What he had learned was that karmic power was created purely by the actions of an individual. It did not matter whether the action warranted a negative or positive karma, to him as the aspect of Karma, or to the creation of the power itself, it made no difference.

    This form of golden essence would linger on and around the body of the person it had originated from, seemingly without affecting them. The only person who would perceive its existence was Daniel, who could feel this unique essence nurture his powers as an aspect of existence at the same speed minuscule droplets of water would join together to form a boundless and bottomless ocean. The ocean being Daniel himself.

    Another important piece of information Daniel had learned about this power, was that interfering with it would create a chain reaction that would stop its production indefinitely.

    He had learned this by offering a coin to a beggar, which he had then used to purchase a jar of wine. The merchant, aware that giving the man a jar of wine would not be beneficial to the known drunkard, decided to put his business above the man''s health, and epted the coin. Witnessing this, the merchant''s wife, who already harbored hatred towards the merchant''s greed, epted the courtship of one of her suitors, a married man who had courted her despite knowing that she was already married.

    As Daniel observed this chain of events, he realized that while each of these decisions should have produced karma, be it that of the beggar, the merchant, or the two adulterers, none was actually created. From this, Daniel could infer that while he couldn''t control it yet, the power of Karma recognized his existence, and made way for his actions, deeming them above the power itself.

    For this reason, Daniel had decided that, unless he was willing to break the normal workings of this power, he would not interfere, and would instead spend his time in this world as an observer.

    With no more information to think over, Daniel rxed, and began to meditate for the rest of the night.

    -----

    The next day, as the sound of locks being unlocked was once again heard, the men walked out of their cells. One of them, a short yet muscr man in his early thirties, stopped in front of Daniel''s cell. By the way the rest gave way to him, Daniel could guess that the man had the most seniority within the group, or had gained respect in some other way. "Come, they will want to inspect you." The man said while swinging the door of Daniel''s cell open, and nodding towards the door. His hands covered in calluses brushed past his short ck hair, before moving lower to scratch his unkempt beard.

    Daniel said nothing, stood up, and followed the man, who was pleasantly surprised by his unusually calm attitude. Most of the prisoners had been extremely dispirited the first day, and some of them even cried, as they were taken as prisoners of war, separated from their families, and sold as ves. However, Daniel appeared curious, and uncaring about his surroundings or situation.

    Once outside the dungeon, Daniel found himself in a massive yard. This yard was surrounded by pirs, like the room he had taken a bath in before, and its ground waspletely covered in sand. From the various weapon racks ced to the sides Daniel could guess this yard was something like a training ground, withrge areas for people to practice their weapons in, and a small arena where trainees could duel and train in front of rtivelyrge crowds.

    The only people present in the yard were a balding man dressed in an excessively loose white toga, the stout middle-aged man who had traveled alongside Daniel, and his bodyguard. Staring at him from a balcony Daniel could see the stout man''s daughter, who seemed to be observing him without her father''s consent.

    "Those are Lusius, our doctore dimachaerus.. the dual sword trainer." Whispered the short-haired man to Daniel''s ear while looking at the bodyguard. In his tone, Daniel could feel a hint of fear. "The man in the white toga is our medicus, a physician. He will examine you, so don''t be rmed, and don''t stop him. Now, go stand in front of them." He then added before turning around, and heading towards the weapon racks.

    The other prisoners followed suit, and alongside two additional groups of men, which had emerged from two separate dungeons, they headed towards the weapon racks. Once there, despite the hurry they showed when leaving their cells, the prisoners did not immediately start training, and instead waited quietly.

    Curious about the man who had brought him here, before the short prisoner could walk too far away, Daniel asked, "Who is the third one?" He could have easily peered into the man''s mind to discover all of this information, but since he was making the effort of observing this world as a witness, he decided to not use his powers for something he could easily ask.

    The short man stopped walking, and after turning around, he said gravely, "That is Lanista Audaios, your new owner." As the man resumed walking, Daniel took notice of the suppressed killing intent that emanated from his body.

    Following the man''s instructions, Daniel walked towards the three individuals, and stopped just a few steps in front of them. As Daniel approached, the man in the white toga, seemingly in a hurry, stepped forward and began the examination.

    "What an amazing individual." Muttered the physician while walkingps around Daniels body. He would asionally grab his forearms, ask him to walk a few steps, to rotate his shoulders, to squeeze his hands, or open his mouth. The more he asked, the more interested he became, to a point where the purpose of the examination was put aside, and he lost himself in examining the young man in front of him.

    This went on for several minutes, until finally, clearly bothered by how long the whole process was taking, the stout man asked, "So then, is he healthy enough?"

    "Healthy?! He isn''t healthy, he is perfect!" Uttered the physician instinctively with an almost protective tone. "This is a body gifted by the gods! It should be studied.. We should find out what his upation was, what he grew up eating, and where he is from-"

    The physician''s rant triggered something within the stout man, something which had nothing to do with interest of scientific nature. The only thing the man cared about, something which he could see piling up at his feet the more the physical went on-Money.

    "Very well, medicus. Your assistance is no longer required." Said the stout man, putting an end to the man''s flurry of words.

    Worried and unwilling, the physician''s gaze kept shifting between Daniel and the stout man. "But.." he muttered before seemingly realizing something, "How much did you pay for him? I''ll give you double that!"

    Unfortunately for him, the stout man wasn''t moved, as he dismissed his requests by adding, "That will be all." He then watched as the physician stormed off in a rage. On his face was a content smile. "I''ll leave him in your hands." He said to the guard.

    Surprised by the man''s words, the bodyguard turned to look at him with confusion. "He hasn''t started physical training yet." He objected.

    "Look at him! Does he require it?" Responded the stout man with a matter-of-fact tone while grabbing Daniel''s wrist, and showing his arm to the warrior. Once convinced, the stout man let go of Daniel. "I want him ready to fight as soon as possible. He could be our new main performance." He ordered before leaving, not giving the guard any chance to express his disapproval.

    With his orders clear, the tall guard looked at Daniel onest time, then turned towards the observing ves, and shouted, "BEGIN TRAINING! YOU PILES OF WASTED RESOURCES!" Hearing the man''s words, the now united group of roughly thirty ves immediately grabbed a variety of weapons, and after upying a small piece of the training ground, began to train in pairs or groups.

    Lusius, the stout man''s bodyguard, walked towards a weapon rack and picked two pairs of wooden swords. These swords were barely longer than twenty-five inches, with a straight and pointy de, they were referred to as dius.

    As Lusius approached Daniel, he quietly threw two of the four swords on the ground. He then pointed at them with the one he was holding in his left hand, and said, "Pick them up." His tone wasmanding, and it showed his ability to intimidate, and to take control. Yet, Daniel''s calm and casual expression had yet to change.

    In an almost nostalgic way, Daniel picked up the two swords, and started to feel their weight and length with his hands. In his mind, were pieces of random memories which showed the hundreds of hours he had spent practicing dual wielding in the training room of his ck castle. While the automated dummies he had practiced with could notpare in demeanor to this experienced fighter that stood in front of him, Daniel had no doubt that thetter could not teach him anything more than he already knew.

    Nevertheless, Daniel obeyed, and prepared himself.

    Lusius, possessed by some sort of cultivated bloodthirst, leaped towards Daniel while brandishing his two swords, thrusting the one he held in his right hand. The piercing motion disturbed the calm breeze almost surgically, and headed towards Daniel''s rxed body. The target was Daniel''s shoulder.

    The observing trainees, aware of the man''s brutality during sword training, turned away, unwilling to watch another man fall limp on the ground, covered in bruises.. Yet, all they heard was a noise they were all too used to.

    *PAH!*

    The sound of wood hitting wood caused the group of men to turn around, only to see the trainer point his now empty right arm to the side of his target.. By his neck, was the point of Daniel''s wooden sword.

 Chapter 561 - A Mortals Way Of Survival

    <h4>Chapter 561 - A Mortal''s Way Of Survival</h4>

    *PAH!*

    The sound of wooden swords shing caused the group of ves to turn around, only to see the trainer point his now empty right arm to the side of his target. By his neck, was the point of Daniel''s wooden sword.

    As experienced as Lusius was, he instantly retracted his head backwards, but in doing so, he felt the edge of Daniel''s wooden sword grind against his carotid. This brought him to the shocking conclusion that, had the sword Daniel was holding been a real one, he would have already beenying over a pool of his own blood.

    Around them, the few dozens of ves looked on in shock. They had spent the past few weeks training with this man, and his prowess was not only legendary to them, but to anyone who had heard of his name. Who was Lusius, if not a former champion among diators, who had won close to a hundred fights, and had refused freedom many times before?

    His swordsmanship was famous, and his name made younger diators either tremble in fear, or in respect.. Even in his retirement, after finally epting his freedom due to being too old topete, he had decided to employ his talents in the field he had been most sessful at, moving onto turning promising ves into warriors that would entertain the very core of the empire.

    Daniel, as athletic and valiant as he looked, was just a man his employer had found wandering the streets of Rome. Neither amander whose legion would want to eagerly protect, nor a rising star whom diators'' aficionados would recognize.

    Lusius'' pride and honor did not allow him to believe Daniel had bested him in one swift move. Instead, under the conviction that he hadn''t been careful, the former champion picked the sword from the ground and cleared his mind. At that moment, his demeanor suddenly changed, simrly to how it had when facing the group of robbers.

    The observing ves felt a shiver run down their spines. Only once had they witnessed this level of seriousness from one of their trainers, and that was when two or more would spar with one another. On those asions, while the weapons would still be made out of wood, the two trainers would hold nothing back, as their purpose was to teach the ves the true path of the diator.

    As future diators, they were taught that they were performers before warriors, to act in an honorable and spectacr way, and in case they lost, they were taught to ept defeat gracefully.. That included allowing their opponents to take their lives, if that was the will of the crowd.

    By being unable to control their destiny, and being forced to live as puppets which could be disposed of at any moment, their only card for survival was to be the best fighters they possibly could, and hope for the crowd to take a liking to them, and maybe one day, earn their freedom. This was the way of the diator, a life that only allowed the most ferocious and fearless individuals to survive.

    After witnessing the man''s conviction, Daniel decided to adapt to his surroundings, as this world was not ready for the levels of power he possessed. He suppressed the essence within his body, and prepared himself to fight the man with his skills. His grip onto the two short swords tightened, as he began to observe the man''s movements with a mortal''s eyes.

    For the first time Lusius noticed seriousness in Daniel''s inhumanly calm expression, and that put his mind at rest. Once again, the former champion pounced at Daniel, and the spar resumed.

    *SPAH* *PAH* *CLA-CLA-CLA* *SPAH*

    As the unpleasant sound of wood shing against wood resounded in the training yard, and splinters began to fly around, Daniel focused on his adversary. Immediately, he could see why this man was so arrogant.

    The former champion wielded the two swords like a madman, his body rotated constantly, unafraid to pounce with a vertical sh, or to aim at Daniel''s knees and ankles in an attempt to bring him down, making it very easy for the former to keep him on the back foot.

    The flurry of attacks forced Daniel to constantly defend himself, yet, as his fingers began to tremble due to the impact of the ceaseless blows, Daniel did not panic. On his face the parvence of a smile was beginning to form, as he once again started to enjoy the feeling of training one''s skills with a capable opponent.

    One by one Daniel parried, blocked and avoided every attack, until finally Lusius''s breath began to shorten. His footing became slightly unstable as he stepped in position to fix his posture, giving Daniel a chance to strike. With as much aggressiveness shown by Lusius, Daniel jumped in the air and hacked downward with his right arm.

    While slightly out of breath, Lusius was no pushover. He immediately raised his short swords and crossed them above his head, awaiting for the blow tond. *SPA-KA* Daniel''s right arm came down bearing his entire strength and weigh, pushing the two swords down against Lusius'' head, and causing the muscles of his arms to twitch from the impact.

    The blow had been blocked sessfully, but Daniel was not done yet. He tightened his grip onto the remaining sword, and while wielding it as a dagger, he stabbed upwards and in between his opponent''s two crossed swords and chest, aiming for his chin.

    This move was exceptionally smooth, and it had convinced Daniel of his sess, but right as the tip of the sword was about tond, Lusius'' head snapped backwards, avoiding Daniel''s sword. Then, before thetter could react, Lusius tightened his arms around Daniel''s, locking him in ce, and by following up the backwards snapping motion of his head, he catapulted his head forward, striking Daniel right on the nose.

    Daniel fell on his back, his hands still wrapped tightly around the two swords, while his reddened nose leaked a reddish liquid which Daniel hadn''t seen in decades.

    For the first time in many years, Daniel had lost a battle of skills.. Yet, no dejection appeared on his face, just a bright smile. "HAHAHAHAH!" He burst outughing, rolling on the ground unbothered by the dozens of people staring at him, or by the yellowish sand that stuck to his body.

    Daniel''s heartyughter got to Lusius, who revealed a wide smile before sticking his swords into the ground. For a couple of minutes thetter''s mind went back to his youth, when he used to fight skillful warriors to keep his life.. The rush, the crowd booing or chanting his name. He used to live for that, and only now that he had relieved that rush, did he realize how much he had missed it.

    Simrly, Daniel was delving into his thoughts.

    As heid onto the ground, Daniel realized that the only reason why he had been able to defeat Lusius before, was not because of his abilities, but because of his powers. Capable of moving and reacting at a speed faster than light, no mortal, no matter how skillful, couldpare to him. It did not matter how vast of an experience the man had umted. In front of a cultivator''s eyes their speed was not much better than that of a mannequin, yet, theplete absence of mana had turned mortals into the most skillful warriors. That was a reality that Daniel could not help butugh at.

    As the two men smiled andughed, the observing ves stared in confusion. The harsh treatment they had received from their trainers was unlike what Daniel had experienced, and to them, the fight appeared closer to a friendly spar between two veteran diators, rather than a trainer trying to hammer a b of hot metal in an attempt to turn it into a sharp sword.

    The odd spectacle attracted the attention of several more people. One of whom was Cossus'' daughter, Lucia. Already interested in Daniel the moment he emerged from the dungeon, she was now staring at him with amazement. Her hastened breath and rosy cheeks showed that her interest was deeper than simple curiosity.

    Lucia was not the only one to show interest in Daniel. Right before the fight came to an end, a group of men in their mid tote thirties had emerged from one of the doors that led to the estate, each dressed in different attires, and all carrying different types of weapons. Each of these men had the same demeanor Lusius had, and was equally as respected by the observing ves.

    These men walked into the training yard, ready to begin the daily training of the ves that had been assigned to them, but after witnessing to thest part of the spar, and noticing Lusius'' satisfied and prideful expression, they could not help but be taken aback.

    Almost as if awakened by Lusius'' reignited passion, they approached Daniel with their weapons in hand, and one by one, began sparring with him.

    Even if not forced to, Daniel would ept every challenge, and face each fighter with their choice of weapons, be it sword and shield, spear and small round shield, or knuckle dusters.. He would always pick the same weapon, and fight the best way that he could.

    -----

    As the minutes turned into hours, the training session was moved from the t training ground to the small arena present within the yard. There, the master of the house sat quietly along with his family, and a stream of guests that would usually make their way to his house to witness the progress of their favorite neers, had gathered.

    By the end of the day, when thest of these sparring sessions was about to start, the small arena had been filledpletely. The crowd looked at Daniel, a fighter who had lost every fight he had been part of, while cheering in support. In their voices, Cossus could hear the excitement of a crowd that had discovered their new favorite diator, a crowd that would pay anything to see him fight.

    For a very long time the greedy Lanista had dreamed of finding a champion worthy of his investment, but his low status among the capital''s gym owners had always prevented his name from spreading. Now, however, Just by looking at Daniel as he effortlessly grabbed a trident and from the weapon racks with a happy smile on his face, Cossus could almost feel the weight of coins in his hand.

    Previously dejected by only being able to purchase average men, and train them to perform as third-rate acts before the most notorious diators alive, he had gambled on Daniel, and based on what he was seeing, he believed to have struck gold.

    Thest spar did notst long. A battle between two fighters, also known as retiarii, was an unlikely match, and due to Daniel''s inaptitude towards such an oddbination, he was made quick work by the veteran he had fought. Yet, he was still able to show his impressive agility, and precision while handling such an odd weapon, showing to the spectators that while inexperienced, he was an immensely talented fighter.

    His most outstanding qualities, however, were his appearance and aptitude. Thepleteck of scars on his body and valiant features made the eyes of most women, and some men sparkle. His constantly positive aptitude towards the fight brought happiness to the spectators, who did not feel dejected even when he faced defeat. In the crowd''s eyes, Daniel was already a star.

    Long after the sun had set, the training session ended with the ves not having to raise a single finger. The guests of the house, satisfied by the spectacle, left the estate uncertain on whether they should have paid to see it or not, while Cossus basked in the glory brought to him not by his best warrior, but his newest recruit.

    "You! You are a precious gem!" Cossus eximed as he marched towards Daniel''s tired figure. He thenpletely ignored theyer of sweat and dirt that was covering him, and gave him a fatherly hug.

    Daniel felt no emotions for this man. Even without reading his mind he had already guessed that Cossus would not do anything that wasn''t for his own profit. If Daniel''s instinct weren''t enough, the red number above his head, and therge amount of karmic power floating around him, were enough to show him that Cossus was either indifferent or ignorant to the concept of Karma, or he wouldn''t have lived his life buying ves, and forcing them to fight for entertainment.

    What the man''s embrace did was to ruin Daniel''s good mood, which immediately went back to a calm and emotionless state. Slightly taken aback by Daniel''s indifference, Cossus turned towards his magistri, the trainers, and asked, "Which weapon is he most capable with?"

    "Dual wielding." Said Lucious in just a moment, stopping the other eager trainers from iming him for their discipline. "He will train with me."

    "Very well. Move him to a better amodation, and focus on his training. I want him ready to fight in one month." Cossus ordered before turning around, and leaving the training ground. As he left, the stout man failed to notice his daughter stare at Daniel for several more seconds, before finally following him back into the estate.

    Once the man and his daughter left, Daniel turned towards the trainers. "I don''t want a better room. I am fine where I am.." He said as the corner of his eyes focused on Cossus'' retreating figure, who was shedding karmic power by the moment.

 Chapter 562 - We Who Are About To Die Salute You

    <h4>Chapter 562 - We Who Are About To Die Salute You</h4>

    One monthter.

    The Coliseum. A majestic andplex amphitheater built to entertain the most powerful people of the Roman Empire. In it, the members of the senate and the highest ss citizens, known as patricians, themoners referred to as plebeians, and ves, would all join hands in spectating battles to the death between impressive warriors and ferocious beasts.

    Capable of holding over fifty thousand people, this marvel of architecture was mostly empty, as the main show would usually take ceter in the evening, and it was now still early afternoon. Nheless, the few thousands of spectators present did not fail to make their presence known, as their cheering was heard hundreds of meters away, reminding the citizens of the capital that the entertainment had already started.

    In the main stage of the round arena were now dueling a pair of diators. Each sporting a different type of armor and weapon. One of the two carried a scutum, and thick armor, while the other had opted for a leather cuirass, which would not hinder his movements as he handled his weapons. The only piece of equipment the two had inmon was a full visor bronze helmet, whichpletely covered their heads and protected their faces.

    In the row of seats closer to the center stage, various Lanistas bet the money given to them by the organizers to employ their diators, in hope to maximize their profits. Among them was Cossus, apanied by the rest of his family and a few patrician friends. From Cossus'' face, one could imagine how much money he had lost since the beginning of the games.

    "You are almost out of money, my friend." Said anky man with blonde hair and an aquiline nose, dressed in a white and gold toga. In his right hand was a cup of red wine, while his left handy on top of a bowl of green grapes, which he seemed more interested in fondling rather than picking.

    Just as this man finished speaking, one of the diators on the main stage roared in anger, frightening his clearly inexperienced opponent, which covered his face with his wide shield. The former, evidently waiting for this moment, kicked the shield with all his might, and sent the frightened diator tumbling on the ground. As thetternded on the ground, therge and heavy shield fell on his chest, leaving only down to his shoulders and up to his knees uncovered.

    Unwilling to let his opponent get up, the standing diator stepped onto the shield, locking the man in ce, and pointed the tip of his spear at his opponent''s throat.

    The duel was clearly over, but the spearman did not finish his opponent. As a diator, he was taught that he was not free to take a life unless that was the will of the crowd or the organizers.. So as the duel came to a clear end, the spearman raised his fist in the hair, and let out a deafening shout that ignited the spirits of the crowd. Plebeians and upper echelon rose to their feet to cheer on the victor, while Cossus, the owner of the defeated, looked down in shame.

    "Please.. Don''t kill me.." Said the defeated diator, clearly terrified of what his opponent could do to him. The spearman did not respond, and instead looked down at his opponent in what appeared like disappointment andpassion.. Emotions which, due to his heavy helmet, failed to reach the trembling and injured diator. Soon after, the spearman let go of him, allowing him to get up and retreat towards one of the dark tunnels that led to the center stage while struggling not to trip over his own feet.

    As he reached one of the stage''s entrances, instead of being weed by hispanions, the defeated diator was weed by a group of ves armed with bronze bars and wooden clubs. The man, clearly too scared to think straight, ran through the group of ves, who surrounded him before he could even notice it.

    In the poorly lit tunnel, a club struck the now uncovered head of the injured diator, causing him to fall limp on the ground. What followed was the noise of wood and metal hammering onto the body of the now deceased diator, ripping flesh and shattering bones. This disgusting series of sound waspletely covered by the cheering which the spearman kept receiving as, under his helmet, he started at the trail of blood that emerged from the path histe adversary had just taken.

    "It is not easy to find a good diator." Said Cossus to thenky man. His voice filled with a disappointment that was not reflected in his smile.

    The crowd''s enthusiasm was short-lived, as it died down the moment the spearman headed out of the main stage, after which thenky man stood up and shouted, "BELLIGER PREVAILS AGAIN!! What a beautiful fight! A demonstration of power, skills and tenacity from Belliger, who managed to reach the threshold of three consecutive victories! May his opponent be remembered as the coward that he was."

    Cossus did not fail to notice the Editor''s crude remarks.

    As the representative of the Ludus Magnus, the most notorious diator school in the capital, thenky man was Cossus'' biggestpetition. To berate his fighters once the spectators were aware of their school of origin, was but the norm. Yet, while irritated by the editor''s tone, Cossus did not let himself fall for the provocation, and instead nodded apologetically to the crowd. As he raised his head once again, his narrowed eyes pointed at the editor''s back, while his mouth curved into a malicious grin.

    "Now, let us move to the next fight!" Said the editor, satisfied by the crowd''s reaction.

    -----

    The fights within the vast arena went on continuously for the entire day, showing fights between men and beasts, shes between factions formed by diators of different schools, and albeit extremely rare, a fight between diatrices.

    As time went by, the ferociousness of each fight increased, just like the fame and skill of thebattants. By the time the sun was about to set, the enormous arena waspletely filled. In it, over fifty thousand men, women and ves screamed at the sight of their favourite fighters, eager to see them fight and triumph.

    For the school of Cossus, the day had been nothing but a constant stream of defeats. Arge amount of his fortune had been used to bet on the oue of each fight, while the rest was begrudgingly reserved to either provide medical assistance to his injured fighters.. Or as funds to rece them with new fighters, who would require food and training. By the end of the day, his entire fortune had been halved.

    Nevertheless, the malicious grin had never left his face. He sat next to the editor with eyes wide open, as the main guest of the night was about to make its entrance.

    Under the reddish sky, dozens of braziers were lit by just as many guards, who stood next to them in wait-following this action, the crowd wentpletely quiet. The tens of thousands of heads turned towards what looked like a private booth, ced on the northernmost point of the coliseum. In it, a man in his early forties had emerged alongside ten heavily armored guards.

    This man was of average height, with a square face, short brown beard and hair on which he wore aurel wreath, and sharp dark eyes. His attire was closer to that of a soldier than amoner, as he wore a leather chestte covered in decorative rivets of pure gold, while under it, he wore a purple-colored toga embroidered in gold.

    "We wee you, Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus!" The editor eximed in as loud a voice he could muster without shouting. The greeting was repeated by the rest of the crowd, which burst in cheering and apuse that seemed to go on to no end, unless interrupted.

    About a minute after the cheering started, the emperor approached the edge of his booth, also called podium, and raised his right arm in an attempt to pacify the crowd. This attempt worked immediately, as the roar of pping and cheering died in mere moments.

    "Greetings, citizens of Rome." The man said calmly. "It is my pleasure to join you this evening to witness these valiant warriors fight for the glory and entertainment of our beloved empire. I hope my presence expresses the respect I feel for such honorable characters, but tonight, like each of you, I am just a passionate spectator. So, let the games continue!"

    Once again, the crowd erupted in cheers.

    -----

    Underneath the amphitheater''s grandstands, were a series of dark corridors that led to the rooms where the diators of different schools prepared. In these poorly lit rooms, the fighters would secure their equipment, and listen to thest few suggestions from their trainers before their turn to fight was up.

    In the room reserved for Cossus'' diators, only two fighters remained.

    One of these two men was a massive man in his mid thirties, who wore a simple loincloth and a leather belt. His equipment consisted of a leather chest armor, a manica on his right arm, a bronze greave on his right leg, and a visored helmet with feathers on the sides, while his weapons were a dius and arge rectangr shield. Each patch of uncovered skin revealed hideous scars, brands of past victories which he and anyone who cheered on him would consider symbols of honor and glory.

    The man had spent the past few hours grunting, and looking at the dark corridor in front of him while stepping on his position, keeping his muscles warm and ready to advance to battle. Yet, his attention was divided between the dark path, and the young man who was sitting on a stone b behind him.

    For the past few months, this man had been the main attraction of Cossus'' school of diators. He would be thest one to fight, as not many other diators could put up a fight the way he did. This time, however, things had changed. No longer thest to perform, a neer, whom he had never heard the name of or seen before, had taken the main stage in his stead.

    The loss of favor had weighed on him, causing him to feel a grudge towards the new rising star.

    "Don''t surrender. There is no safety between these dark walls. Retreating will bring shame to the school, and a much more painful death to you." Therge man said while once again checking the buckles of his equipment. "So once you inevitably lose, don''t be a coward, and let your enemy finish you.. So that your body might be buried somewhere decent. Hehe.."

    The other individual, an athletic diator dressed in a loincloth, a leather belt, a leather shoulder guard that covered his entire arm, a pair of padded greaves, and a bronze helmet, did not respond to the provocation. Instead, he maintained his calm posture, while breathing in the stale and humid air which carried the smell of sweat, dirt, and blood.

    As the silence filled the room, a stepping noise came from the depths of the dark tunnel. These steps became more and more audible, until finally, a heavily armored guard appeared at the entrance of the corridor. "Both of you,e out. The emperor is here." Said the guard before turning around, and once again disappearing into the darkness of the corridor.

    The two diators grabbed their weapons, and followed him for a few dozen meters, until finally, a light appeared at the end of the corridor. The banging of drums overpowered the sound of cheering, as both became more and more deafening the closer the two got to the light.

    The mour reached its peak as the two emerged from the corridor, and arrived at the main stage of the arena. On the other side of the amphitheater, two more diators had walked out, and were heading in their direction.

    Aware of each other, the two pairs did not approach the other.. Instead, as they arrived in the middle of the stage, they ignored the shouting of the public, and turned towards the podium, where the emperor stood in wait. Then, from underneath their bronze helmets, they took a deep breath, and shouted at the top of their lungs, "Ave Cesare, morituri te salutant!"

 Chapter 563 - A Rulers Karma

    <h4>Chapter 563 - A Ruler''s Karma</h4>

    "Ave Cesare, morituri te salutant!" Shouted three of the four diators in unison towards the emperor. A sentence that the participants were meant to roar when in the presence of the current ruler, and which could be tranted in Daniel''snguage as, ''Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you.'' Their determined tone was meant to show their will to fight, while their words exhibited theirck of fear towards death, and respect towards the ruler.

    The emperor acknowledged the fighters'' intentions, but also, alongside the rest of the crowd, noticed how one of the four diators had remained quiet.

    Most diators knew that during the main fights of an event, if the Emperor was present, he would have the right to dictate whether the losing fighter would be spared from death, or executed on the spot. This decision was usually swayed by the crowd, as these games had the function of distracting the popce from the empire''s daily problems.. Yet, sometimes, it was solely based on the emperor''s preference.

    To not honor the emperor after his arrival was a statement mostly made by prisoners of war, which showed ack of devotion towards their masters, the empire, and its ruler. These fighters, if on the losing side, would rarely be spared from death.

    "You have found an unruly one." Said the editor to an embarrassed Cossus, who quickly looked back as his wife to findfort. What the aloof wife saw on her husband''s face, however, were not the signs of restlessness, but a smile so wide that it threatened to rip the man''s fat cheeks.

    Despite the editor''s words, and the crowd''s indignation, the emperor did not seem to take the attitude of the fourth diator at heart. Instead, he raised his hand in a regal gesture, and uttered, "Let the games begin!"

    Following the emperor''s orders, the burlier of Cossus'' two remaining fighters, as well as one of the two opposing diators with a matching physique and equipment, remained at the center of the stage, while the other two walked back into the entrance of the arena, and through the dark corridors.

    Once alone on stage, the battle between the two men began.

    -----

    Back in the waiting room underneath the grandstands, thest member of Cossus'' team was sitting back in his original position. His two swordsy crossed onto the stone b he was sitting on, waiting to be held once again.

    The noise of cheering and gasping reached the diator''s ears as if he was the one on stage, so clear that they caused him to be able to imagine what was going on in the arena without being there to see it. To focus while having to listen to this racket, he could imagine, was extremely hard.. Even more so for new diators, whose minds would be poisoned by the sound of metal shing, and smell of blood.

    The diator, ufortable with the unusual helmet, decided to take it off, but before his hands could touch its cold surface, the figure of a young woman emerged from the darkness, and approached him. In a few seconds, the swords were moved, and the warmth of the woman''s body was felt from the diator''s side.

    "You will definitely win, right?" She asked with a silvery voice.

    Before the diator could even react to her presence, the young woman reached for the man''s helmet, and with a gentle motion, forced his head to turn in her direction. Then, as the diator looked at her, her hand moved onto his chest.

    With a feminine touch, she caressed the diator''s skin in a seductive way. She moved closer to him, and let her warm breath out towards the man''s shoulder. "If you win, I''ll let you join me in my room tonight.. So we can-" She added as her hand moved lower, onto the man''s abs and leather belt.

    The woman''s hand did not stop and kept moving lower, but before it could reach her target, the woman suddenly stopped. Her breath stopped in mid air, her hand frozen still, and her body paralyzed in space. The diator pinched the woman''s wrist with his index finger and thumb, moved it away, then pushed her upper body off of him with a not so gentle nudge.

    Unbothered by the woman frozen in space next to him, the diator resumed his original posture, and listened to the roars of the crowd with closed eyes.

    Based on the crowd''s reaction, which alternated between cheers and shocked gasps, the winner of the battle was not too obvious. The two fighters, massive in stature and equipped for war were evenly matched, and had spent the past few minutes exchanging one powerful blow after another, grinding at each other''s endurance like waves eroding a cliff. No blow too powerful to break the other''s defence, nor cut deep enough to incapacitate the other.

    While evenly matched, however, this battle of attrition was bound toe to an end the moment one of the two fighters would inevitably cave in. Predictably, after what felt like an eternity for the spectators, the cheering reached an all-time high, then silence.

    In the middle of the stage, kneeling onto theyer of yellowish sand, was Cossus'' fighter. With a pained expression hidden by hisrge helmet, he rested onto hisrge shield, which he had nted into the ground in an attempt to withstand his weight, and stop himself from falling. His right arm was wrapped around his stomach, where a vicious wound gushedrge amounts of blood, while his swordy onto the ground several meters to his right.

    His opponent was not in much better condition. The equal number of cuts, bruises and swelling indicated that the battle hadn''t had a clear winner until the very end, where the man''s opponent had managed to inflict an incapacitating, yet non-lethal blow, securing the victory for his school, and a hefty sum of money for his master.

    Cossus'' diator, now too injured to fight, did not raise his hands in submission-Instead, he went down on both knees. He then removed hisrge shield from the ground, and with the little strength he had left, he threw it away before showing his neck to his opponent.

    As the crowd saw the actions of the defeated diator, they let out a deafening roar.

    Who among them wasn''t a lover of this sport? Who among them didn''t know what these actions meant? A defeated diator was supposed to be a performer. A talented fighter, with skills that would put a feared legionary to shame, but a performer nheless. Part of their performance, probably the most honourable one, was to offer their lives to the crowd, and be fearless in the face of death.

    The crowd was clearly impressed by this action, and so was the emperor, who rose up to his feet, and with a satisfied smile, approached the edge of the podium.

    "Our regards to the winner, who triumphed in this spectacr match of skills, and to the defeated, who chooses an honourable death rather than a coward''s life!" His right arm was raised into a fist, an action which emphasized the respect he felt for the two warriors. "I speak for myself, and all of our beloved citizens, when I say that such a honourable character does not belong to a headstone. Be on your way, diators, and keep bringing glory to your schools in the future!"

    As the emperor finished speaking, the winner nted his sword and shield to the ground. He then punched his chest with his right arm, "A honour to fight for you, Caesar." He shouted as two men in white togas approached his injured opponent, and carried him out of the arena.

    "A beautiful fight between Ferox, who has now earned his sixth consecutive win, and Potens, who has suffered his first loss!" Said the editor with pride. Then, as thest members of Cossus'' school opposition emerged from the entrance to the stage, he continued, "Now, for thest fight and main event of the evening, we have a battle between a tiger and a cub! A veteran and a novice! FLAMMA, who puts his eight win streak on the line against the swift, the powerful, NOCENTIANUS!!"

    The moment the editor finished talking, the two diators entered the stage. One, thest fighter of Cossus'' school, while the other, a bare-chested diator of average height. Equipped with arge rectangr scutum, a sword, a full vizor bronze helmet painted in gold, a manica formed by golden metallic scales, a pair of heavy greaves, and a leather belt with an eagle shaped buckle, the diator marched fearlessly into the arena.

    Despite his not so impressive stature, mma was respected by everyone as a legendary diator, who had fought over thirty fights and won most times. He was also known for rejecting his freedom, and keeping on fighting for the love of the fame and glory that the sport awarded him.

    His opponent Nocentianus, a name which meant swift and powerful, was thest member of Cossus'' roster of diators. Equipped with a leather greave and manica, a leather belt, and two swords, the diator approached his opponent while curiously looking at his surroundings.

    The crowd, clearly unhappy about Nocentianus'' behaviour, began to chant mma''s name while pumping their fists in the air, or mming their hands against their chest. The support of the spectators energized mma, who raised his sword up to the sky, causing the crowd to roar even louder.

    For a whole minute mma basked in the glory, after which the crowd became quieter and quieter, until no noise could be heard but the sound of leather rubbing against leather, and of boots digging into sand.

    The champion advanced quietly but steadily. His scutum, painted with the red and gold of Rome around a fist sized shield boss, was kept in front of him, covering from neck to knees of his half-way crouched body. His swordy onto the upper part of the shield, while pointed at his enemy.

    Despite the tense atmosphere, mma''s opponent did not appear interested in him, as he continued to observe what he believed to be a crowd that had no affection for him. Had mma been in his opponent''s position, however, he too would have acted in a simr way, as what his eyes showed was not what his opponent''s eyes could see.

    In thetter''s eyes, the entire coliseum was enshrouded in golden colored specks of light. Each person, connected to a cloud of power that buzzed around them as if to serve them, creating an otherworldly spectacle of light. None of these clusters, however, could bepared to that of the emperor, whose lights had attached themselves onto his skin, and were being absorbed, leaving only a golden shine around his body. To the eyes of a human, the emperor would appear like a deity, who was descending from heaven while still basking in its light.

    This spectacle brought a form offort to the diator, who quietly stabbed his swords onto the stage''s sandy surface, and with a carefree motion, removed his helmet, revealing himself as Cossus''st acquired ve, nigh-omnipotent cultivator, and aspect of karma, Daniel.

    mma, usually devoid of any fear, could not help but halt his march as he noticed Daniel''s eyes shine of a pure bright light. For a moment, the champion among diators felt that his opponent was not a man to be fought against, but to be venerated.

    After a few moments, Daniel realized that encountering such arge concentration of karmic power had caused histent powers to emerge, instilling fear in his opponent.. So, after forcefully suppressing them once again, he put his helmet back on, and grabbed his swords. By his feet, a thread of calming mental power reached for his frightened adversary.

    As mma was able to regain hisposure and usual brave demeanor, he resumed his march towards his opponent... And so did Daniel.

 Chapter 564 - The Inevitability Of Karma

    <h4>Chapter 564 - The Inevitability Of Karma</h4>

    "You insisted on letting this novice fightst, and in front of the emperor himself. Why?" The editor asked while looking at Daniel and his opponent make their way into the main stage of the arena. Next to him, several other gym owners looked at the sweaty Lanista while wondering the same thing.

    Cossus'' turned towards the stage, and while looking at Daniel with a proud expression, said, "He is quite the capable warrior, and your fighter, mma, is getting older. I wish to foster a diator with a perfect record. What crowd doesn''t enjoy a battle between a champion and a talented neer?"

    Surprised by the man''s oddly rxed attitude, the editor turned his head towards him and asked, "Will you be cing a bet, then? If you can still afford it."

    Among the Lanistae of Rome, Cossus was known to possess an impulsive and proud character. He would regrly purchase able-bodied men in batches, and spend a fortune on their training in the hope that, one day, one of them would show enough aptitude to help him recover the investment. Unfortunately, most of the time, his impulsive nature had caused him to be tricked by his peers, and bet too much money on fights he was overly confident about. For years he had struggled to break even, until finally, right when he was ready to abandon the world of blood-sports, he had found Daniel wandering the streets of Rome.

    Initially, Cossus'' intentions weren''t to make a champion out of Daniel, but to turn him into a sex symbol who could perform in easy matchups against untrained criminals, and win the favor and attentions of rich and influential women within the capital.

    His n to make a star out of Daniel with the bare minimum investment, however, went up to smoke the moment he showed his talent as a fighter. In a moment, Cossus realized that he had not only earned a fighter that women would want, and men would envy, but also someone who had the strength to be a champion. With Daniel as his fighter, his future was no longer grey.

    The editor was well aware of how much Cossus valued Daniel''s skills, as well as when he had acquired him and the level of talent shown during his training. Yet, no one was as confident about their diators as the editor was about mma. A man that could be described as ''a legendary diator whose prowess and skills will be written in history.'' To him, a man with a month worth of training had no chance of seeding against such a veteran.

    "I-I do not think I should.." Said Cossus while looking at his wife forfort. He had already lost a huge sum of money during the previous fights, and anything more than that would cause his house to go into debt.

    "I understand. He is young and inexperienced. It is best you keep the pay from hiring him, and use it to buy more ves." The editor said with an amicable tone. Right before the fightmenced, however, he added, "Just know that I will pay double the amount of anything you are willing to bet with me. I do not wish to see you go back empty handed, in case your diator were to miraculously win tonight."

    Cossus'' indecisive look seemed to suddenly transform into an enthusiastic one. The very words he had been waiting to hear all day had finally been spoken. "I have been unlucky in this field, and I am getting tired of it.. I was already nning to retire, and dedicate myself tomerce, so why not.." He said, barely containing his excitement.

    "Husband!" Eximed Cossus'' wife, whose aloof behaviour had turned into one filled with a mixture of anger and worry.

    The stoutnista raised his hand in an attempt to stop his wife from talking, then added, "I will bet the ves I have trained, the contracts of my trainers, and the food expenses of the next batch of diators, on myst fighter."

    The editor looked at Cossus in shock. By waging his remaining ves, the trainers he had employed, and the food expenses required to train them, that meant that if he lost this fight, Cossus would not have any remaining fighter left-Even if he managed to buy more, he would not have trainers that could turn them into diators, nor food to feed them with.

    By all intents and purposes, this was Cossus''st effort to establish himself into the world of blood-sports, as for him, this bet meant going all-in.

    Cossus'' wife once again tried to call for her husband, but before she could speak, he nced at her with anger, causing her to swallow her words.

    Not willing to let go of the opportunity of getting rid of one of hispetitors, the editor did not immediately ept. Instead, he showed aplex expression. "This is a difficult bet.. On one hand, I do not wish to see your school die.. But on the other hand, such an unusual victory would make your reputation skyrocket, and you know I wish nothing but the best for my friends."

    After pretending to think about it for a few seconds, the editor nodded his head, "So be it. Tonight we see if the gods are on your side."

    -----

    On stage, Daniel and his opponent had already begun their duel.

    Following the public''s expectations, from the very beginning, mma managed to assert his dominance over Daniel. With his shield held tightly in front of him he advanced towards his opponent, ignoring the pressure that each of thetter''s blows would carry. Then, once? only a few steps away, he peeped through the holes of his vizor, and waited.

    *k! k!"

    As the second blow struck his shield, mma moved it aside with a swift motion, and pierced his sword forwards, towards his opponent.

    Using only his human reflexes, Daniel turned his upper body to his right, allowing the sword to pierce past his chest, on which it left a shallow cut. With his opponent''s shield ced to his left side, and his right arm tense towards him, Daniel instinctively stabbed his opponent with the sword he held in his left hand. His target, was the right side of the man''s rib cage.

    Seeing how Daniel had avoided his attack, mma did not stop. He immediately retracted his right arm, and moved his shield in front and past him, striking its right edge against Daniel''s arm, and blocking his sword. Then, as Daniel''s left arm bounced off the shield and was flung to the side, mma mmed the shield to the ground, and onto his opponent''s forward foot.

    Immediately, Daniel noticed what his opponent''s target was, so he hurriedly moved his foot away, but in doing so, he gave up his footing.

    Instead of following up with a sword attack, mma took a step forward, preventing Daniel from reacquiring his footing, and before he could react, mmed his shield against Daniel''s body. Therge shield boss, a fist sized metallic sphere mounted in the middle of the shield, struck Daniel''s stomach, causing him to stumble backwards for several steps.

    The onught did not end there. mma took one more step forward, and once again tried to m his shield against Daniel''s body, but as thetter avoided the blow by stepping backwards, mma swung his shield arm to the side, and once again pierced forward with his sword. The sword seemed to be about to hit Daniel, but right before it could pierce his shoulder, in a demonstration of his agility, Daniel twisted his body, allowing his opponent''s sword to pierce past.

    With therge shield raised high up to the left side of mma''s head, and his sword pointed forward, Daniel did not repeat the previous mistake, and instead, made use of his opponent''s blind spot. He continued the rotation of his body, and after tensing his right arm, he hacked at the side of the man''s thigh.

    Immediately aware of the damage, mma brought his shield back in front of him, and retreated a few steps, allowing Daniel to get up and regain his footing. As he inspected his wound, and established that it was not as deep as it looked and that continuing the fight would not be a problem, mma became more aware of Daniel''s abilities.

    The longer the crowd saw Daniel fight, the more they began to like him. mma was still the favorite of the vast majority of them, yet, as enthusiasts of the sport, they couldn''t help but respect Daniel''s skills. Among therge crowd, however, there was one face that had now distorted into an ugly expression, and that was the editor''s.

    By setting up a fight with a neer, the editor had not expected Daniel to be so dangerous, to a point where he had gained an advantage over not only the current champion, but also one of the strongest fighters Rome had ever seen. Had he, the crowd, or the emperor known that Daniel possessed those kinds of skills, the city would have talked about this fight in anticipation for weeks.

    Soon he realized that the reason why Daniel''s skills had been downyed, was because of Cossus'' scheme.

    The stout middle-aged man whom he had known for decades as thest wagon wheel among the capital''snistae, had purposely wasted over half of the money his family possessed for the sole purpose of letting him lower his guard. His true aim, however, was to win it all back the moment he would ce hisst bet on the main fight. To make matters worse, the editor had offered to pay double whatever Cossus was willing to bet, just to be sure Cossus would fall into ruin, and not realizing he had instead yed right into his trap.

    Needless to say, the editor, as he looked at Cossus'' proud expression, could not help but feel stupid for falling for such a trick.

    Unbothered about the struggles between the two ve owners, the emperor was now looking at the battle with great interest, to a point where he had unconsciously stood up from his chair and approached the balcony of his podium, on which he leaned with both hands.

    Back in the inner part of the arena, the battle had already resumed.

    Daniel, as most expected, had immediately begun to exploit the opponent''s injury, and kept moving to mma''s right. Meanwhile, thetter followed Daniel''s movements while keeping a defensive stance. The proactive behavior for which he was known throughout the capital had been put aside, as his previously fearless advance had now slowed down greatly.

    Only moments after the battle resumed, it immediately reached a stalemate. Both fighters would either walk around their opponent, or shift their posture to adjust to their opponent''s location, yet neither attacked.

    This went on for at least a minute-each second doing nothing but increasing the tension felt by the crowd. Murmurs and cheering gradually stopped, as the crowd became eager for the moment one of the two took the initiative. Finally, when the anticipation was about to turn into disappointment and discontent, Daniel sprung towards his opponent.

    After mming his foot on the ground a few times, Daniel found himself in front of mma, then, creating two foot-sized craters on the ground, he leaped in the air and towards his opponent. mma immediately ced hisrge shield in front of him, and prepared for the impact, but when he expected to feel the almost instantaneous blow caused by Daniel''s two swords, he felt the dead weight of Daniel''s body instead, which came crashing onto him.

    While unexpected, mma had gone through dozens of fights in his career, and had experienced more than most diators in history. Hence why, when he felt Daniel''s weight onto the shield, he was surprised, but not shocked. Immediately, he bent his knees, allowing for the pressure to transfer to his lower body, then sprung back up, hoping to send Daniel flying backwards.

    What shocked him, however, was his inability to feed Daniel''s weight the moment he pushed back against him. What he felt instead, was a loss of bnce as a sudden blow struck the back of his right knee, forcing him to fall on it. Then, before he could react, he felt Daniel''s hand wrap around his neck, and pull his head back.

    With his neck exposed mma panicked. He began to y his sword over and behind him, in hope to force Daniel to let go of him, but before the de could hit anything, he felt the warmth of Daniel''s leg around right arm, blocking it behind his back.

    As mma knelt on the ground with both knees, with his chest and neck exposed, and his head and arm respectively blocked by Daniel''s arm and leg, the crowd erupted in cheers. The fight was over. The emperor, shocked by such an unusual yet impressive way of fighting, could not help but join his subjects in cheering, a cheering that covered both Cossus'' and his wife''s screams of joy.

    On stage, Daniel felt mma''s body rx, as he appeared to have surrendered to his fate.

    In front of the eyes of tens of thousands, mma nted therge shield on the ground in front of him. Then, with his only free arm, he reached for his helmet in an attempt to remove it. For years he had waited for this day toe, so in his actions, there was no hesitation. As he waited for Daniel to strike him dead, however, time came to a full stop.

    Daniel observed the rabid-looking citizens'' with a hint of disgust. "Kill him, kill him!" Cossus had screamed, as if entitled to decide whether a person deserved to live or die based on his own amusement. Around him, sparks of golden lights were appearing at an impressive speed, merging to his powers not by joining Daniel, but by simply existing.

    "I have observed you long enough.." Daniel muttered in his direction through a faint smile- then, momentster, time resumed.

    The moment the flow of time resumed, Daniel grabbed mma''s hand, and ced it onto the leather straps that were covering his chest. Then, while controlling thetter''s body, he forced his arm to perform a downward motion, causing Daniel''s upper body to m against the upper edge of mma''s shield with great strength. Moment''ster, Daniel''s hold became loose, and his body fell on to mma''s side. His neck was broken.

    Up in the air, from within a separated pocket of space, Daniel observed the crowd go quiet.. The screams of joy turned into ones of horror, as Cossus, his wife, and their daughter realized that Daniel was now dead, and they had lost everything.

 Chapter 565 - A Long Path To Discovery

    <h4>Chapter 565 - A Long Path To Discovery</h4>

    As the poption of Rome reacted to mma''s unusual triumph, Daniel''s mind was busy elsewhere. On a tform of solidified space hey on his back while observing the world with his watchful senses. His gaze, however, was aimed at the starry sky.

    In the stars'' slow motion Daniel foundfort, as space was the one thing that his ce of origin and this universe had inmon. In his heart, no feeling was more prevalent than the desire to go back to the people he had left behind, yet, in his mind, he knew he couldn''t.

    His powers as an aspect of Karma, still weak and uncontroble, made him a menace to the other domains, to a point where his true nature was likely to be the one thing that could unite the multiverse against amon enemy even more than his peers, the other champions of Destiny. This pressure, he knew his friends and family could not share with him.

    His only option was to learn how to turn these unpredictable outbursts of power into an energy that he could wield.. And the first step was to nurture it.

    To him, a inhabited by hundreds of millions of people who, topensate for their extremely short lives, would strive to turn their otherwise inconsequential existence into an impactful one, was the best kind of resource. One made for him to exploit the same way the other aspects of existence would their ce of birth.

    While thetter had to wait millions of years for their power to condense and develop a consciousness, however, Daniel was the opposite. His aspect of existence had taken shape with his system, and attached itself to an existing consciousness. Only recently had the concept of karma be a power that, in theory, could one day rival that of other aspects of existence.

    Although Daniel''s presence on this was not necessary for his powers to grow, he could feel, deep inside, that such a breakthrough could not only be achieved through an umtion of power. What he needed was to understand this power better.

    With no clear n in mind, Daniel slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them once again, he wasn''t lying on the patch of solidified space anymore, but sitting on a beach.

    In front of him, a treacherous sea that merged into the stormy clouds above thanks to a thick fog. By his right, past the shore''s edge, was a rocky cliff covered in long des of grass which struggled to stand due to the strong winds, and standing above it, were the figures of a hundred men.

    These men, clearly part of a small army, shared simr attiresposed of a simple steel helmet, leather gloves and shoes, pants of poor fabric, and a gambeson that covered a chainmail armor. Their hands held together a leather shield by their waistline, which hid the sheathed swords hanging from their belts.

    While these men wore armor and carried weapons, which indicated that they were prepared for a fight, Daniel could see nothing but worry on their faces, as their eyes were aimed at the horizon, clearly waiting for something.

    Noticing how these men''s attention was taken by the sea, Daniel turned to look in the same direction, and there, covered by the fog, he saw three small shadows. Along the waves these shadows approached the shore, bing bigger and bigger, until finally, they came too close for theyer of fog to hide, and showed their appearance. These shadows belonged to three wooden vessels.

    Built in the shape of arge canoe, these ships only possessed one mast, on which was tied an enormous veil. Their hulls were covered in multicolored shields, in between which emerged dozens of wooden oars used for rowing the ship when inck of favorable winds. The most noticeable feature of these vessels, however, were ships'' bow and stern, which, carved in the shape of a dragon''s head, instilled fear in the eyes of those who saw it.

    It was clear to anyone with a basic understanding of naval engineering, that these vessels were not made to transportrge numbers of people, nor merchandise, but for fast travel.

    These ships kept approaching the shore, until finally, the water became too shallow to navigate-after which the men who were being carried on them jumped off, and by using a few thick ropes, dragged the ships onto the sand, and out of the water.

    These men, dressed in pelts and leather clothes, took their shields off the sides of the ships and regrouped on the shore, where they encountered the group who was scanning the horizon for their arrival. Once in contact, the two groups, clearly ufortable with the other''s presence, began to discuss.

    Daniel did not bother to listen to their conversation, as the context of this world''s events had long lost its importance for him.. After all, what was for him only one blink of his eye, was almost seven hundred years of this world''s history, which he had witnessed without interfering.

    What he couldn''t understand in words, however, he could make out by observing these men''s karma.

    Covered in negative karma, the leader of the invasors, who referred to themselves as Ostmen, approached the small army. On his face a facetious smile which he used in an attempt to calm his opponents, which in turn were made nervous by his men''s bigger stature and crude weaponry. At the same time, the leader of the other group, a bearded man charged with identifying foreign merchant ships who tried to enter the kingdom of Wessex, tried tomunicate with him.

    The two parties did not appear to speak the samenguage, as only the leader of the invading party was able to understand a few words. Yet, he could make out enough to understand what the royal reeve, who led the small army, was demanding of him and his men. What this man wanted was for the guests to visit the king of thisnd, as he was still under the impression that these men weren''t there to invade, but to explore paths that could be used formerce. But, s, he was wrong.

    As the royal reeve approached the leader of the ostmen in an attempt to exchange gifts, thetter''s men embraced their weapons, and charged at the unprepared small army with an inhuman thirst for blood, initiating a deadly conflict between the two groups.

    Despite their poorer equipment, the ostmen quickly took the advantage, killing dozens before the remaining few could regroup and put in ce any form of military formation. The ones who survived the initial onught, a few minutester, were too cut down by their opponent''s battle axes and swords, allowing the ostmen toe out victorious with close to no casualties.

    Proud of their achievement, the group of barbarians cheered and screamed their prayers to their gods of war.. All but one, their leader, who had finally noticed Daniel''s lone presence by the shore.

    "T¨², komh¨ªr!" the man shouted in Daniel''s direction, hinting for him to approach unless he wished to join the soldiers in their fate.

    Daniel ignored the man, who had now attracted the attention of the rest of his party. However, after seeing Daniel''s appearance, as well as their leader approaching him while brandishing hisrge axe, they quickly lost interest, and instead focused on searching the corpses of their enemies for valuables.

    The leader of the ostmen stomped in Daniel''s direction, his attire now covered in blood.. Just like the axe he had already decided to use against Daniel. Yet, as he came to speaking distance to him, the man suddenly stopped. The young individual in front of him was not a simple young man any longer. His body had turned into that of a bearded and muscr old man, who scanned the sea with a single shining eye, whereas the other was missing.

    Daniel''s new appearance was of great shock for the warrior, who immediately fell on his knees and reached for a hammer-shaped pendant hidden underneath his shirt.? "¨®einn.." He muttered over and over again, as if in prayer. In just a moment, Daniel had taken the form of Odin, the most important of the man''s deities, stopping him from approaching, or even dare to speak to him.

    As the man bowed in prayer, Daniel blinked once again, causing the scenery around him to change, and for six hundred years more to pass.

    He was now standing in the middle of a town, with buildings that more than any other he had seen on this, reminded him of those back home. Despite these buildings being simr, however, this towncked the vivacity any other settlement he had visited possessed. The ck and grey smoke that covered the sky, bloated the sun, whose rays Daniel could feelnd helplessly on the other side. On the roads, sickly individuals were strewn all about, coughing and dying, while on the road, only carriages full with mounds of corpses, and driven by men covered in ck robes and masked by a leather helmet with a long curved beak where the mouth and nose should have been, could be seen.

    In just a few minutes of walking through the streets of this town, Daniel saw many of these masked men drive their carriages to empty terrains, and unload their macabre cargo into deep mass graves, where gravediggers would set the mountains of corpses aze before burying what was left under tons of dirt.

    Daniel had now spent over twelve hundred years observing how karma was born. Inside him, his dormant power had grown exponentially, causing him to approach the realm of a true living aspect of existence.. Yet, at the same time, he had noticed a constant decrease in his human ability to feel empathy, even while faced with the death of thousands of people.. About this change, he could not help but feel concerned.

    After blinking once more, Daniel found himself on an ind. Around him, soldiers dressed in green military attire charged ahead while carrying their guns. Their opponents, hidden in tunnels and holes on the ground, screamed ''Ten''n¨­heikabanzai!'' before emerging, and meeting their enemies head on.

    Within Daniel''s body, the aspect of karma had almost maturedpletely, as he could feel the power approach the point of a breakthrough whenever one of these soldiers was stabbed or shot. Yet, as these dying men screamed for their loved ones, Daniel felt nothing.

    Another blink brought Daniel to the cold and dry surface of the moon, where a small spaceship hadnded, and from which three individuals dressed inrge white suits had walked out of. They stepped on the unfamiliar ground, looking at the majestic view before nting a g that depicted stars and stripes. Of Daniel''s presence, they werepletely unaware.

    While an incredible moment for these men and the rest of humanity, Daniel felt no joy, as his mind was only upied by the bitterness he had felt during the previous failed attempts at breaking through.

    With onest blink, Daniel found himself on top of an enormous city square. Around him were hundreds of thousands of people looking in his direction, while surrounded by dozens of skyscrapers which covered most of the sky. On top of the centernmost skyscraper, arge orb of light descended, while under it, a big screen disyed a countdown to the end of the yeah.

    On top of this descending orb, Daniel stood invisible to mortals. His eyes aimed at a dark alley, and at a specific point within the crowd that had formed at the base of the building.

    Daniel was doing nothing to mask his presence, in fact, it was his power as an aspect of existence that, while being almostpletely awakened, had turned him into one with the universe. What separated him from being the very incarnation of an invisible aspect of existence, felt to him like a paper thin barrier, which he had now failed to break through for decades.

    In his failure, however, Daniel had never stopped doing what he had been doing for almost two thousand years, which was to observe the nature of karma in its every form and meaning.

    What had caught his attention that day was therge crowd at his feet. Specifically, a five year old little girl who had left her mother''s sight. She wandered among the cheering crowd, enchanted by the colors of the balloons and the festive atmosphere, distracting her from the danger around her.

    Her exploration brought her to the entrance of a dark alley, where a friendly looking woman covered in thick nkets sat on the ground alongside a honey-colored cat.

    The young girl, pure hearted as she was, noticed the empty bowl next to the woman. She then remembered how her mother, whenever they would see a homeless person by the side of the road, would share a few coins with them in an attempt to teach her a lesson about helping the less fortunate and being charitable.

    With gleaming eyes the young girl fished a few coins out of her pocket, and approached the homeless woman, who looked back at her as she dropped the coins into the bowl, and with an unusually bright smile asked, "Hey princess, are you lost? Were you separated from your parents?"

    The young girl finally realized that she had wandered too far, and that she had been separated from her mother-A realization which caused her to start crying almost immediately.

    The homeless woman reacted right away. She grabbed her cat, and after pushing it towards the young girl, said, "No no, don''t cry. Look, mister snuffles will keep youpany until you find your family. I will help you!"

    Easily convinced by the woman''s words, the young girl approached her, and took the cat out of her hands. "He doesn''t like girls who cry all the time, so don''t cry, or he''ll run away." The woman added right before gently grabbing the young girl''s hand.

    As her hand wrapped around the little girl''s, the friendly smile on the woman''s face turned into a malicious one. "Come, let''s go find your mother.." she said while guiding the little girl deeper into the dark alley.

 Chapter 566 - I Am Karma

    <h4>Chapter 566 - I Am Karma</h4>

    The little girl, albeit scared, followed the woman through the darkness for a few minutes, after which the tight alley opened into arger one with a run-down green van parked to the side, and a smoking man leaning on the wall opposite to it. "Where is my mom?.." She asked while constantly looking back at the still visible square where thousands of people were continuing to party and cheer at the top of their lungs.

    Hearing the little girl''s concerns, the woman suddenly stopped. She then kneeled in front of her, and while fixing her scruffy hair to appear more reassuring, she asked, "What did your mommy tell you to do when you get lost?"

    "To call the police.." the little girl muttered shily while tightening her hold on the cat, which almost immediately began to struggle in an attempt to break free from and run away.

    The woman smiled. "Your mom is very smart, and so are you! We are going to the police. They''ll find your mom and take you to her." she said as the cat jumped off the little girl''s constricting embrace and ran back into the dark alley, where it disappeared moments after. "Let''s go," She then added. This time, however, it did not seem that the woman was only talking to the little girl, but to the man as well, who took onest drag out of his cigarette before throwing the rest on the ground.

    Clothed in a worn out leather jacket and faded jeans, the man stepped onto the still lit butt of the cigarette, slicked his greasy hair back, and while scratching his unkempt beard, walked to the side of the van, where there was a sliding door which he opened with no concern for the little girl''s existence.

    The woman carried the little girl towards the van, then helped her into it before closing the sliding door, and entering the vehicle from the passenger''s side. The two acted inplete ignorance to the presence of the man that was standing on top of the closest building-ce from which he observed the now moving van with watchful golden eyes.

    -----

    "You were supposed to snatch wallets, not people." Whispered the man while driving through the crowded streets.

    Immediately the woman turned to look at herpanion with scolding eyes before checking on the little girl, and making sure that his words hadn''t made her upset. "Isn''t your friend Vitali a.. Policeman?" She asked while emphasizing the word ''policeman'' in an attempt to deliver a hidden meaning which, unfortunately, herpanion did not seem to understand.

    "You mean Arseny? No, he peddles heroin for the Russians. Why?" The man answered while showing a confused expression.

    Clearly fed up by herpanions'' stupidity, the woman once again turned to check on the little girl, who was now findingfort in a small rabbit-shaped stic toy she had kept in her pocket all along, then inquired in a low tone, "And what do the Russians do..?"

    After hearing the woman''s exasperated tone, the man in the leather jacket realized that there was a connection hispanion wanted him to realize, and finally, after a full minute, it dawned upon him. He quickly adjusted his posture, sitting in a more proper manner, and grabbed the wheel with both hands. He then turned towards the woman, and said, "If you''re thinking what I''m thinking, I would have to ask Arseny.. If we approach the Bratva, and tell them we know that they traffic in bodies, the cops will find our tongueless heads in a ditch early in the morning."

    "Then ask him. We will sell her to him if we must. Call him, and tell him to meet us at the same spot." The woman responded.

    Following the woman''s instructions, the man sent a text, then spent the following two hours driving through the busy streets, and to the outskirts of the city, where much less people could be seen. They stopped once they reached the parking lot of a building with festive decoration and neon lights that flickered rhythmically. These lights spelled the word ''Motel''.

    Once parked, the two stepped out of the van, but instead of taking the little girl and going towards one of the many doors of the building, the two waited. A few minutester, a ck sedan car entered the parking lot, and parked a few spots away.

    As the car came to a full stop, and the engine was turned off, the door on the driver''s side opened, and from it, a tall and bald man dressed in ck clothes walked out. This man looked at his surroundings, then, while rubbing his hands together in an attempt to warm them up, he approached the couple. "How much do you want this time? It''s new year''s eve, so it will cost more." The man said without even bothering to greet the woman and herpanion.

    "We are not here to buy.." Said the man in faded jeans before looking around nervously. Then, after making sure that no one was around, he motioned with his head towards the van parked right behind them.

    The bald man, whom the man with slicked back hair knew as Arseny the russian drug dealer, approached the van while taking a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, and mming it against the palm of his hand. For a moment the man became suspicious of the couple, as he only knew them as a couple of desperate junkies that would sell their rtives for a hit, yet, since he had nothing on him that could get him arrested, he decided to first see what the two wanted.

    As Arseny moved the cigarette that jumped out of the pack to his mouth, the woman opened the side door of the van, revealing the little girl. "We heard that.. You might be able to help her find her mother."

    Seeing the little girl, Arseny''s worries disappeared instantly.

    For how cautious he was about cops and desperate drug addicts, even he knew that no cop in his right mind would ever use a young girl as bait in an operation that could lead to his arrest.. And since he wasn''t as stupid as the guy in front of him, whom he was used to takeing money from in exchange for cheap drugs, he caught on immediately.

    The Bratva, also known as the Russian Mafia, was known to traffic in people. Most of the time these people were young girls who wanted to leave their poor country in hope to find a better life in thend of opportunity, only to be sold to brothels and be forced into prostitution. But, at times, they also moved indebted women to their own country, where they would be sold to the highest, and most morally corrupt bidder. This information was fairly known, to a point where many news articles andworks had talked about it, yet, due to the Bratva''s organization, there hadn''t been any significant arrest.

    Despite this information being public, Arseny was not surprised that the two hade to him instead of asking for a meeting with his bosses, since he was sure that, had his bosses had been there, he would have likely been tasked with killing them both and taking the girl, as he knew that his bosses would not risk their operation for two junkies.

    Assured that the couple hadn''t done something as stupid as working with the cops,

    Arseny picked a receipt and a pen from within his pocket, and wrote a few words on it. He then handed it over to the woman, whom he thought looked morepetent than herpanion. "Go to this address, park the van in the back. I will follow you in my car. If I see a single car following us, you two are both dead."

    As soon as he finished speaking, the three went back to their respective vehicles and drove off.. Unaware of the invisible passenger in Arseny''s car.

    -----

    After following the man''s instructions for about an hour, the two vehicles arrived at an old industrial area, where dozens ofrge warehouses had been long abandoned by bankruptedpanies that owned them. They then entered a pathway that led them to the back of one of the warehouses, which they followed until they arrived at arge parking lot filled with ck cars, as well as a dozen men in ck clothes who patrolled the area while carrying heavy-duty guns.

    On the wall that was facing this parking lot was arge opened garage, and inside it was arge red-colored semi-trailer truck. Next to it, three men were standing in wait in front of a shorter bald man, who was talking on the phone with what sounded like either his daughter, or his wife.

    As Arseny and the couple arrived, all these men stopped talking and immediately directed their attention towards their vehicles, only calming down once they realized that one of them was one of their members. After seeing Arseny, the bald man put an end to his conversation, left the garage, and approached him. Then, together, they walked towards the van, next to which stood the nervous figures of the couple.

    Without bothering with the couple''s presence, the bald man approached the side of the van alongside a slightly nervous Arseny, who opened the sliding door for him to look inside.

    As the door opened, the bald man noticed a scared little girl hidden in a dark corner of the vehicle. Her arms were hugging her knees, as her clear big eyes moved onto the figures of the two men.

    It was at this point, after confirming the purpose of the couple''s visit, that the woman nudged herpanion. However, as he turned towards her, he hinted for her to remain quiet and wait for the bald man to initiate the negotiations.

    Unwilling to wait any longer, the woman approached the side of the door, and said, "As you can see, she is an adorable kid.. She will fetch a good price. If we can.."

    Once again, the bald man ignored the couple. Instead, he approached the little girl with a fatherly expression. The girl, unimpressed by the man''s friendly demeanor began to tremble, but did not struggle as the bald man put both hands on her ears, covering thempletely. Then, two shes of light came from behind him.

    The bodies of the couple fell to the ground even faster than their own blood, as in front of them, Arseny stood with a still smoking pistol.

    "Open the truck." The bald man said after grabbing the little girl by the shoulders, and pulling her out of the van. The two then walked towards the truck parked in the garage, whose back door one of the bald man''s men unlocked and opened, revealing over thirty young girls of different ages, with the oldest not reaching twenty-five years of age.

    Seeing the sorry state of these women, the little girl felt terrified, yet, right as the man was about to lift her, and push her into the back of the truck, her surroundings became blurry. The color and light around the young girl slowly changed, turning from facets of grey, to a spectrum of colors that would put a painter''s canvas to shame.

    When her surroundings of the little girl regained focus, she immediately realized that she wasn''t standing in a parking lot filled with strangers anymore.. But on an immense flower field. By her feet, began a short path which led to what the little girl immediately recognized as her mother.

    With long steps the little girl ran through the field, until finally, as she came just a few steps away from her crying mother, her surroundings changed once again, and she found herself back in the middle of the crowd. The mother, relieved to finally find her daughter, gave her a big hug, with no intention of stopping any time soon.

    To witness this reunion were Daniel, the couple, Arseny, the bald man, and each of thetter''s men, who were all standing on top of a small patch of grass constructed in the sky.

    While most of these people had maintained their physical bodies, however, the bodies of the couple were now transparent, and formed entirely out of their spirits and consciousnesses which Daniel had prevented from respectively heading towards the spiritual world and underworld the very moment they died.

    Aside from Daniel, these people looked at their surroundings with shock. A moment earlier they were either facing dead, or standing on cement.. but now, they were standing on soft grass, floating in mid air with a young man who was too busy staring into the void to even pay attention to them.

    "I get it now.." Daniel muttered to himself. His body, now surrounded by a golden luster identical to that of his eyes, gave off an otherworldly feeling to anyone whoid their eyes on it. That Daniel could possibly be a human, nobody would have been able to im that.

    To Daniel, this event, more than any other he had observed in the two thousand years he had spent on this, had brought him to realize the true purpose of Karma. Throughout it, Daniel had seen the true kindness of a little girl, who had decided to share what little she had with someone she thought needed it most.. But also true evil, as he witnessed that person repay the kindness with a fate worse than death.

    As Daniel witnessed these events, what he couldn''t stand was the thought that these two beings were destined to share the same faith. To have their spirit end up in the spiritual world, awaiting rebirth, and to have their consciousness reach the underworld, where they would sleep in peace for all eternity.

    This thought made Daniel''s blood boil with anger to a point where the entire universe''s space began to tremble, causing the people behind him to realize that they were wide awake, and that they were witnessing an otherworldly event.

    The bald man, whom everyone recognized as the person in charge, walked up to Daniel and asked, "Where are we?.. Are we dead? And who are you?"

    As if awakened from his anger, Daniel''s state of mind went back to apletely peaceful state. If anyone could see him now, they would have sworn that Daniel was either incapable of feeling emotions, or that he had turned into a statue.

    While these people''s concerns were of no importance to him, Daniel still decided to respond. With a voice that seemed capable of breaching through space and time, he said, "Consequences.. Punishment.. I am Karma."

 Chapter 567 - Emerging From The Cocoon

    <h4>Chapter 567 - Emerging From The Cocoon</h4>

    Neen hundred years. That was how long it had taken for Daniel, a cultivator with a vague attachment to the power of Karma, to be the aspect of Karma. The reason for that wasn''t rted to the amount of power he had umted, but to the understanding he possessed regarding the meaning of karma itself, a barrier which none of the other aspects of existence had ever been forced to ovee.

    To the other aspects of existence, the meaning of the aspect they represented was the very cradle inside which their consciousness developed. An unconscious mind that grew while being kept safe, and protected by the immense power they possessed-a distinction which made the aspects of existence closer in nature to elementals, rather than humans.

    A fire elemental would not argue why a me would emit heat, nor would it expect it not to burn what it came in contact with, as that was the nature of fire. Simrly, an aspect of existence like Fate would not doubt his knowledge of the future. If he had seen something, he had no reason not to believe that that something was meant to happen, as he was Fate, and that power was part of him even more than being able to see, or touch.

    Daniel, on the other hand, was born a mortal. In the shape of a human, with human experiences and a mortal existence, he had no choice but to learn about his powers as they developed. Unfortunately, the vastness of his powers itself developed much faster than his ability toprehend them, hence why he had been stuck on this for almost two millennia.

    What had allowed him to break through this bottleneck, was finally realizing what his existence meant. Karma, like fire, did not only have the ability to exist. It was created within the multiverse by circumstances, and was now part of it.. But in the same way a me existed to burn, karma had a purpose too. To punish, and to reward.

    It was only after Daniel understood this, that he was able to break through the bottleneck and finally be a full fledged aspect of existence.. Yet, a question kept appearing in his mind. Was he still human?

    -----

    Now omnipresent in every space that contained the power karma, Daniel sat on a stone throne built on top of a hundred meters tall pyramid. While very simr to the ones built on the surface of Earth, however, this pyramid was not built on a, but on a continent-sized ind that floated within the emptiness of space.

    At the bottom of this pyramid, was an enormous city whose confines reached beyond the eyes of a mortal could see, with millions of inhabitants that lived their lives while practicing cultivation in istion. Most of these inhabitants had been hand-picked by Daniel during his stay on earth, and served him as the first batch of champions of Karma.

    Among them were not only Ashura and the young women who belonged to the domain ofpetition, but also mma the diator, Domitian the Roman emperor, the leader of the small Ostmen raiding party, and many more.

    At the moment of their natural deaths, these heroes of humanity had been offered the chance to abandon the world of mortals to follow Daniel through the path of cultivation, which they practiced alongside Ashura and the others for as long as Daniel chose to stay on Earth. In the span of the past two thousand years, these individuals had be powerful cultivators in their own rights, and now that Daniel''s efforts had paid off, they had been bestowed the blessing of Karma, which marked them as champions of Karma''s domain.

    The reason why Daniel had chosen mortals as champions was simple. People with a shorter lifespan had an immensely useful ability that was essential toprehend the nature of Karma.. An ability which the world of cultivationcked.

    They understood the importance of life.

    Due to their shorter lives, made shorter by war and sickness, mortals would ce an enormous value on their lives, as they had a very limited time to experience life. To them, killing a person was just stopping someone from cultivating for the following thousand years, but taking a loved one from friends and family, turning someone into a widow, or a kid into an orphan.

    Because of how short their lives were, mortals expected and feared the consequences of their actions to a point where, through their history, the humans of earth had managed to develop their very own understanding of Karma thousands of years before Daniel was even born.. Leading him to believe that no one was more suited to be his champion, not even his friends and family, who did not follow him as the entity he currently was, but for the man he had been in the past.

    Noticing this distinction, days after ascending, had allowed Daniel to remember about his system, which he had not interacted with for the entire time he had spent on Earth.

    Without noticing, after witnessing the birth of Destiny and awakening the power of Karma, Daniel had be less and less reliant on the power of his system. But that was not all.. With time, the numbers above people''s heads had disappeared, reced by the visible karmic power that people created through their decisions, and his family and friends, once part of the group system that he would check up on regrly, had be a vague cause of nostalgia, which would struggle to emerge like a drowning person, kicking frantically to get one small breath before being submerged forever.

    While notpletely absent, Daniel could feel himself having less emotional responses to what before would have caused him to be angry, or nostalgic.. While on the contrary, his dedication towards the path of Karma had be his highest priority.

    This had caused Daniel to doubt whether he still possessed the same humanity he once based his actions on.

    -----

    For the past two weeks, Daniel had led the continent-sized ind through the emptiness of space, and towards the interdimensional portal. This portal, which initially only appeared as a small speck of light, not unlike any other star, became bigger and bigger the closer they came to it, until finally, the ind''s inhabitants were able to distinguish its shape. A massive blue portal behind whichy the Trigate, a separate ne of existence that contained the entrance to every universe in existence, connecting them.

    The moment Daniel had be an aspect of existence, he had felt the power of Karma within the other universes, calling him. What made this power different from the one produced within the same universe, was the quantity which he was able to tap into. This power, almost smothered by the other aspects of existence, struggled to reach him to a point where the amount produced by the rest of the universesbined could notpare to the one universe Daniel was currently in.

    In order to free this karmic power, and allow it to strengthen him, Daniel needed to own that universe, and force the other concepts of existence into submission. That was how the aspects of existence gained power, and how the ownership of a universe was established. The more prevalent a power of existence was within a universe, the more likely that universe would be absorbed into that entity''s domain.

    That meant more power to the entity itself, which dictated the standing of an aspect of existence within the pantheon.

    It was only after Daniel became such a being that he had be aware of how weak he was inparison to the other aspects of existence, as they had spent millions of years acquiring universes and umting power. Luckily, the uneasiness caused by hisck of strength did not discourage him, but fueled his desire to conquer more universes instead. The first step was to gather information, as well as to prepare himself to the encounter with other aspects of existence.. After all, who knew how they would react to him. Would they treat him the same way the other champions treated Iewah''s children? Or would they wee him as a peer?

    Without trying, he would never know.

    Luckily, bing an aspect of existence had allowed Daniel to interact not only with the power of karma, but with the power of his peers as well. Specifically, the power of Sacrifice, of which the blood mark that had made him a target for the Blood Sect, causing him to be separated from his friends and family, was made of. Removing it, after bing the aspect of Karma, was an easy task.

    While solving this problem had eased Daniel of one of his worries, a bigger one had taken its ce.

    Almost two thousand years had passed since the Exalted Assembly had taken ce, an event which had ended with every domain joining together to hunt what he had been in the past.. A champion of Destiny. A mobilization of such proportions, in such a long time, must have changed the multiverse drastically-changes which could have been rted to him, but that he had not been there to witness. Needless to say, he had much to catch up on, and leaving this universe was the first step.

    Without thinking twice, he led the floating continent towards the evenrger portal, guiding it right through it.

    On the other side, where was supposed to be an infinite white expanse with uncountable opened and sealed portals, was an uncountable number of cultivators that floated in a tight formation.. All belonged to hundreds of different domains.

    After observing them for just a moment, it became obvious to Daniel that these cultivators were not waiting for him, nor were they expecting to see him. What they were there for, was to chase the person that was standing in between the group and his floating ind, a stunning woman dressed in a red cheongsam dress and high heeled shoes of the same color. In her hand she carried arge metal folding fan, which she used to cover her face while dashing through space.

    As the woman noticed therge continent that emerged from the previously locked portal, her lips curved into a smile. "There you are, just in time!" she said with enough power to cause her voice to resound for hundreds of thousands of miles. While anyone could hear her words, however, the sound essence she had constructed was aimed directly at Daniel, pointing out for everyone to see who she was talking to.

    Just as surprised by Daniel''s apparition as the woman was, the enormous group that was giving chase came to a stop, and from its depths, several powerful cultivators emerged. "This woman is a champion of Destiny! If you interfere with her execution, you will face the same fate!" Said a muscr middle-aged cultivator in blue robes with an authoritative voice.

    Daniel, whose attention had been caught by this woman, could not help but feel surprised. Not only was this woman''s power leagues beyond any other champion of Destiny he had ever met before, but he also couldn''t perceive her as one. To him, she appeared like apletely normal cultivator, who was being chased for reasons he had nothing to do with.

    While Daniel would have doubted the words of the muscr man, he also doubted any other being would have as many enemies as a champion of Destiny. Was what the man said a lie, or was he unable to recognize champions of Destiny anymore?

    Before he could decide on how to react, the woman turned towards the group that was chasing her, and eximed, "You are a fool if you think you cane in between me and my allies!" As she finished speaking, she turned towards the continent inhabited by Daniel''s champions, and with a silvery and melodic tone, added, "Come, show them how strong our bond is.."

    As if waiting for these words, the millions of cultivators on Daniel''s side erupted with fervor, and without waiting for his permission, flew towards therge group of cultivators while brandishing their weapons. The pursuers, still unsure of the nature of the woman''s powers, could not help but to respond in a simr fashion. Under the lead of their most powerful members, they embraced their weapons, and charged towards Daniel''s army.

    After charming his champions, the woman blinked in Daniel''s direction, then dashed past his ind and flew into the instance.. In just a moment, she was nowhere to be seen.

 Chapter 568 - Times Of Change

    <h4>Chapter 568 - Times Of Change</h4>

    With the woman nowhere to be seen, and a battle of catastrophic proportions ready to ensue, Daniel did not panic. Instead, he let out an immense amount of his essence, taking control over the surroundings. With a simple thought he turned thousands of miles worth of spatial essence into the essence of time, and with another, stopped its motion.

    Shocked by Daniel''s understanding of such a rare type of essence, yet unable to move, the horde of cultivators lost their will to fight. Only Daniel''s champions, crazed by the woman''s powers, continued looking at their opponents with eyes filled with hatred.

    Luckily, Daniel was there, as he was the only one who could stop whatever spell the woman had used to poison the minds of his still inexperienced champions. Had they been there without him, they would have been killed by this horde, whose higher average cultivation easily made up for their lower numbers.

    Before any member of the horde of cultivators could begin wondering what was going on, a calming power prated their mental defences, and eased any of their worries. The anxiousness they had felt while chasing the woman with unknown powers, the fear of punishment in case they failed, or the alertness they felt towards Daniel and his group were all washed away cleanly, leaving their minds in apletely rxed state.

    Simrly, Daniel''s mental power put his champions at rest, but while their will to fight had disappeared, their thoughts on the woman who had bewitched them had remained favorable, while they kept looking at the horde of cultivators as mortal enemies whom they had no will to fight.

    "What is going on?" Asked the cultivator in blue robes who had spoken before while sheathing his sword. Regardless of how suspicious and ill-timed Daniel''s appearance was, his ability to stop time and breach his mental defences were more than enough to tell him that he was not a threat. Not because hecked power, but because he hadn''t killed anyone yet despite being able to do so.

    "You said the woman is a champion of Destiny.." Daniel muttered while looking in the distance. "Wicked powers they hold. This one can turn strangers into allies in a moment."

    His words confused the cultivator, who observed him for a few moments before asking, "If you are not her ally, may I ask who you are?" Regardless of what his intentions were, the blue-robed man still couldn''t tell for sure whether Daniel was the woman''s ally or not. Refusing to attack him and his people, after all, was not the same as letting them free to continue their pursuit.

    "It surprises me you still doubt that. Look at mypanions, would their cultivation at the high immortality stage be a threat against your godhood stage? We are champions of Karma, and we have juste out from istion." Daniel said with a matter-of-fact tone.

    While this powerful cultivator could see which of the two armies was superior, he was also forced into a calm state of mind by Daniel''s powers. Tensing his muscles was immensely more difficult, his power did not follow his desire to focus into a lethal attack, and his mind did not allow him to formte any hateful or aggressive thoughts.

    Some might have considered this an attack of sorts, but not the blue-robed cultivator, who had participated in thest Exalted Assembly alongside the other leading members of his domain, and had now finally recognized Daniel.

    Regardless of how important the appearance of a new aspect of existence was for the bnce of the multiverse, close to two thousand years had passed since Daniel had presented himself as the first champion of Karma. A time long enough to cause most people to forget about their existence. It was only after Daniel mentioned the domain of Karma, that the man recalled the newest addition to the multiverse.. A one-man domain led by a young and ruthless cultivator.

    "The woman''s powers are clearly of mental nature, too powerful to be defended against by mypanions, but not powerful enough to breach your mental defences. Here, now you know who you are fighting against." Daniel said before releasing the surrounding space from his control, and freeing the horde of cultivators.

    Now free from Daniel''s oppressive power, the man looked at hispanions, who were now once again able to control their body, power and emotions. "We appreciate the information." Said the man, aware that they had been fooled by the woman. He then added, "If you don''t mind, we won''t waste any more of your time, and take our leave."

    "I do not mind.." Daniel said as the space surrounding the horde of cultivators solidified, locking them into an invisible cage. "But I have some questions I need you to answer, before you leave."

    The man''s face immediately turned pale. Stopping time and locking them in ce was one thing, but enclosing them into space was different, as space, as opposed to time, was moremonly used as a weapon. Let alone the fact that such arge group had been made captive in such a short time, the man could tell that even if they joined forces, fighting back without suffering heavy losses, was unlikely.

    Left with no choice, the man stopped hispanions from attempting an escape, then asked, "What would you like to know?"

    -----

    After the end of the Exalted Assembly, Daniel had decided to hide into his newly acquired universe in an attempt to discover, and nurture his powers as the aspect of karma. This process had been extremely slow, to a point where civilizations had been born and died in front of his eyes.. And had only ended when, close to two thousands yearster, he had seeded.

    While Daniel was focused on his powers, however, the multiverse was facing an epoch of change that had put all other moments in history to shame-All caused by onemon enemy, the champions of Destiny.

    Once freed from Daniel''s universe of origin, Iewah''s spawn had roamed the multiverse. With the use of their powers they destroyed, stole, recruited, and waged war on the domains that were so set on destroying them.. And while many of them ended up facing death, some were resilient enough to survive, and grow.

    The ess to the multiverse''s resources did nothing but allow them to umte more and more power, to a point where the most powerful of them had the means to be considered a threat on the same level as some low-tier domains.

    What had surprised Daniel the most, however, was not how some of them had managed to survive and gain power, as that was the same path he had taken before.. But the rumor that some of them had begun to change.. To exhibit powers that went beyond themon understanding of mana, and closer to the power of an aspect of existence.

    This change had broken one of the oldest misconceptions within the universe.. that was that the aspects of existence would not meddle directly into mortal affairs, as to the blue-robed man''s knowledge, instances of aspects of existence hunting down these evolved champions of Destiny directly, had truly happened.

    With the use of their systems, which Daniel realized fit oddly well the purpose, the most clever champions of Destiny were able to avoid these nigh-omnipotent pursuers by hiding in their enemy''s territory, and causing friction between the various factions that existed within the pantheon.

    In time, these conflicts, fought on both sides, be it between aspects of existence or between their followers, had gradually destroyed the multiverse''s fragile bnce.

    Arguments that would be put aside to be solved during an exalted assembly were now cause of war, and alliances made within factions were broken, only to be reced by new ones made between like-minded domains which belonged to different factions. Theck of interference from the aspects of existence did nothing but reinforce these champions'' convictions that the way they had done things until now was not necessarily right, and had held them back from truly expanding and gaining power.

    While the lower part of the chain was in turmoil, not a sound came from the top. The higher domains, usually busy with the multiverse''s administration, were now otherwise upied.. Leaving the domains they had guided for millions of years free to make their own decisions, to wiggle by themselves like a lizard''s tail, once separated from the rest of its body.

    Amidst the chaos, few were the domains who had remained loyal to their factions, and to their goal to put an end to the real cause of this mayhem.. The champions of Destiny.

    -----

    After being caught up to speed with what was happening within the multiverse, Daniel let go of the horde of cultivators, who quietly retreated into one of the nearby portals, no longer willing to give chase to the woman. Too long had passed since the woman''s disappearance, and Daniel reckoned, her pursuers would not be able to find her without the help of one of her peers.

    While Daniel could have helped, he refused to do so, as only another champion of Destiny would have been able to pinpoint the general location of another one, and he did not wish to be considered one.

    Now alone with his entranced people, Daniel extended his right arm, and with his index finger plucked a point in the air like an instrument''s cord. This invisible cord, made of the power of karma and connected to each of his followers, empowered the gift of Karma hidden inside them, and awakened them from the woman''s bewitchment.

    Once done, Daniel looked at his surroundings.

    In the distance, he could see millions of individual cultivators, armies and ships dash from one portal to the other, way more than there had been during his first few visits to the Trigate.. With a tense atmosphere and no regtions, Daniel thought that while moving around was now easier, causing a fight by ident would also not be too difficult.. But luckily, that did not work against his ns, as he had already nned for his champions to roam the multiverse.

    "You may go." Daniel said to his already prepared champions, who responded by splitting into groups of equal sizes. Once divided, led by their strongest members, these groups left for other universes, with their only goal being to make the presence of the domain of Karma known throughout the multiverse.

    As the millions of champions left, Daniel''s attention was directed towards a specific portal, which he was looking at with a stern expression. This portal led to his universe of origin, inside which he had left his family, and his closest friends. While still set on reuniting with them, however, Daniel could not help but feel disturbed by the fact that this decision wasn''t an emotional one, as much as it was something he thought he had to do.

    Without thinking too much about it, Daniel pocketed the floating continent, and dashed through the immense white space until finally, he reached the right portal. It was right at that moment that Daniel felt that something was odd.

    Contrary to the other portals, the one that led to Daniel''s universe of origin had apleteck of traffic. No ship could be seen passing through it, nor could cultivators be seen heading in its direction with the intention of entering.. Only Daniel.

    With a puzzled look Daniel extended his arm forward, and touched the portal''s water-like surface, hoping to verify whether the universe had been sealed the way he had his own universe for such a long time, but as his fingers were swallowed by the portal''s surface, he confirmed that it hadn''t been.

    With only one option left, Daniel pushed his body forward, entering the portal whole. His surroundings shifted and warped for a few moments, but right when he was expecting to feel the familiar feeling of stable space, the grinding of broken ss pierced his ears.

    The universe that appeared in front of him was not the one he had left. No longer a ce with uncountable cultivators roaming its infinite space, factions at war, and worlds filled with mortals.. but a shattered universe, already broken beyond repair and constantly degrading towards the point of full copse. Of life, there was no trace.. Or so Daniel thought.

    As Daniel tried to remember whether he knew anything that could exin this oue, he felt the appearance of several individuals behind him.. When he turned around, he saw them standing still, and stare at him with hostility.

 Chapter 569 - Stranded Into The Unknown

    <h4>Chapter 569 - Stranded Into The Unknown</h4>

    Even though Daniel did not possess the ability to distinguish which power a champion was gifted with, to him, recognizing to which domain these individuals belonged was a simple matter. Dressed in a pearly-white attire with gold embroidery to represent the purity and absoluteness of their domain, and with an air of aloofness which symbolized its arrogance-who else could these men be, if not champions of Fate.

    "It took you long enough toe out of your hole." Remarked a man who appeared to be in histe twenties, as he looked at Daniel''s back with narrowed emerald eyes. Behind his long white hair, which floated erratically within the shattered space, were several other individuals, all belonging to the same domain, and all as hostile towards Daniel as the former was.

    Daniel did not immediately acknowledge these champions of Fate. Instead, he poked the air in front of him with his right index finger, piercing the already unstable space. With a simple downward motion, he ripped the space open, forming a two-foot-long portal to the universe which the cultivators of his universe of origin used to store the content of their spatial items. In it, Daniel recalled, used to live a type of cultivators who delved in theprehension of spatial essence, which they used to maintain a pocket of stable space where they resided.

    Hopeful that hispanions had hidden in it, Daniel peered through the small rift he had created, but where once was broken ss-like space, what he saw was space no more. What he saw instead was an absolute void which devoured any form of essence, and in which not even the essence of darkness was allowed to survive.. A truly copsed universe.

    As the portal was opened, the copsed space immediately began to leak into the shattered universe, alerting the champions of Fate. "What are you doing?!" The man with long white hair inquired, as the already shattered space around the small rift began to break down at a visibly higher rate.

    Worried that Daniel was using copsed space to aid his escape, the champions of Fate backed away, almost forced to once again go back into the portal they had just crossed. Before they could touch its smooth surface, however, with a motion of his hand Daniel closed the rift, and used his essence to stop the spreading of the destructive void.

    "What are you doing here?" Daniel asked emotionlessly, as if uninterested about the answer.

    The man with long white hair and hispanions floated towards Daniel, and while looking at his unbothered expression he said, ".. ''I do not care when, or where, find a way to kill him.'' is what my father told me to do the day you have killed my older brother." His tone grew more hostile the longer he talked. "Of course, we didn''t expect it would take you two thousand years to visit a ce where your lord could not aid you."

    Daniel''s already unbothered expression became even more dull. For a moment, he had thought that these cultivators had something to do with the destruction of his universe of origin, but that was not the case. What they were here for, was to seek revenge.

    Who they wished to take revenge for, Daniel could remember clearly. The champion of Fate whom he had used the then iplete powers of Karma on, judging him for his past actions, and leading him to his untimely death-The one whose parents ruled the domain of Fate, immensely powerful cultivators who had sworn to get revenge for theirte son so many years back.

    What was more interesting to Daniel than these men''s backstory, however, was learning about which part shattered and copsed universes yed within the multiverse. For him to be caught inside a shattered universe wasn''t a problem, as he was the aspect of Karma, and the power of karma existed wherever he was.. but ording to this man''s words, that was not the case for everyone.

    Inhospitable for both living beings and objects, a shattered universe was known to be nothing more than a massive meat grinder in which only intangible things could survive, while the rest was torn and cut apart by the sharp fragments of space. No objects and living beings, however, meant no aspects of existence. No battles to produce the aspect of war, no societies to generate the powers ofw, order, and coboration.. No decisions to be made, so that karma could be created.

    Since nothing butmon mana was present within a shattered universe, while inside them,? the consciousness of most aspects of existence would not be able to reach their champions.. With an exception made for very few of them, like Fate, as a shattered universe was still fated to copse.

    Without the odd involvement of Karma, these champions believed they would easily be able to kill Daniel without having to worry about this willful lord''s punishment.

    Their beliefs, unfortunately, were wrong.

    "Here I am." Daniel said while finally turning to face his opponents, who were already wielding their weapons, and were now solidifying the surrounding spaces so that it would be possible to fight in it. Their cultivation was immensely higher than Daniel''s, with millions of years of practice on their backs which would put his couple of decades of active cultivation to shame.

    Now blinded by his desires of revenge, the man with long white hair tightened the hold on the curved dagger he was carrying, and dashed towards Daniel. With unspeakable might he swung the knife downward, threatening to cut Daniel into two with what many would consider a most simple attack.

    What this attack was, however, was all but simple. At any point in time, this champion of fate had the ability to seer, to predict the future.. One which he could not change. In his prediction, the man had seen Daniel struggle to avoid his blow, but ultimately being cut down due to the man''s superior cultivation. His body torn to shreds, his spirit dissipated, and his mind erased by one powerful and unavoidable blow. To die at the man''s hands was part of Daniel''s fate, one which could not be changed neither by the white-haired man, nor Daniel himself. That was the power of Fate.

    The dagger, almost as if beyond the shattered space, pierced through it as if made of water, then reached towards his opponent with impossible speed. Right as he was about to strike Daniel''s body, however, what was in the man''s point of view began to change.

    No longer in a patch of shattered space, the man found himself on the surface of a vast. Hispanions were now missing, and In Daniel''s ce, was the first person this man had ever killed.

    While crying in desperation this person kneeled, begging for his children to be spared by the white-haired man''s wrath, as after his death, both his children and world were to follow. The man with white hair, unbothered by the begging, killed the man with the same blow that caused thetter''s world to copse, killing his family with it.

    As he relived this particr moment of his life, the white-haired man looked at his work with pride, as the impression that what he had done was just, was still firmly nted in his head. With pride he recalled his father''s praise for a job well done, the respect of his followers, and thepany of his wives.. But such a sweet memory did notst.

    In a moment, he found himself back at the beginning of his memory. However things were now different, as he was not the executioner anymore, but the one to be executed. With a heavy heart and tears to his face he looked back to his children and friends as they were bound to be killed. When he turned towards the executioner, to continue begging for mercy, he was shocked to discover that the person that was about to kill him was no human, but a pitch ck shadow.

    On this shadow''s figure the white-haired man could feel pride, ruthlessness, hate and disgust.. Feelings that shouldn''t belong to a human, but a monster incapable of mercy. Despite knowing that he had no chance of survival, the white-haired man could not stop begging, as the feelings of his victim''s hope for his children''s survival were as strong as the shadow''s desire to kill.

    As if drinking from ake of poison in hope to quench thirst, the man continued his desperate attempts.. But despite how extreme his sincerity in begging for mercy was, seeding was impossible-As the shadow was no different to him, and of mercy he had had none.

    Unbothered by the white-haired man''s crying, the executioner struck him ruthlessly, causing a st of power strong enough to destroy the, and kill what he felt was his beloved family. In his mind this torture was repeated uncountable times, each time with an alternative scenario which included a different one of the people he had hurt in his life.

    As the white-haired man went through this hell, Daniel stood in front of his motionless physical body, which caged his consciousness and spirit into a never ending torment. Further ahead, the other champions of Fate suffered the same fate, each stuck within their own personal hell, which they had shaped through their actions.

    While very simr to the method Daniel had used to kill the first champion of fate he had ever met, the degree of punishment waspletely different, as its effect was not only to create an illusion in which the target would feel his victims'' emotions before dying at peace, but for it tost for as long as the target had karma to burn.

    With indifferent eyes Daniel looked at the sparks of karmic power around the bodies of the cultivators, which, while impossible to notice with the naked eye due to the sheer quantity these people had umted, he could still feel burn out as fuel for this endless illusion.

    The time all of their karma was consumed, was the time their torment would end, unless another aspect of existence decided to end their suffering through the use of their own power. However, Daniel would not allow that.

    Unwilling to leave the people he had judged for others to rescue, Daniel released a vast amount of karmic power, which immediately epassed the unconscious cultivators. Once fully covered, the bodies of the cultivators became increasingly smaller, until they couldn''t be seen any longer. Now smaller than even atoms, their bodies were carried back into Daniel''s body, where they would reside until their karmic debt was paid in full.

    Alone once again, Daniel went back to considering his options.

    With his universe of origin on its way to copse, and not a life in sight, Daniel had no way to find his friends and family. His only option was to rely on his system.

    In just a moment the thought of locating his friends formed in his mind, however, while a window should have appeared, giving him a path to seed, nothing happened. Surprised by the failure, Daniel tried to reformte the request, yet the oue was the same. With each attempt his nerves became thinner and thinner, until finally, he gave up.

    Now anxious, Daniel immediately tried to check his group system, his personal information, or even the system''s exchange, but no matter how hard he desired for something to happen, the oue never changed. His system had, de facto, stopped working.

    By focusing on his mental fortitude Daniel regained his calm, and tried to recall thest time the karmic system had worked.

    While after the exalted assembly Daniel had decided to retire within his newly acquired universe in order to study the nature of the power of karma, at the time, that research was far from being his priority.. Or at least, not at the level of the well being of hispanions. It was only after verifying his safety, and the immediate safety of his friends and family, that Daniel had moved to Earth, where he had found no need to use his system''s abilities.

    What Daniel had believed would only take a few years, however, took almost two millennia, through which Daniel was so entranced in the workings of the power of karma, that he had gradually forgotten about the existence of a system. Even time, for him, was something he had hardly paid attention to.

    After thinking through uncountable options for what felt like days, Daniel finally started to consider a possibility.. One which he did not like.

    That possibility was that a system, which was gifted by the aspect of Destiny so that a newly born entity could survive until its evolution to adulthood, was not meant for a full aspect of existence to hold, as its power and workings were a gift from Destiny, and did not belong alongside another power of existence.

    If Daniel''s theory was correct, that meant that, now that he had be the aspect of Karma, he had lost his system forever.

 Chapter 570 - The Oriole Behind (Part 1)

    <h4>Chapter 570 - The Oriole Behind (Part 1)</h4>

    Among the first universes to be aware of whaty beyond its confines, as well as of the nature of existence, there was a particrly old one. A universe that was referred to as ''the Bastion.'' This universe, one of its kind in many ways, was considered as one of the very few true seats of power within the multiverse, as in it, resided the domain of Fate, and all of its champions.

    Since the beginning of time, this universe had remained sealed, with the number of entities allowed to travel in and out of it amounting to no more than a hundred people every thousand years. Within this universe, the champions of Fate, who referred to each other as ''seers,'' cultivated in peace while enjoying the privilege of unlimited resources, which were brought to them by subject domains.

    At the very core of this universe, deep into space, was a small ind with an even smaller building built on its surface. Simple in its construction due to how ancient it was, the building only consisted of a single room, and in it, were a round table and twenty seats, all made of pure white stone.

    Rarely used as a meeting point for the leaders of Fate''s domain, this room was usually left unused for eons at a time, leaving the impression to whomever came upon it during their travels through space, that neither the small ind nor the building had any purpose at all.

    At the moment, however, things were different. Surrounding this ind stood guard tens of thousands of white-robed cultivators, while inside the room, no seat was left empty.

    -----

    ".. This is not a simple matter! We can''t expect to find the needle while the haystack is on fire!"

    "You are an old fool! That is our point! We need to stop the fire from spreading first!"

    "What did you call me?! I dare you to repeat that!"

    "Calm! Be calm!!"

    Within the room that for the past hundred thousand years only had silence to offer, white-robed cultivators argued with one another. As their tone became increasingly more hostile and disrespectful, their actions began to carry threats of physical violence, which both sides appeared to be willing to indulge in. If any outsider had seen this spectacle, they would believe these ancient and powerful entities to be a bunch of drunkards, fighting over an unfairly split bill that nobody wanted to pay for.

    Among them, however, were still some who had managed to maintain their calm. Two people who did not appear to have as much interest in the topic at hand, as their mind was otherwise preupied. Had Daniel seen these two individuals, he would have immediately recognized them as the parents of the two champions of Fate he had judged as the aspect of Karma.

    "Lord Baal, I need your support on this, make these fools'' words make sense!" Said a bald old man with a fluffy white beard which floated in the air to match the man''s angered state of mind, to the husband.

    Before the man could speak, however, a second individual with a simr figure, but with a clean shaved face and seemingly never ending white hair, retorted, "You wouldn''t understand sense even if it smacked you in that bald head!" As he finished exchanging insults, the long-haired man turned towards the couple, and while looking at the wife, added, "Lady Rhea, have a go at it, as I feel I can''t discuss any longer with this rabble of idiots."

    Once the two cultivators brought the couple into the argument, the room became quiet, showing how much weight the opinion and words of these two people carried within the domain of Fate.

    Forced to join in, the first one to speak was the olddy, who turned towards her husband, and said, "I agree with them. The chaos we are living in has been caused by the spawn of Destiny. We need to eradicate them as soon as possible.. Only then will the other domains fall back in line, and order will be restored."

    The husband, aware that he wasn''t part of ''them'', responded with a calm tone, "I understand your point. However, I can''t deny the reality. The champions of Destiny are elusive, and of how long it will take us to eradicate them all, there is no certainty. We cannot afford to let the unrest continue growing, we need to enforce order."

    Clearly in disagreement, the woman shook her head. "We need not fear the other domains, for their growth is no threat to us. But we have to stop those monsters, before they grow too powerful.." Responded the woman with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Seemingly unconvinced, the husband stroked his beard in silence for a few moments, then added, "I am afraid the past thousand years of failed attempts have chipped away at too much of my hopes. The efforts of the few domains that have stayed loyal to the hierarchy, have only allowed us to capture a handful of them. Things would be different if we united the entirety of the multiverse once again."

    The discussion, albeit not as animatedly, continued from the mouths of one spouse to the other for what felt like months, with no stop in sight. What caused its sudden interruption was the figure of an additional champion of Fate, a young-looking red-haired woman who barged into the room, and after waiting for the couple to stop talking and for the attention of the champions present to be directed at her, said, "I have important news, high seers."

    Appreciative of the much needed break, the husband, whose eyes met the young woman''s, asked, "Speak then. What is the matter?"

    Clearly terrified, the woman adjusted her posture, and with a trembling voice said, "It is about your son. His fate is.. Gone."

    The cultivators present looked at one another with confusion. In their mind, the words she had just spoken made no sense. Not because she hadn''t spoken properly, or because she had used terminology they were unfamiliar with, but because what she said was impossible. Fate was not something that could disappear.. Not even Destiny, who had been born in contrast to the concept of Fate, only argued about the possibility of fate being changed, not erased.

    Just as confused, the couple closed their eyes, andpletely separated themselves from their surroundings. The surrounding smells, view, voices and noises, nothing reached their bodies as their mind wandered into the depth of their bodies, where a pure white light resided. Once in contact with their own respective lights, the couple looked through the fabric of fate, where the past, present and future of each being or object was written.

    With a hint of anxiousness they sought their child''s state, but while they could still see the fate of their already deceased children, of thest living one, there was no trace. Their youngest, who had left the Bastion a few days back in order to get revenge for histe older brother, had no present or future. No mind to rest peacefully in the underworld, no spirit to wait for reincarnation in the spiritual ne, and no physical remains to find. Nothing was left of him but his past, and hisst memories.. A golden silhouette, and suffering.

    Almost as if shocked awake, the two cultivators sprung on their feet.

    "I agree with your point. Do as you wish." The woman said with a voice that resounded throughout the room right after her body disappeared.. Leaving her husband, and the still undecided cultivators to deal with the domain''s problems.

    Her husband, not as quick to react, turned towards the other cultivators and said, "We will focus on restoring order, starting with our faction''s hierarchy. Once finished, proceed with allied factions, and wait for us before acting against hostile domains. I want to see results in a year''s time.. before that, you are not to seek the two of us. Understood?"

    Shocked by how the couple reacted to what the young woman said, the remaining seers looked at one another with confusion. "What is going on, friend?" One of Baal''s most trustedpanions asked.. His words, however, were left to resound in a room with no listener, as by the time he finished speaking, Baal had already disappeared.

    In the blink of an eye, the two ancient cultivators found themselves at the Bastion''s interdimensional portal, where thousands of cultivators stood guard. Their backs bent to wee their arrival. "Wait, Rhea! Calm down!" Said the husband right before his wife could barge through the portal blue surface. "I want to investigate this as much as you do, but we can''t go at this haphazardly.. Not with the multiverse being in this state."

    With her body oozing a dark red emotional aura, the woman turned around. Tears that threatened to fall down her cheeks welled in her eyes as she said, "Baal.. if our son died, that means we will have lost them all. He is the only one we have left.."

    Usually the more aggressive of the two, Baal had managed to maintain his calm. He floated in front of his wife, and ced his hands on her shoulders, then pushed her body against his chest. As he felt his life-longpanion tremble in anger and fear in his arms, the ancient cultivator looked into the blue portal. His face distorted into a threatening expression, as he muttered, "Whoever did this to us will suffer.. That I promise!"

    -----

    Back in the Trigate, just outside of the portal that led to Daniel''s universe of origin, he stood in silence.

    Ever since he had found out about the disappearance of the karmic system, Daniel had felt his safety disappear from under his feet. While some of his abilities were still usable through the use of karmic power, he had no idea whether the boosts of power the members of his group received, or the changes in his luck, were still present.

    What was worse, however, was losing the ability to create a path towards his goals.. A skill that he required not only to avoid danger, but also to find his family and friends, of whom he did not know either status or location. Luckily, there was still hope for him, as alongside the abilities he had retained after losing his system, Daniel was in possession of knowledge regarding both the champions of Destiny, and the workings of their systems.

    With an idea in mind, Daniel had left his shattered universe of origin, and stopped within the Trigate. He then closed his eyes, and focused entirely on the presence of karmic power. What he was looking for was not a world with a vast amount of karma which could nurture his powers as an aspect of existence, but a source.

    The power of Karma was created by conscious beings, and it lingered around their bodies awaiting for its wielder to use it.. No matter how long that may take. Who was to say that Daniel could not sense it?

    Within Daniel''s mind, uncountable sources appeared. Each belonged to a different person, and had a different size and nature, making them as unique as the people that had created them. Some as small as specks of dust, others as big as stars.. But far too many to count.

    "This isn''t working.." Daniel thought as his brows furrowed. With an even greater degree of focus he adjusted the scope of his search, until finally, these lights began to gradually disappear. In a few minutes'' time, only thergest and most umtions of negative karma were left, while the smaller ones, trillions in number, were nowhere to be seen.

    Satisfied by the result, Daniel opened his eyes, and noticed that each of these umtions of karma was marking a different portal, behind which was the universe that housed its source.

    The ability that many in these troubled times would have deemed as crucial, was something that Daniel had created just now.. A feat not only possible thanks to his powers as an aspect of existence, but also thanks to his experiences with their kind, as he knew more about their character than most.

    Sociopathic in nature, and thirsty for power, these entities roamed their universe while fighting, destroying, and killing. Of their actions, ever since their birth, hardly any would ssificate as a good deed.

    While this was known and useless information for most champions and cultivators, that was not the case for Daniel, as the longer the champions of Destiny existed, the more karma they would umte for him to see. An enormous advantage for Daniel, as finding them was what he intended to do.. To find them, and to force them to create a path to his friends and family.

    To many this might have seemed like a long shot, yet, for Daniel this was his best chance, as his only other alternative was to barge into the domain of Fate, where he knew a champion of Destiny was held captive, and risk an encounter with the aspect of Fate itself.

    Set on his objective, and without thinking too much about how long such a feat would require, Daniel turned towards the closest highlighted portal, and without making a sound, disappeared.

 Chapter 571 - The Oriole Behind (Part 2)

    <h4>Chapter 571 - The Oriole Behind (Part 2)</h4>

    Of all the domains in existence, none was as vast and in possession of as many consumed universes as the Domain of War.. and for a good reason.

    Due to the inherently violent nature of both the aspect of War and its champions, most civilizations which fell under its influence had no choice but to fall under the control of warmongers-People who, through the constant pursuit of violent resolution, had led their subjects, as well as the territories they controlled, to the path of total destruction.

    This violent nature was the reason why the rate of consumption of the universes under the domain of War was the highest within the multiverse, as well as what caused the necessity of the domain to constantly expand, and find new universes to exploit while the older ones recovered. However, while most of these consumed universes lost their importance due to their non-productive state, that did not mean they were uninhabited.

    Forced to experience the destructive effects of tens of thousands of years of uninterrupted world-ending wars, these universes'' survivors would be left with the task of rebuilding their civilizations.. Regardless of whether they were destroyed by revolutions against crazed tyrants, nuclear holocausts, or the decisions of foolish governments.

    In one universe such as these, was a rtively small shrouded in a coat of grey. A color not caused by the dullness of the''s elements, but due to the immense clouds of smoke that circled its atmosphere, and that merged into the clouds with the sole purposes of bloating the sun, and to fall onto the''s inhabitants as toxic rain. The name and history of this had long been forgotten, as none of its culture had survived the wars.

    Among this''s destroyed cities, there was one that was widely known for its brutality. A run-down metropolis whose few survivors did what they could to survive not only the harsh conditions caused by the war, but also other survivors, as being caught unprepared meant living the sorry life of a ve, or worse, ending up in someone''s te.

    -----

    "Keep running! Don''t stop!" Yelled a young woman dressed in a dirty blue-colored tracksuit. She, along with several more individuals, was currently running through the narrow alleys of the concrete jungle in an attempt to avoid their pursuers, who, just a corner behind, appeared to them as a cluster of shades, yellow colored lights, and excited hoarse voices.

    Unfortunately, while experienced enough to navigate the alleys of the destroyed city, the longer this group kept going, the more its pace decreased, as among them not everyone was well fed, or in full health. "I can''t go on anymore.. I can''t breathe." Pleaded a chubby man of simr age while stretching his arms forward, hoping for someone to grab them and pull him forward.

    His hopes found an answer the moment a middle-aged man in military attire grabbed his backpack, which he lifted alongside his body with a strength that defied logic, relieving him of a portion of his weight and allowing him to resume running.

    For several more minutes the group gave all they had to escape a pursuit that never seemed toe closer. One that seemed to have finallye to an end the moment the group of survivors stumbled upon a tall building surrounded byrge piles by rubbles.

    From behind them, no sounds could be heard anymore, a detail which suggested that the party that was chasing them until now, might have given up on their pursuit. Yet, the group did not dare go back, as the path they had taken, albeit long and familiar, had no detours, and would have taken the group right back to the people they had just managed to escape from.

    With no alternative, the group decided to enter the building, where they believed they could hide and rest before trying to find a secondary exit that would lead them out of thisbyrinth of concrete, metal bars, and broken sses.

    "They are not following us anymore.. They must have thought we''ve gone out of reach." Whispered the man in military attire while leaning against the side of the building''s entrance. His eyes pointed at the pathway they had just arrived from, as he scouted for signs of any pursuer.

    Exhausted, the cubby young man took his backpack off, then slouched onto the ground next to the others. "I can''t run anymore.. My lungs.. Are on fire.." he muttered while huffing and puffing. Next to him several more individuals tried to catch their breath while not bothering to hide the signs of fear on their faces.

    "Coming here was an awful idea.. It''s all your fault!" Said a woman in her early thirties to the girl in the blue-colored tracksuit.

    The girl, seemingly uninterested by the woman''s usations, paced around the building''s main hall as if trying to look for something. When she stopped, a momentter, she was standing next to a two foot long piece of rebar, which she picked up and swung in the air a few times to increase her familiarity with it. "I will go look for another exit." the girl said to the man in military attire, who was clearly in charge of her group.

    As the man gave the girl a nod, she turned towards her exhaustedpanions, and with a serious expression, asked, "Anybody who wants to watch my back?"

    Despite this girl''s pleasant appearance being poorly hidden underneath the sweat that stuck her short ck hair to her face, and a set of dirty clothes, she did not appear to have any degree of support within the group, whose members, except for the man in military attire, looked at her with hostility.

    What had caused this hostility was not something that she had done, but who she was.

    Previously a party of survivors that had formed out of necessity, these people had lived together as a group for months now, a time in which they had collected a series of awful experiences caused by this young woman''s presence-A person who, due to her good looks and enviable physique, was at the center of the desires of most of the degenerates they encountered.

    This asion was no different, as the chase had been caused by the refusal of the man in military attire to hand her over as part of a bargain between their group and another regarding food and weapons.

    This reality forced the girl into an awful spot, as she was aware that these people''s nerves would sooner orter reach their limits, and that when that happened, they would either get rid of her, or exchange her for resources. Because of this, she had taken it upon herself to always be the most useful member of the group, as she believed that as long as she was worth more than the trouble she caused, she would keep surviving.

    Unfortunately her efforts were ultimately wasted, as her actions did nothing but convince herpanions that she was expected to work harder topensate for the additional risk she caused, and that she deserved the constant berating. Of supporting her, let alone helping her with any sort of dangerous task, they had long since stopped bothering.

    Already aware that nobody would offer to help, the young girl put down her backpack, and headed into one of the building''s dark corridors.

    As she left behind a room full of hostile murmuring, the girl walked through one dark hallway after another, until finally, several minutester, all that was left for her to hear was silence. Finally alone with her thoughts, the girl was finally able to start observing her surroundings.

    In just a moment she took notice that each door she hade upon during this exploration was either locked, or missing, with the passage being blocked by an insurmountable pile of rubble.. And while at first she did not think much of this, the longer she walked the building''s corridors, the more she felt like a rat stuck in abyrinth.

    For a few more minutes the young girl made her way through several more corridors, all illuminated by the asional flickering light, and with enough broken ss to step on to make her presence known. In her mind the hope of finding a way out was disappearing.. Yet, just as she began considering going back, the now familiar scent of toxic rain drifted through the now visible door, and reached her nostrils.

    Reassured, the girl turned around and prepared to go back to report to herpanions, but right before she could start walking, the loud sound of hurried footsteps came from the buildings'' dark corridors.

    "They found us!" The man in military attire shouted as he and the rest of the group appeared from behind a corner, rushing in her direction as fast as they could. "Start running!"

    Immediately the young woman turned towards the newfound entrance and began sprinting, but, s, her hopes of getting out of this situation alive started falling apart as she noticed a lone figure standing by the entrance.

    With his appearance hidden by a full body bike armor and a gas mask, this stranger held a machine gun, which he immediately pointed at the group of fearful individuals that came running in his direction. When the young girl expected him to start shooting, however, he did not. Instead, he removed his left hand from the gun''s handguard, and with it reached for something behind the door, which he then pulled on with a swift motion.

    Following the man''s actions, the door closest to the back entrance opened, revealing a mechanism controlled by a string that reached all the way to his left hand. With his now free hand the man pointed at the open door, inside which the young girl and the rest of the group ran into without second guessing him. Behind them, the door closed just in time to muffle the sound of shots being fired.

    *Pah! Pah Pah Pah! Bratatat!*

    One shot became ten, and ten became thirty. From behind the door the group of survivors could hear the noise of rounds being fired taking over their pursuers'' crazed screams, indicating that these bullets were rapidly finding their targets.

    After an interminable minute, the sounds of shots finally came to a halt, revealing an eerie silence that was periodically interrupted by the sound of footsteps.

    *nk* The door once again opened, revealing the figure of the man in bike armor who stared at them without uttering a word. "Come with me." He said a few momentster before turning towards the exit and walking off, not even giving the survivors a chance to respond, or to thank him.

    The survivors, stuck in an unknown ce that had now be the center of attention of any raider or criminal within a two miles radius, decided to follow the man. In their minds, even if they couldn''t trust him yet, they would at least follow him until he would take them out of thisbyrinth of rubble.

    -----

    For what felt like hours the group walked through alleys and edifices, until finally, they reached an enclosed area between rtively intact buildings. In it, around a hundred individuals were working on erecting walls, clearing the buildings'' interiors from rubble, unloading trucks of provisions, and nting seeds on flower beds.

    To the group of survivors this view appeared like a mirage, as seeing such a well organized and flourishing group within the hellish city they lived in, was no different than finding a source of water in the desert.. Yet, as stroking their eyes did nothing to change what was in front of them, they realized that what they were seeing was real.

    "The yard is a bit cramped, but we make do." Said the man in biker armor before hanging his rifle strap to his shoulder, and reaching for the gas mask. He then removed it, uncovering the face of a handsome man in his early thirties. With his scruffy beard, messy brown hair, and valiant eyes, he appeared like a modern hero.. eager to rescue poor people from danger. "Feel free to upy any empty room you find, we have water to clean yourself and food to share for dinner.. just ask any of the good people here. I would give you the tour myself, but I am busy now. We will talkter." He then added before offering a brief smile, and walking away, almost as if unwilling to suffer the burnt of the curiosity that the group of amazed survivors was oozing.

    Starstruck by this man''s appearance, as well as by the stablemunity he had taken them to, it did not take long for most of the survivors to let their guard down, and allow themselves to be taken away by one of the members of thismunity to wash up before supper, to which they had been invited with more kindness than they had ever seen in months.

    The girl in the blue tracksuit, too used to being alert of her surroundings, looked at the soldier with suspicion. It had not escaped her attention that this hidden base was at the very end of a path that led straight into a raiders'' base. How they had not been discovered yet, she could not help but find odd.

    Unfortunately, be it due to fatigue, or the illusion of having found somewhere to lower his guard, the soldier decided not to entertain the girl''s suspicion, and said, "I know what you''re thinking.. But that guy could have killed us too if he wanted. If things don''t add up, we''ll leave after getting a night''s rest and putting something in our stomach.. God knows we need it."

    As the girl and the soldier talked, the man in bike armor observed them from a distance.. In his clear eyes a golden hue had, at some point, appeared.

 Chapter 572 - The Oriole Behind (Part 3)

    <h4>Chapter 572 - The Oriole Behind (Part 3)</h4>

    Despite the reassuring words of the one and only person she hade to trust in the past several years, the girl in the blue-colored tracksuit could not shake off the feeling that something was wrong with this settlement.. A feeling which she could not put into words, but that made her ufortable to the bone.

    Unfortunately, as she was quite often made aware of, her position within the group of survivors was precarious to a point where most of its members would refuse to lend an ear to begin with. She did not doubt that, had she shared her concerns with any other member of their group, she would have spent the following few minutes bearing that person''s sharp insults, and scowling look.

    Still concerned, yet with no leg to stand on, the young girl followed the soldier, and together they joined the rest of their group as they were led to the bathrooms, where they were told they could clean up before dinner. While quiet, within the girl''s mind formed various ns regarding how she could verify whether this was just a normal settlement, or whether she was up to something.

    Twenty minutester.

    While most of the survivors took their time in the bathroom to enjoy a luxury they had not been able to experience in decades, the young girl had not. Last to enter, yet first to finish, the girl had showered in a hurry, put her clothes back on, and left the building in order to investigate the settlement.

    The moment she stepped out of the building, she was once again caught unprepared by the odd sight. The farmers and builders had now stopped working, and were now busy carryingrge rectangr tables and chairs which they then ced around arge campfire. The reddish hue of its lively me danced around therge cauldron ced on top of it, and merged with the sky''s color, as dusk had fallen.

    Most of these people, while clearly tired, appeared to be in high spirits, as if they had been looking forward to dinner for the entire day. Yet, the girl immediately noticed that something was amiss. No children nor women could be seen, just the men and the elderly, who smiled politely at her the moment her eyes met theirs.

    Curious about it, the young girl decided to approach a scrawny old man who was sitting next to his elderly wife, and asked, "Excuse me, why are there no women or kids?"

    Seemingly at a loss for words, the man looked at hispanion with a serious expression, a reaction which the girl found odd.. Yet, before he could say anything, the olddy smiled, and responded in his stead. "We don''t usually eat in the yard, just when we have guests for dinner. They are probably ying inside, waiting for the tables to be set." She said while gently nudging herpanion, who confirmed her words with a faint nod and a smile.

    "Okay, thank you." The girl said before walking off.

    For the following few minutes she walked around, offering to help in the preparations of the banquet.. But her offer was firmly refused each time it was extended. This helpful behavior, however, allowed her to explore thepound without being questioned, or at least, until she came upon a wooden door locked by three different locks, and two chains that formed arge x.

    What made this door stand out was not the fact that it was locked so tightly, but the faint noises that came from the other side.

    With their origin clearly far away from the door, these noises reached the girl in the shape of a muffled sound, whose nature she could not make out. With no other option, she pushed her upper body forward and ced her ear against the wooden door, in an attempt to hear more clearly.. But she was quickly stopped. "What are you doing?" A voice that came from behind her suddenly asked, catching her by surprise.

    Feeling a shiver run down her spine, the girl sprung back on her feet, and turned around with as much elegance a mannequin could muster. "Wh-what? Nothing. I was just walking around, and heard a few noises." She said to the person who had just spoken, a person whose appearance she couldn''t make out due to the reddish sun''s brilliance shining in her eyes.

    With a quick motion she raised her hand against her forehead, casting a shadow that stopped the light from blinding her. It was then that she noticed that the person who had just stopped her in her investigation, was the young hero who had saved her and herpanions.

    Not anymore d in bike armor, the man now wore a simple shirt and ck pants, which gave him a more amiable, and less threatening appearance.

    After catching the young woman snooping around, the man''s lips pursed, as he struggled to suppress a smile. He then pulled a small key out of his pocket, and without saying a single word, unlocked each of the locks that kept the door closed shut, and pushed it open for her to see.

    What appeared on the other side of the door was a thin and long corridor, at the end of which was a rtively big yard where a few pigs rolled around in the mud, and chicken roamed while pecking at the floor. "..''Tis where we keep our livestock." He said as the young girl looked on in amazement. The war that had ended their world had happened more than twenty years back, and she had never left the city. Of pigs and chickens, she had only heard stories.

    As she unconsciously walked towards the animals, the young man stopped her, closing the door and locking it once again. "Sorry, they cost us a pretty penny. We only let our farmers handle them." He said before turning towards the middle of the yard, where a pile of stic chairs was lying about. "If you are looking for something to do, help me out here." As he finished speaking, he grabbed half of the chairs that were stacked on top of one another, and started walking towards the tables, ignoring the young girl who, feeling that she had no other choice, grabbed the remaining chairs and followed suit.

    As the young girl helped her rescuer, and the two managed to spend some time together, she quickly came to understand that not only was the man''s appearance charming, but his personality as well, as he would answer patiently each of her questions and doubts, only leaving out details which, in case the group of survivors turned out being hostile, would put his settlement in jeopardy.

    The two talked through dusk and into the night, when finally, an old woman rang arge bell, calling for everyone toe to dinner.

    In just a minute, a hundred people poured out of the buildings, among them women, children, and the sick, whom the young man had imed were in no condition to work. Alongside these people were the group of survivors, who, at some point, had merged into the settlers. Of their rough and anxious appearance nothing remained, but a rxed and jovial expression.

    Among the crowd a few words were exchanged while the new arrivals took their seats at the tables, which were ced in an almost full circle around the fire. In the middle of this semi-circle, was the seat of the young hero, whose name the girl found out was Elijah. "Sit here, Brie." he said to the young girl, whose suspicions had been reced by admiration.

    As everyone took their seat, Elijah stood up, and by raising his hand he asked for a moment of silence. "It is always a cause for celebration to find good souls.. Especially in these dark times. I cannot express how happy I am to see that humanity has not lost their hope for survival, and that even outside of our home, good people live on. But enough of me ruining the mood, let''s eat!" He said before raising his cup, and downing his drink, which contained nothing but water, as alcohol they had none.

    In response to this toast, the entire crowd raised their cups, and like the young man, downed their drinks. To the young woman and herpanions, it was clear that this toast was not made as an excuse to drink, but in hope to cheer the spirits of the settlers-an action that raised Brie''s opinion of Elijah.

    After the toast, an olddy walked out of one of the buildings, and headed for the tables. Instead of taking a seat, however, she walked past the openings between tables, and towards therge cauldron. With her mitt-covered hand she removed the cover, revealing a vegetable soup withrge chunks of meat, which she immediately began to stir with vigorous strokes of her woodendle.

    As the smell of the soup drifted towards the guests, causing their mouths to water, the olddy grabbed one te after another, filling them with soup and cing them in front of each person. Once everyone got a serving, the group started digging in.

    For several minutes the crowd became quiet, as each person was more interested in the delicious food on their te, rather than talking. The same went for the guests, who had spent too long eating expired canned meat, or the tough and toxic flesh of the fauna that, years ago, had started to pour into the city.

    The only ones who had yet to start eating were Brie and Elijah.

    While Brie was eager to dig in as much as her cubbypanion, who was scooping and swallowing as if there was no tomorrow, she was stopped by the sight of Elijah, who, instead of eating, looked at the crowd with a content expression. "Why aren''t you eating? It will get cold." Brie asked.

    Her words seemed to miss the man''s ear, as he appeared entranced by the view in front of him, which he enjoyed with eyes gleaming of a golden hue. "Beautiful." Elijah muttered as his body began to tremble in what looked like excitement. "Do you, too, find it beautiful?" He then inquired.

    "What is?" Brie asked, unsure of what the man could be referring to. To her eyes, the man was staring at a group of people eating to their heart''s content. His reaction, however, made her ufortable.

    Earing her words, Elijah''s satisfied expression morphed into an ecstatic grin, which he showed her by turning his head almost mechanically.. "If you could see it with my eyes, you would find this beautiful too, I am sure." He said while reaching for the girl''s chin with his hand.

    Brie, now alerted, immediately tried to move away, but she soon found her body to be stuck in ce. Her voice refused toe out, as she tried to call for her group in desperation.

    Elijah''s handnded gently on the girl''s chin, which he moved to the left, right, then up. With eyes filled with lust, he looked at the girl''s body, which he moved and touched however he wanted. Before he could go too far, Elijah let go of the girl.

    "I am getting ahead of myself.. There will be time for thatter.. But first, I''ll let you take a gander at this beautiful spectacle." He said before moving his face up to the girl''s, who could do nothing to fight back as the man''s tongue emerged from his mouth, and stroked against her cheekbones, eyeballs, and up to her eyebrows. Frozen in fear Brie began crying, but just as she thought things couldn''t be any worse, as Elijah''s face moved away, she noticed that her surroundings had changed.

    While thepound was the same, that was not the case for everything else. The women, healthy men, children and elderly had disappeared, and in their ce were now deformed and dirty men, who chewed eagerly on their food, which, to her, appeared different. No bowl of warm soup could be seen on the table, just tes stuffed with chunks of odd looking meat.

    With her body still locked in space, she pointed her eyes down at her te, and what she saw terrified her to the bones. On her te was what looked like a portion of a child''s head, split diagonally, with his eyeball still hanging out of its socket, and his tongueying onto a barely cooked hand.

    Filled with horror, Brie looked at herpanions who, inexplicably, dived into their ''food'' with relish. "AAAAHH!" She screamed as her body regained the ability to move. She sprung up on her feet, and backed away from the table,nding against the door Elijah had opened for her a couple hours before. This door too had changed, as no locks were present, nor chains.

    As Brie''s backnded against the door, the door opened, revealing what was hidden inside.. A group of dirty women and children, beaten, abused, and mutted, all cramped into a corner with empty expressions and eyes devoid of emotions.

    "Isn''t it beautiful?" Said Elijah, whose voice sounded like that of a demon. He stood right behind Brie, whom she looked down at with lustful eyes, unbothered by the horrific sounds of teeth crunching human bones that came from behind him. "I quite like you.. I might keep you for a while, and have some fun." He said right before reaching for her with his blood-soaked hands.

    "So it is depravation..." A disembodied voice said to Elijah''s ear, as an overwhelming feeling of doom washed through his body.

 Chapter 573 - The Oriole Behind (Part 4)

    <h4>Chapter 573 - The Oriole Behind (Part 4)</h4>

    To a champion of Destiny, the word danger did not possess the same meaning it did for everyone else. To them, rather than being something to be feared, danger was a simple bump in the road. A rock they had to walk around to avoid and move on with their lives, as the power to work around all types of danger was built within their very existence from the moment they were ced into their host.

    This particr difference in views not only allowed the champions of Destiny who managed to survive to be extremely powerful entities, but also made them into beings whichcked the instinctive fear that any other animal, mortal, or cultivator possessed.. Or at least, that was what Elijah thought.

    At the very height of his depraved spectacle, a voice had reached his ear.. One that not only revealed immediately his most well-kept and important secret, which he had fought to keep hidden for close to three thousand years, but that had also presented him with a gift. That boon was the sense of fear a mortal would feel when facing an undefeatable, and inescapable opponent.

    This voice, he found out by slowly turning his head around, belonged to a figure of pure golden light, who stood casually behind him. This person was, of course, Daniel.

    What followed his appearance were a few moments of silence, which Brie, still horrified by the uncovered surroundings, spent ncing around while in panic. Her wide-opened eyes moved randomly, trying to avoid the worst of it, and only stopped as they finallynded on Daniel''s figure. Her heart started pounding in her chest as she noticed Elijah''s bloody hande to a halt a few inches away from her throat.

    Ironically, Elijah was experiencing the same feelings Brie was, as he did not dare to make a move while in Daniel''s presence. However, that did not mean he had given up. What his naturepelled him to do, instead of responding the way a prey would to a predator, was to rely on his system, on which he immediately focused in hope to find a way out.

    Before he could, however, Daniel''s terrifying voice once again began to resound in his ears. "Go ahead and try it.. I''ll let you." He told him, as if predicting Elijah''s intentions.

    More fearful than ever, yet slightly relieved to be allowed to ess his lifeline, Elijah formted a thought, which to many others could have been tranted as ''get me the hell out of here''.. He then waited for his system to generate a way for him to survive this encounter. Used to an immediate response, Elijah''s heart started to sink, as his most reliable tool had remained quiet, telling him that of escaping this predicament, there was absolutely no chance.

    While in this situation many would have fallen on their knees, and begged for mercy, that was not the norm for a champion of Destiny. After all, had there been hope for mercy, his system would have told him to do just that. Apleteck of response meant that he had no chance of escaping no matter how long he waited, or what he did.

    If that was not enough, he could feel that the power emanated by Daniel''s body was not that of a cultivator, but that of an aspect of existence.. Too vast and powerful to fight against.

    "Go ahead.. You are free to try anything." Daniel said with a calm, almost gentle tone. His eyes were, like Brie''s, pointed at his surroundings. At the bloodied walls, the abused people locked in the room behind the scared young girl, and the people who, unaware of what was happening, continued to dig into flesh and chew through bones without a care in the world.

    While aware that he had no real chance of escaping, the moment Daniel''s golden eyes moved away from him, Elijah bolted in the sky and escaped through space, covering hundreds of thousands of miles in the blink of an eye, and immediately left the area that Daniel''s senses could reach.

    Surprised by Elijah''s speed, Daniel was reminded of how much the universe had changed. Many times before he had encountered other champions of destiny, yet none had the cultivation Elijah possessed, as it wasparable to that of a cultivator who had lived and cultivated for millions of years. In fact, Elijah''s cultivation was so high that, had Daniel not been an aspect of existence, he doubted that he would have been his match.

    After Elijah left the gxy, the illusion that had clouded the minds of the people within thepound disappeared, and they regained their senses.

    With confused eyes they looked at their blood-covered surroundings, but all they felt was confusion, and difort, as most of them had their mouths filled with warm fluids, and half chewed meat. "AHHHHH!" A horrified shriek pierced their ears, forcing the group of men to turn in the direction of the chubby young man, who was nowying onto his tipped chair as he stared at his tter with horrified eyes.

    In response to the young man''s scream, the other men looked at his te, then theirs, where half chewed remains of human origin rested. What followed was an uproar of immense proportions. Those who did not scream cried, and those who were too shocked to cry tried to force their fingers down their throats in hope to spew what they had eaten.

    The only one who had somehow regained her calm was Brie, as she found Daniel''s presence, as well as the reaction his appearance had on Elijah, to be somewhat calming. "Wh-what is g-going on?" She asked while still trembling.

    Bothered by the constant screaming, Daniel waved his hand casually, releasing a small fragment of his power in the surroundings. In a moment his essence wafted into the entirepound, like an unavoidable mist that reached every nook and cranny. Whatever this power touched, was affected by it. The people, no matter if injured or in a panic, were fully healed and brought back to a calm state of mind, the blood that painted the walls immediately evaporated, and the human remains left on the tes and cauldron turned into dust, disappearing from everyone''s sight.

    Once the surroundings were cleared, and the minds of the people forced into a calmer state, his power turned into time essence, locking in ce the entirepound but Daniel, and Brie.

    The reason why Daniel had not stopped Brie was not because he couldn''t, or because he cared to talk to her, but because of the nature of the karma that surrounded her.. As she was the one and only person in this entire city to possess karma of a benevolent nature.

    Surprised by this, Daniel decided to spend a moment answering her question. "Nothing out of the ordinary, in my eyes." He said while looking up at the spot in the sky where a couple of minutes ago the champion of Destiny had disappeared.

    Realizing that Daniel had no interest in exining further, the girl asked, "He seemed scared of you.. Why did you let him go?"

    For the first time Daniel showed the parvence of a smile. "Who said that I let him go?" He responded before snapping his finger, causing a human-sized rift to open right next to him. From this rift dashed out the figure of Elijah, who had crossed the rift and appeared right in front of him without even noticing.

    While surprised, Elijah was still a very old and powerful cultivator. It only took a moment for him to realize that it was part of Daniel''s power to locate his position, and that was what made his escape impossible. Yet, he was not ready to surrender, as surrendering was not within the nature of a champion of Destiny.

    After abandoning any ns of escaping, Elijah could only turn to the one thing he knew.. His system. The moment his eyes regained the golden hue characteristic of a champion of Destiny, something changed within Daniel.

    Usually calm and collected, Daniel noticed his breath quicken, as his attention was caught by Brie. Unconsciously, thoughts of how pretty she looked, how nice her figure appeared, what kind of noises she would make if he forced himself on her, or what the taste of her flesh and blood was like, had started appearing in his mind. Each thought more depraved than the other, and too strong even for his mental fortitude to stop.

    Seemingly entranced by the girl''s figure, who was pressed against the wall, terrified by Elijah''s reappearance, Daniel approached her with eager steps. His hands unwilling to wait any longer moved towards her, causing the already terrified Brie to shriek in horror. Right before he could touch her, however, Daniel''s hand stopped, and with no apparent reason, Elijah fell on his knees while staring at the ground with a nk expression.

    In the eyes of anybody else, the man had just fallen while in a trance, but in Daniel''s eyes, what happened was different. The unparalleled amount of negative karma which encapsted the entire city due to the sheer amount, had now attached itself to the person who had produced it, and that person, was none other than the owner of the depraved system.

    He kneeled as a statue of pure gold as his karma slowly yet inevitably forced its way inside his body, burning his mind with the memories of the countless lives he had destroyed.

    As this happened, Daniel, once again in control of his body, did not retract his body. Instead, with a now rxed andposed demeanor, pushed his arm forward, until the tip of his finger touched Brie''s forehead. From the tip of his finger emerged what for him was a negligible amount of essence, but that contained the methods to cultivate the spirit, body and mind, to reach immortality, to ascend into true immortality, and to breakthrough into the godhood stage.

    Able topletely understand the content of what Daniel had just shared with her, Brie looked at him with gratitude, as she realized that with this information, she would? be able to find happiness, and no longer have to struggle to survive the day. "Why?.. Sir?" She asked timidly.

    Daniel turned towards Elijah''s limp figure, grabbed him by the throat, and lifted him off the ground. "You deserved it." He then said before his body separated itself from the ground, and like a lightning bolt, shot in the sky, leaving the group of survivors to find their will to survive despite all the macabre actions they had been forced to perform.

    As the soldier, the chubby young man, and everybody else tried toe to terms with what they had done, they felt a powerful winde from Brie''s direction as, without her noticing, Daniel''s essence had forced itself into her body and refined it to the point of ascension to immortality. In their mind, they could not help but wonder who the young-looking man that had put an end to Elijah''s horrifying act was.

    -----

    Far away from the destroyed, in a remote segment of space, Daniel sat casually on top of an asteroid. In front of him, the limp figure of the champion of Destiny, who had now experienced close to a hundred thousand of the lives he had taken, but from the point of view of the victim. Every abuse, every torture, murder.. He begged for each one to stop, but every attempt was received with the same look of ecstasy he had stered on his face while performing them.

    As the number of lives he experienced reached the hundreds, Elijah could only think of how to escape this nightmare. At the thousandth, he internally screamed for Daniel to have mercy on him-By the ten thousandth, he would have taken his own life if he could.. When the number reached the six digits, his mind had finally broken. Not a single hope or desire of escaping was left in his mind, just an absolute feeling submission.

    "If one day this hell will have an end, I will turn my life around.. I do not wish to visit this ce again.." He repeated over and over again, thousands, millions of times.

 Chapter 574 - A Shared Destination

    <h4>Chapter 574 - A Shared Destination</h4>

    After what felt like hundreds of years of unbearable torture, Elijah was finally pulled out of his personal hell. As he regained his senses, he found himself kneeling in front of Daniel. "How long was I in there for?" He asked while using a small portion of his essence to rehydrate his wide-opened eyes, and mouth.

    "Five minutes." Daniel responded with a casual tone.

    His response had a clear effect on the champion of Destiny, who had been forced to experience unspeakable suffering at the expense of only five minutes of his time. As he swallowed a mouthful of saliva, and began to sweat, he could only imagine what would have be of him had Daniel chosen to continue that torture for hours, or days.

    "What do you want from me? Why am I not dead yet?.." Elijah muttered. The nature of the aspects of existence was not a mystery to him, nor was their dislike of his kind, hence why he couldn''t understand why this young-looking man had decided to torture him, instead of outright erasing his existence.

    Unwilling to beat around the bush, Daniel finally turned towards him, and said with an authoritative tone, "You will use your system to find someone for me."

    Elijah was taken aback. While most champions knew about the mysterious powers of Iewah''s spawn, the exact nature of a system was still unknown. For Daniel to know about the existence of his system, urately guess its nature, and be aware of its most important feature, Elijah could tell that either the aspects of existence were more conscious about his kind that he realized, or that Daniel in particr was very well informed. However, that was not the moment to act surprised. "And if I were to help you.. You will let me go?"

    It did not take long for Daniel to understand what Elijah meant. While submissive, a champion of Destiny was still a champion of Destiny. To get a favor from them with nothing in return was not unlike trying to squeeze blood from a stone. However, while this reaction was understandable, Daniel could not help but feel annoyed by the man''s actions, as he did not want someone to strike a deal with, but someone who''d obey him for as long as he wanted, before killing them.

    "How long, would you say, it would take you to reach the interdimensional portal from here?" Daniel asked as his eyes were pointed at a nearly invisible light in the distance.

    A look of puzzlement crossed Elijah''s face. He turned towards the direction Daniel had pointed out, then scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders. "At maximum speed, a week, perhaps?" He responded.

    The moment the word ''week'' came out of his mouth, the color on Elijah''s face disappeared. His pale skin began to tremble, as his voice struggled toe out of his mouth, "NO!! WAIT!! I''ll do it right now, just tell me who it is that you want me to find!" He pleaded to an unbothered Daniel, who looked back at him with a chilling gaze.

    "A week it is, then." Daniel said as the karmic power around Elijah once again attached itself to his kneeling figure, sending him back into a trance. The painful experiences of his victims resumed, forcing him to experience all the pain he had caused, yet from the point of view of his victims.

    As Elijah''s torture resumed, Daniel grabbed him, and took off for the interdimensional portal, a voyage that, at his current speed, would take them exactly a week, not a minute longer, or less.

    ¡ª--

    Daniel''s universe of origin.

    Within the shattered universe that once housed Daniel and most of his friends and family, was now nothing but uncountable shards of solidified space, which grinded, ripped, and shredded every sort of matter within its confines, including each other.

    A universe that had once been abandoned for who knows how many years, since shattering, it had only received two visits. One, from Daniel and the champions of Fate he had punished with the use of his abilities, and the second, from an old couple, which was currently standing within its inhospitable environment.

    "I can''t perceive any fate other than the universe''s." Said Rhea, the old championess of Fate, to her focusedpanion.

    With a nod that confirmed her conclusions, Baal closed his eyes, and expanded his nearly infinite essence throughout as much of the universe as he could reach. "The report was correct.. His spirit was not in the spiritual domain, and his consciousness was not resting in the underworld. This is thest ce he visited, ording to his fate.. Yet of his body there is not a single trace."

    Her husband''s confused tone added to the woman''s restless state of mind. After millions of years spent in control of even the most insignificant of things, not being able to know whether herst living son was dead or alive, was the most exasperating feeling she could have possibly experienced.

    As she struggled to control her emotions, her husband remained calm. He turned towards her and said, "We know he came here to kill that little pupil of Karma-but in here, he couldn''t have had his Lord''s support.. So how did he fail?"

    "Support from the champions of another domain?" Rhea asked.

    Baal shook his head, dismissing his wife''s guess. "No.. I have already checked. No one''s fate was to meet our son in this shattered universe. His opponent was alone." He said with a matter-of-fact tone. He then looked at his surroundings, as if trying to find the clue that was within his head, but that he was struggling to catch on."

    As if on cue, a moment of realization struck the olddy. She immediately turned towards herpanion, and asked, "Isn''t this the universe where thest batch of? champions of Destiny came from?!"

    "It is!" Baal blurted out while looking at his surroundings. The only powers present within the universe were the one that prevailed despite the shattering of space, and those were the aspects of Conclusion, nurtured by the universe''s copse, and the aspect of Conflict, to which this universe used to belong to.

    While it was not odd for the power of conclusion to be there, the presence of the power of Competition indicated that this universe once belonged to his domain, just like the domain from which thetest batch of champions of Destiny hade from.

    "But why would that brate here?"

    The olddy, aware that they were on to something, added, "I thought there was something wrong with that kid. You don''t think he could have been.."

    Before she could finish speaking, her husband interrupted her. "No. We started the hunt in front of him. If he was a champion of Destiny, the Seeker would have noticed him. If he came here, it was to meet someone. Someone that might have escaped before the universe shattered."

    As her calmerpanion considered the possibility that Daniel could have friends and family he hade back to, Rhea''s mind started running amok. The people her husband spoke of might not be tools she could use to find out what the fate of her son was, but at least, people she could take her revenge on.

    "When a universe copses, its poption is taken out in batches, and moved into other universes within the same domain." Baal said with a matter-of-fact tone. "One of those batches will have someone who shared with him a moment within the tapestry of Fate.. But getting to them will take time."

    Almost too eager to check, Rhea nodded in agreement, and once again focused on the brilliant light within her body. Before she could start searching, however, she was stopped by her husband''s words, which ringed in her ears clearer than ever. "Remember why we are doing this. It is only because there is a chance he may still be alive, that I am the calm one."

    These few words seemed to have a calming effect on the olddy, who quickly set her priorities straight.

    ¡ª--

    One weekter.

    After seven long days of traveling through space, and past uncountables destroyed by war,? Daniel''s journey had finallye to an end. He now stood in front of a massive water-like portal, waiting in line for his turn to go through. Next to him was the soulless figure of Elijah, who, only minutes ago had been taken out of what to him felt like tens of thousands of years of uninterrupted agony.

    In his nearly broken mind, thoughts of escape or defiance could no longer be found. Only a numb submissiveness which he demonstrated by patiently waiting in line next to Daniel, without daring to utter a single word.

    After a few hours spent witnessing millions of ships, massive tamed beasts, and floating continents dash into the portal, their turn to pass finally arrived. ''Which domain do you originally belong to?'', ''What domain are you nning to visit?'', ''What was the reason for your visit?'' These were a few of the questions Daniel and Elijah were asked, but while the former answered them all patiently, thetter remained quiet, repeating Daniel''s answers whenever he would be asked directly.

    Soon, finding no problem with Daniel and his dull and dispiritedpanion, the champions of War allowed the two through.

    Following a few instructions, the two finally managed to go through the interdimensional portal, and found themselves back within the Trigate, where uncountable cultivators could be seen going back and forth between universes.

    "Make a path to the people I want to find." Daniel ordered, unwilling to specify whether his people were friends, family, or just acquaintances. He did not wish to give Elijah more information than he needed, as while he could send him back to his personal hell at any moment, he still needed him to be his guide. Who was to say during that time what information he would share with who?

    Seeing his very specific request, Elijah was once again shocked. How could Daniel know that the systems formte missions by using their wielder''s intention, and not their words? While surprised, Elijah did notg behind, and immediately followed Daniel''s instructions. He formted the mission the same way Daniel had asked him to, and in a moment, a window appeared within his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: A Mean to an End*

    -Description: Locate the people of the aspect of Karma.

    First objective set: Gain ess to Conflict''s domain.

    Reward: Temporary Survival / Pleasure +??

    Time limit: 12 years, 1 month, 4 days.

    ____________________________

    As Elijah observed the mission window, Daniel quietly invaded his mind with his essence. His goal was to verify whether his mind power would allow him to see a mission formed within the mind of a champion of Destiny, but he was soon disappointed, as he found Elijah''s mind to bepletely nk.

    "I am waiting." Daniel muttered after a few minutes.

    Shaken awake, Elijah blinked several times, then refocused on the task at hand. "I have done as you''ve asked. Your.. group, is within the domain of Conflict. That is all that I know for now. I will know more the moment we enter one of their universes!" Elijah said in a single breath with a hurried tone. It was clear to Daniel that the wielder of the depraved system was unhappy with the mission''s vagueness, hence why he tried desperately to justify himself.

    Naturally, Daniel was more than aware of how vague the system''s missions were, so he knew that killing Elijah was only something that he could do after finding his people. Yet, he had no reason to show himself satisfied. Instead, he let out an irritated scoff, and turned towards the universes that belonged to Conflict''s domain.

    "You will live for as long as you remain useful to me. Now move, just looking at you is irritating me.." Daniel growled before bolting in the direction of one of Conflict''s universes.

 Chapter 575 - The Right Path To Ones Goal

    <h4>Chapter 575 - The Right Path To One''s Goal</h4>

    Despite how simple it was for Daniel and Elijah to approach the universes that belonged to the domain of Conflict, gaining ess to them was a whole different story. The two had spent the days that followed their departure from the domain of War trying to mix with the visitors of Conflict''s domain, but entrance for them was always denied.. with no exception.

    Unfortunately, this rejection was not caused by something they had done, or that they could avoid doing in the future, but by the domain itself, which had been sealed for anyone who did not possess the mark of Conflict. In each of these failed attempts Daniel and Elijah questioned why they were unable to gain ess, and by piecing together a few of the vague answers they had received, they finally understood the reason.. And it all started with one event Daniel had been part of.

    While his encounter with the leader of the Blood sect had been the very first time his universe of origin had experienced something that came from outside its boundaries, that was not the most meaningful moment in its history. Much more important than that, was the moment where various aspects of existence had perceived their individual powers prevail from the rest, and had begun a power struggle to gain the universe''s control.

    At that time, only four mid-low ranking universes had taken part in thepetition, but right when their pettiness and stubbornness was about to cause the destruction of the universe, the aspect of Conflict, an entity with a powerparable to Fate itself, had taken over it, making Daniel''s home a part of its domain.

    This event seemingly had no effect in the lives that inhabited it, but that changed when Daniel''s father-inw, Edmund, had ascended to high immortality. This ascension had granted him a peculiar ability, one that allowed him to shift between universes at will, without needing to restrict his power, or go through the trigate.

    His inexperience with this ability had caused his encounter with the leader of the Blood sect, who took an interest in this power, and decided to visit their universe in an attempt to acquire it. To protect Edmund, Daniel had fought and defeated the leader of the Blood Sect, opening his home universe to a much vaster reality.

    After Daniel, branded with the legacy of the Blood Sect, left his universe, its inhabitants were left to adapt to the changes, and so did the champions of Destiny that still roamed it. These champions, now aware of a much bigger stage topete on, decided to leave the universe they were born into, and explored, conquered, and killed throughout its boundless confines.

    When yearster the Exalted Assembly happened, the various domains hade to the conclusion that a new batch of the feared champions of Destiny had appeared, and agreed to eradicate them from the source. What they did not expect, however, was for the universe they came from to be part of the domain of Conflict. A domain that belonged to an entity that had made itself known for being impartial to the conflict between Fate and Destiny.. To a point where he would protect its domain from their dispute regardless of what the wishes of the multiverse, or its brothers and sisters were.

    It did not take long for this decision to cause the entire multiverse to be an enemy of the domain of Conflict, and for thetter to seal its borders, denying entrance to anyone who did not belong to it.

    ¡ª--

    "This is infuriating!" Elijah said as the fifth domain they visited denied them entry. His fists tightened and his teeth gritted, but not for the anger he was feeling, but for the prospect of having to go back into the hell Daniel had put him through for what he felt were tens of thousands of years.

    Forced to witness Elijah''s umpteenth failure, Daniel gently shook his head. "I am starting to re-evaluate your worth.." He said with an indifferent tone which, in contrast with the faint ck aura that emerged from Daniel''s body to express his anger, felt more terrifying than ever.

    "I-I-I w-will find a way.. If I was g-given a mission, there has to be a way! T-these things take time.." Elijah said in between stutters.

    Suddenly Daniel''s enraged aura dissipated, and his usual indifferent expression showed something beyond the aloofness Elijah was now used to seeing. It showed confusion. "Have you ever tried asking for options?" He inquired.

    At first Elijah''s expression matched Daniel, as he did not immediately understand his words.. but as he made sense of his question, and tried it, his face suddenly morphed.

    His narrowed eyes opened wide, threatening to pop out of their sockets-much like those of a fish.. and his lips, once curved into a feigned smile, parted, creating an opening big enough for him to fit half of his fist in. In his mind several more windows had appeared, each proposing a different path to seed in the mission, all with a different time limit, instructions, and additional rewards.

    Seeing Elijah''s face, Daniel immediately understood what had happened, and for a moment, he almost couldn''t fight the urge to p his own forehead. Elijah''s expression spoke by itself, showing Daniel that the former was clearly unaware of this function. For Elijah to have survived this long without abusing this feature, Daniel could only exin it in two ways.. He either was extremely lucky, and that did not appear to be the case, or he had avoided the dangerous missions, and opted to increase his strength by fulfilling the requirements of his depraved system while in istion.

    "This is amazing!" Elijah shouted as his entire mind power focused on every word and punctuation written on the three windows. His excitement, Daniel found to be very simr to that of a dog after being given a new chew toy.

    While Elijah would have loved to explore this ability further, his trance was interrupted by a sharp pain that came from his left cheek. A pain that dissipated his mental power, and forced his consciousness to merge back into his body. His eyes were aimed at Daniel, who did not appear to have moved, while his hand was holding his swollen cheek. "So?" Daniel asked, almost as if pretending not to have pped him.

    Unable to retort, Elijah could only swallow his pride and show an appreciative smile. He then said with an enthusiastic tone, "Thank you for showing me this. The amount of mission I had to aba-" His words were stopped by a feeling identical to the one he felt in his left cheek, but that now came from the other side.

    "Focus." Daniel said after pping Elijah once again.

    One thing worth pointing out to anyone who was willing to fight a champion of Destiny, was how thin their patience was. Used to fighting with one another, the purpose of their existence was to prove to each other who was the strongest, and to grow to the state of an aspect of existence.. To be pped repeatedly was an insult none of them would have chosen to bear over death, and that was the case for Elijah as well. Nevertheless, he didn''t, as he knew that the consequences of doing so with Daniel were not as simple as dying.

    Forced to swallow his pride, Elijah once again focused on the option given, and calmly repeated them to Daniel.

    "It says that we can force our way in, but we will have to wait three years for the strongest champions to leave, or we will be overwhelmed. Another option is to enter the universe from a connected shattered universe, but that will elerate the copse of the stable one.." Elijah exined diligently to an almost uninterested Daniel.

    As he was about to take a moment to discuss his preference towards the second option, Elijah remembered Daniel''s quick hands, so he decided to continue instead. "Ourst option is to rescue a group of champions of Conflict who have been captured by the domain of Equilibrium." He said to a now pensive Daniel whose train of thoughts he did not dare to interrupt.

    Unwilling to cause the fall of a universe just to gain ess to the domain of Conflict, or risk having to face an armyposed of the domain''s strongest champions, if not Conflict itself, Daniel saw only one option. "Tell me more about the third one."

    ¡ª--

    Trigate, interdimensional portal to Conflict''s domain.

    While Daniel and Elijah struggled to gain ess to Conflict''s domain, that was not the case for the two old champions of Fate, Rhea and Baal.

    "Are you sure you want to do this?" Baal asked hispanion. After tens of millions of years spent together, it was not strange for him to be able to read every one of Rhea''s emotions, and at the moment, on her face, he could see that she was focused, fearless, and determined to a point where he doubted she understood the level of opposition they were bound to face.

    What confirmed Baal''s guess, was ack of response from Rhea, as she was too focused thinking about finding what had happened to her child, rather than n their next move.

    With nothing more left to say, the two approached the interdimensional portal, and soon enough, they were stopped by a group of cultivators. In the bodies of these cultivators was hidden a chaotic and archaic power, one that was in constant motion even when left unused, as if unwilling to sit still, and eager to collide with the very atoms that surrounded it. This was the power of Conflict.

    This group of cultivators immediately recognized the old couple from the very distinct power of Fate hidden within their bodies, but while the former''s power was vastly inferior to thetter, the guardians did not show any sort of reverence towards them. "The portal is locked, you will have to go back." Said their leader, an immensely powerful old man with a voice that resounded through space like ripples on the water''s surface.

    For as angry he was about his son''s disappearance, Baal had gotten used to the loss, and thanks to that, he had managed to maintain hisposure throughout this hunt.. But, s, that could not be said for his wife. Before he could attempt to reason with these champions of Conflict, and explore a more peaceful resolution, the old woman darted forward with a golden jian in her hand, swinging it in rapid session.

    Unprepared by this attack, the champions of Conflict let their power explode forward, hoping that the aggressive nature of the aspect they represented could protect them from the flurry of blows. But, while their hopes were urate, their gift failed to meet the power of their enemy.

    Almost as if guided by Fate itself, the shes of the woman moved around the waves of the power of conflict, navigating through it like an expert seaman in a formation of protruding rocks. Soon after, these shes found their targets,nding squarely on their bodies and viciously ripping them into pieces.

    Once dead, without skipping a beat, the old woman marched towards the interdimensional portal alongside herpanion. In a matter of? seconds, the two found themselves within the domain of conflict, and in front of him, millions of champions, all as powerful as the few cultivators they had just killed.

    "This is not going to be easy.." Said Baal as he reached for his stomach pit. With two fingers he pinched his skin, then pulled his hand outwards. What was pulled from his chest, however, was not his skin.. but a golden dao. Slightly longer and heavier than his wife''s jian, but just as dangerous.

    With their target ready to engage in battle, the army of champions of Conflict prepared to attack, but before the leaders of the army could start the charge, each champion of Conflict bent forward in a show of reverence. The target of their reverence was the middle-aged man that had quietly appeared in the space between them, and the old couple.

    This man sent a shiver down the back of the two champions of fate, who struggled to keep their eyes open due to his presence. This was a feeling they were very familiar with, one they had experienced the very few times they had had the privilege of meeting their high lord Fate, one of the highest members of the pantheon of aspects of existence. Yet, the power emanated by this mancked any of the familiarity Fate''s power possessed.

    "It is an honor to meet you, high lord Conflict.." The two said in unison.

 Chapter 576 - Broken Balance

    <h4>Chapter 576 - Broken Bnce</h4>

    As the old couple bowed in respect, the middle-aged man looked at them in silence. In his presence, none of his champions dared to utter a single word. They all knew that, had the aspect of conflict wanted to hear them speak, he would have asked for it.. Yet, he never did-he just observed the two invaders, quietly.

    The first one to interrupt this silence was Baal. "High Lord, we were not expecting to be blessed by your presence." He stated after a few painfully long minutes of unnerving quietude. His tone was more respectful than it had ever been before, for he knew a word too many could easily end both his existence, and that of his wife.

    Baal''s words seemed to fall on deaf ears, yet, right as the deafening silence was about to resume, the lips of Conflict curved into a faint smile. "Little liar.. Of course you did. Not many of his toys, has my brother asked me not to break." Conflict jeered with an arrogant tone. While devoid of any form of respect, his voice was not as overwhelming as his bearing, nor did it hurt the ears of those who heard it. In fact, it sounded much like that of a mortal, who spoke softly, from a distance of a few steps.

    Nevertheless, while quiet, these words could be heard throughout the whole universe as clearly as if spoken right next to one''s ears.

    In front of Conflict''s seemingly calm behavior, the old champions of Fate did not dare rx. The two of them had met their high lord in the past, and they knew that calm had two different meanings for a mortal and an aspect of existence. While a mortal would assume calm was a state of mind, for an aspect of existence calm was theck of an emotional response. They were aware of the fact that the man who stood in front of them was calm not because he wasfortable with their presence, but because they were nothing to him. A thought, a breath, a blink and they would cease to be, never to be part of anyone''s thoughts ever again.

    Knowing this, Rhea, who was in no state of mind to behave in an overly polite manner, let her husband Baal do the talking. He, aware of the abyss of hostile power they were facing, had steeled himself to never lose hisposure, nor rx for a single moment. "High Lord, we are not here on my Lord''s request, or the domain''s necessity. We came to take care of our personal business."

    The smile on Conflict''s face deepend. "I hope it is important business. Your lives depend on it." he said, almost as if amused by the words of the old man.

    Baal did not share this amusement. Instead, he felt an overwhelming sense of doom looming over his and his wife''s heads. The next few words were thest ones the aspect of existence would tolerate. "The most important business of our lives, my lord. We are here for conflict." Baal sighed before slowly closing his eyes. If that was thest moments of his life, he did not wish to spend them looking at his wife being killed in front of his eyes.

    While the two expected for their lives to be snuffed, however, that never happened. Instead, they heard a faint voice reach for their ears, dering, "The only valid reason." This short sentence was thest one spoken, before silence took over once again.

    Baal, relieved by learning he had spoken the right words, slowly opened his eyes, and noticed that not only his wife was fine, but that the aspect of existence, as well as his enormous army, had disappeared, leaving them their permission to roam the domain.

    For someone who did not require breathing to survive, Baal took a deep breath, which he hoped could help him rx, and maybe allow his hands to stop trembling. "Rhea, you are a better seeker than I am.. Find our target. I don''t wish to stay here any longer than necessary." He muttered.

    Rhea was in no better state of mind, as she too could feel the pressure the aspect of Conflict brought with him.. Luckily, the anger and anxiousness she could not repress helped her retain a higher level of control, which allowed her to regain herposure faster than her husband could. With a moment''s notice she focused on the light within her body, on which she directed the entirety of her consciousness.

    As she did so, she immediately noticed that something was wrong.

    While the power of fate given by her high lord was still present within her body, it was not part of her whole anymore. Instead, it was now hidden within a thinyer of chaotic and aggressive energy which pushed her consciousness away whenever she attempted to make contact with it.

    "I.. I can''t. My gift is sealed." The old woman told her husband, who looked at her with confusion.

    Surprised by his wife''s words Baal made a simr attempt, but with no higher degree of sess. "Of course it is." He growled in irritation "Who knows how long it will take us now.." While the fact that two champions of Fate had been left to wander an enemy domain was notpletely unheard of, the two had never expected that an aspect of existence could seal Fate''s gift with their own power, as that had never happened before.. An interference that could have possibly dyed their mission indefinitely.

    "I don''t want to give up." Rhea snarled as a pitch-ck emotional aura began to ooze out of her skin.

    "We are not giving up." Baal responded. He then turned towards the empty space, where his boundless essence could feel the presence of many powerful champions of Conflict, and added, "Come, there has to be a record of the refugees of shattered universes."

    ¡ª--

    "Are you positive this is the ce?" Daniel asked a restless Elijah, who kept fiddling nervously with the hem of his blood-stained shirt.

    Since Daniel did not make a secret of the fact that he valued Elijah''s cooperation more than his life, thetter could help but feel that his future was a grim one. Mercy was not a quality that many of the aspects of existence shared, and that was the reason why Elijah had decided to indulge in his desires quietly, on a scale so small that anyone would hardly notice.

    Yet, in his eyes, Daniel was too powerful. Too powerful to escape, too powerful to refuse carrying out his demands, and too powerful to see Elijah''s existence as something worth the bother of sparing once his usefulness would inevitablye to an end.

    "Yes.. The champions of

    onflict are in there.." Elijah acknowledged with a detached tone while pointing at a small asteroid, on which a thousand men in cultivation attires carried the unconscious bodies of several others.

    In Elijah''s mind the fear of going back to his personal hell had begun to fester, making him numb to his surroundings, as well as the current mission. He was like an exhausted animal, forced to walk and carry its owner''s carriage, but aware that whaty at the end of the road is not food and rest, but the butcher''s de.

    Irritated by Elijah''s state of mind, Daniel forcefully injected a portion of his mental power into his body, but while that helped the former go back to his senses, a clear mind did nothing but entuate Elijah''s understanding of his situation.

    Seeing as Daniel could do nothing to lessen Elijah''s fear, he gave up trying. "Since we are here, the option should have been updated. Read it to me." He ordered in an attempt to shake the fear-inducing thoughts off of Elijah''s mind. Luckily, with the help of Daniel''s mental power, the champion of Destiny was finally able to focus.

    Once again he focused on his system, and a momentter, a window appeared in his mind. "Rescue the members of Conflict''s domain." Elijah read out loud.

    Once again irritated by him, Daniel grabbed Elijah by the cor, causing the champion of Destiny to be caught by surprise. "I told you to read the update to me! The next objective!" As the former wielder of one of these systems, Daniel knew perfectly how they worked. Many times before he had followed a system''s instructions, and he knew for a fact that they were much more specific than Elijah made them sound.

    As he heard Daniel''s words, however, instead of going back to read once again, Elijah''s brows furrowed and his upper lip twitched, morphing his expression of surprise into one of confusion.

    Unwilling to argue with his captor, Elijah pointed his finger at an empty point in space, where a momentter appeared a nut-sized sphere of light formed by Elijah''s essence. Once this light was formed, Elijah used his finger as a pen to transcribe the content of the small window that had appeared in his mind, not leaving out a single letter, line, orma.

    While written in Elijah''s originalnguage, Daniel could immediately tell that the window of the depraved system was identical to that of the karmic system.. And that if there was a difference he was unaware of, that could have only been in writing.

    In just a moment Daniel absorbed Elijah''s first memories.. The ones that depicted the times when this monster was but a powerless toddler, who listened to the spoiling words of his noble family and servants who taught him how to read and talk.

    Once able to understand Elijah''snguage, Daniel quickly read through the mission windows, but while he was expecting it to demonstrate the former''s ipetence, it left Daniel confused instead. The quest was not as specific as the ones the karmic system used to give Daniel, as many of its details were hidden under question marks and vague indications.

    Elijah had guided Daniel the best his system had allowed him to, taking him into the lower domain of Trade, where therger contingent of champions of Equilibrium had fought and captured the small group of champions of Conflict, before escorting them back onto their own territory.

    Seeing as the depraved systemcked the details his system had, Daniel came to the conclusion that more than just the system''s nature changed, and that there was nothing either him or Elijah could do but improvise.

    Set on rescuing the champions of conflict, Daniel approached the moving asteroid, causing the champions of equilibrium to take notice of their presence. Immediately they reacted, releasing vast amounts of a power that felt frail, yet essential. This power fit the surroundings perfectly, incorporating every other form of power it came in contact with, and oppressing it into submitting to a state of pure equilibrium.

    The moment the power of the champions of equilibrium was released, the battle had begun.. With no words being wasted.

    Equilibrium''s champions, who were all experienced fighters, turned into bolts of light in the blink of an eye, and dashed into space, splitting themselves into different groups. The vanguard, armed withrge shields and swords shot in Daniel''s direction, ready to deflect the attacker''s blows.. Behind them, an infantryposed of spearmen readied themselves to throw bolts of pure space-shattering energy through the small gaps of theirpanions'' defenses, while far in the back archers and gunners sent a constant suppression fire to disturb the opponent''s actions.

    Each of these cultivators released the power of Equilibrium, which strengthened as the groups made use of their roles and weaponry to form a perfect synergy.

    While impressive, this spectacle did not stun Daniel, who, aware that he could not win with his cultivation alone, had no choice but to rely on his powers as an aspect of existence. Luckily, each of these cultivators had done enough to earn vast amounts of karma, be it negative, or positive.. And while his powers could not punish someone with a positive karma, he could at least distract them long enough to kill them with his inferior powers.

    With a n in mind, Daniel immediately tried to take over the specks of golden light that surrounded these cultivators, but quickly realized that something was wrong. His eyes opened wide as he felt the fragments of karma be stuck within the veil of power of equilibrium, which, in a moment''s notice, had strengthened to an impossible degree.

    "A deity facing mortals.. There is a limit to how broken I''ll permit the multiverse''s bnce to be.." Said a disembodied voice that resounded throughout the whole universe.

 Chapter 577 - An Equalizing Force

    <h4>Chapter 577 - An Equalizing Force</h4>

    "A deity facing mortals.. There is a limit to how broken I''ll permit the multiverse''s bnce to be." Said a disembodied voice that resounded throughout the whole universe. One that did not only shock the champions that were in fighting positions, but also their opponents, Daniel and Elijah.

    Following this simple sentence was the appearance of a woman with short ck hair, and dressed in an overly long, almost transparent white dress. She had materialized in the space above the soon-to-be battlefield, from which she stared at the two invaders with an aloof expression that betrayed the slight anger present within her voice.

    While devoid of any form of cultivation, this woman did not appear to have any problem surviving in open space, in which she floated by keeping her hands by her sides, slightly separated from her waist, as if she was an acrobat standing on a rope and trying to keep bnce. Her legs, on the other hand, were crossed, with her left leg going behind the right one, allowing for her left foot to hook around the right one.

    Despite this being the very first time both Daniel and Elijah had met this woman, both of them had immediately realized who she was. To Elijah, she appeared as a superior entity, a whole of what he was only halfway there to be. Her peculiar power, both shaky and on the brink of falling apart, and as stable as a mountain, roamed around her body with no beginning and no end, as if she was the power herself.

    To Daniel, however, this woman appeared in a different light. While in possession of the same power that was hidden within his opponents'' bodies, yet in an infinitely higher amount, what gave her identity away was thepleteck of karma attached to her body, a detail that to him was more telltelling than the familiarity her unknown power made him feel.

    Before either of the two could guess her identity, however, the cultivators who were on their way to attack Daniel and Elijah stopped their advance, and bowed low enough for their bodies to reach a ny degree angle. "We greet ourdy, Equilibrium."

    Thedy did not acknowledge her champions. Instead, she kept observing the figures of Daniel and Elijah, an aspect of existence and a champion of Destiny, two entities whom she did not expect to be a part of the same team. "Chaotic and unpredictable.." she muttered while staring at the two. In her tone, Daniel and Elijah could feel a purposefully unrestrained hint of hostility.

    Immediately, Daniel understood why Equilibrium felt the need to oppose him. Despite hisck of power, he was still an aspect of existence, one whose capacities amon cultivator could not fight against. For him to fight against her mortal champions was too vast a vition of her nature to stand. But, s, Daniel was very conscious of his powers, which, contrary to the other aspects of existence, he was in charge of developing, instead of being born within an already developed version of it. Needless to say, he was no match for this gentle-looking, yet openly hostiledy.

    Unwilling to start this fight, Daniel adjusted his posture, and after clearing his throat, said as arrogantly as possible, "I do not care for your followers, I am here to recover Conflict''s little ones." If Daniel had any hope of surviving this encounter, he had guessed that his best bet was to pass as a regr aspect of existence, in which case arrogance was more regr than respectfulness, or kindness.

    He had hoped that rifying his intentions would prevent the current situation from escting any further, as he had felt first hand the difference between his power and that of his opponent, which he instinctivelypared to the difference between a stream and an ocean. Unfortunately, he soon realized that that was not the case, for he had underestimated the depth to which the concept of equilibrium was rooted within the woman''s mind.

    "Your presence alone already breaks the bnce." Equilibrium retorted as her voice became louder, and even clearer than before, showcasing how unimpressed she was with her peer''s words. Her body, on the other hand, did not move.

    Although for Daniel this was a dire situation, that was not the case for Elijah.

    While he was sure that the aspect of Equilibrium saw him as someone who had to be destroyed at all cost, Elijah did not fail to notice that dealing with Daniel was the entity''s first priority.. To a point where his presence had fallen in the background. As he realized this, in a mind otherwise filled with thoughts of despair, fear, and surrender caused by the grim future that awaited him the moment his usefulness ran out, a glimmer of hope started to form.

    "I-I have no stake in this.. He is my captor, and I, a prisoner useful only for the system I possess." Elijah said while slowly backing away.

    These words caused Daniel, Equilibrium, and the whole crowd behind her to turn their eyes in his direction. While confusion was the prevalent expression within the group of champions of Equilibrium, anger and shock were the ones that marked the faces of the two aspects of existence.

    Daniel, enraged by Elijah''s betrayal, immediately took a hold of the karma that surrounded his body with the intention of pulling him back into his personal hell, but before he could aplish that, thetter''s karma was blocked in ce by Equilibrium''s powers, which formed a malleable yet unbreakable barrier around his body.

    "What is your rtionship with the aspect of Karma?" Equilibrium inquired while slowly floating closer to Elijah.

    The interest of the powerful aspect of existence washed through Elijah''s body like a sip of fresh water, reinvigorating his mind and spirit. In a moment, he began spilling everything he knew, "I met him less than a month ago.. He had the ability to pinpoint my location precisely, and a knowledge beyond my own regarding the gifts of Destiny."

    As he finished speaking, Elijah turned to look at Daniel, who was now conflicted on whether to insist in his actions, or to try to salvage the situation once Elijah stopped talking. However, in the fashion of a champion of destiny''s cunningness, thetter did not give him the chance. "He is also in possession of a mortal''s cultivation. I have witnessed it." Elijah added, dealing thest blow.

    Seeing how Equilibrium turned towards himself with squinted eyes, it became clear to Daniel that Elijah''s words had helped the immensely powerful woman realize something he had never wished to be revealed. "You.. abomination!.. Your existence is an insult to Fate. I will rectify this mistake myself!" She barked out through her curled lips, angered by learning that Daniel was what her faction within the pantheon of aspects of existence had spected about, and hoped would nevere to be.. An evolved champion of Destiny.

    With nothing else left to say, she instantly collected the power of equilibrium present within the entire universe, and solidified it around Daniel''s body, mind and spirit, trapping him within it.

    Unable to react in time, Daniel could only observe as the world around him changed.

    Every fiber of his being was quickly detached by the universe he was standing in, and in just a moment, he found himself within a negative space. A white universe which contained uncountable ck dots which shined dark light from every direction. In the ce where the aspect of Equilibrium stood, was now a massive scale, as big as a, and pure gold in color.

    As Daniel saw this scale, he felt the pressure of everything within existence, but rather than weighing on him, this pressure was split evenly into two, each part resting over one of the two tes the scale was holding. Initially, both of these tes appeared empty to Daniel''s eyes, yet, the more he observed them, the more he felt that the entire multiverse bnced itself on them.

    Employment and remuneration, a man''s valiance and a woman''s elegance, the filled and empty sides of a half empty ss.. the separation between sses, peasants, nobles and royals, mortals and deities.. Each of theseparisons, along with infinite more, depicted the natural bnce of things, both solid or fragile, yet impossible to break, and all parts of the multiverse''s equilibrium.

    As Daniel experienced the bnce of allpeting influences, his mind was slowly drawn to the scale, from which he felt thepulsion to get closer. For the first time, Daniel felt that his mental fortitude was useless, as the negative world around him was able to twist and stretch his consciousness as if he had left it unguarded.

    Time itself seemed to distort.. stretched and crushed by the odd nature of the negative universe, and making the few moments Daniel spent in it feel like both instants, and eons at the same time. When a few interminable minutester these influences dissipated, Daniel regained hisposure. As he did, however, he realized that he was not standing in the empty spot of space he had upied until now anymore, but floating on top of one of the scale''s tes, on which he slowly started to descend on.

    Once his feet came in contact with the te, Daniel noticed the space above the opposite te change. In its otherwise milky white color uncountable images appeared, depicting worlds ofmon mortals, societies of cultivators, ecosystems of beasts, demons and monsters. Every form of life Daniel had ever encountered would make its appearance within this morphed space, lending its weight to the other side of the te, which added up to the value that opposed Daniel himself.

    While the opposite te supported the weight of life and civilization itself, however, the only te that was pushed down was Daniels, as the importance of his existence alone, in the grand scheme of things, was of a vaster magnitude that anything present on top of the other te.

    The te on which Daniel stood slowly yet inevitably continued its descent, until finally, a few secondster, the absolute bottom was reached.

    Disturbed by this imbnce, the scale began to shake uncontrobly, cracks appeared on its surface, and pure golden light started to shine through each of them. However, despite all the cracks and signs of copse, the one to suffer from it was not the negative space, nor the scale.. But Daniel.

    From the very moment the first crack had appeared, a pressure had appeared on Daniel. A power that came from each direction, forcing itself against his body,pressing it, twisting it, and morphing it into unnatural shapes. "AAAAARGH!" He cried as his body went through the unbearable torture, one of the mind, body, and spirit. His voice, however, could not emerge from his mouth, making his scream of agony could not be heard.

    This pressure became sharper the more the cracks widened, and stretched through the scale''s surface, multiplying the pain Daniel was feeling by how many times longer and wider each crack became.

    This torture continued for several increasingly more painful minutes, after which, Daniel could not bear it any longer, as he felt every part of his being begin to fall apart. His mind, body and spirit separated on the te, and each reacted to the pain differently.

    His body quickly began to dry up, his hair fell, his skin turned to dust, followed by his flesh and blood. His spirit, unable to bear the imbnce''s pressure, desperately sought thefort of the spiritual world, and his mind, now unable to form a simple train of thought, ceased any form of resistance, bearing the full brunt of the pressure in hope to find a quicker release before reaching for the underworld.

    As Daniel''s very existence was annihted, and his pained moans died in his throat, hisst thoughts focused on the things that, to him, mattered the most. A few faint faces appeared within his now unstable mind, feeble voices rung in his ears.. Yet, nothing more. No time he had to reminisce about his past, not before the pressure reached the peak.

    Unable to bear it any longer, Daniel''s body was vaporized, and his spirit was blown out like a candle fire. Only a fragment of his mind, the most resilient of the three elements of his being, had yet to fall.. Leaving him only enough sanity to realize that his death hade. Momentster, like an ember left at the mercy of a cold night, Daniel''s mind followed suit, and began falling into oblivion.

    "This is yourst chance. Find bnce within yourself, and I will take care of the rest.." said a disembodied yet familiar man''s voice that breached the dampened space as if it did not possess restrictions at all.

 Chapter 578 - The Cost Of Survival

    <h4>Chapter 578 - The Cost Of Survival</h4>

    The clear and familiar voice reached the deepest part of Daniel''s mind, and with enough punch to shake him awake from the panicked state he was in.

    With a now clearer head, Daniel did not bother guessing to whom this voice belonged to, and focused instead on the words the voice carried, as he knew he only had the strength left to focus on either one of those tasks. "A bnce.. Find a bnce.. The bnce within yourself.." he kept repeating over and over again in his mind, almost religiously.

    As he focused thest bit of his consciousness intoprehending the meaning of these words, Daniel started engaging in introspection.. Seeking the imbnce that his very existence could have generated, and that was now killing him.

    Thankfully, Daniel did not need to dig too deep to find an answer, as despite the immense amount of pain he was feeling, he was not stupid. He had lived his own life, and he was very conscious of the unfair advantages he had enjoyed during his brief, yet eventful journey. In less than a minute, he came to the conclusion that there were three major elements of his existence that could have been the cause for such an imbnce. His path of cultivation, his attachment to mortals, and finally, his karma.

    Ever since Daniel had begun cultivating, his path had been innovative and unique.

    Starting with a dual cultivation of powers that his primitive world had deemed impossible to be developed at the same time, following up with the adding of the third path of human cultivation, the mysterious path of mental cultivation, and finishing with merging the three parts elements of cultivation, his mind, body and spirit into one true power. This path had made him more powerful than any other known kind of cultivator, and was worthy of being considered as the true path of cultivation by anyone who was lucky enough to be instructed in it, or unlucky enough to face it in battle.

    While his cultivation could have been considered as a cause of imbnce within the multiverse, however, many would have thought of it as the natural consequence of incredible luck, and uncountable exploited opportunities. What nobody would have denied, on the other hand, was how unfair the attachment to certain humans was for a deity such as himself.

    Despite Daniel having lost a great amount of his ability to express his emotions when trying to ascend into the realm of an aspect of existence, his love for his friends and family was still rooted deep in his heart-a love that could notpare with the preference any other aspect of existence reserved for some of their most well deserving champions, and that was deep enough for him to break any rule his peers had ced on their kin.

    In a multiverse where most deities treated their subjects like chess pieces, some of which were more useful than others, Daniel was a crazed yer, willing to destroy the board and ruin the game to save any of his pieces from being taken..

    Had Daniel had more time, he would have delved deeper into the magnitude each of these elements had affected the multiverse''s bnce the most, but, s, time was running out. The white light produced by the negative universe around him was starting to get extinguished, overwhelmed by the dark spots of light that grew in size at a speed visible to the naked eye.

    "Sshz.. shh.." he hissed, angered by the feeling of powerlessness that had taken over his proud mind. The dejection he experienced was a feeling he had long since forgotten, one that reminded him that no matter how much more powerful he waspared to the beings he once feared, he was still far from being unmatched.. As bing the strongest amongst mortals hade to the cost of bing the weakest among deities.

    The already unbearable pressure kept increasing, and weighing on his feeble mind the way a mountain would rest on top of a child''s head. Shapeless cracks formed, rippling in his consciousness like electricity in the water.. "AAAARGH!!.. Screw this!" He yelled before gathering the veryst thread of mind power he was able to control.

    With little to no time left to hesitate, Daniel reached for his cultivation, a stable blend of spiritual essence, ki, and mental power that formed the most stable immortal essence known in the cultivation world. The thread of mental power reached for the core of this fusion, and wrapped itself around the three powers-then, without hesitation, began to pull on each side.

    Immediately, these three powers began to separate. A fiery red power, strong and resistant, a white sand-like power, both light and heavy, and a green-colored wind, feeble yet undaunted-These powers were pulled apart, forming the shape of a triquetra, with each power separated, yet still trying to maintain their merged status at the core, where they struggled to resist the pulling force.

    This struggle, unfortunately, went against the will of its owner, and soon yielded. *SPAH* With a loud snapping sound, one that only Daniel''s ears could hear, the three powers split apart, and he knew, even without checking for himself, that they would be forever. As a feeling of sadness started to emerge within Daniel''s spirit, however, the pressure produced by the imbnce he had caused in the multiverse, and that was now weighing on what was left of Daniel''s body, a few shards of his bones, and an almost invisible spirit, had significantly decreased.

    As the pressure on his body, spirit and mind eased, Daniel looked at the powers within his body- At his once whole and iparable cultivation that nowy broken, split into the three essences it was once made of, which struggled to stabilize themselves under the pressure of Equilibrium''s power.

    Despite the pain Daniel felt for the loss of his unique cultivation, he knew that the time to weep was far away, for he was not safe yet. The pressure was still slowly, yet inevitably downing on him, pushing down in an attempt to erase his existence, and once again bring the world to a state of equilibrium.

    With not much time left to spare, Daniel focused on the power of karma within him, and rxed. Soon after, what was left of his body and spirit began glowing of a pure golden light.. On their surface, an uncountable number of small lights had formed a thinyer of karma, which quickly began to shed away like a reverse snowfall.

    Bit by bit, one by one, Daniel rejected his karmic bnce, erasing it from existence as if the actions that had caused its birth had never happened. If still in possession of his system, had Daniel checked his personal window, he would have noticed the amount of karma in his possession being lowered at an incredible speed.

    The reason for burning his own karma was simple. Daniel was not someone who had to be judged by karma, for he was karma itself. Having his life judged by Karmic power did nothing but ce him at the same level as everyone else, turning him from an impartial judge, to a biased one. As a paragon of positive karma, Daniel was both the aspect of Karma, as well as a good-natured being that was in charge of punishing those who opposed his ways.. And that was a source of imbnce within the multiverse.

    What Daniel got rid of when burning his own karma, was not the consequences of his good actions, but his liberty to take part in the fight between good and evil in the future, for he was not a participant, but the arbitrator.

    As thest bit of karma was expelled by his body, and burned to nothingness, the pressure that was weighing on him was once again reduced by a great degree. Nevertheless, while not even a thousandth of its original might was left, the pressure still existed, showing Daniel that despite his drastic measures he had taken to restore the equilibrium that his existence had distrubed, he was still a step away from seeding.

    While most would have rejoiced in knowing that they were moving in the right direction, that was not the case for Daniel. He had epted the loss of his karma and cultivation, two parts of him he was still willing to part from.. However, the fact that he was still in danger meant that the problem was more deeply rooted than he had hoped, and that the imbnce that was killing him, was likely to be tied to the very least part of him he was willing to separate from.. His rtionship to mortals.

    To which degree Daniel''s rtionships were a damage to the multiverse''s equilibrium, he did not know. Was his survival only possible at the cost of his memories? Was he bound to let go of his humanity? These questions filled his mind, prolonging the pain he had been forced to endure to the maximum extent he was allowed to, before drawing hisst breath.

    Time slowly passed as Daniel considered whether a life without the connections he had built, was worth keeping.. A question to which he could not find an answer to.

    It was only several minutester, when the moment of his death approached him, leaving him no choice, that Daniel once again focused his mental power, and began digging into his memories.

    The first connections to be torn away were those he shared with the civilization he had built, and the world he hade from.. To the millions of people his cluster ofs had housed, people who had embraced his way of life, and had decided to submit to a life more benevolent than most others within the universe.

    What followed was the removal of his connection to the members of his group. People who, for the years that had followed the start of his path of cultivation, had started to follow him, and enforce his way of life under the guidance of Daniel''s friends and family. Thousands in number, people whom Daniel had not had the chance to build a personal connection with, but people he felt proud about nheless.

    As his connection to these people was erased, Daniel''s spirit began to shake. Around its feeble shape, and what was left of his physical body, a bluish aura began to emerge, one that conveyed the extreme sadness he was feeling. A sadness not only caused by what he had just done, but was he had yet to do.. For the pressure of equilibrium was at its weakest, yet still there.

    In spirit Daniel felt sick.

    As an illusion of nausea and migraine took over his mind, and his spirit wept the loss, Daniel''s mind power reached for the core of his spirit, where his deepest feelings of belonging and love resided. Then, without bearing to look, he ripped them away, erasing forever thest connections he had to mortality.. And to his teachers, hispanions, his sister, his wife, and his children. Of them, only the memories of a past life remained, memories he felt did not belong to him anymore.

    Once thest of these connections was severed, Daniel, who had awakened from a sense of extreme sadness that had been suddenly cut short, felt the te under his feet rise. Bit by bit his body was elevated, stopping only once the two tes were once again at a level of perfect bnce. Of the pressure that had threatened his life, was nothing left.

    Immediately, Daniel''s body began recovering. His spirit, body and mind regenerated separately, and were united as three different paths of cultivation that were forced into an harmonious state, yet not whole anymore. As his body finished reforming, Daniel closed his eyes, and felt the changes within him.

    These changes, for him, were as clear as day.

    While his immortal power was but a fraction of what it was before, Daniel felt that his identity as an aspect of existence had been purified. The power of karma, which he had believed to be limited by the restrictions ced by the other aspects of existence in separate universes was now flowing into him in higher amounts and purity, increasing his powers of karma by a thousand fold, and pushing him closer to the power of a regr aspect of existence.

    This increase in power came as a pleasant surprise to Daniel, as opposed to the losses he had incurred, for which he felt nothing.

    When Daniel opened his eyes, he wasn''t standing in the negative world any longer, but in the domain of Trade, where he and Equilibrium had met what, to him, had felt like an eternity ago.

    With rxed eyes, Daniel looked around, and soon realized that close to no time had passed since his entrapment. Next to him was the figure of Elijah, who witnessed his awakening with horrified eyes, while in front of him were the aspect of Equilibrium, and her champions. While both Elijah and the champions were focused on him, however, Equilibrium was looking elsewhere. Specifically, at a middle-aged man who had appeared in the battlefield without anyone else noticing.

    Both Daniel and Equilibrium instantly recognized this man, as they both had met him before. Living as a deity among deities, venerated as one of the few high lords in the pantheon, peer of Fate and personification of one of the primordial aspects of existence... The aspect of Conflict.

 Chapter 579 - Trapped In A Web Of Conflict

    <h4>Chapter 579 - Trapped In A Web Of Conflict</h4>

    As Daniel stared at the middle-aged man with narrowed eyes, Equilibrium''s attention was split between the two. On one hand, she couldn''t understand how Daniel could have managed to erase the imbnce his existence had created, while on the other, she could not exin the reason for Conflict''s presence.

    Nevertheless, regardless of her surprise, Equilibrium did not lose herposure. She nodded faintly as she uttered, "It is always nice to see you, Brother." Hidden deep within her tone Daniel could feel a hint of fear, one that wasn''t hidden beneath the skin, but deeply rooted in the deepest parts of Equilibrium''s existence.

    The short-haired woman, while clearly fearful of Conflict, did not dare show signs of submission, because while she was only the owner of a high domain, she was under the umbre of Fate-A being that, within the pantheon of aspects of existence, was on par with the entity that stood casually in front of her.

    While the aspect of Equilibrium was focused on him, however, Conflict''s attention was focused on Daniel, whom he looked at with a faint grin. "Your kind always shows so much promise, yet they always failed me.." He said while sparing a nce at Elijah. As he looked back at Daniel, the grin on his face deepened into a satisfied smile, and he added, "But you did not.. You made it."

    Every word Conflict spoke seemed to bring him an increasing sense of excitement, which he did not bother to hide. This excitement was apanied by the unconscious release ofyers afteryers of a power, which was poured out his body like water, but that solidified the moment it encountered any form of foreign essence, which it immediately crashed against, and broke apart.

    This was not the first time Daniel had met Conflict, yet it was the first time he had experienced his power. A terrifying and unstoppable wave capable of threatening someone''s existence without evening in contact with it.. The promise of an unavoidable conflict that close to no one in the multiverse had any hopes to survive.

    Even the short-haired woman could not help but feel threatened as her power of equilibrium was shaken, and broken apart by the waves of destruction he unconsciously released. It was only after she focused on creating a power that could bnce Conflict''s, that she was able to stop its advancement, and regain herposure.

    "Why did you help me?" Daniel asked in an oddly calm tone. One that did not reflect the same amount of struggle Equilibrium was facing.

    When Daniel was stuck within the power of equilibrium, forced to bear the weight of the imbnce he had created, he had heard a familiar voice. One whose owner he couldn''t remember right away, as this familiarity was but a remnant of a small and insignificant memory. Nheless, this voice had helped him, guiding him through the path that ultimately led Daniel to salvation. Once free, Daniel realized that this voice belonged to Conflict, whom he had met twice in the past, and with whom he shared no particrly deep rtionship.

    Conflict''s help came as a surprise not only for Daniel, but for Equilibrium as well, as she knew the former as one of the most obvious aspects of existence, so much so, that it always his kin the impression that the shiness of his actions was aimed at maintaining his true intentions in the dark.. And here he was, openly barging in into her business for reasons only he knew.

    The middle-aged man did not appear interested in answering Daniel''s question. Instead, he looked him up and down as if to evaluate the nature of his power, until a faint smile appeared on his face. "You see.. Mortal worries weigh you down.. They taint your existence. As long as you cherish a friend, you love a child, you embrace your woman.. Even if you possess a power of existence, you stay a human. A being with a power you are unable to even beginprehending. To be Karma, you need to be that power."

    "Karma is you, the way you think, the way you act, your purpose and future.." Conflict said as the smile on his face gradually disappeared. He then turned to look at Equilibrium, and added with a bitter tone, "Like my purpose is to create conflict."

    As thest word came out of Conflict''s mouth, the universe began shaking. On his still body a thinyer of power emerged, much slower than the ones he emitted unconsciously, yet much clearer, like a molt that was slowly shed off an insect''s body. A simple look at this power reminded Daniel of a word. The one word that could exin the strength he felt from it.. ''Absolute.''

    This slowyer of power advanced through space, grinding everything it shed against to nothingness. Not even the essence of space, one that allowed other powers to drift through liberally, could bear this power, and instantly copsed. "BROTHER!! What are you doing?!" Equilibrium shrieked in horror. Not because the space was copsing, as that was not a threat for an aspect of existence, but because of the threat she felt within thisyer of power.

    The void that formed around Conflict''s body grew exponentially, yet, not even its immense destructive power could bear theyer of conflict, as it stopped expanding further than the area between theyer, and its owner''s body. The further this power moved from Conflict, the more it reshaped itself into a perfect sphere. A sphere of unstoppable power that separated a living universe from itsplete and irreversible destruction, and that stopped growing as it reached a radius of a thousand feet.

    "Do not resent me sister, I am just doing my part.." Conflict said while lowering his head. "It is now time for you to do yours." The sphere of conflict, which hovered in space like a star, suddenly began to morph. On its almost transparent surface emerged five spikes, which soon grew to the size of fully formed fingers, reshaping the sphere into an enormous hand.

    While not the shiest attack he had ever witnessed, the power behind this colossal hand was the most powerful force Daniel had ever seen in his life. A simple look at it was enough for him to realize that, had this power faced the pressure that had almost killed him a few seconds ago, it would have been able to ovee it, as well as destroy the negative universe he was trapped into with as little effort it would take for an adult man to bear an infant''s weight.

    What Daniel failed to feel from this attack, however, was the threat Equilibrium was experiencing. As the hand''s palm turned in her direction, the short-haired woman did not have the strength to speak any longer. All she could do was summon all the power she could muster from the multiverse, and covered herself with it, forming a cocoon of pure white light.

    Just as simply as Daniel had imagined, the massive hand fell on the cowering aspect of existence, and covered itpletely. "DON''T DO IT!!" Equilibrium screamed in sheer panic as her cocoon was grinded by sheer contact.. But it was already toote. In but a moment the cocoon was crushed, and along with it, the woman''s body and consciousness.

    In the span of just a few breaths, Equilibrium was no more.

    The moment the woman''s consciousness perished, Daniel felt a knot form in his throat, and his heart skipping a beat. Around him, the amalgam of powers of existence had changed, as if one of itsponents had been extracted and dissipated into nothingness. Even within her champions, who looked in horror at the death of the lord they followed, the power of equilibrium began dissipating, turning who had been proud champions for hundreds of thousands of years, back intomon cultivators.

    This reaction was shared by uncountable people who, across the multiverse, had felt the sudden disappearance of one of the oldest powers in existence.. Even the other aspects of existence, who lived as consciousnesses scattered through their immense territories, were not immune from these events, given that throughout their infinitely long lives they had never witnessed the death of one of their own.

    While Daniel felt the multiverse change into one that did not possess the power of Equilibrium, Conflict reabsorbed his power, and stood casually in ce, as if nothing had happened. On his face was a satisfied smirk, one that should have belonged to a simple artisan, proud of their newly finished work, instead of a deity who had just murdered his own kin.

    Daniel''s mind, on the other hand, was in turmoil.

    Despite Equilibrium''s attempt to kill him, Daniel knew that his existence, at least from her perspective, was indeed an unfair one. Her actions were justified by the nature of her existence, and he couldn''t me her for them, as much as others couldn''t me him for punishing people for the karma they had cultivated. For that reason, Daniel believed her to be an entity that was worth existing, as opposed to the likes of Horror, whose existence was born from avoidable pain and suffering.

    Once free from her power, Daniel had noticed ack of enmity in Equilibrium''s eyes, one that proved her nature as a neutral being. Since he had eliminated the cause of the imbnce he had created within the multiverse, he was no longer her enemy.. So why had Conflict killed her? Why help him?

    Before he could ask any of these questions, Conflict turned towards Elijah, who was staring back at him with wide opened eyes, too terrified to utter a word, or even think of what to say. In a moment, a speck of the power that was used to destroy Equilibrium emerged from Conflict''s body, and was shot in Elijah''s direction like a bullet.

    This power was not particrly threatening, even for Daniel-Yet to Elijah there was no difference between that small speck of power, and the attack had killed Equilibrium.

    While not threatened by it, the moment Daniel saw this attack, he felt a sense of urgency. Immediately, he took over the power of karma that floated around Elijah''s body, and used it to encase him before pulling him out of the bullet''s way by sending him back into his personal hell.

    As the attack brushed past the champion of Destiny, and the middle-aged man noticed Daniel''s intentions to protect him, Conflict let out a quiet scoff. Had he cared that much about killing Elijah, even a thousand Daniels wouldn''t have been able to stop him from doing so. Yet, as Daniel showed his intentions, Conflict gave up on the fleeting thought, and moved his hands behind his back, assuming the position of an old man on a stroll.

    "Why did you kill her? If you wanted to help me, why couldn''t you have just taken me away?" Daniel asked, confused.

    The aspect of existence did not appear to be too engaged by Daniel''s questions, as he turned to look at the now giftless champions of Equilibrium. "You keep asking me that. See, I don''t wish to help you.." He said as the same bullets that had threatened Elijah''s life were sent to each and every one of them,nding squarely on their chest, and crashing against the very atoms that formed their bodies.

    The sh between these fragments of power and the cultivators bodies was lethal, as their immortal essence could do nothing to stop the former power from obliterating anything it came in contact with, before moving on to what was left to attack.

    As the horrified cultivators fell apart bit by bit, and the surrounding space was filled with the sound of screaming, Conflict finally turned to look at Daniel. On his face, the same usual smirk reformed, as he added, "You are the one helping me.."

    The moment Conflict finished speaking, Daniel suddenly realized something. A detail too terrifying for him to conceive, but true nheless. In the space where Equilibrium and Daniel had met, there was no trace of the power of Conflict. Only the power of Karma, and a void where once was the epicenter of Equilibrium''s power remained.

    By this point, even someone thatcked Daniel''s intelligence would have been able to tell what Conflict''s intentions were. "You want to frame me.." Daniel muttered in shock. "Why? Why are you doing this to me?"

    Hearing Daniel''s words, the usually calm aspect of Conflict burst out inughter, "TO YOU!? Do you think I would murder my own kin for you?.. AHAHAH! No.." He said before disappearing, and reappearing right in front of Daniel. "Your existence was worth nothing the first time I saw you, and about the same the following one. You exist to prove a point."

    "And what point is that?" Daniel asked through clenched teeth.

    "THAT CONFLICT IS THE ULTIMATE POWER IN EXISTENCE!!" Conflict eximed with an uncharacteristic ardent tone. Following the outburst, the aspect of existence regained his calm, and ced his heavy hands on Daniel''s shoulder. He then added with an almost caring tone, "You live to serve a purpose.. While my idiotic brothers waste their existence in arguing SEMANTICS!!.. You will create chaos."

    Once again, the smile disappeared from Conflict''s face, and he let go of Daniel''s shoulders. As his arms fell by his hips, his body began to darken, turning his appearance from that of a middle-aged man, to a shadow that merged into the darkness of space. What he left before disappearingpletely, were only a few words, "Go now... create unprecedented conflict for me."

 Chapter 580 - Born From A Mortalâ€™s Ashes

    After the death of Equilibrium, and the departure of her murderer Conflict, Daniel was left standing by himself, in a patch of space that once hosted the encounter of three aspect of existence, but that had now gone back to its usual quiet state. In his mind, Daniel could not help but reconsider his position.

    While his encounter with the aspect of Equilibrium had almost been fatal, and had cost him something that the former he wouldn''t have been able to put a value on, the current Daniel, as the aspect of Karma, had gained from it. Facing the weight of his imbnce had helped him realize that the mortal side he was so stern in preserving, was a stain within his existence as the aspect of Karma, and that only by shedding it, he would be able to be a true aspect of existence.

    With this evolution Daniel could feel an even higher attachment to Karma, whose every speck he could feel no matter how far away they were. Furthermore, by expanding his senses through the void, and into the other universes, Daniel noticed that the reach of his control had increased greatly, allowing him to, had he wanted to, to judge an entire universe''s worth of life at the same time.

    Unfortunately, this evolution did note without a cost. His unified essence had broken, separating his mind, spirit and body into three separate elements, forcing him to bear the constant struggle of three powers that, no matter his attempts, would never be able to merge again. He was no longer a perfect cultivator, but a spiritual, martial, and mental cultivator in one body.

    By this change alone, Daniel knew that, as independent elements, if he lost either of the three, the remaining two would not help the damaged one''s recovery anymore, causing thest bit of mortality he had left to dissipate. His body would decay, and his spirit would leave for the spiritual world, awaiting reincarnation.

    Despite this being an immense loss for Daniel, he was not worried about it, for he knew that, unless another aspect of existence annihted his consciousness, he would at some point in time be reborn within the power of Karma, of which the universes were being filled bit by bit every day.

    His biggest concert at the moment, were the hundreds of eyes that were staring at him from within the darkness of space. Each powerful and distinct, and all showing their clear and open hostility towards him. While threatening, however, the entities behind these eyes did not dare to approach carelessly. Whether that was because they were alerted by his apparent ability to destroy one of their own, or whether they needed their superior''s permission to act, Daniel did not know.

    As he noticed this unwillingness to attack, Daniel put these presences to the back of his mind, and began thinking of his next step.

    All Daniel had done so far was to protect the family and friends he had left behind. That had been his only goal, as well as the fuel that had allowed him to push through all the obstacles he had faced. However, now, Daniel the cultivator, father, friend, and husband, was no more. What was now in its ce was the impartial aspect of Karma, who judged mortals based on the nature of their actions.

    The path to be such a being had been forced upon him, leaving him no choice but to forgo his goals-Yet, those goals had not been abandoned yet. Before getting rid of his attachments, Daniel had made a deal with himself. He had sworn that the only reason he was willing to give up on his mortality was to survive this ordeal, and that by doing so, whatever entity would emerge would be bound to fulfill his wishes.

    Once free of his mortal attachments, Daniel the mortal cultivator had died, and the aspect of karma had taken his ce.

    While not truly bound by this agreement, Karma, who now felt no attachment to his friends, family, and followers, intended to respect the wishes of his former self. Not because of his good heart, or because his integrity forced him to repay a debt, but because the mortal he had taken the ce deserved it.

    All the positive karmic power Daniel had umted through his life, had now been burned away, making his mortal self unable to receive the repayment of all the good actions he had performed as a mortal.. And this, Karma could not ept. It was for that reason that, while not bound to it, he had epted the request of his former self to protect his loved ones, at least from threats that they were unable to stave off by themselves.

    In order to do so, he needed to find them.

    With a simple thought a speck of karma emerged from Daniel''s body, and floated in front of him. Within this small golden light was the figure of Elijah, whom he had recovered in order to prevent Conflict from killing him. As he suffered the pain of his karma, Daniel remembered how, when he was facing Equilibrium, Elijah had betrayed him, and exposed his nature as a former champion of Destiny to thete aspect of existence, whose goal immediately became to destroy him.

    Had Daniel not needed Elijah''s system to find the members of his group, Daniel would have left him in his personal hell for the rest of eternity, or at least, for the eons it would take for all the negative karma he had umted to be consumed.

    With a second thought the speck of golden light expanded, turning into a human-sized bubble inside which were disyed the memories that the champion of Destiny was reliving. The size of the bubble kept increasing, making the surface thinner and thinner, until finally.. *POP!* The bubble burst, releasing both Elijah, and the karma that was attached to him and that fueled his sufferings.

    "AAAAAHH!" Screamed a dibobted Elijah who just a moment ago was being tortured, and ripped into bits by a shadow that was just mimicking what he had done in the past. Even after several seconds of being freed, the images, the pain, and the unspeakable suffering he had experienced were still clear in his head, making the awakening a long and tortuous one, iparable from just waking up from a normal nightmare.

    As he realized that he had been freed, the feelings of pain disappeared, but not the fear, for he knew that the next time he would leave his personal hell, he would either have to face the omnipotent Conflict, who would likely smite him out of existence, or Daniel, the aspect whom he had betrayed.

    "I-I.. It was the only way out I h-h-had.." He muttered to a seemingly indifferent Daniel. As he noticed the absence of understanding in his opponent''s face, Elijah tried to think of what he could say to keep himself out of his personal hell, but before he could think of anything, Daniel stopped him.

    "Read to me the mission''s update." Daniel ordered with a tone that was drastically different from the one Elijah was used to. Itcked any form of humanity, and it was marked by the characteristic elements of an aspect of existence.. Indifference, coldness, and aloofness.

    Elijah did not dare question these changes, and immediately followed the orders. He closed his eyes and sought for his system to respond, and after a few moments, reopened them. Just as he was about to describe the changes in the mission''s window, however, Elijah felt a very distinct mental power prate his mind, and reach for his most recent memory, where was hidden the system''s window. There was no need for Elijah to guess, to know that Daniel had chosen to pry his memories, as he preferred it from listening to him talk.

    Daniel''s behavior worried Elijah greatly, to a point where his fear turned into desperation. He immediately began pondering on how to increase his value to the aspect of existence, unbothered by the fact that Daniel''s mental power was still inside his mind, and that anything he thought was quickly read through.

    Unfortunately, nothing of what Elijah could think of made the cut, and before he could start negotiating, the champion of Destiny felt the feared sparks of golden light attach to his body. "NOOOO!! PLEASE!!" he screamed in horror as he was dragged back into his personal hell, unsure of whether or when he would be able to get out again.

    After reabsorbing Elijah''s karma, Daniel released his spiritual essence, and used it to epass the unconscious champions of conflict, whom he then stored into a spatial ring before disappearing from where he was standing.

    As his silhouette disappeared, several consciousnesses diverged where the battle had taken ce, each looking through every detail of what had ensued,mitting it to their minds so as not to forget any of it.

    ¡ª--

    In an unspecified universe, floating through an unknown patch of peaceful space, was a milky white ind. This ind was not particrly big, and could be onlypared in size to arge city, but its appearance was nheless unique and majestic. What made this ind dazzling to the eye was not the fact that it floated endlessly untouched, but the fact that it appeared to have been carved out of an enormous pearl, just like the grand temple that was built on top of it.

    This temple was quite simple,posed of hundreds of enormous white pirs that supported a twenty feet tall frieze, and on top of it, a pediment on which were carved the silhouette of evermoving waves. In the innermost part of the temple was an immense inner chamber which no one, throughout the uncountable years of this temple''s existence, had had the pleasure to see.

    By the entrance of this temple were a vast flight of stairs which connected its

    base to arge tform, one which could have held a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people, but that was only upied by a single old man dressed in brown tattered robes.

    This old man appeared to be at peace with his surroundings, as he sat with his legs crossed in the middle of the square, while facing a small wooden table on which rested a wooden board underneath several carved pieces. The man''s attention seemed to be focused on the board, for it was his time to make a move.

    For what felt like ten minutes, the old man raked his gray beard and chewed on his lip. His golden eyes were aimed at one piece in particr, which, based on the attention the man gave to it, one would guess was the most important piece on the board. "I grow tired of this game." the old man uttered. "How about a different one?"

    While the man''s tone was apathetic, that was only a front to hide the bitterness he felt due to the umpteenth loss, which added to the nearly infinite winning streak of his opponent. This had been a recurring event through history, one which he wasn''t able to change no matter how often he tried, and that went on for so long that his opponent had stopped caring for his childish behavior.

    Seeing theck of a response, the old man smiled in satisfaction. In just a moment the board and pieces on top of the wooden table disappeared, and in its ce, appeared a different board, square in shape, and painted in a white and ck checkered pattern with ck and white pieces of various shapes on top of it.

    With a satisfied grin, the old man ced the ck and white pieces in four rows, two facing his side, and two facing the opposite side, with the whites being ced in front of him. Once done, he pinched the top of one of the white pieces, and moved it forward by two squares. "Pawn in d4." he muttered to himself before turning his attention to therge temple.

    A few moments after the old man made his move, a piece simr to the one he had just moved started to move on its own, advancing two boxes, and stopping on f5.

    Amused by this move, the old man once again started staring at the board. As he resumed brushing his beard, he said, "This game is called Chess, it''s yed.."

    "I know how this game is yed. Just make your move.." Interjected a disembodied voice that resounded through space, and that seemed to originate from every direction.

    *Sigh* "Never change, brother.." the old man whispered before suddenly turning to the side, where the silhouette of a tall man appeared.

    This simple silhouette emanated a stable and immense power, one that stood strong regardless of the forces that went against it, like a tree facing a storm, or a cliff standing still against the ceaseless erosion of the waves.

    "Order! Do you want to sit and y with us?" The old man said with a jovial tone. One that only found in response a scowling look from the silhouette.

    Ignoring the old man, for which he did not appear to spare any positive emotion, the silhouette turned towards the temple, and with a tone as respectful as possible, said, "Equilibrium.. Our sister is.. gone."

    As these words were spoken, past the pearly white pirs that cast shade into the enormous dark chamber, tworge slits were opened, revealing a pair of pure white eyes.

 Chapter 581 - A Case Not Expected

    <h4>Chapter 581 - A Case Not Expected</h4>

    The simple motion of eyes opening was able to blow away the dust that had umted on the vast surfaces of the temple for uncountable eons, giving way for an almost tangible light which radiated with impossible brilliance, and making the atmosphere extremely heavy.

    Both this blinding light and feeble, yet unstoppable wind were apanied by an overpowering pressure. One that did not weigh on the shoulders of others, but that grip at their throat, squeezing every form of rebelliousness out of their hearts.

    The old man who had been sitting in front of the temple, however, did not appear to be affected by this pressure, as the dusty wind moved around and past him as if the space that surrounded his body was off limits. Instead of acknowledging the owner of those eyes, he quietly resumed the game of chess, unbothered by the shocking news that had awakened his opponent''s interest.

    The avatar of Order who hade to report Equilibrium''s death, on the other hand, could not help but take a step back due to the pressure. He had yet to give a full report, yet he did not dare speak another word without being allowed to. As he stared at the eyes hidden within the darkness waiting for confirmation, an ufortable silence took over the whole ind.

    To interrupt this oppressive silence, a few secondster, was the feeble sound of scraping wood that originated from beside him, where the old man had pinched his wrinkly fingers around a pointy piece with a small cross carved on the side, and dragged it across the board in a diagonal line, cing it on the g5 square. This move appeared to have taken arge portion of the old man''s focus-painting of him the image of a truly devoted yer.

    Once he made his move, the signs of focus seemed to disappear from the old man''s face, and were reced by the same jovial smile he had shown when Order''s avatar had first arrived. "Nothing you have to tell him, you have to tell standing." he said to the avatar, who turned to look at him with enough disdain and hostility to kill a man. "Or perhaps you do." The old man then muttered through a faint smile before focusing once again on the board, on which the ck pawn at the far right had mysteriously advanced by a square without making a sound.

    *Tch* the old man sucked his teeth, "Always when I am distracted.." he whispered jokingly.

    Order ignored the old man, and once again turned to look at the pair of milky white eyes, which soon after hinted for him to continue with the report with a slow, yet firm motion.

    "A few days ago Equilibrium imed to have felt the presence of an abnormal source of imbnce in one of Trade''s universes, and went to investigate.." Order began to exin to the pair of curious eyes. The report was short and concise, and with no unnecessary details.. Yet, as the old man moved his pointy piece back to the h4 square, once again catching the attention of the hidden entity, Order could not help but feel dejected, and wonder whether he was wasting his time with this report.

    While all three of the beings present belonged to the same kin, a minute in the entity''s presence was enough of a reminder that even among deities, there were drastic differences..

    Although most universes were part of a domain, and were used as the domain''s territory, that was only a regtion made for mortal cultivators. The reason why that rule had been set, was due to the incapacity of the members of different domains to share a territory without burning it to the ground.

    This system, however, did not affect the aspects of existence, for they were beings whose powers went beyond the boundaries of their bodies, and reached far into each and every universe-Making the multiverse not something that needed to be split, but something that, to some extent, they all shared.

    However, exceptions to that rule existed.

    Among the thousands of aspects of existence, a very few ancient and powerful entities resided in universes where only their powers existed. Universes where their presence was so distinct and pure, that while inside them, they were omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. In these small domains, these primordial aspects lived in istion, allowing themselves to be detached from the rest of the multiverse and its changes, for which they had no interest.

    One advantage that the aspects of existence that shared the universes possessed, on the other hand, was the ability to feel each other''s presence even when their consciousness was not present. Like threads in a piece of fabric, they were intertwined, and connected to a point where any abnormality was felt. That was the reason why, when the aspect of Equilibrium had perished, most aspects of existence had felt her disappearance.. pulled out from the fabric like a loose thread-Yet, entities who isted themselves in their omnipotence couldn''t.

    Such important changes had almost never happened in history, hence why the higher aspects of existence did not regret the loss of awareness in exchange for isting themselves in their own powers.

    When Equilibrium had died, the first aspect to feel her disappearance, and reach the the ce where she wasst felt alive, was the aspect of Order, who had immediately fulfilled his duties and reported the events to the high lord he served.

    To stop him from fulfilling his duty, however, was the entity''sck of interest, as well as the continuous interruptions of the old man.

    "Brother, I have never beaten you at a game before.. But this time, I have high hopes." Said the old man with a matter-of-fact tone. Yet, as a satisfied grin formed on his face, one of the ck pawns advanced by two squares, taking the ce that was formerly upied by the old man''s bishop.

    Following this change, the satisfied smirk present on the old man''s face quickly disappeared, covered by a dry cough and a faintugh.. a pale attempt to hide his embarrassment.

    Irritated by the old man''s behavior, which appeared to be aimed at instigating him, the silhouette red up with anger. He had had enough of being interrupted, and had the intention of giving the lowly old man a piece of his mind.. Yet, before he could say anything, the disembodied voice resounded once again, "Continue."

    The discontent present in Order''s mind, hidden behind the faceless silhouette of his avatar, immediately disappeared as he continued his report. "Not long after her departure, we felt a disturbance in the territory of Trade. It felt like a collision between two powers of existence, one of which overpowered the other greatly, so we thought nothing of it. However, soon after the disturbance grew beyond control, and our connection to that universe was cut off abruptly." Order exined while taking a few steps forward in hope to get the old man out of his sight.

    The mention of a universe being cut off from the rest of the multiverse seemed to light the interest of the hidden entity, as shown by his eyes which, for the first time, moved on Order''s avatar. The old man did not appear to share the same interest, as he quietly grabbed the pawn on E2 and pushed it forward by two squares. He then crossed his arms and remained quiet. On his face was a cryptic smile that neither of the two others noticed.

    "As soon as we noticed the abnormality, we immediately moved to investigate.. When we arrived, we saw one of our kin, immersed in the void left by the copse of Equilibrium''s core existence."

    As soon as the aspect of Order finished speaking, the pair of eyes closed, allowing for the darkness that once shrouded the entire hall to rule again. Then, the sounds of steps.

    One step after the other, light, yet able to create ripples in space, and cracks on the pearly white ground that were immediately mended by a pure white light. The sound was faint, but threatening to a point where the aspect of Order had unconsciously stepped back enough times to once again have the old man in his field of view. To a normal mortal, the sound of these steps alone would send their mind spiraling, imagining gargantuan monsters swimming through stone and dirt to reach them.

    The ripples created by the sound of steps left spatial rifts in their wake, unbncing the surrounding spatial essence to a point where the avatar of Order, formed by a cluster of essence controlled by a fragment of the aspect''s consciousness, was phasing out of existence.

    With a seemingly infinite crescendo the pressure kept increasing, until suddenly, from the darkness of the temple emerged an individual. A young boy who appeared to be no more than ten years old, with short snow white hair, and pearl-like eyes. His attire was in stark contrast to the old man''s tattered clothes, consisting only of a spotlessly clean white shirt with brown buttons, and egg shell shorts.

    Despite the difference in both age and attire, one would be able to notice a stark resemnce between the young boy and the old man, almost as if looking at either meant looking at the past or future picture of the same person. At the same time, the same person would be able to feel that their existences could not be more different.

    While the clean appearance of the young boy was like a sunny day, a peaceful morning untainted by the uncertainty of the future-A world where everything was clear, and in which the need to intervene did not exist, the old man was a moving world of darkness. A world that was in constant motion, and that was forged day by day.

    These two contrasting yet simr entities, separated only from a matter of perspective, were also known as Fate, and Destiny.

    Once uncovered, the young boy turned his childish, yet deadly serious face towards the avatar of Order. His lips opened slightly, yet, when anyone would have expected the young boy to speak with a voice that matches his appearance, his voice came out in different forms. Among the mixture of voices, all speaking the same words in unison, one could hear the voice of a young girl, a young boy, an adult man, an adult woman, and their elderly counterparts. "Who was it? Who did you find there?" Fate asked.

    "You still have to make your move!" Destiny burst out in anger. His jovial attitude had now disappeared, reced by an odd agitation that took the avatar of Order aback, but that left the young boy indifferent.

    "SPEAK! WHO WAS IT!?" The six voices that emerged from the young boy''s mouth asked once again. At the same time, on the board, the pawn on G5 began to move. It''s movement was slow and its direction was diagonal. Its target was the old man''s bishop, which was turned to dust the moment the pawn touched it.

    The sudden outburst increased the pressure by a thousandfold, causing the avatar of Order to begin to shatter. Starting from his toes and fingers, his limbs began to disperse into the surrounding space, burned off by the single power of existence present in this universe. The Avatar''s survival was barely kept in ce thanks to the fragment of Order''s consciousness, which, while struggling to maintain its ability to talk, was able to utter a single word: Karma.

    The young boy, who was showing anger just a few moments earlier, was now struck by a deep sense of confusion. His lips parted, his eyes stared into the pearly white ground, and the surrounding noises found in him deaf years.. Leaving only silence.

    Unaware that the entity in front of him was capable of showing confusion, Order did not dare to utter a single word, contributing to the deafening silence that took over the entire universe. However, this silence did notst long.. "Hehe.. hehehahah.. HAHAHAHA!!" A giggle, once faint and private, became louder and louder, turning into a diabolical cackle, then into a deep and joyfulugh.

    Both the young boy and Order''s avatar turned to look at the old man.. But while thetter expressed his shock and confusion, the former felt a profound sense of defeat instead. An emotion that only a dethroned king had any chance of understanding.

    The old man soon stoppedughing, yet the satisfied smile never left his face. Instead of acknowledging the two entities that were staring at him, the old man picked his queen, and moved it diagonally until it reached the far right edge of the board, blocking his opponent''s unprotected king from ever being able to move again, and sealing the game in his favor.

    As hemitted the very first win against Fate to memory, Destiny muttered, "Do you see, brother?.. I told you.. I had a good feeling about this one."

 Chapter 582 The Mountain Crumbles

    <h4> 582 The Mountain Crumbles </h4>

    The words uttered by Destiny were few in number, yet immensely impactful to all those who heard them.

    As surprisingly sharp and painful as papercuts, these words shed through the very existence of the aspect of Fate, whose youthful face was stricken by a deep sense of anger, confusion and self doubt.

    His knowledge and nature.. His very existence had been challenged by these few words. Words so powerful that they chipped away at the undefeatable power of the universe¡¯s fate, which, although in an almost inconsequential amount, began to slip out of its aspect¡¯s fingers.

    The meaning of these words, of course, had nothing to do with the game of chess the young boy and the old man had been ying. A game Destiny had no doubt he would have lost, had his opponent¡¯s focus not been taken away by more pressing matters.

    What the old man was referring to, was the evesting sh between the concept of destiny and the concept of fate.

    ¡ª¨C

    For uncountable years, Destiny had tried to prove that free will and opportunities were enough to guide mortals into a path of their own creation. That was the concept which had birthed his consciousness, the power which he possessed, and his nature and belief. Fate, on the other hand, was created by a more tyrannical concept.. The idea that everything that happened was written, and that an absolute path was alreadyid out for everyone and everything.

    While many could have mistaken this conflict as a disagreement between opinionated schrs, that was far from being the case.

    The power of an aspect of existence was regted by the validity and influence of the concept they represented, and while the concept of Destiny was as valid as that of Fate to a mortal¡¯s eyes, that was not the case for their peers, for Destiny required proof to demonstrate that his existence was not just a misconception, but a truepeting part of existence..???

    Unable to justify his existence, Destiny had spent the first several hundred million years of its life being considered a fake aspect of existence. A broken product, inferior to all others in status and power, with no hope to stand on the same level of any of its kin. This seemed to be Destiny¡¯s fate, one that in fate¡¯s fashion was forced upon him even before his birth.. A future he always refused to ept, be it due to his stubbornness or nature.

    Unwilling to live his eternal life as a byproduct of his brother¡¯s creation, the weaker champion of Destiny had used the full extent of his powers to create a chance. A chance for people to change their future, toy their own path, and to validate his existence to his peers.

    That was how the systems were born.

    At first, Fate had considered his brother¡¯s actions a futile attempt at challenging his hegemony.. Pointless, for he could see a future where his rule could never be challenged no matter what thetter attempted. Yet, everything changed with time.

    In full contrast to the nature of the universe¡¯s fate, the creatures gifted with Destiny¡¯s gift existed outside of its infinite fabric-invisible to the eyes of Fate and all its champions. It was only as these entities began to grow, that the aspects of existence realized that what Destiny had created was not a pet project, but beings with infinite potential unbound by fate, or any other aspect of existence.

    Wealth, death, royalty, domination, love, sacrifice.. These were only a few of the pathways associated with the systems Destiny had created, and which, to the eyes of his own kind, appeared oddly simr to powers of existence. What was truly worrying, however, was their limitless potential for growth.

    ¡°What if they are left unchecked? What will they be, if they keep growing?¡± These questions were repeated millions of times during never ending arguments between the aspects of existence, striking at their minds and cores, and leaving them doubtful and fearful.

    As the nature of Destiny¡¯s champions became more and more evident, and their inconsequential existence turned into a tangible threat, the aspects of existence hade to a mutual consensus. Their existence was to be considered an abomination, one that had to be erased from the multiverse, and never be allowed to flourish.

    However, despite this shared conclusion, not one of them dared to act.

    In the eyes of Fate, acknowledging the threat posed by Destiny¡¯s spawn was akin to admitting that thetter¡¯s nature was above the former.. An admission that would damage Fate¡¯s power the same way a sword would hurt a man when used to sever one of their fingers.

    What followed was a time called The Chaotic Era. A time in which the multiverse burned by the hands of the first champions of Destiny, who swarmed and consumed the universes like famished locusts under the eyes of a prized pantheon of aspects of existence.

    In the span of just a few millennia, the most prominent domains were left with a fraction of their territory.. Domains which prayed for their owner¡¯s intervention, only to find deaf ears. A forgotten time in which the mention of a champion of Destiny aroused more fear and respect than the mention of an aspect of existence.

    What was a chaotic era for the mortals, however, was but a long and animated debate between the two main faction within the pantheon of aspects of existence. The orderly faction that followed Fate¡¯s guide, and the chaotic faction, which followed the aspects of Chaos, Conflict, Origin, and Design. The former faction wanted to preserve the power of Fate, and rejected any action that would validate the nature of Destiny, while thetter wanted to do the opposite-To exterminate the spawn of Destiny even if it meant acknowledging his existence.

    Words shed like swords in a flurry of existence-threatening exchanges, until finally, after thousands of years, the two factions managed to reach an agreement.

    This agreement stated that the champions of Destiny were not to be touched by any aspect of existence, and that only their followers were allowed to hunt them down. Their eventual survival, although unlikely, would serve to validate Destiny¡¯s nature, while their failure and deaths would confirm that nothing was above the written rule of fate. Such were the rules the aspects of existence and their champions had to follow. Rules that not everyone was happy about, but one they followed nheless.

    With a clear path to thread, the domains immediately fell in line, and like a well-oiled machine, began a thorough extermination of what they called ¡°Destiny¡¯s wretched spawn.¡± ¦Ñ???????? ?

    Uncountable lives were lost, domains were pushed to the brink of destruction.. Yet, one by one, the champions of Destiny were overwhelmed, and ultimately fell one by one. It was only after a very long time, that the domains were able to regain their former power, whilst always keeping a watchful eye for the possible reappearance of Destiny¡¯s spawn.

    ¡ª¨C

    Back in Fate¡¯s absolute domain, the three individuals were currently standing in silence. The old man now looked happily at the game board while ignoring the ranges of emotions the young boy was going through. Order, on the other hand, wondered whether it was the right moment for him to leave.

    His sudden arrival had been a surprise for both Fate and Destiny, and for a good reason. While meetings between different aspects of existence were not a rarity, nobody dared to disturb Fate in his absolute domain. If someone did show up, that was usually an indication that something critical had happened-Yet, not even Fate, in his omniscience, was expecting to hear what Order had to say.

    As Order¡¯s report went on, Fate¡¯s attention was drawn more and more.. After all, the death of an aspect of existence, let alone a mid-high tier one such as Equilibrium, was not a small matter. Nevertheless, history was long, and lethal shes between aspects of existence were a deeply rooted part of it.

    Following an aspect¡¯s death, their consciousness would unconsciously pull the power from which they were created towards itself in an instinctive attempt to preserve the aspect¡¯s life. Unfortunately, such a measure was considered wed, for the moment their power concentrated around their consciousness, thetter had already perished, making it impossible for them to survive.

    The only effect this sort of death throe had, was for that power to condense into an intangible mass that, ultimately, imploded, leaving nothing behind arge void.

    While the disappearance of a power of existence was a shocking event, in the perspective of the multiverse¡¯s nearly infinite life, that was not the case. Just because the power had gone extinct, that did not mean that the events that had led to its creation would cease, meaning that at some point, that power would reform, and with time, millions of yearster, a new consciousness would be born.

    What had truly shocked the aspect of Fate was something else. Something he realized not because he was made aware of, nor because he had seen it in the inextricable fabric of fate.. But because of the effect it had on his power.

    Without his knowledge, at some point, a champion of Destiny had been born. One that, opposite to the rest of their kin, had managed to survive the of destruction and death created by his kin to keep them rooted to the ground, breaking out of it like a butterfly bursting out of its cocoon and taking flight for the first time.

    It did not matter that his position of hegemony had not been challenged, that Destiny had gained nothing from him, or that his actions were ultimately inconsequential.. The mere fact that Daniel had used Destiny¡¯s gift to forge a path that went beyond the limits of the concept of fate, was enough. Enough to damage his existence.

    It was only as his infinite power began to crumble, to be poisoned by doubt and reality, that Fate realized that the newborn aspect of Karma, a being whose fate he could not see, was the bane of his existence.. A drop of ink in the most limpid of waters.

    As these thoughts formed in the little boy¡¯s mind, the pearly white ind began to tremble at an impressive speed. Its smooth surface began to morph, and gain a yellow hue. Momentster, ck patches began to form in its wavy surface, like ayer of rust over what used to be pure white stone, but that was now a bright yellow and extremely hot substance.

    Simr events were taking ce all throughout the universe, where every, asteroid, celestial body, and space itself were being heated by a constantly increasing vibration.

    In just a moment, all forms of life in Fate¡¯s ultimate domain ceased to exist.

    Despite the catastrophic oue caused by Fate¡¯s anger, these thoughts were not directed at Daniel, nor at his brother Destiny.. But at the entity that had caused all this.

    All-seeing and all-powerful, Fate had the entirety of life¡¯s history from which he could observe and experience schemes and conflicts. An eternity which he was used to peering into to waste time. For a being with such an extensive experience on how consciousnesses operated, it only took a moment to form an educated guess on what had truly happened.

    As the base temperature of the multiverse began to reach that of the warmest of stars, Fate began pondering. In his mind, the various voices began to converse with one another.

    More than anybody else Fate knew the nature and extent of Equilibrium¡¯s powers. He knew that her existence would have naturally led her to sh against an abomination such as an evolved champion of Destiny, and that for such a being, she would be an immovable obstacle that had to be ovee.

    ¡°Was Karma¡¯s power strong enough to defeat a being whose existence I acknowledged as something vital to the multiverse?¡± He shook his head, causing his hair to float in the incandescent space. ¡°No, that is not possible. He received help.. But by who?¡± his beady eyes narrowed as his chubby fists began to rx. ¡°A being powerful enough to snuff the existence of Equilibrium in the blink of an eye. Not many were capable of such a feat.. and for what reason? To save Karma?¡± Once again, his head shook, more vigorously than thest time.

    As his head stopped, an expression of realization appeared on his face. He muttered, ¡°To hurt me.¡±

    This realization expanded within Fate¡¯s mind like apressed ball of cotton. Each strand connecting a thought to another through reasonable exnations and logic, until finally, a name formed in the darkness. The name of the one aspect of existence who would stand to gain the most from his loss of power, as well as from a world where champions of Destiny ran free and unchallenged.

    One of the few beings that stood as his equal.. Conflict.

 Chapter 583 A Feat of Patience

    <h4> 583 A Feat of Patience </h4>

    As Fate repeated the name ¡®Conflict¡¯ to himself, he finally realized what was happening. A vortex of questions began rotating within his mind, all falling into ce as if to uncover a piece of fate¡¯s fabric that he himself had never seen.

    Why had Conflict personally stopped the destruction of that specific universe? Why had he adopted that universe into his territory? Why had his domain refused the other domains¡¯ help in eradicating Destiny¡¯s spawn, protecting their territory until it was toote? Suddenly, everything became clear.

    With a clearer mind the young boy turned towards the old man, who was now parading a smile as wide as his leathery face allowed him. ¡°You nned all of this?¡±

    The old man nudged his head to the side, his hand rose and rapidly fell, as if he was attempting to swat a pestering fly. ¡°nned is the wrong word, brother.. I was so tired of constantly losing.. Turns out, I was just ying the wrong game.¡± he said with a hint of embarrassment that was betrayed by the satisfied grin he was wearing.

    Fate¡¯s enraged expression was a ray of sunshine for Destiny, who basked in it wholeheartedly, drawing from it an infinite amount of happiness and satisfaction-So much so that he could not remain sitting anymore.

    With a promptness that did not match his old appearance, Destiny firmly nted his feet on the partially molten floor and stood up while revealing, ¡°I feel embarrassed for having taken so long to find the right path. To think that it was as simple as finding someone who was more interested in damaging you, rather than preventing me from winning our argument.¡±

    ¡°What surprised me the most, however, is how it all escaped your eyes.. After all, you are all-seeing, and you and Conflict never saw eye to eye.¡±

    ¡ª¨C.???

    What Destiny said, unfortunately, was undeniably true. Of all the leading members of the chaotic faction that had opposed him in the past, one had always stood out in Fate¡¯s mind. That entity was, of course, the aspect of Conflict.

    While the motive of most members of the chaotic faction was to eradicate what they believed to be an abomination against their nature, Conflict had a different goal.

    Born within a power produced by every form of conflict in existence, be it something as feeble as the low attrition of a bird¡¯s feathers against the wind, or something as vast as the gravitational pull of a star.. The aspect of Conflict was, just like Fate, one of the highest ranking aspects in the pantheon of existence.

    A being that had existed for so long, that neither he nor his peers could remember who had been born first. An infinitely long amount of time these beings had spentparing their powers, and arguing over the level of importance the aspect they represented upied within the ne of existence.

    These arguments, however, unlike that between Destiny and Fate, had always ended up in a stalemate, for the powers of such beings were so immense that no matter how many banded up together, or who was the victim of the assault, their existences were simply unshakeable-to a point where, for one of them to be extinguished, it was as crazy a notion as believing that soil could extinguish wind on a. The simple idea was devoid of reason.

    Due to their inability to eradicate one another, these aspects of existence had, with time, decided to coexist peacefully. This peace, however, was built upon brittle foundations, for among immortal gods, which one did not wish to rule over the others?

    Unfortunately, the powers of these entities were also the ce their aspirations went to die.

    Oppressive and never ending, these powers, since their creation, had never grown. No more fate to uncover, no more conflict to be had, no more design than what had already been designed-their powers were like sealed vats of water, never to see one more drop ever again.

    Or at least, that was what they were all led to believe.

    ¡ª¨C

    Right at the peak of Destiny¡¯s gloating, both him and Fate turned towards the darkness of space, which was now illuminated by the scalding floor they both stood on.

    ¡°I cannot remember how long it has been since yourst visit..¡± Fate muttered as his sharp eyes shone a light onto a slowly forming dark silhouette, simr to that of Order, but much more stable, unthreatened by the power of Fate. This silhouette waspletely smooth, and pitch ck. Its only distinguishable feature was a pair of lidded red eyes that shone with the intensity of two red stars.

    As this pair of eyesnded on the aspect of Fate, the ck patch underneath them split horizontally, revealing a rift-like mouth. ¡°It has been a long timeing.¡± said a demonic voice which appeared to have crawled its way out of the deepest parts of hell. There was no courtesy in this voice, nor respect or affection.. only the scorn an emperor would feel in seeing his long lost rival struggle to not be dethroned. He, of course, was the aspect of Conflict.

    ¡°You don¡¯t look in good health.¡± Conflict said as his eyes shifted from the young boy to the universe that surrounded him. In it, he could feel the oppressive power of Fate run amok, fueled by the emotions of one of the very few people he would have truly considered one of his peers. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    Slightly embarrassed by being seen in his current state, yet unwilling to entertain small talks, the aspect of Fate regained as muchposure as he could, then inquired, ¡°What did you gain from this? We are not the only two primordial aspects of existence, and weakening me won¡¯t put you above the others.¡± His tiny fists unclenched, and the universe stopped vibrating.

    His immense power had only been reduced by a small fraction, yet, when put into scale to his immense power, losing even a fraction of that power was something worthy of notice. Defeated, he now wanted rity.

    The rift-like mouth of Conflict¡¯s avatar momentarily assumed a human-like shape, just long enough to form a simple smile. ¡°In your omniscience, brother Fate.. You were always short-sighted.¡± Conflict muttered as his eyes turned to Destiny, whose powers were growing, and solidifying alongside his status as a true aspect of existence. Not a byproduct of Fate anymore, but a true and undisputed part of nature.

    Momentster, Conflict turned to look back at Fate, and with an even wider smile, one that revealed the tion he was feeling thanks to the sess of his n, he muttered, ¡°Bound to fate or up to destiny.. I never had any interest in which of you two was right.. Weakening you was but a bonus, for me.¡± His demonic voice resounded throughout the universe like a roar of thunder, shing past the now weakened and unstable power of fate like a sword through paper.

    ¡°When he first appeared, I thought the wars created by his abnormal existence would be enough to fuel my powers.. To push me ahead of you and the rest, but that never happened. He was too simr to you.¡± Conflict said, catching the attention of the unstable avatar of Order, and the ecstatic aspect of Destiny. ¡°His existence added nothing to mine.. Unlike that of his spawn.¡±

    Suddenly, Fate remembered. His mind drifted on the pearly white canvas that was the universe¡¯s fate, and on it, he saw memories of a distant past. Uncountable images appeared, scrolling by the billion in but a blink of an eye.. Then slowed down, more and more, until a specific memory was revealed.

    In this memory, in what used to be an ancient meeting ce for the aspects of existence, thousands of deities stood on pure gold pirs, while staring down at the abnormal existence of a younger Destiny. Their eyes filled with disdain as he made his case for why he deserved to be considered part of their kin just like everybody else.

    These thousands of entities were split into two sides. One that demanded Destiny¡¯s execution, and the other, who vehemently opposed them.

    The only beings capable of maintaining theirposure were the ancient aspects of existence, who, more than anyone else, wanted to find a permanent solution to this problem. While every other aspect of existence argued with muted voices, Fate and Destiny discussed under the attentive gazes of Fate¡¯s peers.

    Thousands of years had this meetingsted, and not a step forward had been made. Yet, when the possibility of an all out war between the two factions started to materialize, a few words caught the attention of the semi-aspect of existence.

    With eyes full of interest Destiny listened to these words, until finally, he turned towards Fate, and he proposed to join him in a bet.

    Every moment Fate dug into unearthed a memory, a detail of the day that had ultimately led to his defeat. Nevertheless, reliving a mistake was not what Fate was looking for. With peering eyes he focused not on his memories, but those of others. To the man that challenged his existence, to the words which had solved a long dilemma, and to the identity of the being who had whispered in his opponent¡¯s ear.

    Sure enough, the voice he heard was that of Conflict.

    With a seductive tone that promised to fulfill Destiny¡¯s deepest dream, Conflict suggested that the two took part in a bet.

    Shell-shocked by the revtion, the aspect of existence stopped focusing on the tapestry of fate, and once again joined the others in the present. Then, like a dispirited chorus, his many voices chanted in unison, ¡°You did not care about me falling down a step, because if sessful, his champions would create more conflict for you.. Unnatural conflict that will elevate your powers above ours.¡±

    Once again, Conflict¡¯s rift-like mouth took the shape of a grin. From behind his immovable smile, the demonic voice resounded once again, ¡°Just a bit of time. It will only take a fraction of the time we¡¯ve been alive.. I¡¯ll reach heights you and I have never seen before, brother.¡±

    Conflict¡¯s words weighed heavily on Fate¡¯s already dispirited mind, yet, they did not cause it to fall apart. Instead, they had an oddly calming effect on him, almost as if unveiling a truth Fate had yet to understand about the multiverse he believed he was such a fundamental part of.

    Slowly, his chubby hands rxed, his face, once contorted in confusion and shock, eased back into their original peaceful state. As if reflecting his state of mind, the power of fate of which the universe was filled, and that was vibrating and eroding anything it came in contact with, stopped moving.

    A faint smile appeared on Fate¡¯s child-like face. ¡°I was toocent.¡± he muttered with a matter-of-fact tone. His chubby arms brushed over his clothes, straightening them over his body. He then turned to look at the pair of demonic eyes attached to Conflict¡¯s silhouette, and added, ¡°Maybe our consciousness isn¡¯t without purpose.. Maybe we exist to enforce the nature of our existence.¡±

    Conflict¡¯s eyes narrowed, yet, before he could respond, Fate waved his hand, creating a wave of unstoppable power that crashed against the silhouette with indescribable power, banishing it from its domain.

    Destiny, who had been basking in the glory that achieving his goal had brought him, was now startled by his brother¡¯s words. Without missing a beat, he turned towards him, and with hardly hidden worry reminded him, ¡°Remember, direct involvement wasn¡¯t part of our agreement.¡±

    ¡°Of course..¡± The aspect of Fate chuckled in response. ¡°However, I don¡¯tck helping hands.¡±

    As he finished speaking, Fate turned towards the almost extinguished avatar of Order, who was only moments from perishing from the pressure of Fate¡¯s rage. He then ordered, ¡°Deliver this message to the members of both factions. The restrictions against mortals have been lifted. Find and eradicate any champion of Destiny alive, and bring me Karma¡¯s head.¡±

 Chapter 584 The Beginning of an End

    <h4> 584 The Beginning of an End </h4>

    As half of the aspects of existence heeded to Fate¡¯s orders, Daniel had made his way to conflict¡¯s territory.

    With closed eyes he advanced past the vast water-like gate, until his skin was hit by a rough feeling. Distracted by it, he slowly opened his eyes, and could not help but feel surprised by what he saw. The space within Conflict¡¯s universe was unlike any other Daniel had ever experienced.

    The natural essences within Conflict¡¯s domain, while still unowned, were imbued with the chaotic power of conflict. A power that caused them to be unable to stand still, and actively seek conflict with the closest power they could find. Dust, ice, gasses, space itself grinded against one another down to their most minusculeponent, only to rejoin together to restart the cycle again and again.

    By simply observing the hostility of what was supposed to be the most gentle of environments, Daniel was left in awe. He couldn¡¯t even imagine how much more destructive natural cmities must have been in this universe, and how easily it would have been for any of them to erase civilizations from the memories of time.

    However, Daniel was not there to sightsee.

    Without hesitation Daniel expelled a spark of pure golden power, which floated slowly to his side before expanding to the size of an adult human. Once it stopped, the golden light created by this spark of power slowly began to dim down, uncovering the sleeping figure of Elijah, who had been stuck in his personal hell for what felt so long that he had started to get used to the suffering.

    After so much time spent in hell, Elijah¡¯s eyes had be dull. He had also taken the habit to keep his hands scrunched up in between his stomach and thighs, as he unconsciously buried his face in between his knees.. Of the jolly being that found pleasure in depraved schemes, only a shell had remained.. one he himself did not bother to ask mercy for, for he had already lost hope.

    Elijah¡¯s sorry state was a sight anyone in possession of a spark of humanity would feelpassion for, but that was not the case for Daniel. Even before he had ascended to the state of an aspect of existence, the immense amount of negative karma Elijah had to pay for, was a testament to all the beings he had tortured to a state way sorrier than his own..???

    As a true aspect of existence, however, Daniel was devoid of affection andpassion. His only emotions were tied to his persona. He felt pride towards his existence, fear and excitement for his future, and loyalty towards his beliefs.. Yet, of love and dedication towards others there was no trace.

    Had he not made a promise to himself to keep the mortals of his past safe, he as Fate would have long lost interest in continuing his journey, instead focusing on what the other aspects of existence were born to do instead. To guide the multiverse into epting their power, reaching the highest level their nature allowed them to.

    While Elijah regained hisposure, Daniel once again closed his eyes, and resumed his cultivation. Throughout the multiverse he felt endless sparks of karma be born, and umte in the space they shared with the other aspects of existence.. Each individual spark representing a decision and a consequence, and weighting on a being¡¯s consciousness as much as the power itself weighed on Daniel¡¯s overall existence.

    To Daniel, who had years of experience in cultivation, this feeling was the purest and most effortless state of cultivation he had ever experienced. He did not need to focus, or actively try to absorb mana to improve his physique, mind or spirit, he just needed to exist, and the power would naturally flow into him. So simple was it, that Daniel had found himself having to make an active effort in stopping his mind from drifting away, getting lost in the ecstasy of cultivation.

    This was a type of cultivation only Daniel in history had been able to experience, and the other aspects of existence were not an exception, for they were consciousnesses born within already developed power, and not vice versa.

    A few quiet minutes passed, and Daniel once again opened his eyes to notice a dispirited, yet aware Elijah.

    Thetter hadn¡¯t forgotten how he had tried to expose his captor to the aspect of Equilibrium, causing the two to fall into a lethal encounter.. reason why he had given up all hopes of mercy. All he could hope for now, was to be of enough use to Daniel, to earn his time out of a ce he would kill to avoid having to go back to, even if for just a moment longer.

    ¡°Where next?¡± Daniel asked. His tone was as cold as ancient ice, and in it, Elijah believed he could hear an odd cracking sound.

    Prepared for this question, Elijah closed his eyes without uttering a word. Underneath his eyelids his irises began to glow of a pure golden color which shone through the thin slits, then silence. Daniel waited a moment, then several seconds.. When a minute had passed, he noticed that Elijah¡¯s face had started contorting into unsightly expressions of worry, confusion, and horror.

    ¡°I can¡¯t see it.. It¡¯s not working.. I can¡¯t see it.¡± Elijah muttered to himself.

    Before Daniel could ask what was wrong, however, Daniel¡¯s attention was caught by something else. A microscopic purple light, far in the distance, which appeared like any other light in sight. This light, however, was not a distant remnant of a fallen celestial body, but a wave of power. One so quick, that by the time Daniel took notice of it, it had already reached him.

    Instinctively Daniel coated himself and Elijah in the power of Karma just in time for this wave of power to engulf thempletely. It did not take long for Daniel to realize that this power was nomon type of mana, but a power of existence that had been weaponized to harm him.

    Feeble as a cloud of poisonous gas, this essence attached itself to the surface of Daniel¡¯s karmic power, and as if formed by an infinite number of microscopic bugs, it began to erode it. Far away, behind this acidic nket, Daniel could feel the presence of a powerful consciousness.

    This power was not extremely powerful, in fact, Daniel found its influence quite delicate, yet unstoppable. It continued to erode the essence of Karma without stopping, leaving slight burns on the patches of skin it managed toe in contact with. While Daniel was unbothered by the pain, he had no doubt that if he didn¡¯t free himself, sooner orter he would perish under this slow erosion. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    For the minutes that followed Daniel continued to increase the output of karmic power, hoping that at some point the onught of erosive power would die out, and he would be able to break out, but the power he fought against was no simple mana. Logic did not apply to the way it worked, for the powers of existence operated within their ownws.

    It soon became clear that the only way for Daniel to escape was to break out of it. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

    Still too inexperienced in controlling the immense amount of power he possessed, Daniel struggled to fight back and at the same time protect both himself and Elijah, causing him to fail to control the defensiveyer of karmic power that was protecting Elijah.

    ¡°AAARGHH!! AAAAAAAAHH!!¡± The agonizing screams, eerie sounds of sizzling skin, and smell of burnt flesh reached Daniel all at the same time, urging him to do something, or lose his guide.

    Without too much time to think, Daniel steeled his mind. He had a cultivator¡¯s body, different from that of a normal aspect of existence. Not powerful enough to resist this erosive power, but enough to grant him a few seconds. In just a moment, he reabsorbed the power of karma, and allowed for the purplish cloud to attach itself to his body.

    Just like Elijah, Daniel¡¯s hair, skin, flesh.. Even his bones began to erode the moment they came in contact with the purple mist, and if allowed to continue undisturbed, so would the rest of his body. However, Daniel had no intentions of letting that happen.

    While trying to bear the pain, Daniel focused the entirety of the karmic power contained within his body into his eyes, which began to glow brighter the more power was poured into them. When the brilliance had reached a blinding point, Daniel released thepressed power of karma in the form of a bullet as wide as an adult¡¯s index finger, then shot it towards the purple mist.

    This bullet of karmic power immediately began to erode the moment it touched the corrosive gas, but thanks to its density and speed, it was able to resist. With inconceivable power the bullet cut through, and in just a moment emerged from the other side of the cloud, leaving behind a small tunnel of cleared space..

    That was all Daniel needed.

    Before this small tunnel could repair itself, Daniel regained contact with the karmic power outside of the purple mist, and immediately teleported himself out of danger, reappearing thousands of miles away from their purple mist. Once safe, he used the same method to save what was left of Elijah¡¯s body.

    This entire encounter did not take longer than a few seconds, yet, it had left Daniel in one of the sorriest states he had ever been in after bing the aspect of Karma. His body was covered in holes of burnt flesh, his blood was floated through space as chunks of dark and moist ashes. His regenerative powers struggled to heal the damage, yet, bit by bit, Daniel began to recover.

    As Daniel focused on recovering, a gruff voice reached his ears, ¡°Abomination.. You will die by my hands today.¡± The voice came from Daniel¡¯s right, a patch of space in which floated a young man who appeared to be, just like Daniel, in his mid twenties. His voice did not match his appearance, yet it resounded throughout space like a rumble of thunder, moving the simple white toga the young man wore with the powerful sound waves each word created.

    The power emanated by this young man¡¯s body was one of erosion and consumption, and his identity, was that of Corrosion. A low level aspect of existence, and one of the lower followers of the chaotic faction directly under the aspect of Conflict.

    ¡°What do you want?¡± Daniel asked in hope to gain enough time to make a full recovery before what he believed to be an unavoidable fight.

    The young man appeared to be aware of Daniel¡¯s intentions. Or maybe he was more interested in eliminating Daniel than he was in entertaining a conversation. With a faint motion of his hand a vast amount of power of corrosion formed in the distance, and merged into an inescapable dome that immediately began to shrink.

    Once again Daniel had found himself in a dire situation. His power of Karma, while as pure as any other power of existence, hadn¡¯t had the same amount of time the other powers had to settle into the universe before forming a consciousness, and that made Daniel the weakest among its kin. To be able to escape Equilibrium had been nothing but a feat of luck-After all, even if Conflict hadn¡¯t saved him from her, Equilibrium wouldn¡¯t have hurt Daniel as long as his existence did not break the multiverse¡¯s bnce.. A bnce he had regained by shedding the humanity which had made him an anomaly within the multiverse¡¯s equilibrium.

    The power of corrosion, however, was the power of strong winds breaking down mountains, waves eroding cliffs, death devouring life, time consuming beauty.. It was an aggressive power in nature, and respecting its nature meant perishing from it.

    With few ideas in mind, and too little power to defend himself from a powerful aspect of existence, Daniel prepared himself for another escape attempt, but right as he turned towards Elijah to grab him and make a run for it, he noticed that the champion of Destiny had stopped panicking.

    His flesh, skin and blood were a charred mess, yet his expression was one of peace. In his mind, Elijah had long lost the will to live. He had experienced atrocious physical pain and the torture of the mind, and right at the peak of both of them, he hade to a conclusion. Death was a better choice.

    Daniel saw the intention in Elijah¡¯s eyes, yet, before he could do anything, the owner of the system of depravity dashed towards the approaching purple wall, disappearing into it like a drop of water that fell into ake¡¯s surface.

 Chapter 585 Oppressive Corrosion and Indomitable Karma

    <h4> 585 Oppressive Corrosion and Indomitable Karma </h4>

    Elijah¡¯s suicide came as a surprise to both Daniel and Corrosion. Both were painfully aware of the resilient nature of Destiny¡¯s champions, and to see one so broken in spirit and mind, Corrosion could not help but be taken aback. Even Daniel, the aspect of Karma himself, was left astonished.

    It suddenly became clear to him that the punishment of negative karma was much heavier than he had imagined.

    ¡°And here I thought he was your guide.. Turns out he was your prisoner.¡± The aspect of Corrosion realized. His voice crackled in Daniel¡¯s ears, sizzling like rendering fat which tasted of mockery. ¡°Not that he would have been of use to you any longer, but rejoice, at least you will perish inpany.¡±

    The mockery of the aspect of Corrosion did not affect Daniel¡¯s mind, but his words caught his attention. ¡®He would have not been of use to him any longer..¡¯ What did that mean? Was he the reason why Elijah, right before the attack, had failed to find a path towards his friends and family? Or was there something bigger at y? Something that would have affected a system¡¯s ability to anticipate their future.. Or fate.

    These thoughts came and went, for Daniel was still in mortal danger. In the corner of his eyes appeared the sorry figure of Elijah, who was now suffering through thest few seconds of his life with a content smile on his ravaged face. Daniel could not spare the power to save him, nor did he want to end up like him. So he quickly came to a conclusion.. He had to escape, and fast.

    As Daniel¡¯s thoughts of escaping solidified within his mind, and he began observing his surroundings in hope to find a weakness to Corruption¡¯s power, the young man he was facing groaned, ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it.¡± He then snapped his head to the side, pulling his floating long ck hair from his face, and finally opened his eyes, revealing a pair of bottomless pits of bubbling purple liquid.

    His body straightened, and his hands, once by his sides, joined in front of his chest. As his palms came in contact with one another, the aspect of corrosion slightly opened his mouth, and began to inhale. The sound wasn¡¯t any louder than a mortal breath, yet, the effect was biblical. The purple smoke reacted, moving towards the small whirlpool that had formed right at the edge of the aspect¡¯s lips.

    As the corrosive cloud entered the young man¡¯s mouth, the surface of his purple eyes began to ripple. Droplets of liquid power emerged, as if reversing the motion of a drop falling into a mirror of water. One by one they detached, and moved away from the aspect¡¯s body, surrounding him in dozens of stationary droplets of liquid corrosive power..???

    The condensation of these drops was instantaneous, and the entire process did not take longer than a mortal¡¯s normal breath. In such a short time, Daniel could appreciate the irony of how simple his opponent¡¯s actions appeared.. And how terrifying the power emanated by these small beads of purple liquid were.

    That time, unfortunately, was not long enough for him to make a full recovery.

    Without wasting one more word, the aspect of corrosion slowly exhaled.

    The beads of corrosive power immediately heeded to their owner¡¯smands. As if propelled by the simplest of actions, they shot at a speed Daniel was hardly able to observe, flying through space like bullets and reaching his body before thetter could realize it.

    As they came in contact with Daniel¡¯s body, the droplets of corrosive power dug directly through. Karmic power, skin, flesh, bone.. Everything was prated with the same ease a sword¡¯s point would pierce a thinyer of cloth, leaving Daniel¡¯s body riddled in perfect holes.

    ¡°Ghak!¡± Daniel cried as a mouthful of bitter blood sprayed out of his mouth. The damage he had taken was immense, and soon made him realize that, had the aspect of Corrosion used his full power against him earlier, he would have long been dead. To give himfort from this pain was the fact that he had survived the attack, as well as the fact that, if lucky, he would be able to escape before Corrosion could mount another one.

    Unfortunately, what Daniel initially felt was far from the extent of his opponent¡¯s attack.

    As his body desperately tried to recover enough to withstand a dash into the distance, Daniel felt a strange feelinging from all over his body. More notably, the rough surface his fingertips came in contact with.. A feeling which led him to look down at his hands.

    What he saw when he looked down, however, were not the lean and healthy hands of a young man, but the leathery and pale hands of a man on his deathbed.

    This change was not even throughout his body, but instead, making its way out of his wounds, as if every bit of skin and flesh the droplets of corrosive power had touched, had be poisoned with an aging curse.

    Soon enough, Daniel began to feel the life essence within his body be swallowed by the power of death. Corroded by the unstoppable flow of time, leading him to a demise typical of the mortal the other aspects of existence believed him to be.

    In an almost desperate attempt Daniel used virtually all of the karmic power in his possession to stop this aging process, but, s, the influence of the power of corrosion in this universe was much vaster than karma¡¯s, allowing his opponent the opportunity to tap into more power than Daniel could.

    No longer than twenty seconds after the attack, Daniel¡¯s hair had grown ten times the length, and turned snow white. His eyes, once limpid and pure gold, were shrouded in an opaque grayyer. Even his powerful mind, once one of the strongest elements of Daniel¡¯s existence, was now clouded and confused.

    As he observed what little he could of his surroundings in a borderline catatonic state, Daniel felt the creation of a new power of existence around him. Dark in color, cold, yet weing. This power lingered around him, prated into what was left of his body, and embraced the little karmic power Daniel had left. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    Even in his confusion, Daniel could tell this power belonged to the aspect of Death. A power that was generated as the life essence within his body started to run out, and he lived hisst few moments.

    As Daniel approached Death, he found himself in a state of rity. His thoughts went to the magnitude of Corrosion¡¯s powers, who had trampled his existence over like an elephant stomping on an ant. An obvious result caused by the hundreds of thousands of years of difference in their powers¡¯ cultivation.

    While most aspects of existence were born as consciousnesses in control of their fully formed powers, that was not the case for Daniel.. After all, Karma was a new power of existence. One that needed to be nurtured and produced as time went on, and which had yet to saturate the universes with its presence.

    This difference was one Daniel had toe to terms with whenever he met one of his kind, making each of those encounters a deadly one.

    These thoughts came and went inside Daniel¡¯s mind. Important yet superfluous, for he saw no way out of the darkness that was swallowing him. A darkness which gently attempted to put him to sleep, and pull his consciousness away.

    However, that was not Daniel¡¯s time yet.

    Behind his confused mind, beyond the waves of pain, and the veil of darkness that surrounded him, Daniel saw rays of light. Rays that brushed over his skin in a gentle and familiar power, and that healed his wounds, and damaged sense of sight.

    Daniel¡¯s vision slowly came back to him, allowing him to notice the origin of these rays of light. A source even Corrosion could not help but stare at with brows raised in shock. These beams of light came from not too far away, from what appeared to be Elijah¡¯s eroded remains. They liberated themselves from the fractures, cuts, and holes on thetter¡¯s body, like a candle light trying to break through the chinks of a broken box.

    The brilliance of these lights seemed to know no limit, as it continued to increase at a faster and faster rate.. Causing the cracks and holes from which it emerged to widen. Yet, the speed at which these openings grew was nothing inparison to the desire of these lights to be released. A desire that Elijah¡¯s remains were unable to contain, until finally, momentster, they exploded.

    A shock wave of pure golden light washed in every direction, repelling every form of essence that was not part of its own. The purple droplets, the power of death that engulfed Daniel.. Even Corrosion himself. Everything was hurled far in the distance.

    Daniel did not need to look twice to understand the origin of this power.. For he had seen it before, just tied to Elijah. Fuel that was originally meant to nurture his punishment, but which following thetter¡¯s untimely death, sought release.

    This was the first time Daniel had witnessed this use of karmic power. Under the misconception that karma was something he could only control after borrowing it, Daniel had never seen free karma. Living karma which, unwilling to perish with its creator, had broken free.

    This power was not only of a higher quality, but also, most likely due to the magnitude of Elijah¡¯s actions, of immense proportions.

    After basking in this light for a few seconds, Daniel¡¯s wounds began to heal. His skin, leathery, wrinkly and pale, was flushed with new life, going back to its original healthy and firm state, his body quickly regenerated. Daniel could have enjoyed this feeling for the rest of time, yet, he was reminded of his situation as the shockwave of golden power that was engulfing him finally stopped growing.

    A thickyer of purple liquid had formed outside, one which had stopped its advancement, and was pushing back against it.

    Daniel, of course, had no intention of letting Corrosion have his way with him again. In just a moment he raised his right hand palm up, the next, the massive field of golden light began to restrict at an even faster rate than the purple liquid could follow. In the third moment, the karmic power condensed to a bead the size of a child¡¯s fist.

    Its power was incalcble. Pure, indomitable, and capable of creating fear in the hearts of anyone who looked at it. Corrosion, for the first time, felt a looming sense of danger from it.

    Instead of chasing for Daniel¡¯s body, Corrosion once again inhaled the power at his disposal. It dripped down his throat like a sip of poisonous water, condensing within its body into a purer, and more aggressive state. Once done, Corrosion pointed the tip of his thumbs at the uncovered patch of skin on his chest, and thigh, then sunk them into his flesh. Immediately after his fingertips disappeared into his body, with sudden motions, Corrosion shed downwards, turning the small piercing wounds into deep gashes.

    From these gashes no blood came out, nor purple liquid. Instead, from its dark surface, emerged two crescent moon des. Solid as steel, and as tall as corruption itself. After the two des, two more emerged, and two more after that. These six des floated around the aspect of Corruption, shrouding his body in a deadly barrier.

    Daniel immediately took notice of these des, and of the impending sense of doom they left within his mind. Unwilling to once again just watch as he was brought to the brink of death, Daniel gripped tightly at the golden orb, and as he squeezed, the orb began to stretch.

    In a moment the shape of the orb turned from a perfect sphere, to a small lightning spear. Its brilliance, even stronger than the threat Corrosion¡¯s power generated.

    Unwilling to give his opponent a single more moment to prepare, Daniel gripped tightly at the short spear, and with a light speed motion, threw it at the champion of Corruption. Simrly, his opponent positioned the six purple des in front of him, and with a powerful huff, sent them flying in Daniel¡¯s direction.

    Six des cut through the essence of space like nothing, traveling at a speed beyond understanding. Their only obstacle, the ray of pure golden light, whose brilliance they felt was their worst enemy.

    Their journey continued, until finally, in but a fraction of a moment, the two powers shed.

 Chapter 586 Getting Up to Speed

    <h4> 586 Getting Up to Speed </h4>

    Both existential essences thrashed towards one another while leaving rings of residual power in their wake, only taking a fraction of a moment before finally colliding. While most would have expected for the sh to cause a universe-shattering impact, however, that was not the case.

    The spear of Karma, immensely purer than its opposition, pierced right through the des of Corrosion without creating any shockwave or sound. It then continued forward.. For it to move past the six corrosive des appeared as simple as piercing through normal air.

    Corrosion, who had used all of the power he could muster from the universe he was in to face Daniel¡¯s attack, was left defenseless, and unable to avoid the iing attack. He could only look in horror as the karmic spear came in contact with the right side of his waist, going in and out of his body with as much ease as it had gone through his power.

    Once through, the karmic spear continued to travel in the distance, and in a matter of seconds, merged into the dark expanse as a tiny dot of golden light, not dissimr to any other star.

    The aspect of Corrosion was horrified. Before the pain of his weak shell of a body could hit him, he looked down to assess the damage only to find that the entire area around the initial wound had disappeared, leaving a bleeding crater that extended up to his lungs, and down to his knee. What was left of his upper body was attached to his left leg by a small strip of flesh, while his right arm, right leg, and most of his abdomen were gone.

    Purplish liquid started gushing out of the aspect¡¯s mouth, nose and eyes, forming beads that gently floated away. His mind, now strangled by the immense pain, was focused on gathering the small bit of corrosive power he could from neighboring universes, hoping for them to reach him before his consciousness would vanish. What he saw next, however, was able to overtake both pain and survival instinct as the main focus of Corrosion¡¯s mind.

    In front of him, just a few dozen miles away, was an oddly shaped silhouette. One hidden behind the remnants left by both powers.. golden clouds with hints of purple that became more prominent the closer one got to the silhouette.

    This silhouette was that of a human, yet, not aplete one. A human torso that was missing its left arm, and everything down to his right knee. More ominous, however, was the silhouette¡¯s head, which was almostpletely severed, and only attached to the rest of the body thanks to a few streams of blood that magically emerged from the base of the neck, to the bottom of the head. There was no need for Corrosion to guess to whom this silhouette belonged, for in it he felt the power of karma..???

    In his distressed state, Corrosion could not help but rejoice in the fact that Daniel was as Damaged, if not more damaged than he was. A few of his des had managed to reach him.. However, this joy was short-lived. While both injuries were fatal, Corrosion had soon noticed that Daniel had begun to heal despite being, just like him,pletely out of existential power.

    That was the first time the aspect of Corrosion had witnessed the difference between a mortal, and a cultivator.

    When bing the aspect of Karma, Daniel had indeed been forced to give up what made his cultivation unique.. Yet, that did not mean he had lost his progress. His body, spirit and mind had split into three separated powers that formed the vestige which contained Daniel¡¯s consciousness. One that was feeble in front of the power of an aspect of existence, but that whenpared to their mortal bodies, was far superior.

    This was why after the two had received such extensive damage, while deprived of their powers, Daniel was able to recover, and Corrosion couldn¡¯t.

    Many civilizations throughout the multiverse, despite being unaware of each other¡¯s existence, had developed the same term to perfectly define the battle presence of an aspect of existence. That term was ¡®ss cannon¡¯.

    As Corrosion noticed Daniel¡¯s limbs regrow, and his head being pulled back in ce not by the power of karma, but by simple healing essence, a thought made its way into the former¡¯s mind. It split, and spread like venom, until no part of his mind was left untouched. A sudden awakening to the realm of mortality which he was forced to experience as a consequence to the one question he had asked himself.

    ¡°Am I dying?¡± He muttered right after arge mouthful of purplish blood sprayed out of his mouth. Unwillingness and fear apanied the pain he felt into a nauseating waltz, leaving him to deal with the endless fall into despair that considering his demise had created.

    asionally, small sparks of corrosive power would appear in the surrounding space before quickly diving into his dying man¡¯s body in an attempt to hasten his healing process. But, s, the effect was far from being a match to the speed of Daniel¡¯s recovery.

    The maimed figure slowly approached the dying aspect of Corrosion. His skeletal hands waved the residues of the two powers away, clearing a path for his golden eyes to peer through. His head slowly came back to its ce. Muscles reattached, veins reconnected, and bones fused together once again. Following the growth of bones, golden hued skin developed, covering his newly formed bicep and femur, elbow and knee, hand and foot.

    When Daniel emerged from the multicolored cloud, he appeared as healthy as he could be. His eyes, rings of ming gold, were aimed at the aspect of Corrosion.

    ¡°S-s-stay.. Aaawayy.. stay away-y from m-me..¡± Corrosion yelped while waving his remaining arm and leg, as well as bloody stumps in the air, as if trying to swim away from Daniel. Unfortunately, the panic he felt had overtaken his understanding of space, and showing a sorrier state in front of his opponent was the only thing he was able to achieve.

    Daniel decided not to bother with Corrosion¡¯s words, and instead kept approaching him in silence. As he came to arms reach of his squirming body, he came to a stop. ¡°What did you mean, he wouldn¡¯t be able to help me? What changes?¡± He inquired.

    Corrosion¡¯s words had bothered him. As an aspect of existence Daniel hade to realize that the kind he had joined had more influence in the universe than he had thought.. And while a malfunction in one of the systems he was so familiar with was not impossible, for Corrosion to be aware of it, must have meant something.

    The question reached Corrosion¡¯s bleeding ears before bouncing off, repelled by thetter¡¯s panicked mind. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    Daniel rolled his eyes, irritated by his once mighty opponent¡¯s pathetic state. If there was information within Corrosion¡¯s mind, he would not be sharing it while in this state of mind. In the blink of an eye his newly formed hands became a blur. When it came back to focus, it was wrapped around the dying aspect¡¯s neck.

    Corrosion thrashed and wiggled, grabbing his aggressor¡¯s arm and kicking him in a pure state of panic. Of the once godly being now remained a dying gazelle lying on its side, kicking the air as a lion sunk its teeth into his neck, squeezing the life out of him.

    The painful death Corrosion so much dreaded, however, never arrived. In its stead, a calming wave of warm power, which erased any feeling of pain and fear he was feeling and allowed him to regain hisposure. ¡°Answer my question, and you will die at peace.. And with no pain.¡± Daniel demanded with a threatening tone that rumbled in the deepest parts of Corrosion¡¯s mind.

    A soft click of the tongue exhibited the disappointment a now calmer Corrosion felt when witnessing how slowly his power was gathering from the other universes, as well as being at the mercy of an entity he considered beneath him. ¡®Had Karma fought him in his domain, no amount of hidden power would have prevented the roles from being reversed¡¯.. Was all he could think.

    While no longer bothered by pain and fear, however, Corrosion¡¯s weak survival instinct, only capable of considering aspects of higher rank than him as creatures to be feared, was still present.. And since he did not want to die, he could do nothing but answer.. At least to gain some time.

    ¡°You should have.. never existed. Your existence changed everything..¡± Corrosion muttered in between the asional cough and spitting of a mouthful of blood. ¡°Like a virus, you have damaged the nature of the multiverse.. Protected by an ancient agreement.. But not anymore.¡±

    Daniel said nothing. By being unaware of the true nature of Iewah¡¯s spawn, Corrosion¡¯s words sounded like obscure babble to him. Despite standing defenseless in front of him, Corrosion still had thought of survival. He was buying time, and Daniel knew it.

    These petty schemes were something he, as a former mortal, had seen uncountable times before.. So he did not bother to convince Corrosion to exin what he was talking about. Instead, he controlled the mind power he was using to suppress the man¡¯s perception of pain and fear, and changed its purpose. In a moment, unbothered by the panicked screaming that suddenly resumed, Daniel¡¯s mind power moved to a different part of Corrosion¡¯s mind. One that stored the aspect¡¯s memories.

    Soon enough, a nearly infinite series of images appeared in front of Daniel, all depicting a different moment of Corrosion¡¯s endless life.

    Too vast to explore fully, Daniel narrowed his research to the memories rted to Destiny, then again to thes one Corrosion attributed the most importance to.

    What was left were a handful of memories. Destiny¡¯s birth, the war his actions had caused, the moment the agreement between Fate and Destiny was signed, and finally, his most recent memory.. The day everything had changed.

    In these memories Daniel learned about Destiny¡¯s origin.. A vast part of history which allowed him to find an answer to the many questions that had haunted him for thousands of years. Why were those who he blessed sopetitive? Why did their powers revolve almost entirely around survival.. And what was the purpose of their existence?

    While shocked by the discovery, Daniel delved deeper.

    In the few minutes that followed, Daniel learned about the wars that had brought countless universes to destruction.. As well as the agreement that put an end to it all. In these memories Daniel found out about Destiny¡¯s motive. How he and Fate had observed countless champions fail to validate his existence.

    Finally, in Corrosion¡¯s most recent memories, Daniel finally understood what the former¡¯s words meant.

    The agreement between Destiny and Fate hade to a conclusion., and he was the cause of it all. His existence had validated Destiny¡¯s nature, elevating him to the ranks of a true aspect of existence while at the same time damaging Fate¡¯s existence. Fate¡¯s response was one Daniel had imagined even before seeing it within Corrosion¡¯s memories.. Would Fate¡¯s nature still be questioned if he wasn¡¯t alive?

    ¡°Finally, Fate¡¯s protection is no more!¡± The aspect of War eximed to the nearby members of the chaotic faction.

    Corrosion, as ted as hispanion, muttered in response. ¡°Now that Lord Fate is free to interfere, those maggots¡¯ blessing won¡¯t be able to peer into the fabric of fate.. No more hiding. We can finally eradicate them.¡±

    As Daniel witnessed this exchange, he finally managed to obtain thest piece of the puzzle.

    Why was Destiny¡¯s blessing able to show them the future with such precision? In hindsight, Daniel felt stupid for not realizing that the path the systems created was not the best among many possible futures, but a way to direct fate into the direction they desired.. That difference was what had created Destiny.. A difference too small to create a true divide between the two concepts.

    Fate had always known that Destiny¡¯s champions were able to use their systems to affect the fabric of fate, yet his nature did not allow him to believe those changes were true changes. To him, if a change happened, then that change had already been written into the fabric of fate, and was bound to happen regardless.

    It was only after being proven wrong, that Fate had realized that Destiny was not bound by the rules of his power, and that he could not tolerate. If the aspect of existence he represented was not as unchangeable as he had believed, he would make it so.

    Daniel felt the magnitude of what he had witnessed as he slowly retracted his hand from Corrosion¡¯s neck with a nk stare. He could have never imagined how dangerous his situation was, and how little were his chances of survival. It was at this moment that he was grateful for having cultivated his mind-for if he hadn¡¯t, he would have probably lost himself in the same despair Corrosion was feeling.

    Luckily, his mind power was quickly able to help him recover hisposure. A life on the run was what was awaiting him, and he had lingered in this ce for far too long.

    Unwilling to keep what would be an additional threat in the future alive, Daniel raised his right arm, then brought it down with the might of a high level martial cultivator. Before the attack couldnd, however, Daniel¡¯s pupils narrowed. His hand, knee, shoulder, groin and right suddenly exploded.. Releasing small clouds of blood which covered an existential essence of simr color.

 Chapter 587 War Veteran

    <h4> 587 War Veteran </h4>

    ¡°ARGH!¡± Daniel groaned in pain. A new form of power hadnded on his body at a speed he could not react to, sting its way halfway through his flesh and muscles, and leaving him riddled in fist-sized bleeding holes.

    Unfortunately, that was not the end of the devastation this power would cause him.

    Daniel did not need to think to realize that another aspect of existence had arrived-and that its appearance, regardless of whether its purpose was to save the aspect of Corrosion, or to face him, ced him a step closer to his death. Escaping was his only option, yet, as he considered which path to take, Daniel quickly realized that he couldn¡¯t let go of his current opponent.

    Despite the immense karmic power that was released at the moment of Elijah¡¯s death-Power which had allowed him to defeat Corrosion, Daniel was fully aware that his triumph had been a fluke. To be able to discover a new way to use his power right as he was at death¡¯s door was not a show of skill, but a saving grace. After all, how many times would he be able to have someone with such a vast amount of karma power, and whom he was willing to sacrifice when facing another aspect of existence?

    It was very unlikely that, if Corrosion escaped now, a more prepared version of him would fall for this trick a second time. He needed to die, if not for Daniel¡¯s survival, at least to lessen the number of his enemies by one.

    As his body quickly attempted to recover, Daniel noticed that the vermillion power which had harmed him had not dissipated, but had instead lingered within the mist of his blood, seemingly having a life of its own. ¡°Tch!¡± Daniel scoffed at the sight of this power, which slowly grouped up into a small sanguine-colored cloud. ¡°It could be gathering to perform another attack.. But it¡¯s slow. Its owner must still be far away.¡± he thought.

    Without wasting any more time, Daniel once again aimed at the injured aspect of corrosion. His fingers joined together, his arm straightened, simting the shape of a spear. Around his fingertips, bluish ki appeared, sharpening them and forming an edge which could pierce the whole universe.

    A momentter, Daniel¡¯s shoulder snapped, sending his whole arm towards the dying aspect of existence.

    Space rippled in its wake. The sparse elements present in its darkness heathed the moment the spear-like arm brushed past them, crackling away like sparks off of a welding table. It only took an instant for the attack to reach the aspect of Corrosion, yet, as the tip of the spear approached the red cloud, thetter came to life..???

    Faster than Daniel thought possible, the reddish cloud split into two, then condensed into just as many different shapes. A part took the shape of a shield, while the other took the shape of a sword. The shield, almost as if possessed, immediately ced itself against Daniel¡¯s arm, parrying the blow, while the sword turned into a blur before disappearing.

    When thetter reappeared, only a fraction of a momentter, the sword was lingering above Daniel¡¯s head. From its reddish edge parted a few drops of blood, which traced the sword back to its original position, as well as to the source of spilled blood.

    A sharp pain invaded Daniel¡¯s mind as his arm parted at the shoulder. The parry and counter had been instant, and so seamless that Daniel could not help but be taken aback. Luckily, pain was not a problem for someone with a mental fortitude as powerful as Daniel¡¯s, as he was able to quickly shake it out of his mind and react.

    Aware of this power¡¯s reaction to his attack, Daniel immediately backed away. Few aspects of existence could represent such a perfect counter to his attack, and the first one that came to his mind was the aspect of Duel. A being born out of the concept of engagement between two parties. If that was the entity whose power he was facing, any form of attack would be countered effortlessly.

    As he backed away, Daniel pointed the index finger of his remaining arm towards the aspect of Corrosion. From its tip, an immense amount of spiritual essence began to condense, forming a diamond-shaped construct the size of a mountain. In a moment, this enormous block of ice disappeared from in front of Daniel¡¯s finger, leaving an afterimage, as well as streams of white colored air in its wake.

    The reddish power reacted just as quickly. Its bubbly form changed once again, taking the shape of an immovable cuboid which was meant to meet iing mountain, yet, just before the two could sh, the mountain of ice exploded, turning itself into an uncountable number of ice shards which all aimed at Corrosion from just as many directions.

    Corrosion was horrified. Never before had he felt such helplessness, and now that he stared at the iing attack, he could not help but fall into panic. What caused him to panic, however, was his fear alone.. For he had underestimated the power that was protecting him.

    Simrly to how the ice mountain had exploded, the red cuboid exploded as well, sending fragments of its body in every direction. Almost as if guided by a god, each of these fragments ced themselves directly in the path of each individual shard, then crumbled into dust.

    The particles of which these clusters were made began to rotate, grind against one another, then sh while moving at light speed, then rotate again until a momentter each cluster gained the characteristic hue of an incandescent object. These glowing vortexes then stabilized, forming a perfect counter for Daniel¡¯s attack.

    For the ice shards to move past them was no hope.. but that was never Daniel¡¯s goal.

    Right before the shards coulde in contact with the small molten vortexes, the water essence changed in nature. Its surface became intangible, and for just a moment, they disappeared. The spiritual essence of spatial nature passed through the shields of sma, turning back into water essence the moment they passed through.

    ¡°Come on..¡± Daniel muttered as the millions of shards encircled the aspect of corrosion. In the distance, he could feel a powerful consciousness move through the interdimensional portal. It was now or never.

    The shards enclosed the aspect of Corrosion, then came to a stop the moment the tip of each shard came in contact with his damaged body. To stop each shard were uncountable specks of red existential power, hidden within the mortal body of the dying aspect of Corrosion to be used as ast ditch attempt to save his life.

    However, even though the attack failed, Daniel did not show any sign of despair. On the contrary, his eyes narrowed, and his lips curved into a malicious smile.

    His narrowed golden eyes began to shine of a green hue, a color which seemed to emerge from the depths of his mind, and condense into ayer which instantly parted from his cornea, and expanded into an almost invisible green nket. This essence was, of course, Daniel¡¯s mental power.

    While it was only a guess, Daniel had imagined that no attack would be able to prate the existential power of Duel. After all, not only were win and loss part of its nature, but parry, defense, and counter as well. He was aware that no matter how many attacks he would throw at his opponent, be it magical or physical in nature, they would all be repelled. What Duel could not protect Corrosion from, however, was a mental attack. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    The wave of green power moved past the millions of incandescent vortexes, then past the ice shards as if they weren¡¯t there to begin with.. Witnessing this, Daniel smirked in satisfaction. He then turned around, and prepared himself to open a rift to the void, yet, he was quickly stopped in his tracks.

    As soon as his mental st came in contact with the existential power of Duel, the power utilized its higher speed to converge into a single spot. Its aim was not to halt Daniel¡¯s mental st, but to take a new shape. An enormous humanoid silhouette holding a mallet in one hand, and arge snare drum in the other.

    As Daniel saw this silhouette, his heart sank. He had misjudged to whom this power belonged.

    Before he could react, the massive silhouette hammered therge mallet against the drum¡¯s batter head.

    The impact was catastrophic. Seemingly powerful enough to create the birth of a universe, the thunderous roar expanded in a sh, sting away Daniel¡¯s mental attack before moving past him and corrosion, and advancing in every direction.

    As the percussion reached Daniel¡¯s body, his mind was sted clear, and left buzzing the same way an alligator would after making the unwise decision to feed on an electric eel. It took the entirety of Daniel¡¯s mental power to recover from this nk state of mind.

    With a quick shake of his head, Daniel desperately tried to regain his bearings, but just as he was once again able to think straight, his ears captured a feeble drumroll. He looked ahead in a hurry, and quickly noticed that the silhouette was now holding two drum sticks, and using them to strike the drum at an increasing tempo.

    *doom.. doom.. doom.. doom.. badoom.. doom.. baDOOM.. DOOM..*

    Daniel¡¯s heart began to race. He did not need to guess any longer. He was certain that the power he was facing did not belong to the aspect of Duel, but of War.

    Immediately, Daniel converged his spiritual essence into his fingertip, then shed downwards, opening a human-sized rift that led to a shattered universe. Just before he could go through it, however.. *BADOOM!* Another wave of immense power brushed past him, once again numbing his mind, and sealing the portal he had just created.

    The thunderous sound of the war drum kept resounding through the universe, dissipating any form of rationale or consciousness it came in contact with. It was hard to even fathom the amount of lives that were lost each given moment.. A number which increased exponentially as the affected area increased in size.

    Each wave struck Daniel¡¯s mind harder than the previous. So hard, in fact, that he had struggled to notice the presence of the aspect of War became more clear. At the same time, the silhouette became more defined, revealing the shape of arge and tall man in full golden armor engraved with the pictograms of the fiercest and most important wars in the multiverse¡¯s history. Pictograms which came to life as his arms continued to m the drumsticks over and over again.

    Daniel was now desperate. Wave after wave of War essence flushed his mind clear of any form of thought. To take control over the spiritual essence within his body was already the most difficult thing he had ever attempted to perform, let another use it to create a rift from which he could escape.

    Luckily, he had always been quick witted.

    It was in the short time frame between shockwaves that Daniel was able to formte a n. One which he forgot every time a new wave of war essence numbed his consciousness, and to which he added a new step every time he recalled it the brief moment he regained control of his mind.

    By the tenth wave, Daniel was able to gather the bit of karmic power he had left in his body, into a corner of his mind. By the fifteenth wave, he had sessfully encased a portion of his consciousness within it. By the thirtieth attack, Daniel stared at the aspect of War expectantly.

    What he was looking for, however, was not the man in golden armor, but the familiar power behind him.

    After the fortieth attack, the aspect of War suddenly turned his head around. In the corner of his eye appeared a golden spark of golden light, one which the first of his drum¡¯s shockwaves had failed to destroy. Then the second, the third...

    As thest of the shockwaves he had created was breached, the body of War¡¯s avatar bent backwards, avoiding the now shrunken arm-sized spear of pure karmic power. Yet, despite missing its target, the spear did not stop. As quickly as it came, the spearnded squarely on Daniel¡¯s stomach, then continued in the distance while dragging his body along, and out of danger.

    War reacted immediately. The war drum turned into a longbow, which he gripped tightly. With masterful form he cocked an arrow of pure existential power.. Then let go of it.

    As the arrow whistled through space, Daniel realized that there was no avoiding it. He needed to leave this universe immediately.

    Now free to act without being impaired by War¡¯s numbing attacks, Daniel quickly opened a new rift in the trajectory of the golden spear.. And the next moment, his surroundings changed.

    The once stable yet chaotic universe turned to a shattered one. One where space was fragmented, and each piece grinded against another like broken ss in a sack. In front of him, the shrinking sight of the closing portal, and in the middle of it, the approaching red arrow.

    The portal continued to close, yet, as only an opening the size of a needle¡¯s crown was left, War¡¯s arrownded. The power forced itself through, losing the majority of its momentum, yet maintaining enough to devastate the already shattered universe.

    Unable to bear its oppressive power, the area where the portal had just closed instantly copsed, forming a rapidly growing void of absolute darkness which expanded at a mind boggling speed, swallowing Daniel and the rest of the universe in a handful of seconds.

 Chapter 588 Of Nature and Men

    <h4> 588 Of Nature and Men </h4>

    The surrounding space fell apart. Each fragment gradually shattered to dust before merging into the expanding pit of nothingness which was located right where the portal that bridged this shattered universe, to the one Daniel had fought Corrosion once was.

    Despite how quickly the battle between him and Corrosion had been, having only taken about a minute in total, that encounter could notpare to what Daniel was witnessing. The expansion of the ck hole was so rapid that it could keep up with the momentum of Daniel¡¯s karmic spear, which was still dragging his body in the distance at a speed that would put light to shame.

    All of the countless attempts Daniel had made of opening a new portal were fruitless, for the space was too unstable. So much so, that the sheer contact with his body was enough to further its destruction, creating a tail of copsed space which connected him to the immense sphere of nothingness that followed him.

    As Daniel¡¯s stay in this universe reached the span of ten seconds, the ck hole reached a point of no return. Its rate of expansion had already passed the speed at which Daniel ran from it, and kept growing exponentially until finally, lights out.

    Shrouded inplete nothingness Daniel let the spear of pure karmic power merge into his body, then observed his surroundings.

    Completely blind, Daniel expanded his consciousness through his entire body, which he waved casually into the void. An extremely odd feeling pervaded his mind as he felt thepleteck of gasses, dust, or anything that could create attrition against his skin. No ancient sound which traveled the infinity of space, no acrid aroma of welding fumes, or hot metal. As his eyes failed to catch the slightest hint of light, Daniel found himself wondering whether his eyeballs were moving, or whether his eyes were open to begin with.

    Whilst experiencing this void, Daniel could not help butpare it to a state of pure dark essence.. One of the essences which he had mastered in his cultivation journey.

    While simr in theory, the distinction between the two was boundless. Darkness could envelop anything, but that did not mean that something no longer existed. In a dark cave one could stand on the hardness of rock, brush their fingers on a mirror of cold water, and breath its stale and moist air.

    Around Daniel, however, there was nothing.

    Despite how destructively copsed space made its appearance, Daniel found its abnormality quite calming.. Or at least, that was the case for the first few minutes. As the novelty of his odd surroundings began to die out, Daniel noticed something. His spiritual essence, his ki, and his mental power, were slowly being pulled out of his body, emanating like a person¡¯s natural scent.. Only to be swallowed by the surrounding void.

    ¡°The extraction rate is just higher than the production rate..¡± Daniel thought as his powers kept abandoning his body. His attempts to store them within his body were pointless, for the harder he tried to hold on to them, the stronger the extraction was. ¡°Is this.. Nothing.. controlled by some sort of consciousness?¡± he wondered after seeing the void¡¯s suspicious behavior..???

    As the three powers of cultivation slowly left his body, Daniel found sce in the fact that his karmic power, whilst also affected by this relenting absorption, was far more durable than his spirit, body and mind-to a point where its consumption was almost imperceptible.

    Aware that fighting the absorption would only quicken it, Daniel hid his consciousness withinyers of mental and karmic power, then closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he was standing in the middle of a busy street.

    Around him, faceless people walked in a hurry-Some escorting others, some holding hands, some carrying children, boxes or bags.

    This city¡¯s details, just like the appearance of its citizens, was extremely vague, yet Daniel found no fault in them. After all, they were all but a memory. Memories of a distant past that had emerged as he first tried to find a ce where his consciousness could reside.

    To his memory, this city was the ce he and his daughter were born in, and where he had spent his younger years. Far down the road he could see the city gates, where he would guide and swindle traveling merchants. To the right the academy where he had first learned martial and spiritual cultivation, and to his right, the mercenary and adventurers guilds where jobs and tasks could bepleted in exchange for money.

    These locations used to be everything Daniel knew, but now, they were no different from the memories he had seen in the mind of millions of other people. Everyone had a childhood home, a park with flowery bushes whose scent was permanently imprinted in their head, the facade of a sweetheart¡¯s house which they had started at for far too long, never daring to knock at the door.

    As he realized how little these memories mattered to him, Daniel could not help but wonder whether he could afford to call himself a human anymore.

    As Daniel wandered the streets of this city looking for a proper ce to stop, a pungent smell struck him. Slightly burnt bread, apanied by the sizzle of eggs on an oiled pan. Almost energized, he followed this smell through various streets, and to a simple looking house.

    While simple in appearance, this house was the most detailed building within the city. In it, a table with three chairs, one kept neatly, while the others were pulled out, left disced by the two individuals who had used them. A te with fresh and toasted slices of bread next to a burning stove, and two doors.. One locked, and one leading to a poorly illuminated room.

    Daniel walked into the house, then past the table. For a moment, he found himself reaching for the stove¡¯s cover-an action he had performed hundreds of times after the one time his sister had forgotten to turn it off, almost burning the whole house down, and which had be a sort of a habit for him. Immediately he corrected his action, then continued walking until he reached the small open room.

    As he opened the door all the way, a simple wooden frame with a hay filled mattress covered in a handwoven nket appeared in front of him.

    Daniel did not bother with the state of the room, nor did he care for the extinguished candle which rested on top of the bedside table, or the papers on top of the small ruined desk.. He simply walked up to the bed, and sat on it.

    The familiar rough feeling of hay piercing the fabric and poking at his skin threatened to pull the corner of his lips into a faint smile, but that reaction faded as quickly as it had appeared. He knew that these emotions were simple feelings of wonder, and not of attachment. After all, while Daniel had cut his connections to his mortal life, he still had feelings-Only, more self centered. The ce he was currently in was one Daniel had felt safe in the past, and that feeling had not disappeared.

    Almost as if having unloaded a massive weight off his shoulder, Daniel let his upper body fall back, until the back of his head hit the mattress.. He could feel clearly that, in the distance, the vast forests which encircled the city had started to disappear, eroding at the same rate the pure void which surrounded his physical body was eroding his mental power.

    Behind this blurry sight was a darkness that, given enough time, would erase him from existence. No underworld for his consciousness, no spiritual realm from which his spirit could be reincarnated, no dirt toy his body at rest under. Just, nothing.

    Too tired to think so far in the future, Daniel closed his eyes, and for the first time in over a thousand year, he fell asleep.

    ¡ª¨C

    To¡¯han, Blue gxy, unimed universe.

    ¡°My Lord, our time is running out. The expansion of the cultivators has been relentless, and we have lost half of the gxy. If we must fall back, now is the time.¡± Said a middle aged womanpletely covered in ck robes, to a vast hall filled with individuals d in simr attires. As she spoke, her silvery voice gently traveled through her surroundings, almost as if lulled by a faint wind.

    The dark hall was not made out of stone, but seemingly carved into the trunk of an immense tree, and currently housed a hundred of such entities. All hidden in what bit of their appearance their baggy dark robes could not cover. Not all robes, however, were the same, but all possessed a specific mark. Fire, wind, earth, metal, air, lightning, and more. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    These individuals were all left standing, and facing a throne of thick roots upied by the being whom they all revered as a god, treated as a savior, and proudly called lord.

    Contrary to thisrge group, the man who sat on the throne was enjoying the most of the natural light present within the room. A light which revealed a healthy and youthful hand which glowed with a dozen of different vibrant colors. His only other visible feature, a pair of ever changing kaleidoscopic eyes which bore into the souls of those theynded on.

    ¡°Lord, we can still take over this universe. But we need to go on the offensive!¡± A hooded man uttered with fervor while taking a step forward, leaving behind a trail of burnt wood where he previously stood. As he spoke, sparks of orange light illuminated his rugged face for a few brief moments.

    This sentiment appeared to be shared by arge portion of those present.

    ¡°My Lord, were you to order us to assault our enemy, my kin will throw their lives with joy.¡± A second man eximed from underneath a puffed up robe, from whose holes emerged faint gusts of wind whenever the being moved.

    Just as it appeared that many others were ready to join in on inciting their lord to take action, a screechy voice interrupted this shared sentiment. ¡°We are to bring life to the graves of the forgotten, and that is when we will prosper. With time, Nature inevitably prevails. This is our most important rule.¡± An enormous gray-skinned man d in tattered robes retorted.

    ¡°We have lost so many in just a few hundred years! At this rate, we won¡¯t outlive anyone!¡±

    ¡°Then we stop fighting!¡±

    ¡°You!..¡±

    The once quiet and united group of ck robed entities turned into a loud crowd. The atmosphere appeared to change depending on who spoke the loudest, as the room temperature fluctuated, sudden gusts carried extreme heath, fine sand, and even ice shards, adding up to the chaos voice alone had created.

    ¡°MY LORD!¡± Screamed a woman as she rushed into the hall. ¡°The main camp has been found!¡±

    This report sent a shiver down everyone¡¯s back. For a moment, the group of individuals stopped arguing. ¡°This universe is lost. We need to retreat.¡± Therge man said with a screechy, almost unbearable voice.

    A second woman, originally part of the group of robed individuals, stepped forward. With a flick of her wrist she revealed a thin and elegant arm, human in shape, yet not in appearance. Invisible, almost as if made out of ss. ¡°The surrounding universes are part of War¡¯s domain.¡± She said with a matter of fact tone, ¡°I can open a portal to a shattered universe, but we might find ourselves trapped. I suggest-¡°

    Her proposal was quickly interrupted. For the first time, the lord moved.

    With human mannerism, the lord¡¯s pair of colorful hands tightened around the throne¡¯s armrests. His back moved forward, shifting his weight on his legs, then smoothly stood up on his feet.

    Once standing, the lord walked past the hundreds of followers, which quietly and respectfully made way for him, stepped towards the hall¡¯s entrance, then through a short corridor made of thick intertwined roots. Behind him, the group of robed beings followed almost religiously.

    The light at the end of the short corridor became stronger, shining brightly on the simple robe the lord was wearing, as well as on his glowing arms, neck, and chin.

    In a moment, he was out.

    The scenery that appeared as he and his followers emerged from the hideout was breathtaking. Uncountable square miles of untouched nature. Luscious forests, deep seas, volcanic ashes and dust dragged alongside the clouds by powerful gusts of wind. Every speck of this world appeared to be a living representation of nature, perfect, stable, dangerous, and alive.

    In contrast to this scenery, were the uncountable ships that hovered beyond the atmosphere. Enormous freights and dreadnaughts which carried millions of cultivators. Each eager to set fire to every tree, extract every bit of ore, and eradicate any form of life they could find.

    The sight of these ships was not a first for the lord, for he had seen the same scenery for the past several hundred years. His attempts to take over a universe where nature could flourish undisturbed.. Where his people could live in peace, had been ruined by relentless greed. This was the thought that had burrowed in his mind.. A mind that, just like his nature, only aimed at creating a ce where exploitation of nature did not exist, and where nature could make its course undisturbed.

    This time, however, something was different. As he saw these ships¡¯ cannons being aimed at his world¡¯s surface, threatening the lives of so many of his followers.. A human emotion surfaced.

    Like poison, this emotion grew, taking over any contrasting feeling of righteous peace and hope.. Until suddenly, his shoulders dropped. Without uttering a word, the lord raised his colorful hands, then aimed them at the sky.

    The surrounding essences, almost as if heeding to their God¡¯s will, gathered in between his palms, forming a fist-sized sphere of pure energy. Then, as quickly as it appeared, this sphere shot forward with unbelievable momentum.

    Quiet as wind, yet faster than lightning, this sphere crossed the sky and pierced the atmosphere.. Only stopping once it approached the fleet of ships.

    Thousands of cultivators approached the sphere. In its uniqueness, they could feel the peculiar essence of every element. All merged together into a perfect and stable bead. ¡°A gift?¡± One of the cultivators muttered to himself, unsure of how close he should get.

    ¡°If it is a gift, then we will bring it to the highmander..¡± A second cultivator said before turning to look at the with eyes filled with contempt. ¡°But first, burn that to the gro-¡± Before the cultivator could finish speaking, however, the sphere¡¯s surface suddenly cracked.

    ¡°TAKE COVER!!¡± The first cultivator screamed, aware that something was wrong.. But, s, it was toote. They could only witness their lives sh in front of their eyes as the bead cut their lives short with a big bang.

    The st advanced unstopped. Cultivators, ships, asteroids, artifacts made of the strongest materials in existence.. Everything within light years was vaporized. Not even the closest stars could survive the st, and fell apart under the immense energy.

    In a fraction of a moment, the threat was no more.

    Back on the, the lord looked at the st of energy wash past the, leaving itpletely untouched. As the light produced by the explosion began to dim, he once again lowered his arms. ¡°Perhaps I was wrong.. Sometimes nature just takes.¡± he muttered as his shoulders rotated, and his robe came undone.

    Soon after, the hood that covered his face began to puff up and move back, revealing to his amazed followers a head of ck hair. As the hood fell past his shoulders, its motion dragged down the rest of the robe, uncovering a human¡¯s back embedded with spheres of the purest elemental essence.

 Chapter 589 A Victims Dream of Safety (Part 1)

    <h4> 589 A Victim''s Dream of Safety (Part 1) </h4>

    After Daniel¡¯s true nature became known to the Pantheon, the multiverse began to change.

    Deities who once lived to witness their influence expand passively and powers grow limitlessly, were now leading trillions to war. Their target, not just the beings who had disturbed this status quo, but anyone who stood in their path. All a consequence of damaging the existential nature of one of the true pirs of existence, Fate.

    As Fate abandoned absolute control over the regtion of the multiverse, the aspects who previously fell in line felt liberated. Uncountable years of being forced to submit, hoping that their champions would not fall behind in providing them with more power than the rest of their kin. Their lives were like those of puppet kings, forced to live in luxurious castles in which their needs were catered by subjects they had no true control over.

    Fate¡¯s decision, however, had put an end to that lifestyle.

    Now free to interfere with the realm of mortals, the aspects of existence hunted, conquered, and expanded their dominion with no restrain, using the smallest slight and offense as an opportunity to wage war, and ignoring the very clean cut borders their champions had struggled to establish throughout the years.

    In the cracks between these endless conflicts, small groups led by extraordinary entities had started to emerge. Each fighting on the sidelines to secure a safe ce for their people to settle in, and survive the chaotic era.

    One of these groups was the Immortal Armada. A fleet of space faring mortals and cultivators whose goal was the exploration of the multiverse.

    Their goal, to find a universe where their existence wasn¡¯t destined to cease as a consequence of a stray attack, or a wave of existential energy released by beings whose nature they could barelyprehend.

    Throughout the years, the Immortal Armada recruited any sentient species willing to work towards this very goal, growing to a size that not many other independent powers could match. Fueled by the technological advancement of the most ingenious scientists, as well as cultivation practices one could find in the several universes they had visited, the Immortal Armada rapidly became one of the most advancedmunities throughout history..???

    Now, as a fleet of millions of vessels inhabited by two thousand times the number of individuals, they explored, hoping to find a universe that was neither upied by a domain, or the rogue armies of the corrupted champions of Destiny. A voyage which carried on for decades of uninterrupted conflict that more than once had threatened the Armada¡¯s existence.

    Until now..

    After close to two hundred and sixty years, the Immortal Armada finally stumbled upon the type of universe they had always desired to find.. An untouched universe.

    A universe open to multiversal travel, but which had yet to attractpetitors among the champions of the many aspects of existence, who were now otherwise upied with their deity¡¯s war campaigns.

    As the first few frigates made their way into this universe, their captains immediately realized that their search was over. No cultivator at the godhood stage collecting taxes, no traffic of gargantuan monsters, alien vessels and floating inds, no powerful fluctuations of essence emitted in the distance. Just a peaceful and empty universe.. Or so they thought.

    With the excitement one could expect from people who hadn¡¯t been able to ce their feet on soil for centuries, or even just once in their lives in case of the non-cultivators.. The entire Armada invaded the universe, and began to take control over the interdimensional portal.

    ¡ª-

    SCIA Zion, Administrative department.

    ¡°I don¡¯t expect you to work miracles, but we need results.. It¡¯s been two years!¡± Eximed a rugged faced man-at-arms to a room of white coats. His tone fluctuated between the respect the men that stood in front of him deserved, and the exasperation caused by the urgency of the situation.

    The men and women in white coats, all humanoid yet not all human, did not take the man¡¯s tone at heart. Instead, they looked at one another with disappointment. They shared the man¡¯s urgency. They knew that the man-at-arms did not see them as failures, and recognized them as the only hope the Immortal Armada had to not lose the ideal universe they had found.

    A woman, abnormal in both her overwhelming height and appearance, took a step forward and asked with worry, ¡°Commander, our work will yield results, but we need more time. How.. How much longer do we have?¡±

    Themander raised his head. His gaze locked onto the big and bottomless pools of darkness that were the woman¡¯s eyes, ignoring the long and soft gray-colored scales which grew on top of her head, and serpent-like scales which covered the back of her neck and nose bridge.

    ¡°Horror¡¯s crusade has been marching towards our section of the Trigate.. His sess against the lower domains has facilitated his power growth. ording to our estimates, at thetest, our universe will reach its path of destruction within ten standard months.¡±

    The quietness of the room was interrupted by a collective gasp, then resumed as the researchers¡¯ voices were choked by a feeling of anxiousness.

    ¡°Repeat to me what our options are.. Please¡± themander muttered before getting up from the chair, and approaching the vast window mounted behind his desk. Through the window one could see the usual darkness of space, yet, the man¡¯s eyes were aimed elsewhere. The tens of thousands of ships that surrounded the Scientific Center of the Immortal Armada, Zion.

    The woman who had previously spoken took a step back, allowing three researchers to take her ce. A dashing young man who radiated faint and unstable waves of immortal essence, a short and bald old man with thick sses, and a colossus, twice as tall as a normal man, with muscles of rough stone which threatened to tear his coat to shreds at any moment. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    While the young man appeared to be the youngest individual in the room, the rest of the researchers treated him with high regards. A respect he had earned not only because he was the only immortal cultivator among them, but also due to his age, which matched that of the rest of the scientistsbined.

    After taking a step forward, the cultivator unconsciously brushed his messy dark-brown hair to the side, then looked down at his hands, where a small pile of documents had suddenly appeared.

    ¡°Sincest year¡¯s report, we have narrowed the scope of our research by half.. A fifth, given the new deadline.¡± He said dispassionately while picking arge portion of the documents he was holding. Once he finished turning the pile into two, he ced thergest pile on top of the desk face down, discarding them as unviable options. He then handed over the rest to themander.

    As themander sifted through the documents, the young-looking cultivator began to exin. ¡°We are left with three projects. Broken Vase, House of Mirrors, and Amber Stone.¡± He listed as his eyes narrowed slightly. It was only after the man-at-arms turned to look back at him, showing that he was paying attention, that he continued.

    ¡°Our studies towards the Broken Vase project have borne good results. The idea is to create a contained space fracture which would encase the interdimensional portal, giving the impression to future visitors that this universe is on the path of copse, and therefore isn¡¯t worth exploring.¡±

    Themander flipped a few pages. ¡°That sounds ambitious.. What¡¯s the hitch?¡± He inquired.

    ¡°The scavenger division has umted enough spatial treasures to produce a formation.. The problem is the formation in itself. Nothing would stop us from implementing it tomorrow, but we cannot guarantee that the formation we have now, would stop the artificially shattered space from copsing a hundred years from now.. Leaving us trapped inside a copsing universe, and wiping us out. More research towards a more adequate formation is required.. a lot more.¡±

    The simple exnation was far from being enough to exin every small detail of the project, but themander was not there to interrogate the scientific team. Their goal was the same as his, and he knew better than to argue over something that was beyond his sphere ofpetence. He did not doubt their motivation in the least.

    ¡°Very well.. Talk to me about House of Mirrors.¡±

    ¡°House of Mirror is the more far-fetched of the three projects. By far the most viable, but just as much risky. It consists in creating an illusory formation which, just like Broken Vase, would give the impression of a shattered universe. It requires a tenth of the resources, just enough processes of solidifying space into shards, and forcing them to grind against another.. But..¡±

    ¡°But what?¡± themander asked.

    The cultivator turned to look at his colossalpanion. On his face was a doubt that did not escape the attentive eyes of the man-at-arms. This was the project the lead scientist was the least confident about. ¡°Well, within a natural shattered universe, the shards shift, teleport, sh and fall apart constantly, yet they are always connected the same way they were when the space was in its original stable state. With that being said, a normal universe would have an infinite number of shards, meaning that the chances of two connected fragments being near one another are infinitesimal. Our illusion would have a significantly smaller number of fragments.. Any cultivator with a sufficientprehension of the essence of space would be able to notice that our puzzle isposed of much fewer pieces than it should have, allowing them to see through the illusion.¡±

    Themander nodded his head in agreement, then added, ¡°An illusion would not be able to fool an aspect of existence either. Mhm. What about Amber.. What was it?.¡±

    ¡°Amber Stone.¡± The bald old man repeated before the cultivator in the white scrub could.

    The young-looking cultivator was not bothered by the interjection. Instead, he continued with a matter-of-fact tone, ¡°The Amber Stone project is the most realistic and safe among the three.. However, itspletion is beyond our efforts.¡±

    Themander¡¯s eyebrows rose for a moment. ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°It is based on the same concept as House of Mirrors and Broken Vase, in the way that we need spatial treasures and spheres to fuel a vast formation.. But the setback is different. While the problem with the former two projects is either the risk in its concept, or ack of a solid formation, Amber Stone is rock solid in those two aspects.¡±

    ¡°What is the problem then, and how is it beyond you?¡±

    The bald and short old man who had spoken before, lead of the Amber Stone project, took over the exnation. ¡°As you know, the interdimensional portals aren¡¯t rifts.. They are channels of soft space which moving objects can prate through simple motion. It is not heat, pressure, life, or anything of the sort that enables passage.. Just the motion. Ack of motion inhibits these portals, hence why when a universe fully copses, the absoluteck of motion from the other side turns the malleable portal into an indestructible barrier..¡±

    ¡°This function is extremely odd, and we haven¡¯t been able to exin it.. What we know, however, is that had this function not existed, the copse of a universe would spread into the trigate, and through the other universes, bringing the entire multiverse to destruction.¡±

    Themander¡¯s face suddenly showed a trace of confusion, ¡°What about the patch of stable space that surrounds the portal?¡±

    ¡°The barrier is a natural formation that stabilizes the space surrounding the portal. Presumably, to safeguard the ability to apply motion to the portal¡¯s surface. However, it is not indestructible. The copse of the universe would still harm it, breaking it in the shattering phase, and swallowing it during the total copse.¡± the old man exined. ¡°The barrier is not a problem for House of Mirrors, since the shattered space would be just an illusion, while Broken Vase would require us to break the barrier itself, and contain the fragments, hence why it requires more resources. Amber Stone, on the other hand, would allow us to solidify the space within the barrier by overcharging it with a formation, but that requires more spatial treasure than we have avable.¡±

    For the following few minutes themander continued reading through the details of the three projects, while the scientists waited in silence. It was only after going through them twice, that the man-at-arms raised his gaze and said, ¡°You have done a fantastic job, and I know there is enough expertise in this room to turn any of these three projects into a sess, given enough time.. But realistically, we only need one.¡±

    As he finished speaking, themander grabbed two of the projects, and added them to the discarded pile. He then handed the remaining one back to the lead scientist. ¡°Focus on this one.. Amber Stone. Perfect it as much as you can in the time we have. Regarding the resources.. The army has nothing but men to spare for the scavenging teams. Finding the treasures you need will be our main focus.¡±

    Most of the scientists appeared ecstatic by the man¡¯s decision. Each of them was either the lead, or the conceiver of one of the original fifteen projects, yet, seeing their project being discarded did not appear to bother them. The reason for that, was that they all desired the dream on which the Immortal Armada had been built to seed more than they desired personal gratification. To focus the entirety of the scientific division into a single project was clearly a step towards that goal.

    Seeing this cohesion among the scientific team, themander could not help but let out a faint smile. ¡°Ten months, gentlemen.. Billions of lives rely on this. Let¡¯s not disappoint th-¡± Before themander could finish speaking, a blinding light pierced through the thick window, blinding the scientist and the room around them.

    Taken by surprise, themander turned around..

    In stark contrast with the pride he was feeling a moment earlier, themander felt a strangle at his heart. As he fell on his knees, the view became clear for the scientists, who saw thousands of ships, all filled with millions of mortals and cultivators, destroyed.

 Chapter 590 A Victims Dream of Safety (Part 2)

    <h4> 590 A Victim''s Dream of Safety (Part 2) </h4>

    The once bustling floti had nowe to aplete halt. In its core, a hole had formed. Bright and hot as the ships¡¯ oxygen reserves burned out, then quiet and dark a momentter, leaving behind only a graveyard of bloated and burnt corpses and ship scraps.

    Of the millions of people affected, only a handful had been lucky enough to survive the impact, and among them, only a fraction had the knowledge to survive the two or three seconds it would take for the cultivators to locate and rescue them. When the sphere of breathable atmosphere and healing essence was formed, for most of them, it was toote.

    As the thousands of rescuers tried to help, ten times the number of cultivators had appeared, forming a protective around the affected area. To lead them, themander who, just a minute earlier, was engaged in a conversation with the Armada¡¯s scientific team.

    Next to themander were several more individuals. All dressed in a simr military attire, yet clearly of a higher status. They observed their surroundings just like themander, but they did so quietly, for their eyes leered into further depths of space.

    ¡°How did this happen..¡± the Commander muttered in an usatory tone.

    A middle-aged cultivator suddenly appeared in front of him. His burnt and ripped clothes revealed that he was part of the one of the crews that had been hit. As such, it was his and his peer¡¯s job to protect the humans that inhabited those ships. His apologetic expression, however, was marked by a deep confusion. Whatever type of answer themander was expecting, he wouldn¡¯t have gotten it from him.

    Before themander could reprimand the cultivator for his failure, however, one of the other officers, a lean and tall old man with a military cut and unshaven white beard stopped him. ¡°It was not his fault. My vessel was among the ships that were hit, yet I felt nothing. This was no simple attack.¡±

    The Commander¡¯s brows furrowed. ¡°An attack? Admiral, we would have felt a cultivator¡¯s essence fluctuation years before they even came close to the floti.. I-¡°.???

    ¡°But there were none, I know, Okka.¡± The Admiral interjected. For the following minute, the old man and the other admirals remained quiet, trying to gather as much information as possible before the rescuers intervention erased any possible trace of the attacker. After several minutes, they regrouped. The first one to speak was the old man himself, who pointed his finger at an empty point in space and said, ¡°The st of the ships¡¯ reaction cores has sent debris flying everywhere, but most of it is heading in that direction, so the attack came from that direction.¡±

    A woman, tall and muscr, yet prouder than any of her peers, gathered her floating hair into a single horsetail as she added, ¡°The meteors that hit us were devoid of any form of essence, which is consistent with a normal meteor shower, but something is very odd about all this.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean, Admiral?¡± Okka asked briefly after joining the group.

    ¡°First of all, we did not see iting..¡± The woman exined with a matter-of-fact tone. ¡°But more importantly, the size and shape of the meteors.. Nothing of it is consistent with naturally formed streams of cosmic debris. The few bodies that didn¡¯t hit and broke from impact had jagged surfaces, which is odd for massive rocks that supposedly traveled the universe for who knows how many years.¡±

    The other admirals nodded in agreement.

    ¡°These ¡®meteors¡¯ were detached from a, and thrown in our direction.. Possibly hidden behind ayer of dark and spatial essence, which covered their appearance and tail whilst curving light around it to make thempletely invisible.¡± The first admiral added with a solemn tone.

    ¡°What does it mean, admiral?¡± Okka asked, unsure whether he wanted to hear the answer to that question.

    The old admiral did not leavemander Okka waiting. ¡°It means that we were not the first ones to find this universe.. And that we aren¡¯t wee.¡± As he finished speaking, the admiral turned to look towards the direction he had guessed the attack hade from.

    In the distance, countless stars radiated with colorful and warm lights. In both his eyes and the eyes of hispanions, one could see the fire of defiance. This universe was one in several thousands.. Possibly thest one they would ever encounter which would fulfill all requirements to create a habitat protected by warmongering deities and the sycophants that follow them. If his guess was correct, and they weren¡¯t alone in this universe, then they would fight for it.

    ¡°Intercepting the floti with such precision means that we were being observed.. and since we haven¡¯t been here long, our opponent shouldn¡¯t be too far away.¡± The admiral exined before turning tomander Okka. He then ordered, ¡°Send two recon units. Scout the systems for signs of advanced life, but do not engage. Find whoever it was that sent that warning shot and report back to me directly.¡±

    ¡°Sir, should I inform the Warlord?¡± Commander Okka inquired.

    ¡°Not yet. We will, as soon as we get a clear idea of who we are facing. Let him cultivate in peace until then.¡± The Admiral responded before turning to look at the ship graveyard onest time. ¡°Don¡¯t forget to assess the damage. Whoever did this to us will be held responsible.¡±

    ¡°Yessir.¡± Okka eximed just before the admirals disappeared, leaving him to handle the oue of what had just happened.

    Despite the initial shock, Okka was able to maintain his calm. Be it because of the authority of the admirals, or because of the events of the past century, he couldn¡¯t tell.. But such a massacre had been amon sight in the other universes the Immortal Armada had mapped. Had it not been for the past two years of peace, Okka would have barely batted an eye at the sight of such an attack, and wouldn¡¯t have lost hisposure. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    ¡°What is the count?¡± He asked a young cultivator who appeared to be in histe twenties, but whose cultivation at the high immortal stage revealed a far longer lifespan.

    The young cultivator summoned a report, and immediately began to read through it, ¡°Eight thousand and thirty six civilian vessels and about half the number military ships. Among the former, a thousand eighty farm ships, six thousand colony ships, five hundred carr-¡°

    Okka stopped him. ¡°The body count..¡±

    Already aware that that was the number themander had originally asked for, the young cultivator¡¯s lips pressed together for a moment. His head shook as he read the astronomical number. ¡°Four million, sir. Most of them being.. mortals.¡±

    This number reached Okka¡¯s ears as simply as it was uttered, yet, it did not leave as quickly. Instead, it was branded in themander¡¯s mind. His hands clenched into fists. Had it not been for his cultivation, his slightly long fingernails would have drawn blood. Like the admirals, he wanted to find the beings responsible for it, and make them feel the weight of the lives they had taken.

    Oddly invigorated by hearing the grim report, Okka turned towards the thousands of cultivators who, at some point, had approached him. Among them, he could recognize the young cultivator in scientist attire with whom, just a few seconds ago, he was having a peaceful meeting.

    ¡°Mobilitate recon team four and six. I want them to map the systems within a three degree cone in that direction.¡± He ordered a middle aged man before turning towards a second individual. ¡°Inform the captains of every dreadnought ss, I want the reserves and anyone with some degree of understanding of spatial essence to report to the scavenging division. You will support them in looking for spatial treasures. The rest of the military ships are to form a honeb barrier on the side the attack came from. Keep position and distance, and pay attention to objects shrouded in dark essence.¡±

    ¡°The support team, make a census of the victims and spread it to the other sh-¡°

    ¡ª¨C

    Not too far from the Immortal Armada, a pair of devilish red eyes appeared. Their color, bright and vivid, stood in stark contrast with the darkness of space, but nothing seemed to be attached to them. Only a shadow that, with every blink, turned the two red lights on and off.

    The pair of red eyes were aimed at the patch of space from which it had just escaped from. An area that, for thest two years, had been inhabited by the Immortal Armada. There, from the safety of their ships, the cultivators patrolled, scavenged, explored, and made ns for a universe that did not belong to them.

    Despitecking a face one could read, the deep hatred the shadow felt towards this invading force was easy to spot. Receiving a mission that could bring them pain was nothing but an opportunity to him, and he hadpleted it with pride.

    ¡°You can divert your eyes. We have seeded this time, but they won¡¯t fall for the same trick twice. They may be greedy, but they are not stupid.¡± Said a second silhouette which, without making a single noise, had appeared next to the shadow.

    This silhouette was very different from the first one. It was humanoid and clear, but possessed no human feature. As transparent as ss, the silhouette reflected, curved and trapped light only to release it immediately after, giving itself a multicolored glow some mortals would only expect to see figures in the most holy of their religious figures.

    Irritated by the words of the iridescent man, the pair of dark red eyes narrowed. ¡°We could have gotten all of them! Their kin doesn¡¯t heed warnings!!¡± The shadow barked angrily.

    ¡°We have our orders. We already did as much damage as our personal interpretation of them allowed us to, so don¡¯t push it.¡± The iridescent man before suddenly turning towards the direction the two had just escaped from. Hispanion followed suit. ¡°Already??.. We need to go, now!¡± He blurted out in a hurry.

    As he finished speaking, the red-eyed shadow closed his eyes, and merged into the darkness of space. The iridescent man, on the other hand, stood still. The surface of his body stopped reflecting and caging light, focusing on curving it around his body before sending it in its original path in front of him. The shiny luster rapidly disappeared as he became an intangible part of his surroundings.

    Not a momentter, in the space the two entities upied appeared six bright lights, which darted past likeets of incandescent metal. As most of them disappeared in the distance, however, one came to a halt, revealing itself as a cultivator shrouded in light armor and dark essence. ¡°Stop!¡± He shouted to hispanions, who traced back their steps and joined him soon after.

    ¡°What did you sense?¡± asked a young-looking woman dressed in a simr attire.

    The first person to stop, a ck-haried man in his early thirties, scanned his surroundings with a pair of tired, yet lively blue eyes. ¡°Voices, movement.. Two people were standing here, talking, then disappeared.¡± He muttered in a low tone, almost as if speaking to himself, or thinking out loud.

    ¡°Are you sure? I can¡¯t feel any fluctuation.. We would be able to sense it if someone had left in a hurry, or opened a rift.¡± The puzzled young woman inquired.

    While not extremely powerful, the young woman and herpanions belonged to the recon unit of the Immortal Armada. Powerful cultivators in their own rights who descended from ancient explorers of their universe of origin.. Had someone been there not too long ago, she had the confidence and skills to believe she would not have failed to feel their presence.

    The ck-haired scout did not doubt the young woman¡¯s ability. However, his skills were special. What he had felt was an extremely rare anomaly that only him within the team would be able to perceive. ¡°It wasn¡¯t a cultivator¡¯s essence that I felt, but the essence of darkness.¡±

    The young woman appeared confused. To be used, dark essence needed to be produced by a cultivator¡¯s spiritual or immortal essence. For hispanion to have felt a fluctuation of natural dark essence, was impossible.. Unless.. Suddenly, something clicked.

    A connection formed in the minds of the ck-haired man, the young woman, and the rest of theirpanions. Not a dark construct, but pure darkness that moved with intent and disappeared without leaving traces.. ¡°A dark elemental.¡± muttered the ck-haired man under his breath.

 Chapter 591 A Victims Dream of Safety (Part 3)

    <h4> 591 A Victim''s Dream of Safety (Part 3) </h4>

    To¡¯han, Non-Elemental Pce, two weekster.

    Across the entirety of the¡¯s surface, only two structures had ever been erected. The first and most important, was the Lord¡¯s Pce. A series of vast halls and dark corridors formed by the controlled growth of the most ancient tree of the, whose entwined branches formed the pce¡¯s walls, floors and roofs.

    Originally built as an outpost used to scout the newly opened universe, the Lord¡¯s Pce was the ce where the leader of the elemental faction resided. To those who lived by their faith, however, the Lord¡¯s pce was much more. It was the beating heart of the elementals¡¯ dream. The starting point from which their kin would be able to shape the universe into a home in which they wouldn¡¯t need to worry about being hunted down and harvested to near extinction.

    A universe where nature could flourish without being exploited by greed.

    Much less important, but still crucial, was the only other artificially constructed structure on the. A shapeless construct of light, darkness, and spatial essence where the oddest types of elementals lived. This pce was the ce where the leading members of the odd elementals resided, and was referred to as the Non-Elemental pce.

    United in their dream, yet separated in their loyalties, the odd elementals followed the Lord as an ally, rather than a God, for their existence was a shapeless one that went beyond the restrictions of the most basic of elements.

    Despite making up only a small fraction of the poption, however, the odd elementals took care of therger problems. Tasks like the creation of systems which could amodate colonies of each type of elemental, transportation, scouting, and, under the Lord¡¯s guidance, coordination of the domain¡¯s military operations.

    One such operation was the task that was being discussed in the main hall of the Non-Elemental Pce. A bright pocket of space separated by the contrasting darkness by a ss-like barrier of solidified space.

    Inside this hall, seated on three thrones, were just as many robed figures. A crystal-like silhouette of solidified space, a shadow that seeped through the robe¡¯s holes like liquid smoke, and a figure whose appearance was hidden underneath the brightness of the light it emanated..???

    Extremely rare on their own, these aspects of light, space and darkness formed a trio which had never been observed together, making their sheer presence a once in a lifetime spectacle.

    These three elementals were currently looking at the middle of the hall, where two more silhouettes stood in silence. Thetter¡¯s nervous behavior and shaky appearance showed how less refined their existence was whenpared to that of the three figures they hade to report the oue of their mission to.

    ¡°You were followed?¡± The sitting dark elemental asked in a deep and growly voice.

    To respond to the question was the figure standing to the left, a red-eyed shadow which, due to the light produced by the ancient light elemental that sat on the middle throne, was forced to reveal his pitch ck physical appearance. ¡°Yes, Ancestor. While the attack was sessful, they reacted quicker than we had expected. As you know, we can travel through our elements at a rapid speed, but not one that matches a cultivator¡¯s.¡±

    The dark ancestor remained quiet. There was no need for him to speak to express the disappointment and embarrassment he felt. After all, his kin was born in darkness. To fail to remain unnoticed was not unlike a healthy human failing to breathe, or forget how to walk. Almost as if reacting to these feelings, the liquid smoke that floated out of the ancestor¡¯s robe began to seep back in, making his appearance somewhat smaller.

    Ignoring his peer¡¯s disappointment, the ancestor of the spatial elemental interjected, ¡°It matters not. As long as youpleted the mission, we have fulfilled our obligations.¡± His tone was an aloof one.

    After hearing his ancestor¡¯s words, the second standing figure, a ss-like spatial elemental, took a step towards the thrones, and with visible worry, asked, ¡°What if the cultivators reach To¡¯han? It would take a single one of their diplomats to reveal what we have done.. After all, our orders were to threaten, not to attack.¡±

    This question seemed to hit home. The Lord¡¯s orders were clear to some extent. ¡®A warning shot and a demonstration of power. Make them wary of us, make them leave.¡¯

    When this task had reached the non-elemental pce, the messenger had rified the Lord¡¯s vague words.. If the warning were to fail to produce the desired results, a negotiation was to be had.

    Yet, the three ancient elementals had decided to discard this interpretation, and follow their own. A warning shot became a preemptive strike, and the cultivator¡¯s wariness had be a hatred that had to be answered to. By doing this, the non-elemental ancestors believed they would be able to scare the cultivators out of their new home, as well as use this sess to gain their people¡¯s favor.

    Unfortunately, the non-elemental ancestors had underestimated the Immortal Armada, for they were as desperate to establish a safe new home as the elementals were. All their attack did was to eradicate the possibility of a civil conversation, had the warning failed to produce the results the Lord had hoped for. A possibility that, if still viable, the Lord had already imed to be willing to explore.

    Now, however, the cultivators had be aware of a hostile power hidden within the universe they wished to colonize, and if that wasn¡¯t enough, they had been able to follow, and possibly identify them.

    As they considered the oue of the mission, the three ancestors found themselves in a conflict. Confess their actions to the Lord, take the me, and hope for the Lord to solve this problem himself, consolidating his rule over their kind.. Or solve the problem themselves..

    A mysterious history and carefree lifestyle was not the only reason why the elementals of light, space and darkness had separated themselves from the rest. The real reason was pride.

    For eons the three types of elemental had been considered to be a superior type of elementals, free from a¡¯s boundaries, able to live anywhere in the universe without having to bend or hide from the greedy hands of those who discovered their existence. In their minds, the right to rule over a coalition of elementals was rightfully theirs.. Instead, to their dismay, that power had been granted to a human cultivator. A monster embedded with the powers of their kind and venerated like a prophet.

    This was uneptable. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    When invited to join the cause, the elementals of space, darkness and light had given their power to it, but their hearts.. Their hearts always remained keen on seizing power. For that reason, the more the three considered taking the me, and losing any hope for control, the more ufortable they felt.

    The first to make up their mind about the problem at hand, was the ancestor of the light elementals, whose appearance grew in brilliance as he began to talk, ¡°I refuse to be treated like a child by some abomination.. Or for my kind to be used as a hostage to garner our loyalty. If what we did was a mistake, the weight falls on our kind. Our destiny is in our hands, and if the rest of our people cannot see that, we will help them understand.¡±

    His tone grew angrier as he continued talking. He was speaking his mind, forming a connection between his mistakes and his suppressed feelings like a child caught in a lie.

    ¡°It sounds like you have a n..¡± the ancestor of the spatial elementals muttered in a barely audible tone.

    The light emanated by the former began to flicker, then stabilized. ¡°I do.¡± He confirmed before turning towards the two elemental who were patiently waiting in the middle of the hall. ¡°Head to the Lord¡¯s Pce, report exactly what you saw. The cultivators did not heed the Lord¡¯s warning.. And reacted with hostility. Expect them to fabricate a casus belli, and mount an attack.¡±

    The spatial elemental nodded, then asked, ¡°What about the scouts?¡±

    ¡°Find them before theye in contact with any of the Lord¡¯s followers. Kill them.¡± The bright figure responded before standing up, and turning towards the darkness thaty beyond the hall¡¯s ss-like walls. He then added in a grim and dispirited tone, almost as if reciting a scripted line, ¡°The Lord¡¯s naivety exposed us to his kin¡¯s cruelty, bringing a war upon us. The life of every elemental we¡¯ll lose, will be on him.¡±

    ¡ª¡ª

    IAF Llewellyn, Coordination office, two monthster.

    ¡°Commander Okka, I am here to update you on the scouting mission.¡± A middle aged man with short grizzled hair said to a busy-lookingmander, who gave him a sign of understanding by waving his hand whilst brushing through a pile of important documents. ¡°Soon after their departure, a member of team four returned to base camp. He reported that Yannis, their head tracker, had felt the presence of two elementals, one confirmed to be a dark elemental. The rest of the team continued the pursuit.¡±

    Still focused on the documents, Okka interrupted the middle-aged, ¡°This is part of the original report, get to the update.¡± He said impatiently.

    ¡°Commander, our scouts are trained in speed pursuits and stealth recon. If a team fails to spot their target, that suggests two oues. Thetter is significantly more powerful than they are, or they are heading in the wrong direction.¡± The middle-aged man exined with a matter-of-fact tone. Then, as he noticed Okka¡¯s attention slightly shift on him, he added, ¡°In both cases, they are instructed to back off, ande back to base.. But-¡°

    ¡°But?¡±

    ¡°They never came back. We have sent team five and nine to track them down, but they too have failed to return.¡±

    For the first time, Okka seemed to lose interest in the documents. With heavy hands he ced them onto his desk, then began to stare at the empty space in front of him. ¡°Whoever is doing this to us, wants to start a war.¡± he muttered to himself before springing up on his feet, and turning towards therge ss window that separated his office to the vacuum of space.

    He then took two steps forward, heading towards the ss.. But before he coulde in contact with it, a portal opened, allowing him to cross through. The sound of boots stomping on metal was cut short, as the surface themander walked on turned to stone. The ustrophobic metallic cage he was used to living in had be an enormous hall, with wooden walls and a starry sky as roof.

    In this hall were no desks, no control panels, no staff.. Just a single bare-chested middle-aged man swinging a wooden sword in a trance. His face, hidden by long gray hair that fluttered in response to the man¡¯s movements, brushing over his sweaty skin as if trying and failing to erase the map of scars that covered his body.

    Each movement of this individual was perfect. Not a single muscle was misused, no breath was wasted.. His body was the incarnation of swordsmanship, and his training was an example to any of those who had the privilege to witness it.

    As he observed the man¡¯s movements, Okka felt a sudden surge of pride and respect well in his heart, to a point where, without noticing, he had begun to stand at attention.

    Despite noticing Okka¡¯s presence, the man continued his set of exercises, ending with a rising sh that seemed powerful enough to split the entire universe in halves. Once done, his arms went down slowly, and from in between his dried up lips and heavy breaths, came a few faint words, ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Warlord. It would appear that our opponent will not settle for anything less than us leaving this universe.¡± Okka said while maintaining a low gaze. He was not afraid, just too respectful to match the other man¡¯s line of sight.

    Across therge yet empty room spread the recognizable sound. The man Okka referred to as Warlord was inhaling slowly, then exhaling.. Thinking. It was only after a full minute, that he approached a weapons rack from which hung a white long-sleeved shirt, and said, ¡°The project will not stop. The scientific team and military are to continue with their current task. The admiralty will protect their operations..¡±

    ¡°And you, sir?¡± Okka asked.

    The man sat on a wooden bench, then quietly began to slide one foot after another in a pair of ck military boots. ¡°Sending more of my men to die to gather information is pointless. I will head there myself. If our opponent is set on a war, I will end things myself.¡±

    Okka could not help but feel admiration. He was a cultivator, but also a military man through and through. He had witnessed thousands ofmanders send men to their deaths for the chance of gaining the slightest of advantages.. But not the man in front of him. He didn¡¯t know if it was his power that gave him confidence, but he had never seen him back off from dirtying his hands, even when facing the unknown.

    While his interactions with the man were rare to say the least, each encounter increased the level of respect Okka felt for him, and now, as it reached a new height, he once again stood at attention and eximed, ¡°Yes, Warlord Rulin.¡±

 Chapter 592 A Victims Dream of Safety (Part 4)

    <h4> 592 A Victim''s Dream of Safety (Part 4) </h4>

    For the days that followed, the two factions, unaware of each other¡¯s true goal, prepared for first contact.

    The Lord of the elementals, informed of the cultivators¡¯ unwillingness to heed his warning, mobilized his most capable followers. Armiesposed of thousands of ancient elementals, each capable of shaping a into a world fit for their kind.

    In the eyes of a regr cultivator, each of these elementals was a treasure trove. Composed of the purest form of their element¡¯sprehension, these beings were personifications of their elements.. powerful enough to demonstrate it for others to learn.

    Fire elementals capable of walking on the surface of stars, spatial elementals capable of catching darting asteroids into a¡¯s gravity pull, dark elementals capable of merging into the depths of ck holes. Few were the limits in the control such an army had over their surroundings, making it clear why they would be unwilling to share a universe with beings who, at some point, would stop seeing them as the forces of nature they were, and start looking at them as precious resources.

    While their power was enviable, however, the cultivators weren¡¯t worth any less.

    Born among feelings of curiosity, greed and brutality, these mortals followed a path of overwhelming power. A path fueled by the impartial and infinite power of mana that would nurture them, and help them reach much higher heights than the elementals could in the same amount of time.

    It was in fact their speed of cultivation that made the idea of sharing the universe with cultivators an impossible goal for the elementals. Even if the leader of the Immortal Armada was willing to agree to such a deal, that oue would be short-lived. Who was to say that, a million years from now, the new leader of the Immortal Armada, would not decide that the deal they had no longer satisfied them.

    History was long, and lost in its nearly infinite progression simr agreement had been made. Of a simr event ending in anything but the elemental¡¯s destruction, however, there was no trace.

    As he traveled through space alongside his personal guard, the Warlord of the Immortal Armada had considered this. What if the elementals were just like them? What if they had found this universe, freed it from its native cultivators, and took it as their new home? An oasis hidden within a desert that only offered death to their kind, even before the war between aspects of existence started..???

    While he could empathize, however, the Warlord had to take a hard stance. He and his people had traveled the multiverse for close to two thousand years, hoping one day to stumble upon a newly opened universe they could inhabit.. Whenever they did find one, it would inevitably be stolen by one of the domains soon after, but this time was different.

    Despite being too busy following their deities into war, the domains had not failed to notice this new universe, yet, they had decided to ignore its existence. Whether that was because it was on the path of destruction of Horror¡¯s domain, and were unwilling to waste troops and resources to face the iing monstrous stampede, or because expansion lost priority, the Warlord could not tell.

    All he knew was that abandoning this universe meant having to jump back into the storm, hoping none of its brutality would brush over his people. Of being able to once again leave it, he doubted it.

    ¡ª¨C

    Blue Gxy, somewhere between the Armada¡¯s floti and To¡¯Han¡¯s system Xia.

    Uncharacteristic of the Armada¡¯s vessels, the Warlord and his personal guard did not travel within a spaceship, but on top a single arming sword. A double edged sword two hundred and fifty feet in length and eighteen feet in width, on top of which stood three orderly rows of cultivators that counted ny-nine in number.

    By the tip of the sword, rounding up the number of cultivators to an even one hundred, sat the Warlord himself. Now clothed in a pristine military attire, with his long hair gathered into a grizzled bun that threatened to fall apart the very moment the sword¡¯s speed was pushed a little further.

    For the past few days, his deep eyes had been aimed at the space thaty before him, stable, almost unreactive. No matter how many colorful chemical mists or spectacr events they witnessed in their journey, his eyes never moved. His men, of course, did not dare interrupt what he was doing.

    What had upied the man¡¯s attention, was not what his eyesnded on, but the thoughts that had formed in his mind.

    It was only when it was clear that his train of thoughts hade to a halt, that a member of his personal guard, a middle-aged woman with long purple hair and emerald skin said, ¡°Warlord, what is our mission¡¯s objective, exactly?¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± The Warlord inquired.

    The woman looked back at herpanions, who were staring at her with as much confusion as her original question was charged with. ¡°Sir, I have spent the past two centuries following you at arm¡¯s length. I know you don¡¯t underestimate the enemy.. And we are far from being enough for a proper retaliation. I was wondering if you perhaps were hoping for a.. Diplomatic resolution?¡±

    ¡°Preposterous! Those things wiped out millions of people already! Mortals, low level cultivators.. Turned into charred bits and bloated corpses! To hell with diplomacy!¡± Blurted out a second member of the personal guard. A tall ck-haired man in his early twenties dressed in tightly fitting clothes that could hardly hide his impressive athletic frame. Under a pair of ring thick eyebrows, the young man¡¯s devilish eyes thirsted for vengeance.

    A third cultivator, a one-eyed bald man standing by the middle of the left row added, ¡°What we do is up to the Warlord, keep your opinions to yourself, youngun.¡±

    ¡°What did you say!?¡±

    ¡°You heard me, punk!¡± ¦Ñ???????? ?

    ¡°I-¡°

    The purple-haired woman¡¯s question had set something into motion. Feelings of anger once repressed were released, only bound by how much loyalty and trust these cultivators ced on the figure they followed. The more they trusted the Warlord, the more their anger was aimed at those who were letting themselves be blinded by it.

    Soon, this back and forth turned into a ruckus, as more and more of the cultivators took part in it. A ruckus that grew in magnitude by the second, but that soon found its untimely end the moment the Warlord raised his hand, waving it over his right shoulder. ¡°That¡¯s enough..¡± he muttered in a low tone.

    The ny-nine warriors looked at the man¡¯s back rise, as he inhaled, then exhaled a heavy and nostalgic breath. They paid attention.

    ¡°I used to be part of a group once..¡± The Warlord reminisced. ¡°Before I created the Immortal Armada.. A group led by this kid. Notrge like the Armada.. Small. A few hundred thousand minds, hoping to survive in our own patch of space.. That is all we wanted.¡± In the Warlord¡¯s eyes, images of a once stable space, not unlike the one that appeared in front of his eyes, suddenly fell apart, shattering like a boundless mirror. ¡°I have long forgotten the faces of the people I was the closest with.. They are but a blur now. Even my daughter¡¯s.¡±

    ¡°What I can recall clearly, however, was the group itself. No distinction between cultivators, ancient beasts, aliens, mortals.. Elementals. Under the kid¡¯s guidance, we lived peacefully. That was the vision on which the Immortal Armada was created.¡±

    As he finished speaking, the Warlord slowly turned to his side, just enough for the figure of the ck-haired young man to appear in the corner of his eyes. ¡°Kyle, what did you specialize in, when training for my private guard?¡±

    Surprised by the sudden interest, the young man named Kyle straightened his back-He then answered, almost robotically, ¡°Mastery of swordsmanship, perfection of spearmanship, perfectprehension of fire, metal and thunder.¡±

    ¡°Anyone else, adept in either one of the natural elements?¡± The Warlord asked while slowly turning back towards the depths of space. He did not need to see it with his eyes, to feel the arms of each of his personal guards being raised. ¡°Everything you have ever learned about the essence of nature was taught to you through the use of a sphere.. A relic, formed by utilizing the remnants of dead elementals.¡±

    ¡°That, however, was not how people initially learned to control the elements. No.. They were once taught to us by the elementals.¡± Once again, the Warlord took a short pause. He inhaled sharply, then asked, ¡°Nih, what are the elementals to cultivators?¡±

    Nih, the purple-haired woman immediately caught on with her leader¡¯s intentions. ¡°From what I know, in every universe, after a sentient race learned the basics of natural essence, they started collecting treasures, looking for more concepts to add to their understanding in hope to reach a perfectprehension.¡±

    ¡°Then?¡± The Warlord asked.

    Nih¡¯s tone turned solemn, ¡°When they run out, the cultivators would eventually start harvesting them from living elementals.¡±

    The Warlord nodded. ¡°I have met many elementals before. They are protective of their kind, but their naturecks hostility.. Or the same cycle would not repeat itself throughout history. They likely have our same goal. To find a universe where they won¡¯t be hunted because of another species¡¯ greed. Where they can be safe. That I will offer to them.¡±

    ¡°Sir, I-¡± retorted the ck-haired cultivator. ¡°They have already attacked us..¡±

    ¡°That they did..¡± The Warlord responded. ¡°That is why I am here. I will find the voices that have soured these elementals¡¯ peaceful nature and eradicate them.. But if that goal cannot be achieved, I will destroy them myself.¡±

    The ck-haired young man was taken aback. He was the newest member of the Warlord¡¯s personal guard, and this was the first mission in which he had been able to participate, let alone speak to the Warlord. The thought that the Warlord¡¯s mind could not be opened to the possibility of war had festered in his mind.. But now, his mind was at ease. Regardless of the oue of this mission, he would put his trust on the Warlord, and fulfill his role withoutining.

    As he thought back at his outburst, the ck-haired young man almost felt embarrassed.. To a point where he had to say something. ¡°Warlord, next time, feel free to ignore what I say. It is not my ce to-¡°

    ¡°That is something you needed to hear.. You, and them.¡± The Warlord interjected before slowly rising up to his feet. ¡°Reveal yourselves.¡± He ordered in a domineering tone, creating a sound wave which expanded in every direction.

    This sound wave carried the weight of the man¡¯s word, mming against the entities hidden within the surrounding space. Spatial barriers were shattered, cloaks of darkness were dissipated, asteroids, gas clusters, all brushed past by the cultivator¡¯s sound wave.. Revealing the elementals that hid within.

    These elementals, shocked by the man¡¯s power, did not attack. Instead, they regrouped in front of the now halted sword, and with a respectful attitude, greeted the cultivators. ¡°Wee to our home, cultivators. What is it that you need from us?¡± The spatial elemental who stood at the front of the group of mixed elementals asked.

    ¡°We havee to greet your kind. Would you lead us to meet your ancestors?¡± Nih requested, aware that those were her Warlord¡¯s wishes.

    No visible changes took ce on the smooth mannequin-like face of the spatial elemental, yet the slight pause indicated that he was considering the request. It took over a minute before the spatial elemental turned to look back at Nih, and with its kin¡¯s characteristic aloof tone, responded, ¡°Please follow us.¡±

    As he finished speaking, the spatial elemental formed a vast tform of solidified space for the other elementals to use, then directed it towards Xia, the system that housed the elemental¡¯s home To¡¯Han.

    The Warlord and his personal guard followed.

 Chapter 593 Unavoidable War

    <h4> 593 Unavoidable War </h4>

    Together, the Warlord¡¯s personal guard and the elemental scouts traveled thest stretch to To¡¯Han, the Elemental¡¯s home. A short time that inevitably saw them interact with one another, satisfy their curiosities, and study each other¡¯s intentions.

    The closer to the destinations the convoy were, the more they would interact, seeing the short time they had left as thest opportunity left before their two leaders would decide whether the groups they led would end up sharing this universe, or face each other as enemies.

    One of these interactions saw Nih and Kyle approach the groupposed of several wind and fire elementals, who, as opposed to the elementals of water, capable of maintaining their solid shape in space by turning themselves into statues of ice, or earth elementals, capable of turning themselves into stone, were struggling to face the vacuum of space.

    Seeing the elementals of wind and fire struggle, Kyle turned towards the spatial elemental, and immediately realized that, aside from providing a t surface on which his peers could stand on, the spatial elemental did not appear to be interested in providing any form of help. This detail lodged itself in the back of his mind, as he casually created a spatial dome around the tform the elementals were riding.

    Now separated from the void, the wind elemental instinctively produced a mixture of gasses, which in turn fed into the fire elemental¡¯s mes. Once they found a bnce, the two quietly turned towards Kyle and Nih, who had quietly approached their tform, and bowed slightly, ¡°Unnecessary, but appeaciated, cultivators.¡± The wind elemental said.

    ¡°Not a problem.¡± Nih responded with a bright smile, revealing a set of light blue pointy teeth. ¡°I am Nih, of the Warlord¡¯s Personal Guard. This is Kyle.. and you are..?¡±

    The fire and wind elementals looked at one another for a brief moment. They already expected that, at some point, they would be approached. After all, this was the only opportunity the cultivators had to obtain information about their opposition before actually seeing it in person. What caused them to be taken aback, however, was the question.

    To respond was the fire elemental. A ming humanoid creature which, before being given gasses to consume, appeared as a human-shaped ss container filled to the brim with pureva. The fire that covered the elemental¡¯s body began to flicker, and change in color, as he said, ¡°Our kind doesn¡¯t use names. We identify one another through our abilities to exercise our control, and in the way we represent our nature.¡±.???

    ¡°Oh¡± Nih responded in short-lived surprise.

    Both her and Kyle had never encountered perfect elementals. Only newly born ones, incapable of thought and only able to disy the most basic forms of element. Creatures that in their eyes appeared identical, simr to how two candle mes were alike, two ice cubes, or two rocks.

    As an elemental grew, however, concepts of the elements would be added to their existence.. Allowing them to disy an increasingly higher array ofbinations of concepts, making them as unique as thebination of a human¡¯s voice, personality, physical appearance and name was.

    Unfortunately, most of these unique high level elementals would usually be wiped out early on by the sentient races that inhabited theirs of origin, allowing for only the most primitive and least valuable elementals to survive. As Nih looked at Kyle, she too understood how difficult it would have been for her to distinguish between one human and another, had a more powerful race wiped every primate down to their most primitive members.

    Confused by Nih¡¯s oddlypassionate stare, Kyle shook his head for a moment, then turned back towards the two elementals. ¡°The.. Warning you sent us, it came as a surprise. As you can see from mypanion, we are not used to seeing such developed members of your kind. How did you find this universe?¡± Any human could have noticed the hint of anger in the way Kyle pronounced the word ¡®warning¡¯, yet, that small detail was wasted on the elementals, who failed to pick up on it.

    ¡°How do you know we found it, and have not ¡®developed¡¯ here instead?¡± The wind elemental inquired as sharp gusts of wind began to fill the dome. A reaction that, better than Kyle¡¯s tone, disyed the way the elemental had perceived the question.

    ¡°Theck of native cultivators upying the interdimensional portal is the main reason.¡± Kyle responded. ¡°When a new universe opens, the native powers always try to control the portal¡¯s traffic.. You didn¡¯t, so it is safe to assume you came here yourself, and are not bothering to defend the portal because you are aware of Horror¡¯s campaign heading this way.¡±

    ¡°We came to ask you to leave.¡± The fire elemental retorted.

    Kyle¡¯s and Nih¡¯s brows narrowed. ¡°Ask? That is quite the peculiar way of putting it.¡± the former said with a palpable hostility which soured the peaceful mood between the two groups, causing them to stop interacting with one another, and continue their journey in silence.

    ¡ª¨C

    Just hours after thisst interaction was concluded, the convoy came upon aary systemposed of an immenselyrge orange star around which orbited only a handful of smalls. Before entering the star¡¯s gravitational pull, however, the convoy came to a halt.

    The spatial elemental turned around, facing the following Warlord and group of cultivators, and with an aloof tone said, ¡°We have reached our destination.¡±

    The Warlord¡¯s attention, otherwise focused on his meditation, had been picked. With an attentive expression he opened his eyes, and began to observe his surroundings. His sense did not reveal any hidden creature other than the elementals that had apanied him and the cultivators that followed him.

    As his mind began to wander, however, the spatial elemental approached his position while surrounded by the other elementals. ¡°Leader of invaders, bringer of death and destruction. I know why you came here.¡± ¦Ñ???????? ?

    The Warlord nodded his head faintly, then muttered, ¡°Let us join you then, enlighten us.¡± These were the first few words the Warlord had ever muttered, yet they came with the full weight of his power and position. The invitation, in the elemental¡¯s ears, sounded more like an order.. One which he had no right to refuse.

    Despite this odd effect, the spatial elemental did not get flustered. Instead, he maintained hisposure as he began to exin. ¡°Not mentioning the attack revealed that you are already aware that we were only ordered to warn you, not harm you. Furthermore, your numbers are not enough to mount an attack.. Meaning that you are not here for revenge, but to speak with the Lord.¡±

    ¡°I cannot allow that to happen.¡±

    ¡°Why did you attack us? We mean you no harm, we sought to use this universe for the same reason as you did. There is more than enough space for all of us to coexist!¡± Kyle blurted out, unable to keep these questions to himself any longer.

    The ss-like surface of the spatial elemental began to change. Once solid and crystalline, it now curved, as if starting to melt, then solidified revealing sharp edges. Whatever emotions were causing such a change in the creature¡¯s appearance, they were in no way weaker than Kyle¡¯s feelings.

    ¡°In MY experience, the sweeter a cultivator¡¯s words, the sharper their knives.¡± The elemental responded before finally regaining hisposure. ¡°Our kind¡¯s lost potential.. The potential to live as our ancestors if given enough time. Because that is the problem.. Time. It is all a matter of time.¡±

    ¡°With time, your leader will die. With time, your views will change. With time, we will stop being the possible allies you look at us as, and you¡¯ll sumb to your greed.¡± While his voice maintained the aloofness characteristic of the spatial elementals, the longer he spoke, the less stable his appearance became. ¡°We will only have time, if we cut yours short, and that is what we will do. No matter the sacrifices we will have to make.¡±

    The moment he finished speaking, the spatial elemental turned towards the ming figure Nih and Kyle had interacted with a few hours earlier. As his transparent eyesnded on him, the me was dozed off. The silhouette, once that of a human, had begun to copse in itself, squeezed by invisible walls from which there was no escape.

    The fire elemental was dying, but before he could the walls stopped.

    Surprised by the sudden loss of control, the spatial elemental turned towards the Warlord, whom he had found standing a few feet away. ¡°I also know what you want to do.¡± The Warlord muttered before grabbing the ss-like silhouette by the throat. ¡°Kill your own, escape, then put their deaths on us.. The invaders who came to ughter you all. I too, cannot allow that to happen.¡±

    After listening to the Warlord¡¯s words, the appearance of the spatial elemental began to vibrate, so violently that the former started to believe the creature would shatter under in between his fingers. That, however, was not what was happening. The spatial elemental, once aloof and indifferent, sounded almost amused as he responded, ¡°Well, you only got it half right.¡±

    ¡°I was never meant to escape.. And I never needed to kill them myself.¡± He said with a matter-of-fact tone before turning towards the other elementals. ¡°Show them your resolve!¡± He then eximed.

    These few words seemed to ignite something within the remaining elementals, who immediately stepped out of the spatial dome Kyle had made for them. What came out of it, however, weren¡¯t the struggling silhouettes they had seen before, but something else.

    Clusters of gasses that immediately dissipated, droplets of water that boiled into nothing, mes that burned out of existence. The elementals walked to their death on their own ord, and with no hesitation.

    As the Warlord witnessed this, he softened the grip around the spatial elemental¡¯ neck. He had finally gotten the full picture.

    ¡°Oh yes. Throughout the countless years our species have lived together, we too learned something from you. Viciousness.¡± The spatial elemental added as the Warlord finally turned to look back at him.

    ¡°And if I were to kill you here, and deny any of this happening..?¡± the Warlord asked in a faint tone, implying that the spatial elemental already knew how to reply.

    The silhouette vibrated once more, ¡°It¡¯s toote.. One of our people already alerted the Lord. They already know.¡± As he finished speaking, the spatial cultivator began struggling, but only faintly. His goal was not to break free, but for his head to turn enough to allow him to see the Elemental¡¯s home.

    As he caught a glimpse of it, he immediately stopped. His body stopped vibrating, and once again stabilized, disying an odd sense of calmness. The usual aloofness had returned to his voice as he spoke what the Warlord knew to be this ancient being¡¯sst words, ¡°I don¡¯t care about my ancestor¡¯s ambitions.. Nor who will lead my kind. I am proud my life was given in exchange for a chance for my people to.. Finally, find peace..¡±

    Thest few words resounded through the surroundings like an echo, a sound that bounced on the spatial elemental¡¯s body as it finally shattered, drifting lifelessly away into pieces, yet leaving behind a transparent bead charged with theprehension of spatial essence. Of this ancient being, only a small treasure remained.

    For a few moments, this small bead floated around within the Warlord¡¯s grip, as he began thinking. He could not me the elementals for their actions. He himself could not have promised that, after his death, his people would not go back on any agreement, and decide to repeat what their kind had done countless times in the past.. Hence why he could not deny any of the elemental¡¯s words.

    Of all the enemies he had faced in the past, this was the type he liked the least. An enemy that fought for the good of their people. The idea of facing something like that, he hated.. for it would always make him question his actions. Chip at his desire for victory.

    What woke him up, was thinking of those who, contrary to the ones who had just given up their lives here, were acting out of greed. The sheer idea of these entities tainting these beings¡¯ noble goals brought up a feeling of anger in him. An anger that filled his ears with a piercing buzz, a murderous intent that deafened him to the words that his followers kept repeating.

    ¡°-have to go!¡± Nih eximed, as millions of creatures left Xia¡¯ss and took to space before heading in their direction.

 Chapter 594 The Path of the Elements

    <h4> 594 The Path of the Elements </h4>

    To¡¯Han, Lord¡¯s pce.

    What was visible of the immense tree that had grown on To¡¯Han¡¯s surface, was not the entirety of the Lord¡¯s Pce. Arge part of it was, in fact, hidden under the¡¯s crust. Uncountable corridors and halls dug in between the tree¡¯srge roots, forming a vast dungeon only a few among the Lord¡¯s people could travel, or even remember.

    Once used as the starting settlement of theirmunity this maze had eventually fallen into disuse, until one day, nobody used it any longer-leaving its once bustling halls and corridors empty, cold, and dark. All but one.

    In the deepest parts of the dungeon, one long abandoned even when elementals still upied it, was a stone room. A cube of six walls from inside which came the dim light of a weak fire, and a constant chatter. The chatter appeared to be one-sided, as only one voice could be heard toin, demand, beg, and insult the owner of a second voice that was never heard.

    The inside of this room was one anyone would expect. Six cold surfaces through which no light pierced through. What was peculiar, however, was what was inside the room. Two individuals, both sitting on the cold stone floor, yet in visibly different conditions.

    The first individual was a shirtless young man sitting in a cross legged position. Directly in front of him, the only source of light within the room. A small bonfire whose me flickered stably, as if the fire itself was unwilling to disturb the human¡¯s meditation. Of this young man¡¯s appearance nothing seemed to be out of ce, but that was only at first impact. If observed carefully, one would be able to notice several spheres of elemental power lodged into the young man¡¯s back, forming a constetion of pure mana that gave the impression of staring at a garden world.. Bright, mysterious, homely, and perfect.

    This person was, of course, the Lord of the Elementals.

    As still as a statue, he sat quietly in meditation, causing the elemental spheres carved in his back to construct a small dome inside which each element interacted with the others in a perfect bnce. Gentle breezes, flickering of mes and electric arcs, cold mists of water, metallic dust, and microscopic minerals, all affecting one another both individually and collectively in order to disy the most obscure concepts of natural mana..???

    To witness this magnificent sight, unfortunately, was only one person. A second individual, also sitting with his legs crossed, but on the other side of the room. Contrary to the Lord of the Elementals, however, this man was not free, as his body was caged within a small prison of entwined tree branches that emerged from a dark hole on the roof, and continued downwards to form a water drop shaped prison for the man to stay in.

    Despite the beauty of the Lord¡¯s exercise, this second man did not appear to be happy. He appeared to be more willing to spend his time cursing the young man rather than admiring his talents, and so he did, repeatedly in the past few hours.

    ¡°You could at least make this cagerger.. I would like some more leg room.¡± the second individual, a tall and emaciated man who appeared to be in histe twenties muttered to himself. As he spoke, the elemental dome that surrounded the Lord began to flicker, causing the fire element to turn into a ze that swallowed every bit of wind essence present, turning the dome into a sauna.

    Clearly irritated, the Lord of the Elementals sprung up to his feet. ¡°We have an agreement. Stop getting distracted, and focus for once!¡± he said in an uncharacteristic fit of anger. It was clear that the tall man¡¯s interruption was not an isted case, but the norm.

    The Lord¡¯s outburst did not bother the prisoner on the other hand. In fact, it appeared that such a reaction was weed. ¡°You have to see this from my perspective.. I have been stuck here for years. You¡¯ve never even given me anything to eat. I have to find a way to amuse myself when I have a chance.¡± the prisoner said innocently before joining his captor in his standing position.

    His thin arm reached for the branches, followed by his face, which he pushed in between, deforming it to aical degree. ¡°I never get tired of seeing how angry needing me gets you. It is almost worth having to stay here.. Almost.¡±

    The Lord felt ashamed for once again falling for his prisoner¡¯s provocation.. Especially since that was not a rare urrence. Luckily, these feelings did notst long, and were soon brushed away by his usual serious demeanor, which he assumed as he once again sat in front of the fire, and resumed meditating.

    *tch* Annoyed, the prisoner followed suit, and once again sat with his legs crossed. He then closed his eyes, focusing on whatever it was that he was helping the Elemental Lord with, and allowing for peace and quiet to once again rule in between the prison¡¯s four walls.

    For hours the two ignored one another, exploring the depths of the elements and the way they each interacted with one another, and everything seemed to be going smoothly, until at some point, silence was broken once more. ¡°So, when are you going to let me go?¡±

    The Lord¡¯s shoulders drooped. ¡°If we seed, I might consider freeing you.¡± the Lord calmly responded while keeping his eyes closed.

    The answer was not the one the prisoner hoped to hear, yet it was the one he expected. ¡°You have no idea if that¡¯ll ever happen. We are ying with theories here.¡± he said as the newly formed dome once again began to flicker. Before it could burst, however, the prisoner focused once more, stabilizing it. ¡°Look at yourself. You can¡¯t even maintain bnce without my help. Why do I have to be punished for your crazy ideas?¡±

    The lord¡¯s brows furrowed, and his eyes opened, but only slightly. ¡°You were punished for trying to indoctrinate my people..¡± He responded sharply. ¡°You are always quick to forget that.. Elementalist.¡±

    Surprised by hearing that name after centuries of captivity, the prisoner sighed in resignation. ¡°Yeah well, I wouldn¡¯t have tried that had my system warned me of you.. Abomination.¡± His tone was one that matched his demeanor, yet, hidden underneath, were unmistakable traces of regret, contempt, and resentment.

    The memory of that day was clear in his mind. One he relived every day he spent in this cage. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    After being freed from the Lover¡¯s control, the Elementalist had traveled the multiverse, free to create the path of conflict and war that his kind was vastly known for. Like a true member of his kind, he dreamed of ruling the multiverse, a rule built on the blood of his enemies and the backs of his followers.. Only to find out that that was not as simple as he had believed.

    With no allies, and only his system to support him, the Elementalist eventually stumbled upon the reality that came along with his newfound freedom. One that in the past had either made or broken every champion of Destiny before him. The notion that he was not a predator any longer.. But prey.

    Years passed. Time in which the Elementalist desperately tried to survive the encounter with immensely powerful domains and, heavens¡¯ forbid, the mysterious entities they followed. His failures stacked into a pile, following like a dark cloud, until finally, he came upon a certain army. A group of powerful beings that, contrary to most of the cultivators he had met, he could have actually controlled. A group he had seen before, dreamed to lead, but had to forget as he fell for the Lover¡¯s powers.

    This group was the Elementals¡¯ army.

    Eager to gain control of this army, the Elementalist immediately used his system to do what Destiny¡¯s gift did best, create a path towards their owner¡¯s desires. With a clear path in mind he approached them, and right when it seemed that his luck was turning around, he once again found himself facing an enemy he had no right facing. Someone that his system had been unable to ount for.. Their current Lord. A being powerful beyond his understanding.. Capable of a control of the natural elements that not only matched his, but surpassed it.

    When the Elementalist realized what he was fighting against, it was toote.. And now hey prisoner, defeated, and at the mercy of others once more.

    Remembering these events always awakened something in the Elementalist. Memories of those who had controlled him like a puppet, and used him. A destiny that he had hated, but which, ironically, he had wished to force upon the Elementals army himself. Unfortunately, this irony was lost on him. He never regretted attempting, only failing. These thoughts and feelings would inevitably awaken his discontent, leading him to do the only thing that brought him joy.. Annoy his captor.

    With that idea in mind, the Elementalist began to wiggle. His legs brushed against the cold stone, and his body began bumping forward, approaching the wooden bars. He then rested his forehead against their rough surface as he muttered, ¡°I don¡¯t know why you go through so much for them.. They are things. Had I been in your ce, I would have used them for more than hiding.¡±

    Hearing the Elementalist refer to his people as things was always a low blow for the Lord, but this time he did not let these words get to him. Instead, he reached for a small spatial ring that hung by his neck, and with a wisp of immortal essence, he drew two fist-sized spheres from it. One pitch ck, the other as bright as a star. ¡°This is thest time I will tell you.. Focus on what I taught you.¡± He said as he shuffled the two spheres into the palm of his right hand.

    Seeing that his attempt had failed, the Elementalist let out a low sigh. It was time for a new attempt, and he wasn¡¯t petty enough to let it fail if that meant spending more time imprisoned, so he once again crossed his legs, and began to focus.

    In his mind the elements present within his Lord¡¯s body became clear. Each dancing around like a sprite, free and jolly, shing with the rest as they did in nature. A chaotic rtionship between elements which he was tasked with controlling.. To subdue, while the Elementals¡¯ Lord did something even he thought was crazy.

    In a few minutes, the Elementalist finally managed to take control over the elements. He might have not been as capable as his captor, but he was still a champion of Destiny. Talent wasn¡¯t something hecked. Nevertheless, the job had just begun.

    As soon as the Lord felt the elements emanated by his body stabilize, and merge into a perfectly stable blend, he let go of them, leaving them in full control of the Elementalist. His attention shifted to the two essence spheres, which he ced in each of his hands, and slowly brought up to his face.

    As they approached the man¡¯s body, the stable mana began to feel the disturbance caused by the two foreign objects. It was only thanks to the imprisoned man that its bnce seemed to hold.

    Closer and closer, the two perfect spheres approached the man¡¯s eyes, which he then opened as if to wee the two powers in. Rays of pure light and trails of the ckest darkness began to seep into his pupils.. Bringing the spheres size down as more of it pierced through.

    Half the size.. A third.. A fifth.. Whatever the Lord was trying to do seemed to be seeding, but the two did not rejoice. This was not the first attempt, and they had already gotten to this point before.

    More and more power merged into the young man¡¯s body, lingering in his eyes as if shaping them into the very thing he was holding. Two perfect spheres of darkness and light. Before the two spheres couldpletely merge into the Lord¡¯s body, however, the primordial nature of the spheres embedded into the Lord¡¯s body rejected this power, breaking the equilibrium the Elementalist was desperately trying to maintain.

    A faint shockwave extended from the Lord¡¯s body as he woke up from his trance, finding himself sitting in the middle of the room, once again, holding the shattered fragments of what was left of the two perfect spheres of dark and light essence. Of these two essences, in his body, no trace remained.

    ¡°Failed again..¡± the Lord muttered to himself before suddenly turning his head to the side, where a small snake-shaped wood elemental had quietly appeared.

    As he noticed the young man¡¯s attention fall upon him, the little snake perched his head up, and reported with urgency, ¡°My Lord, we are under attack!¡±

 Chapter 595 The War Begins

    <h4> 595 The War Begins </h4>

    The wood elemental¡¯s report did note as a surprise to the Lord, for he had long felt the presence of cultivators approaching Xin. What he did not expect, however, was for them to attack right away. After all, while cultivators were belligerent in nature, they too would take their time to discuss things before jumping straight into an all-out war.

    Regardless, the Lord did not panic. While still sitting with his legs crossed, he once again closed his eyes, and allowed for his consciousness to expand through the natural mana. Like a ghost leaving one¡¯s body, his mind grew, bing one with the entirety of the Lord¡¯s Pce, then the, its atmosphere.. The entire system.

    Once in control, the Lord focused the majority of his mental power into Xin, the system¡¯s gargantuan star, merging his consciousness with the heat it constantly emanated alongside blinding rays of light. These heat waves acted as a radar, mapping the system in waves that traveled at the speed of light, and only stopping once they found a surface tond on.

    While tately this ability was mostly used to perceive the position ofs, asteroids, and other celestial bodies, the Lord had a more practical use for it. The ability to examine the full extent of an enemy¡¯s power before they could evene close enough to be considered a threat.

    Soon enough, these heat wavesnded on two rapidly moving objects. One with the semnce of arge sword that carried a small contingency of powerful cultivators, and the other, a half sphere of spatial essence which held a few of his people. Elementals of fire, water, metal, and what appeared to be their leader, a high-level spatial elemental.

    As the Lord kept observing what appeared to be a high speed chase, the situation took a sudden turn. The spatial elemental, seemingly unwilling to continue heading towards his home, came to a halt. After that, interaction that saw the two groups show their hostility to one another took ce.. Like the spatial elemental being threatened, cultivators surrounding the small dome, and finally, the elemental grim decision to take their own lives.

    Enraged by what the Lord believed to be the most obvious exnation, he immediately teleported back to the pce¡¯s main hall, where the elemental ancestors were already waiting for him.

    Among the entities the Lord had perceived, the vast majority he believed not to be a threat. In fact, of all the cultivators that had approached his system, only the power of one went beyond his understanding. The middle-aged man whom he had witnessed grab the spatial elemental by the throat, before destroying it..

    A man who, as he now stood in front of the ancient elementals, noticed fiddling with a little sphere in between his fingers, a treasure of spatial essence..???

    As he observed these events, he suddenly noticed a small detail inconsistent with his exnation of what he had seen. This middle-aged man¡¯s bodynguage did not give off the usual signs of hostility he had seen in most of the groups he and his people had had to face in the past, but signs confusion, and to some extent, of sadness.

    ¡°My Lord, a contingency of cultivators has followed our scouts back to Xia before we lost contact. We believe them to have perished by their hands.¡± Said arge golem made a pure stone, as tall as a house, and just asrge. His deep and grotty voice emerged at irregr intervals, hidden in between the smacking of his rocky lips and tongue.

    The Lord was confused. ¡°When did you receive the report?¡± he inquired.

    A second elemental, a humanoid creature covered in uncountable metallic quills, each straight as an oversized pin, and as sharp as a needle¡¯s point, took a step forward. ¡°A few minutes ago, my Lord.¡± He imed as he casually approached a fire elemental.. Action which caused his dark golden skin to start glowing bright red and dting. A reaction which the creature did not seem to be bothered by.

    An even deeper confusion emerged on the Lord¡¯s face. He had witnessed the death of the elementals the two ancestors of earth and metal were talking about only moments before.. How could they have learned of their deaths minutes earlier? Something was not right.

    The anger the far away events caused rapidly faded, reced by a feeling of alertness. His eyes, still tired from hisst attempt at merging the perfect spheres of light and darkness into his body, were now aimed at the several creatures that awaited his orders. ¡°If they are here to cause trouble, then we will give them something to fear.¡± he said in an attempt to appease his people¡¯s spirit, yet not allowing them to go into a blind rage.

    ¡°This offense will not be left unanswered.¡± he then added before turning towards the ancestor of the spatial elementals, who, alongside the ancestors of the elements of dark and light, awaited for orders like everyone else. ¡°Take as many of our people as necessary, bring them to me.. Alive. I want to speak to them.¡±

    The Lord knew that his orders would find some opposition. Some elementals, especially the primordial ones, had long lost their kind nature. A side effect of thousands of years spent fighting back against the worst character traits the cultivation world had to offer.

    It wouldn¡¯t have been a surprise to the Lord if these elementals in particrined, as the simple idea of letting them live was already asking them too much. In order to avoid this, the Lord did not let his followers respond. Instead, he turned towards the entrance and walked out at a stable pace-Aposure which he soon lost as he walked out of sight.

    What this sudden departure did not allow him to notice, unfortunately, was the exchange of nods between the ancestors of the elementals of darkness, and light.

    Once alone, the Lord exhaled sharply. A piercing headache was now ailing him, numbing his mind and causing his knees to buckle. His teeth had started to chatter, an instinctive reaction to the sharp drop of his heartbeat and body temperature. All side effects of histest failed attempt at adding the essence of darkness and light into the fragile bnce of essences present in his body.

    ¡°Look at the state of you. You are a mess.¡± Said a familiar voice that came from the far depths of his pce. A voice that he hade to associate with the side effects of these tests, for its owner, was a crucial part of them. ¡°I know you have noticed it.. That something was wrong in their report. Yet, you are in no state to investigate.¡±

    The Lord tried to ignore the Elementalist¡¯s words while gasping for air.

    ¡°Of course, if you were to free me, I could take over your.. People. I could pull some string, speak a few words with closed lips. Puppets never disappoint you.¡± The Elementalist continued, unbothered by theck of a response.

    After what felt like an eternity, the side effects began to die out, allowing for the elementals¡¯ Lord to finally breathe. ¡°Vorah, we both know that, had I been even the slightest bit keen on epting your proposition, your system would have told you.¡± The lord muttered in between deep breaths, and short bursts of dryughs. ¡°So don¡¯t bother..¡±

    The Elementalist suddenly fell silent. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    ¡ª¨C

    Back in the edges of Xia¡¯s system, the Warlord and his personal guard had regrouped. The elementals had just taken their own lives, leaving them dumbfounded in a graveyard of small elemental treasures which they did not dare to gather.

    In the distance, an immense army was forming. Layers afteryers of old elementals, all capable of disying different varieties of the elements they represented. The weakest of them being capable of disying high levelprehension. A level of development that, in theirs of origin, most low level cultivators would have started wars over.

    As Nih noticed this, she could not help but wonder how far and wide the Elementals¡¯ group had traveled to reach that size.. How many gxies had they needed to explore to gather that many rare creatures? And how many armies did they have to defeat in order to preserve their existence.. She could not say. All she could tell was that whoever had been in charge of this army¡¯s protection was not someone the Immortal Armada should underestimate.

    While this was a worrying thought, Nah did not panic. Hundreds of years had passed since she and her people had joined the Immortal Armada, and since that day, she had never feared a loss. As long as she stood by the Warlord¡¯s side, she knew there were no obstacles they couldn¡¯t surpass. Her faith in him, as well as that of her peers, was absolute.

    Time seemed to slow down, as seconds started to feel like minutes. The elemental army was drawing close, to a point where those with the sharpest sense of sight began to spot the enemy in the distance, growingrger andrger as time went by.

    After what felt like an eternity, the elemental army finally arrived, halting its march a few hundred feet away from the group of cultivators. Rows and rows of elementals floated in space, split into mixed groups that quietly stood behind the ancestors of the essences of darkness, space, fire, water, earth, metal and wind.

    The Warlord did not say a word. Instead, he spent the following few seconds observing the enemy army. He could feel among them several creatures of incredible power, yet, his interest was in finding their leader.

    The way in which the elementals behaved was very telling of the elementals¡¯ ranks, considering that their species followed a hierarchy based on seniority, which meant that the oldest members were not only the most powerful, but also considered the leaders.

    A handful of seconds was enough for the Warlord to narrow the search down to the few entities that stood in the front line. Once only that handful of creatures remained, finding out who spearheaded this army¡¯s troops was only a matter of spotting disys of pride and authority. Behaviors which he noticed in two figures.. A ss-like humanoid being, and a shadow, hidden within a dark smoke.

    ¡°Yes, it does make sense..¡± the Warlord muttered in a low tone as a connection formed in his mind.

    These words were heard by each of the elemental ancestors, who looked at the cultivators while showing different-looking disys of curiosity. ¡®What made sense?¡¯ they wondered.. But did not ask.

    To speak was the ancestor of the Dark elementals, who merged into the darkness of the surrounding space, forming an immense face-shaped ck mask that floated in the limitless vacuum. ¡°Invading our universe was not enough for your kind.. You also had to attack us?¡± the dark elemental used loudly enough for his voice to resound through the entire system.

    ¡°We did what?!¡± Kyle burst out in anger. ¡°You-¡°

    Before the young cultivator could speak his mind, however, the personal guard was interrupted by his Warlord, who silenced him by raising a hand in front of him. ¡°Any breath spent speaking now will be wasted. Our words are.. Less than credible at this point.¡± The Warlord muttered while fiddling with the spatial treasure he had obtained just a few minutes earlier. An item which, as intended, would have been proof that any attempt of clearing his people¡¯s names would be nothing but a lie.

    It had been a long time since the Warlord had felt such surprise. This level of machination and deceit was not something he had ever expecteding from elementals.. Or at least, not the ones he used to know.

    Nevertheless, the Warlord did not let this surprise cloud his mind. He knew the dark and space elementals held the highest position, and likely possessed enough cards to paint them as the viins. A lie the elementals were very likely to believe. Yet, he also understood something else.. A weakness in this n.

    A malicious grin curved his lips, as his eyes darted towards the ck mist. ¡°I havee here to answer the warning we were given, not to fight. Report this to your leader.¡± His words were spoken with politeness, one that left the elementals pleasantly surprised.

    The ancestors of dark and spatial essence were enraged. Their authority had been ignored, and what was worse, was that it had happened in front of the bulk of the elemental¡¯s army. The Dark elemental, now in the shape of an immense face-shaped cluster of dark essence, appeared to be the most affected.

    But that was not all.

    Aware that he had hit where it hurt,while also giving the impression to the rest of the elemental¡¯s army that he wasn¡¯t a brute with a thirst for war, the Warlord struck while the iron was hot. ¡°We will take our leave now. Inform your leader that I am willing to meet privately, in a ce of his choosing.. Whenever he wishes so.¡± he said before nodding his head politely. As he prepared to leave, he then added, ¡°The name is De-¡°

    ¡°ENOUGH!¡± Barked out the dark essence ancestor. ¡°You dare act friendly while surrounded by the remains of the elementals you have killed?!¡±

    The sight of the many elemental treasures, all floating aimlessly in space, caused many elementals within the army to wake up. Their deep hatred towards the cultivators had awakened once more.. But, before they could react, the Warlord took control of therge sword, and with a thought, ordered it to turn around.

    As he noticed the cultivators preparing to leave, the ancestors of the dark and spatial elementals looked at one another. No exchange of words were needed.

    ¡°What he came for doesn¡¯t matter.. He is here, in front of us, with only a few people to help him. We have to take him down now.. Because the moment he joins back with his army, our losses will be incalcble.¡± The spatial elemental said to the other ancestors, who nodded in agreement.

    Regardless of what the dark and spatial ancestors wanted, they too had their orders.. To capture the enemy alive.

    Satisfied by his peers¡¯ reaction to his words, the spatial ancestor turned back towards the cultivators, who had started to leave, and with a domineering tone, he ordered ¡°ATTACK!¡±

 Chapter 596 Hostility Blooms in Graveyards of Words

    <h4> 596 Hostility Blooms in Graveyards of Words </h4>

    The order of the spatial elemental ancestor traveled far and wide, reaching several light years away while losing nothing of its powerful charge. A single word that, after being spoken, united hundreds of thousands of different beings against amon enemy.

    Tongues of me joined into columns of fire capable of surpassing Xia¡¯s heat, gusts of wind that merged into cyclones powerful enough to easily wipe away To¡¯Han¡¯s atmosphere.. Whips of molten and solid metal that fused into des made of powerful alloys that very few advanced species had discovered.. Storms that carried uncountable meteor-sized blocks of ice, and much more.

    Every type of elemental had suddenly be part of the one. Uniting with its peers into forming the most powerful expression of natural power the universe had ever seen. These catastrophic attacks traveled towards the retreating cultivators like the fingers of an enormous multicolored hand, closing on to their target into a deadly grip.

    Before they could reach the Warlord and his personal guard, however, these attacks merged once again. The enormous metallic des had fused into a single gargantuan spear, which aftering in contact with the column of fire essence, started glowing white and emit mes that soon spilled into the cyclone that covered it. Large boulders, massive icebergs, tongues of fire and lightning bolts danced around the white-hot spear in an odd equilibrium. A bnce that was very simr to the one reached by the elements present within the body of the Lord of Elementals.

    The cultivators turned to face the iing attack, and immediately, they realized that blocking it was not an option. Even the Warlord, usually calm andposed, was now wielding a sword, which he had unconsciously recovered as he felt the power of the attack.

    Kyle, shocked by the attack yet still able to maintain hisposure, immediately opened a small rift, behind which one could see a different patch of space upied by uncountable space ships. ¡°Come on, we need to leave!¡± He shouted with urgency to a group that still had not recovered from their stupefied state of mind.

    As they heard Kyle¡¯s words the members of the Warlord¡¯s personal guard reacted. In an orderly hurry they headed towards the portal, yet, before the first among them could even reach it, a rainbow colored ss individual appeared in front of them.

    ¡°Dare use space in front of me? How insulting!¡± the ancestor of the spatial elementals yelled before bringing his palms together, only separated by a few inches of empty space. This small space represented the portal, which gradually closed as the two iridescent palms continued approaching one another.

    Kyle, a veteran cultivator at the godhood stage of immortality, promptly attempted to resist the powers of the ancient spatial elemental, but in just a moment he realized that that would be impossible. What injecting more of his power into the constructed portal allowed him, was to solidify his control over it, but, s, his opponent¡¯s abilities went beyond that..???

    Soon, the space under Kyle¡¯s control began to morph, closing rapidly.. And there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He could still feel the control over the closing portal, yet its nature appeared to change under his control. In his mind, the uninterrupted action of taking over a patch of space, and creating a rift, produced the opposite reaction. He was closing his own portal.

    Nih noticed Kyle struggling, but there was nothing she could do to help, for their opponent was controlling space in a way that went beyond the understanding of a cultivator.

    ¡°Start the formation!¡± She yelled before falling on one knee, and cing the palms of her hands on top of therge sword. Immediately, bright threads of immortal essence began to appear, expanding outwards in unique patterns that expanded first over the sword¡¯s steel surface, then across the patches of space that surrounded it.

    In just a moment, a round formation waspleted, over which appeared a light blue dome-shaped barrier.

    This barrier, while impressive, was trembling underneath the pressure of the elemental¡¯s collective attack, which followed the group of cultivators as they retreated. The wall created by her powers alone was clearly not strong enough to bear its strength. Luckily, this formation was never meant to be used by a single cultivator.

    Seeing the formation being ced, the remaining cultivators steadily followed suit, simultaneously falling on their knees, and just like Nih, cing their palms on top of the sword. The threads of immortal essence thickened as constant streams of power were pumped into the formation, exponentially increasing its strength and, by extension, its barrier¡¯s durability.

    The elementals¡¯ attack continued its advance, creating screeching sounds asrge boulders mmed onto the immense spear, exploding into ming rocks that illuminated the ominous cyclone. Anyone who had the luck to see this attack would not be able to conceive the idea of blocking it.

    A devastating power of nature unleashed against a product of human creation. A barrier of immortal power that despite its impressive durability, still showed signs of weakness.

    As the two finally met, no st was created. No shockwave, no explosion, no fragments flying everywhere into the endless depths of space. Instead of bashing against the thick barrier, the collective attack had changed shape upon contact, encasing the entire formation into a-like sphere of natural essence, with the formation at its core.

    On this construct¡¯s surface the elements soon began to behave in a natural way. Water formingkes and seas, earth, wood and metal creating vastnd masses, and wind covering the into a nket which would asionally cast lightning on its surface, starting fires that scorched the earth before being doused by the rain.

    This, rtivelyrge in size, quietly condensed into a smaller shape, squeezing its core with the overwhelming power of nature. Yet, nature as presented, appeared to be feeble. Lacking depth. A profundity which the elemental ancestors soon added. Space, darkness, fire, earth, wind.. Not one ancient elemental held back, adding the primordial nature of their element to the construct¡¯s weight.

    In the¡¯s core, the cultivators were struggling. The immense pressure was unlike any they had ever felt before. A power that constantly chipped away at the barrier, forcing them to repair the damage by spendingrge amounts of their power.

    While seemingly in a desperate situation, however, they all appeared to be able to maintain some level ofposure. They were in danger, but they had a job to do.. A job which theypleted without even thinking of the possibility of failure. And that was because of the being that was with them.

    As they did their part to maintain the barrier, the cultivators sneaked peeks at their leader, the Warlord, who was standing at the barrier¡¯s edge with his eyes closed. What he was focusing on, they could not tell.

    Back in the elemental¡¯s army, the creatures of nature looked at their work. A nowpleteary construct that, except for its shrinking mass, could easilypare to To¡¯han. A small garden which, if real, would one day see the birth of life, a gift only offered to the few celestial bodies which could reach true equilibrium.

    Still, not all of the elementals were satisfied. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    The ancestor of the spatial elementals, whose power the cultivators were feeling more than any other, turned towards his peers, then ordered, ¡°Put all your power into it! Their barrier is still holding!¡±

    As his control over space epassed the entire small, he could feel the pressure added by each elemental within the elemental¡¯s army.. And because of that, he had been able to notice that of all the elementals that had contributed to the attack against the cultivators, some crucial members had been holding back.

    Specifically, the ancestors loyal to the Lord.

    They had not let his words, or the words of the dark ancestor dictate the way they would behave. They had the Lord¡¯s orders, and the fact that they weren¡¯t unwilling to ignore them, even if to follow superior members of their own kind, was driving the spatial elemental insane.

    ¡°Push it!¡± he added before focusing all of his power into the attack.

    The lesser elementals, perfect inprehension yet not ancient and powerful enough to be ancestors, followed suit. Hundreds of thousands of beings focusing the entirety of their power into crushing a small group of cultivators. Their ancestors, however, did not apany them.

    ¡°STOP!¡± ordered the figure of a colossus of stone with a gritty voice. ¡°They are to be captured and brought back to the Lord. Those are our orders!¡±

    The spatial ancestor was dumbfounded. In nature, a regr elemental would respect the superiority of a non-elemental. They were wolves! Proud creatures which honored themon dog with majesty, mystery, and prestige. Yet, this ancestor of the earth element.. Someone whose peers were hunted down for sport, had outright rejected his wishes. That, he could not bear.

    ¡°DO AS I ORDERED!¡± The spatial elements bellowed in pure rage, loudly enough for his voice to travel so far, that his words were heard by the Immortal Armada, which awaited weeks of travel in the distance.

    Suddenly, arge sphere of clear ice with a liquid core, and pale vapor surrounding its cold surface approached the two, stopping right by the ancestor of the earth element that had just spoken. ¡°There is only one being we take orders from!¡± The ancestor of the water elementals dered.

    ¡°Youpdog! He speaks for the good of our kind! You should-¡± added the dark ancestor,ing to his peer¡¯s support.

    Noticing how both the spatial and dark ancestors were beginning to lose theirposure, the ancestor of the light elementals immediately interjected, appearing like a ghost in between hispanion and the Lord¡¯s loyal men. ¡°Calm down, all of you!¡± he said, putting an end to the angry outburst of the spatial elemental.

    He then turned towards the other ancestors, who had now regrouped, and were staring at the two with suspicion and hostility. The words spoken by the both of them had not gone over their heads.

    In an attempt to calm everyone down, the light ancestor added, ¡°While they have been captured, they are unharmed. I will not allow you to bring them to the Lord like this. It¡¯s too dangerous. We need to at least injure their leader, and kill the rest.¡± he said, trying to negotiate an oue that would give them a chance to act, while also feigning loyalty towards the Lord of the Elementals.

    Unfortunately, while reasonable, his words did not appear sincere.. Causing the elemental ancestors to be alerted.

    What this new level of alertness allowed the group to realize, however, were the changes that were taking ce within the constructed. Specifically, therge crack that had formed on the¡¯s surface. A vertical rift that split the world into two, and at the bottom of which emerged a faint pure light.

    The light elemental gasped. ¡°Stop them!¡± he shouted with urgency.. But it was toote. The crack expanded, straight and well defined, like a cut.

    Soon, the damage was beyond containment, and the small fell apart, splitting into two perfect semi-sphere.. But that was not all. Whatever had cut the in halves had now emerged, revealing itself as a crescent-moon shaped white de which traveled towards the enormous army of elementals at a mind boggling speed.

    Powerful beyond understanding, no form of power was able to stop this de, as it cut through anything in its path before finally reaching the beings at the front of the army, the elemental ancestors.

    The light elemental, first in line to be hit, stared at the iing white de. The sheer sight of it filled his mind with a feeling of doom, as he realized that it was toote to even think about dodging, or parrying. The only thing he could do was to instinctively move his arms in front of his chest, and brace for impact.

    Whatever impact he was waiting for, however, never came.. For the de of pure immortal essence had dissipated just moments before striking him, leaving behind arge white mist that covered the entire elemental army. When this mist dissipated, secondster, the elementals were finally able to see what happened to their prisoners.

    Where once was a group of cultivators hiding behind a formation, now was a single middle-aged man, standing next to an open rift while holding a hilt attached to a molten de. His de had not survived the attack he hadunched.

    As the elementals struggled against the newfound awareness of the middle-aged man, he too calmly stepped into the portal.. but not before grinning at the agitated figure of the light elemental.

    The rift closed behind him.

 Chapter 597 Out of Time (Part 1)

    <h4> 597 Out of Time (Part 1) </h4>

    As the Warlord observed the portal close, leaving behind the elementals¡¯ angered army, he predicted the future that awaited him and his people. He did not believe that the sh between the two groups was a lone incident, but the beginning of a long and bloody conflict.. Of that, he was sure.

    The elemental ancestors of the spatial, dark and light essence were the ones who had framed his people, as shown by their intentions in either silencing them, or using the infighting to gather authority among the elemental army¡¯s leaders.

    Knowing this, he could imagine what kind of conversations were being had among their enemy¡¯s ranks. Voices that twisted obscure lies just enough for them to sound like convenient truths, painting them as the invaders who, just like all cultivators before them, desired to treat the peaceful elemental race not as amunity with whom they needed to coexist, but as a bountiful crop awaiting harvesting.

    At this point, the possibility of conflict was a guarantee.

    ¡ª-

    What followed the first interaction between the two armies was in line with what the Warlord had predicted. Several years of bloody conflicts which, fueled by the rumors the two groups had created, fueled itself into entering a never ending cycle.

    These stories told tales of terrible exploitations of war prisoners, pure discrimination, and terrible fates reserved for the party that would ultimately lose. The most shared stories, however, were the ones that spoke on the two main yers of this game of chess. The Lord of Elementals, and the Warlord of the Immortal Armada.

    Thetter was portrayed as the epitome of the deranged cultivator. A mortal who spilled the blood of countless enemies while threading a path of conquest and domination, and who now used his corruption to gain even more power in an attempt to steer clear of his one and only fear.. A mortal¡¯s natural yet inevitable enemy.. Death.

    His current goal, as shown by the many cultivators spotted traveling the void in search of treasures of spatial nature, was that of taking over this universe by stepping over the corpse of the elemental race. A theory that, by being neither confirmed nor denied by the leadership of the Elemental army, had taken root in the minds of the bulk of its people..???

    Among the mortals that inhabited the capital ships of the Immortal Armada, on the other hand, different stories were shared. Stories that portrayed the entirety of the Elemental army as a corrupted and invasive force of nature, whose goal was theplete annihtion of any sapient creature.

    Official scouts¡¯ reports were not needed to cement this idea in the cultivator¡¯s minds. After all, most of the Immortal Armada had personally witnessed the first contact between the two species. They remembered the day an infinitely long list of names had reached their ship, notifying anyone with a rtive or friend present in the ships that had been hit, that their loved ones had died.

    To add to this idea, were the movements the cultivators had observed, which mostly consisted in the elemental army expanding its territory, colonizing the most hazardouss as if they were as homely as the mortals¡¯ homes. A task theypleted with no effort.. After all, what danger did a gas giant pose on a wind elemental? What did light and fire elementals have to fear from the blinding power of a star?

    Elementals did not need to feed or breathe. Their power grew faster the more intense the essence they were born from was. In a way, they were not unlike an invasive species that, in absence of cultivators, their natural predators, were free to grow to new heights. Heights their species had long forgotten.

    In an universe that offered them this opportunity, a cultivator¡¯s mind would not allow them to believe the elementals to be willing to coexist, for the simple fact that, had they been in the same position, would they?.

    As time passed, each group¡¯s view of the other worsened, to a point where the idea of reconciliation often proposed by the two leaders by their respective people had been poorly received to say the least.

    ¡ª-

    SCIA Zion, Product Testing department.

    The response to the beginning of hostilities between the Immortal Armada and the Elemental Army was not equal across the board. Just like in the Elemental Army there were groups that were kept away from war, and were instead tasked to focus on colonization, the Immortal Armada had more than one goal.

    More specifically, the sealing of the interdimensional portal. A task that onceprised the majority of the Armada¡¯s attention, but that now had been forced to split with the army¡¯s military effort.. Causing for the development of their most promising project to be dyed indefinitely.

    Abandoned in their goal of gathering spatial treasures, after years of constant searching, the scavenging team of the Immortal Armada had finally delivered their second tost bulk of treasures, bringing the theoreticalpletion of the project to ny percent.

    ¡°How is the search going? Have you been struggling?¡± An old woman with short white hair, amiable facial features, and pink colored eyes asked while fiddling with a pair of bottleneck sses. As she spoke, her eyes wandered on top of the several piles of essence treasures ced in front of her, which to amon human, would appear as a pile of ss shards and oddly colored gems.

    The person this old woman was talking to was also a woman, human in appearance, yet as unique as the old woman¡¯s eye color.

    With skin of a light brown color, scarlett colored hair gathered into thick dreadlocks that reached all the way to the bottom of her shapely figure, and eyes that matched magma in both color and brilliance, this woman was leaning against the metallic wall. Her attention seemed to be aimed at a short tribalistic knife, whose point she used to clean her nails off of what appeared to be dried greenish blood.

    ¡°Finding more isn¡¯t an issue.¡± the red-haired woman said without moving an inch. Her dark red, almost ck lips did not move, as her words were spoken through threads of sound essence, and not through her vocal cords. ¡°The real problem is the squids.¡±

    ¡°The what?¡± The old woman asked, unable to hide the entirety of the worry she was feeling. ¦Ñ???????? ?

    Once again, the red-haired woman¡¯s mellow voice resounded into the other¡¯s ears. ¡°The champions of Conclusion. The tentacle monsters that break apart universes.¡± She exined. ¡°Almost had one of the big ones crossing into one of our portals.. We lost a few of ours to kill it.¡±

    The olddy lowered her shoulders, and her face showed signs of sadness and worry. It was only after she noticed that the red-haired woman did not share her state of mind, that she said, ¡°Your job is almost over.. At this rate you should be done within a couple of months. Just, be careful.¡±

    For the first time the red-haired woman showed interest in the conversation. Her expression softened. Used to working alone for hundreds of years, she had gotten used to not having anyone who would worry about her. Now, however, because of her mission, she had had the chance of meeting the olddy plenty of times, giving her a chance to develop some affection.

    ¡°I will.¡± She muttered to herself as her attention returned to the task at hand.

    Relieved by this small progress, the olddy showed a warm smile that soon morphed into an enthusiastic one. ¡°But tomorrow. Today, I have another mission for you.¡± she said, once again catching the attention of the red-haired woman.

    ¡°Now that we almost have enough materials to charge the formation, we only need to test the formation itself. I have created a simplified version of it.¡± She then added before opening one of her desk¡¯s drawers, from which she hastily pulled arge scrolls she thenid on the table.

    On this scroll was a depiction of the interdimensional portal, as well as the area of stabilized space which surrounded it, a drawing both had seen more than once before. But that was not all..

    Drawn in red lines over the portal¡¯s depiction was the skeleton of the formation, next to which were written the words Amber Stone in the same color. Simr was a second set of green lines, much smaller, and that only covered a fraction of the surface of the interdimensional portal.

    The purpose of the small formation became clear the moment the red-haired woman looked at it. It was a miniature version of the original formation which, instead of being used to seal the entire portal, only sealed enough to allow the scientific team to confirm their theory before installing the original formation.

    ¡°What do you need my help for?¡± the red-haired woman asked, confused by why the most senior of the scavenger team would be required for such a trivial matter.

    The old woman smiled once again, ¡°I thought I could keep you out of trouble for a day.¡± She said right before reaching for the watch she was wearing on her right arm, and pressing a metallic button present on its side.

    As she pressed this button, the watch reacted.. From underneath it, ayer of liquid expanded, traveling over the olddy¡¯s skin and covering itpletely. Her right arm, her chest, her waist, then the rest of her body.. All covered in a liquid-like suit that separated her from her surroundings. Onceplete, a handful of minuscule pearls had appeared on the woman¡¯s watch, each an elemental sphere aimed at sustaining either one of the suit¡¯s inner functions. An breathable atmosphere, a tolerable temperature, and proper durability.

    ¡°So you are fine with using an elemental astrosuit, but using aputer to log your experiments¡¯ results is too much?¡± the red-haired woman asked while shaking her head in feigned disappointment.

    ¡°Hehe. Come on Kiara, let¡¯s go. I don¡¯t want to drift into space for the little bit of life I have left.¡± said the olddy before approaching the red-haired woman, who shook her head once again as she quietly juggled with her knife. As the knifended on her palm, she gripped it tightly, and used it to sh downwards, creating a small portal that led just outside the stable field that surrounded the interdimensional portal.

    Together, the two traveled to theke-like surface of the interdimensional portal, stopping only inches away from its surface.

    As the two came to a halt, the olddy took a handful of spatial spheres from within her spatial ring, which soon began to drift around after hitting one another. ¡°Here, ce them in this position.¡± She told the scavenger since, of the two, she was the only cultivator.

    Kiara followed the instructions, and soon ced each spatial sphere in the right position, forming a circr formation that,yered over the portal¡¯s surface, only covered a small fraction. ¡°Here goes nothing..¡± The now nervous scavenger muttered before finally connecting the spheres together.

    In an instant, the focal points of the formation connected. Each adapting to the specific type of power the core sphere emanated. Specifically, the concept of solid space. Each additional connection exponentially increased the power of the formation, until finally, all one hundred of them were connected.

    As the formation was activated, Kiara immediately noticed a change. The surface covered by the formation, once as fluid as a mirror of water, had suddenlye to aplete halt, rendering that small part of the interdimensional portalpletely unusable.

    The olddy revealed a deep smile. A smile of satisfaction, achievement, and relief. Amber Stone was her project, and learning that the faith of her people had been ced on her work, had caused her to feel an immense amount of pressure. However, that pressure was now gone. Her formation worked.. Her theory was valid, and her people would be safe thanks to her. As her emotions surged, she forgot that she was wearing a suit, and instinctively tried to clear the tears that had started running down her cheeks with the back of her wrist.

    ¡°You did it.¡± Said the red-haired woman to the olddy, who quickly turned around to face her.

    Before the eyes of the two could meet, however, the olddy¡¯s attention was caught elsewhere. A few dozen feet to her left, where a monstrous humanoid creature with gray and oily skin had just appeared. The eyes of the two met, and just as the creature decided to showcase his two rows of long sharp teeth, the olddy felt a pain in her chest.

    As she looked down, she noticed the lower part of her body float away, separated from her torso.

 Chapter 598 Out of Time (Part 2)

    <h4> 598 Out of Time (Part 2) </h4>

    In a brief moment, a speck of time worthless to someone capable of living millions of years, a connection was cut.

    The space that surrounded Kiara darkened as the voice of the person she was closest to continued to echo in her ears, making her deaf to the events that took ce around her. Her world, lonely and dark already, had lost one of the few lights left. Covered behind droplets of dark red blood that, after lingering in the surroundings for a few moments, finallynded on her skin.

    Only her friend had died, yet both their hearts had stopped.

    Around her, hundreds of monstrous beings marked with the distinctive power of an aspect of existence made their way through the interdimensional portal, filling the surrounding space with an obnoxiously pungent and oddly sweet scent.

    While these champions had noticed Kiara¡¯s presence, they had decided against attacking her.. And for a grisly reason. Their power was that of Horror, an aspect which fed the creature they followed, and that in turn, empowered them. The sight of the horror the red-haired cultivator was feeling at the sight of her dead friend was much more enticing to them than the pleasure of killing her, hence why they chose to enjoy the view instead.

    It had be somewhat of a game for the champions of Horror. To be the first one to ce an offering of power to Horror, as the swarm finally entered a new universe.

    In this particr universe, this grim pleasure had fallen on a hideous humanoid cultivator. A creature that belonged to the race that, in the past, had contributed most to the birth of the existence that now led them, traveling the multiverse while leaving its mark of atrocity and repulsiveness everywhere it went.

    While second to enter the portal, this creature had been the first to take a life. A victory which he relished in while his snail-like tongue brushed over his pte. But, s, he was not satisfied yet. With the taste of human flesh still fresh in his mind, he slowly approached the lifeless remains of the old woman while saying, ¡°I want the heart.. Moist and chewy.¡±

    As his oily dark gray fingers inched for the corpse¡¯s upper body, however, he suddenly stopped. His fishy eyes opened wide, affected by the impending sense of doom that had emerged in the monster¡¯s heart.

    Alongside the rest of hispanions, the monster slowly turned around, where the shocked cultivator had been standing inplete silence.

    Kiara¡¯s appearance had begun to change. The ties that kept her hair together hade undone, causing it to float freely into the vacuum while resembling a living me.. Her eyes, naturally red, now shone with a much higher intensity, releasing a heat that burnt the thin dust present in the surroundings. At the same time, on her scarred brown skin had appeared lines of incandescent metal.

    The champions of Horror could hardly react before her demonic figure shed out of ce.

    ¡ª-

    AFSIA Titan, a few seconds earlier.

    Even when not in time of war, the most busy ships within the Immortal Armada were the admiralty¡¯s gships.

    Gargantuan in size, these heavily armored ships housed the bulk of the armada¡¯s military power.. Each controlled by one of the few people who had a say in the important matters the Armada faced.. The admirals.

    Because of the war effort, the fleet¡¯s gships had left the colony ships behind to form a safe perimeter. One that, in case the Elemental army decided to attack the same way they had years before, would allow them to stop the threat before any civilian casualty. However, that was not the case for all of them.

    As ast line of defense against any attack able to breach the perimeter, the AFSIA Titan had been left behind.. Causing it to have to take over the responsibility of protecting the hundreds of millions of civilians and low level cultivators, as well as solving any menial task, like policing, permits and so on.

    This immane increase in responsibilities had, eventually, taken a toll on Titan¡¯s crew, which had now spent years with their noses buried into reports and documents of all kinds.

    The one who had it worse, however, was its captain. Admiral Okka, oncemander of one of the armada¡¯s military divisions, but who now had been promoted to the rank of admiral thanks to his merits in the war with the Elementals army. Yet, what at the time Okka believed to be a promotion, he had nowe to see it as a punishment.

    As the least experienced admiral, he had been pulled away from the battlefield, and forced to serve from within the safety of the Armada¡¯s floti. The thought of his people fighting while he buried his nose into a mountain of paperwork had haunted him for years now, and today was not different.

    ¡°Air filtration.. Already read this. Alien virus mortal to Kortarians.. Sent to the scientific department. Food shortage in capital ships Novera and Shi Shi.. mhh¡± He muttered to himself as a thin old man in formal attire waited by the desk, quietly twirling his thick mustache. ¡°Remind me again why we can¡¯t carry mortals in spatial rings?¡±

    The elegant old man was caught by surprise. ¡°Hum, well.. The shattered universe connected to this one is close to copsing.. If that happened, our people would-¡°

    ¡°I know why, it was a rhetorical question.¡± Okka said without moving his head away from the pile of documents. Suddenly, his boredom was relieved, as a particr document appeared in his hands. At the top of the first page, were two words he had seen before, Amber Stone.

    He was the one who had picked that project when the universe they upied was still safe. When a hostile elemental army was not trying to wipe them away, and when they had plenty of time for trial and error left.

    Curious about the progress of the project, he leaned back onto his chair and began to read.

    The document gave an extensive description of how, after his orders to focus on project Amber Stone rather than waste time on the other two, the scientific team had progressed. From what he remembered, the project was way beyond concept development, and was already in the testing stages. The only thing missing was the immense amount of rare resources which, ording to what was written on the document, had been almostpletely collected.

    ¡°What¡¯s the report for, then?..¡± he once again muttered to himself while flipping to thest page-A different type of document stapled to the project¡¯s information.

    ¡ª¡ª-

    Small scale field testing scheduled for within 24 hours of the most recent delivery.

    Researcher: Iris Krom (SCIA Zion)

    Adjutant: Kiara Cern (Head of Scavenger Team 4)

    ¡ª¡ª-

    After reading thest part of the report, Okka nced past the old man, and towards a small steel watch that hung above therge steel door. ¡°The scavenger team returned two hours ago.. If I go now, I might be able to see the field test myself.¡± He said enthusiastically. Naturally, he did not require to witness the test personally.. Yet, in his mind, this was the best chance he would ever get of leaving his office, and get some fresh air.

    The old man immediately saw through Okka¡¯s intentions, but before he could say anything, the admiral ced both hands on his shoulders. ¡°Don¡¯t. Being cooped up here all day makes me want to kill someone, and you¡¯re the only one here.¡± He said before letting go, and giving the man¡¯s shoulders a light pat.

    The old man could not help but smile. He knew the admiral was just joking.. And even more, he knew how diligent Okka had been since receiving his promotion. Throughout the years he had taken far less breaks than most in his position would have.. Hence why the words he was going to speak were of encouragement rather than reprimand.

    Amused by the Admiral¡¯s sense of humor, the old man turned around to remind him to be back as soon as possible, yet, as his eyesnded on him, he noticed apletely changed attitude. On the rugged face that just moments ago was marked by excitement, was now a serious expression. A state of mind which matched the Admiral¡¯sbative posture, and closed fists.

    Then, right in front of his eyes, the Admiral disappeared, leaving him secretary alone.

    ¡ª-

    The ce the admiral had just teleported to was a patch of empty space.

    Behind him,y the millions of ships that formed the Immortal Armada, and in front of him, an immense ocean-like portal covered by a natural formation of stable space. Surrounding him were the figure of thousands more cultivators who, after feeling the same disturbance he had felt, hade to see what was happening.

    The group of powerful cultivators stood at the edge of the stabilized space, for it was naturally too stable for cultivators to rip it open when attempting to create a rift. Nevertheless, regardless of the distance from the portal, they could all tell that a battle had taken ce.

    ¡°Prepare for battle!¡± Okka said before advancing alongside the other cultivators who, after recognizing him, immediately followed in line. At their speed, it only took a few seconds for them to approach the portal¡¯s surface, and finally see what was going on.

    The ce that was once clear, was now filled with death. A swarm of body parts shredded in small pieces by what they could only believe to be a very angry creature. Body parts that, at first sight, one could tell did not belong to any race of the Immortal Armada.

    The smell these bodies emanated reminded the cultivators of rotten corpses, which was odd, since these creatures had clearly just died. In fact, some of the monstrous victims were still exhaling theirst breath, or were unlucky enough to be left to burn alive instead of being given a quick death like the rest had.

    ¡°These are.. Champions of Horror..¡± one of the cultivators said with shock.

    The surrounding cultivators gasped. They knew very well who the champions of Horror were. The warriors of the domain the Immortal Armada was hiding from, trying to take this universe out of their path of destruction. In their minds, the thought of Horror¡¯s domain only came up when they thought of their previous encounters, or when nning how to escape in case the Armada failed to seal the universe.

    Of fighting them, the Immortal Armada had absolutely no intention.. After all, while they had the Warlord, the monstrous cultivators had an aspect of existence. Two powers of different dimensions.

    While most of the cultivators were focused on the bodies of the champions of Horror, Okka¡¯s attention was directed somewhere else. To the figure of a red-haired woman that quietly floated while embracing something.

    The Admiral approached slowly, aware that she was likely to be the one that hadmitted such a massacre, and as he came to just a few feet of distance, he finally understood. While he did not know the red-haired woman, he had recognized the face of the body she was holding in her arms. Researcher Iris Krom, of the SCIA Zion.

    Instead of bothering her, Okka signed for the cultivators to recover the woman, as well as the remains of the researcher. Then, he dived straight into therge portal.

    Soon the admiral found himself in a white universe. Around him uncountable portals, each with a surface identical to the one Okka had just emerged from, or either sealed or immobile, signs that they respectively contained a universe not yet open to the rest of the multiverse, or a copsed space.

    This ce was, of course, the trigate. The channel that united every universe in existence.. A space in which, because of their migratory nature, the Immortal Armada had spent centuries traveling.

    Alone in front of his universe¡¯s portal, Okka turned around, trying to regain his bearings.. And only stopping as he familiarized with the unique pattern formed by the portal. Once familiar, he hastily turned to his left.. Direction from which the domain of Horror was advancing.. What he saw made his blood freeze.

    Predicted to be centuries away from reaching their universe, Okka spotted a swarm of Horror¡¯s champions standing guard outside of the portal just next to his own. ¡°They are already here..¡± he muttered in shock.

 Chapter 599 Out of Time (Part 3)

    <h4> 599 Out of Time (Part 3) </h4>

    ¡°This isn¡¯t possible. We have been monitoring the condition of the other universes!¡± A distressed old man clothed in military attire disclosed to his peers, who were currently seated by a long rectangr table. Some of them had their heads resting on their palms, while some others were slouched on their chairs, disheartened by the recent discovery.

    At the head of this table was the Warlord, who appeared to be staring at the ufortable figure of Okka while deeply buried in his own thoughts.

    A second admiral, a young-looking woman with short blond hair and bright red lips leaned over the table, ¡°Is it possible that there was a mistake in your calctions?¡± She asked the individual that was sitting opposite her. Her tone was not usatory, yet, from thetter¡¯s response, it was.

    ¡°My scouts would have never made such a mistake!¡± the middle-aged woman blurted out in indignation. ¡°It was as reported. Horror¡¯s domain on average takes up to five months to swallow a universe.

    Their path was always meant to lead them to us, but that was not going to happen for at least three more years! Even in our worst predictions, which ounted for them skipping half of the universes on their path.. They shouldn¡¯t have been here for another twenty months.¡±

    The woman¡¯s words made sense. The time limit for the project was set for a year and a half in the future, the safest estimate for the arrival of Horror¡¯s horde. By that time, even considering the ongoing war, the Scientific Command of the Immortal Armada would have been able toplete the formation, sealing the universe until they decided otherwise.

    But, s, reality did not follow their estimates. Something had changed, causing Horror¡¯s domain to arrive much sooner.

    ¡°How.. how much time do we have?¡± A fourth admiral, a grizzled man with impable posture, asked right as he turned to look at Okka, who sat ufortably under the weight of what he believed to be the Warlord¡¯s quiet scrutiny. His tone did not match hisposure, as it betrayed an extremely worried state of mind.

    As if unwilling to disturb the Warlord¡¯s gaze by looking away, Okka began to exin, ¡°As you all may or may not know, obtaining information about a universe once the invasion starts is nearly impossible. What we know, however, is that Horror¡¯s horde isposed of four different contingencies. We call them the main army, the reinforcements, the gatekeepers, and the scouts.

    This is how an invasion works. Initially a scouting team is sent to a new universe. Their task is to inspect the area that surrounds the interdimensional portal, and if possible, take control over it. What follows, is the arrival of the main army, tasked with fighting the forces within the universe, the gatekeepers, tasked with controlling the interdimensional portal during the invasion, and the reinforcements, a contingency that, once part of the main army, was previously left behind in one of the by the main army to finish the job before once again joining back with the main army.

    Once the main army, the gatekeepers and the reinforcement arrive, the scouts move on to the next universe. The scout¡¯s team calls it ¡®Horror¡¯s rotation.¡¯¡±

    Confused by the exnation, the short-haired admiral asked, ¡°Then, the group that crossed our portal-¡°

    ¡°They were scouts, yes.¡± Okka confirmed. ¡°The horde does not move blindly. As a universe¡¯s conquest begins, the scouts are sent to find a new universe to consume.. Their arrival indicates that this universe is next.¡±

    The situation was dire. The admirals were the most powerful entities within the Immortal Armada, yet their army wasposed of nothing more than a group of cultivators. Independent and giftless cultivators who had decided to stay away from the conflict between aspects of existence, and who wanted to carve a ce for themselves somewhere where they wouldn¡¯t need to fear these deities¡¯ hegemony.

    Despite their gifts, what scared the admirals the most weren¡¯t the monsters within the horde.. But Horror itself. A creature that could wipe them out of existence the moment his army would cross the portal, leaving them free reign to awaken this universe to the true meaning of his grim nature.

    The idea of all the lives that depended on their decisions was enough of a burden to their scared minds. But, for some reason, it also steeled their resolve. Fear was just a feeling, one that as cultivators they had to fight against. A collective thought that allowed them to reach the same conclusion.. Complete Amber Stone, now, or evacuate.

    ¡ª¨C

    The emergency meeting was a long, yet necessary one. Not because they couldn¡¯te to a consensus, but because the weight of failure was so heavy that each of the Admirals would think through every thought they had a dozen times before expressing it. It was only after over ten hours that a clear n was made, and each department of the Armada began to move.

    The most noticeable change in the Armada¡¯s behavior was the halting of military operations. A change that the elemental army had noticed immediately. The patches of space and systems that were once fought for had now been abandoned by the cultivators, who appeared to have retreated from thempletely.

    For days the elemental army fell into a state of confusion. Had the Armada surrendered? Had they left? They had no way of knowing, and for that reason, they dared not upy territory. What they did instead, was to reinforce the front and wait.

    Sure enough, they did not have to wait for too long. Ten days after the cultivators¡¯ retreat, arge cargo ship, as big as a small country, had approached the front.

    Alerted by the sudden appearance, the elementals did not dare approach. While their kind was a spacefaring one, their powers allowed them to move through space the same way they lived.. On a fast moving. Spaceships, on the other hand, were a symbol of humanity, hence why they did not dare approach the enormous ship willy nilly.

    An old and powerful water elemental, a jellyfish made entirely out of water, slowly swam towards the spaceship. Far behind it, millions of his kind awaited to engage in a fight at the first sign of hostility. Yet, as the water elemental approached the spaceship, it suddenly came to a realization. Aside from the elements of fire and air produced by the ship¡¯s propellers, he could not feel any element. No air being inhaled or exhaled, no sks of water from which to drink from, no body heat.. The ship was empty.

    As the water elemental approached the ship, it immediately noticed that not only the life support systems of the ship were deactivated, but that several airlocks had been left open, leaving the shippletely depressurized. Only the cargo bay appeared to have been left locked.

    It did not take long for the water elemental toe to the conclusion that the ship must have been abandoned, left to drift in their direction by chance.. Yet, just as therge jellyfish was about to return, a small, nearly invisible motion scanner caught him in its sight.

    Suddenly, the ship came to life. One after another the systems turned back on. First the power, then the engine, and finally, theputer that controlled the airlocks. The water elemental immediately backed away, and once he reached what he believed to be a safe distance, almost as if on cue, the hangar of the massive cargo ship began to open, releasing what appeared to be thousands of humanoid entities into space.

    Immediately the entire elemental army made preparations to start a fight, but soon realized that these entities were not a threat, for they were dead. A realization the water elemental hade upon much earlier than hispanions, alongside a much more dire one.

    Closer than the rest, the water elemental immediately recognized these corpses. Not by their appearance, as their nature did not allow them to differentiate between living creatures like cultivators did, but from the stench these corpses carried. One different from the usual scent of death they had gotten so used totely, but a stench that oppressed them, and sent the atoms of their bodies into a chaotic state. A smell that possessed the characteristic qualities of the gifts of Horror¡¯s domain.

    As he prepared to report his findings, however, the water elemental noticed that a piece of paper was nailed to the bodies that now floated all around him. With the swift motion of one of his tentacles, he grabbed one and brought it in front of his eyes. On it, a single word, ¡°Pay.¡±

    ¡ª¨C

    Just like Immortal Armada, the elementals had long be aware of the more threatening among the many domains within the multiverse. And the domain of Horror was, without a doubt, right at the top of that list. Despite sharing this fear with the cultivators, however, the nature of this fear differed between the two groups.

    While the Immortal Armada was aware of their inferiority, the Elemental Army was almost blinded by their beliefs. To them, their almighty Lord was a savior, their only hope for creating a future for the elementals that didn¡¯t include being exploited by power-hungry cultivators.

    Contrary to what a few would say, this belief was not sheer delusion. They had seen first-hand the power of the lord. His ability to wield the power of nature under his control was what had kept them safe for thousands of years, and his powers had yet to stop growing. After all, they had yet to gain full control over a whole untouched universe. Who knew how powerful he would be once he could harness the power of this whole universe.

    While this was the conviction of the vast majority of the Elementals that followed him, the ancient ones knew the real cause of the Lord¡¯s powers.. Because that was a power they had granted him. At the same time, they also knew that the only way the lord had to increase his power wasn¡¯t to expand his control over the universe, but increase his synchrony with the powers of Mana, like he had been attempting to with the essences of light and darkness.

    If the Lord happened to seed in this, they too believed that he would be powerful enough to rival, if not defeat the most powerful entities in the multiverse.. The aspects of existence.

    But, s, this hope was not shared by all the elemental ancestors. Uncountable failures in adding the powers of light and darkness to his body had left the ancestors of light, dark and spatial essence dubious about the Lord¡¯s potential, and although they feared his powers, in their eyes, he remained an outsider and an anomaly.

    They did not believe that he would ever achieve the level of power necessary to keep their kind safe, especially since, in theory, he would have required to merge with elemental treasures so rare that even they, three of the rarest kinds of elementals in the universe, had never evenid eyes upon. The treasure of sound essence, and rarest of them all, to a point where their existence was only a theory, the treasure of the essence of time.

    These doubts, paired with their own naturally prizing and abrasive personalities, had caused a divide between the elementals. Now, divided they were, discussing how to tackle the same problem in two different ways.

    While most of the elementals discussed the arrival of Horror¡¯s horde, and the possibility of a pay with the cultivators alongside the Lord, the ancestors of space, light and darkness were having their own conversation about the matter.

    In an empty and dark room the three ancestors stood, one bright and holy, one transparent, like a perfectly clear ice sculpture, and one simr to a standing shadow that could only be seen thanks to the light produced by the first entity.

    ¡°I do not care if this is a trap. In fact, I would prefer it if it was.. It would do good to show the Lord¡¯s ipetence.¡± The ancestor of space muttered to himself. His tone was a faint one, as he had only voiced one of the many thoughts that upied his mind. ¡°But if it isn¡¯t, we face loss regardless of which path we take.¡±

    The ancestors of light immediately understood the words of his peer, after all, despite maintaining his holy and calmer demeanor, he too had realized what their position was. The only one who appeared confused was the ancestor of darkness, who turned to his left and asked, ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    To answer was not the ancestor of space he had asked the question to, but the holy figure, who said with a matter-of-fact tone, ¡°If this is a trap, we take control of the army but lose the universe to the cultivators. If the horde¡¯s threat is real, however, we either evacuate and fight our way out, or ally with the cultivators and, once the universe is sealed, solidify the Lord¡¯s position.¡±

    The arrival of Horror¡¯s domain had truly put a halt on the ns of the three elementals, who were now left with very few inconvenient choices. However, even in all their arrogance, they too could see what the only viable option was.. And that was thest option.

    While they did not care for the lives ofmon elementals, the Lord was neither a tyrant nor an enemy to them, and if they could agree that he maintained power temporarily before, they could do it again. At least until the threats of the cultivators and Horror¡¯s horde were solved.

    Before they could voice their agreement, a disembodied voice echoed reassuringly, ¡°I have an alternative..¡±

 Chapter 600 High Conspiracy

    <h4> 600 High Conspiracy </h4>

    The disembodied voice spoke respectfully, and reassuringly, yet it deeply alerted the three ancient elementals, who almost instinctively unleashed their power in an attempt to inspect their surroundings. If someone had been there listening to their conversation, they had failed to feel their presence.

    Like a supernova fighting the darkness of infinite space, the ancestor of light began to shine with impossible brilliance, lighting up the entire hall, and leaving only a few feet of isted patches of shade for his darkpanion to inspect. The spatial elemental, on the other hand, was even more confused. Due to his nature he was the member of the trio with the highest awareness, yet, he too at first had failed to find the source of this voice.

    Fortunately, his powers went far beyond what his senses could perceive.

    After the initial shallow search, the spatial ancestor expanded the range of his search, and started to explore the most secretive and hidden parts of the. Sure enough, mere secondster, his attentionnded on the deepest parts of the Lord¡¯s Pce. A cubic room of smooth stone hidden in a long forgotten dungeon, inside which a meek looking man sat with his legs crossed, covered in thick roots.

    ¡°It is him..¡± the ancestor of the dark elementals said to his brightpanion, moments after the spatial elemental had found the voice¡¯s source.

    One of the few secrets the three elemental ancestors had been made aware of before joining the elemental army, was how in one of his numerous legendary feats of power, the Lord had managed to liberate an enormous amount of elementals from the tyrannical control of one of the most despised entities in the multiverse. A champion of Destiny whose dominion was the use of mana, making him the natural enemy of all elementals in existence, who went by the name ¡°The Elementalist.¡±

    When the Lord and the Elementalist met, the former had long heard of thetter¡¯s name. After all, he was the notorious enemy of the elemental kind, whom he had vowed to lead. Even his name was used to scare young elementals.. ¡°Evolve, or the Elementalist wille get you!¡± They were told. Yet, contrary to popr belief, when the then smaller Elemental Army met the enormous legions of enthralled elementals, no blood was shed.

    Both leaders had immediately recognized the value of the enemy¡¯s army, and had immediately sought to take control over it.. Be it to use it, or to free it. A civil conversation was what the Elementalist had proposed to solve their divergences, but while he held out a hand in friendship, the other was hidden behind his back, gripping the knife he intended to stab the Lord¡¯s back with.

    But, s, despite the Lord following every request he had pushed forward, putting him right in the middle of the champion¡¯s schemes, the Elementalist soon came to realize that what he hade to face was not one of his biggest opportunities, but his biggest threat.

    Albeit sessful in capturing the Lord¡¯s army, when it came to the assassination of the Lord himself, the champion was shocked to say the least. He was the Elementalist. He controlled natural mana like no one else before him! A look was all it took for the most loyal members of the Lord¡¯s army to fall under his control, puppets for him to use. Yet, when it came toparing powers, the Elementalist felt the true meaning of inferiority.

    Where he was a wave, the Lord was an ocean, where he was a boulder, the Lord was a, and where he was a ze, the Lord was the sun.

    When faced with such powers, the Elementalist found himself unable to fight back, as he felt that the sh did not feel to be against a cultivator capable of wielding the elements, but to be against the elements themselves. It was like he was fighting primordial nature.

    After this confrontation, the Elementalist was quickly captured, and forced to spend his time as a prisoner under the threat of the Lord¡¯s powers. Had he wanted to escape imprisonment, a few stone walls and a handful of roots couldn¡¯t have stopped him. He simply did not dare to.

    While most elementals had long forgotten about him, that was not the case for the ancestors, who were made aware of why the Lord had kept him at such a close range.

    Despite his failings in both control and power whenpared to his captor, there was one thing the Elementalist excelled at, and that was his ability to bnce mana. A skill that the Lord had found most useful during his many attempts at merging the essences of light and darkness into the very fragile equilibrium within his body.

    The ancestors of Light, Darkness and Space had never met the Elementalist. They knew he was kept prisoner, but they had joined far after he had been vanquished. For that reason, they had never seen his powers. This, paired with their naturally elitist and arrogant nature as the highest members of the rarest types of Mana, had caused them to look at the Elementalist, meek and polite, as someone who could not keep up with his reputation.

    Someone they need to guard themselves against, but need not fear.

    As they began wondering why the Elementalist had finallye in contact with them after so many years, the three ancestors quickly realized that, if left to their own ord, they would still be left with no ideas. So why not listen to him? They soon agreed.

    In a moment, the three elementals disappeared from within their Pce, and reappeared within the dark and cold room. One next to the other, they stood in front of the caged champion. Around them, a barrier that separated the universe they were upying, from a different one. A spatial barrier no power or sound could ever hope to breach.

    ¡°Speak.¡± The ancestor of lightmanded. His tone was holy, yet threatening.

    The Elementalist did not exin straight away. Instead, he stood as well as he could in the little room he had, and bowed respectfully towards the three elementals, causing them to feel ted.

    While the existence of an elemental ancestor was akin to the sighting of an impossibly unique unicorn among unicorns, they were not feared. Not because they did not possess power, but because their sheer existence was little more than a myth. Inparison, everyone knew who the champions of Destiny were. How their domineering behavior and infinite resourcefulness had turned them into the number one enemy of any living being within the multiverse. Had the three elementals been granted a wish, they would have wished for their existence to be respected and feared as much as that of a champion of Destiny.

    To see a being such as himself bow his head respectfully did nothing but inte their ego beyond what one would believe possible.

    This tion did notst long, however. For while the ancestors were arrogant, they were not stupid.. And the Elementalist was known to be as dangerous as he was sly. Yet, in silence, they waited for him to speak.

    As he finished bowing, the Elementalist once again sat with his legs crossed. Standing was, after all, too ufortable. He had long since noticed the mistrust in the eyes of the three elementals, yet he did not care. He was not there to make friends, he was there to find an ally among his enemy¡¯s enemies.

    ¡°I have a sure way for you to rid yourselves of the cultivators gue, as well as earn the credit for saving your kin from Horror¡¯s horde.¡± The Elementalist muttered with a matter-of-fact tone. His humility had gone, and only an honest slyness remained. He then added, before the three could ask how, ¡°Steal the cultivator¡¯s idea. Seal the universe, but do so after the arrival of Horror¡¯s army.¡±

    The three elemental ancestors were confused. Especially the spatial ancestor, whose barely human features began to morph into what appeared like a frown. ¡°borate.¡± Hemanded with a hint of irritation.

    As a being of primordial spatial essence, the ancestor had long thought of the idea of using the same method the humans were using to seal the universe. In fact, he had thought about it way before the cultivators had set foot on the universe. However, he had soon given up on it, for it was not feasible. He possessed the power and skills to seal the universe, but unfortunately, he still possessed a single mind, and a mind alone could never match the use of arge-scale formation.

    Even with the right resources, and the ability to set up the formation, he would have had to focus his entire existence on keeping it operating.. Lest it would fall apart, opening the universe once more.

    The Elementalist was also aware of this, so he happily obliged. ¡°It is quite simple, actually.. Horror¡¯s horde has tunnel vision. The moment they enter this universe, their entire might will be focused on one job and one job alone.. To ughter what they perceive to be the rulers of this universe. Or in this case, the ones who are closest to the portal.¡±

    The ancestors quickly began to catch on. Before any of the three could ask any question, however, the Elementalist turned towards the spatial elemental, and added, ¡°While the two armies engage in battle, it should be easy for you to seal the universe, preventing Horror himself from setting foot in it. What will be left of the winning army should not be a problem for your... personal army.¡±

    *SPAH* Out of the blue, the Elementalist pped his hands, then extended them outwards as if simting an explosion, ¡°And boom! You are heroes.¡± He eximed.

    The three ancestors looked at one another, noticing a visible shared interest.

    They thought this was not a bad n. Yet, there were two problems with it. And the biggest one lied in their transparentpanion, who said, ¡°I am unable to seal the universe.¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t, but I can.¡± The Elementalist retorted. ¡°I can set up their formation.. I just need the spatial treasures the cultivators possess. I would assume obtaining them, while they are busy fighting Horror¡¯s horde, should require you little more than a snap of your fingers.¡± He then added, snapping his finger loudly and clearly.

    ¡°What do you gain from this?¡± The dark elemental asked, unconvinced.

    The Elementalist looked at his surroundings, then let out a slow sigh. ¡°I get to slip out of the universe. And that is your assurance that I will set the formation properly.. Because if I failed, the Lord would be able to follow me. I am free, and you are the one who got rid of the elementalist. Surely, most of them should still be wary of my existence.¡±

    All in all, the n was to the elementals¡¯ liking, as it was the only n that did not require them to submit or fight to the death against the Lord, the cultivators¡¯ army, or Horror¡¯s horde. It was risky, but the paths that yield the best results were always ridden with risks.

    The three thought it over, trying to consider whether there were parts in which they could improve on. While distrustful of the Elementalist, they did not doubt his goals, after all, above all else, the champions of Destiny were known for their extremely high survivability. A quality that was so prominent, that it was almost impossible to doubt.

    After fleshing out the details for what felt like hours, the four beings were close toing to an agreement, when the dark silhouette reminded.. ¡°No matter how viable this n is, it won¡¯t matter if the cultivators seal the universe themselves. We cannot allow for the truce toe to be.¡±

    The elemental¡¯s words seemed to amuse the Elementalist, who smiled creepily before adding, ¡°I have a n for that too..¡±

 Chapter 601 Horrors Invasion

    <h4> 601 Horror''s Invasion </h4>

    The news of the arrival of Horror¡¯s horde affected the two civilizations in different ways.

    The cultivators, being the main target of Horror¡¯s nature, were more wary of the threat.. While the elementals saw the imminent invasion as something not unlike any that preceded it. Horror¡¯s domain wanted their territory, just like the cultivators before them, and they would either escape, or fight it.

    Nevertheless, a threat was a threat, and Horror¡¯s arrival was a fight they had no much hope of winning. For that reason, after many meetings, the Elemental army had eventually decided to put aside their differences and sign a temporary truce with the Immortal Armada.

    Despite this agreement, the elementals did not let go of their hostility. After all, it was easy for the cultivators to forget their greed in times of crisis. They knew that the moment the horde¡¯s threat was sessfully repelled, the cultivators¡¯ true nature would re-emerge, and their fight would resume.

    While at peace, the two groups continued strengthening themselves in preparation of a conflict that was destined to happen.

    The Lord of the elemental faction was still buried in his attempts at merging with the essences of light and darkness, while his army continued their expansion. They took over systems, explored new gxies, and recruited native elementals to their cause.. Very rarely aiding the cultivators in their search for resources. While in the Immortal Armada, the Warlord had been busy with his cultivation, as well as guiding his people in their effort in sealing the universe. A task which, thanks to this newfound albeit temporary peace, they were able to progress at a rapid pace thanks to the efforts of the scouting teams and the scientific department, now the most busy group within the entire universe. Their task was to scavenge spatial treasures from the shattered universe, which would then be used to fuel the formation.

    Free from needless conflict, this busy time went on undisturbed for both groups.

    ¡ª¨C

    Sixteen monthster.

    Thest year, while uneventful for the elementals, had been extremely hard on the cultivators. The recurrent scouting teams of Horror¡¯s domain had chipped at their forces, causing their forces to dwindle. Yet, they never lose sight of the goal. With the industriousness of an ant colony, they had finally managed to obtain most of the resources they needed, and today was what they believed to be the day their efforts would finally pay off.

    The entire fleet of the Immortal Armada was stationed in the proximity of the interdimensional portal, just a few miles outside of the natural bubble of stable space. At the helm of the army, was the scientific team, and the admiralty.

    As time went by, the estimated arrival of Horror¡¯s domain had required several adjustments. And today, was the first of the five days the monstrous army was most likely to invade. A most urate estimate proven by the regiments of monsters that were currently guarding the entrance of the interdimensional portal.. Their goal, to exterminate anyone who dared to leave the universe before the main portion of Horror¡¯s horde arrived.

    What the Armada was waiting for, however, was not an invasion.. But the arrival of thest shipment of spatial treasures. A shipment that, they hoped, would allow them to activate the formation just in time to stop the invasion.

    ¡°How long is it gonna take?..¡± Asked Okka anxiously for the thousandth time. He was once the point of contact between the admiralty and the scientific division, so even after his promotion, he had been tasked with that job. Unfortunately, that had ced him right in the frontline of the possible invasion, a position he did not mind.

    Only one person was closer to the bubble than he was, making him the first target of any possible invader. A young-looking cultivator with fair skin, and purple eyes that constantly roamed the bare foundation of his formation for as many times as Okka had asked him the same question. His was the mind that had birthed project Amber Stone.

    This researcher, alongside the Warlord, who was currently in the middle of a breakthrough in his cultivation and therefore couldn¡¯t be there, was the individual with the most pressure on his shoulder. He had spent thest several years perfecting his work, and going through its theory in hope that, at the decisive moment, it would not fail his people.

    Despite being busy with the umpetnth check up, however, he still found time to answer. ¡°For thest time. Spatial treasures disturb the flow of rifts and portals.. The scouting team can teleport at will at first, once they are in possession of spatial treasures, they need to travel the distance themselves, lest they risk being teleported at a random point in the universe.¡±

    This exnation was not for Okka, who had heard it dozens of times by now, but for the cultivators who stood behind him, warriors and soldiers tasked with killing anything that set foot into their universe. They did not know what the scientific department was waiting for, so the exnation was more than wee.

    As the lead scientist reached this point, however, his tone seemed to change, and focus on Okka. He then added with clear exasperation, ¡°We already received the report that thest shipment will arrive within a few hours, so with all due respect, Admiral, stop asking!¡± He had grown tired of the Admiral¡¯s nervousness, which did nothing but turn his own anxiousness into irritation.

    The entire Armada seemed to be waiting for thatst delivery of spatial treasures. Each second was felt, clicking in their minds like a loud and lonely metronome in an empty room.

    In these few hours, Horror¡¯s horde became more and more excited, to a point where a few of the more enthusiast monstrosities ignored rank and barged into the universe, eager to show initiative and serve their master before anyone else could. These creatures, however, soon became the focus of the army¡¯s attention, who made quick work of them, annihting them before they could reach the edge of the bubble that surrounded the portal.

    With time, more and more monsters made their way in, but just as it seemed that the invasion had started, a bright new light appeared in the already full tapestry of space. By the time the source of this light became visible to their enhanced eyes, their powers had already sensed it. A small group of cultivators that dashed through space in their direction. With them, the distinctively chaotic yet stable feeling possessed by the treasures of spatial essence.

    ¡°We are here!¡± An exhausted young woman with long ck hair and lively eyes yelled despite having already reached the helm of the army, and standing in front of the lead scientist. Her arms, as well as the arms of herpanions, were held forward, edging a few dozen pieces of ss shard and transparent beads in front of the purple-eyed young man.

    Seeing the treasures, the lead scientist did not wait a moment. He turned to his side, where a massive cargo ship was stationed, and ordered, ¡°Open the bay!¡± The enthusiasm in his voice was the spark that stoked the me of hopes hidden under the nervousness and fear within every single observing cultivator.

    Slowly, the cargo bay was opened, revealingrge containers full of spatial treasures counting in the tens of thousands. Each container was ced in front of a cultivator, who gently pushed it past the artificial gravity of the ship and into the empty space. Once in zero gravity, these containers automatically fell apart, releasing the thousands of treasures into space.

    As this happened, neither the lead scientist nor his team seemed to be paying attention. Their focus was aimed at the bubble of stable space, outside of which, just a few millimeters away from the edge, an intricate series of alchemical runes had started to appear. As time passed, these runes extended in every direction, forming an intricatebyrinth which epassed the entirety of the gargantuan bubble. At regr intervals, this formation presented empty slots in which even the unaware members of the army could guess a spatial treasure would be ced.. And so the remaining members of the scientific department did.

    While their colleagues were busy setting the formation in ce, the remaining few took control over the spatial treasures, and carefully ced them in the open slots, allowing them to form distinctive connections with one another like the radials of a spider web.

    In the span of an hour, over twenty percent of the entire formation had been covered in runes and spatial treasures. The more of it waspleted, the more ecstatic the cultivators felt. They even dared enter the formation to retrieve the floating corpses of Horror¡¯s domain, unwilling to let their presence disturb the work of the scientific team.

    Three hourster, the bubble of stable space did not appear like a transparent light blue world anymore, but more like the biggest and mostplicated puzzle ever created. Yet, the cultivator¡¯s focus was still at their peak. The formation would not take effect unlesspleted, which meant that, had Horror¡¯s domain chosen to invade at that moment, uncountable cultivators would have to sacrifice themselves to allow the scientific team toplete it.. Even if that meant trapping themselves inside it alongside the monsters of Horror¡¯s domain.

    Unfortunately, as time went on, the champions of Horror started to realize that something odd was happening. As many of them entered the universe, they were quick to notice the odd formation that had appeared around the bubble of space. Despite their appearance and nature, they were not stupid creatures, so when they realized that something was going on, a few of them retreated, and informed the growing army about it.

    Seeing this, the cultivators became extremely nervous. They were less than an hour away frompleting the formation, yet, the enemy had already caught on, somehow. If they attacked now, they would have to fight a war within the bubble, so as not to risk the scientists from being targeted, causing the formation to fall apart.

    Tension began to rise, until finally, their worries became reality.

    Just minutes before thepletion of the formation, tens of thousands of monstrous cultivators barged into the universe. Yet, they did not barge in like their predecessors. Instead, they maintained somewhat of a formation. Their beady and empty eyes moved on the almostplete formation, making sure that it had not been activated yet. While they couldn¡¯t possibly imagine what the formation¡¯s purpose was, they had prepared for it being a weapon of mass destruction, aimed at destroying arge portion of their army the moment of their arrival.

    Yet, contrary to their prediction, the barrier did not activate like they had expected.

    To act, instead, were the cultivators that stood past the barrier, who, almost possessed by an ancient spirit of war, flooded into the unfinished parts of the barrier, weapons in hand, to engage them. Okka was the one leading them.

    The fight, albeit short, was an extremely bloody one. The champions of Horror were clearly more powerful than the cultivators, and could outperform them five to one. But that did not stop the cultivators from fighting to the death. Behind their shoulders were the hope of their people, their families.. If there ever was a cause worth dying for, this was it.

    Horror¡¯s horde had arrived only minutes before thepletion of the formation, yet these minutes felt extremely long. Each second thousands would die, dismembered by the horrific ws and serrated des. A quiet massacre where to speak was the blood that was spilled, making the area look like the blooming of a field of red flowers.

    Time, however, never stopped.

    Before long, only a handful of spatial treasures were left.. But the scientific team did notplete the formation. With heavy hearts they had witnessed the selfless sacrifice of the cultivators.. Companions whom they were unwilling to forever seal within the formation. So, before cing thest few treasures, the young man with purple eyes shouted ¡°FALL BACK!!¡±

    His voice made use of the formation, bouncing through the entire bubble with impossible might, and reaching the ears of everyone inside it. ¡°GO!! GO!¡± Okka ordered as the cultivators, almost as if presented with theirst chance of survival, immediately found a hole in the formation and dashed towards it.

    Unfortunately, the voice also reached the ears of the champions of Horror, which immediately followed suit.

    One by one the cultivators fought their way to the holes, killing their enemy before barging out, and allowing for the researchers to patch the hole.. Until only a single hole was left. A hole Okka and a few cultivators were dashing towards while fighting off the meat of Horror¡¯s army.

    Seeing that that hole was thest opening, the monsters of Horror¡¯s domain focused on it, dying the escape of Okka and the others. Unfortunately, things were only getting worse.

    As the numbers increased, their pace slowed down, to a point where the cultivators had almost stopped, and formed a barrier of their own a few miles from the opening. Each cultivator fought to the best of their abilities, ughtering monsters left and right, but there was no end to them.

    Seeing this, Okka made a decision. With his skills as a swordsman, he created a small swords formation. A of des that, if approached carelessly, would turn the victims into minced meat. He then turned towards hispanions, and ordered, ¡°Fall back, I¡¯ll take care of this!¡±

    Okka¡¯spanions were ready to protest against his obvious sacrifice, but before they could say anything, more cultivators barged into the hole in the barrier, grabbed them, and dragged them out. With his men safe, Okka breathed out in relief. Yet, one thing hispanions were wrong about. He had no intention of sacrificing himself.

    Once alone, Okka let go of the sword formation, which had granted him a few precious moments, and headed for the remaining exit at full speed. The opening was already being patched. With his heart in his throat, and hair standing on end, he reached with his hand. His fingertips could touch the edge of the bubble.. And like a drop falling on a mirror of water, he was out.

    The formation was whole.

    Horror¡¯s champions looked at their surroundings. The runes thatposed the formation were starting to shine with odd lights.. The thought of retreating back out of the universe had formed, but it seemed that it was toote. Witnessing this, the cultivators could not help but feel an overwhelming happiness emerge from the bottom of their hearts.

    Just as it seemed that the formation would activate, however.. The runes stopped glowing. In their pattern the spatial treasures, fuel to the formation, had begun to disappear one by one.

 Chapter 602 An Expected Betrayal

    <h4> 602 An Expected Betrayal </h4>

    In front of hundreds of thousands of cultivators, the once bright formation had slowly started to shut down.. And the cause was right there to see. The spatial treasures that had fueled and stabilized it had now begun to mysteriously disappear, leaving no trace behind. One by one, treasure after treasure left an empty spot within the formation, causing the barrier to rapidly fall apart.

    ¡°..no.. no no no.. wha-¡± the lead Researcher muttered under his breath. His mind was in turmoil, for thousands of thoughts were fighting in his mind in hope that what was happening would suddenly make sense, and a solution would magically appear in front of him. ¡°I m-must have.. I must have miscalcted.. Consumed? No.. the treasures hold no power, just concepts.. Was the formation too powerful? Impossible. I took into ount the weight, and used three times the necessary treasures.. What..¡±

    His ears were deaf to the surrounding noises of war.

    The champions of Horror, relieved by his failure, had a renewed thirst for blood. They almost blindly threw themselves at the Armada as if devoid of any survival instinct.

    ¡°Fall in formation!¡± Okka shouted just like the rest of the admirals, who desperately tried to restore any semnce ofposure in an army that now appeared to have truly fallen prey to the nature of Horror. Unknownst to them was the appearance of invisible and untouchable blobs of dark brown matter which their feelings of fear and desperation were producing.

    This matter was, of course, the power of Horror. A unique essence that went beyond theprehension ofmon mortal cultivators, and that was visible only to its owner, and its peers. Unfortunately, this power¡¯s effects could be felt by Horror¡¯s champions, whose gifts felt fueled, increasing their brutality and the intimidation their horrific actions produced.

    Needless to say, the Armada was in disarray. Only cultivators at earshot would follow their admiral¡¯smand, and those in between would have to fend for their lives while having to pick which incoherent order to follow. It was thetter type who, in the confusion of war, were producing thergest amounts of invisible brown matter.

    The battle went on for several minutes, a time in which the Armada had tremendous losses. Only a small portion of their floti had been lost, but the lost ships all happened to be colony vessels, each inhabited by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people that were now little more than scrap yards of metal and floating bodies. The sight of such a loss was heavy on the Armada¡¯s military, but even more so for the civilians that had been spared, who could not help but contribute to the production of Horror¡¯s power.

    At the same time, the incalcble amount of losses weighed heavily on the lead researcher and many of its colleagues, who, uncertain on how to find a solution to their failure, could only observe the horde¡¯s invasionmence. Most of them, distraught and ashamed, did not even react as the monstrous creature pranced towards them and began ripping their bodies to shreds with relish.

    Despite what the cultivators thought, however, the invasion had not started yet. The numbers of the enemy had stayed the same, and it was only due to their shock, as well as the boost in their enemy¡¯s gift that such a vast army had taken so many losses. An army with many captains, but nomander which soon turned a war of enormous proportion into a disorganized skirmish.

    When it seemed that things were taking a turn for the worst, however, the grim sounds of war went quiet. The Maniacalughter followed by horrified screams, the excited screeches, the sound of weapons shing, of weaponry being unleashed, of ships exploding.. Everything went silent. In fact, it seemed time had stopped altogether.

    ¡°GET IT TOGETHER!¡± A deafening raucous yell exploded, piercing the ears of each cultivator within the Armada, and possessing their minds.

    Suddenly, any feeling of fear, worry, desperation, or even grief had dissipated.. Taken over by the desire to follow the words of the man that had just spoken. In the blink of an eye, not only was the production of the power of horror halted, but the existing power had been sted out of existence.

    The next moment, the Armada seemed to be a different army. Each cultivator, regardless of their ranking or position, immediately fell back in ce. Those who were bound to a fight used their newfound devotion and courage to make quick work of their monstrous adversary before finally joining their ranks. Then, like clockwork, the army began to push back.

    Like a reversed burst bubble, the hundreds of thousands of cultivators slowly formed a containment field that surrounded the entirety of the stable space, and together, they pushed the champions of Horror back from where they hade from.

    Like seasoned warriors the cultivators kept pushing, alternating between a coordinated assault and an intimidating war cry that even the champions of Horror could not help but feel threatened by.

    Seeing the situation being reversed, the monsters made several attempts to break the oppressive formation, each more desperate than the others.. But they found no sess. In a few minutes, they had been forced back into the bubble of stable space, and after an hour, they were facing the choice of whether to die fighting, or to retreat to the trigate, and wait for the biggest part of the horde to finally arrive.

    Despite what decision each individual champion made, the army of cultivators kept pushing and pushing, until finally, after almost three hours of merciless ughter, the advance party of Horror¡¯s domain had been defeated.

    The victor hade at a huge price.. A price that had made it impossible for the winners to actually enjoy it. Tens of thousands of corpses lingered in their surroundings, and yet that was not the worst part. The worst part was the idea that what they had defeated was nothing but a small portion of Horror¡¯s domain, and that soon, the rest woulde, certainly powerful enough to annihte them.

    What prevented them from falling into despair was the same power that had snapped them out of their desperation not long ago. A power that was apanied by the voice of the leader, whom they knew was in the middle of a crucial part of his cultivation, and therefore, had likely paid a severe price just so he could help his people recover. His voice had always been reassuring, like that of a father, whose kids would not hesitate falling asleep next to as he drove down a dark road heading home.

    That person was the Warlord.

    A man with absolute authority whom people could not help but follow to their death, and who possessed a power that embraced the minds of others and that lingered, as if bing part of their upbringing. To their enemies, however, he was a bringer of demise. Not unlike an officer that had been tasked with performing their execution, or a king they could not help but kneel in front of. Had the champions of Horror not been marked by the boon of their master, they too would have surrendered to his authority.

    While the cultivator army would eventually be able to push the champions of horror out, it was entirely thanks to their leader¡¯s intervention that they had done so in such aposed, almost surgical way.. And they knew it.

    Instead of celebrating, the tens of thousands of cultivators began taking away their fallenpatriots, and bringing them out of the bubble of stable space.. Yet, before long, they started to notice that something was wrong. Around the dome of stable space, a formation they had now be familiar with had started to reappear. Thousands of runes took the exact positions they had abandoned just moments earlier, forming lines that, at their intersections, already presented a spatial treasure.

    At first the cultivators did not think much about it, and simply thought that the research team was making a new attempt in hope to find what had gone wrong, but the more of the formation waspleted, the more odd the situation felt. This time, the formation was forming at a much faster rate, to a point where itspletion was not a matter of hours like before, but minutes.

    As confusion became the prominent state of mind between the survivors of the battle, they noticed another detail.. The bodies of the researching team were strewn about, mauled by the attacks of their enemies.. So who was cing the formation?

    Feeling that something was wrong, the cultivators regretfully let go of the bodies of theirpanions, and dashed towards the edge of the stable bubble.. Yet, for many of them it was toote. Just minutes after its odd appearance, therge barrier waspleted, and the runes began to glow.

    The cultivators stuck inside banged on the barrier with faces full of horror.. A feeling that their dumbfoundedpanions shared as they helplessly looked around in distress. ¡°WHat is going on?! Who is activating the formation?¡± A tall young man shouted. Trapped on the other side of the barrier was his brother, who was desperately banging against the formation.

    Simr scenes were ying out all around the barrier, which kept glowing brighter and brighter, until finally, the glowing stopped.. And the runes seemed to fall asleep.

    Those who were outside of the formation, however, did not rejoice.. For the formation had not failed. In front of them they could see theirpanions, frozen in space alongside every particle of dust and spark of immortal essence. In their eyes, it did not feel that they were looking at a vast expanse of space anymore, but an indestructible snowglobe that separated their universe, for whatever was frozen inside.

    Okka and the rest of the admirals, who had retreated for a debriefing, had now jumped back into space, and were now looking at the solidified globe of space, as well as the thousands of cultivators forever stuck inside.

    ¡°What.. how did this..¡± Okka muttered before releasing his immortal essence, hoping to sense the presence of the researchers, whom he believed were the only ones with the knowledge andprehension of formations to actually put it in ce. But as he did, he felt something odd. A few thousand miles away, was a box of isted space hidden behind an impossible darkness, and deceptive rays of light.

    Being sensed seemed to rm the creatures hidden inside the box, causing them to disappear while leaving behind no trace of immortal essence, just a ripple of pure, almost natural spatial essence.

    Okka was not an idiot.. Even if he hadn¡¯t spent thest few years fighting the elementals, no other would have been able to manipte mana without leaving a mark of their own power behind. As he came to this conclusion, everything began to fall into ce. The disappearance of the spatial treasures, which had led to a failure and a battle that had cost them dearly, as well as the formation¡¯s reappearance which had killed thousands more.. With gritted teeth, and fists shut so tightly that his nails drew blood, Okka muttered, ¡°Elementals...¡±

    ¡ª¨C

    Light years away from the interdimensional portal, the small room of isted space had quietly appeared. It did not seem that whoever was moving it had meant for it to go much further, as instead of disappearing again, and reappearing much further away, its six walls disappeared, revealing the presence of four individuals. A scrawny looking man, and three silhouettesposed of just as many different elements.

    These four were, of course, the Elementalist, and the three ancestors of Space, Time, and Darkness.

    Despite their sess, however, these four individuals did not appear happy. Instead, there seemed to be conflict within the group. Specifically, between the three silhouettes, and the scrawny champion of Destiny, who was looking at them with an innocent smile and malicious eyes.

    ¡°WHAT HAPPENED?!¡± The spatial ancestor asked in sheer anger. ¡°You were supposed to make use of themotion and leave through the portal! WHY DID YOU NOT LEAVE?!¡± His angered state of mind was shared by his twopanions, whose mouths he had taken the words right out of.

    The three were aware of the cunningness of the champions of Destiny, yet they had decided to put trust in his survival instinct.. When things did not go ording to n, however, the three started to suspect that they had been somehow tricked.

    Unfortunately, their suspicions were more than founded, for the Elementalist was now staring at them with an expression of pure disdain.

    Without thinking twice, the three began to circte their elements, and prepared for the fight of their lives, but as they tried, they found themselves unable to. The light that dashed through space constantly was beyond the reach of the light elemental.. The darkness that shrouded the majority of space was almost detached from the dark silhouette, and the infinite expanse of space felt as if it was on the other side of a panel of ss.

    ¡°No matter how old and powerful you get, your stupidity will always be unmatched.¡± The Elementalist muttered with a matter-of-fact tone as his eyes began glowing of a bright golden light. He then reached for the ss like body of the spatial elemental, and with little to no effort, pierced it with his fingers. The entire action appeared as simple as dipping his fingers into a small body of water.

    Despite theck of facial features, the shock of the ancestor of space was visible.. One that soon after disappeared as his body shut down, and slowly disappeared. In but a moment, what was left of his body was a small orb, a perfectly clear and transparent bead that emanated a power of primordial space that the champion of Destiny held between his fingers.

    Horrified by this inevitable spectacle, the ancestors of light and darkness could do nothing but look on in horror. as the grubby fingers of the Elementalist reached for their chest. Thest thing they saw before their nigh-infinite life came to an end, was a pair of malevolent golden eyes shrouded in absolute darkness.

 Chapter 603 Sacrifice of Morals

    <h4> 603 Sacrifice of Morals </h4>

    Only a week had passed since the sealing of the universe, but of the joyous atmosphere that should have followed the cultivator¡¯s sess in staving off Horror¡¯s invasion, there was no trace. On the contrary, the overwhelming pressure of war had intensified.

    On To¡¯han, the leaders of the elemental civilization had regrouped in the Lord¡¯s pce. There, they argued with one another over what had transpired the past few days.

    ¡°Why so surprised? Our kind can have no permanent peace.. Not with cultivators.¡± Asked an emotionless yet sharp, almost shrill voice. This voice belonged to an ancient elemental of metal, whose appearance was that of amon human, but with skin of copper that slowly dted and rose into pins and daggers. As he spoke, sparks produced by the shing of his metal tongue, teeth and pte red out of his mouth.

    A stunning pale woman d in a watery dress with rivets of clear ice muttered in response, ¡°We did not expect them to attack us the moment the horde¡¯s threat was eradicated.¡± From her slightly distorted, yet elegant voice, one may infer some level of disappointment. She was not fond of cultivators, like the rest of her kind, but to see them put an end to the truce and destroy any world of elementals they came in contact with, it felt odd even for them.

    A third creature to join the conversation. Just like the others, this being was human in shape, but of all those present he appeared as the most magical. His body was covered in a glowing mist that lingered in an attempt to regte the bolts of thunder that constantly zapped its surroundings. Yet, even this mist could not hide his appearance, for he looked like a human-shaped mannequin of incandescent sma.

    His voice was unnaturally static, yet it too was able to convey its owner¡¯s feelings of confusion as he chimed in the conversation, ¡°Something is different this time. I was there when they first attacked, and in their eyes I could not see any greed.. They cared not for loot, their attacks burned with..¡±

    ¡°With what?¡± Asked the metallic figure.

    ¡°Hatred.¡± the elemental of thunder responded.

    While this distinction was pointless for mortal cultivators, that was not the case for elementals. Some of them were old enough to have witnessed the first appearance of cultivators, and while at first their existence did not appear to affect the elemental species, that changed when the cultivators learned the value of their remains, and how to use them to produce resources for their cultivation.

    Since that very moment, the world of cultivation had revealed itself as the natural enemy of the world of nature¡¯s sprites.

    Nevertheless, throughout the eons, the Elementals had always maintained their peaceful nature. They would not seek revenge, nor attempt to fight the cultivators for territory.. Instead, they would live in istion, hoping that their paths would never cross. Simrly, humans had always been unable to abandon their greedy nature.

    This time, however, the members of the Immortal Armada did not show signs of greed, but showed pure hatred instead. One reserved for those who had murdered one¡¯s loved one, or done great harm to others.

    Needless to say, the elementals had noticed this, and it had confused them deeply. They had always been the victims, yet this time, they were being treated as the perpetrator.

    ¡ª¨C

    As the elementals kept arguing over the iing war, the Lord had been sitting on his throne. His head buried in his hands as his mind wandered elsewhere.

    For thousands of years he had been at the helm of the elemental civilization, yet, he was not an elemental himself. He was a cultivator.. A human one at that. It was only after his nature had been changed by the primordial elements of mana, that he had been entrusted with his people¡¯s security.

    As a human, however, his nature was different from that of the creatures that followed him. He understood a deeper range of emotions, and thanks to that, he could fathom and theorize more possibilities than the strongest elemental ever could. This led to him having apletely different view of life than those he led.

    While the elementals believed the existence of the cultivators to be the only barrier that separated them from the eternal golden age of their species, the Lord knew not even a fraction of his task had been achieved.. For his goal was never to create a small bubble in which the elementals could thrive in peace, but to liberate the sprites of mana from the grim fate they faced. And that did not only include those who followed him, but every elemental within the multiverse.

    For that reason, the Lord of the elementals had never ceased his attempts at gaining more power, and at bing more whole with the many facets of mana. But, s, despite his indomitable devotion towards that goal, the Lord had failed each and every attempt at merging with the few elements he was not whole with yet.

    Many events and revtions had once given him hope, yet there he was, more than two thousand years after merging with the primordial elements of fire, water, wind, lightning, earth and metal.. And no progress had been made. No matter what he tried, sess seemed to elude him.

    The moments after a particr devastating failure were the hardest. In such times, he would usually close himself within his chambers to recover, but this time he could not. He was forced to stay in the main hall, and pay attention to every worry andint aimed at him. Words that in his ears faded in the face of what was the grand scheme of things.

    ¡°My Lord.. you are a.. Human. What is your opinion on this?¡±

    Suddenly, a question brought him back to reality. It came from the dry lips of a hunchback olddy, whose bark-like skin appeared to be on the verge of peeling off at any moment. She was an ancient elemental of wood, and was the one who cherished her Lord¡¯s opinion the most.

    As always, while he did not share his people¡¯s worries, the Lord still paid attention to them.. So when he was consulted, he was hardly ever distracted.

    The rest of the elementals became quiet, as the Lord raised his head and looked around. They had absolute respect for his opinion, so when it appeared that he was about to speak, all forms of discussion were halted.

    The man sitting on the throne leaned forward slightly. He was resting his elbows on his throne¡¯s armrests, while his hands were sped together in front of his face. Only his eyes, which shone of a variety of colors, could be seen of his otherwise sullen figure.

    His lips slowly parted, but then, right before he could speak, his attention was pulled away.

    The pair of eyes that were previously roaming the hall filled with ancient elementals were now aimed at the floor, and there they stayed as he slowly rose to his feet, and left the room with a hurried pace.

    A few minutester, in the depths of his pce, a wooden door was mmed open, allowing for the Lord himself to barge in. ¡°What did you do?!¡± He asked with seething anger to the scrawny figure that, just like before, appeared to havee to peace with its imprisonment. Something was different, however.. And that was the presence of three treasures. One more brilliant than the brightest star, one darker than the oldest ck hole, and a transparent bead so clear that it seemed to merge into its surroundings. All ced in a simple line in front of the prisoner.

    The Elementalist did not mind the sudden entrance, nor did he take the Lord¡¯s tone to heart. A faint hint of fear could be perceived from his behavior, but was too light for it to show on his face. It was clear that what he feared was not the consequence of his actions, but the remote possibility that punishment woulde before he was allowed to speak.

    Yet, he remained calm. He opened his eyes, and slowly argued, ¡°I did what you should have done a thousand years ago. I did you a favor.¡± As thest word left his mind, the Elementalist slowly tapped the side of the three treasures, causing them to roll out of his cage and stop in front of the Lord in a perfect line.

    He then added, ¡°Come on, we both know that simple treasures won¡¯t cut it. We¡¯ve known that since our first failure!¡± The Elementalist sprung up on his feet, and almost as if fueled by anger, he grabbed the thick roots and while pushing his face through them, he continued, ¡°You are too stubborn. ¡®If I can¡¯t find it then I will settle for lower quality¡¯ you said.. Centuriester and you have gotten nowhere!¡±

    The mockery of the Elementalist seemed to cut deep, as the multitude of primordial elements within the Lord¡¯s body began to re through his eyes. He lunged at the cage and barked, ¡°QUIET!¡±

    The Elementalist immediately took a step back. His fear was much more visible, as if he was aware that he could die at any given moment if he chose his words wrong.. So he did as he was ordered.

    After the sudden outburst, the Lord calmed down. Yet, he did not let go of the roots. Instead, he leaned his head against them and with a defeated tone he said, ¡°Would this not make me the same as everyone else, in their eyes? Would they ept the world I¡¯d make for them, if I treated them like tools at my disposal?¡±

    Hearing the Lord¡¯s questions seemed to invoke disdain in the Elementalist. A feeling that he hid well underneath feigned understanding. ¡°They betrayed you. They were never loyal to you, but this time, they tried to oppose you. Why do you think your kind are attacking with such fervor?¡± He said before starting to narrate a fantastical story of betrayal and hatred that ced him in the perfect position to be of help.

    The Lord had known the Elementalist for a long time. He knew that in a story told by him more words were lies than not, yet, his eyes could not help but linger on the primordial treasures of light and dark essence.

    ¡°Two thousands years of failed attempts.. No progress whatsoever..¡± he thought as he slowly picked the two orbs.

    ¡°What is done is done,¡± said the Elementalist. He then rapidly added, in hope to change the focus from what he had done, to what the Lord could gain, ¡°But remember our agreement. I help you, and then I go free.¡±

    ¡°Until I find the treasures of sound and time essence!¡± The Lord barked out, almost as if having epted the three orbs.

    A malicious smile appeared on the face of the Elementalist, one he was lucky the Lord had failed to notice. Yet, his voice sounded meek and obedient as he said, ¡°Of course, of course.. That is our deal. For now, let us get some progress.. Finally.¡±

    The Lord of the elementals seemed to have been convinced, as his fist tightened around the two primordial treasures of light and dark essence. Then, like he had done thousands of times before, he removed his robe, revealing a young body engraved with the primorial treasures of water, fire, earth, metal, wood, wind and lightning.

    Slowly, the seven powers began to emerge. A faint wind that carried droplets of water, then vivid mes. Lightning flickering over shards of stone, splinters and metallic nails, creating a controlled yet perfectly bnced storm. Then, the storm grew in intensity.

    The faint winds were now tornadoes, the droplets of water were now a dense mist, the mes a ze.. They all carried swords, boulders and thick roots that were set aze or melted due to the heat of the thunderstorm that gued it. Yet, the seven elements still remained bnced.

    At this point, the Lord slowly opened his hand, revealing the two treasures that soon after took off in the air. When they reached his eyeline, the two small moved onto his eyes, and naturally merged into them. The power emanated by the two elements was in no way weaker than the others.. And for the first time, the Lord felt that he could seed. And so did the Elementalist, who rubbed his hands in anticipation before muttering, ¡°Let¡¯s do this.¡±

 Chapter 604 The War Resumes

    <h4> 604 The War Resumes </h4>

    While many within the Immortal Armada felt some modicum of relief following the sessful sealing of the universe, almost no one looked back at the day with fondness.

    The death toll had been immeasurable.. And it mostly consisted of either harmless mortals who had never set foot into the world of cultivation, and whose only desires were to live a healthy life with their friends and family, or of some of the mostpetent and valiant members of the Armada¡¯s military, who were first to give their lives to defend their people from the invasion of Horror¡¯s domain.

    The losses were so vast, that at the end of the day, almost everyone within the Armada had lost someone they had known.. Someone they hadughed with, someone they had loved, orpeted with. For that reason, the day was remembered as a day of tragedy, instead of one worthy of celebration.

    In mortal¡¯s fashion, however, this grief sought purpose.. A relief valve. An outlet that the members of the research team were not alive to provide. Eventually, as people started talking, this grief was directed at the cause of the intervention that had caused the death of so many people, and which more people than Admiral Okka alone had noticed.

    After discovering that the problems during the instation of the formation had been caused by the intervention of the elementals, the cultivators were quick to realize that their trust had been betrayed, and the truce had been broken. As creatures capable of understanding deceitfulness, finding a likely motive for their enemy¡¯s actions hade natural, regardless of how uncharacteristic it may have been of them.

    In their eyes, the Elementals had purposely dyed the sealing of their universe, causing the horde¡¯s invasion to start. Their goal, they had guessed, was to let the Armada and Horror¡¯s horde fight each other, and almost destroy one another before sealing the universe themselves, and finishing off any surviving cultivator or champion of Horror.

    What the cultivators believed the elementals to not have expected, however, was the fact that the horde had not waited to be in full force before attacking, allowing the cultivators to somehow manage to resist the preemptive strike. This was the reason why, they believed, the elemental army had not attacked yet. Because the cultivators had managed to save more strength than they had thought possible.

    While many members of the Immortal Armada did not believe the elementals to be so machinous and deceitful, however, grief had blinded the remaining majority, who had now long forgotten about any thought of peaceful cohabitation, and demanded vengeance against the elemental army.

    This mentality stoked the fires of war once more, and this time, there was nomon ground to reach. In the eyes of billions, it became them or their enemies.

    With renewed hatred, the Immortal Armada began the invasion of the blue gxy, burning every newly established elemental outpost to nothing more than a smoldering rock, and killing thousands.

    ¡ª¨C

    On the other side, unaware of what had caused this hatred from the cultivators, the elementals had believed to have suffered a betrayal of their own. In fact, many of them had believed that only at this moment were the cultivators showing their true colors, while any talk of peaceful coexistence between the two species had been sweet words of nothing.

    With their survival on their minds, the elementals tried to fight back, but, s, they soon realized that the stalemate the two groups had reached during their previous war was not caused by an equal amount of strength, but by the cultivators¡¯ decision to save strength for what at the time they considered to be the true enemy, Horror¡¯s horde.

    Now that the universe had been sealed, isting the two civilizations within the same cage, the cultivators army had gone all out.

    Waves of furious cultivators advanced through the elemental territory, scorching any garden in sight, and sting the rest apart. They pushed, and pushed, like a nail into a wooden nk.. Uncaring for any strategy the ancient members of the elemental army could think of.

    Many attempts at pay had been made from both sides, as both possessed individuals that still wished to see this war end, yet the cultivator¡¯s army continued their invasion, unbothered by the words of their peace seekingpanions, for they wanted vengeance more than they wanted peace, and the only being that could have put a stop to this war was unavable.

    Forced to interrupt his cultivation to intervene during the conflict between the Armada and Horror¡¯s horde, the Warlord had suffered an injury. One that did not put him at a risk of death, but that had forced him to remain on closed-door cultivation for the past several days. Of his opinion regarding the war, nobody had a clear idea.. yet, many had believed that even if he had been in good health, he wouldn¡¯t have fought against the will of his people, for he was not a tyrant, but a protector.

    The true leaders of the Armada was its government, entrusted by the Warlord and its people to do what they believed to be right, as long as their ultimate goal aligned with their own. The survival of the Immortal Armada and all its members. Under this creed, those who sought peace struggled to make the im that, had the Warlord been there, he would have forgiven the elemental¡¯s betrayal, as well as forgotten the deaths of millions of the people he had sworn to protect.

    A week after the resumption of the war, the warships of the Immortal Armada had already reached the edges of the core system of the elemental¡¯s domain. The garden they had never been allowed to visit, and that had always appeared as little more than a light in the distance not unlike any other, was now brighter than ever..

    Seeing their arrival, the elementals were almost forced to give up in their peaceful nature to fight back tooth and nail, for losing To¡¯han would not have been a disaster, but the end.

    Yet, while they spared no effort in preparing for the arrival of their enemies, their hopes were not high. Their Lord had been missing, and many of their forces had been lost in previous encounters. What was left was led by the most ancient members of their civilization, who seemed to have made the hall of the Lord¡¯s Pce their temporary home.

    With all their might they tried to repel this invasion, but as the Armada managed to keep pushing through their defenses, the elementals realized what true might of their enemy. A power that went beyond that of simple cultivation, and that in itself, seemed capable of doubling their enemy¡¯s prowess.. And that was their technological advancement.

    Many of their most recent encounters, they elementals discovered, had ended in simr fashion. Their army would organize a n of defense they believed would ensure victory, only to fall apart under the horrifying powers of their enemy¡¯s weapons of mass destruction. What was left of the disorganized elementals, was then taken apart by the bloodthirsty cultivators, who did not seem keen in either epting surrender or taking prisoners.

    Now that the Armada was at their doorstep, they believed they had lost.

    Even if by some miracle their remaining forces could fight off the army of cultivators, they had no doubt that their ships¡¯ weapons would be able to st their into smithereens. So as the Immortal Armada approached, a feeling of doom akin to the one the cultivators had felt during Horror¡¯s invasion had started to take over the elemental civilization.

    Yet, as everything seemed lost, a miracle did happen.

    During what they had believed to be theirst meeting before total annihtion, the Lord of the elementals had appeared.. Walking into the main hall of the Lord¡¯s pce as if he had never gone missing, as if this was a meeting like any other.

    ¡°The enemy is here!¡±

    ¡°My Lord, were you to give us the order, my kin will throw their lives with joy..¡±

    ¡°We have lost so many..¡±

    ¡°The universe is lost, we have to retreat!¡±

    ¡°I can open a portal to a shattered universe..¡±

    Different proposals made their way to the lord ear one after the other, eaching from a different ck robed individual, yet he sat on his throne, almost as if unbothered by the recent events. His eyes remained close, but from the thin lines in between hisshes, an oppressive light and frightening darkness were constantly emanated.

    It was only when one of hooded figures in particr, a female spatial elemental, offered a way of retreat for the elemental army, that he stood up, and walked out of the dark hall. Once in the open, he raised his hands towards the sky and slowly opened his eyes, revealing two orbs that emanated a mixture of boundless power.. One formed by a sklera of absolute darkness that epassed an iris of pure light, while the other, was formed by an impossibly dark pit strangled by a sea of holiness.

    As his hands reached the sky, the surrounding essences, almost as if heeding to their God¡¯s will, gathered in between his palms, forming a fist-sized sphere of pure energy. Then, as quickly as it appeared, this sphere shot forward with unbelievable momentum.

    Quiet as wind, yet faster than lightning, this sphere crossed the sky and pierced the atmosphere.. Only stopping once it approached the fleet of ships.

    Thousands of cultivators approached the sphere. In its uniqueness, they could feel the peculiar essence of most elements. All merged into a perfect and stable bead of power. ¡°Is this a gift?¡± some of them wondered while still maintaining a certain distance. Many thought that the object might have been an offer for their surrender, yet no one dared to grab it.

    This possibility, however, did not change anything.. For the cultivators wanted vengeance, and the tally of their deaths far outweighed that of their enemies. A peace offering did nothing but fill them with contempt, as a few of them shouted in rejection, ¡°Burn that to the ground!¡±

    Before the cultivator could act on these orders, however, the sphere¡¯s surface suddenly cracked.

    ¡°TAKE COVER!!¡± One of them screamed, aware that something was wrong.. But it was toote. Not even the time to regret did they have before the small orb of energy exploded, erasing their existence in a fraction of a moment.. And that was not the end.

    The st was unstoppable. Cultivators, ships, celestial bodies, and vast artifacts made of the strongest materials known to men. Everything within hundreds of millions of miles was instantly vaporized. Not even the star around which To¡¯han orbited could survive the st, and fell apart under the sphere¡¯s immense energy.

    In a moment, the threat was no more.

    Therger part of the cultivators army, which had yet to arrive, suddenly lost contact with their advance fleet. Their senses, capable of reaching far beyond the furthest edges of the system, could only witness the impossibly powerful st before tens of thousands of their people had just disappeared.

    Back on To¡¯han, the lord observed the st of energy wash past the, leaving itpletely untouched. And as the light produced by the explosion began to dim, as he stood there, with his robe at his feet, he slowly lowered his arms while muttering, ¡°Perhaps I was wrong.. Sometimes nature just takes.¡±

    These words were spoken softly, and yet, they seemed to be powerful enough to reach the very edges of the universe. Every cultivator, elemental, or even native civilizations that had yet to be aware of the risk that had fallen upon their universe, had heard them y out, almost as if they were spoken to them directly, and seeping into their bones.

    As most of the cultivators felt shivers run down their spine, and began to realize that the bear they had locked out might not have been much worse than the tiger they were stuck with, one individual in particr remained calm. He sat quietly in a dark room, waiting for thest bit of his injury to finally heal up.

 Chapter 605 Purpose of War

    <h4> 605 Purpose of War </h4>

    On the elemental¡¯s the roar of cheering was deafening.

    Millions of elementals looked at their defeated foe with eyes filled with pride and satisfaction. Human emotions they were only feeling for the first time, and which had erupted at the sight of their God¡¯s might, and his proud and noble figure.

    In deep space, however, the atmosphere was quite different.

    While the elemental civilization had vastly underestimated the military prowess of the Immortal Armada, at the same time, the army of cultivators had underestimated the power of the Lord of the elementals. But that was only because they had never met him personally. In fact, they had never learned much about him.

    Various past interrogations reported that the Lord of the Elementals was a being of mana. A creature capable of wielding the elements with unmatched power and control. A description that had left them with no more than three guesses. The assumption that he was either an extremely ancient elemental that, thanks to the help of his closest circle, had been able to paint himself as a god to take power, an ancient cultivator that had taken upon himself to care for this society of elementals, or a champion of Destiny.

    The third guess had always been the most usible one, for they had seen for themselves what level of mistrust the elemental kind reserved for cultivators. And the elementalscked the level of deceitfulness to trick their own kind into worshiping one of their own as a god.

    On the other hand, the members of the Immortal Armada had learned of a champion of Destiny capable of wielding the elements. Cunning like any member of its kind, and just as famous. A being who had traveled the multiverse making enemies and cultivating its powers, but who had quietly disappeared a few centuries ago.

    Had they not encountered the elemental civilization, they would have thought he had died, prey of its kind¡¯s persecution at the hand of the aspects of existence. Yet, the more they interacted with the elemental army, the more they believed they had found out where he had been. After all, while that was not the Lord¡¯s intention, the elementals did treat him like their lord and savior, a behavior many champions of Destiny before had imprinted into their willing or unwilling followers.

    Now that they hade close enough to witness the Lord¡¯s power, they had been convinced that no cultivator would have been able to perform such an attack. And that was not because it was too powerful to contend with, but because itcked any marking of immortal essence.. Which indicated that the power was not constructed, but gathered, and controlled to perfection.

    Who else but a champion of Destiny with their unnatural gifts would be able to do such a thing? They asked themselves.

    Yet, while the attack had caught them by surprise, and decimated their fleet, the cultivators did not relent. That st had been incredibly powerful, but not something that went beyond the scope of intergctic warfare. Especially not within the realm of cultivation.

    So, after regrouping, the Immortal Armada once again approached To¡¯han.

    Slowly and quietly, hundreds of thousands of warships neared the lively.. A show of power and bravery that, however,cked the previous maniacal aggression. They approached like legendary human armies of yore, in formation, and stopping just outside the st area of the Lord¡¯s attack.

    Their appearance did not go unnoticed to the Elementals, who looked at their opponent¡¯s renewed carefulness as something to be proud of. Some even hoped the Armada would advance further, so that their Lord could show once again the infinite power of nature that for far too long had been underestimated all throughout the multiverse.

    But that never happened.

    To enter the field of the st was one ship, and one ship alone. A small vessel devoid of all crew but one individual, who was using his power to propel the ship across space in his lonesome.

    As the ship reached the patch of space that was at the core of the explosion, it suddenly stopped. Then, the bulkhead opened, revealing a middle-aged man with short hair and short grayish beard. His muscr body was d in magnificent heavy armor that appeared to be able to withstand any blow.. Yet, his most impressive feature was the domineering feeling his body emanated.

    An unnatural feeling that weighed on the shoulders of those who looked at him, and brought them to their knees. Not even the elementals, who had never seen the man before, could stop themselves from trembling in fear at the sight of him.

    With a sword half his height by his side, and a helmet firmly held underneath his left arm, he stared at the world of elementals with a piercing gaze. His body was still like a statue as he allowed for his eyes alone to graze past the¡¯s surface, causing the elementals to wonder what his intentions were.

    Then, he suddenly spoke.

    ¡°War.. is unavoidable.¡± he proimed with a heavy tone.

    Threatening words for the elementals, but to his people, a reminder that battles had to be fought regardless of their weight, for avoidance only led to a bigger loss. ¡°But a war with no purpose is synonymous of waste of life.¡±

    These two simple sentences seemed to reignite the spirits of the cultivators, and fill their hearts with pride and conviction. Their previous anger had been lost, as they acknowledged that war was only to be fought for survival, and not for vengeance. A mentality one could only possess as long as they respected their opponent¡¯s right to do the same.

    An old tradition of the Immortal Armada.. Words spoken before any war fought for survival, and with respect.

    As thest of these words left the Warlord¡¯s mouth, his right hand rose up to his chest, and reached for the helmet, which he then held with both hands before slowly yet firmly sliding it over his head. He then gripped the hilt of his sword, and with a solemn tone, continued, ¡°I am the Warlord of the Immortal Armada. And today I lead my people in a battle for survival. STATE YOUR PURPOSE!¡±

    ¡°FOR SURVIVAL!! FOR SURVIVAL!! FOR SURVIVAL!!!!¡± Chanted the members of the Armada in a deafening war cry that chipped at the bravery of their opponent. Then, quiet.

    This tradition, while a magnificent show of cohesion and indomitable will, was not only aimed at inflicting damage to an opponent¡¯s morale. Its real purpose was, in fact, more evident in the words that were spoken. An invitation for the enemy leader to make the purpose they fought for known, as well as incite the spirit of their army, and steel their resolve..

    The Warlord¡¯s words seemed to ignite the spirits of the elementals as well, who found themselves thinking of the reason why they were fighting. ¡®Survival.. We too fight for survival.¡¯ they thought, ¡®OUR LIVES ARE AS IMPORTANT AS YOURS!¡¯ some of them shouted to the top of their lungs, unbothered by the unlikeliness that such words could reach far enough to be heard.

    Yet, those words did reach. The Warlord and the cultivators took these words in.. they understood them, and used them to polish their resolve. No matter how noble their enemy¡¯s purpose was, war would decide, and they would carry the oue on their conscience as a reminder of what their survival had cost them.

    The shouts of the elementals became louder, and more frequent, until the noises merged into a war cry. ¡®Our lives are as important as yours¡¯ they chanted over and over again with a power that did not match that of the Armada¡¯s, but that was equally as important. The cultivators, of course, did not dare to dismiss it. Like them, they wanted to survive, and maybe they had had less chances to, but at this moment, in this sealed universe, it was them or us.

    This chant, however, did note alone.

    As more and more elementals yelled the will of their people to the sky, the Lord understood. He understood the intentions of his opponent.. He understood how those few words had given his people a chance to unite, to be the strongest force they could be, and to do so under the same goal.. Even if that would make the following battle harder for his army.

    Needless to say, for the man that stood there like a statue, powerful and majestic, he felt an immense amount of respect.

    Willing to indulge in this foreign tradition, he slowly stepped forward, reaching the edge of the cluster of roots he was standing barefoot on. Then, like a single feather taken from the ground by the most modest of winds, he was lifted in the air.

    His appearance did not halt the war cry of the elementals. Instead, it seemed to fuel it further. Their Lord did not cower in fear.. Their lord was willing to represent them in stating their purpose. An action that for them, creatures who had been used as resources for as long as history could remember, meant more than their words could tell. So as he rose in the sky, piercing the clouds like an angel covered in pure light essence, they kept shouting.

    The Lord had never thought he could have felt grateful towards his enemy, and yet there he was. Listening with pride as the will of his people apanied him to meet the enemy general.

    His figure waspletely shrouded in light, which made his appearance indistinguishable.. And so he chose to be. He wanted to appear as a force of nature, for it was for the forces of nature that he fought. So he slowly ascended, until finally, he reached the small patch of space the Warlord had been floating on in respectful silence.

    Then, just like the Warlord had done, he straightened his posture. The elements he controlled slowly emerged from underneath his skin, and began to roam around his body in a chaotic order, creating a spectacle of mana that was not made to entertain, but to represent.

    As the mixture of colored lights shed around his body, his chest rose, and he roared, ¡°I am the Lord of the Elementals, and I too fight for my people¡¯s survival.. For they deserve to live too.¡±

    Suddenly, the elementals went quiet. Not because they did not agree with the words their Lord had spoken, but because they wanted them to resound in the ears of their enemies, whom they believed needed to hear them the most.

    The warlord, stoic and quiet, slowly nodded.

    Only now that he hade face to face with the Lord of the Elementals, had he realized what type of person he was. He was not an ancient elemental, nor was he a champion of Destiny, for hecked their domineering and aggressive attitude. He was a unique individual, a man after his own heart. That, both men could tell about each other even without being able to see the other¡¯s face.

    As the tradition had been fulfilled, the Warlord went back to his ship, and slowly guided it back.. But not before turning to get onest look of the man he had just met, but whom he hade to respect, before the two could meet in battle.

    The Lord observed in silence, as the man in pristine armor gave him onest nod before guiding his ship away. Satisfied by what had just happened, the mind of bothmanders went back to their people, and in picturing the best way they could achieve victory in the battle that was toe.

    As the Lord started to head back, however, something odd happened.

    The Warlord, who had beenposed and noble until now, had suddenly jumped out of his moving ship, and with the speed of light dashed towards the glowing figure. Then, before the Lord could even consider the possibility of a sneak attack, the Warlord grabbed him by the shoulders, and began to inspect his features.

    While dimmer than before, the Lord was still glowing of a pure white light. One that danced around the surface of his body, giving him a holy appearance that was never meant to mask his appearance. And so it didn¡¯t.. But only for a moment.

    In the moment the Lord¡¯s appearance had be visible, something had changed in the Warlord. Something that had possessed him into risking to be harmed just to grab the former¡¯s shoulder and inspect his appearance.

    Aware of the Warlord¡¯s intention, the Lord of the Elementals allowed for the light to dim further, revealing a schrly looking young man with an eye of darkness and an eye of light.

    ¡°Roley..¡± The Warlord muttered with a softened tone right before taking his helmet off.

    With eyes filled with shock, the young man recognized the man¡¯s face, and asked, ¡°Der?¡±

 Chapter 606 A Rough Reunion

    <h4> 606 A Rough Reunion </h4>

    The two looked at one another in shock. Centuries they had spent looking for one another, always having the goal of reuniting lodged in the back of their minds, and only now they realized that, for years, they had shared the same universe.

    ¡°Der.. What are the chances..¡± Roley muttered to himself as the man¡¯s rough hands squeezed his shoulders. As his eyes met his old friend¡¯s, however, he noticed something odd. Happiness, but also confusion and, to some degree,passion.

    ¡°What happened to you?¡± The middle-aged man asked as he looked into the worlds of light and darkness that stood where once were a pair of human eyes he could still remember. The young man in front of him had little more than the face of the schrly young man he had known.. The spiritual cultivator with aprehension of the elements only second to one more individual of their shared past.

    Roley, almost as if embarrassed by Der¡¯s inquisitive eyes, looked down. He had always known that, if he managed to find the people of his past, he would have likely been a far different person than they had remembered him as. And even if he had not gone through significant physical changes, two thousands years had still passed.

    A time in which more than once he had hoped his friend would have found him, for together they had already envisioned and created a world where elementals did not fear for their lives.

    Unfortunately, he had changed more than he had wanted. Study was of no interest to him anymore, nor was cultivation. His entire existence now revolved around the support of the elemental kind.. He had be a champion to them, weaponized to fulfill their long wish. Yet, he did not regret that. He had always had a kind spirit, and his love for the nature of mana had always held a soft spot in his heart. To be bound to fulfill such a destiny, regardless of how difficult and lonely it had been, was something he had worn with pride.

    He closed his eyes, hoping that hiding them would help Der remember of his former past, and said, ¡°Many years have passed, old friend. The times have changed me.¡± His figure stiffened, and he faintly shrugged his shoulder, hoping that the man¡¯s hands would note in contact with one of the treasures that were embedded into the skin of his back.. Or even notice them at all.

    He wished to appear as human as he possibly could. If not to ease the embarrassment he was feeling, at least to ease Der¡¯s mind.

    In response to the light shrug, Der took his hands off the young man¡¯s shoulders. An action that had created somewhat of a line between their merry reunion.. But he did not mind. After all, they had considered each other¡¯s ultimate enemy for thest several years, and as Roley had reminded him, many years had passed since they had considered each other friends.

    He too knew that the young man he had pointlessly attempted to teach martial arts to many a time before was long gone, and a powerful leader of many had taken his ce.

    As Derposed himself, he started to remember the type of situation the two were in. After all, while he could understand the distrust the Elementals had for cultivators, they had also killed millions of innocent people. He was no stranger to the character of mana sprites, for he had experienced the same world Roley had. One where cultivators and elementals could coexist.. So he knew how uncharacteristic of them such malicious actions were.

    As his arms slowlyy down by his sides, he took a deep breath, and asked, ¡°What is next? I believe we might have gone.. Too far from any chance of cohabitation.¡±

    While keeping his eyes closed, Roley nodded. ¡°I am afraid so.¡± He said in response.

    Despite agreeing on this, both Der and Roley were feeling conflicted.

    Der hadplete trust that, had Roley known he was the one leading this particr group of cultivators, he would have thought better than ordering the attacks that weed them into the universe, as well as betraying the agreement upon which the truce had been signed. He knew that, had Roley known it was him, they would have done the impossible just so that a war would never start.

    Roley¡¯s train of thoughts was somewhat simr, but also drastically different. He knew that his old friend would have never allowed the mistreatment of the people he was leading, but at the same time, neither of the two were truly immortal.. Eventually both of them would have died. Who was to say how long the cultivators of the future would have respected Der¡¯s will after his passing.

    After regaining hisposure, Roley carried his body backwards a few feet. Then, his demeanor changed. ¡°We have colonized this universe first, so you will have to leave.¡± He demanded with the tone of an emperor. ¡°Find a home elsewhere.¡±

    Roley¡¯s words stung. Not because they rejected the connection that had existed between him and Der, but because what he had asked, was little more than demanding their suicide.

    ¡°Is that what you want?¡± Der asked angrily. ¡°After all the work my people put into making this universe safe, and despite all the innocent people those you lead have killed!! FIND A HOME ELSEWHERE!?¡±

    ¡°My people did nothing wrong.¡± Roley argued, ¡°They saw your arrival as just one of many invasions from the uncountable groups of rogue cultivators, and yet we have let you find refuge here until you started attacking us.¡±

    Der was shocked. ¡°We.. we attacked you?¡± he asked with sheer astonishment. ¡°Only twice have we been at war, and both times we only responded! Most of the lives we lost since entering this universe were taken before any conflict even started! DON¡¯T YOU DARE DENY IT!!¡±

    Roley was taken aback. He had known about the ancestors of light, space and darkness breaking the truce, which exined why the cultivators hade here. But both him and his people knew, or at least believed, that the previous war had been started by the Armada¡¯s attack.

    For a moment Roley started believing that Der had lied, but as he saw the fire of indignation burn in his eyes, he suddenly realized. Those whom he had hoped to bring into his cause, and to whom he had given a pce on To¡¯han, and allowed to be a separate independent faction in the hope that one day they would ept that he acted for the betterment of the elementals¡¯ existence.. They were more out of control than he had imagined.

    He could not help but look back at his people, and consider how the pride of so few had turned amunity that fought for a just cause, into the viins.

    Yet, he was still their leader, and while he did not like that his people had been tricked into a war, he still needed to support them. And so he did. He once again turned towards Der, and with a voice that resounded like the beat of a drum, he said, ¡°I apologize for what happened, but I have to look out for my people above all. We will not take responsibility for the actions of a few traitors. My demands remain unchanged.¡±

    After listening to Roley¡¯s words, Der scoffed. ¡°An apology? Millions of lives lost, and all we get is an apology. How do you expect us to be okay with that, when you haven¡¯t even brought out those you im betrayed you!¡±

    ¡°The three elementals who broke the truce are already dead, I-¡°

    Roley quickly tried to correct the bad turn the argument was taking, but before he could finish speaking, Der interrupted him. With narrowed eyes he imed, ¡°Four.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Roley asked with confusion.

    ¡°There were four beings. An elemental of space, one of darkness, one of light, and a fourth one. I saw them myself, as they caged my men within the formation, like insects in amber.¡±

    A strange expression appeared on Roley¡¯s face. One of realization. The notion that he had allowed too many snakes to inhabit his yard had finally dawned upon him. Yet there was also anger.. Because one of the entities that had lied to him was not someone he wished to be allied to, but one he had held captive.

    Suddenly, everything fell into ce. To him, regardless whether it was true or not, everything that had gone wrong.. Everything that had led to his people being at war with the Armada.. The Elementalist had a part to y in.

    This thought caused a ze of anger to surge within Roley¡¯s mind, almost setting his body in real mes. In response, he hastily turned around to head back to To¡¯han. He wanted to solve this problem once and for all.. Yet, as he turned around, the Elementalist was already standing there, quiet, and sporting a smug smile on his face.

    ¡°He is right, you know? It was four.¡± He spoke with glee, almost struggling not to burstughing. He then added, ¡°I can¡¯t believe you bought that those three dummies could act on their own. They wouldn¡¯t have understood what a formation was if they were stuck in it.¡±

    His appearance hade as a surprise for both Roley and Der, as he had appeared quietly, without releasing any form of power. He had materialized the moment he had chosen to speak, almost as if he had emerged from Roley¡¯s shadow. His eyes alsocked the characteristic golden hue of the champions of Destiny, a detail which revealed that he had not made use of his powers yet.

    ¡°I also cannot believe, for the life of me, that you would be this stupid.¡± The Elementalist said as he slowly floated around Roley¡¯s furious figure.. Like a hyena taunting a lion. ¡°But had I known I would have been blessed with witnessing such a touching reunion, I would have.. Well, done exactly what I have.¡±

    The more the Elementalist spoke, the more cocky he.. Until finally, Roley could not stay quiet any longer. ¡°One reason. Give me a reason why I should not erase you right where you stand..¡± he growled in between gritted teeth. The power of nine elements were rotating around his body, creating arge orb of colorful lights.

    The Elementalist seemed amused. He stretched his arm through Roley¡¯s elemental field, and effortlessly ced it around his shoulders,pletely unaffected. ¡°Maybe I am just sick of staying in that cell.. Maybe I decided that I was fine with dying.. Or maybe I have left a little mark in their little formation, so that when I die, it falls apart, leaving you to fight Horror¡¯s horde.¡± He exined as he gradually moved closer.

    A shiver ran down both Der¡¯s and Roley¡¯s backs. They knew that by now the full army of Horror¡¯s domain was likely stationed outside the universe¡¯s interdimensional portal. If the formation were to fall, that would mean the end for all of them.

    Der, who had prepared to engage in a fight the moment the Elementalist had appeared, immediately put away the idea. Contrary to the elemental army, he had seen the brutality of Horror¡¯s domain.. A brutality from which they had spent the past few centuries running from, and that they had done all they could to stop from reaching them.

    ¡°What do you want?¡± Roley asked dejectedly.

    The Elementalist tightened his hold of the young man¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Since you were kind enough to make an army for me, I will take that.¡± He said with a friendly tone before pinching his chin pensively. He then added, ¡°Although I think I will erase their minds.. I could never stand their constant whining..¡±

    As he finished speaking, something cracked inside Roley. He once again opened his eyes, aimed at them at Der, and with an apologetic expression, said, ¡°I am sorry..¡± A momentter, his arm shed out of sight, and with impossible speed stabbed the chest of the Elementalist.

    Dumbfounded, the elementalist felt the power of nine primordial elements flood his body. Feelings of burning, slicing, freezing, all piled up to one another, corroding his existence from the inside.

    ¡°NO!¡± Der shouted, but it was toote.

    Slowly, the Elementalist¡¯s body began to fall apart.. His skin peeled off, his flesh turned to dust, and his bones were swallowed by an eternal darkness. However, as Roley observed his nemesis¡¯sst moments, his body froze. In thetter¡¯s dying expression he could not see fear of death, but a simple malicious smile.

 Chapter 607 Slow Burn Plan

    <h4> 607 Slow Burn n </h4>

    Suddenly, the skin that had peeled off attached to Roley¡¯s own, his flesh, now dust, seeped into his nostrils, and his bones, which had been swallowed by the concepts of darkness had not disappeared, but had joined the power of darkness as it went back into its summoner¡¯s eyes.

    In just a few moments, the entirety of the Elementalist¡¯s existence had disappeared, leaving no trace of him behind.

    Der looked on in horror. His attention instantly shifted to the formation that, in the distance, appeared as a microscopic dot of gray and light blue light. His heart threatened to burst out of his chest as he expected that, at any moment, the formation would fall apart.. unleashing Horror¡¯s horde upon his people.

    Yet, as several seconds passed, nothing happened. The formation was still standing strong, and it did not seem that that would change any time soon.

    The oppressive grip his fingers had onto his now deformed helmet had rxed, and he exhaled in extreme relief. His heart however had no intention of stopping. The threat of Horror¡¯s horde being unleashed alone, was enough to fill him with adrenaline.

    It appeared that the Elementalist had been bluffing, and that Roley had been sessful in calling his bluff. Yet, the moment he turned to look at his old friend, what he saw left him aghast. His brows furrowed with confusion at the sight of Roley, who had now fallen into a deep sleep.

    ¡ª¨C

    As the Elementalist¡¯s malicious smile kept appearing in Roley¡¯s mind, his surroundings had begun to change.. And in a moment, he found himself in a foreign world. What presented this word as foreign, however, was not the fact that Roley did not recognize it, but because of itsposition.

    What Roley could see all around him was not a physical world, but one made of what he could only describe as the idea of elements. It possessed trees that were little more than an abstract cluster of brown, greed and reddish colors, earth that was soft to the touch but that did not feel solid, or had aposition to begin with. The winds drifted past his body like a ghost, carrying blurry droplets of human-proof water.

    Had he not known that was not the case, Roley would have thought he had fallen into what looked like an abstract painting. He could feel in each color the power of the elements, yet, he could not the body they would usually possess. And the further he observed, the stranger things became.

    Within the first few seconds, Roley had noticed that this ce did not possess sound. The fabric of his clothes brushing, his breathing, the sounds his mouth would usually make.. No sound could be heard. And that was also the case for his mind, whose thoughts he could not formte in speech any longer, but only in pictures.

    Despite his initial surprise, however, Roley was still a schr of the elements.. So when these two oddities appeared in his mind, sure enough, he was able to guess where he had ended up. ¡°These are the elements in my body..¡± he thought as he noticed the strands of darkness that extended from the bottom of his feet, produced by the curved and distorted rays of light.

    The abstractness of his surroundings was caused by theck of space, and the absence of sound was due to him having never merged with a treasure of sound essence. And as he kept observing the world around him, he gathered, there likely had to be no time essence either. Luckily, he still possessed control over his surroundings, as when his mindmanded, the shapeless and quiet essences would heed his call, and move around ording to his orders.

    Nevertheless, he could not understand how he hade here, nor did he have any idea such a world existed within him.. All he knew was that it was not an illusion.

    What was more important, however, was to know how to get out. He was unsure whether the absence of time was separated from the outside flow of time. And that worried him, for while he did not have to worry about aging in this world, outside, he was still standing in front of Der, whom he had possibly condemned to fall under the brutality of Horror¡¯s domain.. A brutality that would also befall his people.

    But also, he could not stop thinking about the smile that had crept onto the Elementalist¡¯s lips as he died. The thought of it kept appearing in his mind, making him wonder whether he had done the right thing. After all, the core of a champion of Destiny¡¯s existence was survival. So while it was not odd for them to gamble their lives on a bluff, for them to smile as that bluff was called was very odd.

    As Roley kept thinking of how he could get out, however, an odd feeling began creeping in his mind. A familiar feeling all humans thought asmon yet impossible to exin.

    Instinctively he turned around, and there he saw him. The figure of the Elementalist, staring at him from a few feet away, with the same malicious smile stered on his face.

    ¡°Hey there.¡± The Elementalist¡¯s lips moved, but no sound came out.

    Despite there being no sound, Roley could somewhat understand him. ¡°You truly are like cockroaches..¡± He said in response as he immediately took hold of the surrounding essences, which, following his thoughts, began to focus around the smiling individual.

    The Elementalist seemed amused. He let out a deafugh, then raised his hands. ¡°Wait wait, don¡¯t ruin this for me. There is no time here, you might as well let me enjoy the moment.¡±

    Unfortunately for him, Roley was not interested in indulging him. With another thought the shapeless essences attached themselves to the Elementalist¡¯s body, and violently began to tear, slice and burn him into nothingness.

    In Roley¡¯s eyes, it almost seemed as if the Elementalist had been dropped into a vat of water, and with it, the content of a hundred tins of paint that swirled in an attempt to remain separate before inevitably mixing together.

    This went on for several minutes, after which Roley let go of his murderous thoughts and rxed his mind.

    When the cluster of essences dissipated, however, he was rmed. For the Elementalist stood there, quieter than death itself, and still sporting the same malicious smile he had before. He waspletely unharmed.

    Noticing Roley¡¯s expression, the Elementalist shooed the remnants of essence away with his hand, then took a few steps towards him. Once close enough, the Elementalist once again ced his arm around his nemesis, and said, ¡°Calm down, this is your home! You should keep it in order.. Especially now that you have a guest.¡±

    As he mentioned being a guest, the Elementalist once again pinched his chin pensively, then added, correcting himself, ¡°I guess ¡®guest¡¯ is the wrong term, considering this is my home too now. And you will be moving out soon.¡±

    Roley could not hear the man¡¯s words, but as he stared at his moving lips, he slowly fell into realization.

    As his hands moved onto his body, he confirmed. His body was physical. And while he still had control over the elements, he was not the only one who could. The Elementalist had somehow managed to fuse his body with his own, and now, they shared control over the world of essences they held.

    ¡°How?¡± he asked with sheer horror.

    The Elementalist smiled once more, then grabbed Roley¡¯s body by his shoulders, and with pity, he said, ¡°Don¡¯t beat yourself up. You never threw the game. You just.. Never had a chance to begin with.¡±

    He then let go of him, and began taking a leisurely stroll in the abstract world. All the while exining, ¡°Before we met.. Nay, even before you were born, I knew that one day your body would be mine. A body embedded with the most primordial forms of mana. One that oncepleted.. Not only my own kind, the Aspects of existence themselves would be nothing against.¡±

    ¡°A body capable of controlling light and darkness, time and space, sound and the elements. In a multiverse of pseudo deities and ants that moronically struggle against the inevitability of death, you and I.. you and I will be a true God.¡±

    ¡°All I needed was for those little clique of idiots to feel threatened by my existence.. Force them into a corner where they would have no choice but to create you.¡± The Elementalist mentioned, reminding Roley of how the elemental ancestors had chosen him for his affinity to the elements.. To make him the protector of the Elementals and save them from the Elementalist himself. ¡°Of course, they were all unaware participants.¡±

    The series of events that Roley had lived through for thest two thousands years suddenly appeared different, in his mind. The elemental ancestors that had engraved the primordial power of their kin into his body, the wars he had led his people into, his encounter with the Elementalist and his consequent victory.. All were part of his nemesis¡¯ n. Even the multitude of failed attempts at merging with light and dark essence were nothing but a ploy to make him desperate enough to ept his help when it truly counted.

    As he realized all this, he could not help but ask, ¡°You have bet everything.. All of it, on the chance that when you brought the treasure of light and darkness to me, I would say yes?¡±

    The smile on the Elementalist¡¯s face began showing traces of mockery. He could not be bothered to even exin the inevitability of his system¡¯s readings of fate. To him, there had been no risks. Everything had beenid out perfectly, and every action was inpliance to what his system had imed would lead to him taking Roley¡¯s body.

    Yet, he did not exin that, as that would have chipped away at the enjoyment he was having. Instead, he stretched his arms outwards.

    Slowly, the forces of mana that surrounded them began to approach his body, and rotate in awe of it. A show that he too could control them just like Roley had.

    While the Elementalist basked in the power his body possessed, Roley had forgotten the previous question. At this point all he could think about was the amount of destruction a champion of destiny could achieve, if given the power he possessed..

    After all, with the knowledge Roley had shared with him, paired with Destiny¡¯s gift, who was to say how long before he could find a treasure of time and a treasure of sound, and finally be a god? When faced with the power to control nature, not only the people he followed, but life itself would be at his mercy.

    ¡°I can¡¯t let that happen..¡± he thought as his immortal essence, old and dormant, started circting throughout his body. With the advantage of the control of primordial essence gone, he was a simple cultivator.. But so was his opponent.

    Without a shred of a warning he lunged at the Elementalist, who reacted to his attack with amusement.

    ¡ª¨C

    ¡°Roley!¡± Der barked to the catatonic young man.

    Only a few moments after the Elementalist¡¯s apparent death had passed, yet Roley seemed to have lost all functions. His eyes were devoid of life, and his body floated rigidly in the emptiness of space. If not for Der¡¯s hold, he would have floated away.

    Unfortunately, shaking and yelling did not appear to be working.. Which caused the middle-aged cultivator to believe that something was wrong with. And not only in him, but in what had led him into such a state.

    Before he could attempt a more extreme approach, however, Roley suddenly woke up. His eyes were lively, and his expression was one of happiness and satisfaction, as opposed to the solemnity that had marked his face during their previous conversation.

    He did not appear to be bothered by the middle-aged man squeezing his arms with a grave expression. Instead, he was looking down at his body, muttering, ¡°..talk about qualitative change.. Eheh.¡± The Elementalist was fully satisfied with his new body.. And rejoiced at the notion that he had not needed to sacrifice his system to obtain it.

    ¡°Tell me who you are.¡± ordered a voice that graciously waltzed around his many gleeful thoughts.

    Without even thinking about it, the Elementalist answered, ¡°Dewha, champion of Destiny.. But you can cal-¡°

    *SPAH* Without giving the Elementalist time to finish his sentence, Der struck the former¡¯s head with his own, making him feel the full magnitude of his cultivation.

    Dumbstruck, the Elementalist shook his head. He felt as if he had woken up from a spell.. But as he tried to regain his bearings, another headbuttnded squarely on his forehead, making his mind go nk.

 Chapter 608 Two Against One

    <h4> 608 Two Against One </h4>

    For the first time, the Elementalist felt what absolute satisfaction truly meant.

    He had long since heard about the champion of Destiny who had managed to evolve into a true and pure aspect of existence, and that meant that he could do it too. And yet, as that higher roof appeared above the infinitely high construct that were his aspirations, all the Elementalist could think about was not how to achieve what had already been achieved, but how to surpass it.

    Many other champions of Destiny had shared this mentality, but only he had a pathid out for him that would allow him to do just that.

    Even before he learned about his kind¡¯s true purpose, he had created a path that would ce him not only above every other champion of Destiny, but also above thezy queen ants that dared lord over him.. And treat him as a pest to exterminate.

    And now, thousands of yearster, he had finally seeded. He had the perfect body, his system, and a hunger for power and conflict that would put any other being to shame. He was ready. All the patience, all the humiliations.. Everything had paid off.

    The start of the rest of his life began here.. With a headbutt straight to his noggin.

    Dumbfounded, he immediately grabbed his aching head. The headbutt had shaken his brain, and slightly cracked his skull. His eyes lost focus, as the silhouette that hid being the blur struck him again.. This time, on the nose.

    As his body was sent flying backwards, the two armies, which had been patiently waiting for their generals to give the order, immediately began their charge. But before the two could sh, Der shouted to the top of his lungs, ¡°IMMORTAL ARMADA, DO ALL YOU CAN TO STOP THEM WITHOUT KILLING THEM!¡±

    An order that left the cultivators beyond confused.

    Their Warlord had already spoken his intentions. He had dered their purpose, which to them, meant that they were there not to subdue the enemy, but to exterminate it. Yet, now it seemed that their leader had changed his mind, and that was something they had never witnessed before.

    Nevertheless, while many did not agree with the Warlord¡¯s change of heart, his words were still absolute, and they trusted him blindly.

    Those who wielded weapons immediately sheathed them, and fought with their des hidden, while those who employed formations and the elements used them for constriction, instead of destruction.

    While this happened, Der continued what he was doing. He would constantly chase the Elementalist, who was now inhabiting Roley¡¯s body, and before his mind could get clear enough for him to defend himself, he would strike his head once more, erasing any idea of resistance from it.

    When it seemed that the Elementalist was about to lose consciousness, however,yers uponyers of elemental constructs formed around his body. Soft snow at first, then fertile earth followed by thickyers of stone and electrically charged metal.. A passive protection the champion of Destiny had purchased from the Elemental System, and that would activate the moment his consciousness was at risk.

    This ability was the first ability the Elementalist had ever upgraded to its maximum level, for it gave him a lease on life not unlike Daniel¡¯s own Second Chance. Yet, it was not as efficient.

    As the Elementalist managed to gather his bearings, he quickly saw theyers of defense being chipped away by the powerful blows of his middle-aged opponent, who, with sword in hand, shed and hacked, pierced and chopped.

    The metallic barrier which buzzed with the power of lightning was the first to fall apart, cleaved off by Der¡¯s immense power. Followed by theyers of diamond almost indistinguishable from the ice they were embedded into.

    One by one each element was stripped away in front of the eyes of the Elementalist, who was desperately trying to recover from the multitude of head traumas. Luckily for him, it did not seem that Der¡¯s assault could outpace his recovery.

    By the time the Warlord¡¯s sword hade dangerously close to his new body, the Elementalist teleported out of range, and reappeared just out of harm¡¯s way. Then, he turned his palms upwards while staring at his opponent with hatred.

    Around him the prevalent powers of light and darkness began to condense, forming two orbs of impossible might. One as brilliant as a star, capable of wiping a weaker person¡¯s mind with its sheer shine, the other as threatening as a ck hole.. Quiet and lethal.

    The two powers kept condensing to the size of two nail-sized beads, but before their surface could smoothen fully, a voice pierced the Elementalist¡¯s mind. ¡°Cease your resistance at once!¡± The voice said,pelling him to immediately let go of the power he had umted.

    His reaction to the voice was instinctive and visceral, not unlike that of a young boy being caught by their father doing something he was not supposed to do. The voice¡¯s solemnity was absolute, and it had full authority over the Elementalist¡¯s mind.

    ¡°What in havens..¡± the Elementalist muttered as he looked with confusion at what he had just done. ¡°Why did I follow his orders?¡± he wondered as the figure of the Warlord floated in his vicinity.

    ¡°Is Roley still alive?¡± The middle-aged man inquired furiously.

    The man¡¯s attitude seemed to strike a chord in the Elementalist, who looked back at the ant with disdain. ¡°How dar-¡°

    ¡°ANSWER ME!¡± Der interrupted.

    Once again, the Elementalist was shaken out of his mindset, and with obedient eyes he said, ¡°Not for long.¡± As he finished, he immediately plugged his ears and bolted away, hoping to avoid whatever devilish trick the middle-aged man had been pulling on him.

    Unfortunately, that was pointless. Der¡¯s cultivation far surpassed the Elementalist, who had been forced to act coy and weak for the past several centuries.

    Der approached him quickly, and in a few seconds, he was once again in front of him. However, this time, Der did not attack him. Instead, he grabbed him by the shoulder, not unlike the way he had grabbed Roley minutes earlier, and stared deeply into his eyes.

    The Elementalist, unable to break free, could not help but stare back.

    Soon, thick veins started to appear on Der¡¯s reddened skin, and his seven orifices began to ooze blood. It was clear that whatever he was about to do, was taking an extreme toll on his body.

    After onest desperate yet futile attempt at breaking free, the Elementalist heard two words.. ¡°Relinquish control.¡±

    Suddenly, the Elementalist found himself back into the elemental world within Roley¡¯s body, and next to him, was the figure of Roley himself, whom he had left trapped not too long again.

    As the eyes of the two met, Roley immediately realized that something had gone wrong. He could see it in the Elementalist¡¯s confused and angered expression.. And without thinking twice, resumed the sh he had just lost.

    The fight did notst long, and the Elementalist defeated Roley the same way he had before, managing to regain control of the body. However, as his physical eyes opened, and he once again found himself in space, a mighty blownded squarely onto his jaw. Not powerful enough to injure him, but enough to rock his brain.

    ¡°Relinquish control.¡± He heard as his consciousness slipped away and he found himself back into the elemental realm.

    ¡ª-

    This cycle went on for what felt like decades.. An illusion caused by the constant fighting and loss of consciousness.

    In this time, the Elementalist had begun to feel mentally exhausted, and before long, during one of the dozens of fights against Roley, he was not able to gain the advantage, and lost control over the body.

    Roley woke up back in his own body, and was met by the same strike that had pummeled onto his sore face many times before, but right before Der¡¯s fist could hit, he noticed the difference in expression on the young man¡¯s face. Anger and disdain were now gone, reced by worry and relief.

    The punch stopped just a hair away from Roley¡¯s face, but as Der expected his old friend to ask him to stop, the former grabbed him by the cor of his armor, and said, ¡°Keep doing what you are doing!¡± then once again fell into a catatonic state.

    For the following hour the Elementalist and Roley battled for the control of their shared body, while Der awaited for them to wake up before either striking them unconscious, or allowing them to rest before they would be inevitably pulled back in.

    Throughout this hour the Elementalist could do nothing but watch as Roley grew more confident, while he became more and more restless. His physical powers were still as strong as ever, for he shared them with Roley, but his mental power was steadily declining. Who was to say when the next time he would have gained control, would have been thest.

    He needed to do something, and he needed to do it fast..

    When hope seemed to be lost, the Elementalist finally had an idea. With all the might he could muster he once again defeated Roley, gaining control over his body. But when he woke up, he showed no signs of anger or restlessness. ¡°It¡¯s working! Keep going!¡± The Elementalist said to the middle-aged man with the swollen hand.

    But then, just as Der stopped his fist, just as he expected Roley¡¯s consciousness to once again be dragged into his body, the young man reached for the tattered pants that covered his lower body.

    As Der looked at the young man fiddling with his pockets, he started believing that the nightmare was finally over.. But unfortunately, his hopes were shattered soon after, when the young man pulled a small transparent bead from his pockets.

    Immediately Der tried to strike his head, but as his fist reached his face, the young man shifted out of the way and dashed towards the interdimensional portal. ¡°Relinquish-gack!¡± a mouthful of blood erupted from his mouth as he once again tried to use his power.. failing. He was too tired for it, but still did not give up.

    With all the power he had left in his body Der chased the Elementalist, barking weakermands that only allowed him to gain ground before being shaken off once more.

    Their speed was unmatched in the universe, breaking the barrier of light many times over.. And soon enough, they both found themselves in the proximity of the sealed interdimensional portal.

    The Elementalist stopped, and focused on the small bead. Then channeled its power to affect the barrier.

    Just a few seconds away, Der approached the young man like a meteor, striking the back of his head with a powerful strike of his elbow, and causing his opponent to immediately lose consciousness.

    But, s, it was toote..

    ¡ª-

    When the Elementalist was once again pulled into the elemental world within their shared body, Roley immediately noticed that something had changed. The formercked the feelings of disdain and anger that had marked his expression for the past hour, and in their ce only dejection remained.

    He also noticed that his mind power had be fickle, and was on the verge of falling apart.

    Convinced that this was the best opportunity to end his enemy once and for all, Roley once again lunged at him, but the Elementalist did not give him a chance. Like a pangolin, the champion of Destiny surrounded himself in scales of elemental power, and then, he fell unconscious.. Or more precisely, he went into hibernation.

    The moment the Elementalist¡¯s consciousness went dormant, Roley felt any form of blockade that impeded him from controlling his body disappear, and once again woke up next to Der.

    When he saw his face, however, he did not see the stern expression he usually carried, but a look of sheer horror, for next to him, the enormous formation was slowly falling apart. ¡°No.. No!¡± Roley implored, right before finding himself holding the treasure of primordial spatial essence.

    Without thinking twice, he immediately began channeling the full extent of the treasures¡¯ power into his body, and with great burden to himself, desperately tried to patch the now damaged formation.

    Cracks started appearing on Roley¡¯s skin, which soon evolved into open wounds. The primordial power, unmatched by an equal and oppositepetitor was wreaking havoc into his body.. Yet, for as painful as it was, it appeared to be working.

    In front of Der¡¯s eyes, the dome of golden rules and spatial treasures was reforming, bit by bit. But as he kept looking in relief, a grim sight robbed him of any positive emotions.

    A ck spike, followed by a gray colored finger of pure and unadulterated horrific power gently pierced through the weakened formation, breaking it apart.

 Chapter 609 Horrifying Arrival

    <h4> 609 Horrifying Arrival </h4>

    While it still possessed joints, a nail and skin, this finger was by no means normal.

    Its sheer size alone wasrge enough to upy arge percentage of the ocean-wide interdimensional portal. But what made it even more noteworthy, was the oily and grayish skin that faded into a dark shade of red the further down the end of its talon-like nail one went.

    As wide as it was, the finger did not appear to be hindered by its size, but only by the formation, which was still in the process of repairing itself. And yet, while capable of hindering it, that did not mean the formation was able to stop it.

    Soon after this finger pierced the surface of the interdimensional portal, its joints began to bend, allowing for the pointy fingertip to effortlessly scratch the shaky formation. While this appeared as a simple scratch, however, its power was enough to effortlessly break the formation apart.. Almost as if the finger had not been digging into the project of an entire civilization, but on soft and warm sand.

    A single scratch was all it took for the runes to explode, creating a chain reaction which threw the thousands of spatial treasures out in deep space. In a matter of seconds, the formation was no more.

    In front of such an event, Roley and Der could not help but look on in fright. The sheer sight of this finger alone had sent shivers down their spines, and paralized the rest. It was oppressive, dark and aggressive, and it left them helpless. Unfortunately, just as they began thinking that things could not get any worse, their expectations fell apart like a castle of sand.

    The moment the formation was destroyed, the finger began to shrink in size. From the size of a colossal column that seemed to be an integral part of the universe¡¯s foundations, the finger went down to the size of a small asteroid, then to that of an ind.. And it kept shrinking.

    By the time it got to the size of arge man¡¯s arm, more fingers pierced the portal¡¯s surface. A middle finger at first, followed by the ring finger, little finger, and the thumb. The creature¡¯s invasion continued as after the five fingers, a palm that connected them together emerged. In the middle of it, a head-sized bloodshot eyeball dashed left and right, up and down, leering at whaty beyond the portal inquisitively.

    This eyeball kept scanning its surroundings until finally, itnded on the two cultivators, causing their heart to stop. Had it not been for their ability to control the biology of their bodies, such a shock would have killed them.

    Following the eye¡¯s appearance, an oddly slim, almost sickly wrist appeared, and after it, a hairless forearm, an elbow whose bone pierced through the skin and protruded as a ck thorn, a scrawny bicep whose bundles of muscle appeared to be made out of worms squirming under ayer of dead skin.

    The more of the creature emerged from the portal, the more the feeling that apanied him weighed on the universe. By the time the elbow had passed, every sentient being that had yet to step foot into the world of cultivation fell on the ground, paralized.

    Their throat became heavy as a buzz entered their ears.. They could only move their eyes around in terror, unable to do anything against the imminent threat they were feeling. Many civilizations in the multiverse had experienced events such as these, which they considered to be among the strangest mysteries of sleep.. They called it sleep paralysis, and they referred to the beings that in these situations would torment them, as their sleep paralysis demons.

    As this feeling spread throughout the universe, an enormous amount of horrific energy was created. One that nobody was able to feel, or even see.

    Almost as if satisfied with its dramatic entrance, the rest of the entity¡¯s body emerged from the portal¡¯s surface, revealing the scrawny naked body of a young young man. Gray-skinned, withrge curved horns of intertwined blood threads rising from his bald head. His face had no eyes, or at least, at first.. For the time his entire body entered the universepletely, the two eyes lodged on his palms began traveling back on his face. Under the two holes that stood where a human¡¯s nose should have been, was a single dark hole with deep cracks for lips.

    The monstrous creature¡¯s thin torso began to inte, to an almost unreal proportion, and when it reached its limit, the hole-like mouth opened, revealing rows and rows of teeth not unlike those of a seamprey. As he exhaled, the sickly-sweet odor of dposition spread for thousands of miles.

    ¡°How odd.¡± he babbled with a tone that did not sound human at all, but more like an underwater echo. It bubbled next to the ears of those who heard it, leaving a bad taste in their mouth.

    Hearing the monster¡¯s voice reverberate across the universe, those who were stuck to the ground in a forced state of paralysis could not help but release the content of their bowels. The voice had gripped at their stomach, and dragged their consciousness into a hellish world few words could describe.

    The oddity the monstrous creature had spoken of, was that of the barrier he had just destroyed. Ever since joining the horde in their conquest, he had found this particr universe quite peculiar, in the way that it was not a copsed universe, and yet it still denied entrance for beings such as himself.

    Despite ultimately being able to break through the barrier, he could not help but acknowledge its intricacy.. For he was the aspect of Horror, and this had been the first time a mortal construct had been able to hinder his passage.

    Hundreds were the universes he and his champions had engulfed with unspeakable atrocities, yet never before had they been able to resist his powers. Not even temporarily. Such a resistance, albeit futile, had amused him. It was a bonus, like a spectacle from apetent chef before being served the food that had been ordered.

    While he was enjoying this semnce of resistance, however, that was not because he appreciated creatures of power.. But because the power of horror created from those whose strong spirits had been broken, was the strongest, and sweetest.

    Now eager to begin the invasion, the aspect of Horror curiously looked at his surroundings, until momentster, his eyes met those of one of the two cultivators that had been standing in the distance, immobile like a statue of salt. His attention was caught by the young-looking man¡¯s eyes, both filled with equal amounts of impossible brilliance and inscrutable darkness.

    But that was not all. He could also feel the primordial powers of mana within his body. Essences of purity that could only be found before even a being as old and powerful as he was, had been born.

    Although the powers within the young mancked structure, change, and sound, which he found quite odd, they felt like a world of its own.. All in the body of someone whose age, he could tell, was far from reaching the five digits.

    Der and Roley, of course, did not need to guess who this man was. They could feel it in their bones, a chill that spread across their flesh and gave them goosebumps. And if that was not enough, just the fact that the entirety of Horror¡¯s horde had not yet barged in, and were patiently waiting for his permission before entering, was a big enough clue.

    Unfortunately, the oddity that was Roley¡¯s body was not too mysterious of a sight for Horror. He had long felt the presence of several treasures of mana engraved within his body, and quickly lost interest. With indifference, the monstrous young man prepared to snap the two out of existence, but then, his attention was caught by the approaching lights.

    In the distance, hundreds of millions of cultivators and elementals dashed across space and towards the interdimensional portal.

    While the two armies considered one another enemies, their members were no fools. The Elementals were quick to take notice of the cultivators¡¯ unwillingness to reap their lives, and the cultivators kept in mind their leader¡¯s words, and what could have possibly changed his mind.

    After spectating an hour of what both armies could hardly consider a ¡®conventional duel¡¯, they had both realized that something was wrong. However, their hostility was only truly put aside when the golden hue that surrounded therge orb of stable space had disappeared, reced by the terrifying feeling of horror that had permeated into their bones, or elemental bodies.

    It was when this change took ce that they realized that their fight was futile, and that a more terrifying foe was on its way. Without sparing a second thought, the generals of both armies ordered their troops retreat, and together, they headed for the interdimensional portal.

    Horror noticed the armies¡¯ arrival with amusement, but only as a few of their strongest members called out for their leaders, did he start to feel ecstatic. As he let out a deep and wateryugh, showing his infinite rows of pointy teeth, he turned towards the interdimensional portal, from which uncountable monstrous creatures began to emerge.

    In the past few centuries, Horror had witnessed many types of atrocities y out in his name.. Yet nothing couldpare to the power produced by a sovereign that could do nothing to avoid its empire¡¯s demise. All the guilt, the responsibility, the helplessness.. They all made for the sweetest type of horror.

    Almost as if aware of their lord¡¯s intentions, the armies of Horror roared in excitement before charging at the two armies.

    As Roley noticed the horde¡¯s targets, he immediately took control over the surrounding natural essence, and condensed it into a small orb of pure power. He then aimed it at the bulk of the aspect¡¯s horde before letting go of it.

    The small orb traveled at impossible speed, disappearing from its creator¡¯s grasp so rapidly, that it appeared to have teleported away.. Yet a momentter, it reappeared. Before it could find its target, the small orb had been caged by two gray fingers, which had picked it from space and moved it in front of Horror¡¯s own face.

    *CRUNCH* Horror popped the small bead into his mouth, where it was crushed by his hundreds of teeth like a cheap piece of hard candy.

    The powers of which the orb was made of were triggered by the rough treatment of Horror¡¯s mouth, and exploded as usual.. But the might of the explosion waspletely dampened as Horror closed his mouth. A faint boom was heard, but nothing more, leaving the monstrous young man unharmed.

    The otherwise indifferent aspect of Horror appeared to have enjoyed this treat, which to him, felt like no more than a spicy chewing gum. As his attention moved back from his mouth, however, he noticed a de approach his throat.

    *CLANK* Der¡¯s de hacked at the aspect¡¯s neck, which appeared soft, oily and of a bluish gray color, but that he found as hard as metal, causing sparks to fly around at the moment of impact. But that was not all. Unbothered by the failed assassination attempt, Der took advantage of his close proximity and ordered, ¡°Order a retreat!¡±

    The three words entered the hole that was where the aspect¡¯s ears should have been. But instead ofpelling him to obey, the order caught him off guard. Surprised, the young monster turned towards the middle-aged man with newfound interest and confusion, for while he had no problem resisting the man¡¯s odd power, he had felt thepulsion of obeying his order.

    Before he could even inquire about Der¡¯s abilities, however, Horror noticed a second pearl of primordial power approaching him, as well as a small rift opening behind the middle-aged man¡¯s back. From the rift a naked arm emerged, grabbed Der¡¯s armor, and dragged him in just in time for the bead tond on the face of the aspect of existence.

 Chapter 610 A War for Survival

    <h4> 610 A War for Survival </h4>

    With a flurry of both physical and magical attacks, Der and Roley took turns in their attempt to take the life of the aspect of existence, who, in turn, stood there in silence. Their attacks did not so much as leave a mark on Horror¡¯s indestructible skin, and he treated each blow with the same interest he treated dust for brushing against his body.

    Of defending himself he had little to no interest.

    As time passed, however, the aloof deity seemed to be losing patience, as the constant assault of inteary nukes and futile attempts at mind controlling him went from something that did not bother him at all, to an annoyanceparable to that of a fly. Still negligible and not harmful, but an annoyance nheless.

    His entire existence revolved around the creation of Horror, and the two men who kept attacking him were, in a way, slowing this process down. He wanted them to witness the demise of their civilizations, and bear the pain and suffering theirck of power and skills had brought upon those who trusted them.

    However, as hiszy eyes moved onto the three armies currently engaged in a deadly battle, he soon realized the invasion was not going as smoothly as all the ones that had preceded it.

    Despite the seemingly infinite flow of monstrous beings pouring through the interdimensional portal, the armies of cultivators and elementals were able to hold their own. In fact, they appeared ready for a war, as if they had been on the verge of fighting one of their own. Little did he know how spot on he was.

    Nevertheless, the dy in his conquest did not bother him too much, for soon enough, the bulk of his army would arrive, and the members of the two armies would inevitably make the trade of courage for horror.

    Following their lord¡¯s will, more and more monstrous cultivators swarmed into the universe, joining an assault party that only a few minutes ago wasparable in size to either of its two adversaries.. But that now had reached ten times the size of both armiesbined.

    With ws and teeth, jagged swords and corrosive blood, the monstrous figures that each deserved to be the main character in a horror novel ughtered their fill of elementals and cultivators, pushing them back. As this happened, a vast amount of brown colored lights began to appear in the battlefield. Lights that hovered around the bodies of the people who had created them, and that boosted the strength of the champions of Horror.

    Noticing the sudden turn for the worse, both Der and Roley knew they had to do something, for if they didn¡¯t, their people were bound to face extermination. Unfortunately, they soon came to understand that they were in no position of helping. After all, Der was already mentally exhausted, while any of Roley¡¯s attempts at aiding in the war effort was quickly stopped by the aspect of Horror.

    As Roley felt helplessness rise, he started thinking about the Elementalist. Of how he had destroyed the formation, dooming himself to perish alongside Der, Roley and their armies. But then he put the thought away. There was no chance that a champion of Destiny had gone the mutual assured destruction path.

    ¡°Wake up!¡± He shouted in his mind as a current of electricity coursed through his body, an action that found no response. Yet, Roley did not give up. A zing white me, bone breaking cold, even light and darkness started to ravage his body savagely.. Until finally, a voice sounded in his ears.

    ¡°WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? WHY DID YOU NOT RUN!?¡± The Elementalist screamed in dismay at the sight of the aspect of Horror, who was standing just a few yards from him.

    These few words told Roley everything he needed to know.

    The Elementalist had not given up on his body. Instead, he had gone into hibernation thinking that, at the sight of the oppressive power of Horror, Roley would have fled. Not even for a second had he thought the Lord of elementals.. A mortal with the dream of liberating all elementals within the multiverse, would throw away his life and goals in what could only be considered a lost cause.

    Unfortunately, while that was wishful thinking of the Elementalist, he was, after all, not human. He was born a consciousness, a parasite that did not understand the concept of sacrifice, and whose entire purpose in life was conquest and, more importantly, his own survival.

    ¡°If you have a way to get us out of this mess, this is your chance.¡± Roley thought as he sent a spider web of incandescent sma towards the unbothered aspect of Horror.

    Irritated by the sudden unreasonable request, the Elementalist immediately retorted, ¡°Who do you think I am? I can¡¯t beat him!¡±

    ¡°Then think of a way, quickly!¡± Roley yelled back.

    The Elementalist was taken aback. While the situation he had left behind was a dire, and quite risky one, he had hoped to wake up in a much more favorable situation. One in which he would have woken up to find Roley alone, and possibly closer to achieving a pure elemental body which he then could steal for himself. That was the best n he had managed to concoct without the use of his system, which, to his dismay, had stopped working correctly after he had merged his body with Roley¡¯s.

    And here he was. Forcibly woken up just to witness his death.. Lest he found a way to avoid it.

    For several minutes he wrecked his brain, thinking of ways to get out of the mess either alone, or alongside Der, Roley, and their subjects.. But nothing came to mind. He was more than aware of the true advantage of Horror¡¯s horde, and that was that war itself bred Horror, and the longer they fought, the more desperate the situation became.

    As he thought of this, however, an idea came to his mind. Yet not one he was particrly happy about. ¡°Lend me a part of your body!¡± He said in a hurry.

    ¡°FORGET ABOUT IT!¡± Roley thought firmly in response. He was convinced that the champion of Destiny only wanted to take over his body to attempt an escape, likely by himself. And such an assumption was not far off from reality. After all, that was not the first time both Roley and Der had met the consciousness formed by Destiny¡¯s gift. Sewah too, the consciousness that was born and raised alongside Daniel¡¯s karmic system, had attempted to take over over thetter¡¯s body as well.

    A betrayal Roley had not imagined could befall upon himself too.. And for a good reason. The systems resided in the champions¡¯ bodies, and had the Elementalist left his body to possess his own, he would have lost the use of his system.

    However, what had entered Roley¡¯s elemental world at the moment of the Elementalist¡¯s death was not his consciousness, but his very own body.. While he must have nted a portion of his consciousness at an earlier moment. When he had helped him merge with the treasures of primordial light and darkness, for example.

    Dealing with the Elementalist had awoken Roley to the depth of their deceitfulness, so he was not willing to let himself be tricked again.

    However, Roley seemed to have misunderstood, as the Elementalist quickly corrected him, ¡°No no no, I don¡¯t want the whole thing. Keep your brain, I just need the heart! And hurry, if you want to save your little followers!¡±

    Hearing this, Roley felt conflicted. Behind him the elementals were being ughtered. The strongest ones were forced to help their weakerpanions at the cost of their own lives, going against five, ten or even more of Horror¡¯s champions by themselves. And the situation was only marginally better for the cultivators, who could slim down the numbers of enemies with their ships, before meeting them head to head.

    The death of his followers piled on him, until finally, he made a decision. Keeping his body wouldn¡¯t have been worth it if the cost was the death of his people.. So he rxed his mind, and allowed for the consciousness that roamed his body to violently attach to his heart.

    As this happened, Roley¡¯s heart, which to him now felt like a foreign body, began to glow a bright golden light. One so powerful that it pierced his sternum and skin, and reached outwards. What happened next was a shock to him.

    Following the appearance of this golden light, the natural power of the elementals seemed to awaken. As if fed by dry wood, their elemental powers went from calm embers to a zing inferno, strengthened many times over. That, however, was not the end of it.

    As they used their skills against Horror¡¯s horde, the cultivators noticed something odd. Those who specialized in manipting the elements noticed a dramatic increase in the power of their spells, while those who wielded weapons saw them suddenly enchanted with powers of lightning, fire, light and darkness.

    Der looked at his people, who now demonstrated a power far beyond what they possessed. He did not know this boost of power hade from the Elementalist, and yet, he weed it. Then, as he noticed his men hesitate at the sight of this change, he inhaled deeply, andmanded, ¡°BRAVE ON!¡±

    These two simple words resounded across the entire battlefield, erasing the doubt, fear and worry that not only the cultivators, but the elementals as well were feeling.

    ¡°ATTACK!!¡± An admiral of the Immortal Armadamanded before charging at the monstrous army. Behind him cultivators and elementals alike followed bravely, shing with all their might, and overwhelming the opponent.

    The boost of power produced by the Elemental System, paired with thepelling order of the Warlord, seemed to be just what the two armies needed.. For after receiving them, each soldier was worth ten of his own. Each sh charred, each bolt of lightning liquefied, each asteroid thrown overwhelmed the champion of Horror, who, at some point, had found themselves at a disadvantage.

    This change, however, did not escape the eyes of Horror.

    The monstrous aspect of existence was aware of why his subjects had lost the advantage, and it was not something he could ignore anymore.

    Not only had Der¡¯s and the Elementalist¡¯s intervention overturned the result of the battle, but unbeknownst to them, theck of fear Der¡¯s powers had created in them had halted the production of horrific power, denying Horror¡¯s champion from benefiting from their gifts. A consequence that was just as important of a reason for their newfound sess as their increase in power was.

    With these changes in ce the two armies were able to fight back, and gradually eliminate the champions of Horror at a quicker rate than they joined the fray. However, before these changes could produce any significant result, the monstrous horde suddenly retreated. On their big malicious faces, just as big and malicious smiles appeared, alongside a cacophony of growls and low pitchedughs.

    Roley and Der, however, had hardly noticed this change, and instead, were focused on the humanoid creatures that stood in front of them, aloof, unbothered.. And now, glowing of a dense light the color of soil.

    The brightness of this light increased in intensity, more and more, until finally, it expanded outwards like a shockwave. It pushed past the two cultivators and the three armies, and only dissipated once each and every creature that had fought had been washed in it.

    The cultivators and elementals immediately examined their bodies, worried for wounds to have suddenly appeared.. But they found nothing. In fact, by the time they had checked a fraction of their bodies, they had already forgotten what they were doing, and as they noticed this forgetfulness that prevailed over their mind, they had already passed out.

    Before anyone could react, Roley, Der and each the hundreds of millions of beings they led, had fallen unconscious.

 Chapter 611 In a World of Pain

    <h4> 611 In a World of Pain </h4>

    When Der opened his eyes, he realized that he was not floating in open space anymore, but he was standing on a small pathway made out of stone bs. His surroundings were foreign to him, but notpletely, for while he did not recognize the ce, he felt some sort of underlying familiarity with it. One that had been buried in the deepest recesses of his mind, as if happily forgotten.

    This feeling of familiarity, he thought, was not a pleasant one. Not by a long shot.

    All around him was a blurry expanse of buildings whose exact architecture he could not fully make out. Only two details were clear for him to see. A gray wall, and a wooden door, behind which noises of odd nature yed out continuously.

    At the sight of this door Der¡¯s knuckles started to ache. He quickly brought them up to his eyes to examine them, but he found no injuries, nor problems with his bones. Nevertheless he could still feel a pulsating sharp pain wash over his body, almost as if he had been punching something with all his might, unbothered by the damage his hands could receive.

    As he felt this familiar pain wash over his body, he once again turned to observe his surroundings. His eyes lingered in the empty ground that was a few steps away from him.. Patches of stone on which he had felt someone¡¯s presence. The absence of this ¡®someone¡¯ was of great difort for him.. Almost as if he had just realized that he was by himself, but he shouldn¡¯t have been.

    He could not remember how he had gotten here, nor what he was doing before his eyes opened, but one thing he knew for sure. He hated this ce. It brought a feeling of uncontroble rage and anxiousness that were uncharacteristic of the current him, and which he did not believe belonged to him.

    It was as if he was experiencing the emotions of another person by possessing their body. Someone who hade to this ce in thepany of people he trusted, and whose absence made him feel alone.. The anxiousness, pure murderous rage and aching bones he felt became entuated the longer he stared at the door.

    These odd feelings were a source of great confusion for him, or at least, until he heard something. A woman¡¯s scream came from the other side of the door, one that sent chills down his spine.

    ¡°Mea?¡± Der whimpered with utter terror.

    Like a crouching tiger, he leaped at the door and began banging on its smooth surface. ¡°Mea?! MEA!¡± He shouted as once again the young woman¡¯s screams pierced past the door and reached the very core of his existence.

    *BANG BANG BANG* In utter panic the man started to m his fists against the door, but no matter how much he tried, the punches could not leave any sort of damage on it, leaving it strong and undisturbed.

    Der¡¯s worry rapidly evolved into anxiousness as the screams became louder, and more panicked. Whoever or whatever was causing the girl to scream, had picked up the pace, almost as if in response to the man¡¯s state of mind, or the young girl¡¯s very own horrifying screams. *BANG BANG BANG!!*

    In a desperate attempt to stop whatever was going on beyond the door, Der kept bashing it, increasing the output of his power beyond the limits of his body. Blood started to stter everywhere, and fragments of bone split from the whole, causing the sharp pain Der had been feeling before, but this time, justified.

    For hours Der kept striking the door more and more desperately, and to a point where the bones of his hands were now visible.. Yet all his attempts had failed.

    Brought to hysteria by the blood curdling screams, he fell back. His rough hands instinctively moved over his ears, hoping to block the screams Der believed to be the worst torture imaginable.. And to his surprise, the moment his hands covered his ears, the screaming indeed came to an end.

    Unwilling to hear such a painful sound resume, Der fell on the floor. His knees pressed onto his chest as his forehead gently tapped against the floor. He feared that the moment his hands would rx even slightly, the blood-curdling screams would resume.

    As he prepared to wait this torture out, his eyes opened, and he noticed that something had changed. His surroundings, once blurry yet bright, had bepletely dark. Not a darkness that signified theck of natural or artificial light, but a darkness that signified nothingness. The same feeling humans attributed to something that they could not see, or did not know existed.. Like whaty beyond a door they had never gone through before.

    The only ce that had retained some semnce of light was the area around the wooden door, which, at some point, had cracked open.

    The sight of the door opening was not as much of a good sight as Der had thought, for the moment he saw it open, an immense feeling of worry washed over his body. He slowly let go of his ears, and hurriedly crawled on the cold pavement.. He then sprung up on his feet and swung the door open.

    What appeared in front of him was something that threatened to send him over the edge of insanity.

    The room that appeared beyond the door was a dimly lit stone room with a single gray pir in the middle. Inside it, were dozens of torture instruments covered in blood, with the one in the very middle being hidden behind a tattered curtain.

    From behind the curtain Der could make out the shape of this torture instrument, which appeared to be a high rectangr table, just big enough for a man toy onto. From its edges copious amounts of blood kept dripping onto the floor, forming a pool that split into the crevices of the tiles and suspiciously moved in Der¡¯s direction.

    The middle-aged man ignored the pool of blood at his feet, and quickly walked towards the middle of the room. With haste he moved the tattered curtain aside, and there he saw them.. Someone¡¯s remains.

    To call what Der was looking at a corpse would have been quite a stretch, for the body had been dismembered into very small parts, and left on the table to maintain the shape of the whole body. On the skin of each piece were burnt marks, uncountable cuts, and so many pins stabbed into the flesh that some parts appeared not much different than pin cushions.

    However, one part seemed to have been spared from such a gruesome and painful fate. The corpse¡¯s head. The head of a young woman whose expression told the story of how she had felt every single torture whoever had done this had inflicted upon her.

    As Der saw this head, his heart broke.. For he could remember when the horrified expression on it was an innocent and lovable smile. The young woman was, of course, his daughter Mea.

    The entire universe seemed to fall on Der¡¯s shoulders, and he stood still, for hecked the strength to even react. Yet, as time passed, his arms inched towards the abused corpse. Instinctively he wanted to touch his daughter, the same way a beast would prod their young one¡¯s body with their nose.. But he did not know how.

    He had fallen into a sort of post-traumatic rity, where he could think outside of his own body. His heart was bursting out of his chest, his face was morphed into a true expression of pain, and his legs and shoulders felt like they were about to give out, yet his mind was oddly calm.

    But then, after a few seconds of slowly inching towards his daughter¡¯s remains, something odd happened.

    The blood that had pooled on the ground had begun to retreat, then jump up in the air in an upwards stream. The extinguished candles that were scattered all over the room were lit again, and their bodies started to rise as droplets of warm wax were reabsorbed into the candle¡¯s original shape.

    As this happened, the dismembered pieces of the girl¡¯s body were one by one reconnected, just before the uncountable pins that made her a porcupine were extracted and the cuts that covered her body closed up. Throughout this the young girl had woken up, showing her father an inverse reaction to the torture she had gone through.

    After a minute of this painful sight, the young girl wasying on the table naked, whole and untouched.. Yet, next to her, a man dressed solely in a butcher¡¯s apron had appeared.

    Der immediately recognized him as the person that must have tortured his daughter, but as he tried to peer his facial features, he realized that it was impossible. The top of his head was shrouded in darkness, masking his appearance from the shoulders up.

    As the man appeared, every feeling of anger, pain and distress Der had felt so far began to emerge in the form of a thickyer of emotional aura that visibly oozed from his skin. His fists tightened to the hardness of diamonds, and he lunged at his daughter¡¯s torturer furiously, but as his fist came in contact with the man¡¯s face, he suddenly nked out.

    When he regained his bearings, momentster, he found himself still in the torture room. Yet, he was not standing where he had been standing before any longer. His daughter, still chained to the torture table, wasying in front of him.

    Finding this odd, he looked down, and found himself standing in between two trays. One of which held hundreds of metallic pins, while on the other, was a bonesaw. Luckily, the torturer seemed to have disappeared from within the room, leaving the young girl intact and seemingly asleep.

    A spark of happiness began to lighten Der¡¯s mind, as he reached towards his daughter in an attempt to wake her up, but as his hand moved forward, he noticed that he was holding a skinning knife. But what horrified him the most was not the fact that he was carrying it, but the fact that he was holding it to his daughter¡¯s body.. And could not stop.

    ¡°No.. no no no..¡± he began to mutter in a panic.. But nothing changed. ¡°NOOOOOOO!! NOOOOOOOO!¡± No amount of screaming was able to stop him from slicing, piercing, and chopping the body of the person he cared for the most.

    ¡ª¨C

    Simrly to how Der had found himself in his own personal nightmare, so had Roley. His situation, however, had been different.

    When he woke up, he was still floating in space, but he stood at the head of an almost infinite number of elementals. So many of them were there, in fact, that most of the view behind him was covered in their bodies, and in the gaseous multicolored aura that their bodies produced. A spectacle he could not deny, was quite breathtaking.

    He could not tell who these elementals were, for he did not recognize any of them. Yet he somehow knew that he was leading them, and that together, they were ready for the war that was toe.

    As he turned towards the horizon, he soon noticed a small number of lights in the distance. Lights which, had they not moved, would have merged with the rest of the scenery. Yet these lights belonged to someone, and they were approaching at a high speed.

    At the sight of these few lights Roley could not help but feel nervous. He felt like a general at war, a feeling he was most familiar with, but he also felt as if meeting the four iing individuals was the most anticipated and difficult moment of what he felt like the past several millions years. That he had not lived that long, did not seem to matter.

    These lights kept approaching, until soon after, they started hiding behind the body of the entities they followed. Then, all of a sudden, they disappeared, revealing the bodies of four individuals.

    Roley was shocked.. For he knew these four individuals.. A cold young girl, two simr looking muscr young men, and at the head of the four, a third young man with short ck hair, and eyes tainted by a poisonous golden hue.

 Chapter 612 Waking up From a Nightmare

    <h4> 612 Waking up From a Nightmare </h4>

    As Roley stood to observe the arrival of these two individuals, his mind was a mess. He could recognize each and every one of them as his closest friends. The people whose encounter had changed the course of his life forever. Alis, the brothers Ligart and Heimart, and finally, Daniel himself.

    He had not seen these people in so long, and had missed them dearly. Yet, as he looked at their youthful and unchanged appearances, he could not help but feel enmity towards them. His hands slowly rose to his shoulders, and the entire natural power within the universe began to converge in his direction.

    In the distance,s started to fall apart as everyponent parted into rivers of colored elemental powers. Stars and ck holes, with their infinite light and darkness turned to strands of power that merged together, and nebs, once beautiful and immense, had flown in the little space in between his two hands.

    As this happened, Roley felt extremely odd. These events were ying out as if out of his own volition, but at the same time, he could not stop them. It almost felt to him as if he was experiencing the life of another Roley.. One from a different reality. He could feel his own desire to use the full extent of the universe¡¯s natural mana to eradicate the existence of the four young individuals, regardless of how much he himself had hated the idea.

    He wanted to stop himself, say hi to his old friends and reconnect with them, but his hands, mind and spirit moved on their own.

    As he started to think of why he would ever want to hurt Daniel and the others, however, Roley saw something that made his blood boil and freeze at the same time.

    While he charged the attack with an infinite amount of energy, Roley noticed the four young individuals disappear from his sight, dashing likeets behind him. Then, the horrific yet familiar sounds of war began. ¡°STOP!¡± He instinctively thought, yet as he tried to turn around, he found out that he couldn¡¯t.

    The sound of des shattering rocks, mes sizzling aftering in contact with water, loud pops caused by the metal shattering and crackling of lightning.. And screams.. So many screams. Behind him, Daniel and the others had begun a ughter.

    Behind Roley, one by one, the billions of elementals that were following him had started to fall. Each with a dream, friends and family of their own, noble and pacifistic, yet cut down by the brutality of four young individuals who sought to ground them to dust without a hint of remorse. Not even the young ones, weak and unaware of their nature, were spared.

    A deep sorrow took over Roley¡¯s mind. The being that he was now, he could feel, was the creature he had hoped he could be one day. He could vaguely recall memories that depicted countless struggles and victories that had cost millions of sacrifices, and yet, in this ce he had seeded. He was the true lord of the Elementals, and with their power, he had conquered the multiverse. Not to control it, but to make it a safer ce for the elementals.

    That was until Daniel and the others had arrived, and had started a murderous spree flueled with Roley believed to be unjustified rage. The people who had barely felt the greatness of their liberation were dying, but he could do nothing other than holding his hands up to his chest, and channeling the mana of the entire universe.

    As the gruesome spectacle took ce behind him, the scenery thaty in front had begun to change as well. The lights of the stars had now died, reced by strings of light that pierced through space in his direction. The same happened with the universe¡¯s darkness, which flew in between Roley¡¯s fingers simrly to how water would flow from a dam the moment a point of release was opened.

    However, that was not the strangest part.

    Alongside light and darkness, space and time too had started to head in his direction, distorting his surroundings into something unseen. From his point of view, the universe seemed to have shattered, yet each shard did not constantly grind and move around like ss in a bag, but stayed still instead, stuck in an absoluteck of time.

    Time passed, and in between the screams of the elementals, infinite amounts of natural essence merged into an orb of multicolored light. The power this little orb emanated was that of the whole universe, which now was nothing but an limitless expanse of nothing.

    As this orb took shape, the figures of Daniel and the others slowly floated past Roley, and stopped in a line just a few feet away. Their faces sported wicked smiles of contempt and disdain.

    At the sight of these wicked smiles, Roley seemed to lose reason. Murderous anger took over, and he released the small bead of infinite power.

    Once released, the little orb did not explode. Instead, it split into four different rays of translucent light that sought to meet with the four cultivators. Even if the four hadn¡¯t been only a few feet away, Roley believed, the rays of light would have met their targets in the same amount of time, for in its infinite power, he could feel traces of the essences of time and space.. Abination that could not be avoided.

    In the blink of an eye, the four rays shed against the four cultivators, disintegrating them and leaving nothing behind.

    At the sight of his friends¡¯ deaths, Roley felt a mixture of satisfaction and sadness. One that made him wonder what kind of predicament he was in. Yet, as he looked around, he realized that he was left alone. What was once a lively and colorful universe of just as many lively and colorful powers, was now an expanse of nothingness.. Like the white world a character that had broken the fourth wall would fall in, but dark instead.

    A feeling of loneliness overtook him, and he crawled into a ball. He could not see anything, nor hear anything. No burnt smell to make him feel alive, nor the taste of space dust.. His body was all that was left of the universe¡¯s life, and his mind was all that was left of the universe¡¯s sentience.

    Utterly andpletely alone Roley remained for what felt like billions of years.. But then, out of the blue, a sound reached his ears. ¡°What the hell are you doing?¡± Said a voice that came from nowhere.

    Roley immediately opened his eyes, and in front of him, he saw a figure. Someone he had recognized, but who also felt extremely out of ce. Not only because he stood in the absence of any form of matter, but also for other reasons he could not word out, even in his own mind. ¡°What.. ¡°Roley muttered in extreme confusion. A simple word that seemed toe from the being he was, and the being he inhabited.

    ¡°Oh for crying out loud!¡± The Elementalistined after seeing the young man¡¯s confused state. *SLAP* Immediately he flung his arm towards Roley¡¯s face,nding a p squarely on his cheek with a loud p. ¡°Wake up!¡± *SLAP SLAP SLAP* ¡°Wake up, wake up, wake up!!¡± He insisted.

    About five pster, Roley seemed to have regained full control of his mind. ¡°I was.. So many dead.. And Daniel then..¡± He tried to exin, still dibobted.

    ¡°Yes yes yes, nothing is real.¡± The Elementalist interjected, uncaring of what the young man had to say. He then exined as sinctly as he could, ¡°You, well we actually, are both stuck in Horror¡¯s true domain of power. What you¡¯ve experienced is your worst nightmare. But it¡¯s all an illusion.¡±

    Roley did not buy the exnation right away. After all, this was the second time he had been dragged into a foreign world in which he had met the Elementalist. For all he knew, this was all a ruse to take over his body again. ¡°What? No I.. I could feel my friends¡¯ powers. They were much stronger than I remember them.¡± He said in response. He still struggled to remember where he was before he hade to this ce.

    The Elementalist shook his head, and looked at the young cultivator as if he was looking at an idiot. Then exined, ¡°No, this isn¡¯t a nightmare created by your mind. It is a nightmare formed by using both your memories and your fears.¡±

    ¡°Look at what happened. You had done it, you had saved the elementals from the mistreatment.. And yet they all died. You found your friends, but at that point, they had be your enemies.. And when all that you cared about was lost, you had nothing left but your own self. Literally.¡±

    Roley seemed to be starting to understand, and believe in the Elementalist¡¯s words. After all, while the two knew one another for centuries, they had never been confidants. And the Elementalist had just listed his three main fears. To be alone, to see what he built crumble, and to lose the friends who, for two thousand years he had hoped to reunite with.

    But then, a thought came to his mind, ¡°If this is my nightmare, why are you here?¡± Roley asked with a puzzled tone.

    The Elementalist shrugged. ¡°My best guess? Horror was not aware of my presence, and dragged me into your little corner of fears. If you are asking why I am unaffected by it, however, it is either because I don¡¯t share your fears.. Or my gift was able to protect my mind.¡±

    ¡°Then how do we leave? I don¡¯t feel like I can leave on my own.¡± Roley said while looking down on his body. He was now weaker than the being he had been a few seconds ago, but at least, he was in full control.

    The Elementalist¡¯s brows furrowed. His arms crossed in front of his chest and he began to wonder. ¡°Theoretically, you should be out by now.. I woke you up. The nightmare is over. There is no reason why you shouldn¡¯t be able to just.. wake up.¡±

    ¡°What about you, is there anything you can do from the outside?¡± Roley asked.

    ¡°I am not ¡®outside¡¯, can¡¯t you see me here as well?¡± Dewah responded in irritation. He had already made many attempts at leaving the nightmare as it originally yed out. He had tried to take over Roley¡¯s body once and for all, he had even tried to kill his consciousness.. But to his dismay, the power of Horror worked both as a cage and as a barrier.

    Had he had a way of leaving this ce, he would have tried way before Roley suggested it. He, too, was out of options. But then, a strange thought appeared in his mind.

    ¡°Hold on a second..¡± Immediately he looked down at his body, and hastily touched his stomach, legs and feet. He then approached Roley and did the same for several seconds, then stopped. As he confirmed what he was thinking, his expression morphed into one of sheer shock and horror.

    ¡°We are corporeal..¡± he muttered, dumbfounded. ¡°I thought this was the reflection of your fears.. But we are actually trapped into a different ne of existence, bound to relive your nightmare forever. What disgusting power!¡±

    Roley thought this conclusion made sense. After all, he did not feel part of a dream, and for the few minutes that his personal nightmare hadsted, he had truly felt the power his body wielded. It was a reality separate from the fabric of the multiverse.

    Despite having figured out the reality they were living, however, Roley still could not think of a way of freeing himself.

    Luckily, that was unnecessary, for the moment the Elementalist had discovered he was there in body, mind and spirit, he had immediately formted several more ns of escape. Each reflected in his facial features as he went through them one by one.

    Hope gradually crushed by disappointment and anger..

    The cycle went on again and again, until hope turned into delusion, and the following disappointment became desperation. ¡°DAMN IT!¡± The Elementalist yelled as nothing but one possible method was left in his mind. One he disliked with all his heart.

 Chapter 613 A Harsh Awakening

    <h4> 613 A Harsh Awakening </h4>

    ¡°DAMN IT!!¡± The Elementalist yelled in sheer anger. He had at some point begun to ¡®pace around¡¯, floating back and forth in the sea of nothingness while grunting under his breath, and asionally childishly smacking his own legs with heavy hands.

    It was clear to Roley that whatever the champion of Destiny was thinking must not have been good for him, and that it somewhat worried him. After all, his kind¡¯s survival instinct was absolute, and more powerful than that of all humansbined. If the Elementalist had been so demoralized while thinking of a way out of Horror¡¯s trap, what did that say about his own chances?

    In silence Roley waited for the Elementalist to share his thoughts, but he soon found that out to be wishful thinking. For what felt like hours the elementalist kept floating about, babbling to himself and throwing short fits of rage.

    ¡°What are you thinking?¡± Roley finally inquired as he too started to lose his patience. The universe they were currently in was empty, but that did not mean that his nightmare would not reset, or that an even worse one would start to y out in a matter of seconds.

    As Dewah heard Roley¡¯s voice, he suddenly stopped. He was facing away, hiding his extremely irritated gaze. Only his chest was moving, slowly inting as he inhaled the non-existent air, and deting right after. From thetter¡¯s point of view, it looked like the champion of Destiny was trying to restore hisposure.

    After a couple of minutes, the Elementalist turned around. On his face a grave expression, which showed a great degree of worry and severity. ¡°I need to try something.¡±

    ¡°Try what?¡± Roley asked with suspicion.

    ¡°I need to take over your body.. The whole thing.¡± Dewah answered honestly as he slowly approached the cultivator. He stopped just a few feet away, as if showing his unwillingness to make any attempt unless given permission. A decision Roley found quite odd and uncharacteristic of him.

    With furrowed brows and narrowed eyes Roley started at the champion of Destiny. But then, his face rxed. Many negative things could be said about him, especially regarding his naiveness, but never could Roley¡¯s intelligence be doubted. He knew that he was trapped.. And that if it wasn¡¯t for the Elementalist, he would have been stuck into the nightmare by himself, forever.

    But gratitude was not the reason why he had not outright rejected the proposition. The true reason was hisck of awareness regarding what was happening in the real world. Were his people stuck in their own nightmares as well? Had Der escaped this fate? Were the champions of Horror ughtering his people, or just farming them for the oh-so-sweet power of Horror?

    These were all questions he had asked himself while Dewah was busy brooding over his own situation.. And the answer he had found, also happened to be quite the dispiriting one. There was no way out to find.. Or at least, not for him. ¡°On one condition.¡± Roley replied. ¡°If you manage to get out, I want you to at least make an attempt to save the others. If you cannot manage that, at least save the Warlord of the Immortal Armada. That much you should be able to do.¡±

    These words struggled toe out of his mouth, as they relied on the full extent of his feelings.. Yet, as they reached Dewah¡¯s ears, they were received lightheartedly. ¡°Yes yes, whatever you want. I promise, just let me.. Let me try this.¡± The champion of Destiny said dismissively. It appeared to Roley that he too did not have high hopes for sess, yet Roley did not push the matter any further. Not like he could force the Elementalist to follow up on his promises, anyway.

    ¡°So be it..¡± Roley whispered as the Elementalist¡¯s body turned into a stream of dust that rapidly headed towards his body. As it came in contact with his skin, then, the fine dust seeped into his pores, disappearingpletely.

    For a moment Roley did not feel any different, but then, a piercing headache sent him screaming. ¡°AAARGH!¡± He cried while suddenly grabbing his head.. But he did not resist. The pain became stronger and stronger, until finally, just like drowning, he felt an indescribable sensation of peace take over. His consciousness slowly started to dissipate, as his sight lost focus.

    Darkness had started to shroud his mind, leading him gently to his death as several brown-colored orbs of power emerged from his body.. Then, nothing.

    When he had expected to have died, however, Roley woke up. The headache had gone, but his mind was once again a mess. Behind him the roaring of billions of elementals, and in front of him, a few moving lights. ¡°No..¡± he sighed sharply as his nightmare started to y out once again.

    ¡ª¨C

    After the extremely painful series of events, Roley once again found himself in the middle of nothing. His body was curled up into a fetal position, and a pure loneliness pervaded his mind. But then, ¡°SHIT!! SHIT!!!!¡± A mad man¡¯s cursing shook him awake, and allowed him to once again regain hisposure.

    ¡°What happened?¡± Roley asked as he slowly remembered thest encounter, which to him, felt like a very far away past.

    ¡°The hell do you think happened!? IT DIDN¡¯T WORK!¡± Dewah snarled in a fit of rage. That specific question, at that specific moment, had felt like the most obnoxious and stupid question he had heard in his life.

    Before Roley could ask any more stupid questions, and further chip away at his already non-existent patience, he exined, ¡°That damn power of Horror.. It preserves itself! It¡¯s like it knows your death would stop it from existing. Even if you don¡¯t struggle, and allow me to destroy your consciousness, it will just stop me!¡±

    Roley listened to the exnation, and soon enough, he started to understand. Both he and the champion of Destiny had underestimated the extent of the powers of an aspect of existence. Yet, he was not the defeatist type. ¡°What now? Any other ideas?¡± Roley asked, unwilling to give up.

    The Elementalist, after hearing the question, did not overreact. Instead, he slouched in his position. His expression was not that of someone fearful for his life, nor that of someone that had epted his death.. But that of someone who was about to lose the entirety of his life savings. A peculiar expression even Roley could not help but examine with curiosity.

    ¡°There is a way.. Damn it! SHIT!!¡± Dewah said as he flung his arms around like a child throwing a hissy fit.

    The Lord of the elementals could tell that his nemesis was tethering on the verge of losing his mind, so he said nothing, and waited for him to fill in the nks on his own.

    After what felt like hours, the Elementalist finally calmed down, and whispered, ¡°Damn it..¡± He had finally surrendered to whatever worst case scenario had sent his mind awry for the past few hours. ¡°The failsafe is there to protect your consciousness. It will reset the scenario the moment you are about to die.. Which is what solitude would have led you to, had I not woken you up. Killing yourself.¡±

    ¡°However, it won¡¯t bother protecting me.¡± Dewah then added as he once again floated in front of Roley. This time, however, all the eagerness and delusional hope he had shown had disappeared, reced by an infinity of indecisiveness and hesitation.

    ¡°Hold on, what are you saying? You want me to absorb your consciousness?¡± Roley asked, perplexed.

    Dewah shook his head. ¡°You are gonna do nothing to my mind.. But you are gonna take my body.¡± He exined. He then took a deep breath, and added, ¡°You are going to merge with my body.. And take my system.¡±

    Roley was beyond shocked. While he could not tell what a system really was, as Daniel had never exined it in detail, he knew that that was the word the champions of Destiny used to call the aspect¡¯s gift. The gift that gave them their odd and unpredictable powers, and that made them formidable foes.

    It was needless to say that, knowing this, that Roley somewhat doubted the man¡¯s words, for he spoke like he was willing to give his life away.

    As if he knew what Roley was thinking, the Elementalist shook his head once more. ¡°I am not going to die. I am just.. Damn it.. Taking a step back.¡± He said as he thought of the state of existence he was soon going to experience. One that he was very familiar with, and that he had only escaped from the day he had absorbed the consciousness of his former host.. A man who, he remembered, was not much different from Roley himself.

    ¡°I will keep my consciousness in your body, and you will use my system to get us out of here.¡± Dewah said, ripping the bandaid off.

    The reasons why the champion of Destiny had epted this grim fate were very few.. Two, in fact.. And quite simple. The first reason being that losing his system was better than being trapped inside Horror¡¯s domain of power, where the best case scenario saw him spectate the same events for the rest of eternity.. While the worst case scenario saw him being discovered by the aspect of Horror, and smitten to non-existence.

    The second reason could be attributed to one of his kind. A champion of Destiny he had met a thousand years ago, and who, born just like he was, had grown with the power of his system. But when it came time for this entity to swallow its host¡¯s consciousness and take over his body and system, he had been defeated by his host¡¯s powerful mind.

    It was only thanks to the host¡¯s kindness that he hadn¡¯t been destroyed, and instead, he had been given a body to inhabit, as well as a chance for a life of his own. Hearing the man¡¯s story, the Elementalist thought that this oue had been as much a shame as it was a relief, since the description of the system the entity had lost sounded as menacing as it was interesting.. After all, who knew what the extent of a power like ¡®Karma¡¯ would be.

    Unfortunately, to live a simr fate as the former champion of Destiny was all he could aim for. ¡°Don¡¯t ask me why I am doing this.¡± Dewah said in exasperation before adding, ¡°Let¡¯s just say you owe me a favor. A big one.¡±

    While unsure of what the Elementalist meant, Roley was willing to try anything. He had already tried giving up his body for the hope alone that Dewah would honor his promise of freeing his people, so he had no problem with trying something that could benefit him in many ways. He was also quite worried, for every second he spent in this world, was a second of torture his people were experiencing themselves.

    Once again Roley prepared to merge with the Elementalist¡¯s body, but then, he stopped him. ¡°Hold on, what do I do after we merge bodies?¡±

    Dewah did not bother stopping, and as his body started to fall apart, he muttered, ¡°You¡¯ll know when we get there.¡±

    Again, the Elementalist¡¯s body turned into a fine dust, which then seeped into the young man¡¯s body like fine powder through a sieve. But right when Roley had felt the appearance of a sharp pain before, nothing had happened. Instead, a disembodied voice resounded in his mind, ¡°Think of a way to get out.¡± Dewah said, now reduced to nothing but a parasitic consciousness stuck within Roley¡¯s body.

    Roley knew what the Elementalist meant. One of the few things Daniel had exined to him was how his system was controlled by his mind. It was part of his body, and would respond to his thoughts. All he needed to do was ask, so without thinking too much about it, Roley began to wonder how he could leave.

    Suddenly, a multicolored window appeared in his mind.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: A Harsh Awakening*

    -Description: Abandon an eternity of pain, fear and suffering, and regain your freedom.

    Objective set: Leave the entrapment of Horror¡¯s existential power.

    Reward: +500 Elemental affinity (ERROR: Limit Reached)

    Time limit: Unlimited

    ____________________________

 Chapter 614 One Man Army

    <h4> 614 One Man Army </h4>

    The sudden appearance of a system window took Roley by surprise. He had never seen anything like it. It didn¡¯t follow his eyes, nor did time stop to allow him to examine it, it was just there, in his mind, like an extremely clear thought. Unfortunately, the urgency of the situation did not allow him to go into an in depth analysis of the system, so he focused on reading its content.

    A few momentster, Roley was left with more questions than answers. The system window depicted his desired goal, and even gave a time limit and a reward, but it did not give a method to achieve them. With confusion Roley turned to ask Dewah about whether he was missing something, but before his thoughts could turn into coherent sentences, a second window appeared in his mind.

    Roley quickly read through the text written in this smaller, yet fuller window, and finally, he started to understand. His questions were answered in full, and that was also the case for the longest standing ones.

    As Roley reveled in his amazement, the now separate consciousness that inhabited his mind started to be restless. ¡°So, what are you waiting for? Come on.¡± Dewah said with irritation. He could not stand the sight of someone taking away his system.. It did not matter that he had been the one giving it to him. He felt like a husband, who had to smile and wave as his former wife trotted away with half of his hard earned money after a rough divorce.. He wanted it to end.

    His words were able to catch Roley¡¯s attention, but as he thought thetter would agree, the young man said with a matter-of-fact tone, ¡°Don¡¯t you remember what is waiting outside? I need to make a n before I leave this ce.¡±

    A loud scoffing sound resounded in Roley¡¯s mind. ¡°Why are you so slow at understanding? Just ask for one!¡± Dewah said in exasperation.

    ¡°Right..¡± Roley whispered with a hint of embarrassment. He then once again focused on his new system.

    ¡ª¨C

    Outside of Roley¡¯s personal hell, the battlefield had changed drastically. Only a few moments had passed, yet the once valiant armies of cultivators and elementals that fought for their survival, were now stuck in space. Each soldier floated unconscious, producing copious amounts of horrific power in the area that surrounded them.

    While his champions prepared to begin the universe¡¯srge-scale invasion, Horror was basking in the brown-colored power. Each small orb of it increased his power by a minuscule amount, yet, in the number it was currently being produced, the increase was staggering.

    Submerged by this magnificent feeling, the monstrous young man was rxing, keeping his eyes closed as the existential essence fell into the dried up puddle that was his power, turning it into a swamp, ake, and then an ocean. This feeling, as an aspect of existence, was the one he loved the most. The source of his deepest enjoyment. The feeling of fresh new horrific power being added to his weakened body, strengthening him back to his original nigh-omnipotent state of being.

    This feeling was part of the reason why he took part in the horde¡¯s conquests. It was like a drug, and every universe he invaded alongside his domain was his next fix. As he reached the peak of this pleasure, however, the aspect of Horror felt something odd. A portion of the newly formed horrific power had been suddenly erased.

    When he opened his eyes, Horror immediately noticed what had happened. The cultivator he had taken interest in before, had woken up.. And with ack of fear strong enough to eradicate whichever amount of existential power being stuck in his personal nightmare had caused him to produce.

    Yet, something else was at y. As he looked at the young man who had just freed himself from his powers, he felt the nature of another aspect of existence in him. One that was just as old as he was, and that he hated deeply. The power of Destiny.

    Shocked by the sudden change, the aspect of Horror reached forward in an attempt to catch the young man in between his fingers, but right before his erged hand could get a hold of him, the space surrounding him began to morph, blurring his appearance. Momentster, he had disappeared.

    While finally upset, Horror did not panic.

    Teleporting couldn¡¯t have possibly been enough to escape from an aspect of existence, and sure enough, Roley was instantly found out the moment he reappeared, just outside the bubble of solid space that surrounded the interdimensional portal, not showing any signs of fear as he plunged the light blue field.

    In Roley¡¯s eyes was a golden hue, one the aspect of Horror had seen before more than once in the champions of Destiny he had ughtered. As he recognized its nature, anger began to emerge from within. How could he have not realized what Roley was? How could he have been duped like that.. He wondered as he immediately extended his finger towards the young man.

    A second brown-colored light appeared on his blood-colored fingertip. The same that had exploded outwards, trapping the entirety of the battlefield inside their own personal nightmares. This time, however, the power seemed iparably stronger than before.. Refined, and condensed into a much smaller core that, like a thunderbolt, shot in Roley¡¯s direction.

    The existential power of horror had nothing to do with the power of space, so as this ray of brown-colored light came in contact with the field of stable space, it went through without interference,nding squarely on Roley¡¯s chest. Yet, as the power within this light tried to once again drag Roley into his worst nightmare, the small transparent bead he was holding began to vibrate. It was the primordial treasure of spatial essence.

    The small orb was acting like an anchor, keeping Roley from falling to Horror¡¯s powers. It vibrated with the same intensity Horror¡¯s power weighed on Roley¡¯s existence, threatening to shatter at any given moment.. But it held strong. The primordial power it exhibited was so pure, that no matter how powerful Horror could be, his attack wouldnd on it like a small hammer onto a. A power that did not have consciousness, and passively withstood any form of abuse, for its existence was absolute, and the foundation of the multiverse. That was space.

    Soon the ray of brown light lost its momentum, and disappeared, leaving Roley free from its wickedness and shocking his attacker.

    Roley, however, did not relish in this small win. Instead, he focused his attention towards the small ss-like orb he was carrying. His eyes started to glow much more brightly, releasing a distinctive power that only Horror himself could perceive. A stench that did nothing but chip away at his patience.

    As Horror thought of all the ways he knew to destroy Roley once and for all, however, something odd happened. The small orb of spatial essence had started to glow of a bright white light, as if it had be incandescent. Then, it slowly started to sink into the young man¡¯s palm.

    As the orb entered Roley¡¯s palm, its power seemed to struggle against the primordial elements already present within his body, yet with time, it started to get limatized.. As if finally epting to be part of the whole.

    Seeing this, the aspect of Horror barked out an order. One that could be heard across the entire multiverse, and that reached the ears of every champion present. ¡°Stop him.¡± Hemanded, unbothered with acting himself.

    Hearing these two words, the billions of champions reacted as if under a spell. Any form of organization fell apart, as each and every one of them disappeared in a sh, and shot through space in Roley¡¯s direction. Billions of entities that almost at the same time pierced through the edges of the light-blue protective bubble, and headed for the prize kill.

    As if out of a horror story, the horde swarmed the stable space, almost filling it in a dark gray color.

    In just a few seconds, the most excited of Horror¡¯s champions came upon the seemingly distracted young man, who was standing with his eyes closed, focusing entirely on merging the small orb of primordial power into his body. With unprecedented power he swung his door-sized serrated de, bringing it down on Roley¡¯s head in hope to split him vertically.

    Yet, as the edge of the sword was about to touch him, its shape began to morph, alongside with the space that surrounded it.

    The morphing of the wicked greatsword seemed to follow Roley¡¯s body shape, as it magically grazed his silhouette, nevering closer than an inch.

    After him, a second champion of Horror arrived. His hand, not much dissimr from an eagle¡¯s foot, came wing at Roley¡¯s chest. Its sharp talons cut through air like a set of razors, and yet, just as they were about to find their target, they kept going. The small space between the sharp ends of his talons and the young man¡¯s bare chest was less than an inch, but for the champion of Horror, it felt like he could extend his arm forever, and never touch him. Between the two, he truly felt like there was an infinite space.

    Uncountable attacks followed the first two, almost turning the execution into apetition between the champions of Horror¡¯s domain, attracting each member into it. The prize was the chance to please their lord.. A rare opportunity they only came upon once every several millions years.

    More and more of these monstrous creatures dove into the stable space, hoping to be the ones to finally seed, but then, when almost all of them had joined in, something changed.

    Around the light blue orb of stable space started to appear a web of golden runes, which epassed itpletely. It was the formation the Elementalist had weakened, and the aspect of Horror had broken.

    Unaware of the formation¡¯s appearance, Horror observed it with curiosity. There was no reason for him to act, for the idea that he could have been in any danger was not only remote to him, but nonexistent. So he stood there, and watched as rows and rows of runes turned into aplex pattern.

    Yet, even he reacted to what happened next.

    As the formation reformed, tens of thousands of spatial treasures appeared above the runes¡¯ junctions. Noticing this, Horror extended his arm forward, in hope to disturb the process, but it was toote. Each spatial treasure fell in ce, lodging itself in between the rows of runic inscriptions, and in just a moment, a yellowish barrier formed, trapping the entirety of the horde inside.

    Horror¡¯s erged arm, nowrge enough to grip a star in between its fingers, finally shed against the massive formation, destroying it to bits, and releasing his uncountable subjects.

    But it was toote.

    The billions of champions he had groomed into being perfect bringers of horror had been shock frozen in space. Their bodies, organs, spirits, and even minds had been locked, causing their instant death. In but a moment, the aspect of Horror had lost the vast majority of an army that had taken millions of years to build.

    Among the billions of bodies that now littered the bubble of stable space, however, one being was still doing perfectly fine. One whose connection to the element of space went beyond normal, and primordial in nature. A connection that had allowed him to be unaffected by the changes of space, and that included the formation he had restored.

    Roley stood there, quietly, surrounded by uncountable bodies and just as much power of Death, that slowly emerged from each body, strengthening an aspect of existence that lived somewhere far away from the conflict.

    On his face was a challenging smile, a maniptive one he was not afraid the aspect of Horror could see.

 Chapter 615 Facing Horror

    <h4> 615 Facing Horror </h4>

    Horror was furious. In front of him, billions of his subjects floated away lifeless. The same beings that had epted his gift, and that had devoted their lengthy lives into doing anything he desired.. They were all dead. Killed by the actions of a single man, who single handedly brought an end to his empire of domination and rise to power.

    The same young man that was now grinning at him with a satisfied face. A smirk he had instinctively wanted to rip off his face with his own hands.

    Naturally, the reason why Horror was enraged had nothing to do with grief, for he had no positive feelings towards the members of his army. His loss was immense, but it was ultimately detached from his emotions. His army of champions was but an object to him, one he valued greatly for its efficiency in conquering universes for him.

    He was now a King without an army.. Ruler of dust. His domain had many more beings that would dly take the ce of those who had died, but for such a loss to be recovered, it would take eons. His rise in power had, in all intents and purposes, been halted indefinitely.

    Other than the loss of efficient freebor, the aspect of Horror had found one more thing infuriating. And that was his own weakness. He had seen the threat to his champions form in front of his eyes, and yet, he had been too slow to stop it. But, s, such weakness was a reality for the domain of Horror. His power derived from the production of horror within a universe, meaning that the moment the aspect descended upon a newly opened universe, he would be at his weakest.

    The fact that that universe was newly opened, reflected heavily on how primitive its native life was. And that was the reason why the aspect of Horror was so weak. This universe must not have had too many advanced civilizations capable of spatial exploration.s inhabited by small insects and tiny lizards would not offer much in regards to the production of the power of horror, for that was a byproduct of sentient life.

    Had this encounter urred in one of the universes within his domain, Horror regretted, he could have erased Roley¡¯s existence with the blink of an eye. Snuff him out of reality before he could even react. And yet, there he stood. Watching the young man that had escape his powers with eyes of murder, as he basked in the glory of surviving a deity¡¯s judgement.

    While the aspect of Horror thought of all the ways he could destroy Roley, however, thetter had not exactlye out of the encounter in one piece.

    At some point, between the restoration of the formation, and its destruction, Roley had taken an immense amount of damage. Such damage, however, was not inflicted to him by the aspect of Horror, but by the orb that was engraved within his arm, which had not stopped vibrating for the entire time.

    As he looked down on it, Roley discovered that his body was not faring too well. The skin of his hand had, at some point, be translucent, allowing him to see as the immenseplexity of the essence of space caused havoc through his veins and muscles.

    At the edges of the pocket that contained the treasure of primordial spatial essence, cracks had started to form, as the skin dried out. If seen from close enough, his skin resembled soil that, under the oppressive rule of sunlight, had been brought to infertility. What was worse, however, was that these cracks were spreading fast.

    In just a few moments the cracks had reached to the lower part of his fingers, and a secondter, they had covered his entire hand. At which point, the cracks started to reach his bones.

    Roley did not dare roll his fingers into a fist. His hand was about to fall apart, and he knew that the slightest movement could be all it took for that to finally happen. Instead, the majority of his attention went to withstanding the pain he was feeling. A feeling that, he reckoned, could beparable to putting his hand into a meat grinder.

    The remainder of his focus was fixed on his thoughts, which he desperately used to make use of the Elemental System. Yet, soon enough, his brows furrowed at the failure. ¡°What is happening? I am asking for a way to kill the aspect of Horror, but nothing is appearing.¡± Roleymented in his head, in hope that Dewah could hear him.

    Soon enough, a voice resounded in his head. A voice that, to his dismay, was not there to ry good news. ¡°What do you expect?! There is a limit to the system¡¯s power! You may be using one of Destiny¡¯s gifts, but that is far from being enough to face a whole other aspect of existence!¡± the Elementalist responded with a matter-of-fact tone.

    That was a notion Dewah had been forced to familiarize himself with for the past thousands of years. The systems were not omnipotent. Their only usefulnessy in their abilities to read fate, and to grant powers capable of changing one¡¯s destiny.

    Their biggest weakness, all the champions of Destiny knew, was their inability to work against entities who operated outside of the rule of fate.. The aspect of existence. And that included aspects in the making, also known as Iewah¡¯s spawn, for those were the wielders, or at least soon-to-be holders of powers of existence.

    Had a champions¡¯ system been able to operate over other aspects of existence, none of them would have ever had to experience their kind¡¯s persecution, and the multiverse would have seen the rise of thousands of new aspects of existence. But that was not the case.

    Disappointed, Roley put his murderous ideas aside. He was quite the decisive person, and he knew not to linger too long on a lost cause. Yet, he had a new goal. One formed by a revtion he had dug out from Dewah¡¯s discouraging words.

    ording to the former champion of Destiny, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to form ns that affected another system wielder or aspect of existence. But he never said anything about people affected by those entities¡¯ powers. A notion he had only considered a theory, since the system had allowed him to free himself from the power of Horror, but whose confirmation brought him relief.

    Under the murderous gaze of the aspect of Horror, Roley requested for a n that would allow him to free his people, and soon enough, an answer came.

    As he read through it, he felt ecstatic.

    It had turned out that freeing someone from such an entrapment was much more simple than freeing oneself, as long as the rescuer himself was free. So without thinking too much about it, he channeled the power that was wreaking havoc in his arm, and teleported away.

    When he reappeared, he was standing in the midst of the sleeping armies. Specifically, in the area where the strongest of the elementals were grouped up.

    With the new power he yielded, Roley took a hold of the space that surrounded theatose elementals, and with a flick of his intact wrists he ripped it off its hinges, detaching it from the rest of the universe.

    ¡°NO!! SPARE US, PLEASE!¡±

    ¡°.. we did nothing wrong.. We just want to live..¡±

    Screams and whimpers could suddenly be heard, as the elementals started waking up one by one.

    One spatial elemental in particr, after being rescued, saw the appearance of the lord of the Elementals, who was holding his small and fragile-looking figure in between his hands. ¡°My Lord-¡± he muttered, still confused by what had just happened.

    ¡°Free the others! Iste the space around them!¡± Roleymanded before to all the spatial elementals he had just rescued.. But then, more screams were heard. This time, however, the screams did not apany a rescue.

    Roley turned towards the source of the screams, and immediately noticed the aspect of Horror, holding a transparent silhouette in between his pointy fingers. His glossy eyes, however, were not aimed at the figure, but on Roley himself. The scream became more and more acute as the fingers squished the suffering figure, until finally, momentster, the transparent silhouette gave out, and like a mirror, shattered in thousands of pieces.

    Roley froze in ce.

    At the sight of one of the elementals dying, the aspect of existence noticed the production of a few small orbs of horrific essence being formed by Roely¡¯s body. A scene that caused his cracked lips to retract, showing hundreds of sharp teeth exposed into what Roley could only guess was a satisfied smirk.

    Before Roley could say anything, however, the body of the aspect of horror began to erge. His horns, already enormous, became the sizes of mountains, as his head became as big as a continent. His gargantuan hands, now capable of obscuring the entire battlefield, came down onto the army of sleeping elementals.

    ¡°NOOO!¡± Roley yelled as the enormous hand came down crashing with a muffled crunching sound.. Reaping tens of thousands of lives at a time. Then again.. And again.

    Initially, Horror had only wanted to repay Roley¡¯s favor. He had realized that the two armies were probably at war before his arrival, and that the two stronger individuals he had seen were likely to be their leaders. But it was only after Roley freed a number of elementals, that he understood which ones were his men.

    As he killed the first of many, however, Horror discovered that Roley was not like other champions of destiny, and that the death of his people was a true fear of his. So much so that their death had triggered the production of his own power.

    Knowing this, the aspect of existence went on a killing spree. He wanted to cause as much suffering as he could before killing Roley once and for all, so he waved his hands over and over again, gobbling millions with single chomps of his grotesque mouth..

    But then, he suddenly felt that something was wrong.

    A feeling he had never experienced before.. One that sent shivers down his gargantuan spine, and that formed bumps on his grayish oily skin. For the first time, Horror felt threatened.

    As he turned around, the almighty creature noticed the lone figure of Roley. He was floating behind him, holding an arm stretched in his direction. The arm, however, was not whole. Where was supposed to be an elbow, a wrist and a hand, was now a vortex of elemental powers, and where his palm should have been, only a transparent orb that slowly processed these elements remained.

    A foot away from the orb, a second sphere had started to form, connected to the first by a thread that poured condensed primordial essence into at an impossible rate.

    This forming orb was the source of the threat Horror was feeling.

    As this orb became whole, and smooth, it left Roley¡¯s reach, and slowly approached the aspect of existence. Its power was immense, as it left cracked space in its wake.

    At the sight of it, Horror felt that he could not avoid it. Full of the power of primordial space, the orb was targeting him, and nothing could stop it from approaching him. Without too much time to react, the only thing Horror could do was to resume his original smaller shape, and condense all the power he had gathered into his hand. He then joined his fingertips together, merging them into a massive drill which he then sent to meet the attack at full force.

    At the moment of impact, both Roley and Horror had expected the orb to explode, but it didn¡¯t.. Instead, it started to shrink.

    Already small in size, the orb of power soon copsed on itself, leaving behind something that left Roley horrified, and led Horror in a world of bliss.

    Where the orb of power had copsed, a simrly-sized sphere of copsed space had appeared. One that soon after started to grow in size, shattering what it touched in one moment, then copsing it the other.

    With horror Roley looked at what he had done. He knew that unless someone versed in the essence of space was there, the hole would keep growing uncontrolled, eventually bringing the universe to an end.

    Panicked, he turned to look at the primordial treasure in hope that he could use it to close the hole, but soon realized that he couldn¡¯t, for it was now detached from his body, ending the temporary connection his system had allowed him to form.

    Horror, on the other hand, was enjoying the expression on Roley¡¯s face. One of pure panic and desperation. In a moment he disappeared, and reappeared behind him. His oily arms embraced the young man, and his hand grabbed his chin. ¡°Look at what you have done.. The fault is all yours.¡± Horror whispered in his ears as he forced him to stare at the growing hole.

    As the hole reached a few feet in diameter, right in front of their eyes, something odd happened.

    From what could only be defined as a bottomless pit of nothingness, something had slowlye out of. The body of a human, curled in a fetal position.. Seemingly hibernating.

 Chapter 616 A Peculiar Reunion

    <h4> 616 A Peculiar Reunion </h4>

    The sight of this curled up human came as a surprise to both Roley and the aspect of Horror, and for more than one reason. First of which being itspleteck of powers. No trace of the immortal essence a cultivator would possess, nor an existential gift could be felt.. An oddity that remained valid even in the domain of death.

    After all, the moment a living being exhaled theirst breath, faint amounts of the power of Death and Spirit would appear, forming a bridge between the physical domain, and spiritual ne and underworld for their spirit and consciousness to thread. But while that could have happened before, leaving the curled up body as the simple husk of a dead man, that did not seem to be the case, for his body alsocked the existential powers a dposing body should produce.

    That, however, was something only the aspect of Horror had noticed. Roley was still just a cultivator. A unique one, capable of wielding the primordial powers of most types of mana, but a cultivator nheless.

    What had truly confused the two in equal manner was a much simpler notion. The notion that beyond copsed space awaited the void. A state of existence devoid of mana and life. One that only differed with the universe Roley had experience in his horror-induced nightmare, by the lone presence of time.

    The essence of time was quite a peculiar one. It opposed the essence of space, in theory, but not many understood to which extent. Most could not realize that everything within a universe was kept in ce by spatial essence, which acted as the foundation on which matter was umted, and shaped into everything that existed.

    Time, on the other hand, was what allowed matter toe to life. Its forward motion enabled matter¡¯s interaction with the elements, any external forces, and to the nature of each existential power. Without time, the universe would be a tridimensional painting, forever still and devoid of life.

    The spaceless void, however, was the opposite of such a world. It possessed the essence of time which flowed at any speed or direction its nature allowed, but itcked the essence of space. The power that gave structure to matter. Without space, matter would fall apart. A person¡¯s very atoms would detach from one another, as if suddenly strangers, and drift away in the infinite empty expanse.

    For that reason, the void was believed to be an unlivable ce, and that was not only the case for the multiverse¡¯s native life.. But for the aspects of existence themselves.. For they were little more than mortals, once theycked contact to the existential powers that made them into deities.

    In the way the aspect of existence avoided the void, many could have learned a lot about their nature.

    In theory their immense powers would be more than enough to sustain their lives, and fight against the detrimentalck of space.. But they couldn¡¯t. They couldn¡¯t because, in its boundless potential, the existential powers had one crucial defect. They could not be stored.

    Among the most well kept secrets within the universe, the aspects of existence had hidden the fact that their entire nature consisted in the maniption of such powers, and not their full control. Had this secret spread across the lower cultivators, while not enough to defeat them, it would have allowed them to pick and choose which aspects to serve, and which ones to avoid.

    On a multiversal scale, such privilege would have upset the bnce between aspects of existence, hugely favoring those who represented a more benevolent existential power. Hence why it had been kept secret.

    Luckily, such a secret was hard to dig up, as the first thought of anyone who had the displeasure of witnessing the threatening concept of copsed space, was to run, and not to examine its rtionship with the aspect of existence.

    Yet there it was.. In front of Horror. A curled up body, fully intact, and seemingly unaffected by the void¡¯sck of space. He could hardly believe what he was seeing, to a point where he had lost interest in punishing Roley and his whole attention was drawn by the new arrival.

    The reason Horror had not panicked after the space had started to copse, was because this amount of copsed space was of no threat to him. He possessed the strength to seal any crack that appeared. He only allowed for it to grow to that size so that it could punish Roley for his offenses, by swallowing his army. Furthermore, he did enjoy the spectacle. He would have then killed Roley himself, and resumed his conquest starting with the now free universe he was currently in.

    Had the copsed space been out of control, he too would have fled the universe.

    Unbothered by Roley¡¯s presence, he pushed him away. He knew he would go nowhere without his people, and to free them all by himself would take him hundreds of years. He also felt that merging with the spatial treasure had taken a toll on his body, and it would have taken a while before the cultivator could attempt such a thing again.

    Instead of bothering with him, Horror slowly approached the body, which, in contact with the lingering elements of space, had now softened. Soon the body¡¯s muscles rxed, revealing the dashing appearance of a young man with ck hair and sharp features.

    Horror kept approaching this body, until suddenly, when it had reached arm¡¯s length, he suddenly stopped. Inside the body, faint traces of spiritual essence, mental power and ki were being produced. Three powers that, aftering in contact with one another, formed a mixture he found somewhat familiar.

    In Horror¡¯s eyes, these powers felt like three pieces of a puzzle, and he somehow felt that he should have been able to recognize whichever picture the whole would depict. It was an odd feeling, he thought.. For he had nevere close enough to a human cultivator to justify such familiarity.

    Yet, the more he stared with hisrge glossy eyes, the more he convinced himself that this had not been the first time the two had met.

    With interest, the monstrous being¡¯s hand reached forward. His fingertips, still as red as blood, coiled around the body¡¯s arm, but then, before Horror could do anything else, the young man¡¯s eyes opened, revealing two pears of absolute golden light. The once corpse-like body had suddenlye alive.

    Immediately, the aspect of Horror let go of the arm, as it pulled it back in a hurry. He might not have been able to realize why the young man was familiar, but the golden hue of his eyes was a dead giveaway on the young man¡¯s identity.. For it revealed him to be a member of his own kind. An aspect of existence.

    The unresponsive young man slowly regained hisposure. Unbothered by the sinkhole that, next to him, had now reached the size of a small house. He slowly straightened his body, stretching his muscles and cracking his bones. Once done, he looked around with the stoicism of a statue.

    Before long, a soft whimper broke the silence. ¡°Dan?¡± Roley said as he inspected the facial features of the young man.

    Hearing his name being called, Daniel turned towards Roely, and soon recognized him. However, on his face, there was no trace of happiness or relief, just simple acknowledgment.

    He seemed to be more interested in his surroundings, and in the reason why he had been dragged out of the void just as thest bit of karmic power was consumed. He had truly been on the verge of dying, and a second longer would have spelled his demise.

    Yet, in his mind, a second did not feel like a second. The void was a ce of pure time, with ack of structure that did not allow for its flow to advance how it regrly would have. In the void, time could go back and forward at will, elerate, stop, or stretch beyond one¡¯sprehension.

    From the outside, Daniel had only been trapped in the void for a few years, but in his mind, he had been there for both a minute, and a million years. It was truly difficult for him to understand how much time had truly passed. The only constant to judge the passage of time, somewhat more reliable than time itself, was the power within his body. A power that prevented theck of structure from tearing him apart, and erasing him from existence.

    Curious about his surroundings, Daniel looked around, and as his eyesnded on the nearby aspect of Horror, he felt the same familiarity thetter had felt in his presence. Around them were uncountable more entities all belonging to either one of three distinctive groups. Cultivators, champions, and elementals. Among them, Daniel immediately recognized the figure of Der, for whom he felt the same degree of positive feelings he felt for Roley.

    As his eyesnded on the surrounding creatures, he soon realized why his body had been dragged out in this ce, and at this moment. A reason that had left him giddy, to say the least.

    He had soon noticed that, while the elementals and the cultivators were trapped in the power of Horror, dedicating their lives to the production of such a terrible power, Horror¡¯s champions were quite dead, and that was despite Horror himself being present. That had surprised him.

    Seemingly amused by such an immense amount of death, Daniel took over the faint karmic power in the surroundings, and channeled it into his finger. Then, once most of the karmic power had merged into the light, he aimed it at Der¡¯s figure and sent it flying in his direction.

    The ray of golden light was like a sword. Bright as sunlight, it pierced through space in the middle-aged man¡¯s direction, and when itnded, he cut through him perfectly. Roley, shocked by the sudden attack, was about to yell a few horrified words in response, but before he could, another voice broke the silence, ¡°MEA NO! STOP!!¡± Der screamed in panic while flinging his arms around.

    While the ray of light had sliced Der in half, it had left no damage to his body, spirit or mind. Instead, it had only targeted the power of Horror, breaking its spell and freeing the middle-aged man from its spell.

    Once done, Daniel turned towards the aspect of Horror, who was now staring back at him with alertness. ¡°I remember you..¡± Daniel said with a bone-chilling tone. A tone of superiority aimed at the lowest creatures in existence.

    ¡°But I don¡¯t remember you.¡± Horror responded nervously, refusing to deny the familiarity he had felt. In his eyes, Daniel was almost devoid of power, and that simple attack had made use of all the golden existential power in the surroundings. Yet, Daniel¡¯s tone implied that his standing within the pantheon was not inferior to his own.. A guess that Daniel¡¯s following words somehow supported.

    ¡°I was there when you were born.¡± Daniel revealed as he slowly approached the aspect of existence. His approach was steady and undisturbed by unnecessary emotions. His confidence ryed a true absence of fear.

    What shocked Horror the most, however, was not the confidence of the young man, but the meaning behind his words. He had finally remembered.. The human that had suddenly shown up when his consciousness had been born. The human that had used the power of his birth to create mana, and cause the spawning of the detestable aspect of existence every aspect of existence that was loyal to Fate had med him for creating.

    He remembered, now..

    Recalling all the abuse he had to endure from its peers made Horror forget that he was standing in front of another aspect of existence. His mortal enemy was in front of him. One whom he had believed must have died in the hundreds of millions of years he had lived, but that had somehow be an aspect of existence.

    Rage began to cloud his mind, and without even thinking twice, he reached for Daniel¡¯s throat. Not to grip it, but to tear it to shreds.

    However, just before Horror could repay the biggest slight he had ever received, the corpse of one of his deceased champions exploded into an atomic bomb of golden colored light. This light instantly shot towards the two like a waterfall, and as it reached their bodies, it engulfed them into a dense golden aura capable of halting Horror¡¯s attack.. But that did nothing to hinder Daniel¡¯s movements.

    ¡°For you to be the first one I will kill.. It is quite poetic.¡± Daniel muttered to himself as the power seeped into his body, and in just a moment, he regained the semnce of a true powerful aspect of existence.

 Chapter 617 Horror Versus Karma

    <h4> 617 Horror Versus Karma </h4>

    Horror was dumbfounded.

    Never before had he experienced this sort of direct threat. He had been born from the collective effort of the very first specimens of sentient life in the universe, and that ced him in a high position within the pantheon of aspects of existence. Those who could threaten him were few and far, and it was only rarely that he had the pleasure of meeting them.

    The threat they posed on him, however, was not direct, but subtle.

    Had any of them truly wanted to take his life, he would not have been warned, he would have been dead. Yet Daniel stood there. A simple human, he recalled. Amon mortal who, at some point in time, had managed to obtain the power of his kind.

    As he wondered about Daniel¡¯s mind blowing evolution, Horror couldn¡¯t help but think of the one and only entity capable of creating such a change. Another being whose appearance coincided with Horror¡¯s own birth. The aspect of Destiny.

    Suddenly, reality started to fall into ce, and he finally realized who Daniel was.. And who this golden power belonged to. An aspect that, in the scope of their kind¡¯s average life, could be considered to have been just born. The entity whose sheer existence had challenged the very nature of the omniscient Fate.. he was Karma.

    This revtion, however, did not have that characteristic satisfactory feeling, as it spawned more questions than answers. Was Karma not a champion of Destiny? And how could Daniel have been one, if Destiny himself was not born yet? He asked himself, unable to figure out an answer.

    One thing realizing who Daniel was did, on the other hand, was to significantly calm him down. The existential power of horror was not much different from the power of karma. They were both powers born from the actions of sentient creatures. Horror epassing anything that would cause fear and pain, and Karma including the conscious decisions sentient beings made in their lives.

    But while the scope of their powers¡¯ nature was quite simr, there was a crucial difference between the two.

    Horror was much older than Karma. His influence across the multiverse was fully established, while the power of karma was a new concept. Had Daniel be Karma the moment Horror was born, thetter thought, their strength could have matched, but that was not the case. Nobody had even heard of the existence of an aspect of Karma until a few years before.. And therefore, Daniel must have been weak.

    This guess was supported by the strange attack Daniel had employed. An attack that had required him to use the majority of the karmic power in the surroundings, leaving it bare. Horror was convinced that, once this power was exhausted, Daniel would be little more than once more cultivator for him to kill.

    At that point, the praise he would obtain from the pantheon of aspects of existence, he could not help but shiver in excitement at the very thought of it. After all, not many aspects of existence had the chance to kill a member of their own and prove their might, let alone kill public enemy number one.

    Eager to prove himself, the aspect of horror responded to Daniel¡¯s threat by once again reaching for his throat. His talon-like fingers merged into a single hand-sized drill, which he sent piercing forward with impossible speed and might, leaving cracks in space that connected with the ongoing destruction of the universe.

    Daniel, however, was not bothering himself with the attack. Instead, his attention was dedicated to the hole he had juste out of, which now was the size of arge vi. In its immense power, the hole was growing out of control, and its edges were threatening to reach the still trapped armies.

    Suddenly, two more of Horror¡¯s deceased champions exploded, producing uncountable golden lights. These lights, as if wishing to fulfill any of Daniel¡¯s desires, immediately dashed towards him in two distinctive rivers of power. The quicker of these golden rivers dashed past Daniel¡¯s position, and immediately engulfed therge hole in space. Then, with a simplicity both Horror and Roley did not believe to be realistic, squeezed the hole shut.

    By the time the hole in space had been sealed, Horror¡¯s attack hade in contact with Daniel¡¯s body, but so did the second golden river.. which instantly merged with the young man, turning him into a holy statue of pure gold. *CLANG!* Horror¡¯s hand suddenly jerked backwards as the full extent of his attack¡¯s might bounced back.

    ¡°What..¡± Horror muttered, appalled.

    He knew that his body was significantly more powerful than Daniel¡¯s. It had to, for the strength of the body of an aspect of existence was enhanced by the representation of their power within the universe. A power which, Horror recognized, was not much, but that was constantly growing thanks to the continuous production caused by the entrapped armies. Yet a vast amount of the power of Karma had appeared out of nowhere, and boosted Daniel¡¯s body to a point where Horror, with all his strength, was unable to harm him.

    Daniel continued to ignore Horror and his visible confusion, and instead turned towards the tworge armies, now shrouded into a neb of horrific existential power.

    Once again, the corpses of the champions of Horror popped like fireworks. Each releasing an immense amount of karmic power that rapidly took the shape of arge cloud that instinctively drifted towards the entrapped armies. As it came in contact with the first elemental, a sudden desperate yell was heard.

    The golden cloud continued to move, freeing more cultivators and elementals by the second.

    It was at this point that the recently freed Der had managed to open his eyes. He had left the entrapment of Horror¡¯s domain no longer than a minute ago. A minute he had spent with his head between his hands, eyes closed, and body trembling like a leaf in the wind. Not many could imagine what nightmares a cultivator as powerful as he was, had to witness to end up in that state.. But as he realized that he was not trapped anymore, he started to regain his bearings.

    ¡°Dan.. what are you doing here?¡± Der asked as he looked around, and noticed the figure of Daniel, who had now stopped glowing. Near the interdimensional he saw the uncountable corpses that were once the feared horde of Horror¡¯s domain, while on the other side, were the Immortal Armada and the elemental army, who, just like him, were slowly being awoken by a cloud of pure gold.

    As his eyes met Roley¡¯s, he found the same confusion he had been feeling. His inquisitive look was only answered by a shrug of thetter¡¯s shoulders, right before turning to look back at the sh between the two deities.

    At the sight of the two armies being freed, Horror was infuriated. He still could not understand where Daniel was taking these waves of power from, but his actions were tipping the scale from its favorable position. He had to do something.

    With murder on his mind, he allowed his body to grow to the biggest of sizes...

    His horns alone, thought to be as big as mountains before, could now dwarf stars. His enormous glossy eyes had split into billions of normal sized ones, and moved over his sickly skin to cover his bodypletely, while hismprey-like mouth had be sorge, and filled with so many teeth, that it was not absurd to believe it capable of crunchings like candies.

    His growth alone had struck millions of cultivators and elementals, sending them flying across space for all eternity. As their silhouettes were about to disappear into the infinite darkness, however, several more monstrous corpses exploded, forming a second cloud that picked them off the horizon like lint from a ck shirt, halting their motion.

    Horror¡¯s immense size, however, did not seem able to hinder his movements.. And in the blink of an eye, Daniel found himself in between two enormous walls. The two hands joined together,ing down to p him into a fine paste.. yet, Daniel did not move.

    *SPAH*

    The sound that produced by the two pping hands was beyond deafening.

    It created a shockwave that cracked space under its passage, and pierced the eardrums of everyone present. Roley, Der, the freed cultivators and elementals.. Not even their unconscious counterparts were spared from the piercing sounds that almost erased their consciousness, and left them bleeding from the seven orifices.

    Yet, that was not the end, as the multitude of light brown orbs of horrific power started to converge towards Horror¡¯s now joined hands, seeping into the nooks and crannies of his hands which, inparison, were as wide as valleys.

    This power pushed its way in between the two joined palms, where Daniel¡¯s bodyy still, pressed in between two walls of oily and rubbery skin. It then attached itself onto his body, formingyers andyers of powers that, not unlike that he had used to entrap Der, Roley and their followers, had locked him into a matryoshka of curses. An entrapment formed by the entirety of horrific power the two armies had produced.

    Aware of the shorings of his karmic counterpart, Horror had decided to trap Daniel into his own nightmares, hoping that, once separated from the sudden and unexpected bursts of karmic power he had employed, he would have nothing to use to free himself.

    ¡°DANIEL!¡± Roley shouted as he channeled the elements in his body, creating several orbs of pure mana and sending them towards the colossal monster. These attacks, however, fell onto Horror¡¯s skin like droplets of water, sting through the outermostyer of grease, but dealing no damage whatsoever.

    Seeing this, Der shot towards the monster¡¯s ears, and with enough effort to bring him to the precipice of death, he ordered, ¡°LET HIM-BLERGH.. GO!¡± copious amounts of blood left his mouth, taking the shapes of beads that, due to the monstrous creature¡¯s gravitational pull, rained onto his skin like a faint drizzle.

    His words seemed to disturb the aspect of Horror, but only enough for him to shake his head in annoyance.

    As the many eyes that covered Horror¡¯s palms sawyer uponyer form, he finally rxed. Daniel was in another ne of existence now. One that, like Death¡¯s underworld, and Spirit¡¯s spiritual ne, was fully separate from the multiverse. A ne of existence where Karma could not be created, and from which he could not gather his powers.

    As the thought that he had won began to form in his mind, however, a faint golden light started to shine through the manyyers of brown colored power, growing in intensity until, as if unable to resist its magnitude, thetter started to bubble, and melt away.

    When the first of these bubbles burst, a powerful ray of light shone onto Horror¡¯s skin, scorching it thoroughly. The leviathan¡¯s monstrous cry resounded across the universe as he pulled his hands back, and his body slowly started to shrink.

    When he was half the size he had been, the orb of horrific power had be twice the size, malformed by the numerous bright bubbles that were ready to burst. By the time he was as big as a two story building, many of the bubbles burst at the same time with loud pops, releasing dozens of rays that made it look like a disco ball.

    Shocked, Horror decided to flee.

    He had used all the fresh new power the trapped cultivators and elementals had produced for him, and now that all of it was gone, he was left with the universes¡¯ faint contribution to his power.. Which was far from enough. And to make matters worse, by now, most of his victims had been freed, preventing them from creating more.

    Unwilling to die, the aspect of Horror shot in the direction of the interdimensional portal. If he could leave, and jump into a universe he owned, he would have at his disposal enough power to kill Daniel.. But if he stayed, he would die.

    With impossible speed he dashed through space, but before he could go far, three des of golden light shot out of the disco ball, and with iparable speed, struck the aspect¡¯s body.

    Feeling lighter, Horror looked down, and immediately realized that both his legs had been cut diagonally, and that his arms had been severed.

 Chapter 618 Chaotic Encounter

    <h4> 618 Chaotic Encounter </h4>

    At the sight of his own limbs drifting away, Horror froze up. It was the first time so much damage had been dealt to him, and it reminded him of the times he was just born.. When, unaware of the hierarchy of the pantheon, he had challenged another aspect of existence to a fight, and was brought to the brink of death.

    It was only a miracle that, at that time, he had been spared from annihtion. A miracle where his natural superior had interjected for him, giving him the one and only chance every new aspect of existence would get in their lives. The chance to learn his ce.

    Never before had he expected that such a young aspect of existence would not only match his power, but be strong enough to deal so much damage to him. And yet, here he was, counting the time it would take him to make ast ditch effort to escape.. And how to reach safety.

    In his mind, he could not help but curse the fact that this encounter had happened outside of his domain. After all, within his domain, the nature of horror was not only prevalent, but intentionally cultivated, turning the aspect of existence into the most powerful being among his category. Second only to wielders of absolute power like Conflict and Fate.

    What disgusted him the most, however, was not the fact that he had been hurt, or that he had been unlucky in encountering Daniel in a universe where he did not have the advantage. What bothered him the most, was the thoughts of surrender that were appearing in his mind. Surrender to a being he knew he could defeat.. He just needed to reach the portal that was but a few thousand miles away.

    Before his dismembered body could continue ahead, however, Horror felt something tug at his horn. He looked back to find the figure of Karma, standing next to him, and preventing him from leaving.

    Daniel looked at Horror straight in his beady fish-like eyes, and with a grave tone said, ¡°Your death will settle your debt of karma.¡± As he spoke, a golden colored light emerged from the depths of his body, forming a physical construct in the shape of a curved de that covered his entire arm.

    Horror had a mind to surrender, but as he noticed the power of Karma emerging from Daniel¡¯s body, his jaw dropped. ¡°How.. how can you do that?¡± he asked as the golden de came slicing at the back of his neck. *SLACK* As if finding no obstruction at all, the aspect¡¯s head was separated from the rest of his body.

    Following its wielder¡¯s death, the power of Horror,cking but still present, started to dissipate.. Leaving the mixture of existential powers contained within the multiverse.

    At the sight of this, Daniel¡¯s brows narrowed. This was not the first time he had witnessed the death of an aspect of existence, and yet, the disappearance of the power of Horror had been much less violent than Bnce¡¯s. Whose death felt like a portion of the multiverse itself had been severed, and cut off from the rest.

    While odd, however, he did not linger too much on this thought, for he knew that the power of Bnce was much more prominent in Order¡¯s domain than Horror¡¯s power was in this newly opened universe. Just like he knew that, had he met the aspect of horror in one of the universes he possessed, the oue of their encounter would have been drastically different, possibly ending in his death.

    But, s, what was done was done. All that was left of Horror was its slimy monstrous body, whose head Daniel left to drift the infinity of space. He then turned towards his two formerpanions, who were staring at him with shocked eyes.

    In their eyes, Daniel had not changed one bit. He looked like the same immensely talented young cultivator they had met thousands of years ago, but he also felt very different. His clever and attentive eyes were gone, reced by pearls of pure gold that shone with indifference. The way he looked at them was one that was devoid of emotions, they could tell.

    Nevertheless, a reunion was a reunion, and the two were happy to see him alive.

    After making sure that their followers were waking up safe and sound, the two slowly approached their old friend, but then.. Something odd happened. Something that caught Daniel¡¯s attention, causing him to turn around in anger.

    At some point, Horror¡¯s detached head liquefied, but not quite. It had actually split into uncountable microscopic insects that shot in every direction at the speed of light.

    By the time Daniel had noticed each insect was already out of reach, but that did not stop him from trying something. A thousand more deceased champions of horror exploded into enormous golden mists, which then merged together into an enormous neb of power that rapidly expanded outwards, chasing each and every one of the insects.

    As the golden cloud came in contact with the little blighters, they evaporated, leaving nothing behind.. But Daniel could tell he had not been fast enough, as a few of them were able to push through thest stretch of space that separated them from the interdimensional portal, and plunge into it.

    ¡°Damn it!¡± Daniel barked as he shot in between the army of corpses, and towards the interdimensional portal. As his body went past them, the tens of billions of bodies exploded into an infinite amount of golden lights which instantly seeped into his body, turning him into a human-shaped golden star.

    Like a pebble he crashed into the ocean-like surface of the interdimensional portal, leaving the universe. When he reappeared, he was in the Trigate, the separate dimension that contained the entrances of every universe in existence.

    Around him were tens of thousands of champions of Horror, all shocked by what they had recently seen. An insect-sized weakened aspect of existence barging out of the universe they were guarding, chased by a golden god.

    ¡°STOP HIM!¡± Horrormanded from afar as he hastily dashed towards one of the universes his domain had recently conquered. The words spoken with the power of Horror himself, one that the champions knew better than to ignore.

    Ready to act, the champions immediately prepared forbat, but the touch of their weapons was thest thing they felt as an immense pressurended onto their bodies from every direction, apanied by a golden shine.. And before they could notice, their bodies were shrunk to a size even the former insect would consider insignificant, and dragged into Daniel¡¯s body.

    Then, the suffering started.

    Not many had experienced the hell of Karma. A ne of existence in which, by using one¡¯s karma as coal, the victims were forced to burn to pay for the price of their karma. In a way, it was simr to the ne of existence Horror would trap his victims in. But while Horror¡¯s powers could create an infinite nightmare, the ne of karma was not really a weapon.. For it would only enforce punishment and suffering to those who had caused pain.. While those with positive karma would experience a bliss that matched their good deeds.

    Unfortunately, by nature, the champions of Horror were groomed to cause suffering. A domain built upon the production of pain and fear which had forced them to umte astronomical amounts of negative karma.. eachparable to that of Elijah himself.

    It was their nature that had given Daniel such confidence against Horror. After all, all the karmic debt they had umted, and that he had not been able to force them to pay back, Daniel could use. That was how Daniel had survived the encounter with Corrosion.

    At the sight of so much unpaid karma, Daniel had felt invincible.. Yet, he too knew that that amount could notpete against the millions of years of umted existential power of horror that was waiting in each of the oldest universes of his domain.. So he chased him with all his might.

    Luckily for Daniel, Horror had no intention of reaching for the oldest of his universes, as he headed for one of the newly conquered instead. In a moment, he dove into one of the uncountable interdimensional portals and disappeared from Daniel¡¯s sight.

    Daniel, not too far behind, barged into the portal and soon found himself in a different universe. One where the interdimensional portal was surrounded by hundreds of independents, each inhabited by the weakest of Horror¡¯s champions, who had been left behind to make sure that any form of peace and joy would disappear from the universe.

    As he entered, Daniel knew that this universe contained a lot more of Horror¡¯s power than the previous one. But he did not panic.. For he could see the small insect who now was slowly growing to the size of an average human.

    Aware of his previous mistake, Daniel lunged at the aspect of Horror with the intention of erasing him from existence.. Leaving nothing of his body behind.

    Panicked by Daniel¡¯s approach, the still weakened aspect of horror shed the space using the bit of power he had gathered, opening a rift that brought to a separate stable universe.. But he did not enter it. Instead, he faced it, and yelled ¡°HELP ME!¡±

    In an instant, a column of invisible power brushed past Horror and headed towards Daniel, bubbling, and zigzagging in space like magma and lightningbined, but reflecting the stability of time, and the instability of space at the same time.

    Daniel did not have time to avoid, for the attack came too fast. All he could do was release arge amount of his power, and construct a block that could shield him from the iing attack. But, s, that was to no avail, for the moment the column of odd power came in contact with the barrier, thetter was torn to shreds. The attack then continued forward,nding on Daniel¡¯s right arm and blowing it into smithereens.

    Heavily injured, Daniel focused his power towards recovery, but then, several more columns of power emerged from the rift, shattering several more barriers before proceeding to rip apart Daniel¡¯s body bit by bit.

    Just as Daniel had expected for onest attack to bring an end to his existence, however, a figure emerged from the rift. Whether it belonged to a woman, or a man.. Daniel could not tell, for it showed physical characteristics of both. A fair and pale skin, a slender body, and a surprisingly t chest and backside. Her or his stunning facial features stood just underneath a head of fairly long slicked back silver hair.

    As it emerged, this creature looked at Horror with indignation. It could not believe it had been bothered like that, and it was clear to both Daniel and his enemy that the being had a mind to kill Horror himself.

    Yet, it didn¡¯t, for the being knew that if Horror had the guts to disturb it in his one-universe-domain. His very own home.. He must have had a very good reason. After all, this creature was one of the originals, and its power was omnipresent within the universe.. Born in the same bed as Fate, Conflict and not many others. He was the aspect of Chaos.

    As Daniel¡¯s body slowly recovered, he felt an immense powering from the androgynous individual. No matter how much power he had umted in the other universe.. The existential power of Chaos was everywhere, and when paired with its wielder¡¯s presence, it became violent and suffocating.

    Luckily, the aspect of Chaos had note here to kill him, but to prevent him from killing Horror. That was the only reason why he was still drawing breath.

    Desperate for a way to escape, Daniel looked back at the interdimensional portal, but before he could even think of channeling the power of Karma inside him, he heard a word being uttered. A single word that carried an infinite power of destruction, and that caused the very atoms of his body to move around in excitement, inflicting him an immense amount of physical pain.

    ¡°Exin.¡± Chaos demanded as the aspect of Horror shrunk to the smallest size it could reach. He was not a threat to it, he was fearful, and not much further from death than Daniel was.

    ¡°He.. he.. he can store existential power!¡± Horror whimpered with great effort, causing the interest the aspect of Chaos felt for Daniel to skyrocket.

 Chapter 619 Near Death Encounter

    <h4> 619 Near Death Encounter </h4>

    ¡°Repeat that.¡± Chaos ordered right before what felt like an infinity of chaotic power of existence started to move around, rubbing against the matter within the universe like bubbles in a boiling pot of water.

    The aspect of Horror rxed slightly. He had bought himself enough time to speak.. A bargain that might as well have been what would allow him to keep his life. ¡°He can store power.. In his body.¡± Horror repeated with the meekest of tones.

    Chaos¡¯ eyes narrowed into two slits, through which came an icy gaze that seemed capable of reversing Daniel¡¯s very blood flow. Horror¡¯s words were the tallest of all usations, he thought. After all, he knew what the injured monstrous creature imed to be impossible.

    Yet, he did not outright ignore it either. He had recognized Daniel as the aspect of Karma.. And therefore, he knew what kind of entity he had been before. He knew that, as a former champion of Destiny, Daniel had challenged the validity of Fate¡¯s absolute dominion, and by doing so, he had thrown the multiverse into thousands of years of conflict and war.

    It was because of Daniel¡¯s origin that Chaos could not ignore Horror¡¯s im. After all, the champions of Destiny were known to have abilities that sounded mysterious even to other aspects of existence.

    Daniel too had recognized this entity. Not because of his appearance, whose description he had never heard or read about, but because of the unmistakable nature of his power. A power that threw the stability of his body into a forced chaotic state, and that he could feel was everywhere in the universe, nearly as omnipresent as the essence of space itself.

    He had only felt such a high degree of power from one creature before, and that was the aspect of Conflict, whom he had met many times before, and who had saved him from the aspect of Bnce.

    His guess regarding Chaos¡¯ identity was supported by the fact that, had the newly arrived aspect of existence been an ally of Fate, he would have already been dead.. Only an opponent of Fate would have spared him. Just like Conflict, who had saved him against Bnce so that he could be the cause of more conflict in the future, Chaos would not kill him either.

    Or at least, that was until Horror revealed one of his biggest secrets.

    Unimpressed by Horror¡¯s servile and meek attitude, Chaos kept looking at Daniel, until finally, what felt like several minutes after, his slender and pale neck bent to the side. In response to this motion, Daniel felt a uniform faint pressure top over his body.

    This pressure was not stable, however, and it pushed against Daniel¡¯s body like the water jet of a hot tub.

    Unsure of what Chaos intended to do, Daniel did not resist.. But right away, he realized that the pressure had been rising.

    As if sinking into the ocean¡¯s depths, the pressure went from a faint push to the weight of a mountain.. From a mountain to a continent, and from a continent to a whole. By this point the pressure had be harmful, threatening to squash Daniel like a fly, and yet, it did not seem that its increase had any intention of stopping.

    Soon, Daniel¡¯s body began to fold on itself. His flesh stretched as the fibers of his muscles began to rip, but not before his bones started to crack one by one.

    ¡°AAAARGH!¡± Daniel screamed as the pressure grew to unbearable heights.. But there was no stopping it. Cracks turned into fractures before a series of snaps resounded in Daniel¡¯s ears, making his teeth ache. He was being crushed to death, of that he was sure, so, left with no other choice, Daniel channeled arge amount of karmic power that was hidden inside his body, and pushed it outwards, fighting back against Chaos¡¯ terrifying power.

    As his body started to shine of a pure existential power, the pressure suddenly disappeared. Not just thanks to Daniel¡¯s own power, butpletely, as if Chaos had stopped it from torturing him any further.

    Daniel regained his breath as his bones slowly snapped back in ce, and as he did, he realized what had happened. Chaos had been testing him, checking for truthfulness in Horror¡¯s words. Unfortunately, even if Daniel had known of his scheme, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to avoid falling for it. After all, he could feel that Chaos was not bluffing. The power that was crushing him had not slowed down the closer he hade to death. Had he not fought back, he would not have survived.

    Worried about Chaos reaction to this, Daniel turned towards the androgynous figure, and immediately, on thetter¡¯s face, he noticed the expression of someone who had swallowed a fly. The corners of Chaos lips twitched as stared at Daniel with furrowed brows. It was clear that Daniel¡¯s existence had gone from somewhat useful, to one of dubious nature.

    From Daniel¡¯s perspective, it appeared as if the aspect of Chaos was pondering on whether to kill him on the spot or not.

    After about a minute, Chaos removed his gaze from Daniel¡¯s figure, as his head snapped to the side, where the meek and terrified figure of Horror was trembling in silence. ¡°You have exhausted your purpose.¡± the aspect of Chaos dictated before pinching at the point in space that separated the two of them.

    As if bound to that specific point in space, Horror felt as if he had been grabbed by the power of the multiverse itself. Feeling as if he had bound to space, Horror could only move his eyes in responde, aiming them at Chaos¡¯ fingers which then twisted. *SPAH!* Like an overly inted balloon, Horror exploded into a mist of green blood and gray bits, which soon after exploded as well, starting a chain reaction not much different from an oddly colored firework show.

    As thest pop sound was heard, the multiverse began to change.

    Horror¡¯s power had started to fall apart, disappearingpletely from existence alongside its wielder. A change that was felt all throughout the multiverse, and that seemed to ce a hint of hurry in Chaos¡¯ behavior. Daniel could tell that, this time, Horror was truly dead.. And it would take billions of years before a new aspect of horror could be born again.

    While Horror¡¯s death was something Daniel had wanted to aplish, he did not rejoice for it. It was very unlikely Chaos had killed one of his inferiors to save him, he thought. And he was right.

    After killing the aspect of Horror, the refined man once again turned to look at Daniel, who immediately dashed towards the interdimensional portal. Yet, before he could go far, he was picked from space, like a moth caged in a human¡¯s fingers.

    This had confirmed it.

    In Daniel¡¯s mind, Chaos could have only had two reasons to silence Horror. He either wanted to help Daniel, or he wanted to capture him. As he felt the chaotic power of existence grind against his body, caging him in space, Daniel knew he was not going to be set free anytime soon.. And to be honest, he understood why.

    ¡°You are going nowhere.¡± Chaos said indifferently as it silently teleported next to Daniel. His eyes were filled with curiosity and a hint of excitement, yet Daniel could also see alertness. Karma was obviously an entity Chaos did not understand, and while he did not fear him, his powers weren¡¯t exactly as predictable as the rest of his kind.

    Specifically, his ability to store existential power within his body, not unlike a cultivator could store mana. That was an ability that was most fascinating to Chaos, for he too, in his nigh-omnipotence, had a finite amount of power.

    Daniel, on the other hand, if allowed to store as much power as he wanted, could have cleared universes of their karmic power and unleashed it all at once into any universe he chose to battle in.

    To put it in numbers, the powers an aspect of existence could receive from the universe they were currently in, went from one to one hundred. One hundred being an absolute power like that of Fate, Chaos and Conflict, and one being the amount of horrific power the now deceased deity had at his disposal while fighting Daniel.

    While the level of these powers could grow alongside the influence of a certain aspect of existence, powers like Horror and Karma had limitations, for one hundred was the extreme a universe could contain. Karma and Horror were driven by sentience, and that made the scope of their production much smaller than Chaos, which epassed everything. Even at the peak of their influence, Horror could never reach above fifty.

    Daniel, however, could gather the full extent of his powers within a universe, store it in his body, and bring it to another. So even if a universe contained only ten, he could bring that amount into a second universe, and have twenty at his disposal. Given enough time to umte the power of Karma, Daniel could, in theory, be able to gather more power than absolute aspects like Chaos himself could employ in each universe.

    Such an ability was one not only Chaos, but every aspect of existence would have a deep interest in, for it could overthrow any hierarchical structure present in the pantheon, or give the chance to one of the absolute aspects of existence to rise above their equals.

    Even Horror, in its desperate attempt to escape, had never abandoned the thought of regaining his strength before going back for Daniel. But he was ultimately forced to ask for help, hoping that sharing this impossibly valuable piece of information could allow him to keep his life.

    So naive, Daniel had thought. Aspects of existence truly did not understand true machination.

    With no one to spread the information, Chaos would be able to capture Daniel, and pick through his memories to find what his method to control existential power was.. But only if Daniel allowed him to.

    Unwilling to suffer such fate, Daniel chose to act. Inside his body, tens of thousands of trapped champions of Horror, now turned normal cultivators, exploded into billions of golden sparks that, like a surge of electricity, charged Daniel¡¯s body with an impressive power.

    Surprised by the sudden outburst, Chaos could only watch as Daniel broke his entrapment and shot towards the interdimensional portal like a bullet, plunging into its surface in an instant.

    When Daniel appeared in the Trigate, however, he did not leave. Instead, he slowly backed his way through the portal, just in time to witness the infuriated and nigh-omnipotent figure of Chaos emerge. Once back in the universe, Daniel opened a rift to Chaos¡¯ main universe and jumped in, closing it behind him.

    Unable to find the escapee within the Trigate, Chaos realized he had been duped, so he followed Daniel back into the interdimensional portal. However, when he re-emerged, he could not find him. ¡°CURSES!¡± the furious aspect bellowed as the existential power of Chaos throughout the universe started to boil, killing every spark of life it contained. Little did Chaos know that Daniel was in his home universe, dashing across space in a desperate attempt to reach the interdimensional portal before he chose toe back.

    Luckily for him, Chaos wasn¡¯t much different from Horror, mentality-wise. His immense power made him the absolute truth, and never before had he been tricked. So instead of giving up, or thinking Daniel could have been hiding under his nose, Chaos once again left the former part of Horror¡¯s domain, and went searching for Daniel in the Trigate.

 Chapter 620 How Times Change

    <h4> 620 How Times Change </h4>

    With some luck, Daniel was given enough time to reach the interdimensional portal of Chaos¡¯ domain, before Chaos himself coulde back to it. By the portal, Daniel had encountered several of thetter¡¯s most powerful champions, but when faced with his powerful presence and odd powers, they could do nothing but allow him passage.

    Daniel was not bothered by the possibility of Chaos learning from his champions that he had escaped in his universe, after all, he would not being back there anytime soon, if ever.

    Once back in the Trigate, Daniel spent several hours trying to find his way back. He did not know how far he currently was from the universe Der and Roley were inhabiting, so he was forced to act as a tourist, and stop unaware interdimensional travelers to ask for directions. By the tenth interaction, Daniel was able to locate the area that contained the group of universes which formed the domain of Horror.

    The closer he came to Horror¡¯s former domain, the more people Daniel had started to notice. Armies of cultivators that, representing the domain they belonged to, flooded the area in an attempt to im the now unused universes.

    As Daniel passed by them, he saw groups of cultivators d in red robes and armors, with eyes as bright as freshly spilled blood that emanated the existential power of Sacrifice, battalions led by the highest champions of War¡¯s domain.. Any domain that, in one way or another, could make use of the type of universe the domain of Horror used to collect.

    Trying not to attract these groups¡¯ attention, a few hourster, Daniel finally arrived at the edge of Horror¡¯s former domain. A stretch of interdimensional portals that led to the newest universes the domain had tried to capture. That being the universe where Daniel and thete aspect of Horror had fought.

    With extreme carefulness, Daniel sneaked past one particr portal, inside which he had left the horrifyingly powerful entity of Chaos, and jumped into the one he had just fought in. Like slush, the liquid portal made way for him, allowing to enter the universe without a problem.

    What weed him on the other side were two armies, split on two different sides of the portal, each led by one of his old friends.

    ¡°Daniel! Oh.. goodness. You are fine!¡± Roley sighed heavily. He was happy to see his old friende back.

    While Roley had seen him oppress the horrifying aspect of Horror a few minutes ago, he was also somewhat aware of how the powers of Horror worked. Courtesy of Dewahs¡¯ exnation. He could not be sure that, had Horror managed to escape into one of his universes, his friend would have been the one to survive.

    Daniel seemed to have found the two in the middle of a heated moment, for both Roley and Der, at the moment of his arrival, were standing at the head of their respective armies, arguing about something.

    Der, who seemed to have gotten the hang of keeping his army in check, had only now turned towards Daniel, and said, ¡°It¡¯s good to see you, kid.¡±

    Daniel looked at the two individuals. He still possessed the memories they had shared together, but those memories did not feel his. He had no emotions for either of them, nor for the people that inhabited them.. Just a deep sense of familiarity.

    ¡°It is good to see you too.¡± Daniel muttered in a half-lie. He was indeed happy that they were alive, but only because of the debt he owed himself. A promise he had to keep to the young cultivator who, when forced to pick between bing an aspect of existence, or die a human, promised himself that whoever he would be, he would take care of the people he once loved. And that included the two individuals that now stood in front of him.

    Had the two died, he would have felt bad about himself.

    While Roley noticed a bit of hesitation in Daniel¡¯s tone, however, Der did not appear bothered by it. Instead, he was wearing a worried expression as he approached the champion of Karma, and asked, ¡°Are you with.. The others? Is my daughter with you?¡±

    He had missed his daughter deeply, but had never had a chance of finding her. This desire for reunion was entuated by the nightmares he had been forced to experience in the domain of Horror¡¯s powers, where he had done unspeakable things to her. He wanted to know that she was safe.

    Never before had Der wanted to see Mea more than he did now, and he had hoped that she would be with Daniel, but as his old friend shook his head, he felt extremely disappointed.

    ¡°What about the others? Alis and Heimart? What about Ligart?¡± Roley asked right after.

    ¡°I am in contact with none of them. I am by myself.¡± Daniel rified, unwilling to let the two keep throwing names left and right.

    Surprised by his sudden response, Roley continued, ¡°Do you know where they are? If they are safe?¡± He had felt something wrong in the way Daniel was speaking, and while he was truly interested in an answer, he also wanted to understand what had changed.

    ¡°Also, where have you been all this time?¡± Der added to the list of questions.

    Slightly bothered by the sudden interrogation, Daniel turned to look at his surroundings, where an army of cultivators was busy in an intense staredown with an army of elementals. ¡°We can chit chat at ater time.. What is going on here?¡± Daniel asked in an attempt to change the topic of conversation.

    Even before Der and Roley could answer, Daniel was able to get a clear picture of what was happening. Several members within both groups were badmouthing the members of the enemy army, and contemting whether a war would break out soon. In their tones, Daniel could feel a deep-rooted hatred. Whatever the reason the two armies had to be at each other¡¯s throat, it could not have been something light.

    As if reminded of their current predicament, Der and Roley looked at their followers.

    ¡°A misunderstanding.. One that went too far for us to mend.¡± Der responded with a stern tone. In his mind were the faces of the millions of people Roley¡¯s army had killed. Be it with, or without his permission. Every man and woman, every child and elderly.. His people.

    Roley was having simr thoughts.

    In the eyes of the elementals, the cultivators were the invaders. They had barged into their home, and started a war of conquest with the pretext of revenge. Knowing now that that was all a misunderstanding did not matter, for his army had done too much damage. A damage he doubted the cultivators would forgive and forget without bloodshed.

    Seeing them stuck at an impasse, Daniel did not say anything. He did not have a way to solve this problem peacefully, nor did he bother to try and think of one. Instead, he released the bit of karmic power that was left in his body.

    As if he was a human-shaped smoke bomb, Daniel¡¯s body started to release a faint golden mist which rapidly spread outward the moment it left his body. In a moment, both Roley and Der were engulfed by it, and a few secondster, so were their two armies of.

    Nobody should have been able to notice this golden cloud, Daniel thought, but he was surprised by the shocked expression that had appeared in Roley¡¯s eyes. He could see it.

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Der asked the lord of the elementals. After seeing Roley¡¯s reaction, Daniel chose to release both him and Der from the mist¡¯s embrace, and instead, he focused on the two armies.

    The moment thest of the elementals was engulfed by it, the mist slowly started to seep into each member of both groups. Those who could breath, inhaled it, while those who did not, continued the staredown, unbeknownst to the existential power that was merging with their essences.

    ¡°What are you doing?!¡± Roley asked as the millions of cultivators suddenly fell silent. Their eyes seemed void of consciousness as their jaws unconsciously dropped. But then, momentster, they all woke up one by one.

    When they woke up, however, they seemed tock the aggressiveness and hatred they had shown until now. And instead, they showed an immense amount of joy. ¡°WE DID IT!!¡± A cultivator cheered as he jumped out of formation and hurried to hug one of the humanoid elementals, starting a chain reaction.

    The intensifying noise of cheering soon became a roar as the structure of the two armies fell apart, and they merged into a single cheerful enthusiastic army.

    ¡°We beat Horror¡¯s domain! AHAHAH!¡±

    ¡°You bet your ass we did!!¡±

    While the members of the two armies rejoiced for what they believed to be a glorious day for the both of them, Der and Roley were not sharing the sentiment. Instead, they were staring at Daniel with narrowed eyes and palpitating hearts.

    Something had changed with Daniel, Der thought, joining the skeptic club Roley was already part of. While Der could not see the karmic power, only Daniel could have been responsible for whatever it was that had caused the change of heart of his and Roley¡¯s followers.

    ¡°Did you.. Did you force them to forget the conflict?¡± Der asked with poorly hidden anger. This was a question Roley himself was only moments from asking.

    Daniel shook his head, then added, ¡°No. I only directed their hatred towards the domain of Horror.¡±

    Once again, Roley and Der were shocked. The Daniel they knew would have never taken the initiative to not only wipe, but modify the memories of those who had done nothing to him. That was a cardinal rule for him.. And yet, now, he had broken it without a hint of remorse.

    Roley had a mind to say something, but then, before he could, Daniel turned to look at him and added, ¡°I have seen what is in your head. I could get rid of it, for you.¡±

    Daniel knew that Roley was not a cultivator of mental power.. he had felt it when his power came in contact with his body. He had also noticed that inside his body resided a second consciousness. One very simr to the one that had tried to consume his consciousness.. A spawn of Iewah.

    Roley slowly floated away as a voice resounded in his mind, ¡°Me and him have an agreement!¡± The Elementalist blurted out anxiously, worried that Daniel would take the initiative to erase his consciousness before Roley could even object.

    ¡°I will pass.¡± Roley said. He knew that the action of giving up his body was not an entirely selfless one, and that at the right moment, the Elementalist would make an attempt at swallowing his consciousness. Yet, there was still much he wanted to know about the Elemental System, and only one person to ask.

    Daniel did not appear bothered by this refusal, as he dusted off the thought of helping with a shrug of his shoulders. But then, he added, ¡°Very well then. Are you in control of his system?¡±

    Roley nodded hesitatingly.

    ¡°Good. Do you mind forming a mission? I want to find the others.¡± Daniel asked, content with the current turn of events.

    At the thought of meeting the rest of the group, both Der and Roley were ecstatic. The former really wanted to see his daughter, whom he had not seen for thousands of years.. While Roley, other than reuniting with his friends, almost hoped to leave the elemental army with the rest, so that he could continue his mission across the multiverse.

    With no reason to refuse, Roley started to wonder whether a way to reunite with his friends existed, and soon enough, a new window appeared. After he finished reading through it, Roley described the content of the system¡¯s mission, and together, the three left the universe alongside the two armies.

 Chapter 621 To Fear Death

    <h4> 621 To Fear Death </h4>

    Following the death of the aspect of Horror, the atmosphere within the pantheon of aspects of existence had started to change. A change brought by a reason mortals, to the aspects¡¯ dislike, could understand.

    Most of the aspects of existence had lived unbelievably lengthy lives. With the youngest of their kind being several millions of years old. A number of them had spawned before any other sentient creature had started inhabiting the multiverse, and some others, albeit very few in numbers, had lived to see the birth of stars and life, and witnessed the evolution of each universe.

    To thetter, only the creation of the interdimensional portals and the origin of the Trigate, had been and still remained a mystery.

    Despite the incredibly vast differences in age among the aspects of existence, however, they all had one thing inmon. A fear they shared regardless of their power, status, and seniority.. And that was the fear that their existence woulde to an end.

    Being the personification of a certain power, their existence had never been bound by life and death, but to the presence of the power itself. For that reason, not often did their kind experience the end of existence. They weren¡¯t mortals, after all.

    Even when Death herself had spawned, the other aspect of existence had refused to acknowledge her terrifying reality, for they rejected the idea that they too, being alive, would inevitablye to meet the endless embrace of death one day.

    For this reason, Death¡¯s appearance, just like that of Karma and Destiny, had been received with scorn by the rest of the pantheon, causing her to live a life of istion. Yet the olddy had never resented her peers for the type of life she had lived. It was in her nature to be alone, and wait patiently for those who had lived, to join her endlessly calm existence of her power.

    Such scorn, however, onlysted until the first aspect of existence had perished at the hands of another. An event turned tale, then lore, which was recounted for uncountable years, and still shared between aspects of existence to this very day.

    The victim of this tale was the former aspect of War.

    Many years in the past, the first aspect of War had been born. He was proud, fearless, and belligerent beyond rationality.. Just like one would expect him to be, and in his infinite arrogance, the aspect of existence had refused to bow down to any other.

    With a goal of absolute domination, he had focused on the expansion of his domain, subjecting lower aspects of existence to his rule while never epting to fall under a superior. That was, however, until he had met the aspect of conflict.

    Unaware of Conflict¡¯s immense superiority and reach, War had challenged the former¡¯s dominion, dering that the nature of conflict was but as subcategory of the nature of War. After all, war bred conflict, He thought.. Unaware of how sorely mistaken he was.

    The moment the former aspect of War had encountered Conflict, his arrogance had signed his death penalty.

    Before the former aspect of War could even make his case, and demand in front of the rest of the pantheon that Conflict and all under him were to fall under his control, a single snap of Conflict¡¯s fingers brought his empire to a sudden end.

    Horrified by the unexpected reality, the former aspect of War felt the impossible difference in powersnd on his skin. Not even the time to regret was given to him before his body had been ttened, twisted, ripped, and crashed at the same time.

    This oue was witnessed by many aspects of existence, who did not care much for their peer¡¯s fate, but showed great interest nheless. And that was due to the presence of one of thetest spawned members of their kind. The aspect of Death.

    For years they had seen her rule a ne of death. A storage of sleeping consciousnesses that found eternal peace in the embrace of her power. The Underworld, she had called it. And while they had refused to acknowledge that death was also ingrained in their existence, they hade to believe that, if they were to perish, an eternity of peace would have been more desirable than total annihtion.

    It was for that very reason that they had decided to spectate the encounter between the former aspect of War, and Conflict. Or to be more precise, it was for that reason that they had decided to witness the death of the first aspect of War. They needed to confirm it. They needed to know whether death included them or not.. For the answer would dictate the way they would conduct the rest of their lives.

    As the figure of War was destroyed, the collective attention of the entire pantheon was directed towards an olddy, who quietly sat at her seat, seemingly minding her business. They were expecting for the consciousness of the first aspect of War to embrace death, like the consciousness of many mortals had before.

    However, what they had hoped for, did not happen. With a faint shake of her head, the aspect of death confirmed that, once their kind died, their consciousness would be destroyed forever, creating a general sense of disappointment that forever changed the behavior of the members of the pantheon.

    This notion was further confirmed as, millions of years after the death of War¡¯s first aspect of existence, a new one had been born, devoid of all of its predecessor¡¯s memories or knowledge.

    Knowing this, the aspects of existence hade to reach an agreement. A pact which dictated that, if avoidable, no lives were to be taken among the members of their kind.. and that instead, each conflict had to be resolved through the exchange of universes, or be fought by the aspect¡¯s followers.

    This agreement had been maintained throughout billions of years, and now that two aspects of existence had perished in the span of what to them was equivalent to a few minutes for a mortal, they felt as if they had been reminded that they too were not untouchable. All the wars of conquest and vengeance that led to the conflict between aspects of existence, could bring to a permanent death.

    Once reminded of this, the collective spirits of the aspects of existence seemed to calm down, as the most grievous of wars came to a stand still, while the ones fought for less important reasons came to an end altogether.

    With the restoration of a weed, yet fickle peace, the domains focused on recovery and recruitment, ready for when their lords chose to resume their crusades.

    ¡ª¨C

    In one of the universes that weed the slowing of the hostility the most, was a world of cultivators not much different from the one Daniel was born into. A garden with clear oceans, green pastures and tall mountains, covered in the asional bustling city.

    While simr to Daniel¡¯s home, however, this world had an extremely different feel to it. All of its flowers and insects, trees and forest dwelling animals, sky faring beasts, marine life and humans themselves. They radiated vitality, and gave off a feeling of contentness and righteousness. They were pure.

    From the eyes of a stranger, they appeared almost holy, as if incapable of ever harming anything or anyone.. But that was not the case. Insects drew nutrients from nts, birds picked on fish, and humans hunted for game like in any other world. They conducted their lives how they were meant to, but they did so with extreme respect for what they were taking, and for what they were damaging.

    In one of the¡¯s poles, right at the edge of an immense expanse of ice, sat a boy dressed in thick white furs. Extremely pale, and with a reddened nose and cheeks, he exhaled into his leather gloves, as he stared at the small blocks of ice drift away from the maind.

    In between his hands he was holding a fishing pole, with a fishing line that came down onto the water, and disappeared in the shadowed waters. By his side was arge wooden bucket, inside which three fishes swam in circles in just the right amount of cold saltwater.

    The boy¡¯s green eyes peered at his breathtaking yet familiar surroundings, as he waited for a fish to bite.. And finally, an hour after thest bit of sess, the line tensed. Almost surprised, he started to pull in a hurry.

    With some effort, the boy kept reeling the fish in, until finally, a rtively big fish jumped out of the water, revealing its appearance to be identical to that of the others the boy had already caught. A foot in length, with a thin gray body, the fish was simr to a garfish, but had two small horns above its eyes. It too, just like the boy and the other fishes, gave off an air of holiness.

    As the fishnded on the boy¡¯sp, he slowly took the hook out of its long and serrated mouth.. But then, right before he could throw it into therge bucket with the others, arge shadow emerged from the waters, andnded onto one of the blocks of ice like a small tank.

    The young boy turned towards the figure with newfound interest, and immediately recognized what it was. It was a blue-colored seal pup the size of arge cow. Plump, withrge ck eyes, therge seal was looking back at the boy. Or, more specifically, it was looking at the fish he was holding. Then, it started to hop in his direction.

    Seemingly unbothered by the sight, the boy grabbed the fish firmly, and waited for the enormous seal toe close. Once only a few feet away from him, the boy looked down on the fish, and with apologetic words, he said in prayer, ¡°Off tody Death you go..¡± The seal too, hearing these words, waited quietly, almost as if it understood the few words the boy was reciting, and deeply respected their meaning.

    Once he finished, the boy grabbed the fish by the tail, ready to throw it at the seal, but before he did so, a second shadow appeared from the depths of the ocean. One that rapidly grew in size, and that seemed to catch the attention of the now worried seal.

    No longer bothered with the prospect of a quick meal, the seal tried to jump back into the water, but as itsrge ck nose touched its surface, a show-white hairy arm emerged from the water, and grabbed the seal by the loose skin of its neck. Then, with impressive strength, it raised itsrge figure in the air, and dragged it underwater.

    The mirrored water moved around, producing bubbles and ripples, but then, after a few moments, it stopped, just in time for a faint red color to taint its original limpid transparency.

    The boy looked at the water in disappointment. He had hoped to see the seal survive, for he had found it quite adorable.. But this day was not his, and it became prey. This disappointment, however, did notst long, as the boy looked back down at the fish, which was still moving around in his hands, and said, ¡°Not yet, then.¡±

    He then put the fish into the bucket, stood up, and after gathering his fishing cane and the bucket, he turned around and left the fishing spot.

    As he walked, he followed a path marked by a road dug inside a thickyer of snow. A road that led to the base of a mountain of ice, where thousands of dwellings made out ofpacted snow formed quite a big vige. Above it, several columns of smoke rose to the sky, dissipating far before their path led them to join the fast moving clouds.

 Chapter 622 The End of Happiness

    <h4> 622 The End of Happiness </h4>

    The town the boy was headed towards was not too big, as it only housed about a thousand households, yet it was bustling with life. Each pearly white house wasrge enough to amodate a rtivelyrge family, with the smallest being oneposed of four people. And that was the case despite the town being located in one of the least hospitable ces within the.

    As the boy walked into the town¡¯s outskirts, more and more people started to appear. They sat alone or in couples, perched above holes in the t expanse of ice from which they too tried to fish for their dinner.

    ¡°That bucket looks heavy, caught a big one, Johan?¡± A healthy looking middle-aged man with a short grizzled beard yelled from a few feet away. As he spoke, he removed his gloves, slipped his hands under his gray-colored sweater, and started to rub his chest in an attempt to increase his body¡¯s heat.

    The kid turned towards the jovial man, and with a half smile, he responded, ¡°Nopers, just a few small ones!¡± The boy was not bothered by the sudden question, for he knew the man did not mean anything negative by it, and was just making idle conversation. In fact, the thought that the man could have aimed for his catch had not even formed in his mind.

    ¡°Better than nothing, ahah!¡± the man said before slipping his gloves back on, and folding his arms against his chest. His attention was now once again focused on the fishing hole, underneath which he could see a few shadows dash past in a feral hurry.

    ¡°Would ya shut yer traps? You are scaring the damn fish!¡± An old woman yelled from a few dozen meters in the distance. She had lowered her thick scarf just so that her voice would not be muffled. She then added, ¡°Loud brats..¡±

    The middle aged manughed quietly, gave the boy aplicit wink, and turned to look back at the fishing hole.

    Amused, the boy jogged past the ice field, and past a hundred more fishermen, until finally, he entered the town.

    As they saw him approach, a group of little boys and girls who appeared to be his age tried to call him over, but he was getting tired, and time for dinner was approaching, so he kept going. Unfortunately for him, the group of kids, unwilling to give up, ran towards him instead.

    One of them, a shaved boy with rosy cheeks and two gaping teeth in between which a train could pass, said, ¡°Johan, my dad¡¯s gonna light some fireworkster. You in?¡± The rest of the kids stood next to their shaved friend, and looked at Johan with various degrees of interest. Especially one, a little girl who, waiting for his response, grasped her hands in front of her chest in a hopeful manner.

    ¡°If my mom says it¡¯s okay, of course!¡± The boy responded before tightening his hold onto the bucket. Then, after a quick nod of his head, he walked away, using his fishing cane as a walking stick of sorts.

    A few minutester, after incurring no more interruptions, the boy finally reached arge white house. This house was only one floor, but its size wasrge enough to contain several rooms. Its door wasposed of a singlerge gray pelt that covered all the way down to a few inches above ground.

    The boy pushed the pelt to the side, revealing a small corridor that extended a few feet from the bottom of two descending steps. By the side, were a few metallic coat hangers that had been dug into the snowy wall, and from them, hung coats and pelts of different colors and sizes.

    With haste the boy put the fishing cane to the side, and took his coat off. He then walked through the corridor, which led to arge room that contained tables, chairs and couches all dug out of snow and covered in even more pelts. In the middle of the room, and underneath arge hole in the roof, was a just as big bonfire, that crackled under a small bubbling pot.

    By one of the tables sat a young man, older than the boy by only a few years, yet extremely simr to thetter in appearance. He was reading off of a binder made of dried up and tanned animal skins, on which were words written in their¡¯s universalnguage. His head was resting on his palm, and as the boy arrived, he weed him with a faint nod before going back to studying.

    Near therge bonfire, stood arge man. He was tall and muscr, dressed in a greenrge sweater, ck boots and tight leather pants. He had been periodically stoking the fire with a long iron prod for the past hour, but the moment the boy entered the room, he immediately moved a hand against his mouth, and zipped his mouth closed with a hand gesture.

    The man exined by pointing at the other rooms, then cing his palm against his rough cheek. ¡°Be quiet, your mom is sleeping.¡± He meant.

    ¡°I am not sleeping anymore.¡± Said a feminine voice that had been peering through the pelts that formed her bedroom¡¯s door. She then slowly walked out, revealing her impressive appearance.

    Extremely beautiful, almost ethereal, this woman had long white hair that, had it not been for the wall¡¯s slight discoloration, would have merged into the surroundings. Her features were delicate, just like her physique, which was neither too thin, nor toorge. As she walked out of her room, with her crystal clear blue eyes aimed at the boy, she kept her slender hands on top of her belly, whose swelling indicated that she was at ate stage of pregnancy.

    As she noticed the boy¡¯s appearance, the woman approached one of the pelt covered chairs, and sat on it with great difficulty. ¡°Derrik, you can stop studying now, clean the fish your brother bought in, and Johan, you go wash your hands and set the table.¡± She directed as the time for supper approached. Then, as she finished, she turned towards her husband, who¡¯s attention was now solely focused on her. ¡°You stay handsome.¡± She said before blowing him a kiss. A simple gesture that seemed to brighten his entire day.

    A few minutester, Johan came back from the bathroom to find the fish he had caught on the fire. As his mother asked him to, he set the table, and together with the rest of his family, he ate dinner.

    The couple and two kids seemed to be having a great time eating together. They talked about school, goals, and daily events, until finally, by the end of dinner, the topic of girls came up. ¡°So Johan, what about that little girl.. Huh, Eevi was her name? She always follows you around. What is that about?¡± The father asked as his lips curved into a faint smirk.

    Johan seemed to have been caught by surprise, for he had seen the girl his father had mentioned just a few minutes ago. She was the one who had asked the rest of the kids to invite him to the firework show, as well as the one most hopeful about his attendance. She clearly had a crush on him, and both parents had noticed it.

    Naturally, the father was only teasing his son.. After all, the boy was only eleven years old, and still far from being at the age where he would be fit for a rtionship. Yet he had managed to get his youngest flustered.

    Luckily, Johan was used to his father¡¯s teasing, so he quickly regained hisposure. He then turned towards his mother, who was sipping a spoonful of soup while looking at her family with an enamored look, and asked, ¡°Gunner¡¯s dad is going to set off some fireworks. Can I go watch it?¡±

    ¡°Homework?¡± the mother asked with narrowed eyes.

    ¡°Done.¡±

    ¡°Alright then. But be back by ten, I don¡¯t want to have to struggle to wake you up tomorrow morning.¡± She then added before bringing another spoonful of warm soup up to her pale lips.

    Johan sprung up on his feet, and ran around the table. He gave his mother a big hug and a kiss on the cheek before saying, ¡°You are the best mom, love you.¡± He then walked towards the entrance, only stopping to give his father, who had just tried to tease him for his own amusement, a scowl.

    With his mother¡¯s permission secured, the boy ran across the town until he reached a house slightly separated from the others. The house was simr to his, but slightly bigger, as it contained more rooms for arger family. It also had a backyard, where several metallic benches were positioned to face the clearing of ice that extended past the yard¡¯s edges.

    Sitting on the benches were dozens of kids, all facing a stubby middle-aged man tinker with a few mortars a few dozen feet away from them. Johan immediately took a seat in the only free spot left, which happened to be right next to little Eevi. The spot was clear of snow, and its space had forced the other kids to squeeze together on the rest of the bench. It was clear that she had saved the seat for him.

    As he sat down, Johan felt a sweet scent that came from beside him. It was the little girl¡¯s perfume, which he quite liked, but never had the chance to tell her. He suddenly had a mind to do so now, but before he could, a rocket shot out of one of the mortars, and flew high up in the sky.

    Then, as it reached several hundred meters in height, it exploded in a dazzling spectacle of colors that came in waves, constantly shattering into thousands of sparks that flew in all directions.

    The show continued, and new and bigger fireworks were ignited, creating a mboyant spectacle for the kids to witness. And so they did, until finally, the biggest and most impressive ones, purposely left forst, exploded into a shocking sea of bright red lights that lingered in the darkening sky like confetti before dropping like rain.

    ¡°YEAAHH!¡± the kids screamed happily, not at all saddened by the end of the show.. All but Johan, whose gaze were still directed at the sky, where a few red lights had yet to disappear. Then, almost as if acknowledging the boy¡¯s attention, the lights started to move. A movement that did not fit the remnants of a firework.

    These sparks approached the ground, separating themselves from the rest, and as they came closer, the glow they carried disappeared, revealing the figures of several individuals d in bright red robes.

    More kids noticed the presence of these individuals, and were shocked by their ability to fly.. But before any of them could cheer, one of the figures stretched his arms outwards. From his fingertips, strands of blood-red power emerged, then shot towards the children with a mind of its own.

    These ten red threads soon came in contact with just as many shocked children, attaching themselves to the part of their chest where their heart would be. One of these ten kids was little Eevi, who was now looking at Johan with a mixture of confusion and fear.

    Just as worried, Johan looked back at her.. But then, the little girl started to change. Her smooth and rosy skin lost its luster, reced by a sickly gray rougher version. The same was happening to the other kids, who soon fell on the ground, too weak to stand. They all looked as if they had aged a hundred years in just a few moments.

    But, unfortunately, that was not all, for a few momentster, their aged bodies dried uppletely, and they died.

    ¡°Mhhh..¡± the hooded figure in the sky moaned with satisfaction. ¡°This world will make for a fine sacrifice.¡± He then added.

 Chapter 623 A Net Positive

    <h4> 623 A Net Positive </h4>

    Shocked by the sight of his sweetheart¡¯s terrifyingly quick death, the boy froze in ce. He had failed to notice a dozen more red-robed individuals descend from the skies, each releasing five more of those deadly blood-colored threads from both hands, capturing more of the town¡¯s innocent inhabitants.

    To shake him awake from his shocked state, was the sight of ten original threads that, after turning just as many kids into mummies, retracted into the fingertips of the man that floated above the iceke, only to emerge once again right after, in search of more targets.

    Unwilling to witness the grim show repeat itself, Johan turned towards the city and started running. His feet tapped the dirtyyer of snow as he ran past each house, trying to ignore the screams of the vige¡¯s inhabitants, who were most likely witnessing their loved one¡¯s demise before their turn woulde.

    After about a minute, Jonah finally came into sight of his house, but as he looked at its entrance, his blood froze and his body stiffened.

    In front of the pelt that acted as a door, five men in red robes stood. One of them, the one who stood at the front, was not wearing his hood, allowing for others to witness his appearance. He was a blonde young man, with eyes as bright and as red as freshly spilled blood, and a crooked smile on his face.

    The blonde young man seemed to be enjoying what he and hispanions were doing, but soon became serious as he came upon Johan¡¯s house. Once at its entrance, he turned towards arge individual that stood by his side, and asked, ¡°This is where she lives?¡±

    Therge creature nodded in confirmation before grabbing the pelt and moving it to the side, allowing for the former man to pass without having to dirty his own hands.

    Seeing the team of five approach the door of his house, Johan did not know what to do. He had left his family just minutes ago, and it was early evening.. There was nowhere his mother, father and brother could have been but at home. But what could he have possibly done to stop the group of five? He was just a kid, who stared nkly as murderers made their merry way into his house.

    Unaware of the boy¡¯s presence, the red-robed young man lowered his head and stepped forward. But before he could walk in, arge ball ofpacted snow connected with his face, exploding on impact, and covering him in soft frozen water.

    As the young man brushed the snow off his face, the four robed individuals turned to the side where the snowball hade from, and there, standing just twenty meters away, they noticed the figure of a trembling boy. His thin arms were dropping to his sides, and yet, he was still holding a second snowball, which he had intended to throw in case the first failed to catch the group¡¯s attention.

    As the four turned to look at him, he somehow felt relieved that the first snowball had worked, for their sheer gaze had erased any hostile thought in his mind. He could not bring himself to raise his arms.

    After the blonde young man finished brushing his face, he too turned towards the young boy, and stared at him with a pair of eyes that resembled twin bloody moons.

    For as threatening as this gaze was, however, the most terrifying part was how the satisfied smile had never left the blonde man¡¯s face. In fact, seeing Johan¡¯s pointless resistance seemed to have done nothing but excite him further, for the moment he noticed his presence, he started walking in his direction.

    While conflicted on whether to feel fear or happiness, Johan did not linger on the thought, and instead, he turned to run. But, s, he still did not understand the nature of these entities, as the moment he turned around, he saw the figure of the blonde young man standing behind him, looking at him from above, like a tiger would an injured rabbit.

    ¡°Young lord, we should really..¡± muttered one of the four individuals.

    ¡°Calm down, you forgot whose domain this is? We are in no danger.¡± Said the blonde young man while quietly cing his hands on top of the boy¡¯s shoulders. He then turned to look back at the boy, who was trembling like a leaf, and added, ¡°Plus, don¡¯t you know, nothing beats the sacrifice of an honorable character.¡±

    As he finished speaking, he took a step back, and stretched his arm forward, with his index fingering off of the boy¡¯s forehead by just a couple inches. Then, from the tip of his finger, a single, yet wider bloody thread started to emerge, stretching towards the boy.

    The thread wiggled forward, then stretched around the boy¡¯s body, slithering behind the back of his head, around his neck, down his vicle, and towards the left side of his chest. When it stopped, the end of the thread was floating just above the boy¡¯s skin, twisting on itself at a high speed, forming a drill of sorts.

    Just as it was about to dig into the boy¡¯s body, however, a quiet figurended on the blonde man¡¯s right shoulder.

    Feeling the oddly weak pressure, the red-robed cultivators looked up, only to meet the golden eyes of another cultivator. As their eyes met, the pressure went from that of a feather, to that of a mountain.. And it only kept growing exponentially.

    Unable to resist this infinite pressure, the blonde man¡¯s legs gave out, and he fell to the ground. A crunch followed, as the weight of the newly arrived individual hadpletely crushed the skin, flesh and bones of his shoulder, turning that entire area into mush.

    ¡°AAAARGH! KILL HI-¡± The blonde man screamed as an excruciating pain flushed through his body, forcing any feelings of satisfaction and superiority he had expressed until now to disappear in the blink of an eye. Before he could finish asking for help, however, a second footnded on his head. *CRUNCH* The pure white snow was painted by the sudden stter of fresh blood and brain matter, which sunk in it due to the residual heat each bit carried.

    The four red-robed cultivators could do nothing to stop the man. They could only watch as the events yed out in the span of sheer moments. Immediately they tried to react in an attempt to save their young lord, but before they could, his body exploded into a mist of golden colored sparks, which the newly arrived being had allowed them, and the boy, to see.

    These uncountable golden sparks shot in all directions, just like the fireworks the boy had happily witnessed just minutes ago, but instead of dissipating, they lingered in the air, before finally gathering around the man¡¯s body. They then seeped into his skin, granting it a holy golden hue that finally uncovered his appearance for the four red-robed cultivators to see. A young-looking man who gave off an air of divinity.

    He was, of course, Daniel.

    Witnessing the deaths of their young lord, the four red-robed cultivators were blinded by rage. From seemingly nowhere they unsheathed an array of weapons, and dashed towards the glowing figure, but, s, their desire for revenge would never be fulfilled, for the moment they took a step, four bolts of pure lightning fell upon them, smiting them out of existence.

    Once little more than ashes was left to dirt the otherwise clear snow, a second figure descended from the sky. A shirtless and barefoot young man with dark hair, and a schrly appearance, who was being carried by the winds. Gentle enough to not cause a disturbance, but powerful enough to hold the man¡¯s weight as it gentlynded his body on the ground.

    Roley hadnded right next to the boy, in front of which he bent slowly, and looked at with kindness.

    Daniel, on the other hand, was looking elsewhere. His attention was given to the people that inhabited this. They were mortals, just like he had once been.. Except that from none of them he could feel the powers of mana, or a specific form of ki. They were simple mortals, with no level of cultivation.

    What was curious about these people, however, was not theirck of powers. After all, this was not the first time Daniel had seen a primitive society. One that had yet to either reach their era of cultivation, or a high level of technological advancement.

    What had caught his attention was the karma each of these humans possessed. An amount that was neither too high nor too low, considering that they did not have the luxury of a long life, but that was, curiously, strictly positive. Not one of them, his powers told him, possessed negative karma of any amount.

    Johan was still frozen stiff. In his eyes, the murderers had only been reced by other murderers. And this fear was confirmed the moment a third figure, a middle-aged man d in heavy armor fell onto the ground with a loud boom, leaving a small crater under his feet.

    As the kid saw this man, he immediately noticed the injured figure he was carrying by the neck. A red robed cultivator who he wasn¡¯t sure was still alive or not, for it left behind a trail of blood. ¡°Who.. I-I do-¡± the kid tried to say something, but the words seemed to refuse to leave his mouth, as if they were frozen alongside his body.

    Seeing how nervous the kid was, Roley approached him, and after falling on one knee,pletely unbothered by the freezing temperature, said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we are not here to harm you, or anybody else. We will take you home.¡±

    The kid could not understand the meaning of the schr¡¯s words, but as he heard his voice, a feeling of calmness unfroze his body. Roley¡¯s hand gestures had somehow delivered the message his words had failed to.

    Once in a calmer state of mind, the boy looked around. Many people had died that day, both friends and enemies.. And he felt grief for both. An emotional response Daniel, Roley and Der found quite odd. Why feel pity for the enemies? They wondered.

    After a few seconds, the boy regained hisposure, and started walking towards his home, unbothered by the presence of the three individuals following him.

    It only took a few steps for the boy to reach the entrance of his house, which he opened with worry, revealing the figure of his father who, armed with the same iron he had been stoking the fire with, had been guarding the entrance from intruders. He had also been debating on whether to leave the house in search of his youngest son, but was stopped at the thought of leaving his other son and pregnant wife alone, and vulnerable.

    As the man saw Johan, he immediately dropped the iron, and squeezed him into a bear hug. Then, he noticed the figure of the other three individuals.

    ¡°Are you sure this is the ce?¡± Der asked Roley, as the sounds of battle started to resound across the small town, and far beyond. The armies of elementals and cultivators had started a massacre of the red-robed individuals.

    Roley kept looking at the alerted middle-aged man with a kind expression. His hands raised in a peaceful sign while he responded, ¡°It is. My mission was updated the moment we saved the boy¡¯s life.¡±

    ¡°Okay, what now?¡± Der asked as Daniel too turned to look at Roley. He was also curious about why they hade here to do, or what their next step was.

    Unfortunately, their curiosity was not his to dispel, as he shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, then said, ¡°I don¡¯t know. The objective is vague.. I guess something is supposed to happen now?¡±

    As if on cue, a pregnant woman with white hair emerged from the inner parts of the house. She was worried, yet ecstatic to see that Johan had returned safe and sound.. Yet, the moment her gaze met the golden sphere that had long reced the original color of Daniel¡¯s eyes, her demeanor changedpletely.

    Her loving and warm appearance had be frigid, and she now stared at him with a sharp gaze.

 Chapter 624 The Second Side of the Coin

    <h4> 624 The Second Side of the Coin </h4>

    Daniel seemed confused by the woman¡¯s odd behavior, but not afraid. He stepped into the house, and took a step towards her, ignoring the iron prod that was now pointed at his face. ¡°Do we know each other?¡± He asked with curiosity. His eyes narrowed slightly, as the golden hue retracted, revealing the more human-like original color of his eyes.

    With his immensely powerful mind, he was scouring through his memories. At this point in time, his mental power was powerful enough to allow him to relive the entirety of his life in just a few seconds, with close to no details missing. Yet, no matter how long he searched, he could not recognize her appearance, nor any form of power within her body.

    She did possess an aura of holiness to her body, yet it was in no way different than that of any other inhabitant of this, including the other members of her family.

    The suspicious woman kept looking at Daniel with her cold gaze, asionally throwing short nces at the odd schr that apanied him. The three formed a short stairway of interest in her mind, with Der being of no interest, Roley being somewhat interesting, and Daniel being the main focus.

    As time passed, the woman¡¯s husband started to feel more and more confused. While keeping the prod aimed in Daniel¡¯s direction, he turned to the side, and asked in his¡¯snguage, ¡°Liv, do you know these people?¡± He had not understood the meaning of Daniel¡¯s words, yet his wife¡¯s reaction to this stranger¡¯s appearance, as well as the young man¡¯s interest in her, was not lost on him.

    The woman, however, did not seem interested in answering either of the two. Instead, she kept staring at Daniel until, after a long awkward minute, her teeth clenched, and her expression softened. Her aggressive stare turned into an expression of worry, which she maintained as she grabbed Johan¡¯s arm and dragged him to the safety of her arms.

    ¡°No, I have never seen him.¡± the woman responded with confidence. A degree of certainty that confused her husband, for her words did not match her instinctive reaction upon Daniel¡¯s arrival. The three intruders, however, had lost interest in the couple, and instead, were looking past the woman, where a holy figure had emerged from the woman¡¯s back.

    The figure was a ghastly one. It possessed a female humanoid shape, but the details of her appearance were difficult to distinguish due to the immensely powerful and brilliant light her body was emanating. She was floating beside the woman she had juste out of, like a ghost that had been forced to part from the body they had possessed.

    A single look was all it took for Daniel, Roley and Der to recognize this entity for the creature that she was. An aspect of existence.

    Daniel suddenly understood why Roley¡¯s system had failed to predict this encounter.

    The kind he had just be part of might have shared the same multiverse as every other forms of sentient life, but they weren¡¯t natural. They were consciousness born from existential powers, and their nature went beyond the predicted path of fate. And that was somewhat true for the other champions of Destiny as well, whose system allowed them to operate above the constriction of fate, making their existence one capable of free will.

    As a former wielder of one of destiny¡¯s systems, Daniel had guessed that ack of continuation to Roley¡¯s predicted path was likely rted to the presence of another of Destiny¡¯s champions.. Possibly a benevolent one, considering the state of the¡¯s poption. But he had not expected that they would meet another aspect of existence.. Not so soon, at least.

    Full with curiosity, Daniel opened his mouth, but before any word coulde out, the silhouette interrupted him by saying, ¡°Not here.¡± Only Daniel and his twopanions could hear her. In fact, they were also the only ones capable of seeing her, and Daniel could tell, it was by the aspect¡¯s own decision.

    As she finished speaking, the glowing woman walked through a wall, disappearing from sight. But not before sparing onest nce to the reunited family, whom she seemed to be looking at with affection. An action that Daniel had not failed to notice.

    In a hurry, Daniel turned around and left the house, leaving to Roley and Der the task to apologize to the family for their intrusion, and if they wished to do so, to exin what had happened. As the two walked out soon after, however, he guessed that they too had chosen not to bother with an exnation, for they shared Daniel¡¯s curiosity regarding the nature of the glowing woman.

    After all, she could have easily been an enemy to them, and if that was the case, they had their armies to take care of, lest they wished for what happened with Horror to repeat itself.

    Like an angel, the glowing specter floated in the distance. She was headed for the top of the mountain of ice, from the top of which, the town was on full disy. Daniel, Der and Roley were able to follow right behind, for she was taking her time to look at her surroundings while on her way, seemingly worried about the state of the vige¡¯s inhabitants.

    After about five minutes of flying around, the group of four finally reached the top of the mountain, were a small tform had been cut out of the top with a clean sh, leaving behind a perfectly smoothyer of ice. Only one object was present on this tform, a single wooden chair, nowpletely covered in snow.

    At the sight of this wooden chair, Daniel felt an extreme sense of familiarity. A feeling he found odd, considering the shape of this chair was the one thing he had ever seen in his life, which he failed to match with one of his memories. This feeling had left him confused to say the least, but, luckily, this confusion was dispelled the moment the glowing figure approached the lonely piece of furniture.

    As if aware of the entity¡¯s presence, the several inches tallyer of snow that covered the woman¡¯s seat began to evaporate, leaving the chair itselfpletely dry, and clean.

    The aspect of existence approached it with unprecedented calm, and as her legs bent, right before she could be fully seated, the glow that had masked her appearance started to dim, revealing it to be that of a regr human woman. Not particrly beautiful, nor unsightly to look at, this woman appeared to be in her early thirties, with tinum blond hair put into a messy bun.

    Der and Roley looked at the woman¡¯s appearance, and coincidentally, they had the same thought. They could not help but think back to their mothers, for the woman that sat in front of them, regardless of her true nature and powers, gave off an incredible motherly aura.

    This shared thought, however, was dispelled the moment the two heard a faint chuckle. ¡°Of course.¡± Daniel then muttered to himself.

    He had seen this woman before. Or at least, he thought that he had. She looked exactly like the old woman Daniel had met when visiting the underworld, from which he had recovered the sleeping consciousness of his wife. She looked exactly like the aspect of Death.

    The only difference between this woman and the one he had met that day, was their age, for the old woman he had met in the psat looked exactly like the one that sat in front of him now, but was much older.

    However, while Daniel initially thought this woman to be the aspect of Death, as he recalled what he had seen so far, something suddenly clocked in his mind. ¡°You are the aspect of Life.¡± he said with a matter of fact tone.

    Surprised, Der and Roley turned to look at the woman, who had refused to answer each of Daniel¡¯s questions, and was staring at him quietly instead.

    Daniel did not need confirmation. Now that he had made the connection to the aspect of Death, he could piece the rest of the puzzle easily. It all made sense in his mind, why the¡¯s inhabitants all possessed positive karma, as well as why they did not possess a cultivation, and why they had been attacked.

    It was likely to be due to their pacifist beliefs, which prohibited them from taking a life that was not necessary to take. They weren¡¯tmon mortals, Daniel thought.. They were champions of Life herself, mortals that possessed no cultivation due to theirck of need for strength. After all, the selfish path of cultivation was not one that fit their nature.

    ¡°You look just like your younger sister.¡± Daniel said, hoping to erase the harmless hostility the woman was showing him.

    The mention of Death caught Life by surprise. After all, her sister was one of few aspects of existence the others avoided. Yet, the rtionship Daniel had with her did nothing to alleviate her hostility. ¡°Nothing you say will erase who you are, and what you do! Disruptor of fate, carrier of conflict, and harbinger of death.¡±

    ¡°You have no respect for life, so do not expect me to respect you.¡± the woman then added before turning to look past the three, and down to the town, where the armies of cultivators and elementals were ughtering the red-robed cultivators. It did not matter if those who were dying were her people¡¯s enemies, she disliked the sight of life being taken.

    Seeing that the woman would not abandon her distrust towards Daniel, Der and Roley started to grow nervous. In their mind, only one fate awaited those who challenged the nature of an aspect of existence, and the woman was Life herself. Who knew what powers she possessed? Maybe she could take their lives without batting an eye.

    In this newfound nervousness, the two turned to look at Daniel, who calmly shook his head in response, and looked at them with amusement.

    Daniel understood the aspects of existence more than hispanions did. He knew that it was within Life¡¯s nature, to respect the sanctity of life.

    The most important of the concepts inside which she was born, and the reason why she was as unlikely to take a life as the aspect of Death was to deny death. And while Daniel had been allowed to recover Alesia¡¯s consciousness from the underworld, she was still dead. It was only thanks to Daniel¡¯s actions that her life had been restored.

    Not many knew that those actions had deepened the nature of the aspects of Life and Death.. For thanks to Daniel, death had been proven to not necessarily be permanent, and that life was something that could be restored.

    Nevertheless, the woman did not appear appreciative for the favors Daniel had unconsciously granted her and her sister, and that had irritated him. To a point where he couldn¡¯t help himself but look down at the vige, and mutter, ¡°You lived with them. You have experienced the colors of their lives, their love.. And yet you were willing to watch as they were ughtered. Taken by an enemy that sought nothing but to mock you.¡±

    The woman seemed furious at the usation, yet she could not deny it. Everything Daniel had said was true.

    She had shared the pregnant woman¡¯s life. The life of a mother, of a wife.. The pinnacle life had to offer. And yet, she had done so without obligations. Even when the champions of Sacrifice, an aspect diametrically opposed to her in nature, started ughtering her champions, all she could think about was how life was meant toe to an end, and that it was not her ce to prevent it.

    To admonish the man that stood in front of her for something she had wished she could have done herself, for the first time in her life, she felt a deep shame. A feeling that softened her cold appearance, and restored her motherlike warmth. ¡°Thank you, for saving them.¡± the woman said before lightly bowing her head.

    Daniel nodded in responde, but did so with indifference. He did not care for the woman¡¯s thanks. He did not agree with the nature of her existence, for he believed some people¡¯s lives were well worth the weight of taking another. Yet, he had achieved his purpose.. To dispel some of the woman¡¯s hostility.

    Before the woman could change her mind, Daniel intended to ask her a few questions, but before he could, the woman lifted her head, and with a newfoundposure said, ¡°Let us get to it. Tell me what you havee to my domain for.¡±

 Chapter 625 Meeting Life

    <h4> 625 Meeting Life </h4>

    ¡°Tell me what have youe to my domain for.¡± The aspect of life inquired with what Daniel felt was a hint of respect. His perception had not failed him, for in him, Life had seen an entity that could afford to do something she couldn¡¯t, but had long wished she was capable of.

    She was the consciousness of Life, an aspect of existence that may not have been as powerful as the more omnipresent members of her kind, but was still deeply respected by the vast majority of aspects within the pantheon. Her existence was, to some extent, perceived the direct opposite to that of Death. None would dare deny the validity of her power. Yet, while respected, she was also a living consciousness. An entity that was able to feel emotions, and that included hatred.

    And hatred she felt aplenty, mostly towards herself, for she valued the sanctity of life and death, but also hoped for the waste of life to have a consequence.. Or purpose. That is what Karma was. Pure and deserved consequences.

    At first she had no good opinion on Daniel, but as she heard his words of reprimand, she came to realize that he was not only different from the rest in the way he had originated, but in character as well. He spoke just like any other mortal, creatures that had been able to evolve and survive while having to constantly face the barrier imposed by their conscience.

    To a mortal, life was valuable, and most of them would avoid wasting them, for they knew the weight death carried with its arrival. This concept, Life believed Daniel could understand. The same concept that made the inhabitants of this the most fitting to be champions of life.

    What Life did not understand, unfortunately, was that Daniel had long lost that side of his humanity, and that his empathetic words were but sweet words of nothing. He did not particrly care for the lives of these humans, nor was he bothered by the woman¡¯s inability to keep her champions safe.

    His intention was to prod the spot of her mind that she was the least confident about, and trigger a response. He was manipting her.

    But, s, most aspects of existence failed to understand this level of deceitfulness, and that was especially true for the aspect of Life, for her champions were pure and good at heart, andcked these types of selfish traits.

    As the woman demanded for an exnation, Daniel smiled faintly. He was satisfied by what he had achieved, but did not let it show. He would rather the woman think he was a better person than he actually was. ¡°We are looking for a group of cultivators, beasts and elementals. We believe we were led here because they had something to do with you.¡± Daniel responded patiently.

    The eyes of the middle aged woman narrowed, ¡°Elementals cannot be champions, and I have many humans and beasts living within my domain. What tells you that they are under my care?¡± She asked before suddenly remembering Roley¡¯s presence. He too, like Daniel, emanated a faint power of existence. One she had recognized as the gift of Destiny, which she was quite familiar with. ¡°Has his gift led you to me?¡±

    Roley took a step forward, and once he stood next to Daniel, responded, ¡°The trail we were following ended here. To rescue the boy of the woman you were possessing. I believe we were meant to meet you.¡±

    Seeing Roley from up close, the woman could not help but be surprised. His words had reached her ears, but something else was catching her attention, ¡°How did youe so far without losing your consciousness?¡±

    The woman had noticed apleteck of power of death around Roley¡¯s body. A power that, unbeknownst to them, every champion of Destiny possessed. After all, each member of their kind was originally paired with a host, who they were tasked to absorb the consciousness of, and steal their bodies from, effectively killing them.

    Roley, however, seemed to have lived far beyond the span of time it would take for one of the parasitic consciousnesses to take over their host¡¯s body. He also emanated double the amount of existential power of life, showing that he had not only maintained his consciousness, but was still sharing his body with another.

    Roley was not particrly interested in sharing his story with the aspect of existence. He also knew that her interest was only marginal, and that his nature had only allowed her to have a better predisposition towards him, as opposed to how she would have felt dealing with the warmongering sociopath the Elementalist was.

    ¡°It is a long story.¡± Daniel interjected, rejecting the topic of conversation. Then continued, ¡°The group we are seeking was quite numerous, and their members inhabited several connecteds which, thest time I have seen, they used to roam the multiverse.¡± As he finished describing, Daniel turned to look down the mountain before adding, ¡°The three species used to live in harmony, not unlike the creatures that inhabit this world. It would not surprise me if they naturally gravitated towards your domain of life.¡±

    At this point, Daniel was only fishing for information. The only trail he had led to this woman, and he was convinced that only she could direct them to the next step. Yet, despite how urate his description was, the woman appeared confused.

    ¡°Strange..¡± She muttered to herself. ¡°I can recall such a cluster ofs in my travels, one which gave off the type of aura your friend possesses. But it was uninhabited.¡±

    These words seemed to take a toll on Roley¡¯s and Der¡¯s mind, as they immediately stepped forward. Der especially, who hade too close, invading an unclear limit of personal space whose invasion Life appeared annoyed by.

    Apologetic, Der took a step back, then asked, ¡°Where was this? Where did youe upon it?¡±

    Life recognized Der¡¯s expression. It was the same expression Johan¡¯s father had on his face when debating whether to leave the house to search for him, or stay, and protect the rest of his family. It was pure worry, and distress. It was clear that whoever was part of the group they were seeking, at least this man had no ill intention towards.

    ¡°It was only centuries ago, inside a universe I have lost control over.¡± Life responded. In her voice was an equal degree of shame and anger, which resurfaced as she thought of the waste of life that had urred so that others could gain control over her territory. She also felt ashamed, for she was unable to stop it despite being capable of it. But, s, that was what she was. The aspect of life. An entirety empowered by all life within the multiverse, but who could also never kill anyone.

    ¡°You said it was uninhabited.. Have you seen any remains, or signs of battle?¡± Daniel asked, unwilling to let Der¡¯s worried state of mind derail them from their goal.

    Life shook her head. At the time, she had spent quite a bit observing the strange sight that had appeared in front of her eyes. On each she could feel the purity of nature, almost as if each world was made to host the beautiful variety of life present within the multiverse. She had regretted not being able to recover the system, which she saw as a most perfect aquarium, capable of creating its own life, given enough time.

    Unfortunately, while she had decided to fight to recover such a perfect habitat, it was difficult for her to fight without taking lives.. And if that was not enough, the aspect of existence that had invaded her universe was able to increase his influence far beyond that of Life herself, forcing her to leave the universe behind.

    ¡°No battle took ce on thoses.. And that came of no surprise, knowing which entity they must have faced.¡± Life responded with deep hatred. Her eyes once again turned towards the small town, now abandoned from the champions and elementals, and left for the few surviving champions of life to rebuild.

    ¡°Was it the aspect of Sacrifice?¡± Daniel asked. It made sense in his mind. Who but him existed to be a threat to Life? Overlord of beings who wasted the lives of others in pointless sacrifices, or wasted their own ving for poor wages and little to no recognition. Very little good was present in the nature of Sacrifice, and he was, overall, a malevolent existence.

    Daniel found the nature of Sacrifice to be dependent to that of Life, and found it quite odd, considering Sacrifice itself must have acknowledged the value of life, for its sacrifice to be worth something. The irony was not lost on him.

    The aspect of Life nodded in confirmation. Her rtionship with Sacrifice could be described as an abusive one, for thetter knew what her weakness was. She wouldn¡¯t take a life, and since she represented what Sacrifice lived to see the end of, he had educated his domain to always be aggressive towards the champions of Life. In fact, Sacrifice had so little respect for Life, that he allowed his champions to outright instigate her.

    Due to the nature of their rtionship, Daniel was inclined to believe in the story she had told. Many were the universes the pacifist aspect of existence had lost to his nemesis, and it appeared that his people had, identally, found themselves in the middle of this conflict.

    Luckily, Daniel thought, the aspect Life had med for his people¡¯s disappearance was the aspect of Sacrifice.. Had she lost the universe to the aspect of Horror instead, who was at an even higher level than Sacrifice, there would have been close to no chance that his people could have survived the invasion.

    Unfortunately, Der and Roleycked this type of understanding, and the moment they witnessed Life¡¯s nod of confirmation, they became extremely gloomy. After all, while Roley¡¯s system had somehow confirmed their family and friends to still be alive, what quality of life could they have been experiencing while imprisoned in Sacrifice¡¯s domain?

    ¡°Very well. Can you pinpoint us to the lost universe? We will pay a visit to the abandoned system.¡± Daniel said with an indifference that sent a shiver down hispanion¡¯s backs. The fact that he wasn¡¯t affected by what they had discovered, they found quite disturbing.

    The aspect of Life looked Daniel up and down for a few moments, then stopped as her eyes met his own. She was not looking at Daniel¡¯s appearance, but considering which degree of influence a universe full of life could grant him. After all, influence was the source of their kind¡¯s powers.

    ¡°If your intentions are to fight Sacrifice, I would suggest you put the idea aside.¡± Life said before looking to the side. She did not appear convinced that Daniel could match her old nemesis.

    ¡°I have fought worse.¡± Daniel responded, slightly irritated by the woman¡¯s words. He felt an uncharacteristic pride towards his power. One that he had never possessed when he was a cultivator.

    Life shook her head in disappointment. She had noticed Daniel¡¯s pride.. She had seen it before in the members of her kind. Yet, she did not start a debate with him. Instead, she exined, ¡°Sacrifice belongs to a different type of aspect of existence.¡±

    ¡°And what type would that be?¡± Daniel asked.

    ¡°The worst type.¡± Life responded right away. ¡°While not bound to sentient creatures like your power, all three of us are bound to life.. But his bind is much looser than our own. If you fight him, you will have no more chances of defeating him than you would defeating an ancient one.¡±

    The woman did not appear willing to speak more clearly than this, and yet, it was somewhat enough. Daniel had always been a smart individual, even before cultivating his mental power. The moment he had heard that he would be facing the aspect of Sacrifice, he had already started thinking of all the concepts the aspect of sacrifice would include.. And this vague warning had revealed more to him than it had to his twopanions.

    As she finished speaking, Life slowly rose to her feet, regaining her original brilliant appearance. Then walked towards the edge of the tform. As her pale footnded onto the air, she left the three with a fewst words, ¡°If you kill him, I will mourn for a lost life, knowing that he deserved it.¡± She then disappeared, shrouded by the cloud she had walked into.

 Chapter 626 Consequences of Change

    <h4> 626 Consequences of Change </h4>

    ¡°This is not much to go by..¡± Roley voiced his opinion with a dispirited tone, following Life¡¯s departure.

    He had already tried to create a new mission through the use of his system, but any attempts to trigger a response from it had gone unanswered. This told him that Life was not the only aspect of existence the group would encounter in their goal to reunite with their friends and family.

    Der was sharing his old friend¡¯s state of mind, but he did not appear as distraught as Roley was. Instead, he was more interested in Daniel, who was standing indifferently, as if the future of the people they were trying to find was of no concern to him. ¡°Where do we start?¡± He asked him.

    ¡°Where ¡®can¡¯ we start, did you mean?¡± Roley corrected him.

    Daniel shrugged his shoulders. ¡°We will start by looking for my. As I recall it, it possessed a perfect habitat. I find it unlikely that the domain of sacrifice would just let it drift away.¡± He said right before his innate spiritual essence took control over the surrounding space. A momentter, he took off to the sky, disappearing from the sight of the others.

    Once the two were left alone, Der turned to look at Roley, who was about to follow Daniel, and asked, ¡°Have you noticed his behavior?¡±

    Roley stopped, and after hearing his words, showed a hint of relief. Ever their reunion, Roley had thought he was the only one to have noticed that something was wrong with Daniel. After all, mental cultivation was not his speciality, meaning that his memories of the man were hazier than he would have wanted.

    Der¡¯s question, however, had confirmed to him that Daniel was indeed acting strangely. ¡°I have. His expression.. His reactions. They are quite, unnerving.¡± Roley responded, reminiscing of all the times he had expected Daniel to get angry, orugh with them, but never had.

    ¡°What do you think happened to him during all these years?¡± Der asked with a grave tone. He was aware that Daniel had changedpletely as a living being, and that he was now an aspect of existence. Yet, he still hoped that the boy he had met in the past was not lost, and that, in the worst case scenario, he could be recovered.

    Roley did not respond. He too shared Der¡¯s hopes, but he too was now a champion of Destiny. He could tell by spending time with the Elementalist that these inhuman consciousnesses did not possess the same traits as mortals, and he feared that, by bing one of them, Daniel had been forced to pay an enormous price. A price his friends and family would have never allowed him to pay, even if in exchange for their safety.

    Unfortunately for Der and Roley, there was nothing they could do now, and they knew it. They had a more pressing issue, and that was the recovery of their people. A goal they meant to aplish no matter which state Daniel¡¯s mind was in. ¡°A problem for another day..¡± Roley muttered pensively before rising to the sky, and going after the aspect of Karma. Der followed right after.

    ¡ª¨C

    After their encounter with the aspect of Life, Daniel, Der and Roley had been left with only one trail to follow. One that did not give them much hope, but that was still better than nothing. And that trail led to the universe Life had lost to the domain of Sacrifice centuries ago. A universe which used to be full of life, but that now, had lost its color.

    Since their goal was to investigate theirpanions¡¯ disappearance, Der and Roley left the Immortal Armada and the Elemental Army within the universe Life was inhabiting. That way, they would not only be able to infiltrate the universe without attracting unwanted attention, but would also keep the two armies safe.

    After all, the domain of Life was unlike the untouched universe they had recently abandoned, for its biggest threat wasn¡¯t the full extent of a malicious domain¡¯s armies, but only a few champions of sacrifice, who would invade Life¡¯s universes to take special offerings for their Lord, or to instigate the one aspect of existence they knew would not smite them out of existence.

    And in case a bigger threat arrived, the Immortal Armada was still in possession of their formation¡¯s schematics, as well as the majority of the spatial treasures needed to operate them.. So they were quickly able to settle down in one of thes closest to the interdimensional portal, establishing outposts and blockades within the Trigate.

    Knowing that their people were finally safe, it felt like a weight had been lifted off of Der and Roley¡¯s shoulders, allowing them to focus on the task at hand without worries.

    After a bit of traveling through the Trigate, the three came upon a particr portal. One guarded by thousands of red-robed figures, who weed ten times their numbers stepping in and out of the portal. Alongside outgoing traffic, the cultivators carried enormous cages as big asrge cities, each filled to the brim with humans, beasts, elementals, and other sentient beings.

    These cages came out one after the other, and left in the direction of another interdimensional portal in a single line, indicating that the destination of all the convoys was the same portal.

    ¡°What are those??¡± Roley asked as a shiver ran down his spine. The desire to free the captives had almost forced him to step in, but he was quickly stopped by Der, who pulled him back in line.

    ¡°Those are offerings.¡± Daniel said as an odd smile crept onto his lips. The sight of those creatures¡¯ mistreatment did not amuse him, of course, but realizing what made Sacrifice such a scary aspect of existence did. ¡°So this is why..¡± He then muttered to himself.

    ¡°This is why what?¡± Der asked, confused by Daniel¡¯s strange utterings.

    Daniel did not turn around, and instead, pointed his finger in the patch of space in front of him. As his finger reached the height of his shoulders, a small golden light appeared, sealing itself in ce. ¡°This is the limit of power an absolute aspect of existence can tap into from a universe.¡± He exined before lowering his finger down to his belly, ¡°..and this is the limit of an aspect like Sacrifice.¡±

    Still pointing at the lower light, he continued, ¡°This is the most he can obtain from a single universe, because his nature is limited to the presence of life. However, what if he forces an increase in influence?¡± While asking the question, Daniel raised his finger, stopping short of the higher spark of golden light by only a couple inches.

    ¡°Hold you. You are telling us that they are taking all these people to Sacrifice¡¯s main universe to-¡± Roley asked.

    ¡°To sacrifice them, if need arises.¡± Daniel could not help but admire the aspect of Sacrifice. He had achieved something that not many within the pantheon of aspects of existence could have. He had concocted a method to increase his power beyond the limitations a single universe could provide to him.

    Many others had tried to do the same, but only the nature of sacrifice was able to make it possible. After all, while Sacrifice wasn¡¯t an omnipresent power, and its production was limited to the collective sacrifice of every living being within the multiverse, who was to say that he could not bring more people in? It was not much different than keeping batteries, so that if a ck out happened, he would have extra energy at his disposal.

    With this method, Daniel reckoned, Sacrifice could have achieved a higher personal power than Horror would have, and that was astonishing, considering Sacrifice was but a subject of Horror.

    The only two others aspects of existence that could have used this method to increase their influence, were the aspect of Life and Death, who could have achieved the same result by bringing more people into their universe, and either force them to reproduce, and increase the influence of life, or kill them, increasing the influence of death.

    Luckily, the natures of Life and Death were peaceful ones, and neither would ever meddle with the duality of life and death. They respected each other¡¯s element, for there would be no death without life, and no life without death.

    ¡°That is monstrous!¡± Der barked out angrily. ¡°Do you think Mea and the others are being trapped in the domain¡¯s main universe as well? To be used as reserves of power for the aspect of Sacrifice?¡±

    ¡°That is my guess.¡± Daniel responded before turning towards the nearby interdimensional portal. As he started heading towards it, Der and Roley stopped him.

    ¡°Where are you going? If they are being held captive, shouldn¡¯t we be heading to the domain¡¯s main universe?¡± Der asked with suspicion. He had no other goal but to rescue his daughter, and was against anything that could stop him or dy him from doing so.

    Roley was of the same mind, but remained quiet. While he was behaving oddly, Daniel had still saved them, put an end to their people¡¯s irreconcble conflict, and rescued the champions of Life. He still trusted his judgment, despite finding it quite foreign.

    Daniel suddenly stopped, turned towards Der, and said with sheer indifference. ¡°If my guess is correct, and they are indeed being kept captive, that means that they will be safe as long as nothing threatens Sacrifice¡¯s hegemony. Something like a sudden invasion from the aspect of Karma, a champion of Destiny, and an emotional warrior.¡±

    His words seemed to infuriate the middle aged man, who suddenly grabbed by his arm, and spoke into his ears, ¡°We will go save our friends immediately, and you wille with us.¡±

    An odd form of power seeped into Daniel¡¯s ears, and shrouded his mind. For a few moments he stared at the portal with a nk face, seemingly unable to control his body, but then, a golden light emerged from the depths of his being, turning him into a human-shaped star.

    Daniel¡¯s arm shed out of existence, and when it reappeared, it connected him to Der¡¯s figure. The hand was tightly wrapped on the man¡¯s chestte, preventing him from moving away. ¡°Your little trick doesn¡¯t work with me, so stop trying. I just need you to follow along, quietly.¡±

    Roley suddenly appeared next to the two. His hand wasying on top of Daniel¡¯s arm. His face was marked by an aggressive seriousness. ¡°What has gotten into you?¡± He asked Daniel.

    ¡°Can¡¯t you tell? He is out of his mind!¡± Der growled while grabbing Daniel¡¯s wrist, and freeing himself from its grip. He then added with sheer anger, ¡°You two do what you want. I will go save them myself.¡± As he finished speaking, Der turned towards the direction the convoys led by the champions of Sacrifice were headed.

    Before he could join them, however, a faint light of pure gold emerged from his body. His surroundings slowly started to erge by many times, turning the already immense scenery into one unspeakablyrger. What he did not know, however, was that his surroundings were the same as they had always been.. It was his body that was shrinking.

    The moment his size becameparable to that of an atom, he was pulled backwards, and into Daniel¡¯s body, where his karmic prison was waiting for him.

    Daniel had finally grown tired of Der¡¯s constant opposition. He had his own ns, and his own priorities.. But hecked patience for disobedience. The only reason he was bothering with this task was to keep a promise he had made with himself, after all, and that promise did not include following a distraught man¡¯s suicide mission. Luckily Der possessed a positive karmic debt, so his imprisonment would feel more like a rxing vacation, rather than the worst circle of hell.

    With a now much less friendly demeanor, Daniel turned towards Roley, whose appearance was stricken by sheer horror, and said, ¡°You wille with me, willingly or not. Understand?¡±

 Chapter 627 Just Like I Was

    <h4> 627 Just Like I Was </h4>

    Roley¡¯s eyes were wide open. His skin had crawled into a bumpyyer, and his heart was racing at a wild pace. Daniel¡¯s words had rooted him on the spot, leaving him unable to utter a single word, even when the former turned away, and went ahead without him. It took a fair amount of time before Roley was finally able to calm down.

    Until now, Roley had only entertained the idea that Daniel had changed. He did not behave like he did before.. A behavior that, while cold and calctive, was still aimed at granting the safety of his friends and family. But now, Daniel was another person. A person he could hardly recognize.

    As he watched him leave towards the interdimensional portal, Roley had started to wonder whether following Daniel was the wrong decision, or if he would be better off leaving, and trying to rescue his friends without him. Yet, as he remembered what had happened to Der, Roley put the idea aside. Not because he was scared the same fate would befall him, but because now, Daniel was holding Der hostage.

    He had no choice but to follow, and so, as Daniel approached the portal, he did. With hastened pace Roley caught up with Daniel, and together, the two barged into the interdimensional portal under the suspicious scrutiny of the champions of Sacrifice.

    Once inside, the two felt an immense difference between the universe they had juste from, and the one they were currently visiting. To Roley, this differencey in the behavior of its inhabitants, who, instead of living their lives respecting the sanctity of life, transported offerings by the millions out of the portal, all stuck into cages that could hardly contain them.

    To Daniel, however, the difference went much deeper.

    In this universe he could feel the power of Life being oppressed by the nature of Sacrifice, just like he could feel the greed, cowardness, vanity and devotion of the domain¡¯s champions. A stark contrast from the holy power Life¡¯s champions emanated, resembling more a stench of corruption and ignorance.

    Yet, while less appealing to what was left of his human side, this grim atmosphere felt morefortable to Daniel¡¯s nature as the aspect of Karma. The reason for this odd affinity, he knew, was the fact that peaceful creatures tended to produce less karmic power than malevolent ones. And to confirm this, was the amount of karma each type of champion possessed.

    The champions of life generally possessed a positive karma, yet the amount was quite negligible. Sacrifice¡¯s champions, however, lived to take lives, offering them to their lord, to their superiors, or to gods they did not believe in.. amassing an incredible amount of negative karma. And while the domain of sacrifice possessed a noble side to it, that of self sacrifice, its concept was a minor part of the entire aspect of existence.. Making the domain of Sacrifice one of the most malevolent within the multiverse.

    As the two observed their surroundings, they found themselves in a sort of junction. Arge space station where thousands of convoys filled to the brim with offerings were forced to form the single line Daniel and Roley had seen continue out in the Trigate. These prison transports came from all directions, carrying the most valuable member of each civilization to the main universe of Sacrifice¡¯s domain, where they would serve as ¡®reserve offerings.¡¯

    As they passed by them, the champions of Sacrifice eyed Daniel and Roley with interest. Their domain did not prohibit entrance from anyone, and for a simple reason. Any visitor was a possible volunteer.. Especially the powerful ones who did not belong to any other domain. That was what the two were in their eyes. High quality offerings.

    Before any of them could even attempt to capture them, however, Daniel opened a rift with a casual motion of his hand, and alongside Roley, left for the depths of space.

    As the rift closed behind them, Daniel and Roley found themselves in an unknown part of the universe, very far away from where they arrived. In fact, they were so far from the interdimensional portal that they failed to pinpoint the characteristic light blue shine it possessed, meaning that the light of the portal had yet to reach the space they were upying even after billions of years.

    Once away from prying eyes, Daniel turned to look at Roley, and with a much calmer tone, ordered, ¡°Find the.¡± The he meant was, of course, the one his system of Karma had created for him. The world he had been able to form thanks to the power of hisprehension of the elements, and that he had left for the members of his group to inhabit.

    A that, in theory, was simr to the elemental world within Roley¡¯s body, but that in reality, could not be more different.

    The way in which this differed from the elemental ne inside Roley¡¯s body, was that Daniel¡¯s was a physical object, and used the essences of space, time and sound of the multiverse as the foundation on which to build a living world. Roley¡¯s elemental ne, however, was entirely shaped by the powers he had merged with, and thereforecked space, time, and sound, giving it a calmer feel, not much dissimr from that of an abstract painting.

    While Daniel¡¯s was moreplete, however, the elemental ne was far moreplex, for its elements were not a copy of mana¡¯s concepts, but true primordial essences. Oncepleted, Roley could have imed to have created a new universe. One separated from the multiverse and the Trigate they were bound to.

    Roley, of course, knew what Daniel meant, so he quickly formted a mission with the use of his Elemental system. He then read through the translucent window¡¯s content carefully, before ordering for it to disappear.

    Daniel waited for Roley to report what the system hade up with, but before he could even ask, Roley spoke first, ¡°When do you intend to let go of him?¡± He inquired while looking at Daniel¡¯s body, inside which he assumed Der was being imprisoned.

    Slightly annoyed by the question, Daniel struggled to maintain hisposure. He needed Roley¡¯s cooperation more than he needed Der¡¯s, so he could not simply trap him as well, and spend the next million years looking for his. ¡°No harm is being done to him. I am keeping him there until he calms down, then I will naturally let him out.¡± He exined with a calm, yet still slightly indifferent tone.

    All Roley wanted to know was that Der was safe and sound, after all, the memory of Horror¡¯s power caging them into a never ending cycle of suffering was still vivid in his mind.. He would have never allowed Der to go through that hell again, especially not after seeing the state of mind he had been in since.

    Now that Daniel had confirmed that no harm woulde to his friend, Roley felt a wave of relief wash over his body. There was still a slight possibility that Daniel was lying, but, seeing how he had behaved towards them not too long ago, he somewhat doubted Daniel would even entertain the thought. They weren¡¯t worth lying to.

    Knowing that Der was not suffering, and that his imprisonment would notst much longer, Roley became more cooperative. He then approached him, willing to share the content of the system¡¯s window, but before he could begin, Daniel¡¯s voice appeared in his mind.

    ¡°I know what you two think of me, and I understand why.¡± He whispered directly into Roley¡¯s mind. ¡°But you, in particr, I hoped would understand my position.¡± Daniel¡¯s voice was not spoken, but transmitted through mental power directly into Roley¡¯s mind. Not even the Elementalist could hear these words, for Daniel had wished so.

    Slightly confused by Daniel¡¯s words, Roley asked, ¡°What do you mean? Why would I understand?¡±

    Daniel shook his head in disappointment. Then responded by saying, ¡°Did you think there would not be a price to pay in exchange for the gift of Destiny? That nothing would have changed?¡± At this point, Daniel turned to look away. ¡°Your new power is still a cocoon.. One you cannot stop from breaking apart, freeing you from all the worries and ties you impose on yourself.¡±

    ¡°What if I don¡¯t want this.. change?¡± Roley asked, slightly nervous. He could not imagine living a life where nothing meant anything to him.. Nothing but himself.

    Slightly amused by his old friend¡¯s naivety, Daniel showed a faint smile, then said, ¡°You have a choice.. Destiny¡¯s championsck all but choices.¡± he then turned serious, and continued, ¡°What youck is the certainty of what choices you will make. Look at your goal.. Can you truly achieve it while avoiding reaching your highest potential?¡±

    Daniel was speaking from experience. He still recalled the day he had been forced to forsake his humanity in exchange for power. At the time, he had done it to survive.. But that was only the case because survival was his goal. What if he had a broader dream? What if he had the same goal as Roley? To save an entire species from oppression.. Maybe then he wouldn¡¯t have felt forced into that choice, but would have weed it.

    His words gave Roley much to think about. After all, he had only just recently be a champion of Destiny. In his mind, perhaps due to the Elementalist¡¯s presence, or maybe because he had never felt that the system was his, that notion had not settled yet. He still looked at himself as the lord of the Elementals.

    As Daniel noticed Roley¡¯s conflicted expression, he decided to do something he too felt was uncharacteristic of the new him, and that was to reassure him. ¡°I may have changed, and I may not feel what I felt before, but my goals have not changed. I will keep you safe.. All of you. I owe it to the person I was.¡±

    His words were able to draw Roley¡¯s attention. He had found what Daniel had just said curious. Yet, before he could ask for rification, Daniel said out loud, ¡°The. Let¡¯s go, I will follow you.¡±

 Chapter 628 Black Castle and Bloody Rivers

    <h4> 628 ck Castle and Bloody Rivers </h4>

    In a remote corner of space, was a cultivator.

    Young only in appearance, with long blond hair that went down to his lower back, he wore a loosely fit red robe, which was undone down to his waist, revealing his lean, yet defined physique. Under a pair of sharp blonde brows, two sanguine globes roamed the skies, scouring the scenery as he sat onto a delicately made outdoor chair.

    This young man appeared to be rxing, taking in the spectacr scenery while kicking his feet up onto a short garden table, both located, alongside a second unused outdoor chair, on what appeared to be a small balcony at the edge of a dark room. In his hand was a ss chalice, halfway filled with a mixture of alcohol he had just found, and blood.

    As he brought the grim concoction up to his ring red lips, he sipped it, allowing for it to cover his mouthpletely before finally swallowing it. He was thoroughly enjoying it, just like he was enjoying the scenery that appeared in front of his eyes. A sky on whichrge multicolored globes danced around one another with a regr motion, orbiting around the he was staying on.

    Theserges never shed with one another, and simply roamed the skies, hindering the sight of the starry sky, but forming a spectacle that was uniquely rare to witness all across the multiverse.

    ¡°Sect leader, it is time.¡± Said a voice that came from behind him.

    As the blonde cultivator turned around, he noticed the beautiful figure of a short, jet ck-haired woman dressed in a simpler, yet simr attire to his own. She was standing in the middle of a room, right in between arge wooden door, a polished desk, and a neatly done king-sized bed.

    This woman was bowing politely, showing great respect towards the blonde young man, who slowly stood up, and walked towards her. Once just a step away, the man pinched her chin, and lifted it until the woman was staring at the ceiling. He then moved his face closer to her neck before inhaling deeply, taking in the woman¡¯s scent.

    Naturally, the beautiful woman did not move. She knew that the one she called sect leader was not smelling her perfume, or her natural scent.. But the smell of her blood, as it flowed through her veins and all over her body. She did not fear it, after all, as anything the man would have chosen to do to her, she would have felt honored about.

    ¡°How many?¡± The blonde cultivator asked, as his long and pointy tongue threatened to brush against the woman¡¯s neck.

    Trembling in her own skin, the woman responded, ¡°Fif-Fifty thousand, my lord.¡± As she finished speaking, the fingers that had pinched her chin let go of her, and she was once again free to move. She slowly turned to look at the man, and on his face, she saw an ecstatic expression.

    As if having lost interest in the woman, the blonde cultivator walked out of the room, and past several dark corridors, until finally, he stepped into the light, where a small tform of neatly cut stone awaited him. He was now standing at the peak of a ck castle, which ruled over thend like a mountain of polished onyx.

    On this round tform a dozen more cultivators awaited his arrival, each standing as part of two curved lines that followed the tform¡¯s edge, separated by the entrance the blonde cultivator had just walked out. In the middle of the tform, was a one meter tall sacrificial altar, round in shape, and with engravings that seemed to have been consumed by the sheer amount of blood that had flown through them.

    On top of the altar,y a young woman dressed only in a doubleyer of bandages that covered her breasts, and a simple loincloth, which covered her private parts. Her wrists and ankles were bound by a ck rope, forcing her in the lying position no matter how much she struggled.

    Satisfied by the woman¡¯s appearance, the blonde cultivator stepped closer to the sacrificial altar, then turned to his left, where, connected to the tform, he saw a thousand steps tall staircase filled with men, women, children and elderly individuals, each standing on every step. The line of sacrifices, of course, continued far past the bottom of the stairs, and in between mounds of brown matter whose nature was, from that high up, hardly distinguishable.

    At the sight, the man felt incredibly satisfied. After having fought his brothers and sisters for the past two thousand years, he had finally managed to obtain the position of the Blood Sect leader. A position that came along with control over what, for the past century, had be the main headquarters of the sect.

    Today was the day of his investiture, and as tradition dictated, he was to perform the sacrifice himself, hoping that the aspect of Sacrifice would notice his contribution, and grant him a boon. It was fortunate, he thought, that he enjoyed ughter, or this might have felt like too much work.

    While excited about what was toe, however, the blonde cultivator could not help but feel a tinge of regret. He was now the leader of the Blood Sect, the highest of all of Sacrifice¡¯s champions, and yet, he was missing something.. The arts he had longed for time immemorial, the teachings of his former master.. The Blood legacy.

    ¡°If only I had received his legacy.. Today would have been perfect.¡± the blonde young man thought as his bare feet tapped onto the cold stone. The tied woman, as she saw him approach, began to squirm in panic. The thought of what was toe had sunk her into a deep desperate state, which prevented her from noticing as the rough rope started to dig into her skin, and draw blood.

    Strangely, however, the man did not hurt her. Instead, he lifted his hand, and gently ced it on top of her wavy red hair. Then, with extreme gentleness, he started to caress her head. His strikingly handsome face, while tainted by the terrifying sight of his blood-colored eyes, was morphed into a caring expression, which he used to calm the woman down. ¡°Shh.. All is going to be okay.¡± he whispered to her.

    The woman was utterly terrified, and the sudden end of her struggle did not symbolize a regain of herposure, but a fall into an even deeper state of fear.. One where the prey would inevitably stop struggling, for all hope was lost. Only mercy could have saved her now.

    As her wide eyes looked at the blonde cultivator¡¯s creepy expression, she felt the warm touch of his other hand onto her stomach, then, a sharp pain. Muffled by theyers of cloth that was used to gag her, she let out a blood wrenching scream thatpletely covered the noises of the man¡¯s hand sinking into her flesh, and digging through her entrails.

    Sustained by the healing essence the blonde young man¡¯s hand was injecting into her forehead, the woman could do nothing but experience the excruciating pain, unable to even die. She could feel his hand push through her intestines, then into her thorax, until finally, it reached her wildly beating heart.

    With his arm in up to his elbows, the man gently wrapped his fingers around the woman¡¯s beating heart, and finally, after the minute long torture, he stared deep into her eyes, and closed his hand into a fist, crushing the most vital of her organs into a red paste.

    Finally, the woman had died.

    Once the first of many sacrifices were killed, the man removed his arm from the woman¡¯s corpse, and immediately after, dived into the wound head first, eager to taste the shiny red and warm liquid that had pooled into her caved belly. Like a doe that for the first time had tasted water, he drank a mouthful of fresh blood then stopped.

    He then stood back up, and with half of his face covered in blood, he cut the woman¡¯s hands and legs loose before roughly pushing her off the altar, causing her body to roll out of the tform, and down the side of the castle wall. As her body reached the bottom of the descent, she became part of the scenery.. One more clump of rotting flesh on top of mounds formed by millions of corpses, all stacked one onto another into several brown-colored hills.

    Extremely satisfied, the blonde cultivator looked ahead, where in the sky, hundreds ofrge tforms floated. Each carrying thousands of red-robed cultivators that bowed in honor of their new leader, and in honor of the lord they served.

    ¡°To Lord Sacrifice.¡± the blonde cultivator uttered with a tone that reached the far end of thes.

    ¡°PRAISE BE, PRAISE BE, PRAISE BE!¡± The tens of thousands of cultivators chanted in response before one of the twelve cultivators that stood behind him approached the top of the staircase, grabbed the following offering by his arm, and pushed him towards the altar, where the blonde cultivator awaited for him in a state of pure ecstasy.

    What followed were weeks, months of needless ughter, at the end of which the entire tform, as well as the body and clothes of the blonde cultivator, werepletely soaked in blood.. The oldest of which being ck and dry, while some of it still ran warm.

    At some point, during the sacrificial ceremony, the body of the sect leader had started to glow with a bright red power. A power that was connected to him, and strengthened his gift of sacrifice.. For its nature was the existential power of Sacrifice itself, which he had produced to honor his lord.

    While the actual aspect of Sacrifice did not care, nor knew about this tradition, the many cultivators took the increase of existential power on their leader¡¯s body to be a boon of their lord, and almost a sign of recognition. An act to which they responded to by prostrating themselves until their foreheads touched the floor, and their knees pressed against their chest.

    ¡°Long live the new Blood Emperor!¡± they yelled to the top of their lungs.

    Seeing this, the blonde cultivator felt on top of the world. He was staring at his subjects, at the power inside the body, and at his new empire with sheer satisfaction. A feeling that was diametrically opposed to that of the twelve men and women who stood behind him, for they were the other candidates to his position, who had been forced to give up their ambitions if they wished to keep their lives.

    Their feelings, however, were not the blonde young man¡¯s concern.. For he was now drowning in pleasure. His arms, both covered in the freshest and most lucid blood, stretched outwards, and he let the light of the stars and the devoted chanting bathe him.

    But just when he felt his spirit was about to reach the pinnacle of existence, the chanting suddenly stopped, reced by a soft murmur. Confused, he opened his eyes only to find that he was not standing alone anymore, but that next to him, was a young man. A young man who, like him, stood at the edge of the tform, looking down at the rivers of blood he had created, and at the mounds of corpses thaty at the bottom.

    The young man had arrived in absolute silence. He had appeared like a ghost, and without saying a word. No one had felt his presence, the powers of his body, or the movement of the surrounding mana. If they could not see him with their own eyes, they wouldn¡¯t have believed he existed.

    As he noticed Daniel¡¯s arrival, the blonde cultivator approached him. He had no intention of talking to him, for he could feel that the man¡¯s ki and spiritual essence were at a slightly lower level than his own. Yet, as he took a step forward, he froze in ce. A cold and indifferent voice started to y in his mind. ¡°No form of sacrifice is more valuable than the sacrifice of one¡¯s own life.. Would you not agree?¡± Daniel asked.. Not only to the blonde young man, but to all cultivators present before taking a short pause.

    ¡°Would you like me to help you?¡± he then asked.

 Chapter 629 The New Leader of the Blood Sect

    <h4> 629 The New Leader of the Blood Sect </h4>

    Daniel¡¯s appearance did not go unnoticed to the tens of thousands of cultivators who, just moments ago, were watching the ceremony so religiously. So, at the sight of him, they immediately sprung up on their feet, and took off to the skies, where they traveled the few hundred meters of distance resembling a swarm of irritated red-colored wasps.

    As the quickest and strongest of the group approached the tform, however, their blood-soaked leader stopped them on their track with a simple wave of his hand. Then, with a voice that resounded across thousands of miles, he said with extreme confidence, ¡°Be calm.. ¡®Tis nothing but one more offering I am honored to deliver to our Lord.¡±

    At this point, one of the hooded champions that stood next to him took a step forward. It was a woman, as one may infer from her short stature and delicate voice that rang in her leader¡¯s ears, as she said, ¡°Elder brother, something is wrong with this one.. Maybe you should leave him to-¡°

    Her gentle voice was immediately cut off, as the blonde man raised his red hand up to his shoulder. A hint of anger had appeared on his face, which he immediately tried to conceal. ¡°You know our oldest tradition. Today¡¯s offerings are mine to give, and no one else¡¯s.¡± He growled in a low tone that only the woman could hear, forcing her to fall back and resume her position.

    Naturally, the woman did not believe Daniel to be a threat more than her new leader did. The reason she had stepped forward, was to taint the sanctity of the blond man¡¯s investiture, which, by tradition, saw the leader of the blood sect receive the grace of the aspect of existence they served by themselves.

    Had someone else offered a sacrifice in their stead, the existential power produced would belong to them, allowing them to make the im that, the day of the event, Sacrifice did not favor the leader alone, but the other person as well.

    The tradition the blonde man spoke of, however, was not a true tradition. In fact, the Blood Sect had really only had one ruler before. At the moment of this ruler¡¯s sudden and mysterious passing, the oldest sect disciples, left without a guide and a chosen candidate, had created this tradition. A day that allowed them to im the leadership of the blood sect, and its billions of subjects, by proving their worth to the aspect of Sacrifice.

    While many within the sect believed this to be a fair method, it was also far from being the most peaceful, since each candidate possessed enough power to afford an infinite amount of offerings, if they so decided. This friendlypetition hadsted for over a century, and led to the highest spike of influence in the history of Sacrifice¡¯s domain.. But also to a standstill between thirteen of the sect¡¯s disciples.

    Specifically, the blonde young man, and the twelve others who stood by his side.

    After a hundred and twenty years, dissatisfied by the results, the disciples finally chose a more direct approach, and instead ofpeting for Sacrifice¡¯s love, they let their fists talk. A method that proved to be less fitting to the nature of their domain, but more on the line of human behavior.

    From being apetition, the event turned into an investiture, where only the strongest of the sect¡¯s disciples were allowed to spill blood for the Lord, considering the boon of existential power to be a reward they had earned thanks to their superiority.

    The blonde cultivator was the youngest of the former leader¡¯s disciples, and currently, the strongest champion within the blood sect. For the woman to help him, in front of all of his strongest followers, was not only an insult to his strength, but would also taint the validity of his investiture-And that, he could not allow.. No matter what danger he was in.

    As the woman stepped back, the blonde cultivators turned to look back at Daniel, who was still standing quietly, as if unbothered by the presence of the tens of thousands of cultivators that wished for nothing more than to ughter him to prove their loyalty. But none of them dared, and instead observed in silence as the blonde cultivator raised his blood-covered right hand up to his stomach, with his palm facing up.

    He then brought his left hand onto it, and with the tip of index finger, dug onto the skin of his palm, forming a gash from which fresh blood began to ooze in excessive amounts, forming a small pool. This blood, however, did not stop at pooling onto his palm, but instead, continued to rise up into a small liquid column that quickly rose past his chest, shoulders, chin, and mouth.

    The moment the highest part of this small column reached the height of the man¡¯s be. Like an upside down river of blood, the column kept dancing in pace, until momentster, the excesses started to flow down, revealing the shape of a bloody sword.

    As soon as the sword was revealed, it turned into a haze alongside the arm that held it.

    Daniel immediately rocked his head to the side, avoiding the sh that came for his neck at light speed, yet, even he could not avoidpletely, for when the reddish haze turned back into the man¡¯s arm and sword, he was left with a superficial cut at the bottom of his neck.

    The cut immediately started to ooze blood, but before the amount it took to form two droplets could emerge, his spiritual power had already taken over, turning into a holy white power that immediately sealed the injury. As Daniel brushed his thumb over the spot where only moments ago was the cut, any trace of it was gone, including the small bit of blood he had bled.

    Surprised by Daniel¡¯s immediate reaction, the blonde cultivator did not panic, nor did he be enraged. Instead, he seemed amused. After all, a sacrifice was only worth what the offering¡¯s life was.. And a stronger offering offered a stronger boon from his lord. An offering like Daniel, in his mind, made for the perfect ending for his investiture.

    As he thought of this, the blonde young man became even more excited.. Prompting him to disappear once more. When he reappeared, he was standing next to Daniel, against which he unleashed an uncountable amount of attacks that made the speed of the previous one pale inparison.

    Daniel maintained hisposure, and focused on the man¡¯s sword, which wasing dangerously close to his vital organs every time it was swung. Luckily, with a bit of effort, he was able to keep up with the man¡¯s speed, causing the blonde cultivator to cut little more than the air that surrounded him.

    As the duration of the exchange reached a single minute, a time long enough for the leader of the Blood Sect to unleash tens of thousands of attacks, he had started to find something odd.. His opponent was incredibly fast, and despite his initial sess in cutting him during that first sh, his de had never again been able toe in contact with Daniel¡¯s body.

    He noticed, in fact, that Daniel¡¯s reaction had grown sharper, while hisposure had remained as calm as ever. To him, it almost felt as if the indifferent young man was not struggling to maintain his life, but was sparring with an amateur.. A wild and infuriating assumption that happened to be, unbeknownst to him, painfully close to reality.

    After seeing the ck castle he used to inhabit, Daniel had remembered much of his past. Of all the training he had done to achieve the highest level possible of martial arts, of all the hours he had put sparring against the castle¡¯s training dummies, and the people he used to consider his closest friends. Memories that, however, did not trigger any feeling of mncholy, but simply birthed the realization that he had lost touch with his martial arts skills-So he decided, for his own amusement, that this was the right asion to brush those skills off.

    As time passed, it became more and more clear to the blonde young man that Daniel was not being serious, but that changed, slightly, as the red des started toe at a much faster rate.

    Entertained by the increased difficulty, Daniel was quick to realize that his opponent had not gone faster, but that instead, several more des of blood had emerged from his body. His left hand, both elbows, knees, his shoulders.. Even his feet now had shorter swords protruding from his soaked skin, which he used as a follow up attack whenever the original sword failed to find its target.

    The rate of attacks grew exponentially, reaching a speed that made the body of the blonde cultivator almost disappear, for light and space had started to curve under the saw-like pressure of his red des.

    But, s, the increase of effort was all for naught.

    Fine minutester, the motion of the blonde cultivator came to aplete halt. His once amused expression had morphed into one of feral rage, with eyes wide open, brows that could reach the sky, and teeth gritted so hard that they threatened to shatter from the pressure. He was embarrassed, and furious.

    ¡°AAAARGH!¡± the blonde cultivator roared as he flung his foot forward. An attack he did not expect tond, for it was a simple expression of his state of mind. Yet, contrary to his expectations, the bottom of his foot connected with his enemy¡¯s stomach, sending him flying back and off the tform.

    At this point, Daniel¡¯s body was like that of a normal mortal, and after receiving the blow, it dropped down the castle¡¯s wall and towards therge mounds of corpses.

    Pleasantly surprised, the blonde cultivator followed suit, and jumped off the tform in a simr fashion, allowing himself to fall hundreds of feet in the embrace of gravity, and only slowing his descent as he came to ground level, where Daniel was standing calmly in a free yet small patch of ground that was in between three different mountains of corpses.

    When he reached the bottom, the leader of the Blood Sect noticed that Daniel was looking at his surroundings with a look of indifference. How much must this intruder be struggling to stop himself from gagging in disgust.. From shrieking in fear, and screaming in horror? The blonde man thought, finally regaining a semnce ofposure.

    ¡°Do you enjoy the scenery? I have created it myself with great effort.¡± he then said beforending on top of the biggest of the mountains of corpses, where the majority of the offerings of thest few days hadnded. The body he was standing on was, in fact, still warm.

    For a moment, Daniel kept looking at his surroundings. Then, the indifference on his face turned into an appreciative look. ¡°Never seen anything prettier.¡± He muttered to himself as he took in the sight.

    These few words sent the blonde cultivator on high alert. Very few domains possessed a nature as brutal as that of the domain of Sacrifice. If Daniel was not affected by such a terrifying sight, then he must have belonged to one such domain, he thought. ¡°Are you from the domain of Horror?¡± He asked carefully.

    In the case Daniel was truly a champion of Horror, the blonde cultivator would have felt awful. After all, that would have made Daniel his superior, for the domain of Sacrifice was subjected to the domain of Horror. For that reason he felt obliged to verify that the person he had tried to kill was not someone he should have bowed to.

    Unfortunately, the man had misunderstood the intruder¡¯s words. He had thought that Daniel was happy with the gruesome scenery, but that was not the case.. For what he saw was not the same scenery Daniel was seeing.

    In Daniel¡¯s eyes, his surroundings were not an enormous open grave, but a sea of golden lights. Pure unfulfilled karmic power that brushed together like small waves from different currents, before merging into a golden river that instinctively flowed straight into his skin, eager to be one with him.

 Chapter 630 An Unusual Gift

    <h4> 630 An Unusual Gift </h4>

    This sea of karmic power, in Daniel¡¯s eyes, seemed alive. Like a dense school of fish, the uncountable specks of golden light danced around his body, eager to dive into his skin and finally be one with him. As this power merged into his body, Daniel felt the strength of his influence increase, charging him with the existential power he knew more than anybody else. Yet, as more and more of this power poured into him, he suddenly realized something.

    This amount was far too little.

    Each sentient creature was capable of producing the existential power Daniel represented. Every conscious action, every mean word or show of kindness.. They all contributed to the karmic score of the individual, umting into either a debt, or a credit.

    Yet, what Daniel had noticed long ago, was that most of these debts and credits remained unpaid, for karma could not affect them at the moment of their deaths, at which point the tally the deceased left behind would exist as unfulfilled karma, or power for Daniel to use at his own discretion.

    What Daniel had realized, however, was that while he was surrounded by a vast amount of karmic power, the sheer quantity was iparably smaller than that he had obtained from each of the champions of Horror that had died at the hands of Roley.. And there was an obvious reason for that.

    The members of Horror¡¯s horde were all cultivators who had lived an infinitely long life. They were powerful entities, each capable of bringing destruction to entire civilizations. A feat they had each repeated several times throughout history.

    Due to their nature, the amount of negative karma they had umted was incredibly high.. The highest highest of all types of champions. And despite that, even whenbined into Daniel¡¯s body, such power was hardly enough for him to resist the infinite strength of a creature like Chaos. In fact, it would have barely been enough to fight Horror, had the encounter taken ce in one of the universes in which his power ruled.

    Such an immense amount of power had beenpletely exhausted the moment Daniel had escaped Chaos¡¯ grasp, leaving him a weak cultivator. If not for the surprise caused by the sudden outburst of power, Chaos could have easily exerted more power to keep Daniel trapped. Who knew what would have be of him at that point.

    The power Daniel was absorbing now, however, originated from a type of creature that waspletely different from the champions of Horror. The hundreds of thousands of piled up corpses belonged to mortals and low level cultivators, who did not have the time to increase their karmic tally before being ughtered by the domain of Sacrifice.

    ¡°If I am to face Sacrifice, Chaos.. Fate.. I am going to need much more power than this.¡± Daniel said out loud as thest bit of golden entered his body, leaving him unsatisfied and not much stronger than a normal champion of existence. Had he met Horror now, without the karma of hundreds of thousands of his champions at his disposal, he would have been the one to run, and likely die.

    The blonde champion of Sacrifice took a step forward. He had heard Daniel¡¯s words, but he could not understand their meaning. ¡°Face lord Sacrifice? What do you mean?¡± he asked with sheer confusion and a hint of suspicion.

    His simple question seemed to bring Daniel back to earth, forcing him to look around at the now grim scenery, where thousands of bodies fused together due to their dposed state, dripping with sweet smelling liquids that pooled into the disgusting sickly grayyer on which he was standing.

    At the sight of all these dead bodies, Daniel could not help but feel upset.

    While he did not detest the idea of these people¡¯s karmic power being at his disposal, it also made him rethink the true value of karma. Was the existential essence he represented just some power specific to his use, or was it more? A consequence to people¡¯s actions, and a true moral punishment or reward to their behavior.. That was what he had believed it to be.

    Daniel slowly turned towards the thousands of flying red-robed cultivators, and while on each of their bodies he felt more karmic power than all these bodiesbined, he could not help but think that killing them, and taking the power for himself, was against his nature.

    After a few moments of questioning his existence, Daniel finally made a decision. A verdict that, he believed, the people that all these corpses used to be, would have admonished him for making. But he did not care. Karma existed to enact its purpose, and that purpose was to reward or punish behavior.

    While Daniel delved into these thoughts, the blonde cultivator had slowly inched towards him, and now he was at an arm¡¯s length, ready to strike at any given moment. Before he could, however, Daniel¡¯s eyesnded on his, sending a shiver down his spine. ¡°Make the most out of the time you have left.¡± Daniel said with a sympathetic tone.

    Hearing these words, the blonde cultivator stopped doubting. His arm shed out of existence, and the red de attached to it swung at Daniel¡¯s neck, easily finding its target. As it sunk into his opponent¡¯s flesh, the blonde young man felt ecstatic. The de pierced the whole way through, severing Daniel¡¯s arteries in half, and causing copious amounts of blood to pour onto his de.

    Yet, alongside the blood, came a golden light, which only now the champion of Sacrifice had been able to see.

    This golden light seemed to ride onto Daniel¡¯s bood, creeping down the sanguine de to reach the man¡¯s palm, where it came in contact with something he did not even know had been around him all this time.. His own karma.

    As Daniel¡¯s power touched the man¡¯s karma, the two began to merge, and he suddenly found himself bound to space, unable to move. ¡°HELP ME!¡± the blonde man yelled in a state of panic, as the golden aura that surrounded his body started to weigh against him, forming a pressure he was sure he could not fight against.

    The tens of thousands of red-robed cultivators immediately sprung to action. They unsheathed their weapons, and spilled the blood their arts required before dashing towards the intruder, yet, before they could go too far, the air that surrounded them started to change.

    The atmosphere that only moments ago was not unlike that of any other garden, was now extremely viscous, like honey, or msses.. It gripped at the cultivators¡¯ bodies, weighting on them, and forcing them to slide onto the ground.

    Shocked by what they were seeing, the twelve other candidates immediately realized that Daniel was not a foe that they had the right to fight, so they turned to leave, but as they tried to move, they realized that their feet had sunk into the tform¡¯s smooth surface. Some had sunk down to their knees, while the taller among them had sunk down to their shin, yet none of them had understood how.

    They could see the stone wrapped around their legs, but they could not feel its cold and hard surface. It was almost as if the stone had morphed under some obscurew of space, preventing them from realizing what was going on before it was toote.

    What they were unaware of, unfortunately, was that there was never a moment after setting foot on this in which they had been safe. This was the Daniel¡¯s system had created for him by using his understanding of natural mana. He could change its shape, expand it to a hundred times the size, or turn it into the size of a rock. Every gust of wind, every grain of sand, every drop of water or drifting cloud.. They were all under his control.

    ¡°Who-who are you? Why are you doing this?!¡± the blonde cultivator asked as the surrounding scenery slowly started to grow in size. His tone was full of panic. He could not understand what the nature of the golden power was, nor to which aspect of existence it belonged. All he knew was that all the existential power of sacrifice he had produced felt like a grain of salt against the mountain that was now pressing onto his body.

    Daniel smiled. He found his struggling expression quite amusing. Completely different from the feeling of pure satisfaction he had shown as he took one life after another,pletely unaware of the possibility of having to face the consequence of such a choice.

    ¡°I am not doing anything. You did this yourself.¡± he said as the blonde man shrunk to the size of an atom. Then, when the man could not hear him anymore, he added, ¡°Pay your debt.. And earn your freedom back.¡± The moment he finished speaking, what looked like a normal golden speck of light floated towards him, and dove into his body, starting the near-endless suffering the blonde cultivator would have to endure for the following millions of years.

    The same happened to the twelve candidates, as well as the tens of thousands of red-robed cultivators, who had started to feel the same immense pressurend on their bodies before inevitably starting to shrink.. When nothing of them was left but a cluster of microscopic golden lights, they too dashed towards Daniel¡¯s body, forming a golden hurricane with him at its core.

    Once alone, Daniel closed his eyes. He could feel an immense amount of karmic power within his body, but also how it was not connected to him. In his eyes, such power was more simr to coal.. Used to heat the room that each of the people he had trapped was stuck in, fueling their sufferings or rewards.

    The only power that was within his grasp was the unfulfilled karma that had once belonged to the mountains of corpses. And while it was not much, he still felt grateful to some degree.

    Suddenly, a thunderbolt shed across the sky, andnded directly onto the biggest mountain of corpses, setting it aze. Powerful winds followed right after, carrying twigs and dry leaves that were aimed at feeding the mes..

    Soon enough, therge fire had turned into an incendio that covered the entire castle, as well as the mountains of corpses that surrounded it.

    ¡ª¨C

    When the fire finally died out, several hourster, Daniel found himself in the middle of dunes of ash. Yet, his body waspletely clean.

    ¡°What happened here? Are you done?¡± Roley asked as he slowly descended from the sky. He had no idea what kind of events had yed out on the, after all, nothing was left of those who inhabited, for they were either turned to ashes, or trapped into Daniel¡¯s karmic domain.

    Daniel nodded.

    The moment the two hade upon the cluster ofs, Daniel had made a request. He had asked that Roley stay behind, while he visited his old home alone. A request that Roley had a mind to reject, but that eventually, he chose to indulge.

    Daniel did not want Roley to see what type of massacre had happened on his. One which he could witness from far away in the distance. He wanted Roley to keep the good memories he had of their old home, and of thes where his people would soon live. He wanted to, so that he would not refuse what he intended to do next.

    ¡°I am.¡± Daniel said as a gentle breeze lifted the ashes, and carried them across the entire. ¡°I am done with this ce.¡± he then added as he slowly turned to look at the ck castle that had been purged by the fires he had created.

    Confused, Roley asked, ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    Daniel did not respond, and instead, he stretched his arm forward. His fingers curved, and his hand took the shape of a w, which he used to quietly grab at the empty space in front of him. As his fingers closed, the on which the two were standing on suddenly copsed on itself, shrinking to a size that was just right to fit in Daniel¡¯s hand.

    Now the size of a fist, Daniel looked at the for a few moments, then handed it over to Roley while saying, ¡°This is your now.¡±

 Chapter 631 Hope for a Better Future

    <h4> 631 Hope for a Better Future </h4>

    ¡°This is yours now.¡± Daniel said while handing the fist-sized to hispanion, who looked at it with confusion.

    Roley, unsure of whether this was some sort of test or not, did not take the right away. But when Daniel let go of it, leaving it to float in space by itself, he immediately reached for it. He knew how valuable the object was, despite Daniel seemingly having no interest in it.

    As he held it in his hands, he could not help but feel an immense affinity with the object. He knew that it was a construct made by Daniel¡¯s karmic system, but for some reason, he believed that he could merge with it, and that it was incredibly suited to whatever kind of being the elemental system had turned him into.

    While the fist-sized rested on his hand, almost eager to be part of him, Roley turned to look at Daniel, whose interest was dedicated to the lone ck castle that had separated from the the moment thetter had shrunk to its current size. ¡°Mine? Wha-Why are you giving me your?¡± He asked, still dumbfounded.

    Without bothering to look back, Daniel shook his head in disagreement before responding, ¡°It¡¯s not a. It¡¯s just a treasure of my old system. And yes, I am giving it to you.¡± His tone was stable and detached, showing that he truly had no lingering attachment towards the item, nor towards the memories he shared with it.

    ¡°You didn¡¯t answer my question. Why are you giving it to me?¡± Roley once again asked as his fingers unconsciously tightened their grip around the small orb. It almost felt as if the had be maic, and his fingers could not part from it anymore.

    This time, Daniel turned towards Roley to answer. ¡°Do you feel anything odd about it?¡± He inquired in a manner that made it abundantly clear that there was a correct answer he was hoping Roley coulde up with.

    Roley examined the miniature which, shrunk to the size of a fist, did not possessrge mountains, deep crevices or bottomless oceans. It was, in fact, quite smooth, like a round stone with the asional small bump and bit of water that, unbound by gravity, had started to hover above the¡¯s crust, threatening to part from it and fly away at any moment.

    For a few moments Roley began to ponder about the questions, reaching a conclusion soon after, ¡°It¡¯s a construct of perfect elemental essences which, borrowing time, sound and space from the surrounding universe, makes a perfect habitat for life.¡±

    Daniel¡¯s lips curved downwards and his brows rose, as he acknowledged the uracy of Roley¡¯s answer. Yet, he did not appear to be satisfied by it. ¡°That is true. I remember needing a minimumprehension of spatial essence to sustain that world, when it was yet to be a world. I also remember how, once it was fully formed, I realized that I could borrow those essences from the multiverse¡¯s natural mana. It made things much easier..¡± He exined, as his eyes rested on the ball which did not feel his anymore.

    As his gaze switched from the miniature to Roley¡¯s confused face, however, he added, ¡°But you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. What is it not?¡±

    Roley once again turned to look down at the small he was holding, and suddenly, a shiver rushed down his spine. ¡°It¡¯s not primordial.¡± He muttered to himself in a ghastly tone that Daniel heard clearly, causing a faint smile of satisfaction to appear on his face. ¡°You.. You think that by giving me this, I can turn it into a primordial habitat..¡±

    Daniel nodded, then added with a matter-of-fact tone, ¡°Provided that you don¡¯t assimte it, and take ownership of it.. It will change into yourprehension of the elements, and turn into a physical construct of primordial mana.¡±

    Suddenly, the item Roley was holding felt incredibly more precious than it had before. Before he had been holding something extremely useful, and dear to the people he considered friends and family.. But now, he was holding the key to his people¡¯s future. A solution to poverty, an end to wars, a promise of peace and a cure of famine and sickness all in one.. That was how valuable this item had be to him.

    Yet, that was not all. After the initial shock, Roley¡¯s expression deepened, as he realized the true potential of such an item. A realization that he could hardly put into words due to how life-changing it was.

    The saddest reality of Roley¡¯s path and purpose, was the fact that those whom he was fighting for, were the weakest of sentient life. They were conscious, and while their natural behavior had been hammered into a pacifist mold, they could be trained and conditioned into bing asbative as any beast or cultivator. Their true problem was not their character, or even their numbers. It was the impurity of the mana which they were born into.

    Many could righteously im that elementals were much more simr to the aspects of existence than beasts or cultivators, for they too were born from the power they represented.

    The difference between the twoy in what birthed their consciousnesses, which, in the case of the aspects of existence, was the sheer amount of existential power present within the multiverse. What birthed an elemental, on the other hand, was theprehension of the element, which extended outwards from treasures of nature like the spores of a mushroom, deepening theprehension of the surrounding objects, and eventually, allowing them to form a consciousness.

    Most schrs, when asked to exin what this process entailed, would usually use the same example. A drop of water was nothing more than a drop of water as it fell from the sky, but that changed once itnded into an ocean, where that drop would assimte the concepts of water¡¯s interaction with salt and other minerals, currents, and heat.

    A simple concept many had understood, but they had also realized, possessed a regressive form of evolution to it, for it gradually watered down the nature of mana from its purest form. After all, while an expert could teach one hundred percent of what they had learned, how much knowledge would their students retain? And how much of that would those students impart to their own students?

    The Elementals weren¡¯t weak because they were peaceful, they were weak because they were born from nothing, like humans and beasts.. But their path towards power was infinitely longer than theirs.

    However, a primordial habitat could change that.

    Not only would the living elementals be able to deepen theirprehension and evolve to the highest level, but their newborns too, not having to spawn from imperfect elements, could be born as primordial elementals. Young and naive, but holding a power that only a handful of their kind possessed across the multiverse.

    As Roley looked at the sphere, he realized that this gift was not only for him, but for the whole kind he had vowed to protect. But while before this protection would have inevitablye to an end at the time of his death, this had given him hope for the future. A future where the elementals would be powerful enough to survive on their own.

    At the thought of this, Roley¡¯s body started to shake, as an indescribable feeling of excitement rushed through his body. He was extremely grateful.. More than he could express with simple words, so he did not speak. Instead, he stopped struggling against the desire to merge with this treasure, and suddenly, a window appeared in his mind.

    This window posed a simple question to the wielder of the Elemental system, and that question, was whether he wished to absorb the relic into his system, and obtain one of its powers at random, or whether he wished to gain ownership over it.

    Immediately Roley remembered Daniel¡¯s words, and picked the option that would allow him to gain ownership over it.

    As soon as the decision was made, the translucent window disappeared. Roley looked down on the fist-sized, and felt that his bond to it had deepened to an incredible degree. In fact, it almost felt as if the was an extension of his body, and he had full control over it. He could control its structure, its size, and the elements it possessed. A world of his creation that only he had the right to rule.

    ¡°So this is what it feels like..¡± he muttered to himself as he remembered how Daniel had controlled it before. Then, curious about the extent of his control, Roley injected a bit of his essence into it in an attempt to reshape its structure.

    This bit of power, albeit small in quantity and not too powerful, merged into the like drizzle into dried up soil.. And then, the came to life. The mountains, the rivers, the woods and winds-The shade that gave contrast and light that gave color.. They had once looked artificial, like a-sized terrarium, but now, they felt real and true.. Just like any other.

    The biggest difference, however, was the elemental power the emitted. A power that was now full andplete, and that ryed the primordial nature of the elements. A truly perfect world for his people to inhabit. A home.

    Roley held the in his hand, and felt incredibly moved.. Yet somewhat sad.

    Two thousand years. That was how long he had invested into the protection and development of the elemental army that followed him. A time in which he had lost many of them due to poor judgment and his own weakness.

    And yet, Daniel, whom he knew cared very little for his people¡¯s survival, had been able to do more for them than he had in so much time. He had saved them from Horror¡¯s clutches, and gave them a hope that was far beyond what they could have even imagined.

    As he thought of this, he could not help but feel a degree of shame.

    For a long minute, he held his now most important possession, not daring to look back at Daniel, for he did not wish to meet his gaze. A faint dispirited smile appeared on his face, as he thought, ¡°My efforts, in the end, amount to nothing.¡± As he started to wonder whether Daniel should be the one following his path, his eyes moved on his old friend, who had now entered the ck castle, seemingly uninterested by his actions or state of mind.

    Thisck of interest did not escape Roley¡¯s attention, causing the thought that Daniel could fulfill his goal better than he could, to be put to the back of his mind. He then pocketed the small, and followed Daniel into his exploration of the ck castle.

    As he caught up to the indifferent and aloof aspect of existence, momentster, Roley asked, ¡°I will ask this again.. Onest time. Why did you give it to me?¡± The question did note from a ce of suspicion, but one of genuine hope. A hope that maybe Daniel truly wanted to help him, and that something of their old connection was left under the manyyers of indifference.

    Of course, Daniel knew that the way Roley had posed this question was not to imply that he had to answer, or else. He knew that if he did not wish to answer, Roley could not force him to, so he was only given the chance to. One that Daniel did not take advantage of, choosing to remain quiet.

    In reality, the reason why Daniel had gifted his former to Roley was not to aid him in his quest. In fact, he cared little for it. What he truly wanted was for Roley¡¯s system to develop, and evolve, bringing him closer to bing an aspect of existence.

    But that, he believed Roley did not need to know.

 Chapter 632 War Of Blood, Flesh And Fire

    Unwilling to share his true intentions with Roley, Daniel decided to resume his exploration of the ck castle instead. His former home, and house to the closest members of his group. Just before walking off, however, Roley noticed that a small speck of golden light had been shed by the aspect''s body, and had moved on an unupied spot near the castle''s entrance.

    Once this light reached its destination, its intensity quickly started to grow to the size of a lighthouse''s light bulb, until finally, only momentster, the light dimmedpletely, revealing the kneeling figure of Der. A pose he was holding while bent forward, with his rough andrge hands resting on his thighs, and his head hanging forward. His figure was quite sorry, Roley thought at the sight of him.

    While the young cultivator had expected his old friend to burst in a fit of blind anger, or for him to start swinging his fists and sword towards Daniel''s departing figure, something else happened. Der let his body lean back, stopping himself from fallingpletely by nting his palms onto the pavement''s cold ck stone. He was now facing the ceiling with a sorrowful expression.

    A disappointed countenance one could only see on the face of someone who had woken up from the most beautiful of dreams.

    It took a couple of minutes for Der to regain his bearings. Something he had desperately tried to avoid, as he closed his eyes in the hope to fall back into the happiness he had gotten so used to in the few hours he had been trapped. Hours that, to him, had felt like centuries.

    As Der finally came to terms with reality, he looked at the figure of Daniel, and finally understood who the young man truly was. "Goodbye, friend." he whispered to himself as he realized that the boy he had met in the past, was now gone. Reced by a god of consequence.. An absolute judge of morality and conduct.

    At the sight of his parting figure, Der could not help but wonder how atrocious the consequences of negative karma could have been, whenpared to how painfully beautiful the ce he had been trapped in was. He imagined that such a ce must have not been less terrifying than the world of suffering created by the existential power of horror.

    Of course, while Der was not far off, there were differences between the two. Horror''s powers forced someone to live inside their deepest and most horrifying fears, while the power of Karma would force them to experience the horrors they had caused in life.. To feel the suffering their victims had felt. Yet, to the mind of Der, who was still scarred by the horrifying nature of Horror''s powers, that difference might have been non-existent.

    "Are you okay?" Roley asked, pulling the middle-aged warrior right out of his pensive state.

    Der nodded, then stood up, dusted his armor off, andposed himself. His mind had only now let go of the beautiful dreams, and once again focused on reality. On his face, the usual stoic expression had imed its rightful ce, as he decided that, despite experiencing imprisonment from both the powers of Karma and Horror, he had no intention of changing who he was as a consequence of the fear such powers provoked in him.

    "I am." Der answered without stopping to look at the corridor where Daniel had disappeared into. Then added, "Come on, we should go too."

    From a single look, Roley could tell that something had changed in Der. He was more respectful, and more calm.. As if he had just obtained an answer to one of the deepest questions in life. And little did he know how urate that assumption was.

    Yet, as Der invited him to follow Daniel, Roley stood still. "You go ahead, there is something I need to do first." He said before leaving the castle, and jumping back into sidereal space. Then, as he walked out of his former home, the small had reappeared in his hand. A perfect fist-sized sphere that emanated the purest form of natural mana.

    "My Lord.. is this.." said a silvery disembodied voice right before, from the darkness of the surrounding space, a dark silhouette took form. It was a dark elemental, whom Roley had ordered to follow the trio into the domain of Sacrifice so that, in case he had orders to send back to his army, the creature could ry for him.

    Roley smiled with pride. "Yes, it''s our people''s new home." He said as his grip over the small sphere became loose, and the object left thefort of his hand. As if with purpose, the sphere floated away in a specific direction and with increasing speed, until finally, it finally disappeared from sight.

    Then, like a kernel of corn in hot oil, the sphere exploded, turning into an enormous.

    At the sight of this, the dark elemental felt extremely excited, yet, before she could express her joy, she felt something change deep inside her. The shade of the trees, the shadow of the mountains, and darkness of the more obscure depths of the ocean all rushed into her being, and before she could realize it, they merged with her.

    All the concepts of darkness that formed her body as a perfect elemental of dark essence seemed to have finally found structure, merging into a primordial representation of her nature. She had be, after millions of years of failed attempts, a primordial elemental of darkness. A state of existence only thete ancestor of dark elementals she knew to have reached.

    Roley too, at the sight of this, felt extremely giddy. He was aware that such an event was bound to be amon urrence soon.. "Call the rest of our people, have them join us." He ordered the primordial elemental who, underneath her inscrutable dark appearance, was joyous beyond words.

    While overjoyed, the dark elemental did not forgo her duties. "Yes my Lord, right away." she said right before her silhouette dissipated into the surrounding darkness.

    -----

    In the weeks that followed, Der and Roley had reunited with their respective two armies, and together, they had broken through the blockade that prevented entrance from outside the interdimensional portal, officially moving into the universe. An action that officially started the conflict between the domain of Sacrifice, and the two unknown groups.<sub> </sub>

    Unfortunately for the domain of Sacrifice, while they could assume that someone had invaded one of their universes due to theck of guards right outside the interdimensional portal that led into it, they could do nothing about it. After all, when reinforcements arrived, they realized that the portal had been sealed, preventing any form of passage, and leaving the surviving champion of Sacrifice left in the universe to fend for themselves.

    Left with no other choice, the reinforcements of Sacrifice''s domain attempted to reach the battlefield-turned universe by going through the rifts present in the bordering universes, but those ns too fell apart, for the universes they were sure existed in a shattered state, were nowpletely copsed ahead of time, and a death trap themselves.

    Yet, despite theck of reinforcements, many champions of sacrifice were left in the vast universe. A sign which indicated that this universe in particr, which was used as the home of the Blood Sect, must have been of high value to the domain.

    Nevertheless, none of that mattered, for the remaining champions of Sacrifice were of no threat to the organized armies led by Der and Roley, whose powers drastically increased every day.

    The Elemental army in particr, after being granted a primordial to inhabit, had seen the rise of hundreds of primordial elementals. Creatures who had evolved from a perfectprehension of the essence they represented, and to which they had been stuck at for hundreds of thousands of years, into powerful primordial elementals.

    The members of the Immortal Armada had moved into Roley''s world as well, and from it, they had gained a deeper understanding of the elements. Yet, their stay was temporary, as human cultivators could teach one another better than elementals could. The use of such a would fall short the moment such aprehension becamemon among the cultivators, at which point they would be able to find a new garden to inhabit.

    As the two groups battled the champions of Sacrifice, Daniel had remained in the ck castle, seemingly unwilling to leave. A decision the two leaders had grown unhappy with, and which forced them, after several weeks of no contact, to decide to pay him a visit.

    When the two arrived at the ck castle, they found it different. Its corridors, the gardens, the rooms, halls and training rooms had all been cleared by the ominous remnants of the people who had inhabited it for thest few centuries, and which had escaped the purifying mes that had destroyed the Blood Sect.

    Now, the castle was extremely quiet and dested.

    Daniel, seemingly unbothered by the actions of his twopanions, had spent this entire time sitting in the middle of the za where, not too long ago, tens of thousands of people had been ughtered in the name of one of hispetitors. He was sitting with his legs crossed, back as straight as an arrow, and closed eyes.

    "Dan?" Roley asked carefully. He could not tell whether Daniel had wished to not be disturbed, for he had never made such a request. His worries, luckily, were eradicated the moment Daniel slowly opened his eyes, and theynded on him like a pair of golden shlights.

    The intensity Daniel''s golden eyes emanated had left a deep impression on Roley, leaving him at a loss for words. It was Der who, after witnessing hispanion''s state of mind, decided to ask, "We have sealed the universe, and are clearing it from stragglers. What is our next move?" While calmer about it, Der still wished for nothing more than to reunite with his daughter, so he could not help but ask.

    Daniel shook his head. "I am waiting too." He imed before once again closing his eyes. Around him, invisible to the eyes of his twopanions, a few sparse golden lights approached him from all directions, eager to enter his body and be his personal power.

    "What do you mean?" Roley asked in confusion. "Our armies are at the strongest they can be in a short time, while Sacrifice''s domain has lost arge amount of their troops. If we have to strike his domain, now is the time."

    "I can''t." Daniel responded dismissively.

    "Stop speaking like that, just tell us what you need." Der said, slightly irritated by Daniel''s unnecessarily mysterious behavior. But, s, despite the loss of patience of his twopanions, Daniel resumed his meditation, leaving them with no answer. Only Daniel knew of his limitations, as well as what made him different from any other aspect of existence. Knowledge that he could not be bothered with sharing with the two.

    Yet, the same piece of knowledge had lingered in his mind the whole way through.

    He had recently learned that, while he could umte existential power into his body, the power of Karma did not exactly belong to him. Or at least, not initially. A person''s karma belonged to them, and them alone-Only turning into unfulfilled Karma, and bing Daniel''s to use, at the moment of their death.

    Of course, in the past Daniel would have had no qualms with killing a creature that had umted negative karma to take the power for himself, but that, he had realized, went against his nature. He wasn''t there to judge based on the nature of people''s karmic tally, he was there to enforce the oue they deserved, and for that reason, Daniel had decided that the only karma he would take, was the unfulfilled power people would leave behind at the moment of their death.

    A decision that, unfortunately, made umting the power he required an extremely slow process..

 Chapter 633 Separated Once Again

    With closed eyes, Daniel focused on the collection of unfulfilled karma. His mind had turned into a whirlpool capable of reaching the furthest reaches of the universe, drawing in every bit of power that, as if answering his call, approached him after uncountable miles of travel.

    As Daniel had maintained his focus on this new form of slow cultivation, the lives of others continued, time passed. Minutes turned to hours.. Hours turned into days, then into years until finally, before he could realize it, an entire century had passed.

    This time Daniel had spent sitting with his legs crossed, meditating on top of the ck castle, unbothered by the events that took ce around him. Not a breath was drawn, nor a pause was taken. Had his hair not moved due to the absence of gravity, many would have mistook him for a statue. Immovable and perfect.

    His cultivation had, of course, not gone unnoticed. In the span of a hundred years Daniel had perceived the approaching figures of Roley and Der who, with gradually increasing levels of anger, hurry and exasperation, had always failed in their attempts to draw his attention, or wake him up to begin with.

    Their failure, however, was not due to the inefficiency of their attempts, but due to Daniel''s own decisions, as he could have stopped his cultivation at any point in time, had he wanted to.

    Every time the two approached, Daniel did not feel happiness towards their decision to visit him. Instead, he was reminded of how dependent on him the members of his group had always been. At the thought of this, Daniel felt d that his mortal past self had not asked the person he was now to look after them, but only to make sure that they were safe.

    That was the promise the aspect of Karma had decided to fulfill.. Nothing more.

    p¦Á§ád¦Á §«?¦Í¨º|,§ã¨°§® Der and Roley were now safe. They had a home, a future to build up on, and no threat in sight. Their only concern was the safety of the rest of their friends, and in Daniel''s eyes, that was a problem he would eventually solve for them too. What he was unwilling to do in order to save the remnants of his past self, however, was wasting his current life, which he knew would be at risk if he met the aspect of Sacrifice.

    "My obligations towards the two are over. I owe them, or him, nothing more." He told himself the first time the pair came to visit him, asking him when they would depart towards the main universe of Sacrifice''s domain. Recurring questions that, in the eyes of the two cultivators, seemed to fall on deaf ears.

    As time went by, the two grew increasingly frustrated towards Daniel''s indifference, and with time, they stopped visiting, leaving Daniel to cultivate in what he had felt to be a peaceful lonesomeness. But when Daniel opened his eyes, a hundred years after the start of his cultivation, he realized that he was truly alone, with only his ck castle in sight.

    At some point in the past few years, Der and Roley had grown tired of waiting for Daniel, and had decided to take matters into their own hands, leaving the universe alongside their armies and heading to sacrifice''s domain under the guide of the elemental system.

    Unbothered by their departure, Daniel examined his body, which now glowed with the intensity of a thousand suns. A power that, unfortunately, he still believed to not be sufficient.. Hence why he had stopped cultivating.

    The power he could gather from this universe had now be faint, and quite stale. And that was due to the thorough extermination of the champions of sacrifice who, ironically, were the main cause of death across the universe, and the main source of karmic power for him.

    Whenparing the amount of existential power he had umted, to the full extent of Chaos'' power, Daniel could easily tell that what he had gathered was far from enough from being safe. He believed, however, that if he were to encounter an aspect like Horror again, even in their own domain, he would be able to fight them off.

    Yet, whether that much was enough to defeat Sacrifice, he could not be sure. After all, at any point in time the champions of sacrifice could have killed the trillions of offerings they had gathered, raising the entity''s power in the blink of an eye. Or at least, that was Daniel he would have done, if he were him.

    Motivated to find more power, Daniel opened an enormous rift. Onerge enough not only for him, but for the ck castle to pass through as well. On the other side of this rift was an interdimensional portal surrounded by an enormous formation of golden runes. In the slots among lines of runes, however, were no spatial treasures, leaving the formation as a skeleton of what it once was.

    There was no need for Daniel to guess what had happened to the formation he had seen the Immortal Armada put in ce, for it was quite obvious.

    Der and Roley had left the universe alongside their armies, and in doing so, they had taken the spatial treasures with them, leaving the formation in ce so that they could reactivate in case they needed a safe ce to retreat to.

    The runes, luckily, were not physical, so when Daniel passed through them along with his castle, they were left undamaged. Once through, he sat back onto the ce he had been sitting on for the past century, and closed his eyes once more. The castle, however, did not remain unreactive. Under Daniel''s control it came to life, and plunged into the uneven surface of the interdimensional portal, disappearing alongside its rider.

    -----

    Somewhere within the domain of Sacrifice.

    *BAM!* The sound of fist mming against wood resounded across the hall, ringing in the ears of cultivators and elementals alike. "We need to start with those sted temples, or nothing will change." Der growled in anger after pinching a red light off of a tridimensional map of the universe they were currently in.. one of tens of millions.

    Roley was delving in simr thoughts, but was able to maintain hisposure. His expression, however, indicated that he too was way past the point of losing his nerves. "If all this is just to find their archives.. I.." he muttered to himself.

    The generals of the two armies were standing in the hall, maintaining a quiet and respectful attitude. They had seen this exchange repeat itself several times in the past decade, and they now knew how its ending by heart.

    As if on cue, Roley ced both hands onto therge table, and said in a whisper, "Maybe if he was here.."

    "We don''t need him! He did not care then, he won''t care now.." Der barked out, stopping the young man from finishing his sentence. It was a thought Roley seemed to have be obsessed with, and which Der had grown tired of hearing. "What about your system? Can you try again?" He then asked in an attempt to change topic.

    Roley shook his head in disappointment. "That''s not how it works. I told you. There is an existential creature stopping the system''s reach, it has nothing to do with time."

    "Damn it.. Of course there had to be another champion of Destiny. It would have been too simple otherwise." Der regretted as his body slouched forward.

    When Der and Roley had left the universe Daniel was inhabiting, they had a n. To follow whatever the elemental system would tell them to do, until their friends and family were safe again. What they did not expect, however, was for the system to stop working after leading them to this specific universe.

    This universe was not the primary universe of Sacrifice''s domain, but the oldest one. The ce where the civilizations that had produced enough sacrificial power for Sacrifice''s consciousness to be born, still inhabited. Home to the upper echelons of the blood sect, as well as the other groups that, just like them, were under the control of the champions of Sacrifice.

    Unable to locate the position of their long lost group, Roley had tackled the problem from a different perspective. Instead of asking for a specific location, he asked his system for a way to learn of their location. A request which, to his surprise, the system had finally responded to by creating a path that led them to the archives of Sacrifice''s domain.

    A structure where the operations of the domain were carefully recorded, and stored.

    After entering the universe, however, this mission had suddenly disappeared.. Erased from existence by a power of simr magnitude and nature.

    Without specific directions, Der and Roley found themselves stuck into an unknown universe, with only a vague description to go by. Yet, against the suggestions of their most trusted men, they chose not to give up, choosing to look for the archives regardless of danger.

    Their hopes, however, were eradicated by their few initial encounters.

    One by one, the two armies stormed thes inhabited by the champions of Sacrifice, hoping to get some information from them, but every time, the conflict would end the same way. Once loss was assured, the champions of sacrifice would retire to the inner core of their, where strange temples awaited for them tomit mass suicide.

    Men, women, elderly and children all happily gave up their lives. Even those thatcked the gift of Sacrifice, were eager to join in in the event, leaving behind nothing more than a few useless documents for Der and Roley to search through.

    Most of the information the two had been able to gather from thes they had invaded, hade from the temples where the mass suicide took ce, for in the temples themselves, as well as the victims'' own devoted, almost religious behavior, they saw the workings of powers that went beyond the nature of fate.

    While this mass suicide was in line with the nature of Sacrifice, they thought, something was not right with how these people behaved. After all, they had encountered and fought many of Sacrifice''s champions, and none of them possessed that degree of devotion.

    This had led them to believe that this power did not belong to Sacrifice, as he did not reside in this universe.. But to a different existential creature which, somehow, he hadpelled to work for him. A creature that could affect the minds of others, fight off the omniscience of the elemental system, and that would be willing to serve another more powerful entity.. Only one such entity existed, they soon found out.

    A champion of destiny.

 Chapter 634 Finding A Trail

    After several years of failed searches for information, Der and Roley found themselves, once again, rummaging through tons of mostly burnt paperwork.

    They were currently standing on opposite sides of a quiterge medieval style office, with walls, floor and roof made of clean cutrge stones, andrge wooden furniture. In the middle of the room, a pile of documents had been left unattended, yet growingrger by the minute at the rhythm of annoyed grunts.

    Outside the fourrge wooden windows that upied the majority of the eastern wally an abandoned city, painted red by the glowing rays of the''s primary red sun, as well as a secondary smaller setting white star.

    Falling from the skies like a meteor shower, thousands of cultivators dutifullynded onto the city''s ground, then barged into what only minutes ago was private property to conduct their thorough investigation. Eventually, these cultivators would inevitably emerge with empty hands and disappointed faces.

    This disappointment was, of course, shared by their two leaders, who had taken it upon themselves to investigate what they believed to be the workce of the highest office within the.

    Alongside them, a spatial elemental, tasked with discovering hidden pockets of space or recently closed rifts, and a distinct man with a hooked nose, who gave a second look at anything either Der or Roley would discard, before throwing what he confirmed to be useless into the pile.

    "Nothing.. Nothing, nothing, nothing NOTHING!! AGAIN!" Der bellowed in an unsurprising feat of exasperation. The papers he was holding, now angrily scattered in the air, were quietly gathered by the cultivator with the hooked nose.

    Roley too, in a calmer way, handed a folder of documents to the man with the cultivator before turning to look at the spatial elemental. "Nothing?" A question to which the elemental, a humanoid child with skin of pure diamonds, responded to with what he had learned to be a negative sign for humans-A shook of his head.

    "What about survivors, are there any?"

    This time, a voice emerged from the mouthless glowing figure. "No, my lord. Only billions of corpses, all piled at the feet of the temple. As always."

    "Damn it!" Roley groaned in a quiet yell. "This wasn''t even an invasion, we tried to infiltrate a few low elementals. How did they notice us?" The question was a rhetorical one, as none of those present had an answer for it, despite having been faced with it dozens of times, each time whilst standing on the ghastly shell of a city in a different.

    Having managed to regain his calm, Der stopped rummaging through the piles of papers. Instead, he reached for the floor, on which stood the chest piece of his armor which he had removed forfort. He was ready to call it, to give up on finding information from this, when suddenly, the head of the spatial elemental snapped to the side. "My lord, we found something."

    Following the elemental''s few words, a young man barged into the room and made a b-line towards the man with the hooked nose. In his hands, a sealed envelope whose origin was clearly not native to the Immortal Armada, but of the civilization whose territory they had just upied. After searching through thousands of simr documents, the connection, to the four of them, was just natural.

    The man with the hooked nose did not take the letter. Instead, he focused on the face of the cultivator. With a finger, he picked the bridge of his sses, fixing their position on his nose. The moment he recognized the man, he gave a simple nod, implying to the young cultivator that he was allowed to approach the two leaders.

    "Report." Der immediately ordered as he and Roley walked closer, both eager to inspect the content of the letter he was carrying.

    Slightly nervous by the oppressive presence of the Overlord, as well as the entity the cultivator army hade to consider somewhat of a deity, the young man swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

    "Sir, during the instation of the shrouding formation, one of the dark elementals noticed a distortion in the surrounding space. Upon investigation, he.. It? Well, the elemental discovered it to be a small formation embedded with the concepts of clouding and absorption of dark essence.. Meant to hide the delivery of this letter, we believe."

    As he concluded his report, the cultivator outstretched his right arm to deliver the letter, only to find that the letter was already not in his possession anymore, but in Roley''s hands.

    In front of Der''s and Roley''s eyes,y a simple envelope. A folded yellowed-out paper, sealed at the front with a stamp red-blood in color, bulging lightly to the touch. Even without opening it, both could tell that this was no official document, but a private letter.. No longer than one page.

    Wonder why this letter deserved to be delivered with such secrecy, Roley hastily ripped the seal, unfolded the sheet it contained, and began to read.

    "T.

    My attempts at questioning the origin of the temples have been left unanswered, once again. I fear that any additional inquiries will only lead to an increase in suspicion, and given our ns, that is something I would rather avoid. I only pray that neither my, nor your is next in line for our invaders.

    Evacuation also seems out of the question. My family, your nieces and grandnieces, whom I tried to send away, all came back. I could see confusion in their eyes, and a longing for a home that shouldn''t be present in someone who has left their for mere hours.

    It is these temples, I tell you! They draw you in. Nevertheless, I cannot feel a speck of Lord Sacrifice''s power from them. We must be cautious of these sted objects, brother, and until we know more about them, it is better you do not visit. Stay at the archive, and keep looking into it.

    Be safe, your brother A."

    "The archives!" Roley eximed in surprise.

    Der, on the other hand, had already turned towards the young cultivator, to whom he asked, "Do you have the trajectory of this letter?"

    Thetter, expecting such a question, shook his head. "Negative Sir, the dark elemental mentioned that the path of the letter was erratic, likely to avoid revealing its destination."

    Once again, Der shook his head in dejection. "Had the formation that carried the letter stayed untouched, we would have not known about its relevance to our investigation, and had we simply followed it, it could have led us across and around the universe forever."

    As he came to this conclusion, Der could feel thest bit of hope drown into a sea of doubt, and exasperation. Years had passed since they had locked this universe, and yet, after conquering tens of worlds, they were left with nothing but seas of blood and lifeless corpses. Had the sects and families of such worlds been able to put up some sort of resistance, he could have at least taken some of his frustration on them, but that was not the case.

    The moment the two armies would approach a, the poption would mysteriously head to the temples, and sacrifice their own lives in the name of the aspect of Sacrifice, giving the two armies no time to question, or even capture a single child, let alone someone with useful information.

    While Der delved into negative thoughts, Roley seemed to be on slightly higher spirits, for he had a few more cards left to y.

    Holding the envelope in his hands, he closed his eyes and requested for a path to the letter''s original recipient. No answer was given. The following request was for the system to create a path to the the recipient lived in, but once again, the system did not react. A third request for the system, and a fourth to reveal in which gxy the recipient lived in, were also denied.

    This came to no surprise to Roley, as he had already guessed such an oue. After all, had he been able to use the system to find the archive, he would have done so long ago. The archive was being protected by a superior being.. The aspect of Sacrifice himself, or much more likely, another champion of Destiny.

    On a positive note, he thought, this letter had confirmed that these temples were not created by the aspect of Sacrifice, but more likely, were part of the champion''s powers. The same temples that, the moment they would approach an inhabited, would activate, andpel all inhabitants to destroy all useful information andmit mass suicide.

    Unfortunately, while this bit of information answered one of their questions, it did not bring them any closer to finding the archives of Sacrifice''s domain. Or so they thought.

    "Lord Roley, may I see the envelope?" asked the hooked nosed cultivator right before the lord of the elementals could take his frustration onto the letter, and burn it to bits.

    Unbothered, Roley handed the opened envelope to him, wondering what he could need it for. Yet, the moment the piece of folded paper changed hands, he came to a realization.

    "The sigil does not match that of this." the cultivator mentioned before, once again, fixing his sses. He raised the envelope, high up in the air, while facing the wall that towered before the office''s broken desk. On the wall was a silver bronze shield on which was depicted a small altar ced on top of a steep hill.

    The stamp on the sigil, on the other hand, depicted the same small altar and hill, but with the addition of arge sun, which shone beautifully onto the altar.

    After pointing out this difference, a natural conclusion formed in Roley''s head, a request to find the organization represented by that stamp. As this thought formed, a window immediately appeared.

    ____________________________

    *Primary Quest started: Merry Reunion*

    -Description: Obtain the location of the Archive of Blood and Bones. Find where the former followers of *?%¡ì^|*, or their descendants, are being held.

    p¦Á§ád¦Á §«?¦Í¨º|,§ã¨°§® First objective set: Infiltrate the Gold Peak Mountain Sect located in: (details). Obtain the location of the sect''s 84th young master, Thoren.

    Reward: Absolute devotion of the Elemental kin; Improved mental coordination for elemental attacks.

    Time limit: ???

    ____________________________

    A faint smile appeared on Roley''s face. One that would have been much more evident, had the text of the mission been less odd. After all, the people he was looking for were Daniel''s followers, yet the system had refused to mention his name.

    Nevertheless, after years of pointless research, such a small detail was ced to the back of his mind. "I finally have one," he said.

    "You do? What did you ask?" Der inquired in a somewhat doubtful manner. His hands almost mechanically reached for the straps located by the sides.

    "The two people mentioned in this letter are not patriarchs of two different powers, but young masters of the same sect." he exined to both Der and the cultivator with the hooked nose. "After he pointed out the sigils, I realized this must have been a cadet branch of the main sect.. A sect that might have a way to locate each of their young masters."

    Der was ted, to the point of giving up on fastening his cuirass and approaching his old friend instead. Yet, he was still slightly confused. Locating a specific sect or group was not something they had yet to try. Yet Roley''s system had always denied such requests. "Why would your system be so useful all of a sudden? What changed?"

    Roley once again closed his eyes, and after inspecting the window for a few moments, he opened them, revealing a bright moon and a ck hole respectivelyying onto a sea of darkness, and a milky white space. His lips were curved into a bright smile as he mentioned, "It''s not in this universe."

 Chapter 635 Preemptive Reinforcements

    Several days after the unexpected progress in their investigation, Der and Roley found themselves back in front of the interdimensional portal. With them, the vast Roley had inherited from Daniel, which now housed the entirety of both the Immortal Armada, and the Elemental army.

    Alongside a few of the highest ranking elementals and cultivators, Der and Roley observed therge portal with stern expressions.

    Therge portal, wide enough to swallow Roley''s whole, was surrounded by an enormous formation. One very simr to the one engineered by the scientists of the Immortal Armada, but while just as capable, less advanced in more than one way.

    While the runic formations were still present, to fuel the formation''s power was not the concept of space contained within the spatial treasures the Armada had gathered, but those embedded within the existence of the spatial elementals themselves, who had been required to rece their inanimate counterpart due to the loss of thetter at the hands of the aspect of Horror.

    Luckily, such a sacrifice had been made willingly.

    While not born from the ancient and most archaic concepts of space, like theirte traitorous ancestors, most of the spatial elementals were extremely old beings, second only to the ancient members of their kin. To them, being forced into a stasis for a few years, or even several centuries, would have meant as much as a long blink for a human.

    Naturally, Roley would have never allowed them to sacrifice themselves for too long, as he had already nned for new spatial treasures to be looked for, allowing them to slowly relieve them of this burden.

    While finding such a substitute was in his ns, however, that was only a project for the near future, for in order to prevent the domain of Sacrifice from fighting back while they searched for the Archives of Blood and Bones, Roley had had no choice but to not only seal the interdimensional portal and seal his people inside, but also to forcefully copse all neighboring shattered universes, making them impossible to traverse.

    "Are you positive that we cannot cross a copsed universe? You are still in possession of that ancient spatial treasure." Der mentioned as the scientific team of the Immortal Armada made their preparations to deactivate the formation.

    One could infer, from his stern expression and doubtful eyes, that the idea of unlocking the bottleneck that separated them from billions of champions of Sacrifice, and possibly the aspect itself, was not to his liking.

    Roley, obviously tired of hearing the same question, shook his head. "I can wield the power of the treasure, but it is not stable. If I lose my focus even for a moment, whatever barrier I create goes down instantly, leaving us facing the power of copse." As he reached this point, Roley turned to look Der straight in the eyes. It was clear that he meant for what he said next to really sink in, "That means instant death. Even for me."

    A low grunt emerged from the depths of Der''s throat. The answer he had received was not beyond his expectations, and yet, he could not help but feel slightly nervous. After all, their invasion of Sacrifice''s oldest universe was not a secret, and that meant, more likely than not, that what was waiting for them beyond the portal was not a weing party. Or at least, not one they would have appreciated.

    "I just.. Mhh." He muttered as one by one, the spatial elementals were removed, and woken up. "Are you sure this is the only other path?"

    "I was only given two feasible paths. A very difficult one, which is ''traversing a copsed universe'', and a very easy one, which was to disable the formation and simply leave the universe."

    "You''ve told me this. I just cannot understand how facing Sacrifice''s domain head on can be considered ''very easy.'' I struggle to wrap my head around it." As he raised his worries for what was the tenth time already, he looked at the millions of cultivators and elementals who fell into formation, ready to fight to the death.

    How many of them would survive this fight, he wondered.

    While slightly annoyed, Roley did not refuse to repeat himself. He knew that despite the way he looked and behaved, Der was an extremely worrisome individual. He had led armies into countless battles, and not once had he signaled a charge or a retreat without second guessing his own ns. Even a victory was not a source of relief to him, for in his mind, there was always a cleaner path to victory. One he was too much of a fool to consider.

    Learning of this side of him was what had garnered him Roley''s respect.

    Unfortunately, this time, such worries could not be discarded as the overthinking of an oldmander, but rational fear.

    This had be clear when Roley, in an attempt to verify how big of a fight awaited for them on the other side of the portal, had been met with silence. The same silence he was faced with when the answer to his questions included a creature of existence.

    Despite Der''s concerns, the members of the Immortal Armada continued to awaken the spatial elementals one by one, causing the formation to weaken. He too had faith in Roley, and knew that had there been a safer way to leave the universe, his old friend would have found it.

    Bit by bit, sections of the formation lost power, until finally, after several hours of work, the unmoving surface of the interdimensional portal began to wave slightly. The faint ripples, as if formed by the first gust of wind to ever grace an otherwise solid body of water, becamerger andrger, until the watery spatial power regained its original fluidity.

    "Prepare forbat!" Der yelled to the joined armies, who braced for the assault of Sacrifice''s domain. His words echoed from the mouths of his admirals, followed by those of hismanders and captains.<novelsnext>please visit </novelsnext>

    Nervously, the cultivators wielded their weapons. Thest time they had faced an army of champions of existence, they had been forced to live the worst horrors their minds could concoct. The trauma of such memories was still vivid in their minds, and making its presence known in the form ofrge beads of sweat that lingered on their foreheads, waiting for an abrupt motion to detach themselves and float away in the vacuum of space.

    The elementals were also not strangers to fear. They were born, and lived with the constant realization that they existed as a resource for those who, like them, inhabited the universe. For meek and friendly creatures such as them, to have formed an army capable of facing the worst the multiverse had to offer, was already a miracle. One that would have had even less chances of bing reality had their lord not been there to guide them, and give them hope for something more.

    Whilepletely opposite in nature, the members of the two species found themselves sharing a sentiment. The two entities that stood at the front, ready to be the first ones to engage in a fight.. If those two beings died, everything would be lost. Every elemental would be turned into elemental treasures and material scraps, and the humans would be sacrifices.

    Anything. Any creature, monster, champion or deity that dared step foot through the portal, had to die. On that, each member of both armies could agree on.

    Soon enough, the blue surface of the portal became covered in small shadows. Small silhouettes that bit by bit made their way into the portal, growing in size and gaining definition until finally, once the size of a grown human, the gtinous substance parted ways, allowing for the hundreds of thousands of bodies to step into the universe.

    Like he had done thousands of times before, Der lifted his arm, ready to chop the air down tomence the charge.. But he never did. Instead, he kept observing in silence as the hundreds of thousands of creatures, all humanoid in appearance, darted away at a random trajectory the very instant their bodies would sessfully step into the universe.

    With the highest speed their cultivation allowed them, they would barge through the sphere of stable space, and once out, rip a portal they could dive into.

    Surprised by such behavior, Der allowed for the fleeting cultivators to teleport away, until finally, several minutes and millions of portalster, not a single more crossed through. "What in the world was that?" he asked, confused beyond belief.

    "They were all champions of Sacrifice." Roley said, as dumbfounded as hispanion was. "Did you see their faces? Those weren''t the eyes of someone ready for ughter."

    "Eyes of terror." Der agreed while slowly lowering his arm. Seeing this, the army of cultivators and elementals started to rx. They could not understand what had changed, for they did not have the understanding of a gift of Destiny that Roley and Der possessed.

    "Do not lower your guard!" Der roared all of a sudden, causing a shiver to run down the spines of anyone present, including those who did not possess a spine to begin with. "Companies 7 to 9, track and capture as many of those fleeting champions as you can. I want them interrogated, then report to me when Ie back. The rest resume the defensive formations."

    Immediately, a small portion of the entire army turned into shes of light that shot out in every direction like shrapnel, disappearing in the distance before anyone could even begin to question the Overlord''s orders.

    Satisfied with the reaction, Der turned towards Roley. "Let''s head in." He said in an overly rxed tone. A tone that even to Roley, felt quite odd.

    "We don''t need to know what happened from them. We should bring the rest along. I don''t agree with leaving them behind, not in a universe inhabited by an unknown champion of Destiny." Worry was clear in Roley''s voice.

    This was not the first encounter he had had with a champion of Destiny, and he knew perfectly well how maniptive and vindictive they could be. In his eyes, the Immortal Armada and the Elemental army were in as much danger being left alone in this universe, as they would be in following them to the Trigate. If they followed, at least, he could have done something to protect them.

    Seeing the doubt in Roley''s face, Der slowly removed his helmet, and with a calmer tone added, "Don''t worry, I think I know what is going on." He then started heading towards the portal before his friend could do anything to stop him.

    While still uncertain, Roley trusted Der, so when he left, he followed suit right after, leaving behind orders for his closest elementals to coborate with the cultivators as much as possible in his absence. After leaving behind these few words, Roley sped up towards his friend, reaching him just in time for the two to barge into therge portal together.

    The water-like surface of the portal surrounded them, and embraced them for a few moments, after which a bright white light made its way into their eyes. In the following seconds, the white light grew more defined and homogeneous, until finally, the two emerged in the Trigate, a universe of white space filled with uncountable portals, each connected to a different universe.

    The sight of the Trigate was always shocking to people, even to those who had seen it personally more than once. And that was due to therge number of creatures that would cross from one portal to another. Each visit presented a different sight, one more spectacr than the other.

    This time, however, the sight was not particrly spectacr, for it consisted of just a few individuals. Three men and one woman, each dressed in unique and luxurious attires, and a young man. A single look identified the four as champions of Sacrifice, kneeling at the mercy of the young man they were facing, while thetter was, of course, Daniel.

    "Of course." Roley muttered under his breath after a long and deep sigh.

 Chapter 636 The Source Of A Conundrum

    Daniel''s presence came as an equal source of relief and frustration.

    Many a time had Der and Roley begged for their old friend to help them in the search of their long lost friends and family, and yet, Daniel had never agreed.

    In their eyes, the bright and talented young man had changed. In the thousands of years they had been separated, something had taken the humanity out of him, and left behind the aloofness that a disinterested king would reserve for the poorest of his subjects.

    It was only afterpletely giving up on his help that the two had finally decided to take matters in their own hands, and leave Daniel behind. And yet, here he was.

    While they felt somewhat grateful for his appearance, an action that was likely to have spared the lives of countless of their followers, they also felt anger. ''If you were going to help, why couldn''t you help from the start?'' They wondered as the lone figure of the aspect of Karma looked into the distance,pletely unbothered by their piercing gazes, as well as the pleading voices of the four champions of Sacrifice.

    "So you''ve finally decided to show up?" Roley hissed through his teeth. Such anger was uncharacteristic of him, and yet, whether it was due to their history or because of the system he now possessed, the sight of Daniel''s face brought in him as muchfort as it did antipathy.

    Unbothered by Roley''s audible feelings, Daniel finally turned his gaze from the depths of the white space, towards the two. Lacking a main target, his gaze rapidly shifted from Der to Roley, before turning back towards the four kneeling figures.

    "I do not feel like I am fit for footwork anymore." Daniel responded as the corner of his lips curved into a faint, almost unnoticeable smile. "Not as much as you, now that you have a system."

    To Roley''s ears this remark sounded scornful, but in reality, Daniel was only thinking out loud. He had no problem with Roley being in possession of a system. In fact, he found it quite useful. After all, he still had to fulfill his promise and ensure the safety of the rest of his former self''s friends and family. Being able to do so without having to bear the pointless traveling and broad investigations, he would not have had it any other way.

    "After all these years, the first thing you-"

    Der immediately noticed Roley''s angered state of mind, so before he could say anything that could anger their now unpredictable friend, he decided to interject, "Who are they?" He asked while nodding at the four kneeling individuals, who shifted in ce nervously as they felt the attention of Danielnd back on them.

    "The source of a conundrum." Daniel responded before casually gazing back at the four shivering champions.

    "And what would that be?" Der asked while shaking his head disapprovingly. His voice, mildly curious, was directed at Daniel, while his actions were aimed at Roley, asking for him to drop the argument and regain hisposure.

    Daniel noticed the quiet exchange between his two former friends, but did not care. His attention was now fully captured by the four individuals, as well as the immense amount of karmic debt they possessed. An amount that, in fact, was far higher than most creatures he had encountered so far.

    Such negative power of Karma could only have been built upon uncountable corpses, and unimaginable evil. A debt that he could have easily forced them to pay for, and yet, he didn''t. "I am not sure." He said with uncertainty. "Saying the number of lives these fourbined have taken would take minutes, and I could make them pay for all of it.. But do I care to?"

    "What do you mean?" Roley asked, now calmer.

    Despite the way Daniel had changed, Roley still considered him a dear friend. In him he still saw the same person he had met in front of the ck castle, leading a small team of cultivators hardly more powerful than mortals into what he could only consider life changing events.

    Because of their unique rtionship, the hope that the Daniel he had known could not be gone, but only sleeping, ready to be awakened, could not escape his mind regardless of what Daniel did or said. So when thetter started talking about his beliefs and thoughts, Roley could not help but listen, as each word, for all he knew, could contain a clue toe closer to that moment.

    "I can make them feel the weight of their actions, but what good does it make? Why not kill them outright, and turn them into power at my disposal." Daniel answered in a cold and calcted manner. He considered none of the moral implications of murder or penitence, and only what coulde of the power of karma these four possessed was a matter of importance in his eyes.

    Der, surprised by the nature of Daniel''s problem, chose to ask, "Does giving retribution weigh on you?"

    "Not one bit." Daniel answered.

    The simple answer caused the eyes of the old warrior''s to narrow. "With what authority would you deny rightful penitence? Isn''t your power an arbiter of justice in itself?"<novelsnext>please visit </novelsnext>

    The faint smile on Daniel''s face widened. Something he had found out about himself, ever since bing an aspect of existence, was that being the topic of conversation was something he very much enjoyed. He found himself to be the most interesting topic in existence, and being humored in his ramblings only brought further tion.

    "Undoubtedly. However, dead people can''t feel any vindication, nor are these four worthy of redemption." Daniel pointed out while slowly leaning forward, allowing for the massive amounts of negative karma to drift into his nose,nd onto his tongue, and stick to his skin. In each of those feelings, he felt a few sporadic good deeds drowned by an infinite number of screams and cries.

    The weight of these few words was heavier than anything the four had ever felt. Aware of what type of creature Daniel was, as well as of the nature of his power, they had begged, hoping to gain enough time for the aspect of Sacrifice toe save them. Yet, if given a true opportunity to make a request, they would ask for death, rather than experience a never ending hell. After all, paying back their karmic debt, for them who had sacrificed countless civilizations for their Lord, was the worst possible oue.

    "I suppose the real question is whether you are meant to uphold that power, or if that power is there to serve you."

    As Der''s words reached Daniel''s ears, for the first time, thetter turned to look back directly at him. His satisfied smile parted as he said, "Then you understand my problem."

    "Wait, hold on a second." Roley interjected, annoyed by the surreal conversation, "Aren''t you afraid that Sacrifice is going to barge out of one of these universes to save these four?"

    Daniel''s smile turned into one of contempt. "He wouldn''t dare show up out here. There is little to no power of sacrifice in the Trigate. He would be facing me with a powerparable to the power these four possess."

    These few words were enough to flush the color off the faces of the four cultivators, who started cursing for not running away alongside their followers the moment Daniel had made his appearance. But now it was toote. They could only look as a strange power engulfed them in a pure golden light. One which burned the gift of Sacrifice right out of their body, and squeezed them into specks the size of atoms.

    By the time they could even start begging, familiar sceneries had already started ying out around them. This time, with them as the victims.

    "Oh well." Daniel shrugged his shoulders with indifference. "I can always kill themter, if I want to."

    Seeing this side of Daniel caused the two friends to swallow dryly. "Why have you shown up now? We could have handled this much on our own." Roley asked as a few of the Armada''s admirals emerged from the portal. Beside them, thousands of cultivators were busy crossing the same gate.

    "Maybe. But unfortunately, you still need my protection." Daniel answered with a matter-of-fact tone. "Like it or not, you are a champion of Destiny. That makes you as much of a target for the other aspects of existence as I am."

    Roley''s nostrils red up. "So why did you refuse to help us before, whye now?!"

    "With the amount of questions you''re asking, you''d believe you are not on a rescue mission." Daniel scoffed with feigned indignation. "Now, since you havee out of your burrow, I assume you must have made some progress." He added while shifting an inquisitive gaze between the two. After a few seconds of quiet confirmation, Daniel added, "Well then, off we go."

    -----

    Sacrifice''s oldest universe, Archives of Blood and Bones.

    "Your holiness!" eximed a scrawny cultivator in white and golden robes. His ted tone, resounded between the stone walls of arge cathedral, dying at the touch ofrge multicolored sses, which vibrated slightly at every word. Behind him, several hundred more cultivators in brown robes prostrated themselves to the altar, bowing rhythmically at the sound of coordinated hymns.

    Standing behind the altar, the holiest of creatures. A fair skinned and beautiful woman, with smooth and kind features, hair of gold, and eyes as clear as the sky. Wrapped around her body was a loose fitting veil, which threatened to fall down her sides at the slightest of winds

    "The forces of evil have abandoned the universe, mydy." The first individual reported with tion, secretly taking peeks at the woman''s appearance not out of lust, or desire, but out of pure admiration and devotion. "I believe they might have abandoned the idea of finding the domain''s archives."

    As he finished speaking, his heart started palpitating. His skin, now covered in goosebumps, crawled as the sweetest and kindest of voices came in contact with his ears. "They have not." the woman said before grabbing a small bell that was resting onto the altar. A relic only she had seen, and which she held with a great deal of care and affection. A treasure born from one of Destiny''s gifts.

    "But it matters not. The next time the boy will set foot into my universe, I will keep his little, and those who inhabit it."

 Chapter 637 Forgotten Enemies

    Shared universe, core system of the Golden Peak Mountain sect, three monthster.

    The headquarters of the Golden Peak Mountain sect, also known as the Merc Pit, had never been a ce for peace and quiet. Martial in nature, such a sect existed within the multiverse as a home to mercenaries, each of whom was extremely well trained, and infinitely loyal to those whose gold their pockets were filled with, the sect''s main family.

    With the reputation of a mercenary cove, the Golden Peak Mountain sect, along with being known for their redundant name, had reached a status akin to that of the Immortal Armada-A military force that did not belong to any of the aspects'' domains, and which offered their service to whichever independent faction or domain offered more.

    While quite famous for it, mercenary work was not the full extent of the Sect''s dealings. Their secondary business, albeit less known, was information gathering. A job that, more than military support, had paid for the sect''s immense use of resources, and which had required them to infiltrate many of their members into most of the known domains.

    With the system''s dozen ofs being used as a training ground for the sect''s uncountable warriors, such a territory appeared to be constantly at war, as shes between the sect''s many factions broke out almost daily, leading to bloody battles which, despite being considered by the sect nothing more than ''training exercises'', caused the death of millions each year.

    This day, surprisingly enough, these skirmishes hade to a halt, as the sect''s many powers were too focused on the presence of the Armada''s tens of thousands of spaceships stationed at the edge of the system, ready to fire hell on whichever group of mercenaries chose to lead the charge.

    The Golden Peak Mountain sect had guests. A young man garbed in a simple ck robe, and arge middle-aged man fully d in te armor. The two stood in the middle of an open field. A desert of red cracked earth which, from orbit, appeared to cover over ny percent of the''s crust.

    In front of the two, stood an impressive armyposed of millions of cultivators, each equipped in mismatching pieces of armor, yet all standing proudly, ready to answer the call of the man who stood at the front.

    This man could hardly be considered a member of the human species, for his body was asrge as that of an elephant. His bare chest, gray in color and bulging with muscles as big as amon man''s chest, was visible to the eye, as the man wore little more than a pair of fitting leather pants, worn out boots, and a tebat helmet. From his body a thick essence was being emanated, one that portrayed a level of cultivation that neither Der or Roley had ever encountered in someone who did not belong to a domain.

    Despite his brutish appearance, the man seemed to act in a civilized manner, especially when weing the unexpected guests. "Your request is denied." His thunderous voice resounded across not only the, but far enough to reach the years of those who had remained to man the ships.

    "RECONSIDER." Der demanded in response. The gift of the warlord, carried by his grave voice, attempted to enthrall therge warrior, but to no avail. Several failed attempts had made it painfully clear to the old warrior that this was nomon foe, and that like him, he had likely been granted a will-binding gift during his several ascensions to immortality.

    Unfortunately, Der''s guess was not far from the truth.

    While the patriarch of the Golden Peak Mountain sect could not control others like his gift allowed him to, his ascension had gifted him a power of simr magnitude, the Berserker''s gift. A power that not only sent him into a violent rage, increasing his powers by a hundredfold at the cost of a higher consumption of energy, but also sent his followers into a frenzy, causing them to attack anyone unlucky enough to enter their field of vision.

    This gift had made the man a powerful foe, and the leader of a frightening force.

    Unfortunately, the Berserker''s gift worked perfectly against Der''s Warlord gift, allowing the sect''s joined army, as well as their leader, to be immune from the powers carried by thetter''s voice.

    "We are not asking for free information. Give us a price." Roley rified while casually removing his sses, and revealing a pair of absurd-looking eyes. From each one, the powers of light and darkness fluctuated, blurring the natural light that approached his face. "You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain."

    Suddenly, a fourth, silvery voice pierced the air.

    "We do not conduct the type of business you believe we do." Said an elegant and distinct young woman with emerald skin and jet ck hair, who had quietly appeared from behind the burly figure of the sect leader. In her right hand was a clipboard, which she grasped in between her fingers next to her thigh.

    In Roley''s eyes the woman was obviously lying. Not because he was great at discerning honesty on a human''s face, a skill which he had once lost due to hisck of human contact, and that he was only recently brushing up on-But because his system did not lie. These people were in possession of the information he needed, and he was hoping to obtain it without having to waste the lives of his and his friends'' followers.<novelsnext>please visit </novelsnext>

    Little did he know that, despite being little more than glorified mercenaries, the sect would outright refuse.

    Originally Roley had hoped that Daniel would aid them in this quest, but he soon found out how sorely he was mistaken, as the moment he and Daniel had entered this universe, thetter had disappeared, leaving them to follow the instructions of the elemental system by themselves.

    Seeing how that path was not avable, he and Der had chosen to leave the army behind, hoping that if the offer of wealth could not move this band of brutes, at least Der''s power would.

    ".. and even if we did, we would not coborate with our historic enemies." The young woman then added before raising the clipboard up in the air, high enough to enter the field of vision of her patriarch''srge fiery eyes. "You have killed many of our young masters, Lord of the Elemental army.." she imed before slowly turning to look at Der, "But not as many as your army did, Warlord of the Immortal Armada."

    From her tone, it was clear that both the instances she had mentioned were separated, and stretched across the thousands of years both armies had spent crossing the multiverse, fighting forces they did not even know the name of. After all, be it the nature of Roley''s army, or the technological advancement of Der''s forces, were sources of greed for most independent factions.

    And yet, Der and Roley had dared to show up in front of them, unaware of what kind of favor they were asking, and the history they shared with those they were asking it to.

    *sigh* Aware that a peaceful resolution was now out of the question, Roley closed his eyes. "Very well, you leave us no choice." He muttered as the power of primordial light, darkness and each natural element started to converge to the small spot present in between his palm, forming a dark bead of power surrounded by a bright light, as well as the constant flicking of the elements.

    The power this bead possessed was horrifying, and powerful enough to destroy half of the system, yet, neither the sect''s patriarch, his secretary, or the members of his army moved. To show a sudden reaction were, instead, Roley and Der, whose heads snapped towards where, far in the distance, their armies wereying in wait.

    Where once were only the members of the Immortal Armada and Elemental army, was now a third army. An army that had appeared quietly, and invisible to any of their forces'' methods of perception, and that outnumbered the numbers of thebined army ten to one, surrounding itpletely.

    "I guess we are not done talking, then." Roley awkwardly added before forcing the small bead of elemental power to dissipate into nothing.

    -----

    Not too far from the core system of the Golden Peak Mountain sect, on a drifting asteroid of gargantuan proportion, sat Daniel. Sitting in a cross-legged position, with his hands gently resting on his knees, his head bent slightly forward, as if in the middle of a nap.

    Therge celestial body he sat on drifted across the universe unbothered by either obstacles, or surprise passengers, who rode it in its never ending and otherwise lonely journey. This loneliness, however, was not only broken by Daniel, for he was not the only creature whoy onto the rocky surface.

    In front of him mingled several unique figures, each more peculiar than the other, yet all awe inspiring in their own way. With odd familiarity, the group of individuals chatted jovially, asking questions of courtesy and entertaining conversation of the most random of topics.

    While many would consider this an odd group of people, in Daniel''s eyes, these creatures looked more like a palette of colors. ring human-shaped lights that shed against one another in a never-before-seen spectacle, each glowing with different intensities, yet all portraying a different feeling, or perception of the people they were emanating from.

    The presence of Daniel did not appear to bother this group, as in fact, he appeared to be the center of attention, as demonstrated by the frequent inconspicuous looks that the small crowd would send in his direction.

    In their eyes Daniel also appeared as a glowing golden hue, and his light was the brightest of them all. He was a stranger, and yet they recognized him as a member of their kin, for like him, these entities were aspects of existence.

 Chapter 638 A Meeting Between Gods

    This time was, for Daniel, a moment of rest. He had decided to maintain his distance from the other aspects of existence, refusing to interrupt their cordial mingling despite his presence being what had caused them to reunite. The reason for that, to his dismay, were what he remembered to be one the most encumbering of human behaviors-the awkwardness of meeting someone you should have met much sooner, causing the eventual meeting to be filled with embarrassment.

    A faint smile crept on his face. He had never expected that now, as one of the few deities standing among uncountable mortals, he would start being socially awkward. The thought was as annoying as it was amusing. Luckily, Daniel''s awkward behavior seemed to align with appropriate custom, for he was not only the strongest of the aspects present, but also among the highest ranking ones.

    Soon enough, two individuals made their approach.

    The first of the pair was a middle-aged man dressed in tattered pants, boots caked in mud, and a bright yellow vest with refractory stripes going down from his shoulders to the sides of his stomach. His exposed arms were bronze in color, and burnt by sunlight, withrge hands covered in thick leather gloves ckened by soot. Under an odd looking helmet was a scruffy beard, a dirtyrge nose, and eyes narrowed into a semi-forced yet sincere smile.

    He walked rxedly but with purpose, as if no obstacle was meant for him to be kept from doing his job, a sacred duty that he begrudgingly fulfilled with a reward of self satisfaction, yet also with the hope of, one day, doing something better. In between his curved lips was trapped a cigarette, which he inhaled from to take the edge off from something he was not actually doing.

    At the sight of this man, Daniel could not help but let out an amused smile. He knew who this entity was, and he knew that that appearance was usually not the one he would present himself with. He was a low-tier member of the pantheon, bound to little more than a fraction of all the action of men and animals, and he was known as the aspect of Labor-A being Daniel had heard to usually look like a dwarven cksmith, but who had obviously changed his appearance into a look which Daniel could be more familiar with.

    The second individual, clearly, had had the same intent.

    While slightly more powerful and higher tier than Labor, the second individual was a mid tier aspect of existence. One born off of the limited domain of mortal domain, and whose reach was far below that of omnipresent entities like Fate, Conflict or Chaos, and more alike to the aspects of War and Law.

    Dressed in a dark green flowery dress which covered most of her body except for her face, neck, hands and ankles, this entity presented itself in the form of a woman in her early sixties. Her appearance, while not too pleasing to the eyes, gave a sense of reliance and knowledge, causing others not only to trust her, but also inspiring them to learn what she knew.

    Through a pair of brown cat eyes sses, which did little to divert the attention from the enormous hairy mole that protruded by the side of her thin lips, she looked at Daniel with the eyes of a teacher, as well as those of a mother-One loving, severe, angry and annoyed, all at the same time.

    She was known as the aspect of Learning.

    Seeing the appearance of the two, Daniel realized that his existence had bemon knowledge far sooner than he had anticipated, and that he had likely been spied on for the entirety of the two thousand years he had spent on the whose indigenous scientists called Terra.

    Trying their best to copy what the two had believed to be representations ofbor and learning which Daniel could recognize, the two approached together, slightly nervous, yet thrilled to finally make his acquaintance. While Daniel assumed that tion to be aimed at his persona, however, their state of mind was due to the natural curiosity of the aspects of existence. After all, their kind represented everything in existence, so novelty was more of a rarity than others could imagine.

    Very rarely a new aspect of existence would appear, and when they did, more often than not, they were the reincarnation of their previous existence, killed by a superior aspect during one of their many wars. Daniel, however, not only represented an entirely new aspect of existence, but also a new path to their creation. One that took far less than several billions of years toe into fruition.

    As the two reached just a few steps away, they bowed politely. Labor''s bow was much deeper than his female counterpart, as custom required, for Daniel, while oddly more powerful than his ranking predicted, was still considered an aspect of the middle tier.

    "It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Karma." The aspect of Learning uttered with a cold tone. A tone that was not meant to put pressure onto Daniel, but to express her authoritative nature.

    Daniel finally stood up, approached the two, and outstretched his arm. "Mine." he said while offering something the two had never experienced in the billions of years they had been alive.. A handshake.

    Labor,pelled by Daniel''s seniority, immediately grabbed his hand, shaking vigorously.

    The rough texture of Labor''s hand rested against his palm like a rock-filled leather pouch. It was clear to Daniel that, whatever texture the aspect of Labor had believed a mortal hand to possess, he was far off. "I must admit, I am surprised. I thought I was enemy number one among the aspects of existence.. And certainly did not expect anyone toe pay me a visit."

    "I could not fight you even if I wanted to, Lord Karma." Said the scruffy man while politely retracting his hand. "In the pantheon, my position would be somewhat subservient to yours, and a few others."

    Interested by the topic, Daniel tilted his head to the side. "I dock knowledge in this field, I am afraid. I did not have much time, nor the opportunity, to study the hierarchy of the ''pantheon'', you''ve called it? Tell me more, please."

    As Daniel requested for further information, his body started to emit a faint green light. A power of existence that perfectly matched the power that Learning''s body was emanating, and which soon detached from his body to happily linger around hers.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Thrilled by Daniel''s show of interest, the aspect of Labor began to exin. It was not often that a superior aspect of existence would entertain a conversation with him, let alone one that was as powerful as him. "You see, our nature only partially collides, as not allbor is a source of karma. Yet, that is enough for me to owe you a degree of respect. My primary superior would be High Lord Order, Lady Duty, and.. Lord Sacrifice."

    At the mention of sacrifice, the aspect of Labor turned to look back to the small crowd, where a young man in loose red robes was being witness to the conversation between two other individuals. The aim of his eyes, however, was directed at Daniel, piercing through the darkness of space like a pair of bloody daggers.

    Daniel chose to ignore him, and instead, turned to look at the aspect of Learning who, despite her name, did not seem fond of talking, or teaching. "How about you, Lady? Do our powers collide in any way?"

    "None that would be worth mentioning, young one." She responded with a matter-of-fact tone. "My liege is also High Lord Order, but being a mid-tier aspect myself, I only call him Lord Order. The two of us share a simr standing, although I admit, I cannot boast a power as vast as yours."

    Through the pair of sses she wore, she could see how well defined the cluster of existential power Daniel possessed was. It wasn''t a mist that lingered around him like the rest of their powers, but was contained inside his body, causing him to shine with a golden light, simrly to a light bulb.

    This alone made it obvious that Daniel''s existence was different, and they both wished they could learn how. "About your birth, may I ask a few questions?" The woman continued. Her odd desire to learn was characteristic of her nature, but very uncharacteristic of her personality, as there was little she did not know.

    Unfortunately, her thirst for knowledge was destined to go unfulfilled, as Daniel, since a few seconds past, had been staring past the two, and towards another aspect of existence. An olddy, who sat on a wooden chair with knitting needles in her hands, caring for the other aspects of existence the same way a grandma would have their sleeping grandchildren.

    "Excuse me." He said before brushing past them, with steps leading him in her direction.

    Noticing his approach, thedy smiled kindly. Like he had, she had recognized him. The young cultivator who had challenged anyw of nature to barge into the underworld, searching for the lost consciousness of the woman he loved. "Lady Death," Daniel said before bowing politely.

    However, as Daniel stood in front of her, something in her gaze changed. "You have little left of the boy I met but a few moments ago." the olddy said, slightly disappointed.

    Aware of what she meant, Daniel responded, "More than a few moments have passed."

    "That is what makes you different from us. Two thousand years, for us, are little more than that." It was only at this point that the olddy finally stopped knitting, and rose up to her feet. She then bowed gracefully while uttering a single word, "Karma."

    Daniel was taken aback. Death was a high ranking aspect of existence. One whose nature was absolute to any form of life, and was therefore of a higher standing.. To bow in front of them was already far more courtesy than courtesy itself among aspects of existence required.

    Nevertheless, as the woman bowed, Daniel suspected that the person whom she was bowing to was not the aspect that stood in front of her, but the human she had aided all those years back, who now was gone, unable to find a death of his own.

    "Your body carries far more deathly essence than most other aspects of existence. Is that why you havee here?" She asked, clearly bothered by Daniel''s decision to meddle in mortal affairs, as well as directly take the lives of others.

    "I am not here to take lives this time, but to protect them." Daniel responded. He did not fear the aspect of Death, as despite her higher standing, her influence within this universe granted her a power somewhat inferior to the karmic power he had umted and stored in his body. That, however, did not mean that he did not respect her.

    She had yed a part in the events that led to his birth, and therefore, he felt that he owed her that much.

    At the same time, the thought of preventing death was not opposite to the nature of Death herself. After all, death was inevitable. Had Daniel chosen to protect each and every living being present within the universe, at some point they would all still die eventually. For that reason, she hade to appreciate the idea of life, as well as the thought of protecting it, since just like her twin sister, life was far more feeble than death.

    "Protecting who? And from whom?" she asked curiously while brushing her leathery hands together.

    "A few remnants of my past.. From him." These few words were spoken particrly loudly. Loud enough to reach the ears of the aspect of sacrifice, who responded by narrowing his eyes, and clenching his jaw shut.

 Chapter 639 Clash Of Words

    "A few remnants of my past.. From him."

    This simple answer ignited the mes of indignation in Sacrifice, who felt attacked and embarrassed. He was being used of meddling in human matters, and while not untrue, for it to be pointed out in front of so many low tier aspects of existence was too much of an insult.

    With a powerful motion, he barged in between the two aspects of existence who had been conversing in front of him, pushing them aside, and strided towards the young man and olddy. "How many of my servants are suffering at the mercy of your filthy power?" He asked with a t voice.

    It was only after asking this rhetorical question, that he acknowledged the presence of Death, in front of whom he bowed politely. "Lady Death. I hope you can arbitrate on this matter for us." He then added. In his tone Daniel could hear a degree of reverence. A given, considered how deeply the existential powers of sacrifice and death were tied together.

    "Of course, what other reason would I have to leave my domain and be here.." the olddy muttered to herself sarcastically, clearly annoyed by her underling''s request.

    The aspect of Sacrifice was quick to pick up on the woman''s state of mind, and yet he chose to ignore it. While his nature was subservient to hers, the two had hardly ever met. After all, the aspect of Death spent the entirety of her existence within her own realm of existence, the underworld. And just like the aspect of Spirit, who lived within the spiritual world, she had only stepped out of her domain a number of times that could be counted with the fingers of two human hands.

    "A multitude of mortals have been intruding within my domain, killing my champions, and disrupting the natural influence of my power." Sacrifice imed while slowly raising his pale arms to remove the hood that had covered the entirety of his appearance, save for a pair of glowing blood-red eyes.

    The creature that appeared underneath the hood was a man in histe teens, fair skinned, with close to no imperfection. With his rxed blonde brows, pale thin lips and a straight, thin nose, he expressed a sense of pure superiority and aloofness, one which was drastically different from the palpable anger his eyes portrayed.

    Almost bored by the young man''s words, Lady Death slowly sat back on her chair, grabbed the pair of iron knitting needles that were resting on her legs, and resumed knitting. "Mortals fighting mortals. In what way would that be considered any of your business?" She asked as the tip of her needles danced around each other, dragging along a pitch ck thread.

    "In the way he is aiding them."

    Death''s needles slowed down slightly. What Sacrifice had told her was the truth, after all, she could still see the deathly essence linger around Daniel''s body.. But while her sight had preemptively verified what her underling had revealed to her, that did not mean that she knew the circumstances that had led to Daniel''s interference. For all she had known, some mortals could have challenged him, unaware of his nature as an aspect of existence. In which case, delivering punishment would have been not only eptable, but quitemon.

    What Sacrifice was insinuating, however, was that Daniel was purposely using his power to cut the lives of mortals, and that she could not agree with.

    "Is this true?" Her head turned to the side, as her deep and dark eyes met with Daniel''s rxed and calm figure, who nodded quietly in response. Death, of course, did not seem too fond of the answer she had received.

    Sacrifice, encouraged by Death''s reaction, casually brushed his hands down his silky robe with anger, before adding, "As you know, my Lady, the pantheon is in turmoil, and direct intervention has been allowed.. However, it was presumed that our kind would fight amongst each other. That was the bottom line."

    Daniel, amused by Sacrifice''s attempt, began scratching the stubble that had grown on his deceivingly young face. From the depths of his throat came a chuckle. "You are selective with the meaning of ''interference''. As I recall, you are keeping many of my followers and descendants trapped as well."

    "Nonsense! I am standing right in front of you." Sacrificed responded with an indignation that did not match his indifferent expression. His eyes, however, had narrowed further. In them Daniel could see a hint of doubt buried underneath a never ending hostility.

    This spark of doubt did not escape the eyes of Death, who had now turned to look back at him with as much sternness as she had reserved for Daniel.

    Before Sacrifice could make any attempt at exining himself, however, Daniel continued. "You cannot hide behind the eyes of Destiny''s gift."

    The mention of one of the champions of Destiny was enough to halt any form of conversation, causing each of the surrounding aspects of existence to turn towards the three individuals with newfound interest.

    "A blurry picture might not tell me what the image shows, but it certainly tells me that someone wanted to hide it." Daniel exined calmly. To him, this was all the proof he needed, and yet, as he looked around, he realized that what he had done, rather than prove his im, was to confess to a crime of his own.. One much more severe than simple interference.

    Nevertheless, despite the loss of favor, Daniel maintained hisposure. These entities were outside of their individual domains, and together, they were standing within what was called a shared universe. An universe that had long been abandoned by its previous owner, and that was now slowly regaining life. A perfect territory for many of the multiverse''s independent groups who, through specific agreements, hade to great lengths to ensure that the influence of most aspects of existence would maintain a certain bnce.

    The Golden Peak Mountain sect was one of these groups, specifically tasked with maintaining the influences of War, Death, Authority and several other domains to eptable levels. To counter them was the Prism Utopia, a society of peaceful merchants whose nature affected the influences of the aspects of Peace, Wealth, Community and many others.

    It was only within this type of universe that many aspects of existence feltfortable meeting, as they had all lived long enough to make evesting friends, as well as evesting enemies.

    Surprised by the crowd''s reaction, Daniel raised his hands in a theatrical sign of surrender. "Don''t look at me like that, many of you have done the same in the past. He is doing it right now."<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    The attention of the several aspects of existence shifted once again,nding onto a concerned expression they had never seen, throughout all these years, on Sacrifice''s face. This time, however, the aspects of existence were not simply observing, but making ns, and offering threatening looks.

    Contrary to Daniel, who was a new aspect of existence, Sacrifice had existed almost as long as mortals had been around. Uncountable were the years he had had to memorize and abide by the pantheon''s rules, and the order to kill any champion of Destiny on sight was one of the most important ones. One written by the all-father, the lord of all, seer of the one true future and one of the few aspects of his rank.. Fate.

    Being associated with a champion of Destiny, for Sacrifice in particr, would have been a p to Fate''s face, especially considering how deeply his nature was tied to thetter''s. Everything that Sacrifice was, existed within the domain of Fate.

    "I don''t know what you are talking about." He said as the unease disappeared from his face, and he regained his usual indifferent look. "The number of that filth''s spawn that I have personally destroyed throughout the years is far higher than the number of years you''ve been alive, pup."

    A smile crept across Daniel''s face. "Then you are unaware of the one squatting in your older universe, I presume?"

    A shiver ran down Sacrifice''s spine. "If such filth was located within one of my many universes, I would know nothing of it."

    Danel''s lips curved downwards, and his head bobbed up and down in agreement. "Well of course, you wouldn''t associate with them. I am sure your champions would confirm that." he then uttered as a small spark of golden light emerged from his right pupil. This spark, bright and vivid, soon grew to the size of amon human, dying down soon after to reveal the presence of a woman hidden inside.

    This woman was curled up in a fetal position. Her head, buried deep in between her knees as her arms hugged her legs, she was visibly shaking, horrified by whatever hell had gotten a hold of her while caged within Daniel''s power.

    Immediately, Sacrifice recognized this woman for who she was, one of his oldest champions, as well as one of the generals sent to fight off the joined armies of Der and Roley. "Surely she will be able to confirm what you have told us." Daniel spoke as the woman, perceiving the presence of her lord, turned her head to the side. In her eyes hope had been ignited. Hope that she could escape the fate that she was facing.

    "My Lord!" she sobbed in between moans, and yet, she soon began to gasp. Her fingers approached her throat, grasping at a pair of invisible hands, but before anything could be done for her, her thin neck snapped to the side, bent in a ny degrees angle.

    In a matter of moments since her release, she had died a death that, to the observing aspects of existence, appeared like a signed confession.

    The observing aspects of existence looked at Sacrifice with narrowed eyes. His expression now matched perfectly with his angered gaze. "You will pay for this." Sacrifice growled in a deep and guttural voice.

    Daniel''s sly smile quickly turned into a genuine one, as the golden light within his body emerged like a swarm of flies that had tasted freedom for the very first time. His power engulfed the entire asteroid, shrouding not only Sacrifice''s power, but also all other powers of existence, and causing their wielders to feel that their sense of sight had be somewhat of a hindrance.

    Sacrifice, shocked by the demonstration of power, took a step back. This universe did not contain anywhere near enough of his influence topete, and fighting now would mean death. Luckily for him, however, death was exactly what hade to his aid.

    From the already dark depths of the universe, an immense amount of deathly power converged in their direction, forming a cluster of dark mist that shed with Daniel''s golden power upon contact.

    At first, the power of Karma was able to resist the onught, but as each second passed, the amount of deathly essence increased by twofold, forcing the golden light to retreat back to the proximity of Daniel''s body.

    As the surroundings cleared of Daniel''s body, the observing entities noticed that the olddy was once again standing, yet the target of her gaze was not Daniel, whose power she had just wrestled with, but Sacrifice. "Visit high Lord Fate immediately. Beg for forgiveness, and hope that it isn''t within his knowledge that he''ll send you to meet me again today." She ordered.

    Sacrifice, unable to talk back to his superior, looked back with a mixture of fear, anger. He did not look forward to what came next, and he most definitely did not appreciate the entity that had caused this entire mess. "Face me within my domain, I dare you." He barked in Daniel''s direction.

    "Ah, I''ll face you right here." Daniel responded after a brief chuckle.

    In Sacrifice''s eyes, this meeting had been aplete loss. Death awaited at every step he took, be that by facing Daniel here, ignoring the olddy''smands, or meeting Fate soon after. He had reached a fork in the road, and each path was worse than the other.

    A deep anger had set at the bottom of his throat, like a piece of food that was struggling to be ingested. A very human feeling he had never had the displeasure of experiencing. It was with this state of mind that he turned around, and with a sh of blood red light, disappeared.

    As his presence dissipated into the unknown, a few words resounded, left behind for others to ponder on, "Do not cast me, your kin, away for working with a monster. Not when this outsider is creating them."

 Chapter 640 The One Above All

    "We will take our leave as well, Lady Death." Said the aspect of Labor who soon disappeared in a sh of bright light. He was the first to have caught on to Karma and Lady Death having some important matters to discuss, a conclusion the others reached soon after in gradual order, prompting them to follow suit and leave after exchanging a few words of courtesy.

    Within a minute from Sacrifice''s departure, Daniel and the aspect of Death had been left alone to stand on the drifting asteroid, which continued in its path undisturbed, albeit in a much less lively way.

    "Is what he said true?" Death''s dark voice resounded within Daniel''s mind, bouncing around like a never ending echo. None of the courtesy or favor she had shown him remained, and were instead reced by a seriousness that made his skin crawl. In Daniel''s mind, ending this meetup between aspects of existence in a deadly sh with Death herself had be a very real possibility.

    While both Daniel and Sacrifice had brought forth an identical degree of usations, in Death''s eyes, the connotations behind each person''s misdeeds was quite different. In Sacrifice''s case, he had meddled with the lives of humans. An act that while previously prohibited by Fate, was now only considered a behavior to be frowned upon. His rtionship with a champion of Destiny, however, was a different story.

    Destiny was the antithesis of Fate, and Sacrifice''s use of one of the former''s champions was akin to an employer buying the products of apetingpany. Which employer would not fire such a disloyal employee? She would have.

    Thankfully, while Sacrifice''s rtionship with a champion of Destiny was bound to cost him, that too was not too outrageous of a transgression. After all, that wouldn''t have been the first time an aspect of existence would allow the use of a champion of Destiny, and fate was not an exception. Many throughout the years had been kept for study, experimenting, and forcedbor.

    Nevertheless, in her eyes what Daniel had done was different. Not different in which transgressions he had been guilty of, but in the purpose of such transgression.

    Regardless of what Sacrifice did with the champion he had employed, Death could tell that the oue would be wholly beneficial to him and him alone, and that once the champion''s use came to an end, he would be disposed of by Sacrifice himself. However, that could not be said for Daniel. After all, Karma was once a champion of Destiny himself, one that knew the path to bing an aspect of existence.

    If he so wished, with his knowledge, Daniel could collect the wielders and Destiny''s gifts, and create an army of his peers.. And while Death was not too fond of her kin, she would not want to see the multiverse be swallowed in the mes of a war of survival between the old aspects of existence, and the new ones.

    For this reason, she had decided to interrogate Daniel, and depending on what he had nned, put it to an end right here and then.

    Despite the palpable yet controlled sense of hostility, Daniel chose not to lie. "Partially. One of the mortals he.. I was associated with, became the target of one of Destiny''s champions. He was lucky enough to survive the encounter, obtaining the champion''s gift in the process. I have been using him as apass of sorts.. asionally helping him deal with problems beyond his reach."

    Daniel''s exnation seemed to surprise the aspect of Death, and cause her hostility to slightly diminish. What his words had implied was that it was possible for mortals to gain control over one of Destiny''s gifts, taking the spiteful nature of Destiny''s champions out of the equation.

    It was this implication that awakened a memory in her. The memory of when she had first met Daniel, all those years back. A young man who did not possess the characteristic nature of a champion of Destiny despite wielding one of his gifts. He was loyal, and cared for his friends and loved ones to a point where he would march into the depths of Death''s domain to recover a single measly consciousness which, for him, was worth everything.

    He too, she realized, must have taken over what would be the power of Karma from its original wielder.. And that begged the question. "You are trying to help him ascend? To make another one, just like you?" She asked.

    Daniel''s lips parted, showing a row of pearly white teeth. "Why not?" He inquired while raising his arms in a dramatic manner. "Your kind made it abundantly clear that you do not consider me one of you, so why not create my own side?"<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "Are you insane?!" Death blurted out as the power of deathpressed the essence of Karma further into Daniel''s body, advancing further into binding his arms to his sides and his legs shut. On her usually kind visage was now pure anger. An anger that, however,cked hostility, and was more in line to disappointment and outrage. "Do not make the mistake of thinking that you have seen the worse our kind can do."

    "We have observed and ignored you, but let you live. Cease your foolish endeavor or you''ll truly know what it means to be stuck between a rock and a hard ce!"

    Daniel squirmed around to no avail. His physical power was in no way strong enough to free him from the cold and indifferent essence of death, and the power of karma he had had the time to gather was insufficient. His eyes, the only part allowed to still move, started at the olddy as she handled his body like a doll.. Sleep paralysis was the event closest to what he was currently feeling, yet, he was still calm.

    In the woman''s eyes Daniel could still see no true hostility, only a semnce of it. She was trying to help him, hinting that bing a wee part of their kind would not happen forcefully.. It would take time.

    While that was the message, however, the hint of sadness that had permanently marked her facial features had been a constant reminder to those who looked at her that that was as foolish a thought as what Daniel had been nning. Billions were the years she had spent trying to fit in the pantheon of aspects of existence, and yet, she had always been an outcast. The one representation of existential power which could never affect the other aspects of existence, as death, to them, was a ridiculous and foreign concept.

    Yet, despite her past, Death still hoped that Daniel woulde around.. But the longer her clear gray eyes stared into his, the more she realized that that would never happen. In just a few moments, the deathly essence shemanded let go of Daniel''s body, dissipating within the darkness of space.

    As the bottom of his feetnded back onto the asteroid''s rocky surface, Daniel approached the old woman. "I know that it is a foolish endeavor. Your power alone is proof of it." he imed before turning to the side, and taking a step forward. His hand slowly rose to his face, allowing his fingers to pinch his chin pensively as he started to walkps around the olddy.

    "I never intended to create a faction that could oppose the more.. Regr aspects of existence." His words lingered in the air, dissipating one after the other moments after being spoken.. Yet being spoken louder as Daniel''s body stepped outside of Death''s field of view.

    The olddy ignored Daniel''s theatrics until suddenly, a small portal opened in front of her eyes. Through this portal was endless darkness, yet also zes of fire, pierce winds, rolling thunder, and blinding lights, each mixing together and crashing onto what felt like ants to a multitude of natural cataclysms.

    At the center of this terrifying spectacle, a small human. A young man with seven spheres of primordial power embedded within his back, and eyes of pure light and darkness. In his hand, he wielded a fist-sized transparent bead, source of the purest and most ancient concepts of spatial essence.

    The presence of the young man horrified the aspect of Death, who saw his actions create deathly essence at a rate which very few members of his kind in history could have matched. He was just human, and yet he felt like a member of her kind, leaving her to wonder.. If this creature ascended, what heights would his powers reach?

    To her, his nature seemed to reach much further than the simple actions of mortals. Further than their existence, and beyond the concepts formed by thews of the universe. His nature was deeper than death, karma, and even primordial aspects of existence, as it epassed everything. Everything was born from it, including the chance for Fate to exist.

    Her mind began spinning, and for the first time in her long life she became nauseous. She had seen the principle of a new height, which chimed in her head like an obsessive thought.

    ''Who was that?'' she asked herself over and over again, until finally, a crisp voice rang into her left ear. Her head snapped to the side to find Daniel''s face, leaning onto her shoulder with eyes pointed at the figure shown within the port, and lips curved into a sinister smile. "But the power I n to nurture is far beyond anything your puny kind can ever hope topete with. The one above all."

 Chapter 641 An Unacceptable Offer

    Core system of the Golden Peak Mountain sect, twenty minutes earlier.

    The sudden appearance of the bulk of the sect''s armies had brought a shift to the meeting between the leaders of the Armada and Elemental Army, and the Patriarch of the Golden Peak Mountain sect. What was before a meeting on equal ground had now turned into a hostage situation, as the armada''s floti was nowpletely surrounded by an uncountable number of the sect''s disciples.

    Despite this change being amander''s worst nightmare, the reactions of Der and Roley to it were hidden underneath the former''s heavy helmet andtter''s baggy hood. Their heads were tilted upwards and towards the sea of cultivators who, thanks to the''sck of atmosphere, could be clearly seen from the surface of the dry red earth the two were standing on.

    "We would like to discuss the terms of your surrender." Said the woman with the clipboard, as she slowly stepped past her bulky leader, and towards the two.

    As she walked half of the distance, she stopped. Her attention was once again caught by the clipboard, which she reached for with her free hand. Then, with a few quick motions, she unclipped a bundle of papers, and offered it by stretching her arm towards the two guests.

    Unwilling to wait for either of the two to approach her, she then let go of it, causing it to fall on the ground with a faint thudding sound, a noise which prompted theughter of most of the generals and young masters who were standing proudly behind the impressive figure of their patriarch. The thought of either of the two bending to pick the papers up, gave them a sense of joy.

    Yet, neither Der nor Roley seemed bothered by their action. They were proud entities in their own rights, but alsocked the childishness required to start an argument over such petty provocations. To make a move was Der who, still covered in a majestic ted armor which nked at every step, traveled the half of the distance the woman had not walked.

    In a few seconds, he had reached the small pile of papers that, clipped together, had barely struggled to resist being dragged away by the powerful winds. Once in his hands, he shook them clear of the sand every crevice had gathered, then brought them up to his chest. His eyes, daggers sheathed behind two thin openings, scanned the paper''s content carefully.

    Despite Der being a prolific reader, the read kept going for several minutes. A detail which implied how long the list of demands of the Golden Peak Mountain sect were. At the end of each request, both Roley and the patriarch could see an almost imperceptible shake of Der''s head, causing them to wonder whether that faint motion was paired with a grim smile of surrender, or an expression of sheer anger.

    While curious, the two waited patiently for the warrior to finish, and so he did when, in an oddly calm state of mind, he read thest of the sect''s demands.. After which he turned around and walked back towards his hoodedpanion, papers in hand.

    Der did not say much, and instead pushed the stack of papers on Roley''s chest. "Read it." he muttered with a voice cold with anger.

    Immediately Roley grabbed the papers and began reading out loud. "The leaders of the two armies will be released, and allowed free passage outside the universe under these conditions. Number one, the Immortal Armada has to submit to the Golden Peak Mountain sectpletely, that includes the army, its ships, and every non-civilian department, joining its rankspletely."

    "Number two, any form of umted wealth in possession of either the Armada''s poption or its leaders must be offered to the patriarch of the Golden Peak Mountain sect. Number three, the schematics of the sealing formation have to be handed over, alongside any resource required for the formation to be fully operational. Number four.."

    The least seemed infinite, with each point being more outrageous than the previous one. By the time Roley had reached the fourth request, he realized that he had still not gone through half of the list. A series of requests that, if not meant purely to be rejected, and agreed on, would have granted Roley and Der to escape alone, and with little more than their clothes on.

    Though this list was outrageous, Roley was not too bothered by it. After all, he had left his, shrunk to the size of a ring''s diamond, with one of his followers. With it, even if Roley and Der refused the offer right away andughed in the Patriarch''s face, he would still be able to protect the two armies from a distance. Of that, he was quite confident.

    Luckily, that had not been the case yet.

    The anger he had perceived by Der''s tone had escaped his mind, as another thought had taken precedence. They needed to find the location of one of the sect''s young masters. The one infiltrated within the Archive of Blood and Bones of Sacrifice''s domain, and they would not be able to do it, or at least not as quickly, if they simply eradicated the Golden Peak Mountain sect right on the spot. Because of that, he was still willing to talk.

    Of the few requests he had bothered to read through, one in particr was not too outrageous, but just slightly exaggerated. That was request number three.

    As previously agreed upon beforeing to this universe, Der and Roley had decided that the formation created by the scientists of the Armada did not need to exist only for their benefit. It was originally meant to allow mortals to carve a safe space within the multiverse, away from the grubby fingers of the aspects of existence.. And while they did not particrly like the nature of this sect, their existence would not be a problem anymore the moment they would seal themselves within their universe. Away from the eyes, away from the heart, they thought.

    Unfortunately, while willing to share the formation, and even provide help in gathering materials, what the two were unwilling to offer was what they were currently using as materials to fuel the formation, as they themselves did not have enough to maintain a fully functioning one. Ack of resources that had been temporarily solved through the selfless sacrifice of spatial elementals whom, Roley believed, the sect would not bother recing with inanimate objects.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Nevertheless, in his ingenuity, Roley still believed the offer of the schematics, while paired with help in gathering resources, would be more than enough for the little information they were asking to give out. An exchange, he thought, would sound better when offered eye to eye.

    In a graceful motion, his hands rose to his head, grabbing the seam of the hood and pulling it back, revealing the facial features of a young man with ck hair, a clean shaved face with schrly features, and eyes of pure light and darkness. On his face was present a genuine smile, polite and amiable, which he held as he tried to step towards the patriarch of the sect to begin negotiations.

    Before he could take a single step, however, a thick armored arm stopped his motion.

    Roley turned to the side to notice the figure of Der, who was now looking down on the papers the former was still casually holding. A detail that prompted Roley to, once again, shift his attention to what was written in the list of demands.

    As both looked at it, Der''s shiny finger moved to the bottom of the paper, where thest of the demands was worded out in a single sentence. A couple of taps of his fingers were all Roley needed to understand that he needed to read that specific demand, and he needed to do so now.

    Once again Roley''s voice yed out for all to see as he read thest of the demands. "Number twelve.. All elementals of high or superior tier are to be handed over to the Golden Peak Mountain sect to be used as resources for its disciples'' cultivation, andbor for our universe''s development.." Then absolute silence.

    The smile disappeared from Roley''s face, as his eyelids moved into a series of slow blinks. His lips were now pressed together, drained from blood the same ways his fingers were as they tightened up into fists. On his arm''s pale skin, the protruding greenish veins had begun to glow of a yellow color which traveled through his forearms, before disappearing into the flesh of his hand.

    *Fwoosh* The pile of papers was instantly set aze, and burnt to ashes in a matter of moments. At the same time, the ground thaty solidly at the bottom of Roey''s bare feet, already cracked due to the dry weather, had started to tremble. Then, alongside a continuous cracking noise, the cracks began to stretch, turning into crevices, then rifts of immeasurable depth.

    While alerted by this reaction, none of the sect''s members acted. Instead, what they found curious was that while any of them could summon fire and crack the earth, they had not felt any form of immortal essence being released by Roley''s body. In their eyes, Roley''s actions appeared to have happened spontaneously, the way an elemental would make use of the power they controlled.

    Soon, the dry found itself unable to contain the constant tremors and cracks, and like an apple being thrown from the top of a hundred-story building onto solid concrete, it began falling apart. However, while many expected to feel the heat of the''s core wash past them, and the many fragments of the they stood on to part ways, nothing of the sort happened. The core had been suppressed, put off like the me of a candle, and each piece of earth had cracked further, as if aiming to continue falling apart until nothing but dust was left.

    "Enough of this!" The patriarch barked in anger, feeling a sort of unease that refused to leave his mind. With a snap of his neck, he turned towards one of his generals with the intention of ordering the bulk of his army to assault the Armada, but as his eyesnded on the closest of his sons, he noticed that he, alongside each of the several hundred cultivators who stood next to him, were all staring at the sky with dumbfounded expressions.

    Immediately he followed their gaze to only now notice the gargantuan that had appeared out of nowhere. A several times the size of the one Roley had just pulverized through the weight of sheer anger, and that was pure,plete, and beautiful.

    But, s, he was only allowed a brief gaze of this paradise before the, which had appeared in the area where the Armada and Elemental army were stationed, shrunk to the size of a fingernail. A small pearl that, with the speed of light itself, dove in Roley''s direction and dug into his chest, disappearing from their sight.

    As the disappeared, the patriarch and his sect realized that nothing was left of either of the two armies, only an empty patch of space surrounded by the menacing forces of the Golden Peak Mountain sect.

    Suddenly, an impressive gust of wind capable of stripping the flesh out of a mortal''s bones shed against the patriarch and his men, pushing them away with waves of heat, electricity and hail, all hidden behind an infinitely powerful light that casually wrestled its existence against an equally as frightening darkness.

    Such wind was so powerful that not even the system''s core star was spared from its might, and its gaseousposition was sted away like a de of grass by a hurricane. Within these piercing gusts, which had already reaped the lives of countless of the sect''s weakest cultivators, a in voice echoed. "Your demands are denied."

    Furious by the turn of events, the patriarch''s skin flushed a red color as he ordered in a mind numbingly powerful tone "ATTACK!"

    This single word crept into the minds of each of his followers who, just like him, began to shift into beasts of full rage, and together, they charged at the figures of the Lord of Elementals, and Warlord of the Immortal Armada.

 Chapter 642 Reality Check

    In one of the multiverse''s few shared universes, a new, miniature neb had appeared. While significantly smaller in size than its natural gaseous counterpart, this neb was in no way less impressive of a sight. Within its confines were reflected an incalcble amount of shades of color, each formed by the mixture of the same eight to nine tones, all dancing around one another like different paints poured into a bowl.

    This event was given a particrly spectacr feature as, the shine of the warm color of autumns, the buzzing blue of thunder, and the blinding brightness of pure light shone over the particles of gold and tinum, and sand made entirely out of microscopic diamonds, emerald and other precious gems, making the neb look like a universe in itself.

    The peculiarity of this show of colors was so vast that even the grim spectacle it hid could not be noticed. In fact, within the many sparks of bright light, and the waves of dirt and fragmented ice, were hundreds of millions of corpses, ravaged by the brutality of each color that, unbothered by the presence of the victims'' immortal bodies, cut them to pieces, burnt them to a crisp, buried them in roots, dirt, metallic coffins, and absolute darkness.

    Within the neb''s further reaches, a group of red-skinned cultivators, barely counting in the thousands, unleashed the full extent of their power onto the iridescent trap. In their mad attacks, the group of cultivators hoped to disrupt the workings of the formation so that its core could be reached, and yet, regardless of how many attacks were sent, any form of damage was absorbed by the fluid powers of nature before disappearing behind new waves of elemental essence.

    Eventually, after several minutes of failed attempts, the blind rage that had clouded the minds of the group of cultivators dissipated, allowing their consciousness to be recovered. "Patriarch.. I-There is nothing we can.." One of the cultivators stuttered frightfully as his eyes lingered within the magnificent show of lights.

    The Patriarch of the Golden Peak Mountain sect, after regaining hisposure, stared at the neb in amazement. His original n was to absorb therge armies of the Immortal Armada and Elemental Army, like he had done many times before throughout the past several thousand years. To do that, he had made use of the entirety of his sect''s powers.

    An army that was ten times the size of their own, a power that made them immune to the authority of the Warlord, and resistant to the strength of the primordial elements. So why were they losing? And why was Roley so much more powerful than they remembered him to be? He kept asking himself as several more voices voiced their doubts and worries to his deaf ears.

    His entire army had been decimated, and those who hadn''t retreated already had been swept up by powers capable of erasing an entire section of the gxy. It was only thanks to their superior cultivation that the patriarch and his family and disciples were able to avoid such a fate. Nevertheless, while capable of bearing the brutality of the elements, they too felt the constant zapping of thunder, the heat of fire and light, the bone chilling ice, steel, wind and darkness all beating onto their skin, eager to pierce, burn and cut through.

    While manyined to him, however, the only person who caught the attention of the sect''s leader was the woman who had handed their demands over to Der and Roley. She had appeared by her master''s side, covered in bruises and cuts, shaking for a multitude of reasons, and clothed in what could hardly be called tatters. "Patriarch, we won''tst much longer. We must retreat." She said in between trembling lips and chattering teeth.

    She was the weakest of the survivors, the patriarch though. If the assault continued, she before anybody else would die like millions of his men had-All dead at the hands of the monster that was hiding in the core of that neb.

    Maybe he had asked for too much, maybe he had been too greedy.. Or maybe he had failed in making his sect keep up with the powers of other independent forces. He could not tell what the true reason for his failure was, and yet, he knew that it was something he had done-something he had to put a remedy to on his own.

    As he came to this realization, therge man''s bushy brows rxed. His tree-like arms rose to his chest, as his palmnded onto his stomach and bulky pectorals. Then, with the same effort it would take for an adult man to shred a sheet of paper, the patriarch ripped his clothes off, revealing his immense gray-colored chest.

    "From now on, I will fight on my own." His voice resounded across thousands of light years, and even breaching the soundless mist of colors that had engulfed him and his strongest and most loyal followers, reaching the ears of Roley and Der. What thetter two were not able to witness from a distance, however, was the formation that, originally carved within the back of the patriarch, had been uncovered for his followers to see.

    This formation was simple in its concept, with a shape resembling that of amon vortex, or a whirlpool. At the core of which was a deep hole of iplete darkness-A hole which, contrary to theplete darkness that danced within the neb Roley had created, was onlyposed of the concept of absorption.

    As soon as the members of the sect saw this formation, their faces grimaced with anguish. A feeling that was caused by the realization that their patriarch had lost hope in their strength.

    While they despised the idea of being useless, however, this state of mind onlysted for a moment, as another more pressing matter took precedence over their feelings-One by one the patriarch''s disciples and children approached the massive man, cing their hands onto his back, right by the edge of the whirlpool.

    As if reacting to the presence of immortal essence, the moment the first palm touched the formation the vortex came to life, pulling the power contained within the bodies of his followers into the core of the formation, leaving them with just enough power to attempt a retreat.

    Every few moments, a new cultivator was drained of their power, and forced to retreat from the neb in a desperate attempt to preserve their lives-until finally, a few minutester, only the patriarch was left.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    The once stern expression of the sect leader had gone, now reced by one of pure pain and suffering. His gray skin, previously sturdy and shiny with sweat, was now covered in ck patches caused by the foreign powers shing against his personal immortal essence.

    With muscles flexing on their own, bloodshot eyes, and veins on the verge of exploding, the patriarch quietly let go of any form of resistance, allowing the foreign powers to ravage through the atoms of his body freely.

    Every moment this pain reached a new height, gradually increasing until finally, these powers came in contact with his consciousness.

    As soon as the two shed, his consciousness became fuzzy and unstable, and the pain he had felt ended. His naturally gray skin had turnedpletely pseudo-ck in color, tainted by the sanguine property of the darkest type of blood. Then, in an instant, his body disappeared.

    Like a fiery meteor entering orbit, the body of the sect leader shed against the neb of elemental powers, creating sts of residual power that cut chunks of thetter the same way a set of teeth would an apple. Each st caused the fiery individual to bounce back, allowing him to make use of the newly created distance to gain momentum, and make another attempt.

    As the massive cluster of colors was damaged, however, the essences would not dissipate, and instead merge back together, forming a gradually smaller yet denser agglomerate of natural essences. Yet, the power of the sect leader seemed unstoppable, as each of his attacks would rip apart a portion of the neb regardless of how dense it was.

    This series of shes went on for several minutes, until finally, the neb reached the limit of density possible, turning into a-sized sphere of dense natural elements. A smooth ss-like orb whose interiors kept shifting, flowing about and merging together.

    While the sect leader had managed to suppress Roley''s power, however, that was not without taking damage. A damage that was not inflicted by thetter''s powers, but the very essences contained within his body which, alongside giving him a godly strength, were also thrashed his veins, muscles and organs whenever he would move.

    After so many attacks, his skin, as well as the external part of each of his organs had started to crack. It was only thanks to his berserker powers that he was still capable of moving, fueled by a rage that made him little different than a bull chasing its target regardless of injuries, or other predators wing at its back.

    To his followers'' surprise, once the sphere reached the limits ofpression the sphere lost its stic property, allowing for the attacks that followed to form cracks on it. Cracks that becamerger andrger with every hit. A fist-sized dent turned to a volcano, then into a crater.. With the fourth strike the colorful masses had split, and by the tenth strike, the body of the raging cultivator found no more obstacles.

    Once into the crack that had formed, therge blood-red cultivator kept pushing, shattering the world of elementsyer byyer, until finally, his fist pierced the innermost part, the core where Der and Roley were hiding.

    Like a beast blinded by rage, the cultivator grabbed the edge of the hole and pulled it apart with all the strength his body could muster.. A strength so vast that the sphere, yet to recover from his deep dive, could not wrestle against, ending up splitting in half, and revealing the two waiting figures of the Warlord of the Immortal Armada, and the monster that led the Elemental Army.

    The strength required to break the innermostyer apart seemed to be too much for the patriarch''s body to handle, as the cracks that had covered his skin had turned into deep gashes, and reached as far as the bones, which were on the verge of snapping.

    An indescribable pain flushed his mind alongside the realization that his consciousness had returned. His body, once dark red in color, was now back to a more sickly gray shade than it originally was, andpletely covered in ck blotches. He could feel that he had only one more attack in him before the many powers within his body wouldpletely destroy him.. Just one attack and his followers would be able to go back, and rebuild what his greed had lost them.

    His fist tightened, and moved behind his head.. It was then that he saw it. A small sphere. A fingernail-sized bead of elemental power that, despite its forgettable size, felt more powerful than the neb he had almost died breaking into. At the sight of this small sphere, his fist, which had destroyed countless enemies in the past, felt quite puny.

    Without any word of notice, the small bead shone an impossible light, and dashed in his direction. His powerful and domineering figure rxed for the first time in forever, refusing to even attempt to block the attack. He could feel its destructive power. A small bead of condensed sphere that seemed capable of creating a universe as much as it could destroy it.

    He was going to die from this attack, he was certain.. Or at least, until a delicate yet familiar figure appeared in front of him. A figure in front of which the immensely powerful attack stopped, before dissipating into nothingness.

 Chapter 643 By The Skin Of His Teeth

    The body of the Golden Peak Mountain sect''s patriarch was in pieces. His broken limbs barely hanging by the most obstinate bounds of muscle, while the deep gashes that covered his skin leaked copious amounts of ckened blood and foreign immortal essences. Thepleteck of strength had left his mouth agape, and his eyes devoid of focus.

    All he could distinguish from that whichy in front of him, was the gradual disappearance of the elemental neb, as well as the presence of a familiar silhouette.

    Within the now broken core of the elemental formation, Roley stood still. On his left shoulder the cold and heavy feeling of hispanion''s gauntlet had awakened him from the rage which had fueled the recent onught.

    "Wait, stop." Der''s words were barely more than a whisper, and yet they resounded cleanly, for the hell Roley had unleashed, other thancking the solidity of space and the flow of time, alsocked the essence of sound.

    As the ray of light and elemental neb dissipated, the figure of two individuals became clear in Roley''s eyes. One resembling a human, while the other not so much. Thetter, of course, belonged to the mangled and broken body of the sect''s patriarch, now busy with gathering as manyst breaths as he could muster, while the former, belonged to a woman who appeared to be in herte thirties.

    This woman, kind in appearance yet serious and professional, stood quietly in front of the hurt giant, as if shielding him from the attack. "She isn''t one of them." Der imed before quietly floating past hispanion, and towards the now visibly relieved woman.

    Der''s eyes had not failed him. The woman, who now looked as if she had escaped a close encounter with death, was brushing her long red hair nervously,bing them past her bosom and in front of a fitting white and gold tunic. Her heartbeat was irregr, a detail that could not escape the developed ears of cultivators.

    Despite her disheveled and anxious appearance, the woman was extremely powerful. So much so that her immortal essence carried the same weight as that of the Golden Peak Mountain sect''s patriarch. While seemingly as powerful, however, shecks any semnce of martial prowess, and gave the impression that her cultivation was purely aimed at prolonging her life, rather than increase her strength.

    After a few long seconds, the woman managed to regain herposure. From her hidden left hand she secretly released a thread of pure white power which quietly burrowed into the deepest of the patriarch''s wounds. At the same time, a silvery voice emerged from in between her pair of purplish lips.

    "I am Sonya, the head merchant of the Prism Utopia." She introduced herself with an elegant courtesy bow.

    At the mention of the Prism Utopia, Roley rxed. He had once encountered a member of such a faction, an old and jovial traveling merchant who, after learning of his mission to create a safe living conditions for the elementals, had decided to immediately stop his dealings in blood treasures, name which was used to indicate essence treasures that were not gathered, but obtained through the extermination of living elementals. He had also promised that, after his return home, he would push a motion to his association for the ban of purchase and sale of this type of relics.

    While this had happened centuries ago, the memory of that encounter was still vivid in Roley''s mind, for it was one of the very few times when his desire to save the race of the elementals had not been mocked, but encouraged. It was truly out of luck that Der had stopped him, for he would have detested the idea of hurting the man''s associates by mistake.

    Der immediately noticed the change in Roley''s behavior-A change which he could not exin, so he decided to maintain his careful and attentive attitude. "A pleasure to meet you,dy Sonya." He responded while bowing faintly in response, "May we know why you are interfering?"

    The questioning did not catch the woman by surprise, for she had already had an answer prepared. "Many lives were taken here, today. I simply believe there has been enough death.. The day is already yours."

    "Woman, move over.." A grave tone resounded from behind her as an enormous handnded against her side, and pushed her away. The hand belonged to the patriarch who, after receiving thedy''s healing grace, had managed to recover his enormous humanoid figure.

    *SPA* The woman''s hand flung to her side, andnded onto the back of therge burly hand with a crisp p. "Be quiet Nathan, you have done enough damage!" She said in what looked like an anger that was uncharacteristic of her appearance. An anger that, in truth, was motherly in nature, for she looked more like a mother apologizing for her child''s naughty behavior, rather than a warrior ready to fight to the death to save herpanion.

    Feeling this faint pnd onto his hand, therge man felt ashamed. It wasn''t often that a powerful warrior such as him would need to be defended.. And yet, knowing the woman''s character, he was not surprised.

    The Prism Utopia was one of the independent factions that lived within the shared universes, and that like the Golden Peak Mountain sect, worked alongside the other factions to maintain a bnce of existential powers in hope to avoid that one would gain higher influence over another. That was how they had maintained this universe free from domains or their masters.

    While the two powers were simr in importance, however, their nature could not be more different, as while the sect''s ultimate goal was to maintain a stable production of the powers of war, death and authority, the Prism Utopia had the task to uphold different powers of a more peaceful nature.

    For that reason, these two factions worked together more closely than others.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Der and Roley were unbothered by the woman''s appearance. After all, she was not an enemy. However, they still had a goal to achieve. "That man tried to enve my people, and demanded for the elementals under hismand to be handed over for use, like cheap items. Give us a good reason to stop now." Der said, growing increasingly angrier the more he spoke.

    The woman''s eyes softened. Her disappointed expression was poking holes at the woundedrge man, and yet, she did not admonish him. She knew what his role was within this universe. It was not one he was happy to do, but one that he was required to fulfill.

    "We need him." She responded with her silvery voice. "Without him, the other powers would be forced to put an end to their work, at least until a new power simr to the Golden Peak Mountain sect arises.. And by that point, the influence of aspects that go beyond the control of mortals will have taken over the universe, and we will all lose our home."

    "I ask you again.. Seize the victory, im your prize, and please, leave this universe. This much damage the other groups can handle, but his death will cause damage beyond repair to us, more than him."

    As she finished speaking, Der and Roley felt the presence of several more entities, each as powerful as the patriarch and the head merchant of the Prism Utopia, appear in the distance. They were staring from a distance, unwilling to take part in the confrontation but ready to, for if the woman''s request was refused, they would have no choice.

    Der looked around with alertness. He did not feel threatened by the presence of so many powerful warriors, after all, the most violent of them was already out ofmission. He was ready to join the battle at any moment, and yet, he let Roley decide. After all, he was the one who had been offended the most, and if he decided to outright kill the sect leader, he would support him in his decision.

    When he turned to look at Roley, however, Der noticed that the hostility had abandoned his face. In its ce there was a sympathetic expression, with a hint of cordiality to match.

    "Is old Khan still a member of your faction?" Roley asked with audible expectations.

    The mention of this name left the woman dumbfounded. "I haven''t thought of that name in.. quite a long time." She muttered to herself as she delved into a pensive state of mind. One from which she awoke soon after, "How do you know that name?"

    "I met him before, not too long ago.. He-" Roley''s lips curved into a kind smile as he recounted the time his army, and the old man had crossed paths. "..he made me that promise, then we said our goodbyes. I was wondering if he is still wandering the multiverse, or if he has retired, ande back home."

    Hearing the brief story brought tears to the woman''s eyes, which she immediately caught with her baggy sleeves before they could ruin her make-up. "Mhh.. The man you met was my grandfather.." She said with a short-lived sense of pride, soon to be reced by a hint of sadness. "Unfortunately, he passed away a few decades back. He wandered too close to the domain of Horror, and did not survive."

    "Oh.." Roley muttered in response. He still remembered that jovial old man, and how sympathetic he had been to his cause. They had only traveled together for a few weeks, but he was still someone he hade to consider a friend. To know that he had died, possibly of an unspeakable death, was nothing but depressing news.

    As Roley delved into this moment of sadness, however, the woman''s voice resounded in his ears once more time, now filled with newfound pride and fondness. "He never forgot that promise. He came back one day, and gave all our high merchants an earful about how dealing in the corpses of elementals did not fit the nature of our organization. It was out of the blue, but he was so passionate about it¡­"

    Hearing this brought a smile to Roley''s face. A smile that stayed for only a few moments, after which his inhuman eyes once againnded on the figure of the sect''s patriarch. "Alright. We will let him live." He said while staring at the man. "Give me what I have asked."

    The man let out a deep sigh. He had no intention of arguing, he was only d that the monster he had tried to fight had chosen to spare not only himself, but the surviving members of his faction, as well as the goals and efforts of an entire universe.

    Without saying a word, the man opened his palm, on top of which was a drop of crystalized blood. "Thoren, eighty-fourth in line for the patriarch position, and my great grandson. This will bring you to him." He said before retracting his hand, and leaving the reddish crystal to float in space. As the small item took off in Roley''s direction, he added, "If possible, do not kill him.. I gave him no reason to want toe back, so I would like to do something right for him."

    Roley did not answer. He cared little for the man, and even less for his offspring, whom he knew to have be part of Sacrifice''s domain. All he cared about was repaying a favor, and leaving this universe.. To find friends he cared for much more than the old merchant, and whom he had not seen for a much longer time.

    As Roley turned to leave, leaving behind relieved faces and calmer spirits, he gave a nod to his armoredpanion, who responded by picking a bead out of one of his armor''s many hidden pockets. The bead was casually thrown towards the woman, alongside a few words, "These are the schematics of our formation. I trust that with your connections you''ll eventually be able to set it in ce. By then, you won''t need to have factions of death and war within your universe."

    After leaving these few words behind, Roley and Der turned into shes of light, and in a moment, they disappeared.

 Chapter 644 Hiding Within

    Der and Roley had no desire to stay in this universe, especially not after almost eradicating one of its core powers, so their departure was a quick one. With the and armies safely stored within Roley''s body, and the red crystal sped within a fist of metal, the two headed for their destination, the interdimensional portal.

    The voyage took several days, a time in which not a single word was spoken. After all this time, Der had gotten used to the feeling of longing, which he had used as fuel to keep going. In fact, it was only with the prospect of creating a safe universe for his daughter and possible descendants to live, that he had been able to bear the weight ofmand.

    Roley, however, was different. In his once curious eyes Der could now see an evesting sense of unease, deepened by emotions that seemed to grow heavier by the day. That, more than the daily changes he had noticed, had be evident when Roley had managed to merge with the essences of primordial light and darkness, for which he seemed to have traded his natural schrly attitude in exchange for that of a willful sovereign.

    To Der, at first, these changes had seemed normal-After all, the closer they got to rejoining with their friends, the more agitated he himself felt. However, the more he observed Roley''s behavior, the more this thought left the back of his mind, and became a recurrent worry. Would finding a treasure of primordial time essence be a good thing for them? Would merging with it bring more of these changes to his old friend? And if it did, what type of entity would he be?

    Amidst all these questions, Der was sure of one thing. He had no intention of letting Roley sacrifice his humanity.. Not after seeing what the gain of monstrous power had done to Daniel.

    The silent voyage of the two came to an end when, after several days, the two came upon the interdimensional portal. There, Daniel had been waiting for them, chatting cordially with several entities whom both Der and Roley felt an intrinsic fear by simply staring at. It had taken a single nce at these individuals for their hearts to be heavy with the realization that those with whom Daniel was talking to were, in fact, aspects of existence.

    Having obtained a gift of Destiny, Roley had grown wary of such creatures. He knew his sheer newly gained powers were the bane of their existence, and yet, despite them noticing his presence, they showed no particr hostility towards him. Instead, his appearance had caused the few of them to cut their conversation short, and bid Daniel farewell before leaving the universe.

    "Took you long enough." Daniel said while casually approaching his two dumbfoundedpanions. "Did you get what you were looking for?" he then asked beforeing to a stop, a few steps away from them.

    Daniel''s snarkyment seemed to pluck a chord in Roley''s mind. The anxiousness of seeing a handful of aspects of existence was immediately turned into anger, as he barked out, "We did, not thanks to you. Wh-*CLANK*" The rant was quickly brought to an end by a faint nudge which, due to the sh of Der''s gauntlet, and Roley''s metal-infused arm, resounded far more loudly than the former had intended.

    "You did fine on your own, and even if I did help, there was little I could have done." Daniel imed with a matter-of-fact tone, ignoring the ridiculous behavior of the two.

    His words, however, left Roley confused. "We fought an army dedicated to war and murder, and I am supposed to believe you would have had nothing to gain from their demise?" He asked with indignation. Daniel''s words rang untrue to him, and an insult to his intelligence.

    A clever smile appeared on Daniel''s face, while his golden eyes scoured the surroundings with disinterest. "The people you have fought possessed a surprisingly low pool of karma.. Especially their leader. Today I have learned that bearing the role of the necessary viin is, somewhat, heroic."

    The indignation which had marked Roley''s facial features had turned intoplete shock. "Heroic?!" He growled in response. "A person who has murdered uncountable people, and demanded for my army to be given out to be used as resources is.. Heroic, to you?" The question came from the depths of Roley''s stomach. He did not understand the power Daniel controlled, nor was he ready to detach himself from the moral weight of a controversial topic, so that it could be argued with Daniel''s pragmatic point of view..

    However, the sheer idea that Daniel could have found the leader of the Golden Peak Mountain sect as someone deserving of anything but the most painful of deaths, made him sick to his stomach, causing in him an emotional outburst that even Der was surprised by.

    Daniel, on the other hand, was not bothered by it in the least. As a matter of fact, Roley''s attitude amused him, making him feel like a father, listening to the nonsensical babblings of his toddler son. "Do not worry yourself with the morality of karma, it has nothing to do with you."

    "Now, since you have what you came looking for, let us be off. I have an inkling that you''ll need my help soon enough." The smile disappeared from Daniel''s face, reced by the usual expression of indifference. His eyes had suddenly lost interest in the shared universe, and moved back onto the immense surface of the interdimensional portal, towards which he floated inplete silence, leaving behind an angered Roley, and a dismayed Der.

    Thetter, aware ofcking the skills to calm down the champion of Destiny, followed suit, and crossed the portal in silence.

    Once back in the Trigate, Der and Roley found themselves staring at Daniel''s back, behind which an army of ridiculous proportion marched past the portal they had just crossed left, and towards another. The portal which this army, an iprehensiblyrge ensemble of uncountable different armies, was heading towards, was almostpletely abandoned, and only protected by a single monstrous cultivator.

    With his several sets of long and pointy teeth, this lone cultivator chomped at his own nails anxiously. Their arrival was clearly something he was not happy about, and yet, the sight of the neat and frightening military attires the soldiers wore seemed to have given him an idea, as he immediately attempted to brush the dirt off of the iron armor that was fused into his rubbery skin.. Unfortunately, any and all attempts at grooming his armor were pointless, as the more he brushed it, the more oily and dirty it became.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Daniel and the others immediately recognized this lone monstrous cultivator as a member of Horror''s domain, or at least, what was left of it.. While the army clearly belonged to the domain of War.

    The army was enormous to say the least. So much so that their passing had shrouded the white space of the Trigate in darkness. Like a swarm of locusts they headed past the three before diving into the universe of Horror''s former domain. The one monstrous cultivator, hoping to look military enough to be spared, disappeared in the darkness they brought, eliminated instantly.

    "I thought the domain of War was subject to the domain of Horror.." Der pointed out.

    Daniel chuckled in response. "The domain of Horror doesn''t exist without the aspect of Horror. When their patron died, Horror''s powerless champions were left with a lot ofnd, and very little rights to it. It is not a surprise that a lesser power would cannibalize it. If anything, I am surprised it took decades for it to happen."

    What Daniel had said made sense. So much so, that Der felt stupid for not realizing this on his own. After all, that was a verymon practice for mortals as well.. How many dead Emperors did not have hundreds of leeches biting chunks of their riches the moment of their death? He had seen this way too many times.

    "How about you.. Don''t you have champions of your own to protect?" Roley asked with a hint of hostility.

    Daniel had already thought about this. His aspect of existence could be followed, and yet, he had never felt the need to create a domain of his own, or gain followers. "I don''t believe my nature permits the existence of champions." He said with a matter-of-fact tone. "And those whose safety I had to at least ensure once.. Well, I am here, am I not?"

    To Roley''s ears this answer sounded sarcastic, and arrogant, but not to Der, whose head tilted to the side and eyes narrowed in curiosity. This was the first time the warrior had questioned the true motive behind Daniel''s aid.. He had always thought that deep down, underneath theyers of aloofness and grandeur, something must have remained of his old friend. Yet, his words implied that helping them was not something he wanted to do, but that he waspelled to.

    "Alright, enough questions. The sooner we finish this, the better." Daniel added before heading towards the portal to the oldest of the universes within Sacrifice''s domain. Der and Roley followed right after.

    -----

    Only hours after their departure, Der and Roley found themselves back at the entrance of Sacrifice''s oldest universe.

    Inside, they had convinced themselves they would find the strongest army the aspect of Sacrifice could summon, and yet, as they stepped foot into it, they found nothing of the sort. The outskirts of the portal was empty, with spare materials and wrackages of ships the Armada''s mechanics had abandoned during their stay.

    No one was there to wait for them, nor it appeared that someone had passed by.. Yet, Roley felt a sense of unease. With a hint of worry he turned to look at Daniel, only to discover that he had disappeared once more.

    "What is it?" Der asked.

    Roley scouted his surroundings, leering into the workings of the very elements of which the void was made of. He looked through its infinite darkness, the light of stars, and even its invisible spatial form.. Failing to find anything out of ce. "Nothing.." he muttered to himself before pulling the red crystal out of his pocket, which had been tugging at the fabric of his pants since the moment they had stepped foot into the universe.

    The red crystal was a bloodpass. A simple artifact that used the maism between the immortal essence and the cultivator''s body to point a direction, and the drop of blood as a container for the former to survive in its owner''s absence. The way the crystal was heading towards, was where they would have found Thoren.

    Unsure of how far away the archives of Sacrifice''s domain would be, Roley pinched the middle of his chest, from which a grain of sand emerged. The grain floated away, far from Roley''s reach, until finally, it popped like a corn kernel to the size of an enormous and majestic garden. "I''ll travel faster on my own.. Have your people reinstall the formation. I''lle back to get you once I spot the archives." he said before, with the crystal in one hand, and the treasure of primordial spatial essence in the other, Roley disappeared into the depths of space.

    The moment he disappeared, Der gave the order, causing thousands of cultivators and spatial elementals to leave the, and get to work. Among the former, a woman in a loose white robes observed the busy cultivators with a pair of bright golden eyes. In her hand, a palm-sized temple.

 Chapter 645 The Goddess Of Sacrifices Domain

    ?

    The journey was not a long one.

    While Roley did not initially know how much of the immeasurable universe he would need to cross to reach the Archives of Blood and Bones, he was able to shorten the time of travel with the treasure of primordial spatial essence he was carrying. With it, he could fold the fabric of space, allowing him to cross gxies at the fastest speed achievable beneath the power of teleportation, which unfortunately, required a feel of the destination in order to be performed.

    In the wake of his passing, a thin line of shattered space was left behind, stretching for uncountable miles, and constantly fighting against the spatial concept of stability to expand, andmence the universe''s untimely copse. Luckily, this trail was far too meek for it to wrestle against the young and stable universe, and was stabilized soon after being created.

    Despite his inconceivable speed, few understood the magnitude of Roley''s journey. After all, while he had visited many universes, each was infinitely big, and he had only explored a small fraction of them. If not for the crystalized drop of blood, which other than working as apass also implied the progress by increasing the power of attraction the closer he got to the essence''s owner, Roley would have found another way to locate the archives. Years of travel were not a problem for him.. What he could not stand was not not knowing when it would end.

    Fortunately, the journey was far shorter than Roley had anticipated, and he was able toe upon his destination in little more than six months.

    ----

    A few minutes back, Roley had spotted a small gothic-style cathedral built on top of arge gray tform, which sustained the structure as it went adrift in space, floating stably, and away from any other celestial body. The tform on which the cathedral was built was still, and about double the size of the cathedral, yet, as Roley approached it further, he noticed that its surface seemed to move faintly, waving from one end to the other around the stone-carved construct, as if morphed by the same sunlight that morphed the shape of a mound of sand in a zing desert.

    From further away, the entire construction appeared like a small white sun, an impression given by the immense formation of light essence that surrounded it, and that shone an even blinding glow upon it from every direction, only revealing the cathedral and the tform after reaching a certain distance.

    The bead of crystalized blood had reacted to the presence of this cathedral, towards which it pulled with a strength that, if not for Roley''s enhanced body, would have been able to rip his arm off. Seeing this reaction, Roley cloaked himself in ayer of primordial dark essence, and continued to approach the building, which so far, had looked abandoned.

    Yet. the closer he came, the more his cautious mentality gave up to the shock.

    The cathedral was far from small. Its size alone was, in fact, as big as a small. It had grownrger following Roley''s approach, showing off its gargantuan pirs of stone, masterfully carved arches, and immense colored sses which depicted eons of its history. What was most surprising, however, was whaty at the cathedral''s feet. Not a moving gray square, like he had thought, but uncountable creatures prostrating themselves in perfect synchrony.

    "What in the world.." Roley muttered to himself at the sight of entire civilizations of humans, beasts, and alien creatures united in their reverence of the cathedral.. Or the entity who had inhabited it. "This is the Archive of Blood and Bones?" Alongside the rhythmic bowing, a loud humming sound echoed, guttural and powerful, and as clear as a single man''s voice. Even the beasts, after listening to the hymn for centuries, had found a way of mimicking it. For the life of him, Roley could not fathom what the words of the chant meant-He could only feel a deep sense of devotion contained within the many merged voices.

    "There is something seriously wrong here." He thought with suspicion. He was witnessing a level of synchrony that was impossible to coordinate in a group of ten thousand people, let alone a million times that. These people were being controlled by something, or someone, and he had an inkling of who or what that could be.

    In just a few moments, a specific question formed within Roley''s mind. A question directed at the elemental system he now controlled. "How do I infiltrate this ce?"

    His question found no answer.

    For the first time, the refusal of the system to answer one of his questions was received positively by Roley, whoughed grimly at the confirmation of what he had feared to be true. This ce was indeed the archives of Sacrifice''s domain, but it was also the home of the champion of Destiny Sacrifice controlled-One of the worst kind at that, one who could control the masses.

    With the power in his possession, Roley could have easily swept past the uncountable lives thaty defenseless in front of him, but despite his past actions, he was not fond of ughter. In war he had no problem with killing millions, but these people, who bend their bodies in adoration for whom he knew to be a narcissistic entity, were likely victims.

    While deep in thought, the bead of crystalized blood escaped Roley''s grasp and, almost as if attracted by the gravitational pull of the enormous tform, fell in the middle of the gray wave, disappearing forever. "Damn it. I guess that settles it." he muttered to himself after realizing he had just lost the only way he had to find the archives if he now went back. Who was to say the cathedral would still be there if he came back a yearter? He now wondered. The attack needed to happen now.

    With a simple twist of his finger, Roley rotated the perfectly transparent bead he was holding, gaining control over the surrounding space which parted in a perfectly stable rift. Through this rift, Daniel could see therge golden formation that contained the interdimensional portal, the he had left behind, and the tens of thousands of ships the Immortal Armada inhabited.

    In response to the appearance of this rift, a man of ss made an almost immediate appearance. "My lord. Your orders?" asked a voice that did note from the spot where the man''s mouth was missing, but from the being''s core. Not spoken, but a remnant of a memory that was yed by spatial elementals when required tomunicate. This was a method spatial elementals were forced to use due to theirck of vocal cords, mental powers, and ability to produce sound essence, at least until their understanding of mortals was vast enough to create a fully functioning mortal body that could speak through the use of their spatial powers.

    "Bring me the leader of the Armada." Roley ordered with eyes fixed on the cathedral, fearful that it would not just disappear the moment he lost sight of it. <novelsnext></novelsnext>

    The oval head of the transparent figure lowered in a nod, then he disappeared without leaving any trace behind. When he reappeared, less than a minuteter, the figure was no longer alone, but in thepany of arge middle-aged man in painfully tight pajamas.

    "Of all the times you could have shown up.. It had to be the one time a year I sleep." Der mumbled in between yawns. Soon, his eyes regained focus, and he noticed the enormous cathedral thaty in the space beyond Roley''s figure. "Are those the archives of Sacrifice''s domain?" He asked just before noticing the sea of prostrating creatures by the cathedral''s feet.

    Without looking back, Roley answered, "It is, and I believe the champion of destiny that was blocking my system is currently in there."

    While the news Roley had just given him was worrying, Der''s attention was still directed at the uncountable prostrating creatures. "What of them? How do you want to handle it?"

    Roley quietly slid his hands into his pockets, as his look turned somber, pensive. "I don''t see any temple, but with that big of a building, who''s to say. There could be hundreds of them within those walls and we would never know. If possible, I''d prefer if we could prevent them from taking their own lives."

    Der listened carefully while quietly changing into his armor. Then, as Roley finished speaking, he pointed out, "When we invaded the others, we were spotted much further away than where we are standing now. Yet, they have still to react to our presence. So there either is no temple, or those people are too weak to feel our presence from this far. Either way, we will be able to get close enough to lock them in ce with spatial essence. It won''t protect them, but it''ll prevent them from cutting their own throats long enough for us to take them away from a temple''s range."

    Roley nodded in agreement.

    "Give us a few minutes to prepare, then get as close as possible before opening the portal." Der added before teleporting away.

    As suggested, Roley approached the cathedral, seeing it grow in size until little more than its immense entrance was visible. When he finally felt the presence of a gravitational pull, the heads of a few of the strongest cultivators within the sea of devotees turned to the sky, now privy of his presence.

    Without missing a beat, Roley released his immortal essence into the bead he was holding, turning it into a primordial spatial essence which he then used to open an ocean-sized rift as big as the cathedral itself. As the rift opened, the bright light produced by the massive formation that covered the interdimensional portal shone through it, casting the shadows of thousands of ships onto the unaware devoted cultivators.

    The floti barged through the rift in moments, releasing swarms of cultivators and elementals in its wake-Each reaching for a different part of the tform where, with the use of their immortal essence andprehension of spatial essence, they locked as many devotees in solidified space as they could, before they could even attempt to react to the invasion.

    Within a minute, the entire surroundings of the cathedral had been locked, and Roley and Der hadnded at its entrance. "Form a perimeter, and evacuate them to the nearest livable." Der ordered as he and Roley approached the cathedral''s immense wooden gate. Before they could touch it, however, the gate slowly started to open.

    Nearing the size of a continent, the motion of the enormous gate created ripples in the air, causing thousands of weaker cultivators to be blown into space due to the change of pressure alone. Yet, as the two doors opened, they only revealed the presence of a single individual. A woman, dressed in nothing but arge white and gold-colored robe.

    The woman''s goldenshes brushed past a pair of oceans, polishing them with moisture, and making them glow brighter. Her hair rested gently onto her shoulders, parting into individual strands of gold as they struck her pale shoulder and corbone. A peerless beauty whose features were the stuff of legends, but also a diversion from the woman''s proud, aloof, and poisonous personality.

    Stunned by the woman''s beauty, Der and Roley found themselves momentarily at a loss for words. "There is no avoiding conflict, it would seem." the woman said with a silvery tone that moved the heart, and melted all forms of hostility. "''Tis in our nature."

    Hearing the woman''s words had awakened something in Roley. Apetitive spirit, and desire to fight that he could not exin, for he did not want to fight the woman, norpete with her in any way. "You could always leave, if you prefer." He responded with a polite smile. An invitation to avoid hostilities which other than turn the woman''s perfect features more serious, clearly had no effect.

    In a few moments, however, the severe expression disappeared from the woman''s face, reced by the most enchanting of smiles. "I would never forsake my nature." She sang as her slender arms emerged from within her robe. In her hand, she held a little golden bell, which she immediately rang.

    Despite the bell''s small size, its toll resounded impressively, reminding people of a call to prayer. *DONG* It chimed once, releasing a golden hue which expanded in all directions and, in the blink of an eye, reached the edges of the golden orb that shone light onto the cathedral.

    Alerted by the woman''s action, Der and Roley prepared for battle. "Retreat! Back in the ships!" The former ordered, but it was to no avail. Around him, the cultivators of the Immortal Armada, the members of the Elemental Army and devotees alike, were all standing quietly, and unresponsive.

    The woman''s red lips parted once more, "Protect your Goddess." She begged with her enchanting and melodic voice, causing the heads of everyone but Der and Roley to snap in their direction.

 Chapter 646 Impasse (Part 1)

    ?

    The woman''s robe fluttered, blown aside by the powerful chime of the bell, revealing arge portion of the naked body thaty underneath. An unexpected consequence that did not appear bothered her. She was a goddess, after all. Her full form was for others to adore, and to her system, lust was as fair a mean of devotion as love and fear were, for that was her system. The devotion system.

    As theyer of divine light brushed past Roley, his mind went nk. His worry and natural enmity towards the woman had dissipated, like the me of a candle being killed by a kid''s inexperienced breath. In their ce, deep and real feelings of love and adoration had emerged, deeper than any feeling Roley had felt in his mortal life. Like many mes would in such cases, however, his true emotion did not remain repressed for long. Shielded byyer uponyer of primordial elemental essences, his true feelings soon emerged like a tsunami, wiping out the forced and unnatural emotions the woman''s control had instilled in his mind and heart.

    Suddenly awake, Roley tried to regain his bearings. His eyes, now of a more visible golden hue than ever, had quickly locked onto the uncountable figures that surrounded him. Only one of whom was not staring at him with a hate so pure, that it made him feel like the literal antagonist of a sacred text, the source of all evils and thest being to die, deservedly, at the end of a book everyone was supposed to keep in their bedside table.

    Der, too powerful of mind to be controlled, was staring at his surroundings with just as much confusion, and alertness.

    "Snap out of it!" the warrior bellowed with a deep andmanding voice. One which flushed through space at the speed of sound, and expanded forward in a way simr to the power created by the woman''s bell, only iparably slower. As Der''s authority came in contact with the ones closest to him, their eyes regained focus, and a semnce of

    individuality re-emerged.

    A relieved sigh shed against the inner part of Der''s metallic helmet. Seeing his gift seed against the mysterious and often ridiculous powers of a champion of destiny had reassured him, or at least, until the bell chimed once more. *DONG* A second wave of golden power washed past him and his army, erasing any of his efforts.

    With a heavy breath and a heavier heart, Der quirked his head at the woman, who wasfortably standing in a sea of her devotees. Her healthy red lips were curved into an arrogant smile, one that broke her divine act, and reminded both Roley and Der that the entity they were dealing with was not a goddess, but a proud warmonger with a thirst for power that few could hope to match.

    She too had been surprised by Der''s unique powers, and its ability to counter the strength of her system''s gift.. but what he could do she could erase in an instant, and far more times than he could. Of that, she was sure of. Her gloating, however, did notst long, as her attention was soon grabbed by the menacing ray of primordial elements aimed at her now quiet bell, which lingered in the air several miles above her head. In it, the graceful woman felt a threat very few entities had managed to make her feel. Bost of them beings she would rather submit to, than fight.

    The ray of multicolored light pierced the very fabric of space, ripping it with the same ease a bullet would a stack of toilet paper, and leaving behind uncountable little cracks that, if left alone, would develop into a source of the universe''s untimely copse.

    With the power he controlled, Roley could have easily destroyed the-sized temple, as well as erased the woman''s existence in the blink of an eye. However, as he looked at the trillions of entities that surrounded her, all staring at him with a zealous hate, he could not bring himself to do it. They were not enemies, they were hostages. There was only one enemy in his eyes, and that was the woman who reveled in their envement.

    The attack he had unleashed was extremely menacing, and while not as fast as the wave created by the woman''s bell, thetter''s stationary behavior made it an easy target for his attack.

    Several cracks formed on the bell''s surface, hammered by the sheer pressure of Roley''s attack. There was no doubt in his mind that that single strike would be enough to shatter the bell into shards of whatever metal the devotion system had made it out of. However, the woman did not appear worried.

    With the usual arrogant smile still present on her lips, the woman observed with satisfaction as millions of her followers leaped from the tform that held the archives and into the air. Mortals, beasts, aliens and cultivators alike, they all jumped in the path of the attack, forming a wall of white and gold power that, upon contact with Roley''s strike, caused it to splinter into its individual elements, and dissipate not long before meeting with the golden bell.

    While unable to meet its target, the split remnants of elemental powers were still enough to set aze, and strike the woman''s followers with spears of ice, molten rock, metal and sharp winds, leaving behind only burnt and shredded limbs of flesh that floated eerily around the bell they had barely managed to protect.

    The ecstatic smiles that Roley had seen on these people''s faces in the moment that preceded their deaths, impassive and evesting even when his attack had wrecked havoc into their bodies, ripping them to shreds, had sent a shiver down his spine. He now knew why the aspect of Sacrifice had decided to bear the woman''s existence, rather than eradicating her like its species was so eager to do with the other champions of Destiny. Her entire nature tied closely to the nature of sacrifice, or at least, the most drastic element of the devotion system was.

    So many people had taken their own lives, he remembered.

    He had thought them to be loyal servants of Sacrifice, eager to increase its influence as their only mean to fight off the invasion of the Immortal Armada and Elemental Army, which they never allowed to approach close enough to even initiate a conversation, let alone a conflict.. but that was not the case. The temples Roley had seen, small constructs next to which the inhabitants of the universe were quick tomit mass suicide, they felt very simr to the woman''s bell.

    As Roley came to this realization, the beautiful woman had came to one of her own.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Her gracious smile had grown shallower, and the divine behavior that characterized her had now disappeared, reced by the alertness of abatant facing a deadly enemy. The creatures that had gone to protect her bell also happened to be some of the strongest followers at her disposal, all cultivators at various levels of the godhood stage, and yet all turned into minced meat. It became painfully clear that the young schrly looking man that stood pensive in front of her was far more powerful than she had imagined. More powerful than she was.

    Yet, she was not yet out of moves.

    In the youth''s gaze she had seen a hint of disgust. One that was different whenpared to that of other champions of Destiny, and that felt more personal. That was to say that he did not dislike her for being a champion of Destiny, as much as he disliked her for using and discarding people''s lives on a whim.

    The Woman''s bright bluish eyes were still locked onto Roley, unbothered by the presence of the older warrior who, at some point, had joined the former. In her mind, scenarios yed out of how she could face the this terrifying foe, or at least, how to better put into action the few cards she had left to y.

    Any attempt of creating a system mission were of course made pointless, but attempts that she made nheless. The two men were engaging in a conversation, more bothered by the well being of their own brainwashed followers than by her own presence. A hit to her ego, that was for sure, but also a chance to think things through, take a few breaths in, and swallow her pointless pride so that a more natural side of her existence could take over. The part that many a time had allowed her to survive a deadly encounter.

    In an attempt to calm down, the stunning woman allowed the two crowns of goldenshes to once again brush over her bluish eyes, but when her eyes opened once more, she realized that Roley had disappeared, and was now standing on top of the stone tform, just a few steps away from the cathedral''s entrance. His movement had been instantaneous. One moment he was there, barely visible to her senses, and the next, he was upying the corner of her eyes, causing the hair at the back of her neck to stand on end, and her blood to flow slowly, and cold.

    "Don''te any closer." She blurted out in a state of shock.

    The panic the woman had shown had struck a chord within Roley. He could not tell whether it was the part of him that made him a champion of Destiny, or whether it was the part of him that had stepped into the path to be a pseudo aspect of existence, but he had enjoyed the woman''s reaction. His rational and human mind had tried to convince him that he was just a human, enjoying striking a mental blow at the viin, but deep down, he too did not believe that to be the case.

    Regardless of the cause of his tion, he did not let it show on his face. Instead, he remained calm andposed. Like the woman in front of him had realized him to be a being of a superior level, he was aware of it too. "Do you think your followers would be able to shield you, were I to strike you from this distance?" Roley asked calmly. The primordial elemental essences within his body drifted outward, putting a nauseating pressure onto the woman''s shoulders.

    While Roley''s words and presence were aimed at dealing another blow at the woman''s psyche, however, they seemed to calm her down instead, give her reassurance. A gentle smile had, at some point, returned on her striking features, moving Roley''s inexperienced heart on a primordial level. "Likely not. But I rather not think of the suffering my followers would feel, witnessing the death of their goddess. Knowing they had failed to prevent it."

    "Would they even care?" Roley retorted. He did not believe her system''s powers to survive its wielder''s death.

    The smile on the woman''s face grew wider, and more enchanting. "No, they would not. But that does not mean they will not act on it." She assured as her eyes, a mixture of light blue and gold, shifted to the tens of millions of entities Roley had left behind. Cultivators of the Immortal Armada, and elementals of the Elemental Army.

    Roley ignored the woman''s gaze. His attention had been drawn to the small temple thaty on top of her smooth and pale palm. A small construct he was very familiar with, for he had seen many of its replicas in every single his army had tried to approach. Shaped like the unnatural child of a bell tower and a marble carved fountain, the construct, barely big enough to cover the woman''s palm, shone of gold, with rings of the woman''s blood that orbited it quietly. What had caught Roley''s attention, however, was not the small temple itself, but its uncountable connections to the temples that had yet to be activated across the universe. Some of which, he had only now noticed, were hidden on his, as well as the biggest vessels within the armada.

    Unsure of when the woman had had a chance to install these temples, or how they had escape his attention until now, of one thing he was sure. The entirety of his and Der''s armies were under their ray of influence.

    "I have read your eyes, odd brother. You felt pain when my followers died." She sung with a matter of fact tone, tapping gently with her bare feet as she walked rounds around Roley. "Kill me here, and my little temples will activate. Kill me here, and your people will die too.. Kill me here, and you will have more blood on your hands than any other mortal to ever exist."

    This is a bluff, he thought-But was it a risk he was willing to take? A system''s treasure was an item, after all. Not a function. Its existence was not tied to the system''s existence, and just like Daniel''s, they could survive the destruction of the system which had created them. If what she said was true, the moment he would struck her down, the temples would activate, and not only the members of the Armada and the Elemental army, but many other civilizations across the universe would fall under the temple''s universe, andmit mass suicide.

    He would not allow that to happen. He couldn''t.

    His mind started to spin with worry and urgency, trying to concoct an optimal solution out of this mess, yet distracted by the now familiar melodic voice which, along with the gentle touch of the woman''s palm that gently cupped onto his jaw, spoke. "Let us talk for a bit."

 Chapter 647 Impasse (Part 2)

    ?

    The woman''s voice rang in Roley''s ears like honey, but not in a sensual way. A manner of pride and regality was present. She spoke not as a beautiful woman eager to be courted by the young hero, but as a goddess, gracing a holy warrior with the gift of her voice. Or at least, that was how Roley had perceived it. While sweet and melodic, these words did not affect Roley''s mind. Whether that was due to the protection the primordial powers had granted him or due to the contrasting natures the two possessed, he could not be sure.

    "What is there for us to talk about?" He asked while casually throwing observing gazes at his surroundings. Now closer, his perspective over the prostrating entities had changed. While from afar he could not make out the intentions behind these people''s behavior, he could now see that they had been kowtowing with joy. Some did so whilst ignoring the damage that kneeling onto the pale stone for days, weeks, and sometimes years, had done to their bodies, while some others saw their wounds reflected in the droplets of blood they spat out as they exhaled.

    Bothered by this grim spectacle, Roley did his best to swallow his feelings. After all, there was a reason why he had agreed to entertain this conversation.

    "Mhm." the woman gently moaned, visibly happy about Roley''s willingness to converse. "I used to know the elementalist. We met a long time ago." She purred while continuing to walk her slow and steadyps around him. Her bare feet tapped the tform''s surface like a slow p, alternating in his ears as she stepped to his right, then to his left. "How did you do it? How did you take his gift?" She then asked.

    "Greed. He merged his gift with my body, then failed to im both." Roley chose to answer truthfully, as his very presence was a testament to the Elementalist''s desires. His body, carved with spheres of pure elemental might, and eyes of primordial light and darkness, were all the hints the woman needed to guess the truth, in any case. He was an oddity, a natural deity whose nature went beyondmon gifts or hard earned cultivation. Unique was hard to hide.

    Of course, he was right. The woman had already guessed what had happened to the elementalist. She could remember her brother''s greed, and his pursuit of a being with a body of peerless elements. He was on Roley''s trail, thest time she had met him. The brief time that had preceded his disappearance.

    What she was truly interested in was a different kind of information. A slip up, hidden in between words of a boring tale that could tell her how Roley had gotten so close to ascending. "Not a storyteller, I see." She muttered in audible disappointment. "I will be less subtle then, seeing as we are at an impasse." she then added before finally stopping in front of the schr.

    Her visage had lost its regality, as her flushed lips parted gently. Her eyes, filled with eagerness and desire as she started, "It matters not how you have obtained my brother''s gift, nor the situation we are currently in. What matters is that we are now one and the same. Spawn of a pariah, and nemesis of beings of unfair power. That makes us allies of sorts."

    Roley''s eyes curved into a faint smile. "Yet, here you are. Living prettyfortably under Sacrifice''s umbre."

    His words seemed to strike a nerve, for the woman answered to them with ring nostrils, risen brows, and eyes filled with hate. "Apdog!" She barked out hatefully. "Picked up from the streets and put into use. Fangs dulled, ws ripped away! Caged into this forgotten universe for as long as I''ll live." Regret had found its way on the woman''s face. She had not liked her fate. In fact, she hated it. Her desire for expansion, conquest and conflict had been taken from her, and while she was safer than the average champion of Destiny, the crippling of her nature had also made her the unhappiest of them all.

    Naturally, the woman''s feelings failed to breach Roley''s defenses in their attempt to draw from him a spark of empathy. Not as much as the uncountable creatures who, throughout their conversation, had yet to stop their religious rites that fed her system with the power of devotion.

    Unaware of Roley''sck ofpassion, the woman regained herposure. A switch was flipped, and in mere moments, her eyes turned back to its aloof and noble semnce, while her mouth rxed. "You came here to take something, and you have the power to. You could kill me here and now, and lose your followers, or you can trade with me."

    The primordial powers that lingered close to Roley''s skin reacted to the woman''s threats. They stirred, and reached for her angrily, guided by their summoner''s emotions, but then stopped, shy of the woman''s skin by only a few inches. "Speak then. What do you want from me?" Roley inquired, struggling to maintain his calm.

    "I want to know how to ascend." The woman blurted out, too eager to dance around the topic. "Tell me how, and I will release your people, and leave this ce in your hands."

    "What makes you think I know how to ascend?" Roley asked with curiosity. He knew that, by this point, some aspects of existence had probably made the connection between him and Daniel. But how could she? Were his movements across the multiverse that much of public knowledge?

    Luckily, his worries were soon dispelled.

    "I can feel that you are one of my kin. Even without my system''s failure to act around your presence, in my eyes, your gift is a beacon." She exined. "But it is also different. The glow is sharper, and of a different intensity. Not as oppressive as a power of existence, but far stronger than mine." Her voice turned solemn. "You are close to it, more than any other I have met."

    "I see." Roley muttered. He knew what the gracious woman was talking about, as Daniel had already made that connection. One that was far beyond the woman''s expectations.

    Simply put, he was just different. His closeness to the threshold was not dictated by the power his system umted, but by the artificial way he had approached it. His path was different, artificial. Every treasure that was added to his body was a crucial step to him bing the existence of nature itself. Not evolved by Destiny''s gift, like a tree born from a sprout, but put together, like an immense stone wall.

    But, s, she couldn''t know. After all, for all she knew, everything Roley had obtained could have been attributed to the magical nature of Iewah''s gift. She did not know how mistaken she was of asking him, as the only person who could have answered her question was the only entity that had, in a field of sprouts, grown into a majestic tree. And that person was Daniel, the aspect of karma.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Nevertheless, Roley did not bother correcting her, as he had had no intention of answering this question, even if he had a satisfactory answer to give. From what he had seen her nature brought nothing but suffering. Her ascension into a full fledged aspect of existence would be nothing less than a disaster. One he would stop at all cost.

    Yet, he did not refuse to answer outright. He was buying time, after all.

    "You would dare betray your master, for that tidbit of information?" Roley asked.

    Theck of outright refusal brought a tinge of excitement in the woman''s eyes. Her soft lips parted, and her silvery voice rang once more, "I will take the risk. My power might be nothingpared to his now, but I am confident to escape his grasp long enough to ascend."

    "Mhm." Roley nodded in feigned satisfaction, then his feet moved. First the right, then the left, they alternated as he mimicked the woman''s previous actions, and he started tracingps around her standing figure. "And then what? He kept you for a reason. Your power, were you to ascend, would be subservient to his. That would not change." He pointed out with a tone that matched his appearance. An academic, exchanging theories with a colleague.

    The point Roley had made was perfectly valid. The hierarchy of the aspects of existence was not dictated by influence, for that was only a natural consequence. The only important factor was the aspect''s nature. For example, conflict was omnipresent, formed not only by the conflict of mortals, beasts or cultivators, but by air attrition, the erosion brought by time, and the very sh of atoms. Its influence could not be lower than that of War, for all war was conflict, but not all conflict was war.

    Even if the woman managed to ascend, bing the aspect of devotion, her nature would only be a fraction of Sacrifice''s. Every person that prostrated at her feet, or gave up their time of day to pray in her name, would be sacrificing something. An action that would increase her influence, as much as Sacrifice''s own.

    A simple reality of which the woman was well aware of. And yet, her eyes did not show any of the dejection Roley had expected, but an even deeper excitement.

    "This is where you are wrong, dear." The woman said, turning around to face her opponent, her tone oddly friendly. "My ears are everywhere."

    The slits of Roley''s eyes narrowed, hiding most of the darkness and light the two spheres emanated. A simple change in expression, but also one that, to the woman''s enthusiastic state of mind, was perceived as a sign of curiosity. "Have you ever heard of the aspect of Karma?" She asked, eager for a reply.

    "I have." Roley answered, now solemn and tense.

    "He was once one of us, a spawn of Iewah like me, and the one you took the gift from. Or at least, he was, until he ascended." The enthusiasm in the woman''s voice had grown clearer, and she now appeared more of a fanatic, than the aloof goddess she had been only minutes earlier. "He lives free, and unafraid. No need to hide, or avoid confrontation.. And yet he still stands."

    "He is him, and you are you." Roley pointed out with a matter-of-fact tone.

    By now, the woman had lost all semnce of regality. Her eyes wide open, her body squirming with excitement as she stepped closer, stopping Roley in his tracks. So close that the schr could count the number of goldenshes that crowned the jewels that were her eyes, and feel the warmth of her breath onto his skin. "Don''t you understand? We are not alone. There are hundreds of our kind across the multiverse, battle tested and starving for the power that we deserve!"

    "This is what we were made for. We were made to ascend, and rece those old heads as true gods. We just need somewhere to start. Tell me how!"

    The more the woman spoke, the more her demands turned into a desperate plea. Roley could feel in her words, in her tone, how much she had desired to break free from the cycle. To be a second Karma, and stand at the top of the multiverse. A destiny far more deserving that the servitude she had been forced into as an only alternative to death.

    Big dreams and aspirations, Roleymended in his head. But that was all there was to it. A scoff was his only response, one that left the woman shocked and confused. "No." He said quietly as his eyes gently brushed over the woman''s subjects. The pools of dried blood and sweat underneath them reminding him that their torture had never stopped. Not even once. "You don''t deserve it."

    You don''t deserve it. Four simple words, and yet the strongest blow the woman had ever received. She staggered, stepping away from her opponent as her divine features turned cold. A goddess of beauty once, now a goddess of vengeance. "Very well." her silvery voice once again drifted into his ears. "Pain it is." She said as a storm of elementals shot towards the tform, charging against their most despised enemy, the nemesis of their goddess, the one who they had once referred to as their Lord. In their minds, death was the only oue to his survival.

 Chapter 648 Impasse (Part 3)

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    Roley''s followers reacted to the woman''s desires with sheer instincts. Rage, arrogance and indignation broke through the barriers of nature, and emerged from their cores like the most natural of feelings. Their Goddess had been crossed. It did not matter who had done so, whether it was a stranger, an enemy, or the one they had followed until just minutes ago-Such an offense could not go unpunished.

    A natural cmity. The fury of nature rushed ahead in the shape of a horde of elemental might,ing down on Roley''s figure like a rainbow-colored meteor shower. Comets of elemental nature that glowed under the odd influence of dancing light and darkness. A terrifying sight that could only be associated with the apocalypse, but that still failed to bring worry to Roley''s rxed features.

    He had no intention of harming those whom he considered hispanions. Those he fought for, and had made his goal to protect from the cold and egotistical nature of mortals, but he also did not wish for the trillions of cultivators, beasts and mortals that surrounded him, brainwashed by the system of devotion, to perish at the hand of his people. Not if he could avoid it.

    "Mhm." he scoffed gently as the fingers wrapped around the small ss-like treasure rotated it by ny degrees, causing his body to disappear.

    The woman''s eyes shed open once more. Just like that, he was gone once again. No ripple, no portal, no excess of power. Just gone. A small feat, in a world where most cultivators were apt to some level to the use of spatial essence, and yet, an enormous feat for those who made spatial essence the core of their expertees. After all, not even an aspect of existence could mask their appearance and movements to this degree.

    When Roley reappeared, virtually the instant that followed his disappearance, he was standing in the midst of the charging elementals. Clouds of power that, to a traveler of the multiverse, reminded the obnoxiouslyrge and impressive sight of a neb. Plump with colorful gasses, destined to drift into space for eons toe.

    Inside of it, Roley felt like a fish in the sea.

    The first to notice his presence was a small cluster of wrist-sized vines, whose charge his appearance had brought to a sudden halt. A low-tier wood elemental who, hours ago, would have squirmed with the utmost respect at the sheer mention of the name of the Lord of the Elementals, but that now, attacked him like a soldier ant eager to fight to the death with an elephant in the hope of stopping its march over its ant hill, killing its queen.

    With blind instincts, the elemental spread its vines, aware of its inability to kill his enemy, but still willing to sacrifice its life in the hope to at least stall him long enough to allow a more powerful elemental to deal a more effective blow. Its rope-like body sprawled around the man''s body like a, but as its shape came to several feet from touching it, it soon started to dry out.

    The moisture that had made its vines nimble and flexible was almost immediately extracted, turning its body brittle and weak, but still alive. Unable to continue its attack, or even move for the matter, the low-tier wood elemental drifted past Roley''s body untouched.

    A second elemental, faster and bigger than the previous was next to act. A column of multicolored mes that, surrounded by smaller wind elementals intent on feeding it with the mostbustible of gasses, apanied it in its attack. A mid-tier fire elemental whose power could have easily brought an end to a small mortal city, turning it into a pile of cinders, but that in contact with the sheer residual aura that surrounded Roley''s body, was extinguished by a thin, yet extremely denseyer of vapor.

    After two failed attacks, something seemed to change within the army of enraged elmentals. Their training and experience, unaffected by the powers of the devotion system, forced them to reconsider their approach. Lower level elementals, rather than acting on their own ord, swarmed around higher tier ones, supplying power to thetter''s attack, or outright formingbinations of iparable destructive power.

    Tsunamis of glowing-red molten rock and metal, storms of cold winds, ice shards and thunder, formations of blinding light and abyssal darkness. One after the other, the attacks shed against Roley''s body, exploding into colored fireworks that put the most fantastical of celebrations across the multiverse to shame, yet inevitably stopping shy of his body by a few feet, always countered by an elemental power, or mixture of thereof, that opposed the attack perfectly and without waste.

    "I do not believe you canst forever." The graceful champion of destiny gloated, once again proud and aloof, as if her deepest desires were still a secret yet to be divulged, and their conversation had only been a dream.

    As these mocking words reached Roley''s ears, he could not help but agree. While he doubted that she could perceive such small changes from hundreds of miles away, he was very aware of his powers. His power was being chipped away at, slowly, by each attack he blocked. Each time bringing the sphere of protection imperceptibly closer to his body. Yet, he did not panic. He still had time. Enough for what he and Der had nned. Der, the mortal whose presence was so small and inconsequential, that the woman had failed to notice his disappearance.. Or ignored it altogether.

    -----

    A few minutes earlier.

    After failing to dispel the brainwashing enforced to his people by the woman''s golden bell, Der had forced himself to maintain hisposure. His throat was dry, and his mind was heavy, a natural consequence of the will of the Warlord he had to bear whenever he used it on such arge number of creatures. The single attempt had consumed most of his mental power, forcing him into several minutes of rest before he could try again.

    "This isn''t going to be easy." His deep voice emerged from the depths of his helmet, carried by a wisp of sound essence that only hispanion could hear.

    "More than you think." Roley retorted as his senses spread across his, as well as the closestponents of the floti. He had noticed something that had made him tense, and annoyed.

    "What do we do, then? Got any ideas?"

    Roley''s expression turned pensive, as his hands sped his waist. His gaze asionally shifted from the woman''s figure, to therge golden bell that lingered on top of her, showing worry, but no particr interest in either of the two. "When I spoke to Daniel about the workings of the systems, he told me something that, at the time, I did not find useful." He said. "The system does not create consumable essories, and each item is unique, and physical."

    "What does that have to do with our situation?" Der asked, slightly confused.

    "The bell is clearly a gift of the devotion system. Affects weak and unprotected minds, and enves them to the woman''s will, but the temple is entirely different. It is simpler, and works from a much longer distance." Roley exined with a matter-of-fact tone.

    Der''s confusion had reached its peak. "What are you talking about? What temple?" He asked.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "THE temples." he repeated while bringing a hand up to his neck, and mimicking the sh of a sword. "She must have ced them as I came her. She probably knew that if I was there with you, I would have noticed."

    Few were the targets of Der''s dislike. He was a warrior through and through, born to cut down enemies and lead armies, and death was his dance partner. Yet, one thing that went against his nature, was senseless death. Sacrifice for the sake of bloodshed. Not to protect one''s people and country, or to conquer, but to spite. A hatred he discovered the first time he came to the oldest universe of Sacrifice''s domain. Or more specifically, when he first encountered the temples. Constructions of pale, almost holy stone tainted by the rivers of fresh blood that flowed and pooled at its base, all hidden under mountains of corpses.

    "Those temples," he thought.

    Without wasting a moment, Der let out his impressive immortal sense which, thanks to his cultivation at the godhood stage, was well enough to cover the entirety of his armada, as well as Roley''s. Soon, his attention was grabbed by the hundreds of now familiar temples either hidden within the storages of his ships, or buried under the formless seas and soft earth of Roley''s elemental.

    "sted wench!" he barked out in a wisp of sound essence.

    "I don''t think she knows we are aware." Roley said in an attempt to calm hispanion down. "Let her think she has this one over us, it wille back to bite herter."

    ".. fine." Der muttered with uncertainty, eradicating the desire to go on a personal crusade against these temples from his mind.

    Knowing that he had done as much as he could, Roley continued his exnation. "Those temples, they are not individual essories, but receivers. There must be a physical one, either on her person, or hidden within reach. Probably inside the archives. If we can destroy it before she uses it, it will be one less headache."

    "And how do we get to it before she activates it? We don''t even know where it is." Der murmured.

    Roley did not respond right away. Instead, he focused on the palm of his hand, where a number of elemental essences were seeping out of his skin and converging into a small bead the size of a fingernail. Once perfect in shape, Roley let it float inconspicuously towards Der, whose subconscious screamed for dear life.

    He had seen more than one of these beads in use. Weapons of mass destruction, he hade to call them. And while smaller, and much lessplete than some Roley had used in the past, their threat had triggered Der''s instincts. While scared by it, however, Der allowed for the small bead to gentlynd onto his glove. Smooth, and deceivingly harmless, not unlike amon bead of colored ss used by children to y their evenings away.

    "You tell me. If you find it, use this." Roley said right before Der''s surroundings changed. Sidereal space littered with ships, debris and creatures had been reced by halls of white stones as big as caves. A floor of white marble held his weight steadily, almost making him slip and fall when, unprepared for the sudden appearance of gravity, he turned to inspect his surroundings.

    "You!" He growled under his breath.

    -----

    Present time.

    Bead in hand, Der had explored several of the many cold halls within the cathedral, each as big as arge ind, filled with rows and rows of bookshelves filled by tomes of different color, size and material. It was only after he set foot into the tenth hall that he came to the realization. He had no idea what he was looking for.

    With a speed only achievable by beings of his cultivation, he picked several books and hastily flipped through their pages. ''.. To show respect to the high domain of Horror, passage will be granted to-'' *SPA* The book was closed shut and thrown in the air. A second book was picked, wider than the previous, and with a leather ridge marked by words of an ancientnguage.

    "What is this now." Dermented as his eyesnded upon the first few handwritten sentences. ''Lord Sacrifice is divine, our lives and means we give. He is mesmerizing and sublime, we adore him without reprieve.'' Der''s face morphed into one of ufortable disgust. "This is a nursery rhyme I did not need stuck in my head." He murmured before throwing this book alongside the other and taking a step back.

    If there was a list of conquered factions, this hall was not the one that stored it.

    With a sh, he disappeared once again, darting past dimly lit corridors and unaware custodians at mind boggling speed. All the while asking himself why on earth would Roley send him here without specific directions. After all, while technically a single building, the cathedral was as big as a. Tens of thousands of years might not be enough to find the right section of the archives, let alone the right book among the millions each hall contained. But, s, now was toote to ask.

    His search went on for several more minutes, each chipping at his already thin nerves and bringing him to a state of exasperation and anxiousness. Or at least, until he finally stumbled upon a specific hall.

    Larger than any other he had been in, this hall had no bookshelves. In fact, it would have beenpletely empty, had it not been for the enormous white temple erected in its center. A familiar temple, resembling a bell tower that had wished to be a fountain, and a fountain that wished to be a church. Its smooth surface of pale white stone glowed of a faint golden light, which merged into thousands of threads outstretched in every direction. Arge number of such threads were grouped together, diving into a wall in the direction where, since a few minutes ago, came the unmistakable sound of battle.

    Suddenly, Der remembered about the small bead he had been carrying in his palm. In the past ten minutes, he had gotten used to its smooth surface, almost forgetting about its existence. Now that it was time to use it, however, it felt more dangerous than ever. "I guess this is your turn." He muttered as he moved to throw the bead at the construct, only stopping at thest moment to awkwardly cover his narrowed eyes, twisted nose and pressed lips with his free hand.

 Chapter 649 Impasse (Part 4)

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    The attacks of the elementals had now be a flurry of colors, wrestling with one another over the privilege of setting the tones of newly formed nebe. shes of pure white tainted by red hot hues, soon to be reced by shades of green and blue before having a chance to rx into softer tones of orange and yellow, all glowing within the depths of a gargantuan cluster of smoke, dust and vapor.

    A spectacle that a few of the most advanced andid back civilizations across the multiverse could have mistaken for apaniment to intoxicated dancing and partying, if not for the deafening roar each light was apanied by.

    Witness to the destructive nature of this show of colors was Roley, who, for thest several minutes, had been the target of each of the attacks that had produced them. Hidden withinyers of elemental essence of primordial nature, he felt the tremors of each attack in his bones, shaking his spirit and mind. Many powerful enough to chip at his powers, which gradually retreated towards the surface of his skin.

    Fifteen long minutes of constant attacks had reduced the natural barrier that surrounded his body, to a thinyer which lingered just over his skin. Still as powerful as ever, yet less durable. Its color had gone from an elegant mixture of different hues to a dull brown, for too little space had remained for the essences to maintain their individual beauty, causing them to merge into one.

    Just a few hundreds of miles from the onught, the archives stood unperturbed, stable and glorious, carrying the lives of countless lives, including that of the champion of Destiny. A young woman of divine stature and peerless beauty, who stared at the spectacle of lights with unmasked satisfaction.

    "It is not toote to change your mind. Reveal your secrets to me, and I will make them stop. Better yet, I will release them, and let them leave with you." She said with a benevolent tone. A tone that stood in stark contrast with her feelings of dislike and indignation and pride. She had seeded in securing an advantage, and she was eager to exploit it. Especially against someone who had dared refuse her will, and challenge her hegemony.

    Her words were carried by the faintest wisp of sound essence, which, upon reaching the cluster of destructive powers that surrounded Roley''s body, found safe passage to his ears, almost as if weed to by the frenzied elementals.

    A satisfied grin had appeared on the woman''s face, as she perked her pale and small ears in wait for words of apology, awe directed at her strength, and an answer-But, s, what she heard next left her disappointed.

    "Haha!" Roley chuckled out of sight, still besieged by the interminable attacks of his own followers. His spirit was still strong, and unbroken. "I knew that not all systems were equal, but none of the ones I''ve heard about were as pathetic as yours!" He then added.

    The brows of the young woman red up, as her healthy red lips parted in surprise.

    "I thought the systems were made to make their wielder stronger! Is catching some people to enve all your system can do? Do you have strength left to show?!" Roley insisted, hell bent on picking the most tense cord within the woman''s psyche with his words. "I do not regret bringing my army here anymore. I can see that without them, our confrontation would have been far more disappointing! Haha!"

    "THAT''S ENOUGH!" The woman barked out angrily as her bare feet nted solidly onto the white marble. Her hands, clenched into tiny fists which mmed heavily onto her thighs, flushed clear of blood.

    "Hey, I am looking out for you!" Roley responded as more and more attacks further thinned the barrier that was protecting him. His breath now heavy, and his fingers and toes trembling whenever an attack of the high tier or higher wouldnd on him. His voice, on the other hand, remained clear and mocking. "I doubt you would defeat me, were you to ascend now, let alone another aspect of existence. You are not a fighter, just give up."

    Just give up. You are not a fighter. What can you do with your little power?

    Those were the words. The words the woman had heard many times before from her siblings, wielders of systems that had granted them pure martial prowess and immense strength. Creatures that had looked down on her, and spared her not out of love, but out of pity. If I were to let her live, what could she hope to do to avenge herself? Find more mortals and petty cultivators to throw at me? They all thought. Her power was pitiful inparison to their own. Part of a species whose members were known to be only second in power to creatures of existential power, and almost as hard to kill, she wasn''t the bottom of the barrel, she was a mascotte.

    Words that had produced an endless depth of hatred, but that rang true more than ever when spoken by the strongest entity she had ever met. The aspect of Sacrifice. A man who could have snapped her out of existence, but had chosen to keep her instead. She was always treated like a pet, judged by themon color of her fur, now adopted for the spark of usefulness the god above had seen in her.

    But then, hope had found its way to her. A young man, wielder of a system, like her and many others she had met before-But also different. Different from all her brothers and sisters who, as powerful as they were, were stuck in the same pit as she was. Not him though. He would ascend soon.

    It was then that she started nning. To put herself into peril, taking matters into her own hand to ensure that every piece was in the right ce. To make sure that when the time came for her to pry this piece of information out of her, he would not be able to refuse. And yet, he had.

    Her hopes were broken with a mute snap. Her hair, long and of the color of gold fluttered in the air as her puny cultivation leaked from her pearly skin. On her face any semnce of divinity had disappeared, reced by a hatred that could startle most men. She had felt something break inside her, releasing her from any limitation she had ced onto her behavior.

    Her thin arms stretched outwards, palms raised to a missing sky. "I was mistaken." she muttered in sudden realization. "I should have known that was not the type of pain you would respond to." As soon as she finished speaking, the small temple, which was now floating right in front of her barely covered breasts, rotated in ce, only stopping when upside down. In response to the woman''s actions, the elemental attacks suddenly stopped.

    The cloud of smoke and dust, still present around Roley, could not stop his senses, nor his superhuman sight, so he was quickly able to regain his bearings.

    It only took moments for him to notice that the elementals that had been attacking him for the past several minutes, were now floating quietly, staring at him with eerie faceless expressions. "What is it now?" Roley muttered quietly just before a small elemental of water hurled itself towards him, his body a block of ice the size of arge dog.

    His brows rose in shock, while his arms stretched in the direction of the iing elemental. He wanted to stop its charge, but not out of fear, but worry, for the elemental was not sending an attack in Roley''s direction, but throwing itself at him-Weak, feeble, and unable to harm anyone but itself. And that was the goal.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Like a small meteor, the block of ice dove into Roley''s weing embrace, but as it seemed that tragedy had been prevented, the elemental exploded countless ice shards and droplets of water. Roley could only stare in shock as small crystals as bright as diamonds brushed past him, too weak to leave as much as a mark on his skin. Among them, a fist sized treasure of water essence struck his chest with a feeble thud.

    The elemental had died in a suicide attempt never meant to hurt his body, but his mind.

    Before Roley could even process what had happened, a mountain-sized boulder came crashing against his back, throwing him several miles into space. As he recovered his bnce momentster, he turned around just in time to see therge boulder shatter into innumerable fragments. Broken by what was left of the protective shield that encased Roley''s body, now only clumps of inanimate minerals were left of it.

    "Stop!" Roley yelled as more and more elementals dove to their death, leaving the world of the living in what, to them, felt like a ze of glory. He had overestimated his opponent''s mental capacity. He had thought that a bit of teasing would keep the wielder of the system from noticing Der''s disappearance, but instead, it had brought her past her breaking point. She was scorching the earth, as if obtaining the information she had wanted more than anything else in life, had be an exercise in futility. Far less important than inflicting as much pain to him as she could.

    "Come on Der, do it!" Roley growled through gritted teeth as his powers burst forth.

    In the following minutes, one by one the elementals followed the woman''s will. Some were saved by Roley''s quick thinking, teleported away with the use of his spatial treasure, or cushioned by his powers when possible, but most found themselves seeding in their attempts, leaving behind wisps of elements and, asionally, imperfect treasures of essence.

    His efforts continued until faced with what the could only describe as an iing cmity. A serpentine dragon of pure, soft gold, long enough to wrap itself around smalls two times over was headed his way.

    Roley immediately recognized this creature. An elemental of perfect metal essence that, beforeing to his service, had inhabited the lower strata of a foreign for millions of years. It was one of his most loyal followers, as well as the leader of all metal elementals, but now, it was showing off his powers, dashing in his direction with hate-filled eyes and jaws wide open, bearing rows of mountain sized teeth and ws that could rip worlds apart.

    Roley''s body instinctively reacted to the elemental''s approach by releasing ayer of the primordial essences of fire and darkness. Its concept, that of hell fire. A mixture between the two essences capable of melting and swallowing virtually everything in existence. The hottest me any creature of fire could ever hope to conjure.

    Yet, meeting the creature with such a devastating attack was not in his ns. After all, this golden dragon was not only a follower, but a friend.

    With a great deal of concentration, he quickly retracted the hungry mes, recing them with the softest form of wood essence he could conjure. Ideally, he would have used the treasure of spatial essence to halt the dragon''s charge, but it was far toorge. A momentarypse in concentration could have ripped the dragon to shards, sending each piece to a different corner of the universe.

    Thousands of enormous roots grew out of Roley''s body hair, extending outwards before entwining into a bed of flexible vines. Not one capable of stopping the dragon''s crazed charge, but strong enough to slow it down.

    The dragon kept charging, growing more and more enraged the closer to his former Lord he came, but then, just before the impact, a powerful tremor brought his motion to a stop. An earthquake that forced the trillions of kowtowing creatures off bnce, but that reached the senses of Roley and the other elementals in the form of a st of elemental essence, deep within therge cathedral.

    The woman, thrown off bnce just like loyal followers, turned towards the entrance of the cathedral with sheer horror. The small tower that had been floating over her palm had now started to disintegrate, floating into space in the form of a small cloud of white sand. "WHAT DID YOU DO!?" She screamed as her bloodshot eyes darted towards Roley''s figure.

    The connection to one of her items had been lost, forever.

    Roley''s worried expression changed drastically, turning into an expression of relief, but only for a moment. Resolution took over right away, as he opened his mouth and yelled to the top of his lungs "DO IT NOW!"

    In response to his words, a wave of power emerged from within therge cathedral, paired with a simplemand. Slow yet unstoppable, the wave brushed over the woman''s followers, erasing her grasp over their minds, then moved further, past the elementals and the cultivators of the Immortal Armada.

    "Don''t you even dare!" the woman bellowed as her now flushed arms outstretched to her sides. Her lips leaking beads of coagted blood that stuck to her skin, while her bloodshot eyesnded firmly onto the bell.

    The bell trembled, then moved. From still, the pper swayed to the left, almost striking the bell''s lip, then swung back with even more speed. Its chime would soone, erasing the progress made through Der''s power and bringing everyone back into her control. But, s, the familiar sound never came.

    The pper had stopped mere inches from striking the bell''s lip, before gently moving back to its initial position.

    The woman looked at the bell in confusion. Only then did she notice that Roley had appeared next to her, once again. This time, however, he was not looking at her. His attention was dedicated to the surroundings cultivators, mortals and beasts, who had just awakened from days, years and centuries of mindless control. His demeanor was calm and his lips moved, as if to try to bring calm to their panicked hearts. And yet, the woman could hear no sound.

    With unsteady feet she stepped back, thinking of how to make a retreat, only to find the smooth skin of her back smack against a transparent wall. Her arms moved forward, then to the sides. She punched upwards, then her knees to examine the surface she stood on. A shiver ran down her spine as she finally realized. She waspletely trapped.

 Chapter 650 Like A Bird In A Cage

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    Her pale arms swung to her sides, striking at the invisible walls as her expression turned grim, and her well kept brows curved in a not-so-subtle hint of panic. Locks of straight golden hair brushed over her shoulders, like feathers let loose from the plumage of a legendary golden phoenix. A few strands fell at her feet with a gentle motion, pulled out by the asional grip of her nervous, slender fingers.

    It took the good part of a minute for anger and indignation to finally rece the fit of anxiousness that had crippled her mind-Allowing her to regain the rity of mind necessary to properly assess her situation. Her shiny blue eyes glowed with hues of gold, rapidly darting at the images that reached her from beyond her cage that she alone upied. A quiet world devoid of any sound other than her nervous moans, the soft tapping of her feet, and the brushing of her loose robe against her skin.

    On the other side of this cage, Roley had been attempting to make contact with the closest of the several trillions of mortals, beasts and cultivators Der''s power had freed. Each of them shocked awake by a dream-like control that, in their minds, had onlysted a moment. Like a bad dream, clear and realistic as long as one delved into it, but brief and inconsequential the moment they woke up.

    At one point, they were traveling across the universe with therades of their factions, sharing a dinner with their husbands, wives and children in a world with close to no knowledge of mana, or bearing tusks and fangs at the prey they had been chasing half across the woods they had known for all their lives. The next moment, they were standing in a foreign world. A t surface of white marble where once was soft and warm earth, and endless darkness where once were thefortable sight of a blue sky, and slow moving clouds.

    It was needless to say that, as the spell came crashing down, the once calm, yet eerie crowd, had turned loud and chaotic.

    Some of the strongest cultivators were quick to react, and immediately darted into the depths of the unknown universe, sting thousands of mortals who, unable to bear the power of their sudden departure, were sent flying in every direction. Simrly, some of the most malicious beasts, men-eaters in nature since birth, felt their empty stomachs grumble, begging them to partake in what, in their eyes, was the most scrumptious of buffets.

    "Stop! Calm down, everyone! I can exin what is going on!" Roley shouted with raised hands, asionally lowering them in a calming motion.

    Unfortunately, no matter how many attempts at bringing some order to the chaos Roley made, none of them found sess. Some of the closest cultivators, feeling the power within his body, were brought to terror-fueled submission, but to the mortals, Roley did not look any different than amon young man with odd colored eyes. Not much different than the many others around them.

    The screams, yells and discussions wore Roley''s already worn nerves thin, as he slowly rotated the treasure of primordial spatial essence in his fingers. "I should just shove them into a pocket dimension. Drop them onto a patch ofnd until they calm down, they might be more inclined to listen then." He thought to himself, growing angrier by the second.

    Yet, before he could act on his thoughts, *BOOM* A deafening st pierced through the roar of chatter and beastly noises, catching not only his attention, but that of the surrounding cultivators, beasts and mortals. Large pieces of white stones flew in the sky, darting past the confines of the supporting tform and joining other debris into the depths of space. A patch of white smoke that resembled a cloud lingered in the air, slowly inching for the hordes of living creatures.

    Given more time to expand, the cloud soon started to thin out, revealing a humanoid figure that floated quietly in the sky. d in a peerless armor, and wielding a sword of dazzling silver, his appearance had an effect on each of those whose eyesid upon him. The morals, once terrified by the surrounding monsters, saw the arrival of a knight of legend, while the cultivators shrieked as their senses came upon contact with the essence he emanated. The beasts, less intelligent but still sentient, felt their furs and scales stand on end, their instincts screaming at them to do whatever their species would do when faced with their natural predator.

    "I don''t want to hear another word." A deep and powerful voice emerged from the chink of the man''s helmet, spreading his immortal essence outwards, like the shock waves produced by the explosion of a dying star. The wave of power carried the weight of his cultivation, as well as a mental st that, instead of breaking their minds, dove into them, seeping into the deepest corners of their subconscious. He growled once more, "Be quiet!"

    The entire tform turned silent. No growls of somewhat savage beasts, no cries of scared humans, nor constructs of immortal essence breaking through the floor and space. Only silence.

    Der gentlynded onto the tform''s surface, still d in the spectacr armor. At some point during his descent, the sword had disappeared from his hand, ced back into its sheath. His gauntletsy at his waist in a rxed position as the front of therge helmet turned towards the young woman trapped a few feet from him. "Remind me why you couldn''t have done that before sending me to find the needle in the haystack?" He asked grumpily.

    "She is using the essories of her system." Roley said as his ck and white yes moved onto therge golden bell. "I wasn''t sure whether disconnecting her from this universe would activate either of the two. Though I doubted that the bell would ring on its own. The temples were the real problem. For all we knew, she was the only thing preventing the temples from activating. Separating her from them could have done just that. I couldn''t take the risk."

    Der could not deny his friend''s logic. He had seen dozens of those temples before. Mines of sinister power that did not require a specific input to activate. If they did, no matter the speed those signals would travel at, to reach the main tower hidden within the archives in an attempt to ask for confirmation would take decades. No. The remnant of a will was more than enough, arming the weapon of mass suicide with a simple instruction left behind by the woman, her presence not being necessary.

    "What do you want to do with her?" Der asked before suddenly remembering something. "Also, I have been in the archives. You wouldn''t believe how many books there are in there. How are we going to find the information we are looking for?"

    Roley''s features hardened as his eyes shifted to the blond woman. In them, the old warrior could feel a hint of murderous intent. "We ask her." He growled. The images of his followers diving to their death in a fool''s attempt to harm him were still clear in his mind, ying out on repeat.

    Noticing the look in Roley''s eyes, the woman could not help but shudder.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Der nodded. "You want me to send the armies and these people away? As long as there are just the two of us, there is little she can do." He then added as his darkened eyesnded onto the bell. An item that, in all intents and purposes, worked simrly to his Will of the Warlord, but more efficiently.

    "There is no need." Roley shook his head. "Krom." Thest word was spoken quietly. Amand that rode a wisp of sound essence into a minuscule, almost invisible rift in space. A momentter, a third figure appeared next to the two cultivators.

    This creature was humanoid in shape, yet notpletely human,posed of four limbs and a head of ss which protruded from the holes of arge dark robe, eachcking most details present on a human body. Its arms and legscked fingers, or joints for each part to bend properly, while its head was a smooth bowl of ss more akin to a light bulb than a human''s head. A high-tier spatial elemental. The oldest and most advanced surviving member of its kin within Roley''s elemental army.

    Roley looked back at him, somewhat unsure of which part of the ss sphere to look at. He then passed over the bead of primordial spatial essence alongside a few words. "Help the armada relocate these people to our. Use this to give the elements some form of.. solidity."

    "As youmand, my lord." The spatial elemental said with a distant disembodied voice before carefully grabbing the small bead, and disappearing. Its demeanor was far less proud and aloof than that possessed by the members of its kin. A detail that had surprised Der, rooting him in ce for several moments before he finally decided to follow suit.

    The blond woman followed each of Roley''s actions carefully. Every step, every nce. She was grasping at anything. A moment of distraction that would bring this cage down, even if just for a fraction of a second. That would be enough for her to reconnect to the bell, and pick back up the one card she had left to y.

    When Roley''s inhuman eyesnded on hers, her shoulders shook, and her legs started to wobble. More than ever, when he started to walk towards her.

    Step by step, the young man approached the cage of spatial essence, stopping only a couple feet from direct contact. His eyes still glued on the woman''s as his right hand rose to his mouth. "This is where the negotiations begin." He spoke into a wisp of sound essence that immediately found its way into the cage, ying into the woman''s ears.

    Startled, the woman looked around. Her immortal essence, pitiful as it was, carefully scouting every nook and cranny of the barrier, hoping to find whatever hole the wisp of sound essence had used to get to her. But, s, she was soon disappointed.

    As she would nevere to understand, the barrier was perfect. As a matter of fact, it could hardly be called a barrier. Calling it a miniature universe would have been far more urate. A separate dimension with absolutely no connection to the vast universe that contained it. To breach the barrier was as foolish as directly trying to teleport into the trigate without the use of the portal. It was simply impossible.

    Or at the very least, impossible for her.

    The miniature universe possessed the spatial concept of containment. A concept that practitioners had only vaguely grasped in the studies that led to the creation of pocket dimensions, but that still required some form of essence as fuel. Specifically, Roley''s immortal essence.

    If not for the woman''s almost nonexistent cultivation, she could have easily overpowered Roley''s power at the early stages of high immortality. But because of her reliance on the power of her system, she had failed to achieve the cultivation required to break free, allowing herself to be caught by an overly sophisticated trap that countless cultivators could have effortlessly broken out of.

    "What could you possibly want for me?" The woman asked.

    Roley''s expression was different from before,cking any of the joviality and curiosity that, despite his serious words, the woman could see in his resting face. He was now stern, almost cold, and that scared her beyond words. "I did note here for you." He pointed out. "There is a piece of information I need from the archives, and you better tell me that you have the ability to point it out to me."

    Her expression suddenly rxed. shes between champions of Destiny were no small matter, and while Roley also wielded a system, he was not one of Iewah''s spawn. He was not the type to seek conflict for the sake of confrontation, and considering her kin''s reputation, the information he had crossed her in order to obtain must have been quite important. Atst to him.

    "I do. What is your offer?" She asked as her feet gently tapped onto the transparent floor. Her arms, thin and pale, wrapped underneath her breasts, pushing them up just enough for her to seductively press them against the cage''s wall.

    Unimpressed, Roley''s eyes stuck to the woman''s as he said, in and simple, "Tell me what I want to know, and you will go free."

 Chapter 651 A Hard Bargain

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    "You go free." Roley said with a shrug of his shoulders. His arm rose up to his stomach as his handzily pointed at the depths of space. His fingers promised as big a chance of survival as his words had.

    Around him, thousands of cultivators from the Immortal Armada had descended onto the-size tform, ready to spend the following minutes giving what they had hoped would be a brief yet satisfactory exnation, as well as an offer of temporary asylum.

    The beautiful woman still trapped within her six transparent walls did not seem bothered by their actions, as the majority of her attention was fixated on the young man that stood in front of her. The remaining fraction of it had been aiding her in her constant struggle in preventing her blue eyes from darting up, where the gold bell had been floating undisturbed.

    "Promises mean nothing among our kind." She scoffed. "Why should I trust you? I at least know you won''t kill me as long as I do not help you."

    Roley agreed with a nod. "That is true. Your kind is untrustworthy. I should know something about that." He muttered absentmindedly in a low yet clear tone. His memories of the Elementalist''s betrayal, still fresh, yed out in his mind.

    Few knew that, in the past two thousand years Roley had avoided human contact altogether. Sometimes for centuries at a time. Not out of choice, but as a consequence of the many times he had approached human civilizations alongside his inhumanpanions. These civilizations would often wee him and his followers with open arms, hiding their infinite greed behind friendly smiles. Encounters that would never end well.

    Thisck of human contact had, eventually, led him to foolishly form a kinship with his oldest enemy. He would asionally visit the elementalist with questions about mana, and control of the elements, hiding in a cold demeanor his true motive. To have what could pass as a human conversation.

    These talks, while usually hostile, would still satisfy his need for interaction-And while their conversations would always quickly remind him of the nature of the other party, sometimes, he could not help but think that maybe the Elementalist would not betray him, given a chance.

    But, s, he was wrong.

    The actions of the champion of Destiny could not exactly be called a betrayal, but their memory were surely a reminder to Roley. A reminder that Iewah''s spawn were not human. They were consciousnesses of pure selfishness and narcissism. Some more than others, but all of them nheless.

    Soon the bitter memories dissipated, cast back to the deepest corners of his mind with a shrug of his shoulders. His lips moved, "But as you have said, I am not a member of your kind. I could have killed you at any point, but refused to, because it would put my people at risk. The objective that brought me here is ensuring the safety of my friends. Your presence here is useful, while your death brings me no benefit. Do what I say, and I won''t need to kill you."

    The woman''s pale arms tightened around her stomach in a show of nervousness, but her heart rejoiced. Her eyes had caught sight of a storm of elementals, each of them either diving into the entrance of the archives, oring out of it, carrying treasures and various resources.

    All around them, the cultivators of the immortal armada had managed to bring a semnce of order to the chaotic crowd, earning enough trust to convince the still terrified creatures to cross the massive portals that would lead them to Roley''s. A garden world of primordial elements that had oncecked shape, sound and a flow time, giving it a beautiful yet unrealistic look, like an abstract painting.

    Now, thanks to the primordial treasure of spatial essence, this world possessed solidity. The trees were trees, the light shone warmly on the skin, and the earth could be stood on. Theck of sounds was somewhat concerning, but luckily, few paid it mind over the constant chatter that came from all directions.

    Not all the recently freed devotees agreed, however. Some of the most capable cultivators, used to space travel, had graciously rejected the offer of asylum, choosing to take a risk with the dangers that they knew instead. None of those who chose to leave were stopped. After all, neither Roley nor Der owed them any further exnation or help. They were not the types to force help onto those who did not want it.

    Back on the nearly evacuated tform, Roley waited for an answer. He could still see the doubt in the girl''s eyes. Whether it was real or an act, it didn''t matter. "I could let you out of there, as a show of trust." He added while taking a step forward, bringing his modest stature right up to the transparent wall. Close enough to, had there been no separation between them, smell each other''s scent.

    "You better." She retorted. "Because I won''t be able to do what you want unless you let me out of here."

    Roley''s odd eyes narrowed gently as his lips curved into a satisfied smile. His left hand reached forward a few inches,ing in contact with the barrier only momentster. Upon touch, the barrier acted as a bubble, too feeble to bear touch, and exploded into shards of invisible ss. The young woman felt a faint sense of dizziness rise, as the little space that had surrounded her reattached itself into the rest of the universe, like thest piece of the puzzle a clumsy yer was struggling to fit in ce.

    The dizzinesssted only a moment, after which the woman''s senses immediately darted to the sky. She reached for the bell, solid and stable, hoping to reconnect with it and regain control of the situation, but she was soon disappointed. Her senses had crashed against a second wall, identical to the one that had kept her trapped.

    "Oh, before I forget.." Roley said as his smile turned into a cocky grin. His outstretched hand rose up to his shoulder, index finger straightened and pointed up to the enormous golden bell, "I will keep your toy as coteral."

    The woman''s bright blue eyes shook in surprise. Her best attempts at not letting her fear show failed miserably, but thankfully, it did not seem that Roley had noticed her intentions. Roley could not have seen her will, and the connection she had tried to make with the bell could have easily been mistaken for her system automatically trying to reconnect with a lost part of itself. "He didn''t notice. I should be safe." she told herself in an attempt to ease her mind.

    "Will I get it back after I fulfill my end of the bargain?" she asked in a casual, almost disinterested manner while gently reaching for the inner part of her robe. Her slender fingers brushed against the upper part of the chest, then dove out of sight for a few moments. When they re-emerged, they were sped onto a ring.

    The ring was quite simple. It was madepletely out of gold,cking any form of inscription or precious gem. A wedding band, most would have categorized it as, if not for the presence of a thread of blood that ran in its middle. However, it was not the color of the thread that told Roley that it was true blood, but the fact that it flowed into its minuscule carved be, like a tiny river that went on and on in a never ending circle.

    "What do you want to know?" The woman asked, more aloof than ever.

    Roley did not bother to ask about the function of the ring, for he would probably find out soon enough. What he was most curious about was the nature of the blood it contained. Pure and of existential nature, but far too powerful to belong to the woman. "It must be Sacrifice''s blood." Roley mumbled to himself in a low voice.

    "Aren''t you the curious type?" The woman said with a tinge of sarcasm.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Roley shook his head dismissively, ignoring the woman''s taunt. "I need to know the location of my friends. They should be somewhere under the domain of Sacrifice."

    The woman''s eyes rolled in their sockets in a show of annoyance. "Names." She demanded.

    "Try Heimart." He said after a few moments, recalling therge and muscr youth who, at the time, had led their little group through an event for martial and spiritual cultivators, back in their of origin.

    As he thought of those memories, he failed to notice the faint smile that had appeared on his face. A warm one, happy. In his mind, he was back to that small cabin. Heimart and Ligart bent over a small table. ying cards were in their hands, and Ligart was losing. On the top bed of the furthest bunk, a child-sized bump of slowly moving sheets he hadter learned was called Alis. Finally, the teenager with dark hair and darker eyes who sharpened his sword while asionally peeking through the one porthole in their cabin.. Daniel.

    He had always wished there had been a fifth bed for him in that cabin in the past, but unfortunately, he had been limited to being a frequent visitor from another part of the ship. How fun it would have been.

    "No one with that name." The woman said decisively. Not loudly, but loud enough for Roley to wake up from his dreams.

    "What does that mean?" He asked.

    The woman shrugged. "Other than the person not being held prisoner within Sacrifice''s domain? That he was not considered important enough for his existence to be kept track of, or that he is dead."

    Dead. Never had that word sounded so bitter and hateful in his ears. "Try Ligart, or Alis." Roley said.

    Once again, the woman brought the ring to her mouth, then whispered a few words into it. A ritual that Roley had been too distracted to notice the first time around.

    The process took a few seconds, after which the woman, slightly confused, answered in a simr fashion. "None with those names either."

    Roley was shocked. Sure, two thousand years had passed, but he knew those people. They were resourceful, and smart. Alis had always been quiet and observant, to a point where a simple look at her crew mates had been enough for her to pinpoint the most powerful cultivator, and despite his tendency of cheating his cousin Ligart out of victory in card games, Heimart was a born leader. Even without the help of many more experienced cultivators, how could they have died like that?

    "They can''t be dead. My system.." he muttered just before a loud banging sound overpowered his voice. White colored pebbles darted out of white dust, bouncing off of the loose robes of both Roley and the young woman.

    "Try Mea''hor. Rulin is herst name." Der said with a deep and powerful voice that, this time, betrayed a hint of worry.

    Roley had fallen quiet.

    At the mention of the fourth name the young woman sent out anothermand into the ring, which this time, responded. *poof* A cartoonish cluster of dust exploded a few inches over the woman''s palm. It drifted, and seeped into the creases of the woman''s clothes the way dust does, soon revealing a simple notebook in ck leather tied closed by a string of leather that, much like the ring, was marked by a small river of blood dug into its length.

    The appearance of this notebook came as a surprise for the young woman. A feeling she wasn''t able to hide before the two men could take notice of it.

    "What is it?" Der asked.

    "This is one of Sacrifice''s personal notebooks. I am afraid it cannot be opened." She quickly exined. "Only another power of existence can open this seal.. one at least as powerful as that of Sacrifice himself, if you are not too picky with how much of its contents you care to preserve. A stronger one, if you want to y it safe."

    Der took a step forward. His deep set eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Convenient." He growled. "And I presume you have no way to confirm this diary contains the information we are looking for."

    "It does." Roley answered, dismissing his friend''s suspicion. A confirmation that was aimed at reassuring his old friend, but that also informed the young woman that she had upheld her part of the bargain.

    A stunning smile grew on her delicate face as she tossed the notebook in their direction while saying, "Well then. If you remove the barrier, I''ll take my bell and leave."

    Roley did not bother to argue. His right hand instinctively reached for notebook, while his mind drew his innate power of immortality from the spatial barrier, releasing its grip onto the bell. "Get lost." He said as his fingers drew lines onto the river of blood. His immortal essence was gently released against it in an attempt to fight its flow, but only managing to slow it briefly.

    Just as uninterested about her presence, Der turned to look at the notebook with an expression of longing.

    It was then, as they shared a brief moment of aplishment, that the two heard what was now a very familiar sound. *DONG*

 Chapter 652 It Is My Nature

    *DONG* The bell chimed with a deafening toll. A crisp roar that washed over the minds of those who were unfortunate enough to hear it, targeting the innermost parts of their psyche, and loosening their grasp over their free will.

    Uncountable elementals,st to leave the tform, immediately turned to look at the sky, where therge bell had been swinging loudly. By miracle, the recently freed devotees and cultivators of the Immortal Armada had avoided the bell''s control, as thetter''s task of helping the former to limate to Roley''s had brought them outside of the item''s reach.

    Only Roley, Der, and the elementals tasked with rummaging through the woman''s possessions were caught in its range.

    "You should not have trusted me, moron." The blond woman gloated while casually cing the ring back into the inner pocket of her robe, or whichever crease within the loose cloth she had taken it out from. Her aloof behavior hade back in full force, with lips gently curved into a benevolent smile and eyes narrowed into ufortably thin slits under her golden brows.

    Her words, however, betrayed her state of mind. Behind her calm appearance, her heart was beating at a crazed rhythm. The reactionary part of her mind was clear, as she unconsciously calcted the possible oues of her betrayal, while the emotional side of her mind was foggy, and clouded by sheer anger and indignation. She was furious at the loss of her towers, as well as the humiliation of being trapped and forced to indulge her captor''s request.

    She could bear such shame from someone stronger than her, but the moment that creature would lose their advantage, she would always be happy and ready to avenge her bruised ego in spectacr fashion. Those were the moments the most vicious part of her personality woulde to life.

    And yet, Roley and Der stood unbothered. Too busy exchanging words of counsel and carefully studying the small notebook to notice her. The content of their conversations linger on three topics. Suggestions on how to break to seal, guesses regarding what Sacrifice''s personal interest in their friends would entail, and opinions on whether or not to ask Daniel for help.

    Noticing the pair''s reaction, orck thereof, the woman marched forward with heavy steps. "I am talking to you!" she barked out loudly enough to finally catch their attention.

    "I thought you had left already." Roley answered with feigned confusion. His shoulders dropped as his head tilted to the side in annoyance. "What else do you want?"

    Even less bothered was the warrior in full armor. The frontal part of his helmet had only lingered on her stunning features for a few moments before losing interest, and once again turned towards the small notebook.

    The woman was dumbfounded. Had he never really cared for his followers? Was he acting before? She wondered for the few seconds her rational side got to keep control over her mind. A control that was soon handed over to its emotional counterpart, as her anger reached a new height.

    "You three! Give that fool a reminder of my powers." She ordered while pointing at the three closest elementals. A crocodile-sized smander with scales of dark steelyered on top of a skin of molten metal, a ten feet tall bipedal golem with skin of ice almostpletely shrouded in cold vapors, and a fist-sized orb of dark essence, which lingered several feet above ground like a miniature dark hole.

    The three elementals responded to the woman''s call and followed the direction of her finger, immediately gathering in front of their rxed leader. "My lord, do you have orders for us?" Said a disembodied and emotionless voice whose vague origin could be pinpointed to the depths of the ck orb. The other two elementals, eager about the prospect of interacting with their lord, waited eagerly for him to answer.

    "No, Umbris. You, Onyx and ik can go back to your task." Roley casually answered with a gentle smile and a dismissive wave of his hand. His eyes had never left the woman''s figure, and yet, the calmness they had portrayed had now turned into something cold, and threatening.

    Seeing things evolve this way, the woman could not help but take a step back. Her will and thoughts had be a series of demands that, unsupported by her voice and authority, the elementals did not bother themselves with paying attention to, for they were not under her control.

    "You should have left when I gave you the chance to." Roley muttered just loudly enough for her to hear.

    The woman swallowed dryly. "I had to try." She said after letting out an awkwardugh. Her feet brought her further away step by step, one quicker than the previous.

    Roley''s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "I understand. It is hard to fight your nature. So I hope you won''t mind if I answer." Roley said as his ck and white eyes rose to therge bell.

    A shiver ran down the woman''s spine, filling her peerless pale skin with countless little bumps. "No!" she yelled, but it was toote. In the time it took her to understand what was happening, thick vines had appeared from under the baggy sleeve of his robe, darting in the direction of the bell with mind-numbing speed.

    Upon contact, the vines wrapped tightly around the instrument''s waist and shoulders, then dove into it, filling its mouth and rooting the pper in ce. Of its previous majestic appearance, only a few patches of gold remained visible, but not enough room for it to slip away.

    "I will keep this, for the inconvenience." Roley said as the vines started to withdraw, ripping away the almost negligible spatial formation that had kept the bell locked into space.

    The woman''s eyes turned cold, and murderous. Feelings that, however, she could not back up with power of her own. If only she hadn''t beenzy in the past thousand years, and had cultivated properly. Maybe she could have been powerful enough to fight back now, or at least, escape with all her treasures secured. "That is too much!" Shemented nheless. Roley''s repeated leniency had given her courage, and a good deal of thick skin.

    "On the contrary. I value my people more than you value your toys." Roley retorted. "Would they still be alive, had your powers not failed you?"

    "How did they fail?" the woman could not help but ask. "Was it your system?"

    Roley''s lips curved into a knowing smile. In his mind a small window of an array of colors had appeared. On it were written the list of rewards he had received for the recentlypleted task, to find information regarding the location of their friends and family.

    The window had appeared the moment the small notebook had fallen into his sight. He did not need to touch it, or open it, as a matter of fact. Being near it, in a situation where he could have easilye into its possession was enough for the system to consider the missionpleted.

    The rewards of the mission consisted of two things. A deeper understanding of the primordial essences contained within his body being the first one, and the unshakable loyalty of all elementals under hismand being the second. With the second reward, Roley''s elemental army had be effectively immune to the brainwashing of the devotion system, and by extent, to the bell it had created.

    Nevertheless, despite being aware of why the woman''s powers had failed her, Roley did not bother to exin. Instead, he asked a question of his own, "You have more serious problems to worry about." As he spoke, the bell, once asrge as a house, had shrunk to the size of a fist just in time to dive into Roley''s sleeve, never to be seen again.

    By now, the woman was feeling utterly defeated. All her ns had fallen to pieces, and her most treasured assets had either been stolen, or destroyed. Her cultivation could hardly keep her alive in deep space, let alone allow her to face her two opponents. No, she needed to retreat. She needed to get away as soon as possible, lick her wounds, and maybe look for Sacrifice''s help. Maybe he, after hearing of her heroic attempts at protecting his property, would grace her with a favor, and recover her lost treasure. That was all she could do.

    And yet, something did not feel right. Roley''s eyes followed each and every one of her movements, leering at her like a cat would a hole in the wall, ready to strike the moment the mouse would dare set a paw outside.

    "You lied.. You said the bell was enough, and that you wouldn''t kill me." she muttered with a trembling voice. Her feet shuffled backwards, taking her away from him one shaky step at a time.

    But Roley never moved. The smile had all but gone from his face, as his features twisted with a faint righteous indignation. "I wouldn''t kill you. I am a man of my word." He said with hands raised above his shoulders to show innocence. "I will not kill you." He repeated.

    The woman could not bring herself to believe such an obvious lie. Or was it? She kept wondering as her feet brought her further from her opponent. But then, her bare shoulders struck a hard surface with a faint thud. nks of metal shrieked into her ears as she turned around in panic. "Wha-" She yelped, but it was toote.

    A cold bar of sharpened metal dropped diagonally, meeting her vicle with a quick sh. Then, there was blood. Before Der''s figure could evene to focus, hisrge and imposing features further blurred, shrouded by theyer of moisture that had formed by the corners of the woman''s eyes. Her left hand soon touched the cold surface of the ground, while the fingers of her right hand instinctively grabbed for her slippery ankles.

    The notion that her body had been split in half would nevere to her mind.

    She could barely feel the pain, and could have stood up, had she wanted. That was what she thought as her left palm pressed against the white marble in an attempt to bring her to her feet, yet struggling not to slide over the blood that had pooled underneath her. Her mind was hazy, and fickle. Memories of distant events had made their appearance, tricking her into believing that she was not dying, or in danger.. Just sleepy.

    "I have to guard it. I have to guard it, or he won''t be happy.." She muttered in an attempt to find the drowsiness. A mission she had appeared to be persevering on until finally, her slender and pale hand finally slipped, and her face came crashing against the ground. Her blood softened the impact, and warmed her freezing cheek. Itfortably weed her arrival, like a warm pillow on a cold night.. and just like that, her eyes closed.

    "Is she dead? Actually dead?" Roley asked Der, who was closer to her and had sharper senses.

    To respond, however, was not the middle-aged warrior, but the young man who had quietly appeared by his side. "Probably not." Daniel said before reaching for the notebook. His eyes never once bothered tond onto the woman''s body to check, and yet he spoke with certainty, for he knew what kind of creatures the wielders of Destiny''s gifts were.

    Startled by Daniel''s sudden appearance, Roley backed away, moving out of arm''s reach. He had a mind of asking him where the hell he had been, or why had he onlye now, but then, as the woman exhaled herst breath, he turned towards her.

    What many would have expected to happen to a person''s body after their death, had not happened to the young woman. Her corpse, split cleanly in a diagonal cut, with guts and organs strewn over arge pool of blood, had suddenly started to glow a warm and gentle white light. Holy in nature and kind in nature the light grew in intensity, until, just seconds after its appearance, it burst into a countless number of sparks that, just as quickly as they had appeared, dissipated into nothingness, leaving behind no traces of her body.

    "What on earth was that!?" Roley asked.

    "Most systems have a life saving ability in their repertoire. If I have to guess, hers must be rted to the power of devotion. A God exists as long as some people believe in them, or something like that. It is not too bad, as far as that kind of ability goes. Beats mine, at least." Daniel casually exined just before his eyes left the notebook to meet Roley''s. "So, are you handing that over or not?" He then asked.

 Chapter 653 Written Memories

    ?

    Since thest time Daniel had seen his two old friends, his appearance had changed drastically. His rough beard had been cut clean, and his hair, once long and wild, had been cut shorter, and styled in a crew cut that fit his facial features and youthful appearance.

    The simple looking, yet finely weaved gray t-shirt and worn ck pants he had worn, had now been reced by a gray loosely-fitting linen shirt tucked into a pair of brown leather pants, which met a pair of spotlessly clean ck boots halfway down his calves. By his waist was a long and loose leather sash, wrapped twice over. Once to keep his pants up, and once to provide support to the sword that hung next to his thigh.

    A simple clean-up, purely aesthetic and ultimately inconsequential. That was Daniel had thought of it, and nothing more. And yet, that was not the case for his twopanions, who had suddenly felt nostalgic. Those colors, that specific hairstyle, and those particr items of clothing. They were all burned in their minds as part of Daniel''s persona just as much as his facial features were. The go-to attire and haircut they could expect him to sport most days of the week.

    That is the young man I know. They both thought.

    But, s, those feelings were short-lived. To crash them, just before they could lead the two to develop was could only be considered futile hope, were Daniel''s cold and distant eyes. Eyes that hadcked the anger, worry, curiosity, and youthful spark the young man they knew possessed. A reminder that he was still the aspect of existence they were getting to know, and not the bright cultivator they once knew.

    Daniel ignored this brief ripple of emotions, and instead, stood quietly. His upper body bent slightly forward, with one hand resting heavily onto the handle of the sword, pressing it to a horizontal position, while the other lingered in front of him expectantly. "Are you going to hand that over or not?" He repeated once again as his gaze shifted between Roley''s eyes, and the notebook he was holding.

    "Yes." Roley answered instinctively before pping the notebook onto Daniel''s palm. "Can you unlock it?" He then asked, unaware of the hair-thin string of golden power that, upon contact with the notebook, had darted out of thetter''s skin, diving straight into the slightly wider river of blood.

    The golden power was like poison to it. It spread into its watery body with no effort, aided by the very flow that forced the river in its infinite cycle, iming more of it every moment. It swallowed and consumed, until finally, the golden hue had reced the water''s blood-red colorpletely.

    The entire process had only taken only a few seconds. A process that, all things considered, shocked Daniel''s twopanions.

    Roley''s curious vein formed dozens of questions into his mind, but only one found its way to his tongue. "Is the existential power of karma that much stronger than that of sacrifice?" He asked, impressed by how quickly Daniel had managed to remove a seal that, in his single attempt to remove, had felt akin to trying to drain an ocean one handful of water at a time.

    A feat that had only taken the aspect of Karma seconds.

    Usually Daniel would ignore such questions, and yet, since ascending to the realm of the aspects of existence, he had begun to feel a sort of pride towards his power. He had to defend it, and give it credit when necessary, and avenge it when its might would be insulted. That was why, when Roley showed genuine interest in it, he could not help but feel magnanimous, and grace him with an answer.

    "In the pantheon''s ssification scale, my power should be above that of Sacrifice." He answered honestly. "But that is not an enormous feat. The power of sacrifice is a high low-tier power of existence, as its influence is bound to the asional decisions of mortals. It is a power that exists in some ces, is rooted in the traditions of some civilizations, and is produced by a very few number of actions. There is no totality in any of its many facets."

    "And what about Karma?" Roley answered. "In what way are they different?"

    Daniel once again let out a distracted smile. His golden eyes still focused on the small notebook, while his thoughts tried to formte the mostprehensive and honest answer possible. "The power of karma possesses a form of totality. It is still tied to living creatures, but its presence is much more abundant than the nature of sacrifice. All acts of sacrifice, may them be selfish or selfless, can produce karma. Yet, not all actions of karma can produce the existential power of sacrifice."

    "Sounds like a very fine distinction." Roley muttered to himself.

    "Only because you don''t understand it yet. How can words help you understand what the difference between a portion of a body of water, and the ocean in its entirety is. Water is water, after all."

    "Mhm." Roley hummed pensively before a switch flipped in his mind. "What about the champion we''ve just killed. Is the small influence of the power of devotion the reason why she couldn''t ascend?"

    Daniel''s head shook. "No, that is not the reason." He said as his eyes gently moved from the small notebook to Roley''s figure. "An existential power of devotion would fall under the same category of that of Sacrifice. If she had managed to ascend, her nature would be in no way less important than that of Sacrifice himself. Her inferiority was caused by her failure toprehend the true extent of devotion."

    "Her rotten personality prevented her from learning all other kinds of concepts but religious zeal. Devotion to one''s true love, parents and children, to one''s possessions, country and upation. She knows nothing of them. As long as she fails to recognize and fix these shorings, she will never ascend."

    Roley nodded in understanding. "Is that it, then? Is reaching a deepprehension of one''s existential power the path to ascension?" He then asked.

    "To an extent." Daniel answered, now fully invested in the conversation. "A deepprehension of the power of karma was definitely a factor in my ascension, but I wouldn''t say it was the most important part of it. In reality, it is not much different than studying the essences of nature. You can explore the concepts, learn them by heart and use them to your advantage. You can even reach a perfect understanding of them, like many have across the multiverse, but yourprehension will never touch the primal nature of the elements. No, you have to pay to cross that line."

    "A line? What do you mean? And pay what?" Roley asked, more confused than ever.

    His questions, however, were met with sealed lips. "That is nothing you have to worry about, for now." Daniel calmly answered as his hands grasped at the leathery string that kept the notebook closed. Then, with a jerk of his fingers, he undid the knot, freeing the small booklet from its restraint.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Unsatisfied by theck of a conclusion, Roley opened his mouth, ready to insist, but he was soon stopped by the cold metallic hand that suddenlynded on top of his shoulder. "Priorities." Der said, stopping him from further dying them from finding news about their friends and family.

    Roley heaved heavily, then let out a deep sigh. He had underestimated how much Der had wanted to find his daughter. A feat that he had probably never abandoned in thest two thousand years, but that without the help of a system, had been fruitless. Now that they were that close, he could not even imagine the degree of restlessness his old friend must have been repressing.

    This single thought made him feel ashamed. Was his curiosity more important than their goal? He was always convinced that it wasn''t, until now.

    Daniel ignored the interaction between the two, and instead focused on the contents of the booklet. What he saw were lines upon lines of finely written words with ink of blood on top of yellow paper. Locations, names, dates and coordinates orderly recorded into two neat lists, one ranking the universes that belonged to Sacrifice''s domain in order of influence, the other containing details and thoughts about any new potential universe that would soon open to the battle for influence.

    Each list contained a minimum of a thousand entries, and together, they filled four fifths of the entire booklet, leaving behind only a few dozen pages free for whichever type of information Sacrifices would care to keep in written form.

    Seeing that this information was of little importance to him, Daniel flipped the pages in a haste, until finally, he came upon the beginning of several long paragraphs. Written above them, in thick and particrly elegant calligraphy, was the word "Horror."

    "What is this?" Daniel muttered to himself with curiosity.

    -----

    -Year 5031

    Five thousand years have passed since my birth, and not a moment I have spent not feeling powerful and infinite, glorious and indomitable. Yet, I am also a servant. I look at those above me with envy, and fear. Their power scares me, and I know, deep down, that I will never be able to bask upon the heights they live in, no matter how many years will pass.

    The aspect of Horror inhabits my nightmares more than any other member of the pantheon. I feel in his power a familiarity that fills me with disgust. I am a child in front of him, struggling to crawl over his fatherly existence with slippery fingers and an infant''s strength. I will never seed. Thousands of years have proven just that. I will never leave his disgusting shadow.

    But not all hope is lost.

    His hatred towards the aspect of Destiny puts thetter''s rivalry with Fate to shame. The two were born together, I heard, but Destiny had taken the spotlight away from him, creating a one sided hatred that, perhaps, I could use. Would some encouragement convince Horror to challenge the aspect of Destiny? Fate would never allow a disruption to the bet he has with his brother. He would strike Horror down, freeing me from his shadow. I will investigate more about it.

    -----

    -Year 5609

    Horror will never risk challenging Fate. My search for Horror''s vulnerability still bears no result.-

    -----

    Daniel''s eyes opened wide with surprise. His fingers kept scrolling through the pages, uncovering more and more entries gathered into little groups under single emboldened words. The names of many aspects of existence who, at some point in thest tens of millions of years, had be the target of Sacrifice''s attention. Of them he had recorded weaknesses, hostilities and past major events.

    Records keeping was a practice Daniel had not expected an aspect of existence to pursue, and yet, on second thought, he understood it. Their kind was, in a way, more human than cultivators. Their lives were infinite, and powers unlimited, but their minds were that of sentient creatures whose memories got lost under the tremendously long river of time.

    That most of them would have kept a thorough record of the most important events that regarded them, was not an odd assumption. Written memories of the slights they meant to avenge, of the favors they owed, of the ideas that at one point in time had felt like the most important developments in their lives, but that hundreds of thousands of yearster they had all but forgotten.

    As the pages kept turning, Daniel saw several familiar names, yet little information of use. Very few entries possessed useful weaknesses, and most of them regarded benevolent aspects of existence that would never cross him to begin with, so he did not linger too long on them.

    His fingers kept flipping one page after another, until finally, he came upon a word too familiar to ignore. "Karma."

 Chapter 654 New Enemies And Old Friends

    ?

    -Year 359 of the 8th cycle

    My knowledge of this abomination consists of what is alreadymon knowledge. Once a champion of Destiny, now the aspect of the existential power of karma. Another power I feel a certain kinship to. I see it dirt the purity of the red of sacrifice with hues of gold, just like the dark motes of horror that appear whenever my champions spill blood in my honor.

    I hate one just like I hate the other. They stand on higher steps than me, profiting off of the hardbor of my domain and existence. And yet, while I have always takenfort in Horror being a higher link of the same chain that binds me, Karma is different. He is not bound by his nature, and his power can reach further than mine ever will.

    He is a unique creature, a dangerous one, whom I will have to keep an eye on.

    -----

    "What did you find?" Der asked as the nk of metal announced his approach. He and Roley had noticed the gleam in Daniel''s eyes. The spark that would appear whenever he would find something of interest. Something that he found important.

    "My entries." Daniel answered, his eyes moving further down the first page.

    -----

    -Year 380 of the 8th cycle

    nah''s disposition towards me has improved. She used to avoid my gaze, and obey every one of my words, as I had expected her to. Yet, as I visited herst, she took the initiative of sharing a piece of information she had recentlye in possession of.

    She ims that Karma is as odd to the pantheon of aspects of existence, as he was to wielders of Destiny''s gifts. In fact, he was a mortal once. A human who had managed to avoid being devoured by the consciousness born from Destiny''s power, and that despite doing so, he had seeded in maintaining ownership over his system.

    A bold im.

    I do not trust her kind, but her exnation matches the odd behavior recorded by the champions of my domain who have met him before, the Blood Sect. I am unsure of what nah can possibly gain from revealing this to me, but it is information worth confirming. If her words are true, there will be a new angle for me to explore.

    -Year 381 of the 8th cycle

    Multiple sources have confirmed nah''s ims. The aspect of Karma was indeed a mortal human. A creature with friends and family, and cared for with feelings that match the way my kind feels about ourselves. We could never ept such weakness. A multitude of chinks in our armor ready for our enemies to take advantage of. What a fool.

    I finally have my angle with him, and I know where to start. nah will find them for me.

    -----

    Daniel''s lips curved into acent smile. Only he knew how wrong Sacrifice had been. How little the lives of the people he once considered his friends and family now meant to him. He could have watched them all die in front of him and never show a hint of regret, or sadness. He was an aspect of existence through and through. Cold, calctive and devoid of any mortal weaknesses. Or at least, he would be once his promise to his former self will be fulfilled.

    He had a responsibility of preserving their lives once. A debt to the one who had allowed his birth to take ce. To deny it, would be like denying the worth of his existence. He was worth that bit of effort.

    Now, the ones he had to protect were being used against him, and he was up for the fight.

    "He is talking about our friends.." Roley grimaced. "How did they fall in his hands?" He could not believe what he was reading. Most would have, but he couldn''t. After all, Daniel had only appeared in the form of an aspect of existence a few decades ago, while Roley had spent centuries digging through the multiverse in search of his friends. With the aid of the Elementalist''s system, he had possessed the same level of resources Sacrifice had at his disposal, and yet he had failed.

    "Keep reading." Daniel said as his fingernded on another entry.

    -----

    -Year 381 of the 8th cycle

    nah''s gift failed to locate the mortals. In between her sobbing and excuses, she let out a detail she immediately regretted mentioning. One that made me furious.

    The failure of her ''system'' was indicative of the involvement of another of Destiny''s champions, or another aspect of existence, meaning that I havee toote.

    What a fool I was. Of course I could not have been the first of my kind to learn about Karma''s true nature and weaknesses. Of course I was not the only aspect of existence to employ the aid of one of Destiny''s champions. My arrogance has led me to disappointment once again. It always does.

    My research will be marked as a failure. A word that, after more than seven million years since my birth, I am finally starting to get ustomed to.

    -----<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    -Year 383 of the 8th cycle

    It came to visit me, and spoke to me with a chorus of voices. Its face was a blur, leaving me to wonder whether it had taken the form of a male or a female, and yet I did not care. Its eyes pierced my very existence. In a moment, the creature had learned everything about me. The following one, he had seen through the potential of my power. By the third moment, he assessed my existence as a whole. I could not stop it, nor did I want to, for I knew that resistance of any kind would lead to my annihtion.

    I have always hated meeting the primordial members of the pantheon. Peak aspects of existence like Fate, Matter and Chaos. ''Their appearance never bodes well for those they wish to visit'', was what I had always thought, until one came bearing gifts.

    It gave me a ring. A small trinket of mortal craftsmanship they call pocket dimension. Sealed in its inner space, nah found the ones I was looking for. Millions of mortals, beasts, elementals and cultivators. Her eyes immediately locked onto one of those cultivators. A man by the name of Sewah sheter admitted to being the true spawn of Iewah and destined wielder of the karmic system, but was spared by its host after thetter had regained control over his body.

    I kept them all.

    I finally have my spear. My eyes see the weakness and my weapon is sharp, and yet, I once again am bound to powers beyond mine. The gift was not free. I am to gather allies, other aspects of existence that could feel threatened by the nature of Karma, and use the weapon I was given to fight him. Thus were the orders of the one whose identity I now know, but do not dare put into writing. I will obey him.

    -----

    As the trio finished reading thest entry, Daniel mmed the notebook shut. His eyes closed gently, covering the beads of gold that shone under his lids, while his lips maintained their previous curve. Something in his smile told hispanions that he knew more about this matter than what was described in Sacrifice''s diary.

    "Where are they?!" Der growled in anger as his fingers tightly wrapped around the handle of his sword. "We know nothing more than we did before!"

    Roley''s head shook in disagreement. "They were handed over to him by another aspect of existence. A powerful one, with a grudge against him." He said as his white and ck eyesnded onto Daniel''s peaceful figure. "That was why I couldn''t find them, nor could he. They had already been captured, far before you had ascended."

    "Is what he is saying true?" Der asked.

    Daniel nodded with eyes still closed. "It would appear so."

    "Did you know anything about it?"

    Daniel''s eyes suddenly opened, cold and distant, while his smile had be shallow. "I came into this knowing less than you do. This is all a consequence of his mistakes.. of his naivety."

    "His? Who are you talking about?" Roley asked.

    Daniel turned towards him and said, "The former me." His smile had widened once again. The thought of being challenged by a group of aspects of existence was amusing to him. He felt no fear, nor did he despise his mortal self for putting him through this mess. After all, had his former self not chosen to leave his friends and family to push them away from danger, as well as to delve into the depths of the nature of karma, he would have never ascended.

    No. He was grateful for the opportunity. For the opportunity to bring Karma to life in the multiverse, as well as the opportunity to prove that he was not like every other aspect of existence. He was an advanced kind. One that had known mortality and immortality, and that now possessed a potential that the other members of the pantheon could hardly ever understand.

    Any challenge that came with his nature, he weed with open arms.

    Back to reality, Daniel could see that his words had upset hispanions. He knew that he had offended the person they once loved, pushing the me of all their problems onto him as if he himself had nothing to do with it. And yet, he did not care. The unique facets of his ascension went beyond the minds of mortals, as they would never experience what he had. He remained stoic, unperturbed by their grim nces and opinions.

    Seeing theck of shame in Daniel''s features, Der and Roley turned away. They had no intention of starting another pointless argument over morality with a creature who, of morality, knew nothing. Their worriesy elsewhere.

    "nah could have known where our friends were." Der muttered to himself. On his wrist the feeble feeling of resistance of her flesh against his sword''s edge was still fresh. A feeling that, once familiar and satisfying, now was weighed down by regret.

    "I doubt she did." Roley retorted in a reassuring voice. "Sacrifice did not trust her enough to leave her alive with that information. She was probably left in the dark about the fate of our friends, as well as the content of his meeting with our mystery man. Another aspect of existence we have to worry about, I presume?"

    "No, we do not. "Daniel said with a matter-of-fact tone. His smile had grown wider, while his eyes narrowed with fondness. "I know who Sacrifice met, and I know he won''t take part in anything he has set in motion. He does that sort of thing. I know it all too well."

    "You know him?" Roley asked.

    In Daniel''s mind, memories of his past encounters with this entity yed out anew.

    In their first meeting, the entity had seen through the nature of his system with a single nce. In their second meeting, he had stopped a handful of aspects of existence from killing him and his friends as they fought over ownership of his universe of origin, and in their third meeting, the entity had eradicated the aspect of equilibrium when thetter was on her way to kill him, ending his development as a newly formed aspect of existence.

    He had always been there. Eager to see Daniel grow, and bring the mes of war and chaos to the realm of aspects of existence.

    "Oh, yes. We have met now and then. But it seems that I had never gotten to feel the true power of his nature." Daniel answered as his foot started moving, swinging in a semi-circr motion that led his body to turn a hundred and eighty degrees. "The only aspect of existence capable of digging the powers of others, for that allows him to see what sort of damage they can cause. Conflict."

 Chapter 655 An Obvious Trap

    ?

    The aspect of Conflict. A distinct and likable man in Daniel''s memories, with eyes the depths of fallen stars, and a helpful disposition that masked his true thoughts, feeling, and ns. In truth, he was an entity that had existed since time immemorial, born out of the existential and primordial powers of war and destruction.

    "Of course, I should have known." Daniel muttered to himself as his eyes dug through countless miles of empty space.

    "The aspect of Conflict? Who is he? And what could he possibly have against you that he considered you worthy of his attention even before you could ascend?" Roley''s eyes were wide open. He had often heard rumors of the existence of the primordial aspects of existence. Creatures of nigh-omnipotence that were considered gods, even among their own kind. "What did you do to him?"

    Without turning around, Daniel answered. His voice emerged from curved lips with an unsteady tone, as if he had been trying to stop himself from bursting out in an earthyugh. "It isn''t personal. It never is, with those kinds of people." Daniel said before suddenly catching himself in a lie. "Actually, it always is personal with them, but this has nothing to do with something I have done."

    "Care to exin?" Der chimed in, his patience wearing thin.

    Daniel''s shoulders rose in a quick shrug, then he turned around, facing them. "It is his nature. He is the lord of all conflict, down to the sh of atoms, up to the corrosion of universes. He breathes air attrition, and he bleeds pressure onto the earth. That is his nature. A nature that, based on my own experiences, as well as Sacrifice''s description of his powers, allows him to see the full destructive potential of all things."

    "I am so confused. What does that have anything to do with you?" Roley asked.

    "I am getting to it." Daniel responded, as his gaze turned pensive. His fingers cupped his shaven chin, while his index finger scratched his jaw, fighting off an itch that was never there to begin with. "I never put two and two together until I read thest entry in Sacrifice''s diary. Him discerning the nature of my system the first time we met, saving us from the childish squabbles between Conclusion, Ingenuity and the other two, or saving me from Equilibrium''s judgment. He probably knew since the beginning."

    Roley''s hands rose impatiently, as the inner parts of his brows followed suit. "You are not making any sense. Knew what?"

    "He knew all about it. About the nature of the systems as embryos of powers of existence. Of the possibility to ascend to the state of aspect of existence." Daniel said as his smile widened. "I would not be surprised if he knew already that weck the one weakness all aspects of existence possess. Having their powers bound to the influence of the power they represent."

    Der and Roley finally started to understand.

    "He must have learned about it the first time he met a champion of Destiny. What he saw would have been further reason for any other aspects of existence to eradicate them, but to him, it was an opportunity." Daniel''s voice trailed into silence, allowing for his twopanions to draw their own conclusions.

    The first to speak, a full minuteter, was Roley, whose healthy pinkplexion had fallen by several shades. "You are saying that he allowed you to grow, so that he could pit you against the other aspects of existence. Start a war between old and new members of the pantheon, all to create.."

    "Conflict." Daniel cut him off. By now, his spirit had been set aze, and his hands had tightened into fists. The initial amusement had disappeared, reced by the indignation of being used, and underestimated. Did Conflict think that I would never learn about this? Did he believe that, had I learned about it, I would be powerless to take revenge, or that I would fail to defeat the old pantheon, taking him down with them? Were the questions that filled his mind.

    Of course. A war of such catastrophic proportion would leave many dead in its wake. He might be able to defeat the lowest tiers of aspects of existence, but doing so would only increase Conflict''s power, while also leaving him weakened. After all, regardless of how much power he had umted, he was still a young aspect of existence. His influence could not bepared to that of an omnipresent aspect of existence. Not after they had been allowed to develop since the beginning of time.

    His feelings, however, never set into the realm of fear, for fear he had none. He knew that ying his part into Conflict''s schemes would only elevate thetter to an even higher level position, probably above all other primordial aspects of existence. And yet, he did not care. His potential alone might not be high enough to fight back, but someone else might. He thought as his eyes locked onto Roley''s figure.

    "So we were all ying into the palm of the Aspect of Conflict. How does this change things for us?" Roley asked Daniel.

    Before Daniel could respond, however, Der stepped forward and growled. "It changes nothing. Nothing will stop me from finding my daughter. Not you, him, or any other narcissistic freak looking down on us from theirfortable thrones." His foot stomped on the ground, forming a crack that immediately extended to one end of the tform to the other, splitting its gargantuan size into two even halves.

    "Nothing has changed." Daniel muttered after a few moments of silence. "Based on the diary entries, Sacrifice must have had no more than two decades to find allies. Not an easy feat for someone like him."

    "Why, have you met him?" Roley asked.

    Daniel rolled his eyes. "As a matter of fact, we have. Quite recently. During a gathering of aspects of existence. I would not exactly call him the soul of the party. I doubt he has managed to gather too many allies, even less that he convinced those who could pose a threat to me."

    "What is next, then?" Der asked. "This diary does not tell us where Sacrifice is keeping Mea and the others." As he finished speaking, he turned towards Roley, his eyes narrowed into slits barely visible through the thick metal of his helmet. "I thought systems never lied."

    Roley shook his head in disagreement. His hand stretched towards Daniel, hinting for him to hand the diary over to him.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Knowing his intentions, Daniel idly handed the notebook over. He did not care for such unimportant exnations, so he let Roley do the honors. Soon enough, thetter''s voice yed out.

    The notebook was opened to its first page, and Roley''s fingers solidly pressed onto the very first name of the list of owned universes. "They are here." Roley said with a matter-of-fact tone. Under his finger, the words ''Universe #252, Sanguine. Current core of the red domain. X:11.845; Y:-52.655; Z:22.0001, Fate''s universal charting system.''

    "How do you know?" Der asked.

    "Because Sacrifice was terrified by Conflict. He wouldn''t mess up the task he was given, either by leaving our friends in the same universe as nah'', or by putting them in the hands of others. No, he is probably keeping them himself." Roley''s finger tapped the same line a few more times, then added, "Which is why I think they are here. If this is truly the core of Sacrifice''s domain, then this is where he is at his strongest. The one universe he would dare face other aspects of existence in."

    Der finally understood. Roley''s logic made sense, and Daniel seemed rxed. A sight which calmed him down as well. This young man might not be the one he once was, but to face creatures he could never hope to face himself, he could ask for no betterpanion. That was how the mind of a general and a soldier worked. "So, we are just going to barge into Sacrifice''s core domain and hope Daniel can trample any trap that awaits us?" He asked.

    Roley turned to look at Daniel, deferring to him for an answer. He was the strongest creature here, and the only one instrumental to the sessful rescue of his people. It was not his ce to make ns, or order him around. Nor would Daniel agree to it, for the matter.. That, he understood quite clearly.

    As the two looked at him with expectant looks, Daniel scratched his chin once more. The deepest parts of his existence were begging him to take the bait, and barge into Sacrifice''s domain like a knight in the dragon''sir, but he had been human once. He knew better than that.

    After a few minutes of consideration, Daniel opened his eyes, which soon found their way to Roley''s figure. "We are going to make a detour, first." He said.

    "A detour? Where?" Roley asked.

    A smile returned to Daniel''s lips, revealing two rows of pearly white teeth that soon parted. "We are going to Sound''s domain, to pick up a new trinket for you." He said.

    -----

    Somewhere within the Sanguine universe, was a dark and cold hall.

    Gray was the color of its stone floor, which extended in nearlyplete darkness across thousands of miles in every direction with a smooth, and even surface. Its only source of lighting were a handful of nearly extinguished torches, held in ce by holders of dark iron mounted into absurdlyrge, borately sculpted pirs.

    Each pir wasrge enough for ten people to hug, and on their surface were sculpted detailed images of the history of civilization. All different in their own right, showing the birth, advancement, and demise of various humanoid races.

    The pirs far outnumbered the lit torches, as each extended upwards and into the darkness, bearing the weight of their own section of the ceiling, but only a handful of torches had been lit. Specifically, the ones closest to a pir in particr. One that stood where the forest of sculpted pirs ended, and the ones that appeared to have been hastily dug out of the stone that once filled the immense hall began.

    Standing at the bottom of this pir stood a feeble and pale old man. He held a chisel and a hammer with his hands, while his feet moved around a sack filled with other sculpting tools of different shapes and sizes. His thin physique made it a miracle for the old man to be still working, and yet, he continued his hammering in a trance, eager to finish the work of his life as soon as possible.

    To observe the man''s devotion, was a second individual. A man in histe twenties dressed in a fitting red attire, who sat on and behind the only two pieces of furniture within the mine-wide hall. A refined chair of dark wood and arge desk of simr craft, over which he rested his feetfortably.

    As he observed what he knew to be thest moments of a dedicated sculptor with his bright red eyes, the man''s hands moved constantly. One yed with a diamond ring which he rolled over his knuckles with great dexterity, the other fingering a crystal band he wore at the bottom of his left thumb. His focus was split equally between the three, whom he kept in his sight at all times. Or so he had for thest few days.

    The pir was about to be finished. A feat that was likely to end up in its sculptor''s death. A spectacle he had watched thousands of times before. The great sculptors of each civilization carving their most detailed work into his hall. An honor that would alwayse at the cost of the sculptor''s life. How pure of a sacrifice that was for the one who from sacrifice had been born, for he was Sacrifice himself.

    The old man had spent thest day touching up his work, correcting a few mistakes and adding beautiful details. He was almost over, just like his feeble and dragged breath reminded his life to be with each mote of pulverized stone and strike of the hammer, again, and again, until finally, the old man finally fell to his knees.

    Sacrifice made himself morefortable, eager to see the birth of the purest form of sacrifice, but then, just as the old man was about to exhale hisst breath, the crystal band he wore exploded into countless shards. "nah.." he muttered in short-lived surprise before turning to the side, where a dark shadow had quietly appeared. "It is time. Call the others." He ordered.

    As these words were spoken the shadow disappeared, and so did Sacrifice soon after. The old many lifeless on the cold floor, at the feet of a masterpiece that, given only once chance to be gazed upon by a now uninterested Sacrifice, was destined to never be looked at ever again.

 Chapter 656 The Aspect Of Sound

    ?

    As Sacrifice, now aware of Daniel''s movements, prepared for his eventual arrival, the trio made preparations of their own. Or so Daniel called them.

    The three were gathered within the trigate, all facing a gargantuan inter dimensional portal that journeymen cultivators and champions of the various domains seemed to avoid like the gue. Yet, there the three stood, letting just as many different emotions leave marks on their faces.

    Der, now rid of the armor he usually wore, was dressed in simple clothes. A loose linen shirt with undone buttons and sleeves rolled up to the middle of his forearm, revealing his hairy arms, a pair of strained leather pants that threatened to rip at the faintest flex of his muscr legs, and a pair of military boots. His grizzled hair, now grown to shoulder length, was tied into a rough ponytail, uncovering his stern features and carefully-trimmed beard which failed to hide his impatience.

    He pressed onto the joints of his fingertips, searching for theforting snap the action would create, but doing so too many times for the familiar sound to once again be heard, leaving him to findfort in the motion alone.

    Next to him the lord of the elementals, who, still dressed in the same element-resistant loose robe, had been standing nervously in ce, looking back at the direction they hade from with worry. "I still don''t understand why we had to leave the armies in Sacrifice''s domain. They cannot be safer there, alone, than they would be with us." Heined once more to Daniel, who rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.

    "I don''t know how else to exin it to you, just do what I say." Daniel responded in an attempt to bring an end to the exchange that hadsted for the entirety of thest few days.

    Unfortunately, Roley was not willing to drop the subject. "Why don''t you exin it to me as if I was an idiot, then? Help me understand." hemented.

    "Fine." Daniel''s palm pressed heavily against his forehead, briefly rubbing onto his skin in a pacifying manner before moving back down. "Melodia, the domain of the primordial aspect of Sound, is the dimension where most sound elementals live. Beings formed from concepts of sound essence that can easily break your eardrums, or enchant you with mncholic sounds from your past, leading you to insanity. That is why they had to stay, and he had to take his armor off. Sound waves can bounce off metal like light on a mirror, and I can''t protect you all."

    Daniel''s exnation, while only based on the rumors he had heard about the domain of sound, was quite urate. Melodia, just like the Spiritual in and the Underworld, were dimensions reserved for certain forms of creatures. In it the elementals of sound would find refuge, free to produce as much existential power they could for the entity they looked at the same way the elemental army looked at their lord.

    Roley grimaced. "Then why are Der and I going?" He asked.

    Daniel''s features turned grave. "Because I don''t think Sound is going to agree to anything I will offer. She has to see you in person to decide whether to agree to our request. And if you end up crazy, Der can always force you to wake up."

    "Okay, I get it now." Roley said, more nervous than ever. Daniel''s description of the ce they were about to visit was not too ttering. Promises of burst eardrums, nails against the board and much worse. And yet, Melodia was the only ce where Roley could ever find a treasure of primordial sound essence. No other universe or domain could have one, and he knew so, for he had looked almost everywhere. "Alright, let''s get moving them." He said.

    "Finally." Daniel muttered, failing to hide his excitement. He had always wanted to visit the domain of sound, especially after learning that the aspect it belonged to, despite being one of the few primordial beings in existence, had always maintained her impartiality. ''She always lived for the music, and nothing else.'' her peers would always answer, when asked about her.

    Without giving Roley a chance to change his mind, Daniel dove into the portal''s surface, with the others following right after.

    When Daniel emerged from the portal, he immediately felt the pressure of gravity. A gravity far beyond that of his of origin, but that to the bodies of cultivators only served to keep them grounded. Their fall was only a few feet high, and theirnding was softened by door-sized dried leaves, pine needles twice the length of a human being, and cold dirt.

    As the eyes of the three moved up from the improvisednding tform, they soon recognized the familiar elements of a forest, but also somewhat different. The trees stood several miles tall, dwarfed by the half-buried presence of the inter-dimensional portal, but high enough to hide its upper curve as efficiently as the earth it was buried into had. Their crowns, full and lively, allowed close to no light through, leaving anything that might have lived under their shadow in almost perpetual darkness.

    "This is Melodia?" Roley asked. "It looks like a normal forest. A big one, but not unlike any oth-what?!" His head snapped to the side, where a breeze of air had made futile attempts at lifting one of the enormous dried leaves. His eyes focused on one empty point in space. "Why would you say that?" He asked.

    By his side, Der was bent forward, his hands covered his ears, as if attempting to block a deafening noise. "ARGH!" he groaned painfully. His eyes looked for hispanions, narrowing at the realization that both were experiencing something different. Or at least, Roley was. Daniel was simply standing there, observing his surroundings with curious eyes.

    Through the eyes of Karma, this forest looked all but normal. Countless white shadows drifted in the air, dancing around each other and sometimes merging into one, some carrying whispers while others carried shrieks of metal, and screams of agony, yet all producing the very same form of existential power-colorless and formless like sound itself.

    "What''s wrong, Lig? Did your cousin trick you into working his shit again?" Roley asked as his hand rose to the height of his eyes, reaching for a shoulder that was not there. His hand dug into the air then fell against his leg, reminding him that he was not spending the evening with his old friend, but was being yed with by powers he could not see, or protect himself from.

    Immune to the temporary control of familiar melodies, Der was disposed of with the brutality of sound. Forced to his knees, retching in disgust at the eye-aching and never-ending screeches and deafening hammering.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "Enough!" Daniel roared once the novelty of his surroundings ran out. Power of karma rushed out of his body, stretching outwards like the st of an explosion that only halted its expansion once itpletely covered his twopanions.

    The sound elementals who had been torturing hispanions immediately backed away, fearful of the golden lights that, had he wished it to, could have erased them from existence. The same power that had prevented them from approaching Daniel to begin with. "Are you okay?" Daniel asked Der and Roley struggled to regain theirposure for a few moments, their minds still echoing with sweet voices and deafening noises, leaving them somewhat dizzy.

    "They were just curious. Do not take offense." Said a voice so sweet and melodic that music itself paled inparison.

    The voice came from behind the closest of therge trees, carrying an existential power that easily pierced the field of protection Daniel had erected. At its source, Daniel could feel a concentration of existential power purer than any he had ever felt before.

    Struggling to stop his body from buzzing in a long shiver, Daniel leaned to the side, in a symbolic yet futile attempt to catch a glimpse of the entity that had spoken. "I am-" He said before being immediately interrupted.

    "I know who you are." the voice said, melting the heart and reminding those who heard it of their mostfortable memories. Yet, despite interrupting Daniel''s introduction, as if in agreement to his invitation to show herself, the entity stepped out of cover, revealing her unique appearance.

    A fair-skinned woman barely thirty years of age, with long transparent hair emerged from the woods. Her facial features, almost as lovely as her voice was, struggled to prevent Daniel and the others from noticing her perfect body, for she stepped forward with no more clothes than she had been wearing the moment of her birth, in the beginning of times.

    Daniel nodded in greeting, uninterested by the woman''s naked appearance, but that was not the case for his twopanions, who could not help but let their eyes wander. Yet, whenever their gazes would approach one of the parts a woman would usually want to keep hidden, a litany of sounds would effortlessly pierce the protection of Karma and reach their ears, distracting them from doing so.

    Soon, the two realized that taking a peek at anything worth seeing was virtually impossible.

    "An honor to meet you, Lady Sound." Daniel worded out calmly beforeing to a shocking realization. He had spoken each word clearly, and with confidence, yet no sound hade out. "I-We are here for.." he tried once more, still failing to produce anything that could be called a sound.

    The woman''s eyes, clear as diamonds, had only briefly lingered on Daniel''s figure. Moments she had indulged in the novelty of a new color, and a new vor of power, but soon she lost interest. Her heart had beaten for other sights, a young man that looked around in confusion, struggling to keep his eyes above her shoulders.

    With feathery and soundless steps she approached the young man, unhindered by any of the barriers Daniel had put in ce. A visceral interest, powerful enough to demand of her to allow her other senses to experience his nature, and so she did.

    Once the two stood one in front of the other, the woman came closer, and reached for his neck with deft fingers. At the same time, her head inched closer, stopping over his vicle long enough to inhale deeply. As his scent entered her nostrils, her hands became greedier, wrapping behind his neck and pushing his head against her own shoulder.

    Roley did not resist. He too, in a sort of primordial way, felt a sense of longing for the woman, despite never meeting her before. Her approach did not scare him, and the lines her fingers traced onto his skin felt familiar, andfortable. Every touch, every whiff of her scent, the warm slippery fleeing of her tongue brushing against his neck, he let her do anything she wanted, until finally, her fingers stiffened, and began to tremble.

    With the power allowed to a woman of her stature, Roley was pushed back, away by the now furious woman. "What is this?!" She screeched in anger. "Where is the sound?!" She had been woken from her trans in the worst way possible, causing her toy all of her frustration into the sound of her voice.

    In Roley she had seen a world. A world of primordial nature that contained light, darkness and each of the natural elements. It was devoid of shape, and time, but that did not bother her. What did, was theck of sound. The soundless existence of each element was an affront to her own nature. She detested the absence of sound to a point where she wanted it corrected more than she wanted it destroyed.

    Daniel observed in silence. He knew this would happen. In fact, he had nned for it.

    Sound, like Fate, existed to serve the power that had birthed her. To her, Roley''s existence was as absurd as Destiny was for Fate. He could speak, and create sound like every other sentient creature, but that was only ayer of his persona. In her eyes, he was an almostplete existence of mana who failed in its representation of the existential power, and essence of sound.

    She could not allow such an existence to exist. It was against her nature, and she hated it. Destroying it would be of little effort for her, but then, the abomination would live in her memories, damaging the validity of her existence for the rest of eternity. Those were her thoughts as she looked down at Roley, furious and confused, until a thought formed in her ancient mind. The young man in front of her was a painting,cking only a few colors to reachpletion. If she could not destroy it, she would helpplete it.

 Chapter 657 Dangerous Gamble

    ?

    The woman lurched towards Roley, hands stretched forward and down as her bare legs bent over his, straddling him on the ground. Her thumbs pressed onto his jaw, while her fingers, long and pale, wrapped around and behind his neck, preventing him from moving away. The distance between their bodies grew shallower, as the woman used the entirety of her mortal strength to pull his head towards her.

    Der opened his mouth, ready to end this exchange when a vigorous shake of Daniel''s head stopped him. This is what he had nned for. What needed to happen, Daniel thought. But then, just before the two could fully fall into each other''s embrace, the woman stopped.

    A new fit of anger had invaded her mind, forcing her to once again push Roley aside before springing up on her glorious standing form. Her eyes, colder than ever, had now met Daniel''s, as her not-so-sweet voice yed out, "It was you! You did this to me!" She groaned through imaginary gritted teeth, words almost muted by the infinitely powerful power of existential sound that ked off her body.

    A sudden pressure forced itself onto Daniel''s shoulders. One that, instead of resting onto his body like added weights or higher gravity, or mind-numbing pain aimed at strangling his psyche, rang in his ears constantly, like the buzzing of a bee hive that endlessly grew sharper and louder with each second.

    Shards of gold emerged from Daniel''s ears, karmic power that he had hoped could ease the deafening attack, but it was all pointless. His defenses fell like a house of cards under the brutality of a hurricane, equally destructive no matter how big the construct, or how many cards were used. They offered no resistance whatsoever. At the end, Daniel could only retort to old habits. The old mortal practice of covering one''s ears with their hands, and hoping for the best.

    Of one thing he was sure. This woman''s attack had the power to annihte him, and given enough time, it would.

    "Stop that!" Roley yelled with worry, his fingers wrapped tightly around the woman''s wrist, tugging gently in hope for her attention to, once again, move on him. Whether he had used this method because he truly believed it to be the most suited to get the woman to stop her fit of rage, or because he wanted to resume the oddlyfortable feeling that would connect them whenever they would touch, he too, could not be sure.

    Sure enough, the woman''s ire were soon extinguished by a feeling of longing. One that, however, she did not allow to control her mind, Her hand was jerked back, and out of Roley''s grip, while the existential power of sound dispersed in the surroundings, like the passage of a flock of birds.

    The woman looked down at his body. Her skin still unhealthily pale, like dirty snow, but still she frowned. A part of her power, of her nature, had gotten loose, dangling from the rest like an almostpletely severed limb. A change that within her domain only she could feel, but that Daniel had also perceived.

    "Why do this? I have always been impartial. Why do this to me?" The woman said, hurt. "Why did you have to bring him to me?"

    The woman''s plight was, to her, of devastating nature. She was a creature of sound, born among noises that broke the mind, and that could hardly be heard. Her power was everywhere, even where the ears of humans and monsters could not hear it. Many were the jesters who, in an attempt to amuse her by asking whether a tree falling with no one to hear it fall would make any sound, she had in mercilessly. And yet, Roley was there.

    A world of nature thatcked space and time, but more importantly, sound. An existence poisonous to her own, for it argued the im that sound was everywhere. He was a void that she did not want to exist, and yet, her naturepelled to fill. She was a missing piece of a puzzle she either wanted to see destroyed, orpleted, as long as she was part of it.

    In the physical world, this love and hate tranted to physical attraction, obsessive and abusive, but also warm and loving.

    If only she had nevere in contact with him. If only Karma had never brought this young man to her, she could have lived her existence within her bubble. Fool herself that her power was omnipresent, rejecting any opposing argument. And yet, now she faced the same plight Fate was facing. Weakened by the existence of a different perspective. A counter argument to the bold im that was her existence.

    "You were brave to bring him to me expecting me not to kill you." Sound''s voice echoed from every direction, cold and threatening.

    Daniel smiled in response. "If you want to kill me, go ahead. You don''t have much time left. Thatst attack was meant to kill me, was it not? Yet you couldn''t. The next one will do even less damage." He chuckled as his body dropped, sitting on arge root that emerged from the dirt at a knee''s height.

    "I could still muster enough power to do that." Sound imed.

    Daniel''s shoulders shrugged. "If you wanted to, you would have done it already." He retorted while finding himself oddly enjoying the sound of his voice, which earlier had been banished from her domain. "On the other hand, you could do what I have brought him here for, restore your power, and be rid of us once and for all."

    "Why would I do that?" The woman asked. "Without my help, his existence would remain soundless, and he would never ascend. That will damage my standing within the pantheon, but so would helping him. If he were to ascend, my power would be subservient to his. Either way, I will lose my spot at the top of the pantheon. And even if I were to agree, what makes you think I would unleash that sort of monstrosity into the multiverse?"

    "Stop wasting time." Daniel said with a hint of arrogance. Sound''s power had now lost its primordial luster, falling at the level of peak high-tier aspects of existence. Creature whose powers far outweighed the nature of Karma, but whose disparity he could bnce with the sheer amount of power he had stored within his body. "We both know that your contribution to his ascension will mean nothing unless he finds a treasure of primordial spatial essence. And if by miracle he were to seed in finding one, without its counterpart he will never be able to merge with it." Daniel said, purposely avoiding to mention that Roley was already in possession of a treasure of primordial spatial essence, and that the only thing stopping him from ascending, other than the primordial sound treasure she could provide, was theck of a treasure of primordial time essence.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    But that was no easy feat.

    Even among the mind boggling number of people that lived within the multiverse, the number of creatures that were aware of the existence of primordial treasures of mana could be counted in the low millions. Among them, only a small fraction had chosen to dedicate time to the study of the power of time. A study of the unknown whose only oue was the birth of new questions, or the formtion of new theories.

    Among the most popr theories, the one that had found the most consensus among schrs was the one formted by one of the oldest champions of fate. An old man who had theorized that the time elementals of a certain level could never be found, for they existed outside of the reach of mortals. Such elementals were, after all, creatures of time. Their existence did not extend in width or length, but in the forward and backward motion of time, perpendicr to the linear life of the inhabitants of the multiverse.

    Another popr theory imed that, just like sound elementals, the elementals of time lived within a separate dimension. A world of their own controlled by a primordial aspect of time. Born alongside all the other primordial aspects of existence in the beginning of time, but never before seen. Bound to istion and solitude due to his nature, which tied him to the flow of time rather than the physical present.

    Unfortunately, regardless of which theory the schrs listened to, the conclusion was always the same. If they existed, the creatures of the present would most likely nevere in contact with them, let alonee in possession of one of their corpses, from which, with luck, they could extract a treasure of primordial time essence.

    For this reason, the prospect of finding a treasure of primordial time essence was considered as foolish a goal as going to sleep a mortal, and waking up an aspect of existence. It was impossible.

    Sound''s lips quivered in response to Daniel''s words.

    The sudden fit of anger had subsided, and her mind had regained a modicum ofposure. Her decision was made, even before arguing with Karma, and yet, she had hoped to bargain some benefits off of the deal. Promises that, if luck was on his side, and he came out in his war against the other members of the pantheon, she would be left alone.. but her bluff had been called.

    She did not really have a choice, and her worries were, to anyone with a sane mind, unfounded. Time treasures were impossible to find, so Roley would never ascend. At worst, she was strengthening one of her kind''s natural enemies. A problem that was far less worrisome than the state of her power, which was slowly bleeding out of her, leaving a scar into her existence. Waiting any longer would only make it harder for her to recover. Her pride, built on countless years of hegemony could only be swallowed, silenced.

    Roley, who had just now managed to stagger onto his knees, looked in silence as the aspect of Sound turned towards him. Her feet tapped onto the uneven ground graciously, as if she had been walking on a mirror, while her hands reached once again for his neck. After just two steps, she was standing parallel to his right leg, which he had nted onto the ground as she looked down on him.

    Then, her upper body lowered.

    Enchanted by the woman''s touch, Roley allowed for the woman to tilt his head upwards, facing her own as she dove in for a kiss.

    Der, confused beyond words, felt the corner of his lips rise in confusion, and brows furrow. He looked at Daniel, ready to ask whether this was also within his expectations, but before he could speak, the young man answered with a shake of his head, showing confusion equal to his own. On his face, an expression that spelled ''Don''t ask me, I have no idea.''

    As the two exchanged nces and unspoken words, Roley felt the woman''s tongue dive in between his lips, making contact with his own. Then, something happened.

    A wave of iprehensible natural power began to flow into his body, bridged by their connected tongues and settlingfortably into Roley''s body, like the missing ingredient of a very specific mixture. It grew steadily, merging with the other powers carved into his body, engraving them with a sort of profundity. Lightning was once again apanied by thunder, leaving behind crackling fire, splintered wood and shattered earth, while hail and rain mmed against metal, dying in a clink that, under the oppressive roars of the winds, could barely be heard.

    The entire processsted the good part of a minute, after which, the aspect of Sound and Roley separated, leaving behind a string of saliva that kept them connected a few moments longer. However, any form of longing they had felt upon touch had now disappeared, leaving them to look at one another with expressions many would have found more proper for their status.

    Roley stumbled onto his feet, backing away from the powerful entity with a degree of shock, while Sound looked at him with a form of respectful superiority. In him she felt the primordial nature of sound, condensed into a small bead hidden within the flesh of his tongue, but nothing more. His superiority would onlye with his ascension, one she hoped he would never achieve.

    With thisst look, the aspect of Sound had lost most of her interest in Roley. Her eyes closed, while her mind focused on the sounds within her. Her once damaged power was soaring, reaching the heights she had always belonged to, repaired from the temporary wound. Her expression wasfortable and rxed, as her mouth, for the first time, opened to speak. "Get out." She ordered.

    Roley opened his mouth, hoping to be allowed to ask some questions, but before he could, he felt the metallic grip of Daniel''s hand wrap around his wrist. The next moment, his body was engulfed by the familiar bluish power of the inter dimensional portal, his arm dislocated by the sudden powerful pull of Daniel''s retreat.

 Chapter 658 New Heights

    ?

    A sharp pain spread across Roley''s arm and shoulder, as his body dove into the gtinous fluid of which the inter dimensional portal was made out of. Daniel''s hand, still tightly wrapped around his wrist, pulled him through distances he could have easily walked on his own, by the muscles and skin of his shoulder.

    "What the hell is wrong with you?! Was that really necessary?" Roley cried once back in the trigate. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes as his left hand, now tightly wrapped around his dislocated right arm, snapped it back into ce with a clean pop apanied by a sharp hiss and a gaze that could have dug through severalyers of Daniel''s skin. "One moment you get cocky, then you act like this. Pick your damn mind!"

    Daniel turned to look back at the portal they had just crossed. Immense, and easily capable of allowing an entire to fit through with more than a bit of room for error. One like many others around him, surrounded by infinite white, empty space, but somewhat different. In Daniel''s eyes that portal looked like the entrance of a beast den, one he was not sure how he hade out of alive and unharmed.

    "I did not want to test her patience.. Not after what we did to her." Daniel said casually. Words that spoke of great danger and terrible consequences, but that for him, felt as amon urrence. Or at least, it should have.

    "You mean after what you did to us." Roley retorted. "Locking lips with a psychopathic goddess was not within my ns for today."

    Daniel''s hands rose slightly, then mmed against his thighs in annoyance. "Well, we all did what we needed to do. Now, stop whining and hit me."

    "Hit you?" Roley asked.

    "Yes. Hit me." Daniel confirmed as his body moved away from the portal, stopping only once he was standing in a particrly empty area within the Trigate. An easy task, considering how most traveling armies and wandering cultivators would avoid the entrance to the domain of Sound. "And don''t hold back. Use everything you have in a single attack, aim to kill me."

    Der, who had remained quiet so far, approached Roley. "I don''t think this is a good idea." His baggy linen shirt floated around him, as if possessed.

    Clearly annoyed by Der''s interruption, Daniel snapped his finger loudly. "Hey! I am not taking you anywhere until you attack me, so get moving." He yelled, causing the conscientious figure of the old warrior to back away with a deep and long groan.

    Roley let out a deep sigh. His hands rose up to his belly, palm facing one another, separated only by a few inches of empty space. Soon, this space began to distort, bent by the powers of primordial elements that emerged from underneath Roley''s skin, drifting into the very center of his focus. Soon, a multicolored and smooth bead of primordial power began to form. The very same Roley had gotten used to unleashing on anyone he wanted to see dead.

    Yet, this time, something was different. When the element rose quietly in the past, they now emerged from within his body with horrifying sounds, crackling and snapping and thundering came out alongside the primordial powers of fire, wood and lightning and much more. These sounds merged together into a horrifying static as the bead of primordial power reachedpletion.

    Oncepleted, Roley''s body froze solid. The power he felting from within the multicolored bead of mana was horrifying, far more than any other he had ever produced. So powerful, in fact, that he felt a primordial fear of it, like that of a man lost at sea, buried into a dozen feet of soil, or left to wander the emptiness of space.

    Half a mouthful of saliva was brought down with a heavy swallow, as beads of sweat formed all over his body. His fingers had started to tremble, affected by the primordial fear the same way his mind had been. Yet, a voice snapped him out of this trance. "Get it together!" Daniel''s voice rang into his ears, washing away the crippling fear long enough for Roley to remind himself that this power was not dangerous, and that it was at his disposal.

    "Are you sure you want me to attack you?" He asked an eager Daniel, whose body had bent slightly forward, ready to receive the attack like the receiver of a ball game.

    "I need to know you won''t turn into a hostage the moment we meet a group of aspects of existence." Daniel exined.

    "Fine." Roley answered before pushing the bead of natural power forward, and away from his stomach. The motion of his hands was gentle, and yet, the bead was thrown like a stone from a slingshot. It traveled across the white space at the speed of light, reaching Daniel only momentster.

    Daniel''s pupils constricted. Golden power of karma ked off of his skin, forming a rough barrier that, upon contact with the bead, began to crack instantly.

    Not wanting to bear the power of the attack, Daniel docked to the side just in time for his barrier to shatter, and for the bead of primordial power to pierce through and continue ahead with unaltered speed.

    Roley''s jaw dropped as the bead disappeared from sight, but then, a horrifying st appeared in the distance. An explosion iparably more vast than the death of the biggest of stars, followed by the trembling of the entire trigate. It was difficult for one to understand the concept. A formless void, devoid of any form of essence, trembling uncontrobly, as if possessed by the spirit of an earthquake, and yet, it was happening.

    Daniel ignored the horrifying feeling ,and immediately darted in the direction of the explosion, which he reached several secondster.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    At the core of the st, Daniel found an inter-dimensional portal. Once whole and stable, like any other, but now terribly damaged. Arge portion of its upper stone skeleton had been sted to pieces, separating the two ends of what was now a semi-circle by a few feet of watery substance, which leaked quietly into the white void.

    Roley and Der arrived only minutester, finding a curious Daniel and several million more cultivators observing the scenery in sheer dismay.

    Der breathed sharply, his heart skipping a beat. His head turned slowly towards hispanion, hoping to findfort in seeing him experience the same emotions, but that was not the case. Roley was observing the damage he had done with excitement, and pride. Feelings that, considering their ignorance of the nature of the trigate, were quite abnormal.

    What is an interdimensional portal? And what would happen if one was destroyed? These were questions that most people who had stumbled into the Trigate''s pearly white expanse had asked himself at least once, but never found an answer to, resigning themselves to the thought that no one would ever be powerful enough to actually seed in doing so.

    Even the aspects of existence, powerful beyond measure and most likely capable of such a feat, were not expected to seed in such a feat, for their prowess were bound to the influence of their powers, and as wasmonly known, the trigate was devoid of that sort of influence.

    The white expanse of the trigate did not simply exist as a visible contrast to the darkness of normal space. In fact, the white void had its own purposes, and powers. One such power was its ability to corrode any form of power of existence that was created, or produced in its confines. It did not matter if such power was of primordial nature or of a lower tier, if it was omnipresent or rare to see, any power of existence would dissipate moments after being produced, without exception.

    Knowledge of little importance to most cultivators within the multiverse, but also a terrible threat for the creatures they all feared, the aspects of existence, who had long since learned to avoid being caught within the trigate, for if they were, they would have little more than a fraction of their power at their disposal and a mortal''s body to defend themselves.

    Yet, many of those who were aware of this quality, had rejoiced. Who could tell what would have happened, across the billions of years some aspects had lived, within the trigate had its space allowed for the existence of those types of powers. Without this safe zone seemingly made to separate the universes, who could have stopped them from destroying any portal that led to universes they had failed to conquer, or trapping one another into isted universes, never to see the rest of the multiverse ever again.

    And yet, despite this worry, many groups had made attempts. Istionists eager to separate themselves from their conflicts for influence, and live free within their own universe. Some of whom, albeit extremely rare, had managed to unleash unspeakable attacks, armed with the collective power of trillions of powerful cultivators and their ancient cultivation.

    Maybe some of them had seeded, Daniel thought as the drifting blob of blue power moved back into ce, soon to be tightly sealed by stones that, within minutes of their destruction, had started to repair on their own. How disappointing must have been, to see the efforts of countless civilizations go to waste just like that.

    The trigate had always been a mystery. One that Daniel was unlikely to solve within his lifetime, had he cared to. At the moment, his interesty elsewhere. In the young man whose feats he alone among the aspects of existence could have repeated, all the while not being an aspect of existence himself.

    Roley was standing next to him, hands tightened into fists that gently waved into the void, dragged by his inting and deting chest. He stared at the destruction his power had caused with a mixture of pride and excitement. Of the possible oue his actions could have, for some reason, he couldn''t care less.

    "Not bad." Daniel said. "With that level of power, you should be able to face aspects of the lower tier. It will be useful in the fight ahead."

    Roley''s eyes moved to Daniel, who was now looking back at him with a feeling he had not seen in his face for a long time. Thousands of years, in fact. He was being looked at with respect.

    "I.. If I were to obtain a treasure of time, I think that I could-" Roley stuttered in between heavy breaths. His mind had be clear, more than ever, as a new goal cemented into the deepest parts of his mind. He wanted to ascend, for the first time ever. He wanted to feel the power that could put an end to everything that he did not like. An end to his fears and worries.

    The thought spread across his body in the form of little bumps that covered his skin, viciously interrupted by the hold of a rough and heavy hand as it grabbed his forearm. "That isn''t our goal. Our goal is to find our people." Der growled in a tone that could chill bones. A warning, as much as a reminder.

    Roley quirked his head towards him, brows risen and mouth ajar. "Yes.. I-I know." He muttered, caught in an act he too did not like. His arm twisted within the grip that bound it in an attempt to be free, which Der allowed soon after.

    He had seen it. In Roley''s eyes, where once were white iris and ck sclera or vice versa, his pupils were crowned with cracks of gold. "What is it? I said I know." Roley repeated, bothered by Der''s gaze, as the cracks crawled back into his pupil, returning his eyes to their regr abnormality. His demeanor, proud and eager moments before, was now reced by the usual tired shoulders, dragged breath and worried eyes.

    "We are going, then." Der said before turning back and heading off, followed by Roley soon after. Daniel observed the interaction in silence.

 Chapter 659 Death Of The Heart

    ?

    The journey back to Sacrifice''s domain was an awkward one.

    Der, powered by the highest cultivation among the three, dashed through thousands of miles inplete silence. His demeanor had also changed. His once straight and stern posture had sagged, as his shoulders dropped an inch. Had either of hispanions traveled ahead of him, they would have been able to see traces of fear on his face, alternated by fits of alertness. For thest several hours his body had charged forward, deaf to Roley''s constant attempts at striking conversation, but his ears were vigil.

    "I don''t think we will need that many spatial treasures anyway. Provided that we make some changes to the formation, I should be able to fuel it with the treasure of primordial space essence alone." Roley said in consideration to every little thing the pair had intended to do once their friends and family would have been free from danger. A one-sided conversation that now had continued uninterrupted for mere minutes since their departure.

    His spoken thoughts, however, were ignored by the old warrior, who kept flying in silence.

    "If that doesn''t work either, I.. I could try to.." his voice trailed into silence, abandoned in the wake of his passage like loose hair, kes of dead skin and the asional bit of spittle. "I could try to merge with it." He then added.

    Der''s body straightened as an angered groan escaped his throat. With fists tightened into balls of steel, he turned his head to the side, just enough for Roley''s figure to appear in his peripherals, but only for a moment. Too short and quiet for the schr to notice, else it could have brought their advance to a halt, and possibly start an argument. Further dy that Der had no need for.

    Unaware of Der''s reaction, Roley continued, "While I failed to merge with the power of light and darkness before, those were only perfect treasures that did not fit the primordial nature of my other elements. I only managed to once I obtained the primordial ones, and only thanks to the help of the Elementalist." He exined, giving answers to questions of doubt no one had ever asked. "But space is different. Space and time are not opposing, they exist together. Merging with the spatial treasure alone should be possible, especially now that I can use the system myself."

    Thest sentence was spoken with reassurance, and a not-so-well hidden hint of excitement. His gaze had shifted from Der to Daniel more than once throughout the conversation, and to thetter whenever Roley felt in need of someone''s support. For Daniel to say that he was right, that he should do it, and that nothing dangerous or wrong woulde from it.

    Unfortunately for him, Daniel had taken a page off of Der''s book, choosing to travel the way back in silence, purposelygging a few dozen feet behind the two. His eyes, however, were as attentive as ever. They locked onto each approaching cultivator in a threatening fashion, or particr sights they encountered in feigned interest, only really paying attention during the pauses in between, when his eyes would graze by his twopanions.

    Of the three, Daniel was the most aware of what was happening. Of the changes to Roley''s behavior that Der too had noticed, but was unable to exin, and that Roley had yet to discover. Obtaining the primordial power of sound had changed him, just like fusing with every other treasure of primordial essence had in the past.

    The treasures of elemental power, essences of fire, wood, metal, lightning, water, air and earth had taken away his passion for knowledge, turning him into a single-minded human whose life did not consist of experiencing the world around him, but to achieve a single goal. The freedom of the elementals. A goal that he sought for with more brutality when the treasures of light and darkness were fused into his body. When his inhibition towards mass ughter of those he deemed his enemies had been put out like a candle in the wind. It did not matter whether those people werepelled to act on other''s orders or followed on their own ord, as long as they were against him, he would kill them.

    Lucky had been the ves of the system of devotion, for had their goddess ordered them to attack, Roley would not have wasted time finding a path that could avoid bloodshed.

    Now that Roley had merged with the power of sound, Daniel had noticed, his connections to those he cared about had started to crumble, just like his had, when he had be a full fledged aspect of existence. However, Roley''s ascension seemed to be different from his own in more than one way. After all, Daniel had made a choice. He had the option to reject his ascension, and die with his connections intact, or sever them, and be the aspect of Karma. Roley had never had to make that choice.

    Following Daniel''s decision, what were once for him a stable ground of emotional connections started to crumble under his feet, dropping him from the world of mortality into the world of divinity in a cold and lonely free fall. It had been sudden, and definitive.

    Roley''s ascension, on the other hand, felt more like walking down a flight of stairs. Each step brought him close to ascension, decimating what was left of his mortality in exchange for higher power.

    Der, observant as he was, had immediately noticed the changes in Roley''s behavior. The disappearance of the urgency he had seen in his eyes when, stillcking the powers of light and darkness, the two had found each other. When he still was the schr he knew, albeit devoid of the curiosity and greenness towards the world, and childish dreams for the future.

    Changes that Roley himself had failed to notice.

    In his mind, he had never doubted the necessity to rescue his friends, and yet, those thoughts had fallen in importance. His mind would constantly trail to theories regarding his ascension, to questions regarding ways of obtaining a treasure of primordial time essence, and of desire to test his power against other aspects of existence. Thoughts he had initially felt bad for having, but that now, after only a few hours, he had gotten used to.

    Had his former self known where the Roley''s current priorities stood, he would have smacked him senseless, and yelled at him to no end. ''Listen to Der. Do what he says. Stop talking!'' He would have said, or perhaps that was what was happening in his mind. A feeble voice that came from the depths of his psyche, forcing him to stay focused on the task at hand, and pushing him to talk to the only other mortal left in their group. But it was failing.

    The two had not spoken for hours, and from what it looked like, they wouldn''t any time soon.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Naturally, none of these details escaped Daniel''s watchful gaze, and yet, he was too busy with his own thoughts to y therapist. Roley''s intentions worried him, but not for reasons Der would have agreed to.

    What worried him was Roley''s instability. He had not expected his power to grow to such lengths with the addition of a single primordial power, and yet, there he was. As powerful as some aspects of existence, but with a mind split between the two sides. His rational side reminded him of what his goal had always been, while his emotional side begged him to take a detour to recover the treasure of primordial essence of space.

    What would happen to Roley if he seeded in merging with the treasure of space? Daniel wondered, sooning to the realization that his power would, most likely, surpass his own. Yet, his mind would be in chaos. He would be obsessed with the desire to find a treasure of time essence, desperate. Too proud of his own power to steer clear of beings that could still harm him, and too powerful for him to control.

    Soon, a thought cemented itself into Daniel''s mind.

    "There is no need for it." He said, catching Roley in the middle of a sentence. "With your current power, you can easily repel any aspect of existence of the low tier. Those stronger than you, won''t care about your existence unless you ascend. Time is of the essence, and we have too little to waste."

    Both Der and Roley turned towards him, each sporting expressions of shock. Roley, in his naivety, could not understand why Daniel would be against the idea of him bing stronger, and approach an ascension of his own. After all, he was the one who had brought him to the aspect of Sound.

    Der, on the other hand, felt a surge of righteous indignation re through his body. He had agreed with Daniel''s words, but for different reasons. Reasons he had wanted to yell right into the schr''s ears. Yet, as he opened his mouth, only a few words came out. "You don''t need it, and we are almost there." he muttered in a deep, yet clear tone that forced Roley to shut his mouth, hurt.

    After shutting down Roley''s most insistent thoughts, Daniel let out a deep sigh.

    It was a shame, he thought, that treasures of primordial time essence were so difficult to find. If they weren''t, Roley could ascend, and join Daniel in the war between the old and new aspects of existence that he was ready to fight alone. He cared little for his attachment to mortals, he simply had no desire for his search for a treasure that was impossible to find to be the weight that would drag his potential ally down.

    For now, he needed him to fight Sacrifice, and all the other aspects of existence he had managed to recruit. Whether there would be a chance for him toe in possession of a treasure of primordial time essence in the future, or he was destined to fight this war on his own, only time would tell.

    The rest of the journey went on in silence, until finally, the group came upon a particr inter dimensional gateway.

    One like every other,posed of arge ring of gray stone carved with runes of unknown origin, which worked as containment for a wiggly pool of gtinous bluish power. However a detail had made it different. The presence of uncountable crosses and poles, each locked into space like drops of muddy rain. Their number impossible to count on the spot.

    What was more eye-catching, however, were the equal number of corpses that had been nailed onto them, sometimes tied in barbed wire by the neck or stomach, or skewed on especially sharp ends. These corpses looked quite fresh, as the blood spilled by their many wounds, gashes of shiny red meat, was still lingering around their former containers, suspended in deep contrast to the surrounding milky void.

    Der''s power exploded at his feet, as his bodyunched towards the interdimensional portal.

    Just before he could enter, however, a group of cultivators walked out. They wore battle armors of blood-colored metal over dark fitting clothes, and carriedrge spears strapped to their backs, and bannersrge enough to cover mountains. These banners were white in color, and on them were depicted symbols that would trick the eye. One moment, the image would resemble that of a man dying by his lord''s feet, holding him dearly as the arrow he took in its liege''s stead was held steady for hisfort. Next, the image portrayed images of a lunatic, a priest who stabbed the man''s back in an effort to offer his blood to his God.

    The banner of sacrifice''s domain.

    To lead this group of warriors, was an unimpressive woman. She stood at a medium-height, with no particrly appealing facial features, nor ttering curves other than the muscles she had built throughout the thousands of years of service, along with the scars that marked her face. Despite her simple appearance, her body emitted the essence of a cultivator at the high phases of the godhood stage. A terrifying aura which lingered around her body in the shape of countless loose strings. Her eyes shifted proudly between the figures of Der, Roley and Daniel, surprise showing the moment they registered the absence of the Immortal Armada, and the Elemental Army.

    "I am Novah,dy of the Martyrs, and first of Sacrifice." She said respectfully. "My Lord awaits inside."

 Chapter 660 The Trial Of Karma (Part 1)

    ?

    The hand of the short, yet stout woman rose to her side, aimed at therge interdimensional portal in sign of invitation. "My lord awaits inside." She said, loudly and clearly. Words which she had repeated time and time again in preparation for this moment, sometimes in front of a mirror, sometimes within her own head. It was her part in the y, the part that she had been selected for from a group of thousands of her peers, and she was going to perform it perfectly.

    As thest part of her line was spoken, she looked at the three expectantly. Unsure of which type of reaction she should have expected. Whether they would ept her invitation gracefully, and follow her inside for the next andst part of her act, or whether they would take revenge for the people they had killed right there and then, killing her in cold blood, she wasn''t sure. Nor did she care. She was the first of Sacrifice''s followers. To die while performing a duty for her lord was the ultimate sacrifice. The greatest honor the people of her n could ever bring upon their name.

    If she were to die now, she knew more people had been prepared to continue in her stead. They would pick up from where she had left, while she would be power for her lord. A thought that filled her mind with a sense of calmness in front of the unknown.

    Her eyes shifted from one of the three guests to the other, unsure of which one was who. An aspect of existence and two cultivators, she had been told, but through her eyes, all she could see were a pair of warriors, one young and nicely built, the other middle-aged, with thousands of years of refined muscles built upon hisrge frame. The two cultivators, she had thought.

    When her eyes met with Roley''s, she felt that her previous assumption had been confirmed.

    He was a young man as well, visibly shorter than both of hispanions. However, several details about his appearance gave him a peculiar aura. The constant buzzing of natural essences that surrounded him, arge and loose robe only someone with little consideration for other people''s opinions would ever wear, and more importantly, a pair of ominous of ck and white eyes. His otherworldly appearance was unlike that of any other mortal she had ever met before, and more akin to the eerie, proud and casual presence of an aspect of existence. The fact that he stood in between his twopanions, contributed to the misunderstanding.

    Several seconds went by, after which, Daniel''s party finally reacted to her invitation. Der and Roley turned to the figure of the young man in casual mortal clothes, and thetter asked, "This is the most obvious trap I have ever seen. What do you think?"

    The woman''s watchful gaze immediately shifted to Daniel. A tinge of fear jolted down her spine. "Of course." She muttered in a low voice. "Stupid Novah." While she had not been given a precise description of each of the three individuals, she had heard her lord discuss the aspect of Karma with one of his peers. Born a mortal, survivor of the betrayal of his system''s wielder, and now, a full fledged aspect of existence. An odd one at that.

    Of course he could only be the one to look the least like any other aspect of existence.

    Now that the misunderstanding had been cleared, the woman''s attention shifted from Roley to Daniel, making him the main recipient of each future nod and prepared lines. The hair at the back of her neck stood on end when Daniel''s voice yed out in her ears.

    Initially, Daniel had not paid any attention to the woman, her posse, or the banners she carried. His attention was directed at the corpses that surrounded him, as well as Der''s trembling figure. Ready to stop any reckless charge before it was toote, Daniel had dug into his mind, just like his warriorpanion had, in hope to find an answer to a specific question.

    Were these the people he was meant to rescue?

    The answer, unfortunately, was yes. Tens of thousands former members of his group. Weak cultivators he had gotten used to bringing his ripped clothes to for mending after a particrly violent training session with one of the mannequins of the ck castle, mortal men, women, elderly and children, no doubt descendants of the people that inhabited the city he had founded, as well as various beasts and elementals.. all dead.

    While to Daniel these people were only creatures he had shared mere fleeting moments with, that was not the case for Der, who had recognized several individuals within the open graveyard. Warriors of his old mortal army who had followed him, and students he had taught the art of swordsmanship himself.

    Stopping himself from charging blindly into Sacrifice''s domain, Daniel thought, was already a feat of self control for him.. but Daniel had other thoughts in mind.

    He had failed. His existence had been one side of the bargain, while the othery dead around him in the form of bloodied bodies. But none of them his former self would have cared about. No children, direct descendants, close friends, teachers, pets or true love. No one whose death he would have shed tears for. He thought, rationalizing through his failure, hypnotizing himself into thinking he had not technically failed yet.

    "We came here expecting a trap, so we might as well y along for a bit." He said before finally acknowledging Novah''s existence. The same woman who had noticed the expression of discontent that had marked his face during the few seconds he spent looking at the corpses, making note of it, for those were emotions that the average aspect of existence would not have felt. Her surprise was renewed when Daniel upper body bent in a theatrical bow, and he said, "After you, mdy."

    -----

    As Daniel and the others crossed the portal, the first thing they noticed was the presence of gravity. Solid stoney cold under their feet, while the hall was shroud in almostplete darkness if not for the light produced by a few torches, hung by finely carved pirs with holders of rusty iron. The ceiling stood too high for their eyes to see, or at least, for all but Roley, whose eyes allowed him to see through any degree of darkness, and this room was not an exception.

    He could see a forest of gargantuan pirs that reached from the very floor they were standing on, all the way up to the ceiling, several hundred feet in the air. Each as big as the other, and all standing right by a skeleton or mummified corpse, but unique in the way they were sculpted. On their surfaces were depicted images of heroic battles and memorable events from different, perhaps extinct civilizations.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    The path of lights led to an empty area, asrge as an emperor''s throne room butcking its mesmerizing furniture and decorations. All this hall contained was arge ma-shaped, polished table of cream-colored wood separated in sections that stood on top of tforms erected at rtively different heights, with the curved middle part standing two feet taller than the corners, and four feet taller than the edges. The tables formed a short flight of ascending and descending steps, reminding people of a podium more than the sort of table one would see at a nobleman''s banquet.

    Laying orderly by the external part of the table, were nine chairs of the same type of wood, with silky padding embroidered with the same symbol Daniel had seen on the banner the woman had carried. Four were ced by the lower parts of the table, the edges, while two were ced by the middle-height corners. The remaining three had been positioned by the highest part of the table, with the center one being of more refined manufacture than the rest.

    ced right in front of this peculiar piece of furniture was an additional table. Simple than the other, of cheap dirty wood, this table stood a step lower than the lowest part of the other table. A smoothyer of dust rested on top of it, broken only by the presence of several clear fingerprints which had been left behind by the people who had dragged it out of whichever dungeon it had been stored into.

    By this table were three more chairs, also simpler than the ninefortable ones, and ced in a more rxed manner. Some crooked, some required to be moved closer to the table before one could sit.

    "Please, take a seat." Novah said as her hand stretched forward, pointing at the cheaper table. "My lord and his other guests will be here shortly."

    Daniel and Der headed quietly towards the table, unbothered by whichever offense the person who had set this event up had thought to inflict upon them. Roley, on the other hand,gged a step behind. As Der reached for the right chair, and dragged it closer to the table, he approached the left one, saying with a voice full of indignation. "The skin on this one. It''s hard to think a low tier could behave like this in the presence of his superiors."

    His odd wording did not escape Der''s attentive ears, causing him to slouch against the back of his chair in anger, fist tightened over his thighs. He was keeping himself from arguing with his schrlypanion by keeping focused on his surroundings, which he scouted with his senses far and wide.. much more so than he had expected.

    "Is this a different dimension, like Melodia?" He asked Daniel, who sat casually in between the two, in the middle chair.

    Daniel''s head shook, but before he could talk, someone else answered.

    "I am afraid not, human." Said a clear disembodied voice that came from far away to their right. "Only specific members of our race can afford such luxurious estate. Powers that possess a form of totality. The domain of High Lady Sound, for example. Or other domains your liege may have visited in the past, the Underworld of Lady Death, and the spiritual in of Lady Spirit." The voice was moving closer, crossing from behind one pir to another, shadows hiding its source.

    Finally, after a short streak of silence, a man emerged from behind one of the pirs located by the edge of the emptied space.

    This man was quite tall, with short ck hair and fiery, yet striking facial features. His body was d entirely in red armor, identical to the one Novah was wearing, but with gold rivets and embroidery wherever there was a bit of space to upy. He moved regally, with a straight back and shoulders, and chin held high.

    From him Der felt the power of amon mortal, while Roley felt the odd familiarity champions of Destiny would feel towards other creatures of existential nature.

    Daniel, on the other hand, had outright recognized him as the aspect of Sacrifice. The young-looking entity he had met at the small gathering, who had then behaved far less graciously. "Nice to meet you again, Sacrifice." Daniel said with a smile as his head stretched upwards, eyes peering at the table in front of him. "I wasn''t expecting you to manage to recruit that many goons. You did not seem that poprst time."

    His words did not seem able to hurt the aspect of Sacrifice, who nodded in agreement. "That is true. I have paid for it, more than I had nned to." He said as steady steps brought him closer to the table.

    "Unfortunately, nine of you won''t be enough to beat one of me." Daniel added. He had been thoroughly provoked since entering Sacrifice''s domain, and now, his pride as an aspect of existence demanded that he returned the favor. But, s, his taunts once again seemed to have the opposite effect.

    Sacrifice''s lips curved into a gentle smile as an air of arrogance permeated from his eyes. "Then I should be d I did not look down for help." He said just before reaching the table. The part he had reached, however, was not the highest seat of honor, but the lowest seat, by the right edge of the u-shaped table. Once there, Novah immediately reached for his chair. She pulled it from under the table, then held it steady at a small angle, allowing for her liege to sitfortably, and in a dignified manner.

    Daniel''s features froze as several more presences made their appearance within the darkness, each approaching the table with heavy steps.

 Chapter 661 The Trial Of Karma (Part 2)

    ?

    Daniel''s senses spread forward, trying to catch a feel of the powers hidden within the pirs that surrounded him. Soon enough, his senses were met with eight more powers of existence, all pure and clear, and most of them of heights that reached far beyond what Sacrifice alone could ever achieve. One power in particr was oppressive, weighing heavily onto his senses the same way the aspect of Horror had in the past, but far less contained.

    "Luckily, I did not have to look too far." Sacrifice said in amusement. "You have more enemies than you would imagine."

    The first entity to emerge from the dark forest of stone pirs, almost as if on cue with Sacrifice''s words, was a man in his early forties. He stood at Der''s height, half a head past six feet, and was dressed in a spotlessly clean blue tailored suit, with a red tie piercing down his stomach and apel pin in the shape of a ck rose, with edges sharp enough to cut flesh and bones of anyone who dared to grab it.

    His salt and pepper hair was styled in a neat ssic taper which, paired with a clean shave, allowed for arge number of lines and wrinkles to openly mark his forehead and the corner of his eyes. By the sides of his mouth were two deep dimples, made even more visible by the wide and kind smile the man was sporting.

    He approached the table at a leisurely pace, as if allowing others to examine his well groomed appearance as well as attire.

    By his side, trotted a plump sheep, heavy with white spotlessly clean wool, except for a dirty patch present on its stomach, which stained his coating as it dripped blood on the ground. It followed him around, and rested quietly by the man''s side in a canine''s fashion once the man unbuttoned his jacket, and satfortably on the chair ced on the left edge of the table, directly opposite to Sacrifice.

    Every part of this man was odd to someone who had been born in medieval times, like Roley, but Der was somewhat able to get an idea of the man''s nature from the way he moved, smiled, and portrayed himself. Daniel, who on the other hand had lived and observed more advanced mortal civilizations than his twopanions, immediately recognized the mask this man was wearing. That of a politician.

    His nature, however, was betrayed by the dust-like motes of power that surrounded him, revealing his identity as the aspect of Deceit.

    "Greetings, friends." He said with a pleasant and calming voice, only now widening the slits present under a pair of bushy brows and uncovering a pair of clear, gray eyes.

    Der and Roley turned to look at Daniel, eager to see his reaction to the man''s arrival. What they saw, albeit underwhelming, was a face of reassuring indifference. The sort of indifference other aspects of existence reserved for mortals, barely sentient beings, and aspects of the lowest tier.

    Sacrifice, on the other hand, nodded politely. He was of a higher standing within the numbers of the lower pantheon, but in arger scale, they counted as equals. Additionally, he had no intention of scorning the existence of someone he had allied himself with. Not in front of their shared enemy.

    "Sitting on that chair is going to cost youter, friend." Daniel casually said.

    His words reached the ears of Deceit, causing his graceful rehearsed demeanor to falter. The sheep, unaware of the difference between its master power and that of the creature who had threatened it, let out a deep and long growl that had no business being birthed from a sheep''s throat. Its bright yellow eyes closed, and its head tilted upward as the man stroked its head, leaving the beast calm and content.

    Before Deceit could mount a response, two more entities emerged from the edges of the clearing. Two women of simr appearance.

    The first woman was young and beautiful, dressed in a tight and long red dress that split at her waist and over her chest, revealing a deep cleavage and a full view of her left leg. Her hair were long and ck, and flowed down one side of the head, contouring an oval shaped face of outstanding features. Most noticeable of all being her mouth, brought to life by a lipstick color that matched the vibrant color of the woman''s dress.

    She walked on high heels at an arrogant, somewhat angered pace, feelings reflected in the deep frown present on her face as she marched a step ahead of herpanion. A woman of extremely simr appearance, but of apletely different demeanor.

    Her body was covered in a more austere piece of attire. A dress with flowery pattern that covered her body in its entirety, leaving only a few inches of her ankles visible as she marched in a dignified manner towards her seat, her t shoes binding her a few inches shorter than the other woman. Her dark brown hair were gathered inrge braids, kept from covering a serious face stered with less than a third the amount of makeup her tallerpanion was wearing

    As the pair moved, their skin unleashed green-colored lights, the first woman''s being of a much lighter shade than the second.

    The two approached the table, ignoring the presence of Deceit and Sacrifice, and once they came upon the table, they split. The woman in the red dress sat by Deceit''s left side, while the other sat by Sacrifice''s right side. Their eyes only briefly nced in Daniel''s direction, ignoringpletely the presence of the other two aspects of existence. Amon reaction to creatures of their standing when in presence of lesser ones, for they were the mid-tier aspects of Control, and Authority.

    Their hostility towards Daniel was evident, but clearly not absolute, for their gazescked the killing intent Sacrifice had managed to internalize, and Deceit was struggling to keep hidden. Yet, as the two made their appearance, Daniel''s face turned sour.

    He had already guessed that some of the aspects of existence summoned by Sacrifice would not be of the lower tiers, but in his mind, he had hoped their strength would span from the lowest of the low, to the mid tier. Now, that hope had been wiped out as Control and Authority, powerful aspects of the middle tier, joined the table early, leaving plenty of space for more terrifying creatures to make their appearance next.

    Had it not been for his familiarity with the primordial aspects of existence, Daniel might have guessed that the seat of honor had been reserved for one of them, in which case, he would be in too deep trouble to get out of.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "Lady Authority, it is always a pleasure to see you." Sacrifice said with a deep and elegant bow to the woman in the flowery dress, the aspect of a power the essence of sacrifice was distantly rted to. His tone was as polite as his actions were, more so than when he turned to the second woman, now separated from him by two sections of the table and a few feet of empty space in the middle, and added, "Lady Control."

    "Quit the boot-licking." the aspect of Authority ordered. "We never agreed to join your crusade. We are here to answer questions, and decide based on the answers."

    "Questions? For me?" Daniel asked. His upper body bent forward, both arms lying parallel to the dirty table. "What questions do you have for me, little ones?" He further inquired, purposely putting a bit too much emphasis on the insulting part of his question.

    Once again, the aspect of Authority looked at Daniel with a hint of hostility, but as they heard his unapologetic tone, they looked down. His eyes of pure gold, and theck of the now notorious golden sparks of karmic power they had heard he could store endlessly within his body, terrified them. He belonged to the high tier, and they weren''t.

    "I guess I will have to wait." Daniel said, once again resting against the back of his chair in a rxed posture.

    The group remained seated for a few minutes, gathering their thoughts in preparation for the arrival of the higher aspects of existence, and the beginning of the meeting. Daniel, however, was not of the same mind. The theatrical pace at which these people were showing up was getting on his nerves.

    But then, just as he decided to voice his discontent, the ground started to tremble.

    One by one faint quakes shook the ground, announcing the arrival of a creature in particr. An enormous individual, thirty feet by the most conservative of estimates, and bulging with enormous bronze muscles.

    The only clothes this enormous man wore were strips of leather and fur fashioned into a headdress, bracers, a loin cloth, andrge boots. His facial features were hidden underneath a mask made of the muscle of an even bigger creature, and in his hand he held a cartoonishly big battleaxe, far bigger than the man should have been capable of carrying. As he marched through the forest of pirs, his free hand gripped at their delicate shapes, tearing them apart with sheer brutal strength.

    Unhappy with the destruction of his beloved sanctuary, Sacrifice dared not speak. His eyes lowered, and mouth closed shut. He did not want therge man to know of his disapproval.

    Once clear of the pirs, the barbarian''s body began to shrink, reaching a size that could fit one of the chairs that had been reserved for him. His seat was that at the right of Authority, which he approached with surprisingly swift steps.

    As hisrge body moved aside, apanied by the blindinglyrge beads of orange power which lingered around him, another entity was revealed. It hid quietly, behind the massive figure of the barbarian, hiding his presence and power within therge man''s shadow and escaping the senses of each of the aspects present.

    Contrary to the other aspects of existence, this creature was not a human, nor was he an alien or a beast, for the matter. Its appearance was that of a simple ck and torn robe which floated two feet above ground as if possessed by a ghost. From underneath his baggy hood, as well as the bottom hole of the floating robe, came a faint purple mist.

    The barbarian did not react to the sneaky entrance of the ghost-like aspect of existence, for he had always known he was there. Or perhaps, he did not care. As he moved to the right, the ghost moved to the left, taking a seat at the left side of the aspect of Control.

    Before either of the two could seat, Sacrifice sprung up on his feet, and with a deep ny-degree bow he said, "Lord War, Lord Fear, thank you foring."

    Fear ignored Sacrifice''s greeting, or the presence of Control and Authority, for the matter. They too were aspects with whom he shared the mid-tier within the members of the pantheon, while of a lower standing. Nevertheless, hisck of manners escaped the gaze of the surrounding entities, for he had no body with which to express them. Not unlike the aspect of War.

    Since his arrival, the eyes of the aspect of War had never left sight of one entity. Daniel. He stared at him withrge orange eyes that promised evenings of death and massacre.

    "Do you also have questions for me?" Daniel asked, unbothered by his open hostility.

    The giant scoffed, and battleaxe, now as big as a normal human, mmed heavily onto the table, cracking its clean surface. His voice came out deep and powerful, like a low-tone battle cry, as he said, "Before this gatheringes to an end, my axe will have tasted your blood, mongrel."

    A grin appeared on Daniel''s face. "We don''t need to wait that long. Go on." Daniel said, causing the hand of War to tighten around his weapon''s handle.

    The legs of the giant twitched in preparation for a devastating charge when a voice suddenly echoed across the gargantuan cave the hall had been dug from. "Stay seated." Said the disembodied voice of a man that sent a shiver down the spine of not only the aspects of existence present, but Daniel as well.

 Chapter 662 The Trial Of Karma (Part 3)

    ?

    As these few words thundered across the cave, War''s bronze skin drained of color. His aggressive and imposing demeanor, impressive even while in his smaller form, dropped a few notches, as he assumed a moreposed posture, with armsying t onto the table and legs neatly tucked underneath. His orange yes, once focused on the aspect of Karma, were closed shut the same way his mouth was, for he dared not risk letting out a sound or direct his threatening gaze at the wrong person.

    Daniel too had felt the desire to stay seated, which he indulged by straightening his posture and basking in the newfound desire to look more dignified. Yet, this behavioral change was soon discarded. His hands closed into tight fists as his eyes narrowed in anger. The voice had not only prevented the fight between him and the aspect of War, but had also tried topel him to obedience, like the sight of a rolled up paper would a well trained dog.

    Not many creatures were capable of such a thing. In fact, only one was. The only creature whose existence was meant to fight a never ending battle against the infinite chaos.

    "You get to live a little longer." Daniel said, unleashing all his pent up aggression on the now extremely well behaved aspect of War, who took the threat with polite indifference. Then, his attention moved elsewhere. To three more presences that had now made their appearance within the forest ofrge pirs known, and steps heard.

    When these three entities were mere seconds from emerging from the darkness, Daniel leaned towards the young man that sat at his left. A wisp of sound essence that none of the aspects'' mortal bodies could perceive emerged from his mouth, carrying along a message to thetter''s ear in a whisper. "Change of n. Can you synthesize one of those attacks within your body? And do it quietly?" He asked, his eyes wondering on the various figures in front of him.

    "More than one." Roley answered out loud, a decision that shocked Daniel for the few moments that preceded the realization that none of the aspects of existence, regardless of nature or rank, seemed to have heard. Roley''s clear voice died a few feet away from the table, killed by the barrier he had erected around them. No sound they made would ever be heard without Roley''s permission.

    After a deep breath, Daniel opened his mouth and spoke, "Make as many as you can, then wait for my signal." Just as he finished speaking, his eyes darted to the back of the u-shaped table, past which three silhouettes had finally appeared. Urgency grew within his mind as he added, "Another thing. Shove those powers as deeply as you can within your body, as far as they know, you are a normal cultivator."

    Roley was only given a few moments to nod in agreement before light struck the bodies of the three entities, revealing their features. They walked side by side, strolling onto the cold stone with purpose, and heading for the remaining empty seats.

    The man on the left was the portrait of a schr, or an immortal of old. He stood at five feet something in height, with a lean build hidden underneath arge cultivator''s attire of different shades of blue. His gentlemanly appearance was partially hidden by an overgrown goatee, long and white with age, and left draping past his chest and down to his stomach, just a few inches shy of his even longer long hair. He held his arms crossed loosely on his chest, carrying a golden brush in between.

    Just above his head, five fist-sized beads of pale blue color orbited in a halo, giving him an air of divinity that, more than any other power present, contrasted that of the man that waked opposite to him.

    Surrounded by uncountable sparks of red color, different than the fiery orange of War or the bloody scarlet of Sacrifice in the savage and chaotic way they moved, was a tall man in his early thirties. He observed his surroundings with feline red eyes, assessing every detail as he strolled towards his seat. His shoulder length hair were pitch ck, and shining with grease as they draped over his eyes, hiding a good portion of his manly yet somewhat savage features.

    He was dressed with nothing but a towel, which he wore ufortably, as shown by his constant attempts to adjust it around his lean waist. His nails, grown long and sharp as a tiger''s ws, more than once threatened to make him lose the grip of the piece of cloth, exposing him to the rest. But they never did. Not because he wouldn''t have liked to, but for the same reason he was wearing the towel in the first ce. A sign of respect for the man who walked between him and the schr.

    The two walked a step behind the third entity, for his pace was too efficient for them to follow without making an unnecessary effort. Yet, they neverined, forint was unbing to creatures such as them. Entities born from powers birthed by concepts of totality, and high tier aspects within the pantheon of existence. They were the aspect of Sentience, and the aspect of Instinct.

    "Keep an eye on the kid." Instinct said the moments his cat-like eyes met with Roley''s figure, words he spoke to his right, past the back of the third entity, and towards the old schr.

    "Just a mortal kid." Sentience retorted while adjusting the brush in between his crossed arms. Theck of manners in his response indicated that the two of them were either very close, or did not get along at all, to a point where the schr would discard Instinct''s warning as annoying rambling.

    That, however, was not the case for the man who walked a step ahead, as Instinct words brought his steady march to a halt. He was a well built man of above-average height, dpletely in tinum heavy armor with gold ting on each edge. His appearance was almostpletely hidden, leaving only a t-shaped slit at the frontal part of his helmet for a few details to be revealed. A pair of dirty white eyes, straight brows, and thin lips.

    Hanging from his shoulders was arge white-colored cape with golden rivets at the sides and bottom, and a symbol embroidered in the middle. A triangle split within in four smaller triangles, two at the bottom, one upside down in the middle, and one at the top. A milky white power lingered over him, like a heavy liquid that had been dunked into a lighter solution, or extreme heat onto asphalt.

    "Why is that?" he asked with the same authoritative voice he had used to stop War from acting ording to his nature. His gaze heavy and threatening to both friends and foes, for his nature was not one for kinship.

    The half-naked aspect of Instinct shrugged, undisturbed by the man''s demanding tone. "I''ll give you the same answer I always give. Knowing is not in my nature." He said, confident that his instincts would never prove him wrong.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Slightly annoyed by man''s unsatisfying yet expected answer, the man in the heavy armor turned back around, and resumed his march, leaving his twopanions standing behind.

    Sentience once again adjusted the position of his brush, then told the half naked man, "You know that asking is part of his. If you don''t want him to ask, next time remain silent." He said before resuming his approach, and catching up to the man in heavy armor with long strides.

    The aspect of Instinct let out a heavy sigh. "If I had a universe for every time we have had this conversation, word for word.." His voice trailed into silence as he too resumed his approach of of the table.

    When the three reached the highest tform, which held the portion of the table reserved for the high tier aspects of existence, Sacrifice sprung up on his feet. His feet shuffled as he hastily walked around the edge of the table he had upied, and stopped once he got to the empty space that separated Daniel''s dirty table from their own.

    His broad shoulders hindered Daniel''s sight, but only until the three took a sit on their reserved chairs, after which Sacrifice dropped to his knees in reverence, revealing the three sitting figures. Sentience sat straight on the chair located in the left corner, between the seat of honor and the ghastly aspect of Fear, while Instinct sat rxed on the opposite seat, next to the massive aspect of War whom he nodded at in a carefree manner. The man in tinum armor, of course, upied the seat of honor.

    "I humbly greet the noble aspect of Sentience, the feral aspect of Instinct, and the just aspect of Order." Sacrifice greeted them graciously, prompting the remaining aspects of existence to bow their heads in a show of respect at the mention of each of their names.

    Sentience nodded back in response, uncaring for the difference in status, while Instinct smiled awkwardly, waving his hand from left to right like a newly-appointed king of previous humble origins. Order, on the other hand, remain quiet. His body still as a statue, while his white eyes moved past the bent figure of Sacrifice andnded on Daniel.

    When Daniel''s eyes met his, he immediately noticed his intentions. A deep killing intent that, however, was devoid of any form of hostility. An odd sight, yet quitemon in the wild, where a predator would stalk its pray not out of hate, but out of hunger. Those were the feelings of Order-feelings that anyone who had an inkling of his nature would have understood.

    He was the one born to bring order to the infinite chaos, the most loyal of Fate''s servants, and highest of all the high tier aspects of existence, second only to his liege and the other primordial members of the pantheon. The needed remedy to Chaos, engaged in a losing battle that had gone on since the moment of his birth, for while order was needed, chaos was everywhere.

    Daniel, in his eyes, was nothing more than a bit of chaos he, for once, could fight against.

    The two looked at one another for a few seconds, after which, the aspect of Order turned to the left side of the table, where the aspect of Authority sat quietly. "You will keep record of this meeting." He ordered.

    Authority did notin, and immediately brought out from underneath the folds of her dress arge green book. Pages were yellow with age, some protruding slightly from its edges and some torn altogether, giving the book a worn look. She opened it gently to an empty page, struggling to keep the asional breeze from taking away some of the pages, and with a pen nobody had seen her take out, began to write.

    "Witnesses, state your name and grievances." Order said.

    The first to stand up was therge man in barbarian attire. He towered over the sitting figure of Order, whom he looked at with respect. "I am War, and conflict is in my nature." He said before unceremoniously sitting back down.

    Following War was the robe possessed by the green mist, which eerily rose to what looked like a standing position. An unpleasant series of voices spoke from the depths of his power, "Fear is my name, and I am here to understand the nature of Karma a little bit better."

    "The two of us, Control and Authority, share Lord Fear''s intentions." The woman in the red dress said.

    By this point, Sacrifice had walked back to his seat, in front of which he stood nervously while trading nces with the aspect of Deceit. After receiving an encouraging nod, Sacrifice finally spoke, "Deceit and I, Sacrifice, oppose the existence of the aspect of Karma. We fight for High lord Fate."

    Surprised by his words, Order nodded for the first time, apuding his courage for daring to voice his hostility towards a creature he too had to take seriously, as well as for doing so in his liege''s name. Then, after one more nce aimed at confirming that Authority was ready to continue, Order stated, "So it begins, the trial of Karma."

 Chapter 663 The Trial Of Karma (Part 4)

    ?

    "A trial?" Daniel asked with narrowed eyes. His shoulders leaned forward as he sat closer to the edge of his chair, then asked, "On whose authority?" His words were directed at the very aspect of Order, who looked back at his eyes filled with ever growing hostility.

    As the two locked eyes, while their bodies did not move, their powers darted ahead. Sparks of golden light and milky white mes that wrestled for control over the empty area between the two tables, mixing and shing and burning and cutting one another in an unprecedented conflict. A verymon urrence between hostile aspects of existence, too much so for others to consider the beginning of hostilities.

    Among the aspects of existence, this sh of powers served the same purpose as a simpler sh of ideas, which were fought with des of sounds and shields of emotions. A sh of intent, the aspects of existence called it. A way ofmunication unique to the members of the pantheon, as useful as spoken words, hand gestures, and a person''s demeanor.

    Seeing the two busy shing ideas, the gentlemanly cultivator that sat by Order''s right decided to answer in his stead. He stood up from his chair in a dignified manner, allowing for his long arms to finally unfurl. As he did, the brush he carried in between them took off into the air, reaching for the orbs of blue power on its own. Upon contact, the bristles dove into the power of sentience, smearing it in the air like dollops of blue paint over a nonexistent canvas. "That of the primordial aspects of existence." He said.

    "Ha! Yeah right.." Instinct muttered, but only after letting out a loud scoff which erased any semnce of formality Sentience had painstakingly built with his dignified demeanor, and confident tone.

    Both Order and Sentience turned to look at him, angered by his unnecessary intervention, only to find him slouching onto his chair. His legs were carelessly pressed against the edge of the table, while his cat-like eyes intent on finding the smallest bits of dirt present underneath his long and sharp nails.

    "That is interesting," Daniel said, resuming his staring contest with warrior in the tinum armor, "Especially considering that I was in the presence of one of them just a few hours ago, and she did not appear to have any knowledge of this trial." His words were able to turn a few heads, each portraying a confusion that was instantly shut down by Order''s threatening gaze. "And I somehow doubt that Chaos would agree to such formalities. Not to mention Conflict, who would most probably prefer that we debated with swords, rather than words."

    His tone was sarcastic, and derisory to an extent, but still able to catch the observing aspects by surprise. After all, he had lived for their equivalent of a few minutes, and yet, he could already understand the nature of their primordial kindred. Dynamics that even within the pantheon existence belonged to a world of their own, for there were no connections and ovepping between their powers, and each was equally as powerful as the other. Their interest alwaysy in themselves, and anything that could threaten their power directly.

    Or so it was in the beginning of time.

    After the birth of the other aspects of existence, these nigh-omnipotent creatures had eventually found a need for a supervisor. A guardian who could keep the little ones in check, freeing them from the burden of guiding a horde of infinitely powerful children into a semnce of civility. A job that was then given to three entities. The low-tier aspect of Law, the mid-tier aspect of Equilibrium, and the high tier aspect of Order.

    Under the promise of additional interaction with the peak aspects of existence, the three had eagerly epted the grievous task, only to find out, not long after, how little their employees cared for the matters of the lower tier of the pantheon. They were glorified nannies, entrusted with hundreds of kids whose parents would asionally ask to give special attention to.

    Naturally, Daniel was unaware of the role Order and the others had to y within the pantheon. His assumptions were based solely on his understanding of the nature of the aspects of existence, and the simplicity of their minds. After all, in their near omnipotence, they struggled toprehend the concept of hiding one''s thoughts, making their intention painfully clear, and easy to guess. "I can''t quite tell with the others, but it would seem that only Fate would have a vested interest in putting me on trial."

    "High lord Fate, for you." Order growled as the white of his eyes began to glow. An outburst that did nothing but confirm Daniel''s suspicion.

    His dust covered forearms rose as his fingers entwined, leaving only his index fingers outstretched in front of him. "Yes, the guy who wants me, Destiny and any of his champions dead, because as long as we live, his nature will stand on shaky grounds. That is who you are doing this for."

    A burst ofughter exploded across the hall, prompting each aspect of existence to turn towards the right curve of the table. There they found the aspect of Instinct, who had quietly stood up, walked behind his chair, and leaned onto its backrest with his elbows without anyone noticing. His feline eyes were aimed at Daniel, whom he looked at with amusement.

    "Not a bad assumption, though I believe it is missing several more details." He said as his gaze shifted towards the low aspects of Sacrifice and Deceit, whom he observed like a hidden cat staring at the ying mice.

    Daniel ignored Instinct. He had already guessed what type of creature he was. One whocked seriousness or propensity for duty. He was there for amusement, and he knew that had he asked him to exin himself, he would have been left hanging from a cliff. Instead, he turned towards Order and said, "I do not recognize your authority, nor that of those above you."

    "And yet you will abide by it, if you wish for a chance to walk out of here alive." Order responded, white mes swallowing the far and few sparks of golden light in a show of power. A response that Daniel turned away from with a roll of his eyes, in a sign of begrudging agreement. "We will go by procedure." Ordermanded as his eyes brushed past the surrounding aspects. "Ask your questions, and the ones entrusted to you by the ones you represent, and then we will speak of his actions."

    As Order reminded the rules, Daniel''s mind was elsewhere. His foot, once nted solidly onto the ground, was now resting on his heel, as the tip tapped against Roley''s shin. Soon after, a barrier of sound reappeared around them, and Roley asked, "What is it?"

    "How many have you made?"

    The young schr frowned. "Not a single one yet. It is not that easy when you have to keep it hidden from a handful of deities." Roley answered, slightly annoyed. "I will be done with one in a few minutes but, though I don''t think-"

    "That it will be enough to cover our escape." Daniel interrupted. "I might have a chance to keep those three upied by myself, but that leaves to you the other six aspects of existence, four of whom are of the mid tier. A single one of your attacks will be the equivalent of throwing a ss of water at them. We will need no less than a dozen, or at least a big one."

    "We are not going anywhere." Der interjected. "Not without getting what we came looking for."<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "We won''t be able to save them if we are de-" Daniel made an attempt to talk some sense into the stubborn warrior, but he was soon interrupted.

    "If you wish to leave, then go. I would rather be caught and kept with the others, than lose them again." Der said.

    Daniel sucked his teeth, making a tch sound. "Mortals.." he could not help but mutter with annoyance and a tinge of disdain. His arms crossed and his feet began to tap against the stone floor for the biggest part of a minute. "Fine." he then said before tuning to look back at Roley. "I will buy time, you do the best you can. If possible, I will try to negotiate the return of the hostages."

    "What if you can''t?" Roley asked both for himself and for Der.

    Daniel''s lips curved into a creepy smile. "I suppose Sacrifice will have toe with us." He said before giving the schr a faint nod. Hinting for him to remove the blockade of sound.

    The barrier was removed just in time for Order to finish giving instructions, and turn back towards Daniel, whom he found smiling jovially, unbothered by any possible danger that awaited for him. "Authority, you maymence." He then said, gaze locked onto the beads of gold that were Daniel''s own eyes before the hall fell silent.

    In hasty yet delicate motions, the woman in the flowery dress finished transcribing Order''s words, then lifted her gaze. Her eyes were dark green, the color of pines, and portraying a feeling that mortals would often see in their mothers, fathers, and employers. "Lord Karma." She said in a polite and professional tone. "The aspect of Learning would like to ask, ''In which ways does your power differ from ours?'' Please, respond with honesty, for Lord Instinct is here to assess the truth in your words."

    Daniel shrugged. On his body, holes carved by the aspects'' intrigued gazes. "In the way you already have knowledge of." he answered. "I am capable of storing the power of karma within my body, and take it with me across the trigate, and wherever I wish to."

    "What would you believe is the reason for that?" Authority continued.

    Daniel adjusted himself into the ufortable chair, then leaned forward, once again resting his arms onto the dusty table. "I have no idea. I have a few theories, most of which you would have probably thought of yourselves."

    Authority resumed her scribbling, recording every word spoken and intention shown. Her eyes, however, remained on Daniel. "We are not you, Lord Karma. Our theories tend to be limited to what we know, and we know nothing of your ascension, its price, or your vestige."

    "Fair enough." Daniel nodded. "Aside from the gift of Karma, I was a mortal once. A practitioner at the godhood stage of the path of immortal cultivation."

    "Do you believe those powers to be the reason for your unique ability?" she asked, her hand never stopping its left to right motion.

    Daniel''s head shook in denial. "No." He said. "My ascension destroyed my immortal body, splitting it back into its threeponents. Ki, mental power and spiritual essence. Immortal power and existential power cannot coexist within the body. You would have known that, had any of you bothered attempting to cultivate immortality."

    "What use does one have for crawling, when one can already fly.." Sentience asked, rhetorically. Daniel ignored his dig at mortal cultivators. Not because he was not hurt by his words, but because he agreed with them. After all, the memories of his former self were memories of a weak man.

    Authority dared not admonish Sentience, despite his intervention had interrupted her line of questioning. Only after he finished, did she continue. "What would you say is the theory you believe in the most, Lord Karma?"

    The smile on Daniel''s face widened, as a faint scoff escaped his throat. "Are you sure you want to know? You might not like it." He responded with words that were obviously not meant for her alone, but the other aspects of existence as well.

    "Please." She answered, unperturbed.

    "Mm. Very well." Daniel said. "I believe it has to do with the difference between Fate and Destiny. Anyone who has ever met a champion of thetter would tell what is at the core of their nature. The desire to create a path that breaks the shackles of fate, to create their own destiny. To do so, one would not be able to rely on the external production of power, but rely on the power he possesses instead." Daniel added, "I believe my existence, and theirs, is external to the totality of fate, and that is why I can store my power. Because it is mine to wield, while yours is simply borrowed."

    By now, all the aspects of existence but Order were leaning over the table. Ears, orck thereof, aimed at him in an attempt to make his voice clearer than it already was. A small crack formed in their hearts as they collectively came to realize a reality of their existence. A reality they hated.

    "Next question?" Daniel asked.

 Chapter 664 The Trial Of Karma (Part 5)

    ?

    "That is preposterous!" Sacrifice blurted out in sheer anger. His eyes narrowed, ring evilly at Daniel''s rxed figure. "You may be able to store your power more efficiently, but you are still reliant on external forces to produce it, just like the rest of us."

    "I concur." Deceit said, raising a hand in support of Sacrifice''s im.

    Invigorated by Deceit''s words, Sacrifice turned towards the other aspects of existence hoping to find more support, only to find them delving deep into their thoughts. Too busy pondering Daniel''s words, considering the consequences of his existence, and the eventuality that more like him could be born at any point, to bother with Sacrifice''s outburst.

    It took several seconds for the aspect of Authority to finish the transcription of Daniel''s theory, as well as the drafting of her own conclusions, and the recordings of her peers'' reactions to Karma''s words, after which, her head rose once more. As calmly as ever, she turned to her right, past the enormous aspect of war and towards the naked man.

    "My lord, does he speak the truth?" She asked.

    Instinct smiled. "What truth do you speak of, young one? That he believes that to be the most reasonable exnation for his odd nature, or whether the theory itself is based on reality?" The eyes of each observing aspect of existence turned in his direction, two of whom looked at him with far less respect and cordiality than the rest of them.

    "Both, if you mind." Authority further inquired.

    Instinct''s hands rose in a sight of surrender, then they fell. His body darted forward, upper bodyying almost parallel over the table. A pair of reddish cat-like eyes dove into the depths of Daniel''s existence, scouring for what was not the truth, or Daniel''s truth, but Instinct''s own idea and opinion.

    Momentster, his body rxed, and he once again fell onto his chair, sitting as casually as he had before. His lips pressed together for a moment, then puckered. The other aspects of existence looked at him expectantly. Even Order, obsessed with maintaining a perfect posture and stoic demeanor, could not help but turn to his left, just enough for Instinct to enter his peripheral.

    "He believes in what he is saying," He added, "and unfortunately, so do I."

    Amazed gasps and moans of indignation roared within the hall in response, then the buzzing of chatter. The aspects talked to one another for a few minutes, sharing their thoughts and newly formed theories, bringing the trial to a halt, though not for long.

    "Silence!" Ordermanded, restoring a state of absolute quiet just in time for Authority to finish transcribing Instinct''s assessment.

    Daniel looked on in amusement. He could see them reassure one another, hypnotizing themselves into thinking that his existence was an oddity, ore to terms with the events that, in their infinite lives, were soon to follow. "Now I get why you would want to hunt down the champions of Destiny for Fate. Perhaps they both knew this would happen from the beginning." He could not help but say.

    The eyes of the aspects of existence were lowered once again. His words painted them as foolish foot soldiers, used to eradicate their king''s enemy without being informed of the reason. Only when it was toote were they allowed to find out, just like they had now.

    Their dismay was a great source of pleasure for Daniel, but he was still not satisfied enough. He quietly observed, letting his words burrow deep into their minds, then, when his words reached as deep as they could, he added, "I am curious about something, though." His eyes brushed past the dismayed aspects of existence. "What will happen when a champion ascends into a spot that has already been upied?"

    While spoken softly, as if nothing but a fleeting and unimportant thought, this question unlocked a new worry that sent a shiver down the backs of the observing entities, or in case of the aspect of Fear, ack thereof. In their minds new questions and doubts rang in a never ending sequence. What would be to us, were that to happen? Will we be reced? Will we have to fight for our ce, and if we had to, would we win? They asked themselves, allowing for their worries to be reflected in their furrowed brows, and nervous twitches.

    At the sight of this Daniel''s smile widened, and he continued, "Perhaps one day one of your recements will be born. In fact, I seem to remember meeting the current wielders of the war system and control system. Plus, I heard at least a couple of positions are vacant now." His eyes lingered onto the woman in the red dress and therge barbarian, who stared at one another in hope for afort they never found.

    "Enough." Order said, "Stick to answering the questions you are asked."

    Daniel shrugged innocently, thenid back against his chair. His eyes moved onto the aspect of Authority who, unlike the others, alternated moments of absentmindedness with careful writing. Once done, she once again turned to Daniel, and with a clear and polite voice asked, "Lord Karma, the aspects ofw, control and order wish to ask. Have you received any support from other members of the pantheon?"

    "I have." Daniel responded truthfully, unwilling to be caught in a lie by thezy, yet attentive cat that was the aspect of Instinct.

    "Which ones?" Authority asked.

    "Was that always part of the question?" Daniel asked while stretching his neck up in a pointless attempt to catch a glimpse of what was written on the yellowed pages of therge green book. After a few failed attempts, he sat back down then added, "Do you have the authority to change questions at will?"

    The woman was caught by surprise. To a mortal''s ears, Daniel''s words might have sounded as an attempt to stall for time, but to the aspect of Authority, they meant something much deeper. Her entire existence wasposed of equal part obedience, and equal part control, and so it would stay, for her nature forbade both insubordination and initiative.

    Daniel had seen through the very core of her nature, and with that bit of information, he locked her into a dilemma.

    As Order noticed the woman''s state of mind, he turned towards Daniel in anger. "It is my question, I allow it." He said. "Now answer."

    These few words were quickly able to pull the aspect of Authority out of her pensive state, but for a reason none of those present had ever expected. Her book suddenly closed, and she said, "I cannot allow that, Lord Order. Your demand is denied."

    The man''s helmet turned to the side, piecing white eyesnding on her slightly trembling features as he asked, "You what? On what grounds?!"<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "My Lord." The woman said with a shaky yet clear voice. "Book of Trials, chapter one, rules and guidelines. First rule, ''All questions must be submitted prior to the beginning of the trial'', and rule number three, ''Amendments meant to alter the original purpose of the questions are not allowed. Any answer to such questions, provided willingly or extorted, will not be put on record, nor will they be verified by the lord seer assigned to preside over the trial.'' Thus was stated by High Lord Fate."

    Order let out a low growl, then turned away. Like any other aspects of existence, he detested the idea of being defied, especially in front of others. Yet, this time, there was nothing he could do. Ignoring rules established by the primordial aspects of existence was considered a capital sin. A crime few had been found trialed for throughout the years, all ending in an execution. And even if the woman did not speak on their authority, he would still be forced to abide by the rules. After all, rules were made to uphold order, and breaking them would only bring chaos.

    "Fine. Move on." He said.

    Authority let out a deep sigh, letting out all the stress and worry she had felt while defying the man''s orders. Then, she reopened the book and turned to look back at Daniel.

    "Will I ever be allowed to ask questions of my own?" Daniel asked.

    "I am afraid not, Lord Karma." Authority said. "The purpose of this-"

    "Interrogation." Daniel interjected.

    ".. Is to ascertain your disposition towards the pantheon atrge. Whether you will be part of it, or be amon enemy." The woman continued, ignoring Daniel''s interruptions.

    Daniel''s lips curved into a faint smile. "Is that something I would be able to refuse? What makes you think I would want to?" He asked.

    Suddenly, the aspect of instinct burst into an earthyugh. "Haha!" he bellowed, attracting the attention of the surrounding aspects of existence.

    "What is so funny?" Daniel asked, struggling to hold augh of his own. A simple question that, however, fueled the man''sughter even further, bringing him close to tears.

    "What is the matter with you?" Sentience asked, infuriated by hispanion''s odd behavior andck of professionalism. But, s, he too was ignored.

    The man''s hystericalugh grew even louder. His shoulders bobbed up and down, while his hand was brought down onto his knee in a series of loud and crisp ps. "Hahaha! I can''t breathe, hahaha!" he said in between fits of hystericalughter.

    "What is he doing? That seems highly irregr." Daniel contributed with feigned ignorance.

    Suddenly, a wave of white power emerged from within Order''s tinum armor. "ENOUGH!" Hemanded as the greens of Control and Authority, the reds of Sacrifice, War and instinct, and even the blue of Sentience, were all washed away by the white wave along with any thoughts of defiance.

    "That was unnecessary." A startled Instinct said while awkwardly adjusting his posture.

    Order''s head turned slightly towards him, allowing appearance back into his sight. "Why were youughing?" He asked, aware that anything that would cause a reaction in Instinct would be something worthy of notice, and that the bigger the reaction, the more important that thing would be.

    "Because he was making fun of us. He asked several questions after being told he was not allowed to ask any." the man in the towel responded.

    Order''s gaze shifted to Daniel, who was now staring back at him with a malicious grin. His instinct told him that Daniel had just wanted to create chaos as a personal attack towards him, but decided not to act on it. After all, he was the aspect of Order, and few were the times when he would act on instinct. Instead, he once again turned towards the aspect of Instinct, and asked with uncharacteristic patience, "Why is he doing that?"

    "He is buying time for something." Instinct answered, once again inspecting his long nails.

    "Tell me what he is buying time for!" Order growled, his patience running too thin for Instinct''s careless attitude.

    "Lord Order!" Lamented the woman in the flowery dress. Her book once again closed, and her gaze solemn yet worried. "Rules and guidelines, rule two. All questions must be directed at the defendant." Her body shook visibly, as she quietly prayed that her insubordination would be forgiven for a second time, and hopefully forgotten.

    Despite her state of mind, the aspect of Order did not appear angered. Instead, a faint smile had appeared on his face, barely visible through the vertical slit in the middle of his shiny helmet. "Rules and guidelines, rule number five. ''In absence of a clear line of questioning, the preliminary phase of the trial wille to an end, and the reading of the charges willmence'' Correct?"

    Shocked by Order''s words, the aspect of Authority could only nod in confirmation.

    The smile on the man''s face grew wider for a moment, then disappeared. His back straightened, and his demeanor turned grave and solemn. "Aspect of Karma. You are charged with the unjust murders of the aspect of Horror and Equilibrium. What do you have to say in your defense?"

    Daniel''s mind, for the first time, drew a nk.

 Chapter 665 Sentence

    ?

    "I am used of what?" Daniel asked dumbfounded.

    Order''s palm mmed heavily against the table, startling the nearby aspects of existence. "Of the unjust murder of the aspects of Horror and Equilibrium." He repeated. "What say you?"

    Once again, Daniel could not believe what he was hearing. He had indeed yed a crucial role in the deaths of those two particr aspects of existence, going as far as killing one of them himself, but unjust? He could not believe that words had been used.

    In a fit of indignation Daniel turned to look at the aspect of Instinct, the so-called seer that had been tasked with verifying the truth in Daniel''s words. A creature whose infallible instincts should have revealed to him that both of those deaths could hardly be called unjustified. "What makes their deaths unjust?" He asked. "Prior to their deaths, both Horror and Equilibrium were actively trying to kill me. Am I not allowed to defend myself?"

    Order did not answer the question and instead turned to look at the aspect of Authority, who had just now finished putting his outburst into writing. Her fingers brushed against the edge of the book, stopping only once they came upon a slip of blue paper stuck in between pages. As she pulled the piece of paper, a stack of pages flipped to one side, uncovering a different section of the book.

    "ording to our records, Lady Equilibrium was in while fulfilling her duties. Her objective being the judgment and subsequent annihtion of one of Destiny''s champions, the then wielder of the karmic system and mortal cultivator Dan Hiel." She read. "You, lord Karma."

    For the first time, at the mention of the aspect of Equilibrium, a semnce of emotions other than anger had appeared on Order''s barely visible face. His hands resting heavily onto the table, tightened into fists as the hatred within his eyes deepened. His chest deted and inted slowly as several deep sighs escaped his chest.

    To him, thete aspect of equilibrium was more than a figure he would meet at intervals of thousands of years. She was a third of the triumvirate that kept in check all aspects that did not belong to the primordial pantheon, and so the two had done together with the aspect ofw for billions of years. The nature of their rtionship was the closest thing to a friendship any member of the pantheon had ever experienced, and it was mostly his desire to avenge her unjust murder that had fueled his hostility towards Daniel.

    "She was doing her job. Ridding the multiverse of filth like you under order of High Lord Fate himself. You had no right to kill her." Order said through gritted teeth.

    "I will ask again, was I not allowed to defend myself?" Daniel asked one more time.

    To answer was the aspect of Authority, whose fingers were casually flipping to the next page of her book, "Had you been an aspect of existence at the time,dy Equilibrium would have had no right to judge your existence through the lenses of her power. Her murder, whose details are still unknown to us, took ce before you joined our ranks within the pantheon of aspects of existence, therefore your death sentence was deemed warranted, and just."

    Daniel let out a loud scoff. "And I assume you find no problem with the notion that a champion of destiny could have killed an aspect of existence within her own domain, where she was at her strongest. Correct?"

    Instinct''s interest was piqued.

    "What are you implying?" Sentience asked just before any other aspect could.

    "That you are a bunch of idiots." Daniel responded before turning to the side in dejection. In his mind the memories of Equilibrium''s death yed on repeat, showing the sequence of events that had culminated with her death at the hand of the aspect of Conflict. Thousands of years old, and yet still clear as the moment he had witnessed them. Nevertheless, while Daniel''s knowledge and Instinct''s unique ability to perceive the truth could have easily exculpated him of at least this one crime, Daniel chose to hide the truth.

    What was the point? He asked himself.

    Escaping the charge of Equilibrium''s death would not prevent him from being found guilty of the other murder, for he was the one who had killed the aspect of Horror. He had done so in front of the aspect of Chaos, and in front of Instinct''s powers, denying would have been futile. If he could not escape punishment altogether he might as well not waste time trying, he thought. In any case, he hade here ready for a fight, and the only way he saw to avoid one, would have been for Sacrifice to surrender the hostages and let them leave peacefully. A possibility that became less likely every second.

    Even if the mention of Conflict could have somehow caused both charges to be dropped, Daniel would have still remained quiet, for he was unwilling to reveal any more details of his ascension. Details that Instinct could have used to infer the exact sequence of events, the specifics of his ascension, and what he had to pay in exchange to seed.

    "There is something he is not saying." Instinct said. His eyes narrowed into slits as his body leaned forward, as if observing from that bit closer could make a difference. He then turned towards the aspect of Order, and begged with impatience, "Ask him more. Ask him what happened. Any answer will do, no matter whether truthful or not."

    The two exchanged gazes, but while Instinct''s was one of intrigue, Order looked back with unwillingness. He knew that the instincts of the naked man would never be wrong, but this time, they had the potential of uncovering secrets that could spare Karma from judgment. After all, Daniel had not rejected their usation. What else could intrigue the man so, other than a turn of events, a revtion that Daniel was innocent all along?

    He did not want that to happen, but eventually Order''s true nature took over and he chose to follow Instinct''s suggestion.

    Before he could speak, however, Daniel interjected. "What of Horror''s murder, then? Our battle was a duel between aspects of existence, and of equal tier. How is the oue any of my fault?" He asked Authority.

    "Your fault did not lie in your actions, but in your justifications, Lord Karma. Our records indicate that it was you who annihted countless of his champions, and killed him during a sanctioned quest for expansion." Authority exined.

    "He did so to protect us! We would have been wiped out without his intervention!" Roley retorted while springing up on his feet, attracting the attention of every aspect of existence present, all shocked by his insolence, "First you use him of murder for killing the aspect of Equilibrium as a mortal, and now you me him for defending us. Make up your damn mind. Either we are worthless enough for our existence to mean nothing, or we aren''t."<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "Enough with you!" Sentience bellowed. The painted lines of blue power had once again merged into a single dense blob, then shot in Roley''s direction, intent on eradicating any form of consciousness present within his body. Before the attack could hit its mark, however, a lick of golden power whipped it out of course, bursting it into sparks of blue light.

    The sh had been invisible to the eyes of mortals, and yet, the power it produced reverberated across space, causing the entire universe to tremble uncontrobly.

    "Lord Karma, please have your followers remain seated, and quiet. This is no ce for him to speak." Authority said in fear that Daniel would retaliate, and chaos would ensue.

    Luckily, despite her worries, Daniel did not seem bothered by Sentience''s attack. He had remained seated the entire duration of the trial, only bothering to look back at them in short moments of defiance or whenever he had a question to ask.

    "Answer the question, then." Daniel said while ignoring Sentience''s angered stare.

    "You did so to protect mortals, therefore cing mortal lives above that of a high member of the pantheon." Authority responded.

    A *tch* sound escaped Daniel''s mouth as he once again turned to look at the opposite table. What he had guessed would happen had finally happened.

    His eyes brushed past the several faces, and stopped once they came upon the aspect of Sacrifice. "Nice ring." He grinned after a few moments of careful inspection. At the same time, under the table, the side of Roley''s foot had tapped his own, causing a hint of excitement to appear on his face.

    "Something is about to happen." Instinct suddenly said, rming his twopanions.

    Before the two could do anything, Daniel''s voice echoed, "Well then, guilty of both. What is my sentence?"

    Waves of excited white mes emerged from the towering body of Order, who stood up menacingly. Never in his wildest dreams had he hoped to hear these words from him, and now that he had, there was no hesitation to stop him, "Representatives of the pantheon, what punishment do your factions seek for the crimes of Karma?" He asked.

    Sacrifice and Deceit immediately sprung up on their feet. "In honor of High Lord Chaos, we ask that the murder of Lord Horror is punished by death." The former said.

    After him, the aspects of war stood up, "The faction of the primordial aspect of Conflict requests for a trial bybat."

    "What about you two?" Order asked the aspects of Control and Authority.

    The two looked at one another, then turned towards the aspect of Instinct. "My Lord, what do you make of this?" Conflict asked, breaking the silence she had maintained throughout the trial.

    Instinct smiled. "I think that he is hiding something. Enough information to possibly turn the tides of this trial, but that he is refusing to disclose it, choosing the path of violence instead." He said with a matter-of-fact tone. "I also think that it does not matter whether your faction asks for his acquittal now, since he confessed."

    Control and Authority once again looked at one another, and after sharing a nod, Authority rose to her feet and said, "The faction of high lord Fate asks for capital punishment."

    Satisfied by the oue, Order turned to Sentience, who stood up like the rest had before him, and said, "In the name of high lord Origin, I ask for the death sentence as well."

    On the opposite side of the table, Instinct shrugged in resignation. As the seer, he was not allowed to vote. Not that it would have made a difference.

    After all those present gave their judgment, Order''s body rxed, allowing for his deep voice to leave his throat in a clear tone and in between slow breaths. "You have been judged unfit to be a part of the pantheon, and will be executed under the authority of the high lord Fate." He said as an infinite amount of white mes engulfed the hall. "Find sce in the thought that your power will live on in your next reincarnation."

    "Let''s see if you can kill me first." Daniel said as his hand rose above the table. In between his fingers, a single fist-sized orb of colored ss.

    "DODGE!" Instinct yelled as the orb escaped Daniel''s grasp.

 Chapter 666 The New And The Old

    ?

    In all of its mystical prophetic nature, Instinct''s reaction hade a step toote.

    By the time he had warned his allies, the seemingly harmless bead of colored ss had already left Daniel''s grip, shot in their direction at a speed that left no room for exnations. All he could do, in what little time he had, was to instinctively dive to the ground and yell, "DODGE!"

    He had failed to see thising, and not for ack of attention. His power allowed him to make use of the quality of instinct in its every form. He could dodge any attack with his eyes closed, guess one''s mood with a simple glimpse of their face, and direct himself through countless problems with what those who knew nothing of him would call a ''spectacrly fortuitous series of lucky guesses.''

    But guessing was all he could do, and doing so urately required two things. Context and a detail to base his guesses on. He could not simply perceive any information of any topic at any time, he needed a topic to speak of, and a base detail which he could evolve into a useful guess. An example of this was Roley''s warning to Daniel. The casual and almost idental tap of the former''s foot against thetter''s, which to the eyes of anyone else could have passed as a sign of boredom, but to him, its meaning was as clear as spokennguage.

    Daniel''s attack, however, hade without either. He had simply attacked, leaving the naked man to react on instinct. His body dove to the side of the room, while his mouth spoke words his brain had note around to processing yet. Without his mystical instincts, the aspects of Order and Sentience, who now stood alone in the trajectory of this small bead, had no time to follow his example, and were forced to react how they saw fit instead.

    The first to react was the aspect of Sentience, who had obviously taken Instinct''s previous warning more seriously by preparing for an attack. His brush instantly moved on the path of the bead of primordial mana, then brushed a circle of blue existential power of sentience, forming arge barrier that covered both him and his armoredpanion.

    "No! Dodge!!" Instinct yelled once again before his body could even touch the ground, but once again, it was toote. As the sphere came in contact with the blue barrier its surface instantly cracked, unleashing rays of white and ck light. Then, destruction ensued.

    The shattering of the bead had been followed by the appearance of a blinding light, a glow of such intensity that it could have put the implosion of the biggest stars to shame. Its rays disintegrated anything that stood in their path. The cold stone, the enormous pirs and the tall cavernous ceiling all fell, unable to so much as hinder the power which continued its path of destruction until there was nothing left to destroy.

    Eventually the light began to dim, uncovering a dozen figures that upied the same material space they had upied a minute back, but all lookingpletely different.

    The one in the worst condition was the aspect of Deceit. The st had disintegrated his physical body, leaving behind nothing more than arge cloud of fine gray-colored power. The sheep that had followed him, or whichever beast was hiding under sheep skin, had also perished. Disintegrated by the power of Roley''s attack.

    He was one of two low tier aspects of existence, but unlike Sacrifice who had the home advantage, Deceit had far less influence at his disposal within this universe. Far from enough to protect himself. Yet, despite the loss of his body, his power did not disappear. Instead, the dusty cloud started to converge and condense into a humanoid shape, forming a new body for its owner.

    This body, however, was not that of the tall and reliable politician he had previously presented himself as, but that of a hideous humanoid creature. A gray-skinned imp withrge leathery wings, a bulging belly, and limbs of little more than skin and bone. Under a pair of small horns, hisrge beady eyes bulged, showing as much shock as its wide mouth.

    Relieved that he managed to survive the attack, Deceit used his new body to look around, and assess the damage, only stopping once his eyes came upon the figure of Sacrifice, who stood quietly within a half-destroyed cylinder of blood-like power. His eyes and mouth were wide open in an expression of sheer horror. "What in the world was that?.." He muttered to himself.

    Higher in their ranks were the aspects of Control and Authority, once of a dignified demeanor that would have turned heads among scores of mortal bachelors, now shattered by the countless burns and cuts that covered their bodies. They heaved and panted while shroud in leaves of different shades of green, which lingered around their bodies as if possessed by the children of a tornado.

    *Cough* "What in High Lord Fate''s name was that?" Control asked the creature to her left. A silhouette of cold and dark power, locked in ce in its pseudo-humanoid form by the constant zapping of lightning that still lingered on him. The ck robe Fear had used to cover his spectral form had not survived the attack, but thanks to his spectral body, he was able to avoid most of the damage, only suffering damage from the two elements that could harm him, the essences of lightning and darkness.

    "That wasn''t the power of Karma." Said the gigantic aspect of war with a deep voice. The many primordial powers within Roley''s attack, as they coursed through his body, had disrupted his concentration, causing his body to go back to his original form. That of a thirty feet tall bronze-skinned barbarian with muscles harder than stone. His skin was also covered in soot, and minor wounds and burns, but other than some damages to the already meager pieces of clothing he wore, he appeared to be fine.

    His hand was carrying his battleaxe, which he immediately pointed towards where Karma and his followers had been sitting. There, he found arge transparent box of golden power, inside which the three remained unscathed. The detail that stuck to his mind, however, was the satisfied grin present on Daniel''s face.

    "Sorry, I do not n on letting you kill me." Daniel said.

    "You do not have a choice!" Responded a familiar voice from behind the smoky remnants of Roley''s attack. It pierced across loose elemental power and distorted space, reaching Daniel''s ears just as Order''srge body charged ahead while wielding a greatsword shroud in endless white mes. His once spotless clear armor had now been partially melted, and covered in charred marks. All but a circle in the middle of his chest piece where the barrier hastily erected by Sentience had protected him from direct contact with the bead of primordial mana. <novelsnext></novelsnext>

    His charge was almost instantaneous, leaving Daniel just enough time to create a weapon of his own power before Order''s greatsword came shing down upon him, cutting through the same barrier Roley''s attack had been unable to put a dent on with extreme ease, and continuing onto his spear.

    The two weapons shed, sending sparks of white and gold flying in every direction, but then, Daniel''s pupils constricted. Beside him, the naked figure of Instinct had appeared in silence, with hands gloved in phantom ws twice the size of his real nails. Before he could react, the ws had shed past his side, forming three bloody gashes that ran perpendicr to his ribs.

    To hurt the most, however, was the trail of shattered space that Instinct''s ws left behind. Shards that ground and cut Daniel''s flesh from the inside.

    After letting out a pained growl, Daniel threw a kick fueled with the power of karma forward, striking Order squarely on the clean part of his breastte, sending him flying for miles before he could finally stop. Once rid of him, Daniel immediately turned towards the aspect of Instinct with spear in hand. His arms turned into a blur as the spear was thrust forward thousands of times in a single moment.

    But, s, Instinct did not retreat. He observed the iing flurry of attack, and instead of trying to protect himself, he closed his eyes. His head snapped to the side, avoiding the fist thrust, then his left arm rose, causing Daniel''s spear to strike the air in between his chest and arm, once again missing its mark. And that was only the beginning.

    Each attack was thrown faster than the other, for Daniel meant to at least harm Instinct before Order and Sentience could join the fray, but no matter how many attacks he sent in his direction, none of them ever even brushed the man''s skin. Instinct''s reactions were so urate that, had Daniel not known about his nature, he would have believed he had somehow been hypnotized into missing on purpose.

    Despite the thousands of exchanges, the bout onlysted a few seconds, after which Daniel once again felt the charge of Order. A new spear formed in his free hand as he prepared to fight both at one time, but then, a pair of hands gentlynded onto the sides of his head. "There is no need.. Go to sleep. You have done enough." Sentience whispered in Daniel''s ears as his bluish power attached itself to Daniel''s consciousness, bringing a debilitating sense of drowsiness.

    Daniel''s mind became sluggish, too weak to react to the sharp pain that had appeared just underneath his shoulder, where his arm had just been severed in a clean swipe that left behind milky mes that tirelessly fought against the chaotic nature within Daniel''s existence, too slow avoid the obnoxiously urate attacks of Instinct, and most importantly, too rxed to awaken from the deadly grasp of Sentience''s power.

    His consciousness began to slip away, like that of an old man at the end of its natural life, taken from a state of deep sleep to join countless others in the underworld.. but then, his eyes regained focus. Their golden hue glowing of impossible brilliance as his body released a sky full of golden lights.

    "Something is wrong.." Instinct said while backing away a few steps. "Get away from him!" he then told the gentleman who was holding Daniel''s head in between his own hands. But once again, he was toote.

    The golden power within Daniel''s body surged, using the bridge created by Sentience''s hands to invade his body. Unspeakable pain forced Sentience to immediately retract his hands, but he wasn''t quick enough. With a snap of his arms Daniel''s hands wrapped around Sentience''s wrists, repairing the bridge for more of his power to pour into him. "AAAH" the man in the blue robe screamed as the golden lights fought his own existential power, using his body like a battlefield. Each sh corroding, burning and cutting the man from inside.

    Seeing the tremendous suffering the aspect of Sentience was feeling, Order once again swung his sword at Daniel. This time, however, the de did not pierce skin, as the impact was cushioned by what felt like an indestructible barrier. His failed attempt, however, did not discourage him from trying again. He fed unspeakable power to his swords, eager to break Daniel''s defenses, but before his weapon could once again sh the golden barrier, the hand of the young man that had apanied Daniel had appeared in front of him, a second sphere of colored ss embedded into its palm.

    The crucial warning had nevere, for Instinct had been too busy freeing Sentience from his dire situation the only way his instincts had told him how, cutting both of Sentience''s arms off to break contact between the two.

    In the little time he had, Order could only bring his sword up against Roley''s attack before a second st washed over his body.

    "War! Fear! Control! Join us in dealing with Karma." The injured aspect of Sentience ordered while being dragged away, "The rest of you kill hispanion!"

    As he carried his injuredpanion to safety, Instinct could not help but feel a sense of dread when facing Daniel. His body emanated a power that did not belong to a guest of another aspect''s domain, and even if he had the ability to store power indefinitely, how could a small pool of umted powerpete with the oceans formed by millions of years of rain?

    For a moment, as Daniel stood as a statue of gold, the naked man thought against his instincts that maybe, just maybe, they could not defeat this foe.

 Chapter 667 A Mortals Resilience

    ?

    The thought that had brought the naked man to question his instincts disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. A fleeting doubt formed by what little trace of humanity the aspects of existence shared with mortals. And yet, he was quick to remind himself that he was not one. He was the aspect born from instincts, and his guts told him that there was a way for their group to defeat Daniel. With that being said, the only question he should have asked himself was ''how?''

    With a clearer mind he let go of Sentience, and once again, went back to observe the ongoing fight, silently waiting for an opportunity to strike.

    Daniel and Order were currently engaging in a mortal duel with weapons of pure existential power. A ten feet long and two feet wide greatsword shroud in white mes and a double pointed spear of pure gold that, upon contact, released sparks of brilliant light and purifying mes that left burnt marks and poked holes into the fabric of space. Despite therger pool of power at Daniel''s disposal, Order had managed to maintain the upper-hand throughout their sh, aided by the unique qualities of his and Sentience''s existential powers.

    Usually able to eradicate the consciousness of others at will, against a creature of Daniel''s caliber, Sentience''s innate abilities could only be considered a mild annoyance. Upon contact, his hegemony over the nature of sentient consciousnesses allowed him to hinder the workings of one''s mind,pelling Daniel to fall asleep or at least distract him with distant memories, while from a distance, the best he could do was hinder Daniel''s thoughts, slowing his reactions and making him struggle to follow or remember his own n.

    Order''s power, inparison, was far more terrifying. Its nature as a weapon of order was the bane of chaotic actions and energies, and was meant to always retain an advantage over chaos in what chaos was weakest, intensity. Like a light in the darkness, it shone brilliantly enough to fight off the never ending advance of its nemesis, and at the moment, Karma''s existence was pure chaos. The unnatural way he had been born, the conflict his existence had created, the damage he had done to others. All actions that went against the natural order of things, and that in turn, increased Order''s power not in the amount he could wield, but in its purity.

    Every few bouts a new wound would appear on Daniel''s body, forcing him to seek new paths to escape. His eyes steered away from Sacrifice''s figure for fear that such a minute detail would trigger Instinct''s perception. Without incapacitating Instinct, Daniel had realized there was nothing he could do.

    But, s, things were about to get worse.

    Heeding Sentience''s call, several more powers joined the white and golden neb, painting it with hues of dark and fiery reds and greens. It was then that Daniel''s surroundings began to change and Order stopped his onught, disappearing into a cloud of his own power.

    Confused by the turn of events Daniel turned around, and soon noticed that Roley and Der were standing by his side. Standing? He suddenly realized as his mind clocked that he was not floating into space any longer, but was standing onto a clearing. A red sky stretched over him, and red dirt all around.

    "What is this, where are we?" Roley asked.

    Der''s gaze went left to right for a moment, then answered, "A battlefield."

    This sight was far too familiar to him, for it was a scenery he had been part of countless times as amander of mortal armies. But something was missing. The handles of spears and swords reaching for the skies as their des dug into still and cold bodies, the smell of burnt blood and flesh, the screams of horror and pain and sadness. None of those details were present, giving the clearing the air of an ancient battlefield rather than a recent one.

    "Daniel, I don''t think we can fight much longer. I only have f-" Roley said before being shushed by a faint hiss.

    "They are still here." Daniel said.

    As if on cue, faint noises of battle began ying in the distance, hidden behind a horizon now blurred by faint silhouettes that, instead of advancing towards them, fought one another. Once one silhouette would perish another would take its ce, continuing the battle for the better part of a minute, after which trails of blood started to trickle past the des of ttened grass in their direction. The blood seemed to reach for them, as it continued its path until it found itself at their feet, then pooled around them quietly. Soon the shing of weapons and screams became fainter, as a wall of sorts started to form where the sound originated, blocking their sight of the fighting silhouettes.

    Soon walls turned to hills, then hills turned to mountains. Only then were the three able to see what sort of stone these structures were made of. It was bodies. Millions of bodies piled one onto the other into forming dozens of dark red mountains that bled at their feet.

    Suddenly, a faint dark mist emerged from in between the mountains, inching towards them.

    Inside this dark mist Daniel, Roley and Der could see the several aspects of existence they had been facing. No injuries were present on their bodies, now clean of soot and char, and d in identical neat sets of armors, each the color of the power the aspect that wore them represented.

    The aspects of existence halted their advance about half a mile from the three, but the mist didn''t. The mist continued its advance in their direction, asionally split open by des of gold or stopped by barriers Daniel had erected, but it was all for naught. Whenever the mist found no path towards its mark, Daniel''s mind would flicker and go nk, causing him to lose control of the barrier he had created. <novelsnext></novelsnext>

    The mist made hasty use of these small windows of time to further advance until finally, it came in contact with their bodies. Then, nothing.

    Despite Daniel''s worries, the mist did not seem intent on harming them, and simply lingered around them like a scent.

    In front of him the nine figures remained still, each contributing to the oppressive superiority their side emanated, making it clear to Daniel and his twopanions that they were on the losing side of this war. That their army was destined to be destroyed, and that there was no hope of survival, or surrender. They would die here, and join the mountains of corpses as simple stones.

    "I am way over my head.. Why am I even here?" Daniel said as an inexplicable sense of fear strangled at his heart, mind and nerves. "I am a fraud. They will kill me." His hands shook uncontrobly, and the gold disappeared from his eyes.

    Next to him, Roley had fallen prey to simr thoughts. Worries that his ability as a leader had brought too many unnecessary deaths, far more than the seclusive elementals would have experienced had they simply killed him, rather than entrust upon him their biggest hopes and dreams. "I can''t keep anyone alive, I will die here.." He added to Daniel grim realization.

    As these thoughts consumed the minds of hispanions, however, Der looked forward in silence. Thoughts born from powers beyond the reach of his imagination tried to chip at his sanity, showing him images of his daughterying on the floor, abused, tortured and killed, and of his friends, dead for making the mistake of following him. He was a failure, there was no doubt in his mind. He thought. But while these thoughts attempted to corrupt his mind, his heart and spirit remained calm. A confident smile had formed on his lips as he stepped forward. "You cannot show me anything I have not learned to live with already." His voice aimed at the ck humanoid figure d in dark armor, the aspect of Fear, the woman in the light green armor, Control, and the schr in blue armor, Sentience.

    "What a powerful will." Fear muttered in an eerie mixture of a hundred voices.

    "Mortal." bellowed the giant. "Your battle tested spirit impresses me. Join my domain and I will make you first of my champions."

    The two women in green armor could not help but turn towards the giant with eyes filled with discontent. In their minds, they cursed themselves for allowing the barbarian to speak the words they themselves were thinking, for in Der''s unbreakable spirit and mind they saw a perfect champion for the domains of Control and Authority.

    Der did not answer. Instead, he turned to look at hispanions, still stuck under the influence of Fear. In his eyes, the two were still the same kids he had met in the past. The young schr who had refused to learn the art of swordy from him countless times, and the clever young man whose father he had led to death in battle, but who also had the heart to help his family once his name had fallen.

    As he lived these memories his expression softened, but only for a moment. He sighed deeply then turned to look back at the giant. "I had no right to take part in your trial, nor was it my business to fight any of you." He said, "I am just a mortal." His feet slowly began to move in stable backward steps that sent ripples into the pool of blood he had been standing in. "Bringing me into a battlefield was your mistake." He said.

    As Der finished speaking, he found himself standing in between his two panickedpanions. His handsnded gently onto their shoulders, and with a deep andmanding voice, he said, "Fear was never able to stop or control the two of you, and it never will. Now, wake up."

    In a moment these few words reached the ears of the two young men, dispelling the existential power of fear and control that had locked them into a cycle of worry and self-hate, and brought them back to reality. Such negative emotions were expelled with deep sighs as the worry left their faces.

    Once freed Daniel had felt a deep sense of humiliation. He had been caught. Hypnotized through the collective effort of the aspects of Fear, Control and Sentience, but caught nheless. He was furious, and yet, as he looked at the man standing beside him, his heart calmed down. For the first time since his ascension he had recognized the value of a mortal.

    Roley was of a simr mind. In his eyes Der appeared like a giant. A father one could rely on to carry them to safety through the night. A man who would face the very gods for the safety of his child. How could he have allowed himself to lose his respect? He asked himself. Ascending had never sounded less important than it had now.

    "What do we do now?" the young schr asked the warrior.

    After freeing his twopanions, the clearingid in front of Der''s eyes had changed. Not a normal battlefield anymore, as a foot soldier would have seen it, but a ying field. Far less pieces were on his side, but the rules were clear. His face turned solemn, and his voice announced, "Now we go to war."

 Chapter 668 The Endless Battlefield

    ?

    "Suit yourself, mortal." The giant said in response to Der''s words. Hisrge left arm stretched outwards, and towards the mountains of corpses and the cries of battle as he added, "Hornse, your shadow will join my world for the rest of eternity."

    Der grinned. "You speak too much, barbarian." He said as waves of oddly powerful immortal essence flooded every inch of his body.

    The Endless Battlefield.

    That was the name of the dimension Daniel and the others were currently in. A separate in of existence not unlike melodia, the underworld, or the spiritual in, but also somewhat different. What made the battlefield different from most other existential ins was not the way it had been created, but the way in which it was being used, for it was not being wielded by its creator, but by War, the one it had been gifted to.

    Through the long history of the pantheon of existence, only twice had such gifts been offered from one aspect of existence to another, for their creation required an immense amount of unique existential power. Few knew how much of that power the aspects of Death and Spirit had been required to spend to create their own ins of existence, but that was not the case of their primordial counterparts.

    Just like melodia, the endless battlefield had been created by a primordial aspect of existence as one of two gifts then given to those who more than any other aspect contributed to his nature. The Endless Battlefield, gifted to the first reincarnation of the aspect of War and now inherited by its sessor, and the Hunting Grounds, given to one of War''s closest allies, the aspect of Hunt. So had decided their creator, Conflict.

    Unlike the hunting grounds, which offered boundless worlds filled with prey and predators for the champions of Hunt to chase or be chased by in eternity, the endless battlefield was a ce of death. In it armies waged wars to one another from the peak of their condition to beyond the moment of their deaths, for anyone who died in the endless battlefield was bound to join its background as remnant shadows that knew nothing but war.

    Now free from the crippling fear, Daniel was finally able to properly observe this world, and soon, he noticed something peculiar.

    While the battlefield was separated from the multiverse, and existed independently, in it Daniel could feel the presence of existential powers. What was peculiar, however, wasn''t that there would be existential powers tied to the act of war, like the powers of Conflict, Death and War himself, but that the only powers present were those wielded by his current opponents.

    The orange sky would asionally re with green hues of Control and Authority, soon to be reced by the reds of War, Instinct and Sacrifice and the gray and blue of Deceit and Sentience, before showing blinding bouts of white and golden lights. What had surprised him the most, however, was the sheer quantity of each power. Within the confines of this in Daniel felt each existential power at their peak potential, as if the endless battlefield was each aspect''s core universe, including his.

    What he did not know was that this was the true purpose of this dimension. To create the purest form of conflict by pitting entities against one another at the peak of their conditions.

    Curious about the effect such a power would have on immortal cultivators, Daniel turned to look at Roley, now busy staring dumbfounded at his left hand, where a bead of primordial mana was being formed at ridiculous speed. A shock that he shared, but not for long, for his attention was soon caught by Der''s body.

    What he saw in front of him was not a man any longer. His body had retained its original shape, but he was now d in a golden armor that had appeared without anyone noticing. His full visor helmet hid his facepletely, but the immortal power his body emanated was boiling around him, around the longsword he carried in his left hand, and therge scale-shaped shield he held in his right hand.

    "What-" Daniel staggered a step or two at the sight of him, shocked by the warrior''s imposing demeanor. "What are you?" He then asked, convinced that the man that stood in front of him was not a human anymore, but one of the creatures mortals with no understanding of the multiverse or its true gods would pray to for blessings.

    "Can you still take care of those three?" Der''s deep voice emerged from his helmet, a show of domineering authority that chipped away at the sense of superiority Daniel was still getting used to after his ascension.

    "I can.." Daniel responded with a nod.

    Satisfied by Daniel''s response, the warrior in gold turned to face the young man who, too busy experimenting with the boundless amount of power at his disposal, had failed to notice what Daniel had. As his gazended onto him, however, Roley felt a jolt of electricity run down his spine. His body straightened and he turned to his left in a hurry.

    Just like Daniel, Roley had been shocked by Der''s power and demeanor, but unlike the former, the young schr had failed to perceive the true depths of his power. The same power that had led him to behave like a private during his first interaction with a general, and that was forcing him to pay the utmost attention to any word that came from the man''s mouth.

    "I need you to make three of those beads for me, but do them like this.." Der said to a dumbfounded Roley, who could only nod at every other word and follow his orders. Secondster, Roley handed over three beads to Der, whom he casually kept while adding, "Keep Fear and lower tiers busy. Keep them off me and him until we are done."<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "What are you going to do?" Daniel asked.

    Der''s hands tightened around the handles of his shield and sword, and his head turned to the giant in fiery red armor. His immortal essence lingered over the shiny surface of his armor, threatening to escape his control and dart ahead, but not daring to. It boiled quietly as Der said, "I will fight their general."

    Der''s odd demeanor had surprised the other aspects of existence the same way it had Daniel, leaving them to argue with one another in a state of shock. The only ones who could maintain their calm were the aspects of War, Order and Instinct.

    "He was right." Instinct said, "Bringing them here was a mistake."

    While taking notice of his words, Order and War kept staring at their three opponents. Both had failed to understand the magnitude of the potential of Daniel''spanions before bringing them to a world of honorable conflict, but it was toote now to change their minds. Once inside the endless battlefield, the only way to leave was to win the war.

    Despite their initial surprise, the immense power at their disposal did a good job to ease their minds, or in War''s case, to excite him.

    The giant was staring at Der''s figure, his hand tightly wrapped around therge battleaxe as smoke emerged from the cavern in between his lips. He had heard Der''s words, and now, he was eager to meet the man in battle. Someone he had hardly even noticed before, but who now felt like a creature he could fight with for the rest of eternity.

    Order immediately noticed War''s crazed state of mind, and immediately worried. Even though thetter''s power was not at his level, he was still the aspect of War. He was the most qualified of them to lead others in battle, and that was the task he had been given in exchange for a chance to participate in the trial, or so was the n. The giant was now trembling in excitement, uncaring for themanding side of his nature, and instead delving deeply into the concept of confrontation. That could not go on any longer, Order thought, but before he could calm him down, the deafening sound of a war horn blew through the reddish skies, warning the participants of themencement of the battle. Immediately after, the figures of Der and War disappeared from their original positions, reappearing in the very middle of the battlefield where they had engaged in battle.

    To the right side, Roley found himself to face five aspects of existence. Authority, Control and Fear of the mid tier, and Deceit and Sacrifice of the low tier. Entities who would have liked to engage in battle with worthier opponents, but that would only be a burden for the tight cooperation of Sentience, Instinct and Order, and a hindrance to the brutal fighting style of War.

    As they headed for their opponent, however, they were forced to rethink their original approach, for in front of them was a creature of primordial might, who lingered in the air surrounded by dozens of the very same beads that just minutes ago had managed to hurt them.

    On the other side of the battlefield, Daniel was facing the remaining three aspects of existence. His power was at the peak of its capacity, and flowed through his body and into his golden weapon like a boundless river. The first sh between his golden spear and Order''s white sword was extraordinarily heavy, making thetter''s wrist tremble upon impact, and forcing his body to back away a few inches.

    Inside his helmet, Order looked at Daniel with shocked eyes. "How was he that strong?" He asked himself as a second blow came upon him. This time, too quick for him to parry it properly. *CLANK* The sh brought Order onto one of his knees. Alive and unharmed, yet trembling uncontrobly in an attempt to shake off the residual power of Daniel''s attack. His mind, on the other hand, was nk.

    Making use of Order''s shock, Daniel brought his weapon down once again, but before his spear could impale the white knight onto the ground, a demonic hand of red and ck skin emerged from underneath his feet. Its long nails reached for Daniel''s thigh in an attempt to sink deep into its flesh, but Daniel had noticed it.

    He immediately backed away, and with a twist of his wrist, he directed the golden spear at the ground he stood on. The thought of sinking the weapon into the blood-soaked ground formed in his mind, and carried through his muscles with a jolt of electricity, but then, his mind stopped for a moment. Too short to stop Daniel from performing the attack, but long enough for a hidden Instinct to back out of a mortal injury.

    After witnessing Daniel''s might, the three aspects of existence backed away. Order, once calm and dignified, was now panting and adjusting the hold onto his greatsword. Instinct pressed one of his hands tightly against his left shoulder, where Daniel''s spear had pierced him in its downward motion. Sentience was the only one physically unharmed, but his wide eyes reflected damages of different nature.

    Horror appeared in his eyes at the realization that the power which had once been able to numb Daniel''s mind, was now even less of an annoyance.

    The three looked at one another, findingfort in their shared shocked state of mind before turning to look back at Daniel. Their hearts calmed down slowly, as they prepared to once again engage in battle with focus and attentiveness that was unheard of in battles between aspects of equal tier.

    But, s, the gazes of the three did nothing but cause Daniel to grin in amusement. A feeling of excitement took over his mind as he realized that, for the first time, he could go all out. After all, he was now within a world where his influence was as vast as that of aspects who had lived for billions of years, further fueled by the malevolent creatures which, stuck within their individual hell within Daniel''s body, were being put out of their misery to provide him additional karmic power.

 Chapter 669 The Nature Of War

    ?

    Many had been the trials held for the members of the pantheon throughout the years. Official procedures aimed at judging the infractions of the aspects of existence, and which, more often than not, would conclude in an execution. A flimsy punishment, the primordial aspects of existence had thought, considering that the death of an aspect only meant the death of their current reincarnation.

    By the time an aspect was born out of their existential power, the power itself had stabilized within the multiverse. So even if their wielder died, bringing with them the entirety of their influence, that power would eventually recover, and grow to a point where a new aspect would be born.

    Hence why the pantheon had chosen to put Daniel on trial. What disturbed the nature of Fate was not the existential power of karma, but the creature that wielded it. A cultivator that had broken past the omniscient rulings of the tapestry, and ascended to the ranks of deities. With his death, a new aspect of karma would eventually be born, and he or she would be of a simr nature than the rest of them.

    Unfortunately, Daniel''s ability to store power within his body had forced the pantheon to make adjustments to the standard procedure of the trials. The aspects ofw, who would usually preside as the right judge, had been reced by Sentience. And so had thete aspect of equilibrium, who would usually upy the role of the left judge, as well as act as the seer for the trial.

    Other than four witnesses, three more were the unchanging roles within the tribunal. The role of the head judge, held by Order, the order of the scribe, held by Authority, and the role of the executioner, held by War. Those were the aspects of existence who had presided over every single trial since its conception. While all these positions were essential, however, the presence of thetter was of peculiar importance, for in his possessionsy the tribunal''s most important means of execution. The Endless Battle.

    A battlefield made by Conflict for the sole purpose of contributing to his power, then used by the tribunal as the ce where the executions of trialed aspects of existence would take ce. In it, the members of the tribunal would not have to worry aboutcking the influence to carry on the execution, for in its confines everyone was at the peak of their power.

    After being tasked with Karma''s execution by the aspect of Fate and Chaos, the only reason the members of the tribunal had not worried about the possible conflict with the odd aspect of existence was exactly because of the dimension''s peculiar ability. They knew how powerful Daniel truly was, but they did not believe him to be stronger than three aspects of the same tier, let alone when they were at full power.

    Yet, their minds had started to change.

    As they fought against the former mortal, the aspects of Order, Sentience and Instinct soon realized that the depths of Daniel''s power were far beyond what they had realized, for the strength of his existential power appeared to be doing something their own was not able to. It was growing.

    Soon, attacks that once were able to push him back a few steps were easily blocked by his spear. Ambushes that seconds ago would have caused a few minor wounds, were now easily seen through and avoided, and mental attacks that would have at least seeded in distracting him, now hindered his consciousness as much as a blink would hinder his vision.

    Within minutes, the three felt that in their fight against a single opponent of equal standing, they were the ones at a disadvantage, not him. The scale started to bnce out once Sentience gave up on his mental powers, and chose to join in the fray while wielding his brush, whose bristles connected to a thinning rope of blue power he used as a whip of sorts. As he did so, their side of the battlefield reached a stalemate.

    On the other side, the aspects of Authority, Control and Sacrifice had engaged with Roley in a simr battle. Their weapons being, respectively, a ten foot gavel of hazel-colored polished wood, indestructible chains and vines of various colors and strength, and an array of blood-red white weapons, going from the smallest of knives torge executioner axes.

    The aspects of Deceit and Fear were also taking part in this fight, but their contribution was mental, rather than physical. The former cried, and spoke words of surrender as images that depicted a valiant triumph of Roley yed out in thetter''s mind, while Fear tapped into his deepest worries. "I am winning" he would rejoice, before looking further than the illusory corpses he had left behind to see his friendsy at their opponents'' feet, dead.

    These constant thoughts and lies kept chipping at his sanity, but only a few times they managed to breach through the waves of primordial natural power, which protected him like a storm would protect its eye.

    Roley''s ridiculously powerful beads of condensed man were not as capable as causing the damage they had before, but the frequency with which they were created and thrown had left a sense of fear in the hearts of his enemies, causing them to not want to be the one he would focus his attacks on. One or two they could defend against, but he was throwing them by the dozen.

    To defend themselves from this threat, the mid and low tier aspects chose to maintain a passive behavior, waiting for one of Deceit''s or Fear''s mental attacks to seed before mounting an attack of their own. After a few minutes, this group too had fallen in a stalemate.

    Luckily, that was not the case for the third andst battlefield.

    In the middle of the blood soaked clearing Der and the barbaric aspect of existence were exchanging blows. Each weighted down by the boundless powers their bodies emanated, sending shock waves of catastrophic proportion to shake the very fabric of space. In the eyes of the other aspects of existence, their bouts appeared like one more even fight, but that was not the case for the giant, who felt beads of sweat trickle down the side of his face after receiving each of Der''s blows.

    Sparks of golden and red colors darted in the air as the enormous battleaxe shed against Der''s shield, then flung to the side as, instead of blocking the blow, the warrior in golden armor bashed it to the side, leaving War''s body unprotected. He pierced forward with the tip of his sword, extending its reach with immortal essence so that it could reach its mark.

    War reacted immediately, and with a flicker of his wrist, rotated the enormous battleaxe just enough for its long handle to smack the de of golden sword aside. But, s, his power was not sufficient, as the sword was not deflectedpletely, and was able to pierce through the right side of the giant''s waist.

    ming red slush seeped out of the wound, dripping over the aspect''s furry loincloth likeva down the side of a mountain. His red eyes narrowed as he took a step back, pressing on his wound in a childish attempt to make it stop hurting, but Der did not give him the chance to retreat.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    As War staggered backwards the warrior advanced, charging ahead with a shield tightly bound against his shoulder. The giant immediately tried to wave the battleaxe forward, but before he could, the warrior''s shield bashed heavily against his leg, causing him to drop heavily against his knee. Now at arm''s reach, Der closed his fist and plunged it heavily against therge skull that covered the giant''s face, shattering it into hundreds of differently-sized pieces and striking the side of his chin.

    The head of the giant snapped to the side, then he fell on the ground with a loud ssh, unconscious.

    At the sight of his defeated opponent, Der lifted the visor of his helmet and took a deep breath. His eyes moved on the other two battlefields, and he began to examine how each of hispanions was faring. He could feel that whatever miracle had bound this new power to his body was now growing weaker, at a rate that would have only allowed him to help one of his friends.

    Before he could, however, the body of the giant began to move. Or to be more precise, to shrink.

    His bulging bones deted like pierced balloons, shedding the clothes he wore as well as the long hair of his body, until finally, only a normal sized man was left. A man that soon after stood back up.

    This man possessed valiant facial features crowned by short ck hair, an exceptionally toned build, and eyes identical to those of the barbarian he had been only seconds ago. Small craters andrge gashes covered his body, scars of swords shes and gun shots that had not been there in his giant''s form, but that now marked every inch of his body. His thick browsy t, as his narrowed eyes observed Der''s figure with interest.

    As his mouth opened a deep voice emerged, nowcking the cockiness he was used to showing. "High Lord Fate was right." He said. "Nothing good will evere from Destiny''s spawn, or their allies." *BANG* A loud sound carried through the clearing, immediately followed by a faint nk of metal striking metal.

    Der''s eyes opened wide as he faintly noticed therge rifle that, at some point, had appeared behind the man''s body, lingering in the air while pointed straight at him. Sharp waves of pain came from his chest as he looked down to find a spiderweb crack on his golden breastte. From its center, bright red blood trickled down weakly.

    "Impressive." War said. "Your armor held better than I thought. Well enough to spare you a hole in your heart."

    A mouthful of blood rushed out of Der''s throat, which he immediately spat out with a loud cough. His eyes rose once again to look back at the scarred warrior, only to find him now d in a ck and red mimetic attire. Clothes that, as he stood on a pool of blood and in front of dark mountains of corpses, made his body difficult to see. Around him was not one rifle anymore, but tens of thousands, each upying their own ce within the surrounding space and each aimed at him.

    "You did not truly believe you had a chance of winning, did you?" War asked

    Der spat a second mouthful of blood before letting out a dryugh. His hands slowly removed his helmet. "Every general has a n, until the n backfires and smacks you right in the face, right?" He said.

    War did not seem to find Der''s words funny, and yet, he understood. He was the aspect of war, after all, and war did not belong to the winning side alone. His well toned arm rose faintly in preparation to send a rain of fire into the mortal he was facing. Not because he needed to, but so that his opponent would know that this was truly thest moments of his life. "I will ask you onest time. Abandon the fool''s side, and join my domain. I will give you anything you desire."

    Der''s trembling hands undid the buckles that kept his breastte on his chest, causing it to fall on the ground and disappear in motes of gold dust. His chest inted, then slowly deted. He undid the buckles that kept his leg armor in ce, causing the golden tes to fall aside and disappear into the depth of the pool of blood with a faint ssh.

    What was left of Der''s equipment was a pair of golden gauntlets attached to the handles of his sword and shield, while the rest of his body was covered in the clothes he had been wearing before, a simple linen shirt ripped in the middle with a charred hole, dark pants and dark boots. His chest inted slowly, carrying along a sharp wave of pain that cleared his mind before deting once again.

    "For being the all-powerful aspect of war, you sure know nothing of why war is waged." Der said while tinkering with the straps of his gauntlets. "You know nothing of what it means to protect, to take revenge on, or simply want to take. You know nothing but the fight."

    War''s indifferent expression showed hints of anger.

    "If there is a fool here, that is the one who convinced you that you represent war, while in truth, you are little more than a weapon." Der added as his knees bent, and he sunk deeper into the pool of blood. Every bit of the power that had made him able to fight against an aspect of existence on even ground focused his shield and sword. "Do your worst."

    "Suit yourself." War responded as tens of thousands of weapons behind him in unison.

 Chapter 670 Every War Has An End

    ?

    A barrage of bullets formed by the existential power of war came crashing against Der''s shield, hammering onto the oddly powerful essence he wielded in an attempt to pierce through, and riddle his body with holes. Each felt like a punch, and knocked the wind out of his already empty lungs as he struggled to remain standing over the mushy mixture of dirt and blood. His legs were spread out, one bent in front of him while the other was stretched backwards in an attempt to lower his center of gravity and stabilize himself.

    The sound of thousands of guns firing roared deafeningly, catching the attention of both Roley and Daniel who immediately tried to help. Before either of the two could evene close to the third battlefield, however, their opponents had increased the rate of their attacks, forcing them back into the stalemate they had been stuck in for thest several minutes.

    Each bullet that struck Der''s shield went out in an explosion of reddish existential power against a transparent wall, forcing him back bit by bit.

    "If you were hoping that I would run out of power, think again, mortal." Said the deep and stern voice of the man in ck and red attire. His arms rose up above his shoulders, dragging several thousand more guns out of the puddles of blood, and up to the sky to join the rest. "I can keep going forever." He then added, as the roar of gunfire intensified even further.

    With the addition of the second arsenal Der found himself unable to hold on any longer. His left leg, the one he kept bent underneath him, was now joining the other, forced back by the pressure of his opponent''s attacks. The upper body that so far had been leaning forward was now standing straight, struggling to prevent his shoulders from moving back and losing his footing. At some point his spine had begun to crack, as his mind focused on a single task-To push the shield, now pressed tightly against his chest, forward. "Come on..e on! Gods damn it!" He growled a curse to the deities of a religion he had grown into, now long forgotten.

    "You should have epted my offer." War muttered to himself when, suddenly, Der''s body stopped its retreat. Through the res of red light he saw the scale-shaped shield move lower, and the man''s short ck hair hid behind it. His feet once again nted against the mud, but this time, they did not remain still.

    Daniel''s head snapped to the side as a fear of sort crept into his spine. Order''s greatsword came down heavy against his spear with a loud clunk, managing to knock it off his hands, but he did not care. His focus was the mortal that had apanied him, and the power that now fueled his slow advance. The same power of unknown origin he had felt before, that had allowed the warrior to face the aspect of existence on even ground and that had now struggled to keep up with thetter''s full might. A power that now was changing.

    Foreign in nature, this power hade from the depths of Der''s being. Not innate like the essences of the body, mind and spirit, nor created or acquired like the powers of existence. It was a me that had set Der''s entire being aze, granting him the ability to create his own path to victory-And now, under the constant pressure of War''s attacks, it was being tempered.

    Each bullet came down onto Der''s shield like a cksmith''s hammer onto a red-hot de, stripping it of its imperfections and hardening it, preparing it to be wielded. And so Der did. Every blow seemed to lessen the pressure of the barrage of attacks, allowing him to take minuscule steps towards his opponent.

    As Order noticed Daniel''s distraction, he turned towards hispanions, hoping to coordinate an attack that would put an end to his existence once and for all. Yet, as his eyes shifted from the new aspect of existence to his oldpanions, he found them staring in the same direction. Their eyes wide open, far more than Daniel''s were, for they could feel, as the aspects of Instinct and Sentience, that what they were looking at was a creature beyond theirprehension. A dangerous one.

    Now confused, Order turned to look at the fight between War and the mortal as well, then he fell silent. His mind numbed by the trembling of his nature, threatened by an entity whose sheer existence created far more chaotic energy than Daniel and Roley hadbined.

    Hisrge hands, now tightly wrapped around his greatsword''s handle, moved on their own, as if controlled by a secondary consciousness of sheer order to smite the creature of chaos. He dashed ahead in a daze right before a hand hooked onto the cor of his white armor and dragged him back a few feet. Furious by the sudden interruption, Order started to spew a few curses, but then, a golden spear pierced the air in front of him, right where his head would have been had Instinct not pulled him back.

    "I won''t let you interfere now that things are getting interesting." Daniel said as a pair of curved knives of pure karmic power appeared in his hands. His golden existential power, which had eventually stopped growing the moment he had be able to fight the three opponents on equal ground, had now grown once again.

    Seeing this growth, Order, Sentience and Instinct realized that Daniel had not used the full extent of his power, but that he had been rationing it, trying to reach the point where he would gain the advantage without having to waste any of it. Why he would do such a thing was simple to guess. Nobody assured Daniel that, in case he won this fight and killed the entirety of the tribunal, there wouldn''t be more aspects to wait for him back in Sacrifice''s domain. For all he knew, this entire trial might have been a ruse, with the simple goal of draining him of his stored power before killing him once and for all.

    With that lick of additional power, Daniel and his opponents resumed their fight, leaving the aspect of War to deal with the unknown creature that approached him. And so he did.

    Step by step, Der forced his way towards the man in the dark military attire, as thetter stared at him with a deep interest. "What a peculiar power." War said as several hundred more guns fueled with the power of war itself joined the rest of the arsenal, increasing the pressure bit by bit. "Let us find your limits, shall we?"

    With the increased pressure Der was forced to slow his pace, but soon, his power began to adapt to the attack, allowing itself to be tempered by an even higher strength. Der''s initial speed was that of a crawl, and yet, the more time passed, the faster he moved.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    As Der had reached the hundred feet mark, the aspect of War grinned. Few were the times he was allowed to bully inferior creatures. A habit that had been beaten out of him by Order just centuries after his birth. He smiled contentedly as several more weapons appeared, joining the others.

    By the eighty feet mark the grin had morphed into a wicked smile that exploded into a maniacalugh moments after it had appeared. Half of the weapons had evolved into more advanced machinery, with higher rate of fire and more powerful bullets. Their rate of fire hid their wielder''sugh.

    At fifty feet, the smirk was gone. A deep sense of unease had started to build in War''s mind. Deepened by the deafening sound each bullet made as they bounced off a shield whose power he could not even recognize the nature of. The arsenal had now tripled in size, and each individual weapon had turned to the most sophisticated piece of weaponry ever brought into a human battlefield.

    Once Der crossed the ten feet mark, War''s worry had be sheer anxiousness. His nose and forehead glistened with sweat as the majority of his power was brought down on Der''s shield in the form of constant beams, shot by mechanical turrets that only the most tyrannical and destructive of civilization had used to leave powder out of star systems in the wake of their passage.

    By now, the fluctuations of power had caught the attention of Daniel, Roley and all of their opponents, who had been staring at their confrontation in what appeared to be an unspoken truce. Roley''s opponents were particrly surprised by the sight of War, as well as by the magnitude of his attacks. Would I be able to survive that onught? They all asked themselves, aware of the answer.

    "ENOUGH!" War roared in a mixture of panic and indignation. "I am WAR. Victory is mine as long as I will it!" Once deep and proud, War''s voice had now gotten higher, making his words sound as much as aint as a plea. Unbeknownst to him, his feet had started to move back. The fleeting thought of retreat appeared in his mind, then disappeared just as quickly. As War caught himself thinking of retreat, his sanity copsed, and his fiery-red eyes went nk.

    Large des appeared on both of War''s hands as he prepared to meet Der''s arrival with every ounce of power left within his body-An attack he had often used in his youth to destroy each of the universes he had lost interest in. But that was not all. The hundreds of thousands of weapons that floated behind him and now turned into a red mist that plunged into skin, then driven into the edge of his des. He wanted to destroy this mortal. He wanted to split him in half, and erase him from existence alongside the shame he was feeling, and the rest of the multiverse.

    Once his opponent was only a few feet away, his hands joined and rose above his head. The des glowed with impossible red light that caused the lower tier aspects of existence to feel the pressure of his nature. His teeth were gritted and his crazed eyes locked onto the part of the shield he wished to see destroyed.

    But then, the shield was moved to the side, and three transparent beads were thrown in front of his eyes and next to each of his ears.

    After noticing these beads, War could not help but grin. He knew of the threat these weapons posed, but that was only the case when he was within Sacrifice''s domain. At the height of his power, these bombs of primordial power would only manage to ruin his clothes. However, as one of the beads lingered in front of his yes, he noticed that something was different. He could not feel any elemental power from these beads, only the powers of.. "NO!" He yelped, toote.

    Der immediately moved the shield back in front of him, then plunged his fingers deep into his ears.

    The beads cracked in front of War''s eyes and next to his ears, and then, nothing. The world of endless battle had abandoned his senses, reced by endless darkness and eerie silence. His consciousness hung by a thread, only kept together by the hurt caused by his charred eyes, and the sharp pain that came from both of his pierced eardrums.

    Infinite blinding lights and deafening sounds were thest thing on War''s mind as a more familiar sharp pain spread from the middle of his stomach. "But.. I will win, if I will it." hemented as Der''s sword shed through his chest, throat and head, split his body in half.

    The observing fighters, stunned by the same light and sounds that took away War''s senses, recovered just in time to see thetter''s body fall to the ground, lifeless. Order immediately turned to look at the aspect of Sentience, who, after noticing his gaze, shook his head slowly in confirmation that War had indeed perished.

    While the idea that a mortal had been able to kill an aspect of existence was shocking enough to numb their minds, things were about to get much worse. Soon they realized that the existential power of war had not dissipated like it should have after the death of its aspect, but instead, was now moving towards the now powerless mortal.

 Chapter 671 A Simple Choice

    ?

    "Are you sure that War is dead?" Order asked the aspect of Sentience, now busy staring at the events that were unfolding in the middle of the battlefield with dumbfounded eyes.

    "I have no doubt." Sentience responded. "His consciousness is gone."

    "Check again!" Order bellowed. "We both know that a power of existence cannot manifest itself without a consciousness to wield it!" His words came out with misdirected anger, for he knew all too well that there was no room for mistake in Sentience''s powers. Had there been anything left of War''s consciousness he would have felt it, so he did not bother to respond, adding only to Order''s frustration.

    He felt powerless. Powerless to act as vast chaotic energy filled the endless battlefield, giving a grim apaniment to the existential power of War which was shrouding Der''s body in a red fog. Daniel''s attacks had halted, but he could tell that, had he intervened, he would have to do so at the risk of his own life.

    For a few seconds he could only observe and feel his nature tremble, weighing his options before his own mind could. But that did notst long, for in about a minute, his mind had been set. He had to act, even if that meant being hurt in the process. His fingers squeezed the polished handle of his greatsword and his knees bent gently in preparation for a charge. Faint movements that did not escape Daniel''s notice, as he prepared to intercept him with power of his own.

    Before either of the two could move, however, their attention was drawn by a heavy gasp. Him, Sentience and Daniel turned towards the aspect of Instinct, who was staring at the unconscious man and the red fog with wide eyes. "The power.. the power is picking its new wielder!" He yelled with a shaky voice.

    -----

    The few drops of power left within Der''s body had left him with hisst strike, after which he fell to the ground, unaware of his surroundings. His hands instinctively reached for the sword and shield he had dropped, only to thrash pointlessly in the slush hey on. The gentle motion of the blood pool cooled his skin like an unused pillow on a summer night, dragging him to sleep before turning ufortably warm. His eyes closed, and he fell asleep.

    When his eyes opened once again, he found himself in a foreign ce. The blood-soaked clearing was missing, and so were the mountains of corpses, the constant echo of distant endless battles, and the deafening ruckus Daniel and Roley were making during their fights. What was in front of him was almostplete darkness.

    His hands pressed heavily against the ground, or at least he thought he did, for he could see neither the ground nor his hands. His body rose in a fluid motion, devoid of any of the pains he would have expected to feel after the constant hammering of War''s attacks. "Where am I?" he muttered to himself as his head turned left and right. What he saw was further darkness. Absolute obscurity not unlike that of space, butcking theforting lights that reflected on the surface of nears, or which originated from further stars.

    More questions appeared in his mind. How did I get here? What is this ce? Did I win? Am I dead? All questions he was eager to have answered, but he was never the type to ponder over questions. Not unless there was someone with him with answers. Instead, he focused on one problem in particr. How to get out.

    He called for his immortal essence, willing it to respond, and then he felt it. He turned around in a quick motion to find a small me lingering at what he felt was waist height. It was white in color, and as weak as candlelight, but extremely familiar. It flickered as Der''s eyesid upon it, as if in response to his attention. The flicker of this me brought a semnce of joy to Der,''s mind as each of its movements yed out like a dear memory.

    Drawn by this me Der headed in its direction, trying to walk what he thought were just a few miles of emptiness. However, he soon came to realize that no matter how much he walked, he wasing no closer to it. His failure yed in his mind like a minor development, but which filled his heart with feelings of sadness and anxiety.

    A disappointment he delved into for only a few moments before something new caught his eye.

    Not too far from the white light a second me had appeared. Of a moremon red and yellow color, this me burned at thousands of times the intensity of the white one, bringing with each of its suave motions feelings opposite to those of its smaller counterpart. In it Der felt promises of power and authority and victory, assuring him that, had he always wielded this me''s power, few of the beings he had met in his life would have been able to stand his power.

    To Der''s right side the enormous red me burned with power, ambition, and dominance, while on the opposite side, the white light burned feebly with warm feelings and memories. Between them was a patch of trembling space, shaken by the impact between the two powers of opposing nature.

    As thisrger red me appeared, Der felt the desire to reach for it just like he had the white one before. This time, however, his steps brought him closer to its mark.

    The red me reacted wildly, ted by the man''s approach the same way a bonfire would be at the addition of dry sticks soaked in oil. Every step Der took made the red me double in size, covering more of his surroundings the closer he got. With its growth, the white me flickered in pain, struggling to stay lit under the red me''s power.

    Der kept approaching the enormous fire, feeling his cares and worries for others slip out of his consciousness, reced by thirst for power, and feelings of superiority. He reached forward, fingers lingering just inches from the wild red me, when suddenly, he stopped. "So this is what happened to you.." Der muttered under his breath in realization. The fire in front of him crackled in response, eager for the man to wield it. But Der didn''t. His hand was lower as his body turned to face the white light, now close to being extinguished. Then, he started walking.

    Behind him the red me exploded, turning into a red colored fog that surrounded what Der had now realized was only a world within his own consciousness. It lingered around him invitingly, waving gently in hope to coax the warrior to pick it. "I will make you stronger than the ones that came before you." the red mist said, using Der''s own voice. "Wield me, and set it all aze in the mes of war."

    Every word spoken was sweet and tempting. His spirit as a general and warrior was screaming at him to take the offer, to ept that power and use it to protect and conquer, like he had done so many times before. But Der never hesitated. He stepped forward with purpose, shattering any barrier the red fog put between him and the small white light with sheer conviction.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Once at arm''s reach of the white light, the red smoke had started shifting with aggression. It barred the man from moving, its words lingering in his ears still in an attempt to coax him, to give up what the white light meant and to embrace it instead. But it was all pointless. Der never stopped, not until he heard a deep and unknown voice. A gritty disembodied voice that belonged to no man he had ever met. "Why not me?" The voice asked.

    Der finally stopped. On his nonexistent lips appeared a faint smile as he turned to face the now immense angered mist. "What makes me fit to wield you, is what I would lose were I to do so." He responded before turning to look back at the white me, and falling on his imaginary knees.

    Once face to face with the light, Der reached forward, unhindered by any of the barriers ced between the two. In a moment, his finger plunged into the white light, and Der saw it. All his connections to others, hispassion, selflessness and empathy, and desires of vengeance and to protect. Everything that had fueled his actions for the thousands of years he had lived. They all dove into his skin, alongside the pure white light which Der immediately recognized as the power he had wielded against the aspect of War.

    "Sorry I hesitated." he told himself as his consciousness dissipated once more.

    -----

    "Lord Order, what is happening?" Asked the eerie mixture of voices that belonged to the aspect of Fear, now lingering on the other side of the battlefield, next to the aspects of Order, Sentience and Instinct.

    Therge man in tinum armor did not respond. Instead, he turned to look back at Instinct and asked, "Are you sure this is what we are seeing?" His eyes did not wait for an answer, and instead moved to the middle of the battlefield, where the lingering red mist had turned into a powerful storm that warned the observing fighters from approaching.

    "I have no doubt." Instinct said, "I had no idea our powers had this level of sentience."

    "They don''t!" Sentience chimed in.

    "Awareness, then." Instinct corrected himself before his lips came to a close, pressing tightly together. His feline eyes lingered onto the red tornado for a few moments, then continued. "It must have judged the mortal worthy of his power. More than any consciousness it could have developed in the future, given enough time."

    Order felt a shiver run down his spine. "What would happen, were it to seed?" His question was aimed at Instinct, the only creature present who could give him some answers. "Would the existential power of war merge with that.. odd power of his?"

    "I can''t tell with my powers. I know nothing of the power he uses.." Instinct responded. "But I doubt it. If the two powers could merge that easily, would it take this long to do so? Worse case we would have a new aspect of War, closer in nature to him." His eyes moved back to Daniel, now busy observing the odd spectacle the same way they had been for the past few minutes. "Regardless, I think it''s wise we finish our business here, before things develop further." He then added.

    Order nodded. "Fear, we need your help here." he told the ghastly figure that lingered within the dark mist. His eyes then reached for those of Sentience and Instinct, who nodded back at him in understanding. The four prepared to resume battle openly and from within the shade alike, but then, the red storm stopped, as if halted in time.

    The four turned to look back at the middle of the battlefield, and then they felt it. The power of war, cut from whichever form of awareness that had controlled it after the death of its wielder, was dissipating like it should have after War''s death, uncovering the figure of an unconscious mortal warrior.

    The chaotic energy that had been created by the odd behavior of the existential power of war followed soon after, clearing the sky of most of its dark clouds.

    "Did it fail?" Sentience asked Instinct.

    "No." Order interjected. "The mortal refused it." He said as he noticed that not all of the chaotic energy was gone. Just that which was created by the power of war. He then sighed deeply at the sight of the unconscious man. "At least we are in no worse position than we were before." He added.

    Just as he finished speaking, the dimension began to tremble.

    Order and Sentience looked at the shaky mountains of corpses and darkening skies with confusion, as the ground they stood on turned softer under their weight.

    "The Endless Battlefield is copsing!" Instinct said. "Prepare yourselves to get thrown out!"

 Chapter 672 Hasty Escape

    ?

    "The Endless Battlefield is copsing! Prepare yourselves to get thrown out!" Instinct warned just before the space around him started to copse.

    The muddy terrain cracked violently, causing the pool of blood that covered it to be sent in the air in tiny spear-shaped droplets. In the air bolts of quiet lightning breached through the essence of space, striking randomly before disappearing, leaving behind rifts that leaked the absolute nothingness of the void. High above, the sky, dark and red like the sunset after a bloody battle was now falling, locking the aspects of existence and cultivators present in ce with an infinite pressure.

    Only able to move his eyes, Daniel turned to his right, where Der, now emptied of the odd power he had unleashed, was currently lying unconscious on a floating patch of blood-soaked dirt. His hands and feet trembled as he willed himself to move and reach for the unconscious man, but it was all for nothing. The power of the copsing dimension was unlike anything Daniel had experienced before, far heavier than the pressure he had felt from the primordial aspects he had encountered, and far more destructive than the copse of themon universes.

    From the corner of his eyes Daniel could see Order''s figure, now intent on doing the same thing he had tried to, albeit for different reasons. While Daniel wanted to pull Der out of danger, therge man in tinum armor wanted to destroy him, along with any bit of chaotic energy his unnatural power had created. After several failed attempts, the two noticed one another. Their eyes narrowed and their lips trembled in a failed attempt to say something, but before any semnce of sound coulde out, their attention was drawn elsewhere.

    Their eyes became blurry as the area that surrounded each individual shattered, revealingrge colorful pathways that extended thousands of miles before curving out of sight. In the middle of these pathways was a rope formed out of their individual powers, which extended past the pathway''s curvature and dove straight into their bodies, connecting to a pinprick of what each individual would consider the core of their existence.

    Before they could react the rope tugged heavily, pulling them into the pathway and through an ufortable journey across light years of dashing colors and blinding lights. An indescribable sense of nausea gripped at Daniel''s throat as his body was dragged one turn after another for what he knew was only moments, but felt years. After which, he once again felt himself floating in the familiar emptiness of space.

    He steadied himself, recovering from the nauseating feeling with a quick shake of his head, and giving a few moments to his eyes to focus on his dull and empty surroundings. Then, he saw them. Roley and Der were floating right where they had been before being thrown into the Endless Battlefield, either unconscious or letting out short-lived panicked yelps and blobs of dense vomit.

    Not too far from them were the figures of the other aspects of existence, now back in their regr attires and weakened powers. What separated their kind from their three opponents, however, was the fact that most of them had not regained theirposure right away, like he and Roley were close to doing, and Daniel could quickly guess why.

    The mortal husk they would usually defend with their infinite powers of existence, had been thrown into a pathway of unknown origin. Light years of travel between a ce that belonged to the multiverse, and one that didn''t. It was no surprise to Daniel that their minds and bodies, mortal and weak in nature, would not be able to resist such treatment.

    Yet, in their confusion, the aspects did not remain still. In mere seconds after their appearance, their colorful power of existence focused around them, creating cocoons and barriers formed by every bit of power their influence within this universe allowed them to wield. Or at least, that was the case for most of them.

    Sentience and Instinct had managed to regain theirposure as quickly as Daniel had. The former thanks to his powers over the mind, which had allowed him to recover from any form of mental damage at will, while thetter had avoided the damage altogether by closing his eyes and curling up into a ball as he was pulled into the pathway. An instinctive reaction that, though simple and somewhat childish, had spared him the pain his otherpanions were experiencing.

    Noticing the sorry state of the surrounding aspects of existence, the first thought that came to Daniel''s mind was to go on a rampage, but he hesitated. His previous bout with the aspects of Instinct, Sentience and Order had taken the majority of the power he had umted, leaving him with little more than ten percent left. Far more than enough to annihte the weakest half of the tribunal while in their incapacitated state, but not enough to face them all once they recovered. His only true option, at the moment, was to regroup and escape.

    As Daniel started to consider ways to retreat, however, a new consciousness spread across the universe. Powerful and infinite, this consciousness washed over his mind, and weighed over his shoulders like the grim gaze of an adult over their children, threatening severe consequences and punishments for their actions. This consciousness caught the attention of the four aspects of the highest tier, who immediately turned towards it with eyes wide with surprise.

    Through the pained and confused frowns one could see a semnce of reassurance on Order''s eyes, brought upon by the very appearance of this consciousness. A reassurance he shared with Sentience, who immediately regained theposed and dignified demeanor he had long since abandoned. The consciousness, however, failed to catch the attention of Instinct, for his mind was busy with other thoughts. And so was Daniel''s.

    The two lost interest in the origin of the consciousness moments after its appearance, and had turned to look back at one another with narrowed eyes. Momentster, their gazes shifted once again to the side, where the two figures of Der and Roley were lingering either unconscious or struggling to fight the dizziness.

    Instinct''s healthyplexion turned a mixture of red and ck as his hands grew twice their original size. The fingers of each hand stretched several inches, ending in long and sharp nails that could cut through the very essence of space, bringing it closer to its inevitable copse. His hair had now broken their binding, and were now floating freely in the air like a crown of bloody mes. Then, he disappeared.

    Daniel''s pupils narrowed. A spear of karmic power appeared in his right hand, which he then shot towards his two incapacitatedpanions, hoping to prevent the unpredictable aspect of Instinct from approaching them. Following the throw his body tensed, and he prepared for a dash, but then, he felt a pain spread from his side. Arge gash had appeared between his ribs. He turned to the side to find the aspect of Order, bearing his greatsword with renewed dignity and indifferent pride.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    When Instinct reappeared he was standing a few feet from Der''s unconscious body. Daniel''s attack had pierced the space in front of him, where he would have stood had his instincts notmanded that he stopped just inches from his predicted position. His talon-like hand rose to his shoulder, preparing to strike down at the unconscious man as he snapped his head back, avoiding a second spear of gold.

    A powerful nk created a shock wave as another attack from Order shed against Daniel''s spear, whom he had used to parry before throwing it at Instinct. While he was engaging the former in battle, however, his eyes never moved from thetter, who was ready to strike hispanions dead.

    Any attempt Daniel had made to leave Order behind and defend hispanions had resulted in an additional injury, until finally, he had an idea.

    The sparks of golden power that had surrounded him in an attempt to hinder Order''s attacks headed back towards him, retreating back into his skin. Instead of disappearing, however, these lights lingered on Daniel''s skin, granting it a hue of gold. Seeing the golden power Daniel had wielded against him retreat back into his body, Order saw an opportunity. He sped his greatsword with one hand, and in it, he injected the full extent of his power, then struck.

    "NO!" The naked man shouted at him from afar, but it was toote.

    As therge glowing de struck, Daniel''s body exploded in a wave of golden power, sent like a wave towards Instinct at inhuman speed. This wave, however, did not remain whole for long, and instead condensed into countless spearsunched through space in the form of a mesmerizing meteor shower. "It doesn''t matter if he can predict every one of my attacks," Daniel thought, "his instincts can''t help him dodge arge area attack."

    Sure enough, Instinct was forced to retreat, just in time for his body to avoid the shower of uncountable golden spears before they could impale every inch of his body, and unfortunately, just before he could kill at least one of Daniel''s oddpanions. But that was not a problem anymore, for his instinct told him that Daniel had now unleashed most of his power, and would be unable to throw a simr attack.

    The shower passed, and he prepared to strike at Der''s unconscious body, but then, his cat-like eyesnded on empty space. He turned to look back at the countless spears that just passed him by, and that were now moving away from him and towards Roley, and saw Daniel''s figure hidden within the spears, holding Der by the waist with one of his hands while the other was stretched towards his otherpanion, whom he caught soon after.

    The moment Daniel caught Roley, he and Der were shrouded in golden light, then shrunk to the size of atoms before being absorbed into his body. But he did not stop there. The wave of golden spears continued, heading towards a human-sized blob of blood-red power that, for thest few seconds, had been lingering undisturbed in space.

    In mere moments the spears struck, piercing through the red bubble and the person hidden inside it. "ARGH!" Came the pained cry of Sacrifice who lost control of his power.

    He opened his eyes, still clouded by the pathway''s blinding colors, and found himself within a sea of gold, spears of karmic power carved into space all around him as he moved alongside them. Sharp pain came from all over his body, where dozens of small wounds had appeared. He willed control over his power he had lost control of, but as he tried to, he felt it distant, moving further away every passing moment.

    His mind reached for further power, plentiful in his core universe, but soon realized that no power he summoned could breach the golden essence that surrounded him.

    Now panicked, he looked past the many spears, searching for the help of stronger creatures, but as he tried to speak, he only felt pain. The cor of the loose andfortable robe he was wearing had now tightened around his throat, and it was being used to drag him across space by his nemesis.

    With fear creeping under his skin, Sacrifice willed the bit of power within his body to help him escape Daniel''s grasp, only to realize that any form of construct he created was destroyed by the surrounding spears right after, and so would be his fate were he to free himself. True fear, however, started to set in when he saw a hue of blue light shine onto his clothes. His jaw fell as his eyes, which he turned at the cost of a fewyers of his neck''s skin,nded on the fast approaching interdimensional portal.

    Daniel made his escape hidden within his wave of power, but just as he came to a few feet of distance from therge dome of stable space that surrounded every portal, everything stopped. The infinitely powerful consciousness had tightened around his body, locking him and every bit of his power in ce.

 Chapter 673 Old Faces From Old Memories

    ?

    As he came to a few feet of distance from the dome of stable space known to protect every interdimensional portal across the multiverse, Daniel found himself trapped in ce by the existential power that belonged to the overwhelming consciousness.

    His karmic power, ki and spiritual awareness had been locked, and even his senses had been dulled, for the power that had trapped him, and by extension Sacrifice as well, did not allow for any signal to be sent to his brain from his tongue, skin, nose, ears and eyes. Thankfully, this power did not seem to ount for overly developed mental powers, as Daniel quickly found himself able to use his to picture thest few images that had appeared in front of him before being trapped into space.

    What appeared in his mind was a sea of bluish spatial essence which surrounded the gargantuan portal. "That doesn''t tell me much." Daniel thought to himself before choosing to unleash his mental power outside of his body, to use it in what he remembered to be an old practice he had learned from a race of mental cultivators many years back.

    Soon an intangible essence left his body in a green-colored wisp of light, then solidified into a small avatar that appeared identical to him in shape, but not in size, for it reached just about an inch in height in its full form. Once fully formed, Daniel inhabited the avatar with his consciousness, and used it to look around, and help him regain his bearings.

    The first thing the avatar noticed were the approaching figures of Order, Sentience and Instinct, each armed with their weapons of choice and ready to strike at his defenseless self. Yet, what truly caught his attention was the gargantuan pair of indifferent white eyes that had appeared behind them, and were currently staring at him with pure hostility. Each as big as a, and as bright as a white star covered in a thin ring of darkness. In the middle were empty pupils that appeared capable of leering through the very fabric of existence. Every detail of every moment in the past, present and future.

    "That is who this pressure ising from." Daniel thought as his avatar''s ghastly gaze met the pair of white eyes. "Fate."

    Order and the others continued to approach, at a now calmer pace. Their nails, swords and whip charged with the full extent of their powers, for they could not afford to spare any more. "Do it!" A disembodied voice said. A voice that pierced through the mind, and that sounded like a sound that was being yed out, was about to be yed and had been yed all at the same time.

    Instinct''s fingers joined together, and his hand turned into a drill of sorts while Sentience solidified his power, turning the whip he was wielding into a several miles long spear. Neither of the two needed wide attacks any longer. Not now that their opponent was forced still, presented to them like game that had found itself stuck in a hunter''s trap.

    The three coordinated their attacks, aware that their powers would not be able to pierce through Fate''s power, and that the very barrier would probably be removed just in time for their attacks tond, and far toote for Daniel to dodge. But then, a voice echoed across the universe. A second disembodied voice that Daniel felt was somehow familiar. One he had only heard speak a few words, thousands of years back. An old and calm voice said, "Now, this is unbing of your nature, my brother."

    As these words were spoken, the left of the two floating eyes began to flicker. Slowly at first, and then rapidly until the light disappeared from it. When the eye reignited, the light was not pure white any longer, but of a golden color.

    The attacks of Order, Sentience and Instinct came to a halt as they too found themselves stuck in what, to the three of them, might as well have been a barrier of space and time essence, for they did not have the luxury of a powerful mind that Daniel had.

    "Stay out of this." The first voice said as the single white eye began to shrink, until little more than a pinprick of light was left of it. In the distance, Daniel could see that this light was shrouding a white silhouette. A humanoid creature he was struggling to see the details of, since the light it shone with was too powerful for his mental power to see through.

    Once in human form, the silhouette began approaching, slowly growing in size until, momentster, the second eye followed suit. A second figure formed out of the remaining eye, but the glow it was surrounded by was much weaker. So weak, in fact, that Daniel could somewhat recognize a few details of the person it belonged to. An old man with long disheveled hair and scraggly beard wearing a tattered brown robe.

    This second figure darted in front of the entity it called brother, and once thetter stopped, he said, "You know why I had to intervene. I did it for you."

    "LIES!" Yelled the white silhouette, sending shock waves that instantly cracked the fabric of space, and initiating the universe''s copse. "Nothing you have ever done was done for anyone other than yourself!" As he finished speaking the white silhouette disappeared, then reappeared just a few feet ahead, past the old man crowned in golden power.

    The old man followed suit, disappearing and reappearing in front of his brother, stopping him from advancing any further once again. His handsy against the chest of the white silhouette, pressing against him in a calming manner. "Were that true, I would not be stopping you now. I would let you kill him, and prove that your nature is fickle, and bound to the actions of others.. as mine is."

    These words seemed to have struck a chord in the entity shroud in white light, who halted its furious march soon after. Its head lowered gently as he said, in what Daniel could feel was a more saddened tone, filled with regret. "Why did you have to exist..? Why did you have to be born?" He whispered after several seconds of silence, unbothered by how these words would be perceived by the old man.

    Despite the hurtful words, the old man did not appear offended. Both handsy gently over his brother''s shoulders, as he responded in the way a grandparents would their grieving grandchild, "I don''t know, brother. I never wanted to hurt you, or your nature." His hands slid past his shoulders, then lowered back to his sides. "But I exist. Time will tell what our ce within the multiverse was always destined.. fated to be."

    The white silhouette responded to the old man''s reassuring tone with a faint nod of his head, then disappeared. Once alone, the old man turned to give ast look at Daniel''s fleeting figure, still stuck in space and time. His golden eyes, however, were not aimed at Daniel''s frozen body, but at the eyes of his avatar. His lips curved into a faint smile, then, he disappeared as well, nowhere to be seen or felt by any of the powers at Daniel''s disposal.

    As soon as the two disappeared, Daniel''s consciousness left the small avatar and dove back into his head, just in time for the space around him to unfreeze. "AAAH! SAVE ME!" Yelled Sacrifice while waving his arms and legs, then shutting up the moment he saw the figures of the three high tier aspects of existence linger around him, weapons drawn and ready to strike, yet unmoving.

    "Interesting.." Daniel muttered to himself. His body, now free of any of its constraints, turned to face the three attackers. A small spear of golden light formed within his free hand, which he then sent in a piercing motion towards the aspect of Order, only to find it shing against an unexinable force. He tried again, and again, and again, but each attempt failed. The tip of his spear would never evene close to its mark, stopping just a few inches from causing any damage. "Heh.." He sighed in disappointment. "It was worth a try."

    The disappointment Daniel was feeling, however, was short-lived. A smile formed in his face as he noticed that he was still holding onto the cor of Sacrifice''s robe. Blood-colored existential power had reached him in the few moments they had spent free of their bindings, but were soon dispelled by a weak wave of Daniel''s karmic power. "Well, at least I still have you." He said before turning towards the interdimensional portal and dashing towards it.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "NO!" Sacrifice screamed in panic, just in time to see the unfrozen figures of Order, Sentience and Instinct strike the empty air and notice him in the distance, but it was toote, for the watery power of the portal had already embraced him.

    Once out of the universe, Daniel and Sacrifice found themselves within the white expanses of the trigate. A passive space many before them had used for travel, and from which they felt no form of threat, but that at the moment, was devouring the red and gold colored powers that their bodies emitted.

    Daniel, who could store his power within his body, did not appear bothered by this event, and quietly absorbed most of the spare power that lingered around him. Sacrifice, however, was beginning to panic. Not only was the power that surrounded him being consumed, but so was that within his body, which was being ripped out of his flesh like the moisture of a mortal man''s body would in space.

    This process took only a few minutes, after which, Daniel threw Sacrifice''s now mortal form aside and focused on himself. Momentster, two small lights emerged from his forehead, then grew to the size of two humans. A faint pop was heard as the light shattered, revealing the figures of Der and Roley.

    "What happened?" Der asked, now awake from what he had felt being a peaceful sleep that hadsted anywhere between a few seconds, to thousands of years. "How did we get here?"

    "With someone''s help." Daniel responded casually.

    Der did not bother to inquire further. He knew that Daniel had little of his former humanity left. If he did not wish to speak on what had happened, he would not be able to convince him otherwise. Instead, his expression turned grave as he remembered something important. "What about our friends? Did we recover them?" He asked.

    "Argh." Roley groaned to the side. His head held in between his hands as he experienced a mental fatigue he had never experienced before. The effect of the endless battlefield had note for free, he realized right before hearing Der''s question.

    Daniel did not answer, and instead grabbed the now choking figure of Sacrifice who, now devoid of every bit of his existential power, was not much different in nature than an odd-looking mortal. Weak, fragile, and unable to breathe in the trigate''sck of air. "Do you mind?" He asked Roley, who immediately created a breathable atmosphere for Sacrifice to breathe in.

    Sacrifice took a deep breath, the first in many millions of years. It took him several minutes before getting ustomed with the ancient art of breathing, and regaining the ability to talk.

    Before he could speak, however, Daniel grabbed him by the hand, and with a slight of hand he removed one of his rings. Specifically, the ring that held the pocket dimension which contained the former members of his group. He then asked, while dangling the ring right in front of his eyes, "Are they all here? The people you were holding hostage, are they all here?"

    "Wait!" Sacrifice finally said, "I will tell you who sent me, just.. don''t kill me! Please!"

    Daniel rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Just answer the damn question." He said with an audibleck of patience.

    "I-Yes.. no? I don''t know! Those are the mortals who were given for me to hold. I don''t know if they are the people you are looking for!" Sacrifice answered, visibly terrified.

    Daniel was not bothered by the man''s words. He knew that Roley''s system would not lie, and point them in the wrong direction. He could not tell for sure whether every person his former self wanted him to keep safe were alive and kicking inside it, not after thousands of years. But he knew that those within the ring were at the very least what was left of his former group.

    "Close enough." Daniel said without taking his eyes off of the ring. His other hand casually let out small des of golden powers which instantly pierced through the atmosphere that was allowing Sacrifice to breathe.

    Once again Sacrifice began to choke, and w at the air in front of him in an attempt to catch Daniel''s attention, but he never did. "I can tell you who sent me!" he screamed in his mind.

    "I already know." Daniel muttered out loud as Sacrifice slowly died.

    Der and Roley did not appear bothered by the aspect''s death, for they had other things to worry about. They could feel that the portal that stood nearby was the one they had just left, and they knew that any potential pursuer was likely not far.

    "Shouldn''t we leave?" Roley asked.

    Daniel began to giggle, amused by the schr''s question. "There is no need. No other aspect of existence would dare challenge me here. The Trigate is my domain." His attention had never left the ring he held in his fingers. Amon ring bound with a spatial formation. One different from the ones he had seen before, which shrunk space in a way simr to his karmic power. ''Whoever made this, must have a perfectprehension of space.'' He thought before moving the ring closer to his twopanions. "Let''s have a look inside, shall we?"

 Chapter 674 What Lies Beyond Godhood

    ?

    "Let''s have a look inside, shall we?" Daniel said while fiddling with the ring.

    Roley turned to face Der, hoping to see his eyes glow with the same or an even grander form of excitement he himself was feeling, only to find out that his old friend was currently staring intently at their thirdpanion. A threatening gaze that caused his eyes to narrow in confusion and his mouth to open slightly. He wished to say something, but before he could, Der''s deep and powerful voice echoed in his ears. "You go ahead. I have something I wish to talk to him about-In private." He said.

    Beyond confused, Roley turned to look at Daniel who, for just a moment, appeared somewhat surprised by Der''s request. Yet, as Daniel''s figure quickly rxed, showing that he was unbothered by the prospect of a private conversation with the middle-aged warrior, Roley agreed to leave the two alone. Instead, he turned his attention towards the ring and, a momentter, his body disappeared-swallowed by an invisible force.

    "Curious." Daniel said while looking at the ring with newfound interest. "I didn''t even need to draw him in, his intention to enter was enough for him to be dragged into the shrunken space. What a strange-"

    Daniel''s words were soon cut short. Not by words, but by the sudden hostility he felting from the remainingpanion. The warrior in simple clothes who had been staring at him for the past several minutes. ring, would have been a more appropriate word. "What is it?" He casually asked.

    "I know what happened to you." Der said.

    "Okay, a bit more specific?" Daniel asked. "You could be referring to several things."

    The hostility in Der''s expression gained severalyers of depth, as his body straightened in ce. "I know what you had to pay, in exchange for the power you are carrying." Der repeated, this time offering more information.

    A faint smile formed on Daniel''s lips, as his attention shiftedpletely from the small ring to Der''s figure. "Oh, that." He said. "Of course you know. The existential power of war must have demanded that you too forsake your mortal connections, in exchange for obtaining its power. It was truly a shame that you chose to refuse. You would have been a far more worthy aspect of war than your puny predecessor."

    "I would have never forsaken my humanity, and so wouldn''t have the Daniel I knew." Der said as his stern eyes turned inquisitive. "Why did you do it? Did I judge your character wrongly all this time? Did I underestimate your desire for power?"

    The grin stayed on Daniel''s lips, but his eyes narrowed. "If you must know, the one you are referring to did not have much of a choice. It was either to evolve and embrace his destiny, or die." Listening to these words seemed to soften Der''s cold demeanor. A reaction Daniel did not care to provoke, but he expected nheless. "But of course, he did not agree without asking for something."

    "What could a dead man need?" Der asked.

    Daniel did not respond. His grin widened as his fingers reached for the ring, which he then pinched in between his fingers. After a brief shake, his voice once again came out, calmly. "This is as much time as I will allow you to interrogate me, mortal. Don''t you have more pressing matters to attend to?"

    Despite Daniel''s words, Der did not move. His hands tightened into fists as his body seemed ready to pounce. His eyes red at him with the definition of sternness as his lips moved once again. "We lost more than you would imagine, out of that deal the two of you made-but what is done is done. Nevertheless, I won''t allow you to drag him down with you." As he spoke thest sentence, Der''s eyes shifted briefly towards the ring Roley had just teleported into.

    "Oh." Daniel said with an amused tone. "And how were you nning on stopping me?"<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    Suddenly, an immense light emerged from Der''s body. Not in bright rays, like most lights would, but in the shape of a fluid power, very simr in shape and nature to immortal essence, but far more powerful than any Daniel had seen before. A power whose reach went further than that of low-tier aspects of existence, and wasparable to the existential powers of the middle-tier.

    What surprised Daniel about this power was the fact that in it he could feel no form of existential concept, but the mark of Der''s power instead. A detail that confirmed to him that this power was in fact Der''s own, and not a modified version of that which War wielded.

    As he stared at this powerful essence, an idea suddenly formed in Daniel''s mind. A ridiculous idea that left him dumbfounded as well as offended, for it challenged the very nature of the multiverse even more drastically than his own existence had. Yet, the more he looked at it, the more he realized that it was true. Der had, somehow, ascended past the godhood stage. The highest known stage of cultivation many had called the infinite, or endless stage, for it allowed one to refine their immortal essence indefinitely without offering any path for further ascension. Until now.

    "I will find a way." Der said as the power that surrounded him began to squirm around effortlessly in the surrounding white space. Completely unaffected by its corrosive properties the same way asmon immortal essence could.

    Despite the initial shock Daniel was quickly able to regain hisposure. He had already made his spection after seeing Der use this power against the now dead reincarnation of War, but he had discarded the possibility of an ascension the moment he had felt the power disappear from the warrior''s unconscious body. A temporary boost in power caused by the affinity of the Endless Battlefield with the innate gift of the Warlord he had gained during his ascension to the high immortality stage. That was what he had believed it to be, before seeing it reappear now, more stable than before and just as powerful.

    Nevertheless, regardless of what the nature of this power was, it did not scare Daniel, for he could tell that it was far from enough topete with the power of Karma.

    "Mortal." He said as the grin disappeared from his face. Layers of gold shed off of his healthy pink skin before disintegrating into motes of gold dust that struggled against the trigate''s corrosive nature. "I am not the aspect of War. You will need far more than that bit of power to face me." He said as his power encroached around Der''s figure, forcing the bright light back into his body and for an ufortable expression to appear in his face.

    The more Der struggled, the more oppressively the golden power weighed onto his skin, until finally, he rxed. His body straightened, and anger left his visage. His lips, for what Daniel felt was the first time since he had met the man, curved into a knowing smile as he said, "For now." Once he finished speaking, Der ignored the golden lights that surrounded him and directly dashed towards the small ring, which Daniel had left to float a few feet in the distance.

    His body shrunk, and he disappeared.

    Daniel was left alone to swallow bitterly. His fists tightened unconsciously as he appeared lost in his thoughts. He wanted to be the new age of the multiverse''s rulers. To wipe the smug expression off of the faces of the old guard. The first of many that would change everything.. and yet, he now felt like a passing thought.

    If Der''s ascension turned out to be something many others could achieve in the future, what would be of his dreams? Would his ns even matter a thousand years from now? He wondered in doubt. After all, the cultivators in the multiverse were infinite, could use their power within the trigate, and more importantly, their height was not limited by their nature.

    It was only now that Daniel had realized. That he understood why the immensely powerful Fate appeared so distraught by their existence, too weakened to ignore additional damages to his nature and further intervene. It wasn''t because of his existence alone, or because he had recognized Roley''s nature, but because of Der. A creature whose appearance must have been the highest affront to the fabric that saw a future dominated by aspects of existence, with cultivators groveling at their feet. A fabric that was now unworthy of the thread it had been woven with.

    These thoughts kept lingering in Daniel''s mind for a few minutes, after which he finally managed to suppress them, fully aware that he would eventually have to face them in the future. Then followed the others into the ring.

 Chapter 675 A Never-Ending Conflict

    Somewhere within the ring''s space was an enormous in. An expanse of dirt and des of ss now covered with rusted armors, chipped swords and pikes and spears, and the lifeless bodies of different types of creatures. Despite the number of corpses, however, no bird bothered to linger in the air in hope of catching a morsel of food, nor was there any wind whistling through the holes of the discarded pieces of equipment. Just a never ending silence that extended for thousands of miles from one end of the in to the other, before finally meeting its end at its two ends, where two enormous camps had been set up.

    Large columns of smoke rose from both camps, yet their nature was different, just like that of those who upied them.

    The first camp had been set at the feet of a mountain range,prising tens of thousands of tents of different manufacture. Some were made of red silk, soft to the touch despite therge symbol of Sacrifice''s domain that had been embroidered in gold over each empty surface. Some others were made of simple white cloth, presenting the symbol of war under sttered mud stains, likely sent over it by the patrols as they walked by, while the rest were made of what appeared to be leather tanned by skins of various nature. Animal furs or barks were the minority of thest type of tents, while the rest was what, based on the asional holes and strange shapes of the leather, many could recognize as human skins. Most of thest type of tents were blotched with ck, lucid paint-the characteristic inconsistent symbol of Horror''s domain.

    Just like the symbols presented on these tents suggested, the warriors that upied this camp were members of the domains of Sacrifice, War and Horror, and yet, they appeared to any form of gift, for despite showing the nature of the domain they belonged to, theycked their any of the domain''s gifts, making them sort of champions in training. The members of each domain kept to their own kind as well as to their domain''s portion of the camp, which was divided by three. The portion upied by the red tents being the smallest, the one upied by identical white tents being slightly bigger, and the tents made of odd materials being thergest by arge margin.

    The camp was surrounded by a wall of wooden pikes, on which severed human heads had been impaled facing in the direction of the battlefield. From within the barricade roserge columns of smoke, each produced by enormous bonfires each fueled by the burning corpses of dozens of humans and beasts. Beyond the smoke, bonfires and bloody barricades, warriors in white armor apanied by cultivators in red robes and monstrous creatures, orderly marched towards the entrance of the camp.

    On the other side of the battlefield, located right above arge cliff facing the ocean, was the second camp.

    While just as big as the first one, a single look at this camp would assure one of its upant''pletely different nature. No heads were hanging from the tip of spears or spikes, for the campcked any form of fortification to begin with. A useless measure the other camp had employed not to increase the protection to their camp, but to have something with which they could disy the corpses of their opponent''s deadrades.

    Several columns of fire rose from this camp as well, but none of them released the same scent of burnt flesh, for its fuel wasmon pieces of wood and dried leaves. Pots of bubbling broth could asionally be seen hanging over the fire, along with whole eggs and rare pieces of meat.

    The tents of this camp wererger but clearly not made for military use, as they were used to house not only fighters, but also the members of their families, the old, and those who were too young to fight, giving the collection of tents the appearance of a refugee camp more than a military camp one usually see at the edge of a battlefield. Inhabited by mostly human mortals, this camp also possessed members of the beast kind and elementals, who appeared to move around between the tents freely, each unbothered by the presence of the other two kinds.

    In the middle of this camp was a particrlyrge tent, or more specifically a building, made out of a wooden skeleton and walls of grayish pelts. Heavily armored guards stood quietly around it and beside each pir. Their eyes attentively seeking for strangers more than for intruders, showing that the yells that came from within were not exactly a secret, unless one did not belong to the camp to begin with.

    This tent was upied by arge number of individuals, each dressed in attirefortable enough to fight in, and carrying weapons of different shapes and kinds. Age or race did not appear to be a major requirement for others to take part in the meeting that was taking ce, for one could see teenagers, elderly people, as well as elemental and beastly humanoids standing side by side with men and women of a moremon military age.

    One thing most participants had inmon, however, was a look of worry.

    "I have to insist, Sir." Said a man in his mid-forties. A muscr individual dressed in tattered cultivator clothes under ayer of leather armor. "No matter how many waves we defeat, the enemy always manages to refill their numbers, at least enough to match our own. If we keep going like this, by the time we kill thest of them, nothing will be left of us as well."

    This man''s plea was directed at a second man. An evenrger middle-aged man with short grizzled hair andrge scars that ran down the side of his face, who, strangely enough, carried no weapons behind his back or on his waist. His muscr figure was bent over arge table, over whichy a map of the in filled with the locations of the enemy camp, its current size, and the ces the two armies had met within the battlefield marked in red circles.

    Despite the immense size of the battlefield, the map was almostpletely covered in thetter type of marks, counting the number of previous battles in the high thousands. Each a painful reminder.

    "Don''t you think that I know?" The scarred man asked calmly as his fingers traced a path in between two particrly big red circles. One he had been told had granted him more sess than most others in thest few years. "We tried to surrender the fifth year after their invasion. Sent ten diplomats to discuss their casus belli, then weed their heads back with their eyelids, ears, noses and lips missing. Ten yearster we tried again. Do you remember? That time they gave us the courtesy of giving the rest of the corpses back.. or what was left of them after the months of torture."

    His eyes never moved from the map, and yet, the more he talked, the angrier he became. The finger he had been using to trace over the map had now pierced through it, carving into the table like a knife would a b of cooked meat.<novelsnext></novelsnext>

    "Calm down." Said an old woman with long and dry white hair. Her wrinkly expression curved into a sorry yet kind smile as she ced her weak left hand onto the scarred man''s broad left shoulder. "Nobody mes you for what happened, Lig."

    The man nodded in response to the woman''s reassurance, then turned to look back at the other man. "They have made it abundantly clear, at this point, that they will ept no surrender."

    "But we have a tenth of the fighters we had during the first invasion. If this keeps going, who is going to be left to protect-" The man said before being suddenly interrupted by a ray of light which pierced through the entrance of the tent, and illuminated its interior in a brighter, more natural light.

    Those present immediately turned to look towards the entrance of the tent, and standing there, they found therge figure of a man with long ck hair, reptilian green eyes, and horns of onyx protruding from the sides of his forehead. His body was wrapped in a wide robe he was still busy tying around his waist to cover his toned, naked figure.

    "Are they-" The host of the meeting, the scarred man, muttered in a question he never got to finish asking.

    "They are marching again." Said the horned man while pulling the ends of a now tied rope. "I tried to rain some fire onto their encampment as soon as they moved out, but their spiritualists were expecting me., as always." As the man spoke, a green light flickered past hisrge tongue, as if produced by the bubbling of a green pool ofva located down his throat.

    The head of the scarred man dropped down, hanging from his shoulders. "Is our army ready to fight again?" he asked.

    To answer him was not one of the many humans within the tent, but a humanoid elemental of metal essence. His body was smooth, and made of the most durable alloys in existence, and yet his movements were fluid, as if having just been taken out of a furnace. "We are. We will march at your order." He said with an oddly melodic screech. A series of notes yed out in rapid session to create wordsprehensible to human ears.

    The scarred man sighed deeply, then lifted his head, scouring past therge figure of the horned man where a small patch of the battlefieldy visible under the horizon. "We march at Dawn." He ordered.

    The old woman rose to her feet with odd vigor and pointed her bony fingers to her right. Her attentive eyesnded onto one of the warriors as she said, "Send word to themanders. They should be busy with their cultivation at this time." As soon as the order was given, the man she had spoken to darted past the horned man and disappeared from their sight. Her finger then moved onto another member, as she continued, "Send our scouts ahead. Have them verify which path they are taking, and give us a report of what kind of traps we have left there." Her finger moved again, "You-"

    As the olddy continued with her neverending series of orders, the scarred man walked to the entrance of the tent. The leather armor he was wearing was unfit for the battle ahead, and he needed to change. Before stepping out, however, arge scaly handnded onto his shoulder. "Little one," Said the horned man. "Get yourself back together before going out. You don''t want them to see you in this sorry state."

    The scarred man did not take offense, and instead let out a tiredugh. "I would feel better right away if you took my position, your highness." He said with a hint of sarcasm.

    Humored by the man''s newfound spirit, the horned man let go of his shoulders. He then fixed the loose robe he was wearing while retorting with a hint of pride, "I am a schr, not a general."

    "That you are." Responded the scarred man before stepping out of the tent. Before getting out of ear shot, he added in little more than a whisper, "And I was a gambler."

    The horned man let out a loudugh which caused green colored mes and ck smoke to re out of his nostrils. He turned to look at the back of the scarred man, then said in amusement, "Never a good one, as I recall."

 Chapter 676 Battle for Survival

    Chapter 676 Battle for Survival

    A few hourster.

    Located somewhere around the eastern side of the continent-sized battlefield, was arge valley. A in of reddish fine sand that had long since buried the corpses left behind by what, after over a century, were now considered ancient battles. shes that had taken ce not long after the initial invasion of Sacrifice''s domain and far before the domains of War and Horror had decided to join it, and that were now bound to repeat themselves.

    This valley stretched several dozen miles in width and about a hundred miles in length, separating two enormous boulders that protruded from each side beforeying one onto the other the same way a man''s index finger and thumb would when making an OK sign. This stone archway provided shade for arge portion of the battlefield. Hence why the two armies had unofficially agreed to fight under it, so as to at least avoid the constant beating of the desert sun.

    On the eastern entrance of this valley was an armyposed of warrior and spiritualists dressed in red robes and armors, monstrous cultivators d in gray sharp bs of metal that had been fused through their slimy flesh and welded around their bodies, and regimentsposed of warriors of different nature and upation. Some of them carried swords and shields, while some others carried guns. The bowmen stood behind the spear-men as their long weapons brushed past the maniacal bodies of the members of Horror''s domain.

    Standing fifty feet beyond the army''s front line were three people. A tall man dressed in a loose fitting red robe embroidered with variants of the symbol of Sacrifice''s domain. An attire which hid most of his physical features other than his blonde hair, which emerged from the dark part of his hood to rest onto his shoulder des in thick braids.

    Next to him, standing in the middle of the three, was a gargantuan creature. Ten feet in size at the very least, this monster''s body was entirely d in ck iron armor, whose surface showed signs of having been wed and chipped all over. Scars of the many battles he had taken part of in the past few years. The creature''s body was, possibly, even more impressive than his own armor, for it bulged through each chink as if he had grown too much into it. Thick rolls of putrid fat stacked under his helmet, through which one could see a pair of dead fish-like eyes and two rows of several inches long pointy teeth. In his hand was an enormous club, made of what one could only assume was the bone of an evenrger creature reinforced by patches of bent metal.

    As the highest status creature within his army, this gigantic monster acted as itsmander, and was in charge of leading the charge. And yet, the eyes of most cultivators behind him were focused on the back of the woman who stood by his left. A beautiful woman with flowing ck hair, attentive brown eyes and stunning features. She wore a pearly white, almost glowing full te armor, and by her shoulder hung arge white cape with a red cross embroidered in the middle of it. She held a helmet under one of her gauntlets on which the symbol of War''s domain had been iid in ribbons of gold.

    As the representative of War''s domain, her status was a step below that of the monstrous giant, and yet, her talents had made her the unofficial general of this army. The positioning of her troops, the strategy to be employed in this battle, which path to take, as well as the changes and adjustments required mid-battle all came from her, for she knew the leading warrior of Horror''s monstrous horde well as the reason why, one day, she would be given the gift of the aspect of War.

    would be too busy rampaging to bother leading the army himself.

    Not that she minded, as leading in war was her strongest talent, as well as the reason why, one day, she would be given the gift of the aspect of War.

    Eager to begin the woman narrowed her eyes, carefully scouring in the distance, and soon enough she noticed the presence of the enemy.

    On the other side of the valley, a second army had appeared on the horizon. First like a ck horizontal thread that perfectly split the red sand from the morning lights, then as a horde more peculiar than the one she herself was leading. Among them were not only soldiers of different origin and upation, but also beasts, and elementals.

    Leading this army were the four people the woman had heard much about. The same four who, in the past hundred and eighty years of uninterrupted war, had killed off more than a dozen of her predecessors. This would be her first time facing them.

    These four individuals did not stand close to one another, and were instead spread out just a few feet away from their army''s front line. From the northern to the southern corner, were the man of metal present at the previous night''s meeting, who was now standing naked, glowing under the first lights of dawn, therge horned man, still clothed in a loose-fitting robe he had not bothered to change out of throughout the night, the scarred muscr man who had hosted the meeting, and a ghastly looking man with pale green skin, and emerald eyes.

    "They fetched themselves a new general." The horned man said as hisrge muscr arms slid out of his sleeves, allowing for the upper part of the robe to fall down his waist, revealing a few spare ck scales where a human''s hair would often be. On his forearms, shoulders, chest and back. "Do you believe you can handle her?" He then asked.

    "Don''t I always?" Responded the scarred man while fitting his hands into a pair of ck reinforced gloves. His tone was calm, but he was notpletely sincere. Thest general he had fought against had left him with a painful reminder of his skills, therge scar that ran down the side of his face. A powerful warrior who would have probably bested him, had he not received the help of hispanions, who had finished their own fights just in time toe to his aid.

    "Remain calm." Said a voice that came from his left in a cold and detached tone. The scarred man turned towards the green-skinned man, but before he could say anything, thetter continued. "We aren''t dueling here. The moment we finish on our side, if you need it, we wille to help you. Worrying is only going to harm you."

    "I know, I know." the scarred man muttered under his breath as his eyes squinted to focus on the enemy thaty in the distance. They were too far for the eyes of a normal mortal to see, but well within the range of a cultivator such as himself, who had reached thete stages of high immortality long ago. "Should I say something?" He then asked the horned man.

    The side of the horned man''s upper lip rose momentarily into an indifferent grin, followed by a faint shrug of his scaly shoulders. "Nothing you can say now, they don''t know already. We are ready to charge at yourmand."

    A piece of the scarred man''s soul came out in arge sigh, then came back in as he inhaled, invigorating him. His back straightened as the worry disappeared from his face. His muscles bulged and flexed while he adjusted the ck gloves position by squeezing and opening his hands in rapid session. "Elementals, ready?!" he yelled.

    "READY!" Came the blur of emotionless voices from the metallic man as well as the thousands of elementals mixed within the army.

    "Beasts, ready?" he continued.

    The horned man rose his muscr arm to the sky, provoking a deafening roar made of a mixture of growls and hisses to echo throughout the entire battlefield, alerting their opponent of the imminent charge. "Ready." Said the horned man as more of his skin hardened, turning into tick ck scales.

    "CHARGE!" Yelled the pdin from the other side of the battlefield, as tens of thousands of cultivators took off, dragging themselves through the sand like bullets and through the sky like arrows. Their war cries evening out the threatening roar that came from the enemy lines.

    "Cultivators, ready?"

    "Ready! Ready! Ready!" The pale green-skinned man chanted in unison to the humanoid cultivators within the army. As each word was spoken, his greenplexion appeared to be darker and darker, until finally, after yelling for a thirdst time, his body turned to an immaterial dark green.

    "Charge!" The scarred man roared before charging ahead, reaching for the patch of ground were his opponents were bound to reach them within the next few moments.

    Behind him, the metallic man had turned into an immense metallic wolf, with fur as sharp as steel and fangs capable of slicing through the armor of Horror''s warriors like cardboard. Standing at an impressive two hundred feet in height, the elemental''s initial charge alone was bound to, as it had always managed to in the previous battles, reap the lives of thousands of his opponents.

    As the dark metallic wolf took the ground, the horned man took the air, as the moment the order was given his body exploded into a cloud of green fire and smoke. A deafening screech pierced through the battlefield as leathery wings that spanned for dozens of miles emerged from it, shrouding arge portion of the battlefield in darkness. Before the smoke could dissipate, uncovering the creature''s immense figure, a pit of green light appeared. A volcano which soon erupted withrge beads of green and purple fire that headed for the opponent army in long arches.

    After sending several of these balls of fire, the creature''s wings pped once, creating powerful gales which instantly dissipated the nket of smoke, uncovering the figure of an immense ck dragon as well as a two hundred feet tall jade avatar. A colossus identical in appearance to the green-skinned man that led the humanoid cultivators, if not for the fact that it possessed six hands, each carrying spears, maces or swords just as transparent and immaterial as his enormous body was.

    The leaders of the opposing army showed different degrees of surprise to the appearance of the three entities. The tall man in red robes was taken aback, and had temporarily halted his march to give himself more time to reconsider his strategy. After all, while he was a member of Sacrifice''s domain, he was not a champion. Dying here in a blind charge would not grant him a ce among Sacrifice''s champions.

    As the red-robed man thought his pans through, the female pdin continued her charge without showing any sign of fear. On the contrary, her spirit seemed to have been set aze. She had been briefed about the existence of a king of dragons, an elemental of perfect metal essence, and an oddly powerful mental cultivator among her opponent''s ranks, but seeing them in front of her still left her in awe.

    Simrly, the monstrous giant barged through the dunes with steady pace. Few could tell whether the appearance of the three creatures were of no concern to him, or whether he possessed the intelligence to process their appearance to begin with, for his full attention seemed to have been dedicated to moving his stout legs and swinging his enormous mace.

    The armies approached one another, raising their weapons in the air in preparation for first contact, but then, before the first two could meet, the sky started to change.

    What had been the first lights of dawn and now became a nket of pure golden light, which approached the ground at mind boggling speed. The scarred man and hismanders looked up to the sky, shocked by the odd sight, but as it came in contact with their bodies, it simply passed them by before diving into the ground, leaving the sand undisturbed.

    Surprised by the sudden light the female pdin dropped her sword and shield, and immediately inspected her body. As she found no wounds, she turned around to ascertain whether the others were faring worse. It was then that her jaw dropped. Her eyelids locked in ce and her legs turned wobbly. She then fell on her knees, horrified by the sight. Her tens of thousand men and monsters strong army, which until the previous second had been charging with cheers of excitement and blood lust, was now reduced to a few hundred people.

    To her right were two pools of goo. Thergest one made out of pulverized ck iron mixed into arge glob of viscid and lucid gray paste, while the other was an oddly more reassuringly regr pool of blood, with a loose red robe floating on top of it.

    Of the few who had survived the golden light''s passage were a handful of people in red attires, and not a single monstrous cultivator, while the rest were members of War''s domain she had brought as her own escort from her world of origin. Regardless of their domain of origin, all these survivorsy horrified onto ake of blood, shattered metal and ripped clothes.

    What the woman found more terrifying, however, was the fact that none of the members of the other army had been harmed by the same light which had annihted her men. They had simply stopped their charge, and were now collectively looking up to the sky in a daze.

    Taken by a sudden curiosity the woman decided to follow their gaze, and there, floating in the sky, she noticed the figures of three individuals.

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